may I have a motion to return to public meeting please so mov Mr Mitchell second Mr Sony all in favor hi hi uh we need to approve the minutes of the executive um uh board meeting on
February 27th as well as the board meeting of February 27 2025 uh are there any changes to the minutes all right none approved all right yeah all right the next order of business is the report of
the student representative Samaya hi good evening everyone so starting off with some School news from the high school student council has been busy as we plan our upcoming pep rally next Friday April 4th our theme for the spring pep rally will be circus
and our spirit days are as followed so Monday is prepared to be hypnotized which is lazy day Tuesday is spots and Stripes Wednesday is wacky sock Wednesday Thursday is looking into the future which is just like wearing college shirts and future careers and Friday is our spirit can't be teed class
color day last Friday the South Brunswick library welcomed National book award winning author Patricia McCormack students and staff were treated to a wonderful day of learning as Mrs McCormick discussed her fiction and non-fiction writing her research trips to to Nepal and India and the book
challenges her novels have faced the visit was made possible by the generosity of the high school PTO our Junior Prom is planned for May 16th aboard the cornicopia and Perth Amboy from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 :30 p.m. The Boat Leaves promptly at 6:30 packets are
available in the activities office House Office outside a 313 and c312 um our senior prom is planned for June 6th at the Merrygold from 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. packets are available in the activities office as well the class
of 2028 is selling T-shirts in two different shades of pink for $10 they are selling them on the 21st the 25th and the 28th in the Freshman cafeteria during all lunches SB Earth presents upcycle night on April 24th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the blue cafeteria there
will be tie dying t-shirts planting flowers and more tickets ticket prices are $5 and $7 at the door um pizza and baked goods will also be sold and two NHS hours will be provided that's all I have for everyone thank you enjoy the rest of your night thank you
Samara all right next order of business is the report of the superintendent of schools Mr fed thank you mam Madam president just want to say Madam president um so we have our awesome incredible Joan kirkus Student Art
Gallery mark your calendars everyone April 23rd If you have not been you absolutely need to cancel whatever you have and go it is
truly spectacular at all levels the program I mean I don't know the high school usually even puts on some surprises I don't know if they're doing that this year with bands and all kinds of things but it is absolutely one of the most impressive things I think
this school district does as far as uh showing kids talent their pride in their in themselves and their work it is fabulous so it is 4: to 8:00 p.m. the art teachers are there from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. um and there's a sneak
peek I guess but I to stay in touch and reach out to I guess Evelyn maybe why not yeah Evelyn why not uh reach out to Evelyn um anything anything that you need on this night try and get there it's it's great and to the parents
watching this is a stunner and it is crowded it is super crowded so just be prepared uh and eat before you come because you're not going to want to leave and I still believe we're have a big Miss to solve our budget crisis we should be
selling all those items at the end kids get 3% District gets 97% and we would no longer have a budget crisis because I'm telling you some of these pieces are off the charts spectacular so again strongly encourage you to
go um Reggie are you got a video for us all right so if we can just turn around everybody and watch a quick video [Music]
oh [Music] that it that's probably it yeah it was a quick little you know little PSA we waiting for more little PSA announcement um so uh another piece of information uh board members you might
get questioned on these kind of things the preschool Lottery uh on Friday March 21st I think Deepa was our um our honorary um Watcher checker make sure we did it right um Friday March 21st emails were sent to all the families who
applied this email was to let the parents know if they were secured a spot or if they were placed on a waiting list School assignments will be made closer to the end of the school year so we work through the school assignments and just a just as a recap for our families we
added six preschools next year and suzan will correct me if I'm incorrect um sapers School sapling sapling sapling school okay mistake sapling school will have three sections and the learning experience will have three as well and I
think sa sapling is on 27 and learning experien is right when you if you're coming north on Route One be right before you turn on to Black Horse Lane that's learning experience and um these are schools that Suzanne and uh Megan
and her team vetted and feel will do a great job for our students and that is our Outsourcing of six of the programs and we're still working through all the others um Suzanne runs the show with Megan and the other key key key partner
is Jill Adnan our transportation director she she actually kind of runs the show with we kind of listen to whatever she tells us uh but Suzanna Megan run that and on the back end of our preschool is is Kelly um who handles you know a great
deal of the the grant side of that work and um you know we have a ton of money devoted to this and what has been really a strong value to to the district outside of free preschool which in itself is extremely valuable hello
m is um we're able to use that Grant to support other funding so um David Kelly Suzanne Megan and Megan's taking the brunt of this one um works really hard with the state to identify how we're allowed to do that so
we follow the protocols but listen the preschool if you were with us the first year we opened it it was a rough go that was not an easy thing to open in the middle and we had and we were forced if you remember we were forced to open like in
February and uh that was a rough that was a rough first year since then I it is the most one of the most valuable things we've done for this community and a lot of people um do a lot of amazing work every day in that preschool program
and they deserve a huge thanks so anyway the Lottery's out uh we're up to 450 kids next year which is amazing that means 450 of our of our family 450 students worth of families are now have free preschool full day which is amazing
so unfortunately we're not at full scale yet I think our full scale is probably the real full scale is 800 divide Times by 90 so 725 kids would be our full um universe as they call it in the in the state but
fantastic and thanks to all um so we had our first Parent Academy we had a three-part series on the anxious generation it's a book um and I think I've shared before I still believe the anxious generation is whoever is living now not necessarily an age of a of a
person um we are in the anxious generation we are living in a generation where social media is almost unavoidable where the information flow is so extensive that it does put a lot
