ready you guys ready here we go like to call this meeting to order please rise for the pledge of allegiance 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 adequate notice of this meeting was advertised in the Asbury Park Press on April 8th 2025 and by put posting this notice in the fork Fork River Post Office and the Lenoka Harbor Post Office and by filing a copy of
notice with the Lacy Township Clerk as required by the open open public meeting act roll call please mr armato here mr peters present mr bell here mrs armato here mrs walker here mr conned here and Mrs claus here okay we're going to go
into private session be resolved in executive session be convened for the purpose of discussing confidential legal matters the subject matter of this discussion will be disclosed to the public when the reason for confidentiality subsides the length of the executive session is estimated to be approximately 30 minutes after which the board shall reconvene and proceed with
business business at 6:30 and action will be taken motion motion Peters second second all in favor hi hi okay we're going to resume the meeting uh we're now going to turn it over to Miss Wby for her presentation and Mr i
have a microphone today oh you have a mic well I went to a workshop and the woman said that you know you're really not understanding the audience if you don't speak through a microphone i've been talking in this lecture hall for a really long time and usually it's pretty good acoustics um this is a pretty good civics lesson tonight that we're all
participating uh in our uh democracy as a careerlong social studies teacher i do appreciate that no matter what we talk about tonight uh we are here tonight so we're going to do a lot of like plane talk tonight i think Sharon's pretty good at that uh as a business administrator uh I think those who know
me say I'm pretty good at that um we are uh I'm going to present uh with Sharon's a lot of Sharon's help we're going to present an amended tenative budget tonight uh our original tenative budget that was approved by this board of
education uh was rejected uh by our um state uh executive county business administrator um they felt that our um uh the land sale line that we had put in
there was inappropriate um and the state in the meantime has changed the rules the state has opened up an application process that allows districts with board approval of course that allows districts to summarily raise taxes beyond the 2%
statutory cap okay what we're going to do and explain for a few minutes here is what that looks like that will still go to a vote to the board of education everybody has a resolution uh I printed them tonight because I want everybody to be able to have it to see what it looks like be able to read it be able to touch
it a little bit um there this is a regular board meeting so of course there'll be public comment uh and you can speak to that effect and you can also speak to the slideshow uh that we present okay just remember that at the end of this uh there will be a vote uh
on this amended budget okay but as chief school administrator for the Lake Central School District okay I have requirements part of my requirements is to keep trying to get a tenative budget it's statutoily required i will keep trying until um either I get one or somebody steps in and tells me that I'm
not going to have one and we're going to do something different okay so we're going to give Sharon our full attention uh right now okay I'm always a teacher at heart it's the way it is i'm sorry okay and uh I will interrupt her at various stages of the process thank you
Miss Orms all right good evening everyone um so we are going to talk about the budget again so we're going to start with pretty much the same slideshow we're going to go through everything again um so we're going to talk about you know how badly we've been
hurt by these cuts uh that the state has imposed on us can you close the mic a little bit so they can hear so we can't say it enough how devastating these cuts have been for the Lacy Township School District 14 million
over seven years has been drastic um that's a 66% reduction over seven years um and that's only we've only seen a 10% reduction in enrollment in that time period and then you sprinkle in some inflation over that time period when
it's been at high of 7% in some years and that's you know attributes to the high utility bills increased in uh insurance premiums as well as tuition transportation and then you know other expenses as well you know
that's hurt us a lot uh you know we just we can't sustain these kinds of uh increases you know and then these reductions in state aid um the district has done an impeccable job to keep costs low during this time and we continued to balance our budgets especially when the
state gave us no mechanism to raise revenues at the same rate that they were cutting our revenue you know just in the last three years 23 20 2022 23 23 24 and 24 25 they cut our
aid more than $10 million which was half of what our aid was in 18/19 in uh 2018-19 our aid was 21 million in 2425 it was down to 7
million that's a huge cut has a note there too because you're looking at that slide which we're going to repeat later on you know when you look at those large cuts we were we were also able to stay within our 2% statutory cap making some making cuts
making efficiencies creating efficiencies all over the district so you can add up those numbers all you want and we lost any kind of COVID aid probably end of last year so that also wiped out the rest of our CO aid so through good fiscal management we're
able to hold serve in all of those years and as you'll see in a later slide that will eventually catch up to you okay especially when the state's offering you know no extra aid which will be extra later slides thank you right and I just want to note some of the things that we've done over the past few years we
made a health insurance change that a few years ago that saved us $2.1 million over a two-year period we redistricted which created efficiencies that allowed us to reduce 34 teaching staff saving the district approximately $3 million we
added prek which has added revenue and saved about 10 teaching positions as well as allowed us to allocate general fund revenue to that program in the amount of $981,000 we also brought special education students back in the district to programs we have or we've created for
them we created transportation routes for out of district students saving over $500,000 by cancelling expensive private bid routes with vendors we also created co-op partnerships with other districts for sports which brings revenues to our
district so here's our tenative budget basically the same that you saw last month um the operating budget went up about $600,000 that was just to add in curriculum that we found that we needed um between the tenative budget we presented and then this amended tenative
budget all right the property tax levy so this again basically the same at the top part um what we're going to go over you have the 2% increase uh which is $1.1 million um on the tax levy from last for
well this school year into next school year so 58 million so to 59 million the debt service property uh tax levy is 2 million which is a decrease of 24% we have a health waiver that we're utilizing for next year of 1.4 million
now in order to apply for this tax uh levy incentive incentive we have to use our bank cap which we weren't originally using which is 104,000 the tax levy incentive that we're applying for is 6.6 million or that we're hoping to apply for if the
board approves 6.6 million that would be 12.24% increase on the tax levy total net increase would be 14.24% on the tax levy so this this slide really dives right in it's like hitting you like a
sledgehammer everybody just look at that for a moment okay the state because they've shorted us for so long for so many years we have a deficit which was the original deficit that we had in our last presentation it's basically the same number it did come up $600,000 due
to a missing piece of curriculum that would be K K to8 ELA and high school math okay all those curriculums those materials have expired okay but this really this really dives right into our problem and shows you what the
resolution in front of you is about it's about this application not accept not necessarily raising the taxes but it's an application to bring us to balance to bring us to to a balanced budget it's
