Board of Education Meeting 1/19/16

001[Music] We're back from executive session um where we discussed our superintendent search and we'll now um go to our superintendent report for Mr. Rishika. Okay. So hello everyone. Um couple of things that I wanted to go through. Uh basically one of the first things uh yesterday uh was a professional development day for us and I'll talk about that in a minute but one of one of the things that we did and I always like to highlight uh our stars in the district. So I would like to um recognize by name and hopefully have them here eventually uh those teachers that were selected as teacher of the year for each one of the schools. Uh from the high school it's Jennifer Mano is an art teacher. Uh, Makipin. Yeah, you can clap. Mcipin is Joan Shap,

002seventh grade social studies teacher. Absu is Kelly Vagio, sixth grade teacher. Maple Road is Jamie H, sorry, Jennifer Bolo, sixth grade. Um, Marshall Hill is Colleen Monigan, fourth grade. Paradise Null is Katie Bonaffort, second grade. UGL was Jennifer Harris, a third grade teacher. And at Westbrook was Jodie Commune, fourth grade teacher. Very nice. Uh, also um involved in this process is the educational services uh professionals. Those would be anybody from uh counselor to a secretarial position uh nurses and so forth. So in that category we have Janice Garish who's the uh counselor over at the high school, our sack coordinator. Ken Ryerson a counselor at McAppin School. Cheryl Noose is a school psychologist. Mary Elise Nurell is a nurse. Janet Scales is a speech person. Moren Cerica. And so we are very proud of each

003and every one of these people as I said. Um and of course I like to celebrate. So I brought a nice breakfast for everybody and we we celebrated prior to our PD day. Um, we did have an extensive professional development day yesterday that was very successful I believe uh based on the amount of programs that we had uh and the guest speaker that came in and I wanted to uh thank Mr. Novak for his input on uh putting that together along with some other staff members. But it was a very productive day. So uh Mr. Novak, would you like to talk a little bit about what took place? Sure. Uh we we were able to bring in a uh motivational speaker for our staff and we invited our entire staff um custodians, secretaries, uh teachers,

004teachers, aids, anyone uh really anyone who who had any part to play in our in our uh schools uh was welcome to attend. Uh the speaker was named Jean Paul Gonzalez and he's um I guess originally came to fame. He was the uh motivational speaker for the Giants the last time they won the Super Bowl. I don't if you remember if you're a Giant fan. I'm not, which was hard for me to bring him in. Um, but he was uh he was the man who uh coined the phrase with them all in. Um, and they they've handed in their towels. That was their, you know, on their t-shirts. That was their phrase for the year. And uh, since then he's been speaking. Um, I mean, he had um shirts that said all in from everyone

005from on armed services, the Navy Seals to um, school districts, Walmart, corporate events. very very um well-known uh motivational speaker and he's here yesterday to speak to our staff. I got emails all day today from um teachers who'd been you know in district for 30 35 years saying they've never felt um so inspired as they did leaving that session yesterday morning. So it was it was a great day. feedback from administrators and and uh everyone who ran sessions yesterday afternoon said that they you know they had a a great um you know great feedback from from everyone that that you know saw the motivational speaker and then participated in the day. Forgot to bring a chip. Um he made the analogy of of the poker chips and the idea that you you know when you

006when you push all your chips to the middle of the table it's called being allin and we had uh chips made and I have I'll have them for the board at the next meeting. I'm sorry I don't have them tonight. Um, we got chip made for everybody in district and it says it's black and gold chip and on one sides it says WMTPS and the other side it says allin and now it's a you know a little token a little little um mental reminder of the of the speech that we heard yesterday and that idea that we're we're all in for every kid every day. So u fantastic day. Sounds great. That sound great. We should have been there. Yeah. Well, next time we'll invite Joe. Okay. And he's a young guy. I think maybe

007he's 33 years old. I uh had the pleasure of seeing him. I think this was the third time for me. Uh but you know, his early 30s, uh graduated from Manchester High School, so he's local. Uh actually, um decided he was an NBA basketball player and uh decided to leave basketball to to teach history, believe it or not, and go back to Union City. So, that was very, very inspirational. Great job. I just wanted to bring up I know I sent out some emails during the week for various meetings from school boards. Uh one of the ones that came in I believe yesterday I didn't get a chance to mail out but I wanted to let you know that there is one for sustainable practices working sessions. I will forward this to you. It has

008a couple of dates from anywhere from January 8th which passed through March 25th. So it might be uh something that some of you might want to uh attend over the next few weeks. So I'll send it out to you. And that's pretty much where we are right now. Okay. Okay. We have education report. I guess you gave it Dan with your motivational speaker or Okay. Can I add to because we had we had two and a half hour meeting. So um do you mind Dan if I go through this? Okay. Uh we talked about the West Milford High School athletic mission statement and Mr. Novak assured us that we would have that um in front of us at our February meeting. We talked about uh investigating the possibility of adding coding classes at the high

009school and Mr. Novak um let us know that for for a course to be successful it takes three years to develop it. Um the CTE grant was recommended and it's to be submitted by the superintendent. That's a technology grant of $100,000. Uh we also talked about the discussion of raising the failing grade to 65 and the reason for that is that we really have to we have to look at ways to attract families back into the district and we truly believe that one of the ways is by making things by raising our standards. We do have very high standards but in some areas we need to be a little bit more uh aggressive. We talked about honors, AP enrollment, and course offerings. And I gave Mr. Novak a list of questions that the committee would

010like to have answered. And the reason for that is so that we can talk to our realators in town and and encourage people by them looking at this to say, "Look at what they're offering in AP. Look at what they're offering in honors. This is a district I want to be a part of." and we need to really get out there educationally with our real estate agents and let them know the good things that are going on in the school. Um we also talked about um the possibility you know investigating the Odyssey of the mind which is a program um that is it used to be called Olympics of the mind but now it's Odyssey it's Odyssey of the mind and we did have that program several years ago that started in the elementary school

011is learning unlimited and then moved up and what it is I sent all the board members email a copy of this and if If you look on the left, there's a menu. And on the menu, it will tell you more about the program. And it's a program that involves all students of all levels, not just honors, not just it involves everybody. So, if you have a special needs student who has a particular talent in um building things or or drawing, it's a perfect place for him to work alongside the honors kid, the AP kid, the sea level kid. So, that's just a thought. Um I I asked Mr. know about the park testing and I thought we would have an analysis a chart that shows the comparison of how our kids did in each grade

012level with the state. Um I went on to our website and that was not there. The only thing that I saw was a summary of what the state sent out about the park, how to prepare for it and a redacted test from Colorado. I really don't think that's enough. I think the community needs to see that comparison and people have to know that we are doing well. How well saying we're doing well is not enough. We have I I I would well the committee would like to see that chart if it's if it's possible there just and it wasn't on the website. It wasn't on the website. That that is something we couldn't put together and we to be fair to our district. We would have to compare to other districts in the same district

013factor group. Uh so uh that is something we can work on I think pretty quickly. Okay, I understand that. Um also um we talked about the possibility maybe you know we have there was a concern about kids going to PCTI um and the question was what do they have that we don't have? Obviously they have a lot more money. Um, but you know, maybe we should, the committee thought maybe we should look into bringing back that voca halfday vocational, half-day academic setting and look into getting a cooperative teacher to put that all together. And Mr. Novak said we have nobody right now that's certified. So, I think maybe that's something that the committee thought it might be a good thing. We also talked about clusters at the middle school and we're wondering um how those

014how being labeled in a cluster affects those students. And the question is if a student is in a particular cluster, is that child going to be pigeonholed and not be able to move beyond what he does in that cluster or what that cluster is labeled as. Okay. And um yeah, I think that's it. Thank you. Is that Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Terry. Thank you. Um special reports and correspondence, uh Barbara. Yes. Thank you. Um just a reminder to board members, the meeting from the December the minutes from the December 15th meeting will be available next uh next week at the regular uh board meeting. And I'd like to introduce Mr. Feroli and Mr. Ferry, who will now present the uh audit to the board from June 30th, 2015. [Music] Good evening. I see a

015bunch of new faces once again. I'm Chuck Ferol. He's my partner Tom Ferry. We conduct the audit and we're usually here every December and which is a good 20° warmer than it is tonight. So, I think this year we're going to keep it on that December track. Um, if if you've ever heard our spiel, I'm the good cop, he's the bad cop. But tonight, I'm going to let him both be both the good cop and the bad cop because he has some really good news to give you. I want to talk about the other area I usually talk about is bonding. And I want to congratulate the board on a very successful referendum. I don't think I've ever seen a vote that was 90% for and 10% against. I was not able to attend the

016presentation, but I did watch it on on TV, and I thought the presentation was first class. The questions that were asked were answered uh very efficiently and thoroughly. The pictures of the roof were shocking. I mean, I we weren't talking a couple hoes, you were talking canyons. I mean, there were some major major holes. Um presentations from the board, from the council that was there. I I all think you did a very good job to convince the public that that's the right way to go. Now, the next step is you you'll be in a process of getting uh quotes together for going out for bids and then you will sell bonds. Part of the bonds has to do with a credit rating. As it turns out, the township is selling bonds tomorrow and they're selling

017on the library and a lot of road work. the town credit rating has been upgraded once again. And what what that's important to you because when you go for your credit rating, they will look to see what's going on here, but more importantly, they look through the board's credit rating to the town's strength. So, the fact that the town has upgraded is going to help your credit rating when you go. and the fact that you have two years of very strong excess surplus is really going to help you and we should get a very favorable rate. That being said, who knows what's going on in the stock market. Um although from what I've seen, the craziness in the stock market has been positive for interest rates, meaning rates have been going lower. Um, will there

018be another rate increase by the Federal Reserve between now and your sale? Possibly. That that's not going to help us, but the strong credit rating will. So, the town right now is a double A plus. We are one notch away from AAA. Now, if you don't do this every day, it probably doesn't mean that much to you, but we have a higher credit rating than the state of New Jersey and the federal government. And where their credit rating is decreasing, ours is increasing. The last time I looked in New Jersey, and this was a while ago, there was only five AAA's. I'm willing to say at this point maybe there's 20 25. So if West Milford could move into a AAA, which is going to be difficult for a town that is 100% Highlands and

019our growth is restricted, but if we can move up there, that would save us going forward a quarter to a half percentage point per year on many millions of bonds that the town has outstanding at all time. So congratulations. I look forward to the sale tomorrow. I also feel you're going to get a very good credit rating when when it's your turn and we will probably not move forward until the the uh bids come in and you guys decide you want to accept it. So, you're still a couple months out. Uh Tom will make his presentation and then after that we'll gladly answer any questions you have. Thank you. Thanks, Chuck. Uh so, um in your package you should have received um two reports. One is the kappa report which is the comprehensive annual financial

020statement. That's the larger document. The other is the management report. So what I'll do is I'll I'll go over the one exhibit I think um all board members should be looking at. It's the one I would be looking at if I was on that side of the table. It's a very complicated document. It has three fund balances. one under the budgetary basis of accounting, one under government accounting and one under generally accepted accounting standards. Um this year we had a big shakeup with a gazsby 68 which was for uh pension um acrruels. So we had to put the full amount of the acrruel for all our school districts on the gap basis which made your fund balance and a lot of fund balances in the state tank. But that's not the one that when we

