e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e reconvene the public session c a motion so moved second in
session so just so everyone knows tonight's agenda is going to be changed up a little bit we're going to go to some part of our normal then we're going to switch out and return back so next on the agenda we're going to go with student presentations my senior my junior over there good evening guys how
are you good even Okay Tyler is on you uh so just want to say it's good to be back sorry I haven't been here the past couple meetings you would handle in business don't worry about um first uh the Juniors just finished the NJ GPA which I had to take
obviously I wouldn't say it was fun but you know you got it done so um yeah just finished that and for next week uh the black student union is holding Culture Night on March 20th from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m where there'll be food performances
Games Etc people can just get together and have fun and leading up to that they are having a Spirit Week um on Monday in acknowledgement of women's History Month there's going to be a breast cancer awareness day where students will wear all shades of pink on Tuesday it's going
to be oldfashioned street wear like a 80s to 2005 where students can just freely dress how they want to on Wednesday it's going to be a bet day where it's dress as your favorite African-American comedian actor musician anybody you want to on Thursday it would
be a heritage your Flag Day so the colors of where you're from or where your family's from and on Friday to end it off it'll be an afro love day where people dress in red green or black to Showcase Unity of black diaspora and that's going to start next week and they'll start making announcements for
it starting tomorrow so to let everybody know um the Spanish club soccer tournament called the pH PHS Champions League from 3: to 6 p.m. will be on March 21st where there's going to be a bunch ofs students sign up they run a
tournament style and they just play in the gym um set a couple goals up and see who wins and then you get um trophies and then you get snacks and the concession stands all be up so it's a fun time for all students to be able to come and get together and the road cap
are holding a high school voter registration drive on March 25th where you must be 17 plus obviously and do you just need to bring your license ID or your last four digits of your Social Security number to get students to be able to register to vote if they don't
know how to or they can't go anywhere else to and as we're moving on from the winter season all the spring Season Sports are starting so like boys volleyball track girls flat and football all of those trials are happening right now and then for the club that me and
Tomy are in sad all of the events that just happened and there we have a bunch more that are about to take place and I'll let her talk about that thank you Tyler um like Tyler mentioned sad uh a lot of upcoming events this month so starting off with our event next week
with the scataway police department um it's the open Forum event we'd love to have you guys there it's at the YMCA um starts around 6:30 so we'd love to see you all um pretty much just to bring bring more awareness about the stuff we're doing and it's in collaboration with the Safe Streets campaign that the
pisc piscato police department has been holding the past couple months um we also have a field trip to the police department on April 9th um which we're really excited about to go test out some of the drunk goggles um and just see all the activities and what kind of goes around in the police department um so
some of the STA students will be going including us um we have the walk the chalk event during um school at on March 24th which we're going to uh write a bunch of nice messages in the parking lots which is something new that we've never done before so we're really excited about that as well on the 27th
and the 28th of March March we have the presentation to the PE classes for juniors and seniors um to kind of talk about what our goal goals are and what we've been doing um for the campaign and we're going to have people from the New Jersey brain alliance come and kind of talk about um our efforts and you know
prepare for prepare for our report in the end of this month um another big event that we're also looking forward to is the fbaa mission life event which is an annual um basketball event that they host in the month of March um that will be on April 4th I believe at 6 PM so
we'd also love to have you guys there um s's actually doing the halftime there so usually there's concession stands and we have a fun little activity plan so that's something to look forward to as well um going on fbl I sound like this because I just got back from the FBA SLC trip um so that was from Monday through
Wednesday which was really fun but very tiring um so we had 72 finalists go on the trip and 31 place to go to Nationals so we're very very proud and it was really really exciting um always this is probably the biggest year we took um the most amount of students so we're really
really thrilled about that it's always really nice as a senior um this is my third year go going so it's nice to see how more and more students come and join um and see how supportive piscato is as a whole you know every time we see someone on stage we're all cheering and clapping and it's just really nice to
get that school spirit there um moving on from FBLA National Honor Society is hosting a food drive this week we're accepting canned canned goods in collaboration with Elijah's promise um so that's something that a lot of the National Honor societies is getting involved with um students are also
eligible to win a $25 gift card if they um donate of can and you know they could be placed in a raffle so that's a good incentive um I know today they had a mandator prom meeting for seniors love to hear it love to hear all the senior stuff coming up I know a lot of you guys already asking me about college
decisions so that will be coming out in the next coming weeks I'll keep you all posted um so yeah prom is coming up and you know they are kind of wrapping up on the year I know a lot of the scholarships are being posted a lot of decisions so just a really exciting time for seniors um icca is hosting their
International night I believe that's next Friday um that's also an annual event and it's very exciting to see you know the culture that they bring and just see all the students come around and support one another um speaking on culture MSA hosted their ifar their annual ifar event last night which was a
huge success as always it's really nice to see students come and support the fellow Muslims here at the high school um and I know it's a big thing pis scatter provid on um I know the there's a field trip coming up for the J women's future Leadership Academy I know some of the students a part of the health
Academy is going on March 21st they'll be hosted at Rucker's business school um so that's something for students to look forward to as well as American Sign Language Honor Society which is new this year and really really exciting they're having their first meeting on March 20th
um so it's really nice to see that those students involved in that you know language is you know being represented and having that opportunity to engage in cool activities as well um read Across America the field trip with national English society was last Friday and I went on them that was really fun it's
really fun to see all the students all the little kids super excited and hearing us read books um a lot of students went this year so that was really exciting as well the choir is hosting their annual Coffee House on March 28th I know they're looking for auditions right now so that's also
something students um can participate in and you know get active in and I know Charlie and Chocolate Factory this drama club host it's a huge success so it was really nice to see that I know a lot of students were in it and a lot of students attended it so it's really nice to see all the fun things happening here
at high school that's it thank you Tommy thank you uh first of all congratulations on all the said uh events and the awards and you guys are fantastic um a couple of questions the YMCA do you know what night that is the 6:30 um it is Tuesday March 18th March
18th 6 63030 6:30 8:30 and it's on speeding Tyler the voter registration Drive do you know what day that's on March 25th 25th yes all right thank you you guys do a fantastic job with these reports we really appreciate itk you well thank you too for coming out this
evening and updating us on the rest of March and all the events that are going on in the district as always it's been a pleasure having you but I know you've been running for a couple days and I know you're ready to go home and get some rest and Tyler I'm sure you have things to do as well so we know you're going to leave get home safely and thanks again for coming out and keeping
us informed on what's going on throughout the high school through all four great have a see next week thank you so much thank next on agenda Personnel Miss Nancy be it resolved that the following
motions identified as items a through F be approved as presented second Mr secretary can take the RO Dr Connors yes Mr K yes Dr Nelson yes Mr Patel yes M
Rivers M Smith yes M Stafford yes Mr Salado Cowen yes M Cherry abstain from B1 and yes to the rest okay um I would like to take uh this opportunity now that that has um motion has gone through to welcome Dr
Johanna Roberto who was here tonight as our uh she will be um stepping in for us after um Dr relli um goes for his retirement and um we look
forward to working with you really forward a good conversation and thank you now on to the president's report for March 13th 2025 congratulations on a job well done by the Piscataway Education
Foundation at our designer Bingo designer bag Bingo tricky trade fundraiser the foundation gave out 125 prizes to all over 300 guests at the event held on February the 28th raising in the amount of $1 19,490
good time helping our students out in addition to money raised at the event the foundation also received a $2,500 donation to a scholarship fund from maio's Food Service bringing our total to nearly $22,000 thank you to majio and all of our contributors for your great
generosity These funds will allow the foundation to continue to expand its efforts to support our students and our schools tonight our board has the Bittersweet duty to say farewell to Dr Frank velli who has been our superintendent for the past six years with our district for the past 11 Dr
