[Music] good evening good evening everyone welcome to our early April meeting pursuant to the public meeting act
chapter 231 public law of 1975 this meeting notice was sent to the Asbury Park Press on April 2nd 2025 and was duly advertised in the Asbury Park Press on April 7 all municipal clerks for the
towns the girls within the regional district have been duly notified and a requirement for this notice was met on April 7th 2025 please join Antonio and I in the pledge of allegiance
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 mr scott any changes to
Yes Mr president uh in addition to the items that were noted on agenda's pre-printed prior tonight the board also discussed uh exception number three uh the student suspension report uh exception number four uh FREA
negotiations and exception number seven uh the referendum and fiscal year 2026 uh budget legislation thank you may I have a motion to approve the minutes of the March 13 2025 regularly
meeting i'll offer second any discussion board not hearing any discussion roll call mr rullum yes miss Bruno
mrs campell yes m butcher Farcus yes mrs higgley yes m Yes mr yes mr messinger yes mr yes reminder communications are on file in the board secretar's office
dr hasel are you ready for your superintendent report i am thank you Mr bruno thank you Antonio for being here this evening you're welcome um this evening there's a resolution on the agenda um to modify um
this school year's district calendar uh we did not we were very lucky we did not have um any snow days this year i know Mr verdon is here he was very busy with a lot of ice um but we didn't have any snow days so we are looking um to close
the district um actually give back two days and close on Friday May 23rd and Tuesday May 27th uh we're heading into spring break on April 14th and we'll be back on Tuesday April
22nd uh this evening we actually have two presentations but um you know first up will be Mr mendes uh for our annual report of phase one of the SSDs that's the uh student safety data sheets uh
many of us know it as the violence and vandalism report from many years ago uh but we'll be presenting uh the first phase of data which is the first part of the school year um dated from September to December of this school year thanks
Mr mendes thanks Dr hazel so like Dr hazel said this is phase one of uh two phases the second phase will be from January to June of this school year which will report out uh in the summer so starting
with the first group of information here um I will I am happy to report that almost all of our numbers most of our numbers went down uh as compared to last year's phase one and I I'll compare those numbers for you with each category
so you can see up here this is violence vandalism weapons substance abuse HIV confirmed and HIV alleged uh the state uses HIV alleged instead of nonconfirmed it just means the HIV was alleged and wasn't confirmed as an HIV so here you
have um 14 violence incidents last year at this time we had 20 so we're down there vandalism were the same we had run and we have one last time uh last phase one uh this year for weapons we had two
uh that's up we had zero phase one last year um substance abuse we had 15 and last year phase one we had 23 so we're down a lot there uh these next two numbers were down substantially so we
had 28 HIV confirmed this year and last year phase one we had 45 and the alleged HIVs we only had five in phase one we had 27 last year okay so this this slide breaks down violence a little bit into
the separate categories all right so simple assault we have five of them la last phase ones we had six so we're down one there um sexual contact we had zero last year phase one we had one um sexual assaults were at zero we were at zero
last year as well fights we only hit four this phase one last phase one we had nine so we're down substantially there as well okay okay vandalism and weapons so damage to property we're at
zero just as we were last phase one uh false public alarm we had one last phase one we had zero so we're up one there theft we had zero last phase one we had one uh trespassing were the same at zero as we were last time uh again the
weapons as I stated on the previous slide we were two up from um zero last year obviously we had no assaults with the weapon and we didn't have any assaults with that last year either okay so substance abuse um we had 11
confirmed substance use down from 13 last year's phase one we had six possessions this phase one last phase one we had 13 so we're down seven there um sale and distribution and refused exam we're at zero and we were at zero
last phase one drug possession of drug paraphernalia last phase one we were at six this you'll notice we're at zero so we're down there as well so this next slide just shows the substances
uh that um unfortunately the students were were using it's all marijuana um we had no other substances uh last phase we had 12 marijuana this one we have 11 um and then all the others are at zero just
like they were last time and then the last slide here is HIV as we discussed already uh confirmed HIV we're down to 28 from 45 last phase 1 we're down to five alleged HIVs from 27 so an overall
total of 33 in this phase one compared to 72 last phase one so down substantially and that's a tribute to the principles and the assistant principles in the building just building their culture and climate and really um
and and the kids too really getting into it and you know I don't want to say fixing but doing a better job uh you know I I want to put the numbers into perspective too when we talk about one two five four six we have almost 10,000
