apologize for making you sit up here. Would you all please rise for the flag salute? liberty and justice for all. Okay, we'd like to call this meeting to order. The meeting's been posted in accordance with chapter 231
RL1975. Mr. Paladino, could you please call the role? Thank you, Madam President. Trusty Gillis here. Trusty Leon. Trusty Monise. Yes. Here. Trusty Majia here. Trusty Pico here. Vice President
Darrow here. President Benamini here. We have a quorum. The New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings of this board except where specifically exempted by law at which time any business affecting their
interest is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this act, the board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having same advertised in the Belleville times. Also notice that this meeting has been mailed to the members of the board of education, the
burough clerk, all district elementary schools, the middle school, the high school, homeblower early childhood center, and posted on the district website. Also, this meeting is being televised via the district's YouTube and Facebook pages. Okay, great. Could we have a motion to
approve our board of ed meetings from March 17th, close session and public session? So move. Second. All those in favor? Okay, let's move on to our uh announcements and uh let's first hear
from Candy Dong. Good evening everyone. My name is Candy Dong and I'm your student board representative. First, I would like to offer our congratulations to all the students who will be recognized tonight for their academic and athletic achievements. Congratulations to Zamir Monk for being
crowned Mr. Belleville and Janelle and Victoria for being crowned Miss Belleville. On Saturday, April 12th, the boys volleyball team hosted a successful tournament at BHS for all fans. Spectators cheered on their team while enjoying their favorite snacks.
Congratulations to our BHS crew team for their accomplishments this weekend at the Garden State Scholastics Championships. We wish the team the best of luck at city championships this weekend. In the new news, on Thursday, May 15th, Sio will host a blood drive.
Please be on the lookout for flyers and sign up information. Also, on May 15th, the SIO will host the spring dance. Check out and follow the journalism club on Instagram at Belleville Buccaneer to access the Belleville High School's monthly newsletter of information,
updates, and events of students, staff, and teachers. If you're looking for a place to do your homework or receive extra assistance from the National Honor Society, CASA is here for all students in grades 7 through 12 and their location is at 5:22 Courtland Street in
Belleville Monday through Thursday from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. 8:00 p.m. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's move on to our superintendence report. Nicholas Parrapado. Thank you, Madam President.
Uh we'd like to start off with we have several presentations uh this evening. We're going to start off with school number seven. We have the science fair winners. Miss Pixer will make those presentations to those students. Thank you.
Good evening everyone. Thank you for taking the time out to en um this evening. I'm Mrs. fether, the sixth grade science teacher. Tonight, I'm here to recognize the outstanding achievement of our sixth grade students who participated in the science fair this
year at school number seven. These young students have shown incredible creativity, dedication, and curiosity. The true spirit of learning. The projects ranged from exploring energy sources and ecosystem to investigating
engineering challenging and health innovations. Each student looked took all the time and challenges of asking questions, testing ideas, and finding solutions. Skills that will carry them on to the future. We are so proud of
every single student that participated this year. We are here tonight especially to dedicate the time for the winners of of the talent uh of the science competition. Your hard work and enthusiasm truly impressed our judges,
our teachers, and all of us. Okay, so I'm going to without further ado give the students certificates. Camilo Andrada, Amelio Bueno for their project in the hydraulic
[Applause] arm, AJ Oli and Maddox Gallo for their project on how to create crystals. And last, but certainly not least, Damen
Bonano on his project creating energy using potatoes and lemons. Congratulations to all of you. You are shining examples of what happens when passion meets perseverance. Keep dreaming big and asking questions and
working as hard as you can. The future is bright because of all of you. [Applause] [Applause]
Congratulations. Our next presenters will be the 2025 Winter Sports Super Essex Conference All Conference Awards. Dr. Mara, would you kindly come forward to present those to these athletes? [Applause]
How are you? Yeah, we could I actually have them all in order by I don't want to make a bad Hello everyone. I just wanted to say I know uh congratulations fellas. I hope that you guys play sports as well. Huh?
Boys play sports as well. I love it. So what we're going to do today is very simple. We're going to uh call up uh the allconerence awards. We do have some other great awards for a county championship and the first time I've uh in eight years we had a th000 point score as Well, so we're very proud. Uh,
and then finally, we'll call we'll call you up by teams and and the coaches. And then at the end, uh, one of the things I'm really most proud of is our all academic team, which is a 3.5 GPA during the season. And we had a we had a bunch this year. So, I'm very, very proud of
that. So, uh, first, let me call up, uh, girls bowling. We have first team all SEC American division Jayla New Yen, Raquel Mcfarlland, Rosalyn
Almadovar. Second team we have Daisy Rodas and then honorable mention we have Carla Ellias girls over here. Good job. Yeah, I'll take I'll take that extra. Congratulations to the girls
bowling team who happens to be the 2025 SEC American Division Champions. Great job, girls. picture. No, no, no, no. Don't leave. Remember, academic team at the end. No, you can go sit down, but just don't
leave. First team, boys bowling, American division. We have Aiden Carrero. I know he had a baseball game today. And Dominic Capaletti. Where's Dominic? He had a tennis match, but he told me he was going to be here.
And then we have honorable mention uh American division Nick Nicholas Netski. [Applause] Congratulations to the boys bowling team. Well
done, boys basketball. I saw coach Dr. Catalano. Want to come down? And I saw coach Tyler Price as well. Come on down. [Applause] First team all SEC Independence
Division, Connor Cook. Second team, SEC Independence Division, Justice Shop. And honorable mention, SEC Independence Division, Sean [Applause] Sharp, before we take pictures.
Uh, one of our seniors, Connor Cook, uh, surpassed 1,000 points in his career. Only the eighth person in Belleville history to do so and the first in my tenure here. So, we got him a nice plaque for that.
[Applause] Thank you to the boys basketball team. Girls basketball. I know that coach Canerella couldn't be here because he's coaching softball. We have second team SEC girls freedom division Elise Vatz.
Second team Camila Cortez Alonzo and honorable mention SC freedom division Isabella Cortis Alonzo [Applause] and her sister. Yeah.
Congratulations to the girls basketball team. Playing other sports. I know. Way to track me today. You know how uh wrestling we have coach Pizzy and coach
Dalia. First team SEC wrestling Colona Division. Gerard Farah. First team. I like I like the intensity. Gerard. Look at you running down. That's it, buddy. That's why you love wrestlers. First team we have Tristan
Harrove. Good job. Second team we have Lorenzo Tiani. And second team Anthony Genta. Last but not least, honorable mention SEC Colonial Division Tristan Bald De Verona.
We also have another award. It's not an SEC award. It's a county award. Uh, one of our female wrestlers, Isabelle Aluna, is a 220 2025 Essex County Wrestling Tournament first place state uh state I wish county champion
for the second year in a row. So, congratulations Isabella. Congratulations to the wrestling team. [Applause] winter track. I have coach
Lenek. I know there was a track meet today. So, these people that do winter track, I'm assuming they do spring track as well. And we had a big track meet today. Just got over not too long ago, believe it or not. But we have honorable mentioned SEC boys winter track Chaz
Venadzini and honorable mentioned girls winter track Janine Perez. There she is. congratulations to the track team with the track team. Last, I'm going to call up all the winter
sports, all academic teams from different sports. This is a 3.5 GPA during the season, which is not easy at all. You have to be first or second team in the SEC, which means you're doing it on the on the mat or on the field or the
court, and you're also doing in the classroom. So, this is something that we implemented in the SEC about a year ago, and I'm very, very proud. So, um, first we're going to start with the boys bowling SEC academic team. Aiden Carrero. Dominic
[Applause] Capalleti. Stay up here. We're going to do them all together. Girls bowling all academic team. Jaylen Nu Yen, Raquel McFarland, Roslin Amadovar, and Daisy
Rodes. Good job bowling [Applause] team. Girls basketball all academic team. Ely Vasquez. [Applause]
And for the wrestling team, we have Gerard Farah, all academic team, Tristan Harrove, and Anthony Genta. That is the winter sports all academic team. Very proud of you guys. Great job. Thank you so much,
guys. Take a picture of this. No, I'm good. N thank you everyone for all the support. We appreciate it. Thank [Applause] you. Thank you, Dr. Mara. Congratulations to all the
athletes. And finally, we just like to take a moment to congratulate and recognize the students of the month for March 2025. Congratulations. And that concludes my report. Thank you very much, Mr.