021report to the state for our budgeting purposes or if you have to make a decision as a board about how much fund balance you're going to use or um to just use your budget, it's one budget um one exhibit and that's exhibit C on page it starts on page 67. And I'll go over it really really really really quick because I don't want to bore you to death. So, what this represents, it's your budget that you that was um back in the day when we used to vote on it, but it's the the one that you approved. It first starts off on with revenues. It starts off with the budgeted revenues as presented and then any adjustments and then it shows what you actually uh received on those on those categories. So, if it was

022um you know, the state aid pretty much stays the same. So let's say for instance you have rent and royalties $100,000 you received $134. So that extra $34,000 flows into your fund balance. So you didn't anticipate as much you received which is a good thing. So that's the revenue side. On the expenditure side it starts on page 67 and goes all the p all the way to page 71. And what that represents is the appropriations um set up and then you could do transfers throughout the year and then you have a modified budget and from that modified budget you could see what we paid or charged. The paid charge line item is on the budgetary basis of accounting. Budgetary basis of accounting are your cash dispersements, your accounts payables and your acrruals. And then what

023happens at the end? If you have any monies left over from your budget, you didn't spend that much, it flows into your fund balance. The revenues on the top, the excess monies flow into your fund balance. So you wind up with a fund balance. Now the fund balance just like the whole complicated bless you. The fund balance is a very complicated thing and that's the way the state makes it. So we all can't read this and understand it. So if you look up page 71, there's a on the bottom you'll see a thing called recapitulation. So what this does is it tells you all the different components of your fund balance. The total fund balance uh is $9,358,000. Of that we have 1,865 put away into capital reserve for capital projects. Uh we have a

024maintenance reserve $200,000 that's put away for maintenance in um in and maintenance expenditures. Um we have excess surplus which was generated from this year's numbers um 2 million 957. I'll talk about that a little later. excess surplus designated. What that was was monies um from the previous audit report that had to be at a minimum put into this year's budget to anticipate fund balance which lowers the amount of the tax levy. So um that was 2 million 6,000. Then you have year end incumbrances 360,000. We have some excess other monies that we designated right from fund balance um that wasn't part of excess surplus 493,000 and this year we had some ARA semi monies that the state required us to put into reserve that was 25,000 and what you're left with is a two your

0252% number this is the 2% minimum amount the state state allows you to keep which is 1,44 49. So in so if you're going to ever talk about what your fund balance is of the 9 million, it's really 1,449,000. That's your 2% number. That's free surplus, which if you have if you have, you know, any major expenditures that were anticipated, you can use that money. That's exhibit C1. that in essence, this schedule right here pretty much tells you what the school district did this year. It's a it's a small it's only a couple pages, but that basically is it. Um, we have a special revenue fund, as you know, that's just all your your state aid and your federal aid for IDA, chapter 1, chapter 2, but you know, that money is restricted, so you

026can only spend it a certain way. Um the other monies are trust monies caf um trust monies are are student activities payroll payroll agency but interest for something. So you really can't do much with that. The only other thing is that's under your control is the cafeteria account and that is on exhibit and this is the last one I'm going to show you by the way um is exhibit uh G1 which is on page 85. 85 is the balance sheet. Included in that in the student activ included in the um enterprise fund is your uh school age child care program which is the enterprise fund and the cafeteria fund. I like to think of it as like a deli. You got to it should pay for itself. Um you basically have no no unrestricted fund

027balance um for your for your food service. All you have is a contributed capital which is your net assets. Basically your assets minus depreciation for the school age child care program. You actually had $143,000 in excess in um fund balance this year which was actually good because that's a two-year program that just started. Yeah. So, that's pretty good. Um, on the next page, it basically gives you an income statement of the food service program. Shows that we took in 765 thou 762,000 in revenues, 1.2 million in expenditures. So, we had an operating deficit 480, but we took in some uh state aid for free and reduced applications, 353,000. Um, we had a transfer in from the general fund of 135,000 which pretty much brought you to um a zero basically um operating income. So you're

028saying the food service is not losing money for us? We're We had to bring in 135,000 from the general fund to make it zero. Okay. So it did lose money. Yes, it did. Thank you. That's all I have. That's the good cop part. Um, that's really all I have. Um, as Chuck mentioned, they did have some, as I mentioned, there was excess surplus. Um, the excess surplus is anything over that 2% calculation. Um, it is a good number. I I'm a big fan of it because I like to be on this side of the fence rather than have none. Um me and Barbara sit down once we come up with the numbers and we're like we're two years ahead. We we're thinking anything basically um excess surplus that we had from the previous year we've

029Barbber's been putting into capital and into capital reserves so that we have funds for things such as roof problems and and things of that nature. Um but it keeps your excess surplus pretty much at a level amount every year. So if one year we have a million and the next year we have 1.3 million, Barbara then puts that money either into capital reserve or she puts it into your capital outlay for items that you know that you're going to be spending uh for big capital expenditures. But the bottom line is that it stays consistent. So it's always going back to balance the budget. So, as I mentioned, when you don't have it and now you have to there's no other place to get uh money from to balance the budget. You have to go out

030to taxpayers. So, it's like I said, it's always nice to be on this side of the fence rather than have none, generate no excess surplus, and then have to take it from taxpayers to balance your budget. If that's a quick uh example, let me add if I could add to that also. You're going into this budget in a position of strength. This is very very strong. I want to be able to stand here in December of this year and say the same thing as Tom said is if if I'm giving you an example. If I'm doing a town budget and we charge 1,500 for a liquor license or whatever the price is and we know there's 20 bars in town, I can tell you exactly what the revenue is going to be at the end

031of the year. You can't do it with surplus. Surplus is created by having your revenues come in higher than you budgeted or your expenses come in less than you budgeted. So if we use 2 million9 which you have to use according to the calculation but we only put zero back that means you go into 1718 with a 2 million9 in the hole. So as you prepare your budget this year like I said you're in very good position but don't just focus on 1617. think about what impact you're doing in 16 and 17 that's going to affect 17 and 18 that that's going to be the hard hard decision and a lot of boards don't do it there's a board of ed in say county that's been in the papers that I will not mention that

032is in big trouble because of deficits uh and there are interim DA left to go to a separate one in Bergen County that has the exact same problem so it does happen and you hit deficit of surplus. It's not just a matter of going to the taxpayers because there's levy cap issues and all that kind of stuff, but it's programs that are being wiped out. Uh and a lot of things that boards want to do, you can't because of that. So, no, you you're in a very strong position. I want to be able to say that next December. Got a quick question for you. Are we able to am I able to go and look at other districts and see how much they have in capital reserve and compare that number to what we have?

033You're saying we're in a position of strength right now. Is this more than the average average? Less I would well to answer your question, you go on anybody's website and the information will be there so you can get that. Um it depends on the size of the district and understood. I know the operating budgets here vary, but I'm I was just saying off the top of your head, you guys deal with these numbers all the time. It's 1.8 million in average. Yeah, I I do um I do Mount Olive and they're very comparable to you. They have a little more students, one less elementary school, but about the same. They have a little more students, but they're actually a little higher than you. They're just slightly ahead. Okay. Same capital reserve, uh a little ahead,

034but um very compatible. So actually what if you write this down you can go on to the New Jersey and you can Google it. I don't know what off the top of my head New Jersey DOE space CAFRA and what that does is it brings you to a uh to the DOE website and you can go and you click on the year 2015. You click on 2015 and it brings up a drop-own box and you can go through counties. Click on a county, it opens up all the schools in that county. And then you click on their CAFRA and you can compare this audit report with any other audit report because they're standardized. So I could go right to seven page 71 or thereabouts and look for this capital reserve number. Absolutely. Look at their

035total budget and how much they have in capital reserve. Now I can come up with an average. Absolutely. Yep. You look at their that recapitulation sheet pretty much like you said, it's going to be around 70s or whatever depending on what they have. But yes, click on and just go download it. It's PDF. Um, and you just scroll through and compare it. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Um, I'm looking at our capital reserve at a million8.65 and that's including we had transferred in 200,000 in in June, right? But it doesn't take into account the money we took out for the six the 1516 budget. Okay. That's all right. All right. And that money went into capital maintenance reserve. Not capital reserve. Right. Went into capital reserve. Didn't go into maintenance reserve. It went No,

036that went to capital reserve that 200,000. And but then we took money out for the various projects we had right over the summer which were science classrooms. The science classrooms, the roof at West School. Okay. the boiler replacements. Okay. A lot of projects and we're getting some of that money back from rod grants. Yes, the boiler replacements we're getting money back from the rod grants and that was funded by capital reserve. Okay. Um the roof replacement, the science renovations that was funded by capital out the the excess surplus that's funded by excess surplus. So, we've been using the excess surplus that's generated to do capital projects so it doesn't affect the general fund and your programs. So, we were when we transferred that 200,000 back in June, we were figuring that we would have about

037a million about a million and we took about 850,000 out out for various projects over So, you could reduce that amount by $850,000. Okay. Okay. Now, the money that we get back in the rod grants, that's going to go that Can we put that back capital in the capital reserve or that has to come to the general fund? The money that comes back from the rod grants goes right into the budget because when you're budgeting, you're taking out, you're only budgeting our portion, the 60% that we have to pay. So, in order to complete the project, we have to get the 40% back from the state so we can make the payments. Okay. Okay. So, we're not budgeting. We're not taking 100% of the money out. We're just taking out our percent. We're just taking

038out our 60% 12 years. I know normally you have there's a page where you I didn't look at it as good as I should have, but there's usually a page in here where you look back 10 years. It's in there. Yeah, he did. J schedules. J. Okay. J schedules are basically it's a lot of conglomerate a lot of you know all kinds of great you know information if you can't sleep at night stuff. Yeah it's great. Yeah. So fun putting those together. Does anybody else have any questions? Mr. Drew, if you don't mind. I'm probably going to take a few minutes. Go ahead. Um, page 23. Deb, could you give him another microphone, please? Thank you. Sorry. Page 23. Um, for instruction, our regular expense is 21.4 million. Indirect expense allocation 12.2. Now, I believe

039if I read this correctly, the indirect expense allocation includes our contribution to social security and medical benefits and our contribution for pension. Does it include anything else? It also includes the um TPAF on behalf all that kind of great information. Remember this schedule um A2 is under the gap basis of accounting. So it's really hard to the these numbers are there's a lot of conglomeration. It takes me um two days to take from the budgetary basis into the gap basis. So these things include a lot of acrruals that are not necessarily part of that C schedule I I mentioned before. So this includes some of the GAB68. Yeah, absolutely. It includes Gaz were trying to make up the 24 million of unfunded pension liability that's going into here. Yes, it is. And while the unfunded

040liability is a liability, there's a pension expense part of that too. Um the TPAF just to for instance the um let's see on behalf payments the unallocated benefits are social security contributions other retirement contributions for PRS workman's comp health benefits tuition reimbursement other employee benefits and then on behalf payments on behalf payments for um pension and and your social security. What those represent are the board's share of TPAF teachers that normally we would have to pick up as an expense as a board, but the state of New Jersey pays them for now, right? For now. Okay. So now that's part of why we're separating that all out. Yes. Well, they require us get stuck with it. It's so what they require us to do is show it as a revenue and an expenditure. So, it's

041a wash. All right. It incl. taken out of our pay and the board has to match 7.65. But with certified teachers, the the state of New Jersey picks that up. So, again, that's an expenditure on our part that we have to show, but it's also a revenue. So you add those just those things together and that's $18 million which makes up part of your $25 million just right there. The part of the reason for even asking the question at all was to kind of make the point that the 21.4 4 million is money out of pocket for instruction to teachers. And then we incur another 12 million over 50% of the salary that we pay to teachers in benefits for the teachers. Over 50% if you don't mind. I'm sorry. the um capital reserve account.

