001call this call this meeting to order please stand for the pledge public notice of this advertised in the Asbury Park Press on January and hased open meary Street copy of this notice is also on file in the office of B clerk members of the public wishing to address the board non agenda items must address and are requested to comments 5 minutes public comment the public particip of item raised by members of the public might require review investigation not be responded to by the board all comments will and resp will coming asks that be courteous and mindful of rights of the individual specifically comments regarding students and employees board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and staff have specifical rights apped by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears
002no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by any member of the public this meeting is being tape recorded for purposes of Board review and future reference and to assist in the preparation of minutes QR codes are available at each board meeting to access the agenda Mr rapola roll call please Mrs abrahamson here Miss Cunningham here Mr ppos here M Kowski here Mr Housman Miss C here Mr stall here Mr Staley here Mrs Tas miss van howon thank you uh so we will have two presentations this evening the first presentation will be class of 2026 presentation so these fine people came and presented to me on Monday we poked some holes and they got to uh test out their public speaking skills so here they are for all of you first I
003want to say thank you for giving us the opportunity to present our trip to you so today we're here to present the class trip for next year it's going to be a s day cruise trip to the Bahamas this is everything that we're going to be covering in the presentation so the Carnival Pride is a ship that we're going to be taking it's an awesome ship filled with beautiful features and many activities that students will be able to our itinerary Sunday February 22nd that's our departure day 7:00 a.m. arrival at the school there will be baging SE by administrators we're going to have a breakfast set up by Mr kelen and then we're going to start our bus ride to Baltimore the 23rd the 24th and the 28th are our days at Sea where we're
004going to be having fun activities to do while we're on the boat the 25th 26th and 27th are going to be our stops at princess K's Nassau and celebration key and March 1st is our arrival day where we're going to be heading back home so Port exclusions there are exclusions excursions excuse me they are optional they are extra money all the students know that no matter what on these excursions it's going to be six students with one sha room so the port inclusions for princess K's there's going to be beach chairs towels and a barbecue lunch already set up for us when we get there with activities to enjoy like snorkeling volleyball and basketball Nassau there's a beach that's a short walk from the port there's Elizabeth Avenue which is like a strip City where
005there we will be walking around and exploring Nassau but it will be six students to one chaper at all times and celebration key is Carnival's own Island where it's a very beautiful vacation spot with many pool pools and activities for the students to enjoy so on the boat we have the main pool it's going to be where the students are going to hang out most of the time during the day and there is going to be water water slides and a water a mini water park at the pool so at night there is an auditorium there's comedy shows live music Broadway style shows in karaoke this is where we're going to meet after dinner every night to make sure everybody's together and we'll set off from there so shopping and retail on the boat there
006is shops and an art gallery for people that might not want to be outside the whole time it's a nice place to relax buy some souvenirs and enjoy the art so there's a teen friendly dance night where it's going to be teens only and it I believe it's a great place for students to interact with students and kids from other areas and show them how great Keyport is so the dining the are included dining we have the main dining room which has a buffet there's guyer's Burger Joint there's tacos and burritos there's a pizzeria and there's soft serice ice cream the extra cost dining will be a steakhouse and sushi restaurant and then the drink packages or anything that has Bubbles cost more there's iced tea lemonade and water already provided for us so the
007safety and communication the medical needs at all times there's going to be a full Medical Hospital staff on board we're going to have daily meetings at breakfast and then we're going to head out from there and at dinner and before we go into the auditorium there's a chatting app on board that is included with our CA that allows the students to talk to each other while they're on board there is also Wi-Fi packages that parents do know is extra cost but if they want to make calls with their kids that is an option for them too and then Security on the boat it's 24-hour security and every single room has their own personal liaison which is someone to call if anything goes wrong our rooming it's going to be four to a room and it's
008not co-ed then this is our pricing it's going to be a 650 deposit due by March 14 and then after that it's going to be 650 more to make a $1300 total thank you guys Dan I'm going to repeat one of the questions that I asked um um on Monday actually there's one or two of them one of which is what kind of standing student need to be in to attend the so yes there is a big issue with behavior that we understand and it's it's no uh like if you get if you're on the two suspension list you're not going you can't be absent 20 days in the year and have a contract and be allowed to go on this trip it's a privilege second question I have is um to make sure that
