e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right good evening everyone Welcome to our 20242 budget work session uh please stand for the flag salute okay um like to call the meeting to order Mr Paladino would you please call the rooll okay take it easy very stressful time right now okay all right thank you Madame President trusty daro I here yes trusty msag here trusty munis trusty PCO here uh trusty MRA vice president dtis here uh president Bennett meaning here you're do your Sunshine okay the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings of this board except where specifically Exempted by law at which time any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the board of education has not cause notice of this meeting to be published by having same advertised in the Bal times also notice that this meeting has been mailed to the members of the Board of Education the burrow clerk all elementary schools the middle school the high school Hornblower Early Childhood Center and posted on the district website also this meeting is being televised via the district's YouTube and Facebook pages thank you Mr Paladino okay welcome everyone again welcome residents of Belleville I see some staff here some parents um and hope you're all watching uh this is our budget work session not our regular scheduled meeting so we're just going to have uh some dialogue with ourselves first we're going to hear a little bit about our budget for the upcoming school year from Mr Paladino and and Dr TOMCO uh this is always a a tough time for everyone and I think we're dealing with uh a lot of increases that are out of our control so we we definitely want to hear uh how things are going to impact our budget and what decisions this board may have to to make moving forward um so with that said I don't know which one of you would like to go first okay thank you thank you madam president I think I'll start it and we'll pass it over to Mr palino um first I like to thank the um the board committee hi Mr Mr Rodriguez how are you sorry is waving everybody it's coming down I'd like to thank um the board um committees the board members in general Mr paldino for putting this budget together um this is no surprise where we are with this budget the past three Cycles um if you look back on the videos uh and what we said uh we've been talking about the budget cuts that the board has made um Over The Last 5 Years um some significant cuts and uh we said at some point it was all going to come to a head and uh with some of the the money going away that was basically saving a lot of districts for implementing programs with learning loss Etc uh as that money goes away the local tax levy has to kick in and and we we're in that same boat along with um trying to recover from a lot of those cuts uh and still that under adequacy piece that um we tend to argue about every year which is always interesting to me um however I have a bunch of stuff to say to the board um with regard to this Workshop uh this Workshop was put in place several years ago and it's a workshop for the board it's for the board to talk um about the budget is for the board to get some feedback from the administration because budget is not an executive session item has to be done transparently in front of the public um so when we talk in committees we talk with Finance we try to get some Direction Where We Are and then the board does a technical review and then usually um we work again in committee but this board has decided several years ago to do this Workshop uh so we're going to do that and then in turn I believe uh the president will open up for comments obviously uh and and uh this board is very excited about getting input from this incredible community on what you think needs to put a budget together so we can't wait to hear that tonight after those comments are are are given and uh Mr paldino and myself will answer as much as we can um so that we can kind of tell you um why some of those things are in place or why your ideas are good or not good Etc or why they won't fit um we'll do the best we can but it's not going to be a back and forth uh that's not going to be productive uh if that's something you if you would like to come up here and grandstand then you can do that but there's not going to be a back and forth dialogue that's not what a workshop is it's to gather information uh and to make the best informed decision so then moving forward from that uh we will uh sharpen the pencils again go back to the board the board will listen to everything that said tonight um probably give us a final number of where they want to be um in order for us to get there we'll have to make some Cuts like we've done every year since I've been here uh that continue to hurt the district and then uh it'll be for uh approval May 6th 5th whatever day that is whatever Monday that is um thank you and that'll be the hearing where um is the official last uh basically last uh word um on the budget before the board votes so so just just so we're very clear I I I'm going to ask uh if it's okay Madam president for Mr palino to kind of give us just an overview very quickly of how much um uh how much the is how much the average assessed home where we're at Etc um and just some of the highlights uh of what that includes right now this is not a formal presentation obviously uh because it's not um you know it's not set in stone yet but uh i' like for him to do that so we have the exact numbers of where we're at right now and then I want to say something else and then we can kind of open it up to the board members to get any questions and then we'll take it from there so Matt you want to just go through that yeah sure uh Paladino with microphone live it's great uh thanks Dr Toco Madame President board trustees our uh esteemed community members uh admins that are present uh 202 2425 uh budget which we're going to discuss a little bit tonight uh probably in the seven or eight years that I've been here and the 20 plus years that I've been doing this uh this probably would be Pro one of the if not the toughest to put together for a number of Reas reasons uh first of all you have a lot of expenses Appropriations that are constantly uh increasing and there's no give uh some of those would be Transportation uh obviously salaries tuitions health benefits or Health employee benefits in general um you have special ed out of District tuitions uh just to name a few charter schools uh that are are constantly going up and we we don't have any um any uh tight um loosening of that going on so currently with the budget