001[Music] Hello [Laughter] everyone. Should we turn out the answer to surprise? Well, since we're all standing, let's begin with the pledge of allegiance to the [Music] flag. United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] Who's first? Who's first? You [Music] okay? Sorry. Roll call, please. Mr. Christian, Mr. Fedora, here. Miss France, here. Miss Husach, present. Mr. Karn here. Miss Culp here. Miss Snder here. Miss Williams here. Mr. Green here. We have a quorum. Thank you. Just call your attention to the civil quorum uh at the top of the agenda. Hoping you keep that in mind. At this time, we're looking for public comment on excuse me agenda items. Anyone? Uh several. So it looks like uh Mr. McGee check
002yes and no. Did you want to speak on uh an agenda item tonight, sir? I just wanted to make a statement. Does it have to do with one of the topics on the agenda this evening or in ges? Has to do with school taxes. Um I consider that part of the budget that that the budget is the preliminary budget is on there. So if you want to wait until then, you know, we'll recognize you then. Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. Uh we also have a uh Ricky Smith um would like to make a public comment but did not indicate if it was for an agenda item or non-aggenda. Um that's myself. Yes sir. Uh it's about the building new construction project and how it will affect the taxes in this township and municipalities. Okay. There's
003no agenda item on the tonight for that. So that would have to come during the the end of the meeting then on general comment. Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. Um, let me put a check here and a check here. And then we have uh uh Patricia Notaker. Not a maker. Thank you. And it looks like you are indicating for budget and middle school and band. No. um the middle school um topic that you're discussing with moving students from Slington Elementary over there in preparation for the common campus. Okay. Which hasn't even been decided yet. Correct. So the money's that you're considering spending on that when something hasn't even been decided. Um and as well on the bond project. So, I'm hearing you talk kind of all falls within budget. Would you like to when we
004get to the budget part of the presentation? Correct. All right. Thank you. And then, [Music] um, Crystal Belby, hello. It's also budget. Also budget. Thank you. And, uh, Fred Phillips. Yep. Budget. Budget. Thank you, sir. And, um, uh, Glenn Williams. Mr. Williams. I'd like to defer to the budget discussion to the budget. Yes, sir. Thank you. Uh that's all that we had that indicated that they would like to speak. Okay. So, we'll do when we get the budget, we'll do the budget. So, we don't have any on the What's that? I was on there. I was on it, too. They might not have checked public comment. Uh Mrs. Mary, I am sorry, Mrs. Frank. I am sorry. I do see you there. Um, for employee staffing and budget, I'm sorry, who else said and what's
005your name? Is Susan Waker? Uh, you you had checked no that you did not want to comment. Oh, then I'm sorry I made a mistake. Okay. I wanted I wanted to discuss about the budget and our tax increase. Okay. Okay. So, the uh budget becomes Yep. We got everybody. And was there anybody else? I didn't mark anything. I wanted to hear comments from Kelly Lo. Okay. Did you want to comment on something? I will comment at the end. Yes. At the end. Yes. Okay. Do you have her name on there? Kelly Lanov. Yes. Okay. All right. I couldn't see your face there. So, okay. Thank you. We got everybody everybody in. Yep. Okay. Uh you've all No. You've all received copies of the uh minutes. Is there a motion to approve those minutes? So, move.
006Second. A motion and a second. Any discussion or questions? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppos. No. And so order. Uh moving into special board reports. Miss Susak. Yes. Thank you. Um we did have our board meeting in March. Um our board meeting for April will be um on April 30th, which is Wednesday, uh the last week of the of the month. Um the meeting that we had in March, we had talked about one of our programs called Project Search. Project Search. um is a program that takes adolescent students and trying to get them into the real world to receive job offers and go into the world to to learn a little bit um and to be able to start their afterchooling education. Um some of the locations that we
007use and our students can go to are places like St. Luke's or um Lehi Valley Hospital which are two newer centers um that came up and two of our Northern Lehigh students do partake in these services. Um there is a online video on our CLIU website. You're welcome to take a look at it. goes through the program. Some of the things that they go through anywhere from being able to live on their own to find transportation to go and um write write a application or a resume and and take a a job interview. Um so really great program. It is an in-house program that was built inhouse. So I do uh do encourage you to take a look at that website to to see where that is. Roughly 75% of those students are have some
008type of disability, either um autism or intellectual disability. The other 25% have um usually a a hearing type disability. So, we are trying to get those students out into the workforce and um thanks to a whole bunch of our Project Search locations. Um they really do advocate for our students and support our students um who need that extra assistance to be out there. Um one of the other things that occurred in March, um our administration team from the IU did go to what they called Day on the Hill. So they went out to Harrisburg and spent some time out there to advocate for a few themes that were that were discussed during those um times which include early education, behavioral health and special education if it was through budget talks or what programming is available.
009So, um, as much as we ask you guys to to come and tell us what's what's going on out there, what needs some help, we're also trying to do our job to go out and do go to the hill and go talk to our representatives to see what we can support and how we can have them support us at our district level as well as at an intermediate level. Um, the other item you'll see on the agenda, we'll see our 24 our 2526 facilities plan. So, no major changes there, but the IU does have some, uh, classrooms within our buildings. So, uh, we appreciate the hospitality of of the school district here. Um, but that is on the budget or I'm sorry, on the agenda for approval tonight. And the last things, thanks to Dr.
010Stoker again, just want to say, uh, we do have our IU golf tournament coming up that does go towards our special education or our special needs children's foundation. It is in June, June 17th out at Old Homestead. The flyers are now official. Um, so if you are looking for something, you can go on the website uh if you would like to support that program. Thank you. Thank you, Susan. LCTI, Mr. Fedora. Thank you, sir. Yes, we uh our budget was passed by all nine school districts. It was uh all nine school districts had to vote individually uh and collectively we had 74 yeses, one no and six ab absentees. We also approved our common calendar and thanks to the superintendent that worked on that to making sure that not making sure making as best of
011a chance they can to have a universal calendar for all nine school districts including the vocational school. We also had a report on our stu student enrollment and our student enrollment is going up. Uh we have a number of programs in which there's a tremendous waiting list. Students are not going to get their first choices in many cases uh because of the of the numbers that are coming in. So we're certainly looking at that and that's a constant goaround as far as looking at what we can do to uh help that. We're also in the process of a search committee now for our new business manager. And that's all I have. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Uh, Mr. Snider, anything? I have nothing to report tonight. Thank you. Uh, just a couple
012things. You talked about the budget. I think the last I heard 12 of 13 districts had passed it. The other one hadn't voted on it. So, uh, uh, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't. Their representatives said they were pretty comfortable with it, so that was okay. Uh, still a lot of activity going on. uh from the governor's office and and with with Tashi and community college and who's going to do what, how that's all going to work out and and now some of these federal regulations kind of uh spin that backwards. So stay tuned. Nobody knows what's going to happen there, but we're working on it. Uh Dr. Beaver, our uh our president, is on that commission, so we'll get firsthand information on that. And that's all I have. Okay, item. You've got
013your committee meetings. [Applause] Here we are. Student reps. You got it. Good evening. It's great to see you all again. Tonight, I have to recap some events that happened in the last month, as well as some upcoming events in the high school. To begin, the high school's production of musical Big Fish was a great success. There was a great turnout all three days of the show. The cast and crew did an amazing job putting it all together and we want to congratulate them on their hard work. The pep rally on Friday, April 4th went well. Students participated in blindfolded musical chairs and the staff got together to do a faculty basketball game. Spring and winter sports were recognized for the 2024 2025 season and clubs and their members members for this year were also recognized.
