001Mhm. >> Our open public meeting act statement will be read by Mrs. Christina De Barry, our vice president. In accordance with the provision of the Open Public Meetings Act, the Board Secretary has forwarded notice of this meeting for advertising by having the date, time, and place thereof posted in the Secaucus Town Hall, on the bulletin board located in the hallway of the Board of Education Administrative Building, as well as the district website. Roll call. Mr. Bartletta? Present. Ms. Diadeda? Present. Ms. De Barry? Present. Mr. De Ombre? Present. Ms. Eccles? Present. Ms. Geller? Here. Ms. Howard? Here. Mr. Lewis? Present. Mr. Lyons. Here. At this point, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Mara. Adequate notice of this meeting as required by the Open Public Meetings Act has been provided by the filing of the
002annual notice of meetings with the municipal clerk, the posting of said notice on the official bulletin board in the municipal government center, and delivery of the same to the record on April 20th 2026. This body wishes to advise you that in accordance with NJAC 5:23-11.1 et seq. of the indoor air quality standards and procedures for buildings occupied by public employees, smoking anywhere in this building is prohibited by law. In the event of a fire or other emergency, please note that there are four exits in the rear of the chamber which may be used. Calling the roll, Amerginelli. Councilman Constantino. Here. Councilman DeBaunzio. Here. Councilman Danner. Here. Councilman Clancy. Here. Councilwoman Schwingalli. Here. Councilman McKeever. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Flag salute. I'd like to once again welcome everyone here. Good evening. Thank you for being here
003tonight. Special thanks to the mayor and council for joining us here this evening as well. We appreciate the time and interest each of you has taken to participate in this important meeting between the Board of Education and the mayor and town council regarding the current school budget. Tonight is an opportunity to share information, hear concerns, and better understand the perspectives within our community. The school budget is a matter that affects students, families, staff, and taxpayers alike, so your engagement is both valuable and necessary. Before we begin, I'd like to establish a few ground rules to ensure that the meeting runs smoothly and that everyone has a fair opportunity to be heard. First, we ask that all speakers treat one another with respect. This includes the board, the mayor and council, and fellow community members. We
004understand that this topic may bring strong opinions, but maintaining a civil and orderly environment is essential. Second, each speaker will be allotted up to 3 minutes to address the group. We ask that you be mindful of the time so that as many voices as possible can be heard. With that, we thank you again for your participation and cooperation, and we will now begin. Public forum general. Uh good evening. I'm Steven Fogarty. I'm the attorney for the Secaucus School District. This meeting is open to the public for the purpose of addressing any subject matter that is pertinent to and/or directly related to the operation of the Secaucus Public School District. Residents wishing to speak on such must sign the register provided for this purpose and are required to state their names, addresses, and subject matter. Comments
005are limited to 3 minutes per person. The board may or may not respond to issues raised by members of the public at the time they are raised, but will provide a response if and when appropriate. The board expects members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking. Please note that the board will not respond to comments regarding students or board employees in light of the privacy rights held by those individuals. Moreover, the board discourages comments about such individuals and will not be responsible for those comments. Members of the public who choose to speak during this public session should carefully consider their comments since they can be held personally liable for any statements they make. Finally, please note that in accordance with district policy number 1100, the board will
006not officially comment or respond to any matter mentioned unless it can can confirm that the matter has first been brought to the attention of the appropriate school personnel in an attempt to resolve the issue, and your cooperation is appreciated. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fogarty. At this time, I'd like to call up Anthony Grinieri. Good evening, everyone. Anthony Grinieri, uh Secaucus resident and parent of a school-age child. Um I am coming up here a little bit blind cuz I was anticipating that we'd have the presentation beforehand for that we get some information about the budget, um which as of right now, I still don't really have, so I can't comment specifically about where we are deficient in funds versus where we're not, but I guess I'll just kind of move over to some some other
007concerns, mainly the fact that our school district currently um is in a is in a bad shape both financially, I believe, and educationally. Um I mentioned at the school board meeting uh about a week ago that the recent NJALS SA reports came out and it showed that about 50% of all of our students in every grade level except for English ELA eighth, I believe, was uh under 50% proficient. Um that's just not acceptable. Uh also with the New Jersey's uh excuse me, the new the World Reports the US News and World Reports have shown that our schools are consistently ranking in the bottom half of New Jersey uh with our our high school actually in the bottom 50%. Uh Clarendon at 607, Huber at 859. Uh our middle school is actually doing relatively well at
008267. Um our district cannot afford to lose any funding for instruction and services for our children. Um that said, all funding that does come uh that will hopefully come from this board and also from the town needs to come with additional oversight as it's clear that the current system is not working. While I commend Dr. Toback for finally bringing these deficiencies to the town's attention and attempting to address the situation, the previous mismanagement and decline in performance is no is likely in no small part due to the fact that Secaucus has had, I think, approximately nine superintendents in the last 9 years. There has been no long-term plan, no long-term vision, and no consistent oversight. Our school district has not published the treasurer's secretary report since November 2025 despite the fact that it should be
009published monthly. The school district did not publish the proposed budget for today prior to today's meeting or for next year prior to today's meeting, so we can't really even see what's happening before we walked in here. Um I want to note that other municipalities in the surrounding areas like Allendale, Livingston, and Demarest have already published their 2026-2027 proposed budget. We need more transparency and we need more oversight to ensure that the funds in our district are being properly allocated and utilized. With that said, the fact is Secaucus is one of the lowest property tax municipalities in North Jersey. As a result, our schools have suffered, and as we know, school district budgets are primarily funded by local property taxes. In comparison to other municipalities in New Jersey or North Jersey whose school ranks in the
010top 50 such as Ridgewood, Allendale, Livingston, Millburn, and Demarest, last year's numbers show that Secaucus spends on average approximately 2,000 less per student for general instruction and $2,500 less per student with uh for students with disabilities for their special education. Using last year's enrollment numbers in Secaucus, if we funded our school the way that these other districts funded their schools, that would come out to approximately $3.7 million more for our general education students and approximately $900,000 more for our special education students. I hope that this town and the board utilizes NJSA 18A:7F38D, which does permit statutory adjustments over the 2% tax levy cap in order to fund the increases in health care cost. Um looking over briefly the presentation that was provided when I walked in here, it is going to show that we're going
011to have some health care increases and there are statutory adjustments that allow for this uh municipality to cover those cost. Actually, the statutory adjustment would allow for a full recovery of the cost based on my uh computation of the algorithm provided in that statute. So, uh between that, if we have any bank capital left uh from the previous 3 years, I hope that the board and the town would consider using that. Also, pursuant to New Jersey statute 40:48-17.1, if there is any municipality surplus funds, we could uh reappropriate those funds over to our school district uh in order to help properly fund our school district. I know I'm coming up on my time, but I would just like to state that I do understand that a a property tax increase is not something that anybody
