we'll ask Mr Whitford to please take Ro Mr bosan present Mrs K here Mr KY present Mr Healey here Mrs Jones present Mr maone here Dr rine here Mr Sprayberry
present drot here miss iorio here you have a quum all right the New Jersey open public meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their
interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the bref for board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the datetime in place posted on the bulletin board outside the bur clerk's office mailed to the Herold South bergenite and Record newspapers and filed with the bur clerk
hard copies of the agenda are available in the meeting room and the agenda is posted electronically on Friday before the meeting meeting date on the district's website at www. Rutherford schools.org subsequent to the meeting a video of the meeting will be uploaded to the district's website www. Rutherford
schools.org the video link can be found by opening the Board of Education link and clicking on public meetings and then videos so board members in your packets there are minutes to approve for the regular meeting and executive session of February 24th 2025 any questions or
comments on those all right all right hearing none I'll ask Mr Whitford to please enter those uh we will begin with the report of the student representative over to you Sarah good evening winter sports have just concluded and spring sports are starting up this week um juniors are
also completing njpa testing this week this Wednesday March 12th a career fair will be held at the high school to give Juniors the opportunity to explore some vocational career paths and hear firsthand experiences of various professions this weekend the spring
musical Mary Poppins is being performed it is coming together really well and tomorrow a more sensory friendly performance is being performed for children the week of March 24th is our spirit week at the high school each day is a different category such as TV shows
or states and each grade has a specific subcategory assigned to them all four grades participate and compete against each other to see which grade can get the most points this fun week ends with our spring pep rally which is always exciting as it includes even more fun
competitions and activities the junior dinner dance is taking place on April 4th which is an exciting event that my class is really looking forward to and finally seven students from Mr meth's TV3 class created efp short film projects in class that were entered to
the local PTSA Reflections and Elks drug awareness video contest in the PTSA Reflections contest three students Advanced from the local level and won the top three places at the Bergen County level two of them them placed at the state level and will now advance to the National level and in the Alex drug
awareness contest three other students were selected to advance from the local to the state level and one is now in consideration at the national level this is a great honor for all of these students and that's all I have for tonight thank you all right thank you
questions or comments from board members I want to thank um Sarah you're the first student got way at high school s back so you just moved up on now
say as I said thank we is going to be fantastic this weekend uh it's gotten raid reviews and it's U was kind of Premier went it went down to went to linoln school that you
assembling on for the kids which I thought first time they did that put a small assembly on and it uh you know what I heard was fantastic and in both venues um so it's it's really been a very uh a tremendous year for our students um really has been in so many
different areas so congratulations and I hope when you go back in your role that you let the student body know that the the Board of Ed and the superintendent are say all these wonderful things about them all the time because I'm sure if we said something that wasn't wonderful the word would get out right so uh but but
really I think there's we appreciate uh all the the students have done this year any uh questions or comments I don't I don't have a question just a comment they they say that traditionally junior year is the toughest year academically SATs act so you're you're over the
halfway point for sure and you're getting there so uh hang in there good luck with everything thank you for your reports we always appreciate um everything you have to mention feel free to stay if you'd like to hear more we have our uh preliminary budget that's going to be reported but also know that
you have your own work that you have to uh attend to so thank you thank have a good night thank you all right uh so now we are going to have a special presentation of the preliminary budget uh so I'm am going to turn it over any for words before we
turn it over to Mr Whitford um no unless you unless you want to comment I was going to comment you could comment I I was just going to comment that it's someone's birthday in here happy birthday Birthday Mr Whit where where would you spend a better birthday than doing this you'll notice
there's a line there's a line item for birthday cake um one one of the board members here told on you uh I'm not going to tell you which one it was but um all right so I will move over here so well first off thank you for birthday wishes appreciate it uh so welcome to
the 2526 preliminary budget presentation uh a number of our committee members have heard a lot of this information before but this will be the the full package for the board um we'll get to the timeline toward the end but again this is the preliminary budget
presentation so as selfish as a ba wants to say that this is my budget in creating it and spending the last few months you know putting it all together um it is really the board's budget right the Board of Education sets goals each year the district sets goals each year
and that helps Drive the how this budget is created right we always want to take those goals and make sure that the budget reflects what the board the direction the board is looking for for the future uh so some notable things that the board is you know documented their goals and which turned into our
budget objectives was student achievement uh rolling out the portrait of a graduate uh initiative uh building upon the current programs and maintaining those programs community outreach uh one of the big things is been uh so far a successful and
collaborative Rea contract negotiation this year um and then obviously providing um safe and secure facilities for our students and staff so we'll go through the source of the funds and then how we spend those funds uh the source of our funds a vast
majority comes from the local tax levy so 98% of our general operating budget comes from raford tax dollars uh 89 I apologize 89% uh 6% comes from state aid and five from miscellaneous revenues and other sources uh we do receive federal
aid but that's through a separate special Revenue uh account that means money comes in directly from for a specific purpose and then goes out for that purpose uh but the other avenues come directly from the general operating account local tax levy state aid and
miscellaneous so because we are a local tax levy heavy um it creates a more consistent budget for us each year-over-year um we're not ryant on state aid depending on what the how state is doing um how the state wants to
distribute that money uh since a lot of it comes from from our local tax do dollars it's a it's consistent which helps uh Drive the consistency and the performance of The District uh there's a school funding Reform Act of 20 2008 uh which
maintained a 2% cap to our school budgets across the state uh but they did allow certain adjustments that we've been we are taking uh advantage of this year uh the health benefits premium increases and the enrollment increases uh there's also responsibility shifted
