here. Mr. Goodman here >> before I'm just going to ask attorney right hand. to me. I state your name. >> I don't >> do solemnly swearly swear. >> I will support the Constitution of the United States. >> I will support the Constitution of the United States, >> the Constitution of the State of New
Jersey. >> Constitution of the state of New Jersey. >> And bear true faith >> and allegiance to the same. >> and and allegiance to the same >> and to the governments >> to the government >> established in the United States >> established in the United States >> under the authority of the people.
>> Under the authority of the people. >> So help me God. >> We're not done. It's a long list. >> I've done this. >> All right. I state your name again. >> Possess the qualifications. >> Possess the qualifications >> for the for the member of a board of education. >> For a member of the board of education.
>> I'm not a disqualified voter. >> I am not a disqualified voter. >> And not disqualified. >> I'm not disqualified. >> Due to a conviction of a crime. >> due to the conviction of a crime. I will faithfully >> I will faithfully >> and partially >> and partially >> justly perform >> justly perform >> all the duties
>> to all the duties >> according to the best of my ability. >> according to the best of my ability. >> So help me God. >> So help me. >> You got it. United States of America nation indivisibley and justice for all.
>> Okay, I have a very report. We filled the vacant seats summer policy committee this month. I'd like to welcome Tim Haw and Justine Belran to join Mr. Keller and I on the committee. This committee meets a few times throughout the year to review policy revisions and new policies before they
come to the full board for readings or adoption. I'd also like to express our gratitude to everyone involved on behalf of the board for inviting us to the Martin Luther King Jr. Gospel Chorus tribute. I'd like to thank Gloria Atinson, um Tim P, and Beltran.
attending and representing the board at this special event. It was great to see pictures and videos shared by community members of our talented students who performed. Um, as we begin 2026 together as a new board, I'll leave you with a quote I love that's especially meaningful during our tribute to Dr.
King. The time is always right to do what is right. May it guide our work with intention and integrity as we serve the Manchester community. Thank you. And now, Mrs. Pedro will give her report. >> Good evening everybody. Welcome. Happy new year. Um, I would like to
congratulate Mr. Murphy. Thank you for being back on our as you know, January is school board appreciation month. We want to thank our board members for volunteering and serving and working with us as a team. I
also attended the Manchester Gospel Choir 57th annual tribute and celebration, but I'm going to leave it to the board members that were there. Miss or Mr. speak about it because it
was really quite a night um very very joyful evening and definitely something memorable because our keynote was the lieutenant governor who was approved and had his inauguration I believe just
yesterday. So quite momentous for Manchester. Yeah, it was a great time. It was very lifting energy in the community. Everybody was very happy to see. Now we have the report of the military
investor. Sergeant Taylor. >> Good evening. Uh, first I want to thank the uh the Manchester Township uh school board in the district for all of your support for our military uh community and for our military connected students. Uh last week the installation commander
uh Colonel Stefanovich um came out and uh met with the uh the board and the district um and got a tour of the district and uh it went very well. Just want to thank you guys. >> Angelica
Angelica came as well and it was it was really nice to have his leadership there speaking with us for the tour and just really talked about and spoke about the wonderful things going on. Next we have Olivia from the student
government student government representative for her. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Olivia D. Martino and I'm the executive board publicly in Manchester Township High School. I'm here today to provide you the board with important information regarding the important
events that have been happening at MTHS since the last we had our winter pep rally where we sack the under relay game. We also had guest appearances by gingerbread inflatables and students and staff participated in half court basketball challenge. It was a resounding success with the students
and faculty. The seniors are looking to bring back paka palooa in the spring are looking and are looking to have sign to donate fundraisers. The juniors are awaiting the results of their apple be fundraiser in December and are looking to set up a fundraiser at Buffalo Wild.
Our sophomore class held a fundraiser at BJ. They also have successful fundraisers at Five Below and Chipotle. The freshman completed their apparel sale and are coming up with fundraiser ideas for the remainder of the year. I just want to say thank you for allowing
me to represent the Manchester Township High School student government at the board meeting this evening. I'm truly honored to be here with all of you and to have the opportunity to fill all of you in on everything our SGA has been working so hard on. Thank you again. Have a great night.
