education. Mr. Carrick, would you please take the roll call? >> Here. >> Here. >> Here. >> Here.
>> Here. >> Here. here. >> Thank you. Please stand if you're able for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please take notice that adequate notice of this meeting was sent from the office of the secretary of the board on March 9, 2026 to the Maplewood and South Orange Township clerks and the editors
of the news record, Star Ledger, Tap into Soma and Village Green. I will now entertain a motion to enter executive session as permitted under the open public meetings act to discuss personnel legal and miscellaneous confidential matters. No formal action will be taken.
Board member Sacket Gable. Do I have a second? Callahan. Uh, show of hands. All in favor? Okay. Motion passes. The board will enter executive session at 6:33 p.m. and will be returning to public session. Any action resulting from our discussions will be taken in public
session. And we'll see you back here shortly. Also, there was very significant Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting back to order at 7:37 p.m. The
board is now back in public session. Thank you for joining us tonight. Uh before we get to our business this evening, I want to pause for a moment because the district has suffered a loss this month. Uh, not everyone who has attended our board meetings knows Chris Settle by name, but everyone has been
greeted by him when they enter this building and met met by a kind word and his unfailing smile. And when we trudge out of our building uh late into the evening from our meetings, Chris was still there at his guard post keeping watch. Chris passed away not quite two
weeks ago, very untimely. Chris was part of the 525 Academy family for a long time and he served this district with distinction. He's left a hole in the lives of many people who loved him, including in this building and in this room. And we want to take a moment now
uh in remembrance of him. Uh Chris's family is collecting donations for his funeral arrangements for anyone led to give. Uh information is available at the back of this room. Uh or folks can reach out to me as well. Uh we'll be celebrating the life of
Christopher Big Gravy Settle as we call him. One of the most passionate Bills fans around. Uh April 2nd, 2026 at the Newborn Baptist Church, 391 Avon Avenue, Newark, New Jersey. Viewing will be from
10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Service will begin promptly at uh 11:00 a.m. Tonight is our preliminary budget adoption meeting. Uh and uh we will hear tonight from Superintendent Bing as well
as our uh new uh interim business administrator uh Frank Servellis who will be joining us remotely to go over our budget. Um unfortunately our uh business administrator Emani Moody is on a period of medical leave as at the
beginning of this month. Uh we wish him well and uh the resolutions uh recognizing uh Mr. Spelis as our interim uh BA will be uh addressed in the action portion of our meeting. And with that, I'll turn it
over to Superintendent Bing. So tonight we're going to be presenting our preliminary budget. Um just wanted to speak briefly in regards to the work that we've been putting in. Uh we are not there as of yet over the next month. We'll be doing
a lot more work around this budget. Uh revising and refining it as we move forward. We'll be as transparent as possible with that, utilizing our website um to make sure everybody has the same information. So, the development of this year's budget has
been exceptionally difficult exercise and balancing educational necessity with fiscal reality. Our primary goal has been to rightsize the ship while protecting our greatest asset, our wonderful staff. As staffing remains our
largest expenditure of 64% of our total budget, we have approached this cycle with a commitment to empathy, transparency, and the responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. Uh to meet our fiscal targets while minimizing the impact on our educators, we have
focused on a strategy of minimizing reductions in force. Um we started this strategy last year. We will continue it this year and into next year. Um we are achieving about a $2.5 million reduction uh in pandemic era staffing through the
following strategies. Uh attrition, leveraging retirements, resignations, non-renewals, and natural attrition. Uh internal transfers and shared staff, reassigning qualified staff to fill vacancies rather than hiring externally. and policy
adherence, maintaining strict compliance with our class- size policy to ensure instructional quality remains high. Uh this is a sliding scale. Some of the information you'll see tonight because we're working pretty hard to reduce any uh layoffs that we currently have uh in
this presentation and we'll do that work over the next month. Additionally, uh by utilizing uh a the healthc care cap waiver, we are providing the necessary runway to stabilize our finances, contributing to an overall budget
reduction over 5 million uh next year. I want to point out especially to our taxpayers um that we know this will go above the 2% cap. Uh it is necessary at this time
if we want to rightsize the ship and make sure we're going in the right direction and put in permanent structures so we're not revisiting the same cycle uh of uh reductions higher reductions higher for the next 3 to 5 years. Uh we need to really focus on
creating structures and then holding those structures in place moving forward. Uh part of those part of that restructure will be around transportation as you'll see in our presentation. uh rigorous analysis of our transportation department identified an opportunity to save over a million
dollars by moving to an optimized three- tier system. By allowing 30 minutes between tiers, we reduce trip tardiness and increase fleet efficiency. This transition was guided by the following non-negotiable guard rails. One, student safety. Uh one, reducing cross town
busing. Uh and also uh revising our hazardous routes report. uh every three years it is a district's responsibility to revise their roots report. So we now have completed that task. Wellness incorporating research on teen sleep patterns and aligning with the New York
City train schedules. And finally efficiency capping trips at 30 minutes so no students are on buses for more than 30 minutes and reducing the total number of buses in our fleet. Uh a lot of that work uh will be done by a revision of school and start times
that we'll be sharing uh in the coming weeks. Uh that is about the lowest hanging fruit we could find for a really large savings that has a minimal impact. So we'll be sharing that data over the next week or so. Also prek
optimization and health benefits. Uh we have scrutinized our prek budget identifying trends that allow for an optimization of over $800,000. I want to specifically thank Leroy Johnson, Dr. Gilbert, Dr. Wayel, uh Frank Sarellis, and Tiffany Renault for their diligent
work in this area. Furthermore, uh, SOSD has joined several peer districts in pivoting away from the state health plan, um, which has a projected increase of over 30% this upcoming year on another increase of over 30% the year after. Uh, we have moved to a
self-insured model. So, I do want to thank both our associations, ASC and Sumea for their collaborative work on that. Uh, this move is a critical for long-term cost containment and budget stability. Uh, transparency and public engagement. We do not take the support
of our taxpayers lightly. To ensure the community is fully informed before the final budget hearing, we will provide the following additioning layers of analysis over the coming month. Line item detail, granular breakdowns of departmental spends, action committee reports, insights from our community-
based budget action committee and transportation action committee, public feedback loops, digital forums for communities to weigh in on specific restructuring goals. Um, I do want to extend my deepest gratitude to our associations, board of education, senior leadership team, and our stakeholders.
Uh, this has been a challenging season, but through collaboration, we are ensuring the long-term health of our schools. Uh, whether you currently have students in the district, had students in the district, or never had students in the district. Uh we want to make sure
that you understand we take our role as stewards of the taxpayer dollar uh in a very high priority for this board and myself. All the work that we have been doing not only keeps in mind our families, our students, our staff uh but
also our taxpayers. So we thank you for your support. Frank, you're on. >> Frank, we're pulling up the PowerPoint now. >> I I see that. So, um >> that's tiny. >> I I can't say that I've ever presented a
budget to a district and met the district at the same time. So, uh, I I would, uh, I I would just say, you know, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to, uh, work in the district. Um, this is probably
I've put together over 30 budgets during my working career, and I've helped another six districts uh, put their budgets together since retiring. And this was probably the most challenging project that I've ever ever
encountered. Um it it's a very large district. There are a lot of moving pieces and um um you know getting a handle on a budget this size with with a condensed time frame uh basically you know three weeks to really kind of finalize this has been a bit challenging
but but I really couldn't have done it without the help of the staff. Um the central office staff has been fantastic. You have a great central office staff. Uh the senior leadership team really dug in and spent hours and hours and hours
helping me go through the budget, analyzing things. Um so I really it was a group effort and I couldn't have done it without all the help from the district and uh you really have some great staff working behind the scenes to to keep things running. Um so so with
that said um just a little bit of background. I had been working uh in the back end of the district helping out with some staff absences since about um May of last year. So I was involved with some of the close out for the audit. uh
there was a transition of the assistant business administrator position and um once the new business administrator came aboard and got acclimated I helped the district to perform some financial analysis and projections um and I was helping in the back end
with some of the budget and then when uh Mr. Moody had his unanticipated leave. Um there was a natural um transition because there there were a shortage of qualified business administrators and I happened to be working in the district and knew a lot of the staff and um had
access into your systems and had a basic understanding of the budget. But with that said, it it was quite a task to actually complete and go through the process of developing the budget. Um one of my strengths is budget development. bud budget analyzing, budget
forecasting, and um I I really feel comfortable in the budget that's being presented tonight with a caveat that it that what Mr. Bing uh said earlier is that the process will not end tonight. The process will continue and we'll continue
to refine, continue to review the budget, look for opportunities and up until the night of the public hearing because that's what we need to do. Um, so, you know, we're we're presenting the preliminary budget tonight with the understanding that that there are a lot
of challenges um that our district is facing and a number of other districts in the state. I mean, you open the paper any given day and you'll see that that we're all facing very similar challenges of trying to to rein in untenable health
insurance costs, having all of our costs and being constrained to a 2% budget cap. You know, the basic math, the the numbers just don't work. So, uh, what we are here to present tonight is is, um, is an overview of the budget that we've
come up with that we believe, uh, is a fair representation of of our needs versus balancing taxpayer needs and and and fitting with all the budget constraints and and the requirements that are that are placed on us. >> So, just want to identify some of those constraints we've been dealing with as
we're developing this budget. You've heard of these constraints in our last year's presentation. I do want to emphasize we have a couple new ones that have popped up. One, the growing and fluctuating school enrollment needs as we move forward. Again, uh we have high
uh have a high needs district. About 21 22% of our students are classified. Uh we have a large neurodeiverse population. Uh we want to make sure we're serving these students to the best of our ability. uh aging infrastructure requiring maintenance as one of our big
issues. I think what you will notice and in our uh final budget presentation next month uh I think you will see that for the last couple years we have kept money in the budget for facilities recognizing that improvements will need to be made on screen.
>> Oh you go to the uh one with the arrows guys. One more. Yep. Thank you. Um, increased health benefits, uh, and property casualty insurance costs,
technology infrastructure updates. Uh, I do want to shout out Mr. Bonds who has really towed the line in regards to restructuring our CHS auditorium and has done a wonderful job around that. Fingers crossed by the new school
year. uh rigging is now complete and lighting should be completed by the new school year. So, we're excited about that. Uh and also mental health and security initiatives. We'll be having a mental health forum over the next couple weeks. Uh and obviously security is a big issue. I want to thank uh Mr. Morgan
who has had a very smooth transition into the district over the last month or so. So, big thanks to him. Um, and as Frank noted, our limited tax capacity is is one of our lingering issues. Uh, expiring bank cap and also our fixed
state aid limits. Uh, can we go to the next slide? >> Go ahead, Frank. >> Okay. So, so th those of you that have heard me give this presentation before uh will know that that that in in my
world of financing, everything revolves around your sources or your revenues of funds because um that's where we're capped by the state. So, our our cap is on the tax levy. Um and we have, you know, the limited amount to raise money
in other areas. So by virtue of of capping the tax the amount that we can raise taxes, we will cap our expenses because we need to have our our sources of income or revenues match our expenses. So what we've put up here is a version that maybe many of you have seen
different versions of this because as we started to delve into the budget process, we started the 26 the 2526 is our approved budget. 2627 we started to put scenarios in and we said okay if our tax levy can go up
2% what is that bias in terms of growth under the tax levy if our state aid remains flat what does that do if we get an increase what does that do extraordinary aid is an aid that comes in based on your special needs population but it comes in after the fact so we never know what what amount
we're going to receive also the state has a limited pool of money and they look at everybody's needs and they split up the pool of money that they have so it's a little bit of a moving target and it's hard to budget for. Um the Medicaid number is a number that is given to us
by the state. Um and it's a it is that the state requires us to submit Medicaid reimbursements. It's a 6535 split. The state gets 65% of the money that's claimed from the federal government and we get 35%. So,
the reason why there's a mandate to claim this to to claim Medicaid funds is because the state gets 65% of that money, but our estimate that the state gave us is $110,000 for next year. We take in some money from rent, we take in
money from out of district tuition, and we have this miscellaneous revenues which captures basically everything else. Interest on investments. Um, if we charge fees, if if uh students break something, they pay fees to us. Um, it's about $900,000.
