1. I'll call the the meeting of the Leon Board of Education to order. Um, adequate notice of tonight's meeting has been provided in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act by the following methods. Through distribution of notice to the record, posting of agenda on the school district website, and through Parent Square. If you could
please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Okay, Dr. Nissanov, can we have a roll call, please? >> Miss Troy, >> here. >> Mr. Growl, >> here. >> Dr. Meester, >> here. >> Miss Melman, >> here.
>> Mr. Park, Miss Robana, Mr. Zepka, >> Mr. Seagal >> here, >> uh, Vice President Thompson >> here, >> President Lee >> here,
>> Senior Student Rep. Archo >> here, >> Junior Student Rep. Mayor Pal Mary >> here. >> Okay. Thank you. I understand Mr. Zucker will be a few minutes late as well as our board attorney. Um, okay. That brings us to item 1.3,
public presentations, we believe Dr. Turn this off. Hello. Okay. All right. Today we will tonight we'll be presenting the budget for the 2627 school year. Uh it's the tenative budget
but this is you know what we're looking at for next year. All right. And I will so I know normally it's usually the BA that presents but we're taking a different approach this year. Uh I will start us off and then Dr. Nisnoff will take over when we get
really into the numbers. Okay. All right. So um you know the mission of uh of the of our district of uh what we do here in Leonia is to really inspire the individual talents and the foster the educ and foster and educate citizens to think clearly critically and
creatively. So, you know, we we have a a long mission statement, but when you really think about and uh really look into what our mission statement means, it comes down to this. Really inspiring each individual child to do and be who they can be and who they want to be. Um,
and giving them opportunities to think clearly, critically, and creatively. And that's the driving force behind everything we do here. So to get us started uh first to go over our schools, we have uh three school
buildings and then two additional buildings. Uh first we have ACS Elementary School. It's a prek to 4 building which is where we are here. Uh we have LMS Leona Middle School which is a 5 to8 building. Leona High School houses our grades 9 to 12. And then on
the Leona High School property, we also have uh an additional lot uh which is our annex building and that is our special education building. Um we have some speech classes that go there. Uh some students in speech classes and our child study team is there. And then we
also have on 570 Grand Avenue is our board office. So that's where our central office is, that's where my office is, u Mr. Kogin's office is, the business office, Dr. Nissenoff and the and the business staff. And that's that's our and then we also have the Latin next to it, but those are all of
our properties here in Leonia. Our programs. So, we are fortunate to have a variety of programs that we offer here in Leonia. Um, from all types of learning experiences uh from remedial supports, we have a strong education. We
have a strong special education uh program across K12. Uh our multilingual program as you see when we do the access scores is improving every year. Uh and as we uh expand that program uh this year we focused a lot on gifted education uh and expanding our gifted
education program and offerings and the instruction we provide. And then we also have our uh strong portfolio and AP classes. And then we also uh have themies at Leon High School. So we have a variety of themmies starting in put
them in alphabetical order here. uh our Academy of Vocations and Trades, our culinary arts and hospitality, our humanities academy, our marketing and business leadership academy, music and arts conservatory, and our STEM academy. So, we have the opportunity to offer all
of these different pathways for kids. And in addition to all the academics, we also offer a lot of extracurricular opportunities for our kids, including uh 23 different uh uh athletic programs for our high school, an additional 10 for
our middle school. Um all are uh part of the NJIC program uh NJIC um organization. We have over 700 student athletes in our buildings and over 50 co-curricular clubs that we offer our kids across
middle school and high school. Now for our students, so our students, our enrollment has changed. You'll see if you look at the chart here, you'll see enrollment over the past 10 years. So back in 2016, we were at a little under 1,800.
And since then we've gone up to 2100, over 2100, and now we are kind of leveling back down. Uh we are a little under 2,000. We're at like 1980, 1990. Um
for this school at this point in the school year. Uh but our what we've seen over the past few years during COVID, we skyrocketed up a bit and now we're starting to come down, but we are seeing to it to start level off a bit. and we're seeing less of that um big
drop off and then big uh influx in now. So this chart shows our Leonia resident students. So these are the students that live in Leonia. So if our enrollment is around 2,000 for our total
school enrollment, uh this chart is a 10-year look back and and forward of our Leona resident enrollment. So if you look over the years, similar to how our total enrollment we increased over time um we were up to the highest point we
were we were between around 1,600 um and then now we've started to drop down with the biggest gap being from last year from projected from this year to next year. And that's a projection that we're looking at. Um that projection is based
on our uh enrollments coming in, our pre-K enrollment, our graduating class leaving. All of those factors we take into account when we project out our enrollment. And then we have Edgewater. So our Edgewater residents, as we know, are part of our uh our school enrollment in
grades 7 to 12. So this is only Edgewater enrollment from grades 7 to 12. So you'll see again lower numbers in 2016 and then as we've gone through the years there's been a there's been an increase on their end as well. Um and then you know they've gone they've had
their ups and downs in terms of their enrollment. Um but they're they're projected to be a little bit less next year than they currently are. So basically to tell us that our enrollment is going down in both Leonia
and Edgewater. Okay. So um you know now the past year we've done a lot of work the past few years we've done a lot of work around our strategic plan and whenever we look at our budget and like look at what we're spending and our accounts and uh what what we're planning to do in the
future we always come back to the strategic plan. So before getting into next year's budget, um we're going to show you what we've done this year in terms of some of the goals and the uh objectives that we've had in our strategic plan and then what we plan to do uh with our projects and everything
moving forward and how that all aligns back to these five goals that we've developed over last year and that we've started working on this year. So in 2526, so this school year, we've been very busy this school year.
We've done a lot of work around evaluating our programs. Uh specifically looking at our special education programs, uh what we offer in our preK to 12 um in our different schools at different grade levels, what types of special education programs we provide,
as well as our gifted and talented. Um we've done a lot of work as the board knows. Last year we did an audit uh for our gifted and talented work and then this year we spent some time around professional development um and implementing and planning for the future of our professional of our gifted and
talented programs. We've also invested a lot of time and funding in professional development and staff growth which aligns to that teacher retention goal supporting our staff making making sure that our staff feel prepared and ready to teach the kids in front of them.
This year we implemented additional mental health supports. So we've added uh clinicians at the middle school and high school this year uh that work with our students at level uh tier 2 and tier three uh mental health supports. And uh that's been a a big help for us and for
the schools to be able to have access to those resources for our students uh in our schools. And we've also been spending a lot of time thinking about the plans for the future. you know, thinking about the next 5 years and it's not, you know, we we there's a lot we want to do and a lot
we want to accomplish, but you know, we can we can't move a mountain overnight, right? So, we've spent a lot of time projecting out what the next 5 years looks like for us in terms of um not only uh what we're going to do, but how we're going to do it, right? A lot of talk around teaching and learning. a lot
of conversation that we've been having around digital learning and what digital learning looks like and our the philosophy that we have and that we will develop as a district around digital learning. This past year we deployed seven of our EV buses that arrived in April. We've got them all out on the road this year.