014Prom was a great hit. Everyone in attendance looked great. They had fun dancing, taking pictures, and enjoying the soft served ice cream bar. Prom king and queen were Eli Grady and Caitlyn Barfold. And prom was Kate Noviki and Ellosh. Student council hosted a blood drive on April 9th. 32 units of blood were collected. And of those 32 units, 28 were viable. This amount of blood can save up to 84 lives. We'd like to thank all the generous students and staff that signed up to donate. The career fair is this Wednesday, April 16th. Over 60 members from colleges, universities, branches of the military, businesses, and communities are coming to the high school to talk to students from elementary to high school about um any like questions regarding their future and how to get involved more in
015the community. A senior only career fair will be held on a Tuesday, April 29th at the Steel Stacks in Bethlehem. This gives seniors a great pathway to, you know, continue their, you know, journeys after high school as well as network within the community. That's all I have for tonight and thank you very much. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Um, so I'm going to be adding on to Jayla's report and then I will also be giving you the sports report. So, at Skills USA um leadership and skills conference in Hershey, senior Gage Tessore won a gold medal in the electronics technology contest and qualified to compete at U at Skills USA Nationals this summer. Congratulations, Gage. SAD won first place for the highway safety conference that took place on Wednesday, April 2nd at the Lehigh Valley
016Mac trucks headquarters. The end of the the third marking period was April 2nd. And then spring break is from Thursday, April 17th to Monday the 21st. National Honor Society is taking their annual trip to um American Dream Mall on Thursday, May 1st. A PBIS rewards day will be held on Friday, May 2nd. Activities like an ultimate frisbee tournament, painting, cooking, board games, and study halls will be available for the students. And now on to the sports report. Track and field has their next meet tomorrow, um, Tuesday the 15th at at Katasaka High School. So softball has their next game on Friday, nope, Wednesday, April 16th against uh, Southern Lehigh. And baseball also has their next game on Wednesday the April 16th against Southern Lehigh. And that's all I have for tonight. Just a quick question.
017Where are the girls and boys playing their their games right now, their home games? Um, Do we know um softball's over at Walnaport softball field where they they've been playing there and now they're going to be switching over to Eagles Nest. That's what I heard. They were switching to Eagles Nest. Yeah. So they can be out there today. Okay. Nice. Any other questions for the student reps? Anyone? No. Okay. Uh solicitor. No report this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Dr. Stoka, thank you. This evening we have a presentation for employees and our staffing profile. And I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Link to go ahead and get started. Thank you, Dr. So tonight, as part of our monthly data reports to the school board and the community, we will share some general
018information related to the district's employee profile. So we're going to cover all the different work groups in the school district this evening. This visual captures the continuous cycle we strive to create through recruitment, retention, and professional development. It's not just about filling the positions. It's about finding the right people for open positions at Northern Lehi. creating an environment where they want to stay and supporting them in growing professionally. When these three elements work in harmony, we build a subst a sustainable staffing model that not only benefits our staff but ultimately leads to stronger outcomes for our students. When the school district has vacancies and positions, we target recruitment in certain areas. Uh first we look at targeted advertising such as in local media like the Times News and other local newspapers on uh applications like
019Handshake uh for colleges and universities. Uh something through the Pennsylvania Department of Education called Pen Links where they will actually share out our vacancies throughout their network through u the Commonwealth on social media such as Twitter and LinkedIn. Um, and depending on the position, sometimes we will advertise out on our digital marquees in front of the schools. Additionally, we uh refer people to our district website, specifically the employment tab. uh we'll have listed all of our current vacancies includes including things positions like the daily substitutes and it's also a resource for all the different documents that they have to submit to the school district as they go through the application process like the state standard teaching application as well as their clearances. Uh we also participate in recruitment fairs and events at colleges at colleges.
020Uh occasionally depending on the need we will host our own uh kind of job fairs right here in this room actually. Um and we also participate in the guest teacher program through CLIU uh which has been a great support to us this year filling some of these um more of like the day-to-day substitute positions. And then of course just through word of mouth uh through our professional networks and personal networks letting people know when we have positions available that they may be interested in or someone they know may be interested in. This slide highlights the collaborative effort that goes into welcoming and supporting new staff members from the moment they join our district. Onboarding and training are not isolated to a single department. It is truly a district-wide effort. From human resources to our school
021principles, from operations and technology to food service and safety and security, every team plays a role in helping new employees feel informed, supported, and connected. Our goal is to ensure that each new team member understands our culture, our expectations and systems and has access to the professional development they need to thrive in their role. We are always gathering feedback from staff about their onboarding experience so we can continue to refine and in improve the process. Okay. And some of that feedback comes to us in um through different avenues. And some of that feedback covers things like growth opportunities. In Northern Lee High School District, we try to grow our own into um the next level up of a position. So, for example, uh we've had support staff become professional staff. So, power educators becoming aids,
022building permanent sub, scratch that, power educators becoming teachers, uh building permanent subs, becoming permanent teachers. Uh we've also had uh professional staff and skilled maintenance become administrative staff. We've had professional staff um work their way up into other administrative roles. We've had SPOS's become our school district police uh chief of police. We've had assistant principles become principles. We've have had principles transition into district office positions. And we've had administrative assistants transition transition into coordinator positions. So, we're trying trying to promote from within as much as possible. We've uh collaborative culture is something that we also try to emphasize here in Northern Lehigh School District. So, opportunities for employees, parents, and community members to engage in committees and provide survey feedback. Uh teachers are invited to join interview panels and curriculum selection committees. And students are
023engaged in building level groups such as student council, board representatives, and uh various extracurricular groups that will provide feedback back up to administration and ultimately the school board. We also try to establish a sense of community here. We have employees in each group that have been here for their entire career or have graduated from Northern Le High School District and then returned to work for us or actively recruit community members to apply for positions here. Additionally, we have strong working relationships and partnerships with local businesses, local law enforcement, and local service groups. Our resources and facilities we believe are um you know serve our students and employees well. We have a very robust one-to-one device program in our technology department. Every one of our students has access to a wireless device uh when they need
024it. Uh evolving curriculum and materials. We have well-maintained buildings and grounds and we continue to look to evolve to better meet the needs of our students, employees, and community. Our agreements and contracts with our employees are something that we review and negotiate um on a cyclical basis. Representatives and officers of our different work groups, administration, and the school board work to create and implement contracts and agreements which are fair and responsible for all members while being respectful of our taxpaying community. The next few slides will include data for all of our various work groups. This particular slide provides a snapshot of our current administrative team through several demographic and professional lenses. We've included data on gender, ethnicity, age, years of service, and the highest degree earned. On this slide, you can see that there are
02516 administrators in the district. Our athletic director is retiring at the end of this school year, and we will be hiring to replace that position and expand its capacity to support students. Currently, there are 69% of our admin team, which are males, and 31% are females. 100% are white or Caucasian, and the average age is 48 years old. On average, we have 18 years of service in public education. And the highest degree level earned is depicted at the bottom in the middle. And we currently have two administrators working towards their next degree with more applying next year to programs. Thanks, Dr. Stoker. And then next we have our administrative assistance group. Currently, we have 20 employees in a school district that fall into the administrative assistant group. Uh there are currently no open positions. The
026average age in that group is 47 years and uh 8 years average service time in that position. Uh gender uh breakdown is 35% are male and 65% are female with 100% of this group being white or caucasian. In the age bracket, you can kind of see how that breaks down from 19 to 30 years, 31 to 40, 41 to 50, 51 to 60, and 61 plus. years of service. Most of our employees in this group, the administrative assistance group, are in the first 10 years of their career here in Northern Lehigh School District. Uh but we do have 11 that have been here 11 to 20 years and 21 um nope, scratch that. We have uh three that have been here 11 to 20 years and three that have been here 21 to 30 years
027and none in the 31 to 40 bracket. The next slide covers our professional staff and permanent substitutes. This includes teachers, school counselors, school nurses, as well as our permanent substitutes. There are 129 employees um in this category within the district. We are fortunate this year that all of our permanent substitute positions are currently filled, of which we have four. Currently, 33% of our professional staff are male, and 67% are female, 98% are white or Caucasian, 1% are Hispanic, and 2% are black or African-American. The average age is 42 years old, and on average, they have 14 years of service in public education. The highest degree level earned is again depicted at the bottom in the middle. Currently, there are 29% that hold bachelor's degrees, 70% that hold a master's degree, and 2% that hold doctorate
028degrees. Um, as you know, that that doesn't add up to 100 due to rounding, but it's very close to 100. Um, and we again have several professional staff working towards their next degree. Next we have our par professionals and health room aids. There are 51 employees in this group. Uh four special education paras are currently open uh to be filled. We have 40 46 is the average age and six years average years of service in this group. 8% are males and 92% are females in this group. with ethnicity, ethnicity, it's 98% white and Caucasian, 2% Hispanic. And you can see the age breakdown there again, left to right in the years of service. Again, in this group, the greatest um bracket of years of service is that 0 to 10 years with 39 employees and
029then working down from there. Okay, this slide shows our custodial and maintenance staff uh and the data related to the positions in this category. There are 21 employees in this category in the district. We are again fortunate that all of our positions in this area are currently filled. Currently, 52% of uh this work class are males and 48% are females. 95% are white or caucasian and 5% are Hispanic. The average age is 47 years. Um, however, again, you can see that that 0 to 10year bracket is our largest bar in the bottom right hand corner showing that we have a relatively uh new staff in this area with six years of service in public education. and three have licenses or advanced certifications including licensed electrician, certified HVAC tech, water testing license, and pesticide license. Okay,
030next we have our food services staff. Uh we have 23 employees in this group. There are currently no open positions. We're happy that this department is fully staffed. Average age is 47 years old and 5.4 years of average years of service. Each site has a serve safe certification. We also hosted one one intern in the fall. So, a college student that was looking to go into the food services um industry uh interned with Mrs. Frink, our director of food services. We have 9% males in this group and 91% females. uh with 100% of the employees in this group being white Caucasian. Um you can kind of see the age brackets there. The largest age bracket group in this uh particular group is the eight employees in the 41 to 50 and most employees again fall
031in the zero to 10 years of experience with 20 employees in this group being in the first 10 years of their career. In summary, we have a work for work workforce which is varied in years of experience, age and certification and education levels. We offer pathways for advancement within the district. We seek to advance highly skilled employees from within or to hire employees from outside the district that meet our needs while bringing new perspectives. As our student body continues to become more diverse, we should also work to ensure that they see employees within our district which are also diverse and representative of the students they teach and support. That concludes NLSD's employee staffing profile. Are there any questions? Hearing none, that's the report that I have for this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Stoker.
