WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=KoA58Qqy9WE

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: KoA58Qqy9WE):
- 00:08:20: Meeting Call to Order: Roll Call and Flag Salute
- 00:11:32: Public Comment: Concerns Over Artificial Turf Field
- 00:14:46: Public Comment: Environmental Concerns and Plastic Fields
- 00:15:39: Public Comment: Heat, Chemicals and Artificial Turf
- 00:16:56: Tentative Budget Presentation: Goals and Challenges Discussed
- 00:18:52: Zerobased Budgeting Mandate: Property Tax Burden Considerations
- 00:20:30: Inflationary Pressures and Rising Health Benefit Costs
- 00:21:18: Understanding Actual Figures and Budgeting Efficiencies
- 00:23:58: Cautious Budgeting for Health Benefits and Tuition
- 00:27:43: Budget Context: Vision 2030, Community Engagement
- 00:28:48: Highlights of Ridgewood School District, Program Advancement
- 00:33:54: School District Structure, Health Insurance Cost Impact
- 01:41:53: Pricing Considerations for ITDC and Glen Reach Programs
- 01:45:42: Increased Pre-K Tuition and Boost Before/Aftercare Revenue
- 01:49:21: Public Comment: Clarifying ITDC's Role in Elementary Aftercare
- 01:50:25: Curriculum and Revenue Share Concerns with Alphabest
- 01:54:12: Local Revenue Decrease and Increased Revenue Considerations
- 01:57:08: Vendor Contracts, Shipping Costs, Staffing Consolidations
- 02:00:08: Public Comment: Clarifying Middle School Staffing Figures
- 02:02:18: Courtesy Busing Changes and Elementary SRO Considerations
- 02:05:48: Public Comment: Ballot Questions and Busing Safety Concerns
- 02:12:31: Public Comment: Glenn School Inclusion for SROs
- 02:13:32: Public Comment: Security Audit Before SRO Vote
- 02:14:39: Public Comment: Ballot Question Logistics and Debt Service
- 02:23:31: Additional Cost-Saving Measures and Overtime Management
- 02:27:57: Acknowledging Impacted Groups, Literacy Program, Future Planning
- 02:29:36: Public Comment: Governor's Address and Tiered Services
- 02:32:23: Takeaways, Next Steps, Public Comment, and Future Actions
- 02:40:25: Health Benefits Increase, State Funding, Reserve Usage
- 02:43:41: Consent Items, Routine Matters, and Administration Approval
- 02:44:46: Human Resources: Resignation for Retirement Approval
- 02:45:18: Board Member Announcements and Music Staff Appreciation
- 02:46:23: Open Up for Public Comment & Addressing Concerns
- 02:47:14: Public Comment: Ridge Rise Program and Teacher Requirements
- 02:49:45: Public Comment: Elementary Language Arts Curriculum Funding
- 02:50:33: Public Comment: No cuts from the district.
- 02:56:26: Public Comment: Discuss concerns and presentation results.
- 03:07:53: Public Comment: Budget Cuts and Financials
- 03:07:53: Public Comment: Financial Impacts and Concerns


Part: 1

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Mary Lou, can you hear me? Mary Lou, can you hear me? Yeah. >> Can you hear me? >> Oh, yes. Thanks. >> Okay. Um, I think we're going to call the meeting to order. Are you ready?

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>> She No, I I made one. Did it all come out with all the notes in it version? Yes. Okay. Okay. Um,

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Mr. Matthews, would you u do a roll call and and know that um Muhammad will be here at around 7:30ish? Okay. And and Mrs. Handy is on the um screen. She is um remoting in

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tonight. >> Okay. Mr. S, >> here. >> Miss Groen >> here. Miss Andy >> here. you have a

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>> um please join me in a flag salute and pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States to the republic for it stands under God.

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Public Meetings Act. Advanced notice has been given to the Star Ledger, the record and the clerk of the village of Ridgewood. In addition, notices were posted in the office of the board secretary and in all school buildings.

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Welcome everyone and uh we'll open tonight with um comments from the public after where which we'll have a pres tenative presentation on tenative budget with discussion and um we have a couple of consent items

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and we will also have a public comment at the at the towards the end of the meeting. So I open right now for public comment if there is any. >> Good evening. Ann Loving Ridgewood resident. Thank you for the opportunity

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to speak tonight. And um although I will be listening to the budget presentation from home, I'd like to thank you for all the work I know you have put into it. Regarding the budget, I'm here to state that I hope under no circumstances will there be any money

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allocated towards artificial turf. At the most recent fields committee meeting, Dr. Schwarz was uh asked about turf possibly going in at BF. Some of the things that the superintendent of school said included

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that no one should eat turf and that when a child comes home from playing on a turf field, the first thing the child should do is take a shower, take off their clothes, and shake the turf out of their clothes. Surely this indicates

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that the superintendent knows that artificial turf is not safe. In addition, Dr. Schwarz said that he hasn't found a proof of reasons not to have turf. Said we manage those risks

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all the time that turf is I mean that artificial chemicals are in tires on the roads in our clothes in our cars and that no one is eating turf. This is what I have to say.

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The superintendent of schools and the five elected board members are in charge not only of the education decisions for our children, but the health and safety and welfare of our children. In addition to deciding about curriculum matters,

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you do things like hire a school resource officer, employ a food company that's going to have healthy foods. Well, artificial turf is dangerous and you should not under any circumstances defend it or certainly not spend any

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money on it. Um, I I cannot say this more emphatically. I I've said a lot of words, but there really are no words to describe how I feel upon listening to the superintendent talk about turf like it's just another little problem to

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manage. It's a huge problem and we do not need to have more of it. Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. Nancy Brennan Hill. I came about the artificial turf. Also, I'm a big fan of Ridgewood

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Schools. Um I got to become familiar with some of the programs that you sponsor because of Shadree. And I'm speaking not on behalf of Shadri, on behalf of myself, but that's how I came to hear about all the things that you do

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for the environment, the lovely gardens over at Ridgewood High, um how you participate in Adopt a Sapling. So, it just seems to me that it's not good enough to be neutral on these plastic

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fields. They're just not right. And you folks should be standing up as your students do, as your principles do to support the environment and to beautify Rididgewood with real grass, not not plastic.

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Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Boyd A. Loving, also a Richwood resident. I too was a little bit taken back by Dr. Schwarz's comments. I happened to have been listening to the call or watching the meeting that day. Uh I almost fell out of my seat when I heard that. Uh the shake and shower as it's now being

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referred to was to me just a simplification of the problem that it's hand. There's more at hand than just getting the material on you and getting it off of you. There's the question about heat, excessive heat. Somebody posted a comment on Facebook that after

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the turf was put in at Ridgewood High School, there were 35 heat related cases, heat stroke related cases. So there's more to it than just shaking and showering. Uh there's concerns about the chemicals getting into the water table.

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U so to me it was just an uncalled for comment simplified something that really is quite complex with more to it than just showering and shaking. Thank you very much. Any comments u remotely?

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Okay, not seeing any. I'll close public comment and um we will go to um presentation on on the um sort of ten tenative budget outline of the budget and um your recommendations and

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discussion for the board. Uh Dr. Schwarz, >> thank you so much. If I may just say thank you for our speakers for joining us here today. I will just say your stated concern primarily is regarding artificial turf and heard from at least one of you that um your concerns about

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artificial turf proposal being in the budget. There is no proposal for anything related to artificial turf in the budget. Just as a just to let you know that upfront and respect for your comments um and I certainly understand um certainly understand your concerns regarding artificial turf. Certainly not

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wishing to dilute those in any way. Let me just uh share my screen here. Sure. Sorry everyone. We're just uh using a new system here. Just waiting for it to my screen to share. There we go. All right. Thank you

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everyone. Appreciate you being here with us tonight. Before we get started on this uh budget presentation, the the slide here is titled budget presentation. probably should be clarified that this is really a discussion tonight. The board is not voting on anything.

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Our goal tonight is to present a tentative proposal for the purposes of discussion regarding the 2627 budget. I want to start by thanking all of our board members and our administrators who've been a part of developing this budget and this process. Um this has

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been a particularly challenging budget process. It really has brought back brought me back to other difficult budget periods that I've been through. But most importantly, it probably bears the most of resemblance to uh the 2010 time frame when following the recession

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and the cuts that were required uh at the state level uh by the Christy administration definitely put us in a position where uh we needed to to curtail significantly. So, I'm going to provide uh my goals tonight are to provide you with some context for this budget, to talk

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specifically about um the challenges that we have ahead of us. Uh paint a budget picture for where we are and then get to talking about how we balanced this particular budget proposal. Uh trying to absorb what is a really remarkable uh increase in our health

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benefits cost. Um because there is such a demand on this budget to be strong, I want to say that budget to be thorough, budget process to be thorough. Uh, I want to just start by saying that, you know, one of the the primary feature

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of this budget is that it really truly is a zerobased budget. Some of you might have heard the expression about zerobased budgeting before. Um but I think it bears at the start of this conversation acknowledging that uh we have been given a mandate and really actually uh to my board members who were

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here when I was interviewing to become the superintendent here. This actually came up in our interview process. The board has been very clear since I came that they are adamant about doing everything they can to stay at or below a 2% property tax increase such as their commitment to the local taxpayer and their awareness of the tax burden on

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those in Ridgewood. So we have been working for all of our budgets to stay within that 2% range. Um and as we've been doing so some you know see we know that the inflationary pressures have been increasing the cost of um health benefits have been increasing but we've

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had been producing uh strong margins in terms of surplus which we've been able to use to populate some of our reserves over the last couple years. However, though, these inflationary costs and these rising costs have been offsetting our ability to stay within that 2% levy.

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So, uh we're going to talk a little bit about uh the levy itself specifically, but I want to just frame that the budget team led by Mr. Matthews did a remarkable amount of work with this the administrators and the different budget managers to ensure that all aspects of

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this budget are based on actual figures. Typically, there's usually some estimating that goes on with respect to budgets. And obviously, we have to do sums, but and I'll use health benefits for an example. We're going to talk about health benefits figures tonight. And there's going to be a little bit of murkiness around the current year's

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health benefit figures because we went through a significant health benefits change this year to try to forstall a really large increase or try to curtail a really large increase. Uh, and as a result of that, we've also had a lot of conversations with our staff. We've had folks changing plans. We also added

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staff members to our payroll this year uh who were previously uh particularly in facilities who were previously serviced through a contract through the Aramark company and um and so I find one of the ways that's most helpful to understand how our uh how our benefits

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have increased is to look back to two years. I know it's very convenient to think from one year to the next, but the reality is that our budget from last year has been audited. We know what we spent at that time. However, the current year we're still living in. So, it's very hard to project off the current year. I know it can be a

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little bit frustrating sometimes when we're looking at our numbers and especially with the working with our administrator, working with our board members as we're running our analyses. Um, especially as we're talking about trying to find efficiencies within our headcount. Each time we make a tweak to the system because it's based on actual

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numbers, the bottom line numbers change. One of the reasons why people will estimate and always try to put a little bit into ext every account a little bit extra is so that to just make the budgeting process easier. You we start the budget process and we say, "Well, we're going to spend uh you know x amount of dollars or we're going to

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spend $2 million on this thing or $2.1 million." It's very helpful if that $2.1 million doesn't change. And if you use traditional budgeting where you're always kind of adding a little bit of cushion across all your account lines, if if there is a tweak, if something kind of if there's a if there's an error somewhere, if there's something that

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wasn't that was forgotten or if there's a change when we go to put that information in the state budget software, we often can just absorb that change into those all that little cushion that we put in. There really isn't much in the way of cushion in this budget. The only type of cushion there is is just some cautious moves

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recognizing the kind of things that are out of our control. So, for example, we'll talk about health benefits. The health benefit projection for next year is based off of the actual enrollments that we have right now plus a 10% uh estimated increase for next year that would occur in January. So, our our

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health benefit dollars come in they follow the calendar year. So, they go January to December. So, we have to budget for a year knowing knowing what our premiums will be for the first half of the year and not the second half of the year. So, we're budgeting a 10%

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increase, recognizing that 10% on the 10% above what we know, which means that we can absorb a 20% increase in the following year. That might sound like a lot. Maybe that's overly conservative, but our net increase even after our change this year was well above 20%. We

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we we project it to be. Um, we did an analysis where we saw that all of our plans went up between 22 and 26% if I remember correctly. So, so we have to put in some of those cautions because who's to say that we're not going to see another large increase? God help us. I

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hope that we don't. I hope that uh that we're in a place now where hopefully our claims go in a good direction and we can actually leverage uh maybe even as a flat rate. That would be fantastic. I've seen that before. Um but that that can be a challenge. Additionally, we are responsible for students and their

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education regardless of whether they're being educated here or not. Sometimes students have unique profiles and either they we we can't meet their needs here or their parents believe that they can't we can't meet their needs here which means that during the year sometimes students who are with us end up needing

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to go to an out of district placement. If that's necessary we support it. If we don't think it's necessary we'll go through our due process to try to to try to keep the child where we think they're going to be educated best which may be here. Depends on the circumstance. But in either scenario, whether we agree with it or

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not, we're responsible for that tuition out of the district. So we have to have a a little bit of flex there in case some of those situations arise. It is plausible that if this strategy of budgeting, if if all of the things that we're hoping go go as well as we hope

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that they'll go, that some of these uh some of some of these little elements of caution will translate into excess surplus at the end of the year that we can fund with facilities. But given the pressure And not I don't mean that in a pjorative way. Given the given the healthy pressure that we have to try to absorb

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these costs rising dramatically as much as possible through efficiencies and not pass them on to the taxpayer. Um the reality is that we uh that that that there is only so low that we can go because obviously none of us want to be

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like some of these school districts that are in the paper right now because uh things have broken the wrong way and they've found themselves insolvent for a for a specific year and then they have a state monitor monitoring them. So I I under no circumstances will I ever recommend something that would cut so

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close that if things went the wrong way, we would still end up in that situation. But I will but I'm sharing all this because even as we present numbers and figures tonight, depending on the decisions that we make based on the proposals that I made to the board and the board is going to have an executive session on Wednesday where we're going

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to discuss some of the potential changes within personnel. Um depending on those changes, some of the numbers might shift slightly yet again. We should not I don't expect that we would see major shifts in those numbers unless big decisions or shifts in positions were made by our board members or

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conversations at this table. So that said, um this budget is austere. Our our emphasis is to try to not disproportionately impact any one group. Although there are some groups that are

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going to invariably have some some level of of of impact that might be might feel disproportionate and I will talk about those and be as transparent as I can be in this presentation. I'll reiterate all these points on the different information that I provide. So

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if everyone's comfortable, I'll go ahead and get started. Okay. Board of Education members, thank you so much. Um, in case some of you don't know this, board members are not paid and yet they spend a tremendous amount of time uh here at the ed center helping us uh to doing their job with respect to

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governance and budget is one of those times of the year where they are here quite often. So, thank you all so very much for your time and energy uh and creativity as we work to solve these challenges together. Uh, as I said before, we want to provide some context. We want to prop uh I want

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to pro put forth a proposed budget for discussion tonight. like to hear from the public as well. If anyone has any comments they want to share, happy to hear it. I'd like to detail some of our cost-saving strategies to be clear and then I want to talk about remaining steps so that everyone understands if

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they want to get involved or if they want to speak their mind or share their concerns that they can do that um they know when when the right time to do that is. So, we have some information here. This is typical for our presentation for the budget. Um, so I'm I'm not I'm going to

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just touch on some of these just highlights of the district right now. We'll dig into these a little bit deeper once we've resolved some of our issues for the budget. But for the time being, just a couple things I want to point to. Regardless of the challenging economic environment that we're in, we are still committed to our vision 2030. The vision

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doesn't necessarily have a concrete monetary value, but it has certainly carries with it other values. And to to to support those values and to further those efforts, we do need to allocate resources for them. We are doing the best in this budget to use our existing

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local resources without having to call on other other resources or invest maximum amounts of monies. Trying to do things with the staff that we have in the space that we have as reasonable a cost as we possibly can. But we are interested in pursuing and clarifying what our expectations are for a journey

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of a graduate. Regardless of whatever changes we make, we are committed to a balanced climate and culture. And even as we talk about some efficiencies, we do not want any of our efficiency measures to have a negative impact on our climate and culture. We still need to invest in our infrastructures and

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facilities and we need to be financially sound. That's a big part of vision 2030. We want to continue to progress our programs, our pathways and our proficiencies. So basically everything related to the student experience and teaching and learning. And then of course uh we are all we all here very

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much value engaging our community. Uh we know from academic studies and just from anecdotal experiences that an engaged populace is a fundamental part of any of our democratic functioning and our public schools are actually a great example of our democratic institutions

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because we're coming together through a democratic process to figure out how to allocate tax uh community uh community resources to provide the best educational system. And we can't do that responsibly without engaging our community. And that's what tonight's all about.

