e e e e e e e e e e
e e e so just in a um just in a nanoc we're going to be done here yeah it's because we bring cheese and some red wine too next
time we'll get started um uh with a roll call here here Mr mm here M Brogan here uh please
join me in a flag salute Pledge of Allegiance Nation God indivisible liy and justice for all the Richwood board of education has been meeting an executive session pursuing to NJ A10 colon 4-12 the minutes of this meeting will be
released when the need for confidentiality no longer exists and uh pursuant to the requirements of the open 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 welcome I I just um wanted to um comment that tonight's meeting is has
a single focus and that's the um 20 2526 preliminary budget that will be presented so um we'll start with comments from the public we will then go
through the budget presentation and discussion and then we will also end our meeting with another um comments from the public and then we will adjourn and our next full board meeting with all the
different um categories will be uh next Monday March 24th just just just to give that sense of it so we'll open for any public comments um now there's no one in the audience um but is there anyone with
there there is we have uh Amy you're on with the board hi can you guys hear me yes we can okay perfect um yes Amy mccambridge Ridgewood resident um I'm just you know
um commenting again and talking um again because you guys were talking about budget and to me again it just seems this board um refuses to PRI prioritize the health and the safety of our
children um when you waste to me it's a waste uh $80,000 on sport lights when children are drinking from unfiltered potentially con contaminated water fountains and you have forced them onto these toxic Fields without their sense
um I just want it to be clear that you are knowingly exposing these children to dangerous conditions and you are doing nothing about it budget-wise you're not testing um it's just getting thrown into these very
super official things um I know this is about budget but you claim to care about climate change but your own students have wisely noticed that this is not true so how can you claim to care about the environment while allowing kids to play on and breathe and toxic chemicals from Synthetic Turf how can you ignore
the cause for clean water while spending tens of thousands of dollars on unnecessary field lights you said the school watered is filtered yet my young players that I train that are as young as eighty olds um know which fountains have stickers on them marking them as
safe and which do not and these are eight-year-olds why do they even have to question whether their water is safe why is that not in the budget as a priority and then there's the high school field in Stevens Field where you can continuously send students for sports and wellness activities and they are
breathing in these toxins running on synthetic chemicals and absorbing whatever is in that untested soil and water without their consent or knowledge and I just want to put this on the record again you have not put in your budget to test the soil and the water
for over a decade if you continue to ignore these concerns there is no doubt that these kids are getting sick and will continue to get sick and when that happens each of you must be held accountable you cannot say that you were not warned we have told you repeatedly
and yet you still choose lights over clean water silence over testing and negligence over responsibility the only solution is to re prioritize the entire budget to get these kids in a safe environment remove the toxic fields and
revert them back to natural grass there's no such thing as safe Turf the safest field is the way nature intended though I suggest we stop messing with it questions for the board would be water quality and safety why do some fountains have stickers marking them as safe to
drink and others remain unmarked but still operational um and why is there no funding to fix any of that two toxic Turf and lack of testing why has no Environmental Testing been done on the soil and water at the high school field and Stevens are you guys prepared to
accept liability when students become sick from exposure do you think it's ethical to force students onto these field without disclosing the potential risk to them or their parents and then the financial priorities why was 880,000 spent on lighting instead of addressing
critical health concerns when will this board stop IGN ignoring what truly matters and start protecting these students that you are supposed to serve will you commit to removing these toxic fields and put that in the budget and returning them to natural grass the time
for excuses is over put it in the budget to test that soil and test that water release the results and start making decisions that protect these kids instead of putting them in danger um I'm just asking for you guys to do the right thing especially when it
comes to these kids health their well-being and their future the lights will not matter nothing will matter what will matter are these kids and their health if we continue to do nothing history will remember this in action and someone's going to be held responsible
for the consequences so I'm just going to end with the quote from Albert Einstein the world will not be destroyed destroyed by those who do evil but by those who watch them without doing anything so what are you guys going to do I hope we revisit the budget and put
forth what truly matters and that's fixing the mistakes and there's nothing wrong with that it's it's a bigger person and a bit bigger example to these kids to be like hey yeah yeah I know I'm out of time just please do the right thing thank you and yeah okay
bye Christina Millian Ridgewood resident can you hear me yes we can great thank you um as far as the budget's concerned I wanted to ask if pasos filters are included in the 2025 2026 budget for All School water fountains at all of the schools there's
5,398 students who would benefit with access would benefit for access to clean drinking water and I know you guys know we get these uh Ridgewood water quarterly reports advising us that kids and the elderly should not drink it yet some of the water fountains at the school still lack the filters um if the
budget is that tight which I find hard to believe um could un the unfiltered fountains be shut off until we can guarantee clean water for our kids in 2025 um my second question is about uh security and SRO school resource
officers um all six elementary schools currently lack them it's my understanding and I I would love Clarity and correction that um the majority of that funding for annual uh salaries comes from the Boe around $60,000 with the village of Ridgewood covering about
40K for other Essentials um I brought this up in a recent Village of Ridgewood meeting and they said this solely rest within you to lead the conversation and so I just would like an update on on where we're at with that if the budget um you know includes that or not uh
these are the most vulnerable of um of our students and so I really would hope that safety would be the top priority for everyone sitting up there um another question that came up in a in a past meeting was quote the severe cleanliness issue at Haw Elementary School and we
have not had an update on that so president Brogan I was just hoping you could update us since you were the one who said that and what the plan is in place for um for cleanliness at the school and then um I also had a question in reviewing the budget um and again I just
see Clarity and correction um I read that um there was like a 5.6 maybe I have this figure wrong anyway there's a million cut um budget to employee benefits and I I just don't know what that meant in practice like are we talking about teacher salaries
Healthcare or pensions or like I just wasn't clear on what the employee benefits reduction was and so those are my my four questions just to repeat uh posos filters school security C cleanliness and the employees benefit reduction issue thank
you thank you okay seeing no more hands um we'll we'll start um Dr Schwarz with our presentation on the 2526 tenative budget and maybe um you'll
answer some of those questions along the way yes thank you so much president Brogan uh just for the folks who are with us um I just want to encourage you all we are going to have a super one of the benefits of breaking out the uh the budget this preliminary budget meeting and the regular meeting is that my
superintendent coffee is actually scheduled for after this meeting so if anyone wants to discuss with me specifically anything that's in the budget any of these items for example school resource officers anything we welcome that conversation that would be Thursday uh so please do join us there um just to just to clarify just because
uh miss mcbridge and miss Millian did take the time to join us um and they had a common concern there one of the questions was P posos filters uh we did we did extend a few years back uh an interest in doing whatever we could to uh fit any compatible uh water fountains
with filters and we committed that we would even have to do installations to make sure at least every school had a posos filtered water fountain the reason why we didn't try to make a a much larger investment in that is that the village of Ridgewood is um is in the process of uh adding and I'm I'm going
to get the terminology wrong but I know they're adding um stations that are actually going to be filtering out all of the water I did have a chance to talk with Rich calby from uh Ridgewood water and they are on track to have that completed in 2026 so we did nevertheless get a quote for that uh it is pretty exorbitant to change out all the all the
water fountains in the district I think it was it was in the tunes of the hundreds of thousands of dollars um right now it seems considering the fact that they're on track to complete this project uh by around this time I believe believe around this time I don't know if it's this time next year but it's in
2026 um I'm not sure that that is the most prudent use of funds as that will be the posos filtration component will be obsolete the filters the the the remaining water fountains that we do have do filter water and they will work fine even after we get posos so it seem that uh that that would be a very a
short-term benefit for a large cost uh we are not going to be recommending school resource officers tonight as part of the budget um I do believe in the school resource officer program uh we did uh bring in two additional officers last year uh those officers are at one at the high school
one at the middle school one at GW they're doing I'm sorry one at BF and one at GW um they're they're seem to be doing really well they seem to be received very well I would love to have a school resource officer uh either some shared at the elementary schools or one in every school I do believe in that and
I would hope to be able to bring that recommendation to the board at some point um the research seems to be pretty clear that we have and it's pretty clear in our data too that we have the majority of the need for the inter facing with school resource officers on the reg on on kind of routine matters at the secondary level um but of course