from to and from from another entity or another school district that's if maybe you're a k to8 district and you're sending students to a Regional High School um but since Rel fors K to 12 it doesn't really apply to us and then deferred pension contributions has to be an extreme amount which has not happened
in the past at least 10 or 15 years so the top two that we are going to you'll see uh throughout this budget are the health benefits premium increase and the adjustment for enrollment increases our local tax Levy uh again you'll see those two adjustments for enrollment and health benefits included
in there uh and that state mandated 2% cap so the 2425 year which is the Year we're currently sitting in had a 49 or $ 47.9 million uh tax levy then you have 311,000 for the enrollment adjustment
our regular 2% cap which is 964 th000 and the allowable adjustment for health benefits was $863,000 uh it's the biggest adjustment because of the um extreme increases in health benefits costs for the past 5 years or so uh that
brings our local tax levy for the general operating account to just over 50 million at 50, 49,4 128 uh we do have Debt Service included in that local tax levy Debt Service is
um paid for from the referendums that the board and the community has uh voted to approve in the past most of them are on a 20-year payment period um and just like if you're on a a car lease or a mortgage um depending on
your taxes and your your actual mortgage payment the payments slightly change year toe so next year the 2526 year has a slight decrease in our principal and interest payment of 66,000 so taking that away from our general operating increase we have a net percent for
school tax levy of a 4.07% in increase I I want to just add a couple of things um the allowable adjustment to health benefits does not cover the the total increase of the health benefit it's
about 90 cents right on the dollar so about 90% um so the rest of that falls under the 2% cap so we have we have the board has uh the community has always accepted the allowable adjustable um
that we get every year this is a Higher One than past years but the increase has never been that High and um where it looks like it's it's a plus for the budget we talk about a maintenance budget this is maintaining the budget at
a little bit of a deficit because we're 10% of the increase has to fall in the rest of the budget our enrollment has gone up and we got some adjustment for that as well um because as you know there's po cost people right you get
more students you're spending more money so we talked about this with the um finance committee um at two meetings a significant amount of time uh without the allowable increase we would be
running before we had to do some of the other funds that Mr whiff is going to talk about um we would be running out probably what was a $ 1.7 million deficit which would have meant significant significant reductions that
we or the community would not want so um that's why you see that that there okay and that's why the the committee and the administration uh fully supports taking the full amount I say this every year I'll say it
again when I see a cap was set up in 2008 and now 17 years later that cap has remained flat somebody's got to wake up and Trenton I think the Cap's a great idea it keeps things in check quite
frankly in some ways for somebody who's you know celebrated about two times as many birthdays as Matt uh for an old guy I remember when the budget we'd come in at 5% 6% 7% and you had to go through item
by item by item at these meetings I can remember being a High School principal having to explained why we needed and Mr fno you'll appreciate this why we need white gloves from the marching band you know why do they need new gloves well because kids wore the gloves last year they don't want to wear the you know somebody else's retread gloves the cap
makes life easier because there a mainous budget there's not a lot to debate makes it harder to operate the district so I'm hoping that you know I can't imagine anybody's salary or any
business that hasn't raised prices in 17 years so I hope we send a copy of this videotape down to tr and I'll let them hear my my spieler and I'll talk about uh the rate
increases of health benefits in a couple slides our other source of Revenue again is uh state aid about 6% of our budget uh this year the increase in state aid from last year is 1% of our state aid which is 33,000
$238 uh the state reformulated the budget a little bit or the the state aid calculations this year uh they put guard rails on it though there was a number of districts in the past five or six years that were
tremendously cut in state aid um fortunately rord was not one of those districts uh but because they were trying to create a little bit more um Equity throughout the the state aid process they put guard rails that no
District would be cut more than 3% of their state aid from the previous year but they also would not increase anything more than 6% from their previous year so we landed right about dead center of that at a plus 1% increase from the previous year um Mr Hurley and I received a number of memos
from the Department of Ved in the past few weeks um and some of them can be were to be interpreted in different ways um to be kind of ready for a red ction and kind of bear on the side of caution um so 1% increase or $33,000 increase in
state aid isn't an extreme amount uh but to be honest I'm I'm very happy to see at least a plus sign in front of that change in state aid rather than a negative um historically uh this slide has been on the budget presentation in the past I
cut it down to the last 12 years instead of the last 20s something years um but really that what this is showing is our general operating budget uh is that orange color uh State a of the general operating budget is the really small Blue Block on the bottom and then that
line you see at the top is uh the aid as a percentage of the budget there's really like two graphs in one in here um that line graph for the top really goes onto the uh Y axis on the right side which is you see at about 6% uh and then
the general operating budget number is really on that left side y AIS uh we're just north of 55,000 uh 57,000 I think this year for our general operating but what this really shows is it's we're pretty consistent at that 5 to 6% of our
operating budget comes from state aid uh we haven't had extreme fluctuations um which again I believe we're very fortunate to be that way because there are a lot of districts that you know sometimes you draw the short STW and have seen that time and time again but Rutherford has been on a pretty steady
rate the past few years and one of the other things that you might want to see there with the um the orange right the the tax levy the constant minor increase of the 2% or whatever the allowable
increase was in each of those years if you remember the slide that went back further there was a couple of years where previous boards said 0% and stay flat and then we take that that dip remember that that I think we
retired that slide uh the district Factor group but we lag behind because you don't make up you know one of the one of the remedies with a low cap is to make sure you take the allowable money you can get because that becomes your base the following year so if you don't
get an allowable increase next year the 2% is going to be higher because you took the allowable increase the year before a as prices keep keep going up and our last buckets of uh revenue is miscellaneous Revenue sources uh these
are all reserves we have this uh These funds in our Reserve accounts in our our balances uh or expected through just our uh operation year to year uh excess Surplus is audited mandated Surplus from the 20 fiscal year
23 budget year that we have to use in fisc year uh 26 uh we G obviously gain interest on our bank accounts as we all do uh we have tuition from pre- and Bulldog care uh we are using maintenance reserve and capital reserve dollars to
