april 20th post board meeting take a deep breath take a deep breath we're good i call to order the Highland Park Board of Education Hybrid Special Voting Workshop meeting today April 10th 2025
the New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act the Highland Park Board of Education
has caused notice of this meeting setting forth the time date and location to be submitted for publication to the Home News Tribune and Courier News and posted on the board's website at least 48 hours in advance of this meeting members of the public who wish to
address the board will be given the opportunity to do so before the board adjourns for the evening may I have roll call please dr batty here miss Cassald here dr coleman here
dr pixley here miss Puce here dr schoolman here miss Daniel here miss Bardman miss Vorhees we'll stand for the pledge i aliance to the flag of the United
States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay the next item on the agenda is the authorization of submission of the tax levy incented aid plan i'm going to turn
it over to um Dr cisco and Mr rosa good evening everyone uh thank you all for um being with us tonight i specifically would like to thank all the board members for coming out tonight uh for this very special board meeting i know it's challenging to arrange your
schedules and pick a date uh for a quorum so I know uh speaking of myself and and Mr rosa we're we're very thankful and grateful the purpose of the meeting tonight is to talk about the tax levy incentive aid package so just to give you all a framework and a context
I'm going to toss our conversation back to the prelim pre excuse me preliminary budget conversation during that board meeting we had stated that we were originally slated to lose 10% of our state funding which approximately was
$1.1 million the New Jersey Department of Education pushed out an update that no school districts could lose less than 3% or gain more than 6% of their budget so we happen to be on the losing end of
that 3% and we lost 184,000 so although we lost it could have been worse um and at that evening we had presented a balanced budget what happens between the balanced uh the preliminary budget and a final budget is we review all of the
expenditures or our or projected revenue um anything that changes within those couple of weeks to present the balanced budget so unfortunately some things did happen to come up in between the preliminary budget and what will be the final uh
budget that we want to present uh in particular addressing some significant student needs and placement that are coming at an extraordinarily high expense so because of those unforeseen expenses we have to cut some more items
from the budget so what New Jersey Department of Education is doing is they're incentivizing school districts that are below adequacy which Highland Park is uh to apply for this tax levy incentive aid
uh package so March 28th Mr rosa and I received an email from the Department of Education giving this information saying you qualify to apply for this the application is due April 14th on Monday and in order to submit the application
you need a board resolution hence the board meeting tonight so the application which is attached in the board agenda has a lot of information um so upon discussion with the board of education and our community
leaders we had collectively decided that we wanted to apply for this we apply for it the hopes that the essentially the department of education can do one of three things they can either pass our application fully and approve it with everything listed they could not pass it
at all and not approve any of the items on there or they could cherrypick and say "We will approve you to go over the tax levy of 2% and here are the items that we support for that." And we won't know until they come back with um with
that information so what we did was we tried to put together the strongest application possible with the strongest arguments to go above our 2% tax levy um they do cap you at a certain percent um and that is uh that um below adequacy
number is the cap for raising um for raising the taxes so what it means currently would be if our application was approved for those items on there we'd be able to reinstate them back in the the budget and present that as a final budget uh to the to the board in
the community what it also means is that and I'll let Mr rosa kind of pick up on this in a in a few minutes but what it also means is that it allows us to start at a higher financial position next year when
we do our 2% tax tax levy um and we think that's going to be really critical especially in light of we will have change over um at the New Jersey legislation level with with a guminatorial election coming up we're not really sure how they're going to
change the uh S2 funding formula or how they're going to fund public schools moving forward so this actually puts us up in a position hopefully of better success next year um by by doing so so it really is an important critical
decision for the present and for the future uh so what we are requesting if you look through the packet you'll see a couple of items so what we are requesting is to reinstate the Envision's math resource and program so
we had that originally slated in the budget but we cut it because it was just over $70,000 and you'll see there's two line items for that one for the actual resource itself and one for the sustained professional development around the resource and that is to help our primary
school students and giving them a resource to help close that math achievement gap in addition you'll see two RUBHC Ruckers behavioral health care clinicians and that is to support the tier three therapeutic support for students that
are having um struggles with emotional regulation impairment so we had to cut the high school clinician unfortunately to create a balanced budget and then we weren't also able to add an additional clinician at Irving where we're seeing some really significant behavioral
problems unfortunately we had to uh cut three positions so you'll see on there the part-time media center specialist at prime at Irving Primary School the full-time media center specialist at Bartle Elementary School and the high
school computer science teacher at the high school these are unfortunate and very hard decisions to do i will say that uh these three positions were selected because we are able to have alternatives to be able to support those
so although we would have to cut the position at the high school for computer science we will still be able to run some computer science courses and with the media center specialist it's very important that our students are exposed to the media literacy standards as well as access to