032Uh, since you had the floor, I had the floor. Uh, I just wanted to say thank you to Dr. Stoker for uh, an excellent presentation at our committee meeting. She did the budget, knocked it out of park. She did an excellent job. Thank you very much for for filling in and doing that. You did a great job. Thank you, Mr. Okay, we're at business manager, Miss Taus. And we are I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Link. They're going to be projecting the budget so that we can um give a brief um synopsis of the budget opposed to what was done at the finance committee meeting uh last week. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Molators. And tonight we're going to do uh an a bridged version of the presentation that was offered last Monday at
033the last Monday at the finance committee meeting and we will first be looking at um our act one index. So the actub one index is set by the Pennsylvania department of ed um every year and the flat index this year is 4%. Northern Lehigh's adjusted index is 5.5% for this year. Um 2627 the IFO is stating that the act one index is projected to go down and to go down over the next three years from a 3.6 ending in the 2829 school year at a 3.1. Again those are projections. Um then piecers rates this is the below um projected employer contribution rates as of June 30th 2023 validations and it presumes a 7% market rate of return. So for the 2520 for the 2526 school year uh piecers will be paying in a percentage of
03434% and that will climb over the next couple of years. So next year it will go to 34.72 meaning the 26 27 school year. So two years from now and then ending in the 2829 school years it will cap out at 35.85 during that year. And again those are projections based on the market rate of return and what they vision is going to be happening with the peasers fund. Next slide. Okay. Here uh we have a review of our district profile looking back to the 2122 school year. I would say that the special kind of data point here is that we're projecting our incoming kindergarten class to be at about 115 to 125 children. We have about 87 88 so far that are fully registered. That number will continue to shift as we work through
035the end of the school year, through the summer, and often even into the early months, early weeks of the upcoming school year. So again, um we're projecting 115 to 125 for our incoming kindergarten class. Our employee profile currently uh we have 120 support staff, 131 professional staff, 16 administrators for a total of 267. This please note that this does include the one special education teacher at special at Slington Elementary School, one parah at PES and one parah at Slington Elementary School, which is the recommend administrative recommendation to the school board to include in the budget for next school year. Um, if those positions are not included, this graph, this table would then change. This is where our current fund balance has trended over the last few years. So, it does start back in 2016 and
036it ends at the 2024 school year. So, that would be the end of 2023 2024 school year. We had $18 million in our fund balance. Okay, we're going to look at the administrative recommendations for each school building. So, for Peter's Elementary School, we're recommending to transfer a second grade teacher to a third grade classroom due to class size. that class is a larger class and as it transitions to third grade um that teacher or a teaching position has been following that class through since kindergarten. We're also recommending to add a pareducator position funded through the general fund. We would prioritize first grade students needs and assign pareducator to support the reading and math intervention needs of students at risk in these subject areas. For Slington Elementary School, we're recommending to add that one special education
037teacher that I mentioned previously fund it through reintegration of outplaced students two to three over time. So here we have students that are placed in classrooms outside of the school district and we are recommending to start to transition some of those students back here and to also we have some students at Peter's Elementary School that are in a highly specialized classroom right now and as they rise to third grade we would like to open up a classroom here to keep those children in our school in one of our classrooms with our teacher um and start to bring students back. Additionally, we so again, we'll avoid the cost of having to outplace two rising third graders. This position will be for a new so um Slington Elementary School emotional support classroom. Also recommending to add one
038par educator position funded through savings of reintegrated outplace student who has a onetoone PAR educator. While we hire the PAR while we hire the PAR educator directly for our classroom, it will be less expensive than our current cost. We have a student that's moving into our district that has a onetoone par educator assigned to them. We must continue that under federal law. We would like to bring that student back into one of our classrooms and then hire a teacher directly than what we're paying for the cost of the PAR educator through an outside provider in an outside classroom. right now. Middle school. Uh we're recommending to repurpose the Northern Lehigh High School business technology education position vacancy due to retirement to a new secondary music position to be shared with the high school and for
039the board to consider building a sixth grade wing on the middle school and relocating sixth grade to the middle school. for the high school. Uh the recommended action is again to repurpose that business technology education position vacancy due to retirement to a new secondary music position to be shared with the Northern Lehigh Middle School to make sure that we can continue to offer the classes for the growing number of students that are participating in our music program at the secondary level. So the 2526 budget increase expenditures besides our normal increases for salary and benefits, we also saw an increase in this year's upcoming budget for transportation, anticipation for a new bond payment, one new teacher position and two uh par educators, increased costs for charter schools and outplacement of students, as well as piecers and
040healthcare increases. These do not include increases to the budget that are being recommended to be offset by the fund balance for one-time purchases which will be discussed a little bit later in the presentation. And um again, these are all driving factors that are in our current budget. um with the understanding that the bond for the new middle school configuration and common campus has to be built into the budget at this point in time because whether we're going to move through with that project that meeting will not be held to a later date in time and we have to account for that in the budget. However, if the common campus is deemed not to be done, that's money that we would move out of that budget then. So real estate tax collection rate last year we
041collected at a 94.75% rate and we are still anticipating collecting that again for the 2526 school year. 5.5% act one adjusted tax increase would give an additional little over a million dollars in tax revenue. Federal revenues were budgeted in this in the 2526 rate at exactly what was in for the 2425 because at this point in time we have not received our numbers yet for 2526. If we do receive them and they are higher than what was in the budget, we will add the additional revenues to the budget in order to um show more revenues. State revenues. Our budget had a slight increase over the 2425 school year. Governor's budget for 2526 proposed a $276,000 increase in funding for basic ed. I put a little over $100,000 about $140ome,000 into that budget line item. Special
042education for 2526 in the governor's budget was a little over 81,000. I put about 50% of that in. So a little right around $4ome,000 in. Our ready tolearn brock grant has been flatfunded again. We use that to pay for three teachers out at Peters Elementary School, but we will also be receiving an additional $24,000 due to the tax equity adjustments that will be used to offset some of our debt payments. Here, this table represents uh some recommended expenditures for long-term project planning and use of fund balance. Uh I'm not going to read through each of these, but um Mr. pause if we can maybe just let him hang there for about 10 seconds or so. And you'll see this goes all the way out through the 2032 2033 school year. everything from uh improving our
043technology with the network switches and our server center all the way down to a potential stadium lighting upgrades in the year 2032 2033. The stadium lighting is the only lighting in the district that has not been upgraded to um more of the lowcost high efficiency lighting like in 2018 and 2019 when we did our ESCO project. Okay. Also, uh we need to make some decisions on our 2025 summer programs. uh the elementary steam camp um which you'll hear in a short bit uh in in my superintendent report. Uh we're very fortunate that our education foundation uh through a very generous grant through a local uh organization, local business um has committed to pay for the elementary steam camp cost for 12 days at 4 hours per day. uh we'll need to make a decision about
044whether we want to run the open horizons camp this summer uh for 12 days, 4 hours per day at a total cost of $48,696. If we want to instead utilize that money to fund an additional two PAR educators year round, one at Slington Elementary School and one at Peters Elementary School, or the board can direct administration to do neither, neither open horizons nor the PAR educator positions. What was the cost of the PAR educational position? Uh the if the board were to add two additional PAR educator positions, it would be a total total cost of about $56,000 for the both of them. Thank you. You're welcome. Estimated fund balance. So this is what um we are estimating our fund balance to be at the end of June 30th, 2025. So we're looking at probably putting