Uh we also completed the installation of our EV chargers. So we have seven buses and seven chargers that we are using. Uh we also finished the renovations to the media center. We had some renovations to the art room. We added sinks in the art
room. Um we um uh fixed the weight room. We um added a hallway into the weight room so you didn't have to go around the wrestling room to get to the weight room. Um and we made some modifications to our evergreen wing. We also did a lot of work with our
sustainability goals. Um we this year we are applying for uh our reertification for our for our green team. Um, so we've been doing a lot of work around our the sustainability goals that we have in collaboration with the environmental commission and the bureau and we've done
a lot of upgrades to our communication to our district website to our registration. Um, we've added um we've completely revamped our website. We've added a chatbot to our website to help families to answer questions that parent parents might have. We also have been um
sending out newsletters more frequently, sharing out trying the goal is to communicate more and to share out what exactly goes on in our buildings every day. Um so that communication uh has been an ongoing thing that we've been working and improving on. Told you we've done a lot this year. Uh
we also have been working on our interior and exterior door replacement. So the door replacement is almost done. We are at the final stages of the door replacement. Um we and this is all through insurance recovery. Uh we also pending you notice the pending there. We
are still pending the science wing. Uh we talked about this last time how much we can't wait to get that science wing open. Um but those are more projects that we've been working on. And one of uh one of the one of the best I one of my favorite things that we've done this
year is strengthen the relationship between Edgewater and Leonia. And that includes um having more conversations with the administrative team, having opportunities for collaboration, but also opportunities for our students to uh to engage. So, we sent earlier this
year, we sent um our uh high school band, orchestra, and chorus over to EVG and GW to perform for their classes there. And it was a great opportunity, especially for the students that live in Edgewater, to be able to go back and have that experience.
Now, looking forward to 2026, while we've done a lot, we still have a lot to do. Uh one of the big things that we will be working on in goal one is our profile of a Leonia Lion and the vision for learning. So what is uh teaching and learning look like and what do we expect
our graduates to leave Leonia High School with? Uh we are looking at a public uh curriculum platform to provide more transparency uh in terms of what our curriculum what is available. We do have our curriculum public right now. It is public on our website, but um we're
looking for something to be more interactive for families, for families to be able and parents to be able to see exactly what courses they need over the K12 coherence. And one of the big conversations we've been having or we and we will be having is around digital learning. What's the
vision for digital learning and the plan for digital learning? What does it look like for students to be using technology in our classrooms? Um you know, really thinking about what what we want as a community. Um, we want our students to be ready for the future, but also keeping in mind that we still love that
hands-on approach. Uh, we're also, you know, this year we spent a lot of time evaluating our uh, special education programs um, and the the different academy programs that we have. So, really thinking about next year uh, planning out for indist
programs. So, what programs do we have to offer? what types of classes do we have available uh for students um to keep students within our community. Um we're also looking to expand our mental health services. So I had mentioned that we this year we implemented um mental health clinicians in two of our
buildings. We are looking to expand that into the third next year. Uh we are excited to build our alumni network and partnerships. um this will help us um expand and get people back involved into the community and into our
schools that will hopefully bring opportunities, additional opportunities for our students. Uh safety and security is a big conversation that we've been having. How does our how are our buildings set up and our infrastructure set up for safety and security? Um so we will continue to
look at that. that um that's something that came up in the ad hoc facilities committee that we had back in December. So when we start that back up, that conversation will continue. And along with safety and security, also prioritizing our facilities improvements, what exactly in our
buildings is important to start now and then what can we do over time and then one thing that we've been looking at and you know since Dr. Nino has started a few short weeks ago um additional revenue sources. So, where can we maybe leverage some of the things we have here
uh to be able to bring in funding for additional projects and additional opportunities for kids? And now I'll hand it off to Dr. Nissenoff. Okay. Well, um thank you. Thank you, uh uh Dr. Dr. Carmanos. Uh, let me just
start off by saying I I another thank you to several people, the administrative staff um here in in in the district. You know, I just showed up four weeks ago and uh but they've been working diligently on this budget since
since the fall and they've been very very supportive, very very helpful to me. Santi has been very very helpful. Uh uh um Eric T, your former business administrator, also tremendous resource.
Uh Mr. Teus from Edgewater, also very very supportive and uh helpful helpful as well. And not to mention the board office staff who have really been tremendous in putting this together. It's been a great experience for me in these first few weeks of being here in
Leona to dive straight into the budget. It's helped me get a great great understanding of all the operational uh uh pieces that are moving throughout the district. See all the people if not in person but on paper to know where uh everyone's working and all the positions
and then also get a good chance to see all the great things that are happening here in Leonia. So just following the presentation by the superintendent now let's talk about how we can keep all of those uh great things going into the future. So,
let's start off tonight. We're going to ask the board to approve a tentative budget. This is the motion that's in the agenda. Um, and we say tentative because by approving the budget this evening, this just enables me to prepare the
budget to submit to the state for their review. They may review and and offer u changes. we may decide that there are changes that are needed between now and May. So, this is truly a tenative budget. We like it to be the final
budget. It makes things easier for a lot of people, uh, my office staff and the county staff as well. Um, but if we need to change it for some reason or another, we may come back in May and discuss those discuss those changes.
So, we're going to talk a little bit about that. Um I also let me just uh before I get too deep into it um some of the feedback that I did receive was to have this presentation more at a um uh a broad
perspective and not get into very very specific. So, I think but what I really want to accomplish today is give a good explanation for some of the major impacts of of of this budget and where they're coming from. And let's just start uh with this first slide here
where we have a overall budget increase of over $2 million. And what I've listed here are really just four areas within that budget, none of which should be unfamiliar to anyone in this room. The first one is the increase in employee
benefits. That includes all the health benefits, uh, social security costs, pension costs, workers compensation costs, all of that. And you can see that that number has risen $1.3 million. Thankfully, the board re uh negotiated a
health benefit agreement outside of New Jersey state health benefits. Had they not done that, that number would be looking at over $2 million today. So even though we negotiated a fantastic health plan, it's still going up $1.3
million. The next biggest area is our increase in out of district tuition and that comprises our vocational students um and some of our neediest special needs students here in Leonia. uh that perhaps
the programs that we offer and we offer some great programs um but we can't meet the needs of uh some of those some of our really neediest children and what we've experienced over the last couple years is an increase of those
placements. The next is an increase in insurance and this is not health insurance. This is our property casualty liability insurance. We talked about some of the uh ins uh insurance recovery projects that were that were happening. So, as
you know, insurance premiums are a function of your claims and we know we haven't had a shortage of claims over the over the past several years. And so, we are uh anticipating an increase in insurance. And in the last item, it's
not a large increase, but it's sufficient. It should be no surprise that our utility cost should be increasing over the next year. What was going on with uh electric and gas prices and things of that sort. But I stopped I'm stopping here because if I add up
all those line items, I exceed the overall budget increase. So these items alone, if we just stop right here, would explain what the budget increase is. leaves everything else. While some things are going up, other things are going down, they're netting out to
they're netting out to zero. So that's the appropriation side. And if we take a look at the impact on the revenue side, let's start up at the top. We're going to experience a decrease in
state aid, as you know. And uh I'll just point out that you may be familiar with a $157,000 uh dollar figure that was published in the paper that we um that we notified. Well, that's the official state aid, but in our budgeting over the past several
years, we've also included extraordinary aid as a component of one of our revenues, and we're anticipating approximately a $50,000 decrease in um our eligibility for extraordinary aid next year. So, that's why it's a
$200,000 decrease in in state aid. Uh the miscellaneous revenue will also seeing a decrease of approximately $100,000. The lion share of that reduction is our um revenue source that we have for SREx for the solar project
that the board um had several years ago. And the SREx enable us to sell to sell them and they were a revenue source to us. It's anticipating that the value of those SREs are going to decrease. And so approximately $50,000 give or take of
that $100,000 is from the decreasing value anticipated decreasing value of the SREx in 2027. Some of the other uh decreases are anticipating on the uh reduction in the
uh interest on our investments in this budget. We are not budgeting for uh any capital projects at this time. That does not mean that should the need arise um or uh
a plan develop that the board at any time cannot um pass a resolution to approve uh those projects as you've done in the in the last school year as well. Um and this budget does not call for a
budgeted withdrawal for maintenance reserve. The board does have a healthy maintenance reserve. It's um it's our suggestion that we keep that for just that, an emergency maintenance reserve.