042Is that restricted money? Yes. Can only be spent on capital? Capital reserve. Yeah. Usually things that are tied to a rod grants or um capital projects with that have DOE approval. On C1, these unfunded amounts. This was all the gb68 the unfunded pension liability. No the um 67. Okay. Sorry. Mayor. No, those are the ones I was just discussing the um the unbudgeted. That's the TPAF reimbursement. That's a TPAF amount that the state's show making us required to be shown because there's an offsetting expenditure for the same dollar amounts on the expenditure side as unbudgeted also. So you have an unbudgeted revenue and you have an unbudgeted expenditure for the same dollar amount. So they're a wash. But the state requires us to show them. They like to pat themselves on the back and say,

043"Oh, look how much we you could have expended, but we're paying it for you." On page 81, construction services, um, we spent 3.8 mil or about 3.9. Could you just real briefly tell me which projects those were? Again, that was a boiler. Two roofs, two boilers. What else? No, it No, the two roof. It says new doors, windows, UVs, generator, security system projects and we spent that all in 2015. No, current year is showing 24,000. There's, if you see, there's a uh a prior period column on the left and a current year column in the middle and then a total column. This is just money that was left from prior projects that were done that um okay we we we absorb that money into the um surplus right into well it goes to your assets

044right into the reserve account. Thank you. Uh what projects did we do? That was what I was really and and what were their with all with all this money? This was prior. No, no, not this money. Last year, in last year's budget, in last year's budget, in the 1415 school year, we did Marshall Hills roof and the high school boiler. How much was the roof? $880 something,000. The high school boiler was 400. Just under a million. Oh, under a million. There's like six six boilers. There's a bunch of them. No, that six boilers are we have four that's back then I'm thinking yeah the high school we did the domestic hot water put uh we we took it out of the boiler and we put there's four boilers and then the we got rod grants

045back for some or all of that we got rod grant back for the boiler replacements. So, in the last last year we did the high school boiler. Mhm. And we had a rod grant for that. And this year we had the rod grant for PK, right? And Westbrook. Okay. Okay. But the the roof replacements the roof replacements were 100% funded by capital outlay by our excess surplus. Right. Right. Right. But we still spent money. It was a construction expense. That's what I'm talking. Oh, yes. Absolutely. And those were in last year's budget. Marshall Hill was in the 1415 year, which is this is the synopsis of that. And 1516 is the current year budget that we're working with. So, that's not completed yet. And we did Westbrook roof in this current year, the science classroom

046renovations the current year, and the two boiler replacements for the elementary school PK and Westbrook. That's all in the current year's budget that we're still in. But the 1415 budget, right? We did Westbrook roof. No, right. Which roof? We did Marshall Hill roof. Marshall Hill roof and the high school boiler. All right. And which did we take out of capital outlay? None of those. The Marshall Hill roof. Okay. All right. That capital reserve was the boiler. Capital outlay which is funded by excess surplus was the roof. Okay. I got three more that I have questions about and thank you for indulging me. That's why I like it electronic schedule. Um, in the 10year study or 10ear comparison that you talked about um on page 97 There were a whole bunch of these that went up

047by a lot. Uh, regular instruction fully allocated went from 30 mil to 33 or up 12%. Special education went from 9.8 to 10.8 mil or 10.6%. Um, some of these went up a lot. At the end of the day, total district expenses went from 75 mil to 83 mil, which is about 10% in one year. And I'm sort of trying to figure out why so much. That's a lot. Well, it's also a final number after you have your on behalf payments are in here. So, there's over there's almost $6 million right there. Um I don't know what to say about we have additional monies now for um sack because our sack program um is is running um better. These are revenues. Uh you can see the sack program is actually unrestricted grants has has less

048because restricted state aid. I don't know I don't know what to tell you Steve. Um Mr. Drew if you look on this next page you'll see and I don't know what caused it but the unrestricted grants and contributions increased from 21 million to 28 million years. So last and again these are these are on the approval basis too. Yeah. I don't know what you're trying to I don't know know what you're trying to to ascertain because you know you have although that's good to know that the on behalf was 6 million of that that is sort of meaningful the um okay one other we already discussed that the the only other thing Um, we've got in here estimated county equalized value. And so the property value in West Milford, which is the basis of the

049taxes uh, in this report on page 103 continues to go down. And of course, we all know that we're restricted from more ratables, more properties, more houses, more people by the Highlands Act. And we have to understand that the value of the property that we have in this district is going down. And um you know, I it feels great to be financially secure. unless you're on the other side of that and you're the taxpayer who's giving more money than the district needs. So, we now have uh accumulations in some of these accounts and I understand that's uh um you know that's good, that's healthy. Um but as a taxpayer, you know, it's great unless you're a taxpayer. You're one of the people here. Um, and our taxes keep going up, our property values keep going

050down, our enrollments keep going down, and uh I don't know, we're paying more money. So, um, and and you know, the problem with that is is when I talk to my neighbors and other people in West Milford who are really feeling this pinch. Um, and I I I like being a financially sound district, but maybe I don't want to be that financially sound. If uh I'd rather not get more than the district needs. Uh I know there are cases where we are forcing people out of West Milford purely because of the taxes. In Paya County, we we pay the highest percentage of income in property taxes of any county in the entire United States. Question. Since it goes to schools, you would think we'd have the best schools in the entire United States, but we

051don't. And so, somehow or another, I want to resolve that difference between what we're paying and what we're getting. It just doesn't feel great from the seat I'm sitting in as a person who lives in this. So, my comments are done. Thank you, Mr. Drew. Anybody else have anything to say? Any questions for Mr. Ferelli or Mr. Ferry? No. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Is there anything that you'd like to to say in closing? has to do the badge. What? One second. Okay. The comments. Yeah. But she has to do the corrective action. Oh, you have to do the corrective action. That's what we're discussing. Okay. So, what that what is that is is the um comments and recommendations on the um on the smaller management report. Uh the first one is on page seven.

052These won't take too long. So when we uh we have to look at the school um cafeteria account because we get state aid for free and reduced applications. Um so what we do is we look at the applications and then we look the number of kids children that go through um and make sure that the the tapes or the the machines are correctly accounting for the number of students that went through as free and every time they go through we get some state aid. So I now become a financial a federal and state auditor because now I got to comply with their standards. So out of all those applications that we have for free and reduced all the applications that we have for free and reduced we found three uh cases where uh students were

053classified as reduced that but should have been free. Um, so what that does is it it triggers a calculation we have to do. So we have an overstatement on one end and an understatement on the other. So it it um we had in total dollars, it's $216 that were understated. So of all those applications, we only found three of the sample we had. Um, I've got four comments for the ASSA uh report. That's the application for state aid. Uh, we found some deviations with those. Now, the application for the state aid, the ASSA report um was started more than 10 years ago and supposedly it was going to base the revenue that you receive from the state based upon the number of children you have. So every October 15th or around 141 13th we've got

054to take a snapshot and it's an unfunded mandate. It takes an enormous amount of time especially in West Milford or a district this size. Takes away from Barbara's time. It takes away away from a lot of people's time to put these numbers together. And then it takes my time to audit them. I'm required to audit them. Bottom line is it means nothing. It means absolutely nothing at this point. Our state aid has been flat for the last 15 years. Hasn't they don't use this application whatsoever for anything. It's just a a large waste of our time and Barbber's time uh to put these things together. Um as of October, we did have some some issues with with some of Barbara's personnel, which I know pulled her away when she had to do this. So that

055was more some of the problems um why the numbers weren't exactly uh correct. Um we also had some extra work we had to do as auditors because we keep getting stuff thrown at us too. Normally what we like to do is come in around November of the current year and audit them in advance. We weren't able to do it this year um to try and find some of the um some of the errors that were recorded. Um but we did get in this year, right, Barbara? We did get in. Yeah. So, you shouldn't see these uh comments and recommendations again next year. So, again, those are ASSA comments and the DRTS, the district transportation report numbers. And again, they mean nothing. They actually mean nothing financially to you. Um, but we're mandated to put it

056in if we find it. So, our audit, we give an opinion that there's no material misstatements. Now, materiality is a big number, but we got to put this little junk in for 260 bucks basically because we're doing a Department of Ed's work. So, it's not it's not material. It's not important. It will be corrected and uh it will not be there next year. At the end of the day, I'd say we did great at that. That's very, very few exceptions. Good job. Thank you. That's all I got. Um Barbara, you're going to be doing your corrective action plan, I guess, next meeting or uh actually it's on tonight for special action. Yes. So, she'll basically what's going to happen is she'll go over corrective action. She's required to do it. We have to mail it

057down to the state with all kinds of all kinds of good stuff, but um that's really all we have. Thank you very much. Is there anything we can do to get these earlier in the year? Shoot. Gazsby. Well, we started that. I mean, you know, the audits were the Gazsby numbers came out about 3 weeks before the order reports were due. Uh, and the Gazsby change was phenomenal. As as auditors, we book stuff on historical value. So, you spend a h 100red bucks, we have to write down a 100 bucks. 100 bucks of income comes in, we come in for 100 bucks. Now, we have this Gazsby Government Accounting Standing Standard Board. And this is countrywide, so it's not just New Jersey. Does this happen? By the way, you need to book this small little

058liability about $20 million. Excuse me. Um, that's number one. Number two, it's not an exact dollar amount. It's based on an actuary which is crystal ball looking hoping that if this happens this is what's the numbers going to be. Number three it's based on 2014 now 20 not 2015. So you know we would love to get these audits out sooner but that's that just killed everybody this year. Those guys are all accounts and bean bean counters. I mean recognizing the liability is a smart thing and frankly your peers liability doesn't bother me because that's something that'll be funded in the next 30 40 50 years. So that's the elephant. We take little bites out of it. It's you and New Jersey. As bad as you hear about our pension problem, there are other states that

059are in much worse shape than we are. um like Pennsylvania where each town or city funds their own pension. So there are some real real problems at least for statewide but the teachers portion of the pension is greatly underfunded and the push that we're seeing is to start taking those when Kane was governor he was the education governor so it came up with a minimum starting salary and social security and pension went down to trend well now that they're choking on it they want to throw it back to was the number I I believe according to the report if we were to fund the teachers pension just the yearly piece this year it would have been $1 million appropriation. So kiss that excess surplus goodbye. Yeah. So, this is important and you're going to be

060hearing about this countrywide and I'm sure Social Security and Medicare have the same problem, but they can print money where you know we can't. Thank you. You're welcome. So, the problem is that the GASBs aren't final until the end of the calendar. Well, we were here in July. We were here auditing in July and your audit your CAFRA I had 90% of it done. and it was sitting on my desk creating, you know, getting dust. And it wasn't until just before Thanksgiving, they released all the numbers and then I had to scramble around and and change about 40 sheets of this audit report, including the Gazsby, including GAP, you know. So, you know, it took me, you know, it took me about seven hours just to convert the Gazsby 68 and then about two days