on all of us uh as we try to keep up and the old term of keeping up with the Joneses is taking on a whole new world with with social media and the constant flow of information so um we had the first night um and we had a second night
that was uh last two weeks ago on March 18th and our third night which is anyone can come so if you didn't come to the first too still come we bring in we have a speaker for that one as well and that's a kid panel this is an excellent one by the way board members if you haven't been able to make one April 2nd
this is a student panel y fantastic and then we have uh some of our behaviorists and some of our other professionals who are all chipped in to make this exceptional and I really really would so I'm really I'm doing a lot of promoting tonight um I really believe this is
another can't miss event um if you've been to our former events that used to be held on Saturdays um about social media and Technology the best the highlight of that event usually was the student panels so this is a night for student
panels oh I expect to see you there April 2 um so really come and uh participate we all have I I've learned so far both nights there's a lot to learn and hearing perspectives is pretty incredible when
you think about what's going on so um that's it I'll be doing a budget um D I'll be talking about budget a little later when we get into Old business and uh we'll take it from there thank you madam president Qui question question yeah on these um parent these particular
parent cies are they going to be loaded on the website no no can we or no well we didn't record them so we we could not actually load them on the we we we wanted people to be here not to know I know but it would been great to have him
up after it's a different feel it's an interactive thing so it's not just sitting there watching our presentation okay so it really wouldn't blend itself well to that okay and just kudos to the district I can't believe it's 20 years for this Art District this is kind of blowing my mind that has been 20 years
so kudos to the staff for doing it thank you son has a question oh yes Rees I think there has been an increase the mic Rees for the preschool uh expansion have we expanded for the number of schools or
number of students from last year can you just yeah we did we expanded six more classrooms each classroom is 15 students so we went 90 more students in this one year we did the same last year we expanded 90 and um the what the preschool uh what the state wants you to
do is reach your preschool what they call your preschool Universe the preschool universe is 90% of the sum of your kindergarten in first grade so that's really right now about 725 750 kids would be our 90% so um what we do every year the just
so so we can do it is we we invite um programs in the in the town who are interested in partnering with us and so then Suzanne brings a team uh from the preschool they go and they tour the schools talk to them some people reach out to us not realizing some of the
things that would have to be done like uh anyone who does our program has to use our curriculum they have to follow our rules and we evaluate their programs uh so we we assist in all of that as well so it's a pretty big undertaking to use the Outsourcing but if we didn't use the
Outsourcing we'd be out of space of course and therefore no the parents would lose out on the opportunity which is not be great thanks oh perfect thank you all right any more questions all right okay the next order
of business we had a board brief with m yeah I'll talk real quick sure so um the board had the opportunity to meet with maso's food service prior to our board meeting this evening prior to our executive session they provid us provided us with a uh spring tasting
they also intro introduced us to um the new chef chef Eric Rudder um and our director of Robin zuno was there as well they're not here to present with us because they presented to US during the tasting so our board brief uh occurred
during uh prior to our executive session so that's that's um maso's food service I'll turn it back over to you thank you all right the next order of business is board committee and L on reports um I
see Miss Khan is not here so for policy we'll skip that uh for finance M Rogers do you have any report yes thank you very much um the uh the finance committee has a plan meeting for this Monday the 31st um so we'll be meeting
then and I'll have an update after that thank you for operations Mr Krishna yeah we have not had a meeting as yet we planning to have one and then maybe in the next to next board meeting we'll be able to give
it thank you education committee Dr Raj um the education committee met on 24th uh of this month uh and uh everybody will present um and uh uh the committee was given an update on uh national
anthem uh on the topic of national anthem which was uh which was from the previous board meeting um the committee was informed that uh there will be um uh there will be language included uh uh so that um uh the national anthem um and uh
will be uh there will be an opportunity for kids to understand the uh sign historical and cultural significance of national anthem um and uh and the committee was also updated on uh restorative practice restorative practices uh so there is very good
things happening there and um the details uh of the minutes meeting minutes will be uploaded on the board portal shortly so Dr suzan Lon shared the restorative practices of the board yeah yeah yeah yeah sorry yeah um suzan um uh
M suzan lbone actually shared the restorative practic bunch of slides on um the restorative practices update with the entire board thank you Dr Raj okay so the next is the L on reports and do we have any L on
reports no I don't have okay all right let's move on to Old business over to Mr feda it's easier for me to spell there I'm so sorry thank you sor sorry sorry
president stand there you go thank you everybody Dave is back for the night visiting us [Applause] y I know left here looks great all right so we put together uh
kind of an update so the slides in blue will be new slides that you didn't see I'm going to brief quickly through the old slides this is how I do it so we keep informing the community of where we are what's going on and our blue slides give us a bit of an
update so state aid of course is is the key issue to drill this into everyone's head the what seems to be a never-ending uh conundrum is the state continues to raise our local fair share and this year they raised it in
extraordinary amount of money uh 15% um remember the local fair share is the local side of the funding we get to run the schools um as you know our state aid number of course declines every year uh
significantly in some years but the reason that is is because of the local fair share number now the part that we're very confused about with the formula is how did that
occur when our ratables are a third of what they've been in the past and the ratables remember associated with values um and so is the local fair share so we we don't understand the disconnect
there and of course there is nobody to ask and get an answer from um but that has caused us again to sit in the negative and as you see last year you guys did a good thing in the sense of getting us closer to