Uh not to use that as a routine budget uh budget source. We will continue to budget uh sur our surplus $850,000. Last year the board appropriated $850,000 at a surplus. We're going to
continue to do that this year. So there's no change in that. And the biggest changes to the revenues of course are our tuition revenue, which turns out to be about $2 million. Uh
it's a large swing in tuition revenue. Um we went over this with u the business administrator at Edgewater. Um and it's it it is what it is. It's the numbers of students times the the the estimated
cost of tuition. Uh there's some back tuition charges built into that as well. We've had a good conversation with Mr. Teas. the both of us, we look back over the past several years and what we've noticed with the tuition uh arrangement
with Edgewater is it is this swinging curve going up and down with wide variations and wide swings for both districts over the years. Um what we'd like to do in our time with you here is
to really explore um some a reasonable good fair uh tuition arrangement between the two districts um that would hopefully alleviate some of these wide
variations. Now, fortunately, fortunately for us, uh this wide variation in revenue comes at a time when we need it. So, it's fortunate for us. Um my understanding is that um
Edgewater is okay with the with with the increase at this point in time. I haven't heard anything to the contrary. And then the last thing is our increase in the uh local tax levy and I'll talk
more about the specifics of that uh as we go forward. We talked a little bit about state aid and you you know this uh the board knows this already that it has been somewhat of decreasing over the past couple
years. Here's a little chart going back over 10 years. And from this and from the data that I saw from our state aid report, we really can anticipate at least over the next couple years continuing decreases in state aid of
approximately that 150 to $175,000. We can anticipate that reduction each year. Just getting a glimpse of the rest of the budget. Okay, we've talked a little bit about the mostly about the general fund because that's where the impact to taxes are. So that's where we wanted to
keep the general focus. We do have uh special revenue projects which are entitlement grants and that has no impact to taxes. Whatever comes in goes out. No impact to taxes there. And our debt service fund which is the debt
service um addresses the referendum that was passed by the by the bureau several years ago. And I'm I'll talk a little bit about where we are uh with our debt service going forward in the future. You get a little bit better picture of that.
Back to the general uh general fund and taking a look at the revenue. We just thought that this is give might give sort of a good picture about where all of our um uh revenue comes from and the various sources. And when we when I put this
together, I was actually and and if you're living here in town, but you know, I forgive me for what I'm about to say. I was really surprised at how low the percentage of local taxes um go to support the schools. It's
actually a really reasonable number compared to uh most Bergen County commu most Bergen County communities. It's usually up in that 70 to $80,000. Well, why? Because we have a phenomenal relationship with Edgewater and a big
portion of the revenue is the is the the tuition and so um that partnership goes a long way to providing all those great programs that uh Dr. Carmanos just you know went to talk about. Um,
okay. What's the biggest component of our operations? It's the people that work here. Um, just jumping down to the to the bottom, we can see that the staffing accounts for 80% over 80% of our entire
budget. It's about the people. And uh just a little context for the numbers that are up there. What I have salaries, that's every person working in the district. Anyone that's on payroll, whether it's a bus driver, a bus aid, custodians, secretaries, teachers,
administrators, part-time people, coaches, advisors, anybody earning a salary. The benefits includes, of course, all the things that we talked about before, health benefits, FICO costs, and things of that sort. But what you may notice up
there and and I hope hope that you did that the salaries themselves are actually decreasing and that's because of the hard work that the administrative team has really poured over to get through this budget
and a lot of that comes from reductions in FTEES mostly from vacant positions um mostly predominantly from vacant in positions and um so that's we see an
actual reduction in actual salaries. You put salaries and benefits together that's about a 3.6% increase. So even the the the so clearly the the the people the salary the salary
component at least is not a major part of that uh increase in our budget. Okay, I said we'd talk a little bit about uh where we are with some of our long-term debt, specifically the uh our bond referendum. You could see we're at
the tail end. We're coming up to about four or five years before that is paid off. The timing of that is really good for some of the planning that you're doing now with strategic planning as you're thinking about some of the capital needs that are going to be needed in the district. um some that we
can do pay as you go always better to do that if we can do it build it into the budget repair repair and maintain but for those large items that could be coming down the pike and I I haven't delved into some of the planning and some of the things that are identified
but instinctively there's got to be roofs or boilers or major kinds of improvements that may be needed. Um and if we can plan for those things in 3132, it would be very good prudent planning
that would have uh minimal to no impact on taxpayers going forward. Smaller but of interest are some of the other long-term debt, specifically some of the leases that we have in district. The largest being the lease uh payments
for the turf field. This was a question that came up at the last board meeting. How long would that how long are our payments? And you can see we have after next school year, we'll have another four years and that project will be paid for. There's some other smaller uh
projects that uh the the largest of which the IMAC lease will be will come up uh be completed at the end of next school year. Things like the postage machines and copers, those are things that are coming due. We'll be reviewing them and looking for cost savings and
reductions uh as we renew them. What's the bottom line? And the bottom line is the tax impact uh to the community. We estimated that the tax levy, I didn't have this on another slide, is approximately 5.8%
increase, an increase in the tax levy of 5.8%. Now, the data that you're looking at here, I need to explain very very quickly. I know my it's my understanding that the bureau went through a recent reassessment and the uh those values these those
assessment values are not public. They're not published on the state website. The the data that's been published is still the existing uh assessed valuation numbers. But for uh to at least for explanatory purposes so
we can get an understanding you know the average home should still be the average home the value of it may be different um but the impact in taxes uh should be somewhat similar. I'd also preface to say that
and I just heard this anecdotally that in the reassessment that was conducted there was a there was a change in the proportion of commercial property to residential property and with a greater value placed on the commercial property
which will benefit homeowners. So the number that I have here it's also very very conservative. Um it doesn't include for increases in the assessed valuation that uh property values have increased in the last year. It doesn't account for
new construction. It doesn't account for that change in um uh the proportion of commercial to residential. Perhaps at the May uh meeting when we approve the final budget, I may have that I may have that information. But so this is this is
actually an apples to apples. It's what a home valued at last year would be compared to this year. And the overall impact including the general fund and the debt service. And you can see that the debt service fund minimal increase of of $2. Very minimal increase there.
The overall impact fiscal impact is approximately $746 on the average home in Leonia. And that's using that uh the same assessed valuation that was used last year, that $440,000
number. So, where we go after this evening, after you uh hopefully approve this budget, we're going to approve the uh uh preliminary budget today. This has to be submitted to the county by Friday. So, I have a lot of work to do between now and
Friday. Uh hopefully the county will approve this no later than Monday, April 20th. Uh by Friday, April 30th, we will have the advertised budget published on our website or userfriendly budget uh will
come after uh the public hearing and our public hearing will be at at our May 5th meeting. So good news, we don't need to plan another meeting. we it folds right into an already scheduled uh meeting on May 5th.
So that is the uh the finance part of this presentation and again I thank you uh for the for the opportunity to talk about this. I welcome any feedback any questions at any time.
>> Yeah, you can go back to Thank you both Dr. Carmonos and Dr. Nissan. Give a minute for the board members to come back. Okay. Any questions from the board? >> Um, I can start. So, if um, so thank you for the presentation um, and all the
hard work you put into it over the last four weeks and thank the administration for going through everything. Um, first I just want to, you know, um, commend I I think it's amazing to keep salaries flat right now, um, with all that's going on. Um, so great job and it seems
like you're doing that without really losing any programming um, for our kids. So that's that's amazing. Um, quick question. First, your slide about the interest. um the interest seemed to be going up each
year and the principal payments was ve were very very low like 4,000. So, I don't know if that was flipped or anything. If you want to >> I I assume you're talking about the debt service >> the turf field.
