all right good evening I'm going to call to order this special session of the kood Board of Education uh this meeting has been appropriately advertised with a adequate notice be hand roll call please Mrs Brown's absent Mr Craig here Mrs dine here Mrs Maya here Mrs moli here Mrs szer here Mrs Sherman
here Mrs Z here Mr McMillan here Mr delus here and Mr chill here and I think uh M BR just uh gotcha thank you all right thank you uh please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance
there was no executive session tonight so we're going to move directly into Committee of the whole uh can I get a motion for committee the H so motion and a second second uh all those in favor I okay thank you so I guess I'll I'll first start off with uh go birds so yeah um I hope everyone had a wonderful night so
community of the whole we're going to use this time to discuss uh the main piece of tonight's agenda which is the resolution requesting uh burough partnership and financial assistance I just want to note quickly there's one other agenda item but it's more very perfunctory so if those of you who are wondering what that might be it doesn't have anything to do with the uh the request and the resolution and I can explain what that is to when it com when we get there yep so um to start with I think we're going to discuss the resolution in committee Hall to give uh
the board members a little bit more free of a chance to discuss um but to begin with I did ask Dr mdal to go over a little bit of of the history of this and where we're at what we've done and and why uh we are bringing this resolution up uh for adoption so good good evening everyone thank you so much for being here um we have a few slides um that uh we have prepared that we will keep up for
the duration U of this special board meeting um so so as as always we we start with our core mission and vision um and so that is the foundation of how we begin all conversations all planning all discussions all Investments uh and so we use that in order to to move it forward and so first we thought that it was really important to clearly Define
um how the state interprets what is called a thorough and efficient uh education um versus how we and Collings would um Define a thorough and efficient education and so statute 18a which are the laws in which all school districts in New Jersey are governed by really um dictates uh much of our actions most of the things that the Board of Education uh votes on are in statute um and it is uh there is a uh
a degree of interpretation that all School boards have the flexibility to exercise um but the overwhelming majority of what they vote on is in State Statute and so we just want to make sure that we are all being grounded in common language and common understanding and so the way that the state defines uh a thorough and efficient educ um is in essence adequate facilities uh they do not elaborate on the term adequate qualified instructors curriculum to produce reasonable levels
of academic proficiency programs and supportive services for disadvantaged and special needs students in Collingswood we also believe that that is insufficient and so we believe that a thorough and efficient education also includes modern facilities improvements access to up ated technology additional qualified staff including but not limited to academic support nurses counselors elective offerings etc etc
mental health supports social workers behavioral specialists counseling services to students extracurricular activities Athletics clubs music lessons musicals plays field trips etc etc and so what is our Challenge and so for the last several years we have been um discussing what is called the triple squeeze the triple squeeze is what most school districts around the country are
currently experiencing it is one higher expectations um in terms of what communities are asking school districts to provide to students two the needs of students has dramatically uh Diversified and so students have more needs in order to meet that higher bar and three less revenues are available at the local and at the state level in order to accomplish said expectation and so in the 22
excuse me in the 23 24 year we analized our year-over-year comparisons of increased costs versus increased revenue and so in 23 24 school year our increased cost to continue doing what we were doing was 3 $3.4 million Revenue increase was 1.6 in 2425 this current school year we saw an increase in total costs by $4 million with an increase
of Revenue by 1.2 million and so far estimated and we say estimated because we do not yet know what the financial numbers will look like the state budget will not be released until the end of this month we do not have projected enrollment numbers uh and we are still uh focused on tuition rates and so there are a lot of still unknown quantities and so we have an estimated increased cost of 3.7
million new expenses with an estimated $1.1 million in actual revenues and so what this slide shows is that what we have been discussing um for the greater part of 11 years since 2014 there is a structural deficit uh in our budget this is not exclusive to Collingswood since 2008 there has been a growing budget Gap across districts across the state of New Jersey to varying degrees last year
alone 250 out of the 665 school districts were negatively impacted with the funding formula and these pervasive gaps that many school districts are unable to close due to an inability to increase revenues to support the inflationary costs year-over-year next slide and so when we think about our core responsibility as a school district our core responsibility is to provide
Direct Services to students and so the breakdown of how our current year budget uh is established 64% is focused on instruction 16% student services 11% facilities and 9% are administrative costs and so how is the district maximizing uh the resources that are available to ensure that dollars reach our students we have an external relationship management team what this
means is is that we're looking for extra dollars wherever they may be whether they come in the form of Fate stal uh federal or local grants uh collaborative Partnerships and philanthropic support U anything to provide additional uh resources to students we are participating in an insurance uh Insurance joint ventures we have a what's called a shiff which is a school health insurance fund as well as the Burlington County Joint Insurance Fund where uh whenever Dividends are paid
as a result uh those go back into uh the budget to be applied to uh students we are also participating in the alliance for competitive energy so that our utilities are uh in line and the lowest that they can be so that there is cost savings there in addition to belonging to the the Ed Services Commission um and Cooperative purchasing for all supplies we and Collins would are very fortunate because we benefit directly from shared services between uh
Collingswood and Oakland as well as within our Bureau in areas of administration business services child study team custodial and maintenance Technology support and safety and so moderate income is generated through these shared services in addition to cost savings related to Transportation by using our uh District bus for our Vocational Technical program and class trips whenever appropriate we also uh benefit using Oakland Public Works for
trash removal and then making sure that we have the services and the support that we need in order to offer the least restrictive environment for students with IEPs often avoiding uh extremely uh High uh outof District uh tuition costs and so what is the impact that the board will be discussing tonight and so when we look at 2023 2024 based on the
uh structural Gap uh it translated into 1.8 million dollar the way that we closed that Gap was we did not rehire staff who retired or resigned and we eliminated freshman Sports and uh a several other budget line items in order to close the gap the school district unlike our federal uh Partners in Washington DC we are not permitted by law to carry a deficit so balance the budget must balance um in March uh in order to
be approved in the 2425 school year we eliminated $1.3 million in line item Cuts direct uh uh uh pieces in the budget as requested by schools and departments operationally speaking that left a one .4 million gap which directly translated into the reduction of 21 Educators within our school district and so far this current Year's budget the 2526 estimated
budget we are estimating A 2.6 million gap which if not filled will translate into reduction of additional Services programming and Staffing and these are estimated as of February 10th of 2025 thank you Dr Malala and I want to jump In Here Also to talk about this slide in relation to the very first slide were the second slide which is about thorough and efficient education right and one of
the things that we've discussed is that there is a state defined mandated definition for what a thorough and efficient education is and we and colins would believe that there's so much more that constitutes in addition a thorough and efficient education and from what we've I would say sitting up here at the board table have have heard from the community seems to me that the community agrees that there's so many more things that that uh constitute a thorough and efficient education other than the The
Bare Bones Basics right one of the struggles of this structural budget deficit is that it's forcing us to now ask ourselves can we provide all of the additional things that we believe make a thorough and efficient education and also provide what the state mandates we have to provide right and one of the struggles that we're trying to deal with
today and one of the reasons why this res came about is that what we're seeing is that in order to close this Gap without additional revenues we will have to start uh taking and look at these additional pieces that all of us believe help make KS education truly thorough and efficient so with that said the resolution to uh introduce the resolution give me one second
here it's in your board agenda the there's a good amount of of setup in terms of explaining how we got to this resolution this ask but the general ask and then I I kind of want to open it up to the uh board members for discuss discussion is uh that the uh Bureau of Collings would raise $3 million in additional Revenue uh in this current 25 20125 budget year using its
available uh uh tax levy cap bank and provide that to Congress of public schools uh so that we can continue to provide a quality education uh for each of our students there's also another ask uh which is that uh the B of Cs would commit to providing at least an additional 10% of yearly revenue from existing agreements uh to the Cs of public schools budget and then that The Bu of Cs would commit to providing at least 50% of yearly revenue from new pilot agreements to help supplement the ks of public school budget um so those
are the the basic asks let me kind of open up for to the board because I I'm sure there's a lot of questions or discussions or or U you know things to be said I'll start um the 2.6 milon that's estimated where did we come up with that number I haven't seen that number I've seen 1.4 1.8 it came from my budget preparation as of this morning okay the revenues are still I still don't have state aid
um tuition is not looking overly healthy because we do owe both of our sunning District's um money back um and my assistant and I went line by line through the budget La uh yeah today's Monday I'm sorry last week we cut out things already um so so the total of all the budget requests minus some reductions that I've already made versus the revenue I'm assuming it's going to be flat state aid um the state usually holds us flat we might they might
give us 20,000 or take away 40,000 but there's never any sizable gain in regards to state aid um so our two biggest pots left um is tuition which is not looking good this year because I said I do owe money back and that does affect what I can charge next year to our sending districts um and uh tax levy okay so just seems like quite a jump from what we've seen before so I'm just kind well you have to remember I know you weren't on the board last year and we but we just discussed this