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Just some information. We do have some really positive things out there. Um I know we pay attention to rankings and ratings. This one kind of stuck by me, but we were recently named fourth best school district in New Jersey according to niche.com. So congratulations to everyone. That's a nice thing for us all to celebrate. Um and of course some

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obviously other great other great uh accolades here including being the number two best place to teach in Bergen County. We are going to continue to advance our curriculum and instruction. We've talked a lot about literacy here. Something I do want to call out, we'll talk about it a little bit later, but I added it to

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the conversation about K5 ELA. Um, there is a pretty significant resource cost to rolling out all K5 ELA. So, for the time being, we're discussing rolling out K2. Uh, initially, uh, Mr. Ross has been working diligently to try to figure out

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ways to reduce costs so that we are not limited to just K2, but that rather that we can we can really roll out with K5. But uh you know there is material cost uh to the products that we need to initially outfit our classrooms. So that's something that's on our radar. But we are f still focused on

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transitions. We're still focused on making sure that we have um in our master schedules and our practices that they're aligned so that we can we can provide a good system of support. We are not cutting any programs wholesale. Our rep program is intact. Our arts program

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is intact. Um our physical education program is intact. um our core areas are intact, our tracks and our courses are intact. Special programs has been a point of conversation since I've been here and I want to be very clear that we are continuing to invest in our special

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programs. Um other than just the normal the normal um district allocation of teachers based on student enrollment. We sometimes have adjustments. There are no specific measures uh that are taken here to change or restructure our delivery of services. If anything, we're actually

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looking to expand some of our um prek opportunities for some of our our special for our students with special needs at the pre-K level. But our partnership and efforts um our inclusive practices, early intervention, all our professional development are all going to be intact. We are going to rely we're

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going to try to rely more. I I've since had I I've I I've very much had a vision I've always had a vision and I know that a lot of folks here do too of really bringing up our own teachers and our own administrators to truly be look to them to be the educational experts themselves. We have a tremendous amount

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of expertise here but sometimes you know in our zeal for being as best supported as possible we always want to bring in the best consultants to help us with everything. We have a tremendous amount of talent here. So one of the things we're suggesting is spending a little less money on those outside experts and lift raising up instead the expertise

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that we have internally and then of course we have excellence beyond the classroom. If you attend our board meetings then you always hear from our student liaison student representatives who always talk about the great accomplishments of our students. So thank you guys. You do a wonderful job. But we just wanted to memorialize some accolades here um for

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uh for our our athletes and our um and our extracurricular activities. So, here we have uh some spring act some spring callouts and then of course um that was last year's uh spring callouts and then our some of our club accomplishments as well. But let's go get ahead and get into the

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budget. So, if you're not familiar with how a school district is structured, there's a couple different ways to represent um what how how we uh how where our money goes, but um but this is uh this gives you this can give you a pretty strong

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sense of it. where it says instruction that's really talking very much about um that's talking largely about um salaries for instructors. There is a portion of that that is of course resources but to the something to the tune of uh of of

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2/3 to 3/4 of our budget is salary and benefits on any given year. So it's a pretty significant uh portion but you can see that instruction obviously is the lion share of our of our actual effort here. Uh we do of we of course need school support staff. Uh we also

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need administration. Um but we have to invest in our property uh and our facilities as well. And then benefits you can see are a significant portion. Also this is the big slide that we wanted to point out that our health insurance

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costs have really gone up significantly over the last few years. Uh the 2526 budget which is the second to last. If I go like this, can you all see this? There we go. So this this column right here is where we currently are. Uh this figure right here 2526 this 17.5 million

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number. This is this reflects the original budget for the current school year. There's a little bit of confusion as we were as we were looking at this adjusted budget during the year. Uh there was apparently a a transfer made that shouldn't have been made that was throwing off some of our our projections. So, for a little while we

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were using the number $4 million, but we we looked at that more closely and realized that this that there is a $6 million gap between the 2425 school year, I'm sorry, increase between 2425, which is an audited figure, and our projected figure for 2627.

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So, this figure here changed based on whether we were measuring that off of uh an adjusted budget that actually had an issue or the original budget. The state software requires us. We have to put all this figures into an electronic system from the state. That's where we get all of our state aid numbers and our um and

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information about our tax le. So that number comes back through that. The state figures, the state system uses original numbers. So we are using original numbers here too. But this is a fairly even split. It's about three mill about three million each year. a little more last year, a little more that we

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absorbed into this year, but based off of our actual enrollments for next year and again that 10% increase, uh, this is what we this is what I feel is responsible where is a responsible budget for next year. >> Uh, Dr. Schwarz, does this six million

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include uh, dental also or is it just uh, I >> believe it does include dental. >> Do you know how much is correct? So how much uh is the dental extra because that would not be applicable for 2425 right those were added new so it's

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not a in uh the base price it's additional benefits also so combined is about 11 1.1 right 600 and 500 just want to confirm your mic is on Mr. Matthews. >> So the current number for dental and

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vision is 615260. The current um last year's number for dental and vision was 543815 on the original budget. Thank you. >> So I want to start by looking at appropriations for next year. This is

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rolled up at the very very high level and again the board has been working closely with our our business business team to understand all the calculations behind these. So I'm going to call out a few of them for you. This is uh this is the high level rollup to see to to to

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that that that the board will be um ultimately be recommended to the board. So there's a couple highlights here. As I mentioned before, between 2425 and 2627, our premium increases have gone up by an estimated 6.2%. Again, I say estimated because for the future year,

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we can have enrollment changes. We don't know what our change is going to be. So this is our actual enrollments projected in next year plus 10% of an increase. So that gap is that that that that that um that jump is $6.2 million and it's uh and I said here about approximately

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three million in the current year. I'm sorry I should update that. Um it says on the slide here 2.99 for employee benefits but those benefits include a few other factors that aren't what we traditionally think of when we think of insuranceances and benefits. For example, I think believe workman's comp,

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Mr. Matthews, is that right? Workman's comp is also in there. So that skews that number. The true number is 27 and change. But there's also uh reflects transportation cost changes. Um I did email a few folks today who had been concerned about um the district uh no

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longer offering courtesy busing. In this proposal, I do recommend a decreased allocation in transportation uh on the expectation that we would re-evaluate our courtesy busing. We have been looking at the routes. We have been trying to understand the history of why

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certain individuals have been granted busing even though they're not legally required to have them by by by law and regulation outside of the district. Um, and what we found is that there are some routes that are just very problematic uh and really one could argue are not

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walkable. There are other routes that appear to just be a little bit far but not necessarily hazardous or dangerous. So uh we've I've asked the team to do an evaluation and to make a conservative estimate for how much we how much we'd be responsible to curtail courtesy

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busing by as it is a large cost without um without requiring without wiping it out wholesale especially for those communities where where those areas of the community where the route really isn't practically walkable. So it does involve a conservative estimate. It's in

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the ballpark of a half a million dollars that we are reducing um from transportation. Uh oh, I guess here. I'm sorry. There's there's some other routes in this rollup. We're estimating the savings from some of these courtesy routes to be about a half a million dollars. Uh but we also have rate routes

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change from year to year and we're projecting a little bit of a decrease in our routes for next year. >> So, how many routes will be affected by by the half? Uh it's not entirely clear what it will look like in total with routes because the routes are planned based on all the

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places that we're busing from. We don't have like dedicated courtesy routes. So they get picked up as part of other routes. So what we would have to do is recal recalculate the routes for next year without those individual places.

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It's so it's not as clean as saying two buses. I think I think in net we're expecting something we're expecting a I'm sorry I'm not I I don't want to say the wrong number right now >> but if we came up with a number that for savings

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>> Mhm. That must be based on some hard data, right? That >> it is. Yeah, we we we I just don't want to tell you the wrong number. But we had, if I'm remembering correctly, it was over 200 students who are eligible who who we provide courtesy busing to. I'm just again I'm just trying to be kind of round here. It's a significant

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number of students. >> So, can we get that number? >> Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Know, we we have the number. I just don't have the person in front of me right now to look that number up and confirm that. >> Just recalculation. How? >> Absolutely. What I also I also met with

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Miss Johanna today and she has a nice map in her office. I would like to produce a few more of them. What I'd really like to provide you all with is it's an elementary district map. I'd like to be able to provide you all with an elementary district map. I'd like basically the district map but colorcoded for elementary, colorcoded

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for middle, and then colorcoded for high school and then show you the areas where for each of those range each of those levels we're providing courtesy busing so it can make a little more visual sense. That was very helpful to me to actually see that there are some places where they're clearly going to continue to receive I I believe should continue

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to receive courtesy busing. There are other places where I don't I don't believe it's as necessary. >> Yeah, that that's perfectly fine. I I'm just requesting how that specific number was arrived. >> Yeah, Mr. Matthews, do you recall that right now? Do you have those numbers right?

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>> The number was $524,000. And I have to go to that worksheet to see how we got to the number, but we'll make sure we get it to tomorrow. 524. >> Thank you. >> Sorry. So, just so I understand what we're talking about, the total amount,

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the 524 number represents the courtesy busing that we currently provide that you are considering not providing. >> That's that's where the savings. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, not all the Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. And to be clear, it's not like we have exclusively courtesy busing routes.

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>> No, no, I understand that. I just wanted to >> Yeah. >> So it's it's about 10% students. >> Again, I want to just I want to confirm those numbers. I don't want to shoot from the hip. But we have but this is all based on actual numbers and and Mana

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is actually plotting them on a map for us so we can get a visualization as to where they are and which homes are affected >> and that so they'll continue to receive busing until June 30th. They'll not receive busing starting September 1. >> That Yeah, we're going to consult. So, so I will say something that I that that

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I've made clear is I think that I know I've I've spoken a little bit over email with some of the folks. I think I've spoken at some of my coffees with some folks who who receive and just be I'm sorry if anyone doesn't know what we're talking about. Stu uh families are entitled to busing when they live outside of two miles for elementary

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students and outside of two and a half miles for secondary students. Um they're entitled to busing if you live that far away. So, we have students in our community who are outside of those two, two and a half miles. They will continue to receive busing. We're not talking about those. There are also folks who

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live within those two and two and a half miles that the board does provide busing for and has provided busing for a while. And many of these places are enumerated in a regulation that we have that has been uh that's on our website. The language is a little bit ambiguous. It's

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not really clear exactly, you know, it doesn't name specific addresses, but uh I understand I know Miss Broen, you had some history uh with respect to understanding kind of some of the origins of some of these items. Some of them are certainly safety oriented. I know comm concerned community member

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reached out and he had some history uh some historical information for us as to as to how we got to where we were with our with our uh with our numbers. So, I'm getting a little feedback here. Is that is there anything I can do with my microphone, guys? I know my microphone likes

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Okay. All right. Is this better? Yeah, it's a little better. Okay. So, so that's what we're talking about. Uh so the people who are outside that two and a two and a half two or two and a half miles they'll still receive busing and and some folks who are within if their route is particularly

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problematic uh I think that it's responsible for us to assess those and still give consideration but we do want to be clear that for anyone who doesn't have a very explicit reason uh it's not something we feel like we can continue to sustain >> families who receive it will they be

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given an opportunity to pay for that or will they just not receive busing at all? So we've we have some analysis left to do. Uh the anal one of which is we seem to have hit a snag with respect to our uh some challenges uh related to being able to provide subscription

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busing. So which is what you're referring to. They can just pay. We are that's part of our analysis right now. Uh we also are consulting with um we're going to be consulting with bond counsel. My intention is to put this up put the topic up for a vote out of respect for those who have lost it so we

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can then administer it um if it passes at the polls. But we have to do some work still to figure out what that how exactly we'd structure that. But our intention is uh that if the if we get to a place where where that is going to happen and we are going to curtail those

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routes, we'll do an evaluation and we'll notify those families as soon as possible. Thanks for that question. You'll also notice on the appropriations or expense side of this equation that uh there are reductions in administration and in school support and and it might

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not look like there are some reductions in instruction as well. Um I'm going to talk a little bit more later. We're not going to get into the specifics, but um we have looked at uh at our position control posture in good depth worked with our principles and tried to determine if we can still offer all of

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our programs with fewer staff members. Um there are many places where we cannot consolidate positions. Um but there are some places where it does seem like our class sizes have gotten a little small u particularly at the secondary level. So we have some retirements and some resignations. We don't want to see any

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staff members um you know uh lose their position for next year. So we're doing our best to try to avoid that. Um but I can't say that that won't occur. uh in schools because of uh the rules of tenure, our veteran tenured employees uh

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are if if there is going to be a positional cut, they do keep seniority. So uh and right now with the way that we're looking the the the the consolidating consolidation of positions that we're looking at um won't have a major impact on on our tenure employees,

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we don't think um we I'm not saying that we won't have any, but I think that's going to be fairly minimal. We're trying to avoid that. We're trying to avoid all cuts, but the in fact trying to avoid any one person losing their job. Um, but uh but we will make this a little clearer as we proceed in the coming

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weeks. So, our executive session on Wednesday will involve talking about these positions. And I do want to be clear, we're not really the focus is not to talk about specific people. The focus is to talk about um really the programs and what the impact of the programs will specifically be. So, this is a part of

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the conversation that's probably my least favorite. Um well, really even courtesy busting. there's some folks who really rely on that. So, there's a lot of uh there's a lot lot to this that is going to have some some negative impact on a few folks and I just want to be clear about those things. This is the revenue side of the of the

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budget. For those who aren't really familiar with budgeting, um you know, you have to uh we have to keep track of we have to align our plans to spend with our expectations for what we're going to be able to receive in terms of funds. We

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can't spend more than we make. School district receives funds primarily through the local tax levy. Well, this school district does different school districts with more financial need typically receive uh higher amounts of state and federal aid. Sometimes they receive a majority of state and federal aid. In this district, the vast majority

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of our revenues come from the local tax levy, which is why we take it take increases to the tax levy with such a level of seriousness. We do receive some state funds. We also receive federal funds as well. And uh but again, small amounts. There are a

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few odd lines here. This is how we have to report these lines and this is how this the government makes us break them up. So you might see something this semi. This is a spe special education med medicaid reimbursement. It's a very small number. It's a very specific program. It's a federal program and uh

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we have to comply with it even and advertise it here even though the numbers seem relatively small for the rest of the budget. We also allocate here our fund balances and our capital reserves, our maintenance reserves uh and prior year incumbrances and transfers from other funds as well. So

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these are sort of internal transfers. Um so the top one, two, three, four lines are really where uh where where we want to start our focus. The tax levy being the most important. back I ref I I referenced before 2010 and prior to 20

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uh and in 2010 uh 20 2010 and 11 uh there was a proposal by the Christy administration to provide property tax relief by giving districts the option to not put their budgets out for a vote but rather to just be able to on their own through

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their own vote raise taxes raise local tax levy by 2%. Prior to that, districts would have to put together a vote proposal. They would campaign that vote proposal and they would ask the community to support the budget or not. Back then, we would have conversations on a regular basis of, "Oh, the budget

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fa did you hear the budget failed? Oh, the budget passed. That means we're going to be able to do X, Y, or Z." If the budget failed, though, it wasn't as simple as just we stay the same. You would have to go to something called the Board of Estimates, which is usually the municipal government. and the municipal government as a independent body would

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have to reach out and say to you and say to the school district you're going to have to cut your budget by X amount and that could be just reducing it or that could actually be cutting it from what it previously was and then the school district would have to comply. I'm simplifying it but that's effectively

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the gist of it. Many districts welcomed the 2% because it meant they wouldn't have to face the possibility of a failed budget in places like Ridgewood. Um, I can't speak for all of history, but we did a look back and prior to 2012 when the 2% cap kicked in, budgets were passing at about 4% per year for the

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four prior years. As of 2012, it was at 2%. And I'll show you a little analysis of the tax levy in a second, but there were a couple of couple of examples of times when it went above 2%, but more often went below 2% or stayed at 2%. And that's largely been uh the district's uh

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the district's trajectory with the tax levy. Um, I know that prior to starting this conversation with the board members, um, there was, uh, a lot of concern about going at all above 2%. Uh, the fact that we're sitting here talking about 3.78% on the tax levy, um, is

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pretty remarkable because this is not not a conversation that anybody welcomed in any way, shape, or form. Um, but we have done we've done everything we can and that's what we want to share with you. You can see we have tuition. We do collect tuition. We people do do send their students here uh from other towns

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and pay a tuition rate to us. We also collect tuitions for our special programs. One of the reasons why I believe it's important to have really robust in district special programs is that when they are very good, not only do you serve your students well, but you sometimes can accommodate students from other districts also. And that's a real

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blessing because if they're here, it's because they weren't thriving where they were. And then we have an opportunity to help those kids thrive. And we help get to help our budget. So often these tuition students who come in and are part of our programs, they significantly help offset the cost of our professionals and it really helps the co the the really gives us the benefit of

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having the program in a more cost neutral way without all the expense. So we do collect a pretty significant amount of tuition. Part of our strategy, which I'll talk about in a little bit, is we've had a lot of success with our pre-K special integrated program, which involves placing special needs students

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in a general education environment. And we do accept tuition for students who want to be part of that program. We accept tuition from some special needs students in other districts. The districts pay us for their students to attend here, but we also have our general education prek uh parents send their kids here. So, we collect a pretty

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significant amount of tuition for that. We're actually way under market value for those positions and we have huge waiting lists. So, one of the one of the challenging recommendations that I have is that we do increase the rates for that prek. Um, for the families that are with us, it's not an insignificant

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amount. Right now, we're budgeting roughly uh we charge about $7,500 per student for prek for the year. Um, we're talking about moving that up to about $10,000. That's a significant increase. Um we're looking at potentially grandfathering in uh with some level of

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break some existing c some of our existing uh students families um and then maybe passing on a little bit more of that to our new new students who are joining the program. But even at $10,000 that's significantly below market rate. So it'll be that'll be a hard increase

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for folks who aren't expecting it. Um but again it still is a it still appears to be a very good rate and especially considering the wait list we have that seems like the right thing to do at this time for the sake of the district's finances. Uh under other local sources uh we have our community schools a part of that uh

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function line in there. We also gain interest on our on our reserves. So those two two of them together make up the lion share of that portion. Some of the reason why that went down is because we're collecting less interest because we've been drawing on our reserves. And then we have our state revenues here. And

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>> sorry, can can you please clarify more on this? Why is this going down by $616,000? >> Uh my understanding is that we're we're expecting less interest uh in next year. Mr. Matthews, am I stating that correctly?