061of Gazsby to convert to GAP. Yeah. Plus, our New Jersey organization got together just to figure out how we were going to consistently do it, you know. So, the notes you see here in this report, no matter what district you go to, you're going to see the same type notes because we're like, you throw this at us. We got three weeks, you know. I mean, this was a major undertaking. Thank you. Good night, all. You're welcome. I usually say merry Christmas, but uh happy new year. Okay. Um that concludes special reports and reports and correspondence. Legal report. Uh there is no legal report this evening. Thank you. uh president's report um taking over as school board president. Um, I wanted to make sure that our newer members, um, some of our junior members, um, understand

062that what's the role of the school board and the superintendent. Um the school board has a a dual role and that's to represent the concerns of the citizens, taxpayers and parents to the school administrators and to represent the needs of the students and school district to the citizens, taxpayers and parents of the community. The school board doesn't operate the school district on a day-to-day basis. That is the job of Mr. Rashika who is our chief executive officer. The school board the the the role of the school board is that we set policy goals and objectives for the district and we hold the superintendent responsible for imp implementing those policies and achieving those goals. So I just want to make everybody it's not the job of the board to run the district but to ensure that

063is wellrun and that is going to be my mantra going forward this year to make sure that things are wellrun. um in reading through um our policy manual um and we'll discuss this with the board I guess in new business I there's quite a few things in our policy manual that need to be addressed and as part of our dues to New Jersey school boards and part of our thing part of us trying to save money for the for the community. Um, New Jersey School Boards does a complimentary wellness check on our policy manual. No cost. It's part of our dues. So, I' I'd like to discuss that. Um, I would also like to let the board know because I didn't see the email go out. May 3rd, if you can mark that in your

064calendars. Um, it's a Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. We're going to have our our board goals meeting for the following for next year. So, please mark that. And and I guess Barbara, that'll be in our in the board office that we'll we'll have that meeting. Um, what time is that going to be? 6:30. That uh that's going to be um 6:30. New Robin Mian from New Jersey school boards will be here. She's our field service representative and she'll facilitate that meeting for us um so that we can set our goals for next year and we can get an action plan together or superintendent can whether it's Tony or the new guy and we can hit the ground running come September 1st and that'll serve a dual purpose. part of our responsibility is evaluating the chief s, you

065know, our chief school administrator. Um, that'll give us about 10 months worth of time that we can evaluate him, see that he's put an action plan in place, reviewed it some, you know, several times with the board so that we can be on top of things and better informed. Um, and I think the the the last thing that I want to say is I want to uh I'm not going to say how young she is, but I want to wish happy birthday to Miss Schultz that she missed our um committee meetings last week because she was celebrating her birthday. So, with my family. With her family. Yep. Happy birthday. So, happy birthday. I I think she said she was 29, right? Again. And uh that uh concludes my president's report. I I do have a

066question on on the um action plans. Currently, I have them just about completed. I fell about a week behind because of certain reasons, but the uh the question I have is would you like me to email them to everyone on Friday or would you just want to have the hard copies on Tuesday? You want to see them beforehand? I I would I think it would be a good idea you see it beforehand and if there's any modifications we can discuss it on the 26th. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you, Tony. Um I guess we're going to move on to petitions and requests. Um, petitioners have requested to speak prior to the meeting will be first with 5 minutes for each petitioner for a period of 30 minutes and then time permitting other petitions and requests limited

067to 5 minutes per petitioner will be allowed until the 30 minute period transpires. Petitioners speaking during petitions and requests are asked to address topic topics listed for special action in the agenda. All speakers are asked to give their full name, spell or last name, provide their address. Speakers may not use the names of students during petitions and request. Do we have anybody who would like to speak? Seeing none, like to move to close petitions and requests. Second. Voice vote. I Any any opposed? None opposed. Okay. Who would like to make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented? I'd like to make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented this evening. Second. One second. Thank you. Um I'd like to point out a change on page nine under education. Uh number three, the West

068Milford High School. It reads indoor color guard should actually be uh model congress on number three of page nine. It's model congress jersey model. You have it on there cuz it's pendant here with the change. Okay. Yeah. [Music] No. Is there anything else like that? It was administrative. If it's not material, it's all right. Under number 18, this is number 18. Oh, on page seven under budget and finance. Yes, it's got Mr. Huber as chairperson. That should be Mr. Drew. Oh, shoot. But I want to clean. I don't want to. I'm in the middle of this already. Jeez. Channel, please. Yeah, that's workshop. We'll fix that for next week. Okay, that's it. We'll move forward then under special action. Um, Mr. Drew, they have you listed here correctly. [Music] Uh, would you like to Yeah,

069I uh unless somebody objects, I'd like to move forward items uh 1 2 3 4 5. Second. 1 2 3 4 5. Okay. Any discussion? Uh just would like a little bit more explanation on finding number four. just flesh it out a little bit on what the problem was. That has to do with school lunches on which not on which I now this is under that's on page on the corrective action plan talking about under action corrective number two it's the it has to do with the applications for uh free and reduced lunches that's okay three were that's what Mr. very highlighted. Three were classified as reduced when they should have been classified as free and seven were counted after the uh deadline. From what I can tell, looking at other districts, we come through

070this very clean in terms of things that auditors might look at or question or Barbara does an excellent job putting this together. on on number five. Um the nature of the services number five under is this under budget finance for the uh bond? Yeah, I'm sure you guys have discussed it before now, but right um once we once the referendum is approved, there's financial services that have to be provided for the bond ratings and for preparation of the sale. So that's their fee. And Roert McCarthy, um, C Steve Ro is our bond council and he also has to do things in preparation for the bond sale and that's his fee for those things. Okay. [Music] Barbara, I have a question um with regards to our corrective action plan. Um the second administration administrative assistant has

071been designated to assist with the certifications and and the application reviews. Is there any confidential information that those people might see? No. No. It's student applications and I'm just just Yeah. Just asking that's all. Okay. No, I mean it's all confidential, but um there's no confidentiality as far as personnel go students. Okay. Any other questions? Just point clarification. You said items one through five, right? Right. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Roll call vote, please. Mr. Yuber. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mrs. Schultz. Yes. Miss O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mrs. Dwire. Yes. Mr. Foody. Yes. I would like to move item number six. Second. purchasing uh snow removal system uh for the buses. Any discussion? I looked at this online. Looks like something our people could build themselves. It does not look

072like a very complicated mechanism. I would be concerned about the liability issue if we were building it ourselves. But um Jamie, may you speak? Yeah, go ahead. Um I don't know if we hadn't voted on this or not voted but discussed it and and talked about bringing this to the board. um in committee. So, I'm I'm a little surprised to see it on the agenda. However, um in saying that, have we exhausted every opportunity um besides doing this because we're going to now have spend the money on the scraper system. um and and reading um things on the website. We now have to have also have to have a vehicle there for the snow plow. So for every time it says that you drive a bus through, you got to clear the snow to safely

073do it. So they have to do something. Now we're going to Now we're looking at all our plow drivers are out plowing schools. No. Where do we where do we get the Our transportation people actually plow the transportation yard. Our maintenance people do not plow our transportation yard. They just plow the plow the schools. Right. So now are we're going to be taking away a person from transportation um duties to now sit there because hey I can imagine this is going to be a threehour project by the time you put all the buses through and and then the we're still going to have to from what I saw in reading have people manually rake the buses because some of our buses have those air conditioning units though up on top of the buses and it

074specifically stated that those can't go through that system. So, we're still going to have to have people manually clean those buses. Not that it's a lot, but they will. The other thing, um you know that we have we have um landscapers that I'm sure are out of work. we have and I don't believe we've exhausted all our all our resources to see if we can get other people besides the people that are that are driving the bus. I mean, there's something in my head that I came up when I saw this that would probably cost a lot less than the the 27,000. And we could do it and I'll discuss that with you at a later date, Barbara, but um I just I I want to know, have you exhausted every avenue before we go

075spend $28,000? James, I I I'm sorry. Um Terry, thank you. I think when you look at this program, our people who are going to be doing the plowing are under our insurance. You go outside and you hire independent contractors or you hire kids or whoever you're thinking of, they're not covered and they become our liability. I I think we're safe with this. Oh, Jamie. Yeah. Go ahead. Did you want to speak? Go ahead. I wasn't at the budget and finance meeting the other night, but I'm sure this was something that was discussed as the minutes reflect that. I also noticed the $23,000 that the district, and I'm guessing that would be Mrs. Francisco um has said would be used for the sale from buses that would offset the cost of the scraper which I think

076is very savvy of Mrs. Francisco. Yeah. I just want to say Barbara if you just briefly go over the benefits of having the scraper system. We we kind of talked about it a little bit um prior to this meeting, but we just want to go over for the benefit of everybody out here the challenges that you brought up at our committee meeting, not this past. Okay. Um just just to clarify, in December, we talked about it briefly. Uh the committee asked me to go back and get some more information about um some references. Um I did get that information. And I also um was able to find the video, you know, the the website that had the video on it. Um just to to take a step back, about 3 years ago, a company came

077to me that had a a brush, a big roller brush, and tried to sell sell me that. And it was well over $30,000. So, it was the basically the same concept, but it was using a a big brush instead. Um the reason why it's appearing on the agenda is after we discussed it at committee um the committee I thought I heard asked me to put it on the agenda so the entire board could discuss it because while it sounded like a good idea, they weren't 100% sure that they wanted to put it before the entire board. Um just a little bit of background about how we clear the buses now. Um, we have a snow crew. People sign up for it, our drivers. Um, this is the first year we only have five people that

078signed up. When there's snow, if the superintendent decides that he's going to have a delayed opening, those buses need to be cleared before the buses go out on the road. They come in at 3:00 a.m. to get the buses on the road. Our first buses leave the the depot at 5:45 on a on a normal day. So with a 90minute delay, they're leaving what? 7:15. The buses have to be cleared. So that means if they're coming in at 3:00 a.m., they've already been working for 4 and 1/2 hours. Then they have to get on the bus and drive. They also um have to and I understand your concerns about having to clear the snow as it's coming off, but we have to do the same thing. There is a method. Um we have to pull

079the buses out because you see them all parked in a row. They have to come out and they have to be cleaned off. Then they have to be put back in and then everything has to be cleaned out so that the next one can come out. So they do have a process that they use in order to get the buses cleaned off. If we took people in from that weren't employees, they would need to have a CDL for the bus operation. So, they wouldn't be able to move the buses. They might be able to break the the the snow off, but you also have to worry about the liability and workman's comp issues. So, one of the reasons why this technology is is so um attractive to some school districts that are are buying it

080is because it pretty much eliminates somebody going up on a ladder with a rake and pulling the the snow off the roofs of the buses. And so, you're minimizing the liability that might come up with workman's comp. Last year, we had a couple of people that did fall in the yard while they were cleaning off the buses. It was uh something that the the supervisor uh brought to my attention that our chief mechanic is um is is hopeful that we can do this. Um it will make their job easier for sure. Uh it it could possibly eliminate them coming in at 3:00 a.m. if we're going to try to get snow uh school out on a delayed opening. Um I don't know what else to say. Um, you know, we're fortunate that we live in

