hello and welcome to the Monday April 28th 2025 Hillsbor Township Board of Education meeting and public hearing on the budget in accordance with the state sunshine law of New Jersey adequate notice of this meeting of the Hillsboro Township Board of Education was provided on
January 8th 2025 to the Hillsboro Beacon and the Courier News uh Mr eard if you could we please take role mr davis here miss Jackson here miss Craig here miss Lanning Beer here mr lee
Miss Nurse miss Stats here mr heo here and Mr murray here we have a quorum we'll now take a motion to move into executive session whereas the open public meetings act chapter 231 laws in 1975 provide that a public body may exclude the public from a portion of
that meeting of which the public body discusses certain matters for which confidentiality is required as per permitted in section 7B of the act resolved by the board of education of the township of Hillsboro and the county of Somerset state of New Jersey as follows the matters to be discussed are a personal matter and legal matters uh
the matters discussed in executive session shall be disclosed to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists can I get a motion and second so move second all in favor we'll be back around 7:30 thank you hello and welcome back to the Monday
April 28th 2025 Hillsboro Town of Township Board of Education meeting and public hearing on the budget uh we are now back from executive session so with that Mr eard if we could please take role
mr davis here miss Jackson here miss Craig here miss Lanny Beater here mr lee here miss Nurse here miss Stats here mr hugh here and Mr ring here we have a
quorum please stand for the pledge of allegiance i aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible and justice all
right I would like to acknowledge the correspondence as listed and I guess at that point we're going to begin the public hearing on the budget so um not to steal your thunder completely but we do have for those who have looked
at the agenda we have two budgets on the agenda uh the one budget is uh option one is the uh final budget using the full tax levy incentive option um the other one is the motion to approve the
final budget that was previously the tenative approved budget uh the way procedurally that we will go through this is we'll obviously have the presentation on the budget or budgets um we will then have public comment on the
specifically on the budget items um and then we will discuss how we want to move forward at the end of the day we either need to uh keep or amend option one uh and then remove option two or we need to
remove option one go forward with option two so we're not approving two budgets tonight they're both the two I'll call it the extreme options the full tax levy incentive or the original proposed budget with the with the cuts um unfortunately we did receive late
today notification to basically continue what you're doing we haven't given a final decision on the review of the items you've been provided so we are going a little blind is not the right term but if we go and let's say for example we do approve option one as is um the state may come back to us and say
that thing one thing on your agenda which was not um we do not approve that item we do have example from another budget from another district where they I think requested 11 something million and we're told one,000 item was removed
from what was approved so I don't know what to expect i don't think any of us do at this point everything seems to be a guess with the state with the department of education so uh we will do our best tonight to have a discussion make a good decision and then wait and
see from the state so uh as I mentioned we will start with the with the presentation of the budgets and then we'll move on to public comment and then board discussion all right I'll pass it over to Superintendent thank you Mr president also thank you for uh allowing me to just take a moment before I get into the
budget situation i didn't want this to get lost later in my superintendence report we had a tough week in Hillsboro public schools last week and I want to thank um the outstanding leadership of Miss Fischer and the entire staff of Amsterdam Elementary School as well as
leadership of Dr jenkins and the Sunny Meat School family at Amsterdam uh right when we came back from spring break we lost a third grader named uh Brian Tapia uh losing a student
is incredibly difficult uh for the parents for the staff for everyone and Teresa Thai was a long-term uh very valued instructional assistant at Sunnyme Elementary School um she was beloved by her staff and also I got a
chance to speak to her husband who is really doing things in her honor and the thing that really touched me about what he said when I said how much Sunny Me admired him said she was never one of those people who came home at the end of a workday tired exhausted not wanting to go back because Lord knows we've all
been there myself included but to hear that kind of positivity and radiance from someone so I would just ask for like a brief moment of silence from everyone here uh in recognition of the tough week in um memory of both Brian and Teresa thank you and thank you again to the
Sunny Me and Amsterdam staff for everything you have done for the for the families moving on to our budget presentation um you're going to see a lot of information here and I'll try to explain it as clearly as I can afterwards there is public comment there will also be board comment and I will try to help answer
any questions uh that that do come up so since we passed the tenative budget presentation on March 17th a lot has happened um the state notified the Hillsboro Township public schools that we were eligible to apply for the tax
levy incentive grant then at April 7th the board voted on a motion to submit the application not to take advantage of that at the time um and then held a community engagement night on April 10th in order to get community input on this option and we were here I think for
about three plus hours there about 150 people in the audience so we got to hear a good amount um from people uh during that time the board did tonight the board is holding its public hearing on the 2526 budget and as Mr marini said is considering two budget options one that
includes the full tax levy incentive grant and one is that is to improve the attentive budget as approved on March 17th by the end of this meeting tonight the board will adopt the final budget for the 2526 school year and if it is one with the tax levy incentive that is still pending state approval but the
board will be talking about that tonight as well as making decisions as we move into the budget i want to remind everybody too is to one of the reasons why we are here consistently in this position in Hillsboro dating back many years looking at the state aid losses we've had uh our
state aid baseline as I mentioned before has gone down the baseline itself has gone down $7.5 million since 2019 2020 cumulative loss of state aid in that time is over $26 million when you have a budget uh going in that direction it is
difficult to make anything work which is why the board is considering ing this option the other thing that I wanted to bring to people's attention whether it's uh inquisitive board members members of the public sometimes people on social media and sometimes the comments on social media are a little bit more harsh
than the people who will speak face to face is can't you guys budget can't you just figure this out can't you just do something i want to say we're pretty good at what we do the nine elected members of the board of education here spend an inordinate amount of time
looking at the budget every year mr ecard's head is going to pop off at some point uh during his tenure here and it's something I'm working on hard too what we have though the way the state system is set up um for a variety of reasons is a structural deficit simply by existing
each and every year we're in the hole every year we start on July 1st we're in the hole going into next year and I don't know if anybody's ever like made it clear as to why that is so I'm going to give you some very round numbers so if anybody looks at the numbers I'm about to put up and say you know they
all end in zeros and I can't find something matching in the budget i'm I'm showing you as an illustration for a point as to why we have a structural budget a deficit and why we're in this situation and behind me is the slide that will explain it which maybe hasn't
been explained to the Hillsboro public before and if I haven't done that I apologize and if other superintendents haven't done that as well we're getting it right now so as a reminder absent of waiverss each year the board can raise the tax levy percent 2% used to be 4%
many years ago now it's 2% so right now for us that's about 2.3 million if we went to the approximate $20 million option that's about 2.9 million we could raise it moving forward that's the amount of revenue that we can generate
in a year that's it that's what a cap is so knowing that we also have other expenses that then exceed 2% some of the bigger expenses include planning for a state aid cut this year
we got an additional $500,000 cut but it was on top of the 1.2 million that we were given back for a moment last year so it was 1.7 million let's just round it up and say if you're planning for a $2 million cut in state aid if not great but I think as superintendent I need to
start planning for that that's one major variable second major variable health benefits in any given year we budget for an 8% to a 15% increase so that's somewhere between an increase on our budget between 2 million and $3 million do we shop it around every year we try
to we try to get the best deal possible and sometimes 8 to 15% is the best deal possible additionally sometimes there are some really um looks like exciting things out there that we can jump on and as we start to investigate that we find school
districts who have engaged with certain um companies and maybe their employees aren't getting their medications on time are having difficulty finding things covered so there needs to be that balance but we always want to find cheaper good health care then as our employees roll over
from one year to the next depending on how many people retire resign move on breakage with younger people coming in with lower salaries the employee salaries from year to year range from about 2.5 million to $3.9 million and those are done by by
contract and I'm happy to give a good um reasonable good reasonable does that work good reasonable raise to my employees because they deserve it and we also want to recruit and retain the best you can't make that line zero and say "Hey people come come and work in
Hillsboro." It's not going to happen the people on the ground are what make this place work because we don't have the resources so we have to make sure that we want to keep them then some general cost increases for and I I kind of underestimated here between gas transportation out of district pl you
you name it you know supplies anywhere from a half a million dollars to $1.5 million depending on CPI depending on inflation things along those lines if you add up those numbers with the green being positive and the red being negative every year we start in a
structural deficit between $4.7 million and $7.5 million now many years ago there was a 4% cap and we were getting state aid if you do the quick numbers if you double the amount that the board could raise in a 4% cap and there wasn't a state aid cut or we were getting state aid money
structural deficit is gone pretty much gone but I want to make it clear to the members of the Hillsboro public and this is very very important that this is the reason why we are here every year it's state aid it's health benefits it's uh paying our employees it's the amount that we can raise it's all of those
factors but the biggest one that has hurt us over time is state aid because if we were going in the right direction we wouldn't have to be here so this is just math this is just numbers we could shop some of these things around we could cut those costs even if we got look look at that there was no increase on health care we're we're still over so
I just want to make make it very clear that Mr record I and the board we are stewards of the taxpayers's money uh there's no sauna being built in my office we're we're not doing outrageous things this is just by existing from one year to the next we are in the
hole and whatever the board decides here tonight um I am going to be a good steward of those taxpayer dollars whether you tell me "Hey start dismantling the district as gently as you can." Or "Here's the money Mike make it work." So we're not here in this position each and every year but I want
to make sure everybody understands why we are here it's simple math so going back to the tenative budget we had identified that there were going to be 24 staff members that would be or 24 positions that would be lost uh
with the tenative budget as well as those cuts and I want to detail those out and I could do that now because we've had the time to be humanistic and speak to these people um and even if uh like Mr marini said if we the board goes in the other direction still pending the
state so I wanted to make this very clear as to what's being lost in Hillsboro we have several positions that are vacant uh six interventionist teachers uh are going to be retiring we are not filling those positions there'll be an Italian teacher uh lost at the
middle school in Auton Road due to a retirement and a domino effect maintenance worker position has not been filled teacher of the deaf position has not been filled speech and language specialist in the district position has not been filled a music teacher position has not been filled and will trickle
down to being an orchestra teacher at the high school and a secretary in central office for special education will not be filled those are positions that are currently not filled you know the the easier ones because you don't have to sit in front of someone and say
"Sorry you don't have a job for next year." There are existing positions that are going to be eliminated as well in central office we'll be uh eliminating a purchasing secretary in Mr eert's office we'll be eliminating four elementary teachers luckily and I'll use luckily in
quotes this is due to enrollment so we are still within class size guidelines in a t in a good budget situation I'd probably reallocate those positions elsewhere but we'll be eliminating them we'll be eliminating two German teachers i think it's a German teacher and a half
actually at the high school and middle school we'll be eliminating two computer resource teachers one at the high school and one shared between the middle school and on road intermediate school uh we'll be eliminating a student assistant coordinator at the high school to make it clear we still have two there um so
we're not eliminating all student assistant coordinators currently have two media specialists at the high school one of those would be eliminated and we will also be eliminating a curriculum supervisor position and if that happens I will be needing to speak to uh HPSA leadership about how we will be
reorganizing in order to make that happen one of the things that I did mention is that if we made cuts it was going to touch everyone there wasn't going to be you know every department um there's not one school that's targeted it's not staff versus administration
it's not non-certified versus certified or unaffiliated versus affiliated if I do need to start dismantling things I want to do it in this manner in as gentile a way as possible there are other cuts too that we we did to make the tenative budget
work i'm going to give you the bigger ones rather than the micro ones um we have a proposed uh rekeying project you know if you've been around any of the doors here in Auton Road School uh we've re keyed those for safety and security reasons and we want to move that on to other schools it was in our budget it's
being pulled out we're changing lease purchasing for security and techn technology upgrades we're reducing some of our online assessments uh but I actually think that's a good thing for teachers because I think we over assessed to a certain amount so that was like a lowhanging fruit uh we're