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>> Interest income is going to go down by 600,000. Community school is also in there too and I believe we made an adjustment to the expectation on revenue there. >> Yeah, please >> just remember a conversation on the community school is that at one point we

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were collecting rent from the community school and it ended up kind of being washed because it was us paying us. So they took that like a $200,000 >> rents are in there also. That's correct. >> Right. So they took that I think it was $222,000. They took it out. So it looks like a loss even though it's

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>> That's correct. I remember that. >> Did we remove that for ITDC? >> I'm sorry. What you say? >> Did we remove the rent for ITDC also? >> No. IDTC. Uh I don't know. >> We did. We did because we do anticipate and I'll talk about that in a little bit. >> But that's an enterprise fund, right? So

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>> Right. That's a different source anyway. We're getting we're getting technical, but just just for anyone who's listening, you don't don't worry if you're getting lost. We're going to talk about the ITDC in a little bit. Um, but we are talking about um reducing the amount of classrooms that we allocate to ITDC so that we because we have demand.

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We have students who would otherwise have to go out of district if we don't expand Glenn programs. We did offset the ITDC rent that they pay. One of the strategies that we've used to bring some of the ITDC revenues into the general fund is we charge them rent. Even though

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they're even though we we operate them, we operate them on an enterprise basis, which means they have to be a self- sustaining fund. So by charging them rent, it's a way of bringing some of that into the general fund. So even if we are removing that as a revenue item when we are charging rent from our own

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um entity then that should be reflected somewhere and reduce expenses on the other side and it should it should wash it should be a wash right it should not impact it should not be a huge impact on our revenue versus >> it would reduce appropriations for the

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community school for next year I believe that that is reflected Thank you. about that. Um I to answer your question, Sra, perhaps um we could get a breakdown of what that $616

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is composed of. >> Yeah, sure. Um a little bit more specific. Yeah. For um you know, for her detail. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. We also receive revenues from the state in the in two primary forms. We have something called

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categorical aid which comes in the form of different categories which is why they call it that. Some of some of which include transportation and special education. Uh you've probably heard about state allocations. The Cheryl administration announced that they were going to increase uh funding for schools. Uh I' I've been I've been concerned that that

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that that would probably mean uh an increased allocation for schools that demonstrate greater need and as part of uh Governor Cheryl's focus on equitable distributions and it did play out that way. We budgeted for a 5% decrease. We've received a 3% decrease. So uh

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that's within what we expected. So it didn't significantly change our projections. But of course uh it is a loss. It's our second year sustaining a loss in our state funding. Prior to that we had been seeing an increase in state funding. Can >> I ask a question on that too please? >> Um

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is that purely based on assessments and um income taxes paid by our residents or is that also impacted by how much capital reserve we have? That's a really

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interesting question. Um to my knowledge our c I would have to I would want to fact check that before I say that empirically um I do not know the extent to which the our own capital reserve plays into the funding formula. Mr. Matthews are you can you answer that

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empirically? >> I could just say that what I saw I looked at all the uh state aid summaries for the year they had the guard rails were the statements last year at 3% reduction and an increase of 6%. There was some in between, but for the most part, they were sticking with a 3% reduction in state aid and a 6% increase

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on or mainly a lot of the AVID school districts, but it was kind of all over the state, but those are the two main guard rules. 3% reduction, the 6% increase. >> We can just dig into the funding formula is public. It's complicated, but it's public. >> Yeah. And my reason to ask for that is

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um in 2019 or 2020 one of the administrators had had warned at one of the meetings that if you put too much in reserve then the state sees that you have too much in reserve and they can come back come to you and reduce it at

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one of these meetings. I had heard that and u in the news where I was reading this year's cut I read that it was uh related to um the that town or villages uh total assessment and income. So it

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may be combined. So if if that our reserves are impacting that then maybe we should not plan too many reserves for next year otherwise we we'll get more funding cuts next year.

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It's for next year to be to plan that we if that if that makes a difference then we should not plan too much reserve might have been in reference to um during uh the year Christie years >> Christie years. Yes. Uh there was um

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they did look at reserves at that point, but that was when um he was really going and and you know devastating state aid. So you'd lost your state aid. Lots of districts did and and sort of the

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talking point was well you will you have reserves but and you could count on those. So, but that's the only time I ever saw that impact decisions about the formula. The formula itself, as far as I know, has

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nothing to do with our reserves. It was at that point Governor Christie sort of saying, "Well, you'll be okay because you've got reserves." when when all of the state aid was um you know taken away >> and and the other reason I ask is

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because I asked u somebody at Berkeley Heights and they did not lose u the state aid they they don't have any cuts and they are pretty similar district from finance perspective right from >> which which district are you saying >> Berkeley Heights

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>> and they did not lose state aid >> I'll reconfirm the name of the district but it's one of the affluent district that they did not lose. So that's where I'm just worried that if those reserves I think you mentioned or Dr. Fishbine mentioned I don't know who he mentioned that during that that Christy the same

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thing that Christy logic that he did look at our reserves and so we should not have too much reserve so if they do make a different difference then before we finalize our next year's reserve maybe we should pull some money from the reserve and uh not keep it for next year >> right you know interesting because um

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you I'm sure you must have listened to um Governor Cheryl's uh talking and you know her emphasis And some of the things I've been reading have been more pointed towards consolidation, sharing services,

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um working on making changes to uh health benefits, but um really zeroing in on prescription coverage because that's gone up so much. So um you know, her emphasis has been in that realm. So

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it, you know, you can't predict the future. So uh and that was really very dramatic um with Governor Christie, but that was also because of the you know the stock market and the banking um

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debacle and and uh in that recession in 2009. So >> yeah, and actually we can probably pull an answer out of our legal gem if you want to try to use that real quick. We can get an answer on that. U Dr. Fenmaker, Mr. Ross, would you mind just looking that up for us real quick?

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You are a legal gem, but you're not the legal gem. >> Mary did uh a search and it says capital reserves can impact it. So maybe >> Oh, you did. You just searched it now. >> I searched it, but I also did I said, "Does the amount of capital reserves in

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a school district affect state?" And AI said it can. >> I would That's not the formula. >> The wrong prompt. I would just tweak the prompt to say in in New Jersey according to the school funding formula >> uh under the current under the its current draft under under its current

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version um does uh district's reserve amounts or allocations impact its funding from the state >> and and Mr. Matthew, if the capital reserves do effect impact it, then maybe we should see if they are treating our

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unspent money uh which is in reserves right now for uh region orchard HVAC. So we have 13 mill like million or so whatever is committed that we are going to spend. I don't know the exact number. So, but if they are still showing up in the reserve because we have not made

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those payments yet and if it is impacting our funding, then maybe we should appeal that that that it's showing up in the reserve, but it's not there. It should have been pulled last year. >> I I have a note on the capital reserve piece. Um, in our county meetings, I've never heard capital reserve be the

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indicator or factor regarding getting state aid. >> I haven't heard that in years, but >> we're doing we're doing some facteing. It's a it's a sound point because if it does then that changes our calculation about a reserve. >> So it will change for next year or and also this year we should be able to appeal if they use that number.

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>> Yeah. If they use the wrong number we can just say hey this is this money is supposed to be spent. This is not part of the uh reserve. It's this project is running late, right? >> Labor this too much, but there you know there are regulations along around your

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capital reserve and you can only use your capital reserve for capital projects. That's that's in law. Um there are I guess you could do a plead to the county if you needed that money to to

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use it for something else, but it's a hard hard battle to fight. So unlike other reserves like emergency or um maintenance, which you have a little bit more flexibility on, I could see. But it

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this budget uses those reserves, >> right? But if we know for sure going forward we can put more money in emergency and maintenance and other reserve instead of capital when we are parking extra money we can we can consider that.

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>> Yeah. >> I don't see how that would make us >> better. >> So uh if I move on the uh the another factor in the state state revenues is something called extraordinary aid. Extraordinary aid is a way that we apply for additional assistance when we have

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extraordinary costs related to students going to schools outside of the district. As I mentioned before, out of district students, extraordinary aid is based on a formula. We have to supply information. We've learned with our auditor that we've not been doing this application correctly for the last few

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years. our staff that's been responsible for it has have been making a few uh not errors, but they've been using some of the wrong figures and it's been suppressing our ability to to to be properly reimbursed from the state. We actually had our auditor in to train everybody who even touches this

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application so that we have multiple eyes and multiple checks on it so that we can actually get the full amount. We had been budgeting I don't know my list from I believe it was was it $3 million? We had been budget we had been budgeting $3 million. However, we fell short of that in prior

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years. The reason why this is showing why that why that why that $3 million we're still budgeting $3 million, that's why that that that's not impacting this line at all. Uh that's not why it's not impacting the change on this line at all. Uh and we believe that with the changes that we've made that we should

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come closer to that. But to be clear, the state does not always fully fund extraordinary aid. So it is plausible that we might not get all of that. But our auditors are confident that if we do our application correctly based on our current numbers that $3 million is a is an is a good target. Not not overly

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ambitious, not overly cautious. >> That's that's under total state revenues. >> Okay. >> It it shows up in a different place just to be clear for everyone. It comes up as a reimbursement at the end of the year. So we have to budget for it now, but it comes in later in the year.

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We have some reserve accounts here. I mentioned semi before. Fund balance is a kind of a tricky and confusing allocation. Every year uh we take a certain amount of fund balance that is generated at the end of the year and we take whatever's left and we put it into

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our reserves but we also populate some fund balance that you can put forward to a future year. Uh the advantage of doing this is that you have money that stays in your account that if you're ever in an absolute crisis or come up wildly short, it can cover you for that current

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year. However, uh if you ever get to a point where you can't repopulate that amount, you end up with a hole in your budget, which you then have to make cuts to accommodate in a future year. So if that number stays the same or if we intentionally budget it down, it won't

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have a significant impact in our budget. But it's but to be clear, that's that's a that's basically passing one year's balance to the to two years ahead and it's basically two sets of 27 $2.7 million. We've talked a little bit about

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this. I recommend that when we talk when we repopulate, when we when we're evaluating our budget and we're looking at putting money into our reserves, I recommend that we look at scaling that down. Um that's kind of stuck in fund balance limbo and it can't really be used. Uh when we look to populate our

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reserves, if we gradually scale that down, it won't feel like such a big hit and then we can use that money towards our reserves. Capital reserve is where is the account through which we fund our major projects. Maintenance reserve is an account through which we fund maintenance. When we have extra monies

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at the end of the year, we make deposits into these reserve accounts. We've been making pretty healthy deposits in prior years. Uh we'll give further accounting on this in the fu uh in in future budget presentations, but suffice to say that we are continuing the capital line specifically reflects the board's

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commitment to continue to move forward projects uh even in a difficult budget year. So, we'll show you uh on another slide some of the projects we've slated for this year. Maintenance reserve is an is an account that you set aside to to fund the maintenance of your building. Um,

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typically what'll what a school district will do is they'll take some of their surplus at the end of the year. They'll replenish their maintenance reserve account and then they'll continue to draw on that maintenance reserve account. We have been drawing down our maintenance reserve account for a couple years. And that's why I want to point this line out. It's actually a bit of a

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liability because we haven't really been we haven't been building this account. We've been depositing into it and then drawing it right back down. So when we talk about surpluses at the end of the year, we're not really actual those aren't really existing entirely as surplus because if we don't repopulate

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our maintenance reserve, then we're not really funding our maintenance for the following year. So something that we did in this budget is we tried to repopulate some general fund balance into maintenance uh this time around. So we I think we're making a little bit of progress with this budget and having

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about a ballpark of like 900 to a million dollars of general fund populating our maintenance. But the remainder of our maintenance budget including salaries for our staff is coming uh and and and uh and our maintenance team is coming from this maintenance reserve. If we this is

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something that we're eventually going to have to address. If we're continuing to see budget increasing budgetary constraints because uh we will run out of m we have we're running we're effectively draining our maintenance reserve down to zero. We will possibly see a redeposit into maintenance at the

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end of this year with any surplus that we have. Although we expect that year upon year we're going to be seeing less and less surplus especially after this budget which is built so lean. So that's something that is still remains unresolved. And one might ask, well, why would you do that? Well, the answer is

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that the board is really committed to uh not passing this all directly on to the to the taxpayer. And if there's a chance that we can absorb this and kind of recalibrate and become more efficient uh over the course of this year into future years and we didn't pass that on,

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then great. Then we then then we save save that that that that handoff of paying to the taxpayer. We have some money in emergency reserve that can be used for a variety of eent circumstances. In this case, it's being drawn on the basis of this very large health insurance increase. So, we're

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drawing another we drew 500 last year. We're only drawing 250 this year. So, that's a step in the positive direction. Prior year incumbrances reflects that at the end of each year, we have incumbrances uh for certain purchases um that uh where we have to set money aside and then not all of those purchases

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ultimately have to be made. things fall through or things or we we we over we over encumbered funds and then those just fall into the existing year. So we never budget for them but they do they do occur. So the 1.6 million were prior year incumbrances for 2425 which then

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weren't needed and then dep then hit that account. >> So it would never be zero right? the prior year uh increumbances would never be zero >> would be extremely unlikely. Yes. So

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because this column anything that we have in negative for this column is impacting anything that we have in negative um on this column in the change is impacting our first row or the total tax levy

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because we are trying to get to this 1.3% or 1719 623. So if we are considering 1.6 million uh as zero here and if we are considering 616 from local sources as as negative just these two if we

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adjust it we can go back to 2%. So what would be a real realistic number instead of this 1.6 as negative. >> So I think what that really is a question of is how tightly do we want to budget I'm sorry Mr. Matthew you want to

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answer? Yeah, that that has no impact on the 2627 budget. The comers are from the 2425 budget think that rolled over to 2526 that we had that were that were not service were not rendered or they were rendered but not paid at a certain time.

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So the zero is we haven't got into the year yet to have any incumbences that are going to be rolled over into the the following year. So that 2526 number is what was rolled over from the prior year into the current year. I get that part. The way we are calculating the row one

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is we have this prior page where we have all of our appropriations or expenses that are change is 1719 623 right and then we have in on this slide we are trying to match our revenues to

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1719623. So we are trying to match these two numbers and the tax levy for 3.78% is based on these two negative numbers and if these two negative numbers are not correct any reduction here to a

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positive should change the first line also >> the problem I have with that is that you're rely that I I feel uncomfortable relying that on as a revenue because they're going to be onetime funds one over a year now maybe they might show up every year but they're going to but that's effectively then creating a

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revenue target that we have to land by not spending money that we've encumbered. >> So maybe we can take three years average because if we cannot be comparing we cannot be comparing last year's with a zero. If we don't want to take this year then we we should not take last year's

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or we take three years average or five years average or something. We can't take that as zero. >> Can I jump in one more time? That number is from 2425. That's that has no that's not any budget impact at 1,632. This was the 2425 audit.

