being videotaped anyone not wishing to be seen on television may be excused please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance States indivisible andice mad president before we go any further I'd like to put a motion on the
floor if you don't mind sure I'd like to put a motion on the floor to suspend the superintendent with a appending further board action revise your motion read what you have there I thinked to read
that bottom the board hereby resolves to place Dr Eric hibs on admin Le pending further action of the board can I have a second can I have a second any discussion I have discussion
okay I'm G to be very careful with my words um the vote tonight is definitely going to be symbolic um of a lot of things and um I hope that the board members voting take it very seriously and they also make sure that they
realize they're doing in terms of causing any potential liability in the future that's all thank you roll call Mrs Bloom yes Miss
Clancy no Miss Chilla no Mrs Hardon no Mr Serrano
yes Mr Ross Yes Mrs Baker yes Miss kazmo yes motion carries Madam president I'd like to put another motion on the floor the board
hereby approves grum Gerber to serve as the Acting Superintendent of Schools effective immediately through 25th 2005 question second you accept that um any discussion
second seeing none roll call Miss Clancy I'm going to abstain because of my no vote for the prior one this is Chill um I'm going to make a quick comment this is absolutely nothing about against scratching because I think
you're amazing but I'm going to abstain because I voted no in the earlier vote um and I concur with what Carol just said Mrs Haron abstain Mr Serrano
yes Mr Ross Yes M Baker yes Miss Bloom yes Miss Kazo yes motion carries Gretchen if you could come up okay thank you um we have a
presentation we the Autism Awareness presentation was pushed Janine so next okay um so we'll have the hogy sale presentation with Miss Heather Fin and Miss Tiffany Orel just do your thing come on out
we ring not yet not yet all right good evening my name is Heather Finn I'm a sixth and e8th grade ELA teacher at Bunker Hill Middle School as well as the interact adviser at Bunker Hill this year I had the honor and privilege of stepping up and taking on a larger role for the hogi sale I want to thank Ron
lucarini for creating this event years ago students planted the seed and Ron ran with it to see this event Blossom and come to life Charlie Dow and Teresa sapinero and the Washington Township Education Foundation or WTF have thankfully kept their tradition going year after year and even though we miss
Charlie's presence this year we sure hope we made him proud this is one event that takes a village in order to be successful and unless you're involved you don't truly know what an undertaking this endeavor is with that being said I stand before you tonight to express our iment gratitude on behalf of everyone
involved in the 31st Annual help enhance hogi sale it is an honor to be a part of such a dedicated and unwavering community and to witness the incredible support that's helped us make this event an incredible success it is all of you that truly make this possible first I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to
the administration for your commitment to this cause your leadership encouragement and hard work behind the seeds scenes have made us all this possible for the planning stages to the day of the event your efforts are what ow us to continue this important tradition year after year this year we
had more support than ever from our Administration as well as Town Council Members mayor delpia proudly made hogies that morning and Mr Del barell attended planning meetings to assist with coordinating things Mr dellia we would not have been successful without your community outreach I know this has
become one of your favorite events and I'm proud and happy to see you come every year and dive in wherever needed you never hesitate to be of assistance Dr hibs it was a pleasure to see you out and about this year and also assisting wherever possible you played many roles this year and it did not go unnoticed
thank you to the board members and to the other employees at Central that also never hesitate to be a key player and what makes our community amazing thank you to Jennifer Mullen head of food services for her support and assistance and finding room to store supplies and help with ordering supplies as well as being a vital part of the day of the
various other administrators and staff members throughout the district that Embrace this event year after year we thank you and value your dedication we have so many unsung heroes in this district and I'd like to highlight one of them Jeff Walter is a true gem to this District I don't think that many
people know how amazing he truly is between Thanksgiving cheer and the hogy sale he always drops whatever he's doing at any given moment and comes to our rescue he's an absolute treasure and we thank him for doing so much behind the scenes for these events that bring our community together and the fact that his
men were willing to donate their time the day of Fred algra and Scott Reed speaks volumes to the community our parents friends donors and supporters thank you for showing up in such an enormous way your participation whether by purchasing hogies donating money and
supplies volunteering your time or spreading the word plays a vital role in making the sale more than just a fundraiser it makes it a symbol of how we come together to support those among us who need it most local businesses provided roles produce gift cards for
our pre-order sales bags for the hogies stickers to be placed on the rappers and gave generous monetary donations so that this could all be possible these businesses include lios Litman Farms rotary Exon Corporation dollars for doers on behalf of Mr Serrano and Beacon
firefighters and policemen volunteer their time and helped make hogies slice lettuce and direct community members picking up the puring hogies George Hazelton that gave his time to DJ and motivate the students while making the hogies our shifts of people that came to
cut meat and hang out on a Friday night our schools such as herel and bells they raised together to collect money to support the cause as well I'd be remiss if I did not mention our incredible students that made the hogis and also excitedly sold hogies at intersections
and the cold and wind as well as our hogi sale committee at the heart of the entire event wtef president Tiffany Orel wtef VP Heather Sullivan Carol Chilla interact advisers mattity kubic Amanda D quisto and Amy lasso High School
advisers and teachers di etor Kevin mcnam Candace morz Natalie Taylor as well as Mike dilio and Teresa sanero we are an amazing team and I'm so proud of all we've accomplished this year I know I'm forgetting to thank people as this is such a huge undertaking with so many moving Parts
but please know we are forever grateful for your key part in bringing our community together and helping those in need the event isn't just about hogies it's about people it's about lifting up our fellow community members her fighting serious illnesses and struggling with mounting medical bills a
few of these recipients include Jennifer heraus Jennifer is a Washington Township res resident that's been diagnosed with a brain tumor she has twins currently attending Orchard Valley Middle School proceeds from the hogi sale will help with her mounting medical bills Monica Brinkman another Washington Township
Resident was diagnosed with Stage for colon and liver cancer she has four children that currently attend the high school uh Bunker Hill and a preschool son Jordan that's been struggling with severe medical issues since his birth 3 years ago respecting privacy there are
so many others including many young ones within our district that have devastating situations severe medical diagnosis and mounting medical bills at Birches alone we have three that are currently struggling unfortunately our number continues to grow every year but this year we'll be helping between eight
and 11 of our beloved Township residents thanks to your generosity were able to provide much needed relief to those individuals and their families easing some of the burden they face during these difficult times as we celebrate this year of the helping hand hogi sale let us remember that it's not just a
fundraiser it's REM reminder of the compassion and care we have for one another this year we raised $ 37,5 155 this will will get divided and dispersed to our Beloved Community members currently struggling the event
represents the heart of our community and we cannot do without each and every one of you if you're still ever interested in helping and want to support those in need that struggle year round you can always reach out I can't say it enough but we thank you for your support your contributions are truly making a difference and together we're
helping to bring hope to those who need it most and light in their darkest of hours we look forward to another year of coming together making a difference and showing the strength of Washington Township thank you [Applause]
thank you so much that's a record in recent history since Co things have gone oh did you want to say something I just want to I think Heather's very much an unsung hero I think I'd like to give her a round of applause too sees everything to that hogy sale
so thank you I'm sorry Heather thank you thank you um Janine are you ready now to do yeah we're just going switch seat okay we're going to tonight is we're going to be presented with the budget um and it's later under on the agenda under Finance but Janine's
going to present it we'll take questions after that and then we'll vote on it later so she's going to present the budget for next year she just needs a second talk up her computer you need we have that on our computer
Tom no we have no can make a motion at that time to go back J question ni question jine um will will this presentation be on our website and people access this on our website by
tomorrow yeah you can put on the website okay thank you for sure okay um hi everyone um we're going to do the tenative budget presentation this is for the 2526 budget um and I'll go through the timeline of um where we
are in this process so um just a quick agenda we were uh going to open up and talk about some of the great things um happening in Township um talk about challenges that we face with this budget and some in years past present some budget
information a review of the budget cuts uh a little discussion on state aid because that's a very important piece um the tax impact and then what's next in the process um so again I I put together this with somebody else
so I'm going to do my best with the parts that I wasn't supposed to take um so we we obviously wanted to open up budget discussions are hard in times like these and over the past couple of years CU we faced a lot of C but we
always want to focus on the good in Township so obviously we have a lot of great programs we have a lot of great kids a lot of great faculty and staff um and anytime that we um sit down and do
budgeting which we actually start the process back in October November we always try administratively to keep as many programs intact and just you know try to minim imize the effect of our
students um so although there's a lot of cuts across the board we did um maintain all the programs that we currently have for students um so so with that um I'll just get right into it so um
challenges of the budget S2 we've been talking about for a number of years this is um the state aid funding formula where state aid would shifted from some districts to another we were on the
short end of the S2 it was a 7-year phase in and we lost money each year um 2425 was the final year for this and we were hoping for some changes to the funding formula in 2526 um there were some changes that I