Parapado. Uh, next we have our business administrator, Matthew Paladino. He is going to be giving our budget presentation for this evening for next year's 2526 budget. Thank you, Mr. Paladino. Where
are you? If everybody would like to go down at the front, we will. might be. The floor is yours. Good evening everybody. Yeah. Once again, good evening everybody. First of all, just another congratulations to all the kids that
were uh honored tonight for athletics and for uh student achievements. That's what we're all here for. So, congratulations to all of them. Uh tonight we'll be uh doing the 2526 budget presentation. For those of you not familiar with me, I'm Matthew Paladino. I'm your business
administrator. Uh first up, take a second to acknowledge uh the seven men and women who represent the community. Uh you have President Benamini, Vice President Darrow, Trusty Gillis, Trusty Leon, Dr. Misagia, Trusty Monise, and
Trusty Pacheo. These seven uh ladies and gentlemen hold us to the fire every single day. Uh hold us accountable and make sure we are all doing our uh utmost best on behalf of all of you out there in the community. Uh on the right hand
side you have the administration uh Mr. Parapado our interim superintendent, Dr. Dia, our acting assistant superintendent, myself and Mr. Regan our state monitor. the four of us work together to come up with this uh budget presentation and this fiscal uh budget
for you for 2526. A little bit of what we're going to go over uh briefly tonight. You have the district overview uh where we're at with enrollment uh free and reduced lunch applications. Important to highlight uh budget goals for the 2526 school year. Uh our revenue projections
for next year appropriation standpoint where we're at with administrative costs. what the tax impact is. Uh Mr. Sheldon's favorite below adequacy spending, fund balance and surplus, and budgeting 101. Uh a little district overview. Uh
Mr. Bliss gave our audit presentation a couple of months ago. Uh informed the board, the public, and administration that we're in outstanding financial condition. Uh one of the best budget, excuse me, one of the best audits he's done in the 10 years that he's been here. Uh we've accumulated capital
reserve close to $5 million. I'm going to address that a little bit more later, but Capital Reserve is a little bit of a bucket to address facility needs, uh, repairs and upgrades so that we don't have to go out for another $50 million referendum for safety and security
reasons or end of life items. Maintenance reserve uh, is another bucket that you're allowed to put money into. We at a little over a million and a half to address identified maintenance specific needs. And then lastly, uh the administration, as I mentioned before,
the four of us together has identified a number of trends having a negative impact on the budget that are just going to keep getting worse as we progress to the future. Uh we're in the process of researching and discussing ways that we can scale back those costs and save you taxpayer money. Currently, our
enrollment, the black number is where we are at October 15th with the annual ASSA reporting. The red number is where we're at as of March 31st. Um I don't have April's yet. That will obviously be done by Wednesday. And then the number to the
little number to the right is whether we've increased or de decreased since the October reporting. For preschool, we were at 244 in October. We're currently at 255. We've increased 11 students. Uh Sandy Lane is at 116. Overall, our preschool
population is 540. Um, our preschool universe. Thank you to Mr. Vargas who always helps me with that percentage is 96.9%. For the elementary schools, you can see the differences. School three, we were at 333, we've inched up to 341.
School 4, we're at 437, we've decreased to 430. School 5, 361 to 345. School 7, 429 to 417. School 8, 506 to 469. School 9 has stayed the same at
138. School 10 has gone from 164 down to 154. Overall, the elementary schools have seen a reduction in enrollment of 74 students. Um, thank you to Mrs. Amanda Rivera for assisting me. That number uh she has informed me is due to
the uh reenrollment that we have done. Uh for the middle school, we were at 679. We've inched up to 686. the high school. Uh we were at 1587, we've dropped to 1586. Again, numbers in the
black, Assa 10:15. Uh the ones in the red, March 30th. Overall, we've seen a decrease since June of 2024 of 70 students, and we've seen a 1.37% decrease in enrollment since uh September of 2024. Free and reduced lunch
applications. We've been having this discussion in our board meetings over the past year, two, three years. Currently, 66.67% of students in district qualify for free and reduced lunch uh pricing.
Currently, we 25% of our students on RO, parents and students have not submitted an application. That hurts us from a financial standpoint. Those applications assist us with increased funding for -ate money, state aid, and increased
national school lunch money. Okay. Uh it helps us reduce fees for all standardized testing and it increases federal and state reimbursement. So those 25% of the population that have not submitted application, we're losing funding
on. Budgetary goals for the next upcoming school year. Um, we're aiming to meet all contract obligations. We're going to maintain all programs both on the instructional level and the extracurricular level. We're not cutting any programs. That's important
to make sure everybody understands. We're here to support the entire administration, whether it's the four of us up here or all the men and women in the back who are here all to support the news of the ste uh the students through making sure we have proper staffing, programs, and resources. All of us again
as a collective unit are here to support all the needs of the staff with sufficient professional development that provides them with opportunities for growth which help us better educate the students in the classroom. We're allocating sufficient funds to cover some of those rising costs that I was talking about earlier.
Uh out of district tuitions uh whether it's special needs or for charter schools uh everinccreasing energy costs out of district transportation costs and health benefits. aiming to use capital reserve and maintenance reserve funds to offset
taxpayer money uh to make necessary repairs around the district. I'll go into more detail a little bit about that later on. Uh we're aiming to expand and continue the middle school and high school summer programs and continue the summer bridge program. We're going to continue to support our preschool
universe, maintain district-wide sustainability, and last but not least, we're all here to manage fiduciary our fiduciary responsibility for a budget and support a fiscally responsible tax increase for the community. So, this is where we were at
about a month ago when I was getting killed. Uh we were at 8.33% back on March 17th when we by statute had to submit the tenative budget to the county office for approval. Everybody remembers we were at uh an average assessed home was at
$358. The average assessed home is $27900 uh 279900 excuse me that's where we were one month ago. Today over the past month the four of us the administration Mr. Parapado Dr. Billy myself Mr. Regan all
work together to identify a plethora of areas to get this down to 2.93% which is $126 on the average homeowner. Revenue projections for next year, we're looking at uh $49.6 million
in in the tax levy, $150,000 in bringing in uh tuition students that go to the life skills houses. miscellaneous revenue, which we are constantly making every improvement to increase the amount of money we're bringing into miscellaneous revenue to
help us to the best of our ability to offset the tax levy. We're at 675,000 projecting for next year. That's interest, that's refunds, that's rental of all of our properties. We're going to use utilize capital reserve of $4.5 million. Uh
extraordinary state aid. We've increased that a little bit because over the past couple of years we've been getting more than we've projected. So safely we we're going to put down 750,000 for aid to help offset the tax levy. State aid is at 68.3 million. And where we've taken
the biggest hit in our revenue is the uh semi money. Over the past couple of years we were getting over a h 100,000 between 100,000 and 150,000. We are now at $36,000 in coming in special ed. uh Medicaid uh funds. It's a huge hit to
us. So overall, our total operating revenue projection is $124,161. Couple of notes that includes the 2.93% on the tax levy, which is a $1.4 million increase, and an increases it it's an increase, excuse me, of the
state aid of 1.7 million, which is roughly about a two and a half million two and a half% increase from last year. our revenues as statute. You have to make sure your revenues balance your approp uh your revenues mar balance your
appropriations. Excuse me. The 124161 matches the 124161. As you can see on the left hand side, sorry it's a little small. On the left hand side are all our dollars. on the right hand side is what percentage of the budget on the general fund tax
levy each one of those areas um takes up. Here you can see a little bit of a pie chart of the four major areas that are a strain on the budget. obviously salaries, transportation, health benefits, and tuitions, which I
mentioned earlier, echoing what I just said, but for next year, these are four areas that are influencing the budget the most. Out of district transportation, we're looking at a $500,000 increase. Uh health benefits, even though we made the change, we're still looking at a million
and a half dollar increase, which is conservatively conservatively 11% increase. When even outside of the state health benefits, we're being told anywhere between 15 and 18 18%. If we had stayed with the state health benefits, we'd be looking at anywhere
between 25 and 30%. And I don't know if I want to be here to explain that. Um contractual increases, as I mentioned last month, all in total is $2.7 million on next year's budget. And substitute staffing. Uh we need we have a massive
need for substitute teachers across the district. We're looking about a half a million dollar increase. Administrative costs. We are doing our best um at at the moment to keep our administrative costs underneath
the allowable regional limit. As you can see here, we spend $100 less than what the regional limit is. These are all of the areas that the administration sat down. Mr. Parapado, Dr. Dillia, myself, and Mr. Regan sat
down over the past month and a half as areas of where we can make recommended cuts to the board and cut $2.6 million out of next year's budget. You have two administrator positions, a maintenance position, seven classroom uh aids,
textbooks and supplies, software uh that we identified as being redundant, uh four new positions, uh a transfer of funds for food service, and 14 staffing positions. All total $2.6 million
cut. This is from Mrs. Benamini. Uh what we've done is try to come up with a a visual for you to see where we've gone with the tax levy over the past seven or eight years uh that I've been here uh that the former superintendent and I were here, Mr. Egan is here, and we've
all been together. Um we've done our best for all of you to keep it to a minimal tax increase each year. something that we did last year, just something to give you all as a FYI out there in the community, what each of the
cuts in the in the past could have assisted the budget with in the future of where we're at. Just an FYI purposes, that's all that is. If we're looking for further cuts in this budget because we all want to get down to a lower number that the 126
isn't sufficient, you're looking at just to get to 2.4% you're looking at an additional $250,000 cut out of this budget. That roughly translates to anywhere between eight and 10 more staff members cut. If you want to get down to
1.38%, you're looking at threequarters of a million dollars, $750,000 additionally cut, which translates to 15 to 20 positions cut. And if you want to get down to zero, you're looking at about a million4 that's cut out of this budget, which is
roughly about 25 to 30 staff members. Real numbers. Mr. Sheldon and I will probably argue about this later. Below adequacy spending is what the state of New Jersey, this isn't the former superintendent, this isn't myself, this isn't the current superintendent, this
isn't the state monitor pulling a number out of a hat and telling you where we stand. This is the state of New Jersey telling us how far underneath we are below spending. We should be $15 million higher.
