hello and welcome to the Monday April 7th 2025 Hillsboro Township Board of Education in in accordance with the state's sunshine law of New Jersey adequate notice of this meeting Hillsboro Township Board of Education was provided on January 8 2025 to the Hillsborough Beacon and the Courier News
uh Mr eert can we please take role mr davis here miss Jackson here miss Craig here miss Lenny Beater mr lee here miss Nurse here Miss Stats here Mr heo here and Mr marini here we have a quorum i
take a motion and move into executive session whereas the public meetings act chapter 21 of laws 1975 provide that a public body may exclude the public from a portion of the meeting of which the public body discurses discusses certain matters which confidentiality required as created in section 7B of the act of the board of education in the town of
Trump of Hillsboro in the county of Somerset and the state of New Jersey as follows the matters to be discussed are legal matter and negotiations 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 in second second
second all in favor all right we'll be back around 7:30 thank you especially in this moment hello and welcome championships welcome back to the Monday April 7th 2025 Hillsboro Township Board of Education meeting we have now returned from
executive session uh Mr eard if we can please take mr davis here miss Jackson here miss Craig here miss Lenny Beer Mr lee here Miss Nurse here Miss Stats here Mr
heo stepped away and Mr marin here we have a quorum uh before we move on to anything we're going to take a motion to authorize Miss Allison Lanning Beater to participate in the April 27th 2025 board meeting remotely uh can I get a motion a
second so moved second any questions before we vote all right if we could please take roll on that mr davis here yes yes m yes for Ally yes uh Miss
Jackson yes miss Craig yes mr lee yes miss Nurse yes miss Stats yes mr trillo and Mr marie yes we have a quorum so we will now dial in Allison to participate in the meeting
hi you're you're here and live hi here thank you all right so we will now stand uh for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation
under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right i'd like to acknowledge the correspondence as listed uh I do do we have any committee reports right no we have no committee reports so we'll move forward to the board president's report
and the first item um winter sports proclamations so Mr vulpi is going to assist me as I read and then hand down first so be a little bit of reading here because we're going to read the full proclamation for everybody
proclamation of the Hillsboro Township Board of Education and recognition of Nathan Beantock's outstanding achievement in high school hockey whereas Nathan Beantock has demonstrated exceptional skill dedication and sportsmanship as a matter member of the Hillsboro High School ice hockey team and whereas during the 24-25 season
Nathan Beantock achieved remarkable statistical accomplishments scoring 48 goals and providing 47 assists showcasing his extraordinary offensive talent and playmaking abilities and whereas Nathan Beantock has been named first team all conference a testament to his consistent excellence and impact on
the local hockey scene and whereas Nathan Beantock has been honored as the New Jersey State High School Hockey Player of the Year a prestigious accolade recognizing his unparalleled contributions to the sport at the state level and where his achievements reflect countless hours of hard work perseverance and a deep passion for the
sport of ice hockey and where Nathan Beantock serves as an exemplary role model for his peers demonstrating the importance of commitment teamwork and the pursuit of excellence now therefore be it resolved that the Hillsboro Township Board of Education hereby extends its sincere congratulations and
deep appreciation to Nathan Beantock for his outstanding achievement in high school hockey and be it further resolved that the board of education recognizes and celebrates Nathan Beantock's dedication to his sport and his remarkable accomplishments which have been brought which have brought great pride and recognition to Hillsboro High School and the entire community and in
witness thereof we the members of the Hillsboro Township Board of Education have here unto set our hands to this on this April 7th 2025 nathan can I have you and uh any family members come up to the podium to uh receive the proclamation maybe too how
about a round of applause for Nathan if you if you don't mind um if you could stand at the podium I'm sure that uh first of all I want to tell you you have two big hockey fans right here myself and Mr eert and when I went over your stats that are right on the screen behind me Mr e records reaction
was 48 goals and 47 assists what a career for that kid i said that's not a career that's that's one season that you put together so absolutely amazing um I'm sure there are some people that you'd want to thank and maybe a couple things that you'd like to say and then
I'll have an ask of you but can I ask you a question first are you an NHL fan okay this is this is an important question who's your favorite team the Devils now Mr eckert and I happen to like
different teams his team is the most evil team in the history of the NHL and I believe that our team might have eliminated them from playoff contention on on Saturday did you happen to see that game no I didn't okay but they did i just wanted to make that clear sorry Mr recre but you knew that that one was
coming nathan absolutely outstanding accomplishments really truly amazing uh I just want to give you the microphone for a couple minutes if there's a couple of people you have want to thank or reflect upon your time this year and being named the best player in hockey in the state of New Jersey yeah I mean I I
couldn't have done it without my teammates and uh most importantly both my parents so just want to thank them that's awesome Nathan congratulations and stay there for a second because there's one there's one more
thing besides making fun of Mr record i also uh another strange thing about me is I'm a collector and I have a I collect a lot of things at home my wife calls my collection downstairs that crap in the basement but one portion of that crap in the basement is sports memorabilia that I like to keep track of
and in my office here at Hillsboro uh in in the superintendent's office I'm starting a collection of very important sports memorabilia so as New Jersey player of the year I'm asking will you come here and sign a puck for me so I can add that to my collection and signature would be awesome
awesome thank you thank you thank you we look forward to everything that you're going to continue to accomplish and you all must be very proud thank you you guys are going to get tired of hearing me
read uh proclamation of the Hillsboro Township Board of Education commending Emily Sudall for achieving the NJSIA state championship and the individual medley whereas the pursuit of excellence in athletics demands unwavering dedication discipline and exceptional talent qualities inspire our school community and whereas Emily Sudel is a
distinguished athlete from Hillsbor High School has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to these values throughout her remarkable swimming career where Emily Sudel has achieved a pinnacle athletic success by winning the NJSIA state championships in the individual medley and whereas this state this championship performance Emily posted a
remarkable time of 205 soa showcasing her exceptional skill speed and mastery of the individual medley discipline and whereas the state championship victory represents the culmin culmination of countless hours of rigor rigorous training unwavering support from coaches family and the entire Hillsbor community and a testament to Emily's individual
talent and dedication and whereas the achievement of this state championship brings immense pride and recognition to Hillsboro High School and the entire Hillsboro Township School District whereas Emily has served as an outstanding role model for our students demonstrating the importance of perseverance sportsmanship and the pursuit of excellence in athletics and
whereas Emily was recognized as second team all state for outstanding performance in the 200 IM and whereas Emily was named 2025 Skyland Conference swimmer of the year and earned first team allconerence honors showcasing her dominance and excellence within the conference now therefore be resolved that the board of education extends its
heartfelt congratulations to Emily for her dedication hard work and the historic accomplishment she has brought to our community and witness thereof we the members of the Hillsboro Township Board of Education have here unto set our hands this April 7th 2025 emily Sudall and family can you
come up to the podium please emily C congratulations um I know your your parents are here and coaches and um I wanted to know first if you had anything you'd like to say thanking anyone or anything yes so I would like to thank my teammates and coaches for
supporting me this season and then the board of education for recognizing my season so thank you absolutely amazing accomplishment and I was going to have a swim cap here to to autograph but Mr davis told me that I I didn't bring it and something was coming so is that is that is that true yeah c can I see what
what it is is this part of my sports collection too thank you very much hey Mr mr sudol if you don't mind me coming up to the microphone for a second too with your daughter right there just because most some people know some people don't you're a swimming coach and
you're a dad and you're having success with your team and then you're watching your daughter swim towards a state championship can you just express it and get in that moment as a parent for a second what is it like making that switch watching her move towards the
state title this is a great question i I will I will admit I I definitely had that parent moment on the side of the pool deck and I was watching all of our athletes at the meet of champs and you're rooting for all of them that are there swimming in finals
but I I will admit there was that that small little moment um as a parent so it's uh I'm in a unique position I will say and I'm very very lucky individual to be in this position and uh get to experience that so but obviously just like the rest of uh our boys and girls
team and Emily we're just just so proud how they represent Hillsboro High School and the Hillsboro community they're so proud to do that all the time so congratulations to all of us congratulations congratulations Emily what What year are
you What year are you in high school i'm a sophomore yeah so you've got lots more success in front of you congratulations state champ thank you so much for my little gift that'll be proudly displayed in my office congratulations Emily thank you so a quick question for you Mr superintendent yeah are you doing this
to get free stuff always always all right fair enough we do pay you right it's not just free gifts well you do okay all right perfect all right our next proclamation commending the Hillsboro High School boys swimming team for achieving their
fifth consecutive state sectional championship title whereas the pursuit of excellence and athletics embodies the spirit of dedication perseverance and teamwork qualities that enrich our school community whereas the Hillsboro High School boys swimming team has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to these values throughout the remarkable history and most recently the
24-25 season and whereas on February 21st 2025 the Hillsboro High School boys swimming team achieved the historic milestone by winning their fifth consecutive NJSIAA state sectional championship title and whereas this remarkable achievement underscores the team's consistent dominance exceptional
skill unwavering dedication and outstanding team spirit and whereas this championship victory represents the culmination of countless hours of rigorous training training unwavering support from coaches families and the entire Hillsboro community and a testament to the athletes individual and collective talent and whereas achieving
five consecutive state sectional titles brings an immense pride and recognition to the Hillsboro High School and the entire Hillsboro Township School District and whereas the Hillsboro High School school boys swimming team has served as outstanding role models for our students demonstrating the importance of sport sportsmanship
dedication and the relentless pursuit of excellence whereas the team's consistent performance has established Hillsboro as a powerhouse in New Jersey High School swimming showcasing the high level of athletic talent within our district now therefore be it resolved that the Hillsborough Township Board of Education hereby formally recognizes and commends
the Hillsboro High School boys swimming team their coaches and support staff for their outstanding achievement in winning their fifth consecutive NJSIAA state sectional championship title can the boys swim team please come up to
the podium area and coaches I'm okay you can just take pictures we're going to try to squeeze in for a quick picture over here can you get everybody mrs regan everybody say cheese in the middle there and then coaches can I have you come to the podium and maybe say a word or two
about this team this program this experience i I want to make sure the audience members are looking at the picture behind me backto back to back to backto back five straight championships so you seniors you don't know anything but state sectional championships and coach maybe you want to say a word or
two and maybe have one of the one or two of the students come up and say something absolutely we have uh our captains here they they also brought you some sports gifts so they've been anxious to bring these up to you as well so go ahead boys that's awesome oh that's great
all right thank you very much thank you very much great seat great seat thanks coach you're welcome anything you want anything you want to say about this crew either one of you i think first I'll start with uh Adele
Morgan here who's I've been very lucky and blessed to have coaching alongside me now for 20 years so I think that says a lot you know you're you're looking up here at the accolades and you're looking at this team and yes all these seniors have have known is is coming in with this expectation but um can't do this
without Adele who's been by my side a long time so I have to acknowledge that yeah it's definitely not an easy thing to do and and I do give both our teams credit for um setting high goals and goals and and high standards for themselves and we're in a unique
position where we're in a time period where they're they're passing that down from team year to year team to team and each you know the freshman come in and and they want to do what the boys before them did and then these seniors this year and the two captains that came up
you know they experienced it as freshman sophomores and juniors and all they wanted to do their senior year is just continue uh these traditions and one of them has been the state sectional titles like I said we're very very lucky i think the the paths of uh luck and opportunity sure have intersected for us
the last handful of years it's not easy to do but uh like I said they they take a lot of pride in representing the high school and in this community and it means a lot to them to just be recognized by all of you and I want to say thank you very much for this um you know it uh is a big deal for them um to
to be recognized for these accomplishments but it's all on them I would say uh Coach Morgan and I we just get to sit there on on the side of the pool deck and and enjoy the fast swim so the credit goes to them of course they do all the work so congrats boys
thank you thank you congratulations guys all right we have two more pro proclamations remaining we would like to commend the Hillsboro High School girls basketball team for achieving the 2025 NJSIAA Group 4 State
Championship whereas the pursuit of excellence in athletics embodies the spirit of educa of dedication perseverance and teamwork qualities that enrich our school community whereas the Hillsboro High School girls basketball team has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to these values throughout the remarkable 24-25 season and whereas
on March 16 2025 at Jersey Mike's Arena on the Ruckers University campus the Hillsboro High School girls basketball team team achieved a historic milestone by winning the NJSIA Group Four State Championship for the first time in school history whereas in a thrilling and hard fought contest the team