045in roughly about $700,000 back into our fund balance. Um, the area in yellow is that one-time purchases that I talked about a few minutes ago. So, they are going to be used for one-time purchases such as a truck that we need, middle school furniture, and Selenington Elementary School furniture. We take $200,000 out of our fund balance every year to pay part of our bonds. Um, there's a high school flooring project at $270,000. We received just shy of a million dollars from the state in order to do uh the high school flooring project, but we had matching funds that we had to match in order to be eligible for that. So that is those matching funds and the high school water softener system, I'm sorry, middle school water softener system as uh along with piecers increases
046at 215,000 and healthcare increases at 224. So that totals the 1,82 uh that is being recommended to be used out of fund balance in order to pay onetime purchases. So this is where where our budget currently is. Our expenditures are already 42,993 231. Our revenues including the fund balance for those one-time purchases total 41,463929. The line item underneath the expenditures that are under the 900s for principal repayment and transfers of $2,56,000 of that is $55,000 for a new bond purchase if the board chooses to move forward with a renovation to the middle school and transition to a common campus. administration will make have a better understanding of the wishes of the board at the upcoming April meeting to discuss these projects and can adjust the budget accordingly once a decision is made. So currently our
047budget is still short $1.5 million. So again our expenditures are 42993 our revenues are 40,381 our budget shortfall is 2,611 before we use that 1 million82 of our fund balance for one-time purchases. So our remaining shortfall is 1.529. Um, if the district uses $1,82,000 for one-time purchases for onetime purchases, the debt payment, the pacers and healthcare increases, we would end with a ending fund balance at the end of the 2526 school year, roughly about 17.6 million. And if fund balance was used to pay for all of the remaining budget shortfall, we would end our fund balance at the end of the 2526 school year with just over 16 million. Okay. Administrative recommendations. We're recommending the utilization for fund balance for one-time purchases, debt service payment, and pasers and healthcare increases. Consider a tax increase in
048conjunction with utilization of fund balance to close the gap in addition to generating some revenue for upcoming years for possible construction or renovation projects. Continue to look for grant revenue opportunities to fund positions such as school police officer and social worker. Continue to search for expenditure savings such as reintegrating outplace students. Planning to extend a Northern Lehigh High School flooring project so all floors are replaced over the next three years. discontinue the open horizon summer camp and instead fund two additional PAR educators, one each for PEES and SCES and understand that this is a proposed preliminary budget. Approve it at a 5.5% tax increase with the understanding that it will be adjusted down for the final budget in June. And at this time, we'll open it up to questions and comments uh from the school
049board members. And then community at the vote time, you'll have your opportunity to share your comments. Who wants to jump in? Anyone? Anywhere. All right, I I'll I'll start the party, I guess. Um, I I'm pretty sure I asked this question at one of the previous committees, but I figured I'd ask it now since we have a better audience. If we were to go forward with this project, the project alone, what kind of tax increase would we need just to support the bond payment? So, it's a 500 thou approximate $500,000 um bond payment. So that would be convert that to a mill. I think a mill is what about 400? 600 600,000. So it's just less than a mill. So just less than a mill. Okay. That's just for that project to maintain that for
050the 20 year lifespan of that bond. Correct. For that one bond. Just for that one bond. Yes. Correct. But that bond won't cover all the expenses for that project. Correct. the bond if a if award be the full bond for $50 million. Currently, they're projecting it would cover an addition at the middle school and the additions at Sington Elementary School. Say that again. But the 5 million isn't for all of that. I'm sorry. The 500,000 correct? It would be every Yes. That so that that Go ahead. Go ahead. So it's $500 million or $500,000 for this year, right? And then we would go out for another bond next year and then another bond and it when it all settles out, it'll be an additional $2 million in bond payments, but we will take the bonds
051out over a period of time. So we're going to 500,000 for the next four years. The first one that we do is 500,000 right now and that will be a 20-year bond and then next year we would do another $500,000 for another 20 years. Okay. So, if I'm doing the math right, you would almost need a two% raise annually just to cover that bond. Correct. Correct. Is that math? Is that math right? Is two 2% increase in this year's revenues. Uh hold on a second. 3% in this year would give you $573,000. So 2% is going to give us less than that. Okay. So So it's probably closer to three. Yeah, closer to three. Probably two and three quarter. So you're looking at roughly 3% annually just to cover that project cost. But we have
052been putting money back into fund balance in the last couple years. If it's if the only revenue to go towards that would be from a bond and we have other sources of revenue, right? Correct. Anything else? just a really a point and for the public particularly uh knowing that in in the past I'm sorry we uh when we do a a preliminary budget now knowing that we whatever we put in as a percentage tonight we need to make sure that we're protecting oursel for the future because what will happen is we can lower that number as we go along before we do the final budget but we can never raise So some of the panic that may happen tonight may not be what it's going to be when we actually do the final budget. I
053just think that's important to know. Comments important comment. One more. So Oh, okay. uh the whole the whole project, is it still on the table? Um with the feasibility study, is it still an option instead of doing the full project to do a partial project which includes renovations and not just the full $50 million project? Is that still So everything is still on the table. You know, administration needs direction from the school board on what they actually want to do. Whether it's just an addition at the middle school, whether it's an addition at the middle school plus additions at Slington Elementary School and close Peter's Elementary School eventually, any combination thereof. Um, or do I mean, they could even do an addition at the middle school and then just continue to do renovations and repairs
054to the other buildings. If that were the case, then you're going to have underutilization at Slington Elementary School if we were to move sixth grade to here. So you have many options. I don't know if many is the appropriate word, but you have options that you know decisions that you're going to have to make um really by the end of June by the time we approve this budget. Can I get some clarification? So, in order to achieve the common campus of moving the kids from Peters, technically we would need to just put an addition on the middle school so that we could get um SL sixth grade out of Slington and then move Peters to Slington. Is that not the case or is this just to move uh sixth grade from Slatingington only? So, at
055this time for this point the first phase of the project would be to move sixth grade to the middle school. Okay, if you stop there, you will not have enough space to bring K 1 and two into Slington Elementary School. You would only have enough to bring really one grade level over to backfill sixth grade. If you want to bring all three of them to Slington Elementary School, kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, you would have to put additions on Slington Elementary School. Okay. So, we would need additions on the middle school and on Slington to achieve this goal. Okay, that's correct. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, one more might be my last one. No problems. Um, we or you your office sent out a survey in regards to this. Do we have there any
056results that is coming up? Not tonight. That'll be for that special meeting. Be for that special meeting we have. We're going to jump again. We're going to deep dive into that at that at that special meeting. So, fair enough. five millions. And can I also just clarify something too? There's no talk of a new building being built. Correct. There's no new building. It's just additions to what's existing. That's correct. Brand new building is not part of the feasibility study. So there's no discussion of building a standalone building. Thank you. So there's no closing feeders elementary saying. We we'll get to you. Okay. This is we'll get to you. Okay. anyone support? No. Yeah. I just have um just some clarification. So, if we did all the recommendations um moving the schools and so forth, what
057is the max that the project would cost us? $2 million is is what our bond payment would go up. In total, we're looking at 50 for the additions, right? If you were to do all of the additions, it would be about $50 million. um if the board were to make a decision in the next couple months, I can't project if you you know decide next year that you want to do the position the price of inflation would be for a project like that. You're welcome. Just to clarify, if we don't do any of the changes or additions, there is still the potential of between 20 and $30 million of renovations that would still be required. Correct. spread out over years. Over years and over all four buildings. Correct. Thank you. And I want to point