obviously uh we want to make sure that from a from a uh from a response standpoint it is it is a great peace of mind to know that we have an armed officer in every elementary school so certainly welcome those conversations moving forward uh and we hope that that's a future budget
priority um as far as uh cleanliness around the district I know we've had a couple different concerns come up over the course of the year um I have a lot of concerns about the state of the district and how well our facilities have been maintained we do have some changes that we'll talk about in this budget Mr Matthews will speak about that
changes going into next year in the meantime uh we've been very pleased with at least some of the changes in the local leadership of the uh of the service that uh provides our current Facilities Management there's been a lot of improvement lately um but our contract is up and we are going to move
in a different direction but nevertheless we're grateful that the folks who are here with us representing that company are are trying to fit us strong here with us um and then finally um uh the benefits reduction issue uh this was brought to my attention before I think it might be a misreading of the line so we'll talk about the slides um
but I wonder if maybe there is a um a misunderstanding of how that table is designed to set up we are not reducing we're not making any reductions from health benefits right now so that reduction in the next line in the capital budget in the capital budget so the capital budget line might look like
it's a reduction from the other line there's an an addition uh there's an additional money for for our benefit line and the decrease that 5.6 is in the capital right so benefits are going up by 2 million or the capital budget is going down by 5
million because capital budget is based on whatever reserves we have at the end of the year we use that money so whatever are the U Surplus we have at the end of the year we put that in the capital reserve and use it in the subsequent year for the capital projects so this year we have less less of that
so we it's a less project but those are the two lines that are very close to each other so it may just appear that they are in the lineable just miss R great thank you for that um so with that I'd like to turn to our uh budget presentation Mr Matthews is going to
take a lead on the presentation and I believe you're getting so you're already set up behind me so uh just a couple words if I may before I turn it over to Mr Matthews uh for those who have been following uh the the the going on in the district you know that our business office has had a bit of change over the
last few years um and over this last year specifically I I'm I'm hopeful that we have found a really solid and permanent team um they are a solid team I'll say that I'm hopeful that they're be a permanent team and longl Lasting um
they used a very diligent process very similar to what we used last year but even more thorough uh it really effectively is a zerob based process uh we don't use that word in the presentation because sometimes I don't think people AR people aren't comfortable with what that means but effectively what it means is that in in
when a lot of people think about budgeting they think well last year we allocated X dollar for this account so this year we increased that by x amount or by y amount right but the reality is that um every year is pretty significantly different and school
budgets are really huge so it's good to study Trends but we have to look at every year as a unique year and that's what Mr Matthews and has done they met with all the different I think I'm having troubles with my microphone I'm changing mics here you got am I throwing you guys off or am I
all right all right great so um so working with the Departments and working with the schools they really evaluated all the requests and all of the past spending Trends and and recent spends to make sure that we're budgeting in a way
that is accurate but conservative enough that we can that we are safe and continue to generate some Surplus but to make sure that we're maximizing the dollars within our accounts to return them to the students and as a result of that even in a year where we're seeing a a reduction a small reduction a notable
but small reduction in State uh in categorical state aid um we are able to we do appear to be able to advance some really positive educational initiatives um by finding operational efficiencies and by being more efficient with how we
use our our staff um so so we're we are and so the short version is it looks like we're going to be able to move forward in some very positive ways with uh while at the same time being able to stay at the 2% tax increase that I know that this board has been very adamant
about sticking to and I would point out on behalf of the board um the behalf for the taxpayer uh as well as the the those who are who are um whether you're concerned about the tax dollar or whether you're concerned about the quality of schools or both which I think most people probably are you should know
the Eva board that's very very careful and mindful about us using the tax dollars very responsibly that we're not increasing the tax burden um and in the inflationary environment that we're in you might wonder how this is possible that we can continue to advance and it's
it's frankly just due to a significant amount of diligence from the administration from the board um and a couple of couple of positive breaks um so we think that we're moving in we're happy to be moving in a good direction we're happy to share some of the ways that we're progressing but I do want to say that we are progressing cautiously
on the basis of the fact that we do know that we are facing uh continued constraints moving forward there's a little bit of a question mark on the the the long-term fate of federal funding uh although right now we don't anticipate any major drop offs um there is a question mark over State funding we
certainly saw a reduction this year and I think there's a there's a pretty pretty good amount of concern and reason for good concern that that our state is facing a bit of a structural deficit and then on top of that as a school district you know we want to try to be stick with 2% cap on how much we raised taxes
because we know the tax burden here in Ridgewood is high so we are going to continue to be very frugal and to be very disciplined but we nevertheless want to make sure that we're still continuing to make progress to deliver the best education we can for our students so we'll talk about some of that in detail um but of course we'll
take questions for those who are not familiar with how the school budget process works this is our preliminary budget hearing at this meeting I make a recommendation to the board uh that sets the tax levy and sets the sets our uh our budgeted Appropriations which are all the planned expenditures that we
have and it sets our revenues which are our projections for how much we'll bring in and those two have to balance of course um we'll also earmark some funds for uh for capital projects we will have some flexibility coming out of this meeting before now in the final budget
and we'll even have some flexibility after that with some discretion AR calls but as a superintendent I want you all to know that it's very important to me to try to be as consistent as possible and we've I've endeavored to lead the team in such a way that when we make recommendations here anything that we're committing to we'll be able to follow
through on barring extenuating circumstances and for areas where we're not 100% sure what that change will look like we'll talk about some programs that we want to expand we're doing our best to work with the efficiencies that we have and between now and the summer sometimes we we see some you know some things change uh some Personnel changes
may occur and so depending on how things break as we're planning and as we're evaluating uh that might take a different shape we might we might we might think that we're we're budget for one position but it turns out that we don't need that position or we might Bud we might we might budget for one position it turns out we need two so
there are a couple things that may change but we're doing our absolute best to be clear and I think we're going to give decent amount of clarity tonight and if you are a part of the community who's watching this presentation uh I am going to be recommending that the board vote on this budget uh and if if it is
approved that will set the tax levy and that will set the Appropriations but I know that the board was still interested in hearing any thoughts that you have I'm still interested in hearing thoughts that you have regarding areas that we need to focus on and we still have we still have a little bit of flexibility in terms of um being able to adjust and
uh and make sure that we're we're meeting the community's concerns so we welcome that feedback was that clear board members great thank you so much all right that I hope that was a good preface uh we have a nice presentation it's much uh it's much more more polished looking than last year we have
some members of our budget team here as well Naomi wedner and Julie Johanna I know that they all and I know along with uh Amy Pollock and uh and I'm not sure how much everybody got in the presentation but the team worked really hard and uh and and we have a nice a nice presentation with some good detail
today so Mr Matthews thanks for your leadership of the team and I'm going to turn the microphone over to you at this point in time okay good evening uh R public schools and thank you Mark for level setting the meeting U I'd like to start by saying that this year Mr Matthews can you just confirm that your microphone is on it's
on it's on great yeah I think you need speak a right can you hear me now yeah okay I I was getting ready to say that the budget team and the budget team is myself it's uh Miss Weidner it's um Aaron Bowman and Miss Johanna so it
wasn't like just a ba working in isolation it was actually an entire team effort um we had over 80 different meetings uh among ourselves schools departments sitting down with uh finance department uh getting initiatives and getting
direction we did a a budget calendar so my first dat was September thir 23rd 2024 and on September 30th I did a budget calendar for the 2526 budget and that budget calendar set out from September through getting actual State
on September on on February the 27th and then the budget uh after we did the budget calendar we did a budget letter s out to all departments uh all the schools the principles and went through what the guidelines were going to be for the year we put together a workbook that they could uh put all their information
in they would have last year's numbers uh as as a guide for what they did last year and we put together a checklist so they can understand how the budget was done we would go to the schools and sit down with the principles and the secretaries and go through the training on the workbooks looking at last year's
number looking at last year spend as a guideline so everybody had the information and then a letter basically said okay we want to start from scratch we want to do a zerob based budget I know you had last year's numbers and you have that information but we have some other data that says this is what's happening for last year regarding Spin