triumphed over West Orange with a final score of 55 to 52 showcasing their exceptional skill resilience and unwavering determination and whereas this championship victory represents the culmination of countless hours of practice unwavering support from coaches families and the entire Hillsboro community and a testament to the athletes individual and collective
talent and whereas the achievement of this state championship brings immense pride and recognition to Hillsboro High School the entire Hillsboro Township School District and whereas the Hillsboro High School girls basketball team has served as an outstanding role model for our students demonstrating the importance of sportsmanship dedication
and the pursuit of excellence and whereas in the final state rankings the Hillsboro High School girls basketball team was ranked fourth overall and achieved the distinction of being the highest ranked public school team in the state of New Jersey now therefore be resolved that the Hillsboro Township Board of Education hereby formally recognizes and commends the Hillsbor
High School girls basketball team their coaches and support staff for their outstanding achievement in winning the 2025 NJSIAA Group 4 State Championship be it further resolved the board of education extends its heartfelt congratulations to each member of the team for their dedication hard work and the historic accomplishment they have brought to our
community girls team come on up i had so much fun watching this team this year and it had to be thrilling to be a part of this and to be coaching this um I just realized too that I I was a former wrestling coach and I coached a
state champion before um the girls on your team were born and uh it's something that doesn't leave your system and you guys are going to remember this forever it's going to be significant it's going to be important you are always going to remember that experience and I remember watching the um the game
at Ruters and I was sitting next to the principal Dolo and it had its ups and downs and I don't know if you guys remember but towards the end of the third quarter you guys are down like very end of the third quarter you're down by about eight or nine and there's some there's some sketchy passing going on there's a little bit of nerves and
Bella they threw the ball to you and you threw up kind of a three it didn't look like it was going in but they they smacked your hand pretty hard so you got brought right to the line and you guys were down by like eight or or nine points you sunk the first one you sunk the second one and you missed the third
one chesy I I I remember I never saw someone under a basket who just said you didn't say it out loud but you just said "I am not going to be denied." You grabbed that ball you put it right back up and it was four points in the matter
of five seconds and all of a sudden it turned i I I turned to Mr dalo who was right next to me and said that was a game changer and you guys kind of took it over from from that point there's so much I could talk about that game and then the the the final the final inbounds pass who I I Maya it might have
been you who did who did the long pass all the way down does anybody know who who got the inbound and like threw it all the way down the court nobody oh that was you too okay well we'll talk to you in just a second i'm not gonna You got plenty of other stuff coming but uh but coach um I was wondering if you or
any member of your coaching staff I mean I'm excited talking about this team is there anything that you or any member any anybody wants to come up and say about what an incredible run and honestly the best team in the state of New Jersey let's face it there's three teams in front of you all who could recruit from wherever the heck they really wanted to let's let let's not
make that a secret you guys are the best team town that that the state of New Jersey had to offer and coach a lot of that has to do from the top down too besides having the talent so anything you'd like to say about this crew uh thank you um thank you to my other coaches Coach Nikki and Coach Manning um
who obviously had a huge part in this and uh we wouldn't have been able to do it without them but um I'm just so proud of these girls like you said um they found a way time and time again to get it done like there were tons of games where we were down a little bit and they always found a way uh they did not want
this to be taken from them and we just didn't want the season to end because it was such a special group thank you to our amazing seniors who led the way for us uh they brought the energy every single day um they had these goals to achieve and uh they brought the energy and they brought those expectations down
they worked extremely hard um and they were great teammates um and it was so much fun they were so much fun to be around it was just such a special group and um we thank you all for acknowledging us as well so congratulations girls uh they deserve all of this thank you
coach coach I I already got all your girls autographs and when they they won the state sectional title they were probably like who's this weird guy who's coming up to me with this basketball asking for that but there's one thing that I need you to put on here that it doesn't say will you come up here and write group four state champs on this
basketball because that would be pretty cool for me to have i brought an extra i didn't know you were going to do that i don't know but I do that's all right it's all It's all good you just sign it wherever you want we're state champs wherever it fits
thank you so we'll have you guys stay up for the last one here yeah we have one of your teammates we want to point out in particular who's Francesca i'm gonna shorten this to Chesky whereas Chesky Shiro has
demonstrated exceptional athletic prowess and unwavering dedication throughout her high school basketball career at Hillsboro High School whereas Chesy has achieved achieved remarkable feet of becoming the Hillsboro High School all-time leading scorer amassing an astounding 216 points and whereas
Chesky's outstanding talent and leadership were instrumental in guiding the Hillsboro High School girls basketball team to an outstanding final record of 26 and six finishing the year ranked as the highest public school team in the state and whereas Chesky's leadership led the team to become the 2025 Central Group Four Sectional
Champion and back-to-back sectional champions and whereas Cheskey's outstanding talent and leadership were instrumental in guiding the Hillsboro High School girls basketball team to the 2025 group four state championship and first in school history and whereas Chesy was recognized for her outstanding talent by being named first team all
conference as well as being the Courier News girls basketball player of the year and whereas Chesiey's commitment to excellence on and off the court has served as an inspiration to her teammates fellow students and the entire Hillsboro community and where her remarkable achievements have brought great pride and recognition to Hillsboro
High School and the Hillsbor Township School District now therefore be it resolved that the Hillsboro Township Board of Education hereby formally recognizes and congratulates uh Chesy for her extraordinary accomplishments in girls basketball be it further resolved that the board of education commends her for her dedication sportsmanship and
leadership and expresses its sincere appreciation for her significant contributions to Hillsboro High School and the community and Chesky if I could have you step to the the podium mr marini don't just wait there for a second Mr marini um Chesy a couple of quick questions for you so you
were the one who threw the long pass down at the end so you got the inbound pass and you saw somebody at the other end of the court as you're throwing that pass what is running through your mind um I was just hoping it would reach and the time would run out and the game
would be over well that that's exactly what would happen before and before um I I just want to take this picture right here that's behind me of you and your teammate um that's Maya in the picture right yeah we have a uh a vision and a
mission statement here where we talk about finding joy and purpose in every aspect of your educational journey and I picked this picture because there's purpose there in the middle with that gold trophy and you and Maya are just showing such exuberance and joy th it's
an experience that I hope you carry with you for the absolute rest of your life and uh as long as we are here in Hillsboro um we are going to make sure that people remember this remarkable season you have because we have a faximile of what we're going to be
putting in the um gymnasium permanently and a copy of that is right behind you that Mr marini is going to reveal um that this will always be in Hillsboro High School denoting you as the uh the career
points leader in all of Hillsboro High School and we can't wait to actually hang that up there uh that one is for you to take home tonight you can hang it up at your graduation party put it out on your front lawn whatever that you would like to do but absolutely an amazing career and before I ask you for
your autograph on a basketball writing 21106 next to it is there anybody that you'd like to thank or anyone that you would like to point out and talk about this journey from when you started as a freshman to where you are today and and heading off to Sienna um I'd like to
thank you guys for having me and my team and I'd like to thank my parents and my teammates parents can come up if they want and I'd like to thank my teammates and my coaches for pushing me all these
years and really helping me become the person I am thank you for everything that you brought to the school and and as I had said "No no no you you have to come here and you have to autograph a basketball for me you you're going to get your own
So you can write it nice and your name here and then 21106 right there i love it she said she's been working on her signature that's awesome thank you so much and congratulate it has been so It has been so much fun watching you play congratulations to all
of our winter athletes absolutely amazing season and as as Mr marini comes back up here we're going to make sure that we do this for our students and athletes and and academics more often because excellence certainly deserves to be recognized girls it was a fantastic um journey
watching you this season um so thank you again and and Chesy I know I taped that up there with some packing tape but that's literally yours you can rip it off take it home it's it's yours to keep all right so we'll take a five minute break people can take photos with their family or anything else they want to do
and then we'll commence with the meeting after that thank you started with the meeting in a minute if uh folks that are not going to stay if you could start heading towards the exits we'd appreciate it thank you hello and welcome back we're now going to
continue believe it or not we're still in the board president's report we haven't finished that yet all right so welcome i see we likely have some folks in the audience who may be here due to the possible tax increase option before the board uh before we
begin I want to make a couple of things very clear we are not deciding any tax increase tonight so while we be we'll be discussing a couple things there will be no changes formally to the budget tonight so even if we approve uh the potential walk-on that we have discussed
it is an option being laid before the board and no official agreement to any change in the tax levy for Hillsboro as of today uh this is very new and was only made available this past week to the district so no committees have discussed
this and this is not the only time the community community can give feedback and to be clear tonight the public cannot have a back and forth conversation with the board members but are free and and encouraged to come up to the podium and provide any comments that they may have around this item
given this I as board president was left to decide the procedure given what I've explained at this point generally when we have items on the agenda one of two things have occurred either the board has reviewed the item in committee or the item has been deemed as at the recommendation of the superintendent
this includes some budget items you know sixth and seventh period coverage and other optional items seeing as though the superintendent is not technically recommending this and has not and has not been removed by a single committee I made the call to treat this as a walk-on
so just so that's understood as we review the options tonight our charge is the one thing and one thing only decide if we want to further explore this option if this item is deemed worthy of being a walk-on the board will vote if a majority yes vote is received Jerry will
continue to build a plan to cover the possible available funds which could be requested this will be submitted to the state for approval if is it approve if it is approved in part or in whole as meeting the criteria of thorough and efficient those funds will then become
available to the district only at this point could the board choose to leverage none some or all of the approved funds when approving the final budget on April 28th effectively it gives us options before I walk through the quick
presentation we can discuss next steps if this were to pass if this passes we will schedule a community engagement night on this Thursday where the public can engage in a back and forth discussion with available board members and will follow on with committee
discussions prior to the April 28th vote to be clear I don't think this is the best way to solve the issue but it is a solution we are being offered okay on to the presentation okay I need to read off this i don't have that okay so just to
recap uh this is referred to as tax incentive aid last week the state informed the board of education about a program called tax incentive aid this is targeted for school districts like Hillsboro who are under adequacy and have been hurt by state aid cuts over
many years the state has informed us that if efforts are made to get closer to adequacy by raising the general fund by 20 million they will provide an additional 1 million in state aid for the next year now this is a 5% match so if we were to request and choose to uh
you know apply 10 million you would get a half a million in additional funding from the state so it's not a one one and done it is a percentage uh due to the timing of the vote sorry due the timing of the state's rollout this is the first opportunity board members have to discuss this issue and the state has
informed school districts that if interested they must apply by April 14th and have board resolutions stating such all right so as you could probably understand this is a rush job this came to us this week we have to vote on it this week because next week is spring
break we don't have a board meeting next week and next Monday would be the date so the idea here is to bring this for a potential vote to allow us to submit the paperwork and then have committee meetings and a public engagement session to ask question ask and answer questions
okay so instead of just saying hey we're going to vote to approve some money to potentially use um I had the board president and business administrator uh walk through some board president superintendent superintendent i didn't
do I didn't do this he did so um walk through some scenarios of how we would use the funds potentially if they were approved these are options this is not a final uh piece but we'll walk through what that is uh the first thing first for next year for 2526 all 4.6 million in cuts
outlined in the tenative bud budget presentation would be restored this would include courtesy busing middle school sports reinstating the suspension of paytoplay restoring several budget line items for services that have been cut lower and restoring the 24 positions that would have been eliminated some by
attrition and some by uh actually uh removing those positions completely some positions would not be needed at the same building due to enrollment and student needs and five positions would be moved to the high school for increased elective offerings other course offerings and a future master
schedule change we would hire a building monitor for evening activities and a health PE nursing supervisor we would do some needed software updates and about 15 million would go towards non-recurring cost projects including upgrading the HM HMS fax room replacing
the trailers at Triangle building a new bus garage going paperless for archived documents that we pay annual storage fees for prepping rooms for full day K rekeying five schools addressing water re remediation lighting and expansion joints at the in the Aerys
infrastructure in 2627 we would keep all recurring costs as stated in the previous slide have funds set aside to cover salary increases health benefit increases and inflation increases we would have a contingency for state aid cuts and be
