e e e e e e e e e e e
Mount Olive Township on January 8th 2025 I direct that this announcement be entered into the minutes of this meeting and we'll take a roll call please miss sh Mrs Aquino here Mrs fanton here Mrs fera here Mrs Fitzgerald here Dr gardano
here Mrs Melendez here Mrs Nares here Mrs O'Neal here Mr orillo here and I will take a motion for the approval of the minutes um Mr orillo i' like to make a motion to approve the
minutes second second damn do we have any questions ni do we have any questions or comments from the board nope seeing none we'll take a a roll call Mr orillo
yes Mrs Aquino yes Mrs fanton yes Mrs fera yes Mrs Fitzgerald yes Dr gardano yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs Nares yes Mrs O'Neal yes and do we have any Communications or petitions from the board for the board
from the board anything no okay saying that um Dr B should we go in the Clos session that'll be great thank you and we like um for the public we're going to take a brief recess to go in the Clos session um do we have a motion so moved
second second second all in favor I um just a brief um posession and action will not be taken e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e serious all right now I can put my St all right I'm I will bring the meeting back to session we take a roll call please miss shonah Mrs Aquino here Mrs fanton here Mrs fera here Mrs Fitzgerald
here Dr Gano here Mrs Melendez here Mrs Nares here Mrs O'Neal here Mr orilla here and with that we will turn over to Dr Bia for superintendence report I believe we have a presentation that was quick I you know we just had the break
now so before we get into the preliminary um budget presentation I just like to take um a moment to recognize the phenomenal achievements of her school of students this past weekend um starting with our Junior Roc they were over in Washington Township in which they competed in their um
competition drill they received first place an unarmed Color Guard um first place an armed Color Guard first place for their solo exhib um exhibit um as well as dual exhib um exhibits athletic challenge first place academic challenge
first place and unarmed overall winner so kudos to the phenomenal program both the students and staff so I really wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to recognize them as well as our phenomenal robotics Weekend Not only did we host on a a phenomenal program
that has a rich history within our school district but our team brought it home number one team so we so U Miss Mendes you want to speak real quick what were the team do you remember off the top of your head I have them written out of so it was team were 11 Varsity right
and then team 430 correct yes we have uh Team 11 which is our Mor yeah and then we have the nine graders which is uh Team 193 the beta and then we have a mentor team which is Mor gamma which is
team 43 so we had a So Clean Sweep this weekend I like to say so certainly Kudos tour are amazing students um at the high school at this moment I'm going to turn it over to our lustrious business administrator Miss Nicole showning who's going to be um talking about our
upcoming budget can you yeah just for two good evening everybody uh tonight I wanted to give you an overview of our preliminary
budget for the 2526 School here so uh these are the topics that we'll talk about and that are in your handouts and this presentation will be posted to our website uh at the conclusion of this meeting um as you know the board adopted a budget
development calendar on December 16th um the first is the hyperlink to the calendar that was adopted at that time and the link under underneath it is the calendar that has been updated um because we did use that as we develop
this budget during the season and I I do want to extend my thank you to all the administrators and staff that helped us put this budget together it was an extraordinary amount of work and everybody was very responsive to my
email sometimes around the clock and asking questions uh so we can get everything that they want to get in this budget to take care of our students and staff for the upcoming year and with that I can say there was actually very
little that we had to cut out of the budget due to uh scrutinizing every single budget line scrutinizing the current year budget uh finding funds in the current year budget to uh alleviate next year's budget in an
uh in an effort to take advantage of the $5 million in state aid that the uh the district received this current year so we wanted to make sure that we spent it uh wisely because we knew that we were not getting another $5 million in state
aid moving forward so this screen up here shows a few years of our state aid um 22 and 23 22 23 23 24 were flat Uh current year is where we saw that almost $5.1 million in state aid which
according to um the state department they said that this was uh the final year of the phas in plan to be fully funded um so as we were planning the 2526 budget year I was praying for Flat
state aid and um probably about 3 weeks before uh DOA broadcast came out which never happens they usually leave you biting your fingernails to see what they're going to do at your state aid uh and they said that the most that they
would cut a district state aid would be 3% so naturally we planned on a 3% reduction and that was really hard uh that was really hard to do we were really struggling um because I would have to make Cuts because what's in this
budget are all contractual obligations employment obligations um licensing obligations um uh our health benefit increases from our broker our property and medical our
property and auto insurance Workers Compensation Insurance those are all in the budget with appropriate increases because I can't we can't cut fixed costs we're going to have to pay those you know with there's been a lot of talk of tuition reimbursement over the past year
and a half um and it has played out because we're we're we support tuition reimbursement because we want our teachers to get higher degrees and they want to move across the guide and they have and as a result of the tuition reimbursement in our salary budget is an
additional $24,000 of all the staff moving across the guide so that that's quite it's a lot of money but it shows the dedication to the staff that they really want to um give more for themselves they're willing
to put in the time and give more to to their students so I'm going to turn it over to Dr Bania and just as you can see we um lost about a total of close to $340,000 compared to our prior state aid
um certainly it was not the windfall we had $5 million last year and we were as Miss Jon pointed out planned for this and certainly if it was a 3% it would have been resulted in Cuts here we were able to um you know tighten our you know belts a little bit and try to figure out
what we can do within confine but certainly that's a testament to the hard work that michon put into this budget as well as our team um from our staff to our administrators to make sure that our students are our number one priority so what's in this budget um you know from a Personnel standpoint our really focus is
on academic Excellence you know um one of the things that we're going to be really proud for next year is that we're going to be introducing a gifting intal and teacher at the elementary level we really believe that all students across the um you know Spectrum are need our support so we're infiltrating that until
school day um we'll be adding another Elementary multilingual teacher as our multilingual um population increases we're excited about introducing a new um Mom sixth grade team in order to ensure that transition between elementary and middle school is um created a smaller um
learning environment an additional um high school English teacher as well as an additional in-class resource teacher at the high school and in addition to our academic Excellence we're really focused upon um well-rounded students in development so we added are going to be adding another clinical um social worker
an interventionist as well as our um continued dedication to um expanding our special ed program we are adding a new um ASD autism spectrum disorder classroom at sandshore along with not only a classroom teacher and ABA as well
as the needed supports as far as par professionals we'll be adding an ABA specialist at tins as well as um Elementary based occupational therapists this is going to be um addressing our continue focus upon bringing outside services in as far as not paying vendors
so this is going to be actually a cost benefit to the district because these people are related services are going to be um the employees of um the district we also be bringing in um physical therapist that's going to be shared between the high school middle school as well as an additional child study team
member um here we are going to continue our trend of ensuring that our technology plan is being fully implemented through the replacement of end of life um devices such as Chromebooks laptops desktops we're going to be continuing um purchasing promethium boards interactive boards in
our classrooms as well as maintaining um our current um devices and Through Repair and support and um what I should have probably mentioned from a um Personnel stpoint we are adding another technician to our ranks as well to order to get the support needed to our staff during the school
day the last and obviously I think the most important obviously is curriculum we are going to be continuing our march to en enhancing our curricular opportunities for students and staff about um looking at k to5 um Ela curriculum resources renewal of our um
math um curriculum both at the elementary and middle school um re-emphasizing our focus upon conquer math from grades four all through geometry which takes us into the high school as well as PD in the areas of K3 with conquer math and then um looking at our curriculum resources for
