e e e e e magic behind the curtain good evening everyone thank you all for being here I'd like to welcome you all to the north brunic Township Board of Education
special meeting our budget Workshop today is Wednesday March 12th could we all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance IED Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and
justice for all Mr Ali Mr Carter here miss James here miss Keith here Mr Lori here Dr Patel Mr Singh here miss to here and Mr
W here we do have a quorum thank you the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed are acted upon in accordance with the open public meetings
law the public notice of this meeting which included the time date and location was distributed by 300 p.m. on Tuesday November 26 2024 and Wednesday November 27th 2024 in the following manner posted on the bulletin board reserved for announcements in the board
office 25 Lynwood place North Brunswick mailed to the home News Tribune Star Ledger and j.com and the clerk of the township of North Brunswick and delivered to the nine duel elected board members good evening everyone hope everyone is doing well happy March it's
great to be here for our first meeting of the month um we've had a busy last couple of weeks and so I will turn it over to uh superintendent chura to uh welcome our guests thank you Madame President so good evening everybody our
millions of viewers out on YouTube uh we are thrilled that you're here in person as well um and I'd like to start up here on the Das and then I'll move over to the podium for my presentation um but I do want to start out by really thanking our community for everything they did to
help us pass our $67 million Bond referendum yesterday it was a huge effort from everybody um we'd like from the Board of Education Administration really like to extend our deepest gratitude to to all of our community members who voted yesterday in school
bond referendum we value and respect the voice of our community because of the large number of mail-in ballots the results will not be certified until later this month but people can continue to check on the middle set County website uh for the unofficial results and as soon as we have those official
results we will share them with everyone but I would like to thank the board for their diligence and decision-making on deciding to pursue a referendum and to reinvest in the infrastructure of our schools I'd like to thank Pete campasano our architect and an MBT grad um for
helping us guiding us through the the process through the entire process of going through all of our buildings determining what our needs were and helping us determine how we were going to go out for a bond referendum plus signing all those documents for the state um I'd like to thank Rosa Hawk RBA
for all her tireless work with the bond Council Mr Camp andano um and collaboratively with all of us to make this happen I'd like to thank um you know my entire cabinet but specifically Dr Cain Ellis our district coordinator of communications um for all her
marketing messages and helping get the word out to our community um to Greg Hof um who was our Web Master for creating uh great web pages that really informed our our community and with visuals and and high-tech uh pictures that you know
slid across the website um got people's attention um Jason Swain our high school video teacher for doing a great video that people could watch um and understand more about the the referendum and Janine cresy my secretary for her graphic design skills um we'd also would
be so remiss if we did not thank the nbte for their incredible hard work you guys showed up at um events at all the schools you came to our meeting on Zoom where he explained the whole process so you could explain it back to people you helped get out absentee ballots you
mailed out you had parties at Chili's to mail out uh flyers and and you made sure that you know community members who lived in town were part of the MBTA but also people who are njm members who lived in town knew about the referendum and can come out and make their decision
so thank you guys so much for all of your assistance so I'm going to segue over to the others [Music] all right so we did change our slide here so that it shows thank you to our community because that was important for
us to put that in as the first one but tonight is all about our budget presentation uh making sure that we are ready for our fiscal year 2026 this is not our final B budget presentation but our preliminary budget presentation that
we do each year um and as we wrap up our focus on the referendum now we're going to be moving our Focus onto the 2026 budget year so March 11th was the fixed date that we were given by the state once we signed up to do uh have a bond
referendum um and ironically March 12th was the date that we had plan on our calendar before we knew that date um that we would do our budget hearing and we felt it was important to move ahead and go ahead and do our budget hearing tonight because we did not want to show the community that you know we were
changing something because of the bond referendum um these are two separate things although they are uniquely connected together um the bond referendum was specifically for Capital Improvement projects in our schools um this is for our operating budget tonight
um that the state funds and you will see all the different pieces of that that we will go through was we start everything else we start with our core Mission um knowing that the North buwick Mission of the north buwick Township School District in partnership with the community is to