adequacy and you know our last year's adequacy um we got close we raised the the 88.9% and got really close then what did they do they pulled the rug out from under us right and they jacked it up again so we can't get to adequacy so
while we took a chunk out of it uh we're still at under $5 million and again what Ade means is we should be spending $5 million more according to the state to support our students learning we should
be you know the rules we can't be and even if we did that apparently they're just going to raise our local fair share again and say you're still under adequacy it's very hard to to comprehend it's very frustrating as you know um so our state aid was cut as you know this
year they maxed the amount of loss at 3% of your total cume of of state aid so our state aid last year was 14275 so minus 3% is what they cut us but I am going to point out again this because you're going to need to remember
this if they don't cap the loss again our state aid is not supposed to be 138 according to their formula it is supposed to be 12 that's what it would be if they didn't cap the loss at 3% it would be 12
meaning we wouldn't be where we are we'd be $1.8 million further short why we mention that is what DAV and my concern is is if they start us at that number when they rerun the formula again next
year it could be a catastrophic amount of money again and if they don't come in with some kind of last minute savior we're in trouble like real like we're already in trouble but we're in real trouble like I won't be able to solve that kind of trouble trouble like David won't be able to solve that kind
of trouble trouble you've seen other districts in that kind of trouble they sell buildings I think Tom's River was selling a giant admin building uh Jackson is on at second school for sale Middletown announced the
other day they're selling two schools um and I know there are districts right now that have class size in the K5 of over 30 and the high schools are over 40 we know that as fact sadly as I remind us every time I talk
about the budget we are not far behind but we're better than the average of of bad I guess if the average was bad we'd be in the middle somewhere so the other money be lost this year was our stabilization Aid last
year they gave us the $645,000 so we spent or you know accounted for it this year we don't account for it so our sum deficit is over a million before the % cap we're starting at minus a million so that's the reminder of
that um this is again just the reminder of where our money goes right these are the categories that represent the largest sums of our money and um obviously most of the money is in salary and benefits that's 75% of your of your funding transportation is a big
nugget and um there you go that those are there are other miscellaneous in there but this is the Big Ticket items so then what we do to look at that is we look and say okay if salaries for example are 57% of the budget and the budget was 157 million
that means salaries represent about $90 million of the budget well if salaries are going up by 3.5% which is contractual that means you're at $3.1 million just in salaries
the problem is a 2% cap only gets you to 2.7 million so before you even get to the benefit benefit question you're minus $400,000 now let's add plus the 1 million remember so you're at minus $1.4
million now you have benefits so benefits uh which I'm going to do a little bit of a breakdown for you again so you can see it again um out of anyone's control the cost of benefits and we met with the we met with a large team of benefits people today we met
with Etna we met with our Brokers we met with the health center folks that was Dave and I and we I'd say we we pretty much demanded what we need to prove and the big thing you're looking at is the inflation cost of healthcare that's a main player it
doesn't matter where you are there's an inflation cost to do the same procedure today as it was last year that is about a 10 to 13% increase in healthcare not South Brunswick but to do the same procedures that was my question my question was this if we had a th000
procedures done last year and we did the exact same thousand procedures this year how much difference would it cost the answer is somewhere between 10 to 133% that's about what Healthcare is running can you clarify what a procedure I think it's important
I don't care if the procedure is uh a broken leg I want to clear procedure is no no a procedure is out an operation a give be anything I'm I'm I'm I'm being hypothetical yes I that's good
no I want I want us to be clear on that I can't be clear then it's it's a thousand things I don't care if call I'm going to remove the word procedure a th000 things were done last year and the same exact a th000 things were done this year that would be a 10 to 13% increase
nothing to do with South Brunswick or the staff or the people or anything right that's the cost of inflation in healthcare last year thank you the other piece which I'm going to show you more is related to um uh RX which I'll talk
about in a little bit but that number and benefits we're we're better than the standard right now at 115% and that's probably because of all the things we do but it's still 3.2 million right so if you're $3.2 million and you're already over now you're over
$3.2 million more dollars then you get into energy costs then you get into Transportation increases supplies and all of it at the end of the day when we put all into the pocket everything in when David reloads the
budget to keep everything to start we start with everything we're doing now that's how we start the budget process so we roll over the budget when we roll over the budget we are at a deficit of $3.5 million that's our
deficit now it should be you think it might be a little higher than that but it's not because we're applying a 3 and half% increase to get to that deficit that's after we apply if we apply at 2% we're at a 55 million deficit but we'll
talk a little bit more about why we can go to three and a half the board has the option to do that so let me just go with the impact assuming we're going to be at a $3.5 million deficit these are the things that are going to be impacted significantly class
size is going to have an impact the good news we're in really good shape then there we can handle the impact but it's going to happen Staffing is a result of that as well all kind Staffing all over the place Staffing so
with the when we meet with committee on Monday we'll be more specific uh we're still working this through at the next B budget update and board meeting we'll have real examples of that for everyone to see um we have various supports and
resources those things go into deficit we have to cut some but we are doing our best to hold off on programming which I'll talk about this one is extremely
important we are again going to have to hold off on needed facility repairs and this is something that the board is going to have to consider and it's a similar conversation we've had on on other topics we can do these
but we'll show you what the cost will be of other things any more we do in the reductions will hit programming and quality of schooling we are able to get to 3 and a half% 3 and5
