001Good evening everyone. Good evening. Thank you all for being here. We're going to go ahead and get started because we'd like to um get a question and answers and we want we will be here educated about our school budget. We hope that you really the purpose of tonight and uh to be fully transparent in terms of the creation of the school budget. what it means, some of the vocabulary that we use day-to-day um in education that our community may not know. However, it does impact our community when we talk about school budget, when we talk about taxes. So, the goal of this evening is really to educate everyone, answer questions. Um, we do ask that we get through a few of the slides. Um, and you can jot down some questions that are posted on
002there and if we need to go back to any particular slides or clarification or questions and we can share it at that time. First, I'm going to have my team over here just stand up because they are part of my office and they play a big role in terms of creating um the school budget along with Mr. Wctor and Miss Case and I will present student case as our assistant superintendent and Dr. Okay. So, first um we just wanted to get started in terms of school budget. It is all connected to our district goals. So, we are still under a we created a 5-year strategic plan. Our strategic goals are student success, mental health, wellness, community engagement and communications, facilities and finance and diversity, equity and inclusivity. So our strategic plan actually was finalized right
003um right around CO. So um a lot of the goals are related to that time and then we've been updating our strategic plan to ensure that we're um adhering and addressing the needs to the now for our students right now. Um, in terms of the budget, our goals are to commit our commitment to fiscal responsibility, providing a highly quality high quality education for all students, continue to improve and strengthen instructional programs, professional development education offerings for our students, um, particularly in the areas of math and literacy, and then curriculum alignment through transition years and continuously support and grow counseling services. We can talk a little bit about that as well. and continue support spending um programs for special education and student services. Good evening. So, as we talk, we're going to discuss what is a
004school budget. The school budget at its core is our priorities for our students that we just reflected in the first slide and that it should be centered around our children and their aspirations for the future. While we love that, we know that in practice, it starts to gentrify financial considerations and budgets. And so with that, our school operates on a July 2012 student calendar. So those are the fiscal calendar. And that at the end of the day, in order for the state to approve our budget, it has to have two key rules. Our tax revenues have to remain within the cap or within cap allowances. So some of the cap allowances that a district can have, there are four cap allowances that a district can have. The first one is a healthcare waiver. So that's
005anytime that you hear multiple times for multiple years that a lot of healthcare has been over 15%. Uh we have to wonder what happens with the state budget. They have taken out surplus out of their own in order to help that. Um but with that are we have utilized that waiver along with the second one is an enrollment waiver. We have not utilized that waiver. Uh the third one is sent to receive relationship because we are prepared for that. And last but not least, there is a shift to and that was when the state was going through like retention. we do not qualify but there are some seats that are still applying to the state and so they would qualify for that and then so total revenues must balance with expenditures. So what are the
006things that we utilize to start the budget process? We utilize planning tools. We consider contingencies, manage risk, beerally responsible, reflect our values and then we need to consider safe parts of the project. [Music] So our job is to make sure that the budget is developed to ensure thorough and efficient education. So how we do that is we again go back to our strategic planning goals. We look at our district and schoolwide goals for each of seven buildings. Program needs, how it relates to compliance regulation. Anything that's mandated, we must ensure that we do um that we are completing that. um and the mandates um we need to make sure we're adhering to extracurricular activities and staff. This was our budget timeline. So while we get to do our budget hearing just one time a year
007that's between April and May, the budget is actually developed throughout the entire school year. So, we felt that it was important for for the public to know that the timeline actually starts really early on. Um, and in the fall once we started school, school was open, kids are in school, we actually started meeting with our principles and our directors to start to work on this school. So, we get a lot of questions about, right? Um so this slide particularly we hold data that shows the trends from 2015 to 2025. So if you look I don't this sorry this doesn't matter but if you look at 2015 we're at 3,720 students districtwide 2425 we're at now currently 3,990 students. You see each year it is fluctuating but like last year we had 403 students. Um we
008we calculate students away um into town and um our graduating class we had a huge graduating class last year. Um so they exit. So it does fluctuate but right now you can see through the last at least through the last three years since 2023 we've kind of maintained a little above here. So what's important to notice too is that while enrollment is increasing and it's fluctuating, our special ed population is not. Our special ed population is increasing. So over the last 10 years, our special ed population has increased 26. That is significant when it comes to budgeting. We we are all about least restrictive and having our students stay in our community. Um but there are costs for students that do need specialized program that are outside of our outside of the seven buildings. Sometimes
009that cost is driving $3.5 million our school. So if you and I just want to point out that it's from 2015 to where we are today, 764 students are receiving special education related services, which if we think about it though, um I see it as a positive. I know it impacts the budget, but at the same time, you have you have families that are moving here that know that we are providing a thorough and efficient education. We're addressing all of the needs um of our students. So that's the other piece too. So students, parents are moving in. Um the other piece, a big question that everyone is asking, how is housing, the new housing impacting the moment? Is it impacting? Yes, we um I'll take glass works for example. Um we were able to pull
010some data and we have um 120 students from glass works alone that are attending um our pubs where glass works. Okay. So we recently just lit I literally received a report on Friday. our demographer. If you were attending any of our um and attended any of our board meetings, the board of education was in support of doing a demography study, demography study, sorry, from Ruckers and um we recently received that report. In that report, I can only high um but in that report and I want to highlight and I also want to share the board has um has an opportunity to review too before we go public report. But but a few things that I learned from the report 16 total population in both towns you had an increase of 16.9 in your population percent.
011So which is significant in the report we'll be able to share out that how in terms of what we're going to look like in July 2030. [Music] Quick review was is that our schools will be impacted by the developments. Can you just explain in uh glass works Miss Pres that the special need? So out of the 120 students that are currently attending our schools 40 students are special education and we have quite a few that are being transported um to our schools from that area to over 90 students. [Music] And the study for the photographer was actually done by [Music] CD. So the purpose of this slide and why we we we did want to pull the special ed population is because that percentage is growing at a faster rate than even our own. So
012it's at least it's grown 6% over the last. So we wanted we got a lot of questions about staffing. Um it's where app ratio low ratio what are our student class sizes look like. This um slide here indicates um has all of our students in each of the buildings. It's demonstrating the ratio teacher to student ratio. We're at one teacher to 11 students. Um that's in line with the county average. And then um for administration it's one administrator to just about 200 200 to 300 um students when you look that is that ratio is a little off. Um we are above the ratio we have less administrators. The county average is one administrator to about students in the county. That's not the state. That's the county. [Music] It's really hard to projector. [Music] Is that
013better? [Music] Somebody hand me something. We are. [Music] So, we'll just talk about a couple of budgetary challenges. Uh, we know substitute rates. We have tried to fill over 4,600 absences. Uh our fill rate with the company that we utilize is about 58% uh actually higher than the other school districts that they're utilizing. It's it's very hard to find substitutes and um with that we projected 3.5 million in substitute coverage and that is up from this year currently of 3.3. And then custodial coverage we do outsource. Our maintenance is in-house but our studio coverage is outsourced and that's 3.1 million. That did go out for a request for proposal and we'll be in our fifth of five years for that. So for the 26 27th school year we will have to go out for a
014new bid. For healthc care costs uh next year we are projected at 17.6 million. So a little over 18% of our budget for healthcare. And uh with that again we talked about double digits rising over the last 3 to 5 years. Uh some significant changes with that as well is there's a cost called chapter 44 that employees most employers have to pay into. Um that completely changed what goes on. It used to be prior to that something called chapter 78 and chapter 78 was a percentage of salary versus a percentage of the healthcare premium. that is still in play and those people had been grandfathered into that program. However, chapter 44 took over in 2018 and that is actually a cost per percentage off the salary. And so what happens with that is a employee
015can be capped and pay for health benefits. So if health benefits cost 15,000 they can be kept at 9. we have to pay the difference and in future years when that goes up 15% the district is taking out 100% of that cost. So it's a huge increase to the district budget versus what used to be. So a lot of times a lot of districts talk about breakage and that breakage would come from salary or come from benefits when someone may retire and someone may come on. However, that breakage has become less and less as time has gone on and health benefits have rised into the double digits. And then for special education uh for out of district placement, we have $3.5 million that is spent for our students to go out of district for students
016that we cannot cover in district. Um the difference for that is those schools do not have to have a 2% cap and we've seen double digits. A lot of times we'll get letters or what'll happen from those schools is they can actually come back after their budget has been approved by the state that they can come back two to 3 years after to ask us for whatever the differential is. So a lot of times you'll see that we have to approve a cost that's after the fact yet we don't have that ability to do so. and they have the ability to then also increase cost for the next year at any cost that they deem necessary to run their program in the next year. So a lot of times you might receive a letter that
017says please ensure to project over 10% for next year we are still kept to the 2% cap this case. I'm sorry for whispers. Um can you just explain a little bit about what happens with the substitutes? Um so those are all all buildings, all kinds of classes. So for example, if it's a chemistry teacher, they're not getting really close instruction. They're getting a lesson, you know, than the left teacher maybe. What about if it's and does that include just teachers? Does it include stack? Anybody else in that number? any any additional cost for like so any any staff member under the um our teacher association contract. So that would be clerical um instructional assistance teaching staff uh [Music] nurses. That would also however say if if the company that we utilize cannot support that coverage.
