Good evening and welcome to the West Orange Board of Education public board meeting on Monday, May 5th, 2025. I would like to thank all of you here in person and those watching from home for joining us tonight. Uh, Miss Flowers, please take the roll call.
Good evening. Roll call, please. Dr. Bryant. Mr. Stevenson here. Miss Vera here. Mr. Ifer here. Mr. Rock here. Thank you. Notice of meeting. The New
Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests are discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of the act, a written notice was sent from the
office of the secretary of the board on January 6, 2025. That said notice was sent by regular mail to the West Orange Township clerk and the editors of the West Orange Chronicle and by email to the Star Ledger. That said notice was
posted in the lobby of the administration building of the board of education and posted on the district website. Please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and may be broadcasted on local TV and the district's website at a future date.
Please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Thank you, Miss Flowers. In consideration of the closed and public meeting of April 28th, 2025, do I have a motion to accept the minutes? Motion. Thank you, Mr. Ricker. Is there a
second? Second. Thank you, Miss Ver. Any comments? Hearing none. Miss Flowers, please take the role. Mr. Stevenson, yes. Miss Vera, yes. Vice President, yes. President Rock, yes. Thank you.
All right. Next, good evening to our student liaison, Nina Davis and Abigail Rothstein. Would you two please share your student leazison report with us at this time? Good evening everyone. So today's report is going to be short because of what we have on the agenda today. So first we'd like to cover that
AP testing started this week. So we'd like to wish good luck to everybody who's participating and has worked so hard this year. Also, we had our decision day last Thursday, which is an event where the seniors who choose to participate come to the tarnoff gym during lunchtime and wear their their uh
school logos to show their pride for the colleges that they'll be attending for the following year. So, we would like to congratulate everyone in our class for all their accomplishments. Um, additionally, we just wanted to send out a reminder to seniors to please turn in your prom contracts, your signed
contracts before May 22nd because if you do not turn in your contracts, you will not be allowed to go to prom. Um, once again, good luck to all of our AP students who are doing their exams this week. God speed to you all. Thank you very much for that. And yes,
good luck to everyone taking their AP exams. Uh, next, Mr. Moore, it's time for your superintendent report. Thank you, President Rock. As many of you may know, May is Asian, American, and Pacific Islander
Heritage Month. And this evening, we are fortunate to offer a short present presentation featuring our students and members of the United Asian Voices of West Orange. At this time, I call on our world
language supervisor, Mr. Felix Plata, to please join us and introduce our students for Felix. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, board. Good me. Good evening community.
Um, I appreciate uh this month that we celebrate recognize the contributions of uh our Asian-American Pacific Islanders to our country and to to the world. Uh, tonight we will be recognizing um some
students, high school seniors, uh, who will be speaking to the significance, the importance of of recognizing those identities uh, in in today's world. So with that, I will introduce uh Miss Fanny Chan Jarvis. Uh she's a member of
the United Asian Voices. She's a collaborator with our school district. Um so with that, I'll introduce it to you. Thank you, Felix. Good evening, everyone. It's a pleasure to see everyone this evening. And I will keep
my remarks brief. Um but in case you do not know me, my name is Fanny. I am a mom of two West Orange students and I'm a founding member of a local community group called United Asian Voices. Our job is to support and amplify Asian and
Asian-American Voices in Town, specifically Student Voices, and we are proud to present the fourth annual AAPI presentation to the board and to the community this evening. And just in a closing note, I'd like to say United
Asian Voices proudly partners with the district uh to amplify the AAPI curriculum mandate and to amplify the world languages program and also amplify the inclusive curriculum in this district that we value and we hope that
this partnership blossoms in the future. Without further delay, I'd like to present the students who are all leaders in their own right and they are all officers of the high school's Asian Cultural Club. I'm going to invite them up to the podium starting with Kamia.
Good evening members of the board, superintendent Moore, faculty, students, and community members. My name is Kamia Jay Wallala, and I am here tonight as the vice president of the Asian Culture Club here at West Orange High School. For context, the Asian Culture Club, also referred to as ACC, is focused on
celebrating the diversity of cultures across the Asian diaspora. We host events, lead discussions, and collaborate with groups like United Asian Voices to foster an inclusive environment in our town. As an Asian-American student, being part of ACC has helped me connect deeply with my
heritage. Prior to my participation in the club, I often did not see my culture reflected in school spaces. ACC formed that connection, allowing me to learn about the Asian experience throughout the world. Working with United Asian Voices and seeing the district support reminds me that our voices matter, that
support is meaningful. It shows us that our identities are valued. I first learned about AAPI Heritage Month in middle school, but it wasn't until high school that I began to truly understand it. I still remember participating in the AAPI Heritage Festival during my freshman year. That event helped me
embrace who I am and where I come from. It means so much to me when my educators take the time to recognize AAPI lives. It teaches me that our histories are important. As we continue to grow as a community, it's vital that the stories, struggles, and contributions of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders
are not just celebrated during one month, but woven into what we learn year round. I am proud to be part of that conversation tonight, and I hope we keep moving forward together. Thank you. Uh, hi. I'm Bran Chen and I am a senior at West Orange High School, vice president of the Asian culture club and
a proud Asian-American athlete and captain of the West Orange tennis team. As a student of West Orange, I recall studying what World War II and learned about the many groups who contribute to the war effort from soldiers overseas to workers supporting from home. But how many of you know that approximately 20,000 Chinese Americans served in US uh
armed forces? For me, AI AIPI history is very personal. My great-grandfather was part of the World War II war effort, and he served as a pilot flying planes for the US. These were tough times for Chinese Americans as they face discrimination, exclusion, and not seeing fully
American. Trans Americans, like my great-grandfather, fought bravely for a country that didn't always fight for them. Their service is a proud example of patriotism, sacrifice, and resilience. And it's one reason why their stories deserve to be remembered, especially during AAI Heritage Month. In order to make sure history does not repeat itself,
younger generations must learn from the past so that we do not make the same mistakes in judgment. History is shaped by the decisions people make and the values they fight for. AI AI heritage month is very important to me. When we include stories like his, we build a more complete and inclusive understanding of what it means to be
American for everyone. Uh hello, my name is Russell Kataroha and I am a senior at the high school and I am the treasure of the Asian culture club. As we gather here to reflect on the role of education in shaping our society, the experiences and contributions of Asian-Americans and
Pacific Islanders remain a critical and underrepresented part of our collective history. The Asian-American and Pacific Islander community is richly diverse, encompassing a vast array of cultures, languages, and histories spanning East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and
the Pacific Islands. Yet, for too long, the rich diversity and impact of this community has been minimized or ignored in our curricula. Incorporating AAPI histories into our classrooms is not merely an act of inclusion. It is a necessity for
accuracy and equity. In light of that, I wish I learned about the Chinese leaders, the Chinese laborers who played a central role in building the transcontinental railroad. I wish I learned about the Filipino farm workers who organized labor rights alongside Cesar Chavez. I wish I learned
about the Pacific Islanders advocating for environmental and cultural survival. I wish I learned about these stories that are integral to understanding the American experience. Education must reflect the full complexity of our nation's history. When students see
themselves represented in what they learn, it fosters a sense of belonging and pride. And when students learn about cultures beyond their own, it cultivates empathy, critical thinking, and respect qualities we urgently need in our society. Let us commit to teaching the histories of all Americans, not as a
special topic, but as an essential part of a comprehensive education. Thank you. Good evening everyone. I'm Nicole Ing uh and I'm the secretary of the Asian Culture Club. I'm also a first generation Chinese Korean-American. Uh last week I talked
about the importance of Chinese classes. Uh but this week I'd like to talk about my experience with them personally and what it means to Asian-American students. I remember walking into the first day of Chinese class in seventh grade and seeing the multitude of people
in there, seeing how many non-Asian people genuinely enjoyed my culture and were interested in learning all about it. Walking into that packed classroom filled with so many diverse faces also filled me with such an indes intense indescribable emotion. I would later
learn that that emotion was the overwhelming ecstasy of finding a place where I belonged. I felt heard. I felt seen. And most importantly, I felt loved by the school and our town. What a gift it is for Chinese for Chinese to be a
language we can take in this district for us Asian-American students trying to find our place in the world. But what a gift it could be if we could feel this way about our history classes as well. if we could feel the same swell of joy from simply learning about our history
as Asian-Americans and feeling like we belong in this town, this society. After all, Asian-American history is still American history. Thus, I hope you'll consider how important AAPI is in our curriculum and how imperative how imperative it is
to teach art history in the district. Thank you. Thank you. Whoa. Thank you everyone again for your time and attention. My name is Matthew Emanuel, the president of this school's Asian culture club and also the son of two hardworking Filipino
immigrants. As we continue recognizing Asian-American Pacific Islander Month this month, we as in me, the ACC board, and the students of West Orange, urge the community to recognize the history, the achievements, and the people. AAPI
Month is not just about celebration. It's about visibility. It's about rewriting stories that have been too often been overlooked or simplified. From the Chinese railroad workers of the 1800s to the civil rights activism of Filipino farm workers to the vibrant
diversity of Pacific Islander cultures and stories of AAPI activists of today. These stories are also American stories. They deserve to be taught, honored, and integrated into our classrooms and conversations year round. It is also vital that we celebrate AAPI people as
they are today. Diverse, multifaceted, and proudly intersectional. Our community includes immigrants and those born here, people of all faiths, identities, and all backgrounds. Recognizing that diversity means that we must go beyond today to we must go beyond token references and make spaces
for all voices, especially those that are most often left out. And that's why we're here, proud to invite everyone to the West Orange AAPI Festival on May 30th. This studentled event will showcase art, music, food, and stories that reflect the richness of the AAPI
community right here in our town. It's a space for celebration, but also for learning and connection. We hope to see you there, and we ask that you join us in ensuring that API history is not just acknowledged in May, but woven into our curriculum, our policies, and our everyday culture year round with
inclusion, accuracy, and respect. Thank you so much. So once again I'd like to thank the students for expressing uh their the passion for their cultures uh and the cultures of their peers and and the American culture which is inclusive and
which includes people from all over the world. That is uh the uniqueness of America that we are from everywhere uh and we aim to as a school district I know me personally as well as from the curriculum instruction team we aim to
continuously progress do more uh be better uh and one day be perfect uh with the re realization that per perfection may never happen but the goal to strive for that perfection is on our our mind especially in the CNI office and I
recall Um, I know last year I spent uh during May speaking to some of the ways that the curriculum has evolved um has been developed, the ways that we've included in our ELA and our math from K to 12 uh not just AAPI uh people of AAPI
heritage, but for people of heritage all across the world. So, I thank the community. I thank the students who keep uh the staff um the board, our administrators, our teachers to task to make sure that we are continuously
improving. So, I thank you the students uh for all the work that you do and I look forward to the work that you will continue to do in the future. And I thank the board for all the work that you do. Um it's not easy. Uh but I believe me, it's greatly appreciated.
Uh, and I and I thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Plotter. Thank you to the students once again just representing West Orange in the best way possible. Um, I know that Oh, P. Absolutely. We're going to do the picture, but let let me first uh say a
few things. I just want to thank you for being such strong leaders, but you're not just strong leaders. You're also very articulate. You expressed yourself so well and I appreciate who you are and I'm proud to be the superintendent of such fine students. Would you guys like to come up and take a picture, please?
Thank you. At this time, I would like to address the board in our community on the changes being made to our in sorry in our district as it relates to the budget
2526. As previously stated, all reductions in tenur and non-tenured staff were approached strategically with careful consideration of the impact on classroom instruction. This process involved
multiple meetings to brainstorm how to maintain our instructional staff and their employment status within our district within the district. Our strategy prioritized addressing all areas that could yield cost savings
before considering staff reductions with the intention of preserving jobs. This task was not taken lightly and was approached with great empathy. When a district experiences a
reduction in state aid and when balancing the budget staffing staff staffing is unfortunately an area that must be considered. Personally I would prefer
not to cut anyone but unfortunately it is impossible. It is not possible. However, the administration and I made every effort to minimize staffing reductions wherever
possible because we recognize that our our faculty and staff are essential to the success of our programs and district. So, at this time, I will ask that the board members
take a seat in the audience and that our business m administrator, Miss Flowers, will start our budget presentation tonight. So, Tanya, Miss Flowers, I ask you to appear
at the oppos Oh, we are. Okay, never mind. We're going this side. Whatever. Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent Moira. My name is Tanya Flowers and I'm the proud school business administrator for West Orange Public
Schools. I'd like to say good evening to the members of the board, colleagues, families, and all stakeholders here in person, and those watching online. Thank you to my assistant business administrator, Miss Renee Lamin, and my executive assistant, Miss Deshaawn
Johnson, and my entire team for all of their hard work and efforts throughout this budget prep process. I could not have done it without them. Here you'll see our district is comprised of 13 schools. Total enrollment
7,148 students. Here is an outline of our budget process. The formal budget process started the week of October 15, 2024. I along with my assistant business
administrator, Miss Renee Lamin, the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, Miss Ebony Deendez, conducted school and department budget meetings. There have been numerous meetings held leading up to tonight's public hearing.
The next few slides outline the district's budget calendar for your reference and highlights some steps and dates within the process. A few steps I will call your attention to are the New Jersey Department of Education budget calendar and budget guidelines were
released on January 2nd, 2025. We started our budget meetings with the members of the board on February 11th, 2025. The governor's budget address was held on February 25th at 3 p.m. and the
state aid reports were released on February 27th, 2025. Additional meetings and discussions were held with each member of the board along with the administrative leadership team in preparation for the preliminary budget meeting held on March 17th,
2025. Immediately following the March budget meeting, Superintendent Moore solicited input from all stakeholders in the community by conducting an online written survey. The district submitted the tenative budget to the county superintendent on
March 19th. At this time, the county superintendent and his staff reviews the entire preliminary budget. Once their review, which takes about 2 to 3 weeks, is complete, then the district is allowed to advertise the preliminary
budget. The last day for the executive county superintendent to approve the tenative budget prior to advertisement was April 19th, 2025. The tenative budget was advertised in the Star Ledger in the April 29th edition and the West
Orange Chronicle in the May 1st edition and then posted to the district website on May 3rd. This is the the required process for all type two districts with a November election. This evening, May 5th, is the public hearing for the
budget. The userfriendly budget, as adopted for the school year, shall be provided for public inspection on the district's internet site and made available in print within 48 hours after the public hearing on the budget. In the extremely rare case when a district does
not have a majority vote of the board to adopt the budget by the May 14th deadline, then the executive county superintendent makes the determination. So, how do we get to this fiscal cliff? Let's begin with a revenue analysis. Over the past four years,
including current year and proposed year, the tax levy has increased by an average of 2.1% annually, including the proposed increase in the 2026 budget. State aid increased by $18
million between 2021 and 2024, providing critical support during a period of rising expenditures. However, for 2025 and the proposed 2026 budget highlighted in yellow, state aid
has decreased by approximately 6% or $2.3 million, further straining the district's revenue outlook. Budgeted fund balance refers to the surplus. Yep, thank you. Budgeted for
fund balance refers to the surplus or audited revenues over expenditures from the prior fiscal year exceeding 2% of the total general fund budget. These funds are generated through active budget management strategies such as monitoring purchase orders infor
enforcing purchase order deadlines and when feasible realizing savings from unfilled vacancies. However, budgeted fund balance is not a sustainable revenue source. As revenue declines, it becomes increasingly unrealistic to
reduce expenditures in areas that are either mandated by law or governed by contractual obligations. For the 2025 fiscal year, the proposed budgeted fund balance has decreased by $1.2 $2 million reflecting
both revenue constraints and limited flexibility in reducing fixed costs. The fluctuation largely due to the impact of the district receiving temporary federal grant funds of which I will briefly explain more about in a later slide. The
total general fund revenue increase over the past five years is approximately $38 million. to further demonstrate the analysis and revenue trend over the past four fiscal years from 2021 through 2024 and the
current fiscal year 2025 and the proposed fiscal year of 2026. Here are three graphs displaying the numbers explained from the previous slide. You'll see in the top left state aid had an upward trend until current year of
2025 displayed in orange and proposed year of 2026 displayed in light blue. tax levy in the top right over time. This over this time period averaged 2.1% remaining within the statutory cap while attempting to
balance escalating costs and limited revenue growth. And in budgeted fund balance, the graph shows the fluctuation over the years. Now let's take a look at an expenditure analysis. The focus of the expenditure analysis
will primarily be non-discretionary district expenditures. What does non-discretionary mean? Non-discretionary means something at that is not left to individual choice or personal preference but is determined by necessity or external factors. In other
words, expenditures that are either mandated by law or governed by contractual agreements. as such expenditure areas such as salaries, benefits, special special education and related services and
transportation. The district has limited discretion in controlling these costs, a challenge that is consistent across districts statewide. On this slide here, you will see over the past four years, including current year and proposed
year, general education program salaries has increased by 21%. These increases include additional staff and union contract salary increases. You will note the proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 shows a
decrease of 3.5% due to the reduction in staff positions. This slide shows benefits costs over the past four years including current year and proposed year having increased by a total of 35%.