Next, has our student. >> Okay. So, we're going to start a little differently this evening. I'm going to actually recognize the board members first. So, we'd like to congratulate and our
board members as you know um last last time we met the beginning of January we approved Mr. Thank you for being with us and Miss Bel. But I'd also like to thank the board members um that have been serving on this committee and part of
the team. So Mr. I believe I have a certificate for you and I'm just gonna ask if you could all come up here and we're going to take a photo together and Miss Belran thank you so much for your service. Mr. Min, thank you for your service on
our board. Mr. Mr. Thank you so much for your service on our board. Mrs. Wingler, Mr. Slow down this way. >> But I do think that part of it should be
Mr. Lauren. Why don't you come up and take a picture with us? >> Did you hear me in the back? I always have to be the front. >> No, I'll stand in the back. >> You should come back here, too. >> You can swing it.
>> Oh. Um, yeah, I'll come in. >> Don't hit the shortest. >> Anybody else? >> All right. Are we ready? Like the kids. Look here. One, two, three. >> Come in a little bit. Thank you. Just keep looking.
>> Very good. >> It's important we do this because in case you didn't realize, Miss Belran and Mr. Guzman, there is no paycheck involved in this. Um, you are volunteering your time, but we We And that all kidding aside, what you're doing here is working with us
collectively as a team for the betterment of our district, but also to service our kids and our students. And we are not only excellence by example, but we are student centered and we're student first. And so I appreciate you being all here to work together collectively. So thank you so much. I'd
like to give AN I will continue with our students. And so we are going to start with MTES. And is Skyler here this evening this? Hi Skyler. Come on. And Mrs. Hi. Congratulations.
So Skyler is being recognized as NCES's student of the month and she is proud because she's an outstanding fifth grader. So she's the model of the school. Skyler is a member of our broadcast news team and attendance ambassador and serves as president of
the MEES chapter of Junior Impact. academic achievement is just as impressive and we are proud of Skyler and the ways in which she serves as a role model to all of our dragons. Keep shining. Thank you so much. >> Congratulations.
>> Congratulations. We will with Bridgeway School's January student of the month. Is she here this evening? >> Yes. We are proud to recognize as an exceptional student whose artistic talent continues to shine in our school
community. Her creativity, attention to detail, and passion for expressing herself through art demonstrate not only advanced skill, but also a deep imagination and And I love your artwork. Her artwork brings color and inspiration to those
around her, reflecting both her work ethic and her bright spirit. We commend you for your outstanding achievements, and we look forward to seeing you grow as an artist. Congratulations. >> I do want to say that Mr. You probably
recall when we were at the the um keynote speaker was Mr. Caldwell and what resonated most to me is he spoke about being the light and he spoke about light being you know anything but
being very active not passive and so what I'm what I'm reading here is that our students shine they are the light and and that's what we need more of in this world so congratulations to those two young ladies because they certainly shining and being the light in our
district and I think that will continue throughout. So here we have Whiting Elementary School. Mrs. Swift is Morgan here this evening. >> Okay. So we're gonna applaud anyway and we'regan school student of the month. I love this
very much because their theme there is to be your own hero and it aligns with the book Be Your own hero by Lisa King and she actually is um what it means to be a hero and so this activity helps encourage them to work towards being a
hero in school and she actually and it was the three of them so it's Bo Sierra and Morgan and none of them are here this evening okay that's okay we will make sure that they get their certificate but I ask for you to applaud loud enough so that they can
Mrs. Swift will make sure that they get their certificates and we let them know how proud we are of all three of them. The next student is from regional day and I believe I saw here this evening. I
thought I saw her pretty face. has made great strides both academically and behaviorally. She's hardworking student that always tries her best. She's always a great friend and a positive role model for her classmates.
Her kindness can be felt throughout the school year and she often can be heard and cheering her friends. We are very proud of the she and she's a little shy right now. Sometimes not.
Congratulations. Congratulations. We're so proud of you. Congratulations. Okay, our next student is representing our middle school and I think I saw Rebecca back back there. Rebecca, come on up. And Mr. Gonia, come on up. You give her a nice round OF APPLAUSE.
