##VIDEO ID:rRHAQClSwaE## thanks good evening welcome to the public meeting of the Princeton Board of Education the board is an elected unpaid group of 10 citizens who set policy and make decisions on educational financial and Personnel matters for the Princeton public schools on behalf of all residents we are always pleased when members of the community attend our meetings the board and the school district operate under applicable New Jersey laws and under regulations of the New Jersey State Board of Education each meeting includes an opportunity for those attending to comment on items on the publish agenda or other matters of interest to them the board reserves a right to limit the time allotted to public participation law limits discussion of indivi individual personnel and confidential matters we hope our meetings provide useful opportunities for communication between the board and the community thank you for attending as required under the open public meeting act njsa 1046 at sequentia adequate notice was given for calling this meeting was authorized by the Board of Education and forwarded to the municipal clerk Princeton packet and the Trenton Times on January 99th 2025 it was also distributed to the schools and others on the standard distribution list the board reserves the right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education board policy 168 recording devices requires that we inform those attending this inperson meeting that the proceedings are being recorded this meeting is being live streamed the representative the S district is authorized vote on such matters that affect Sate District students or affect the governance of the princet public schools as more spefic specifically designated in njsa 18838 8.1 sending District votes pertaining to Personnel actions refer to high school Central administrative and districtwide staff only votes otherwise are considered as abstentions in the event the statute is amended the L should take presidents over this by law thank you Mr Balon oh would you like to call the rooll yes D Kendall here Beth Baron here Adam Beerman here Debbie brownfeld here Mara franceski here Elanor hubard here Susan caner here Iselle here Chris santarpio here Katherine laa here we have a quorum thank you Mr Balden all right welcome uh to this meeting it's our budget Workshop um and we're also going to have our school ethics governance and uh role of a board member training uh before we begin I just did want to thank um the voters for passing our referendum all three questions [Applause] um uh on behalf of the children uh that we educate uh we thank you for that um so moving on now uh we have Mr leura from fine Hara who will provide our annual ethics training okay thank you very much um so this year I'm going to do more of an update uh last year I did a presentation that was a little bit lengthy um I know that's a big shock to all of you that work with me because normally I'm just tur and right to the point right so you don't all have to laugh uh no it's fine um so this time I'm going to do it a little bit shorter just updating again for the benefit of the new board members and for the public reviewing the school ethics act um what it entails what we need to do and then an update on recent cases or advisory opinions that have come up within the last um I guess within the last calendar year technically um so uh let's see all right when whenever we go to the so I'm not controlling it but Matt is and so when we go to the next slide I think there's oh yeah go to slideshow M yeah uh right there yeah there we go perfect all right so the first part is about the powers and duties of the board so if we go to the next slide what we will see is um oh God for for those of you who are oh yeah you like the little Cube spinning around there that's great um so you are all members of the Board of Education you sit on this governmental entity that is authorized to run the school district your powers and duties all come from the statute um statutes that that generally uh apply to this you have to enforce the rules of the New Jersey State Board of Education obviously everything that you do has to be lawful and in accordance with New Jersey Law and you're tasked with making amending and repealing rules for the government and management of the schools and their employees that's broad picture of what we're doing so if we go to the next slide we can see so that's what Boards of Education are what do they do it's a common misconception sometimes with members of the public that we see um about what the board does and and what I would summarize it as I mean there are specific things that you can do but generally speaking the board's role is policymaking planning and Appraisal the board doesn't run the school district it makes sure that the school district is well run and we'll talk more about that but things that you do that you have to do uh approved curriculum that meets the New Jersey student learning standards you adopt a budget every year uh you hire C certain necessary certified personnel and non-certified Personnel um that educate or support the district students and develop polic IES for the management of the school district and as it says up there none of those things are things that the board does alone it's going to act upon recommendations of the superintendent of schools or the way I put it up there as if we were Irish like the Lucky Charms guy the recommendation oh the superintendent of schools um somehow that didn't get caught on the proof reading um but it's glaring to me okay so anyway um so when do boards act when you're here at a meeting right when you have a meeting that's been convened in accordance with the open public meetings act you've got to have a quorum um the board does have like many boards most boards do you have committees those committees will come up with ideas and recommendations for the full board but they don't act on their own in terms of actually taking action they may do a number of things to get information in front of the board that the board is then going to vote on but the Committees themselves do not dictate policy um they make recommendations and the board acts as a whole as an entire entity um one thing that I always caution people about is that from time to time there will be emails that will be sent to all the board members totally fine and appropriate but you might see sometimes please do not reply all to this email or things of that nature the reason is is because even though we've never seen a case that says this but board attorneys have been saying this for 20 plus years um in theory if people are going back and forth um exchanging information replying all it's kind of like having a meeting at some point so we need to be careful that we don't do that because then that would be a meeting not in view of the public that wouldn't be permitted uh but so long you know getting information out to all the board members totally appropriate board member has a question for the superintendent or another one a single individual email fine um everyone going back and forth for 10 minutes at a time no that's a meeting so at least in theory um again we talked about operating as as a unit right the board acts as a whole the majority rules at the end of the day if the board votes on something and that's the board's policy or that's the board's uh decision on a particular thing regardless of how an individual member voted that's the board's position um and that that ultimately we have to support um typically in meetings the board president to make sure that we have just kind of one person who uh potentially responds to the public or articulates a consistent Position will be the person who interacts with the public but can they request other people to do that sure and of course that's separate and apart from the administrative staff your superintendent your ba who will also speak to the public um so if we go to the next slide so we talked about when the board act then we have the board and the administration and what's important is and we highlighted this before a little bit it's to not to administer the schools but to see that they're well-run that specifically comes from the school board member code of ethics which we will talk about as we go along here um your bylaw 146 specifically says no board member by virtue of their office shall exercise any administrative responsibility with respect to the operation of the school district or as an individual command the services of any School District employees so that's an important thing a lot of times members of the public figure like well you're on the board you can now get this accomplished well not really uh because the board makes decisions I don't make decisions as a board member you do um have to comply with the visitor policy right they might think well you're a board member you can just go wherever you want no that bylaw specifically talks about it and for members of the public and I think the board members all know this but the superintendent is basically your CEO um who administers the district uh does all of the things that need to get done from an operational standpoint Personnel recommendations your business administrators like your CFO takes care of the budget oversees maintenance so forth and so on so those are the people primarily who are going to be running the district if you will now in terms of the relationship I mean this is not really issue that we have here but you know the the board Administration relationship is supposed to be cooperative not adversarial um Mike is going to appreciate that I'm saying that right so um in any event we share concerns with the administration when they come up right we don't want to have any surprises we don't want to have something come up that you know about that's going to come up at a board meeting and that you know that's the way that we should handle it if you get a complaint um about whether it's about a teacher or about a staff member or some policy or whatever it is not only does the school ethics act require you to do this but also your bylaw says that if you have a community complaint your job is not to say oh I'll take care of that actually you should not say that you should say I will refer this to the superintendent and the superintendent will get back to you or someone lower on the chain of command as appropriate will get back to you but you are not the person that's going to fix the problem you're the person that can say I know who to give this to and that's what I'm going to do um because otherwise then it really becomes like administration of the school district which we're not supposed to do in terms of uh the code of ethics which we'll talk about a little more detail but you do have to support District staff and protect School Personnel in the proper performance of their duties so can you take deliberate action that undermines opposes or compromise or harm School personnel as they performing their duties not unless you want to violate the school ethics act you can't do that so um that's not approp appropriate we have to support Personnel when they are are properly performing their duties does that mean that you have to agree with everything the superintendent says while we like that right most of the time no you if the superintendent proposes something and the board votes on it you can absolutely vote no if you like um but uh in general in terms of supporting the superintendent in the performance of his or her duties yes that is something that that needs to be done and then you don't want to talk about things in public that could potentially undermine or compromise the superintendent's ability to do his or her job so that's pretty much straight from the school ethics act in terms of the board as an entity we kind of already talked about this that you know board members individually have no supervisory Authority everything flows from the board as an entity um so if we move to the next slide what we'll see in terms of confidentiality I think you probably all know this but just in case you don't there is an obligation to preserve the information that you learn as a member of the Board of Ed um the school ethics does have something about this as well but the expectation really has to be um imagine that you just can't tell anybody anything that you learn in close session basically you can't tell anybody you can't tell your spouse you can't tell your kids none of that you know