This slide shows how transportation costs have increased by a total of 99% over the past four years including current year and proposed year with the most significant increases highlighted in yellow in fiscal year 22 and 23. Key
contributing factors were driver shortages. We had a significant shortage of qualified bus drivers which led to increased wages and benefits to attract and retain staff. Fuel and maintenance costs
fluctuated fuel fuel prices and higher maintenance expenses for aging bus fleets have added to operational costs and specialized transportation needs. This increase in students requiring specialized transportation services, including those
with disabilities, has necessitated additional resources and equipment. This slide displays special education and related services cost trends over the past four years, including current year and proposed year. The two significant areas of
increase are special education salaries in each fiscal year of 2022 and 2023 where it increased over 10% as highlighted in yellow. Total increase in five years was 38% or 5.7
million. And secondly, outofd tuition over five years had a total increase of 28% or $2.8 million. The average of outofd district cost per student on excuse me the average out of district cost per student including
transportation is $125,000. This slide is a graph displaying the special education and related services cost trends explained in the previous slide. So what does this all mean? It means the district like many other
districts is facing a structural budget deficit. Over the past four years, including the current and proposed school years, district expenditures have increased by approximately $45 million. During the same period,
revenues have only increased by $38 million. The district now faces a budget shortfall of approximately $9 million. Several cross drive several cost drivers contribute to this structural structural imbalance.
Contractual salary increases have averaged 3% to 3.5% annually for 5 years which equates to $19.5 million or 21%. Health benefit costs are projected to increase by 10% for the 2526 school
year, but over the past 5 years, this is $9 million or 35%. Transportation contract renewals are increasing by 3.7% consistent with the consumer price index as outlined in the state notice.
But over 5 years, this equates to $8.6 million or 99%. out of district special education tuition costs have increased by 5 to6% with the average annual cost per student as I mentioned including transportation
is over approximately $125,000. So again over five years this equates to $2.8 million or 28%. These increases reflect statewide trends and mandated obligations, further limiting the district's ability to
reduce expenditures without impacting essential services. These increases, excuse me. And lastly, the structural deficit hits this year because of because from 2020 to 2024, the district's budgeted
increase by $13.2 2 million due to the influx of federal funds, the elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds, otherwise known as ESSA grant funds. These federal dollars played a critical role in offsetting general fund expenditures for
the day-to-day instructional and operational costs. Additionally, the availability of ESSA funds enabled the district to increase his budgeted fund balance during this period. These costs must now be either absorbed into the general fund or reduced through
through the elimination or restructuring of affected programs. This slide here displays a pie chart detailing the budget appropriations by categories. Many questions have been raised relative to reviewing the detailed line-by-line
budget expenditures in order to consider other areas to cut besides staffing. Reviewing this pie chart in a clockwise direction, you can see the largest pieces of the pie. In blue, we have salaries which are is
55.5% which is approximately $111 million. benefits is 17.5% in red there, which is approximately $35 million. In other words, 73% of the budget appropriations are for
nondiscretionary contractual related costs. What are the other pieces of the pie? 2.9% purchase professional services is $5.8 million of which $1.6 6 million is
appropriated for substitute teacher coverages districtwide due to a high absenteeism rate. 4.7% facility services. Our district has 11 school buildings totaling over 1 million gross area squaret. The
infrastructure in many of our buildings exceed 100 years. Additionally, our district has a bus garage housing our fleet of almost 30 buses and a transportation office as well as our central office building. Some appropriations in the budget
includes approximately $9.4 million for maintenance and repairs. Then we have 15.2% transportation and out of district tuition of which I've already mentioned and then 3.2% 2% supplies, which is
approximately $6 million. All expenditure categories in which are variable and a district could make some adjustments and find efficiencies have already been considered. In order to rightsize the budget, a reduction in force is
unavoidable. There are simply not enough discretionary funds in other categories. So, what does this mean? Means West Orange Public Schools reimagine. We have a summary here. Over the past 5 years, the district's general
fund budget has increased by over $51 million, representing a 33% growth. This growth has driven in part by temporary federal relief funds, increase in state aid from fiscal year 22 to fiscal year
24, and rising cost in key operational areas. However, with the expiration of ESSER funds, a reduction in state aid in fiscal years 25 and 26, and ongoing increases in expenditures, particularly
in salaries, benefits, and special service, the district is now experiencing a shift in its financial outlook. As a result, the proposed general fund budget for fiscal year 2026 reflects a $9 million reduction or
approximately 3% less than the prior fiscal year's budget 2024 to align with available recurring revenue sources and long-term fiscal sustainability. This slide represents the revenue the district has received to fund the
operational budget for the current year compared to the proposed budget for 2526. This slide outlines the proposed expenditures for the 2526 budget compared to current year which is a decrease of $4.2 million. Upon
recommendation by the superintendent of schools, Mr. to Hayden Moore. The county approved budget presented this evening for adoption by the board of education has a general fund total in the amount of $200,489,456. And Mr. more. I'll turn it
over to you to Sorry. So, Tanya did a lot of the technical and the accounting. Um, but let me talk a little bit to I'm going to have to take this up. Let me talk a little bit about
um some of our meetings that we've had so that we can get a really good understanding that there was a lot put into this. Let's talk about community feedback. I'm just going to highlight a few things that we received from not just the community, not just parents,
but also staff and residents. Of course, people start there were repeats for payre for all district employees. Seek grants, corporation, and corporate donations. Cut middle school
athletics. Have parents pay to play for athletics. In terms of transportation, have parents pay for busing. Cut co-curricular and late busing. Rent out the facilities and
increase the revenue through fees. raise taxes, cut technology, equipment, software and staffing, cut professional development, and of course make a cut to
capital projects. Now you will see some of those incorporated but we did see some difficulty um with some of these suggestions and seeking grants and corporate donations.
Absolutely we do work with grants but corporate donations may not be sustainable because we can't count on that money to come back to us year after year. in terms of cut middle school athletics
or make parents pay for athletics at this point in time. That's not something that our district does. We do believe in inclusivity and we do and we are rich in diversity and that diversity extends into social economics. So we try to
avoid that kind of situation. So we we you won't see that we will reimagine that and maybe find a way to uh have some cost savings but we want to give an opportunity to all our students where
socioeconomics or cost does not impact that opportunity. Um you will hear about transportation. Some districts do have parents pay for transportation. Uh, and uh, and I I know that that's a cost. I
It's not a cost here in West Orange. It's not something we do. Again, we are not looking to that in this budget. We're not trying to do that. We didn't see that as as a as a way of us balancing the
budget, raise taxes. I spoke about that. And again, many of you are here tonight, but there are many of you that are not. And not everyone has are of the opinion that we can raise taxes for personal
reasons, for reasons that maybe perhaps raising taxes will cause a um will cause a um an impact to their family and their household. or in this climate we're in, sometimes I know of parents that have
lost jobs with big corporations that now they're on a one um one salary household um one income household, forgive me. Um and so those things, as I said before, as the superintendent of all, they're
all considered. It isn't like we didn't ask and raise taxes. It's that we think we've raised them at a modum approach. We've raised them where we think everyone may be able to contribute and that's important to us in West Orange because that's how that's the strength
of our community, maintain our inclusivity and our diversity. So let's go to the next slide. So you will see that some of the input was there but not all. But let's
talk about that non-classroom cuts made and and and at the top of the slide you can see the following are pri prioritized over classroom teacher reductions. That is absolutely what we did. Capital projects we'll talk about it. professional
development, some of our custodial services, some of our security services, some curriculum writing, central office district employees and administration, our technology
department, equipment, software staff, and of course transportation. So, can I speak to that? All right. No, I I did not, but I was speaking. So, if
you look at where we prioritized, just to speak to it a little, it's one pot of money and that movement within that pot has to take place. So, when you take from one thing and we do believe in students first. So, if there's a program
we want to keep, we do have to take it from somewhere else. I will say capital projects become a very slippery slope. Our buildings have, you know, roofs that leak. We have windows to repair. We have heating systems to fix. And if anyone
knows anything about HVAC, you will realize that is a very expensive endeavor. But again, we prioritize what's studentf facing classrooms and things of that nature. So we try to find
a way to reduce those cost those cuts. professional development. We've made deep cuts there. And let's look at another thing. And just to give an example, so we're not here all night, but what we thought that we can get a lot out of is the transportation. We
really looked at that and tried to make cuts there because we felt that with transportation, it's a sustainable cut. There's cuts there, but that money will come back to us. But we thought we feel that that's not hurtful to our students.
many of our students uh you know we would you know with the transportation we're with our adjustments we're hoping that many students can use a little bit of walking to school parents will help us with driving we're hoping and things of that nature but transportation is
very very expensive and it does not stop raising there will be a raise to transportation after next year and the year after that and I I believe it's by law now it's somewhere at 3.7 7 3.5 What is
it? 3.57. And when you look at that and you think about what our future and how much state aid we may lose going forward, we're not sure. I feel like if we can do something with transportation that will give us a
chance to realize some sustainable funds and that I feel is important and I feel it's an area in which parents can chip in and s help with the sacrifice and we can work with parents. Now does that mean we won't have transportation? Of course not. Of course we need
transportation. Of course, you know, our buildings, our buildings are mixed with different neighborhoods that attend different buildings. We believe that's important. That's rich. That's what makes us strong. We're not giving up on that. So, there will be transportation.
But the theme and what we're thinking is par and proximity. We want to maintain par, but we are getting some help with some proximity. When when schools are a little closer where people
can walk toward to their school, it does help us. Every little thing helps when you're in a budget deficit. And maybe a $100,000 doesn't seem much when you're when it's a 200 thou $200 million budget, but when you get into a deficit,
$100,000 becomes a big deal and you become nervous about every penny you're losing because that's what we're facing at this point. That's the budget we're in.
Sorry. Okay. criteria and consideration. We conduct how we started. We conducted an audit of student enrollment for all programs and courses performed per the these were performed by supervisors, directors,
principal, all administration. Our average class sizes have increased. We cap every class across the district. We would cap them at 25. That doesn't mean hold on that we have our elementary classes and all of a
sudden they're all 25. That's not what we're trying to do. But we did we are capping and yes there is an increase. Of course the elementarymentaries are we we're hoping to keep them our enrollment smaller but there is an increase in
class sizes. I can't tell you that there wouldn't be especially when we're cutting staff. as we're cutting staff, we do have to increase class sizes, and that's a reality, but we are we we don't want to go over 25 students. Um, and and
that mostly speaks to middle and high and the elementaryaries, you know, we work with our principles to keep those classes down, but West Orange, there is an increase in our class sizes. um performed a a I'm sorry, a consol
consolidation of courses where enrollment was low. We heard a little bit about that a couple meetings before with the high school when the high school was um taking a look at enrollment and classes. Reconfiguring our 6 to8 middle
school model. Now, with that reconfigurement does not mean that transportation's not involved. Again, we're rich in our diversity and and and and that we maintain. There will still be students bust from different schools to Liberty and to Roosevelt and to
Edison because we do believe in the structure. We do believe that we're one community and we should all go to school together where we can. But we do get a savings in in terms of proximity where some kids
can actually walk to school. So that that does that that does exist and it is very real. And we took those funds and used them to maintain our teaching staff and our classrooms.
