Pursuant to the open public meetings act chapter 231 public clause of 1975. This meeting notice was sent to the Asbury Park Press on July 2nd 2025 and has been duly advertised in the Asbury Park Press issue of July 7th
2025. All municipal clerks of townships and burrows within the regional high school district have been duly notified that the requirements of posting of notices have been met on July 2nd, 2025.
Can everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance where will be led by Antonio Lampardo? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. to the agenda for the executive session. >> Yes, Mr. President. Uh in addition to the items that were noted on the agenda preprinted uh prior uh to the board meeting tonight, uh prior to going into
executive session, the board also announced it was discussing the following. Uh under exception number three, the student discipline report, uh an HIV appeal and student discipline matters. for exception number seven, uh potential litigation and also items
related to 2027 fiscal year budget. >> Thank you. >> Uh may I have a motion to approve the minutes from the meeting we had on March 19th of 2026? >> That was Miss Higgley. >> Is there a second? >> Second. That was
>> Mrs. Fruit. Any discussion? >> Uh roll call, please. Mr. Miss Bruno. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bruno. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Capello. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ign. >> Yes. >> Mrs. L.
>> Yes. >> M. McC. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mezer. >> Yes. >> Mr. Messinger. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay. With respect to communications, uh, can we get to confirm that communications are on file in the board
secretary? >> That is correct. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to the superintendent's report. >> Great. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Messinger. Um, good evening. I just wanted to uh let our community know on
May 6th from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. at Manalopin High School. The district will be facilitating a digital safety program for parents and also for students, but primarily for parents. Uh, we want to be
able to explain and educate our community about safeguards for children on social media. We have invited all of our middle school uh students. Uh, I've invited the superintendants and their teams, but also seventh and eighth grade
parents uh to join us uh because that will be our rising ninth graders. Um, we are running into situations in our district with harassment, intimidation, and bullying, primarily with students in our younger grades. And this is really
our administrative team taking a proactive step to be able to educate parents uh about the digital space that their children are in and what is happening um to their young minds um with the time that they are spending on
social media. Um, so again, uh, this is really from a community standpoint. I know, um, Mrs. Cohen and, uh, Maryanne Musk are also going to be in attendance from Manaliban, but we're really looking to make this a communitywide event, um,
rallying and getting all of our parents to understand what their children um, may or may not be doing on social media. And we're going to have an expert um, who's going to assist in facilitating that program. So, I welcome uh our community to that program. Again, May
6th from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Um, again, tonight is our uh public hearing on the Freehold Regional High School District budget for the upcoming school year, fiscal year 27. So, for school year uh
2627, um our proposed budget stands at over $246 million. This year we faced a budget gap of 7.4 million. Unfortunately, this has been a
recurring theme in the Freehole Regional High School Districts and across the state year after year driven by persistent factors uh inflationary increases, rising health care expenses,
and the constraints of fixed revenue sources. Our continued hope and the advocacy that has gone on in this district is really around the funding formula in trying to advocate uh at the state
level so that we don't continue to lose state aid funding year after year. We have a responsibility in the district. We have to bridge that gap and we have to present our board with a balance budget. a budget that we work on
collaboratively and collectively with the board of education. We've made some strategic adjustments. Um it includes utilizing the fiscal year 26 surplus, increasing tuition revenue, and enacting the health benefits waiver.
We've also made a difficult decision to eliminate the raise program uh which is over at Burough High School in the evening. an evening program for students and implement staff reductions through retirements and attrition. This is how
we have closed our budget for uh fiscal year 27. But despite these hurdles, our goal always remains steadfast in the Freehole Regional High School District, maintaining high quality education and community uh from what our community
expects of us. But that is our commitment, our instructional program here at the district. We want to support our strategic plan, maintain our facilities, all while remaining mindful of the impact on the taxpayer.
Every decision we make here, our long-term planning to our daily operations is designed to protect the future of our students and the community. There are tough decisions that always need to be made each year.
But as long as these structural issues persist, um, state aid cuts, tax levy caps, unfunded mandates, inflation that we are all faced with, our community will likely over time feel
impacts that extend beyond just tax levy increases. Um, Mr. Guara has prepared uh tonight um and what the what the business office um a comprehensive outline of kind of the
state of affairs uh from a fiscal standpoint for this district. Um, and I know he's going to go kind of line by line so we can understand appropriations, revenue, and you know, how we balance this budget each year
with also an eye to our future budgets and how we need to, you know, lead and make decisions in this district. So, Mr. Ferraro, hats off. Dr. Hazel, thank you. Um, board of education, members of the public. Um, so
my name is Alex F. I'm the assistant superintendent for business administration here in the district. And uh tonight we're going to be reviewing the 2627 fiscal year budget. Uh and like Dr. Hazel said, um I wanted to kind of take this opportunity before I kind of get into the nuts and bolts into the
details of the budget uh to kind of echo a similar sentiment um regarding kind of the long-term kind of impact of these budget developments. So more specifically, um the the intention and the the spirit of the budget is to be a
reflection of the district and the community's expectations, the values, and that's reflected through the strategic plan. Um so as we go through this process last year, this year, in future years, that's going to be kind of like our our guiding principle. Uh
naturally the greater educational community has an attachment to schools, right? K to 8, K to 12, 9 to 12. Um and why is that? Because we remember those kind of sentimental uh opportunities and
you know timelines, times in our lives, whether it be with our specific kids and their favorite teachers, whether it's where we met our high school sweetheart, a football game that we went with some friends. And so there's this emotional attachment
to the community uh of the community to the schools uh that we understand uh the like Dr. Hazel said these connections are important because they kind of establish kind of what our expectations are for our community schools and what
we expect of education. Um so we as the admin team uh as a district need to keep that in mind um in order to safeguard not only kind of the resources and the expectations that we have for our current students but obviously our
future students as well. So um as as we kind of see on a daily basis whether it be an NJ.com article as Park Press uh districts are facing you know very challenging times right now and what I wanted to make sure that everybody understood is that the Freehold Regional
High School District is on the same path. It's on the same road as some of those districts. And whether it be this administration or it be previous administrations, we do the best that we can to close those potholes to address those speed bumps to make sure that we
maximize the resources for our kids. That's our goal, right? Um, but that same path that some of these districts are on, um, unless we make some very difficult decisions, not to say that the decisions have that been made so far haven't been difficult, but those are
things that are going to keep coming, uh, in our right in front of our face. And like Dr. Hazel said we're talking about year-over-year unless there's a major change in kind of how education is supported in the state of New Jersey.
