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bit things that this board gets to do. So, I appreciate all of you that have come out this evening. Um, and with that, I'm going to uh we have a couple board members I got to be filing back in, but we're going to start. So, I'm going to turn this over to the administration.

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Okay. >> Evening everybody. We're going to start with our student recognition so we can get you out of here if you'd like to get home and enjoy the Yeah, I say enjoy enjoy the nice the nice night instead of doing homework. Um so we're going to

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start with um the great reading games and who do we have? Do we have anybody from I can't see Kate is here. Okay, I thought so. Mrs. Hoppy, come on up. Supervisor from the Laura Donovan School. Just to give you an overview of the Great Reading Games, it is a um contest that all of uh district schools

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engage in. It's an annual reading competition designed to inspire students reading and improving their literacy skills. For the first time since we've been engaged in the great reading games, a Freyel Township School District student has been named as a national student winner. The third grade student

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from Laura Donovan Elementary School scored 88,261 minutes and read 8,326 pages. And I'd like to recognize third grader Isabella Padilla. >> Congratulations. Great job. What's your secret?

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Okay. All right. >> It's okay. Next, we'll be recognizing students from the Barco Middle School debate team, the Jersey Shore Debate League Tournament. I'd like to invite up our administrators from Barcelo Middle School. I can't see who's here tonight because and the

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debate uh the debate team adviser, Mr. Tany. >> Anything? Do you want to say anything? >> Uh oh. Sorry. >> In oh hi at home. Uh so uh yeah, I just wanted to say um it's really nice to see

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uh uh not only do we have Barklay debaters here, but uh some of the the siblings, the older siblings that are in high school uh who have come back to support uh and it's wonderful to see um you know the program grow through the years and have those students come back

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and and they have helped out. Um so uh are we just reading the certificate? Oh, thank thank you. Oh, thanks. Okay. Uh, so, uh, we'd like to bring up, uh, first place team. Uh, members on that first

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place team were Vihan Sha, uh, Dutch Harish. Gosh, I get nervous at these things. >> Uh, uh, TJsvas, >> uh, and, uh, we had a point because we were subbing in some students. We had a

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fourth member of this team, Sean Tucker, uh, who couldn't make it tonight. He's got a good reason. He is at a Knicks playoff basketball game tonight. I said Sean. We'll we'll bring some um everybody. >> Uh yes, please. Thank you. Uh all right.

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We also had uh uh uh our other team came in third place. Uh and by the way, the these topics the students are debating are are highlevel topics uh about should the United States provide uh universal

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basic income for all citizens, right? or you know what's more beneficial to society space exploration or ocean exploration and and we're really proud of all the research that our students did uh and preparation. Uh so the third

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place team uh Russell Sazinski uh sixth grader Jackson Mioli Jackson And last but not least, Alex Miller. Uh if I could say just one more thing, uh debate uh competitive debate is uh debated in teams. Uh however, we do

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recognize individual excellence as well. Uh and uh our own Vhan Sha was the top debater in the entire tournament. So he won a gavl. All right. >> We're not debating whether this

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whole big smile. One more. >> Next, we'll be recognizing the Barco winners of the geography be. >> Thank you. Thank you. Uh so uh geography B uh my my partner and friend and

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colleague Mr. Crup uh who runs the geography B at at uh Eisenhower uh this is something you've probably all heard before but uh after when the pandemic happened nat Gio National Geographic stopped doing the national be social

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studies teachers started get to get together and talk about how wonderful an event it was and Mr. Crep and I said let's start writing some questions. So um this could not happen in Barklo uh and in Eisenhower without without that partnership and all that time we spend

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together Mr. Crup. So I appreciate you so much um and everything social studies department over at Eisenhower does for our students. Um we had uh top three winners top three winners. Oh thank you Michelle. Um uh so in third place uh by

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the way these students went through seven rounds of preliminary questions at Barcelo we had a 20 question written tiebreaker and the three gentlemen that made it to the finals answered 40 total questions uh about a week ago. Uh, so in

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third place, Gavin Allen. Uh, in second place, Timothy Gerson. Good afternoon, sir. And in first place, Henry Calder. What a shame. just have to say I think they all came

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from the same elementary school too, right? West Freehold. Next, we'll be moving to Eisenhower Middle School. And let's uh keep the geography be uh recognition going. I'd like to invite up our administrators from Eisenhower Middle School and Mr. Crop.