and looking at the order report seeing what what was actually done last year and using that as kind of our our guiding principle for how we're going to move forward not just the budget but the actual spend so in late October that letter went out to everybody and then we did
some training going to the schools just kind of going through the whole process because it was a new process and people were kind of not sure how everything worked um in the letter we also said okay you have two months to work on on your budget we want everything back by January 3rd of of 2025 I would say we had great
cooperation between the schools and departments and all the budgets came back on January 3rd so for the month of January February we sat down with every different department every school going line by line going through their budgets we had some round ones some round twos
some round threes because everything that came back to us was it the way we thought it should come back because sometimes it was going back on last year's number and we like no let's get some quotes poting documentation to make sure that we're getting the best possible proposals and also even went
out to to actual uh competitive pricing for some of these numbers because there was a lack of going out for competitive pricing in the past and we were not going to go and accept just last year's number and just kind of tack on 2% like we were getting those kind of answers okay well we got this was L's number
let's tack on 2% tack on 5% we would we would you know in a nice way P back and nudge say like we need you to go and do some more homework long story short went through all the rounds and and got through the numbers and made some assumptions we got some guard rails from the state in early
February regarding um no more than a 3% tax cut would would be throughout the state in every G the high number would be but we the numbers came in on February 25th we saw it was a 3% and a 6% increase in state a so we were going on in ception of a flat in the beginning
5% cut in state eight or 10% cut in state eight so we ended up at 3% which was $218,000 reduction U for us regarding State a and as Dr schw says is going forward we got to really manage to a much tighter budget we were under what
was called S2 for the last couple years and S2 was a Reconciliation or or a chewing up of the numbers for State eight under the school fund and Reform Act of 2008 so the last seven years we were getting State eight like that last year we got $515,000 so we were hopeful for at least
flat funding but we ended up getting a cut of 3% so by doing those assumptions we had budgets for flat 5% cut 10% cut and we're gonna obviously make it you know work based on having those assumptions so when numbers came out on February
27th we were able to balance the budget two days after after well two days after the announcement but the day that we received our state aid so obviously on that date we were B B we sent all the board members an email telling that we were balanced and after that we had more meetings with finance and individual
board members just kind of going through the nuts and bolts and having further discussion in detail about what's in the budget and having the right approach regarding our reserves and just having a a collaborative effort on how we want to just not just balance the budget but be able to move forward in a positive way
and knowing that the environment has changed from S2 to where we are right now there there's no clarification as to where we are right now we're at kind of like out in the cloud right now but we should be thinking forwardly about having flat budgets going
forward so with that said I'm going to go through the budget presentation and you know take your questions as as they come forward but I just wanted to kind of give you guys an update on terms of the process of the budget calendar and even with qack you have to have that budget calendar done in
advance so these are the board members and I want to thank my finance committee Mr mmud and Miss mcau um for their Direction and guidance and patience that we were having multiple multiple meetings going through finance and going through the budget process I also like to thank our board president Shila
Brogan who has been given a great direction to the team the budget team and and Miss handy and Mrs Rob because everybody came in and had individual questions and concerns um in terms of how we're doing the budget so I want to thank the board for their diligence in terms of what they were doing to make
this budget a work for the ridge of public schools for the taxpayer so we're going to talk about the district we're going to talk a little bit about our student highlights we to give a budget overview and talk about future needs and
concerns so mentioned to you earlier the budget objective was to start from the ground floor to kind of rip the budget apart and start from scratch with a zerob based mindset which is hard to really do when you've been going by prior numbers year-over-year we actually did a mid-year review and went through
what act was being being spent in the current year and see and we're thinking not just the budget for 2526 but with the mid year review we can look at their current spend and see whether or not we should close POS whe the money should be falling out to increase our fund balance so we went through the current year and
next year and also part of our strategic plan is to provide the the board with monthly reports so that we're just becoming more transparent and providing like fund balance reports and monitoring of uh current spend versus actual year- to-day spend also the budget
um ripped up the facilities Department to three separate categories so right now we're under a contract with arar which everything's under the one the one company grounds trades and custodial and we felt that didn't serve the needs of the district we wanted to break it up so that we can have um organizations or
compan that were specializing in custodia handle that part of the contract and if you were specializing in grounds handle that part of the contract and also we want to do is take the trades and bring the trades inside of our position control r which is becoming an employee of the district so we have
more control over the trades we felt that there's a lot of money going out the door regarding a lot of work being farmed out and being sourced out that we have control over these trades we can manage some of that those expenses that are going out we actually did two or three year we did a a two-year review of
all pl's and work that went out the door and felt that under our control we can save a lot of money by having that work done in house um so a lot of this stuff was not done halfhazard was based on the the the data that we received looking at prior year looking at current year and
just seeing how things are being done in terms of uh being compliant in terms of U the purchasing and in the procurement District facilities so you'll see later on that the number for Capital has been decreased last year we took out $6.8 million in capital reserve
this year is 1.7 but one thing that we did was we beef up deferred maintenance I mean we beefed up the comprehensive maintenance so the comprehensive maintenance plan is going to drive more maintenance into the 2526 budget which we hope will slow down the emerging
repairs and and the need for replacing capital capital components so there's a red reduction in capital for for 25 26 but an increase in and comprehensive maintenance and obviously these are our facilities and the goal is to protect
the investment in our facilities so that they can sustain us driving instruction in a safe and friendly environment that is appealing uh to R public kids students and staff this is the district by the numbers
um one number in particular I say is concerned about as the per pup cost for 2526 budget that numbers 21,299 that's up from 20449 as Dr Schwarz said costs are going up inflationary costs are going up all our admin costs when we go through the
advertis budget you'll see a lot of lot of these things have gone up year over-year I also want to give a huge thank you out to our HSA groups we've been working very close with them in terms of what they're doing for students and staff the uh the Rood Education Foundation has been really great as well
as the Alumni Association just to mention some organizations on on this sheet so this chart here is is showing a a decline in enrollment over the last five six years um one of the things that we're looking at doing is a demographic
study to understand um what's going to happen in the near term in the future regarding our enrollment and and better make decisions on what those reports are going to show when we receive them that hasn't been contracted out yet but it's
it's in the the works for 25 26 to do a study curriculum and instruction objective so the budget supports uh mtss which is multi-tier System of support which is a layered system of support for students in need it also supports the new gifted and talented program as
well as enrichment if Mr SCH you want to just kind of add to this anything or is that yeah that's great thank you so much actually I would love to give uh Mr Ross an opportunity to speak first and if there's anything that I feel is needed to be added I'll I'll chime in but Mr
Ross why don't you share about some of our uh our progress here in curriculum and instruction thank thank you Dr Schwarz so we've made a lot of progress this year in uh you know some of these areas um but in the coming year we really
would like to focus our efforts on establishing and continuing the multi-tiered system of support across all of our schools making sure that all of our kids are getting the appropriate interventions to move them forward we also really want to focus our time and energy on the group of students who
would benefit most from gifted and talented education while also offering broad scope enrichment opportunities to all of our kids um the next bullet down we we want sorry I'm sorry our our next bullet T can I keep going is that okay
okay uh our next bullet here is just uh about our our transitions if you watched the state of the school presentation you know this was a strong area of need in our district the grade 5 to six and the grade 8 to9 transitions specifically that work is underway in Earnest we actually had uh some of that work today
on today's professional devel day and we want to continue it next year and be sure that our kids are getting the best kind of preparation as they move from from grade band to grade band uh and finally uh you know we're just we want to continue equipping our staff members with the best resources and tools so
they can they can support our kids in the best way thank you Mr Ross I remember the conversation we had regarding a bullet point number three regarding that transition period so we had in-depth conversations during our budget reviews about items that are on this on this page
the budget also supports uh these five key areas of curriculum instruction expansion of ESL Services reduction of guidance counselor case loads at the high school special ed instruction and case management expansion of uh orual high school math offerings and KDAY
