okay we're going to call this meeting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge aliance the United States of America and to the repblic for stands one nation under God indivisible withy and
Justice your second time today adequate notice of this meeting was advertised in the Asbury Park Press and the beacon on January 9th 20125 and amended on March 6 2025 and by posting the notice in the forkid river and Leno harb post offices and by filing a copy of the notice with
Lacy Township Clerk as requested by the open public meeting act roll call please Mr armado here Mr Peters here Mr Bell here Mrs armado here Mrs Walker here Mr conned here and Mrs Claus here okay
we're going to go into executive session be it resolved that an executive session be convened for the purpose of discussing confidential student matters including but not limited to harassment intimidation and bullying confidential legal matters including but not limited to the current case load and confidential Personnel matters the
subject matter of these discussions will be disclosed to the public when the reason for confidentiality subsides the length of executive executive session is estimated to be approximately 60 minutes after which the board shall reconvene and proceed with businesses 7 P.M action may be taken motion motion Peters
second all in favor I by by eyes have it okay we're going to resume the meeting uh before we start tonight I'd like to um sincerely express my condolences to the cetti family Dave cetti served a
three-year term on this board starting in 2016 he was an excellent board member he listened compromised and always put the students first he was dedicated husband father and dedicated his life to helping others through his profession as
well as volunteering his time to his community he truly loved the people he served his infectious smile and warm presence Drew people in and will greatly be missed on the business related front by
now we all know we are all aware that the ref referendum did not pass by only a few hundred votes for question one over the past week I have heard many reasons and concerns of why we were not successful the most repetitive concerns were regarding the economy tax fatigue
among among voters not enough information and voting down one to block two and three the turf was in full opposition from every conversation as an unnecessary want there were many more reasons but those were the most
repetitive so now what where do we go so now what where do we go from here do we try again in November or do we pivot the referendum committee Sal armado Linda Walker and chairperson skip Peters will be tasked to meet again I believe fact
finding through community outreach to see where where the components were of why we failed but more importantly compiling a priority list of what they will support we cannot give up we need to press forward so Lacy schools have
the ability to provide a safe clean environment that we can all be proud of the state covering 40% of the cost to me sounds much better option and to avoid bond which will be fully borne by the taxpayer hopefully the ne by the next meeting we'll have some more information
for everyone I would also like to address some social media guidelines the board has been recommended to follow by the New Jersey school boards that has not changed since I have been on the board in the past 5 years I'm mentioning this because of the misconceptions I've seen in the past week we do not conduct
any board business on social media none we operate with the majority the public majority majority rules here in public as board president if I happen to see something about the district my response may say please call the board office and
we can discuss your concerns Mr zalinsky has been saying this since he took the seat as Acting Superintendent he encourages it all of your questions will be answered and there is a procedure and it's not on Facebook one board member cannot make a decision including the
president it's the majority I do understand the proc perception of not responding feels like you are being ignored or we are hiding something it's far from the truth we just can't there were so many incorrect statements assumptions and questions I could have
easily answered regarding the referendum it's frustrating for me as well we UND just understand we have rules to follow and again no board business will be performed on social media platform as a private citizen we are free to post but
we still have guidelines to follow thank you okay now we're going to move on to our Representatives tonight um I'm going to start us off with our monthly update from the student government Association
SG um sgaa last met on March 3rd the freshman's talent show was a huge success the Junior's volleyball tournament was held on March 6th and they are currently planning their end of the year activities and fundraisers including kiss a senior goodbye powder
puff and Junior Prom the seniors are likewise working on their end of the year activities including the senior breakfast the senior raffle and senior prom for the executive board the 2025 2026 sgaa elections will take place in
April and our Mr Lacy fundraiser is currently being advertised lastly our next sgaa meeting will take place on April 7th thank you Kayla now for the month of March we would like to announce our unsung hero as Jordan Martin uh Jordan
is not here with us today Jordan is not here with us today but I will read a little bit about her uh for the month of March the senior class would like to recognize Jordan Martin as our unsung hero Jordan is a passionate student who exemplifies what it means to be a go-getter while exceeding expectations in the classroom
she also shines outside of it besides her good grades and her position as vice president of deca here at our school you can probably find her on the football field for Varsity Cheer something she has dedicated herself to for most of her life Jordan's determination to succeed and capability to do so makes her a
great pick for our unsung hero keep up the great work thank you uh now we'll have our superintendent report please and as always I'll invite principal King to present our seniors of the month for the month of February uh excuse me
March good evening everyone as always it gives me great pleasure pleasure to introduce our seniors of the month this month for March we have three our first senior of the month is Natalie McGovern Natalie a round of applause for family and friends we here as well no
ST hi I'm Natalie McGovern and I am proud to be named March's senior of the month at Lacy Township High School congratulations to Natalie McGovern being student of the month we're all very proud of you at Lacy Township High School I am involved in sgaa I'm the
executive board vice president I'm nhs's tutoring chair I'm also a member of interact and I am part of lazy Township High School women's soccer team I'm so excited for Natalie as she moves on uh she planed on studying biology at Mammoth University and I'm super excited
for her her uh future uh next year and beyond my favorite memories at high school was winning State sectionals my freshman year in soccer one of my favorite things about Natalie uh shows up outside of school but but in saw my classroom as well is that Natalie is uh
incredibly competitive in all the best ways uh Natalie I remember in AP environmental science class uh was with every single test would be like a competition amongst her peers uh to do the best that she possibly could uh amongst her peers and that's one of the
things that I think drives her uh her her success in in the classroom and outside the classroom my future plans are to attend mama University to play division one soccer and to major in biology so congratulations again to Natalie McGovern we're so excited for
you uh to you know for the rest of your year but also as you move along next year to study biology at Mammoth University uh we're all very excited for you and look forward to hearing about your future
[Applause] [Applause] all right our next senior of the month is Diego and and Andre sorry Diego come on up come on I'm diade and I'm proud to be named March's senior of the month at Lacy
Township High School oh hey Diego congratulations on winning senior of the month I'm heavily involved in the school's TV station WTS and we film everything from Choir concerts to sports games there are so many moments you've been a part of in our school
whether it's been behind the camera or in front of the camera on stage these Halls are sincerely going to miss you when you graduate I think a lot of my favorite memories from high school stem from digital media and uh notable memory I have is from last year when we all uh
split up into groups and did the njhs film Challenge and had uh a screening of the films at Jackson Liberty which was really cool getting to know you these past 3 years has been wonderful each year you continue to amaze
me your gifts of writing transcends the classroom into script and songs the world needs these gifts Diego outside of school I like to write films and uh make movies with my friends and I'm also very into music production and I have my own
uh mini home studio I have three top favorite memories one when you were singing for the Christmas show and to warm up you were playing radio head and everyone was singing along two when we use the
school over spring break to film your movie for the Film Festival titled crumbs that went on to win Awards seeing your success was My Success I'm looking forward to uh continue studying film and television production at a four-year
University and uh hopefully minor in music theory or music production bad days are good being a part of your life has been an absolute gift and I can't wait to see all the good things you're going to create in this world congratulations again on winning senior of the month
[Applause] Mr King can can you have him uh share the name the title of the movie again that he he wrote and filmed oh was the name of the movie called crumbs Crums Crums crumbs like coffee cake
crumbs I'm hungry that's why I use that as an example job all right our next senior of the month is our vocational senior of the month Ariana Green Ariana come on over come on over Let's Go Round of Applause for her family's in
attend us this evening yep hello I'm Ariana Green I am proud to be March's senior of the month so excited to hear that Ariana had gotten senior the month although I can't say that I was I was surprised um Ariana Is Creative she's bright she brings such an
amazing energy everywhere that she goes I remember when I had her for biology she would come in and absolutely Crush her biology tests and then pull out her mandolin and start stenting the class on songs that she had been working on she just had just an amazing balance of of so many different things um if you
couldn't tell I'm kind of all over the place I like to do a lot of nature anything with nature hiking exploring um I do a lot of music I play the guitar the electric and acoustic guitar the piano and ukulele and I um do a lot of
art stuff I'm in Fashion Design and Merchandising at vocational school so I do a lot of fashion stuff and anything with illustrations pretty much anything surfing snowboarding anything that I can