009it's attainable for as many as possible not every family can afford that kind of a a trip um there'll be the ability for you to fund raise your whole not tuition your whole pricing for the for the trip yes there's going to be so many opportunities that we have planned coming up that we're going to be able to fundraise the full 1300 and possibly more for our prom ticket any other questions does anybody have questions yeah I do um the the cruise itself is it particularly targeted group is it a general cruise is it geared towards young people what is it's General anybody could be on the crew so just one obvious thing so this is February right yes so so is that a school week yes it will be during a school week so
010why what do you do thought think about why you well we do week we do have a lot of athletes in our class so we were trying to line up the schedule so nobody has to miss anything playoffs in addition Mr Staley on that we did Converse about that and I'll supplement it by saying that um even when they do Split Rock it's two days that they miss and fortunately or unfortunately if you want chaperons that are School Personnel it would be attending during that time as well because you couldn't expect them to attend and and U be chaperon on time that we're not in school I think it's four school days am I correct school days going to be four school days at least calendar uh also with the Split Rock breakdown the price
011per day for the kidss is actually days are going to split rock rock will cost about per kid I mean per day um so that is why that was chosen also cruises don't set up like a hotel crises are set for two years in advance so that was the that were there any other dat was uh more expensive that was the cheapest one throughout the uh ones that they offered that allowed students to go um when me and Miss Snyder or Miss Chamberlain uh looked for cruises on her own we then realized because they are under 18 and typically they want families there we had to use um a travel agency that umbrellas that under their insurance and covers us all God forbid something does happen and you said you have to have a minimum
012of 30 32 yes more oh absolutely we love more we would absolutely love that there's more because at 1300 will'll drastically go down if we could get more than that how many so when we did our interest survey we had 44 students interest in carnival two in Split Rock and when we met with the parents after that parent meeting we have 27 parents that rot for uh Carnival and seven that rot for Split Rock right now uh as of right now it's uh Mr Waters myself and Miss Chamberlain that cover there will be six again the other or the other teachers have not been chosen yet but there will be six adults on there but right now it's the two advisers me and Miss Chamberlain and administrator Mr Waters for so two teachers are included
013to keep their price down and me and Miss Chamberlin will be fundraising as well to pay for the other four any question okay the only other and I answered that right okay job thank you very much and they what was the other thing we're going to talk about in terms of um the shs it was fundraising for them is that what you said yes they're going to fund raise they got pay out of pocket um if they want to come 30 times 13 you know probably a little bit Yeah 40,000 42 around there um on and that includes meals every day uh you know the kids so and the go off of the excursions why kids don't need to buy anything extra all those islands have the snorkeling the only thing that they don't have
014swim with dolphins and uh the glass bom boat but there is snorkeling there is a reef there is things for the kids to already be doing at each of those Island so to the excursions do not need to be purchased that is going to be an extra cost and they have to find five other classmates to do that as well with them and again that's coming out of the parents pocket so we advise them you know really not to there's no reason need to since everything will be provided either on the boat or on that island that we land at uh on your presentation you had March 14th uh what was that for a deposit what was that yeah because the cruise ship ain't waiting for us so we need to put something down to
015hold those rooms right now even if we give it on March 14th unlikely as the travel agent told me but all those rooms could be booked as of by March 14th cruises don't hold spots like hotels do so just to clarify so you'd be looking for all who are going to participate to to pay up 650 yeah I'm just yeah no yes absolutely like an income tax like how I explained it to the parents it's like an inome check they're going to give us the 650 now and we're going to fund raise all the way in to the end of May even for prom and if the kids raise the full amount they will get a check back at the end of May or whenever they reset amount for their 650 back it is no
016different if they went to book a cruise right now for the same Cruise they would have to pay three fors usually up front for their cruises but Mr kein if they're going to be able to fundraise some children can't afford that deposit so how so I wasn't going to open that up to the whole Forum of saying hey if you don't have the money come see me and we'll do it because obviously then we'll have more than those individuals that need it the people that have already expressed they could not afford have already talked to me and that's something I've worked out personally with those students to make sure they're taken care of again if I open it up to everybody everybody will take advantage of that and then I don't have my 650 from
01730 people and now we don't have a deposit to put down for the room so it's for the people that absolutely need it and those people that absolutely need it I would either hear through the gra Vine or they actually came and spoke to me yeah I just uh had to step out um I missed the first part where you guys sailing at it uh the Bahamas out of the Baltimore that's where the board is y thank any other questions yeah okay what is um what is the board's role in what happen Mr uh Staley from here is that next agenda is on the 19th if I was to place that on there the board would take a vote on approving the CLI the trips that's why it's not on there prior to the so