publicly a lot of the things that our schools asked for last year during the budget we had our expiring Esser funds so um 300 plus Chromebooks were purchased with expiring federal funds that's a usually $150 to $200,000 on the budget um all of our curricular supplies are into math stuff um all of that was purchased with expiring federal funds so all that is back in my budget this year because the federal funds expired and we
still need the supplies but last year to even though unfortunately we did have to let people go um it would have been worse if we didn't have those expiring federal funds we were encouraged by the county office and treatened to use that money for one time you know for expenses balance our budget so we bought as much as we could for the schools with those expiring funds but that's all back in my budget this year okay the Gap that we're facing is
about the same as it was last year and that is with the cuts that we had so 1.4 and 1.3 yeah and it's just it's Revenue my revenue is just it's more or less flat every year um with increasing costs most specifically what's driving me up a wall is just Transportation there's no doesn't seem to be much um what's the word I'm looking for that the governor is just not listening to the wo of school districts and what we're being charged
in transportation even though we are a walking District we transport um a lot of our special a children and some of our children's that go out of district for specialized services and those costs are astronomical and they are going up at a rate that I haven't seen in probably eight nine years are we assuming the same Baseline for the expenses like Chromebook Sports Le it his way
towards Roger because the speaker is right there are we expecting the same amount of expense for Chromebooks Sports and other items of the aser funds covered last year yes um there is an increase in math because we're adding a math math curriculum um stuff at the high school so that is new um Chromebooks it's actually less of a draw because we had our donation of Chrome books which was very gracious um so we don't need as many Chromebooks but we're still
probably looking at probably $80,000 um worth of Chromebooks because we are a onetoone Computing environment for everyone then for transportation is that a requirement of thorough and efficient education it's a great question um I'm going to say yes if it's required in the child's IEP that they need this service to get to and from school safely um then yes
we are required to provide it so all the all the transportation costs are for children that um it's come to my office that it's a requirement can you give us about amount of an estimated amount of money that we spend on Transportation per year I'm probably going to be coming to the board if not this month by March to transfer more money into my line but I spent about 700,000 so far so I've just about spent my budget line this year
on Transportation um and it's it's almost like trying to nail Jello to a wall you know I look at how much I've spent over the last several years I try to take an average I look at the increases and inevitably I'm paying for more children to go out and it's that's a hard one to nail down budgetarily because it changes literally every month um so probably by the end of this month if not March it'll probably be you'll probably see me transfering money into that line I'm estimating about 1 million 1.1 million
next year in transportation costs where eight nine years ago was probably three or $400,000 just so you guys can understand during the retreat um we we discussed how uh Transportation can raise their prices whatever they want every every year uh but we're still at a cap of 2% for tax levy um and on on the next two from the last bullet uh or four from the last bullet there's the the
difference of the 48.6 or 48 46.8% of the col with property tax versus the state average of 52.4 can you speak historically about why that's like that and what the spread difference would be if if we were in line over the past 10 years like where would be be close hyp I want to say hypothetically if if we were in line with our neighbors we would probably be getting
probably four to five million more um I haven't done that calculation I just base it on what trz are local fair shares based on I and again I haven't I'm not a I haven't done the research but I believe that when governor Christie limited our tax what we could tax we were kind of low and then where everybody else was higher than us and we've just haven't been able to keep up because we've just
we were we were capped at a lower tax rate and we just can't we just can't get any get any get any Steam on it um and then since then obviously property values and everything have kind of gone crazy and now um when you get our state aid print out I mean the numbers are just ridiculous as far as um what Trenton determines what the town should like what the taxpayer should be paying so when they send us our state aid they consider us fully funded because they're like hey you know um but we know
that's not how it works but they consider that that they're they're done with us you know they've funded us to the to the ability that their formulas said they should be um but it's not keeping up with what reality is actually showing me right and there's no appeal process or anything like that we can go back to and say hey can we can we catch up a little bit there's none of that right no but oddly enough last year enough of us screamed um that they did give us all little bit of money back so you know I think when there's the will and the and
the screaming and you know they can find it when they want to obviously um we didn't get collinswood didn't really get anything but I know in Oakland's case that you guys were cut 600,000 you guys got about 270 back so you got about a third of it back um so he was able to go back and I guess realign his budget to give more money to school districts um but I don't you know I think this is his last term and so I don't know what the future of the funny formula looks like um which is why I kind of I went
my my estimates for Revenue I did Flat state aid and with the federal I'm looking at an 80% reduction and I'm not 80% redu 80% of what we're currently spending which is about a 20% reduction I'm hoping I'm right I'm hoping it's not what everybody's saying it's going to be thank you so I just want to clarify that difference between the 46.8% and the 52.4% is not the fall of the burrow that is the state mandated ta so I mean let me jump in there I don't know that
there's fault to be to be said anywhere um you know back in 2008 2009 right there was the the local tax cap that was put in place was at 2009 I think it it turned to 2% and so what that essentially means is that other than certain exceptions or adjustments you can only raise your taxes by by 2% year over year right so whatever you
know whatever our tax split percentage was back then uh you know if if we were below 50% going to schools back then then you know there's not really a way for the school district to necess get that over uh 50% just by doing the the the 2% every every single year right so I think people like to ask well whose fault is it that uh there's this percentage ratees I honestly I don't know that anyone can definitively explain that
nor do I think there probably is anyone you know you can't Point At You Know Bob and say hey Bob it's your fault right but the the impact of that now right is that we have a structural budget deficit that we need to fill I I also don't think that this would be productive for us if we were trying to place blame I think we are putting an ask out because of the
severity of the situation and the Gap there's been a lot that's happened you guys with going and advocating at the state level for State relief for this um advocating with legislators over the past couple years talking and explaining the problem here and what it means for districts like Collingswood like when these these Cuts happen um and this is another way for us to continue to advocate for the needs of our kids by looking at who else can help us fund this educational experience that was not my intention to place blame on anyone
I'm just wondering but when you said that I'm just trying to understand where you know who sets that discrepancy as it you know are we are we were we expecting that money to come through and it just didn't come through but it sounds like it was more or less like when when treaten St when they give us state aid they look at that right they look at our local fair share in the town's ability to pay and then that's how they determine how much state aid we get because they're assuming we're getting a certain number but we're not getting that number because I can never get that
number if I'm only allowed to ask for 2% of the difference and that's the fundamental problem with the funding formula and it I don't blame anybody I mean it's not a blame game but the problem is the two% and the rising cost there needs to be some flexibility which is why like I said a bunch of us sit on that group um with the other superintendents and board members are trying to work with Tren to come up with something that works a little better can I get a better understanding of the
spread of our expenses are we on par with what we're seeing in our neighboring districts in terms of roughly 80% of student facing directly student facing facilities at 11 administrative at 9 I'm sitting in a space of there's not much to shift in those c those buckets but wanted to make sure looking as close to on par to our neighboring districts that have had maybe more facilities investment or other Investments that we do not have at this point yeah we're on par we're lower with regards to Administration but as far
as the 80 plus percent that goes directly into the classroom we're on par with everybody else the funding formula was that developed prior to the 2% cap being put into place uh yeah it was it was developed with the 4% cap when it 4% yeah when it first came out there was a time you could ask for whatever and it went to towns and it got voted down and it was a whole process then it went to four then it went Christy came in and it went to 2% and you can move your election
to November and then there's no defeated budget process so the so the funding formulas has been out of date for 15 years now give or take uh yes bethan when you say you anticipate Flat state aid that would be assuming that it doesn't is less than last year flat would just mean the same as last year exactly exactly and last year again the last three or four years they've been giving and taking away the same 20 to $40,000 and that's usually school choice Aid it doesn't even it's not
our base state aid we already participate again that's another way we bring Revenue into the district is we have the school choice program so we have 30 I want to say 33 um children that we welcome from neighboring districts and we get state aid for those children um and that number fluctuates every year with how much the state gives you for State Choice Aid so that's usually the difference in my state state aid every year is whatever they do with school choice and when it came to the state
um taking the the attendance like this the student enrollment that you say that usually happens in about October um are we where you have said in the past sometimes we wind up where when they take it back in October it's a lower number than it winds up being by the end of the year are we still in that situation now yes ma'am yeah we're we're we're lower and again we're pretty you know we're landlocked obviously we're not building a lot but we have we have the same I want to say this the same issue with the state um school
choice Aid one year we're up 20 kids another year we're down 40 kids it's always a a large you know and I can I can track it um I know Woodland this year they're sending us a smaller eighth grade class but we have a huge 12th grade contingent of Woodland graduating so that a affects are overall um on Roll numbers so um you can almost see large groups of kids coming in and I can tell you know so we're we're down by about 20 kids and um I anticipate it to be the same way next
