really here. Anyone watching television may be excused. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I alsyy and justice for all.
Thank you. Being that this is a special meeting, we have a a public one public comment section. Um and may I have a motion to open the meeting to the public? Second. Second. All in favor? I
see none. Can I have a motion to close to the public? Second. Second. All in favor? Okay. Uh we are so we have two two members of the staffers
association here with us. our field service rep, Lorie Vanlow, and also um Charlie Muller, the business administrator. So, Charlie, I believe, is gonna go first to um and everyone should have this handout from him on the
budget process. Charlie, I just want to say can you want to introduce I just want to introduce Charlie? He he has been going across the state last night, Warren County, and now he came down and meet with you guys. So, he's
going to go over financial important financial topics. So Charlie, thank you so much for coming and joining us. It was uh was interesting that there's a lot I was in Washington Township last night. The other one the other Washington
school district. So I was trying to explain to my wife where I was because we camp up in Poconos which was an hour from both places and one was 2 and 1 half hours from my house. I live down the street and the other was 2 hours. So I was explain to her Washington. Why
don't we meet up there? I said, why are you going to meet us? Are you going to Washington? So, we're going back and forth. Thank goodness. Um I hope she's on her way up to um I'm going to I have a hand out here and
I put it in the table because um a lot of people ask what is the budget process? I'll go through this. Let me give you a quick background. Um I spent 15 years in the casino industry. If any of you that had the pleasure of working in that industry, you know how
difficult it is. And in 1992, I moved to school districts, which is a world of difference. I was an adjunct professor at Stockton University, then Stockton College for over 20 years, where I stud.
When I first started teaching, our technology was a Casio calculator. That's all we had. So, and that's why I was so hot when I had this thing. So, two parts. One, technology was
there. The one thing that's never changed over time has been the planning process. We can talk about numbers all we want in all the forms we want, but if you don't plan, then your numbers won't match. So
if you want to, for example, how many of you shop or know someone that has envelopes in their pocket? I used to do that. You shop with them, right? Yeah, I used to do that. Yes. Consider budgeting. It's the same process. You have all your envelopes
that you predetermine where your money's going to go. Unfortunately, sometimes things happen. Right now, I think you're you're in a state health benefits plan. Well, if you were in the state health benefits plan, you can experience a 26% increase in
premiums. You have no idea that's going to happen at budget times, but you're lucky. Townships are getting 36%. So, there's a lot of things that are not predictable at budget time.
That's why I've always encouraged them. And oh, by the way, I worked with department head for a good 15 years. I was county business administrator and also the county superintendent. So, I probably know enough to be dangerous and I want to go through this
because I want I want to ask I want to answer sir your question if you have it easy for me to say. Um the handout on the very last Okay, let the handout show you. This is the budget
guidelines. I pulled out the highlights of the guideline and I've given you page numbers to reference. I can sit here and give you all the information to show you all the poweroints. But if you don't go back and do your homework and actually look
this stuff up, it's not going to matter. So, there's a little bit of homework involved in this. And I'm going to plug my program for school for anybody on the workshop. When you go to workshop, I will explain how state a calculator and all the
documents that you have. We don't make up the numbers, believe it or not. It's actually in this report. You have your application state aid. You have district report students and you have the educational report. All those are
probably barn table. They are the basis for all your state fun. Under the original school funding reformat for 2009, your cost per pupil is $9,649. The
act said we're going to increase by the CPI every year. It's now up to 14,172. I believe that's that's where it is. So each year and then the education report is done every three years the commissioner has to put it out
legislature have to approve it. That's the basis going forward. So let me explain a little bit about that workshop. Since I mentioned planning on the very back page of what this is
there's a district statement of priorities. I don't know whether tonight and we also have New Jersey student learning standards. This is the basis of how we're going to educate our children. You're going to have class sizes that
you should have a discussion and I'm assuming they're going to start pretty soon. You have class sizes, you have programs. Um what do we want to do? We have class sizes of 18. What? Oh, let me interject something else here. When I taught,
there were two things I never liked. An automatic decrease of 5% across the board because if you did that, you'd have money left over in your outlooks at one point in time because some departments can afford a 10% some can afford 20%.
And you have another department that needs more than their government debt. So this is important and an important discussion. So let's say we go to 18 students to 22 students. If that's what you decide to do, the board can make
these uh recommendations. The superintendent and this administrator will discuss this um to see where you're going to go. So, let's say you go to two kids. What does it see? And can that money be reallocated?
Is there another need? And these are the discussions that you you have that you should be having right now. Notice that discussion has nothing to do with this time. It's how you want to run the district. So, I'll let that up to you guys. I'm
showing um I'll leave it up to you. I will send Janine the electronic version of this because the links are already there and all you have to do is click on and you'll see. And the one is the new formula for success. That is the
original school funding format from 2009. It's very interesting reading. Well, I have no life. I like math. I don't like reading. But it it you get the basis of the funding for
the second highlight is the educational package report of 2026. This gives you the basis. Can you name Have you ever read that? Yeah. So, you know that actually that question said
yes. That's the basis for your per pupil amounts and there's other sections in there that explain it. So that is your that's where you're going to get all your numbers from uh on a perutable basis. Your security
uh your peral cost, your at risk cost, your special ed cost. This is multiple calculations. All right. I'm sorry. I just my mind wanders a little bit. All I could see is 450.
I don't know why that just shot through my head, but it did. Um forecasting again. It's going to happen again. Foreshadow. It just happened. I guarantee it. Um so when you submit your
budget and I'm going in line um in the budget guidelines there's the e um your super county superintendent review you have to submit all your documents. Do you know how many people it takes to
put this budget document together? 250 some pages. You have an idea. that one person that released Department of Education, we're in trouble. Um, she does she brings you updates, she gives you updated CPI, she gives you all
the changes, preventing the legislative changes and so on. So, it's a good and the first part of it lists all the changes, the ECS responsibility and the superintendent's responsibility.
When you look to the right of the county review checklist, that's an electronic. There's various appendices that we look at, but you have to submit and there's a six page that we have.
I'll make sure that there's another um and there's a checklist. I was fortunate to be the superintendent in the county business administrator. So I have to worry about anybody else reviewing the Ivan
as a county superintendent or as a district superendent. I'm meeting with the district. down the VA. Any major challenges, struggles, changes? Yes, that's part of it. First thing I was asked, are there any program changes? Are you using any
programs? No, that's good. Second question is, are you reducing any sales? No, that's good. Now we can have a good conversation on the budget because if you're reducing something then we have to go through line by line and say
you really can you do this can you do this? So there's a review process here that you probably don't know you guys will know but most board members don't know because you're not there but we review it to make sure that the standards are met and what you say
you're going to do you do. Please, please make sure your curriculum people, whoever does the statement priority, make sure they review it every line every year. I've seen districts that submit something and all they do is cut
the paper defeats the whole planning and the whole budgeting process. So, the opportunity to figure out what you're going to do and how you're going to provide the education to your children. So the county checklist again may be a
whole list of things that are supposed to be in there but I always prefer a discussion face to face. You get a lot more out of it than having to read. In addition when the budget is submitted this is the detailed appropriation and I
don't know how much I don't know what you see or what you get or how it's discussed but on the far right hand column there's an explanation. anything plus or minus 4% or anything you want to put in there. So if you're saving the priority if you want to do professional
development, math, science, and and language of art this year, you put money in there and it's going to come under professional development. say this this fund will be for home month so that I know that you're doing it because you
put the statement I know that money allocated and you know that discussion the money is also allocated so I was just going to like the document that we share during committees um that has the line item budget would have that
explanation on the side it would it would I print out I print out that document. That's an important document and it's I'm going to get into revenue and appropriations. That document shows three columns. It
shows your audit from last year. They show your current year revised. So any changes you had to make, you'll see that in the revised middle column and your projection for next year. Those three lines
columns trend down somehow. They could trend perfectly up, you know, with a small increase. They make major jumps and they could make major decreases. If you have either one of those any of
those scenarios, why did that jump up so much? You know, why did our teacher salaries go down? Why did they only go up 1%? Well, we have 15 teachers prepared. been here for 35 years and we hired, you know, 15 new teachers at the bottom of the top. Makes
sense. So then you have money and then you start planning that additional month and so on and so on and so and then you can't look at one year in the back and we talk about some of the other things. um
your revenue listed list of accounts. Your major accounts are going to be your state aid and your local tax. Those are your two main items. Um and they are what they are. You're allowed to 2%
2% if you have no adjustments. So when you get down into the enrollment and all the parents adjustments public format, you'll see you'll Why that 2% is not necessarily 2%. The only reason it be a true true 2% is
if you're not eligible for any adjustments and sample in the and the um samples in the budget guidelines show all that. Yeah. Can you talk just very briefly about
when our state continues to get cut um because we're considered overfunded by state aid. So, can you just explain what that means locally? Can you explain the the connection of state aid and local
tax? I can give you a couple seconds. You're all based on your question and I don't have one in front of me.