get my hands on or learn I will try to do Ariana is kind she's creative she's bright she just has this like air of confidence and brings so much positive energy into whatever room she's in she's a first person to take someone under her wing and guide them and demonstrate
leadership roles she's just got a lot going for her she's such a gem I've decided to do as much as possible and help as many people while doing that but I think right now with everything you could you should do what makes you happy and money was never really a thought in
it so I always wanted to do flight attending so I could travel but I know with everything that I like to do it can definitely change and yeah I think I'm just going to let the wind take me where it takes me Ariana best of luck to you in all that you do I have absolutely no
doubts that whatever you put your mind to you will be successful at [Applause] [Applause] all right Mr zinsky that concludes my
comments this thank you principal King right as always great to bring those students to us we need that so um now we're going to transition to our um tenative budget report so Miss Sharon Ormsby who is our uh business administrator is going to come up to the
uh podium um and we're going to um see her slideshow and uh talk about it thank you all right good evening everybody we're going to uh talk about the
tenative budget for 2025 2026 so I want to just talk real quick about the impact of the state aid Cuts over the past seven years so the district's seen over $14 million of state aid Cuts over the past seven
years um that's been really impactful for us you know when we talk about the maximum increase in tax levy of only 2% which equival which is is equivalent to only $1 million we talk about trying to recoup
revenue of 14 million doar that has been taken away from us we can't recoup that kind of money when we can only raise a million dollars each year so in seven years there's no way that we can recoup that loss and then
when you talk about the expenses that have also gone up over that time frame we've got contractual responsibility that rise above 2% higher utility prices increases in insurance premiums tuition increases Transportation cost
increases um inflation just overall inflation you we can't keep up like to slide your to slide up too that these were erratic Cuts upon our district over those years that you see up there we actually were part of a lawsuit for the state of New Jersey
trying to sue for the formula so that they wouldn't be so erratic so we would know what formula they were using so year we would know what we were going to get cut so we could plan that so the state refused to turn over their formula to us then when they finally did turn it over to all the districts that sued them
the formula wouldn't work go figure so when you see these erratic Cuts here all of them every year came to our district our town as a surprise so try planning every year to do surprise and not good okay so that was a good
slide right and we want to show the comparison to of this is a 66% reduction in aid over this time frame and only a 10% reduction in enrollment that's a huge discrepancy um in those reductions so the actual tentative
budget for 2526 so our operating budget is going to be76 m114 th000 334 which is about 5% higher than this year our grants and entitlements will be
9,78 347 which is about 15% higher uh the majority of that is uh the paa increase and then The Debt Service is actually lower at 2,349 850 now that is the debt falling off which we talked
extensively about when we were going through the referendum we've got debt falling off which is that's is how we were able to do a tax neutral question in the first question so that's about a 28% reduction in our debt service Aid all right property tax levy our
current property tax levy is at 58,4 59029 with the 2% increase that's the 1.1 million that's going to bring our property tax Lev to 59 mil 628 to10 our debt service property tax levy is at
2, 7395 that is a reduction of 24% we have a health benefit waiver that we're able to take advantage of this year because our health benefits are going up over $3 million so we can add that to the tax
levy that's going to increase the tax levy in additional 1.5% so our total property tax levy will be 63 m399 the net percentage increase is 3.15% now the health benefit increase uh
W that waiver I just wanted to explain that a little bit so what happens is there's an increase in the state health benefits that's 14% And then they take into account that 2% increase that statutory increase so
that reduces it down to 12% we're actually allowed to go up to 12% higher in the tax levy we're obviously not going that high we're only using the 1.4 and only do 1.15 but we would we're able to go up
12% so this is just going to be a quick review of the revenues there's a couple things I just want to highlight here so this year we got 6% more in state aid this year they actually
instituted um a 6% cap on t uh the state aid and a 3% cap a 6% increase cap and a 3% decrease cap so we got 6% more in our state aid
when they actually calculated our state aid this year year we should have gotten 2 million more in state aid but because they instituted this 6% cap we're only getting 435,000 more now had they put this these two
caps in place seven years ago that 3% cap would have helped us tremendously we would have $10 million more in state aid this year had they instituted that 3%
reduction cap that's huge1 million more we would have fund balance I want to point out we've exhausted our fund balance we have no excess Surplus this year to utilize adjustment Aid at this point
right now we don't know if there'll be any adjustment aid for us to be able to utilize um miscellaneous Revenue Vue is down uh we for the past two years we've gotten
donation from the MUA in town we're not getting that this year we've had srex sales that we've been able to utilize for years now we will not have that any longer that expires in June of this year that's
about $400,000 that we no longer will have um and then the elephant in the room the land sale SL deficit we've got $6 million that we're still short in our budget so we're
hoping and we're working with appraisers and land surveyors to sell land $6 million that's where we are let make it very clear to so you
said we are here nothing nobody in this room did whether you're here whether you're here you're sh myself you take away $4 million out of somebody's budget or out of a business covering that without selling items which we obviously do not do is
impossible so that drain on the taxpayers of lacy continues there's nobody to blame the state of New Jersey you may hear other things tonight but this is the state of New Jersey and what they've done to us straight up okay taking away all that money so quickly
without ever giving us a chance to do anything about it without ever sharing with us the formulas of state aid losses not capping state aid losses like they do now do now they see their mistake and how bad it's going to be for districts like Toms River Jackson South lanefield
New Egypt the list is getting longer by the de of districts like ours we are unable to balance our books with the statutory 2% property tax G and then the health waiver that's in ours this year which we don't get every
year state of New Jersey 100% okay I'll appeal to you many times call everybody you know right there's nobody saving us from the state right now that's why you see that as Sharon so after referred to the elephant in the
room that was 6.18 6882 short and making up what we're supposed to do next year we going to give you the statistics behind that on how good we've been yet we're still that much short if they put that cap in
did you say it already that we'd be $10 million to the good if that cap was in place at the beginning of that St okay we'd be in much better shape and able to U deal with our commitments very important thank you um so back to the grants and
entitlements so on the good news with the p paa we're got we're getting about 5% more in funding for the paa we're going to have 27 classrooms next year that's two additional classrooms for the preschool and we're going to have 405
students in that program uh downside on the grant side with the all the problems um on the federal government side uh they're advising us to budget 75% of our current funding for idea and for title funding
uh normally we budget about 85% of the current funding uh so there's been a cut in that funding which means what we normally do is we budget um tuition Services salaries from the
general budget into the grants budgets so some of that has now had to go back into the general budget so that's eating into you know some of our general budget now it's about 500,000 that we've had to put back into the general budget
um so that's you know a problem for us as well so now we'll look at this this is some overall Appropriations so our salaries about 50
million our benefits are up 18% at 15.7 million which is again that's over $3 million increase from this year our Natural Gas and Electric are both up 25% Property and Casualty Insurance is up
25% we've got added District tuition over 2.2 million now our athletic and co-curricular and our transportation those are both not including salaries at 334 and 1.4 and then everything else that's supplies it's technology
Services now the one thing I want to note about salaries that number does not include increases for LTE L the uh CST and the non- Align reductions we've cut three certified
positions three power positions a custodian we moved eight AIDS uh from our general funds into our cafeteria fund technology reductions uh laptop and classroom display Replacements this is
really just moving Necessary Technology needs down the line $538,000 supplies this is instructional athletic and health supplies that we've cut and then services this is ground services and uh Aiden
Lou this this slide is important because if you went back to last year's slide where we C 34 certificated position there's just nothing left to yet we still do the best we could we work through all our managers as Sharon really insists upon everying year to make sure we are as lean I'll say it
like this and as mean as we possibly can be every step of the way and we'll get to some other slides that's really demonstrate that in a second to show you how lean and mean we actually are here at ly you know and trying not to to limit what we have to do again we'll go
back to that slide who's pushed Us in this position C but here it's the state ofers all right so as Mr zy mentioned we're going to talk about how lean we are so our budgetary per per pupil costs for this budget
18,47 or $1,747 below the Statewide average we are eighth lowest budgetary per people amongst our peers as far as districts our size we're the 77th lowest
out of the state of New Jersey which is 656 districts let's let's say that one more time 77 out of 656 lowest lowest here in Lac administrative for people costs
$1,480 it's $1,197 below the Southern Regional limit we are the sixth lowest again for our side School District that's out of 96 and we are the 13th lowest out of 656