year um there's a lot of voices at the table in terms of like advocating for State funding and the formula change and whatnot if the buau is able to uh make this happen or any form of this is that potentially going to affect any state aid that we get or if the state a goes up are we going to have sort of like a Robinsville situation where they're going to come back potentially come back after us and say no you need to give us this money back because you got extra funding from XY and z um no I don't believe so this is one of the ways
that we could possibly close our hole the Robinsville you know the bond referendum that has yet to be determined whether they get in trouble with state aid um but no a additional tax levy is what Trenton is assuming we're getting but we're not because I'm limited at the 2% % so I don't believe Trenton would they consider this a local issue so I don't think they would um it would affect our state and just to give a little context there um in 2022 2023 Tron calculated
the district's ad adequacy budget so the budget that they uh say that we would need to provide all of our students with thorough offici education at as 28.8 million um and then with that they said that 20 .4 million of that is how much we as a community should be paying into into that amount and then they gave us $8.4 million as St right but in reality even with uh Miss Coleman maxing out
her ability to increase taxes that year uh we were only able to raise 17.8 out of the 20.4 million of local share so that was a $2.6 million gap between what we can raise and what what Trenton says that we're able to or uh that we should be contributing to to our Ed you know fast forward to last year that Gap was 3.8 million to um this year that Gap is 3.7 million so this year uh Trenton is saying our local share with the education State education formula fully funded right so
they're saying we're giving every single District the amount of money that they should need uh if their local communities are paying in what they should be paying um so they're saying that we should be paying 22.5 million but we're only able to raise taxes past year to 18.8 million and that's because of the 2% cap in that at statued so we're $3.7 million below that uh that local fair share calculation or that adequacy budget that trend is calculating saying this is what you need to provide a thorough
and efficient education for your kids so let's say that um if is it okay to to move on to the resolution itself um so let's say that we were to vote this in the affirmative tonight what would be the the process moving forward to the best of your knowledge considering that you know we haven't heard from the bur yet yeah so we uh we would send this resolution to the burrow I think uh vice president Dr Selter and I would also reach out uh to see if
if they would want to meet to discuss a resolution really the the thing that I think is is important to understand here is that um what we are asking is actually fully uh burrow action right these these things that we are asking are fully within the control of the burough so we can't actually vote to do these things we can vote to ask to do these things um and so you know in many ways the
question will be uh once you know if if we were to vote this resolution in the affirmative is uh whether or not uh you know the bur decides to do that and you know we are two different governing bodies right we the Board of Education govern those schools um and uh the Commissioners govern the bur of kwood right and so that is under their purview and and it would be to see if if uh they would be willing to meet this ask and I think what this gives us
the the opportunity to do is rather than say board leadership just going and having this conversation is we get to do exactly what we're doing right now which is talk through all of these things transparently in front of the community and then go forward and you know hopefully with a yes resol solution start to have that conversation with the full weight of the board behind it um so if this if we pass this if it goes if we get the $3 million from the um burrow is that gap of our
callings for property taxes and state average going to close is that the idea it it would it would close yeah okay yeah and I just there have been some conversations unfortunately there haven't been conversations where we have sat down I think with the burrow things have been happening either through newspapers or through letters and there's been a distance that needs to close in order for us to solve this and I think having real conversations about what the numbers are and the deficit
that we're facing I I know that there's been things like this special fund that the burrow has pulled together that I think back in October was around $40,000 worth the money that was there that's available which while that is great and would be helpful when we're looking at millions of dollars in deficit that's still very hard to think about so having more open conversations about the Gap that we Face where we are and what the need is and then real realistically putting into context
we we faced something similar last year and we saw what that impact was on our Educators and not wanting to have to do that again if we can't we we can't afford to not make any asks of anyone to to address this well what kind of communication has there been boy has there been any communication between the district and the buau like following our reorg like I thought I'd read something about some sort of like what is this the first Outreach that we're doing I guess I'm
asking this year yeah so the so I've I've only been board president since uh January 7th I think and so in in that time um uh commissioner Robinson reached out to me uh last week February 3rd um so the night of February 3rd uh to ask for meeting um I think we reached out uh I responded on Tuesday we also uh Dr seltz and I also sent a a follow-up letter about this resolution on Wednesday um and then we received a
response from the buau about the letter uh I believe on Friday and so that's been the extent of of communications uh between us um about working together and and hopefully you know with especially you know with us actually putting an out there right you know this is part of the process of of working together is that we as a board have to decide what we want to ask of the bur um so that the the B can then you know respond and have something that to actually work with
the letter from uh commissioner Robinson was that related to this specifically that we're talking about tonight uh it was to ask for meeting yeah I just want to make sure I'm really clear that this is an to with existing dollars that we've been taxed we're not saying suggesting Shifting the tax percentage we're not doing a Robinsonville sorry Robinsville we are essentially saying of your Coffer do you
have the potential of helping us so that we are not in the rock and a hard place that we are currently in projected to be in yeah so so let me let me be very clear here so what this ask would be I and I do not want to Sugar cat this this ask is asking uh that the bur of Cs would raise additional Revenue which would raise uh uh our tax rates right so I I'm not going sure that at all this is one of those things where you know uh I
remember when when we met with uh um the Commissioners in in July about the referendum one of the discussion points was about uh Robinsville right and actually that was a lot of stuff that the committee brought to us Robinsville and that's what's been talked about a lot of of the the district should go out to referendum to raise additional money for its budget and that's been I think talked about a lot um uh you know and and we've been asked uh to do that a lot and one of the the pieces there is that we are still
waiting on the state to to deter to see what the state does in terms of Robinsville because what happened at Robinsville was a new new interpretation of the law and we're not quite sure if the state of Department of Education will uh uh you know like you were saying earlier uh penalize the district for uh using the referendum uh law in a way that they clearly did not intend beyond that point right the next time we can go out for referendum is in September
we have a very real need right right now this is coming up right now so what this ask is is essentially Robinsville except we don't need to we don't need to spend 10,000 or whatever dollars for po workers we don't need to spend however many thousand dollars on lawyers to draft a a a uh a uh referendum thing what we're asking for right now is Robinsville and it the the and with within the budget of the conert bur like they can provide that without us having to go
out for referendum at this moment and meet our immediate need so we still have the um facilities issues that we've been having for a really long time potentially we are going to possibly go out for another referendum the earliest we can do that is in September is that what I just heard yeah yeah so I mean um I I'm okay I'm okay with with this and how it's written I'm just concerned for the community that the Barrow is going to raise taxes uh on us for this specific thing I'm not saying it's not needed I'm just
it is what it is it's a fact and then we are also going to potentially potentially have to ask another tax rise in September or whenever that may be for the referendum potential referendum no no we would I'm sorry Roger we would not be um going to the community in SE member uh for referendum uh I think that we want to make sure we're not conflating the two issues one is the operational expenses um which is basically uh people and the second is much of a
a longer term conversation and so what I can share is that uh we fully acknowledge that um and I always like to speak in the affirmative that our community has has called upon us to explore option in order to avoid crippling reductions to services and additional layoffs and so having said that we believe that this
takes precedent over um facilities expansion that does not mean that there are not other avenues that do not require additional taxation in order to focus on facilities expansion and so we will be focused on looking at ways to support our facilities that does not include increasing taxes and so we will not be going to a referendum for facilities in September yeah so so essentially uh just as Dr and I actually talked about this today and and we understand this this would be a large ask of of the community right to
in order to provide what we believe is a thorough and efficient education in kwood and understanding that then what we you know we would have to do is be cognizant of the impact of that ask and figure out how do we move about and address our facility needs as best as possible understanding that uh that we likely would not be able to go out for another referendum for that uh in the near future because of the added tax burden that it would bring absolutely um so
I completely agree that we need to work with the buau to increase cost to education um the process has been a little interesting for me because we did have a 6our retreat and this was not brought up at all and this was you know brought up to most of the board um a little unexpectedly um we still have a due diligence to our community and I'm curious if we have done any work to calculate the average cost to the homeowner of what this might look like um
I'm not saying it's not needed but we do have to pay attention to the burden we're asking a lot of our community to Bear yeah so again I I do not want to sug quote this this is asking for uh increase in in taxes so that we can pay for a thorough and efficient education as we believe it right right so the the estimated U uh yearly increase would be $671 on the average household which is I think at this point $440 or $450,000 assessed so that's about $56 per month uh
that would be that per month so 671 per year 56 yeah 56 per month yes yes yes sorry if I if I misspoke there um the you know the the you know I I think that that another board member had asked about you know we had a retreat uh not this past satday but the satday before why this was not brought at The Retreat and and quite frankly it's because as you know we're in an evolving situation where as we're understanding the uh looming budget impact that we're going to have