maintain and uh put a some equipment additions onto the uh the district and then general fund balance is again our using our bit of our savings account to help balance this budget so where does all this money go um the vast majority
goes to salaries and benefits for our staff north of 80% of the general operating budget goes to salaries and health benefits the top uh left green is employee benefits that's 177% of our budget is solely the health benefits
bill for our staff uh salaries are intertwined in the rest of the categories um the larger green section on the right is regular programs for instruction which include salaries um on the left hand side that brown is buildings and grounds which is 14% it
also includes salaries uh but just to quickly go around you have regular programs special education programs bilingual Athletics and extracurricular out of District tuition and related Services is a large chunk of our budget uh guidance and child study team obviously our our school administration
and Training Services media and information technology we'll um send everybody a copy of it the whole presentation tonight or tomorrow this way you have it for you know if you reference or any talking points you might need okay
because I know the screen that Circle looked more like an egg way was projected um Mr Hurley mentioned before but there are a number of expenses that have extreme rising cost past that 2% cap that we've been working with on
our our Revenue side uh health insurance premiums we have two different plans that our uh staff can go into the one plan has increased just over 35% over the past 3 years the other plan has increased uh almost 50% over the past
three years so an extreme cost to health benefits uh has been a big driver for all School District budgets not just ours really all school districts around the state uh aage District tuition and services and their transportation is a a large Port transportation in general um
has has seen its increases uh again salaries is a large chunk of our budget uh currently we in negotiations with the uh Rea um which again has been pretty mutually successful so far um but you see all salaries across the board has
been in that positive 3% or north of 3% uh again going against that 2% cap that's on our budget uh utilities if you have not seen your own electric bills has increased uh and we've been getting projections that you we should be expecting a 15 to 20% increase in
electric bills uh in the next year and then obviously just general cost increases as we uh try to buy some eggs or not as easy as they used to be I think it's important to know for anybody who watches the this maybe on when it gets posted uh that Mr
wiford has um been um aggressive it maybe too strong of a word but has been doing more than due diligence in looking at can we go get a better health premium rate somewhere uh can we do an audit to see if our utility
is can come down we're we're looking uh in every area that we can to see if we can just even save a little tiny bit because as the budget gets Tighter and Tighter and Tighter even a little tiny bit helps like he said $30,000 $33,000
from the state in a $51 million budget doesn't sound like much but guess what we were very both very happy when we heard we're getting $33,000 Jack to your point though you can't go out for Market on like health insurance and such right we we're Bound by certain
groups that we have to stay with it no we we we can go out to Market um our basically our claims you're looking to see how much claims have been paid out versus the premium that we give to the provider if our claims paid out are more
than what we give in as premiums no other marketer is is really looking to take on our business so about four years ago I think maybe you remember been looking in the files uh Mr Kelly I did the same thing came back with we're not
going to do no one's going to take us if they take us they're going to charge us more than we're currently paying uh Mr wiford did the same thing this year went out and um again we're we're we're not in a spot where um you know we can make that switch or
they'll take us the other thing in case you know you mentioned that we've been having a good conversation with the Ura in case anybody watches this uh under under legal under the law you have to provide the same or better policy you can't go
out St yeah you can't go out and just get a cheaper it could be cheaper but it has to be the same or better so um again some of these some of these um searches that we're doing even with the utilities right uh may come up to be fruitless but
we we're looking correct uh again ad District placements have been uh is a large chunk so I just wanted to address it ad of District placements are students classified as special needs through their IEPs um they specialized programs that are not always
available within the district uh we do use other service providers um some are other Public Schools some are other private schools or approved private schools for students with disabilities um and then we've been trying to use as much uh local sources as we can with the southb jointure commission Mr Hur if you
want to mention anything more about that um the southb and jointure commission of 17 members uh that sit as their board I'm one of them um we we've been recognizing that all the districts right are are hurting uh because of the number
of kids that go out and we did a deep dive uh this year at the jointure to see how many students are going to schools from Rutherford from Wallington from North Allington where you know whatever the case may be other than the jointure schools
and then Dr cochar who's the superintendent of the jointure uh set up meetings with each uh ba superintendent director of special services from every school to sit and meet and talk about how can we address your
needs better um you know what are you looking for that maybe we don't have you know that kind of thing because the jointure is because it's a public school uh does have some better tuitions now in some
cases you know the the schools are charging big tuitions when you go and take a look at them if you're a parent you're looking at you know the Taj Mahal compared to a renovated former parochial school um in some
cases the jointure doesn't have a certain type of program where maybe we have to send certain kids out uh it's no secret that all districts are dealing more with anxiety and emotional issues and behavioral issues and the jointure is not heavy in that
area so one of the things we're talking about is can we develop programs in the jointure to fit those needs right um so I've said this in the past about special education we will put a
student where that student is best going to be served even if it costs us a lot of money we've managed to bring things down by over a million dollars uh because we ran some of our own programs and we've
but we could our goal is to try to find the best programs that hit the students needs without sacrificing for the other students in the district so the jointure has been very proactive this year and trying to work with districts uh to see what we
can do it won't be a quick fix might take time but we've had some really good conversations um I'm also on the finance committee of the uh of the jointure so we've had a lot of meetings there about how can we better serve the needs of the districts that we
serve part of the resolution that the board sees on the uh agenda to approve the preliminary budget is uh a million dollars withdrawal from the capital reserve um it's sort of the board's savings account for facilities needs um and each year we pull down from it and
each year at the end of the year we'll deposit money back into it right so we never want to just completely drain it you're always replenishing it for the needs of of our facilities uh so that million dollars includes a number of hbac um and heating and cooling