Um, the next few lines are the district's use of various reserves. We have a couple of slides we can get into lately, but when you hear reserve or fund balance, it's basically savings that were generated either from a previous year or that by statute were
authorized to put into various reserves that can only be appropriated into the budget for very specific needs. So, as you can see, um, last year we spent we appropriated to to balance the budget almost $14 million.
That's the 6.9, the 4.45, and the 2.5 to balance that budget. Um, many of those reserves simply don't exist anymore. So, this year, uh, this 5.585 in reserve came from money that was
generated in the 2425 year that had ended. Um, as as many of you know, our default is um, if we raise the money and we don't spend it, by default, we're only allowed to hold on to 2% of our money in unreserved fund balance. That's our savings accounts that that that are
not for another purpose. It's just to offset the general budget. And anything above that goes back to the taxpayers for tax relief. So, this 5,585 is generated and was put right back in. It's the second budget year because of timing through audits and by statute
some people call it a legal reserve. Um this money has to get appropriated. So this 5,585 came from the 2425 budget. We are estimating because of a budget freeze in the 2526 year that we are
recognizing another $3.8 million in revenue generated from the 2526 year and we're using that as a revenue source. We're basically applying savings from the budget freeze from this year to balance next year's budget. Anybody that knows anything about budgeting knows
that that is not sustainable in the long term because we can't keep freezing budgets and not not allocating those resources and then using those resources to fund a future year budget. It just it doesn't work. But as you can see, we we
can't change this overnight. We can't come from $14 million down to five million or six million because that requires additional cuts because it as we get to the bottom of this, the $174 million is our general fund operating budget.
That's the limit of money that we can spend on our appropriations. So, as we're building this budget, we look to build our revenues first because we're limited. our two biggest revenue sources in terms of tax levy and state aid are fixed. Um and all the other ones
basically we're applying previous year savings to help off offset the budget. And when we talk about that fiscal cliff or the structural deficit or this imbalance, this is what we're talking about. And we're starting to feel the pain because we have we have about $5
million less of revenue sources even though we we received the state aid increase which I'll talk about in a second. Um there's a shortfall and we've had to make up that shortfall. The most we can raise our budget is $174 million.
That $174 million includes a 5.63% 63% tax increase of almost $8 million. Over to the right hand side, you can see that our base tax increase of 2% is worth about $2.8 million.
And if if we didn't get that additional 5.1 million. Now, we still have to apply to the county or the state to get that approved. We have to justify that we need that money. It's it is a it's an exception. is one of the only exceptions
to that 2%. Um, and the state put that in. It's automatically calculated. We were actually entitled to go up to raise an additional uh5 to $600,000. And we could have taken this up to 5.6 million, but again, every dollar that
you raise um comes to comes at a cost to the taxpayer. So, we settled on 5.1 million based on our our health insurance estimates, um, which we can get into in a little bit, and we're able to raise 7.9 million as a revenue source
to help plug these other shortfalls. Um, down here, we went from 6,893 to 5,585. We lost 1.3 million in that that line item of money that was generated. additional balance. We
lowered that by $644,000 and we're not budgeting any money for maintenance reserve mostly because uh we only have about 700 700,000 a little over $700,000 left. Um this maintenance reserve although it's although it's
restricted for use on required maintenance went to help offset our operation our ongoing maintenance costs. So, um, you know, we had to make up for all these shortfalls and thank thankfully we have this $7.9 million
banking availability available to us. Previous versions, you know, there's been a lot of talk about different versions of what this deficit could look like. The reason why we had different versions is we were we were doing different versions of what happens if we don't get any, you know, what happens at
the state. Last year we weren't entitled to a health insurance increase. Um we don't know if we're going to get any additional state aid. So we did a bunch of different different scenarios as we were preparing to come into this season because we knew that this was going to happen. We just didn't know the extent
and unfortunately it was all lumped in with um you know we had a governor that made a change. We were supposed to get our state aid figures at the end of February and that got delayed uh for several weeks. So that was compounded. So, we had a very condensed time to
finalize what these numbers look like to come up to this $174 million and then back into the budget and the expenses that we need. And the only other thing that I would say about this is that um even though we got a 6% increase, we
were entitled to to quite a bit more. Um we were entitled to I think we were shortch changed just over $1.3 million. Um because the state sends you the calculations of how much aid you're entitled to. And there was a fail safe in this year's budget. I think it
existed last year and possibly the year before that said no district will swing more than 6% each way. So if you were one of the districts that was supposed to lose aid based under the c the formulas, you couldn't lose any more than 6%.
They s they they consequently they also capped the other end which unfortunately hurts this district is that we were entitled to much more and we were capped at 6%. So we lost about one point a little bit over $1.3 million in direct state funding that would have helped to
ease this. It would have been built into our cap and it would have would have had a positive impact on the budget. >> I do want to I want to reinforce what Frank said uh in regards to our structural deficits. um if we do not act uh on these
structural deficits, we will continue to be in this vicious cycle uh every school year. So part of this work, this budget cycle is really trying, as we noted, to put some of those structures in place. We cannot keep relying on budget freezes every year and our savings. It is a
formula for disaster, >> right? We can >> Yep. Yep. the next. >> So, you know, during this budget cycle, obviously, we were looking for fiscal efficiencies to close the gap that Frank
talked about. Uh part of that work was around third party contracts. We started this work last year. This year we are initiating a robust uh request for prof uh proposal process um really to see what
companies are out there in regards to custodial in regards to power professionals in regards to security uh to make sure we are getting uh the best price uh and the bang for our buck uh district has not gone out for RFPs in
quite some time. So, not only does going out for RFPs every 3 years, one keep your current vendors honest, uh it also can present opportunities through other vendors. Uh we also looked at custodial coverage a little differently this year. We used the formula just using square
footage uh instead of looking at personnel. So, that square footage uh audit came into play during this budget, saving us some funds. Our security staffing we're currently looking at as well. Uh we're looking at sharing staff at secondary school level. Our
transportation as I noted earlier uh looking at changing our school start stop times. Looking to put about 30 minutes in between our bus tiers uh to really reduce uh some of the major inefficiencies we were have been experiencing for I'd say over five to
six years. Uh at this point uh we did an in-depth prek analysis as well. uh our energy costs. We are partnering with an energy company this year uh to really look at our energy culture and how it is utilized. Uh so we're hoping to uh reap some savings from that as
well. Uh strategic staffing planning. Again, I want to make sure I'm mentioning this. Uh we are leveraging our non-renewals, we are leveraging our resignations, we are leveraging our attritions and we are leveraging our retirements uh in regards to not filling
vacancies uh for people who resign, who are are non-renewed, who retire or just plain attrition. Uh we won't be filling those vacancies. We started that work last year. Uh we will continue that work this year. Uh 2526 budget freeze. As I
noted, we froze this budget sometime in November. Uh it is a practice we can't keep doing. Uh and also we made a insurance change as I noted earlier. We left the state plan that has been anticipating over a 30% increase for the upcoming year and a greater increase the
year after. So not only South Orange Maplewood School District, but many other districts decided to leave the state plan and selfinsure. Go ahead, gentlemen. You can go to next slide. Frank, did you want to talk on that? But >> we we can the the only thing that I
wanted to hit with the RFP process is that we're really taking a look at this and and we also have a resolution on the agenda for Thursday to get some assistance from probably the most the most uh experienced person in the state with purchasing and bidding and
specification writing. Um because because again it's it's going out to bid, but it's also the tighter of a the tighter the specification that we can have, the better accountability we can have over the contractors. And we really want to look at these major our major
service providers and come up with a performance-based spec and a very tight spec that will give us the most efficient bid possible. So, we will we will be hopefully using the assistance of a professional who who basically spent their life doing this to help us
tighten up these RFPs and with with a hope and then we make significant changes like we talked about in the custody area that will help to help us to lower our operational costs because those are you know they're not
direct instructional costs. So our, you know, our goal is to try and, you know, redirect as many funds back into direct constructional costs as we can and kind of knock off, you know, what Mr. being referred to as, you know, lowhanging fruit or other areas that that that if
we can achieve savings, um if we can get a better product out of our custodial cleaning staff and achieve money, achieve a savings, it's a win-win because that money can go right back right back to either, you know, provide tax relief or to be used in in in direct
instructional and and more impactful ways. So >> yeah, for pulling out also that transition to a self-insured health plan, I do want to first shout out uh the work between uh with ASA and SUMA. They were collaborators on that process.
Um they realized that the state health plan would be unsustainable with their rising costs uh and they worked with us to transition to a selfinssured health plan uh maintaining the coverage quality. Uh, I also want to make sure that everybody notes we have a lot more
control with a self-insured plan. We also have a lot more data in regards to budgeting and things of that nature. Um, also want to point out that we'll be working with our new self-insured companies to really uh push staff
wellness. You'll be hearing more of that through the personnel committee. Uh, we're looking to create a staff wellness committee. uh and really focus on the mental health and physical health uh of of our uh staff. Uh this job, no matter
what you do, whether you're in the classroom, whether uh you're in central office, whether you're an administrator, um it has changed since the pandemic. Uh and it does require extra intentionality in our parts to make sure our staff is
well. So, we'll be working around that. Uh if you go to the next slide, gentlemen, I do want to point out where we currently are in regards to health costs. Uh Frank, I you can touch on that uh if you choose to.
>> Well, th this is this is this is a a an enormous cost. As you can see, these costs have crept up. Um, so my last year as a full-time business administrator, it was about five years ago. These rates
were were close to half of what we're paying right now. Um, they have skyrocketed over the last three years. And if anybody is is reading about what's happening at the state, we're we're in this this meer the state health
benefits plan as more and more districts that have any opportunity to leave to go into because when you're in a self when you're in a a fully insured plan, your rate is your rate and it doesn't matter what your claims are. um this direct 10
plan for a family is up over $70,000 in the school employees health benefit plan for next year and they're talking about more more increases in the 30% range. So as more and more districts are pulling out of the state health benefits
plan um it's leaving the districts who don't have any other options are the only ones that are available and that are going in there and it's it's like a death spiral. You've heard it. You read the paper. That's the death row because only your your people that don't have any other options are going into this
plan. And because those are people with bad, you know, high claims experience, the premium needed to cover those claims is not offset by districts that have better claims experience. That's the whole idea whether you're self-insured or you're with a pool is that people with no claims or very little claims
offset the people that have higher claims. So, in the state health benefits plan, as more more districts that have in um good claims experience leave, the only ones that are left are the ones with really bad experience. And that's why, you
know, it's not just the cost, it's it's getting control over your long-term health insurance needs, why the move was made to go to a self-insured plan because we fully >> we're we're buying we're buying our insurance and we're paying for our
claims. Um, you know, the downside is we're not we're not in a fully insured plan and that cost can be can be somewhat subjective. You know, we have reinsurance in place, but there are carters that we need to meet. So, we we also need to be cognizant of the fact of
how much money we're putting into our health insurance line because we have to cover all of our potential claims. And it is a very new plan. Um, we're into month three, but as anybody who knows anything about insurance, you know that there's like a two-month lag. This is
called incurred but not reported. And those claims are just starting to tail in. So, as we go through this, we're not going to know for until six months pass, we're not going to have reliable claims data. So, we're putting this health insurance budget together based on a
number of different factors without a really really really pinned down knowledge of what our claims experience is trending and look like. So, um this is one of the variables that that that we had to take into consideration when putting a number in for that health insurance line.