able to budget appropriately with clear forecasting add 12 full-time positions for full day K implementation to be implemented in the fall of 2026 and have five million ready for needed projects would be non-recurring costs in
2728 keep all recurring costs as stated in the previous two slides again have funds set aside to cover salary increases health benefits increases and inflation increases again we would have a contingency for state aid cut to be able to budget appropriately with clear forecasting and have approximately
500,000 ready for needed capital projects which would be non-recurring costs so again just to pause there that's assuming we took the full 20 million of course if we took 1 million or 2 million or 10 million or 15 million we would scale down those and we would
have options that would go through committee as recommendations for alternate amounts potentially so the tax impact for next year the average house in Hillsboro would see a $364 increase uh this is not take into consideration if your house is being
reassessed and I think the average home cost was something like five 524K is that right Jerry somewhere in the neighborhood of the mid 500s i think a little closer to six a little closer to six so in in the 500s it would be approximately
$364 increase from what was last year the average house in Millstone would see a $1,294 increase um please note there are other extenduating circumstances and it is not a $1,294 increase from this but that's what their effect would
be next steps so if the board is interested it must pass a resolution tonight saying they're doing so administration has to then apply for this consideration and then be approved by the state to do so and further details would then be put forward in the April at the April 28th board of
education meeting where there will be a public hearing about the budget okay so what was not included in this presentation is the absolute worst case scenario we decline this option so people in the community understand depending on the level of cuts we could
be looking at such cuts as 20 plus teachers year-over-year in coming years or even something as drastic as eliminating high school sports to cover the costs while this is the extreme end of the spectrum at a certain point everything has to be on the table or we
could be looking at classrooms with 45 plus students the intention is not to incite doom and gloom but instead to understand the lens through which this is viewed from the board's perspective we have some important decisions to make and we look forward to your feedback tonight and again on Thursday if we decide to walk
on and pass this item tonight so I guess we can so although irregular I would allow some board members now if they want to make comment um that we can do so now before we move into public comment um and do the actually superintendent report is still
but if there are any board members who have any immediate questions uh comments um the stats okay if we don't go to the full 20 million uh are there some lower amounts
where there would not so where uh there would be no increase in the tax rate compared to last year yeah i believe this year the effective tax rate is going down right so there is an amount at which it would be a I guess a
zero sum game sweet spot there there is a sweet spot that would be I'm not sure what that amount is we don't have that number but there is so right now for those unaware I think the tax effect tax rate for the average house is going down $500ish is that correct i'm putting Jerry on the spot here so he's the best
i'm sure he has all that information what it would be before any of this So it was going was going down 3.61% based on the tenative budget so there is a number that would make that zero and but that would be just Hillsboro and no matter what even with
before this suggestion was proposed for Millstone it's going to go up yeah that is this completely separate issue that we've discussed before yes um but their theirs is is going up for a separate concern here
mr ask our questions now or when we So if you want to hold off until later we can i was just giving the opportunity if any board members wanted to make any statements now or ask any questions i'm sorry you said to ask my questions now or you can ask questions now or we can wait
we'll have another uh board discussion opportunity after the first p public session comment closes i'll ask some questions now so I can think about it and then Okay um so my first question goes back to the state aid notice i don't know if this
mic is on it is okay the state notice that we received where um oh sorry took it out okay um the state aid notice on page three where it says that our adequacy budget is 144
million etc um is that adequacy number only our local share so if we were to go up to 2122 million that would bring us to adequacy but we'd still be 10 million below our local fair share according to the state okay but that that's what I
don't understand so I'm not sure anyone does but we can try okay on March can I ask a clarify sure clarification i thought at an earlier presentation the 23 million was our That's adequacy
that's adequacy which is a It's still not 100% clear to me how they're delineating the two but local fair share is like 30 million and adequacy is 23 million so so there are two so okay equalization
so our state aid is made up of two parts equalization aid and categorical aid is that a true statement yes okay according to the state aid notice our equalization aid is zero correct is that true that's correct so that means way I
understand it if equalization aid equals adequacy budget minus local share even if we bring up what you're proposing to the 21 million the state's still going to give us zero for the equalization part
that is based on this year's numbers that's correct the numbers the formula changes slightly every year with the information that goes into it so then I don't understand this proposal for increasing our local share if even if we go up to our supposed local share we're
still not going to get any more state aid and in fact I think it's I mean I think if we do that they're going to take more away from us like so that's what I was trying to understand like this I mean am I making my like my
I I can speak to that the the answer right now is we really don't know um we're assuming that I think it's logical to say if we get closer to adequacy that our state aid cut should no longer be as big but I do still have a fear that we
could have a state aid cut next year but but I think that's that's the problem is because the way they calculate equalization aid is adequacy minus local share right here on the state aid notice it says our local share is greater than our adequacy so it's always going to I mean right now it's negative they put
zero because they maxed it out or they they capped it at zero they didn't say like here give us some money like um so my question is on that page three where it says adequacy budget 144,434,000 etc is that our total budget or is that
our only like the our local portion because you're saying that we can we can um increase our local share by 21,931,000 etc right um because we're we're 20 about we're about 22 million below
adequacy but if you count the entire budget it's 153 million so like which numbers are we comparing the option the state has given us is all compared to adequacy okay but adequacy is that number compared to
local like our portion of the budget or the total budget that would be the local share of the budget that would be the tax levy portion of the budget okay so the adequacy is based on hill like our our residents what they expect us to pay the
adequacy budget is a lot more complicated than that it's a fictitious district that the state puts together and says this is what the cost per district should be and then it extrapolates that out based on on the size of the district but that's what I don't understand because shouldn't that be like how much it costs to educate our
students and they don't consider like what the local share is versus what the state gives us so like I I believe that's what they are doing with the adequacy budget is saying this is what in New Jersey it should cost to educate a child so they think
that it should cost $144 million to educate us all the students of Hillsboro according to what they're telling us but then when you look at our March March whatever date um budget that's what I'm trying to understand because you're comparing it to the taxes raised of the
general fund but I'm wondering isn't it like the general fund of $149 million that we have yes that is our that is a tenative budget that was approved right so but you're comparing the $144 million on page three of the state aid to 122
million which is the taxes that we raise not the That's what I don't understand like that's what they're comparing this to this that the local share of the taxes should in their eyes should be 144 million instead of the 122 million no like no because they're saying we
they in this one it says 148 million is what they think we should pay and they think the adequacy is 144 million which means that like that doesn't make sense they're saying that we owe more than it cost to educate a child and um Mr le fever just reminded me the
one piece that is missing is you also have to add the same numbers from the Milstone document that would then get it up to even a little higher budget i know but okay but that's like that's very small right so let's just so I so I don't understand what we're raising that's what that's my question
I don't know how else to explain it from what I that it's what the state is saying this is an opportunity for the district to get back to adequacy on the on the spending and that's what they view as the tax levy portion of of the budget so they're not counting the adequacy as
the total budget they're only saying they're calculating I I I think it's very confusing i think it's very confusing that that that's the problem and and the one thing that I can say that's a positive that's come out of this through this board's
advocacy over time in in talking about the state aid formula is if the state is giving some kind of options to district good bad otherwise they're recognizing that the formula is not working if the formula was working they wouldn't have to give these options so my concern is
that if you know like in an hour or so when I you know kind of understand this a little bit better and let's say we we say like we want this option and let's say we um you know pass that $21 million so now is our now our new budget going to be instead of $153 million it's going
to be $174 million like going forward like that seems like I mean that we're talking like a 35% increase in I mean we're talking how much I mean it's a lot of money that we're it's it's $36 million that we um are
asking for the taxpayers 36 $ 38 million since April 24th 2023 when we passed that budget that just seems like I'm going to fall on the floor like for
that much money this whole thing is insane i I I don't really know what the better answer is except the problem the I think the problem that my biggest concern let's say I had lots of money right my pro my concern is that we raise the money here and we ask our local taxpayers to do that and then next year
the state says "Oh guess what you raised $20 million and now we're going to take away $20 million." So they can't take away 20 million because they only give us that 17 okay so they're going to take away 17 million but that's the question right because this year's I said this last year in um July when we when the
board voted to increase to that whatever like 9.9% right um that that the state was then going to what would happen if the state then took more money away because basically what they're saying is that Hillsboro is wealthy enough to pitch in more and so that's what
happened in this in this budget even though we lost sorry the state aid notice is that even though we lost um half a million dollars it was actually going to be $3 million but it was capp because of the advocacy right it was capped at a 3% loss what happens when we
add $20 million to our budget and the state goes "Oh guess what by the way um you got the money so now um we're going to actually take away 17 million." So that is a great question i think my counterpoint to that not that I'm saying that we have to do this and that I really think this is a great idea but if we don't pass this and they come back
next year and take away three million that's 30 teaching positions i think we need to go to the voters i don't I don't feel comfortable um putting this together we don't have that option though i No we do have the option in November we can we can do like we did back in
20 three 20 when did we do it 2023 I can't remember 2024 we can ask the voters if they want to increase the tax levy like 23 so I I I just I don't feel comfortable and I have lots of other questions but
that's now Miss Nurse i think that we can all agree with the statement that the state has failed us um in and and and that's the reality and
we all sat up here and we were all very thankful for what our community did for us last year right and we all said that we were not going to do this again and that it should not first of all ever been the state putting it upon us again
right but this is where we are unfortunately and I am a taxpayer i am getting priced out of my house you know because I think it's ridiculous to pay $15,000 for a half an acre and I would like to see numbers in
our comparable county because I cannot understand how Montgomery and Bridgewater have not been hit like we have been hit it just makes no sense to me besides the fact that we don't have I I know I I don't understand about S2 so
I'm not going to pretend that I do besides the fact that the state is penalizing this community and we are left to do nothing but have bad options so I was serious back last year when I
said I don't ever want to do this to our community again but the state is giving us no choice and I'm not saying that I would agree to increase anything what I'm saying is tonight if it comes to a vote I will be voting yes because I
think that we need to talk about what all the options are like we do with other big decisions that we have so my if we get to the voting stage it will be a yes for me and that is not to yes definitely increase something that is to
see where the numbers are to investigate where our break even is um because we have no alternative because I know what it's like in a classroom um and we have cut everything possible and there's nothing else to cut
so if we don't take advantage of something then next year I don't know what this district can afford to cut i compare it all the time to Bridgewater because that's what I know that is where I teach and the
disparity between what the districts are given with what I consider a very comparable community is just unbelievable to me so it's heartbreaking um but what is even more heartbreaking to me and sorry if I get
emotional but I try really hard and I didn't have time to go on Facebook or anything today but I did see a video from our own people in this community trying to point the fingers to the board um and that's very sad that we have people in other
positions within our community that are saying that this is the board is doing this and you know that there were um captions the board wants to do this that is the most dishonest thing that
could be printed on social media the board does not want to do this the board has no other option unless we continue to watch our schools suffer and our children suffer and our staff members
suffer um so if I understand your frustration because I I share it I share it as a taxpayer um and and I point to the state and they don't seem to care what they're doing to some of the districts i mean the only benefit is
that now so many other districts are feeling it now that it might get more attention in the future um but please do not believe what you see on social media that that that's my big thing here is because it
was it was really upsetting to see those type of things going through social media that my friend who also works with me who who lives in this town showed me on on the way out the door today about this is what the board wants um and it's
from people who could actually step in and do something to help us we have other people um and other ways to get money uh you know so other committees out there in our township if you're listening to me it
would be nice to see what you could do to help us out because it is our schools that really bring in and make our community what it is let's be frank you know that's why I moved here because I did my research on great places to
live that were at the time affordable and also had great school districts and really our community is not going to be what it is without great school districts so um I'm hoping that that message gets to the people it really needs to miss Jackson yeah i just like