012wants to hear. Um I do commend our town for keeping property taxes reasonable and manageable over, you know, many, many years, but unfortunately, our schools have suffered as a result. So, um I'm hoping that we are able uh for the sake of our children, for the sake of the future of Secaucus, and to really be that jewel of uh of the Meadowlands that we always say that we are, to make our schools um in line with some of the best here in North Jersey and uh provide our children with a sufficient and excellent education. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Grinieri. Mr. Kelly, are you going to say anything? I wanted to speak before they do the presentation. >> Yes. Why wouldn't I speak before we do the presentation? It's the order of of the meeting,
013and that's the way we normally do things. Right? I mean, Okay, I don't see it in here, but We can We can open it up for questions. I mean, if you want to do that after the presentation. I don't, but my CFO does. I'm saying, why are they speaking before they do the presentation? >> We we can We can go ahead and suspend the public session and make the presentations. Okay. You want to do it like that? That's fine. Sure, we can do that. Okay. I just want to answer to some of two of the things that Mr. Grinieri had said about the um taking all of the statutory adjustments. We have as a district. We have done that. And also the reason um Mr. Granieri, some of the districts that you mentioned already put
014out their budget, they um most likely already had their public budget hearing. We have not done that yet. That will be happening on May 7th. And at that time, we will be putting the budget out publicly. Just so that there's no confusion, we're we're going to suspend uh the uh uh the public forum and the public comment um uh uh section of the of the meeting. We're going to allow the um uh the town to make a presentation. Um and then uh Superintendent Dr. Toback will be answering some questions as well. And then we'll resume the public participation portion of the meeting. Thank you. You're welcome. Pat. Hi. Um my name is Patrick DeBlasio. I'm the Chief Finance Officer for the Town of Secaucus. Um on Tuesday, the Mayor and Council approved the introduced budget.
015And I'm here just to give some highlights of um what they voted on and some of the challenges that we had in this year. Let me just get comfortable. Okay. So, at the direction of the Mayor and Council, as we always do, we reviewed each budget line item carefully to confirm it is needed and the allocations are correct. We look to make cuts wherever we reasonably can um without jeopardizing the long-term health of our budget or significantly impacting the operations or the services we offer to our taxpayers. Um there's no denying that the last few budget cycles have been very difficult. And this year's no different. Um as you have certainly noticed in your own homes, um the cost of everything continues to increase and we're faced with the same stressors on our budget um
016but just on a larger scale. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, they released the um the inflation rate, which is 3.3%. And that's quite difficult for a town to manage within those parameters. Um so this year, we had eight budget line items such as insurance contributions to our SMUA, which is our sewage treatment, contractual increases, which increased our appropriations, the line items we spend against, by 7.3 million. So, I have a budget document here, which has about a hundred line items in it. And eight of those line items increased by 7.3 million. That's a lot just for those eight line items. So, that was a big challenge for us. We also always looked at ways to increase revenues outside of taxation. So, we're happy to report in not just to impose an increase
017of 7.3 million upon our taxpayers, but we raised the revenues by 3.5 million such as um construction revenues, hotel fees, anything we can, we raised some revenues there. And the difference is the amount to be raised by taxation. So, the Mayor and Council were presented with an initial budget several weeks ago that was prepared by our finance team. Prior to presenting the budget to the finance department, the town administrator next to me, as the as well as the direction of the Mayor and Council, reviewed all line items to see where the reductions can be made. Based on that line by line review budget cuts totaling 1.8 million dollars were made. That was quite difficult to do. The initial budget proposed a municipal tax increase on the average home assessed was about 277 dollars. And that
018was too high. That was something that we really couldn't deal with. So, the Mayor and Council further reviewed the budget presented to them on top of making the 1.8 million dollar cuts. And they asked the finance team for ways to reduce the taxes a bit further. Um and the team worked together with the Mayor and the Council to further reduce the overall taxation by another 500,000 dollars. That's no easy task. Um which was approved then recently by introducing the budget uh that happened on Tuesday. The net result of the introduced budget is that taxes on the average home assessed will be increased by 245 dollars per year or about 20 dollars and 48 cents a month. Um and if it wasn't for those eight large line items, we we'd be pretty good here. >> [snorts]
019>> Um as I stated at the outset, the last several budget years have been very difficult. In fact, last year, the town was faced with steep increases by the county taxation. And the Mayor and Council realized that and they approved a a zero tax increase to the municipality because you were getting impacted by um other sources, by by the county there. So, any increases uh realized in your property tax bills for the last year were related to the county as well as some of the school board. So, that's just a highlight of what the um Mayor and Council had to deal with in 2026. And I guess we'll open for questions whenever um whenever it it happens. Okay. Does anybody have any questions on our budget? Nobody? Say the name. >> really hard to keep
020taxes stable. Last year, we had a 0% increase. That was a tough thing to do. So, this year, we're going up 245 dollars a household, average household. So, we're doing a we're doing a pretty good job. No questions? Okay. Dr. Toback. Okay. Thank At this time, I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Toback, um Miss Yo, our business administrator, and Pat Kikuchi, our assistant um BA. They will be doing a presentation on the budgeting and financing outlook for 2026 through 2029. My name is Mark Toback. I'm the interim superintendent here in Secaucus. And um for my presentation tonight, I'm joined by Grace Yo, a long-time school business administrator, and also Pat Kikuchi. So, some of you may know Pat. Some of you may know his father, but he has a long history in the
021school district. So, good evening, members of the Board of Education, Mayor, Town Council, and of course the residents and those viewing from home. I would like to begin by thanking all of you for being here tonight. And we appreciate the partnership between the school district and our municipal leaders as well as the engagement from the community. Um so, our presentation tonight is not the complete budget presentation. As our president said, our board president said that would be something for next week. But what this is is a budget and financial outlook because um this is really an important topic and gets to the heart of some of the issues that are facing the district. Okay. So, um for those of you viewing from home or for those of you in the audience, if you're get some
022of this is in smaller print and it might be easier easier for you to view it on a mobile device. So, the presentation that you see on the screen now is available there's a hard copy and you can also view it on a device. There is a section on the district website that includes presentations and you should be able to find it there. Um so, let's get started. Okay. So, the first page is basically kind of a a quick summary. If you follow the news, right? It seems like every day there's a new school district announcing budget cuts, layoffs, uncomfortable decisions, significant tax increases, and in some cases, it's all the above, right? All these different actions that have to be taken to close budget gaps. While each case is a little bit unique and
023some kind sometimes it's financial mismanagement, in other cases, there are some common issues. And one of those issues is the 2% tax levy limit. So, there is a certain math that is in place when it comes to creating a budget a budget for a school district. And there is also a historic impact that this has had on budgets across New Jersey. Okay? So, this particular page reflects essentially the sentiment that existed in 2010 when the two when the 2% tax levy cap came into being. At the time, there was a movement to reduce local property taxes. And the reality is that local public schools are a big part of local taxation in New Jersey. Most people are for local control, accountability, fiscal discipline, and with the new law, there came some exceptions known as waivers.