preserved middle school sports co-curricular programs found cost savings through establishing a shared partnership with the township and recck departments. Absolutely. Although it may be a suggestion, we understand the importance of it. We understand the
importance of what the co-curriculars mean for students not just in high school but in middle school as well. And so we don't want to disband our programs, but we and I understand that, you know, they that might not behind a
priority list when we're thinking about jobs, but what we're going to do is reimagine it maybe and get a cost savings, but employ some help from our wreck programs and our town to share in some of that expense and see if we can
do something with our middle schoolers that won't take away their ability to have an student experience when it comes to athletics co- and other co-curriculars. School's about academics, but it's also about social growth. So that's what so it's very
important that we maintain athletics and co-curriculars where we can. Okay. Capital projects to keep our school buildings safe and operational. continued investments in facilities is
essential. Okay. So, we did we talk about this a little bit with roof roof repairs and replacements, replacement of aging HVAC units and high priority projects such as foundations of buildings and things of
that nature. We absolutely have some capital projects that we need to engage in. We cannot when just the student experience again. Yes, it's about us as
employees and so forth, but it's also about an environment in which there's no broken window theories. It's an environment where leaks in your school from your roof can be very disruptive to your educational experience. So, this
budget has to include some repairs to this because if you think about it, whether you live in our town or you don't live in our town, I know I have students in a building. I'm going to feel very upset if my if every day my sons or daughters came home and said,
"You know what? There was a leak in my classroom. I had to be around. I stood right next to the pale and the water was coming down." That's just not reality. We don't that kind of experience cannot help lift our children make sure they work to their full potential when the
environment is not feasible or not appropriate or not or you know or not or like in the HVAC system which everyone here that's a teacher and myself know the heat the air conditioning it's like you don't know what you're getting
sometimes with the HVAC systems that we have they're aging they're not new so We do have to invest in fixing them. We do have to invest in replacing them. If you have an idea of how much that costs, and you will see some of that at the end, it
is incredibly expensive. But I but we cannot continue to just put off all capital projects. That's not realistic. Or we're going to have accidents or damages. I know. Uh,
not to I don't want to bring up bad bad things, but I know in Montlair they had a whole stairwell or come down or whatever may be the case because they I'm sure they should have been or could have I don't want to judge them but work on that because it's a pro. It's a
capital pro expense that is very expensive but was needed. We want to avoid some of that as well. We don't want to get that far with it, but we do have repairs to make. And just by these
uh these few that I highlighted, they're not half of what we need to do. But we know that we took some capital project money and tried to sustain classrooms and teachers because we know the
importance of that. But by no means do we not try to balance that out to also understand that we have to take care of high priority capital projects. Okay. Oh. Oh, I didn't see that. Sorry
everyone. Okay. I was talking. My bad. But here's some capital projects and uh the cost that wasn't smooth. I know that. So let's now get to the budget reductions and where they took
place. Okay. So we start with my office, my area, central office. We are making cuts to three administrators, district
administrators, two technology staff members, administrative two administrative assistants, two case workers, two nurses, and eight
custodians. move forward. We'll start with the preschool. We have preschools. Uh you know that we have uh a variety of preschools. We're looking
at a reduction of one music teacher for the preschool and one special education staff member. In our elementarymentaries, in Gregory, we're looking at a reduction of three
teachers. In in Hazel, one teacher in Kelly, one teacher in Redwood, two teachers in St. Cloud one teacher in Washington two teachers
and our special ed department we are losing two special ed education staff members that's not necessarily teachers but their staff members in terms of what they do in u different roles in special
education. If we look at our six to eight middle schools, they're broken up by content area. We um in the out of the three middle schools, we're looking at a reduction of three social studies
teachers, three science teachers, three ELA teachers, two career education teachers, two world language teachers, two special education
uh staff members. And if we look at the high school again by content area in social studies we're looking at two social studies teachers, one science teacher, one career ed teacher, one world
language teacher, one ESL teacher, one music teacher, one PE and health teacher, one special education teacher. Now if you look towards the bottom, we
have lost about 57 positions. 15 we lost to retirement resignation and they weren't replaced. Four were due to nonreferrals and they weren't renewals,
I'm sorry, forgive me. And they weren't replaced. And 38 were due to the budget deficit. Now out of that 57 we've did we did bring back I'm sorry out of that 57 we
brought back 21 reductions as we lost teachers in key moments we went back to people that received um rift letters and we brought them back and we tried to fill positions where we can and so we
filled uh 21 of the third well 21 of the 38 reductions were due to um offering uh existing vacancies. So we were able to so in total we really lost
38 staff members total 21 we brought back as we had vacancies as we went through people that um may have resigned and retired and so forth. So we did have in mind and we used every uh viable way
to restore jobs and bring people back. Okay, back next. So what is the estimated impact on homeowners? The 2526 proposed budget for
adoption this evening includes a 2.3% tax levy increase. The monthly increase for the average assessed home is $2053 per month which is $246.39 annually. And these are certainly
unprecedented times. Uh you'll see here that we're not alone. Here's a slide detailing the budget challenges districts throughout New Jersey are facing. As more boards hold public hearings, this list is expected to grow with many districts turning to staff
reductions and/or tax increases to close the budget gaps. Please note that all financial information included in this presentation has been sourced directly from the district's user-friendly budgets which are publicly available on
our district website dating back to 2016. The data presented for the 2526 proposed budget reflects the most current figures and has been officially advertised in accordance with state requirements. And this presentation will
be posted on the website. And so some of the highlighted colors and things that got lost uh from the lighting, you'll be able to see where we were highlighting certain uh patterns and trends. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you,
Superintendent Moore. And hold on. Thank you for listening. I appreciate it. Um I'm going to ask the board to please return to the DEAS. Okay, sure. Okay.
Yeah, Ryan, you going to open up for questions after? Yeah. Okay. Um, I'm going to turn I want to thank everyone in the community. Thank you to our teachers. I'm going to return the uh microphone back to
President Rock. Thank you Mr. Moore and Miss Flowers for that presentation. Um at this time we will take some questions and comments from the board. Uh our student leazison had a question so we'll start with Zenina had a question. Thank you. Uh yes. Hi, I'm speaking on behalf of a
resident who couldn't be here. I actually got messaged during the presentation. Um, they wanted to ask the board in regard to non-residents, has the district or has the board looked into tightening requirements for non-residents to attend
West Orange Public Schools? We do. Uh, we've done a better job of that than ever in my 29 years of being here. Um we are always on um non-residents if we catch them. We try
to catch them and make sure that we we um follow through with that. Um so Tanya if you I don't know if you want to comment to that but I think that um our registration office we've gotten it's down to even new technology where we're
trying to be we're very aggressive about that. But we do appreciate that question. Um because I think sometimes when we do um we are aggressive with people that are non-residents or people that we check with, they think we're
just being rude or not being um you know, not being sometimes they would call it aggressive uh you know, hostile, but we're not. What we do understand is we're in a budget crunch and we prioritize our citizens here, our
community members first and that and so we are and we do pay attention to it. Um many of times people will either call the registration office or let us know that someone's there and that's one of the ways but we do also give due
process. So, we don't just um immediately kick people out, but what we'll do is give due process, find out where you are, what's going on, um and um if need be, you know, we will uh hear
your case out, but um we are definitely aggressive about non-resident. Thank you. Everything happy? Uh Mr. Stevenson, questions or comments on the budget? Uh yes, Mr. Rock. Thank you. Thank you,
uh, Miss Flowers. Thank you, Superintendent Moore, for the presentation. Um, quite honestly, Mr. more. I do remain concerned about the priorities with respect to where we are now and how we move
forward, particularly around capital improvements to aging infrastructure, the facilities as you alluded to. Uh, I'm curious to know, uh, as we ask the taxpayers of West Orange to do more, as
we look at community feedback that says raise taxes and look at parents paying for their kids to play athletics in the town for which they already are paying taxes to send their kids to school. Uh some of this as a as a
taxpayer, as a father, just as a general observer to me seems shocking in some respects. But most shocking was the slide on capital improvements where projected for this
budget year is about $3.3 million in projects. Uh and I know we have had presentations in the past where I think it was even in the last six months where the St. Rock
was at the this the school architect came and said we had approximately $200 million worth of capital improvements to do in our facilities and yet this proverbial can gets kicked down the road. and you
alluded to the incident that occurred in Montlair. Uh very very difficult to hear that. Uh and I'm curious to know as we have budgeted 3 $3 million for projects this year, what have we what have we kicked down the can? What have we kick down the road
this year with respect to what's not going to get uh funded with respect to prioritizing? uh because I think for me uh when we do have such an aging infrastructure this should be a
priority. The reality is is that uh if you have children who attend any of our um I know elementary schools and you look at the school calendar uh NJSA testing is occurring over the next few weeks and but for cool temperatures
this week those students would be taking those exams in hot classrooms. Uh and as we look at talking about raising student achievement and the things that your staff has been working hard to lay with
respect to uh creating those conditions that would help aid in student achievement to continually put off these capital projects uh in the face of that uh is is troubling to me. And so, and I don't know if you have the figure, you
or Miss Flowers, with respect to what was cut from the capital improvement budget for 2026. I have seen this elevator one replacement at West Orange High School on this list for some time. I've seen other projects here
uh for some time. I will remind the community about Mr. Rock probably has these figures much more at his disposal than I. Uh the retaining wall at Washington and how that number exponentially grew and inevitably cost
this district uh much more than we anticipated uh because of this prioritization and uh kicking this can down the proverbial road. So uh in the interest of time I'll just ask that one question in terms of what did we reduce
in the anticipated capital projects for 2526 uh because in light of an architectural study which obviously says what's your what's your pie in the sky 200 million we're only doing 3.2. What would we
otherwise have done but for a budget crisis? Thank you, Mr. Stevenson, for that question. Uh, we did originally anticipate being able to fund the capital projects list for $4 million.
When we had to go back to the table to make adjustments, we did cut the capital projects budget by $733,000 approximately. And a quick followup, the state requires us to do a long-term facilities plan. Is that plan three years or five years? Five year.
Five year long range facilities plan. And over the next and is that the five-year plan is inclusive of this fiscal year? Yes. And so over those five years, what is the long-term facilities plan? We were anticipating anywhere between four and $5 million over the
next each year over five years. So we are having to go lower than what was anticipated for this year. So on the low side, $16 million in capital projects over the next five years. On the high side, 20 million. And I'm I'm assuming that's taken into account uh well I
don't I don't want to make any assumption there. So in effect what you're saying what not you're saying what the numbers are saying is that over the next five years when we have a projected analysis
from the architect that says we need to spend $200 million in capital improvements over the next five years. We're going to spend approximately 10% of that. That's correct. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. Uh, Miss Beer,
do you have any questions or comments on the budget presentation? No. Mr. Uh, one comment and one question. I have other comments about the whole budgetary process that we're going through, but I'll save them for my vice president's report regarding the report that you
gave. Um, the first thing is a comment, which is I agree with Mr. more that a lot of some people come and say raise our taxes, but a lot of people don't want that. A lot of people don't want to stand up and say I'm I can't afford it.
So, I appreciate him speaking for the people who sometimes cannot speak for themselves. The question I have is I don't know if it's for Miss Flowers or Mr. Rock or Mr. more. But we've been asked repeatedly, why don't you raise
taxes? Unfortunately, we are going to raise taxes. And we were asked, well, why don't you raise them more? I'm not sure what more could be here other than referendum. Yes, we do have some allowable adjustments
that we get um but not significant. Right. Correct. So maybe someone could explain to me and it might help other people what exactly are the indications for referendum. When would we go for referendum? Anybody?
Uh we would go the district would consider a referendum in the event we wanted to go for the larger capital project say to add a building say to uh replace a turf field or something like that. That's when we're looking to then consider or those are examples of reasons why we would go out for a
referendum. Not for budget shortfalls or cuts in state aid or anything like that. Thank you. No, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hker. Um I have some general comments on the budget. I'll reserve for my president's report. Uh but as I watched Mr. Moore, Miss Flowers
present, just two things came to mind that I'll I'll reflect on now. Um one, this is something I mentioned at the last meeting. As we look at the presentation, you can see that things have been eliminated a little bit from many different places. Um, so there was a perception at an earlier meeting that
we were targeting one area or another. I think if you look at this with clear eyes, it's clear that we did not. You know, again, we would love to not have to make any of these uh cuts, but they have been spread around as best they can from Mr. Moore's office to the custodians to every school throughout
the district. Uh, so I I thank you for the the job that you've done. We made clear at the beginning that we didn't want to, you know, hurt one particular area more than we had to. And I think you've done a a good job at balancing the unfortunate necessities that you have to face. Um, number two, you mentioned a couple
potential revenue raisers, and Mr. uh, Stevenson referenced these as well. I think this highlights the the unique challenges that we face as a kind of middle to working-class district that some wealthier districts don't. Right? We all live under the 2% cap where we can all raise our taxes the same amount.
But wealthier districts have the luxury of going to their parents and saying pay for student activities. And there are districts throughout this state where people pay a student activities fund to participate in sports. And that then offloads the budget requirements from the district to say we can put that into
classroom or something else because the parents are paying that. And that goes against our values as the West Orange board of education as Mr. more clearly stated, but it just highlights the the constraints that we have that some of the creative solutions to budgets require a wealthy district and wealthy
parents throughout the entire district to essentially pay to subsidize their children's public education. And that's not a luxury that we have here. And so we are forced to make some decisions uh so that we can continue to educate everyone here in West Orange in a fair manner and provide them with all the
resources that that we can. Um, so with that, uh, I will turn it back to Mr. Moore if he has anything else in his superintendent report. Um, no, I think we're okay, uh, for now. Um, oh, sorry. You know what? I forgot
about that. Sorry. Got caught up in the budget. Okay. Um to conclude my report since uh at this time uh the harassment,
intimidation and bullying report as we reviewed all the summaries and investigations throughout the district, we've had six incidents um of HIB and I concur with the findings of the anti-bullying specialists. And that
concludes my report. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Moore. All right. Next up, we will have uh my president's report. Uh there's three things I'll touch on here. Uh one, just got the kind of usual highlights from Edison Middle School. Two, I'll talk a little bit about um funding because we've talked about this
before and people have asked questions. And three, I'll reflect a little bit on the budget and some of the comments at a previous meeting and some of the comments we've received by email just to give a little uh color to to what we're facing and how we've thought about things. So, first um the the happy news Edison Middle School, some things that
are going on there. Uh the Earth Day celebration on April 28th was a great success for students from Edison, Liberty, and Roosevelt who worked diligently with teachers and community members to prepare the Edison community garden for the season. Huge thanks goes to Mr. Fatica and Mr. Mains for an outstanding job organizing this event.
Yet again, Edison's school play took place this past weekend on May 2nd and 3rd with a successful production of High School Musical. Uh Junior Edison students showed off their singing, dancing, and acting talents. Mrs. Molly Eisen, Mrs. Althia Fela, and Mrs. Jacqueline Kaiser created the perfect
atmosphere that brings out the very best in our students who enjoy exhibiting their talents. As we move toward the end of the school year, Edison has many exciting activities planned, including our NJSLA pep rally. Oo, exciting. Our student uh our spring concert series featuring orchestra, chorus, and band,
and our AAPI assembly on May 27th featuring a visit from Mayor McCartney. All right. Can we So, next I've got a few slides. the board can I think look from your seats, but if you'll just scooch to the side, it would help. All right. So, I've talked about
um state funding and some funding issues at previous meetings. Uh but I thought it'd be helpful to put something together in a visual uh just to kind of make things a little more clear. So, we got three slides to go through. Promise I won't take as long as we took in the the previous uh presentation which is very thorough. Great job guys. Uh but so
up first here we have some data from the uh New Jersey Department of Ed and when they have they have uh the school funding formula which determines how much aid a district gets. There's a couple things that go into that. One, the top line uh they start by calculating what's called weighted enrollment. The weighted enrollment is
not the actual number of students that attend the district, but it's the number of students modified by things like how many students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, how many students are multilingual learners, uh how many attend a high school or a middle school because all those things essentially cost more to service those students. So
they take our actual enrollment, they multiply it by some things and they come up with a number and that's what they base our cost on. So if you look back this goes to 201920 so before the pandemic uh each year that difference in the top line is the difference in our weighted enrollment. So it goes down a
little bit up a little bit. Uh but essentially over the course of those that time period it's flat. So yes we have an enrollment increase which you saw in the previous um presentation which has to do with prek but our calculated weight in enrollment the actual number of students in our K to2 school and the demographics of the
students are essentially the same if you go back to 201920. So in that respect, our population has not changed and the costs haven't changed related to that. The second thing that goes into the formula is the state starts by calculating our adequacy budget which is what the basic budget is to provide a
thorough and efficient education to our students. Uh and they start with a base cost per person. They then apply some multipliers to that again based on weighted enrollment, based on geography. Uh but if you can encapsulate inflation in one number, it's this base cost per pupil because everything else multiplies
by that. And so you can see each year how much this goes up or down. It doesn't go down anywhere. Uh it goes up 5% in the first year. There's a few years where it's lower. But those last three years it's gone up roughly 6 to 7% each year. So that reflects the fact that as we've talked about our costs
continue to go up and that works out to individual things like what Miss Flowers talked about. uh but this is based on the educational adequacy report that the state provides uh where they research costs around the state and say this is what costs have been increasing. They then use that to calculate the actual adequacy budget for the district which
combines our weighted enrollment plus that base cost and you can see how that increases each year. Again 5% in the beginning, a couple smaller years in the middle. Uh but the last three years it's gone up three and a half then seven and then almost 10% this year when you combine that cost increase plus um some
other multipliers that go in there. The the big takeaway is that our weighted enrollment is the same but our costs have gone up quite a bit. Was there another slide? Yeah. No. Yeah. Go to this one first then we'll go to the other one. So this one uh the
second part of the funding formula then looks at um basically our ability to raise money to pay for that adequacy budget. The top line is what's called the local fair share and that's how the state calculates this is the amount of money that we think you should be collecting
in tax levy to pay for that adequacy budget. Uh now remember our actual tax levy can only increase by 2%. But this is what the state is saying on paper. In order to keep up with your local fair share, you would have to raise it this much because that's how much our fair share goes up. Uh in most years that's
gone up more than 2%. 8% in the beginning. Couple years it's in the middle, but the last three years in particular, that local fair share has gone up 5.7%, 11.5, 15.1. As that local fair share goes up, that means that we owe more money essentially and the
district the state's aid that they give us goes down. This is what we've been talking about for a while that our equalization aid has been going down and it's a result of this calculation and the amount of money the state saying we should be able to raise going up. The second
line is the actual tax levy. So again it can only go up about 2% per year. There's some adjustments to that but roughly 2% every year. So clearly not keeping in line with that local fair share. The third line is that state aid that Miss Flowers had talked about. So you see a couple of years where that's
really high. We gained a lot of funding. That was great. But the last couple years that has been very low and when you combine that with the tax levy not keeping up with our costs. If we don't have state aid to fill that gap, that becomes a problem. And then the last bottom line is our federal aid
year-over-year. Uh and this you can see again in the middle there's some you know big jumps when you get things like CO funding. Uh actually I think this particular slide the CO funding is in the next one. is just titles 1 2 3 4. So kind of base federal aid it did go up a
little bit but in the last two years that base federal aid our our grants that we get from the federal government has also gone down. So takeaway costs have gone up. Tax levy is slowly going up but not enough to keep up with costs. Earlier years we've had state aid or federal aid
that filled that gap but the last two years those funding sources have gone away. And in the last slide here puts everything into context with what our budget is built on. Uh basically the different funding streams that we get. The biggest one at the bottom is our tax
levy and it has always been the majority of our budget. Uh but and years and years ago that may have increased rapidly in some years but over the last from 2019 till 2026 it's gone up about 2.5%. The time period Miss Flowers looked at was was a little bit lower.