>> Usually interest goes down, you know, principal goes up. >> I don't know if anyone's familiar with anyone that was around when they determined this payments guy. It's a payment schedule that was established. Um,
I'll research that a little bit and figure out how that works. >> If you if you have it in front of you, right? Like we're going to pay like 4,000 in principal, 5,000 in principal, and the rest is all interest. >> Yeah, I that's the schedule that was establish
that was established. I'll I'll try and find the history of that. And >> so like yeah, if the principal is only 100,000, we just pay it off and we we can omit all that interest, right? >> I don't know if that's how it works, you know? >> I mean, I guess looking at the payment
schedule will help us be able to follow up on that. >> We'll look into it. We'll get we'll get back firm either or in at the next board meeting, we'll we'll let you know. Um, then the other thing with the tax levy, I just want to understand I I know
we don't know what the reappraisal is going to look like, but I think the slide said we're at like 5.8% increase, which brings in 1.5 million more to our budget. How if the reappraisals are
higher, the housing, right? I know some of the rates will change and stuff. Will that increase that 1.5 that we get potentially? >> What does it say? Or or decrease the percent if we only need 1.5. Yeah. >> So the the levy is the levy.
The amount of taxes to be raised is the amount of taxes to be raised. Has nothing to do with the changes in valuation of the community. the change in valuations in the community have an impact to you as a taxpayer
in a sense that you know if the if the assessed valuations go up depends on where they went up your neighbors went up a lot they're going to pay a greater share of that tax levy um
again my my understanding I heard and I just heard this anecdotally so I don't please I don't know this for sure my understanding was that the commercial property uh the value of the commercial property increased um in greater proportion than the residential and that's good for
homeowners. So, but it doesn't change the dollar amount. The dollar amount's a dollar amount. >> So, the percentage could go down and that 746 a home could also go down. I think I think the 746 is a high estimate
based on what I know, but I don't have the I don't have the the figures to figure that out for you. >> Last thing, and thank you for all this. Um, has the town said when they'll make this public? Because that would answer this obviously. >> I I've not spoken to the town about
that. And and the the reason it's not public, I don't think is a function of the of the burrow. I think it might be a function of the process by which these um reassessments get processed through the county up to the state. So, um we'll
have to just wait. I think we're going to have to just wait for that, but I I wouldn't I would assume that that would be done by before May. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah, I just said question slash really maybe a comment for clarification is you
know when it when it looks when we saw the salaries of the teachers overall you see a a drop from year to year. It doesn't necessarily mean the teachers are making less. It could be a reflection of teachers leaving the district. It could be a reflection of maybe a teacher with a certain salary
may have left. So it it doesn't mean that their their wages are stagnated or going down. >> That's correct. Um, you know, as you know, teacher salaries are going up if they're here. We've had retirements in the last few years. Um, you know, people at the end of their career making um
making the highest on the guide. Um, also one thing that uh Dr. Nissan pointed out um we've been very very uh purposeful in our movement of and our decisions and cuts because you know there were cuts to make this budget work, right? And last year as well um we
really looked at enrollment and determined where there's gaps because you saw enrollment has been going down. So a lot of the the salaries are because of the reduction in our staffing. I'm just going to add add one more thing because I do think this is important
that um in my conversation with the uh county office in the in um discussing Leonia specifically that one of the things that they will be looking for in their review is correlation between
what's happening with enrollment and what's happening with staffing. And the term that they gave to me is that they're looking to see right sizing. That they're looking to see that as changes are occurring within the system
that we are also right sizing um our staffing and our budgeting accordingly. So, uh I think that'll go I think that'll go a long way towards our budget getting approved when they see that as well.
And and speaking of the enrollment, I understand it's a complicated formula for state aid, but but primary driver Miss Thompson and I were talking is got to be enrollment, right? So that's why you're projecting continued decreases in in in funding going forward. Is it because some of the towns around us are
are decreasing too, some are going up. I guess it depends. >> Enrollment is definitely a factor. Um but it's probably not the greatest factor. all the other uh components that go into that go into it. Um this came up
at our finance committee meeting. Uh one of the you know one of the goals that I had was to sort of dig into that dig a little deeper into that. The priorities of what was needed which was getting to the point where we are today to present the budget to the board
I think took took over. Um, but it is something that I definitely want to report back to the to the board about in in terms of uh how that state aid formula impacts specifically Leona. >> Thank you.
>> I just wanted to add and maybe clarify from the finance committee meeting the state reduction was um capped. Um they explained to us they should have reduct reduced our state aid by a lot more. or I want to say even a million dollars or more. Maybe you could tell us the
number. And it was capped at the 150 I think something around there. 3% 150. But if they could have had it their way, they would have cut it all right away. >> Yeah. If if if anything explains the next couple of years reduction,
>> it's the fact that our current year reduction should have been a lot more had they not implemented a cap on reductions, which was at they capped our reduction at 3%. So, it may be several years before our actual enrollment and our actual costs
kind of keep up with where it should be, but we should anticipate it going down over the next couple years. >> That's what I just mentioned. If we we got 50 more kids this year and they're saying they capped us at three and they should have cut us 30. I don't think those 50 kids will get us into the
positive any near term. >> Yeah, just to that point the number was it without that 3% cap the state with the state formula we would have only actually received $3 million. So, we would have lost as opposed to the $5 million that we have now. So, that would
have been a $2 million reduction as opposed to the $150,000 reduction. Um, so I I mentioned this last year during during this this time um because we were facing the health insurance premium increases um and numerous other other expenses that are all going up that the
municipality is also facing. Um because if if I mean I think most of the board will recall I don't know if the public recalls uh the state had also determined um our adequacy requirement which is basically you know the the fact that our our bureau according to the
statistics that the state looks at is fairly wealthy and we are not taxing our citizenship enough for the education that we're providing to our students. Um, I I like to look at it as our administration does an absolutely
wonderful job um with being efficient with the dollars that we do have. And I think that kind of goes back to what Dr. Nissenoff was saying in terms of the tax rate and the amount that um is is applied to the revenue um or or what where the revenue comes from. Um so
these are all things that um Dr. Nissenoff even with his short tenure with the district um Dr. Carmanos um Mr. Cobin and and help from our former BA Mr. Thomas Sevich um have been able to um painstakingly you know prepare a
budget that that works even with all the pressures from you know as Dr. Nissenoff went over the utility increases health insurance cost increases every all the pressures that the entire world is facing right now. Um, but I think the fact remains though and because because
I mean I I h I imagine every board member probably heard it, you know, complaints about taxes. Taxes are so high in Leonia. They're very high and and they are um but according to the state and their formula um they look at property values which are are skyrocketing in Leonia. They are also
looking at tax returns um which is also trending up for Leonians which or in general I should say. Um those are good things. Um but you know we do you know because of again all the efforts of our our school administrators we are able to
provide a high quality of education and it's not it that doesn't happen for free um and doesn't happen cheaply. I think Leonia and Edgewater are regarded as communities that are are highly desirable because of partially because of our education. Um, so that's
something that, you know, we strive to keep and we'd like. Uh, but striking a balance between that and and a good strong budget is obviously always annually a challenge and that's going to be a challenge. So, I do really appreciate Dr. Nissenoff in very short order pulling this together. Um, and all
the staff that have helped to to put this together. Um, any other comments? I was just going to say, no, I think um I think the board and administration I I think we can continue to work on a narrative that's accurate that gets this type of information out to the community. Um I think we often hear from the mayor and the council indirect
disparaging remarks about where the the tax funding comes from. And I think, you know, we really should do a a good job of correcting that narrative and and providing transparent accurate information that's not that's subjective in nature. >> I think it's a great point. maybe
something to consider between now and and preparing the final budget um either some kind some kind of media either through parent square or other methods. So, >> so first I just wanted to compliment both Dr. Carammanus and Dr. Nissoff on putting together an excellent