educate Inspire and Empower our students to meet challenges and Achieve success and as we develop our budget we keep that in mind as well as our core beliefs and we've all every one of you has seen that at every presentation we
start with that um but that guides our planning and our budgeting in our long-term strategy plannings um so that we can make sure that our children as it says here are entitled to acceptional education based on their needs characterized by challenging and differentiated curriculum delivered by a
highly qualified staff and it's our collaborative responsibility with the home school and community so since I took over this role um we've been doing the budget hearing this way um and I started out with a a
101 on school budget Basics um and I know most of the board members have all heard this multiple times try to change it up a little bit each year um but this is Mr sing's first official budget presentation so uh there will be a test at the
end your choice though it's okay um so school budget Basics where does the district get its money to operate so we actually begin our budget planning back in the fall October November um and we begin the process of looking at and letting preparing our budget workbooks
uh for the principles and letting them know that we're thinking about planning for the 2026 school year um we told everybody to assume a flat budget but had already been getting messages from all of our state and County meetings to expect some budget
cuts um we usually do not know how much money we're going to get from the state until late February which we usually get a few days we get our allocations a few days after the governor's budget address so budgeting is an interactive process with schools supervisors principes
executive cabinet to determine their wish list of needs for the next school year we look at programs Staffing anticipated enrollment and work very hard to balance our priorities with fiscal responsibilities for our community so our income
sources there are three the local tax levy state aid grants and entitlements different states fund schools in various ways and so this part of it I'm actually going to read to you because I want to make sure I get all the pieces right to you um but different schools do fund their schools in different ways in New
Jersey schools are funded primarily through local property taxes and state aid so before 2012 districts had to present their budgets to the public for a vote every spring you may remember those days um when you would have the school board election in the spring as
well as the vote for the budget and in order to imp reduce the impact of property taxes the state imposed a 2% cap on local property taxes but in exchange districts were allowed to opt out of the public budget vote if they
stayed within the 2% cap there are adjustments and allowances for school district enrollment increases health benefit costs and certain pension costs that can allow a district to go up and down away from that number and these are called the bank capital and Healthcare waivers that we will discuss later
school districts can canot Bond money or increase taxes in the same way that a Township or municipality can as you know from our bond referendum vote yesterday in order to approve the purchase of bonds to do projects throughout the schools the district must get voter
approval we are limited for this operating budget to our 2% increase in the local tax levy with those vi exceptions I mentioned we get money from federal and state grants and entitlements and they vary year to year based on student enrollment and between
schools has a title one school we are Title One schoolwide district and N btms our middle school and lywood schools both receive Title One Aid other federal grants include title 2A uh for professional learning and title three for English language Learners state
grants also change year to year and we were told to expect a 25% cut this year in title programs for the fiscal year 26 and we have built that into the budget and from what we understand that is money that the state was getting from the federal government in Esser funds
and that they were supplementing our title money with that money but that no money will no longer be available so that's why we're expecting those 25% cuts and built that into our budget and then our preschool funding is also through the Pea or preschool expansion
Aid grants now comes the fun the school funding formula um is how they the state uh Works to create a thorough and efficient education for students in New Jersey so the state calculates the necessary
funding level to provide that thorough and efficient education for each District student this is called the adequacy budget or and the local fair share so this year actually um although the sfra was expiring no new committee
came up to like start the whole thing over and really investigate because I don't think anybody really wanted to go into that yet but they did do an investigation and the doe the state issued What's called the fiscal year 2026 year educational adequacy report so
they took into consideration the cost of living increases CPI including updates for average wages the cost of health and other employee benefits as well as costs for other key items to develop an updated adequacy budget so due to some districts having
very large Cuts last year which I'm sure you heard about some of our neighbors uh suffered some some of these Cuts more than 3% they put in guard rails in this year's budgeting in this year's year um into the calculation um to make sure that reductions to any District would be
