advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Robinsville board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof Post in in trenten times
on February 26 2025 and the township of Robinsville Bolton board no less than 48 hours in advance of the meeting this notice was also posted at Sharon Elementary School ponro Middle School and Robinsville High School in accordance with njsa 18a 12241 .1 the
and policy 0142 the Robinsville Board of Education shall be bound by the provisions of the school ethics act roll call please present Miss Hill DeAngelo present Mr Howard here M
Leman absent Mr nandon present Mr Ray here Pier here Mr olberg present Dr piso present myself Mr McCree present Dr wuki present and council is not
presentent nor y thank you Mr mccre um motion under board policy 164 to to approve the virtual attendance and participation of any board member that is unable to attend here in person
tonight can I have a motion so moved second all in favor I any n or extensions thank you uh make sure Nick's ready then we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance CU I want
him to miss it Pledge of Allegiance please [Music] flag of the United States of America to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible andice
for good evening everyone president's uh report so I didn't have one plan for tonight um this was the special budget meeting um I thought I would just say that you know this is a very important part of what we do every year this is the biggest oversight that this Bo that the board has you know for the school
district um but I do also want to acknowledge the event last night um I I've lived in this town for about 13 years and I've been to sporting events I've been to community events and I've always thought that that represented
Arville strong until I went to the njd hearing last night and that was Arville strong there were at least 300 people there there were people that couldn't park there were people parking down the street just to be able to attend it was
phenomenal we had uh the Senators there we had the assembly men and women there we had brilliant I didn't know how many brilliant people we have in this town and we have a lot of brilliant people in this town let me tell you and they all moved here for the schools everyone in
that room couldn't speak more highly of the schools and how to protect them so I was glad to see so many people come out you know listen speak their mind and have their their statements read into the record for the for the meeting and I
just want to say I'm proud to be part of this town so kudos to everybody that's that's all I have for tonight uh superintendent's report yes I would like to agree with everything our our president said uh it
was really a phenomenal night and uh obviously it's a difficult situation that brought us all together uh but it did bring us together and it was a uh a moment where I was very very very proud to be a part of the school district and
really a part of the community so uh it was it was uh so many people spoke and spoke well and people from all different uh perspectives and went on touching on many different different important areas
so it was an impactful night uh we have to you know wait now and and see uh where we go from here but it was amazing how many people came out and how how prepared people were to speak and I don't know how the if we have the count of the number of people who spoke i'
would say probably somewhere around 40 people spoke and one more compelling than the other all by the way um with the same perspective in regards to protecting kids so so thank you that's the end of my report thank Dr pizo board
secretary's report all right thank you good evening everyone so tonight we're going to be we having a special budget meeting for uh for the budget um we've been doing this every year uh due to the budget concerns uh and affecting from state aid so this
was done U we've received our state aid figures uh a cut of 300,000 we've made our budget over time at this point we're going to start a budget presentation it's been emailed to all of you uh it will be posted as well it's already posted on the uh and attached on
the on on board doc so those of you at home can go review it and take a look at it um this is the beginning phase we'll create bigger uh bigger documents with more information at the uh tenative budget hearing uh in in a couple weeks from now and then the final budget
presentation on April 29th so Dr pisel okay welcome uh Community stakeholders our Board of Education a central Administration our administrators teachers and staff we are being live streamed and uh you know I encourage everyone who who uh is able to
view the live stream that we we'll have it available afterwards as well with the weather it's a difficult night for people to get here uh first off I'd like to thank Mr mccre Dr wisnoski and all of our area budget managers who just did an
absolutely phenomenal job I in regards to put bringing this budget together uh and as always thank you to our board of education for their support and uh and guidance throughout the process the next slide okay entering into this new role I
always believe the only way to take on a challenge is to define the problem uh so what we did is we first determined what our challenges were going to be in regards to the budget process this year so our challenges were to address a structural deficit while focusing our
resources on adding and expanding student opportunities regardless of what resources we have we always need to maximize the resources that we do have for the benefit of our children uh so what were we looking to accomplish uh well first develop a budget to meet our
community's expectations in our current fiscal year okay budgeting we're always looking forward two or three years but we really uh needed to First address what's going on here but always understand that anything we do in this year will impact years down the road but Priority One was this this year of
course okay um focus our current available resources on programmatic student needs and student facing Alternatives we're going to go through this budget and we're going to we're going to have my colleagues in central Administration share more details on
this even with these limited resources that we have and the challenges that we are that we are facing we're still doing excellent things for kids to bring our excellent School District um even further as we move into the future so we
do accomplish that um develop short-term and long-term cost neutral Grant funded and lowcost plans to expand student opportunity and offering programs to meet the expectations of our parents and Guardians is a lot of different wrinkles
in uh in regards to that and you know we're going to get into that of course okay on to the next slide okay these were the solutions that we identified to get to the budget that we're looking to present tonight uh we're we need to apply the full cap
amount which is the 2% that's something that's consistently very important if um without having that cap consistently applied as we're going to express later in this presentation is that the cap is actually punitive in regards to its
impact on school budgeting uh we also uh are looking to apply the full health care adjustment and uh Mr mccre will um will detail that later I do have the the amount listed there okay um some of the other items in regards to cost uh going
across the top offset necessary staff reductions with Staffing increases to our prek program attributable to adding four prek classes at our Sharon Elementary School site okay that's exciting um one of my my favorite things
with with being involved in schools over the last several years was being involved in uh in prek programs and we have an absolutely outstanding prek program we're going to go into more detail on on that as well but we need still need to make sure that we take care of of some of the obligations that
we've already put forward so we are looking to uh maintain all current services at the current levels so those are some of the different things that we've been accustomed to and and that's um that's in regards to you Sports and and the current uh some some current uh
issues that our parents already um already have access to uh and we're going to continue our planned facilities Improvement and Technology upgrades we still have more work to do in in the uh technology area and it's something that's a constant focus and we we have some uh we have an
excellent person leading the technology department uh working under next guidance and um you know we still have more work to do so that is still a work in process and we do have facilities projects that we'll get into okay what enhancements did we do because I I I know that's really what everyone wants to what good things are we doing about
kids and that's really really the interesting part of any budget and um we're looking at a programmatic expansion at our Middle School plus the addition of a language teacher at Sharon Elementary School to begin expansion of our language offerings and enhance our current program for World languages uh
language acquisition the younger the better so uh we felt it was something that even these difficult budgetary times that we needed to have our our language program start at the elementary level develop the program
there and then enhance the program that we had existing at the middle school so to make sure that our children were at the right step within their sequence for when they came into the high school so that's that's a change that's going we're looking to implement for uh this
coming September okay uh we did have a great presentation before I started uh about Avid uh we are looking to move forward with with with our AVID program uh and that program uh will now include the high school and um we're still going to preserve our program at the middle
school but it'll be uh this will be the first in a multiphase project to bring Avid to our secondary school and that reaches another segment of of of our young people in school I said we need to meet each student where they are with what their needs are and Avid is really
just another Avenue for us to be able to best reach our our students uh we're also uh looking to develop programs to increase offerings for both our school year and for for our um optional summer sessions you know we did have some additions this year and that's going to
be a component of what we're looking to do for the summer of 26 as well uh and at this point I want to turn over the presentation to Dr wisnoski Who's going to pick up there uh thank you Dr piso um it is my
absolute pleasure to be able to speak tonight about this budget um first I want to thank all of the budget managers that we worked with to develop the budget um across all the areas in our school district I think Dr piso Nick and I held
about 25 individual or group meetings over the course of two weeks um to really try to come to a consensus agreement on a on a budget and it really showed everybody's dedication to coming together to create the best uh budget program for our students uh and our
staff so I want to thank all of our budget managers for their hard work um it was a very difficult budget year for all school districts across New Jersey and where a lot of schools are going to be in the cut mode we were in a mode of being able to still highlight some