you might know a teacher who is having employment action taken against them can't tell your friends spouse kids anybody about that and particularly Personnel matters student matters negotiations those types of things are exempt from discussion in public with limited exceptions and they are discussed in executive session or closed session and it's kind of like Las Vegas what happens in executive session stays an executive session so that's the way that has to go and there is a specific provision in the school ethics act that says you have to keep matters confidential so can I ask a question y so this because it's new this year so this expectation exist regardless of the impact the matter has on the board's members own children or friends could you just elaborate on that yeah so I mean you might have a scenar scario in which um you know of not that this is happening here but just a hypothetical you could know that there may be a teacher that is going to be disciplined or non-renewed or there could be some issue relating to a staff member and maybe your kid is in that class or maybe your friend's kid is in that class or it might be a significant issue that happened um and people might want to know oh I haven't seen that teacher for a week what's going on with that teacher is that person coming back you know and we can't say anything about that because their privacy rights are Paramount um we don't want to violate their privacy rights because we don't want to do it in general but also we don't want to get sued right as your lawyer I don't want you to be sued um I want you to stay on the straight and narrow so we don't want to reveal any information that could give rise to a potential lawsuit um and of course the school ethics act requires that so yeah it doesn't like even if you feel like boy I really need to I wish they knew this or you know the public is killing us about this Personnel decision but they don't know all these things behind it yeah well we just have to live with that we can't tell anybody not that that's ever happened here but we just can't tell anybody what the background story is um so now the code of ethics you know we talked about a little bit but um and very briefly it's about almost 25 years old now um it was enacted in 2001 to make sure that the public has the assurances that people are not acting in their own interest um or they're not on the board for the inappropriate reasons they're there to do what they're supposed to do which is to ensure that the district is well run if board members violate the school ethics act which includes the code of ethics but there's also a provision that talks about a number of prohibited acts that board members cannot take um there could be a filing with the school ethics commission and you know anybody any individual can file a complaint alleging that a board member has violated the code of ethics or the school ethics act in general if that happens what could happen to the board member you could be publicly reprimanded by the school ethics commission censured which is you actually have to read that at a board meeting that the board member was censored suspended there's at least one case if not two from this year where board member was suspended for a period of time and it and it has happened that board members have been removed so depending upon the nature of the violation how severe it is it could have serious consequences um your bylaw talks about what those prohibited acts are it talks about the ctive ethics um the real distinction is just that it depends upon if a complaint is filed against you as a board member if it's a violation of the code of ethics and a a person files that they have to prosecute that themselves if it's an alleged violation of the prohibited act section the a deputy attorney general is going to be handling that case and Prosecuting that case against the board member so that's the um that's a significant distinction but otherwise there's still limitations on what board members can and can't do so this is the code of ethics I'm going to read I know that typically we've we've read them but I'll just I'll just do that for you I'll just read them out so these are the things that you have to keep in mind a I will uphold and enforce all laws rules and regulations of the State Board of Education and court orders pertaining to schools Desir changes shall be brought about only through legal and ethical procedures and what I always kind of say about that one is um sometimes there are things that various individuals in the state or federal government enact that we don't like um if we don't like them we still have to abide by those rules you know we try to get them changed you Lobby you do whatever you have to do but we can't say well we're just ignoring these rules um B I will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and will seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race Creed sex or social standing straightforward of course we do that c i will confine my board action to policymaking planning and appraisal and I will help to frame policy IES and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them now that doesn't mean that you talk to every single student or every single parent um but just generally speaking discussing new policies that you're going to adopt at board meetings that is part of that consultation process right the public has the ability to comment on those to give you their thoughts um but we don't want to just do things without giving thought to how is this going to impact these various stakeholders D is I will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well run C and D see a lot of action when it comes to the school ethics act and and the complaints that are filed because sometimes in different school districts some board members forget about that and they they have complaints filed against them e is also another one that sees a lot of action I will recognize that Authority rests with the Board of Education and will make no personal promises nor take any private action that may compromise the board where we see that one come up a lot is with letters to the editor or Facebook post or things like that that might potentially compromise the board they don't always do that and there are disclaimers that people can use um but that's where you see that a lot um the other five are going to be that I I refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups or to use the schools for personal gain or for the gain of friends definitely a couple of cases that deal with that this year um where people forgot about that unfortunately uh G I will hold confidential all matters pertain to the schools which if disclosed would needlessly injure individuals or the schools in all other matters I'll provide accurate information in concert with my fellow board members interpret to the staff the aspirations of the community for its school um so the first part of G self-explanatory the second part I think also generally self-explanatory but I can tell you that there was a case a couple of years ago I think it was the LOI Board of Education there was a member who was suspended for six months because he had his own personal I don't know blog or whatever some kind of web page and he said all sorts of information about the association president who was a teacher in the school district various other people and the information was not accurate and it was probably defamatory quite frankly so um he had to step off from the board for six months um he was put in the Penalty Box so um h i will vote to appoint the best qualified Personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer and one thing that I will say about that that yes that required as part of the school ethics act the other thing too is and I think most of you know this but to the exent we have new board members or members of the public who may be watching um you all get to hire one person it's the superintendent technically you vote on the recommendations that are made by the superintendent in fact you can't even say well I'd like to hire this person well if the superintendent doesn't say yeah I agree we're gonna hire this person if the superintend doesn't make that recommendation you're not hiring that person um so that's also for the for the the public to know you know sometimes they think well why didn't you do this or why didn't you hire this person or I put my resume in the superintendent does the hiring you vote on it um and you can vote no that's not not a problem but that's the way that it goes um I I will support and protect School Personnel in the proper performance of their duties we know that and Jay we talked about this before too I will refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer and will act on complaints at public meetings only that's a big thing only after failure of an administrative solution so every time you get a complaint from a constituent I mean you're all volunteering your time and you all want to help people that's why you do what you do but when they give you a complaint you have to say okay I referred it to the person who's goingon to handle it I can't handle it myself um all right so then if we go to the next slide then when we talk about I mean I kind of summarize some of these things already but again superintendent makes the recommendation we can't I guess one thing I would say is I said you can vote no on these things you can you can't vote vote no for arbitrary and capricious reasons right you can't say like I'm just going to throw you know like a dart at a dartboard and if it comes on an even number I'm going to vote Yes on this and if it's an odd number vote no no you can't do that that violates the school ethics act um but if you have a valid reason why you believe that you don't you shouldn't appoint someone yes you can vote no not a problem in terms of hiring I think we'll see this like a little bit later in a in a different slide um the school ethics commission has given advisory opinions about like what the board members process is in in terms of the hiring process and from my recollection here you do it exactly the way that they say which is to the extent that you have any board members who sit in on candidate interviews for like administrative positions it's an advisory role to the superintendent you're not running the interview you're not you're not doing the interview you're there to kind of just give some feedback and that's fine it's never been an issue um but the in some places they wanted to be really like some board members want to be like right on top of that um and and be part of the interview process and the answer to that is no you hired a superintendent to do all that work let them do it um so that's um that part of it then if we look at um public advisory opinion so I made this reference to advisory opinions and some of you know about it and some of you don't but if there is a question about whether or not I as a board member can take any type of action or am I going to run a foul of the school ethics act you can request an advisory opinion typically what happens is it'll usually go I mean what my experience is in most districts is usually goes through the lawyer they ask the lawyer what do you think about this sometimes we have a very clear answer and we say well I if you do that I know you're going to have a problem because there are cases that talk about that other times it's nuanced and we say well I can give you some advice on this but if you really want to know you should probably ask for an advisory opinion so that's what happens they make some of these advisory opinions public not all of them are public some of the ones that are public that came out this year um Can a board member participate in negotiations if they have an aunt employed in the school district but is not a member of the local union so in this case it was someone who was if I recall an administrative assistant maybe to the director of special services or some position like that not part of a union I guess the district maybe is a little bit smaller so um none of the administrative assistants were part of any Union the answer though was no um and you might think well why I mean you know we think of those cases like if all right if my I have a relative or a spouse who's right in the district I understand I can't vote on that that seems like it's a pretty direct conflict um but what they said here is that essentially if you're