capped at 3% and increases would be capped at 6% they made some changes in special education funding to make it an enrollment based and not a percent of total enrollment they change the equalization portion of state aid and take a 3% year average of equalized
property values and District income rather than one year of current data and then they use multipliers to impact to figure out property values and District wealth all to determine the local fair share that the local taxpayer should be
paying so this adequacy budget the state starts with a baseline of how much it cost to educate one Elementary School student that's your lowest cost student the basic Elementary student with no other factors added in so the updated ear base amount this year based on all
their calculations is $1 4,972 one Elementary student counts as 1.0 students this is the base per pupil or the BPA different amounts were set for preschool students and there are actually new amounts this year for IND
District students private provider students and Head Start students so there's different dollar amounts for each of us the state recognizes the cost of educating older students being greater and so they begin to add different weights a middle school student which is
classified 6 through eight not our fifth grade our fifth grade still counts as Elementary is calculated as 1.04 students high school students are 1.15 and that's actually down from the 2020 adjustment um votch students are an
added 23 so additional weights are added for each student if they are in the free and reduced lunch program and please note that in North Brunswick our number is currently 53% of our students are in free and reduced lunch these students are identified as
at at risk or needing additional supports and therefore if a district is under 20% free and reduced lunch um their weigh additional weighing is only 42% but for a district like us the the number is between 40 and 59% the
weighing is 0.52 additional waiting is added of 0.50 for limited English proficient students as the cost to support their additional language learning is greater if a student is both additional LEP and at risk there's additional weighing for
that students cost so when determining the base amount per pupil for our district the state looks at all the data that we submitted in the fall on October 15th in our student count and they create a weighted representation for the entire student population and that
number is then multiplied by a geographic cost adjustment that factors in the cost of living in the county in which the district is located and because New Jersey is such a diverse state in terms of cost of living it's that's an important factor Sussex County could be very different than middle six
County the cost of living so once the base amount of per pupil the adequate amount to educate a student has been established for the district the state then determines how to pay for it the state calculates how much the local community must pay and how much the state is responsible for State takes
into consider consideration local property values and the income of the District's residents these are calculated to create the local cost share technically the local cost share is the difference between a District's adequacy budget and Equalization Aid in reality the state
deres what is an adequate budget and then really determines how much Equalization Aid can be provided they do kind of mess around with those numbers that's what we've seen and what we've been able to figure out um so for nor North brunsw this year NBT school state
aid was cut by 3% if we look at our state aid documents it would have been 6% but we were held harmless because of those guard rails okay so that's important enough we were held harmless to 3% or $1.7 million that was the 10th
largest cut in the state the fourth largest in the county the cut is in the equalization Aid area again because if we look at our student population we were hoping for some some added money because we have increased our at risk
population but what we see is that equalized property value and District income were considered increased and coupled with how they increase the state multipliers the end result was an increase in the local fair share and our expected adequacy budget so that has
left us um having to work harder this year to get you the budget but we have done uh a lot of collaboration and we are able to do that so other parts of the SF include Transportation Aid um transportation Aid
special education extraordinary special education Aid and security Aid and we get extra dollars based on our student population our special education numbers uh we get Transportation aid for regular transportation and different amounts for our students with IEPs um additional
money was added this year for security um luckily we have been at a position in this District we have already done a very good job building in our security uh within our local budget would like to welcome Dr Z my predecessor and successor here because this is his favorite
[Music] slide and you know this is this is really important and you know as as Dr Z mentored myself and our cabinet um members these are the things that we learned um as we did budget with him you
know this job is a balance providing the budgetary balance the fiscal responsibility to our community to making sure that we are meeting the needs and and honoring the people in North Brunswick who are paying their taxes um by being responsible with our
dollars as well as providing educational integrity and making sure that we are educating every child and doing the most we can with every one of those dollars parents looking to purchase a home in their in this District or to rent the district look to the reputation the district they want to see that the