removing placeholders and planning services related to redistricting so that's just more work on our administrative team to get the redistricting done we would be reinstating paytoplay for curricular extracurriculars there will be the elimination of courtesy busing which is something I was so proud to bring back
this year and it was a a big priority of the board uh we did have funds being reserved for full day kindergarten looking down the road we would have to eliminate those to make it work there would be the elimination of middle school sports and there are other miscellaneous budget lines that are
drawn down um you know a little bit here a little bit there when people say can't you just cut a little bit here a little bit there we we do do those things I wanted to give you a sense of what the big picture items so if the tenative budget goes through that's what's taking place I just wanted to be abundantly
clear to the public after we created the tenative budget we received this option from the state and I'm not going to go over every point on this slide behind me but it's here for the public to take a look at and I want to make this clear this option in the state is dependent on two
things number one that the state does approve what we ask for and if you want to know what we asked for it's going to come up in my presentation and there's also an attachment with line items and specific amounts equaling that in the agenda so you can look at that but number two everybody's asking how does
the board have this authority how does the Department of Education have this authority the board does not the Department of Education does not they are anticipating that the governor's appropriation bill which has this wording in it is going to pass when the
governor's appropriation bill passes what's in it becomes law so the Department of Education is trying to get boards on the front side not waiting until this does happen but keep in mind we're still waiting on those two variables
and we were eligible along with other districts because we are taxing below our local fair share and we're spending below our adequacy we had to make sure that uh we used every ability to go through um any waiverss that we had which we are and
that we were still spending below adequacy we then had to show that we had needs to uh to for thoroughess and efficiency standards and we have to show that over time we reduced everywhere that we could which we certainly
have again if the board went to the full amount there's a matching of 5% up to $20 million which means there's a onetime $1 million incentive which is part of what's in the budget as well and again this is all contingent upon final
approval of the Governor's Appropriation Act i want to make this very clear that the board again sitting here does not have the authority to do this they will when the governor's appropriation um package passes if it passes so that being said we have a very
detailed attachment line by line i think there's 80 lines of uh accounting uh for what we would be bringing back i'm going to give you the higher level overview so that the public can understand it mr eert can can put you to sleep with the numbers or something if you want so if
the board went in this direction all 4.6 million in cuts as outlined in the tenative budget which I just talked about would be restored uh this would include courtesy busing middle school sports reinstating the suspension of paytoplay want to make it clear we're not bringing back the
assessment tool we'll save some money there restore several budget lines for services that may cut lower and restore those 24 positions but I do want to make it clear that when we restore those 24 positions we are going to specifically look at need and if our elementary size
uh if we get more registrants and we need to put one of those back in the elementaryaries we put them there if not we reallocate those to where we have needs and some of the needs we're looking at are at the high school um we do want to offer electives and I've spoken to the board a couple of times already or the education committee a
couple of times about a future schedule change for the high school which would benefit students in far as electives and also for a multi-tered support system we would add a couple of positions we'd hire a building monitor for evening activities and a healthysical education
nursing supervisor those aren't three different supervisors that's one supervisor um and that used to be two positions that we have so we're trying to get back uh to and not have as big of a burden on our administrative team but more importantly support our teachers i
can't tell you how often our physical education teachers uh sometimes feel like they are simply cast aside they don't have a supervisor we try to throw things together for them well everybody should have a supervisor that they could rely on for support we'd restore about
$1.25 million in instructional supplies across the nine schools that were cut over many years and I want to make it clear a significant amount of those if I have a couple principles here uh would be a non-recurring expense uh we would want to get people back to where they need to go to plan you know uh
instructional materials furniture whatever you need but then we don't want to keep that baseline high every year in case for some of those expenses that I had said before it is something we would whittle back over time we were ready to eliminate online mental health services
it's actually being discontinued and we would like to be able to continue those we do some needed software updates as you can imagine over time we need to spend money on our technological infrastructure just to keep things going and my plan people of Hillsboro and I can't stress this enough in the first
year is to have about $15 million go towards nonrecurring costs including updating the Hillsboro Middle School fax room in case you don't know it's a room I think we built a wall with closets or or curtains we have multiple classes being taught in there it's hot and we
want to fix that we want to replace the trailers at Triangle that are starting to fall apart uh we need to build a new bus garage because we can't even fit a bus in our budget garage to be fixed we can't park enough buses there that's why we have to outsource and we spend more money because of that we want to go
paperless so we're not paying for storage fees we want to prep our rooms for full day we want to re key all of our schools so we're on the same safety mechanism and address water remediation lighting and expansion joints right here at the ARIS infrastructure we don't want our buildings falling apart you may be
looking at me right now and being and saying you know Mr vulpi why are you putting so much of this money into non-recurring costs like wouldn't it be better to have more more teachers over time it certainly is absolutely but in year one one of the things I want to do is
assure we're not here next year or the year after that i want to be done trying to fix the Hillsboro budget and have something sustainable moving forward so if about twothirds of what we do is in nonrecurring costs but the recurring
costs go higher in year two some of those non-recurring costs go into recurring and then maybe it's about 5050 twothirds of one then the next year there's more that goes towards recurring and less that goes towards non-recurring
costs then hopefully by that point the state has done something with this budget because I'm saying it's going to take a couple of years and what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to set us up for success for for multiple years so when you're seeing that $15 million that's going towards some kind of
projects number one these projects are needed for this school district i mean we can't have expansion joints in this building falling apart expansion joints fall apart you know what happens building starts falling apart all of these things are needed and
it sets us up for long-term success i don't want to come back to the people of Hillsboro in case you didn't know I think you do all nine members of the elected board of education are Hillsboro taxpayers i'm a Hillsboro taxpayer there's Hillsboro taxpayers who are um
sitting in the audience some who are staff members nobody wants to be paying more taxes but more importantly nobody wants a board of ed coming to them every year saying "Yeah it didn't work out." I want this to work out for multiple years and I just want to make it clear that's why so much of this year one money is
going into nonrecurring costs and I highlighted there there's an attachment on the board agenda it's electronic you can see the attachment if you if you really want to dig in on the details uh you can see all everything that we have listed right there knowing all that uh Mr record the
business administrator is going to speak to budget options one and two uh and looking at what the difference is there thank you Mr vulpies so for option one which does include the full tax levy incentive the general general fund budget would be 172727,228
$282 the grants and entitlements would be $1,938,997 and the debt service fund would be $2,196450 for a grand total of 176,862,729 the full tax levy incentive option is is include does include the
full $22,931,626 that the state notified us we were eligible to increase the budget by this increase is $21,931,626 in additional tax levy and 1 million of additional state aid which is the maximum for that option the option two budget which is
the tenative budget that was approved back on March 17th is $149,795,656 for the general fund again for the grants and entitlements it's $1,938,997 and for the debt service fund it's $2,196,450 for a total of 153 no I'm
sorry 153,931,13 the difference between the two again is the 22,931,626 so moving on to the tax impact for both Hillsboro and Milstone for Hillsboro in the option one budget which includes again the full tax levy incentive the 2025 tax rate would
be 1.4551 which represents an increase to the tax rate of 0718 or 5.19% when compared to the 2024 school tax rate for Hillsboro this would translate into $8,645 in school taxes for a home
assessed at the Hillsboro Township average of $594,89 in the option two budget which is the tenative budget that was approved on March 17th the 2025 tax rate will be one would be 1.3353 which represents a decrease to
the tax rate of 048 or a minus 3.47% when compared to the 2024 school tax rate for Hillsboro this would translate to $7,933 in school taxes for a home assessed at the Hillsboro Township average of $594,89
and for Milstone in the option one budget again including the full tax levy incentive the 2025 tax rate will be 1.2131 which represents an increase to the tax rate of 3296 or 37.31% when compared to the 2024 school
tax rate for Milstone this would translate to $4,969 in school taxes for home assessed at the Millstone average of $49,598 in the option two budget again which is the tenative budget approved on March 17th the 2025 tax rate will be
1.056 was which represents an increase to the tax rate of.1725 or 19.52% when it's compared to the 2024 school tax rate for Milstone this would translate to $4325 in school taxes for a home
assessed at the Milstone average of $49,598 and Mr mr bulpi that concludes the tax information that I have thank you Mr ecker and I just want to say if there's um we had mentioned before that there was a accounting error of students
between Milstone and Hillsboro um and I've worked hard with both municipalities to uh verify that information including my central office and we fixed that and that's why Millstones seems so much higher this year because we were able to fix that and we have processes in place moving
forward but I did want to say one thing that this board is very um attuned to is our our senior citizen population again nobody wants to see their taxes go up but we think that for our seniors it certainly hits hardest so I'm going to
be making sure that we get some options out there in the community and also publicize uh ideas about the senior freeze which many senior citizens may be aware of already but what you may not be aware of already are the stay New Jersey efforts which are actually starting in January of
2026 and there are some things that need to you need to qualify for and this is all done through the state it's not done through the board of ed so you don't apply here but I wanted to make sure that the highlights of this that senior homeowners aged 65 and older with incomes of no more than 500,000 can
receive half of their property t half off their property taxes or $6,500 maximum annually and the reduction would be a credit applied directly to the property tax bill beginning on January 1st 2026 so we will help spread this
information again we don't run this organization or this uh effort it's run by the state but we will certainly help get this out to our senior citizen population so that they can take advantage of the current senior freeze as well as the state New Jersey stay New Jersey program which is starting in
January of 2026 so I wanted to make sure that everybody um is aware we will continue to try to make people aware and um that concludes our our budget presentation for today all right thank you very much
all right now we will move on to public comment on the 2025 2026 school budget and action agenda public hearing on the 2025 2026 budget provides the opportunity for the public to comment on the proposed budget before you see your
comment you'll be asked to state your name and address there is a three-minute limit on public comment we very much welcome input from the public during board meetings there'll be two 30 minute per two 30 minute periods of time that the meeting will be open for public comment where members of the public are invited to comment which they may do if they are attending in person during the
first public comment period members of the public may comment about items that are listed on tonight's agenda for the board votes or the budget uh during the second public comment period members of the public may comment on any school or school district issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the school district as per bylaw 0167
specific to tonight's meeting I want to point out there are two budget options being put forth for consideration and are available on the public agenda we encourage members of the public to comment on these options now in order for board members to understand your thoughts before we ultimately decide on a particular budget option before you
state your before you say you're coming oh this is a duplicate here there may be a time when a member of the public makes a comment or ask a question about personnel hiring decisions kind note the double hug meetings act and the privacy rights of public employees encompass there and do not permit the board to discuss personnel issues in public
session now remember there are two budget options they are not the only options with the larger budget option there is the ability to amend um so just as you're providing your comment just understand the boundaries with which we are working
in uh good evening uh Thomas Zobelli uh Upper Nishanic Court Hillsboro uh whoops well there we go i lost my my notes for tonight i don't know what happened but Oh here we go so
good evening everybody so um it's a probably this is probably a moot point as I'm sure you've all had your internal conversations already and um I mean that's how the sausage is made you have these internal conversations you'll most
likely have a decision be made and it's now just a formality as to how you probably will vote tonight um the cuts that were already proposed in the tenative budget before the state came forward with their proposal um you were
prepared to make now not saying that those were easy cuts to make but you were prepared to make them so I really um would would encourage that we don't use what the state is potentially offering and now that we know we're not
even sure what they're going to offer or because it's still in process um I don't think it should be used I don't cover is not a good word but I don't I don't think we should use it as a way to say as to a stay safe face or that now um