024And so, those are on the right side of the sheet, right? Things that are already approved by voters, debt service, increased enrollment, state approved exclusions like medical benefits, things like that, or more recently, a loss of state aid. So, there are some waivers. And it seems like this all makes sense, right? But then there's a reality, right? So, it sounded like a great way to take control. Budgets increased by 2% in general. Maybe there were some waivers, but the fact is this worked okay for a few years. And so, budgets increased slowly. But then some other things started to happen, right? Over time, there's a cumulative effect. The cumulative effect is the increases that in are kind of disregarded by this 2% tax levy cap. So, inflation, which is definitely not a 2%, salaries, benefits,
025energy, supplies. So, in a labor intensive organization like a school district, the fact is all the cost drivers pretty much exceeded 2%. And our school budget isn't This is not just for 1 year. This is 15 years of a compounding effect of the 2% tax levy cap. So, nobody faults a board of education for trying to keep taxes low. Nobody faults a board of education for trying to do the best they can for the teachers in terms of attracting top teachers to the school district and paying good salaries. Nobody faults a board of ed for doing their best to provide great supplies and textbooks and resources for the teachers and students. But, this is a a 5-year model, okay? And really there's not enough space to do 15 years of this, but this is just
026a a small example of the actual effect of what's happening in our schools. So, for every $100, this is the effect over 5 years. Over 15 years, you can imagine that gap is much bigger. There was also a period of time that um during the pandemic where there was an enormous infusion of funds into school districts. So, this gap this gap was growing with it was growing it was growing and then pandemic came and that gap was closed. And then once that funding dried up, now it came back and it's worse than ever in a lot of places. So, um let's see here. So, where does that leave us now in terms of funding? Okay? So, this chart really is the heart of the presentation tonight. So, it's it's maybe a little hard to understand,
027so it probably makes sense for me to explain. Okay? There is a document that exists in New Jersey. You could look it up. It's called the Taxpayers' Guide to Education Spending. And it's something that the state of New Jersey produces so that people compare expenses in different school districts and how much is being spent. So, you can see are we outside the norm? Are we within the norm? How do we compare to other school districts? And so, it helps people really understand school budgets. So, these are the Hudson County school districts. And with the exception of the technical school cuz that's a kind of a separate entity that works through the county. Um but you can see where it says B dollar sign PP. That means budgetary cost per pupil 2011. That's the first column.
028Okay, so in budgets that were developed in 2011 in all these districts, you could see the cost per pupil. That's how much the district spent. And I chose this number as one good number because it also adjusts over time. So, we know our enrollment is lower and because our enrollment is lower, there's an adjustment for the cost per pupil. So, if you start on the left-hand side, right? You could see that during that time period in 2011, Secaucus was was somewhere in the middle of funding for students, right? So, for every student at that time we spent $13,675 and you can see that that placed us somewhere in the middle of Hudson County. Fast forward to 2025, which is the latest information I was able to find, you can see that Secaucus schools are funded
029at the lowest level in Hudson County, right? At $17,746. So, the budgetary growth per pupil during that time period from 2011 to 2025, that's what that means, is $3,981. Um the dollar growth per year per pupil, in other words, how much additional money is expended year over year on each of our students, is $284. And you could see the investment made by other communities. You can also see the next column shows inflation, right? So, had we just stuck with inflation, had we simply as a school district um moved along and kept up with inflation, which you can't do by the way with the 2% cap if you don't have waivers and or you didn't use them, they weren't used, that gets you to $22,300 per student. So, then the gap for inflation only is $4,554.
