WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=01RCyoV81oM

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: 01RCyoV81oM):
- 00:00:01: Meeting Opening, Flag Salute, and Attendance Roll Call
- 00:00:44: Budget Presentation Introduction: District Snapshot & Academics
- 00:03:36: Academic Performance: Middle, High, and Elementary Schools
- 00:08:10: Visual & Performing Arts, Athletics, and Student Surveys
- 00:12:39: Global Changes Impacting Budget and District Planning
- 00:16:10: Budget Timeline: Post Pandemic to State Aid Reductions
- 00:18:17: Board Member Comment: Understated Financial Challenges
- 00:19:07: Budget Goals: Quality, Responsiveness, Taxpayer Responsibility
- 00:20:39: Budget Reality: State Aid, Health Benefits & Tax Impact
- 00:25:31: Recommended Budget Actions: Position Reductions and Strategies
- 00:30:30: Future Budget Considerations: Efficiencies and Partnerships
- 00:36:04: Board Member Question: Substitute Teachers Strategy
- 00:37:22: Board Member Question: Clarification on Assessment Averages
- 00:37:45: Board Member Question: Explanation of Fund Balance
- 00:38:39: Board Member Question: Using Aids as Substitutes
- 00:40:44: Public Comment: Shared Services and Long Term Strategy
- 01:04:09: Discussion on Budget Vote & Elementary Teacher Position
- 01:05:12: Public Comment: Thanking Administration (Inaudible)
- 01:06:05: Motion to Close Public Comment and Vote on Budget
- 01:06:54: Vote on Budget and Other Agenda Items
- 01:09:15: Final Public Comment and Meeting Adjournment


Part: 1

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All right. Two notice of this meeting has been posted under the legal ad section of the district website budget on May 1st, 2026. To the flag of the United States of America for it stands one nation under God

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indivisible with liberty and justice for all Mr. Hy here. >> Mr. H is absent. Mr. Richie is absent. Miss >> here. here. All right. Moving right into section

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two. Motion to open. Can I get a motion to open? All in favor. And I will presentation to thank you. >> All right. Thank you uh for coming

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tonight. I was not expecting no members of the public here tonight. Um, nevertheless, I'll try to project my voice so if anyone's watching on YouTube that they'll be able to follow along. So, as I present this budget, you know, I

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spent the afternoon pondering, you know, if this was a movie, would it be Groundhog Day, The Matrix, or some type of choose your own adventure? You know, I will say that this is the most complex budget that I've worked on in the decade

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uh in the role of superintendent and I I don't remember working harder or with a greater sense of togetherness with the business administrator, the assistant superintendent and the entire administrative team. We do have very strong consensus on on this budget and

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it's hard to present to you although it's complex compared to what we've seen in past years because there's more revenue in play. Um I think we have a solid way through this tough situation that we're in right now.

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So we're going to do this in two parts. I'm going to present where we are and how we got here. Then I'm going to give you the opportunity to ask questions and then I'm going to answer the questions and take your comments and then I'm going to continue with the second part

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of this. So little bit of a district snapshot. We are in a great era where it's you don't have to look long and hard to find some really great academic gains pretty much across the board. Our visual and performing arts, our

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athletics continue to support the whole child that we're so proud of. We couldn't have better family engagement and external support. Groups like the zone PTA, our PTAs had of education foundation, our mayor

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commissioners. We really couldn't ask for more support. Our school climate and culture is really solid. I'll show you some video that reflects that. You're going to see some student voices tonight, what they have to say. You're not going to see any photos of

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our facilities upgrades and the transformational spaces that we now have and will soon be completed over the summer, but I think you've seen enough photos and you've seen enough with your own eyes, including the room that we're in of what's coming together from a learning environment standpoint.

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And then you're going to see strong evidence of rising enrollment, which is always a good a good sign uh for a school district like Township. We're going to start with the middle school. It was pointed out this is a few years

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ago and if we just look at the area of language arts, we are up from 41% of students meeting or exceeding expectations for the NJSLA test all the way to 76.9%.