the way that it is we have a total budget total budget all funds of$ 134 m452 76 okay that's the total budget when I say total budget that's your general fund your general fund is your operating budget that's where uh state aid comes from and that's where the tax levy come comes from that portion of the budget is $118 million $610,000 is your special Revenue fund that's all your grants uh all your donations and the like uh that totals 1,869 140 that number has been drastically going down over the past few years one of the main reason reasons is there's no more covid money Esser ARP and covid is now gone it's done um your pea is included in your special Revenue fund uh it's not part of your general operating fund uh I think I've mentioned that every year but some people don't uh understand that but pea preschool education Aid even though it is categorized as state aid is not part of your operating budget it's part part of your special Revenue budget and then lastly part of the 134 million is your debt service which is your referendum that's 2, 97295 um that's your principal and your interest part state aid part tax levy uh like I said goes towards the referendum So currently the way the budget is put together I think we all know the numbers but just for to remind everybody uh we're looking at a 10. uh 287 per increase on the tax levy it's a $413 average on the assessed home the home currently in Belleville is $275,500 that number came down I think just a little bit if I remember correctly over last year um included in the tax levy the reason uh we were able to increase the tax levy to such a high amount number of reasons you have your 2% cap you have your 2% which year-over year you're allowed to increase the tax levy as it is on top of that there's certain allowable costs that the district um encounters that you can increase increase your tax levy beyond the 2% um those include your health care costs so we were allowed an increase um as a result of the rising health care costs that we can increase the tax ly by about 1.6 million we also have Bank cap Bank cap as a reminder I think I've said this uh each year but as a reminder is when the the state tells you what you're allowed to increase your your tax levy by past the 2% and if you don't go past that number you are allowed to bank that amount for up to three years if after three years you don't use the money you lose it it goes byebye so currently the district has $1 1.95 million in Bank cap uh we have 202 uh 2425 25 26 to use it if we don't use it by 25 26 it just goes away okay and then we also have um enrollment adjustments as a result of inflation which we're allowed to increase a 2% Levy by which total a little over a million a million 64,9 so if you look at the revenue portion of the budget at first line local tax ofy the difference from 2324 to 2425 is a little over $4.6 million that is the total amount of money that uh we deemed on top of everything else we need to increase the tax that by to get where we are in this budget that you're looking at right now going down a little bit uh we all know what the state aid numbers were uh Governor Murphy as as he has promised uh during his term has increased state aid uh for district similar to Belleville to get their adequacy to hold now currently the way the budget stands we are still $4.5 million under adequacy now we all know reading everything on social media and the discussions we've all had back and forth that there's one line coming from the governor yes the governor has fully funded us the way S2 which is the state a levy and statute has said we should be funded so the governor a has made that promise however there's two parts to every story the second part of that story is the Department of Ed and the state are also telling me that our tax levy is not where it should be according to the state as a result of the two numbers added together we are 4 and a half million still underfunded where we are at this moment on April 22nd 2024 okay so having said all of that um as I had mentioned to the board a couple of weeks ago and we've mentioned in uh committies at various times there's some areas of the budget that are causing uh the state aid and the tax liity to be to add up to where they are so total let's go back there for a second total we got 2 12.2 million extra in state aid and like I said a few minutes ago the tax levy is a little over $4.6 million so all told was just shy $17 million that uh we're proposing to increase this budget by huge number but that number goes to a number of things that over time to get where we are I've scaled back a little bit and we're getting a little tight for where we're at PRS payment every year the board is required to make an April payment to the state in regards to the peers uh employees for their pension it's required there's nothing you can do about it as a District's uh employees who are covered under PE for their retirement increases your payment is going to keep going up here in Beville we've increased uh those employees that fall under that secretaries Paris um bus AIDS uh custodians maintenance all fall under that as we keep increasing those departments because we keep expanding and our enrollment keeps going up our payment there is going to keep going up so for that I have uh set aside an extra $250,000 for that each year it has gone up drastically I don't know if the 250,000 is going to be good I don't know if it's going to be bad but I'm going to go with this it's probably going to not be enough because the last year couple years it really hasn't been enough uh employee benefits health benefits Dental prescription uh right now in the budget I have about a million and a half increase is set aside for that uh I met with our uh broker of record a couple weeks ago uh prescription is set to increase 9.75% January 1 2025 sentence no okay uh health benefits we're in the state plan we are being told already after that I have submitted this budget to the county that there will be a double digit increase currently I am at a 12% increase double digits can be anywhere up from 10% to 99% increase now obviously we know being a little drastic there we're not going to go that high we're hearing Dr TOMCO and myself it could go anywhere between 10 and 20% I'm at 12% currently if it goes any higher than TW uh 12% I'm already short there de uh dental coverage all employees we were told will stay flat we're in a we're in a a gif that number will stay flat there's no increase there and the vision coverage the district has won't increase either so that million and a half at the moment