030On the bottom, the bottom is the state average. So, from 2011, it was $11,852. Now across the state, schools are funded at $21,199 per pupil. So, that's also a significant gap compared to where we are. So, yes, taxes were kept low and we we operated within that 2% and so, that's an important thing, right? Nobody argues with that. Everyone wants to see taxes stay low, but there's also an effect over time and now we're at that time where it's important for us to take action. Okay? So, at this point, I'd like to turn things over to our business administrator, Grace, and then we're going to talk about um a few other things that are influencing our budget. Good evening and thank you all for joining us tonight. As Dr. Toback highlighted, our budget is currently
031facing several significant stressors. The primary driver of these costs is a sharp increase in health benefits. As you can see on the slide before me, we are seeing a 30% increase in healthcare premiums and a 32% increase in prescription costs. To provide some context, the district currently participates in the state employee healthcare benefit plan. With our prescriptions being managed through a public employer trust agreement. However, following the enactment of the Consolidated Appropriations Act in February of 2026, the market dynamics shifted significantly. What was originally anticipated to as a 15% increase has unfortunately spiked to a 32% figure you see before you. Please note that we are being proactive. The district has requested a 2-year health claims experience summary from our current providers. We are working closely with our brokers to identify alternate solutions. Our goal
032is to reduce the cost while ensuring that we maintain or even improve the level of care for our employees that we rely on that they rely on. That is our ultimate goal. In addition to that, I just want everyone to know that our user-friendly budget will be posted online tomorrow as we had submitted that to the county for approval. In addition, the user advertised budget will be posted in the Bergen Record tomorrow for everyone's view so that when we do vote on the budget on next Thursday, everyone will be well informed. At this point, I'd like to turn this over to Mr. Cacucci. Thank you, Grace. And thank you all for being here tonight. Okay, so uh moving forward, how do we fix this this gap? How do we we make ourselves whole essentially uh
033over the next couple of years? And it's going to take a collaborative effort to do so. Uh what you see here on your screen uh is basically two options uh that we're assessing. So, it's important to note uh that in order to solve this, there's really kind of a twofold approach to it. It is increasing revenue and we'll be requiring some budget cuts. However, it can't be one alone of those two things. It has to be a combination and that's a really important thing to take note uh with regard to closing this this gap over the next couple of years. Uh I do want to make uh mention of the fact that a portion of the revenue that we're requesting or or proposing for next year uh is tied to those state-approved cap adjustments that
034were mentioned before, which allows us to exceed that 2% tax levy uh under specific conditions. There's two particular adjustments that we're referring to. So, there's the healthcare waiver adjustment um and the bank cap that was uh not utilized in prior budgets. So, those are two things to to to make mention of. I do want to also uh point to the fact that um a portion of this revenue is not discretionary in the sense that it's it's really not optional in terms of us moving forward. It's it's a necessity. Uh it reflects real ongoing cost uh drivers uh particularly in our employee benefits as Mr. Yo had mentioned. Year one is going to be the most crucial, meaning next year with our 26-27 proposed budget. Uh we are seeking a 7.2% increase in revenue, which does
035sound high. However, when you do the the dollars and the cents of that, it equates to essentially $170 per uh average household or if you do that per month, it's roughly $14 per month. So, uh it is minimal in the sense of that. Is it zero? It is not, but it is a minimal increase uh based off of what we're able to obtain with that. Like I mentioned before, uh that does take into account two of those waiver adjustments, the healthcare and the bank cap that we had available to us. This is where our heavy lifting is going to accomplish closing that gap that first year. Uh what this allows us to do is it'll it stabilizes our district financially to a certain degree and then it resets our tax levy base moving forward subsequent
036years. Years two and three, uh there's a more moderate growth. So, we're projecting an approximate 4% annual increase generating about 1.8 million per year assuming there's a continued eligibility for our healthcare waiver adjustments. Now, there is a potential for this number to be greater based off of a continuing rise to our health care costs. So, I do want to make mention of that. This is just a approximate of what we see based off of previous averages. So, what does this mean big picture? If we relied only on the 2% cap, we would generate about 2.5 million over 3 years. And just to kind of put that into some context of of a perspective, our increases this year were 2.1 just in health care cost alone. So, essentially that would just cover over a 3-year period
0371 year of rising health care costs. That's not accounting for increase in salaries, potential staffing needs, programming, instructional resources. What we're proposing over these next 3 years if we were to take these adjustments, we'll generate approximately 6.6 million in total. And that 4 million plus would essentially allow us to avoid any deeper cuts, maintain our programs, our academic programs, athletics, extracurricular, and preserves staffing stability including, and this is kind of a big thing for Secaucus and it always has been traditionally to keep our class sizes as small as possible, teacher to staff ratio. Why this matters? Well, without this approach, the district would essentially face significant program reductions, staffing impacts, and potentially both over the next couple of years. What we're hoping for, and again this is going to be a real collaboration and and
038take community buy-in, is a plan to protect protect our educational quality, restore our financial ability and our base, and hopefully predict some long-term planning going forward. Thank you, Dr. Toback, Grace, and Pat for that presentation. At this time, we will open it up again. Um resume the public forum. I don't know, Mr. Granieri, do you want to come back up? Yes, sure. Thank you for the opportunity. Um I did have some questions about what was just presented. Um my first one would be it's my understanding that we're actually going to be hit with even further budget health care cost increases as of January of next year. Um and I'm not sure if those further increases were inputted into this presentation or if that's something that we're going to have to deal with again in a
039couple months. Um and I think that another thing that I I do see some solutions here that were presented today and I I appreciate that immensely. Um my concern a little bit is with this 3-year plan when we have the anticipated 4% and 4% in the next 2 years after that. We can't really guarantee that right now because the only thing that we could guarantee is the 2% that we know. And we have to fall into these adjustments and statutory adjustments to go over the 2% moving forward. So, we can't really leave any money on the table this year. We have substantial 30% health care increases this year. And that statutory adjustment that allows for an increase over the 2% property tax cap for health care adjustments can't be rolled over. You use it or
040you lose it. So, we need to use it this year because this is the year that we're going to get smacked with those with those cost. And if this budget presentation didn't take into account the increases that we're going to get in January next year, I ask that the the town consider that, the school board consider that, put that in there, and request that full statutory allotted adjustment for that we can make sure that we take care of our teachers, that we take care of our staff, that we make sure that we get the proper health care for our wonderful teachers here in Secaucus, our wonderful service providers here in Secaucus, and then free up some of that additional money that we were to likely have to use to then fund the educational instructions and