to say the state is sitting here right you know we have done everything we can and I go out we we have done everything we can we have different opinions at this table okay some of us are in the minorities and and that's the way it
goes but I see the social media i see the board being blamed by the general public okay but the bottom line is this the state is failing the state is failing this doesn't have to be this way because there are schools we know where
their administrators are saying "I don't know how to spend all the money I have." Well guess what it can be reallocated to the places that have lost year after year and and this is what the state wants the state wants to push the taxes down the tax increases down on the board
of ed the community is blamed the township committee is blamed i am angry i am a taxpayer too and if you're upset about what you're paying on a halfacre lot you should see what I'm paying on a townhouse a 1600 square foot townhouse i
own very little land so you are sitting in the front seat Mr fryman why don't you say something about this miss Jackson you have to address the the board please well I'm sorry but I am tired of being at this day and having to
make the same terrible decision almost every year here this is not fair and the people who are losing out the most are the kids in this district and then it's their parents who are paying taxes and then it's every other stakeholder who
are paying taxes for nothing it's it's enough problems are heard i don't think anybody on the board disagrees that these problems are stemming from the state formula and and I and I I don't doubt that but it's time
it's said and it's time responsibility is taken by the people who deserve it agreed miss stats and uh regarding what Miss Jackson said um we've known this the S2 formula is now sort of defunct now right yep but we still have the state formula
in play and we've known for years it's a horrible formula it's outdated it was created before the the caps were required so this local fair share that includes counting income is is ridiculous so but every every year
there's an excuse oh well we can't do it because there's this election there's this is happening this you start just sit down i I want our state legislators to sit down and create a new formula and start working on it now because I'm sure it's going to take more than a year no excuses to to to postpone working on it
start working on it now yep agreed Mr davis i'm just not comfortable imposing an increase of this magnitude without the town having had the opportunity to vote on it uh I guess that would be a
referendum would of me whatever mechanism that is and if we think I don't know if this is the right way to say it but if you know if there are parallel tracks one one rail is the list of benefits of all the nice things that we could have if we do this but there's
the other rail of what can we shoulder and what can we afford so there's no argument with the list of nice things but my argument and you know it's what are we paying you know I I represent the small community of people
who are on fixed incomes and retired and you know an extra 30 40 50 bucks a month ends up being something we can count yep and uh if the town were to have the opportunity to actually vote on such a
tax increase uh then it is what it is but uh for us to impose something like this on the town I think is completely inappropriate so opinion is heard uh you know the state allows this so it is allowed it is legal it's ethical it's it's might not
be personally the thing we want to do and our personal responsibility may take over in that decision um we do have the option to also go to the to the residents to approve that um but I I you know the thing that rings in my head over and over again is the stress that
this happens now if we continue to lose funds every year and don't take this you may in two to three years be saying "Why didn't we do this we now have 45 kids in a classroom." I it's I know the what ifs are the whatifs like listen we could take this and then a new administration
comes in they change the formula and now we're 40 million over our local share adequacy and then we can start giving discounts on tax rates to customers customers residents year-over-year by saying we don't need the increases because now we're well over our local share or we could come in two years and
now we're 20 under again and then we're in this loop again so like both of those things weigh on me because we could do this just to be in the same position in two years or we could do this and be way overshot how much we need to raise and at least then we have a mechanism to reduce the taxes to to the to the
residents of Hillsboro or at least stop increases so but my my concern is next year if Mike comes to me and says "Paul we have to cut 25 teachers now they cut us two million or they cut us three million now we got to have to fire 30 teachers." That's a or 30 teachers and
staff all across the district that is a huge impact you remember I mean you may not remember but when the board had to fire 50some staff a couple years ago that was devastation to the district at the time we've since adjusted but having to lose another 50 staff over two to
three years after we lost that staff and haven't really replaced them is equally if not more so devastating so for me it's it's a it's I don't want to do it but I feel like it's almost irresponsible to at least not consider it and go down that path and say where are we at so the vote today if
we move that path is to consider it if we if we say no today we have no option moving forward to do this and we're we're we're cutting the staff we cut cutting the programs we cut cut the offerings we cut um if we if we say yes today and move this we can have discussions we can still choose to go
with the current budget we still need five votes to do this this is not this is not something that can be stuck past the goalie and we will have community discussions later this week if we choose to go down that path so I I want to say there are no good answers here none and and to Miss Nurse's point none of us
want to raise taxes that's never our goal we want to make sure that the school can function and at this point it's nobody gets anything and you show up to class and hope the students can bring some paper and stuff in there because we can't afford supplies in some of these classrooms in what we really need to do
so I will say though and thank you to our teach teachers because they they go through this every year and provide cuts to Mr gulpi of things they think they can live without it's it's they shouldn't have to do that every year okay anybody else before we
continue we'll have a second opportunity obviously after public comment okay so I guess we're finally done with the president's report that is the longest one on record for sure i'm going to adjust my superintendent report there is a student uh safety data
system report on there that I need to go over but I don't have to go over that until June and it seems to be a hotter uh topics to discuss tonight so I will just remove that to a different one but 8.1 if we could just take a step back for a second Miss Lef Fever this is your last board meeting with us uh Michelle
Lef Fever has been here since we I have been here and she has been an absolutely outstanding professional um I did everything in my power to try and make you stay as did Jerry but you are ready to spread your wings and be a business administrator and and Lebanon is is getting a real winner um I just want to
tell one story about Luna Fever that I shared at the opening day we were talking about state aid cuts going down those lines um right after we had passed the the referendum to to bring back some positions and to bring our our security team on board we were looking forward to continuing to build Burrow back and and
move in the right direction and we were very happy and we projected a state aid cut of $400,000 and we got cut about $2.7 million and Michelle came knocking on my door and I never saw a business office person welling up with tears in her eyes and and I was like Michelle
what's wrong and she came to me and she's like "We we can't we can't make what we want to have happen happen." And it was all about the students and to see that humanity Jerry not that you're a human being but to see that humanity coming out of the business office
Michelle it's so appreciated that for you every dollar is a student every number tells a story and that's going to be very difficult to replace so you are thanked for what you have done here uh you have my phone number and Jerry's you can always call us and I just want to thank you for everything that you have
done for Hillsboro and once Jerry leaves one day we'll steal you back jerry did you want to say anything uh yeah i'm not going to be the storyteller that Mr vulpi is but I I also wanted to thank Michelle for her almost three years of service to the district here um
and she has definitely been a huge asset to the business office as well as to the entire district um and is going to be hard to replace uh Andrew who's replacing her is going to have big shoes to fill and Lebanon is getting u a good BA absolutely
i'm gonna not put you on spot do you want to say anything Michelle i'll just say really quickly um I do want to thank Mr vulpi and Mr eert you two have been fantastic to work for um I've learned a lot under you i feel like I've grown a lot and um I truly will miss Hillsboro it really is a special place um it's all
the people and our team our entire business office team um who's not here tonight but they work really hard behind the scenes and I'm definitely going to miss having all of them um supporting me so thank you thank you again Michelle
so item 8.200 superintendent report for those of you who are wondering after we adjusted the calendar uh with this announcement we are now closed on Monday April 21st and we will be getting a that um message out to the entire community tomorrow but you can start texting your friends letting everybody else know but
we will make sure that everyone knows that HTPS is now closed on Monday April 21st and as stated because we have bigger things to be talking about the uh SSDS system report I will move that to another uh board meeting it does not have to be completed until June and uh
Mr president that concludes my superintendent report all right fantastic all right we'll now move on to the approval of minutes um 9.1 motion to approve executive session minutes 7 31725 motion to
approve public minutes 31725 can I get a motion to second so moved second all in favor all right hi thank you allison's paying attention that's good
difficult when you're on the phone comments from the public and board we very much welcome input from the public during board meetings there'll be 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're attending in person during the first public comment period members of the
public may comment about items that are listed on tonight's agenda before the board votes or provide input on the 2025 2026 budget 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 bylaw 0167 before you state your comment you'll be asked to provide your name and address there's a three minute There's a three minute limit on public comment please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but are rather offered as opportunities to share your thoughts to
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 a member of the public makes a comment or ask a question about personnel hiring decisions kindly note that the open public meetings act and the privacy rights of public employees encompass therein do not permit the board to discuss personnel
issues in public session so again this first session is on the action agenda or on the budget if anybody has comments they can make them there's a three minute limit and this is not question and answer so if this measure gets approved to move forward on Thursday we will have a question and answer session
where the public is allowed to come and ask questions so but in in the structure of a normal business uh meeting that we're having here this is not a Q&A so just want to make that clear for the public who may not normally attend these meetings so we'll open up to the public if there's any comments that wish to be
made good evening i'm uh Ray Heck i'm from 11 Dan Orange Drive in Billstone B a little small section over there uh first and foremost Mr president thank you for the opportunity to speak and I want to make sure that you two look to the left of you and the right of you there are two distinguished individuals I have dealt
with in the past as many as you know uh you've had some failed leadership here we've all done we've all dealt one before these are the probably two individuals that I have the distinct pleasure of working with the past couple weeks that have really restored my faith okay in Hillsboro especially the school
system which my daughter has attended to for many years um just a quick just a quick uh information when we're dealing with like you were indicating about the formula you are absolutely correct the other thing I want to make sure emphatically clear that man right there has been ferociously loyal okay to try
to get funding back to the districts okay and I can tell you that because I'm always in the gold dome myself one thing I just want to make to consider is more importantly I understand about how this all came about you know whether it's 123 124 you're under adequacy let's put it
this way okay and I'm going to make this real simple yes you guys have been under adequacy for many years yes the state wants you up there those are the the precepts of what we're looking at going forward the more more important thing is not as much about worrying about the
quoteunquote 9.9% that that's I believe that's the number we looked at i think it was 6.9 the last it fluctuates though but that's dangling the carrot people okay and I I'll be quite honest with you it's dangling the carrot i deal with it all the time on the other side of the down the road okay the big the the big
thing you need to do is one do a risk benefit analysis and like I said I understand tonight you got to you got to do resolution at least get the point running it's going to make you start thinking okay trust me when I tell you a riskb analysis a strategic plan the state wants you up to adequacy level
within within a certain permissible time that number could change a little and we know with the different administrations to get what if you do a three-year strategic plan three years 33 33 33 what you're going to do is solidify what they want because they're going to see you moving on an upward curve that's what the state wants you to see they want to
see an upward curve and at that point in time you not only will you have your adequacy numbers up but you'll have it perpetuity as long as you somehow someway manage to uh lose it the just in closing I just want you understand okay
I didn't come up here by title okay i came up here as a person and most importantly I wanted to make sure everybody here understands that when I spoke with the superintendent and the business administrator these two individuals are probably a godsend to
your organization okay i also want you to look behind here i'm not going to run numbers i know you're a distinguished individual with a boatload of knowledge in finance and I appreciate people like yourself sitting in leadership positions but I want you to look behind and look in these eyes okay behind me i just want you to look beyond the window there's
43,000 people that live in Hillsboro and you know 500 live in Milsome okay some of the things you do 30% of my h my housing is populated by age targeted individuals it's nice way of saying senior citizens i apologize that just in closing the thing is that some of these
things could have unintended consequences that could seriously impact the stakeholders that you're going to be dealing with and I appreciate you taking the time of really taking a deeper dive and the community output and I I would appreciate I will have my some of my residents come in and ask some challenging questions and I hope we can get some answers thank you sir thank you
very much good evening Cindy Ski Drive i wanted to start out with where we can all agree which is that the state has created a lot of problems for Hillsboro's budget over the last decade right after I moved to town I moved here 12 years ago so I
don't think that we can rely on the state to fix this problem so I know the question came up about the state funding formula will it get better in the future and Mr vulpi was there with me and a number of other people who are policy nerds hope you don't take offense advocating for fixing the state