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Start with geography B. >> Good evening. So the geography B what Mr. Tanz and I are able to do at both Park and Eisenhower is have as Mr. Tanzy said go through seven different rounds of questions. The first three rounds of questions there's one and two choices and after that we really start to

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increase the rigor the last four rounds. So rounds four, five, six, and seven, there are no choices. So for a student to be able to enter the next round after preliminaries, he or she must score a minimum of six out of seven. If you do the math, that means if you met one wrong in the first three rounds, your

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chance of moving forward is not likely. And so some of these students actually did something that we don't typically see much, right? Mr. Tanz educators in rounds four, five, six and seven in some cases being able to answer three out of four correct or in a few of circumstances or instances four out of

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four in the rounds 11 no choices. That's how you really know you have a high proficiency level. So in our school we had 18 students total in grades six, seventh and eth score seven out of seven andor six out of seven. So from the 18 we were able to narrow down to the final

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three students. our third overall. By the way, they were all eighth grade students this year and they were all male students this year at Eisenhower. Congratulations to third place overall from the Dwight David Eisenhower Middle School, Charles Morgan. This should be the third, right? Here's

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the Y. Yeah, second. >> I'm going to correct that. I should say second place for Charles. In third place, Lucas Bino and the 2025 2026 Dwight David Eisenhower Middle School geography beat champion. Congratulations to Mr. Michael

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Yidd. Smiles. Big smiles. Thanks. Thank you. Perfect. Next, we have a really good report with some of the local organizations in Freehold. Now, one of that is the American Legion, our group of retired

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men and women from the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, US Marines, US Coast Guard, and now we can add the Sixth Division Space Force. And so each year they ask for students in our history class to take part in what's called the safety essay contest and we've had incredible success. I think this year I

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stopped counting because we try to focus more on the process than we do on the results because we learned in life that if we focus more on the process, the result normally does ensue. So I want to say this year is something like 17 or 18 or 18 of 19 years we've won which is pretty special. And this young lady was

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one of seven students in my eighth grade and seventh grade classes combined that decided to take on work on writing what safety means to me. This topic does not change. If your essay wins at the local level, which this student did, then your essay automatically moves up to the

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county competition where this year Marina Fanelli, if you're here, could you please come forward? So, so Marina won at the local level, the lodge level, which was $25 she received. You're welcome. And she also received the beautiful neck piece that

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shows right away that she won the logo of the American Legion. That essay went up to the county competition. Obviously, the county competition's even harder. And Maria did it again. She took first place again at the Mammoth County competition. And then, and if my memory is right, I think that might be I think Marina might

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be something like maybe the 12th or 13th student that I've had in my teaching career win the county championship. So, I'm lucky. I get to teach a lot of really hardworking and bright students. And then her essay went to the state finals where Marina took second in the state of New Jersey. Thank you, Mr. Rickstein. Next, we have

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the Elks Lodge Essay Competition. Another local group who have a really good report over the years. And so, they also host an annual essay competition. Their topic changes. It fluctuates from year to year. But last year we entered, we had a student win the local level. And then from there, it goes to the

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regions. And then at the regions, there's no such thing really as winning the regions. They just decide if they have any candidates in the regions in terms of the essays that are whether you're going to state finals. So last year we did something never done in the history of this entire town. Never happened at Eisenhower, Barklo, or Field

