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so pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given by the secretary of the eastern township board of education in the following manner posting written notice within the official Bolton board of the Bol of the Board of Education office emailing written notice to the Burlington County Times and the Courier
Post and filing with written notice within municipal clerk of the Eastern Township roll call mr yates roll call please roll call mr brown mr brown is absent
miss Mutramitz here mr dearcy here miss Fox here mrs null mrs null is absent mr thompson here mr peeleman here mr bach here mr compton was a notified late arrival approximately 6:30 p.m we have a
quarum mr bach uh motion to go into executive session we have Mr thompson seconded by M miss Fox roll call please mr gates
on executive session Miss Bramotes yes mr demarcy yes miss Fox yes mr thompson yes mr peeleman yes mr bach yes the motion carries all right we're going to return to
executive session uh we'll be back for public session at 7:30 thank you [Music] [Music]
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[Music] [Music] heat heat heat heat [Music] would all those who are able please rise for the pledge i pledge allegiance of the
standy for all thank you tonight's mission statement is going to be read by board member Mr thompson the mission of the East Sham Township School District is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in
partnership with students dedicated staff families and community the district provides a strong educational foundation that will empower our students to achieve their unique potential embrace self-directed lifelong learning develop the skills necessary for appropriate risk-taking and
responsible decision-making respect themselves and others problem solve individually and collaboratively become contributing members of a diverse global society thank you Mr thompson i'll now hand the floor over to Dr smith for our final budget presentation
[Music] okay so final budget presentation 2526 this is the fifth budget presentation that we've done the first was January 30th that was
a presentation about trying to chart the least horrible path in an absolutely horrendous situation followed by the February 27th presentation which was again the least horrible path in a
horrendous situation then March 17th the same and then the fourth budget presentation was entirely unique and unprecedented so that presentation was about a very unique opportunity that the state of New
Jersey was offering to school districts to apply for additional tax levy if they were under adequacy so for our district we are nearly 15 million under
adequacy which is an an absolutely astronomical and outrageous amount um per BOE approval at that meeting we have applied to the DOE for that amount
it includes $14,212,41 in additional local tax levy plus 710,000 in additional what's called incentive aid which is basically just um additional state aid which is 5% of that
local tax levy amount njde is reviewing our application final status pending um per an initial uh review email we got from them we have provided the required components we are awaiting the final
status the uh that additional 15 million below adequacy so that was and I'm this presentation isn't going to go back through like you know the previous four presentations all covered different
aspects of where we were at that moment all those presentations are located on our website under budget and finance if you go to departments on the homepage um and go to uh business budget and finance you can find those presentations
they're also in the ETSSD updates that go out every week if anyone who doesn't receive those from the community would like to um please just send me an email or my secretary Cindy Espazito will add you to the community contacts distribution group for those glad to do
that um so why do we apply right so just a quick recap um this is again for anyone who's seen prior presentations this will be very familiar state aid lost annually
since and this is a a cumulative number that we now lose annually right so over $7 million um rising costs salaries benefits goods services special ed transportation
pretty much any aspect any operational wheel of a district at this point statewide if you follow any headlines about where districts are at you see that the costs are outpacing the local 2% tax levy cap of
2% uh our district in the most recent data available by the DOE which is the very wonderful taxpayer guide to education spending on the DOE website anyone can go on there and take a look themselves we rank fourth leanest in budgetary cost spending a little over
$3,500 less per student than the average K8 district in the state which is a really really painful number because when you times that by our number of kids it means that based on that data there's over 16 million missing from our
budget just to be average just to have average resources for our kids who we think are extraordinary right and that's what makes that painful um we advocated we testified this year as we have each year at the Senate and
Assembly budget hearings this year we had a um kind of combined stakeholder team of BOE ETA and district administration our ask our request at
both hearings was to remove the 6% cap on state aid this year which is an arbitrary cap uh that the state did not cap the decreases in state aid throughout S2 now suddenly that
districts might get an increase they cap it um it did lead to better conversation with the uh elected officials especially at the Senate hearing than I personally have seen in the years I've been going um so it was promising you know that that there was a recognition that this
is unfair uh a recognition that something needs to be done what the disappointing part is the cap is still there instead what the state has done is extend this opportunity to districts to
take the additional local tax levy even if the cap were removed though we would still be um over six or 13.5 million below adequacy we know this strong schools strong communities and bears mentioning strong
property values and ultimately our district mission is about kids so uh within that additional tax levy application what did it contain and it contained all the items that were
presented in our April 8th presentation that's on our website here they're recapped just going through these it's a combination of maintaining items that were going to be cut in the the three prior presentations right so January
30th February 27th March 17th talked about all of the horrible cuts that we'd have to make to dig ourselves out of millions of dollars of budget hole and instead we get to talk about maintaining
these and going back to things that were cut during the seven years of S2 like reducing class size back to where we were in in still times that were higher
than what we experienced before S2 but certainly happier times than we are now um keeping the extra elementary extracurriculars late buses pausing increases to walking maintaining middle school and elementary class size maintaining benefits for all PAR
professionals who were earning them in 20 around 2013 when we last stopped last were hiring full-time pairs um maintaining the team structure which is um so fundamental to the identity of our
middle schools um and so on right we go through there um the uh yeah wonderful wonderful things that again if we go back to this slide here
are just a portion of that 16 million that's missing from our budget just to be average as well the uh the application included around $8 million which would go to a half a million would go to maintenance reserves which is a um which
we have depleted that reserves in order to balance our budget in prior years to a an un uh unrecommended level and then about 7.6 6 million to capital reserves to fund the necessary
infrastructure improvements that we've had to put off to survive the only way a district survives when it's 16 million 15 million below adequacy per the state and 16 million below average according to their other data source the only way a district survives in that
type of situation is by making decisions financially that aren't sustainable in the long term capital reserves we have our buildings need a lot of
work it's a health and safety issue this is going to let us do that the one element of the uh reductions that have been presented so far this spring that we are staying the course with is
transportation for two reasons budgetary savings projected to be at least 800,000 and it it works we already outsourced twothirds of our bus routes um it has become harder and harder
operationally to continue to maintain our own transportation department with that I'm going to hand it over to Mr yates all right thank you Dr smith good evening everyone welcome back um so here we are finally at our final budget
presentation here in April if you have not uh listened to our budget presentations that took place we started these discussions in January in January we talked about S2 its impact on our district why are we here how do we get here we identified that uh our
cumulative total state funding reduction uh from the onset of S2 to the projected 2526 is about $38 million for us um and each year that we pass a budget where our funding is not restored back to
prior uh S2 levels we will continue to absorb those losses whatever they are for us it's about $7 million a year as Dr smith mentioned um so here we are tonight and we're going to talk about our 2526 general fund budget and you can
see the number there in the top left our total budget is 100,186,119 next year as we've talked about at one of our budget presentations prior to this our revenues must equal our expenditures not the other way around or excuse me our appropriations must equal our revenues not the other
way around and you can see uh it's it's hard to tell but I I wanted to show just in graph style our different categories of revenues in the top right different categories of appropriations top left at our meeting in February we did talk about revenues meeting in January we
talked about um excuse me meeting in um uh January we talked about revenues as well meeting in February we also identified some of our appropriations and what those are and tonight we'll kind of look at each of these so here we are with our final revenues and we're just looking at them in a percent of
total this is all the revenues that make up our total budget our tax levy at 88 million or almost $89 million is the biggest increase from our March tenative budget approval it includes the additional tax levy authority that Dr smith had just talked about our budgeted
fund balance went from $400,000 to zero as a part of this application we are going to restore our fund balance back to 2% 2% is our maximum fund balance that we're allowed to keep as we've talked about before we are allowed to keep some money in a savings account we
call it fund balance 2% is our maximum so it's 2% of our prior year expenditures that's what we're allowed to keep right now our district is about $200,000 shy of being at 2% so we're not quite there so in order to restore fund
balance back to its maximum level we're going to no longer balance with $400,000 and then we're going to put $200,000 back into fund balance so we can restore that 2% um uh just assisting our district's long-term fiscal health our
state aid is broken up here in multiple categories and I want to talk about those so state funding that we're always talking about s2 funding is that number that says state aid there that's the 7,159,894 makes up about 7% of our budget an additional state funding that
we receive is what's called extraordinary aid and we talked about that as well at the January meeting it pays for additional services not covered by traditional state funding and we have to apply for that and we get a portion of those expenses back to us that's extraordinary aid we budget the prior