books we'll be able to cover both of those things um it's not ideal um and we'd love to have those positions back to be able to provide more for our students um but that is why those three positions were selected because we're able to probably figure out another way to cover those
um in in other in other ways in addition we are requesting some money for some facility projects so either these were taken out of the preliminary budget or they are now issues that came up over the past couple of weeks so one is a heat pump at
Irving so our heat pump is very very old it's on its very last leg if it goes uh that's going to be a significant problem so we're trying to get out in front of it so that we remain with heat and hot water at Irving that was cut from the
original budget um during the time actually just about a week ago we found out that our fire alarm panel is um out of date and the fire marshall and inspectors um highly recommend uh before that becomes a problem that we replace that and that's a safety concern in
addition we had some bleacher issues uh some of our bleachers need repair recently we had a student at the high school fall through the bleachers because what happens is um they get pulled out but they pull out on an angle because the um remote part of it isn't
working and it got jammed and stuck and unfortunately a kid got hurt not severe but a kid was injured falling through that so um right now if you go into the high school there's big caution tape over it we can't use it at all uh because there their safety
concerns and lastly uh what came to our attention recently during a power outage is that the door hardware system at Irving and Bartle isn't like it is at the middle and high school and it's not on a universal um system so students can
easily hit a button or not even on some of our doors and they just leave so um we're at the middle and high school you either have to hit like the green button to exit um which is you know sometimes at Irving a little too high for some of
our littles um and also they have an alarm system so at Bartle and Irving at Middleland High School if you've been here during the day and you try to leave um and you don't hit the button or you leave in a through one of the doors that doesn't have the button it sounds the alarm and it triggers it so that we know if someone is aloping or something's
happening where that's coming from and we can send somebody to that door to investigate what's happening at Bartle and Irving we don't have that and so our students are aloping and it's becoming a safety concern so that was brought to our attention um in light of the issue recent issues that happened with um the
power outages that we had so that um summarizes our request to go above the tax levy i again know these decisions aren't easy and myself as a taxpayer in New Jersey I know it um kind of hurts the bottom line and and it's definitely
not the best financial situation for for anybody um but the if you look and again I'll toss it over the mic over to Mr rosa in a second and she can speak about the incentive that the New Jersey Department of Education is doing where they're saying we'll incentivize you and actually throw you a little bit of the
money if you do this um to help fund um help the help with the taxpayers fund public schools and specifically in Highland Park miss Rosa yes so as Dr susa mentioned um the state does is incentivizing districts that choose to
go above the tax levy so um our below adequacy number is roughly $1.3 million uh we put together this application uh for $1,55,000 to address the the critical
needs now um to provide a thorough and efficient education for our students of that amount um the the state if approved uh would contribute $50,238 so the impact um to the tax levy
would be1,4,762 uh when we presented the preliminary budget it was a total increase of 2.88% 88% uh which was an annual increase to the average homeowner of $260.51 um with this incentive
application and approval if it is approved uh for the full amount the uh total increase in the school tax levy would be 6.06% um the annual change for the
average homeowner would be $486 uh which is about $225 more than the preliminary budget um so the application is due on Monday the 14th uh we plan to submit it tomorrow um
once the resolution is approved um and the state is working to get the information the approvals the denials uh prior to um the final public budget hearing which has to be done um May by
May 7th and our meeting is May 5th so we hope to hear by then um either way um if it's if we don't hear from them we'll have to proceed with a a final budget um that addresses the the current needs that we have as much as we can and make
some adjustments that we would have to present on May 5th so if you saw those who read my email on Friday and I encourage you to continue to do so that is why we moved the meeting back from uh April 28th to May
5th to give us a week buffer in hopes that we do hear back from them one way or the other so that it allows us time to adjust the final budget and final budget presentation accordingly like Mr rosa said if for some reason they don't get back to us in time because of the deadline that we have to submit the
final budget to the county and to the state um it may require us to make adjustments you know after that we may have to reopen the budget and do a new budget hearing and and pass a new budget um but we're hopeful um that the information will come through we are
remaining hopeful that the information um will come through timely and in our favor uh to support um support the students in Highland Park and that is it we'll open it up to questions can Denise I assume but whoever
explained um the term below adequacy I think it's it's helpful to explain it and nothing to do with our schools it's a financial term but explain that for everybody um so as when we presented the preliminary budget we went over um how the state calculates state aid uh this
year they chose to use an average of um the community wealth and also um the valuation of property uh and that raised um our equalization aid and therefore we
became um below adequacy which is the first time that I found this community has been below adequacy um and any records that I have found that were left to me I could not find um any any time
where we were below adequacy before um and I think that they did that across many districts across the state of New Jersey And uh with that budget package um they included uh a set aside amount for this incentive aid application to
allow those districts that chose choose to um apply to increase above above the 2% so you but what they were to piggyback on that and and to reiterate what they were saying was that the Highland Park because of the information that came in