018We we're very blessed that a lot of our teachers will come and have class coverage and they'll take you know their time out of their lunch or out of their prep period and then obviously there's a voucher for that but that cost is covered within there. We're grateful that [Music] they're [Music] ask what is your sub8? [Music] So if you don't get subsc [Music] Secondly, what do you pay the fill up? If I give you this up, I have to go through that website, right? And I get 120. How much would you pay them if I pay? So, they may every day $39 on top. So, we have to know. So what happens is because [Music] for the cost of what we pay for substitutes, we actually have to go out for a competitive bid.
019That requires us to put the bid package together. It has to get approved by the state and then uh we have to then go ahead go out to bid. Companies come bid on what they believe their services cost. A matrix gets filled out and then we have that contract for either one or two years. this particular slice was done in this for years. Could you could you not just go directly and hire yourself for above 40 rates low? Cuz some schools are paying 100, some schools are paying 150. Since you're paying $38 and you still get 120, could you not raise that up a little bit so you can get more subs in your school? You save the $38 and you pay this company. Also, if you get more subs in, you're paying less for
020teacher coverage like the teacher salary. So maybe it's $100,000. So for one, so you get a sub just say I come in and you pay me 120. You're paying them $38. And say another teacher's out. So you have to and you don't have another sub. So you have to for the chemistry teach or the math and you're paying them their hour salary which is like $90 or depending on if they're the step they are they're in their salary. Is there another way to maybe make it where you pay the subs and more but then you save on this company you save for the teachers coverage you said like how many how many teachers are happy to get that's that's some savings generally doing that we could go back and run the cost analysis on it.
021Uh, however, why some districts are able to versus why some districts aren't is um potentially how what your staffing is and your personnel department and you would have to hire more to be able to be able to organize coverage the program and everything behind it. I don't know when the change happened that we outsourced, but that's maybe you get an internal person just to handle it at a cheaper salary because you know you got a lot of people here that you know they have their sick days, they have their their personal they have their their family illness that might be a little costly I would say that and then the second thing is when is the teacher's contracts um up they uh for renewal it was just it was just contract what Okay. So, what
022is the average percentage um of raises did you give to this the fac to the teachers, not just the administrators? What percentage? 3.75. 3.7. And administrators, are they getting around in that range or higher? Last, what about the [Music] ASR? So, you're about 3.7 and Mama County average at the time was 3.77. If we could if you could you can just jot down your questions. So then this way we can go through the slides and then we can address any questions at the end and then this way you'll kind [Music] of So let's talk about the school budget. This is kind of just going to be the flow of slides for the remainder of tonight. How are we funded? Where does the sourcing of funding come from? What does adequacy mean? Under advocacy, spending cap,
023reserve cap, tax levy, what's the tax incentive program? And then, you know, what is our district revenue stream? So, with that, where does our money come from? Our biggest chunk comes from local property taxes, and that's 70.4% of your budget. The next category is state aid. Uh state aid is broken down into different pockets of money and different categories. So what we receive is equalization aid, special education aid, transportation aid, security and technology. And this is the first year after the 7-year reform that the state had that they did some changes. Some of those significant changes are that they went from looking at a one-year look back for equalization to a three-year average. And then they did the same thing for district income. So those things increased what they believe our towns are able to
024pay which reduced our equalization by about 3.7 million. And then for special ed categorically the biggest change there was that instead of using census data they actually went off of what our what we what we call is our application for CE and that always happens around the October 15th cent shop date and so they actually to what we said is currently enrollment in our district and gave us money based off that. So we had an increase of a little over 2.5 million in that category. So with that, the next part of our funding sources come from federal funds. Well, state aid, just so you know, the total state aid for our district is 25.1%. For federal funding, those are things like title one, IDA, and before this co funding. So every year we utilize those.
025So for IDA, that's for our individual disability education application, special education. And so with that, we try to keep our risk low. So when we utilize those fundings, we utilize it to offset our out of district cost for our special ed kids that go out of district. Uh next year, we're projecting that to be $712,000. And the reason why is because the state normally tells us that we have to budget at 85% of whatever our grants are this year. They let us know that we cannot go over 75%. So we are seeing a decrease as we budget for next year. And then same thing for our title grants. We received title one, title 2, title 3, and title 4. And each one of those has different categories. So title one is used for targeted assistance
026um for any of our lowincome areas. And then title two is usually for our professional development and title three is for immigrant and title four is for what the state considers as well. So with that next year that would make up 1.3% of our total dish total budget. And with that, the problem is um we we've seen that you know just in the past couple of days they've pulled back over 85 million dollars from 20 districts. Um so what will that look like for our future and how will we be able to fund that if they don't come to fruition with that and there's a lot of that are coming out saying what we do or do not have to do and that can also be based off of what the state does. So we'll
027be paying close attention to that. But currently what we have now has been projected through September of 2025. Also one of the biggest changes for us was semi for what they call Medicaid reimbursement and that is required again by federal and by state. So last year when we built our budget they were requiring that we had a minimum of 100 [Music] Last year when they did that, they told us we had to project our revenue source for that at $190,000. And so we did and mid year they decided that they're only going to pay us nickels on every session. Um so we are seeing a reduction in that. So next year when we're looking at the 2526 budget, they told us to project $23,000. So that is an area that we have to make up
028revenue in just to keep our balance our district balance budgeted. And then last but not least, we also utilize other revenues throughout the district. Those things would be tuition from out of district students. So if we're receiving students from another town, we're taking them in and they may be helping us. We're uh charging that district revenue and they're paying us. The next thing that we do is we have interest income. So we try to utilize any money that we're not currently spending for something into a high interestbearing account so that we can replenish and make money that we're not yet utilizing. And then we also utilize facility rentals. We went and did a uh board was able to reapprove the new policy so that our categories change from five categories to four so that we
029could change percentages or rates especially since our facilities are utilized a lot. We want to ensure that we're receiving money back so we can push it back into our facilities. And then we also utilize shared services that we'll touch upon in a little bit. And then last but not least, we'll talk about fund balance and surplus and what that means. So with all those four wrapped up, that's 4.5% of our budget. So when we go to the next slide, what does fund balance mean? Fund balance is like having a savings account. [Music] K through 12 if we have them. We have to put them on our budget. So if ever we're to receive a grant or a donation, usually it's a direct source, right? So if there's a reason or a cause, then we can