multilingual Learners and as well as providing targeted PD for all regardless with the role they play here and that's something that we're really proud of that you know we don't do um uh you know one size fits all we really want to make sure that the expertise level the
familiarity as well as the areas of services they provide our students is the PD that they receive and I can't um thank the um curriculum instruction team for putting this together as far as that's concerned um and at this point I'm going to turn it over to miss sh he's going to talk about all the amazing capital
projects we have on board so in front of you are the list of capital projects that are in our proposed budget for 2526 totaling a little bit over $4 million and as you know the district has
been very diligent over the past several years and ensuring a deposit to their capital reserve account annually to uh beef up at the account and of course with um the referendum going down that
really uh made us um really dig down and make sure that we were taking every available scent possible and socking it away so we can um spend it on what is needed in the district I am not going to read each thing on this list uh but I
will highlight uh we need some boiler Replacements roof Replacements uh door the door lock replacement at the middle school is um a tiered was a a tiered project because it was so expensive so this is the last part of that project again at the middle
school we need to replace the entire public address system it's really a Safety and Security System issue that needs to happen you'll see that there are several parking lot um expansions um in the district at the various um
schools some interior exterior door Replacements you'll see some playground additions the district did apply for a playground grant that we're hoping to secure about 100,00 that's the maximum value of the Grant and the monies that you see in here make
up the difference from the grant at the three three of the elementary schools um we do have in here um a a um the track and tur field replacement at the high school for close to a million dollars uh
that is near it's uh useful life and we need to upgrade the safety of that turf field this is uh a turf field that has extra um cushion for lack of a better word to help prevent concussions it is
close to a state-ofthe-art track and field our um our facilities director has seen these turfs in place at various schools in the state and uh they are quite impressive this has an extended
warranty of over 10 years and with proper maintenance it could even last longer and no pellets I was going to say as a mom no pellets no pellets no pellets right so hooray so yeah so you won't have that in your backpacks in
your hair and your clean all over your house um and and the last item I I want to point out we have um a modular office building for the transportation Depot if anybody has been over there it is really
an awful place and needs to be it it really is she's not being Hest it really needs to be replaced uh we tried it was part of the referendum and uh so this is a modular office building which there'll be plenty of room where
we're looking right now to secure um an additional um um what's the word I'm looking for a meeting room for the driver a break room for the drivers so I found another vendor to give us a quote because the
first vendor was completely insane so we're because we would like to replace that as well um so that is what's in our capital reserve account and this is a quick analysis of the district's two accounts going from the top down our
opening balance 7.2 million for cap Reserve we're withdrawing 1.2 million to support the current year budget uh due to good bidding results we were under budget by about 650,000 that will go back to the account we're estimating to
earn about 300,000 in interest this year because this money just sits there all year until we withdraw it uh to fund a project and then we are anticipating to deposit an additional $2 million before the end of this school year which will leave our balance to about almost 9
million and then to support next year's budget is the $4 million that I just showed you on the prior screen and then continuing to that subsequent year another $2 million if not more so you can see we're really um we're we're
saving we'll have almost $7 million if not more because interest is not even calculated into that dollar amount uh maintenance Reserve same process going from the top down we withdraw 500 to support our required maintenance that's um low
interest uh as a placeholder and again we'll return the money back in June uh for 25 26 we're going to take out 600 $100,000 we have some additional initiatives to take care of but we'll return another 500 if not 600 and we'll still have over a million dollars
without interest at um June of 26 so the revenues I'm not going to go through each piece because Dr jodano told me I have five minutes and I think I've already I've already exceeded my five minutes by a lot so going from the top down obviously you know the taxpayer
takes care the majority of our budget at 81 $81,300 th000 which is an increase of 3.88% and um at the end of the presentation when I uh discuss more about the tax levy I'll go into more
about the 3.88% but going from the top down various revenues uh our state aid which I have on the side that went down by that 300,000 we increased some revenues based on uh past experience the
unrestricted miscellaneous revenues that went up by 220,000 that includes additional rentals that have been um really coming to fruition over the past several years you can see the actual audited line from
2324 is $1.8 million so we felt comfortable increasing that Revenue line a little bit the extraordinary Aid um the district has had a process of budgeting about 650,000 every year but as you can see 23 24 we
received $2.7 million um and we and we are we increased the uh anticipated aid for next year up to a million dollars I didn't want to go too much but we felt comfortable increasing it by 350 would be good the Medicaid
this is a number that uh the department of Ed gives every district and every District across the state of New Jersey suffered a ridiculous increase uh decrease in their Medicaid we still have to do the same amount of work um in Mount Olive we have about 350 360
students who rely on on these Services um so that that is a dollar amount that is given to us by the department of Ed uh moving down to the bottom you'll see a few lines that says budgeted fund balance
so from the top down the budgeted fund balance from the operating budget that's the money that we say this is what I can save during the current year 2425 budget so we're going to save $1.8 million from
that the next line down is the excess the 1.5 million that is derived from our audit that just uh completed so that has to go back to tax relief and the fund balance unassigned that is in relation
to the xade that the district received in 2324 that you see up there for $2.7 million that revenue does not flow through a District's fund balance and a district is not held with their 2% fund
balance restrictions so you also see on the agenda tonight we are withdrawing from xade from about $500,000 to support current year um expenditures um that represent one:1 AIDS at a district place ments
additional AIDS home instruction all items that were not budgeted uh for that and and of course that's the purpose why you get this xade you complete application showing the amount of money that a district is spending on all these itemized services so we're using it to
to replenish the budget uh for for these non-budgeted items so the million dollars that we're uh withdrawing from the unassigned is the xade so we can use that money to keep our revenues uh so we
don't have to make several cuts to the budget Mich I'm sorry to interrupt you with the XA though make it clear to people it's supposed to be dollar for dollar but that's not what we receive it's never been dollar for dollar it was it went from 90% to 80% it went as low
as 74% there was conversation at the legislature to fully fund xade but it's never going to happen it's like what avail ail monies have so we're very fortunate to get the funds that we did so overall you'll see that our revenues
are going up by 4 and a half% uh yeah that's it okay general fund I'm not going to go through all of this this will be this um this will be put on our website so you
can digest it and we can talk more about it at the hearing I'm sure you'll have lots of questions Mr Wells Muller um you know a lot of a lot of like you'll see based on that's we want to to talk about
what's in the budget first so the the the the value of all the staff that Dr bie had discussed is roughly about $900,000 so that's in where you see increases in several lines and in the curriculum
lines where we discussed the PD and the curriculum that's valued at well over $500,000 and and those are the things that you want in your budget you know it can't all be oh it's salaries and benefits because you know yes that's 80%
of our budget but you know we're a lot more than that we're here to educate children not to pay a utility bill so um so these are the various expenditures it goes on and and this document relates to
when you will look at uh an audit document you can go on to the Department of finance's website you can pull down audits when you look at the budget document that'll be the userfriendly budget it's in this type of format when
you um when the uh the advertise budget is in there it's in this format so we wanted the community to to see how it flows and that when you have questions you'll be able to