Your ad was how much you should spend and how much you spent. If you spent over that then the other two drivers the major major drivers of that are your um personal
income and your net valuation of the property. Those also go to equalization. If you keep raising money, then you're
going to have more money. If you make decisions that will increase your tax base in your town, then that will alleviate the burden from poverty taxpayer. If your
ratables, your business, if your people moves down and you have more labels, then you have a higher tax base, your houses are worth more, then that alleviates a bit on the taxpayer. So decisions that you might make like pre kindergarten, freek, whatever the case
may be that bring people to your town to live there, um are things that maybe you consider, right? So that you can increase I don't know your um district specifically, but I worked
for general. I mean, I worked for upper township down. We had the point power plant generated generated a lot of money. I got $2 million a year from
plant to rest. So, I purchased money in grade 25 because I had to show up because upper township was growing community. Every year when I would get the raidable
pay, it was up here and my tax credit was here. As that base went up, I was saving money. I had $80,000 a year
to spend before I would hit zero. So, I guess what that's what I'm trying to get you as the expert to say is this is videotaped for the public. just professional development for us. The more your ratables go up and businesses are brought to your county economic development, the less the burden is on
the property tax on the local taxpayers, those of us that live here and pay. I just wanted to clarify that while you I was just going to just to give you also some specifics of like what we're going through and what we did in the
last budget. Um, and Julie, you're right. like anytime usually in towards the end of January we get the updated rateables for the town. So that I look at them right away because if they go up even if you're increasing the the the
impact on the taxpayer is less. So when I do those calculations and say like this is the average assessed home, this is our tax rate. like sometime if the ratables really jump up that impact isn't going to be as great even if you go up as much as you can.
And then Charlie just so you're aware for for our town in this past budget we were under adequacy and also under our local fair share. So um we did get reduced the maximum we were S2. So we
got reduced all the way through the seven years to 2425 which was the last year and then for 24 or 2526 like I said we were under our local fair share and under advocacy so we did get reduced the full 3% of our state aid um
but we were allowed to increase the tax levy. So we have the tax levy incentive application we applied for to at least close some of that gap which went through that last year. Yeah. And that whole that whole thing's in
in the budget language. That's where a lot of that stuff happens because it's not legislative. It's done each year. So in the in the state's budget, there's budget
that happen. You don't pay more than 6%. Can't do any more than that's a oneear deal. So last year was about 9.99%. So some of those things are happen but there's a test right now that you're doing this you're doing
and then I believe commissioner has to so it's that answer your question yes you you apparently you have a formula what it does takes all that stuff, throw in a tax levy, and then we have 150,
200, 250. Yeah. And we just show the the dollar amount per year like if we went up 2%, it's this much per. So we try to do that. Okay. Right out of the gate. So even for the tenative budget, we you know, and then like I said, when
when we had the approval to go above the 2%, we did different scenarios like if we add this back, it would cost this much. We work together with what? I don't have to share my Excel sheet with that. No, I know. She gives us a lot. She does
all that. Yeah. All right. So then you list all your revenues. When you list your revenues, um, this is being recorded, correct? Yeah. All right. So I have to be careful. Um, when you list your revenues,
a lot of it is fixed. You have some flexibility in some areas. extraordinary aid, for example, since you don't know what that's going to be at budget time. You don't get the numbers until July. You don't get it until summertime and
your miscellaneous revenues. When I was a BA, let's put it this way, I kept that on the low side because I needed a contingency in the budget somewhere for 26% increase in health benefits. So
if I was getting, you know, a lot of, let's say I was getting half a million dollars in extraordinary aid year after year and I budgeted 100, then I know I'm pretty close to that 400. But I have something in my budget that I need it. And if I don't need it or use it, it can
fall on surplus or between June and June 1 and June 30, I can reserve it. I can reserve it in a maintenance reserve account. I would not s suggest using emergency as much as possible to get out anymore or if you're
planning on building something in the capital reserve and if you have a receiving relationship there's also tuition reserve about that maintenance is the best one and it's the easiest one to get out because you do it any time during the
year and you can also use it at budget time by just pulling money to maintenance pulling some of the other stuff as long as you maintain your required require maintenance, which is by the way, let me explain that to you. You're required to spend so much money
on maintenance. And there's a thing called, I'm going to call the M1 that they have to do every year, and I've been out of business for a while, so forgive me if I miss the terms. That's all of your maintenance, and you have to do that. It's required, and it's
audited. So you want to maintain the facility you have, for example, there's no windows in here, but you have a window. You have a window at home leak every once in a while. If you don't repair that leak for a couple hundred
and that starts to penetrate your walls, your windows, that's thousands of dollars of a repair. So you got to maintain your facility. And that's also one of the things of the uh priorities. All right. Sorry to get off on tangents. Quick question. So, um, sorry.
So, just like theory and budgeting, right? It behooves us to be a little bit conservative and not uh budget with hope in mind. Hope we'll get more money and then we have you want to budget so you have a little bit of reserve contingency
for when problems come up. And I'm glad you brought that up too because there's a concept of zerobased budgeting which I don't at all. I don't believe in it because you have a first grade. How many of you going to get rid
of your first grade? You're not first grade. So why why go through the exercise of saying, "Okay, we're going to start from zero." Start from where you are and then you modify it going forward. So that's that's a good point. That's that's the only thing
that's a good sound good sound budget. Charlie. Yeah. And this has come up previously this question. So, and just for clarity for extraordinary aid, you know, we really take a good hard look every year about where we are and we budget where we feel comfortable and it's close
because we actually budget it. So, you know, same thing with with other miscellaneous revenue. We we really try to keep it right to where we are and you know, we're we're not ever having extra in those space, right? Agree.
Yeah. that that's good if it works going forward. Um, and I'm not saying don't do that because that's proper budgeting. Uh, I just would always like to have a little Oh, no.
We wish the problem is if we don't do that, we create a budget shortfall because we're relying on that money. Well, here's the other way. Here's here's the other way to do it. your the budgeting process really never ends but in the beginning. So if you
come in very conservative at those numbers and when you get to the end of the budget saying yeah you know we need a dream of dollars then you start getting then all your reserves are you know then we the reserves that you plan on budgeting you have to allocate for
the following year to maintain your programs. uh list of accounts. This is under the appropriations. You know your two major drivers are on your cost. By the way, probably 92% of
your budget is fixed in nature. So you don't have a whole lot of flexibility in your budget to do anything with. Two drivers are salaries. Salaries and benefits. Those are your two major
drivers. The county officer, you prepare something called a PCR, which is a position control. The PCR is designed to make sure that all of your salaries are budgeted in categories
and they all have an independent position control roster number. And the reason that number never changes for that position. So, one of the reasons why you want to have that is You have a position here.