030only utilize it for that. We do utilize those and we do apply for them. Uh one of the things that we applied for recently from the state was uh one preschool expansion for the facilities and we were able to support 1.73 million. So we anytime we could take it. We also have teachers that write grants for Chick-fil-A. Sometimes we have Walmart grants and very specific direct causes. We could potentially typically they've gone to student activities for a very specific cause that's outside the operation [Music] budget. So fund balance fund balance goes into what our operation cost is. So when you're budgeting if you have $100 and at the end of the year you have 10 that's your fund balance. that fund balance is able to be used like a savings account and in essence it's
031be able to help offset the next year's budget as well as potentially go into what are called reserve accounts and so let's just go over the three reserve accounts that our district has. So the first one was capital reserve and anytime money comes out of a reserve account is at no tax impact. So capital reserve accounts have been utilized for facility projects like when we did at the high school, the turf field and the track for sometimes HVAC projects or um we're definitely going to be a group replacement in our future. So the next that we have is maintenance reserve and this district has utilized maintenance reserve withdrawal to balance our budget for many many years. Um with that we utilize it for repairs. It cannot be utilized towards salaries. It has to be utilized
032towards one-time cost. And then last but not least, there's the emergency reserve. It is the most difficult to withdraw money from. It also needs it is also really supposed to be for unanticipated general costs. And with those unanticipated general costs, you have to get approval by the state to utilize that funding. So this case, so you call it a savings account. Um, but I think what I'm hearing is like a savings account for a household, you would draw to balance your checkbook, right? And hoping to be able to put that back that savings back when you have the money back. But I'm assuming that for a school district, you're you're not getting more money. You're getting less money. So it's harder to put you to replace that savings account fund, right? It's being completed. there's
033nothing right so uh we get audited every single year and one of the main things that we've been told by our auditor every single year since I've come here is that we do not surplus enough money we should surplus at least 2% really 2 to 5% uh we surplus under one so it's very challenging to utilize that money to either put into a savings account or replenish the money that we've been taking out of these maintenance reserve accounts and so that will play into future budget. [Music] So our next slide is really um we know that when we send out information um to our community like I mentioned earlier that we use under advocacy spending caps and um some terminology that may not be familiar with everyone. So I'm going to have this case share
034exactly what that means. Um and again if there's questions then just drop them down further clarify. [Music] So the state did some rate funding um formula in 2010 and with that uh it was decided that school budgets could not go over 2% or 2% and those four cap allowances that we talked about earlier. And with that part of the calculation that the state utilizes is what's called an adequacy budget. That adequacy budget they determine is a weighted average for our enrollment that you saw in the chart prior. And the weighted enrollment is least for kindergarten and then highest for high school students. And so they use that so that they can decide whether a district is over adequacy or under adequacy. And what does that mean? That means if the state determines that your budget
035should be $10 and you spend nine, you're under adequacy. And if your state determines that you spend $11, then you're over and you have to explain what that additional dollar was being spent on. Typically, districts will say that's being spent on your music, your arts, your extracurriculars. So, with that and with the formula change from last year to this year and doing the three-year average versus that one-year look back, it was determined that we are under adequacy. that we in our first year ever going into 2526 spend under what they consider our local fair share to be. So what is local fair share? Local fair share has two important indicators. The first one is property value and the second one is district income. Now, for property value, Mammoth County decided to be part of a
036pilot program in 2013 where they reassess your property every single year. And with that, it increases your property value, which increases the ability for what the state determines can be your local fair share. The other component to this is district income. They are actually taking what each of your households make, determining what that is for a town's amount and then doing the same thing on an average look over those three years and giving it an average. And those two indicators together create local fair share. So they determine that your local fair share you can pay more and but the district budget for your local taxes is only a base number that can go up 2%. So the state determined this year that they are going to allow for the first time ever a tax incentive
037program. [Music] Just just one point um this case before you move on. I just want to repeat what you just said in my own thoughts. Um, so the state, the town reassesses our properties to be what they feel they're worth. And then we, what they're saying is that we should be taxed on the worth of the house. And if we're not, then the homeowners need to make up that difference. So they they feel that we're not paying enough taxes cuz our homes are here, but our taxes are here. Am I am I getting that right? Right. Says that right. So they're they're assuming if our homes are going up in value, we're making that kind of we're making more money and your district income and your district, right? And therefore you should be paying more
038in tax. So that your town has the ability to pay more in taxes. So when they say we're under adequate, the state is saying that we are not being paid what we should be paid, but they're not going to give us the money they want the taxpayer to do. Correct. They're saying that the local towns can pay for more themselves. And now with this tax incentive program, they're giving you the ability to do so, right? Because before there was no mechanism for you to increase it, right? So the the incentive on their end is that they raise the taxes and they're going to give us a tiny little bonus. Right? So currently the way the tax incentive program is set up, they would give you 5% for every dollar you increased a tax levy or
039how they explained it, for every million dollars they'll give you 50,000. [Music] This is the tax incentive program. It's important to notice um it is not it has to be approved at the budget year. They have asked for those school districts who are eligible which 20 districts are eligible in the county. Most of our neighboring towns are eligible. They have asked that we complete we're willing to move forward that they ask that we complete an application and have it submitted by April [Music] 14. What about the counties that I don't know the ones that don't have that are they also or they file for this tax county? So um in the state of New Jersey there are 300 districts that are eligible. So that 50% of school districts in the state of New Jersey are
040eligible to participate or apply for the tax incentive program. Yeah. So it's 300% [Music] comes out of it'll come out of tax and tax levy decrease. So for every dollar you increase every for every dollar you increase in the local town tax they'll give [Music] you5 it's not that like if the district raised $1,000 extra from the community that the district would only be able to spend in our district 5% of that is what is $550, $50, whatever. I'm sorry, that don't matter. Um, it's that we actually would be raising all of the taxes here that would go all into the school budget and then in addition, the state would give a little bit more money, 5%. So, so for each million, I'm not saying I'm in favor. I'm just saying this just and this
041is information. [Music] So, [Music] So we can get to the questions and then so just drop down. So we have the visuals. So then this way it kind of gets her thinking in terms of answering the [Music] questions. So for the tax incentive program itself uh the way it works is that again for every million the state will match 5%. So how are we eligible? We're eligible because this is again the first year ever that the state is determining that we are below [Music] adequacy and that our state tax levy falls below what they deem to be our local fair share. So if we didn't have those two components together, we would not qualify. And in order for us to even qualify for this program, we also have to exhaust all of our eligible adjustments.
