001Executive session of the board of education session meeting December 4th, 2025 is convened in the conference room and administrative offices of the Wayne board of education 50 tribe, New Jersey stating compliance setting for daytime notification was read in accordance with the requirements of the open public meeting and a roll call statement. The meeting was recessed and is now being made. Please stand for the flag. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you everyone. Okay. Um just a few um items in mid assembly tonight. Um on the c on the agenda is the school calendar, but we still have some work to look at it. We're looking for
002um board members to get their eyes on it first today and then um make some recommendations not for action till the 18th. Um this week, however, we did have parent conferences this week, the third and fourth. Uh parents are invited to our elementary schools to attend conferences um with the child's teacher. And uh just prior to the Thanksgiving break was our first giving back jubilee. Uh I want to thank our board members who did attend. Um we had about 150 staff members across the district uh attend over at the village in um what a great event and we asked someone to you know if you were attending um we had donated uh uh appetizers um from two uh two educational businesses. Um, one was Imagine Learning, the other the other was the John [snorts] Lee
003Consulting and the the the owners of the Village Inn. And the staff firms did come. They bought gift cards um to support our local food banks and families directly in need. Um, we were able to raise $3,500 in food food carts that day, gift cards [snorts] for restaurants, I mean for supermarkets. Um some of those immediately went to families so they had food for Thanksgiving dinner which was a really great thing to do and uh provide for them and we'll be working with [snorts] the local food pantry to give them the other cards so they can keep families stocked up and going to Christmas dinner. That completely concludes my summary. >> Any revisions to the agenda? Uh, I have one revision on number four of >> I think it's number four under hiring of substitutes.
004We're going to administratively remove number six. Right. This portion of the meeting will be open to citizens for comment on agenda items only. Residents are asked to state your name, address, and subject matter. Comments may be limited to three minutes per person. Members of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about an employee or student. The board bears no responsibility for comments made by the public. Comments regarding employees or students cannot be legally responded to by the board. Other comments may be responded to tonight or at subsequent meeting under all business. Do I have a Mr. G? This is a man. Anyone from the public wishing to address an agenda item? >> Hello, Alan Pescu, 41 Gibbs Drive. I have a few comments regarding uh today's agenda. specifically agenda item U and X which deals
005with various policies about the accountant legal services professional services and budget preparation. Uh my comments about the agenda relate to the $7.1 million deficit that was announced this past spring and as we all know that sadly led to cutbacks which no one wants to happen again this year. Uh I've seen various uh board board members bring up the budget and good brainstorming ideas to cut costs. Uh specifically uh Mr. Faber has brought up the idea of shifting grades between elementary uh middle and high schools. Uh last meeting Mr. Pacos brought up the maintenance budget and how more money is needed for repairs but we don't have it. So looking at these policies under today's agenda, I think the board's finance committee could be of tremendous help and should be incorporated into the uh budget and
006expenses covered under these policies. After all, one of the purposes of the board uh committees is to have a subgroup to study operations, make recommendations to the full board as appropriate. The finance committee may be able to identify opportunities to reduce cost to free up money for other things if given the monthly professional invoices, accountants, lawyers, auditors, etc. to monitor is at least for the short term until the budget issues are resolved. I believe the finance committee is chaired by Mr. Faber and Mr. Paul is on the committee, the superintendent, the board president as well. But your proposed policy only has one administrative person, a staff person as the sole person person able to review these professional monthly service bills. That's fine to have an administrative person, but why not have the finance committee have
007access to those bills so that they could report back to the board? My comment specifically is about policy 177, 173, 174 for all your professionals and which now includes an a new professional agenda item X a law firm Scarin Scarinichi Hollandbeck who are you retaining uh it looks like you're retaining as well. I bring this up because your business administrator recently sent out an adjusted budget in a recent board meeting that was for July 1st to September 30th. Your first quarter for the budget. Some budget items changed a lot. Professional educational services changed from 468,000 to a new amount of 917,000 in just 3 months. It showed legal fees changed from $385,000 budgeted to $413 413,000. It showed audit fees budgeted for 116,000 pacing to exceed that because you've already spent $35,500 in 3 months.
008And something that caught my eye was textbooks now budgeted for $664,000 of which 616 according to that uh that budget was already expended. I don't even know my my understanding is I don't even know who's using textbooks. Maybe it's the younger kids because that seemed like a lot. The last thing anyone wants is another announcement next spring that students and teachers have to face a deficit. So, anything that could be done to give the finance committee more information to report back to the board could be helpful. And I realize that there's a limit of who should be able to authorize professional services. And that's appropriately limited to the superintendent, the board president, and the business administrator. But sharing of the monthly information once build I propose be added in addition to the one administrative person
009that it goes to the finance committee. >> Just ask you can you wind up last last par uh so that each of the policies for professional legal and audited services can be re reviewed by this important committee chaired by Mr. Favor. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak on agenda item? >> No one also moves close. Mr. Paul, >> uh, do I have a moder for the agenda? I move the agenda. >> Any discussion on the agenda? >> You want to clarify for me to pass? >> I will again. And we have one uh item added to approve the settlement agreement that was uh discussed in uh exec. >> Correct. The settlement agreement for employee number 1331 is up for vote. >> That's a result. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Everybody move and the second.