058something else out. There was questions about how much the budget would go up with the bond issue, but I would remind you that this year we had like a $2 billion surplus. So assuming everything stays equal, which it won't, we would have had $2 million left this year to pay off a half billion dollar budget. So essentially the budget surplus that we have is sufficient to pay off the bond issue over time. Now everything else is going to change of course, but we did have $2 million extra. So just, you know, it's not like this is going to be all new money that's going to have to come in here to pay for that. There's already money available for for some of it. Anyone else? Anything? Looking to the left one more time. Anybody jump
059in? No. All right. One more. One more. Sorry. Okay. the So the $50 million bond that will but when you take interest over 20 years that 50 million is going to cost us probably what million you know yeah it's I'd have to actually look that up um the the actual cost yeah cuz the um financial advisors gave us a print out of that that's where I got the 505 and they will be here in April to update all of those numbers for us as well. Um, so I can get back to you with that. No, no. I I I vaguely remember that presentation. I I just remembered that that 50 million isn't correct because you have interest on that, right? So you add interest over 20 years. That 20-year loan is going to cost significantly
060more, right? Okay. Um, I just had a question about um, you referenced 20 to $30 million would still be needed for renovations or maintenance if we don't do the full project. Can you tell me what that would entail? Sure. If you So, if you look back at the previous presentations, which are publicly available, it's all the recommended upgrades bringing schools into ADA compliance. um you know, at least one of the schools, likely two, are going to need new roofs. Um HVAC repair at Peters Elementary School, bringing the high school up to ADA compliance. Um it's it's just a string of projects that were presented at several um finance and buildings and grounds committee meetings. Um all available on on the board minutes. Thank you very much. So, it's it's it's a long series of smaller
061projects. Thank you. You're welcome. Last chance. Anyone? No more comments or questions? Okay. Uh you want to go down the public list and Well, that actually just closes out the business manager report. That's true. That's right. You're right. Still the superintendent's report. Um Thank you. So, I will I will go through that, sir. And then um we'll get to that when we get to the budget. Yeah. um you may want to announce the um the special meeting after my report. Okay. Okay. I have it down here. Yes. Okay. Thank you again. Thank you. Welcome everyone. It's good to see everybody here this evening. Uh for my superintendent report tonight, I would like to recognize several students and student groups who have done some exceptional things representing the Northern Lehigh School District. Additionally, I would like
062to acknowledge some generous donors who have gone above and beyond in supporting our students. First, I would like to thank and commend the Northern Lehigh Middle School, what's so cool About Manufacturing team. This year's team included uh Cadence Bradigan, seventh grade. Cameron Crucial, eighth grade. Cole Crucial, eighth grade. Zoe Freed, eighth grade. Scarlett Green, seventh grade. Ryder Gaul, eighth grade. Adrien Haul, eighth grade. Naomi Hawk, seventh grade. Anna Caretsky, seventh grade. JC Longbach, eighth grade. And Chase Moyer, also in eighth grade. The students were led by team adviser in Northern Lehigh Middle School art teacher, Mrs. Mary Frank, and partnered with Precision Roll Grinders. While they did not bring home a trophy this year, the quality of their video, both in content and production, was outstanding and reflected positively on both the community and our
063district. Thank you to this year's What's So Cool About Manufacturing team for your hard work and creativity. Thank you, Mrs. Frank. Next, I would like to recognize and congratulate uh the Northern Lehigh High School SAD uh so students against destructive decisions team. I believe Olivia mentioned this as well before she left this evening. For the third consecutive year, they won the Lehigh Valley Highway Safety Conference Division, competing against 10 other districts across the region. This year's team included Eli Grady, Sarah Hans, Hanzeric, Christa Lynch, Gabrielle Hannah, Matt Mccardi, Brody Rothrock, Reese Lipsky, Dakota Barthold, Caitlyn Barold, James Man, Michaela Gordon, and Addison Sieri. This group of highly creative students produced a powerful video warning about the dangers and consequences of underage drinking and drinking and driving. We are incredibly proud of their uh continued success
064and dedication to promoting safe choices among their peers. I'm also proud to announce that we once again, and this was mentioned in uh one of our student representatives report, once again we have a state champion in our district. Northern Lehigh High School senior Gage Tessatori earned a gold medal in the electronics technology competition and has qualified to compete at Skills USA Nationals this summer in Atlanta, Georgia. Uh, Gage is a fourthyear student in the electronics technology program at Lehigh Career and Technical Institute. Congratulations to Gage on this tremendous accomplishment. That is the second state champion Northern Lehigh student that has attended LCTI in the last three years. That's remarkable for a school our size. uh as part and transitioning on as part of the Peters Elementary School spring into service schoolwide positive behavior support rewards.
065We received generous donations from two local businesses. Uh the Labar Construction and Outdoor Garden Supply in Slington donated two buckets of river rocks for our second graders to paint. And Bake Oven Gardens in Germansville donated three flats of B pansies for the students to plant in the flower beds and the large planter pots in front of the school. We truly appreciate their support in making this meaningful project possible for our students. Next, I would like to thank the Northern Lehigh Education Foundation for their continued investment in our students even beyond graduation. This year, the foundation announced two new annual scholarships of $2,500 each. One for students pursuing a degree in an education related field. So, somebody that wants to be a teacher or school counselor or a school psychologist. and one for those pursuing careers
066in the skilled trades. Their generosity continues to open the doors for our graduates. Finally, I want to express our sincere gratitude to the Nef's National Bank for their unwavering support. Most recently, they donated $25,000 to the Northerly High Education Foundation to fully fund the 2025 elementary summer steam camp. So, you saw that as one of our summer programs listed earlier. that will continue this year because of the NEF's National Bank um and the and our Northern Lehigh Education Foundation. It is due to their generosity and commitment to our students and summer enrichment opportunities that this camp will now run for the seventh consecutive year. So again, congratulations to all of our students and thank you so much to all of our supporters and donors. And that concludes my report, Mr. Green. Thank you, sir. Okay,
067item K. An executive session was held this evening at 7 6:15. Uh we discussed personnel and some litigation items at that time and uh it was suggested that I announce this now. So I will uh at the meeting last Monday, we talked about having a special meeting on the fourth Monday and I said 5:30. There's some conflicts of interest. So, that's going to be held the 4th Monday, which I think is the 28th, and it'll start at 6:00, not 5:30. Uh, advertising will be done appropriately for that. I just wanted to mention, I see our friend from the uh Times News is here. Maybe he'll make a little mention of that. He's hiding behind the camera, but okay. Thank you. So, just want to point that out. That will be at 6:00 and and not
068at 5:30. Uh, okay. We're at personnel. We have personnel items uh A through HI JK HN. Oh my goodness. A motion to approve the personnel items. Motion second. That chair. Oh, Dr. Thank you. Any questions on the personnel items? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. Post. No. And so ordered. Uh, we have I'm sorry. What? Go ahead. I just wanted to welcome someone. Oh, you want to do that now? Sure. Okay, go ahead. Um, I would, uh, like to congratulate and welcome Dr. Maryanne Rush Wallace. Uh, she will be our new director of athletics and student activities. Welcome to Northern Lehigh. Very excited to start working with you and see what you can do with our uh, students and employees. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Welcome. Okay, now we'll
069do policy. We have uh 11 policy items. Is there a motion to approve the policy items? So move second motion and a second. Any questions on the policies? Doing none. All those in favor signify by saying I oppose. No. And so ordered. We have one three conferences. Is there a motion to approve the conference items? So move. Second. Second. Thank you. Any questions on the conferences hearing? None. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppos? No. Curriculum and instruction. We have 82 G. I think we can do those all together. Is there a motion to approve the items under curriculum and instruction? Second. Have Chad second. No. No. Mr. Puss. Thank you, Eric. Any questions? I just have a comment, Mr. Green. I think it's great that we allow um our students the
070opportunity to do dual credit for LRYC, allow them get some college credit um while they are still in school. So, I just think it's a great opportunity that the students have. So, thank you. Any other comments hearing? None. All those in favor signify by saying I. Those opposed? No. And so ordered. I have nothing under old business. Anyone? Anyone? Old business? No. New business. Uh have the setting graduation day and a rain day. There a motion to approve the graduation date. Thank you. Any questions on that? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. No. And so order. Then we go to financial and we will do financial down to item I think it's L. Yeah. Item Yeah. A through L. Is there a motion to approve those items? So move. Second.