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So knocking on the door of 80%. Now this test is going to change. So this is this is the last year that we'll have that type of longitudinal data. But this is really remarkable. It's far exceeded expectations over the years. We we're also seeing consistent academic

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growth in math. Students are outperforming themselves each and every year as they drop from sixth to 7th to 8th grade. The data has improved in three consecutive years in each grade level. We're still not performing as

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well in that as we are in language arts, but it's been remarkable growth and progress. And then finally, in our social emotional support initiatives have led to significant reductions in disciplinary referrals. Here's a number

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of total number of referrals by years. So 572 referrals in 23 and 24, 453 total referrals in 2425 and 288

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in 25 and 26. Now the key part of this chart causes for some but the key part of this chart says through May. All right. Now let's see what happens here in the last two months of the school year. Those can often times be busier months when it comes to disciplinary

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referrals. But this is excellent data. The learning outcomes are improving. The disciplinary occurrences are decreasing. I don't know what else we can ask for. Middle school. I applaud our leadership and our teaching staff uh and all of our

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staff for helping with these results. And now high school. We had some questions in the past years about how many students that are in the AP classes are actually taking the test. We've noticed an advancement in that

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area. Over 80% of those students are taking AP exam in the courses. 92% of those students are getting three or higher on those exams and 66 and 12% are scoring four or higher.

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College career readiness remain exceptionally strong. 89% of our class are reporting that they will attend college next year. These include Ivy League, service academy selection and a substantial amount of academic

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scholarship money has already been awarded. We're also continuing a strong path for career and technical education and the visual performing arts. Many districts are cutting and reducing these programs

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and despite our budget challenges, we're continuing to forge ahead in these important areas. Elementary schools, we're seeing consistent measurable gains across all five schools without any one school underperforming.

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They seem to be moving together in a positive way and we're noticing strong progress with our target interventions and much of our internal data suggests that the students most behind grade level are making the

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strongest gain. type of credit is shorter and the teachers that are providing these interventions and the students. Um, but this is an area that we have a focus in the past few years and we've noticed some excellent academic movement across grades K to

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five and we can attribute this to improve districtwide systems. This is no longer a a bunch of independent schools that operate independently. You know, our five elementary schools are part of the

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connected online system. And again, credit goes to the administration, the principles, Mr. Sher and our teacher level leaders in this area who really has done a great job connecting this curriculum over the last several years and we're seeing the fruits of that.

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We also have for the second year have received a best communities of music for education by the man foundation. This is the second year we'll re uh receive this award. You don't have to look long and long long and hard to see the energy,

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the performances, the excitement around the visual performing arts. We were just in here last meeting on the heels of the pops concert and the musical and all the exciting things that are happening in in in the world of the arts.

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our athletics. Our boys and girls soccer team once again won sectional championships. Boys basketball won the Patriot Division Championship for the second time in school history. And we've had many record setting individual performances.

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I know that you're aware of our individual accolades in the sport of swimming. We also have a wrestler that scored his 100th match win this year. But above and beyond, if you watch any of our teams play, I was at the lacrosse game yesterday. If you watch any of our

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teams play, they play with spirit. They play with character and they play the sportsmanship across across the board versus any other sport. Uh I'm proud of our athletic department. I'm proud of the way that our kids uh prepare and

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perform with great great sports. The next slide might be the most impressive slide at least the administrative team. We reviewed this as a group and we're very pleased with the student surveys. This was an initiative I think that uh came to the board maybe

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a year or so ago. The importance of the student climate survey. We administered it and at the high school one of the best things that we gleaned that was overwhelmingly responsive overwhelmingly positive was that students are reporting that the

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adults in the school care about my life. That's an excellent place to start on a highle question and probably the most important place. Students in the high school are seeing learning as relevant to helping them uh in life

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and they're also voicing to us that they have a connection or involvement outside of the school day which they're saying is so important to them as student at the high school. It's pretty obvious

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students indicated that they need help with time management and stress management. All this means is that they're on a great path to adult, right? Because we all can use that that same assistance. At the middle school, students are reporting a strong sense of belonging

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and safety, a sense of rigor and being challenged. We wanted to make sure that the middle school had enough rigor as a whole. They are saying that they're being challenged to solve problems. And the area need is the students are reporting that they can

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sometimes use help on a bad day. The adults noticing that they might be having a bad day. At the elementary school, students are also reporting feeling safe and supported in the classroom and most importantly that

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they're feeling okay or safe in the classroom to make mistakes. they understand that's part of the learning process which is exactly what we want in early childhood classrooms. One area of need that we have here is students making that we have some work to do with

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peer-to-peer relationships especially in the areas of kindness, inclusion and equity. Our enrollment has grown 147 students in just 5 years and we increased 40 students in just one

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year. We're now saving 2,124 students. Back in 2021, we were only at 1,977 students. Our families are continuing to want to move to township. This is the

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sign that they're valuing how capture as a place that they want to have their children educated and most importantly that they trust the educational system in high. Okay, it's 2026.

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In 10 years it's going to be 2036. And 10 years ago it was only 2016. We are in the center of a seismic amount of global change.