010Okay. Roll call, [snorts] please. >> Uh board member Alquin. Uh no on U9 and yes to everything else. >> Yes. >> Uh yes. >> Favor. >> Yes. >> Paul. Yes. Moso. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pavlo. >> Yes. Motion carries. Right. This portion of the meeting is open for citizens for comment on any topic. Residents are asked to state of name, address, subject matter. Comments may be limited to five minutes per person. Members of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about an employ student. Board bears no responsibility for comments made by the public. Comments regarding employees students cannot be legally responded to by the board. Other comments may be respond to tonight or at a subsequent meeting. Do I have a move? Mr. D, Mr. Anyone from the public should wish to speak on any
011items. >> Hello. Um, good evening. Uh, Wayne, board of members. Um, >> ma'am, could you give your name and address, please? >> Roxerna 440 Southside. Um, I am Roxanna Cernov, State County School Boards Association membership chair. I'm here to remind you of the upcoming county meeting scheduled for Monday the 8th starting with 3 hours at 5:30 p.m. This meeting will be held in Manchester Regional High School in Helton right down the block. If you cannot attend in person, you can also attend virtually. Participation in this training is essential for improving the effectiveness as a board member. Your commitment and to attending and actively engaging in this session is crucial for fulfilling your responsibility and supporting the goals collective goals and we hope to see you there. >> Thank you. Anyone else from the public wishing
012to speak on any ite um just Mr. We get the bills we see every check that's written out and if I don't sign off and he doesn't sign off it doesn't happen. The finance committee sees every check, every bill, and we look at bills. We look at the things you you addressed tonight. They are looked at. So, it's not like one person looks at it and that's the end of it. There's a multiple sets of eyes, especially the finance committee and the superintendent and the assistant superintendent who and the man to my left is a penny pincher. I will guarantee you that if he can save a dime, he's saving a dime. He'll even save a penny if he can. >> So, rest assured that we are looking at at all those things all the
013time. >> If I can add, including the defense of claims brought against the school district, >> right? And to answer your uh question about Scaransy and Hollandback, being that we changed law firms, there's still cases that they were working on that are more cost effective to maintain let them finish them out than to bring new council up to speed on them. That is a common occurrence in every school board throughout this state. It's just a it's something where you sit down and it's a business decision. Is it worth it? We have converted some stuff back to our present attorney, but that is the answer for why we continue to have that retainer with them and they are almost done with the um litigation that they have u undertaken so far. Any other comments? >> Yes.
014And just to say some other things about this. So I think that it's important for people to understand again I've said this before, but how we got to where we've gotten to. And the issue is not necessarily that we're overspending because I mean I think it's about 85% of our budget is based on salaries and benefits. That's a fixed cost that we don't have. Additionally, the cost of electricity has gone through the roof. Like so maintenance costs are up. So it's not that we're mismanaging money. It's that we're also, you know, 52% of weighing taxes go to pay our, you know, that goes to our school district budget, but we're limited as to how much we can raise it. And in addition to that, as relative to our total budget, the amount of money that
015we're getting from the state is negligible. So, you know, you have cities that are paying, you know, 10% of their taxes toward their budget and they're getting, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. we have the opposite situation. So, you know, when we have like this year we're facing potentially a huge increase in the costs of the benefits again, that's going to be, you know, that's millions and millions of dollars that eats up that 2% that we can increase right off the bat. And we're also mindful though that you know like if you look last year there were some districts that were given the option to raise taxes outside the 2% cap and they were opted to raise their taxes 15 to 20%. Just on the school budget side. You know my parents
016you know they ended up getting I think a new build like an extra $2,000 a year. We were asking for you know referendum for $170 million that was only going to cost the average person about $3 $400 a year. But if we have to go this other route now and potentially look at raising taxes, we we don't want to do that to the people of the town because it gets to a point where you're going to price people right out of the town. So believe me, we are trying to be as mindful as we can because we're all taxpayers, too, and we don't want to start pricing everybody out of the neighborhood. So it's it's a balancing act. But when costs are going up exponentially relative to the amount of money that you can increase
017your budget every year, it it becomes a really difficult situation. Now, we did make a lot of cuts, but thankfully we were able to find money and bring some of those back. So, it's constantly this game because you have to submit a balanced budget by a certain date and then you find out that, you know, you don't get all your aid numbers until after you have to submit your budget. So once you find that out and then you close out and you see how much extra you have, you get to, you know, bring people back. So it's just it's a very >> but it's a terrible process. You can't run it like a business >> convoluted >> and you know you don't have an option to raise you know again I think if in the
018past if they would have raised certain fees incrementally over time instead of trying like when we had to you know we did the afterare and you know that cost jumped up tremendously if they would have raised it by 5% a year or you know that becomes much more manageable to people than you know a 40 50% jump which is what we're trying to work through now is ensuring that we try to keep pace at least with the small things that we have to charge for so that they don't become burdensome like 5 years from now we have to say oh my god now we have to increase it 50%. So we're trying to come up with all these different ideas but you know and we're also we just discussed that we are going to be
019looking at another referendum you know to do some deal with some of the other issues and hopefully free up some capital that we can use toward the main budget. So you know there's a lot of things that are in flight. It's just we've been getting hit with a lot of things at once in this district and we're just trying to work through it all. So, >> anyone else? >> I'll take a motion to adjourn. >> Uh, one minute. I'm sorry. >> I just want to It's my last evening here and I just want to thank everybody for the cooperation and the help. Uh, it's been a uh I've enjoyed it very much as an interim. Uh, you know, you just get to know people and then time is up. But, uh, I leave you in
020the good hands. My replacement is back there being nice and quiet. Uh, wish you all the best and uh, thank you again. Thank you VERY [applause] Thank you everyone.