That would mean your tax levy and your state aid is sufficient enough to cover that $15 million. You can see a pie chart of where we've gone over the past eight or nine years. Uh back in 1415, we're $18 million unfunded. We were making a
pretty good uh taking a pretty good stab at that number to get it down as far as we could both with increased state aid and the tax levy. But unfortunately, we've taken a major hit and it's back down to 15 a negative 15 million. You can see the comparison on
the left. The pie chart is where we currently are with the tax levy state aid and being under adequate. To be fully adequate, we would have to be on the right. one or the other or both have to come up to make us fully
adequate over the years. These are the cuts that we have made uh and where they would help us with adequacy. We've made $9 million in cuts over the past eight or nine years. You can see what kind of a chunk that would take out of the 15 million. Just a little bit as an FYI to show the
community, the board, um, where we've come from. Back in 2017 at 39.7 million on the tax levy, where we are in 2526 at 49.6 million, nine years we've increased the tax levy 9.8 million. That's roughly
a little over lift, excuse me, a little bit under $1.1 million increase each year, which is roughly about a 2% increase on the tax levy. With all of the costs that are impacting this budget, this budget cannot maintain a
minimal tax increase like that every year. So, one or the other, whether it's the state aid or whether it's the tax levy or whether it's looking at everything as a as a unit again as an administration and re-evaluating everything. Something has to give. You can see the breakdown on your
tax dollars between the municipality, the school district, the county, the library, and open space general fund balance. I'm sure Mr. Shell and I are going to argue about this one later. Uh, as you from the audit, Mr. Bliss identified in the
audit. Now general fund balance as of June 30 is 9.9 million. That number gets decreased by certain expenditures. You have uh year-end incumbrances that are carried over into the next school year of 416,000. You have our capital reserve
bucket of just shy of 5 million. Maintenance reserve of 1.5 million. You have an unemployment compensation reserve of 165,000. You have uh assigned designated for subsequent years expenditures half a million dollars and you have total
unassigned fund balance of 2.3 million. There is no surplus or fund balance of $10 million. I don't know how many times I can I can argue that and tell you that there is not $10 million sitting in a bank out there for me to appropriate into the budget. There isn't. Those are
hard fact numbers. So just as a a little bit for your edification what restricted surplus is restricted surplus is balances at year end which have been internally or externally restricted or formally designated. Examples of restricted surplus capital reserve maintenance
reserve unemployment compensation reserve insurance recovery expenditures or funds that are assigned and designated for future years expenditures. Capital reserve. Everything that is up there is something that was pulled out of the
referendum a couple years ago and we have made the promise to the community that we were going to go back and address those areas. So you have uh windows at school 8 in the gym that need to be repaired. We're estimating at 110,000. School 10, school 8, and school
5's parking lots were in the referendum and had to be pulled out because of other costs. We need to repair those parking lots. school, the middle school's second boiler. Middle school and the high school have two boilers each. We replace one boiler at the middle school. The
second boiler is dying. Uh so we need to replace that. We're looking into renovating and updating the science labs here at this high school for the students. And we are looking at replacing all of the elementary classroom doors at all of our
elementary schools. Again, those were in the uh referendum as safety and security items that we had to pull out because everything else the price has increased. Unrestricted surplus is identified as unassigned fund
balance. And then a little example of restrict a definition of what restricted verse unrestricted is. As I mentioned, the district doesn't have $10 million in surplus. We have rough roughly 2.3 million which is restricted. All right, a little school-based quick.
Uh, we've done this over the past couple years just as for edification purposes to deep d to take a deep dive into the budget. So, if you take uh fund budget account line 1100
uh 100, excuse me, 111x that could be 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 100x. So, for example, that's where our teaching salaries come from. You have an example of what gets paid through there. For kindergarten teachers, you have 1.2
million, just shy of 1.3 million for our kindergarten teachers. You have extra comp 75,000. You have a total of 1.37 million. We have 13 full-time kindergarten teachers. And we have 10 uh quote unquote specials teachers who are percentage of their salary is charged to
this account. Then you have grades one through five. You have the salaries for all of our grade one through five teachers of 8.3 million. You have teacher coaches that are paid through there a portion of their salary of 135,000. You have extra comp salaries of 400, a total of 8.9 million in that
budgetary line. To take a deeper dive right there, you have 91 full-time one through five teachers, seven uh specialists teachers where a portion of their salary is paid here and four teacher coaches where a portion of their salary is paid here.
six through eight salaries. Teacher salaries 4.8 million teacher coaches 135 135,000 extra comp of 200,000 total in that budgetary line 5.19 million. You take a deeper dive there's 53 fulltime
uh six through eight teachers paid through there. Five teacher coaches with a percentage of their salary going through there. And then lastly 9 through 12 uh you have 9.79 million full-time teacher salaries teacher coaches portion
135 135,000 extra comp of 200,000 all told 10.1 gets paid through that line you have 99 99 full-time 9 through 12 teachers five uh coaches with a percentage and then you have six periods you have 22 six periods six periods you
use at the middle school and the high school level when you can't find a teacher outside to hire into the district, you portion up those classes amongst other teachers. So, you have to budget for that. Also, going through those lines with some other items, we pay all some
of our power professionals, home instruction salaries. You have your preschool uh local contribution, which is required by the preschool education aid. We have our substitute staffing of 1.7 million, teaching supplies of 1.3, uh some miscellaneous items that they
threw out of here, and then our textbooks of 900,000. All told, 5.9 million. So all in total, if you look at that one line we I brought up earlier, roughly all programs paid through kindergarten through 12 go through here
on a regular basis. You're you're looking at $31.7 million out of the budget. And that uh closes my presentation. Thank you. [Music] U Mr. Paladino, before we go into um
opening for comments, is there any report from Mr. Egan? No, not at this time. I think the uh uh the financial condition of the the district was explained uh expertly by
uh Mr. Paladino. Give him a minute to get settled. Okay, settled. All right. Could we have a motion to open public comments? So move.
Second. All those in favor? I. Okay. And and due to this being the budget uh presentation, we are going to allow for uh open comments with uh no time limit. So, our
first citizen to the podium, Mr. Michael Sheldon. Uh good evening everyone. Michael Sheldon, 47 Floyd Street. Uh, I had only two agenda questions to ask, but I guess I'll defer those or postpone those until after I uh ask some
questions about the budget if that's okay. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, it's always um special time of the year when we have the public budget hearing um next to uh Festivus. This is the second best day of the year for Mr.
Paladino and me. So um always look always look forward to this evening. Uh I just wish that you know as as had been the case for all these previous years there would have been a separate meeting for the the public hearing for the budget and then a week
or two later the board would vote on the budget. Apparently tonight this has all been condensed into to one meeting which I don't think is is really the best way to handle things but it is what it is. Uh I thank Mr. Paladino for um giving
his presentation. I'm glad that he used some new slides and not the the same rehashed ones that Dr. Tomco used in year out for the previous nine years and has continued to use in Garfield. Um but u let me just start off. I it's interesting that the enrollment at this
point the district has dropped by 74. Uh Mr. Paladino said that's a consequence of the um re-registration process. I hope that new new protocols are in place so that we in a year or two don't return to the same problems that necessitated
the re-registration this past September. Um Mr. Paladino also commented that um about twothirds of our our uh residents, our kids are um eligible for the lunch program, the free lunch program, but
apparently 25% of them haven't bothered to fill out the paperwork. I assume you've identified, you know, who those individuals are and I would like to ask, are you making a concerted effort to uh reach out to those people to get them to register if if you know this is free
lunch for their kids and it would help augment the revenues for the district. Uh it's seems like it would be the the reasonable thing to do to to make multiple efforts to get those folks involved in the free lunch program. Uh, I'm glad to see that the the tax
increase um has been dropped from the original 358 now down to 126. But as I will uh attempt to argue in a few moments, I still don't understand why it's even that much for this um for the
next academic year. Mr. Paladino indicated that in order to get down to the $126 increase, uh 14 staff positions have been eliminated. Um as I' I've pointed out many times, especially over
the last several months, uh when Dr. Tomco came to Belleville, when he started in February of 2015, the the total Belleville BOE payroll had a little under 500 members. And as he
exited Belleville last June to go to Garfield, that number was closing in on 900. All right. So there was almost an 80% increase in the number of people on the bow payroll during Dr. Tomco's nine years.
Yes, a large part of that was the pre is attributable to the prek program, but there were a lot of extra positions created along the way which probably weren't really necessary in the overall scheme of things. So when when uh Mr.
Paladino indicated that in order to get the tax increase down to zero, let me if I wrote down the number here. Uh what was it? you I think you you said oh you'd have
to cut about 30 30 positions to get down to a zero the zero tax increase. I don't think that is asking too much of this board. Again, I I you may be reluctant to trim anybody, but I
think you guys maybe with the exception of teachers need to put a freeze on any new hires for at least the next year or the next couple years and thereby without hurting anybody reduce the overall payroll. So, I think there are
ways, non-lethal ways to reduce the overall BOE payroll and get that tax annual tax increase down closer to zero. If you just make some really modest changes to the overall number of
employees in this district, I I think you could probably operate instead of nearly 900, you know, have 840 or so employees and no one would ever know any difference. All right. Um, as Mr. Paladino said, you
know, probably the first uh discussion between the two of us is the below adequacy uh number that uh uh year in year out Dr. Tomco cited, Mr. Paladino said it was 15,370,455. Now I maybe there's uh we
have a misunderstanding of what the adequacy budget is, but you know, I was on the board. I went to all of the finance training sessions that uh we were required to attend from the NJSBA and the adequacy budget as trustees are
told the the New Jersey Constitution says that every child in this state from age 5 to 18 must be provided with a thorough and efficient education. And to that end, the state gets enrollment numbers from every community and then
they calculate based on the the socioeconomic conditions in a given community what it's going to cost that community to provide all of its children with that thorough and efficient
education. That's the adequacy budget. That's the number that the state decrees Belleville or Nutley or Bloomfield needs to educate all of their kids in that district for the following year. That's what the adequacy uh uh uh uh funding
is. Now, if I'm wrong about this, if they change the the definitions, please let me know. But, you know, that's what I've always operated on when when people start talking about adequacy budget, adequacy funding. Then after that, the state the folks in Trenton and the DOE come up with the number what it's going
to cost a community to give all of their kids a thorough and efficient education. The next thing they do is they look at how much can that community realistically provide through a tax levy towards towards that adequacy
funding. Right? So they look again at at the incomes, the the number of people living in community blah blah blah and they come up with that number, right? which is which is the um uh the the fair local tax contribution to the budget and
then the difference between the two what theoretically is needed to provide all those kids with the thorough and efficient education what the taxpayers can afford real reasonably to pay towards that end the difference in that those two numbers is the equalization
aid that's the money that the state kicks in to achieve the thorough and efficient education So every year when Dr. Tomco now Mr. Paladino talks about below adequacy I ask the question where where is this number coming from and I
each year Dr. Tomco would say well you can look it up it's there on the DOE website. I'd like to know and I've never gotten this information. God knows I've looked I spent enough time on my computer. Where is where are these numbers? Where are these calculations?