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>> If it has no budget impact, then this column, the way this column is calculated, 3.78% is wrong. Then this row, this row should not be considered for any calculation. >> Your promise probably should not be the rest of it,

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>> right? So if if that row is removed, then we don't need 4.05 million, right? I mean, it it it all represents the money in our accounts, but it's it's it's equivalent to um you having you

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writing a check to someone who never cashes it and then at some point you just cancel the check and then the money just comes back to your account. It's not an actual revenue source. It's not like it's not money that we regularly earn or can rely on. It's just the times that we set money

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out to be paid out and then it doesn't actually come to fruition. I think your argument is if that happens every year, well then why don't we budget for it and then and then it'll be sort of like fund balance, but it'll just keep cycling around year to year. We're just we're just accounting for and taking it in. I would say that you can do that, but I

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think that's more of a budgeting trick. Uh and and it would only really work once because then we'd be on a cycle where every year we'd have to continually rely on un cash on unpaid incumbrances to fund the next year's budget. Insurance

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Did we use that in prior years? Also, >> I've never I've never budgeted to get fire prior year incumbrances back in best practices. There aren't very many of them. >> It's money already accounted for. It's already been spent already accounted for. >> I think the confusion by budget >> I think the confusion if I go back to

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the actual revenue spreadsheet is uh the budget it was actually zero last year. So, if we're going to use the same logic we've been using, it should be a zero to zero compare. >> Yeah. I think this I think this needs to be adjusted. This is my guess. I think this should be zero to compare budgeted

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to budgeted. I think that's answers what you're looking for. >> It's a 24 25 no, >> right? My >> I think they're using what actual adjusted >> but but that comparison that 3.78% change is from

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>> actual to original, right? So it's just a reverse calculation here to get back to 1.719. So, I'm questioning if that number is not real, then do we really need that 3.7 in there? >> No, I think I think yeah, I I see what you're saying, but I think this needs to

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be budgeted and that needs to be zero. That's just my guess. >> Let's consult with our auditors on this because as Mr. Matthew pointed out, Mr. Matthews pointed out, this is a figure that we get once the accounts have been fully audited. >> It's a 2425 number. Probably should not even be there. It says prior year, which

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prior to 25.6. It's not >> But but but to Mr. Donniey's point, it shows that it's part of this part of the totaling of the categories here. So, so I I think I think the bottom line is is whether it's here, whether it's not here, it's on our actual budget documents because it is a line that has

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to be tracked. But the idea of saying that we're going to save some money this year by budgeting against the fact that we're anticipating having more of it next year then creates a hole that we have to do. We have to meet every single year. Whereas in this scenario, if it happens to come through that we have a

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lot of end of year prior incumbrances that they just hit our accounts as unspent money in surplus it wasn't budgeted last year according the sheet the revenue sheet that it was also zero last so I think that's what we need to do I think the apples to

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just like we did healthcare budgeted to budget yeah I think budgeted to budget it's neither neither for a revenue or an expense need. It's a 2425. >> Yeah. From from my perspective, if I'm

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just looking at this slide and I have to get to 1719 623 in extra revenue, >> correct? >> Yeah. If I just fix last row and 616 and adjust them, then I can go back to 2%. >> Let's consult our auditors.

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All right. So, we have to circle back to that transfers from other funds refers to uh our ITDC account. Uh that is a separate enterprise account it's called. It has to be self- sustaining. It cannot be part of our operating budget. But we can use those funds to improve the

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facilities or or um or the the plant where that occurs. So, we can use those funds to improve Glenn School. The total cost for for maintaining Glenn School uh budgeted for next year is $112,000. So,

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we're drawing from the uh the the million plus balance that we have from ITDC to fund those repairs, those maintenance elements. And you can see as it's balanced here, the total the we've managed because our

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revenues are limited, we've kept our revenue increase down to 1.3% and we have balanced our appropriations to match that 1.3%. These are the capital projects that we've identified. Um we have uh some retaining walls at Ridge and Willard

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that are failing. Uh we also have a back step that was never actually installed that was a ledge that kids we I learned that kids were jumping off of to during fire drills um because that's a point of egress. So in the meantime um we've

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placed a temporary step there so that it's the students can step down but it's still that's not an appropriate permanent solution. So we're going to resolve that. We're going to identify a couple of bathrooms and some classrooms so that we can chip away at just creating nicer spaces for our students

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uh to be a part of. Uh the GW the G George Washington middle school basement bathroom is probably the most egregious egregiously terrible space in the school district or arguably at least one of them. So, we are going to uh to address that one. Our tennis courts are really

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failing on a structural level. So, we're going to do we're actually going out for a for a bid now. We're going to do a complete renovation. We've been working with the village because we have some sharing of our tennis courts. Um they've expressed some although they're kind of at their max with what they've currently

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budgeted from a capital perspective, they've indicated that they would like to be uh contributo in some way, shape, or form. So, we'll hear more from them shortly. They maintain some other tennis courts offsite or off of our site. And um we're looking at some higher quality

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systems um but we're going to make them alternative bids. So, we're going to plan on a bid for a more basic complete renovation with a traditional asphalt slab, but we may do something like lay an asphalt slab on top of it with a membrane in between for added stability. There are also systems that actually use

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tension cables to almost make it like a bridge over the soil. So, even if the soil shifts, it's it it the courts will continue to last without cracking. When I say it's failing, it's there's there are cracks and dead spots throughout and it's becoming problematic for our team. So, uh, we'll see what those alternative

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bids come back at, but we're certainly not looking to overspend on this project. We've said in previous years also, our our, uh, our gymnatoriums that we have in our elementary schools are not air conditioned, but people spend a lot of time in there. Our back to school nights are in there. Um, it can get very, very hot. In some cases, they can

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get very, very cold. I was at the Travel uh, Travel during a very cold day this year, and it was remarkably cold in that gym. Uh, the system had shut down. We rebooted it and it took a long time to come back up and even when it did, it wasn't really that warm. So, um, it's air conditioning, but it's actually the

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full HBAC for the space. We, uh, we're doing Haw this summer. Is that right, Mr. Matthews? So, Haw is taking place this summer. Travel is the next summer, and every year we're going to knock each one of them out until they're done. >> On that one, do we know what was the bid

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for? What going on right now? Okay. So, it's not out yet. How many days are you planning to advertise it for? Can we can we put it for four weeks? And yeah, because that it's not a new

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request. I've always requested any of these large projects if they are more than a quarter million dollars or like those large projects, we we do it more than the minimum, right? Not just that minimum 10 days and not during holidays.

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And for Orchard Elementary back steps, what's shown in this picture? Is that really a $75,000 project? We're budgeting. Well, first of all, we're we're we're making an effort to not list the our budgeted amounts for all the projects.

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Okay, first of all. Secondly, uh we wanted to we had to budget uh a little bit more cautiously there because Orchard is under that um has the the cap for the historic fill. So we're not sure exactly what the remediation components are going to be for that.

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So we did a couple of analyses here just for the sake of our conversations tonight. First of all, we looked wanted to look at the tax levy trend. Uh I wanted a way to illustrate to the community members and to our board members short board members. >> Sorry Dr. George before you can just can you go back to the previous slide just a quick call out to the public that's

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important. >> Um capital projects are a completely separate fund from our general fund. >> Uh so even if we do even if we were to shave off additional project which we actually have there was a bigger list and this was the the most pressing priorities. So, it was already shaved

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down, but even if we were to shave and save, it's not going to impact the general fund and the other cuts that we're making. I just have to call that out. So, >> I appreciate the average person is not thinking, oh, well, why are you, you know, investing in this XYZ project when

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we have other positions or whatever. So, >> that's a great call out. Thank you for that. And I also should have provided a little more context that in the background of this um we are doing a lot of work our facilities committee which which had been Mr. Donnie and Miss Broen. In prior years, we initiated a lot of conversation and work and

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analysis. This year, Miss McCall's on facilities committee, and we're we're inventorying all of the capital project needs throughout the district. And these projects were identified as some of the most egregious that we need to chip away at. To Mr. uh Mr. Mimmude's point, uh

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this comes from a capital reserve account though. This isn't part of this. This isn't being funded through general fund. So but Mohammad I I understand that it's we are taking money from capital reserve and we'll only spend that much money right but then then it should not show up in the appropriations

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and revenue slides where we are adding to that 3.78% increase because we are showing an expense decrease of $110,000 and we are showing a revenue decrease of $33,000

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in capital reserve. So we are increasing revenue by um $80,000 which is probably not needed. So we can reduce that $4 million by another

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$80,000. >> Where are you talking about the uh >> so if you look at appropriations >> so we are showing appropriations of capital outlay 2.149 in

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202526 budget and we are showing in the 2026 27 is 2.038 that's a reduction of 110,000 um $643. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> And then if we are looking at the next one where we have capital reserves so to

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make the budget we are saying we are withdrawing from capital reserve 33,000 less. >> Yeah. So, so our expense is 110,000 less. We are from revenue we are only bringing 33,000 less. So here there's a difference that we will not have that

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$80,000 expense. So we can probably reduce the revenue here from 44,55,000 or 550,000 that should be reduced by $80,000. >> If I could if I could just jump in real quick. So the capital outlay is 2 million23 right? The capital outlay also

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has like four vehicles for the facilities department. So you're seeing the capital projects but also we have other projects that are in like capital outlay for our fleet we replace like for for vehicles and facilities. >> Right. So to your point if we are just

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looking at the capital projects those capital projects should not be in either of those slides when we are trying to make that topline number. But keep in mind the uh not exactly because the slides the two slides we're looking at are the the in and the out for the

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general funds. So from that perspective it is relevant but yes to like you're saying the the capital is a part of a different but theoretically we could also stop funding capital but that that creates a bigger problem for us down the line. >> No if if we should just keep that same

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like for calculating the difference of tax levy. Yeah. But we are trying to >> but to be just to be clear those numbers aren't impacting the tax levy. So this the number down here this one one this is not what's driving the tax levy. This just shows the balance between the two

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and our overall operating costs. What what what drives the tax li and and to Mr. Mammud's point and to your point as well, if we were to take capital outlay out, let's say we zeroed this. We're not going to spend anything on capital, then we'd zero the corresponding appropriations on the other side and

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they would and this number would change, but the the but the the rest of the numbers that balance the rest of the budget wouldn't change because we are not using the tax levy to fund our capital projects. And on that grounds number uh isn't all the grounds still

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outsourced to Manel or do we have employees for grounds of >> the we have one employee for grounds but we are we are primarily outsourcing to Manel. Correct. >> So if we have one employee why are we budgeting four trucks? >> Because we we own the equip well I'll

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let you speak for it. We we have trades that have to carry equipment to do. We have plumbers, we have electricians, we have general maintenance guys, and they use our trucks that we currently have right now, but their their use for life is it's expired. So, this was an analysis that I thought

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would be helpful to just provide a little context. It does not tell the whole story, but what it does show is some of the history of this board of education's commitment to keeping tax levies under control when I don't know if I explained this fully, but when

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outstanding costs uh arise and usually it's transportation or it's um or it's in healthcare adjustments or healthcare increases, the state allows boards of education to go above the 2% cap that they're otherwise allocated for.

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This board has in me over many years had the ability to exceed the 2% cap. They have chosen not to. They've worked within the 2% cap and this shows that. You can see here following the pandemic, everyone knows that with the stimulus monies that were introduced at the

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federal level, they it triggered a dramatic increase in inflation and in cost. So CPI is a consumer price index. It's one measure. It's not the only measure, but it's a measure of relative costs in a society. So if CPI goes up,

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it's more or less what we call inflation going up. Meaning the value of the value of the dollar is going down because the cost of basic products are all increasing. Even in this inflationary environment where all the costs we all experience including a school district have been going up, the board has been

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staying under inflation uh in these last years. this does this inflation does not necessarily account certainly doesn't account for the disproportionate impact that we've had in health insurance costs. So in addition to these inflationary adjust inflationary uh

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disinflationary disparity, we've also been absorbing those health benefits costs. So, the current budget, I'm going to get into I wanted to put this number out there to be clear about what we're talking about and then I want to talk a little bit more about the details of our cost-saving strategies and what we're

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trying to accomplish, what our concerns are, and what the impacted groups are. But by staying at 3.78%, that increases the schools portion of the tax levy by 3.78%. So that that includes our 2% standard

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increase plus 1.78% of our allowable health benefits adjustment. The board has the ability it the board also has bank banked cap which is a whole other topic which we're not proposing using right now. But the board has in this health benefits adjustment 2.8% a 2.8% increase

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available above the 2%. So just using the current year health benefits improve uh waiver the board has the ability to rate to to to through a vote of their own raise the tax levy by 4.8%. We're proposing here 3.78%.

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On an average assessed home of $715,000 uh that number might seem low for Rididgewood, but it's based on tax assessment, not recent sales. Um, the estimated yearly impact is just under a couple cents under $500, which is not insignificant. On a monthly basis, that

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represents about $41.65. Um, we've had some conversations around how to communicate this because the village has their own increase. Believe the village recently advertised that they were going to increase their levy, their portion of the levy by 3.98%. To be clear, that doesn't mean that it's

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3.98% plus 378%. Not like it's going to be a 4% increase across the board, but it is going to be somewhere between a 3.78 to 3.9% 98% increase across the totality of the tax study. So that is truly like almost a 4%

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increase on people's taxes. Um, and so that translates to the average home for the average home to about $500 just on the board's portion. So there would be an additional uh there'd be an additional increase to a a home uh on

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the municipal tax which is a smaller number. I don't I can't confirm that exact amount right now but the board's portion would be $500 a year which again is not insignificant. So in that context of understanding how

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this how these uh tax levy increases impact our taxpayers uh and is very real dollars that they have to then pay and don't have a choice not to pay. Um we want to share kind of what our efforts have been here. So first of all our effort has been to just bring that

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number down 3.78 to as low as possible without while protecting the student experience um and maintain our quality of service. So, all of our programs and extracurricular programs uh will be will be will be intact. Well, will be intact.

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I will say I, you know, I'm realizing now as I'm stating this, I'm going to call it out now because I think we probably want to modify that. We do have a lot of extra a lot of extracurricular clubs at the high school that have very very very small enrollments. Talked about this with Mr. Mr. uh um Mr. Nyas.

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Um, and probably we probably need to consolidate some of them just because we're paying pretty good stipens for every one of those advisors. Um, so there may be some extracurricular offerings that that that are reduced somewhat. Um, but that's not the intent. That's not a that's not it's not the

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intention of this budget. All courses and languages offered intact. We're not reducing languages. We're not we're not cutting courses. Uh, we are going to continue to expand our special program offerings at the pre-K level. and we have science and literacy programs that we are continuing to move forward.

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So here is the main where I imagine a lot of the discussion will take place tonight. These are the main strategies by which we are trying to really control our costs. Um and there's a couple big big picture strategies here. I've uh I' we've talked a lot about healthcare

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benefits, but I probably glossed over the fact that over in the middle of this year, you know, as I said, the our health insurance rates carry the calendar year. So, they go from January to December. We were told when we were in the state plan to budget for a wild increase, my words, not the state's

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words, but a but but a large increase for the coming year. We budgeted 10% last year for the current year that we're in. And then we were being told to expect increases to the effect of 36%. Now the uh we're doing a we're doing a

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retroactive analysis to see where this exactly would have hit us, but that number seems seemed really astronomical. We moved quickly to see if we could get a competitive bid for another company outside of the state plan. We were able to to see um to see reduced premiums by

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going to a private plan through Etna. So we what we went from what was we feared was going to be in the ballpark of 36% increase to something in the range of 22 to 26% increases across plans. This was not an easy task. Uh our entire staff

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had who who are who take health benefits from the district had to change. Um we had uh our friends from the uh from the REA leadership RAA leadership some of whom are with us here in the audience today who were amazing partners in trying to navigate this. the business office uh moved very quickly to get it

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to bring a new broker in to work with board to work with the administration to evaluate whether this was the right move for us. We did make that move that's already complete. We've already realized that s those savings and thank goodness because we're still in a very difficult financial position. So that's already been done. Uh and we'll continue to see

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if there's other options moving forward. We don't want to keep changing our our employees our our you know our staff members and faculty members plans but we do have to make sure that we stay competitive uh and if nothing else to leverage better rates with the current provider. I've mentioned zerobased

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budgeting that this has been a zerobased process. Every single allocation is based on some evidentiary basis uh and very specific requests. Um, I mentioned Glenn School. One of the strategies that we're talking well, it's something that we need to do is expand

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our programs at Glenn School because we have emerging students whom we don't have the classrooms for. We're out of space for our special needs students at the pre-K level. We would have to pay other districts significant amount significant amounts of money per child, including transportation costs if we

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could not educate them here. So, it really we really cannot We must expand our offerings at the school which means that we are going to have to unfortunately curtail some of the classrooms that we currently give to ITDC. We're not eliminating ITDC but we

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are going to be need to take a few classrooms back and we're currently Dr. Fenwick is working with the ITDC staff and we're going to be communicating with families to try to make sure that this can be a smooth transition. Our goal is to take the older students who are preschool eligible and bring them into the REACH program. So they still have

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they have the opportunity to come into pre-K care so they're not left without um but we still have to figure out how we're going to manage the uh the infants, the toddlers and the 2-year-olds. >> So uh the the prek offering that we have

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each program that is not all day, right? That's partial day. It's all day. Can >> you just make sure your microphone's on? They leave a little bit earlier than our

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uh elementary schools, but it is a full day program, >> right? Compared to ITDC, >> the infant um ITDC runs um full day and then has before care and after care.

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>> So my understanding was their hours are very long compared to our leash program. >> They are long because Most families would use the before care infant toddler time and then after care, >> right? So, and for the pricing

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perspective, ITDC was much more expensive. So, um if we are reconsidering price look at pricing. Sorry, thank you. We should look probably look at pricing for both uh the ITDC to reach transition

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and to retain existing reach uh including their prek after preare after care. What would be their total pricing for the whole day? >> Yes, we would be looking at the infant toddler daycare program. It's program for families including the beforeare and

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afterare what it costs us for Glen Reach. uh what it costs with the increase for prek tuition um and really what is the current amount that we're uh receiving from infant toddler versus the

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proposed uh increase at Glenn School with the outofd district savings from cost avoidance of going out of district for the tuition and the transportation >> and will the classroom that will be impacted Friday this will be at the

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lowest age level or um at what age level? >> That's the part that we're evaluating right now. >> You know, the the argument for for reducing new infants is that then we don't have to we can keep we can

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Yeah. We don't have to put people out on the street who are used to being with us and then the infant the the new infant intakes would have to find another place. The other rationale is that for some of our staff who might use our facilities, infant care is particularly hard to get and that could be a benefit to them. So we're weighing those

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competing needs right now, >> right? But it would be very difficult for for children to move from change school like >> so we would be offering those families that are currently an infant todd uh toddler at that three and four year old

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age. we would be welcoming them in under the preschool program. >> And also for our reach program, I think we have a preference in our um updated bylaws to give preference to staff and uh Rididgewood residents. >> Correct.