081an age where technology is constantly evolving and where we used to have to do things manually. We no longer have to. Uh, it's something that's not going to be um have have a life expectancy. I'm sure that we're going to be able to use it for many many years. Uh, we've been very fortunate and and we have um, you know, Mr. Porter down there that is a mechanic uh genius so that he can he can fix anything and you know we utilize him. So if there is some kind of a working part that does get get broken after a warranty period I'm sure that he could figure out how to fix it because he does that for so many things that even the township we use you know he he he does things for the

082township. I brought it to the board because um I was asked by transportation to do this and um you know that's it. [Music] Mr. Bailey, you had your hand up before Mrs. O'Brien. Question for the business administrator. Give me a referral a district who's using a hearing within 25 miles of my uh Rockaway Township. Stop next. Did you talk to these people, the sales manufacturer, the sales rep? This sounds like something that's probably prevalent in upstate New York, Wisconsin, snow country. So, in other words, this company is just not some come down the turnpike yesterday. They've got this thing up and working in places where snow is an everyday occurrence. Correct. Yeah. And apparently a lot of commercial yards are using it for the tractor trailers also. next. That's why this is so easy because

083we sit here as a board and talk about how we want to do it right and how we want to save money and how we want to be safe. Anybody that opens up the Bergen record after the first snowfall and reads the road warrior, what's his first column all the time? It's about snow and ice coming off semitrs and box trucks and all trucks in North Jersey. And also tragically, at least once a year, you read about ICE flying off the top of one of these trucks that wasn't removed properly, striking some poor son of a gun, driving down Route 17, going to work, and you know the rest of the story. So, we sit here as a board and we talk about things and carry on as though we're experts on snow removal for

084a massive bus fleet. Not the least of which is nobody in this room except a few of us have ever been up at 3:00 in the morning in a windy forboing environment breaking their backside as dedicated employees of the town to get the buses clear for what quite possibly won't even be an opening anyway cuz West Milford is 89 square miles of wintertime fund when the snow comes and all we're doing we watch every penny and it seems like a lot of money but for what it boss to run that bus system on a day in dayout basis. If the rank and file people that are on the ground running our transportation department think this is a good idea, I'm in and I'm voting yes. And why we sit here and pick apart all of

085this stuff as though we're now transportation experts is beyond me. So you need excuse me, we need four more votes. I'm in. I'm voting yes. Have we heard that? Have has the transport director as point of order. Mr. President, go ahead. Can we debate now? What's that? Are we allowed to debate? It was a question. We're we're in the the we're in the debate, but I want to hear what Mrs. O'Brien has to say. Thank you. Um, we are fast approaching 9:00, so I would like to extend the meeting and uh for us to go into executive session to approximately 9:30 p.m. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Thank you. Okay. And I go on your your question was my question was is I I didn't hear anybody say anything about the transportation department

086asking for this. I I said the supervisor of transportation brought this information to me and that our chief mechanic is also hopeful that the board will be agreeable to this. Okay. Now, do we have buses that have any air conditioning units or other attachments on top? I can't tell you that for sure. It might be one of the the smaller vans, but um the transportation supervisor and the chief mechanic who they were both in my office on Friday and and they didn't they they understand that the blade goes up and down. Um it's multi-level. They seem to be very comfortable that this could be very helpful for them. This is essentially a board that just is going to they're going to drive the truck under and it's going to scrape the snow off, right? It

087just seems like a lot of money for something that could be done. The same thing could be done for less. Mr. Mr. Drew, on reading the materials references, um, districts who are using this seem to think that they saved at least half of their personnel cost by using this instead of read doing it manually. Um, and so just off the top of my head, that seems like it's worth doing it. It's going to pay for itself almost immediately and probably not worth the time to even discuss it. We might get a better deal. We might be able to do it ourselves. We might figure out in a month or two some other way to do it, but it just it it smells like if we're saving half the personnel cost to do it manually versus

088doing it this way that we'll save that money fairly quickly. Do you have any kind of rough idea of how many times we scraped snow last winter? Oh gosh. Last two years probably. The last two years were pretty 15 times a year. 20 times a year. Last question. If we vote for this and say yes tonight, how soon would it be installed? Two weeks. So if we were doing this, you know, you're going to take five people at five people. We usually have more than five people who come in. Okay. and and two hours a piece. 20 Well, they start at 3:00 a.m. It's 4 and a half hours. Five people at four and a half hours. Well, but we're going to save half usually more. That's what I'm thinking. So, I would I would

089think that it would be, you know, you would need couple I don't even know that they'd need to come in at 3:00 a.m. I think in West Mford this going to pay for itself in a year. You know, they seem they seem to think within a couple of years you're going to get your money's worth. That might be a Well, I think if we had it for the last two years, you probably would be ahead of the game. On the on the website, it said based on four storms a year, it'll pay you back in six years. We have more than four storms a year. Yeah. Yeah. Last couple of years. As as a superintendent, my concern always is, um, yeah, we're going to have a delayed opening and then I have to hold my

090breath to make sure that the buses are ready to go out. Yeah. Uh and that's a big concern because now we have parents who are driving their child to a the children to an alternate bus stop because the bus stops are then emergency bus stops and now I'm going to have buses that are going to be delayed. So you you compound the liability issue not only from what's happening in the yard but what can possibly happen to children or they're standing there waiting in the cold for a bus to show up 45 minutes late. Um, I think this would expedite the the entire process and we're looking at probably 40 or 50 buses that would go through it. Can we call a question? You have about 80 80? Yeah. Nope. Oh, I thought you had

091a question. Question 80 last year, huh? Buses about 80 buses total. All right, we'll call the question. Mr. Bailey. Yes, Mr. Deber. Although it seems uh high in cost, um just like Mr. Bailey said, it's going to help the people on the ground at 3 in the morning. I certainly wouldn't want to be clearing snow off buses. So, I'm going to vote yes for that. Mr. Drew, yes. Mrs. Dwire, yes. Mr. Foody, I'm going to abstain on this. Barbara, Mr. Yuber, uh yeah, I think that this is going to help keep our our folks safe. They hopping up on ladders and such and uh if we can have it in in two weeks, we'll have it for this winter. So, I'm going to say yes. Thank you, Miss O'Brien. Yes, Mrs. Schultz. Yes. Because in

092addition, uh the $23,000 from the sale of the used buses, one of those used buses will offset the cost of the scraper. So, yes. Thank you. Uh motion carries. Okay. Mrs. O'Brien, Personnel, Student Affairs. Okay. I have six items this evening that I would like the board to uh vote on. One through six. Like to approve. I'd like to make a motion to approve the items one through six under personnel students. I'll second it. Thank you, Terry. Any discussion? Question number three. Is that the full salary? [Music] School bus, van, driver, transportation pro, it's prorated from the 17,000 without without the help from the from the Yeah. Any other discussion? You know, just the language should be changed. It should say prorated from 17,6 salary of [Music] typically that's how it that reads on the

093agenda but we could look into moving. Yeah. Okay. Okay. No other discussion. Roll call vote. Miss O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Drew. Yes. Mrs. Dwire. Yes. Mrs. Schultz. Yes. Mr. Yuber. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. De. Yes. Mr. Foody. Yes. That concludes personal student affairs. Thank you. Welcome. Education. Okay. I move to uh I move to Where am I moving to? I feel like I already gave a report. I'm moving to move item one under education. Second. Any discussion? clarification. That's for future expenses. Yes. Say that again. Is that for future expenses? Are you It was uh the documentation. Yeah. Yeah. It was on the website. We have to prove those expenses before they actually go out. So, but there was specific requests for these were a conference and how much of it was going to be

094saw and I saw this. Thank you. Okay. No other discussion. Roll call, please. Miss O'Brien. Yes. Mr. Drew? Yes. Mrs. Dwire? Yes. Mrs. Schultz? Yes. Mr. Yuber? Yes. Mr. Bailey? Yes. Mr. De? Yes. Mr. Foody? Yes. Motion carries. Huh? Yes. Motion carries. That's what she says. Yeah. May we now go on to workshop discussion. Um budget to finance. Mr. Drew. Now, do we discuss all of these things here? Is that Yeah. If you've got anything to discuss, let's let's talk about it now to get it out of the way for um Well, there's a whole bunch of to be determined on here. Well, yeah. No, I know we usually the bills are to be determined transfers or I sort of reserve the right to discuss the you can discuss those at our meeting. December minutes

095are not out there or at least they weren't at 210. I'm sorry. December the minutes. No, they'll be up on Friday. A 148, A49. I don't All that stuff gets posted on Friday. That's Friday. Um, this is basically just um an itemization of the resolutions that we know of that will be on the regular agenda on Tuesday night. So, of next Tuesday. So it's a listing of things and it gives an board an opportunity to discuss the things to have their questions answered. So next week is a little can get facilitated a little bit lacking specific details. I'm not sure. Well, anything further to discuss? Okay. Okay. Just let the art of record reflect Mr. Bailey's left the meeting. Um on number six where it talks about the archway schools. What are the archway schools?

096It's a special education placement. We have a student down there. Okay. Thank you. Um number three and son is the school bus. Are we paying them or they paying us? They're paying us. They're buying one of our surplus buses. Well, they're buying one or this says three. Oh, three. They're buying three. Yeah. Okay. Mr. Wire, on number five, do we have an amount um you know, a firm amount, Barbara, for the final sighting and the gutters and stuff? No, we don't. And the reason why is when we discussed it last week at committee, um the board talked about it. Um I know that there's might be some concerns about whether or not the board office building actually does need sighting. Um you um might recall that I said the woodpecker is putting holes in it

097and trying to nest. Um, we also have um we we're bringing um contractors in again because the prices that we originally got were from last year and we're trying to make sure that we're going to get comparable um sightings. I don't want one person to give us one grade and somebody else quoting us on a different grade. So, I want to make sure that everything is comparable. Um, we're finding that about 60% of the building is going to need to have the wood replaced. We did replace a a section in the front um in the spring that we were able to get painted because it rotted through and it had a hole in it. That's happening in other areas of the building now. So, we're trying to preserve the building as much as we could.