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Intermediate. There were two students last year in 2025 made the state finals. So what we didn't place last year, we can say we made the state finals. So one of our big challenges in the offseason was asking ourselves the question, well, how can we do better than what we did last year? And so this year the students

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did it. This year we had three state finals. So we broke our record from last year. We didn't have anybody place in the state finals, but we did have three freehold students again making the state finals. Pretty awesome. So first I want to recognize Alise Quinn. Elise is not here. Elise actually won

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the regional level. She won the north south central division level which is pretty difficult to complete. I didn't get the numbers this year from the Elk Lodge, but last year, just to give you an idea, last year there was a one over 1,000, that's the entries, over 1,000. And so last year, 21 entries made the

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state finals. Eisenhower had two of the 21. I did not get the total yet cuz the lady who runs it, unfortunately, nobody knew that she was sick. She didn't know she was sick and she died a couple days after the competition. So, it was shocking news in Mammoth County. Uh, next, I want to recognize another

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student. So, Lee is my seventh grade student. And then I had two eighth grade students also make the state finals. Congratulations to eighth grader Shaina Coughlin. >> Congratulations Sha. And congratulations eighth grader Mason. Congratulations Mason.

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Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Mr. Dixon. And finally, we had an academic team competition at Cedar Drive and we had we were able to send a couple of different teams. So, we thank the board of education for being willing to pay for us to go. something a

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conversation we have at both schools is how lucky we are in our district. Some schools require students in their activities to have to pay a certain fee to be part of activity and in Freeold Township schools that's something that is not happening. So I just want to say from the bottom of my heart thank you for being willing to fund that because

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when you multiply that times all the schools activities both middle school and elementary schools that's a tremendous cost not just to enter but what it costs for gasoline and transportation costs. So, thank you. And again, parents, that's we're lucky that we don't have to do that.

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So, Eisenhower Academic Team One did amazing job. They were able to have a perfect score in one category. The per the category they had a perfect score in was history and geography. They had the highest score also in a category is science and mathematics. And we'll call

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up the following students. Congratulations, Eisenhower. Number one, Tanjang Len Jang is our captain. Congratulations to Juliana Lopes. Congratulations to Rayon Sadiki. And congratulations to Aiden Reno.

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And our second and last academics team competition is two days away Thursday back at Cedar Drive in Colts next. So good luck. Just two two final things. I promise to keep it short, but I want to thank too I want to thank Mr. Dixon. Mr. Dixon, whenever he's doing his walkthroughs at

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Eisenhower, he's always asking how students not only what they're doing academically in the class, but he's asking about how they're doing in their co-curricular activities. And as a teacher and adviser, that's a beautiful thing to have an administrator do. I've always said as a teacher, you can tell when somebody goes from being a teacher to administrator if they never forget

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what it's like to be on the other side of the desk. In this case, the desk of a teacher. That's something we as educators really appreciate. And I want to thank our two school administrators who do so much work. Our school principal, Mrs. Lechner, and our school assistant principal, Mr.

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school each day, and you should see how late they stay at school, even on Fridays. In a lot of schools, Fridays, people can't wait to get out. That's not true advising our administrators. Thanks for caring. Congratulations to all the students that were recognized tonight. It's quite difficult to do what

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you've done this um break in all of your activities and your job preview. Let's give everybody another We're going to give parents and students two minutes to escape the rest of this meeting if you so choose. All right, we're going to resume um open

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session. Mr. Dixie, >> uh in the month of May, we have several activities that are happening at our schools. I don't have all of them written down, but they are all in the newsletters. Um we have most of our elementary schools doing our their annual evening of the arts. Uh usually

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includes an art show and a chorus andor band concert depending on the school. Um they are spread throughout the month. Unfortunately some are on the same night and um you can try to get to multiple ones but it would be a little challenging but you can try. Um so those are all coming up.