districts that's out of the state I don't how much better we get by 13 656 V that to boot that okay we're also in the highest
to pupil ratios in Ocean County I don't have this year statistics from everywhere else I'll get them over time we've grown in two years we've gone from 11 to1 to 13 to1 okay we're the highest in Ocean County we're equal with districts that don't have
preschool in preschool we limit the numberers of the kids that go in there by rule so now we're not only High we're at par with districts that don't have free school is that means that our teachers have the most kids on average okay when you look at districts K to 12
we're not talking about Regional districts and those others okay they generally have a lower number than we did so 13 to1 are the highest ratios especially in Ocean County we just wanted to reiterate this again lost over 14 million 7
years so our next step um this budget's due this tenative budget's due to the county tomorrow um we're going to continue exploring increased revenue streams decrease Appropriations uh our public hearing for our final budget adoption is April
29th um the final due date is May 15th and thank you for listening to me and this will be on the webite take a quick break for students who want to go let out is that all right and then we'll continue I guess with and
coms before [Music] want hey congratulations congratulations conratulations [Music] [Music]
congratulations what's up brother how you doing congratulations I'm good thank you good to see quick comment and then go okay want do yours first or you want want to go first before yes please and then I'll I'll
reserve some stuff for later I'll do the uh all right we're good all right so a couple comments and then I'll give up my uh my turn here all right um You just had the uh the tenative budget presentation when everybody reminded that it's not the final Bud budget presentation that happens in April um
storm date is April 29th 29th I keep getting it wrong 29th that'll be the final budget adoption anything and everything is subject to change between tenative and final uh the board is committed to working really hard they've already been working really hard trying to come up with a proper budget solution
here our district is deeply committed to providing the best education possible while being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars our per pupil cost stands at 16758 which is the eth lowest among districts of similar size 77th lowest
Statewide out of 600 56 districts in New Jersey our spending is $3,396 below the state average and $2,232 below the state median demonstrating our focus on efficiency this commitment to efficiency extends to
our administrative operations where our pruple cost is $1,397 and ranks as the sixth lowest or seventh lowest in our peer group okay the 13th lowest in the 13th lowest in the entire state of New Jersey okay while we have seen a 10%
reduction enrollment which you've already heard since 2018 we've experienced a Monumental decrease of state aid of 66% this presents a considerable Financial Challenge and we're attempting attempting to actively address through careful Resource
Management additionally Lacy tonship School District maintains a teacher to pupil ratio of 13 to1 for the 23 24 school year which is the high one of the highest in Ocean County this means we of course have the largest class sizes overall furthermore I don't think it was mentioned before our transportation
department is also recognized as the 13th most efficient in the state 13th most efficient can imagine how many Transportation departments there are in the state of New Jersey had the state acted responsibly and instituted 3% cap on state aid cut
seven years ago at the beginning of S2 we'd have $10 million more that being said even posed with the challenge of diminishing state aid and the general tax levy increase over over the past 12 years including last year's 99.9% Lacy overall has kept the tax
increase to 3.11% average i' let that stand up to any District over the last 12 years okay Lacy still has the 11th lowest tax bill in Ocean County out of 33 towns just to note despite challenges posed by reduced
State funding these figures clearly illustrate our District's unwavering commitment to maximizing the value of every dollar spent to benefit our students and community on a side note from my report we are extremely disappointed as um Miss Claus said at the results of the
referendum and we're going to be revisiting all the projects in the upcoming months because most of the needs that were outlined in the referendum have not disappeared I look forward to working with the board and the public to solve some of our most pressing infrastructure problems some of the online conversation
was interesting um one of the most interesting that I found and I don't read a lot of it was centered on the release of the bid specs during the referendum um on advice of councel and being no strangers to the Oprah process
the Oprah exempt exemption exemption specifically reads information which if disclosed would give an advantage to competitors or biders including detailed or itemized cost estimates prior to bid opening are specifically listed as an Oprah
exemption why the state of New Jersey decided not to do that is beyond me I don't answer to the state of New Jersey like that I do believe that whoever requested these documents and released them to the public had the potential to cost Lacy millions of dollars by doing
so okay we as a district and that's the reason we did not release these figures because we wanted to make sure we are good stewards of your money okay so why the state did that I don't know I don't think the state I think that's demonstrated here tonight has our best interests in mind I think
that's pretty obvious okay by what we've been talking about uh this evening um that's all for now I have a chance later thank you thank you maybe we can um schedule another uh budget Workshop uh before we do our final budget uh we
we did have a a budget workshop last week last Wednesday open to the public uh we would love to have some input um we talked openly about what was going on the problem was only one person came so that was everybody's opportunity to come
in and contribute to the budg get your questions answered um and there was no participation so we'll have one person but we will again post another one and uh it was advertised the last board meeting I advertised the date um
and uh we'll try again so we want people's input um you just need to come in and and share okay now we're moving on to um hold on one second now we're moving on to public comment um an audience member wishing to make a comment will
raise his or her hand and when called upon State their name address or affiliation and intention to make a statement comments will be addressed to the board president comments will be made one issue at a time comments will be limited to 5 minutes no audience member shall be recognized twice until
we have until you have wished until all who have wished to comment have been recognized this portion of the meeting is for public comment only there will be no questions answered the purpose of this board meeting is for us to perform our business in public everyone is entitled to a public comment if there is
a question for the board there's an established chain of command would anybody like to have a public comment okay come on [Music] up all dressers 70 arage drive in for River seab breze
uh what you guys do is great I really believe it's a thankless job and I appreciate what you guys do on behalf of our community thank you thank you is there anyone else for public comment wrong get there take your
[Music] time for my name is Ron Martin live in 44 Dunbury in forkid river and I Echo uh my compatriots
words I just like to every operation that I've been in we always have a win loss review and it's interesting when the wind occurs it's because of I was in a sales organization I should press preface that
a national one that was my responsibility when we won a big bid it was because of salesperson ship when we lost a bid which was very very rare we didn't have product we
didn't have quality of product we didn't have the right color blank blank all the way down the line so what I'd like to be able to do is just pass on some information that I've received over the
past the general opinion that I hear is that the budget failed because of item three item three appeared to be a wish list as opposed to a need there have been conversations about looking at what we
have okay the reluctance to vote on one and two came about because of the liability of three I would make some suggestions one is should another referendum come up
which I believe it will that in the meetings we have that our Acting Superintendent had before the regular meetings that we explain one time and one time only
what each of the questions are because of the meetings we attended it was a repetition we lost 30 minutes of Q&A for the people who came in who had not had
the privilege of a first or second meeting and so that was vital time lost I wouldn't recommend that we video the uh transparency meetings as they were referred to so that those who didn't make a meeting
could watch it on on the uh TV and get answers or at least knowledge to the questions that they have there are a lot of good questions that came up the fear in the negative vote was because of question
three when we look at what we experienced last year 99.95% tax increase the question three particularly the turf field seemed way out of place
and it appeared to be an oversight on the part of the board on the high tax increase we got last year I don't think it was malicious I don't think it was intended but the fact of the of the
matter is as a result of that appearing people were reluctant to vote one because one opened the door for two and three and as a consequence it was self-defeating and that's why the turnout in my opinion
turned out to be what it was so when we look at the total dollar amount of the 90 million approximately $90 million a third of that basically a third of that went to question three nice to do but not necessarily A need so
on the basis of that at the the next the opportunity to have a referendum I would encourage you and I would ask you that people talk about transparency well transparency is a funny word it's really just a matter of
exchange of information constant communication and I believe the video videotaping those kinds of sessions would go a long way to ease the uh acceptance if you will of the
referendum there's never enough information after the fact there's lots of information some of it's even true as you will know so what we want to be able to do is to ensure first of all
that the children are cared for second of all we'd like to get the district to really work to improve the proficiencies reading
math language the basics we've been here 11 years and we're still in the fourth quartile for district uh success if you will and we need to
get that up we also need to really focus and I would encourage the board the president that there be some sort of formation of people like us to