recognize the format of it that's why special Revenue these are local state and federal grants uh from the government you um some of them revenues have to equal expenditures so that's why you don't see revenues or expenditures
it has to be the same um local projects those would be any type of local grants that you get um SDA Grant we had uh capital projects Grant in 2324 was the TS HV a unit that was the capital
maintenance Grant so that is uh finished in current year our um our federal grants Title One Two 3 and four you'll see between the revised budget and the proposed budget it's gone down quite a bit and the couple reasons why in the
revised budget we have carryover monies in all four of the five including Ida of those projects carryover funds meaning funds from from the 2324 Grant period but we're not spent at June 30th so a
district is allowed to carry over that money into the subsequent school year so you'll so that's included in the revised budgeted items so when you're budgeting for these federal and state grants the
guidance used to be budget like 85% and because you never know what's going to happen with these types of Grants and most recently um the advice was to budget 75% so I had to absorb about $350
$400,000 from these grants that we rely on uh because you can see from idea alone are without the carryover the current year Grant is about $1.2 million so you see I'm only budgeting about $88.80 so the balance of what we use
between uh outside providers for related services and professional development for our staff and AIDS and ABA therapists we had to absorb them in the current year budget because we can't not be with them we we need we need all of that in our
budget and then moving down the Esser funds that ship is sailed we those phones uh those funds are done and so that's our uh special Revenue budget $1.1 million Debt Service um our debt service
is currently we we have two bonds uh both were were for are for the high school one was um refunded from 2007 and 2005 were the bonds we have one that is
falling off July 15th of 25 with that payment and the remaining bond is about $7.5 million left and that will retire during the 2930 school year so this is why you see Debt Service is going down
down 10% we were trying to avoid that with the referendum to try to keep excuse me the tax levy even we don't want you know spikes and Peaks and valleys in our tax levy but um it is what it
is and so how are we going to pay for all of this right so so the school district is on a fiscal year July to June and the town is on a calendar year so that's why you see the split years of the tax levy so going
from left to right you'll see the general fund tax levy is the $81,300 th000 and The Debt Service is 1.76 one million so for a total of $83 million approximately so it's calculated you
take the half from last year and you take half for next year and then the ending column is the certified um the the total tax levy is the um one two three the fourth column to the right so that's the tax levy that the tax rate is
based on so now what you do is you take the difference between the net valuations in the district and uh the district has seen an over hundred million increase in their ratables for an increase of 5% which is uh when I was speaking with the the tax assessor he
said there were two um commercial properties that really added to the ratables in the district so the ratables went up 5% which is fantastic because last year uh the tax levy only went up by a few hundred th000 and just under 2%
so when you take the difference in the tax levy uh that went up by 2.7 2.76% there's actual a reduction in the tax levy due uh the tax rate rather there's a reduction in the tax rate due
to the 5% increase in the valuation so if you apply those uh tax rates to our current and then proposed budget you'll see I do them in increments of 100,000 with the average assessed in Mount Olive being
$325,000 you'll see that on annual basis we're showing a decrease of about $160 which is total between The Debt Service and The Debt Service falling out and the the general fund which was showing an increase of
3.88% in the tax levy um but again taxes are going down for 160 Grand you always want your net valuations going up your property is worth more you could sell your house for more and you could pay less taxes so yay oh we're missing a
slide Joe could you get get out and just refresh the um presentation there's one more slide I left the slide out it's not in it's not in your packet I apologize yeah I thought it was the last slide before there you um right there
perfect there you go NOP no no that's the same one actually the one before that there it is that's it so I I just wanted to because as everybody knows usually you reduce your tax levy 2% so I wanted to
show a history of over the past few years 23 24 uh the tax increase was 5.93% in that budget the district used um Health Care adjustments and some enrollment adjustments which you're
allowed to go beyond the 2% for 2425 we increased it 2.27% and in that tax levy was an enrollment adjustment of a little over $200,000 this year the district did not qualify for an enrollment adjustment but
we qualified again for a health care adjustment as an aside for 2425 we did also qualify for a health care adjustment for about 750,000 but we didn't need to use it because we
received $5 million in state aid that we weren't anticipating and we had 4.6 million in excess Surplus so we wanted to use that we didn't want to uh really go beyond the 2% in taxes so that that uh Health Care adjustment generated in
2425 can be brought forward for the next three years it's called banked cap and then so for current year how you strike the tax levies you take the current year tax levy of 78 million you inflate it by 2% and that's what's
known as your minimum tax levy and the district received a 1 point we qualified rather for a $1.8 million Health Care adjustment which is calculated um the software Compares what
we're anticipating for our health and medical and prescription costs versus the increase that state health benefits is showing and because State health benefits is showing a much higher increase than what the software is
calculating for us it allows it generates this Health Care adjustment which helps a district increase their tax levy over the 2% to take care of some of these expenditures that they may not otherwise be able to afford um if we
exercise that full $1.8 million the tax levy would have been for 4.34% and there was no way we were going over 4% so we made additional cuts and we reduced uh the adjustment by about
$360,000 which is $1.4 million which you can see is is a resolution on on the agenda and that difference of 359 is also called banked cap which means that you went underneath your maximum tax
levy so your to bring that money forward so now we have roughly over a million dollars to bring into our 26 27 27 28 you're allowed to bring It Forward for three years so I I just wanted to um
show graphically how the tax levy is calculated so that's it how long did I how long was I not too long it was per it was perfect obviously any questions call me
email me will be on the website and um when we have our budget hearing we can we can dig deeper does any board members have questions I would just like to thank Miss showing and the business office and Dr Bania people in the public don't realize how difficult it is to
create a school budget I know this is the heavy lifting now and people think this is the end of it after this budget gets struck and the board votes on it the next month you're already planning to the next school Year's budget you're budgeting a school district year and a half two years in advance with with so many unknowns not knowing where we're
going for state aid not knowing what health benefits costs are going to go up so it's a it's an excellent job and it's not a very easy job to do so thank youate any other comments as I as I said it it was not me I was part of it but the entire staff is just amazing here uh
very detailed very thorough um it's it's just great great to work with great staff excellent job can I have a couple questions maybe we'll go back so as we all know every year we all wait to hear edge of our seats what our state a is
going to be can you go back to the state aid and kind of explain let's see what we have there um the beginning the beginning yeah the pieces of the state aid and how that's qualified so we have the equalization
Aid that's on that that's another one it's revenues then isn't it I think no it was before it's no it's we don't have that detail there's another just another page for it but it was um it was like this it's this
one the history of St the third one the the easy smaller one uh one more okay so we have the the trans Aid the special ed Aid Equalization Aid and security can you
explain the very very large number of that Equalization Aid and how we um the equalization Aid is based on the wealth of the community it's based on tax returns probably from the
20 2023 they're behind a few years it it's based on the wealth of the community as where as well as free and reduced lunch um it's sort of like a shell game where they mix it around I
was looking at other districts um and some comparable because last year we know when we received the $5 million in state aid we looked at about five other districts in Mars County that was relatively similar in size more or less
and they got very large increases too um they also got some of them got very large increases this year as well so um again and so that's what the equalization Aid does it equalizes the difference but it's it's based on wealth
in the community but you could see Transportation Aid uh we received more in that end our special ed Aid which is great uh 940,000 and our security Aid um for listen I I was dancing in the streets when I saw that 340 because I
