001like to call the meeting to order. Let's have a moment of silence. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. In accordance with the provisions of the open public meetings act, a public notice that this meeting has been sent to board members, all district schools, the Herald news, the suburban trends, the record, the messenger, West ML town hall, the county superintendent's office, the board attorney, gate division of Warwick and Westl TV77, and posted in the administration building. Copies of the board meeting calendar resolution were provided to all local media, town hall, township by rate, and all districts. Roll call, please. Mr. Schulz, >> Mr. Sidowitz, >> Mr. Jurgensson, >> here. >> Mrs. Rakano,
002>> here. >> Mrs. Dwire, >> here. >> Mrs. Lockwood >> here. >> Mrs. Van Dyke >> here. >> Mrs. Markwart, >> Mr. Lippy >> here. >> Mrs. Romeo >> here. >> Uh, Dr. Stephan Arari, the uh superintendent report. [Music] >> All right, members of the board, uh tonight's superintendent report is going to be the presentation of the preliminary budget for the 2024 2025 school year. So, you're welcome to sit down in the audience so you can see if you're in a spot where it will be comfortable to to watch the presentation. Um on the table, you also have notes uh slide notes pages. So that if you later on at the end of the presentation have questions, please feel free to to post them to Mr. Schultz and to myself. Give us a second to
003stand up. [Music] That's right. Yes, that work. Mhm. >> She's great. [Music] Good Good evening everyone. So um this evening we are going to be presenting the uh preliminary budget. Um I want to thank Mr. Schultz and his team for working so diligently on preparing this budget for our review. I also want to thank the entire administrative team uh who really helped us from late November into December compiling the data that is uh is going to be presented to you tonight in this budget. Uh there are a number of slides that will bounce back from um expenditures to operate. [Music] Okay. So the first thing we'd like to do is to present the uh the highlights of our budget. Um first and foremost, the budget is aligned to the district goals and strategic plan. We
004utilize a needs versus wants approach, which we've been discussing both in committees and at this board table for several months. Um what we wanted to do was to ensure that our dollars were really focused on teaching and learning and making sure that the whole organization systemically was also sustained. Um reductions, as I've probably said a million times, and this board will will recognize the statement that the reductions um are attempted to impact the classroom less, meaning that uh you're not going to see um major sweeping cuts in staff for a number of reasons that we will get to, but um I wanted to make sure that that it's very clear that this budget was crafted with a lot of thought and energy going into it from all of those who contributed. um staffing. We have
005a real allocation of our funds in order to support the instructional programs which goes back to that impacting the classroom last. Um our decisions based on staffing are based on enrollment and class size considerations um and maintaining the current level of staffing overall while addressing um anticipated needs for the 2425 school year. You will see that there are program improvements included in this budget. You'll also see that support services efficiencies are part of the budget itself. And for those of you that have been watching our federal funds, you know that the uh the ESERT federal funds um the grant funds are due to expire in September of this coming school year. So, we all school districts in the state of New Jersey to receive these funds were charged with ensuring that any positions that were
006part of the uh that were paid for using those ESER funds uh were absorbed into the local budget if in fact we felt they were needed to move our programs forward. So, a couple of things um with that we have 0.5 Encore FTEE or full-time equivalent teacher positions um that have been paid for out of our grant funding, but we are going to ensure that all five of our elementary schools start off with a 0.5 uh encore teacher that is funded now locally. any other funds. Um, for example, you'll see that supplemental encore um for title one eligible schools will then come out at the title one grant which has been happening already, but we needed to absorb the positions that were in those ESSER funds that are going away. Another thing that our district
007replenishes um because we have our onetoone program, our Chromebook costs. So, um, Chromebook costs that were funded through the ESSER monies are now part of the, um, the local funded budget. Um, the construction of the 2425 budget includes the use of $128,539 of bank cap and also $5627 uh 700 no I'm sorry $562,769 in healthcare adjustment which will obtain um the tax levy in this budget is uh 64,322,721 which It's an increase of 1,938,983 or 3.11%. We will also be explaining that as we go along. Uh, as far as um the content of our instructional program, we're continuing to fund state mandated programs, New Jersey student learning standards alignment and curriculum revision. For example, our math program and curriculum revision. uh our MAP program and professional development which is always ongoing. Um as you know
008this is our first year in 2023 24. It's our first year of the Eureka Math Squared program. Uh we are of course continuing to fund that program as necessary in 2425. Um, you've also heard from our education department that we are looking for our next uh English language arts program and uh that program's identification and the professional development that goes along with it will impact our budget for uh the next school year. However, we would like to point out that uh the district was fortunate enough to get a little over $400,000 in stabilization aid which we are going to likely put towards that MLA program. So, it's a it's a bit of revenue that um we were fortunate enough to get that will help us fund that program. uh the NJSLA which we is the
009state assessment program um NJSLA readiness we are funding we're continuing to fund the IR ready diagnostic and formative assessment um our professional development through conquer math and curriculum alignment for middle and high school mathematics course sequence we're also uh in this budget we are also considering um scheduling efficiencies at all schools to ensure alignment between staff and programs and sustainability and operational improvements such as the uh upper Greenwood Lake um window project that has been a point of our operational discussions for quite some time and also the high school uh transport repair is been baked in there. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Schulz for this next slide. >> It's been no secret that the district has been really hit hard with S2 cuts ever since it was implemented back in 2018 2019.