participating in negotiations for the teachers contract for example right can the administrative assistant then turn around and try to use that and saywell we think we should get benefits there similar to what the teachers got right yes so the the the thought process is that members of the public might look at that and say oh well so and so is participating in the in the teacher negotiations but they have a relative who's uh an administrative assistant now they're going to get a better deal because of this so that's the that's the rationale you also can't vote on the memorandum of agreement uh if you have a relative employed in the district um if you have a relative employed somewhere else but also member of the same Statewide Union which is we have a chart at the end that you can kind of refer to you can't participate in negotiations but you can vote on the contract when it finally comes so that's that one the second one that came out uh this past year um if a board member who is also a professor at a university have a conflict related to Personnel now it's not just are you if you're a professor do you have a conflict it was a professor at a university Who provided like professional development to people in uh the school district in the past and had a number of people who went through uh the program not necessarily that they had them as students but they were part of this program that um did educational leadership I think this in that District the superintendent had been part of that program that this board member was a professor and was part of so what they said was so if that's your situation you can't even though it's they think they said even though it's laudable that you want to give free professional development to your school district you can't because there's too much of a tie in there um so you can't do that also couldn't participate in any discussions or decisions about any District Personnel who might have gone through that program that you are professor in or of whatever the proper thing is there so that was an interesting one um it wasn't necessarily something that was readily apparent when you started reading it but then as you read it further it made sense these are two that just came out uh years ago but just to remember we already kind of talked about this first part the interviewing process a 3115 talks about that and that's the way that the school district does it so no no issue there um and then in terms of exit interviews and this is where there was a person who got in trouble years ago in another school district where that person felt that the superintendent wasn't doing his or her job and then decided that he was or she was going to condu conduct exit interviews with various staff members was going to do all sorts of things and can't do that no no and it was so Brazen that they that person actually got removed it was pretty um it was it was it was more than even that but that was one of the things they did so yeah that that goes beyond policymaking planning and Appraisal right what can you do if you have people that are leaving and you say wow we're really concerned about this um can you refer that to the superintendent the superintendent can say uh we do exit interviews we've been doing exit interviews but now we're going to ask very specific questions or whatever yes the superintendent is responsible for doing all that so board members can't do it you want to make a suggestion to the superintendent no problem you want to do it on your own problem so let's not do that um if we go to the next slide we will see is these are the now the recent school ethics commission decisions these are just decisions that came out in 2024 so in this first case it was a little bit of a weird scenario the there were three members running for the board if I recall correctly I think that this board member was on the board but was not running for reelection so this board member um did a video whereing some type of apparel that made it very clear they were a board member I guess they also have badges some of the in some districts the board members have like badges was wearing the badge was saying like hi I'm on XY I guess it was Lacy Township Board of Education and I think that you should vote for these three people they're going to make a big difference on the board we're going to have a new majority and then we can make all these changes y y y um that went up on Facebook so forth and so on um that was problematic in the sense that basically it was Private action that could compromise the board it also made it appear that um one of the things we didn't specifically talk about but one of the one of the official um excuse me one of the acts that are prohibited is in 20 in section 24 prohibited acts no school official shall use or attempt to use his official position to secure unwarranted privileges advantages or employment for himself members of his immediate family or others so was that doing that exactly yes um it was problematic they censured her which required that board to read at a public meeting um the specific penalty of a censure the school ethics act even went so far as to say well if she were still on the board we would have suspended her um so um yeah they were pretty upset about it um with the bernado case over in Manchester down in Ocean County in this particular case a little bit weird in the sense that the board member had signed up to be a volunteer football coach I think like in July um basically did that August through no early November he got appointed to fill a an open seat on the board in late August and and the reality is there are numerous School ethics act decisions that say look you can't even though we like people to volunteer and you're all volunteering here um you can't volunteer in a way that has you either a have a significant amount of contact with students or B potentially be directing or under the direction of one of your staff members um which would have happened here right this guy was one of the assistant football coaches so the football coach who you all vote to approve would be then giving you guys directions and and telling what so it's all sorts of potential issues there um that would violate the act in this particular case which is unusual I don't think I've really seen this before but it does make sense um board member didn't even like he got appointed on August 29th I don't know that he even had his ethics training you know right from right from the get-go he didn't know it was a problem by the time he found out it was a problem he had already said well I'm not going to be volunteering next season so what they said was they looked at the nature of the of the contact and and the specifics of this case and they said you know what probably we would normally give this guy some kind of a penalty but in this case we're not giving him any penalty was it a violation yes is there any penalty no doesn't happen a lot usually um I mean even times when they say well I checked with the board attorney the board attorney said I could do it and a lot of times they'll be like yeah well you you got a bad opinion there and then then they still reprimand or Cent them that's never happened in one of our districts I'm thankful to say um but um yeah theoretically that could happen so they're usually pretty harsh about this this case um involving um the wood bind Board of aded uh Gregory hudgin so there's a couple of things that this board member should not have done um there was a there was an employee who was going to be discussed in executive session and there was going to be a disciplinary event of some kind the board member was good friends with the employee right so you know your first thought would be well I'm not going to participate in any of this right I'm going to recuse myself from the discussion I'm not going to vote on this I'm just gonna be like you know you tell your friend hey I know I'm on the board but I I can't do anything about this in fact I can't even participate in the discussion yeah that's not what happened here instead the um the employe said well I'm I'm sick and I can't come to the board meeting can you pick up this letter and deliver it to all of the board members but don't deliver it to the superintendent so you know I don't know where the alarm Bells didn't go off but they didn't um so she did that she gave it to the business administrator she gave it to all the board members now this happened you know what 2023 whenever it was I don't know like email exists why couldn't why do they have to send a handwritten letter to all the board members but doesn't matter um and then she so everyone gets a copy of it except for the superintendent then the superintendent gives his or her rationalist to what should happen here and then the board member then starts questioning the superintendent's position kind of I mean I want to say kind of advocating for the employee um and questioning the superintendent basically insinuate the superintendent was a liar so okay a lot to unpack there a couple of problems number one that's not really supporting Personnel in the proper performance of their duties right number two under the prohibited act section you as a board member can not represent any person or party other than the school board or the school district in connection with any issue proceeding application or other matter pending before the school district so what they found was is that um yeah when you did all this you were basically representing the employee against the school district not okay um so there were n i mean there were a those weren't the only problems but there were a number of problems there taking private action that could compromise the board um so that resulted in a suspension for 60 days uh so that was a pretty serious offense and again don't know why the alarm Bells didn't go off but the general thought process should be if I'm really close to someone who has a matter pending before the board um and again it depends upon the nature of it you don't always have to recuse but probably more often than not especially when you might derive some kind of personal benefit from the person getting um some type of uh decision on that you probably should recuse and the the other thing that also was a problem too was they found that it was using your official position to secure unwarranted privileges advantages or other employment you know um uh that they wouldn't otherwise have so for example someone who wasn't friends with the board member would not have had that direct conduit to all the other board members and that type of thing in this case with the I think it's manua I don't know how to pronounce it that's not my uh Gloucester County is not my normal hangout but uh which I'm sure is Lovely by the way um I think it's manua so this particular situation um so there's a there were people who came to the board meetings who were giving I guess the board and this particular guy Ryan a hard time so or Mr Campbell I don't know him personally um so Mr Campbell thought it was a good idea to call this person's principal she was a here or she I for wish was a teacher in another school district called the person's principal said hey I'm a member of the Manu Township Board of Ed you need to know what this person is doing and she needs to stop doing this Etc ETA so no you can't use your position as a board member to intimidate people or try to get people fired or silence members of the public or to encourage them not to attend meetings right like that's you just can't do that um and um so that board member was censured when and I'm not really sure what the thought process was did did did he think that was never going to get back to that person I just I'm not really sure what happened in there so um yeah he got himself in trouble for doing it so don't do that um so we're clear about that members of the public as we know they can come up and they can speak on any topic School related and and um sometimes they say things that we don't like and we say thank you for your comment and we think about it and then we move on so um in this case uh involving Alami um we had a scenario in which a board member had a child who had a code of conduct violation okay that happens um are you allowed to uh say to the superintendent I think this should be changed or I don't think this was fair you know I'd like to appeal it or whatever sure that's all fine you can do that um but can you do what she did uh which