vanelli will be retiring from Piscataway at the end of this month and we want to thank you for your tremendous service to Piscataway schools when you took the Helm of our district you had a vision you saw it through and you took our district to the next level you made every decision with the idea that the
students were your children and you never wavered in your advocacy for our families teachers and staff you saw us through the dark days of covid-19 pandemic with courage and strong leaders ship and we are a better district and Community because of your service we're
excited for you in your next chapter and we wish you well and your family the best thank you for everything Dr [Applause] anelli so very I'm very humbled and everybody in this room I think knows that I'm I
don't really like all this stuff but um I will say with uh heavy heart that this place means a lot to me um the decision to leave was not easy um but I I'll say this I I appreciate the words I do think
we are uh leaving this place in in a in a really good position because of all the people in this room here um and then since January when we discussed me me uh leaving at the end of March I've been very humbled about the things that we've been able to do right I'm kind of
reminded of of all the great things um and not even realizing because it's never been about me right it's never been about uh the work that I've done it's been about the work that everybody does and putting the right people in the right spot so they could work for kids and I'll throw it right back at you all I don't know that you realize the great
work that the board does um and when you walk out of here every every day for a meeting or all the time you put in I don't know that you realize uh the impact that you're making uh on on kids and the district and the community and Society um so I'll throw it right back to you um I really appreciate the
support and uh I I couldn't thank you enough um for for this time and and trusting in me and trusting in the people in this room so uh thank you very much and uh I will absolutely Miss MC away and Dr relli um having overlap with
you for the last um 11 11 years um is that um thank you for all all all that time and um I want to leave you with a quote uh that fits you and that is is if your actions Inspire others to dream
more learn more do more and become more you are a leader and thanks for all that time as uh leading the school board thank you for that apprciate [Applause] it before we move on um I'd like to just go back to the Personnel um I believe
you also want to abstain on item D if you'd like to correct your vote before we uh move on that's and abstaining from B1 and item d as well for Miss Cherry thank you and I will reflect the record accordingly thank you all right okay uh time for the superintendance report thank you very
much as always please check out our superintendent report on our website in the superintendent Corner um highlights this month include the community outreach activities uh wonderful family nights in our schools all the high school Awards and activities that our
reps uh explained are in here our winter sports updates and our spring Sports uh you know getting ready to gear up there uh but a really fun article about Dr Connor right in the front page there uh about him uh actually addressing our uh chem Club at our High School uh
regarding uh his dissertation research and things like that so inspiring kids um you know throughout his entire life so we appreciate that um okay so Gary Miller is not here he left uh after he took pictures and
and uh was in the art the permanent art show but I want to talk about a couple things that he was directly involved in uh number one parents square right it's a communication system that has gone out to our community and I'll read a couple things because I think it's really important uh this week we launched parent Square our new districtwide communication platform I'm pleased to
report it went very smoothly uh with great feedback from uh parents and staff as of earlier this evening the number of registered users was 2,868 which is fantastic for only a few days U more than a quarter of our total number uh everyone should be receiving a
notification at 8:00 p.m. tonight so in about 15 minutes with uh this and a uh which include a full link to the newsletter uh it goes to our website as well our top stories a video of the month but the most important thing and it's part of the goals that we have uh
to my left here is it's translatable to any language they choose right so right now when when they would get this it's not translatable but as of tonight it will be so we're really excited about opening that uh that door to the communication to our families in whatever language they they they need it
to be and to to effectively communicate with them so we're really really happy with that as a reminder uh if you don't register you'll still get the um messages and emergency messages and things like that but you get the full experience if you register for the account obviously it's free uh it's kind
of walkth through easy when you register if you need help doing that you could always call uh the your your school desks uh office office made offices so we appreciate that also Al uh congratulations to Gary Miller I'm sorry he's not here he was named citizen of the Year by the scataway Elks this year
um for his dedication and involvement in the community keeping the community in touch really celebrating Piscataway at every turn he possibly can so we are really really lucky uh to have Gary Miller here in the district and uh he is well deserving of that of that honor at
this time uh David Olivera and myself will uh kind of come around the other side of the table and we have a budget presentation for the 2025 26 uh budget so I know Mr Olivera will go over the budget calendar at the end of the presentation but just to give you uh a
little glimpse of that uh tonight we'll do the presentation and then uh we'll go through what we what we need to with the county and then on the second meeting in April um you'll be voting to adopt the budget okay um all right so we don't
have a a ton of slides but we have enough to really make sure you understand uh how we built this and or we built it how David built it right exact I say we right uh what what what went into uh the discussions how long it took um really uh all of the ins and
outs and and what the results are and and why we chose this Avenue for the results all right so um you know budget guidelines what we have to do curricular instruction District technology initiatives special education you know you could read those things there but I think the guidelines are really important uh I'll talk about what drives
our budget in two slides but just take a second to look at that right basically um as we've been speaking about tonight uh we really are are interested in the parents needs and the student needs right no matter what needs they have right we know students come to us with
all different different sets of needs and it's really important that we try to meet them where they are and stretch every possible way we can so they can challenge themselves all right more budget guidelines Safety and Security has always been at the top of my list one of our goals is to recruit and
retain uh staff health benefits is uh you know David is is constantly monitoring those and making inv in the Capital Improvements of the buildings and maintain the cost efficiency he'll talk more about fund balance and capital reserve later in the
presentation so I have the things up there with the little boxes that well David put it up there uh you know about what drives our budget but really what drives our budget is the nine of you sitting in your seats and the posters that are on the walls right so from the mission statement to the strategic planning to the yearly goals to the
board goals um that's what drives our budget so again I said it before when I was sitting down you really don't have any idea what kind of impact you're making on our future right the important role that you play the dedication that you have um and it's been it's been great working with you all but that's
what drives our budget the things there but also the things that are on the wall is the posters right our goals the time you put in to make sure that we have a clear Direction and it's not just well this this this program sounds great let's bring this in or this looks great let's bring this in we do the resch Arch
we're dedicated and we we try to do things uh our staff is fantastic right our teachers our our associations our custodian everybody we try to do things to the best of our ability to make sure we have topnotch things here all right now we start with the numbers I'm
done even um so we view our job each year with this budget presentation to inform you the board and the community about kind of where we we are financially as a district but also overall on the state scene um where
where things stand uh for those of you that aren't on the finance committee that get kind of monthly updates so um you know we go into a bit of the nooks and cranny and try and get you to understand where we as a district but also again the state where it's headed financially because it impacts our
budget decisions that we make so this is a a pie chart of our sources of revenue uh the biggest is are tax levy that's what the homeowners in the township of pasaway pay um followed by state aid which is a big topic of discussion this
year for us next we have fund balance which that is excess money from one budget year that we have to roll over and use in a future budget year and then lastly are a couple small categories I I call other state aid here um that's a
piece of what we call extraordinary Aid primarily uh those are for high cost special needs children and it's kind of an estimate we don't get the number for that until the end of the existing fiscal year so that's why it's carved out from uh the regular state aid number
here okay and then miscellaneous Revenue are just localized revenues that we generate from tuition rentals interest our srex sales things like that so I wanted to kind of put this this up here this was a slide from last
year and it's not even really directly related to Piscataway but if you read that quote last year was a really Topsy turb a year for uh state aid the S2 funding formula was fully implemented and there were a lot of drastic changes if you recall we got a $4.8 million
increase in state aid uh we were celebrating but other districts not so lucky and I just picked the neighboring District as an example and I added a highlight of you know what their state aid is for this year so they had an increase two years ago decrease last