just a couple years that went slightly over, but in that period, it went up 17.75%. If we were to keep pace with the adequacy budget, which is what the New Jersey Department of Ed calculates our cost to be, it would have to go up 39%,
that number at the top, would be our total spending if we kept pace with that increase. We started with $150 million between all these buckets in 2019. that increase if we kept pace with our adequacy budget would have been 210 million but our actual revenue in these
big buckets which are the local tax levy uh state funding above that federal funding above that is only $194 million. The last thing to call out there is that kind of light blue. You can't see it as well with the lights. That is the prek funding that we get. It is about $9
million that comes in on top of everything else for the specific purpose of providing universal prek throughout the district. It's not part of this adequacy budget. Uh but it is a huge investment that the state is making in our district uh that we otherwise cannot make in a lot of
ways. So that kind of summarizes everything. If the board has questions. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. President Ro, can can you go back to the slide that shows your your adequacy budget?
Yep. Oh, I'm sorry. The next slide that showed the So, so let me let me just very much commend you, President Rock, for this clarity. And I and I failed to commend uh Miss Flowers and Superintendent Moore for uh
their presentation earlier. Thank you for that for that clarity. Uh but I think President Rock to me what is what is most striking here uh if we look at don't know if you if you chose these colors intentionally the the red the
green and the yellow. Uh but I think we've been talking about structural deficits, we've been talking about adequacy budget and and you mentioned equalization aid and I think the the community of West Orange if they if they can look at all of the slides in
totality, right? But I think this sums up your slides. So, the local fair share, which continues to increase from just 2 years ago at 5.7% to 15 uh
1%. Essentially says that if it goes on this trend, state aid will continue to decrease. The upward escalator of state aid uh has concluded. Although uh you described us
earlier in many respects ad accurately as a as a workingclass middle class community compared to others. Uh clearly the community of West Orange the state of New Jersey believes is becoming wealthier. Uh don't know if all of my
fellow citizens in West Orange would would would agree with that. But the reality is is that that number now having jumped from 5.7 to 15.1 and the state aid number in yellow continuing to go
down, those trend lines are moving in opposite directions. So, of our 38 30 $33 million in state aid we received this year, we talk a lot about equalization aid, approximately 15 million of that was equalization aid of
the of the entire $33 million budget. And as I mentioned last week or but for the governor's cap of no district would lose more than 3% in state aid from the previous year with that local fair share. We would be
in a much larger budget def deficit in a budget crisis had the governor not imposed that 3% cap. There's a gubanatorial election this year and we're uncertain as to what the future holds. But if that cap is not maintained, it's fair to assume and fair
to share with the taxpayers of West Orange and with our school community that we yet again could be facing another budget crisis next year of similar, if not greater proportion. The the tax levy year-over-year, I think it's important for those who are calling
about speaking about taxes. Your slide shows that it's it's pretty stable. We've gone to cap year after year and because we took out the bank cap this year and brought it to 2.3, if I'm correct, Miss Flowers, we don't have bank cap for next year. So, our maximum
tax levy next year would only be 2%. Correct. We have a very small amount of bank cap left due to the allowable adjustment that we we received for healthcare. So, it left us with roughly, if I remember, I'll double check the figure, but very small amount.
Okay. Thank you Mr. I don't want to bore us with too many numbers. Uh so last thing I just wanted to again like I said address some comments that came at the last board meeting or comments that came in through emails just to provide uh some some color on the things that we're dealing with and
some responses to some suggestions and questions that people have made. Um so one uh last meeting we presented the middle school uh restructuring plan Hayden Mr. Moore also referenced today in our budget hearing. A few people have questioned or had concerns that we were
going to uh some some words people use were quote unquote dump kids into Edison that would become the quote unquote poor district poor school down the hill. Uh that is not true. If you take a closer look at that presentation, we have carefully constructed the sending districts to those schools. Uh the three
uh middle schools will all be well balanced both in terms of socioeconomic status and ethnicity and demographics. And so we we are as a board very happy with the way that the administration has balanced the different neighborhoods in West Orange to ensure that no one is being kind of segregated off to one
side. Um also with the middle schools, uh we heard a couple people say that the cost savings didn't seem worth it. The cost savings were minimal and that it would be easy to find the money that we're saving for middle school transportation in other places. Um it's up to you how important you think that $500,000 or more dollars is, but uh let
me just put it clearly like this. We have already, as Mr. Moore demonstrated, gone through every other avenue of reducing spending. So, if you want to take that $500,000 and put it back on busing everyone to Edison Middle School, that's equivalent to 5 to 10 additional positions that need to be cut. There is
no other place to carve that from. Um, so that's a value judgment. We've made the value judgment that we think the middle school reorganization is good on its face. It's good for students as a whole. Plus, it saves us money and we think it's better to spend that money on the programs for the students. Uh we
always have a few people talk about the school employees health benefits plan, the quote unquote state plan for teachers uh and school employees healthcare. Um there's an impression that some people have that this would save us money. Uh that's simply not true. If you compare the actual premiums
for some of the plans that we have in district, uh we spend less money with our current provider than we would if we were in the state plan. Uh, also if you look over the last several years, the school employees health benefits plan has seen double-digit increases. Miss Flowers referenced a 10% estimate for
our premiums. Uh, the school employees health benefits plan had a 14% increase last year. It was more before that and it'll likely be more next year. We did last year move into the shift, the school health insurance fund. Uh, that is a similar to the school employees
health benefits plan, a poolled way to get health insurance. It allowed us to move into a pool of districts that have low usage to their claims. We did so with minimal interruption to employee health benefits, saved ourselves money last year, and also put ourselves on a more stable path moving forward. So,
we've made moves in that area. Uh, but there's no more moves to make. Another recommendation was that we negotiate different health care plans that would save us money. At this point, that's not possible or legal. The state of New Jersey passed a law chapter 44 back in
2020 that said these are the healthare plans, these are the contribution rates for all school employees throughout the state. Uh and until the end of 2027, that is not negotiable. Um so we our negotiations team is not in a position to make any changes there and that certainly would not impact this budget
year. Couple people asked uh why don't we plan ahead budget for multiple years at one time. Um two two things about that. one, we we do we plan and look ahead. Uh we have long range facilities. Uh but there's always the uncertainty of what the governor will do. Uh and so we
can plan and we can kind of think about what'll come. Uh but we don't know until February 27th what that number will be. And even if we knew how do you plan for losing 5 to10 million, right? That the plan ultimately is to cut things out of the budget, which is where we end up.
But knowing six months ahead of time or a year ahead of time doesn't help all that much. There is some discussion to the state level to provide funding figures in two-year increments so we would know a year ahead of time what our state funding will be next year. That would help a little bit for planning purposes, but it doesn't change the end point, which is that we still have to
balance the budget with the amount of money that we have. Uh also had a few comments that we shouldn't build our budget based on the unpredictable state funding. Uh if we didn't have to rely on state funding, I would love that. I'd love to just say here's our funding. We can raise the
revenue that we need. But as you saw on the slide, it's a significant chunk of our funding. Uh there is no way to replace that $30 million overnight. Um and so we have to budget for that. Use the amount of funds that we get and then deal with the consequences if the governor and the legislature cuts those
funds. Couple other or another suggestion was to be more creative in finding ways to to raise revenue. We talked a little bit about that and why some revenue raisers are non-starters for us. Uh there I think there's always a perception that we can get more ratables in town and that's great for
the town council but the way our tax levy works is we have a number we start with we get 2% that's our tax levy. If there's a new business in town that contributes to the town the town council can get that they can incorporate that into their budget. It does not change our budget in any way. Might change the
way that the taxes are distributed on homeowners but it doesn't change the bottom line of how much money we have. So we have the the funding streams that were on the slide and we have to deal with that reality. Uh similarly people suggest going after grants and fundraising opportunities. Uh we do go
after many state grants. Many of the facilities improvements that we've done in the last few years have been funded in large part by the state to the tune of 40%. We have uh raised funds from corporate donors. If you've been to our football field, you see that giant uh screen out there which was very pricey.
Did not cost us anything because through the work of Mr. more. We were able to have Robert Wood RWJ donate that. But there is not, you know, grants and fundraising that's going to balance our budget or provide operational support for the long term. We raise money
through PTAs through booster clubs and that's great for small supplemental funding. But just to put something in perspective, if you wanted to have an endowment that permanently endowed a teaching position, assume that teaching position is about $100,000. It's salary and benefits. Assume that an endowment
can spend 5% of its principal each year. That means you would need about $2 million raised in the endowment for one teaching position. Now, think about all the positions we talked about today. So, to endow those positions, to permanently preserve them, take them off our books,
put them on some foundation that's going to raise money, and do this, you would need somewhere to the tune of $50 million or more to to do that. And now, if you know some multi-million dollar donors out there, uh you can call Mr. more but I I don't know how many people in the audience can write checks like
that. Uh so so that it's just not an option right now. We talk about deferring capital investments and as Mr. Stevenson talked about right that sometimes short-term we push a few things off but we cannot afford to push all of our projects off.
Uh we did have $200 million of things recommended by our architect in our long-term facilities plan. We do not want to be like Montlair when their stairwell collapsed and so we will continue to invest in our facilities as as best we can and try to avoid kicking that can down the road. Similarly, Miss
Flowers talked about fund balance and some people have said, "Well, why don't you just spend that money down and that money's there? It's there for the rainy day. It's there for if we have some kind of emergency like a roof that needs to be fixed overnight that we didn't budget for. Uh but once you spend it, it's gone. It's your emergency fund. And then
if your emergency fund is gone and then you still have to pay bills, you can look the other way down the street to East Orange and see what happened in their budget in October when they had to lay people off in the middle of the year. And that's just irresponsible budgeting. Our auditor when he came a few months ago said that we were
currently doing the right thing with our fund balance, but if we were to use that fund balance to permanently fund our operating budget, it would be irresponsible. I mean, going in the wrong direction. And lastly, uh you may have read in the news that there are some exceptions to the 2% cap. Some districts are raising
their taxes up to 10%. Uh but that applies to a small subset of school districts. It does not apply to us. We have raised our budget to cap and we have made the one decision that we have within our control to to give Mr. Moore the tools that he needs to build this
budget. Um, so with that, I will conclude my president's report and see if any board members have other reports or comments before we go to questions from the community. Thank you, President Rock. Thank you, President Rock. Again, thank
you to uh Miss Flowers and her team and uh Superintendent Moore on the presentation this evening. Hopefully, it sheds some light for the community with respect to uh some uncertainty or open-ended questions or open questions that they may have had with respect to
process and the budget generally. Uh I'll make one request uh and yield the time in my report uh Superintendent Mo and President Rock just just to ask if for the community's uh benefit and knowledge particularly if we are looking
at the reconsolidation of 67 and 8 among Edison Roosevelt and Liberty Middle Schools. uh given some of the uh thoughts and opinions out in the community and some of the things that people have spoke about in their open comments uh and we
talked Mr. Moore talked about parity uh in his report. If we can do some level of analysis with the with the architect with respect to uh specifically the facilities planning for the middle schools and to det and to
determine over the next uh 3 to 5 years those priorities with respect to capital improvements uh for the middle schools. uh especially given this belief that there is um some some grand and great difference
between the facilities of of those middle schools. So that in fact the district knows from a parody standpoint with respect to facilities and how the buildings in which children be educated that there is some consideration to uh
creating that kind of infrastructure parity. Thank you. I don't think so. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. Of course, without a doubt, that parody also goes in to us making sure there's equity to the
buildings in terms of their how they run or what they look like or repairs to leaks and to um to windows and things of that nature. We will continue to do that. As I pointed out earlier, we do um
we all buildings across so that everyone understands they're aging buildings. Um but whatever building you're in, whether it's a newer one or an agent one, an aging one, they're all at least 20 years old and they have repairs to be made.
So, um, every building has its own unique repair to be made, um, repairs to be made and we have that in mind and that is part of our, um, that's part of our facilities plans. But, as you can see, um, what we may have to do is
stepbystep um, repairs as, um, you can see where we are in the budget right now. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Um I could thank you first of all thank
you to all the parents who wrote the emails to board members and Mr. Moore. We really appreciate the your concerns as well as I do caring for our
students, the parents and the community. we understand you know really the situation that we are having and I would like to say thank you Miss Flowers Mr. Moore Mr. President Rock for
the presentation it was clear enough that you know the concern the major concern is the money how do we allocate the money and in this situation that Mr. or say is going we are going to to do it
little by little because you know it's where we allocate the money we need the teachers we need the students to learn and get the knowledge they need in order to succeed in life and as well as the facility because
we don't want to put the students in danger and that's the another priority what I will say is you know thank you for being here today thank you for the support and as soon as we know something some grant you know I know Mr.
more miss flowers. We send it to the community and we need to write the government to all the rep people who represent the government so we can get the extra grants that we need in order to keep working the same way they did it for
years. And thank you to all the board members who are here and the one who are not present today for the extra work. It was a really, you know, taking away hours of sleep thinking about we hope
that we can get it to all of you because, you know, we understand your concerns and thank you for the support, you know. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. Uh, I'll start my vice
president's report with a few comments about my role as liaison town council. So, I've had several discussions with uh Councilwoman Castalino uh to talk about the parks uh near the schools uh
the near the middle schools as we reconfigure things. She has concerns which uh we're going to address and I'm sure that by the time we get to September, we'll be able to address all the issues and it'll run I think it's
going to run smoothly and we're certainly putting in the time and effort to to make that happen. Um when I walked when I went to the uh town council last month as liaison to uh
tell them that I we could not support the leafblower amendment and President Rock was on board with me. Um we told them that we couldn't do that. Regardless of whether you think uh leaf blowers are an issue or not, I
certainly was not going to support uh a bill that would have to be paid for on the backs of teachers. That's a that was an easy one. And of course afterwards, I don't I don't know about Mr. Rock, but a few people half kidding,
half not. Why do you hate the environment? Don't don't you care about our planet? I I think that's so silly. We we have to learn to talk to each other a little better than that. I care about the environment. If it makes you feel better, I have solar panels, but we
have to make choices in life. So, we chose the teachers over this leaf blower ordinance. Um, we're going to agree, we're going to disagree, we see things differently, but it's we we should not be ascribing
motives. You're a bad person because you disagree with me. And that's what I want to talk about for a minute. Now, at the last meeting, a gentleman stood up with a keypo on his head. For those who don't know, a keyp is something that religious men wear on their head. He couldn't even
finish his comments when people started heckling him from the back, saying, "Sit down. He doesn't have a right to speak. His kids don't go to the the public schools." Um, I just want to say with regard to that, I don't know who you think you are
when you say some something like that, but you don't get to decide who speaks. I'm I'm on the board of education and I don't get to decide who speaks. Whoever comes get to gets to speak. If you don't like what he says, come up front and say
something against it. But have a little courage and decency to to do it the right way. In fact, if we're going to say that he doesn't get to speak, how about anybody who does not live in town right now should just leave. Are we going to do
that? I mean, there would be a lot of people heading for the doors if we did that. The least we can do, I would remind President Rock, is that this uh board has policy of when someone speaks, they say their name and their address, not where they teach, not where they
used to live, where they live. I think that's reasonable. I would not have said anything about this other than the fact that it was public because what I've been dealing with for a couple years has been kind of private. You don't have to look online.