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>> But that is not very strictly adhered for by ITDC. >> So when we migrate students from that program to reach, we should still give priority to recruit residents. Excuse me. Can you hear me?

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>> Yes. Will the REACH program offer preare and after care to students transitioning from ITDC to the reach program? We have students that are in both

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infant, toddler, and uh in the programs at Glenn School under the under our preschool programming that do use before care and after care. So that would continue. >> Thank you. >> Sorry, I just have to jot a note down.

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Thank you. We included to uh moving on. Um next we have increased prek tuition fee. I referenced that before. Right now it seems that we'll still be under market value at a average increase of $10,000 for for tuition for uh students

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in our prek program. So, this does include an estimated increase of $10,000 per student um for the budget for revenue purposes. The next item on here says uh boost before and afterare revenue. Uh the we

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currently work with a provider uh known as Alphabest uh to provide our before and afterare. The district has worked with various organizations to provide that service for us. The business office recently pro uh suggested a model

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whereby we could run our own before and after care. While I very much uh love the entrepreneurial nature of that, they have some projections that are based on real real numbers and real enrollments and real costs that see would seem to indicate that we could earn pretty

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significant revenues. There are some complications as we're working through the the details here regarding um some of the complications of of having dramatically increasing the number of district employees. Right now, because we work at the company, the folks who

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run the company, they really run it as an independent agency. So, we have some responsibility for them providing their service. Obviously, we have to ensure that they're following all New Jersey laws and that they're doing right by our kids and that we're coordinating well with them. So it's not as though it's completely separate enterprise but from

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a assumption of responsibility for hiring for recruiting for supervising that is all done by a separate a separate party. Uh if we were to take this over then all of the people working there would be ITDC employees. All the students while they were with them would

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be staying would be there fully in our our capacity as students. So uh there would be an there would definitely be an increased amount of overhead in terms of responsibility for those programs, training, recruitment, retention, supervision. We've built that into the

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perspective model. Um but really the main driver of this model is the idea that we believe that the pre the providers that we've been working with have been turning a real hefty profit that hasn't necessarily been passed on to the families or the district. So, uh,

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right now, um, in order to balance the concerns that I have for taking on additional exposure, liability, and, uh, responsibility for the district, but to balance that with the the need for increased revenues. Uh what I'm recommending right now is that we

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allocate a much more robust expectation for our profit, but not so much that we're have this we're banking on this moonshot plan to take this over and that it's all going to go well and there's not going to be hidden costs that we don't anticipate. And then what I'd like to do is go out for uh requests for

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proposals and rece uh seek proposals from before and afterare providers, but make very explicit in our pitch that we are looking for excellent supervision, excellent care and and responsiveness and customer service and great rates for

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our families and a really respectable profit share for the district. And right now we're we're our analysis would seem to indicate that we could do a lot better with our before and afterare providers. >> Excuse me, Dr. Schwarz. >> Yes. >> Did you I think you said, please correct

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me if I'm wrong. You referred to ITDC just now. Are you proposing that if we did, and that doesn't look feasible, that ITDC would be taking over the elementary school

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before and afterare or do is that a misspoken? >> I apologize, Miss Handy. It sounds like I misspoke. I apologize. >> Okay. Okay. >> TDC, I'm referring to before and after care. So, when I said our providers that we're relying on for before and after care. >> Okay. So, so, so I would like to make

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very explicit in our call for proposals our expectation for a specific revenue sharing range that we would get. If we don't get that range, then we could then I would suggest that we reconsider building our own programs so that we can

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realize those profits more. But um but based on based on some intelligence we've gathered and some work that we've done I think that we probably can create a little leverage to get a much better ex return without having to take on the full weight and responsibility of running that program.

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>> So Dr. Sure. That reminds me when we talked about awarding uh before and after care contract last year I asked is the current vendor paying us the revenue share that they had promised. Um

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I don't think I received a response on that. And are they are they teaching based on the curriculum that they had put in the RFP? Those are two great questions. I'm going

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to start with the the the point of the RFP. Yeah. No, I'm gonna Mr. Matthews is going to comment on revenue. I'm going to comment on the programming. >> So, I do remember that uh and I because one of the first things that happened when I came and started in the district was I was handed this uh this RFP and there was some concerns around how it

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was evaluated and how it was implemented. And then even after it was implemented, there were concerns that there were promises made by the vendor and that they weren't necessarily followed through on particularly with respect to curriculum and programming. At the time, if you remember, I had uh we had um uh Mr. Richard Freriedman was working with us and we put him

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responsible for as he was doing a curriculum role to vet what they were doing. And basically what we found over these couple years is that they're doing some of the things that they said that they would do. But when we started to press, we realized that we don't necessarily want them to do all the

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things that they said that they were going to do. Meaning that the kids are already spending a full day in school and spending a lot of the things that they were promising like computer coding and uh like these technical things involves kids on screens even more. So, I think part of what we should do going

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into this process, because there's no point in pressing for something we don't want them to do. I mean, after kids have been in school all day, if they're in a circumstance where their parents have to work and they can't go home yet, I'd like for them at least to be able to be a kid, blow off some steam, be outside, play, do some homework, probably get

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that done. Um, so they need, like I said, they need good supervision. They need good support. I don't think that we should when we make this proposal I don't think that we should place a heavy emphasis on all this super high level enrichment. I I think the emphasis should be really high quality

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supervision. I think good homework support, academic support for students who want to study. Um and then otherwise like giving kids an opportunity to like to be kids and go outside and play. Um, I think and or and if they're stuck inside, promote things like board games and playing cards and things like that

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that are that are analog and and and and and a break from the the that are fun and and and and and more of what they would be doing if they were home anyway. So, I I and I I hope that that would help us to kind of see through some of

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these really fancy pitches that some of the companies do and to be like, listen, we're not really that's not really what we care about. like we we care about the kids being taken care of and we just and and and we want we want the pricing to be fair for everybody and we want you know and we want to and this is a pretty

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low low tech kind of experience. >> So that way the evaluation will be more objective not subjective. >> Yeah. Very much so. Yep. And then um and and I want to we'll put together a very concrete rubric that reflects what we're

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interested in there. Mr. Matthews, we talked about that revenue. Do you want to just give an update on on how we were doing with revenue with with AC alphabets but they also were supposed to pay part of the profits as per the original contract if I

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remember correct there was a minimum and then part of some >> additional share something >> revenue share. So unless we go back and check how many enrollments do they have and what's the revenue for almost three years now check on a revenue share piece.

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>> We'll check that and bring bring that back to you. >> Are all of these increased local share of revenue considered in that decrease of $600,000? >> I'm sorry. Say that one more time. So we we are anticipating a decrease in local

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share by $660,000 in the revenue on the revenue side. >> I'm sorry. Local share of what? >> Local share. Local revenue. Revenue from local sourc. >> You mean from other sources? >> Yeah. Revenue from other local sources.

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>> We are considering there a decrease there $660,000. And here we are planning to increase it in at uh reach at prek at uh that before and after care. So if we are trying to

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increase that so h I would still go back and um look at that number that why is that 616,000 on the next slide. >> Sorry. >> How's that 616 as an negative number? See? >> Yeah.

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>> Yeah. So, the >> Glen School is definitely tuition. Mr. Matthews, do we have We'll We'll We'll confirm, M. Do we do we have the uh projection for before and after care as a tuition line? >> I believe that we do. I just

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Hold on. I think I have typically local goes with the um tax levy. you combined tax with local the numbers are not not a negative local >> it's it's

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the local the tuition you're expecting increase of 600,000 so probably that's where that tution is okay thank you not agreed that we'll get you those specifics on the 616 before >> the numbers are being rolled up to an up

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to it's being pulled out of a bigger number of 111. Typically those numbers are together so we pulled out that other local sources it makes that number smaller makes it makes the u it shows the decrease but typically it's combined with a tax levy number. Okay. Thank you.

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Yeah, we'll get that. We'll we'll we'll name that specifically. So, moving back on to our other uh other strategies. Another strategy that we have in place, the business office has done some work at looking at the way that we contract. We've been using multi-year contracts. Uh we've also have

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found uh so we've been we're going to we're going to reduce the multi-year contracts which overly burden specific school years with costs of things for future years. So we're focusing on paying one year at a time to reduce these balloon payments that show up from time to time. The uh business office has

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also found various vendors who can actually provide us with general savings. For example, um there was a shipping there's a company that actually handles can do shipping. We get passed on significant charges when we buy materials. People really gouge in the shipping. Um, so we found a company that

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can provide general shipping for us for much cheaper than what we've been handed regularly. Mr. Matthews, you want to say anything else about that? Shipping charges on like items like textbooks and supplies can be 18% and it's a company out there that we could use that can cut that number down in

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half on shipping charges. So once we get the order to do like for instance textbooks we give them the PO they take over the whole process from there and shipping charges are are drastically reduced from numbers like 18 to 20% for shipping charges a big textbook orders

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you can pay you know 18 $20,000 on shipping. Thank you. So one of the other items that we're talking about here is uh and this is a significant item. It's kind of hard to it's it's a it's a bigger item than the the vendor contracting one. Probably

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should put a little higher is this idea of consolidating non-essential positions. So, as I said before, um we don't want to just eliminate any job classes, we don't want to just cut any specific programs, but as we've been evaluating uh enrollment trends and class sizes. It does appear that at the

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middle school and the high school um we we have we have more staffing positions than we really than we truly need. Uh we worked with the principles. We've identified um that basically in

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primarily in our core areas um we can uh we can reduce positions uh depending on the area without really impacting our scheduling. Um so we've looked at those. We're looking at um an example of a position which I'll mention here because

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um I think it would be sensitive to folks and I want to bring it up but it doesn't involve a person potentially losing their position is uh we've talked a little bit about um uh the middle school positions at the at the the media specialist at the middle schools. We have both our media specialists retire.

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So to give you an example, one of the one of the conversations that we're having is can we still provide the same level of service from the middle across middle schools by hiring one being that both of them are retiring. Hiring one and having them do, you know, having

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them alternate days between the schools. Obviously, that's not as good as having dedicated middle school uh li media specialists, but >> Excuse me. Are are you sure they both are at the middle schools? Not to correct you, but I thought one

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was elementary at Willard and the other at GW, but not BF. >> Oh, I'm sorry. You know, let me let me go back and check my figures real quick on that. Okay. Yeah, I'll go back and check my figures. There was one at Willard, so maybe I'm confused. So, that's that maybe that's a poor example. My apologies.

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But my point is that that we're we're evaluating we're evaluating spaces where we might be having uh we might be having folks who are um we might have we might have vacancies and by possibly sharing responsibilities or by um by consolidating positions and um the

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students wouldn't feel an impact and that we wouldn't have to hire someone back. >> Right. So your example is that if somebody's retiring then instead of filling all of the positions that retire we may share responsibility. >> Yeah. Yeah. Or in the scheduling process just it wouldn't even necessarily be

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felt as sharing because it would might just be felt as a class size class sizes going from something like like in the high teens to the low 20s uh depending on the classes um at this I mean we already have those class sizes at the elementary level secondary level that's generally considered still very

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reasonable. So that's that's that's what we're those are the types of of of uh analyses we're providing. Um, additionally, um, so we because there's so many people impacted by this and even as I'm speaking now, I'm sorry I chose an example that's that's that's

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not an accurate example. Um, but I'm trying to choose one that doesn't involve someone uh, you know, having a position cut from under them. Um, well, we we'll we'll be discussing that further this week and we'll be working with the administration and our goal is to make sure that we have a minimal

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impact on folks. We value all of our staff. Uh we have um and then the last item that we have on here is the removal of some courtesy busing. I already spoke to this quite a bit. I'm sure we're going to have some concerns. We'll talk about it further. We'll notify those families that we think are going to be impacted,

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but for now we've made an adjustment for what we think um we asked them. We've made a conservative adjustment um so that that wouldn't require us to just unilaterally cut courtesy busing. That's what many districts will do. They'll just say no courtesy busing and if you're inside the two and a half two two miles or two and a half miles, that's

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it. You're just done. We want to take a more practical approach and a more humanistic approach. As I said before, um I would like to put that on a ballot though out of respect for those folks. I do think that it's it's going to be a significant disservice. I don't want to gloss over that. If you're one of these families

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who lives like 1.9 miles away from a school and you don't have a good way to get your kids to school and your kids are elementary aged, that can be Yeah. If you have to go through very difficult traffic patterns, um you know, that those are those are real concerns. Um, like I said, we're going to try to avoid the the really extreme ones like with

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the bad traffic, but if someone has a clear like a like a a clean walking route where um it's relatively safe and there is, you know, there's crossing guards um then it's going to be very inconvenient for them and I take that seriously and they're going to be

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inconvenienced. So, uh so I do think it is fair only fair to them to put it up for a vote. Additionally, we didn't talk about it here. They really this was never a real part of the of the budget this year because And I I think I've been pretty clear that I couldn't see this being part of the budget because it's a large number. But um there have

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been a lot of folks in the community who are really interested in us having elementary school resource officers. We've had a lot of discussions at the board level. We've had I've heard from many folks in the community on this issue. Um I do think that it's something that is something that should be a community choice. If if it were to pass,

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then we'd be a we'd raise the tax levy, but that would be conditional for that purpose and it wouldn't impact our numbers here in these conversations. talked about having uh us an independent security audit. We've heard from our local uh from from our local law enforcement, particularly our police

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department, our police chief. Uh his his endorsement of having school resource officers at the elementary level as a as a as a positive security measure. So, I'm saying stating in this process that uh that we're taking the steps to complete that audit process and uh and

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potentially put up uh on the ballot uh the decision to increase the tax levy to fund elementary SR school resource officers. Um I'm saying SRO's here. I apologize. I should be clear. Talking about class three law enforcement officers. These are retired police officers who are interested in serving a

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school. And just on a quick note about that, we have three already. We have them at the secondary level. Um, we they're great officers. They their job is really to build relationships with kids. They don't police schools. They don't discipline the kids. They provide security expertise. They build relationships with the staff, with the

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kids, and they really help significantly to um to be a conduit uh for concerns when things go sideways. Um I I've always found it amazing the officers that I've worked with in my schools when I was principal and when I was a teacher and and even as a superintendent the

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extent to which uh when when when officers who are experienced know how to build relationship with kids how kids will just come to them with concerns and they become like kind of a first line of reporting when something is wrong. If somebody brings something to school they shouldn't or if there's rumors going around. They're not the ones who deal with them. their responsibility is to

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pass them on to the school administration because they are not school administrators and they they follow a different level of requirement in their procedure than schools do. >> Sure. What what is the timing for this ballot question? >> Uh well, we would put I would put it on

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the I I would aim to put it on the November ballot. >> So if it's on November ballot, then what happens to busing for September, October, November? >> That's what Thank you for asking. And I want to be clear, my understanding is that we cannot put an existing service on a ballot. I could I we're we're going

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to meet with bond counsel and confirm all this, but my understanding from reading reading the um uh the law and the regulations, we're not allowed to put essential and I'm interpreting the language as existing services on a ballot. So, it would have to be something we would remove and then we'd

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have to put it on. We cannot put essential services on either. If we wanted to put on um let's say for example we wanted to put on our rep program which is like a gifted talent program we have to have that program. So we would not be allowed to put that on for the ballot because we can't ask for

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a conditional vote to fund something that we have to do. >> Okay. And also you mentioned there are some routes that may not be safe where we will consider providing busing. So if there are routes that are not safe, isn't it shouldn't we be billing back to

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the village for those routes? >> You you're saying if if there is uh less than 2 miles and if it is not safe to walk or if there is no sidewalk there and that's why we are providing busing for those routes if they are less than

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two miles and they are not safe. Um, >> so I so I have to be careful with the words safe and things like sidewalks because right >> there's an official definition of a hazardous route, right? And >> and one would argue that there's there's

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no safe way to walk to school and that if you have to cross streets depending on the age of a kid, there's like safety is kind of a general term. I think that we're talking about things like if a child has no really meaningful practical way to walk from one point to another then then that would be this place where

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we would acknowledge that that's an unreasonable expectation that they would actually be able to walk themselves there. >> Like an example would be kids that are coming to Willard and from Hoka side and they have to cross the railway railway tracks. So railway track there's no

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crossing guard there because there's a bus service. >> Yeah. So um either the the cross and that safely safety part of safe route part is village responsibility right not soul responsibility. So if a route does not

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exist back also um I she said to stay away from the mic. No let me try staying away from the mic. So um also for how we we are looking at two

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mile from the school. So do we have crossing guards for 2 miles from the school or are the crossing guards only available within a few hundred feet? There's not one clear criteria for crossing guards and there we do share

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responsibility with the village. The village does have respons they do employ the crossing guards. We work in collaboration to figure out where where we should have crossing guards. Um, so, so there is a level of discretion on their part to determine whether they should have a crossing guard in a place

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with our input. So, if that's what you're referring to, I would intend to work closely with a police department to figure out what the implication would be of changing this for them. >> Yeah, especially for elementary school students. So if if we are taking away busing for elementary school students

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that are less than two miles then for that less than two miles route there should be a crossing guard on every crossing high school maybe that the students are smart enough or they should be smart enough but they may be distracted with phones but they they should not be but

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elementary school I think it's our responsibility to make sure either we are providing them bus or there is a crossing guard if if we are making them walk then there should be a crossing I like that sentiment. I can't commit to that as a standard, but that's what we're going to evaluate. And

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>> and I'm asking what about the law? What would what is the law? Like what what's the definition? What would be the criteria? >> Just like busing, we are taking a hard stance of two miles radius for busing. What's the hard criteria for crossing guard? Is it half a mile? Is it quarter

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mile? the the so the law is is very is very simplistic. It basically says and we'll just back check all this for me, but if I recall correctly, it's it's uh if it's under 40 miles an hour, it's considered not hazardous. If it's over

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40 miles an hour, then there must be a sidewalk. That is very obviously overly simplistic. So that's why districts end up trying to do interpretation. They either try to say just none. We're not even we don't want to get involved. We don't even want to hear about your route

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because we don't have to provide it or they get very or they get involved like we're proposing where we actually evaluate some of the intersections. >> That's for the busing. But what about crossing guards >> there? I don't know of a standard for crossing guards. I'd have to consult with the village on it.