071Thank you. Any questions? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed. No. And so order. the moment we've all been waiting for. Okay. Adoption of the uh proposed financial budget for 20 526. So, you want to go down the list and um Sure. So, I'm going to begin to call people that check that they would like to speak on the budget this evening. Remind you that each speaker has five minutes. Uh Mrs. Molatorus will prompt you at the 4m minute mark um to kind of start wrapping up your statement. So uh first one is um I believe Suzanne uh Miss Suzanne Waker. Yep. Yes. I um um the amount that you people are proposing to have for this school to um to be built. However you are going to do
072it, have you figured in in the tariffs that we're going to be paying for the materials, the extra whole lot of money that we're probably going to be getting charged? It's that if it's if it's a question, that's one of the things Dr. Lake spoke of earlier. He said, "I have no idea what this is going to cost a month, two months, six months down the road." So, no, I don't think anybody in this room has So, this 3% increase in our taxes could go a whole lot higher. Is that right? I'm not as convinced as some of the people were that we're going to have a 3% tax base every year to pay for it. I don't even know what I don't even know what's going to be this year, yet alone what it's
073going to be 17 years from now. So, I know, but I worry about that because I'm on social security and if the government touches my social security, I'm going to lose my house. like a whole lot of other people and that's very very concerning to me. That's it for me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Waker. Um, next, uh, Mr. Bob McGee. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Um, I live on 873 out by Old Road. I've been there for 36 years. Um, this year I'll be 69. I'm planning I'm hoping to retire by the end of the year. I sat down and did my budget. My $9,000 a year school tax is going to eat up almost 4 months of my social security. Unfortunately, I'm self-employed and I do not have a pension and
074I'm extremely worried that I may lose my house and my property after 36 years, especially with an increase. Has me very concerned. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McGee. Uh, next we have um Ricky Smith. I live in Walnut. I graduated from Northern Lehigh. My son graduated from Northern Lehigh. Lived here all my life. And I'm extremely concerned with the constant increase of taxes. The taxes keep going up. We really have to be considerate of all the older people that live here. It's just getting out of control. I really think you really need to look at what needs to be done and moving Peters over here. Have you considered when you move Peters over here with all the undeveloped property in this township? What happens in 15 years from now when developments start popping up all
075over the place and you have no more space here to build because it's happened in other districts. It's a great concept, but you really got to look. You have not much space here. What do you do? You're not going to buy property then. So, I just would like that you guys really take consideration of what it is. the tax increases are just out of control and that's everywhere. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Uh, next we have uh Mrs. Frank. Um, hi. Reflecting on the budget proposal, um, NLEA just would like to address the following teacher adjustments. There is a need to hire the special education teacher at the elementary level to service the students in our community. There was a commitment by this board last summer to hire a secondary music teacher
076and there should be a replacement for the retirement in our business education department to continue the succession and development of curriculum to prepare our students for the 21st century. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Frank. Uh, next we have um, Mrs. Patricia Nunaker. Hi. Thank you. Hello. Thank you. Okay. So, my concerns, some of my concerns have to do with the survey that was presented. Survey was presented to parents of the school district. Is that what I'm getting? uh it was presented to employees, parents and also on the community. I do in what way I do recognize that there was a mistake. It should have said March 28th as the closing time instead of April 28th. Um it was presented to the community. We advertised it in two local newspapers and in board minutes um as
077well as on our district website as well. And Okay. Yes. Well, I hear you with that. I understand. But you guys can send me my taxes. I give them to my mortgage company and they pay them. But me as a resident, I got no notice until um social media, which I don't pay attention to social media. I discussed that with one of your gentlemen today out front. My husband told me. Um but there's a lot of people in my neighborhood that are upset. Uh rightfully so. The thing is, okay, um, Peters, I had children down there and the whole thing then was putting little potties down at Peter's Elementary to accommodate kindergarten first, second for your act one, and then keeping this school up here for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Okay. Um,
078from what I'm seeing, first of all, Pers is going to keep going up. the healthc care is going to keep going up. As a resident, I feel that the tax money is better spent on kind of chipping away at the problems and not increasing the rates that we have to pay as a community on taxes. Okay. Um, you in one of your meetings, the April 7th meeting, you had an $18 million like slush fund. Is that what I got? The school district does not have a slush fund, ma'am. Well, it's like a sunshine, you know, you need to kind of thing. Yeah. It's considered a fund balance. Exactly. So, I feel like a lot of us believe that that would do a lot better with um just keeping things in check, just fixing things as
079they go. I know it seems peace meal, but we as homeowners have to do that. We can't go out and just spend astronomical money. $50 million to me is a lot of money. Okay? And I can tell you not this minute what my taxes are, but they're pretty high. And you know, we to mail out to us residents that have no children in the district to say, "Hey, this is what's going on." You know, $50 million project. And to go to the common campus, I get it. Maybe it seems safer, but you have Parkland. Parkland has separate schools all over the pit place down here. Um, you know, Machung Road, they have them at the high school level. They have them at the middle school. I just don't believe that the school board or administration
080is doing due diligence with spending money that they don't have and projecting because also um you talk about the budget from Pennsylvania that you're expecting that money. Okay. So Josh is going to go in and he's going to give his feel or he already did not really paying attention and they're going to say yes or no. So you either get a little bit of money that you expected or you're going to get what you expected. So I think to go out one minute remaining. Okay. Okay. To go out on a limb and put out all this money to move the sixth grade over here when you're not even sure what's going to happen in the future. And let's face it, you know, Canada's pretty annoyed with us right now. So that's where all the wood's
081coming from. And then we had all everything sitting on the trains, you know, putting up the price during that time during CO. So everybody knows the story, but we really feel like we need to take these things into consideration and kind of just peace meal it along. Please do not vote for the budget today as it stands. Okay. Thank you, M. 100%. Thank you. Okay, next we have uh Crystal Belby. Um I had a daughter that graduated a couple years ago from the district and um I own a farm on being 73. Um my mortgage, half of it right now is taxes. Half. Not a quarter, not a third, half is taxes. If you raise the 3%, you now have raised my taxes are higher than the actual cost of my farm. And that to
082me is ridiculous. I have land. I have someone who comes in and farms it as at this point to help pay some of those taxes down. And it's it's to the point now that at this point we may sell and go to a different district because of the taxes. And I don't want to do that. My daughter grew up here. She went to school here. I love the schools. Um I understand. I also agree that we should maybe be chipping away at things versus this giant um ontaking with not knowing the state of which we're going into financially with different cuts um federally and through Pennsylvania. I think things are just way up in the air right now for a lot of us. Um that we we are uncertain of how things are going to
083go. So if you make this huge amount and you have $18 million and then I see that there was a million dollars for lights, can you not pay that out of that $18 million that you have sitting the the fund? Um can that not knock that um deficit that you guys have? Is that not an option? Um these are the things I think need to be looked at before you you kind of take on this giant ginormous um undertaking. Um I do think things need to especially with the class sizes if I'm not mistaken have gone down over the last years. Is that not true? class. They're pretty stable the last few years if you remember that one slide up there because I know I mean when when some of the we're talking 150 160
084kids down to 115 kids to 125. Correct. And that is I I just worry that we're biting off more than we could chew, not being able to see what the future looks for us. That slide shows the number. Thank you, M. Uh, next we have uh Mr. Fred Phillips. All right. I've been a a resident of the district for about 9 years now. And what one of the reasons why I moved in was I felt taxes were reasonable. Um, obviously as everyone's been alluding to, it's gone up. Understandable things cost and all that, but we have to be financially responsible in my eyes. um you know the $50 million project uh 3% over the 20 years that's probably meant it doesn't mean that can't go down but it sounds like most likely it's going to
085go up. Inflation doesn't in this day and age doesn't go down anymore. Um you know what guarantees or two are we going to when a company quotes this are we going to say okay yep we're not going to have to pay anymore. most likely it's probably going to go up. Um, also too, couple years ago, you guys voted for the complex to be updated. Baseball field, softball field, all that stuff had a $2 million job. Who had to pay for it? Was taxpayers. Uh, I don't know if anyone knows this, and most likely some of you do hopefully on the school board. Back in 2023, there was a judge that ruled that the state's uh school funding system was unconstitutional. It has to be something revised again. Obviously, the state doesn't have a a time
086frame that it has to be done, but what happens when that transpires? I mean, it does that mean taxes will go down? Does it mean go up? I know we can't tell the future. uh as as a lot of people alluded here with concerns, people, you know, have uh financial decisions that they have to make. Uh people are on budgets, senior citizens, people that are making minimum wage, all that stuff. Um and when you you have to stretch your budget out, there's you know, people are under financial stress then, too. I mean, obviously, school taxes are one of the things that we have to pay. you know, we have mortgages, we have food that we have to put on our plates, fix our homes, all that stuff. So, that's other things that have to be