now that we have this potential option that if we don't go forward with it that uh we're going to lose these positions and so forth which you all were willing to make before the state came to you so let's not pretend that you weren't
willing to make tough decisions okay and then um second in second to that is I know it has been said that the effective tax rate might drop but who really cares if the effective who cares if the effective tax rate drops but your taxes
still go up it doesn't really matter so um I really am here to state uh most importantly that I feel that the voters should have a say when it comes to this i know that that's probably not going to happen you again you've probably all
made up your minds more or less um but I really do believe that in when we're talking of a size of a tax increase potential tax increase of this magnitude the taxpayers have a right to have a say as to whether or not they wish to see
their taxes go up stay the same or the like so I thank you for your time and uh that will be it thank you very much appreciate your comment hello Barbara Ore Equator Avenue in Flagtown and also an educator at
Hillsboro Middle School for 20 years hi I'm Mary Beth Delissi uh Nine Statatch Drive also a middle school illustrator sorry not illustrator and um been in the district for just about 20
years first of all I want to thank you all for your efforts i know balancing the budget or coming up the budget is not an easy task um in my almost 20 years of being in this district I've
taught struggling students from literacy 101 to reading intervention at the high school to read 180 at the middle school and now I'm an interventionist um our nation has embraced the
multi-tiered systems of support which is um put students into categories of tier one tier 2 tier three um and in this system of support it builds on intervention and referral services and
gives schools the tools to meet the academic behavioral health enrichment and the social emotional needs of all students so ensure interventionists such as us and our colleagues provide extra support for our students who are most in
need who are often several grade levels below where they should be um in today's classrooms especially literacy and math where the numbers are just they're really high a classroom teacher cannot be
expected to meet the needs of her tier 1 tier 2 tier three students interventionists provide general education services for struggling students who don't qualify for special ed services and um I saw that there are
six intervention retirees and I know doc uh Mr vulpi that you said you know it's good that we don't have to tell teachers that they're losing their job but what do we tell the students who aren't going to receive those services
um because of these unfilled positions um I don't know where we're going to go in terms of this tax levy how much we'll take or whatever but I don't know what the priorities list is so to speak but
these services for these kids are so integral just please keep that into your consideration thank you thank you for your comment [Applause] hi um my name is Jack Sherasi one
Davenport Way uh I first wanted to I first want to just start by saying um thank you to all our board members i really do appreciate all the work you do we it was said before it's easy to criticize like through social media but like face to face I think people are less likely to criticize
um as I said before my name is Jack Terasi and I'm the vice president of the senior class and of course a student at HHS i wasn't planning on coming to speak tonight because I'm not a great public speaker but I decided to come in um in support of my friend Sanjna at the board of edre and the rest of my fellow
students although I am not a taxpayer yet I feel it is important for the board and the parents to hear how these budget cuts will affect the students and teachers in the district i believe it is in the best interest of the board to vote yes and increase the tax levy the points I'm going to make are focused on
the potential harmful effects that would occur if the cap isn't increased a great example of what could happen to the Hillsbor district is what's currently going on in the Flemington school district they had severe budget cuts and chose last year to not increase the tax levy last year they lost approximately 20 teachers this
year because of that decision there will potentially be over 60 positions cut which includes 45 teachers two school counselors and two school nurses that is over 65 teachers in two years we do we won't lose that many teachers this year if we don't increase the tax levy but
this is only a preview of what will come as a result going specifically into Hillsboro High School I believe that most of my fellow students would agree that the amazing teachers in in the school is what makes our high school special knowing that many of them could be out of a job is
very upsetting and is harmful to the morale of this of the school and and the future students losing teachers will also be detrimental to class classroom sizes my health class is is already 36 seniors for those who haven't been in the classroom in a while that's that's like
a lot of that's a lot of students um if this was an academic class that would make it even worse health is important but if this was an English class or a history class having a teacher get to that many students is very hard
um if we lose teachers by not increasing the the levy class sizes will increase which negatively affects how students receive help from teachers and the relationship and the relationships they develop with those teachers recommendation letters are very important for college applications and these teach and many of these teachers
go out of their way to write as many as they can while receiving no extra benefit for doing so bigger class sizes would result in teachers not being able to write as many of these recommendations as they previously could and for many people who apply to college like me and other students those
recommendation letters are very important the final point I'd want to make is that many of these teachers have put their hearts and souls into the school during my time on student council I've had the opportunity to work with amazing amazing teachers who have done a an immense amount of work i understand they receive a stipen for doing this
however the work they do significantly outweighs the little money they receive choosing to not increase the levy is choosing to severely hurt future students in the high school and all over the district originally I wasn't concerned about the budget cuts being made to the district because I'd be leaving for college however I've come to understand that it would be a disservice
to my sister who is still in high school my four incredible student council adviserss and the amazing teachers I've had throughout my high school career to not come up here today and share why I believe it is in the best interest for the board to raise the tax levy thank you thank you
[Applause] hello my name is Victoria Bra and I live on Tentali Ho Trail i'm a junior at Hillsboro High School and the junior class vice president i would like to thank the board for all their hard work and dedication and I am very thankful for the opportunity to be here today to
represent the student body at large although I am currently only 17 years old and not a Hillsboro taxpayer I would like to ask the board to increase the tax levy as a student in the Hillsboro school district I can speak personally to the effects of the budget cut due to
the budget cut beloved teachers the backbone of our education must be sacrificed following them comes school clubs and extracurriculars such as sports sports and clubs although seemingly not the most important in regard to student education are also a
core to the student experience depriving students of the choice to participate in such extracurriculars would mean to deprive them of the true Hillsboro student experience which builds morale throughout the young population of Hillsboro the mission statement of Hillsboro High School is empowering all
students to excel while finding purpose and joy in every aspect of their educational journey how can extracurriculars not be seen as an important part of this mission sports and clubs in schools gives opportunity for students to engage in physical activity as well as a specific time set
aside in order to do the things that they may not otherwise have time for or be given the opportunity for aside from this these extracurriculars give students a chance to escape from their daily and often monotonous lives which is especially crucial while they get older
students may use extracurriculars to escape from unfortunate home lives problems with mental health and issues related to these depriving children of the opportunity may force the mental health of students to decline i can speak for myself when I can say that sporting events are where you can find
the foundation of school spirit football games hockey games as well as the most recent championship girls basketball game are perfect opportunities for the student body to come together and boost overall morale essentially the conclusion here is that the budget cuts are detrimental to all aspects of
student life trickling into much further than education and even touching on mental health therefore as a member of the student community here in Hillsboro I ask with all respect that the board consider increasing the tax levy and that the taxpayers of Hillsboro understand that a small increase in
taxes will benefit the younger generations of this town living in the 21st century in a place like Hillsboro sacrificing staple opportunities for students should not be in the question so finally let's take this step to empower all students to excel in every
aspect of their educational journey thank you thank [Applause] you my name is AJ Sini i am a second grader at Woodford i will speak for the students that are too care to usually come out
here i would hate to see most of my favorite teachers fired especially one that changed my life for the good i would also hate to see her fired i go with raising the tax levy
[Applause] cindy Aini ski drive aj's mom is I think my claim to fame tonight we did explain to him that the board had a chance to address the budget issues that have plagued the district for the better part
of a decade and um both being uh a resident here a mom um someone who's married to a teacher in Fington who was here with a three-year-old which was not part of the plan he thought maybe he could last through public comment but it didn't work um you know we see in our
home the impact that teachers can have we also see the impact that um staff reductions have on teachers when they face increased class sizes less intervention services for their students so I hope that this board will take the opportunity to address the funding
challenges that have been ongoing um and really make a difference for our kids and our community thank you very much thank you for your comment just want to point out how impressive the students of this district are up there speaking
[Applause] good evening i'm Megan Murphy i live at Jamestown Common in Hillsboro um I came and spoke at the previous meeting that you had about the budget and I'm here again tonight to please ask you to raise the tax levy in support of our teachers
and students unfortunately we find ourselves in this position of being underfunded for years and the deficit has gotten so large that it's come to this but our students are depending on you the homeowners here are
depending on you to make this right to help our students to save our staff to make Hillsboro schools even better it can't happen with less money buildings don't fix themselves with less money people don't come to work for no money
and with teaching not being a career that people are seeking very often anymore for more than obvious reasons it's harder and harder to find excellent candidates and you're not going to attract them with no money you have to put money
where it's important and it's in your teachers the value of our homes is on the backs of our teachers on the excellence of these schools i heard a commercial the other day about homes.com and they were touting how upto-date their information was about school
districts on class size ratios and all these things go that go into valuing our homes so even if you don't have a child in the school district ever or anymore or yet it's important that we fund the schools for our kids and full day
kindergarten has to happen unfortunately my twins this year don't get that benefit but to be one of the few districts in the entire state to not have full day kindergarten is inexcusable at this point other than the
fact this funding is not happening and again we don't get full day kindergarten if we don't get funded we need the tax money we need the increased levy to make these things happen not to mention the high school that needs to be rebuilt so thank you very much for your consideration and thank you for your
dedication to the students here thank you very much uh Dan Murphy I live at uh 2001 Jamestown Common my wife just eloquently spoke i want to thank you all for your time and for everything you do um I didn't know I was going to be here until
about an hour and a half ago um so my stance on it is a teacher gave me guidance i came to Hillsboro in ' 86 i went through Hillsboro High School were it not for my shop teacher I probably
would have wound up in a series of dead-end jobs because I thought I was going to be a rock star and that was the end of it um he found out that I hadn't taken SATs or done anything through his wife who ran the guidance office and he guided me to a school where I was
very successful and off the back of that I will say I've been in construction my entire adult life so I can see how much Hillsboro is building where are those kids going seriously where are the kids going
that's number one and number two is wi without those teachers it's the same thing in my industry those teachers aren't going to come as my wife said if there's no money for them it's often quite unfortunately a thankless job and
I see it in the trades where for every five guys that pass away or retire there's one to fill their shoes and if teaching is becoming a less attractive option it's certainly not going to be made any better if there's not any money
to fix the infrastructure of the schools or hire new teachers so I would implore you to re reconsider if you've already voted another way so thank you for your time i appreciate it thank you hi Amy Salinger teacher at Autton Road
Intermediate School and HA Treasure um I just want to first give a shout out to all of the student speakers tonight they were truly amazing and a reminder of part of why we do what we do every day as the teachers and staff in this district um I'm here to obviously talk
about the decision that you have to make at the last board meeting I gave some numbers that I don't have with me tonight but about the comparing Hillsboro's overall budget to our surrounding districts that are likes or bigger than us and how our budget was
extremely um below theirs so looking at um option number one I believe it is that would bring it up to about 174 million that's still below I believe all of the the other districts that I mentioned at the prior meeting so I just wanted to reiterate that and I think bringing it up to that level will will
serve not uh not only the district now but the district in the future and that's important to think about especially with all the other points that were raised tonight um it's a tough decision tough decisions are hard but I'm I'm confident that um together you're going to make the right decision
and do what's right for Hillsboro for right now and its future and I respectfully hope you choose option one thank you thanks for your comment [Applause] henry Goodwillsboro Education Association um speak tonight as a union
representative as an educator and as a parent where I know that there's rightful conversation and consideration being given about the impact of the levy but as a parent and as a taxpayer I can tell you that prior to me feeling the impact that was put up there and I don't