Maybe for the first time in 10 years, Mr. Paladino, maybe if he can't do it right now, but can send me an email tomorrow or before the end of this week, explain to me where this below adequacy funding calculation is posted on the DOE
or the state website because again, I can't find it. So I, you know, I I I I guess I take exception to this below adequacy argument. I don't understand what Mr. Paladino and previously what Dr. Tomco were were talking about when
they were describing below adequacy. So with that said, let me just quickly move on. I don't want to take up all the time tonight. Uh everyone listening to me. Um Mr. Paladino spoke about how if you look at the um tax overall tax
increase year and year out over the last nine years or so, it's typically a million dollars a year. Some years a little bit more, you know, maybe 1.4, 1.2, 1.3. But roughly from one year to the next, the increases, according to one of his slides, was, you know, a
little over a million dollars a year. But what a lot of people taxpayers don't understand is that those increases from one year to the next. That is it's a cumulative effect. In other words, let me let me make a simpler example here.
Suppose you start off in the first year by asking taxpayers to pay a extra $100 and then in this the next year you ask for another $100. But what a lot of people don't understand is that the $100 from the first year has already been
rolled over into the second year. So when when a board or a business administrator or superintendent asks for another $100 in year two, now you're paying $200 more than you were two years before. And if you continue this
process, it's a really basic math. It's, you know, high school math. It's an arithmetic series. The first year it's 100. the next year with if you have $100 increase every year just to make the numbers simple on whole, $100 the first year, it's actually $200 the second year, $300
the third year, $400 the fourth year. If you look at the cumulative effect over a nine-year period, how much more is the average Belleville household take at losing out of their own pocket? It's
$4,500. Right? So, it's always angered me when you have elected officials or others trying to dismiss the increase $100 increase by saying, "Well, look at it on a daily b on a daily basis. It's only 33 cents or so a day. What's the
big fuss?" But what they don't want people to realize is it's the overall cumulative effect of increases year in year out over a 9-year period. The typical median assessed home in Belleville has now contributed an extra
$4,500 in taxes to the school system that they otherwise wouldn't have had to pay. And that's on top of the base tax rate that existed nine years ago. That continues as well in each of the following nine years. So, you know, these $100 increases on an annual basis
quickly add up to a hell of a lot of money. And most of us who live in Belleville know that $4,500 is a is a significant sum of money for a lot of people. You know, that is the the difference between having a roof over your head or living
in the streets. All right. So, um uh in in one of the slides, and actually this relates to one of the agenda items I was going to ask about, Mr. Paladino said that one of the um goals for the board is to replace all of
the doors in classroom doors in the district. And he quoted a number of $3 million for that. Now on the agenda tonight, and I don't have the Oh, maybe I have it on my first page. Let's see. Uh yeah, it was agenda item 12.36.
Um uh the board is being asked to approve $569,47 for classroom doors in the middle school. So my my first question in relating to both of these matters, how many doors are are involved with this
$569,000 for the middle school? Can you do you have that at your fingertips? What that because it seems like it's a enormous expense. Not that I'm dismissing the security and protection of our kids, but um I I I would like to
know is this a 100 doors, 200 doors, etc. I hopefully you have that that number. I'll just pause for a second and catch my breath. Mr. Palino, do you happen to have know that? I'm sorry. All right. Well, I actually I would have
a f followup question. I I you know if it's a hundred dollar if it's a hundred doors you're talking just about the middle school. So I was you know trying to ballpark this. If it's a hundred doors that comes to you know uh
$5,690 per door. Um and you know that would be a heck of a lot of of money for a door. I know that what you are probably want to install are not only fire rated but they're bullet rated. there to, you know, make sure that, god forbid there's ever an incident of that
nature, that the doors are impenetrable. But I I did uh uh some research over the last couple days, and there's a really nice um ABC TV uh report from a couple years ago. A district in New Jersey put
these high-tech security doors that are bulletproof, and uh uh the cost for them with the installation was about $2,500 per door. So at $2,500 that means uh I would assume that you're doing about 200
at least 200 doors in the middle school. That seems like more more doors than the middle school could ever possibly have. So you could clarify that a little bit. I would appreciate it. Um, as I'm sure you know, many of you
know, uh, the state, not only did we, uh, get full funding allegedly from the state last year, uh, Governor Murphy when he made his budget address February of 2024, uh, made good on his campaign promise
from six years earlier. uh and and and he said that he was going to make sure that every school district, especially districts like ours, would be fully funded by the time he left office. And he he claimed last February uh February of 2024 that Belleville would be fully
funded by the state from this point forward. And um while some districts, a lot of districts actually got cut for the 2526 academic year, uh Belleville continued to get an increase. It's 2.58% which I believe um Mr. Paladino had one
of his slides. The uh total amount of K through 12 aid for our district is about 63 68.3 million and our prek prek aid is a little over 9 million. So the total amount of aid our district is getting for the next year is
77,569,000 which is a really significant sum of money. So, um I I I I had pointed out uh last month when the uh budget was introduced that uh there were a number
of factors that I assumed were going to contribute to bringing the uh anticipated tax increase down to to zero, as close to zero as possible. Let me just remind you of u three three of those factors. Number one, um, for the
last 10 years, our district has been paying back the state at a rate of $420,000 a year. That's the loan that the state gave us back in 2015 after they assigned Mr. Egan to us as a state monitor when they determined back in
2014 that our district was 3.7 million in deficit. They gave us a $4.2 million loan when with Mr. Egan arriving here and it was repayable over a 10-year period with zero interest, but the last payment according to Mr. Paladino was
made last month. So that debt is is now gone. So that's, you know, a $420,000 savings that should be in existence for the next academic year. Uh the next thing uh for the last five years from
2019 through 2024, we had another debt service to deal with and that was the ECIA loan that uh uh when I was on the board uh and chaired the finance committee in 2019. Uh we entered into a five-year uh uh lease or loan agreement
with the ECIA, Essex County Improvement Authority, for $3.6 6 million uh repayable over a fiveyear period. So a little over 700,000 a year was the cost to the district. And I know it's it's convoluted. Mr. Palino, I g have gone round and round about how that 700,000 a
year is actually paid. But regardless of all the the the intricacies and details, it's it is what it is. The Belleville owed Essex County 3.6 million and that's now wiped off the books. Three million of that was to was used to do the
Clareman Field renovation project and actually came in under budget. And I remember uh uh after the Clareman Field project was negotiated and all those contracts were signed, it left $600,000. And the the plan with that
$600,000 I'm going to ask Mr. Paladino in a second if he can just confirm. I remember having discussions back then that that $600,000 most of it was going to be used then and there to do door replacements. All right. So, you know,
tonight he said that three million he wants three million to do door replacements throughout the district, but five years ago 600,000 of that ECIA loan was supposed to be used to do door replacements in many of our elementary
schools. So there's, you know, some inconsistency here. I thought that doors had already many doors had already been replaced, but apparently not. So, you know, I'd like some explanation about what happened to that extra $600,000 with the ECI loan, the leftover
balance. All right, let me just quickly move on. I know you guys enjoy listening to me tremendously. Um, let me just All right. First of all, I I want to u uh commend everyone uh looking at the
appropriations uh uh budget for all these last few years. I um made the argument that the line items for our K through 12 teachers were be being padded because they're usually u u year in year
out the overall increase would be you know 11 12 13% when the teachers contracts were calling for three or 4% increases from year to year. But I see that's no longer a concern. the the um the biggest part of the budget which are the teacher salaries the uh the
percentage increases for the next academic year according to this latest Excel sheet are actually reasonable. Some of them are actually the the difference percentages are negative which um gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling for the first time in in many
years. So I thank you for that. Uh let me just All right. The uh the next thing I want again credit where credit is due. uh the uh utility cost. Uh this is line item 49220 energy electricity. You're
actually anticipating a uh reduction next year of uh over 14% of of 110,000. I assume that's uh the benefit of all the solar panels that have been installed. You know, some confirmation.