Person number one leaves again first year. Person number two stays here. Person number three stays here. And you can see the trend. You want to find out why in that particular area that staff person why we can't hold a staff person. You know, is there something what what
is wrong? And we keep getting first graders that torture teachers so bad that um they leave first grade. I don't think so. It could just be attrition. It could be done anywhere. But those are some of the u indicators that make you
look a little harder as of what really is going on. Um and this is reviewed carefully. By the way, you have um when when it would come to my office, I'm sorry, I'm not speaking really from school boards at this point. I'm talking really from the
state. So forgive me and don't tell anybody back in the office that Okay. the lips of God. Well, actually um yeah, so each area is defined and you go through
it and ask questions. That's why I like that's why I've always liked doing it in person. What do you think the major thing that's missed in your position control rounds? K to 8 K2 K12 pre12. Yeah.
You know, you know you sometimes miss stipens, co-curricular athletics, substitutes, what they call the extra teaching period. I forget what the educate whatever that is.
Some of those things are forgotten in the budget and oh my gosh, you know, I missed that. That's why again you can look at trends over time because it may pop off the page. There's also documents that you'll look at. You may not see but
um it's on benefits. I saw a different condom. I said, "What's going on? $2 million difference doesn't make any sense. They forgot. They forgot to put it in." So that's part of the review process. So
it goes through the budgets go through stages to start review. board comes to us comes back and so on. So the whole thing with all this is communication. You know what is it? Let me tell you what it is. And when you go through these documents, if you do, it'll give
you a much much better uh indication of what the process is all about. Charlie is there any benchmark data available to us as board members through school boards for instance? Right. comparative to other districts of what we spend per
pupil versus other districts, what we spend on maintenance compared to other districts. Any of that just to kind of give us a gauge stand. There is and it's it's actually pretty good. It's called the taxpayers guide to educational spending. Jine, do you have that? Um, I was just I'm making a note. I can
send you guys the link to it tomorrow. That has 21 indicators. I think it was 20. It started at 18 and went to 21. It takes legal expense, cost per pupil, and it does it by
um grade configuration. It does it by enrollment. I think it starts at zero to 1,500 or 3,000 3,000 to supplement over 10,000. That'll tell you. And the nice thing is
when you look at that, it gives you an explanation of each indicator and then you can find out where your district stands. Um, one of the biggest districts in the state that lost a lot of state aid over years and years and years had
the lowest cost of people. Very interesting to to see that happen. But you'll see that and it ranks on which district. I won't say it's real regional is probably right there as well.
I don't know. I was That's I was only um Oh, I'm sorry. I'm going on too long. But keep asking questions, you know. I'll I'll I'll sacrifice up to the fifth inning, but keep asking questions
because that's really why I wanted to come down. I've talked to Connie a lot. I've talked to gain a lot. Um, you know, find out find out what's how I can help and and hopefully tonight I'll be able to uh help with that. Surplus
[Applause] surplus is carefully planned. A lot of people don't like the recap of balances. I happen to love it. It's it's confusing, but it's one of the most fun documents to work
with. This is really your plan of your additional revenue. There's two parts to this. Two main parts. One's what they call unassigned, which you can use for anything. The second part is a what they call
legal reserve and it's poorly named. It's not legal. Has nothing to do with legal. When they do your audit on the little management book you have, at the very end of it, there's a calculation of excess surplus
that rolls into your budget. And by the way, if all districts in the state don't submit all their audits on time, it holds up every district because they can't run everything until all the audits are done. So that legal
reserve number has to be budgeted in the following year. It takes careful planning to make sure this doesn't equal this. I always wanted to keep $600,000
in legal reserves because once it goes low, I have to make it up somewhere. And if it goes high and I can't make it up the following year, I'm going to have that shortfall. Same thing with your um I'm going to call it
your regular surplus, your unassigned surplus. Same thing happens if you're forced to use it all. And I've seen and I've told districts, no, I will not approve your budget if you bring your surplus down to zero because all you're going to do is really destroy your
programs for next year. The following year, so you want to make those as consistent as possible. You know, and by the end of June, uh when your meeting start, but by the end of June, you can adjust those numbers and put the money in reserve.
So, that's something that um your business administrator will work with to see where the monies are. I don't know if you work with the auditor. I would always bring my auditor in at the end of the middle of June uh just to give it uh my budget a quick once over so I so I
didn't transfer too much out or spend too much at the end of the year. But that's that's careful. You have to be careful. We do we do our we do our projections internally and then in the fall when the auditor comes in they're obviously
looking at it and then um we talked about the that January 1 deadline a couple of times where we have to enter all that information into the audit summary um worksheet and home room and that all gets populated into the budget. So we have it all worked out before
then. Okay. Now, at the very bottom, all of you have your signal copy. I hope not. I was in war town last night and I had I had my printer and somebody else printed some more. So, that person printed both
sides. I printed one side cuz when you get more than two pages, I start getting like it goes from three. So, I do three, four, go three, five, eight, 10. It's length. So, it's easier for me to do one page at a time. You're still format the calculations which you see at the bottom
of page start from 162. Now these page numbers in the budget guidelines start with the definition of what they of what these uh categories are. As you scroll down
you'll find Did you have to pull that up? Uh you'll find the actual documents and you'll see how they look. Reported district statute simply describes if you're in excess of an expected local levy. If you're spending
more than what you're supposed to, it gives you a little thing you have to put in that you exceed it. Your minimum tax, you have to spend at least that much. If you don't, it's a fatal edit. Your budget won't be approved.
We all should have that problem. Pre-budget year and enrollment adjustment. Um, it simply takes all of all of your enrollments and I'll explain that to I'll explain that more in a workshop and
for those of you in I'll send you all the documents for your board members who will not be attending workshop. Okay. Um, so if you have a decrease, the budget guidelines show a decrease.
You're not going to get only adjustment. So you have to have a positive number to get any adjustment coming forward. Healthcare adjustment again I think it's up to 2% or 4% I can't remember off um
that they allow and anything pretty much over that uh you're going to get this is a healthy these are getting to be some really healthy adjustments. These are healthcare adjustments. Um, cap banking.
Again, if if you're lucky enough to have any money that you can bank, then cap banking is simply tax levy that you didn't spend. You get to keep it for three years. At the end of the third year, if you don't spend it, you lose
it. So, I don't know what your community is, but I would hate to lose tax. I'd rather put it in reserve someplace. But again, that's up to you. Um, yeah,
we don't have any. I don't think we got it either. All righty. So, you just get pages 173 and 174, but then read it. You should. You never know what can happen. You know, it could happen. If you watch the outfield, you
know, says it can happen. Um and your tax le cap calculation 17 this is a culmination of everything. This is your 2% your enrollment adjustment um any cap bankings uh
healthcare adjustments any adjustment you have in there that all adds up and the bottom line is what your tax levy uh even brings. That's It's pretty much
um all I have. I don't know how helpful it was, but I can promise you one thing. If you actually look this stuff up, you'll find it. It's it's it's helpful. It gives you a much better understanding of the process. And I think most boards
that I've talked to in the last couple years, that's been um about some of the other issues. It's been I don't want to say lack of knowledge but lack of understanding of the process and what actually goes into
it. The more you know I mean the more you know the easier it is to budget and to plan and to when you get answers from your administration you understand where the answers come from and
then you have to discuss them. discussing but at least we discussing them on the same uh plan. Yeah. Just summarize our role as board members in
the budgeting process, right? I mean there's obviously administration has a responsibility to go through and they're the professionals that understand, you know, the curriculum and all that type of stuff. Where should we as board members weigh in? You know, the things
like, hey, class sizes are 18, we're okay, gone up to 24, or we don't, you know, we don't think we need these elective programs anymore or, you know, where does that line go between us administering the district and us providing budgetary guidance?