tremendous programs for the for our school uh for our schools and I'm going to be able to share some of that tonight um and it's I'm almost embarrassed that I get to highlight all the good in the budget off the backs of the work of so many people in our district but um I'll
I'll take the good right I'll I'll be happy to be that part part of the presentation tonight so one of the things that was very important especially to our our our guidance Department was this to maintain the same levels of supports for our Mental Health Services for all students um that is
something that we've seen increase over the years and we've actually been able to move it from Grant funded to to our our operating budget um it's something we're committed to and it's something that we're able to maintain in our um in our in our budget as Dr piso was saying um part of the Strategic plan is
developing the modern classrooms um and with that technology upgrades we were able to go Ono one as everyone knows uh last year to complete that now we're really looking at the CL the physical classroom space itself um we're being able to bring in presentation boards
like promethian boards across the district um we spent uh all afternoon walking through the high school yesterday with an opportunity to look to bring in those devices at the high school um they've also been brought into Sharon and here at pond um improving the
world language as Dr pisel was saying we we have heard from our families and from our staff that we want to be able to improve the the the program by uh having kids experience it sooner and so we're looking to bring it to Sharon Elementary School and then expand it at pond with
the hope that our students could participate in Spanish one before they get to high school in the hopes of being able to start on a higher trajectory once they get to high school um we're expanding Avid so Avid is a program that um that we started three years ago with
our sixth grade we merged from sixth grade to seventh grade seventh grade to e8th grade and now in its fourth year next year we're looking at expanding it to the high school where it didn't have a home uh I want to personally thank Mr Patel uh as as he is leading the charge
at Avid he held a faculty meeting just to ask for interest and 23 staff members said that they'd be interested in helping to develop Avid at our high school which is a testament to our staff and to the program um that PD will begin in this summer with the development of
our Avid site team um we will have nine members of of the high school go and we're looking to build that into the program so that we can have a program for our freshman students but as we said budgeting is just not year-to year we
also are looking towards years two three and four at the high school so that it can continue to grow with that first group to sophomore Junior and Senior year um something that is near and dear to my heart obviously is the preschool
program the preschool I I I I want you all to think one year ago there was no preschool program like it didn't exist here in our school right and through the work of Christy defasio and then uh Lori Burns as we handed it off to Dr Burns we
have 14 thriving classrooms of preschool that is bringing in millions of dollars to our school district um not only is it thriving but uh earlier this year we hosted a Consortium of 50 preschool uh
we hosted the Department of Education they came to our school and almost on a monthly basis we're giving tours of our preschool program as though it has been a program that's in place for 10 years and it hasn't even been 10 months um so
I couldn't be prouder of that and for the opportunity for us to expand that for 60 more students is uh is an unbelievable Testament to Dr Burns and her team but also Mr stasio's vision for our district and uh our ability to
create that last year um something that was on the table last year for the board members that were here during the difficult bu budget cycle we had last year we heard athletic clubs and cury busting all of that is being maintained at its current levels in this budget
which I couldn't be proud to say because a lot of times when I think about budget I think about it as a parent right I have three of my own and what are the things that impact my students out my children outside of the school day and these are those those direct
pieces as you know Miss stasio and her team is working on current curriculum initiatives um things like linkit Atlas I ready I Exel all of these pieces are brand new to our district we are going
to be able to maintain all of those including all the math and Ela curriculum um like magnetic reading that we did at at the elementary school and bringing in um pieces over at the middle school as well but not only will we able to maintain it we're going to create new
curricular initiatives um including curricular upgrades to math and science especially at Pon Road and the high school and uh I I'm I'm proud of the commitment of our staff that worked with our curriculum Department Department to look for the correct programs to bring
in and not only are these going just to be programs but there's professional development built in for those teachers as well and finally in conjunction with um our special education department under Miss Johnson um with working with the curriculum Department we're looking
to bring in new curriculum initiatives which is specific programming for our special ed students and our ESL students uh really for one of the first times in a long time to look at these uh individual subgroups and what do they
need and uh in this budget we're able to produce all of these maintaining and these new curricular opportunities um and I really think it shows a true dedication to our commitment to our students and our programming and
supporting our staff so I couldn't be prouder of it um but obviously it doesn't get here easily and somebody that gets a lot of credit during this time time for understanding that it's more than just dollars and cents is Nick because not every business administrator
sees the human element and sees the academic element um but this is the the fourth budget I built with Nick and he always does and so it's my honor to turn it over to Nick thank you Dr rusi at this point I want to talk about
the local tax levy and increasing cost so you've seen this slide before our 2% tax levy uh a full 2% will bring us $92,000 we talk about the unavoidable costs these are the costs that are contractual before we start making any
adjustments custodial contract up a little over $200,000 now mind you this is a contract uh multi-e and they were the lowest bidder of I think four or five companies bid on this insurance medical prescription and dental
$1.1 million increase is estimated okay amazingly uh it's still lower than what the state health benefits is going up um even a $900,000 increase in 2% doesn't cover benefits alone uh Insurance property casualty uh
from our for from our broker 141,000 salary increases this is about 400 staff members we're looking at 1.1 million okay transportation that's contractual as well and then tuition out of District predominantly special
education uh we don't control those those uh they're not subject to 2% they raise their rates what they need to for their students who are servicing our students in actuality about 200,000 right there alone is almost 2.9 Million that does not include
inflation okay the big point is we've seen this before this is not something new uh we've been talking about this we've gone to the state uh state house and talked about this is across the state you cannot maintain 2% on
your operating budget when inflation is this much and so forth um and this has been going on for quite some time um I'm going to move on to the next slide and how do we have how how have we addressed the shortfall on the left hand side
we'll talk about uh the expenses right uh and on the right is the revenues um we had those unavoidable costs we spoke about plus I added a little bit more for inflationary items and then the cut of state aid of around $300,000 on the right hand side you'll
see our revenues starting from the bottom up 2% tax levy 900 we are allowed contractually to go for uh the full health adjustment about $800,000 wait it it was going up 1.1 million but we're allowing us to go to8
00 you don't get the full 100% from the state so this is some some give back from the state to to allow that we have no other adjustments to take there is no tuition adjustments there's no enrollment adjustments or anything like that the only adjustment we are allowed to take is the health adjustment uh
miscellaneous Revenue increases what does this mean increasing fees for clubs and sports and then interest on Bank interest so we move to an NJ arm account we're earning higher interest in that account than our banking account we move some money there temporarily and move
back when we need it um and we've increased that it is a risk it's a risk we're willing to take for this budget year coming up uh P preschool education uh expansion or or Aid um they're funding some more positions and we'll talk about that later how it that is
also helping out um supply cost and efficiencies this is every budget manager looking at their line items and what can they reduce for example electricity right it's going up 177% it's a big dollar amount but we're going to go we're looking to do the LEDs we
put in I've already signed the contracts to start analyzing the buildings free of charge PSC and G will allow us uh to tack it on the electric bill at 0% increase over 0% interest over five years right these things will pay themselves off in months um other things
such as you know Dr Ruki they're talking about Avid there was a $66,000 uh co-director in there he's like I'll I'll take that under his belt and he took it off um but this goes across the board to technology as well can we get a program that does two things instead of one and
cut one out um we were looking at light items you know we have thousands of items and you saw the spreadsheet you know how much is that $500 cut that it's a th000 can you lower this to 300 I mean we have an over 70 right now we have a $75 million budget this current year we
are going down to that detail to squeeze as much as we can and so did all the budget managers I.E the principles and directors um and then after that you take a look at it what is your shortfall and then you go through your Staffing and Staffing through attrition and this
time we're Staffing through attrition and you're going to see some more information about that as we go through this um okay just I just want to give some some general information on our staffing uh concern uh reductions in Staffing are
always difficult but all Alternatives were explored while we are not sharing any of the detailed information on the reductions publicly at this point we will share the net impact as a preview there is a shift in Staffing to match student needs and related
resources our uh normal attrition projection will offset our overall impact and I turn it back over to Mr mccre okay so we're going to talk about that normalized attrition based on on our our district so this slide you've seen this one before as well this is our
