001Okay, I would like to call this meeting to order. This is a budget public hearing and regular session of the Bin Township Board of Education held for the purpose of transacting appropriate board business in compliance with chapter 2315. Notice of this meeting was advertised in the Mars County J record. Copies of the agenda of this meeting were appropriately posted and made available to the public. Mrs. Barta here. Mr. Brander here. Mrs. Cabana, Mr. Chen here. Mrs. Hermy here. Mr. Johnson here. Mrs. McBride here. Mr. Mill here and Mrs. Nik also present uh Mr. Fertini, superintendent principal. We have a form. Thank you. Please stand for the pledge of [Applause] allegiance. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God,
002indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. First on our agenda is the 2025 2026 proposed budget presentation and Mr. Murray, our business administrative board secretary will be giving that presentation. Thank you very much. So you know a lot of the slides you've seen before I put a couple new ones in but as we'll go through them and then they'll be posted on the website tomorrow. So, can I just make it Can we have the microphone? So, can you hear me? I can kind of hear you, but it's going to be recorded. The fan is running and nobody on recording will be able to hear. Can you hear me? That's so much better. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Have you breathe? Uh, so the budget timelines, you know, we start back in September as soon as the
003uh the teachers are back. And as you can see that from the governor's uh budget message all the way through the approval of the county superintendent which we received on the 21st. We're now at the public hearing which is the last opportunity to for the board to approve the budget and will go into effect. Uh November 4th uh is the election. There are three board seats up and packets uh are due by uh by July. So when we put a budget together, we're always looking at the district goals and we're looking at the budgetary goals. are always on the agenda and every thought that goes into putting a budget together is always what how how these students are going to benefit. So these are the district goals. I won't read through those. Um as I
004said it will be posted uh tomorrow on the website. So considerations in the budget development process, enrollment, staffing projections, uh we have very limited here uh re um revenue sources in Bon Township tax levy which is the majority of our revenue source, state aid, tuition which for our prek program and the balances from budgeted fund balance the difference. So the expenses you can see a larger portion of the the budget is really salaries and benefits, Mount Lakes tuition, out of district tuition and so forth all the way down. The smaller portion really are those other items at the bottom, administrative insurance, facility costs, etc. So budget assumptions, we know that uh we have an increase in RVS enrollment. We're starting to see that bubble move through. So the next few years we'll start to see
005some growth. Um, as of this week, we have 47 enrolled in kindergarten, which at this point was sort of unheard of. So, you know, we project each year that over the summer, we probably receive four or five, maybe six. So, we're in pretty good shape. So, those bubbles as they start moving through, you'll be back up to three sections again, you know, in the future. So, again, Mountain Lakes tuition, we're going to be sending 190 students there. That's one of the smaller classes. And then the classes behind are actually larger. and uh we'll start to see an increase as we have a 5-year agreement with Mountain Lakes. State aid, we know that we got an additional 57,000. We know that new money from the uh the township in the way of tax levy is about
006297,000. So all of our expenses have can get absorbed will get absorbed in you know whatever additional revenues we have. So, just to show you some of the cost containment measures over the years, we try to take advantage of every co-op purchase that we can either through the educational service commissions. We do co-ops for telecommunications, electric and gas with the state. Uh there's a state bid that many many districts are involved in. And then you can see all the shared services we do with other districts within township, um West Milford for our bus repairs and so forth, purchase of gas and fuel for the buses. So enrollment currently we're as of uh April 30th as I said 47 um projected for the kindergarten we have 393 students currently projecting 412. So that that number I
007know is going to climb as that kindergarten class um will grow over the summer. So I'm not sure why this slide happened but you can see just the history of um our enrollment. You can see there was a little bit higher tipped down starting to come back up. So you'll see that in the next couple of years with the Mountain Lakes tuition um students that will uh definitely increase staffing projections are the same for the current year 79.3 in the FTES and projecting in 25.6 the same amount and as you see on the bottom includes all those other specialists as well. So, some of the items that are in the budget, student Chromebook replacements, grades three to five, teacher MacBooks, and so forth that we budget for, textbooks, digital series, and the partial roof replacement,
008as we'll get into a little bit later. So, estimate for the new roof, which is the section from the fish tank all the way down to the parking lot. We've done some of the others. We still have about uh remaining 19,000 square ft 14 uh 19400 square ft and uh obviously to get those done probably for future referendum plan. Uh we were hoping to have this section done in the last referendum but uh now we're into the planning stage again moving forward and and money will be withdrawn from capital reserve to take care of the roof. So there would be no impact as far as tax goes. Currently, if you look at the tax levy at a glance, uh, as I said before, the $297,000 change, that's the 2% cap. What I show on the
009bottom is each district, they may have available to them some spending growth limitation adjustments that for healthcare and things like bank cap you can use. We've chosen over the last few years not to use those. Um, you know, we have those in our arsenal, but we don't use those. So, we could have gone up to uh 2.58%. We chose not to. If you look at the next slide, you'll see over the last few years, we stayed at the 2% even though each one of those years we had the ability to go up. Now, you probably seen in the news that uh some of the districts in South Jersey had lost a lot of state aid. The uh the state said, "Well, you can go above well well above the 2% even as much as 5%."