you know underestimate what that may mean to some folks and for others it might not be felt at all but as a parent I can tell you long before I feel that impact I will see what it does to my kids i will know that my children are in classrooms that are verging 30 i'll know
that opportunities were taken away from them that they should have had that others had i'll know that I'm paying $100 in paytoplay for them to do sports or clubs or other things so long before I feel that impact or I calculate it I know I'll be taking money out of my own
pocket more than what you projected to make sure that I'm bridging that gap at that point and I really think that's the question that's put before all of you right now and I appreciate how the board did this this was not easy it happened very quickly and I watched all of the three plus hours that everyone sat up
there with composure and answered questions some tough you know some were surprising and I think that everyone did a very good job with that i think that you heard from the community and I think tonight you're hearing from the community what they ask you to do and what they view these schools as and what
how important these schools are and if there's a question in anybody's mind about what this investment will yield those students answered it they were amazing all three of them got up there and actually spoke about this and it makes me sad that as a school district
students are having to learn about tax law because some of them probably understand it better than some boards of education in New Jersey not you all you all know it intimately as do I but I think it's amazing that our our students came out and engaged in this in such an articulate manner and spoke to it and
that is what this investment is every single one of you tonight yes you're voting about a budget yes you're voting about a levy versus no levy but what you're really voting about is the future of these schools because it's this is not a question of us doing things because we want to or because we can
this is us doing something to survive another year or planning the future we're doing something to get through a year still bleeding still hurt never fixing anything or we're starting to build these schools to be what they actually are we're making sure that they're safe we're making sure that
students have opportunities we're making sure that the staff is supported in what they're doing so I urge you tonight as you consider your vote to vote for the future think about what these students said and place your vote based off of the value of those students what they
just did and the students who will come after them that are looking to have the same opportunities thank you thank you for your comment [Applause] good evening roy Fryman state assemblyman Hillsboro resident um first
I just want to do a shout out to Dan Murphy um he is an amazing craftsman so I clearly agree with that um the we've had an a lot of discussion as to why you were here um how the formula
is antiquated it has failed you um for years now tonight's discussion is not about what brought you here it's the fact that you were here because you have to make a difficult decision and I don't think unlike it was presented before you don't
have an easy decision tonight all the decisions in front of you are difficult decisions um and I thank you for the process that you have gone through as Henry mentioned before you've taken time to listen and put in hours and were
thrown at some really last minute changes from a process standpoint and still here you are tonight and the board of education has said "We still don't have an answer for you to to give you more information saying here definitively here you are with some
choices." saying that stinks and that's unfair and yet you're managing through it and as a resident of this town as somebody as a father that put my kids through your school system I thank you for this unbelievable task that you're
you're being faced with um there is as a school system we rely upon you in this town when you get a cold the rest of the community sneezes you drive how this community feels um you come
first you are the investment um the punchline of all this from my standpoint is I am a taxpayer like you all are um I don't want to pay more taxes you don't want to pay more taxes but the choices
from my perspective are two difficult ones and supporting our schools to me every single time is an easy one supporting our children supporting this investment is an easier one to make and I respect the fact that there are it's
incredibly difficult and being able to pay it is these taxes are becoming harder and harder mr vulp touched upon a couple of programs that the state has and I want to just take a moment to give an additional little bit of information about these programs some have been
around some are brand new um the senior senior freeze has been around for a while um it's been enhanced and it's been added to um a relatively new one that's been around for just a couple years is an anchor program that doesn't require someone to be of the senior age
um and that's available depending upon income level for renters as well as homeowners and not just homeowner status and a new one that's that's being rolled out this year is called stay um and that is designed for seniors it's recognizing the fact that we want to keep
multigenerational families in a community we recognize that people are on a fixed income we recognize the fact that it's difficult and so this is one that's very aggressive and it's up to 50% tax cut rebate uh for people um
within our community um and that's being rolled out this year and if so the state has and has rolled out a the Treasury Department a single application you don't have to worry about which one to apply for or you just apply for a single application and whatever is the most amount of money will get you you
automatically qualify for um I will tell you I filled it out myself it's not simple so I don't want to it's not it's it's a state form it's not simple but it's out there um and there's help to help people through and there will be seminars to help people figure that out
um so again I just thank you very much for the decision you have in front of you i thank you for working through this process and I do support your decision tonight to keep the programs in place thank you for [Applause]
coming i will just pause because I don't want to leave anybody out last option for public comment before we move to board discussion long pause seeing none I will close public comment all right so um I
had uh I spoke about this some of the committees we're going to give each board member kind of a an opportunity to speak if they so choose on their general feelings on this we'll go around um I would ask in the first round not to go Q&A just to give kind of your thoughts on it and then once every board member
has an opportunity to speak if they so choose then we can move into some back and forth conversation if we if we choose to do so so I will go counterclockwise i'll start with Miss Nurse starting with the quiet one that's right i've never heard you speak before
so um I see a lot of familiar faces out there that came to community engagement um night so thank thank you for coming again and and for some of you for sharing your thoughts again um one thing that I learned um from a political standpoint uh I don't like politics even
though I guess we're considered politicians but I learned a ve very big lesson and never say never um because the last time we had to do this I think I might have even said I would never consider this again um and here we are a
year later and I know um that someone had mentioned that we were prepared to make these cuts um that is the the current tenative budget we were prepared to make those cuts because it was the only option um there was nothing else
you can't go out and hope that money will fall into your luck we had no money or very little money and that is what we had to do um it is difficult you know I don't want to pay another5 or $600 a year my taxes have gone up steadily um
but in reflection of what is best you know I first of all took an oath to do what was what I thought was best for the kids for the schools um and in that trying to be a representative to the public and to the community um and it's
hard when there are people that are all different you know um financial statuses and whatnot but we need to be able to function and not just function we need to be able to thrive um I moved here in
2012 I think because of the school system um I think many people did that over the years uh whether your children are long gone um because they've graduated and moved on i think for the
most part this is a very family oriented community um and I think that's a big reason why many people have come here um so I will be fully in support of raising the tax levy um I would like to see it go to the maximum so we're not here
again um I will never say never um but I do want to do what I think is best for our students and our uh community to thrive and that is most dependent on our schools thriving so I would like to see
us go um to the pool one all right thank you Miss Nurse signing Peter so I think I've mentioned before I'm not good at speaking off the cuff so I did write down my thoughts um so just if you
would uh let me indulge for a moment um I moved to Hillsboro almost 17 years ago with a three-year-old and a newborn baby um like so many other residents my husband and I chose Hillsboro because of the great schools at the time the word around town
was that full day kindergarten would be in place by the time my youngest would enter school today we have three children two of whom are still in the district and there continues to be no full day
kindergarten as one of only a handful of districts left in New Jersey without full day kindergarten I feel we are doing a disservice to the children our of our community at a critical beginning of their education by not providing full
day kindergarten we are also at the point where statewide cuts leave us no choice but to make cuts to our staff if we do not take action look everyone has said it that is an unbelievably painful decision that should not become the norm year after
year sadly if we do not take steps this evening I fear that is exactly what will happen we do have amazing teachers but with an unstable economic future what is to keep these wonderful educators from leaving here in search of a district
with more financial stability cutting our staff means increases in class sizes that in some cases are already too high it is unfair to our students to not move forward on an opportunity that would help to ensure some
stability we have heard this said before i personally don't want my taxes to increase but I think we have to continue to invest in the future of our children particularly here in Hillsboro where people move to for our great public
schools so my vote tonight is going to reflect my commitment to them and their families thank you M greg i'm going to keep my comment pretty short but just like my other fellow
board members my family and I moved here in 2021 because of the reputation of the Hillsboro schools with the continued cuts made by the state uh it is becoming more and more unlikely for us to meet
the expectations set by that reputation i joined the board with the intention of doing what's right for the students and in order to do that I will be supporting the budget increase which incorporates the full tax levy incentive and getting
this district back on track to match the reputation it is struggling to maintain thank you Miss Jackson so I didn't prepare anything uh for tonight one of the things um that works
for me is listening to the feedback um and I've been here since 96 came for school district um but what I am is a proponent for families not just students and as been said before by
other members I think it is wrong to go through this without full public input there are people out in the community that have not come up here and expressed themselves some of whom don't feel comfortable doing it and just because you vote no doesn't mean that you're not
per student per teacher that's that is the farthest thing uh I think one of the lost teaching moments is that there is a root cause for everything and we are looking at and addressing the problems
created by the root cause but nobody is really admitting to why we are here they're touching on it but we're not talking about it in full and I think that's a failure on the part of every school district and um I just I have no
faith we won't be here next year in the same spot if things don't change so and I think for the students not being taxpayers not realizing that maybe some of their classmates if their families shell out more
money it it's you're not gaining anything by hurting a family and not giving them a voice and not pointing out the true reason why we end up here year after year and we are one of the worst treated districts the worst treated
districts in this county with no explanation and it it's just completely inexcusable at this point and again I'm going to repeat it just because you vote no doesn't mean you're not anti- student anti-teer there's a lot more thought
that goes into a no than a yes understood thank you Mr hugh thank you to my colleagues who have spoken already as well as to the public
um I'm a no vote for option one and the main reason is for fiscal responsibility and I ran the numbers and I would like actually this I know this is not a Q&A but um question to my fellow board
members as to how much money we are raising with option one and by my calculations in the in two years So we're referencing the 2023 to 2024
budget of $106 million we are going up with option one by 36% of our budget um that is a $38 million increase over two years which is more than the cumulative state aid loss
of 26 million that was listed earlier it feels like this option one is treating the Hillsbor Hills Hillsboro taxpayer as a bank in which we can withdraw funds and all of the speakers who spoke from the audience very
eloquent tugging at the heartstrings but the decision that I'm making today is a financial one and people talk about nobody wanting to pay more taxes but there's a difference between not wanting to pay more taxes and not being
able to pay more taxes the numbers that were presented in the tentative budget I believe for the average Hillsboro taxpayer was $72 annual increase that's for the average of 549,000
um assessed value home um I believe in the previous presentation it was something on the order of 300 so between April 7th and today it doubled so although I was a no back then I'm even more of a no i mean I just cannot
imagine um putting this on the taxpayer without their input and last year in July when we voted I voted no but when we voted to increase
the tax levy we were capped at 9.9% this year there is no cap this is a hypothetical well it's not a hypothetical it's an actual number of adequacy minus local share but every year our adequacy number changes every
year our local share in changes so when you said Mr vulby about not wanting to be here again there is no guarantee and in fact when our when our adequacy number changes next year and our local share changes again my prediction just
based on what has happened over the last two years is that we're going to be offered this option again what's going to happen in 2026 for our budget increase um and then finally to to um elaborate on Miss Jackson's point about the
taxpayer if the taxpayers had input into this for example if the board of education or the township committee they both have the ability to move our schoolboard elections from November to April that would allow the taxpayer to
vote on the budget and if they want to raise the tax levy by this amount then so be it the people have spoken but for the nine of us to impose this upon the town I do not believe that's right and
um so I'll leave you with that and I also would like to um know what is the actual tax levy increase if board members could share that i appreciate it thank you sandra do you have anything you would
