001Open public. In accordance with the provisions of the open public meetings act, the board secretary is forwarded notice of this meeting for advertising by having the date, time, and place thereof posted in the Caucus town hall on the bulletin board of the education administration building as well as notice being provided to the Bergen record and the district website. Excellent. Roll call. Mr. Bartletta, present. Mr. Bolanino, present. Miss Diodetta, present. Mr. Barry, present. Mr. Gombre, present. Miss Keller, present. Mr. Lewis, present. Mr. Alliance present. Presentation of the 202526 school budget by the acting superintendent Charlie Charles Vorhees, excuse me, business administrator Gracio and assistant business administrator Pascal Kakuchi. Good evening and welcome. Tonight, our acting superintendent, Mr. Charles Vorhees, assistant business administrator, Disqual Kikuchi, and I, Grace Joe, business administrator, will present our 2025 2026 school
002year budget. In developing our budget and the challenges we knew the district would be facing, we stayed focus on our mission statement, which as follows. The Caucus School District in cooperation with the diverse with our diverse community is committed to a safe nurturing environment that upholds a tradition of engaging instruction, innovative curricular, challenging academics, and expansive co-curricular programs. Thereby providing our students with a comprehensive education that cultivates potential, encourages fair play, inspires creativity, and fosters multiaceted life skills necessary to brave the challenges of the future. Keeping this statement in mind, I would like to begin by giving a brief overview of the budget process and timeline. Our budget process is a collaborative team effort. The process begins every November and ends in mid-March when the budget is submitted to the county for approval. In the
003November administrative team meeting, we discussed the timeline of the budget. We set the due dates for when the budgets needed to be submitted and when they will be reviewed. After this initial meeting, our supervisors then met with the teachers to address their needs for the upcoming school year. Once the supervisors have compiled the information, they then met with the principles to develop each individual school's budget, which was then submitted to the acting superintendent and me. In January, a meeting was held with the principles to review their budgets and staffing requirements based on their initiatives. In our January and February operational committee meetings, we gave updates to the committee members as to the new programs we are reviewing and staff requirements that may be that may be needed for the upcoming year. Please keep in mind
004that this is all tentative as state aid numbers are not released until the fourth Tuesday in February, leaving three weeks to complete and present a balanced budget to our board and community. However, as our needs may change, the budget is a living document and the district will always attempt to accommodate the needs of our community in educating our students and supplying our teachers with the resources needed. On March 18th, 2025, the preliminary tenative budget was board approved. On March 19th, the tenative budget was submitted to the interim executive county superintendent and the executive county school business administrator. The county approved our tenative budget on March 28th. Tonight, we present our budget to the public for final adoption. Now, I would like to turn this part of the presentation over to Mr. Kikuchi, who will discuss
005our budget priorities and how it ties back to our district mission statement that kept us focused on being able to achieve a balanced budget and maintain all programs. Thank you, Miss Yo. Tonight, tonight, I'd like to share our continued priorities as we work to maintain and strengthen the quality of education across the Secula School District. First and foremost, we remain committed to providing a thorough and efficient education to every student in our district. Two words you will hear echoed throughout this presentation tonight. Thorough and efficient. This foundational goal drives every decision we make and ensures that all learners are supported, challenged, and prepared for future successes. Though efficient in addressing student needs, in addressing staffing needs, and in addressing safety, security, and facility needs. To that end, we will continue to fund highquality programs and
006invest in facility improvements that promote educational excellence. At the same time, we are mindful of the financial impact on our local taxpayers and strive to balance innovation with fiscal responsibility. It is also our responsibility to fully fund all program mandates by the state and federal law along with those required by board policy. Doing so ensures compliance, consistency, and the continuation of essential services our students rely on every day. We are aligning our budget allocations with approved curricula to support instructional innovation and sustain the staffing needed to uphold the integrity and success of our academic programs. Finally, we recognize that a secure learning environment is essential. That's why we are prior prioritizing investments in school safety and security measures, ensuring that all students, staff, and visitors feel safe, supported, and valued throughout our schools. Let's begin