I'm not comfortable with the number as it is so uh that's that Social Security uh that's all employees covered in the district as District grows we're pushing close to 900 employees in the district um um for a number of reasons that number is going to keep going up I set aside an extra $200,000 for that be honest with you there the way it's been going up year over-year the past couple of years not comfortable with that number either but that's where I'm at there uh loss of covid we lost $2.6 million going away uh in 2324 into 2425 the items that we spent through covid monies we have to absorb through the general fund I believe as Dr TOMCO mentioned a few minutes ago and we've mentioned uh over and over uh since last uh budget season that's $2.6 million some of the items that we covered through cover were RTI uh special ed outed district tuitions and some of the special ed related services so those numbers that we moved into into uh art and Esser money to utilize those funds now have to be move back into the general fund for 2425 so you're looking at as I said .6 million there uh security staff uh I know that was a little bit of a a bone of contention last year because we were too high uh the unfortunate thing is as I've mentioned before as security keeps uh excuse me as the district keeps expanding and we have more and more buildings and our enrollment keeps going up there's the need for security so I've increased security 360,000 probably should be a comfortable number uh we roughly uh have about 30 to 30 5 security guards at the moment uh they roughly put in a total of 30 to 35,000 hours throughout the whole um school year if they get a dollar or two extra uh which is what they're looking at your 360,000 should be enough to cover them hopefully uh now another one I'm not comfortable with outsourced to transportation services I've set up here I think a number of times over the years as I've been the business administrator that since co uh trans out of District transportation services have constantly kept skyrocketing over the past four years for a number of factors but whatever it is we don't have a fleet big enough to handle all of the outed District transportation we've tried we can't find drivers um so the more routes that we need and the more that we can't find drivers the more I have to go and Outsource those services so we're looking at about 60,000 uh there that I set aside now that's a conservative number looking at last year's and this year's year over-year it looks like every month the costs have gone up 30,000 so you take 30,000 time 12 that's how I got the 360 Charter School tuition uh I mentioned to the board back in uh December January that I think it was November December excuse me that for January 1 our Charter School tuitions were going to go up $400,000 now at this time last year when I did the budget we had a number that came from the Department of Ed that we were told what our tuition is going to be January comes they re-evaluate it we had a massive increase number of students going about 30 plus additional students going to one charter school so I had to do some creative things to cover that $400,000 but as I was building this budget for 2425 I didn't want to be stuck in that same conundrum a year from now so at the moment I've increased the line by 213,000 a little over 213,000 am I comfortable about that that number I I don't know I don't know I don't know what's going to happen January of 2025 if I would I probably wouldn't be doing this anymore um another area that we were looking uh as a as a team to restructure was our MLL program uh as our dis as our numbers keep Rising our our enrollment keeps Rising we also see our MLL program increasing in so I set aside about half a million dollars to restructure that program a little bit um to better um suit those children in that population uh another line that we had in we had put in there was uh something the board had wanted us to do uh Dr TOMCO I mentioned this before too the board wanted us to look into how we could feed every single student all 5200 plus of our students on our own and everybody just be free C conservative number that was about a million 95 um based on everything if we were to do that and keep that there we would still need parents to fill out lunch applications so that we would that so that we get the right amount of reimbursement from the state and the federal government so there's about a million 95 set aside for feeding M students and then last but not least uh is salaries so roughly if you go through um if you go through the budget and you're a little bit of a numbers nerd like I am obviously being a business administrator and accountant I love numbers um salary increases all across the board now that's just not base salaries that's extra comp that's home instruction that's um everything people do outside of their job not just their regular hours so we're looking at about $6.7 million big number I get it however you need to take into account a lot of things so we have 11 staff member that increased from one year to the next out on FM La I have to be prepared for that we have seven custodial openings that I have to be prepared for we have 15 15 still unfill positions so I have to not only cover uh the superintendent and the administration filling those positions but I also have to cover if we don't get somebody and I have to go with a sub or a long-term sub or whatever that may be uh we also have contractual increases that are roughly about 3 .5 million and then last but not least as I had mentioned a couple of minutes ago is all the extra comp and related stuff that our teachers our custodians our maintenance staff our poers our bus drivers all our secretaries everybody does outside of their regular workout that roughly is about a million and a half and is going up so that's how you come to the uh increase of $6.7 million in salaries and the like um um outside of that that's pretty much what's in the 2425 budget okay thank you could I just uh one more thing okay that was a lot thank you Matt um I know everybody probably didn't get all that I saw everybody taking copious notes up front over here but if uh you know when we get to some of these U questions in a little bit from the board or whatever uh we can kind of reate some of that but I want to just just make a few points and then uh maybe Madam president you'll open up to the the board if they have any questions and then we'll just get it underway this is um this is not a game for us up here as administrators uh I think everybody thinks it is I think it's fun to