year's number that we received typically we do see it increase year-to-year so we're budgeting the maximum allowable for us which is $655,924 we also received some Medicaid revenue that number is significantly reduced from prior years we're down
about $180,000 in that category the state has uh changed the way they reimburse districts for certain Medicaid eligible expenses for students in our case we used to receive over $200,000 now we're going to be at 27 or $28,000 um and then the additional money
here the one to note that was not included in the March tenative presentation is our tax levy incentive aid so because we are taking the full allowable amount of the tax levy authority we also will receive the full allowable tax levy incentive aid from the state of New Jersey and that is
$710,62 we also talked about miscellaneous revenues pretty extensively at our uh January meeting that number has not changed we received some tuition from other LEAs we have to budget the interest we might receive on our reserve accounts and then we also
are still maintaining the withdrawal of capital reserves for the identified projects of 283,000 here's our year-to-year comparison of each of those categories please note that on this slide I did cate or lump all the state
aids together as one number but you can see the most significant increase for us is going to be tax levy going up at $18 million and we'll talk about that number in another slide all right um I wanted to see if there's anything else to talk about here i don't
believe our budget fund balance is down so that's a significant reduction we had also uh identified that previously in another meeting all right so let's talk about our tax levy breakdown so how did we arrive at our 88 million or $89 million number well this is exactly how
we take the prior year the pre-budget year number which is the current year's tax levy that we're receiving which is 70,89283 we add in the enrollment adjustment that we've talked about that this district's receiving so the board is taking their full allowable adjustment for the enrollment and that
is 2,336,320 and we arrive at our pre-budget year adjusted levy and it's adjusted for increases in enrollment and that gives us the $73,228,43 that number when inflated by 2% is the number that we were using at
our tenative meeting to balance the budget that's $74,692,971 in order to qualify for the additional tax levy authority you had to take the full allowable tax levy uh that the district had at its disposal so that's the 74 almost $75 million number
then you were eligible to take your additional tax levy for us the maximum amount that we can take is $14,212,041 which is how we arrive at the 2526 final tax levy of $88,95,12 and here we are looking at our
appropriations appropriation dollars and then the percent of total you can see that staffing as we've discussed exhaustively makes up the majority of our expenses so 54 cents of every dollar goes to pay for staffing salaries that doesn't include benefits when you
include benefits which is in the second number there that number balloons to close to 75% of every or 70 cent 75 cents of every dollar that we spend goes towards salaries and benefits for staff all staff uh included in that district
number that's a significant increase from the March number but I've included in that capital outlay so the additional money that we've identified for the from the uh tax levy authority that we're going to put towards much needed infrastructure improvements of this district is included in this district
cost number here so you're going to see it significantly up but other things that are in this cost are health benefits prescription dental um health our FICA costs for all employees our PERS obligation annually as well as uh
our insuranceances for the district so we have to ensure against risk and loss all of that's included in this district cost number district costs are going to capture anything that's not identified below that that the district has to spend on think of things like software that we might need to maintain our
facilities or software that we might need that's non-educational all of those things would be budgeted for here curriculum and technology that number has not changed our special education number has not changed our elementary and middle schools number and our operation has not changed our
operations and transportation number has gone up somewhat because we are putting some money back towards utilities as a result of this additional authority clubs and activities has changed the district is putting we were previously budgeting for $100,000 in this expense
category we as a part of this additional authority are putting back in um elementary clubs and activities so we've budgeted for an additional $250,000 in this number as I said before we're going to restore fund balance to us it's an expenditure because we have to put that money in that's
$200,000 and then we are depositing the maintenance reserve of $500,000 and of course our capital projects number for with the that's assigned from the withdrawal capital reserve has not changed it's 283,000 and here's your year-to-year
comparison so you can see where in which categories the numbers have gone up and our most significant cost here or increase is going to be in our district costs because that's going to include the roughly eight million or seven and a half million dollars we're putting towards capital improvements
and then here's the tax levy impact for all of the residents so you're going to say "Well what does this mean for me?" And here's where you will be able to gather that information the highlighted bar across the middle is going to show you your average assessed home value for Eve Sham Township remember these are
assessed values not market values it's not what your home's worth if you were to put in the market and sell it this is what the tax assessed value of your home is in Eve Sham the average assessed home is $272,785 our increase is going from $3,6547 from the prior year to
$4,5645 it's an increase of $99 or almost $910 per average assessed home you might say "My home isn't valued at $273,000." So it's a sliding scale if you go all the way up to $100,000 at the top for
every $100,000 of assessed value your increase is $33359 some things that impact this on the far right you can see the net value taxable from 2023 to 2024 the net that's all of the ratable base of the township
of Eve Sham and all of the collected dollars that they have to generate in taxes is about five billion 5.3 billion that number is up 21.5 million from the prior year so that means we're spreading out our taxes
amongst a larger ratable base that's helpful in keeping the increase down for everybody last year when we were at this uh table talking about this we experienced a decrease in the net value taxable year-to-year which means everybody feels it a little bit more
and then here's our capital project list these are some of the things that we've talked about before but we wanted to talk about them tonight of course we will have our heat pump replacements these are the individual uh air conditioning units that are available in just about every classroom space in the
district we need our roof replacements specifically at Deacy and Rice Elementary School we're going to do parking lot repairs and replacements where needed and when possible we have to update and upgrade our HVAC controls so some of our HVAC systems are tied
into an old network we need to tie them into a new network so we're gonna have to uh run wires to each one of our heat pumps that tie it into these new networks so that our maintenance staff can see those units on the backend software from their homes if need be we
need to replace our aging infrastructure so this would be things for us like our boilers our fresh air makeup units our cooling towers our rooftop units heat exchangers chillers ventilation units we need tree removal and replacement this is a significant one for us that we face
each year tree removal is expensive for us so we're budgeting for some of that but we have we own a lot of land and a lot of property that is adjacent to residential homes so when we get some fallen trees or trees fell and um we have to repair a fence or cut the tree
up or replace the the stump or remove the stumps this has to happen if you drive past the admin building you'll see some dead elm trees i'm not exactly sure it has something to do with a beetle my maintenance staff tells me but those elm trees are dead and if you drive by you'll see that they're dead they need
to come down because they represent a hazard for uh passing traffic and and um uh people walking we have to upgrade our overhead announcement systems in just about every building they're aging and
um you know certain classrooms are struggling to hear important announcements that represents a risk for us and we have to upgrade our phone system those two things are going to go hand in hand and then our withdrawal capital reserve we are signing the withdrawal of $283,000 specifically for
the MMS sewer ejector pump station that's the station that's located out here right by uh Tomlinson Road and that is for um all of the waste that leaves this facility goes into that station and is then pumped out to the sewer so it can then be treated by the township
additionally we owe a pr-rated portion of the MUA fuel pump station replacement as per the shared service agreement so we're going to assign some uh withdrawal capital reserve for that purpose and that's it for me thanks Mr yates so just uh because of
the distance in the room and so on um carried over this slide from the last uh presentation just to make the numbers a little bit bigger for folks um so that's the uh average assessed home increase as Mr yates said
25.4% and about $910 so um just to wrap up this final budget um the first in my memory and in many people's memories um that is talking
about maintaining talking about adding building improving instead of cutting reducing decreasing it's the only way the only way that we're going to get out of this
not just yearly but but really like daily perennially unendingly the the nightmare of our budget situation which ultimately impacts our staff and our kids our mission tonight's about mission
is to help students learn and grow to reach their potential to the greatest extent that we can that's our job as a district and the only way we've been able to do it in the face of decreasing financial resources is through the quality of our
staff but at a certain point that becomes harder and harder the ratios if you go into again that taxpayer guide and you look at the ratios of students to teacher students to administrator whatever metric you look at in there it's a tale
of extreme challenge this final budget lets us overcome that challenge and begin to meet our kids' needs better this year and beyond and our staff and our kids deserve
this so that's uh we'll wrap up and see if uh questions we have from the board [Music] no questions from the board seeing none any general comments from the board
no someone's gonna talk oh let's let Mrs null go first because I think you have a question right yeah oh on the uptake but um I I asked this question in an email at the last minute and I'm sure you can answer the question
i was curious about the capital reserves that we will get from the state approximately 7.9 and I had inquired about why you're moving that out of the reserves so to speak right now instead
of like putting some into the reserves and then take it out slowly as we com as we move forward with some of the capital improvements up there because you cannot do all of that as far