010Uh I included 2017 2018 as a baseline to show we received over $14.6 million in state aid that year and ever since then it's been steadily declining some years more so than others. Uh to last year we received 5,571,000. This year we only lost $81,537. So for all intents and purposes, it's been a pretty it's pretty flat cut from this year compared to last year where we lost over a million some other school years where we've lost upwards of $2 million each year. Uh here's the budget comparison from last year's uh opening budget and the 2425 proposed budget. So the operating budget last year total is 74545415. The proposed budget for this year is 75,118929. That's a $573,000 increase, which translates to 77%. Uh the breakdown by the uh program areas, you see special programs,
011which includes our special education, that increased by 62,611. Regular education, that increased by 144,224. Uh tuition, we actually have some good news this year with PCTI where we have a tuition adjustment of over 300,000. So that's a big piece of why that went down. and also one of our charter school students that we're currently paying to send out. We has enrolled in the West Milford uh school district, so he'll be coming back next year. So that's the tuition uh sending out. I know Dr. Resta is also working on trying to bring some students back in the district. So that's that's a big help as well. Uh speech, OT, PT, extra services, and related services. It's pretty consistent number. Uh child study teams, we had some increases. We've had some staffing changes over the last year
012or so. So that's gone up 4.88% 88% for 114,000 based on the salary uh increases for next year. Uh general administration, one of the items, the biggest piece of that that increased it was our phone system where we are currently working on a phone audit. There was an item in the budget last year that we had to account for this year. So that's the biggest piece of that increase. And in the school administration, the increase is the new position that we posted for at Highlander Academy for the assistant principal position. So that is the bulk of that increase is to why school administration went up 8.08%. 08%. Uh central services that went down uh 2.4%. Biggest part biggest piece of that is some salary changes, some new people who have come in, some um some
013breakage over some retirees and some new hires. Uh operations and maintenance pretty consistent with last year as well. Only went up 79,670. Uh student transportation, we're really working on fine-tuning and transportation. Um we've had to outsource a lot of our special ed runs due to the driver shortage. So, we have an increase in the amount that we've been sending out for uh special ed transportation, but also we've adjusted for that on salary due to the driver shortage. So, it's kind of a wash. Hopefully, that will get some drivers to come in and start working for the district and then we can work on scaling back some of those outsource runs. Uh employee benefits, that's always a a big number that always changes and impacts how the budget is goes up or down. Uh for this
014year, projected going to go up 964,236. We actually got great news on the health benefit premiums where it's a lower percentage than we've been receiving in the past, but that's coupled with the fact that a lot of employees have changed to the chapter 44 uh EHP plan. So, they are actually paying less of a contribution towards the health insurance even though the premiums aren't much different. So, we're working on the increase of the health benefit premium is coupled with that used to about 5.92% increase for the health benefits. Over the past few years, we've ranged from 18% 11%. So this year it's actually a pretty favorable number that we're looking at for next year. Uh other expenditures includes everything that wasn't included above districtwide. Um a lot of the smaller areas, other other salary areas,
015other districtwide um areas of instruction uh facilities is our capital outlay. We don't have as many projects going on this year because we are still working on the projects that were going on last year. And also we've had some transition in the um facilities department where Mr. Glender started and I'm also new. So, we're pulling the lay of the land in the district and and evaluating the needs of the district. Um, that's that pretty much sums it up for the operating budget. And then special revenue is an amount what we anticipate to get for IDA and our tight title grants. Uh, it's usually budget about 85% of what we received in the prior year is the general rule of thumb for the budget. And then debt service, that's our set payments for debt that we
016have each year. That's going up 14,250 compared to what we paid for last year. Okay. So the next slide is um just looking at our operating budget expenditures by percentage. Now what you're going to see in these percentages is that these categories include everything salary, materials, all of those things that that we're going to break out differently later. But um for right now the uh the categories here include um special programs which is uh approximately 9.7% of our budget. Regular education is 25.3% of the budget. Tuition is 4.3% of our budget. Um the speech OTP extra services is 2.2% of the budget. Child study teams is 3.3% of the budget. General administration is 2% of the budget. School administration is 3.2% of the budget. Central services 1.6% of the budget. Operations and maintenance is 9%