enrollment uh we spoke about the Assa this is the application for state school Aid on October 15th every school district strikes how many students they have on hand we are and this is without preschool okay without preschool um we're going to have a
reduction of 46 general education students in grades 1 through five basically Elementary levels and 42 more in grades 6 to 8 we're gradually losing the student body from the lower grades and working their way up and we'll see in a in a little
bit more we we'll see in a couple more years we'll see it in the Middle School having a bigger effect and then it'll have it as well in the high school but it's working its way up okay um and that does not include special special ed that's just gen Ed okay that alone right
there has a a Major Impact year over year over year of what is your class size what are you maintaining and natural attrition through that with retirements and people shifting their lives and their careers as well um and
their ancillary services that go with it so the principals really did a great job looking through this as SP as well as special ed and the guidance department where can we shift Personnel what can we do uh to make this happen now you've seen documents we were planning
on much bigger Cuts with state aid that did not come to fruition we're very fortunate and that's why we had these steps in place and gone through those we did not have to make those drastic measures and it all worked out so we're very very happy about that uh as we go
through it um my next slide um includes preschool okay and you'll see a little pop right there and we'll continue to be adding on that um and we're going expanding preschool to a potential of for of 18 classrooms about 270 students
okay the following slide um now we're showing three years but remember we got last year's funding very quickly to launch in one month about 2.7 million it's gone to 2.8 for the current year and next year
we're going to 3.9 million over $1 million increase for preschool the bigger the program the more things you can service and share and shift the burdens uh and and and so forth so we're going to be serving around 90% of our student population what they call the
universe out there um we're going to be hiring additional at least an additional four teachers four more instructional assistants and we've added a half a secretary and a half a social worker took that out of the operating budget into the preschool budget you are
allowed to do certain things it has to be preschool related it will be approved by them we are actually doing the workbook right now for preschool these budget processes occur at the same time so uh Dr Burns is going to finish probably on on Friday we're having a meeting with her
and we'll go through this um I'm estimating around $750,000 in operating budget is now funded by preschool Nick let me just just uh you just want to make sure that uh everyone's aware of this one of the
things that are difficult uh about a prek program is that there is as programs come off the ground the uh the option of doing a lottery uh which we haven't had to do uh with this expansion we're projecting that we will
not have a need for a lottery and that's something that means so much to me anything uh none of us you know decided to make our lives an education to to ration uh something and to have a lottery so that we're able to do this expansion working with our principal at
Sharon who's going to help us in regards to how we're going to configure the building to be able to get these extra classes in there um I think that is um you know it's a a effort worth undertaking because it is absolutely so important to make sure that we're able
to service every child and even have um some room beyond that I turn it back over to you thank you so this is a draw we know it we understand it I mean people are going to come in for free Universal preschool and it is an outstanding program Dr wusi talked about
other districts coming to view us uh I've seen other private providers out there it is hands sound the best program there is mind you it's also free completely funded we had this discussion last year what do we do did we shut it down are we going to get more money you
just got another 1.1 million okay uh and they raised it as well percentage per student at the same time if this program went away we would have to find $750,000 in our operating budget okay now people ask how can you do this well listen you charge their
percentage of gas water electric internet phone security all those things you can and their fair and their portion of custodial and so forth and so that stuff is covered uh and it's been shifted so as our population our gened
population or I'm sorry our enroll non- preschool population is going down and preschool is going up their percentage I can charge will go up right numerator is getting bigger denominator is getting smaller we can charge a bigger
percentage legally and that's allowable and it's expected Nick if I could jump in on a another piece on this I think something that we that we should mention as well is what is the longterm impact of a prek program I it's something that
is uh that is such a draw for a community and for a school district so you know we're often talking about the uh about the enrollment Trends and and okay this is mitigating the enrollment Trend short term but what is it going to do long long term this is a big part of
our planning going forward in that there there I know there are so many young families out there that they're going to pick the community that has a that has a prek program and not only a pre- program as both Mr mccre and Dr wisnoski said we
have an absolutely outstanding prek program that has really become the the gold standard for other programs to be compared to um so already a very successful District now with a prek program I do think that long term the issues that we'll need to address will
be our increasing enrollment I do think that this will be a big part of that reversal that we'll see coming down the road maybe not right away but we will see coming down down the road Nick quick question so when you talk about
um shifting from the operating budget to the the prek is the Staffing numbers as part of that are we shifting any internal staff from these numbers that you indicated here they're going from the operating staff to the Pres staff yes so the ones that we showed are going okay they're already budgeted for that
there may be more but right now that's what's budgeted okay uh in our budget approval um and just saying that's because the enrollment in the elementary level is going down while the preschool is going up so that's why the shift in resources corre yes and and more than
that it's also the bigger the budget you have the more things you can you more have flexibility right if we only had one preschool classroom you you can't put put much in it when you have now soon hopefully 18 that's a bigger percentage of my salary
a bigger percentage of the principal salary right we can move that as well um mind you because it's taking more of the staff's time to to to allow it to operate yes we can we just charge their their ver their activity based costing so have many children in that school and
you attribute it um mind you we' did have preschool before but it was much much smaller um at the same time um you know we're not even a year in and we had to take assumptions and guesses on things um the costs are
shifting as in oh this one was less this one was more as the program expands over time we'll have a lot more data and more information that it level sets and then we can figure out can we add something more can we do something else when you also start these programs there's a high
cost to build the classroom out the for the fact that we received so much money in the beginning and had very little students we got we're far ahead of the game right we spend about $800,000 in in playgrounds right each classroom to out fit is between 50 to
$100,000 all the furniture and Equipment all brand new stuff whatever was not in those you know whatever was displaced then it got rotated among the school as well um because they have all brand new equipment um technology infrastructure
and so forth so that stuff that we normally were going to buy now here's a very key point we had a plan to add a playground at Sharon because we just didn't have enough playgrounds it was on the long range plan we had a plan for it
you just got one for free from preschool no no expense to taxpayers right uh to the local taxpayers so this is the things that occur yes Dr P um so just to kind of I'm not sure if you know this or not but in
districts like ours so kind of comparable District so right now by the numbers you gave us we're serving I believe he said 86% or so of the of our universe what is I guess a typical percentage for a district I'm sure there's going to be some parents of three and four year olds who don't feel
like their kids ready to go to school yet or so I don't think we'd ever hit a 100 um but is it like it's 86 around an average for that is 95 is it high yeah yeah so the the goal from the state is like 90% so 90% is pretty much where
they want you to try to live they take your first grade numbers and double it to find your Universe one of the things is if your enrollment in first grade kind of decreasing it it might impact what the actual percentage is so it's never exact but 90% really is the
threshold that they're looking for I can only tell you when I was in Bradley we were living around 56% I I just couldn't find the other the other students like you're saying we would go door too and we we couldn't find them so um I'm really um encouraged with the the number
of students that we have the other thing that's interesting is that there aren't other districts like Robinsville because we were one of the first to get um the one the zero to 10% of free and reduced lunch to get the preschool program in the state so we're almost like a test
case for the state on what that's going to look look like um in in in districts with the same type of social e economic status yeah and then to be above 90 if you hit 95 it's pretty amazing the reality is you're going to have people
who they look at your your total Universe right they look at statistics they look at demographics they look at the census when they look at these things you know there's going to be people who want their child to go to a parochial school because that's where what they
believe in right they or there's another reason they don't want their child in the public preschool um in the beginning you know it's a new program people are testing the waters I've seen it because you know we were my last school district the first in the state to open this
program up and won a National Blue Ribbon within years um it was slow and it was a very low economic town and we were shocked within the next year it it skyrocketed again and we kept on adding and adding and adding and adding the number of the growth the number of
classrooms we outfitted in this school district is is quite astonishing right I mean it's literally the size of most elementary schools right we're going to 270 students or cap capacity 18 classrooms go look around other school school districts right they