like to add um I just wanted to take my time to echo some of the sentiments shared by students today um it is an extremely hard process to cut 24 positions i think was said in the presentation i remember in seventh or eighth grade when previous budget cuts had happened it was heartbreaking to
lose so many of my beloved teachers that I had formed connections with um especially the student assistance coordinators one of which will be cut from the high school many students rely on student assistance coordinators to escape unfortunate family situations or mental health issues which are
increasing um nowadays because of social media and issues with friends and I think just choosing to get rid of that and sort of not accepting this option one is extremely demoralizing for the student population and those students who rely so much on these student
assistance counselors um I also think like one of my um fellow students Vicki said if middle school sports get cut that's a way for students to make friends that's a way for students to figure out what extracurriculars what passions they want to pursue we they won't have the opportunity to do that
anymore and I think that's extremely painful for a student to realize that they can't pursue something that they want to pursue in middle school um and it that's also in addition with orchestra i know a lot of my friends are very passionate about orchestra and not being able to pursue that again is
extremely heartbreaking so um yeah that's just my input thank you Mr davis thank you yeah these are uh this is a difficult conversation and as has been said
uh those of us who may be leaning no I'm I'm a no i'm a no on option one uh but it's not because the testimonies uh aren't valid it's not because the things that will be lost are not
painful as our colleague uh Mrs trillo just shared I'm I'm just reluctant to make impose a tax increase of this magnitude on the entire town uh without the town having had the opportunity to
participate in the old days that would be a referendum or some kind of process and so I'm intuitively suspicious of the state making an offer like this of of offering to you know impute to us the
authority to make an outrageous tax increase without referendum which is not an authority we typically possess and to do so at such short notice I I almost feel like there's a
gun to our head uh you know the the cliche would be the hounds toothcoated used car salesman you know sign now which one do you want red or blue uh and there's I just have a hesitancy i've got a yellow flag that says there's
something going on here that's not right part of me feels as though uh the state legislature not necessarily each individual assembly person but that the state legislature is leature is in a sense saying let them eat cake uh if
they're complaining about the finance system if they're complaining about the formula well the solution is pay $20 million more in taxes and shut up already the idea that we're being offered this
unusual authority as a unique one-time event do it now or you lose your it just is not right and um as painful as it is to go through cuz everyone agrees and I agree
entirely that the situation needs to be remedied i can't vote for remedying the situation in this way tonight thank you Mr davis miss Stats well first of all uh I just want to
remind we really I guess Loosely speaking we do have more than just the two options we can modify option one so that we don't use the full uh amount um we can raise enough I think
uh uh raise it to an amount of 8.7 million which is more than what we would have cut if we did option two and um that would be a flat tax rate so because I think you know as we've as
you mentioned um we went beyond the 2% cap last year without the voters without the residents voting on it we also have to look to the future we don't want we don't want to um you know waste the goodwill of our residents because we're
we're going to need to do something in the future hopefully about a new high school and uh we don't want to risk uh losing their goodwill and have them vote against that because that did happen in the past um another thing that I'm concerned
about whatever option we're using we're eliminating elementary teaching positions and interventionists positions like I said which whichever option it is so I'm against that right now um they
are I'm all for um supporting electives they are going to be transferred to those positions but the class sizes in the elementary grades are higher than than uh I would say most of the uh courses in the high school their class
sizes are significantly smaller than our elementary school class sizes and uh I taught high school um and I've believed it then and I continue to believe it that smaller class sizes is more
important in the elementary grades that's when the children are building their foundation uh and their approach to learning where that's where you can really um create a joy for learning and that can be irreversible when they're in a big class size and the interventionist
that's all part of the tiered system so for and that that was a selling point to the tiered system and eliminating some of the levels in the um lower grades so eliminating the interventionist
positions um can jeopardize that so um I'd like us to at least consider uh lowering that full amount from the full amount to the uh 8.75 million for option one and um
that way we could have a flat tax rate Mr lee okay um I'll just make this quick i'll be voting in favor of any solution um at this point that will keep us whole u I appreciate um the presentation as far as um how the budgets can be handled
i think it hedges us against future losses so that's always important and I'm always um I'm always going to want a solution that will keep our district whole whether that means to eventually implement full day kindergarten um keep middle school sports i mean work really
hard for the courtesy busing as well as suspending the paytoplay options all of that is would be lost if we kind of just uh let things go as is so um being presented with some sort of solution um whether it's flawed or not um it is what
is presented to us so um yeah I'll be voting in favor of whatever iteration of option one we we come up with all right thank you and I'll just add uh I guess my comments in here um this whole thing is a little
confusing and I think even um one of our board members I won't call people out had said in a board meeting look at the formula the state had given us is that even the right local fair share or local adequacy number and um the only analogy I can give is I in my professional
career I was forced once to take a PMP training project management professional and I remember going in there trying to figure out things and there was a b bunch of project management people in there as the guy's teaching the course people said well that's not right that doesn't make sense I don't think that's the way you should be doing it and the answer the guy kept giving over and over again was memorize the formula pass the
test and people kept ignoring him kept complaining day two he comes in he goes listen guys this doesn't make sense it's what the auditing says is the right answer to these formulas and that's how you do what you need to do so I think the analogy here
is there's probably a lot wrong with everything that's going on here but this is the option that they're giving us and it's our only option so we can either take the option or not um whether or not that number is correct there's no way for us to argue and get a better answer
um so that being said uh when I joined the board the the thing that actually triggered me running for the board of education was the year that we lost was it 57 staff in the district and I said that should never happen
again and I kept complaining about it complaining about it and somebody I know said to me well instead of complaining about it why don't you run for the board i said that's terrible idea and um that person kept annoying me into doing it and I finally was like you know what right why should I be that guy that
just complains about it and sits there on his couch grumpy so I sit up here grumpy instead so um with that being said my goal is to secure the future of the district and I feel like that's my charge um as everybody said do I want to pay more taxes absolutely not they're
too much as it is houses keep getting reassessed it's the way of maybe not just of Hillsboro but the way of the world especially in New Jersey so that being said I am going to bite the bullet i will support whatever we can get five votes to agree on um at the top end of
that allowance is my thought okay so every board member has a chance to speak so if there's additional questions or discussion from the board I'm very happy to have that discussion now Mr davis
As I understand it um there was some communication earlier this evening from the state that well none of this is actually poured in concrete yet we're still reviewing the list of items that that you guys submitted and by the way
just footnote I want to congratulate Mr eert and Mr vulpi for having their data in a row that they could respond to this extortion so quickly but uh so good for you guys but uh if the state ultimately
comes back to us and says "Yep okay your whole list is approved." Does that mean that we are bought in that's it folks we have to pass that or do we then have an opportunity to do some line item shopping as per uh Miss Stat's
suggestion so I mean I can let me let me answer this and then I'll kick it over to you Mr president while this is an unprecedented situation Mr davis and I can't tell you with 100% certainty about the approval what I can tell you with certainty is that what you're describing
like tonight is the night so if the board votes on the full option um and we got the full option approved by the state that would be our budget that would be our line item the strange
situation would be like if the if the state knocked off a couple of things then obviously we couldn't include that in but you've authorized to go up to a certain amount so if you wanted to look at something line by line item like tonight is the night that you would have to do that and I think Mr marini was going to comment a little bit more on
that process so we're required to have the second public hearing after the first one where we reviewed the uh budget and get approval here if we don't do that tonight then we have no option going into the final budget submission which I believe is by May 12th or May 14th or something like that may May 14th
yeah the last date to submit a budget iss May 14th may 14th so here's what would happen let's for the sake of argument we have five votes to in approve the maximum we have approximately 15 million in capital projects and 5 million in recurring etc
as Mike had mentioned earlier if they come back to us and say "Your 15 million of capital projects are all denied," then we probably have to have an emergency meeting to say "Are we going to submit the five million recurring costs which is as we know problematic because they could just come back the
next year and cut us and we lose all that recurring cost again." So the only data point we know of is another district that had put in for 11 point something million and got I think 11,000 declined kind of for this state to show that they actually reviewed it and that's the way of approving it because
they knocked something off the list um is what it seems to be um so if we approve it and there's a huge change we may need to pull another together another board meeting um to reassess this uh but if there's a a small incremental cut and the administration
feels that that is an acceptable cut and the balance is okay then we can just Yeah but really all all they're approving is for us to raise taxes you know they're not they're not giving us anything so we don't know if they're going to come back next year and audit
our use of those funds and what the penalty would be if we didn't follow them but effectively we're getting 50 we're getting a So I don't know what the language in the appropriations bill is going to be that allows for this so until we see that it's hard to answer that question um but
as of this point they've acknowledged our submission it was correctly submitted but they haven't done the full assessment of what they're going to give a thumbs up on but the guidance we have received is to have this meeting approve up to the amount that we're willing to accept and if the state a state comes back and says these don't qualify as
thorough and efficient then those get knocked off and then the recommendation of the superintendent could be to schedule an emergency meeting if that in fact affects us and our ability to use those funds long term because if it's they knock off everything but a million and recurring maybe it's not even worth doing it at that point we can have a
discussion and re revert back to the original but at this point the assumption is with the one data point we have is that it's kind of a you know they're going to put their thumb print on it to show that they reviewed it and get back to us with that
you want to add anything to that no I just want to Well yeah I guess I do um I do just want to reiter Well there's two points some people here had mentioned full day kindergarten and full day kindergarten was not in my proposal
here for the use of these funds but if you look at the non-recurring cost there was money to build what we need to build for full day kindergarten and although it's not in this budget then in 2027 the idea would be to use the funds
that we did to build and upgrade the classrooms towards kindergarten staffing so those of you who are concerned about full day kindergarten if you're like "Where is it?" It's it's it's right there and the the only other thing too I I just do want to caution that whatever the decision is even if it's now later
or what we hear we cannot put all of our money in recurring costs because we will just be right back here again next year and I just want to really caution everybody about that which is why it was built two-thirds non-recurring one third recurring that was that was not an
accident is it possible to bring up I have a couple different amounts written down and so Jerry do you happen to have what we were originally looking at about like um on a Hillsboro
$594,000 house what the tax amount increase would be do you have that to pull up yes from the from the tenative budget so from the from the tenative budget the rate would have been 1.3353 and the amount of taxes on on
that house for school purposes would have been $7,933 okay but what would the increase did we talk about like an increase that's an annual increase like I have written down here
$427 i have something that I'm looking at that said $715 and then I look over a couple columns and it says $364 is it possible to go back to one of those slides well yeah that's what Yeah
do we have a slide Mike that that says for for from the tenative budget or from this one i can show you what the side by side was i think when we started I don't think it was in tonight's presentation i think we had an earlier
either presentation or it was our for our use of committee meeting oh maybe it wasn't a brass pack bring that up necessarily the one that I'm looking at so So the two This is the This is the original
this is the tentative this is the tenative and this is with this the tenative the average home 79 22 that increased to 7933 so I think there was some changes in the children in
Hillsboro or something like that registration yes hillsboro and Milstone so that was the original rate was 7922 but after being updated it was 7933 so that went up $10 um the option one with full levy rate wasn't in the original
one because we didn't have that at that point in time i think what people were talking about was when you go all the way across right they gave an estimated home of I think the average was $594,89 then it added the t that estimated tax
rate for 2025 the estimated 2025 annual tax for schools the one that I'm looking at says like $8,582 then the estimated 2025 monthly tax $715
is that from the community engagement night Cindy i have I do not remember i'm sorry i just don't know which column I should be looking at because then when like later it talks about 2025 then it talks about 2024 and the increase annual was maybe