098Um, I will have pictures for you for Friday and we should have all of the uh proposals in by Friday that you can review. Mr. Schulz, thank you. I just have a question with regards to preventing the woodpecker from making holes in the new sighting. What's being done about that? Well, what we did, we called a conservationist in and uh they hung things up that was supposed to um prevent this the woodpecker. Woody just won't go away. I think he thinks it's a toy. Um, it looks like a silver spinner and it's supposed to scare them away and it hasn't. So, when we hear them, we go out and we we bang on the walls to try to scare him away and go to the other side. Then he goes to the other side of

099the building, but he the holes are really getting big. Is anybody feeding him? I mean, why does he keep coming? Yeah, we are. The wood. He's knocking at the wood to get the buns underneath that. And and that what Mr. Drew just said is key here. What have they at they do that because they can hear the bugs that are in their meal is in there. I think before we go into doing this, we ought to really have an exterminator check that building. We do have exterminator come on a regular basis. The exterminator does come. But um yeah, but if they're still if they're still going after it, we do have bees in there. Yeah. Yeah. But if they're still going after it, I mean, right this time of year, the bees are those critters

100are are asleep at this point. Well, the bees are dormant right now, but we do have bees. The carpenter bees are in there. Oh no, they go on the lights and then they fall on our desk. So you're relatively minor, having dealt with woodpeckers over the years. Uh sometimes if you use plastic boards, u they don't pick those. They don't. And I also know that if you create a spar, a tree with without limbs any place close, they go for the spar, not the house or the building. There's plenty of those in the woods behind us. I guess they don't have social. They don't taste as good. But I will have all the um the documentation for you to consider on Friday. It'll be in in the board members. Have you given any specs? Because

101you're you're asking you want to make sure that the material is comparable. Are there any specs that you've given or or have? They're they're providing us with um um samples of the sighting that they would use. Okay. [Music] Okay. under education. Mr. Dwire, um the following items are being presented for anticipated action. The recommend um doesn't tell me to move. I'm confused. You're not moving for a workshop discussion and all we would do now is discuss them so we don't have to next week. All right. The following items are being presented for anticipated action on January 26. Um should I read these? No, you can just say there's so many items questions by anybody. Four items. Is there any discussion of any of these four items? Nope. Okay. Uh you you you take uh center

102stage now, Mrs. O'Brien. Right. I apologize. Uh going back to number one. uh the 9-day no contact period. Is somebody giving me a little background on that? Oh, yeah. There's a a period where the coaches of the Big North Conference agree that the um coaches will have no contact with student athletes during a 9-day period over the summer to give them a break. Give the kids a break. Guaranteed guaranteed vacation. That that started last year. Okay. Mr. We're not necessarily one of the schools, but there are schools that are so obsessed with football that that coach coaches the kid all year and has an expectation the kids never get a rest, don't get any vacation, and it gets to the point that they're health issues. Give them a break. Mr. abroad. I have 13 items

103that are present. Oh, I'm sorry. I just wanted to make a comment that there are captain's practices run during those periods. So, while those sports might not be run by coaches, there are captains that facilitate but the the nine-day rule now is not even the captain's practices can't take place. Kids aren't even supposed to be here. Uh so that worked out very well last year and the anticipation is or the thought is that it has to be that way otherwise we'll we'll be in some kind of trouble. So you're absolutely right. The captain's practices you will see generally at the end of the school year is over you may see the kids practicing on their own captain's practice but this this alleviates that as well because they're not allowed to be here. So Ryan. Okay.

104There are 13 items presented to you this evening. It will be uh voted on on January 26. Any questions, discussion? Miss wire on number 12. Um the parent book club and the advisor although it's for um it looks to be like a 12th grade level. I was wondering if if we could consider opening that to grades nine, 10, and 11 also. Um, for parents, the our understanding our understanding from Miss West, the supervisor, is basically looking at those books that this particular group of students are reading and if there's any interest from the parents. Now, uh, I am not opposed to ex extending that and expanding it out to the other grades as well. I think what we need to do is see uh what the attendance is like. That's my biggest concern. What's the

105attendance of this going to be? So that's why we have it limited to 6 hours for now. Uh so I I would say if we get to two and three and and that much is happening, then we can open it up to the other grade levels and see if it's something that might catch on for the future. Yeah. Because it might be nice to to let the parents know that they're invited in to be a part of the kids education rather than just I think and I agree. I think I think in some cases uh those students, ninth graders, you might have more interest from those parents than you would from somebody who, you know, my my son or daughter is already accepted into college. They're kind of doing their own thing now. But, you

106know, you open it up to whoever uh is interested. And so, yeah, I think we could be a little flexible with that. Okay. And I think also the the original spirit of it was that uh in the senior year they have such a wide scope of the the genre courses that we discussed at the committee meeting with the you know the famous quarters and um so I think that was the spirit of it because the the book selections such as Dune and um some of the Bram Stoker uh works so different than the traditional language arts approach. I think that was the spirit behind it. So I I but I do think there's some some value in opening that up. This is clear. It's this is for the parents. This isn't for the right. So,

107you know, it's a way of involving them. Yeah. No, I I agree. I think we should part of that overall and we I think we should anything we can do to engage the parents to be a little bit more involved instead of waiting till their senior year. Years for that to occur is a good thing. So, um Mr. D'vor policy please. following the following items being presented for anticipated action at the regular meeting of January 26. Items 1 through six or for the board members who aren't here. Barbara, are these policies still on the board members only page? I believe they are or Terry and Glenn they are. Okay. Yeah, they will be because um they're not voted on till next week. Okay. Okay. All right. Negotiations. Um we've still we got cancelled for that

108Monday. So, um I might I'm going to look we when we move in uh I might have updated information. Okay. Are are are there also other staff Besides the administrators, I don't remember our transportation supervisor voting on that or supervisor of operation, whoever. Okay. Okay. All right. Um, old business. Is there anybody who would like to discuss old business? Seeing none, like to close business. Okay. Voice vote, please. I I. Any opposed? Okay. New business. Need a motion for new business. I move to discuss new business. Okay. Second. Mr. Seconds. Mr. Drew, you got your hand up first. I've got two items I'd like to discuss. Uh item number one uh has to do with recognition of uh staff and students. Uh I was very pleased to hear you recognize our outstanding teachers who won

109teacher of the year in their uh buildings. I think we need to do something like that for students who have some kind of uh notable uh performance and we really need to be quite liberal with that. Um that when students have done something it is very meaningful to the student and the family when a letter goes home saying thanks for doing it. At a minimum, I think coming in first place of the New Jersey ban competition warrants a letter. Uh, but there's so many other things that do. I'm not making a motion. I'm just noting that we really ought to be doing this and it ought to be on nice paper and it ought to come from the principal of the the high school or whatever. The principles do send letters. I'm CCed on them

110and many times I will follow up as well and I believe Mr. Novak does too. Um, you know, again, I go back to my past district. We ran a Renaissance program where at least twice a year those students were highlighted at special programs within their schools. Uh, because it was ideal. It would be great if we could bring them all here, but there's just too many. Fortunately, there's too many. Uh, so we do have that, as you know, from uh, last year in May where we recognize a lot of those things that go on. But there are some things that do slip through the cracks and we're trying to be a little bit more diligent in uh identifying some of those students. Um what happens also is I didn't mention there's a couple of things

111that I was going to do tonight, but I wanted to leave it for uh for Matthew for next year to bring in the information from the high school. Uh so but I do agree, you know, you you can't do enough celebration of positive things. So I'm on I'm on board with that. Well, I just tell you as a parent when you get these build a file and a phone call home sometimes is very helpful too. Yes. So, you know, when when a principal calls the house and it's, you know, to celebrate something good, parents are caught by surprise and that goes a long way. So, uh, the second item, I sent an email around from the Pacific County Legislative Committee, uh, requesting the board to, uh, take a position regarding whether or not Pay County

112should bond $60 million to expand PY County Technical Institute uh, by 50% and I of course am not going to take a position on behalf of the board without asking the board. I just request that you look at the email. Maybe we should discuss it next week. I need to give them an answer by February 1st that we're either going to support that or we're not going to support that. Some of I didn't, you know, some of the issues are it's more tax when we send kids to PCTI. Um, we have to pay tuition. Uh, so there was some discussion that it's effectively double tax. How many kids did we send a PCTI? Do we have We're sending like 50 probably around 54. 54. 54. And that they're taking more than ever. I mean, I

113I could remember Yeah. I could remember when you had to beg to get students in there, but they've grown so much uh that they are recruiting. Uh, one of the things Mr. who I brought up before, as you know, we talked about those kids going to PCTI, they have an outstanding facility. So, for a student who uh and I ran into this in the past, for a student who wants to become a chef, they can actually go there. They're working on all commercial equipment and they get certification once they graduate. We can't do that in a public school. I tried to do that in the past and they said, "Well, yeah, we we would even come in and do it for you." PCTI volunteered to come in and do it. However, it would probably cost

114us about $2 million to redo the kitchen in order for us to have the facilities. And now, uh, just, you know, I'm there at least twice a month. Uh, and what I see is that they just put in a whole new, uh, building for auto mechanics and bodywork, uh, which is just a phenomenal facility. And I was, uh, also pointed in the direction of a hill opposite that building where they told me that they're going to be busting into that hill, that mountain. And that's where the new STEM school is going to go. Uh I believe I think what they're trying to do is compete or be on equal level with the uh tech schools in in in Bergen Bergen County where they take the cream of the crop of you know everybody from the

115schools and they it was supreme. The first thing that they did when they opened was every student built their own laptop computer and it's it's a tough thing to to battle that it really is. Uh there is a lot of money there. We all know that the facility is probably better than some community colleges in the state. So, and maybe even some regular college campuses. I mean, when when you get out of a car and I'm going to a meeting and I know I have to go back in that conference area where I just spoke about the auto uh building being and they have security guards waiting to drive you to that building. That says something. It's like, you know, parking car here, somebody ushers you to a parking space. you get out of your

116car and they're waiting for you with a little van and they drive four or five people at a time up. So, it's it's difficult and you know I could understand the frustration. I think we all sort of hate the idea of either spending more money or taking kids out of our district. But on the other hand, uh, schools like this, well, you know, there's so many good schools, but Bronx School signs in particular is a public school that is just one of the most outstanding schools in the entire United States. The individual schools in those districts would say, "Oh, you're taking kids away from us." But at the end of the day, they're getting absolutely a first class worldclass education. It's worth it to everybody in the United States. It's it's effective education even though

117it's expensive. What I can tell from so they're asking us to take a position against it, but to be perfectly honest, I personally and and you might be surprised to hear this that that I think when we spend money and we get better education for it, it's money well spent. And and so even if they're not our kids in West Milford, they're our kids in New Jersey. and some of these kids are going on to bigger and better things that they couldn't get purely by going through our system. So, I'm supportive of this kind of thing. Have Have Steve, when you were at this meeting, did and you said $60 million bond um did they give a breakdown as to what each community? Of course not. Okay. that before before I mean you should maybe

118send an email to the guy and ask him for a breakdown before any board can get behind it. I mean me personally I'd like to know some numbers Schultz. I know in the past um it's been our goal to try to increase our student enrollment because our student enrollment has gone down by enticing families that move in here with the CD that was made for realtors about the West Milford Community Schools. um increasing our AP classes and just trying to offer the best education that we can, which we do do a good job of doing, but there's always room for improvement. And that's the problem where um the efforts that we make to try to keep the students here and the enrollment here, especially, you know, at the high school level, um it's hard to

119compete with Pay County. It is it is a problem and the the comprehensive high school as we know it no longer exists because a lot of the programs that train teachers to teach those types of courses in high schools no longer exist and those teachers who work say county technical institute have a certificate but not a teaching certificate. They're professionals in their field. They're allowed to teach there. It's a whole different set of rules. So it's just uh it's set up differently. Uh it's I'm not going to say it's a bad program. It's an excellent program. But it does take away from us. And with us not being able to combat it by running any of those programs in your own comprehensive high school, it's almost a losing battle. So, it's frustrating. Just one quick

120thing. Is it is it a board? Is it as a whole? The board will have to make a decision. So, I guess it ought to be, you know, I should submit it to you to put it on. I have your email and I brought a copy of it with me. Uh what I what we'll do is we'll put it on the agenda. Okay. So that you'll be able to review it and then you can vote on it. I'll try to get a couch for West Milford. You sent the email to everybody though, correct? Okay. That was the last one I didn't open yet. But I see is this something that um Chafari who is the um president of the P County New Jersey school boards association wants to show support. Um he would like every