ugly numbers and we're going to show you later what the average increase on an average home would look like it doesn't get any better not going to sugarcoat any of this okay the state says that we are $17 million short overall in what we should be spending in
the state of New Jersey 17 million that would be really crazy that's about a 30 plus% increase in one year of taxes it is shame on them for putting that this on us in such a short period of time
shame on them shame on making the board have to debate it shame on you having to deal with it shame on all of that i get I kind of just take it all right so this slide really dives in to what the problem is to the only solution that the
state's offering up right now there's a lot of bouncing balls out there okay you can read the paper every single day planefield 39% middletown 10% tom's River 15% they're voting on theirs tonight okay all those different things
as part of this application it doesn't mean that we're going to raise the taxes but sure as heck that's the number that the state wants the taxes to come up let's be real okay if we don't approve this tonight we'll talk about that a little bit later but this is really the slide
that drives it all home to balance our budget we need 14.24 point excuse me 14.2 social teacher 14.24% okay on the tax level [Applause]
so here's the revenue breakdown so for now we've put the 6 million under other aid because the application hasn't been submitted or approved so we're not putting it into the tax levy yet so it still shows the 3.15% increase on the tax levy like we
showed you last time same breakdown in all the other categories as last time so we're a total um budget of $88 million here's our appropriation breakdown got 50 million for
salaries which that is a 0% raise for everybody we have no raises built in benefits up 18% which is a little over $3 million natural gas and electric up
25% property and casualty insurance up 25% out of district tuition at 2.2 million athletic and co-curricular at 334,000 and that doesn't include um their salaries their salaries are included up in the 50 million
transportation at 1.4 their salaries are also not included that's included up in the 50 million and then everything else that went up 600,000 uh from the last time for the uh curriculum that we added it was an interesting conversation we
had just the other day if we didn't have such a high benefits increase which again grant is controlled by the state of New Jersey we're going to be the state plan next year okay if we didn't have that giant number and we had not been forced to drain down our stuff in
the last eight seven or eight years all of our savings if we weren't forced to do that we actually would be holding serve right now we wouldn't need to do what we're asking to do tonight we wouldn't need to do any of those things if it wasn't for these extraordinary things controlled by the state where
they're out of control $3.2 million in benefits increases controlled by the state of New Jersey that's everyone in the state that's in the state plan where we have no choice to be in the state plan as many districts are right so as of actually as of July 1 we're going back into the state plan because our
private insurance the lowest rate increase they would give us was 29% and we're not going to we're not going to allow that here's a diagram of our expenditures general fund expenditures over a 10-year period you can see that it's pretty been
pretty much been flat we had a little dip in 23 24 but we've been pretty much steady over the past 10 years with our expenditures that we've been uh maintaining which I think is pretty impressive we're outperforming inflation right you
know up on the good side up until this year this year or you know for next year for 2526 that's the first spike so over a 10-year average increase of 1.58% that's pretty impressive i
think you know I think that shows that we've been fiscally responsible we've kept expenses low we've kept taxes low but you know unfortunately this is just something that we just can't sustain any longer um with the the
increases in expenses that we're seeing these are the reductions um this hasn't changed from last time uh three certified positions three full-time paras a custodian uh we're moving some duty aids and lunch aids uh to our cafeteria fund technology reductions um
these are you know needed laptops you know for the students that we're going to have to put off uh to the future uh supplies and then services so this is a property tax breakdown um if we were to do the the
14.24% increase it would be 1.72 uh tax rate this is how you figure out your property tax rate on your house you take your assessed value divided by 100 times the current school tax rate of the
1.72 and then this is the average so the average home is $288,906 so the average home would be $97 a year or $75 a month value came up in one year and you actually back up slides if you have the
total town one more slide back so the assessed values in Lacy came up $34 million it's good for selling your house but you don't want to sell that's that's big dollars
i just wanted to find short i'll talk these just a little bit we we presented these last time it just shows our efficiencies uh we'll put this up you know we still continue to be the eighth lowest in per pupil cost among districts our side 77th lowest in the state that's out of
396 i mean uh 656 656 thank you 77th lowest at 656 we presented them last time there there's just this is insanely good uh to the good these next couple slides next one sixth lowest administrative costs 13
13 lowest in the state out of 656 all right what does this all mean i'm going to read it i don't norally do that all right tonight's resolution being considered by the board is seeking either the return of our money that they owe us if we if they put the guard rails
up on S2 to limit our losses to 3% a year we'd still be $10 million to the good that's the guardrail they put up this year if you follow what the state did they placed a guard rail on state losses just this year if they had done
that from the beginning of S2 we'd be $10 million to the good we want that back it's part of the resolution okay or advance us our state aid we put in loan but it's really an advancement advance us our state aid the money that we need to balance our budget or we're going to
make this application it doesn't tie us to it and I've made that clear in the next part to raise the taxes because I can't even apply if there isn't a yes vote tonight but that's their choice and that's community's choice as well board of Education is not authorizing tonight that tax increase we will continue to
explore and exhaust all opportunities to recover lost state aid okay if approved tonight as advised by our executive county business administrator there are no commitment if we do apply but there's choices to be made here that's what it
all means okay just full transparency that's it and then the dates right yep so we'll submit the tenative budget to uh the executive county superintendent submit the application to the commissioner if it's approved we'll continue to explore opportunities to
increase revenue decrease appropriations may 7th will now be the public hearing date last time it was April 29th we are moving it to May 7th um and May 15th is the uh drop deadline thank you very much thank you all right
thank you for that presentation uh before we go into public comment um Mr morgan would you like to say anything uh to the public uh yeah I was just going to add um there's also uh as part of this um I guess opportunity that the
state is making available to um increase the levy beyond the 2% cap they incentivized that by including um uh tax levy incentive aid in the amount of 5% of the amount that the uh the local community is willing to uh certify above
the 2% cap so that's where this $334,000 of tax levy incentive aid is in the resolution that's aid that the state would be giving to incentivize districts to apply uh for this program and I you know I just want to mention that this is
one of those moments and it's been discussed numerous times where it truly is the lesser of of several evils and there really is no good solution so you know I just want to put it out there that it's it's a problem that's not of the creation or making of anybody up on
this deis and um you know according to the state on their funding formula you guys are below adequacy but you're also below your local share of what they deem the local community should be contributing to taxes so as long as you're significantly below your local