year that we talked about how that was a $10 million swing and then this year there a $767,000 increase again that's just to show you how another District outside of pasca way how the formula is just swinging drastically and it's impacting
not just us but everyone across the state so I mentioned S2 was uh funding Reform Bill that was implemented over a multi-year period that was fully implemented last year we had a number of changes this year in the state aid formula my Association has been um
lobbying for the state to consider some adjustments and they have been listening uh the new commissioner is a former assistant commissioner for finance at the Department of Education so NJ asbo is really happy about that and they made
some changes but it did have an impact um they went to a three-year average for using these factors here for equalized valuation in District income we thought that that was helpful it kind of Smooths out any Peaks and
troughs um they used to use an estimated amount of special education children in every single District they would apply 15.9% to your total enrollment and estimate that that was your number of special education children this year
well again I say this year the next year for next year the state aid for next year they actually used actual special education enrollment this actually hurt us um 878 children is what is in our calculation that's our actual number
projected for next year if they had used the 159 uh percent and a comparison to last year we would had about 1,082 considered special education so it impacted us a little bit in in financial excuse me state aid but also it shows um
you know we're not one of these zeis District said is over classifying children right we want least restrictive environment we want them with their peers Etc the other big change this year uh and I'll get into later is uh pea preschool money uh if your if the
preschool had what they call carryover essentially like Surplus or fund balance the state this year took 25% of it and reclaimed it um and they did so by reducing your preschool Aid um I just got a broadcast from my State
Association at 4:30 today that there might be some ways to uh adjust that a little bit but it's too early to know if we'll be able to recoup some of that money um fluctu fluctuating multipliers had an impact on our Equalization Aid
calculation um it it really impacted what's called our local fair share which I've talked about before and I'll get into in some slides down the road um because of the drastic changes in District state aid they capped any increase a district could get at 6% and
they capped any decrease at 3% again that was to smooth out their adjustments the doe is not naive to the fact that their formula keeps spitting out these drastic changes but nobody seems to really have figured out how to make it smooth and consistent for
districts which is really all us Bas are asking for so here's our state aid history um you know we had couple of years all in the same neighborhood then we had a nice big $4.8 million increase okay um and
then this year oh sorry in 23 24 we lost to 530,000 last this current year we're in we gained 4.8 million and then for next year we have a nearly $800,000 loss okay so again
unpredictable makes it hard to budget and plan when this is the case so state aid has a percentage of our budget for many years you know we were in this 14 15% bracket and if you go back actually before this uh prior to
2016 2017 kind of 14% 14 and a half perc that was kind of The Sweet Spot we got some increases in state aid that one year where we lost money and then we rocketed back up with the 4.8 million increase and we're moving down again um
my concern is is that looking forward we might be headed back down towards 14% roughly and what does that mean who makes up the difference taxpayers yeah they expect us to make it up locally of course they tie our hands a little bit with percentage caps but they expect us
to make up the difference so uncapped sf8 that is if they ran the formula pure and made no adjustments no limitations nothing this is what they say we should get a and if you look here there's something that really stands
out if they ran the formula pure this year we would have lost 135 million okay um not good news last year we were fully funded or the current year we're currently in we were fully funded
according to their formula 13 million decrease I just mentioned so we could have gotten an additional 12.7 million cut in state aid because they cut us 800,000 this is where the cap I mentioned earlier really helped a
district like us so an analyzing state aid uh the biggest category is Equalization Aid typically and these are some of the factors that impact it um because of that large decrease we should have gotten they got very cute with how
they all ated the money and they increase uh artificially some of our categorical Aid uh C uh money not too you know that's more ba stuff at the end of the day we're looking at the top level number for state aid and where we are and where we
could have been David can I ask you a question yep you know we discussed this a lot but um Equalization Aid is the adequacy budget minus the local share and in the local share is the
50% District income and 50% property valuation with those factors yep but you've taught me to make up tables over the years of how things have changed how do you feel about the fact that our
local share which basically is supposed to be an estimate of how rich your district is versus how much you can collect in property tax that that disparity is getting worse and worse in other words words right now over a 10-year period
we've gone from $90 million local share calculation to 150 million but our property tax has only gone from about 90 to 105 so do you think that that there's any that this is a factor that this
local share calculation keeps getting larger than what we actually do collect um it does concern me there's some f slides later that will address it but I mean generally speaking it does concern me so if after we go through those slides I haven't okay addressed it specifically we'll come back to that all
right thanks um enrollment is a factor in how they calculate the a the good news for us is that our enrollment has kind of stabilized over the last five years we had fears of decreases it has been stable which is great um unfortunately the projections moving forward look like it might start to go
down a little bit again uh over the next couple years we'll wait and see our special education students have been increasing uh the next chart will show you that um our LEP students have gone up just from 23 24 to this year that we're currently in it went up 58
students okay continues to be a large population and our free and reduced percentage from from last year to this year went up from 36.9 to 44.3 again not really a surprise I talked about certainly with the committee but I think even in in the uh public board meetings
they use the New Jersey Medicare Medicaid excuse me Medicaid numbers to upload and so we really captured some families who maybe historically were not filling out the free and reduced lunch applications not unique to us happened for all districts across the
state here's graphical representation of the enrollment the Orange is regular education and the blue is special education it doesn't appear as drastic but you can see from 23 24 to 2425 up nearly 40 students and you know we're
projecting to maintain that for next year this is a uh a chart that demonstrates and kind of shows the the leveling off and the stability the way the state aid calculations work is they they take two three-year windows and they compare your growth percentage so
the two green numbers showed when they Ed those figures you know we had 112 student drop okay that that contributed to our reduction in state aid in 23 24 the purple numbers got a little closer they were only 18 away okay and then the
two yellow numbers thankfully are stable 6814 to 6821 for that rolling average um the issue with the current state aid calculation isn't our enrollment it's other factors okay because our enrollment has stabilized okay this is the same slide
from last year again um equal equal Equalization Aid some key words there the adequacy budget is the state's calculation of how much we should be spending to educate the children adequately very generic word uh local
fair share is there determination of how much the taxpayers of the scataway should be paying for that education and Equalization Aid is meant to be that gap between what they say the budget should be and how much we're paying for it the state says we'll make up that
difference okay so this table is meant to show you can see the adequacy budget is going up each year okay went up 11 million from the current year to what's projected for next year look at our local fair
share the state is now saying that our adequacy budget is 149 million and they're saying that the taxpayer should be paying all 149 million it's crazy that's I was trying to say now last year there was a $12 million difference they said okay the state we owe you 12
million to meet that the way the formula worked this went up 11 million the local fair share went up $24 million okay so we're $ 39.5 million short in our tax levy it's a big number nobody expects us
to get there and quite frankly the formula could change when we're sitting here again next year okay but the reality is is that the state saying the taxpayers are underfunding the education of scataway students by comparison uh last year the
shortfall was 21 million so in one year our shortfall in funding for the local fair share went from 21 million to 39 A5 million okay but the your point that side though
the the pass of the legislation to cap at 3% of uh well the troubling part is Tom is it wasn't even legislation it was just the governor and the Doe's application of the formula they said we're not going to give it any
District more than a 6% increase and we're not going to give any District more than so the 3% saved us from we went we only lost 800,000 but we could have lost another 12.8 million not thousand million
um and of course the troubling piece about it is next year this time we'll have a new governor um and nobody seems to think that the state is trending upwards with Revenue you know they expect a bit of a flattening period another key factor in the formula
is the ratables um you know I have here what the the mix is here um ratables went up um according to the the county pway has the six highest total ratables in the entire County okay so it's that