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Think about where you were in 2016 and reflect back to if anyone would have told you that these things would occur. The first one,

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college athletes who used to play a sport for a full scholarship are now getting millions of dollars, millions of dollars in the NCAA, a seismic shift that has affected

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financially towards all of our academic institutions. Second, we had an artificial intelligence explosion. We seem to skip right over electric cars. We went right from gas powered

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cars to self-driving cars. We now have cars on the road that drive themselves. Our TV, computer, telephone, and email is all on one device. The dominance of smartphones and social

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media across virtually every culture. A worldwide pandemic leads to a massive shift in remote work. Somebody told me in 2016 that they worked remote and we have no idea what they were talking about.

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We have a mental health crisis especially among youth. the cost of family health benefits will overtake the starting teacher salary. So

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it's very criteria with family health benefits that cost those benefits. It's very close to the the starting salary. There's great amount of confusion and mistrust of reporting news

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and there's this huge uncertainty on what the pathway is for home ownership here for young people. But what is the pathway to home ownership for anyone that doesn't know? When we look to this budget, when we

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look towards the future, we have to look back and look forward. And we just don't know what the world will be like in 206. But I'm sure of two things. Number one, students that are going to run will

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still be adapt. And number two, the world will look a lot different. The decisions that we make today are not only resting on the years of tradition and legacy that previous board members and

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previous superintendents and administrators have provided to us. But they will also have a ripple effect into the future years. A timeline recap of how we got to where we arrived.

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Post pandemic there was a surge in increase in cost across the board. You may recall our fund balance started to decrease which led to some conversations about changing our elementary schools and

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reconfiguring our schools and we were worried about being reliant on flood balance to plug holes in our budget. In 202425, we received a significant decrease in state aid followed by

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another significant decrease in state aid in 2526 followed by a small decrease in state aid this year but a huge increase in health benefits costs. that three-year

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gap. If you total the subtractions of the state aid with the addition of the extra cost and health benefits totals to a gap of 3 years of 2,161,621. We've had some major reductions in

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force. I'm not going to read you the list, but you can see the left hand column, the two columns, the column on the left and the column in the center are all professionally certified staff full-time

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except for the PE teacher was part-time along with the support staff in the right hand column. all positions that were eliminated and other reductions along the way for

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that's where we are. That's how we got here. As brief as I possibly can tell the story I'm looking around most of the board I think was here when this all began. So

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questions, comments mostly for the public, but since there's no public hearing, we'll do it anyway. >> I just think it's important to know on the the slide with the state reductions and that threeear gap of 2.1 million that doesn't account for all the other

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increased costs that came over time. We had other cuts for because other costs not just healthare other costs have been rising year over year and beyond what we have the ability to bring back. So this

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line is really really conservative and those increase in costs in the top left hand corner they stop before 2025 they continue probably an hour. group. >> And just to know as folks jump in, I can

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hear the air. So just be as loud as you can when you're making comments or asking questions. Just make sure questions, comments about how we arrived and where we arrived before familiar. Okay. to part what are we going to do?

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Well, we're going to do what we've always done and we're going to try to get a a development of what our goals should be and our goals are going to be the beginning part of driving this budget. The first goal pend we're

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putting before you tonight is to build and protect highquality educational opportunities for students. This is going to be about more protecting, but we are going to continue to build on the programs that we have to minimize those reductions.

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The second one, we are going to respond to global change with focus. We saw the changes that are currently happening. We can't stay the same. We have to change. Change is enough. We're going to do it with focus. We're going

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to do it together. And we have a responsibility to our taxpayers to keep this tax increase as low and as manageable as we can. Those are the three goals that the administrative team and I work towards

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when we put this final budget before the board for adoption. Here's the current reality of this specific moment and that is that our state aid decreased by $48,000

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and our cost of health benefits increased by 1 million $33,922. There is a gap just short of $1.1 million. This slide represents The most important slide when it comes

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to making tonight's decision, we're going to go very slowly here. The ceiling for a tax increase is 6%. That would provide us with actually a surplus of

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$226,000 additional cost of $31 a month. We had an opportunity to do this a few about a month ago when we submitted the budget to the county and at the time there was some uncertainty around the health benefits increase

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costs that were projected to be as high as 25%. They came in at 18%. Assuming there's no interest at 6% since the budget that was submitted to the county was 4.5%.

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Which we were hedging that those health benefits were coming lower than they did. If we went with a 4.5% increase, the additional cost per month on the average assessed home would be $24 and the additional cost per year would

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be $287. And finally, the budget that I'm actually going to propose is a 4.25% 25% increase which is resulting in a deficit of

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$34,000 $23 a month to 74 a year. You'll notice that the difference between 4.25% and 4.5% is only a dollar per month.