You're talking about excessive tax levy increases which we obviously take very seriously when we kind of propose those kinds of things. Uh we're talking about unfunded mandates. We're talking about all the things that many of our districts are kind of facing. Um, so we
want to make sure that when we make a recommendation like where you're about to see tonight, it's thought out, it's strategic, it's consistent with what we expect, but we understand that obviously this our taxpayers, it impacts our our programs as as we go through the
process. Um, so obviously our obligation I just want to finish on this note. um our obligation is to make sure that the trust that the community and the board of education puts in us is uh is paramount to how our decisions are made.
So, similar to um the presentation last year, we we kind of start off with kind of a terminology uh outline of of some of the topics that we're going to talk about tonight. Terminology is just kind of a quick case to make sure that everybody kind of understands what what
the the basic concepts are. So um obviously every district has a prescribed uh flat platform that we have to use based upon the DOE. Um every district has to organize their budgets per the funds and all the funds are
basically uh different accounting classifications uh that carry out very specific purposes. So starting off on fund 10 which is often referred to as a general budget. That's where we're going to spend most of our time tonight. This is the district's operating budget. this is
what it takes to kind of do the day-to-day business. Uh special revenue which is fund 20 that basically um is uh another fund that we'll talk a little bit but those are pretty much defined uh purpose like grants, student activities
and and the like. Uh special projects fund 30 uh we probably won't talk a little bit about about tonight but those are just basically multi-year capital improvement projects. Um and then finally fund 40 which is kind of another requirement uh which is the actual debt
service payment for bonds um that the district has issued in the past. So moving on to kind of drilling down a little bit deeper. Um the basic premise is that sorry wrong button. Um the basic premise is
that revenues and appropriations balance. Uh so obviously the major revenues that we have and you'll see kind of like on a pie chart in the table is the local tax uh levy which is obviously the money that we collect from the communities state aid funds that are
provided um consistent with the funding formula um and extraordinary aid uh fund balance which is something that we've talked about before about the ability of the district to kind of regenerate. So, what does that basically mean? That every year, every dollar that doesn't
get spent in the current year's budget that the the board of education through the audit process has the option to say, "Hey, we want to take some of those dollars and we want to apply them to reserve accounts." So, that way when we have an improvement that we need to make large scale, it doesn't annihilate our
current budget. So, those are the reserves. The other portion of the surplus calculation goes major uh purpose goes to support the following year's budget. Well, the only concern on that and you've um for folks that that kind of were here present or might have
seen the presentation by Mr. Swisser who's district's financial auditor. Um the problem is that you become dependent on that which means that you become dependent on having to regenerate that year after year. So, um, part of the thing that we're we'll talk about a
little bit is how the district gets on a plan to slowly wean itself off of that designation of the fun balance. On the appropriation side, you'll have your your major uh programs, regular red, special ed, um, uh, athletics, um,
extracurricular, that kind of thing. You'll have your functions aka is it instructional, is it support? And then on the objects, it's kind of like the the nitty-gritty about is it a supply, is it a service, that kind of thing.
Sorry, I hit the wrong button. All right. So, um, in terms of the actual revenues, uh, the projection for the district for this year is, uh, $246.3 million and obviously takes into consideration all three of those major
funds. uh to 200 point uh 240 plus.6 is the fund 10 which is the operating budget. Um so as you can see um based upon what I mentioned before we'll spend most of our time on the fund 10 which is the operating budget because obviously
that's where majority of the dollars are. Switching gears to drilling down a little bit on fun. So this is a pie chart of district um sponten uh you know revenue and so what I want to kind of
highlight is just kind of like the major differences the major drivers. Um, so starting in with the tax levy in uh 2010, basically districts were allowed uh to bypass the voter approval process
of submitting their budgets uh with the condition that you stayed underneath 2% on your tax levy or utilize one of the acceptable kind of adjustments. Healthc care cost adjustment is one of them.
Enrollment is another one. Those are probably the two most common pension contributions. All of a sudden, you have to hire a bunch of uh PERS eligible employees. It's going to compromise your operating budget and as a result of that, you kind of decide to kind of
exceed the 2% cap. So, those are the kind of reasons why you might need to extend the tax levy cap beyond 2%. For the district, uh for this year, we're proposing the regular 2% uh as well as 2.24 of the health benefits waiver. And
I'll talk about the health benefits piece in a little bit when I get to the appropriation side. But the major piece here, the major kind of uh issue here is that um we're not in in the state health benefits plan. Thankfully, if we were in
the state health benefits plan, as many of you might have kind of seen through kind of um public information out there, you know, articles and stuff like that, their excess is expected to be close to 30% yearover-year.