kids in the district so to see these numbers um this low is pretty amazing so it's a compliment to our our principles and our our buildings and these are just some of the things that they do amongst other things in the building so there
any questions about the data could you just clarify what the weapons were nice nice um those were unbelievable yeah i mean I've been around for a while you know as
an employee these I mean congratulations principal assistant principles and alcohol counselors i mean excellent work and to see those numbers for a school size 10,000 students amazing so
congratulations keep up the good work i don't want to chase anybody but thank you we'll have the simple assault like what would that be it's like um you know the best way I can describe it is a kid walks up to
another kid and punches him okay elbow punches in the face or something right right okay it's not a fight right thank you any other questions great thank you thank you thank you Mr mendes yep mr
veroni if you can get the lights thank you um this evening also um our uh business administrator Mr ferrara is going to um have a presentation as well um just to kind of step through um the budget
situation for the Freehole Regional High School District and um a tax levy incentive program um that uh is available uh for eligible districts um Freakhole Regional being one of them in New Jersey
so tonight we really have a very important you know overview and discussion uh regarding our personal budget situation and really uh we will also be outlining the fiscal landscape of the Freeville Regional High School
District um in our district we just don't plan out for one year our scope is looking out for a multitude of years to ensure that we've got um everything that we need uh for our students and our staff this district prides itself on
fiscal responsibility the administration and the board of education we have been excellent stewards of our budgets our hope was that after the S2 years there was going to be a new funding formula that would have been uh that would provide us with additional aid to
districts to get them closer to adequacy there's always been much talk in Trenton uh about revising the formula or starting over again with a new formula that has not happened for the planning of the budget for next school
year fiscal 26 through the years of S2 our state aid has been substantially cut um Mr ferrar will actually go through those numbers with us but in fiscal year 19 our
district received 50 approximately $50 million in state aid now for fiscal year 26 we receive approximately 29 million a substantial cut over these seven years
and again all of us know right facing rising costs and inflation even for next year's budget our state aid was cut by $916,000 year after year the state aid cuts have negatively impacted our budget
and one of the main areas that has suffered the most is our buildings and our facilities we have not had an opportunity to invest in them the way we would have wanted to each year we have had to have cut staff proportionally to
enrollment to close our budget gap we have basically exhausted this option moving forward as enrollment looks to be flat in the coming years no help no answers from Trenton 2% on
the tax levy does not close our budget gap as the costs of services and goods exceed 2% year-over-year we continue to face a deficit and we anticipate a deficit as we enter into fiscal year
27 last school year for fiscal year 25 we had the ability to increase the tax levy by 10 million still with that we had a deficit in our budget for fiscal year 26 in our
planning back in 2016 our budget was supported through state aid by 26% now 15% of our budget is supported through state
aid so again more going to we don't know where it's coming from but now you know falls on you know um our constituents myself this administration the board have discussed plans for a
largescale referendum we are looking to plan for that for November of 25 it's our only option the revenue the referendum would include the immediate and necessary work for our
facilities mechanical engineering and plumbing climate control security and the modernization of educational spaces this work is paramount it's imperative and it must be done that referendum
doesn't have any that planning for that referendum with our architects has no bells and whistles it's the necessary work for our buildings to operate and function safely for our staff and students tonight through the presentation you're going to see
firsthand the evidence of some of the failing mechanical systems that need our attention the DOE has enabled select districts including Freehole Regional High School District to apply for a tax levy
incentive aid program if you meet a certain criteria i know you've heard this for years and years our district is spending below adequacy and we're in a community where the tax levy is below the local
fair share that means the amount that the state of New Jersey expects a district to raise through local property taxes based on local property values and residents income and that the district has exhausted all eligible adjustments in
bank cap meaning the district has explored and utilized all available funding options this program allows the Freehole Regional High School District to submit an application to raise the tax levy up
to the state determined what they deem adequacy and qualify for state aid 5% of the increased levy up to a million dollars under this program and you'll see a board resolution this evening that
Freehold Regional is eligible to generate an additional 30 plus million through local taxes and receive that 1 million in this tax levy incentive aid from the state we have reviewed our budgets um
and tonight there's a resolution requesting and seeking the board's approval to increase expenditures by 20 million an increase on the tax levy of 19 million plus the tax levy incentive of 1