look at the numbers and crunch it and say what you're hiding and stuff like that again we also have a state monitor said this now for the nine years I've been here okay um for almost 10 years now you've had a state monitor we go through a second level of scrutiny that not many districts go through in New Jersey all right when the budget is uh is struck here uh when it's put together after uh right prior to technical review it has to also go through another level of scrutiny so there is very little wiggle room there's nothing hited there's nothing inflated there is there is natural inflation for lack of a better term because of projected costs that we don't know for example if a family moves into town in August and there's three special needs students that's a major issue for this Township okay because someone has to pay for some of those fees busing Etc okay enrollment we can we can argue about enrollment who's right and wrong I have to be honest with you I really don't care who's right and wrong it is happening we have over 250 new students since June not preschool either he'll stop talking about preschool for a minute all right people are moving into this town for different reasons all right it's the school district and and and and the growth that we've shown here is definitely one of those reasons um the Township in of itself is definitely one of those re reasons these great developments that are coming up which are making the town look incredible um are going to be another one of these reasons and only two of them are open now there's another 10 that are going to be opened up the multifam dwellings the two family houses 13 to 20 that are coming up in a year or so are going to bring more students here it's just a reality um it's not going to happen tomorrow it's going to happen down the road however this district is in a crucial time right now with this budget vote and we've been saying it for years and we're saying it again so it is what it is but we're headed back to where we were before I got here and that's the truth um because again when when you know I keep talking about the under adequacy number and we keep arguing about that every year this is the true number this is a number that's provided by the state of New Jersey it's not two people in the back room it's not an idea it's a state number and basically what it says is when school districts are have if they've um projected adequate spending and they have enough money to spend then those kids are those kids and their learning is Equitable the programs are Equitable throughout the state so there's a number every year you should be at this number to be Equitable to all the other townships so there are many townships many townships that are at zero or even over adequacy over adequacy now they don't become over adequacy because someone says we want you to be over adequacy we're going to give you that's not how it works okay adequate is adequacy is very simple it's a split the state gives you some money towards your adequacy and then you put up your fair funding on the other side all right that's exactly what it means when I got here we were somewhere like I'm going to make up a number $17 million under adequacy $17 million that means that this Township this District needed $17 million more dollars right there out of both sides of that you know equation to say all right now you guys can provide those adequate programs so that kids can learn the same way all other kids learn uh across the state that happened because of uh enrollment nobody cared about enrollment before I got here nobody we were missing programs we were missing math classes when I got here we didn't have textbooks there was a bunch of stuff um we didn't have the the right Personnel we had kids sitting on the floor in the Middle School overcrowded all these things were happening um and then no one cared enough no one cared enough to discuss it and that led you into a deficit that led you in deficit we can sit here and talk about the conspiracy theories all you want and who had bags of money it doesn't matter it was the planning of this Administration and hiding stuff from the board basically that's what happened I I I I truthfully believe that many of the board members a majority of the board members had no clue what was happening here and it was just poor planning and kicking the can down the road now if you open your eyes where we were one of the only districts in deficit there's only a few at the time a little handful um now they're popping up all over the place right why because the government gave everybody a few years of free money because of Co and everybody's like wow I got all this money woo we're safe now we're safe well it's gone right and even some neighboring towns are in deficit now right who would have thought that well if those towns are in trouble then we're telling you this TR this town right now is at a Crossroads this board I'm looking at the board now this board is at a Crossroads for cutting this again and winding up possibly back in deficit is a possibility not from this budget but when you cut everything that you're going to cut um and then when the enrollment comes and there's no place to put these kids and then you're not going to go back out for another referendum because no one's going to support it your Town's not going to support it you're in trouble it's going to happen this is an important thing to remember because it's not the one cut it's not the one cut it's the years and years compounded of the cuts you made so let's talk about some of that stuff I only went back five years I went back F back five years um 2018 right so 2018 2019 let's say 1920 and 21 the proposed number that we put out here with the state monitor with the state monitor so very little wiggle room with the state monitor uh whatever number we put out the boards in those three years cut the cut the um the proposed assessment or a levy on the assessment $1.5 million $1.5 million that never made it to the budget back then right to help the taxpayer great great idea excellent excellent job uh we all know what that is but let's also remember um even though your taxes are high I'm sure let's remember what that means this is one of the only townships in the state I shouldn't say one of cuz I don't really have that um that data very minimal number of townships where the district levy is less or the percentage of taxes is less than the township usually it's the other way around right usually the the district um carries the big the big number uh here we're kind of flip-flo I don't know how it's probably