Replacements districtwide uh a lot of plumbing and gutter repairs districtwide as well uh safety and Communications upgrades and then we have a state mandated SDA assessment that has been in in the budget for probably 15 or 20 20 years at least that comes out of our our
capital reserve uh so there are a number of projects that we are looking at to make sure that again all of our buildings are safe and secure for students and staff and um with the building and grounds committee um Mr wiffer Mr gambo shared and I shared that list that ABC list that we talk about
every year and we set that that we agreed that a million dollar cap was what we could do in terms of capital reserve um we're keeping it a little general right here um because we're we're capped you know at a
million and we start really getting real prices we don't want to say hey we're fixing this and then it goes over the cap and we got to fix that instead right but once the budget um is finalized in April uh and once we start getting some real dollar amounts we'll meet again
with building a grounds to show what you know what would made the cut okay um and if the finance or building grounds committee and the board as whole remember the long range facilities plan that uh was just updated I think two
years ago all of these projects if you use capital reserve funds to do the project it must be included in that longrange facilities plan so the district works with our Architects to help design that longrange facilities plan which is a Five-Year Plan um so we're using this money for
Planned projects that uh the architect and administration work to to right you remember that was really heavy plan with a lot of projected cost because to Mr wher's Point um doesn't mean you have to do it but it means you don't have to
jump through a whole bunch of Hoops if you need to do it and you didn't have it in the plan uh we have obviously leas equipment and Technology uh so we have budgeted uh student Chromebooks that are on we're usually on a basically I think a three or four year cycle for a lot of our our
Chromebooks depending on uh when that grades Chromebooks came in we're on a three or four year cycle to get new ones uh we'll have a few teachers get new devices as well uh we're trying to increase the amount of interactive panels that are in uh the classrooms rather than the projection
screens um we have proposals and agreements for a new telephone system for the offices um meaning main offices and nurses office throughout the district um file server replacement which is more technology infrastructure
replacement and then computer lab I believe the high school is getting new desktops so we always try to use leasing to help support those really big Financial purchases um and obviously those 2% cap restrictions on our budget uh to be able to help get the most out
of our budget and again you know we don't we're not frivolous um the telephone system is at the end of life uh no longer has any support um the last last maybe two weeks if have I had any doubts about that when it told me that for the last two weeks my phone was
working one day not the next day it would take some calls I'd call I couldn't hear them people are very happy about that but I couldn't connect with them and uh throughout the district they they had so many bandaid they finally I think over this past weekend they being Mike and Chris in the it figured out some ways to make some changes and
everything seems to be working now but we don't rush to just upgrade and even with that the first projected price came in I couldn't believe it and U they said but don't worry about that cuz we're going to keep and they went out and they made sure we had enough Bells but we didn't have have to every whistle you
know so we we we do our best to keep things going as long as they can and then lastly this is uh very general but our the budget calendar the board approved I believe in November uh starting in November you know this the budget gets approved in March and April
for the July 1 start but it really starts in uh November uh Mr Hurley and I meet with the administrative Council and start budget planning for that next year uh the administrators create and submit a detailed budget request uh to my
office right before the holiday break uh and then January and February is much more crunch time um with my my office Mr Hurley um our bildings and grounds committee our finance committee meeting multiple times throughout the past few months uh to help narrow down our scope
and and really get down to what our budget is uh intend uh today is March 10th the board approves the preliminary budget that this preliminary budget gets sent to the County Office of the Department of Ed um they're really checking for compliance making sure that we're meeting code and
statute with a number of uh aspects of the budget um all goes well there they send it back to the district um with a thumbs up then it goes to the board and a Public Presentation of the budget and the then board adopts that budget at our
April 28th meeting so there's two approvals for the budget this is the first preliminary approval that goes to the county as long as there's no changes which I don't expect any changes to come down from them the board will see this uh basically very similar presentation
at our April meeting to adopt that budget before we uh open up any questions you may have uh I every year I say you know I thank business administrator and the principes and the supervisors and the building of
grounds director and everyone uh who has to work on the budget um the bulk of it lands on Mr wiford and his office uh but there's a lot of people have to carry a lot of parts as we go forward um and
this year um Mr wher's first year in District not only we're doing this simultaneously to qac which is kind of like the audit a second time and we're doing it simultaneously with Rea negotiations
okay so he hit the trifecta um and U you know we we haven't really missed the beat so kudos to you um and also to everybody else who had a hand uh in the budget and to the finance committee because I will say that our
meetings are always um informative uh good dialogue uh and always um focused on what's best for the for the students what best for the district so I thank all of you as well yeah the the committees as well as administrators
have everything has been going very smoothly and very well here in the past um I've obviously brought some uh some changes or updates to things um and you've been very receptive to those changes uh but I didn't want to change so much because again the board and the district have been very successful in
the past so you're not going to you know fix something that's not broken um but there's always some efficiency things that we can touch on and and some communication things that again I thank the the board administrators for for helping help me you know support the board and the district uh in my first
year so thank you very much if you have any questions please let me know can can I ask you a question we had used to have a slide about per student uh cost you know I guess it was an old slide but do you think based on what you see are we still in a lower tier course
per student if we took that group yes because those two years are zero you're never going to make up for them you know not when there's a two % cap right I mean we might inch a little closer because the allowable increase is high one year and somebody else didn't have
one right but years when people were going two or three or 4% we were going zero I'm going back like 18 years now uh you know that that sets you back I could see why we don't have the slide anymore but I was just curious to see we're still in the lower course for students I
I could pretty confident say that we're we're in the lower section of it again Mr hurle point where every District might be using those different allowable increases um there's nothing outside of a uh second proposal that can increase
