response. So, no, we were supposed to get it today. I have [Music] [Applause] Good evening. I'd like to resume tonight's board event meeting. Can I get
a roll call, please? Mr. Seren here. Miss Weinstein here. Mr. Poss here. Mr. Keller here. Mrs. Wingler here. Mrs. Mford here. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the [Music] standy andice for all. Good evening and thank you for coming out tonight. I hope everyone had a restful spring break. I got to attend
the eighth grade dialogue with Miss Pedrosa and Miss Moore where Miss Madison Peek, an eighth grader, got to speak and represent her eighth grade class. Um, I also got to attend an equity expo hosted by New Jersey School Boards Association in April, which was
the final training that I needed to become a certified school board member along with my fellow board members, Laura, Fay, and Gloria, who's actually getting recognized there tonight. Uh, congratulations to the boys track, the South Champions. In early April, our policy committee met to discuss and
update policies while following the leadership and guidance of Strauss Esme. Uh proms are coming up. I want to wish our juniors and seniors the best as they get ready for their proms. I hope you have a beautiful night to always remember, be safe, and make healthy choices. We have the district art show
on May 15th, so hopefully we'll see lots of faces out there and the beautiful artwork that the kids display. Um on Monday, there was a tragic accident and a member of the class of 2021, Mr. Jackowski, unfortunately passed away.
So, please keep Jack's mother, father, sister, brother, and family, friends, and loved ones in your thoughts and prayers. In honor of Autism Awareness Month, I leave you with sometimes the things that make us different are the things that make us strong. And that author is unknown. Have a great night.
And M. Jose, it's your turn. Good evening and welcome. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and enjoyed a restful break. As a reminder, you're going to hear me say this again. Our revised district
calendar now reflects that staff and students will attend school on Friday, June 20th. This adjustment now means that that will be our last day along with graduation ceremonies that will take place both for the middle school and the high school. So, please mark
your calendars accordingly. I do also want to talk a little bit about um a loss that we had here in our district. Um it is with great sadness that I share the news of the passing of Mrs. Tully. Many of you know Gloria
Tully as a beloved staff member. She most recently was working at Regional Day School. She was kind, she was dedicated and just a lovely, lovely woman. her warmth, her compassion, and her commitment to our students could be
felt by all. So, if you could please keep her family and her friends and her students in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time, it would be greatly appreciated. In the recent days, our community also has been tested by the
devastating fires affecting the Manchester area. In times like these, it's important that we come together. And once again, I am incredibly proud and grateful for how our Manchester community rose to meet this moment. I
want to sincerely thank our entire community, our staff, first responders, and local residents for their compassion, their generosity, and their resilience that they demonstrated in supporting those that have had to evacuate. Opening our doors to shelter
others reflects the very heart of who we are as a district and who we are as a community. The well-being of our staff and our students and our neighbors remain our top priority. And I would just like to thank you all for your
outpouring of true Manchester spirit. I also want to recognize there's a couple of retirements. One in particular happened to work with me for a very long period of time. Um, congratulations to Mrs. Carol Parrots. She is being recognized
this evening and will be retiring with 27 years of service. That is a wow. You're exactly [Applause] right. We are also going to see a
wonderful math teacher, Miss Tor, leaving our high school Lisa Tar worked there for 16 years of service. So, congratulations to her. And just as important are our secretaries. We had a wonderful secretary there for at the high school
for 20 years. If you know Mrs. Linda McCambi, she's kind, she's thoughtful, she's detail oriented, and she has served in Manchester for 20 years. So, congratulations to Mrs. I also don't want you to miss some important dates. Um, tomorrow evening
here at the middle school, we will have the Manchester Middle School engineering team. They will have the civil air patrol engineering students from Ocean County. And you're welcome to come. I believe it starts at 5, but things really start going at 5:30. Um, there is
going to be a lot of food. There will be airplanes. Um, paper, by the way, just so that you know. bottle rockets, kites, boomerangs, and other flying objects. So, if you're looking for something fun to do with your family, you may want to come. I see a head shaking in the front.
Hope to see you there. And then, please mark on your calendar. Our district's art show is going to be held at the high school on May 15th and it'll start around 6 pm. Thank you so much. And I think at this time, I'm going to hand it back to you for Lieutenant Commander.
Lieutenant Commander Holt, sir. Ready for your presentation? Um, good evening everybody. Lieutenant Commander Holzer. I'm temporarily filling in for Senior Master Sergeant Taylor. He's um currently deployed to Carter will return in August in the Middle East. Um, so
keep um positive thoughts for him and his family. Um, what I have for you tonight, we have the air show coming up here um May 17th and 18th at the Joint Base. Um, we continue to enjoy um a positive, strong relationship with the
Joint Base with our district. Um they've opened up. We'll be taking students from the high school, from middle school and Lake Curse and various staff members over on Friday the 16th. There'll be um numerous static um displays as well as some dynamic displays and it is a really
good opportunity for our students to um spend time with um active duty folks and see what they think. Lieutenant Commander, would you like to also explain to everyone about the ROC recognition today? Sure.
Um, if I didn't say I'm the senior naval science instructor at the high school. I'm not active duty. I'm retired. Um, 26 years in the Navy. Been here seven years at the high school. So, um, just found out today I let our principal, Mr. Adams, and our superintendent, Mr. Petroa, know that our unit was um,
recognized this year, unit achievement. Um, that's a school year award. So for the 2024 2025 school year, select 20% of the units um in the northeast area. We're in what's called area 2. So we're one of those units that selected and
recognized for our sustained spirit performance. Thank you, Mr. Holtzer. Now, Miss Emily Johnson, can you give us an update on student government activities? Good evening, everyone. My name is Emily Johnson and I'm the executive president at Manchester Township High School and I
am here today to provide the board with any updates going around our high school. Now, first and foremost, our juniors are anticipating their prom on May 2nd and they did such a good job fundraising and selling bids. It went all over smoothly and now we just wish
them the best of fun and hopefully some nice weather. Now, our seniors, they have their prom a little bit later. They're right now selling bids and the prom is going to be May 29th. Prior to spring break, our class of 28 wrapped up their nephew bun cake sale for Mother's
Day and they will be delivering those pre-orders on the Friday before Mother's Day. And class of 27 will be hosting a movie night on May 16th and they will be showing Spider-Man. Now, coming back from spring break, all our students are working really hard on AP kind of
getting those last studies in. And now tomorrow is um commitment day. So our seniors are welcome to wear their future for an opportunity to take a picture and just kind of all get together and celebrate their hard work. And Mrs.