I have friends in all the neighborhoods of this wonderful township and I have friends in the teachers union saying two things about me. Well, he's Jewish. They they don't care about public schools. Their kids go
to Jewish schools. Uh, a lot of our, so I'll address that. A lot of our kids go to Jewish schools and some go to public schools. Nobody supports the public schools more than my community. We know
that the value of this community sits rests on the quality of the public schools. When you look to move to a town, what are you looking at? Public schools, crime rate, parks. I mean, schools are at the top of the list. send their kids to Jewish schools,
Catholic schools, whatever it is. Don't be intimidated. You don't have to be shy. These people don't rent represent the majority. And every time they act the way that they did, somebody has to speak up against it. I'm sorry that it has to be me, but somebody should speak
up against that kind of attempted bullying and intimidation. As a side note, it intimidates nobody. It just makes you want to speak more. The second thing that I've been hearing about me
is why is he on the board? His kid doesn't even go to public school here. Really? My son goes went to Kelly, went to Roosevelt, went to West Orange High School, and now he's out of district.
Well, he doesn't count. You know, he's special service. My son doesn't count. How about if I tell you your son doesn't count? Would you like that? I'm not speaking out of hurt feelings. It rolls right off of me. I'm speaking on behalf of the other parents of special needs
kids who feel like they have to whisper or beg and gravel to get what they need or deserve. I say this to the parents of special needs children. You are part of the community. Your child is no less than any other. and the school district is not doing you
a favor by giving them what you require. It's a moral obligation and it's a legal obligation. So, don't be shy. Stand up for your child. It's a beautiful special needs community in this town and I'm proud to be part of it. Which brings me
to my next point. When we talk about how we talk to people, we're in a budget crisis. 73% I think of the budget is from salaries, benefits, uh, pensions. I have no doubt that the
boards who sat here before us were much smarter than me, much more knowledgeable on the issues. No problem. Whatever they did or didn't know, they did their best. The same with the superintendent. But we're dealing with their decisions that
were made years ago, and we're doing the best that they can. It is so ugly to hear someone come up to this podium and describe Mr. Moore and his team as
lazy. I mean, I'm speechless. It is so disgraceful. This is how we talk to people in a school. All this business about don't you care about the kids? How about giving them a role model one night a month? Just one night a month where
we're civil to each other. We go around town and we see signs on people's lawns or even on the township signs that say hate has no home here. I think we should amend those signs to say
hate has no home here except at the board of education once a month or hate has no home here unless I disagree with you. Mr. Moore is too much of a gentleman to say it, but those are hurtful words and I find them disgraceful.
Um, another thing that I would like to mention, you might notice that as you're speaking, some of us take notes. We listen, we learn. I can learn from anyone. If I we've only lived in town for nine years. There are people
who have lived in town for 30 years or more. Somebody as a student at Gregory. My son never went to Greg. I want to hear. I want to learn. So the idea that people come up here, unload on the board of ed, I guess it makes them feel better, and then leave, there's nothing
you can learn from us, from Mr. M. Nothing. You know, everything. I mean, that that is not a good look. Ju just so you know, uh, the other thing that was said and then I'll I'll wrap it up, is you're doing you're doing the easy things here.
It's so easy to cut people. This is not easy. We don't enjoy this. Nobody likes being the bad guy. But we have to be adult about this. There's no more money. Mr. Moore went through it. Find us the money. We'll
spend it. There's no more. The things that are said are really out of line with reality. Life isn't uh what the You're not being fair. It's not fair to cut these teachers. Yeah, I know. I I hate it. Life is not
fair. I've been treating cancer patients for more than 30 years. Men, women, a lot of children. A lot of this was in Newark. I don't need lectures on that. Life is not fair. I I know life is not fair. We're doing the best we can. And I can assure
you, you you replace us with five others, new superintendent, everybody knew and the cuts would have been way worse than they are now. Way worse. And we're already seeing what we can do to mitigate the uh the financial shortfall
for next year. So everybody here is working on the on behalf of the children, on behalf of the teachers, and on behalf of the taxpayers. Finally, I on a little bit of a lighter note, I would say to the
Mandarin people, I was so proud uh to support your program. Uh you did a great job presenting. Your job between this year and next year is make the program so strong that nobody will even consider cutting it because next year as Mr. Stevenson
reminds us is going to be tough again. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Yes, Mr. Stevenson. Briefly. Briefly. Briefly. So I I just want to u as a point of policy one to uh to stipulate
to Mr. Iker's comment about public comment. Uh the rules do state that those speaking at public comment need to give their name and address. Is that correct, Miss Flowers? Yes, that is in policy. And so, President Iraq, I would
just uh stipulate to the chair that we adhere to that policy and anyone not uh conforming to that policy be not not not be allowed to speak as a point of policy. Uh secondly, with respect to Mr. Ker's
point on the attacks against Mr. Moore, uh I I did find them unbecoming, did find them inappropriate, I did find them unnecessary. I think I've said at the April board meeting that the reality
is is that few months ago district was great, Mr. Moore was great. Uh we get these sad numbers about budget and the bottom drops out. And now Mr. Moore is uh what were the comments Mr. Ker?
Lazy, thoughtless, all these things. we don't have to have a a social studies course and some of that language and the latency of it which is coded in uh in racism and and other things. Uh so it's just disappointing to hear some of those
comments from the podium. As I said the last meeting uh Mr. Moore is a man of integrity. Uh this is my fourth budget that I have participated as a board member. Uh, Miss Flowers is a business administrator and a board secretary of
integrity. Uh, her staff has worked tirelessly to get this together. Uh, as Mr. Ker pointed out, I'm sorry, as Miss Vera pointed out, uh, this board has worked for hours uh, trying to mitigate a very difficult situation.
uh because our priority is our is our students and we know when teachers are um lose their jobs, kids are affected and so that's nothing that our objective is to have a school
system that is in the best interest of the students but also one that the taxpayers of West Orange can afford. And so that's a balance that Mr. Rock has spoken to, that we've all spoken to. And I just think the community should be aware of the uh caliber of the leadership that
exists within the district and the hard choices that they had to make. Uh we've come to a conclusion of support of the budget. Uh but that support uh did not come with very hard conversations and questions for Mr. Moore and the leadership. So thank you, Mr. Moore.
Thank you, Mr. Stevens. Uh this time I have a motion to open the public hearing for questions and comments relative to the 202526 budget that has been presented by the superintendent of schools, Mr. Moore, and the school business administrator, Miss Flowers. Motion. Thank you, Mr. Hipker. Is there
a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. Um we will have questions from the public on agenda items, the budget uh only. Any community member who would like to make comments or ask questions, please come to the podium at this time. As Mr. Hicker and Mr. Stevenson have pointed out. Please make
sure that you uh state your name and home address for the record and then begin your comments. Please limit your comments to three minutes. Uh do we have any members of the public here in the audience who wish to make public comments? Hi everyone. My name is Josh Goldbarb. I'm the president of the WOEA
and I live at 10 Nance Road in West Orange. I want to start by again like I did last week recognizing the hard work that Mr. Moore know from our private conversations that this was not something he addressed lightly. I also
want to thank Ms. uh Liz Mziano, the head of HR. She has been working to fill vacancies that were the result of retirements and resignations with some of those who were let go due to eliminated positions and we appreciate that. I understand that the district might be facing budget constraints. I am
wondering when the public budget meetings took place. Did they happen? I was informed today from the presentation they seem not to have because they're supposed to take place. Previous iterations of the board of education had these meetings. Where was the public in input on the budget before it was
presented in March? Board policy states that the board shall provide for community input during the budget development process. And while I applaud Mr. Moore's outreach to the community. That was after the budget was developed. The town council is currently working on their budget and they have had their
public budget workshops and have published each draft version of their budget. Why haven't we done the same here? We are being asked to believe your words that there is a deficit and I don't doubt it. But that's not good enough. It's not
that I don't trust the board, but I believe in the policy of trust but verify. I put little faith in words. I believe that things should be subject to the closest of scrutiny, which is why I am again requesting a copy of the full
budget, the full line item budget, which has still been not not been given to me. New Jersey statute dictates that the board shall make available upon request for public inspection all budget and supporting documentation contain
contained in the budget application once application has been submitted. On Monday, March 31st, after the budget was submitted, I requested a copy of the budget and was told by the business administrator that contrary to the statute, the budget was still in draft form and therefore it did not have to be
shared. My response was that shall make available once it is submitted is very clear. This email I did not uh receive a response to neither uh I did not get a response to my follow-up 3 days later. Mr. Ifker, um you mentioned earlier that
we have to follow rules here. Why was that rule not followed? That is a statute. I filed an open request for the budget which was denied because, and I quote, "As the district's 2526 budget remains in draft form and has not yet been approved by the county superintendent of schools, it is
protected from disclosure by the district's deliberative process privilege. This is a false claim. Just as an essay a student turns in for a grade is no longer a draft, the budget ceases to be a draft once it is submitted for approval. It is no longer deliberative at that point. Submission
for approval marks the end of the deliberative process, not the beginning. This time I did receive a response. I was informed that upon further review, we determined that the district policy does provide Mr. that the district shall make its budget application available for public
submission to the county superintendent for approval. Thank you very much. right there. Molly Eisen, 242 Gregory Avenue, West Orange Education Association Vice President and Teacher Edison. So, I'm picking up where Mr. Goldfarb left off.
Essentially, the WOE was right all along and should have been given the budget when it was first requested a month earlier. These denials are not a mistake. The WOA and the public have been deliberately denied a copy of the full budget. Let's remember that when
the board decided to allow us to view the budget, it had been a month since his initial request. This was the month that the public could have reviewed, disputed, or even verified the claims of financial distress. When he was allowed to look at the budget, he was with the chaperone and could not take notes.
Analysis and inspection are impossible without the ability to take notes. Ask any teacher that. But we still don't have a copy of the full line item budget. The position of the WOEA is that the district continues to be in violation of state statute and our OPRA
request remains unfilled. Why were we denied for a month? Why is so much diligent work been put into preventing the budget from being seen? Perhaps if that same diligence was present when the budget was being created, we wouldn't be where we are today. The bottom line is
that you are out of compliance and we deserve an explanation. We are expecting that you email Mr. Goldfarb a full copy of the budget and all other documents enumerated in his OPRA request first thing tomorrow morning. The WOE will be communicating with our members in the
morning to inform them that we have received the budget or if we are again being denied these documents. We have two emails ready to send at 9:00 a.m. Which option you choose will determine which email is sent. Deb
Cohen meetings, those of us that spoke were admonished by board members at previous meetings. At the end of the meeting, we were told we were spreading misinformation. We spent too much time in class discussing with students and the options were limited anyway. Nothing that was looked at except staff cuts changes has been communicated to the
community at large until tonight. We were getting our information from students and parents. It was the only information we had. So if it was misinformation, then the board should have worked to show not only the staff of the district but the community as a whole what the truth was. We were not told anything of substance at the
preliminary budget. Questions were asked by many and even last week when there was an opportunity to update the community. We found out nothing new about the overall budget. This continues the distrust that is happening. Right now I have to I'm all out of order here. Um grants are great. Perkins grant is
what keeps the CTE program running at the high school. It's millions of dollars if I remember correctly. Certainly hundreds of thousands, but it takes care of its costs. That grant that was referred to for the the scoreboard, great that they donated it. They didn't pay for labor. They did pay for parts
and they did pay for installation. That came out of the district's budget. We live streamed graduation, which has always been recorded and put up on the website the day after. Why do we need to pay for that when it's the day after? I know tickets are limited, you know, and now I'm going to be the evil one. I have
three student three children now young adults that were athletics six through 12. Why are we not looking at middle school athletics? We have wreck in this town. It's a it's a big wreck in this town. I don't know about the travel and the club situation, but many school
districts have already gotten away with it gotten away from middle school athletics in the past several years. Why won't we look at it? Why won't we look at the number of coaches that are coaching different sports at the athletics? If I remember correctly,
there are 13 for football. I know there's different teams. I don't know if 13 is necessary. It seems excessive. Um, last week's overall message as to why the change was good for the middle school was one model, one community, three years of stability.
Obviously, the one model and three years of stability are specific to 6 through 8. I would hope the one community is not limited there, but to the entire district, preK to 12. However, in no way has any sense of community been felt by the employees of the district. We have been left in the dark throughout the whole process. And again, tonight it was
questioned whether we should even be allowed to speak. That we are a huge part of the community. We never got to understand what was being looked at and why or even how things might be prioritized until tonight. Again, as I have said two times already, we're well aware some decisions have to be made outside the public eye.
