no no that's fine good evening welcome to the meeting of the mountains side Board of Education in accordance with the state Sunshine Law and state regulations adequate notice of this meeting was provided by mailing a notice of the time date location and instructions for accessing the meeting to the Union County local source and the Westfield leader filing the same with the burough clerk posting the notice at the main access store of Mountainside Board of Education building and on the Mountainside Board of Education website these meetings are reserved for board deliberations and for review of items contained within the agenda the board reserves a right to vote on action items the board welcomes the participation of interested individuals we encourage questions about specific School practices incidents or events to be brought directly to the school administration public comment will be permitted at the beginning of the meeting for agenda items only each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement in addition time will be allotted at the end of the meeting for public comment on any items speaker shall limit their comments to three minutes roll call please Mr Bill Dylan here Mr Mr Michael Goodwin here Dr Dana guy Petro Mr Jordan Heyman here Mrs viian poopo here Mrs candano Mr carine Dennis here at this time can we please stand to salute our flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all can I please have a motion to approve um our minutes from our last meeting February 20th so moved second comments or questions roll call please Bill Dylan yes Michael Goodwin yes Jordan Hyman yes Vivian poopo yes Carmen Venice here yes I do not have any correspondence and we're moving on to public participation at this time please um feel free to come up to this Podium uh please just state your name and address on any items that we will be voting on tonight seeing none we're moving on to our president's report um I really don't have a report once again I do want to say I saw part of our play uh it was fantastic I don't know if anyone had the chance to go but um I went just for the uh senior citizen uh showing and it was fan it was just I was speechless he always I don't know how he does it Mr Rosen Bloom but he figures it out and the kids do fantastic our seniors I believe had a great um experience we had a great turnout um they seemed happy they just felt welcome you know that we always invite them into our our little special place um and that's pretty much it and we're moving on to our superintendent report okay so what I'm going to do right now is turn the floor over to Mrs Patricia ree from New Jersey school boards she is going to be presenting to everyone this evening on our annual ethics for school officials so give me a moment I will have this up on the screen and Patty I do have a a clicker for you I will give you that and we will be able to share that welcome how it feel this feel good all starting to add up so thank you for having uh having us in to to do your annual annual ethics training and we'll go through that and at the end we'll also after this we'll talk a little bit about your strategic plan as um Mrs Walling said I'm Patty Reese I'm a field service representative for New Jersey school boards Association uh I've been um with the association almost nine years I worked but before I started the association I was on my board of ed in Somerset County for 12 years uh so I come to you with that background and joining me tonight is Jean clear and she can talk a little bit about herself what njsba is doing now is we're hiring uh a couple more field service reps so that we have more out in the field so that we can be more available to the boards to to our boards so that um some sometimes boards have to wait two to three months for a date so uh Gan is one of our new hires and hi it's a pleasure to join you um I'm a former board member myself and I also worked in the Scotch Plains Food School District so I kind of have experience from both sides of it um I really just want to thank you for your service because it's so important um the public education of our students and I I feel very blessed to be able to work alongside Patty we'll be continuing to work together over the next couple of weeks and months um so that we can make sure that we do a good transition and you can feel free to reach out to either one of us um and I just wanted to introduce myself and I look forward to meeting with you again welcome than you and ultimately Jean will be handling um uh Union Middle sex no Union Hudson and Essex I right now I do uh middle sex Union in Hudson I will probably be moving closer uh a little West closer to where I live uh so I won't have to spend hours in the car driving um but but anyway we're we're looking forward to having uh more availability and and working more directly with boards but that being said uh we'll go to our ethics presentation uh this is you know it's required um for CAC and we'll go into that a little bit this is our standard disclosure statement that we or disclaimer I'm sorry that we put at the beginning of our uh presentation uh it just basically says that uh this presentation is only for informational purposes it does not replace any advice that you may get from your attorney if you have legal questions that is the first person that the board should consult as their attorney this is just to give you guidance and maybe what to know what questions to ask um but uh now that you are school officials and that serve the public you have your position comes with responsibilities those re you those responsibilities are outlined and you are held accountable by the school ethics act and that's what we're talking about here the school ethics act essentially says that to do your job well people need to respect you and have conf confidence that you will conduct yourself properly and not give the impression that you are not acting properly but this is the actual wording on this slide of the school ethics act from 1991 the school ethics act um established uh the school ethics commission what is considered what it considers a prohibited act for school officials the mandatory training requirements for board members uh and the uh disclosure statements that uh all school officials administrators as well as um school board members have to provide uh nine years later after the Act was established came the school ethics the code of ethics which um is um actually what you are held accountable for the um conflict of interest forms and the dis the conflicts of interests and the school disclosure statements apply to all school officials that includes administrators uh uh the staff at New Jersey school boards Association Charter School members as well as the board uh the board leadership of uh New Jersey school boards Association or the president and and whatnot the code of ethics and the mandatory training requirements only uh apply to school board members and Charter School trustees the school ethics commission is a a a nine member board they are appointed by the governor for rotating three-year terms with the Proviso that no more than five come from any one political party of those nine two have to be school board members five can be non-school officials and two are School administrators and that's the as they said the school ethics commission who was charged with enforcing the school ethics Act the school ethics commission can uh issue advisory opinions uh and and address ethics complaints an advisory opinion is something that is requested by a board member prior to action that they are considering taking to see if the ethics commission would consider that act a VI a code of ethics violation so it happens before and that's only school officials school board members and short of school trustees can ask for that before any action is taken ethics complaints can be filed by anyone um anyone uh that that feels that a violation of the code of ethics has taken place on an average every year the school ethics commission looks at about 85 complaints uh and 35 advisory opinions the the mandatory training requirements changed last Feb a year ago febru February uh in new board members must complete their new board member orientation or governance one training within 90 days of them being sworn in uh and and it used to be you had a year to do that last February they it was felt that uh there was such a steep learning curve for new board members that they needed something to something to kind of bridge the gap and help them get acclimated so that happens within 90 days uh uh the further uh requirements are governance two which is the finance and Labor Training happens within the second year of your first elected term uh again you have a year to do that governance three is about student achievement you have to do that within the third year of your first term and then within the fourth year or the first year of every time you're reelected you have to do your governance for trade training which is legal updates we um by by law New Jersey school boards provides that training and we now do it in a variety of ways we have um we we do um for a new board member we do have two weekends in in generally in January and February I don't know if they'll put one in there's a few more boards that have April elections um and those are fabulous because it's a very intense weekend uh but you walk away with a lot a lot of connections with other people throughout the states as well we offer a live virtual uh where you can participate you know it's virtual but live and then we have a self-paced online uh program they all um they all uh earn you credit for your your mandated training so whatever works best for your schedule is the best way you know we we should have something for you um the disclosure statements uh for new school officials have to be filed within 30 days of starting of your oath taking the oath of office and for administrators within 30 days of your first day of the start of your employment returning school officials have until April 30th every year to file their disclosure statements and they usually come to you via email from um the Department of Education if you haven't received them um check with your business administrator make sure that that that process is the the information the doe has is need is there the at the the school ethics commission uh can impose one of four penalties if they feel an Ethics violation is found one is a reprimand where it's a rebuke by the commissioner the second one is a censure where it's a rebuke by the commissioner followed by a resol followed by a publicized resolution at your local board meeting saying that the the board member has um participated in um in ethical unethical Behavior they can also issue a suspension for a specific period of time and they can recommend the removal um or or immediate termination from board membership um or employment if it's an administrator um all these if a violation is found this the School ethics commission makes a recommendation to the commissioner for final disposition however um there is also if the commissioner after the commissioner makes a decision there also is a a path for appeal through the court system and you can find all of that information add on the the Department of Education School ethics commission website um and there's links there's Links at the end of the um information at the end of the PowerPoint about that so at this point we're going to just talk a little bit about each of the code of eth each tenant in the code of ethics there are 10 of them and um these are the things that board members and and administrators are held accountable to um and so this first one talks about upholding and enforcing all the laws rules and regulations of the State Board of Education any court orders and as well as executive orders from the governor what's listed below the standard um and this is listed below every uh code uh it the standard identifies the evidence that the school ethics commission has identified that needs to accompany a claim uh a claim of an Ethics violation uh and with the just that um each ethics case uh coded whether it's um an Ethics complaint or an advisory opinion or very case specific and facts specific to that case but we're able to pull some generalities through that over time um which we'll talk about um B is about upholding uh I'm sorry you will make decisions in the best interest of all your students you may have been elected by a constituency but once you're sitting in that seat and once you're sworn in you represent all students and all community members in the town and that's really what this talks about see is that you will confine your action to policymaking not policymaking planning and and Appraisal um not the day-to-day operations of the board but but the higher level I'm that what this one talks about that you will not administer the schools uh you will see that they are well-run you hire a superintendent um who is the educational expert you hire them for that reason and so they run the day-to-day operations of the board of the district the board does not um e is um that the authority and you don't have any Authority as a board member unless you're sitting at a notice at a board meeting that's been noticed with a quarum present um if you're not at at that at at such you know a meeting then you really have no more Authority than any other member of your community and in F you it it talks to that you will not yield your individual judgment to special interest or partisan political groups that you again are representing all students and all of your community as