they have schools of two or 300 kids we literally built another school basically with and housed it and the reality is if we didn't have declining enrollment I don't think we could have pilled this off I think the timing was just perfect and just right and we can grow into it as well um you know if this
was 5 years ago we would be going to Providers we'd be doing other things now that we've had years of declining enrollment and and it starts at the elementary school and seeing it up you know if it was the other way around it would be an issue so uh I think we're very fortunate and we have great staff that are running it and and and Dr Burns
and her team but um it's it's not even a year old MH right it's shocking it's shocking yeah I mean Dr ni is is that 90% a suggested number from the state or is that something they're looking so the
state sets um goals and um uh I can't I can't speak to the number off the top of my head but they'll say within your first three years I I want to say the number is like 68% they they you should set a goal of getting to that number
within your first three years our projections already above that within our first year of our universe um Dr Burns could could speak to that number exactly but um we were just talking with her yesterday about the development of our budget uh that we're going to meet
on Friday and she had indicated that we with um the the people that have already enrolled for next year plus the returning students that we would have already attained our year three goal in year two um So within the budget
worksheet they give you uh signposts that they want you to to make and I want to say it was like 68% for some reason that number sticks in my head um but Dr Burns could definitely reach out by the next the next budget meeting and we'll have that exact number for
you it's great because literally a year ago the Whirlwind of you were approved to get preschool happen right we're like this time last year so that whole frenzy started and it was implemented June I believe of last year that's correct the one classroom in June yeah so maybe I
can ask Dr pis Dr wusi maybe by the June board meeting or May June board meeting we can get an understanding of you know what happened in the last year with preschool what you've learned and kind of where we're going with the Universe and Everything by that meaning because you'll have a year under your belt with the
program I I I think I could speak for all that were were involved with this program we're very excited to do so thank you yeah and Dr Burns will come here and Sh off and bring kids it'll be great seeing the little butterflies so so here's the thing you know how
passionate that Christie and I were about creating it right and like when you look at the amount of money that came in that's great but you don't get to go into the classrooms like I get to observe the classrooms they are it it I I always have to pinch myself like this
has this wasn't here last year this was a fifth grade classroom like down the hallway and to see the the staff that we hired uh the teaching staff that we hired the programs that we put in place the way that the kids are responding to it
it it's it's it's like the joy of my day when I see that I have a preschool observation on my on my list because I know it's going to be awesome and I know that the kids are going to make my day at some point awesome I look forward to hearing from Dr Burns I know when we attended the open house she had so much
energy that day and it wasn't even starting yet right so I can't imagine what what she has now so thank you all right so uh as as we move on um my next slide is uh well just one last thing at preschool
we're talking about almost 50 staff members funded that did not exist you know a year ago uh capital projects Dr winki talked about reinvesting and moving forward uh
I just want to talk about this this is a big item for this summer and for the public to know as well we have a rod Grant funded which means 40% of the money will be paid back to us after it's completed fully fully completed um we have the HVAC project almost $4 million
that is in the current Year's budget that's not for next year's budget um the equipment's ordered they're starting to do some things and that will be rolling this summer almost all of Sharon almost all of Sharon uh other than the new Wing will be redone for HVAC uh as well as
the broken unit uh on top of our heads over here that's been out for almost two years now uh next summer I'm sorry in next year's budget for summer as well is our Target is the W door replacement these are these massive doors at the at the cafeteria uh at the auditorium at
the high school we're estimating around 400,000 that is the only item Capital project item we have in next year's budget fully funded by the capital reserve we are not raising local taxes for that it's the funds that we've already have done in the past and and and and carried over through capital
reserve um on the following slides I have two slides on school property tax rate is the big thing everybody wants to know what are your taxes going up and and what is what is going on and so um you will see a 3.79% increase in the general fund very
little increase in The Debt Service those two together come out to um around 3.4% increase now I recall the current year uh 2025 is the first half of next year's budget plus
the second half of last year's public question the two get merged together and you will see uh the average home average assessed home is around $31 per month or about $377 um for the year U remember it's
average assessment not what Zillow says your home is you can be on on the street be sold for um very little movement on the assessed values of the growth in the town only a quarter percent typically that's about three times higher so that would have helped the percentage a bit
um and we're still assessing the average home still around 380 uh the next slide is just Ina for for for homeowners take a look at you know what is your value of your home uh the assessed value so you have to pull up your tax bill to see that and that's what it would go up it's actually a
little bit less than last year but it's a shy left a shy less than last year's um again I trusters has the town vetted the these assumptions uh I received the phone the assessment from the tax assessor so that's an up to-date
number from them and the assessed value of the average of 380 so that's already inputed in this thanks D you're welcome last slide okay okay in in conclusion just want to wrap up some of these some of these
Concepts that we just want to keep uh keep our mind wrapped around okay uh we do have to acknowledge going forward that uh that expenses are outpacing Revenue so that we do know that we do have uh we do have challenges coming com up in the future and again with our uh
we're always looking forward while we're operating in our current year uh we want to also acknowledge that state aid Cuts have been fixed at 3% for future years so that's about a $300,000 cut per year now understand
costs are increasing they're not keeping us flat they're cutting us so it's really almost a double cut if you look at you know what it actually works out to but um that is putting a floor on what we could get hit with so that is it helps us in regards to our planning doesn't NE necessarily help us in
regards to our bottom line uh trying to balance the budget but you know it does we do know that there's a uh a floor that we have to look that we can look at and count on um any any staffing reductions done uh we're looking to always do with with natural attrition uh
but um our primary objective is always to uh to not affect our programs for kids but our staff is very important to us and and we will make every effort to now in this year and moving forward to uh to protect our staff because uh a
great district has great teachers and and we will do everything we can as we shift the uh the funding to match where it's most needed to uh preserve um our excellent staff okay uh uh maintain facilities uh you know we're still going
to be doing the work we need to do to maintain our plant you can never never let things go in regards to maintaining your plant so that's that's something that we always have a focus on and Nick and and I and Mr Murphy and St and Steve also we're we're all going to be uh
looking at that as we um as we go forward um the uh the other uh other things that uh the budget meetings over the summer we're looking to um to uh look at uh still finding ways to increase revenues including grant
opportunities if there is an opportunity for any kind of funding um rest assured we're we're looking okay uh cut expenses and uh improve um our efficiency I I always believe there's room to improve so uh we've done a lot
of a lot of cutting we've improved our process but uh we'll never say mission accomplished we're always going to be looking at that uh you know and stay involved with um with with with the Paradigm in which we operate in regards to uh you know political implications um
so now at this that brings our formal presentation uh to an end uh I would just one last time want to uh to thank all of our budget area leaders and especially my my central office team uh
led by Mr mccre and Dr wisnoski it has been quite a privilege to come into this district and to have such highly skilled people to work with uh everyone pulled together uh everyone had a focus on kids and uh this result is based on what we
feel is the best path forward for our children um so we're open for for questions from the board we have received some questions already also but um so however the board would like to proceed we're willing to address hey
thank you very much um I just want to kind of you know make make make this particular note as a testament you know to the administration so last year the state aid remained flat and we had a lot of challenges in managing the expenses ultimately leading us to pursue a
referendum this year despite of the 300K reduction in the state aid we have been able to manage this particular budget effectively so Kos to the administration team I know there is a lot you know we still not done yet but I think that one one thing actually tells me that we are
in the right direction at least so thank you for that thank you and just to add to that Reg I'm don't me to interrupt you but it's it was the state a uh it was the the flat with the referendum and the 2% thank you yeah right cuz this year we're doing it's a 2% plus the
extraordinary Healthcare piece yeah sorry I don't mean that thank you appreciate it um and one thing that I also wanted to highlight on the preschool uh we certainly saving a good deal of dollars for the community members and the parents right so is there any way that we can actually
highlight those numbers because that's essentially a give back to the community um you know even though we are actually you know having the state the parents not paying anything and that's you know I want to see how we can actually highlight that as you know something good that we did and you know give back to the community number one I
think I have a series of question probably I'll stop with each question and see if there is a 30 second reply for that one would would you like for us to go back in for in between questions would you like for us to um I I can go one question as long as