through through that new weighted um way they were doing the S2 formula is that Highland Park is they say wealthy enough that we can support the taxpayers can support the difference of what is owed to us to fully fund our schools um I
know that's um quite a you know really hard thing to to grapple with and think about given the state of the fact that we have significant number of students on free and reduced lunch um and looking across our community but um you know due to some of the other things that are outside of our control happening within
our community um that was uh and other communities that's sort of what landed us there the other piece of it too is every October 15th the New Jersey Department of Education requires us to do a snapshot of our attendance of our um enrollment and at that point our
enrollment was down what they don't do is take any other snapshots until they collect the data at the end of the year and then they do another snapshot in October um and so since then actually you know once January hit and we ran our numbers um our enrollment went back up but they don't count they don't count
for that so technically the wealth went up enough to support the difference and our enrollment went down so that was the combination that led us to this point thank you so um just a a comment because
I think you know it's obviously we don't want to sacrifice our safety and the programming like that I think is number one priority the one thing on my mind that I just just to put out there is while we're below adequacy it's almost like a we all don't believe that to be true so I I worry a
little about you know I think we've got to do this but I worry a little about once we kind of it's almost like a recognition that we're that that value is the right amount for us from a tax levy perspective but we we challenge that a little bit like we don't So I don't know just a statement that I think
it's a I hope it can be evaluated and I I I just worry that this is an acknowledgement that this is where it should be rather than a different kind of engagement on that number if that makes sense my comment back to that is if you are 18
or over rock the vote in November and do your homework to do your research if if funding public schools is something that is very important to you and I would say yes um that please do your research onto you know into the the candidates that are running to see how they're going to fund public education and make a
decision in the best interest of the students in Highland Park so I just had a question just to clarify this is is this assessment something that is done yearly so it can change to where we might not be what is it under adequacy or
inadequacy yes so every every October 15th um it's that snapshot as Dr cesca explained um and then in in uh early March um we get our state aid notice um
so that's when they do the calculation this year the state decided to change the way they um formulated state aid um and as she as Dr sesca mentioned we don't know if they're going to continue with this formula or uh change it yet
again um but we I'm very thankful they they instituted a cap this year um I don't know what we would have done if we lost the 1.1 million um there's just uncertainty about the future and how schools will be funded
um you know I think we provide an adequate education above adequate education here um the concern is mainly facilities that are weighing the budget down and and you know capping uh a
school a school budget at 2% when all the other items are increasing our our utilities are increasing 20% our insurance health insurance is increasing 14% um property casualty insurance 17%
so it just in the end doesn't add up to 2% unfortunately and so this levy is is a yearly thing so like we would have to do this all again next year this was just for this year the state Okay so the levy doesn't this tax levy doesn't stay the same every
year or does it stay the same every year until well this application to increase the tax levy above the 2.88% is just for this year um but but that amount if we are approved will be added to the base and our tax levy will
then be the 33 million instead of 32 million um and and then the 2% cap would be on the 33 million not the 32 million if we are approved does that make sense i think so
um so I mean clearly nobody wants to do this this is not something that I think anyone here feels uh good about in any way whatsoever but I think to piggyback off of what Denise was saying the thing that's extraordinarily important to
remember is that um not only you know did we lose state funding last year and then lost state funding again this year but our expenses have increased and I you know I'm so grateful for the work
that um Dr susa and Mr rosa have done in order to get us into a budget where we can live within our means um given that the means are shrinking um
however the expenses are going up no matter what we do we can't control how much the the fact that utility rates are going up 30% or that insurance rates are going up um everything is getting more expensive for everyone and I feel
absolutely awful that we are going to contribute to that to the community in Highland Park however that's the we've we're doing everything that we can um and we need to make sure that our kids have safe facilities and that we're able
to you know these jobs are important to be able to have a computer science teacher in the high school and the middle school and have uh media specialists in the elementary schools that's extraordinarily important and I think something that this community
values yeah yeah I think just to piggyback off that one of the things when we first discussed this is you know there's more uncertainty down the line and so you know we we've got to do this I think to also just protect ourselves down the line to make sure that we can have safe
spaces and and the right instructional supports so and just to remind everybody the when we did our preliminary budget and we'll do it again with the final budget is those three buckets how we budget so the first one are any of our legal mandates that come uh the second
is any New Jersey Department of Education mandates for example there's a certain amount of fizzed minutes that students have to get language arts math science you know the the high school requirements for graduation so all of those are DOE requirements the third bucket are the things that we value and
want here in Highland Park and oftentimes that is the area that we start having to chip away unfortunately when we don't when our our expenses are going up but the revenue isn't so um that's that's where we find ourselves