041services for our children. Many of you know that I fight day in and day out for my daughter to make sure that she gets the services that she's entitled to here in Secaucus, and it's a constant fight. I'm doing it right now. Um and it's a situation that a lot of it comes down to the fact that we just don't have the funding. And that should not be a reason why our children do not get the education that they deserve and that they are entitled to. So, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Granieri. Dr. Toback, did you want to Are there other comments? Do you want to answer at the end? >> the mayor, does anybody from the council have anything you want to say? Anything? Okay. Right. So, are there other speakers? Okay. So, we're
042going to What's your pleasure? Do you want to wait till they're all finished? Let's wait till they're finished. At this time, I'd like to call up Dina Drebizio. If anyone else wants to speak, the list is here. If you want to come up and put your name on it if you'd like to speak, you're welcome to do so. Good evening. In the spirit of transparency, thank you for this uh dual meeting. I want to start by saying while I'm deeply concerned about the situation we're in, I'm also not too surprised. Over the past year, myself and others have stood before this board asking how the district was preparing for rising health care costs and the loss of government funding. Each time we were reassured that everything was under control. We asked for proactive planning, not
043reactive decision-making. Unfortunately, it feels like those concerns were not taken seriously because here we are. This isn't new, yet today we're facing a deficit of approximately 2 million, and now residents are being asked to absorb that through increased taxes. We know that health care costs alone have risen significantly, at least by 30%, which is in line with statewide trends of double-digit increases. But again, these are not sudden surprises. These are known predictable pressures that require long-term planning. And that's where my frustration comes in. But beyond accountability, I want to talk about something bigger than our budget, community. There's a reason the phrase it takes a village has stood the test of time. It reflects a fundamental truth. Community communities only thrive when people show up for one another. Not just when it's easy and not
044just when it directly benefits them. A mother if a mother couldn't produce enough milk to feed her child, another mother would step in because the survival of the baby mattered more than whose child it was. I understand that tax increases are difficult. They affect all of us. But a strong community isn't built on me, it's built on we. Even for residents without children in the district, strong schools matter. They impact our property values, the strength of our neighborhoods, and the future of this town. A well-funded, well-run school district benefits everyone. There was a time when someone else paid into the system when many of us were students. That's how communities function through shared investment. And I want to be clear, I've never had an issue with my taxes increase when it meant improving our schools.
045I would gladly support investments that enhance education, expand opportunities, and strengthen our is. Right now, we're being asked to increase taxes to close a gap, a gap that many of us believe could have been anticipated and better managed. Because when districts are forced into reactive decisions, it often often leads to larger tax increases, potential cuts, and difficult trade-offs that impact students, families, and the entire community. Moving forward, this has to be a turning point. We need transparency, we need long-term planning, and we need accountability so we are never in this position again. And we need to be more proactive because our community and our children deserve better than reactive decisions. Um I also have a few questions regarding this. Um I understand that taxes are going up, but I feel like some hard I need
046to ask some hard questions. Are there being cuts? Are teachers being cuts? Are programs being cut? Dr. Toback, I know you had mentioned maybe not hiring replacements for people who are retiring, but let's say for example, a science teacher is retiring this year. Are we not replacing them? Then the additional teachers that are left, do they have to absorb this and then we'll have larger classroom sizes? I feel like these are really important things, and while I appreciate the presentation, I I'd like to know these kinds of things cuz they impact our students, they impact our district. So. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? You can. Okay. >> All right. Hello everyone. Some of you I know real well, some of you I may not know at
047all, but my name is John Riccardi Jr. My friends from town know me as Rico. I'm a lifetime resident of the town. I was in the class of 1980, student council president, part of the original four classes that picked the colors red, white, and blue and picked the name Secaucus Patriots. And I've uh made a presentation to various people on the board, the principals, and the student body at the senior prom. And I would I'm requesting a formal presentation now to to look at building a memorial wall with a perpetual light listing all of the 50 classes by order on all the deceased students, teachers, and administration. I think that the property by the football field by the Booster Club, there's a big kiss-and-loan as you exit the property, is a perfect spot to look
048at for that that monument that will do honor to all our classmates and teachers and administration that have passed. And to it's a great community opportunity to have the alumni and the community to come together to assemble the list and work together and work with the current student body. I've spoken to the sales program and the student council presidents that the senior class that's graduating that will be an alumni and the junior student council president team that and they're all on board and excited to help us accomplish this. So I'm I'm asking for consideration. Um secondly, I grew up in town when it was Old Closter and North Lincoln and there was no high school. And one of the things that you know, we came from a farm town to this one of the best
049well-run mixed-use cities, towns in the country. And you know, Paul Amico, we were always a a forward-thinking community. Closter and Lincoln school really was a you know, state-of-the-art. Those circle buildings, it it was somewhat like the World's Fair came to Secaucus. We were experimenters. We we looked to the future for new technology and new educational tools and opportunities to be better. And we were better and we are better. I know my classmates, Secaucus rules. And you know, I'm I've spoken many times [snorts] about action sports and I talked to the kids and the things that I ask, they want. And I'm still sitting here and it hasn't been done yet. And you know, the X Games League is now on TV. I presented that to ABC and ESPN and NBC 17 years ago. And I'm
050happy that it's happening. But that's the pro levels and I'm all about the children. And American Dream sitting across the river and it's not successful. And the kids would love that to be a gymnasium. So as that facility over there goes into the new phase and they look to use Brendan Byrne Arena and build more hotels and office space, I speak to you as leaders with me that there are curriculums in the country, but they're not zip code present. And the recreation departments and gym classes at the school teams at the school clubs and the college level that creates a career path in over 15 activities which are all in industries that create jobs for teachers and children to be gods and assistants is not existing in our country. And we are the incubator right