the answer is you know within 30 seconds or a minute then we can we can be effective should we do this in buckets like you want to talk about certain topics and then hit that and then move on or you just I mean how many questions has everybody I'm sure once we start asking questions it'll get just six questions just six we we received some
uh um um from Dr Gould and and we've answered some of hers already in the presentation um so we have those um but I think there's a lot of repeating I mean we can go one by one whatever is easier for everybody here well I think maybe we should finish up with with this because we already have a question on
the floor about um about highlighting prek some and and I think that that would be a big part of what we would do in in our June presentation but again I think that this is something that we're going to need to revisit on a regular basis so yeah yeah we're right on you
know right on the same you know looking at the same thing as you are in regards to that opportunity thank you um I'll be more efficient in kind of you know making statements and questions next time but I was actually just taking notes and questions so it becomes easier for for me to actually ask uh the one
thing that I saw about the salary increase in there just it's a terminology it's it's actually an agreed salary increase you know from the contract so let's kind of you know make that very clear it's not like a new salary increase so that people don't you know confuse that um the first question
is about the tax levy uh the 2% tax levy increase which actually generates almost 92k but there is also unavoidable you know cost totaling to 2.85 million um I was just trying to understand what are the long-term plans to bridge this Gap without continued Reliance on local tax
increase and again don't need to answer now but I think it's it's a good one for us to actually understand what are we doing in that particular area this is not a Robinsville problem this is a New Jersey structural problem right when whenever you look at
um your budget and you know that healthc care for instance is going up 1 point2 1.4 1.1 million what and there's kind of no end in sight to that and you know that your local tax levy can only go to
900,000 and healthc Care is just one aspect of your entire budget you could see how um school districts across New Jersey are having very very difficult uh issues with the this kind
of a A system that has been set up um one of the things that we have have tried to implement our grant opportunities I.E preschool or for instance for anybody that was in Sharon this year that got to
be part of the um high impact tutoring grant that we brought in so that was another Grant opportunity that we saw last year uh we got about $150,000 to bring in these opportunities for students to be have the high impact tutoring uh I was the one of the two
people that wrote the Grant I was skeptical at best that it was going to work and it was awesome right and so it taught me a very valuable lesson that I'm in charge of Grants and if it's out there I'm going to write it so I could promise you that that we might come to
you with ideas that you said where did that come from because there's a grant out there for it short of finding these grant opportunities um the state has put all school districts in a very very difficult um scenario um and you know
for people that might live in other counties like Ocean County you we see how difficult that is for some of our school districts there as well yeah and if I could if I could you know really uh expand upon what Dr wusi is saying is
um I I think the the the point is is that you know K12 uh New Jersey and Beyond uh tax caps have implications and I and I think that uh it's important for us to do what we do as well as we can um
because we're we're going to be judged against against other districts who are facing the same challenges so uh you know we look at at all sides of the issue in regards to you minimizing expenses efficiencies Revenue sources and we just we just have to be uh we we
need to be as effective as we can on that front and make sure that we're one of the districts who are dealing with the situations better but um you know absent uh you know you know something outside of the way the system currently
functions uh yeah we I I mentioned right in the beginning of our presentation a structural deficit you know that's basically what we're we're dealing with so it's going to be an ongoing challenge but we're up to do everything we we can to find a way to make it work each year
thank you I'd like to jump in on that [Music] so you can easy go down the rabbit hole I mean I can make a pro for for you and I will make a pro performa um you know and it's not going to look pretty how do we keep on going with these assumptions
remember our assumptions were pretty crazy right we were looking at 2.7 4.7 million Cuts where was it people didn't believe me I showed you the numbers I will show you the number again in next presentation and exact slides sheet the state aid formula has been posted already on my budget documents on the
website they were supposed to cut us 4.9 million now the most they can cut us is through 3% of what they were giving us so 300,000 so a 10 million 300,000 shortfall um you would normally lose some anyway because we have declining
enrollment but not that much uh 4.9 is massive and it would take decades to catch up to that 3% lower every year but the big thing as we go down the rabbit hole is we don't know what's going to happen next year with a new governor a
new formula what we don't know which way are the together so we're concentrating on this we're happy we got this to work um through natural attrition I mean and the movements of people in the positions and and and retirees and so forth right
we can make this work um those names and those information will not be published for about a month and a half because we have to go through the analysis deeper into it and what it what the impacts means um but now we know that they at least for now the most they can cut us
is about 300,000 not those massive massive numbers remember um and then we'll go through it now we have some ideas for Revenue um grants grants typically are one time one time you spend it once and that's it preschool
year after year year after year um if we can get more of those that'd be great and so we're ideas we're going through it um but as as Dr piso said you know you you want to get more efficient every year because you understand what does this mean you know I always say a dollar Cod or saved is a it's a dollar less in
taxes and a dollar more for our students okay and so when you go through it you get tighter on these things um the rod Grant is a big one that we put in for as well 40% of that will come back um and then you know we're holding off we're
holding off until um the debt falls off and then we'll go through it but typically I'll say if you're going to go back to a public question Ty Al do it you can't do it every year M you can't do it every year especially the way we split half and half and so um at this
point it'll be it's a it's going to be a success you can tell by our tones we're pretty happy about this um and we see the light at the end of the tunnel I don't see this massive Cliff you know you had ask me before I don't know could be 5 million six million 7even this is doomsday stuff and we saw
300 we would have liked zero no cut but but it it was doable it was doable and with the help of everybody we're not joking everybody went through their budgets line by line um and I'm very happy about that with all of us and
we'll do it again for next year okay thank you yeah just go ahead go finish good yeah um and you know that collaboration within the district is Paramount to making this work right the idea is to it I think it's what we talked about at the
end of last year year into this year is keeping you know having budget updates I know we do it in committees and things like that but doing it for the for the public periodically so they can they can do it it's and it's it's also to start thinking about I know we just finished next year's budget but now it's time to
start working on the following Year's budget right you're constantly doing that Evolution and making the assumptions you you can't account for what Healthcare is going to do because that's going to be assessed on you when the time comes but you you already know
based on these the assumptions that you know now which are the 3% cut based on your last um state aid and and you'll you'll see your numbers for the enrollment and all those figures and you just start adapting budgets to hopefully minimize right the the tax burden on on
the on the residents here so that and that's the idea is how do we balance doing great things for kids and minimize the burden on on the community so as long as we can keep doing that and and keeping that in the Forefront and assessing that monthly as we go along and that's my commitment to the community and the business committee is
to keep assessing those things as we go thank you um another question is about the inflation which I saw like 3. 57% um how does the budget account for rising cost in the future years Beyond uh 2025 2026 if that particular number
continues uh how do we C to that I didn't catch all of it we talking about the inflation inflation be yeah so that that inflation is actually the past I think 18 months there's a formula the state gives you um that CPI is important
to us because that is the most a contractor can charge without having to go back out to bid and so they use that number how are we're going to do that in the future quite honestly it's less than it was before uh I don't know um and uh you
know same thing yeah now I I particularly like the idea of you know maintaining that particular 3% cut or 300K cut you know for the future years you know assuming that as a state which will which will which will do the same thing is there a way that we can also consider inflation
similarly when we actually manage the budget for the future years there's discussion at the state about what do we do right they know it's not it's everybody right I mean us going to the state house it was an eye opener you know when we throw some figures
talking to our local politicians sen Senator Greenstein um and the assembly persons it was big it was big it was important and you started seeing the politicians talk about it there were some school districts that were getting hit with the S2 changes but they were
outliers and then more and more schools got hit and it wasn't going away and it was more attraction there is discussion about going to tax higher for your local fair share or adequacy there's discussion but there is no vehicle okay
there's nothing approved something may be approved in the future we don't know at the present moment all we can do is tax 2% and whatever Health Care formula adjustment they allow us for other than that it's going out to a public question
um and and uh both my peers can attest I we get phone calls I probably gotten 10 different school districts calling me how did you do this how did you think about the public question what you did in Robinsville why did what what this Township approved what the taxpayers did
was massive it was unheard of how the community got together and approved it the first one was a little too high we came back we lowered and adjusted um but that was a huge huge thing and other towns want to emulate us and try to figure it out and then the state had to