assist in budget preparation in those kinds of fiscal man uh management issues where some of us have had experience with budgets that are much much larger than that R I don't want to interrupt you but um your five minutes are up would you mind coming back up when
everyone has spoken sure okay I would appreciate it sorry for the time break no it's good It beeped I didn't know if you heard it thank you thank you would anybody else like to come up for public comment or can he just day you like okay come on up hello uh my name is Thomas asof I'm
on Parkside Drive in forkid River um first of all I'd like to also Echo the sentiments of these guys I couldn't imagine being on the board through this referendum it must have been um a little bit of hell right but um to piggyback on what he was saying in
in in essence I have I have multiple children too right now in the district actually three one's in the nursery school program which I'm uh eternally grateful for right now but um one of the things I noticed is through Cedar Creek
which is where my kids go um it it was it was such an amazing experience the kids could not wait to go to the next level and to meet their new teachers and the teachers were also welcoming and the community was so amazing and then my daughter moves on to and my son my son's
still in second grade he has this gorgeous rainbowy path ahead of him at Cedar Creek but my daughter goes to the middle school which is um a prison you know it's you sit all day 90minut classes 2 minute breaks in the middle no fresh air um it's the quality of life
there is horrible um and the way that I'm getting to a point I'm not just putting it down um it it's really um it's really like terrible like a kid either has to if if they're not the kind of kid that can sit all day for 90
minutes get up for 2 minutes be have the teacher mad because you're two minut because you're 10 seconds late to CL 90 minutes 2 minutes if you're not the kind of kid that can do that you have to be on some kind of medicine so that you can and that's crazy because all science the
it's the science is solid on this that your hippo campus is in full development mode during these periods of life and it requires movement it requires activity which gets me to my ultimate point that leads to the budget and everything else we're dealing with now I think it's time that maybe we start as a as a district
who's leading the way on what what you said low costs and and all these different things maybe it's time that we reimagine what education looks like and stop following suit of like the Department of Education and all these unions that are that are facilitating all these rights for everybody and we
start to look and say like what is the material nature the organic nature of Education what is this what is necessary because we're not asking that question because if you look at our record and it's To None of your fault I don't believe because you're here just trying to do the things that make the town run
but what is it the essence of why our children are underperforming each year and and really struggling um I think nationally comparatively nationally we're a good town you know I've been here for since 2010 and I think it's
it's a great place I love I love the park systems all the things around us why don't we utilize that more in education especially on like the Middle School level and things like that I was listening to these kids at on the high school level and seems like there's a lot of freedoms there to express yourself and be be like amazing why is
seventh and eighth grade such a trap um maybe if we just reimagine seventh and eighth grade we'd save $6 million a year I I don't know um maybe there's something there but that's it for me thank you thank you for your comment anybody else for public
comment go Jessica deuca uh heatherington Court I really just had two questions and one was about specifically where that was posted as far as the budget meeting I don't know if you can put that out somewhere if you can answer it now it be great uh the meeting that you were
speaking of earlier Mrs Claus about just call my office if you have any questions sure I'll be happy to do that absolutely um the next question that I did have as well which I can also send to you if you would like about the budget meet or the budget slide that had all of the salaries on there uh one of my questions
was as uh Sharon was going through the line items about the sports the transportations you indicated that the salaries were not included in that so I was wondering where they were included if they're not in the salary lines does that come up in a different line throughout the budget it was in the
total salaries but you had specifically said it wasn't because you said the salaries are up here but then you went on to say the transportation da da but that doesn't include the salar so were they in the original salary yes they're in the total salary line so when I said like Transportation kind sounded a
little off there yeah no no they're in the total salary line I was trying to say like Transportation salaries weren't in that Transportation line all lumped in the and the total salar what I want to know thank you anybody else for public
comment go uh Dary 236 Quil Lane North with NOA Harbor um this week I've been uh communicating with the board and specifically with Mr zinsky about graduation I don't have a budget uh comment uh my comment's about graduation
and I want to thank you for your time and your consideration in keeping it in a time frame that works best for the students and I really personally sorry want to thank you for keeping it where it was thank you thank you thank
you you want to make I'll do the okay anybody else for public comments motion to close oh go ahead I got to get back up John Pinto forkid River all right I
had a bunch of stuff here but I'm not going to go through it all a lot of it's already been touched on um obviously with the recent events a lot of people in this room probably know my name uh it is what it is I know some people were thinking that I conspired
against you guys and all that it's it's not that deep it's it's definitely not um I reacted to evidence that's basically what it is uh I hear what we're saying about the Oprah and the exemptions and somebody posting the cost
summaries it doesn't change the fact that other towns were willing to show these cost summaries to their residents but you guys weren't that raises a question that that raises doubt that's what changed me as you all
know I met with Mr Linsky I talked to you Mr Peters I was for this thing I was trying out then I felt like I got lied to all right and when you're talking about $92 million and somebody lies to
you and then you see another Township with this stuff openly voluntarily on their website then you see residents in this town that have helped with public bidding before and they say that the impact on bidding is absolute nonsense if anything it could impact it in a
positive way this raises debt in my opinion that that's why the whole thing went down uh how do we move forward I know I I walked in a couple minutes late I know you were I missed the first part of that I wish I didn't um how do we move
forward I some another Resident in town he's not here he was uh stuck at work he raised the idea and I thought this was a really good one of setting up an open forum in the auditorium with the board and any Resident who wants to attend this is a back and forth conversation
not something like this where we can't get a question answered you know we can make comments we can say things but we get nothing back that's got a change we are the residents of this town we are the taxpayers we pay the
bills okay so it's a respect thing if you guys want respect from us we ask for the same thing back and everybody I think needs to settle down a little bit there's obviously two multiple sides to this there's people in the middle I try to I definitely lean more
right if I'm going for the side but I'm not all the way there I was fine with the turf field not going to lie I still am all right I just want to make sure everything is being done above board why are we paying architectural fees on existing paved lots to repave them did
we did we entertain Steel Coating on some of those lots versus repaving everything I mean what I'm going off memory here but almost a half a million dollars in fees on Paving existing Lots that's money better spent somewhere else all right
uh I'm not going to I had some budget stuff I'm not going to comment on that I will be at the next Workshop okay good I'll let you know um moving forward you know like I said I had a lot of stuff here I think I'm going to I'm going to hold off on some of it for the
sake of progress and uh come back to it but I I think the biggest thing is the one thing I'd like to address is the superintendent search um I met with Mr zalinsky in his office when I was trying to help when I when I was out
there and comment that uh you said to me didn't sit well and in light of everything that happened and another one of the gentlemen that that came up here and he was speaking you know and he was talking about the the prior sales and looking at win loss the loss is a reflection of this
board that that because of the way you guys operated this as as he was just saying not enough information people saying transparency stuff like that it could have been better communicated it and it and it could have been better delivered and it wasn't and and that
seems to be the problem in in my opinion of of what happened here so I think moving forward I think Mr zilinski should withdraw his candidacy if he is a candidate for for the next superintendent after the comment he said to me in his office which was along the lines of I mentioned
somebody on social media which was a ridiculous thing and I did say that said they would do the superintendent job for free for five years which is I'm sorry that it's it's a little ridiculous but all right please please just address me
when you're speaking thank you yeah and Mr zalinsky responded to please they could have it I don't think I want our next superintendent to have that feeling about the job okay and uh I don't think the
residents are going to stand for that so we need to get somebody with new blood your time is up thank you anybody else sorry no no no no no no um Rachel gray 5 to7 Elwood Street um what I was going
off of what you just said I am Rachel gray I put in my application to become the superintendent of lacy schools I did offer this and I'm blessed I could do this job for free for five years I sent it off to the referendum person the head
head hunter for the job they denied me right off the bat they couldn't take it because of Ethics cuz I miss miss the deadline okay no big deal the reason I'm here tonight is to talk about graduation but I just heard that
graduation is staying St is that correct High School yeah M that's why I was coming staying the 20th because there's nothing on the website 19th no nothing yet it's not conf it's confirmed but it hasn't been put out yet so okay well