you're sitting at the board table G is about confidentiality and keeping things confidential um that if disclosed would unnecessarily injure individuals or schools this one is about appointing the best qualified candidate for any position at the recommendation of the superintendent um you you can't really do any Personnel matters without the recommendation of the superintendent and in I you'll you'll support and protect the school personnel and the proper performance of their duties so that if they're doing their job you're not bad mathing them you're not having a conversation or participating in a conversation on the side of the soccer field that you know when they talk about this teacher does this that and the other thing um you really that's that's not appropriate for a board member and that's really what this speaks to J is about the chain of command referring all complaints to your superintendent and will only act on those complaints at a public meeting after the failure of an administrative solution and just some points about the the code of ethics uh it the code of ethics is in place to um allow an issue to be addressed in the most efficient manner at at the level at the lowest level of where it might originate um if you get any and if anybody comes to you be they a parent or a Community member sometimes they think they're going right to the top and they're going to get the answer that they want really the best best Avenue for a board member is refer them to the lowest level in the chain of command if it's um a if it's a a teacher issue you ask them if you know refer them either talk to the teacher if you've done that up to the principal um but it's it's it's not at this level it's not really appropriate for the board member to get involved um the board should be the court of last resort if if a person has gone through the chain of command and they've gone all the way up to to the superintendent and they they and it says failure of the administrative solution that applies if they just don't like the administrative solution as well and if that's the case there is always the option that it will come to the board for discussion and and and potential disposition but as a board member you have to allow that process to take place and allow the administration the time to do whatever it is that they feel they need that they need to do um so if you do get something and you um a complaint or an issue comes to your attention refer them to the chain of command and then as a courtesy just let the superintendent know hey this this issue came to me I told them to go here in the chain of command I'm just like giving you a heads up just so they're aware um aware of that we have a a lot of cases here and I wasn't really going to go into each um each specific case they're there for you to read uh on your own time um and I think you have the PowerPoint uh where you can see that uh but just to point some things out the numbers at the beginning um C 9821 that's an Ethics complaint um that first came to the um School ethics Commission in 20121 if you read through there um and and I believe that those thing the um numbers are linked to an actual court case but if you read through if you go to the case there there's you'll get a lot of the the the specifics about it um but where it says the recommended reprimand it then you'll see what the school ethics commission has recom you know recommended in the first one they recommended a reprimand and felt that it was in violation um of tenants e and G of the school ethics code and it's just it's just helpful um it could be interesting reading too but and here's here's a few more um cases that um that came to light um if just go into one C 2521 um it was a member that just to get you how you know how to read this member met with members of the public to justify her actions for a walk-on motion at a very divisive school board meeting um that they were looking to change the name of a holiday um and the school ethics Commission felt that the independent action of this board member undermined the board's decision-making process as in in that they went they did not have this discussion at the board table they had this offline and so they really feel that that kind of a discussion should happen at the board table uh and that um and and so they recommended that it was in violation of tenant C which is that Authority rests with the board at the board table as I said earlier the school ethics act has identified uh what it considers as uh prohibitive acts so if any of these apply to you if you have a business interest or professional activity applies to you or one of your someone in your immediate family um then if there was a financial advice a financial involvement that may impair your um your um objectivity you need to use yourself from the discussion and from the vote um if you have any concerns if you have a potential violation as I said have that conversation with the board attorney and you know help they'll help determine whether you have that violation and there's just a little bit of discussion about what a the difference between an exstension and a recusal um and if you're going to re accuse yourself um it it's because you feel that you have a legal conflict of interest um or a perception of a legal conflict of interest so when we say recuse yourself from the discuss the discussion and the vote that means don't participate in the discussion or take part in the vote uh and if if that's at a board meeting it might be helpful I I did this once or twice where I just actually left the board table said I was recusing myself and and just stepped away uh so that the board could have its discussion and and um because I it was an issue I felt I was I was not objective as I should be on it but in in an exstension you can be participate in it you just for whatever reason don't feel you can vote yay or nay and you you abstain how that plays out in the minutes um it it shows that uh if you're if you're recusing yourself you're a seven member board so if it's like um let's say uh you have four vote Yes two vote know and one has ex recused themselves so we just go down in the records in the minutes as four two if they abstained it would go down as 421 the recusal shows that you you feel that that there it's felt that there is a legal a potentially legal conflict of interest and that's really as much for your public as they read the minutes will signify um if you um by recusing yourself Andy can you just one question there on uh the 421 just exstension does that abstaining member count as part of the Quorum in that case or is that policy by policy or board by board policy um far um if there were recusing that yeah I accusing sounds like they're not part of because the meeting was called to order but for that vote um if you had it would be a challenge if you had um if you lost the majority because people refused them El but that is a almost a legal question but I would think because it's not counted in the count um that you're not not voting but but there's there's not there's not many times when you need what we call a super majority where you need the majority of the full board present some some just a simple majority of who's who's there um so you would have to I mean very specific 10e charges I think something um with the superintendent the very very small amount of of votes where you need that super majority but if you're ever in that situation I would have a conversation with your board attorney just to to make sure of that in recent then going on to relationships I mean um five years ago the the definition of what a family member immediate family member was with the school ethics commission was one thing uh it's been changing and evolving um in in recent years as primarily because of the different cases that are coming before the school ethics commission um they've actually expanded the definition of what is considered a family member if you look at um the relative section you talk it talks about you know grandparent grandchild half brother daughter-in-law stepparent you know five years ago was pretty much you know mother father daughter child whatever so this um the these um are important to note um um on on different issues on whether you have a conflict or not this chart um came out of this this came out I think in last February was a um an advisory opinion that had this that this chart in and it's it's noted on the bottom of the page there um to come out in in 2023 uh and it just tells you in this chart what you can or can't participate in if any of these relationships um pertain to you uh with regards to the negotiated contract and anything of personnel action with the superintendent we all know that um maybe don't but but board members uh and administrators can't hire their family members however if you've come to the board um or you become to Administration and your um family member already works in the district that I mean just because you have a family member doesn't mean you can't um run for board it would just limit what it is that that you can do uh and if it's um if it's an administrator and their family member and so maybe it's somebody you promoted from within to be an administrator they can't exercise direct or indirect authority over their relative on any level um if it's a board member you cannot take part in any employment matters concern concerning the Su the superintendent or the supervisors in the chain of command between your relative and the superintendent um you also as a board member can't take part in the search selection or vote to hire a new superintendent or the the superintendent evaluations after hire in collective bargaining this chart really talks about um you know about what you can participate in collective bargaining and so if I'll just go to like the middle one just to identify if the relationship to the board members themselves their spouse or dependent child and they work out of District you can't participate in um negotiations but you can participate in the vote to ratify uh on absent any other conflict um and after the memorandum of agreement salary guides and compensation package are um are attained and heightened Union um it talks about heightened Union involvement um if you know if you work in the district you can't do either but the heighten Union involvement can be if you're a a union officer uh in the county um or you're a union officer in a nearby a nearby District that could be cons be considered a a conflict because you have um more more you more knowledge or more access to information about that when you're doing negotiations you look at what the um what what the surrounding districts are doing and so that's that's a potential for um a um for a conflict um again if you have anything that you're concerned about have a conversation with your board attorney this this page shows advisory opinions and again an advisory opinion can be uh sought by a board member prior to uh any questionable act or any action that they have questions about being taken um the the opinions again are linked uh in in the slide um and um it just helps further identify different issues that board members may have and if you look at just the first one the the board member's child works in the district's after Care Program uh the supervisor in the after Care Program reports to the principal so the board member was asking if that was a conflict and the school ethics commission said um that it's it's perceived to be a conflict and that you should they should recuse themselves from any and all matters related to the superintendent supervisors in the chain of command and the union but again if you read those cases they're um it's um interesting reading um but uh to to go through that and there were some cases coming out of Ocean Township uh that led to these different um advisory opinions um the board member um it you know the board memb relationship to um the employee impacts their ility to be involved in certain committees and personal matters in this case the board President's child was an instructional assistant uh in the district what that meant is that the board what they've decided the school ethics commission ruled is that the board president cannot choose any committee members or be on any committees involving the the the you know the Education Association or matters related to the superintendent the board President also could not choose the chair of the committee or any members of the committee as it directly relates to the board members um employment um so it really does limit what the board president could do with regard to assigning committees and this this is a slide about impacts on Executive session in u c87214 [Music] discussion on candidates to fill the vacant board seat the candidate the board members husband applied um and so they were part of that the school ethics commission recommended a censure in this case um because you know undue pressure on on the board um it's uh and and further that you know when you're discussing when you're appointing a new board member you the interview is done in public but the discussion on the board on who to select is done in executive session so by going uh into behind closed doors uh and being part of that discussion the school ethics commission felt that it gave a justifiable impression to the public that their trust is being violated so again they recommended a centure we also kind has come out recently uh and board members using um their what they what they call the advice of councel Defense the if you're going to use the advice of council defense you have to follow you