million we all know that if something didn't change drastic cuts and changes of how Freehold Regional District operates would be at the forefront freehold Regional would not be the same district that we all know it is
the time has come we need to ensure that we can address our facility concerns and have the ability to balance our budget year over year with some level of predictability so Mr ferrar our VA is
going to discuss our plan uh review the options that are before us um as I said the submission of this application does require the board's approval to apply for this additional revenue if the plan
was approved and voted by the board we would do this in lie of our referendum we would utilize the funds for the same purposes we were anticipating for our referendum again the highest priority needs for our district boilers unventilators
educational spaces and ensuring we can facilitate our instructional program this will be fully outlined you know tonight um our administrative team myself and the central office team all of the principles uh we appreciate um
our district our board of education our local uh community officials um for their time their efforts and thoughtfulness um as we go through the budget planning process uh and truly appreciate the support of the greater Freehole Regional
High School community during a very challenging time mr fur I'm going to turn it over to you for all the specifics thank you Dr basil um so I just want to kind of start off by by thanking the admin team the board uh for us to be
able to have this presentation and have this engagement in this dialogue and uh as we kind of explore this option um and like Dr hazel said this is just one option there is no specific commitment uh tonight other than just to submit the
application uh and see the district's kind of eligibility so the main reason why we're here specifically doing this presentation is because over the last couple of weeks the DOE kind of released some information as it pertains to this tax levy incentive program um and just
to kind of a little bit of background um so you know going back to the funding formula of 2008 and I'm not going to rehash a lot of the similar points that um Mr boyce um That's good
all right uh thank you Mr mendes so Mr boyce uh obviously for the last several years has kind of reviewed the impact of S2 uh the funding formula um and obviously the the greater kind of decisions and long-term impact on the
district so for the most part uh the S2 legislation uh was adopted in 2018 and the intention there was to over the course of time to kind of shift that liability uh from the state coffer to the local taxpayer especially for
districts that are seeing kind of a decline in enrollment change in equalized value so Dr hazel said uh the adequacy budget is the level of funding a school district needs to provide a third nutrition education and as
identified by the DOE this year the district is $30.3 million under adequacy uh the local fair share is the amount of revenue to be raised by the local taxpayer uh so that number is approximately $69.6 million so in both
of those metrics the state is basically saying that the local taxpayer can afford more and as we've seen um in terms of kind of the community and as we kind of look you know and and appreciate the importance and the significance of
the regional district to the 10,000 kids that we service as well as roughly the 200,000 um you know residents of of the municipality over the 200 square miles we know that that is not something that is taken lightly and whether it be Mr
boyce prior to me this board myself Dr appraisal we we understand that these decisions are not made in a vacuum and as a result we need to be able to kind of explore different alternatives explain and be transparent
to both the board and the public as everybody kind of makes these decisions and like Dr hazel said um you know as we look at um this is just kind of a landline for tonight but as we look at kind of the state aid over the last uh
10 years or so you know in FY16 we basically had $51.4 million of state aid and now we're down to a projected 29.6 um so like Dr hazel said just kind of stole my funding some of my data
points right but uh in FY16 the state aid made was made um that state aid made up 26.6 26.5% of our budget and now uh or most recently 25 it's close to 15% so then the question then becomes is that
during these years especially the S2 what we call the S2 years which is the biggest decline and it kind of looks like a little roller coaster um this is not a roller coaster that the district has appreciated being on right and and so the the decisions that Dr samson and
now Dr hazel Mr po myself the admin team have had to make over the course of these years have been significant and some of them have been very upfront and v visual to the average taxpayer the average parent like increased class
sizes like the condemnation of our tennis courts and then there's other stuff that is not as evident stuff that's behind the scenes pooling on the roofing um windows that are 40 years old uh boilers that are that are going so
those are the things like Dr hazel said in terms of kind of um the district's kind of long-term kind of impact when when we look at you know what impacts a student's classroom and the decisions that were made they tried to be as far away from the classroom as possible and
I don't you know I I would have done it exactly the same way um so from that standpoint just like we have our own homes we have a boiler we have a hot water heater we have an air conditioner a roof just as an example um the unit