I've been asking occasionally over the last several years if the board could do some research and prove to all of of us, the board and taxpayers, that all of these energy initiatives have actually reaped the the dividends that we're
seeing a reduction in our electricity cost. I just hope that the anticipated increases from PSEG in June, I think they're increasing rates by 20%. I hope that doesn't automatically eliminate what you hope is
a 110,000 savings for the next year. Um, let's see. Um, all right. Health benefits line item 71180. uh you are anticipating a
$1.5 million increase uh for the next academic year for 202425. You indicate that the uh health benefits are 13.575 million. Uh for the next academic
year, you're anticipating 15.079. Um I just want to remind everyone uh last Last August when the district was considering the switch from the state health health
benefits program to ETNA, Mr. Paladino and Mr. Egan separately said and it's on record. It's from the August uh 2024 meeting that this switch was going to save Beville taxpayers probably at least a million
dollars according to their projections. Uh I don't see any savings at all here. So you know what what happened here? Are you are you saying that if you didn't make the change that instead of uh of u your anticipated 15 million for the next
academic year if you had stayed with the state health benefits program uh you would have uh seen an increase to at least 16 or 17 million. You know I I I I remind all of you uh one of the reasons why Dr. Tomco is having such a difficult
time in Garfield is that he tried to do pull the same switch with Garfield's staff and teachers taking them off the state health benefits program and moving them to Etna and that's caused an absolute rebellion. All right. You know, it's Dr. Tonka is not having a lot of
fun as the CSA of of Garfield. And most of that was precipitated by his efforts to perform the same health insurance change that was affected here in Belleville. But you know, if you look at some of the videos of the Garfield um
meetings over the health change, they have several teachers there that are bonafideed health insurance experts and they saw right through it. They they argued with Dr. Dr. Tomco and the rest of their board that according to their own calculations, the change from the
health state health benefits program to ETNA was going to cost even more and give the teachers and staff less insurance with the with the um I remember one of the the um Garfield residents who's both an insurance expert and a teacher. She said that um uh with
the state health benefits program, you didn't need any referrals. you could just go to see any doctor you wanted, but with the Etna program, and I assume that pertains here to Belleville as well, now you had to go through the process of getting referrals to see
other other specialists and there was another teacher in Garfield whose child was fighting cancer and she was, you know, literally in tears saying, well, I'm digressing, but you can see from the but I I don't understand, but we were given all these uh uh rosy promises that
the change was going going to result in dramatic savings to be taxpayers. And I don't see any any real savings here. The you look at the uh the increases from the the previous years. This is all about the the same percentage increase
year in year out. Typically, every year the uh health insurance uh uh cost goes up by 10 to 12%. So, you know, what gives there? Why did why were we told that we were going to have uh such a um a better situation for everyone staff
and taxpayers by making the change in in insurance. Uh next budget item which uh I would just like some explanation. This is 7 uh 61 0. This is a summary line but
supplies and materials u for 2023 24 and 2425. the uh numbers are zero and then suddenly for 2526 the number becomes
4,250,000. Now are are you doing accounting in a different way? All of a sudden out of the blue you have a u a 4 million over a $4 million increase in this one line item that didn't exist in the previous two years. Could you please
explain what is going on with that matter? Uh let me see here. Um yes. Um line item 76260. Total facilities acquisition and construction
services. 2023 24 the number was 3.58 million. Um for the current year 2425 it's 4.29 million. But for next year, the number requested, drum roll
please, 8,949 million. That's a difference of 4,656,000. What What is the reason for this huge increase in facilities acquisition and construction services
for the next year? What are you planning to do that's going to cost upwards of $5 million in construction and facilities acquisitions? Are you planning to acquire new properties or is
this part of um the uh effort to finally build the parking garage that was promised back in 2022. All right. So, you know, overall it looks like you're you're
asking the the the general fund um increase is what six 6.6 million or 5.6% which based on other things doesn't seem to be out of astronomical or out of uh norm. Uh let me just look at some of my
other numbers here before I wrap up. Uh the lighting here is not so so good. Just give me a second here. I don't want to miss anything. All right. Well, I think that kind of covers the the key uh questions
and and points I want to make. Um since this public session is both the budget and the um uh agenda items, I um I did also want to ask I'm I'm I'm finished with the the budget for for all intent
and purposes. I just again um you know ask uh the board to uh strongly consider not um approving this. I know the risks u involved that if you say no collectively as what happened last year,
Mr. Egan can use his uh authority as state monitor to impose any any tax increase um he wants. This is apparently what happened last year after the board deadlock 33. After Dr. Tomco had initially u introduced a 10.4 four 10.3%
increase la Mar March of last year. The board whittleled that down to a little over 4% but then you deadlocked 33 33. One board member had to abstain from that budget vote. Um but because of the u tie vote the uh budget was not
approved by the board and the following day Mr. Egan intervened and stuck Belville with a 6.4% 4% increase or um a 20 roughly a $270 increase on the median assessed home. So, you know, I I I again I I
understand the risks involved if this board um says no to the $126 uh increase on the media assessed home. Uh we could all wake up tomorrow or Wednesday and discover that the uh the
increase u courtesy of Mr. Egan is now $250 or more. Uh so uh so let me just uh uh ask the final question here. This is about the um agenda items
125 and 126. You are apparently um hiring um two additional law firms. You in in January you hired another firm beyond the Bush Law Group. Bush, the Bush Law Group is the primary legal council for the board. They've been in
place since March of 2018, but this year um you've now um are have hired three um or about to have three new law firms um on retainer. One of the um lawy lawyers or law firms uh Gistler um also happens
to be the primary counsel for Garfield if you're if you're not already aware of of that. Um, and I just find it u a little interesting, maybe not so much a a coincidence that uh with the hiring of
u three additional law firms uh on tonight's agenda in a very mysterious fashion, you've got in in uh section 9 uh items 97, 98, 99, you've got three um staff members going on administrative
leave with with pay. All right. So, um I'm not going to say anything more about that, even though as you read between the lines. Uh I may know a little bit more than the average BEL resident about why all of this is
happening. Uh but again, I won't I'm not going to obviously comment any further, but I just want to say that um you know, three new law firms, three staff members are on administrative leave. Um for those of us who are White Lotus fans, uh
remember Chelsea u saying that um bad things always come in threes. So um you know we have two two groups of threes already tonight. We'll see if before this night is out. The the third set of threes materializes. But u since I
brought up White Lotus, it probably uh uh reminds Mr. Paladino to make sure he orders those extra cobras uh to put here next to the the podium before I get up and speak again. So, um uh with that said, I thank you for your time.
Um Ed, um I u wait to with baited breath to uh see how you vote on uh the budget. And if you could answer some uh some of these questions, I would appreciate it. But I guess you prefer for me to step away from the microphone
or I'm done. I'm done. But I'm I I promise not to say too much more. But just in case I need you to clarify whatever you may. Thank you, Mr. Sheldon. We'll have um Mr. Paladino if you want to take some of the questions. Sure. Thank you, Madam President. First of all, Mr. Sheldon,
happy festivist. Let's air our grievances. my aluminum poll. Um, first in regards to the enrollment uh, excuse me, the lunch applications, the 25% of the uh, students that don't, yes, we are making, and I' I think I've said this over uh, the past year or two years or
however long it's been, my office, the board, uh, we're making every every effort we can. It's an uphill battle, but yes, we are making every effort. Good. Uh, below adequacy, I have a sheet here. Um, I don't know if it's printed on the
state's website or where I get it right out of uh the DOE software. You're right all the way up until a certain point. It is calculated based on a thorough and efficient uh educational amount for every student. However, it's a combination of
your tax levy and the amount of your equalization aid of your state aid. Those two numbers together come to a number and then the state tells you what your adequacy amount should be. Ours is a difference of $15 million. We are 15
million below based on what the state is saying. I'll show you that after the meeting. I have a print out here just for you. Is there a link or somewhere else there? There isn't because it's in the DOE software. Again, I I'm not 100% sure if it's on on the on the um state website. I can look into it more for
you, but I have what we what Dr. Tomco has based it on in the past and what I've gone by when we've discussed it right out of the DOE software. Uh classroom doors, we're at the middle school only. We're looking at about
roughly 70 or so. However, you have to take into account we're not only fix replacing the door, but it's the frame and the window above the door. All that has to replace be replaced on those doors. uh state loan. There is one correction I
have to make uh and I apologize. What the state does is they take back the $416,000 payment each year spread out over onetenth and they deduct it from our uh state aid payment each each year. So every school year, for example, uh
2425 this current school year, they're taking onetenth of that 416,000 every single month. They'll take that last one10enth with the final uh state aid payment that we get in July. Makes sense. Um I apologize. I'll come
back to it, but I don't remember the question you had on the ECIA. However, that that has been eliminated out of the budget because the payments are done. I think you asked me something about doors. Well, there was you remember the ECI loan, the first one was 3.6 million, correct? Three million roughly three
million went to Claremont Field. Yes. which left about 600,000 and the plan I remember you know because I was finance chair and operations committee chair back then uh we were going to use a large part of that 600,000 to start replacing the doors fire rated and
bulletproof uh in our elementary schools. So I I assume you know that that had that if you do me a favor and email me tomorrow I can give you an explanation on everything. You don't have to fill out an open request. I if I remember correctly, we pivoted on the doors. We did the uh seating at the
stadium at Claremont Field. Uh there was some additional costs associate associated with Claremont Field at the time, but I can I have it all on my computer in my office. I can give you a better uh explanation on the electricity. Um a lot of the areas where cuts were
made that you see, um it's the director of the board when we got down to 83 and then to get down to 2.9 areas that we cut. We're working. We're looking at working with a new third party provider on the electrical and the gas. They're they're telling us they can save some money. We'll see what happens. I could
be back here in in six months telling you that everywhere that we cut, you all have to tell me where I'm going to get money from because too much money was cut, but that's a conversation we can all have in the future if if things go a different way. The the $110,000 reduction you have in your
spreadsheet for the next year, does that include the anticipated G rate increases that are going to be put into effect in June. Okay. Yeah, it does. It does. And none of that none of that savings in those line is from solar.
That's a bad area. Benefits. Uh we're looking at going up 1.5 million. As I stated uh earlier in the presentation, it's about 11% increase. Uh what you're not taking into account is yes, Mr. Egan and myself were up here at the time telling you that we could save you 750
to a million dollars. We have saved a lot of money on the switchover. The switchover on the savings was for about 13 months. So what we're looking at uh projecting for the 256 the 2526 school year is the rate increase for January of 2026.