as I know all of that big list of the projects in a year so could you put some of it into the capital reserves and would we make any money on that rather than just taking it
all from there yeah so we're assigning those two expenditures in the subsequent year budget so that we can spend that money on the identified projects that the board had agreed to at the last meeting um the list is extensive
because we don't know that the cost of each of those projects or what you identified we might not be able to tackle this or that but as much as we can get done we want to get done we've identified those as critical needs through our maintenance and facility staff who were here at our last meeting
if there is any of that money that we're not able to spend next year for those critical needs those would be a deposit at the end of the year into our reserve account okay and do we make any money on the reserve accounts we make the same
interest rate on whether it's in our reserve or in our general fund okay so we'll make the same amount of interest on that money regardless do you have an estimate of you know ballpark all there there's a lot of things on that list all of the heat pump replacements and so on
just a general estimate of how long you think those um urgent projects will take no I I wouldn't have that but that would have been a good question for Brian and Tom when they were here last meeting okay thank you
i had one I had one other question um did could you discuss anything about Yale and what the plans are for that yeah absolutely thank you Mr pman um so and that is um it was a budget item not not so much a budget item but it was an approval item at the I believe at the
March meeting so um we you know have an existing contract with Yale at Evans so they they um lease space from us there we're very appreciative of that and uh in the course of conversations with Yale about um basically them taking on more
of that space at Evans um they asked would we have other space in the district we um at the time this was back uh prior to this additional tax levy um when we were in a $7 million hole we we
were going to you we're going to have a lot of space uh unfortunately through reducing um in a way we absolutely don't want didn't want and um were forced to do uh teaching positions so we uh were talking
to them about basically they would lease space from us at that time it was going to be in the six green pod at the Macy for six classrooms they have six classrooms that were um they were leasing from actually Medford School District and uh we're going to switch
and lease from us um then this wonderful opportunity additional tax levy so in the meantime um we have been looking at what other space might be available in our district to in order to um meet the commitment
that we made to them since they had to give notice to Medford back on March 1st um but they would not they'd be moving to a different district so um we have identified three rooms here at Marlton Middle which would be for uh the three classrooms that they use for their
middle school program and three classrooms in uh the fifth and fourth grade pod at the Macy Elementary which would be for their three classrooms for elementary school um we wouldn't want to have you know this way their their middle school classes end up
in in a middle school um and and the elementary classes end up in an elementary school um the uh what that means for Demacy Elementary specifically would be um they
they currently have two available classrooms which would we would shift so that those are those two classrooms are in that fifth fourth grade pod and then we would need to basically create an additional classroom which would be in the nearest possible room to that fifth
fourth grade pod um and that's that's how that's at this point that's how we're planning to do it great thanks yeah i I would just add one other thing and I'm glad you you brought the just because it as we think about these pieces so a person might ask um
what you know with all this additional levy why continue forward with um this agreement well a couple reasons one um from a you know we we take every aspect of what we
do including every dollar very seriously of how we you know that's a resource that we are um bound to maximize for for for children right and any district that has an opportunity
to find an additional revenue stream of $300,000 it's an it's a that's a really large amount of money um and it's one that we certainly would want to give an opportunity to and we can assess as we
go along um but that's that's that's one reason why we're continuing is because the the fi that financial amount represents positions that we're able to preserve and and money that we're able to put toward kids the second reason is
we we made a commitment to to Yale and they've been a wonderful partner for us with Evans we're looking to expand that partnership and um you know the timing the timeline was all beyond anyone's control
um I think I said it at the April 8th meeting you know wonderful that we have this opportunity with the additional tax levy and at the same time I can't believe the state waited so long to make this opportunity available
they put towns throughout our state through such unnecessary trauma um they've known I we a district doesn't end up $15 million under adequacy overnight this has been growing year by year by year we could have used this
opportunity at any point in the past and that's been a known fact so to wait until not just the 11th hour but after midnight after the approval of the tenative budget after districts had to meet the their own timeline the DOE's own timeline and submit those tenative budgets to the county only then to make
this opportunity available [Music] um meant that um by that point you know we we had that we had already begun moving forward with the Yale uh partnership so thanks again
yeah any other questions for the board any general comments from the board i'll go um so my comment tonight um is regarding the mail that we all
received at our homes from the bus drivers you know we're all public people and we know that um but regardless of the intent and your feelings are 100% valid but when I got 20 letters in my mailbox on Friday my initial reaction
was a little bit of fear and a little bit of you know you know again regardless of the intent there was nothing threatening in the in the letters it was about your feelings about the outsourcing situation and again totally valid however it's my feeling as you know a
public person you know there's ways to contact us and there's ways to do that here and there's ways to do that on email and there's ways to do that in mail to the board office um it crossed the line sending emails to my home i'll speak just for myself here but to my
home um you know I I don't ever want to feel like my family you know I got into this knowing that there's a certain level of heat I will take um that my family might take that my young children could possibly take but I under no circumstances got into this expecting to
feel in the least bit unsafe um because the feeling that I felt immediately was the implicit intent not the explicit intent the implicit feeling that I received was we know where you live and granted all information is public it is
not illegal to send mail but to me it was a line that was crossed and my plea to the public as as a mother first and foremost is that that is a line that is not to be crossed and just to be respected going forward thank you
thank you Miss Bramos any other general comments from the board yeah I' I'd like to add to that that if anyone that was here at the last meeting listened to my speech about the vile comments that were posted online um particularly by a
gentleman about myself who is a member of the transportation department so to open my home mailbox to find 20 letters from that department again nothing overtly threatening but there are
multiple ways to contact us here email we have mailboxes at the administration building there is a level of boundary crossing when it comes into your home and I don't know that I need to say any
more than I said last time but as Terry said when you have people making comments about you personally and now that department is sending things to your home address we have children we we
have nobody nobody wants to feel threatened whether explicitly or implicitly and that was also my first feeling um in terms of the budget I I also feel like I said what I had to say last time i I
still stand by I would have liked to have seen us take half to restore the cuts and not put the entire state burden on the taxpayers um I you know we we do need everything i
understand it but things are so expensive right now already that for some people an extra $150 a month can be make or break and that is where I stand on this thank you Miss Fox any other comments
from the board mr dearcy I was going to save my comments till after the uh the meeting ended um with the board member comment section um but you know I I like Miss Fox um made many
of my opinions on this very clear at the last meeting um you know I I spoke uh to the struggle that a lot of young families are going to have to have in terms of trying to afford um to live in Marlton uh you know kids who grew up in
this school district uh the kids that we want to talk about it's about them right uh who you know are not going to be able to afford to live in this town um it's it's just the reality i mean you know um and I could be on a soap box talking about it sure but it's it's true and
it's how I feel so I'm going to have to say it um not just them though you know low-income people uh fixed income seniors one in four of which do not uh are not registered for the senior property tax freeze uh so if you are not registered for that you think you
qualify it please do it especially now uh that taxes are going up almost $1,000 for the average assessed home um I I will be voting though tonight because the tax increase is just too much and there was a way forward that we could have gone that would not have raised to
the full levy that Trenton told us we could do because Trenton thinks that that's what our district should be taxing but that's not necessarily what EVAM should be taxing so those are my thoughts thank you Mr dearcy any other comments from the board
i would just like to reiterate the point that Miss Bramotes and Miss Fox made regarding our board's accessibility we continue to be the most accessible board around um we are available not just at our board uh building mailboxes we are available via email which is not a
luxury that most towns have most board members do hide their emails um we're available via email at board meetings here we do not cap our public comment at 30 minutes like most boards um so I please urge the public to exercise one of those previous options when contacting us moving to one of those
public comments um we're going to do two public comments tonight they're going to be backtoback first we're going to ask just for public comment about the budget then we're going to open it up to public comments about any items of interest so the meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items pertaining to the previous budget presentation
however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person is there anyone who would like to comment about the budget and just really quickly um because I see some new faces
uh we're getting ready to put up our timer um so that will tell you how much time you have left of those three minutes it is a public comment it's not a Q&A the board does not respond to questions as you are speaking if there is a question obviously you're welcome
to pose your questions um if there's a question asked that the president thinks should be addressed at the end of public comment he will either address it or ask one of the administrators to do so um again you should state your name and