was planning for 1 $1.1 million was the the 3% and I I just assumed that that's what they were going to do so that's about 8% so that that was fantastic and I think that's going back
to Mr Dr janer too's point when you create a budget like this you start with not an understanding how much money you're going to have so you always have to make what I I I hope what's most likely and hope you not so this is kind so we kind of come up with three budgets
to kind of see what's going to stick and luckily and I say luckily that we only lost about close to 340 compared to what other districts have lost but certainly was not the 3% that we were um also had a version out there you had other questions Miss NES
no I wanted to also say you know thank you so much to because part of this is education for everyone here right I know I made a a request and we've all really asked a lot of questions to go through each committee to you know we've purposely make a very much a focused
attention on the students um you know well-being and education when we come up with this you know working with you for the budget and it's been amazing and it's also really really detailed and you know the information the answers people have questions about you know
where do the dollars go and this typic u m the last year is up on our website right now publicly and this will be back up on our website when we finalize it for everyone to have access to it so there shouldn't be there's no secrets or
you know we're trying doing our best with the transparency of the dollars and the focus on the students I really appreciate that I think this whole board does and I hope the community really you know sees that you know it it shines through when you walk walk our buildings
you see our students um every one of those dollars is you know put comes from this budget and certainly I Know M um I'm speaking behalf Miss shony as well we'd like to thank the board um certainly we've worked um closely with everyone through um committee um through
phone calls conversations meetings and we can't thank you enough for your support um you know throughout this whole process the um the goal has always been how can we maximize um you know the monies um going back to our students and what can we do to ensure that they are continuing their the phenomenal
education they do get in this District so I I want to thank everyone um for your leadership I appreciate it thank you any other questions and mich which date do we have for the final budget hearing I think it's in two meetings
correct it's it's the um I just wanted to so the public May um 12th May 12th ail oh April sorry um April 28th April 28th it's the day after spring break so for The public's information the final budget hearing
will be on April 28th yeah okay it's the day we return from spring break just FYI and with that no more questions from the board okay we'll move on then to the Personnel committee report and Mr quo thank you um the Personnel committee met on
March 4th and all members were present the committee discussed a proposal from the Transportation Department to change the job title and job description of the recently vacated garage clerk position the position would now be called Fleet
coordinator and additional responsibilities would be added Dr Bania and Mr Moore updated the committee on actions the district has been taking related to next year's budget which we all just saw um the committee also discussed exploring different variations
of a Communications and toor public relations position for the district and Mr Moore also updated the committee on several of our reoccurring monthly Personnel topics thank you thank you do we have any questions from board
done thank you okay seeing none we'll go on to CNT committee and miss fera the curriculum and Technology committee met on March 3rd here at the board office those in attendance were Dr
Bia Mrs mcdermit Mrs quino Mrs O'Neal Mrs Fenton and myself we discussed proposed field trips Dr Bania and Mrs mcdermit presented future proposals for the elementary field trips and the administration is working towards
aligning the cost of all field trips to ensure Equity we had a midyear academic update by Mrs McDermot she reviewed um midyear student learning data from both I and
linkit and we reviewed the academic progress we had a budget overview by Mrs McDermot uh she provided an overview of key priorities within the curriculum and instruction budget the discussion focused on major investments in instructional resources and professional
development initiatives and we also had a technology report although Dr kryder was not present uh we did review a tech update that she provided and do we have any questions or comments from the board okay seeing none we'll move on to
finance and operations um chair yes so the finance and operations committee met March 4th um everyone was President we also had a visitor a guest visitor uh Miss Fenton um again I know we've talked budget round and round it is um but
again a huge thank you to everybody who's worked on it it is one thing to put together a budget it is a huge heavy lift but then it is a completely other thing to show your work on said budget that's a lot of work and so I really appreciate the time and dedication you guys have put into showing your work we really appreciate it and it's a whole
other thing to make it easy to understand even if budget's not your thing and so I'm really just impressed with how well you guys have done all three of those things so thank you um and I'm not going to talk about the budget anymore um a couple other things that we talked about we have an energy audit underway which is kind of exciting
to um Miss shing's point before we're here to educate children not to pay utility bill I mean we're going to pay our bills but we'd like to pay less um and so we have partnered U with amesco and they're conducting an energy audit to make sure that we are actually not paying too much for energy which is
great uh nobody wants to overpay for anything so they're going to be also assessing things like Lighting hbac systems and overall Energy Efficiency and finally um in you know the of audits and studies we are also um getting ready to participate in a capacity study which
is very important um this is where we're going to understand what we have in the district and what we don't in terms of space all of our buildings to see what is usable what's not um it's a really important step to understand I know we all go into buildings right in the district and we say but there's all this space down here for this why aren't we
using it this is going to show us where we have the space and where we don't and where is the usable space and how can we be super efficient with the space that we have so that is another step that we are taking to do our due diligence and to make sure that we are maximizing what we have in our district for our students
our staff and all of our taxpayers and that's what I have any questions any questions or comments from the board that was great I think that was a record of how people read their minutes I think that was that was
good do we have Trend let's keep it up but there's another let's see if we can keep it up Lis could do one more all pressures on the one more all right we will move on to then policy policy and governance Mr
Melendez uh policy committee uh met on the on Thursday March 6 or all committee members were present um in the during the meeting uh Dr Baner review policy and regulations of day for as May many of the changes
were mandated uh due to updates to the New Jersey state law and particularly the uniform state memoranda of agreement between education and law enforcement um other statutes also related to a student conduct electronic devices graduation requirements were discussed um the most
one of the most important that was discussed was The Spectator code of conduct and I invite everyone uh to take a look at that uh is going to be posted the agenda is posted online uh is especially important this new policiy is
required by the New Jersey estate inter tastic Athletic Association and requir elements in the policy include immediate removal for violations so I invite all the parents and all the community uh to take a look at those other policies also
discuss out May ofd dat include the creation of a new policy on fura that's it I'm so proud any questions or comments from the board no I had one question more like a
comment with regards to the um the njsi daa um new policy are there regulations that are going to be placed in or guidance maybe even for our district with regards to how to manage some of these events the consequences are how
our staff is supposed to manage you know when we have these very large events in our district great that we host we host regions for you know um wrestling when you have that many folks in a room are there regulations with it underneath
that policy saying you know this is how we expect to manage an incident or you know the large crowd Etc so unlike a lot of policies this policy is quite explicit it's rather lengthy and it already does um State um the
consequences for behaviors often they sometimes say refer to regulation this one States it in the policy so I think as a whole right now it provides a great deal of Direction and we as a district took it upon ourselves to make it work
for us so while stme certainly provided a framework for us to work from we you know adapted a little bit um we incorporated some education components as well um simar similar to our bus safety program we really want to make sure that the behavior doesn't continue
we are a place of Education right so you'll notice that you know when you get I believe to the second violation there is some a video you have to watch and things you have to learn about because inherently we just don't want the behavior to continue and certainly um a part of that anticipation for