make a law to adjust it to make it easier for others because of the way we had done it and put some constraints okay so it's not just us it's others all we can say is we be in this we may be in the same position next
year and we'll bring up more information but I don't want it to be a surprise as Dr pza said well and and and Mr olberg we'll get more presentations we'll see how it's going uh and go through it um and if we can launch some new initiatives that bring more Revenue in
that'd be great we're having those discussions right now um and as well and let's not forget the kids you know if we do something and it's great for the students and bring some Revenue that is phenomenal um but first we're here to educate our our students and our population uh and then the revenue Falls
later thank you cool and the next one is an ask before we go go ahead n i I understood the question a little bit differently in that I know that you have an unavoidable cost like list and then at the bottom it says CPI inflation 3.57
not accounted for it building into the budget can we account for it yes if you go into that budget spreadsheet you will see it's it's in there and they'll put in okay um I couldn't put it in because I have thousands of lines so I guessed a few
hundred thousand um but we took out so many things yeah right you know a is one of them hey we know the price before we know the price increase but we took out this and so every line you'd have to do that um and it just it gets it's a it's
it's too much information and I don't have all that detail it'd be a massive waterfall chart to try to figure this all out um but it's it's in the budget already okay you so the list that you had on Slide Five Nick for all the unavoidable
costs the I think the insurance medical that that was the unprecedented one of like 10% right almost yeah almost 14 yeah almost I'm sorry almost 14 unprecedented which is three which which is well above 3.57% inflationary recommended increase right when we look
at the other ones how how close were the other ones and take salary out because that's contractual based on the other ones are are fine they're because I I used the same sheet copied and I was like oh it was off by a few thousand oh that was off a little bit um but they're in around the they're in around it was
really the healthcare okay they're really the healthare and if it wasn't for the healthcare adjustment there's no this budget would be it would be a different tone right now um because that would have been $300,000 of if if it would fell in line with CPI it would have been two you know 2/3 less of that
number right yes less than that so as of Health waivers in the last we took them through the last two years they were around 225,000 roughly MH and so we kind of gave in okay maybe we'll have 200,000 in waivers and then the numbers came in and
you put in the computer system and it came out to 89,000 for the waiver um and the formula is not so simple because they also take into account what's the state health benefits going what's your 2% what's the and so it's not so simple
um but it was it was shocking and I mean I'll make a slide for this but next month but we crossed 40,000 for health benefits for family this year we're estimating 46,000 for next year for family
benefits right but on that so on that point it's it's still discussionary like you still presenting to because I remember the process was that you still have to present this to the staff as an option that they took or is this different is this for the budget
or is it for um the health the health the healthcare I think there was like a I recall oh no that's something else that's something else that we look up for doing for next year um maybe maybe faster but we have to change Brokers and
take a look it was a healthare Alliance um and it's a phenomenal program that other districts have done and and Township of Hamilton is doing basically um I don't want to go further into it but we'll do a presentation you don't save much in the beginning um but what happens is
they use your doctors for no co-pay and their percentage increases are far lower and year after year after year you're talking millions of dollars um but that will be a process we'll have to go through business committee if if it sounds right we'll do a tour we'll get
with a union do a tour with them you know this is this good okay we'll do it and then we'll go through it but when you talk the school districts have done it they they love it they love it um and then for us it's it also helps out that the increases won't be drastic I mean
think about you know yes the school district will be hit with a massive increase but the employees also pay a portion as well and they're going to see their portion go up as well right no what Nick's talking about is the same plan going from 40,000 to 46,000 same
same exact plan for any of our employees yeah we we also should say as you know as as you know we look at Solutions in that area we're looking in all the areas and we talk about like you know right now you know we have the focus on on on this budget but always looking ahead
also um but there's there are there are always things that we're working on that we'll be presenting as we get further so there are some opportuni that we say some of them will will take years to come to fruition um but if it takes years to come to fruition well
let's start it today um and and and get along that path so more to come more to come there's um these different areas you know we're excited to as as as they become ready to be presented to present them to the board for your uh
consideration next one is a statement um I think when we actually present these particular budget slides it'll be good for us to actually also include some risk and contingencies at the very end just for the public py um I know today was just you know making sure that we get a full preview or but you know I
think as we go and publish this it'll be good for us to actually put some of those risk and contingency towards the end so as I go through uh thank you Ragu um when we go for the the bigger presentation um we'll go through that I'll go through revenues and expenses really is the revenues what what risks
are going to be and I'll go through that and what assumptions we were given as well like for Grants you know grants we had to lower the assumptions because we don't know what's going to happen with these federal grants and we've came down adjust your numbers and you'll see some of those numbers and that's also taken into account yeah and so like for
example and we'll go I'll go through it right now we used to budget 85% for pedal grants because they fluctuate we were now told budget 75,000 75% well when you get almost a million dollars in Grants it's a big difference another
Grant we would get for 33,000 budget four right 4,000 4,000 yeah sorry budget four not 33 sorry but you know then you question like is this grant even worth
it well it's 4,000 but there's work to be done um so we don't know what the federal government is going to do I know there's promises made but I don't trust any one of them at the federal government okay got it and so that's a risk we're talking 3/4 of a million in
Risk so yes thank you yeah and um two more and I'll I'll finish after that I saw the out of District tution uh which is around 203k there you know was that an increase from last year or was there remaining the same or you seeing any
Trends oh that's an increase and why I say that is because out of District tuition always goes up those school districts that we send our students to they're not capped at 2% % these are private schools County and so forth they
county has some limitations but predominantly they're private schools and they have no caps and if it whatever they tell you and it it goes up the next year they'll they'll charge you they'll give you back charges and so it
is estimated to go up um they tell us the the number to um the estimated to Mission cost it comes from the state and we plug that number in okay this might be an offline question we can actually take it offline very much related to that I think I need to understand why you know students
prefer to actually go to the outside school I do understand some good reasons of why they want to you know go there but are there any kind of um drawbacks with our curriculum or our school where the where the students think that now I
think I want to actually join here and you know go there um again an offline discussion no need to answer now yeah there we have no drawbacks I mean they're going because of do we have the facilities the necessity for it I mean
most of them are special needs students um some are going to behavioral health some are in state facilities some are going to Charter Schools and we know we can mop them up in educationwise those schools but we have no choice in that and that's all built in um I just
bundled them bundled them all together as tuition because I didn't want to show how much is special ed how much is State how much much as own so if you go to your spreadsheet that you I've sent out you can see it there um and that classified report has all that information in there thank you last one
the preschool uh budget details I think we know that you know it's a state Grant and we're spending it's not hitting our operating budget but still is there a way that we could actually get some more details of the categories of the spend um again not today offline you know this might be also an action for the business
committee for us to actually just make sure that we understand the category of spend in the preschool we will We we'll have the preschool budget meeting on um Friday and we would have to get that board approved anyway too we'll just put it on as a an
approval um and you'll have that as well um and then we'll talk about categories when you have the the full tenative budget presentation there's a lot more slides in there we'll post those people can go through the history of it um and and go through the history of the district and so forth that we typically
do um this was more shorter obviously if we had a massive issue um you know like the 4.9 million cut this would be a much different discussion um but we'll go you all the historical numbers for the public to see so great um thank go ahead
you want to finish something no I just wanted to thank you for answering all my questions you know some of these I do understand you know from all the details that make you provide provide us offline but I just want to make sure that the Community kind of also hears some of this particular stuff because I think
there's a lot which actually goes in as you guys said you know this is not an easy one and whatever we arrive with the number here is also is is there is a lot of work that you know gets done behind the scenes so it'll be good for Community to keep hearing some of these particular assumptions and scenarios so
thank you um Dr Pi uh Dr Burns would like to answer your questions from home if that's all right uh she said it's hard to compare other dis rcts to ours because there's only four in Mercer County that have our