can get into unfortunately we still ended up losing this year there was a cap on how much they could take from a district and it was 3% of the total and we lost the full 3% so since the 20156
school year we've lost over $7 million in state aid um another issue that we have when you look at our state aid notice and how it's calculated for our district our budget has consistently been over over adequacy which means um
we're spending more than um the state's calculation of what an adequate budget is so you can look at it as we have too much funding or which means we're spending more um the formula does consider things
like student enrollment um and special programs also the local tax contribution so if you look at our Equalization Aid is what has been reduced me much of that is because our budget has been at over adequacy and
because according to the state standards our community should be paying more we're not paying our local fair share um so just moving on to the next slide that's where I started talking about it um on the one change that they did make
this year when they figure out the local fair share it's based on your um ratables in town your the equalized valuation and it's also based on your Town's income so this year they averaged
they did a three-year average because there were districts were just um kind of complaining because when you're only basing it off of one year sometimes there's bigger swings and it's hard to plan so there was a three-year average
however our ratables and our community income has been going up so again according to our um state aid notice our residents are not paying their local fair share our tax levy in this budget
that you'll be seeing is approximately $100 million and according to the state's calculation our community's fair share is approximately $112 million so these two concepts put
together does set us apart from other districts a lot of the districts that that you hear about and they're are advocating and have been losing money year after year are also under adequacy we have you know both not going in our
favor um just some challenges with the budget is we have projected Revenue decreases so the first bullet you see there is the amount of state aid we lost this year so um over $1.3 million um tuition is a budgeted and and
just to explain obviously with a School District budget it has to be balanced so you have to project your Revenue out and then that's all your Appropriations can be so this really drives um the budget so anytime you have projected Revenue
decreases and you have them year after year but you have um you know outof control increases on the expense side especially ones that are uh outside of your control um it makes for a challenging budget every single year so
also for projected Revenue we're uh projecting a decrease in our Revenue tuition of $50,000 that is just based on history of of what we have in the district that is students that come here and pay tuition it can also be students that are
temporarily homeless from other districts but the other district is financially responsible to us um our last year uh for for 23 24 so the last final year that we have
closed out we were under our um Revenue estimation which isn't good so you know if you if you budget a certain amount and you don't realize that it eats into the Surplus you have in the past we've used that as a revenue source so that's
why you have to be super careful um with budgeting uh also our semi- reimbursement program that is a small stream of Revenue that we're allowed to file for reimbursement for certain services that we provide to um special
education students that are Medicaid eligible the state gives us this number to Budget we can't really pick and choose um and it's based on the count of students that they have according to their records and also the estimated
reimbursement rates and what we're going to be able to be reimbursed for so this was a significant decrease of 190,000 um I I don't have my notes right here but the um budget for last year was
just over $200,000 so pretty much the whole thing is going away um extraordinary Aid this is another um Revenue stream it's we have to spend and then get reimbursed later so you also have to be careful budgeting this this is where we can apply for
reimbursement for certain um special education students who have they have to be we have to spend over a certain dollar amount for them so we educate them all year and then it sometime in May we fill out an application and apply
for reimbursement over the years this the state's kind of been up and down which how much of this they fund we never get the full um amount that we apply for we we apply for all the costs that are attributed to this these students but we
never get the full percentage um we are remaining flat however we did we have gotten less and less over the years and we're a little under our Revenue projection for 23 24 um also Surplus is affecting this budget we no longer have the excess
Surplus and what that is is um school districts are allowed to keep a certain percentage as like an emergency type um pot of money anything over and above that is considered excess and we have to use it as a budgeted Revenue item so in
closing out our 2324 year we do not have any excess left so the other part of the 10 and a so I have up there it's a decrease of $10.5 million over $6 million is the excess
the other part of it is really what we are projecting that we may or may not not have at the end of the year and it's also part of that unassigned that you really don't want to be budgeting so um we have less Surplus the budget for this
year um and all of these factors so these declines in Revenue coupled with you know um contractual increases and increases on the appropriation side um contributed to a pretty big budgetary gap that we
had to close over the past several months um we only have a you projected Revenue increases so our tax levy 2% is $1.9 million that's what we're proposing in this budget when I get to the next slide um you'll understand why um we're
also budgeting um increase in Gate receipts for athletic events we've talked as a board a couple of times about um beginning we took a little break from doing that when when Co came about so we're going to be charging for
sporting events again um we're also going to put in um play pay to play for athletic events so we did the best we could with this budget based on the number of participants um you know districts what we've gotten from other
districts is that it does cause a decline in participation and we also have to consider our um students that qualify for free and reduced launch so you know if you look at the major areas of Revenue even if we didn't
have those other in decreases in Surplus and other areas the net and this has been our problem for for all these years that we've been losing state aid the the difference between our tax levy increase and our state aid decrease is only
$659,000 so you can imagine for a budget our size it's just not enough money to cover um you know just contractual increases let alone um um everything else that's spiking again for projected Revenue
increases just again the loss of surplus um and you know we don't school districts are limited for what you can raise yourselves we're looking into things like more shared services and that kind of thing but nothing that
would close a hole that is that large um again I I did focus on this the loss of surplus Surplus is the excess revenue and unspent Appropriations that roll from year to year um we've had over
all the years that we've lost money we've had significant reductions to all of our like non-staff items so you if you go through the other expense area of the budget and you keep reducing and reducing and reducing what happens is a large a larger portion of that budget
ends up being spent so you have less in Surplus um at the end of each year and that's been um a concern um it was a concern last year when you know we we were adding back the salary and benefit line items that were initially reduced because um accounts
like that obviously they're going to be pretty much um 100% um spent and our budget um if you look at the percentages over 73% of our budget is um salaries and benefits so
there's not a whole lot of other areas where we can um you know go through and and again in in the other percent smaller percentage there's things like transportation and tuition for out a district students so you know just areas
of the budget where you really can't cut um and then again um Rising costs in all areas contribute to this issue so you know over the years we've talked about different areas like health benefits and um just you know parts for maintenance
just pretty much everything we have price increases um here's a couple more percentages these are kind of frequent flyers up here when we talk about it um health benefits has been up over the past um couple of years we do bid this
out just so everybody knows to try to get the most competitive pricing for our district these are the um percentages that were worked into this budget um I'm hoping to get final number numbers in the near future and and you know
hopefully it'll come down at least a little bit for us um contractual increases tuition for out of District students that percentage right there is the percentage just in that budget area for us um energy we're being told to
increase a 20 to I'm sorry to budget a 25% increase in in electricity um there's been Buzz about that throughout the state um again I was just trying to list some areas of the budget where we saw increases that were
notable but we really cut it as much as we possibly could supports and supplies for school buses just repairs and maintenance and um some areas in technology um other issues and concerns we had similar issues over the past
couple of years in putting these difficult budgets together we do not have any capital projects budget budgeted that's a concern for a district our size especially because we have um some aging buildings we have not budgeted for any F furniture replacement
this year which sometimes we do out of the regular budget sometimes we do that out of our lease um we don't have any equipment or technology replacement budgeted other than student devices in grade three um I think if if you were saw our
budget presentation last year and have been coming to our meetings you know that we're we switched to Google and we're transitioning um to Chromebook so there was the original plan was to phase in two other grade levels onto the Chromebooks we just were not able to do
that so we are purchasing them through our lease for grade three only and that's mainly because they're coming up from the second grade and in second grade they use iPads so they transition to Chromebooks and get used to work working
with them since they're required to do testing corre correct they're required to do testing on yeah on the chome books um and also um we did not replenish Surplus or capital reserve during the 23 24 school year again
that's the most recent year that we're fully closed out um so that that's always a concern um in the past with you know the way the the decreases were we were still able to put a little bit in capital reserve for some of our projects
and replenish that Surplus so you have that recurring Revenue item when we were not able to do that so that's another area of concern um and then you know the current state I've I talked about a couple of these things but a lot of the cuts in
the past have been things like vacant positions cutting through attrition supplies removing TR capital projects and resources and there's just you know there's there's no other areas to reduce um and and again it does contribute to