where you're from um tonight I don't see as many kids as we've had at the last few but if there are any kids that are going to speak please just tell us where you go to school we we don't need to know where you live um and um yeah I think that should be it just
please be respectful of everyone that's speaking address your comments to the board and um keep you know the yelling out to a minimum so that we can hear everyone are we ready to go uh my name is Bob
Duca i'm 35 years in this town first I have to say uh as a taxpayer I have a hard time accepting the line that proverbial mag falling out of the sky that's my tax dollars you're talking about sir that was a terrible choice of
words uh I'm not here tonight to advocate for any layoffs busing changes healthc care in classes make classes bigger what I am going here to talk about is the $9 million you have in additional spending 11 positions $8 million worth of cash going to the
reserves now your audit shows that you have $3.7 million from last year still in there and the $8 million by the way is baked into every budget moving forward so next year you have $8 million you're going to spend x mill you have $8 million it's already baked in uh I know
what to do better with my money sir than you do it's not my s my money works better in my savings account and my own no account uh money and spending does not equal results if we haven't learned that we've got a bigger issue uh I read
your summary online your student report uh speaks highly it it doesn't say anything about deficient inadequate below adequacy as a matter of fact it says right here "Students in the ETSD have wonderful education opportunities and do well on district state
assessments." Um then we're given a PowerPoint presentation to how terrible we are because we're not providing a thorough and efficient education and why it's because the state standard says we're not spending enough money below adequacy average uh does that mean we're
going to lower this the the salaries of our teachers to be average are are we going to eliminate programs to be average are we going to not teach English and math to lower our proficiency to average are we going to let our buildings fall to disrepair just
so that we're average with the rest of the world um I think we need to flip the script we need to show that good governance can provide a good education um your responsible budget you have nice
facilities i read that we're the fourth leanest budget of a district our size and I think there's 76 i might be wrong with that we shouldn't be looking to go to 50 we should be looking to go to number one in business if you can do something
and provide a quality some a project for something less that's awesome that's highly looked after this is a business you're a board you have an executive committee you have employees you have students that's your customer where are
the taxpayers where are your stakeholders a good honest healthy review of every budget quarterly yearly is healthy make the decisions but not based because they spend more we need to spend
more in closing I urge you to vote no take the additional $9 million may I finish please i will wrap it up quickly take the additional $9 million out of the budget call a special meeting and pass a
responsible budget doing right by the kids what please wrap it up i am doing right by the kids i know you're doing it you told me right here do right by the taxpayers this evening vote no
[Applause] good evening my name is Angel McDermott i am the NJA representative for the EAM Township Education Association first I want to assure you that regardless of the outcome you will
not have any bus drivers coming to your houses and terrorizing you as suggested on social media the purpose of the letters has been done by many associations throughout New Jersey to get your attention as you are aware earlier this year the association took a
vote of no confidence and shared it with you in the leadership of Dr smith the education the bus drivers wanted to ensure that you receive their messages in a means that is not controlled by the district you will be voting tonight on a proposed budget that
eliminates all but four drivers mr yates stated that privatizing will save 800,000 but what will the cost be one slide showed that for this year 2425 the cost was upwards of a little over or more over 6 million but next year was 9
million 800,000 savings but you're spending almost 2.2 million more how was that savings over spring break several of the drivers met to review bus runs to see how the district could be more efficient and save money in reviewing the runs the
drivers were able to consolidate many of the existing runs this consolidation made it so that the majority of the runs could be handled by the eve sham drivers and only about a third needing to be outsourced that is the reverse of what is happening now as they looked over the
runs they found that the company you hired had runs with only three students or five students on the buses did you know that and for each run you paid for it please understand once you seed control of your transportation to a
private company you are at their mercy and they will take advantage of the district at every opportunity that they can by keeping operation under your control you have total control and you will know what to budget and how to budget dr smith had shared with me that
the reason for outsourcing was not only financial but operational the drivers have nothing to do with the operations of transportation any operational issues lie at the feet of your administration i've heard from many drivers that when issues arise the response is call
Hillman rather than consult with the available drivers to pick up the slack each call costs more money but it's done because it's just easier by law you must meet with the association and afford us the opportunity to make proposals that will save the drivers jobs and make
transportation operation run more efficiently which will also make it run more affordably dr smith has agreed to meet next week with a team that is comprised of association leadership and drivers we are hopeful that the board representatives will be there as well we
ask the board to keep an open mind review the budget again and make contingencies to allow for the transportation operation to remain under your control once our attorney receives the remaining information that was requested on April 1st our team can
review and make the appropriate proposals for our meeting next week we are committed to working with the board to consider all options to maintain all EVA bus drivers thank you hi my name is Lisa this is my first time here i do not have any kids so I'm
supporting all these things i think there's a lot of things that are important that we need to consider but here's my thinking you have I looked at your budget you have like the five math teachers you know one for each school why can't we just have one teacher that circles around every other day to
another school we have assistant principles too why do we need that why can't we find a way to make a win by win and get some of the things but not everything i mean I'm not getting a raise this year okay my company's not giving raises and now I got to pay for all these extra positions you're adding
in i would like you to say no and relook at the budget and go slowly into the things you need including the building repairs thank you good evening my name is Joyce Luchi i've been a bus driver here in Eastam Township for 25 years this is the fourth
time in my 25 years that the administration has suggested that our department be outsourced each time after numerous debates it has always been decided that it would be less costly to keep EFA bus drivers this board has yet to see any bids processed for this year
to know if it would cost be cost effective to outsource us to my understanding that process wouldn't be until July 1st after this board has to vote on this budget why is that why are we waiting till July the 1st why is it being h what's being hidden here how
could this board consciously make a decision to outsource when you don't even know the cost and we all know the bids will be low for the first year and the company will increase the cost of its high the company will increase cost at its highest percentage allowed after
the first year mr creates i would like to know how you could continue to recommend outsourcing when you yourself have changed your own child's bus from a Hillman's bus to a Eve Sham bus causing the Eve sham driver to go out of their area to pick up your children because
you didn't want your children on a Hillman bus i'm sure all these other taxpayers whose taxes are going to increase over $99 and more would like to have a choice of who will drive their children to school each day as I examine the
additional needs of the district I have a couple that I don't think are necessary is it necessary to have two traveling vice principles how much help is that at a cost of $280,000 i don't think it's necessary do we
really need new PA and phone systems in every school i hear the PA systems out out of each school I go to while I'm outside not necessary at a cost of $850,000 do we need every phone and
every PA system repaired or just certain ones i've heard that some of the schools have had them repaired recently within the past 5 to seven years i don't think we need them all done i would it it would save bus drivers jobs instead of doing all the PA systems
$850,000 $600,000 to restore two clerk typus if we weren't going to restore them before if it's working why don't we just keep it that way $120,000 for a case manager why is it needed all of a sudden 480,000
math interventionalists in each elementary school why not have one or two traveling among each elementary school more savings there 650,000 for repaving parking lot at the Macy's school i would fill the holes and save 32 bus drivers
jobs reasons given to outsource is not the cost but the operational and effectiveness that's not bus drivers responsibility to have the effectiveness and the operational be it is administrations we need more effective
upper management not outsourcing the bus drivers hello my name is Rosemary Bernardi um I just have to say Dr smith started off with strong schools and strong community i was with the uh kindergarten uh initiative and we adv we talked about that all the time you know
and you know I always been a staunch advocate for programs programs is what makes EIM Township School great um but this budget isn't really talking about programs we're talking about $7 million in capital improvements so um I do have a prepared statement this has been one
of the most remarkable budget seasons I can recall in just four months the Esham Township School District went from facing a $7 million budget deficit to proposing an $18 million tax levy increase prior to the last meeting I emailed all the board members about how
I would have voted and I still don't vote i don't fault any of you for your votes the budget development is a process and that vote was just one step along the way however between then and now more work should have been done to address the expenses particularly
transportation costs where which are projected to reach uh 8 million next year a major and growing financial pressure that remains unadressed even with the plan to outsource tonight I'm clear on how I would vote i urge you to consider approving only half of the proposed tax
levy increase and advocate to the DOE to allow the district to bank the unused cap for use over the next three years the DOE created this opportunity for you to go up to adequacy the DOE can allow you to cap bank
it i think it keeps the flexibility for the future i know you all concerned about not taking care not taking it because it might not be available to you but you need to advocate for it there is no justification for the board to double dip on tax living increasings taking