have to have those four factors that the the approval or advice was received prior to any action being taken that the individual who offered the advice um had the knowledge and responsibility and Authority uh with regard to ethical issues General that would be your would that would be an attorney um and that uh the person the board member made a full disclosure of all facts um and circumstances related to their question and that the board member actually complied with the advice they received now you can use um if all four of those are are in place you could um you could um um use the advice of council defense it would um in the end it likely would just um eliminate the penalty phase uh but the the school ethics commission could still rule that a violation occur you just wouldn't be have the whether it's a censure or rebuke or reprimand or any of that um so you know they have to really be careful with what you do and we all know that board members are some of the more active members in your community especially with the schools that's what for you to the board table many times um it's just that your your involvement um but um you know and and just because you're a board member doesn't mean you can't involve be volunteer in the schools just be mindful of a few things um you should not be volunteering often uh should not uh supervise staff or students or appear to supervise um staff or students let me jump back when we say should not be off and it's because if you're in the in the district in the school two to three to four days a week it creates the Imp impression that you could be involved in the day-to-day operations and so again it's a justifiable impression um of a conflict um and um if you're doing um whether you're the ticket Handler don't handle any money it really does create um justifiable um you know you're board members and you're responsible for the budget so just handling any money is just um not really um recommended um and if you're in volunteering uh don't talk about um any board business with anybody while you're there and then every board every district is different in some districts the principles reach out and ask uh board members in to say for read Across America um um I don't know what it is here and some it's it's all through the superintendent either way if if you're going into volunteer please let the superintendent know as a courtesy it it's just it's just helpful for that relationship um to know that so when you are a board member you are entrusted to review the recommendation of the superintendent and vote in a way that you feel best serves the needs of the district uh just be mindful that um it should not be con construed as arbitrary and capricious um and the advisory opinion at the bottom talks about um somebody asked if they voted yes to refuse to implement the New Jersey learning standard uh student learning standards for Comprehensive Health and physical education if that would be a violation uh and the school ethics commission said if it was shown that the board member acted contrary to the laws rules and regulations promulgated by the state Board of Education that they would be in violation and you know the New Jersey the um the learning standards were promulgated by the Department of Education so in a roundabout way they was like yes you you could be found in violation of of um the the code of ethics then we get to social social media always a an interesting topic anymore um when I was on my board social media was not as prolific as it is now um but um in general um you do not violate the the school ethics act by engaging in social media it does however depend on the content that you've posted um the commission's uh analysis is Guided by whether a reasonable member of the public could perceive that the board member is speaking in his or her official capacity or as a result to their official duties when they're looking at if there have been an Ethics violation um and there are cases um um noted on the um underneath the graphic about um different things regarding um this uh social media if but by and large if what you're posting cannot be confused with a board of opinion a board position or board Business board business you would likely not be in violation nobody can say definitively but because it's all fact specific if you're going to post on social media the school ethics commission recommends that you use a disclaimer they've given you a disclaimer that you can use um by no means do you have to use that you know you know essentially if you're not say something similar you know similar to this that the following statements are made in Your Capacity as a private citizen and not in my capacity as a board member the statements also do not um represent the board um or it's individual members and solely represent your own personal opinions as I said they don't require that you use their specific disclaimer it's put out there as a courtesy but you do need to use some disclaimer but keep in mind that using use of a disclaimer is not a get out of jail free card the the SC C School ethics commission does look at the content posted uh and so um you really do need to uh be mindful of that and you know mindful that um many people most people in your town know you're on the on the board and so they um think they you know assume that you have more information so whatever you say may carry more weight because ultimately you do have more information may not be specific to that issue um and so it does car different weight so you should really be needs to be mindful of that um and you know be aware of that what you say and do as a private citizen and how it can be perceived as actions coming from or speech coming from the board this is a case um where um you know to talk about um asked board member asked if as a private citizen they would violate the ACT if they answer questions about the district on a Facebook page uh know the Q&A between the parent and um and the the Boe and again what I said you earlier the community knows that you're a board member and would likely take any statement that you say um as being in that capacity uh regardless of whether you use the disclaimer or not once you're elected um here's some just some general gu once you're elected uh it really is no longer appropriate to use if you had a campaign social media account it's recommended that you don't use that because that could be confusing to um your your um Community um but I get you some water all right um social media has become for this sec um come in more and more take a break we'll get water break I didn't bring my water tonight um the the school ethics commission is spending a lot more time recently adjudicating social media cases um and you know basically they feel that discussions of board issues belong at the board table and that the public has a right to to um to witness that discussion um topics that reach the public before the board could discuss uh it publicly May potentially be an Ethics violation and so you just keep that in mind but as I said liking or sharing a post from a personal account is likely not a violation and the use of divisive language content matters what you say matters and they do look at that as we're moving forward forward we recommend that you work with your board attorney to make a list of board members and administrators who have a conflict uh and and review that regularly as far as the superintendent evaluation is concerned if you have board members that have a conflict just let uh um Jean know uh so we can note that because they can participate in this in the superintendent B oh thank you many times consult with your board attorney on if you have if you have concern about an Ethics issue and you get emailed from school boards um uh School Board notes every week uh and if there are any new decisions that come out in the school ethics commission they are noted in there with some commentary from um our attorneys this and in closing just you know do not deliberately disregard the ethical standards when you do it threatens the Integrity not only of the board um um but also but but it also May compromise your District in that and that again is there's link to that that the case and this shows just the different um resources that are available um and how the links to the school ethics commission to the decisions um um and it can be helpful if you have some some free time to do some light reading um for that and then if you have any questions I know it's pretty dry stuff and then spend a lot of time telling you what what you can't what you shouldn't do we never tell you what you can't do what you shouldn't do but also you know as a board member and we can speak to this there's just so much that you can do um not to focus on what you can't do but you know all the good things and having the impact that you have on your students and your community that's if then any questions and I'll resend this I know it's on your laptops but I will send it out to everybody so that you have access to the links so your email and you wanted me to go into a little bit about the strategic planning that we're starting soon so yes so we have approved it we have the um uh invitations pretty much ready to go we'll be sending those out in the next couple of weeks um so I have shared a little bit with the board um but if you there was just if you want to just give kind of a quick overview of what the 3D looks like and what that end result would be there's some information in there I put in there um a the calendar of dates and what the topics were are on each of those those um on each of those on nights um you know the our strategic plan basically represents a best practice of of uh community of the community developing um the what and the administration talking about the how it's a performance driven process from the Inception um but permits Administration to develop the action plans each meeting there's a there's three strategic planning meetings that involve the the board the staff the community I think I also gave you a list of potential stakeholders um that you might want to invite um so and and they can come to each meeting it's geared the process is geared that they don't have to attend it's nice if they attend every meeting their voice will certainly be welcomed at every meeting but they don't have to attend every meeting um a after each session uh we will um compile an outcomes report to send to the board that can be posted on your website um and there's a few um that have have already I'm going to be in um tomorrow night and if you want to look at a night website on what they've done for their strategic plan tomorrow night we're starting the strateg I'm starting strategic plan in Monroe Township in Middle sex County and they have a very involved um website but if you want to look at ones that have already completed uh in MX County I finished Piscataway in January and highum park in um February and what you can see if you go there is the outcomes and how it's presented and how they post it just for your reference um that is um you know just to kind of look at that but in the first meeting we're going to talk about um dare to it's called dare to dream so the 3D model is dreams determination and Destiny by Design so the first one is Dare To Dream they're small we break up after the state of the schools addressed from this from your superintendent um and I talk a little bit about the process on what's going to happen that night uh we break up into small groups uh randomly assigned as part of the process on the first two meetings that the groups are randomly assigned so you don't have clusters of people who always talk to each other the benefit of this process is to get people to talk to other people throughout the community and so the first night is talking about the strengths and challenges of the district the second meeting is is talking about um the the um the this the determination um of the um of the district so the dreams coming up on meeting two with a common Vision uh and then we take in meeting three so meeting one and two they're randomly assigned groups meeting three um and and at the end we come up with com we work with the group to come up with common theme means so at the end of um meeting two we've come up with a common Vision how they would like you know what you see long term for the district accomplishing um and then in meeting three we kind of hone in on um specific goal broad goal areas um specific broad goal areas and it's those broad goal areas that are then given to the superintendent and the administration comes up with the um action plan for that but as I said it really is a process that um involves your community um and and really gets they really do um bring many people to the table and it really is a good way um to to move forward um and at the end of the process we come up with a bound binder uh and for the superintendent each board member and perhaps one for each school just to have your um five-year strategic planning goals does any have any questions I think I have two um can you just clarify so if we go look at Piscataway or Highland Park are we are we looking at minutes from those meetings or they put together like a polished linked on on the the um front page on their homepage okay I can tell you um because I was just on Monro today I mean because thecat away has change they completed they're in they're they're right now the goals have gone to the superintendent and they take a couple of months to come up with the action plans how are you how is a district going to achieve those goals but usually it's a link if you look