You're not administering the district. It should should happen in a budget discussion. It should happen now. You know, the administration has all the data. Your responsibility, correct me if I'm wrong, is to ask and
understand that data. If you don't if you don't have the data, that's one thing. If you don't understand the data, that's another thing. But the data should be available to you. Um, just like and then you start discussing
these standards, you know, then start discussing it. And I don't think administrator I don't know I shouldn't say that but hopefully the administration in any school district shares all the information they have. If you don't know it you're going to
question it and if you don't have it or understand it they're going to think you're hiding from it. Take me as a board member for six years. Ter Scott, one of the things we can do if the board decides they want to do that, I could work hand in hand with Janine and come in and and do a training on the board's
role in finance. I'm doing that in Swedesboro next week, working side by side with the VA. So that we really can dig deeper if you if the board So yeah, you don't you don't necessarily you don't really get into the weeds. Yeah.
Into the deep weeds. You just don't. We should schedule that because the more the more you dig, the more confused. No, don't take offense to this. The more you dig, the more confusing it gets. Yeah, trust me. When I put this together and
when I tried to put the workshop thing together, I got confused because I tried to present so much information that I was getting lost in detail and it didn't I was be confusing myself, but
fortunately I got it straight. So you you won't be confused if you come to my workshop mode. Uh 11:30 on Monday 3:15 I mean room 315 if you would. There are a lot of financial I mean I don't know if everyone has the app for workshop but you can go through and you
can search by subject and presenter and stuff and there there are a lot of workshops related to finance look good. Yeah, mine is the best. Yeah. Yeah. I'm already RSVP for it. Look at the list. But Charlie, I know you have to go. But one last thing I don't have. Do you know any school districts that are able to plan like as long as I've
been involved with the schoolboard, we have made an effort to try and have like a five-year plan or budget for five years? And I I think because of the election cycle and just the cyclical nature of the board transitioning and employees and things like that, it's very difficult to do that. Do you know
any districts that that do that that plan five years out? Um, you may have an idea. Yes. Okay. Most districts have a strategic plan, a fiveyear road mapap of where they want to go so they know where they want to
spend their money. So that's really but not like a fiveyear budget but but it's part of and stick to the strategic plan. Y I'm sorry. I don't I don't mean I don't mean to totally disagree. I think
I think the further you can look out the better. Trying to put dollar amounts to it is very difficult because you don't know what the state aid's going to be. You don't know what your rateables are going to be. You
don't know any enrollment changes you could possibly have. But that's all part of it. You should have something long term, right? And that's why we say you have to be flexible when you create these strategic plans because anything can change and you can update. I would I mean if I was back in the business
back in the business if I was back in the school district if I had a fiveyear plan I would update it every two. Yeah. Every year we had a strategic plan and then we had co like right at the end of it. So I think since then there hasn't really been one. Now, the further you
can the further down the road you can look and again I'm going back and priorities and maintaining your schools that's great to do that for five years trying to put a fiveyear budget together
is going to be very difficult. Thank you so much. It's a good idea. Yeah, I I just think getting that board ro and finance training would be great to do. Maybe in like
February, March when the new board's here and then both prior to budget season really kicking up. Maybe even February, March, we're already into it. So maybe we could reorg.
Can you do it every so Janine and I will look at the calendar together. get something in January. Yeah, great. Now, thank you all for staying awake. Somebody told me last night um somebody at one of the presentations fell asleep and he looked at me and said, "Do me a
favor. You wake that person up." And the person said, "No, I didn't put him to sleep. You did. You wake him up." Not the scripture. Thanks. Any questions? Thank you. Any questions? And I'll be perfectly honest with you and straightforward. You know, give me a holler. You have my
number. I'll leave a couple link to the taxpayer guide to educational spending and the link for um all this the budget guidelines that you already have it well I can actually send the
presentation but I can also send that will that have where we stand relative to those benchmarks or no yes yeah it's broken down like you'll See, it has like everyone K to 6, everyone K to 8, and then it has the K to 12 in
like buckets of the size of the district. Yes. So, the links they'll be they'll be in this the links to all that. Keep going. Take a break.
So, ju just just to Charlie's point about strategic planning, he's absolutely right because when you do strategic planning, many of you already know, you want to, you know, continue to look at it every year to see where we're at. What do we what do we need to adjust? So, it's a living document. So that's something we can talk about and
Janine and I will definitely plan something for you guys in January. So we'll talk early next week if possible. Okay. So in your folder nothing that you need. There's only one thing that I want you to pull out. Our retreat part one that we had together.
Um we talked about the different types of goals. So if you can just pull this green sheet out. We will be using this tonight. I promise. I know we've got some big Phillies games tonight. All right, I'm wearing my giant flute because I am a New Yorker and we're not going to win tonight. Hope the dark,
but um I promise to be as quick and efficient. That's right. We're going to do it. Good. All right. So, just some references here. Put this to the side. Just put this over to the side because we will be talking about it. All right. So, the first thing we're
going to look at the board um you did your board self-evaluation and that was the most important thing we talked about because you wanted to set goals before you really dug in and evaluated yourself as a board. You will see on this um self-evaluation, you were really hard on
yourselves. First, I want to give you a a pat on the back for doing the board self evaluation, for really reflecting on the work that you're doing together as a board in Washington Township for all the students, but you really really took
this seriously. Not every board does, but you did and you really really dug into it and were very critical of yourselves and realize that you have work to do. So, I just want to thank you for doing that. And that's going to lead us into what we're going to be doing tonight. So, first we're going to go
over the board self-evaluation, not in tremendous detail. You're going to be able to take this home with you and you're going to be able to look at it and digest it because after we set the board goals tonight, they're going to be your goals and they will be based upon the feedback that I received in your
board self evaluation. You're going to put together action plans in that green sheet. I gave you an example, and we talked about this last time. You don't want to set a board goal without creating an action plan. When I first started, I went to some board in town. We're like, Lori, we have really
great board goals, but we can do action plans. You come in, we want to put some plans together. So, after we come up with the draft of your board goals tonight together, I will put them together in a formal document. I'll share it with Julie. She will share it with all of you. And then however your
board functions, you want to decide together as a group which two folks or which three people want to work on each goal and start to draft action plans. This is not anything that I need to see, but this is something that you really want to do together in order to really
achieve your goal for the year. And you want to revisit this at your board meetings. I know some Julie was at the our leadership summit and some of the board members mentioned that they put those board goals and you might already do this so forgive me on their agenda. So they were constantly reminding the community here's all goals for the year.
Here's what we've done so far. You want to report out on it at every board meeting so the community is hearing what you're doing and what you're focusing on as a board. So this is critically important. I'll send you an electronic copy of this Julie with the draft and board goals. I'll send that to you
tomorrow. So you have it. So just put that to the side right now. So the board self-evaluation. I'm just going to give the board members a copy. There are areas that were redacted by your attorney because this is an evaluation of the board. It's not an evaluation of
each other. It's not an evaluation of I think I got numbers. Okay. So yeah, it is not an evaluation of any staff member. That's not what this is about. This is our new board self-evaluation. I mentioned this in our retreat part one.