schools are well-run and exercise this budgetary balance so our budgetary challenges we have a few you know um so for fiscal year 2025 last year we were able to meet our needs because we got a $9.8 million
state aid increase and we also increased our taxes 2% so we were able to be very comfortable in meeting our our challenges and our needs of students still returning from covid loss but for the fiscal year 2026 as you can see we have many budgetary challenges
and I'll have to tell any one of you that that there's inflation and the cost of everything has gone up some of the things that we are facing in terms of our specific budgetary challenges are the 3% state aid cut we have seen a 12%
increase in health benefits costs we have SE we have settled uh in negotiations uh with our administrators and our teachers union uh for contractual increases and these were important increases that we needed to to put into place and contracts that were
were the right thing for our staff to make sure that we provided a competitive salary for them and that we were able to stabilize the loss of of Veteran teachers so you know those are costs that we have but they're there for a good reason obviously seen uh increase
in energy costs um we were able to go out to our transportation department to our our partners and um negotiate a 3% increase in transportation costs we had that 25% uh anticipated cut in EN title funding uh
we have the limit of the 2% levic cap and we have an increase in special education costs um Ed elll Learners um special education tuition costs are up 100% cost for special ancillary services such as behaviorists speech therapists
they continue to rise and as you know as everybody who pays their their health Insurance healthcare costs continue to rise and increase so we do exercise that fiscal responsibility here in in the district when we do any purchasing we follow the state regulations we do a lot of
purchases through uh State co-ops which allow us they they exercise pre-bidding uh at the best price and we were able to go through them and and do a lot of savings uh we do provide a competitive benefit structure and we are looking to do a partnership with um some other
districts in a health clinic in the future that hopefully May save us um some money in our health benefit structure as well we have staff benefit contributions we have our Enterprise programs such as our chart Wells Food Service uh we we exercise our energy
conservation we have our solar panels and have done that for many years in the district um we conduct residency checks and that's an important factor that the community needs to understand that you know stay loss as that a student must live in North Brunswick to attend school
in North Brunswick and we've got a very good reputation for our special education programs and other programs and people will try to use uh addresses that they don't have to stay and be in town so one of the ways we make sure that the students who attend our schools
live in town is by conducting uh regular residency checks um we have done careful appropriation of Reserve funds and determine where that's going to go next year um we have very smart use of our grant funds and this year in particular we're looking at how we're using those
Grant funds and making adjustments we have got quite a few shared services um we have that stable tax ratables uh retirements and attrition um are locations that we can find savings for uh some of the money
that we are needing to recoup and we've actually made adjustments to our Charter School transportation um as you know last year we went to uh shared service agreement with the Char two of the charter schools t uh Tex and uh Central Jersey College Prep um and gave them
basically the aid and L and we're providing the uh the bid of the transportation for their children um next year we've told them we'll give you the a in L you need to go out to bid at escnj and bid out those um Charter School transportations routes and our
our people are out of it so um we've done that we do know that the preschool expansion has also helped us with our fiscal responsibility because we've added in almost 481 preschool students um in our universe right now um and those students
those costs although they they also provide costs they bring our students into us earlier and help us begin to get their Early Education in um which hopefully reduces the long-term cost of extra programs for them but it also helps offset other costs uh through the
preschool program okay so as we want to maintain educational Integrity with knowing that that we're having a challenging budget year um we want to make sure that we prioritize
those programs that really are impacting student learning and growth so la this this current year um Dr Johnson's office has worked hard to implement the three and four grade three and four Benchmark Advanced Ela program which we have seen
incredible in-depth learning coming out of our students really helping their their their them understand how to learn how to be really good readers and utilizing the science of reading and so we have budgeted next year to implement that for K1 and two um so that is that
is a significant cost to purchase that curriculum however we feel it's very important for our students and where we're going additionally we looked at our math scores in middle school and our Algebra 1 School and in high school and we have had a task force U working under Dr Johnson