042And so what do we mean by that? We mean we have to take our 2% plus we have to take if there are any cap allowances. Currently what we've had to use in the last few years is the healthcare adjustment waiver. So we would be using our healthcare adjustment waiver. In a prior year honestly two years ago in 23 24 we were creating that budget and we had a huge impact to chapter 44 we had a health waiver adjustment of about $1.2 million. you did not use all of that. So that is what they consider going into banked cap. Banked cap gives you the ability to then use that leftover money for the next three years. So as we were creating this year's budget and knowing that we had challenges uh some of those challenges
043that we were facing wasn't only just the healthcare waiver but also utilities. uh you know, utilities, gas is going up 17%, electric is going up 22 to 26%. And that is impacting us significantly cuz we have over about 625,000 square ft that we need to keep cool. And um it is it is impacting us quite significantly. And the reason why I'm sorry, can you do the poll? Sure. So in July of every year for uh utilities they go out for an auction. That auction was it was like 22 $2 or $28. I'm not remember the exact amount but it actually increased to over $270 a kilowatt. And so why did that happen? because two um two plants closed and we are not creating enough energy in order to supply all of the electric that we
044need as a state not us as a state and so they are considering reopening 3 miles so that they can help it. Uh they were also anticipating that solar would take off higher and it would actually create more energy generation. It did not. Uh we do go out for bid every single year for our energy consumption and we will continue to do so. Uh but that's not only going to impact us here, it's going to impact us everywhere and we've already started to see some of that impact happen through vendors. We're receiving notifications from vendors that our cost for supplies are going to increase 3 to 7%. And that they can't project what that cost will be there either uh due to potential tariffs. and they're writing that in letters to us letting us know
045that these are things that we need as consumables in the vision to run our program yet they're going to double or triple the cost that we used to have. This is the chart we shared um two weeks ago in terms of what the tax lending or the tax incentive program would look like. Um the minimum amount that you can apply for is 1 million. The state will then contribute 50,000 for 1 million. And we the district is eligible for [Music] 5.873,000. Um the state, let's just say we are pretty let's raise taxes, which we're not, then the state would contribute almost $300,000. We're not here to say we agree or disagree with the program. Um I think up in my town a similar situation. I have to say though I haven't received any information from
046my um school district. So I'm learning a lot. I'm learning more here doing the work here as opposed to what our superintendent is providing us. Um so I I I feel you. I empathize. So, it's not about necessarily going into making recommendations to the board without, you know, understanding what what we're asking for or what what the options are in terms of um providing additional funding to schools. Mr. President, I just wanted to know what you touched upon. It's very important our our sisters districts are also looking into andor applying for this um but a lot of them do not have the community feedback behind it. So, I want to give you guys credit for coming out and allowing us to talk to the community first. Um, so that's much appreciated. Um, the transparency. [Applause]
047[Music] So, in terms of the tax program, I think, you know, the board has asked what happens, where does the money go? So or what can we use it for? A few slides before we said that the budget was created in order to provide a thorough and efficient education. This tax incentive program that's the money is utilized for providing a thorough and efficient education. So if we look back and we connect it the team has been in terms of making sure ensuring that we're it's aligned to curriculum go um to strategic plan and our school and district goals. So the key the the areas that would be impacted and where money would be utilized is curriculum and instruction. So maximizing professional development instructional material curriculum material for the classroom special education it will be utilized
048to enhance provide programming um offset some of the cost with the added district as M case already mentioned that we already anticipate a decrease in IDBA. Most of our mo all of that money is utilized to to cover for outer district. However, it still doesn't even I feel doesn't even put a dent from respect to $3.5 million on our district. Um intervention supports um improve and provide targeted assistance to not only our struggling students but also um closing achievement gaps and enrichment programs um are on here. mental health services. Um for the last um five years we work with profession school solutions who provide um intensive um therapeutic services to access students that has decreased a cost of placing students at a district gened or special ed at least $3.5 million by having the one
049um contract and agreement that we have with them to provide services. So that those are the types of programs and enhancing and providing it to our further students. Um student support services um essentially providing supports to our families, family engagement, community partnership for students and families. So Miss Roso um I know you said special education um students populations increased. What are we seeing in terms of mental health services for students? and it's a struggle for [Music] um in terms of we worked really hard um in terms of this budget here in terms of looking um for our people and other vendors and contractors for those services that we're providing currently because of the cost we need to um make some difficult decisions in terms of where money is being spent before tax program. So we
050worked with um different vendors um because and we were asking them to increase services for those transport cases. We're no longer seeing this. Years ago, it used to be more of our special ed population um having kids with um selfreation. um we're not seeing that. It's crossed it's it's cross from elementary all the way on up to school. So we I'm very very proud of the team and with our contracting providers to be able to increase those services for not only um are at risk but also um training for or working with students that are at the member level perhaps. Um, mental health also includes the state. We are required to do risk assessments. That is not that is a mandate. That is not fun. So all of your school counselors, your social workers, your
051school psychologists, if a child is in need, safety is number one. They are to stop conducting a risk assessment, which the team in across and every building is excellent in doing that. But that is not fun. That is not fun. So sometimes we need to exit staff in terms of work that's they need to they need to complete their regular dayto-day operations for their dayto-day work. Sometimes we have um that's a [Music] cost. Can you explain what a risk assessment is? So a risk assessment is any um or others. So it starts like I said elementary students that are struggling in middle school high school um which again we do a lot of um I would say I always want to um teach but there's only so much we worked really hard on that contract
052we were able to save for our upcoming school year $18,000 I'm kind of just saying the predicament that we're in. Um we're see we're receiving a reduction in need etc. and we negotiated. Those are things that we didn't have to do years ago because we were being fairly fun. Um and there weren't these increases in cost. So you know so I was proud to have 180,000. They will be using my district to market though. Um so tomorrow I'm doing something with the company. Um so we are all free but but we're doing it because we want to increase the cost for so other areas and um case touched upon the revenue generated um that we are bringing in and we're we are really really creative um like I just said I will work for free
053for a company and do a a chat or a podcast whatever they need to do their helping their marketing we do that um to help bring it on the bus. In addition to that, Miss Case mentioned the facilities usage, how we changed the policy before changing the policy um in terms of bringing in revenue that way. Um for example, the YMCA, our before and after for years, they were not paying to they were not contributing to users and we are now seeing that. Um the preschool expansion aid, we're very creative. Um, we're not not doing any. We're adhering to regulations in terms of how to utilize the funding for preschool education. Um, we receive that money and it's a lot of money. It's over 6.8 $7.8 million. We're serving students. 440 students. Out of that
054funding though, what we utilize funding is to offset salaries and benefits. meaning that if um if there's preschool going on at Cobra Elementary, we've offset salaries for the administrator, the nurse, the school counselor. Strathmore for years in the main drive was sharing their school counselor with preschool expansion a we were able to provide a counselor for each and every elementary. We were not able to do that without preschool expansion. So we utilize in terms of funding um custodial services, um teacher salaries, instructional assistance, everything is included in the public schools. Um tuition in so we have our reach program 18 to 21 that I'm just using them as that program as an example. We have three students that are from another district that they are paying our district to be able to attend our program.