So, as you can imagine, this is has the the byproduct of annihilating a lot of districts budgets. And in looking at the even our K to8 center districts um the the their tentative budgets included some kind of adjustment for health
benefit costs. Um so not all of them but most of them. And so this is something that obviously the state is trying to grapple with. um prescription medication um is is one of those areas that is seeing very high increases
year-over-year that's putting a strain on budgets. Um kind of a you know reading the tea leaves in terms of what's coming for FY28. We're seeing an increase of roughly 15% on medical cost to loan. Uh I wouldn't
be surprised if next year we were double digits again. And you know, in terms of the state plan, uh not to kind of get too deep into that, but that pool of of of loss runs that make up the state plan
are worse off than than we're seeing here. So, the fact that we're self-insured, not only do we cut back on administrative costs and that kind of thing, but we also have the opportunity to kind of control our own destiny. Um,
so sorry, just to kind of touch on a couple other things with reference to the revenue side. Uh tuition increases. Um so we are we currently have a couple of students coming in uh for special ed. We're looking to expand that a little bit. Obviously making sure that the
students that apply for the programs working with our uh whether it be uh neighboring districts or whether it be from other districts including a county uh that obviously the program has to be a good fit for the students has you know that's that's the intention. Um, with
reference to miscellaneous revenue, the basic situation here is that the Fed rate has been cut a couple times over the last year. So, we're expecting to see a little bit less in terms of um in terms of interest rates. Uh, state um
big uh portion of this here and I'll have a slide in a second that basically shows that over the course of time the state has contributed less and less to our to our budget. Um, but basically the big driver here is around $900,000 of
formula state aid loss that we're not seeing. The million dollar that roughly that we um anticipated last year is not going to be present this year for the tax levy incentive aid program. And then extraordinary aid itself which is an application that was submitted on an
annual basis that is expected to be uh at a whole a lower coefficient than it has been in the past. So that obviously right there um is is over $2 million. Federal um you know we're seeing kind of an uptick there in federal. That seems
like a very high percentage. Uh I don't want folks to think that all of a sudden DC is sending out checks. Uh that's not what's happening. Uh last year's enrollment projection for the special education Medicaid initiative was
actually under under uh classified. So as a result, our projection last year was under uh so the next year's projection is based upon what we're actually claiming this year. So as a result of that, it's a little more realistic. Um and then fund balance like
I touched on a little bit before the target um as I've kind of outlined with the finance committee is that the fund balance the surplus is generated on an annual basis. That is good practice. That is something that we want to continue to do. But the target is going
to be that surplus should be calculated at approximately 4% of that year's budget. So will what will we do with that money? Well, over the course of time, the target is that we'll have about 3% go to support the following
year's budget, which still leaves a decent amount of money to put towards reserve accounts. And once again, the intention of the reserve accounts is that this if you have kind of a large expense coming up, you don't annihilate that year's budget.
All right. So, in terms of the state aid portion, uh, like I mentioned before, so this is kind of just a representation of what state aid um has been like for the district over the last 10 years. Um, so as you can see, not only has the the n
the number within each allocation fluctuated but obviously the amount of money that we received from Trenton has dramatically decreased in excess of uh $20 million during that time period. Um so what message does this send? Message
that this sends is that the state is trying to take the the the funding of the uh of education and put it to the to local taxpayers. That's basically what it's trying to say. Um now this also is
reflective of S2 which is a piece of legislation uh that was enacted to kind of reduce the dependency of districts on um certain types of aid. But the big driver here and as as you know Miss
Smith and our colleagues in the county try to kind of unpack why certain districts received more money and certain districts did not. The big drivers here are number one, your equalized value. So as the value of each municipality moves up or down, their
ability to afford their local fair share takes on bigger weight. The second piece here is enrollment. And Freehold Regional is not um abnormal in the sense that our enrollment numbers are declining. And there's going to be a
graph that I'll have um in a little bit that basically shows that process playing out roughly for about the last 20 years. And so what we're talking about here is that the calculation, the formula that the state uses puts a certain
amount of weight on your enrollment. So as the district's enrollment goes down, the state a dollars also go down. Now like Dr. page was set. Um, this is obviously something that's very concerning to us and because over the
course of time as we see with birth rates, as we see with just kind of replenishment and folks will point to us and just say, well, but there's a huge development going on at Colt Snack. There's a huge development here, there's a huge development there. All those developments are generating are a
partial replacement or replenishment of what we're losing, right? They're not adding kits. So um obviously um you'll see in a second on that same kind of outline of what enrollment has done over the last roughly 20 years plus you'll
see a con subsequent kind of trend in terms of staffing as well. So the point that I tried to make right from the get-go was to say, hey, as we have these difficult conversations about certain initiatives, certain programs, certain revenue options, these are all things
that we're trying to do to try to maintain the best education possible. So this is one of the the the graphs that I was looking to to kind of share. Um, so since FY16 all the way through the current budget, as you can see, the
gap between the orange line, which is what the state aid number looks like for us, and what the blue line is, which is our operating budget, that line is that that gap is getting smaller, right? I'm sorry, the orange is not state aid, it's local tax levy. I'm sorry. Um so as you
can see the the dependency is getting stronger and stronger on the local tax rate. Uh just as a as as an aside at FY16 here, okay, state aid made up about 28% of the district's annual budget.