was saying to the superintendent I need your direct intervention and a reversal of the finding and um the superintendent saying that this person pressed on to the point of threatening me saying in the presence of others that she could not stand her the board needed to hold her accountable saying that about the superintendent um and then sending an email to all the board members um not saying she was doing it as a parent but just saying she was doing as a board member and then also oddly and thankfully we don't represent the school district but um not that they're a bad District but we didn't weren't involved in this um the the person contacted the board attorney and tried to get the board attorney involved um with all this so uh a lot of problems there um number one trying to get unwar Ed privileges uh that she wouldn't have gotten uh had she not been a board member that was number that was probably the first problem number two not supporting School Personnel uh and the proper performance of their duties um it was uh it was and basically also I think it says there that she gave a direct order to certain School Personnel to alter her child's disciplinary records yeah a whole host of problems and things that you shouldn't do um and this happens from time to time when you have have a board member who has children in the school that that's certainly uh uh something that happens whether it's a code of conduct violation or a hi allegation and there have been times I mean I've even been to one in another school district where a board member um was appealing a decision made by the superintendent in a disciplinary matter that's fine right we had the I mean it's a little bit awkward but we we did it we got through it um but going to the point that she went to some of the things she did were fine and and that was what the school ethics commission said but they were clearly things that crossed the line so not appropriate um and then I think this is might be the last one uh East Orange Board of Ed um so this board member um used to be the chief of staff for Sheila Oliver um this actually happened like in 18 or 19 yeah so so Sheila at this so this happened like in 189 when she was still alive and so forth and so on um so this person wanted to suspend the current board policy that said you can only name schools after people who are deceased at this time she was still alive and the proposed name is free from some type of political connotation um that just wasn't the case obviously with Sheila Oliver she didn't meet either one of those um criteria and the board member acted in that official capacity um knowing that she clearly had a conflict of interest here um she served as this person's chief of staff there was a question as to whether or not she was doing it because she was friendly with that person or whether she thought maybe she's going to Curry political favor by doing this um but that is the type of thing that you know there's a point in time when you realize I'm too close to this and I can't be voting on this or discussing it and that was one of them um so she got censured for those actions and they found that she surrendered her independent judgment to special interest or partisan itical groups and was trying to use the schools for personal gain for either herself or for her friends so that was problematic all right and then if we talk about so social media just quickly we'll talk about this I think I probably talked about it last year too but just as a refresher do you give up your first amendment rights when you are a member of the board no uh can you say whatever you want and not have any consequences no we know that right um things that we should do in terms of making sure that we don't potentially have a problem and a school ethics act issue don't post anything that's going to violate the district's policies for board members right or your bylaws I mean if you do that we're gonna there's going to be an issue and someone probably will end up filing a complaint and you might have a difficulty might have some difficulty defending that um I mean some of these are straightforward right don't make defamatory statements about the board the school district the employees the students their families that would be problematic um don't disclose confidential information about the school district or information that you received by virtue of the fact that you're a board member that nobody else would know um don't refer to your board of ed title or position when you're soliciting for some type of business organization that you or member of your immediate family has an interest in that's problematic as well um don't use the social networks to have communications with other board members to have a meeting without having a meeting um and then if there's a complaint it doesn't matter how you get the complaint whether it's through social media whether it's through you know you're at the soccer field or you know at the supermarket refer those things to the superintendent um if we go to the next slide so one of the things that comes up is in terms of um private action that could compromise the board and that's part of the school ethics act that you don't you can't take any private action that could compromise the board that used to be back in the day it was about letters to the editor and then then it became like you know social media post so um from a broad perspective so long as the content of your Facebook posting or whatever it is whether it's I don't know threads or blue sky or Twitter or X or whatever it's called now um if you say the following statements are made in my capacity as a private citizen not in my capacity as a board member and these are not representative of the board or it's individual members they solely represent my own personal opinions depending upon the content that probably is fine but there were cases where someone put that disclaimer on and then said all of horrible and inappropriate things and the school ethics commission said like well that's not enough you can't just put a disclaimer on you have to also comply with the other components of the school ethics act you can't violate confidentiality you can't defame people so forth and so on um and the case that involved the person who did the video endorsing people who are running for the board that like so I I don't recall that she said anything that was disclaiming that saying that this is my personal opinion not that of the board but it's hard to come to that conclusion when she's wearing a shirt that says you whatever Lacy Township Board of Ed has the badge says I'm a board member these people are going to be great for the board we're g to have a majority if you let these people in that made it seem like it was being said on behalf of the board so those are the things that in the context of a social media posting think about that think about the lens that they're going to view that through and that also so uh that also kind of ties into this second piece here which is some people run for the board and they might do like I don't know if I ran for a board of education let's say I Chang my Facebook page to leira for you know whatever the Oakland board ofed right um and then I get elected once I do that it should really just be like Vic not Vic Lair for the Oakland Board of Ed because once you're on the board now it looks like you're still running um it's confusing I had a case in another school district where I ended up representing two of the board members where they did that they did have the appropriate disclaimers on their like Facebook page ages or whatever but and so they didn't violate the school ethics act but the school ethics commission did say to them you really should not be using that type of a campaign website once you're on the board you have to kind of cease and desist doing that um so it could lead to the filing of unne they actually said it could lead to the filing of unnecessary ethics complaints which is what happened um so I think there might be one or two more slides not much here I think oh this is okay so board member recusal so the important definitions to know immediate family member that's going to be your spouse or dependent child residing in the same household relative is basically everybody else other than specifically mentioned a cousin um technically a cousin could still be a relative but and and or could be um an other as they say you know you can't try to secure benefits for others or relatives um it requires it doesn't matter whether it's by Blood marriage or adoption all of those people in-laws step whatever all that counts um so that's important because there are certain Provisions that say that you can't try to get personal you know can't use it for personal gain or for the gain of others if there is someone who is a member of a union it impacts negotiations if there first of all if there's if if you're related to someone who works in the district it directly impacts negotiations and also means that you can't evaluate the superintendent um or anybody that is like indirectly or directly supervising your family member right so that's a limitation doesn't mean you can't be on the board but it just curtails what you can do um in terms of someone who's in a different Statewide Union if it's an immediate family member definitely you can't participate in negotiations if it's someone else and this is where you know maybe some people are going to get um talk to people that they haven't spoken to in a while now that you're on the board so like hey I know that you're my uh you know second cousin or whatever but do you have a leadership position in your local Education Association are you on your District's negotiating team or do you have some other leadership role you're a grievance chairperson because those are really case-by case basis generally speaking if like let's say let's say it's your uncle is a member of a teaching um is a member of the teaching staff in a neighboring District generally speaking is that going to mean that you can't participate in negotiations here no if your uncle is also the lead negotiator for that District uh probably yeah you're not going to be able to participate here so um if if you have that situation if you're considering being part of negotiations when negotiations comes up make sure you check your relatives and what they do and and what their leadership roles are in different places um and um and again that's only for it also applies if you are a teaching staff member employed outside the district so my is over w i negotiations yeah the only the only way that would potentially be a the only way potentially be a problem is if were like the the unions lead negotiator or something like that right right no not yet yes uh so no I mean if it were a dependent child different story right right okay so then I think that there's maybe I think there might be one or two more slides the last oh this is probably the second to last slide this is just the chart and um you can consult the chart but if you have a question please it's not going to take a long time just call give us the information we can say yay or nay pretty quickly um and frankly I will tell you that um because this doesn't come up every day but it does come up a couple times a year I always pull out this chart to check and then I check the appropriate um case to make sure or advisory opinion as the case may be uh but this chart is usually a pretty good start and what it basically means is as you can see if you've got someone employed in the district you have limitations as to what you can do in negotiations outside the district if it's a spouse or dependent child no you're not be able to participate if it's a non-dependent child um or relative maybe you can participate probably you can participate and then can you vote to ratify the contract it really depends upon um you know where the person is employed and superintendent issues we talked about that so I think the last question or the last one yeah that's it so I don't know all right I don't know if I was fast or not or maybe it was little bit faster than last year opinion Jud you say sorry about that Mike Mike discipline um my main qu like you're incumbent just a muse here and so you're running for office again and you have definitive opinions on something um May that would they should have got rid of that person or I'm definitely not for that or referendum or whatever it is I mean you you would preface it