share I think you're going to find that you're going to have these issues perennially year after year of having to plug these budget gaps um as they continue to uh make off with your state aid so it's um you know I know it's painful but um you know there's a couple
possibilities if it doesn't go through and you know one possibility is also the uh the chance that you know the the uh the Department of Ed might appoint a fiscal monitor uh if it turns out that you don't have sufficient revenues to to you know close your budget gap so um
there's a lot of considerations but um you know um this is just one of those things where there's no good options um but this is an option to at least present a balanced budget to the county office and we know they're they're pushing us pretty hard for that so just
wanted to add all that thank you okay we're now going to move into uh public comment any audience member wishing to make a comment will raise his or her hand when called upon and state their name address or affiliation and intention to make the statement comments will be addressed to
the board president any comments will be made one issue at a time comments will be limited to five minutes no audience member shall be recognized twice until all who have wished to comment be recognized this portion of the meeting is for public comment only and there will be no questions answered the
purpose of this board meeting is to perform our business in public anyone is entitled to a public comment if there is a question for the board there's established chain of command who would like to speak first go ahead good evening everybody john Pinto Fork
River all right um five minutes all right so I just have some notes here i've been getting a lot of uh I've been talking to a lot of people in town people have been messaging me privately with things stuff like that things to bring up things to ask obviously I'm not going to get any
answers but uh so just some of the things I I understand everything that you guys just showed us and I get the position that you're in i I if any of you know I'm I'm fighting the state with you i'm trying to to do to do stuff i
know that they're ripping us off uh but I just want to make sure that we're looking at everything we can look at here so you know we're talking about this $6 million deficit i saw that you guys are making cuts and everything like that maybe there's some out of the box
thinking that we can do not making cuts maybe doing something else some people have mentioned things to me around the six period stipen uh that there's a lot of money to be saved there uh the block scheduling maybe that's not going I mean
everybody wants to talk about these standardized tests and how they're really not a good gauge which I understand I know they're really not a good gauge I get that however we have nothing else like I I have a question for you know what what is what's the
average GPA of each school what are the SAT scores the average SAT scores what's the graduation rate you know what's the college acceptance rate why don't you present this stuff to the town so we so that way we don't have to go by standardized testing show us that the
everything is performing better than that so then we don't have to listen to people complain about the standardized testing because I have teachers messaging me too telling me that these standardized tests a lot of the stuff on these tests the kids haven't even learned yet so I mean if that's the case
how are they going to do anything and I get it other districts are doing better i get that there's all dynamics that go into it but you know somebody else also spoke at one of the last meetings about how the middle school these schedules are set up like a prison these 84 minute classes stuff like that i remember when
I went to school it was like a 40-minute class you know sometimes the bell would ring we weren't even done yet we had to we had to pack everything up and run out you know right to the next one and the energy is still going these I'm hearing that you know some of these don't even
teach for 84 minutes kids go on phones whatever maybe it's true maybe it's not but either way I know me personally if I had to sit in a classroom for 84 minutes it's a slow burn i mean at what rate are they really like what's the retention
rate there like how long are they really learning for you know with with with that with that maybe because people are saying that that could lower the budget the the expenses if we adjust stuff like that too have we looked at this stuff none of this requires cuts it just
requires reworking things um uh someone also mentioned to me about Lacy Township is is it true that we're the highest in special like one of the highest rates of special education we I think 26% it's pretty high so someone
mentioned along the lines of have we re-evaluated declassifying some kids that are in special education they've outgrown the needs for these things has that been looked into like I'm just trying to think outside it's constantly being assessed okay
uh one of the other things as well um attendance rates i hear that our our attendance rates aren't always the best uh stuff like that i mean I guess that's really more of a home issue than a school issue but uh you know the parents got to we all got to work together to try to figure stuff out and then one
last thing uh somebody raised an idea and it's it's it's a consolidation idea uh I know this is a far-fetched one but this is super out of the box but what about entertaining consolidating selling some of the schools off and building a K
through a K through six school one big school or renovate one of the properties into that it cuts admins it cuts principal salaries it it you know it it puts them all in one do we really need all these schools being that our enrollment has dropped i mean with with
the current situation this isn't a hot place for people to want to settle down and and start a family with what's going on so may maybe that could be an option maybe something we can look at fork River School that's probably prime real estate can we sell it can we use it for
something else can we landlord it you got a better idea no let's let's keep and then also I'd like to request too on the um the salaries for the athletics and the co-curricular can we get a separate line item for the salaries that
go to that that your five minutes left i I know we're not supposed to go back and forth but I do have some answers for you the sixth period stipen is a contract issue so that's not something we can just take out that that was one the block scheduling we looked into it extensively
the past two years it actually cost us more I think a million about a million million and a half for the high school and a little less for the middle school so it would not save us money uh we did try that last year or the year before consolidation um we if we consolidated
the Fork River School we keep looking into options uh we were about 20 classrooms short so we would have to go out for a referendum to build an extension on uh one of the schools so we know how that went down with our last referendum that would be increasing taxes um I don't think that would pass
but uh we don't have the space right now to take everybody and put them in um the teachers staff would follow um so we would save on you know one-time uh sale you know property sale but other than that you know it would cost the taxpayers more to to do the um the
extension if if they wanted to yeah so um I don't think that would pass though to be honest i don't think uh so those are those are your answers okay yeah keep coming with your suggestions though we appreciate it okay anybody else like to have a public
comment yes sure go ahead Richard uh Richard Bidnik Lacy Citizens for Responsible Government okay a couple of things um let's think outside of the box this school district is the Titanic it's sinking quite fast actually has been sinking for the last several
years um some of us want accountability for you know you can't blame the state for all of this because quite frankly we knew about these cuts coming over the years and the board negotiated contracts it knew it could not afford i'm sorry to say this but
it's fact and uh we know who benefited from those contracts the $4.2 two million dollars in extra taxes that you got last year from the 9.9% increase we know where all that money went okay so let's be clear about this and I don't
mean to be nasty but we have to we have a financial crisis okay so my solution to the problem is that the people who benefited from that 9.9% tax increase need to come to the table at a meeting