Second, as I stated when I was standing up there before, Etna is telling us for January 2026, um, we're looking at anywhere between a 15 and a 20% increase. Where the state is telling everybody, if you're in the state health benefits program, you're
looking at a 25 to 30% increase. Look at the difference in the two. And look at where the conversation we'd be having if we didn't get out and we stayed with the state health benefits. That's the conversation that you're not telling everybody that Garfield is having right now because now the employees are
realizing what the increase was because they stayed with the state. They got a massive increase January of 2025 and they're looking back at the savings they could have had and now they want to go back and have a conversation with the superintendent on making the switch.
If if the state if we had stayed with the state health benefits program with the likely 20 to 25% increase% increase. Would that mean that the teachers would also be paying 20 to 25%? No, but there would be a bump up in in every in all
employees there would be a bump up in their deduction, but it's not enough to cover a 25 to 30% increase. It's not all right. Um, and a lot of the issues that you were bringing up before that Garfield was bringing up in their public
sessions. I know Mr. Mone is not here, but I know you talked to Mr. Minion and I know Mr. Mone would vouch for short. Mr. Minion and I have worked diligently over the past four months. Any issues that any of the staff in the BEA is having, he has brought to my attention
and we have worked with our insurance broker to resolve all those issues. And uh on page 16 in fund 12, the first number uh was roughly about 4.24.3 million. That's the capital reserve money we're appropriating.
That's where it has to be coded. one of the slides I had all the projects that we were going to look at trying to identify next year. Uh the windows in the gym at school 8, uh three of the elementary parking lots, uh the the science classrooms here need a desperate upgrade. Um some of the classroom doors
throughout the elementary school. We're probably not going to be able to tackle all of them next year, but they're just some of the things we're starting to identify now that we want to start planning for because we owe it and we've made the promise since the referendum that we would go back and we tackle some of those when we had the capital reserve
money, which now we do. And then the total number that you were looking at is including the capital reserve amount. So that's why the number is inflated so much. All right. And then I'll leave the other two up to Mr. Egan if he wants to answer us. two attorneys.
So, the question came up about uh the adding of uh additional attorneys. Um the board was explained to the board. I really can't go into specific details, but the situation
requiring independent attorneys to come in involve lawsuits against the district. Uh I don't want to go into more details on it, but the board was fully it was fully explained to the door to the board and I believe the board
understands it and they were uh going to approve it. Right. And those uh firms that are being hired, they're all they have they all have caps. I believe I think in the agenda it says one of the firms I think is capped at $20,000 for the remainder of this
academic year. They they what what it's it's it should be a standard I like a standard operating procedure. you hire an attorney and uh they're going to hit us with an hourly rate and it's always good to put it
right up front. Um total amount of money is not to exceed a certain dollar amount and if it because of some extenduating circumstances maybe that would have to be revisited by the board but right as
it stands right now these are uh conservative numbers and I think that they'll be fine. All right. Okay. All right. Thank you for your time tonight. Okay. Thank you. Do we have a motion to close? So move and second. Second.
Second. All those in favor? I I Okay. So, if we're ready, we are going to begin to approve the agenda items or not approve. Uh so, starting with
Resolutions on personnel. These are recommendations by the superintendent and the monitor 9.1 to 9.30. Do I have a motion? So moved. Oh, do I second to open it to discussion? Is
there any discussion? Yes, I would like to speak. Madam President, uh on line item 928, uh approve the following job description for school safety specialists. This looks very similar to a position we already
have. Uh the title the position being I just want to get it right. Director of district safety and security. um the the description that was that's written there is just very similar in terms of what the current person at that
role is doing. Um I would have to agree with Mr. Sheldon earlier that you know hiring anyone right now at this point um seems a little out of touch considering that we're trying to uh pass a budget tonight that increases a tax levy. Um, when you
look at the line item for 929 for what the pay is, it's uh at $43 an hour. Uh, if you take the average hours yearly worked at 2080, that comes about $89,000. And there's no cap on it, no
description of uh what is overtime pay, so on and so forth. Um, I don't see the need for this position. I think it just adds to just creating positions, and I think we should definitely take a look at it. Okay. Anyone else?
All right. Hearing none. Mr. Paladino, please call the role. Uh, where are we? Trusty Gillis. Yes. Trusty Leon. Yes to all except 928 and 929. [Music]
Trusty Monise. Yes. Uh, Trusty Misagia. Yes. Trusty Pico. Yes. Uh, Vice President Darrow. Yes. And President Benamini? No.
To which? All. All right. Then next, resolutions recommended by the superintendent and state monitor on curriculum and instruction. Is there any discussion? Motion. Motion. Second. No. Okay. Any
discussion? No. Hearing none. Mr. Paladino, please call the role. Trusty Gillis, yes. Trusty Leon, yes. Trusty Monise, yes. Uh, Trusty Majio, yes. Trusty Pico, yes. Vice President Dero,
yes. And President Benamini, no. To all? All. All right. and recommendations for board action and board policy by the superintendent and monitor.
Do I have a motion? Motion. Is there a second? Second. This is items 11.1 to 11.28. Is there any discussion? Anybody? Okay. Mr. Paladino. Madam President, just a reminder, uh, table 114. Okay.
Table 11.14. 11.14. So, all except 11.14, 11.1 to 11.28. Call the RO. Trusty Gillis, yes. Trusty Leon, yes. Trusty Monise, yes. Trusty Maji, yes. Trusty Pacheo, yes. Vice
President Darrow, yes. President Benamini, no. To all. To all. Okay. And on purchasing and business recommendations by the superintendent and monitor. This is 12.1 to
12.57. Is there any discussion? So move. Thank you. Second. Second. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none. Mr. Paladino, please call the role. Uh, Trusty Gillis. No to 12.5 12.6 and yes to the rest.
No to 126. Uh, Trusty Leon. No to all. Trusty Monise. Uh, no to all. Trusty Misagio. Yes. Trusty Pico. No to all.
Vice President Darl. Uh, this is all spending. No to all. And President Benamy, no to all. Okay. Okay. And moving on to finance recommendations by the superintendent and the state monitor. This is items
13.1 and 13.22. Motion. Second. I'm sorry. Second. LMLM. Is there any discussion? Um I I I have a couple things if you will all hear me.
Um I I was I'm hoping that we can pull apart and separately vote on 1319 which is the proposed budget for 2426. Um I want to say yes to all um 1319 which is the um approve the 2025
2026 budget. So I want to just go ahead and and and hopefully you all hearing me for a little bit. Um I want to thank I want to start by thanking Mr. Mr. Paladino and uh our the RBA um Mr. Peropado, our assistant superintendent,
Mr. Dia, who had a very very difficult meeting to go to tonight and can't be here with us tonight. Uh and Mr. Egan. Um because this preparing this budget has not been easy. It's been a very contentious conversation. Um it's probably the most difficult one we've
had. Uh last year was a very difficult conversation. um leading into this year um it's it's become an almost impossible conversation um that's highlighted a lot of different things that we um as a board and I will say I and me myself are
very concerned with um I've jotted down some of the some of my thoughts and hope you can humor me with it um but the position of the board is to look at all of the areas where we can save money on our budget while still delivering a
thorough and effective educ education to our children. If the last year has proven anything is that we have been fiscally responsible while providing our children with an effective education while still expanding our footprint, doing a district-wide
beautifification, bringing our facilities into new and improved condition, creating the district's first indoor training facility and tutoring programs for our kids, and so and so many so many more things while
still while still year the year being able to allocate funds into our capital reserves. And for that, I have to thank our our current board and our previous board. Some members are here sitting with us tonight because none of that was easy. Um, I got to thank our BA because
we do not make his job easy at all, do we? Uh, Mr. Egan, Dr. Tomco, who's no longer with us here in our district, and Mr. Parapado. um because again we didn't make any of those processes easy. Um but
I think that we've had a pretty amicable board especially my first four years here within the district. Um we've created opportunities for our programs. we've created um opportunities for our staff to be properly funded and um we've
always been you know very amicable in that process but last year was a very difficult year for us in these conversations and this year um a lot a lot more things have come to to a head so with that said um I'll I'll share with you kind of
conversations on how we speak privately and and some of the things some of the concerns that I've brought up within the last few months and within last year and into today. And um you know, my sentiment essentially is that we've created a district a district
that it's just no longer sustainable. Year after year, we have to continue to put Matt in a very difficult position um of keeping us under under budget and sustainably under a 2% increase to the average assessed home, which currently
is $279,900. My background, for those that don't know, is within real estate. And one of the things that I do know and also being very involved within this community is that um you can't even go buy a condo for $279,000 in bubble. That's just the
reality. And it's we we've I I think we're going on year three uh since the last time we were reassessed. And and I'm sure Mr. Sheldon would know exactly when that was um that we were last assessed. But if we were to go out and get reassessed right now, that median
income of of of the homes are going to go up at least $100,000. And and my concerns is that our budgets in the way that we keep increasing is no is is not realistic for Belleville anymore.