Kelly staff and myself have worked to decorate the media center as a little surprise so they can have a nice little opportunity to take pictures with friends and make memories. And I just want to say thank you for letting me speak and I hope you guys all have a good night. Thank you.
[Applause] tomorrow. What's your future holding? Uh, my future for me is going to be Michigan State. And yeah, what are you majoring in? Journalism. Good luck.
At this time, we would like to invite Mayor Hankens to the podium. should be on. Thank you. I graduated. you spoke of the uh evacuation and the availability of the school and that was extremely important. What you know what
you may or may not know is the emergency management director of Lacy Township reached out to our emergency management director uh stating that he's doing an evacuation. He's going to have to move about 5,000 people. And that in Lacy's eyes was a monumental task. We had just
gone through a similar event year before where we evacuated and folks in Lake and that unit in it of itself is stressful but not knowing where you can send it is another event. the fact that the school made itself
available. Our re our uh emergency operations guy reached out to the staff the school and within minutes you had the school open and we had the Red Cross there. Uh search team which is the community emergency response team
building beds and you know it was amazing to see that some folks just went in there and went right to sleep. It was it was amazing. But I did prepare this so you could have something memorialize event in recognition of Mansfield Township and the board of
education. Whereas the strength of a community lies not only in its infrastructure and institutions, but in the compassion, cooperation, and dedication to all it serves. Whereas the Manchester Board of Education continuously demonstrates an unwavering
commitment and well-being to the safety of our community, going above and beyond their educational mission uh to serve the greater needs of the residents. And whereas In times of emergency and great uncertainty, the board of education has consistently generously opened its doors
of the Manchester High School as a shelter and evacuation center, not only for the residents of Manchester Township, but for our neighbors in the surrounding towns as well. Whereas their willingness to provide the safe comfort haven for
individuals and families along with their beloved pets has brought a piece of mind during some of the most stressful moments in a township that our township has faced. And whereas this selfishness part this selfless partnership has served a shining as a
shining example of unity and power and collaboration between our local governments and our educational leadership. Now therefore I chose these Mayor Manchester Town. We hereby extend our deepest and most heartfelt thanks to Manchester Township Board of Education.
Our your compassion, responsiveness, and steadfast support are not only appreciated, they are treasured. Our partnership is a source of strength in our entire township, and we are forever grateful to the job you do. Thank you.
Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you so much. At this time, Miss Pedrosa is going to recognize our students who are celebrating tonight. So, this is why we're here. We're all about our students and we are all about
the families of Manchester, but certainly what Mayor Henkins just brought up is that we are here always as a community. I'd like to begin this evening talking about the students of NCES and I'd like to call up Charlotte Pet and Abigail.
[Applause] their wonderful teacher, Mrs. McGrath, to come up with them and their principal, Miss Healey. So, each year, fifth grade students at MTS participate in a service learning project where they experience important the importance of
giving back to the community. This year, students are creating wallets from recycled juice pouches, and they will sell them for a dollar at Field Day. I have my wallet over here. I know Mr. Lorenson as well. I'm sure I'll put a couple dollars
in there for you, Mr. Lar, but meet the two fifth graders who have gone above and beyond to make this year's project a success. Congratulations to Charlotte and Abigail. Give them another round of applause. They both have worked extremely hard
from collecting the many capri sun pouches to spending recess sewing them together along with their classmates and we are just so proud of you. But what I think is even more impressive is that all the proceeds from the sale will go to the JBJ Soul Kitchen which is in Thomas River. So fantastic.
[Applause] Thank you so much. Can we get a picture? I was so I made them drink. Thank you, ladies. They're adorable. Thank you. I love this idea. So fantastic. Great
job. So is our Lorenzo here. Hi Mrs. Lorenzo. Come on up. Our next will be representing Ridgeway Elementary School. And I think here come up. Congratulations.
So this fine young man joined Ridgeway School on January 16th of 2025, marking his first educational experience in the United States. And that is just tremendous and congratulations to you. His daily commitment to learning is
evident as he arrives at school focused and prepared to engage in his studies as actively participating in class discussions, answering questions in English, and applying the vocabulary to lesson. He follows directions and instructions and
he demonstrates independence and we are just so proud of him. So congratulations to [Applause] this congratulations.
Our next two students are representing Whiting School. I think Mrs. Swift is here this evening. I'm going to ask her to join me. And I believe I saw Dominic Dominic Oliver and Van Wagner.
[Applause] The Whiting School would like to proudly recognize Dominic and Gunnar for their assistance with our POAP fundraiser. Dominic is a sweet and social fourth
grader from room 26. He enthusiastically supports coax autism awareness fundraisers by making announcements and expertly applying his money sorting and counting donations. Gunner who is a smiling and helpful fifth grader also
from room 26 diligently assists the classrooms creating flyers and collecting items and they are both responsible for a huge success. So let's give them a nice round of applause. Awesome job. Awesome job.
Congratulations. You can give another round of applause. [Applause] My next student is representing regional day school and I believe here is here today. But if you could think we're going to congratulate Guy
who follows direction, he's a great role model. He's polite. He uses good manners and always helps his friends. So congratulations to [Music] Guy. Our next representing our new school I
believe we have with us this evening and I do think I saw Joe here. Hi Joe. Congratulations to you. So nice. Joe will always shake your hand. He's always ready to smile and shake your hand. So congratulations to Joe Murray.