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There may be some reasons to go to 4.5%. Including the information in the lower right hand corner which says and this is the first time you're hearing this because first time

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we received it officially when our county business admin administrator provided this information um to this call. Our fund balance has dropped below 2%

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of our total operating budget, which now represents a little bit of operational risk. We're $143,000 short of the $820,000 target. So, it's $40 million budget. The

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state's going to want to see keeping 2% of the total operating budget in funds. We slip below that because in the past year or so, we've had less money to roll into fund balance again each year. One of the things that we may want to

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consider over the next few years is trying to find a way. I know it's impossible right now to get more money into that fun balance, but you should be aware of it. That may be a reason to go to the 4.5. Unfortunately for our taxpayer despite

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all of the advocacy work that we have been involved with specifically President Hel who's been fearless and knowledgeable of doing this charge not only for township but for I'd say most of South Jersey is that according to the state we remain

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$3.9 million below the adequacy level. That means that according to the state's formula which we're contesting is that our taxpayers are not paying

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their local fair share to the amount of 3.9 million. We disagree with it. We contest it. We're fighting it. But the public board still needs to know till this is changed. The state's not coming

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to help us or save us. And here's our tax impact and recommendation. Local tax levy goes to $31 million 4.25% which will provide a balanced budget.

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Here's how we're going to get there. On the left hand side, we have retirement principal math. My recommendation is not to replace that position. You're going to absorb district registar responsibilities

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also Mr. short assistant. We'll spread those responsibilities out to the remaining board office as much as we can. We won't be able to totally absorb it. We're going to do our best. One elementary teacher reduction

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to reduce daily substitute teachers by 100,000. How we got to that number is we took the hold up of about $230 $240,000 which we traditionally spent on daily subs and we think that we can reduce

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that by about 35 40% by only replacing every third or fourth teacher that's out only getting a sub for the third or fourth teacher combining classes trying to push students into larger spaces such

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as here are this room, the new areas that we're building um to put students together in large spaces that can supervise a large group study hall so to speak. Similarly, similarly to some surrounding high schools that have had

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some success with us and three onetoone aids. We have two high school students that have one to one that are graduating. We know that those positions can be absorbed not those individuals those age return but those positions

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can be reduced and one additional eight position will very confident can be reduced. I'm also recommending us to change our elementary user consultant to a 0.5

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teacher. That would be at a cost of 300, excuse me, $30,000 to provide $30,000 for shared service and some clerical support for our board office to replace our district

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registars's responsibilities. and we need about $30,000 for ESL services to service our students that needs to support by law uh for English as a second language. That reduces the

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budget by 304,000 which aligns to the 4.5% increase in taxes local tax rate. Now, before I get into the next slide, the enemy right now financially is the

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cost of health benefits. We've been in this room or we look a lot different than this in this space for 2 years complaining about state aid. That's not the enemy that's before us. It's the cost of health benefits. We cannot

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hire any more new positions outside of the city grid that have benefits attached to it. We have to be as creative as ever, partnering with external organizations,

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securing positions perhaps at part full time to avoid the cost of benefits, especially support roles to achieve total outcome. And I know we had some conversation the last meeting

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about the elementary teacher but through our guidelines solid lines school placement you know how students open elementary schools to achieve total operational efficiency. We would have

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seven sections across the district and they would look exactly as they look in kindergarten. And you look at that kindergarten across the board there. That's beautiful. That's exactly what we

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want. It's balanced. There's seven sections. Two in sky, two at bridge, one in story, one in Japanese, and 20 and one. As long as we have five neighbor schools,

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this reaches total organizational and optimal efficiency. There's two sections there and being skyward that are the outliers. We're very confident that we can absorb

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one of those sections. I worked on this as late double triple check this multiple times. Talk to the principal today. Talk to the supervisor special supervisor special services today. You can absolutely reduce one of those

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sections for next year. And if we get in a spot where we need more support at the elementary level, my position would be to bring in

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multiple parttime support teachers, not benefited classroom teachers. That would be the strategy that I'm recommending as a path forward because Whenever possible, we have to avoid the

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health benefits piece of the cost of a teacher. There's some other future considerations that the board needs that the board should think about moving into the future. We have to do these things like avoid new positions without health

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benefits to preserve student programs as much as possible. That has to be at the top of all of our lists as we move forward into this budget and beyond. working towards shared services, moving towards safeguards and finding

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more ways to leverage artificial intelligence, delivering programs on the line to the referendum. We have some beautiful new spaces such as the emerg technology lab, the automotive lift that's still there. We have to be creative, innovative, and