055So that helps offset the salaries for um and benefits for teaching staff. And they're also the kids are also able to um to socialize and you know be part of meet kids too which is really nice. Um in addition to that we have a transportation jointer which just simply means that we're working with other districts to um cover say um some transportation routes whether they're out of district they may be a vocational school. So, we're able to share that cost. Shared services, we um our revenue is about a little over $400,000 for shared services and with other districts. And then most recently on our board agenda, we now um will be advertising sponsorships. So, which will also um be projected some revenue for that as well. shared. So basically with shared services we um we
056work with I'll give you an example Belmont um we work with their school district one of our instructional master um the master teachers for preschool we share her one day a week and we're able to generate say $30,000 day. Um so while it's not impacting um her work um she's still able to complete the board a district which she needs to do that one day. It helps um with pregnant for $30,000. Um another shared services we share we have an agreement with Kingsburg as well as with we share payroll um business office um technology [Music] Um, so we just wanted to let you know there are some tax assistance programs. Uh, one of them is their senior freeze. I believe Aberdine is doing a workshop on this on May 8th from 2:30 to 4:30. And,
057uh, just to explain what that is. And then the IRS will from time to time send us notices and they are allowing if you do an electronic filing for it to be free. Just wanted to let you know some of the things that were out there. Uh they'll also be talking about the anchor program as well and state jersey so that there are some tax-free benefits to that. So what's next for us? We did approve our tenative budget on uh May March 20th and so then it was able to be submitted to the county office on March 21st. Um this did not include any tax incentive initiative. It came out after the fact. Uh so the reason why are we have an April 10th board meeting and then where we will have the board resolution
058on this tax incentive program and the reason why we need to do that is because the state requires us to have the application due to them if we are going to participate no later than April 14th. Uh with that being said, then we would change our tenative to our approved budget and we would potentially have our public hearing on April 24th. Some of the things that could change the April 24th deadline is the state has to have it back to us within 4 days before so that we can advertise in the paper. That is an election calendar rolling. So, in order for us to even have a public hearing, we have to ensure that it was advertised 4 days prior to when our public hearing takes place. The election calendar also dictates the dates we
059are allowed to have our public hearing, and that would be between April 24th and May [Music] 7th. I have a question. So, with all those challenges, you said the budget was submitted. So, how did what what was what didn't make it onto the budget and what didn't make it onto the budget? So, I mentioned um contracted services, right? So, I spoke about the mental health piece and we've decreased that cost by $180,000. We've also decreased it. So, we not only do not only do we have Malawan Avenue um staff members, we also contract out services for um for some specialists. So, for example, um speech language therapy, occupational therapists, um some counselors, all of those contracting services, it's usually aligned to students IEPs. Um so, we were able to decrease that cost and it in
060terms of like you mentioned like is it easy or does it save do you save money with hiring your own as opposed to contracting? Um so in this particular state um scenario we were able to do a cost analysis. So we will hire um some part-time individuals and that will work out the cost of contracting services. So we saw some um I say revenue but we saw whether we could [Music] align I just wanted to ask was it um we tried to There was a lot of um questions online um people were asking so I just we jotted down a bunch of them. So moving forward I know there was um the demographer said where did they foresee our district to be in enrollment in the next year if I I I think I'm right
061in saying you had said um closer to 5,000. Yes. So, we're at four 4,000 right now. Okay. So, people had asked about if this money would be able to pay for transportation, um, more busing, subscription busing. I know people, a lot of people have been asking about that. So, I just wanted you guys to talk to that because if we did want to bring back that, what would we be doing then to possibly bust these extra thousand children moving in the next year? I would predict that you have to cut somewhere else because if you're going to have an increase in enrollment, you have to anticipate that you're going to have an increase with transportation costs. So, Miss Perez, um I know the public hearing is on April 24th, but just so the public's aware,
062currently we have a fiscally sound budget for 2526. I know you'll get into the details at the 24th meeting, but we are balanced. Um there are concerns that I think we should be transparent about in terms of um moving forward with these increasing costs, what that could potentially mean is at risk in the future and that this is really this even if this is being voted on. Correct. Right. So So what we're looking at right is a band-aid. We're on a boat. The boat has a hole. We're trying to put a band-aid over it. We're trying to bail water out as quickly as possible. Um, you know, we've been doing this for this 2% gap for over 10 years with our consumer price index in New Jersey being well over 2%. And so we're really
063starting to feel the effects. Um, you know, we hear it often about our facilities and we we hear you and we see it too and it's a huge challenge. um you know we want to we want to do more every single day but then it was at the cost of you know staffing or student needs and so we picked those over that. And then the issue too you know just going back to transportation for a minute is over 5 years ago we transported you know 800 students less than we do now. And so right now we're we're transporting over 2100 students. Uh whether that's in our district or outside of our district. Uh we do uh obviously talked about our special ed has to go to adequate placement. They would need to be transported there.
064Uh we've seen definitely an increase throughout the state in homeless and having to make sure that we transport that. And then uh one of the other significant costs is that we are required to transport non-public students. If we cannot do so then we are required to pay aid and low. That aid and low amount is set by the state. So if we don't have a route to put them on, then we have to pay the parent back per child. [Music] Is it your assessment that the municipalities use of the pilot program with developers negatively impacts our budgeting process here? We are looking into that um and researching in terms of what maybe could have been done in terms of getting some money and some money from the um from the housing. Um, so you still
065have to be connected to the board and also but it has it like the housing has factor. [Music] I know you touched on that the preschool programs um bring in a lot of revenue. Um, I can only speak to drive. It also has taken up a lot of space at drive. Um, and unfortunately, I don't know any exactly like in the schools that are gay, it has detracted from like some of the older kids's education experience in ways that like such like kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade. They're now like I guess before the preschool came in, they would have more classrooms where they had a designated art classroom and a designated science classroom and a designated whatever the other extracurriculars are, right? um help. Um when we go to parent teacher night, we're
066often talking to those extracurricular people saying, "Okay, why aren't there more activities?" Like, "When you're learning about germs, why aren't there more like petri dish, you know, pepper in the petri dish type of things?" And all of them say because they don't have a designated classroom. They can't cart around all these experiences to incorporate in their learning. And you're talking about like kindergarteners, first grade, second grade, they need these hands-on learning experiences. they can't just be listening to a teacher drone on in lecture format. Um, and I think that's where you get a lot of the distractability. Um, and they have very limited outside time. I mean, you're talking for like several hours a day. They might be outside for like a 10-minute recess. By the time they leave the classroom and get outside, there's
067just not enough like movement for them. And so I don't know if we're looking at like expanding these programs are great, but are we looking at what it's taking away from the education experience in in like combining classrooms and these teachers not being able to like teach to their full ability? Do you guys look at those things and how do you navigate them? I mean, short of expanding or being driving classroom size, what's the end goal? So we we do um and then a lot of that comes through um their grade level meetings, personal meetings, but and I appreciate your students here so we can address those concerns. Um just we sometimes don't hear from our teaching staff that have their word and whether they shy away, you know, they shy away from telling us
068that I appreciate your feedback. I know that Yeah. So there will not um this was probably our last year um in terms of expand in the norm. When we talk about high school expansion age the state determines the number of students that we will be able to serve. So according to their population um we are able to serve 500 preschool age students 94 years old. We will not be able to meet that thick quality universe. We will not meet that universe because of space. So we're not going to be taking any traditional classrooms or anything like that. We're now um we're at um about we're at 90% of that we're at 90% of the universe. Um this will come back in June and things like that in terms of special things. Um so she can
069get feedback from her. Um but she's also questioning why we're not at 100%. [Music] I you said there's 120 children coming from the glass works. Um I'm not sure with with the pilot program with all these houses that are being built there. Why isn't there the tax dollars to cover all of that? And if and if it's not if they're not collecting those taxes, then why isn't picking up that? Because they have the property. They put all these houses there. April brought all these children in. Why not do not get the burden and why is it falling on us? I can't see here. Okay. [Music] We're not we're not experts in the pilot program. So I don't want to speak to something you have information but we'll definitely take the feedback and look more [Music]
070into a follow municipal government. So, um, in New Jersey, payment loan tax agreements, um, do not have to include school districts by law. Um, that, so that's not the school district's decision by any stretch. I I understand, good concern. I used to work in New York. In New York, it the school district had to be involved. So, it was very mentioned that there's 760 special ed. I'm just curious how much do we expect student and how does that compared to last year what we expect to spend for next year. So cost per student would range um in terms of depending on program and depending if they're district. So we have a variety of programs ranging from um a student may be identified and have an IEP in the application center support. So resource teacher [Music]
071um and that's well we have more students we are creating more programs. So for next year we're projected to add three additional specialized classrooms some of autism and also for zero. So there that's just to um they have to be compliant in terms of adhering to their ideas. So costly for at district that calculation why we keep talking about it um is because that cost could be anywhere from $120,000 to $300,000 for one student and there's so because when we look at out of district out of district placements it's not only just their education in terms of where they go to school or paying them say you know $90,000 they need to fire nurse. That's an additional $120,000 tack on any additional services that we have to pay the school. It can calculate to almost
072$100,000 in transportation. So three each year we in May um and we're preparing for this now is we are able to apply for extraordinary each year. Last year we submitted over $7 million worth of reimbursement. you did not get $7 million. [Music] I have two questions. So, for you mentioned earlier about the um contracting of the special education therapists and that you were going to hire them. You mentioned something about the part-time hiring. Are you saying that you're going to hire some part-time folks from the contractors to work in the school district in addition to the therapists that are already in the school district or are you cutting their hours to part time? That was my first question. So, it's we're [Music] hiring the we are recommending to hire our time staff under the Maria
073contract, our teacher contract. In addition to that, we still will have contacted services, but we're decreasing the contracting services. So, for example, um because numbers students who require um who receive speech language services, it may not the staff member when they get contracting that staff member out elementary, it may be that you'll see the special. Um the other question is just with regards to special education classes like I have a child. So, um they do get specials where they get to switch classes like art, music, library, computers. But I have been hearing in the last few weeks just being the leazison at at Strathmore for parents that they're not always necessarily getting their specials because there's a shortage of staff and things are happening, but what is frustrating as a parent is that nobody's really
074communicating that to us personally on a whole. we hear about it through the grape vine because maybe somebody at the school mentions it or maybe a parent overheard something or maybe you know a parent works in the school and so they hear things. So it's just frustrating because it's like so they're missing out on these things because of these this what's happening. So for 2025 2026 what is what is there a plan for what you're going to do about that? Not necessarily the school district. That's my second question. So unfortunately there's absolute shortage of teachers. They graduated last year in the state of New Jersey seven students from TCMJ which was one of the top schools. Um nation it's happening nationwide. So we try we advertise we recruit we post them on social media etc.