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On the 14th, we have our um bilingual parents evening at Laura Donovan School. Um May 7th is the second year of the um eighth grade performance group at

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Barcelo Middle School. Um at 6:00 it is the um what was for years instituted Eisenhower back in black. the equivalent at Barcelo this year is free bird and their group is uncaged and uh they will be performing along with sixth and

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seventh grade chorus. Um one song by the eighth grade vocal group um and there's dancers also. Um so that's May 7th at 6:00 and it's the uh second time we're doing it. We're did a pretty good job of building the program over there with Mr. Ryan. The Eisenhower annual Back and

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Black concert is the 21st. Yes. May 21st. >> Two weeks after. >> Yep. two weeks after uh May 21st. So um again, you should be getting I think you confirmed you're getting all the newsletters from the school. So just check those elementary school newsletters for all of the dates of the

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um art and um well evening of the arts. Uh Cindy soon in May will be sending you a Google doc of all of the back um the graduation ceremonies and also the um

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moving up ceremonies for fifth grade. As you might remember, most of the fifth grade moving up ceremonies are on the same day. So if you're available um kind of be mindful if you don't have a specific rationale for attending a specific one to spread spread across the schools if possible. uh you can always

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go back in and change them right up until the day of or the day before would be better. Um the administrators do go in there so they make sure they recognize everybody that's in attendance. Um and since our last meeting, we've had four cases of harassment, intimidation, and bullying.

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Out of those four cases, three were founded and one was unfounded. Each year, our school safety teams, that is a representation across each of our elementary and middle schools and the ECLC, have um different staff members and a parent representative on their

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school safety teams. The school safety team is responsible um for meeting and doing a self assessment and to determine grades under the anti-bullying bill of rights and required to read the scores at a meeting. Um to remind you, the grades are based upon compliance. So

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it's compliance to the HIB processes that are in place by law um and uh practices that we have. So they include programs, approaches or other initiatives, training on the policy, other staff instruction and training programs, curriculum and instruction on

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HI and related information and skills, HI personnel, school level HI incident reporting procedure, investigation procedure reporting to give an overall grade with a maximum of 78 points. Applegate school has 77 out of 78.

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Barco has 76 out of 78. Eisenhower 76 out of 78. ECLC 76 out of 78. Kina 77 out of 78. Donovan 77 out of 78. Ericson 77 out of 78. West Freehold 77 out of 78 for a

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district grade of 77 out of 78. Next, we'll be moving into our budget, our final budget presentation. Thank you. All right, good evening. Um, this is our final budget presentation for the year. It's required by code. Um,

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for those who've been on the board the last few years, you know, the final presentation, I try to do it a little bit quicker and and the data is a little bit more concise and condensed. Um, I will tell you though, we'll start off the state or the county did request that we make one change in the budget.

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Can you hear it now? >> Okay. So, they did request that we make one change. It does not impact the budget overall in terms of we can't spend more money. Um, so what they wanted us to do is you'll see here and you'll see on the uh budget resolution

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for both the revenue accounts and the appropriation lines. We had in the tenative budget we had for capital reserve interest a $5,000 figure. for maintenance reserve interest, a $5,000 figure. For emergency reserve interest, a $1,000 figure for a total of 11,000. They say they want to reflect closer to

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accurate. And again, it doesn't make any difference budgetarily. Just just one of the numbers change. So the final budget reflects and the motion does as well. Uh capital reserve interest at $50,000 for $45,000 change. Maintenance reserve interest is a $25,000 figure for a

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$20,000 change. and then emergency reserve at $5,000 for a $4,000 change. Um, overall it just increases the revenue picture by 69,000. Can't spend this money on a teacher or books or anything that it's just something that they requested that we do. Does it make

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sense everybody? Okay. So, I'm going to go through this real quick. These are the things we've talked about in case there's anybody new in the audience here or anyone watches this video and haven't hasn't seen the other ones. Um, as we know, our significant cost drivers for the upcoming year was