though of course with this is my even though I'm on the board it's a private so yes if you preface that saying this is my personal view uh not speaking on behalf of the board so forth and so on generally speaking fine however uh I would be careful about anything about specific Personnel or anything like that because those are the areas where you can get in trouble if if it was like well the board has this policy and that is the board's policy policy I personally don't agree with it and that's my view as a private citizen not as a board member I'm not speaking on behalf of the board yes that's I mean you don't give up all your first amendment rights when you become a member of the board right I'm not not looking to know to be antagonistic or anything but sometimes you know things get controversial and people want to know your opinion and you feel like hey I Want For Better or Worse you want them to know what how where you stand on something yeah it's just just always have to be careful which I mean people should be careful even if they're not on the board but on the board it's even more so but it's my understanding that under the code of ethics we're not allowed to revisit once the board's made a decision we're not supposed to revisit that and so if someone asks you about something even if you disagreed you can say well as is on the public record I disagreed with that decision I voted against it for the following reasons which is what I said at the time but you really can't you can't you're not necessarily supposed to go beyond that so right right I I think I think it makes because at the end of the day when the board acts and the board adopts something that's what the board has adopted and now it's incumbent upon the board members to basically support that you might have voted no at the time right but but the board is an entity right and that's the board's official position um so yeah but could you refer to saying like well you know I spoke for 10 minutes about this at the board meeting on September 12th or whatever and you know you know how I feel about it okay that's fine right there's no objections there and that wasn't commenting on anyone else here I just saying oh yeah got you it's a good question I mean and and I've seen ethics training when I go to some other districts sometimes they have people from New Jersey school boards who do it too and they will always say that right once the board makes a decision that's the board's action your board members you basically have to support that um you can still have your own feelings about it but you still need to support and and Echo the fact that this is the board's policy excuse me yeah let's say you did not comment at the board meeting yay or nay and then you want to comment later that seems like you should have commented at the board meeting and not yeah that's that's I think you potentially have risk right as as a board member who's making those comments the potential issues there so yeah the appropriate time to do it is when you're you know at the board meeting and you're taking the vote and you express your opinions and then that's that all right well this was very informative thank you so much anyone would want to be a board member we don't know can I ask if if um if we can get copies if if he can could you email us the presentation so we could share it Matt has it Matt has it will you share it with us please Matt oh thank you thank you Matt thank you so muche congratulations on referendum thank you so much it was nice to see you um moving on now to item uh D the superintendent's comments so good evening and I also want to extend my deep gratitude uh for the Board of Education uh our administrative team and the amazing uh parents uh that really um provided um all of the support by attending informational sessions regarding the referendum uh going on tours and asking lots of questions so that we could make sure um that uh each member who voted uh was well informed um so we really are excited about um the referendum and uh you know the the future for our students so I just want to thank everyone um also we know in talking with members of our community we know there's considerable anxiety right now about the meaning of recent Federal Executive orders uh we just want you to know that we and Princeton Public Schools believe that it is our sacred responsibility to educate every single child whose parents are entrust them to us this district has been working closely with Community Partners educational and legal experts to ensure the safety and well-being of all of our students so it's really important um that we say that and then we do have a couple action items tonight so I just want to highlight the calendars um which are always um fun um I want to um so this year um uh we are making a few revisions to the 2425 calendar so on December 31st uh 2024 the governor signed new legislation which moved the primary day from June 3rd to June 10th in observance of the Jewish holiday shabat at as you know uh our June 3rd we had scheduled a flex PD day and it was a designated snow day so we are revising our calendar to reflect the change in the primary date um so I want to highlight the changes so what we're doing is we are moving the flex PD day from June 3rd to Friday May 23rd and this will be snow day number three and we may or may not use it but it looks like maybe um at least we're going to have one coming out uh the other thing is of course uh we continue to work hard to remove voting uh uh for primary day so we will be in session on June 10th primary day we have one School uh who serves as um a voting uh who serves as a place for polling uh and that's Little Brook School and um we are going to um uh continue to meet with the township who have worked hard uh also to Lobby uh to uh the Mercer County Board of Elections and then we also have a couple changes uh while we were having fun to changing uh the 2025 26 Calendar uh what we are going to do is on November 4th uh we are going to designate as um a school day which is election day but then we this would allow us to close school on January 2nd 2025 so students and staff can return to school on the Monday January so it gives them oh the 20 oh 2026 sorry yes I have it here written 2026 I just can't read my writing so students um so it's that Friday um after um New Year's Day on the TW uh January 1st and that will students and staff will return on January um 5th 2026 and then we are going to change the April 6th uh day and move my birthday oh and that's why and that's why um because we wanted everyone in school to to to wish to wish Matt a happy birthday uh wow okay yeah I'm move it to Tuesday May 26 for snow day number two move Flex stpd to Friday May 22nd snow day uh number three uh so that's uh for uh the next uh school year thank you Dr Foster um and so now moving on the reason we're all here tonight is for the budget Workshop Mr Balden um take it away please thank you uh so we have a a Cadence of of budget meetings um we'll talk about a little bit later with the calendar but the budget Workshop we always it's a big picture of view with the budget you know we uh we don't have state aid numbers yet um they're not a huge part of our budget here but there's certainly a lot of uh you know innuendos and and more than rumor I would think about what's going to come out of of Trenton but um we're you know eagerly awaiting that at the end of the month um we'll talk about you know we talk a little bit about our strategic goals in the district our promise to our our community uh we use zero-based budgeting as best we can uh we'll talk about the budget calendar um we talk about school tax overview kind of from a a rearview mirror where we're go where we've been to where we're going in the future uh we'll talk a little bit about our operating uh budget performance over the last year um where it looks like this year and where we think it's going in the next couple years and then we'll take questions from the public uh which won't be too many um incoming superintendent Dr L Susa is here um anyway so uh we like to read this uh at all our you know many of our meetings but uh certainly we talk about our budget you know we promise to prepare all of our students to live lead lives uh of joy and purpose as knowledgeable creative and compassionate citizens of the global Society very important um we looked at our strategic planning goals we're kind of you know early stage of middle um we're focusing on the early years uh Wellness inclusion and supports for all opport opportunity and achievement for all and preparation for a meaningful life beyond PPS super important to the district uh zerob based budgeting real briefly is the goal there is to uh assess each year you know where we uh spend every dollar and build that uh budget from scratch each year I mean I will say in practice it doesn't fully happen like that but it's absolutely how we look at the budget uh holistically um where we're spending our dollars and uh it's an important part of of our strategy uh here uh i' like to talk about some of the many things that make Princeton Public Schools unique um we have small neighborhood schools with comparatively small class sizes um it is one of the harder things to Benchmark in the state since class size itself isn't really disclosed in too many places for our peers you would have to do a lot of figuring with some of the state data to kind of get there uh we have a worldclass university in our backyard um and is very helpful to us at times and a big part of the culture in the community uh we have a large number of student programs and opportunities um we have a large number of student Support Services we proud ourselves on that we have an experienced teaching staff um we have programs that are are well above the state minimums um and we also have a a higher um population of students uh in the community navigating poverty it's always surprising to others outside of the community how uh diverse Princeton is um we also have a 424 uh student Charter School in town also another surprise for many people um in the state um and finally you know we're committed to equity uh budget calendar uh as I talked about um in November we started planning for the budget um central office mostly we released our budget manual we have a new software we've been implementing since July 1 um you know a lot of work went uh into that before July when we started in Earnest in uh mid January of last year so it's been a year um and then we rolled out the new payroll part of the system on January uh one so it's been a lot of work there um so was a new software for our uh budget managers and staff to use um and we rolled that out to the staff and asked that they uh our budget managers to input that up uh right before holiday winter break uh then we came back and we still uh in Earnest meeting with all the budget leaders um central office Dr Foster uh Dr two uh Dr ciso stance I'm not a doctor um anyway a lot of work with our budget managers listening to what they you know their needs and desires um we've been you know focused on holding Staffing you know uh status quo over the last year or two and uh it's super important um you know with inflationary pressures we've had in the last few years to do that uh tonight is the budget Workshop uh February 25th the governor will give his budget address and then two days later uh by Statute he's required to release state aid numbers across the state uh we would hope to and uh really must adopt on March 18th the tentative budget adoption um it's required to be submitted uh end of the next day it's by uh statute March 20th um there is a holiday apparently on March 20th I I feel bad I don't can't remember the name of it it's it's a little bit of a different holiday I I hadn't no I don't think it is anyway regardless I apologize for those people who sober at that holiday but it was moved up a day to the 19th um and then on the 29th of April uh we will have our public budget hearing and final budget adoption uh so there's a lot of work uh between now and uh March 18th really that go into that hopefully once we submit the tenative budget um we'll be in good shape but the county uh reviews that uh the budget there so they could they could ask some some detailed questions uh but we work on that between those dates and then adopt um in the very late April uh we look here just a snapshot um actually we've looked at this for the last five years since I've