our um decline in Surplus so this year's budget as you know we do this every year but just to point it out so we um as I said we start the process in October November we have budget managers throughout the dis District who
manage certain accounts um they put together their budget with details we have Financial software that um for every account there's line item details and what we do is we just sit with each person and we go through every line and
we look at um each individual item as well as what we spent over the past five or so years um in that particular line item and just um pretty much went through every line item um this budget
because of the the dollar amount we had to close as in last year's budget as well we did have to make cuts and eliminations across the district um but again our goal was just to try to focus on the students learning and um try not
to cut completely cut any student programs um just to go cover some of the areas of the reduction so we have reductions in staff and or um time like hour reductions across the entire District um in certificated staff areas
administrative and non-unit support staff and and administrative support staff um when you look at our um certificated staff reductions we did our best not to affect class size um because the certificated staff is kind of spread
out among all the levels elementary middle and high school and all the subjects we um don't feel that our class size will be um substantially impacted we also have um just some other areas where we did the best we could to
reduce is in for transportation over the years we've the past couple years at least we've been able to build back up our um staff and bring out of District routes back in housee which is cheaper especially these
days with um some of the contractor prices and combining routs where we can also working um um with other districts in the county or even districts who may or may not have students that we could pick up on the
way to an outof District placement we're trying to do that to reduce costs not only for us but for for others as well um the lease normally we do a lease purchase and it's a 5-year lease purchase and we put curriculum adoption
that's where we do um equipment replacement or device replacement that's where we usually do furniture and things like that um and then when we do the 5-year lease the only part of that that affects the current budget is the first
Year's payment on it so it's basically like one5 of what our lease is has to be budget in the current year so we reduced it as much as we can and only left a handful of items that were absolutely necessary that I have a slide on that um
we also this budget is has the includes the elimination of Middle School sports um and also gymnastics diving and golf there's a reduction in co-curriculars at all levels and then also initial budgets that were submitted by all the budget
managers I were was referencing were actually submitted with a decrease um right out of the gate um included we always want to just focus on what is still included we still have our preschool and kindergarten programs in we're hearing from other
districts that they're reducing back to half day and then when you do that you have to cut preschool uh thankfully we're not doing that so preschool and kindergarten remain intact we're still working on our curriculum adoption and sticking to our
Cycles the best we can our high schoolies are remaining intact while there might be you know one or two less courses involved theem remain intact we also um if you remember
from the 2425 budget we had um our ESP and bsp programs were out of District to um the on budsman program in this current budget we brought those back in house and we're keeping that those in
house so those programs are budgeted and then we're also you know continuing with our uh Google and Chromebook transition to the best that we can um this is the this is the lease so basic um data and assessment resources
that the district has committed to over the past couple of years there's two uh technology infrastructure projects that are critical and we actually delayed them already in in previous budgets um
Elementary High School Ela curriculum adoption mostly Elementary small portion of high school um small portion of high school science curriculum adoption um we have some purchase of school buses in there uh we have a for our school buses
we have a replacement cycle because you're only allowed to keep them on the road for so many years so we replace the ones that can no longer operate um and then obviously I talked before about our student devices for grade three
only this is our state aid history just over the past I guess however many years I could fit on there nine I think it is so 7.7 over the past 5 years um so if you look at the
categories here um what I could point out is that the top two categories for a number of years remained the same primarily the same this is kind of where the state was um free
the the state aid for a lot of people but the equalization Aid that third category down that's the category that we've been losing from that's where they figure out based on our adequacy budget and whether our community is paying our local fair share um that's what gets
reduced now if you look at um the top two categories for 2526 the state did um begin to rely on more on our actual student count in those categories so the number of students that we're
transporting as well as the number of our special education students um that's something that the state promised so that's good news that they're doing that um so we were happy to see that um unfortunately because of the
equalization Aid again we're losing a significant portion because of those two factors that I mentioned um and the only reason why we didn't lose more is because the state did promise to cap what districts could lose to 3% of the
overall so um I just wanted to point that out you that's kind of um and and then then the the fourth one down is security Aid that's another one where um I can't remember the amount now but they um gave an additional amount per student
um for security purposes um so that's our state aid um this is the recommended tax levy so this budget we are recommending a 2% tax levy increase that's the maximum that we're allowed to do as a school district
um so basically there's a 2% cap on the tax levy there are certain adjustments that districts can take and we've taken in the past um two of them are for enrollment and for Health Care increases this year we don't qualify for either of
those um basically our health care although it's gone up because of reductions we have um we do we we do not qualify for that we also don't have any banked cap available coming from previous years what banked
cap is is um if you don't go up to the full amount you you're allowed to in your tax levy the amount that you didn't add gets roll can can be carried forward for up to 3 years and you can use it in a subsequent year we do not have any
banked cap available so as of right now this is the maximum we could have increased our tax levy um which obviously we proposed in the budget simply because of all the cuts and other revenue losses um we are hearing that
there may be um additional measure measures that the governor will put into place as they did last year last year because we were over adequacy and under our local fair share we didn't qualify um some districts qualified to get some
of their aid back that they lost we did not qualify for that but we were allowed to increase our tax levy up to the amount of state aid we lost between the 2021 budget year and the 2425 budget year um I if I remember right that was a
little over $2 million we did not take the full amount um there was about $1.4 million that was left um but that was a one-time use it or lose it kind of thing um that does not carry forward like I said we are hearing that we will have
that opportunity again uh I don't know how much or what that timeline will be um we're hoping that it's in time for us to coordinate um or work into our budget uh before the public hearing and not have to you know continue into the
summer like we did last year uh this chart just shows the impact of the 2% tax increase um on homeowners so I just put random numbers up there as far as assessed values the one that's
shaded more towards the middle is the average assessment for a home in Washington Township and then like I said I I threw so if you look at the average taxpayer it lists are current School tax and then what the proposed School tax
would be so the annual increase to the average taxpayer would be approximately $98 per year and then this is just our total budget by fund the general fund is our main operating budget that um has items
like our salaries our benefits our supplies um our student programs special Revenue fund includes um um our preschool Aid even though that's a form of state aid we're required to budget for it in the special Revenue fund and
keep it separate from everything else this is where we have our federal grants like idea and and our title money which we we don't know what's going to happen to this year um and then also included in that um the special Revenue
fund that I just want to mention because it's a little odd is um our Student Activity funds run through there so we have have to budget a number um and then finally The Debt Service fund this is the annual Debt Service payment we have
to make on debt that um the district had issued in the past we only have one bond issue left and it's actually a refunding of a previous issue so this is the principle and interest that we have to pay um that is all funded through the
local tax levy and um that uh bond issue goes off in 2030 so we have payments up through 2030 on that and then finally just what's next so um tomorrow our tenative budget is
due to be submitted to the county office so part of that process is taking our budget and what we've been doing at least over the past couple days there's specific State software that we have to use so we enter in our all kinds of information our Revenue our budget
there's all kinds of support docs and information that we provide to the county office um the county office has a certain period of time to review it once it's approved um which is usually sometime in
April we generate a budget advertisement through the budget software the budget's advertised in the newspaper and a public hearing um is advertised our public hearing is set for April 29th there's a specific period of time according to the
state budget calendar we have to do that between um it's that week so the last week in April into the first week in May so April 29th is our regularly scheduled board meeting that's typically when we do our public hearing so as of right now that's when it's scheduled um if we do
make any so uh again we're submitting the tenative budget we can we do have um the opportunity to make changes to this budget anything that we change we obviously work with the county office just so they're aware before it goes to
the public and then when we do our budget presentation for the public hearing we will have detailed slides on what we changed so we will inform the public specifically what was you know added deleted whatever we end up doing
um you know if it's it ain't where the revenues coming from so if we are allowed to increase the tax levy all that will be mapped out on a slide and talked about publicly and then um if the budget is approved that evening then we resubmit it um to the county you know
for approval which you know they're already aware so that that usually isn't an issue and then obviously the final budget adoption is April 29th if that's when we in fact end up holding our public hearing and that's it
okay thank you Janine um is there discussion from board members on the budget presentation can I ask a question MH um is there any Dream Team furnisher in the budget for this next year I know it was 400,000 or so last year no so we um that was part