with decisions that are very hard that come with you know having to cut positions um or not being able to support our students in areas that we know they need to support because we have the requirements so it wasn't an easy decision for the board i know every
time we threw something at them it was nope we don't want to cut that nope nope nope nope nope nope and and we hear them and we didn't want to either but you know what we did was made a list of all those things that are above and beyond the state minimum or the state requirement and that's when you have to start chipping away and and that's when
we have to value what of it is it our mental health support is it the is it the closing the achievement gap in our interventionists is it these media center specialists and and there's no easy answer because we want it all because they're all so vital and
important to the whole child um and and so that's you know just a a reminder of that's where these decisions come from any other comments or questions all right thank you uh Dr susa and Mr rosa for putting together this
application this was a a big undertaking in a very small amount of time um there was a lot of conversation a lot of uh back and forth a lot of planning a lot of you know digging into the financials and so we really appreciate all of the
efforts that you guys put in um to help get this application together um we will have time for public comment in a few minutes so you know and and obviously if you need to process this information and email us um afterwards please do so as
well um but you know we're here to listen to your concerns and to your questions um I'm going to turn it over to Marilyn to introduce some other finance items that we're um pushing forward tonight and these are the regular things that we usually do um just because we had to postpone our
meeting to May we do need to pay bills this month so we are going to authorize some some bill payments so also on the agenda tonight uh which is all just finance is the approval of the additional bills list um
uh giving uh we're recommending that um our school board administrator continue to pay our bills that come in between now and uh May 5th when we meet again and we can approve them our individually um approval of our treasures report that takes us through February 28th 2025
um the board secretaries report which as we do every month and we're doing it now because we're not meeting later in April um to uh again certifying that no budgetary line item has been overextended and then the uh same thing
on the board of education certifications um that uh that we have sufficient funds to meet the district's financial obligations for the remainder of the year we have uh number 10 on the agenda is the approval of budget transfers also
again till going through the end of uh February and are there any sorry yeah that's it any questions on those items those are the easy ones those are the well easier easier um all right so we're going to move on to public comment the
Highland Park Board of Education welcomes public participation and has reserved this time for your comments on items from this agenda only um board policy number 0167 establishes and regulates the right of the public to participate in public meet uh meetings
and we did want to limit public comment to this agenda because this was a special meeting for this purpose um if there are comments regarding anything else that's going on please feel free to email us um or you can uh join us for public comment on May 5th um Angela how
many people are online four okay is there anybody online for public comment okay go ahead rose rose go ahead hi everyone rose Dorenzo 440 Cedar A i just have a question i don't really
understand the tax lovey thing i still have to kind of catch up with it may have some follow-up emails but listening to the most recent mayor and council meeting on April 1st I believe they said that the average homeowner increase in taxes you know if you owned a single
family home was going to be about $500 and stuff did that already incorporate all of this or if this gets approved it would go up even more like you know um another say $250 or what do I don't even know if you can answer that question but
that that's what my general question is um so I actually um this is Denise Rosa i actually communicate with um Terry Jo from um Burough Hall um and I give her our school district uh tax levy
information so she included that um in her presentation and in her analysis oh that's wonderful and I think that's great to note for those Yeah it's the preliminary number the original number that so it does not include i did um
provide that to her just yesterday um the new number with the uh application the additional $1 million included i provided that to her yesterday so probably at her next um presentation she may choose to include it depending on um
if we hear back from the state so that original April 1st meeting just included the 2.88% right okay so that's what I that's what I thought it was and thank you for your clarification regarding that you're welcome okay um anybody else online for
public comment okay and with no hands raised we are going to close public comment um so we'll now move to those board action items um I guess do you want to move them now sure i'll move I'll move number
do them all in one yep 5 through 10 okay all right i move uh items five through 10 second dr batty yes miss Cassell Dunn yes dr
coleman yes dr pixley yes miss Puce yes dr skullman yes miss Stano yes miss Gardman yes is Miss Vorhees online no okay okay um with that we are going to move
to adjourn um you know if you are attending online tonight please um we will be uh you know sending out the link for the the YouTube stream um please advise community members to watch this meeting um we much prefer that they get
information from us um than through you know other means um that may be misinterpreted or inaccurate um so please advise your community members to watch this please reach out with questions concerns um you know anything
that you would like addressed um please email the board and we will you know make sure that those uh questions if we can answer them we will answer them and in addition the board bulletin will go out i will try to we'll try to get it out tomorrow um we'll we'll do our best to and I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem
getting it out tomorrow so please it'll go out on Facebook on the news feed and in an email so please um I'm not really sure what you do on Facebook but re-share re rex retweet whatever the I don't know what the words are i'm not on there so please repost whatever it is
and and share with with all um that know so the the more you know the the more empowered you are to make informed decisions and I move to adjourn second second all in favor