075And we want subs to apply you know for the assessment. It's not only just the teach but the substitute. However, I'm going to be full transparency. Sometimes the company will send people that we don't want. When you say a company, do you mean that you have a ESS? Okay. So, meaning that they're they're not qualified to be uh just out of any, you know, just I know that you have the ESS, but the school district ever think about not just utilizing them, but also like you guys have an HR department. to I worked in HR and benefits in my my past history and we used to go out to the schools and recruit these people. Like I used to recruit nursing for healthcare. I'd go there, they'd have a job fair, you'd meet them because
076sometimes going through your contractor doesn't always mean they're going to get the best candidates. Sometimes they're just pushing people through because, you know, you're paying them to give you people, but they're not really looking at everything. They're just like, "Oh, they graduated. Okay." And like you said, they're not sending you what you need. we're just sending you just because so you're kind of wasting money that way too because you're not getting what you need and then our kids are not getting what they need. That was my last question. So I wasn't here but years ago they did have it wasn't contracted out. Um a lot of districts unfortunately the state of New Jersey didn't to utilize contracted service. Um we can look into it and see and maybe pilot maybe with one building is what
077it would look like. I'd have to, you know, talk to see what it would look like now. So, we used to my prior history, you had one person, they'd go down the list and she had like 10 people. Yes. And it was easier to do. Um, I guess it's just shifted where there's not enough people. Um, but we're open to being creative and kind of trying something new because we do know that it is a concern for all of us. It's a concern for you, a concern for us and it's more important. It's a concern for our kids because they are missing out on valuable um curricular activities [Music] and you said that we're going to have about an extra thousand students or so. How are we going to have like this LA? I don't
078think there's going to be enough. It's not next year. But not next year, but it's so democracy. [Music] Oh my god. No, I'm sorry. No clarification. and um and we're happy to have this study and share the information out to a public session. We'll make sure that we do a great job with um sharing when that team will um will be presented. But the thousands of students that there is projected is by 2030 should be looked at over 2030 and then even beyond that. Are there any plans on expanding buildings? I would love to. I don't know where to build. Where are they coming from? If they're coming from the the developers that have tal or tal I think it's both. I think it's both because and I don't don't quote the numbers but there
079were a,000 there were 1,200 units or 1200 new housing that was built um up to today but they're projecting another say 700. So, not only the building, my assessments, this is just me as a superintendent what I see happening as a community is that we also have a high turnover um with with people who are moving in. So, our seniors are leaving. We don't want them to leave, right? We still want them to be part of the community, but our seniors are leaving. And then you're having new families move in that are young um young with kids or they're going to have kids. So in the demography study, what it's going to show is the age group who live like 30 years census data. They're going to look at that and they're going to share
080okay there's an age group say certain percentage from 19 to 20 or 35 childbearing projects you know as well. So it's really telling but um I and we would like to work with the chaps to kind of share that. I started trying to share that with the board as far as with um what we can do, you know, especially with my other question was um the money that we would raise for this tax, all of the money goes into the school district like everybody that gets raised in this tax levy through the tax levy incentive. This is only for schools that will go directly to the school. Okay. And then also are we allowed to use it to help it portion of it? Is that allowed or is there like special like it can only
081be used for this? It has to be used for the efficient education. So does not as long as it meets the specifications of what the currency provides. Are we able to do that? So if if the if the we're going to go through the tax program, we want as a team. You want to make sure whatever the money is making this thing is to now do this and we're okay for the next two years and then you're taking and I say that to be fully transparent because some parents have asked you know um in terms of feedback you see from the board about staffing certain positions and things like that we can add things to extra grade we need it to be we need to be um make sound decisions where it's sustainable Because if
082you're in a in a in a position in the next few years where you see a decrease in state aid and a decrease in federal [Music] grants additional [Music] state transformation to Yes. Yes. And the other but we also want to make sure this goes out is that um with the tax incentive program if we do submit the application then we will be meeting with the finance committee. The board has a finance committee intern so that this way everyone knows where the dollars are being spent. So if you received an additional million dollars, you know, where's where where are we spending it and what changes can we make? We want to, you know, we haven't max [Music] it would be in. So if It would increase your taxes forever [Music] and the state as far
083as we know they're only making a lot of money for the one year and we only [Music] we still have to discuss that with the board in terms of the All right. Yes. And so it would be on the board agenda April 10th recommendation and then um shortly after that then we'll um we'll share that information. We're going to take one more question. [Music] So first I want to say thank you for having this meeting because there are other districts across the state that are facing the same thing. They are not being as transparent as you are. So, first and foremost, thank you for this. Um, and I know it's a hard thing to address. You probably expected a little rich on tonight. Um, I completely understand that you guys have increased costs, right? We
084all between state increases. We have no idea what's going to happen at the federal level over the next year. Uh, BPU, I mean, it's just every time you turn around, somebody has their hand out. So, now we get this letter and here's the school district. The letter read like we need 6 million so we can get 300,000. I mean, it's kind of like trip over a dollar there penny here. It doesn't make sense. Add some. That being said, you're going to submit this budget. Let's say it gets approved for the right. You're going to submit this budget now April 24th. It then has to go to the state and the state can still say yes or no in June if they're going to give you that additional funding. two you are correct. Um this has
085happened before. uh what you see has actually decreased our speed by June or July and then we have to show what you know what we would be deducting from our budget right so by concern we're going to do all this right everybody out the state's going to be like psych you know it's just the state is the state I mean you live here we all know how this game works and more than likely you're going to get class or whatever it's going to be um so that is a little concerning my second question is I understand that there is a fine line between local politics and a school board but at some point and I've been to many many board meetings now for the town. I haven't seen anybody here going to the town and
086saying hey guys you're making all these decisions and I understand that our budgets are different but something's got to get here. We got to start getting a conversation because with the town doing it, what they're doing is true. I don't see any board members here. You know, you guys had to go to those meetings too. Something has to happen. So, two two years ago, we we did start having monthly meetings with them and then quarterly meetings with both. And then the other thing that the board started is they have a leazison program so that they can make connections both question shared services heport put out the same letter pretty much verbatim that you guys did like is there any opportunity to continue to look at more shared services across the district? We do. So we
087have we have meetings um whether that's for transportation, special ed, business of curriculum and instruction so that we all know what each other is doing so that if there is a program or there is a way I mean down to let me tell you for the Bayer area we let Basel do it but we went out for a a garbage contract so that we can reduce the cost for just picking up basic things and so we'll continue to do that and we continue to assess every contract We continue to assess every single subscription that's utilized by students. So, we're we're changing that yearly based off of what the district needs and what we're seeing. And we're also getting that from, you know, teacher feedback and administrative feedback so that we're making those decisions so that,
088you know, maybe last year we needed a district subscription, but this year we only need a K to2. We're making those changes so that we can use those savings to offset pay for something else. wanted two others came down. You want that letter to the people with them letting them know already voted on. They already Yeah. It wasn't that was just a hey, we're doing this. Not like like having a conversation with the community and letting them know what's going on. That was them letting them know. Oh, by the way, here you go. And the other thing so you know too, while you see me so when I can get about the work, I'm the town leazison with Joe Watuchi. So, we've been having those conversations. Yes. and then add on. So, we have also
089been we were in communication before the letter went out to the community just like our we want to make sure that cuz we know taxes are going to be raised there as well. Yeah. So, we want to make sure it's all sorry um balanced so we're not hitting the community all at once. Um so we have had that conversations how it's impacting us you know one now maybe a little more than the other but you know we are talking to at least once um so and that just recently started a few months ago. Um, I did just want to bring up again because I'm far from a lawyer and nor this administration, but basically the pilot program means that we're not receiving any money to pay for the children that we are educating. So, Glass
090Works was a pilot program. Um, and we're not receiving tax to cover the kids that we're educating. So, that comes out of everybody's pockets. So yes, pilots are mandated in New Jersey. I understand. But the problem lies is that when they do pilot programs, sometimes the towns will work with the district and give them a percentage to cover what they're going to have to spend. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case. So that really does affect and and and I know um our administration has been looking into that on the legal and and what we can and cannot do for that. So thank you for bringing that up. I mean I just want to type program trying that work. Shouldn't there be an expiration? It's not the same. It's a payment li of [Music] tax. Payment