with the increase of costs and also uh what we're anticipating to be flat hopefully State funding um and as we've been exploring all these different options for how to uh bring in additional Revenue to to pay for again this thorough and efficient education that that we believe it to be in kwood uh uh things have been been moving quickly the first time that that I uh brought this idea of of today's meeting was uh last Monday understanding that hey
we need to make sure that that uh we're moving uh quickly because I think the the buau introduced their budget on on Monday uh uh with I think an aim to uh pass it in in March uh and so we need to make sure that that we're getting this ask in front of the mass as possible uh so that they have time to adjust um their budget if if they are so willing to help us out here sorry if um if so let we
ask for three million let's we get three million we're estimating 2.6 million in reduction so if it worked out we wouldn't have to reduce anything for the next school year that's what we're looking at right now right I mean in theory okay and then that three million would carry over that's not a one year that was just ongoing okay right correct thank you I mean I'm going to say that's probably potentially unless the state comes back with significantly less than what we're anticipating right right
correct you know I don't want to add too much to this but something that I just want to be clear something that has weighed on my mind for a while now is also the the stability of federal funds and that that is a definitely a big issue I guess I just want to really say out loud the most predominant lever outside of people is transportation and the populations we transport are special needs
students okay oh sorry um now I I I'm sorry this Echo is really annoying everybody um I you know and sitting in that board Retreat I I think that this very much was on the minds of everyone after leaving there because we had a very detailed presentation from Steve SOC and from Bridget about this discrepancy in our budget and the longevity of it and the history of it and so I was
happy to see action actually being taken and I believe in terms of transparency this is the best way to do it so that we can all talk about it openly in front of our town and everyone is on the same page and I just think it's important you know I'm I'm not thrilled about the idea of someone who is a public educator and is constantly house poor um the idea of you know taxes going up but as a teacher I can speak to what this actually looks like in the classroom um my district uh has gotten rid of field trips uh
for last year and the coming year and probably down the line we no longer have substitutes in my district and so when teachers are not there um all the students are coralled into whatever large space they can be coralled into and we lose instructional time um we have also um Lo we are have a number of things on The Chopping Block including our including our freshman Sports programs we have a number of coaches who are now being asked to go to volunteer
to coach in the district um and uh we don't fill positions when teachers go on extended leave we just have a rotation of different teachers covering that teacher class because we cannot afford to have a permanent teacher in that room anymore and so as a district that is already struggling um to provide you know a a continued level of quality education and uh to uh maximize our instructional time I I really think that
we need to you know State the urgency here and I'm sure the teachers in this District can feel it like we're constantly being asked to do more with less and this is going to come to a head um and so I think it's extremely important I know there's other Educators on this board who are feeling it in their classrooms I would hope that this would um really think about your classroom and what it's going to look like in a year without this kind of funding and go ahead Chris I just want to
say uh recognizing that the retreat ran a bit longer than we had expected by about an hour and that not everybody could could stay um after Steve and Bridget's presentation which if you haven't looked at it yet I highly encourage it um I I think the very last thing we talked about walking out of out of that retreat was building a better relationship with the burrow and making ask of them and so while we didn't discuss this exact
resolution or this exact path forward I think it was on everybody's mind that we needed to reach out to the buau for as much assistance as there they can give I just wanted to to add to Sarah's point that you know just a little under a year ago we had one of the worst board meetings right where we had to talk about and hear kids and parents and and community members come up and talk about
losing their teachers right it was gut-wrenching um for all of us for for the community um and so I think having these conversations about what we have to face um if we don't fill this hole is is is a reality right and I think you know considering we're up here because you all elected us you elected us to turn over every stone right and really try to find do whatever we can to provide our kids with the best education possible
um and we see this ask as as trying to do just that right turning over a stone that might help us out of something really really difficult so once we approve this assuming it gets approved then after that then uh we we wait for the response from you send this to the B we wait for the response and then they come back to us and they say what we're willing or able to do and then we go from there we'll so so I'll make sure to reach
out with the resolution uh and then uh we'll be in discussions for I guess how how to proceed but yes essentially one of the the big pieces is because this is in the end a decision by by the buau um you know we we have to see what the Burl is is willing to uh to provide um can you just let us know a little bit about the communication plan for all of that so will there be an ad hoc committee similar to the um referendum um I think it's important for I know we can't have a quorum but I think it's very important for um lots of board
members to be in on these discussions with the uh burrow maybe on a rotating basis or something like that but I think communication back about what the burrow is uh offering and return and all of us being able to weigh in on what we're willing to accept and and what you know just so that we yeah informed right so so I think that's that's one of the things that we'll have to uh we'll have to discuss and figure out let me also be be clear though again so one of the reasons why I think a resolution is really helpful here is because um this situation is different
than say our regular committees where often times we we might have a committee they do some work and they bring it to the full board to approve right um because in the end the board has that the authority to approve what the commune has has come up with I I I've see this resolution as being really important because in the end what's being asked here it's we don't have to it's not as if we have to accept stuff right it's not as if we have
to take action there it it's it's an action by the by the burrow right and so um if if the burrow comes back and says hey we we can provide this much then they can provide that much right and it's not something that that we as a as a diction would say yes or no no to right um and so that's something I I think we need to be be clear about this is this is not uh like something that we' bring back into the the full board to to ask for approval right and so that's why I think having this resolution to make sure that um we
as a board are are clear and have have had a chance to weigh in and take action on on this as I think is really important so can I just ask a point of clarification around timeline knowing that we also have to come up with a budget that must be balanced and so you know I think that's part of why we're trying to get a Clarity on timeline it feels like yesterday is the timeline and so it will be a question mark as to what the answer is and then we'll have to in the in parallel make decisions to get the budget balanced is what
I want to make sure I'm understanding yes and I know they have a a deadline for their budget as as do we um the week of March 10th is typically when I submit to Tren um and we would probably meet a few days before that I forget what our March meeting is I think we have a couple of them sorry just went right out of my head but what I would probably do because we can change the
budget up until our public hearing um you can even change it at the public hearing I've done that once in my career I do not recommend it's very crazy but um between the budget submission to to the state in March and our April public hearing when we present our final budget document to the community we can change it 18 times doesn't matter um just at that April meeting what we approve is the actual budget so if we don't have an answer when I have to submit the budget to
Trenton I'll probably do like I did last year I I'll cut massive things right like I'll cut three or four large line items to make it balance because the county is very much aware of what's going on with my budget um I've been in Communications with the county office through this entire process and they'll be here tomorrow anyway for QC um so she just like last year she knows I'm going to do what I have to do to make it balance and then move the money around to the actual Cuts between um them
them making sure that I met my requirement for thorough and efficient and I have everything in order and the actual April date um so there was a little time I don't know what their deadline is but we do have a little time into April okay I have a question about it's like a little elephant in the room situation I feel the question burning over here um but what if you know if we approve of this um what does this do to uh resolve the teacher contracts and
the situation that that is so those so yeah let me speak to that uh the one of the things I think that we need to understand that is that this ask us for um the the the operation of this school district right and depending on what Trenton might send us on February 27th I believe it is uh depending on how costs might change as uh as we we
as we get closer and closer to the the budgeting deadline um we don't know exactly what our final number will be right and so I think that's really important to to uh to say because trying to tie this to any sort of this or that or anything other than we need this money to do our best to provide as thorough and efficient of Education as we can to our kids I think would would be foolish because we'd be making promises that I don't know that uh we could keep given the number of variables
that are in play uh with the budget I you know I can understand that might be that might be a unsatisfactory answer to some it's an unsatisfactory answer to myself as well but it is the truth I mean I think it's a valid answer but I mean I think there's maybe a bargaining chip uh to be able to try to use that um to the best of our ability uh because you know there's there's uh you know there's tension in the air um and then
I'm sure the the buau sees that as well it's not just blond to them so um what would help resolve that on our end would probably help resolve some problems on their end as well so I wouldn't say eliminate it completely from the table but uh you know and I will say in that 2.6 million in that number we have three units that are up in June so in that number is estimated increases for all three units just so like it's not just like I just made up no like um all three units you know again it's like throwing Jello-O
to the wall but I do have um salaries estimated for next year and that's what's kind of in that number also just so you know can you clarify what you mean by units just real quick B bargaining units so we have the ca the PSA and our buildings and grounds um that we have three units and coling with that we negotiate with