gifted and talented programs today was professional development day in Richwood and professional development is funded throughout the district to advance staff at all levels to help further Drive instruction and equip staff with needed resources to increase productivity one
of the things that we want to do going forward is done PD days is make sure that functional groups are looking are are getting PD in other departments my business office next year will be sitting into the special ed programs p uh PD they will be sitting in school
climate PDS they'll be sitting in the stem PDS and data science so you know after today's uh PD we realize that we need to get out of our silos our department and get into other functional groups so that we can just better serve the district by understanding what they're going through regarding uh
driving ed uh driving education the 2526 budget supports these five special program objectives specialized instruction early intervention and pre-intervention support Family Partnership partnering with a CPAC strategic alignment and
annual review and inclusive practices Dr Fel anything you want to add to this these objectives uh relate to our onee state of special ed programming in addition to some of the comments from state of schools regarding special education so these are important
objectives for us to continue to move forward in the next school year thank you thank you so moving into 25 26 F of the Year there will be new Innovative academic programs at all levels the elementary school has revisions and evidence-based
enhancements of K to5 Ela the new middle school has new courses and the new high school has courses English mathematics and computer science find and applied arts and science at the high school the next few slides allow us to talk about our student achievements and
accomplishments both in and outside of the classroom these are class of 24 student achievements I'm not going to read them to you but these are phenomenal phenomenal stats past budgets have supported these deliverables and outcomes for our
students in the class of 20 24 I like to give a kudos to Keith cook his impressive coaching staff in our amazing student athletes you have results there from the fall Sports the winter and the spring 24 class extracurricular
highlights there are many to name a few is applied engineering divisional High School percussion original High School ban justtin a few so we'll next go through the budget revenues the tax levy
um the general fund and cost drivers and capital projects so here you have uh a comparison over 2425 and 2526 I'll just kind of go line by line uh you have your tax levy is up $2
million state aid as mentioned earlier is down by $218,000 budget of fund balance last year we at 26 this year at 27 Capital maintenance and emergency these are all Reserve accounts last year it
was $8.8 Million 68 was for um capital and uh this year that number is down because the the capital expenditure is down a lot from last year we're down to $1.7 million so that's why you see such a reduction for Capital mten emergency
reserves ask a question here yeah sure I think for a little bit of clarity we put that $6.7 or $8 million in last year to pay for the new hbac the rod G
at Ridge and Glenn Glen yes they didn't happen we have now gotten bids for that we're in the process of betting those and making decisions and next and this summer we expect those projects to stay
in so that's 6.7 although it's not sitting in this budget it is still money available for those projects so we're going to do those plus the $1.7 Million worth of projects that you're going to um ear
about later on yes yeah okay yes I just want that clear because that looks like a big reduction so oh my gosh we're not doing Capital work we are doing our Capital work maybe more all right so six is Ridge and then three or four is the GL so combine it maybe 10 or
11 68 was was taken out Capital withdrawal last year 68 that was our our our portion of of the grants for the uh for the two project don't we have to pay everything now before then again so yes the answer is that yeah we're going to get reimbursed all right so that's why
the number in capital for 25 26 is lower because of a cash flow and we may have to put out like 111 million and get reimbursed so that's why our share is 68 and the other part is a little B almost $4 million so that's why the the capital
number for 2526 is 17 because we going to have to fund the full project and then then get reimbursed so are we do we have set aside $1 million for that project yeah we had $15 million in capital reserve right okay at the end at
the end of last year 15 15 but in this slide we are showing eight no those are different those are all different reserves this Capital maintenance Reserve last year main we did 1.5 million and we had a million dollars in emergency those are combined 8.8 that's not just Capital but the combin should
be more than 15 right yes for just cap for Capital combine yes yes so so the budget last year for mainus was5 um the budget for emergency was a million dollars we took out 500,000 and
the budget for Capital was $6.8 Million so I lumped those three numbers together because they were Reserve accounts so but for the budget for 2425 we had the obligation of $8.8 million okay but we may have to pay more than 68 because the way the rod gr works and we may have to
Fork up another $4 million which we have so for cash flow purposes we had to keep the 2526 number low so it's at 1.7 for 2526 but as I said earlier we beefed up um the CMP for maintenance okay so once
once once we complete the projects and maybe 6 to 8 months or whatever time it takes after that state will reimburse that 34% then we may be able to use that for other capital projects right
yes so the $4 million then is the 1.7 and the 1 Point um seven from the one 1.7 from the 17 for maintenance reserve the one the 17 for the capital and the other part was emergency 500
right and miscellaneous is made up of Community School interest income and rent rent Revenue tuition is uh up slightly Medicaid is the Minimus an extraordinary Aid revenue is projected
at $3 million and I think everybody here knows that we actually realized 2.6 or almost 27 last year in extraordinary aid but we feel there's opportunities without getting into the weed into the details that we can probably realize the three we we expect
to realize a little more than $3 million but we we're we we projecting that number at three for the 2526 budget we're we're very confident that we can realize the number greater than what's was projected it's very conservative
number and on the tax levy side it's an increase of $2 million assess value is 700 72,73 the yearly increases $251 $20 a month 70 cents per
day does that number 251 include um Debt Service or is it just that's number is without Debt Service is strictly on the 2% on the on the on the tax levy okay we did it exactly as you did it last year and then for 25 26 sorry for 25 26
revenues this is just the same thing in a pip chart these are the expenditures so on the expenditures on the pled property has a big increase due to required maintenance uh that number has been bumped up because as we did the CMP this
year we were going again not by past year because a lot of the reports in the past were just kind of like just moved over we went school by school looked at the annual reports and um had a collaborative conversation with
facilities on uh PL and property so that numberers up a little bit transportation number again was a number that's reduced it was really based on actual spend and not based on the budget and worked with Mrs Johan to really get a good number
and using a CPI of 3.87% so that number went down wasn't anything genius but just we were able to get savings through better budgeting School support reduction is due not because of Any U Cuts in programs but a reclassification
of positions like Paris and music and library and some other positions so it's not any cut of any staffing of any programs it's just just a reclassification of of where items should be in the budget this is um a pie chart of the
prior slides in ter of other it's made up of non salary non salary is kind of like the only thing we really control non salary would be like custodial it would be supplies it's things other than like you know salaries and benefits and stuff like that those
things are not those are those are really under our control procurement and purchasing and that would be all stuff that's considered like non-salary and capital projects to go each item so this is a
combination of the assessment that we paid the architect for on the high school situation that elevator uh shuts down and our our population on the third floor can't get out of the building the elevator being shut down so we we
thought we had a way to do it through a co-op but we have to go out for bid we do have numbers for that elevator but we can't we wanted to do it this summer we cannot do it this summer because material and supplies and everything was not going to be in time for this summer uh the elevator at GW we can actually do
in this count this fiscal year meaning 2526 um that that La is now currently shut down it's been down for months um the Bower at Willard was on the priority list of top things that should be done according to the architect and your
assessment and that's the replacement cost for for that H has extreme heat in their in their gym um and also the orchard roof replacement was another of those priority items that was on the the
assessment that came from the architect that was a priority and I realized that there is some flexibility with this number you know if there's something that were to uh go to the top of the Heap we can definitely uh look at that as a for a
conversation but um the elevator at the high school is a is a must these are kind of all must us to tell you the truth and so for capital projects uh we have now um million 7 in the budget for capital projects and that's because of the big number that we have from prior
years regarding the projects like Glenn and ridge uh this is really the the last slide I again I want to thank my my team the budget was really you know designed to make sure that we respect the
taxpayers uh while advancing you know the budget for R Public Schools based on a Strategic Mission um aligning our goals and priorities provide resources where they're needed and we look forward to more collaboration and and moving
this District further I I thank you guys all for the opportunity I thank you guys for my team and letting us serve and in the in the cooperation and the collaboration that we've had throughout this whole process uh with the staff the
the cooperation the central office all the parment leaders who we've called in multiple multiple times to look at their numbers we really appreciate and and respect what you guys do and we we're just we're here to serve you guys that concludes the presentation great thank
you might we go back to a slide um and that's the slide uh Dr Schwarz presented maybe we could get a little bit more specific on which I'm sorry I I I apologize which slide no was academics