last year I asked the teachers union to go halfway with the public and they absolutely refused you banged on tables you screamed cut off the mic when I was speaking totally disrespectful to the people in the town who are suffering and
I want everybody to remember we have 25% of our households are living under the poverty level 20% are on food stamps and who is speaking for them besides myself right now so my point is I want I'm
putting this out there and this is for the board because basically since the board doesn't have the guts to do this I'm going to do it on behalf of the taxpayers of Lacy Township the union should take a 10% cut
in your salary for one year yes laugh of course this is exactly what we would expect just address me please yes thank you 10% cut we gave you 9.9% increase last year in our taxes okay and you sit here and you laugh you
are so disrespectful and this is what it's teaching our children in our schools these days so quite frankly let's be frank about this you've got how much $18 million is going for your health insurance why am I paying for your address why are we paying for their
family members why are we not just covering the employee and if they want to cover their family they can pay for it why are we Why are we negotiating contracts like this where you're doing this we don't have the money you have a contract right now that's going to be
renegotiated well seriously we have to look at all of these things and I'm sorry that somebody has to be so firm on behalf of the taxpayers to speak but I am speaking for the taxpayers because you are fed up there's no accountability the school district has not been
performing well the tests show it and I don't care what anybody says there's excuses why are certain school districts performing at the highest level year after year after year and we are not why is our administration not looking at every one of these schools and figuring
out what is what if they are doing or what we're not doing has anybody done that no of course not that might require too much work but the fact of the matter is that my group the citizens Lacy Sins of Responsible Government we want
accountability and I want accountability from all the tax from all of this board i want you to admit publicly that you have failed because you negotiated contracts you knew you could not afford and it is time for this body to take
personal responsibility for what we may be inflicted with which may be another 12.9% tax increase on top of the 9.9% tax increase that was inflicted on us last year and the people who are benefiting
from this look this is the option there's another option if the union says no cut the jobs just cut make it point to the bank either you're going to you're going to work with us and take the salary decrease or we're going to cut the positions and we are not
required to have sports in schools okay we do not have to have a football team we do not have to have extra football coaches the only thing that is required is education this is the board of education okay so if we have to make
tough decisions those are the things that are going to need to be looked at and evaluated and I'm sorry if some people might be offended by my tone and what I'm saying but some of us are really fed up and we want accountability thank you very much
go ahead okay hello um Jen Bentley Fork of River thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is Jen Bentley and I'm a third grade teacher at Loka Harbor School and also the vice president of the LTA usually I prepare and share with you all the good things that are happening in the schools on behalf of
our LTA but tonight I would like to address the amount of misinformation that is currently circulating i am also here to ask the board to help us in this quest to share accurate information with the public in many recent social media posts it has been mentioned that teachers need to make concessions to
help with aid with the school budget but I really don't think the public is aware of the number of Lacy school employees that are also Lacy residents at Lenoka Harbor staff alone 55% of our staff lives in Lacy in addition 35% of the
staff are Lacy graduates and 44% of the staff have children who have attended or attend Lacy schools i happen to be not only a resident but a taxpayer a graduate and a proud parent of two Lacy graduates i am Lacy and we together the
LTI we are Lacy we are all not only feeling the tax burden but also the uncertainty of our job status and the quality of education we can provide for our students the problems our district is facing are not just the problems of the LTA or the Board of Education they
are townwide problems we will not be able to resolve these issues moving forward if misinformation is spread i would ask all the residents to consider gathering information from our Lacy School website and attending board meetings moving forward i hope that we can work and come together thank you
thank you [Applause] is there anyone else for public comment go ahead michael Ryan president of the Lacy Township Education Association good evening ladies and gentlemen of Lacy Board of Education thank you for
gathering here tonight to address the budget and the shortages that are affecting our schools our students and our future today we are talking about a school budget cuts and issues that have been challenging our district and one that requires our urgent attention for many years we have seen a steady decline
excuse me provided to our schools while there are always budgetary constraints it is crucial that we remember that education is not just an expense but an investment in investment in our children in their potential and the future of our society the impact of these cuts can be
seen in various aspects of our schools first and foremost class sizes are increasing teachers are being asked to match more students often with fewer resources and support this makes it harder for educators to give each student the individual attention they need to thrive in a crowded classroom
it's more difficult to ensure students needs are met whether they need extra help or a challenge to stay engaged furthermore extracurricular programs which are often the heart and soul of a student's experience may be cut or reduced art music sports and
after school clubs provide with opportunities to explore passions develop new skills and build their confidence these activities are not just extras they are an integral part of a well-rounded education that foster creativity teamwork and leadership we
may also be looking at cuts in teachers and essential support staff positions these professionals play a crucial role in creating a safe supportive and effective learning environment when we reduce funding for these roles we are inadvertently neglecting the mental
emotional and academic well-being of our students we cannot continue to balance the budget on the backs of staff cuts there just aren't any more positions to cut let's also not forget our infrastructure aging buildings outdated technology and limited resources make it
harder for schools to keep up with the demands of a modern education how can we expect our students to be prepared for the future when not staying up to date with our facilities and our technologies but the most troubling part of these budget cuts is what they represent a lack of prioritization of our children's
futures education should be our most important investment as it is the foundation for a thriving innovative and successful society when we cut funding into schools we are cutting off opportunities for our children we are telling them that their education is not a priority and that their success
doesn't matter so what can we do first and foremost we need to advocate we need to raise our voices whether it's by speaking at our local government representatives attending schoolboard meetings or organizing community campaigns we need to make it clear that
we value education and that the future of our children is worth every penny of investment second we must together come together as a community parents teachers students and local businesses must unite to support our schools in every way possible whether it's volunteering time
fundraising or donating resources we all have a part to play in ensuring that our schools remain vibrant and strong finally we must continue to emphasize the importance of education in our community we must push for policy changes at the local state and federal