ventilators that I'll go into in a little while um as as a potential uh kind of item that needs to be addressed based upon the measel uh assessment from several months ago we have 349 of those those are just the ones that need to be
addressed uh so when we look at these numbers and the impact and the maintenance of effort they're significant um and obviously it's it's it's critical that we kind of look at it from from that standpoint so moving on in terms of kind of just
the maintenance of effort so over the last um roughly uh 15 years or so the the district has averaged about $3.3 million which is this blue line um in terms of maintenance as well as capital
improvements and so for the most part um as we look at kind of industry standards um whether it be you know private sector whether it be more tailored to uh education governor accountability office um the as international uh national
assoc uh council of schools um those folks all kind of estimate that the investment in facilities should be somewhere between 1.5 and 4% of your replacement cost uh so for thus just as
an example most recently our insurance estimate in terms of replacement cost is is approximately $421 million so that level of effort probably should have been closer to $11 million over that same you know 15-year time period and
like I said you know in talking to professionals that were here before and obviously working with Mr fredoni and his team now the infusion of that money or the lack thereof over the last 15 years has made a significant dent right um and like I said just like not much
different than in our own homes when the boiler goes and the hot water heater goes and the ref and and and the roof goes at the same time that's basically the situation that that we're in right now and like I said the average person you walk by the buildings the buildings
are clean the buildings are maintained to the best of our ability but there's things that are breaking that obviously we need to kind of um consider and the concern is whether it be a referendum like Dr hazel said or whether it be another path that substant um
systematically addresses these issues that gap will continue to get wider um and that's a that's something that we need to kind of consider so some of the examples um unit ventilators uh are pretty common those are things that uh
obviously just about every classroom has it uh gym floor the gaps are starting to widen in in certain buildings like Freehold Township and Marro we can't sand the gym floors anymore uh so it's not like a situation where you can sand them one more time and just paint the
graphics on and just recode it you're basically down at the tongue and groove already uh you're starting to see those gaps appear in between the boards that obviously just happens over the time um and you know at the end of the day that facility assessment that uh Speizzel uh
did for the district kind of came up with a number of roughly you know over $600 million and obviously that's not going to be anything that we would want to kind of put on the back of the taxpayers um in terms of those significant numbers but the reality is
that we have just in terms of interior uh building space we have over 1.4 million square feet um you know and that's just Marorrow by itself has 264 and the reason I bring up Marorrow is
because in this plan that we're working together as we're kind of fine-tuning uh the potential referendum there's roofing on that plan and that roofing is roughly 91,000 square ft right um so if we take
the 91,000 ft add roughly you know 20 or 30,000 square feet that were part of the 2021 referendum there's still a gap that means that at some point in the future we're going to have to go back to the taxpayers even if this referendum kind
of plays out um so moving on um you know the these are a couple of other examples uh on the right hand side is a condensing boiler uh back uh I want to say 20 years ago or so there was an ENSIP program that allowed us to kind of
replace some of our old cast iron boilers with these newer more uh efficient convention boilers that as you can see water marks are not normal hvac condenser unit on a roof rusted that's not normal and the concern is that at
some point and we just recently had it at Freehold Township thankfully we're kind of coming up to the end of heating season but basically two of these condensing boilers basically went down just around the same time and one of them had to be basically scrapped to be
able to fill the other one to get the second one up and running this is not you know as as as a superintendent that I used to work with basically says "This is now run of an airline right we have to be diligent we have to be strategic about these decisions um so back to the
the concern about the ongoing um maintenance and the maintenance of effort and like I said in that as you saw in that slide in that gap is going to get bigger if we haven't been able to kind of maintain that effort over the last 10 or 15 years what makes us think
that in a 2% tax levy cap environment that we're going to be able to do it going forward that is uh critical to to this discussion so basically like Dr hazel said on the agenda tonight there's a resolution uh to basically have the board approve the submission of an
application like I mentioned before we're still in the works with the referendum u option and exploring all those uh uh op um steps and at the same time this tax levy incentive program so I'm going to kind of give a little bit
of an outline of what this is all about so at the governor's budget address in February uh basically one of the lines that was in the proposal and the printout that came in afterward was about $20 million towards this tax levy