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>> But I think it's impractical to have a crossing guards for two miles within all the schools. It's an incredible number, >> right? But right now we have we probably have curtsy busing for them and if we take out that currency busing or any route where we are taking out the curtsy

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busing, there must have been some reason to provide that. But maybe they are crossing that rail line or >> we we definitely do not provide busing. We definitely don't provide a crossing guard at every intersection for kids who have to walk because one of the challenges that we're dealing with and I

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saw it myself is kids trying to walk to school like when there's snow banks like crazy. I've watched crossing crossing intersections um where we do not have crossing guards and we don't have them assigned. So I know that we don't but I don't know if there is some sort of standard that the village is using and

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if we were to broadly apply that standard if that would change some of these places. But it's an important conversation >> just just to explore like what was the original rationale for that busing and if we are taking away that busing then do we need to provide some sort of safety. >> Appreciate that

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>> Dr. Schwarz I just um I just on the elementary SRO's um I would just want to include Glenn and I know you do. So it's it's seven rather than six. and you don't have the number, but um I just

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want to make sure that in other conversations that Glenn is part of that. >> Thank you. That that they are included. And something that we also have to figure out as well is that when I was this this is I was discussing this with the chief because he's recommending that

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we that we do this. We also have to figure out how they are going to budget for the increased costs. So right now we pay for their we pay what is their salary which is in the mid60s or low low to mid60s thousand dollars a year but

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their training their equipment their vehicle all that's provided by the village which is a comparable contribution. So it would not be insignificant if we all of a sudden brought in seven additional retired officers to be active duty class three special officers for the schools through

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the through the department. George, I have two questions on that. U so first question is just process-wise. So >> I assume this is not coupled like deciding on the ballot question from a board perspective will come at a later

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point. It's not part of the budget vote. Correct. >> Correct. Yeah. I would have to bring you this as a separate resolution on another date. Um, and then the second question is I would really strongly request that we can have some sort of audit done by that time for that vote. Uh, because I I

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worry that we are not doing we're not we won't be doing our due diligence and misleading the public a little bit. I mean, I think if you put it out for a vote, yes, I think a lot of people obviously want to see safety. I have a a son in Travel Elementary School, so I'm at that vote. But at the same time, I do

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scratch my head and wonder, you know, are there doors being left open? Do we have cameras watching doors? Are there sensors that kick in and give the office a notification if there's, you know, a door left open at the high school, for example? like are there other little areas as well that we need to be looking

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at not just SRO's >> and and god forbid you could have an SRO at one side of the school something's happening on the other side but if you lacked some of those basic >> security protocols in place then what good has it done you know >> yeah I appreciate that and actually that highlights that we did we we are we are

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placing um we are placing in u door alarms timed door alarms for that that purpose because you're right. I mean that the first thing any law enforcement officer is going to tell you is that the number one thing you should have is door security. So we are making progress in that way also. But that's

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point well made. >> And also Dr. >> We are looking at the Sorry, Mary. Go ahead Mary. >> Oh okay. Okay. Thank you. I was wondering these are um salaried positions

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right? So these are going to be we year afteryear costs. So is busing I suspect. How I mean that is something we can do in a ballot question rather than a oneandone like a building construction

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or something like that. So these ballot questions would say every year forever or whatever do I don't know if you have to put an end time. You would say we will fund with an increasing amount for cost of living blah blah blah. Is that

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how that would be worded? >> Will be like um the u prek or full day kindergarten question, right? When we had the full day kindergarten question. Yeah. >> So this will be a question like that. >> But but just but that is actually a good point Mary brings up. So let's say that

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we put this >> for a vote and then the total cost of let's say both of these pass as an example. Yeah, total cost for these comes out to like the equivalent of.9% >> additional tax levy. >> Yep. >> So now, how do we get treated with

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regards to the 2% moving forward every year? >> So So again, we're going to we'll confirm all these. I haven't actually I haven't led one of these votes or introduced a vote like this in the past myself. I have many colleagues that have

449
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and we've I've cons considered some of these. I've seen them done for v variety of purposes, but you're you have to be clear with your question that you're conditionally increasing the tax levy and it's in and it's the actual full tax levy itself. So the levy itself grows by

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your 0.9%. >> Moving forward >> moving forward prospectively. And the condition is though that if at whatever point you no longer provide that service, you have to reduce the tax levy back down. So um if you look at the tax levy trend

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chart um there is on 2017 2018 2019 one of those years you only have 97% and then next year is 3.0% or one one year is three like two years is 3.0 and one year it's 0.97%.

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So if you average that out um it's between three years it's three three and one 7% right? So that's so 2226 and then 1% extra. So that was for full day kindergarten and I think at that time

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our business administrator Mr. Aguiler he made uh some recommendation that it was 97 and then 3. So that way the impact was because once you vote in November you can offer that service from next year if if I understand correctly.

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Sheila Sheila may remember what happened because I was not on the board but I was in the audience. He did some some uh >> that was have full day kindergarten, right? >> So when you go on the November election, obviously we couldn't um put full day

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kindergarten into place in January. So we held the money and reduce the tax the following year. And so that in fact we were trying to keep to that 2%. >> Yes. Um so that's very important Dr.

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that if if this is passed in November and if we are not able to provide that service this year then we adjust that in the following year that's what he did in if you look at 2017 2018 because they they did the vote in that year the tax

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levy was increased but service was provided next year so next year they only increase by.9 >> yeah and and that's what I I want to I want to confirm all of these items and be clear with the timelines >> but I just want to make one more point because she'll glue

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Every neighborhood in Ridgewood has a an elementary school except the other side of Route 17. >> Yeah. >> And when their elementary school was taken away, bus service was promised to them. So if

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if we are considering that local area as less than two miles for some of the house parents, that would be a disservice to that community because Glenn building is theoretically their elementary school and we are not

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providing an elementary school to that uh neighborhood and but would not have to um drive basically. I I we that is not something we're considering. The all the the the students who live in the

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Glenn area who go to haw we will not that busing will stay intact. >> Okay. Thank you. >> There are some students on that side who are within who are who attend the high school who have a different for for whom that that

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calculation may be different. That's what we're evaluating. But the elementary students who go to Haw Elementary School, they will they they will have busing no matter what. Thank you. >> And what about BF? >> Evaluating BF and the high school at this time.

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>> Even though we have to remember it's over Route 17 with no sidewalks for extended period of time on this East Saddle River Road. That's always been a very big concern. >> That's one of my primaries of concern.

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Right now, we're going to go and drive and scout all of these roads because I don't want to I mean I picturing them in my head. I've driven them all, but I want to go and look for this exact purpose. And that's what we're going to be doing over the next couple weeks so that we can be clear about what what we're going to continue to offer.

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>> Okay. Thank you, >> Mohamad. Just for clarity, the uh the if you did a second question on SRO's and courtesy, what you're basically doing is you're asking for the tax levy to go up and you're building a base so that the

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following year that money is in that base and then you know whatever increases come you try to meet those. Unlike a a ref a bond referendum for a building project, you're borrowing that money for, you know, 25 or 30 years,

467
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whatever you whatever you design it once, you know, you can see from our our audit how our bond referendums have been paid off and now um our principal is about 28 um million dollars um from all

468
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the bond referendums over the years. So the two different uh ways of financing >> that reminds you what is our total debt and debt service. Usually we we do present debt service in the annual budget. >> Sure. Yeah, we usually do that as part of the final presentation. Um do you

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want to that's a that's that's enumerated. I think that debt schedule is in our audit documents but is that something you can find Mr. Matthews? I think our next round of debt fall next significant round of debt falling off is in the 30s like 2034 or something like

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that. >> Question was do we present do we do we usually present that total debt numbers for the district and debt service during these presentations? Yeah, we don't have that in here right now, but we can put that in for next week. >> Yeah.

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>> Okay. Thank you. So I'm going to u than last year if I um seeing the I think it's on the one of the budget sheets I saw but >> yes are you saying the debt service is

472
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less it's it's yeah can't see I was referring I was referring to the debt schedule when you can see your bonds and how long they go or we're not going to see a major do you remember what year it was like 34 35 or something like that

473
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>> something like that right yeah we're not going to see anything significant relief for another >> eight years or so we are >> thank you to everybody who voted for that yeah >> we are and our debt and our debt ratio is not terrible

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all right a couple I want to say there there are some additional costsaving measures that we're looking into that we again think that done strategically will not really impact the quality of our service. Uh so one is just having some formal class size minimum enrollment standards

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particularly at the secondary level. We already have them at the elementary but uh attempting to really formalize them at the secondary level. Uh additionally um you know we have a real commitment to hiring you know the best possible candidates for the job. Sometimes that

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biases us when we're hiring towards hiring people who are more experienced because if you're just purely objectively looking at just who's the who's the most competent in a specific role at this given time, it's often the person who has more experience, but it's not necess but that person who has more experience isn't necessarily the higher

477
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potential individual. So uh so I I've I think that um there's a strong case to be made for looking for folks who are more novice in their experience but have a high potential because a it's healthy for the organization to bring in people

478
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who are more novice in their careers and then by by the way I don't always mean younger people because a lot of times we have people who cross over from other careers who are still novice but bringing more novice people in and then putting our our existing staff in a position to be those experts and to be those mentors with them And then of

479
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course an added benefit of that is that we hire them lower on the guide and we also have some we save salary over time. Whereas if we're hiring everybody consistently at a higher step uh that that that puts a pretty significant strain on our payroll over time. We've been uh the the board has been

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really diligent about working with the business office to manage our overtime allocations. So that those costs can get pretty significant. So we're going to continue to manage those. We've done a lot of work on energy management and evaluating our our solar panels and deciding what we're going to do as with they're reaching end of end end of

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service. Um we've been looking at our the efficiency of our HBAC systems. Um and of course our control systems. We're also talking about increasing our in-house services. I mentioned that before with professional development really looking to our teachers to build them up as experts so that they can then

482
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train their colleagues, our administrators as well. We've already brought an in-house maintenance team. uh they're doing they're they're becoming increasingly efficacious. Uh we've had some turnover in that team and the team seems to just be getting stronger. We have plumbers, we have HBAC professionals, and as a result of that,

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we're seeing better and quicker turnaround at the schools. I'm hearing that from our from some of our principles as well. And then another thing is just painting. You know, we talk about that the the kind of the the district uh the buildings could use some some some freshening and in some cases, yeah, that means major construction, but

484
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as I walk around the district, there is a pretty remarkable amount of need for painting, simple painting. So, Mr. Matthews and his team, they purchased a sprayer so that we can do rooms very quickly if we have like a larger paint job. And um and we have a summer crew that does painting internally, but um

485
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I'd like to expand that a little bit. There's quite a bit of painting that we could benefit from in the district. And I think a lot of times uh you know when we look at we talk about things looking really dilapidated a lot of that is just um and it's not just painting too like I think about GW and what a beautiful

486
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building that is and how much woodwork we have and just the terrible state that the woodwork is throughout the building. It's actually kind of hurts my soul a little bit to see this incredible craftsmanship that is just getting worn down and not repaired. We have a little bit of that too in our in our space over here. So, we're looking to find folks

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who are uh actually some of our crossing guards have expressed interest. We're looking to bring in more summer workers and seasonal workers who can help us just to just not necessarily do large renovations, but for relatively low cost, just improve the quality uh and the appearance of our schools and take better care of them so that those things

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like the beautiful trim, wood trim we have last longer. I mentioned extracurricular cost controls. We don't want to eliminate programs for kids, but when we have when we have some offerings that have very very low enrollment, um sometimes I it's I don't know if it justifies paying a staff member full stipen for some of

489
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those positions. And then I already mentioned industry training and professional development. I do want to acknowledge some impacted groups. I've mentioned them. I think I've mentioned all of these already, but I do want to be clear that there are some folks who are going to feel uh this budget the budget squeeze here disproportionately.

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So courtesy busing, I'll call out right away. some families who are receiving that service, excuse me. Uh could can be a pretty significant inconvenience if if their service is discontinued for next year. Um I would love to avoid any staff members being impacted as we consolidate

491
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positions, but it's unlikely that we're going to not have any uh individuals who are impacted. Um again, like I said, I think we're going to be dealing with more of our uh newer hires, which doesn't necessarily make anybody feel better. Um but of course obviously we we

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we don't want to see staff members who have been here for many many years uh affected and we don't expect that. Um some ITDC enrolles may lose service. Um that may be new people who've put in a deposit who think they have a spot. That may be people who've been with ITDC

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who won't be able to continue. While depends on how we finally decide to structure that program which we'd like to do very soon so people can get a firm answer. And then um one of the issues is you know that the cost related to literacy we're talking about right now

494
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not um the potential of not moving forward with grade 35 uh ELA pro literacy program until next year so that we can absorb this cost a little more evenly over a couple years. I will say Mr. Ross has been working very hard and diligently especially with Dr. Galante

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to try to figure out ways to get those costs down so that we can still we can still make this happen. So thank you for your efforts. So there's a little glimmer of hope here, but I want to manage expectations that as of right now that's not expected in this budget. >> Is there any impact of that? Um

496
02:29:36.160 --> 02:29:52.479
governor's address talked about um tiered services for curriculum development. >> Yeah, I I don't have any concrete information on that yet. Mr. Ross, have you heard anything about what that sound what that actually looks like in a material way?

497
02:29:52.479 --> 02:30:09.040
>> Straight. No, I don't I don't yet have any information on that. >> I my my impression is that is that she's talking about competitive purchasing at a large scale similar to California and Texas um or a county districts where instead of us all going

498
02:30:09.040 --> 02:30:26.080
peace meal and potentially getting price gouged rather pulling together ask getting a better bargain. But in order for that to work the state department of education would have to identify um First of all, they would have to take

499
02:30:26.080 --> 02:30:40.880
responsibility and make it clear that they were going to make a choice and they were going to impose that on the schools. I would assume that with local control, there would be like an opt-in system. Just knowing New Jersey and what what gets done and what doesn't get done, I would think there'd be some level of optin or opt out to that

500
02:30:40.880 --> 02:30:56.800
process. But, um, for now, uh, it sounds like a talking point. I will say our new commissioner of education who I've heard really nice things about um and I I we share we share a we share a mentor um is

501
02:30:56.800 --> 02:31:12.880
uh is coming from uh broad experiences around the country and is coming from places where they have done things like this. So I would expect to see some interesting creative solutions coming out of the department coming up. We'll we'll see what that looks like

502
02:31:12.880 --> 02:31:28.880
>> if if they have renegotiated uh pricing then district will have an option to go for that. >> Yeah. Like maybe like maybe state contract like have some like like verified approved curriculum resources on a state contract. Plausible. >> Yeah. Should be careful. That was

503
02:31:28.880 --> 02:31:47.840
probably the rationale for like a state health plan. >> Now look where we are. >> Well, I mean again I I I've done some work with the state. I was a part of the when the state wanted to have a they called it the model curriculum project and they wanted to create like this

504
02:31:47.840 --> 02:32:03.760
perfect example of curriculum that any district could just adopt for free in the name of cost savings and I thought we were doing really good work but it was amazing how districts were really averse to adopting a state curriculum. It was pretty remarkable. The administration also changed at the time

505
02:32:03.760 --> 02:32:23.439
so it kind of lost its steam but >> if if the price difference is advertised then probably We'll see. >> All right, let's I think I think we're nearing the end here. So, takeaways and next steps. Um, this budget proposal was

506
02:32:23.439 --> 02:32:38.800
designed to absorb the impact of these crazy increases that we're dealing with from health benefits and decreasing state aid. And it was designed to minimize the impact to the stack taxpayer. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't update the slide. I apologize. I wanted to update that. It says 375 here still. Um it's actually just for for for

507
02:32:38.800 --> 02:32:54.240
conversation sake it's still at 378. This these numbers may change a little bit every time we decide to make a change as we're vetting positions as we're vetting some of these choices. When numbers change we have to go in the state software. We start changing number in the state software. They have all this cross validation things pop out in

508
02:32:54.240 --> 02:33:10.960
a way that we can't control all the fields. So there could be a change here. In this case, the 375 versus 378 was because when we went to the state software to put this all in, we learned that we have a student in a state facility who wasn't on our radar who were responsible for financially. So that's why we suddenly without change

509
02:33:10.960 --> 02:33:28.960
went from 375 to 37. >> Is that 775 number correct as well? >> That change that changed also. I apologize. I changed the rest of it. I didn't change that one. The allowable now it's for the for the sake of this is I have to it's not that high.