the $364 I was thinking about from last year's increase is that what it might that was the increase from last year's average house average house okay so it was from we voted last
year was last year when we came up the levy 9% 9% that was last year yes so that increase that $364 might have been from last year's increase i'm going to wait till I'm going to wait till M Do you have that Mr eard or I I don't think
we're looking at the same charge the one I'm looking at is the one that was in the binder that was provided to committee at committee level yeah I just I just want to say tax i didn't ask for that's what you were asking about right yes because earlier
it's either at the April 7th or April 10th meetings I believe the increase was on the order of 300 to 400 like say 350 and now we're doubling it so I don't know where I had that number from but
that was I'm pretty sure that that was You're definitely going up much higher there's no doubt because of the tenative it was before the No because the 10 Wait a minute the tenative was before the 20 million yes right okay but I thought on April 7th there was
some there was some comparison and April 10th there was some comparison because because I mean I definitely had that number in my head thinking oh it's 350 but now I'm seeing it 712 was there a chart remember when we were looking at
the chart and I know um Mr eert wasn't there at the community meeting but like the most recent one the governance and you were like I think this is the chart you put it in but you weren't 100% sure we were going to ask Mr dreer and I think I forgot to ask Mr der that the
calculation i mean this is the calculation up on my screen is the one that's for the full um option so on the average Hillsboro house which is still assumed to be $594,000 yes okay and that is the the net the
most accurate number is annual $715 increase uh the one I'm looking at is 720 720 so at the at the tenative again for the average house so let's just make it clear it's for the average house and the average tax increase there might not be anybody who actually pays this correct
at the tenative budget it was the 365 or whatever you're referencing and then Jerry you're saying with the addition of the 20 million it's 7 how much extra a year $7 $720 yeah so from about 364 365 to 720
okay from the previous was the increase last year no that would have been the increase for the tenative budget oh could I Are you saying that the if we went to full amount that's based that's
what increase is is based is compared to the tenative budget for this year or compared to last year hang on let's let Jerry clarify that maybe the $720 increase would be for this
year for for house assessed at 594,089 keeping in mind that that house last year was not going to be assessed at 59409 so somebody that was at 59409 and happened to have a flat assessment which again not likely there the increase
there would be $740 for the year so with the with the option one full amount their tax rate would increase $700 some dollars compared to last year everything else being equal correct paul Mr marini yes um so I have a
question for and I hope it's a I don't mean it to be rude and it's gonna it's going to probably come out rude um how much money are we raising for the tax levy in this budget right there
so it's $22.9 million it's 21 point with a $1 million onetime uh match from the state so I would challenge that and say that that's actually you're only saying the difference between option one with the
full tax levy incentive and option two's tentative budget but the tentative budget relative to last year's budget went up by $4.7 million so the actual increase is 26.6 million it's not
22.9 this is relative to the tentative budget well it says there option one versus option two correct so I asked the question as to how much the local tax levy would be increased this year that's not the correct number so for the in
with the full tax levy incentive piece for option one when you include the 2% increase from last year's levy and the bank cap of 2.3 million you're correct it's 26.6 million would be the total tax levby increase for the year so I think that this chart is misleading
because I asked several board members before the meeting and they didn't know what they were actually so the purpose of this slide was to show the difference between tenative and and the option one it was not comparing it to last year to see what the total increase was but then people don't know
what they're actually voting on so the I mean it and it doesn't make a difference from what I'm hearing that it sounds like many board members are are okay with any amount and that's my problem like that's my biggest concern is that
there the fiscal responsibility it's like I don't really care how much the m the number is i'm going to say yes because I don't want to cut i am going to jump in and strongly disagree with that comment it's it is offensive you're right it was offensive um I do care
about how much we're spending on it i am reading this that our budget for this year was 149,795,000 $656 that is what the budget tentative budget was correct the the 153 the
general fund yes general fund yes okay and with what we are doing we are asking to go up the 20 we are asking the community to increase by
21,931,626 off of the tentative budget as compared to the tenative budget correct okay i never assumed we were comparing this off of last year's budget i I had the correct information and the knowledge of what I was looking at so that may have been your misunderstanding
but so so then but the statement that you're asking the community to raise by 21.9 million is not correct because we're not asking the community anything we're telling them we're raising your taxes so we're asking their perspective on this because it's different from the
tentative budget that was approved so we're not taking into account I mean we we're not we're not asking them to approve it we are asking for their feedback as the board's charge is to approve a budget within the criteria that was discussed and the people who
are against this tax increase are afraid to speak up they're either afraid or they think it won't make a difference and so there are some board members who spoke up against this because that is our perspective and
I basically my my head just can't wrap this and just can't wrap my head around this i mean so then the question is do we know how much we have raised taxes since 2019 right i mean I I just calculated
the last two years and I told you and Mr eard can correct me $38 million we have raised the tax local tax levy which equals because back two years ago our
tax levy was about $und00 million was $106 million so you can basically assume hundred million $38 million is about a 30 it's a little bit less 36% increase that's a huge increase in two years i
don't know anybody's budget family budget that has the same capacity and so for I understand that that board members have already spoken and and will vote the way they will vote i understand that
i think that just I I just need to express that that I cannot understand how we are imposing without the community's vote not their their voice because yes many people came and spoke but like I said there are many people
who have basically given up and said and in fact myself this weekend I was thinking about it do I actually say something or not um because I kind of calculated that it was going to be five at least five minimum five voting for option one so I was like all right maybe I have to get another job i mean it's
kind of like this town is not way the my personal lifestyle i I can't afford to live here with this this increase yearoveryear and so I think I represent
some portion of Hillsboro with this um but it doesn't matter is basically what I'm hearing so I think all board members all represent some portion of Hillsboro that's why they're elected representatives here i think Jean's making an interesting point though by
you know because if we just focus on these incremental changes it's like well that's pretty bad but you know Jean's looking at the last two three years and say holy mackerel wait a minute you know we we've done more than $30 million who
was the old politician who said a billion here a billion there after a while you're talking real money and uh you know cumulatively this is been quite burdensome yeah I'm not going to challenge that
point yeah I mean it is but so I know we cumulatively agree the state doesn't know what they're doing with this but from that from their perspective we have been underpaying our local fair share whether that's right or wrong I think the board here would argue that that's not a correct statement but in the
situation we're in we've been underpaying for years but I I think that goes back to fact that goes back to the fact that the S2 formula has no rhyme or reason so and there have been people that have said that the the numbers
being used are old data y and we know our housing prices go up far more than our incomes so and I mean I agree with Mr hila i I I don't fundamentally disagree personally um but these are the
rules we're given and how we can operate and what we're allowed to do and it you know it's like we're between it's the least of bad two bad options and I think everybody is in the situation where what's the least like as you pointed out you vote no it doesn't mean you hate students and teachers you're prioritizing fiscal responsibility in
the district and that's okay then other people are prioritizing you know funding increasing funding over fiscal responsibility because our charge as they see it is to support the district and ensure it doesn't crash and burn and they see that
as a real legitimate option so I I don't think any board member here is is disillusioned on how wrong the state is and what they've done up to this point but it's you know we're elected to make really difficult decision i think in most board events over time you don't really make these difficult decisions but we're in a pickle at this point in
time where it's which poison pill do you take one might kill you one might kill you just might take longer mr nurse I guess I do have to say and I'm a little surprised about the turn that it
has taken because I feel like I'm an outspoken person and I know that not everybody is like that so there is discomfort in coming to a board meeting or anything like that but I feel
that I can say that I have been pretty respectful when I'm on an opposite side right so I I clarified that I you know with that one statement that I did know what I was talking about and I I did understand that but I think just as I
appreciate and highly respect if you're voting if anybody is voting no I appreciate the fact and respect the fact that you're doing what you think is best for the community and I do not see anything wrong or would never criticize
a no vote um I understand your points i like having this conversation when I was off with my account because I thought we were lower than we actually were no I don't because I am paying more than double and I think I'm coming into this meeting knowing and I'm like sitting
here going "Oh crap." to myself but I would never put down somebody who is voting opposite than I am so to say comments like we're not con being considered or I'm not being consider I am taking it a little personally and I'm sorry if it's too personal but I think
we just need to this is a hard decision our community is in a awful place because of no one's fault that is here or in within this community it is the state has misappropriated funds for years you're I agree with you um Elaine
i this is the state refuses to rectify this and we are left with nothing but bad choice upon bad choice um I am a little shell shocked about like how much actual my tax rates are going up but I
am going to still say that I think it is important that we do it i I would much rather take it to a referendum i think that would be great the state did not afford us that option it put this all on our shoulders that we can make or break
what happens in our budget because once again they don't want to take any account account they don't want to take any accountability there's no question here but I I just think that the nine of us whatever the decision is need to stay
respectful to each other um and to like the differing opinions and I myself have been on a minority sometimes And again I'm a different person than a lot of people but I will come and I will speak up for what my beliefs are but our
community if they don't feel comfortable coming to a podium they have every right to send an email to the board to send an email to Mike that should all be shared with us as part of it so I can only go off of what the community has come to
represent i think at community engagement it was more about 5050 um here it's tending to one side i value everybody's thought but I I just feel like there needs to be [Music]
some we just need to stay respectful just because my vote might be different than yours it does not mean I disrespect what your thought what you're thinking it it's hard for everybody and I understand everybody's point of view i think
um and and I'm I'm sorry you feel that way and it was I don't think anything was meant to directed to you but I can tell you since I started running I have seen behaviors that have suppressed
opposing positions so this this goes back even further but what I also think is that a lot of people out there I will tell you today someone thanked me for voting no last year I was thanked for voting no there are people out there that have completely shut down and given
up to coming here and voicing their opinion because they know it does no good and to just be mindful there was one of the speakers talked about the tax increase as a small
increase it's not a small increase it is not and I think what happens is that that gets the ball rolling okay any increase is is a burden when you talk about
$720 on the average home of 594 which I have not seen a house priced at 594 okay I don't know where that house is i have seen nothing but higher than that and and again people's incomes are
not indicative of the value of the house they own because everything is over inflated so I mean it's just it's one big mess and people are not coming here to speak
because they think they are powerless yeah I think most people are probably looking at an increase of $100 a month or more that is my gut feeling maybe a couple hundred bucks
and and I think to add to that um I think the township not to not to go out on a tangent but the township came out they did their presentation and I thought what I read was a $44 increase on the average home and again social
media everyone blew up and I'm thinking gee I would rather pay $44 and a tax increase than 720 so this it's I I I don't know a big difference well I
I thought the $44 I mean when you talk about the township the it it's a very much smaller percentage but it's like it's just having a snowball effect and people are losing perspective so you know and again unless the root
cause of this problem changes we're always going to be here you're absolutely right okay so the difficult next step is we do need to take a motion to either amend or remove um options on the agenda we
obviously can't vote on both budgets so um if somebody wants the motion and second we can then vote on either amending one or removing one of the options if we vote to amend one what does that
mean does that mean we'll then So this is um uh Miss Stat's suggestion to only go up 8 million whatever it is and at that point if that were to pass then we'd have to go through the process of
identifying what we would remove from the budget line by line to figure out what makes that drop work to that roundabout number um the other option is to remove option one and say we're going to go with the original budget the other
option is to remove option two and go with option one so we would need a motion to remove one and or amend option one so they're not alone um unless anybody has any other
questions or comments I'd like to make a motion to amend option one that would specify an amount now you would okay based on what I was told I'd like to uh amend uh going up to an amount of
$8.75 million added to the tax levy uh because I was informed that that would uh result in a flat tax rate is there a second for that