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perhaps use some community partnerships to maximize those spaces to deliver on the promises that we made as part of that referendum. We haven't had professional development now in three or four years for our teaching staff. This is not, you know, you get away with

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it for a year or so, but pretty soon the word is going to go through the pipes. Our veteran teachers, our expert teachers are retiring. and in the future. Maybe it's not right now as part of this budget, but this is not a budget line that we can tolerate as eliminated,

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you know, for the long term. We never think about re-evaluating our onetoone devices in the lower grades. The one to one devices were important when many of our families didn't have

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access to screens at home, whether it was phone, computer, tablet. From the information that we have, a lot of our devices that go home, they're not even they're not always being used. And a lot

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of times at home they're on their own personal screens. So we may be at tipping point when it comes to these one devices may be something to think about not now into the future. School safety SRO will always kind of be

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there. Uh chief has come to us on numerous occasions. We don't have any funds for the SRO uh right now, but in the future, you know, we have a tremendous partnership with the Hadoop Police Department. Not recommending that SRO as part of this budget, but again,

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it's just something that we should consider in the future, at least discussing. Um, we do get incredible service from the east community and relocation of the board office staff. Um,

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I think that as our staff at the board office is shrinking in number, we're now down two individuals from a few years ago, we may be able to integrate into various schools that have these spaces because of the number of staff and

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offices that we have eliminated. Um, and a a a sale of the board office could be a an influx of one time cash into the district. we can relocate and maybe you can help us offset costs somewhere else.

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Something to consider. Budget process simplify. January meetings have meetings with every preliminary meeting with every district administrator. We did a lot together as administrative team. We're all our hands and needles about state aid.

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We survived the state aid. We felt okay. We did not see the health benefits increase coming until about the same time period. We reviewed the budget we submitted to the county a 4.5% increase

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with the opportunity to go up or down. And tonight you saw a proposal for 4.25% increase. We have the opportunity if you'd like to go back to that one this slide. we have the opportunity to

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move anything from the left hand column into the right hand column and still be at 4.5%. But the caveat is that to that is you have to find something $75,755

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$750 or less $75,750,000 or less and slide to the additions column at 4.5. That's all I have for you tonight. questions, comments, work. Um, I just

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want you to clarify that the substitute teachers is only for the high school as of now. High school and middle school. If our strategy doesn't work, we can't we're seeing we're not getting there in one of those classes.

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We're still going to have three sections. I would do something there where one thing was out for the day. Um but prior to be high school then middle school it becomes a safety issue

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isolation I don't think there's anything that people the increase in the mass and then the post I don't think that was meant to refer anywhere else. There's an astronom

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that increase can change that. >> Yeah. Oh, that's that is uh average assess how I'm sorry that's not exact. >> Sure. Can you just give a response of the fund balance and what what that

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means basically because it's like >> sure I'm actually willing to do it or >> so every every year when there's money kind of when we don't spend the entire budgeted about it goes into the fund balance and there's restricted fund

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balance unrestricted fund balance you can take it out of there for a rain day emergency we've done it the last two years we have to take money out of our funds because we spent to the budget and then beyond um smart transportation.

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So the last 2 years and so that was important for the purpose of video. So that understood potentially and then that is that gives us correct

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we absolutely could take another $75,750 put it in the fund balance and go to 4.5 if you make that choice tonight >> for less subsidies I'm not sure what the rules are on that, but is it possible

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that just have like not like just basically supervising the class and then they just do work like as the teacher? It's a tricky question to supervise a

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student independently in a classroom or a school certified as a substitute teacher and working as a substitute teacher. That that's where it gets a little bit uh gray. Some of our aids are cert also certified as subs.

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They have subert but they're not working subs. So legally we've done that in a pinch but to do that as a consistent plan we were in problems because

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paying as the pay structure serving as a substitute teacher is much different than serving as a maybe it's paid by hour and the substitute is paying for day. So when an individual asks whether those duties permeate, it's kind of

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like, okay, how do we pay them? And if something happens, were they working as aid or they working as a substitute? Uh not all aids have the substitute s either. So I think it would be a little difficult. It's it's a very creative idea. uh one that we could, you know,

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probably use in emergency situations, but I think as a long-term solution, it could be difficult from stand. >> That makes sense. >> Y sorry I missed a few. I apologize but um and it was on the

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retrospect but uh if you read the retrospect the last say 30 to 60 days all the districts have the same problem like we're all we're all seeking ship so two things that give you a little bit more is continuation of township going forward right but we're all going that

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same spiral right so we have to think this is only going to go on for so long right at the end of the day we can't we need to keep doing what we're doing right schools are closing college. But the the thought here and again not