010So you lost state aid, but now the burden is on the local taxpayer. But in keeping that in mind, we stay at the uh 2%. State aid history, you can see over the years it's uh was a decline and it climbed up and we're still climbing. So which is a good thing. We were held harmless for a number of years and thankfully we received a little little bit of additional aid. And again, this is a new slide, but you can see that, you know, in in a in a pie chart, the the largest portion of our revenues is really tax levy. It's about 86%. And uh tuitions and some of the other things are very small. State aid is about 5.7%. On the expenditure side, the majority of the the expenditures going out the door
011are tuition, all the regular instruction, which is really classroom instruction, employee benefits, and then the special education, which includes the AB district. um tuition as well. So really just the revenue chart you can see that uh budget is going up 3.97% but keep in mind that also includes the withdrawal from the capital reserve and on the expense side uh again the 397% and we have that withdrawal from capital reserve. So again, just a 5-year modest increases over the years. The ones that have the asterisk were uh including withdrawals from Capital Reserve, which indicates a little bit of a not again you hear a lot about administrative expenses. The administrative limits the state has put on administrative limit for a regional limit which is 2875 per pupil. You also have to gauge that against the Bin
012Township current year's adjustment limit. And next year, our spending in the red, you'll see, is about $443 below the regional limit. And then um $446 below the administrative cost per year. So, we're in pretty good shape administratively that way. But each year as enrollment changes, as as expenses increase in administrative error, such things as telecommunications, insuranceances, which are all in there, um you kind of bump up against that administrative limit each year. So what does that really mean? The average home um was a slight increase from 2024 to 2025 on the average home. The estimated tax um on the average home is $192. So we won't get into the calculation of but if you look at your tax bill you can see just basically a comparison from year to year. So that's pretty much it.
013You've seen that before. If you have any questions I'd be glad to answer any. John real quick slide 18. Slide 18. Yeah. I get the 4.47 47 includes the capital without it 2% or so is that capital I didn't do the without the capital reserve it's it's it's probably the little over 2% so you see it's comparable is what I was thinking okay thanks just so I know so you mentioned there's kind of a bubble coming is there any when we have an increase is there any way or revenue to do with that certificate do you you may to answer your question you may do if it's an enrollment in here it's just another seat in a you know in a classroom it's a little different when the bubble starts going up for the high
014school obviously every payment that goes out there's a there's a cost associated with it so our class sizes uh go back to that slide you know the class size you can see where bubble is down there down the go two sections in the in the uh fourth grade my um there's no additional revenue source for us but you know again it's another seat in the classroom we have additional uh we have the digital series for textbooks so there's no cost in there it's just basically supplies and things so really is when you when you start to have larger enrollment again staffing is where the the bigger piece comes from if you need additional staffing. So again, working with Mr. Fatini, you know, we'll see in the future what those staffing needs are. Uh, you know,
015that what might affect class size and so forth. Do you think it's just increased population? Well, the New York are we had a demographic study updated a couple of years ago and um for quite a you know, they look at birth rates, they look at housing starts, which there aren't that many in the town, permit, and permitting and so forth. uh I thought they were a little high in the uh a couple years ago I was looking at and they've been pretty much on target. So that bubble was again to answer your question projected. So um you know again this this time last year we probably had we were sweating it out a little bit. We probably had 40 or less than 40 at this point in the game and a lot came in over
016the summer. Uh I think we had a class of so class of 40. So 47 at this point knowing that people move in, people wait till the end of August to register their child. But I think financially we'll be in pretty good shape. Sizewise we'll be pretty good shape staffing. We currently have two or three kindergarten sections. Currently we have three. We're maintaining. So we're already there. We're already there. It has it all. And you can see the 40, you know, the 43. So again, that number will change. So you can still accommodate three and you also have space constraints as you're looking for classroom space if you had to go to larger section and in the lower the lower the higher grades up there obviously you'll be changing the classes you need three sections
017but again I administration we'll go through all those staff you need in the future [Music] I appreciate the um the graphics uh the expenditures The charts are helpful and the explanation of the inventory cost. I'm a very visual learner. I like to see you see it right there because you you can look at the numbers, get lost in the numbers, get lost in percentages. When you see a pie chart, yeah, you can see that wow, there's a lot of money going out in certain areas and there's a lot of money coming in in certain areas. That's it. Thank you. heartbeat or at this point the public hearing will be limited to discussion of the 2025 2026 budget only. Please state your name and address for the record and all comments will only five minutes. Will