This year based upon that part chart that I shared before, it's closer to 13%. >> All right, moving on to the appropriations. Um so um obviously like we said before revenue appropriations have to equal uh this is the
year-over-year. I summarize this by object code which is kind of like the most basic level. Um I'm going to go over kind of some of the highlights. Uh salaries that's pretty consistent. Um benefits like I mentioned before 15% on the medical. So net cost when you take
all other things into consideration workers comp um purse contribution, all that stuff. We're seeing close to a 13% increase. Uh services, uh the big increase here, uh and and if you look at the line for
services and you kind of um equated to the line of equipment last year when we filed our tax levy incentivated application in the state, we had to kind of put the application in a certain way that we had to move more money towards equipment because that's what their intention was. Um so as a result of
that, this is just kind of like the the reallocation of basically those same dollars. Um the majority of the dollars that we're going to see out of those services in terms of that increase uh relate to the specific uh work that we're looking to do from a facility
standpoint. Um so what are we talking about here? Um Dr. Hazel um over the last couple of board meetings kind of has outlined some of the work that we've done in the past. Some of the work that we're doing this year including in this
this summer um and obviously some of the work that that we're looking to project for 27 is the following. Colate Cole has a wastewater treatment plant. Uh it has huge room that obviously processes uh kind of waste water. We're looking to
renovate that. Um Metro generator tie-ins mean that more of our buildings will be on generators so that this if we lose power uh we can still uh you know finish out the day. Um upgrades to our fire alarm systems, HVAC equipment
upgrades, uh two additional sets of tennis courts. Right now we're in the process of doing the installation at Marbor and at Coltneck. So the next two schools uh will be moving in that direction. roofings, security camera upgrades, um, and then science labs. So,
consistent with the message last year of, hey, the board is we're not recommending to the board to go out to a referendum. Instead, we're going to take advantage of this tax levy incentive. We're basically taking those dollars and reinvesting it back into the school to make sure that we have uh the best
spaces possible for for our kids. It's going to take us a while um because we have years we saw with those state aid cuts. We have years of deferred maintenance that we have to catch up on. Um but uh the the the spirit and the intention of the administration is to be
committed to that and in conversations with each of the board members um as well as finance committee individually I know that they feel they support that idea as well. Um, in terms of some of the other kind of drivers, uh, equipment, like I said,
kind of nets out against the service line year-over-year. And then with reference to other objects, the only kind of thing that I want to kind of highlight here is a few years ago, the state of New Jersey uh as part of uh guidance from the department of agriculture basically said that the
districts have very limited options to collect money for students that choose to charge lunch and they choose not to pay back for those charges. So we have very limited options as to how to recover that. One of the very few
options is that you can basically appropriate a portion of your fund 10 to basically liquidate that bad debt. Um so what happens is that over the course of years um the auditor as part of their annual financial audit they'll ask us to
say hey what's the likelihood you've got x amount of dollars on your balance sheet as a receivable what's the likelihood that you're actually going to collect that because if it's not then you have to basically liquidate it and that's what basically this is. So, we're basically taking that first step to set
aside $75,000 to um to liquidate that that debt. We are looking at other at alternatives that are within the National School Lunch Program, within the guidance of the Department of Agriculture on how to kind of address that. We'll be working
with Palonian on on some of those ideas and the administration at each of buildings. Um but it's it's it's a tough battle. It's a tough battle uh because there's not many carrots or sticks that the district could use to try to recruit that.
So, in terms of balancing the budget, uh so like Dr. Hazel said, uh you know, this kind of gives kind of a highlight of what the process looks like. Each of the buildings have input as to the development. Uh we um obviously support
that. We take the the process uh fairly seriously but not from a top-down type of approach. It's much it's very much a grassroots kind of uh uh process. Um there's obviously some of the initiatives that happen whether it be in
the B&G department, transportation, uh even personnel cost that are done here centrally but for the most part all the building based initiatives come out of out of the buildings themselves. So um so the next step would be kind of like the analysis. You look at projections to
see if the projections are accurate, if they're consistent and reasonable. Um health benefits obviously was one of the ones that we talked about. Inflation also outpacing like the 10-year average. So it basically gets us to our delta which we said is roughly $7.5 million.
Um so the question then becomes is to say okay how do you close that gap? Um so for this year we are moving ahead with some staff reductions. Thankfully we have enough retirements that we can do it through attrition that we don't
necessarily have to touch live bodies yet. Um uh you know we we're taking the surplus calculation and trying to be like I said before a little more realistic as we kind of wean ourselves off the elimination of the raise program. Um and then obviously the
annualization on the revenue side of the health benefits um or the health cost adjustment. So one question that we get pretty regularly is how does the district compare against uh some of our subgroups? Um, and anybody that has seen
one of these presentations over the rough the last 15 years or so, you can see that the district for the most part consistently compares very well from an efficiency standpoint in terms of tax dollars. Uh, some of it comes as a result of us being a 9 to2 district. Um,
but that said, in the lower lefthand corner is a QR code that anybody can kind of utilize. Check out the taxpayer guide to educational spending. There's there's about 20 indicators on that guide that basically rank the district
in comparison to you know some of the other subgroups outlined here. Um but as you can see in terms of the actual budgetary costs per pupil the district has done historically very well. Um that is not by coincidence. There's going to,
like I mentioned before, there's going to be a graph that kind of talks about that to to that miss to that mission of of us being able to kind of be good stewards of knowledge. And like I said before, this obviously is in line with um the recommendation to kind of move
forward with the tax levy and and the support of the community in the past. The other one that uh the more the second most asked one is saying hey from an administration cost are we topheavy? Are we bloated compared to some of our
other districts? This is another indicator. Um so for the most part just I I didn't kind of touch on this before but I just want to make sure folks understand. So the FY25 number right here is based upon last year's budget. Um this report usually comes about
around audit time. Uh and then the FY23 and 24 the previous two years are actures. So, so it's not like a situation where you underbudget in a certain area to make yourself look good and then hope that you actually materialize. We're consistently hitting