just um search for a strategic plan okay and then you'll see may like meeting one meeting two um with the outcomes which is again what we will work on U to provide to you um so that you can let your public up and it's because they posted on the website that allows if people can't make one meeting they can see what happened um and what was discussed and they can hopefully feel comfortable coming to me to another meeting uh even if they've missed one or even if they've G not gone to any they can come to the third one I mean we don't we don't limit anybody from that you you do want to hear everybody's voice that wants to provide that and what about I'm sure we'll talk about as a board but just your your take on kind of homework and prep as board members getting into the process are there things you want us we should thinking about don't cluster together um if it if all of you are going to be there you do need to notice it as a meeting um and if there's a quarum you do need to open the meeting and close the meeting but you don't you know you notice the meeting for the purpose of strategic planning so you don't necessarily have to have a specific public comment section because everybody will be able to talk in their small groups um but uh if if if you're going to be there just don't cluster all together in one group diversify yourselves and be open to hear what people have to say even if it's uncomfortable for you as a board member that's the whole point of of this is to hear everybody from the community to come together with common vision and the common and common goals and it really is amazing and and I've done this been part of ones in in in communities that had some some division you know through there and when they get down even in their randomly selected groups it's amazing how people have the same thoughts about um different things they may have a different way to achieve it but there you know the strengths and challenges um and the visions that everybody wants for their students and their town uh it's amazing how they all can come together with that thank you um the one thing I did notice and this is really more for the board to take a look at is one we starts at says it starts at six one at seven um 6 637 you know Patty and I had had a couple of emails back and forth around that time frame but I know you had said you're pretty flexible yeah so I don't know really if people right now have some thoughts on I I see I see the panic in Dana's eyes over trying to get herself year by six um no no no six is actually perfect perfect okay and that's that's kind of where we were I think we originally were leaning into I just want to make sure if there was a strong feeling otherwise I just don't want to preclude anybody based on timing dates are fine it's um Mike and I coach softball the same team and we both would be here and it's their first game and it starts at 7:30 here which would be great if we could start at 6 for coaching purposes about warm-ups what what about stretching I was thinking we could get the community to come in we could all be part of it right oh yeah yeah I think originally I think we had landed at six o'clock figuring that way people were home by before it was too late um so if everybody's okay with it I would lean stick with that um unless there was a a concern what are you looking to do I mean just what you would need is depending on how many people come um we generally like the small groups to be no larger than about eight to 10 because then then it doesn't give everybody at the table the opportunity to participate in the discussion so um a space larger n where we could do group work the large group work um and whether it's like I mean in in pcad we did in the cafeteria and everybody we did a large group and then the tables that were they were you know randomly assigned to were maybe like every other table just so that they could have conversation so you just really need a space large enough yep for that and that's what we were leaning towards our our cafeteria area yeah um I mean there's no reason why you also if you would just like to use like one room and then the small groups go into classrooms um that works as well Y and I think that we were debating you know whether whether this would be big enough depending upon how many people um and we had batted around the idea again not that it is limiting by any means but just a quick you know an RSVP Google doc just to just to let us know you know what what who going to be represented okay and if if you were intending to come just it gives us a good a good sense of who of who's coming when we haven't opened this to the community yet right that's by the end of this week by the end of this week with all these dates because these dates are okay yep so we open it up to everyone at Beachwood so this will go correct this will go out as a full District it will go out to like basically our entire email list so parents plus our GL parents plus you know are are those people we then are looking at the um stakeholder list that was provided by Patty and we will then be sending individual letters okay that we have developed to each of those so to the Town Council to the Rotary Club um to our mea to the PTO to the MEF so asking them for their leadership to join us and or any of their members who are interested so just this way we're getting it out via blast we'll do it through social media and then we'll also do it um with specific letters because you had Shar Patty has shared with me already a number of um templates okay that have been utilized previously and so we would include all of that information out to the public and give them all the dates at once and then there'll be a registration so we'll know the number of people to your point so that if there's a 100 people that show up yeah we we can we can definitely because the other piece was if I remember correctly when I read what you shared um the use of Chromebooks you know the last time I did it was big chart paper so I'm thinking it's now transer you have the Chromebooks available but you know most like in Bato and in Highland Park um we just did the big paper right so whatever works whatever works for you I'm trying to think of how paper 100 would be like America I would love that but how do we entice people to free pizza I don't know I'm only I just want to know how many are we going to know ahead of time how many people are showing up are we just putting it out there no and and that's why we want to I mean again people can show up at the door we would not return somebody away that they did not respond but at the same time for planning wise we'd like to have a registration there'll be a big special announcement but you got to be there to see what it is I you're part of small group number two snacks does always bring people snack sandwiches we could bring some hot dogs some hot dog it's also helpful sometimes to have some light Refreshments not mandatory but cookies good seats at the softball game afterwards Outfield would be a whole experience so all of that will be uh will be some stuff that will take coming knowledgeable is you know the whole planning process some people might not realize it so light Refreshments I definitely AG greate is it right to assume that there are no conflicts with family our family members participating that's okay have f we just went through a whole thing about sister's and your mother's Uncle part mother people will be randomly assigned to groups usually it's it's either a color code or a number on or a letter on their name tag um but we don't like to some people don't like the random assignment um but it really does help discussion because it really uh you know to to talk to other people and parts of your community uh it really is it helps the process tremendously I because part of what part of what you're doing is certainly to have Come Away with a five-year strategic plan so that you can as a board plan for budget for um and and and Achieve but it's also a great way to bring in your community to be part of your educational process so that's as much part of the the benefit as anything else excellent um then Patty I'll be in touch with you prior to our first meeting just to make sure of the the setup and the idea of you know what talk about the Chromebooks and those types of zero well that's that is the range what if it's what if it's us and three people which is beautiful wonderful and they'll have Refreshments but what happens we still like our own little group and talk to ourselves I mean that's yeah I mean I'm not had that word I mean I know um in some like being scway their first meeting had 150 people register um and like Panic like all of a sudden I have to all the supplies right but in the end 80 showed up and then it t it Trends towards by the time you get to the third one um that there's not as many but they they had 50 every single time I've not been where at one where nobody's shown up so um I mean if you advertise and you send out those invitations and you may need to do like as we get because it's only a couple of weeks away um just do a couple of blasts out there um and um and I think you know one of the one of the it when people come if they come to the first one they realize that this really is a discussion and they really will have an opportunity to voice what their thoughts are uh that that also helps J will the letters that we send out will they be personalized to people like we want you specifically so so the ones that are going to the stakehold no to the stakeholders will basically be um and I don't want to leave off of this but I do have the ones uh Kelly and I have been working on mocking them up and basically they will be like you know you are an important part of our community yes and your your your group is an important part of the community we want to hear your voice we want you to be a part of it if you are unable to attend please you know have others to share um we have a separate one that will go out as our eblast okay um so that'll be a little bit different to to our school community so but yes they those ones will be personal IED said it won't be you know Dear Mr and Mrs like right that that'll be good because I'm sure every organization that we have in the town will come to it have a representative to come right and so like same thing we would send it to MSBL we would send it to Mountainside wreck we would you know all of these groups that are already working with us and we're doing things we want to expand that and have them be a part of the conversation with us yeah as well as you know your your staff students if you have uh students are welcome to participate in in this as well and we've had some I mean they're they they're at the ground level my question Patty this had come up at our committee level and just I think uh just the last one do you have you ever done surveys or does it stick typically with those who come in person or do you ever survey the community as well process is for people to be in which makes sense because you can really hear their voice at that time that purpose okay not saying down Ro that you do a but it's generally not part of this process got it speaking of students could you invite like the student council you could be a good group to school we just here definitely let the mountains side kids that are on the GL student council oh yes like the alumni part oh right alumni and then have the student councils from who are here now that' be great to have them what I would say is you know for from your perspective you may know some names you may know some people of those other groups so if there are any let me know show me an email and I can Kelly and I can then make sure that they're added to our list of the stakeholders that we are going to look to so um if there are any groups that we may not have thought of or there's others that you know of that are in leadership roles just to give us a a name and it'll save us searching um for groups that we just may not know not living here in living here in town you may know of a group or you may know of somebody oh I do feel much more positive about us having people here yeah that's because of the light Refreshments light Refreshments definitely won me over I'm thinking Hard Sell right to the end Hard Sell yeah we do giveway whatever it takes I think we should have a registration link on those invites though call to action rather than saying hey we're going to send it later no no no it's already embedded into what we've already created so we already have a draft that ready to go we have budget tonight and then this is where we shift to after this okay y name email chicken or steak [Laughter] just all that's good any other questions good stuff thank you thank you thank you Patty just six work for you guys too okay does for me in my calendar yeah and again we don't definitely you're GNA go there right but I'm gonna get my computer this come for an hour and you know um don't need warm up what we will do is we will transition ourselves from here into our um budget presentation for the rest of mine just as we kind of take a quick breath I just want to um mirror what Vivian said the School Musical was amazing yes kudos to our staff to our students to everybody for the work that they did I mean and as I shared out in a parent email you know I was so impressed with from the staging to the the scenery changes to all of these pieces that were done it just really was so nicely put together and very very well um well well done so nice job on that our first our second trimester is coming to um uh an end it ended on last Wednesday report