levels that ensure funding for schools is not just maintained but increased we must demand that education is seen as an essential part of our community's growth and prosperity in closing let me remind you that the decisions we make today will affect the lives of countless
students in the years to come our schools are the incubators for the next generation of leaders innovators and change makers we cannot afford to let budget cuts undermine their potential together let's fight for the future of our children and ensure that they have
the staff the tools the resources and opportunities that they need to succeed thank you would anybody else like to speak go ahead uh good evening everyone um my name is Denise Fork River uh we're all
taxpayers here we're all concerned i'm trying to speak on behalf of myself and a bunch of seniors that are in this community we all know that some of them obviously don't have kids in this school district now they're on a fixed income
um my taxes are through the roof um you know uh there's maybe something we can do some kind of each project can be some kind of fundraiser even if it's a small one we have contractors in this town that are fathers and parents maybe
we can work with them somehow i know it seems far-fetched but I've done a lot of fundraising and I've done a lot of things like that so if you open up to different suggestions maybe we can get something done um I'm sorry the health
issue I do feel very strongly i don't mind paying for a teacher to have her health issues but her whole family i don't get my health issues paid for my roof leaks if my roof leaks is anybody come going to help me or any
other senior in this town it doesn't work that way you I have a budget the seniors have a budget and they have to live off that budget and now you're trying to suck us for more money after the 9% and I get the education not
believe me when I tell you education teachers you know I love them God willing but you have to take responsibility you guys have the budget you guys are doing this okay you have to communicate with us and see how we can
do this um every taxpayer is going to be hit again um unfortunately I won't be able to do the things I like to do like I like to donate to the fire department the police department EMS i won't be even able to do that are
any of you going to look at any of them and tell them that they're not going to get that little $50 $100 that a bunch of us seniors usually do give them so we we got to be fair here we got to be fair with everybody's concerned we got to be fair we got to be open we got
to be honest uh I do agree with both sides over here but there's got to be accountability and there's got to be reasonings i'm a bookkeeper so I look at the numbers i look at the suggestions i look at all that and this state is killing us i do know that but maybe each
and every one of you call them up write letters call your congressmen call your senators i've been to Trenton i've done all that legal legal work it's a bull crap it's had a headache and everything but we need to do something we're
drowning here our town is drowning and nobody seems to be like "Here this is what I want you to give me 9% here this is what I want you to pay." Again if you come to my house and fix anything in my house and help me
with that I'll give you the 9% tomorrow but you go to every senior and ask them what I heard and the cries and the tears that I hear from them you don't even want to know you You can't look at them
in the face and you can't say to them "It's going to be okay you don't have to sell your house you don't have to worry about food." This is what this is coming to in this town that I've been here for over
because I'm young you know long time long time it really hurts me and I'm appalled on what we're going through this is Lent i want to bring in religion but you know what this is why I'm up
here because I pray every day for each and every one of you to look at us help us let the teachers take care of the kids but we really need to pay attention and help everybody and all I can say is
please keep the communication open these people have a lot to say just like you guys we all have opinions somebody's got good suggestions and they're very good suggestions i hate to tell you we got to open our eyes and be big adults and put
our pants on and listen to everybody and I understand we're in a jam so let's see how we can work this out and let's see what we can do and please think about all these seniors and see if you can talk to them and see if you can look at them in the face and I'll take each and
every one of you with me i will that'll be a promise or I'll have them come to you because I can't do this anymore i can't look at them and and hear that they can't eat they can't pay their taxes and they got to leave their
house that's all I have to say thank you and we do welcome all suggestions so you can email us come to the podium if you like um we're open to anything and we would love to hear it go ahead Ron ron Martin Fortit River i have an
observation there were several good points that were made this evening by both parties board of ed and by members of the audience one of the things I was thinking of is that in my career we had two unions we had to deal with and one
of the things that we strove to do is to eliminate any adversarial relationship it proved to be extremely productive i would ask if it's possible for the union to help us with
not only the state department of education but to ask them to be our their onbudsman for seeking the funds that rightfully belong to Lacy if we do that then all parties win
i would hope that that is a possible real uh reality because everyone would stand to benefit so thank you for the opportunity thank you anybody else go ahead
uh good evening everybody uh Dan Fusco from uh like 701 Signal Street and Lacy over here i want to thank everybody for what they do i know there's a lot of teachers in the audience so thank all the teachers and everything uh I wonder I have one question uh when the state
withdrew all that uh funding from us did they give a reason why they gave that they just took it do we know i know that there's It was legislation it was legislation called S2 legislation it was something that they did over seven years
okay and um part of that I think uh 2008 uh budget uh how they divy out the the uh funding i know they weight students by um different degrees like if you're a high-risisk student and all that stuff
do uh do we calculate uh recalculate our students on how they're doing that perhaps maybe we could do that and get additional funding um it sounds like we were our scores are going down so I don't know if that's uh something that could be thought about
i'm not really sure what you're asking um so like a I think in the 2008 budget I was just reading it but um if you're a high-risisk student you get uh point you're weighted at a like 6 whereas a normal students weighted at like point4
or something like that and that goes into a formula calculation that provides additional funding to our district special education is no no there's a also special education let's say you're just like um an individual that's more likely to um you know go hungry or
something like that right you're at risk and I think that that provides a student additional per pupil funding so I don't know if uh I don't know how that we classify that the definition it wasn't included in the budget on how they classify students like that and um the
definition is pretty vague so I wonder if it's actually kind of easier to some more students in there you know what I'm saying speak on that but um that's just one thought and then um sounds like um Mr zillinsky you've been doing a fantastic job with some efficiency stuff
so I appreciate that and um while that while that is the case and and I do appreciate everything the students do it does look like the largest line item is obviously you know teacher salaries so what I would hate to see is if we take another loan because we're already
paying $2 million to service debt right um I would hate to see this kick the can down the road right we have to balance the budget at least one year while I know everyone would suffer for that including the students right um we can increase the efficiency to such a point
right and everything's fine right but everyone's really suffering right but the state doesn't see that because inside our numbers we're still maintaining a good teacher to student average um maybe our test scores haven't gone down so far right all everything looks good on paper but until something