017of the budget. Student transportation is 8.8% of the budget. Uh employee benefits is 23% of the budget. And um other expenditures 6.8% 8% of the budget with facilities coming in at.7% of the budget. >> On the other side, we have the revenues which totals for all the funds 76,921 215 is the total budget. As you can see, the tax levy is the bulk of it 83.62% of it is the tax levy. Uh the budgeted fund balance that's roughly 4.06%. So we have 1.3 million 1 1,393863 which was our audited excess surplus from last June 30th audit. So we have to include that into this budget. And we also have included 1 1 million732163 to bring the total fund balance used for the budget up to 3 million12626. So, the majority of that fund balance we're
018using was an allowable adjustment we had last year. We're an extraordinary aid that we received that exceeded what we budgeted to bring in. We budgeted 800,000 last year. We received over 2.1 million. So, we're using that for support next year's budget as well as some some of the supplemental stabilization aid we received in the spring of last year. Uh some of the other items factor into the district is um state and federal aid which totals 8.42% of the budget. that has been obviously decreasing and with all the S2 cuts over the last few years. um debt that's debt service that's part of the that service aid that we receive that service tax levy uh special projects there special revenue fund um mislead everything else that's not included on it broken down the other categories and
019also we have an amount budget as revenue for transportation fees where we work with other districts where we work on the buses for booten and also for kinolan where we repair their buses and it's a revenue source for the district and then we also have uh the reserve withdrawal that we're using to fund some of the capital projects including the UGL window project. Oh, and state state and federal aid, right? It's 8.42% of the budget. That's our normal state aid, our entitlement grants, and uh IPA. Okay. So, so far we've shown you what the operations costs are. And now this is the revenue distribution. So, you're going to see that some of these categories are extremely similar, which is exactly what we want. Um this is just to drive the point home that um in
020our budget the salaries uh are 57% of our budget, benefits are 23% of our budget and everything else that we do is 20% of the budget. So we are a very peopleoriented organization. We're probably the largest employer in our town. And as far as um the way we spend our dollars, we want to make sure that clearly understood that, you know, we're we're really putting the um the dollars together in a frugal manner so that we can ensure that we support all of our schools and programs. But you know, that benefits cost when you look at it is um is more than what it cost us to run the rest of the district aside from the salary. So, it's just an interesting perspective to take a look at. >> Uh, here's an interesting uh pie
021chart that shows the breakout of all of our expenditures based on a dollar amount and in proportion to all the other areas included into the budget. So, the biggest piece of it is obviously our general uh education that's 19 million 28454. It's hard. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So the special programs that's our special education that's 7 million30410 [Music] 3.2 2 3 million231502 that's the tuition that we pay out that I mentioned earlier we're getting a good size break this year over 300,000 for the PCTI tuition adjustment all speech and OT uh services is the 1.676818 676818 CST uh expenses for salaries any other services needed is a 2,462,114. >> Yep. General general administration is 1,477896. That's the administration for at all the school buildings and school administration as well is 2,39875 compared. When you look
022at the admin compared to all the other areas of the budgets, they're big numbers, but they don't look as big compared to some of the other sections of expenditures for the district. And central services, which includes the business office, some of our technology and IT, that's 1,175 382 and operations and maintenance is 6,78218. That's custodial, groundskeeping, and some of our required maintenance that we need for the district. and transportation is 6,634703. That includes all transportation salaries and uh salaries uh parts that they need down in the garage and all the runs that we have to outsource. And then benefits is the 17,257257 which as I mentioned is a we've got a better number on the increase for this year but it's still a gigantic portion of the budget. Oh, and the other expenditures is the
0235,126573 that is everything that's not included or sorry in these other categories which are more predominant in the budget and a cap capital outlay facilities is 450,000 of that is what we have budgeted for the UGL window and door project. We included the first part of that project last year in the budget 450,000 as well and we applied for a rod grant which we did not receive. So the funding for this year is to fund the other piece that is anticipated to be needed for that project. >> Okay. The next slide that you'll see here is our um salaries by category. Um the percentages are on the axis to the left and you'll notice that the columns are blue and white. The blue level is where the salaries in each category fall against the total.