presentation that was much easier to follow than in past years. you know, it's um so helpful to have things like where we can actually read them versus, you know, just a bunch of spreadsheets. And it was very interactive. I appreciated the graphics. Uh it was it
was really helpful, too, that you know, you focused on on the highlights, right? The the important issues. Um I I will say just a comment while maybe the percent of the general fund that's funded by Leonia taxpayers is not as
high as other towns if you consider the tuition revenue like the vast majority of of our school is funded by by tax revenue. Um and in this town, even though um maybe the percentage is
changing a little bit with the latest reassessment, you know, we just don't have any ratables to to to, you know, compensate, right, to to help out the the residential homeowners. Um I did have a question. I saw you mentioned uh
extraordinary aid was going down but outof district placements for special education are going up and my understanding was that we can um get reimbursed for a certain
percentage over a threshold for you know extremely um needy students and and I just wanted to kind of clarify and understand that a little bit better. So, first your point about the the taxes that Yeah. when you put the two
together, your point is well taken that it's tuition revenue to us, but it's taxes from the it's tax it's really tax dollars that are coming from Edgewater. Put the two together and it's probably right in line with other districts in Bergen County. So, that thank you for
pointing that out. Um yes would the the uh the move you you're correct that for high cost placements that may increase your extraordinary aid but there are two factors that I had to consider one is
that extraordinary aid is not uh formulaic and it's it's changes every year depending on the uh politics that are occurring at the state level and the budgets that are occurring at the state level. All the information that we're
hearing is that there is tremendous pressure on budgets at the state level. Where are they going to cut? They're going to cut discretionary spending. And that's what extraordinary aid is. Number one. Number two, we budgeted approximately two,
forgive me, I don't have it in front of me, 250, 270, somewhere along that line in extraordinary aid. what we received was actually less than what we budgeted. So the other factor was sort of right sizing that a little bit. So going
forward, uh it's a number that I think we should be confident we should be receiving as long as they continue to fund extraordinary aid. And in future years we can begin to look back on it. If we're continuing to receive more than we're budgeting, we
can talk about increasing the budget. But right now we're receiving less than what we're budgeting. So we're right sizing that. >> Um I just wanted to add to that question because that also came up in the finance meeting where you spoke about your past
where you budgeted that number and the number was zero, right? Because of the politics. So you can make the argument don't even budget that number and if you get 200 grand, you get 200 grand. And if you remember our our auditors when they did the audit findings when uh
Mr. Bliss was here he mentioned that we should move away from budgeting for extraordinary aid. So yeah he was like yeah he had said that you know in this in his presentation again I have to comment on how great the presentation was. Thank you for that was concise and comprehensive. Much
appreciated. Um the quick question is we've been talking about um declining enrollment whether it's by large or small. Just wondering do do we know if that is a trend that we're seeing in in state of New Jersey in general or this
is local to us. Any um intel on that? Uh would appreciate it. And um the lease payments debt payment lease payments. So debts are retiring at one point, but the lease payments, even though there were a
bunch of blanks in the future years, there will be lease payments for the copers and yeah, I thought so. Just wanted to confirm that. But we're not going to be free from it. Okay. New lease to fill in. Okay.
And last quick question. Um the benefits are going up. Um I think was a slide about increased expenditure the benefits even though it had a description of fringe um pension etc.
It's really the health care cost, right? Just wanted to know what that 15% comprised of >> it. It's all It's all combined. And I >> Oh, it is all combined. They're going up. >> Yeah, it's all com all combined. Well, I I can
>> unfortunately I don't think anything is going down. >> Okay. Even though the salary was kind of stagnant in due to the reason we talked about uh but with with that kind of staging in level of salary expenditure the fringe pension all those benefits
are going up though at a rate of 15%. Okay, good to know. Okay, thank you. So, enroll Oh, >> no. >> Just answer Damy's question about um enrollment. I will tell you um I don't know about the state of New Jersey, but
I can tell you the state of Bergen County, everyone is seeing decreases in enrollment. Um there's just it's between the housing market and everything going on with the economy. So, >> and also state of Georgia as well too because uh in South Jersey there's a
couple of schools that were closed a few years ago back. So that's what we're going to do with trans and jersey. >> Yeah, I I can assume, you know, we got the um off topic for our CTE programs. We got the uh uh uh statewide
um workforce development and it showed the population of New Jersey is decreasing. So I would assume yeah, you're probably right, Isaac. >> Yeah, just quick question. Um, also really appreciated the the clarity in the in the presentation. Um,
I was a little confused just on that. How much is the tax levy going up? I thought I saw a 2% number, a little over 2% number somewhere, but no, it's 5.8, right? But I I thought we had I thought there was a cap on how much the tax levy can
go up, right? So, can you just clarify for me how we got to 5.8 eight because I thought the cap was two I think. >> Sure. Yes. There's a 2% cap on increase in property uh property local property
taxes, but they also in their wisdom give them credit that they allow for an adjustment when there's unusual increases in health care costs, which is exactly what's driving that. Um,
>> yeah, I wanted to bring that point out. Um, it's really the health care costs that are driving this. Yeah. >> And that's with the change in healthcare benefits. >> I I would just say it's with the also the increased tuition at 2 million from
Edgewater because if if that stayed flat, we would well well more than 5.8%. 8%. Any other comments or questions? Okay, thank you. Um, again, look forward to hopefully hearing about the final
numbers in the next month, month and a half. Um so with that um that brings us to item uh 1.4 public comments on agenda items. Anyone from the public wishing to speak? Please step up to the podium. Provide
your name and address. Arthur Arthur J25 relies regarding the presentation. I had a couple questions. Um, our insurance premiums are going up. Is that because our rating is going down? Uh if you if you know and you can answer it's fine. If you don't know
maybe you can research it. Um when you have claims then sometimes your rating drops and then your premiums go up. We all know what that is. Um the state aid is going down. We talked about that a lot. Um there's maybe a formula but there may be
a um a political side to that too. A good old boy. I know having been involved with on the municipal side a little bit with the block ranch in particular. there's formulas, but there's also who you know on how the money gets handed out. Do we know that there is a you know a political side to
that where is there are adjustments up and down on the state aid that you get based on I mean the formula may say this but you can appeal it or you know some you know you're you're in good graces with let's say the state senator and uh they will then uh nudge it up or down. I don't know. It's strictly speculating.
If there is, I'd like to know if there's some way we can have some of our representatives uh you know, stand up for us rather than just letting us take it in the shorts. Um and utilities. I'll talk about that in a second. I've got a couple of a few
questions and I'll try and talk fast as I usually do. Um the um in on um 7.2 2 under finance. It showed they were going to get an increase of $967,000
um in in uh healthcare costs, but it said that this is um I think uh a tenative uh let me this is the econ the comment says the adjustment will be used to support the
rising cost of health benefits for eligible district staff. That doesn't sound like uh it's a premium increase that we had that we have to cover. It sounds like a um uh a hedge. It's an estimate or wag, you know, wild ass guess that that we might. So, I'd like
to a little clarification on that as to whether that is really a number that we have or it's just an estimate, a high estimate. Um under um 7.8 and eight fusive facilities complement uh uh for the public. There's $100,000 in round numbers uh in revenue
uh by leasing out to the uh uh the church in the high school, which is great. I mean, that's a great use of uh an asset that's sitting there unused and and they leased it. You may want to try and do something more like that with the uh maybe the little theater or something like that. Uh and anything that's empty
and not being used, if you can rent it out, that's that's a good uh that's uh that's good. under uh 7.7 you're giving you're this four items listed and and they're that are going to be thrown disposed of the smartboard listen ACS is
is that here is where what's wrong with it says ACS I don't know whether it was in it says ACS cafeteria which is where we are and I don't see it so I want to know why is that being thrown out did it break as technological upgrade or you know uh and then there's three floor
machines are those the walkbehinds with the water and they or they just a buffing machine and why are we getting rid of those? Because there's if it's just a buffing machine, uh it's a motor on a on a chassis and you just they they last forever. And so I want to know why they're getting rid of them. Uh if it's an upgrade in technology, that's fine.