Let's give him a nice round of applause. is a seventh grader who is on there our middle school engineering team. He recently entered the kid wine and fin scientific white box learning turbine and wind farms national challenge and he won first
place the highest score in the category. He's just an exceptional student. He loves STEM. And Joe, will you strongly encourage that they should come to the STEM night tomorrow night? Yes, you are all invited. Congratulations. We'll see you tomorrow
night. Okay. Good job. Our next two students are athletes representing the middle school. And I think Amelia Pilia is here and Molly McKver, is she here? Hi, Molly. I thought I saw
[Applause] you. So, we're extremely proud of Alio and Molly who represent the middle school as student athletes. IO and Molly are both great representations of what it means to be a student athlete.
They're both eighth graders that lead our team's um cheerleading and most recently TNF, right? Track and field. And both of them not only are great on and off the field, but they are wonderful examples of what it means to
be great students. So, they are student athletes and we congratulate both of you. So, we'll continue with the high school. Mr. Adams, you're going to be joining us up here. Okay, I'm looking for Leila Butterfield,
Gabriel, and Jose. I think I saw Joshua. [Applause] We are proud to recognize these three outstanding students who have been
selected to represent our school at the prestigious American Legion Boys and Girls State Programs. Let's give them a round of applause. Highly selective programs and students in the operations of local, county, and state government. Developing
future leaders through civic education. These students were chosen for their leadership, their academic excellence, and their commitment to their school and community. We are incredibly proud of their accomplishments and confident that they will represent us with distinction.
Congratulations, Gohawks. [Applause] [Music] A big smile there. Okay. Congratulations. Thank you so much.
[Applause] So, our next two athletes, I believe one of them is not here. Am I right, Mr. Listister? Correct. Okay. So, King is not with with us this evening, but I believe Riley Maguire is here. Okay,
Riley, come on [Applause] up. So, Riley is a starter and captain of our lacrosse team and has led the Lady Hawks to a 50 start in the division. Give her a round of applause. I love this part of it because
she is the sixth player in the program history to score 100 career goals currently at 118. That's impressive. And she did it in a big win versus Jackson Liberty. So congratulations to
[Applause] If you don't know King Bass, he's just a wonderful, wonderful student. He has a great personality, but he also is a wonderful athlete. And he led us to our fifth consecutive division title by winning four events in the division
championship meet at the 100 meter dash, the long jump, the triple jump, and the high jump. In doing so, he has set the tone for big things to come from himself and the track team. So congratulations to both Riley and [Music]
go that guys. He is out of track and unfortunately that's why he couldn't be here but I'm sure he's doing well. Thank you Mr. Thank you so much. We love our students. We're so glad our families
could be here with us to join us and our staff as well. And we have a lot to be happy and excited about in Manchester, don't we? Don't we? Thank you. That's okay. At this time, I would like to invite the
PTA grant committee to present their awards. testing testing. There we go. Um I've said I was apologizing for my lost voice um after yelling at many of these kids about 30 minutes ago at a track meeting. Um however, first and foremost in
regards to the PTA mini grant, I just want to thank the PTA. itself um for their continued commitment um to the Manchester Township School District and additionally our school district and also the board of education for working hand in hand and always being so
supportive of our PTA. Um this has been a new experience for me being a part of the PTA obviously as a teacher. Um I was always involved. However, now after 14 years of teaching in Manchester, um I am now proud to say that I have children
within the district and it has been an incredibly humbling experience just seeing how incredible this district truly is and the commitment um and the level of commitment that these teachers have to the kids and this PTA grant really kind of exemplifies the wonderful
ideas and and innovations and commitment that our teachers have to the students. So, the first mini grand winner is for Patricia Van Bergen at Manchester Township High [Music] School. Um, the second grant winner, who
I believe is not here tonight, was for Mrs. Nicole Baldelli at Manchester Township Middle School. Our next grant winner was for Mrs. Darla Lanza from the Manchester Township Middle School. The next grant winner was Mrs.
Michelle Leum from Manchester Township Middle School who I know is here and we work together and that's like the closest contact. for that moment. Our next winner is Mrs. Moren Rubin from
Manchester Township Elementary [Applause] School. Um, from Bridgeway Elementary School, we have Mrs. Alex Hudson and Mrs. Jenny Shank.
[Applause] Um, our next winner was Mrs. Caroline Consolei from Bridgeway Elementary [Applause]
School. The next winner is Mrs. Colleen G from Whiting Elementary School. Uh, Mrs. Lisa Gold from Whiting Elementary School. Mrs. Donna Paulo from Whiting Elementary School. Mrs. Crystal Taylor from Whiting
Elementary School. and Mrs. Sarah Drew from Whiting Elementary School. Um and just to kind of wrap it up here in regards to the mini grant, um there were over 27 applications and every single one of the ideas was exceptional,
was deserving. Um the committee had a very hard time, you know, reaching their decision exactly who to award the funds to. Um but overall, our PTA awarded $5,000 to the Manchester Township School District teachers. So, thank you.