This is totally different than the old board self-evaluation. It was put together by folks like yourself throughout the state that really wanted to do a better job of the board self-evaluation and also wanted to make sure that it matched the chief school administrator evaluation. So, you'll notice in the future that it really
matches up nicely. So, one of the things I want you to do is I want you to just go to the back where the charts are, the very very back of the of the document, because there's no way you're going to have time to read through all of this, but I want you to look at the charts in
the very back. Anything that is 2.5 or above, my opinion as a field service rep is good. You guys are really tough on yourselves. You know, you have work to do. So, if you look on the back of these at the bar graphs, there are areas back on the back
page that we need to work on. As I looked at it and I analyzed it for you ahead of time, I'm noticing there's a couple things that I want you to put in the back of your mind before when we get to that board goal setting. Vision, mission, goals. That's what we're doing tonight. Okay. Dr. Hibbs is prepared.
He's he and his cabinet worked on their district goals. So, after we talk briefly about our work evaluation, we're going to hear from Dr. Pimps and his cabinet because we talked about that in July that they need to come to you with those district goals. Those are the goals that the board and the
superintendent and his team work on together. And those are the goals that you evaluate your superintendent on. The board goals are your goals. Okay? They're your goals. So I'm noticing vision, mission, and goals. We're here and all of you realize that's something
we have to do. The other thing that really stood out for me was governance, team relationships, and accountability. I'm really glad that you saw that this is an area that you want to focus on, resource management, and oversight. You had Charlie come out tonight. I also I was really remiss. I'm sorry I didn't
introduce Michelle Kennedy as one of our senior FSR. Michelle, hi. Um Michelle came out tonight. We want you to know from New Jersey School Board, we are here to support you and you're, you know, you have a great district. You've got great kids, great staff. So, we want to make sure that we're moving forward in a in a really
great positive direction. The other area that stood out was resource management and oversight. And then community leadership I felt was something that you want to possibly focus on. On the page before that is another great graph that was put together. Um, I like
I like to look at bottom to see where the higher percentages are because at the very bottom these are the areas and some board members will say not observed because they just started. So if there's a particular indicator they might say you know I really have not observed that yet because I do on the board or I
haven't observed period. Also on the bottom above that is unsatisfactory. So the gray areas where you see 48% on division goals. I like to look here because that is an area that we are working on tonight and that's really
critically important to all of you. This is your feedback. In addition, policy was mentioned. So, we're going to touch on that tonight because some folks did mention policy, restarting a policy committee, making sure we stick to our policies and bylaws. That was something that was also mentioned. Governance,
team relationships, 45% in the unsatisfactory area. All right, that's something you have to focus on. 26% and resource management and oversight. So we'll dig in more with a little bit of the board's role in finance and community leadership 32%. So
we've got to get that trust back with the community. We're hearing them loud and clear. You're hearing them loud and clear. So Rory, what were some of the good things? And you're going to I want this is your homework. I want you to take this home. I want you to read it after
the sports games this evening or whatever else you're doing. But please take this seriously. read the details that each of your colleagues on the board wrote and that will really really help with your action plans. So, a couple of things that let's talk about the positive. Okay, just a couple of
positive things of strength that all of you agree on the board members at the table that come to this table um bring diverse knowledge, professional experience, and community connections. So, each of you value each other. You might not see that in action all the
time, but you do. Individual members demonstrate dedication to training, compliance, and meeting preparation. Okay, it's important to be prepared for meetings to show up for meetings is critically important. Commitment to student achievement and recognition of student staff accomplishments. This is
something Washington Township does really well. I've seen this in the past when I served as a superintendent in New Jersey. If you really take the time to re to really recognize your staff and your students, and that's a real great thing. Facilities and safety. Another
strength that seemed to come out very loud and clear was a strong facilities to support the student learning. School resource officers in every building. Every district would love to have that. They cannot afford it. So, I think that that is a a huge plus. Ensuring the health, safety, and security of all
students and staff. And then in the community engagement area, there is two big positives that popped up was open opportunities for public participation and recognition of students at meetings. And then board members support students academically and outside of school. All
right. So what I did is after I have Dr. Hibs report on district goals that he and the team put together and he wants to share with you and discuss with you. Um I put together a draft of some goals that came out of your self evaluation
when you think about the consent. Okay. So I'm going to pause here. I'm going to ask see if you have any questions before I pass the baton to Dr. D. anything at this point. [Applause] Okay,
I think the first iteration of this place in the late um and then as we all sat down and we just worked on these uh until we actually got to the spot that we talked
made sense. We uh we are all very very very we're all working very hard. We thought that these fit nicely with what we're doing and what we're trying to accomplish. If you if you take a look at the second goal, uh we did mention that
we have you know the external financial challenges which I think was a threat in our conversation with Charlie. Uh but the overarching uh would have been uh professional learning then budget safety and security student attendance because
we want to improve that as well and then facilities because we're going to go through what will be hopefully millions of dollars in energy savings projects this year. Uh I'm fairly confident that will come come to as long as we take the
necessary steps. This will come out in front of the team just to facilitate some district have a goal around student achievement because I'm worried that just seeing like you know parents so I
get back like where we where we score I I guess would we have should we have one around student achievement because I could pack benchmarks for my kids right it's like where the district is where the state is and many of them we are below the state average and um you know
I think we have to strive to get the state average or better ideally above state I'll table that I'll table set for you table set yeah so so the answer the short answer is yes but there's a I think a very good explanation as to why we did not pick
one uh and it really has to do with um with the state changing tests and we don't know what that's going to transition into because really that's the the main measure of our student achievement will come from the state test. Uh we're going to talk about QAC
uh and scores at at the next board meeting and I I I'm very proud of the work that we did uh in the instruction and program. We lost some points in math and ELA and science, but we really gained almost all the points for growth.
So we're we're really we're still climbing which is really amazing. But I'll let Gretch talk a little more about that. So originally we did start out with some esteemed achievement and uh we were surprised by the state's decision to
launch not only the pilot this fall for the new assessment which we did not have planned in our pacing guides and our instructional program which has been disruptive. Um but you know, we're moving forward with that with an infrastructure trial and then a
full-blown um assessment that we have to administer. But then the the new assessment in the spring is completely different. It's adaptive. So again, if kids score correctly, it's going to give them harder questions. And if they score
the the next question incorrectly, it's going to give them an easier question. Very much like how STAR and I Ready operates. So uh in looking at star um in comparing growth from last year to this year would be difficult too because we had last year was our first year of
implementation um sorry did I say star I ready um was our first year of implementation of i ready from star so in look we changed the administration dates we've changed how often we're going to administer example elementary is only going to be last year they only did two administrations we're going to
do three this year so in knowing that we had those challenges in terms of what we really look at as a metric in terms of how to garner growth. Um we thought hard about well we had a lot of changes and and like you said the data shows us that
we are growing but we spent a lot of time on a lot of professional development tools um digital tools for teachers uh strategic looms for teachers that we have coined small moves um big impact and we wanted to put our efforts
into ensuring professional development so that we can prepare ourselves for for this new test administration and what that looks like and and then you trying to meet those goals in the world. But that's not to say if you wanted to focus on something like state average
that we couldn't develop a goal that would that would work under that under that lens. We were looking at it more through the lens of, you know, if we wanted to see a 10% increase in ELA, we have no idea what this new test is going to look like. Gretchen did a great job of explaining it, but just the the
con of the adaptive test is that it usually pushes a student to their zone of proximal development and we don't know how that's going to match with anything they've ever done. So there are tests out there like NWA, uh, Achieve 3000. They are all adaptive, you know, you know, they're they're
adaptive assessments, but the state has never utilized one of these in their state assessment, and they haven't shared what it really will look like or the data will look like or how we can glean information from that data, which is why we didn't want to go into that
realm. But if you wanted to go into the realm, everybody, of the concept of looking at where we were, state average versus not state average with with increased percentages, we could certainly do that. and how we measure it. I think we could
debate that and come up with every formula, but I think end of the day I look at it as there's two things that we have two main things we have to do here, right? Keep the kids safe. I think knock on wood we're doing a good job of that, right? And two is maximize their
potential learning, right? Let each kid get the best education that they can. And if we don't have a goal around that, I think we're missing the mark. So I mean what we can do is we'll go back to the table and if you'd like we can come up with a goal that matches exactly the spirit of what we discussed here. Is
that okay? Yeah. I was just like I would love to see a student achievement goal but you drive how that looks given the dynamics of this changing task. I think for us to do it would be we don't have the knowledge of how that's going to play out but I think we should have a student
achievement goal. I agree completely with that and I think probably when we think about things that we agree on, Carol, you and I agree on the value or invalue of standardized testing as it relates to judging the students proficiency. If there was no such thing
as a standardized test, how would we evaluate students success? There has to be other ways that we can do that. So, I agree has there has to be an academic goal. Any other questions from the district?