024The total is that light gray area, the whitish light gray area. And the very last um bar that you'll see is the total for salaries. So that would get us, you know, our 100%. But of that 100% you'll see uh the first category is the teacher salaries um which is up over 60% closer to 70% of the budget. Um and then to a varying degree, we've got instructional aid salaries that are under under 10% of the of the budget and very very small is our non-instructional aids. Um we also have coaches, advisors and uh trainers listed there. Um next we have administration and secretaries follow that and then operations and maintenance, transportation salaries and non-affiliated employees. So you get a sense and really we did this more for a visual than to give you a
025sense of dollars and cents although we have that information but we wanted to just give you again you know the proportion of salaries and where they fall and how they are um how they play into that total bar. >> And on the other side these are the non- salary expenditures that we have districtwide. Uh this is similar to the slide we covered earlier with the tuition being over $3 million that we pay out to send students out of district. Uh supplies and textbooks is 1,61,953. Uh purchase educational services is uh 1.3 million. Uh other expenditures is 782391. Uh energy cost which includes our payment for the EIP uh debt payment that's 1 1,122,516. We subsidize or offset the energy cost due to that debt payment due to the ESA project we did a few years
026ago. Um our insurance costs is 1,240,901. Even though our health benefit insurance uh costs have gone anticipated not to go up as much this year. The court I got for the insurance which is general insurance for our vehicles workers compensation that's anticipated to go up almost 10 or 11% in total. uh facilities that includes our uh maintenance, our custodial uh groundskeeping that's 1,180,174 and technology we have a budget of 582,796 planned for next year. uh transportation costs is over $4 million or 4 million uh 34,67 and then you get to the benefits which is 17 million257,275 and as I mentioned earlier that's coupled with the inc the decrease in the employee benefit contribution last year we anticipated or this current year we anticipated to receive about 2.9 million for employee contributions next year I'm projecting
027about 2.7 and depending how many employees switch in the spring when open enrollment starts it they go down anymore. The premiums for the EHP plans are not much different than the direct access plans, but the requirements for the employees to contribute is much more favorable to employees. And capital outlay, as I mentioned earlier, is predominantly the UGL window and door project, which is 450,000 that we have in the budget for total capital outlay of 5639. And this is the same same information that I just discussed but shown differently which it illustrates how big for nonp personnel operating costs how much the benefits are compared to the other areas of the district expenditures. Okay. And here's the the tax levy increase summary. So for the general fund last year we had a tax levy of 62,383738.