018so they're going to do the deposits and then we're GNA vote on it on the next Mr Keelan is aware of the time frame I spoke to him about it um again we're if we don't even have 30 deposits this isn't going to be ini issue for anybody to be worried about either as well those 30 deposits it's not like I'm going to take them deposit exactly on the 14th it's to make sure I have 30 people willing to go and willing be able to pay and fundraise for it but the crews will wait until the board takes a uh they'll once they see that we have that that initial deposit the the insurance company will take care of it or the travel agency sorry will take care of it for us if you if
019you put a and so just like if you were to book Cruise your personal self there is Travel Insurance included that would have to be paid out by the parents from themselves if something like that occurs however as it was stressed to the parents if you have a son or daughter who has been absent uh chronically this year more than 20 times 10 times please don't give me the deposit because you will not get it next year and if you have a son or daughter who pertains to get in trouble a lot don't give us the money don't waste our time and don't try to fight us to get that money back because we then have to cover your 650 and the room regardless if your son or daughter comes it will hurt us all
020as a whole so I made that very clear to the parents when we did present this that they are held accountable and they have a student handbook to follow through as well I was just going to ask um as a comparison can you tell us a little bit about Split Rock and what the cost of that was oh absolutely so the only reason why we didn't present that is because of the significant difference in the vote so Split Rock is something I've done already with two other senior classes in the past it only cost them 450 bucks uh we would do skiing on Friday Snow uh snow tubing on Saturday and indoor water park on Sunday however because of busing and other costs that are out of my range and after four years the last
021time we went was Co legit we went and Co hit the next day um it now jumped up to 950 bucks a kid so if you break it down price per day per kid it almost was $300 um per kid to go there um being the math teacher here I just I couldn't justify even having a sh Cho having to cover that cost per day just to go at that point we might as well just do a day trip to Dorney Park or Hershey Park and do the same things that we could do in the summertime or Springtime for a price like that and with the other senior classes the past two years they've been having issues of finding things to do at that kind of rate uh what you know when you talk about
022fundraising uh fundraising what is your what is your reasonable expectation 1300 was the number right the cost what do you think your expectation would be on the amount per uh student that could be raised everything is going to be individually so I'll give you round numbers we just did the craft fair as a junior class pretend we made $1,000 and 10 kids came each kid gets $100 each so each fundraiser we do depending on how the kids interacted or how the kids participate will be div divided out per individual for that we will have plenty of activities we already have fundraisers in mind and I made it very clear to the parents if I do not have parental involvement to get things going like a gift auction or gift baskets for Raffles or anything else
023it will not happen I had out of those 27 to7 parents that voted for Split Rock and Carnival so 34 parents I had 18 say they want to be involved in the parent committee so I have no issue of thinking we will raise that again with my 14 years here if you guys don't know my background I am Mr fundraiser I literally fundra everything from baseball to Student Government to classes that I've raised to go back and I miss Chamberlain could not make it and we do apologize her senior class was the class of 2017 90% of them went for free the other 10 was just they did not want to be involved in fundraiser and they'd rather pay me the 450 upfront so I have no issue with that um we already have our
024ideas in place but as I said I don't do all the work I get everybody involved like a community it takes a village and that's what it's going to take for us they fundrais for this and if the parents get involved with the students we have no issue raising it for each individual kid and I could guarantee that any other questions no thank you very much guys for your time and thank you for letting our students present to you thank you for allowing us to present thanks guys our second presentation this evening is the 2025 2026 school budget Mr rapola so tonight's our our first budget presentation try to go through things uh relatively quickly and answer any questions for for everyone Eric I get oh thank you so in two weeks uh from this
025evening we will adopt uh the preliminary budget uh and then approximately a month and a half after that or maybe like five to six weeks after that is when we'll have the uh public hearing and and formally uh approve the budget so we can make changes between now and two weeks and then from that moment uh till the public Hearing in May I believe it's May 7th uh we can uh make changes as well so the numbers we got uh Thursday afternoon um and then some other pieces that we had been waiting on uh we received that information uh last numbers we received was uh at 1:30 yesterday we received some uh we had a prek uh meeting with the state where we received even though we had our we had gotten our prek uh