051here to show the country that these things need to be in the schools because this is where the kids are participating. They're Olympic sports now. Our country is significantly behind China and Brazil and other countries that have invested in the action sports activities. So I'm speaking to you as a fellow citizen. Look to the water. Look to boat buses. Okay, going monetizing the water. It There's There's research that we did a long time ago in the '70s that looked to that. Looked to that research and modernize it. Bring the kids across the water. They want that facility over there to be gym classes. Okay, that's fun. That excites the kids. Okay, so those are the two wishes I've spoken to the kids. I'm going to work with the kids. I'm retired now. I joined the
052Golden Age Club. I'm 65 on 7/11. I'm going to work with the seniors. Mrs. Ryan wants to help me. Mr. Marra wants to help me. There's philanthropy in this town. You know, we got Stern over here. He built a college in New York City. So we have no limits in this town. I can name 75 names of people that own over 10, 15 homes in this town. We have barons in this town. We have commercial barons at the highest level. There is no limit. Money is not an issue among us all. And we all love our children and we all we all love the future children. We want to make things right. We are the light. We are not darkness this town. I love all of you and I know you all love me. Thank
053you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Riccardi. Um Mr. Bartletta will answer part of what you had asked in the first portion of of regarding the memorial wall. Uh so Mr. Riccardi, I can confirm that um we uh many of us up here are lifetime residents and there is nothing more important to us than recognizing our uh past athletes uh in this in this school district. So uh we are working with the town on uh putting up a memorial wall in the uh near the concession stand by the high school football field. So it is something that we all working on and should be up soon. Okay. Anybody else? Okay, at this at this time I'm just going to turn it over to Dr. Toback to answer some of the questions from the speakers. Okay,
054so um there is a lot to talk about. There's a number of questions that were asked. Um so I guess Mr. Riccardi, your questions have been answered or the some of the things that you wanted to know about. Uh Mr. Gerace, so let's go um into the discussion about the budget and the reality of school funding in New Jersey. So if even if you if you read um some of the comments from our new Commissioner of Education, she has very clearly said there has to be a new school school funding formula because our school funding is unstable, unreliable, it varies from year to year, but the reality is that every year is a new deal. Every year, if you're part of the State Health Benefits, you find out in about August when that's that's when
055you find out about the increases. That's when you start really starting to plan and understand what is going to happen with the State Health Benefits Plan. So some years it's up, some years it's down. I've participated in the State Health Benefits Plan as you know, as a superintendent for many years and it is somewhat unpredictable. Um Grace, is there anything you'd like to say regarding the state I'm sorry, the planning included in the budget for potential increases in the State Health Benefits in January? Yes, thank you, Dr. Toback. We are, as I stated earlier, looking to with our broker to um look to other insurance agencies to pick us up. We just had an experience rating done. It's done every 2 years. We've done it every 2 years that we were allowed to do it
056and unfortunately, we could not no other carrier would pick us up. So we did have to stay in health benefit plan. We're hoping this year our luck changes. What really hurt us this upcoming school year for 2026-27 was the fact that we were in a public trust fund. The public trust fund every year your increases came in at at least a 10 to 12% increase. 15 max was what we thought this year would be. Unfortunately, in February, February of '26 was when we received notice that our prescription plan was being increased to 32%. So honestly, would I have loved to have known that back in August when we start our planning? Yes. We never had any indication that that was going up. That is why we are proactively seeking other ways that we can reduce
057our insurance costs. Grace, in um one of the questions from Mr. Granieri was that so hypothetically, January rolls around and we see yet another significant increase in our health care costs. We're still in the State Health Benefits Plan. How is that incorporated into the budget? It is incorporated right now currently at the 30%. If it's going higher than that, I have no indication and We have to adjust. >> on what is being told to me currently. Okay. Um So, that's something we'll have to deal with again mid-year, which is an another issue for many school districts. Um with regard to the question about money being left on the table, there is no money left on the table and that is why we are recommending a 7.2% increase because if we do not act now as
058a school district, as a community, then ultimately things become infinitely more difficult down the road, right? You cannot recover if you leave money on the table now because every following year is based on the funding that is available at this moment, right? And then next year the 2% calculation goes on that. Um the 4% that was included in the future is ultimately funding that we're projecting. There are different ways that we can increase revenue. Um but that is as I said, a projection. Do we know We're probably not going to have bank cap, but will there be waivers and other things that we could probably take advantage of? The answer is yes. The point is that over the next few years, we should maximize revenue in any way that we can because if we don't,
059we can never recover. We can never even get close to where the rest of the county is. So, we have to act now. So, had we not done um had we not developed this three-year plan and we just kind of went along and went from one year to the next, we would we would ultimately be in a very bad situation. Okay. Um So, the other thing that I mentioned in the previous meeting is that yes, there are many communities that had preliminary budget hearing. Okay. And as I mentioned before, the board this year um will be planning a budget process that will perhaps include some additional milestones that will include presentations and information for the public. But that's something the board will be working on over the next few months. It's one of the projects
060that they're going to be working on. The last thing I have to address um is related to the academic side of things, okay? So, um So, Mr. Mayor, you had mentioned that um you know, some of these issues with the fact that 50% of the students are are not proficient. And I think it's um and you and you cited the New Jersey Student Learning Assessments, okay? So, So, I guess the whole point and the thing I feel that is not really coming out is that those numbers, to begin with, can improve, but that's about state average. All right? So, that's the reality of it. It is not something for the community to necessarily be completely alarmed by. As I said, is there progress? Are there things that we can do better? Are there gaps that
061we need to fill? Are there things that we need to do as a school district? The answer is absolutely 100% yes, but the NJSLS is not a pass-fail test. It wasn't designed that way. It's never It's It's not published that way. There's no information out there that would indicate that it's a pass-fail test. Um there are five categories. There's um exceeding expectations and so those are the students who are um well above well above grade average, right? And so, they um you know, that would those would be like the students that get the A, right? Um there's students that are meeting expectations. So, they're meeting the state standards, right? That's another category and those would be like students who are doing well and meeting expectations. And then you have the students that are in the
062next category and that's the category that also should be considered as they're approaching expectations. Are they Are they where they need to be in every area? The answer is no. But are they failing? The answer is no. That doesn't mean they're failing. Okay? And that's like I said, I think there are some distinctions that need to be made when we talk about the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment. I think that it's important to understand the staff is obviously working very hard. We have a plan in place. The staff has been discussing, I think, pretty much non-stop some of the information that we've been sharing at the board meetings and I think that's that's a good effect because we're all coming together to talk about what can we do, how can we change things, what can