incentive program so unlike last year where there was very specific legislation that allowed districts to go over the 2% tax levy this is going to be part of the appropriations act in essence the state budget that gets approved every June uh in
preparation so um the component of this is this state matching all right right and the state basically is saying "Hey for districts that whether you took advantage of the program last year or not if you're still below adequacy and you're still below local fair share
we'll allow you to go over your 2% tax levy okay up to your adequacy number which for us like I mentioned before was $30.3 million okay and in in provide an incentive a little bit of a carrot on this is that we're going to give you
every five cents on every dollar that you go to your taxpayers up to a million dollars uh cap um so as we kind of look at the potential kind of um implications of the you know referendum versus the
tax levy incentive program I'm just going to go uh through some of them so the referendum um like I said at this point based upon trying to kind of refine the number um and it would probably be somewhere in the ballpark of
around 240 to $250 million uh the priorities would be MEP which is mechanical electrical and plumbing uh security cameras HVAR including air conditioning uh science lab renovations
um flooring uh you know lighting drop ceiling um all critical components because most of these science labs haven't been really touched in any significant manner um over the last you know 20 or 25 years but the critical component of this about doing the
referendum is that even if it gets approved by the community it still lacks a systemic kind of opportunity to maintain this level of effort going forward right and this kind of refers back to my point before to say hey if we haven't been able to find money in our
budget to adequately kind of keep up with that maintenance and those capital improvements what makes us think that we're going to be able to do it consistently going forward in these 2% tax levies world so the PL the the program the tax levy incentive aid
program is like I said it will be through the appropriation uh the DOE is actually managing it and it requires us to submit an application and like I said the the board uh resolution for for consideration by the
board tonight is literally just to submit the application but the commitment and this is a commitment that the administration and the board have to be prepared to make to the community right which is hey we're going to set aside $12 million of that whatever
whatever that dollar amount is so over that same 20 year period we basically have a similar investment to the referendum and in exchange for that within the next 10 years or even more we probably won't have to go back out for a
referendum to kind of to address these needs um so the for FY26 um the the application would be submitted primarily with those three uh subcategories facilities obviously the
biggest chunk uh student supports and then and then staffing um the other component of this is that the the application timeline is expected that we're expected to have kind of a u a response sometime uh by the end of the
month uh last week of of April uh and the intention there is so that this districts that do get approved for this application have the opportunity to discuss it in public at the public hearing and if the board chooses to kind of take advantage of it uh and go from
there the and like I said the commitment is that in the component of this on an annual basis um is is um the investment in facilities the privization the sequencing of projects and the sustainability and just as an example
the tentative budget that we submitted to the county had a replacement gym floor for Marra but most recently and um and and based upon some previous experiences and situations we have roof
leak on on a roof above the gym floor that is out of warranty so what that basically tells me is that I'm not going to recommend investing $350 or $400,000 on replacing that gym floor when there's a risk that there's going to be water on
it and now I'm going to have to create a patch again so this is the sequencing component that we wouldn't have as much flexibility with the referendum that we would have this program and like I said in terms of the commitment of the board
the issue is um that moving forward right every year we would do a two-year lookout and that would basically uh make sure that everybody understood what the intent of these dollars were for and how
would we best utilize them in a and prioritize these these schedules so in essence if the application gets approved and consequently the board approves uh the adoption of of the u the funds into the the FY26 budget in FY27 we would
commit having the tool at least 12.2 available for projects so from a dollars and cents standpoint how does this pan out from a taxpayer and I'll get to that in a second the only major other difference between the two is the financial need the referendum if all the
applications are approved the district would see u a debt service aid in somewhere between 30 um and 40% of the dollars right depending on what the project is it's the VA has very specific kind of standards on that in exchange
for that right the interest saved by going on that program is roughly $119 million so the the you know and as as I talked about it in finance I shared that at the preliminary kind of gut feeling
when this program was announced um March 28th and then basically they said "Hey if you're interested in doing this you have to basically submit an application by April 14th." um at face value we felt that that number was going to be dramatically different from a financial