both the 14.9 million adequacy adjustment which is that 14,000 per pupil amount and the 2.3 million growth enrollment adjustment amount we're talking $10 million in tax levy last year our levy was 70 million this year
it's going to be 88 million the state calculates our adequacy budget the 84 at $84.7 million so they say you know we take that $14 million or $14,000 per pupil and they factor in all these things and they say EAM your adequacy
budget is $84.7 million they also say your local fair share is $85 million they take our property values and our income and they determine what our local fair share is no matter which number you use the proposed $88 million tax levy exceeds
the standard by 2.7 or 3.3 million this is a serious concern frankly it looks like a money grab at the taxpayers's expense adding to these concerns the district still does not have clear strategic goals without defined goals it
becomes even harder to justify the significant tax increases to the public or to prioritize spending decisions responsibly strategic planning should come before asking the community to vote you have the opportunity to take a break
confer with each other amend the resolution i want you to remember your sto stewards of both our schools and community dollars financial discipline and thoughtful planning are not wrap up they must go hand in hand thank you
hello I'm Miss Donnie for 22 years at Eastam Township bus driving way back when my mother was a East Township bus driver when there was a shift gear i was born and raised on Marbal Avenue i would like to begin with ex apologizing to all
the parents and the students for being where am I i would like to apologize to all our children and parents we have grown to know and love for how horrific the past few years have been and for most of us trying to use our sick days a lot of our old-timer bus
drivers have over 180 days and this is what we get for being dedicated and loving our job bus drivers and aids have been trying to work and fix the problems but due to the issues from the superintendent and business agent I'm here to tell you at this moment we are also dealing with no
running buses the ones since last the week before Easter had a flat tire still was sitting there this morning with a flat they couldn't get nobody in during Easter break to fix a flat tire or a bus that was fixed broke down on Thursday and had to be towed still sitting there
waiting to be towed and all the other buses that need to be fixed also our CB radios are no better the cameras aren't no much better there is a lot of fixing up to do there we all wrote emails had meetings spoke one-on-one trying to help
and explain how this department can work it always he says she says who knows all we know it can be done mount Laurel Mefort Lenipe has proven this why can't this township with with the right
leadership who understands a contract with a built-in late run who knows to use a driver that's on a standby hiring people that want to work and available to work all hours not pick and choose that's what Senarity is for this could be a good running department like it
used to be if we had individuals that didn't want to just throw it all away individuals that actually think they will be saving money well good luck with that yes I will miss my job but most of all I will miss all the children and families and friends I have made in
the last 22 years thank [Applause] you good evening my name is Sandy Student and I sat where the board members are sitting for
many many years and no one realizes you don't get paid and it takes time away from your families and your office but as Mrs bernardi said this budget process has been fraught with
disregard and sort of reminds me of a child in a candy shop just grabbing everything they can i think you've used a poor choice of words when you've said whatever we can imagine we wanted to do if my recollection is correct and you go
to referendum with the capital improvements the state would pay 40% of that i know you don't answer questions i got that and that would reduce your expenditures by over $3 million over this budget that
we've seen tonight and you have a history of passing a referendum most other districts can't say that the other thing that really troubles me is Mrs null asked a question and your business administrator said "No we're not going to spend everything right away so why
are we raising the funds for it now if we're not going to spend it in the following year?" It's very very troubling to me um it's kind of like padding your budget and in this climate we don't want to do that i tried to determine if all of the items
listed were in the long range facility plan but due to a snafu I wasn't able to get that until 5:30 this afternoon i know that the mission is children and I've always understood that but I don't understand how assistant
principles could increase childhood learning which is our ultimate goal i also am troubled because I don't think the board and the administration has explored very very simple lowhanging
fruit let me give you a for instance this district owns real estate that is readily convertible to residential property will people object
maybe would it be a benefit you bet your sweet ass it would be it will increase the ratables in town so more people will be paying taxes it would reduce your need to come up with an excessive budget and it would
also show people that we can take a different path not just taxing people the states admitted they're not giving us enough money my suggestion last meeting was don't submit a budget make them come over and run the schools they told you
they're not giving you enough money but they're telling you you can tax the payers the last thing I want to make a suggestion if this budget is voted buy a new projector and buy Bluetooth speakers to make the room more amendable to
meetings thank you very much [Applause] hi my name is Emily Jervisy and I live at 40 Paddock Road i am speaking today because I am upset about the decision to rent out Deacy Elementary School classrooms i've been following the budget process and attending meetings
for years i do know that the decision was on the agenda for March but I don't remember much of the conversation being in public this decision has a direct impact on our children and the fact that parents are finding out through the rumor mill and not by the board or the administration is insulting as tough as
it is I do support a tax increase to full fully fund our schools however I do not support this additional money grab to rent out Deacy these classrooms have not been sitting empty they are actively being used by DECI students so the fact a contract was signed before final
information on state funding came in is confusing especially because we have seen such fluctuations between preliminary and final state funding numbers in the past few years i look forward to hearing from the board and Dr smith on the following specifics one what next year looks like for each grade
specifically the fourth graders and the fifth graders who are going to be most impacted both students and teachers two what is being done to keep any changes to both teachers and students at a minimum and what is being implemented for to keep other non-dem students out
of the younger grade wings dr smith you said numerous times that the contract was made and we need to honor it what about honoring the needs of Demacy Elementary School students thank you [Music] [Applause]
i'm going to piggyback that i am here today with a heartfelt plea to reconsider the decision to place the Yale program in the fourth and fifth grade pod at Deacy School i am hoping that you take a lot of time to listen to what I'm going to say and give it the
respect it deserves i strongly feel that you should reconsider placing those Yale students into that pod you said tonight specifically that the Yale students have to be summer keep the middle school with
the middle school what about our kids keeping our littles where they're supposed to be i have taught fifth grade for 23 years i am very aware of their ability to mold and adapt however as a parent I don't want them to have to moan
and adapt at this point in time the internet social media everything is ruining our youth the sooner that we step in as parents and help this out the better we will be in the long run putting our fourth and fifth graders if this rumor is even true because like you
said we hear it through the rumor mill if it is true and our fifth graders of next year or our fourth graders get pushed into the middle school wing they are going to be surrounded by material words actions and behaviors that are
just too mature for them please consider our students first not Yale's our students here please Dr smith think about this before you place it put
thought into it thank you good evening my name is Erica Whiskawitz and I am a fifth grade teacher at Deacy Elementary i am speaking on behalf of my colleagues but more importantly of the rising fourth and fifth grade students affected by Yale taking over the fourth
and fifth grade pod at Dece Elementary we discovered this was the plan when several people from Yale came to our pod after school one day again we are frustrated with the lack of transparency in disseminating this crucial
information to staff and families when we spoke with you Dr smith last week you mentioned that the district made a commitment to Yale and that there were rooms available in dees there are no rooms available
therefore two fifth grade classes a computer class along with two resource teachers would be would need to be uprooted moving Deacy Elementary students out of the pod would push them into DMS thus displacing several middle
school classes as well not to mention the fourth graders would be sharing a space with students who may have difficulties adjusting to the pod traffic the noisy bell system and other distractions the fourth and fifth grade classes at Deacy utilize the pod area for projects
guest speakers student council events and small group pullout instruction we do not have access to common areas at DMS as these areas are reserved for middle school only our current schedules and school procedures are created around the needs of middle
school students adding Yale to our shared spaces would further stretch our resources we feel you need to repprioritize your commitments and think about what is best for EFAM students first and foremost while I understand the commitment to
Yale was made before the tax levy increase was made available and you must balance a budget your plan was not strategically prepared with contingencies if the sixth grade pod was no longer available even the original plan to house Yale in sixth green was not
without many flaws your plan also lacked input from important stakeholders it should have included all cabinet members supervisors and principles from the start as their expertise can provide better solutions for where to place Yale students it
should not be a two-man show mr yates and Dr smith parents are not interested in paying higher taxes only for their children to come second to an outside agency currently Yale students use trailers on the Medford campus they are completely
separate from the general school population for lunch recess restroom facilities and other activities trailers would be a better solution for next year until more space is available at Evans trailers should be placed on Evans property so that no EFAM student is
uprooted we ask that you reconsider where Yale students are placed and prior prioritize our students first thank you [Applause]
hi my name is Laura Cots and my family and I have lived here in Marlton for almost 14 years and like so many others we moved here for the excellent school district what I've seen though over these past handful of years is concerning and quite frankly heartbreaking my fourth grade son is