million almost with without drastic impact to schooling is impact and all the things we're going to have to do will have impact but if we have to go to another cost of a roof level impact or2 and half million more
dollars it's going to be the kind of impact that is going to reshape the type of education our kids get that's where we are we're on the cusp um and we'll talk more as we go um we do anticipate some reducing in
size of programming I'll give you an example of size of programming um right now if we have 300 students that want to go out for track we fund that we might have to come to a place and I'm not actually saying track so again anyone who's listening I'm not
actually saying track I'm giving you an example of track I don't need all the track families out tomorrow say why are you cutting track I'm not cutting track but it might mean we can't have 300 we might only be able to afford to have 200 that's reducing it but not eliminating
track so that could happen in various places as well it's the next layer that starts to eliminate not just uce o sorry the big thing is is disruption and
disruption has a direct impact on schooling so the next layer of reductions whether it be Staffing reductions program reductions or whatever kind of reductions they are we're at the the cusp of significant disruption that's where we are so we'll
work through that in committee and go more into depth on that at the next board meeting as well so the health insurance I shared last week I'll go really quick we know the gp1s for people don't know what that is that's the oics of the world that one line item alone went up $1.1
million $1.1 million and you know speaking to Dr Chay this morning as our doctor at the health center she hasn't prescribed one dose we we don't we don't prescribe that at the health center so it isn't um related to any of that it's related to the fact that this is some
people would call it a miracle drug that's on the market and it's not just OIC that's just the that's the category um smth could probably do a better job of explaining this than I can but that's the category that are called gp1s and that one line
item is up $1.1 million that's not how much we spend that's what we're up year-over-year the other big hit is anti-inflammatory medications they share with us say humra falls into that category if you don't know what hum is you can see it on TV just turn on TV for a few hours you'll get a humra
commercial is is apparently ridiculously expensive drug and um doctors are prescribing these things so what was really interesting today in meeting with Etna um they have some ideas and some things
so similar to other ways that you manage things you have to spend a little to hopefully reduce a little and they have some ideas and our team will be meeting with them to hear what the kind the kind of uh concepts are to see if we think that's for us and see what it really means but we can't do is just change the
insurance availability for our staff so in other words you cannot legally reduce a thing you have to do what's called um same or equal to no matter what we do so we can't say you know what those anti-inflammatory drugs are so expensive we're just not doing those anymore sorry
our insurance no longer covers those we are not legally allowed to do that if you ever wanted to make a change of significance to healthcare that has to be done at the negotiations table there is no just deciding to do that so just you're aware you can't just think that that's the
answer anyway uh sorry the the cost of procedures that that 10 to 13% when we do year-over-year was at $1.8 million what we are doing right now we've tasked not not the health center company we've
tasked a different group to get us the ROI on the health center we're going to produce that for you um it won't be by May I don't think it'll be done that quickly but we gave them a pretty hefty project to do that Dave and I put
forward today and that is the full assessment of the ROI on the health center which is really important that you know that and you and you understand it because it isn't it isn't clean right Healthcare is not always perfect but um
I'm personally not satisfied until I get these next layer of results and and it's pretty extensive what we've asked but I thought the their their their interest in helping us was pretty significant I mean they they got it it was really a really positive 2-hour meeting this morning um and it's needed
you need to have that information it's not okay for me to just say hey Health CER is doing great hey this is working you should say show me the money Scott show me that so we're going to do that for you we're going to show you um I want to see it Dave wants to see it we
want to make sure that our investment is working and and if our investment is not producing the results we want how do we do that how do we fix that what do we need to do what does it look like I'll give you an example J one second I'll so one one my example is uh PT physical
therapy we are booked solid with physical therapy that means every time someone gets Physical Therapy downstairs uh sorry in the board office um they are not going to get a claim physical therapy so what we do now is we look and
say wow how much usage are we getting over we have them for 2 days here and the same therapist who seems to be beloved is going to Franklin Park to their Center so if you want Physical Therapy four times a week Franklin Park the center is only four miles away our staff goes there for free as well so
it's available and it's booked at both sites like this is you can't get an appointment as quickly as you can like I can call right now and tomorrow morning at 9:00 I can go get blood work I can go see a doctor that's how great the the the services for our staff but if it was
Physical Therapy I'd probably not be able to get my appointment exactly where I want it to be that's how booked it is so when we learn that we can also look and see how much physical therapy is happening outside of the health center
and you can also see what kind of physical therapy what do we need to do should we ask the question should we increase our Physical Therapy time and that would become an Roi on the one thing so that's the layer of work we're
doing and we want even more than that Rees you had a hand up yeah I just had a had a question so 3.4 million is year-over-year increase that we pay to the insurance provider right for for these sets of uh drug cor because it's our claims but not fully because we also
get uh over $4 million in contributions to our Healthcare program so the contributions help offset our Total Healthcare cost but yes the increases in one year mostly due to RX which a massive number amount of RX I mean RX is
only $65 million so to go up by 1.6 million on 6 and a half million the percentage which I know you can do quickly that's pretty bad that's a very big problem in the healthcare industry right now and the healthcare industry the RX across the board is about 29%
increase in RX so that's a problem that is very difficult right now and these procedures are not covered by the health center these sets of the it's possible that some people don't go to the health remember they don't have to go to the health center but we have a we have a