impact of the taxpayer but as you'll see in the next slides the tax rate changes are are are not all that different um the major other component uh that relates to this tax levy incentive program is the emphasis on a thorough and efficient education and as most of
you might kind of guess um that has changed a little bit over the years with the AVID decisions um so the you know the the application for this year has to be targeting those those components
and then finally um although we would be uh bypassing potentially this debt service aid um the last component of that is that periodically the state does issue regular operating district grants uh which basically would allow us to
aggregate a certain number of projects that we would be able to get some kind of state funding for so the the the net loss is not roughly that you know $7 million as shown it's likely that it's going to be much less than
that so what you see here is basically three options that the board uh might choose to consider you know in a few weeks when we have the public hearing um the first option option A the first column is literally just taking the FY25
tax levy increasing that by 2% option B the middle column is that same 2% on top of the FY25 plus the referendum and these numbers are the estimated numbers of what that payback period would be over the next 20 years year one is a
little bit lower because typically you don't have a principal payment it's just an interest payment but for years two all the way through uh 20 uh basically it's around $12.9 million of u of debt service so the overall payment is around
182 and then finally column C or the the right column on the right is 2% on the FY25 plus the $19 million so what you'll So compared to the number that you see there the N $19 million you will notice
that on the previous slide I mentioned $20 million okay and the reason for it is because it's counting the for the million dollars that the state would match so basically what that means is that the local taxpayer would see uh a 19 instead of a
full 20 because the state picking up that first million dollars um so those are the comparables in terms of the general tax levy which is our operating budget our debt service uh which is the repayment of debt and obviously the full taxes to be raised so in terms of how
this kind of compares to the to each municipality we're going to take it kind of from here so on the left hand side in green you see the tax rates these are the most recent tax rates by municipality uh so every year as part of
the budget submission process we basically um will approve uh or kind of receive a regional share uh spreadsheet from the DOE and that basically takes the equalized valuation of each municipality which is down here right
and the enrollment i apologize for the typo on the double and um but uh but basically those numbers will change and what basically if you look at it is to say hey if there's a municipality that is worth more and is sending more kids
to the district they're going to have a responsibility that's higher in a district a municipality that's going to be worth less and has less kids coming to the regional district right so those rates are already kind of estimated based upon the most recent uh information available on the Monmouth
County ratables on the right hand side you see a table that pretty much identifies each of the municipalities and those same three options and how these numbers change based upon those three options so for example if you're
in English town uh and I'm going to pick that one because the option is the highest at the end so if the district if the board chooses to go up just to 2% the impact on this tax rate right here the 2843 would be an increase of
2.5% um if the the board adopts uh possibly going out for a referendum and the community supports that then that estimate would be close to 9.9% so consequently the numbers after that would be roughly 13.8 if we go with
a third option so what that basically means is that you have some municipalities that throughout all three options are expected to see their overall tax rate go down and then you have other municipalities just because of how their proportionate share plays
out will actually see an increase so Marorrow which happens to be the highest um in terms of kind of this area right here right uh in this third option would potentially see an increase of just over $300
annually so that is based upon the average assessed home um so I know that Mr voice over the course of time they didn't necessarily kind of share that information not because he was trying to hire the king but because nobody has the average system right just like somebody
says "Hey can you do it based upon a million dollar?" Well some people have a million dollar and some people don't so for the most part the easiest thing to look at is to say "Hey if I take out my tax bill and I look at my tax bill and I say "Hey um the frequent regional
component of this is I don't know $2,500." Okay I'm going to find my town i'm going to basically say I'm going to add $2,500 plus 2.5 plus 9.9 plus 13.8 and then I'll see what those buckets
actually mean to me as the individual taxpayer so that's the estimated uh kind of um kind of impact on the tax rate based upon these three options like I said the
the at this point uh the administration is recommending that we submit the application to the DOE see if we're eligible for it um and if so what those dollar amounts are and then as we prepare for the public hearing um then at that point the board can kind of
consider its options um the only other thing that I just want to kind of share obviously the board is aware of this but the community we had tentatively had um the public hearing scheduled for April 24th because we don't expect to see uh the determination on these applications