REBECCA IS AN EXCELLENT example of a student that is deserving of recognition for her contributions both in and out of school. Academically, she works hard, maintains excellent grades, and is a great model for role model for her peers. Outside of the classroom, she's a
member of the Girl Scouts, the MTMS spans, the student council, and she currently serves as the vice vice president of the impact club. Moreover, she has assumed the role of manager for both cross country and basketball teams and will soon become an assistant
director for our upcoming spring play. She's a very, very girl. Congratulations. >> Congratulations. >> That's awesome. >> Keep it up. Keep it up. We'll continue with the middle school and our athletes
of the month. And I think I saw Chloe is there and Liam have represents Middle school as our student athletes for the month of January. Liam and Chloe are both great representations of what it means to be a student
athlete. They are eighth graders on our wrestling and cheerleading teams, work just as hard in the classroom as they do in the athletic arena, and serve as excellent examples to our younger student athletes. And so, congratulations to Big smile.
>> Well done. >> We'll continue with our high school and we have Brianna, Monica, and I think I saw some of them. Are they here this evening? Three dedicated students. There's only
one here this evening. Come on up, Miss W. They took the initiative to spread kindness throughout the community by organizing a gift drive for the local senior citizens. I have to tell you, this was awesome. >> Absolutely awesome. I had hoped to be
there, but it was captured just beautifully and I spoke to Mr. Adams about what you had done there and it was just remarkable. So, they invited staff and students to adopt a senior citizen and collect wish items and They personally delivered the gifts to
residents atare. It was just compassion, leadership, you know, making somebody's holiday just so great because some of these people don't get visitors and their wish list was was pretty um some simplistic and some
wanting more things, but you guys did such a great job and it really just demonstrated such a powerful impact young people can have when they give back. So kudos to all three of you. I know there were a lot of students involved. Please let them know that we appreciate their efforts and we're so
proud of them and congratulations to you. >> I do also want to highlight our website features a lot of these wonderful stories. So if you're, you know, if you're on Facebook, you'll see some of that for the MTSD page. Um you
on X or Twitter. I still call it Twitter. I know it's not called Twitter, but um Miss Sylvester does such a great job of capturing a lot of these stories, but um a lot of what you're saying, these students have done things that are really important and demonstrate just
what a great big heart our community has. And to see children go and work with senior citizens and give so much time, it was truly remarkable. So, thank you to those individuals. And I believe it was you had quite a few students. There was a tremendous amount of
students and staff there. It was so moving. They created an entire event. >> Yeah, it it was beautiful. Okay, so here we go. Our athletes of the month at the high school. And I see Jesse and I think I see Andrew.
So listen because this is pretty impressive. So Andrew is a junior swimmer who broke the Ocean County record in the 50 yard freestyle with a time of 2156 and he set a school record in the 100
yard breast stroke of 5785 APPLAUSE about that. So he's become the first Manchester swimmer ever named swimmer at the meet at the county championship. So congratulations Good job.
And and Jesse, you are a tremendous athlete as well. She's a sophomore who leads the Hawks in basketball scoring. She scored a careerhigh of 35 points against Point Pleasant and is averaging 19 points per game this season. YES.
And on top of that, Jesse, you know, I'm I'm a soccer fan. I know you're a great soccer player, too. Just I'm gonna throw that in there. But Jesse will represent Manchester at the Shore Conference Woman in Sports Day in February. They're great athletes, but they're even
better human beings and they are wonderfully humble people. So, congratulations to both of you. And so I'm gonna leave you with this is January, a new year, 365 beautiful mornings and starlet evenings, 42
promising weeks and 12 transformative months full of possibilities. And so really just use this as a new time for new beginnings, a new start. I'm sorry some of you may be here to find out about the snow on Monday. I have no idea.