of that's what we've done in the p in the past that was budgeted in the lease so in the lease we that's where we try to budget for um you know um furniture replacement equipment replacement vehicles and and stuff like that um
okay oh they so there's no more furniture bud so we didn't no we didn't um we just like I said even though only like one fth of the total lease affects the current budget we just we had
to reduce as much as we could out of there so the Lease Only includes the that handful of things that I that I listed so we really don't have any furniture Even in our operating budget we really you know that's again it's one of those things that that that you hate
to do and really isn't a good um practice to to not have furniture replacements for things that break to not have you know equipment replacement um you know some vehicles are a little iffy but um we just couldn't do it and I
know that um several board members have asked for a copy of the full budget um so we could actually go through it and see what was in the budget but we haven't received that yet if there date when you think we would be able to see the entire budget yep so what happens is
like I said we um we submit there's specific software once the tenative budget is approved um we submit it so it'll be submitted tomorrow and then um there's you you guys have probably so
last year um after the budget is adopted there's a specific document um it's the state approved budget document that I've shared in the past it's similar to that so um it'll give you all the line items
and then um from there if you're looking at a specific line item some of it we recapped in our budget memo so if you looked at like you know um transportation the overall budget increase by x% because of X Y and Z we tried to do the best we could you know
with the budget memo there and obviously through the presentations that we had last week but um you know once you see the document if you have questions about certain line items definitely ask because um as I mentioned in the budget
software so our financial software that we use we can put specific details so like literally like every single detail and then you also have to um understand that um some accounts Encompass things that
you may not think like um a general Administration account also it's not just salaries and wages it also has has um because we use a state there's a state uh chart of accounts that we have to use so that particular budget has a
line item where we have to budget for certain um insurances um it has all of our Professional Services like legal expenses so each area of the budget may or may not contain things um so definitely like you know ask questions
if you have them um another example is like our operations budget includes um some of our Property and Casualty Insurance so like if that budget's going up it could be simply because our property insurance is going up um I
thought of something else and it just that quick went out of my head that um oh and our benefits includes like workers comp insurance and things like that so but yeah as soon as um like I said tomorrow is the deadline we're working on like our last couple supporting documents um there's tons and
tons of information that we have to submit to the county but once that's in there I can generate that document and send it send it to everybody did you okay I have a comment and then two questions the first comment is for the people that are watching I
just want to make sure you understand because there have been people that have said when we do presentations and they're watching they really can't read it so it will be on our website the presentation tomorrow sure yeah okay so it'll be on tomorrow y so um the question the follow-up question from
Mrs Bloom um it wasn't until this year that I found out through opening um the POS for the classrooms where the Dream Team came up with each classroom
in in the schools to have a new classroom for the 22nd century I wasn't aware of that be when we were doing the budget last year and when I did that it came out to about 380,000 there was a lease purchase in there maybe for
150 so uh my question is when we're talking about one year of that in other words that amount of money last year it wasn't paid outright we we took it like a loan is that correct and we're we're paying one year on it or did we
pay all those POs last year yeah the the so the POS get paid um through the lease through the money that we borrowed and we pay back so we're paying the lease okay so that about that if if it was around 300,000
or 290,000 we're paying it over so many years right was that a 5 year thing M okay all right and and we're not we're not going to furnish classrooms next year like we did this year no that was that's not in the lease that that's not
in there yeah okay um I I too have asked for the line by line budget and I'm hoping that once you submit whatever you're going to submit if you're going to submit it that we get that line by line budget um in addition to that I know I've requested and I appreciate
your your information that you sent us today on the audit yeah the audit that was is due by the districts January 15th we had an extension the March 7th it still hasn't been submitted not March but that was just a date that that was a date that was under discuss
okay so yes so we so basically the state sets a deadline um the past several years there have been delays in the state getting information so it really it's been all over the place for districts this year the state was on
time however our district and you know we've talked about this with the state and with the county we had huge transitions this year into Genesis so starting actually more than a year ago
um transitioning first our budget software our financial software um and then ending with in December and January transitioning our payroll um to much more streamlined processes if you ask
about our internal purchase order processing and I you know hopefully people will tell you it's way more efficient um and we have way more detail maybe when we have smaller meetings I can show you guys Genesis and how much information I'm talking when I talk
about like individual budget lines we can actually click on like a PDF document that has the exact quote from the vendor so it's really helped streamline things however um in setting that up we started July 1 that's also
the time when you would be closing out your records getting things ready for the Auditors so that was delayed we also have um major positions in my departments in accountants um assistant VA payroll they were all brand new
people who weren't even present in the year that was under audit so answering questions was a challenge and even finding documents was a challenge because they were basically created and stored by other individuals so the
process with that is um you just make sure you there's a um a guy at the state that um reviews them and monitors them so we go back and forth with them it is in its final stages so um and what
usually happens as you're aware Connie because I know you were on the business committee as the auditor comes to one of our committee meetings and presents the whole audit um after the audit is finished within 30 days the board has to accept the audit report so every year
the formal documents are part of um our public meetings yeah uh thank you and thank you for your hard work I understand you had a lot of lot of challenges um I know you said that we would be getting it soon is it possible that we're going to get this audit before uh April 29th when we have to do
the final bu the plan the plan is for us to be able to review it in April okay because my understanding is the audit helps us look at the crafting of a budget um well um so I think I mentioned this in our uh committee meetings so the
audit um um one of the things that the Auditors have to do and this was actually due on January 1st so um there's another software in New Jersey home room it's called the audit summary so the Auditors have already put the
detail of all of our Revenue expenses our Surplus that has to go in by January 1st because when the state is creating the budget software that all gets populated so um during our meetings I
can show you guys there's one of the support docs that we have to do is a recap just as an example our fund balance so there is um a support doc that has a recap of our fund balance and it put the audit numbers so the audited Surplus numbers are already in there and
then um they're populated for us a lot of the information is populated for us and we can't touch it and then so the the balances are in there and all I can really do is go in and enter you know if the balance was $2 million and I'm using
a million I would enter so so the audited numbers are in there so there's really nothing in the audit um that that we need to know for the budget that we don't have I'll you share that with us so I can show you like for example um
the banked cap that's the same thing so in the state software again a lot of it's populated so in this year's budget software if you go into that um document anything that was available to us would have carried forward I can't even edit
it I can only edit if I was going to use some of the bank cap this year so I can certainly like bring that up how we share our screen sometimes I can show you Genesis and the details um and I can show you those support Ducks just so you
feel comfortable that there's there's not going to be anything in the audit that you know we would have needed to consider okay that's already in there it's already in the um State software as part of that was one deadline for the audit that we always make sure that we
make um so like I said I don't want anyone to be concerned the Auditors did come in and put all of our numbers in so it's not a concern there it's just you know ancillary information we have to follow up and and um make sure if
there's any legal cases they need to disclose there's all kinds of information that they have to do kind of compliance wise um you know and again we just want to make sure it's done and it's complete but I you shouldn't be concerned that there's anything that um
we wouldn't already have built into the budget software thank you you're welcome jine yeah what happens if the budget tonight did you talking to your mic Ralph I didn't think what happens if the
budget is voted down tonight um so I just know that we're required to submit one tomorrow I a balance we are required to submit a balance Budget on March 19th R Janine will have to reach out to
the county superintendent let the county superintendent know that happened additionally you'll likely get dinged on your next qac evaluation thank you question um Janine thanks so much for all your hard work there's a lot of I'm looking around the
room a lot of administration um that put a lot of hard work into it so I appreciate it I just want to make sure um I know I asked this question I I just want to make sure it's captured certainly in the regular budget uh if we're talking about staff Cuts I think it's going to be really important that
we highlight um prior to staff Cuts what the class sizes were at elementary middle and high school particularly in just I'm going to pick two subject areas because they're tested math and Ela um I I think it's going to be important to show for transparency of the public sees
this was before staff cuts and these are the class sizes after staff Cuts so I just want to make sure we could just I don't know if anyone agrees but I feel like we have to be you did ask that in committee you didn't get that no I didn't I just I want to make sure I think in the in the one memo Elementary