018anyone from the vote push for you to address the board on the um the budget that Yes, Mary Leo 24 drive. Um so just a couple questions. I see there'll be 57,000 more in state aid plus we're gaining 45,000 less for paying that. So that's 100,000. So So we're still going up 2% even with us gaining that 100,000. Correct. Yes. And uh I see the number 412 up there. Does that include the prek number of 21? 412 on the bottom. 412 is all the way down. So you have prek. Yeah. So it includes the prek. It does. And some of those are tuition students. Yeah, I understand that. What's What's MD stand for? Disabled. The special education, right? Okay. So So really we're talking about right here. No, no, you're okay. You're okay. Honestly, 290
019we have about 291 not including the prep which 39 39 I mean I'm sorry 390. And so then my other thing when I look at that and I see two sections for 50 children in third grade three sections for 28 and sixth grade. Are we addressing that at all? Yes. So for for example we can look at this one next year. looking to make this into two sections and restructuring. Wait, I'm sorry. I can't hear you. Nobody's sick, right? So, for this for this, these are uh unusually small classes. Yeah. And we're looking to combine those into two sections and restructure our support system. our all our support classes and take that one faculty member and move them to help with our RTI and support specifically or more attention with math as you probably yeah
020I'm not looking at briefing anyone it just seems like like you know said nine children in the class is very small but I didn't see where it said it was going down to two so that's how come I didn't realize that yeah we're currently we're currently working on the schedule one of the reasons why it's six sessions three sessions is because of the way that they switch. Yeah. The team teaching. Yeah. The schedule and that's what we walked into. But based on how we feel and know that kids interact and how their social skills are the the benefit of a small class also comes at a cost and that sometimes happens in a private school for example. If you have any social dynamics that are troublesome then it's hard for the kids to make connections
021out elsewhere. So we we feel and we know that those kids that are having a little bit larger class would still be under the average public school classroom would be beneficial. So with the change of our schedule this should change to two sections. Okay. So then my other question is well right now there's in third grade there's two sections with 50 students. 38. No 38 students. See they move. Oh 38. Okay. So, so that's projected for next year and so that's what next year will be three. But then the 38 Yeah. So the 38 this year that are going into next year will be 40. That will be going down to two there. Okay. Got Thank you. Oh, one last question. I'm really sorry. It's not five minutes. I know two summers I lived through
022the roof being done. How much of the roof was done during those two summers? 11. Yeah. So we so the proposed for this about 16,000 almost 17,000 here. The other sections that were done were um back in here. So that was one year. We had another one over here and then that was last two summers ago because right we did wrap in the referendum but so we we kind of had an off year. So when we get done with what you want to do this summer, what is left? The old gym basically or the old gym was done, the new gym, and then there's some sections over here. There there a number of different levels over there and different types of rubber roofs and so forth. And then this one's in very good shape, but
023you know, we're going to get them all done. Um, and there's also some ventilation that that's on the roof this year. Okay. So really, you're left the remaining is about 19,000 or 28% of the roof. So we we hope to wrap we hope to wrap that all into 20% left. Okay. So the facility uh committee meets and we're we're looking at planning to how to really address the entire facility. Uh that's really done for a referendum. So between pickle wall and roof construction. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Marty Pascarell at 12 lane. Are you using the same vendor for like throughout these projects or is every year a different vendor? Every year is a different based on the bids that are through the co-op. Um we go through our co-op and they have been different contractors
024and so far they've been excellent and that's one of the things we're going through co-ops. They're all vetted out. They do the bidding, they do all that. We we share in that with other districts and we don't have the expense of that bidding it ourselves. But they are different by three different contracts. They've all been excellent. And how does it work with the materials that they use? Is it different materials that they're using then or or is it pretty consistent with the same type of materials? Because then it just seems like got a hodge podge of stuff going on in there like cook. You we have a without getting old, you have a lot of different roof system. You have insulation, you have corugated steel roof, you have plywood roof up there. And when the
025architect designs the roof, you have to look at where all the drains are, the scuppers, where the roof drains are in the middle. And you have tapered insulation that could go from four or five inches, you know, all the way down. So everything has to be tapered. So each roof as it design is different. One might require more insulation than another because they're trying to direct water. So materials are pretty much the same. The costs have skyrocketed in the last couple of years, just all the materials. So this this roof that we're doing for the price that you saw maybe four years ago could have been half the price. And that's unfortunate, but that's What kind of guarantee are they? 30. So where there were leaks this year that they the leaks weren't in the