>> So, we've we've done some nice work around this. So, I'll I'll give a shout out to this board and other boards before them. Um we're at a point right now where if you're looking at the last three negotiation cycles with our
largest union Soa they're at about a 30% increase in salaries. Uh if you're looking at uh ASCA we're at about a 20 plus% increase in salaries over the last 6 to 8 years. Um,
one of our goals was also to uh increase our starting salaries in this district, which we significantly have, which has made us quite competitive. Uh, our staff, especially our teachers, are now one of the highest in Essex County. Um so we'll continue uh to really monitor
uh to really monitor uh the health uh the health insurance side of this insurance side of this coin uh because coin uh because it is significant and it it is significant and it is something uh is something uh we will have the ability we will have the ability to project out to project out as Frank noted once we as Frank noted once we start getting start getting some claims experience some claims experience numbers we have a numbers we have a we'll have a lot more we'll have a lot more control moving control moving forward and a lot more forward and a lot more data which we
data which we never had with the state never had with the state plan plan >> and and that's key. Um so we'll continue >> and and that's key. I mean the da the data that we're able to see now not I'm not talking about you know individual claims it's just that the types of claims and the and how the trends are running we can really analyze that data
and make sound decisions moving forward. So this should be a long-term investment uh of us managing our own we're basically our own health insurance company right now. So there are a lot of other positives to to being in this type of a plan.
Go ahead, gentlemen. Go ahead, Frank. You could talk about operational efficiencies. Uh, you know, one of the advantages of having Frank in the district as a consultant uh was that he could see behind the the curtains uh and really take a deep dive into our
operational efficiencies, which one of the things we noted when we first came into the district that we needed some major changes. And when we talk about structural changes, a lot of them are in our operational efficiency. Go ahead, Frank. >> Yeah.
>> So, um you know, when I'm looking at the district, the the biggest area for improvement that I can see is that um at least in in the business office, and I'm sure it's probably mirrored in in other offices, is we are in a constant
reactionary state. So instead of we are constantly reacting to something because there's a deadline, there's something there's something that was missed because there was a staff turnover, there's a transition and when it you know we we've had a lot of turnover and
when a new person comes in, they're they're digging out over they're trying to play catchup and then another one of their support staff members leaves and they're playing catch-up and there's a vacancy. And one of the reasons that I was retained was that you you still have
you had a vacancy in an assistant job and then you have another absence in a in a higher level back-end position um that that the person's has been out. So all of that work in the back end was not really you know it was falling out of their people. And when you have, you
know, the equivalent of two full-time people um trying people trying to make up for all that work, you end up being sitting in the back seat. And I think you've had a cycle of being in the back seat. And you know, my hope is that the district goes from being reactive to
proactive and staying on top of things and looking things proactively and and monitoring things. And and a few things that we put in that will help us to to kind of flip that switch is um we went to an electronic budget development system that was put in place the first
year. What was put in place was last year. Um as you put these systems in there's a learning curve. Um and and this was year two and I think the process was a lot easier for everybody to understand. So that all of these account codes we have under n we have
over 900 budgetary lines and every line is built with data and it either gets pulled from the personnel system uh a subject supervisor will lend you something something one of the building principles uh the director of technology everybody has their lines and builds their accounts.
We can go into those accounts and we can review those accounts. we can look at past historical trends in spending and um and really kind of dive in and really have a real time look at what's happening with the budget. Um that process didn't exist and that that
provides a lot of useful data and a lot of help. I don't know that we could have ever gotten through this process this year if that system wasn't in year two of of uh being implemented. We have an electronic purchase order system that we started in in with the concurrent start
of this school year in the 2526 school year. So now that anybody that wants to place an order has to put a system a purchase order in the system electronically. It gets approved electronically. It automatically gets coded to the proper budgetary account line. Um, but we we need to do as a
district, we need to do a better job at identifying our our lingering commitments and our incumbrances and making sure that that the purchase orders that are in the system accurately reflect um our needs. And that that I
think is one thing that that has probably been lacking. And I think that again we have to be proactive. We have to start looking at all these the the budget forecasting and analysis. I can't stress to you how important it is for us to to to analyze our budget, stay on top
of our budget, and forecast our budget. We're making a lot of assumptions in next year's budget. Uh it's March, and this budget has to get us through next June. A lot of things happen and a lot of things change. And a lot of the assumptions that we make um may or may
not come to fruition. And one of the one of the most key things and the vital thing that we need to do is to once we set this budget in process in May, we need to immediately, you know, I'll take the custodian bid for instance. If we go
out to bid and the and those we do the analysis, we're slated to do the analysis in May. The minute those numbers come in and we're ready to award that bid, we need to compare that bid to what we have budgeted in that line and the savings that we're supposed to
achieve. And if we achieve the savings, great. If we achieve more savings, we need to track that. And more importantly, if the savings aren't realized, we need to now look for another line and look look to see how we're going to pay for those savings.
and we need to book that order for the amount not the amount that we have budgeted but the amount that we're going to spend. And if if that's going to override that line at that minute, we need to find another source and move the
money and cover those expenses. That's what we that that is the goal that we need to get to from the business office and and as a district. And you know that that process there's quite a number of people involved in that process. And this way when we're looking at financial
reports, we're looking at the most up-to-date accurate financial reports because the financial reports are only as accurate as the information that we we put into those those systems. So these all these all tie into our operational efficiencies. Um and the
last one that's on here is I think I addressed it earlier. They're talking about really refining our RFPs. you know, the better spec that we have, the more precise we can be and we can throw in penalties for non-compliance and go to performance-based specs as opposed to, you know, the number of staff that
we need. We think that that's going to materialize in savings. But the most important thing we need to do once we establish the budget is to measure ourselves against that. And then we're using that as as a guide when we're assessing our 2627 budget. And as we
roll right into the development of the 2728, we're going to look at what our projected expenditures are and roll that into the 2728 budget. So that's that's the the long story about where where we ideally should be heading. >> Yeah. And I think we have some we had some demonstrated success this year in
regards uh to making sure we're controlling our costs. We did a nice job this year in regards to overtime and six period pay dropping that by about 80%. Uh we've done a nice job with Paris as Liz can note. We have a report out every month. We try to keep a tab on that. Uh we need
to do the same with custodial. We need to do the same with security. We need to do the same uh as Frank noted with our POS. Well, we're not guessing if this PO might hit in June. Uh so those are three big areas that we really need to control and really put the person in charge of
and hey this is what you're responsible for to make sure we're aligned to our budget. Go ahead gentlemen. So this this page has a lot of information on it. Um if I show you my version of
this page. Um so so one of the things we look to do is these categories on the lefth hand side are the state defined categories and when we roll into our accounting systems we have to report everything into one of these categories. So when we
set up an account code when we put a purchase order in the system um we code it. And one of one of the things that makes me able to go into your school district and see what you're doing is I know that all of your I know that all of
your facilities, your maintenance needs to go into your 261 accounts, your custodian is your 262s, your transportations, your 270s. And every district has to report this way and roll up all these expenditures. So when we roll this up, you know, we've
heard of the taxpayer guide to educational spending. They key in on all of these different we call them here we have a name we call them cost centers. They they key into these cost centers and we track these these these expens expenditures by cost center. The
accounting system is automatically set up to subtotal everything and track everything by these cost centers. Um, so one of the things that I like to do and and this is when we talk about, you know, me personally as I start to go through, you know, the last three weeks,
as much as we've been putting this budget together and we've got our state a figures and making reductions, we're busy in the back end monitoring all those accounts and fixing all those accounts and making sure everything ties. But what I really need to do is I need to flip the switch and look at this
budget holistically and look at it by by program or cost center and say what is this number telling me? And I so I can the basic math of this number is so we know that our general fund can be 174 uh 084129
and our revenues and our appropriations were off by $2. Uh the revenues are round numbers. the back end of our system doesn't round and we actually have to go through now on the back end and get rid of all those decimal points
so that the $2 is off. So if anybody if anybody sees a difference between our 2627 proposed revenues and appropriations, it's off by $2. But um $2 is is um is easil is easily easily obtained by the time we finish this
process and it's not going to have any anything close to material uh impact. But we can see now our total budget went up 3.858. It's important to know that our budget, even though our taxes are going up almost 6%, our taxes are going
up because we have to make up for those other revenues that we lost in terms of all the savings that we had applied in previous years to offset that budget. So our expenditures can only go up by 2.27%. And this is where we've made reductions,
we've had additions. So, I mean, we can see that that our employee benefits is not only health benefits. It's pension costs. It's social security costs. Some of these other we're looking proposed to proposed. Some of these other lines within the employee benefits
line were under budgeted this year. So, in order for us to right align those numbers, uh, we've had to put a larger increase on that, which is why you're seeing our total employee benefits line go up $6.3 million. And basically, in
order to pay for that $6.38 million, you'll see minuses. You'll see operation and m maintenance of plant is down $2.4 million. So, the minuses are paying for the pluses. Um and the net result is
that our overall budget is going up. Um basically we're going up 3.8 million. We can see all the pluses and minuses. And now what our next phase is we're proving this out because again there's 900 lines of budgetary backline data is now
proving out this story and saying you know does this story make sense and is it trending? And if I had shown you this from from my other district and I'm even building some backend stuff for you like I'm looking at it it's most you know the
taxpayer guide to educa educational spending does or per pupil cost. And while I think that's important, I like to also key in on what percentage overall is what percentage of the budget is each one of these functions and what's happening for yeartoear. And and
if I had showed if I showed you my screen, you would see that that the employee benefits line um is 28687187. That represents a $6.3 million increase, but it's 28.6 61% of the general fund
budget. So 28% of that budget is employee benefits. Theund and the 174 million in our current year over the previous year that employee benefits line. Oh, sorry. So that it's 16.48% of our
budget. So 16% $28 million is 16% of 174 million. The current year, our budget is 13% of the overall budget. So, in one year, we've recaptured, it's eaten into 3% of
our budget at the expense of some of these other lines. And when we go into the public hearing, I I think it's important for us to see these trends. And what we can do with these trends is we can go back and we can look and we can say, you know, we can compare ourselves to our peer districts and say what percent of our budget is, you know,
how much of our budget are we spending on transportation versus some of our peer groups. And it it just gives us data to understand where we fall within our peer groups and how we track from year to year. Um, some of these are very similar. they tracked with the same
percentage of the budget and some of them have been reduced as an overall percent of the budget and some of them been increased. So when we go through the public hearing I'll really take you through a lot more of this. Again um this is the tenative budget submission and now we're in the budget proofing and verification
process. Um, and but these are all the different functions that these are all the different cost categories that we track because this is what the state tracks and we're able to we're able to kind of compare ourselves to peers to to to district-wide averages. So we kind of report this in this matter. So it allows
us to kind of expand and be able to compare and contrast um you know our our total budget. So, our general fund is really that's our operating budget. That's our day-to-day budget. Special revenue is all of our
grants and it also includes our preschool program. Um, you will see that it looks like there's a 1.9% increase or 1.9 million increase is 17%.
But this is proposed to proposed. And if anybody sat in on budget meetings last year, um we knew that we were all instructed to budget a very low percentage for all of our federal grants, not knowing what was happening with the federal government. So
everybody who budgeted budgeted a very low amount for all of our grants. We ended up getting pretty much our entitlements. So if I showed you our adjusted budget for our special revenue fund, it would be much closer to the $13 million. So it's a little bit skewed.
Um, our debt service is right online. So, we do have some level debt service. And I think we looked at that. We don't really have any debt falling off anytime soon. So, it should be pretty stable and pretty level. And then our overall budget is just over
$200 million. It represents a 2.96% increase on the expenditure side. >> I think one of the things we need to keep in mind is what is happening at the federal level right now in the US DOE. uh it's being dissolved. Grant monies are going to different
departments. So I think that's going to come into play as we're moving forward and probably impacting what we do receive from the federal government. We have not received a lot of information on that. Uh we will share once we do but uh that's going to be a variable moving forward.