121district in Pose County to oppose this measure and present that to the freeholders to say that educators in Pay County don't want this. That's it. That sounds more political to me than anything else. Well, the uh to be perfectly honest, the legislative committee the the you know purpose of the legislative committee is to uh uh lobby on behalf of the interest of the schools and school districts to freeholders and legislators for things that benefit our school district. So, uh and by getting together, we have a little more bargaining power with legislators. They they're interested in what the school districts think. So I'm asking you and if we don't want to do that, we say we don't want to do that. Mr. Drew, what would be the amount of students that they would be able to

122increase enrollment at PCT? I don't know the number. I just have the 50% number. So it's whatever it is, they're going to have 50% more. I don't know how many more weeks. You're saying 1,200 according to 1200 students. Yeah. 1,200 more students email. So that would be divided up amongst the prorated by but they could also take from outside counties. They can't they can but we'd be paying $60 million bond. The the only other game out there uh for a similar uh type school is Mars County Tech which is also a good program. Um, other than that, I mean, there's really not too much, you know, or private schools. Oh, yeah. Private. Can I also mention one thing, Mr. De? I was just going to say it sounds like we're supporting them to build their

123school up so they can take students away from surrounding schools and we're going to pay for it. So, I I would have to think about whether I want to support it or not. Upstain is probably the best thing is to stay out of it. Stay out of it. Well, it's also noted in this that um it must be noted and disclosed that such an expansion would take additional funds from the school districts, our school districts, and reduce the educational programs of our district either through the reduction of staff and or programs while enhancing the programs at PCTI. I think it behaves a bit. Yeah. Yes, it does. Then we'd be penning off our nose to spite our face. So, I would not be in support of that. Nope. Mrs. Ober, I'm the keeper of the

124clock. Obviously, it is now 9:33. Um, can we extend it for another 10 minutes? Yeah, we'll give another 10 minutes. Another 10 minutes. Do I have a voice vote on that? Roll call. You need a second. Motion. Like the second to extend our meeting until 9:40. Okay. Second. I seconded. Okay. For another for about 10 minutes. Okay. I have a motion. Um I understand from Barbara that our training for I I presume it did board members as well as you this for discussion. We need to first extend it the Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. We already voted. No, we didn't. We didn't. We should do a voice vote on the on the motion to extend. So we're all Yes. Any opposed? No. Okay. Mr. humor. It's okay that uh I understand from Barbara that uh

125our training uh that's allowable for board members and I presume teachers and others are associated b association based like the school board association presumably teachers association. I'd like to make a motion that we expand that to other reputable organizations like bar association for example. This is a course on special education law done by the national business business institute. It lists for school administrators, teachers, board members, uh all kinds of people that it's designed for. And this is a reputable company that does um courses for lawyers and uh various other uh professions. You know, I we went to this governance uh conference at June in J beginning of January and um New Jersey school boards presented us with many many training opportunities. Um I really don't think we need to go outside. I I I know

126NJA will work with school boards. Um NEA will work with school boards. I really don't see the need to go outside of what we already have and we'll pay full freight. At least with New Jersey school boards, we get our discount. You really need a second in order to discuss it. Put a motion on the floor. Second. I thought we I'm sorry. I thought we had one. Okay. I'm thinking of the uh the only thing I can kind of think of there is that if you have something that is particularly useful to the district, you can always submit it for discussion and we can decide whether to reimburse or not just like we do every other expense. If you've got something useful, is this something that you would like to Dr. McQuade to do special?

127I I was I was thinking that some of our administration special education might be benefit by this particular course, but I know there's going to be more that come up u because I've seen this particular organization before and I know the bar association does it and there's other I'm certain there's other organizations that do it and there's a direct correlation between training and performance and uh these organizations sometimes offer things uh on different topics that might be available otherwise. Hello. Yes. I think with the dues that we paid in New Jersey school boards, um there's an abundance of opportunities there, but when it comes to our special education, we have a director of special special education that I know and I've seen through travel expenses that she and others in her field do go to

128those training. And I I we also have um counsel that we depend on. So, I don't see the need in any of school board members um paying for courses like that. I I I I think the point Jamie I think that the point that one's trying to make is that it's not for I certainly don't have the time to do this. I don't know about you, Marilyn, everybody else. Um, I wish I had the time because I I would always like to, you know, further educate myself on things that we have to deal with on a on a daily basis. But, you know, if it's something that might benefit Dr. McUade or director of ed or Barber or whoever him bringing it forward and allowing them to see it. I think there might be something

129in there that's not covered the New Jersey school boards and I I think it would I would rather leave it up to our professionals to make that decision because she might read that thing and say, "Wow, I'd like to know about that." Um, we don't need a resolution for that though. What's that? We don't need a resolution for that. Absolutely. You you can pass I mean if I'm not talking out of turn but but you can pass anything that you think might be useful for the district which we can review. I will review it along with Mr. Novak and share with the supervisors of the departments the principles and if it's something that we see is you know not offered somewhere else that we think is important then we can explore the possibility of doing

130it. I mean we've certainly gone outside the box uh multiple times looking at different organizations if they're offering something that's you know unique. Well, I just I had understood that the um uh the training opportunities were auto, you know, they could be booked through the the board office as long as they were at one of like the associations and they those didn't need to be dealt with as formally and I just was looking to open up the training opportunities from for who? from a special services perspective, our our department because obviously we're we supervise people in all different capacities from nurses to therapists to, you know, special education teachers. Often times our staff members are presenting material to us that is quote out of the box or not typically may not be from an organization

131that we previously have used such as PSA or another special education organization. and we have reviewed those and we have sent people to different, you know, other vendors and other places depending on their specialty area. I think it doesn't hurt to ever review it and consider it. I always look at that information. People bring it to me. Um, as far as special education law goes, PSA and there's many other organizations do offer special education attorneys from within New Jersey that offer service like in inservice opportunities that are relative to my area. That was more just that was more of just an example. Yeah, but we definitely I think do review that information. I don't know if that's a a board something we need the board I don't think I mean if it's something I'll draw

132the motion. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you could we need to get to pass it on the bottom line. Mr. Mr. Yes. Um, under new business, I I I would like to the board to discuss us doing our having our education committee meeting done at our workshop. Um, I would like the public to see what we're talking about in in with regards to education in the district. Um, I want this to be a board discussion. I would like to free up. We're all here for education and and I think that the entire board needs to be involved in the discussion on education. I mean that's that's what we we're all here for. Um is our I mean with me it's it's about education. I'm sure it is with everybody here. Their number one reason for being

133on the board. Um, but I would like the board to discuss and decide whether or not we have whether we try it. We we do it and if it doesn't work for a couple of meetings fine then we can go back to a a committee style. But I would like to try that. And I would also like to in place of um you know we having a budget and finance and a personnel committee meeting if we do the education at a workshop I would then like to add policy committee meetings every month in lie of that budget and finance at night because there's a lot of stuff in the policy that we need to review and go over and and it's not something that I think that can be done in a once and twice

134meeting during the course of the year. We're supposed to by law review our student co you know code of conduct HI and there's a myriad of things in in reading um our policy manual that we're we need to start doing. Um, and the foremost was um, and this goes into my the buildings and grounds discussion and I I think that we probably will leave that in the budget and finance committee, but under our policy 7100 long range facility planning, we're supposed to have an annual review of all facilities and that the board is supposed to be made aware of that through our policy. I don't remember I don't remember ever having that happen. Um but I'd like it that the the board is kept up to date on on our facilities if things are to

135find out if things are substandard or or it's going to help Barbber too in budgeting that we know if things are you know out of whack at any particular building. But um I would like this discussion now to move forward on the on the education committee being discussed uh at our workshop instead of as a committee meeting a first Tuesday of the month. Jamie, Mrs. O'Brien. All right. I I got the first part that you want to do the just bring it as a committee committee by the whole for the education. I don't I don't get this. So we're not you don't want budget and finance every month. You want something else in no um I want budget and finance is going to be every month. I had talked about you weren't here at our

136first meeting. No, I had talked um Debbie about doing a facilities and grounds committee and there was discussion on that. Okay. And we thought we we left it at that. We slight discussion. We didn't we didn't go any further. Okay. Um and I think that that will stay in the budget and finance, but will have things in policy that were supposed to be being done. Just make sure that they're being done. But I want to have a little bit more board focus on our policy. Um, and I would I think we got we can get a a wellness check on our policy manual at no cost from New Jersey school board. Okay. And you know, every little bit that we can save that that helps us is in the long run, if we can put

137it towards education, I I would rather see it that way. And New Jersey school boards, they're up to date on all the latest policies and and legislative issues. And so I think that we could utilize that. But the education workshop is I want to really see education committee be discussed at workshop. Okay. Okay. My my concern with that is those meetings run anywhere from an hour and a half to 2 and 1/2 hours. It's already a quarter to 10. Um if we incorporate the education piece here, be prepared to be here till like 1:00 in the morning. Um it's it's difficult because what happens is when we do have people come in to discuss anything that they want to do new, there's usually a presentation involved in that as well, which can be anywhere from

13815 minutes to 45 minutes. And then after the presentation, you sit down and look the the write up of the curriculum and discuss it. My only concern is I think that timewise it's going to be limited or again we're going to go so far the other way that we're going to be here to the we hours of the morning. Also, it might stifle um you know, you're sitting in a very comfortable environment where teachers come in, administrators come in, and they present to the board on the committee, and they're very comfortable doing that. Um I think when you put somebody on the spot where they're trying to sell to an entire board of education and public and a TV camera, it's going to change the dynamics of what we're trying to do. That's my concern.