it was the new program next this one no two slides of new program one was recently added I I apologize uh this one no yeah this one so I you know we talked about what this actually means and looks like yeah
yes happy to so first of all I got feedback from our our Tech uh Jason to try to maintain six inches of distance between our mouths and the microphones and that I was the primary violator of those that rule so just to be clear but everybody just to keep in mind I told
them I would tell everybody that primary violator primary violator so uh so if you took a look at the presentation when it was released on Friday you might have you might have noticed that this slide wasn't included but after conversations with our board members after uh it was released um and just uh and just kind of
reviewing it myself I thought it would be more appropriate to be a little clear about how we're accomplishing some of the things that we want to accomplish so although um from year to year uh we have positions open up when people retire or
because we don't have to run need as many sections as we think we do for certain courses um so we've been trying to be as judicious as possible with any anticipated freed up sections so that we can reassign staff as needed but in some cases through our operational efficiencies uh we were able to add a
few additional positions I didn't want to be too clear too committal about specific positions because as I said earlier those needs can change but we are committing in general to allocating uh some of our staff members in headcount some cases it'll be new
headcount um in almost all cases it'll it'll be in most cases it'll be new employees that will be hiring um and there's a couple of position a couple places that we're expanding we are seeing an increase of our uh as of our ESL students actually you know what I've been doing a good job of letting other
people talk Miss Murphy would you like to talk about some of these uh new positions I don't have a little thing on my microphone so hopefully are you six seven seven inches maybe without the sponge um yeah
so year-over-year we're seeing um increased Services increased enrollment for our English language Learners coming into schools um we're also over the last a year been trying to create access to these programs in all of our buildings
and this will allow us to meet the needs of all of our students across all 10 of our buildings moving forward into 2526 um which will be wonderful again um there's been a lot of call for reduction of some case loads at rhs for our school
counselors so we're looking at adding an additional counselor in order to um reduce case loads to approximately 200 students per counselor at the high school which will provide additional support to students as they're working on their um career and college Pathways
and any other supports our counselors give so many supports to our students that that's just one of the services um even though it's a large portion of what they do for our students um we're also seeing increased needs as our students are rising through our programs at the elementary and middle school we are now
starting to see increased needs for our special education students as they are moving into our high school programs so we will be increasing our ability to add special education sections as well as um additional counseling and case management for our students as they're
entering high school and we are also being able to expand our math offerings so as we're making changes at the middle school that will preempt the need to be able to add additional offerings at the high school level um as well as reduce some of our um course enrollments at the
high not course enrollments but the number of students in our sections in math um so that there'll be the the sections will be a little bit smaller but we also be able to make sure we maintain all the AP sections that we currently offer as we're expanding our offerings um to students at the High
School for Math and then of course you know I don't want to share Miss I don't want to steal Mr Ross the Thunder but again looking to uh fully Implement our K8 gifted and talented programming by adding some staff um at the K5 level and
repurposing some staff at the 68 level to ensure that we are providing structured programming to our students at the K8 level I really look at this is as sort of the good news slide in the um in the
district not that everything else isn't good but I'd also um thought it's important to reiterate how we're um reconfiguring our building maintenance grounds right so as you said we're doing
our custodial services but we're also looking at um inhouse bringing in our maintenance services and um a building director so there'll be a change to that and and a grounds company right so what was being done in the schools
over the last couple years so from the electricians HVAC to plumbers and Carpenters we felt that a lot of work is being outsourced that could have been done in-house with better better quality people and the people are out there um at Market rates that we can that we can
afford that are already baked into the budget and situation with the fields you know going being part of the fields committee I've been going to those meetings I've been at all the schools walking the fields myself you know I'm I'm a former baseball coach so I'm familiar with you know how to maintain
field and stuff like that so I see the erosion of the fields just based on what I see today I was at the what I pause so I can see where a lot of the stuff has been taken up and not even put back in place and having a company specialized
in fields take care of the fields because and I did it in the past life is better than what we have in place right now and um having trades that we control that we manage that we that we can give our PD to that we can train and and tell them how we want things done in Ridgewood will better serve the
community and better serve our schools because too much stuff is being formed out I think it's being done because the people are kind of less than motivated to to do the work so we kind of a lot of times I see the the the requisitions coming through literally I'm looking at
requisition that are come through say why didn't we why didn't we do that work and I'm just seeing work without budding heads that I feel we could do in house that I've seen work by normal trades do in house and there were items that are
coming up for can we do this can we do that and then you have the conversation we got to go out there and get quotes and a lot of that work we should be to do in house that I did I don't want to be specific to what the requests were I feel that we could do the work in house and by having trades that we control
that are under our jurisdiction and under the supervision of a director of facilities who experience at running entire uh facility structure and having a manager custodial who's could manage who could train who can expect work and we can we can hold that person
accountable as our employee to make sure that the work is getting done and hold that person accountable I think it better serves the district and and like I said things that are being deferred or push out a lot of emergency repairs probably would would not have happened
with better control and so we're down the road a piece regarding getting the structure of people oversee facilities we' now are at a stage of looking at a final vetting of that of that of that staff and I want to be able to allow
that person to do the the vetting for the trades you now we don't want there's certain decision we're trying to hold off on until we get the the top structure in place but we've got good feedback regarding grounds had great meetings regarding different companies and seen proposals about what they would
do that's better that we've compared to the existing contract that uh the quality should improve a lot so Mr Matthews um just want to summarize that currently we have one
contract with one vendor where we Outsource custodial service we Outsource ground maintenance and we Outsource management of those to plus the um mechanical Team all of the and the third
is mechanical team right so mechanical and elect electrician hbac person Plumbing general maintenance general maintenance so those are the three different buckets one is the maintenance the custodial staff and ground maintenance and then the management team that is looking at that so those are the
four big buckets you are bringing that management team and the skilled trades inhouse yes and then you would still keep the grounds and the custodial Service as Outsource services but they would not go to one company they would
go to two different companies or it may be one but there are two separate bids going out one for custodial services and one for ground Services two different packages right and in the ground Services you will also merge our current landscaping and snow and all that
contract and snow that a very key point and snow and also we we can save indirectly on the use of our our vehicles by a lot of the grounds work that our people are using now will'll save on the vehicles maintenance and repair so that actually is a question so
if we are bringing these trades in house um electrician plumber um HVAC person um a new director of facilities manager cust or manager or custodia manager so do we need to buy vehicles for them or
do we already have vehicles that we are providing to our current contractor that we will be able to reuse we're not buying vehicles for them but I the use of our existing Fleet regarding like snow plowing and regular trades um we met with companies that said now we
didn't get a number from them yet honestly so what is the cost avoidance of you guys taking over the services in terms of us using our vehicles like we don't have that final number on what cost we will save there's savings that's built into it that we haven't really Quantified yet we don't have everybody
final number we did ask him to give us a castal voage number for the vehicles that we have now because there's some that we have to replace but it was something that I've talked to Miss Johan about putting it for 2627 regarding
doing a a look at vehicle purchases for you know rounds and maintenance and stuff like that but right now we feel that their vehicles that need to be replaced but we didn't really put it in because it was they're at the end of the life cycle for sure but we have we can we could buy some time and if you have
not already uh initiated the bit for the grounds work um that's that that's we have good numbers but we're going to do the actual bid within the next two weeks right so when when you're doing the actual bid there was one suggestion from the Green
Team uh to look at the new um suggestions that villag ising we we yeah we we we met and talked about that okay perfect so we we would be going so when I attended the Green Team there was one suggestion that uh pamper and the team are working on at the Village side to
bring in um a new ordinance that um leaf blowers um unless it's a fourstroke leaf blower or unless no fourstroke should be banned and um I may be confusing there but there are two strokes and four stroke so one of those produces more
pollution than than cars actually two stroke yeah so unless it's a four stroke but fourstroke is very heavy to carry uh on the back so BL Strokes are very um bad for the environment and noisy so the proposal was that if we are going out for the bid we can add that with the new