our actual costs pretty aggressively when it comes to to these main uh two uh indicators. Like I said, there's about 20 or so indicators in the actual guide. feel free to kind of take a look and see how we compare. Um there's obviously
going to be certain indicators that we might not compare as well as as these two. And that's just basically because in some cases you're being compared to K to 12 districts. And obviously they don't have the overhead for extracurriculars and athletics like we do and that kind of thing. Plus the
other thing too as Mr. Verona who's in the back can attest with 1.2 2 million square ft of building space. As you can imagine, our maintenance costs are are pretty high as well. But, um, like I said, it's it's it's always kind of a good review to kind of uh see how we
kind of compare to our uh our colleagues. So, this is the historical trends graph that I wanted to kind of share. >> One more. >> Oh, thank you very much. Um, so this is the the historical trends uh graph that
I wanted to share. So why why is this important? So in addition to the cost per pupil numbers that I kind of shared before in the taxpayer guide to educational spending the the common kind of concern that folks have whether it be
in Freel regional or any other district that's kind of facing some challenges is have you adjusted accordingly based upon your enrollment. So when you have more enrollment, have you gone out and actually increased in staffing to
accommodate, you know, consistent class sizes and that kind of stuff? And consequently, as enrollment comes down, um have you adjusted? So as you can see here, uh the left side kind of reports out the student count. The right side is
uh so the student count is based upon the average daily enrollment which gets reported every June. the uh the right side is actual staffing in the district. So although not a one for one kind of correlation, the trend is pretty
consistent, right? Um and so that is something that is important as we kind of maintain these conversations and make sure that folks understand the situations that we're in and how we can make decisions kind of accordingly. uh
because I can tell you as a parent nobody likes to see 30 35 kids in a classroom but at the same time if our enrollment is going down there's an expectation that we should adjust accordingly and this has been the district's uh kind of pattern or trend
for for 20 plus years. So uh one of the things that obviously with additional to the uh the tax levy um increase uh in utilization of the health benefit recommendation to utilize health benefits of health costs
adjustment. This is a rough uh estimate as to the impact on tax rates. And the reason I say rough and it's not finalized is because the valuations of each town changes periodically. Uh so as a result of that, somebody can look at
this and just say, "Well, if that's the case, I know my, you know, I'm going down a dollar per $100,000 of assessed value or something like that." That's this is an estimate. Uh so it's important that folks understand that when your tax bill shows up, a portion
of it is obviously um you know how much the tax levy is going up, but also like I said before, how your uh municipality uh if they chose to reassess and and and those kinds of things. Um so this is
just an estimate year-over-year. Um I mean, excuse me, municipal by municipal, not year. So finally, um this uh just kind of like a a summary of of of what we talked about. Um obviously
as a district proceeds down this long-term planning process, um there's there's decisions that are going to be made like Dr. Hazel said that 7.5 million that we saw as the potential budget gap or the that delta between rejected revenues and appropriations is
not abnormal. Uh we we as as we kind of rough projections for the next couple of years. We expect those numbers to be in that similar ballpark. Um I would hate, you know, I I I would love to sit here and just say, "Hey, you know what? We're
we're good next year." Um but the the trends uh both on the health benefit side, salary increases, um and everything that's going on in the state as it potentially, you know, revenues, state aid, another potential state aid cut, that kind of thing. Those are all
things that we have to prepare for and I think it's our responsibility to kind of share with the board and the community that that this is is very much on on the horizon. The extent of it obviously we'll do u more analysis um as we go. Um
but that's that that basically is is something that we'll have to keep an eye on as as we proceed. So that concludes the presentation. Um, I'll I'll turn it over to the board uh in case uh anyone has any specific questions.
Does anybody have any questions? Um, I have one question. How many employees did we have last fiscal year and how many are in this budget? >> So, Dr. H, you want me to take that or you >> Yeah, on on our historical trend page.
Um so we have about um actually I think our exact number is 1139 um and going into next year's budget um we have a reduction of about 10 staff. >> How does that rate compare to how many students we have now
>> at each year as we have a declining enrollment um proportionally then we're making the necessary adjustments with our staff. That would be interesting to see where our students are for the last couple years and our staff.
>> We have all that we have all that data. Mer you go back to the last tax >> this one. >> Yeah. So quickly what goes into that like
what goes into that numbers like is it students? Is it your property taxes? Yeah. So, so the there's a um because we're a regional district um with our state um when the budget opens up, the
budget software opens up, basically what we get is a regional allocation notice. On that regional allocation notice, it starts off with basically saying that, hey, here's the value of each municipality.
Then it basically says, okay, this is the number of students that are in the elementary districts and here's the number of students that are in the high school district. So then that basically comes up with a percentage
um that and this is what the second column is of who is responsible for what share of those students the tax levy. Okay. So in a in a municipality like Farmingdale, in a municipality like
Englishtown, because the number of kids that they send to the district is smaller, the fluctuation can change from year to year pretty dramatically because now all of a sudden you have two, three or four less kids or you have an
additional four or five kids. So that is that's so that percentage share is calculated based upon the um the valuation of each municipality as well as the number of kids that they are sending uh to the district uh for the
next upcoming year. >> Thank you. So I think it's important for people to hear that >> when they see oh 23.8 it's a sign it's a sign of the municipality too. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> Y
any questions? Does anybody have any final questions? Okay. During our public comment period, uh the public uh will be able to weigh in and ask questions uh at that point in time also.
>> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. We will move on to the board reports, curriculum and instruction. >> They're going to meet um next month. >> So policy. >> Okay. Uh, policy.
>> Yes, that's me. Policy. >> Oh, thanks. Something without a mic. >> Thank you very much. >> So, on policy, we met last week. Um, policy the use of school facilities has
been revised to include updated language regarding review approval through the building principal. The superintendent design the governmental agencies and community political organizations were included as part of as possible requesters
policy gifts grants and donations which discussed by the policy committee. However, no changes have been made. The policy ensures that acceptable donations are accepted by the building principal superintendent and the board. But nothing has changed in that policy.