028That number included no bank cap and a health benefit adjustment last year of one 1,478,570. That led to a tax levy increase of 4.48%. This year we're looking at a general fund tax levy of 64,320 64 million sorry 64,322 721 for an increase of 1,938,983. That includes the bank cap that we have from a budget increase from a couple years ago that wasn't the full 2% of roughly 128,000 and then 572,000 of a health benefit adjustment. The health benefit adjustment is the same thing as last year. It's just a smaller amount that we are allowed to use for this year. So the total amount for that is 691,308. And a debt service tax levy increased over the last couple of by 113,47. Over the last four years or so, we had $400,000 to apply to
029the debt service tax levy due to the high school and Macin roof projects coming in under what the referendum amount was. We used the last of that. We used $104,000 last year to offset the debt service tax levy. So, we don't have that available anymore moving forward. So, that's why it looks like such a big increase from 293 last year to 406560 for this year. uh the average assessed home in the district from the tax assessions office, they let me know it went up $600 to $243,300 300 for the average uh value of a home. Uh last year with all the healthcare adjustment, the average tax levy increase was $23544 the average home. This year it's a little less. That's 187,71 projected for the 2425 budget, which breaks down to rough little over $15 per
030month per household. Over overall, when you take combine the general fund and the debt service tax levy, it's a 3.27% tax levy increase. >> Okay, the uh the slide that we have here is a 12-year look. It's basically a trend of what the general fund tax le looks like. Um so you'll see it's a very jagged line. Um over the years the district has gone from zero at a low point um increase in the budget up to last year's 4.48% increase. So, um, you know, I think this has a lot to do with, um, the federal funding, uh, that has been in play and is now no longer in play. and also, you know, just the circumstances of overall inflation and and the priorities of the district over time with staffing class sizes um and
031making sure that you know the programs that you had in place were um were funded accordingly. Uh the one thing that happens when you have a uh 0% increase over a year or two is it reduces the base of your um tax levy. So it's some it takes us um more than those one or two years to kind of make it up. So as prices go up for all of the services and the goods that a district uses um the the base being uh stagnant for a couple of years impacts your ability to um ensure that you can raise the taxes to apply to the school district to keep program where you'd like it and staff where you'd like it. Um, we did have a big increase for last year. It's slightly less this year,
032but we wanted to give you a sense of what that trend line looks like. Okay. So, the budget calendar is something that's dictated by the state of New Jersey. And so, tonight, March 12th, 2024, is our presentation uh for the board's uh approval of the preliminary budget. The next thing that happens is on or before March 20th, the preliminary budget must be submitted to the county office for their review and approval. Um, on or before April 20th, uh, we advertise the preliminary budget. Um, before April 30th, then we do have a board meeting on April 30th, the public um, budget hearing will occur. Uh, and that is the board's opportunity once we get the budget back from the county office to look at that budget and to um adopt the approved budget. Um, and then
033May on May 2nd, the budget has to be posted to the district website no later than 48 hours after the public budget hearing and adoption. So while there is time to discuss option you know pieces of this budget we do have to adhere to the state timeline. Okay. So the userfriendly budget will be posted to the district website once the preliminary budget has been submitted and approved to the executive county superintendent and the final budget has been approved by the listen board of education. Um board members Mr. Schulz and I are happy to entertain any questions you might have at this point. Um, this presentation will be posted to the website for the public to review and read any but questions from board members. Can you go back to slide six? Sure. [Music] So, where's
034your Um, I just have a question. When this budget was put together, were the class sizes of the elective classes at the high school taken into consideration? So, we're not going to be running classes of four and five students cycle. >> Well, I think it's going to depend on the type of classes that we're talking about. >> I'm talking about electors. I'm not talking about the AP. >> Okay? >> I'm talking about the elective classes. Um, I have to tell you, and I know it's preliminary, but the 3.11% I'm concerned I was concerned with the number last year also, but we have people in this community who are really suffering and and I mean the economy has really hurt them and if we can do anything to reduce this, I would like to see that
035done. Thank you. Any questions? >> I have a question about this. M >> special programs is special education >> tuition >> is also special education >> it includes PCPI but it's also our special education program tuition and pay but includes PCPI as well [Applause] extra services that's special education >> right and choose a special education. >> Thank you. >> When when is the open enrollment for the healthcare? >> It's in May. Yes. >> So, we'll have we'll be voting on this at about the same time you start getting numbers. So, that could affect budget that I make the assumption that the salaries are in line with the current contract as they are now. their current contract as they we bumped everyone up a step from where they are currently to account for some of that