not as much as I first got here but it's but it's the other way around right even though we get the blame because they get to do their budget later and always go like a dollar less than us um that's that's just kind of ret right um but that's the truth so you already cut $1.58 million in those three years all right um that what what happened in those three years is the tax amount on the assessed home was was supposed to be $260 higher but over time if you split that up over those three years it would have been less of an impact to you so now guess what that $260 has to come back it has to right or or we're not going to be and that's only three years right over the five years over the five past years this board has cut $2.1 million in proposed taxes that that Mr paldino and myself put forward to you $2.1 million all right and we are still with the with the without any Cuts tonight we're still close to $5 million under adequacy that's insane to me that I've been here 10 years and we still have that that means the needle keeps moving but it doesn't so I don't know I I've never went through life wanting to be below adequate it's never I never said that on a job or whatever hey we're a below adequate District this is great no why would we want to do that I don't understand I really don't understand and that that's a true number I'm sick and tired of the rhetoric I'm sick and tired of everybody talking about things um that needs to be done nobody wants to pay taxes I I understand that but because of the cuts back in the day when certain individuals had to cut them right this is the compound now this is the issue the issues that keep coming up so let's talk about some real stuff all right there's there's 118 plus change $118 million in this general fund $118 million 103 million of that 118 million is Untouchable okay once again 103 board members just hear what I'm saying right now 103 of the 118 is Untouchable so no matter matter what people tell you no matter what you all think no matter what you read any of that stuff 103 is Untouchable and Mr paldino just did an incredible job telling you what that was a lot of its employment a lot of its um different things what is touchable still are supplies um fund programs right because unfortunately we're not a Township that has a lot of recreation and stuff here so we try to provide that here right so we have a well-rounded kid um uh supplies like I said uh P some purchase services professional development so that our teachers can learn the new programs and stuff like that for all this growth that we've that we've shown um you know uh Etc so again I'm trying to trying to make you all see that the time that's put into these budgets isn't back in the 1980s and 1970s where there was Surplus there was savings all that other stuff all right it's not how it works anymore uh even though some of you think that way it's not true uh also again that extra level of scrutiny makes it even harder to uh to do some of those things that that people think uh that we're doing one tax Point here is 300 right Matt 320 324 am I right close let's get the exact number just so you know when we say one point two points give me one second I'll get it for you because I know it'll be on Facebook and so the the uh Township Tax Assessor tells us what the tax point is meaning how much um we need to uh raise for one percentage point of taxes uh I believe it's in the 320 range if I'm not mistaken you're close 312 516 okay 312 all right um that means that in those three years that I mentioned those three years uh 2019 20 and 21 the board cut three tax points off of what we asked them to three percentage points just to say we have to help this Township out and and that's admirable I get it but what did we say at those meetings this is going to come back to Hur us one day just remember that then the next year this is going to come back to Hur us then one year we cut legal um reserve and what happens we had like four lawsuits this is going to come back to hurt well guess what it's coming back right so if you're at 312 and the board cut 2.1 million you're almost at seven points seven points over five years this is these are this is the data this is the data that needs to be coming up here from from from the taxpayer that's what I want you all to understand all right seven points were gone over 5 years because this board these boards were trying to make it amable for you to live and now we're at a point where again the more we cut right the more the more um the more it's going to hurt you all in the long run because at some point when you get a um if you do go back into a deficit um you're not going to have a choice right and you're going to be paying that uh up front um these things are real these enrollment issues are real we're not hiding people this re-registration is exactly on the money so far like I said it would be 100% our demography our demographic reports 100% on the money 100% you know and I know that I'm closer than anyone else because this school district's not even not even mentioned in the master plan of the township so no one's even thought about this place and that's fine it's not my problem right that's another person's problem however what the problem is is going to be here down the road and we've said it for the past four or five years every time we cut this cut here and any cut here is going to hurt now we understand that this is this is um you know we we we kind of went in with uh you know wanting to pay for food for everyone Etc because we do have a lot of um students parents who haven't paid still um since covid and the board has to pick up that money no one goes to jail for not paying for food for their kids doesn't happen and you're not allowed to give out cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches anymore um so that's a big concern so so Mr paldino and I kind of devis that original plan to maybe have everyone eat for free um so that you know the aers are for something rather than just paying off everyone that doesn't want to pay um but it looks like that might something that's coming out and that's fine so that will that'll lower this Levy a little bit but anything beyond that I think is a major mistake uh I think anything beyond that unless individuals in the township or individuals tonight could come up and tell us exactly exactly where you think you can cut from that $15 million in wiggle room not the other 103 that I just said is Untouchable um you know and I also want to caution everybody too because it's very easy just to look at a number and say oh just take $10,000 off just take $20,000 off it's a Major Impact it's a Major Impact right a few years ago we cut um security grants uh Security money here and that was a major impact believe it or not um just little stuff so again um I I I implore the board to understand what's happening understand that this has been a warning this has been a warning oh this has been a warning since 2018 2018 and and and in those years the 2019 20 21 years where the biggest Cuts were made for the biggest impact the biggest political impact for some of the board members that were up here those were nothing compared to the increases prior and after that in prior to that was like a $35 increase blah blah blah and then when we needed to really put some money in there we got those major cuts um which are really hurting us now and and again this is not the first time we're saying it we've been saying it every year but again my job tonight is to tell to tell this board um that every tax point you cut tonight moving forward is going to be at least three points down the road that you're going to be um responsible for um so again I I think with the right education out there for tax relief meaning people on a senior freeze uh other things that we can do um talking to the township about some of the if there's any more upcoming Pilots we've gotten zero dollars for Pilots um which is remarkable actually um some of these things have to happen unfortunately will be in my absence but we need to be more vocal we need to be more consistent on on what we're doing for the taxes here um because again we're it's like we're reverting back to to where we were before you were in deficit um one more thing and then Madam president I appreciate your time when when sometimes when the tax the tax um the tax number goes up not the levy or how much you pay but like the overall taxes like from you you'll hear tonight from from I'm sure from some of the citizens like oh it was 60 million now it's 100 million you know again a lot of those are grants and revenues that we've been collecting as well that also brings your tax base up so we're not talking about that stuff all right again that's rhetoric for the board that's rhetoric okay again we are basically talking about $15 million I don't care if our our whole line now was 300 million we're basically talking about $15 million all the rest is noise all right um and again tonight's the night that we'll hear about that uh from you all and then from whomever wants to speak and we'll make sure that we we address as much as we can um and then moving from there we'll we'll we'll sharpen the pencil and come back to you and then you guys can make the decision thank you thank you thank you very much Mr Paladino and Dr TOMCO for all of your hard work um for putting this together um so now it's time for our board to discuss some things and I know you mentioned and I'll just start it off 2019 so that's when I I joined the board recently and I believe 2019 was our covid shutdown we had just started earlier that year so I know we were getting funding and this is when all of the um Government funding was being pushed back into the schools so we got that funding and we also got some regular State funding all within the same year do you recall yeah so I mean I I mean I I remember being on the board and I didn't think it was a bad thing to ask to be able to balance excuse me for one second you're you're referring to the co the 2019 because that that I'm just saying since you mentioned 2019 20 and 21 I just wanted to be clear yes I had just gotten on the board by then and then we went into an immediate shutdown but we also receiv received some funding as that was happening I think everybody realized that you know they their money needed to be funneled back into the schools to be able to operate you know one of the great things was we had our laptops but other districts didn't have laptops um you guys were able to flex the schedules and our students got back into school um so I do think we did a lot of great things and in my opinion I I I think you know managing that kind of money coming in during covid it wasn't a bad thing to ask where we could alleviate the taxpayers since that was happening um that that's just a comment that I have on that and if anybody else has a comment and you guys want to jump in feel free to otherwise I'll open it up to public comment Mike uh I just wanted to ask about the unfill unfilled positions I'm sorry we would like to acknowledge that Tracy will Tracy mro has showed up I don't know if you we got her on the L okay all right Mr darl trustee darl sorry that's perfectly fine so I was going to ask about the unfilled positions uh what does it count on the unfilled positions and not trying to put an additional burden on on top of our teachers and administrative staff is there any way to consolidate that or any put that uh move those positions around so that one person is already in there just there's an opportunity just looking at some of those unfulfilled positions not knowing what they are offand I know you mentioned custodians I'm not sure what other areas that we're lacking in right now I just want to get a little bit more feedback on that and What's the total count of the unfulfilled positions we have right now do do I'm sorry Mr D you mean unfilled positions like for right now well cuz you I think Matt mentioned or Mr Paladino mentioned something about 6.7 million putting aside I think for those unfulfilled positions I just want to is that true Mr Paladino yeah so what I I had human resources do for me was give me uh a list of uh any positions that are still unfilled uh either whether was due to retirement uh due to somebody leaving due to a maybe a maternity family leave whatever it might have been that we just haven't been able to fill where not only are is there a salary holding a spot but at the same time time uh you might be paying a long-term sub because you just can't full find a full-time person on top of that we have a couple of custodial and maintenance positions that we have open that haven't been filled yet uh for one reason or another uh that we're carrying uh salary numbers for so at the moment I had a number of 15 unfilled uh teaching positions and seven custodial positions that haven't been filled yet and I'm just looking at numbers year over year to try to help budget as you're going into next year because each year you know as we say it gets tougher and tougher to make sure that you're covered when it comes to six periods when it comes to uh Subs when it comes to uh covering people who are out