increased monitoring because to monitor all these situations we're bringing back athletic coordinator it's a position that had been in the district um a number of years ago and we are bringing it um back because we do anticipate um a greater need for being vigilant
especially because what this policy also dictates is not only are we if someone violates this policy does it impact home games it also impacts away games so we also anticipate if we are holding the line for away games for our um attendees
that it's the same of other districts so we are trying to mitigate and look at that so we've already um budgeted and worked um successfully with our um emo um organization in order to ensure that we can bring that um um I guess roll back okay so I hope that answered your
question did I answer your question yeah and part of it too was for the Public's education too we already got that in there oh we still want she didn't get to violation too though that's all I hope oh any other questions from the board okay we will move on to board
subcommittee and parent teacher Association liaison reports did anyone from the board um have anything I do we have we'll start over here and then we'll flip to the public then um y so this is an update from the
Flanders PTA who are not present but ask that I share on their behalf uh the boys dance will be held this Wednesday March 12th family steam night is also this week that will be held Thursday evening March 13th and the fpta will be
providing Refreshments they are going to be having a family reading club uh which will have two separate meetings uh similar to one book one school if you're familiar to that program they are scheduled for March
26th and April 9th at night for families to come and read the Mount Olive senior scholarship um fpta will be sponsoring and they'll it'll be released this week by the guidance department fpta is providing
two separate $500 scholarships they are requesting a writing sample and they would also like like it noted if your parent was involved in the fpta you're not barred from applying if your parents were not part of the PTA they would just
like you to provide that information if so on April 1st the fpta is having a schoolwide assembly called wacky science and the art fundraiser will run at the end of this month the girls dance was successful and fun they want to thank
the support of the fourth grade pizza and the fifth grade bake sale both were successful for grade level fundraising goals they have more planned for April and May um but they'll report that out at the next meeting thank you questions from the
board no and we'll swing around us M Gerald has something yes I attended the um Mount Olive Middle School PTA meeting and um just a couple quick updates from that um they just wrapped the penny wars the school penny wars where everybody brought in their loose
change and just from that they raised $1,755 uh winning teams would receive an ice cream party and top teachers from each grade will get Amazon gift cards um eighth grade celebrations are underway it's March and the celebrations are you know basically around the corner um there is an eighth grade dance
obviously on June 6th and so volunteers are already hard at work you know planning decorations Etc never too late to volunteer for that we already signed you up Mrs fit am very busy I um but anybody can attend you don't have to have an eighth grader and probably
better to volunteer if you don't um but uh lawn signs and t-shirts are also on sale now to celebrate the graduating class uh there is a new school store kiosk being purchased um for the the school store so that they can access
supplies and spirit Weare Etc um and the guidance counselors have been Gathering input on what should be stocked which is very cool it's everything right from like pencils to to all the way up to spirit wear and everything in between and it's very cool I'm very excited I made put my request in all I'm say right
all I'm saying it's very cool love that um the Tricky Tray is coming up it is unfortunately sold out um but it's sold out within a matter of days well I mean for if you didn't get your tickets um but that is their biggest fundraiser it sold out in just under 10 days um I believed so planning is in full swing um
extra ticket packages are still available if you did get an entry ticket and then finally teacher grants and staff appreciation the PTO is um just continuing to fund the teacher Grant requests and is also working on a special appreciation Initiative for the transportation department to recognize
their hard work and that's everything thank you any questions from the board no and I think anyone else on the room I know Miss Fenton you have one uh yes Amy sent a a letter that I'm going
to read from ceg because I do not understand all of this stuff maybe you guys will get what I said I was there but you didn't send it to would you like to read this uh they met on uh February 11th via
Zoom uh the district directors of special services came and discussed the multiple topics available to staff on February 14th PD day they also had bcbas and behavioral support teams come and discuss the roles of the Behavior
Support teams and the behavioral reference process we had an engaging conversation to have a better understanding of the general process is your mic on I don't think your mic's on here can you hear me yes there you all right okay sorry about that they had
engaging conversation to have better understandings of the general process of managing behaviors while in school settings as always we remind the parents of the different discussions spotlights and fairs that are happening or upcoming in the
district uh Amy did attend the ssac New Jersey state special education advisory Council on February 20th I know we have mentioned this before but I hope someone from the Mount Olive uh attend attends this extremely informative
council meeting um it's jamack with information on multiple levels office of special education the prize is now in 12 languages and available on a new website CAD is looking for local schools to work
with the Department of special ed to support local schools to decrease to decrease due process request and work on conflict resolution multiple broadcasts one new student information cards to
roll out so that Transportation staff have a better understanding about the special needs of the students they transport two Dare To Dream student leadership conferences will be on college campus to highlight strategies
to promote self advocacy skills for middle and high school students with disabilities dates provided in the broadcast three release of emotional and behavioral program quality indicators which is ebqi and Statewide information sessions
uh dates were provided this four the scope of Services of professional and DEA education guidelines along with information sessions to discuss how their areas of expertise complement one another and work collabora to ensure
that students who are deaf or heart of hearing Thrive Five release of Transportation considerations for students with disabilities resource guide um and they all have links that she can provide the office of special education
was also happy to announce their second annual rented learning Institute of 2025 with this year's theme reaching the edges excuse me the osc will focus on strategies and initiatives that ensure
Equitable outcomes for all students by improving policies practices and procedures we will Empower Educators families and interest parties to better serve every learner virtually running from March 10th to March 14th multiple different divisions across
the state provided update dates uh she can provide those links uh which were um orientation sessions for CBI cohort enrollment in the 2025 2026 community-based instruction project cohort the New
Jersey Department of Education Office of special education in partnership with the bog Center on disabil disability and human development invites local educational agencies to apply for uh participation in the community-based
instruction project of 2025 26 cohart register registration is uh by April 1st we have the Learning Resource Center inclusion Institute on March 18th preschool inclusion leadership
conference on April 10th njce 2025 spring conference on March 17th focusing on high leverage practices 7th annual Innovations in special education technology blending AI
with strategies to improve instructional outcomes and Foster Independence on March 14th there were multiple agencies discussing the ice and the supports and websites and trainings available to Immigrant families to know their rights
then they had an extremely informative speaker Deborah Le lenum from NJ TSS speak on the NJ dle Alexia handbook uh the 2024 update aligning to best practices in New Jersey tiered systems
of support for early literacy um she's said excellent speaker and I think Mount Olive should look into having her speak the council then reviewed indicators 1 2 and 14 secondary success which was informative to have a
better understanding of graduation rates when it pertains to special education drop out as well as special educ tion students are moving on to college or successful working settings postgraduation the next meeting is
Tuesday tomorrow March 11th the original speaker uh had to cancel but they have the honor to have Sue Miss stretta come and present she's a wellness Advocate with 18 years of experience supporting
individuals through life changes as a resilient mentor and mother to a child with special needs she offers compassionate practical guidance to special need parents helping them navigate their unique Journeys with ease certified in heartmath mindfulness-based