was touched on but I think it's important for the public to just understand impact prior to cuts and then after Cuts what it looks like and I mean I think it's a fair question if we Abol that be great I can speak to the elementary briefly because we did hear that question in
committee so for K to 2 we keep to basically like a cap where we don't go over 23 students at least by start of school after school starts it's impossible to say how many kids will transfer in uh in grades 3 through five uh we keep to 26 so uh right now we are
all under that and the only thing thank you gr I'll just and I hopefully I don't mess up here cuz I'm not a curriculum person but with secondary at this point in time in the year because students are still picking their classes we can't
necessarily say this is exactly what it is next year I don't know if we'll be in any better shape in April but what we do um I'll I'll just let everyone know is you know we obviously Elementary is a little bit easier so we can look at our
enrollment what our projected enrollment is and then look based on like the number of first grade teachers how many kids are going to be in the class for the secondary level what we do is look at um our current offerings and how many students are in there and then you know
if if there were reductions in those areas would it um you know how how much would it increase the class sizes and and we we were confident in building budget I'm sure we'll be able to provide a little bit more information I believe
I believe Dr Hibbs asked uh Mr diso to look into that did you get those numbers yeah I uh I actually emailed Dr hibs and uh Dr Nathan yesterday the high school numbers um they are the current numbers that we have now and then it has
the um assigned seats like the the max seats and then it has what the seats were this year so what the board can do is kind of surmise you know when when we have these Cuts how much will the class go up now the high school is a different
different Beast because technically there are some classes you can cap at 28 some classes you can cap at 24 there's in-class Support classes there's classes such as some art classes that might have to be capped at a certain number because of equipment that's in there so that's
all in there um what we what we usually cap um but I will I will get that to miss weeter um because I didn't send that to her and then the middle school did an an analysis when they were um asked to do that as well to make sure that with the reduction of Staff while
class sizes you know I mean when you reduce staff class sizes do go up but they were making sure that it's not up significantly so it's unmanageable I'll be I'll be sure to invite you to our committee meetings Mike so you can help me with
that looking forward to it thanks um I have a followup with that um at the secondary level outside of special education classes do we have classes with 10 students or less or 12 students with L we running
classes that low I'm just going to guess right now that that's hard to determine for next year uh I don't know if you looked into that Mr diso but I know students are still picking their courses so that would depend on enrollment and choices that's correct I understand that maybe
this year are we running classes below 12 students at the secondary level outside of the special ed classes I'm I'm not sure about that I think what what you're asking is if we're cutting staff based on that
projection is that what you're asking I just want I I just would like to know if we were running there there are small classes there are some classes that are smaller um and for example there are some AP classes that are smaller then um
with so if I if I'm a if I'm an AP teacher for example and I have a class that can have 28 kids sometimes only 15 actually do it so the classes technically by the books half full right but you still want to offer that class
because those kids you know have gone through the paces to obtain that class so those are those are some outliers as far as they being like a significant elective that has less than 10 I'm not aware of that any did you want oh there any other
questions or comments on that okay all right thank you very much Janine and Carissa and everybody who had a hand in putting this together um it's difficult to understand how two years in a row we were we are projected to have such a
loss I think you know you're being cautious probably as you've said in committee um trying to precipitate different costs that will go up so hopefully some of those things come in line um and it's not quite a large as large of a gap when we do the hearing in
April um next on the agenda is a report from our director of data technology registration and school Community outre Mr dilia um thank you I actually have a lot of positive things to share um regarding
our students um first of all um we had most Rec recently Mr Anderson and I went to Rowan College for the uh gluster County Teen Summit it was the first year that it was um held we took about 20 or so students and I want to give a
specific shout out to uh Mr Anderson who helped organize it and specific students hie Porter and Austin Brennan who actually did presentations to about 40 to 60 students so it was about the topic was about the positive and negative
effects on social media and what um can we do in the future to make sure that we're uh mentally healthy regarding uh social media so um it was very good they did a fantastic job and I want to give a shout out to them um the eighth grade
dialogue happened I believe two weeks ago um and it's on the website but um basically um Glasser County School boards typically has an event with the eighth grade dialogue where students um go and they talk about kind of um their
future what it's like to be a middle schooler and it's open to eighth graders and it's a panel discussion for those of you who've gone you know but it's a panel discussion where they kind of literally pass the mic down and kids have to answer on the spot they get um pre-planned questions but um it's a hard
thing to do um so all these students are selected by their their schools not only their administrators but their teachers and I'm proud to say um if you were to check the website Isabella rippert Aurelia Mata and Longwell represented
their schools um Bunker Hill Orchard Valley and chest Bunker Hill Chestnut Ridge and Orchard Valley in that order and we're very proud of them as well um special shout out to um future Business Leaders of America they competed in the state level annual conference in
Atlantic City there uh fbaa is a great program where kids are able to network participate in ceremonies and complete a three-day conference um semifinalist in the presentation for roleplay was Morgan Valentine with digital animation and the following people were top 10 finalists
in their objective testing events Luke McCrae business communication Trevor s Siler Siller intro to marketing concepts Ryan Thomas business law kisto terab barelli ined to parliamentary procedure Nico jaako accounting to and the O and
the following members were top 10 finalist in their presentation or roleplay events Delaney Schwarz job interview National qualifier and ha Moffett and giovan Morro uh social media strategies and um another shout out um
we just had Shrek at the high school and for those of you who went the musical was fantastic Mr Stefan and his team do a fantastic job with the musicals um and it's great to see when they talk about Way Off Broadway Productions it's it's pretty close to the real thing and it's great um Orchard Valley is coming up
this weekend with Beatles the 20th and the 22nd U bunker has Legally Blonde on the same days and ridge has Sister Act which is coming up about 2 weeks later right um and then uh
finally um we have uh stuff the bus that's coming I believe it's tomorrow from 3:00 to 6:30 that's going to be uh on the 910 side and we're working with them and I also want to make a final thank you to Mr Otto U Mr Otto worked
with Miss Clancy to try to get her on boarded with um parent Square um just so you know I believe there's three of you on the board that don't have children in the district so you might not have parents Square uh Mr Otto is ready willing and I believe he sent some
people emails the other day if you wanted to be on boarded so um board members please look out for that if you want to be included on paren Square so and that's uh my report thank you I I just want to say a round of applause to all the students that you mentioned and all the programs that are happening
thank you mik yeah thank you items of old business anyone just real quick I want to also shout out to the cast of Shrek they were amazing my husband and my daughter came um they could not get over
how wonderful my my husband said it's as good as being at a show on Broadway um I also want to shout out to all of the middle schools with their principal list it was amazing I did attend um one at Bunker Hill I did have the opportunity um I wish I could get to
more of them um the other thing is that um Thomas Jefferson I also think some of the other schools are doing um autistic awareness I know that they have the um crazy socks at uh um Thomas Jefferson School so and I know there's a couple of
different autism walk so I want to also shout out to the schools that are doing that it's amazing to see kids involved teachers involved and I'm just really proud of them all thank you thank you El
yes uh yeah also while we're giving shout outs uh I'd like to shout out to the wtea they had an event this past weekend several of the board members attended uh um dreams come true where money is raised for community members
and their families and it was a great event maybe over 200 people thank you [Applause] did you want to say something yeah okay all right can I have a motion to open to the
public that move second all in favor I Randy Ford good evening uh I guess I understand why we started at 8 instead of 11:30 uh based on the first agenda item or item that was introduced
so I don't want to talk about the reason for the suspension of Dr Hibbs I kind of want to understand the process so in the interest of transparency at the last meeting I was at there were Merit goals that were
introduced and the superintendent contract it was stated there were four people that were conflicted at the time on the superintendent Miracles um I'd asked the the board and Mr Snyder uh replied with
that answer of I don't remember who the four were but tonight on the suspension of pit with pay um eight members are here eight members voted so my question from a process standpoint if there were four members
that were conflicted on the superintendent's contract at the L last meeting have those conflicts been cleared since everybody was able to vote tonight um does a suspension without pay not
create a reason for there be a conflict with those four members or was the doctrine of necessity invoked and if the doctrine of necessity was invoked um I have a a an article from Bush law
group's website that Mr Jon Bush authored and again I don't know if doctrine of necessity was invoked because you know all we know is the motion in the second but under the doctrine of necessity if you're going to in invoke it um you need to State the
specific nature of the conflicts of interest and then also post a resolution 30 days in advance prior to um you actually voting so just from a process perspective I'd like to understand you know how eight people could vote tonight
on that suspension uh the other thing is what the cost of the district potentially would be because my guess to is um I think the other motion was Miss Gerber right Gretchen sorry um I think she was
only approved to be interm superintendent through next week the 25th so just you know what the incremental cost is to the district because I've seen in other districts where an interum is appointed and it's somebody who's already in the administration they usually get a bump