so before we talk about um seconding is there a bottom line dollar amount that that increases the taxes it could be $1 it could be $10 it could be4 million it could be 21 million so we don't know the tax implication oh um
that's what I'm sorry that's what I meant what the actual numbers would be we're we're not going to be able to figure that out at the DAS unfortunately may I ask a clarifying question Miss Stats sure the 8.75 million is that off of the
tentative budget or is that it was my understanding it was 8.75 million added to the tenative budget and that would result in a flat a 0% it doesn't mean your taxes won't go up because of your tax if your rate of
your house goes up but it would be a flat tax then there would be whatever rounds of debates as to what that 8.75 million meant um probably repairs is it teacher positions is it supplies yes we'd have
to go through that correct and it'd have to be done tonight yes and I know that would be ownorous but uh I think it'd be worth it considering all the sides you know the the the
uh the the the what what our district needs as well as um the impact for to our residents uh for some people uh whether it affects us personally I we're aware we can think we can doesn't take hard to imagine that there are some people they've already
cut back as much as possible with their own budgets and whatever we can do to alleviate that but still help our school district at least um you know raise it up to and beyond what was going to be cut
okay i have not heard a second so we need to have a second or another um amendment request i have another question i'm sorry and Mike I'm sorry to put you on the spot
because but and if you can't answer right now that's fine i think I heard correctly and please tell me if I'm wrong that adjusting it would possibly make it a harder
process for years to come i just Is that correct am I correctly yeah what what I had spoken about previously is my advice to the board is in all due respect to Miss Stats is to either take option one or
option two i think there's a lot of variables with um option one if you reduce it because what's going to be approved as recurring versus non-recurring and what I would hate to have this board do is if we put a lot into recurring costs which it sounds like you wouldn't want to do but we
still have to see what the state is going to approve i don't want to be back here again again next year and and if I can just make a funny sports parallel to maybe have a little bit of of levity I'm I'm a fan of the New York Jets and there was just the recent draft and the Jets
never draft at 32 because they never win the Super Bowl but they're never really bad enough to get the number one overall pick to pick that franchise player and make the difference they usually win five six seven games and get the seventh to 10 pick and then the next year they
win five six seventh games and get the seventh to 10 pick and then the next year they win four five six games and get the seventh to 10 pick and and I don't want I don't want Hillsboro to be like the New York Jets just constantly from here i I didn't I wasn't trying to be that funny but I don't want us to be
in that constant mode i want us to either you know break it down and and and rebuild or or move in the right direction and I understand Miss Stat's intent i think it's noble i think it's very difficult the execution of assuring that that's going to have any long-term
success thank you but just to be clear whatever the board decides I will do so if if there's not a second then we need a motion to either I second you second that
okay should we at this point take a vote to see if that motion would go and then work the details or do we have to work through the details first before we ask attorney here i think it's difficult to vote on that if you don't know what the details are
i mean you can go ahead and vote on the amendment at 8.75 million but you're going to then have to deal with what that uh what what that will represent by way of proposed expenses to be approved by the commissioner
so can we approve that and then work through the details i think it may make sense to have that vote so we don't waste time if that's not going to pass so there's a motion in a second so at this point you would call for discussion
is there any discussion before we move to vote on whether to So if if the U amend the move to amend is voted no then we're just back to square one of we are back to square one of making a second decision so we can keep making motions until we
come to an answer yes so but that would be without the final detail as to how well if we approve it then we would need to work through what the final detail is here and come to agreement for that to be submitted but instead of us spending potentially an hour going through the details and then not passing i think it may be more a
better use of our time to first go through that vote to see if we have the votes to support that amount and then go through the details after that there are details attached to the board agenda on on the so we would bring those
up once we had the support for that motion and walk through what the where the spend would be sorry absolutely uh I guess at this point let's take role so a yes would be to change option one to eight 8.75
million 8.75 million a no vote returns us back can I just say one one more thing sure i some of that I think is possible to have uh non-recurring costs in it sure now um would that replace option one as it stands now and then
determine take a vote between option one and option two if this vote passes then this vote would be to revise option one to 8.75 million that that would conclude the board's decision on this and you
would then begin to discuss the 8.75 million with regard to the expenses or the expenditures that you seek to have approved by the commissioner but I'm sorry then the vote would be between option one and then then we have to take
a motion to remove one of the options so we actually only vote on the one option mr fogerty can you correct me if I'm wrong once we have five yes votes on any budget option that's the budget that is correct i don't think that you would
need a another vote to remove the other option so again the the the motion that's on the ta the motion that is on the table now uh would be option one revised downward from $21 million
whatever that was down to 8.75 million if it passes with five votes then we will begin the process of determining what expenses will support the $ 8.75 million application to the commissioner okay and to to be clear just to follow
up Mr fogerty then that's it that's it that's it okay so as we take role a yes vote is for the 8.75 million if you want no budget increase or if you want the full option one like the original
budget or option one in its whole you would vote no uh yes would give us that budget but but again I'm sorry just to be clear if if the option one vote is yes to go down to the proposed amount we're
done i'll just figure out the details okay and we won't know what the bottom line increase is regardless of the tax rate 8.75 million but the impact on the annual tax bill yeah we're not going to have that here
okay so it's an unknown correct that was the estimated 0% increase but we don't have the calculations to do that with us right now thank you can we assume if eight or close to 9 million is a little bit less than 21 or
22 million would it be a little less than 50% decrease probably uh likely like so if it wasn't 720 it might be like 300 325 like just the big part the
other thing I think just to keep in mind if we build a budget we put those items in um those are also at the discretion of the state so we can't just replace them with something else so if they say that 8 million is not qualified we would get zero um or they could say all of it's good and then I was just trying to
get a roundabout ballpark that help okay the stats just as a possibility what what if some people are undecided about whatever it is whatever the amount is because they want to know what those items will
be before they commit to approving a budget i think we're in a little bit of trouble if that's the case um that's why I tried to put together some type of a hierarchy in advance to share um there's no easy
way to to do that um and I'm not trying to be you know that I just think it's very difficult but and also I'm sorry Mr nurse i'm Are you saying that it's possible that with this 8.75 million uh proposal that the
taxes will go up $300 yeah so the the tax the tax rate at the 8.75 million will stay flat if your house if your house is so if it's tax if a tax rate is flat and your house is not
reassessed then your taxes should remain the same yeah well and that that that that applies no matter what option we pick you know there's that unknown variable as far as you know the tax the correct that property being res and we're talking conceptually here that's why it's very difficult to figure out
tax rates at the at the day quickly but theoretically that's correct so I just I know this is so there there's a motion in a second so you guys are voting on a budget for 8.75 million if that gets five votes that's
your budget and we'll work it out if it goes down then you're still between options one and two just wanted to make that clear it's not a budget of 8.75 million yes it's not a budget of 8.75 million it's a It's the increase of 8.75
million thank you Mr ver yes okay so voting but voting for yes we're done if you vote no you're still deciding between one and two we'll take roll mr davis yes miss Jackson no miss Craig
no miss Lenning beater no mr lee no miss Nurse i I think we need to do all or nothing so no miss Stats yes mr hill
no and Mr mini no motion fails all right so if folks would like to take an additional motion okay i move to raise the budget the full
amount that we could go to so 21,936 $626 I think i'm impressed thank you that's awesome and then we would get the option one option one yes so we would need a second for that no because we vote for one it it covers
it so do we have a second second second okay any discussion before we do a vote on that the stats as I stated before I am still very concerned that I mean in 2019 we it's been said you tonight that
uh we lost a lot of uh positions staffing positions many of which were teachers many of them were elementary school teachers raising class sizes and uh one of the solutions to that was to raise the cap didn't change the fact
that the class sizes uh were raised in the elementary schools um since Then I some staffing positions have been restored but not elementary teaching positions and uh some of us were motivated by that to run for the school
board or to fight for restoration of those positions but not only have we not restored elementary school teacher positions now we're talking about eliminating four more that I have a problem with um and they're going to be transferred over as well as a couple I
think a couple of uh interventionist positions will be transferred over to elective teachers now I certainly support elective courses but in looking at the numbers a lot of those class sizes are pretty small um so maybe not
that extreme number if we're having we're going to have six additional elective teaching positions that's I was a math teacher doing the math that's 30 additional sections um especially when you already have uh small class sizes a lot of them
are pretty small um especially compared to and a lot of the the courses in the the classes in the high school are considerably smaller than the elementary class sizes so as I said before I think it's important that
those class sizes can be as small as possible they'll never be as small as they should be but as small as possible for the sake of the learning of our students at their young vulnerable ages thank you i a clarifying question you put in for a
certain amount of teachers within that did you am I correct in hearing that that is still you can get the approval for that amount of teachers but you at your discretion with your administration can look and
see where the best positions to yeah we'll certainly look and see can I guarant I don't know what kind of accounting the state is going to have once this is done like did you put that art teacher in there because Miss Stats I do want to be sensitive to this uh very much so because I hear your point
what I'm hoping and I know hope is is not a strategy like if I see a need like you are pointing out and we're exploding in an elementary school that I don't have to then hire another teacher out of our surplus because we got all of these teachers back and then I could simply reallocate the main issue with lowering
class sizes across the elementaryaries is we have uh we have one school that's at capacity that if I wanted to put another teacher in there I I couldn't so the question is do we give some schools lower class sizes and and others and
that becomes an issue of are we giving all the people the same education but to to both of your points as superintendent particularly as a former elementary principal if I see school sizes that are class sizes that are out of control I'm going to ask the state yeah I know I put this in for this position but we we need
to lower our class sizes uh that's my word i can't guarantee that that's something the state would approve but that's certainly something that administration and I would be looking at well because I know Jane I had the same conversation especially with the um MTSS program and and seeing that need and
what's happening in other districts but I think hopefully and even if it can't be rectified because the state says no this year in the next year you find that we put too many electives and we really should have brought back you will have the flexibility to do what
needs to be done i can't imagine who knows i want to say I can't i was going to say I can't imagine that the state isn't if we're bringing back staff is going to say "Well you said it's a staff person for this like we're spending an instructional line for a staff member we'll make the best use of it possible." I tried to be as specific
as possible to give you options and and senses if we need to relook at some of those I think that's fine what I don't think which I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do is say like "Okay I know I said 10 staff in there but I'm getting rid of those and I'm buying two new buses." like that that is is something that's out there so I will keep my eye
on that anybody have a second so we have a second if there's no other questions we'll move to a roll on this all right Mr aker
mr davis no miss Jackson no miss Craig yes miss Lanny Beater yes mr lee yes miss Nurse yes miss Stats no mr heel no and Mr
marine yes motion passes so I I can skip option 64 it doesn't need to be removed Steve yes i'd ask for the board's consideration of the following in the other areas of the budget starting with item 6.5 motion
to approve the health benefits waiver approving capital reserve withdrawal for 2526 approving the maintenance budget withdrawal for 2526 approving professional services for 2526 approving the resolution for travel reimbursement expenses for 2526 and
approving a corrective action plan for semi can I get a motion to second second any discussion on the items in the action agenda seeing none we'll move to roll mr davis
yes miss Jackson yes with the exception of 6.5 is a no miss Craig yes miss Lanning beater yes mr lee yes miss Nurse yes miss Dut yes
mr hill yes and Mr marin yes motion passes all right so seven committee reports um we will start with HR
okay um the HR committee met on April 23rd which was just uh last week um at 4:00 we started with a conversation and review of the comprehensive equity plan which ensures that our district is
abiding by all mandates and laws through our practices our policies we discussed a job descript description for um new unaffiliated job
um we uh also discuss how to recognize staff and student achievements um as we come to the end of the year and we did have some conversation on unaffiliated contracts and unaffiliated staff
increases and we finished our meeting with the discussion of the 2526 budget including the possible tax levy increase all right thank you very much uh we'll move on to operations