Policy use of electronic communication devices was discussed by the policy committee. An updated policy guide to be approved by Strauss San aligning to the jersey New Jerseys legal requirement for Belltobell
cell phone ban September 2026. That's going to be so much fun. We don't know much about that yet. Dr. Hayes explained we'll probably hear the week before school open.
>> Maybe we'll be doing a lot of work over the summer. >> Thank you, Mr. >> Okay. Thanks. We'll move on to the finance committee and we had met back on April 30th in anticipation of this
meeting and you had just heard the presentations by both Dr. Hazel and Mr. Ferrara and so what we did in the meeting is we spent a lot of time really going into some of the intimate details of the facts and figures that were just presented. So
there was time spent on the movement of personnel. Uh how many supervisors would be in certain places in certain subject matters. Um talk the administration discussed some of the changes they were
going to make in uh people's uh responsibilities going forward. Uh we al they also talked about some of the uh future changes that are going to be made to um student schedules regarding lab
periods and things like that. We also discuss class sizes and how they differ uh for subjects such as math and English versus some other um subjects. You heard Mr. Ferrar talk about uh tuition
students. So we uh went into some detail on that and what that entails. Um and one of the well one of the other things we noted is that we uh started
negotiations with the bus drivers. Um we had an initial meeting there. So that's something that's going to be worked on. Uh talked about some shared services agreement uh with Malber. Um and that was essentially and some other financial
standards with respect to um finances between the district and the town and subm of tax dollars. Uh and to wrap it up, uh there were two final issues. Uh, one is on the agenda tonight with
respect to a settlement agreement that we had with a contractor uh, regarding paving. And then uh, we ended the meeting with a discussion of uh, potential future plans for our transportation
uh, area and the storage of buses and what that could look forward what we could look forward to there over the next few years. So, If there's any questions, uh, please ask. >> Okay. So, we're going to move on to
public participation. Again, this could be comments on any subject matter, including the budget. But before we get to our speaker, I do want to uh ask whether there's any
changes to the agenda that need to be noted. >> Uh, yes, Mr. Messenger, we do have some changes in the back. Um there's an attachment uh with reference to a change to G1 adding one additional um employee
resigning uh one additional retirement for G2 uh as well as some additional six period assignments for G13. And then in addition to that um I do want to note um that the administration is uh administratively withdrawing
um one of the policies um which is 7523 that um that was originally on the agenda. The administration just needs a little more time to kind of unpack a couple of things before making a recommendation. That completes the changes for uh the agenda for tonight. >> And that's on K2.
>> On K2, thank you Mr. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh we have one person signed up for public participation and that's uh Carol Fox from Malboro. So please come up and um you feel free to comment about anything
you'd like. >> Good evening. First, I'd like to tell you how sad I am that Miss Mr. Acetella has moved out of state and is giving up his board position. He was a strong
fighter against anti-semitism and I appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. I am thankful for Dr. Hazel's push for the due diligence fighting anti-semitism. And I am assuming as you push forward on
this fight that you will your fight against anti-semitism will only grow. We cannot allow this in our schools. I'm also hoping that it is not allowed to grow because
by the actions of this board even though Mr. is no longer here. The budget is a joke. Every year, put it on the backs of Mboro size municipality. Malber is not the biggest one by far.
It's not a big municipality. It's a joke. Your explanations don't hold water. It's a sad excuse. Cold sector is going down 5%. Some are going down 2% and Margo is going up
6.5%. Why are you always picking on Marorrow? And I know you won't answer me. You certainly don't give Marbor High School any extra in anything. If anything, it probably gets the least because all the
other towns think we get the most. You know me from many many years and I always always watching and I'm always disappointed. Totally disappointed.
You don't answer when I question. I have been active politically to some extent. I've been in contact with Governor Cheryl and it doesn't seem like the municipalities or the board
is really in touch with the governor stating and fighting for the towns. Just stop taking it out on Marboro. Thank you. >> Okay. I want to point out that with
respect to the tax levy, we have 23.8% 8% of the I'm sorry, we have 22.8% of the students and we pay 23.8 of the taxes. And the problem we have in Malber or any of the individual towns is that
this board has no say whatsoever about what the individual tax rate is because it's based on the population of the kids coming into the high school and the assessed valuation. And you see the
thing is the one thing I disagree with you on is with respect to when you talk about the governor the whole problem and it's with this law of how who decides taxes emanates from the state. Now, she's only been there a while, so she's
not the one who did it, right? But there's no we could only look at the total budget and each of these members has no say whatsoever on what happens to each town. And that's the big problem. If the real estate market in Freehold
Burrow totally collapses, right, their taxes are going to go down and then ours are going to go up. So, >> man had just about the same percentage of students and yet their taxes are going down. Does it make sense? Never does.
>> But do you think in this predicament we're in and in the state of New Jersey, does any of it make sense? >> Probably not. But I'm really tired of it being put on the backs of Marboro residents and it always is. And there's just no excuse.
>> Go to Trenton and get a lot of people there and fight for us. >> Where? Go to Trenton. Go to the governor. >> Don't you think I have? >> Good. Then keep going. Just like you're coming. And are you going? >> I appreciate it. >> Are you going? Is the rest of the board?
Are the superintendent going? I'm not the only one who has. >> I don't know if we're going or if we're not going. But you can continue being an advocate for him. That would be wonderful. >> That would be wonderful. But again, you're still taking it out on one town every >> It's not us. It's the state.
>> I think it is. >> I think it is. There was a report that actually came out today where it shows each town across the state of New Jersey and the local share and you know that municipality. We don't drive that. How
those how those determinations are made between suburban districts, urban districts is out of our control. >> Um what and you know I think our entire board would would agree with you. We don't feel this should be on the local
taxpayer. We are strongly unwind. >> Yeah. Well, it's it's again through uh Mr. Ferrar's report that equalized value of those property values as well as the enrollment is the way that funding formula is driven as of now.