Can we get a photo of everybody together if you don't mind? Can all of the members who are present come up for a photo opportunity? like it. You're
[Applause] Thank you so much. And thank you to PTA. Thank you PTA for all that you do for all of our schools and all of our students. At this time, Mr. Lorenson, can you give us the budget
presentations? So exhilarating. Is the clicker off there? Thank you. That's true. That's true. So, good evening everybody. Uh for those of you that are sticking around, um we are we are going to discuss the 2526
school budget tonight. Uh the budget process, you know, it's a comprehensive process. We start this process back in October. Um and basically through October, November, December into the spring, early spring into March, you know, it's about a four and a half, five
month process where the entire district administration kind of gets together and we and we start to develop the budget for the upcoming school year. Now, you know, it is a challenge because as it is, we're only one month into our in the current school year. We're already
trying to build a budget for the next school year. So, this is a very comprehensive process. It's a lot of meetings. It's a lot of time uh that everybody puts into this um to get us to where we are today. So, uh just just a quick agenda of what we'll discuss tonight. Uh we'll discuss the components
of the school budget. Uh we talk about revenue, state aid, you know, where that where that comes from, the cost drivers in our budget and our expenditures, budget adjustments we made to get here. We'll talk a little bit about administrative costs in the district. We'll do a budget snapshot where we'll
give you a little bit about each kind of area in our district and what we're what we're looking to do next year and then we'll discuss the budget outcome. Um so let's talk about the revenue sources first. So we got our revenue sources from a few different
places. Uh tax levy is is the primary revenue source from our district. Uh as you'll see in the next slide, the Manchester taxpayers fund approximately 71 or 77% of our entire school budget. And the reason that is, and I've said
this before, if you've been here, is we are a unique school district because we do have a extremely large senior community in Manchester. And school funding formula bases funding on property value income in your town and
it also looks at the number of kids that get sent to your district. So, in the eyes of the school funding formula, Manchester is considered a wealthy school district. Um but in reality that's not necessarily the case. Uh we're one of three school districts in the entire state that have this type of
demographic. It's ushers and there's a district down in May. Uh so unfortunately you know a district like ours where they use that district factor group. We are a district factor group. We your your former aid districts they were aids. We should I
mean re realistically we should be getting s at least over 50% of our entire school budget. In reality we get about 11 or 12%. Um so we'll be looking at we talk about the tax leal about state aid you know we get we get federal
aid through grants through IDA and ESSA which used to be no child left behind. Then we have a couple other revenue sources. We have a seven to se relationship with Lakers Elementary School. They send us their high school kids. Uh and then we have some other we have extraordinary aid which is tied
into our special education non-public transportation aid which is tied into the avenue that we pay and as you saw tonight we also get support from our PTA. We also get support from you know our our staff that goes for donors choose our foundation and all these things kind of encompass what we put in
our school budget. So this was this is essentially the revenue snapshot. This is kind of what I was talking about. Um you know as you can see that big green slice is that's That's that's the piece that's funded by our taxpayers. Um, and then the red slice is the portion we get
state aid which is about 11.4%. Our federal aid like I said which is our funds which helps support special education cost and our SS funds which is no child left behind. Uh that's another that's a small portion 7%. And then that
other portion is what I was talking about is that's the tuition agreement that we have with Lake Hurst and and some of the other revenue sources that are in our budget like the the transportation aid, miscellaneous income, those types of things that come across. Uh so if you look at our state
aid, this is this has been our state aid over the last five years. So if you look during during this fiveyear period and two years prior to this, we were one of the Senate bill as two districts. So we were we were slated to lose money for
essentially a seven a period of seven years. But as you can see on when we hit 23 24 our demographic started changing here a little bit. Uh we had more students that were on free reduced lunch subsidies. We had more special education students. Um we had more ESL students.
So that kind of flipped the script for us a little bit and actually put us in a stadium increase for for one of the first times in in in a long time. So you can see where you can see where we went. Uh this year our stadium
increase $359,000 and I'll talk a little bit more about that. So in the 20 for the 2526 budget, the school funding formula changed a little bit. Um, and basically what they the major change in the formula was instead of taking a
one-year snapshot, a one-year income snapshot and a one-year property snapshot, they took the average of three years and of each of those things and then redid the funding formula. Now, that that changed the formula quite a bit. Um, so when when I sat and we
watched the governor give his, you know, give his address, his his his budget address, you know, he said, "Schools are going to be fully funded this year." We're like, "Okay, fantastic. This is schools are going to be fully funded." But are we? We're not. So, uh, when they
So, what we found out was when they get up there and say schools are fully funded, what they're telling you is whatever they have in their budget for school funding has been put into the formula. Does not mean that that we are fully funded. So, as you'll see when the formula was revised, our bond cap aid,
so our state aid should have increased almost $1.8 million this year and they put a cap in place uh increases and decreases. So, of the 1.8 million, we got 360 million. So, so, so clearly, you
know, clearly the formula is not fully funding schools yet at this point. Uh but but I was I'm always glad when the money goes up, but I think this should have been significantly more, but that's where we're at. But now with the new funding formula, the school district is
now $4.8 million below adequacy. And what that number means is the the Department of Education determines what a bud what a budget number should be to provide a thorough and efficient education. Uh and now they're saying we
are 4.8 million below adequacy. Last year we were about 300,000 above adequacy. So you can see how much this change in the formula affected those things. Uh and now what this formula also says is that Manchester as a town
million below local fair share. So what does that mean? That means the state is now saying that the taxpayers of our town can afford an additional $8 million tax levy um to support the school budget. So look, there's there's a you