091in lie of tax. That's the pilot. Not like what you're thinking. I know what you mean. Like a what if trial type thing. No, this is a 30-year pilot. 30 years 30. So I think that the challenge for us like and I'll speak for myself second year superintendent. So we weren't I don't know when I don't know the history in terms of when the planning was taking place for when the building was happening. I know when I started 10 years ago that the demographer was here and I believe that board at that time thought that there there was another building that was being filled and they thought that that would impact enrollment at that time it the demography said no correct so right so they said it wasn't going to impact enrollment now we're seeing
092with the most recent development that it is so um so when I say I mean I'd like to speak to legal to see if there's anything we can do it's kind of I'm kind of back at tracking, you know, back a pedal a little bit because there were things already in motion. So, um, I just wanted to say that. [Music] So, my name is Mark Bishop and I live here in Aberdine. My wife, our 2 and 1/2year-old son, and now our 2 and 1/2 week old. And both of my children will be going through the school system and I want nothing more for them and every child in this district to have access to an exceptional education. First, I want to start by thanking for holding this fork. I understand that giving residents a seat
093at the table for a conversation is not required and it's not very tough. I genuinely appreciate that you've chosen to engage the community before making such major decisions. And I think that this is what public accountability and transparency should look for. Now, to be clear, I'm not here because I post funding our schools. It's quite the opposite. Uh, I want more investment in our schools and that's why I've been so critical in the way that we structure commercial development. We have multi-million dollar properties in town such as the for glass which just sold for $57 million and they are paying zero school taxes because the pilot approved by the council which this board had no say which is astonishing. That one development alone would have generated $800,000 this year for our schools had it been
094taxed properly like the rest of the school. But it's not. And our families are being asked to make up that difference. And that's only one of many such profit in town and that's on average. Um so I understand that's the environment. So yes, I support public education enhancing a community to take on a nearly 10% effective tax increase without a clear break on where the money would go. That's not responsible. That is for uh blind trust and I can't agree to that. This district already submitted a balance 2025 budget within their account without cutting programs out. This extra $58 million is not part of that budget that came after the state's uh tax lady adjustment for under and it is optional. So I only have one simple request. Show us the right. Just because we
095can raise the money does not mean that we should. And if we're going to consider it, we need to do so carefully because the increase that we're talking about will likely cause some residents. Here's a solution that I'm proposing to support. Answer these questions for us first. Where is this money going to go? We need an itemized plan for each funding level that's being considered. $1 million, $3 million, and $5.8 million. Show every dollar we go. Show us why we need it. Every line item, we need justification. Why do we need it? Why we need it now? What problem will it be solved? And what's the impact? What measurable benefit will these investments bring to our students and how will that success be tracked? I think just in doing that we will find out if
096we really need this money and if so exactly how much. A couple of examples that I came up with you know say line item a we need $400,000 for a new math grade and that you've seen in neighboring districts that this has resulted in vastly improving test scores in our students. residents can turn around and say, "Hey, I think that might be worth investing all of my tax money in say we need $250,000 to renovate an elevated lobby." I think the residents might say, "Hey, I don't think that we really need that right now." So, that's why we need the itemization. And until it's been done, I don't think that we're not only are we unprepared to improve this, but we are ready to really have a conversation. Um, I just don't think that you
097did the homework on that yet. uh if we're going to ask working families, seniors, and young homeowners to stretch even further in this economy, the very least that we can do is show them where every dollar is going to govern. And I understand, you know, talking about the the pilot programs and I understand that the schools here kind of short change for and I understand that this is an easy way to make up the lost revenue that you guys should be getting for and What I'm asking you to do is to sit down and look at exactly how much we need because we even have funding options at a million million 58 million. That tells me that we don't know exactly how much depends. Um I would say don't take the easy route. You know,
098I know you guys work hard already trying to figure this out and um I I think that that's the best way to get the movie that um I don't know that by April 14th deadline Very important. [Music] I can uh been involved in the school [Music] district since I've been here. All I want to do is just tell you how we got here. There was a time actually around 2011 before that people of the townships actually got to vote on the school budget. But um I think Governor Christie was he was a big incentive to move away from that because budget used to fail districts would be guaranteed up to a 2% increase every year without having to you know go out to the public and get the approved. But the dark side was that
099that vote passed like seven voice members. two of us voted against it. And my reason back at the time is when you give up a right to the state, you don't get it back. Um I don't know if it's possible to do that, but the more important thing about it is used to put a check on the township because when the budget failed, Board of Education had to negotiate that budget with the township as to how much was going to go in. So now what happened with this? I knew this thing was going to come. All this building got up and township council isn't responsible for any of it. They don't have to take any for it. They put it completely on the school district. They have no control over it. So they have no
100skin in the game. So it's easy for them to do these projects because they don't have to stand up when the school budget is going to get cut and say, "Well, we have to negotiate and restore some of this money." So that's kind of that's kind of how we got here. Um, so the lesson there is like you have a right. Don't give it up. Don't give it up for the state because just like income taxes. I think that was supposed to be temporary in New Jersey. It's still here, right? So just remember anytime like some kind of public body gets its hands on money, they let it go. But I feel bad for you. I I I've been out there and you have a hard decision to make because you have to balance what
101you got to do for kids, but you know there's plenty of people in the town that you know they don't they don't have 5% a year salary like whether or not you know fortunately some people do but you have to kind of keep that in mind and you have to balance that with the education. I don't know what the answer is to it. I just this is how we got here for those of you that that don't know that and this is what it is and hopefully hopefully people should take their they should take their complaints to trending because the school funding in the state of New Jersey has been a disaster for the last 30 years and righteous be have money follow the special ed students follow the students that have free and reduced
102lunch so that you don't have districts that gentrific school budgets spend 30 $40,000 a school and then you had a lot of middle class districts getting absolutely crushed you know by environment because of the way it is and until they reform that nothing is going to change that's Thank you. [Music] They really haven't said anything to you. You guys probably [Music] tomorrow question. [Music] there any other there's a board meeting on the 10th um which is this week on Thursday and then um the weather hearings on the 24th um if you like to ask any questions or any additional feedback please use the Google there's a form under the board education site and you can um receive your feedback in there um but a lot of parents have provided feedback already as well so we're
103open here and listen and that's what we're here to do It's not um while we are responsible to create the webinar and work with all the staff members and the administrative team and present it to the board um we know it's a it's a community so we care about um I just wanted to say really quick that we would like to town we're trying to make those um inroads by having these leaison relationships as best we can and we had we're kind of still coming back off of the co year years here years so um we're starting to kind of get back to normal with a lot of things including committees committee that's true um so I I would I really welcome that if anybody I don't know if anybody's here or but we do
104have our less try to keep an updated on what's going on um I know that um indep have really good relationship. We just happen to have a virtual relationship so it makes things a little easier. Um I mean we would like that really quick question. Is there a way that for more transparency when we have these conversations with the town? Is there a way to communicate that with the public? Hey, we met with the town today and this happened at the board meetings. We do we update those leison on conversations that are what the liison from the board did to their town counterpart and vice versa. And they do appreciate you know I will say the communication has improved and they do appreciate like we um shared with them the YMCA's program that we have
105for the summer that's going to supplement the right programs for Avenue 91. They appreciate that because they run out of space. So now we have an additional option for parents for the summer. a lot of things, you know, they've been they've been keeping them informed and even just even just simple things like getting construction around with bus routes and all that stuff and even things like um you know where we are in the budget process, where they are in the budget process just trying to keep that line of communication open that's from the board liaison side and as they mentioned um they also have conversations with town managers the police departments we have a memorandum of agreement police department. So those those I mean we really are trying to keep those lines of communication open.