>> I think it's very sad. Absolutely. And and to tell you the truth, since my son graduated from over, I know you go around bragging about the scores that all the schools get. They've gone down a lot. So, there's a lot to be
answered for. >> We have a lot of work to do. Yes. >> Very sad. Well, my two cents, just so you know, beyond education about being uh balanced on the back of Malboro, taxpayers, look around the town of Malboro. What's going
on with respect to the massive overdevelopment and everything else? >> Not as much as most of the other towns. >> I wholeheartedly disagree with you considering I live across the street from the monstrosity that's being built on 79.
Um but look all all these suburban towns have the same >> I don't think far either but we don't have that you there's no 55 and older developments being built houses unless from years and years and years of
lawsuits way back to >> Mr. Messenger point of order I think the meeting is out of order >> Mr. Fox, could if you'd like, could you speak? Go and speak into the microphone. >> Most of those monstrosities have been go
back to the mayor's who's in jail now. >> The most of the houses are going are being built on 5acre properties and most other towns don't do that.
who will agree to disagree about that, but we do agree about Malber getting the short end of the stick with most things. >> Thank you. >> So, we do agree on that. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we will move on to G1
through 15. This is the portion of the agenda that deals with resignations, retirements, leaves of absences. Uh, does anybody want to make a motion? >> Second.
>> Mr. Bruno, Mrs. Smith. Any discussion? >> Okay. Roll call, please. >> M. Bruno. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bruno? >> Yes. >> Mr. Cabill? >> Yes. >> Mr. Sigley? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Lavin? >> Yes. >> Mob? >> Yes.
>> Mr. Mezer? >> Yes. >> Mr. Mez? >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay, moving on to H1 through 7. Now, this is the portion of the agenda that is going to include H5, which is the budget that's up for approval for school
year 2627 for uh $240.6 million. Does someone want to put forth a motion? >> Motion, Mr. Bruno. >> Second. Mrs. Higley.
>> Okay. Um, so this is for H1 to H7 >> inclusive H5 which is the budget >> discussion. >> Yes. Okay. >> Everyone please um >> it's time to discuss. >> Okay. So um I just had a couple things
that I wanted to say moving forward. Um to some extent I can appreciate Mrs. Fox's comments, but look at English Town. We always get the short end of the stick, not >> um let me speak.
>> Um S2 put us in dire straits. Somehow Freehold Regional survived >> with our six comprehensive high schools, our learning centers, ourmies, our athletic um uh activities, our busing,
our transportation. Somehow we survived. Um the intent of this board and prior boards has always been to um it's the kids. We're here to educate. Okay, that's our main objective. So somehow we got through S2
all the while having to um put aside our routine maintenance. We have six buildings. They're old. None of them are young. Some of them are older than others. Um the infrastructures are in great need. Um
which we know and we as a board have come to an understanding that moving forward every year we will address those infrastructure um repairs and
upgrades um because that's what we need to do. We haven't had the opportunity to do that all along. So S2 we get through we get to the next um the budget next budgetary year and hopeful that I am that at least at least our aid is flat.
>> Okay. But no, here we are in the hole again trying to climb out trying to climb out. Um and the solution of the state of New Jersey is let the taxpayer pay because we're not giving you any more money. Okay? So you can put the burden. We're going to allow you to go above your 2% cap and you can put the
taxpayer um on on the spot and they can pay because we're not giving you any more money. Okay. So we get to the next year and I'm hopeful. Okay, maybe we can be flat. But no, again, we're deeper in the hole. Okay. still trying to maintain six
comprehensive high schools, which I I challenge you to find any other high school district in this state that offers the programs and opportunities that these eight communities um are able to to to get for their kids.
You're not going to find it. >> It's not there. from our exceptional special education department to our AP programs to everybody in between. There's a place for everybody, an opportunity for everybody. I have two
kids who went through Manal High School many, many, many, many, many years ago. Okay? They weren't at this end, they weren't at that end. They were the guys in the middle and they have succeeded wonderfully. Okay? Opportunities were there. Opportunities are still there.
That's our goal. So, we get to this year, maybe we'll be flat, but no, there's a max that you can lose and a max that you can win this year. So, Freehole Regional loses the max. So, now we really can't climb out
of the hole. Okay. I'm on the finance committee. I have sat through many meeting with Mr. Messenger and and and administration. Um, I've looked at these numbers. They don't just show up in front of me today. I've had multiple discussions. I've had sleepless nights
trying to figure out, are we doing the right thing? Are we not doing the right thing? And again, the solution from the state of New Jersey is we're not giving you any more money, but we're going to let you utilize the um health benefits tax, the
waiver, so you can raise your 2% cap and put it on the backs of the taxpayers. Now, I know that I I know this is the best budget we could come up with, okay? We've done everything that we can. We've been as
fair and equitable as we can, but I personally have to now put my foot down and say you can't put it on the back of the taxpayers anymore. Okay? So, when I make my vote, you'll understand the pers
perspective that I'm coming from. It's not that I don't agree with all these folks sitting here. It's not that I don't agree that this is the best we could do for ourselves as a as as a board, for our kids, for our communities.
But my putting my foot down with my little half a vote isn't going to make a difference. But I want you to understand when I do vote where that's coming from. And I would hope that the rest of the people in the
community would open up their eyes and say to Trenton, which we've been saying for years, doc Dr. Samson sat in Trenton with Mr. Boyce week after week after week, okay, trying to get them to see
that the school funding formula needed to be changed. It's not that we haven't been proactive, but we're educators. We're not politicians. Okay. Um so I would hope that everybody that is disheartened by this process.