007by reviewing the projected revenues for the 2526 school year. The total general general fund revenue is projected at 51.5 million. This includes a local tax levy of approximately 41.6 million which remains the primary source of funding for our schools. Additional revenue sources which include our miscellaneous revenue, our interest and and rent. uh totaling 525,000 state aid of just over 4.3 million. This includes our transportation aid, extraordinary aid, our federal our federal Medicaid reimbursement of $9,457, which offsets the cost of medical necessary services provided by the district. It also includes a fund balance surplus which essentially is our savings from previous years contributing over $1 million. To finalize our revenue, we are including our capital and emergency reserves totaling nearly 3.9 million combined. All these components make up a balanced budget plan that aligns within our
008educational priorities while ensuring fiscal responsibility. Now, let's take a look at those funds that are being allocated. The total operating budget remains at 51.5 million with our largest allocation, as you could see, 37% or 19.3 million, which goes directly to classroom instruction and programs, including teacher salaries and essential instructional supplies. Other key allocations include employee benefits at 17% of the budget, operations and maintenance at 9%, capital improvements also at 7% which includes projected uh funding for from capital reserves, student support services and transportation combining for 12%. And remaining funds distributed across general administration, tuition for instruction, school administration, athletics, technology, and health services. These allocations reflect our commitment to maintaining instructional quality, supporting student services, and ensuring well-maintained safe learning environments. Additionally, the district does receive special revenue and debt services funding projected at 2.6
009million. This includes our title money, title one, title two, title three, and title four, which supports academic interventions, professional development, uh, multilingual learn learning services and social emotional learning support. Our idea funding, which supports special education programs and services, as well as our debt service funds, which includes both the local tax levy levy and the state aid contributions to help cover principal and interest payments. Bringing these together, our total projected revenue for the 2526 school year stands at just over $54.1 million. Now, as I mentioned before, uh in order to create a balanced budget, we had to get creative, but also we had to be uh ingenious in how we were going to be utilizing our funds. Fortunately, our district had foresight when it came to uh budgeting for this particular school year. With that
010being said, we were able to supplement our our our budget with an additional fund surplus of $1 million that were unspent funds from previous years. Additionally, we're also including capital reserve money at $3.4 million, which is going to fund some facility projects and upgrades. emergency funds we're going which are going to be allocated towards our safety and security of our schools as well as two important things that I want to mention tonight banked cap of 3553,000 which will be uh utilized from uncap unused capital from previous years as well as we're going to be carrying over 228,000 into our 2627 budget. Now, with this bank cap, this is uh fortunately for us must be with you must be used within a three-year period, which we're going to be using for this particular school year. As
011I mentioned pri prior, uh because we did not use it in previous adjustments, uh previous budgets, we're able to use it for this particular year. Last, we received a healthcare cost adjustment of 677,000 due to a significant increase in the district's health insurance cost, which exceeded the state's base percentage cap. This adjustment allows us to exceed the usual 2% cap just slightly, ensuring we can cover essential benefit costs for our staff without sacrificing education, educational programs, or positions. All these measures combined reflect our commitment to a thoughtful, forward-looking financial plan that balances fiscal responsibility with a student- centered investment. Finally, I just want to touch upon our school tax levy and the tax levy impact to the community. We're pleased to share that despite rising costs across the board, particularly in areas like healthcare, special
012services, we've managed to keep the tax in increase modest and manageable for our community. The proposed 2526 school tax levy is 41.64 million which reflects an increase of 4.6% or 1.83 million compared to last year. This includes the full 2% allowable incre law a portion of available bank cap from previous years as well as the healthman healthcare cost adjustment that helped us absorb insurance premiums that spiked while protecting educational programs and staffing. In terms of the community impact, this translates to an estimated $75 per year at just over $6 per month on an average home assessment of 180,000. This minimal increase allows us to maintain a strong academic program, support student well-being, improve improve our facilities, and keep our schools safe, all while remaining fiscally responsible and forward thinking. I'd also like to thank the
013mayor and the town council as well as the residents of CC Caucus for their ongoing support as we move forward to provide the be very best for the students of Caucus. At this time, I'd like to turn things over to our acting superintendent, Mr. Charles Warhees, who will speak on behalf of some of the budget highlights and the planning strategies for future budgets. Good evening. Um, so this process started on a Friday afternoon. Well, actually it was around 11:00. Um, I went up to the board office and we had to make the left and the right meet and we got everybody involved. Whole board office. We called every school. We went through things probably about four or five hours. We knew we knew we had to we had to do this. And I will tell