our budget substantially enough to jump us to the top of that list but again I want to make the point and um to that point in case anybody's listening you know when they watch this not familiar with what you're talking about you're talking about the average uh the cost
per pupil compared to districts in a similar socioeconomic category we're in despite that right uh we've gone I'm gonna say over 20 years before I mean I've been now 10 or 11 years I'm going back
before that where we have not ever cut a program um we've we've increased our cost offerings we increased our electives we increased our advanced placement we've increased co-curricular activities uh and we've managed to do
that uh with with the limitations because we have a group of people and and it's a it's a consistent group over 20 years the the people have changed but the the philosophy and the mission has never
changed we work hard at it to make sure that we're going to be able to maintain we use that word a lot maintain our programs and when we can improve them and we're not going to improve one at the risk of destroying
another so I I think the community the different Community uh needs you know we need a lot of congratulations the entire Community needs to be congratulated because they value what we're doing and they support it um I was going
to mention this later I mention it now we had a newsletter get delivered you probably got it over the weekend I've re got emails from coup a handful of people um one said beaming With Pride over what the
district has accomplished um and I had four others they weren't beaming but they were pretty excited okay um you know when you get emails like that and that's more the norm than the other type of emails you know you're in a community
that values education values kids right and appreciates the work we all do and that and that speaks very well for all of us you know for all of us so um again I you know I I'm I know anytime you have
to spend money whether it's at home or at work there's always a little pain it goes with it but when we can see tangible positive results it's worth it questions or comments Dennis yeah I just want compliment Mr Whitford on the time and
effort that you and the finance committee have put into this are appreciated certainly by me and I'm sure by the district um I know the cost of inflation and other things that the district is dealing with that are so far out of our control and I'm just appreciating your efforts so thank
you yeah I want to I want to second that and say you know you talked about bringing some changes since you've come aboard but you know there really to me what I've seen is a review of compliance you know sort of tightening up where we can controls and checks and balances uh
assessing we're getting the best bang for the buck with vendors so to me those are the kinds of things you want to see so um that is greatly appreciated I also just wanted to say you know one thing I noticed that um you added to this presentation was the first
slide which was really what what are the Strategic objectives and I think that's really important because oftentimes you look at a budget and you look at year-over-year all these different areas but really the big umbrella is what it's about right what's the strategy and I
think um for the public to know so as board members we work in committee to really dissect and understand the budget and the finance committee is the main committee but serving on all the Committees I'd say you know almost all these committees have some hand and
understanding what's going into the budget so you our strategic planning committee understands the strategy our buildings and grounds committee is dissecting the capital reserves and kind of the usage and the needs and you could see those are needs uh in the in the facility Personnel is under
understanding kind of what's happening with the view of personnel for the next year um curriculum instruction you know if there are any cost related to new curriculum changes Innovations things like that um and then you know trying to squeeze it all in and being fiscally
prudent so uh it's definitely not an easy job uh and one that is definitely uh valued and I think Mr Hurley just the fact that you know every nook and cranny of the budget can answer thousands of questions not that we ask thousands Maybe you know 900 close to 100 uh but
uh just the fact that uh you you really understand all aspects of the budget and that you work collaboratively and and you really ask the principles and you ask you know the supervisors you know what is it you need and I think you've also train the team of Administrators to
be fiscally prudent um so you know they're thinking about what are the needs and wants but how do we do this given you know as I like to say parameters and possibilities so you know just huge Kudos yeah well thank you and and you know what you're referring to is culture right if you create a certain culture and and we Tred to work hard at
creating that culture I do want to elaborate on one thing you said though just or clarifi you know not clarify but but support uh Mr Ryan who you met at the last you met before but at the last meeting um he spent uh along with Mr wiford writing a narrative right there's
a narrative I mentioned before that has to go with the budget and that narrative the reason why Mr Ryan because he kind of oversees curriculum right he has to get in he has to show uh how the budget is aligned with each item of curriculum how it supports it how it supports any goal that's been set in a curricular
area so you know it's not just crunching the numbers it's it's you know you just can't say oh we're going to throw a whole bunch of money into language arts this year without that narrative showing why and how is aligned to either to either state or local goals or mandates
so it is really a a a massive uh project and um and again we appreciate um you know the support of the board and your recognition of that Diane you had nice job Mr wh I just wanted to tell you that first year and
you're impressing us all over and over again great on your birthday and happy birthday yeah if I had known I would have brought my cake everybody I could have well it's always belated birthday you could it's
coming um any last questions or comments before we move on to the report of the superintendent all right here n okay very short report I distributed envelopes to you that were in there contained an invitation to the annual Rea March Madness it's the last Saturday
in March so over at Pier Pond in the morning I think it's 9: to 12 if you've seen it before it's kind of a funfare uh and a combination of a funfair carnival kind of thing uh an academic presentation and most importantly it's collecting foods for the food pantry so
your mission is I think two items of uh of food to come in so if you get a chance to go over and visit is always um a very good Community event and we thank the Raa for spearheading that um the I want to mention that you know
as you know last week I was had the honor and the privilege of attending the National Convention for the super uh superintendent in New Orleans uh it was a um you know for the the convention part of it the conference was great um you know
sometimes I go to conferences and I'm um a little disappointed in some of the presentations or or you you go into a workshop and after a while you sit there you say I'm going to walk out uh that was not the case this one these were um some outstanding presenters um dean of
Education from Harvard um dean of Education from Arizona the former president of the president of Meritus of of of University of Maryland who has served on three different National commissions I mean there were they were people with high level of of of knowledge and experience and reach um
and it was a little more of a global and philosophical type of presentations going on um and and the second thing that was outstanding was getting to meet people from different parts of the country um so it was really a good