087considered in this budget. And I guess too, what are as as taxpayers, what are we getting on our return on investment? Our tax dollars are going into a building into students hope, you know, to hopefully give them a good education and all that stuff. I mean, there's going to be some guarantees that numbers of the math and reading proficiency be going up. Uh, will it help with the numbers of young adults going into secondary education and going into trade school? Uh, is it going to attract more solid teachers? Um, will attract more people into the district and all that stuff. So, obviously there's more money and hopefully that can lower taxes down too. Um, and I guess what and if we go to an all campus, what is the savings? Is is it going to
088be that, you know, Peters closed down now we have everyone here on campus and all that stuff? Is it going to save taxpayers money? Most likely not. It's probably going to stay the same or go up. So I guess what I'm also asking is what's the school board trying to alleviate some of the tax burden honest taxpayers. Uh I did some research uh lately and looking to see what other school districts are doing. Uh some of the things obviously we do do or grants. Uh but are we um helping uh I'm sorry speaker here. Oh. Oh sorry. Let me move her back here a little bit. uh on on the district website I see that you know offering the use of the building catering um but it's on the bottom. Why aren't we advertising that
089a little bit more? I can bring in some revenue into the district. Uh how about the web page? Why not, you know, putting asking companies to advertise on it? I mean, heck, we have sports teams that have logos on their shirts and all that stuff. One minute left. Okay. Thank you. [Applause] uh what are we doing with uh to write grants for inter interactive staff? Are we training them more so maybe we can get more grant money into the school district try to alleviate some taxes on us? Uh also with um how about offering a business funded experimental learning program where businesses actually will will invest money into the school district and that kids will come up with uh realworld projects for students for funding education programs and then they you know correspond with their
090with the teachers and then they come up with a plan on all so we're investing in our community and all that stuff. I I think with a lot of what a lot of people have said here tonight that financially we have to be smart about it, you know, puts a lot of stress on people. So hopefully, you know, make your decision wisely. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Next, we had Mr. Williams, but I think I saw him step out. Okay. Yeah, go work. Sorry. Okay. Um, that is everyone that has signed up on uh the sign-in sheet to speak tonight. I signed up when I first came in because I was like five, seven minutes late at the table. Spoke to that gentleman right there. Okay. Uh, what's your name, sir? Ron Bower. Uh, Mr.
091Green, I'll look to you. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Let me speak. Got stuck on 145. Sir, I'm sorry. I mean, um, can you just tell me are you Slington Walnut Portal? Walnut court. Thank you, sir. I I lived in the district since 2004. Every year my taxes went up. Some of you might have been on the board. It was I was told because it's more residential, which I can understand. We're looking at doing this one campus, closing an elementary school. the I don't want to say fixing a band-aid over at Slington, a band-aid over at the middle school. I have a senior this year. I have a junior. So, my kids have been going through the system. Every year that there was a tax increase, I felt the education they got was good. I
092had no problem. But like everybody else is saying, it's tough. You know, you got these taxes keep going up, going up. uh at one point there was their s their surplus. What about the taxpayers that are getting every year two to three my mortgage keeps going up my escrow this that and like I said like the positives is like my daughter is going into uh wants to go for uh education in college she got the presidential scholarship then at the sales why because you know the education she got here I'm not going to argue that fact but we're all talking okay well 500,000 here 500,000 there so what you're basically saying is for the next 10 years your taxes are going up. You're getting screwed. Whether you play the number game or not, your taxes
093are going up. And like residential, elderly, you got people that can't afford it. And many times I even say to my wife, I got a junior possibly offload this move. They're they're out of the school system. And with that, it's, you know, when you make your decision, please take in account what everybody's saying because yeah, it'd be awesome to be on one campus and like you hear the reason safety this and that. I'm not knocking the safety, but is it going to for the long run is it going to be good as far as how long is it going to last? Look at the high school that's outdated. Not saying, you know, I'm just looking at the whole picture as a whole. I don't think it's a good idea. Maybe like fix things, but I
094think my opinion even with watching the videos cuz I work in healthcare, so it's harder for me to get here online. The presentations that were done, yeah, there were remodeling like me and my wife talked for many years, the over in the gym where they in Slint Elementary had the uh assemblies in that. It's almost like a joke. you and all the school districts in the area. Uh Salisbury was the latest one by my in-laws. Oh, well, we got to build a new school because these are uh it's going to cost too much to fix. How do how comes how can I get this back? every year for 20 years we had a tax increase and there's expenditures and if it goes to education that I'm all for it but I just think we're trying
095to run like with the Joneses down at Parkland that they're building building and you know I'm not saying this like nitpickish or whatnot. You walk in high school, we're talking safety. Are there metal detectors when you walk in the door? Any kid can walk in that school with a weapon? Thank god it didn't happen, but guess what? There's the possibility. So, I I I just think it's a bad idea to do this massive expenditure and like the figure is yes, we have well, there might be a surplus here, and I'm not mocking you, sir, by the comment you made, but oh, well, there might be a surplus for uh 2 million here, or if that's happening, then how comes every year our taxes are going up? So hopefully I didn't offend anybody, but you know
096when you guys sit here as far as education as a parent, I think my both my daughters got a good education. You got good teachers, you got bad, but overall they got a good education. That's why I always said, hey, I don't mind paying those extra taxes. But now we're trying to build here, build here. And it's going to be a temporary band-aid. and like it was 500,000 for this year's budget projected 500,000 but then three years it's going to be another 500 but we don't know those numbers for me working in healthcare. Yeah, I can pick up that extra shift. It's easy. What about the elderly? Like the one woman woman said she's living on social security. You know, look at that picture there. I'd sooner I don't like increases but I'd sooner have
097it going to teachers or programs like for the school than trying to mainstream everything. So I'm done. Thank you for speak letting me speak. You know what I think. Is there another hand back there? Somebody else. If I may just quickly I'm glad to hear that your daughter is going in to be a teacher. That makes me very happy to hear. Congratulations on her getting the scholarship. Yes. And I'm sorry in the back. Yeah, I'm Kelly. I don't speak. I just want to make sure that I have a voice here about raising taxes. I'm newer to the district. I've been here for a year and a half and my taxes are double from where I left from school taxes. And um I left where I was to actually remove my daughter from a very toxic
098environment from what she from what happened over CO, right? She entered here nth grade. I expected her to actually do well. New school, new beginning. Third day of school, I had to there was already trouble. I actually had to remove her from the school. She's in CCA. When you don't have a normal normal child and they need special education, that's where this district I feel is lacking. I've seen comments other parents with kids with autism. Um what are we doing for the special education? And um I know that you don't have many students, 115 I think in the graduating class. And therefore it's hard to have autism, emotional support, um learning support. It's hard to have all of those things, but at the same time, it's very difficult for the children that are coming in
099here that have those disabilities and what do we do for them? So you are seeing costs increase in CCA and charter schools because of parents that if you don't have a normal child and they're struggling, they're not getting the support that they need. Um there's 2,000 children in Lehigh County alone with early intervention at the beginning of the school year. That number is going to continue to go up. We're seeing more and more of these these children and we have to be able to support them. So that is an increase in taxes. So how are we now? I know that the schools and the buildings and all that and a lot of the parents here who've been in the district understand that a lot more than I do. I have the experience in a little
100bit more of an educational um realm because of my daughter. But what are what So we we need to figure out how to offset those higher taxes for those special supports, transportation. I mean I I see it. I've done it. I've been that parent who's tried everything to help my daughter. So, I know what those costs are for the district, but what are we doing to help those students so that you don't have to pay them or the the taxes don't have to pay them? My daughter's not here. She, you know, I want her to be here. She's not. So, that's an extra additional for taxpayers. Uh, and what are we doing for that? Um, as a single parent, I can't afford higher taxes. So, my voice here, too. I can't afford to pay the
101higher taxes. Like I said, I'm paying double school taxes here than where I live. And that was in Pennsylvania. So thank you. Thank you. Okay. And that is everybody who has signed up, sir. Okay. I'm going to go out a limb, but I'll give one any anybody who hasn't spoke who wants to take a minute or two. Now would be the time to do that and and uh don't shoot me, guys. I'm sorry, but uh I don't see any hands. So, okay. Last jet. Oh, yeah. I'll say something. Um sir, if I may have your name first. Dave Harding. Harding. Harding. Thank you. And what uh what municipality? Slington. Slington. Thank you, sir. Yeah, I've lived here since 2007. Um I have two kids. They've been out of school probably close to 10 years now.