Or if it's just worn out, it's the bigger ones that have the the washing machine uh attached to it. I'd like it. Uh under 7.4 finance travel maximum, it notes that there's a 50,000. There may be a discrepancy. I'm not sure. where it says
a $50,000 for the 2627 year and then down below it says it's $49,000. I'm not sure if that was a typo or an error or if there's an explanation for that um for the for the same period. Also, that's for under travel year to date is shown is $13,000. I'm not sure why we're
budgeting $50,000 for next year for the entire year. We're 2/3 3/4 of the way through this fiscal year. We've only spent $13,000 on travel. Why are we why are we estimating $50,000? just something to look at. Uh that that caught my eye. Um
um under policy uh who is the title N coordinator or administrator? Um I don't know and I didn't see it online but it maybe I missed it because there's a lot of information online. And also under sexual harassment
uh uh P1552 there's R&P. I'm not sure which ones are different, but they are different slightly. Um, one of them has training training for the executive staff. One of them doesn't talk about training at all. So, my question relating to that is who
trains the staff, the teachers. Um, you I' I've worked in business for three major corporations plus myself, but of course I don't do sexual training for myself. But in all the in in both United Airlines and NBC and Panasonic had robust sexual tra harassment training
every year for staff. Every year you'd have to go through it. Earlier on it was in in person. Somebody would dictate it. Later on it's online. So I'm not sure they you know what the what the sexual harassment deals with is what happens when it happens. Okay. Okay. It's always after the fact. Well, the training
prevents it. Tends to prevent it if you can. So, I'd like to know if they have training for the staff other than the management that that it's mentioned in there. Uh uh am I I out of time? I can keep I can go to the next uh session. But I had uh
regarding utilities in the presentation, the direct energy business which we negotiated um you negotiated uh a couple years ago I guess for the supply side of the electrical uh component since electrical uh costs have gone through
the roof. There's probably I would guess at this point, I wasn't sure when we did it. Who knew? But now that they've skyrocketed, how much has that saved us, you know, if we didn't and somebody can go out and figure out how much it would be if we were still getting uh uh electricity from PSENG instead of here.
Uh and is is this going to be rolled over? Is there new? Now, they they buy these things under contract every so every so often what we're paying. So, it was something I wanted to do um to look into. Um, the dishwasher that keeps showing up every month. Okay, every
month there's something going on with the cafeteria dishwasher. Okay, this is so Kevin Davis for $3,600. Last month it was a few thousand off that. Before that, I saw the dishwasher. It's a freaking dishwasher. Okay, I don't know what how much we're spending on a
dishwasher or why this deep rolling up here for the for the cafe for the the culinary arts dishwasher, but this one's the 36,000 $3,600. I'd like to know what's going on with the dishwasher. Um, I mean, you know, we only have 20% of of
discretionary spending. So, you got to wash every penny of it. And that's what I try and do because the 80% there's not much we can do except what you can do is you can be careful who you vote for because these are the people that are sticking it to us down there. You know, they're the ones that are not doing their job to keep our cost down. So, um,
I'll pass this along in the second half. There's stuff that I a lot of stuff that I buy. so you can get on with the rest of your meeting. But in the second reading, I'll read the rest of my stuff. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Seeing no other members from the public, um we will go on to board comment.
I'll start. Um but I'm going to have to default to Phil on a few of these. Whatever we can answer. If not, okay, that's fine. Um, you know, we'll answer what we can, Arthur. And as normal, we'll, you know, one of us will give you a call. Dr. Noff may give you a call
later in the week to >> Okay. Thank you. Um, uh, I'm going to go I'm going to start with the 7.8 facilities you had mentioned. I just I I appreciate you um, uh, noticing that we we have been
renting out our facilities. We rent out our facilities as often as we can um to to anyone as long as it doesn't impact our student programs, right? So, we don't um as long as it doesn't affect what our students do and cannot do in our buildings. Um you had mentioned the little theater. Uh I would love to rent
out the little theater, but before we can rent out the little theater, the audio and visual needs to be replaced to be able to rent it out because people do not want to use the equipment that we have because it is so outdated. Um, so hopefully that's something that we can do in the future and then eventually uh be able to rent that space out as well.
But any space in the district I am willing to rent. So if there's anybody looking for events, we we've got the space for you. Uh the smartboard uh that is a smartboard that was right over there. If you see there's uh holes at the top of the on the wall. Um that
smartboard is no longer functioning. We actually were able to take the the bulb out because the bulb was okay, but the the Smartboard itself is completely dead. It is decades old at this point. Um so what we do uh now the um uh the
orchestra teacher when she has lessons in here, she uses the Smartboard that we have here. Um resolution. So 7.4 the resolution on travel. Well, a lot of that travel is budgeted because that's contractual. So,
a lot of the travel um uh certain staff members are entitled to a certain amount of travel. So, we t typically budget for that amount in the event that they use it all. Right? Our, you know, our administrator contract says one thing, our custodial contract says another, and our teachers say another. So, that's
where that number kind of comes from. Um if we don't use it, you know, if people don't travel, but we still budget for it because they're entitled to it through their contracts. Uh sexual harassment training. uh who trains the staff. So, it varies yearbyear. The state of New Jersey requires sexual harassment training for
districts. Um it's part of one of our statemandated trainings. There's a whole list on the state website of all the things that we are required to train staff annually, by annually depending on how um what what it is. So, that sexual harassment training uh happens in
different ways every year. Uh the past year or so, maybe even last year, we have a uh portal that we use through our insurance company. It's three free through our insurance company. Um, and it has videos that are compliant with what our insurance policy says on these various types of uh, trainings. So,
specifically sexual harassment. Um, there's the we've got all of our trainings on there. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, so it is a statute. So, we we do do it because of the statute. though.
Um, >> oh, the title N coordinator. You're looking at her. But right now, until June, July 1st, when we, so every June, we do all of these positions. Title one, affirmative action, HI, all of that. Uh, right now, I am the title one and affirmative action coordinator for the
district. However, beginning July 1, I have Mr. Cobin here who will be taking over all of those extra positions for me. Welcome, Leonia. Yes. Um, and the dishwasher. So, the dishwasher, the dishwasher to me is like
the science wing. I'm I I can't wait for it to be done. Um, the dishwasher project was uh significantly more than just putting in a dishwasher as we found out. Um it came when the we did the um inspection, the uh building department
and the the inspection came back with a lot of other things that needed to be done to the dishwasher to make it to for us to be able to use it. Um I don't know specifically what this charge is for, but I will look into this specific charge. Uh and um whoever calls you with the rest of the items uh will follow up
with you. Uh but the dishwasher is hopefully will hopefully be done very soon. We were waiting for a part for a long time. It was it's a cuz because of the the size of the dishwasher and the the space in the dishwasher. There's a a specialized part that needed to be custom made that was coming from Europe.
And this was back in like August. Yeah. >> Listen, could have gone to Home Depot, right? I wish it were that easy, but you know, we have other we have so many rules we have to follow. Um so I think I got everything from my end. if there's
anything you want to add. >> I'll just I'll just fill in the gaps and uh so we'll we'll wait for the second second portion. But um I think you're you're referring to experience rate modification as that as the as the
factor. And so yes, that should be going we can anticipate that decreasing the more claims that we have the the uh our erm will go will go down. and then that all gets kind of factored in. But being in a in a large pool with a lot of
school districts, it does help to mitigate that. So our claims, they get averaged over a three or five year period. I don't remember exact. I think three years for for safe. Um, so that helps to it helps to smooth out wide
increases, but sooner or later you you if you have a lot of claims, just as if you had if you drove a car and you got into a lot of accidents, sooner or later your car insurance will go up. So, it's it it happens with us as well. Um, is there politics in the state aid formula?