cards will go out on Friday through Genesis so all of our students will be receiving their progress reports for the second trimester so in addition to all these activities happening we also have um a great deal of what we're seeing with um our academics so really a lot of hard work going on March without a whole lot of breaks is filled with a lot of really solid education and a lot of good work that has been happening so very happy to see that um and we are going to now transfer ourselves over I need to get the clicker I think I lost that um to our budget presentation deci that was tired I just no I'll just pull it out for a second yeah it was until I went to switch out from one pos there we go okay um and to those in the public there is a uh a hard copy of the presentation over on the table if you wanted to have a copy of that as we go through um but this will be a a little bit of a tag team between Dana and myself and before we start I do want to thank Dana really tremendously for the time Mrs Sullivan came in just in January and her knowledge and understanding of our district and our budget was really on the FasTrack and has done an excellent job of really working meeting with with the committee working through our budget looking at things and taking a hard look at um the information that we're going to share with you this evening so Dana thank you um so I will just quickly share with you what our mission is what we do um as a district we are committed to our academic Excellence we are committed to providing an equitable and a whole child education we really are understanding and recognize the importance of meeting all student needs from social emotional to academic to their um interpersonal with friends and with staff we want to make sure that they are well prepared for high school and Beyond and to know that they are empowered with the knowledge the literacy and social and emotional skills needed to be lifelong Learners um and really to be impactful and to shape the world around them so to do that we need to look at our budget and we need to look at making sure that we have available for our students and for our staff the best that we can and that's done within the constraints that um we have based upon the financing and where it comes from and the state's regulations so I'm going to pass this over to Dana for a good portion as she shares with what we do and how we get there so thank you Janet so understanding the budget um with the revenues are pretty pretty much a set part of the budget there's some miscellaneous revenues sometimes grants that come in during the year um but the revenue side is is set the expenditures are are mostly predicted I mean some of them are set salaries are set um but you will see every month you do see transfers from line items in the budget um where we're moving money from one account to another account as things evolve and change um because of course we're building a budget now for some things that aren't going to happen until a year from now or in some cases even later than that um so so it is a document that does evolve um and it's going to evolve even from what you adopt tonight and then your final adoption on April 30th it's going to evolve again until we get to July 1 and then again when we start the school year in September it's not going to increase unless we get grant money but it it is going to change so the process the process normally starts in the fall um we set our enrollment numbers on October 15th we report to the state um that's also the time when we look at and count staff and compare staff to what we actually budgeted compared to who we actually have um to make sure we're in line um and that would be the gather and verified portion of this slide um we have a number of fixed costs and we'll get into that more in additional slides um as Janet said I started here in January so we started meeting with with there were probably meetings that took place before I came here um but additional meetings took place between all the administrators um we've met several times to talk about um the budget and I mean when we say we went line by line we literally went line by line in this budget um and looked at very very small expenses to see where we could make uh reductions um in order to present this budget to you tonight so when you look at the Revenue side of the budget um this is not uncommon for districts like Mountainside the majority of the budget does come from local taxes so in this case it's 85% the next biggest chunk is state aid we did get an increase of 158,000 and we're thrilled to have that um we're still not at full funding um for the state but they are at least making strides in that direction um and then there's very small other pieces of the budget we do appropriate funds from fund balance every year um and we have special Revenue which are grants that are designated for a particular purpose and then the miscellaneous Revenue would be your interest income and some other small income uh pieces of income like that um I did increase their interest income because interest rates are up um so I did increase that a slight bit for this budget um so that helped a little as well the expenditure side of the budget now this slide when I put this together this really stuck out to me and I mentioned it um because I've never worked in a send receive District before and that big huge chunk of 21.2% of the budget going to tuition that is completely out of your control um that is just based on enrollment for your high school students going to GL um and nothing that you can impact um the other big piece of course and this is also common in in every school district is employee salaries and benefits um it's an industry that's very labor intensive um so that is always the largest part of any School District budget and of course it is here as well um the other two big pieces that are largely not in your control would be the special ed tuition for students that attend out of District programs and the transportation that goes with that tuition with with those students um while there's some flexibility in the transportation and we'll talk about that a little more in an upcoming side um you're mandated to provide the transportation so other than you being able to be creative and try to maximize your efficiencies you do have to transport students to those placements so Reserve accounts um we are Reserve accounts are largely governed by the state um State Statute tells us what we can have and what we how much we can have in each account and what it can be used for you are allowed to hold 2% of your budget in an account that's unassigned and available for emergencies um you do have the 2% and that's $410,000 so again you have a budget that's about $20 million $410,000 not a lot of money to have just in case um tuition Reserve you tuition Reserve is restricted in that when you put money into that account it must be used the following year for tax relief so the money that was put in in 2223 is 86213 you are we are using that in the 2425 budget if we are able to deposit money into that Reserve at the end of this current school year you'll be using that in the 2526 budget um to to reduce taxes and that you have no control over the capital reserve account we currently have $35,000 in that Reserve account um that can only be used for capital projects um a capital project meaning like a replacement of an HVAC hbac system where a maintenance reserve the state defines as required maintenance that would be the replacement of a single unit in a classroom um that that would be the difference in a required maintenance versus Capital project we did appropriate $85,000 this in this budget that 2425 for upgrading our Network switches and wireless access points um so that did decrease that balance to 35,000 and maintenance Reserve is 162,000 we didn't appropriate any funds from there um but that's a small amount of money to have in a reserve account for you know you have about 116,000 square feet of building space and lots and lots of Acres that something could happen I was trees go and right and trees we could we could probably spend the whole 162 on trees so we put this slide in here to try to explain um we did have to make reductions to the budget and that you're going to see in some additional slides coming up um we are the state does tell us we can only increase our tax levy by 2% so now remember back to one of the first slides tax levy is 85% of your budget so not your whole budget's not going up 2% only 85 perc of your budget is going up 2% and in this case it translates in your general funds this excludes Debt Service in this conversation um your debt your tax levy is going up $418,000 so when we built the first draft of the well wasn't the first draft of the budget but when we built the budget that we felt we needed the increases that we had were salaries which are um negotiated with the uh mea that those go went up about 3.35% health benefits increased about 8% these health benefits are estimates based on what our Brokers are telling us and what we're hearing from the state um in the state health benefits plan but we don't have actuals on that yet um transportation we had $199,000 increase um resource room costs for GL so our contract with GL when they give us actual costs for for the current year we budget for them in the following year so that increase of 633 is an increase for resource room this year that we're budgeting in for next year to pay them and then all other areas of the budget went up 33,000 that would include utilities and other things like that and then the capital outlay portion of the budget which is that 85,000 that we took out of Reserve last year you took more out of Reserve so that's a decrease but that's kind of different decreas so the total increase when we prepared this budget was 771 so compared to the 418 that we're allowed to increase the budget we had a shortfall of $352,000 that we had to make up and just before you know this this for us one of the reasons that we felt this was so important was really to show that difference of what we are held to a 2% and the natural increases that are happening outside of control that many of you are seeing in other places as well that you know is happening well outside of a 2% increase um and so therefore we wanted to make sure that this point was was really shared with everybody that we have yeah just just looking at salary and benefits alone which makes up half your budget you can see that they're going up well above 2% so those increases alone are 532,000 just there just if you stop there you you're overcap so and just to show this another way that that so we we did increase the tax levy that $18.4 million is a 2% increase it actually is slightly more than a 2% increase um because one of the waivers that the state will allow you to go above the 2% is for health insurance increases so we were actually able to increase slightly over 2% because of that um so with the waiver we're 352,000 as I said over the cap so in order to make reductions um we had $60,000 in the budget for to continue the contracted mental health support um that you're currently getting from Tri County um that was previously budgeted and paid for out of the federal Esser funds um which will be gone at the end of this summer um so we put 60,000 into the budget but then we cut 30,000 out so we would keep that service one day a week rather than two days a week um I'm G to come back to the second one transportation we cut Transportation so that 101,000 was largely an increase in transportation for either a new student or for increases new students or increases in the bus runs because the transportation that we do for of District students mostly we do through the Union County Ed Services Commission so they go out to bid for those routs every year we we don't know what those costs are going to be those costs also can change during the year sometimes students are sharing a bus with another student and then that student drops off and then we resume we wound up pay paying for the whole price of that so we are looking n county Ed Services Commission has not been good at actually doing what they're supposed to do with which is look at surrounding districts and try to put students together a large portion of our runs we're paying 100% for um so we're going to work directly with the districts other districts around us to try to consolidate and see if we can get some efficiencies in our transportation because our costs are enormous for and some of the places that we're going are not even that far um so we are going to look at some creative ways and we're hoping to be able to to make some Savings in that area and then again because I said several times on where these big chunks of money from the budget when you look at Governor Livingston tuition special ed out of District tuition salaries and benefits that makes up most over 83% of your budget the only place we can make reductions and and as I said earlier before we even got to this 352 we went line by line by line and made reductions we took a whole chunk of things that we are took out of the budget that we're using the federal money that's going to last through the summer we're going to use that Federal money to the last dollar um in purchasing things the only place left to make reductions is his staff and benefits um the reason we don't have detail around that is because it's only March and a lot of things can happen between March and May 15 when staff need to be notified um we are certainly hoping that most of the reductions that we wind up having to make will be