Um because we are going down the road of other districts of Tom's River of Jackson, we're going down that road. We might not be there yet because we are so fiscally responsible and have been for so many years that we've been able to survive just right below
ground level. But unless something changes dramatically, we're on the same path. So I would hope that people would open up their eyes and and reach out. Not that it makes any difference probably because we've reached out for years, okay? To
representatives, to to anybody who could and we're still in the same boat. So, I appreciate your time, but I do want you to understand that it's not that I'm not in support of this, but I have to um I have to at this point say you can't say
let the taxpayer pay. >> Okay. Who else wants to add? >> I just have one comment. It's a big Um this is like S2 light to me because I mean S2 is we're still feeling effects but um I think Dr. Hazel and the central
administration they did a great job with this budget. We're not losing staff. We're not losing programs. We're not cut cutting sports. We're not cutting programs. We're going to be probably asking our administrators to do extra
work. I'm sure they're ready for it. They're strong. Um, but I know that's probably we're going to probably have to do is ask our supervisors and our principles and assistant principles do a little more supervision um in your day. But um I think this
budget is good because we just didn't have to lose staff. We didn't have to cut busing. These are discussions we've had over the past years that I've been on the board. Courtesy busing.
this is not here in this budget. So, we're not like the other schools, thank God. And um I think it has to do with the central administration and um you know, we'll probably get it in 2027 already. So, um I thank you for that.
So, anybody else want to have anything to say before we go on to the vote? >> Okay, roll call, please. Miss Bruno, >> yes. >> Mr. Bruno, >> yes. >> Mrs. Caviello,
>> no. >> Mrs. Higgley, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lavin, >> yes. >> Mr. Pott, >> yes. >> Mr. Mezer, >> yes. >> Mr. Messinger, >> yes. >> Thank you. >> All motions carry. >> Okay, moving on to I 1 through nine.
This is um just I'm sorry. Uh, just for point of clarification, Mrs. Capello, was that No, >> it's just on the budget. >> Just is H to five. H5. >> I'm sorry. >> It's okay. I just wanted to make sure. I'm apologizing. >> No, I'm sorry. Um, all right. So, moving
on to I 1 through nine. Uh, some of the highlights here where we're awarding contracts for, uh, vehicle maintenance, custodial supplies, and window air conditioning units. Um, does somebody want to put forth a motion?
>> Motion. >> Second. >> Second. This is yellow. >> Roll call. Work discussion. Roll call. >> Miss Brunham. >> Yes. >> Mr. Brunham. >> Yes. >> Mr. Capella. >> Yes.
>> Mr. Sigman. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Lavin. >> Yes. >> M. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mezer. >> Yes. >> Mr. semester. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh want to go forth and combine uh
J1 through 14 and then K1. So uh Jay is looking at the donations we received. There were two generous uh donations from the Malber High School PTSO. Um it will also address some addit
district placements. And then K1 is uh professional conferences that we're approving. So may I have a motion to approve in total J1 through 14 and then K12 >> K1 and K2.
>> Oh, there was a two. >> There was a two. Yeah. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I missed K2. This also includes K2. >> Motion. >> Second, >> Mr. quickly. And just as a reminder, uh, policy 7523 is not being offered in
page. >> And we have a motion. >> Discussion. >> Okay. Roll call, please. >> Miss Bruna. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bren. >> Yes. Mr. >> Capello. >> Yes. On everything except J5. I abstain
on Michael Capiello. Thank you. Mr. Higley, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lav, >> yes. >> Mob. >> Yes, >> Mr. Mezer. >> Yes, >> Mr. Mer. >> Yes. Thank you.
>> Okay. L is old business. Does anyone have any old business? Okay. Uh, moving on to new business. Uh, I just want to uh reference uh Mrs. Fox earlier today. Uh, was giving kudos to
Mr. Acetto. And just to let everybody know, our next meeting is next Thursday, which is a week away. And, uh, Mr. Asetto will be attending that meeting uh, for anyone who would like to wish him well and, uh, speak to him.
>> Any other new business? So, um, thank you, Mr. Messenger. So, I wanted to kind of take this opportunity, um, on behalf of the district, um, especially the business office, uh, our auditing team, uh, to thank, um, Mrs.
Smith for her time here in the district, all her dedication, hard work. Um, this is, you know, a huge loss. Um it's it's a game for for her next set of colleagues in the district that she's going to. Um I' I've known Trish for for
several years and and one of the big decisions for me coming back to district definitely involved her. Um so uh but I wish her luck >> making her feel really bad. Um I I wish her a lot of luck and um they're they're
going to they have a great one and this is you know for folks um that have been around in education and over the last 10 15 years you don't find many uh like her. So you know we're we're sad to see
her go but we're we're very very happy for her and uh you know just a replacement. We did the best we can to find a >> I'm not happy for her. >> I feel bad. I sad for ourselves. I think
it's a hell of a loss, but um she could be a VA in any district. So, good luck. >> Now, Trish's been outstanding work, you know, in the school district. um on you know behalf of the administrative team on board um you know we're going to wish
you the best. We we still got you for a little bit of time uh but you got a tre tremendous skill set and knowledge base and um I I know even when this position uh for VA opened up here you were kind of teetering with the idea um but um I
know you have aspirations and talking with you um to be a future VA and and you would be terrific at that. Uh we're going to miss you. Um, I know we have other um, you know, retirements and resignations that come up on the board agenda all the time, but you're here with us this evening and we wanted to
just personally recognize you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Does anybody want to make a motion to adjourn this meeting? >> I'll make that motion. >> Are you here tonight? >> Second. >> Second.
Okay, >> the eyes have it. All in favor of jury the meeting. I