know there's a lot to unpack with this new formula and it may change next year, but you know for for the purposes of today, we did receive an increase. not being fully funded yet and the and the fund the school funding formula has shifted quite a bit to put more
responsibility on the towns and and less on the state. So what are some of you know what are some of the cost drivers in our budget? You know this is not this is no surprise you know what staff salaries health benefits they bring they occupy over 70% of our entire budget. Uh
special education is is our our third biggest expense in the district. You know, this includes all all of our out of district experience. This includes all the services we provide, all our special education programs, transportation, those types of things. Eden Lou uh which is a which is a fairly
new uh expenditure for Manchester. We've always had it to this extent. You know, four or five years ago, we're paying our payments were around 35 $36,000. We're projecting to get $1.2 million in. And basically what those
payments are, those are payments for students that go to nonpublic schools. They don't come here. They go to nonpublic schools within 20 square miles. We are responsible to transport those students or or pay them a give them a subsidy per child. Uh so we are
we are estimating to be around 1.2 million quality next year there. Uh utilities utilities obviously you got to have the lights on. You have got has to work which it seems like it's working very well in here. Um you know so uh utilities we're expecting to see a
potential increase and I have seen that they would they may be killing some projects to reduce this potential increase but we were originally told that you could expect about a 20% increase in electrical cost next year when you're running a school district that's fairly that significant when you have people in your buildings almost all
day and all night that's significant. Uh and then there's something else in our budget. You know, again, this this got pushed into our budget several years ago. Uh but we are now responsible for a portion of a pension payment uh that we make from our staff that are not in
TPAF. These are our staff that are PUBS and that's expected to be about a 17% increase. So when when you consider school budget, you know, our our tax levy cap is 2%. Now there are some things uh there are
some adjustments that we can make that that allow us to go above the 2% but when you're operating in a budget that you know where health benefits are increasing 18 to 20% utilities are going up 20% liability insurance is going up 25% staff salaries are going up more
than 2%. It it's it's a challenge every single year it's a challenge to get to where we are today. Um other areas, you know, that are that are driving some costs in our budget are our multil- language learners. Uh we still have some substitute shortages, but it is getting
better. There was another minimum age increase. It was it was on it was it was a small one, but it does affect it does affect what we pay. It also affects what we pay vendors. Um we had some in the expiration of a bunch of federal grants that were given that were given to
schools during CO. uh we were we were using a lot of those funds to support programs we were running in the district. Now we've had to bring some of those programs back, some of that software back. Um we've maintained some of that staff, not all of it. Uh and then just the cost of doing business. I
mean you guys all know if you're out there, you're in the shopping, you know, in the malls and supermarket where things are expensive. Um and they're expensive for us, too. uh you know so we have to fix HBAC if we have to fix you
know anything that cost is now double or triple what it was so those are you know those are some things we're dealing with um I realize as I look at this slide this is probably not the best slide there so freaking small but the primary
thing about this slide is to point out like the the the blue line that's that's our that's our staff right blue red line. Purple line is our health benefits. Those two those two categories in and of itself, like I said, are
roughly 70% of our entire budget. So, when we're when we're going through the budget process and we have millions of dollars to cut out of our budget, it's very difficult to do it without affecting those areas because that's the largest part of our budget. Now, we do everything we can to maintain
our staff and programs, athletics, transportation, all that stuff. And it's it's it was it was a real challenge this year. I I will say this, we we had a big shift in our charter school enrollment. We had a big shift in our out of
district special education moment. And without those two things, this would be a much different presentation. Uh but this just kind of gives you an idea of where the money gets spent. But the whole reason this is just to show you that the majority of the money that goes into our school budget is in the
classroom. About 50% of this budget is related to classroom. I have a question. So as you know you said the charter school and out of district could we maybe like start verifying each year for anybody who's attending a charter school and out of district for their addresses so that so
yeah. So we we actually started doing that this year and we have we have been able to find some families uh that did not belong you know in Manchester. Um but that is one of the things we have started doing and we will continue to do that going forward. Uh you know
especially you know especially considering how tight the budget is and every single kid that goes for a charter school cost us about 22,000. So, it it's it's worth doing, you know, an investigation just to make sure that they they are our residents. Um, so here
were some of the things that we we we did to get to help us get to CAP. Um, again, and I and I'll back up and say again, this this page could have been significantly different uh tonight if it wasn't for some of the work that our special ed department has done, our our
security teams have done with residency checks and things like that. Um so this budget eliminates six positions uh primarily through attrition which means we have staff retiring that we're not going to replace. Um we we've
reduced out of out of district placements you know sign fairly significantly from where we were at this year. At one point this year we had about 57 kids out of district. Uh next year we're projecting about 47. So being able to some of those kids
graduated, some of those kids were coming were bringing back to district uh for to participate in district programs. When when each one of those kids can run you 80 to $150,000 a piece, that is very significant. And so I thank the special ed department for for doing that. As I
said, our charter school enrollment dropped. We went from 32 kids and it dropped 19 kids. Part of this was families moved out. Uh, and part of this was through residency checks and things like that. Again, at $22,000 a pop, that is significant. Um, one of the things we
did in in the budget process was we moved our cafeteria aids out of our local budget and moved them into our cafeteria budget. Now, that would that would only be temporary because our cafeteria budget cannot sustain the cost of all of our cafeteria aids over a period of more than probably two years.