program um and it I was right there is a percentage of the application in our first year we were supposed to be about 57% of our universe 71% 87% and then 100 for the years four and Beyond and she said uh June is a wonderful time of year
for the butterflies if you wanted to put that on the calendar the FL will start coming out right so thank Dr Burns for uh her diligence and and replying to that at home um I guess part of what my um thought process
wasn't asking the question originally was as we are moving you know General funds and being able to allset some of those percentage wise hopefully our enrollment starts holding steady so we we can't really
expect to see a bigger bigger increase you know as you mentioned Nick with the numer denominator that that number since we're at 86% if we're about to get to you know 90 you know um we're kind of at the percentages we're going to be able to use in the future so there's not going to be able to dip into that too much
more so that be something else that's a uh you know a risk that we might have to account for as we plan future budgets yeah you're 100% correct but one of the nice Parts is that in the front end you have to spend so much money on furniture and all those pieces that really eat into your budget and so once those fixed
costs are out you know uh and they're already purchased then that frees up money so even though you're growing within the first few years you also have kind of that pot of money that you were spending on stuff that you don't necessarily need to again because you
buy the top Quality Furniture that doesn't break every year and then that helps on those future years going forward no that's a good point I guess what I was thinking though is the money that we're using not for the preschool program itself um but we talked about like salaries how we're able to kind of
take you know 10% 15 what you know whatever whatever that percentage is might I my guess is around year four it's going to be level set and it's done you're not going to squeeze out much more because typically I've seen these programs they would launch at like 40% 50 not at the high percentages that we
launched um and they would do incremental like one more classroom not like four were pushing for for us um so we're growing much faster so that'll that'll uh level off at the same time um you look at what staff is being hired
and they're typically on the on the beginning of the steps you know their benefits are different typical changing they're younger um and those those costs will go up to level set as well so when you hire staff you try to hire you know experienced staff and low you know and
and grow and so forth you don't want to hire everybody all in step one and and then and so you you have to manage that as well and managing that budget is is key um but I you know to your point Dr Pi you're right around three four year mark it's going to be level set and
there's only so much we can take out of it maybe at most 1 million maybe at most um but that's still a million a year right I mean that's more that's your 2% every single year so uh not to
mention free preschool and you know what's preschool 10 to1 15,000 out in town and a draw to the community yeah so it's big is this grant like you don't have to reapply after that three four year cycle
we do oh you do every year we apply uh we send in our our estimates of how many students we would like um we were approved for all our students some schools actually got decreased a bit and I think that goes back to Dr winki saying they look at your your kindergarten numbers and if those adjust
they'll they'll adjust it many schools did get an increase um but you do apply it is not the same it's not as difficult once you're in it's it's an easier process um you have your documents we have a process right now we're making our budget documents it's you know I
think it's like 15 different tabs on the spreadsheet with every every salary employee their benefits their lines we'll show it to you um and you're going to see it's a lot of detailed information that goes in there and then they approve it send it back to us go ahead proceed um so there is a process
but once you're in you know it it's a lot easier and rinse and repair and you adjust a few things so so my question is um I know you talked about Staffing how we're reallocating Staffing and doing our best through attrition to manage it um Can
can I I know it's probably not ready yet you haven't finalized everything but definitely by the business committee and maybe the next meeting we start getting the heat map of what class size looks like based on the shifting of of the classrooms and everything so we can get an understanding of what happens to the
you know the steer to pupil ratios um so we can be prepared for that yeah that was part of our planning process that's our want to make sure it's definitely in the in the RO in the process we looked at the class size the principles presented and and then you got to see wait wait that one class is
much less kids than the other class so it was well we should be Equitable you know across a district of class sizes you can't have just one grade really low and the next grade high so level it off that means shifting some teachers and staff and positions um and the services that they need and that's one one of the
things that we looked at um obviously you'd rather have a much lower class size but uh you know there's not a huge pot of money uh out there and so you have to adjust to the needs of your District um but it's nothing drastic as
we had surmised okay yeah that's a great point I we when we we went into it with that as a a framework and um one of the reasons why I think we're feeling confident in presenting the budget today is that there's not going to be that
kind of like other shoe that drops like oh yeah you know we were able to build the budget but there's 40 kids in a class like we know um the parameters of what's acceptable and I think we're able to work within of those great thank
you sorry this this idea just stemmed spoked in my mind and this might be a good one um when we actually post these particular presentations out to the community is there a way we could also come up with some something like an you like you know I frequently ask questions about the budget and kind of you know
have questions and answers also posted so that way you know it is lot more detail for Community to kind of you know comprehend what is there in these particular slides I think there were good questions which were asked in good answers which came out and it'll be good for us to actually transcribe it in
somewhere and put it out there yeah I'm I think that would be uh that would be a good idea that we could uh we could add that to what we're put putting out uh but also uh if there's a question you know that the members of our board or or even the community would
like to submit to us you know we could um we could answer that and share that out as well I think the more information we could put out the better I think we're we're proud of of the budget we put together and you we would love to uh to to fully answer everyone's question
yeah so I can help a bit by actually sending some standard questions Nick your way I do have a few sorry I do have a few questions um I did want to go over I didn't mind by slide because I didn't want to interrupt you because you had a good flow going everything ni so I'm
going to go to slide four first um somewh comment some may not be you might have the answers for right now but I do want to ask um looking at the expanding the preschool opportunities for additional 60 students are these 60 students plan on being I don't know if how is the correct term but these being
the four new classrooms that are being talked about for Sharon Elementary yes okay uh my next one would be just because thinking in the mindset of someone who may not be able to attend this or view it but look at this online at a later date um the last two bullet
points about the new curriculum initiatives that are coming out of this budget do you have estimated dates when that may be available to the public or is that still a work in progress we got to go through uh Ed poliy first with all of that okay but um it'll it it'll be for September launches okay yeah because this is for next year's budget yeah
that's 100% correct yeah um going to slide five and I do understand it but also thinking of someone who may be looking at this offline at a later date for the lines for salary increase in Insurance um I know you mean those as Millions but
I think the K may be a little confusing for those who may not be thinking for financial mindset so I was wondering if maybe for those two particular lines we Chang the K to an m to indate Millions no that's that's Wall Street sorry I will I will put the commas and uh adjust
that for next presentation you repres today but I've worked with him for three years so I knew the answer and um I was if it was European Nick oh just to get an understanding for the allocated to added to the paa funded
the 0.5 secretary is that a part-time position or is that someone who's going to be that's a full-time person who we're charging half salary because they help out the preschool you know and answering the phone calls and so forth so it's one of our current you know of course we would love to add another secretary but it's just a current
Secretary being Char it's not a net new position all right good thank you that's it yeah I think you know when when I look at slide 10 and it talks about additional it it can be um misinterpreted as we're going out to
hire new people so we can somehow you know clarify that that these are say shifted to yeah exactly some some something along those lines the teachers and AIDS will be new okay those be okay be going from uh
you know we'll be adding four more classrooms so right those are brand new but you're right the other stuff is Shifting out of our operating budget into the PE budget okay yeah but I I do think that we could you know maybe kind a more detail to kind of explain you know what we're you
know what we're trying to do in regards to you know bringing our people in and yeah we can maybe clarify that and I guess I guess just for a point of clarification Dr KUSI so you have four additional teachers but we're also teachers through attrition
right so our it's still a net um decrease in the number of teachers in the in the district correct so let's say you were losing four teachers and you had a from the general
like from first second third fourth grade um if you had four teachers that had a a preschool certification those teachers could could potentially take those positions okay so our teachers might just 1,000% our current teachers would be able to% and listen even if a
teacher isn't in a position where they um um are in the potential of of being a a potential cut or a riff and that they have a passion for preschool and they have the certification for it and they went to uh the administration and said I want to be a preschool teacher I mean
we're open to that as well we want we just want a staff like we we want the people that are here that are going to be on our team to be on our team right and we want to put them in the best position possible and so uh if we have teachers that say I have preschool I've