okay any other uh questions or comments from board members um no I just I no questions I just appreciate that um we're going about it in this way as compared to um like you said the expense of the attorneys and the polling numbers and all the the referendum pieces and the potential for a Robinsville scenario similar to that's come back on us I think that this is definitely a better way to go about it um you know we'll see what they say and um I think back
on Megan's point I think um what she was asking if I can clarify was that if there are conversations with the bureau that we all rotate and are involved in those discussions not so much that we're going to come back to vote as a whole but just to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to be engaged all right seeing as there are no other uh questions or comments from board members I'll take a motion to close Committee of the whole so moved
and a second all those in favor okay okay moving on to section four public comment one second here so the purpose of this public comment section is to discuss items listed on the agenda additional more General comments may be made later in the meeting the public is reminded that attempts to resolve all concerns and complaints should first go through appropriate staff members and administrators the intent of public comment
is to give the the community opportunity to provide feedback to the board we'll be actively listening and taking notes so that we can take all that is being said into consideration um if appropriate clarifying comments may be made by the port president after a public comment or at the end of public comments for more detailed responses to concerns communication may go out later in the week by the appropriate staff members or administrators or be discussed by the board during future committee meetings members of the public are welcome to speak and expect to do so with the utmost sensitivity to for
everyone intense um in all fairness to all who wish to speak there is a strict three minute time limit per person during public comments and Miss Coleman will assist by keeping time uh please remember to state your name and address for the record and good evening hi my name is Jim Maly uh 400 Virginia Avenue Collingswood uh I also serve as the mayor and I want to um I I want to address a few things
first and foremost where the burrow is more than happy to to enter into a partnership to try to figure out your budget uh we're more than happy to do that we first got word of this in a letter Wednesday uh since then as I said in the letter that I sent out to everyone on Friday since then we've been in touch with legislative leaders uh talked with our Auditors pulled an auditor that does school work from them uh assembled
a couple other school um experienced School folks that can help in this we uh we're more than happy to uh we're going to need to really work on this because the the main ask that you're do you're doing here you're not I know you keep referring that the burrow just has to take action uh it's it's everybody here it's not the burrow it's not like we act on this um and just to give you an idea of the magnitude of what this ask is
we just introduced our budget on Monday as you made reference to we we have increased that to the max of our cap our appropriation cap and that added an additional $220,000 onto our budget for an average increase of $70 okay this what you're requesting which we under the law we do have the ability to do would increase
taxes as the president said roughly $670 a year on the average property which is now $450,000 okay it would be a 20 almost a 25% increase in the municipal tax rate okay NE I've been doing a long time never ever have we done a tax increase close to that we have and if we were
ever going to do that we would be going deep into a process with the public in order to go through and explain what has to be done why it has to be done why we have this all of a sudden Mass increase so I would say to you we're happy to get people working on it we're ready to go uh we want to would want to very very seriously engage the public uh I've got a couple other things one
thing is and especially hearing that this this wouldn't necessarily resolve the teachers teachers dispute I we believe that that there needs to be and this and I know from the law the district and the the union would need to wave kind of unfair PR Labor practice charges against one another we believe through all of this the teachers union needs to be a part of all of those discussions because we should not go
through this exercise and not have a teacher's contract resolved that's just just wasting everybody's time so so those two things and you answer my question about referendum there's no discussions going on about referendums because if there were we just wanted to make sure that was part of all this discussion too um just that all of it was in so that's really we're ready to go no problem you you can as I said my letter Friday I you do whatever process you
want to do but anybody can call me anytime I think most most of you have my cell number I know the superintendent does and you could you don't have to wait to do this formally this way you could call we could go over it we could have talked about this whenever you wanted to but since Wednesday we've begun taking action I'm talking with some legislative folks tomorrow morning happy to get to work on it um and that's it thanks hope I kept them my three
minutes I'd like to really quickly uh thank the mayor for for speaking here um in terms of the communications piece I think I would assume that the the board here we would all be absolutely willing as a district to help with the communication piece uh about this um I appreciate the mayor's uh mention of the Appropriations cap um that does not apply here we're talking about the tax levy cap um and that there is again
$3.6 million available in tax levy cap Bank uh that can be used to uh fund uh the schools uh in terms of the teachers contract uh as I said last uh board meeting uh the board has been eager and willing to set uh the contract in fact in in that this graph over here as uh Miss Coleman mentioned earlier there are in there budgeted yearly salary increases for for all of our uh uh
teachers and staff in there um we have uh offered uh uh raises at this point above County average to all uh of of to our CA um to the to our teachers uh and again we are eager and willing to settle a contract um at this moment the the next uh point for that work is April 3D when we will be meeting uh with fact finders
the the piece here I kind of want to point to is again we are asking for average as a district right right now we receive 48.4% of uh our local tax share goes to schools the state average is 52.4 we're basically asking for average so that we can try to provide more than average um and so with that I'm going to turn the the for back over to the
community hey everybody um Rebecca finle 9116 Park AV I'll try to be quick I know we were all up late last night I wanted to thank you all for holding this meeting um and having the community present I think it's really important I also wanted to thank you for showing up and testifying before the New Jersey dep Department
of Education last month um as covered really thoroughly in the retrospect um Schoolboard representatives from here and our neighboring dist districts like Haden Heights and Haden Township drove through a snowstorm to testify to the damage the state's outdated funding formula is causing schools around New Jersey I also want to take the time to thank the parents who showed up at that meeting as well as everyone participating in the New Jersey fair funding Collective advocacy group I also want
to thank um and give a big shout out to Collingwood residents Bridget Bion and Steve St sesy who presented this information to you at your retreat and created the bridge the gap website um please everyone look up these sites join their mailing list to see how we can all get involved um it's really inspiring work um showing up is hard digging through data and policy documents is hard standing up is hard and sometimes in a small town like this it can be uh politically inconvenient but
this level of effort and courage is exactly what we need to get teachers paid and to give our students the education they deserve so thank you guys uh Wayne Rossy 114 East palav um yeah I largely wanted to also Echo uh the efforts of the fair funding New Jersey fair funding Collective which um I've been a
part of I know uh bethanne and I know a few other folks here have been involved I think that this effort um is particularly important right now that we we Shore up our funds because I I I think everyone should also be deeply concerned about Maga attacks on public education in the coming months and years that these numbers are are
possibly going to get worse and the quality of of public education in this country could suffer as a result so I I think in part um as much as the mayor may have emphasized ize the the large amount that this would involve that we if we're dedicated to public education as a community I think we need to take a step like this in order to make sure that that we have the quality public
education and that we pay our teachers fairly because I I think you know I I I we've had I've seen many discussions I've been contributed to many discussions and this these numbers you know keep more than just the board up at night thinking about how impossible some of these problems are so um making this work is is really important and it's a thing that needs the whole
town to unify over so thank you hi Rebecca SE 10:30 Grant AV um first very much appreciate the transparency of this presentation and the time to come together um my ask is fairly simple we talk about a $67 average increase for taxpayers after a very long six months of hearing from taxpayers with a referendum that they didn't
know how they could afford it and given the reassessment that just happened where our family went up over two grand that were trying to figure out what this means come this summer I really would urge you as you think about Communications while you're asking the burough to take take this on listen and learn from your families who are out there and what they're experiencing to make sure that they can really withstand an additional $670 every year plus the 2% cap that or the 2% Levy that you'll be adding
to your District or your District taxes as well because I do very much worry that we are pricing people out um and we don't want that to happen we want to continue serving the community that we are a part of so please make sure that that Community engaged includes really listening to people who've been affected by tax increases already and what they're going to be experiencing come this summer and fall thank you hey Bean dmat
220 with LA terce um first of all I just want to thank you all for having these difficult conversations and being willing to really wrestle with these very hard questions and problems that we're dealing with the community um and doing that in the open and giving us all a chance to participate in it um I think for anybody who has been paying attention in Collingswood over the last several years I know my son is in second grade so I sort of tuned in more to schools when he was starting to be at that age right but it's been very clear to anyone who was paying attention
for the last several years and probably before then I just wasn't paying attention our schools are underfunded and that's at the local level at the state level at the national level there's all sorts of reasons for why that is um and I'm not going to get into them because I don't have time but I think one of the things I always say to my son George is mind your business like you this is your business everybody else has their business right your job the reason you all are here on the Schoolboard is because you are tasked with the very important responsibility of figuring out how do we