through people leaving the district or leaves of absence or something like that where we don't have to replace them um or we can reallocate where people are working um but we won't really know the actual Cuts until we get closer to May 15 so go ahead I'm sorry so no if you don't mind I'll nope so one of the things um and and we'll come back one of the things that we know is anything that we're cutting is needed we know that these are things that are important to us as a district especially when we start talking about Staffing and we start talking about anything that impacts our programming our student mental health um and so one uh proposal that we have in front of the board is to while we understand we have to make these Cuts we have to make these reductions for the beginning of the school year Boards of Ed do have have the opportunity to recommend a separate proposal to the community for a vote and that would take the take place in November it cannot happen prior to November it has to happen at the same time as your budget is going into play however um when we have our School elections however we are recommending that we add a separate proposal on for November and the purpose of this is truly to reinstate some of these things that we do need to cut as well as to take a look at what we feel would enhance programs that exist um here in Mountainside or add value to really good instruction for our students so on this slide you will see we are looking to this separate proposal and it would be in addition to the um the existing budget that we are proposing tonight for an reinstatement of of teachers and benefits that do need to be impacted by these cuts it would be to um reinstate the second day of our contracted mental health support with Tri County which we feel has been very very beneficial in supporting students um and supporting their needs over the past couple of years it would also reinstate one of the pieces that is not even in the budget right now from our line by line are our after school academ memic support programs many students are benefiting right now from our FM Club our reading clubs these are happening all the way from Beachwood all the way up through Deerfield these programs came into play through ARP Federal grant monies that we received after covid um and we have found them to be very very beneficial in supporting our students and their academic growth because those are federal funded and that funding is going away we are looking to reinstate those through monies um if approved on this second question we are looking to add in a part-time districtwide curriculum coordinator the district does not have anybody to oversee specifically curriculum teacher professional development and so a part-time position would enhance our instructional practice and truly help to support our staff to make meaningful adjustments to their instruction and support our students the other component in this separate proposal would be the addition of a gifted and talented um predominantly gifted and talented but also supporting basic skills teacher the district does not currently have anybody devoted specifically to our gifted and talented population and we do a lot of our support within the classroom which is amazing we do a lot of differentiated instruction but then some of those more intricate those problem solving programs are happening after school hours again having been funded through Federal funding and so the idea of bringing in a teacher who can really support that daytoday in school programming for our students is something that we feel would really add value to the district and be very important um so that is those are the components so we have the cuts and we talked about how we were reducing but then we ALS so in front of you tonight is that concept of a second proposal that we would present to the public if it is not if it is not approved then none of these come back so the cuts are the cuts and that's how we start the school year but then the separate proposal gives us an opportunity the public an opportunity to reinstate programming that we feel is important and really en enhance opportunities for our students and reinstate any of the cuts that you need to make and then this next slide is the tax impact so again this is just School tax um for 2425 um the and this is total School tax so these numbers include your debt service um where earlier when we were talking about um taxes it was just the general fund part of the budget so the total increase including Debt Service is 2.3% for the base budget um which translate to about $142 a year for an average homeowner um an average homeowner is a house assessed at 629 th000 those numbers came from the town um and then if we add the separate proposal in the increase goes to about $272 per year for the average homeowner so really kind of to look at it as a full and all encompassing by approving the proposed 2425 budget and the separate proposal so looking at it as a full package it allows us to maintain and then reinstate instructional programs and Staffing it does allow us the base the base budget does um have in there a position to expand our IND District special education programming we currently have a self-contained learning disabilities program in Beachwood for some of our need year students we are looking to add Staffing to enhance and expand that to Deerfield next year so we would be allowing um an additional special education program which would help to reduce the need for any outof District placements and help us to support our students here in Mountainside uh again as we just talked about it would enhance our gifted and talented and basic skills programs also would enrich our curriculum and professional development rein State the existing mental health supports and the after school programming both of which are currently funded through expiring federal grants um as mentioned under our capital projects we would replace our outdated Network Ser switches and wireless access points I add something to that I forgot to mention earlier the network switches and wireless access points were also uh get funded through the eate program which is a federal program um so we we will get about 40% back um on that cost so that's a good thing yeah yep absolutely um and it will also allow us to continue to cover the costs of class two officers in both schools um I know that some people have sometimes been surprised that the district is the that we cover those costs that that is part of our budget and that is something that we have committed to over the number of years as we have increased the number of officers on site that would continue um with the budget that we have in place so the timeline for the budget tonight the board has to approve the tenative budget because it is due to the county tomorrow um the we are required to put an ad in the newspaper after County approval and that ad has to go in at least four days before the public hearing the public hearing is scheduled for April 30th so the ad will go on the paper April 25th um and then the vote would be November 5th and as stated earlier the means after November 5th we can add if if the budget gets approved we can add those pieces back into the budget um and add the staff or programs at that point and I believe that's the last slide questions from the board I have some but I to go first otherwise I'll suck all the life out of this I only have a couple so I'm not going first I know how many you to go first or Bill we got two diet CES gota have some got some so start with some basic just out some of the verbage that you used in the presentation so when you talked about the 158,000 in state aid you mentioned that we weren't we haven't returned the full funding what did you mean there so the this state has a fund formula in place um which they haven't used in years but they are supposedly trying to get us to full funding they they basically there's no Rhyme or Reason that anybody could tell what the amounts are that they're giving us which is why we can't estimate when we're doing budgets we we have no idea there there is a funding formula I would say the funding for at this point is probably 15 years old um that actually takes your number of students it takes the kids you transport it takes your special ed kids and it does this calculation it weights your your property values it weights your your income in the town and it does all this stuff um and that's actually how they started funding schools was based on that formula um and then maybe they used it for four years and then when the state had no money they just stopped and then they one year they hold it harmless then the next year then Christy came in and he cut a bunch and like every Governor that comes in does something different they're they're Governor Murphy I believe is intending to try to fund the formula so that districts get what you're supposed to get per the formula but that hasn't happened yet but that's why we're getting increases right now in the last couple years but those increases don't really make any sense either because they're not based on the formula perect so I kind of reiterating what you said we have we're not quite yet getting all the state aid that you would anticipate to get if the formula was fully working correct okay um there was a one of the graphs you had said 99.5% special education tuition that's for our special education students that go to Governor Limon plus out of District no those are for students that are going to private private schools for for the disabled yeah okay that's just the the non govern Li students okay um the salaries uh jump it was 3.35% that includes the step increase plus yes the contracted rate is that correct or is 3.35 just the contract no it's it's it's the step movement as well as just the the total of all salaries right this year versus total all salaries next year after everybody jumps up one step on the salary guy will be 3.35% okay um and I I guess wasn't a um a question but a a comment right um having seen many versions of this and having sitting in the budget and finance committee room for the last few months um you know I I just want to give you know thank you to Su Sullivan who's been already doing a lot of care cretive out of- the box busing Solutions right so when you see that Transportation cost up there U it would be much higher if there wasn't a lot of phone calls between Mr Walling and Mr Sullivan to partnering towns getting kids already on buses right so um I know it looks like oh my God it's out of control but it would be worse all right um I think that's all I have for right now I'm sure I'll have somewhere but I'll pass it along obviously 16.3 is a huge increase in trans Transportation I think that is an eye opener for a lot of us um thank you for doing the EXT you know work of calling different companies why isn't the uni County doing what they're supposed to do I good question obviously we can't hold them account I mean I'm sure they were thrilled to hear I was coming to Mountainside because I was a thorn in their side in Westfield I they transported a hundred kids of mine in in Westfield so you can imagine then so I'm sure when they heard I was coming here they were like oh my God so not only is has my been not only am I annoyed that they don't do what they supposed to do as far as placing students together like that's what their their sole purpose is supposed to do they also charge us a 4% administrative fee which I have been fighting also for years because ever since the shortage in bus drivers has gotten worse I mean it's it's been bad for a while but since covid it's 10 times worse and these costs have escalated unbelievable amounts they're still getting 4% which a lot so their fund balance is like through the roof and I don't think they have restrictions on their fun balance so they have something like $20 million in fun balance sitting there because all they keep they're charging everybody 4% they have no incentive to to do anything like they have a over a barrel basically so that's why I'm trying to take it in my own hands to say let's look at other districts and try to consolidate these runs um and you know and and obviously we're dealing with children so it's we have to do this in a in a way that makes sense for the children um but it's it is very frustrating because that is what they're supposed to be doing is that mandatory that we have to use that no it's not but it it it's and we do we can try to go out to bid for some of our Roots which we can right which we have um and we can look at more of that um the hard part about it is sometimes things change with students in out of District placements and then you have a bus contract you the you have an issue with the bus contract it's it's harder to kind of manage on your own not going through the commission um but they're not doing anything we might have to do more of that so I mean well they do they do deal with the day-to-day operations of the bus and you know issues that arise during the day they do deal with that stuff um but in addition to that what they're supposed to be doing is consolidating Services between school districts and that they just don't do well incen to do that our increase has obviously from last year to this year has gone up you know pretty large number my thing is what's going to happen next year I mean we can't tell the future but we're already I mean you've already stretched it as much as can you've worked your magic um my concern is what happens next right me too you know because a state 158 you know some people might say it's not a lot of money $158,000 