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healthcare, where we're uh anticipating or taking a 20% increase for medical and for prescription, zero for dental. Um, that figure allowed us to put into the budget a $3.4 million tax levy uh healthcare adjustment for the year. Um

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we also discussed at the previous meetings that um are we have increased costs for special education which impacts our headcount for staff and also the severity of the student needs impacts our support cost. So overall there's an $800,000 increase in support costs and out of district tuition

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combined. Uh estimated increase for property cash and liability and workers compensation is 20%. Those final figures won't come out until the end of May, beginning of June, and we're anticipating almost a 12% uh increase in energy. So, healthcare and energy are

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are big across the state, across the country. Um, so it's nothing new to Freehold. Um, we also discussed that prior to us even presenting the first budget, we had about $1.5 million of cuts to make. Um, just to review the staffing, it was one instructional coach, a custodial supervisor, seven

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teachers, one prek class. uh that was a teacher and the TAs associated with it and that's due to declining enrollment um or need and four part-time TAs and then we also had $450,000 of other non-m mandated items which you can see

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Chromebooks PD curriculum writing um and it was approximately a 1.5 million gap and as I said the last few times we allowed back during the beginning of co 1.25 25 million to lapse in bank cap. That seems to be the number we're walking in the door every year with in

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terms of uh a hole that we have a budget deficit in which we are fixing every through a combination of staff reductions and other cuts from the budget. Um just real quick the general fund revenue I condensed this. So tax is as

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we could see and we all know it's 88% of our total revenue. Um the tax increase is $5 million 6.4%. 4% that is our 2% plus that tax levy adjustment for the healthcare increase state aid and XA it

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shows that it's up 3.7% or $272,000. It's actually if you remember from the last two uh conversations the state gave us for 2526 a $100,000 additional aotment of state aid for a one-time purpose. So it kind of skews the numbers

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we're really up $372,000 or 6%. 6% was the maximum amount of an increase or decrease that you could receive in state aid this year. Um, and state a accounts for 8% of our total revenue. Fund balance is down $362,000 or 19% that

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accounts for 2% of our revenue as we discussed before. Um, as budgets are getting tighter and we have less money laps at the end of the year. Um, that fund balance number is harder to maintain at 1.9. We're down to 1.5. Next year we anticipate probably having come

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down a little bit more. Again, um it's just the nature of how the budgets operate right now. Uh reserve accounts, we are estimating to use 423,000 additional dollars and that is u from maintenance reserve for that goes to all of our school maintenance and then uh

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42,000 of that 900 is from emergency reserve and that will go towards uh security projects. We have a new security server that we're purchasing and it will also go to help us improve our visitor manager protocol. Um so it shows up an 81% uh from change year to

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year. It's only 1% of the budget. And lastly, all those other revenues we talk about um tuition from other LEAs for special education students that we receive, tuition from the preschool, interest, any assets that we sell, um that's up 155,000 or 13 a.5%. Most of

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that increases from the additional prek uh students that we are um anticipating to receive revenue from those parents. and then about $50,000 in additional earned interest. So again, if you look at those last three categories, they don't amount. That's 4% of the total

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budget. And yet it's 8% state aid and 88% for the tax levy. That has been we've been between 88 and 89% now for the last decade that I've been here making these presentations. So how the money is spent instead of going through all the you know the

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different lines here again you can see on the pie chart if we go from we go clockwise instruct from classroom instruction it's 33.6% 6% that is special education regular education um our English as a second language as well as our basic skills classes co-curricular and athletics is a very

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small piece 4% out of district tuition we did identify that there it's part of the big increase this year u with some additional students but it still amounts to about 2% 1.9% of the total budget support costs this is everything from the nurs's office guidance child study

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team the curriculum office um our oneto-one aids uh that is 14.3%. Administration is 7 facilities ground security is 9.1 transportation is 4.9 benefits 28.4 and capital outlay