Everybody feel good about those and it's going to go back achievement. How often are they updated goals updated? Yeah. I mean, is this for a period of a
year or is it longer? My experience with district goals is that they the academic year. So you would you would wherever you wherever you start you would start and you would finish by June 30. Now you might not have all the if you have like an
academic goal that talks about you know growth or something we have to measure. You might need to wait until all the state data is in and that comes back in pieces. It comes back first as a PDF and then it comes back with man manipulable data. So but but typically you just one
question I would be evaluated on the district goals. I would be evaluated on the CS my CSA goals or am I not getting that right? The district goals that we Yeah. So like my personal evaluation would be
the CSA goals. Correct. So the CSA goals are your personal and professional goals. Those are your own goals on the side, but the district goals are what you get evaluated. Okay. Yep. Okay. So it's and that's why it's important the board like speak now or forever hold your piece. I know we don't
have every board member here tonight but it's really important that the superintendent knows that you know they're going to go back to the drawing board with the one addition. The other goals sounds like at this point but please make sure you speak up that everybody's feeling good about the other
goals that have been laid out because that is what your superintendent gets evaluated on and that is what the community holds all of you accountable. not only just the board goals but the district goals. So instead and sorry girl I don't think we need to add six goals
because we just said student achievement but I'd like just from my brief review I think the student attendance goal is awesome. I think it that could be probably tied in with student achievement somehow. I don't know I don't know if it's good to have six goals. Is that too many? I don't know
what's too many or not. I mean, student attendance as a separate goal, maybe we could tie in student achievement within that goal. I don't know. Why don't we Can I throw out a maybe an alternative? I think that one's really super important to stand alone. What if
we just take off the the facilities one on itself and just allow that to flow through our our business committee and the entire board. That's fine. Is that okay? So, remove the facilities one, right? Okay. Everybody okay?
And we have homework. Pat, did you want to talk about that? I don't know where this fits in. And it's just something I'm passionate about. I know that we have trouble with morale in our district. And when I look at this, this is that thing. There was this big stack of papers that somebody
from the union presented a few months ago. I think his name is Steve. He gave a big pack of papers and that's what this is. And I didn't give it to you too. I have extra copies. So it's um getting involved with a labor management collaborative program. You go for
training. The board goes for training. Um it's administrators go for training. And what's nice about it is that when we're talking about facilities, I just don't see how at some point we're not going to need a referendum. And The
purpose of this is to get everybody on the same page. Be it the the um staff, the community even is involved, everyone to figure out what do we need as far as one day a referendum for facilities
would be. And through this training, it seems like they do a lot of things together as a group. I know that Dr. Hibbs walked around. I remember him saying that first summer when he looked at all the facilities and went through and found what he felt were needed, but
it would be probably another walk through with administrators, other administrator board members, your maintenance people, which were probably included on yours, maybe teachers or other staff, so that everybody's on the same page as far as what we need. I
wrote a lot down here. I didn't highlight on any of yours, but um it's things like the strategic planning for the future with those things, the walking around together. One of the first things they talked about was referendums with this person's getting
higher hired and research reveals that districts that follow this program not only solve issues faster, but demonstrate increased academic achievement for students. So, that's part of it. We sat in the same meetings
with the same people and decided as a group what we needed to do. Gave the beds out to the community for voting. Went through every avenue. It went through the staff. It went through community members. It was just a good thing to get everybody to work together.
It does take a lot of training, but I think it's something that we really need to consider. Can I just some food for thought? Two really great points. One of the as from the board goal perspective is community engagement both in and out of
the district. So the morale piece might be able to fall into that if the board so chooses because by working together with both of those in and out of the district that that could help as far as the facilities I have seen because we you know we're talking about having six
schools is a lot of district goals so kind of narrowing the focus your superintendent can have his internally focus on facilities types of things and types of schools. Is that because your tools? No. Does that make sense to you?
But I guess I said I'm real passionate. I didn't give it to you ahead of time. I meant to give it to you at committee meetings, but then most of them got cancelled and I forgot to bring it to the first one. So, if you all would think about reading it over, I have extra copies and it's something I think
as as a district would help us in many areas to consider this training. And and this is a great point for strategic planning for you guys to consider in the future. I'm not saying you have to go New Jersey school boards. I'd love for you to vote. I mean, there are other companies that do it, but we'd love for you to go with us because
things like this can be talked about at the table with folks both in the community and your community at large. So, feels like they're participating in the district and moving it forward. And some of those are really great ideas and things that we can absolutely talk about
tonight. The timing is probably pretty good, too, because with the energy audit, right, we're going to have a list of things that are going to get funded by the energy audit like HVAC's and probably windows and and then we're probably going to have a list of things that need
to be done, but it won't make sense to do them with the energy audit because it won't be a cost advantage. Those things you'd probably put to either a capital plan, right, that we would need or when does our debt get retired? 2030. Yeah. So, that's probably when you'd
need to plan for the referendum and start putting together what you would need for it, right? And I think with this, the point of it is to have the training before you're down to the line that you're working on a referendum. You have the training in place. You have some things in place going into that. if not this year,
within the next year or two to start the training. Any other thoughts about rules? Speak now. They're going to revise and um and thanks for being so understand
and you know the cabinet team will also keep you guys updated the districts throughout the year as well. All right. So, what I want to hand out everybody good? We're going to move now to board goals. So, I'm going to hand out just a comprehensive report and I already covered some of the the
the great things that you mentioned about, you know, your work as a board, but there are some a draft of some goals which we're going to talk about right now that um I've got some chart paper session. I'm going to give this to everybody because
And I do have some extra help me get ready. I really appreciate all your help behind the scenes. All right. So, these are the goals that came out of your viewation for your consideration.
They are just rough drafts. They're going to they need to be your goals. And as Carol did mention, you want to make sure you don't have too many goals. [Applause]
I probably should, but I think I might put the other ones. Let's just start with these and we'll There's quite a few right here. You know what? I'll All right.