for one reason or another another just things you can't predict so that's what I was trying to look at as a stated year over year when we do this what we're trying to do so I guess another thought would be I our staff getting overtime time because if people are covering and is that impacting in any way do we have overtime in some instances yes you might have a teacher who who's doing either a six period or doing something where um they might be doing lesson plans at the elementary level so there are in some aspects yes there are sometimes where where that is occurring you have to cover those things and a lot of those things are unforeseen though maternity leave I mean you don't if anyone's going to be if someone's pregnant next you have to pay the maternity leave teacher and the teacher so can I just go back to those three years cuz I think you said it better than I did so let me clarify Miss Miss uh benett me was talking about those 1920 21 years it's exactly right what the board did do in those three years was cut this budget right to help individuals during Co etc etc however those costs still remained the extra monies that we received didn't cover those particular costs they covered the covid cost different things that we needed we had a school one if you recall some of those things however we still had salaries we still had all these things we were talking about we did make um as we do know we did a lot of extra things Pavilion uh Pizza Kitchen with the food service money because everybody was free right so we made some extra profit on Food Service which people still don't understand how that happened but um again again the board did an incredible thing because I remember having those conversations oh it's tough on people nobody's working this so we had to cut we had to cut and I'm not saying I dispute that but now we have to put that money back in that's $260 that we cut $260 which is probably with inflation I think is probably way over 300 um so where do we get that money back so that's that's that's the point um and again it was overall in all those five years they had the other two in there um we're at 2.1 million which is over $300 so this is that's where we're at but I think that's a very good point um but yeah again the the the the money that's in there which people might think is a little padded for employment or whatever it is it has to be um because of all those things that are unforeseen and they'll always be unforeseen they've always have been unforeseen uh enrollment is a big problem special ed is a big problem huge problem we don't know what's going to happen a lot of schools go into deficit because of special needs um uh special needs needs that no one can foresee we don't know what's happening so um I digress sorry any other board members have have comments yeah okay so let's do that we're g to um can I have a motion to open up for public comment so move I'll second that Mr all okay we'll do all in favor I okay and the way that we'll do this is um you know you guys can raise your hand and I'll I'll call you up here um we'll do more than five minutes talking because I just want wanted to point out that Mr Sheldon was kind enough to point out that I'm the only president in a few years that has a college degree so maybe I could give you guys more than five minutes to have your comments and I think we will do that for this session um but can I ask a favor let's by the time we get to 12 minutes or 15 minutes maybe we can cut it and and I could hit the gel and we can let someone else have a turn so um we'll open it up to public comment when I anyone like to come up and make some comments on our budget great Mr Fran Antony come on up to the podium state your name and your address yes Vincent Frant Antony 129 Mount Prospect Avenue in Belleville um it's has gotten almost impossible budget because we're at last minute and we got 23 pages of microscopic print that very difficult to see um so years ago we had a simple budget and part of it the state problem because they added all these programs that actually allowed Board of Ed to hide money and all but there's something where I didn't see in how many students do we have unroll presently does anybody know how many students we have unroll can we just yeah um we'll try to answer some questions after the fact yeah yeah all right so we're looking at $26,000 per pupil um when people are fleeing the public school system and you how it reflects the budget you're talking about Charter Schools um you lost money in charter schools but that's because students left the school system so that money goes with them so you have less students uh to teach if they left than all so that's one thing the other thing is I can't believe we got 900 employees do the math by what you're telling me the population it's one employee for every 5.2 or 5.3 uh students which is insane and I don't know you know I got some relatives and Friends taking their kids in Catholic schools and all excellent education paying $110,000 in tuition so I don't know what happens here uh in regards to the co money you lost Co money but also you lost the obligation to provide some of the services that we were required under the when we had the co problem um so that I don't see that you know that 2.6 million you said you lost in Co um you also don't have to provide the services that that 2.6 million was gone um the student lunch program is just drives me nuts you know I'm the oldest of seven I got three kids I got about 40 some needs and nephews I don't understand why kids can't eat at home in the morning for breakfast it's very simple I mean you know for uh some breakfast is and goods here a dollar $2 $3 I it boggles my mind how we're saying all these people are can't afford a mail but then they can go out and afford a $1,000 smartphone but they can't provide a breakfast for their kids something's wrong in this Society um the uh you know we're talking about state aid and years ago we were crying that in one year in the '90s we only got a million dollars in state aid and the board at the time was yelling and took a bus ride to Trent they asked for more state aid uh the very next year it went to 9 million in state aid and over about eight years it went to 18 million in state aid from 1 million but guess what it was a 1723 increase in state aid you know what happened to our local taxes they went up 33% so the state aid was intended to pay for in fact I don't know if any of you have read the New Jersey state constitution the legislature is responsible for providing a free education not free but paid by the