510
02:33:29.840 --> 02:33:44.640
So, let's just call that out as something that needs to be made. >> And and when we look at the allowable number, um to me, it's a little bit of financial engineering because we put what's allowable for current year based

511
02:33:44.640 --> 02:34:02.080
on an assumption of what tax um health benefits might increase next year because we don't know what the what it will be from January. Like for for this year, we're assuming 10%. from January to uh next December right so based on that 10% increase in healthcare expense

512
02:34:02.080 --> 02:34:19.280
our number is that's above 2%. what we are allowed to put about in about 2% is the healthcare expense and there we are assuming and that becomes our bank bank cap once the once we submit something to the county superintendent that hey this is what we

513
02:34:19.280 --> 02:34:35.040
are assuming we this is what we are anticipating they approve that it's not too high based on market uh research they approve it and that becomes our bank bank depth but if we if the healthcare doesn't increase to that much

514
02:34:35.040 --> 02:34:50.240
like if we anticipated 17 million And if it stayed at 16 million, we're not reducing that that bank never gains. We are keeping it to what we anticipated. So every year we anticipate a little bit higher than what it actually goes up. >> So the so the allowable number we get of

515
02:34:50.240 --> 02:35:07.439
the state is based on actuals. >> No based on what we anticipated as healthcare increase. So if we are in 2026 right now, right? So in 2024 if we anticipated healthcare will go up up go up by uh 1.5% of our total tax base. So

516
02:35:07.439 --> 02:35:23.600
we can go up to 3.5 but we only increase 2%. So that 1.5 becomes bank cap. But if the healthcare did not go up by 1.5% if it only went up by 75%. That bank cap is still 1.5%.

517
02:35:23.600 --> 02:35:40.960
So we are every year we are banking more by anticipating more healthcare increase. We haven't used we haven't abused it because we have let it expire in the prior years but a lot of the times we were told to use it right that we have this available bank app we must

518
02:35:40.960 --> 02:35:57.200
use it we must use it the board was strong that we did not use it >> but those numbers are not always actual healthare so we are like could be artificially >> well you can manipulate it to Mr. Mr. point. If you go into the software and we were to say like right now we're

519
02:35:57.200 --> 02:36:13.920
budgeting that 10% increase. If we were to budget a 20% increase, we'd get more allowable increase. If we budgeted a 0% increase, we'd get less. We'd be really shooting ourselves in the foot. But we'd be doubly. So, it kind of exaggerates it. If you overdo it, then you're really

520
02:36:13.920 --> 02:36:29.120
overdoing it. If you underdo it, you're really underdoing it. That's why getting that just right is there. I just want to say the reason the number is there is to is to illustrate generally that the board has been given the authority for better or for worse to raise a

521
02:36:29.120 --> 02:36:44.080
significantly amount significantly more than you're currently choosing to raise and I think that just bears noting because on all levels that's impactful you know in any and especially for people who want to look at a number like 375 and and and and feel like that's a

522
02:36:44.080 --> 02:37:00.960
that's a problem and it is it's a lot they're the the circumstances are such that the board is choosing not to go beyond that. So as a as a tribute to the as a signal to the taxpayer of like the the restraint I think that's helpful >> right but I also want to that's why I was also pointing out that if somebody

523
02:37:00.960 --> 02:37:15.439
says that why are you putting question on a ballot and not increase more than 3.75 now because some of that extra increase may be may be artificial right it because it was based on

524
02:37:15.439 --> 02:37:36.000
anticipated tax uh healthcare increases and we may not have that much actual tax healthare So I'm making a note here just again verbally and actually Miss Corless if you want to just go and just zero out that that allowable. We did the we have the number somewhere else and I'm sorry

525
02:37:36.000 --> 02:37:52.000
I just don't have it here. I know it's 4 4.8% allowable for the current year but that number includes bank cap as well. And then if you can change the 375 to 378 that would be helpful. Thank you so much. There we go. That's better.

526
02:37:52.000 --> 02:38:07.359
And then again, while the vast majority of our programs and services will remain unchanged, some groups will be impacted by these austerity measures. As far as next steps are concerned, the board's going to have an executive session on Wednesday tentatively. Uh, and we're going to evaluate budget related personnel changes. I have a

527
02:38:07.359 --> 02:38:22.960
superintendent coffee on Thursday. Welcome everybody to share any additional sentiments with me. We then need to we over the course of this week concurrent with all this we're going to be updating all of our software and all of our figures based on these conversations and then uh so I would say

528
02:38:22.960 --> 02:38:39.439
that if anybody wants to be heard by the board in a way that we can really seriously consider hearing from everybody in the next few days um would be really helpful because come like late Thursday uh come f come late Friday especially it's going to be very we're really not going to be able to do a whole lot because we have to get the

529
02:38:39.439 --> 02:38:54.240
numbers set and the finalized for the board to actually vote. on the following Monday. Now, the board will approve the tentative budget on Monday or well, they'll vote on the tentative budget on Monday and um that's going to set the

530
02:38:54.240 --> 02:39:10.080
tax levy increase. It's very challenging uh from from the state's perspective for us to make any changes after that point. So, I think we need to treat that as a point of no return. Once that's voted on, that's voted on. Um but in terms of

531
02:39:10.080 --> 02:39:27.040
our final decisions and nuances and you know there's there's flexibility through about the final budget hearing which is May 4th. So we can still hear some concerns from folks around individual issues. If there's specific positions or specific bus routes or something we can still we can still listen and we can

532
02:39:27.040 --> 02:39:44.640
still reevaluate. But the reality is that um that once those numbers are struck, we really can't change those numbers and those numbers will be are expected to be struck on Monday the 23rd. And then I think we end with a little message from uh from Rich, Mr. Matthews,

533
02:39:44.640 --> 02:40:07.359
and the the budget team here. any other questions or comments uh that I can respond to from the board members or or and then if not Miss Broen whenever you're ready I think we have a there's room for public comment again I think right

534
02:40:07.359 --> 02:40:25.439
>> we have just a couple of things of business and then we'll we'll have public comment >> um you know I think I think the takeaway though as we look at this budget you know just in in a broader sense is that we we have this hole uh we have this uh

535
02:40:25.439 --> 02:40:43.280
increase in our health benefits, a a slight decrease in our state funding um of $212,000. And we also have less that we're putting in from our um uh reserves and that's

536
02:40:43.280 --> 02:40:59.600
about $599,000, almost 600,000. So when you add all that together, you you begin to see um this is a significant um loss of revenue or deficit that we

537
02:40:59.600 --> 02:41:15.600
have. And then, you know, so if you didn't have those, we would just have our sort of normal um increases, salary increases, um maybe fees for for busing,

538
02:41:15.600 --> 02:41:30.560
um energy costs, all the normal things that we usually can accommodate in in that 2% um without significant cuts to the budget. So that's what we're really

539
02:41:30.560 --> 02:41:47.200
grappling with. And I must say for myself as I've been looking in multiple conversations and really uh looking at this change um all the spreadsheets and everything. It's you know these no

540
02:41:47.200 --> 02:42:05.520
decision is an easy decision. uh no changes are are easy and and so there's a lot that um is difficult but then I I really don't see where you you have

541
02:42:05.520 --> 02:42:21.439
an easy way to um you know if we're talking 2.7 million on our uh increase year to year year this year to next year, which we think

542
02:42:21.439 --> 02:42:38.880
it is. Uh 2.7 million plus another um almost uh 8 a little over 800,000. You know, you're really that's really a big nut to to try to

543
02:42:38.880 --> 02:42:56.840
crack and and to to fill. So, um difficult difficult budget. We've been here before um in years past and I know we'll get through it, but at this point it's nothing is uh nothing's great. Yeah,

544
02:42:58.240 --> 02:43:36.760
>> for your work on this move. So, um, so I I think we've talked about this budget. So, we'll go on and we'll do our routine, um, items. Pull that up.

545
02:43:41.920 --> 02:43:59.040
Okay. So, um you know, um this this meeting was really primarily about the budget, but we do have a um Eli here. Were you planning? You're just here to listen tonight. Okay. I didn't want to

546
02:43:59.040 --> 02:44:14.319
not include you. Okay. So, u you'll have your time uh next week, right? Great. Thank you for that. But I did just didn't want to be rude. Um consent items, regular and routine. Uh administration. Um I move

547
02:44:14.319 --> 02:44:30.000
administration. Uh was someone like to second? >> I'll second. >> Roll call. Unless there are any questions. I don't think there are. Right. Uh roll call. >> Mr. Donnie. >> Yes. >> Miss Handy. >> Yes.

548
02:44:30.000 --> 02:44:46.880
>> Mi. >> Mmood. >> Yes. >> Miss Bro, >> yes. human resources. We only have one um uh resignation for the purpose of retirement. Uh Jennifer Mankey.

549
02:44:46.880 --> 02:45:03.439
Um I move uh human resources. Would I have a second? >> Yes. A second. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Donnie. >> Yes. >> Miss Sandy. >> Yes.

550
02:45:03.439 --> 02:45:18.399
>> Move. Yes, Mr. Broen. >> Yes, >> thank you. Board member announcements. I just want to say thank you to the district's um music staff that I I

551
02:45:18.399 --> 02:45:33.920
didn't go because 550 students and all their parents and everything. I thought, hey, parking might be a problem. That's not anything new in Rididgewood, but I thought it might be bigger than that. but 550 students fifth grade through

552
02:45:33.920 --> 02:45:51.840
high school um and their families um and our staff and it was I I listened to it um and I think it's still on YouTube if you have not already um heard it really fabulous. It was you know when you see

553
02:45:51.840 --> 02:46:09.040
that you see joy and you see the great the great things that happen in this district. just one example. But um really thank you to our um music staff who who if you noticed I mean I saw it on the YouTube but you've got all the

554
02:46:09.040 --> 02:46:23.760
music teachers all doing the same whatever they're doing directing uh conducting. So uh amazing really great um so thank you thank you thank you to our our staff. Yeah.

555
02:46:23.760 --> 02:46:42.640
um discussion items. I want to get to public comment then. Other business. Okay. Then I'm going to open up uh for public comment. Um and um would ask that

556
02:46:42.640 --> 02:46:59.359
you um tell us your name and um the district you live in. Uh the the municipality you live in. Um, and please uh limit your comments. I know this has been a long meeting and we've had a lot

557
02:46:59.359 --> 02:47:14.399
of comments, but uh to four minutes um to summarize what um you are. We'll be um listening to all the comments. If we can provide an answer or clarification, we will tonight. If we can't tonight, we

558
02:47:14.399 --> 02:47:30.000
will get back to you. >> Um good evening. Thank you. Uh my name is Emily Cathart. I'm a Ridgewood resident. Um, can I ask a question about the proposed budget or is this just a time for my comment? >> If you if you want to ask a question, we

559
02:47:30.000 --> 02:47:46.800
will please do. We we as I'm standing sitting sitting here, we won't have a dialogue. Sure. But after all the public comment, if we have any others, we will try to answer your question or we'll get back to you. >> Okay? >> And uh if you have a comment, we're just

560
02:47:46.800 --> 02:48:02.880
listening to your comment. We may have a response to that if there is. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. And I did also just want to thank Dr. Schwarz, the board, Dr. Fenwick, everybody in this room for this effort. Um the community really does appreciate it. Um my question was just about a specific issue

561
02:48:02.880 --> 02:48:18.640
in the budget, which was whether the budget anticipates adding a fourth um teacher to the Ridge Rise program, which is something I spoke about at a board meeting a couple months ago. Um, this is an issue a lot of the Ridge Rise community feels very strongly about as

562
02:48:18.640 --> 02:48:35.279
necessary for our kids and also for the wonderful um, special ed staff at Ridge. There's currently three um, RISE classrooms at Ridge and um, for reasons that I won't get into now. It's already been a long meeting, but I'm more than happy to discuss um, if you are curious.

563
02:48:35.279 --> 02:48:51.680
We we uh, really think a fourth classroom and fourth teacher is necessary. Um, and then just to emphasize, I know the district um, you know, can receive tuition from out of um, uh, out of district placements within Ridgewood, but I think the purpose, well, certainly the purpose of

564
02:48:51.680 --> 02:49:08.240
this first class would not be to expand the RISE program or to take on additional students, but rather to lower the class size. Um, you know, most of these children in the RISE classes, they're there's disabled, mostly autistic classrooms. Um and we really

565
02:49:08.240 --> 02:49:23.680
feel that having a lower class size for these kids and the support staff that provides so much so much assistance for them um that lower class size is really important. So again I just want to voice for myself but also the a lot of others in the Ridge community that we would really support adding a fourth teacher

566
02:49:23.680 --> 02:49:45.439
and fourth classroom to that Ridge program. Um again for the purpose of lowering the class sizes not expanding the program and just thank you to you all again for all your work on this. We appreciate it. Good evening. Um, Mary Ferrari. I'm a

567
02:49:45.439 --> 02:50:02.880
Glenrock resident, but I'm also a very proud elementary principal here in the district. Um, I want to thank everybody here tonight for your tremendous efforts and your very, very hard work in presenting what you've prepared today. As you continue to discuss, I would just

568
02:50:02.880 --> 02:50:18.720
respectfully ask that you consider fully funding the elementary language arts curriculum change. I know now more than ever, every dollar matters. Um, however, as you know, this has been a multi-year

569
02:50:18.720 --> 02:50:33.920
undertaking and a new program would have a tremendous impact on a very significant number of students in our district. So, thank you again for your time and your efforts as you're considering. Please, uh, take note of

570
02:50:33.920 --> 02:50:58.080
that. Thank you. Uh, Laura Graasso, uh, 136 Circle A. Um, I'm also a teacher at GW. Um, but I just again to their sentiments, thank you very much for all the work you've done. Uh, Dr. and to all the administrators who also

571
02:50:58.080 --> 02:51:13.760
have, you know, had to put a lot of work into this. So, thank you all. Um, no cut is good. No, no change in programming is good. Um, we collectively, the REA and the RAA want to work collectively with

572
02:51:13.760 --> 02:51:29.840
you as we did with the medical benefits. And I could speak for myself that there is a way to make sure that we do our best um as an association and as a school district to start utilizing our plans the proper way. Um and I think

573
02:51:29.840 --> 02:51:46.080
that um if we can collectively do that with the broker um and create more opportunities to share what is throwing those like making all of those costs so much more. Maybe there's a different way that all of us as individuals and in our

574
02:51:46.080 --> 02:52:02.960
families who are utilizing these plans can help bring that experience rating down and the claims cost down to where maybe we won't get those now that we're out of the state plan and in a private plan. Um because now we are working with our own experience rating. So I think we

575
02:52:02.960 --> 02:52:18.479
took a positive step, a difficult step for some people. Um, but I just wanted to reiterate that I think there needs to be continued work in that area across the board from the top down. Um, you know, the secondary schools here, it

576
02:52:18.479 --> 02:52:33.520
seems like they're getting hit obviously and I ditto what Mary just said. I mean, my kids went through this school district and an ELA program is really important. Um, especially with the work that's been done, um, you know, with Mr.