asking me why he won't be in fifth in the fifth grade classrooms next year and I don't have a good answer for him except to say that I will stand up here and make my voice heard for him my second grade daughter was in tears because one of her friends told her that she was going to a private school if Yale students would come to Demi our
students have had to worry year after year now about cuts and major changes to their school and education it's not fair to put them through the stress and worry school should be carefree and fun instead our children are worrying about what changes are coming as a result of Yale coming to Demise and they deserve
answers as parents why weren't we asked for input before the contract for Yale was signed or like one of the other people said why did you contact the principal the teachers the professionals at the last board meeting it was presented as a possibility to help raise money but apparently it was
already a done deal this decision seems very shortsighted what happens next year when there might be more than two fifth grades why do fifth grade classes in the resource room need to be displaced do you have a plan in place for if there's a possible disruptive situation that might occur you mentioned shifting the
classes as if these students are furniture they are children they have looked forward to this year they've been through COVID they've been through so much and to you for you to just say we're shifting them shows how you feel and it's very disheartening as a parent
and as a teacher these are children elementary age children who are being used like pawns so you can make more money let me be clear my issue is not with Yale coming to Demi but with the disruption it is causing the current students at Deacy
you said you had an agreement with Yale what about the agreement though that you have with all of our current students you also said earlier that our students are the most important but your actions scream otherwise because our tax increase we're able to maintain smaller class sizes and the jobs of the 10% of
staff whose jobs are in danger but you're sending a message with your previously proposed plans that you don't value the students and staff money first people second that's what it's been for years now i am pleading with you to please live up to your previous words
and put the students and the staff first they are the ones in the building they are the ones the most directly affected by these choices they are not dollar signs they are people hi my name is Lisa Argus 31 Albany Road um I'm on the Deacy
Elementary PTA board um I have two children who attend Demi um I support our board of education and Dr smith i'm here to be a partner and I know you've seen that from me with previous things we've worked on in the past but I do not support the decision to have an outside
school rent space within our within our elementary school walls this is not to be pompous or dismissive or to reject the Yale school this is to keep our elementary school to keep the feeling of solidarity and safety alive as it stands today i ask
each of you do you have right now or have you ever had children attend to Macy Elementary if you have you as a board would never have chosen chosen this spot in Deacy Elementary School to run out to anyone i did bring a map which you can't
see from that far but um right here is where circled in blue that you can't see is where the elementary pot is there's so much more school other than what's here in elementary and you can see how um in this area we just have this close little
knit community there um the part circled that's in blue um it's um yeah actually you can't see it but so there's spots in yellow there that we call pods um we do a lot of learning in these pods um and I'll email you the map so you can see what I'm talking about i
know Dr smith has been there but maybe some other people on the board don't know how the school's laid out um so we do a lot of learning in the pods a lot of PTAing in the pods we have a lot of fun and create core elementary school memories there and this is where all of
the activities um I mentioned take place um and as you shift our students around into the um middle school portion this is all going to be lost um and like I said this has nothing to do with the Yale school you could have rented this space out to anyone and we'd still feel this way it is the fact that you're
breaking up our elementary school and we can't sit back and watch that happen without a fight and I wonder I also wonder too how this could have been a decision that was made without putting it out to a public vote to take over our school and why Deacy and why this spot
and I wonder why you can't break the contract they haven't moved in yet you owe them nothing and you owe our kids everything thank you um hello my name is Andrea Brown and I live at 19 Raleigh Lane i'm in a I'm the
mother of two amazing boys but I'm also in a very interesting situation here because one of those boys goes to Yale and one of them goes to Demacy so my questions really come from the Yale point in the sense that my son had
to leave Jagger unfortunately because he got too disruptive he threw chairs he ran out of the building three times to the street the school wasn't available to meet his needs i question if Deacy
has been looked at and ensure that these children are able to stay in that area if they elope and run um is the building my son has thrown a desk my son has done these things and he's a great
kid and these children at Yale are great children but they turn into the Hulk sometimes that's what we call it and Yale is equipped to deal with these students and to deal with the physical
and the destruction i question and I keep my fourth grader separate from my 14-year-old who is autistic because sometimes the physical aggression can get rough so while I'm a Yale parent and these
children are amazing and lovely I I fear for some of the safety of the children in the Demasy school my child included um on a simpler note as well the not simpler but my fourth grader these were the children that really got hit by
COVID when they first started they didn't get that kindergarten experience where they got to go in without masks and learn how to be a child and learn all of those things but they did always see those fifth grade clapouts and my son was like well if we
move and we're not getting that and that was something that was so special that these children will also miss I believe uh it's a silly little thing but it's a it's a momentous occasion for these children so I just hope that all of these factors are being
considered especially for the safety of our children thank you good evening my name is Jason Lutz um I've been a dedicated EPA bus you know employee for 13 years and I humbly ask you to save our
jobs we we care about these kids and we bust our butts to get them to school on time every day in a timely in a timely manner safely safe manner everybody does what
they have to do to make sure those buses are safe every day and nothing's going to go wrong so I think you should really look at this and say well it it doesn't make sense to outsource because you just don't know
what you're getting you know what you're getting here we're dedicated we're always willing to do what we have to do and it's not easy to get up every day come to work knowing that you're not
wanted it your your job's pretty much done and that's you know that's what we've been hearing for the last six months now or whatever it's been so it it's not easy but we try everybody
tries so just try and reconsider keeping the bus drivers in the budget thank you my name is Kathy Munger 52 South Locust Avenue i have been a district employee for 20 years bus driver for 14 and I
noticed on the one of the slides that you're saying that twothirds of our runs are now being outsourced and it works i don't know whether you're aware or not what we have been dealing with since the probably the past two years our coordinator and assistant coordinator do
not have any background in transportation we have been giving them suggestions since the beginning of this school year of how we have worked as a team over the years with our senior drivers and how we know where any other driver is at any given point and how we can come together and do those runs
instead of outsourcing them all the time take for this morning for example I came to work there were four drivers that showed up for work today did not have any buses to transport their children because they're broke they need they've been sitting two buses have been sitting at Elkins right now for over a month i
don't know what the holdup is parts waiting for money i have no idea but you had four drivers that are sitting in their vehicles or in the building not being able to work and then you had two drivers sitting inside the building on standby so I would like to know what happens of course they paid what $1,100
to Hillman's today because we didn't have any buses and it was easier to have to give everything to Hillman or outsource it as they're saying instead of us coming together and putting our runs together i I just would like I want an answer why we have been operating
like this it's been like this for the past six months for the most of the school year we come we show up we're willing to do something we give examples to upstairs what can we do and you know what they say don't worry about it and you come in the next day drivers that are out one two three because they don't
have buses and then Hillman Hillman Hillman Hillman of course it's easier because you're just giving it all away and I just want an answer if somebody can give me one through an email my district email is Kathy Mer why is this happening how come we get no support
thank you [Applause] wait for my timer oh once you say your name I'll Miss Jay um I've been a bus driver here for 23 years so I'm one of
the four that will have a job if that's actually what will happen i'm also one of the drivers that got together to consolidate runs so it is possible and as Miss Angel had already said we have Hillman runs that only have three five
maybe 10 students that go in the same district or same area going to the same school put all those students on a 54 passenger bus save my co-workers jobs we do this day in and day out we deal with
so much that none of you even can fathom and I apologize for any negativity that's been put on social media i'm not part of that however I just want to say one thing myself just two years ago we had a different coordinator i was put
into a bus that had not been on the road for four years it caught fire and I had three preschoolers on that bus i had to physically pick them up and evacuate this is stuff that we deal with that's behind the scenes no one knows so when you're telling my co-workers that they
don't have a job anymore that's what you need to think about this is what we deal with thank you for your time uh hi good evening my name is Matt i live on Lexington Circle here in Marlton i have three kids uh one have one who's a freshman at Cherokee who went through
Demacy i have a sixth grader at Demacy and I have a fourth grader at TMC who will be in fifth grade next year and we be impacted by a lot of this uh first and foremost that being said I want to thank all of our amazing teachers at at Deacy my kids have had an amazing experience so thank you very
much um I can't imagine how much harder their jobs will be when we move to 30 35 kids in a classroom which by the way I think goes against fire code um they'll much less attention will be given to all these kids which really leads to the
suffering of their education uh which by the way goes against your mission statement you said this budget will will meet our kids' needs how exactly will that happen when you increase the class size how exactly will that happen when you put