So, take a look at that sheet right now. I just want you to read that to by yourself right now. Future goals. Just page two. Just read and digest that. And then I'm going to go over some of these goals that we have up here. So these are the areas that you stressed
in your own board self evaluation and Actually, there's three. So, I I do think this is doable, but I just want to show you the draft. So, for your consideration, Washington Township Board of Ed goals for 2025 2026. It's on a
yearly basis. Governance and ethics. All right, that could be your first goal. Develop and adhere to measurable board level goals distinct from district goals with clear accountability measures. strengthen governance relationships
through improved communication, ethics, compliance, and consistent meeting practices. These are things you can add to that action plan worksheet that I gave you. All right? So, this could be one of your action plans with a timeline. Reinforce policy oversight. This was
something that was stressed by many of you during the evaluation. Reinforce policy oversight by reinstating an active policy committee and ensuring consistent adherence to established policies. So that's the first one for your
consideration. Second one that came out and that's why Charlie came out and that's why Jannine and I are going to talk financial stewardship. Improve financial literacy and transparency by ensuring all members
understand the budget process and audit findings. This is something every single board needs to understand and it's so complicated. There are no dumb questions when it comes to understanding board finances. Reinstate a finance committee could be one of the action plans steps.
Strengthen fiscal oversight by improving board understanding of financial reports and budget processes. This all came from you guys together as a team. Reinstate a finance committee like the business committee. Do you have a finance committee? A
separate finance committee that was mentioned in a business committee. So, do you want me to leave this here? Should I put business committee? I mean, maybe it would be more coming up with a
maybe we have one, but if I'm thinking critically about it, it's ad hoc, right? like from month to month what we cover in that is usually just like the things that you guys bring up like oh here's the things that we need approved and things like that versus having a actual structured
calendar of a business in January we're going to talk about this and in February we're going to talk about that there are districts that have formal finance or or standalone items that are or not standalone sorry or consistent items
that you that are fiscal that you can just repeat and have as broad topics that we talk about every time. You can do that as well. Yeah. Also, if you look at um you have a copy of the board calendar sample in there. I've talked about that many times. If we
were to come up with a board calendar and that could even go under the first part as as how you're showing that you're doing it or whatever, but it would also transfer into then the financial committee would know what benchmarks you want to have throughout
the year. I'm just going to write things as you guys wrote things out. I like that. I was I was just going to say like in our business committee a lot of times you know obviously during the budget process we're talking a lot about that but a lot of the meetings is trying
to make sure everyone understands the action items for the upcoming meeting what's being approved now what the requirements are but if we have some kind of calendar where we can work certain topics certain months and then I could even just do like you know even if
it's like 15 or 20 minutes each time like a mini like training like we're going to go over um you know the required maintenance budget tonight and next time we're going to like talk about special revenue fund or whatever and just incorporate something into each
meeting that takes a minimal amount of time. Yeah. or even something too like in the school board's finance training module there's like here's the five or seven things you should look at each month
relative to the treasury report and all those types of things like maybe just having those laid out you know so then we could discuss them monthly and then the rest of the board would get those as part of the business committee's notes so we're feeding everybody those
exact fact things that schoolboard says we should be looking at and we have a training on how to understand it. Okay. And that will create even greater transparency and trust in the community. Could you even turn key it the ones who are on the business committee that
sometime before the next meeting a time that we could come to either talk to you or you or any of you that are on there because sometimes when you read it to me this is really important. We all need to understand it. So maybe some of a something on the calendar for a turnkey
time where we don't have a majority here. We don't have a quorum, but that we could learn more about it. Those who aren't on the committee. You could always come in and talk always. Yeah. To a member I'm sorry. A member could go into other committees
too just to help everybody. And one of the things I want the board to know is the main goal for tonight is to come up with the broad goals. I put a things in here that you had mentioned already and we'll add whatever. But the action steps, you're going to look at
that evaluation very very carefully. When you read that thoroughly, you will come up with some other action steps that you might want to add to that action template that fits underneath the broad goal if you're happy with those broad goals. All right? So, it'll be a
work in progress. You want to have maybe a small group, however you work, work on one of the goals with the action and then share it amongst yourselves. So everybody on the board is feeling very confident about it, comfortable, and then of course share it with the cabinet so they can support your
underneath too. Scott, would it be appropriate to put a bullet that mentioned quantify what that looks like? Does that make sense? So I think I think it's a great idea. We just want to be clear about what you what information you want
on that standing so we give you exactly what you want. Does that make sense as a Lauri as a just as a bullet? Yeah, we'll just put that down there for consideration. Perfect. Yeah. So, because I'll put this all together as a draft so the information Yeah. And I'm open to the group coming
up with it. What I'll do is maybe send to you uh the notes I took when I took the finance training of the the things that you should look at as a board member each month and you guys can look at that. Yeah, whatever you want to
what what do you is a the finance committee there is that different than what a business committee is? Want to make sure you understand where you're going with the finance committee. What came up in the board evaluation this was mentioned a couple times by a couple members. So you had mentioned
that you have right now what's what's your committ a business committee perhaps I'm not sure I want to hear from you and it might not some folks might not be here but there are districts that have a standing finance committee that
includes community members and a board member or two not a forum and staff members that meet every single month and talk about different topics that fall into that calendar that talking about, but that's for your consideration.
That's something that you can think about or continue with what you're doing right now. We had an ad hoc committee, but it was um more tailored to people in the business community, but I like the idea of adding a diverse
group even with employees, community members, definitely some of the from the business background to have an adop. very fortunate just like you were fortunate to have Jamie. I was very fortunate to have an excellent business administrator when I was in New York State and we had a formal finance committee and Victor could not have
functioned without that group and it really created a lot of trust and understanding by folks not only in the community but outside the community. So they knew that there was oversight beyond just the world. So it's something that you you know it's up to you guys
but I just interject is that common like Have you seen districts? I've seen I've seen How Town Township have that when I worked in How Township. West Windsor Plains Barrel have that. So, some districts do, some do not. Michelle, you want to speak to that? Well, I I just would think you want to
look at your bylaws because your bylaws usually dictate what your committees are made of. So, I mean, I think it's a good idea if it fits into what your bylaws say. I'm going to say check your bylaws.
Thank you, Michelle. We had a committee similar to that. We call it the budget committee task force, community task force. And we had but and we had a charter that was written about how we selected the members and the criteria
and our lawyer looked it over and right and uh and we made sure that that fit with the bylaw. So, we could probably do something similar here and maybe just look at the goal or what we're having that committee try to accomplish because this one was more on trying to come up with revenue,
generating ideas and things of that nature. So, we could make it a little bit more broad of community knowledge of the budget process and input or something like that. Thanks, Michelle. Third one, this was really stood out.
Community leadership, right? Get into that trust factor. Expand community engagement through diverse communication channels, earlier budget planning, and greater presence at school and community events. And then there was a few action items that I wanted just to put in here for you guys to consider, but of course,
you're putting the plans together. Uh promote active community leadership through transparent communication, stakeholder inclusion, and pres presence at district events. that was mentioned of course here and here by several of you begin to create trust both within
the school community and the Washington township community we can say at large involve stakeholders from the school community and Washington township community in creating a strategic plan a fiveyear roadmap for the district so you can
so thoughts I had written down um attendance at school activities goal. It doesn't have to be separate, but with board members agreeing to attend a
certain number a year, I don't know what the number would be. We'd have to talk about that because I know I'm guilty of that. A lot of you are better than at that than I am, but I think it's important that we do commit to attending some and then reporting back on them at board meetings. And I also have written
down um now that we are almost I guess ready with the computer turnover that we maybe have a few board members work on updating our website for the board the school board website. It can have a lot
more information than what we give. I know that you knew of things Dr. that where you were before that explained what a a board member was and what the goals were and just different little things that might make it more understandable to the public as to what
we really can and cannot do and and also to your point but getting everybody involved in the community in that's just my small I think something that's important to
clarify is what is considered forum in the previous generation of my being on the board. We routinely got together for you know dinner one time everyone for dinner we used to have a Christmas party we would do those social things
and then also we went to community events and there were more than five of us there at graduation more than five of us right hopefully so but I I learned that there's like a real hesitancy to have forum and so can you just clarify for once and for all that it's okay for
us all to be in the same room as long as we're not talking about board business correct so and I'm going to let Michelle jump in here as well but there are certain situations where you have to check with your solicitor where you have to be very careful so if everyone's showing up for
a particular event um you know you really need to make sure that that might need to be advertised you really need to be your solicitor for that. There's a total of nine board members which five is a form. Um yeah, definitely check with your solicitor. But, you know, I I
served for 18 years and I mean sometimes you can't control, you know, that you're all going to be in the same place. But you just have to be mindful that you cannot, you know, congregate together and talk about more business because if you do that, now you're in violation of
public meeting, you know, um I know where there's educational events, right? Like if your county meeting associations, the entire board can be there, but you cannot talk about board. So, like if it was back to school night,
five of them have back to school night, right? But just don't congregate. Yeah. We've always talked about town halls and that's one of the things that people like that we can't all go and we can up and I think that is something where it should be like well we have
three town halls and three people voted all three like that that's probably I just feel like I just wanted you to clarify that because a big part of the community leadership is you really it's the perception right so if you see
a former war there disperse like don't huddle up together because it's that perception that could lead into perception. There are no secrets. Everybody knows what's going on. You are you know ambassadors to the community.