026new part, the new roof areas. Oh, not no they're they're they're all taken care of. The the leaks that we've been having, the majority are in the roof that we're getting taken care of. The other ones we have an annual an annual maintenance plan to address those as they occur. But really the only way to address all of them is to do the remainder. But I guess my question is have they occurred in part of and the parts that have been replaced? The part that we're doing now this year is covering mostly where the students are being taught. you know, like we're sanding the gyms or like what everyone sees and it looks terrible because the public is there, but the kids are taking care of, right? Thank you. Thank you very much. And that
027brings us to motion number one. Um, may I have a motion, please? Is there a second? Second. Any questions, comments, or discussion? If not, the questions on the adoption of finance motion number one. This is a roll call. Mr. Barta, yes. Mr. Bren, yes. Mr. Chin, yes. Mr. Hermy, yes. Mr. Johnson, yes. Mr. Mcry, yes. Mr. Mill, yes. Thank you very to rearrange the agenda because we I'm not sure who we want to do a very quick public session. We will get the the public hearing report to be done. Yeah. Before we do that, since we advertise this as a budget hearing and regular session agenda, I will skip over to number seven on the agenda to number seven, open session. The public comment period will be open to any topic, any topic. Please be
028mindful that public comment periods are available to enable the public to give comments and feedback to the board. Personal matters and day-to-day operations are not appropriate subject meetings. These can always be most effectively resolved to the appropriate staff members or administrators according to the chain of command concept. Questions may be directed to the Irving school personnel or board through email. Please state your name and address for the record and we'll comment over five minutes. Anyone from the public wish to address the board on any matter? That's smart 12. I do have a question with having a new administration coming in. Have there been any changes whether small or radical with the with the curriculum for next year? there's any kind of changes with any of the grade levels or different types of the one thing
029that I can say is too for spoken. I'm sorry. Sorry. And I'm a little hard to hear. Uh one thing that we've been focusing on primary teacher being trained or young sensory approach. Oh, you're bringing the OG in. Yeah. That's one that changes. As far as programs in themselves, they're just updating or renewing some of the licenses. There is a there is a new revision of versions of things. Yeah. Like in the Encore map program. Uh I have to check with that. We're not looking to make any changes or significant changes. We're having a lot of conversations with banks as well. So make sure that we're in alignment with the no school math courses and things like that. I'll be having some uh evening meetings to explain that to the public. One last area. Any
030thought to doing anything with the circle in front of the building and facilities cuz you know it's a mess and it's in front of the school. I just didn't know if the grounds had any idea about the bus parks on there now and there's all big ruts in it and I can answer question. So, so yes, in all the planning and we've met with facilities committee, um looking forward to the future with the entire area. One of the proposals will be um discuss with the facilities committee is are there areas that we can expand to. So the first step is really to do like a feasibility wetland study otherwise you really can't disturb anything. So that's the first step. plans are to look at the whole facility facility as a whole and for future planning,
031future referendum planning to include much of that that you know in there that we can that includes the circle includes classroom space and other groups and so forth. Yeah, that's yeah you can't just look at one little piece. You have to look at you know you'll have a list of items that you may move off to the side. enough look at all the priorities but you have to look at every parking facility outside inside parking is amazing what you said I heard the kids there's nothing we put in the side parking lot and I added a number of spaces since I've got here yeah and I can as far as the buses go typically they park behind the mun building but because that's under construction they're parking here but I'm I'm presuming I'm presuming they
032probably go back there when that's done Yeah, I don't mind that. It's just that there's big ruts in the It's kind of like the, you know, the school you see, you see this nice circle there and it's all weeds and ruts. So, that's all it's done. Well, we'll present timeline is we're ready to go with it and that'll be on the main agenda. was discussed with again with the facility committee, finance committee and that's the first step because you really can't do anything in the ground when you have when you're surrounded by wetlands and it may stop you know any any progress outdoor progress. Yeah. So you're limited by the entire ground. You see a cattail there's the wetland. Well that's that's that's wetland stuff. What's that? We were on the board then it wasn't
033in the previous wetland stuff. No no not not the the center isn't in the wetland. Exactly. But the rest is but the rest is and over time with the D you know what used to be a 25 foot buffer went to 50 and some areas are 100 ft. So you can't even do any construction within 100 ft of a weapon. So that's what the study will cover. Crazy. Thank you. Thank you. And with that going backwards, we will have a enter a motion to enter into executive session to discuss issues of public confidentiality as per the open public meetings act chapter 231 1975. These matters may or may not be made public when a board meeting means they will be made public when the confidentiality of the subject is no longer warranted. The topic is
034negotiations with the PTEA and there will be no board action taken on the return. Other to return the meeting and I have a motion please. Is there a second? All those in favor say I. Thank you. Thank you very very much for coming. Have a great evening. Okay. We've just returned from our close session. It's 8:56 p.m. We have no other board action. May I have a motion to adjourn? Second. Is there a second? All those in favor say I. I. And thank you very much for coming.