conference and then the I was given a you know a a ward as a state winner uh and that was a that was a really nice ceremony it was over 6,000 people at the convention and there was probably about two 1500 to 18800 in the hall um and we
had to be there for about an hour and a half rehearsing because it was not just us it was a whole program and it was kind of like Miss America you walk in there's all those chairs line up and it had New Jersey New York you know you had to find you know but in talking I'm sitting next to the superintendent from
New Mexico and then talking to him and then talking to the the woman from Texas and the and just hearing the different issues and commonalities and things throughout different parts of the country uh and not just in a workshop an hour and a half backstage you know
talking to people so it really was a an excellent uh conference for a number of a number of reasons got a really you know I've I got a bunch of plaques this year this one like I thought was going to say I couldn't take it on the plane it was so heavy it was like the
granddaddy of plaques and and I thought I was in the Olympics as they put a gold medal around bronze actually around your neck you know and it was pretty so that was kind of and the the national winner was superintendent from Alabama Alabama Alabama yep so it was a really nice
conference so again I I thank your support and me being able to attend uh and also it was it was nice to repres did he impress you um well he's a he's a superintendent of the year for the I know I'm saying but did any impression were yes yes he did give a good speech well you
know he gave a good speech considering they picked they told you the four finalists were ahead but they didn't announce the winner it was like the Academy Awards they come out with an envelope and they open up and these four people are saying on stage and and the winner is you know Miss Alabama that kind of thing and uh so he had to speak
you know like right off the cuff I I'm sure he prepared something just in case but he he was very good I did find out cuz I had to go to a state dinner then on Friday night I found out two things I did not know I'm glad that they mentioned it passing I knew I was going to get mentioned at our state convention
in May I didn't know I'm expected to give an address I have to speak nobody told me that they mentioned it passing over odur so um so I guess Chad gbt is no I'm kidding um and and then um and then when I had go to this thing I'm
being invited to in Washington in November which I knew about a symposium uh there going to be a black tie dinner so I have to get a tux yeah but but at this stage of life my favorite pants are tuxedo pants because they have
expandable waste you know so you could you could your pants always hit you okay so uh it was fun it was fun and thank you again uh the only other thing I want to mention I mentioned the play already right um this weekend the senior citizen performance uh is tomorrow at 4 o'clock
and um there's a couple there's a few agenda items I'll mention when we get there but nothing nothing too big all right thank you any questions from Mr Hurley all right hearing none we'll move on to the report of the president I'll
just keep it super brief uh on the memo that was along with the packet for this evening there were a bunch of events going on in March so any events that we're able to go to it's always great to immerse ourselves in all of those um and then I just wanted to highlight and give
kudos to the burough wide newsletter which you already did um but I just want to say that in my experience and just being that this is a district that has over 2700 students transparency and really trying to let the community know
what's happening is a hard thing it's a hard thing in any district and I know it's been a Bor goal to continue to increase transparency through social media through coming to events you know being accessible um but I think the bur wide newsletter and the bulletins are
really going a long way um I often hear feedback back from folks that really appreciate these and I know these are now a few years old but I think people are getting used to hearing more about what's happening since we don't get big crowds in our Board of Ed meetings hopefully people are watching on uh
video but uh just wanted to uh give Kos I thought it was really well done can I add one thing to that because at the conference a big discussion with everything going on in Washington right and and the media over the last forget this Administration for the last 10 12 years attacks on public educ
right we need more Charter Schools we need more this we need more that right and to the point that you're making Dr lot we've got to get our message out because if we don't somebody else gets it out for you and it's not the right message and you know one of the things
I'm going to address with the faculty at some point I want to talk a little about the newsletter about I heard in the conference I was planning to do it today but I just was too far behind putting out a bulletin and catching up on things we've got to be the walking Billboards of of you know we humility was something
we always thought we had to be don't be humble don't brag on yourself those days are done because there's going to come a time when there's going to be funding issues uh there's going to be program issues there's going to be social media false information out we
got to get the word out of what we do well not just here but throughout the state and I think that's an important message you're making about transparency um and it was really one of the major themes of the convention uh last thing just a quick note I know some people saw Mr
Sprayberry leave and uh he did not have an emergency he actually had a conflict with the meeting this evening but he came uh so that he could at least hear the uh budget presentation so I just wanted to share that where they fine otherwise yep uh any questions in my
report all right hearing none then at 7:52 p.m. we're going to open the meeting to the public for any items related to the agenda this evening all right uh seeing none we are going to close the meeting at 7:52 PM we're going to move on to new business
where there is action to be taken uh so we are going to start with Personnel Mrs Cole you saw the additional Personnel document okay uh so over to you good evening uh Personnel did not meet this month tonight we have 19
motions to be put forward tonight at the recommendation of the superintendent number one is to accept the retirement of Timothy aala a stem teacher at the high school with regret effective July 1st 2025 number two to accept the
retirement of Al Eileen hilig am I saying her name correctly clerical assistant at Lincoln School with regret effective October 1st 2025 number three is to accept a resignation number four to approve an
adjustment in the extension of a leave placement number five is to approve a long-term substitute elementary teacher number six to approve a lunch monitor at Lincoln School this is a replacement position number seven to approve the
payback of six days to retirees as listed number eight is to resend approve the following coaching assignments I've listed number nine to approve the following teachers for presentations for title 2A funds as listed
number 10 is to proove an esaa amendment to relocate funds number 11 is to approve the following substitute teachers as listed number 12 to approve the following substitute teacher assistance as
listed number 13 is to resend a counselor for the Bulldog Care Program number 14 is to resend a home instructor number 15 is to approve the following travel reimbursements as listed and then number 16 on the
addendum to approve a long-term substitute teacher number 17 to approve a home instructor and number 18 and 19 is to approve long-term substitute elementary teachers all right thank you for those