577
02:52:33.520 --> 02:52:49.600
Ross and finding this new program. I think um I would urge not to have to share staff at the middle school or the high school um pro for programming purposes. Um we already sometimes share staff across the district for different

578
02:52:49.600 --> 02:53:07.760
programs, but not to diminish a program. So, if you're looking at because we have a a middle school librarian um who retired um to replace her and to then to make to share her is a true

579
02:53:07.760 --> 02:53:23.520
detriment to the amazing amazing literacy program and media specialist program at George Washington Middle School. I mean, if you were just at the most recent author visits, I mean, so many things are taken and cut when when that happens. um because if you don't

580
02:53:23.520 --> 02:53:39.840
have a a full-time person in those programs, they start to fall apart. Um and not by choice. Um but it just that's that's what happens. Um so I strongly urge I know secondary schools, you're looking at numbers and I appreciate that and I also respect the fact that this

581
02:53:39.840 --> 02:53:54.399
board and other boards haven't looked to go above the 2% cap as a resident. Um, but I also as a resident and my kids are out of this district and I have no intention of leaving this village. Um, because I want to give back to what my

582
02:53:54.399 --> 02:54:10.319
kids also received. Um, but we can't be opposed to going above the tax 2% tax levy. We for so long have not done that and this is the time to do that because I'm afraid if we start

583
02:54:10.319 --> 02:54:27.279
pulling from our reserve we're going to be in the situation like Hackinack and Wayne and Montlair and we can't allow ourselves to get there and I am not wellversed in the budget as like I'll say that I'm very naive to the budget. I

584
02:54:27.279 --> 02:54:43.600
understand it on a very simple level, but please be sure that if it means raising the tax levy a little bit more to get the three to five to keep a media specialist to maybe not uh reduce staff to loop for a tenure position. Um those

585
02:54:43.600 --> 02:54:59.200
are really really important things. Um and I think our you know I don't know who's listening at home but you know a lot of times residents aren't paying attention. Um, and we really need our parents who are in the village, who have

586
02:54:59.200 --> 02:55:16.080
students in the village to really pay attention to this because if I'm correct, if the board does not vote to increase the budget to the work that Dr. Schwarz and the administrators have done to 3.78. That means we're looking at additional

587
02:55:16.080 --> 02:55:31.680
cuts in programs, additional cuts in staff, and increased class sizes, which right now in your proposal did not touch the elementary school, but it will affect the middle school and high school. And yes, there are some

588
02:55:31.680 --> 02:55:47.279
classrooms that may be lower. Um, but I really want this community to understand that this is the time that we have to we have to go above the 2% tax levy. It is crucial and in the hopes that our

589
02:55:47.279 --> 02:56:03.120
medical benefits experience rating goes down and we can get better then we can fund those res um the um what's it called like the bank c the re reserves right so that we can put money back into there because we have been pulling there

590
02:56:03.120 --> 02:56:26.800
um so I know I went over my time so thank you all and I uh look forward to seeing you all do have hands raised um remotely so I will just go down. Uh the first is Mr. Molton. Peter Molton.

591
02:56:26.800 --> 02:56:42.240
>> Hi Pete. Hi Peter Molton Ridgewood resident. Uh thank you for the very thorough presentation and thoughtful presentation tonight. Not an easy one. Um the uh I've spoken for ye years years

592
02:56:42.240 --> 02:56:59.520
on these and uh um it was one of the concerns now a number of years ago was the rising costs and that at one point CO funds you know ESR funds were going to come off. you know, there was there was state funding that was in

593
02:56:59.520 --> 02:57:18.640
question and um unfortunately uh some of the findings today and the proposal is is not surprising. Um the you guys did a great job manipulating things for the last number of years to to make it work and to stay

594
02:57:18.640 --> 02:57:36.720
under the 2%. Um but as as the previous uh person mentioned you know it it seems as though the the the time has come that due to you know those cost increases due to all the years of 2% which is you know

595
02:57:36.720 --> 02:57:52.960
compare Dr. Schwarz reflected I believe and maybe um the board can reflect on what increases were during the 2000s. At one point I looked at the tax increases before I moved to this town and I I I I

596
02:57:52.960 --> 02:58:06.800
believe they were in the mid- single digits for uh the m the majority of those years knowing I I don't know the component of the town versus school for that period. Um but it much more significant and um you know the the 2%

597
02:58:06.800 --> 02:58:23.760
cap that was um instituted almost 15 years ago now um has been impacting districts and impacting their ability to function and uh for programming and and for facilities and um and we're seeing

598
02:58:23.760 --> 02:58:40.160
it it come home to roost where there's only so much that can be done without much more substantial decreases especially in the face of health care costs, you know, people I people ask like when when are health care costs going to stop going down? It's like, you know, college costs. It's, you know, the

599
02:58:40.160 --> 02:58:56.000
supply demand and people still want it and and pay for it. Um requirements for it. You know, similarly to electricity, you know, there going to be incity increases which, you know, we have uh there's been negotiations and you guys have done a great job with that. But

600
02:58:56.000 --> 02:59:11.600
when the next in in a few years, I don't know when that comes up, Mr. Matthews can address it. There's going to be substantial electricity increases at that point. Um that we'll need to work into the budget at that point, but but staying within the 2% likely becomes

601
02:59:11.600 --> 02:59:29.680
more and more challenging. And um you um again, great job being able to do what you guys did for years. Um but I don't think it surprises anybody that this day and this and this presentation comes. Um, and these were even questions that the sustainability of some of this was

602
02:59:29.680 --> 02:59:45.680
also presented last year at this budget. I I think I I might have asked something along those lines and it was a that there are going to be challenges likely in the future. So again, not necessarily surprised. One thing I want to mention in the CPI um is that in the the CPI is a

603
02:59:45.680 --> 03:00:02.160
manipulated number as well that actually if you go back in the last 5 years in the inflation of healthcare is actually negative 15%. which by no means is anybody's reality, is not Medicare's reality. And so CPI is is a number that is also manipulated. So even when you put that up there, that's an

604
03:00:02.160 --> 03:00:18.160
artificially low number to the reality of in most cases. And so, um, yeah, so it the the last piece I just want to ask is or just mention is the pay competitiveness aspect and not necessarily to other districts, but just

605
03:00:18.160 --> 03:00:33.120
to the general environment and making sure that we don't get caught in a situation where we're not competitively paying and we lose um and we lose teachers. I I bring this up each year after the issues we had a number of years ago with um support staff and teachers. Uh, well, really more support

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staff um when we were at that meet board meeting. Um, and so I just want to make sure that that's being looked at on an annual basis, not just inflation increases, that it's it's the reality that we are keeping up with things so we don't lose staff. So, thank you.

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>> Thank you. >> Our next speaker is >> Oh, Jennifer. Sorry, Jennifer. >> Yes. Hello. >> You're on with the board. >> Hi there. This is Jen Williams. Uh we're in the Ridge District and I just I really want to echo what everyone's

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saying about appreciating all of the hard work that it's taken to take on just head on a really difficult task. Um, as the discussion was going on about the buses, I just wanted to provide a tangible example of what that means for the folks in our neighborhood, just so

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you can kind of maybe help picture it and help folks who maybe don't take the bus understand what that means. Uh, we live near the stable, really across the road from it, and have a 1.4 mile walk up the hill over there to Ridge. Um, to get there, our kids in this neighborhood

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have to cross Franklin Oak through downtown, across the train tracks, over past Garber Square, and then all of Ridgewood Avenue and then up the hill. And it's actually a walk that we love. We do it anytime that we can when it's sunny out. But our first encounter with

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a crossing guard is at Monroe and uh, Ridgewood A, so over there by the middle school. So nearly a mile into the walk before we see a a crossing guard. It's not something I would ever allow my children to do without me. Um, it also takes us past two intersections where pedestrians have been struck and killed

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by cars. So, just as another safety consideration of what that means. Um, and I think that another portion of the discussion becomes then the additional vehicles that are added to the road should a bus not be made available to this or other neighborhoods or perhaps as a bus is not made available. And

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again, totally understanding that these are really difficult choices, but if you've driven past Ridge in the morning, there's a line of cars that stretches almost back to that stoplight for drop off and that would be adding probably 30 cars to that line um should that bus be taken out. So, there's just a lot of

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impact. My fourth grade daughter is listening and she said, "Tell them it's air pollution." So, that's one of the considerations, too, I'm sure. Um and the buses are really, really complicated. We've advocated to you guys over the years in different ways for additional safety at the bus stops and

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there is this really crazy trifecta of the town and the school district and even the county in some places because of the roads that we're on. So I know that even getting lines painted for crosswalks for safe access to the bus stops themselves is an additional thing that that everyone has to take on and

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resolve. So, it's it's not a perfect solution, but I guess I just would ask that as these decisions are being made that it not feel like a cold cut off and that there is some additional introspection about how to then adapt our town to the impacts that then do

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roll out of it because busing may be a courtesy, but student safety is not. So, there can be solutions whether it's adding crossing guards or finding other ways to help accommodate people getting there without adding traffic and bogging down. I think that will that will serve

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everyone really well. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Ann, >> oh, hi. How are you? Um, I also wanted to talk about the courtesy busing. Um, I live in Jen's neighborhood and I want to say, um, I'm on

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>> Sorry to interrupt you. Just your name and >> Oh, sure. Um, my name is Ann Bonner and I'm on North Walnut Street. >> Okay. >> Okay. Um, I want to say I have four children. I'm a single mom. The courtesy buses have been a godsend for me. Um, I

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know there are people that walk occasionally in my neighborhood, but it is I timed it out. It is a 28 minute walk and that's without having little kids like a kindergarten or first grader. Um, so for me there is just not time in the morning to walk. Um, I think

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the courtesy buses are great because not everyone in our neighborhood drives. We um have a lot of apartments in our neighborhood and um not everyone has two cars and as Jen said, it is like it is really hard to walk for little children.

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Like you would not send them alone. Um, the other thing is there was a child in our neighborhood who um who moved last year who if he overslept and missed the bus, he didn't have anyone to drive him to school. Um, so I would say like

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please think of something else like I we in our neighborhood we love the courtesy buses and would do anything possible to keep them. Thank you. Are those just initials? I can't see it from here. Oh, no. Roy,

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is it Roy? >> Um, Brian Delator, I believe. >> Oh, sorry. >> Ridgewood resident. Um, yeah. I just wanted to ask, you know, so based on this budget, taxes are increasing $499 for the average household. If we

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increase taxes another $50, would that mean saving the ITDC? Would that mean saving all these teachers that we desperately need in the middle school? Would that mean saving the clubs in the high school? Would that mean like, are we talking about $50 a household that

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would make all the difference? Because I don't think that for most Rididgewood residents, $50 more would really make a difference. And I want the board to really consider the fact that you're choosing an arbitrary number of an increase, but you're cutting a lot of

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things to do that. We could actually have the ELA program that we spent five years working on. We could actually have the right number of teachers. We could actually maybe even save the busing. And $50 just isn't that much money. And and I just we're going to spend more than that on the referendum. And I just don't

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understand why the cut off was made at 3.78 instead of at 4.12% or something where for another $50 we would be able to save all these programs. So, thank you guys for

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your time and work and uh this was a great meeting. Thanks. >> Thank you. Okay, not seeing any other hands. Um, as uh Dr. Schwarz says, um, as you uh think more on this budget, um, you have

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the opportunity to, um, your coffee is Oh, is there Oh, okay. But I'll just finish this. When is your coffee? >> Thursday. >> Thursday. This Thursday. Um, and of course, um, you have our email addresses

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to the board and please feel free to to comment through that as well. Um, we do have one more comment >> and that is >> Thank you, >> Janette. You're on with the board.

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>> Thank you for the meeting and thank you for allowing me to speak. Now, this is ironically turns out to deal with the budget in a different way. Well, two points. One is Dr. Schwarz's remarks

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about um Turf Fields was very disingenuous. Two reasons. One is the fact that he feels it's you could just wash off the astroturf, but it affects not just the

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children because you talked about safety. Well, this is about safety of the children, not to allow them to play on astroturf, which is cancerous, and which also goes into the water table every time we have a flood. Now, budget-wise, how much money are we

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spending every year, every time there's a flood on every field that it needs to be replaced? And because of the rain, it goes into the water table. So there'll be longtime costs to our town for the residents who will suffer

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from the ill effects of having plastics. We can't even drink our water. We do we need additional pla plastics in our soil in our water table. No, we don't. And like I said, the financial aspects are important. If we're cutting programs, we

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should not be cutting programs and wasting money on astroturf. It has no true benefits. Period. It's cheaper to replace the grass than it is to replace the astroturf. And the long-term benefits, there are none. And long-term

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detriments could go on for generations here. So, I just wanted to uh to make that point as I was listening to the meeting. and thank you for all you know you're doing to try to save your residents money considering

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what you can do and can't do and not only the fact that we may have more taxes raised by the governor. So hopefully you will think about what I've presented and I appreciate your work. Thank you. Um, okay. I will close public comment.

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I'll close public comment now. Um, Dr. Schwarz, did you have anything you want to respond other than thanking the public for staying with us and thinking about commenting? You know, it's a lot. This has been >> one of the public comments from

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So um from the the comment about uh expanding the program to three to five my understanding from the slides is we're still doing it but we are doing it in two phases. This year it will be K to2 and next year it will be 3 to 5. So

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three class three classes for this year and three for the next year. Is that correct? >> That's the current proposal. Yes. W with with with an enthusiastic >> uh >> two minutes two minutes to game time. Uh >> we have a solution that would enable us

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to go K5 that would not incur any additional costs over what was initially proposed to our professional development and curriculum writing budget. So I would love the opportunity to dig into that a little bit further because I think this is an important moment of

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momentum uh with the community not just our stu students and teachers and but our parents uh read for Rididgewood is an organization that we partnered with and they're on board the research is there I I think this is our moment. So so if the board has the appetite to to to dive into that I'd really love to present that to you.

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>> Yeah. But even even with the current proposal Yes. So that's your proposing an alternate but from the current proposal if the base of curriculum budget is increased by that X dollars then first year funding will go towards

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K to2 and then second year's funding because it's not a recurring same number every year right um so first year is more uh higher for for those textbooks and the program so next year that this year's increase will still be an increase next year so that will help

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fund three to five So instead of changing the entire elementary school, all six grades in in one year, we would you have a better proposal, but in the current proposal, we would still be able to do that in two years. >> It is my understanding that given the current proposal, we would do it over

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two years. And again, I'd love to to engage in in a deeper discussion. >> Correct. Yes. >> Yeah. Effectively, as as as I think it's most fair to present is that Mr. Ross has come up with some creative ways of move of of reducing other areas even

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further for the purpose of and then also working with the company to try to get their cost down so that effectively we could go from doing the three and K to2 and then three to five to doing all at once and it wouldn't cost us the full additional $325,000 that we originally

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thought. So there will still be an increase but it will be it will be will not be anywhere near as sizable as before. >> Correct. And I I would just add to that that actually speaks to one of our goals as stated in the in the presentation which is to leverage the the expertise and the uh uh experience and and

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innovative spirit of our teaching staff and our and our administrators too. So we can provide that in-house PD and training. So instead of putting out all of the money for guest speakers and experts, you know, we we can we can leverage the power of Bridgewood. But

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still when when it's it's a huge one-time cost and then that's not a recurring cost every year and if we increase the tax base based on that tax bases increase every year. So suppose just just I'll take an example that if we

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were going 3.75 and if you say that if you go 3.9 then we can do everything this year. >> We're I'm sorry to interrupt but we're not talking about increasing the tax levy. You're talking about moving money over from column A to column B with the same tax levy. That's my proposal.

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>> So that's beyond our uh vote, right? That's once we >> just just to be clear, we just had our first conversation really about this today. It was something that came up by the end of last week. So we're still within play for a real conversation, but I we can't I can't get into I can't I can't interpret the implications right

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now. So we will talk about it this week. and and and I just want to be clear, if it's plausible to without increasing the tax levy move the program forward and I'm not concerned about the reallocations in other areas, I would be supportive of this in in fully

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supportive of this in theory. I think it's better to move the whole thing forward now, but we'll we'll work that out. >> Yeah. I mean, it certainly sounds promising. So, um I look forward to to hearing that because this is I know a conversation we had

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at our curriculum meeting and it was a what if. Um and so if you found another way um and it works, yay. Um we'll see how that goes. Okay. >> Um certainly I know uh staff and parents

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were counting on it. It's I mean I I've already laid out the problems that we're having. So Okay. any um comments to to the comments or >> I I would just like to acknowledge a few. Thanks everybody for coming. Thanks for your engagement. Thanks for your

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interest. Thanks for your support of the schools. I hear so many so much encouragement to to press on and to try to keep moving things forward and I really appreciate your confidence uh in in what we're trying to do here. So, thank you. Um couple questions. There were some technical quick ones off the

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off the bat. Um I don't know I don't know if I I don't have the answer right here. I don't know for Miss Cathkart. Did you Mrs. Fenwick, did you have an answer to that right now? I don't recall where that landed exactly with that fourth teacher.

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Okay. Well, we're going to we did talk about that. It was something that I was supportive of. Um and it was something that was a recommendation from uh from Mrs. Pavone. It's something M Dr. Fick supported as well. But before I give you a solid answer yes on that, we're going

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to fact check and we'll get back to you. And then uh as far as uh first of all, Mr. Ferrari, Mr. Graasso, thank you so much for being here and your partnership as navigate these difficult situations together. Really appreciate that greatly. Um and uh we'll be of course in

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in regular communication over the week coming weeks. Um I also just want to say uh some interesting comments along the way. I appreciate it, Miss Williams. We'll we'll uh we'll we have your name. We'll pull your address and take a look at that specific route as we consider

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routes that might not be you could walk. Um and um Mr. Delator, appreciate your commentary and your your and your uh contributions and we hear hear your charge to try to resolve some of these things. And then Mr. Lorocco, thanks for joining. I

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understand your perspective and your concerns and uh and I remain open to uh to all sides of that issue. But again, for the time being, we're not we're not addressing any topics about turf fields right now. >> Thank you for the opportunity, Miss Broen.

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>> Thank you very much. Um, I know a lot of work went into this presentation and a lot of editing and then re-editing and and more thought. Um, it, you know, it gives us a a floor. Um, and we'll see where we go

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from that. Um, and with that, um, I, um, would like to move to adjourn the meeting. May I have a second? >> All in favor? >> Thank you very much. >> We're back. Oh, and Mary, Mary, thank

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you. Um, uh, we'll, uh, be back next Monday and that will be the, uh, tenative. >> We have an executive session for that.