and Dre lamagra uh to really analyze where um where our needs are in our math curriculum so our teachers have the support and a really strong curriculum to work from and we will be adopting the recommended curriculum uh that they came up with which was it was Amplified and
um so that's a really important thing and that's something that that was not touched in this budget it was very important for us we've you know picked out technology needs professional learning the most important priorities and facilities and maintenance um you
know we continue to make sure that we're going to be supporting those post-academic postco academic challenges postco mental health challenges we will be reducing some of the services from University Behavioral Health however we will be making it up with work that we've been do doing with Ruckers with
their student um interns in counseling so while we may be taking away some programs we're bringing back and keeping others um and we've made sure that our Safety and Security is still Priority One as well so some of the things that um we've
actually done this year is pausing some of the um the refresh of some of the technology we've kind of prioritized exactly which technology we will need for next year um to make sure that we are picking you know using the best bang
for our buck so this ISS preserving Personnel priorities but is actually preserving personnel and curricular priorities so in order to present to you a balanced budget that honors that educational Integrity to Integrity that we've prioritized we really want to continue
to keep students in District we know we have about approximately 500 students in charter schools that number has stabilized a little bit over the last couple of years we do see students coming back especially for our middle school and our high school programs which is
terrific um and so we are continuing to provide opportunities for acceleration and success our g&t programs uh that we have started and expanded are second to none in the county uh and quite honestly our our teachers in that are leading the way in the state as well in those
programs uh we continue to provide comprehensive specialized programs we continue to meet the needs of our preschool Universe almost uh at the max of that preschool Universe we are adding one more preschool class at one of our preschool outside providers this coming year because we don't actually have room
internally and we have a really good partner that we will be offering that to next year we continue to make sure that we're meeting the academic and social needs of our subgroups through comp and our compliance requirements uh we're committed to continuing our intervention and enrichment supports um as I
mentioned bringing in the K2 Benchmark and the middle sex uh the Middle grades amplify we have also prioritized maximizing efficiency and flexibility seeking ways to optimize Staffing models and collaborating across our departments
to ensure that all roles continue to support student achievement we're examining retirements resignations and reassign reassignments to allow us to do that without cutting by we're examining role modifications to
reduce any duplication of services and continuing to utilize available Grant funds to build sustainable programs and meet our Personnel goals we want to continue to keep our talented staff because that is essential to making sure we're keeping St stability and effective
effectiveness of our programs and continuing to examine ways to retain our skilled staff by recognizing their contribution providing opportunities for advancement and fostering supportive and collaborative collaborative culture so our operating budget how is
that broken down okay our proposed operating budget is made of the general fund grants and entitlements and The Debt Service fund the general fund is $149,700 thou $500 and our debt service fund which is our
board share of The Debt Service revenue and the local tax levy is 8,694 573 more in depth as we go down so our total revenue you see that general fund that number is you know 149
million that's 88.6% of our budget The Debt Service of just over 8.6 million is 50 is 5.1% preschool Aid makes up 4.5% of our budget grants and entitlements just over
$3 million is 1.8% and that gives us our total um of just over $169 million our general fund revenue for 2526 here's our tax levy which is 6 1% our state aid is 37%
our Reserves at 9.9% miscellaneous Revenue at. 3% one big change for us you'll see this year semi that is where we can take services that our speech teachers and other people are providing to special needs students and we can apply to semi for
reimbursement for those services and they basically told us that's being cut you'll see on the next slide that that was over $200,000 last year and they've told us don't expect that so we budget did $44,000 for that so that's actually a big a big loss for
us if you look on the next slide there's a comparison for you General general fund Revenue comparison you can see on the left hand side is is the 25 26 upcoming year so you can see how the tax levy has gone up
it's 91 million from 2425 it was 88 million it's now at 61% and and it was at 59.6% state aid was at 37.7% and you see this last year it was higher at almost 40%
39% the amount of Maintenance and capital reserves that we're going to be using this year will be about $1.3 million or .9% last year we used about 8% miscellaneous revenue is is. 3% again there's that semi number you can see the
comparison between this year on the left and last year was $261,000 so that as well is is a cut for us so you can see the difference our total here for these funds the general fund General Revenue is 1497 versus 148