kind of breaks the state won't help us out anymore you know what I'm saying so it might be in a in like this particular case best to let it fail so we can have a better argument going forward with additional funding so next the year after years after we could be in a
better place and rehire perhaps physicians something like that just food for thought okay thank you would anybody else like to speak go ahead um uh Debbie Debbie Gubber Smith of
Orchid River i am here as a parent i have three children that graduated from Lacy i have one currently in Lacy and uh I am also a taxpayer um seven or eight years ago I sat in four different meetings at four different school levels
of PTA meetings with Dr pereira and Mr george at that time they sat there and gave us the explanation of the S2 funding how we were going to have a decrease how it was going to affect the schools they wanted all of the different PTAs to band together to reach out to
the parents to write letters to the state and how we were going to fund the formula how are they funding the formula we've been hearing that for years basically it seems like all that's been done is we are kicking the can down the road and now our backs are up against
the wall so last year it was a 9.9% increase this year you want it to be 14.2 well what happens next year when we still don't have the funding we're still up against the wall and you want to increase again we're now at 25% for the
last two years that's a lot of money and that money comes at the stress of the family and everybody says it's for the kids and we're doing this for the kids but when you create financial stress in people's homes all it does is create stress on the family as a whole and it
hurts the children in the long run so I know you can't answer the questions but I would like to know why are we even giving the state the option of including that out that we're increasing the taxes rather than fighting for the
funding because if you're giving the state the option just like last year when you did the 9.9% increase you sent a message to the state of we're just gonna throw the burden on to the taxpayers and you're you're basically telling them "Okay we did it once we're
going to have you do it again." So if we submit an application and we tell the state "Well it's going to be our last resort but we can always increase the the taxes 14.2%." You're sending another message to the state to say "Don't worry we're just going to burden our taxpayers even further." And then next year we're
going to be in the same damn position and in a couple years down the road when the state pulls the funding for the prek pro or all the grants for the pre-k program we're really going to be in trouble because they're eventually going to end that gravy train and now we're all going to be stuck paying for prek so
somewhere along the lines we have to stand up to the state and say we cannot bend anymore you have to figure it out you cannot burden the taxpayers you can't cut any more staff we can't have any more re leaking roofs the state has to come in and figure out something that
we have to do so my argument is leave that leave that option out of that application or let this whole process fail am I am I um let the process fail and put the states back up against the wall instead
of the taxpayers or the teachers so we need to figure out something that the state has to be accountable because we h I I do think that the can has been kicked down the road for the last couple years but I do understand our backs are up against the wall so that is I I did
have a couple notes here um just want to make sure I hit all my things um because I do believe that a lot of it is fear-mongering from the states um they're going to tell us that they're going to shut down schools they're not going to shut down the schools they're going to tell us they're going to fire the teachers they're not
going to do that either that let them figure out how to do it if they are the ones that are pulling all the funding it makes the entire state look poor if all of our school systems are poor so let them figure out how to do it instead of keep throwing the burden onto the taxpayers
um and I would like to know how I know you can't answer this because you can't answer questions but I will follow up later that I do would like to know how block scheduling is less expensive for the district rather than a traditional schedule block it yeah go ahead you want to comment on that just call my office
we'll talk about block versus regular schedule all right you know where to find it i do know yes um and I believe I fit all my points thank you very much for your time would anybody else like to speak before we vote
no okay i'm going to close public comment okay we are now superintendent comment do you have anything okay i always do all right just want to remind everybody that I'm the chief school administrator so my comments are are very pointed um the financial reality of our school district
is clear according to the state of New Jersey calculations we operate with a significant deficit over $17 million below the determined adequ ad adequacy level this underfunding is further evident by our local contribution which falls below the calculated fair share as
defined by the state this persistent situation exists despite a decade of responsible fiscal management characterized by consistent adherence to the 2% maximum tax levy increase except for last year therefore the resolution before the board of education tonight is is a strategic measure it's what I'm
putting forward to have him vote on to explore viable budgetary solutions specifically the submission of an application to exceed that mandated 2% tax levy cap this action is necessitated by a current funding gap of 6.681867 million the minimum required to
provide the legally mandated thorough and efficient education for our students approval of this application would grant the district the authority not the obligation to exceed the 2% cap and allow us to qualify for a tax levy incentive granted it's not that much money but it would be
$334,000 a possible step to mitigate our existing shortfall that a lot of you have mentioned tonight we've already operated with significant efficiency eliminating over 150 staff positions and reducing supply budgets by 50% in some areas as a result our per pupil
expenditure remains some of the lowest in districts for our size the 10-year average increase in the general fund expenditure 10-year average increase is 1.58% here in
Lacy make that clear that's how efficient we are which includes the almost 7% increase plan in this budget that includes the large increase i've lost my place all right for th and I I kept made my own note
here that I got criticized for today for those paying attention that is far less in the face of inflation addressing the immediate $6.6 million gap would still leave our district operating $10 million below the state's adequacy target this clearly indicates that our funding challenges
are not internal but a direct consequence of state aid reductions through the current funding formula here's kind of the warning part failing to approve this resolution carries substantial risks jeopardizing local control over our educational system and potentially still resulting
in a tax increase under the current tax levy a balanced budget would necessitate the elimination of an additional 49 teaching and administrator positions increasing class sizes to 45 students in most grades along with the loss of all
remaining courtesy busing and academy programs at the high school as well as sports all sports and extracurricular activities these losses would be detrimental to our students and certainly would be detrimental to the community and your home values
investing in our schools is a calculated investment in our future driving economic growth property values and a development of a skilled workforce that we all depend on just last year to address some of the other concerns we saw some of the highest SAT scores and AP scores which we report out every
October that presentation is available on our website for those who missed it as well as the high school climbing 33 spots just the other day according to the latest performance ranking among New Jersey high schools that's just in one year that's New Jersey rankings that's
not US news yet we haven't seen that yet math and ELA students also scored some of the highest achievements on the NJSLA improvements over those horrible COVID years additionally we've also met some math targets you can also see that in our performance report the assertation that our students academic performance