budget formula the formula that we're dealing with today is a revision and I'm not optimistic that the state is going to change that i know Mr assemblyman Freeman has been very vocal and advocating for Hillsboro we can all go to the state and ask for more help but
I'm not confident that we're going to get it and so I focus on what we can control as a community so I'm showing up here tonight as a community member to ask you to take whatever the next step is and it sounds like that's a a vote
tonight to just explore more to try to solve this problem for the future for our kids and there are a couple of things that I wanted to bring up that I I feel like we haven't touched on too much in detail there are districts that
are worried right now that we could potentially lose federal funding for our most vulnerable students our multilingual learners our students with disabilities if something like that came out of Washington if we're already in a hole with our local taxation and our state
funding if we were to lose those federal dollars and not have acted as much as we could to protect ourselves I think that would be doing our students and our community a disservice i also think you know we can explore is there any further way to partner with the township um look
at pilot payments um things like that to try to be able to keep building burrow back because we're still not at all the positions that we lost back in 2018 and Hillsboro was lean in 2018 and then we just kept getting leaner i have worked
in districts in various counties in New Jersey and the quality of education we get here for the taxes we pay are why I'm a resident here but we can't keep trying to cut because like Ms nurse says
there is no more places to cut i work in buildings every day where kids have so many more support services especially our kids who are the most in need so I ask you tonight to really think about what is in the best interest of
our children and I hope that you will explore every option to provide them with the very best education that our our community can thank you thank you very much andrew Oh jeez I hate mics sorry the uh Yeah no I know i'm so loud man u Andrew
so I didn't even talk about exactly what my wife was going to say there but I feel like um I'm right with her and obviously thank you all of you for being in the public eye dealing with the ridiculous things on Facebook on social media my god it's disgusting and of course I mean yes the state has failed us there's no question and the
frustration that a few people have voiced um and yes take action against that protest against that but I hope tonight a vote to just discuss because that's all you're voting correct me if I'm wrong i believe that tonight is just discussion of options to move forward
with to discuss what could be done and there are totally different levels and I hope that will happen tonight um the cuts that happened in this district thank thank you so much for last year and trying to stop that is bleeding and to move forward in the community voting for
that doesn't mean it's over that doesn't mean that still isn't felt i'm in a district right now I am a teacher where the cuts that just happened there's so many staff that it's de just demoralized in our district not in Hillsboro I'm in Flemington and this is right now a
chance it seems like I I get being skeptical being concerned with anything after what has happened with the state but rather than view this as a potential anchor it also could be a lifeline and it could also be something for the future here and I hope you will vote to just have that discussion and it sounds
like April 28th is when there would be further time for public discussion and it wouldn't be something yes because this seems like a driveby resolution that basically just happened and it was pretty spur of the moment um so I just felt I I heard about it and I just felt I went with my son in the district my
daughter on her way up she's right now what's the thing terrible to what she know she's her tantrums are legendary um and and being someone who is then a member of the community and a taxpayer too and that right now as a teacher in a district where those massive cuts were
just made I really hope please do everything you can to try to make the district whole to move forward you know you can't what's the one you can't you can't get blood from a stone and I feel like there's already been so much amazing stuff done in this district my
children my God like my son how much he loves his teachers and how well it still has been but you saw that hit and what it did so please I don't I'm obviously rambling repeating myself but I hope tonight at least let's move forward and then have that discussion so thank you guys i know you're in a difficult place
with how everything is in the world but wanted to say something thank you thank you for your comments good evening uh Gan Bates teacher at Amsterdam School uh secretary of HA secret of HA um this board has had to
make many difficult decisions over the last many many years um every month I come I I watch you make the hard decisions that have an impact on all of the students of Hillsboro and in the classroom I see the impact that those
have um I see that students aren't getting as much support as they need um just because we're not able to hire the staff when an opportunity comes along to at least have a
conversation I think we need to take advantage of it you need to be able to explore it you're under a real time crunch right now and that makes your decision even harder but as has been said before the decision that you make
tonight to pass this resolution is not costing taxpayers a dime it's allowing you the time necessary to make an informed decision i hope you all take advantage of that because by not passing this resolution tonight you are slamming
the door on the students of Hillsboro thank you good evening amy Silinger teacher here at Autton Road Intermediate School and HA treasurer um I'm going to echo the sentiments um the of the tough spot that you're in tonight i'm going to respectfully ask that you you do what
many have said which is to just open the door to the opportunity it doesn't bind you to anything the only thing you're bound to is if you say no you're bound to all of those cuts that we've seen on that screen i've been standing at at this this podium for years and years and
years i don't remember how many years back talking about this very issue talking about the lack of funding always losing funding always losing funding and just to put in I just did a quick research based on something that Mr tillo said about you know our the the dollars of our budget and I just did a
very quick search just now bridgewater Raritin has about 7,600 students their budget is 183.1 million that's their proposed budget for next year so there will a few more students than us franklin Township
7150 student enrollment i can't quite figure those out it's either 174 million 197 million or 224 million either way it's less students and their budget is higher than ours north Planefield which is about 3,700 students so about half
the size of ours their budget is 121 million so so that's my understanding of why we're not at adequacy just looking at comparable districts I wouldn't say we're where we should be and that's my understanding of why we're in this
situation it is not this board's fault it's years and years and years of not going to CAP not doing things and that's what sort of put us in this situation i think we all know that part but not exploring this opportunity um in my opinion would be a big mistake and I
hope um we are able to make the right decision to at least explore that tonight thank you thank you good evening henry Goodwillsboro Education Association as well as a Hillsboro parent um you know I think whenever we get into conversations about
school funding it's easy for it to become hyperbolic it's easy for it to become partisan and I think we have to recognize that this is collectively a New Jersey problem and it's been been exacerbated by budgets that no one in this room made for our district many
many years ago but the fact is is 2008 is when CIFRA passed and that was under a Democratic governor and it was instituted years later by a Republican governor which was Chris Christie and in his eight years as governor we saw a cumulative increase of
1.3% total for all eight years for school funding we saw a 60% increase based off of that strangulation of school funding a 60% increase of districts not meeting adequacy and that's only grown since then so this is
a problem that has been created by multiple iterations it's a problem that's been created by multiple people and parties or whatever but we're at a point now where we're trying to solve it we're trying to take steps we've seen historic investments in school funding albeit and admittedly we have not felt
the effect of that yet but it doesn't mean that work isn't getting done it doesn't mean that credit isn't due in places where we found support but I do think it's important to note as we like kind of descend into these hyperbolic partisan conversations that we're at a point now where we're talking about how
can we fix this and people are coming out and they're making comments for whatever reason they are but many years ago when Chris Christie was governor and we welcomed him to Hillsboro High School and planted rose bushes outside to make it look nicer for him he came in there
was celebrated as he talked about cutting our funding even further and he talked about s making our district suffer even more and nobody was coming out talking about that at this point other than some of us who were in here but we didn't have local people talking about it we didn't have the board
talking about it we didn't have other people coming out in the manner that they are at the time that we're coming to fix it and maybe in fairness that's because people didn't know it at that time they weren't in positions where they could speak about it but I think it's important that we have the full historical context of this conversation as we make a decision about what comes
next because there's a lot of conversations about what we don't know if we do this but I want to focus on what we do know we do know we're going to lose another 24 jobs we do know class sizes are going to go up we do know that every single one of those athletes we celebrated we're going to have a harder
time doing that a year from now when middle school sports no longer exists and the kids who can't afford to play to pay club sport fees are not going to be allowed to play for two years we know that kids are going to be walking in inclement weather because they no longer have courtesy busing and that they will
face increased safety issues we know that there's going to be increased problems in schools with lack of resources increased sizes and everything else so we do know certain things that will happen and I think knowing those things we know that our schools are better than that we know that our students deserve better and we know that
our district can do better so I urge you to take action tonight where we can look into the full potential of our district and give our students what we need thank you thank you good evening roy Fryman Snowborn Place Hillsboro New Jersey i want to start by
thanking you i want to thank you for serving on the school board i want to thank you for your time this is you have an incredibly difficult job um and you volunteer your time and your effort to do this um and perhaps aside from those
that actually work in the schools every day as educators and and support staff yours is is the most difficult um and you're here to face another difficult decision tonight um I live in
town my wife worked in your schools spent her entire career here um at Wood Fern School we are proud of the school district we're proud of this town because of what was mentioned before you don't you talk of
Hillsboro because it starts with the schools people first question they ask how are the schools before they even consider living in this town so you can't be supportive of of this community unless you're supportive of the town of supportive of the school district
itself and the frustration is your math when you talk about how is it possible that Bridgewater gets this the money and Hillsbor doesn't we're working with a 20-year-old broken formula that no one can possibly
explain and justify and the reason it hasn't changed is because twothirds of the schools have liked the answer for the last seven years so when you try to you have your peers in the county haven't been upset you're the only school district that's been upset for
the past seven years so when you try to rally support from you from Bridgewater they had nothing to complain about and that's what we've been up against in the entire state so each year when we go back and saying we need to fix this people say what's the problem because
they haven't been upset with it until we point out how inequitable this has been and we've been successful to a point for year after year we've been successful bringing back some money but it's still not enough and now finally we're starting to get the Department of Education to
recognize because they build in guard rails this year they're building in and we're and we're sitting down was saying "Look what you're look you're finally recognizing the formula needs is broken you're finally doing things." And perhaps with a new
administration one of the governors are going to sit back and say "Yes we realize this needs to be a major overhaul because this is 20 years in the making but we're going to do this together we're going to be partnering this is the town I live in the town you live in we all live in we're going to
fix this together you have to I think the choice tonight is do you keep options on the table do you give yourself the ability to still have further conversation i think that's giving yourself choices is not a bad idea to to continue
that so thank you very much for your consideration this evening thank you for your comment hi Wendy Hec i love the Van Doran Drive um it's by the way way easier to talk to first and second graders than it is to you guys right now so I come from a
unique situation i was raised in Hillsboro kindergarten Woodward School graduated in 1992 raised my daughter in Hillsboro uh she graduated in 2020 we're not going to talk about that sorry didn't do a great job in that graduation but regardless here we are my parents
still live in Hillsboro i live in Milstone uh we're going to get hit hard and I don't understand numbers a lot of other people don't understand numbers but I do understand telling my students all the time that sometimes plan B doesn't work you need to go to plan C
sometimes you need to go to plan D E F G right through the alphabet and figure out a solution we have a lot of elderly people my parents being some of them here are still in Hillsboro you wonder are they going to have to foreclose on their house because they can't pay the bill for an outrageous amount of taxes
that they already pay for the house that they built back in 1977 how many of my neighbors are not going to be able to make those payments as well because this will just put them over the edge and then you do have to think about the students i teach in a title one school where I am and some of
my students I feel them they walk in and they are so angry and so upset why something's going on at home they're not paying the taxes but their parents might be the ones trying to pay the taxes they're making the decision of am I going to feed you or am I going to pay
these taxes so you can go to the school are we going to be living in the car next week or are we staying in the apartment or the house that we have right now we have a lot of ginormous houses in Hillsboro that we see all the time but we also have a lot of families in Hillsboro that are just living
paycheck to paycheck and we have to keep in consideration those you won't have a school to have your students are upset about things going on at home and hearing mom and dad angry and arguing over what's going to happen next what's going to happen to us is Hillsboro even
going to be our home anymore so do consider that there's an entire alphabet full of choices and I do believe that everybody should be at the table public and people in politics and so on and so forth everybody from everywhere should be in on the decision listen we're going
to probably have to pay more tax it's an it's inevitable but the amount of taxes is what I want you guys to consider is how much can we do before we break people and I don't want to see any children or adults in this town broken
i've loved it i've been a Raider my whole life i'm still going to be a Raider and I hope my grandkids are someday Raiders as well thank you thank you for your comment sean Le mayor 2020 that's not fair to you as a volunteer to
go year to year and not understand what aid is that's coming it's not a teacher this is real sorry guys i don't I was here through the redistricting of the 70s the