it's already March so we have birthdays and plans and parties and yeah my kid was leaving on the 24th and I did get a phone call from Mr zolinski and I appreciate that I just haven't had a spot return phone call back because I've been so busy so I was coming here today
to find out what the deal is on the graduation the next thing that I'd like to talk about is the mural the history mural of the lion that was taken down I think that was done in the 90s just
disappeared because the student was scared of our school mascot painted on the wall this uh was posted on the Lacy New Jersey Facebook post on January 24th so I just wanted to make sure that this was accurate information because not
everything is accurate on social media but 254 comments on how ridiculous this was but yet I could walk into the wrestling hall
and all of our history is still there so why take down a mural that a teacher painted it just baffles my mind and the referendum I'm not even going to go address it thank you thank you anybody else for public comment
Regina go ahead Regina descends of Sunset Drive Sunrise Beach my sincerest condolences to the cetti family I served two years with Dave he was a great guy while many people have thanked me
and congratulated me this past last week for helping to defeat the $92 million referendum I'm not happy about it at all I know in my heart that some of those repairs need to be done ASAP and many of the HVAC systems are getting alled and
getting pots to repair them is an issue with the maintenance staff cut back to just three people that's right you heard me correctly missor is the person that told me only three people are left in the maintenance department
logic says you cannot take proper care of seven buildings with only three maintenance people in my opinion whose fault is that I would think the administration because the teachers don't hire the maintenance people the school board does not hire the
maintenance people the administration determines the Personnel for the maintenance department while I do my best to keep tabs on the Lacy School District it is no longer my priority I'm an ex board member with internal knowledge that most others
don't have and I can tell it seems that no one takes any extra njsba training here if you really cared about your job as a board member you would educate yourself and make it your business to attend Workshop in late October every year attend County meetings and work
your way towards a master board certification I think myself and Donna McAvoy are the only two people that ever bothered to get a master board certification as anyone else obtained a certification we are getting board certification just so you know we hav
the entire board is getting board certification that's been in progress for a while yes if the Lacy School Board really cared about the taxpayers it would return the budget vote back to the people and yes it can be done I tried unsuccessfully to do so many years ago
but you need four votes if you are in the minority like s Cheryl and Dan that tells you that Kim skip Jack and Linda are the controlling parties on this board Miss Claus I must tell you the Facebook re and infom Marshall showing
your quote from last year saying that you fully support raising the taxes as far as possible I doubt you will ever again get elected to this board in fact in light of some of your antics answering the public on social media I would ask you to step down because I was
prosecuted on ethics charges for failing to give a disclaimer here you are answering the public and commenting without a disclaimer on social media you can do it but you're supposed to say you're doing it as a private citizen I heard that Mr
Peters was also doing the same maybe someone will bring you both up on ethics charges and you'd have a tough time defending yourself with timed and dated screenshots of your comments you all must remember you are only in your official board capacity at a legally
constituted meeting no other time if you don't believe me please check with the njsba your field rep will tell you the same I cringed when I watched that meeting last year when you said you fully support raising the taxes as much as possible since your property taxes are
about 12K a year your household probably wouldn't even notice a tax increase but you have neighbors elderly Neighbors on fixed incomes that have to choose between medicine food and taxes those are horrible choices that people are forced to make so they they can continue
to live in Lacy to be near their family have you ever read a tax lean list it's very scary when you see the names of people you know on it your neighbors this past week one of the Lacy School District employees was on social media during working hours harassing a
member of the public for exercising their civil rights I hope she was a Personnel discussion in private session tonight when she attacked Mr bidnick she was attacking me too because she mentioned the signs they were mine so she was attacking me too there is
school policy in place since 2014 policy number 3282 use of social networking sites the concluding paragraph the policy reads as follows this policy has been developed
oops to avoid actual ends or the appearance of inappropriate conduct towards pupils and or the community while using social networking sites no employee has the right to condemn or berate any member of the public for
exercising their civil rights this person just left the door wide open for a civil rights suit against this District I have more I will come back second time I knew that was five anybody else for first public comment Richard go
ahead good evening Richard a bidnick lacy citizens members of the board one week ago transparency one over Darkness honesty one over deceit integrity one over dishonor thank you
Lacy citizens three passionate caring intelligent driven individuals in our community including our wonderful graduate of this school Mr Gavin Rossy came together and thed the referendum of the Lacy Township School
District the school board spent somewhere to the tune of $130,000 as we spent practically nothing our mission was to educate the voters on the many issues concerning this referendum on that note I think we did a pretty
damn good job there are many reasons for the referendum's defeat but one sticks out more than other deceit information that should have been readily available to the public was subverted intentionally to try to throw
this election in the board's favor that information indeed when made available from the New Jersey Department of Education explained everything and why they did not want the public to have this information the cost estimates received really did turn the referendum
against you in the end it was shocking that you could not muster enough support to squeak through proposition one on the referendum since you touted it is a no tax increase to the tax paays but even that was an utter lie and the public
could see through it an informed Med educated citizenry is Paramount to make decisions of this magnitude all of that information should have been made readily available on the school district's website just like Lawrence Township School District did there's no
excuses it's totally unacceptable we all know what you did and there are consequences for your actions because of this deceit and this is said with all due respect board president Kim Claus and Mr skip Peters need to step down
from this board if you have any sense of decency or dignity I beseech you to do the right thing and resign I don't see any path forward for the two of you to continue you deceived the public and you have lost all credibility I hope you do
the right thing because if you do not resign we will probably be forced to go to the Attorney General's office and file an election interference case against the board because that was exactly what this was all about it was election interference on another note you also
broke your own social your own policies concerning answering public questions on social media sites both Miss Claus and Mr Peters did so and Mr Peters made disparaging remarks concerning citizens in this town when he called them a few
bad apples yes indeed Mr Peters you are right there are a few bad apples in this town and some of them are sitting on this board and since certain members of this board do not follow their own policies how could anyone expect the
employees to it is imperative at this juncture for the Board of Education to appoint a highly qualified individual as superintendent to turn this District around any thought of appointing a
sitting employee to this post would be absolutely ludicrous a thorough cleansing is necessary to conduct the reforms needed to not only restore public confidence in this board but to manage the school district on a day-to-day basis public confidence has
been destroyed When government works in the dark nothing ever good comes out of it our schools face many issues ahead but major change needs to happen and it needs to start happening now with this current Board of Education on a final
note this peric Victory is as much a victory for those struggling families and individuals who are barely surviving who feel they do not have a voice I for one will never forget you and your plight
and to my Lacy Freedom parents group formed during covid this is as much a victory for all of you as it is for all the citizens of lacy Township thank you very much anyone else for public comment [Applause]
okay Ron I'm G to have you go um oh you go ahead y hello everyone my name is Morgan charina Sullivan um I live on taen Street in Lacy and I am a lacy resident I have um three children one that
graduated the Lacy Township um High School a middle school student and a Cedar Creek Elementary student I first just wanted to start off by saying it's very hard I'm sure it's hard for you all it's also very hard for
us to come here and speak and sit and listen our hearts are pounding I'm sure your hearts are pounding um it's never easy I also wanted to say this whole referendum thing it made me
sick to my stomach because I didn't know what to choose I obviously don't want my next year my son who's going into High School in a high school with rain buckets like my daughter just
went through um but on the other hand this is going to sound really harsh and I totally apologize in advance but on the other hand I also feel like it is what our amazing new president Trump did and there needs to be a thorough
cleansing on the board like he did and um it's going to get worse before it gets better when that happens but the quick answer is oh you know more tax money make them pay more make them pay more we've paid enough and I don't want my child my children to continue to be
in the schools that they're in Cedar Creek hands down the best school and I will say that until the cows come home Cedar Creek is amazing it truly is a blessing from God milpond was hell on
Earth for those children um the middle school no better there's police there more than there's not high school children are taking their lives left and right I mean we got to get it together we got to do better for these kids um as far as Transportation I'm I I
immediately thought of the Middle School my son is a football player in grd on IR there is no transportation for that football team for grd iron they can't transition to a middle school football team because we can't afford transportation for these kids to play