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equipment is very small at point4. Now, if I would have gone back and we started doing this little uh pie chart back in 2022, um what you would see here is as our enrollment has gone down over the last seven, it's over the last decade, it's

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gone down. Um you know, our classroom instruction goes down because we need less teachers, less staffing there. That number's come down. Um but the pieces that have grown is well, take a step back. If you thought your class your number of staff members is going down, you would assume your benefits going down. It's not working that way. the level of benefits, especially in health

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benefits, has gone up. That that piece of the pie continues to get bigger every year. Same thing with support staff. Um, a lot of it has to do again with what we talked about the severity of the needs of our students, whether they require a onetoone aid, some we have a couple students that require uh onetoone

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nurses. So, that all adds up into the budget picture here. Fund 20, which is our special revenue fund. We've discussed this before, too. It's a small amount of money. We have budgeted in the uh resolution $844,000. That is money from our IDA grants for

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students with disabilities. It's for the ESSA grants, which is title 1, 2, 3, and four. Um and as we've discussed before, we budgeted 75% of the 25 26 allocations as per state guidance. Um we hopefully anticipate getting 100% so we're flat

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from year to year. Um but again this is the guidance that we um have from the state debt service. This number has increased as we know because of the referendum that we patch passed in March of 2025. Um the first debt service payments will come due in

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2627. So the tax levy necessary to make those payments has gone up by $5.2 million which is 128% increase. But as we also knew, our uh debt service aid, the amount of money that the state is supporting us went from $43,000 to 2.7

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million. So it's a $2.7 million million increase. Um we have a onetime amount of $72,000 left over from surplus from refunding of the bonds that we did from another issuance u back in November. So overall the debt service is up 8 million

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or almost 200%. Now, when we look at the estimated tax impact, I've said this a few times now. When we back in 2025 when we were discussing referendum, we had anticipated that the um the debt service alone would be a 6%

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increase. Um and that was because the Phoenix advisers who provided the data for us, they took a very conservative approach. they had a slightly higher interest rate than what we actually earned and they do cannot assume there's any increase in the assessed value of the township. Well, we had a smaller um

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interest rate that we accepted on the bonds and the assessed value went up over 10% last year and up 4.3% this year. So, it all plays a factor. So, overall, we're looking at um a home the average home at $711,000 of assessed

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value would see about a $270 increase. It's a 6.7 ccent increase overall for both the general fund and uh debt service on combined. And we also have that small amount of money called the Verizon tax that the state um sends to municipality that they reduce our

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overall tax levy. So we're up 12.5% but in terms of a tax increase is 6.7 cents and again for the average homeowner for our portion of freeholds um taxes it's a $270 increase year-over-year. And that is all I have. Again, we've

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gone through the presentation a lot. Um, I try to do this last one quick and concise. Does anyone have any questions about this? Anything that we're doing? >> Your point through very quickly through the beginning of processing that very first slide, people said that there was

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a change, but that by state guidance, they wanted to see those numbers, but that they can't be spent. Can you explain that just a little more? >> So, these are balance sheet items. They're not budgetary items. So what I have, let's say regardless of what number we budget, it does. So say I put a dollar into all three of those

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categories. If we got $5 in interest, that interest would go to those reserve accounts. It's not money that you could take and say, "All right, hey, Neil, I've got all this extra interest here. Go hire another staff member, go buy more textbooks." It goes to those reserve lines. And then the board has

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the ability to use those dollars for the statutory items that they're allowed to be withdrawn from. So again they wanted to reflect a little bit closer. We are earning more interest than that. It was the same number we had used for the last I got to be seven or eight years and then so they said can you please change

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it? So we are so that's what I mean we will we might actually if we earned less it doesn't impact the budget. If interest rates are all of a sudden to decline drastically and we didn't earn $50,000 it does not impact our ability um for our staffing levels or anything

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else that we've budgeted. It's it's it's very strange that they have us do this because um if I were to show you the spreadsheets of how to make sure the budget's balanced on one side of the equation, those numbers don't show up. We don't budget the appropriations for that, but the state does in the DOE

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software. And then on the revenue side, we it's what it it's just how they want us to balance the budget. So >> might pick your brain about that one day. >> Yeah, it's it's it's not a big deal. It's just, you know, again, we can't hire more staff with this money. It has

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to be used up. It doesn't impact everything else that we talked about in the budget with the budget cuts and all that stuff. >> Yep. Anyone else? If not, thank you. my certification.