about 24 towns good news for you homeowners your average assessed home went from 448 449,000 nearly to 52,000 so the value of your real estate's going up unfortunately that means the amount of state aid you're
getting is going down so um because this has a direct impact on the formula the average assess home PCAT is the seventh highest in the entire County again I mean that reflects the positivity of the community people want to live here the house prices are uh
quite High compared to other parts of the community the downside of that is that the state says well that means you have more burden to pay for the education of the children and I put this up here just as a reminder because the property valuations I actually think the scataway
is doing the right thing revaluing every year on a five-e rolling basis as a as a business person as a as a you know really a citizen I I think it's the right thing the problem is in my mind that pway is one of the few towns in the
state that's doing that right and so all the other towns that aren't doing that uh when this the counties and the state go and they figure out this equalized valuation where they have to try and make all everybody's valuations in the county on the same plane
towns that maybe haven't reval revalued since the early 80s you have an accountant or an actuary like me behind a desk looking at sales numbers and kind of guesstimating what the equalized valuation is for those towns and trying to make them fair and
comparable across the entire County um there more fudge Factor than when you have annual rolling revaluations that piscatway is doing uh don't have numbers but I'm I'm convinced that this is part
of the DraStic swing and the increase in what scataway local fair share is but can I can I just make a statement that having done this for a while and that is that there's a misunderstanding every year Bes got away when people get their
tax bills and look at it and what I heard you say is beyond the property tax levy are P of 177% of our revenue from state aid is actually being hurt by the
fact that we are one of the few towns that are doing reassessments I believe it is and I I believe it is too and I'm going to I'm going to state that publicly and um I I feel that way and again I think Piscataway Township is doing the right
thing I just wish the state would mandate that other towns do the right thing than um this 11.6 billion here by the way um so when they equalize it and and try and make it fair and comparable with the other towns our number only goes from
11.6 billion to 11.9 billion so what does that mean we are really close to what the fair value is in the market okay we're at 97 and a half% of what the fair value is there's towns that are down around 20% and they get again an accountant
actuary is kind of juicing numbers based on recent sales and whatever it's just it's there's more room for manipulation I'm not accusing anybody of of anything elicit but it's just it's not the same as revaluing every year it's just
not so now we get to the tax levy so if in years past I always basically every year I've been here I always kind of started with tax levy because it's the biggest piece but because of the impact of state aid this year I kind of flipped the slides a little bit and went through that state aid discussion and now we're at the tax levy which is the biggest
piece of the the budget and really it was to give you the explanation as to why we're asking for a fairly significant tax levy increase this year all right so I said earlier the tax levy is 74% of the budget um the exceptions are
still in place it can only go up 2% a year uh we'll never get to 149 million if we just go up 2% a year it's just not possible mathematically okay because that number will keep growing as well uh except for a few things uh healthcare
costs um Tom's two favorite words in the dictionary Bank cap and cap um and the healthcare cost waiver which is one of the waivers that we're allowed to increase the Lev above 2% uh the state plan went up 14% in their health
care costs this year wow so that Healthcare waiver was available um I'm sorry does the does the healthcare waiver cover that increase or it just gives a portion towards it so the healthcare waiver allows us if our health care costs are going up above
2% to raise the levy the tax levy higher than 2% okay but only as high as the 14% that the state plan was going up if we were going up 20% I got we couldn't get all 20% the 4% excuse me the 14% is kind of the ceiling okay so you take the difference if the state plan sorry Tom
if the state plan wasn't going up and we were going up 10% right that's all on us there's no waer available got it and the way the math works is that 2% 14% the difference is 12 you take 12% of your me medical cost minus prescription and um
and and um and dental and say that's 10 million so it's so it's 12% of 12% of uh 10 million whatever it is you add that as a percentage to your your 2% increase right so so that's where that money comes from
okay the pool pays for it I'm B cap um I think everybody here knows what it is I've been over it a lot of times every year uh we had 1366 million available this year uh and that was because and I'll point this out because of the increase we're going to
be asking for this year remember last year we only asked for a 1% tax increase okay so we really tried to when we got that large State a increase we cut back on the tax levy increase right and we generated Bank cap in that process uh we're recommending this year that we use 1.1 million of Bank cap which would
leave us 266,000 available for the next two budget years so this is our current year Levy 104 million that's a far cry from 149 million um 2% increase of 281 870 is
there use of Bank cap of 1.1 million the health care cost waiver of 2.5 million would get us to a tax levy of 109 million that's a 5.5% increase in the tax levy okay we know that's significant
um but again just for comparison sake even after all these increases we're recommending for next year were $40 million less than where the state says we should be this chart shows you what we've done with tax levy
increases over the last 10 years so the orange line is the average this is for the general fund this excludes back when we used to have debt this excludes that um and the 10 year average general fund tax levy including the five and a half this year would mean 2 and a half% each
year over the 10e period not bad okay you can see six of the years we under the two and a half% and then we have four years where we would be over um with this current recommendation for next year being the highest that's a great slot really
is another piece of information again because when we talk about the the budget and and why we're recommending this why we're doing what we're doing I pulled up the most recent year they had available was 2223 so it's a couple years dated but we can only do
only go as fast as the state of New Jersey doe goes uh with this information scataway is ranked 19th out of 24 school districts in Middle sex County for how much we spend on general fund money per kid per pupil okay
Highland Park was the top at 26 a half thousand and we are at 19,700 basically okay the only ones less than us were Edison was the biggest one less than us and there were a couple other smaller um districts I couldn't fit all
24 on here but you can see a lot of our what I consider comparable type districts you know sville similar size South planfield a neighbor a little smaller but our neighbor South Brunswick pretty comparable North Brunswick Oldbridge Woodbridge is much bigger but
again gives you an idea of where we are so um when we ask for the additional tax levy money because the state is shorting us there's a reason we're asking for it that's really the message so what's the other impact of the state
a decrease um I talked about fund balance that's basically Surplus from one year applied to a future budget ideally I I budget that for items that if the money went away tomorrow we wouldn't have to spend it and what I
call non-recurring expenses so last year the the current year we're in all of our fund balance was allocated to nonre in expenses of the 8.7 million we have this year 4.5 million of it is for non-recurring expenses but 4.2 million
are for recurring expenses such as employees salaries all right I told Frank I'm not worried about that we we have this year to kind of let the numbers shake out we've done a good job every year once we're in the budget year managing the budget we end up with
a surplus to be able to fund capital reserve to do the projects that we'd like to do so uh I'm comfortable heading into this year I just want to make the board aware that even with that high tax levy increase it's not like oh we're covering all of our recurring expenses
right okay um but some of the things in the four and a half million I talked about instructional technology we have prometheum board roll out we did two schools last summer we're doing four schools this summer okay and then following summer we hope to knock off at least the rest of the K eights and and
perhaps some of the high school and really move into the high schol school as well uh we have some maintenance equipment that we budget for if we didn't have to if we didn't if we needed the money for something else we don't have to buy that equipment but if it's there we have some items that could be
replaced and then I put in some Hedges right for inflation uh in benefit costs in added District tuition costs Etc so that's examples of non-recurring expenses that the Surplus is is used for so summary
the school aid funding formula is fully funded um Governor cced that in his speech last year and this year uh state aid is unpredictable okay due to fluctuations and the best information I can give you now is based on what the discrepancy is between our local fair
share and our tax levy my projections for the future are that we're going to have more decreases I'm not telling you that because I have the inside scoop on the formula because you just don't know we've seen the uned ility of it but that is my best guess of where we are at the
moment uh generally speaking that tax levy increases are limited to 2% plus waivers Bank cap we'll have 266,000 left um the other option that some districts are are getting to is you can go above the cap if you put a question
out to the voters so for items aside of for health care cost you can put question out to voters to go above the cap that's just we need to do that yet I planted this seed just so everyone's aware it's an option last year I just leave it there to know you know at some point in the future we may or may not