stress reduction and suicide prevention she Blends holistic stress management techniques to empower parents to thrive admid adversity currently training as a yoga teacher Susan is passionate about turning struggles into growth providing
a toolkit for emotional balance and inner strength and then she says thank you that's it any questions from the board lot was that three pages or two pages two pages but it's all from one
day was it stuff I know if you want to be invited to cpeg if you're not if you don't get the invite you can email their email is on the um District's website email that email to say you'd like to be invited and provide your email and then
she'll add you to the list and they they are all Zoom excuse me all Zoom now virtual so they're very easy yeah okay no no questions from the board I just have one comment I'm sorry um uh
The Manor High School pent uh the next meeting is on March 18 and I would like to highlight some of the activities uh tomorrow uh the monol High School National Art Honor Society has their induction um and on Wednesday we have
the rising freshman curriculum Fair yep taking place that's it Miss NES can I add something yeah you know I inadvertently left out a very special group we also had that amazing wrestling tournament down at the St I
had them on my list so I just you know I mentioned robotics I talked about our ROTC and I don't want them to think anything other that how proud We Are of them as well we had um group of students go down we had two actually place we had Molly SM SMI who is our sophomore who
placed fourth in the state along with Nico Gonzalez who placed 10th so we Al once again another well-rounded amazing weekend for our students and fifth was it Fifth no no n seven seven sorz was fourth in the state oh sorry I apologize
thought the seventh was I inverted that apologize Mark has people that were there yes so Molly Smith came seventh in the place she actually won the 7th eth um um match and then Nico Gonzalez went on to the wrestle to the um Blood match
the wrestle backs for the third fourth um match right Mark am I saying this correctly my wrestling friend and Nico placed fourth place and seven students will actually be our under classman out of all is that it is and that's our
first female right that's right yeah and the coach's kid second female female to place in the states and I think we're the only one that ever have twins actually both attend at the same time and I think people that even recognize that we actually have a student who
doesn't attend mov necessarily she's a um female wrestler who actually is on our team because the fact that her home District doesn't have a team so we are you know I'm very proud of the fact that we also extend this opportunity to expand um the you know chance for our
female athletes to participate in something they may not be if they not are not even monol students so it's really exciting as well robotics does the same thing you know that right so one of their teams is made out of different schools that don't have uh robotics yeah so we just spread the love
we spread the love inclusive there you go speaking of shredding the love I just want to remind everyone we have our last um session with David Nash next Thursday which is um the 20th of March so please make sure you do sign up for um the last of our series with him it's focused upon
the partnership between um schools and families at home and certainly if you're unable to attend it is virtual you can still just sign up and you'll get the um recording of it so you can watch it at your leisure anytime just a reminder so next Thursday the 20th uh believe at 6:30 if I remember correctly it's our
last of our series with David Nash I just before I it slips my mind too anyone else from the board have a any reports um I do have one I attended the town council meeting on MAR March 4th Mr
oilla went to finance we we divided and conquered um Town Council the fire chief um there was a ceremony for his retire retirement um the fmba contract for Public Safety was voted upon there was a
um large presence of um homeowners that speaking about the paving for the Connelly development and there was a bit of conversation around the first reading for an ordinance to ban uh rentals so
similar to Airbnb for short-term rentals that are under 31 days of rental time um I believe the council is possibly considering different um conversations or comments that were made um but they did vote upon the first reading and at
that time so basically they're looking to ban airbnbs and VRBO rentals um it became some of the items in the first reading of that ordinance um had some stipulations about who can reside in the
home or how often they were there so believe the council is going to be reconsidering that um that was all I had for any reports do we have anyone in the public from any of our parent teacher Association liaison the mic is open if we have
anyone NOP okay seeing none we'll move on board president report everybody took the the wind out of my sale um wanted to recognize I see some of our folks here from a robotics team as you've heard how amazing they all did was it three teams
placed one right guys well for those that don't know we hosted was it the midatlantic robotics competition is do I have the titles right y yep you guys read my email I know one of
you asked Mr uh bar to read the email so for those that don't know the students had actually emailed us asking us to attend I was unable to attend um and I wrote you guys a little email back so we had the three three teams um what I also
found interesting I was informed that there's a a large cost right Associated I'm looking at the students for those that are at home we have a couple that in the audience there's a large large cost right um associated with some of the wins that they they have right you're going to Texas and each student
needs to raise funds so if there's anyone in the community that's looking to make a donation to our robotics team I believe I was told it's between three to $4,000 per student to travel to Texas if you for worlds yep so we yeah but
it's amazing you guys will be going to Worlds is that right hope hopefully we still have some more okay and our head coach oversees three teams at the high school um he oversees the team at our middle school and the Future LEGO League
teams at all of our elementary schools so we have a staff of three to four coaches right and then the rest of the parents and even some alumni parents are all volunteers that put in 12 to 20 hours a week of their time kids look at them they're all shaking their head and how many how many hours do you guys
spend in the in the school afterwards just working on your competition oh my goodness so after you go to the full day of school you guys come back stay and you're there for almost 7 hours working on your machines okay you are better than
me all right so we want to recognize them um RC was on my list what was it first place for unarmed Color Guard armed Color Guard first place they swept they swept just everything what did they not win I don't know but I I'm not aware
anybody complete sleep finals complete number one all around oh well you know we're a little competitive it doesn't matter if you're in sports and our TC or robotics geez and yes so wrestling um as we heard 10 boys one girl and I'll name
you guys Molly SMI Christian Baris Anthony pomante Brandon Baris Colin SMI Justin Bullock Tanner Perez Drew Capa Tyler Cummings Nik Gonzalez and Jared Martini did I get everyone and with that seven of them are underclassmen hopefully returning to States next year
we are probably one of the largest non private schools at the event the other thing I wanted to just recognize um our deepest condolences are one of our I guess original coaches former Hockey Coach Dave Hansen passed away um last
week at the age of 52 left behind a wife four kids Abby Brody Cameron and Lexi coach Hanson was here in what 2003 Mr stanbury and he was one of the original individuals helping to grow our hockey program um with the vision I was told of
adding a JB team and here we are almost 20 years later so we do he was actually the recently the head coach over at West Mars so the entire hockey Community is recognizing him but when we say Marauder for life we we mean it um with that we
will open any comments from the board no okay we'll go on to public comments on action items member of members of the community may comment on any action item prior to board discussion please state your name and address for the record all comments must be respectfully presented
abusive or obscene comments will not be tolerated the mic is open why you looking at me doing a great job you Martin Wells Miller 25 credit sta by Lake New Jersey is the mic is it coming up on the screen for the testing hello okay uh first off I want to say
thank you for the budget presentation it's probably one of the best we've seen here in a long long time uh very thorough um I had the pleasure of seeing her present to through pref his program a few weeks ago and she said she wanted to hold the Thunder for tonight and she
did um uh I'm here basically to talk about uh action item 10.13 hold on for the robotics if you hold on I can tell you about fundraising before you leave so wa for me okay all right um so I would like to have a table uh the
approval of Strauss Esme as the vendor for our bylaws uh as many of you may know Strauss Esme made a massive mistake in the past few years of on a policy regarding transgender and parent for notifications there are other vendors out there that do this as well New
Jersey school boards even personal attorneys from uh maybe even gord's firm does this I'd like this to see us actually go out for bid on this um due to the fact that the organization St es only has three employees a husband and wife and then a nephew that's all St sesme is I've emailed them several times