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>> Yes. All right. I'll do the BA certification now. Hi, Robert Dvita. The school business administrator/board secretary certifies that as of March 31st, 2026, no line item has been overextended in violation

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of NJAC 6A23A-16.10C3 and that sufficient funds are available to meet the district's financial obligations for the remainder of the fiscal year. >> Thank you and thank you for your presentation and great job on the budget as always. We really appreciate all the hard work that

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went into that. This is now the first opportunity for public participation. This would be just on items on our agenda this evening. There'll be a second opportunity for public participation on any item pertaining to the school district.

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If anyone wishes to address the board, please write your name and address on our sign-in sheet. State your name for the record. Statements are limited to three minutes and should not be abusive, obscene, or defamatory in nature. Do we have anybody that would like to

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approach? Okay, seeing none, then we will go to uh personnel policy and communications. Mr. Crosby. Good evening everyone. Um the personnel policy and communications committee did not meet this evening. Um so I'd like to

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move the following items. Two, a memorandum of agreement FTA as listed. Um three, retirement. Can everyone hear me? Okay. um retirement. We'd like to pledge it and thank Katherine Borchard and Stacy

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Collins for their work with us. Um four, resignation as listed. Five, adjusted leave absence as listed. Six, revised job descriptions as listed. Seven, unpaid days as listed.

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Eight, ESY 2026 staff as listed. Nine ESY 2026 transportation staff as listed. 10. Student teacher practicum observation placement update as listed. 11. Affirmed bullying investigation

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findings as listed. 12 family engagement rates as listed. 13 certified substitutes as listed. And 14 non-certified substitutes as listed. >> Thank you. Do we have a second on that?

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>> Second. Thank you. Any questions? Seeing none, can I get a roll call? >> Mrs. Bran? >> Yes. >> Mr. Confory? >> Yes. >> Miss Crosby? >> Yes. >> Mr. Gulo? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Lambert? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Feler? >> Yes. >> Mrs. O. Sullivan? >> Yes. >> Mr. Amaroso? >> Yes. >> Motion carries.

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>> Thank you. Curriculum committee. >> The curriculum committee did not meet this evening. And I just want to move item number two home instruction. and as listed. And then item number three, adoption of envision math textbooks and due resources as listed.

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>> Thank you. Do we have a second? Do we have any questions for curriculum? >> Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Awesome. Uh, finance, facilities, transportation, Mr. Gardulo.

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>> Good evening. uh finance, facilities, transportation committee uh did meet tonight. Uh our members included myself, Mike Amaroso, Renado Brand, and Bob DeVito. Uh we discuss um in the in the

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meeting the referendum. The committee reviewed the contracts on the agenda tonight for approval. The contracts came in under the budgeted projected budget. Additional funds can be used for unseen circumstances or other projects allowed

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as per the question passed by the public. Then we talked about the budget. The committee reviewed the budget that is on this evening's agenda. Number three, purchasing. The committee reviewed a new law limiting the use of certain co-op contracts for maintenance

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and construction. And then we reviewed uh the agenda items pertaining to us or in general. Um I'd like to move um the following items.