Go ahead gentlemen. So on this slide you'll see some example of some of our work in regards to reductions to non-s salary lines. Uh when we talked about some of the work that we have been doing uh you'll see a lot of lines we've been basing a lot of
this work on three years uh and what was spent. So you can easily go down that and and share uh you can see what uh reductions uh we have made. >> Frank want to talk on that at all? >> Yeah the you know these are not
insignificant reductions. I mean we're we are trying to carve out $6 million in program cost. So I mean if I start at the bottom we we've reduced our instructional supply and textbook accounts by almost a half million dollars. We've reduced the text budget
the the the technology budget in terms of our ongoing by $330,000. It was originally $ 250 and we needed more and we made modifications. Um, again, these modifications that you see were the culmination of hours and hours
and hours and hours of sitting down with with all of our groups and pouring through what changes could be made to lower our lower our operating costs. And we came up with over $6 million worth of changes. But, you know, some of them a
lot of them require a a lot of work. You know, we're restructuring our outsource custodians. We think we can save $400,000 by doing that. We want to change how our lunch aids are being provided. We think we can recapture $200,000 by doing that over what we're currently what we are we're currently
the initial budget, which is where we thought we were going to end the year plus any increases. We think that we can carve $1.6 million out of transportation, but it requires us tearing our bus routes. um we had a line that was being used if somebody
wanted to go on a sbatical leave and um we removed that line. So now there's we don't have the ability to send any anybody on a sobatical leave um because we're we're removing positions. So >> and some of these changes uh
will change next year. For example, we remove science textbooks purchasing state has changed the standards for science. Uh so we're able to push that back this year, but that's going to be a must purchase uh as the standards change and the state changes its assessments uh
as well as we were purchasing uh some new uh ML uh textbooks as well that we're going to push off uh for another year. But as everybody knows, that's our growing a growing population and uh we'll need to make that purchase uh in 2728. So a lot of these you you'll see
coming back uh the year after. So again, I I we go back to the idea of really making structural changes in this budget. >> Yep. Go ahead, gentlemen. So here, this is where we are currently.
Um we're at 23 positions eliminated. Out of that 23, five are riffs. So this is not 28. This is 23 total. out of that 23, five are riffs. So what do I what do
I mean by that? So currently, and this is a sliding scale, this will change. As Frank noted, we are still doing work on efficiencies uh and working uh to reduce our our layoffs. Um so you're looking at
18 positions that are being eliminated. And what that simply means are those people are not being handed a layoff slip, a pink slip. We are just eliminating positions that people are either resigning from, uh they are retiring from, they are being nonrenewed
from, or they are resigning. Uh plain and simple, we're not filling those vacancies if we don't have to utilizing our current class size policy. Uh as we noted, we have to rightsize this ship since 2019. and the pandemic funding
that is now gone that was utilized to shrink class size by bringing more staff on. Close to if I recall last year we were util utilizing the number of around 75 or more staff were brought on to
shrink class size when the pandemic hit. Those staff are still on board. Um so we made a promise not only to ASCA but also to SEMA that we would do this in a strategic and intentional manner
reducing staff through attrition through non-renewal through retirement and through resignation and we're sticking to that plan. So as noted right now we're at 23 total. Five of those are riffs and again we are
working to reduce those riffs over the next month. uh that is currently bringing us to about $2.5 million uh in savings. So, we'll continue to update folks as we move along. Obviously, if you're comparing this to other districts, we we are in a good we are in
a pretty good place right now. However, we want to get into a better place over the next month. So, as I noted, this is a continued work uh in regards to uh reducing the impact on our on our wonderful people in this district.
Go ahead, gentlemen. So, if anybody can read this, you get the uh bonus points for the night, which is uh So, I um I'm going to actually This is actually so small for me to read that. So, it's it's in the handout, I believe, that everybody received
tonight. Um there's been a lot of discussion about about fund balance and what the district has and its balances and various balances and what it doesn't have. Um, I took delivery so that I could a get a get an understanding of what the trend is like in our balances.
Um, and also b to kind of present and and I think when you present it you can you can see that there has been this shrinking of overall balances the balances for different purposes. So I just wanted to to kind of go through these numbers and these numbers tie out
to all of your audits on the left hand side. Um, I put the source down for the 2425 year. It's either the the ACA or the AMR. Um, in previous years it'll be close. It will be within like a page or
two of the 2425 reference. If anybody really wants to go back and take a look at this, um, we have the the B se the B exhibits of the auditor, the governmental fund balances, and this is where um, every auditor across the country tries to align
things. so that we can compare ourselves to another district in Texas or Arizona. Um I listen I've I've looked at financial statements for a long time when they convert the C schedules to the B schedules. There's a lot of
information that's thrown into to make it be comparable so that we can compare all all across the nation. But New Jersey is so different as is every other district that the SK the C schedules which is the budgetary basis the ones that we really follow. So you can see
that our as of June 30th our our total fund balance for our governmental funds is $29 million. Um two years earlier it was $40.8 million. That's significant drop over two years.
our maximum reserve fund balance. We I you know I can't talk enough about this. I've been around for a really long time. Um when we first started doing budgets, actually up until the time that that the the 2% and the budget vote got put in,
we weren't allowed to have less than 3%. They there was a recommended range of between three and 5% of your operating budget. And when all that came through, we were we were restricted to a hard 2%. So, we have a district that has a $174
million operating budget and we're only allowed to have $3.7 million in our savings account that isn't designated for a specific purpose. That That's a scary thought on a district this size. And you can see these are all the
reserves that we have. I'll I'll take you through how they're reserved. Um but $3.7 million in unreserved fund balance is is a frighteningly no low number. Um so we just need to keep that in the back
of our mind when we're talking about health insurance budgets and talking about the magnitude and salaries and out of district placements. Um this is the only contingency above and beyond what we have budgeted. And if we do have any contingencies budgeted, which we do have some in our budget because we have to
because we only have three $3.7 million to rely on. Um reserve for incumbrances are typically it's it's orders that were placed but the services weren't rendered. So that rolls over into the future year. You can see that we've
steadily um we don't have the money. We can't place orders for the following year. So this is all it's all declining. um our legal reserve is is designated um for a subsequent year. These are funds that are generated in the prior
year um listed as your excess surplus number. We have additional assigned fund balance. Um so so in order to balance this budget, if I if I if I held up that projected
revenue screen a couple of slides earlier, you could see how these all tie in. These are the numbers, portions of the numbers that were used to help fund this this 2526 budget. Um, we have a reserve of $4.6 million as of
June 30th. Uh, you can see over to the right, uh, there are maximums. It's statute. It's regulated by statute. And this is, um, 60% of the amount of projects identified in your long range facilities plan. So, the board just approved the long range facilities plan.
And the maximum that we can have in our capital reserve account is $155 million. Um we're currently funded that we're funding that at less than 3%. Um so we have $4.6 million to deal with all of
our capital needs. Um that that hasn't been designated for anything else. Um, just can you can you just do me a favor and just toggle back to the uh to that to slide number nine.
>> Frank, we didn't rehearse this. >> No, we did rehearse. >> You can't go back. So, so I just want I want to show you because I was looking at this tonight. Oh, nope. Next one. Yep. So, if you can see this capital outlay, this is where all of our capital
needs are budgeted. Okay? Capital reserve helps to go fund our capital needs. We're budgeting $82,000 for our capital needs and 68,000 of us in a repayment that we're owed back to the state. So, we're
budging nothing to for the ongoing capital needs of our district. And we have $4.6 million left. And we all know the the condition of our buildings. So, um, I just wanted to point that out as I go backwards because as I was looking through the budget tonight and I was
starting to get a feel for the story that this budget's telling me and I rolled in those percentages, I saw that we're we're spending almost nothing in capital and we're such a we we're such a massive district that we're putting nothing in our operating budget for our our ongoing capital needs and all we
have left is $4.6 million. for me from an outsider standpoint that's a that is um that was something that stuck out to me as as um as significant. Um so can you go back to the fund balance one? I
think that is slide I lost my screen here. So slide >> it's up there. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Good. So that's our capital reserve. Our maintenance reserve, again, our maintenance reserve as of June 30th of 2025 was 3.225
million. Um, we used $2.5 million as as an offset to our general operating expenses that were required maintenance. If we need to replace doors, if we need to fix a boiler, um, if we need to replace the entire boiler, it goes in
capital. But if we need to repair the boiler, it goes into maintenance reserve out of our operating budget. So we have at June 30th, we had 3.2 million, but we used $2.5 million to offset the current year's budget. So as of June 30th, we'll
only have about $725,000 left. This is also a a statutory calculation and it's build out it's based on the square footage of our buildings multiplied by replacement cost. And um if we get this back if we
don't do anything about this $725,000 we'll have about 10% of what we're allowed to have as a maximum in the statute for for our maintenance reserve. So these numbers are are very very low. We have an unemployment reserve. We basically self self-fund our unemployment claims which is not
uncommon for you know a larger school district. So we take the employer contributions and instead of sending them to the state we put them into reserve account and as employees file for unemployment unemployment sends us the bill and we're we're basically
self-unded just like the health insurance. We have a reserve that has been steadily declining. It was 639 two years ago and June 30th of 2025 it was 393. If we run out of money in that reserve, we we can't not pay unemployment claims. We have to start
funding that out of the budget and that will be another line for us to deal with. So this is something that we also have to watch. Um and then excess surplus again is money that was generated. This is money that was generated out of the 2425 year that goes
that automatically has to be used toward the 2627. So if you look at that revenue line, you'll see that the 5,585 is used as a revenue source to help build the 2627 budget. So this is a snapshot of our revenues and this is a
snapshot of our our fund balance that that ties to the last few audits that we've had. Go >> ahead, gentlemen. So next steps for us uh on the 27th we'll submit the budget preliminary budget to the county office for review
and approval. Uh ongoing assessment will be really the next uh and biggest thing we're we're doing moving forward. Uh keeping in mind that this current budget is a living document. We expect more retirements, resignations, attrition,
non-renewals. Uh and our intent as we did last year was not to fill those vacancies or to fill those vacancies if needed with transfers uh from throughout uh the district. Um so as we move forward over the next month, we'll be
giving our board more details uh and also providing the public with more details. Um this budget, I stress, is not static. It is a living document. uh as we work on more efficiencies and look
to reduce layoffs uh and as Frank noted uh stay within our plan of putting in structural structural parts that will keep this budget strong over the next two to five years. So we're not revisiting the scenario uh at this time
every single school year. >> Yep. And the one other box that's on there is the tax impact. And um so again, South Orange Maplewood is a very unique situation uh because there are two towns that share in in one school
system and they share the cost of that school system. The breakdown between how much each community pays toward the overall nut. So our our general fund tax levy next year is $149 million. that is the only
number that we can control. So there's a debt service component that was previously authorized in in the case of this school district. We have another unique situation where in other school districts that would have been authorized by the voters, but we have a board of school estimate for referendums
only. Um and if we were going to go above our statutory limitations that can authorize on behalf of voters. So the total tax needs are the general fund tax levy and the debt service needs which has been pre previously authorized.
The the most critical piece of this breakdown is we need the county equalized values. So when when the county develops their tax bills they need to figure out a fair way to aortion their tax needs under all the constituent districts within their
county the municipalities. So they have a formula every county uh provides they use a formula to so that they do an applesto apples comparison of every single uh municipality in that county. We use that equalized value because it
equalizes South Orange and Maplewood to do the split and decide how much of our total tax needs goes to South Orange and how much goes to Maplewood. Um that's the most critical piece of information because everything then flows and says okay you know what's the total ratables what's the average for each town but
until we know that split we can't throw a tax number out um and we are not going to know that. I believe we heard yesterday that it looks like the county is looking to um approve the equalized
values on April 4th. So within the next, you know, two weeks, we'll have that information that we can push out. Again, we have no control over the split and ratables in average homes. We have to report it because we want to let people know what what their impact could be. But the only number that we can control
is how much we need to raise, how much we need to raise to support the program that we have. >> Yeah, I think our work going forward as as we noted uh we will continually assess this over the next month. uh as one is navigating our contractual
increases, it's navigating uh the millions of pandemic funds that have sunset. Uh it's navigating the inflation of operational costs and really staying within our goal of protecting the classroom while honoring our taxpayers.