provide education and provide the best education we can to the students in our community and we're all here because we think that's really valuable and important and I want to thank you again for the work that you do and I think your job is to say this is the money we need and we're asking the state but that is a long arduous process and we have little influence over that God only knows what's going to happen at the federal level but at the local level you have the ability to ask the burrow it's the Burrow's job to figure out how to bridge the gap they've been underfunding our schools and they need to figure out how to
fix that and it's all of our jobs as a community right to go to the burrow and I've got plenty of suggestions for that meeting but I'm really glad that you all are having this conversation and I want to thank you for making the tough ask because if we don't have more money we can't can't pay our teachers what they deserve we're going to have to lay off from more teachers our kids are just going to continue to not get the services they need and that's what we have to do and it's hard but that's life we're all grown-ups we know that so thank you Steve sesy 439
Haden Avenue uh I'm here to discuss the critical issues of the funding Gap affecting our colins with schools as highlighted by the state funding formula our district is currently underfunded by several million dollars at the local level this Gap is the result of nearly 15 years of a poorly designed State funding formula including an unrealistic local fair share expectation and strict limitations in school tax raises this shortfall significantly impacts our ability to
provide Fair pay expand on student programming and plan for the future the NJ dooe does have to fix the state funding formula but that will take considerable time and we have to fill this financial gap now at this point with all the various laws and policies in place at the state and local level filling this financial gap requires a collaborative effort with the burrow of Collingswood by working together we can explore Solutions such as advocating for increased State funding uh adjusting
local tax levies and identifying alternative Revenue sources to ensure our schools receive the support they need I urge the board and bar leadership to prioritize this issue and work collaboratively to bridge the funding Gap thank you hi I'm Karen taner I've been teaching here for 20 years and I just want to thank you all for being here and right now you as a board are dealing
with issues that you did not create decisions were made long before any of you had this position and now you have a golden opportunity to get help to equalize the situation but what you need to realiz is that the ca is in the exact same situation we are in the lowest third in terms of pay in this County not because of anything we've done recently but because of an accumulation of decisions that have happened over the years that
have always been for the best intention but just as you are now asking the burrow to help you equalize an unfair and an unjust situation we are asking you to help help us retain teachers by correcting an unjust and an unfair situation we cannot retain Math teachers so many of our students I'm not a math teacher okay so many of our
students are in classes that are run by subs or that have have had multiple teachers throughout the year because every other local district is offering those Math teachers more teachers Math teachers have been here for 20 years left the district because they were getting more elsewhere and just as you hopefully can sit down with the mayor and get some help to equalize the situation we're asking that you sit down with our
negotiating team and try to bring an equality to a situation that is hurting everybody thank you so much my kid English teacher I'm really excited this is like really great and I'll just tell you that I have a daughter who is following her passion for writing right now so thank you for
that uh Rob leowski uh 1020 Park Avenue uh I want to thank the the the board for and and the superintendent and the board secretary for outlining really the dire problem we all we all see that it's a problem and you know clearly given the budget timeline we need to move urgently um but we also need to move collaboratively and we're happy to do that we have to move cautiously because
this is really risky stuff we can talk about that the the burough can just just you know just we'll raise the 600 something dollars um but that also affects Bond ratings which then changes essentially you know our ability to borrow money raises cost more so now that now the burden on people are even more so these are these are these are not things to say no but they're things to say it's not easy and that also means we also have to think create creatively and and I I don't want to
minimize that because when the resources are tough then we need to be resourceful and we need to find ways to to to sort of make this work because every little bit that of extra Revenue that we can gain every little bit bit that we can save every creative partnership anything else we can do we hear Transportation all these things we have to do it because we owe it to to our community right we all owe it we're all public servants we all owe it to our community um I mention all this because um my sleeves are already
rolled up I'm in I'm looking forward to working with you to to do this and um you know let's come to a a solution that's going to work for our students and and all our community so I thank you for the chance gret and collect e920 Grant Avenue I just want to uh Echo what uh the mayor
and Mrs taner uh stated is that you you have to have the teachers involved in this and you have to have their contract in mind uh again we could we could find all the money in the world and we could make beautiful uh you know uh state-of-the-art facilities but if we don't have the love and the support of our teachers who do so much every day and you know we need to have steady teaching we don't you know I I
know it's a a systemic issue currently in education of the lack of substitutes and everything else but it is essential for our children to have that stability so I just really want to make sure that you're taking the people who are with our children more than we are per hours every day into consideration and making sure that their contracts are met with this let's get it
funded my name is Jack McMullen Belmont Avenue a 35e resident of Collingswood 29 year employe of the Collingwood School District 18-year principal of Collingwood middle school and the president of the Collingwood principales and supervisors Association the Collingswood principles and supervisors Association supports the board of education's requests to partner with the burrow of Collinwood in
order to strengthen our school district over the years and in countless ways we've been witnessed to the Burrow's commitment to improve the quality of life for its residents and we've seen their ongoing efforts to enhance and support Community growth and development whether it was the revitalization and reimagining of hat Avenue in the early 90s the conversion of a blad property to provide affordable senior housing or the ongoing improvements to our Town's infrastructure and services our elected burrow officials have
always demonstrated a deep level of commitment to our town and our citizens of every Age We believe that a strong partnership between the school district and the burough of Collings will will create a unified approach to addressing the challenges we face and ensure that our students are well prepared for the future together we can provide a robust learning environment that Fosters Excellence prepares our students for prosperous tomorrow we look forward to working together to continue building
a thriving educational Community for our students families and Educators thank you don't start to timer yet have to get my glasses okay Robin Hogan president of the collinswood Education Association and fifth grade teacher at sharp so I'm here tonight also to speak in
regard to the proposed partnership between Collingswood Board of Education and the burrow of Collingswood um the ca supports this partnership and feels confident that it will have a positive impact on the students and the community over the years the bureau has successfully engaged in numerous Community involvement plans that have made callings with the kind of plays that families and individuals want to work live and raise their families we believe that this partnership which should bring all parties to the table
to work together will strengthen the entire Community it's our hope that this partnership will be based on transparency and mutual respect Guided by the singular goal of improving the Collingswood School District this type of partnership is an Endeavor that the ca can support and we look forward to the changes and opportunities that this partnership will hopefully bring about um I do want to make one comment
um I'd rather not negotiate publicly secondly I appreciate your statement that you are eager to um resolve our conflict with the contract however you have publicly stated that you would rather go to fun to fact finding and you'd rather spend that money M on attorney fees than put it into negotiations so um I just wanted to make that statement um I do I too would like to resolve this but we we are very concerned about retaining and attracting new teachers thank you
seeing as there are no more public comments uh I would like to address a few points um first off I I would like to uh thank the presidence of the CP uh PSA and and also ca for for their
support here um I think it is important that we all come together to advocate for the strongest possible School District that we can let me also comment to to uh to a point about the the tax increases in the impact on the community again as I said earlier I I do not want to sugarcoat that what this is asking for is an increase in
taxes the resolution was not written lightly the impact of these taxes was not brushed aside and not considered what we are looking at here is the very real impact of the very real impact of a a a budget hole that we are looking at $2.6 million at right now at
this moment that we're estimating where last year a $2.8 million budget hole led to $1.4 million in cuts and Staffing that was 21 teachers Staffing administrat so that is one of the things where we understand that tax increases have an impact on the community we also understand that having schools that cannot
support the clearly amazing teachers that we have has an impact on the community if there's an alternative that doesn't raise taxes on our community that can provide this funding that can support our teachers and our students please let us know Dr McDow at the beginning of today's meeting it's gone through a number
and a list of ways in which this district has sought to save money to bring in outside resources through grant funding our budgets are audited yearly by third party external Auditors we have one of the best business administrators in the state of New Jersey who teaches other business administrators how to do this job so if there is another
way that we can close this Gap without raising taxes without asking our community to invest in at schools then please let us know and we will explore it with that I'd like to move on to section number five which is the resolution uh I think I have to read the resolution in full correct and then ask for a motion yes okay so resolution request for burough partnership and
financial assistance whereas a strong well-funded Public School System strengthens an entire community and whereas con of public schools educates the community's youth and approximately 2,300 students and whereas kinds of public schools and schools across New Jersey have faced continually Rising costs of supplies services and programming and whereas K of public schools has received essentially the same amount of school funding from the
state since the 2022 23 school year and whereas Congress of public schools is subject to njsa 18a col 7 f-38 which limits its ability to raise revenue from increases in its property tax levy to an additional 2% per year with limited exceptions and adjustments and whereas kind of public schools has raised additional Revenue up to a statutory maximum every year since the 20145 school year and whereas K of public schools