have to consider that we're not there yet one one question David um and that is that we as a board were looking in 2022 to keep going with our debt service to do
projects and that Debt Service basically gets turned into a percentage to be put onto the you know tax levy and we don't have that anymore do you think we're in a good position to go back to Debt
Service if we choose to because we chose not not to do those projects good P good position from whom whose perspective from our from our financial you know oh we're very financially sound I mean we have no debt uh we have a good rating
we'd have to get rated but I mean there's no issue there and you know when we went out for our EIP we got a very low interest rate okay we've always made our payments that's not the issue the real challenge with any referendum is getting voter approval um I was just talking to Frank earlier today what
we're paying attention to is you know at that time we were talking about an 80 to hundred million doll referendum um there's no we don't have to do that large of a referendum say you know districts are doing smaller right so um I keep
track most of you guys know I got spreadsheets and all over the place and I keep track of what we've actually I have that original list from that referendum discussion a couple years ago and I keep track of what we've been able to do in District with capital reserve what my maintenance team has been doing and I keep track of how much we've saved
by maintenance due for example the most prominent example is a burglar alarm upgrades you know there was the architect projected you know outside contractor prevailing wage cost and then there's the cost of what you know my guys working hand inand with a with a
prevailing wage contractor was able to do and we've saved quite a bit and we've checked off some of those items so there may be a time that and we have a couple projects going now there's a future slide um and I have the big one that I want to accomplish before I sail off
into the sunset years down the road and that's the K to eight bathrooms I really want to upgrade these kids bathrooms what I was getting at for the board was that if we wanted to go back to funding projects that we did not go with and we choose some we would have to do a
referendum Bond question to bond that money and it would become debt service that would keep going forward on top of the uh tax yeah if there were a number of projects one of the ones we talked about was the science classrooms at the high school we wanted to redo that that would be a significant enough cost where
we might want to consider that you know the locker rooms at the high school school they're dated they're used differently even the locker rooms at the the middle schools you know Bill will tell you you know they they can be used better than what they currently are they just need to be updated so you start to
piece a couple of those projects together um as good as we've done with capital reserve it'll be hard to pull that off but it might not be an 80 to1 million referendum it might be a $30 million you know so um yeah that's where
we are with that okay so of this conversation has to do with where we are financially and what we're asking for the taxpayers and why we're asking but let's not lose sight of the focus and that's the kits uh all of the things that we do start with the wonderful
staff that we have um but also has to do with our facilities also has to do with everything that we're rolling into making sure we can pull the things that we have on these next two slides off and our our educational initiatives for the next uh for next year in the next couple
of slides um you'll notice that there's not a lot of revamping of curriculum like I said before like we we really do a lot of research we want our um our research to prove that we're we chose the right product we chose the right curriculum we implemented the standards
for a long period of time and we get really good at it right um on this slide here obviously the science of reading well documented in our curriculum committee meetings and with Dr b um tutorial Services transition social learning so you'll see the theme of
really offering the good supports to kids right so but things on that list are not um free right freshman seminar how we deal with that right we have a whole summer Academy for freshman seminar a whole week for that uh the peer mentoring the post secary transition uh you all approve um you
know some of my crazy ideas which is which included a college and career counselor right which is extremely important for our district and our kids but again those are initiatives that we need to to fund to make sure we meet the kids where they are right we try our best to do uh in-house curriculum design
and alignments and Dr B and his team do a great job and um we tried to make an all-inclusive curriculum and a foundation right we try not to use the word program right we want to build blocks that are going to be with be with the district you know long after any of
us leave and that's that that's a sign of good leadership and good uh Decisions by the board and the administration and things like that all right and a huge part of the budget is technology right the uh every
District deals with it right whatever device they choose to deliver the instruction uh for scatter happens to be an iPad right it remains in place and we um purchase two grades right two full grades per year so every year that's
that big recurring cost of you know5 $600,000 for just replacing the two grades that we replaced the rotation plan I spoke about um so we talk about all the time can we do things better and can we do things more efficiently um the
student technology under review for Effectiveness right um we really want to make sure that all the grades are utilizing the iPads the way we intend them to right we're hearing some Rumblings is the wrong word but we're getting some information that in grade 11 and 12 they might not be using it as
much as up to the up to up to that grade so can we be creative in the way we deliver that technology to those kids right so that's what I mean by that we'll pull it there right um and John bof and his his team this whole cyber
security endpoint detection I mean that that's uh a big part of our budget number one but also a very necessary part right you see articles in the paper about districts being hacked you know for ransom things like that um we want to make sure that our kids are uh
understanding how to use technology safely uh but unfortunately we have to to make sure all these cyber security things are in place and also with the infusion of artificial intelligence I think it's really important that we you know take um that information and
deliver a proactive approach instead of being reactive to things that um you know we're not really secure About Preschool um yeah go ahead I wased to that yeah our preschool EXP ition aid
number 8.8 million uh but I touched on this earlier that number is net of a 25% reduction in our carryover so they took if you will $251,000 off of that preschool aid number and that's because our carryover
was about a million dollars um and really again for me I like having a hedge okay uh particularly the board is well aware we have three rented building okay uh we've been growing our our
employee base preschool as along with the numbers I'd like to have a hedge to make sure that we can cover those costs I mean when we renegotiate at least there's some unpredictability there okay but State took some of it um more to come on that like I said I got a
broadcast at 4:30 this afternoon so you know maybe those there's some room there to recoup some of that uh and just showing the growth of our program we were an early adopter and a rapid expander of our program uh 67 kids in
1819 557 students now um and that is only regular education students we're projecting 28 inclusion students next year which would bring that up to 585 and we have about 90 self-contained
students that are preschool age that's 675 preschoolers is preschool um Aid proportional to the number of kids you have it yes it's if you have if you have more if you have a facility to put them in it's a it's a per pupil per pupil amount
right so for regular education for the inclusion children the district pays the preschool program from our general fund we pay that tuition rate to the preschool program to cover the operational costs for those inclusion CH
self-contained is entirely right on our general fund budget for the preschoolers reminder we have three rented locations one of those locations the lease is expiring in August of 26 uh the district was approved for preschool expansion grants at two
District school locations um we're weighing up those options uh we're going to start going down the road with with one of the two locations um and the other one will be on hold uh as we determine what's best for the district
and this is just a reminder this is actually linked to the the 430 broadcast I've had this up there every year About Preschool because transportation is expensive and it's funded through the operating budget not the preschool budget in our case you know that's about half a million
dollars of outsourced contractor routes that doesn't even include the routes that we drive internally ourselves for the preschool part of the broadcast as I quickly read through 4:30 seems to indicate they're going to allow you to charge Transportation costs above a
certain threshold to the preschool program okay so um which give us a way to use some of that carryover if we wanted to to try and recruit some of the stuff they're taking from us and other districts let's be clear they didn't just take it from Piscataway the reason
the state did this is across the state there was $195 million in preschool carryover in all the districts that have preschool they looked at that and they said that's a big pot of money I I don't blame them you know we we spend our money pretty
well because we pay leases there's some districts when you put the the program in your in-house buildings you're not paying rent and you can't charge the transportation you have a lot of money left over okay so that's that's the where the doe was coming from but in your budget
wisely when you're trying to hedge and protect for future expense increases it never feels good for the state to kind of carve some back before we move to an expense analysis I want to just note one other thing because not we are not naive to
the fact that you live in the community and have to answer questions and and the other point I'll make it's linked to bank cap over the past 10 years um we have forone $5.2 million in a tax levy increase okay so our tax levy could