but it can also be zero so right or the opposite the other way yeah it could be negative absolutely which some districts have seen absolutely per well the interesting thing of all this too is the so the state the transportation contracts can be renewed when you have a contract with a bus company you can renew that every year forever which that's the only contract you can do um as long it's it's within the state percentage that they every year change that percentage this year is 5.81% so you know I don't know about you guys but it doesn't take a math genius to say there's a 2% cap on how much we can increase our tax levy but the transportation contracts can go up 5.81% and the ones through the outed districts through the commission can go up 30% 40% 50% 60% so right there alone you have a problem um and what I personally think the state should do is at least allow a waiver for those costs um they do not um you know the extraordinary Aid does fund some a portion of some of those costs um but that also does not get funded to 100% that's typically somewhere in like the 50s for percent so if you put an application in and your extraordinary Aid is 200,000 you usually get around 100,000 um if you know eventually maybe they'll increase that Aid which will help and what did you say about other areas what is the 33,000 for that's every other line item in the budget which is like probably other some of our some of our smaller contracts some of our supplies in general you know utilities we don't like personally my opin I don't like to see Cuts but just looking at this you know we don't want to be a drastic impact to our students and I think right now we are okay um not where we would any of us would want to be but our kids are our priority and I think that sense we okay all right that's it I have a question I was reading about um they want to revise the tax structure within two two years where uh it's the state is less dependent on property tax I mean do they talk about that at any of your meetings not that I've heard no no no well that'll be interesting because yeah schools are very dependent on property tax so obviously that blue part of the pie is pretty large wonder how they were going to make up the difference I thought maybe at one of your meetings they something out there I have not heard anything about that so bees do it after the governor's election yeah I would imagine two years yeah two years he's on yeah I believe but he he's not running but you know I just thought I read it but nobody spells out what what the proposal is there is a proposal but had not been produced that would have some impact on schools for sure maybe maybe they'll put a broad-based tax in which they promis first with the sales tax with the income tax I go out it on yeah but that was supposed to alleviate the lottery they were all gonna help education yeah well okay so far not so much I go back to transportation for a second in the Steve era we had we had talked maybe maybe jokingly about a van about buying a van other districts uh have applied for electric Grant electric bus grants or whatever did that come up have we talked about that as a committee is that a future State sustainability type of of play we did talk about it um I my guess is that the reason it didn't happen is because there's no bus drivers so getting a bus driver is very difficult and that not only do you need one bus driver but then you need a second because they sick or whatever um so I'm guessing that's why it didn't finding Vehicles was extremely difficult especially a vehicle that would fit the needs I know that Steve was looking out through the consortiums and stuff and that was difficult yeah as well but we we will look at all options and that's that's really what we do I mean we're constantly looking for creative ways it's how we were able to save one day of our mental health yeah we were able to find a way to do that and not have to cut that completely so yeah right that I mean that will be continue to be a discussion but that is the biggest challenge in a in a district like this especially to have bus drivers because they'd have to do something else yeah also right right like right remove trees that fall down or we're not forgetting about it there you go tree removal buus driver yeah um the other question I had was obviously the question I raised about about GL enrollment I don't know if that's something maybe we look at that during the process here but I mean just again maybe there's updated numbers I will say that the numbers we have do match what was covered publicly last night in Berkeley height so right we're on the same page we yeah I talked to um Anthony today the ba over there um and we did so we're we're we were within two people our numbers and his numbers are the same which they have to be by 243 right yeah we think it might actually be 241 might be the real number but we've so we've got a cushion in there which is okay to have a cushion because as in the past we've had resource room numbers that kind of came out of nowhere that increased so this way hopefully it gives us a little cushion in case that happens if those kids don't go there then that money will come back to us and are we taking their numbers and applying it here or are they taking our numbers and applying it there and again the reason I ask is I know our our our enrollment numbers from genan one are far lower than what we're building into the budget here and our biggest class up there is a senior class which is rolling off so again somewhere in here I would think we would see more savings than what we're seeing but may maybe there's kids coming back I don't know yeah he I I don't even have answer ER in our favor I don't know I went back and forth with them like five times and basically kept saying but I don't know the kids you do you have the kids there you need to tell me the number and then they kept saying but you told me the number I said but I told you the number based on what you told me yeah so yeah so that's where we came to 241 I believe is the right number okay but I don't have their enrollment info yeah so you know in fact that was a discussion we also had today that you know as soon as the Assa is done in October I'll be sure to get the enrollment numbers and make sure that we have info going forward that it is a little more concrete um but I do believe at this point point that we're pretty close so we we've got 243 we think 241 is the number um so that does actually give us a little cushion for that resource room in case in case we get hit with Ane that seems to happen every year yeah but we think um the 60 63 300 gets us to where we where we think that we'll will be built for next based on what they told us so far yeah yeah so we are now budgeting our budget for next year is much more in line with the actual costs that we anticipate seeing for the end of this year which includes that 633 got so that we you know we we know that we had to kind of do some adjustment with the consultative model right it took us about two years to work through what they were telling us to budget and what the actual costs end up being y um and we are confident that going into the 2425 our budgeted amount is much more in line with what we think the actual costs with will be obviously there can be some minor fluctuations just because students moving in students moving out service is changing yeah but we do feel that we are finally into a spot that makes more sense but absolutely an area that as we go forward is an area for discussion yeah no question I I the more I'm up there I continue to hear about it's it's not like black and white consultative it really does sound like it's down to the grade down to the class down to there are there are cohorts of students that that are being educated differently and I would imagine that's that's probably what's what's hard to tabulate on on their end or took so long maybe for them to give us those numbers um the only other question I had um we have I think it's like a 9,000 is increase for athletics is that a coach is that a is that a program being added volleyball or something is that what it is okay all right I support it yep yeah so just real quick I I think if um it ties into this presentation we just had if you recall back maybe two or three years ago we had three rather significant budgetary things that we were kind of looking at or we strategically trying to address uh one of them being out of District special ed right which is when at that point is when we made the decision to then uh fund the the the classroom at Beachwood now the additional classroom at Deerfield right so that was directly kind of tied to and only providing the best services for our students but to help alleviate some of the issues we were're having within our budget right you know I think at the committee level we had this conversation too I think the next thing is and we have to figure out that's going to be on our kind of top priority list is the transportation and and getting control of the budgeting of the GL resource room right those are just going to have to be Solutions against problems that we know we have right yeah um so you know the van yeah right I mean what is it that's gonna help address what we know is going to be an ongoing problem and get creative like we did with the uh you know creating those rooms you know for us to keep the special like kids home you know certainly something that we're that we're discussing at the budget and finance committee but I think they also have to be part of the you know kind of the Strategic plan moving forward too what's important to us what are some of our gaps what are some of our weaknesses yeah the constraints of this budget right is one of our weaknesses yeah I think sadly the timing is good the Strategic plan process is starting because I we need to we need to consider all these things your question is a good one which is a sustainability question the numbers that are going up or we can't control some of the salary health benefit Transportation maybe but that's plus plus plus and it's over 2% and I'm I'm with you I think I'm elated that we've saved some things here that I think are vital like like mental health um and I'm elated at some of the things we're trying to to keep but I don't like the dance if it's an annual dance of having to to say like okay we're keeping it but not all of it let's try to get it back we're keeping it let's get it back so whatever we do with that timing wise I think it's it rolls into this conversation and that's the part I think that's important the sustainability is because some of these are a bit of a moving Target and that's the part that I think we really need to try to as best we can tighten the screws a bit to make sure that it's not a moving Target there's either capped or an opportunity to have a fixed cost where we don't have any oh no this is going up again yes and because typically some of these big bucket items do go up year after year because it's a it's a moving Target we don't have a good sense as far as what that number will actual come in versus what we're budgeting for yeah I mean it's it's shades of what happened even just with the with the tuition keeping keeping tabs on how many students you know times the per pupil cost and that was a conversation from the gym era of eight or 10 years ago and they got their arms around that finally but it that took time yeah I feel like we kind of need to do the same now with special ed and maybe transportation and those big variable numbers and just something also to just remember too we mentioned but we didn't really hit on this we are still using federal funds that those federal funds go till the end of the summer um so we've been able to designate a decent amount of money for that that we took out of the budget in order to pay with use the federal funds for which means 25 26 most of those things are going to have to go back into the budget so we're already thinking ahead just don't want anybody to be surprised next year when we're sitting here and having a similar conversation and and again the reality of the budget is you know we're we have a it's not a benefit but the facts are the facts math is math we have less students going to Governor Livingston this year which makes this number more manageable than it would have been yes right and knowing what we know about our demographic study knowing what we know that our classes are only to be getting bigger right and that we just happen to have a smaller Freshman Class come in um you know again something we've gota we've got to work towards right that's why I was hopeful that we we might see like a Net 10 student difference uh versus whatever our total right now which is I mean as of gen 1 it's uh 51 plus 64 plus 60 plus 74 up there now so I I I was what is that my M bad that 249 with that anyway I mean you figure with the roll off of 74 to 63 which is estimated for the incoming the eth grade next year freshman class that we' we'd see nine but we're not right now le according to those numbers so that's a lot of money if it does work out that it's closer to right y flat for what we're estimating yeah and all of these are ones that we are taking a look at you know it is our goal to maintain operations maintain our you know what we can to the best of our ability none of us are happy to look at any of these reductions that we have to look at in this in this budget right now um it's not something that we want to have to to do and so we look at all of our options and exhaust everything that we possibly can ask one more if we if we approve the network