But this budget season has taken that privacy too far. We want to help our students grow. We care about the district. For most, it isn't just a job. Those of us in the 13 buildings of the districts are the heart and soul of this district and that has been forgotten. We have been left out in the cold and can only hope to come out the other side
without too many scars. Hello again. My name is Lisa Rdino. I live at 121 Liberty Wayand. I am a teacher in West Orange for 20 and to honor my colleagues who work tirelessly throughout this district for the students of West Orange. I see you
and I think it's only fair to ask that the superintendent and his team do the same. And in the spirit of making good trouble, I'm asking my colleagues to consider attending monthly board meetings so that we can all hold each other accountable. Tonight, Miss Flowers and Mr. more attempted to explain how we arrived at this critical juncture and
the financial shortfalls of the district. They alluded to the fact that we could have been in this position last year and that future years will be as bad if not worse. How don't we have a district strategic plan? Do we have district goals? I couldn't find anything
current. And as a educator employed in this district, I'm required to submit weekly lesson plans. I have to submit a professional development plan every year. And the irony is my plans are reviewed by my superiors that are functioning without a plan. This makes
no sense. And if we were in such dire straits last year and um President Rock said years prior, why do we proceed as if we weren't? Why do we continue to fund all extracurricular activities, clubs, and sports teams? Why do we
continue offering competitive salaries for so many coaches? Why do we continue to pay for costly school business training and workshops? Why are we hiring new faculty? Why do we proceed with the preschool expansion? Why do we adopt new curriculums at the elementary
level? We adopted ELA, HMH, and I ready math. When the presentation was made in for the ELA, it was told to the board and the community that three through five, grades three through five met or exceeded the state expectations, but we went ahead with a new program anyway. As
an educator, I'm expected to always be prepared to know my intended outcomes and to differentiate while I'm monitoring and adjusting to meet the needs of my students. And as an employee, I expect that the superintendent and the board of ed are monitoring the needs in the of the district as well. And this includes our
finances. Nothing is free. Programs adopted with grants or ESR funding still had costs associated with them. Programs require locations. The preschool includes 11 sites. They require busing, professional development, instructional rounds, coaching, data analysis,
curriculum writing. All these costs add up and they are not free. As a former curriculum writer and a member of the curriculum council, I will tell you that curriculum is difficult to find. It's it's difficult
to find. Some teachers never use it. And curriculum writing varies greatly between every department. Not to mention the fact that curriculum costs this district a ton of money. I personally have written curriculum that was never posted. I've also been paid thousands of
dollars for curriculum that I wrote that was rejected and not used. I'm one person. I don't know how many other members of the community can say the same. I'm out of time. Thank you. Hi, my name is Bonnie Cohen Goodman. I
live at 136 Walker Road and I also am a parah at Washington School. First, I would like to comment on a remark made by Dr. Bryant at last week's meeting. I'm sorry she's not here. Dr. Bryant chastised the public for only coming out at this moment. The board meets on
Monday night once a month. Why isn't the public present? It is because the public elected you to take care of the business of perspective. You have failed to carry out your mission. In a district of 13 schools with an operating budget of a Fortune 500 company, is it prudent to
only have one meeting a month? If the board does its job, the public should only need to attend board meetings for presentations highlighting our students accomplishments. Now you've put these wonderful moments in jeopardy. For years, the board meant twice a month. Public SE sessions starting at 8, giving
parents time to feed their kids dinner before attending. The agenda was a few pages. Now, it's at least 10, difficult for anyone to easily review. To that point, I look to our town council as an example of transparency. The council will host three Zoom sessions in May,
open to the public. We can watch as the council reviews its budget line by line. The board did not offer us this option. Although public budget meetings were always offered in past years, I have attended them. Why not now? So, here are some of my
questions. On what budget line does it show the mount amount of grant money received from New Jersey for the universal prek? What is the specific line item for transportation for this program? Does it include costs for bus aids? Are the transportation costs included in the grant? I know of no
preschool where children are bust without additional costs. Construction and operating costs for the community house renovation. Where are the line items to include the architect, permits, and support staff and other related costs? Are you are you bonding any of
these costs? What is your five-year strategic plan for the universal prek? And what are those projected costs moving forward? Before committing to the universal prek as no cost to the town, how carefully did Miss Flowers review all costs, including those not covered
in the grant now that the district must now account for in their budget? And on the reconfiguration of the middle school, how is a district determining the street boundaries to assign households for the particular school? Was there a democratic a
demographic study done to protect project the equity numbers for the three schools? and a map showing this delineation should be posted on the website as soon as possible. And who from the community besides the administration was there to guide in making this decision? 20 years ago, we
had 42 community members that met for nine months to arrive at the Central 6 configuration and do you have a five-year strategic plan to realize the savings for this school? And how is helping you in the next budget? And what are the specific line items for the cost
savings? The public is doing exactly what it should be doing now, questioning whether the the board whether they can live up to their obligations and we deserve an answer. Thank you. All right. You know what? Um before
Tanya turns that machine on, um I do need to just respond to Robert's comment. Mr. W, could you just introduce yourself and then your time will begin. Thank you. I stand before friends address.
Each time I've come up here, I remind you that my name is Jay Wack and that my West Orange address is Roosevelt Middle School where I've been for 30 years. And the policy requires you to disclose a home address. Oh, I live at 137 to Forest Avenue, East
Hanover. Well, thank you. Continue. I've told you I've told you too that means that I've been around the block and proudly I I can say that that block is a West Orange one. Sadly, I have to say that it's a shame that it has to come to this
because now I can't get out of my head all the literary characters that come to mind when I try to wrap my head around how it is we are where we are right now. trying desperately to keep our heads above the water that surrounds us in the whale that has become our home. I also
think of Icarus and what it must have been like to recognize that the wax that is holding his wings uh is quickly melting and what that is going to mean. And I think that about that famous emperor who doesn't realize that his new outfit is not what he thinks it is.
These ruminations always end up in the same place though. become less the Nick Carowway to your Gatsby and more the Jimny Cricut to Japetto's favorite son. A story I alluded to near the beginning of this speech. Yes, I've become that caring, nagging voice that keeps you up
at night. No worries, though. I'm up at at the same time you are, and I'm the one wondering what we're going to do about the hundreds of kids running around in our parks with nothing to do because nothing's been put in the place of the middle school sports program that may be gone. I assure you I'm up at night thinking
about the beautiful children at Washington Elementary, the title one school like Hazel and Kelly who served West Orange's most vulnerable students and what their future is going to be like when when so much has been taken away from them. I'm thinking about Edison Central uh 6 which will be no
more and how that is going to affect our town. Yes, you don't have to live in West Orange to consider it your town. stand up and teach over 200 West Orange children in the same room in the same building for three decades and I promise you you're
home. My first decade here Edison was a 678 and I saw what that did to the town that I love and I saw too how making it a central six turn it into the great equalizer that which it will be no more. And here's another thing we of course need to teach these grades but preschool
we don't. So I it just needs to be explained to me why all the other children have to suffer because we're also going to have an unsustainable program not required by the state. And I'm thinking too about those classes of 30 in our middle school starting in September with a skeleton crew of
teachers teaching grades they've never taught before. All so that they and their students can help put the dirt back into an 11 million dollar hole that seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Anyway, my time's up, almost up. So, let me just say that transparent
is something that you are, not something that you say you are. My speech back in March mentioned the affection I have for the people who were in front of me. That hasn't changed. We've broken bread. We've enjoyed a cup of coffee. And most of us
have been in most of you have been in my classroom. We have another month and a half until school ends. You're welcome to come visit me in my West Orange home whenever you're available. I'll leave the light on for you. Mera Franowitz, 28 Ridge View Avenue.
First, I want to thank you for sharing the survey data. I have personally been extremely curious to see what was compiled and how it was going to be used. I, as an educator, find data to be imperative in informing my next steps and I wanted to see how the board was using that. So, thank you. I also want
to thank you for taking the time to break down your budgetary process. I think that that step by step was really helpful and it allowed me to create some much more specific questions that I have for the board. First of all, I'm curious why Gregory is losing the most class sections when it in fact has the largest
student population out of our elementary schools. A population so large that it actually rivals that of Edison Middle School and Roosevelt Middle School. On a side note, those two schools happen to have vice principles and we don't. Um, I'm also curious how many of the
retirements and resignations that are not being filled are included in the number for Gregory. On the slide, it showed Gregory was losing three teachers, and I want to know how many more are included when we say the retirements and resignations that are not being
filled. We are going to supposedly have classes capped at 25 students with only three sections per grade. And I don't see how that's mathematically possible with our current student population. We have 481 students at Gregory. If we take
that and make six grades with three sections each, we are 30 students over that 25 cap. Granted, we do have two inclusion classes, but together those classes do not equal 31. So 25 students per class is not possible at Gregory if
there's only three sections per grade. So I'm curious how that number came to be and how we'll address it for our students. because all schools, no matter how large, should have an equal opportunity in West Orange. I'm also curious what we're going to do for academic support. We are going to have
larger numbers of students per class, which means there's a higher teacher to student ratio. Are we going to be increasing our intervention opportunities for students? Gregory lost two intervention teachers last year. We can't afford to create a higher issue. A
greater problem for Gregory now regardless of budgetary constraints. More students require more management means there's less teacher to go around. How are we going to make sure all of our students are getting what they need. Also on the capital SL project slide, I
did not see Gregory listed anywhere. Whereas we have an art room that needs asbestous remediation. I would expect that to be on there. And in 2020, the summer of 2020, we were supposed to have our boys's bathroom renovated due to plumbing issues. And clearly because of
PPE that had to get put to the side, but it never came back. And it stinks. You walk in Gregory, you smell the boy's bathroom. So, I don't understand why we have no capital put aside for Gregory based on the slide provided. Um, I would
like to suggest that we consider moving gifted and talented into the school to better educate our students and reduce transportation costs there. Thank you. Uh, Adam Kramer, 20 Moran Road, uh, West Orange, New Jersey. Um, I have a
couple questions. I saw some inconsistencies or maybe I'm missing something regarding the budget presentation. The numbers I saw, you had a total revenue just over 200 million, but on page six of your agenda, you
referred to total revenues of almost 221 million. Um, in the presentation I didn't see anywhere the 14 plus mill million that's in the agenda as quote special revenue and the almost 6 million that's in quote uh borrow well
uh borrowing. Um, and I'd like to know how that plays into the budget and where did we see it when uh we saw the presentation sitting down a few minutes ago. The other thing is um I didn't see a full budget in advance. Uh I know Miss
Flowers referenced that it was in the Star Ledger. I didn't see it there probably because the Star Ledger stopped printing on February 1st. Um so um so I have some questions about how this was communicated effectively
and the internal consistency. the big driver of what's where we are in this budget mess and it's not pleasant to to to hear and it's not that I'm making a value judgment
about teaching or teachers I'm making a math op observation um there's a disconnect between what the tax base can provide without going over cap or increasing it more than it
already is and what we pay our employees. Past boards, in my opinion, have got entered into contracts that were economically under unsustainable. I've been going to the boards for years. I've
said that. I'm sorry for the teachers that there were expectations in your contract that were unrealistic that were communicated to you. Um, but that's really where the disconnect is. That's really why we're
in this situation. Uh, West Orange teachers are compensated above norms. Um, I was hopeful and I might even go for breaking cap if there was some communication between the uh board
and the union where maybe defer raises a little bit, public goes a little bit above cap and we could keep all the programming and all the people who are being laid off. I wish that was a better solution. I respect this board, but
because this budget, in my view, isn't in the public interest, I'd say vote it down, hunt, and let the uh county superintendent figure it out. Thanks. Good evening. My name is Emily Peas. I live at 8 Harvard Terrace in
West Orange. I'm a parent of a second grader and a kindergarten at Gregory Elementary. and I'm here again tonight with my neighbors from what was called the Gregory Civic Advocacy Group. But given now that we represent over 400 supporters across the district, we're working on a new name that reflects our
broader reach. If you'd like to join us again, we have a signup sheet around the room. Last week, we sent a detailed letter to the board and superintendent requesting transparency around the budget deficit and staffing cuts. And we wanted this before tonight's presentation and vote. I will say we are
grateful. Personally, I am grateful. We haven't spoken since um since the presentation tonight, but we're grateful for what you walked us through tonight. This is what we have been begging for. A lot of these questions were answered, and I really wish we would have had it before the day of the vote where we could have some some feedback and input.
Um there are still many questions on our list unanswered. Now, not all of us can be in person or stay until the end of these long meetings, but please know we are paying attention. We're watching the YouTube videos at home. We're hearing your comments. We're reviewing every
public document you put out there. And we still need clear, written answers to some of the questions that are outstanding in our letter. One in particular that is really important and has come up multiple times tonight. What are the long-term plans to avoid budget crises like this in the future? As we've
heard, it was detailed in how you walked through the state aid funding. I've now watched you do this, uh, Mr. Rock, multiple times, and it's been helpful. This state aid is likely going to go down based on the calculation again next year to the 3% cap or more depending on who's in in in how we can all be involved together
to help prevent these problems. In fact, our group, as I said last week, we are ready to advocate to this gate. Help arm us for what we need with presentations like this so we can advocate for this at the state level. and will you please establish a citizen advisory group to
allow the public input for transparency for future budgets, long-term planning and solutionsbased collaboration? Let me be clear, none of us wants this level of oversight to be necessary. But this year's budget deficit and the scale of the cuts have made it clear it is
necessary now. We need change and we need accountability and we need partnership. This district has a history of collaborating with the community to get things done. Just look at the successful push to establish the public prek program which in included strong community input and advocacy. We are
here to rekindle that spirit of collaboration with urgency, purpose, and the hope for real results. Thank you. My name is Samuel Flesner and I am in seventh grade at Liberty. I am here today to say how thankful I am that you have decided to keep Mandarin in the
middle schools. There are many practical reasons in today's economy that make Mandarin an important language to learn. But I wanted to speak on what studying the language means to me. When I was in Edison, we were given four different languages to study and told to pick our
favorite one. Mine was Mandarin. I love Chinese culture. I love the language and I love learning everything about it. This this year in seventh grade, I have learned even more. Earlier in the year, I performed Tai Chi with several
of my classmates at the Lunar New Year Gala that was held right here at the high school. It was a magical experience. Being together with friends, eating good food, and experiencing an amazing culture. It made me feel proud
to be a part of what the West Orange School community. Now, thanks to your decision, I can continue my studies of Mandarin with the ultimate goal of going on a field trip to China in my senior year of high school at West Orange. Hi, my name is Larry Winrab at 76 Coobe
in Terrace. Um, where to begin? I I I want I we've heard a lot of anger and outrage from many people here uh today and I think it's just a reflection of the
frustration that everyone feels that we're in this position and I I think you know we all know that all of you up there and all of the teachers here all want the best for our students uh and for our
children And I think it's I consider myself a well-informed person. Um and I have spent the last six weeks trying my best to understand where
we are, what the outlines of what might be possible are so that I could get up here and say something useful to you that might be of input to the actual budget details. But that information really isn't there. Um, and uh, at least
until tonight. And so I I'm I'm not angry at anyone. I'm just upset. And I hope that we have 12 months until we have to do this again. Um, and as many people have pointed out, there's no cavalry coming over the mount, you know, coming over
the hill. We're we're the cavalry, right? We have to fix it as a community. And so I'm really hopeful that in the next 12 months we can take a much more collaborative approach where you know we we get out ahead of this train uh and
work together. I remember prior to this series of meetings the last time I spoke here uh right before I spoke you spoke Mr. Rock um about the importance of civic education. Um and you know this is an example of where we have to do it.
We have to be a community and solve our problems together so that we're not up here wondering why decisions are being made, questioning each other's motives and speaking with anger. The the world is a very angry place right now.