so that's that's the questions related to the first action um the other one is not on the agenda tonight is the um you have three committee reports the committee that's not being reported on is negotiations
committee so I asked this at the last meeting I think Miss Baker you mentioned you didn't have your notebook of all the information so I would like to again in the interest of transparency and process understand what meetings have have occurred of the negotiations committee
with the the four or three bargaining units who attended those how long the meetings lasted and that's it so thank you very much thank you we're going to let our
attorney respond so I can only respond to the first question Randy the other ones I'm going to have to defer to you guys obviously uh the doctrine was invoked um the board opened up the meeting uh the board went into executive came back out into public they read the resolution into the record uh thereby
approving it and invoking the doctrine of necessity um all of the conflicts are listed in that document that document will be the only thing I take exception to with what you said is it needs to be posted for 30 days that's in the resolution it's going to be posted by um by Janine tomorrow it needs to be shared
with the school ethics commission which is in the resolution as well um so that did happen that that was I I think that ansers is your first question again I would have to defer to you for the rest of that the Personnel stuff can't be discussed obviously though okay he wanted he wanted to know the process um
I also think you should clarify if not a suspended on just uh to Julie's point it was the resolution called for an administrative leave with P administrative leave with pay I think you referenced suspension when you set it up there so I'm just
clarifying that point I think you answered about the doctrine that's how everyone vote there was a negotiations question that was the other yeah that can go to Connie wanted oh I'm sorry one more thing to add Randy um there was a fifth conflict
that occurred between the last board meeting and today which you know enabled the board to invoke the doctrine of necessity that fifth conflict which we have now which obviously when you see a copy of the resolution you will understand did not exist at the last
meeting when you asked the question I think maybe even to me con you want to respond to can you respond sure uh on March 3D uh there was a negotiations meeting with the
wtpa uh probably lasted uh less than two hours uh we're not going to tell you who was there present uh I can tell you that the board members present that are on the committee myself I'm chair Steve Serrano and Ralph Ross uh you'd have to
contact the associations if you want to know who's on their committee um on the fifth we had a a meeting negotiations meeting with the wtea and the wtsa and that total lasted about two
hours and on Friday March 7th we had a meeting with the WT sspa for about two and a half hours thank you Nicole
Leni um one question I had was did everybody end up on the Committees they requested like you said they could be on any committee they want I'm curious to know if that happened the way uh you said it was going to pan out um other than that I've come up here on sever occasions to speak on the fact that
special ed specifically MD students who need one to one or more support have historically missed out on tons of extracurricular activities um which by federal laws violation of their civil rights and also goes against idea um I've also mentioned that this has
affected my daughter since the beginning of this school year she has missed about 80% of extracurricular activities this year due to lack of Staff being available except currently she's pretty consistent with the play um however that reason is is that a staff member from
the elementary school leaves gets a sub or whatever and then comes to the Middle School um and then on days that she can't do that Sophie has to come home on the bus at 3:00 we have the driver back at 4:45 because nobody's available to
stay for that hour um so other than that there was a awesome staff member from the high school who also picked up a couple days but one sports stopped that she could do that either um so one of the items in the agenda that I see is
that um let me back up so apparently I keep being told that there's nobody available during this 3 to four o'clock that can pick up these hours or the time um I see that an approval tonight is for a special education teacher
specifically an MD teacher that is qualified to stay to keep Sophia in compliance with extracurricular activities being approved for detention Duty um for the remainder of the school year it was told to me many times over the district does not want kids to not participate but they can't force staff
to stay However with the approval of this what you are proving is a staff member that is able to stay um to be able to supply extracurricular activities to special ed kids um not every spe not every District employee can be in the role of support staff for
MD kids but I'm pretty sure any of employee can be in the position for detention um this has been a topic of discussion with staff Administration upper Administration uh for months and months on end and I've been told repeatedly
from upper Administration as well um that they have exhausted all options um and it's just unfortunate that Sophia misses so many extracurricular activities um this has been happening to students for years and apparently
there's no solution to this um but having another MD teacher being approved for an activity that is not keeping a special edkin in extracurriculars doesn't seem like it's exhausting all options
um we're to the point now where she's missed so many that it kind of crosses a legal threshold of how many she can actually miss under federal law um like I said it's not just my kid it's been happening for years um so now I sit here and look at this approval and I'm and
I'm wondering um because I could be wrong but it seems to me that we are not exhausting all options um so that's all I have on on budget right now I'll come back to the rest okay uh the first question everyone
got their committees except one person who wanted to be on negotiations and I did not put on negotiations and then didn't pick another committee um and then to the other things I I wrote it all down what you said but obviously can't comment at the meeting so I'm
sorry about that Nicole um Terry schlect hi everybody um I'm always glad Mr fors in the audience who's clearly knows what he's talking about but for the rest of us I have no idea what was invoked for this action the beginning of the meeting so if some clarification
around again to process or not specific like what happened that allowed that to happen and what would qualify this was a very shocking outcome I raced over here obviously um and I'm curious under what
circumstances would have made someone be placed on leave like this um why was it time sensitive because I'm sure that Miss Gerber has duties up already much in place or amongst the elementary schools has a transition plan been
disced just who's going to be working her duties and the current duties um especially coming up into the budget um as some of the budget concerns that came up uh if someone could explain what reduction of co-curricular
means um also the budget discussed um the devices so that there's some change to the passing out of the devices so I know they say talked about the incoming third graders but what's happening to the incoming fifth graders CU they the
current fourth graders also don't have Chromebooks or are they just keeping their current devices um and that's uh that's all I have thanks just to touch on the doctrine one more time the doctrine is uh something in the law that essentially says if a
quorum of the board is conflicted from discussing a matter or voting on a matter then the board can pass What's called the doctrine of necessity meaning the full board could discuss and vote on that matter that that's what happened um reduction of co-curricular just means uh cutting some where did she
go oh uh some co uh co-curricular would be clubs so it was it was um reduction in clubs and then uh Janine um I don't know if you want to or Canen speak to the device question the devices I'm I'm honestly not sure about
those other grade Lin I'm not sure if you know that CR it's my understanding that everybody would keep their Cent device the only students that wouldn't have a device would be when in second grade third grade we don't use the iPad we're not equipped for it so they and they need to
remain in those grade levels so that's why third grade would have that infusion of a new one thank you Mrs gber uh Marcy Dewey hi how's everybody doing um I have a question about um what public costs are going to be involved if
anything were to happen um in a general sense when a superintendent's removed from position um not necessarily Township but overall in general what costs are involve are we paying the rest of the contract are we on the hook for any you know health insurance um you
know anything else that could possibly you know happen um is there repercussions that could possibly happen um is there an ability for our district to be sued um and with all of those costs where are the dollars going to come from are they going to come from
our budget are they going to come from some other source um that's what I'm trying to figure out okay our attorney saying I think to give you some I think I can answer in general something let me hear what you're saying say um
I you know what I don't want to say anything because I don't want to put myself in a in a situation um in a legal situation I think there's no way to separate that from the the Personnel aspect of what you're asking Jim Arpino good evening uh I just had a few
questions about the budget um it's striking to me that the board has not seen a lum copy of the budget yet if you're going to uh place a vote on it tonight how do you vote on something when you truly haven't seen the document
um have you had the the chance sounding like you didn't um one of the key responsibilities of Board of Education member in the state of New Jersey is financials you represent the taxpayers um I'm I'm kind of hard to
believe that we haven't seen a line it of budget and why I couldn't come up here and ask questions tonight like are we cutting this what percentage this because you just don't have the answers um in the budget presentation you touched on pay to play and with
Athletics and how it could drive down uh engagement um this shouldn't be an issue because if your child's in the orchestra you have to play for an instrument we were just charged $15 a ticket come to our children's uh
orchestra concert again there are kids but I don't go to my I don't have to pay to go to a football game um if your child's in the play you have to pay for wardrobe items and pay for admission are we worried about
participation there it just seems like here in Township um why sports are important it seems like we place them at a higher level than our other activities we put Sports up top and the Arts it's kind of we we push to the side and you
could tell that by our concern over student athletes participation but nobody saying about any kids being involved in the Arts and that's concerning um I think it would also behoove the board when you talk about State um funding and cuts to give the
residents the actual history of why we are where we are because it just looks like the state comes down and cuts money from wasan Township when there's a reason for that and there's court court cases there's avot rulings and that's something that we're not given um I really question you know the state