switches and the wireless does that work happen after or What's the timing of that so I have actually have that ready to be approved on the agenda after you approve the budget on April 30th because we want to get that done in the summer oh great so I'm I'm putting the resolution on after the budget resolution so as soon as you approve the budget we're approve that yeah so yeah because Al we also want to take advantage of that eate funding yeah which that's great question any other questions um I know it's a little bit out but because we are going to go into um before we move on if there's any questions from the public regarding our budget presentation thank you we're moving on now to Berkeley Heights yep I like you over here Vivian I just different perspective like we rounded the V or something we can change seting yeah that's every meeting we mix it up uh so okay we've had two uh since our last meeting here we've had two Berkeley Heights meetings I'll I'll try to high level as best I can so the first meeting going historically was was Feb 26 at that meeting uh we um we voted and uh nominated and accepted um rather accepted Gail Bradford as the board president um that's that was a County Supervisor appointed president role so before weall we we couldn't get to a to a voted number so G was was uh was um voted was was accepted in on 226 we voted on Dy con as vice president so that that that is now in place there is a president and vice president as of Feb 26 um committees we took care of at Feb 26 um so if anyone's interested in in any of the committee uh appointments U for Berkeley Heights there there is shared with with the members of our board um there is a mountain side committee now in place um with s k bar Garvey uh and Gail Bradford as the second so they've got that Committee in place uh to Lea with with our with our committee um at that meeting as well we officially approved the revised resignation date for Dr vley uh their superintendent of May 27 um we also approved a new posting to accept applications for an interim superintendent um among other things we approved an increase for bus drivers pretty substantial at that point what you know more bus drivers have have showed up from what I can tell so far um uh there was an increase for substitute teachers approved at that meeting uh on the sports front just a recap of some of the winner SE winner Sports uh season uh boys basketball finished 12- 10 the girls team 9 and 13 uh the boys swim team finished six and five uh lost the state sectional girls swim team went n and four uh and back-to-back State sectional Champs um boys fencing finished seven and seven the girls fencing team 5- seven uh wrestling finished at 25 and five and sent four kids to Atlantic City which was a great achievement um the Highlander robotics team had qualified for the state tournament uh as of 226 uh there was a blood drive at GL in March uh and also the um just uh last week uh the March 11 rather Juniors took the the NJ GPA uh at GL um also we accepted their audit um from sub Clooney there was a transportation report um I won't go too in detail but it took a good amount of time both that last night's meeting and also the 226 meeting um Kelly Sheen went through um Hazmat and and the Consultants went through hazardous route review some of the route inefficiencies the bus rooting system um and I think there's still supposed to be a town hall in April um I haven't heard a date on that to talk through further Transportation updates but not 100% certain we also had Patty ree um training that night as well uh and um Patty also presented the school board's uh approach to um to search firm uh superintendent search firm um we're we'll we'll come on to it but there's there will be three other presentations date TBD for uh for search firms um before one is ultimately selected so that was 226 last night um March 18th meeting did preliminary budget review um just some of the high level or low-level updates off of that review there's an add to staff of half of a nurse position at GL an additional athletic trainer that was something I know that um an their athletic director had been pushing for so that that gives two trainers at GL which is a big deal because there's a lot of cost obviously for thirdparty um training training services uh their their budget preliminary budget includes uh 3.2% for the bhaa and 3% for the bhaa um 18% increase uh estimate in contribution for uh PS um 10 to 15% is the range for Property and Casualty Insurance rates 11% increase in health benefits um they included AJ included an increase in effective School solutions for mental health services um I noted it before their state aid decreased 7,800 7865 interestingly um according this is interesting according to AJ their their ba um Berkeley Heights and kennworth were the loan to Union County districts that were cut State don't ask me why but that's that's what he said um so their tax levy is is 1.99% um yeah and he estimated 243 or four he said last night Mountain set students we'll see where that winds up um that their Vote or our board there will vote May 7th um there will be a public meeting separately to discuss the budget date TBD uh on that um we also approved an Acting Superintendent last night different from interim don't ask me to Define but there is an Acting Superintendent Rob Nixon um is the Acting Superintendent effective as of last night with a term of 45 days um which is subject to extension I think it's also subject OB to contract um which could then dictate the terms being longer and obviously the the financials on that um student reports um spring Sports obviously were were are getting going uh there was an update on the GL hockey team which sadly lost the state championship at the pr Center to Morris NES 43 I was there tough loss um the GL Highlander marching band just marched in the St Patty's Day parade that was this past weekend pretty cool um future Business Leaders of America competed this past week in Atlantic City five students placed B in the top 10 don't know if any Mountainside students in there but let's hope um mentioned the NJ GPA that was last week spring musical their spring musical is this weekend that's hello girls so that's um 321 22 23 all evening shows and a MAA on Saturday um they uh announced their snow give back days so May 24 and 28 for anyone kids at G right around Memorial Day there you go first thing you wrote down give back days all that good stuff going graduates college so yeah there you go I do have something for you 24 to 28 um what else two more things I mentioned the CSA CSA search so there will be another uh probably special meeting to to um that's that's how it sounds it'll be probably a special meeting to interview three additional firms separate from NJ SBA as the options for leading that search um don't ask me about the the length of the search all that's going to be T it's going to be a while because you they'll we'll interview three more that a firms select the firms firms that obviously dictate partnership with the board how many meetings you want to have or the stakeholder groups not totally dissimilar to to what we'll be doing from strategic plan so it's it's in my head it's going to I mean Patty said publicly six nine plus months to T typical search window um so the other thing just last I found interesting they um we approved an audit last night of the utility bills I don't know if we've ever kicked that around in District this District but they're using George Coen Associates I mean as I understand it they basically get a cut of any savings um as an audit of utility and Telecom Billings uh they're going back I think it's three years I could double check could be five years but I don't know I wrote that down I thought that was interesting because those numbers are always big and talk about um possibly unwieldy so that's all I got Caron if you have any other questions I can I no questions you very thorough I know well I need something to do when when the meeting starts at 6:00 and goes to 11:37 p.m. I got to write something down and and make it worth my while so yeah you know what you could do the next time make copies of their uh agenda yeah and just hand out it's a good thought yeah yeah their next meeting is April 18th by the way for anyone interested in in attending or watching April 18 write it down just can we make it more thorough when I had some track updates next time or track there no updates yet spring sports are beginning give me some results they run in the winter okay that's win winter track talk to the students guys don't share anything about winter track they're very thorough too though uh and can that a consulting firm can they uh figure out a way to get the the mobile service so the side the service better in here for for a flat Fe right that here or up there in here yeah well sure yeah is isn't that what we're doing with the with the wireless and the switching and some of that yeah thank you for your I got thorough two meetings it's double the fun next time it could be zero y you're always th per so at this time we um going into second exact to a first exact so at this time can I please have a motion to go into EXA motion second no move second all in favor I post thank you for coming we should be back in about I don't know we'll be back okay to continue the rest of our meeting e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e exp okay we are returning from our executive meeting it is 9 um8 we will continue with the rest sorry um can I please have a motion to approve under Administration items one and two so move second comments or questions I lost my place where are we Administration see n r sorry uh yes Mike Goodwin yes Dana gu Petro yes Gordon Heyman yes biman poopo yes carine venis yes I please have a motion to approve under B budget and finance um items one through eight so moved second comments or questions see n roll call please Bill Dylan yes Michael Goodwin yes Dana to C Petro yes Jordan Heyman yes Vivian poo yes carine vanis yes I please have a motion to approve under Personnel items numbers 1 through 12 second comments or questions R call please Bill Dylan yes Michael Goodwin yes Dana the C Petro yes Jordan Heyman yes Vivian poopo yes carine Dennis yes can I please have a motion to approve under person NOP sorry now I am under curriculum items number one so move we added in curriculum yeah we added curriculum sorry second that really threw me off yeah sorry all right who moved that I'm sorry yes okay comments or questions roll call please Bill Dylan yes Michael Goodwin yes Dana to Petro yes Jordan Heyman yes Vivian poopo yes Carmine Dennis yes let's move on to policy can I please have a motion to approve under policy items one two and three so move second comments or questions roll call please Bill Dylan yes Michael Goodwin yes Dana C Jordan Hyman yes Vivian poo yes Cara Venice yes old business moving on does anyone have any old business new business how much SL as the PTO liaison um spring fundraiser was huge success we had 247 people attend I'm not sure the pro how much we made yet um but all proceeds go back to the school and uh the PTO would like to thank the administration teachers and um and all the staff who attended um my second announcement is that the girls fourth grade Berkeley Heights pal red team basketball red team won the championship and it consists of six Mountain Side players and five birin heads players nice congratulations thank you congratulations on the on the Spring Fling it was a lovely event and really enjoyable and just to you and to the entire committee uh really Kudos I know it takes a lot of work and I hope you guys all slept a lot last weekend to recoup afterwards well thank you thank you for being there it could have been better because I did I could have won but no it was great it was really good it was great I think they saw my number they like threw it to the side oh my God no it was it was nice and it was a great turn out I have to say a lot of um was young community members you know a lot of Beachwood moms which is nice to see yes it was it's a great turnout okay that's new business committee reports I think I just have one um I'm happy to announce tomorrow we will be meeting with the Berkeley Heights uh mountains side committee via virtual at 2 o'clock um we'll see you know just open our line of communication amongst the both districts and I will be happy to report next month um so I'll I don't have the dates I'm Ill prepared uh the finance buildings and ground committee met several times between now and the last meeting to go through the budget um and and just get to the to the point where're we're at today um from a uh liaison perspective uh I did have course respondence with uh councilman manich to invite him and mayor and Council here tonight to see the budget presentation unfortunately their meeting is also tonight um so uh I did get the commitment from from them that they would watch the recorded video so I do anticipate that uh there'll be some corresponden and and some feedback and I will again invite them uh with some advanced notice uh to to the April one so sounds good thank you any other committee reports at this time I'm going to open up the floor for public participation on any items of that you would like to discuss please come up to the podium state your name and address see none still have to say it though um we will not be going to a second exec um and I think that concludes our meeting can I please have a motion to adjourn motion second all in favor iOS thank you have a good night I will we will see each other in April