in the past about things and you get no reply from them so I I think it would be prudent for our district to table this actually go out for bid or find proper vendors who will actually give the proper presentations because they screwed up the whole state lawsuits wazo
all over the state over what they did not an apology from them from anyone okay and I think it would do our district some good to actually do the due diligence and go out for a proposal and that's all I have Dr vaner can you explain actually
what 10.13 it's the approval we already are in contract with stra esate but the approval to put the information onto our website if you currently go on our website um our all our board policies and reg regulations are stored via board
docs um and currently the ability to search those policies and regulations are very limited however what's the service that we're paying for that refers to that motion is them housing our um policies regulations not them writing it those are two different
things so so all we're doing is allowing them to take our policies which we give them and use their um I guess their server to list everything out so it's easier for the public to search them in a more um transparent manner so that's all that's doing they're not going to be
writing policy for us um you know we are pay we pay to um St SME for a number of years we receive their policy alerts which I believe almost every single District across the state does however we um take a great deal of pride in um reviewing the updates ourselves as I pointed out with Miss Mendes who was
reviewing our policies um those um alerts are not um taken and then you know put onto our agendas we do a great deal of due diligence you can ask Miss sule especially with the spectator one how much we went into that so that um particular motion is Gem just housing
our policy and regulation not the writing it that's that's so you're basically paying for storage of our database and they're presenting it yes okay so this is not the contract F them to give you the alert on Chang no no no we already do that we're doing that for years all right well as the Strauss
estimate is not as reliable as most people think they are and I'd like to like if possible still go out to proper bid or figure out how we can do it properly on our own service so we don't have to spend the $8,000 because over 10 years then you're 80,000 over you I mean
that's one time this is a one time fee in order to move over the actual cost maoning we can I'm not I can't think of it the top of my head it's about $3,500 it's $3,500 $500 versus hiring no offense Mr GT another attorney to go through every
regulation law and policy that the state puts out and then have it reviewed inhouse and I will say I will say this um stous estimate um has been a a resource as far as um they do um host um
webinars in which they go over policy changes and we have a great conversation with them I call them all the time to provide clarification so um they are you know respected organization that we've got um a great deal of work with for a number of years so you know I can't
comment on what you're sharing so let me understand the process the process is the state puts out laws regulations that the dist or Department of Education yes stra may takes those gathers that information we have a service that we
pay for already from stra Esme where they send us those policies or updated policies or policies alerts policy is the broad governance we look at in review and let me tell you our policy and governance you know committee is
very thorough now Madam president this is not a back and forth with the public meetings to be held in public not for the public so can we just move on sure I but I think the public needs to understand what the process is understand that but I think we can do that at the end and so we take
those policies we apply them to how within the law works for our district under those policies are regulations of how they are implemented right and regulations are not necessarily b a board function as far as approval there's only certain mandated regulations other than the rest
are administrative um prerogative okay but as a district um we pride ourselves in order also reviewing those regulations as a whole okay is 10.13 is not what was originally thought of is there anything else Mr Wells Miller just in the future that you also can look at
the NJ uh SBA also for a resource which is tends to be a little bit more reliable okay and anything El Mr if this is for storage and database that's different than what it read to me and so then I'll retract my motion on that I'm going to go help the robotic see raise money okay thank you anyone else from
the public on comments on action items hi Mr goer hi did you leave no Brian Gallagher 135 Crunch shot Drive uh just want to make sure if you guys do take Martin suggestion look out for rfps and other advices he mentioned that it was causing a lot of lawsuits in wo so make sure you check their policy on wo
if you look at other law firms oh there he is yeah you talking about law and Mr gallager so I had a question actually so I know I do have a question about the bill list um I lean down uh there was a
$555 invoice paid to FL Baron O'Brien LLC was sure if I know it's commentary but if anyone want to provide an answer on what that was for that is uh a legal bill from current litigation okay not from the legal firm seated here today no
that's kinsky Hollenbeck yes yeah so this is from legal firm for insurance correct okay so this this firm here the attorney they don't handle insurance claims and and legal proceedings for in for that sometimes they do sometimes they it depends we work they work with
our insurance company it depends what our insurance company assigns and who is supposed to be responsible for that so that would be for like a recent settlement legal fee is for that we can't yeah no we can't comment what okay and also I had a question about a
invoice for $1,762 to the Machado Law Firm that's our special educ special education okay so they handle the special education legal services so we have those two firms that just listed there correct yes okay thank you thank
you anything else from the public on action items and action items only nope okay seeing none we will move on to the approval of monthly expenditures Mr chano can you please make a motion yes Madam president on the recommendation of the superintendent
approve monthly expenditures and reports 6.1 to 6.4 second any questions or comments from the board nope seeing none we'll take a roll call please miss Shing Dr J yo yes Mrs Aquino yes Mrs fanton yes Mrs fera yes
Mrs Fitzgerald yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs naris yes Mrs O'Neal yes Mr orilla yes okay we will move on to Personnel action items Mr quo upon the recommendation of the superintendent I'd
like to make a motion to move Personnel action items 7.1 through 7.17 second do we have any questions or comments from board I do Madam president on retirement uh shout out to Miss Kennedy um she is one of the best human
beings let alone Educators I've ever been around in my life um she taught both of my kids I took my daughter to see her play multiple times um she's just a great person and we will be uh sad to see her go and she will be Sly
missed absolutely I don't think any of us can Echo that even as loud as we really would like to Miss Kennedy is a a force to be reckon with and a you know right right start and we will all be her new groupies in her band I think yes all
right anyone else any questions or comments nope seeing none okay we'll go to a roll call please Mrs Aquino yes Mrs fanton yes Mrs fera yes Mrs Fitzgerald yes Dr Gano yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs
naris yes Mrs O'Neal yes Mr orilla yes okay we will move on to uh and Technology Mr Guerrera upon recommendation of the superintendent I'd like to make a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.3 second any questions or
comments from the board no okay see now we go take a roll call Mrs fera yes Dr Gano yes Mrs Aquino yes Mrs fanton yes Mrs Fitzgerald yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs Nares yes Mrs
O'Neal yes Mr orillo yes okay we will move on to finance and operations and Miss Petro I got you sorry you're great uh upon the recommendation of the superintendent I'd like make a motion to approve action
items 9.1 through 9 let me keep scrolling 17 second any questions from the board uh I do want to make one comment on 9.10 a huge thank you to the shsp that sandor's um PTA for the donation if you guys see there all
that they they donated it's some really great stuff for indoor res us so thank you so much to the shsp and thank you for M Shing for um putting those items bringing them to our attention I think they're really important um any other questions comments no okay we'll take a roll call
Mrs Fitzgerald yes Mrs fera yes Mrs Aquino yes Mrs fanton yes Dr Gano yes Mrs Melendez yes Mrs naris yes Mrs O'Neal yes Mr orillo yes and we will move on to administrative action items
Miss mandas please open recommendation of the superintendent I would like to make a motion to approve item 10.1 through 10.13 second any questions or comments from the board okay seeing none we will take a
roll call Mrs Melendez yes Mrs Fenton yes Mrs Aquino yes Mrs fera yes Mrs Fitzgerald yes Dr Gano yes Mrs naris Mrs O'Neal yes Mr orilla yes oh
sorry I you no that's me that's you what happened I'm slacking oh oh she has the yeah all right now we are on to public comments students parents employees and
community members May comment on any item of Interest pertaining to the m olive school district please state your name and address for the record all comments must be resp respectfully presented abusive or obscene comments will not be tolerated the mic is open Brian Gallagher 135 crena Drive I