football that breaks my heart for my son these kids deserve better um thank you thank you anyone else for a public comment okay I'm going to start with the second comment so Ron no
you sure okay Regina you're the last one oh you want to go again oh wait uh go ahead you can go uh just a couple more things um one thing the gentleman did mention uh I did have actually in my notes I didn't get to that point uh I also agree that I
think there should be some type of a resident committee that is connected to the board on some of this stuff um I I don't know how we come about we talked actually before you came in I guess if you were late um that was a suggestion that the committee is going to meet and
reach out to the community all right awesome that that's great I know this isn't back and forth but were you aware that we did um open com open questions and answers every month um at 5 o' before the board meeting about the
referendum just did you were you aware so we had hourly meetings and will presented the um referendum and then it was open to to the public for questions and it went on for a good hour hour and a half I guess uh every month so the information was there I guess what we
need to look at is why you guys aren't seeing that how you didn't get the notice it's on the website um it was it's available um but like you're saying you weren't involved um it was an opportunity for you to come in it was full I mean we had about 75 people each
time I guess um so some people did see that I don't know why you didn't see that so I I wish I did yeah when I learned about the referendum yeah that's when you learned about me so I yeah that's so it's been going on I guess since August September um it's
been open to the public for a conversation so we'll work on the communication to get that out um to the public even better we'll we'll do our best but we don't post on uh you know Facebook they do on the um our school page so so if someone doesn't share it
if you're not on it you might not see it so just go to the uh website a little bit more okay okay thank you all right and then I just would like I guess to re-echo um I agree with Mr bidnick
what he said uh we we we can't have an existing hire as the new superintendent it just can't happen no the people of this town don't want it there's too many things that have been going wrong you're hearing from parents here mil Pond I mean I I've heard the mil Pond stories
since our kids were in went to mil Pond you know they hated it the Middle School how this gentleman said with the the way it's broken down like a prison with the times everything maybe this is the stuff we need to look at you know maybe this is where some changes could be done that
can actually have a positive impact on the kids I I have said this before and I'll say it again the education system in a town is its life Bud if the education system fails the town fails it's that simple you get more crime you get more drugs you get more everything
so we have to do something to fix what's going on Beyond just repairs and Replacements but also bettering the actual education system that we have here and let then we figure out how to do these repairs we figure out what's a necessity as you said the third question
was a real problem for a lot of people as you could see I think it was like a 7030 split on that boat that that's a landslide all right nobody wants it nobody wants that stuff it shouldn't even come back up again let's talk about the first two questions let's figure out ways to do it whether it's a referendum
whether it's peac mailing it as you guys mentioned in that 28th meeting with small loans per small period stuff like that let's figure it out let's get more people involved transparency is the big one no lies no deceit no holding
information back cuz that's what you did I there's really no way around that you you guys held back information if another town can give it you could have gave it too there's really no discussion there so moving forward I you know I
thank everybody for their time I thank everybody that came out here uh and I do hope that we can get some good conversations going and we can work together as a town I I'm not going to lie I tend to agree with Mr bidnick and
the the woman that just came up what she said about cleaning things out she's right you know I I I don't hide who I am in the slightest bit okay I think everybody knows that we need to clean some stuff out if if if you I I think Mr
zalinsky actually said this you know if you were to lose your job or your business started making 15 to 20% less per year are are you going to keep spending the same or you going to adjust your budget now I know you have adjusted
the budget clearly it's not enough got to find other ways cut administrators manage managers talk to the what things have to change it's not sustainable anymore and yes I know that's not your fault I will say that in front of all these people that's not your fault that's Governor Murphy's
fault so I would encourage you to come to the next budget meeting give us your input okay great thanks it'll be posted on the website again thank you lat okay Regina last one it's at 6 o' it's got to be held later 6 o'
what Regina descends the Sunset Drive Sunrise Beach um I do want to say thank you to the 5,599 people that voted on Tuesday March 11th to voice their opinion on the district's request for a $92 million
Bond referendum thankfully many people 2,899 saw through the smoking mirrors and voted against this huge referendum that never really gave the tax paying public the full story about the 19 projects that were buried within the 92
million they were not all necessities and as others have said there were too many Frills added to this referendum like question three the turf fields being one of the main and major Frills I made an open public records request to the district on January 30th
one day after the January 29th information session meeting I was refused the request I had expected much more financial data to be shared with the public at that meeting on January 29th and it wasn't we got more information from darara Rabino on the
solar project all we got was a bunch of photos showing the extreme neglect of Maintenance no one would let their home get into the state of disrepair that the district had the audacity to show us at that meeting so I sent an oppra to the
New Jersey Department of Education and they gave me all of the information I requested some months ago I made mention to the business administrator about some of the issues that were shown in a report that was done by the architect last year and I asked why simple repairs were not done
she told me the maintenance staff was now reduced to only three people and they can't keep up with the basic maintenance of six buildings seven if you include the district office I was a guest and Mr bidnick has mentioned this before these are our public buildings
they deserve proper care and maintenance 10 years ago when I was first elected to the school board in 2015 I heard large projects being put off and the word referendum was mentioned I said I will fight any new referendum because of the
lies perpetuated in 2008 and 2009 during the solar project referendum so I made good on my promise in 2025 solar was supposed to be at no cost to the taxpayers where have I heard that line before four the taxpayers are stuck
making nearly the full Bond payment because the srex tanked only a few years after the project completion and we're still paying till 2029 with the over bonding of $8.2 million we the taxpayers are still stuck
with the 3.5 million in interest on that one issue alone with a 33-year veteran board member this makes this mistake should not be repeated and I feel this March 11th referendum was just a solar project in high gear
the thing that was most cited to me by members of the public was the overall price tag when people heard 92 million they were like no dice even the least knowledgeable person thought it was just too much money to ask for in one Fell
Swoop this Lacy District needs a very knowledgeable money manager as its next superintendent the budget presentation I found it to be very scary it looks like the district's on a cliff to bankruptcy in my opinion and a combination of
factors have led up to this point why do you all think Vanessa left there was no solution no easy solution thank you okay I'm going to close a public comment we're now going to move on to uh board committee reports we did not have policy
this month um let's start with Finance with Mr Cony please thank you uh Tuesday February 25th he had a uh hget meeting and actually uh Wednesday the 5th of March
is well uh myself his CLA Mr Peters Mr zinsky ssby any things that were discussed was the 2526 uh budget um the meeting on the 25th is
over at 5 5:30 and the meeting on March 5th was over 5:35 um and then Wednesday March 12th
uh Finance P again at quarter to 7 at night um H his Claus Mr Peters Mr zinsky his Ormsby um got an update on a preap project
um at n Pond that project is complete um on some final paperwork and that would be totally done we did receive oh even better
um referendum update um had a discussion on the direction on where we go from here uh noow for the paint project here at the high school um
they were supposed to be out here at the beginning of March they uh postponed um the committee suggested that uh the district reach out to what the hord attorney to send a
letter over to them uh the boiler In The West Wing um at the high school uh the hat to replace a um burner tube in it um I believe they were
working on that uh talked about the inverter at the hill pond school um for the solar panels has been down since approximately July of 24 um he were waiting on the referendum to see
how we would uh move on with that um he discussed the facility use fees um had a discussion primarily in
uh regards to Priority D users um which is how side of uh District uh people um and suggested to raise them mon by
20% uh for discussion on the 2526 budget um had a discussion in regards to the Health penefit Plan um and the plan that will be subject to what tonight's uh
resolution uh he update on the superintendent search um and then in regards to safety and security um the district along with the
police department um held a TBL top exercise in February and on March in regards to a uh cast week and a uh has
casualty event um discuss the husa facilities professional development um the 2425 calendar revision and the Green School
calendar and that meeting was over at 7:30 at night and then how is that good thank you very much all right we'll move on to curriculum with Miss Walker please sure um curriculum met on March 10th in
attendance with Mr Amad Mrs lato myself um Mr zinski Mrs Amos and Mr D both District supervisors um Mr zinski previewed for us we saw the prek slideshow that he presented tonight to
prospective PR parents and Guardians um on March 24th it's the preschool registration so if you're going to register your child from preschool get up early and get on that computer right away correct 10 o' 10 a.m. 10 a.m.