Uh so that's the work we have in front of us over the next 30 to 40 days. Thank you, sir. All right, questions. As a reminder, we're going to have this discussion portion regarding questions on the budget. When the resolution comes
up to approve the budget, that's when we're having any questions and discussion about that resolution itself. Questions on the budget? Probably everyone has one. Is that your hand first, Board Member Higgins? >> Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you so much for all this work. It's it's very clear that this has been
hours and hours and hours of everyone's time and that you've been very specific and focused and digging as deep as you can, which I think is the general ask. Um, and I think it hopefully will set up success for future years. I also really appreciate you saying our district and
we even though you've been only been here for a little while, even though you've been like shadowing for a while, I really really appreciate that. Um, I just had a question about the equalized values. Does this does that affect the 5.63%? How are those two things related or not?
>> So, so the 5.63% is I mean it it depends on how how in the weeds you want the answer to be, but the 5.6% is is how much how much we are proposing to raise the taxes needed to fund our general funer operating budget
for the 2627 school year. So those tax needs will be combined with the tax needs to support the debt service that was previously authorized. The combination will give us the total tax needs for the school year. That gets
calculated into a calendar year because we we go on a July 1st to June 30th. The municipalities work on a calendar year. We convert we basically take half and half. So we take half of our needs from the 2526 and half of our needs from 2627.
That becomes our 26 calendar year needs. So we take those total tax needs and then we look at the ratio of the equalized values between the two towns and I'm I'm going to throw just a hypothetical number out. One town has a
$10 million equalized value and the other town has a $6 million equalized value. The total equalized value is 16 million and the one with 10 million would pay their percentage of that of that $16
million. So once we know the percentages, we know the splits, then we do separate calculations for each town and then we look at their actual ratables and we look at their average assessed home and we calculate what that tax increase would be for the theoretical average homeowner.
So that's the long story of how this how the rest of this this >> you want to summarize that? >> Nope, not at all. Thank you. So I will not be summarizing. you know it when I I'll throw a screen up and I'll show you the breakdown and I'll take you through
the breakdown. It'll make more sense when you can actually see numbers behind it. I just I don't want to I don't want to throw a speculative number out because you know I I spent 16 years in a regional district and a lot of times that regional district um sometimes the
ratio between the two towns had more of an impact than what we were doing in terms of how much of an increase or decrease we were proposing for our taxes. So, it's just and once that number's out there, it's out there. So, I'd rather just wait and get the real numbers and present the real numbers and
I could I could walk you through that calculation to have you understand it a little bit better. >> Great. Thank you. >> Okay. And I know everyone's going to ask some questions, so I will start from the beginning. I know Jeff has a followup. Go ahead. Oh, can I just say that there are actually um two important areas in
our taxes where the number 57% comes up because about 57% of our all-in taxes go to the school district and historically Maplewood has had 57% of the total equalized valuation of the two towns. So, um, perhaps the number that's going
to be certified in April by the county is going to be a little bit different from the usual 57% to 47, sorry, the 43% split, but traditionally like Maplewood is about 57%. Um, I think South Orange Maplewood based on the October certification, um, South Orange had more
equalized valuation growth, so it might be a bigger tax increase proportionally for South Orange than for Maplewood, but I guess we'll see. Anyway, remember 57% comes up twice here. Jeff, do you have a question while we're here? >> No, I don't.
>> Okay, fair enough. >> I just wanted to share that. >> Fair enough. Board member Brown. >> Um, I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. So, we are well, I guess it seems like we didn't use any of our capital reserves or
maintenance reserves like as of, you know, since the end of the um since June. Is that correct? So like what we're seeing here is the balances is likely what the balances are >> in the capital. >> Yep. So so capital reserve is an easy
answer. Uh the capital reserve no funds have been appropriated into the 2526 budget for for capital reserve. So you know we'll earn some interest on those funds. So the number may change a little bit. Um, we also have an old old old
project um from 2001 that we're trying to close out that's in our capital projects funds. And if we are able to close that out, a balance of that money since it was funded from capital reserve may go back to capital reserve. So, those are the only things that would change the capital reserve balance.
Maintenance reserve, uh, we did have a balance. Um, we appropriated $2 and a half million dollars to fund the the the portion of the budget. Uh, let me see if I can throw a number.
>> No, I I I remember that distinctly. Um, I was actually wondering of the 700,000 that we had budgeted to have be left in our maintenance account, is that still roughly how much we have in our maintenance reserves? >> So, this is the trickier part.
>> Okay. that that that $2.5 million went to offset it's called function 261. It's required maintenance and that total budget was about $2.8 million in the 2526 year. So right now if we only
expend everything in our 261 accounts, everything above $300,000 will revert back to the maintenance reserve account. So it's very likely that we may not spend down all of our 26 all of our 261 accounts in the 2526
and that again everything goes back to the funding source. So with any other but with any other line if we don't spend it it gets set up for tax relief because you can't have more than 2%. If we funded money in those lines using maintenance reserve and we don't spend
it it has to go back to maintenance reserve. So, you know, this is compounded by the fact that we've had a change in directors of facilities. So, all the projects that were initially slated in in the budget may not all get done. And
if they don't get done and we don't spend that money, it will automatically revert back into that account. So, that that account is very difficult for us to pinpoint. You know, we're looking at we can look at what we have encumbered and spent today. we have a plan in place for all the needs that we have and whatever
we don't spend will automatically reserve back and it'll go back into that maintenance reserve fund. So, it's likely that something will come back to it. >> Okay. Thank you so much. And then um related to our use of additional fund balance to
balance this year's budget, it looks, you know, we're using $3.8 million. So, is it is it a fair statement to say that essentially this year to balance our budget? Well, I guess one way I'll say it is,
are we 4 million are we spending $4 million more than we are getting in reimbursements? >> So, I'll phrase it a different way. Okay. We we are frontloading and we're
saying that so so by default if we didn't put anything on that line that 3.8 8 million which two years ago you didn't and the years that I you know did my budgets I never I never frontloaded
anything by default if if in the 2526 year if that year ended and we ended the year with $5 million that $5 million would be used to build the budget two years so it would help us in 2728 right
does that make sense >> yes >> but because We're frontloading it and we're we're we're anticipating that we're going to acrue this savings. Now, we have in order to do this on our we have this thing called a recapitulation of fund balances. On the recap of
balances, we have to plug in that we're going to we're going to generate an additional $3.8 million. >> I have to send by Friday all the documentation to the county and say like these are all the lines. Here's our board secretaries report and we think that we can generate $3.8 $8 million and
they have to approve that and in order for us to be able to to use that. So like when when Jason says that the budget process is not over, there's still a lot of moving pieces that we need to put together. One of them being this $3.8 million that we think we're
going to use. Um I think that we can justify to the county that we do have the money because we've frozen funds and we have a supplemental document that is that we've highlighted $3.8 $8 million. But that means that we're basically freezing money and we're taking money
that was originally raised to be used in the 2526 budget and we're we're pushing those monies off to balance the 20 26 27 budget is exactly what we're doing. >> Right. So in a way we're we need to be spending $4 million less ideally.
>> Ideally. Yes. >> Okay. >> But understand that the other piece of that is we generated 5.8 million from two years ago. So as we go to build when we look at budgets we have to look at three years. So as we're when I'm looking your at your 26 27 budget I'm
already thinking about 2728 and this this problem is not going to be fully resolved because if we're using 5.8 million from money that was generated two years ago and then we're also saying
we're going to generate another 3.8 million. That 3.8 8 million isn't going to be available for the development of the 2728 budget and that's going to present another budget for 2728. It's this is the cycle that we're trying to break out of but we c we have to do it
proactively and we have to do this w with a vision like what Jason said earlier is always looking two and three years down the road how what's going to happen. Um, so it's in an ideal world, uh, in an ideal world, it's it's not
ideal to do it, but the alternative is we have to make another $3.8 million in reductions. And, you know, that's that's a balancing act. So, so if you look at it in the aggregate of all the money that we're putting from reserves to the 2526 to balance it and to the 26 27,
we've cut it down by almost a third. And if we can look to make these changes over two or three years and balance all these things through attrition and and and and looking you know at a two or three year basis we can kind of ease that ease that pain a little bit.
>> Thank you Frank. Board member Nyer question. >> No question board member Callahan. >> Yes. Um first thank you again um Frank Mr. Being SLT ASA and SMA partners. Um, I know that tonight is a result of a lot
of hours of your time and and labor. So, thank you. Um, so as we're reviewing this preliminary budget, um, I think staffing is always an area of of heightened sensitivity and interest probably for us as a board and I know certainly for the community. Um, so as
we move forward in the process, I think, you know, we talk about kind of making more of these structural changes and I think a part of that is some of this right sizing effort that we have discussed tonight. I think it would be helpful for us to maybe see and share some more information about hiring and
enrollment trends and then that analysis just to have that visual of what are these efforts following this pandemic era hiring because I think providing that context might also help us better understand some of those decisions as we talk about this through the lens of being kind of a long-term process to help stabilize what we're doing in terms
of budgetary decisions. Um so you know if there is any like high level you know additional insight tonight that would be great but certainly just acknowledging how that might take shape in the future um and understanding of course the fluidity to that. I I think that would be a net benefit for the community to kind of understand that process and and
be able to see those trends over time um particularly as they might impact where we go in the future. >> We have a couple slides in there. This is uh 12 slides out of 37. So we have three slides that actually cover that. We just didn't want to share that tonight. It's work in progress, but the
HR did a nice job >> around that data. So, we'll be sharing that data moving forward. >> Uh, I'll jump in quick with regard to our uh our total special revenue funds. Uh, you mentioned that in light of the uh
questions of what the federal government was going to do last year, we had budgeted less than we were entitled to. As I recall, I think we had budgeted maybe 75%. Do you know what we are budgeting and expecting for the current school year? Are we now looking at the
full amount that we would be entitled to or a percentage of that? >> Uh it's I believe we used 80 or 85%. That's kind of a standard that they use, but but the year before um where you know typically you're you're asked to you're suggested that
you budget 80 to 85%. Um I know the districts cut this and I and I think I think one of your line items maybe the idea grant instead of budgeting it at 70% I think it was even budgeted at 30%. So, it was it was it
was a really low estimate which made these numbers look higher and it's also being compounded by by the by the preschool numbers. Um, you know, it's not hard to break down. We we really as a district, we don't get a lot of federal assistance. I mean, if our our
total budget is our total budget for next year is 13 million, the preschool program is like 10 or 11 million of that. So, I think there's only $2 million in non-preschool numbers. And again, I I I'm getting more and more
familiar with the numbers uh for our district, but I but I this piece I'm I've really only been here for like three weeks. So, I in a perfect world, uh you know, I'd love to be able to tell you that that we have $2 million in our other grants and we have we have $11
million in this and I think I'm really pretty close to those numbers. Um I just would really have to look at it and get back to you, let you know. But the bulk of that special revenue fund is the preschool program. I I know that for a fact. >> Yeah, we were giving we were given numbers a couple years ago when the new
regime came into play. Uh so our county office gave us numbers and some guidance in regards to hey budget this um because we don't know what's going to come down the pike. >> Okay, over this side any questions? I do.
>> Uh Frank, first off, excellent overview. 10 out of 10, no notes. It was uh it was great. Uh but you did mention something that resonated. I think it's worth repeating and then I have a question over that. Is that in the in the public hearing that we're going to get an analysis of where in our cost centers,
where our cost centers as a percentage of the general fund compares to other districts. I think that's important context for all of us to to to walk away with. But that said, is there anything in this preliminary budget that stands out where we're overindexed or even underindexed?