any you want yeah um Mr wiford for the um minutes um resolution number three Michael Foster the date should be March 10th effective March 10th not March 7th okay and uh I do want to mention Mr
aella uh who is U he he came in as a wood shop teacher and then we converted the wood shop to the stem lab and uh he's done some wonderful things in that stem lab but more importantly he's really a gentleman to the court okay just a great guy and Eileen yig who's been part of our community with her student her children going through the
schools um been uh in our district for well over 20 years so it's 27 and 28 year I don't know exactly but her retirement of October 1st tell you what kind of person she is she handles a lot of the gifted and talented organizational work for the program in
terms of you know taking care of the of of getting things out to the parents and getting it in and setting things up she want she said I'm going to come back for September because I want to make sure that I have time to train my replacement and also make sure it gets off to a good start so you know um these people really
have been long long time people here and we're going to miss all right thank you questions or comments from board members hearing none Mrs Cole do you want to move this I would like to move motions one through 19 under Personnel
all right second Mr County any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Whitford please take rooll Mr pan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr KY yes Mr hey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maone
yes Dr Rim yes Dr lot yes motions Carri all right thank you uh we're going to move on now to curriculum and instruction and Mr Jones there's one uh additional piece in the addendum got that okay thank you uh we did not have the cni meeting and tonight there are 10
motions that we put forward on the upon the recommendation of the superintendent number one curriculum guides approvals which is English Arts social studies and Comprehensive Health all grades two out of District
placements three field trips now totally 151 four bilingual program waiver request five anti-bullying specialist which is uh retirement and then Improvement of the appointment of Tara
Engles six School climate committee again these two women seven threat assess team uh at Washington and uh eight school crisis response Safety Committee at
Washington the same two women one of the uh the recent of dorine sulter and the appointment of Tara Engles nine harassment intimidation and Bully decision and 10 a home instruction for two in
students all right thank you questions or comments on any of those Dr bilingual waiver every year you have to submit a if you don't run a full bilingual
education program which means you have a bilingual English class A bilingual history class but you have to file a waiver with the state to indicate why you don't have that and there certain reason and then you have to tell them what type of program you are running so
we have multil language they've changed the acronym Learners that we pull out for classes but then they're in mainstream classes so that just has to go through a waiver to approve thank okay I want to mention that curriculum normally we do curriculum we have a
meeting and all that um in anticipation of the qac visit we get they do a desk audit of curriculum and um sometimes give you a little heads up on some things and there were some certain items like we had to align certain um career
Readiness standards instead of having as a laundry list at the end of the curriculum they wanted them actually next to units they wanted they wanted to see more units of say it was a little bit of housekeeping that we had to do and we found out about that probably two days before the agenda went out and we
wanted to get it approved because they're coming on April 2 so just minor more of of a formatting is the word I'm looking for okay all right questions or comments any others all right hearing none Mr Jones
do you want to move this I move resolutions 1 through 10 under curriculum instruction all right second it Mr Healey any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Whitford please take role Mr pan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr KY
yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maone yes Dr Ren yes Dr body yes motions carry all right thank you we're going to move on now to finance Mr bosan uh good evening finance committee met uh last Monday to review the budget tonight on
the agenda we have nine motions to consider number one is the routine approval of bills number two is the January treasurers report number three is the January budget line transfers number four is an sop and purchasing manuals number five is our
annual agreement with South Bergen jointure Transportation agreement and number six is our annual contracted service agreement with the South southb and jointure for programs as listed number seven is to approve the submission of the 2025 2026 District
budget to the county office for a review number eight is the annual monitoring uh of the travel budget and number nine is the annual semi corrective action plan all right questions
can you talk about number nine number nine yeah yeah there's want to semi semi is the um Medicaid initiative that is run through the state uh there are certain requirements for uh students and
iips uh we the district can be reimbursed for certain expenses um you're we're honestly reimbursed about 2% of the entire expenses for the specialized Services um at least through that initiative uh there are two big
factors which is if we're hitting a certain uh reimbursement threshold that is set by the state uh and another one is making sure the parent consent forms are signed off on the IEPs uh I believe this corrective action plan includes an item that we did not hit the
reimbursement threshold uh new that's for last year new this year they've uh reduced the threshold for all school districts by a substantial amount um because I think that they were just setting the target very high for every district and districts all across the
state had to do these corrective action plans because they were not hitting this almost unattainable Target so they reduced that amount significantly Dr Mr Hurley and I have gotten memos regarding it so we should be able to be hit those targets next year and moving forward
we've done this every year we' had to do a corrective action plan every year as as many districts in the state have which is why I adjustment sometimes it's because apparent doesn't sign off on the consent to send the records forward and
you you only got 97% one you know and now you have to show what you do to get 100% And your corrective action PL well we sent out letters you know you you your corrective action plan is telling them the same thing you did the year you didn't hit the target so I hope when they adjust things is going to mean that
fewer districts have to do this plan uh Miss hoen in in Special Services works on it with uh the business his office to submit the plan every year all right any other questions or
comments Dr number eight the travel we do that every year I remember so part part of the budget submission H is recording the travel expenses um the board has to approve a maximum travel for next year's budget and show what the
current travel is that we have not exceeded that budget uh so every single year going to that State uh submission for the budget must include the travel expenses as well question this for next year's budget confused correct y it's for next year's budget but it has to
show how this year's budget has been tracked so far got all right any other questions Mr pazin I'd like to move motions one through nine under Finance all right we have a second dren any last questions or comments
hearing none Mr Whitford please take a roll Mr ban yes Mrs Cole yes Mr Cony yes Mr Healey yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maone yes Dr rine yes Dr L yes motions Carri all