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to then go negative think outside the box is if one of the concerns is to not not reduce that's not the right term but better efficiently use that take out the contracts assume all things are equal

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again not this year not next year but as things decrease right there is other things that come in what about sharing services and other things in districts I mean like for example I'm just going to use as an example is Hfield has a very nice office right built right there

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there's no reason for us to go building there's space available in other districts right they said no one cares if you go to town building or something else I just think it's just at some point in time we become so paro that we're so worried about what we have we're all we're all

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thinking the same like there's not a word to go around right so at some point in time is we have to stop with the the sort the the the small changes and go to the bigger changes, right? And someone has to kind of believe that and I'm not I'm not smart at all. At some point in

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time, we can't all just cut and just say, but we're all going to stay the same, right? So, I I just I question like if there isn't like pushing that boundary, if it's not us, then who else is going to do it? Someone's going to do it. So, I just I I think we're we're at

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a spot where how do we lead and not We all know what's going on, right? This is it's only a matter of time. Listen, I I'll respond to that by saying I think you're absolutely right. We have to we have to go to the sheriff's office. We have to um I think that the and we had

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um meeting here a few months ago and you know we discussed things like shared services and things like consolidation and so forth. The issue is that the budget crisis that you're mentioning in South Jersey isn't

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just affecting small districts. You know, we have large one of the largest districts in the state that borders us that has the water tax increase that we have and more deficit the county in which I live. I have a

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school district from where I live. That's the largest district in Washington County also with similar challenges. So this is not a small district. Some of the larger districts have the same have the same issues but certainly

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shared services it's on the slide. It's an area that I don't think anyone team it's a bad idea. There are no bad ideas right now. No, not not to go negative but when there's challenges there's

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opportunity. What where are we not think it's not reproduced going forward, right? It's only a matter of time. There's no other record for the state, right? So what do we do going forward? It can't just be continuation of concepts on the world. They're not

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bad ideas, but there's got to be bigger things. There has to be like I don't know. There's no bad idea, right? You just have to I just we've been doing this too long. I just feel we constantly kind of do the same things. We don't really stop the the the cycle

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we did, right? The frustrating part answer that is according to the state right until change for they would say it's working. They would say that we're because we are under what they think is our fair share. If you ask the state

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department of education what we're supposed to do, they say we want you to raise your taxes until you close that gap the 2.8 whatever gap it was that would be what they would say. They would say people are gone up the average. So the solution is and I'm not saying

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anyone here that crazy and you know the fact property value going up monthly income dispens but you know from their perspective from you know if you were to go with their formul

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they would say it's working as designed this is what's supposed to be happening which you know we all think is crazy but I'm just saying this isn't coming out of nowhere this is kind of the policy working as intended from you know the experts or whatever the hell of that

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formula perspective I mean there's no question that therefore this doesn't end well increase costs and uh caps even if they remove the 2% tax levy I

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just tax everyone out of town and then we would have as some something transformative needs to happen. I was going to bring up the the county bus. >> Yes, that's what I bring up as well. Um, so we've been working with a group of

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like 13 districts like how do we solve this and what are incremental changes versus what are the big long-term changes and where are there potential revenue drivers for the state even if they're not revenue drivers for districts to take advantage of? And one of the things that came up in our conversation on Friday when we talked to

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one of our local legislators teams was uh county level busing because transportation costs are astronomical especially for out of district placements. And if we had a shared service at the county level that controls the cost of transportation that would actually make a very significant

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financial uh difference for every single district within every single county at this point. And so we talked about that as a potential option. There were some other things we talked about at the county level that would have like the same kind of direct financial impact. The the thing you have to be mindful

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about shared services. Yes, we want more. We want to make sure that they are cost effective. We also want to make sure that they're to our standards of quality, right? Just because something is cheaper doesn't mean it's a good shared service for us. Quality goes down. Our kids are not getting what they need out of that. And so we do have to

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like make sure there's true effectiveness and efficiency at the same time. But I do think Jim to your point like we have to make bigger. We cannot just do like individual we'll probably do a shared service for our ELL support with another district and that is just such a it's great and it is so small it

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can't make really transformational or large impact if we're going that kind of single route and by no means like this is not just this is just this is just a south from my local perspective. this out

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there, right? is that is that my friends above 195 pay way more in taxes than me over the I mean and so that they're trying to spread that out as I mentioned is that trying to level right so I get it I mean at the same

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point in time is I think we know the park 100 years ago it's just not going to not want it's just it feels like it's one of those things that eventually yes it's a Nice to have you