026tuition data I'm sorry I'm trying our tuition Aid data from the state on Thursday um they hadn't come out with our information yet what our contribution from the local funds had to be we got that information yesterday as well so you know these numbers are U estimates but they're pretty pretty good estimates uh at the moment so the local tax uh Levy revenue is predicted uh to go up 2.87% that's 2% um that we are allowed to go up and the extra 8.87% is a health adjustment for uh adjustment that's allowed because of uh health insurance rate tuition from Union Beach is going to be down 221,000 uh there's a slide I I'll get more into detail with that in a few moments uh state aid is down it's really down 100 7,000 you see
027140,000 there because that's the general fund uh there's another 25 to 30,000 in prek uh which is a total of about 170 down from the state that that we are in reserves we are going to be using a lot of our reserves uh we're going to be using 400,000 and maintenance Reserve uh I believe I have a slide later I do on the reserves I'll speak to fund balance uh last year we had put in 2.6 million in fund balance this year there will be two million future budgets will be less uh miscellaneous and Enterprise funds from 880,000 to 200,000 um that typically has been our solar uh credits um the big jump this year is not on solar credits uh in fact the solar credit are going down a great amount because our system
028this year will reach 10 years old and so our subsidies uh decrease uh significantly uh the the increase is in interest rates have gone up and we've been receiving uh a lot more interest uh in our accounts uh we we have a fair balance in our in our banking accounts at this time and with the Rate rates going up in interest are are getting more interest on a monthly basis so I'm pulling it in uh as Appropriations these again are estimates uh but regular instruction up 6% special ed down 6% tuition that we actually pay to send students at a district um going up 4 point uh 85% that is predominantly the increases in uh the mammoth County vocational schools which have tripled their rate for share time um and it's also increases in uh
029in the cost for our Brookdale maintenance cost we are uh cutting by uh a little under 7% it's not really that much of our maintenance costs are going down in fact some of our costs like a electricity and gas uh will be going up but we had to make Cuts in different places to balance this so um you know those maybe lines next year you'll see transfers into during the year like administrative cost uh down about 7% co-curricular activities projecting $45,000 decrease Athletics projecting $46,000 increase I mean decrease sorry oh Health Services up 6% Support Services 7.9% impr of instructional Services 3 5% uh Transportation uh just going down slightly 1% but the good news there is we uh for the first time in a number of years have seen a leveling out of our
030transportation cost to the point where you know I even project a little bit of a decree so uh you know that's been a there's a slide on that later too but that's a trend that had been painful for a long period of time but we we see that level and I'll talk about Capital project that budget so state aid numbers factors that go into state aid we know it's resident enrollment and that uh significantly uh decreased uh we dropped 32 and a half students uh so that's the biggest factor in the state aid one of the reasons why our a went down it also takes into consideration uh loow income special education and limited English proficient students uh those numbers were basically the same actually our um lowincome students increased slightly um adequacy budget is
031a part of the the formula that's what they feel the state thinks uh you should be spending uh to adequately educate our students and local fair share uh a calculation that considers a District's equalized valuation and District's income talk about that uh actually we're going to talk about that in a SL uh so the state believes uh that based on what it should have cost us to adequately educate our students last year that they overpaid us uh by one 1.3 million so therefore what would normally happen is this year they would decrease Us by 1.3 million which would have been uh catastrophical but a couple days prior in Governor Murphy's budget address uh they announced that districts that were losing state aid the losses would be capped at 3% uh this year so for that
032to happen I'm assuming that probably I'm sure wasn't just us uh that they must have recogniz prior to releasing the budget that there was big problems for a lot of districts that they needed to put a cap on it so capping our loss our decrease at 3% is the $170,000 last year they we had gotten 5.67 five million so 3% of that is 170,000 and that's the decrease uh the state aid we're receiving this year again though uh if if they just paid out based on what the formula was calling for we would have had 1.3 million decrease the state believes that the local fair share be $15 million that's some money coming from the from the taxpayers uh however the levy we're calling for on this budget with the health adjustment is 11,693 th000
033so that's a difference of over 3 almost 3.4 million saying we're underfunded locally can't get the money you know we we can't raise the taxes to to get that underfunding and that's a significant increase for the last I don't know how many years we've been tracking about a million or so down underfunded uh with the local fair share but based on Shear's formula uh takes into consideration the biggest factors being property valuation and uh income family incomes you ask questions while ask questions while you're going or you want to wait um either way is fine um go ahead what's the question so when they when they yes I think it's just information um you know if there's politics behind it that's I don't know yeah uh you know if they're giving it to you in
034a way and saying hey go go fight in some way for it I don't know what's behind the scenes I know it doesn't happen in Murphy's address it doesn't happen at the county level in our uh County ba meetings I haven't received any memos from the state saying you know fight for this this needs to change I think they give it to you because it's factual and informational and you know maybe depending on who it is thinking you should go after it and you could go for a vote but nobody's going to do that but you know this this team or when I say this team uh this governing body know doesn't have the ability to grab it so basically just something like where they show you and aggravate you you can do Davis the