breakout no names we never know who the people are but we can we have a breakout of anything at all we want related to what kind of procedures are being done but mostly Dave and I don't do that work our our Brokers do that so we don't we don't get that intricate but they'll
look and say hey we're noticing that um acupuncture is being used at a clip of half a million dollars a year why don't we try and consider maybe bringing an acupuncture and then reduce those cost significantly which we did with PT and it's been very effective right now we
just started Chiropractic and we are just starting acupuncture next next month yes and Chiropractic is pretty full Chiropractic got pretty full it's only been open a few weeks so that's what we're learning Rees that's how we can use this Health Center
to do two things first thing is not money first thing is health for our staff second thing is money and we're trying to do both simultaneously oh go ahead go ahead SMA no big words today no okay uh is it
possible to see if there is over prescription um can an analysis of that sort can be done can it be done so Dave come on up talk about remedy so when we first when we first went self-insured um years ago we contracted
with a company called uh remedy Analytics and remedy analytics um they're part of they they're part of our Healthcare part of our um part of our uh prescription plan and what they do is they analyze all of our prescriptions across the district that
are assigned and if there's uh prescriptions that are um that have generics but at the same time there are uh what they would call a Cadillac version and the generic is not prescribed they what they do is they go back to Etna and they require ire etet
to provide us a re a rebate the difference in the cost plus a penalty so uh redue analytics has been instrumental in in assisting Us in managing our uh prescription plan and they they do that for us they've been doing that for us for years and and um since we
self-insured yeah since we' had self-insured and they've been uh one of the companies that uh has been with us you know for a long long time but they also provided a massive Financial uh gain to the district by by doing that for for us so yes we do manage our our prescription plan
okay all right I move on um so the big the big obviously the big elephant in the room that's going to be in the room for many years is enrollment and really quickly our projected with our with our current projected reductions our class
size in K2 we expect to be between 19 and 20 35 around 21 and 68 around 22 uh I have a 2-hour meeting scheduled tomorrow morning with the high school to go through um all of their numbers I'll be able to report back on to the committee on Monday um and see where our
class size is going to wind up um but class size is an area that is a lot of money and keeping our class size low it's also complicated to change it without redistricting and or closing a building
that's where the real money is um but doing that has all kinds of problems which we'll be talking about as we do the study which we're into the K K5 uh study it's actually a K8 study and and re reconfigurations um there's going to be
pros and cons to all kinds of options but if you go back to the last word I had on the last slide it was disruption and while I'm not afraid of disruption what I'm afraid of is disruption that actually hurts student learning and you have to balance that
point so right now at our first pass through with some budget the enrollment is reducing which allows us to survive if our enrollment hadn't been reducing we'd be in far worse shape so we continue to use the enrollment
reductions to get through these budget Cycles so just important slide you want to come out but important slide so basically this is the tax impact we're looking at at a 35%
increase in the taxes this year so if we look at the third column increase decrease that is your ratables that the amount of ratables increase or decrease by if you go back to 20121 where we were getting reductions
in taxes even by increasing the amounts look at the size of those ratables now last year we did the budget at a $57 million rable which is what we belied we were going to have it only wind up being 18 million which again hurt the tax a little bit not not a lot
but a little bit our new number this year that we're being told to use is 386 now 386 is nowhere near the 100 Millions the 100 Millions allow us to raise without any impact but we're looking at a 3 and a half% increase next year having a $227
impact we were supposed to see a deficit here this includes the dropping of $25 million of debt service so you know this is this is a problem right now for us because I know you don't want to raise taxes I know I don't
want to raise taxes but it's going to be a conversation again about what do you not want to do anymore and we just had a conversation earlier which I'm not going to say about what but that was a that was a conversation you want to do more of this and less of this this what this
is we're facing this I'll remind you because I like to say this schools are funded in in one way it's taxes whether from the state the local or the feds that's where schools are funded by it costs a lot more to do
business year-over-year due to the inflation every numbers and all kinds of other aspects we're all living with our own personal lives doesn't change for schools the net however is a beautiful number the net average over five years as far as an increase on people's taxes
is 42 bucks that is still amazing and still be where we are providing the kind of program we're providing with all the things we do for our kids our music program is off the charts expensive as could be but
it's off the charts we do things like that here for our kids and it's expensive and the largest part of the conversation is always going to be if you don't want to spend just tell me what you don't want us to do anymore cuz that's what it does come out to you want
higher class size we can do that and we can lower these numbers but we are recommending to the board that on May 1st you adopt a 3.51% increase that will be our recommendation but we're going to go through a lot more before it gets to
that point but we wanted to show you this slide because this is pretty much one of the impactful slides for the community and for the board um quick snapshot that's pretty much what we're looking at we're looking at a 3 and a half% increase what we'd be doing see
our debt fund service is only down to $1.8 million all we have left so if we needed to build you would be able to build to offset the other millions of dollars that are falling off the budget but when you have high rateable low ratables everything becomes an expense
to this to the taxpayer so you know we have to watch that and you should be watching that as a board um so just so important things the state aid is down a million the health care waiver why that's so you're I I don't know if I've
been clear we're allowed to go above the 2% cap statutorily because of the health care costs we have districts right now that are going up to 3% above the 2% due to their health care cost this is a