So this was temporary at the time. Now all that being said, the good news, class sizes are going to remain relatively the same. All of our programs, services, support, staff development, all still in place. Uh we have no changes to sports or clubs, but
we will be looking at participation. Um obviously, you know, to run clubs, we want to make sure we got we have we have enough participation. To run sports, we want to make sure we have enough participation, but they will all be there. If there is uh courtesy busing, after school busing is still available, field trips still available. And look,
things things can happen from year to year. This particular budget year when we opened the budget up in July, we had 12 new out of district placements that we were we did not have in our budget when we approved it. Uh we approved our budget last March. So there's there's
always things that can happen that could change this, but for now in what we're presenting, what we're anticipating, this is where we're at, you know, but we are going to have some tough tough decisions, you know, going forward. We are we are at a point now, like I said, where we don't really know what's happening with federal funding. Um,
obviously, if you turn the TV, you know, you turn the TV on, there's a lot of discussions about federal funding and who's going to get it, who's not going to get it. Uh, so that's that's going to be an issue. Um the district demographics obviously are changing here. Uh and the more the more that
shifts you that could affect our that could affect our school funding and that could also increase costs that go outside the public education system. Um there are there is some building in the community. Uh there are new there are some construction projects out there. So we are hoping that that generates some
additional enrollment for us. And then obviously the 2% cap the 2% cap you know is tough. the 2% cap was put in place I think back in 2010. Um and now and it's been in place ever since. Realistically today the 2%
cap it doesn't work when you're trying to develop a budget with the costs of everything else going up significantly more than the cap. Uh so this continually puts pressure on the board, puts pressure on the district to find ways to either generate additional
revenue, save save money or postpone things, push to another year to get to get us to where to get us to cap so that we are able to still provide the things that we provide for our kids. Um, one of the things and one of you know this was one of the things that this board has
always done extremely well because whenever we're up here talking uh you know administrators seem to have the you know school administrators seem to have the targets on their back uh because typically we are a higher paid staff. There's there's you know there's you know there's a lot of us out
there in various roles. Um, but one of the things we've always focused on was trying to control that cost just so the regional limit for administrative cost per pupil is $2,677. Manchester's cost per pupil is
$1,71. So we are spending $2.7 million less on administrative cost than than what the state or central region limit is. So that you know again that's a testament to the boards that's a testament to our administration because you know our
administrators are doing you know they have they have more staff on them they have more students over there. Um so you know we're we're doing trying to do our part there um to control cost. Now we'll take a look at the budget. You know
again a quick snapshot just just to talk a little bit about you know what's going on what's you know some of the things that are in the budget. Um if Anybody here wants to chime in, more than welcome, but I will try to do you justice. Um, so investing in our
district, the first thing we'll talk about is curriculum. Um, so so right now Manchester has the 68 lowest student to teacher ratio out of 74 school districts, which is which is amazing considering the things that we've gone through. Uh, we've managed to we've
managed to keep class sizes small. We've managed to maintain most of our staff uh over these years uh and obviously smaller class sizes is much more conducive to learning. Um one of the things we're looking at as we go forward is obviously academic achievement uh
student growth and providing opportunities for our students. Uh one of the things we are looking at we are looking at increasing our achievement in math and science. Uh we are currently evaluating the math program. uh we haven't you know the team hasn't decided if we're going to stick with what we
have or move to something else but that's something that's out there and obviously we're continuing our focus on writing instruction uh writing writing does seem to be a lost art you know now but uh uh we are continuing to focus on on those areas you know the other thing
too is you know professional development professional development is vital for our staff and it's vital for our students you know because obviously when you have when you have staff that are well trained you know they can take those things and put it into the classroom. Um we are we are looking to continue uh obviously reading our
reading instruction uh that you know obviously literacy is a focus statewide. Uh so we're going to continue putting things in place for that. Uh the high school continues to offer much more diverse course offerings. Uh they're
looking every year to try to expand what we offer. you know, we we we do try to compete with the vote tech that are out there and things like that. So, we are trying to add new things each year as as a way to potentially keep kids in the district. And then I won't go through all these, but we got a bunch of
textbook purchases. Um, you know, these textbook purchases are not like the old days where you bought the book, you kept it for 10 years, and you know, this is a lot of this textbook licenses because everything now is online. These things expire quicker. So, we're constantly going through this process every couple
years. Uh, so these are just some of the ones that we're addressing uh for the upcoming school special education. Uh, we, you know, we we did talk about this a little bit. So, we we we currently have about 739 students in the district that have
an IEP. Uh, that's roughly just over 25% of our entire population. We have 116 kids that have 504 plan which are which are which is some kind of medical plan. Uh we're projecting at the time we were projecting about 45 kids out of district. I think that's going to be
somewhere around 47 or 48 when we're all said and done. Uh one of the things we are doing this was something that was that we're creating for next year to bring back some of our 18 plus students is we are creating a job coaching program for the for those kids. Uh
currently with we have special needs kids, they are ours until they're 21 years old. Um and we didn't have this program prior. So a lot of times these these kids will stay with the programs that they're in until they're 21 for these services. We are going to try to
do that in the district this year and that's allowed us to bring some kids back. Uh we'll be setting up a new autism a classroom for kindergarten. Uh again, that's keeping kids in the district. Uh we're resetting up a new multi uh multi- handicap class which
will allow us to bring more kids back into the district. We're going to continue to offer extended school year programs. U we're going to still have crisis prevention. Our registered behavior technicians are still in the budget. We're still going to offer BCBA services. And again, this special
education is very volatile. I mean it could swing different, you know, one way or another at any given time. So obviously this is ongoing. We watch this constantly throughout the year. I mean, just today I I mean, I think we had two or three kids that something changed, their placement is changing, this is
going on, somebody got kicked out, you know. So, it's it's con it's it's constantly evolving. We're constantly kind of moving on the fly with this stuff. Uh but, uh, you know, special education is a big piece of our money. Correct? Yes. Is is
is the 25% normal in all schools or is our school I was I mean it's hard to say but I would say we're we're right right