063we do as a school district, what can we do as a community. These are all things that are really important. So, um I think this that answers all the questions. Excuse me, Dr. Toback. Could I just clarify the health care for '27? We did take that full percent into into you know, into context. >> So, you anticipated the health care waiver? Yes, I was thinking for the '27-'28 budget. That's why we're looking to do what we're doing, but yes, it is fully incorporated. Yes. Mayor, do you have anything? I'd [snorts] just like to just briefly explain. I think sometimes people say like Anthony just, you know, raise taxes. Sometimes it's difficult, right? So, the tax rate is based off of well, the tax admissible tax is three municipal tax, school board and county, right? And
064we on this side of the table control the municipal, right? And we've been doing that for quite some time now and I think we've we've really been able to project over time and then really um we stabilized and and we haven't had many spikes, right? Because I think we've been a done a good job of anticipating those expenses and we were lucky to be able to have an experience rating, I guess, in the last year to allow us to get out of state health benefits. And what happens with state health benefits is when everybody's in it, it's probably great cuz there's a lot of um Um what's the word I'm looking for? I can't even think of the shared risk. Thank you. And as everybody gets out of it cuz the cost gets so high,
065who's left, right? The bad experienced and and the people with the most risk. So, those premiums skyrocket. We were very fortunate this year to be get out of that. That doesn't mean we saved a lot of money. I mean, we probably did, but it's still a 30% increase, right? It might not been 38% increase, but it was still a 30% increase. And hopefully over the next few years that that that increase because we're in a better situation now getting out of state health benefits, that that increase won't be anywhere close to that. So, from from our side, you know, we've done a really I think a really great job over 16 years of of keeping taxes low and giving incredible services. And the county, if you try to understand how they, you know, divvy out
066their taxes, it's a pie. It's a big pie chart and every year you get a different percentage of that depending on on what happens inside of that towns in the county. So, it's uncontrollable. Last year we really got hit hard and fought to get some um I have trouble words tonight, but you know, to to get some relief from the county and other things that we did that really help our situation. That I think the school, unfortunately, I wish, you know, we everybody asked you to come here and and take time out of your day, get babysitters and maybe leave work early. I wish they would have had their budget out so you guys can really analyze that and ask better questions, but they have a meeting every month and hopefully you go there and
067ask those questions. But they don't have the same um They're not fortunate like we are to raise taxes, right? They they just they don't have the ability to just raise taxes. They have those caps and other things that they can't do. So, unfortunately, they have to come to you and then they have to ask for these big increases. And again, I'm not on that side of the ledger, so we don't analyze it as as greatly, but I really feel like that like what they're trying to do moving forward is to ask for that chunk of money to fix things. And hopefully, again, we can we can we can raise that money and they can spend that money, but it's how they spend that money. And that's something that you guys are going to have to
068grade over time to see if, you know, that money is spent wisely and hopefully the teachers don't get hurt. Hopefully they get the benefits and everything they need that, you know, is nationwide or at least town statewide. So, those are the things. So, I just want you to know like like when when when the tax comes out like we control 1/3 of it. County controls a third of it and the schools a third of a third of it. So, I just some of it got lost on me with some of those questions, but I just wanted to try to explain that the best I could. And I thank everybody for coming out and taking the time cuz if you guys care and you guys ask those questions, then that holds us to account. It holds
069them to account. And then that's why we're here, right? We're here to ask all those questions and to do what we're supposed to do going forward. Hopefully planning properly to not have those spikes like we have now. You know, but some of it's not controllable. Nobody [snorts] can control even at your house is a 30% increase in any of those expenses unless you have a huge savings. And unfortunately, towns don't have those savings. You know, we've been fortunate enough to generate budget >> between us and the Board of Ed, we could raise money. Yeah. The Board of Ed can't really raise money. We raise money through parking, hotel tax. We raise money a million different ways, but the Board of Ed can't do that. Right. So, all they all they only way they can raise
070money is by renting this building out and you're not going to raise a lot of money by doing that. You know. >> Yeah, transportation, but you know, I mean, now hopefully the whole tax will hotel tax rate will be great this year. Um the parking tax looks great. So, we're going to make money this year. But the Board of Ed has no authority to make money. So, whatever they do, we have to fund them. You know. And that's the way it works. I think that's what I was trying to say. >> raise We don't have we don't have the ability to to borrow money. We also don't have the ability to to generate income and you heard about that 7.2% that 7.2% really is the maximum amount that we have available to us. The only
071way that we could produce more revenue. For any other programs would be if we had a special election or if in November we had a second question which would then raise taxes in order to fund fund those additional programs. So when you hear about this 7.2% and not leaving any money on the table what the board has done. It has taken all of the money that is available to them through waivers and bank cap which would be money that is put aside. In those years where we didn't go to the full 2% interestingly enough. We have the ability over a three year period to to take that money and if we don't take it then we lose it. So this year we have taken the bank cap. We have taken the health care waiver the
072state aid that 7.2% reflects the boards maximizing all of the money that's available to us without going to you the voters to raise additional taxes for our programs. Grace why don't you just mention some things that you did cut because you told me from the beginning you cut 10% from all the operating budgets. Yes, we went into our individual budgets for each department without touching any money's towards the supplies for the students. It went into administrative budgets. It went into our administrative budgets. It went into the principal's office budgets. That's where we took we cut an additional 200,000 from our budget this year. Not hurting any programs though. Any other questions? Mr. Rico. Recording. I have a couple of things. Um, do you do zooms where people you know, this cloud-based world that we're in
073now that were people if they're unable to attend they can like get on a screen and talk to the board. Is that something that the town does or the board of education does? I would recommend that be something that you look to do cuz I I I have grandchildren and I'm not always in Secaucus but I really care about Secaucus and I would like to be able to attend meetings and and watch them on TV or whatever channel and have the capability to speak. And I if we could look at doing that that would be something I'd be interested in working with everybody with. Second thing I'm just wondering if there's lobbyists that we have on the Secaucus cuz it seems to me that since Tony Impreveduto stopped being assemblyman the respect that we get