014you, it's probably the proudest moment I've had working here in SEC. I've had a lot of them. but to have been able to save every single situation, every job, every program, which we've invested a lot into, which gives us the data to drive the programs academically. Um, it was it was we had to do it and we spent Friday and everybody in the board office did their jobs, inputed everybody's salaries. By Monday, we were a little closer. By Tuesday afternoon, we had a balanced budget. We um I do believe what we've done will will do really good things for the future. I know we're talking 2526, but my mind is also on school district financial So you can see up on the screen the word threshold. I know people talk about cuts. I I I
015don't want you to misunderstand that word with when we do a budget together. It's not a but it's not a cut. It's an allocated amount. So if we know you need $5, you're going to get the $5. But if you only need four, our goal was to give you the four. We have a savings plan, but what comes in must go out. But as I said, the future budget concerns are also being addressed. A lot of a lot of things happened here. Um just a couple things we're looking into is some corporate sponsorships. Um, we do rent this building and unfortunately somebody lost the roof, so we gained a few more rentals. Um, which we're taking advantage of. And like we said, we I used the term kindergarten math when we started our process and
016I said we'll get to algebra and calculus, which we did, but it it really was kindergarten math to start. Uh we re we refinanced, refunded some bonds, saved some money, long-term deal there, and now we're looking into some investments which will include certificates of deposits, some interest rates went up. Um you know, the highlights of this, you know, we have amplify so many other programs. Uh those of you who know um Miss Chhatrice, you know, she she she's got a wonderful mind and the supervisors that work with her, they needed these programs. So these programs are really helping us. They're all intact. And I I certainly don't want to just have to read everything, but you know, we we we're making some moves with with some AP things which will help our school rankings. Um,
017you know, that's going to cost a little bit, but we managed it. Um, you know, I think that's very important and I hope every teacher and everybody that works here realizes how important they all were, still are because that was our goal is to keep everyone here, every position. We have a chance to add a couple of things. We're making a big move with separating some of our population over in Clarin to also go into Huber Street School. That's going to require a couple more teachers and a teacher aid security. We believe this will finalize our security plans districtwide which will eventually lead to some financial savings on that department. And I guess basically the most important thing is to tell everybody thank you. We thank you all for the support and the trust in
018us. It's it's a it's a big number. Um, but it's it's here to make sure that we have everything in place for everyone to succeed. So, thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Boyce. Operations, finance. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Public forum. Nothing. Operations finance. I'd like to make a motion to accept the recommendation of the acting superintendent, board administrator, board secretary to approve and adopt resolution R 1.01 as described below. Second. discussion. I'd just like to take a moment um to make the public aware that the board um had an opportunity to review this budget prior to this evening. I don't want you to think this is the first time that we're seeing this information. We also had an opportunity to ask all relevant questions and voice any of our concerns. Just wanted to make
019you aware of that. No other discussion. Call the role. Mr. Bartletta. Yes, Mr. Bolanino. Yes, Miss Doddetta. Yes, Mr. Barry. Yes, Mr. Deumbre. Yes, Miss Geller. Mr. Lewis. Yes, Mr. Lions. Yes. Public forum general. Nothing. Okay. Before I go into board member comments, I would just like to take the opportunity on behalf of myself and the board to thank all of the individuals involved in this budget preparation. I know how many countless hours you put into this and and we thank you very much. We are very proud of all of your hard work to ensure a balanced budget with no program cuts, no staff cuts. not only no staff cuts, but we are adding four new positions, which honestly is a huge accomplishment compared to what some of the other districts had to do. I
020think we're in very good shape and we should be proud of that. Um, these things allow us to continue to provide a top-notch education to all of our students. So, I think that everyone here deserves a round of applause because you worked very, very hard and we thank you. Any other comments through the chair? Um, Trustee Geller, on behalf of you and I, I'd like to thank the district for allowing us to give a very detailed meeting to go over the entire budget line by line and explain um everything that was on there. As being a new trust, they want to make sure that I was familiar with what the what the budget entailed. And the the district provided a great deal of information and made us much more comfortable with what we was presented
021to us there. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Motion to adjurnn. Motion. All in favor? I