overcrowding population of the high school in the 80s my brother went to school here my daughter graduated here i love this school here i'm also a two time i own a business account i get
tax benefit but what I'm talking about is the what I was kind of upset about was the fact that this wasn't mentioned this is coming up discussion today i know why it was a late topic and this
and public meetings know that this conversation is happening good bad or different conversation need to happen from the people that not after the school funding for fun is broken it's been broken for seven years that I've been involved in this happen
and it's not any part of our teachers who love the teachers they've done a great job quite honestly the teachers shouldn't put pressure on the state as a union that you are to protect yourselves by putting pressure on so I advocate I'm asking the teachers to
help us fix this diploma by being more involved in using your your pressure your ability to put pressure help fix the school thank you thank you for your comment
good evening Gans my wife and I have been proud residents of Hillsboro drawn to this community because of our grandchildren playing here we've been supportive of the school budgets and referendums and advocate improvement in our local seed community
we love living here i'm listening to your presentation tonight however regarding the state's funding proposal if I understand this correctly raising an additional $20 million in local taxes would result in the state providing at one time additional fund of $1 million
or 5% as you all are keenly aware of the state has recently cut our state funding over the past several years in excess of $7 million now for a small carrot of1 million we would ask our residents for another $20 million or roughly $3
million more than what our state aid is from the state that $20 million represents a 13% increase over our current budget this would put an even greater burden on the backs of locals while the state makes absolutely no
guarantees that further and future cuts would contain not only the $1 million but probably more after all if Hillsboro can manage to provide additional $20 million the state may reasonably ask why should we
give any state aid to Hillsboro hillsboro may be a great place to live but for retired and our working families it may become impossible to afford the state has to be held accountable to send a message by the electorate in this border if they want
towns to locally pay completely fund our schools fine cut our state taxes accordingly we send a lot of our tax money to Trenton and get back 11% of our school budget back here by comparison our state's largest city gets 80% of
their school budget trim i think all of us in this room would agree the state must provide a fair and consistent funding item continuing to ask us to take on a larger share year after year after year and funneling those funds
elsewhere is blatantly unfair this currency proposal is a government shell game which may sound enticing but it's in a hidden you may be aware there's been litigation and subsequent judgments and legislation known as the Municipal Services Act
where private communities in Delaware have several get reimburseed for services not provided as of today this does not apply to school funding however schemes that break the camel's back like this will put increased pressure on
those private communities to fight for reduced school tax contributions if school taxes continue to rise i respectfully ask you to reject the shortsighted state offer and instead continue to prioritize advocating for a fair consistent and sustainable funding
model that supports our students and our communities ability and profit thank you thank you very much good evening my name is Dan Shaney i'm 14 Laurel Drive um I'm an educator myself in a different district where a
board has not taken the appropriate money has not taken plan A or plan C or plan D there will be no support services in my district going forward next year so I want the public to understand and the board to
understand if we don't take these options my son's class with 27 kids in a fourth grade class will be 30 there will be no support services maybe next year maybe in two years if you don't take this option the ramifications will be
detrimental to our teachers to our students i am more than willing to pay not just this extra tax money for my son but for everybody else's ch child in this district we should do this together as a community and we have to understand
the ramifications for not voting on this in we're only I just want to repeat we're only voting to understand this formula more we're only understanding we're not raising taxes we're only voting tonight to understand how this can help us i urge you to vote yes to
understand this fully so we can help our educators and we can limit the class size in my son's classroom and all of our classrooms in this district thank you thank you i just want to add some clarification i've heard a lot of people say it's for us to understand just for
full transparency this vote would be to allow us to submit a request to the state for the funds and to see what options we have so it is understanding but it is a little bit more than that is submitting a request to the state they have to approve whatever funds we would request to use as thorough and efficient
um but correct we are not approving any tax increase tonight when they come back to us if we submitted I think the number is 21 million and change if they come back and say 18 million of that qualifies the board would then have a decision to do we want to take all 18 9
five whatever that number is so it does give us the options moving forward it is not just to understand the practice but it is to submit the paperwork to begin the process and if we don't do that tonight it would that would be our last option to go down that path so it is to understand but it's also to have the
opportunity to make that decision in a in a couple weeks just want to make sure the the public is clear it's not just to understand it is to have the opportunity to to take action we'll have a board comment after the public comment good evening guys uh my name is Nhel Sha
uh from Fisher Drive Cresmont uh village uh thank you all for uh your service volunteering and and uh I can completely uh empathize with the uh the teachers who have provided their uh viewpoints as well i myself also have been uh part of
the nonprofit uh organization for last uh eight and nine years and providing the services as treasurer there as well and it is a very difficult job uh however as part of the constitutional mandate we have there is that anytime there is a such a big decision that has
to be made it has to be uh put in front of the public or the community members uh congregations and once they have in the resolution that there is a requirement that we have to get certain number of votes approved approving that resolution only then and then we can go
forward now I understand that you have this request that you are reaching out to state with but to ma'am's point uh if the maximum we are now getting is 1 million as an aid hopefully if they
approve correct but in exchange do we have I don't think anybody has mentioned here clearly that do in an exchange of that 1 million we have to agree to certain number of tax increase dollar correct so that that is the fact that everybody needs to know and I think what
we are doing right now is yes the timeline is very short for you understood that you just got this probably last week and before 14th you have to submit because you are out on the spring break but here the community of the Hillsboro that has supported I've
been here from almost 13 years ever since I don't think probably ma'am you can correct me but ever the tax has gone down it has probably stayed or increased last year was 11% for my 11% they the year before it was almost
like 5% so consistently it has gone up fine no problem we have supported you even last year we supported you but this what we are doing now is even if to the numbers whatever the numbers math works 32 million 20 million doesn't matter it is at the end the public people who are
living here going to support you so don't we think that it needs to be brought at least in front of the public right because here there is a binding agreement that if we take that 1 million or half a million whatever that is we have to now comply with state's
requirement to uh meet that advocacy line what that entails is that we have to increase the taxes i don't know whether that has been put out in front of the public yet as clearly as it said and Mr roy said that yes the formula has
been broken even our past mayor has said the formula has been broken so in this entire district we don't have any single person who can understand the formula and probably solicit the feedback from other townships or or vocalize it bridgewater has been a cited example or other uh
communities have been cited examples what do we have in terms of the stats about the indust uh industry or commercial uh uh residencies versus or or commercial properties versus residentials right those numbers have not been put out as a fair assessment or
fair equal comparisons when we say that Bridgewater is been complying with the taxes or increases or the funding requirements versus we don't we are mostly driven by the residential community and that those are the ones supporting you so I I completely urge you but thank you so much for doing this
please bring it out in front of the public thank you sir thank you for your comment good evening Gwender Alex 763 Amwell Road the state of New Jersey is offering Hillsboro an opportunity to help improve the quality of the Hillsboro public schools you've heard from many voices
and I urge you to consider the only real option have a conversation where you the board can explore the possibility to save the many programs and positions to improve the future of the quality of education here in our town explore these
possibilities have the conversation consider what this could provide this is the heart of all education your duty as board members is to advocate for the students and the community i urge you to explore and consider the opportunity and
this potential act that could have on the students the school and our community thank you for your comment hello Leicia Gabriel Bis i live in Hillsboro apologies for coming in late i was at another event before this um and I'm glad that you guys are still going
yay um so uh from what I understand you're given an option to think about whether you wanted to make another decision it seems like that's a pretty no-brainer let's think about it um I don't have the specifics on if you would
once you pass this tonight um if you would need to go up to the full 21 million like I don't know if you had to pres present plans um but it seems as though you could just say yes think about it for a little bit longer and um
if you do decide to increase the taxes that one benefit would be to um allow us to have more control over the ups and downs because we wouldn't necessarily be um we'd be more control of how we pay for things on our own um and also
instead of going for the whole 20 whatever million when you do this decide um you could hedge and you could do some and maybe not all or something of that nature but anyway the important thing is tonight to vote for it and to think about it and investigate it thank you
thank you for your comment phil Gans Marshall wrote um if I'm understand this correctly this $20 million increase right this will become a permanent part of the tax base right i've never seen a tax increase that has ever gone away right so if we take this for the benefit of $1 million one time
from the state everyone in this room is going to be contributing to that $20 million for the rest of our lives here in Hillsboro that is a big price to pay for a one-time gimmick from the state i said the taxpayers of this town they stepped up they have voted to build
Burrow back we have stepped up we have contributed to this school district but there's only so many times you can go back to the well and ask taxpayers to pony up more funds i hear people on up on this day up here and I've heard people speak tonight talking about how
you know we need to have find more money for the district we can't ask the district to to cut more money well every time you guys take more money we're cutting our personal budgets you're taking that money directly from our pockets i have kids in this district they go to the schools they benefit from
the schools but there's only so much we can contribute before it becomes punitive you know our current state aid we get $17 million a year if we take it up 20 who's to say what guarantees do we have from Trenton that they're not going to say "Thank you very much for funding
yourselves we're going to take away your $17 million you don't need it anymore we'll give it to someone else." We have no such guarantees if we're honest with ourselves we all know that right trenton has certainly been no friend of Hillsboro they they've given us very
limited time to accept this offer this sounds like the deal from a used car salesman act fast don't think about what you're doing just move quickly and take the offer i truly hope that this board is smart enough not to fall for Trenton's
latest scheme thank you for your comment okay seeing no others we will end the first public comment period uh and we will move on to the action agenda oh sorry we we'll have board board uh
comment and discussion uh Mr young so can we get a clarification mr bulby you you said that um you did not you were not in favor or you did not um it's not on the agenda can you explain the reasons why first I want to explain a a couple of
things um and then I'll answer your question directly um I serve at the will of the board i think everyone knows that and whatever direction the board decides to take I will do that to the best of my ability and I referenced that back to even when we had the referendum questions you know I came here I was
here for three months and I had an idea for one referendum question about security personnel and I thought that was enough and the board wanted to go for a second question and even though I wasn't in favor of that question at the time I said if it's the will of the board that's what I'm going to do and I'm going to move forward um when it
came to this even over the past several days is I did not put this on as my recommendation i have questions just like you and I didn't understand the process and I didn't understand the end result um which is why I did not put it on as a superintendent's recommendation because I didn't have all of the answers
that being said I work for you you're one n each of you is one ninth of my boss and I will deliver on whatever it is to the to the best of of my ability and if that means that this passes tonight and the board wants me to apply to see if we're eligible for funds I will do that and if that involves the
board having a community uh engagement evening I will be here um and if that involves me doing anything for the budget on April 28th I will do that i did not feel I had enough information at the time Miss Trujillo to unilaterally put a random number on here and say "I'm
I'm suggesting this to the board because uh it involved this kind of discussion here tonight." And that's why it was not on the agenda and not my recommendation and Mr marini and I spoke and and Mayor Hec and I spoke yesterday on the phone and there was a lot of conversations going on just to try to get people to
understand it and um if I was having difficulty understanding it without your knowledge I did not feel I could speak for the board and put this on there with some random number that I didn't know what you guys would agree to okay thank you that's very helpful so the number
that's on this resolution this walk-on resolution is the maximum correct according to if we understand what that adequacy number is which we're going to get more information on etc so that's the maximum it is 1 million less given that the if we did this the state would
match the other million okay so this guidance that you shared with us um it I think you said the um you didn't want to give us an arbitrary number correct right this guidance also seems very arbitrary because it's just saying like well you know um for for
those districts that um are spending below adequacy that you know their local share it seems like this um this is like a um bad guidance in the sense that like giving us an opportunity to
raise on our taxpayers without their vote $21 million just seems this seems like arbitrary and said and I think we talked about this like over the years every time we lose state aid like if it was like this year we're losing half a million last year we lost what was it