036without knowing negotiations as we bump everyone up a step and some of the some of the account lines were at the top of I built in an additional little adjustment for potential negotiations open enrollment Tuesday May so fun hearing is April 30th it's usually after after that Do we have an idea of how how many of our staff are complete the percentage of how how many are in the new in the HSP and whatever is >> I can get you the actual numbers for it but it's over the last two years it's almost a 50/50 split between direct direct access to EHP we still have some employees in additional planning but over the first couple years the EHP plan not a whole lot of people switched over but over the last few as the short
037mouth got out there the plans really were what they were good for people's needs more and more people switched over and I think the top amount of contribution for plan is 7.3% of salary meanwhile the old the chapter 78 plan is percentage of the premium so as the premiums keep increasing the contributions increase but for the EH plan people's salaries the maximum is 125,000 so anyone who's over that amount, your capital is 7.2% of 125,000. >> And I'm I'm guessing that we're getting close to not having a traditional plan for really >> anybody because we don't because that's a that's a grandfather thing that's going to go away at some point and we're probably getting close to that, >> right? probably the actual year in the contract, but people were weren't allowed to join that
038as they retire plans. Less less people will be a savings on that end of that because that's >> Yeah, that's pretty much. >> Thank you. >> Cool. >> To piggy back off that, so the more people that go into the >> EHV, >> right, the HP, the more money >> we have to pay. So the premiums aren't much different. They're slightly less than the direct access plans, but due to the chapter 44 stipulations, the contribution is much more favorable to employees. So we pick up a lot of protections. So a couple of years ago, my predecessor Francisco had over 3.2 million as an offset for the health benefit costs. Last year, for this current year, I think we're going to come in around 2.9 by the end of the year. And then for next year,
039I'd be surprised if we got 2.7 the total contributions for employees, >> but the employees are still contributing. There's still a contribution to that >> based on the uh less >> on the on the benefit. Can we get a breakout as to what's benefits and what is contracting? >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Actually, majority break out of that. It also includes uh the provision in the contract districtwide for anyone who opts out of the health plan. There's a $2,000 here for the whole year. So, that's also included in that. Why don't you break down that this was great. This is the best one I've seen. So, thank you very much. Thank you. It's a good thing for us visual learners. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Put it in. Could you let me know how many people
040opt out of the house? Just curious let us know how many people Okay. So now on to public comment. So all speakers will have 5 minutes to speak until a period of 30 minutes transpires. Before speaking, please state your name, group affiliation, and address for the record. Members of the public who have requested to speak prior to the meeting will be recognized by the chair first. After speaking, all speakers are asked to sign the register provided and give their full name, group affiliation, and their address. All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer. No participant name may address or question board members individually. All speakers are expected to refer the statement within the agenda regarding the regulations concerning public comments. Members of the public are reminded that they are legally responsible and liable for
041their comments. Mr. Schultz, is anyone signed up? >> No, there's not. >> Anyone wishing to speak? Dr. [Applause] It's on automatically. Okay. Hello. Write my name down. Dr. Marissa Goff. I actually had a question. Oh, 34 Central Street that as well. I had a question regarding the budget presentation. I don't know if I was allowed to ask questions when the board members were asking. Um, it was regarding slide five. I just want to make sure that as an individuals understand the presentation fully. Um, I do appreciate, by the way, how you were um highlighting the budget process, how it was very positive. I appreciate how you were preparing the needs and the wants of the district. I thought that was um very good for me to hear. I thought that the presentation itself was very
042positive. The only question I had regarding slide five, um, the current budget versus the proposed budget is where you're showing the changes from one year to the next. I want to make sure that I know that that's where the costs are being made for us. a negative percentage of it where it was in the positive. I just want to make sure like for example you're showing um the facilities how it went down 45%. I'm assuming that's because we have um the facilities. So I changed that to the large number that I saw was like -45 and then I saw one that was the um which one in particular was it the school administration about 8%. So what I was just trying to see is where the costs were being made. That was the only thing
043I that I didn't understand% little bit more about that please. >> Good evening. I have a comment about the budget at my daughter's meeting. in a report that should be printed in color or it's printed in copy white which made the report look unprofessional. I'm asking you please consider making a color printer/copier line item for the budget to the report from the child study team that needs to convey important information on our children's growth is able to be done properly and can convey the message that it needs to be done because it's very hard when you're sitting at a trial study team meeting and you're giving something in black and white to this is supposed to be yellow and this is supposed to be blue. We really need a color printer for the child study