last year so breaking some of that down you can see our Appropriations here and as we we've done pie charts and everything else in the past um this is just a table for you but obviously we are a people business um salaries and benefits are
71.6% of our budget um Charter Schools Dr Z pounded for us for years right they take away from a lot of our operating money um that's 5.6% of our budget they get over $8 million from our budget to educate the students and
basically I've seen their curriculum they're not doing anything different than we are you know those kids get a it's very nice they get a very small intimate location to go to school but they ride in a bus for an hour um but they don't do anything uniquely different to what we do but they do skim
off a lot of a lot of students from us um transportation is 5.5% facilities 5.2 people Ser Personnel Services special education uh that's 3.8% tuition's 2.6 instruction 2.3
Administration finance and Technology 1.6 and capital 1.5 so that makes up our total operating budget so again talking about our fiscal responsibility using our capital and maintenance Reserve to complete projects
that we are not doing with the bond referendum as we talked to people about the bond referendum we were very clear to them that the bond was very much for capital projects big projects HVAC Windows Doors um new
boilers redoing the work around the high school that we couldn't pay for by saving the money every year um but we do save money every year and we we have prioritized our fiscal responsibility on projects we have Capital reserves and maintenance reserves and some of the
projects that we have done plann for this year is the nbths auditorium sound system we've been at plays this year and performances of our students and unfortunately you cannot hear them we've upgraded the lights in the last couple of years the entire lighting system was done last year and so that has to be a
priority we need to make sure that that beautiful Jewel at the high school is still somewhere people can go and see a performance and really value uh the sound it needs to you need to be able to hear it but we're using the maintenance Reserve to paint outside schools and do
concrete planters that need to be fixed walkways um tile the floors in certain rooms uh remediate the baseball field look at the high school athletic fields the high school needs some concrete work again they did some in the front last year they're going to do some in the back this year because every time I go
by what do I say Ros it's all crumbling get rid of it um repair leaks um things like that those are all priorities for us and then General things that we have to do every year upkeep of the fire alarm systems gymnasium upkeep playgrounds and so on
uh painting projects so we have prioritized those in this budget as well you have to maintain your house even if you get a new air conditioning you may still have to paint your house right so here is the total budget for approval that includes the general fund grants
and entitlements and repayment of debt or Debt Service $169 million a lot of money those striving for that budgetary balance again put up
twice the tax levy impact uh for the 2026 fiscal year budget we will be recommending in this budget to take the allowable increase of 2% I remind you that the state a cut is 3% or $1.7
million um and if we take What's called the health benefits waiver we're allowed to take $1.4 million so that health benefits waiver is what we talked about at the beginning it's a mechanism that they put in understanding that each
district may have really heavy health benefits costs and we do um and they look at each different District individually and do a calculation saying okay because you have these heavy costs you may take this extra amount in taxes from your local Levy beyond the
2% each year it's there in the system we did not take it last year another amount comes up the next year it bumps up we've learned this right Rosa it turns into banked Capital the previous the next year if you don't use it um but each year you build up more we have not taken
100% of what is available to us um so we have our tax liing impact to our local taxpayer um the allowable increase is 2% the healthcare waiver tax increase would be another
1.57% based on that $1.4 million so that adds up to a 3.57 tax levy proposed for the high high healthare cost but not really so in reality what the taxpayer will
see is that the debt Levy is down so the debt Levy will be coming down because we have paid off we are paying off this spring previous debt which is why we had the referendum but as a board you made the wise choice in saying hey we only
want to spend this much we were told we could do projects up to $90 million we did not take all those projects we decided as a board that it was going to be $60 million $67 million that we took so we've got that the bonds that we're going to buy for
that reinvest that money but we also have the debt Levy is down because of the other money that we did not spend so that helps us in this where the tax levy plus the debt Levy being down makes it a wash and that taxes will
only go up for the local taxpayer 2.5% so it does make that much more comfortable number than that 3.57 right that's what people will see so the impact on the local uh home that's
assessed um at 161 161 thousand sorry1 million wow where are we we're not living in mansions uh so a an average home uh it's $137 a year dollar a year or $1.48 per month
so the budget variables this is a preliminary budget we have to then submit it next week to the county and Department of Education for review uh we may may see additional retirements and resignations that we can work into um