mr davis operations committee met on Friday April 25th uh a good amount of time was spent discussing uh renewing services of Sedesco the food services company uh and
uh really most of the time was spent discussing the budget options um and uh a lot of time was spent on that uh there was a policy discussion
about participating in the class action lawsuit and so on uh but that was those were the relative items relevant items all right thank you very much and move on to educ education m Jackson
so we met on April 8th and uh we discussed um the uh spectator code of conduct the first reading the tax levy incentive uh international field trips with the uh takeaway for additional
information and student academic and extracurricular achievements for the May board meeting and um just a fewformational items came up all right thank you very much and I will cover uh the governance
committee uh we met on Wednesday April 23rd uh we did discuss like all other committees the tax levy incentive and the options um and the one other item that we spent a little bit of time on was
um available land space and usage options for different um potential use case scenarios and that's it board President's Report yes next is Board President's Report i'm not sure I want to talk anymore but um I want to
thank the board for respectful conversation obviously those voting no don't always get everything they're looking for um that's why we have nine of us here so I just want to express my appreciation to the board for a good
fruitful conversation and I will stop there so super for superintendent report I just want to make it clear the board's action is is taken I want to make it very clear this is still pending two things um number one we have to hear
back from the state that everything that you're submitting now has been approved number two the governor's appropriation has to be voted on and then enacted um and Mr record you can correct me that the governor's um appropriation bill can
go all the way to like June 30th or beyond it hasn't rarely but it's gone beyond so we're still in unprecedented territory so I just wanted to make it clear that this is not you guys are have done your work but as far as this translating into something real it's not done yet and I will keep you posted um
the other thing can I completely switch away from the budget um one of the things that this board really worked on hard uh for a year and a half was our strategic plan and you've heard from some board members here uh at different times that hey maybe we're not always reaching all members of the community
now we've tried some creative things in order to do that we've had community engagement nights where people have come out you certainly can send us emails things along those lines but today opens our scope survey which um is live on our website it's also been posted on
Facebook and it's live in the board um board agenda right here it's a survey that would take anybody 15 minutes we encourage staff students parents and community members with no par no students in the school to please fill out the scope survey this is about not
only how we communicate and how well we're doing but how do you like to receive communication so if you're a person hearing this who doesn't feel that you're hearing from the school district all the time in the way that you like to be communicated with please over the next two weeks take 15 minutes
uh to fill out this survey so that we can be have an action plan moving forward about the best way to communicate with you because that was a priority of this board uh during our strategic planning process and uh Mr president that concludes my superintendent report all right thank you very much all right we'll move on to
the approval of minutes uh 10.1 motion to approve of public meeting minutes 4725 motion to approve executive session minutes uh 4725 and motion to approve public meeting minutes for 10:25 community engagement night can I get a motion in a second so moved
second all in favor thank you we'll move on to the education thank you Mr president in the area of education I'd ask for the board's consideration to approve the following motions affirming the HIB determinations for the attached cases field trip destinations revised extended day
wraparound instructional services for immigrant students uh approve extended wraparound instructional services for ESL students approve the affiliation agreement with Satan Hall University and approve the continued long-term suspensions of students whose names remain on file in the office of the
superintendent uh can I have a motion and second second any discussion on these items seeing none we'll move to roll mr davis yes miss Jackson yes miss
Craig yes miss Lenning Beer yes mr lee yes miss Nurse yes miss Stats yes mr hugh yes and Mr mar yes motion passes in the area of human resources I'd ask for the board's consideration to approve the following motions retirements and
resignations appointments for 2425 leaves of absence school musical staff extra coverage six period coverage student teacher mentor for 2526 summer athletic camp coaches the submission of the of the comprehensive
equity plan as Miss Ners had stated and rescending an employment contract can I get a motion in the second so moved second any discussion by the board seeing none we'll move to roll mr
davis yes miss Jackson yes miss Craig yes miss Landing Beater yes mr lee yes miss Nurse yes miss Stats yes mr heo yes and Mr marine yes motion passes in the area of operations I'd ask for the
board's consideration approve the following motions approving monthly bills the renewal agreement with Sedexo for the 2526 school year the submission of the new ADA ramps at Hillsboro Elementary School by LAN Associates to the State of New Jersey Department of Education joining New Jersey School
District so social media litigation approving a settlement agreement approving out of district placements and approving a competitive contracting process uh can I get a motion to second so moved second any discussion by the
[Music] board seeing none we'll move to roll mr davis yes miss Jackson yes miss Craig yes miss Lenny Peter yes mr lee yes miss
Nurse yes miss Stats yes mr heo yes and Mr ring yes motion passes thank you in the area of policies and regulations I'd ask for the board's consideration of the following motions approving policy 9163 as reviewed by the education committee for first reading and approving policy
8500 as reviewed by operations committee for first reading get a motion and a second so move second any discussion by the board seeing none mr davis yes miss Jackson yes miss Craig
yes miss Lanning Beater yes mr lee yes miss Nurse yes miss Stats yes mr hugh yes and Mr murray yes motion passes all right we'll now move on to the final uh public comment session we very much welcome in from the public during board meetings there'll be two 30-minute
periods at the time the meeting that we open public comment members are invited to comment which they may do if they're attending in person during the second public comment period members of the public may comment on any school or school district issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the school district as for B 0161 0167 before you state your com you ask to provide your name and
address there's a three-minute limit on public comment please understand that our public forms are not structured as question answer sessions rather as offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board in instances where the board believes there's a misunderstanding or inaccuracy the board president or superintendent will address the comment there may be times when the member of the public makes a comment or ask question about personnel hiring decisions kindly note that the open
public meetings act and the privacy rights of public employees encompass their do not permit the board to discuss personal issues in public session uh Thomas upic so I want to thank you all for having a fruitful as what has been said a fruitful conversation i am
disappointed um truthfully um and I hope in the future um and I understand that we all you know we don't like the way we find ourselves in this position but I uh money doesn't grow on trees i think
we all know that and that you doesn't grow on trees you can't pull it out of the ground and at some point as a young as a young 30some okay uh there is an exodus of friends of mine who are saying I'm done with this state all around they
can't afford to live here i after a period of time with where I am currently employed I have desired to maybe move on move farther south sunnier shores palm trees the state of Florida
but I it's very difficult for people not even just seniors because I know that was talked about a lot i know relatives of mine who would fall in that category but there's plenty of young people who can't afford to live in
this state and I think moving forward we genuinely need and as someone who went through the school system okay I got a great education here i am very blessed i had wonderful teachers but also there's a there's a a give and take and as a
young person who says I can't afford to live here or it's very challenging to live here this the idea of continuously raising taxes and people saying that it's nothing it is not nothing
$720 is not nothing and so I just hope that in the future we keep that in mind that not only for our seniors who have trouble affording but for young people like myself who want it maybe to stay here maybe want to see
what else is out there but this continuation of constantly raising taxes cannot be it just can't and and so I just hope in the future we keep that in mind and that
we look forward to the future and see what comes of it and I hope and pray to God we're not in the same position but as has been said I don't have much confidence in that either thank you thank you for your comment
megan Murphy Jamestown Common i'll be very quick it's very late i know Mr hider wants to go home i want to thank you all for sharing your opinions whether they are contrary to mine or not um I do appreciate the vote tonight i know that was not easy for anybody um and please share with us the community
how we can help to fight the state on these funding things give us information on who we have to contact where we have to bark because how Hillsboro is being funded is not acceptable and as much information as we can have as a community how to help fight please share with us thank you so much have a good
evening thank you very much hi Alicia Gabriel live in Hillsboro um just also wanted to echo I know that was very difficult um thank you for all of your opinions uh I just wanted to touch base on two other things uh the survey as you go through it it just in case
it's very small in one of the last pages if you're a parent it does say you know try to do it for your eldest child and then you could do it again if you have other children um just pointing that out in case uh you want to set aside a little more time and then two I just wanted to respond to the gentleman who
uh asked about the pilot at the community event i haven't watched the whole last township meeting but it looks like it the pilot amount might be $225,000 um which makes up maybe 1% of how much money they're taking in you can find that at uh minute marker or 1 hour
and 5 minutes out of the 1 hour and 55 minute thing you can find online thanks thank you for your comment all right um if there are no others we will close public comment and we will open up to any board members who wish to make any additional comments before we
close the stats I'll try to make this quick um I attended the equity expo on April 11th the New Jersey School Board Association conference and um it addressed a variety of things a lot of it focused on students with disabilities um to promote self- advocacy on their
part and alternative education programs and uh a sense of belonging for all students and um they encouraged that districts come up with a definition of equity um the definition that they offered was um everyone receives what they need in the way that they need to
receive it and that equity is not equivalent to affirmative action um and also uh last Wednesday I attended the art gala open the district art gala opened at the municipal building and as usual amazing talent um uh from K
through 12 uh every grade level was represented um and I pre and it and you can still go there it's going to be up I think through May 5th um and I appreciate the effort that uh Mr ireland's um of administrative assistant
um helped out with setting it all up as well as the art teachers with the mounting and the matting of of the artwork to have the artwork be uh visibly pleasing all right thank you very much
yeah just a quick comment in the u in the philosophic teacup but uh this financial situation that we're in you know and as has been pointed out it's this has been difficult to fight in the legislature because
twothirds of the districts in the state are happy because they're getting tons of money maybe not tons of money but there are districts in the state uh that have gone to proflegate spending they're getting reprimanded for irresponsible
and indulgent spending uh you could name a few of the cities in the state and it's a manifestation what that is it's a manifestation of a governing philosophy that essentially is from those who have to those who need that's what it is and
it's created this flow and this expectation you know we're not paying our fair share but yet there are districts that are being reprimanded for you know paying for banquetss and all kinds of
other indulgent activities so that's a manifest it's not just a mistake it's not just an oversight it's a manifestation of a philosophy how you think things ought to be and until there are changes in how
that mix takes place um we will be here i predict we will be here next year i hope you're really wrong i hope so too yep but yeah there's no trying to predict this is like predicting the
weather in three years right okay um I will add one comment just as a note um as many of you may have seen online uh there was a former employee in the district who was charged um a couple of years ago um they were scheduled to
be uh sentenced on July 23rd that has been pushed back to September um they are not giving us any more detailed information than that but hopefully when September rolls around we can put a bow on this get some more information and share with the community
um so there's not really details to share obviously if they're in their investigation they won't share information but um we were alerted that it is in fact September and that hopefully will be wrapping up sometime soon this calendar year
mr hugh I know the vote has been done it's it's a done deal i just wanted to I'm still I'm still processing it this um I think the word is I'm stunned i knew I expected but I'm still stunned um but mainly because of the sheer
magnitude of the increase in the presentation today it was said that TW we lost over um S2 $26 million in state aid in this budget today we raised $26 million so we're back to
where we were in 2019 in terms of the state aid numbers and then because of the um referendums that we did back in November 2023 as well as the July sorry the regular 2% tax cap increase and
health benefits waiver from last year and then the additional July um increase the up to 9.9% although I guess we took a little bit less we went up in two years $38 million
i'm just stunned i cannot believe that we went from a $106 million tax levy in 2324 tax school year tound almost $145 million in two years
36% increase and a $38 million increase that just seems outrageous to me and like ju I mean it's a it's a hu it's almost like we hit the lottery except that the people who paid for it are the taxpayers so they actually didn't get
the lottery um and it was interesting because I was talking to somebody about this and they said well you know they were reflecting on this and I guess tongue and cheek they said well if you can't live within your means you should just raise your means so I wish I could do that for my own personal
Yeah all right so seeing no other comments I will take a motion to adjurnn so move second all in favor see you in a couple weeks thank you