035formula hasn't been redone mean was they oh but they didn't do it there is one difference that took place in this uh one difference that took place in this funding formula it ised to the local what that is the only difference they did this year is they took threeyear averages of property values and incomes family income in the past it was always on a yearly basis on each year this year they were threeyear weighted you know threee averages uh that they took for that sorry uh so regarding resident enrollment uh here's the last six years uh 833 residents in 2019 see the covid uh drop and that you know we held strong between 787 and 783 four years in a row and and this year uh we you know we lost 30 something students uh
036you know I think that's a significant drop uh believe it was Mr Staley who asked uh oh do we see some kind of trend there and that is uh we noticed that majority of that decrease is in middle school I was in the grade sixth or grade I don't know what that means you know I think that's I think it was at the lower grades it might mean one thing if was at the higher grades it might mean another thing you see a drop in the Middle School numbers I I don't think a lot that's just my opinion yeah I mean it's probably guess it's the sixth grade going in is smaller than the eighth grade going out do we have survey the student survey well most of the time we don't know the students
037are leaving uh you know it usually takes place over the summer uh you can answer that if you want Dr I know generally when a student transfers out they'll tell you what they're transferring out for but I do believe that this class was the bigger it was a smaller uh bigger class of students I'm saying it incorrectly I apologize the numbers like for example our senior class for uh this year is over 100 and that's we've never had that so some of it is just based on the size of the class itself some of it's based on kids who get into the magnet school um some very few go to private but there are a few but in general I could pretty much plot out what each kid's trajectory was go to the burrow to
038find out I know they do um on how manys they expect to bring that's like you just threw doctor's work we've articulated you know we haven't had as many in the past year but in the past we would meet with the mayor and the ba every other month and they would go over the pending projects but some of the challenges that we've had is uh Pilots being granted things to that capacity um so they would say they would project and in my history project based on some Rucker study that it would be one kid per grade things like that so you don't get any finite information well you definitely were very very active in in communicating and trying to get that information every year multiple multiple times a Union Beach tuition uh here's historical Trends
039and in 25 26 you see it down 200,000 I want to draw because I big one of the biggest reasons here is I've mentioned before in 2324 Union Beach went to contract for way more students than uh they knew they were going to send them us um they tried to to change it on on the day that was our public uh presentation and everything was done uh wasn't going to get changed at that point so we knew we meeting Dr Sao and I that we were getting about $500,000 inition that year that we weren't going to really be earning uh we knew it was going to fall into fund Bal or needed to fall into fund balance because we knew it was going to be back uh to them two years later and that's what
040you see here this 1.8 million we're getting this year is with a $733,000 uh refund uh back to Union b um out of that $713,000 refund about you know 500,000 of it I would say is going to contract for too many students the other 200,000 was in our our s you know charging more than what the certified rates actually got audited at two years later per pupil uh but you know this number is higher than I anticipated the 1. expected it it to come in at about 1.5 1.55 this was uh something that we received in the last you know six days I would say we received the Union Beach uh projections they came in higher and pleasantly uh pleasantly hire and hopefully we really do receive the the that number of students so Mr
041rapo I just have a quick question we the rvr acceptances did go out so you know what out of the 65 students instead Henry Hudson um you know they they said this to us but they could come just like Mr rapola indicated that the day we adopt that budget that final budget they could come that day and say oh oops you know not that many people are coming so I don't know how else to say it more professionally but really the way it is but we're good at yeah I think we believe that two years ago was at the 11th Hour bank or other District that's how those numbers dropped uh at the last minute I guess it could happen again um but hopefully not and also I feel more confident in knowing that a
042refund won't look like this next year because um I feel like we went to contract for maybe like something like 117 or 115 students in our current year and uh right now they're tracking at about 121 122 so actually you know we actually have more students they went to contract so hopefully this is a rock bottom uh Trend and that we were able to survive on this one you had mentioned that thinking it might be uh 1.5 now part of that was because you thinking that I think they were coming I was projecting under a 100 students so what have have they given you they have so they they've given us uh given me a number um oh I can get it off myter but it's uh I feel like it might be something like