formula this is how the formula breaks we're recommending you use the full force of the formula that $2 million is the extra 1 12% which brings us to the 32% increase and that's how much you would be adding to the budget 4.6 million the
reality is to keep things status quo you need 8 million but I will say we can cut the first 2 and A5 million due to enrollment alone the next million is going to
hurt so if I was saying to you raise as much as you could in good conscience I couldn't tell you just to raise it to unbelievable numbers because we can still do other things the bottom line however is it's future years
that are scary and we're going to talk about that in a second as well so this is the full impact on a $200,000 assessed home if you did the 2% and didn't use the healthcare waiver of $2 million
the average family would see $144 increase or $12 a month the extra 2 million is only costing $4 about 25 a month or an extra 50 bucks a year it isn't going from zero
to 227 it's going from 175 to 227 that's an important distinction we wanted to make sure it was clear you're not starting at zero but then because you're using a waiver it's costing everyone a fortune it's not
it's a little under 50 or about 50 bucks uh a year which is not saying that's nothing but it's a back to the discussion what do you not want to do anymore and this is how you've heard me testify to the state either fund schools
or tell schools what you don't want us to do you can't just keep giving us mandates and and then cut money it it doesn't no no no no one functions that way so that's that's where we are on this um David and I put down these
General concerns we want to be clear about this is a new slide um State finances and budget rules is this ever going to change or are we going to be in the same exact boat every year kicking ourselves every January February March
April and May like is there a possible change in the future we don't know um this is the big one it's an unknown and I we wrote this in a way specifically it's an unknown enrollment impact only semi-known where it will actually come depending on what gets
built at what time and it's an unknown amount of time before the impact even hits so you're building a budget with a massive unknown component not just finances but kids 3,400 homes on the
docket if you drove down Henderson right now you'd see three buildings that look like they're pretty close to being done if you drive out to Route One from the high school you're going to see buildings started over there if you um go behind for Executive Drive you're going to see a ton of
building over there those are just the ones that have started then there's ones that haven't quite Broken Ground yet so as you know we're staying in touch with the township to learn as much as can and even with that a lot of
unknowns are determining what's going to happen even as early as next school year I mentioned this before this is what keeps David up at night that we have real needs and none of them are cheap it's not cheap to fix a roof of a school
building and we have a couple of rooms that do need work that we have to figure out um that's these two are big you we want to maintain our programs we want to maintain reasonable class size so those are
concerns and the big one is we have a K5 now K8 reconfiguration look at enrollment look at finances to see what we are going to need to recommend to the board in
February for the 2627 school year important again for any of the reporters who are watching it's not for the 2526 school year it's for the 2627 school year I can't tell you what's going to be
recommended we're doing a full study the leaders of that study are Peter vtin director of Special Projects Christina visi principal of conable school and Rob Sears our K12 music supervisor I will tell you already they are extremely committed and doing incredible job so
far getting us ready and I believe we have um meetings ready to keep booting so I we have members Raj Raja and Deepa and Laura are on that I know that I don't know anyone else did I miss anyone I
think that was it um so anyway a lot of stuff's going to have to happen and what we owe to the board is a clean recommendation as well as options what I have said before and I'm going to say
again you will need to redistrict or reconfigure the schools you will nobody wants to hear that but you're going to need to do that and the big question mark is
federal funding a article today came out that talked about there could be a reduction of federal funding now I have nothing firm that says there is going to be a reduction of federal funding but it is an unknown so hopefully it's a non-n a non- thing
but we'd be remiss and not thinking and and and planning for anything right now when it comes to the funding from the state and the federal government neither one well so far the federal government has not hurt us in any way the state has been our biggest problem not our local
and not the federal it's been the state let's hope we don't add another Branch to the problem so I want to share with you some updates on what we're hearing so one is we received an email from the
county I think last Friday at this point so a week ago called a tax incentive aid program um David and I tried to decipher it we spoke to County ba and we learned
that other County baas have deciphered it differently so this is now the state reaching out to the school districts and writing such an incoherent email that even the County Business administrators don't know what it
means we actually have heard that whatever it's supposed to mean is already being challenged and is currently nowhere so I'm not going to get into what this might have been as of right now it is nothing now one school district that we
know of decided to put out a letter to their community saying that all problems are solved we can raise our taxes by 10% and no more problems that is not the case at least
our understanding is this does not exist at this time now it might exist and I hope it does to some degree that at least gives you options you want options but as of right now that incoherent message is staying incoherent
and not unusable at this time the next one are um assemblyman Fryman and assembly drw assemblywoman drulis they they were here one night they also um um helped us get an extra half million dollars last year if you remember they
have um crafted a bill as well as um assembly woman Andrea Katz who has also crafted a bill and here's the basics of the bill so in Roy's Bill Roy fryman's Bill one of his key features is we have to stop thinking of only the 2% and use
another metric which is more realistic which is CPI Consumer Price Index now over the years if we were allowed to use the CPI when we had those big years and we would not have impacted taxes we would have been in much better shape right now because the CPI was at 6% 7% even so CPI do you know where it is now
Dave three 3.86 3.86 so if this bill passes you'll be allowed to doesn't mean you have to do it you'll have the option to do it um as also part of Roy's bill is a $67 million dispersement to any District
that lost state aid in our case it was 427,000 it would not include the 645,000 from last year so if both of those happen it will be a big option for boards to help get out of this S2