Um our you know certainly the whole country and we have an opportunity to do better by our children. uh to really work together as a community where we have the values of
education, of truth, of civic community. And it's vital that we do that with respect for each other. And I I appreciate all of the work that everyone in this
room does and gives their time to. And I'm thankful and grateful for it. And everyone who's spoken here wants to help. They want the best. And so I ask with I ask that we make it possible for
everyone to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Andrew Keshner, 31 Lawrence Avenue. Um, in the vein of the some other comments about thinking ahead and
planning for the long term, actually just have two basic questions. Um, can the board educate me and the public as to how the town council can help any sort of There was a mention of
teaming up on recreation and so on and so forth to help us understand how they how they can help defay costs and problem solve going forward. and thinking that this is going to be a
problem for the long term, an issue for the long term. I'd also want to know what the plans are for the long term for the board making its needs known to our state officials, to our federal officials, I mean to our federal
electeds. how are you what what's what's the plan to lobby in the the the grand sense of the term on what we need from the state and from the federal government. Um so I'd love to hear more about that and otherwise just uh you
know I recognize the bind that uh we are in that you're in and you're trying your best and thank you for your effort. Good evening. My name is Lesley Turner, Five Club Boulevard. I'm speaking tonight as a parent of three Gregory
parent students and a member of the Gregory Civic Advocacy Group. This group came together very quickly because we have so many questions and we are very concerned for our always a little in the dark. The middle school consideration and decision
happened a month apart with no communication. That's a really large change without proactive communication, even if it is $500,000 a year year-over-year. We are just now seeing the summary of the community budget solutions and the budget report. So,
thank you very much for that. But we need a chance to review and digest it. It was a lot of numbers, too many for me to comprehend. At first glance, Gregory does seem to be disproportionately affected, and it is the largest elementary school. Are we getting all of
the 25 class caps? It sounds like you all had some questions, too. You need to hold off on passing this budget until there is additional input and conversation. And eventually, we need to figure out what changes we need to make
to help ourselves in years to come. We urge you to establish a community budget advisory council so we can proactively get ahead of the issues year-over-year. We could help you push a referendum through as it will definitely need community
support. I think with increased communication and transparency, we will all see that there is a rationale for the decisions you are making on behalf of the community. We just ask that in these unprecedented times, you increase the involvement of that community. Thank
you. Hi, good evening. Will Dono, 84, Cooane Terrace. I'm part of the Greg Gregory Civic Advocacy Group. Thank you for clearly taking this time this past week to address our concerns. Our group's letter signed over by over 400 parents across all of the schools in the
district and community members was received clearly. Tonight, I want to speak in support of greater transparency and shared advocacy. We've heard from the district that costs are rising faster than revenue. Yet, federal proposals, including the proposed White House budget released this week, would
flatline special education funding and cut support for ELELLL or English language learners. My mom was a public school ELELLL teacher for over 20 years, so I know how vital and vulnerable those services are. Clearly, West Orange has grown rapidly in in recent history, but
we haven't built a new school building in years. Our infrastructure is aging. Class sizes are now, as of today, rapidly growing. And our resources are apparently permanently stretched. The simple truth is this. We need more revenue. Not just cuts, but a serious
collaborative effort to bring in what's needed to serve every student. And I know that you are all doing your level best to address this. I can see that very clearly. Thank you. But we as parents and residents are ready to advocate alongside you for funding for
state support for sustainable solutions. But we need your continued transparency and trust to do that. Keep the information flowing to us and we will keep showing up. If you are here tonight and you want to stay involved, please
sign up at the end here or visit w4.com to learn more. Thank you. Tony Edelstein, 50 Davy Drive, teacher at the high school. Over the course of several meetings, several board members have criticized community and staff members for making allegedly erroneous
claims about the budget. But had the public been presented with the detailed info presented tonight, there may have been less criticism of the board and administration and more informed commentary by the public. Secondly, I find some members of the board especially thin skinned about criticism
from the public. I don't envy your jobs, but you signed up for it and you knew the slings and arrows that come with the job. Some board members seem to relish in lecturing the public. I take particular exception to comments made tonight by Mr. and Mr. Stevenson. Mr. I
was one of the people sitting in the back at the last meeting. When the gentleman wearing a yamaka spoke, I did not hear anyone voice opposition to him speaking. I did hear snickers because the gentleman's views on the school budget, teacher salaries, and benefits are well known, but I did not hear any
calls to stifle his right to speak. As for Mr. Stevenson's comments, I did not hear anyone call Mr. Moore or his staff lazy. Yes, people have been critical of the process, lack of transparency, but I did not hear any epithets or ad hominin
attacks. I think you mistake inquiry and demands for transparency uh for public attacks. Thank you. I'll go first. Hi, good evening. My name is Eric Frri.
I live at 37 Fair View A. Uh I almost never get to go to these meetings. This is the first board of education meeting I've ever been to. I started work at 5:30 this morning. I finished at 8:00 PM. I rushed home, tucked my kid in, and I came here. This
uh I'm very upset to see that we are looking to make such big cuts. I'm I work very hard and I don't do it so that we can have cut rate government in any form, whether it's through the town or with our education. I'm not saying that's what we're doing, but
No one was saying that we were overfunded last year. So obviously if we're going to be underfunded this year, we're making cuts that we wouldn't be making otherwise. I see if you can look up news articles, other towns there are raising their taxes 13% their school
taxes over 30%. That's happening this year. Um, from what I understand, uh, there's been, uh, a bill passed in the state that would allow special rate increases because of the, uh, the loss of state funding. Um, again, 13% over
30% and here it's 2.3%. So, that's not enough, obviously. Um, I I'm very um I feel for anybody who feels like they may not be able to afford it. Um, and I know that's something that you guys are taking
seriously, and I think you should be, but you also can't take on everybody's problems. Your job is to fund and make sure the school system works. Um, if that's what if it takes more money to make it work, it takes more money. It
costs what it costs. Like you guys aren't making up numbers here, right? It costs what it costs. So what we need from you is to do what's necessary. Either if you say it's a referendum or if there's a special way
to do it, it just costs what it costs. Please fund the school systems properly. Hi, Alex Baron, 25 Dale Drive. Um, just a few comments that I wanted to make. Um, hearing from from Mr. Moore and Mr. Rock the vision of uh, with no pun
intended, no paytoplay for sports. I I appreciate that vision for the district that we are economically diverse and those are practices we need. Um, and and I I appreciate you sharing that that is part of the vision. The other part of the vision that we need is what are the
long-term revenue growth opportunities because we can't cut to growth. And we say that as people who are on your team also, whether it's parents or teachers, there is not enough to cut that will get us through what I think everybody who spoke about the budget tonight said were
inevitable continue uh uh opportunities for cuts next year. We are going to be back here. We we cannot continue to look at cut opportunities for the year. We need to be looking at opportunities for increased revenue. And I I'm telling you
I we don't have all the answers. And with that is the need for that level of transparency where we can people have showed an additional interest in being involved. And I think that's where you've received a lot of emails lately of here are some ideas and the response tonight was this doesn't work and this
doesn't work and this doesn't work. We hear that, but we need to know these things so that we can be more involved. Um, and the the last thing that I want to end on. Um, I I can't speak for the intention of the the members who who uh
spoke about teachers who may not live in districts speaking at meetings. I can't say what your intent was, but I can tell you how I perceived it, and that is that you don't want to hear from teachers at these meetings. And um, we need to be on the same team. uh I am a resident. Uh I
live here. I want teachers who don't live in town to be able to speak here. And the enforcement of a minor policy of say your address, the perception of that was that you didn't want them to be heard. If that's not the case, I'm happy for you to correct that. Thank you.
Hi, my name is Jessica Harold. I live at Fort Gavin Road and I have two students, a third and a fourth grader at St. Cloud. I'm also uh for those of you who don't know, an educator, former teacher, principal, and a network content director. A lot has been said tonight,
some of which I strongly agree with and some of which I strongly disagree with. Something I haven't heard lifted up yet that I'd like to raise attention to is the decrease in science and social studies teachers in the district. At a time when clearly civic discourse is
strained, our government is under attack, and the national and world news are repeatedly traumatic. Our kids need science and social studies. I've spoken here before about the concerns with our
science education and curriculum currently in place, not about the teachers. It hasn't gotten better since I have lifted these ideas up, and it's going to get even worse without staff focused on that information. There's a lot that we can
do, and much of it doesn't actually cost a lot of money. Our kids start taking their state test assessments this week in science. They are not set up for success and we're not getting them ready any better next year. In all of these
conversations that matter, I want us to also remember the academics at the center. Separately, completely totally different. I'm on the diversity council at St. cloud. And next week on May 14th, we're hosting 18 local children's
authors on our blacktop. We invite the entire community from 4:30 to 6 to come and join us. Paris Pletus will also be there. So, if you're not into books, you've got to like ice cream. And we hope that we can center some of that joy across the community on our blacktop
next week. Thanks, 86 I have only two things you are there numbers in Washington school no it's only two people is fired it's four you said the the we brought back people
oh okay and the other thing is uh you have the the number for um uh for repair the school for the air conditioning healer and the bathroom is not work 100% any bathroom for a long
time. Thank you. All right. Uh seeing no one else at the podium, can I have a motion to close the public hearing? So move. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. Second. Thank you. Uh, okay. So, I have a few comments that
I'll make, then I'll pass it to Mr. Moore and or Miss Flowers if there's any questions they wanted to address. Um, one with regards to the tax levy. I want to mention this earlier, there is a provision in law that allows some districts to go above the cap. That does not apply to our district. that applies
to certain districts that raise below their local fair share that have not historically raised what they're supposed to be raising and are spending under adequacy that that does not apply to us. So, under current law, the 2.3% that we're raising this year is the maximum tax levy that we can put in this
budget. Um the exceptions to that will be to put what's called a second question or referendum together. A few people mention that. I've had some board members ask me what that means. So, just briefly, uh two forms of referendum. One is for facilities and as Mr. Stevenson pointed out earlier, we have a lot of
facilities needs and that may be in the next couple years something we have to do. When I was first elected four years ago, we were talking about a referendum primarily that was for things like renovating uh central office was at one point possibly going to be a prek and doing other facilities renovations. We
opted not to do it at that point. part I think all the state funding that came in made that not necessary at the time but we're we're back in a place where we are not keeping pace with our facilities needs and funding does not look like it's coming back so perhaps that's something we have to do in the future uh but that's for facilities not for
operating budget the other way that you can have a second question is to essentially put a whole program on the ballot right you cannot just say I want to raise taxes 3% so I can keep one teacher per cl per school uh because that's what we need we can't put a
thorough and efficient education on the the ballot because if people vote no, that money goes away and those positions go away. So, we would have to do something like middle school sports or high school sports or the drama program is on the ballot. This is what it costs to fund it. And if the town votes yes,
we get to keep it. And if the town votes no, we don't get to keep it. Now, there are times when that is a a good choice, but it is a strategic choice. It is a risk. Uh I work in education. I have seen public questions like this go down and it's devastating when it does
because you're essentially putting all your eggs in one basket and if you lose that whole program is gone, right? The budget that we've gone over today is one where we've strategically cut a little bit here and there and I I hear that people are unhappy with that. Um but the alternative is to to risk much greater
devastation to individual programs which we also at the last meeting heard people don't want to do. Um, so that's not to say that there would never be a second question, but at this point in time, that's not something that we're proposing as a board. We don't think it's the right choice today. Uh, perhaps a referendum will be necessary for facilities in the future, and we would
absolutely engage the community in that early and often before it gets to that point, uh, because knowing the the way taxes are in this community, while all of you may be eager to support that, uh, there are many people who received a larger tax bill as a result of the reassessment who would be very eager uh,
to vote against that. Uh, I don't know how many of you are on the Facebook pages in town. Uh, but I can just imagine what that conversation would be like. Um, there was a question about when the budget was advertised. As Miss Flower said, it was advertised online in the
Star Ledger. No, it's not in print anymore. Uh, but because of that reason, we're allowed to advertise it online. We did also ensure it was posted to our district website at the suggestion of Mr. Stevenson, we ensured it was part of the popup. So the moment you went to our website for the last several days since the middle of last week, it says it kind
of right in your face. This is where our advertised budget is. So if you've visited our website in the last several days, you you should have had no problem finding that. Uh but in the future, if you can't, would encourage you to to reach out to Miss Flowers and she can uh send you that if you need it. Um and then lastly, there were a couple
comments about preK. Actually, no, before we get to that, there were a couple comments about the future. Uh, I think the only solutions here, again, and I've said this before, are at the state level. Either the state changes the formula to provide us more funding or the state loosens and adds
flexibility to the tax cap so that we're not bound by 2%. Um, neither of those is happening this year. I have talked to many people in state government and the door is shut firmly. The the with what's going on at the federal level, uh, it has been made very clear that there is no more money. The state
is not going to spend any more money this year to basically, you know, buy people out. There are some districts that are in much greater crisis than us. They may get some help. Uh but I would not anticipate anything for us. Uh but I will commit to talking about this as we move forward. I think there is a solution on the horizon in the next
couple years. We've seen the state open up some flexibility with the cap uh this year and and last year for people that weren't uh above adequacy. So that is an avenue where they might change things. I don't know that the formula is going to help us with aid, but if that's not going to help, then perhaps the tax levy
cap could be adjusted. Um, so stay tuned for information about that as as we work on that. And then lastly, there there were a couple comments tonight about prek. There were a couple comments that we got by email and the last meeting about prek. Uh, specifically to the line item. If you look in the advertised budget, there is a line item that lists
out the amount of funding that we get from the state, uh, dedicated 100% to prek that pays for our teachers that teach, that pays for the space that we lease at community house, that pays for all the private providers that we send our children to. Uh, that comes to the tune of about $9 million. If you look in the advertised budget, you can find the
exact dollar amount. There's another line item in there that has what's called the local contribution to the prek fund. That's to the tune of about $1 million. So, if you can do a little mental math there, we're paying $1 to get $10 worth of services for our
students. And that that's a great return on investment. I don't know where you can go. I I don't know how else to say that other than this is the single greatest investment that we have made and I'm proud of that.
Well, you covered a lot. Um, but what I I guess I would leave my comment to a few things. Number one, just to address uh capital projects such as the bathrooms in Washington and Gregory with the best and so forth. We didn't have
everything on there. There are there are we are always looking to remedy situations but I think what I'd like you to understand through this budget process is we tried to be as balanced as possible and we prioritized um keeping
as many teachers uh studentf facing in the classroom. So like I said some of the capital projects are step by step. Um from what I've heard from some of the commentary I wrote it down. I'll go back to our um buildings and grounds department. I will speak with our
business administrator and see if there are some things we can remedy. To my parents at Gregory and uh St. Cloud and others, I appreciate your advocacy and do welcome it. Um we will uh as you can
see, it looks like the budget will be and I hope that Mr. Stevens is wrong and I hope that Mr. rocks wrong that we won't get so the cuts won't be so deep but we will need you and we will I
welcome uh a uh workshop model going forward um I will work with our business administrator and reach out to uh Gregory parents who want to help us but I do think parents are advocac your advocacy is going to be needed beyond us
we need uh we need our parents to make West Orange a priority to people that control our funding. So if you can you write the letters, show up, advocate, maybe support some PE, I don't know, you
know, when it comes to that, but you support people that have your interest in mind, things of that nature. Um, but I do I will tell you I take your um outreach as support and I appreciate it. There's no way we can do this by
ourselves. It is very stressful, sleepful, sleepless nights. The problem that we faced was it's such a quick turnaround and we're not just unfortunately working on a budget's hours and it takes time and I don't
necessarily always directly work with that. That's more of the business office, but it it's very involved and and you know that those of you that work in business know it, comprollers, all of that. you know what a budget takes, you know that it's live, it moves, things of
that nature. And uh being a superintendent is a very busy job because you're more than just doing the budget. You're working on so many other things and leaving time for parents that have issues within their buildings that you're trying to address and trying to
make better. Not only that, you're working with employees and so forth. So when um I might, you know, I found that with this budget and I found that um you know, I've ran into moments where
I can't always get back to people right away or do things because I don't just stay in district to advocate for us. I also work outside a district and go to county meetings and and sit in front of state senators and different
people leading our case and making sure our students um have what they need. And as far as like uh digging deep and cutting into su student experiences that are outside the classroom such as co-curriculars whether it be club,
music, athletics, very valuable valuable time that students spend in those programs that teach life lessons that they can have that they keep with them for life.