043aund might be like 10 fulltime and 18 part-time so maybe okay so that's like 119 it's in that neighborhood or also you saying that this year this school actually we're we contracted for 117 or those numbers might not be exact but I know right now I don't know if it's like we have about 122 okay students plus be a plus yes so there could be refund a reversal right and there has been in years past yeah so but that's better than right 700 right okay so because you know if you look it's gonna be a small amount right relatively small amount there could be some monies that will come back to us not only like two budgets that how that works yes it's standard uh it's standard throughout the state it's a yeah it's um
044charge an amount that's based on there's a maximum amount that you can charge based on budget software kicks out but that's not what the actual audited numbers you know two years sorry at the end of that year when they see what the cost of the education really was per child uh then that's when they figure out what they really do owe and have to give it give it back to them in the following years you know there's like formalized tuition sheets throughout the state the process I just had a question so they contract us say for 120 students and 110 obligation to pay any portion of that for the 10 because they've contracted with us like any other no no uh we have to send them for certified attendance each month so they see how
045many you know that that are able to keep track of it as well um and it does go up and down each month based on who's coming into the district and out of the district sometimes a student becomes uh o midyear so it it turns into a part-time student sometimes they get student gets classified as having free lunch at some point later in the year just uh those rates as but no there's no obligation otherwise probably they'd be always looking to under right and I don't know if everyone feels this way but I really don't believe that the tuition my experience with has not been a hey gotta or us trying to get them like I don't think uh I don't think there's anything really I personally don't believe there's anything fish going on trying
046to save I think they're doing same thing we are trying to make their best projection based on information insurance rates are continuing health and prescriptions up n and a half percent well I feel that's horrible State plans that any of the schools are a part of went up I want to say 1450 um insurance rates uh uh property have been a nightmare we're going up 88.2% personally at home I got a letter from uh agressive they put an application into the state that I want to say 10 and something uh right which is you know uh so I mean it's everywhere they're arguing that uh laen companies are saying they got crushed now they want it back uh on the uh got a pie the7 uh in the local uh tax rate say that again
047so we got we got 087 right rather than the 2% oh I got you yeah so you mentioned that so how much of the 99.5% increase how much are we actually um are we able that's fair we're probably going up about 200 something thousand and we're able to get about 90 something thousand of it and that's a you know and that's based on it takes what your actual cost were in health and prescription because they only care about health and prescription you can only pass on health and prescription our teach get vision benefits get dental benefits um whatever's going on with those rates you can't pass on so they take what your actual health and prescription cost are projected to be then they determine what the state rates are going up so hypothetically rates went
048up barely at all say only going up say they had a great year they were only going up 2% we wouldn't be able to pass any because the state's argument would be you should have been a higher prices so they only give you this uh adjustment when they're rates have gone higher and had a savings by own loc you know being part of your own uh program and they stay they say take 2% off it anything over so anything over 2% of a raise but underneath what theate raise was they will let you Transportation cost over last seven years from 59 I'm projecting a little over a million but you see how last three years that skyrocketing slowed down good thing yeah there's transportation it's definitely not due to uh more students okay it's uh
049so it's just they're charging more it's the cost of the routes costing much much more that Reg I um talk about it off no no I'm not it's nothing uh I I can't tell you about Transportation regulations I like I wouldn't be able to speak to that I can tell you that if you're going if you're renewing a contract Transportation uh I think they can only Raise It Whatever the CPI index is uh for that year um so but we all our routes or except for one all our routes are um they are uh they coordinate mass transportation from many different new counties they have like hundreds of fets so if Union Beach has two people going to school a private at a district and uh Red Bank each only have two students they will
050collect all that information from everyone in the two counties and they will build the routes around where people need to go where the where the schools are located so every year their routes will change there will be times when they will renew a rout index for sometimes whether it's maybe graduat population Chang or some districts are handling their own busing or those routes will get blown up and they'll form they'll put out to bid new routes but but either way once you get the route say that bus has five kids on sometimes that bus has five kids on sometimes a bus has two depending on what size bus what school they're going to where sometimes a bus can have 30 students on it if they're all maybe going to some Magnet School uh somewhere but
051anyway it's it's just it's simply the cost of the route the ratio of how many kids you have if there's 10 kids on that bus and you have two of them whatever the cost that route is you're paying 20% each month we get a sheet of uh where all our kids went how many kids were on that bus that month and what our what our costs were and then M moesc they propit the routes they charge their Administration point they they're not a private company they're uh they're Service Commission and educational um they're not they have to pay the salaries yes um fund balance uh this is this is an amount that we've been carrying over from previous budget so the last couple years we've shut down spending know early in the year when we