074from the state and the county has significantly gotten worse and you know, the roads are the indication of it. County Avenue the potholes have been there forever. Castle Road has no lights and we have the World Cup coming and we have no lights on Castle Road. I think that's a liability risk that the town should look at. Darkness is not a good street to have people walking up and down. There's going to be people coming from all over the world in the next couple of months. Castle Castle Road will be paved this year. Yeah, but there's no lights Mike we should probably put emergency lights up. >> is just repaved and due to the transit pay for that because of FIFA. Does county >> We get we get a lot of grants. So you know,
075we don't really need lobbyists but we get a ton of grants. We really do. We get grants to build parks. We get grants to fix roads. We just got a grant to repair the bridge on Meadowlands Parkway. Yeah, so all of that those are all excellent. Yeah, that absolutely but I remember in past boards they did have lobbyists even Anthony Impreveduto was a lobbyist that for for different various reasons and I think that the county we were the last on the list when it comes to representation from the state the county is very good to us. Then why is county why is county avenue look like that for 10 the county avenue is going to county avenue is being paved this year. Yeah, but it took our whole lifetime it took our whole lifetime and
076a and like three years ago route three was a death trap going over route three and the state took the whole winter not to pave it. County Avenue was only this year it got paved Mike. No, they're going to pave it again this year. Yeah, and it's it's good that it's finally getting done after my entire lifetime of it not being done. We repaved two years ago when the winter when there was potholes all over it it was a death trap and the state didn't do anything for the whole winter. That Polimeni wanted to put up with that. Anthony Impreveduto wouldn't put up with we did. I don't want to do that anymore Mike. I want the county to lose out on that. >> I don't put up with it either. So well then why
077is it still look like that in front of Ryan property. We just got we just got a grant to redo that entire bridge and end. We just got a grant to redo that entire bridge end to end. What's that grant going to cost Gary the Meadowlands Parkway bridge Meadowlands Parkway. For Meadowlands Parkway bridge. >> Yeah. Well the county's doing that through the state and the overall cost of the bridge replacement is multi-million dollars. I don't have they didn't go out to Yeah, I mean there's is always going to be things that need to be taken care of. That was one thing that was neglected and it's unfortunate that we allowed it to happen Mike. Thank you. Your question about the remote voting. The remote participation. >> Yeah, so in regards to remote participation that was
078discontinued after the pandemic but we do advertise our board meetings that you can watch on our website and also that would be that would speak to our policy. So we as a board will take your suggestion into consideration and discuss that. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, just if you could sign this. I I have the same questions as I had before that really didn't get answered. I have two little kids in school. I need to know are teachers getting cut? Are we in a hiring freeze? What programs are being impacted? Are programs being cut? This directly affects our students and and my students my children as well. So I know that these might not be this might not be the place but I
079need to know these answers and I'm sure there are other parents who are wondering. Are are are we not hiring people? Are we absorbing positions? Are you know, are we going to have larger classroom sizes because of this? So these are really important things and I I really hope you can answer them. So thank you. Yes, it makes sense that it's concerning but you can rest assured that no programs are being cut. In regards to personnel I don't know what that is. Yeah. We have another board meeting in a week right and at that meeting that's when we talk about presentation and the staffing plan for the upcoming year. Even then we don't necessarily get into specifics about employees of the district as we tell you at every board meeting but there are cuts there
080has to be. Okay, and is there is there a hiring freeze? Are we not replacing people? Depends on the circumstance. In some cases if you have a third grade classroom teacher um and you have adequate enrollment then you have to replace. So there it's I would not say that we have a hiring freeze but if there are opportunities for the district to ultimately not fill a position in a budget crisis then certainly we would take that. So will our classroom sizes be impacted? So we're going to have larger students in like more students in a classroom Potentially but that's not for this meeting. Okay. So next meeting this will be discussed? Okay. Okay, thank you. Thank you Dina. Carley. Carley Baldwin and I'm the Secaucus Patch reporter. So what is the proposed increase to the
081school tax levy? So that's 7.2%. 7.2% for this year. And an increase of 4% for next year. No, we're not proposing a 4% increase. What we're saying is that in order for the district to recover that we should maximize our revenue and we expect that to be about 4%. So we gave a scenario of what that would would look like. Do you have a copy of the handout? I don't but I'm definitely going to grab it and look online. It's on the district website. So that's a 7.2% proposed increase to the school tax levy this year. Yes. How much does that work out to be for the average home? >> $170. 7.2% is a big increase. It is. Would you say the district's in a budget crisis? I would say that we have a balanced
082budget now. And I would say that $170 combined with everything else that we talked about tonight means that the community gets a lot for its tax dollar. But right now we have um we I mean I'm not doing an interview now. So Okay. Okay. >> Yeah. Okay. What and my what is the town increase proposed town increase for the town tax levy? What's the percentage? Give me one second. It's approximately a 7% increase. So Secaucus homeowners are going to be asked to pay a 7% increase to the town taxes? $245 a year, yes. And a 7% increase to their school tax? Wow. Just want to make sure I'm understanding that. Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate this. Thank you. Would you like a copy? Okay. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay. Mayor, do you have anything
083else? You have anything else? No? Okay. Motion to close? Oh. Oh, you Okay. Yeah. Oh, it's still Yeah. That's all right. Yeah. Just wait till it finishes. Okay. This won't be long. I just I want to clarify my previous comments on the proficiency test, the NJLSA proficiency test. Um Dr. Toback, I understand what you're saying as well. Unfortunately, the state The state is in a crisis when it comes down to the proficiency test. There's no doubt. Um however, of the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 reported um scores that we received for the most recent NJLSA uh rankings or uh numbers, three of those were below state average. So, I just want to clear clarify that. So, we have four that were above state average, but three of them even despite the fact of
084how poor our state is doing as a whole, we were below that in uh grade four English, uh grade eight science, and grade 11 science. Um and although I do take into consideration what you're stating before, Dr. Toback, that we have the meeting and exceeding, and maybe I was referring to everybody that was not meeting and exceeding as failing. You know, we might be playing semantics at this situation, but if you're not meeting the standard, it kind of seems like you might be failing the standard. Uh yes, there are some There is The students actually everybody below the meeting standard we need to bring up because all of our students should be meeting the proficiency standards at the end of the day. And there are districts in North Jersey, several districts in North Jersey, that
085have those numbers well above 80%. So, um hopefully we can get there as well. Thank you. All right. Motion to close? Motion? Second? All in favor? Good night, everyone. Thank you for coming out and get home safely. Thank you.