continuation cycle to a degree like last year remember it saved a lot of jobs a lot of programs last year so Roy's back at it again and um he called me on this bill and he is a committed me
member I'm not I don't care what party anyone is he's committed to trying to do the right thing for schools that's what he's trying to do um so this adequacy spending is another feature which is a
little murky but there's if you remember we're minus 5 million inadequacy so they're using these bills are using the concept of adequacy as a trigger so if you're under adequacy you're not spending to adequacy you
trigger some of these little little possibilities I don't get too deep into this other than tell you this is what's written right now because these things change last year if you remember the bill that finally did pass literally went to like that night of the vote it
was I was literally at Trenton when I kept getting updates as they were coming scream scrolling back in as they were fighting over percentages so I I don't know where this will land but I just want to tell you where we are um and this is from um specifically from Andrea cats's Bill
assembly woman cats is to realize that a May deadline when we won't actually have all the information is insane so she has flexibility she's asking for
them to approve a June 30th end which would be extremely important for many things it doesn't change some of the things you have to do on Staffing side because we have a statutory May 15th deadline to inform someone if they don't have a
job but it does give you flexibility if that bill passes so we'll see what happens but that's all what's going on but this is the most important comment none of it is in place nothing is currently aligned to providing any
levels of support for districts like ours at this moment in time nothing but I wanted to share with you what we're hearing and what we know and that's pretty much in a nutshell what we got right now possibilities if I go back and watch our March meeting from last year I
probably was saying the about the same exact thing we have possibilities and no answers and you remember the last time we got when we finally got an answer it was it was almost the summer last year where we got the answer I had to redo
the budget resubmit the budget redo the meeting if you remember all that we had do that into into July I think almost end of June so that's where we are Reggie is that my last slide
Reggie I think it is my last slide yeah so that's where we are to give you a quick immediate timeline on Monday night with committee we're going to go over some specifics about where things look right now and then start talking about some
choices and seeing kind of where people want to look at the next board meeting we will do a more full presentation which will lay everything out pretty solidly that gives you enough time before you would be voting on a uh a budget in May 1st so that's the timeline
we have two more meetings in April or is it only one meeting in April uh just one in April one in April that's the meeting we will do a full-blown presentation with everything all the bells and whistles and three in May three in May but the May 1st is the budget
adoption remember May 8th for those of you who have not responded yet to me if you can if you've already responded I have five but we did add a May 8th board meeting which is going to be a 10 to 15 it's going to be a record-breaking fast board meeting we
have to approve the Personnel agenda that's all you do that every night you're just going to do one meeting to just approve that we'll even leave you home don't worry you can do homework that night and that'll be it I'm not going to have a report we're going to open the meeting do whatever Dave tells
us as the mandatory minimum do the minimum take a look at the and vote it in and go home that's it if you cannot make that meeting don't change other things around because I have five people that already can and you're going to have that in advance to see what's on
the agenda anyway in advance if you have an issue let us know but you're all of course we' like you all to come I just don't want it's it's adding a meeting which you might already have a conflict I don't want to cause a problem for people I appreciate the five that have already let me know actually have six that have let me know so um that's the
Quorum we need at this time are there any questions I have a very quick question so when are we getting that independent assessment of the health center the the independent assessment that you were speaking of so when when do you expect to present that
to the I don't expect to have that by the budget season by the by the budget but that's not going to change that's not part of the budget uh we're just informing you that we want you to have that information so that if we want and we we really wanted to see if there's anything we need to do better
promote or better create or make decisions about the health center that would benefit the staff and the and and the district's finances so that's not going to be ready in in May in in April but you're expecting to have that before the uh before September yes definitely
before September that his my question yes absolutely can you just um let the board know if there is a cut at the federal level what's the dollar amount that way be looking at and what does that
impact the total amount will be looking at a cut in how the state funds extraordinary Aid which we don't know how that will be impacted for us directly impacted we're looking at our title grants uh 800 all of them together is that about
800,000 in title grants and 2.1 million in idea two in extra but our first so the direct money that comes to David every quarter is um title
grant money broken into quarters and Ida money broken into quarters do we have all of our money this year so this year we're covered if there are any changes to any of those numbers that's what you're looking at uh I have zero prediction that we'd lose
all that money to be honest everybody but it's it's about at the end of the day 3% of our operating budget thank you it's Federal thank you guys and uh uh remember Monday night committee we'll be we'll be doing this in in heavy so let's leave some
time and then our next board meeting in April will be a heavy budget presentation all right all right thank you Scott thanks David our next order of business is new business which you have none at this
time so we'll move on to our public comments the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to Express themselves on school matters of community interest complete copies of
policy 0167 which govern this portion of the meeting are available to the public at the auditorium entrance online or by contacting the board office to permit the fair and orderly expression of comments we ask that participants be recognized by the presiding officer and
preface comments by announcing his or her name place of residence and group affiliation if appropriate and by completing the sign and sheet please print legibly or we may be unable to document your name for the permanent
record each statement made by a participant shall be limited to 3 minutes no participant may speak more than once on the same topic Mr palowski will indicate when you have 15 seconds remaining all statements shall be