contractor that the leaf blower should be green or it should be fourstroke or uh if they are the the the person is riding on them then they are those are fine so those are not as polluted so that is one proposal that will be added there so that was one clarification so
we already have Fleet and we will not be uh we will not have to spend more on tools and Fleet and all those things to buy when we are bringing these trades in house right and what happens um so if you only have one electrician one plumber um one H5 person like any trade
where we only have one no we have two hvcs two electricians I think it's one plumber we have a couple general maintenance I I I would have to go but wherever we if if we only have one and now they are employees um District employees would be entitled for vacation
time and thck time and all so at that time will we have a like what would be our backup because with the contractor the contractor is responsible to provide a backup but if we have our employees and they are out um would we have uh vendors on the list that we can just call if there's an emergency like white
break or something it's that's so those are great question so one of the things that we see is some some cross uh tra uh skill-wise with some of the trades they're they're they're general maintenance guys who can do some Plumbing general maintenance guys who can do some electrical work so on and so
forth but we do we do uh it's in the budget for two electricians two HV two two HVAC guys couple general maintenance and um I don't want to I don't want to miscall myself but we do have a plan for some redundancy regarding guys being in and out we obviously would let both guys
be out the same time and if we had to go out and and do a u a vendor for an emergency whatever it is but you know guys are in top vacation and time off and stuff like that that's my point that you would still have vendors on the call list right so that if there yes we we would still have access to all those
vendors on a on a list if we were to have an emergency if the work need to be contracted out um I I wouldn't I wouldn't use a sub we would use a contracted um vendor through you know regular Co-op and state contract we still have access to all those guys some
of the people that we're looking at are people who managed trades before it's one of the one of the criterias that of the people who were trying to bring on board that you manage trades and these guys have done trades and their skill that the Trad so they had to like one guy would like literally would tell us how he managed to trace he was just jump
in and help the electrician help the plumber help out the carpenter like so those are the kind of people trying to bring on board who are not just going to sit back there and just tell Johnny what to do but somebody could jump in here and and and be part of the action so we literally have had those meetings and asked those questions regarding the
support of the trades perfect and just on the slide that is right now open for um the additional programs that we are planning to add uh I just wanted to comment that if you look at the actual numbers Behind These slides these are 14 15 people um staff members full-time
staff members that that would be needed for that but um as Jamie explained most of that um the curriculum team and the administration and staff they able to work that they'll be able to repurpose or add on to the existing responsibilities for majority of them
and only few of them which are really really needed will be brought in um as new positions and those will be coming from other efficiencies so uh it's it's very funny that somebody was asking me that uh hey um who like somebody who
watches the meetings often or have been watching for five six years one of the friends he asked me that you look more calmer these days on at the board meetings and I said I think maybe because um I've just the people who are working there I've built more trust in them so and that that actually is true
so um I think I'm very confident or comfortable with the budget there are some projects uh on the capital project slide where I already mentioned to you that I'm good with that 1.7 million Capital project number but um let's talk at the facilities committee and I understand that there is some
flexibility to change some of those projects or modify some of those those projects later on I understand the elevators I understand both schools elevator and probably the roof that those are non-negotiable but when it comes to the boiler and um uh rooftop
HVAC we may be able to let's start more I just want to provide some feedback later and understand we may have some vle room to add on some more project there so I can say something so what you're going to be ask to vot on tonight is the tenative budget preliminary budget as long as we're having a
conversation about the capital projects right so if it goes to the county and we decide take it from say Willer project to something at another school we can do that so so it was discussed at this meeting if something is not discussed and then you want to make a change to
the preliminary budget and we don't discuss it technically you can't make that change but having had this conversation the flexibility does does uh right and the the primary reason for that discussion is there are some um
important projects that may be coming up um based on the feedback that we are hearing or uh since we are now hiring our own team we should take their inputs for some of those projects the HVAC project especially and then once we have in from our own staff then we can
proceed with whether that is the right direction to go in with a new boiler or U because Sheila has mentioned multiple times for Willard and GW that those are steam systems and maybe we need to look at holistic what needs to be done there so whether just replacing the current
boiler is the right approach or should we be looking at switching there instead of steam to water or going towards that direction right so whether that project is the right project or not and whether a rooftop system is the right system or not so we can have those discussions but
like and overall I understand the approach overall I understand the numbers just the Minor Details once we have our own staff let's talk to them and then we may be able to um replace some of those projects y but I'm I'm very confident and I'm very thankful for the amount of work that has gone in I've
seen some of those details like we are some projects large projects millions of dollars of projects where we at some point we only had one bid or they one bidder was not in the range where we were looking to be this time we had six or seven biders so that requires a lot
of work so I'm really thankful for that just a final update as the contract for the custodia we had seven bids and we're getting down to the end we want to make an award by um April at by the April meeting can I ask a followup question to something that Mr Donnie said so just I
want to want to understand the process so what I understand you to say was that for example um if the decision was that we would not replace the boiler at Willard but instead might revamp the whole system or something like that if that was
substantially more than $600,000 and that's not in the budget how do we fund that then do we have to wait for the next year do we like what's the flexibility we would have to do a resolution by by resolu res
to withdraw monies in capital reserve that are that will allow for that project but I think between the projects um of $1.7 million I believe there's a there's a cushion if something were to go over right but you know again we some flexibility these are budget
numbers right now and I I would think we could do it comprehensively regarding the full capital of for 2526 obviously I think the elevator is a priority um yeah no that's that's clear I I wasn't trying to argue the the priority we could do it comprehensively
and get the numbers for all of the projects if we were to pull one out and bring one in but I think we we used this heat map to prioritize what we needed to do for 2526 so it's all in um a category based on priority coming from the uh the
architect I just want to make sure we had the flexibility um financially and with the county as well yeah we caught a little bit of a break in terms of the bids that came in from the uh the Glendon project too we C A a bit of a break excellent thank you so I oh one of the approach is that we may be able to
do marry and it's a it's just a broad suggestion finance committee will have to look at it um Mark and Richard will have to look at it the feasibility of it whether it's possible or not but every year right now our our position is that we will increase the operational budget
by 2% right and there's not a lot of um flexibility there because our um in one of the slides where we showed that 86% % of the expenses are pretty much fixed expenses and whatever is growing there
the commitments some of them are 3.25% and some of them are outside the district that we don't even control um so those programs if those expenses are increasing those are not in our control so we only control about 14% of the budget where we can play with um so uh
if our expenses are increasing at 3 3.5% rate and on that operational budget we are increasing our um Revenue or local tax levy by 2% state is now coming up this year they had 3% reduction and that's the forecast for next few years
probably we'll be getting that type of reduction again so we have our capital budget decreased from this year we are able to invest Less on Capital slowly that will deplete so that would be the first our reserves will deplete first this year also we took out 1.7 million
from the reserve mode than what we put in in the maintenance Reserve so if we want to continue to do maintain uh capital projects every year um we have a list of a lot of capital projects uh District needs um few years ago there was a $90 million Bond referendum that
are floating around so my proposal there is so where we think about 2% increase every year if we start thinking instead of 2% if we start thinking of 2.25 say that's a number and that
025 would be towards Debt Service not on the base budget so it's not increasing your base right so if you take 0.25 or $250,000 um on a million dollar2 $100 million budget so if you take that um
actually it would be less 0.25 U so uh if you take that much number you can do $5 million of projects every year on Capital and 40% of that will be paid by the state and that will fall out in 20
years so it's not increasing your base every so and that will also give them a predictable number every year to work on capital projects so it can be a plan it's a fiveyear plan that in next five years every year we will do these capital projects and that is a
sequencing so it's a big enough number to get a lot of projects done and it's a small enough number to only fit prior priority projects and not a laundry list of projects because um so if we just say okay every year we'll just do a a small