102Um I'm on a we're well I got CO a few years ago. I'm a disability now because of that. I had I have lung damage because of that. My wife is working, but we're on a fixed income. And same thing, like everybody else has been saying here, our taxes keep going up. And not only have my kids been out of school for probably about 10 years, they never went to school. They were homeschooled. Okay? So, you got the benefit of my tax money for all those years, and we paid for our own curriculum. Okay? So, they're both doing good. My son was a Marine. He's out now. My daughter's going to art school for for computer stuff, but like many people here, our pockets are not bottomless, okay? We we have limited incomes, a lot
103of us. And there's a limit to what you can take from us. There there's we're we're not a bottomless pit of money. And how many of you have gotten pay increases over all these years with our tax money? While many of us are on fixed incomes and we don't see an increase in our pay income, only our taxes going out. So, please consider that we're we're not just cheap to be fleeced. Okay? Not saying you think that, but that's sometimes what it gets to feeling like when you know and it's it's if you guys are the ones deriving benefit from this and you're also the ones who get to say if our taxes go up or down, it's it's almost kind of a self serving sort of thing. You know, if you're all looking at,
104you know, if your salaries come from these increases, I I don't really think that's fair, you know. So, in addition to the increases for the taxes for the schools, please just consider the people and and what is going on here. If there's a lot of people here, if if they go out and we can't afford it, we're going to move. We have no other option. We'll just move out. And you'll have a big exodus. I'm going to guess you're going to have a big exodus of people that leave. So, you might want to think about that, too. Okay. All right. Uh, have you given any idea how this is going to affect the seniors in the area? My name is Sophia Francis and I'm from I'm on social security. Quite a few of us are
105in here. Have you even thought of that? How it's going to affect us? Who's struggling now? Isn't there I I really liked what what this woman said over here. And is there anything else that you can do? And it's just it's sad. I love Slington. I've been here since 1972. I love it, but it's it's getting harder and harder even to to live here with the taxes, the school taxes. Okay. Thank you for your comments. Appreciate it. adoption of proposed final budget. U if I can just real quick, I would like to say thank you to everyone that commented tonight. The manner in which you did it and how everybody conducted themselves is to be commended. That is not always the case in well what you read in the media. So I do appreciate that
106on behalf of the board and administration. We appreciate how everyone conducted themselves tonight. I know it's a difficult decision that the school board has to make. We appreciate your input, but ultimately, thank you for how you conducted yourself tonight. Thank you, Mr. Green. If I could, uh, I just wanted to echo that. Um, some of you guys I know personally, some of you guys I know passing. Um, some of you I know probably have never spoken publicly before and it was probably not easy getting up to say what you had to say. So, keep showing up. Don't just stop after today. Come to committee meetings, do your research, get involved. Um, also, I I I hear what you're saying. I'm sure we all hear what you're saying. Um, reach out to your state um, elected
107officials. Encourage tax reform because that's where a lot of this is coming from. Unfortunately, we have to do what we have to do. Um, but if the the way taxes are collected are changed, that happens at the state level. Reach out to your state reps. Encourage reform. Get involved. Keep coming. Keep voicing your opinion. Thank you. Okay. Uh, one more time, it is recommended the board of education. I need someone to make a motion. Uh, are you going for this amount? uh which can be reduced. I know Sherry has the numbers there. Uh I'm looking for some input. Um I'd like to suggest a 3% increase as the preliminary budget. How much was that? 3% 3% as a preliminary. Okay. Second that motion. I'll second that. [Music] discussion or questions on a 3% increase. Anyone
108anywhere? No. Okay. If not, all those in favor of 3% increase, please signify by saying I. I. I. Those opposed? No. No. Roll call, please. Mr. Chrisman, no. Mr. Fedora, no. Miss France, no. Miss Husach, no. Mr. Kern, no. Miss Culp, yes. Miss Snder, yes. Miss Williams, no. Mr. Green, no. Uh, motion does not pass. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. True. That's okay. Motion. [Applause] I'm sorry to not applaud every time. Well, yeah, we can't let it go too long. Uh, okay. Uh, any other thoughts on where you'd like to go? Is that another percentage increase that someone's interested in uh trying to approve? We need a motion, gang. You okay? Mhm. I'll make a motion at a 3 and 12% knowing that this is preliminary and um the idea would be that
109the budget could not go over 3 and 1/2% but it could go lower based on our final negotiation once everything has been reviewed and updated from special board meetings and upcoming agendas. Thank you, Miss Susk. Is there a second to the three and a half percent? Second. That was Mr. Discussion on a three and a half% increase. Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed? No. No. No. Roll call, please. Mr. Chrisman, no. Mr. Fedora, yes. Miss France, yes. Miss Husach, yes. Mr. Mr. Kern, yes. Miss Colt, no. Miss Snder, no. Miss Williams, no. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, Mr. Sorry. My apologies. Mr. Green, yes. I I have four or five. I wasn't sure one of that. One, two, three. Four nos, five yeses. Motion passes. Oh, it
110was five. I I didn't hear the one response. So, okay. So, Miss Montos, if you would uh give us the numbers, please for the millage. Sure. It's three and a half. So the the preliminary budget is adopted with a 26.2543 millillage rate for Lehigh County and a 78.4733 for Northampton County. What was Lehigh County again, please? Sure. 26.2543. Okay, everybody got that? I'll remind you we did not make a decision on whether we're going to put the uh open horizons in or the other education, but I guess that can come in the future. Um so I I will look then for a motion again to approve items 20 and 21 together, the two uh financial items. Is there a motion to approve items uh 11 and 12? 11 and 12. Yeah. Anyone? What? You're looking
111at me like I'll move the final. Thank you, Gary. And is there a second? I'm sorry. Thank you. All those in favor signify by saying I. Can I say something? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I I apologize, Donna. I I um I just want the public to know this does not mean you are getting a 3 and 12% increase. This is the max that we can do. We can go down from here. I just want to make sure we didn't like the three. That's why we applauded and said, "Hey, you guys did a great job." And then three and a half. Again, it's only it's it doesn't mean it's going to become permanent. So, I'm going to remind the board that public comment has closed. Comments from the board, please. I just wanted to let you
112know that that's all. Uh, any other comments from the board? I'm looking right. I apologize, Donna. Nope. Fine. Thank you. If not, all those in favor of the motion, uh, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed? No. And so ordered. Okay. Uh, I have nothing under legal or correspondence. Couple of information items you have heard from our guests. And again, I just want to repeat that special meeting on the 28th will be at 6 o'clock and not at 5:30. And uh we'll be doing a deep dive then into the building project. I think we'll have a financial people here and and we'll perhaps get get numbers on on some of those other items. So um can I say something? Can you please tell them maybe where it's going to be at? Where the meeting is
113going to be at April 28th? Not that they all show up here cuz you're only saying it's on the 28th at 6:00, but you really haven't said the location. Yeah, I would propose the middle school auditorium. You want to go middle school? Okay, we can do that. Okay. [Music] Not a problem. You were pointing to something here. Well, you need to call on this again. Everybody did for recognition, but everybody did speak. That's not I still think you need to say it. Just say it again. Okay. So, the guests were recognized that wanted to speak on the budget. We've done all that, gotten through that. So, every every for the last part of the meeting, the second recognition of guests, everybody that has signed up to speak on the signin sheet has spoken. So, I
114just want to reiterate that. All right. Thank you, Mr. Green. Again, thank you for your participation and uh hopefully we'll see you on the 28th. If there's no other business to attend to, is there a motion to adjourn? So, move. Second motion second. All those in favor of journey, please signify by saying I. I oppose. No. and do it.