be $5.2 million higher because we've let Banks cash expired over that 10 year period again so it it goes to show the board when possible has tried to treat the taxpayers as fairly as possible by not just raising every single year right
um you know we've allowed money to to fall off the table because at that time we felt it was the right thing to do unfortunately the formula very quickly told us we're not doing the right thing so um that's where we are operating budget
no surprise here two biggest categories salaries and benefits we are a people driven business um educating children is very people intensive uh 75% of the budget and then you see the other categories broken down here maintenance
uh being a large one and transportation the next uh biggest one you can see things like supplies quite tiny um you know even tuition out of District tuition it's you know fairly small Paras AIDS and Subs are outsourced um Paras
AIDS and substitutes um a growing expense category us I I have a question about that so um is it more uh I would imagine based on this that the reason we Outsource that is that it's
financially more beneficial for the district it's it's more cost efficient it's it's a decision that was made 15 years ago and does that at the end of the day impact the student
negatively um we're blessed in that a lot of the Paras that we have even when they made that transition just transition to the Outsource company and they remain with us from year to year okay there is a level of stability um would there be even more stability if
they were in-house employees possibly um but it was a certainly a financial decision that was made 15 years ago and I think it's still is financially beneficial to the the district despite it being a growing cost
okay Personnel costs um we review staff and requests every year we left up here what our class size uh board policy recommendations are that we try and Achieve you know we're always looking at the high school classes sizes to make sure that they're efficient um again and
all this is important class size yes we don't want classes too high but remember although we stabilized for a couple year period we really had to examine it because enrollment was decreasing and naturally decreasing enrollment means there's probably smaller class sizes that you may have to collapse and combine a little
bit recruiting and retaining staff is uh continues to be a challenge particularly in you know High kns areas like special education your Sciences your languages Etc I don't know that that's going away anytime soon's and less folks in the teacher pipeline I talked about the 75% our
health benefit costs are going up 9.8% okay um that's on a gross cost basis which is how it's it's analyzed um for the health cost waiver but I say gross cost because that does not include
the amount that employees contribute to their benefits When you factor that in based on my projections it's actually more like a 133% increase why is it going up if employees are contributing well when you compare the net amounts it's going up because employees are now
going to start to contribute less because we've kind of hit that Tipping Point in terms of number of employees in the new J New Jersey Educators Health Plan kind of a subset of the the Health Care System healthare offerings that we have and employees contribute less under that
plan Okay so we've kind of hit that Tipping Point so on a net basis the cost the district a little the increase is more than on a on a gross cost basis from what the broker tells me our costs are going to go up when we do have to look at staff we
really try and minimize the negative impacts um you know not not a request for reductions actually we have some staff additions I'll get to in a moment uh for the upcoming year but we try and do it being uh sensitive to the people that are in our school Community here uh
we're all a team trying to educate children so we look to just collapse vac um and not fill retirements things like that when when it does come to that so what do we have built into the budget Staffing requests we have seven
and a half FTE I talked earlier about the increase in our uh LEP uh limited English students we have to add four bilingual teachers if we can find them okay uh at the elementary and
intermediate level two and two right we have an Autism class projected for next year which is right at the threshold for which we will if we get another student or two we will need to open up another class so we're budgeting for an additional autism teacher um
because we we seem to get more and more referrals I talked about how our special education numbers have increased um we're doing that we're going to be doing that nice beautiful Media Center project and we think it's uh we need a second clerk to monitor the beautiful project
stuff that's probably more a mid-year higher because of the scope of when the Project's going to uh be completed but again we budgeted for it we have a floating nurse who's um very well uh utilized and really could be full-time so we're recommending increasing the
position from a part-time to full-time position and Frank talked about it how important it is um you know we say Telecom specialist but Telecom Now isn't just your traditional analog phone it's it's IP based it's really
getting into broadband internet wiring server switch connections Etc so um do we have person like that in the district now are we adding we have one now and we feel we need a another person in
training so to speak really to you don't want at any point some somebody to leave in any position they're the only one who knows how to do what's what's happening um we keep looking at elementary Staffing because we really won't know kindergarten enrollment until closer to
the year you know we have projections for the grades one to three um you know it's looking pretty flat maybe we pick up a position there maybe but uh we'll wait and see and I went back through all the budget presentations including this one and for the past five budget Cycles
net net we've decrease by three and a half FTE in terms of our staffing requests you know we had one year two years ago uh with the the reduction in state aid and we thought it was going to be even bigger than it was where we really did a deep dive on positions and and what I
talked about with the high school schedule and collapsing vacancies and things like that so net net you know we've been efficient and effective I think those were words we had on earlier slides um even with staff I think it's important to know we you know we've gone down three and a
half positions but we really try to deliver the best ED that we can we've gone down about 400 kids so you know we really again with your support and and the budgets the way they the way they lie out um we really having we really
tried to keep as much that as we could to make the best uh scenarios for the kids summary of the key operating expense categories again Staffing salaries and benefits uh the parent sub costs for next year are projected to go
up 820,000 um you know part of that is special education enrollment increases so we have more power cost the preschool and self-contained costs in and of itself those two categories are going up 204 uh excuse me 200,000 okay for those two
categories due to you know students new students um outsourced onetoone Services one of the other factors with our special education increase in number of students is we're seeing them have more and more sever needs we have more than I ever
remember in terms of students requiring one toone nurses to to travel with the child there's not enough nurses to do that job that's one of the reasons why we're asking for one to go from part-time to full-time but we end up having to go to these Outsource agencies to hire nurses and that gets quite
costly okay and they they follow the child around every day because they have medical needs that require it um so those costs are going up about 17% related to one to one needs of our highly disabled uh
children utilities uh going up 21% um we completed the esip we have solar panels some of which need to be replaced but irrespective of that um the there was a recent auction on the
supplying of power you're going to see an increase in your own bills as well at home uh they've gone up already they're going up more in June okay um pjm who is the deliverer of electricity for this
area uh in in an auction they you know won whatever the auction was but their rates are being projected out to have an impact of up to 20% on our home and and business utility bills
in the coming months okay so sorry for the bad news but more might be coming at home we can't handle what we're dealing with now I know thanks David I know not that you do it it's not your
fault I had highest home heating bill last month myself are there any new synergistic companies out there not that's going to help that I'm thinking about put one of those cages over my thermostat so my children can't touch it um and Charter School costs you know
we've talked about this all 10 years I've been in District first half dozen years didn't really bother me but last couple years we've seen an increase over the last five years it's gone up about 9% per year and we're spending about a million I say spending we're transferring about a million dollars to
uh charter schools now for children that are enrolled there our enrollment is up in the high 60s now used to be 38 39 for a lot of years um what Charter Schools like so some of our students that we paid
tuition for to go to Charter Schools uh Brunswick um teams um another one I can't think I don't know I can't think of those are probably two of the bigger ones I have the whole list but but they the tax money for them goes with them
greatman exactly great BR May yeah Franklin couple of them Thomas had there's one in Franklin now is that two in Frankin yeah there to we're still not I remember
going to a meeting six years ago and Franklin was paying out five or six million a year in for Charter fits that was six years ago so we're not in that territory thank God but um you know our number has gone up touch on some of the facility
projects now uh facility projects we tend to fund with capital reserve or you know our our fund 12 not a huge impact on our our general fund activities but it's important to note a few things here uh we completed the esip this year that's done um the interior alterations
that we're doing at the high school the media center the Esports room the cafeteria seating nurses off the new nurse's office couple Tech classrooms um we awarded that bid I've already had the preliminary meeting with the contractor I just got a plan construction scheduled today um so that's moving along we're