[Music] um if we continue to um if we continue on this track, we will price ourselves out of our own communities. This leads us to the reality which is that our district cannot sustain its budget year
after year and not be forced to consistently increase the tax levy. So the direction of this board So the direction of this board is to have our superintendent, assistant superintendent and our BA take a drastic take the drastic
actions to create necessary corrections to our budget so that we can get ourselves to a point where we can have a proper five-year plan and not cause the district to continuously be running behind or how I've bluntly put this
chasing our tails to Mr. Paladino. Uh we need to create an an an enrollment based hiring process and look at reducing um redundancies within our staff and within our technologies to ensure that our children are not losing
programs and opportunities in the future. While I have so much more I can say on this topic, I will end by saying that our leadership that our leaderships have the full support of our board to be open-minded and aggressive in writing this district's finances. If this budget
doesn't pass, it will cause Mr. Egan to take um to to make a decision on behalf of the board, which is the right uh with it which is his right within his capacity. I would like to reiterate that propos that the proposed
2.93% is was being publicly expressed as a budget that will allow the district to successfully operate itself while still providing our kids with a thorough and effective education. And I hope that we can improve in this number and not be
increased beyond that number. we um we simply we I feel like we simply we just cannot afford and I feel like the next three budget cycles that we're going to be in are going to make or break the residents in this district and it's going to push us
into it's just going to price us out of our community and honestly as a father of four who has raised his kids in this district I have no plans on going anywhere and I want to see my last boy who's starting his freshman year this here um you know get through this school
system and successfully come out of here and go into the future that he wants. And I'm concerned that the way that we continue to um adjust our tax levy and continually go over continually go over that 2% number that we just are, you know, the day is going to come when the
majority of the residents that are here now are just going to be forced to put a for sale sign on their properties. While our values will be great, the reality is that if we wanted to leave, we would have left already. And if we're here now, we want to continue to be within this community. So I ask and I and in
and in in no way do I want to make this seem like um Mr. Parapado, um Mr. Paladino, Mr. Egan, and Mr. Dia are not doing their job in the proposed budget that they've they've given us. It has not been an easy job for them. They have done a fantastic job doing it, and I'm
grateful for the fact that they got us down to the number that they got us to, but we still need to do better. I feel like we strongly need to do better and for that reason I'm voting no in this budget and but I fully throw my support behind um our our leadership here in the
district to take the necessary action to correct our budget. So my vote for fin um for 131 to 1322 Louis you wanted we'll just see if anyone else has any more.
Yeah, go for it. Did anyone else want to comment or do you want to wait until Um, yeah, I'll comment about 1319. Also, um, I know Mr. Paladino and the rest of the admin did a fantastic job of lowering the percentage, but I agree with Lewis
about us as homeowners wanting to stay in Bellevo. I grew up here in Bellevo, and I bought a home in Bellevo because I want my family to also experience my experience that I had here in Bellevo. Um, so with that being
said, also I think that it should be noted that as a board maybe we should go and not against Mr. Egan as a person, um, but we should go to the commissioner and prove to them how we've been doing so well and not have a state monitor so
we can put those funds towards our children. Okay. Any other trustees want to make a comment or are you ready to just vote? Okay. Um, so how do you We'll vote on the items first. 13.1 to 13.2 and
we're going to remove 13.19. No, I thought we were going to vote on everything separately. Vote on 1319. Okay. Is that what you were saying? That's it. Is that what you mean? Yep. Okay. So, the motion is
131 1318 and then Yeah. 1322. Okay. Motion. Motion. Second. Trusty Gillis. Yes. Trusty Leon. Yes. Trusty Monise. Uh yes to all with the exception of 131. Uh take no part in on
in 131. Trustee Misaga, yes. Trusty Pico, yes. Vice President Darrow, yes. President Benamini, no. To all. To all. And now we'll do a separate motion.
Motion. Motion. Second. Any discussion or we're down. All right. Mr. uh Paladino, please. Trusty Gillis, no. Trusty Leon, no.
Trusty Monise, no. Trusty Majia, yes. Trusty Pico, no. Vice President Darl, no. And President Benamini, no. Okay. Do we have a motion now to open up public participation? So moved. Second.
All those in favor. All right. For our final comments tonight, we bring to the podium Michael Sheldon. Good evening again everyone. I'll try to keep this very very short. I realize you are all battle weary and scarred and probably you're all looking for the
first opportunity for tequila to uh to deal with what you've gone through tonight. But I do want to thank the board for uh rejecting the budget. U I and many others here, you know, we just have we have difficulty trying to understand uh all of the previous tax
increases which should have resulted in spectacular academic performance of our district. But, you know, as I keep pointing out, these last few years, our our our district in the academic area has flatlined uh our the NJSLA results
the last couple years. If you look at the eighth grade math performance, we're the we're the worst performing district in all of Essex County and the fifth worst in the state. The only communities in New Jersey that are doing more poorly than Belleville in eighth grade math uh
are places like Hampton and Trenton. And so you you know you those of us who are paying the bills to a large degree trying to reconcile all these extra monies, all these extra programs, all this extra technology and where are the results from our kids? As I said earlier
tonight, I think you guys really need to consider um some sort of moratorum. I don't want you to just turn around and start firing people to to trim the budget and trim operating expenses but to put in some reasonable moratorum uh
uh stopping additional hires for a while uh except uh in in emerging cases when you have when you need to replace a teacher you chemistry teacher math teacher whatever obviously you can't forego that but a lot of the um lower
echelons I'm sure you could find a way we to trim those ranks. We have probably now 900 or so staff members. You know, you're looking at, you know, five 5% 5% reduction, 45 people. According to what Mr. Paladino said earlier tonight, if if
30 staff members were uh removed, uh we would have a zero tax increase for the next academic year. So, um let me just quickly move on. I would like to know if there's been any um movement on the parking garage. um where where does that
stand at the moment? It looked like you were paying solutions architecture some more money. I assume that's maybe for a revised set of plans for the garage. Um it's obvious that this past weekend you guys had to give up most of your weekend you were obviously doing
superintendent interviews. Um uh when Mr. Coocher, your consultant, who I I understand, if I remember correctly, Mr. Coocher was uh brought in by Mr. Egan back in 2014 to help with the superintendent search back then which resulted in Dr. Tomco being selected.
And by the way, you know, Mr. Egan at that same time was the state monitor for Elmwood Park where Tomco was superintendent from 2010 to 2014. Coincidence perhaps, but um but anyway, Mr. Coocher during his his uh community
meetings, I asked him if uh the search was going to be nationwide and he assured me it would be. I looked online to some of the the the go-to websites for um educators. Can't find any sign that uh the advertisement for
Belleville superintendent appears anywhere outside of New Jersey. And I just as I shared with uh Gabby um uh a couple or a month or so ago, I know it's going to happen. It's going to be another another member
of the club. It's going to probably be another another Bergen County uh person who will become our next superintendent. Uh uh as Miss um our or uh Mr. Munis uh asked a question about the reval. Uh
Belleville is uh obligated to do a revaluation of all of the homes by 2028. Kevin Espazito, our tax assessor, has recently appeared before the council letting everyone know that he's in the process of gearing up for that. So, that has to be done every 10 years. So, I
believe the last time it was done was 2017 or 2018, but we're almost um at the point now where revals will will be performed. Uh the last thing I want to comment, Miss Gillis um mentioned about um um the state monitor situation. I've
been um advocating for the last few years that I think the time is long overdue for the state, no disrespect to Mr. Egan, but uh Belleville has proved itself financially these last several
years with uh the spectacular audits that we no longer need state oversight. Um and it's really an insult to all of us board and all of the residents of Belleville that we continue to have the state looking over our shoulders. It's
uh time for u autonomy to be restored to Belleville. And to that end um tomorrow I'll be launching an online petition. Hopefully more than a few residents of Belleville, hopefully several thousand residents will sign it. Calling for the
DOE commissioner and Governor Murphy to give proper consideration to removing the state monitor and restoring autonomy to Belleville. I intend to directly deliver those petitions to Governor Murphy's office and the DOE commissioner's office asking them to
politely consider giving us back our autonomy so that we can call our own shots from this point forward. So when I uh release that petition, I'll let all of you know through email and uh we'll take it from there. So with that said, again, I thank you the board for
rejecting this budget. Let's just hope uh we don't have a terrible surprise tomorrow morning. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And we'll bring Jennifer De Los Angeles to the podium. Good evening, Superintendent Pipado,
members of the board of education, and of course all of the community out there. Um, a couple things that I want to express that I think are not talked about enough and I think the community definitely cares about it and it needs
to be spoken about more. I've had quite a few people express things to me and I believe I may have said this the last time that I was here at this podium. Um people are still afraid to bring up certain things and say certain things, but there's a lot of things that happen
and have been normalized within the schools and um it's just not fair and for me as a parent it's actually quite concerning. Um my husband and I were here last month and we sat through the entire meeting
waiting patiently and hoping that the issue that was in the news concerning the uh teachers with the Gulf of America teachers that that issue would be addressed um just as a courtesy to the community um because of the implications
of it because it really was more than just t-shirts to a lot of people And um sadly what I've come to understand being a a member of this community, I've lived in BBO for about four years, um is
that acknowledging and much less addressing white supremacy, it's like a oddity in this town. And um it's just clearly not the status quo. And I think that given
the fact that we are living in a time and in a nation where more and more white supremacy is being normalized, it's being swept under the rug. Um there's gaslighting taking place, denial, eraser, and the so-called
president is seeking to do this one executive order at a time with aspirations of becoming law. So that's the climate that we're living in. A lot of people may not agree, but it's very real for a lot of people. It's very real for a lot of families and it it's
affecting people on both sides. Whether you support the president or whether you don't, I think we can all see that. And if more people do not stand up to talk about these things and address them at the level right here, being a parent with children in the school district, I
don't think there's any hope of seeing any change. Um, I know there's a lot of people that feel that against failing test scores in the district, um, against the budget that a conversation like that, even teachers practicing their
freedom of speech and wearing t-shirts, that it's nothing. It's something that's just insignificant. It doesn't matter. But it's when we normalize dismissing the things that we consider small that we give it room to grow and spread. And
for me as a parent, that's what I'm seeing. And from last month being here and not even just having that be addressed at all, which I think it should have. I think it was owed to the community to at least say this is where we stand with that. This is how this is
being handled. Not even asking for names, just this is what was done. I think there should have been more sensitivity around the to acknowledge all of the people that were affected by it. But from that time to now, it's also
come to my attention that there is a teacher who is very beloved in this community who has an active lawsuit against the school district due to sexual harassment. and her complaints
have been ignored time and time again. And she suffered a lot physically and mentally because of it. Her family has suffered a lot because of it. Um, of course, I'm not going to name this person, but she and a lot of people want
her plight to be heard because these things have just been normalized too much and it's affected a lot a lot of people. But she has made complaints, sexual harassment complaints. She has complained about hostile work
environment and for months her whole situation was dismissed. And for me looking at that with the situation of how basically the teachers were allowed to do whatever it is that they wanted to do back in January, it
feels like the administration just wants to sweep the issue under the rug just like the issue with this teacher who is a woman, a wife, a mother, a human being, just as her issue has also kind of been pushed to the side. And as a
parent, it's concerning once again. And what I would like to see is the school dis the school district be more intentional about creating more spaces where these conversations can be addressed, where people have the freedom
to talk about these things, where teachers who serve us as parents, who serve our children are not afraid to express themselves. Because even if it's not people aren't coming here, the conversations are happening outside.