until the week of the 28th we're looking to kind of push back the public hearing just to make sure that we have as much information as possible uh so the board is making an informed decision um so at this point um I'm going to turn it over back to Mr bruno in case any of the
board members have any questions any discussion board any questions any questions commission yes yes the the application gets submitted and if it gets approved we're under no
obligation to raise taxes are we that is correct at this point it really just retains the the the board's options for for the public hearing uh just not any different that at some point probably in the summer if we decide to go down the
referendum option um the board would have to adopt the question to actually be submitted to the county for a vote in November the one thing that I want to kind of make clear um and I you know and I I hope I tried to make it clear is that if the board entertains this option
and this becomes viable um the referendum is is not something that we would kind of be exploring anytime soon uh it wouldn't be fair to taxpayers um and because like I said the important component here is that the board and the
administration commits to the community that we're going to use these dollars appropriately um moving forward so um at the public hearing in May um if we get our application
approved and will vote on the tax le to increase the tax levy that night correct okay and then I have a question for the board attorney i don't understand we're supposed to have a 2%
property cap in New Jersey and last year they passed that legislation that gave us this big one-time exemption to raise taxes more than 2% so how is this possibly happening very good question so
the for lack of a better term the authority for this program uh is not does not currently appear in a uh bill that has been proposed in either
the Senate or the Assembly it is contained uh within the appropriations act which is uh in simplest terms the governor's proposed budget for the upcoming state fiscal
year if the when because New Jersey uh by law has to have a balanced budget uh when the budget is approved if this provision is contained within
the appropriation act which would have to be adopted by both the Senate and the Assembly and signed into law by the governor if that is adopted and approved then the authority for this program would then become effective so for lack
of a better term the path that the powers that be have taken is a little different uh than the path that they took last spring for the uh the prior program uh but it would have the same
full force effect request two schools only so this program is uh is actually a little more narrow uh Mr bruno um and that's important to point out it is not a program
um that is available to districts that just have seen state aid reductions through S2 uh that's one component the other component is that the affected districts for lack of a better term must
have taken all available steps that were available or provided to it uh meaning the board must have exhausted any and all bankked cap that
has happened here in Freedom Regional uh the board must have exhausted and utilized any other waiverss uh that existed uh in connection with the existing 2% property caps because yes because yes there are 2% caps Mr mess
here but there are also some exceptions very limited exceptions that that districts can utilize the biggest being of course public health insurance costs so uh Freelo Regional is one of a handful of districts there's not a lot of districts statewide that do apply
that this would apply to uh but this district is one thank you any other discussion board thank you very much i want to thank your staff this was meeting was only um put
together a couple weeks ago and um with human resources and the business department and your business to pull this together in a very very short time um two weeks earlier we would not be there so thank you for your hard
work thank you we do have a delivery report tonight and it's finance so okay well basically this past Monday night essentially the entire meeting
just consisted of going in a little more depth on what we've just been discussing for the past 45 minutes um I mean I'm trying not to repeat but I mean I took four main points that I don't think were addressed is you know
every year we're going to have a deficit going forward um I my own personal view which I brought up at the meeting is you know with this we're essentially joining the ranks of Tom's River Jackson Middletown
uh with respect to DDay arriving at this district um and basically when you think about it the state average high school spends $20,000 a kid and we spend
14,5002 and as was mentioned earlier about being below adequacy I don't really know what else uh can be done about this so everything else was already discussed just now so that essentially
encapsulates the meeting thank you which was only Monday night can't four months ago monday night uh okay so um we have no one here to speak tonight no one in the public has signed up to speak
tonight um so are there any changes to the agenda yes Mr bruno we do have some changes um so I'm going to just read those into the record
um so on G1 uh the approval of resations be resolved that the following resations be approved as recommended by the superintendent schools Michelle Stevens special education math teacher Malin effective dates June 30th to 25 um and years of
service 13 and first G2 approval of retirement the following retirements be approved as recommended by the superintendent of schools Kathleen Churchill math teacher at PSAC and the effective date is June 30th