we're hoping by the end of the year everything's done and dusted really uh we're asking them to be done by Thanksgiving so we'll see how that goes uh acoustical upgrades and bleachers that is to improve the Acoustics across the hall which everybody was just in but also up at the gym at the high school uh
already had a meeting with those guys they'll be working in the summer as well um on tonight's agenda is a resolution to approve the award of a contract for the bleachers at the SBA gym um and that'll be done also in the summer concurrently with the acoustical
upgrade project these are items that have already been or are being funded via resolutions tonight with capital reserve so I'll get to a slide on that in a minute but the money we save we put it in reserve we use it to fund projects because we don't have debt we haven't done a
referent the intercom uh public address system clock upgrades at the high school we are working on a uh we got a a quoteback today that we're looking at I expect to have that on the agenda at the April 10th meeting so we can move
forward with that project and this is another item that was on our referendum list from few years ago four years ago that we're getting done we've been chipping away where we
can and my great maintenance department you know they're going to supervise a lot of localized projects I mentioned earlier the Burglar Alarm upgrades doing a great job with that I just approv purchase orders for two more um so we're nearly done with all the buildings the upgrades and at a future finance
committee meeting I I'll show but that was an important stat we have not been bonding money for these projects we have been paying as youve been going based on our Capital reserves the fact that we're doing you know
savings and the investment program and so on so it's an important point that we're not bonding money through these projects we're paying cashes and go we're going and doing in housee some we'll do some carpet removal tile
installations in the summer painting projects I have a bid out on the street now to do uh classroom painting in five buildings this summer very successful Last Summer with the two ideal schools we're doing five and we're linking four of those
buildings with their prometheum board installations this summer it's going to be a busy summer things that were're under consideration how are we spending some of the capital reserve that we still have there um solar panel Replacements and Roofing agenda item on tonight's
agenda is to approve um a solar consultant engineer to do step one of this process which is to remove some of the problematic solar panels from the high school and the one inverter that's not working um it became too tight of a time frame to do anything else this
summer but what we envision for next summer is um replacing the high school panels removing the panels from Town redoing their entire roof except for a small portion and putting new panels
back up and perhaps doing at kakac and Shore a portion of their roofs and same thing remove older panels and put new ones up didn't wasn't Shore just recently outfitted with panels so we have a couple of phases with with panels um sh got panels
in 2008 2008 2009 2012 and then uh I they may have gotten some on this esip project so the esip is is separate esip oh right that's what it was some buildings got solar panels on the esip that was part of a PPA we don't
own those okay that's what helped fund the esip but we have a couple different Tres of solar panels Fellowship Farm alterations that is one of the locations that's this building that's one of the locations for the preschool um where we think we have
the opportunity to have preschool classrooms with upper half of this building Eisenhower Edition is the other potential Preschool location that's we're tabling that one at the moment but we have been approved by uh state of New Jersey K bathroom upgrades I mentioned
that that's big for me that's that's really you know one of the ones that I want to get to next and we always tend to do this summer we're not doing Paving and concrete we have enough going on um but we always each summer we tend to do a little bit so we might do a couple of minor spot FES we're not doing any big
work there but these are some of the things under consideration none of which are cheap right so when I go to the next slide and I talk about capital reserve and maintenance Reserve um being debt free we're relying on capital reserve I went back I Ed it up
over the last 10 years between capital reserve and SDA funding we've done $31 Million worth of projects so far still going okay um what's our capital reserve at now 29 million
okay but we Genera a good interest but you know you do the roofs and the solar panels be down 10 million bathrooms I don't know guess another another 15 million we're nearly wiped okay so it's it's a chunky number
I'm proud of the number but you know once you start doing bigger projects it goes quick maintenance Reserve is required to restricted or required maintenance of school facilities we're at the maximum we're allowed to have in there 6 half million um again kind of a safety valve for us um helps with like
painting and other maintenance activities if if we so needed ongoing challenges you should give yourself a lot of credit though David that last Slide the first thing it says district is debt free you know you're talking about other school districts we're we're
we that is that is a good position to be in very good thank you um you know expenses are I say 2% because that's how much the the tax Li can go up right so a lot of expenses go up more than that um there a shortage to
qualify teachers in certain content areas I mentioned a few of those when we talked about Staffing health care costs I talked to the decreasing employee contributions that I expect to see over the next couple years comprehensive Support Services for Families we have the Haven we will
continue with the Haven those cost keep increasing as well uh you know ruers is looking for money from whomever they can get it from including us so supports and interventions for underperforming students I talked about the supports some of the onetoone needs
and then generally technology expensive and and changes rapidly okay tax levy analysis top row fiveyear history of tax levy okay the debt Ser uh for the general fund The
Debt Service fund you can see this will be the third year where we are debt free we do not have to raise any taxes to pay for our debt so we have our total tax levy that will'll be taxpayers for have here listed the average assess home again I talked about the increase
of 70,000 just from last year to this year and what does that mean how much tax does the average household pay so if your home if you know how much your home is assessed for 520,000 we're asking for
$4,988 from you to pay for school taxes the rest of your tax bill is for the town and the county yep okay so every $100,000 of assess value equals $948 94528 of school tax so you can go home
and get that little card they mailed you a couple weeks ago and see your assessment is and figure out how much of it's coming here 52.8% it goes based I guess on your assessment of your house that they keep assessing
every year to assess the lands this is the fiveyear summary of that assessment along with the increases and you can see we can't shy away from4 it's it's nearly a $400 increase in the school tax levy for this coming
year um what I tried to do is explain why it's what we will use it for why it's important um because you know we are at risk of losing state aid next year based on Trend um you know but when you look
at the expenditures that we're doing we run pretty efficiently um and scway is a highly regarded Community within middlex County whether you want to just talk about reputation or you want to look to hard numbers your your home values you
know people want to live here so um and once again the average over the past how many years 10 years is two two and a half percent right yeah and and when you look at a five-year basis as well when you talk to people again in the community you know
over these five years the average would only be just under $131 a year you know last year it impacted taxpayers only by $36 the year before that only $35 five years ago only two bucks yeah we asked for two bucks
so it's not I don't take joy in asking for 396 but you know I try and take a longer term perspective and here's our calendar where we go from here tonight I hope you'll approve the the resolution
submitting the budget I will get that into the county by next week for their approval that window between March 20th and uh April 24th for us historically he always been fairly quiet uh this budget once approved is pretty much done and dusted and we will have our public
hearing and budget adoption the 24th and then the budget gets you'll get your um budget books that we always distribute for that April meeting with a summary of the budget and then the day after I'll post to us the friendly Budget on the website any last questions sorry
wake up that was a lot thanks great job really yes thank you always report on to the next thing on the agenda committee reports Dr
Conor well the uh fiscal plannings and operations committee met on Wednesday March 5th to discuss the 2025 2026 budget capital projects and more on the budget you know we reviewed the preliminary budget draft information and
worksheet that David puts together we saw all of it tonight the detailed part about how we 2% property cap and then we're going to be asking for the healthare we in there uh the uh some Bank cap and
facility capital projects uh scway high school media center and acoustical upgrade projects the introductory meetings were held with both contractors on site at scataway high school the contractors are working on schedule for completion of the work two quot to receive to replace the Anthony Jim
bleachers the resolution to award a contract is expected to be on the March 13th board meeting agenda PCAT High School wood shop dust collection Sheet Metal Workers uh have installing new dust work um after
school I mean new duct work after school the removal of the classroom mezzanine is being completed electrical work and installation of the Dust collection unit will continue through spring break uh the PHS intercom public address clock system The District administration is
waiting a revised quote from the vendor with the preferred equipment so this going to be for both um the 910 and the 1112 it's going to have a unified inter public address clock system which we haven't had for a long