um Mr Mrs Amos and Mr Dow continue the discussion of the replacement of outdated materials that need to be budgeted for the 2526 budget cycle this includes K through 8 uh reading replacement materials and high school
math materials and of course that all uh is dependent on the budget uh Mrs Amos highlighted the need to continue to look for a replacement Reading Program from Learners that have not achieved the reading benchmarks with their peers this is a largely special
education program however some regular education Learners will need to enter a reading Intervention Program as well Mr Dow spoke of the work that his committee is doing to develop an artificial intelligence policy for the district to
include a list of AI tools that will be for uh that will be for approval used by for the district and lastly Mr zinsky talked about the update on the quote building men program at the middle school that involves about 60 young men every month
and the Allin program at the high school that involves about 15 young women twice a month and both of these programs are geared to provide the participants with social skills among other things to Aid in their young development as
adults um and then we briefly talked about um replacements for staff for next year and that was it thank you was a short meeting okay great uh Mr Peters do you have anything on the referendum yes I do thank you president Claus uh
obviously it didn't pass and uh I would like to apologize to the students to the teachers that are in these schools I to read some numbers out to you this is just from Sunday night storm Lacy Township High School 22
stained tiles and leaks throughout the school Lacy T Middle School four stained tile and leaks throughout the schools milpond School nine stains and leaks throughout the schools Lal Harbor school one leak in
the school forkin River School 21 stained tile and leaks throughout the school Cedar Creek School 35 stains and damp tiles throughout the school from Sunday night storm I apologize as chairperson as a
referendum that's not passing I also apologize for uh some of the comments on Facebook but Tom and I actually uh met and we uh we worked it out and shook hands and realized that where we're at in our faults um and uh we just going to have to keep our head up and move
forward and I'm not going anywhere uh I'm going to keep my head up like a leant I graduated here 40 years ago and I was taught head up move forward and that's what we're going to do we're going to try and make these schools as safe as possible even though all the budget cuts that we're having uh my intentions are the structural Integrity
of the schools what happens every time moisture is it's a building and it's not taken care of right away every time it happens let's talk referend about question number three one of the board members recommended the tur
fields for to bring in Jey Revenue it was a great I felt and I agreed with them okay it was a great thing to do we do not generate any Revenue in this District whatsoever we talked about advertising on buses we talked to times of about
that and what they did but what our own goal was with that tur field was to je uh to uh I'm sorry generate thank you generate Revenue you know to come in there was five different fields included with that it was uh girls uh softball I
think it was boys baseball field hockey field hockey soccer I think and Lacrosse where we could have had events all year long with lights out there to generate revenue for tournaments a majority of our athletes that travel
and play on other fields play on what turf fields and they're not used to that and we were just trying to keep up with somebody other the school districts and have turf fields which is minimum maintenance what you put it
down the state was paying for 40% of that and with that aspect from there we were going to try and generate revenue from it the buildings are no longer the every roof is out of warranty right now every
roof if we have a leak in a roof we have to bring in a contractor or attempt to patch it oursel when we bring contractors to the high school to say sorry we can't do anything for you we can't patch it anymore and 40% of that bill was going to be covered by the state of New
Jersey so we're going to have to regroup HT figure it out it's got to be done we're going to have to pay 100% of it now thank you thank you okay um Mr zinsky do you have anything else you want to add or have you uh just the last thing um we've talked about a little bit miss
con's here as well um through the hard work of our high school administration I know Mr King is still here um we uh were able to uh secure some of the contractors that we had to make high school graduation will stay on Thursday June 19th uh the Middle School promotion will move uh that will be on Monday the
23rd because we are approving a new calendar tonight because we have to extend our school year by a couple of days due to our snow days um so that's uh kind of the announcement um be relieved and we'll we'll put that on the website in the next day or two so thank you Mr King that was a lot of hard work
today to get that done as well uh to make sure that we could secure uh the right things we need for that date thank you anything else that's it okay now we're going to board member comments we'll start with Mrs Walker please I just very quickly I just want to congratulate our students of the month
I'm Sun hero um and uh listening to everybody talking tonight uh the suggestions that you gave about more communication and getting together um we've been talking about that and it it's definitely hurt us and
we need to do that so I wrote down everybody's comments so that we can uh get back if we go back to square one we have all these notes that all of you very nicely gave us so thank you that's all thank you MH um Mr armato um yeah I
have a few comments um first of all congratulations to our seniors tonight I was impressed by every one of the seniors tonight Bute especially impressed with the filmmaker Diego uh my heart went out to him as he was sitting alone to accept his recognition I'm sure
his mom and dad are very proud of him for his recognition and for his list of accomplishments just a very special group of seniors tonight and if you get a chance please try to go see Diego's movie crumbs I don't know if it's on YouTube or but I'm sure with the power of Google and you type in crumbs and you
type in his name you can find a movie um I'm blessed I've always had my mom and dad around and when I saw Diego sitting there tonight he reminded me of of what um overcoming things that you can't
control and to me he reminded me I could be better and with the referendum um I think we did do a poor job in in executing the referendum and creating time frames where everyone
could be present I didn't think five o'cl was a good time to have a a meeting when people are still sitting in their cars trying to get home from work now yes we have to we put the onus on them as well and say well we have it videotaped that's great but I would like
to say looking around the room that maybe 90% of us have a life when we get home from work and sometimes that doesn't allow us to go look at a board meeting on videotape when you have one kid grabbing you to help me with this and another one asking you to take you there and there so we have to do a
better job of getting the message out I was a huge advocate for the turf field I was a huge advocate for the new basketball floor all in the hopes of driving Revenue back to this District
now was it a 7 million doll idea no it wasn't it wasn't a $7 million idea but it was an idea having being an Athletics all my life and having my own aaou teams and knowing the cost just to enter one of these tournaments sometimes in at the
at the rate of $2,500 just to put a team in to play for a weekend so when I saw the opportunity to do it I said you know maybe we can drive some Revenue back to the school and and start bringing some things back little by little incrementally as they say in the business World incremental growth is
better than no growth at all as for the committee chair Mr Peters although he liked my ideas he was especially just all about one okay I'm going to give him credit for that he just wanted the school to be fixed he wanted new roofs new HVAC he
wanted to eliminate the the leaks and and and just make it this is going to sound corny make it smell better in a school when it's raining he was all about reducing energy bills by getting better I I'm going to see he'll get mad at me
if I don't say this the right way he's taught me a lot RF uh what is it rf30 we were going to move up to we have r15s in the roofs now with the new roofs the state requires R30 insulation and I got to learn about how that reduces energy cost so Mr
Peters was really all about question one he gives me credit for for wanting to add the the turf field and the basketball B court but those were the small things this referendum was going to do to bring back Revenue to the
school I think we could do a better job of being more transparent I think we can time this better and I and I think we can get this out into the public in this world of social media and Google and this and that that no one misses a
meeting because they didn't know we have many Avenues to get the word out to our community and uh you know like Mr Peters said it's it's back to the drawing board and see what we could do to stop the leaks and get the air a little cleaner
in here and you know the mold and all that other stuff fixed and you know I'll give credit to Mr bidnick he he shared some ideas with me on some programs out there that do turf fields a as a grant and or as a a free cost um there's some
work that needs to be done so I'll bring that up at the next committee meeting uh to to uh to Mr Peters let him know how we could go about doing that so there was ideas that came at of us that can benefit us all
and I think uh you said it best you know at the end what's the win loss the win is we got some good ideas the loss is we learned a lesson on how to better communicate moving forward so it didn't go this time around but um
you know we learned some things and and that's huge and you know put our head down keep our numbers up and move forward that's it for me thank you Mr Bell do you have any comments just briefly um one of the things I like about it is that we watched the system
work um the board didn't want to make a decision on that much money so we put it out to the public and the decision was made um that's one of the great things about our American System uh is we let the people vote uh and so I'm thankful
that people came out and voted um I'm not totally upset at the outcome um but I am thankful that there's been communication uh and we've got some guys that have come and given some ideas uh when I first started attending board meetings it was mostly and nothing
against women but it was mostly mothers and grandmothers um I'm glad that some men have decided uh they need to get involved and I know it's not easy we all got things going on uh but uh I appreciate watching the system work and I look forward to uh continuing to serve
thank you Miss armano yes um first I like to thank this board um today we all work together and we got the graduation date changed back to the 19th and I know that means a lot to a lot of families so thank each and every one of you for that and thank you Mr zalinsky for making it
happen um in regards to the referendum I want to thank everybody regardless of how you voted for coming out it was a tough decision for a lot of people um I listened I took notes on what everyone said tonight some of the things I heard
which resonate with me we as a board voted I voted no but last year this board voted to increase taxes 99.9% many families are struggling we all want our schools to have new roofs to have AC to have tur Fields um to be