been here um and it hasn't changed but this year uh there is a shift in the uh Public Schools uh percentage of the overall taxes that the community pays is a smaller percentage than it has been um it's been stayed pretty stagnant uh here uh the county has gone up you see 31% the principal schools uh so that's a factor of the other taxes in in town the county um and the town going up by higher percentage than the uh Princeton uh School District sorry us uh we look at you know we talk about the budget and you know that word gets thrown around an awful lot uh but really the main two parts of the budget and there are others are the general fund or the operating fund um and The Debt Service Webby um obviously we passed I shouldn't say Obviously but um it was just brought up we passed the referendum a week ago uh the community I should say passed the referendum overwhelmed ly so uh that was a good thing that's really where The Debt Service Levy comes in and the operating budget pay for pretty much everything we do um we don't talk about a lot certainly not here but the special Revenue where all the grants flow through um and then there's a capital budget uh once we pass uh a bond or have capital projects those projects get accounted for in the capital uh section of the budget um so as you can see uh as of right now uh you know 3% of the budget goes towards the Deb service that will go up um with the the referendum being passed um we'll talk a little bit more about that in detail a little later uh this talks more about a Debt Service Levy uh as of right now uh there's three issues outstanding as of December 31st the town CF always emails me the first week in January and asks for this so it's it's readily apparent we had just over $48 million of debt the last uh issue that we we issued was in December right before uh the winter break last year and we uh maintained our AAA rating so that's one of the most important things I like to talk about uh we're one of two AAA with Moody um in the state there are uh some others with standard and pors um so we will have to go through that process again and they will look at uh it a little in more um not that they're not Earnest always but a little more scrutiny being that the level of debt we're going to be issuing is higher um so it's super important uh this is a chart of the uh Debt Service Levy as you can see it will go up to about 14% higher than it was at the previous peak in 2021 so um you know we're looking forward to all the capital projects we're going to be able to do over the next three to four years uh the actual calendar 2024 School tax levy um I just want to point out that the the town has a December 31st which is quite common in the state and we have a June 30th so there's always a uh each uh resident will get a subsequent tax bill as we pass as the uh budget is passed and then they get that gets tacked on to the calendar year uh the is that every District in the state is not every District but oh there are some a few variations out there but that's the most common in the state of New Jersey thank uh the tax rate increased in calendar 2024 um from 1.23 six to 1.26 3 I thought that was a typo at first um it was not I had to check it like three times I kept thinking I messed that up um um and the uh the net asset valuation or the ratables that go that each uh house is assessed by the tax accessor in town um did increase also an increaseed .3% from 23 to 24 um which mean that the tax Lev is shared across a slightly larger total cess valuation that means that a 2.4% calendar year school tax levy increase it felt an effective tax increase or it felt more like 2.16 because there was a large base of taxpayers to absorb that so that was a good thing uh this chart we look at the over uh gosh nine years is it nine or 10 years now uh it looks at the enrollments and Compares them to the general or operating fund tax levy increases um this came up in discussion recently uh asking about there was a couple years there um of course I don't like to talk about um the global pandemic but it was related to the global pandemic and there was certainly a lot of concern in in 2021 if if I know some of you looking around we passed the budget out in the parking lot on March 17th uh the tentative adoption in March 17th of 2020 um there was some colorful posts in the uh local blogger school school school board in the dark yes right Schoolboard members in the dark circle it was very witty um and we're all in a big circle with one of the former teachers in the district sitting there watching us in a lawn chair La in a lawn chairart it was uh so it was a time where you know there certainly was uh a lot of unknown and the operating tax levy was held in Bay uh for a couple years there and then uh but that that tax goes into the banked uh tax Bank uh it sits there we could use it for three subsequent years which we were able to so you only give up a really small fraction of the um taxes basically get a small piece on the compounding so um but that's where you can see some of that Aber aberration over time um and then in the past tax rates uh were a little higher too um this is what I was just talking about back uh banked tax cap um we don't have any uh banked tax available uh right now so we're looking at 2526 um and then I kind of track what's the quote unquote foregone tax levy we lose on that compounding if it sits in the bank for a couple years it's a very small amount um and so and it describes here uh the definition unused taxation or spending Authority that can be saved for three future budget years the current state uh law of the land is a 2% cap which is very very difficult in this day and age I mentioned a little earlier about inflation that's been uh really affecting school districts uh you know wage pressure uh Transportation costs um shortages right of employees which is seemingly it's it's come a little bit more inbalance now equilibrium obviously a lot of current events in the last uh couple months throwing you know things into a little bit of chaos you know Bond uh yields are back up again a little bit so we're really uh watching that closely um this we look at the percentage of our revenues um and the big thing here is that um with cranberry uh and the University and other and our tax levy we are 92% of our revenues come from the local level about 8% from the state and a big chunk of that is from special education extraordinary Aid which is essentially a grant that flows through the state which we apply for each year uh we look at if you could go back there what's um our federal aid because I know that's a question that's come up uh so when we talk about I I touched on the briefly the concept at least the special Revenue fund is where our grants flow through it's required to go through there effectively the biggest piece of the federal aid is the idea Grant which is special ed funding and it does uh go directly to um out of District uh special ed tuitions and it's a little over a million dollars um there's some other services uh also um like one% would you say uh it would be yeah a little less than 1% we also get some small amount of uh every School uh succeeds act or or title grants if you will we don't get a lot of that and we can't uh supplant or regular sping it goes to extra things some summer programming etc etc so we're we're I assume prepared if we you there could be funding may come might be delayed there might be I mean I just don't know that we can necessarily you know know what's going to happen with that but I assume we're preparing to understand what we would do if that didn't show yeah it wouldn't be devastating for us as as many districts um does it come all in one trunch or does it come on over time is it something that we would wait for like when does it normally well we it it counts really from an accounting standpoint when you know the award which should be happening you know um the the federal government is on a uh September 30th is their year end but so um we would we would have to know um it would happen after our budget's adopt so but that that's happened from time to time even with some of the state rules so we would have to then probably re amend our budget and find that shortfall um if that were to happen I think it's probably a heavy lift even for um I don't like to get political so but it's a pretty heavy lift to be able to do it as quickly as March yeah yeah okay thank you but the university right they were saying they were going to be giving um 14 .6 million over the next five years I mean some of that money got eaten up already by the charter school formula I mean we can't control that is that true um well it's a good segue here it's looking at our revenues um what uh the board member Beerman is talking about is the uh Princeton University uh down here that line item which is was new to the district um it started uh really on January of uh 2020 calendar 22 the univers is on a calendar year um like the town we're on a a June 30th year end um so they have uh made a promise to donate money uh to our operating budget there's also a piece uh that sits in the uh special Revenue fund as a local Grant and that's uh specifically towards uh strategic parts of our strategic plan so we're using it to supplement some social emotional counseling that's going on in the school one of the things that um many districts uh across the across the country I should say really have experienced a lot of uh um you know first people were talking about more related to covid but you know a lot of of issues with student Behavior some people are citing uh you know social media as the culprate there's not just one reason why but many reasons so we're using part of that money to supplement that and a few other programs So Adam I think what you were talking about is we got extra state aid last summer right and that went right to Charter oh okay the state a okay State a then the match yeah yeah it wasn't a lot but it was the exact amount of the charter was like about 600,000 and it it was eaten up by that tuition yes yeah that actually did not cover the increase we had to take some from our budget too yeah I mean if you look if you look at the next uh slide you'll see that the um charter school I it's a little volatile um but here we are in fiscal 25 there was a big jump uh up to almost $8 million from two years ago almost a million dollars over two years so the state aid increases that we're a able to get here which are categorical state aid which means it's based on student populations the state has actually started using their actual formula they came up with about 12 years ago and there was a Hiatus there of about 10 years so uh I think it was about 14 years ago they came up with a pretty good formula actually they didn't fund it for 10 years so there's been a whole lot of districts around the state that were quote unquote held harmless so even though their their enrollments went down their state aid stayed the same so when they started to about five years ago fund that formula created a lot of problems in some districts um we were you know as I've kind of talked about a couple times kind of outside of th of that group yeah um based on our state AG South brunwick got caught up in that horribly I mean expansion and then the formula hit them and stuff but um are we going to get to the deficit or no coming up so uh this this table looks historically uh uh at our our revenues going back uh five years our uh 2425 um you see our our tax levy at the top here which is the bulk of our revenues um we do get tuitions um we get cranberry tuitions they a lot of people don't realize um so I'll spend a little time on that that um I had a few conversations and some of them were you know based on people calling in about the referendum and uh it was interesting I won't go into too much detail but uh you know asking questions about and some people didn't realize that cranberry students they pay per student actual tuition so it's it's calculated each year I I work on it it's a as part of the budget now we basically chew up to the actual certified tuition from 2 years ago so then we look at what was charged uh to Cranberry based on the certified tuitions that we get in late January uh we got in this year for 2024 so it's always looking back uh retrospectively there um so that that goes up and down you can see here that the tuition has gone down because the enrollment at the high school is is down it was up to as uh