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keep all these same guys. So they're all kind of doing the same thing we're doing, right? It's just so >> Yeah, we we have to be more creative with our problem solving. We can't just tackle the challenges we're facing in the same way we always tackle them

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because there's not a lot of wiggle room left. So if we're not doing something that is larger in scale like we're just not going to see any like truly tangible effect. I think you know the transportation issue is a good one. You know I used to

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work a lot county and they're kind of one of the regional leaders in doing so on the county level. You know um you know they're some stuff that we have to the same extent they do it down there. you know like the service district is like much

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more utilized is much more robust partially because you know like administration really prioritize that time they really put a lot of effort into that um technical school like we have here in Canada we have

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you know it's a good program it's just not as kind of widely utilized by the towns in the same way the extend time invested in the same way. So, you know, stuff like stuff I mention service. I know it's also incredibly expensive to serve that

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population. Um, but yeah, we're not going to we have to have those conversations and figure it out. But as to this budget, I'm not going to, you know, beat the four steps. I've had one conversation with a couple of you and I've uh talked about length the last four sessions, but I I still don't feel

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comfortable cutting the elementary, especially in I think it's just, you know, I think it's a short and I haven't been agnostic as to how we how we get around that. this, you know, fine weather say to stay

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at 34 month or 33 month or just to go up the dollar um I find either but given you know that hold and given that you know it's going to be tight in the lines anyway I just you know I know we don't

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technically keep with it but you know again being in personal playing I just don't think it's good practice to to get rid of it and again I I believe the point but I would be you know unsupportive of the current design but

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and I have no issue with the elementary school position but that's the direction that the board wanted to go to this budget together the lowest possible as team I didn't full support team of course

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resources resources said the last work session um you know focus it. We could there's probably some other things we do to help kids but it's

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county 4.5%. It's an easy change that was 4.5 as a as a as a best case scenar I just think

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before you actually hire that position because there is a resation on the agenda for tonight teachers before you actually hire that position and we should have probably have another conversation in in May or June or sometime before we

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actually hire that to look at that over the summer. Maybe some other type of need kind of emerges instead of just quickly that specific position time as a tool there. That would be the

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only suggestion but the one likely that actual position in the budget. So uh is what you're saying okay we do leave that position 4.5 okay

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the administration at the elementary school level is potentially aware that this would happen significant staff in the building so especially with administration and staffing etc this

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came out of potential teacher. >> Yeah, we meet the I mean I can see that we would meet the state requirements. we meet our our goals for achieving it for this year with you know it's not like a I mean we

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couldn't you talking about but I'm just talking about purpose of providing quality education schools have and one that's

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not aware they're clearly aware very explicitly aware multiple weeks, multiple weeks and uh you know double triple checks deliver one less teaching for next year. So we adopt budgets one

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year at a time. That's what the administrative team charge us to cut it minimizing the increase as much as possible. That's the key that teacher back the choice that we had and the choice.

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Yes. 4.5. Just personal. I think if the staffing is um you know acceptable I would feel better having some to

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sort of speaking what is saying to speak what is saying that we're preserving the option I would go for that for the agreement of the board I was say something that did make me a little nervous about

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it. And the last me I think hardest part of this debate started was doing the 75 music teacher and tell you that 75 teacher it was either or I had to use a teacher

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again for sure because stop off that was that's where I was like last week hopefully I made it out for Okay. So, I propose a motion to pass this budget.

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>> We are not quite there yet. >> Thank you, John. Okay. Can I? >> Yeah. >> So, so I I kind of I think the 4.5 gives us the cushion of either fun or if that something grows

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and we need the teacher that we have that either way. But I I do the administration at the elementary level is saying we provide the education to these kids one less position.

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and they're the next and they're the ones who are in the trenches every day knowing what's needed their kids. Any other comments or questions discussion on the budget before we close

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out public hearing the process is 4.5,000 I think that a little bit Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I I think like as we get closer if we make that choice to go to 4.5

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um then as we get closer to the start of the school year understanding what the needs are enrollments and all the things that we're seeing that would be up to the administrative team to decide how to best utilize those dollars. Um, I would imagine

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somewhere around things cannot move. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I have to submit it to the to the county. Things cannot move around if I put it in the line. You put it in the line and put it in in a reserve. Put it

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somewhere where we we can move it. If necessary. Yes. So it's easier to keep it somewhere else. Keep it somewhere else. And then yes. only comment would be if we're okay

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with any saying I do think that it's one of those things but we're going down the path of eliminating that position now I don't want it my personal opinion I don't want to go through this again next right because having done this way too many

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times I don't like the idea of the one year after year you're at the worst right I think if there's someone that's in here that we're they're being removed I don't like the idea of actually come back and then next year we're going to

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move one year at a time. >> Yeah, that's kind of why from my my vision for the future, no plans to rise with reality, right? is seven sections across the district elementary school.