always wanted to be a preschool teacher let us know because there's there's opportunity to hire people here in that way so we would love to be able to mitigate Any teacher that potentially could be in a position where they're where their their first second third fourth whatever hypothetical class got
cut um and they had the opportunity to come to preschool we would be open to that 100% yeah I I'm still waiting for someone to come up to me to tell me that they have a bad experience with a teacher in this District I have not experienced that everyone has a positive
experience with teachers in this District so we're in the business of doing great things for kids the only way to do great things for kids is to have people because we have be people first in this District to help the kids and to
do great things for them so we have to make sure we're keeping and retaining as many of our great teachers as we possibly can um we had an opportunity to meet with Miss Martin just because she's sitting out there as like the only person and hi Sharon and Renzo today and
um because we wanted to bring the the teachers union in on this discussion as well um and we made that commitment to them as well that um we we want to support their their staff we want to support them and the people that you know belong on this team are going to stay on this
team thank you I think that that I'm music to my ears because you know I think as we move forward as a district we want this to be a collaborative approach and you know the teachers are you know being a school administrator the teachers will let you know where the pain points are you know as far as you know what you need so I think it's a you
know very smart uh move to include the in those discussions as well I do have one more question on slide four um simply because looking at this what world languages are currently available in
Sharon none okay that's we're trying to fix that anything else for Nick let's go to public all right you m to come on the language program we want to at a later date we'll we'll give the full detail on that and just we want to give it to committee first before we
come out to anything you know and and have the right people here to be a able to present it you know hold on Nick all right thank you um moving on public comment time will be allocated for public comment at this meeting members of the public wishing to address the board of
education on agenda items must State their name municipality and the group if any they represent a member of the public shall not be permitted to speak until he or she is recognized by the presiding officer in accordance with District policy 0167 each comment shall be limited to 3 minutes no participant
may speak more than once no dialogue between a speaker and the board and or superintendent shall exceed three minute time limit provided them or I'm sorry provided their Hein live streaming of the meeting shall be for viewing only the public will not have the ability to participate in the public session comments unless they are physically
present at the meeting although the board encourages public comment the presiding officer can interrupt warrant and or terminate a participant statement question and or inquiry when it is too lengthy and may also interrupt and warn a participant when the statement question or inquiry is abusive OB or may
be defamatory moreover the presiding officer can request any person to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable to Quorum in accordance to the protocol established by the New Jersey School Board Association the the board will use the public comment period as an opportunity to listen to resident concerns but not
to debate issues or to enter into a dis question and answer uh session issues raised by members of the public may require review and investigation and may or may not be responded to by the board or superintendent during the meeting all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when
appropriate uh can I have a motion to open public comment on school related matters Mo second all in favor I any n or extensions um so can we open public comment for 10
minutes hi nin Canon Robinsville um first of all thank you very much for all those people who showed up yesterday it really meant a lot to all of us and hopefully something good will come out of it and so now that we are waiting so
we are not going to discuss more of it because we all are waiting um but thank you for coming and speaking we really do appreciate that um the second thing is um I am the public I sat down I listen to everything that you
guys said this is not my first budget this is my number 15th budget so that I'm sitting and going through um is a still a mambo jumbo that I'm sure Nick only understands better I'm I don't this numbers are not my uh Forte
so I am and I'm not going to be apologizing for it it's just that it is the money out of my pocket so I am going to ask about it um so let me just add up what I understood and correct me if I'm wrong wrong so we are raising the taxes
the 2% that's going to be unevitable so we are raising it they gave us $300,000 less than what we were supposed to be getting so we are not receiving the $300,000 so we are minus 3% if I'm
wrong please correct me so which means that after you went through everything that you were supposed to the wonderful P Cas and all the things that you were shifting and thank you God that you keeping all the teachers and they are going to be shifted to somewhere else
and you are working with the healthare and we are saving a lot of money through the changing of the healthcare and different system of the health care again correct me if I'm wrong um so now the $300,000 that we are going to be short is not a big um slap to our faces
so we are going to be able to work with it $300,000 is a lot of money but we are still going to do the $400,000 the windows or whatever doors of the uh high school and we still have everything else that we were going to do on the
budget um so the question is I'm sorry but we only have three schools and all of us are paying a lot of money for our taxes and a lot of our percentage of our taxes are going for our school but we
only have three school and 3,000 students so some is not adding up and this question is going to come up to you this question is not only for me but people like me who have no children in a school and people who are on um complete
budget for spending and with everything else that is going around us and the eggs that are $10 now and it could become $15 $20 we don't know so because all of these things are affecting us and it is affecting you so what are we going
to do with the deficit that you have how are you going to solve that deficit and what are we going to do if next year the deficit add up to it so it's not like they say okay we are not going to give you this three% this year but next
year we are going to give you the 3% so we kind of like budget for it okay we are going to be we don't even know what's going to happen so I like to know what is the real plan how are you fixing it tell us about fixing it how are you
budgeting it thank you any additional public comment all right I can't do my fish and close the meeting out because the agenda has two other items there next I'm sorry so I have a motion to close public comment so moved second all in favor I
okay so in in Old business since it's now old business we just talked about the budget um I think the three just to go back and and to talk about where we are right now and how we got here so it's good to have the 3% Max on Cuts
right and that's 3% on the roughly 10 million that they give us in state aid so that's $300,000 what we did not know that was going to come because all the other increases were in line with the three and a half three to three and half% CPI when you have a $1.1 million increase in
healthcare which is 14% as Nick said that's roughly 8 to9 million more I'm sorry 8 to $900,000 more so you're in the whole over a million dollars right so it it would have been much more
manageable if it was within line right so that again it's it's hard to budget for those things that you don't see coming that are totally out of whack so all then all I can say is that I know the administration is constantly doing it and we talked about it in business committee is to stay on top of it to
constantly be preparing for the future and to make sure we are not burdening the taxpayer as much as we can avoid right so that's my commitment we do have to run schools you know and and there could
potentially we don't want to be in a position where we have to do what you know I've heard Dr wuki has to to do in his town right and some of the $20 million deficits in other towns right we don't want to be in that position but we're going to do our best to keep it at budget neutral as the audit tells us
every year and how close we are Nick keeps telling me how close we are every year as well because he sees it coming but we somehow are able to do our best to keep it with you know within the budget and not have to and not have to do anything totally crazy but I'll open
up to any other well just the I think at the heart of the issue so again I think you know a $300,000 shortfall not knowing and and I think this is important for the public to understand as well is and we we really kind of hit this last year going through this the
funding formula is not a transparent formula even after lawsuits even after so as Bas across the state and superintendents across the state and principles and directors they do their best to try to forecast with incomplete information not
just on what um inflation's going to be not just on what healthc care is going to cost but on what the actual formula is that we're going to be funded on and it really makes it a difficult situation to to try to put the puzzle together without the
picture that to look at I think you know so that that year to year we will always have a little bit of that struggle of trying to make things work and that's really unavoidable the way the New Jersey structure is set up I think where and one thing that you
know I I think toen to your point and to the I think the Public's question in general so we heard a lot about this last year we had such a large shortfall is how are we going to try to increase Revenue I think that's you know in our business committees um we're you know going to be talking about some of those
ideas and how we can do that for long term to increase the revenue um with us as our enrollment drops because that is at the essence and and you're not going to fill that Revenue Gap with bake sales and you know little things like that like it's going to take some um or even rentals you know we incre rentals but
you know when you start talking about some of these numbers you know to look at Revenue to increase our Revenue we're going to have to look at other means I think that's going to be maybe a discussion to help keep the tax levy under control long term is where is where we have to go and it's there's not like an easy FS I know we looked at the
billboard you know situation that kind of was you know didn't but that kind of thinking I think is where we have to go in the future um to try to offset that tax levy increasing any other old business thank you Dr Pier that was that was
great all right any new business have a motion to close the meeting for the evening mve all in favor I any n or extensions have a great evening everyone thank you for