pretty close to 280 when I started it's uh down around 220 is right now so and that that tuition that tuition rate is set by the state so it's it's an estimated rate until we get the actual certified rate based on our audit so uh the board accepted the audit um at the last board meeting um and we went over that in operations in early January um yeah so it's it's always kind of lagging where they they'll get certified so then we we chew up to what was actually the audited tuitions and that would be for the high school it's separated there's special education tuition rates there's uh K5 68 and then high school they also pay for their transportation and special education they do they do oh we like to ask I want to keep on interrupting sure go ahead um you said um and I've learned since I've been here special ed is just so unpredictable the bud for do that continue to be a problem yeah Special Ed is uh it's hard to manage in the short term um you could have longer term policies um but the out of District placements is is uh uneven we do look on the expense side you can see um I've you know come up with this in the five and a half years I've been here we we look at and this you know the salaries and benefits at the top which is about 75% of our budget but you can see here that the student services tuitions and um some special service counseling etc etc is uh you know it was kind of flat here it went down in 22 quite a bit and then it bounced back in uh a change over two years of of about1 and a half million dollars so it is uh can be volatile and this is just amuse a hope we won't see like a special ed Collective like in the county no one's talking about that it's always a a topic of conversation I think that districts uh like I said in the longer term would like to you know we're in a uh you know a somewhat challenging spot a district of about 3,800 approximately students now we're not large enough to probably serve every specific special ed need that we have um that we we can have um but at times we do use the county here um and then you we can we do send uh one student out a district to a neighboring District um it happen so but um yeah it's always a topic of conversation and a goal for school districts in general uh so we uh we covered pretty much most of the revenues on one of the things that's uh I guess the and you look at 23 24 here the um miscellaneous and interest Revenue went up quite a bit so this the plus side of um inflation I guess is higher interest earnings um and some earnings from uh invested proceeds from referendums um uninvested uh I'm sorry invested proceeds of unspent referendum dollars and we not allowed to increase referendum spending on projects with those uh interest payments it either goes into capital reserve we're able to deposit a million dollars into capital reserve um in 24 um so that was better extraordinary a was down the state goes through these Cycles where they they had increased Governor Murphy overall in in you know seven about seven years now has been really pro-education um and the extraordinary Aid is a formula and it's based on the state budgeting and so it had increased you can see here it kind of goes up and down um that's a big swing there and then it's come back down here to uh a little bit uh over $2.3 million University we talked about um M on the extraordinary Aid if the state would change the way they calculate that where they're talking about now they do it based on averages versus actual students would that help us um averages they calculate the amount of reimbursement based on a state average that you should have based on your population as opposed to the actual population that you have in your school so if you have more kids that are well we actually know we actually do go through it's a it's a very I spend a lot of time on it with a few other people in the district and uh we it's actually by each student so we calculate each student what they're um did they meet the criteria first of all there's a stringent list of things if they met it you know it's not just the dollars they have to have extraordinary services such as um a one to one aid for at least half the year there's various categories you go through literally each student um I you might been meant because I've talked about it a lot over the years I use average salaries to make it a little bit more tenable to calculate so I don't go through and recalculate every student and we allocate our industri costs and it's uh it's timec consuming but it's helpful to maximize the amount of dollars we can get back um okay it is a lot it's a lot of work um but it's worth it when we get the money back but but when the state doesn't increase it when they leave that state line item flat for a couple years obviously inflationary pressures decrease on average what each district gets obviously we could have a year or other districts could have a year where there's you know a lot of out of District placements um so um that pretty much looks at the actual um expenses uh sorry revenues for the District um we look at some of the expenses we talked about how um salaries and benefits are about 75% of our budget um and we mentioned Charter Schools uh some of the other things you can you can uh see uh we've been spending a lot on maintenance costs over the years uh it's definitely something we've been tasked with um well one of the things too when you look at this analysis right if sour is on the top and then these are um contracted expenses um there was a period of time when we had a lot of positions that were uh retiring in the facilities in custodial and maintenance staff so we have a lower amount of uh fewer I should say employees now um on our maintenance staff so we have to supplement that with Contract Services there's pros and cons that we're not going to get into here but we've definitely been pring ourselves on fixing things um and fixing them well um as best we can um it's always a point of uh of emphasis for us us um energy costs have gone up significantly um transportation is one area where I talked about the inflationary pressures all the almost virtually we're about split here about 5050 inhouse versus contracted Transportation but pretty much every contractor in the state um three years ago uh did not renew their contracts and we had everyone in the state went out to bid um and so we had a year-over-year that year was 35% increase um in our contracted routes and then we've had a lot of um we had to increase our pay for our bus drivers and transportation AIDS um which is a good thing too partly so do aside from costing more money their wages have come up yes it has been stabilizing the last year and with the now that we had the referendum approved and with our planning we're are we trying to kind of reduce our transportation I know that the town is talking about the well the free bus isn't going to help us but you know probably not we I did bring it up at the meeting as they have a small committee uh we had a a first meeting a little while ago and I did bring it up that we you know they should think outside the box and if they could in certain times in a day Circle by the high school would be a specific area possibly the middle but more likely the high school it could help to get students to go around town but um the planned referendum will really help we think with um having hopefully more students who can walk to school it's um a lot of students in our community uh currently do uh but we want to increase increase that percentage um yes Susan um what what's the increase next year in athletics um and then it comes back down uh those are just those are just forecasts so um I think it's a little Rosy to think that um it may come back down uh to 800,000 yeah I didn't know what the slightly Rosy forecast there yeah I didn't know what the increase was I don't know if you are adding a sport or because you want well we've come in under budget so our our if you look the actual see I always try to as best we can and and you'll hear me say this you know probably get bored to hear me say it at times but we try to really look at what our actual like we're not even talking about budgeted fund balance here because you know that's money in the bank we want to save for capital projects so the state is very strict in New Jersey where we can only put away 2% of our operating fund and I I mentioned earlier about our Moody's uh Bond review they want to see a target of 20% so when they look at other states in United States where an aberration there it's it's very conservative so it's always a balance between having too much fun balance um and then and if you put too much in capital reserve the Moody doesn't count it either because then you can never take it out of capital reserve only to only for capital projects and that's by Statute um so I got sidetracked you were asking me about the Athletics yeah when you get a chance just see if it looks budgeting a little higher we I think we did a little better than um the actual budgeted amount so you know maybe we can hit 800,000 and a couple you know right it's just at 879 so I didn't know if there was like a change or something that we're doing differently well you can see over over the last few years one of the things that jumps out is the increases and we have two contracted Services we're utilizing um some contracted right I Pool Management Services the bigger dollar amount knew that and athletic training we're using we're also using through a contracted provider so maybe just take a look I'm sure it's something that we're just moving from one place it might be another employee or two that were was an employee and now is a contractor but just um how's they shared services with Montgomery and transportation and maintenance is that evolving is that kind of the future hopefully yeah it's actually working out really well we had trouble having our our buses fixed uh by private contractors and uh the myself and Donna reached out to uh our neighbor to the north Montgomery and they are they had three mechanics we don't have any mechanics or bus garage this is our bus garage outside well the windows are closed uh but yes they're they're doing a great job our cost um it's helped both on the cost side and and more importantly though on the qualitative side they've done a great job um we've done better with our bus inspection which happened twice a year so it's been a good thing can you can you speak to RX a little bit how are we doing with that uh not very well um some of the trends that we hear about with the um the class of uh diabetes weight loss drugs has really affected us um we're we're trending about 25% right now um we're self-insured on the prescription side and so you know hopefully it's making people well healthier right I know I'm speaking from like you know Finance person so but you know there's still a lot of research out there with the you know the the amount of people and I'm not going to proliferate and go on about this but I mean you know a lot more people are taking those than they maybe should be and they're getting some short-term benefits so I'm not sure quite how healthy of a choice that is but I'm not gonna keep going I'll shut up because you're not a doctor I am not a doctor I just said that twice now yes I why did my screen go okay go ahead I have a couple comments you know me um so a couple things I want to say um I what did I do that out loud yeah yeah yeah I was just listening a little to the um all the people running for uh democrats for governor and they brought up school funding which was quite fascinating you know and a couple have been Mayors so I feel it might be something that they all might talk about it might be something we get to see so for me a couple things is we are a a public school in a community with a lot of nonpublic schools and we spend PPS not me spends a lot of time and energy because the state gives us all the money for the non-public and then we have to divvy it out and I I know we spend a lot of time because and I know we approve it and I know it gets on there and so it would be great if that wasn't our Administration problem and it went more to I don't know the state the county somewhere anyway I just want to bring that up because it is something that our staff is spending time on and that we're managing and and all that so anyway one thing so maybe you know with our new governor um parking's always my big one and I hope we're still working a little with the