I did I did take a look at the entire county and when when you look at the entire county what you see is this 3% up and down cap. So many many districts such as ourselves that are decreasing state aid capped at that 3%. Many
districts have increasing but they're capped at that 3%. So the state you know really I think worked to sort of level all that out. Now the real answer to the question about is there politics in certain communities and things like
that. I'm I'm sure that that exists but not in the I don't think that gets uh can can be manipulated in the straight state school aid formula. Perhaps in other types of grants that are more
discretionary that may happen in in certain communities. And uh last lastly with regard to the utilities, yes, I think that's some of the advantages of um being in the ACES pool is that you have this sort of
longer term contract for utilities. I don't know the answer to the question how much we're saving, but it's a good question for the consultant to see if they can give us a an estimate for that. We do know that that contract is coming up in the next uh school year. So,
that's going to be it'll it'll be uh adjusted accordingly. >> And just to you had mentioned about seeing the compar we saved. Uh you mentioned that previously with the buses too. So I I don't want you to think that we forgot. It's just work that we need
to collect. Uh it's going to take us some time, but we are interested in seeing what exactly we've saved from the the EV buses. And you know, we'll look into this as well. >> Lastly, with regards to the motion and a and a potential typo, there is a typo,
but not in the numbers, but in the years. So where it says uh 262 the first year reference of 2006 2007 that should be 2005206. So it's the we're required to state what
we did the current year and then establish it for next year. So I I'll adjust that in the minutes and thank you for pointing that out. Okay. um
related an agenda related question somewhat um there was a question that had come up maybe and and Dr. turn this off. This was before your time. Um, but a question came up from the public about um, there was some major discrepancies between the utility bills. Um, I can't
remember the specifics of it, but I believe at the time the bills that were in our bills list um, showed an extremely high amount I think for for electricity for ACS >> water >> and and yeah, it it just seemed
disproportionate. >> Yeah. um between the schools whereas, you know, the high school you'd imagine would have the the highest usage. Um but I think it was ACS that had it. Do you do you happen to recall what what that was? >> Uh yes, I do remember that. Um and there
was like nothing. It it was like uh very high in in one of the buildings and then nothing in the other. Um we have not had a chance to look into that. Um we've been focusing all month on this budget. Um but I will put it on our list to look into over the next few weeks. It was the water. Yeah, absolutely. It was uh Yeah,
it was our water. I I remember exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes. >> I mean, it could be as simple as, you know, the meter wasn't reading and they're just catchup billing things like there's there's many like possibilities.
So, >> it could Yes. >> Yep. And if it is a leak, I would definitely look to Violia for a leak adjustment. Okay. Any other board member comments? Okay. All right. That brings us to item
2.1, approval of consent agenda items. Can I have a motion and a second? >> Motion, >> Mr. Seagel. Second, Mr. Growl. Um, any items for discussion? Um, I do want to just point out that item 3.1, the minutes from the March
10th, 2026 meeting do include specific comments from the public. >> Yes. Yes. Um, okay. So, with that, if there are no other comments or any items for discussion, um, can we have roll call, please? That was Yep.
Yes, >> Mr. Grow. Yes, Dr. Misher. >> Yes, >> Miss Melman. >> Yes, >> Mr. Park. >> Yes, >> Miss Robana. Yes, >> Mr. Zapika. >> Zepka. >> Zeka.
>> Yes. >> Apologies. >> Mr. Seagal. >> Yes. >> Vice President Thompson. >> Yes. >> President Lee. >> Yes. >> So, that motion carries. Thank you. Motion carry.
>> Thank you. Um, oh, you know what? I did forget. Uh, can you just >> What's that? >> Uh, just for the record, uh, Mr. Park and Mr. Zeppa did, uh, come to the meeting at 7:07 and our board attorney has joined us also during the
presentation. >> So, that brings us to item four, administrative reports. Dr. Carmonos. >> Uh I just have two quick things to report. Um NJGPA is wrapped up. So one of the many state and uh assessments
that we have going on in the next few weeks, few months. Um NJGPA is done. Congratulations to all the juniors out there who made it out alive. Um and then also if you are available this weekend, Friday, Saturday, we have
the Adams family. Um, the Limelighters presenting their spring musical. I will be there Saturday night. I'm very excited. Um, so if you're available, it's um, uh, you can buy tickets at the door or you can see uh, but I think the student reps might have a little bit more details than I do maybe, but if
not, it's on our website, too. >> Thank you. Um, item 4.2, Dr. Nissenoff. I didn't think you'd have more after your presentation. >> Um, as you know, it's been a very very busy uh time as we prepared the school budget under a very very tight time
frame. uh as I said in the presentation just uh thank all the people that uh that uh helped with that all the administrative team the business office Mr. Tus uh Eric Tanthy
everyone for their help um the um as you've seen in the uh uh budget presentation uh we have many budgeting uh issues to contend with. I really look forward to meeting those challenges to keep Leonia moving
forward. Uh the past couple weeks uh been brought up to speed on the uh flood re uh reconstruction project in the science wing. Uh understanding all of our long-term debt obligations, meeting with our food service vendors and actually getting in and touring the uh
kitchen operations. I actually sampled the cafeteria food as well. Um, and I met virtually with our auditors. Uh, the next few days are going to be solely focused on submitting that budget to the county. It's going to require pretty
much all of our time uh, devoted just to that purpose. That's my report for today. >> Thank you very much. Okay, that item 4.3, our student representatives, Mia and Ara. So, LHS successfully hosted the senior
card party on March 13th, and we raised over $10,000 for the senior class. Yeah, we really appreciate all the parents, students, and teachers who participated, donated, or helped to support the senior class. Um, and speaking of seniors, many of us are hearing back from our final
regular decision colleges, and we're starting to make commitments and nearing the end of the road for our college admissions process. And that's really exciting as we prepare to um go into the next chapter of our of our lives. On March 12, seniors in Chinese class
visited Chinatown and practice their Chinese speaking skills and engage with Chinese culture. And lastly, as AR and I mentioned this last meeting, we coordinated a women's expo event coming on April 1st where women from different career paths will come to speak for
young women at the high school to ask questions. and we have around 50 students signed up so far. >> Thank you very much. >> Um, okay. That brings us to item five, our committee reports, education. >> So, I don't think we've met since. We
already had a board meeting in March. So, we'll have a next update at an April meeting. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, finance and planning, Miss Troy. Um we met on March 12th um discussed about fiscal year 2026
2027 state aid uh and also the budget development which we we saw through the presentation today and we also review uh the budget calendar and timeline. It looks like we're right on track. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Um policy that's myself. um we met previously which resulted in the policies that are on for second reading today. Uh one of the things or open open items that we still have to discuss is uh essentially device use in the schools. Um however, we're going to
we're waiting to see what the state is going to issue in terms of their guidance and use of devices in the schools before we we make any moves because we don't want to kind of make changes that will conflict with what the state's going to provide for their guidance. So that's going to be our next
our next um effort. I know that's the policy side, but for you know the public um we as the administrative team from the operations end have already have started working on what that looks like at the high school. So the high school has pulled together a committee of staff and students and
parents um that will dive into what the uh cell phone ban looks like at the high school level. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh that brings us to item 5.4 governance. Mr. single. >> So we haven't had a meeting since the last one two weeks ago or so we will
have one in midappril and then provide an update then. >> Thank you. Okay. Uh technically next on the agenda is item 9.1 separation. But we're going to move on um we're going to bring the public comment before that. So item 10.1
public comment on any non-aggenda items. Anyone from the public wishing to speak, please step up to the podium, provide your name and address, you have two minutes to speak. Arthur J at 125 relies. Um, I could be wrong, but I think those flags are upside down. And the reason I
say that is the top of the mast, which would be the end. Okay. If that was sticking up straight, both the United States, the and the uh um New Jersey, I think it's a New Jersey state are upside down. They should uh they should change those unless you can show me that I'm
wrong. And Vick, you got a haircut. All right. Um, and Eric, they they don't have any field trips this time, but they did have one buried in here that I found. Yeah. Which is the on the Hestia. I'm not sure what that is. A field trip. Says it's Greek to me. So you, Zanth,
you can probably answer that. Um, uh, Murray paving and concrete. Uh, I know that's for the, um, the media center project and that's basically done, I guess, right now, but it's $150,000 for concrete. That's a lot of
concrete. Is there any I mean, did they do any major structural floors and things like that? Because that's an awful lot of concrete. $150,000. So, I'd like some sort of an explanation um now or later. Um environmental consulting, I'm not sure
what they do. I mean, I know there's I know what environmental consulting did. We have a problem where we call them in air quality, water quality or something like that. It was $4,000. 3920 $3,925. Um, uh, Dangler Whitening. It says LHS
maintenance. I did look up that company. It does, uh, it does, uh, athletic equipment repairs or maintenance or something like that. So, I just want to know what machine they worked on. It was, uh, only because it was, uh, again, $3,500. That was a pretty expensive repair. Um, let's see what else I got
here. Smart Stitch employee uniforms. Are they for the janitors or, you know, laborers that you have in the thing? Because it's $11,000 uh uniform purchase. And I I thought they handled that individually, but maybe they didn't. So, I'd like to know what that was for. Even if it's
simply for the janitors, that's fine. Um um direct energy we covered. Um dishwasher we covered. Uh B&H, a podcast kit. I don't Do we Do we do B Do you do B podcasts?