I you know I I I wish I was in a better spot to give you that answer because and I you know I said this to you when I met with you last week like we really jumped in March 2nd and we looked at we have 900 lines and we looked at each line individually to make sure that we could
substantiate what was happening in each line and then the state came out and then we had to make adjustments and then you know we've been constantly in this flux of making adjustments and I'm just now and then we had to start put you know budget presentation stuff they got those like a week between the the all
this stuff. So the short answer is I really need to delve into that cost center analysis and look to see what these trends are and look to see what's happened over the last two to three years to a explain what happened and make sure that the story that those
numbers are telling is reflective of what we think is happening. And that's the last piece that flushes out if there's something that's overbudgeted or underbudgeted because any one of these increases and decreases we should be able to have an explanation for. And I'm just I'm I'm personally I'm I'm doing
the best that I can. I'm just I'm not at that level where I could say like this is this looks out of line. Well, I'll tell you that the capital the capital looks very out of line to me. Um, I added up all your administrative costs and I looked at the percentage of of
your administrative costs to your overall budget. Uh, hang on a second. I just if you just humor me for two seconds. I just Okay. So, if you if you can look at this number, I just started delving into this
stuff in the last day or two. So, so as we can see this, so your administrative costs, I just bolded I'm a big color guy. You'll get to know that. But these are our different these are our different areas. So you can see that
that we're hovering right under 7% for our total administrative costs as a percentage of our general fund budget. When I look at these numbers from last year, if I highlight these guys, I'm at 6.75. I'm right in line in terms of the percentage of the overall budget for
your administrative end cost. And what I do is I look right across. I say, okay, you know, here's your library media center. We went for 1.35% of the budget to 1.36. The next line, we're at 1.5. So I am now
building in the back end that I'm at this. Um, so this number right here, I don't like this number. We went from 29.7 to 27.39. And when you go through these numbers, we did that because this line was 13% of
your budget and now it's this 16 and a.5%. So this to me becomes very clear where our budget funds are being diverted to knowing that we can we we have to keep reducing our budget funds.
But now it the p to me the percentage of the the general fund budget is a very telling number more so than per pup people and all that stuff because it says okay like how much of our budget's going to these different pockets and and I would like in my last district I went back I could go back 10 years and look
at this stuff and say okay you know 10 years ago health insurance was 10% of your budget now it's 16% of your budget and it's coming at the expense of all these other areas. So, this is very telling for me. And by the time we get to the public hearing, I'll I'll have a
lot more. You know, listen, if you're not a numbers person, you're not going to be very happy with me during the public hearing because I I could talk to you for for a long time about this stuff. >> Our our taxpayer, just to frame it for folks, or a taxpayer guide, we're
compared to 96 other districts that are 3500 students or more. So that's the cohort that we compare ourselves to. We have a slide in the >> in the longer version of this, but we'll have that comparison as as we move forward with between those 96 other school districts.
>> Yep. And and I and I just listen I just I just want you to understand the the stuff that's going on in the background. So we put this together. I think a few of you have seen this. So these are not my numbers. These come from the taxpayer
guide. These different indicators are what the state feels that people should be you know checked on in terms of our our our ranking and our our these are costs per pupil. The number one piece is your budgetary cost per pupil. It's your budget divided by your pupils.
You can see that we have been steadily declining. Right? But this number it it's important to know that we're 49th out of 90 96. Right? So we're 49th out of 96th.
What's also important is I look at this indicator and I say, okay, our total cost per pupil we're spending, we're 49th, right? But our classroom instruction, and again, these are not my numbers. Our classroom instruction is 74th.
So that to me, like if you're seeing what I see from the outside, I saw that as a powerful thing, saying, "Okay, if our if we're only ranked 50th with our total cost, more of our funds to more of our funds are going to classroom
instruction than our peers." Because in a perfect world, if we're spending the same on everything, we should be right around the 40s on all these indicators. So, anything that's higher than 49th I would look at and say, "Okay, we're spending more money than our peers in
those areas." And if I see it going to classroom instruction, that's that's if it's going to go somewhere, that's not a bad thing, right? Our administration 49th, we're at 53rd. I mean, we're we're right within It's not something to me
that would stick out, you know, legal. Everybody knows that, right? You guys have been talking about this. I've heard this, but we went from 85th down to 77th and our budget is down to 65th. This is a good trend. So, as we go through this, there's a lot of this data that we can
use. And again, this is not necessarily for the public hearing, but this is like in my last district, we delve into this stuff and we had, you know, the standing committees would look at this stuff and we track it and we track it over years to just see where we are compared to
this ranking. And then we developed peer groups and said, "Okay, we compared ourselves to, you know, you're not going to compare yourselves to all 96 districts. Hopefully, there's a peer group that that are like-minded and you can pull their rankings up against your
rankings and check it from year to year. And there's just there's a lot of positive data that can come out of this if you're into analyzing data and looking at stuff that I think that I think would be a worthwhile endeavor for this district to to understand because it can help guide you when you're making
these decisions and feel comfortable about some of the things you're seeing. But but some of the stuff that I'm seeing from the preliminary basis, which I'll share, listen, I have no skin in the game. I'll show you that, you know, the areas that I think are positive and the areas that I think that that stick
out just based on looking at all these different these different comparisons and these different analysis that that I can look at and and which is why I kept stressing when we were talking earlier about the finance committee about tracking all of our stuff and using the predefined cost centers to to really
look at our stuff because then we can measure ourselves and all the data and the reports are generating this stuff. I mean it's it's it's powerful stuff if you're if you're into it. So and again just to reinforce this isn't our data right so the taxpayer guide is public
access uh performance report cards public access uh these are all public documents uh that are accessible by uh anyone okay board member second gable
>> yeah just for um for superintendent Bing um building off of board member Callahan's question around um staffing. I was just thinking about how the seeing those numbers for possible transfers and maybe even
possible riffs um could cause some anxiety for staff members who are who are looking at that. I was wondering if you can give like a rough timeline for the process or um for communication that that our staff members can can expect as
we move in to May and final budget adoption. Yeah, I know for us um if you look at our three years of data, we we should expect uh more retirements, more attrition, and more resignations over the next couple weeks. Uh those are coming in which obviously will have a
major impact on these numbers. Uh and again, I do want to emphasize that these are positions, okay? These are not people getting rift notices or pink slips. These are simply positions that we are economizing based upon our pandemic spending in 2019 and 2020 and
adding extra staff on. So where we can share instructors where we don't need to keep uh a class open, we can just move kids into another class that may have very low uh student size. We are doing it where we have someone with a special
sur where we can move into a vacancy a retirement vacancy and don't have to externally hire. That is what we're doing. So these numbers will change and our work is to change these numbers for the good uh to reduce the amount of rifts. But if you're looking at uh the
total number of 23 um 19 18 of those we're not giving people pink slips. These are vacancies that we are not filling plain and simple. So over the next two to three weeks, we'll have a lot more information as we did last year. We uh if we had transfer
notices, we got them out as early as possible. Um so we'll continue that work and we'll continue working with Ask and Same as well and keeping them in the loop. We just had our initial meeting today. >> All right. Board member Stefan, >> how do you pronounce your last name,
Frank? Well, that that's uh that remain that it depends who you ask. If you ask me um they they've told me it's surveills. >> So, okay. >> Sounds nothing but >> Mr. Surveill. Okay. So, the the item
that really jumps out is healthcare. Uh our healthare costs are going up 30.74% which to be fair is not a criticism of anybody here. They're skyrocketing nationally. We changed from a state health care plan to a self-insured plan
a few months ago with the idea that it would bring our healthcare cost increase from 30 some% down to 11% but it looks like we're at 30.74%. So what do you think happened? How confident are you in that number?
Could it go up or down this year? And do you have any sense of what we're looking at next year or the year after that? So this so this is clearly it's one of the largest line items in in our budget and it's something that that we can provide much more clarification on how we arrived at those numbers. You know we we
talked about this in some detail at the finance committee meetings. You know we're self-insured now. So that number that we put on that line has to cover all of our needs. And we're a little bit of a backseat because as much as we've had an analysis done and in theory we're
in a plan that should save us money, the reality is we're fully self-insured, we have $3 million in savings to fund above and beyond that line, you know, aside from anything else we can scrap from another area. And our we have a large
potential exposure and we really don't have reliable claims data because of the timing. So, we're not going to get reliable claims data until six months into this process, which is way too late for us to set reliable rates. So, so
we're using our best judgment with the input of our of our broker with knowing what an anticipated renewal is going to be for our reinsurance, knowing where our carter is going to be, and really we're we're trying to protect ourselves,
knowing that we have also this allowance that allows us to raise taxes to cover this specific cost and knowing that we could have raised another $600,000 more. So there's an acknowledgement that knows that we could need this. So you the
difficulty is if if we cut a million dollars out of this and we certified the budget and claims started coming through three months from now, four months from now when we really have an idea and we don't have enough money to cover our claims, we have a huge problem. So, so
the this placeholder, you know, the the beauty about a self-insured plan is that we're in control of all of our claims. The the difficulty and the scary part of a a self- insurance plan is that that you're on the hook for anything that gets incurred and, you know, there's
been some bad experiences, including one, you know, potentially in this district, that that the self- insurance numbers didn't work out exactly as planned and, you know, we took a little bit of a path dealing with it. So this number is a very very very critical
number to to the health of our the health of our budget and our district next year. Um it's it's a it's a it's a big number. So that relationship with our brokers is really important. So we get updates from our broker on a regular
basis in regards to trends. And as Frank noted, we need some more time to really say that data is solid. But we are getting at this point some positive info and trends. And that's at this point >> we're getting great data, but it takes
it takes two months to to to spin up. And then we need a couple of months of spun up claims to really reliably come up with an estimate. So um it's a it's a it's the toughest number outside of our our out of district placements to to pin
down. and and I think in this given year um it's even tougher because of the timing of everything. So the the goal is to put what we what we believe will fund it adequately um knowing that that we need to monitor it. We need to we really track this and
and be proactive and we we've set up the mechanism to be proactive about this particular line and proactively monitor it. And you know there's there's no thing that if we if we get into September and October and we start really having reliable claims data and
we find out that that we have a shortfall or that we have money we can you know the budget is a fluid it's a fluid doc and we have to get to the point where we can fluidly proactively manage that in in a perfect world. Let's
say the best thing happens and we we ask for, you know, $25 million in that line and we get to September or October and it it's getting more and more reliable that we might only spend $23 million, we may look at that $2 million and see if
there's something and we may have a hole somewhere else that we need to plug. And this this is the job of this is like the person sitting in my seat is really the job to to manage all this stuff together. It's not just any one line. It just this is such a big line that it's
and it's such a tough year for us to deal with. >> Yeah. So, just a couple follow-up questions. Go ahead. Sorry. Two two item other things just quickly. You would, you know, capital reserve is $4.6 million. Maintenance reserve is 700,000 and your colloquy with board member Brown. We talked about how those might
not be exact numbers, but in an ideal world where we don't have these kind of fiscal pressures, what would be an ideal amount in capital reserve and maintenance reserve for this district? Listen, it's b it's I so I just saw I got a report sent to me last week from the
architect that you guys just had a new long range facilities plan put together and it's hundreds of millions of dollars worth of projects and you have you so so far you have secured funding for four million of it. Um that to me would be
that's seems very low to me. I mean, just seeing what's been happening, I just started to get keyed in by your facilities director and every day there's there's a problem happening somewhere and all those the facilities are aging and and you have significant
from what I can see and I've just gotten into this there are significant facility needs. So I I would say as much as you can have in those funds, but the difficulty now is how do you get the money to put in those funds when you're cutting positions and you don't have a
line item for those funds? I mean, it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a very difficult position that we're in to talk about, you know, adding funds to those reserves when when we're talking about having structural deficits and operating
budget. I mean, it's a it's a it's not an ideal situation, but I I was I I was shocked at the amount of money that you don't have in those funds given the size of your district personally. >> Yeah. And one one last thing, if you could just help help me understand
something. If you go to slide nine, I see special education instruction, we're increasing our spending there. Speech OTP, we're increasing our spending. Child study teams, we're increasing our spending. Okay. But then I go to the next slide and it says the first line here I know this is non salary. It says
specialed special services reduction and then a couple lines below there's a reduced paraprofessional budget. So could you explain to me are we can you can you square this for me? >> Yeah. So the power professional will be the RFP we've been talking about. So right now we're in a pretty bad
contract. We've discussed that a few times in regards to uh the extra compensation we are pushing out. Um, so she then went also went through her data. I think some of the numbers you're talking the previous slide. We are adding as we did last year some
programming to keep kids in. So we're extending uh expanding our ERI program to the middle school level. We got a lot of good dividends out of that at the elementary level. Um, and right now I think as we hit the wall
last year, um, it's difficult to predict what's down the road in regards to evaluations and what those evaluations are going to turn out to. So, some of that stuff was supplies, some of those things, uh, were basics, but we tried to keep her as steady as possible. Um, her
voice was pretty loud throughout these meetings, just knowing what we've anticipated last year. we had a year's worth of data and what we saw happened in June, July, August in regards to more kids coming in. >> Yeah. And and I appreciate that. I think it's really important that we are continuing to invest in in special
services. So I I do want to commend uh the superintendent and and Mr. Servel, is that what you said? Uh so I I I really appreciate that because I want to make sure we're continuing to invest in in students who have have higher needs. Thank you. Okay. >> Yeah, she had a obviously it's one of
our biggest expense lines. So, she had a really loud voice. Not literally, but she she she had a pretty powerful voice during the construction of the of the budget. >> Okay. Paul, I think we have a couple follow-up questions. A few of them. >> Okay, >> fine. We'll go this way. Callahan first.