our kids at risk when you rent out space to Yale at the Macy school you said you made a commitment to Yale to find them space what happens to the commitment to our kids keep them safe and give them a good education
that's your mission statement right at least part of it i along with everybody else at Deacy do not support renting out space to the Yale students my children no longer feel
safe there how would you feel i beg you to reconsider this decision not to rent out space at Demacy by the way how much money do you have in the budget for a lawsuit when something happens to one of our Demacy students
because of an unfortunate troubled Yale student keep that in [Applause] mind good afternoon good evening time is
good night um my name is Shalica i come to these meetings time and time after again and during the spring break I did some looking and you know stuff like that dr smith when you first got here
the very beginning this is what you said and this was the last part of what you said is a last belief we will not just rise to these challenges but become stronger and better because of them more communive and collaborative more intentional in our decisions is all aligned to the goal of helping our
children right that's what you said i believe in genuine and real communication everyone's voice is valuable please share thoughts ideas concerns and more with your principal and me i will be looking for ways to listen
together as a team of district families and town community we will meet the challenges we are facing how to continue to serve our students in the best way possible successfully i share words keeping in mind that more than what you
say we are what we do do you still mean that um because it it just doesn't make sense to me and um when it comes to the busing situation you're going to outsource buses these bus drivers have known these
kids probably since these kids were probably in prek or kindergarten they've been driving them around um and you're going to now make changes with that to me it makes no sense again and like I told you the last meetings I'm tired of talking up here
because it's like a repetitive thing and it's like I'm still talking to a brick wall basically my thing is make it make sense to the parents and the bus drivers if you're basically guaranteeing their kids are going to be
safe on the bus we feel more safe with the bus drivers that we have now because we've known them they've known them for all these years they know their kids a lot of these kids have autism i hear as a mom that her child has autism um I can
tell you for a fact I've worked with kids with autism and their strength is like no other are you guys equipped to say "Okay we'll rent out Yale do you guys have DSPs in there to help them do you guys have RBTs in there to help them when they SIB um because it's still a
part of your they're now a part of your district are you going to help the kids that's in your district when they're being attacked um it's not really rocket science when you're putting a autistic kid with a regular kid and it takes something as little as looking at them
to set them off so I completely understand where the parents are coming from where opening up the Macy for Yale students and it just has to make sense to me as a parent and it's just like I said I've worked with kids with autism
before i've seen it and you guys don't want to the gentleman said you guys do not want to face that lawsuit if it comes about if another child is attacked by a kid from Yale the severity of being attacked because I have wrap up I will I
have been attacked by a child with um autism i can't let anyone speak longer it's okay and I completely understand that but I want you to understand this as a parent you have to you may not be a parent so you may not understand but being attacked by a kid with autism is
very severe i've been that parent that was attacked by a kid with autism [Applause] my name is David not 13 Oxford Road
Marlton i've lived here 65 years i'm a school bus driver there's things that have been going on here well before the start of this school year do you board members have any idea what's been going on with
transportation i wonder i really think if you did know we wouldn't be do doing this tonight for the last two years we've had one failed coordinator of transportation after
another the start of this school year the first day was a failure i couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing
it was chaos it was confusion we were told "Oh there's problems with the runs we're going to take care of it it's almost May." Guess what they weren't taken care
of were they Mr yates Mr smith no they weren't we were told by the coordinators they would be taken care of i drive a 54 passenger bus i have 17 kids for all my
runs is that productivity i don't think so i pass a Hillman's bus on the same streak on the same school on every run they could take my 17 kids and I could
be picking up kids that from another Helman's route there are so many Hillman's buses in this town and it's not necessary you know why we have so many Hillman's buses mismanagement poor
planning we tried to help and we were basically ignored people like Daddy and Joyce Wendy i got a granddaughter that spent 410 days in Children's Hospital and almost died about five
times she rides a bus wendy is her bus driver okay none of us are perfect and I'm sure some of the Hillman's drivers are okay but let me tell you a lot of them aren't and a lot of them don't give
a hoot about our kids and I got a special needs granddaughter she needs somebody like Wendy not some random schmo coming from a yard in Berlin or Hulcom and wherever they're
at again we tried to fix this problem we offered to fix this problem and we were ignored and now here we are we're going to lose our jobs and the taxpayers that work in the district are going to get their taxes jacked up
25% that's like getting shot and hung good night hello my name is Sean Crump i live at 161 Crown Prince Drive i was a direct uh support professional at Bankrooft and I know I have the battle scars to show you i've been bit I've been scratched
I've had kids that have ran out the classroom and just destroyed another classroom um I was in the army for eight years and I dealt with more hand-to-hand combat at Bankraftoft dealing with kids with autism than I did when I was in the army and I mean I mean it's it's bad
it's it's bad you're going to deal with a lot you're going to deal with kids using the bathroom on the floor they're going to be run around naked i'm I dealt with it all i dealt with it all and I hope you guys are ready for it cuz it's it's going to it's going to be bad it's going to be bad it's not again it's not
their fault it's not the kids' fault they can't help it but I hope you guys are prepared i hope you guys did everything your due diligence to make sure that the kids the other kids are going to be safe because like like you said these kids you you can look at a kid with autism and they'll just
snap what are you going to do if you have a class walking by or you're outside i remember when we had kids outside i had this one kid he would just he would just sit there his name was Andrew he would just sit there and I'd be like "Andrew what's wrong?" He'll
just look at me and then he gave you that look you guys are ready for that they're going to You have to be able to learn these things they may look at you like that all right he's fine but then you have to see a look in their eyes and then Oh all right get ready get some of these other kids out of here he's about
to go off all right please address the board and not the other members well okay well I'm an American i got my rights but it's all right it's all right but anyway um I'm sorry but um yeah it's going to be it's going to be rough and I hope you
guys are ready for it um like I said I don't even know what else i I mean I've seen classrooms destroyed kids that are 10 11 years old flipping desks you know it it's it's it's going to be rough it's going to be rough so I appreciate you guys listening to me i love this town i moved here in July i used to live in
Bronson Township um I know I know one guy up there that's my boy right there you know I appreciate it i appreciate it i appreciate all the hard work some of you do um but uh that's all I had to say i appreciate it thank you
hi good evening my name is Ginger Deetszman i live on Lexington Circle hopefully you can hear me i'm sorry bronchitis i prepared nothing but I'm coming to you as a mother i'm coming to you as the PTA president for Dacia Elementary i am in that building
multiple times a week i can tell you that pod is not big enough for an additional school that pod is utilized for so many things in terms of learning PTA events example we just had coin wars it's right
at our elementary office the level of noise is off the charts because the kids are so excited but how will that affect the kids coming from Yale who are in the pod right around the corner from the elementary office what is that going to
do i've heard that there's going to be self-contained that they are going to have their own administration their own nurse but we don't know we haven't been communicated to as a school as a parent as a PTA dr smith you meet with us every
month all the presidents i feel like that is your opportunity to be so transparent we can be your voice we can we we can text all our families and all the schools right away with accurate information as to how things will get
executed how things are going to play out because what does happen if some if if a Yale student does run as an example was given do we go into lockdown but then how do we explain that to our children who aren't a part of the Yale program every child deserves to learn
they deserve to learn in an environment that's fit for them i just really really encourage you to re-evaluate putting the kids in the fourth and fifth grade pod annexing the fourth graders that will be fifth
graders into the hall that leads to the small small gym they're completely out of the elementary experience that experience is gone because there now where all the specials take place there where middle school is up and down the halls it's
loud and as people have said the things they're going to hear the words the situations that they're going to be exposed to they don't need that yet let them be a child and let them be in fourth grade fifth grade don't take over that pod with yell find a different place i don't know where because I know
that building is full i know this because I have to work with Mrs screen to find rooms available to hold PTA functions there is no space but if it's a done deal we need to re-evaluate where those kids are going to be thank
you is there anyone else who would like to comment about the budget seeing none we're going to move to our second public comment this public comment is going to be for any items of interest so the meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student
or personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person is there anyone who would like to make any comments seeing none we will move to approval of the minutes we need a motion
to approve items 6.1 through 6.3 do we have a motion motion by Mrs null seconded by Mr dearcy any questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr yates roll call please on the approval of minutes Mr brown
yes miss Moitz yes mr dearcy yes miss Fox yes mrs null yes mr thompson yes mr peeleman yes mr bach yes mr conton yes
motion carries thank you Mr yates moving to item seven and superintendent report and administrative items we need a motion to approve items 7.1 through 7.8 do we have a motion motion by Miss Fox seconded by Mr thompson before we vote I'll hand the floor over to Dr smith thank you Mr canton uh just given the