average slightly high we definitely have a changing population we a lot of students come from diabetes So we have a large percent right now that either have an
oral as far as numbers go. So what we're really trying to do is maintain as many programs in district as we can while keeping our staff and students safe at the same time. Two of our preschool disabled programs right now we have
three of those kids. So with that we do often get requests and we honor from other districts we don't have a program that could facilitate you know our student can you rec [Music]
the question was when they come from another town they are charging. Yeah. So it's a benefit for us especially in a situation like this one of our children if they move and that district for them we already have that
child we know that child and that sending district would be responsible for transportations and all costs incurred. correct nursing services, paral that. Um, so I I think the other thing that that speaks to is we are not the only district that
is increasing. Thank you. I would technology these guys over here um with All you know, all I all tell you is don't ever mess with the tech guys. They can they can spruce yourself up with
you. Um but uh you know so obviously we're we are going to continue obviously with the the things that we have you know we are looking we are in the process we don't have it in here anymore. We each have these maps and projectors in all of our classrooms. We've been slowly converting those to these screening panels in the
classrooms. So we're going to look to do a chunk of those again next year. Obviously building, you know, physical building security, that's always been a focus because obviously we want to keep our staff and our students uh safe. Uh big thing now, you know, is is backups and cloud backups, making sure that if
god forbid something does happen, we have proper backups and we're backing up on a very regular basis. Uh we are we are using multifactor au authentication um for just about everything. So you know and again this it can be tedious at
times, but for our protection. Uh it's for our kids protection. It's for our student our staff's protection. Um again, we are looking to replace some of the teacher student devices. Uh as as you know, you know, Manchester essentially is oneonone. So every I think every kid that's in the district
with the exception of some grades at the lower levels because they're not developed at that point to use these devices has a Chromebook and many of these Chromebooks go back and forth with them. Uh you know, so uh they only last a certain amount of years. license for a certain amount of years through wear and
tear. So we're we're constantly replacing, you know, a block of those, you know, each year. So that's coming up this year. Break fix, these guys do, you know, a tremendous job because obviously these devices traveling, you know, the screens broken, keys missing, things
shove in the ports. What do you I mean, you name it. Um I mean these, you know, the parents do sign an agreement that says they're responsible, but these guys do a lot of that work in housevious. Um and then obviously and obviously they're here for all this all the software we
have and all the software support that they provide in the district and you know testing all this stuff facilities. Um you know if if any of you have ever been to our schools including this one you know our our facility crew are
grounds do a fantastic job keeping these schools uh looking beautiful. I mean we have some schools here that are 19 built in 196 um and these schools look fantastic and that's a testament to our facilities and grass 32 grounds three
maintenance uh and they they basically do the majority of the work in this district. Uh there is funding obviously it is our schools you know because obviously we want safe healthy schools uh maintain our school grounds uh we
have resources uh to a key obviously to keep the students and staff safe for better maintenance. Couple of the bigger projects we're potentially looking at is we did a we did the shingle roof replacement last year. They have a flat roof there that we're we have to look at
replacing because it is leaking uh and it's at a point where it's beyond repair. So, we'll be looking to do that. Uh one of the things we're also going to be looking at is uh upgrading the playground elementary. Um and then the last thing is at our high school we We
do have solar panels on our high school. Uh in p in previous years, it's a small it's a small system, but in previous years, those panels have generated anywhere between 20 and $40,000 in revenue to the district. But in order in order for those to work, you need a you
need a solar inverter. Our inverter is damaged and because the system is older, we may have to update that. Uh so that's something we're going to take a look at. I'm not sure if we're going to do it yet, but we have seen significant our utility cost at the high school since that system has been down. Uh so that's
something else we're going to look at. Uh transportation, uh we have an extremely efficient transportation department here. Our our our transportation department runs at a 200% efficiency. Uh the state recommends 120. So again, that is a testament to our to
our transportation department. We run on four or five tiers depending on what's going on. Uh so our buses are out there all all all day. They're out there running. You'll see them all day long. Uh we have a fleet of about 66 buses and three vans. You know, our buses run
about 800,000 miles a year. Um which is, you know, which is a lot. Uh when you when you think about it, um you know, we are we still do have a driver shortage. It's definitely better than it was last year when I stood up to uh we we implemented some new things. We increased salaries. We we offer paid
training. Um so we have been able to attract uh additional drivers, but we contracting out about $1.5 million of our transportation because of the amount of drivers it has to do. Um so that is always our focus. focus is more you'll
bring more drivers in and pull some of that work back and you know I discussed a little earlier what you know what's going on with the move obviously that that has become now a significant part of our school student administrative services um this is you know this is this is this
is our this is Alice's little area um so a lot of this has focuses around our are vocational students. These are kids that either go to vocational school full-time or or part-time. Uh and typically they're going to performing arts, the marine academy, law, public safety. Uh
so, you know, we we every year try to develop ways to keep some of these kids here if we can. Uh so we try to we try to set up some of our ownies uh in an effort to to do that. Um but you know that that represents approximately $160,000 in our money that we pay school
uh for tuition for those kids. Uh you know and the downside to kids that go full-time is they are typically some of our top students and so the grades all they get they they go to vocational school they don't stay with us. So it it
definitely benefits us if we can get those kids back. Uh obviously we we still provide home instruction. uh and whether it's medical or it's due to suspensions and anything like that. So we do provide all instruction we we still do our district mentoring program for new teachers and obviously testing
is still a big piece of what we do here and what's analysis. So now we'll talk a little bit about the tax impact. So as I discussed you know back in the first couple slides. So, one of the
things that the Department of Education did this year with the new funding formula and the local fair shares, the low and advocacy numbers is any district that was below local fair share and low advocacy could apply for additional
funding, we'll call it. But what what it essentially what you're applying for is additional tax levying. you're probably applying for additional tax levy and then they will give you a piece of of funding to support that. Um, so as I discussed earlier, so the school
funding formula was revised. The district is now $8.5 million in low local fair share and we're spending $4.5 million adequacy. So in this in this application, the district could have applied for up to $8.5 million. Now you