doesn't warrant financial support is a disservice to their potential and the broader societal benefits of education academic performance is influenced by a multitude of factors socioeconomic backgrounds access to resources and the very financial support being questioned
okay reducing investment at any performance level risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy it hinders improvement and limits opportunities for our students to succeed thank you for the time thank you thank you okay now we're going to move on to board
member comments um I'll I'll start our vote tonight does not come without controversy and consequences about three weeks ago we voted on a tenative budget with a passing budget uh seven and0 with a land sale to fill the gap we were advised by our county BA to use this
strategy which she denied last week now we have a whole of $7 million and need to pass a tenative budget again this is why we are here tonight we were presented with an application last week by the DOE to help us fill the gap if we accept this application we will be
awarded over $300,000 i attended a call this week with our county expo Mr zalinsky and Miss Ormsby she did not allow our board attorney to join no reason given just no no other guidance was given to help fill
the gap except this application i discussed with her at length our concerns about our community struggling daily to make ends meet as it is and how we imposed a 9.9% increase last year she was also aware I made her aware that we have no
confidence or trust in our governor and his lack of leadership the overall response was we the taxpayers are not paying enough based on the opinion of the state and the new formula Lacy Township is underfunded by 29% $17
million we need 14.2% this year to fill our current gap i did ask what happens if we do not pass this vote tonight her response was we have a fudiciary responsibility to pass one she will tell us to go back and try
again until we can pass one she also noted that there will be no extension on this application monday is the deadline we also discussed that around February or March of this coming year we will run out of money and most likely a
state monitor will come in and we will have to pay that state monitor about $2 to $300,000 it was also mentioned cutting staff is no longer an option because she recognized we were not able to provide a thorough and efficient education
as of this year increased state funding cannot be awarded more than 6% over last year's aid we were eligible for more but unable to collect because of the cap also they could not cut aid more than 3% from last year if this was put in place during our S2 cuts we would not be in
this position today they cut us faster than we could raise t taxes while strapped with the 2% cap think about that if we were not cut less than 3% a year we would have an extra $10 million today a no vote today
on this application may have significant consequences we have always passed a tenative budget no guidance was given except quote "It will be bad." I have been on this board for five years every year we have to every year we cut millions of dollars out of our budget
due to significant aid cuts we are now at rock bottom i believe we have a responsibility to our district to have a plan as of today this is our only plan and no fault of our own while I give While I will never give up the fight I
believe keeping local control far outweighs state control i believe taking out a loan will only sink our tax sink our taxpayers when they go to sell their home and that was expressed to me in abundance would you move to a town like
Lakewood who has endless loans with interest i don't think so our debt will grow year after year with a loan and no way to pay it in full also the payment will be built in our operating budget so once again less money for us i believe
more importantly it's my responsibility as an elected representative to look at the whole picture and not my personal ones with that being said I believe there's only three options one apply for this application take the awarded extra 300,000 only use what we need if money
comes in two a band-aid approach apply to take out a loan and forever be in debt with a monitor lose local control it's not a long-term solution it's a long-term problem and they may actually deny that application three decrease
staff by 50 i'm sorry but over 40 kids in the classroom is not even an option to me and the expo said we couldn't do it but a state monitor could come in and take that all away from us if this gets voted down tonight I'm asking all the board members who vote no to have a
detailed viable solution we are open to all ideas please present them tonight during your comments or call Mr cony our finance chair tomorrow before our finance committee meeting so we can discuss it we also need ideas that we
can control are measurable and allow us to evaluate because we need to come back and vote again and again until we have a balanced tentative budget and then our final budget will be in May that's all I have okay
um Linda would you like to start with your comment i have nothing um written okay um I was more listening to everybody and I was appalled actually when I had conversation with Kim about
uh her conversation with the county superintendent and um I think it was was it you that sorry what is your name again john john um I was looking at this and this is amazing what you put together here and it kind of shows the
whole picture doesn't it it does um so advocacy is really important and I mean Kim was on the phone days with them for a and I I kept saying to her "But but but" and she said "Nope." She just said "Raise taxes raise
taxes it just seems to be what the state wants to raise taxes." Um we just have to keep fighting and I know a lot of you in this audience went to Trenton last year we had students that went to Trenton last year but
they're really not listening to us we've talked to the township committee bobb's here um they you know they know what's going on they tried to help it it's just um a bad bad situation i have nothing positive to say
Kim i know okay well thank you um Yes y Exactly you're right okay mr mr armano Linda are you finished yes okay Mr armato please um it's like deja vu all over again um I want to be very clear i support our students i support our
teachers and I support our schools i recognize that our district is facing a funding shortfall but that shortfall is largely due to the inadequate support from the state and not because of our community isn't doing its part i understand the temptation to fill the
gap with a local tax increase but I don't believe that should be our first solution we have the opportunity to take a loan many families in our district are already struggling with high cost and I don't think it's fair to ask them to carry even more of a burden while the state continues to underfund public
education i'm going to vote no on this tax increase because I believe we need to hold the state accountable and demand the funding our schools deserve until we see serious efforts to address this at the state level and until we've exhausted every opportunity to tighten
our budget and spend more wisely I cannot in good conscience ask our taxpayers to pay more a lot of people want to bring the fight we went to the fight last year if that's what it takes that's what it takes but I I can't in good conscience look at you andor my neighbors and say we're raising your
taxes 14.2% let me bring a real reality to it where I live the average house is anywhere between 400 and 500,000 assessed that's $4,500 a year that's $4,500 a year that they're
taking out of your budget that's 14.2% that they're taking out of your budget that's now a hamburger that turns into a cold cut dinner that's going to the movies and downloading another another stream for
something that's going to the Pelican Snowball in the summer and making your own ice there's an impact to this there's an impact to this and I urge my fellow board members to take a stand and not just do what the state asked us to do
but to fight back to fight back and say no thank you thank you Mr bell all right many of you know last year I did vote for the raising of the taxes um had to bear that myself too uh but we
did say last I said last year I will not do it again uh and so I'm going to stay with S here um one one gentleman said it's a sinking ship um I'm along for the ride um we'll