directed to the presiding officer no participant May address or question board members no discussion between a participant and respondent shall extend the 3 minute time limit it is our plan to listen to each member of the public once all questions and comments from all
members of the public are made the Board of Education May respond or respond via email in the most timely and efficient manner available all questions and comments made will be noted Mr paloski do we have any pre- registered speakers we do not are there
any audience members who wish to make a public comment hello U hello my name is Om bosker I'm a sophomore at South brunic High School um I've been looking into the state uh specifically just like the state's Financial stability over the
past uh like maybe week or so and while my my research is kind of like surface level so so far but from what I can see um the state it's not just I don't think it's just us backed in a corner the state is also in serious trouble um
we're 49th in long-term fiscal stability 45th in short-term fiscal stability and 47th in overall fiscal stability in the union and additionally we've been running deficits for years on the state level and raising taxes could just cause
more of the taxpayer uh tax rich taxpayers to flee to states with no income tax like Texas or Florida uh with all of that in mind our it since the state isn't even in a place where they can necessarily
help us to the fullest is this is this going to be just like a continuous rot are we sure like if there isn't some kind of like economic miracle that happens in New Jersey is there something is this like are we somewhat
doomed thank you for your comment [Laughter] yeah we we'll answer a little bit but so while while while all that uh sounds like legit info in the last two three
years the governor has given out $2.4 billion to schools except for us yep so they received $2.4 billion our neighbors received hundreds of millions of dollars Over The Last 5 Years while while we
lost 40% of our state aid so the question isn't whether New Jersey was willing to devote money to schools to offset property taxes it was to which schools were they willing to provide support to that's been The Challenge on
right that why why have why has it worked this way um last year they had they advertised an $8 billion Surplus so it's it's an interesting little conundrum that we find ourselves in when our neighbors have been receiving as
much as $50 million for one neighbor and at the same time we were losing money so it's just a challenging situation to determine that as far as the rest of the information you shared um I have not dove in to that level but I think the question of is this going to be a seems
to be a possibly perennial problem I believe I have said yes but as always thanks for coming out tonight thank you as there are no comments uh we will close this portion of the public common
section next order of business is the consent agenda review by Mr pelowski all right everybody our consent agenda this evening is uh pretty concise we have a bills list we're approving some uh meeting calendars
for 2425 and 2526 we have some Transportation contracts and IND District tuition adjustments we're proving some out of District placements and some tuition rates for uh schools that we host in uh South brunwick we also are accepting a
donation we have an increase uh and a not to exceed we're also approving an ice hockey Co-op and we have our student field trips HIV harassment intimidation bullying report and we have a memorandum
of agreement with our bus drivers that we're approving this evening and our personnel and that is your consent agenda all right any questions for Mr palosi clarification the transportation being one of the the big item on our
budget and I know from year over year the for the next year what we have agreed is 2.75% increase on the transportation cost is there no other way for us to to kind of keep it flat considering the previous year's jump was also quite considerable all of your all of the
increases that we see in transportation are due to mileage fuel costs Insurance costs uh and Driver rates uh inclusive of Maintenance tires brakes um so in in order when inflation Rises and all of
those costs and expenses go up our transportation routes um see the effects D is also asking about the agreement with um first student oh our our agreement with first student um we review that every year we actually have
them they give back they gave back to us this year I believe two routes that were so they're two routes shorter packages shorter than um they were in previous years so Jill uh adding in our transportation department she worked closely with them and each year we
develop um their routes and their packages and that's what you're seeing in your backup this evening so as much as they're not as as much as you might see a large increase from one year to the next they may have taken a couple packages or or provided or we have may
have taken some packages back but the majority of that contract for them um it's it's their costs and their expenses as much as they Rise um they their expenses get pushed back to us okay okay any more
questions Julie on line item 1 nine I just wondered who uh the Consulting service is what what population are we using up the up the bar for those are those are for our students with uh
special needs okay thank you em up up the bar is up the bar is up the bar no it's on Special Needs it's um it's for all students who are learning
English as a first language as well as students who speak another language at home other than English so it's for specifically for sheltered English instruction so we're not just talking about ESL kids but the impact
of having a language other than speaking a language other than English and when English is not your first period yeah I stand corrected thank you any other questions on the consent
agenda all right so may I have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda motion this is Rogers Mr Krishna Mr Krishna all right Ru call Mr
paloski Miss Julie Ferrara accept Mr rajer Krishna yes Mr Mike Mitchell yes Dr SMI Raj yes Mrs Lisa Rogers um before I vote I need a point of clarification okay on
1.4 approve renewal contracts um it is my understanding from from the board president that a member of this Board needs to abstain due to conflict of interest for transportation to another school and I'd like a ruling on that
please before I vote these These are public school trans these are our students that are transporting to and from South Brunswick schools that's why I'm asking for a point of clarification it was my understanding that there was going to be an
exstension for any student tuition or Transportation or payment to another school so I just need clarification that's all I'm asking we're we're not making any payments we don't see any need for anyone to abstain okay that's
fine that's all I wanted to know um I approve thank you got you Mr Rees Sony yes Mrs Deepa carthic yes M Laura Hernandez absent motion carries
all right just a comment uh the next scheduled board meeting is set for Thursday April 10th 2025 at 700 p.m. um can I have a motion to adjourn
move Dr Raj Mrs Rogers all in favor I [Music] any opposed yeah I don't think so motion carries all
right it good night