time when we put the buildings together we it was there were still separate so solar panels um talva energy has prepared a scope of work for removal of solar panels at pasc high school that's being reviewed for placement um for placement on the March 13th board
meeting agenda Food Services Mr olera participated in Chef days I see a picture of him in uh the superintendent report you look on page three I was on page one but he made it page three he's actually out there serving some food thank you D um he participated at Arbor
um and Grand View by working on the serving line for a lunch period and engaging with students as they ate in the in the cafeteria Chef days continue to be well received at the schools uh the district has a guaranteed return from maos for the 2025 206 school year
Mr ala an advocate will be discussing maso's up operational plans as contract renewal discussions get closer uh New Jersey school business legislative update Dr Connor is being noted that Kevin dammer who's our uh was the acting Commissioner of Education he was
approved as the uh New Jersey Commissioner of Education the committee discussed the U no fee food option bill being discussed by the legislature business office we talked about our investment account the committee reviewed the current balance on the
February 2025 New Jersey asset and rebate management statement that's what NJ arm stands for and the current interest rates subscription busing and Food Service meal pricing Mr ol recommended that the subscription busing rate and meal prices
remain the same for 2025 26 gov deals uh this is a way in which we can make some money by putting things out there for sale David played hard ball and he put something out there and didn't get any bids and then he did it again and he informed the Comm about the sale of equipment and you got like how much you
got like we had a what they call shopbot device in the wood shop room we initially had listed it and I think the winning bid was between four and 5,000 uh we decided that wasn't good enough we held it back for a couple months we put it back out and the successful bidder this time was 12,200 so picked up
another 7500 bucks way to go DAV way to go and that is my report Madam chair thank thank you Dr to Congress okay uh approv of minutes Miss Rivers yes we resolve that the following minutes be approved as submitted this
meeting February 13 2025 second setion February 13 2025 then um special meeting February 24th 2025 and executive session second all in
favor public comments from the floor um I'm looking around I see my usual familiar faces and I don't think there's anybody here wishing to oh I I stand corrected let let me finish the whole Ste I got to get my speech don't be taking my shine
away the board the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comments on educational issues and school matters of the community interest in support of this position the law establish a period a public comment at every board meeting individuals wishing to speak must State their name and address comments are
limited to three minutes duration but an individual may speak a second time after all others who wish to speak on the topic have been heard the board may require that individuals register to speak prior to the beginning of the meeting participants May submit written material
in support of their position all statements and or questions shall be directed to the presiding officer and no particip May address or question board members individually all speakers are requested to express themselves in a civil matter with due respect to dignity and
privacy rights of others whose legal rights may be affected please note while this is not the board's intention to stifle comments on matters of legitimate concern to the school Community the public should be aware that if their statements violate the rights of others under their law governing defamation or
invasion of privacy they may face personal liability to the injured party if speakers are certain of legal ramifications of their comment the board urges them to seek guidance beforehand from their own legal advisor the floor is now open please state your
name in the town you live in for the record please all right good evening Ken Simmons 113 Willow Avenue pasc way good evening everybody hi Kenny how are you I'm great how are you here Happ too thank you um my question
is in regards to the budget just a quick question on there there was mention of uh um budgeting for improving the PA system within the school and I wanted to know if that also will include improving the PA system within the football field
which has had some issues over time I don't know if they've been rectified but I was just curious to see if that was going to be an improvement seeing that we had the fabulous grounds there and uh sometimes the uh public address system was spotty at certain games and
events so the High School PA system project that we talked about in the presentation is not related to The Outdoor uh public address system what we've encountered um a couple times with the outdoor system is exposure to it has
been left to the public at times and we've had some issues there so the last I heard we had purchased a gate to lock up the equipment and I'm not aware of more recent problems with the actual intercom if there are I will talk to my guys you know tomorrow and and find out
and test it out we'll talk to the athletic director and if there's anything we need to do I mean there's a company that we use to work and try and improve the system so we'll we'll look into that okay sounds good yeah I I back in the fall when I when I recognized problems I now I'm not aware of problems
now okay but being that you had this PA line item there I was curious okay um enjoyed the budget presentation and uh speak to you soon thank you K thank you thank you anyone else in the floor wishing to speak in public
being I see no one standing or raising their hand to close sure I got you all in favor second second public comments are closed F plan and operations Dr Connors be resol the following motions identified as items a through o be
approved as presented and just um there's a lot in here but a lot has been highlighted like such as C which is the authorization for the preschool and then the other that uh our business administrator had mentioned um during
his uh budget presentation is is involved is in here as well second Mr secretary can you take the role Mr King yes Dr Nelson yes Mr Patel yes Miss Rivers yes Miss Smith yes Miss
Stafford yes Dr Connors yes Mrs alato Cowen yes Miss Cherry yes motions Carri policy Miss Smith page nine I got it be it resolved that the following motions identified as items A and B be approved as
presented second Sir Mr secretary can you take the role I just want to say one thing in that is I want to thank you guys for um taking the uh school facilities names uh policy and updating it um with those recommendations to
change committee the committee name thank you okay Dr Nelson yes Mr Patel yes Miss Rivers yes Miss Smith yes Miss Stafford yes Dr Connors yes Mr King yes Mr Salado
yes yes car Mr Patel be resolve that the following motion identified as item a be approved as presented second Mr secretary can you take the word Mr Patel yes M Rivers yes M Smith
yes M Safford yes Dr Connors yes Mr King yes Dr Nelson yes Mr Salado C yes M Char yes motion carries fful Services Dr Nelson be it resolved that the following motions identified as items A and B be
approved as presented Mr secretary can you take the role M Rivers yes M Smith yes M Stafford yes Dr Connors yes Mr King yes Dr Nelson yes Mr
Patel yes Mrs Sado Cowen yes Mr Cherry yes motion's Carri administrative and auxiliary M statford be it resolved that the following motions identified as items a through D is be approved as presented second Mr secretary can you
take the V Miss Smith yes Miss Stafford yes Dr Connors yes Mr King yes Dr Nelson yes Mr Patel yes M Rivers yes Mr Sado Cowen um I do want to say yes but I just want to
comment on the donation um from Eisenhower PTO um and just comment that that that's a great thing as well as the Piscataway Township Board of Education um accepting that donation of 6,000 so I think that that just want to comment and
say Yes M yes and I also want to note that the adoption of our 2025 board goals are also on today's agenda and they will be printed and put up on the board replacing the old ones that are up there from
24 okay back over here old business Dr Conor we got a basketball game to go seeed Madam uh president um one item on Old business the New Jersey school board's Association master board certification that were uh started remember last year we attained the board
certification in December of 2024 we now have two years to get the master board certification which is an additional 10 credits in those two years and we've uh I want to give you an update that we got uh a credit and a half for having New Jersey Schoolboard tell us about the superintendent search and once we get
through the whole superintendent um uh name we'll get three more credits which means we only have five and a half credits to go in another year and a half in a year and a half and we will get our Master board certification so that's good
news com okay that's all I had to say any anyone with new business uh new business real quick I have a couple things is that the um virtual New Jersey school boards Association legislative committee uh is meeting this Saturday
and that's where we advocate for all kinds of things pres New Jersey uh it just so happens that we organized a committee by uh representatives of districts our uh board president is the New Jersey school boards of Representative for District 17 I being
on the um you know U one of the executive state officers I will be there as well but we have an exciting meeting coming up uh and we'll learn more about some of the newest stuff going on in uh in our legislature um the second thing is that New Jersey School Board Association you know twice a year has
its um delegate assembly and um I'm happy to say that um uh the uh uh nomination Committee of the New Jersey school boards Association has nominated me uh to uh be uh the vice president for
finance again uh for a two-year period and there will be election at that at that meeting uh I do not have any of the resolutions yet from the resolution subcommittee uh but once I get those I'm going to try and share them with you so that uh we know how to vote uh at that
delegate assembly and that's it thank you Dr Conor last thing on the agenda can I have a motion for adjournment motion all in favor and we areed