106You know there's only it's it's a two-way street for accountability. Hi everyone. Uh I'm Cindy. Um yeah. Um I go to a lot of these board meetings. Um a lot of the stuff that they're talking about is not new. Um they talked about it at the last board meeting. um how this was sprung on them. Um and I have to be honest with you, it's very disappointing to have me and maybe one or two other people at these very important meetings. I go to the council meetings again, very important meetings that maybe only one or two people um go to. So I think that um seeing an increase of people who attend these things would be wonderful. Um the next thing I want to talk about really fast is uh the budget, right? So I
107remember last year, you know, we had to let go of a couple teachers. There was a lot of upset parents and then I started watching like the news coming in of like the blood bath that was happening in other districts. Like extracurriculars completely cut um letting go of 150 teachers. I know that I'm following living in Middletown where they are closing two schools and then council came and rescued them and now they're not closing anything because the household is giving money to the school district to make the residents happy. Um I know that in Homeown they have a pilot program. Everyone loves bell works, right? And the council is sharing the payment in taxes. So basically, Glass Works pays the council money every year. Money that does not go to educating the students of Glass
108Works. Okay, everyone's aware of that. Okay. So, Home Now is taking that money and sharing it. They get money from Bell Works and they're taking that money and they're sharing 600,000. It may not sound like a lot, but that's a nice chunk of money uh with the district. Um I think that's what we need to do. I think we need to go to the council. Um there's a lot of building, guys. There's a lot of building coming. There's a huge building going up by the train station. They just approved a bunch of houses over by Works. They just resone four buildings over by Glass Works. they have they just resold before uh buildings over by glass works that they result from from commercial over to residential. So I mean like I really think people need
109to start to come to these meetings because I think this is going to be an ongoing problem for us and um I know my taxes since 2020 has gone from 9,000 to 15,000. I can't be the only one who's experiencing this. So thank you. Uh just a real quick question. The demographical report, will that be given to us before April 10th or is that going to be released to the public before April 10th? It's going to be addressed. When is it going to be finalized? [Music] Not to be a Senate, right? But a thousand people over 3,900 seems like even if everything got built is like on the high high side, right? I think the bigger concern and I don't know where I sit on this, right? Like I really I think a meeting with
110an open mind because your your budget's 95 million, right? If if we add even just one million, we're talking about like a 1% increase in the school budget. I think like the bigger crisis is you're talking about our school population exploding by 20%. Right? Like that million is going to be a drop in the bucket. You know what I mean? And then if so like I taxes increase, right? Like I'll do whatever I can to fight against my taxes being but at the end of the day it's like you're you're bound by a 2% cap, right? Um it sounds like the states only be one of the gather. So my concern is how accurate these districts are uh demography especially when they're not going to be released to the public prior to the board making
111a uh you know a wellfounded you know outcome of how they should vote. Um, so that's my big concern that this isn't going to be released to the public that they're not going to have the final draft before being able to make a decision. I just listen at the end of the day it's class works 120 kids. They can build another five class. It's not going to be a,000. So I and as you said it went from 4,000 deaths to 3,900. In 2015 we're at 3,700. We're talking about 5% increase. Now you're talking and you haven't given a date range for a thousand kids or you did it was 20, 30 or 29. It's all five years. Listen, I'll give the person I had if you guys 5 years. I don't think I don't think
112it's happening. Uh within logic reasons, buildings just don't go that way. So, uh that's my only opinion. I don't know where I sit on it. I just think you guys need more money. I don't know. Um This is the way there. Thank you. Not just the the new buildings. It's like the old developments like strap. Yeah. There's only certain amount of houses. They were built in ' 62. In the 70s we had uh a split schedule because there were too many students. So then in the '9s we closed a couple of schools because but now they're coming back. Those are where the children we had schools. But I'm just saying that is where the it's a house. Listen, I work in Portland. They're knocking every house down and building triplex and bottlex and everything. So
113this isn't a localized problem. This is a New Jersey problem. The population is going in your head. You're thinking explode. They're not just not in the rate that you expect. So I think we're going to just take maybe one or two more questions. Um, and then we would welcome followup feedback, emails, calls. Um, unless you want to see 2030. We were supposed to end an hour ago. I just wanted to time. Um, and then also, um, I have I want to hear from this case about, um, other other things that could be coming in terms of facilities. [Music] So we have two bonds currently within the district. Uh those bonds were utilized for past referendums. We will have in 2027 2028 school year our last payment for one of those bonds. So we've been working
114with our architect to give us an update on the long range facilities plan. Currently we are waiting for the demographer study which is coming to us much sooner than anticipated. It is supposed to be 12 to 18 months. We're under 12 months. So, we're lucky to have that. And then we also want to utilize our architects to assist with the long range facilities when it's necessary. Um, so that we can really get an idea of what these facilities need. Uh, currently our roofing that we have, there is not one roof throughout the whole district that still has a warranty. These were built warranties for 15 years. have most now has either 20 or 30 years. We did apply for rod grants through the state. We were approved. However, we need the money in order to
115put on or replacement. Um so, we hear you. We do pay taxes. We are trying to figure out a solution. Um you know, we know when it comes to finances, we're always looking for a return on investment. Um currently with where we are, it's really a stop gap measure on whatever we decide in order so that in future years we're not changing the landscape of what we come accustomed to in our building and with our and I know that's really hard to hear um but we know we see the news every single day we see our revenue streams are changing for every single day here out the state and we have been very creative for 10 years and now So if we did uh if we need to in order for us to then replace
116our we do not have the money to do that. So we would have to go all out for a referendum. There's four times a year that you're able to do so and why it's necessary. But we do see our facilities what is necessary study what helped again capital project perspective not not an operational everyday perspective that's that's the difference of what we're asking for for this particular program is to help our operational day so talking got to get a bandaid. Um, just want to reiterate that that he did this even if there was any thought of going to school to help us fully for anything. So, it's still um just for people that don't know, I'm president of the board this year with Tara Vice President Martinez um board has been working really hard. I
117want to thank them all for their patience with all the questions very thorough. Um you know I don't I see all comments. Um we can work really really hard to look at all these numbers ask all the questions that you're asking. If you live here too we don't want our taxes to go up. Um we have kids in the district. We have gone through the district are both out. So um and it's important for us to hear from you. So, we appreciate that. But we care. The comments board doesn't care. I take that really personally because everyone cares. Thank you. And I I didn't want to say something on my birthday. Um that um all of the board meetings are posted on YouTube. So, uh if you want to see what happened, you couldn't make
118it out, let's say you got little ones at home, they're asleep, that kind of thing, um definitely check that out. They're all on YouTube. and our um our agendas are posted ahead of time. A ton of information is and that they're available afterwards as well. Our minutes are available afterward as well. And um the reason that it's a Google form now for feedback for those who have in the past emailed us and now they're using a Google form. That's so that it can go straight into our email inboxes. When it wasn't emailed and it had to be filled, somebody had to read it and then send it. And it's this is just a lot cleaner. So, I just wanted to share that. I don't have the official duties aside from the important number, but I
119have my phone. Go ahead. Thank you everyone and we look forward to continuing the conversation and your feedback.