town you know so that we don't have to pay for a certain parking and you know we'll see what happens over at Littlebrook and hopefully I know we don't pay for parking over there but we'll have better flow which will be really good um people always ask me why do we pay for school supplies I would love that school budget number to go away um I would love for us to be able to work more with the pto's and I know these are not big dollars people always say that to me but I'm a micro person and so this is what I see every year um the other big one is in bus is amazing going up and I know you know transportation's been going up and everything but do we ever work with families to really opt out and I know the state has laws that um in case all your state people are listening you know have to have a seat for every child and this and that but I know friends that pick their kids up every day who never take the bus which is you know that's fine that's their priority but sorry man really quickly this is where I take issue this is where I think the town if they had a robust bus system then if if if people that most basically every day you pick up your kid but the times that you can't you need an option so if the town had a robust bus system I do think that it would help us on our own we did the popped outs we actually a lot of people um don't realize you are are allowed to have your people that are eligible for the busing to opt out um I think we had 150 or so OD families that did opt out um but the uh statute statute also says that we have to take them back if they if they ask um so so more important we do track our our load counts if you will on the buses and certain routes have higher you know OCC than others um so uh we try to overload those uh routes as best we can kind of trying to hit close which is kind of impossible that Peak number because it's a peak thing right if one day you have 55 kids on a 54 passenger bus it doesn't work so um through active management there but a and you mentioned nonpublic and we do and it's probably another thing for that chart earlier on in the presentation about one of the unique things we have three really large Public Schools in our location so talking about the sorry I said public non-public yes and we are obligated for the passrs we administer those um and it's significant um but the transportation we also bust those kids um so uh in the charter we're obligated to bus uh also so you know we're that rare District that's not we really have I'll call it a modified two-tier bus schedule because it's partially with the non-public but we have more Shar times too so you know there are possible areas of efficiency but um there are a lot of reasons why um you know the high school is starting later right there's there's very so right and we did that knowing it was better for kids um absolutely no I know I mean I know there's a lot in there um but you know um just because of the future that's coming that we need to really look at things abut I thank you every year you're welcome are we going to speak to the deficit that's estimated 26 I mean this is what we see every year how we I don't know how you make it well I think the important the super for me the biggest part in you brought up healthcare because I've been bringing it up this year quite a bit um health care costs but the you know the effect on if you looked at the revenue side the the interest has kind of helped this year to keep us above um you know the the the excess of revenues over expenditures was was pretty good this year but really that was driven by um um miscellaneous you know mostly interest Revenue being a little higher um super important to control labor costs um and and health care costs and uh yeah um it's it's it's always daunting um and and without the university I mean this would look a lot different without the contribution so that was you know I don't want to go into too many details but they they took uh properties off the tax roll they were legally allowed to do and then they they passed through what would have been sent to the town and they so it was a one-time budgetary of super positive budget effect you of that but we we are coming to the cliff I mean the cliff is coming in a year or two where don't have some extraordinary event that saves us um and we have teacher contracts we're happy with our negotiations but they're higher than 2% right so yes we do have this approximate Gap normally of about a half a million every year that we have to find it will only get larger and again um we have to look at maybe we can't have it all there might be Cuts compression um dapa You' mentioned something about a mechanism though to help if we did have a deficit or something um well we have an option we can't we we're only allowed to raise taxes by the tax L by 2% but we can put the budget to a vote right so um so like this time next year well there's some districts uh Westfield is the one that actually lived there for a few years and a long time ago long long time ago anyway but they went back to an April vote if you remember um I'm sure drus remembers and the other people that have been in education a long time it was there was reasons why that districts went away from that it was always a contentious time but it does give you more flexibility um so it is a possible Trend uh it is a trend that's starting to maybe like having a referendum every April right like right and then there's been more success with districts having operating um referendums if you will yeah um moving forward uh talking about fund balance which is essentially the money that we've invested it's really money in the bank because the state doesn't allow us to do anything crazy with Investments I think I I don't think that we can only go out 13 months with treasuries very safe agencies uh you know uh money market government money market funds so but it's essentially the the excess uh funds or uh money invested um it has gone up over the last five or six years which is a good thing we're at um you know reasonably good levels we've we've been able to put back money back into fund balance I'm sorry capital reserve um for future projects as needed which is a good thing um and and um excuse me need some water um so I talked a little bit the slide about some of the reason we've used capital reserve over the past to augment the 2018 Bond referendum and U we did HVAC um the restroom facility um behind the uh turf field is in the bottom corner there I mean I always talk about the difference between the free fund balance and the capital reserve fund balance if you have too much uh quote unquote refund balance that's outside of the capit zerve the state um like 14 years ago did go around the districts and take it so it it's you know like I I was talking about New Jersey has very conservative accounting rules so you know it's a double-edge sword with that um so that's what odds with what Moody would want us to yeah they they look for 20% it's one of the things that kind of you know although we are triaa but it's it's not for that reason you know so um this is more my ignorance I'm learning about this um with our insur insurance um um health insurance is what and salaries you know the big part of this whole thing um do we um uh what's our negotiating power with insurance providers and do we have a tiered system with our with our teachers where some higher paid employees put can put more in pay more into their insurance and also maybe deductibles go higher before I got here uh there was a a there was a push towards the health savings accounts um which hadn't made much of an inroad in many districts but it was being pushed here and there was a certain uh there was a certain number of employees I I was part of it for a while um but I mean there's a reason why I'm not now and it's not because it was a good deal for me um but um it hasn't it hasn't taken a hold the you know we don't like to talk too much about you know unions and stuff it's really you know um so not so much um on the negotiation side uh with the benefits you know it's one of the well I was going to say benefits but that sounds redundant but one of the benefits quote unquote of working for school district are the good benefits so um it's hard to make it's hard to make inroads there with the benefit costs um we did change Insurance Brokers right after I got here we went out to an RFP um I think there was uh a longstanding relationship with the pro so we've done well there um with uh keeping and you know we've been fortunate um actually in many ways um having very consistent claims ratios I was talking about that recently um and we can talk about that a little bit more in close session but you know but you never know when that's going to change so but I guess I always ask this question what keeps you up at night of anything about this budget I always go for you know plan for the worst and hope for the best um yeah all there's many things that keep me up at night trying to open this bottle of water no Pete Alonzo is unsigned yes that's really getting under myin no definitely health insurance um is is a big uh Drive of our budget on this is a a pie chart of you know you can see right here 75% of our expenses go to selling benefits if you add in charter school it's 82% um and then there's not a lot left over for uh discretionary I mean added District tuitions in student services is certainly you know not really discretionary um um transportation cost about 3% so there's not a lot of the pie left over um for um discretionary spending if you will um questions or more questions well great job Matt thank you um can we justcome thank you so much great I I I just wanted to talk about you know something that came up a lot in the referendum meetings with people is people really don't understand our finances and and I think you know we've talked about this for years how do we better be more transparent and um you know is it possible we I guess we often present this to the council not a lot of people go to the council meetings but is it possible for us to have at the library for example during budget season just to have a Q&A or have a say where you know people can come and talk and ask questions or you know I just think we if we can get out in the community a little bit more and kind of continue the um conversations I think that we've started now as part of the referendum I think it might be helpful yeah know I'm I'm always open to uh engage with community members that have questions uh usually um get very good response you know some candid and and direct and you know explain uh some of the nuances of government you know Finance School District finances um I I just think there's always this understanding you know we have a hundred million budget oh you guys have all that money what are you doing with that money and I think it's helpful to kind of fill in the blanks and explain to people what we're really doing for students and also I think it's important given that what's coming and we know it's coming eventually that we are very clear about the challenges and that we're going to have to make some changes or or accommodate for to to be solvent in the next couple years yeah I mean it's super important and I take philosophy you know we're not here to accumulate money in the bank we're here to to educate you know we're uh Educational Services you know that's that's how we're rated how well we're doing that so it's always a fine line between you know um being fiscally prudent but at the same time maximizing you know what we're uh the education that we're given to our students so it's always a challenge anyone else any questions all right um so moving on now um we have uh the superintendent recommends uh job description for the assistant superintendent of uh student services and then uh public comment and there's no public comment tonight uh just because Matt did such a great job there's no questions um so moving on now to the consent vote can I get a motion Ari second Debbie Dean Kendall yes Beth Baron yes Adam Beerman yes Debbie bronfeld yes Mara franceski yes Elanor hubard yes Susan caner yes Ari miselle yes Chris santario yes Katherine laa yes Mo uh consent agenda passes thank you Mr Balden um just a reminder our next meeting is February 11th um next week uh and then our our meeting after that is March 18th so um lots of meetings and then no meetings um can I please get a motion to adjourn Beth second Chris all in favor all right good night