our savings we may get better benefit rates or shared service possibilities um we do not know yet what the impact of federal grants will be because we've all heard about possible changes in Department of Education so that could benefit us or negatively affect us so
that's something we have to be ready to handle um our enrollment numbers Charter School enrollments um and obviously now the final official results uh of the referendum vote are looking really strongly in our favor hopefully uh when that is certified we'll be able to
continue to keep the numbers as they are um on this final vote payment um and this budget does also include a payment uh in September in the fall uh for an anticip ated uh Bond purchase so I like to remind you again
an investment in knowledge pays the best interest Ben Benjamin Franklin this is the amount that you will be voting on for approval for the preliminary budget and this is the sheet that each of you have in front of you which has the breakdown of all those different
amounts that I spoke about you can see uh the The General expense I can't even see it on this piece of paper so I apologize can't even read it on my own sheet with my 35 glasses so thank you all for being such
good listeners uh any questions on this preliminary budget question and or comment um we of course were privy to the draft agenda you know as always so this is not our first time seeing these numbers and what's been proposed in light of the fact that we were made aware that we
were going to be hit with a $1.7 million cut so I'm aware of that um I just want to talk about the healthcare cost waivers because that was not an easy decision to be made I know that we did not enter into that decision lightly but I want to confirm that Healthcare uh waiver cost we can only use for the year
at issue is that right we this the the amount that we created this year we can use this year if we don't use it it will get it'll turn into bank uh cap and we have monies from the previous years that we chose never to take if you recall we discussed that in
committee right and we decided since we were already getting a um a substantial amount of money with the increase chose not to use that we have banked that money we are using the money that is created this year in 25 26 okay that's AV no more yes okay all right in order
to balance the budget and obviously assist with the um the 12% increase in healthcare that we are seeing today in experience and then anticipating that again um in the future year right whereas otherwise if we were not cut $1.7 million we may not have we would
have made different choices exactly exactly and and that's where we were last year versus compar this this year decision point was different yes any other questions comments I have a comment I mean obviously hearing the
fact that we were 10th in the state in fourth in the county that's a tough pill to swallow so I really and this board on behalf of the board really appreciates the hard work that you all put into this because obviously that was not easy that was not an easy thing to see for all of
us either and the fact that we are keeping priority um of our students our student achievement and our staff and maintaining our staff that's extremely important um because the last thing any of us wants up here is for the children
and of course the staff to be negatively impacted by this um their learning is is what is most important at the end of the day so we really all appreciate that because that's not you know that's a hard hit thank you anybody else Mrs troka you mentioned enrollment numbers
as a variable what are we seeing in terms of enrollment projections for next year have that so you know we we had our demographic study um before we went into the referendum as well to to make sure that we were and using our money wisely
um you know our enrollment numbers fluctuate throughout throughout the year um but we are seeing you know we have about 500 children in charter schools that's been fairly consistent that number has pretty much stabilized we have about 430 students in prek um so
our numbers generally over the last couple of years the St numbers um you know and again this doesn't include everything it includes all the charter school students but in 2019 we
were at 6,288 students and each year since then um the numbers gone down went down a little bit um it went the lowest in 2021 uh with 5,974 students we went back up in the
6000s for 22 and 23 um October 24 were about 5,981 students um does not include our prese students so you add an extra 431 um but we do see
um lower class sizes through out our different schools so next year this year our graduating class is 100 students larger than the incoming freshman class so again those are things that we've taken into consideration in in setting up classes for next year at at the high
school and by next year you mean for 27 2 or 26 June 26th okay6 we continue to monitor those numbers yeah thank you y I make adjust Mr Jer just quick question so just looking at the bud um the charter
school amounts you know about 8.3 million you said about 500 students so that's comes about to be almost $177,000 spent per student um in our high school let's say the average student I saw the the number was like
15,4 Elementary plus the weights the weights and stuff is that does that come close it comes really close okay so it's about the same you have to remember that those Charter School numbers also has um extra has more than just the base costs in there that right the numbers that we're seeing are the base cost but there