>> Okay. Um I just want to pivot back. Uh Paul stole my special education question. So, thank you board member Stefan. Um I want to pivot back to healthcare for a minute though. Um I think uh Superintendent Bing, you had mentioned that we had joined other districts in making this shift away from
the state plan. Um and so you you'd said maybe we're kind of like working with with those districts a bit. Um if so, is there an opportunity to maybe benchmark our costs against some of those comparable districts just as we're trying to start anticipating what it could look like in future months? Is there information that you, you know,
have been getting from those conversations that would kind of help help close the gap in our kind of understanding as we navigate this in the first few months? Yeah, a few of our uh districts have been in the exact program that we're currently in, like Livingston and Bloomfield. Uh so we're able to
really look at what their costs were when they first jumped in the program and to see where they were going. Obviously costs are unique by district. Uh but this will be the first time that we're actually that we actually have the opportunity to look at costs. I want to really make that as explicit as possible. In the state plan, you receive
no data at all. Uh so one of the positives of being self-insured is you can really uh get into the data to analyze and perform trends in regards to where you're going. Uh and that's what a really a good broker does and uh we've
been pretty lucky with this current broker. Uh she just met uh with ASA and Sumea because they had some questions about and Ask and S were very happy with that meeting. She'll continue to do that. Um but yeah, we'll be sharing a lot of the data moving forward because
we have it for for for the first time >> and and Liz, I had that very same question and that is one of the benefits that we can see is we can benchmark ourselves. You know, again, removing any personally identifying information out and we can benchmark ourselves. Uh we
received a report last week that that showed our top 10, you know, the top 10 drug users, not like like the the the prescriptions that were being prescribed to our employees. So, we got a listing and we can benchmark that against other
people that that have that data that's available. So, we'll we'll be able to see, you know, how many of our employees are using uh you know, I I don't want to pick on a a weight loss drug, but how many of our employees are using a weight loss drug versus and and what's the percentage of the claims versus other
versus other districts that that can have that data. And we've been assured that that we can benchmark that data, again, removing any personal identifying information and be able to benchmark ourselves. And that's that's again it's one of the benefits of looking at looking at and being self-insured and
truly knowing what your claims are. >> Great. Thank you board member Nyer. >> This is less of a question just uh more some statements that I wanted to make. So I do it now or resolution time. >> I think statements would be good for the resolution as we're debating the vote.
>> Okay. >> Thank you board member Brown. >> Thanks. Um, I do want to I I want to reiterate that I'm I'm really impressed by your observations, how forward thinking you are, and just how passionate you are about digging into
data and and the whole budget environment. So, thank you so much. Um, just one question. I know you had mentioned that it sounds like we might um hire someone to help us going out to bid for various services. Could we include or I guess I want the district
to include legal services within that because I don't think we've done RFPs for any of our legal services in recent years. >> We haven't done RFP for any of our services in recent years. So, we'll come up with a list. We'll share that. >> Okay. >> With the board moving forward. Yeah. The gentleman we're using is one of the well
is number one gentleman uh in the state. Very well known. So, yeah, we have a running list. But I think just we'll hear this in the readout on Thursday, but part of the reason for hiring is that the legislature has just changed uh the rules for what we can use our co-ops
for. So we can't get certain services unless we have a competent person to go out and find them in a different way for us now. >> Yeah, we we just entered uh brought another co-op on board as well. MUJC formed the co-op. So we have some other opportunities out there as well.
>> Okay. Board member Higgins. >> Did you almost forget my name? >> Um, so it is very unnerving to hear about the line items that are as low as they are, but I really appreciate to dear's point the responsibility of
pointing them out so that we can create long-term planning, shift to proactive, not reactive, such as performance-based RFPs and contracts. That's a really, really great forward-thinking thought. So thinking more immediately of next year, as much as I love planning for the future when we when we have been
spending more than we're getting, which is clear to me. So now we're doing the due diligence of spending within our means as it pertains to let's say the mental health crisis, the fact that 22% of our students are neurodeiverse and just have
more specified needs. It would be really helpful to see what this impact is direct to students, student access to resources like what a little bit more detail around the reduction. I know that that will happen. Um and then >> that was actually those are were
guardrails put in place during this budget. So we're not touchal, we're not touching >> special services, IEP needs. Those guardrails were were already in place when we started. >> That's great going through the budget. And then I know with class sizes that the optimization is happening. So I
think that whatever you know massaging of the experience of going from a smaller class size to a bigger class size and therefore you know shifting from that that that will be a little bit of a blunt change I'm sure for some. So I think thinking about that and hearing about those plans would be helpful.
>> Okay. I'm going to go to board or Bennett first and then >> um um one source of savings in this budget which makes it all work is that we are going to be spending less money on transportation next year. Um, you know, it's come out that part of that will come from discontinuing pre-K courtesy busing, but you know, there's
another change too with actually like, you know, how the schools are scheduled. And I know we're not ready to release like the times of what the new start, but we're not ready to release what the new start times would be, but I was wondering if you could say like how our changes to busing for K12 would uh save money and actually, you know, even
improve service. But at this point in we'll have those times probably by this week uh uh coming end of this week or early next week. Uh when we analyze what we were doing um
and you you all get the emails um what we found was when Sussex did the roots uh they did not put enough time in between our current tiers. So if there was any traffic or pothole or something of that nature, we were
getting kids late to school. So one of the first things Sandra did was ride all routes, but also we made a determination that 30 to 35 minutes between the tiers would prevent um the tardiness we were seeing and emails we were receiving. Then we also put
guardrails in place such as not keeping kids on bus for 30 minutes or more, not going across town. Uh we redid the hazardous roots plan which we'll be receiving next week the whole plan. Um what we did project uh from those
numbers currently and this could change uh at a minimum a reduction of about 10 buses from the fleet. Um one of the things we did keep in mind as we were looking at times and we looked well you saw the versions we had about nine different versions I believe. Uh we were
looking at New York City trains. Uh we are looking at the early and late schools we currently have. We are looking at sleep research in regards to adolescence and teenagers. Uh we are trying not to make that significant of a change at the elementary level trying to
keep it within 10 15 minutes. Um so we'll share that work either end of this week or beginning of of next week. Um but as Frank noted you know that is low hang that's some low hanging fruit to save that amount of money. Uh and as we continue to move forward, we'll continue
to explore uh busing and and efficiencies that we can see within the next two, three, four, five years. That that's going to be an active analysis as we move forward. >> Board member Callahan.
>> Yeah. So, as we've been talking tonight about, you know, the main goal trying to lower operational costs, um talked about the RFP process. Um, and this is one described as an area of where not necessarily instructional expenses. Um, I'm just wondering if you could speak to
how the bidding process and this expert that we're considering bringing in um, balances maintaining quality in examples like paraprofessionals um, where this is a studentf facing service. So, how does this expert potentially try to balance the cost savings with ensuring we're trying to maintain quality? Like what
does that look like when they're trying to kind of balance the two pieces? Jason, I I can I can handle this if you the the the technical piece of the specifications in terms of you know power professionals is a very specific
um you know this person is not going to come in and and tell us how what that power professional should be doing and our district will be will be very much handinhand with with what we think our needs will be for those par
professionals. So, like if Kathy's going to be the point person for the par profofessional bid, there's going to be a a collaborative working between her and and this person that's going to be looking at the bids, but he's going to structure the bid out a certain way
saying um you know, we're going to put penalties in for non-performance. We're going to make sure that we're that we're efficiently filling people's schedules. We're going to make sure that we're not just putting we're not just buying bodies, but we're buying a a performance
and and I don't know that that that this person's work with a paraprofessional contract exactly. You know, he's not going to supersede what the district believes the power professionals be using. But there'll be an ongoing dialogue of where we can
possibly gain efficiencies in all of these different specs. whether it be power professionals, the custodians, our our time and materials vendors that that service our boilers, the electricians that come in to see if we can make those specifications very very tight because
the specifications that we're using for a number of these services are very much cookie cutter that you know there's a bit spec that goes around that that that three other districts have used and we just put that one in and it may not best suit the needs of our district and be as
specific to us that that's going to give us the exact performance. So, we want to dial in the performance that we want, have that mirrored in the spec and then go out to bid based on that spec. >> I do want to just make sure everybody knows we've we've also explored the
nonprivatization route. We ran those numbers. We ran those numbers for powers, transportation, custodians, uh, and I forgot what slide it is. I mean, you you've seen the health cost slide. It's just not doable for us. Uh we started privatization I guess a
decade ago. Uh so currently uh we did explore other options. It just fiscally was not possible for us moving forward. All right. Any other questions in this section? All right. Seeing none, Mr.
Sevel, thank you so much for your presentation and Superintendent Bing. And we're now going to turn to our hearings of individuals and delegations. Thank you for coming in person and joining us online this evening. We value public comment at our board meetings. We
cannot engage in a dialogue with you. However, we take your comments very seriously and your input will inform our work. Uh our comment period this evening is limited to one hour. Each speaker will have three minutes. uh ask you
please begin by stating your name and your town. Uh we have currently four online public speaks but first we have no inerson speaks. So we will first move to our first online public speaks Bob Lions.
>> None of the online public >> all right we have no online public speaks members available. Uh I apologize this was a lengthy presentation but very worthwhile. So, we will now move to the action portion of our meeting. Uh we
have uh four resolutions, one uh three-part and one individual. Uh what I'm going to do is just divide this up briefly. I'm going to uh first invite a motion to hear resolution 4932A
and B as well as uh 4933. That would be everything except for the budget. Do I have a motion? Order Bennett. Do I have a second? Oral Stefen. Thank you. Um, all right. We are in discussion.
So, these are the resolutions to appoint uh Mr. Sevel's as the interim business administrator and board secretary as well as approving the organizational appointments uh related to that role for the balance of this school year and approving the leave of absence uh for
Mr. Moody. board member Higgins, keeping in mind that we cannot have discussion on the personnel piece, >> of course. Um, so no offense, Frank, you are wonderful. Thank you for everything, but is there a cap or a ceiling on your services
>> and is it in the budget? >> Ours are capped in the contract. >> Great. Thank you. >> Any other questions? All right. Uh, Mr. Caring, would you please call the role? >> Yes.