again 2.7 2.7 if we were then able to take that as that automatic waiver as we do with healthcare and it seems like if we apply for this we are acknowledging the validity of this arbitrary in my
opinion guidance versus saying you know what this is I mean this is a lot this is a lot of money to to ask from our taxpayers after the other large tax increase that we voted without voter approval so like the nine of us actually
seven of us voted for that right so my point is that if we apply for this like we are basically playing their game versus writing them a letter and saying you know like how about spreading it out over the years like we have a plan like I've always been in support of of
Hillsboro paying its so-called local share but not like this i mean $20 million $21 million is will devastate some families and I just think that that is not um what that was not the intent right before when um the the board of ed
elections were in April the voters had to pass the budget by moving it to November the voters that took the the voters um input on the budget out of the equation but it was supposed to be capped at 2% with you know so-called
variances but this $21 million I mean you pay basically if we if we vote tonight I know what's gonna I mean we're going to take some amount of money it's not maybe it's not the full 21 million but it's going to be some nonzero dollar i can't imagine us passing it tonight and saying "Oh well you know we were
just kidding." So it's going We know it's going to be some nonzero number um I think that's unfair to the taxpayers i I would agree it's unfair um playing chicken though with with the state i mean we could say "Hey listen we don't want to play this game it's unfair we don't want to acknowledge it but in a
year they could take another 2.7 million next year and then we're in a worse situation." So that's that's why I was saying we put it to the voters and we say "Here is the plan that we we are going basically we will be self-sufficient from the from the state they're giving us $17 million they're
asking us to raise $21 million for that PID1 million." I mean basically I I think that if we do this they're going to say you know forget the se I mean forget the $17 million they're going to take it away from us according to the calculations i mean it literally
said zero for equalization aid maybe there's some money for the categorical i'd like to discuss that further but I think that they're going to take our money away and so we're not going to have a $174 million budget we're going to have $154 million with no help from the state and that's okay but if we plan
for it not all at once mr davis not dissimilar from what um Mr he's saying many of the comments tonight are
present the point of view that it's an eitheror choice you know either we do this or we jump off the cliff or we do this or we hate kids or whatever the thing is and you know none of us are there and we know that but maybe there are other choices like
uh you know before we raise taxes $21 million maybe we need to go to a referendum maybe it needs to be on the ballot maybe we have to have a referendum every year not to vote on the budget per se but you know if we need to say to the town year after year after
year uh will you continue to work with us will you continue to uh resist the state what what do you want to do town's people uh and you know to be think that we're in this position of you know we have to either go along with what the
state is saying or we've lost our opportunity I believe is just not seeing the whole horizon of what's before us I think there's some middle ground of what else
can we do thank you nurse I just want to go back to just the reminder that this is just this application gives us things to talk
about right going to a refer I believe that this should be the public's vote i I really do but if we go to a referendum we miss next year all of those cuts are cuts they're gone and anything that we
attempt to do after that will be just to get back what we lost not to add to our what we additionally need um I I can't remember who said it i I want to think
um I'm not sure but we only have the facts that we can go on because I do not have faith in the state if they come after us because we've done goodwill
then I guess I should say I shouldn't be surprised by anything but you know I I am learning that I I can't think that way um but we would be doing this on you know goodwill to help our community out
of a hole and if the state is going to make that punitive I mean that's another conversation unfortunately for a later day if that does happen but right now the facts are our district is suffering because of the state mess so just to
have the opportunity to discuss what all of our options are and to see all of the different scenarios I think will just be very helpful to that we can't go to a referendum and do anything for the
following for next year but we can have community engagement so people I would like to hear what the people have to say about that hopefully we can provide more information if we run some more scenarios that's a short time frame i understand that but I just feel like it
would benefit um the people here who have spoken um I'm going to assume that you're not saying yes please raise our taxes i I think that you stood up to talk about you know we can be supportive if this is
what needs to be hap to happen some people I understand that there were differences of opinion but I was actually surprised in a way that we had so many people come out to encourage us to take this opportunity to speak um
together to try to problem solve so thank you um for that community support period that's it the stats um has it been uh the last seven years uh the school district tax rate has gone
down is that right yes okay now now I do understand that some people's taxes do go up in reality but that's not caused by what the school district has been doing correct correct if the Wow if the tax rate goes
down but your assessed value still goes up your taxes can still go up if the tax rate goes down correct and and I one of the reasons I brought that up was um it's in spite of that um Mr record and Mrs le Fever I think I've pronounced your name differently every single time
I've said it um it's amazing what you guys have done in spite of having less and less money to work with um to hurt our children as little as possible um I do think they have been hurt sometimes
insidiously so uh in spite of your efforts i mean class sizes have increased especially starting in 2018 um uh and uh instructional supplies uh the the what the
um that amount has gone down um but now so you guys have tried so many creative ways to keep that from hurting our students but we've now now we're down to the bone so I'd like us to at least consider remember we don't have to go to the full 20 million okay we can go to
less than that and there would be that sweet spot where um it would not be an increase your taxes will not the school tax rate will not increase um in Hillsboro whether or not we do this
sadly the tax rate will increase for Millstone but just keep in mind it's not an all or nothing thing that we can continue to explore um and also discuss further on Thursday sa
um I just wanted to speak from the students perspective we've been talking a lot about like how the students are going to get hurt from this proposal i'm not entirely educated on the tax part of this hopefully after four years of college majoring in political science I will be but um it I will definitely say
it's been demoralizing to see state aid cuts every year the students know about it every all my friends are asking me like why don't we have better ventilation why are there gym improvements like some of my best friends were here tonight getting proclamations if high school sports are cut that would be entirely demoralizing
for the student population and I'm obviously don't know much about the taxing part of this again but I'm seeing this as an opportunity to at least discuss and be reasonable about the issue and I feel like it would also be really uplifting for the student population to see that the board cares a
lot about them and is making the step to at least talk about a certain a supposed increase in budget so that's just my perspective on it thank you very much jackson we we talk about the rate right tax
rates we always talk about the tax rate but at the end of the day it's the overall increase in the amount of taxes that residents need to pay so at some point the justifying tax rates going
down doesn't solve any of those problems because again I mean homes are assessed based on state requirements so here we are following a requirement where assessments are essentially happening
how frequently like every year every two years so there's really to me no justification in talking about how the rate goes down it's admirable don't get me wrong because it's important cost cutting but at the end of the day it's the amount of money that's coming out of
people's pockets and regardless of how low you know if you want to talk about this and you want to find out where that supposed sweet spot is at at that point you are still raising taxes on people and you are continually being forced to
tax people out of this town and that's where the real problem lies and and again an even bigger problem is and you've said it Miss Stats everybody has said it oh the S2 formula can't be explained that the the information used
is how many years old 10 11 years old increasing but okay but it it's just that I mean I don't I don't understand how you can just not see the bottom line is what's hurting people because on top
of this there's a poor economy that we're trying to survive in and trying to move out of we already know in this state the the the power rates are going to go up by what 20% in June and that's that's out of everyone's control as far
as us as as residents you know other people have it in their control and what they do with it remains to be seen but that that's really it it's it's the bottom line and that's that's we've cut to the bone for a lot of people and I just don't understand you know it's
opening up conversation and at the end of the day regardless of what decision you make if you find numbers you find your sweet spot you're still going to increase taxes it just doesn't you will increase taxes without the public's permission so so if you look at So if
you look at taking away last year we did the increase of 6.9% in general the effective tax rate for the average home goes down a couple hundred dollars every year in Hillsboro and it's done so for the last six or seven years so even though our tax we're going up 2% and
November waiver and exception the actual average taxpayer in Hillsboro is paying less and less for school taxes every year because that's spread over across more homes that are are being built within Hillsboro so when it comes to paying your fair share of school taxes people's rates are actually going down
in most years except for last year it went up to 6.9% but I think the four or five years before that the actual effective tax rate went down every year even though we increased it to the cap so it's it's a little frustrating for us where it's going we're not seeing the
benefit of of going to the cap or beyond the cap so I just want I just want to clarify so if someone's house is not reassessed the school tax their their school t their taxes will go down their school tax component right for next year
yes if their assessment was the same year over year yes so it's the assessment that's going up that's triggering any increase in school tax but with the assessments being equal I think they said the average home would have gotten down about 500 next year without any of this added on and also I
think this is what uh Mr davis said and other people have had also said it i just want no matter which whether no matter we're in a horrible predicament and I appreciate people acknowledging that um if someone wants to uh vote for
all or or part of this 20 million that doesn't mean they they are uh cruel being cruel to taxpayers we're in a really difficult spot you know they're they're thinking about the student side I would think or people who voted down that doesn't mean they hate students they hate you know they're they're
looking out for uh the the taxpayers our residents so um I think all of us are trying to uh worry about both and um hopefully we'll come up with a good decision i think that's good right now it's a good acknowledgement though like this is not
a attack the people love the students hate the students this is trying to make the best decision for the community while keeping our position on the board in mind again in clarity so if we apply to the state if we participate in this uh scam
I think somebody called the point um do we legitimately have the option to turn it down yes we can just submit our previously submitted budget as is no change there
would be no no tax rate if five people on this board come to that meeting and say we vote down any increase whatsoever we will then pass a resolution to uh the existing budget essentially this could get complicated on April 28th because I'll tell you how
this could happen particularly if we go through our community engagement night if we apply for the money if we go through committees and there's still like disagreements by the time we get to the deis on April 28th that's okay just makes Jerry's job a lot harder that night i may show up with two budgets
seven i'd probably show up with two i'd probably show up with the ten the superintendent's tenative budget that I presented uh a couple weeks ago whatever date that was and then I'll have another budget with whatever number we had approved but then honestly at that point
the board can continue talking and and make adjustments to the budget even there on April 28th now that's not the best way to deal with the school budget any business administrator will tell you the best way to deal with a school budget is you have a tenative budget you bring it out to the public and you
approve the same one as the final budget i don't think Mr record's ever done that since he's been here in Hillsboro but that's how honestly that's how a budget should work but Joel to your exact point we could show up here on April 28th people still can have differences of opinion and you can spend to the top
zero or anywhere in between if this resolution passes tonight we start bartering who's going for 10 million who's going for 1 million who's you know I mean that's that may be what it turns into in that day is how how much we agree collectively that we can get a majority opinion to and I will try to
vet that through the committee process as much as possible so that doesn't happen but that's so I I think the goal would be to come out of committee saying we have agreement we're not going to go above 10 or we're not going to we're doing at least two at least it gives us some range to narrow in where we're going to be or we might come out of
committees and say we've got five hard nos to anything besides the standard budget and it makes our job a little bit easier because then with five nos that that ends the discussion or if we have five clear yeses for one amount we go in with that knowing so I mean there's no real good answer here but the public
engagement session on Thursday and then the committee uh meetings should help us at least zone in on on whether we're going to make adjustments or not obviously waiting for the state to respond to our submission and what is approved as applicable well that that's
another thing too and I I do need to make this clear to board members as well as members of the public if the board decides to go for the full vote in the application we've never been down this process before there's a there's a possibility we could apply for the everything to the state and the state says we don't like what you said about
that $7 million and you can't raise that much you can only raise X so there's another variable there as well i'm going to have to come to the board after the state this past night approves this to tell you what the real number is just
because we apply for it doesn't mean the state is going to authorize it the timing of this is awful it could not be worse there's a lot of stuff that needs to happen in a very short amount of time ideally and let me pontificate here for a second we got our state aid numbers on
in the last week of February what I would have liked is if this was an option by the state this all could have been pushed out the last week of February we could have run this through committee meetings two times we could have talked about this at a board meeting we could have had another community engagement night to find this out as surprise last week was difficult
to then communicate with the board hillsboro Township Milstone Township the public um when I was still trying to wrap my heads around it because it's unprecedented and hasn't happened before so if we were given that courtesy of having all that information at the same time it would have been rolled out