referendum with the annual elections so whenever there's an election November election or June election so at the election time we'll do a one referendum of $5 million that would come out to be I think $250,000 per year and 40% will be paid by the state um it it can become
a predictable Revenue stream for next and it will fall off in 20 years it's not a permanent increase so that would be my suggestion but you you have to you know the state aid isn't isn't 100 % because it has to be based on your onh
housee students when you're when you're doing a a referendum so there's it's it's not a guarantee that it's always what's not guaranteed in the state the 40% from the state isn't a guarantee it4 yeah 34% 4% but it's not a guarantee
because you can see as referendums are going through that they're not all getting the same amount because it's based on your onh housee students so there were some projects we did in our 48 or 40 whatever that was 45 U million
dollars in 20 208 but I thought those were the projects that were related to field there is there there's not everything that everything you do doesn't always translate into State a yeah except the fields it it was not have the feeds but you also have this
formula they use on nonous students it's just an interesting thing so it's not a you're getting a lot of money from the state we are not spending 100% of our money for capital projects whatever number we can get from State and that gives the administration a predictable
Revenue stream for next few years to identify and do the projects every year because right now they would do wait they have to wait until the end of the year for Surplus and if there's a surplus then only that projects can be planned for next year I understand what you're saying one of the things using
being a user of the buildings for 25 years while I was a teacher I was very excited to see that you're bringing back the trades to be Ridgewood employees because that's how we started out and
over the 25 years I saw a lack of attention and to detail and to quality of the buildings because they would bring in a one person to fix something of the bathroom was leaking and then they did their work and if it wasn't
good they brought it and somebody else came there was and that consistency and pride of doing the work and I do think as we all do in our own homes we want to be on top of these repairs so they don't turn into bigger repairs I can't tell
you when you hear the water just you know as a taxpayer and teacher hearing the water just running the toilet all day long and you know how the water's being wasted because they couldn't get a plumber there to fix it because it was an outsourced person having people in
the district they can get people over get it addressed and I really think in many ways one of the things that is lacking in the building I may mention is enough electrical outlets how my building at GW was built in the early 1900s and there's not enough Outlets
we've got extension cords and we get scolded by not having those always done properly um but now with the electricians maybe when they're not running to an emergency those are ongoing proactive things that could be
installed in the building getting more Outlets so that there's not wires where there shouldn't be so I think in one hand it's really nice having people there all the time but I think it's also going to be much better for the children
and the building and the life at the school to have Plumbing addressed electrical things addressed just you know our clocks at GW stopped working so we have clocks around the building and then we put a battery operated one ones but if you bring in people that know how
to fix it you're not waiting to get enough work to get the El electrician to work for the five hours you have somebody there that's every single day and I really think it's going to improve you know the life little things you know that we all see even here at the Ed
Center this is not a young building so I'm sure there are things here that if you got the trades there to do it they're going to jump on it and I really think it's not a luxury but I think it's a necessity in a very good move if I may add um we scrutinized a lot of
the requests for requisitions and maybe I think it was two weeks ago three weeks ago I I put in the the Mr Don form the requisition rationale form and so the forms are coming to me even before the forms are coming to me you know you ask gently you know how long has this been
like everything's coming in as an emergency everything is an emergency there there's no there's no there's no planned work there's nothing planned everything is a is a reaction is an emergency it's got to be done now like even today when we did procurement
training one of the things we asked the secretary was what is a fair amount of time for you to turn around for us to approve a requisition getting to a point we ask you to plan that out they say okay turn around in two days but everything that I'm getting is I got it
approve it like right now everything it's like there's no room like I got to drop what I'm doing or the disguise is like everything there's no there's no plan it's and it's frustrating because you you got to stop what you're doing because if you don't get that thing approved then they say well I give it to the business office and they didn't get
it approved it probably should have been done a while ago it's frustrating so as we're talking about you know this this redesign um it will be important to see that what we are thinking will happen
does happen so when you um no longer need as many I would side vendors coming in we've saved X so I'm I'm charging our finance committee um next year to really take a look at you know what is that is
it really materializing and of course it will also be part of um you know we'll get some reports in facilities but it to me that you know we're going to make this change which I think sounds really good and it it really sounds workable let's let's make sure that those
efficiency are we realize those efficiencies and if we're not then how do we do it so the big thing is we got to hire the right people in the trades that is the key key thing we got to hire right electricians that could do the work themselves the
right plumber like in in the arar contract there's like a clause if it's over a two inch leak it's got to go out to a vendor if there a two-inch leak they'll they'll do it in the house like you know like so it's 4 Ines you can't do it there a lot of stuff like that that's in the contract that is just
costing us more money like I don't want I don't want to keep mentioning scenarios that I've literally rent to myself that are that are costing money that I don't believe we should be I know that's great that' be great follow up on what you said um I'm violating the rule
sorry sorry about that um is is I I just want to be clear on what you're charging the finance committee I take this seriously right so is we want to make sure that we're getting the efficiencies that we end participate um but we also want to make sure that we're getting the
benefits to the uh better facilities right better facilities better attention to detail so it's it's you know it's the benefit as well I I just wanted to make sure because it's kind of a double Tred thing it is so that's why of facilities and Fin and the experience of the people
in the building which I thought that was really important you just said um so I okay thank you so we have to find a way to measure that I mean we haven't quite gotten to that point yet but I do have that two-year study that we did to look at the P the P's and we could do a
comparison between the work that's being outsourced versus the work that's being done in house so we have to come up with a way to measure the performance of these guys to show that bringing them in house and paying salaries and benefits and whatever overtime whatever it is has
is is a there's a a gain to The District in terms of um savings so we can Outsource non-salary vendors and in-house work that's being done we need we need to look look at being able to measure that but the key thing is definitely hiring the right people in the right trades we right now have a
less enthusiastic situation because there's been quiet and we feel there's a lack of motivation right now because they're waiting they're waiting around for what's going to happen they literally have asked me what are you gonna do about the trades what are you gonna do about this so this uh this transition is goingon to be tough I
think for the next couple of months regarding what's happening with everything custodio not so much ground the sto in it trades I I know the motivation I I don't feel any energy did you have anything great job
Team all right so um I just not on facilities but on the curriculum aspect of it I just wanted I wanted to say um briefly that um I wanted to thank your team I wanted to thank everybody every single person sitting at this table and
um for the the really thorough comprehensive analysis but you know with regard to when we talked about um expanding some of our programs and improving our programs I mean having just spent a couple of months with Mr Ross on the uh strategic plan um which I
know will be unveiled you know shortly um it's very exciting to be able to think about not just um what we're doing to improve things as they exist now for our students but also to dream a little bit and think about what we can bring
into the district and what was very exciting for me as I sat here and listened to you was that this budget as it's been put together reflects some dreams some improvement improvements it reflects Community uh comment and support you know particularly with
regard to what we're doing in special ed and the hard hard work that Dr fenick did in preparing that special ed report and it felt to me like everything was coming together um I which I just think is a very very positive way to uh
propose a budget and so I really look forward to us seeing the fruits of that as the year comes by and I just wanted to really congratulate you all again on thank you everyone who's here and you know so that's it thank I just want to add something I thought Mary was talking
about but um on the on the curriculum slide um I think we I won't go into exact details because that would be coming in the next meeting but since we're talking money here budget um there are some programs that we'll be introducing next year that are being funded by the Ed foundation so um so
thank you the community also for chipping in and funding the curriculum activi or curricular support okay all right so um Dr schw did you have anything more to add I I mean thank you very much thank you Mr
Matthews and and uh Jamie and Dr benwick Brian so I would just extend also a thank you to the community we have a very engaged community and um groups like uh folks who come out to my superintendent coffees to uh the League
of Women Voters to a variety of other community groups uh there's just we have a lot of advocates in the community as y all know and uh and it's been great having all these conversations so I hope that um this is a year where we can move some things forward I hope that people you know can see in this budget that
we're listening and we're really doing our best for with the kids and thank you to the board thank you to the team proud of all of you proud of all the work that you've done and I look forward to implementing this for the new year and rolling out the Strategic plan as Miss Mall mentioned in just a couple weeks so April 7th and uh and these