So you have you have to hold yourselves to a higher standard because if you don't do that the whole district is going to fall apart. You are models for the students for the staff. So you got, you know, all those things. So when you do get in a situation, Michelle says,
you know, just be very very careful. So what do you what are your thoughts? These are these are the goals that you put together. These are the ideas that you put together that really really stood out. Are you happy with that? I will I can
put I will put together a draft for you all of you to review. I'll send it to Julie. She'll share it with all of you. You can word sniff it any way you want. This is a very very rough draft of goals. And then if you're happy with the word smithing together, you don't have to
share. You don't have to give it back to me. Then you want to definitely do that. I really strongly suggest that digest I think three is three is manageable. I like three and I like that none of
them really it has to be clear that you know overlap what an administrator would do. So developing two measurable goals is obviously something that the board would do the administration that um improve financial literacy and transparency
all members understand the budget process. Maybe that needs to say something like through professional development through our own professional development or something like that that is appropriate for us. Um and I think community the way the community leadership fund is raised too community
engagement communication channels I mean that's money right there. Um earlier budget planning and greater presence at school and community events. Yeah. I mean you don't want to be like calling Mike Dilio and say send this out
or send you know or calling our communications person and asking them to to do work for us. So um I don't know about the part with communication channels there. I mean that seems more of an administrative role especially when you know there's less administration and they have more
work to do. Um but everything else I think seems appropriate to me. Would you would you work on that five-year roadmap um for budget planning under finances or is would that go someplace else? I mean
I know that the public talks about the fact that we need a strategic plan for the future. Uh but we were calling it I think the man that was here like a road map or one of said it should be a road map. Yeah. Charlie was really really a good point was that you don't know what's
going to happen in your finances. But when you do have a strategic plan and of course Janine is going to be looking at that, Dr. H is going to be looking at that. But when you have a strategic plan, you decide both in and out of duty with that steering committee
where we want to what do we want to focus on? So what do you want to focus on under? So that helps to guide you, but that of course doesn't take away the work of the business office and making sure that they're working with the board separately.
Could that go along with a finance committee if we decided to do that or not? Absolutely. You think that could be something the finance committee would look at your perspective? So trustees, what do you think? You're good. So, this is a rough draft.
I'll put it together for Julie. I'll get it to you tomorrow. And um I'll send you the electronic copy of the action planning sheet. And don't hesitate if there's anything I can do
before you do it. Good. All right. And you know, I'm so proud of you. You foundations. These are a lot better than the other ones we put together. These are great. So, great job. All right. Thanks, I'm going to take a picture. I can leave
these here with you. I was concerned that we're how many weeks from the election and we're doing these plans and we don't even know who's going to be sitting here. But to me, these are broad enough that it doesn't matter who's sitting here. We don't have to restart the process with a new board,
which I think is excellent. I guess one other thing while you're working with school boards on training and scheduling um I think the finance is good. I think we it also will be good to redo ethics again when the new board's here. So like
scheduling that for January as well or even for reorg ethics training again you know so that the new board start out the year with the ethics refresher training. I think the role of the superintendent versus board is a training session that
we need to schedule maybe in February of next year. I think we need to start scheduling stuff because if not it doesn't get done. I don't know. You might that's something that could probably be reviewed throughout the year. I mean I won't be here but I'm just saying like I just think that like to reinforce I think
especially as a new board member oftent times you don't know. you might say something and yet that's really not your role, right? But you don't know that, right? So, I just think that like to Scott's point, you know, I just I think to take advantage of New Jersey school boards, I
hope we do for strategic planning because I think it's really important. Um, I have just I'm not going to say concern, but just to get into a little bit of the weeds of it, I have concerns because if some of this falls back on administration like website and
different things, I think that we're asking them right now to do more with less. So, I just think just to be mindful of what we can cherrypick out that drives those priorities to make sure we get them done. That's critical. I've been talking about website forever, so I agree with it. But I'm just saying
I think now where we are like kind of the state of the affairs, so to speak, you know what I mean? Like everyone were kind of pretty slim, you know what I mean? So just to make sure that we're not overt taxing and staying to priorities of student achievement, safety, like those things that we talked
about. I think that's going to be important. Can I have a Just real quick, real quick. Three Rs. Um, so if you have newly elected board members, uh, when is your three Rs? There's a a program that's called three
Rs. It's early November and December, roles, responsibilities, and resources. So, this is a program for new board members and not so new board members and it's going to be held at your county school boards association meeting. Washington,
well, in November you're you're in Washington Township, but you guys did send something out um for people that are running for the board and I shared it with all the people running for the board and I think like four of them went. Yeah. Well, that was so did that. Yeah. So, this is for when you're elected,
the three Rs after election. Whatever it was that you offered for people running, I forget what it was called. Great idea. But three Rs, if if anyone is newly elected or, you know, elected and not so new, come to this three Rs. It's a lot
of I just heard somebody talking about the difference between the board and the superintendent. That's all in this program. So have them come listen so when they come to the table in January they've heard it right you know Michelle just want to mention I
think Julian we have a HR now program at school boards and school boards where boards can reach out to get assistance with human resources that Dr. mentioned it was mentioned at the county meeting that it was supposed to be like the um you know how Charlie was the like VA res
like a VA hotline you could callum that We're going to have that for human resources. We have a human resources person currently. But I don't know if that information is I mean like to to support your Yeah. No, we do. We're going to have an HR function like just like Charlie on,
you know, BSI, but I don't know if that information that number is available. The person is available yet like I haven't. Oh yeah. Okay. And I believe picking up on Yeah. So So the name and the number and all that information is not available yet, but it is coming at HRP. So that
would be helpful for the superintendent to wear the multiple hats. Quick quick question on that and that if whether it would be a resource that would be available to us. I know one of the things that we struggle with is um non-unit salaries and getting market
data, right? We always talk about is there market data available and is that something that school boards might be able to provide you know market data on like uh what a you know
uh website administrator salary might be or any any other I don't know we'll have to find out I know we have the superintendent salary yeah but that would be helpful like if that's something that you guys are able to compile because just having market data Yeah, as board members,
we're just kind of looks good and we're going based off like what cost of living adjustments are, but um we can convey that to Lauren in the conversation we lining up. How's that? Yeah, we can. I mean, I think the more market data and benchmark data we can have as board
members, the better informed we are about the decisions we're making. So, the last thing I want to say is continue to do great work for the beautiful children of Washington. They need more than ever. So, thank you for Thank you so much.
Motion to move. Second.