just wanted to follow up uh as we kind of I kind of mentioned before uh Flanigan Baron O'Brien LC the law firm uh that has had invoices over the past year usually for a couple hundred dollars handles a lot of the insurance settlement payouts for the district um you know a small factor maybe a couple
thousand if you add them all up uh the mat Law Firm which handles special education law which is big in any District uh charges about an average of a th000 to maybe 3 or 4,000 per month so since they've been in place since last April which is almost about a year now
we spent about 25,000 or exactly $2,834 38 on them for special education law uh scarinci hollenbach who has been around since last February is been here a whole year now we talked about this I think when I was here last time waiting for that last month to get the full year
picture uh we have p uh paid them $ 38,3 3068 um Miss Shing by the way did an incredibly better number with job with numbers than I do so I just put this into Excel and hit T sum total um an
average per month of $28,000 so per month we spend an average on general counsel which for the T you that I've been coming here and others have been coming here we've only been told well there's more opras we haven't really been given any specifics you know on the day not there were do it it's obviously
attorney client privilege uh but we know that special education law is not handled by them insurance is not claims or law or litigation legal services are mostly not handled by them I could be wrong on that and I'm happy to be told if I'm wrong um I just find it amazing that we had a previous Law Firm that I
think when I asked a while ago was told that the retainer and you can correct me CU you probably know M you told me this last time for the last law fir was about 17 to $19,000 correct something like that month basis okay and it was a retainer it wasn't just billable hours for $160 per hour or $100 for a pair
legal uh we were told that there were kind of things being put in place to mitigate unnecessary legal service fees being build uh I don't think that's been the case after a year now and you know we had a great budget presentation and when I talked to a lot of people and we kind of talked about the district and
our money and our taxes I find this very easy sometimes if people dis if people disagree with me they say well it's a blip it's a decimal point right $300,000 we have an $80 million budget um you know I think part of it is money but also part of it is the decision I think it was a reckless decision originally
and shows poor judgment from the people of this board that voted for this resolution one of was proposed last February by Mr orillo um I think that you can snowball bad decisions into really kind of having this District get out of control with the way money is spent and dealt out and I would hope
that moving forward we can look to at least inform the public it's good to inform about a budget and how you're saving money here you're saving money there um but you know some of these decisions when questioned there's just never been given any answers um so i' hope moving forward the district can
maybe try to you know explain why we're you know last June on June 24th you voted to increase the maximum level of legal spending by $120,000 up to 385 ,000 $120,000 seems like the full
retainer of the last Law Firm you know maybe a little less uh it just seems that we're not correcting any of the problem we're just making issues worse uh so I'm pretty disappointed in first of all that resolution on June 24th was voted on yes by everybody here so I'm a little disappointed everybody on that
one um I wasn't here sorry about that you weren't here and I looked at you first so I were you not the one say back and for we're not back and forth Mr J Dr jodo okay push um but I am disappointed in in that I can't hear the speaker I am
disappointed in last June before the end of the summer kind of sneaking that in to raise that amount uh and I have always and I've voiced it here which is fine so I've always been disappointed in this board's uh move to replace the old attorney regardless of personal you know
beliefs on a person or anything I think the last thing Mr zmer said before he left was that he had a pretty stellar record here when he was the attorney for the district um and I don't think I ever heard a good reason on why the change was made so thank you thank you m Gallagher business decisions or business
decisions that need to be made not personal decisions um litigation has increased significantly um and this board has put in place um an RFP schedule if you would like to take a look at our last meeting I believe it was listed on there so we have heard and
we do re will be having a proper schedule of review um we did I believe increased our legal fees the prior year though too towards the end of the year as well um but we do have a rise as for special ed we have a rising special ed
population that you know laws rules regulations need to be put in place for our students and protection and with that anyone else to the mic Martin Wells Miller 25 woodrest Avenue Bud Lake New Jersey I know not everyone's informed in the public of all the unethical things the p attorney has
done and this is me speaking personally because I have the information Mr Wells Miller we can't we I'm not asking you to comment I'm just saying what I've already presented to the board in the past I've presented in the past to the board the unethical things that were done by the past attorney proud no no
these are factual I'm proud of what the board has done to replace an unethical attorney because you can't compromise your ethics because once you do that you can't go back I'm very proud of our current attorney and his ethical standards okay you always get what you pay for okay and I'm proud of our
current board and decision they made to put ethics above uh uh loyalty and friendship you know it's not the good old boys club now we have a board here that lives with Integrity so be proud of what you stand for and I know some people are uneducated about the matter
all right and they don't realize that the budget for Legal Services in the past five years have increased over seven to eight times but they have to do the proper research they'd understand that if they tend it on a regular basis um but but just let you know I I can tell you right now that we're in a
better situation with our current legal uh team that we have here than you ever have been in the past and thank you thank you do we have anyone else from the public who would like to come to the back and Brian Gallagher 135 CR drive just
two more quick things comments for the board not for the other you just mentioned before after I kind of sat down that there's been increase in special special education that increases legal population increasing legal fees but I thought we mentioned that that was handled by the Machado Law Firm yes yes
okay so which you asked about yes so thank you for that um with regards to those legal fees again I do understand that just as soon as like back in 2018 it was about $150,000 was moved up to $225,000 a few years later
$265,000 uh and now 385 so yes I I you know just like Mr wellsmore I do know what I'm talking about so maybe he was referencing somebody else thank you thank you anyone else all right seeing none we'll move on and we are on to Old business members of
the board May comment on any item or topic that was previously discussed by the board anyone on Old business okay seeing none we'll move to new business members of the board May introduce any any new topic or topic of
discussion for the board to consider do we have anyone no okay see none and we'll move on to board members uh our Administration uh comments members of the board May comment on any item of Interest pertaining to the Mount Olive
school district and we'll start there at the end Mr Dr Gano sorry no comment Madam president and M I know I'm really supposed to say no comment but just one quick thing thank you to everybody who um rescheduled and scheduled committee
meetings over the past you guys we have all been sick car trouble family trouble Etc and I appreciate that even with everything they went down on over the last week we had all four committee meetings anyway so that is just something to be proud of we all have day jobs and families and all sorts of other things so I appreciate all the
reschedules and all of the patience and you guys are awesome that's all and Miss Melendez no comments Mr I just want to say that the Personnel committee is always front and center and we never
cancel said it you heard it here we are we are always doing our due diligence heard it here am I right Mrs Fenton yes are I can't wait no further comment I can't wait I know that's coming back that's
coming back oh boy going to be sick next mon now no we going to go no no it's going to be virtual then um it's F no comment um we'll swing around to Mr rillo just once again big congratulations to the awesome weekend
our kids at everywhere everywhere and no comment Mrs O'Neal again congratulations to all the winners and compeers and and Mrs Kennedy Miss Kennedy will be surely
missed as it is a really sad day that she's retiring but I'm happy for her happy for her and I'll just say um thank you for everyone to participated also in read Across America it was wonderful um
and do we have anything from Dr bandia I spoke a lot tonight I think I'm good right now no comment look at this no comment Dr J was looking at me listen you would over five minutes for your presentation oh yeah all right and we have no having
confid no need for confidential session and we will go for a motion to adour the meeting so moved all in favor I