2025 and for G3 approval of appointments needed resolve with the Freehill Regional High School District board of Education approves the appointments for the following staff members as recommended by the superintendent of schools contingent upon criminal history review pursuant
to 218 C5 clearances and issuance appropriation appropriate certificate excuse me certification applicable to the extent that any board member is in conflict due to any appointee being a family member his her vote is an abstension all certificated personnel
are approved as home instructors and substitute staff from the district programs kind of as the basis for the year in which they are appointed uh the employees name is Rebecca Hooker special education chemistry teacher at Holink
High School um the step guide is $73,150 effective date of November excuse me September 1st 2025 for June 30 to 26 and um the little note at the bottom obviously the salary reflects the 2024
salary time um which um is currently still being negotiated with the FRA and then finally um I do have a couple of revisions to the agenda on the current resolution for H7 um there was a clarification that we
needed to make to be consistent with the potential application um so I'm going to read that into the record uh and then highlight the change so programs operations number seven submission additional expenditure and tax incentive aid whereas in the proposed FY26 state
budget certain districts have the opportunity to apply to the commission of education to increase expenditures include an allocation of tax incentive 8 in order to satisfy the current efficient uh standards established pursuant to uh New Jersey statutes annotated
18A7 46 whereas the Freehold Regional High School is Board of Education is below local fair share and below adequacy to be eligible to participate in this program whereas the freehold regional high school district board of education is eligible to increase
expenditures by $30,316,65 and qualify for the tax levy incentive aid in the amount of $1 million whereas the Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education is requesting the approval to increase expenditures in the amount of
20,8,000 291 based on the following reasons to maintain thorough and efficient education programs by calling restoring the maintenance plan necessary for adequate school facilities repairing instructional spaces reinstating staff and purchasing instructional material
therefore approval of regional district board of education is approved business of this application that concludes page seven and like I said the highlighted um or change was the description relating to the dollar amounts and the
u um the reasoning paragraph for um for H8 uh there is a revision um so pursuant to um my conversation recently with our um uh county school business
administrator she asked that we uh read about uh the budget for the for the year uh so I'm not going to read the resolution specifically um as it compares to the last meeting when we adopted the budget uh but the basically
the changes are in the general fund column uh less anticipated revenues uh the number is 46976 262 and in the previous resolution had one um and then moving over to the debt
service instead of being 357 to 656 the previous one had 657 and then consequently below the taxes to be raised the number uh was off by a dollar as well uh consistent with the less anticipated column and then finally on
the capital reserve withdrawal um in the first uh line where it says P resolved that included uh B is resolved that included in the general fund appropriations budget line 620 is a withdrawal from capital reserve other than capital project and the addition is
Indian estimated amount of $650,000 uh so that way it's consistent with the sum of those two projects one of which I highlighted before during my presentation 700 excuse me $750,000 and so that concludes the
changes to the bill we have more questions for you okay we don't have any questions we're going to move along here mic problems tonight may I have a motion to approve
G1 through G11 motion second um Gapiel any discussion board not hearing any discussion roll poll please mr stolen yes mrs capiello yes m butcher
Farcus yes mrs higley yes the abstain G6 referring to Harold for test thank you mrs lav yes m mob yes m messinger yes mr bruno yes thank you can I have pass
may I have a motion to approve program operations building transportation and physical plant it's H1 through H7 motion second mr scott Mr capell any discussion board
not hearing any discussion roll call matilda yes mrs caviella yes miss Butcher Farcus yes except for H7 abstain thank you Mr higgler yes Mr convin yes
Mr mcc yes Mr messinger yes Mr ber yes thank you motion to pass may I have a motion to take educational programs and administration which is J1 through K5
motion this is the K i heard her second second miss Scapio scapio any discussion board not hearing any discussion roll call mr
sto yes m cabiel um yes on everything except excuse me on K1 i abstain from Jeremy Broadman and K4 um to Dr hazel okay thank you very much uh Mrs miss Butcher Farmers yes mrs higley yes but I
say also K1 to Jeremy Braberman and K4 to Dr n thank you mrs l yes m m yes mr messenger yes mr r yes thank you all motions pass um anyone has all business to discuss i
do want to thank the staff of Marbor High School and their guidance department uh for pulling off incredible college fair um really well done they're always like something to look forward to the college fairs and I think we had over 100 colleges that night yep more
maybe but thank you for hosting that and any other old business um any new business [Music] not hearing i make a motion to adjurnn not hearing any new business motion to
adjurnn second i think she broke Mr elementary all in favor all in favor i We are joured will insert