is required by njac 6A 23 A-1 16.2 D3 to maintain a balanced budget and whereas con of public schools has limited its school supplies budgets delayed facility maintenance sustained one of the lowest administrative costs per people in the state and brought in grant funding to offset continually Rising costs and whereas despite these cost-saving and revenue generating efforts which included $1.3 million in cuts
to budget lines for the 202 425 school year ker public schools had to lay off 21 valued teachers staff and administrators in May 2024 to close an additional .4 million deficit due to Rising costs to maintain a balanced budget and whereas kinds of public schools projects at minimum a $1.8 million increase in costs for the 2025 26 school year and whereas con
Public Schools anticipates the need to cut additional Services programs and staff to maintain a balanced budget for the 2025 26 school year if additional school funding is not secured and whereas cons Public Schools received 46.8% of KW with property taxes in 2023 compared to the state average of 52.4% and whereas the bur of kwood has the statutory ability to raise an additional $3.6 million in revenues in its 2025 budget through use of
its banked Levy cap pursuant to njsa 40a colon 44545 and whereas the burough of Kingswood anticipates raising 4.6 million Revenue in its 2025 budget from payment in Le of taxes or Pilot agreements and whereas the B of Kord has a statutory ability per njsa 40 48-1 17.1 to appropriate additional revenues to supplement the K public school budget now therefore be it resolved
that the kwood Board of Education requests partnership with and financial assistance from the burough of kwood that will enable kso public schools to provide quality education to each of its students and continue to serve and strengthen the community of of kwood and be it further resolved that the kwood Board of Education asks the bur of kwood to raise 3 million in additional Revenue in the 2025 budget year and every budget year moving forward to provide additional Revenue to the K of public schools and be it further resolved that the K of Board of Education urges The
Bu of kwood to allocate in the 2025 budget year and every budget year moving forward at least an additional 10% of yearly revenue from existing pilot agreements to supplement Congress of public schools budgets and be it further resolved that the Conwood Board of Education urges the borrow of kwood to commit to providing at least 50% of yearly revenue from new pilot agreements to supplement kwood Public Schools budgets and be it further resolved that this resolution be delivered to James mey mayor of kwood and
Robert lowski and Morgan Robinson Commissioners so I would take a motion to uh adopt uh this resolution so move and a second second questions and comments from board members okay uh roll call please Mrs Brown yes M Mr Craig yes Mrs dine
yes Mrs Maya yes Mrs mulski yes Mrs Seltzer yes Mrs sherban yes Mrs Z yes Mr McMillan yes Mr delus yes Mr Chu yes moving on to section six miscellaneous uh there's only uh one item in this section it's uh 6.01 it's a NJ qac
DPR submission I can explain yes please um qack we have to go through it every three years with the county where they come in and they basically look at everything um we submitted this I think in August or September and I must have been too early because the state revised their forms in October so two weeks ago they emailed again they're coming tomorrow they looked at it like last week but anyway they um they're like oh you used the wrong forms and so apparently the forms I downloaded they uploaded in October so we're just
reapproved the DPR on a new form so sometimes the early bird does not get the worm I guess um so no apparently apparently not uh moving to approve item 6.01 do I have a motion so moved and a second any questions or comments from board members roll call please Mrs Brown yes Mr
Mr Craig yes Mrs dine yes Mrs Maya yes Mrs molski yes Mrs Seltzer yes Mrs Sherman yes Mrs Z yes Mr McMillan yes Mr dilus yes Mr CH yes uh moving on to the final section for public participation I don't believe I have to go through the uh entire public comment statement but this is a uh section for more General comments um that that doesn't have to be necessarily
about items listed on the agenda um it just a reminder in F all who wish to speak there is a strict three limit uh minute time limit per person during public comment and Miss Coleman will assist by keeping time uh please remember to state your name and address for the record gret and klei 920 Grant Avenue uh you had mentioned earlier about the donated Chromebooks and we had heard earlier I don't know I guess it
was maybe August September um that they were being donated um have those and and at that time you said that there would be Chromebooks that would then be able to go home with students who didn't have them has that been offered because I know some point it was only for free and reduced lunch children but in the be beginning when we first found out that they were being donated that it said anyone or the high schoolers were going to get them to come home we're working up
the tech team and the um I think Mr whan's helping out with that just so you have a we had to they came and some of them were not in very good shape so they needed to be looked at and then we needed to put our like Protection Program on it you know with like all of our yeah whatever cyber blah blah blah right so that is ongoing but um yeah we're looking to send something out that is getting worked on so they came like in batches like they didn't come for a long time and then we got like a bunch and then we didn't get some so I think they're all over Mr whan's office at this point in time but yeah we're
are working to send something out it's can't worked on thank you sorry just that that that question I could answer so I did thanks hi Nancy ready 254 eastn Avenue I just just I have a question about this board's priorities and I know that there's a lot of new board members or a handful since the fall but I mean the budget situation that you are are describing up here feels to me like a f alarm fire like my children have gone to Garfield we lost wonderful teachers there and I know that was
the case throughout the district and I'm wondering why we're dealing with this now and why we didn't deal with this like in the fall because I think this is a good idea to ask for more money from any place we can get it and instead we spent the fall fighting about the referendum which would have raised everyone's taxes in a way that I think would have made the ask now that much harder and I just don't understand that choice to work on
the referendum that would have addressed facilities when we have this enormous Gap in the budget around people that we really need to address I don't know if that's that's not an answer question necessarily but it's troubling to me about the way that the board is prioritizing um requests of the community hi Morgan
Robinson 117 East Wayne Terrace and I do serve as commissioner my I'd like to State for the record my communication from last week was regarding unifying on behalf of our um vulnerable populations our lgbtqia students and our immigrant population to provide resources and security because this is a very scary time and regarding the budget it is of utmost importance to just
keep Community engagement as much as possible because the um the tax raises are going to hurt a lot I'm not saying they're not necessary um but we're willing and looking forward to working together to come to a solution thank you hi I'm Andrea haes 248 East night
AV in um what you about the Chromebooks and that some of them weren't the best condition and we needed help or the tech team I'm sure they are so overburdened and I know I also serve on the Middle School PTA board we have brought this up with Dr Jack in the past I know all of us are more than happy to help the tech team with those or recruit parents to volunteer to help get the Chromebooks in the hands of kids too so I want to offer that again I'm not the most tech savvy person but I can learn and we can find other parents I know who would be willing to help also to do that for Dr wh and the tech team if needed I
just wanted to put that out there thank you I'd like to jump in really quickly here and just thank uh commissioner Robinson uh for her Clarity on on email and I believe that the board probably is all in support of of coordinating and and working with the buau uh to support our immigrant and lgbq uh plus community members I'm really appreciative of Dr mcdal and the district uh for releasing a public statement in support of immigrant students on January 24th and also
public say thank you um uh in support of lgbtq plus students on January 30th um and uh I'm hopeful that that the the burrow will will also uh publicly support those communities and that well we can work together to uh support those communities as entire town Kevin Bara 7 705 Center Street uh wondering are we looking into a referendum again um or at least
looking to reorganize the schools what buildings we have to help reduce the overhead cost then be able to reallocate those funds towards the students and everything else um just wonder if that's being looked into so just to reiterate that question it was about whether or not the board is uh looking to uh look at a a referendum to reorganize our schools to reduce the overhead cost uh and and put
those that money back into uh the the I guess the the the staff you know pot basically uh and so one of one of the pieces here is that we have an immediate need right now to help close that uh budget ho uh and I think as as a previous uh commune member stated yes this is a a a five alarm fire and and I I I'm sorry if if I'm not properly conveying that this is a five
alarm fire that has to be closed and that last year with a 1.4 million doll hold that had to be closed that was 21 staff members so so if I'm not properly conveying that I would like to convey that um so understand that this will lead to a tax burden Upon Our Community right that we have to be very thoughtful about uh when in the future we are able to go out again to the community to ask for additional funding to
uh work on our facilities but in the meantime I I know uh having talked to Dr mdal and uh uh and uh Miss Coleman there is work that's being done to figure out ways in which to address facilities uh needs as best as possible in a uh a tax neutral uh solution so we're exploring all options in the meantime good evening all uh K loin
702 callings Avenue um it strikes me that all of these issues are um chronic and not acute uh the tax uh cap was passed in 2008 um that was many years ago we bought our house in town 15 years ago we paid over $100,000 in property taxes already and we own a very modest home on the West Side uh it's nowhere near $400,000 in value despite what the burough now says it is um
there's tremendously problematic issues in our society and a lot of them have come because we've been kicking the can down the road for Generations uh we were having these exact same conversations when I was in elementary school in Merchantville two towns that way we were having them in the 90s when I was in high school in penson three towns that way these are not new issues we need to find a solution I'm happy to pay more taxes but I also don't have a lot of money to
pay new taxes with I haven't gotten a raise in several years thank you for your time hey everybody uh Mike paluchi um vice president for the high school for the cea and a resident in town here and uh I do want to thank you guys for coming to the table and also thank the Barrow for being willing to come to the table as well
um you know farbe it for me to get up here and say that uh you know this is not a five alarm fire as Roger said it is and and uh we need this funding and it's really essential I do think we need to have I think we need to to um to project our or Telegraph our intentions fully though because you know as it came as we talked about earlier these these needs that this whole or or filling this hole will