044team so our reports can be done and give it to us professionally. Thank you very much. >> Your name's uh 37 drive. >> Thank you. Hi there, Courtney Stevenson 307 Ridge Road with Milford, New Jersey. Thank you, Dr. Canori and Mr. Schultz. That was a great budget, a really extensive report. Um, the highlights were wonderful. It was nice to hear the highlights, but there was no talk of the cuts, which is confusing to the community when we hear in the news that there is $800,000 being cut from our budget. Um the 400,000 in stabilization for ELA is really great because there's new ELA standards coming. So that's important that we are up to par with the rest of New Jersey. But when well let me go back. I just want to say that Senator Fuko
045was really a big asset in getting the stabilization aid for us. So thank goodness for him. Um, when the Harlander Education Foundation spoke to him, he mentioned that it was $800,000. I'm just curious where the other $400 something,000 went. There was no talk of security vestibules, which is a big concern of mine, um, especially in our elementary schools and the fact that our world is a pretty scary place. PCTI went down $300,000 which is wonderful but quite frankly out of 3 million that is painless. It was not discussed or put with the fact that transportation is $4 million and that includes buffing to PCTI as well as other out of district schools such as fun. Um, we need to really work at keeping our students here in West Milford. As you know, I have been
046a big proponent of that. We cannot really change teacher salary. We don't really want to do anything with that. So, let's look at what we can look at and that is keeping our students here in West Milford. A new funding formula is coming. It's unknown and scary what the new funding formula will be. We don't know if they're going to cut us more or keep us where we are. I'm hopeful that more can advocate for our district and help legislator understand West Milford's uniqueness. So, I would like to encourage all of you to join Highlander Education Foundation, become a member, and try and keep our students here in Milford. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? So, I just want to clarify one thing. Um, Miss I think you said um that we
047were being cut over $800,000. It's actually not that amount. It's 80 >> $81,000. Yeah. So, I just wanted to make that >> a little bit different. >> Okay. The can I have a motion to close public comments? I move to close public comment. Second. Thank you. And Dr. Iy. Oh, I'm sorry. All those in favor? I any opposed? >> And Dr. Far, any changes to the agenda? Okay. So, um, board, if you take a look at personnel motion number 12, we inadvertently left off one of our nurses. Um, it's terrible, sorry. So, H6 at the bottom, um, Harvard's name was inadvertently left off at an hourly rate of $55.64. >> What was the number again? $5564. I Excuse me. I hope this employee resigned and went to another district. This is before her or her
048last. Okay. You repeat the number5. >> $5564. Cool. >> That's it. Okay, I have a motion to adopt the agenda. >> I move to approve the agenda as presented with the correction. >> Second. >> All those in favor. >> Any opposed? Mrs. Dw education. >> I'd like to approve items one through six and present items one through six for approval. Second. Thank you. Any [Applause] discussion from number three and number four um it says that non ocean educational services um is to provide online like virtual school Um, I guess my question is, is this for the remainder of this school year only? Is this for a certain amount of time? Is this >> I know it says for the school year. >> Um, I don't Yeah, I don't know anything about them. What is the
049this is something that >> so for students that require home instruction uh because of whatever medical or special need. Uh the number three is to approve the agency the better to provide the the instruction and then the um dollar amount in number four is to provide the student for the service for the the length of time that they will require. And so this company will do all the subjects required >> well as per the requirements for all instruction. So the core comp subject areas >> and as it started over here I suppose it'll start tomorrow. >> I would so yes. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Anyone else? Okay. >> Mr. Dwire, >> yes. >> Mr. Jensen, >> yes. >> Mrs. Romeo, >> yes. >> Mr. Levy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Van Dyke, >>
050I abstain on number six and yes to the list. >> Mrs. Rakan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lwood, >> yes. >> Okay, Mr. personnel. >> I'd like to move items one through number 20 on the agenda under [Applause] Any [Applause] discussion? >> We move it over here. >> Mhm. [Applause] >> Question 1920. That's >> uh girls football. We spoke in one of these interviews. We spoke about um that there will be two volunteers. I think we have one listed and did we receive the um the breakdown of 12 hours? >> Uh yeah, that should have been in your Friday update. I provided in the text of the update from uh particles. >> Anyone else? >> See none. Roll call, please. Mr. Schulz. >> Mrs. Vand. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Dickensson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Dwire. >>
051Yes. >> Mrs. Romeo. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Rakana. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mr. Philippy. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lockwood. >> Yes. >> Uh, Miss Gippy, operations and finance. >> I'd like to move operative finance. Um, number one. >> Any discussion? >> Mr. officials. >> Mr. Wy, >> yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Romeo. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Vander. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Wire. >> Same. >> Mrs. L. >> Yes. >> Okay. Back to public comment. Um before we go to that, were we going to do the first meeting or is that for the next meeting? >> No, that's just so public comment. All speakers will have 5 minutes to speak until a period of 30 minutes transpires. Before speaking, please state your name, group affiliation, and address for the record.