052recognized certain certain problems or or like for instance the year I talked about where Union Beach was overfunding us knew we better end with more money than normal because we're going to be Miss that's managing fund balance and you see in 2020 2021 when we were at about 700,000 that's really an ideal place to be at um but in order to get there you have to you have to be ending the year with your money in order to get there you got to feel confident that your your budgets are going to be drawing in enough regular revenue and not have to hold some of this money back we're just not there right now PRK tuition the last four years see that we brought three year olds in this year we're just down 25,000 last year
053we're still well well well funded in any area where it's maybe slightly difficult to spend uh Tony could I I just going to go back to fun so so if you could go back so we in um that's how much money was in the 2425 budget we ended last year's fiscal year with that 2.83 million so so in June of 2024 this past June we ended more than two but some of that money we put into our back into our reserves uh and then rest of that money went into fund balance that million went in going into the 252 budget okay this this one is always uh it is very very hard well I guess the the question is that what so that this 2,83 is coming in into this budget right for next year
054coming from last year to next year and so then what um at the end of this budget 30th 2026 G to be a lot of money I say a lot people like I mean that's good and bad at the same but I mean yeah we're we're making a we've made a point again of having a year of of doing what we can to end with a large balance because we we need Union Beach to stabilize and we need our state aid stabilize before we can yeld more more confident when we look ahead to 27 just 26 27 budget yeah right so we're looking at what would that what would the fund balance number just you know would it be less more and what what would it mean maybe more importantly so it's going to depend
055on how much we think we need to put back into our reserves because of the Esser funding that took that we no longer have but was carrying us uh for a few you know we were had saved in our general fund because we had Millions to spend in these other in these covid funds um so like we didn't use a maintenance Reserve in the 20 we in the current budget we're in there there's no maintenance Reserve we didn't use any of that funding so the year next year we need to use 400,000 in maintenance Reserve funds but at the end of the year I'm guessing there's going to be about a $3 million Chunk we have to decide how much of that do we want to going back into our reserves oh we're going to
056be using 500,000 in tuition budget tuition Reser so I imagine whatever gon GNA want to definitely put 500,000 back we're going to see if we want to put uh 400,000 back in maintenance we're going to decide we want there were a number of years where we really fattened up our Capital we were able to that number up to 2 point two million or so and it's kind of you know it's up there right now but we didn't add anything to it last year we you know we knew we needed that money elsewhere so the Bas on decisions everyone makes do we think we need to start if there is money to put into capital is it better we put into capital reserve or is it better we throw it into a future budget knowing we
057need it like kind to balance um so what I think is think that fun balance number is going to drop from 2 million but it's still going to be at a number higher than where it's really meant to be meant to be somewhere between 500,000 like I think I think that's a kind of a buffer number that you know you go into a year with that kind of fund balance you know you're safe enough prepared but you're not pushing everything kicking it down the road you're not you're not that's uh and and our past Auditors have expressed that you know they've felt that around 700 was a number that was like a nice number to so just so the lower the number more confident you are of stable financing that way to express it uh
058in in a perfect world I would say we would never need to use fund balance in upcoming B it' be at zero zero is uh doesn't really happens zero doesn't happen but uh if you can go into it with zero fund balance meaning you trust the revenues that are coming in enough that no matter what happens throughout that year you're going to have enough funding to get you through that year and because if you because if zero is going in fund balance that means all the rest of your money that you Sav going into savings capital projects there's one thing that we have to do where we're going to lose our we're about to lose our wireless uh Network or infr Pablo's noding his head this a lot of this is all on fiveyear licenses
059that are expiring uh the equipment this so uh short version is we're going to be pulling 60,000 from capital reserve to to get what we need and then we're going to be getting about 50,000 of that back uh later in the form of er really going to cost us about $10,000 to get the equ we'll see A6 withdrawal from Capital going to purchase 60 some, then we're going to get50 back put it back into purchase it's oh it's can you use the microphone sorry you didn't know you'd be talking sorry I didn't we are replacing switches and access points including licensing as well no purchase okay and uh last this debt service this this number here is setting these numbers are setting in stone based on the bonds are already uh you know we know