time with the presentation and so on I'm going to keep my comments short I just want to recognize that teacher appreciation week is just around the corner and to thank our teachers and all their staff for their work and dedication day in and day out children
learn from each of us each staff member in what we say and what we do our teachers are a vital reason why our district's quality of education has been sustained even as our district's financial resources have decreased tonight's final budget is a powerful
embodiment of appreciation for our teaching staff thank you thank you Dr smith before we vote any questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr yates roll call please roll call on administrative items mr brown
yes mowitz yes mr demarcy yes miss Fox yes mrs null yes mr thompson yes mr pelman yes mr bach yes mr compton yes that motion carries thank you Mr yates moving to item 8 curriculum and instruction do we have a motion to
approve items 8.1 through 8.4 miss Bramoitz with the motion seconded by Mr dearcyc any questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr yates roll call please roll call curriculum and instruction mr brown yes mr bowitz yes mr marcy yes miss Fox
yes mrs null yes mr thompson yes mr peeleman yes mr bach yes mr conton yes that motion carries thank you Mr yates moving to item nine finance and operations we need a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.19 do we have a motion motion
by Mr thompson seconded by Mr peeleman thank you uh any questions or comments from the board mrs nol I'd like to make comments about the budget which I was not able to do before but I wanted to point out to the board in case you didn't know that there were
300 districts throughout the state that had the opportunity to submit applications to the county superintendent and only onethird applied i believe that they did not want to accept passing the state's burden to
their taxpayers i believe that our district is now telling the state that they are off the hook that it is just aokay that they just give us $1,100 per student in Marlton i don't
think that's acceptable also we have more residents staying in our town their kids are here their grandkids are here they don't want to move they like it here as I do and I'm afraid that
this will force a lot of our longtime residents out and that's really sad yes maintain the middle school team model we all agree on that we want to keep independent study we
want to keep class sizes down because that is so important we wanted our paras to keep their benefits we want to also restore fund balance and other things but to add in so many additional
positions and also take the 7.5 million for capital projects at this time in this uncertain economy and also on the heels of large increases over the past few years did we
forget about that and it wasn't just Esham Township it was Lenipe Regional who increased above 2% also last year so in total my taxes have increased
$1,200 in the past three years alone and now they're going to go up another 900 that is a lot of money it really is i'm sorry it's just too much and there was another way in my opinion we could have taken
some we could have restored what we all agreed upon we could have even taken some and did some of the capital improvements the most urgent needs and we could have gone out to a referendum we just discussed district
goals in March at our board retreat because we needed new ones we needed updates goal number two some of the board members couldn't go and some others left early they had other commitments goal number two initiate and complete a
district referendum for capital improvements however there was a lot of work to be done a lot of work would have to go into this but it targeted a fall 2026
um bond referendum and it would be a lot of work between now and then but this is what was presented to the board that we needed 80 to$100 million worth of
improvements so um I just don't know why we abandoned that idea the state would match 40% and I feel like we pre-surrendered so having said all that
I'm sure um you know that I was going to vote no but I I really hope some of you reconsider because there was another way in my opinion thank you any other questions or comments from the board
i just Yep sorry um just regarding the Yale situation um you know I feel you Deacy i'm a PTA president at Marlton Elementary myself still um I just want Dr smith we talked about this but just commitment going forward if
this is the plan that it has to be to you know I'm somebody who very much believes in the student experience and protecting it and you know just your commitment that we will go about this in the best way possible to preserve as much of the experience for Demise as as
pos as as we possibly can absolutely [Applause] any other questions or comments from the board best way to do that seeing none Mr yates roll call please roll call on
finance and operations mr brown yes much mowitz no to 9.16 yes to the rest of it no to 9.16 yes to the rest noted mr
demarcy no to the budget 9.18 everything else yes no to 9.18 yes to the rest your motion is
courted miss Fox no to 9.18 and 9.16 yes to the rest no to 916 and 918 yes to the rest thank you Mrs null no to
918 and yes to the rest no to 9.18 yes to the rest thank you Mr thompson yes Mr peeleman no to 916 yes to the rest
no to 9.16 yes to the rest thank you Mr pman mr bach yes Mr conton uh yes that motion carries thank you Mr yates moving to item 10 personnel we need a motion to approve items 10.1 through 10.11 do we have a
motion motion by Mr thompson seconded by Mr peelman any questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr yates roll call please roll call on personnel mr brown yes Miss Mowitz yes Mr dearson yes Miss
Fox yes Mrs null yes Mr thompson yes Mr peeleman yes Mr bach yes Mr compton yes that motion carries thank you Mr yates moving to item 11 policy of which we have none for this meeting moving to item 12 committee reports are there any committee chairs who would like to share
a report miss Fox not a report but I would like to just say one is coming from curriculum um there have been a few parents that I've been speaking with regarding the ELA concerns um I I did have an update and then work got insane
and I left the update on my desk um but it is it is being discussed and I will have an update next meeting thank you Miss Fox any other committee chairs like to share a report okay moving to old business we have none moving to new business we have none
board member announcements are next are there any board members who would like to share an announcement mr peeleman um this isn't an announcement so much as just something I wanted to say after much of the public comment tonight the a lot has been said about
many of the issues that were raised i am sympathetic with the Demacy parents and their concerns about where the EL students um are going to go i I just I really feel the need to say that the language regarding autism and
autistic children was vile and disgusting that lumping all autistic children together under one banner lumping an entire spectrum of people as behaving in a simple single way and saying this is how autistic people
behave this is how autistic children react you'll never want to be in a room with an autistic child is unbecoming of this district and the people in it i am shocked and appalled that that was the language that was used tonight and I I
just cannot get over how any of the kids listening at home who any of the parents listening at home that have children on the spectrum feel after listening to this board meeting and after listening to the people in the community speak
about that community in such disparaging tones thank you Mr pilman mr thompson as a father of a child with autism you should all be ashamed of yourself the way you spoke about the children with autism it is a spectrum it is not just
one way of being it operates many different ways my child is not a biter not a hitter the only thing he's going to do is he's going to attack you with hugs and kisses you should all be ashamed are there any other board members who would like to speak mr demarcy
um I want to speak more to the budget um you know again I said a lot of it last meeting i I said a lot of it prior to the vote um but I I just want to reiterate you know uh our state our community we've been in an affordability
crisis um but the vote that we took tonight 100% contributed to that to a level of which that is unprecedented in our town's history um you know
again I I not just sympathize with the people who have to figure out how they're going to deal with this now uh but but my whole big thing with this and I've been saying it since last year is like you know we owe a a duty to like make sure that this town is an option
for for people um you know people who want to live here like the kids who go to this school right now right like you I went to this school not too long ago right um I I love Marlton i do i really really do
um years ago I I I would have thought to myself there's no way I'd want to live any other place but it's like you just have to think to yourself is like is this going to get any better right you ask me this school district shouldn't raise taxes for the next like decade or
so because of how much we just raised tonight um and to that point it's like now we have no excuse now we have to have the best services the best instructions the best classrooms the best teachers everything right because
now it's the old saying you get what you pay for right and people are now paying for it um so I I really really hope that you know some actions happen at the state level uh where Trenton can can get its get its stuff together um you know
some changes happen with with with who's leading us um and the funding formula can have some common sense to it and that we could get some of our money back and that we should take that money that we in theory would get back and and we should dedicate it to property tax
relief for EU Township residents should that happen thank you thank you Mr dearcy any other qu uh comments from the board mr shock just to kind of respond um to Aiden's comments you're right we should make
sure that everybody is held accountable for this there's no excuses we gave everything we could to support the schools and we need to make sure that everybody's accountable for that and we as a board need to do that and that's what I want to see going forward we
still need to fight at the state level that still needs to happen you know that still needs to continue and hopefully we can you know do something down the line you know about to make things better but as of right now you know I use my vote to support the schools and support the
teachers and what we need to do is from here on out is hold everybody accountable you know there needs to be results there needs to be you know progress on things we want to see progress on and that needs to happen and if it doesn't there's no excuses at this point
so make sure everybody's held accountable thank you Mr bach any other board members would like to share an announcement mr bilman just one last thought mr dearcy I just want to agree entirely now that we have the funding it is our duty to make sure we have the
best schools the best classrooms and the best educators possible for our children it's our responsibility to do that going forward i wholeheartedly agree thank you Mr pilman any other comments from the board i will just end by this board knows I'm
not the most articulate um board president so I will just say that I wholeheartedly and emphatically echo every single sentiment shared by Mr pilman and Mr thompson during their board member announcements with that motion to adjurnn motion by Mr peeleman seconded
by M Mr thompson all those in favor hi