the best but P people can't even afford their bills and I read some comments online people can't even pay their electric bills let alone get a tax increase so it's really challenging because on one hand we need schools improved and on the other hand people can't even afford to pay their own bills
um our taxes are going up this year 3.1% if that would have went through it would have went up more so I feel for everybody because we're we're all on a tight ship so hopefully the economy will get better for all of us um but I want to thank you all for coming out regardless of how you voted and I just
wish we'd all be a little kinder to one another online we're all neb neighb we all sit here we all see each other in shoppr Walmart remember that when you're typing things online you're going to see these people so before you write something really nasty to somebody just remember if you were standing in front of them would you really want to say
that to their face we should be a little more Kinder we teach our kids not to bully some of the people that wrote comments you'd be the first ones if your child was talked to that way to come up here and say they have to be hi or suspended we're bullying other adults so
I would really hope that the public would think about that next time we we come together because we're ripping each other apart this is not to rip the town apart we need to come together so just food for thought on that one I want to congratulate all the seniors and um
that's pretty much it thank you thank you um Mr Peters do you have anything else congratulations to the students I'm very impressed looking forward to looking up crumbs and seeing what that's all about uh I'm not going any anyway Mr B thank
you for your comment I appreciate it but I'm here for the fight I'm second ad I'm here for students so um I just have some things that were said during public comment that just baffles me um you have people saying that they were upset about the referendum not passing KN condition of schools but then they're saying they
paid for the signs so I just I just don't get that that doesn't make sense to me that's not working out um Miss orens we thank you so much for the presentation I appreciate that and yes we did lose $14 million over seven years
what was our total staff Cuts M orange you know what was it one 150 yeah in how many years in seven years seven years we lost $14 million correct and um we lost
150 students staff staff I'm sorry staff uh and our student went up a little bit our our ratio went up a little bit but um you know people are questioning why aren't the buildings maintained why because yes do we have to cut a maintenance person yes because we didn't
want 50 kids in a classroom that's why we didn't want 45 kids in a classroom with the teachers so you say hey can we get by and handle the buildings as they are correct and cut one meance guy or do we put 40 cut two teachers and
put 40 45 kids in the classroom and and and make it a safety issue so that's it for my comments thank you thank you Mr conned uh pretty much everything's already been hit but uh congratulations to what seniors thanks
for coming out to vote um when we go through the resolutions and everything tonight keep in mind that this is a tenative budget that we're going to be uh voting on it is not the final um
there's still H to be done to uh close that the Gap um his arms be his zinski uh the managers and everybody else thank you for uh the time and everything you guys have put in to a
date and I believe we have had another 40 Days to finalize it and then we go from there um on a brighter note if you haven't already got your tickets uh March 27 28
29 and 30th at the high school is uh the musical uh T Adams Family um those kids at the school six t a week um till
about late 6 at night um so H your tickets Thursday the 27th 28th 29th that all starts at 7:00 and then Sunday
the 30th it starts at 2:00 tickets even like 8 or9 a piece it's so that's it thank you so I I said a lot in the beginning uh before the meeting
started um but uh Miss armato actually said it perfectly um you know we do need to be kind to each other social media is so easy um to just spark a negative comment um it's just not right I think as a community like she said we need to come together and be the bigger person
um I wasn't going to bring up the video but I will because it was brought up in public comment um I did say we need to raise the taxes because we needed to we wanted to save 25 teachers last year um the the video didn't mention that that it was about uh saving the teachers
after we already lost 125 or so so yeah we all did it was the majority and I don't know if everybody realizes this but one person does not make the decision on the board the majority does so I can be singled out that's that's fine whatever if you want to take it out on me I'm the board president but there
was uh two community members that came up and spoke that were clipped in that video that had nothing to do with the referendum so play fair um don't do things like that it's just not right uh for our community um again like Miss armado said it is tearing us apart and
it doesn't have to be that way we all care about the kids we all care about our neighbors um we're doing the best we can um again we're all volunteer here and um you know we followed the process as best we knew how so we didn't succeed but we're
going to try again um the kids deserve it deserve a better place to come to school I think we all realized that um so moving forward um you know please look on the website for ways to get involved with the school it's uh that's our communication line so please do that
we do make announcements here if you want to watch the board meetings some people don't do that either um but we'll do our best but if you guys need to do your best as well okay that's all I have to say all right we're moving on to um new
business ready okay um A1 page two can I have a motion please motion can I have a second second roll call please Mr armato yes Mr Peters yes yes Mr Bell yes but I need to recuse myself on
A1 uh special meeting uh executive session 3625 thank you uh Mrs armado yes Mrs Walker okay I'm G to recuse myself from February 25th and March 6 um the
executive session had to do with superint superintendent search and I am uh conflicted for that I cannot participate so I could not attend those meetings and yes for the other two thank you Mr conned yes with the same recusals
for the 25th of February and the sixth of March for the exact same reasons thank you Mrs CLA yes uh page two list of bills A2 can I have a motion motion second roll call
please Mr armato yes Mr Peters yes I need recruits myself from A2 21121 please thank you Mr Bell yes Mrs armato yes Mrs Walker uh I'm just checking give me a minute yes uh Mr comedy yes but I
need to recuse myself on my employer 289 299 and 28330 thank you and Mrs Claus yes page two A3 uh to four transfers can I have a motion please motion second roll call
please Mr armato yes Mr Peters yes Mr B yes Mrs armado yes Mrs Walker yes Mr conedy yes Mrs Claus yes thank you page 3 to7 uh finance and Facilities uh page 85 to 814 please all right we have
um two addendums here on number 12 uh we added adjustment to health care cost uh for the tenative budget be it resolved that the Lacy Township Board of Education includes in the tenative tenative budget adjustment for increased cost of health benefits in the amount of 1 million 428 884 the additional funds
will be used to pay the additional increases in the health benefit premiums and then on number 14 um the addendum shows um one two three four five additional um use of facilities can I have a motion please
I'll move as amended second roll call please Mr armado yes Mr Peters yes but I also like to thank um the grant fund for raising the $85,000 for the tutoring program for the
third and fourth graders thank you I appreciate it yes Mr Bell yes Mrs armado yes Mrs Walker yes Mr conned yes and Mrs Claus yes but I need to recuse myself for A14
uh Lacy grid iron football thank you page seven and8 a15 to a16 student tuition and transportation can I have a motion please I'll move second roll call please Mr armado yes Mr Peters yes Mr
Bell yes Mrs armad yes Mrs Walker yes Mr conned yes and Mrs CL yes page 8 a17 to a21 can I have a motion please motion Peters second please second roll
call Mr armato yes Mr Peters yes Mr Bell yes Mrs armato yes Mrs Walker yes Mr conned yes and Mrs Claus yes uh page 8 a22 policies and regulations can I have
a motion please motion second roll call please uh Mr armato yes Mr Peters yes Mr Bell yes Mrs armado yes Mrs Walker yes Mr conned yes and Mrs GL yes page 8 a23
to a24 hibs can I have a motion please move second roll call please Mr armado yes Mr Peters yes Mr Bell yes Mrs armado yes Mrs Walker yes Mr conned yes Mrs Claus yes page nine
donations we have a really big one tonight I think it's $10,000 from Lacy carpet whol carpet Wholesale Carpet can I comment on that President Claus yes they also offered to uh help us out and install that company oh nice not only donate but they offered uh it's a union
company and they have to pick at the line and they volunteer their days rather if they do volunteer their work uh than pick it they'll install also so they're going to try and help us out with that was a great donation thank you for that that was part of the uh Roman ASI family okay thank you can I have a
motion please motion second roll call Mr armato thanks uh romanoski family that was huge yes Mr Peters yes and thank you for everyone for thr Mr Bell yes and thank
you for the donations uh Mrs armado yes and thank you for the donations as well Mrs Walker yes and I agree thank you for everything here Mr conned yes and thank you Mrs Claus yes page nine professional days and workshop travel can I have a
motion motion Peters second roll call Mr armado yes Mr Peters yes Mr Bell yes Mrs armado yes Mrs Claus yes I'm sorry Mr Mrs Walker yes sorry Mr conned
yes Mrs Claus yes thank you page 9 through2 D1 to D12 a certificated Personnel can I have a motion please motion second second roll call Mr
armado yes Mr Peters yes Mr Bell yes Mrs armato yes Mrs Walker yes Mr conedy yes Mrs Claus yes page 13 to 15 E1 to E7 non-certificated personnel and we do have an addendum y we have addendum on
this one as well um Mrs Del Rio is there is a change of dates and then there was a removal of Mr cian okay can I have a roll call please um motion motion Peters second please Mo can roll call Mr
Amato yes Mr Peters yes Mr Bell yes Mrs armado yes Mrs Walker yes yes Mr conedy yes Mrs Claus yes uh walk on resolution one RFP for labor negotiator um
okay so I'm not going to read the whole thing it's long you guys can look at it online but we had um two people put in for um labor negotiator padulla Law Firm Machado Law Group um the award is going to the padulla law
firm uh at 165 an hour um so we take a motion for that motion second roll call please all right Mr armato yes Mr Peters yes Mr Bell yes Mrs rato yes Mrs Walker
yes Mr conedy yes Mrs Claus yes we have another walk- on tonight resolution number two RFP 25 uh d06 land surveyor all right same thing um we took four
um quotes uh rfps for land surveyor uh Cami Associates Collier engineering horn Tyson and Yoder and Owen little and Associates uh the low bidder was 77,604 Mrs armado yes Mrs Walker yes Mr
conned yes and Mrs Claus yes right we are going to go into a executive session again to discuss uh Personnel matters uh the subject matter of these discussions will be disclosed to the public when the reason for confidentiality subsides the length of this executive session is
estimated to be approximately 45 minutes 45 minutes um we will proceed at around 9:45 um action will not be taken after this executive session motion motion
Peters second I'll second all in favor I I you come back just to close the meeting yeah right go back to close the meeting when we're done just sure everybody knows that's all