meet um are separate from facilities issues you know we're still renting good sheeper and if we're hanging on to that building and and that's another discussion whether that's good bad or indifferent or whether we need it or not I mean I think it's pretty clear that that we're holding on to that with the intent to go to referendum again to to to purchase it right like or or to to renovate it so I just think we need to put everything on the table that is coming down the pike you know whether it's facilities staff I don't know if a lot of people know this I know you guys
know this um I don't know if the public knows this but a lot of our federal grants the things that kinds of things that are on the chopping block right now are going also to salary so it's very possible given the extreme circumstances that the the federal level that we could fill this hole and then take massive Personnel Cuts if if you know Elon Musk or one of these idiots like flips a switch and like we're losing you know it cuts the spigot off and like that's that's staff members right there like our Wellness Center right now is being funded by federal grants we've lost you
know the the director of the wellness center and one of the counselors they were doing an an incredible service for our students you know and that's that's not something that even that the district could control you know that money is is is only through 2026 and you know they're professionals they they have to think about their stability and their you know their finances and they had to go where there's a more stable job with you know more clear funding source for its future so I just want to request like that we put everything on the table and that people are are clear about what we
are paying for what we're thinking about doing with it and how other things other than this can can kind of factor into this thing too and I'm willing to work together um and work with everybody so um thanks again I want just spend a moment to to thank uh Mr paluchi I I think what you have said is is exactly one of the worries that that that we've had on the board which is federal grants that
stability there you know there something that we everyone assumed was stable that we could rely on if nothing else right who knows and and I think I heard it uh Dr M I think said it so well the other day when I was talking to him which was in times like these we have to rely on each other on our own Community right and that is part of the thing here is as best as we can we have to
invest in in our school so that this lack of stability externally can be mitigated as best as possible um and then in terms of clarity of the needs of this District this is absolutely five alarm fire and our facility needs still remain uh and and the the feedback we got from the community when when they voted in the fall was that uh at this point in time with that the plan that was put forth um uh that was not acceptable and we have to go back to drawing board and so we will do the best that we can with the facilities that we have now but the needs of our facilities do not change and
and we are still going to be looking uh for ways as I said earlier uh to address as many of those concerns as possible in a revenue neutral tax neutral way until uh the community could support uh uh more funding there hi Dan Smith 225 Lincoln Avenue um I just wanted to say I'm really encouraged by the developments today uh the board's being really proactive about our biggest challenges um you know I'm I'm not worried about what happened in
the past it's better late than never I mean we're really talking about the right things I'm I'm also really hopeful that you know between a board that clearly has the energy to make a difference um and a Board of Commissioners that that really runs a smoothly operating town with a fantastic staff that if you put those two together if you work together that we're going to get to where we need to be so I don't have a lot to say I just want to say that thank hi Lindsay
austar 105 Migel Avenue um I have a few different things uh that I wanted to talk about first uh the Internet outages which I know that you've guys have addressed in the past um I've Been Told my middle schooler that they are still very very present today alone they had two different outages that prevented the teachers from projecting whatever you know the class uh was supposed to see uh if this is happening twice in one day and I know this has been going on for a long time
that this is a real real big issue um both to the teachers abilities to teach and the students abilities to learn uh second is the bathrooms I've been I've heard from high school students and parents of high school students that the bathrooms are a major issue at the high school that only one bathroom it remains open at a time and students are looking through the halls and wandering through the halls trying to find whatever that open bathroom that day
happens to be um this is a huge huge issue anyone who you know knows how how much you have to go to the bathroom when it when it's time to do that you know you know that these students are wandering through the halls trying to find an open bathroom and only one for I I'm not sure exactly how many students in the high school but um from what I've been told it you know people are getting in trouble from their teachers because they're out of the classroom too long in their time to go to the bathroom and this is due to the fact that they
can't actually find an open bathroom um in addition at the middle school the boy bathroom has been out of at least one of the boys bathrooms has been out of commission for over two months um so again bathrooms I'm not I'm not sure if this is a facilities that the bathrooms are out of order and I'm not sure why they aren't being fixed or if it's you know other issues I've heard of Potential like people vaping in them and therefore they're closed because of lack you know you don't want whatever it
is the bathroom situation needs to be fixed uh and third and final um is with regards to Good Shepherd um you're talking about the money deficits and yet we're spending approximately $84,000 a year for the rent of Good Shepard for office space which is public money that's flowing into religious organizations specifically um I believe it's the dases of Camden uh so if we're we're looking for funds that that would be
a great place to start thank you so uh Lindsay thank you thank you um for for speaking so I just want to speak to um to what we know from this level regarding bathrooms bathrooms for whatever reason have become the bane of existence across schools um not just in Colin wood but across the state uh
in our last uh superintendent Roundtable uh we had ongoing discussions about problematic behaviors that we have been experiencing in bathrooms for whatever reason uh the Department of Health was here last week um based on uh a formal complaint as it related to bathrooms being locked uh they walked through the building that was unfounded that was uh not true uh and so that does not mean that there are some bathrooms on campus
uh that access has been um removed uh for one if a bathroom is out of order uh then yes it is locked um if a bathroom is in an area where it is UN supervised uh because we have had uh a considerable challenge as it relates with uh vaping and other questionable behaviors those are all conversations um that have been held at nauseum both at the middle school and at the high school and I
know that this is an ongoing uh process that they're working through the goal is to make sure that every student has access to the facilities that that they need we're not here to be the potty police but what we have experienced is uh massive amounts of vandalism and damage in uh certain bathrooms we have seen students congregating in large amounts in other bathrooms and so we have increased the level of adult supervision in and out of those spaces and strongly encouraging students to take care of their
business and and go back to class uh and so I know that the staff at the secondary campus they're committed to making sure that students have a safe clean um space to be able to take care of their personal uh needs um but we are also uh dealing with um some behaviors that we have not seen in the past uh and so it is it will be a continued work in progress I would encourage if your child um is having a core issue uh please
reach out uh to your child's School uh so it can be addressed quickly and then I'll also meent uh I think address a few uh issues here the the inter ales the board and the district are well aware of um I think this back to the reason why we're here uh you know my understanding is that especially at the midle high school there is a issue in which we have to purchase a new networking switch in order to to solve some of those internet ouches and and that's yeah we um Tech team has been troubleshooting it for some
reason at this campus we just have every day they're running over to deal with the switch um and besides the switch itself and again I going to look at look at Melissa in the corner she's my techie see if I get this right because I'm not a technician but when we call we're trying to troubleshoot and you got to love these companies if you don't have a maintenance plan on the switch then they will not troubleshoot with you so the tech team has been trying to troubleshoot so we just pulled the trigger the other day and I'm like
just get me the price for the maintenance contract this is kind of getting ridiculous so we are working on it we're aware of it I I don't know what it is with some of some of these buildings but yeah our switches have been um we've been seeing some issues with some switches so we will have to get them fixed and you know having you know being someone who works in it myself you know I understand how how expensive some of these service level Agreements are and some of this Hardware is uh and and I you know I've talked to Miss Coleman and she's explained to me how she has
siphoned off money from here from there from everywhere to try to find the money in order to purchase such a switch to fix such an issue right and this is again striking back to the problem that we have here which is we are trying to make our budget go as far as possible to meet the needs of our students uh in terms of Good Shepherd again let me reiterate our space constraints have not changed we are still out of space in so many different uh places within our our district
right and and this is where I I I caution the public in going and saying well here's a singular item that that we can go and and cut and can't you save money you know last year we spent uh $1,736 to buy toilet paper we could also not buy toilet paper but that just causes a bigger issue of its own right so there are reasons why each of these line items are within the budget and they are to address the needs of our our
students we're still in public comment right okay yes we are all right um Adrian Earl 409 CLE um sorry if I I didn't really prepare um but after hearing this meeting and your discussions as a board and your presentation of the um
proposal resolution um and then hearing from um the public comment from mayor mie and um responses from us board that is actually my my ask is really mainly to you president Shu um that since mayor malie is here right now and you are here that um I would just ask um as as a community member that um prior to you guys leaving tonight if you
could like exchange information to be able to speak directly to each other and like sit down you know because although this is great because it's a public um we inviting the public and some people came out tonight to hear this and people can stream and you're giving a sense of transparency it would also feel really good as a community member and maybe like less performative and passive aggressive between the town and the board if you could say like we sat down we had coffee here we talked through
this we exchanged where I'm coming from where the town's coming from um to really come together like as humans and community members rather than only being able to say although I know a lot goes into it like we sent a letter and then they sent a letter back and we haven't actually sat down and met with each other yet so that's my
request okay seeing as there are are no more public comments uh we'll now move to Section 8 adjournment uh motion to adjourn the meeting there you go all in favor uh