>> Okay. Yeah. I It's not a lot of money. I just just caught my attention that a podcast. Who's doing a podcast at the at the high school? Um Den Company, uh Abigail Law replacement camera system. So, I just like to know what that is. I I presume
we already had security cameras if it's an individual, but it was only for $900, but I I wasn't sure what it was what it was for. Um, and uh I think that is that's
that's it. I covered the flag. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, we will be moving on to board comment item 11.1. >> Okay, I'll start with the podcast. Um, so we are launching a podcast, a
district podcast. Um we it will hopefully the first episode will hopefully be out in the next few weeks. Um the purpose of the podcast is to give the community and anybody listening an inside look into what's going on in our schools. Um so far we've had uh my student extern is our first guest and uh
we've had a few teachers on we've recorded a few episodes at this point. It's not live yet. We're working on it. We're working on we've got some kinks to work out on it but we're working on it. We're going to blast it out on Parent Square and also on our social media
accounts. Um hopefully get it out that way. I'm really excited about I think it'll give outsiders an inside look into the schools. Um I have a lot of great ideas about people to bring on. You know, you had mentioned um uh one of the board members mentioned earlier about, you know, how do we share the
information about the budget in a better way? And the first thing that popped into my head was the podcast is a great way to be able to have a conversation. Um, give people an inside look into what we're doing in in our schools outside of our newsletter and our social media posts. So, I'm very excited. I'm glad it caught your eye. I hope you become a
listener when it goes live. We're still working out a name. Not political. No, no, it's about it's about the kids. It's about our school. It's about our community. And it's about what drives us here. There's no politics. most likely Spotify. You know, I'm still working it out. Spotify doesn't take
POS, so, you know, we're we're working on it. Um, but we're I'm very excited is absolutely and we also have video. So, not only can you listen, you could also watch because uh the students told me that if your podcast doesn't have video,
that means that you're you should you're too old to be doing a podcast. So, not these students, the some other students. Um, so we we started recording video, too. I'm very excited. Yeah. Um, flags upside down. Thank you for
pointing that out. Uh, I know we did just get new flags in, so I wonder if they're new and they just put them up in a hurry. Um, the locka is the culinary academy. Uh, that is one of the trips that culinary academy takes as part of world cuisine, as part of the classes world cuisine. um
that is actually paid through grant money. So it's a Perkins grant which is because of our uh culinary program is considered a CTE program, career and technical education program by the state. Uh so we get to pay for those field trips all through grants. Uh Murray paving and concrete. So that is
not just for the that's not the the charge here. The check here is for the uh there's a section of the high school that we had to com we had to redo the walls cuz the walls um they they converted the the hallway into
classrooms. Um so we had to put up walls for the classrooms. Uh it was also part of the uh media center. We had to take down some walls, put up closets and all of that. So it was a it was a big hallway project. Uh we add we were able to add one, two, three, four classrooms.
Well, one was the piano lab that was already existing, but three three new classrooms and then we we fix the walls in two offices. So we have our director of student services and then our supervisory team their office as well. Uniforms are for our uh custodial staff. So yes, that that is accurate. That's
part of their contract. Um, I already mentioned the podcast and Abigail's law. Uh, the camera buses, that is Abigail's law is a statute. It's a it's a requirement for us under Abigail's law to have uh certain security protocols in place. So, this
was a renewal of the the procedures for our buses. Um, I'll fill in the gaps. the uh also uh Murray Paving and and Concrete is a G they're they're actually a general contractor. So the name of their company
is Paving and Concrete, but they're a GC. In fact, they they uh are also contracted to do the renovations for the science labs as well. Yeah. the environmental consulting that's
that's primarily for um our AHIA or asbestous uh compliance making sure that all our paperwork is appropriate. They got to do inspections every year. So they're going to come in and they're going to do that. um
Degler Whiting. That was for actually the um when they did the renovations in the gymnasium, they missed a section of padding and so Degler Whiting was contracted to come in and repair a section of padding that was missed um
there. And I think that completes the list. Yeah, >> I'm going to cut you off here. >> Yeah, >> if we missed anything, we'll call you tomorrow. >> Okay. Thank you very much for the
responses and for and thank you to our public uh for always being inquisitive. Uh keeps us on our toes, so it is appreciated. Um so I'm going to skip back to new business. We do have one item under new business. Um, can I have
a motion and a second for new business? >> Motion, >> Mr. Zepka. And a second. >> Second. >> Second, >> Mr. Park. And can we have roll call for new business, please? Um, Miss Melvin,
>> Miss Choy, >> yes. >> Mr. Growl, >> yes. >> Dr. Meester, >> yes. >> Mr. Park. >> Yes. >> Mr. Zepka. >> Yes. Mr. Sigal. >> Yes. >> Vice President Thompson.
>> Yes. >> Miss. Robana. >> Yes. >> President Lee. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, motion carries. >> Motion carry. >> Thank you. Okay. So, that brings us to item 12, executive session. Um, we do have we we
will need to go into executive session for approximately 10 minutes. 10 minutes. Um, so for those members that are are watching on YouTube, for our student members here tonight, we do appreciate you being here. Um, we do need to go into close. So, we will return um in approximately 10 minutes at
which time we will be taking a vote on personnel and then adjournment only. Um, so thank you to those members that are watching and for our student members here tonight. Uh, can I have a motion to go into closed? >> Motion. >> Mr. Park and a second.
>> Mr. Grow. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed or abstensions? >> Okay. Okay, we are now in close session at 8:39 p.m. >> Second. >> Second. Yes. >> Yes.
>> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Vice President Thompson. >> Yes. Yes. Thank you. Uh, can I have a motion for
adjournment? Motion. >> Mr. Zepka. Second. >> Second. >> Mr. Park. All in favor? I. >> Any opposed or abstensions? Okay. Okay, we are adjourned at 9:18