recommendations of course are in alignment with what with with uh the preliminary look I've had at the the strategic planning documents thank you everyone so we can go on to our resolutions and motions not included in consent agenda
so the first is I think we'll just take them one by one maybe adoption of the 2025 26 proposed tenative budget for submission to the executive County Superintendent of Schools so we are this is a preliminary budget it goes to the
county the county looks to make sure that we are following all the efficiency the Jersy school learning standards make sure that we're following the Jersey school learning standards protecting our investment and stuff like that yeah that we're in compliance with that and they will approve it hopefully and from there
then we move forward with our um hearing on the budget final adoption yeah which is May no April oh sorry it's a April 20th I believe it is oh April 20 is it April 28 yeah8 um and that will be the final um
budget uh vote for the 25 26 so at this point we're we're voting on this tenative budget um to go to the county and we have two meetings before that or one we have the 24th and and April 7th right so we have two 24th and April 7th
so we have two more meetings if if anybody has more feedback uh there are two more meetings where there are public comments when we can hear the feedback yes move my second okay motion by Mr MCM second by Mr
Donnie okay roll call Mr Donnie yes Miss Sandy yes Mr M yes Mr mmud yes Miss bro yes yes B is approval authorization to withdraw from capital reserve uh for other capital
projects and this is what was listed and already discussed um so we are um I move that the withdraw second second second Mr MCM roll call Mr Dy yes and I
want to add a comment um with my mode with my vote in the minutes that um I would like to discuss the exact uh projects with the new in-house facility manager and then um approve them so
not M hindy yes M mcau yes Mrs mcmu yes M Brogan yes but I want to just be clear on what you're asking um Mr Donnie are you asking that no decision be made
until we have a facilities manager on staff no I'm saying that we are voting for $1.7 million right we are sending that to the county but my understanding based on everything that I have talked so far is that once we have our own team
in place um I will have that flexibility to talk to them in the facilities meeting understand with them that is this the right project to be do to be to do um for especially like the vard boiler and the H rooftop and if they
have a different feedback um or we have a different priority at that time or allocation then we will be my understanding is we'll be able to go to the county and say hey this is what we budgeted but instead of 600 we are spending 300 on this project or this is how we are changing we may we have some
flexibility to go back and change the capital project there but then you could miss just could you could miss the summer project window that's fine doing it right is the is more important than missing a timeline for me if you're
assuming these are not right so I'm not sure yeah I think it'll just be something you guys discussed yeah it's not happening this summer anyway I don't think it's happening this summer yes elevators and roof yes no the elevator's not elevator cannot happen this summer because of the timelines and
getting material no I said g that happen in a in the fiscal year yes not in the summertime yeah we wanted to get the high school done in summer but we couldn't do because of the we have two big HVAC projects happening this summer which is Ridge and Glenn yeah so we
should take a look at those we should see how they go before we do uh another tool H projects I appreciate that I get very nervous when we talk about hbac and boilers and when um we're told you know after an assessment that we need
imminently to replace the existing boiler I appreciate I agree with you 100% it always has to be done right um and you want to proceed thoughtfully and with purpose but my worst nightmare is the boiler not working like in January you know and well you can shrug your
shoulders I'm not when that happens so I just let just finish I just would ask that when it is disgusted facilities you consider the age of the boiler and you do a cost you do a you assess the risk of not
having a boiler at all versus what needs to be done in the time I think all of that needs to be taken into account that's all and and I'm when I'm making that statement I am taking all of that into account great well so then we're in agreement and I and I can just clarify the point's somewhat moot because the two projects that we have are so
ridiculously expansive that we've had to shuffle the whole sum around just for those projects so um this Ridge and Glenn hbac those two buildings are basically going to be shut down all summer so the whole district is kind of an upheaval over the summer to be able to make sure that we meet all of our commitments and get those projects done
but also uh typically for the timeline sake for future budgets as well it it's not this is also not a great time to bid for summer work because it's kind of last minute so we end up usually paying top dollar if we try to get something done the summer right when the right when it's bid with the budget so typically we would strike it in the
budget as Mr Matthews mentioned it would be it would be uh it would be ex uted sometime in the fiscal year if it's something that can be done during the year then we'll try to do it during the year but usually The Summer's off the table in the budget process at GW is shut down right now so
the year doesn't matter if it's November December whatever time frame um it's down yeah well you know I just I just want to be careful of of delays that then cause problems so but we'll discuss in facilities approval um authorization
to withdraw from the maintenance reserve for required maintenance activities this was showed in the budget this is 1 Point uh this is 1,749 and uh six I'm sorry 1,749
th6 51 I got that it's not too late yet from the mate reserve for use of required maintenance activities so everybody else vote on that I did I voted yes yes I said after I voted yes I just yeah yes on so I move
see second by Miss roll call Mr Donnie yes yes M mle yes mm yes M broen yes pass D is the withdrawal from emergency reserve of that 500,000 again discussed today
during the budget I move move by m broen second by I'll second second by Miss maau thank you a roll call Mr Donnie yes Miss Sandy yes Miss mcau yes Mr mmud yes M broed yes
pass e is approval of authorization to establish the maximum travel and related expense uh reimbursement amounts for 2526 as indicated on the agenda
motion I make a motion motion by m progan there second I second it second Mr mcau roll call Mr Donnie no that was Miss handy oh I'm sorry Mr handy I apologize yours uh roll call Mr Donnie yes M handy
yes Mr mcau yes Mr mmud yes M Broan yes F approval adoption of the 2526 maximum expenditures for Professional Services as listed I'll move that I'll second it okay um
motion Miss Broan second by Miss handy roll call Mr Donnie yes Miss handy yes m m yes Mr MCM yes M Broan yes G is approval of submission of the semi uh Corrections action plan do you
all know what semi is and what that yeah okay I move that move by Miss Rogan good by Miss mcau r call Mr Donnie yes Miss Sandy yes M mcau Mr mmud yes Miss broen yes can
pass great thank you um we'll we'll open for uh comments from the public again I don't see any uh public here uh for comments so um if there are any onlines sorry
Christina million you're on with the board hi sorry that just took a minute uh Christina uh Ridgewood resident um first thank you for the presentation I actually thought it was very informative and helpful um but I I would like to go back to the posos water uh filter uh
question that I had at the beginning and I just like to request could we you know turn off any water filter water fountain in our school that doesn't have a posos filter can we just simply shut shut them off um I'm not sure if any of you have young kids in school but I know mine
they see a water fountain and they just naturally start drinking from it um you know as parents we've we've tried to tell them to only use the posos filtered fountain at school but they you know they don't always ask because you're you know you're talking about five or six year olds trying to communicate to
adults that they only want clean water it doesn't really come naturally for them to ask the question and I also just don't think it's fair to expect um element School teachers in particular you know to walk around and search for the one to two fountains that have filters on it it just doesn't seem fair
um you mentioned the 2026 filtration for the entire town which respectfully you know these are the same talking points we've heard for a while and I I like to just really press on like what month that's actually happening in 2026 because if it's June 2026 that means our kids are exposed to another you know one
one and a half years of posos contaminated water during school hours which which I just really find unacceptable um especially you know given what we know about P's impact on young kids specifically but shutting off the unfiltered fountains in school seems
like a cost-efficient method and I'm just curious if you've explored that and what that is um I also didn't really understand the reason why we're not investing in school resource officers now for our vulnerable elementary schools all six of them um unfortunately
you know I can't make the coffee meeting coming up but this meeting is about discussion so I just want to understand you know why we're not investing in um safety at the elementary schools thanks thank you I don't see any more hands raised
I'll close public comment um absolutely uh thank you Miss million for joining us uh again uh thank you for your requ I I don't know exactly what the implication would be shooting from the hip right now uh regarding uh if we
shut off the non-pos filtered water we can certainly look into that and get back um I don't have the exact month of 2026 when the village system is supposed to come online um and then with respect to the SRO I mean we're we're between the this the we between the the
preliminary budget and the final budget right now so I think we'll take that into consideration that that's something that you you would like us to be able to do this year um right now it's not in there because we focused primarily on the recommendations that we're making are all kind of um focused on particular
known deficits and although I respect that certainly depending on your perspective uh not having school resource officers at the elementary level could be considered a deficit uh that's the rationale for where we are right now um we appreciate your feedback and that's something we can certainly discuss between now and the final budget
meeting water be like a code issue we should look into that oh yeah but we're gonna we'll do a whole analysis of that yeah okay um we do not need to go into executive session so uh I move to adjourn the meeting um do I have a
second I'll second all in favor I I e