says we're over we're over your adequacy or whatever um no school district should ever be said to be funded over ad adequacy however the past year we knew we were in a budget situation last year yet this year we still opted to spend money to the two
$300,000 for Jan team classrooms when I was on the board it was explained that we were replacing broken furniture Dream Team classrooms are an initiative they may be the greatest initiative in the world are we at a point where we can spend $300,000 on initiatives and
furniture and classrooms because here we are again with a budget hole and the smallest thing of the budget $10,000 it's very tiny in this past budget year after we fac layoffs and cuts this year and we're right back over and we're going to the taxpayers
Draconian Cuts again we spent $10,000 wor place rocks at Central Administration how can you look at the taxpayers of this town and tell them we need more money we don't have enough we replaced rocks the the Rocks like it
makes no sense to me maybe there was a good reason I just don't see it but you know that's minor but how many $10,000 Rock projects did we go through this year that adds up and now who's now our taxes are going to go up they're probably going to go up more because the
governor's probably going to legisl is going to pass legislation and maybe when we question if we're above adequacy maybe we need to really look at what we spend because when we're just dropping 10 grand to replace rocks we we have
some questions to answer thank you for your time um motion to close to the public motion to close I have a second second all in favor I
I um so next we have committee discussions and so if you follow our meetings you'll know that at last month we reinstituted committees we didn't have them for a little while and so all of the committies had the exact same structure
this month it was the same presentation um and I sat in all of them so I can tell you it was the exact same thing it was the budget presentation that's when we first you know got it we were able to discuss it each meeting was about two hours and then there might have been a couple things tacked on like things that
we're voting on tonight um different you know typical things that would be on the agenda so in terms of committee discussions it really was just budget and I will tell you to Jim's point and other folks we really um have a desire to have another meeting public meeting
where we all can talk about the budget before the April meeting so after next week but before the April meeting because um and I have to give Janine a lot of credit and Carissa as always for putting everyone here all of you directors everyone who got cut you know
you put a lot of effort in into this but one thing that I felt like personally I didn't get have enough time to learn were like the ramifications of different decisions so for instance you've heard us talking about increased sub costs because teachers have professional
development because teachers have five six seven eight different technologies that they have to learn so they have this mandatory PD and we have to and our sub costs have gone up to a million dollar you know we didn't really have time to vet those things out like what other decisions are being made so you
talk about $10,000 in rocks and on those things they do add up those things add up but being able to anticipate you know okay we're putting these initiatives forward so that's going to cost money I mean there could be something if we're not upgrading those laptops for the fourth and fifth graders there could be
some problem there you know I don't feel like like I had enough time to like ask those questions thankfully we do have another month but I really think it would be a great idea especially considering our superintendent is on leave and Gretchen um and just so everyone knows too Gretchen you just
can't put your superintendent on leave and then like kick around ideas for who's going to step in there has to be a person that's in charge right when that person's not here and neither one of our assistant superintendents are here right now so Gretchen you know has her
superintendent certificate and is definitely taking one for the team um the reason why she was only on there for a week is because that g that gives us some time to figure out what we're going to do so that's that was that and so I want to say thank you to you Gretchen for doing that because um I think so
highly of you as you know but also you have a lot that you're doing as does Janine and everybody else right now so it's not an ideal situation no one wants to be in this situation I can assure you of that um so we can talk about um we can talk about that maybe under new
business adding a budget meeting um if anybody is interested in doing that we can talk about our calendars but in terms of committee discussions did anyone want to throw anything else in there I mean I didn't I don't remember anything I just want to address the thing with getting new furniture having
taught in a classroom where the desks were falling apart screws are falling out and how many times teachers had to turn the desks upside down themselves put put the screws back in kids would the screws on the chairs would fall out so
it's I know it's an expense but it it was a necessity because it was getting to be unsafe that's my personal opinion except that that furniture was not what we're talking about this was specific class I misunderstood the Dream
Dream Furniture thing yes when what can you explain the Dream Team I wasn't on the board either I don't actually don't really know what that does anyone know what that is I know a little okay what is it okay my understanding uh there was a CO and and bretan you can jump in that there was a CO Coalition of
teachers throughout the district every every building in the district had a had a representative to be on the Dream Team and one of the one of the tasks of the dream team was to come up with a um a
classroom of the 22nd century and and and one school one classroom in the School uh has all this different kind of furniture um I don't know cabinets desks
um sofas and it amounted to over you know over 250 70,000 it was not for not for for individual classrooms where desks were falling apart it was coming up with a whole new classroom so that meant that
in those schools just one class is just having the benefit of that room and Gretchen you can jump in if there's more that you can share and I apologize for misunderstanding so there's a there was a need because Elaine You're right our
desks have looked no different than when you left um so there was a need to determine what's best so what they developed was teachers who volunteered wrote an application to be a part of this and then the idea was let's choose
what works and use this as an example of which one is the best uh for example what is the best way to do small group instruction do we need a monitor over here or a whiteboard uh what would be more practical so having people choose
what they like going in and investigating what other teachers are doing and then sharing those we wanted to come up with what what should and I'll use Elementary sorry it is my world um what would an elementary room look like in second grade so that we could
then say this is the best that we should offer so if everybody should have a document camera this is the document camera that we would want to put on a cycle for replenishment down the road so that we don't have things that are languishing and not working and then you know here we are purchasing things that
don't match so one teacher has some really unique capabilities and the other does not so it was just to find a common ground um but that is not going to be in this next budget this was something as a trial to test different things to see and then get that information to use it
to say what would be a good replenishment plan thank you I have a question yes when I'm on the instructional Affairs committee do we have minutes cuz I didn't get them if we
do so they if you put on your agenda item it'll say minutes at first we did not realize we needed to put them on sorry I'm on I that's okay as well um I'm new so I don't necessarily be under the minute section they should be there we put them on at the end of the day because we just really remembered the
bud budget presentation was the majority of the conversation uh the items were discussed as just mostly renewals field trip destinations renewals and approvals for title funds things like that oh there right so everything on the agenda
yeah I didn't know where it was yeah and some and usually it was like when we remember when we were in IA towards the end like real quick it was kind of like oh yeah and these things are on there it was the same for the other two so it was just our whole thing was really like the budget Janine did you want to say something all I was going to say is even
if you're not on a committee you can access all the Committees yeah so that's helpful you know I always recommend if you're not on committees review the minutes so at least you can see the items and then if you have a question you can reach out to one of the
administrative liaison or the chairperson of the committee um if you need more information thank you I didn't thank you and I think that what happened with instructional Affairs specifically was Dr Nathan was the um chair last year
so she did it a certain way and I was looking for the way that she does it alane and it's a different person this year I guess it's Miss Baal can you help me with your last name um Pato Pato that's you so you're the
chairman this year and um no I don't no the administrator administr the administrator person last year it was Dr Nathan M it's it's her for instructional Affairs this year it's always the assistant superintendent Dr yeah we'll
get it we'll have it together on the um we yeah on the minutes that I had the I had the thing beforehand I had the thing beforehand and I believe she was listed as that maybe I know it it still is doated anyway so I do have all the
people who attended and I have everything that we discussed and it should be online now too I also have paper copies but I'll probably just discuss the one thing that we're approving I would think tonight Mrs Gerber I would only discuss the one
thing not all the minutes that I took yeah I'm sorry I missed your question I have minutes for the entire meeting that we had but I've noticed that when I look at what's being approved tonight only field
trips are being approved um I see the field trips I see the uh Title One Grant salaries okay so I can just go over my minute when to that point I think there are some things that were for discussion only okay yeah HR gets spread out to with from instructional Affairs in HR being approved are pretty
self-explanitory okay thank you okay can I have a motion to approve the Hib report under report of the superintendent motion second um any
discussion okay roll call Mrs Haron yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Ross Yes Mrs Baker yes Miss Bloom
yes Miss Clancy yes Miss Chilla yes Miss kazmo yes motion carries can I have a motion to approve uh one item under instructional Affairs field trip reunification drill row and College of
south southern New Jersey motion yes Al seconded any discussion seeing n roll call Mr Serrano yes Mr Ross Yes m Miss Baker yes
M bloom yes Miss Clancy yes Miss Chilla yes Mrs Haron yes Miss kazmo yes motion carries under Student Activities and Communications can I have a motion to approve items one and two flag football
schedule for girls and student disenrollment three students second second any discussion seeing n Roll Call Mr
Ross Mrs Baker talk about ex M bloom yes only on this one miss Clancy yes Miss Chella yes Mrs Hartong yes Mr Serano yes
Miss kazmo yes motion carries okay under Human Resources can I have a motion to approve items 1 through 20 and item 22 through 27 and 29 through 33 motion to