go down i used this illustration earlier uh if you've seen the Titanic as it's going down there's people jumping and fighting for their lives and there's some guys just singing that's me um I'm just going to sing as it goes uh there's a process it'll play out uh we'll see
how uh things go and uh I I do appreciate this town i appreciate the board members um all the work that has gone in the cuts the the trimming here and the trimming there um I think everybody's doing everything they can uh but I do believe that it's time to push
back on the state and just uh make them step in uh and so that's where I stand okay thank you Miss Armanato so as a board member I took an oath to serve the students staff and taxpayers
of this community i cannot and will not support a 14.2% tax increase especially after a 9.9% hike last year nearly 25% in two years that's financial punishment not progress a yes vote legitimizes a
broken system and gives the state exactly what it wants no push back no accountability voting no is not about chaos it's about leadership this is not just a budget issue it's a moral one the state is intentionally underfunding us then forcing local boards like ours to
do its dirty work they're betting we'll quietly comply and keep passing the burden to hardworking taxpayers while they dodge accountability and that's manipulation that's not leadership and some people say your job is to fight for the students not the taxpayers but the truth is our taxpayers are the parents
and the grandparents of these students if they're taxed out of their homes how does that help the kids when families are forced to leave town or cut back on basics forget about movies how about electric bills the children feel it stability at home is key to student
success we can't separate the well-being of students from the well-being of their families a 14.2% tax hike will break families and that breaks our kids we've been told voting no would be bad for the district but let's be clear about what happens when we take the stand what
happens if we vote no the schools will not shut down payroll and operations continue the county superintendent may step in temporarily but it often leads to negotiations or emergency aid voting no forces the state to face the crisis it created and it gives us a chance to
demand fair funding and worst case scenario the district may need to take a loan but the truth is a loan can be repaid even if it's with interest but a 14.2% tax sticks it becomes our new baseline setting up more increases year after year after year it's not going to
end kim said 29% it's not going to stop it'll be 14% and then it'll be it'll continue until it's 29% or more i don't even know how anybody can sustain that the state's broken funding formula should not be balanced on the backs of our residents year after year the burden
will fall on the taxpayers and let's stop pretending raising taxes is a responsible option it's it's the easy option it avoids tough decisions and shifts the cost on to you the people who are already stretched thin and that's not leadership this is not our failure
it's the states every year we say yes the state wins and our residents lose but what they don't expect is resistance and I urge my fellow board members to stand with me a united no vote sends a clear message we will not be pawned in a game that breaks our community to
protect a broken system we demand real funding real solutions and real respect for the communities we serve let this be the year we stop doing the state's dirty work and start doing right by our people the worst case scenario isn't voting no it's doing nothing and allowing the cycle to continue year after year after
year we didn't run for this position to be rubber stamps we ran to stand up and voting no protects our community from a system that's already failed us but I want to be totally transparent because um Sharon was kind enough to put the tax assessed at 288906 so that was an annual
increase of 90804 a $300,000 home that annual increase is $1,98 which is $91 a month a $400,000 home is 200 $2,818 which is $234 a month a $500,000
home $4,538 which is $378 a month those are car payments that's all I have but I just want to this this affects renters so if you rent and you don't own this town you'll see an increase it'll be passed down if you own a small business that's already
struggling this drives up rent and overhead and that will impact our local community so again this is not a moral issue it's not this is a moral issue it's not just a financial one so thank you for your time thank you Mr peters any comment me yep i'm sorry I didn't
hear you so uh I'm not a big speech writer guy i'm pretty much coming from the gut from the heart where I feel about this um and I'm a man of my word i probably know about 90% of the people in the stands right now and you'll never know what I'm thinking because I'm going to let you know what I'm thinking and uh
last year when I said you know I approved the 9.9% I said that's it this this is just a a quick band-aid and I'm not going to do it again and I'm sticking to that word uh unfortunately uh Mr dan Bell I'm not a very good singer but I'm singing right next to you
so uh I'm going to be a hard no on this i do not feel the taxpayers should have to pay for what the state of New Jersey has done to this district it is not fair it is not fair by any means whatsoever so I'm definitely a hard no on this okay
thank you Mr cony a lot of it's all been said already and I'm in Korean's at the majority here but the questions come up who is the county business uh
administrator she's an employee of the state department of education um not a county employee um yes exactly um and they were on a call the end of
last week she was extremely adamant to let our attorney on the call why what she trying to hide or sneak around her overall
um insinuation which kind of irked me well really did the residents of Lacy Township can afford the tax increase she doesn't live here
i've been here for 41 years now i've never seen her um it's an invite to her kind of lacy let's go take a walk from
the million-dollar houses to to ones that are in total uh disrepair um let's go knock on those doors and see who can afford it
um I think that scares the hell out of me by not applying is this year we need the 14.25 to make us whole would be
29% according to the state's skewed spreadsheets from numbers probably seven eight years ago if we don't approve the application to be submitted I fear which I talked
about is that they come back and hit us with 29% royal off the bat um I know I'm not getting that in my pay raises um so 29% on top of the
9.9 on top of the township tax increase on top of the county increase on top of the utility increases who the math but um shy of reiterating how everybody else mostly uh set up here
um I'm going to be a note for the wording here tonight um we were asked to do a budget to be middle of uh March and under the direction of the county BA uh Miss Ormsby Mr
silinsky worked on it and put figures in there to plug the 6.6 via land sale that's what the county BA told
us we do all that we all voted on it submitted it to her yeah no that's not going to work 24 48 hours later oh surprise here's a memo from the state you could apply to increase the
taxes it's a game to them um it's over here hopefully so okay okay thank you okay we're going to move on to new business we are going to vote on the adoption of the amended tenative budget for 202526 school year can I have a roll call
please uh motion a motion please motion second uh roll call please any discussion before we vote just a comment if I can yeah go ahead if this does not go through by the
sounds of it's coming to I urge the people sitting up here um to shoot me an email probably Monday at the absolute latest on recommendations
um solutions proposals whatever it is that you want to call it to write this ship i don't mind going in the ocean but Mhm that's good um I agree thank you okay
ready yep go ahead mr armato no mr peters no mr bell no mrs armato no mrs walker no mr conny no this is close i am voting
yes uh for the application um I feel right now it's our only option um doesn't matter because it's a no vote um but we will be back um again uh to do another tenative budget so hopefully we'll have more information um you know
email us too if you have ideas we would love to hear it um we might have an emergency meeting so um check the website um for any announcements okay frequently okay we're going to close the meeting
motion to adjurnn motion