right uh over to policy Mr Hy anything to report we uh did not have a committee meeting since our last board meeting and uh there are no motions this even all right uh thank you buildings and grounds I'll ask Mr Mone if you could take us through it certainly so we've not had a
building grounds meeting since our last meeting on the 24th uh there are two items on the agenda this evening the first item is the shared services agreement between uh the Board of Education and the Bureau of Rutherford effective uh
31125 through 31230 uh the second item on the agenda is a resolution um for a parking uh agreement or parking space agreement between uh the Board of Education and Felician College or Felician University
um effective uh July 1st of this year and continuing in perpetuity un L terminated by other party with 90 days notice all right I'd like to thank um Felician University um as I told the board and
you know the parking for our buses was going to be eliminated come October 1st and uh they stepped up and provided U ample space u again last week when I was not here Mr whiffer and Mr gambo went down just to
make sure that space is more than more than we need right um and the Imp perpetuity part you know barring something on either end changing I think is a great uh step uh since the new president has been on board of Felicia we've had uh several meetings on
academic programs on on Civic programs on um recruiting teacher programs um they've been a really a really a really good relationship so and then I also want to thank the burrow uh we U we delayed getting started it took
a couple of meetings but we got essentially the same share of service agreement we've had with with adjustments from both sides that have come naturally over the course of time because things have been added um and I want to say you know the burrow and and the um the district continue to have a
good relationship I mean last week they had problems with buses that they needed for the St Patrick's Day Parade uh called me on Friday afternoon around 2 o'clock and said can you get buses and drivers and we got them uh we're we're talking now about some that went back 30
years ago with fiber optics and see if we could work together on that so um we have a good relationship and again I thank all the parties for their cooperation um and tonight at the council meeting um they're also
approving the share service agreement all right questions or comments from board members all right seeing none Mr Mone want to move this yes so I'd like under buildings and grounds I'd like to move
items one and two all right we have a second Mr beian any last questions or comments hearing none Mr Whitford please take rooll Mr bosan yes Mrs Cole yes Mr
KY yes Mr Hy yes Mrs Jones yes Mr maon yes Dr rine yes Dr yes motions Carri all right uh we are going to move on to Old business is there any old business to report Mr Jones I finally
got to attend a Friday session of the anxious generation only this timei was talking about ways to improve households and make them less stressful and you know so forth she was very good uh I
went to Pier Pond school for this one they they're on my exercise classes and I'm not in good enough shape to skip that but I said I got it in one of them so I played hookie um the one thing that she talked about that I thought was really good she said train your kids
never to put it down put it away until as a big step in ending clutter I wish I had learned that years ago but it was good it was nice and of course this was terrific I've brought it in case you didn't talk about it but we've all seen it and it was wonderful
beautiful is is there a distance for the difference between putting it down and putting it away that we should refer to well we we end up putting things down instead of putting them away or hanging in the you know hanging up the jacket or whatever yeah you know and it's so true
yeah no absolutely that's a great Point under old business if uh we have one we have two board members who are going to go to the uh boosters dinner if there is room for another if you're interested you can let me know okay um I want to get get it out to Mr Fraser's office by
Wednesday so I mean two is always the norm so two is fine I'm not trying to guilt anybody into it but if anybody wants to go there's there's room I I I would have gone but this is the first time in 20 years being an empty nester that I could actually go somewhere from my spring break which
happens to fall during the boosters dinner so where you going going to Barcelona visit my two brothers yeah good for you um uh any other old business Mr yeah I got I got invited uh by Lincoln
School to do uh to read to a class I got to see Mr Hurley there had a fantastic time reading to uh uh a class that was mixed second and third graders I read the book without pictures it was quite uh quite popular uh had a good time so
yeah how does one read a book without oh without pictures yeah the book without pictures was the name of the book that I read kept their attention that that's impressive it was fantastic Mrs Jones is there in full Irish Garb like to read to third graders because most of the the younger kids
know those books and and the Dr Zeus and so I I pick out some good stories from the library naturally and I wear my green a carry my CH shalele and uh they they enjoy it and we both read it Lincoln and Washington right I read it
both and at Washington the class sent me a little booklet of thank you notes there were second graders that's and uh the one student wrote uh you're a great super one word attendant second word I thought that was the best that
that's that's a keeper yeah that's a keeper Prett awesome Mr just to add to that Dr vko and Mrs Bohan was very kind we read for our granddaughter's class my wife and I so it was really nice than that's right you guys
surprised her too right yeah oh that's awesome yeah this the first year and a few years I couldn't make it uh to that either but uh I always enjoy that it's a good time any other old business seeing none uh Mr Jones any
legislative updates the PTA meeting was supposed to be tomorrow for Washington but they're changing it so okay I'll report when they have it again okay um we are we on legislative update uh let's update yep okay um this is New
Jersey uh Senate Bill 418 Z introduced just last week on March 3rd uh Benji e Wimberly is the district 35 Berg and BC establishes measures to provide employment stability for High School
coaches employed in school districts the head coach who is a tenure employee of a district uh or is an out of District employee shall receive an employment contract with the board of edit for a term of three years years and assistant
coaches are two years I'm not even going to comment on that okay that you know it's it's a um that that's I don't think that's going to fly and but I I don't think it's a good thing either what are our
contracts year to year a co-curricular is year to year and um you know I think everybody needs a little protection but this is not a person's livelihood it's a stien position and there's reasons why sometimes the person wants to make a change you know contracts work both ways right you have a contract you just can't
walk away from it either and I remember that we have not kept some coaches and sometimes there's a problem and you you need to address it right so you know I think uh he's a longtime coach as you may have may know M assemblyman Wembley uh and still very active in athletic
Circles of the coaching associations I hope he doesn't watch this video I don't want to come all right thank you uh at 8:12 p.m we're going to open the meeting to the public for any items related to or not related to the agenda this
evening all right hearing none and we're going to close the meeting at 8:12 pm. and we do not have a need for an executive session which means uh we can take a motion to adjourn Mr Mone second in by Mrs Cole all in
favor all right we are adjourned thank you