approve second second any discussion um I'd just like to shout out to a couple of the um teachers who are retiring uh mrsi dedication for 20 years at at the
preschool uh Mrs Kon 22 years teacher assistant uh Lisa Kell 24 year English teacher um Patricia burnhard 25 years English teacher Bunker Hill Nancy Dickerson Fine Arts music teacher Bunker
Hill Christine red wowski special ed teacher heri 15 19 years sorry uh doretta Martelli special ed teacher 25 years at Bunker Hill James tar World Language teacher 25 years at chest Ridge Middle
School Richard Boswick heal PE 25 years at the high school and Deanna letter school counsel Jess rid 32 years I'd like to thank them for your dedication thank JY JY can I just say a special
congratulation to Dory meliski I worked for her with her for several years and I wish her love love and success in her retirement yes good I just want to call the attention I think you did it in the in
the vote that number item number 21 was deleted right yeah I read 1 through 20 correct 22 to 27 and 29 to 33 there was a congratulation extended to something that was deleted I miss somebody oh well I don't know one I just make sure yeah
I'm not exactly sure which one but I have the list here okay roll call Mrs Baker uh number 10 abstain yes to the rest Mrs Bloom
yes Mrs Clancy yes M Chilla yes Mrs Tong yes number 10 abstain Mr Sano yes Mr Ross yes Miss kazmo yes motion carries
under Finance motion to approve items one two and three one is a resolution um for a contract with star pediatric Home Care the second is of the location of the wths honors banquet and the third is the approval of the tenative budget that was presented
tonight can I get a motion to approve items one through three motion can I have a second second any discussion seeing non roll call Mrs Bloom abstain
because I don't feel that I have enough information on all three number three number three what about one and two what about one and two one and two yes Mrs Clancy I approve one and two and I
abstain for number three because I also don't feel I have enough clear information Miss chill I'm a yes to one and two and I'm a no to number three Mrs Hartong I'm a yes to one and
two and a no to number three Mr Serrano yes to numbers one and two no to number three Miss Ross Yes to one and two no to number three Miss Baker yes to one and two no
to number three Miss kazmo yes to one and two no to number three so motion carried for one and two motion failed for the budget what happens next with that is that something we have to discuss in executive
or uh Janine is going to have to reach out to the county exact tomorrow or I'm sorry the county superintendent tomorrow let them know what happened and again as I said before it could become a qack issue but other than that the county superintendent will likely give you some guidance as to a new timeline at this
point uh nothing listed under special education I think Mrs Baker kind of gave a negotiations update by way of public comment did you have anything else you wanted to say nothing else there's nothing listed to vote on so okay um items of new business anyone have new
business I think we have enough business okay um can I get a motion open to the public move second second all in favor Randy Ford uh just a couple questions on the
um where is this on the meetings that took place negotiations committee 3335 37 not really interested in the who from the bargaining unit uh was attending Miss Baker mentioned uh who from the board
was there anyone from Administration and or legal present that's one question um the other one is on the committee minutes that Miss Hartong mentioned um is the public available to see those minutes and if so how would we go about
about asking for those um speaking of minutes January and February's minutes I think we're going to be or we're up for approval at a prior meeting there was some discussion about the minutes not being accurately reflected or something along those lines they still have not
been brought back to the this board so just curious of when we expect those so then members of the public that don't want to watch the whole YouTube video of each meeting can then review what what took place and what was voted on uh with
respect to the doctrine of necessity just from the last meeting in February I think it's the 25th of 2025 and outside of the doctrine of necessity being invoked has any other formal action been taken by this board that hasn't been done at a public
meeting and if so how would we know about it um meaning as the public and then my fifth and final question is just with respect to what Mr Snider referenced about C I think it's CC um what does that mean what is that and can
someone explain you know how we might get quote dinged uh on QC so thank you very much um so for negotiations yes um our attorney was there and administration was present uh the public can see the
minutes when they're posted I don't know if they we used to post them or they were just operable but they're public um January and February minutes will come back next week at the regular session no other formal action was taken and qac do you want to do what you said about
qac yeah well I'm admittedly not that familiar with how qac Works other than to know that they come every couple years I think it's every three years and they evaluate various aspects of the district's operations when I say get thing they issue a score to the district every time they come they might take
away some points from that score as a result of this preliminary budget not being timely sent to the county superintendent Nicole Ludi is that a new one um with budget coming up um and so
many people are fearing losing their jobs um other staff and parents are fearful of what's going to happen to our students and our programs and everything else that comes along with budget cuts what's talked about a lot is what we're
losing because of budgets um what's never talked about um is what we're losing that doesn't have anything to do with budgets um on top of people being lost because of budget cuts this dist this
district is losing not even good people great people left and right and it is concerning it's alarming and it's going to be devast stating to our kids people that can truly make a
difference here especially in special ed you are losing and I don't even know if half the people up here know what you're losing to other districts one because of pay two because of all the nonsense that's going on people are walking away from this district and going other
places and it's our kids that are suffering from it we're losing staff and faculty members over a lot of things that that can be fixed if anybody doesn't know what I'm talking about up here you should all
start digging because there's a lot of people leaving this district for things that I don't even know if half of you even know really why please dig into special education and other things of why people are
leaving when we start losing really good staff especially in special ed it's going to create create more out of compliance which we already have it's going to get worse and worse and we have people that may come in to fill these shoes that will never be able to do the
job of people we already have because people are going to settle we can't pay the people that really deserve to be here it seems like a risk that the district has been willing and always has been willing to take to not fix things that we can fix
we can't help the budget it is what it is we're losing funding and people are going to lose their jobs but we are losing people on things that can be changed and that you have control over so many people are walking out of this district and have left before
retirement and there's a lot more that are on the verge they're on the table of leaving and if you don't know that I suggest you go into these schools and find out and find out why because I'm telling you if we lose people from both ends both the budget and because of
other internal back there that none of you were fixing we all really going to be screwed I'm literally begging you to fix what you can fix especially there are so many losses coming up that you say you
can't fix I was going to say especially Dr Hibbs because so far he's been one of in many many years he has been the one to give special ed parents hope that we have not had and Miss Bato too but again
apparently some things always have to go there's things that you can fix I'm asking you to spend the time stop arguing with each other stop trying to spite each other and spend time in our schools with our staff with our faculty the people that matter and the people
that matter in our kids' lives did you know and did any of you know that Birches who houses rmd program is down six to eight staff members did anybody know that in Special Ed I haven't heard one person up here in
months even mention it or what we can do about it or how we're going to fix it all I hear is all you keep arguing I don't hear much of solutions out of you guys I just don't our kids are in a lot of trouble and I can't I don't feel confident that anybody's
actually spending time to figure out why you have no idea what you did tonight I'm disgusted truly it's out of spite it's political it has absolutely nothing to do with our children it was it's always been a Witch Hunt it's sickening
this whole thing has been awful to watch from day one I'm sick you guys are sick Terry sheer hi uh Mr Shar what I think I heard you say is that when you they invoke the
doctrine it allows previously conflicted members to vote on an issue so I don't think that that necessarily addresses my question of for this administrative action what would rise to have that
occur never previously discussed outside of an HR issue I would hope that there would be some significant concern reason metrics measure process it's not to what it sounds like some people's concerns could be personal or or they just don't
feel he's you know meeting Milestones right like to remove or put someone on administrative leave in in a meeting it seems like there would be something to rise the a significant metric um my second question was um miss
kmle you said that there was one person who wasn't allowed to participate in the neg negotiation committee who was that member and then lastly um besides we might not meet the C County requirements to submit the budget what other risks do
we expose ourselves to as a Township by not meeting these Milestones of budget planning thanks so the the first question I apologize if I didn't answer it correctly the first time uh regarding
what might have transpired I I can't or nobody else up here can comment on that um there was a need to go into executive session and have a discussion that's as far as I could I could go my understand no it has nothing to do with
in part it allows people to vote it allows people to have a discussion and take action that's and it's in the resolution when you actually see the resolution it's all laid out in it okay can I have a motion to close to the public oh your other question Carol
wanted to be on negotiations and I had already told her no and I asked her if she would be on any other committee and she said no I just want to clarify um I did not ask to be on negotiations once you said you weren't going to put me on negotiations but I did ask to be on Personnel um and the reason why I didn't
want to be on any other committees because quite frankly my skill sets lie in Personnel that's where I would be best utilized which is the reason why I asked for it that's it the reason why can I have a motion to close to the public
motion second all in favor I can I have a motion to move into executive we're not going to vote on anything right we have to move into don't we have to go Oh I thought we had to oh never mind there's a reason I don't know yeah okay can I have a motion to adjourn
motion all in favor I e