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Uh first number three, the secretary treasurer's report as listed. Uh bills and claims as listed. We had uh a grand total of $4,76,89853. We had travel and related expenses as

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listed. Oh, and the bills. Thank you, Michelle. Got that. Transfers as listed. Out of district contract update as listed, eight out of district transportation

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contracts. M O E S C as listed. Tuition contracts for received students as listed. 10. Transportation uh jointure as listed. 11. IDA

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basic and preschool of of fiscal year 2026 grant as listed. Um 12. Cooperative purchasing group as listed. 13. Renewal of competitive

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contract for Sedesco as listed. 14. Acceptance of bids for project 25K 0 to7. Additions and alterations of multiple schools as listed. Awards for of bids for project 2527.

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Additions and alterations at multiple schools as listed. 16. acceptance of bids for project 25 KO26 uh HVAC upgrades, additions, and alterations at multiple schools as

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listed. 17. Award of bid for project 2526 HVAC upgrades, additions, and alterations and multiple schools as listed. 18. Focus grant submission as

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listed. 19. schoolled filters program grant submission. 20. Adopt final budget 26 to 27 as listed. 21. Health insurance rates 26 to 27 as

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listed. >> Thank you. I know that was a lot. Thank you. >> Lot. >> Do I have any questions for finance? First of all, do I have a second on that motion? >> Thank you. Do we have questions for f uh finance facilities? >> I have questions. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um for the renewal of the Sedexo

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contract, were the fix or these prices have they changed from the last contract? The fixed meal >> in your footnote that you received is a 2.9% increase from the prior year. the guarantee stayed the same and it's

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it's within the uh it's a little slightly less than what the maximum renewal rate that is allowed by the state which is currently in this quarter 3%. >> Thank you. >> Question for 11 for IDA that final 10% administrative

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uh >> just a percentage of their salary. >> Yeah. percentage of each of the salaries that's remaining. Is that an administrative cost that the grant like >> it's being charged for the general fund? Whatever whatever is not covered by the grant. We had we had a couple uh of people that were being charged there.

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Either they're out on a leave or they retired resigned and so we additional funds left in the grant. And so now we're trying to get into that number that we have left. So that's where we the percentages are there. Do we have any other questions for

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finance facilities? >> Okay. Um, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Do we have any opposed? Excellent. Old business. Do we have any old business? New business.

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Uh, be it resolved that student number 1781309002 be placed on long-term suspension and in an alternative alternate education program through June 30th, 2026.

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>> Do we have a second on that motion? >> Okay. All those in favor say I roll. Oh, roll call. Okay. Yep. Great. Mrs. Ry, >> yes. >> Miss Crosby, >> yes. >> Mr. Ro, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lambert. >> Mrs. Spieler? >> Yes. >> Mr. O Sullivan?

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>> Yes. >> Mr. Amaroso? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Do we have any other new business? >> Okay. I have no further remarks. This is the second opportunity for public participation. If anyone wishes to address the board, please write your

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name and address on the sign-in sheet and state your name for the record. Statements are limited to three minutes and should not be abusive, obscene, or defamatory in nature. Do we have anybody that would like to approach? Okay. And we are going to move back into

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executive session. So whereas pursuant to NJSA 104-12B, the board of education may exclude the public from that portion of a public meeting at which the board discusses any of the matters described at NJSA 104-12B1-9.

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Now therefore, be it resolved that in accordance with the provisions of the open public meeting act, the board of education shall conduct a closed session pursuant to the personnel and legal exceptions prescribed by NJSA 104-12 for the purpose of discussing the following matters. superintendent

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contract and pending or anticipated litigation and TWWU contract. It is anticipated that the length of time of this executive session will be 120 minutes and that action may be taken in public after the executive session.

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Be it further resolved that said discussion may be disclosed to the public when reasons for discussing and acting upon it in closed session no longer exists. Yeah, probably no action will be taken at that time and board doc board docs

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had as you know some issues. So the time and there's no action after. Okay, it is not 120. >> Okay, we our first event was supposed to be in the second half. So >> no action. >> Yep. Uh do we have a second on that

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motion? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. Thanks for coming out, folks.