139Mr. Mr. Bever, I agree with the idea of trying the committee by whole. It uh gives a little more transparency to the whole education committee for the public. Um I understand your concerns with you know timewise and uh um may maybe the dynamics might be changed a little bit because it isn't public but um I'm all for at least attempting to try it and see how it works out just as you brought up. Let's attempt it and see how this works out in public possible middle ground solution. I I think Mr. Rashika's points are very uh well made. Uh what if you were to do something where you opened up uh a meeting to the public quarterly and that you could still have the the private meetings take care of you know business with teachers

140so they're um uh they don't feel like they you know they feel more open and uh but you could still uh you know update the public periodically more frequently than we do now. Hello. I wasn't. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Marilyn. We're going to get you a whistle. Something. Um the purpose of the committee meetings are to give the committee members an idea of what's going on in any committee and then the committee then brings for the majority of the committee would vote on something and then would bring that to the full board for discussion which is what we do now. And there are presentations that do take place. building principles come in and talk about things that they're doing. Um, successful things that they're doing to try to promote character education, they're brought in as

141well. You might not see every minute detail sitting as a board member um or even as the public, but the information is usually put into this agenda the following week. In addition, you have already asked or the board has asked the director of education to give a report. So that's another option of filling in the board of what's been going on. I just feel as Mr. Rashika mentioned those education committee meetings run about two hours 2 and a half hours and the purpose of putting them during the day was because our super Tuesdays ran till you know after 11:00 with all our committee meetings backtoback on that night. During the day, um, committee members also have an opportunity to meet with some of the faculty and staff that may want to present something. And, um,

142some staff members have already come up to me and said that they might not be very comfortable presenting in front of the entire board. They didn't say they wouldn't do it, but it just, you know, made them feel a little uncomfortable. But the fact is, um, we're supposed to try to facilitate these board meetings, and I think we're just going to be sitting here. Um, we I think we would have to add another meeting during the month. Real quick, James, one one second. Um, part of why I want to do this, it it makes it a little bit more transparent to the community. They know what we're doing. and and I understand the the time issues. The meeting we had last week ran an hour and a half and there were 15 things that we

143talked about that weren't on the agenda and it extended that. If we hold to what is on the agenda and not go off on all the other things, I mean, within reason anyway, I I don't see the harm in in trying this. I mean, you you am I am I correct, Terry, that Well, we did go off on on tangents and but it was an open discussion and I'm not sure we could have those kind of discussions as as a committee of a whole, I thought maybe we could, but after listening to what Dan said and after listening to what I proposed and what Mr. Drew proposed and said, I mean, um, we came to a meeting of the minds and I presented my report. And I think if you have your chairperson present the

144report along with Dan, as Dan did, um, I I think the public does get a good picture of what's going on. I think after sitting there for 2 and 1/2 hours and looking at the time now and imagining sitting here to 12:30, I don't think that's healthy. Well, you know, you got to also remember that we spent 45 minutes with our auditor tonight. So, you know, we'd be sitting here at this time regardless coming up to, you know, going into our our next executive session. So, um that's my my my opinion anyway. But, you know, Jamie wanted to say something real quick before you can go first. That's okay. Well, I just wanted to say that I think that uh basically we're trying to make changes to communicate and be more transparent. Um I have

145to chuckle a little bit about the comment about the uncomfortableness that the presenters might have with the uh board members and a few staff here. I hope they're comfortable in the classroom of 25 people. I think it's the audience and the cameras and cameras. Understood. I'm just joking. I just have a problem with the word transparency. I think we as a board when it comes to education are very transparent. I think Mr. Rashika would agree. We put on presentations I don't know how many times throughout the year uh with the curriculum that's being developed and the textbooks that we approve it's it's happening. It it takes place and it's shared here already. Uh I would be more in favor and again you know this is the board's decision but what Mr. Yuba suggested. I mean,

146if you want to do something like that quarterly where you take those few things that may really be, you know, come September, we're we're getting together and this is what's happening. I think that might be a a good uh place to meet. I think that might be the way to do it. Um, but I would agree I would agree with that. It's a great idea that that came out tonight with the quarterly meetings. It would meet both and and when I say transparency, obviously there's that the report that Terry gave was excellent. The report that Yan gave was excellent and outstanding. We we do have a lot of knowledge. It's just more trans. It's just a little more in-depth discussion that the public sees. That's all I I think was trying to be pushed along

147here in the quarterly meetings probably would if you wanted to start off with something like that. The quarterly meetings that sounds pretty good to me. It sounds like we're getting to where we want to get to as far as communicating. Mrs. Brian, I know with the, you know, um, we have our principles come in, we have our, uh, supervisors come in, but I do agree. I think the quarterly meetings would be worth a shot. I think that would be the, um, way of not for not doing an overkill, you know. I mean, we do have Mr. Novak and we have our committee and you you know being the chair you bring you bring forth the information but I would it's nice to have it presented in different ways if it's presented the same way every

148month it kind of goes on deaf ears if you present it in a different way on a quarterly basis I think that would generate some interest do I have a motion then I have another comment sorry you got to throw that bottle Mary I'm going to have to I'm sorry um buzzard I I would just like a little clarification because um the superintendent gives his report. The director of education gives his report. Uh Mrs. Dwire gave a report on education. It's not the same report as Mr. Noach's in my opinion. I think they're two separate things that we're talking about here. And um I think it's nice to have that additional information. And if we're going to do that then where we do committees and reports liaison in the back that that's the place that

149that fits um to do that report and are we going to be doing that with budget and finance and personnel as well? I had sent an email out asking them to give a a small report to the board to better inform them of what's on the agenda, if there was anything, you know, that we have to explain it a little bit. We really didn't have to. There wasn't much on the agenda tonight, but I did ask them to cuz I was always under the impression as a board member if you missed a meeting or if you had any questions that it was your responsibility or a responsible board member would actually contact either somebody on the committee or that chairperson in addition to receiving these minutes. The the idea the idea behind what I was

150trying to do, Marilyn, was we had many education committee meetings and personnel committee meetings and one in particular that stands out. I wanted to know about a world language program. And when I had asked you, you didn't have much of an answer. Debbie explained a little bit, right? And Mr. Drew gave me a whole bunch of stuff that I could then I then read. The minutes that we get regarding what goes on in our committee meetings, I don't think are adequate enough to really explain to the other members of the board who aren't on that committee of what transpired and and what went on. And that is the whole idea. I understand. But there's also protocol where in the past we've been told or asked if you have a question, don't open up the agenda

151the night of the meeting and then play, oh, by the way, I need this information. Call the person, ask the person so that they're prepared to have that information with them. I didn't have my bag that day with that packet of information and I think Mrs. O'Brien may have had it. No, Mr. Drew did. Well, whatever. I'm just saying if there's a a question and it's asked prior, all that information can be brought to the next meeting or a meeting at another time that's set up between two people. Here you go. Here's the information. That's just part of the protocol. Mr. Huber, am I wrong in in saying that basically what you're trying to do is you're trying to provide a little bit more communication engagement to parents and to the board. Yeah, exactly. Mrs.

152O'Brien, I'll be honest with you. The reason why I didn't do a presentation is number one, I didn't have much on the agenda, but number two, um I think there's in my opinion, I think with personnel, there's a little bit more confidentiality I have to be concerned about and I really didn't have a chance to to to make sure we need to keep Well, right. But I want to make sure that I as a as a chairperson, I understand what is really confidential, not I mean, it says across the paper confidential. Does it mean everything's confidential? Does it mean everything's not? Can I just give a very general overview? Can I go into more detail? So, this is something where I'd like to work with the appropriate people on the board to make sure that

153number one, I am presenting it to the community to, you know, hear and through the television um to my fellow board members, but yet not overstep my bounds in any way, shape or form. Understood. Okay. Do we have a motion? Yeah, we no motion was made. So we So I would think that what needs to happen and you should have advised him of this is he needs to make a motion needs to be second and if you want to make it once a month you need to amend the motion and that needs to be second I I wanted this for discussion purposes. Um, the, you know, I'm I'm not going to make a motion to do something that I see a majority of the board going leaning towards those quarterly reports and hearing Mr. Rashika

154say that that might be a good thing as well. Um, um, I I think that maybe the education committee should discuss it and then come back to the board with their proposal. Yes, maybe. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Y do that as well. Yeah. Unless somebody want no motions then. No motions. Okay. Can I have a a motion? And if there's nothing else to discuss, can I have a motion to close uh new business? Second. Thank you, Jamie. Um petitions and Oh, voice vote. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Petitions and request. Petitioners who have requests to speak prior to the meeting will be first with five minutes for each petit petitioner for a period of 30 minutes and then time permitting other petitions and requests limited to five minutes per petitioner

155will be allowed until the 30 minute period transpires. All speakers are asked to give their full name, spell or last name and provide their address. Speakers may not use the names of students during petitions and requests. Is there any screen? Lisa Green Huitt for Green Lake. Um, I just wanted to say as a newly appointed committee member to the Kaza committee. I personally want to thank you guys for coming. It was very informative. I think we can all agree on that. It was kind of fun actually and I look forward to working with whoever the liaison is going to be. I think we have some work to do. I think we can all agree upon that. We have a drug issue that we must address and um I think it's going to be exciting. We

156got a nice group of people. So, I just wanted to thank everybody that came out to the demo. Thank you. I I real quick I wanted to um we're meant to do that new business. I wanted to put uh Glenn as our liaison to the Casa committee so he can come back and report. The next meeting is February 8th. Um, I'll they're going to uh I spoke to uh Adah Eric and she's going to email me the information and I'll forward that on to you, Glenn. But can anybody go to those meetings? Anybody can go. But just curious. I'm going to make him the liazison. Um well, it's petitions are so I'll wait. Any anybody else um want to speak? Mr. Sidowitz. Will Sidowitz 694 lakes drive Hewitt. Uh just thinking in the audience um

157I know that there is a board member attendance requirement. I was just curious. communion. There is a board member require uh attendance requirement. I was just curious as to what that was and if anybody remembers it off the top of their head. I can't remember it. Uh to be present at x amount of meetings and if you're not present they may they if they miss more than three meetings in a row without an adequate reason. Okay. Okay. And the determination is made by the county superintendent of schools. Thank you very much. Thanks. The three meetings have to be in the road. It's three consecutive three consecutive meetings, but it's it's up in the air whether it's three consecutive regular meetings or three consecutive meetings and whether a workshop meeting actually counts. That's a regular meeting,

158isn't it? No, workshops are regular. I mean, it's not a regular, but it's a regular meeting. That's a determination for the county superintendent. Yep. Okay. Anybody else like to speak? Seeing none, I'd like to move to close petitions and requests. I'll second it. Thank you. It is now. Yep. You're right. Voice vote. I Any opposed? Thank you. Um our executive session resolution. Um, Glenn, would you like to read that, please? And it is what? 10:02. 10 of 10. No, 10:02. 10:01 p.m. So, I'll make a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing personnel negotiations and matters of attorney claim. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? [Music] Yeah, I think I thought it was December. Well, I thought you think it is. Yeah. Didn't you get it in the mail? Didn't

159you get it in your pocket? Almost did it without Well, they did it 100 years ago. You could do it one more time. I mean, we had the put captions underneath the phone. We're okay. All right. We have an a resolution to come out of executive session. I'll move to come out of executive session. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposition to adjourn? 11:02. Second. 11:02. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second voice vote. I favor. Any opposed? Good to go. Meeting adjourned. Everybody good night. It was very nice to meet you. of course, January 26, 2016. Um, the board reserves the right to act on any and all agenda items. Additions and amendments are identified by parentheses on the agenda. Please silence or turn off your cell phones. I would um like to take a moment

160of silence for Sash Sasha Lynn Rosa and her son Messiah who passed on Saturday evening um when they were trying to stay warm while their uh boyfriend slash husband was digging their car out. The exhaust pipe wasn't cleared and the young boy one-year-old one one year old and the mother passed away and their daughter I believe it's Sia uh she's still in critical condition and I'd like to take a moment of silence for them. Can we stand for this flag salute, please? I pledge algiance 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 of this meeting has been sent to board members,

161all district schools, the Herald News, The Trends, The Record, AI West, Milford, The Messenger, West Milford Town Hall, County Superintendent's Office, the Board attorney, and Cable Vision of Warwick, and posted in the administration building. Copies of the board meeting calendar resolution were provided to all local media, town hall, township, library, and all district schools. Roll call, please. Mrs. Francisco, Mr. Bailey, Mr. De here. Mr. Drew, here. Mrs. Dwire here. Mr. Foody present. Mr. Yuber here. Mrs. O'Brien here. Mr. Robbins here. Mrs. Schultz here. Have a quum. Our executive s session resol.