052Members of the public who have requested to speak prior to the meeting will be recognized by the chair first. After speaking, all speakers are asked to sign the register provided and give their full name, group affiliation, and their address. All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer. No participant may address or question board members individually. All speakers are expected to have read the statement within the agenda regarding the regulations concerning public comments. Members of the public are reminded that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments. Anyone sign up for the second public comment? >> No, there's not. >> Anyone wishing to speak? We'll just keep going. This time I'll actually write my name. It's Dr. Gooff, 34 Centur Street. I had a question about the professional development day for next Monday. I
053did ask you, but I did just want to get just some clarification. Um, it's in regards to I Ready. I think professional development day for next Monday the 18th is for I Ready. Um the only reason I'm asking that is um it's not just with my child. I've been noticing it with a few parents that have been coming to me um coming to other friends, family, teachers, staff, whatever it may be have been coming to us and I've just been kind of hearing the great even through socials um that some of the students are struggling with I Ready. I know they're adjusting, but even for my child who didn't have IXL or have any of the programs, she particularly she particularly loves I loves going on it. She loves that it's very rewarding. She loves
054the positive reinforcement. She loves that she gets the little stars at the end. She kind of competes against herself. She does really like it. But what I have been noticing with her, even though she went up in her diagnostic assessment, she went up over that 50 point threshold. I have done a little bit of research on it myself. Um, at least she went for 55. So, I was proud of her for that. is not testing her appropriately. So last weekend she was I like her to do maybe just an hour or so every weekend and she appeared very frustrated and I said what's going on and she's like this is too easy. So for example she's in first grade so she should be learning a lot of um core reading phonics things like that. And
055it was testing her on letter sounds like M is M. U is uh D is the and she was like mommy this is too easy. So, I looked at the top of her page and it said reading level AA and she's at reading level H. So, I can understand her frustration. She's just clicking through the modules. And that's what I've been hearing. I didn't experience it myself. So, that's where I can see her frustration. I can see why children not even in the elementary level that I know we're just testing this at the elementary level, but those that maybe at the middle school level may become frustrated because they're not being tested at the appropriate grade level. So, when I did ask her teacher, she was very receptive. she was looking into it for me.
056But I just wanted confirmation that our district in particular is able the teachers have that capability to go in and see what not just their diagnostic but be able to go in and say, "Hey, you shouldn't be at reading level AA. That's early kindergarten or whoever, however that children may be assessed at at that moment. I know in particular she was at level AA beginning of kindergarten." That they can go in and change that for her because I know she wanted to stop right there. She did not want to keep going because it was too easy. So again, that leads into my question about professional development. Who is coming in? Is it an I Ready team? Is it going to be teachers within the district, maybe outside the district that's coming in and saying, "Hey,
057this is what we've done. This is how it's been successful." Because I don't want us to, you know, say, "Okay, that's it. We're not going to do trial and error." I want to be successful because I can see how it's worked in other districts like Montville that's doing really well with it. So I want us to be successful. I don't want us to kind of put all of our eggs in one basket and say, "Okay, that's it. We fold. We give up." because I know the students and I don't want the staff to be frustrated by it. So my main question is who's coming in, who's doing the professional development, and how can the teachers have a discussion to make sure that it's successful. Thank you. I feel like I did much better with that
058comment. I'm so nervous for the last one. >> Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Okay, see public comments. Second. >> All those in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Okay. And we do not >> We do not have an executive session today. So any motion. >> All those in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Thank you.