I will say one other thing. Knocking athletics isn't the way because there's no other think about it. This the athletics provided last year over $6 million in scholarships and opportunities for families that are real
in our society. Whether we want to admit that or not, it's real. And students are given other opportunities like going to schools they may not have applied to unless it was through athletics. So there is no devaluing any of those
programs. They all have its worth, not just to students, but the families as well. Fiscal worth. So it there's importance all around and everything we've done. The best we tried to do today was we tried
to balance it. Yes, it wasn't great and we all walk out of here not so happy about um what was taken, but we've all sacrificed a little bit here today because the budget had to be spread around. Didn't want to do any of it, but
we had to do some of it. And when we bring programs back, we do have it's one pot you have to take away from another. That's hard for people to comprehend. and we say no transparency. You didn't see it. I didn't see it.
Okay, we'll work towards that. We'll let you see it, but it won't change the fact that it's one pot. And you have to work within that one pot. And what we try to do is prioritize the kids, prioritize the the student
experience. It's the strength of West Orange. when you leave West Orange, I'd like you to leave with the impression that you were home for our students and that you want to return back here. And I want our parents to say to
their other friends like, "Oh man, my kids has a great experience in West Orange. They meet all kinds of different people." and then they'll be able to translate that into any global situation they're in because West Orange by
default gives you that type of strength. This is a great town, but it's very large in population and it is very expensive to maintain what we've been used to.
However, I'm not trying to drop our quality and I am trying to maintain what we're used to. But that might have to become creative and it may not be able they may not be able to be done the way we've
always done it. And that's the hard part. Change. I know that. But I promise you as we go through the change, I will be there. I will work with you. The team I have will work. We
will try to support the students, the staff through the changes and try to keep up a quality education and keep maintaining an
inclusive community. But like I said, parents, thank you so much for your support. Thank you for advocating and we will look towards the future to do a better way of seeing how we
can employ implore your uh suggestions your help with with the as it pertains to the budget. All right. Thanks. Thank you Mr. Moore. Is there anything Mr.
Appreciate Mr. Stevenson? No. Mr. Ev, just a few uh comments in no particular order. I was jotting down notes uh listening to the speakers. So, to begin with, I don't know what the lady's name
was who's uh part of or in charge of the Gregory School program that doesn't have a name. Um but is that is that you? Yeah. I thought you did I hear you.
Okay. So, right. So, we get a lot of emails as you can imagine. I just want to tell you, keep up the good work. You're doing a great job. Uh, we're not going to agree on everything, but I like the way you do business. I mean, really.
Um, and I I don't know. Uh, I think I think your next I don't want to give you another project, but somebody's got to march to Trenton because we've been going back and forth and telling everyone this. It doesn't seem to be getting through to some people that it doesn't matter who's up here. You could
you could have a palace coup tomorrow and they're going to tell you the same thing, only worse. I've never seen people fight for jobs to keep jobs more than this. But, okay. Um uh something else that was said, I don't remember who said it, we should look at,
you know, as far as the middle school plan is concerned. We get a lot of emails and people know where you live and they see and shop right and everything. This is one of those issues where I I mean I'm speaking personally now. I feel like I get 50% for and 50%
against. So it's not one of these things like how could you do that to us? We get them too. But I think there's a lot of benefit to this. Some people don't see it and they don't agree. I totally get that. But then um when we say, "Well, we're saving half a million dollars, whatever." That's nothing. Why should I
mean, we have to start somewhere. What's nothing it is, I'm sorry to say, like salaries of coaches. I mean, that's really like coffee money compared to what we're talking about. And the idea that we're going to get away from middle school athletics, I'm only one vote, but
I know my, you know, we're friends. I would never support that and I don't think anybody else would support that. That is a bad idea. I'm just going to say that is a bad idea. Um let's
see the another gentleman. I also like the fact that people who had not spoken before came up tonight. Some new faces. I really enjoyed that. One of the persons spoke and said, you know, raise taxes, raise taxes. And I really appreciated that. Except first of all,
we can't. And second of all, I say this every meeting. I'm I'm constantly meeting people who are moving out of town. They're also moving out of the county to be fair and out of New Jersey because the taxes are too high. And I mentioned some signs that we have up in
town. There's also a sign outside of Liberty School that says this is an agefriendly township. Well, I assume that means that we respect our elderly. Um, part of respecting them is
letting them grow old in their home. And these taxes are killing people. Killing people. So, we have a lot of masters here, right? We have to be mindful of all of them. And then, uh, I guess the final thing I never heard in my life, I
I can't believe I have to say this. I never heard in my life that when you call out racism or anti-semitism, you're being thin skinned. I really don't care if you heard it, didn't hear it. I heard it, he heard it, they heard it. Go to YouTube, you'll hear it. You can't you can't just pretend
it's not there because you didn't hear it. That's all there is to it. Um, what else was I going to tell you? Uh, I think that's enough. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hiper. All right. Uh, moving on to our
resolutions. May I have a motion to approve the personnel items A1 through A5? So move. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. If any discussion hearing none, Miss Flowers, would you please take the role?
Mr. Stevenson. Yes. Miss Vera. Just the one item I see. Yes. Vice President Ifer. Yes. President Rock. Yes. All right. Next. May I have a motion to approve the curriculum and instruction
items B1 through B2? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Beer. Any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Flowers, please take the role. Mr. Stevenson,
yes. Miss Vera, yes. Vice President If? Yes. President Rock, yes. Thank you. All right. Next. May I have a motion to approve the finance items, C special service items A 1- 2, and business office items B 1- 25. So moved. Thank
you, Mr. Stevenson. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Ifer. Uh, this motion does include the budget. I feel like we've had a lengthy discussion, but is there anything else people would like to add? Uh, I would just say, President Rock, uh, to to Superintendent Moore's point,
I hope, I pray that, uh, the state situation changes with respect to West Orange in 2024. Of that, $33 million we received approximately in state aid, $21 million of it was equalization aid. In this year's uh
state aid numbers, that equalization aid dropped from approximately 21 million to 15 million. Uh and again, but for the governor's 3% cap, we would have lost much more and been in a more dire predicament. The reality is uh despite
our best hopes, unless something changes in Trenton next year, we can expect another reduction in state aid. uh as the town has been reassessed, uh as the Department of Labor has looked at our labor statistics and determined that our fair share is likely to continue to
increase, therefore decreasing the uh equalization aid that West Orange gets. For comparison very quickly, uh, South Orange, which has a median income approximately
$30,000 more than West Orange, they receive zero of equalization aid. West Orange received again 15 million uh, with increasing labor statistics. So
again, our budget has not become dire out of thin air. has not become dire as a result of anything derelct with respect to process or the administration. Uh it is simply numbers
materializing not at our fate. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. Any other discussion on the budget? No. I'll just add that uh when we were first elected, budget season was a lot more fun when we actually had all that state
funding. Uh Mr. Moore is now going into his second budget since he uh had the misfortune of getting hired. Bad timing. Thank you, Mr. Rock. Uh but but you but you've done an excellent job under very unfortunate
circumstances. Um you know, we have questions about the future and we will deal with them when we get there. Uh but for tonight, our job is to adopt this budget. I think you and Miss Flowers have done and the other administration have done a good job of putting together the best budget you could, which I think I said earlier. Uh, so I fully support this budget and I ask my colleagues to
do the same. Uh, flowers, would you please take the role? Mr. Stevenson, yes. Miss Vera, yes. Vice President, yes. President Rock, yes. Thank you. All right. And lastly, may I have a
motion to approve reports item D1 through D2? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Hker. Any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Flowers, please take the role. Mr. Stevenson, yes. Miss Vera, yes. Vice President
Ifer, yes. President Rock, yes. Thank you. Thank you very much to my board colleagues for that. Uh, next up, we have petitions and hearings of citizens for any agenda or non-aggenda item that you wish to discuss. Uh, you'll have three minutes to speak. Again, please approach the podium at this time. Can I
have Can I have one of the Gregory Civic uh parents just wait? I'll go back there and talk to you in a second. Thank you. Uh yeah and please state your name and address for the record. Uh it's gone. Deb Cohen for White Street Madison. Um
first of all that coffee money for coaches and I accidentally looked at the 2019 2020 year but the total is $386,679. I'm not saying cut athletics at the high school. I'm just saying look at the number of coaches. I don't know. Maybe they are necessary. I don't know
the requirements. As far as the middle school, you have a wreck program in town. I'm just going to be say that education is a laborintensive business without teachers, guidance counselors, technology techs, media coordinators, administrative assistants, and yes, even our administrators. That is never going
to change. When you talk about the budget, of course, the salaries are the biggest part of the pie and should be presented as such. But context is key and it's never given. Comments like substitutes make up around a million dollars, I don't remember the exact number, due to high absenteeism, doesn't help the community. Again, I'm not
disputing the amount or the reason. But why point that out in such a negative way? Are you aware of the reasons teachers and other staff might be using the days? I will state with 99% certainty you do not. Do we take a day here or there for our own kids, our own mental health, or a myriad of legitimate other reasons? Unlike those in the
corporate world, if we're not feeling well, we cannot work from home. So, yes, we are absent if we are sick or if one of our children is. If that happens, we need a sub because the students can't be left to their own devices without an adult in the room. I will say it again, education is a laborintensive business.
Taking away the labor in almost any area, including sports, hurts the students. I get the budget deficit and the thought was put into the decisions. I'm not and never have said they weren't. I've talked about transparency. We can't keep cutting the labor of a laborintensive business. I love the idea
of a citizens advisory board and would encourage the board to actually look at one which it sounds like is going to happen so that creative and brainstorming long-term planning can be figured out. I'm going to close with this. 13 buildings, several models, one community, but are we all a part of
it? Um Adam Kramer, um 20 Road, West Orange, New Jersey. Couple things. One, I'm still unclear exactly what that 14 plus million dollars in quote unquote special revenue is on the agenda item and when I
see the 5.9 million in change for um for um debt service is that borrowing and what are we borrowing for still not totally clear on that um also it's been said we have a need
for more revenue We have a spending problem. We're spending whether it's the without special revenue and without um borrowing number of a little over 200
million or whether it's the over 20 220 million with the special revenue. We're spending 30,000 plus a student. That just blows the door off of the national average, is substantially above the state average and is above the county
average. So, we're spending disparently a lot more than just about every district everywhere. And our taxes in West Orange are just about disparently higher than just about everywhere else.
As for what was said about state aid, I'm running for state legislature, so I'm studying this. States broke. We have income tax, property tax, business
tax, death tax, gas tax, sales tax that's higher than just about everybody else. Where's the state going to get the money? There is no money to go to. There's no magic revenue cow in Trent that's, you know, giving money in Trenton. As for the
feds, 36 trillion plus in debt as a nation, where's the money going to come from there? We have to start having schools that run within their means. And whether we like to hear it or not, and I know it's controversial, we
pay our school employees more than just about any district anywhere. May like our employees. We may think they're valuable. I like them. I think they're valuable, but that doesn't mean we have a tax base to give them what they want. And we have to start
thinking about that. And um I appreciate your time and thank you. Katherine Connors, would you please do me a favor uh so that I can keep uh looking? Would you get a name and number
from the Gregory Civic so that they can go home instead of having I'm going to grab it from over there. Yeah, I'm gonna get it. Hi, Joy Bernett, 63 Pot Place, West Orange.
Um, I just want to come up and thank you for not cutting sports. As a parent of three athletes that have come through West Orange schools, I know the value of athletics and I I think that it's terrible that that's the first thing
that people scream, cut the sports, cut the sports. There are a lot of lessons that my children learned in sports. There are things that are have been really valuable that they have been able to put to use in the workforce. Um, and I just want to, like I said,
thank you because sports are important. And the other part that I really want to point out, we do need middle school sports so that we have feeders into the high school. How many children do we lose to West Orange schools because they are competing in athletics somewhere
else? Um and the other part is is that athletics also provide financial ability for some children to go to school as a parent who have ch who has had children on athletic scholarships. So I think people are missing that that is an important part of the education that
West Orange provides as well. There is a balance. Um you know you don't hear people saying cut the music program. You know it can't be just what your children um val what you value for your children. We do have to look at everybody and the and what all of these things provide to
all of our children. And I just want to say I appreciate you understanding the importance of sports for the children who do compete athletically. Thank you. Um my daughter is currently on a fencing
scholarship um at at Fairley Dickinson. Um my other daughter uh Juel played basketball. She's 25. And then my son is 33 who also played basketball at West Orange High School. Um my and Jade also uh was uh
played softball. She also played flag football. So my kids competed in athletics and I teach at Redwood. So how you doing? I'm Ray from uh West Orange 55 Walker. uh never imagined
would I be on uh speaking to a board. Uh I'm a new we're new to West Orange. Um and you know things happen when you when you have your first born. You are excited and and concerned. Uh my wife
was here last week and wasn't too happy when she got home. Um there were a couple of things that were said by Mr. uh IER um that was unpleasant. Um and I do
think in my opinion um bringing up um race, religion, and and those things uh it's kind of kind of it's it's about money, right? These kids need love.
We want honesty from leadership. We want respect from leadership. And we want want to be told the truth. Um when we first moved here, uh we were introduced to a young lady by name by the name of Tama Pollins. She took us
under her wing. Amazing woman. We came from Hoboken. Before that was in Brooklyn. When we moved out here, Tama said, "Hey, this is a it's a great location. It's
amazing." She's honest. She was honest. Moving forward, I think that's just something that everybody here wants. Simple honesty, clarity. Okay. And uh for me, that's
really all I have. Thank you. Hey, good evening again. Eric Frri, 37 Fairview A. Just wanted to quickly uh uh refer to the idea that we supposedly, according to someone else, spend more
per student than other places around the country. Uh that's obviously a total nonsense uh point. I'm not going to uh hold West Orange to the bar set in like other parts of the country. Like we don't want to go that low. Uh and
obviously we don't want to be not paying our teachers properly and we want to make sure that everybody that works for the government gets healthare because that's our values. And so I really appreciate that the board's not entertaining any kind of that nonsense. Uh to the point that was uh made that I
I'll I'll take your point. you guys are more experts in this than me that you have done the most you can do legally to raise revenue via taxes. I don't know if there's other ways, loans, what? I don't know. But if you're saying that locally
you've done literally all that can be done, what specifically is the next step? Who sorry, who do we talk to? Is it the state senator or state assembly woman? We're not getting on the phone with Murphy, but who exactly should we
be talking to? What do we as a community need to do to make this happen? Thank you. Be short. Uh Larry, I want to try 76 Cain Terrace. I just want to explicitly make a point that um I think Mr. Iraq
you alluded to earlier u but I want to say it out loud which is that the reason that our uh fair contribution as a community is going up from the state's perspective is is because we have a lot of wealth in
this town and the reason the department of labor says that income is rising in this town is because in many places in this town obviously not all of it it is a very diverse town uh And um but there are people who are making a lot of money
in this town. The the money exists. Um and you know the state limits your ability to easily raise the taxes as a result of that. And the people whose taxes went up in the reassessment, those went up because their neighborhoods are
very valuable now. Um and you know nobody this these numbers are not coming pjoratively from somewhere else. This is a representation of real wealth that does exist in this town. Um and those
who are lucky enough to have it um and are blessed by it. You know we're we're part of the community that wants to contribute to the schools. And I I I just want to explicitly make the point that that is there. were hamstrung by certain rules
but not by the lack of existence of the money. Um, and so I just wanted to say that out loud. Right. Thank you all very much for that. Our next board meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. on June 16th, 2025. This meeting will be held in the West
Orange High School Library Media Center. We will not be going into executive session after the close of this meeting. There will be no further business discussed. No additional action will be taken. May I have a motion to adjurnn. Motion. Thank you, Mr. Ker. Second.
Second. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. All in favor? I thank you all for joining us tonight. Our meeting is now adjourned. We wish you a good night.