They're happening on social media. Parents are talking amongst themselves, families, even children. So I would like to see as a parent who has invested time here in this community. My I have two other kids who are still growing here.
My I have a child in seventh grade. She's going to eighth grade and then she's going to high school. I would like to be confident that the high school environment that she's going into is not one where the teachers are made to work in a hostile work environment and
ultimately if our teachers are not well then how can we expect them to give the best to our children. So I just wanted to express that I would hope that this is something that all of you can definitely sympathize with. I know a lot of you have children here. You have families as
many many of you has have mentioned. You've lived here and I know that you may not be able to say certain things, but I do believe that there's more that can be done and should be done to address these issues because they matter and they affect people much more deeply
than many would like to acknowledge. And the last thing I'd like to say is just just as a suggestion, um, being the fact that there is such a high percentage of Latino residents in Belleville, I think it would be nice to
have an interpreter present. There was a family here last month that I noticed. It looked like they wanted to speak. They were speaking in Spanish amongst each other, but then they realized that the meeting was going to carry on in English and they left. And I think we
would have a little bit more attendance if those members of the community were engaged a little bit more um some way somehow so that they would feel like their concerns are also going to be heard and they'll be able to express themselves or have someone to assist
them in expressing themselves. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming out tonight. Is there a motion to close participation? So move and a second. I'll second it. All those in favor? I I
Okay, folks. Um trustees, would you like to make some closing comments this evening? No. I do. Okay, we can I can jump in. Okay. All right. Great. So, um once again, I just want to thank everybody for for for waiting for us to
come out here. um you know, the conversations and the decisions that were made today were not made uh lightly and they were not made because we were not trying to um just be prepared for being out here. So, we just thank you for for your patience while we were out
here and to those that um have left. Um I I I also want to just kind of jump into that that conversation um about Mr. Egan. You know, it's it's how do I say
this? Uh, Mr. Egan has been very valuable to our district. Uh, we've been able to do a lot of things within our district and and and I know that any board member that sat up here that's had to work with Mr. Egan um can can also say the same that he has been very
valuable to helping us achieve certain things within our district. Um but with that said, I agree. Um I feel like we have uh done a great job at proving that we can run our budget. Um that we are
not um the boards um that we we come from. We we're not the boards that were once here within our district um causing some of the the the deficits that we faced in that time. Um, and I think
we've more than proven that we're fiscally responsible. I know that there is a a void um that was left with uh Dr. Zanko leaving to another district. Um, and and we've had great conversations. Um, I know many of you have seen uh ads
go out for meetings that we're having. Uh, these meetings are t being taken very seriously and I'm grateful for the board members that I'm sitting with because we do have very cohesive conversations. Um, and we do, um, you know, we're we're all taking this extremely seriously and I take their
thoughts and opinions to heart because, um, if if you don't know, we have three teachers sitting with us on on our board right now and they're very open and outspoken about their opinions on on on on these selections. um as well as you
know you have the experience of of sitting board members that are almost six year five and six years into this district that we know where we were and we know where we are. So, for that reason, I I I I don't think that we should have to request a petition uh to
go out there into the community to ask the question that we all have, which is we would like um some direction and we'd like our law firm as well as our president to um request some guidance from the state on how we can be removed
from the oversight of um of our state monitor. And nothing against Mr. Egan. Again, I agree. He's been very val invaluable to our district, but it's time that um you know, we put that cloud of what happened in the past. Um and and
and and I think we've proven that we're taking this process for the superintendent very seriously, as well as our finances kind of speak for themselves as we progress. Um and we do um deserve the autonomy of our district.
So, I'd like um Gabby if you can uh get with Bush Law to try to come up with something in writing that we could present for our next meeting um requesting some guidance from the state on at least an exit plan if not the full uh removal of the monitor from our
district. You're here. Yep, we're on it. We're taking good notes over here. Uh any other trustees? Would you like to make some closing comments? Yeah, I would like to Mr. Vice President Mike just for one second and I'll try to
be real brief as well. We realize that we went out of here on a risk uh because we don't know what the the state monitor, Mr. Egan's going to do. Uh but it was a risk we had to take because we just felt it was wrong. Uh basically this every year that we go through this,
we're feeling it's very it's wrong to be happening this way. Uh we hope it's not retaliatory. uh back from Egan, Mr. Egan, uh because of these decisions that are made up here, but I can't in good conscience ever sit up here and keep accepting budget after budget after
budget when I know that we're overstated somewhere. We can get savings somewhere, we can dive deeper, I know we can do it. Every year I'm tasked I'm I'm a businessman. I work as an IT person and I manage a budget. Now, every year I'm I'm tasked with doing more with less.
And I'm thinking that sometimes we need to be able to figure out how to do that. How do we do more with less? Because every year my IT budget keeps decreasing even though things technology changes. You have to keep up on the latest technology yet people like to take the money away from you. So you have to figure out and be creative and get new
ways of how to work. Uh that's why this budget the committees need to meet uh the administrative staff as we keep mentioning u m with Mr. Egan, Mr. Parapotto, Mr. uh with Matt as well, Matt Paladino. They need to get their collective heads together and figure out
what we can do to not be in this situation because we shouldn't be coming to the April every time with the same situation and the same things we're going through every year. Should not happen. We should be able to to to circumvent this by February time frame even if not earlier earlier in the year
somehow some way. So, I'm hoping that we'll just take this as a challenge and and and a charge for this group and for everybody else that's involved with this to just figure out a way figure out a way that we're not in this in this same boat every year. It's a sinking boat as we want to call it un unfortunately. So,
I do thank everybody for staying with us uh even though we started late and those that are watching via uh YouTube or whatever they're watching on, thank you. We appreciate you. We appreciate your support and and we're also out there representing our community. So, we want to make sure that we're acknowledging
that as well. Thank you and good evening. You'll notice tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. You wanted the basic process um or ordinarily the monitor will or will not take action. If
the monitor does not take action um in an ordinary district with no uh no monitor, it then goes to the county office. Any other trustees would like to make closing comments? Nope. Okay. Um then I'll I'll wrap it
up. I just want to say welcome back from spring break everyone. I'm sure this was a very interesting meeting. Um, budget time is always a very stressful time and this year I I think it has been most stressful because there's been a lot of
things that have been sort of spiraling and um, you know, coupled with the superintendent search, which I want to thank everyone. I know that we've gotten some input from all of our stakeholder groups groups. So, we have that dynamic
going on. We have the budget going on and and just many many other things. Um, this time I wore my heart on my sleeve with this budget and normally I don't do that. Um, we've always been very supportive. I've been on this board for five years. I've been in this town for a
long time. My kids have gone through this school system. I'm a volunteer in town. I serve on many committees. So, I I take this I don't take it lightly. Um, and I had conversations with each of our board members, with past board members,
with the interim superintendent, with the assistant superintendent, with the state monitor. I mean, I my phone has been going on non-stop. I have a job, too. Everyone else here has a job. Um,
we care very deeply about our community and we care very deeply about how this this is going to affect their community. And we've we've realized since last year that each year is going to get progressively difficult and I think we
all know that because we all know the climate that we're in right now. So I think that we need to get together and I appreciate all of these folks getting together. I appreciate Mr. Parapado, Dr.
Dia, Mr. Egan, and of course our BA Matt, who's been with us for a very long time, who's been with the past superintendent for a long time, and and that's important because he has a dynamic already. So, he's he's very seasoned and very familiar. He's very
organized. Um, I think we just need to get together and and figure out what we can do moving forward without affecting our children. um and without affecting their education. Uh and that all is going to tie into the superintendent
search as well, which we have been very excited about. So, this is really clouding the emotional excitement that we all have to pick a superintendent and nobody was really able to comment on that excitement. So, yes, we we did do our to to you bringing that up, Mr.
Sheldon. We did have a first round of interviews which were all very wonderful. So, we know this is going to be a very difficult decision finding the right fit for our community and especially finding that fit for now. And anybody that's out there that's going to
come here is researching who we are, what we do, and can very easily find our meetings online. So, we're very well aware of, you know, what what what's going on out there. So, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you to the members
of our community. Thank you to all of our staff here. Um, we know that everyone works very hard. Uh, we know that you teach our children, you support our children. Um, you know, for everyone from our, you know, lunch aids to
administrators to whoever you are. Um, everyone plays a role in in this big home of ours. So, with all of this said, this is a lot. The budget was voted down. Uh we have a state monitor. Uh
tomorrow he will make a decision. So I'm sure that we will all hear and um I will be working with legal to try to figure out what our next steps are from here with the state monitor and our our loan
payments. So I want to say good night to everyone. I want to say thank you to Mr. Paladino for your budget presentation. I know that it couldn't have been easy for you since Dr. Tom Co used to do them every year, but you did a great job. So,
thank you very much. Um, so have a good night. With that said, is there a motion to close our meeting? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Have a good night.