can't just apply for justification. you have to have just justification and obviously we don't have justification to apply for $8.5 million. Um so and and what that would have generated if if we had applied for it, it would have generated an
additional $400,000 in one time revenue. Uh what the district did do is we did apply for $829,000 uh of which $790,000 of that falls into the tax levy and about 40,000 falls into the incentive. Uh the reason we applied
for this stuff is to get to CAP. We had to make cuts in areas where um some of those things changed from from the time we budgeted. Um some of you know some of them were like I said like moving the cafeteria aids out that was going to be
a one-time thing. Um some of the stuff that's here, the homeless tuition, car school tuition, nursing and transportation, these were new expenses that came up after the flight was submitted. So in order to put the funding to those expenses, we
were going to have to make additional reductions. Um so we applied for $821,000. Now we were supposed to find out today if we what we were approved for, but in typical fashion. Um this partner did not get the letters out to
us, but what they told us to do is our district application is approved. We just don't know how much it's approved for you. So what they told us to do was approve it. you know, discuss it tonight. Um, discuss what you're going to use, what we're going to use the money for, which is here. We're going to
use it to apply towards homelessness tuition charge for tuition, nursing and transportation special education, additional costs that need to move, and reinstating the cafeteria back into our budget. Um, and whatever whatever the number winds up being, if it winds up being this number, then we don't have to
really do anything else. Uh if it's less than that, then we'll have to make some additional adjustments, but we're not really sure when we're going to know. Uh we like I said, we were supposed to know today and um we were supposed to know today and we
finance. So that's that's tax incentive application. So then here's here's essentially the tax of school for 256. So the average home value now Manchester is $366,000. The town went through a
massive revaluation and went property value in town went from 4.6 uh 4.2 billion up to 7.7 billion. The tax rate school tax rate itself dropped 55 cents due to the reassessment and that's typically what happens as your assessed
value goes up your tax rate drops. Vice versa as assessed value goes down the tax rate tends to go up. So due to the reassessment the tax rate the school tax rate is dropping 55 cents. Um the impact on the average home, which is
$366,000, would be about $114 for a year. So about $950 a month, $9.50 a month for every 100,000 of assessed values. This is an easy way you can kind of tie it into your home. For every 100,000 of assessed value, it'll be
about $31 for $260,000. So that's that that's where we're at. That is our budget that I am presenting to the board tonight to vote on questions. I know this is a little long,
but this is an $80 million budget. So, got to have some discussion about this so that everybody's comfortable what we're doing here. Questions? Thank you. [Applause]
If you look at the agenda, Miss Ray Mundo's presentations can be viewed online. And if you have any questions on those presentations, you can send her an email. Mr. Loren, we're ready for your report. That was my report. No, seriously. Uh,
no. Yeah, I really don't have much of a report. us that obviously uh the budget's on the agenda tonight for a vote. Um you know we have some you know we have some things to do as we as we move forward with this and you know you know
we'll be ready to face the challenges however they come. Um but I just want to thank everybody for the work you guys put in this year because you know we do know that obviously you guys know and I know this was extremely challenging to do this year and um sorry I have to I
have to multifactor into uh and uh and I I appreciate all the work and and and what you know and you guys rising to the occasion and when I asked you to do you know when I asked you to do some things you had to make some difficult decisions you were able to do that. So thank you uh and
hopefully this will get us you know through another year. Thank you Mr. Lorenson. At this time uh we would like to invite any residents to come to the microphone to ask questions or speak on agenda items only. Um, are there any board member reports?
I attended a full day workshop the beginning of the month on public relations and communications. It's very effective. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other board members? Is there any old business or
correspondence? Old business, no correspondence. Okay. Please move to the agenda. Section one, a new business numbers one to three. Can I get a motion? Motion. Any discussion?
Can I get a roll call, please? Mr. Ser, yes. Missy, yes. Mr. Pos, yes. Mr. Keller, yes. Mrs. Wingler, abstain from one. Yes,
and Miss M. Yes. Letter B, budget items. Craig, thank you again for yourformational presentation. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second discussion. I actually just want to provide you one additional piece of info. So when you look at this
budget resolution, obviously uh one of one of the other things we had to do, we we we had to adjust our preschool budget. Uh, so I guess some somewhere at the Department of Education, they had a fiscal audit on their side and they made some changes on what we can and can't charge for the preschool budget. So
although it's a net net, it doesn't really have any impact. You know, we just moved some expenses out and some expenses in, we have to show those changes here. So you'll see that in the resolution as well. Um, and then stuff above that is related to the the application that I discussed.
Any other discussion? Can I get a roll call, please? Mr. Ser. Yes. Missing. Yes. Mr. P. No. Mr. Keller. Yes. Miss Wingler. Yes. Miss M. Yes. C. Transportation. Can I
get a motion, please? Motion. Discussion. Can I get a roll call, please? M. Serve. Yes. Miss. Weinstein. Yes. Mr. Cos. Yes. Mr. Keller. Yes, Miss Wler. Yes. And Mr.
Yes. Okay. Section two, administrative numbers 1 through eight. Can I get a motion, please? Motion. Second. Discussion. I would like to thank everybody who gives so generously to our school district to make things better.
Um, especially to PTA that presented tonight. Can I get a roll call, please? Mr. Ser, yes. Miss, yes. Mr. Ps, yes. Mr. Keller. Yes. Mrs. Wingler. Yes. M. Yes. Okay. Personnel numbers 1 through
28. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second. Discussion. I would like to say congratulations to all those retirees and I'm going to put you on the spot. Um, our new principal once he's
approved, Mr. Anthony Gonia is here. So, if you haven't met him, he's right over there. And you can meet him tomorrow at STEM night, which he will be attending here at the middle school. Any other discussion? Can I get a roll call, please? Mrs. Sur,
yes. Min, yes. Mr. Pos, yes. Mr. Keller, yes. Mrs. Wingler, yes. M. Yes. Student personnel numbers one to three. Can I get a motion? Motion. discussion. Can I get a roll call, please?
Mr. S. Miss Winston? Yes. Mr. Cross? Yes. Mr. Keller? Yes. Mrs. Wingler? Yes. Miss M? Yes. Special services numbers one through three. Can I get a motion, please? Motion. Second. Any discussion?
Can I get a roll call, please? Mr. S. Yes. Minstein. Yes. Mr. P. Yes. Mr. Keller. Yes. Mrs. Wingler. Yes. Mrs. M. Yes. Section three, finance, letter A, numbers 1 through five. Can I get a motion, please? Motion. Second.
Discussion. Can I get a roll call, please? Mr. Ser. Yes. Miss Wson? Yes. Mr. F? Yes. Mr. Keller? Yes. Mr. Wler? Yes. M? Yes. Okay. At this time, is there anybody who
would like to come to the microphone for non-aggenda items? Um, before we adjourn, I just want to make note that our May board of education meeting will be held at the Manchester Township High School instead of here because we will be honoring all of our teachers and ESPs of the year.
So, if you're planning on attending our next meeting, please meet us at the high school in May instead of here at the middle school. I'd like to make a motion to Can I get a second? Second. All in favor? I have a good night everybody.