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We have funds available in elementary instruction after the seven sections of balance class sizes classes that we typically have as we raise policies.

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I'm going to be seeking support teachers in these classrooms. My recommendation is going to be higher part time. So for 75 to get three support teachers to help with reading or math or whatever

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we probably um 28 fifth grade. Um I mean could could if we end up collapse with this we may collapse second there's still some placements at V sky that some kids don't

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in that particular neighborhood they go to school for reason so you know that your home school would be coming to you asking for the good thing

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about especially the young classrooms the biggest question for the district I think in the state of New Jersey. Uh so to spread out we better stay up over there especially and I think that we can handle that. Uh

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but you we may end up we may end up having um you know collapsing that extra secondary that's a small group there and there's some mechanics there going to

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back door some services anymore so you could like why teach to the So like

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>> what would that be? >> So I like to like 25 >> K to 2 I would like to stay at 25. That's the cap. you know, I think we we

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should go 26, but today is really starting to push and it all comes down to the size of the classrooms. It's hard to have policy on class size. Uh but

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it's not so much the size of the class as it is the number of adults in the class too. You have you know you have 25 class right it sounds super high it's not but there's also function

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not a special so you just can't look at You have to look at the actual business. Yeah. But to your point, if you leave this teaching position in the project, I mean, it can't be a lifetime contract,

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right? I just think we're going to we're going to go down the path in search of not I just think it's having done this before where we had to go we kept some of the folks on life support and there keep going

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to this point is that if the matter decision is that we're okay with it just I mean I just but if it goes the other way we're going to keep it And I can't keep uh before we close out and move to a

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vote. So right now we look at your agenda and see. It's 4.25. So we need to make a decision on what we're voting on before we get to do that. So I just want to know where

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are we go around? I would prefer also but I need to replace but okay. So with that I will officially touch public comment.

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Heat. Heat. Yeah. If you came into high school, do we know there's no way you figure this out? Yeah. I know. Thank you. >> All right.

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Okay. Uh, can I get a motion to close the volunteer? All >> in favor? All right. We'll move to item five, financing facilities. Yeah, there is one other one and that is

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the changing of the plan from Ben to America. Okay. >> All right. Can I get a motion to approve item 5.1, which is the final 2026 2027 budget at 4.5%

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tax levy increase? >> Um, Mr. >> Yes. Mr. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Williams. All right. Motion to approve. I have 5.2 Yes. Yes. Mr. L.

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>> Yes. >> Yes. M. >> Yes. Moving into section six, instruction program. Can I get a motion to approve item 6.1? And before you approve this one, if I can just say this is the grant from last year. this continuation that we were able to apply

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for with um lesser funds, but we did apply for it. Hopefully, we will it's a competitive grant. Hopefully, we'll get it again. It's for the mandated universal screening um for K through three. And um I did budget for that program for the universal screening

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because it's a mandate. I did budget for it for this next school year. I don't think we get this um it won't cover the entire cost but it will significantly help us in a motion to approve >> approve. >> Yes.

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>> Mr. Desi. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> All right. Moving to section seven personnel. Uh we have a number of items

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reservations and our staff. You see a number of items here. Can I get a motion to approve items 7.1 through 7.13? Yes, Mr. Clark. >> Yes, >> Miss Ezy. >> Yes, Mr. Mr. L. >> Yes, >> Miss Williams.

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>> Yes, Mel. >> Yes. All right, moving to section eight. This is our final public comment section of the evening. As there are no members of the public here to make comments, I will open it up to the board administrative team if there's any additional comments or

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I'm sorry. This is a presentation that's going to be sent out probably tomorrow's permission to change this to this year. I just want to say thank you to all the administrators and everybody for

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striking this budget to the board for talking all this over and uh under the circumstances. comment about that's a mandated program. So that again is where we end up

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hard because we have to do certain things. We have many unfunded orced options and different things looking at it so that you can all the different variables in a lot of different ways and

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anyone has to talk it through as a team to work through a consensus that it's great consensus together I came here today to talk about the second part of this presentation.

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The first part of this presentation is a testament to the resilience of this community students parents may pay office foundation

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across the board. Hopefully the information I can demonstrate presentation very closely. Thank you for the central office administration but it has to be done. Every single this district

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every position matters. Everyone's important. We're very proud. presentations. All right. Can I get a motion to adjourn? All in favor? I. Thank you all.

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>> Thank you everybody.