special education needs they they too Charter Schools also have low income um there is calculations in order for them to then translate into the tuition that they charge us so it's variable got you it does and it varies by school District too so students from New Brunswick New
Brunswick pays a different tuition because they're their their actually per pupil number is different it's based on a calculation of our per pupil number in North Brunswick so they get different amounts from New Brunswick North Brunswick East Brunswick each town it's a different amount got it and we did you
know we learned from Dr Z again not to budget that full amount that they tell us we hold in reserve that other amount otherwise we couldn't use it if we allocated it all for Charter so we know them hold that in reserve gotcha thank you all right any additional questions anyone
else thank you very much for your attention I was a lot to take in Mr Singh um I will be sending your your quiz to your laptop and um I'm sure you'll do quite well it's not pass but but nobody can nobody can read while Mr
Sing is taking his test no no all right Mrs H I think the next piece is on you um let's see here so um if you could um ask for a motion here um
yes um well actually we need to do a public session on the budget if anyone would like to come up thank you so at this time you Mr Bush is always a lifesaver we'll do a public session on a bud our 2025 2026 budget um items only
if you'd like to come to the podium and speak about the budget presentation that we just received we ask that you just uh come up and state your name they'll be given 3 minutes good evening everyone uh my name is Beth pasner I'm the president of the
North Brunswick Township Education Association we are the union that represents the teachers and support staff of North Brunswick Township Public Schools um although it is uh related to the budget I want to first talk about the referendum because it is related to the budget um we are thrilled to hear
The Unofficial news that the referendum vote on questions 1 and two uh was successful uh we look forward to making our schools the healthy and safe places that they're supposed to be I want to thank the NBT Board of Ed and central office for recognizing the need for our school district's improvements putting
this out there to the public for a referendum and for all the work um to to get it passed um I want to thank our members of the NBTA both residents and non-residents who supported this referendum by stamping and writing postcards volunteering at school events having conversations with parents
speaking at board meetings and so much more and most importantly I do want to thank the North Brunswick voters who recognized the need for these improvements and showed up at the polls to exercise their right to vote as for the the budget presentation tonight uh we recognize it takes a lot of work to
get to this point and we do appreciate your efforts um with a loss of state aid across the state and uh horror stories of cuts across neighboring districts I do want to thank central office for presenting a budget where the Integrity of our educational system is left intact
our current staff is left intact um and we can continue to move forward and do the best for our students so thank you very much thank you you and we as a board Echo um superintendent choka's thanks to all of you in the NBTA thank
you for all of the hard work that you did to get this referendum passed it does not go unnoticed and we recognize each and every event that you had gone to we saw on your you know social media platform so thank you all so much for everything that you
did anyone else about the referendum specifically or budget or excuse me the budget budget all right seeing none can I please have a motion to close the public portion of this meeting so moved
second Miss Keef I'm going to give you credit for that one all in favor anyone oppose this session is closed thank you so at this time we need a motion to adopt the tenative budget
for the 2025 2026 school year so moved second was that Mr W come on not on my game here with the uh and second I'm sorry Elia J oh you well you
know I'm going to take a roll call for this very important vote um Mr Carter yes Miss James yes Miss Keefe yes Mr Lori yes Mr Singh yes Miss to yes and Mr
W yes the tenative budget is approved and accepted thank you um all right so at this time we will have a public session on any matter at this time if anyone from the public would like to come up to the podium and
speak on any matter you'll be given 3 minutes we just ask that you state your name and sign in okay see none can I please have a motion to close the public portion of the meeting so moved second all in favor
I I is anyone opposed this session is closed thank you so much and again thank you all for being here we appreciate all the extra time that everyone has put into um you know crafting the budget doing everything that you know um
superintendent choka and your team has done Rosa uh you as well thank you so much for everything um the board also just wants to recognize um Dr zakowski as uh superintendent troka said is in our audience tonight um we're very glad
to have him here we're very excited to welcome you and work well welcome you back and uh work with you in the coming school year so thank you for being here and we look forward to uh continuing our conversations with you anyone else from the board have
anything to say before we wrap up all right can I have a motion to adjourn our meeting so moved second all in favor anyone opposed the meeting ised thank you all thank you