Member Brown, >> yes. >> Board member Callahan, >> yes. >> Board member Higgins, >> yes. >> Board member Padian, >> yes. >> Board President Meyer, >> yes. >> Board member Nar, >> yes. >> Sack Gable,
>> yes. >> Board member Stein, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> All right. Very good. Uh and uh now I'll entertain a motion to uh take on and consider resolution 4932C
uh the 2627 school year preliminary budget. Do I have a motion? Board member Callahan and second Nyer. And uh we're in discussion. Board member Nyer. >> I just had a few things that I wanted to
note. Um, so I've been working quite closely with Frank since he started and I really want to say thank you so much for jumping in and um, taking the reigns of this budget. Um, I also want to thank the members of the BA's office, Mr. Moody
who's um, um, on leave and Miss Rena who's been working very closely with Frank and Mr. Moody on pulling all these aspects of the budget together and of course the senior leadership team and all the other members across the buildings who've helped get us to this point. You mentioned this at the
beginning Mr. Bing. The process has been less than ideal given the crunched timeline that we have. Um and really we haven't had a chance to get much public input up until this point. Um but I do understand that from this point till we adopt the final budget there will be
opportunities for clearer documentation of the details to the board as well as to the public before we adopt the final budget. So or sorry a couple of few town halls. Okay. Um as a board uh there are a couple of
things I think we can um talk about not at this meeting not necessarily at the next one but I do think we should put on the table for further discussion. Um and the first I would say really is um just kind of debriefing on the budget process itself, how it's gone this year and the
past year. So we can kind of come up with a standardized timeline and a standardized set of documents that should be produced by the administration for the members of the board FFT as well as the public so that there is clarity in the type of analysis that's being
requested and it is consistent year-over-year. So we're not inundating the district with a bunch of questions and there is clarity and transparency in um what we're asking for. So I would like to propose um that in at a future board meeting we consider putting
something like that together um to make the process smoother going forward in future years. I do think at a another board meeting we really should delve into our um capital projects. What has been completed as part of the 2019
resolution? what's remaining, what's the status of those projects, how much money is left in the bond proceeds because to the point that Frank made earlier, we do, as you all know, we have aging facilities and never enough money to get everything done and we have priorities.
So, I do think we should spend another board meeting talking about that. As far as this bud budget is concerned, I do think that there are certain things that as a board we should continue to sort of oversee. Um, and it may not necessarily be in the next four weeks, but as we
kind of finalize the budget, you know, we should just think about certain things such as the transportation plan, um, which is being proposed and once it's finalized, we really should ensure that it's pressure tested so that the savings are actually realized and we don't have run into a situation where
the school year starts and we all of a sudden we need new routes and then, you know, costs go up. Um, I would, as I said, love to get public feedback on aspects of the budget, um, as well as certain things that might impact families like school start time and things like that. Um, I do think it's
important to merit's point, um, to understand what aspects of this budget proposal might adversely impact students and families, particularly with respect to instructional effectiveness and school climate, especially as we're sort of thinking about optimizing class sizes.
um transferring uh staff, what does how does that impact school climate and how are we going to mitigate against the negative impacts of that? I do think we should have a discussion around that. Um I do want to understand how we will guarantee appropriate oversight of the
new contracted services as a board. And again, this can be something we kind of standardize so that we're not kind of asking the same questions over and over again. Um and then to two points around staff transfers. I really would like to understand um and I think the board
should understand how this is going to be communicated in a timely manner to to the staff so that they have enough time to prepare their classroom and their coursework. Um and then finally I think we talked about health costs which um
which is one of the big drivers of cost increase this year. Um my it's not really a question. And I think we do have to keep an eye on what billings and claims come in and then if they do exceed what we've budgeted a discussion around what are our
alternatives or do we get to go back to the state plan or what have you and so that's something we should really keep an eye on. So >> I I would also recommend we bring the broker in to maybe every other FFT meeting similar to what we do at CPAC. You know we bring them into the first 10 minutes.
>> Yeah. But in in order to get to the final adoption of the budget, I do want to propose as FFT chair a set of analysis that I think the district should be able to produce. And I think I can work directly with the team um to kind of and the board to kind of, you
know, hone in on what that is and and put that forth so we can have more robust discussions around certain aspects that that have been brought up at this board meeting. Thank you. >> Any other comments? Board member Bennett.
>> Thank you. Um I just want to riff on actually what a few other board members said. Um I agree very much with board member Nar about the need to talk about our capital projects and I also want to uh you know reiterate what uh board me Hagen said about all the hard work that went into this budget. Um you know
Ammani Mooney is not here tonight but you know he did a very good job I think on uh transitioning us from the state health plan to self- insurance. He did that very quickly. He explained things pretty well and you know this budget this act season is not worse than it is because we did make that big change. Um
I wanted to make aformational point about state aid. Um when you know people in education in New Jersey have superintendent, school boards, journalists um members of the legislature when they talk about state aid they almost always mean you know K12 formula aid of which we're getting a bit
under $12 million next year. Um sometimes like we talk about extraordinary aid, pre-K aid and debt servicing aid, but you know there's a very big stream of aid that we almost never talk about and that goes back you know many decades actually. You know like the education law center doesn't talk about it. The garden state
coalition of schools doesn't talk about it. Uh and that's like the state spending for TPAF postretirement healthcare, disability insurance and teacher social security. Um according to the most recent audit we have we're actually getting about $33 million um for those four lines. TPF, post
retirement medical, social security, and disability insurance. So, you know, the amount of money we get in the indirect state aid, which is considered offbudget, um is basically three times bigger than our K12 formula aid. Um riffing on that like I want to reiterate
that there's really no straightforward amount for what the district's budget is. Uh Mr. Corbell's at one point, you know, one line uh which is um the general fund that's about $175 million. another line total appropriations is $200 million. If you
were to include like you know the state's payments on our behalf it would be like another $30 million and you know likewise there are different amounts which are equally correct for what our spending per student is. So um that's about all I just wanted to say you know think of indirect state A2. Thank you
very much. >> Any further comments board member Higgins? >> Sorry it's a small one. with the maximum travel expenditure um with the 2,00 200,000 I was just curious if that is going if that's been reduced raised like
what was it prior or is it just a set every year I think we set it that max >> sorry what are you where are you referencing >> it's in uh 4932C >> it so it it has to be in order for us to submit it to the county we have to maximum
>> um >> this is the same figure that appeared last year. I don't I can we can run an analysis. I don't think we spend anywhere near close. >> Oh, no. More just curious if it was up, down, or the same just because I was not here last year. >> Exact figure that was in there last
year. >> Great. Thank you. >> Okay, >> board members. I just wanted to highlight obviously this is not a fun uh budget to be voting on. Um but there you know there were alternatives that have
been uh discussed over the past several months that you know the district has been able to avoid. There was discussion of eliminating courtesy busing K uh K to 5. Courtesy busing is continuing this upcoming year. Uh there is discussion
about having to amend our policy to allow for larger class sizes. we're not going to have to amend our policy. And I really recognize uh board member Higgins for her relentless uh advocacy on that. Um a and one thing that was in the
presentation, but I I just want to highlight is that there's a tightening up of our procedures in terms of paying vendors and making sure that there's purchase orders for payments. It sounds like a basic thing, but I think it reflects the district's commitment to making sure we're really watching every dollar that goes out the door. So, as
much as there's some really um unfortunate pieces of this budget, I think we we do need to recognize a lot of really good work has gone into this uh to make really smart decisions as best we can. >> You know, I I'll just go ahead and echo that. I was thinking about that earlier
today. Really, the um you know, you I've heard a lot of different times over the past couple weeks that a budget is a moral document, right? Showing what you prioritize. And that's hard to see when you're looking at the, you know, areas of reduction, but the invisible win here
are the number of things that are not on the table tonight. Um, the things I mean, you you you scratched the surface as far as things that could have been on the table and that unfortunately other districts uh in much tougher situations than us have had to do. Uh, and you
know, I have seen the district working late hours, long time. Unfortunately, this this budget really isn't coming in at the the time frame that we would ideally like to see, but they have um gotten us to this position through a tremendous amount of hard work and every
day the news has been better and better as far as things that we are not having to take tough decisions on. Um so you know kudos on that and hopefully over the next month uh and change before our final budget we're going to see uh some
additional wins or kapatia we'll build on your point a little bit will and expand as well. Um that's redundant the uh so I'm heartened to see a a genuine effort to minimize staffing
impacts. I I I really mean that. Uh particularly those that are closest to the students, our teachers. Um one thing I do want to point out though is that when you look at budget line items, and we've heard it here tonight in scattered amounts, is that transportation does stand out to me. And I appreciate
Superintendent Bing's attention towards transportation improvements. To be blunt, and we've heard the negative impacts this year, it's bloated and inefficient. So, I'd like to see maximum effort toward transportation improvements, both short-term and long-term before we land on any teacher
riffs. Teacher rifts should be a last resort, especially when you look at the amount that we're considering. And but what I see tonight and will you had mentioned of the work that's been put in is but what I see tonight are proposed cuts to make a budget work for this year only. Not a restructure for long-term
sustainability. A restructure that gets us out of freezes and more and move us toward actual investment in our districts across academics, arts, athletics, and our aging infrastructure which is directly connected to a strategy to replenish our reserves. We
must break the habit of using reserves to balance a budget. Especially when we look at 27 and 28 where if anyone looks ahead in this preliminary budget, 2028 looks bleaker if we don't put if we don't start putting structural changes now. So, we will be in those spots where
the other districts are this year. We're just postponing it. >> Any other comments? >> I do want to just put uh what BML just said in an echo chamber in regards to student achievement. We made a commitment to focus on student achievement. I don't think I mentioned
it once in this budget. So, I just think collectively we need we need to refocus on on the idea of that student achievement piece. >> Board member Brown. >> Thank you. Um I'm actually going to expand upon what board member Kapia
said. Um, I do agree with a board member and I on a number of things in the for the near term, you know, that we need in terms of getting towards final bud budget approval. And I want to proactively thank Frank and Mr. Bing um and the whole department for your
continued hard work as you do move to gather more firm data to uh finalize the budget. But again thinking towards the longer term I am deeply and I know you are too concerned about our financial trajectory. I completely agree that fundamental
changes are needed if we have any chance of operating consistency consistently within our revenues. We need a strategic long-term plan that prioritizes student learning and moves the district back into the black so that we can rebuild our reserves and invest in our
infrastructure as well as bring in services inhouse. We cannot bring those in house. It that takes initial investment. So whether that's buying buses, bringing paras in house, we can't be budgeting the way we're budgeting now if we want to do that. Um,
so I guess what I'm saying is, you know, once this budget is refined and finalized, which I know requires a lot more hard work, but once that's done in May, I really urge us all to keep our eye on starting to explore and make fundamental operational changes.
We cannot keep operating within our current structure. It is not sustainable and it's going to take teamwork and it's going to take a lot of hard choices. >> Yeah. I also think we need to leverage our transparency using our website. Uh
we just had a partnership with uh a company that's able to do our fiscal dashboards as we move forward. So that is something I think we need to really focus on just to keep us accountable as we're moving forward. But yep, I agree. >> Any further comments?
>> Okay. Hearing none. >> You just lost >> Oh, I All right. Oh, >> no. All right. Are we So, we're We are not streaming to the community. >> We We
>> Oh, can they hear us? >> Yes. >> Well, >> all right. >> Do you know when >> I'm gonna I'm gonna propose we move forward and we can report out what our vote was. So, Mr. Carrick, can you use the I was going to say use the
microphone, but now there's no one online to hear you. Uh so will you please take the role? >> Board number seven. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Board member. >> Yes. >> Board. >> Yes. >> Board member.
>> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Excellent. Uh we now will move to well this is the end of the action portion of
our meeting. We will now move to our second hearing of delegations and individuals this evening. I do not see anyone else online. I see a show of hands. Is there anyone who wants to come up? You guys have been here the whole time. Nothing to say. Then I'm going to close our second hearing of individuals
and delegations. Do we have any new business this evening? No, we do not. Uh the board will meet again in public session in just two days, Thursday, March 26th, 2025 at 6:30, where action will be taken. Reminder, we do have our
next two strategic planning sessions coming up, April 15 and May 11th. If you're interested in joining, please go to the website. Uh and I will now uh entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. Callahan, I have a second. Board member Sacket Gable. All in favor?
Show of hands. All right. This meeting is adjourned at 9:57 p.m. Have a good evening. >> Good night.