differently we don't so we would have to apply find out what the state authorizes us run it through the committees bring it back on April 28th and one thing we don't like but is probably actually a good thing is there's to our understanding no appeals process so if we say we want 20 you get approved for 17 that's the number so we're not going
to at least go back and forth up to the deadline trying to negotiate where we're at so while we don't like the understanding appeals process at least we get a number and can move forward and say here's what the state gave a thumbs up to the rest of it no option and again
that 1 million uh it's not a carrot it's a it's a if you choose to go up this amount we will give you 5% so where last year we raised 6.9 with no kick in from the state this says "Hey if you do this we will kick in up to a million dollars
um 5% million dollar cap so it's not nothing but it's not what we want but it is what we're being offered at this point so if we approve 10 million we get a half a million." So it's it's a it's a 5% to our So when do we vote on this so it's gonna be Oh sorry so yeah um we can
take a motion and a second to read this in and then we can approve it as part of the 13 action agenda operations yeah it's going to be um I'm sorry i am making a motion to authorize the superintendent to submit an application
to the state for an expenditure increase for the 2526 budget in the amount of 22,931 22,000 22 million sorry 931,626 should I keep reading is there is there is there a second i'm supposed
to keep reading the proposed 2526 budget requires additional expenditures due to the last seven years of state aid cuts which reduced the budget to below adequacy the district would use the funds to complete necessary capital projects that were deferred during the years of the state aid cuts restore
needed supplies and subscriptions and restore previously lost positions all of which are part of a thorough and efficient education uh do I have a second so moved second okay so I think I need to take a vote to add this as a line
item or do we just add this line we have this line we got a motion second yeah I think you have a motion second you can vote on it discussion discussion do you want to do a discussion as part of that agenda or now oh you can do it as part of the agenda we'll do it as part of the agenda so we'll come back to the operations budget when we're there so
this is now a line item on the on the agenda so be 13.12 13.12 okay so we will now uh we will end uh board discussion and we will move to the action agenda okay okay and I'll remind you when we get to operations but first I would ask for the board's
consideration in the area of education to approve the following motions travel related expenses affirming the superintendent's HIV determinations approving the agreement between Rowan University and the Hillsboro Township Public Schools an agreement between Sacred Heart University and the
Hillsboro Township Public Schools summer credit advancement program administrators in charge overnight trip the submission of the amendment for fiscal year 2025 and accept the transfer of funds within the ESA grant authorize the submission of a modified grant application and accept funds for the
fiscal year 20 2025 local recreation improvement grant resolution authorizing the completion of an of an application and receipt of a safety grant award and uh continuing the long-term suspensions of students whose names remain on file in the office of the superintendent can
I get a motion and a second so moved second any discussion on this action agenda okay seeing none we'll move to roll mr davis yes miss Jackson I'm a yes with
some exceptions on 11.1 I am a no on the trip to Texas and then I am a no for 11.6 miss Craig yes miss Lanning Beater yes
mr lee yes miss Nurse yes miss Stats I'm a no for uh the technology trip to Texas on 11.1 and uh yes for everything else mr for no on 11.1 for the Texas trip and
abstain on 11.6 robotics trip did you say no for 11.6 abstain abstain okay thank you abstain for 11.6 and no on just that single thank you for the clarification and Mr marini yes motion passes thank you in the area of human resources
I'd ask for the board's consideration approval of following motions retirements and resignations leaves of absence appointments for 2425 appointments for 2526 change in employment status turnkey trainer student teachers AP proctors
co-curricular adviser and pit musician approving the NJSIA tournament staff summer raider track and field camp sixth and seventh period coverage and extra coverage can I get a motion and a second so moved
second any discussion by the board before we vote seeing none we'll move to roll mr davis yes miss Jackson yes miss Craig yes miss Lanning Beer yes mr lee yes
miss Nurse yes miss Stats yes mr hill yes and Mr marie yes motion passes in the area of operations and I just want to remind the board it's 13.12 that Miss Nurse had um forwarded and then it was seconded but in the area of operations I'd ask for the board's consideration to
approve the following motions soliciting bids for a tax exempt lease to per for purchase financing approving the resolution and agreement with the Somerset County for instructional services approving the agreement with Somerset County Services Commission for non-public instructional services for
individuals with disabilities improvement act approving the resolution agreement with Somerset County Educational Services Commission for non-public services for the New Jersey non-public textbook program also approving the motion with the county services agreement for the tech
non-public technology initiative program with the county educational services commission for the non-public security aid program again with the uh Somerset County Educational Services Commission for the non-public nursing agreements a motion made to pay bills between May
12th and June 23rd uh meetings approving the proposal from LAN Architects and Architectural Engineering for a potential Hillsboro Township new transportation complex to be included in the long range facility plan to approve the service order with effective school solutions for the 2526 school year and
approving the uh disposal sale of obsolete equipment and 13.12 mr marin I don't know if you wanted to meet it read it again read it again uh motion to authorize the superintendent to submit an application to the state for an expenditure increase for the 20252026 budget motion to authorize the
superintendent to submit an application to the state for an expenditure increase for the 2025 20226 budget in the amount of 22,931,626 the proposed 2526 budget requires additional expenditures due to the last seven years of state a cuts which reduce the budget to below adequacy the district would use the
funds to complete necessary capital projects that were deferred during the years of state aid cuts restore needed supplies and subscriptions and restore previously lost positions all of which are part of a thorough and efficient education can I get a motion to second
so moved second i think I know the answer but would anybody like have any discussion on the uh action agenda oh I was wrong all right we will move to roll mr davis
on 1312 I'm a no everything else is yes miss Jackson yes with exception on 1312 I'm a no miss Craig yes miss Lanning Beater yes mr lee yes miss Nurse yes
miss Stats yes mr through here i'm a no on 13.8 13.9 and 13.12 and Mr morin yes motion passes all right seeing that I will just mention we are we are going to schedule
a community engagement night on Thursday we'll put a notice in the appropriate newspapers uh tomorrow morning so we'll give the proper notice period for Thursday what time will that be uh I think 7 o'clock is the plan right now we can communicate with the board uh but 7
o'clock here in the area of policies and regulations uh as for the board's consideration of the following to approve policies and regulations reviewed by the operations committee for second reading can I get a motion a second
so moved second thank you uh any discussion by the board seeing none we'll move to roll mr davis yes miss Jackson yes miss Craig yes miss Laming Beater yes mr lee yes
miss Nurse yes miss Stats yes mr trillo yes and Mr marin yes motion passes we'll move on to the second public comment period we very much welcome input from the public during boarding meetings there are two 30-minute periods of time to be made public comment where members of the public are invite the comment which they 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 member of the public feels may be of concern to the resident of the school district as viol 0167 before you say your comment you must provide your name and address there's a limit limit on public comment please be please understand that a public forms are not structured as question sessions rather offer opportunity to share your thoughts to the board in instance where the board believes there's a misunderstanding or
inaccuracy the board president or superintendent will address the comment many times a member of the public makes a comment or has a question about personnel hire hiring decisions calling out the open public meetings act privacy rights public employees encompass their end do not permit the board to discuss personal issues in public session all right uh good evening everyone uh my name is
Kar and uh we are members of Hillsboro's FBA chapter so uh thank you for giving us the time to speak with you guys tonight and we are here on behalf of FBA at Hillsbor High School fba stands for Future Business Leaders of America fba
is a nationwide uh organization that prepares students for careers in business through academic competitions leadership development and real world experiences uh like the three of us talking to the board of education today and Hillsbor has grow uh at Hillsborough we have grown our chapter to over 80
members making it one of the largest clubs in the high school and now I'm going to pass the but the mic to Dia so she can talk about our accomplishments so our members have accomplished so much this school year from working with the Hillsboro government to hosting all sorts of community events we've also
collaborated with multiple local businesses on things like branding event planning and growing their digital presence along with that our club has formed a very strong partnership with the local government and recently we were just invited to present at one of the Hillsboro Business and Economic
Development Commission social events here we talked about the use of artificial intelligence in the workforce and during the social we got to interact with close to a 100 local business owners to promote our chapter and network we have also hosted fundraiser and community events including our very
successful business blast so through this initiative we taught nearly 150 sixth seventh and eighth graders about key business concepts including investing business management and entrepreneurship giving them a chance to both learn and compete we were able to
fund raise over $3,000 for our club and a portion of these proceeds went to charity as well we look forward to continue empowering Hillsboro residents through financial literacy programs and we're very grateful for the opportunities that we've had to give back to the community and now I'm
passing it over to Anika so in addition with their outreach efforts our clubs also have a strong presence in competition and recently this March our our members competed at the state leadership conference where 36 of them placed top 10 in New Jersey and
out of this number 23 of them finished top four um qualifying them to compete in the national championships in Anaheim California this June our chapter placed third overall in the entire state and we're so excited to compete at a national level for the second year in a
row we're so proud of what our chapter's accomplished and we can't wait for opportunity to showcase all our work and represent Hills at the national level we look forward to scaling our outreach and impact in the coming months and years and we hope to do so with your support
thank you and have a good night good evening Henry Goodwill Hillsboro Education Association um I want to thank the board this was not an easy decision it's not the final decision but we're at least leaving options open to continue having discussions and to try to ascertain what is best for the students
in these schools we don't want to find ourselves in a position like some of the surrounding districts or districts in other places in New Jersey where they're selling off buildings and consolidating elementary schools at a time when we should be talking about what to do about our elementary schools that are already overpop populated so we're at least
leaving open the opportunity to have that conversation and I appreciate that um I also just want to address you know there was a comment made about our members getting more involved and doing more things um I've been president for 11 years and I've never been more proud than a group of people that are the
members of the Hillsboro Education Association they are some of the most engaged and involved union members in the entire state and I say that with an immense amount of pride when it comes to last year they made hundreds if not thousands of phone calls to multiple
legislators they sent thousands upon thousands of emails and guess what they're doing it again the minute these numbers came out we organized we spoke to legislators roy will tell you we bother him more than he probably would care for and he's always incredibly helpful and magnanimous about it as are
his his co his uh co excuse me his co-workers but we're sending out thousands of emails right now superintendent Vulpi parents myself have been in the state house more times than I can remember i have testified in every
arena possible from local hearings on budgets all the way up to Senate and Senate education meetings full Senate hearings on um funding and everything else so we have certainly put ourselves out there on it and I just want to correct the record on that and I also
want to acknowledge kind of um the catch 22 in that because at a time where we're told that we're overly involved now we're also told we're underinvolved and from our national union who's fighting to protect funding on that level to our state union that's fighting to protect funding for uh local schools for
community colleges and many others all the way down to our local where individual members are taking time that they don't have to advocate we are doing that work we should be proud of that work i rightfully am on every level possible as a professional and I certainly welcome anyone who is concerned to join us in the state house
to send an email to make a phone call and to take a role beyond this room i welcome anyone to do that if they're concerned there is a place to do that we are there doing it come with us and I will hope to see you there thank you thank you very much
okay seeing no others I will close public comment and I'll just leave it open to the board members if they have any additional final thoughts they want to share before we close the meeting the stats i'll try to make this quick because uh some of us want to see the the basketball game tonight men's
championship um just some uh some things that I attended i saw Shrek Jr at the middle school on March 21st it was hilarious of course very talented kids and they dealt with some challenges with uh sound and lighting very well um I attended the robotics competition at
McGomery High School uh uh Mr mr walp was there as well and I believe that deputy mayor and mayor were there as well um on March 29th and uh they uh were part of a winning alliance and they won several awards and uh most this past
weekend I believe they did perform very well at Lehi and they'll continue on to the nationals I believe in Texas um and I want to thank Alexa and Vakia because uh they were at at uh at Montgomery High School competition because they were uh
very informative and and knowledgeable and uh answered a lot of my questions and they took give me a tour of the pit and there um Chris uh described the the various components of the robot and uh uh all all the all different facets of
it and they were very good at communicating um and they they explain all the different um committees i don't know if I'm using the right term subcommittees that they have and they do a lot of community outreach so appreciate that and um um just this past
Friday uh Mr trillo and I were at Burough Talks it was like a TED talk uh kind of situation where the students gave speeches and they were very inspirational and uh very very enjoyable appreciate the update thanks Miss St
okay seeing no other those I'll take a motion to adjurnn so move second all in favor thank you