060what we've borrowed years ago in the referendum and the payments are set in stone uh so uh we're going to owe uh 1, 2347 200,000 in debt service which is slate drop from the year that we're in uh state aid and Debt Service are giving us 405,000 last year they gave us 406 we ended when the referendum ended we had had $1.5 million left over that we've been giving a we giving a credit back of 250,000 uh we're going to do that for six years I believe this is the third year that we're doing that so the total bill for Debt Service is 1.2 million but the state's given us 400,000 given back 250 from the referendum project and so the local levy on the debt service will be 578,000 and all those bonds will
061be paid off in uh 24 question yes are both those Pals that's a mistake uh thank you for catching that uh the one on the right should say 225 what I just stated referendum balance was 1.5 million on June 30th 250 so the fund balance in June was with balance in fund 30 our referendum funding was so tax rates uh projected the average home value in 2425 was $418,000 ratables have gone up 8.9% we're looking for a 2.87% increase uh short version of all this is uh your home I hate I don't know how else to show this but so home is not reevaluated with the new current tax rates you know you'd be going down $254 but I don't think that's as accurate as saying is showing average to average so last so on
062the next slide average in 2425 the average home was $418,000 with the average taxes being $443 for Education 2526 the average home is $463,000 projecting taxes of 4626 so an increase $196 $16 a month it's $16 a month questions sorry all right I'm sorry it was so long Mr H thank you it was very beneficial and a lot of thank you ready all right no you're fine uh president's remarks so some of our board members were able to go to the musical last week the um high school was Mean Girls they did a really great job um it was nice to see them all they were very engaged they were very entertaining um I enjoyed it I thought it was a really show so um also we got to go to Young author's night recently
063it was nice to be able to see all of our different um Learners and how they um wanted to present themselves have some very very um good young students very confident too wanted to bring them here um and then lastly njsba 2025 conference you should have all got your little sa date cards in the mail will be October 21st through 25th the theme is your ticket to Big Ideas October 20th sorry to the 23rd um and that is uh drya uh there is something about a resignation that was agenda public particip on agenda item uh superintendent report Dr saoa she did send it out to everybody so does have it was able to read it uh there's lots of information on there and for next week that she update it uh we do have the
064serial challenge that's coming up on Friday many local businesses and um different partners that we work with donated which very nice of them to help contri that we are around 2,000 boxes of our challenge going to transp uh Mr Rola board secretary report build grounds Finance just going through motions Finance section starting with uh 103 we'll see the MTH County rates for year that we'd be approving those the the full-time they call the magnet schools ories their uh their tuition is remaining uh basically stable typically they've increased about $100 per year but this year that's not increasing however the shared time student uh or the you know the regular V vocational uh classes are going up to 35 under hours a student and that's that's 300% uh or that's triple uh with the rate currently
065was so that's a that's that was an impact to um 104 is acknowledging form of either actual seral or money to purchase Cal and there is the budget there's the uh it'll be the budget motion where all these tbds will have uh numbers in them see that that motion talks about them a public hearing on May 7th uh the tuition Reserve withdrawal number says TBD but I can tell you that that's going to two weeks that's going to say $500,000 uh maintenance Reserve withdrawal it says 2bd but that's going to be $400,000 capital reserve number is accurate 68 the health care adjustment is accurate 987 you always have to approve the travel related fense motion the adjustment for Debt Service we have to approve that's 250,000 from the bonds going back in the preschool budget
066it's kind of a tricky one uh so we have to approve the preschool budget the state's giving us 1,527 th000 but these other numbers was what we received yesterday so a carryover amount based on an audit was 250,000 and our special education numbers in prek prek program are increased the prek funding is not for uh special education students the state gives special education funding through their regular State funding it's one of the categories they fund is special education funding so you're not allowed to use the prek funds uh for the special educa they want you to pull in from your general funds uh the special education they've already paid you for special education students So based on the number of students we have there's a calculation and we have to contribute from the general fund
067160,000 into the pre budget so the total budget for prek is the 1.5 million plus the 160 plus to 250 1.9 38 million that's all I have this kind any questions um curriculum personnel and policy there are some drills that are listed below um so any questions ask Dr our next meeting um I was doing stuff for njsba and I had the attendance list for um a little shout out for and it's not a lot of people have this but um K Cunningham Mr fpis myself Mr Housman and Dr sooya all have perfect attend County meeting and uh already belt so that's good um oh the next um hybrid 6m in person 6:45 virtual and it's going to be at the r that is us and tomorrow public participation on agenda items uh so get
068resolved by the KE of Education as per chapter 195 171 that hereby determin to meet executive session march to discuss matters uh the matter discuss will me public if and when confidential Reed an action that discussion shall take place at a public meeting L of the meeting to be approximately one hour action second all in favor all