But what I can is that we have a lot to celebrate and hopefully I won't have to make a hard decision on Sunday night. Right. >> Okay. Everybody have a good evening. Thank you for being with us. Um if you'd like to stay, we do have some presentations. If not, I know the
children may have to go home and do some work and whatnot. So now you certainly leave for the evening. Okay. Thanks for coming. So for those of you that are still here from PK
here, we have and Carmela. >> Good evening everybody. Uh sorry if I blocked you guys. I don't know if it's a treat or not, but we're going to going to keep it relatively brief. Um just want to highlight some of the financial numbers. Uh you know, just a couple
remarks. the state extended the deadline to January 15th this year for a variety of reasons. We actually issued on December 3rd, so so way ahead of the curve. I think we're actually one of the first 20 districts to to issue. Uh that doesn't mean a lot in the grand scheme of things. just obviously we're we're
compliant and really I say that because it's a it's a testament to Craig and entire finance team really really help us along the way do an excellent job of getting everything timely and we really have a good relationship with them. Um
you know on that note I would say this is another year Manchester does not have any findings at all. On top of that there's an In fact, we're gonna do something a little different this year. Uh Carmelo is going to come up. She's the lead supervisor on the engagement. She's
going to go over just the overall process so everyone kind of has a just an overall perspective of really what I know what it is, what it entails, what we're looking at. Uh we'll still keep it pretty brief, so don't worry, but just want to go over some of the highlights. So with that there's no findings also
unmodified opinion and we also look at the financial statements which I have with me. We also look at grants. So if you get federal state aid we look at that also unmodified opinions on both. So congratulations to Craig on that. There's a really really excellent job
and the district as well as the entire finance team. So I was going to take a few minutes just to highlight some of the financial numbers and I'm going to invite Carmela. She's going to go over the audit. Um so I'll just start with the enterprise fund just very briefly. Um you know I think they really did a
good job this year maintaining the balances. They ended food service roughly 1.2 million. Uh the RDS is the other enterprise fund roughly 1.8 million. They're both down around 100,000 from last year which may seem like a lot but in the grand scheme of
things it's really not. When you go over the general fund, you're going to really see the costs are just rising out of control and that's really no different in these enterprise funds. So, you know, conservative spending where possible. Again, the district really really did a nice job with that.
So, with that, bear with me. I'm going to go to the only one other statement really. And so this is the budgetary um C1 statement which really just kind of reflects the overall financial position
of the district. So we ended with three 3.6 million um which again scheme things may sound like a lot. Uh it was 5.1 million last year so it did decrease roughly 1.4 4 million was really you
know what drove that is the expenditures going out were obviously more than the revenue coming in you know uh specifically some of the some of the lines health benefits unfortunately you guys are actually in horizon because horizon I see generally
across the state up like 10% the state health benefit plans were double triple overseeing it's crazy you know so that around $1 million and keep in It went from $9.2 million to $10.2 million. So,
we're not talking, you know, insignificant costs here. Um, tuition, you know, another another line that's I go to every school district, not just Ocean County or, you know, Manchester specific, it's always the same lines. It's transportation, tuition, health
benefits. It's continued to rise and rise and rise. And over the years, we always had, you know, since co, we had the the co grants coming in the kind of camouflage but helped all the rising costs but you know now that funding is
kind of exhausted for the most part. So now school districts are really having a tough time just kind of you know staying a float with some of these revenue streams but um but I think matchups really did an excellent job this year certainly control costs where they
could. Um they also spent around a million dollars out of collectively between the maintenance and capital reserves. So that is that that's just funding that's built up over time. So to alleviate some of the normal district expenses and you could pull from those
reserves for you know I did some uh projects at Ridgeway etc. And uh you know we were able to pull from those reserves which kind of helped ending balance to some extent. Um, that's really all I had on the financial statements other than
congratulations, Craig. Again, another year certificate of excellence. I don't know how many years. I lost track quite frankly. >> 28 or 29. >> Yeah, it got to be one of the the records in the state. So, what that is that that's a uh a financial framework
award that the state of New Jersey gives to districts if they meet certain conditions and criteria, which obviously the district did and continues to do. So with that, I'd like to answer any questions on the financial statements before I hand it off to Carmelo.
>> Okay. >> Thank you, Rob. It's great to see everybody and welcome to the new faces. I'm just going to do a brief overview of the audit process. So, typically the audit um takes about two months. And during this time, the
auditor's responsibility is to gather significant and sufficient evidence to form an opinion. To support this opinion, we review and test a large volume of transactions across the district. A major component of the audit is testing internal controls, which are the policies and procedures to help
ensure accuracy, accountability, and protect district assets. Key areas that we test are cash dispersements, cash receipts, payroll benefits, financial reporting, and budget development. Once internal controls are understood and tested, the audit focuses on
verifying accuracy and completeness of financial statements. We perform additional testing over key areas such as cash, receivables, payables, student funds, which we review student activity funds at the school level to confirm funds are safeguarded and used for their
intended purposes. In addition to financial accuracy, the audit verifies compliance with state and federal regulations, many of which directly affect district funding. This includes ASSA testing, where we review student counts, review student classifications
such as reduced lunch, private school, and bilingual students. Accurate reporting of these areas is critical to ensure proper state aid. When required, a single audit is performed. This is essentially an audit with inside of an audit. So, what we're doing is looking at specific internal
controls related to specific grants as well as compliance. Beyond required procedures, we perform targeted targeted reviews designed to add value and protect the district's resources. This includes looking at health benefit bills and comparing to employee rosters to
verify that employees that are receiving benefits are actually eligible and active employees. We review food service management contracts to confirm the district receives all financial benefits promised. We do a review of regional day school tuition to ensure amounts
received agree with contracts. Review transportation documents to confirm student eligibility and the correct reimbursements. Review the transportation jointer agreements with Lakhurst to verify Manchester receives the appropriate funding. We also provide proactive
guidance on new and upcoming Gatsby standards, including explaining what is changing and when it becomes effective, discussing how changes impact the district's financial statements and processes, sharing best practices based on experience with other districts, an
open line of communication is m maintained throughout the year to address any questions or concerns the districts might have. Just a closing thought, the audit opinion is the final product, but the true value lies within the work done throughout the year to protect the district before problems
arise. If anybody has any questions on the overall audit process, I would be happy to answer. Great. Thank you so much for your time. I just want to I just want to say to you guys, you know, said this is, you know, this is potentially six to eight week
process while you know, we all have jobs to do. So, uh they they respect they respect the fact that we are here working. Um they try not to bother us. We try to do a lot of this through email and they come out and do a lot of their field work. Um so, I do want to thank
them. I want to say as a former prior school board auditor um I've worked with several county firms over the years in different districts to to this day still they do want the most thorough I I've ever experienced on either side
which I think is a good thing um you know I think that's what you want you know you don't want somebody doing drive by audit you want somebody who's getting everything and and you know basically telling me you the numbers I'm reporting out to you guys every month are actually correct uh
that we're doing things correctly that we have controls in place so that those things get done correctly. You know, again, I want to thank you guys. While sometimes I don't appreciate the thoroughess because keep me busy, um, I do appreciate the thoroughess because, you know, again, it gives me guidance
and and support. And, you know, again, a clean audit is is a districtwide accomplishment because we have we have five schools here. We have regional day school, which is its own separate, you know, entity, it own separate little audit. All the people in those buildings
have have a job to do as well. And when they do their job, I do my job. You know, it makes things a little easier. So, thank you everybody in the district. Thank you guys. >> For anyone interested, the NJPA pres >> just uh just brief. Um so we are
currently in the process of the 26 27 budget development. Uh at this point the schools departments have now all handed in their budgets. We've gone through our first review. We have one or two left to do. Um our budget the tenative budget is
going to be due sometime in mid-March. I want to say it's like March. So we only have about two months between now and then to get this get this done. One of the things that we were made aware of at least at this point now we don't know what's going to happen with new governor
um or whether or not there's any modifications. They are telling us city health benefit plan could potentially see increases of 30% medical and 45% prescription which is potentially catastrophic to a budget.
You know this is not just us. This is anybody that's in the state plan. So uh we are hoping that we will get some support somewhere. Uh maybe this I don't know if we're going to know if these rates are going to change. We typically don't find out
a after the budget's already set. So for us, this is potentially 2.5 million increase in the budget just that it alone. Uh so you know we have more work
to do. So there will be a lot more conversations to get us there. We want to put the students first. Um we district has done a good job as well of maintaining you know things that we
had. been able to add some things. through all the Senate S2 bill cuts fairly unseen but we are you know now at a point where having two years in a row potentially 35
40% increases in health benefits when your budget is 12 million now potentially above 20 million next year that's a problem% taxation
So we'll report out as we go to the next at this time. Do we have any public comment for agenda items only? A general public comment will occur later in the meeting. Do any board members have reports?
>> Is there any old business? >> No business. No correspondence. >> We're going to move to item. >> Can I get a motion? >> Is there any discussion on anything on the Yes.
>> Yes. >> Yes. >> Section two administrative one and two. Second. Any discussion? >> Mr.
M. >> Does anybody have anything to discuss on this? I'll abain from 1920 items and I get a motion second. Any discussion
roll? >> Yes. >> Special services items and two motion. >> Any discussion? >> Yes. Yes, >> section finance number one to five
motion. >> Any discussion? Roll, please. Yes. >> Okay. Public comment. The floor is now open to members of the public. The board of education recognizes the value of public comment on education issues. The
board request that each statement be made by a participant and limited to three minutes. We have a signed sheet at the podium and if anybody would like to speak, please come to the microphone. I guess at this point make a motion to
return the meeting.