taxpayers so when we passed the income tax I was in that out of 15,000 we fought and then we lost because it was going to be a good thing we're going to have an income tax but we were going to eliminate the local tax on education because that state income tax was going to pay for it and that's why what started the you know I don't want to give you the whole history if you read about it that's what started the phony Homestead rebate program because they said we can't take the local tax away because people don't pay the income tax until April of the following year so for one year we're going to collect two taxes but then once we get them we're going to eliminate the local tax that never happened folks that if you check your history that's so I look back and see how this you know when I see 900 employees for these amount of students I've seen what charter schools and religious schools do with less employees for better outcomes uh I'm shocked and one final thing uh when I was off we we cut the budget back then Board of Education budgets were simple they had specific line item salaries and wages and OE other expenses and you could really look at it now we have all these convoluted terminologies that uh a lay person don't understand I doubt if many trustees can understand the budget and its current uh form and all but the the the problem with this is the public is blindsided you don't know what we're spending with all these different uh titles you know you got the I can't even read it so small undistributed instruction undistributed instruction undistributed but anyway when I was we cut the state I mean the board of education budget when I was office uh by about half a million $400 some odd, at a much when the budget was only $20 million uh I wasn't a genius but I understood the budget and all that but a funny thing happened uh when I announced that we were going to look at this budget and all I get a call from a gentleman he said I'd like to come over and give you some information so he sat at my dining room table for two nights he showed me everything some of which I knew he showed me everything that we could cut in that budget and a lot of it was fraud we cut board of education took us to court we won in court because the line items over budgeted just to give you one that superintendent was uh not smart enough but he put in a memo on the heating oil account and at the time heating oil price had come down we have administrators Hy hidden in this budget but anyway it went line by line some of the things like I said I knew the others he showed me where all the fraud was you know who that gentleman was he was the business administrator of the Belleville School System and guess what he was hired 6 months earlier he saw all the corruption and all the bad things in the budget and six months later they kicked him out the door he was an honest man he went on to other districts and he cut a lot of money in there so that's what I'm saying this is the business administrative showed me where to cut and that's why we went in court and one item we cut 16 items one item after the the judge judge young kept telling the superintendent at the time shame on you shame on you and our Superintendent at time says oh but your honor you used to be a superintendent you know all school districts do that and the judge went like this I know sir but you got CAU so I know it's difficult you trust these you can't read this budget it's impossible to anybody to make sense of this budget and one thing I can say thank you for saving a little paper because the infantes small print is impossible to read thank you thank you Mr Fran Antony yeah to the chair thank you Mr Fran Antony just a few things to clarify um right now as of today our total enrollments 5223 we have 5164 kids sitting in in the buildings um in June we had 4,800 so that's how much we've grown in the building seats so it has you know again that's K to 12 by the way um I think when I first was here I think our entire Rome count was 4600 I believe um and I do know that uh I think I was just talking to status about this the other day two of the buildings were under 100 students and now both of those one of those buildings School 10 is like at 150 and it was under 100 when I got here so um also um our per pupil spending is 18,500 that's what we spend here per pupil um Charter Schools charge somewhere minimum 21,000 so it's it's it's already you know like 3,000 more almost um I think that's it that's all thanks oh and um our class size are averaging around 26 27 students uh I know when you that's what I said when you take that number you divide it like you know employees divided by you know if in a perfect world that's how it would be but you know some of their classes are are um by law mandated smaller sizes um due to special ed students Etc uh we also have over more than 100 Paras in that mix uh that's also mandated um by special needs students and you know our special numbers are in the 20% range so uh I mean those are some of the things we have to think about so thank you thank you Dr TOMCO and I was just smiling before because Mr Fran anony really said a piece of history and what was going on in this district and you know I've been around for a while these guys have been around for a while and this District got in a lot of trouble and this started years back I think um you know recently the the district has been doing very well the the children are happy our resources are better our school grounds are better staff is Happy parents are happy um it it does take some money though you know all the programming that we've brought in in the last couple of years under Dr TOMCO So yeah thank you it's this is not going to be easy this is it gets tougher this is a tough year during covid was a tough year a lot of people were out of work a lot of people were on unemployment um people lost their job so we we made tough decisions then um it continues to happen um anyone else want to speak from the audience on the budget make comments thank you Mr Sheldon come on up to does any okay Ruben Rodriguez will come up to the podium and sorry my voice low horse um how are you nice to see everybody um so I'm going to uh you talk about the cuts and all the cuts you had to make and you said you knew it was going to hurt going down like down the road but I gotta say you didn't do anything how should I put this I had a great year last year at work expenditures went up I don't have the same amount of money I had year-over-year I had one of my best years ever but I still don't have enough money Friday nights is now Red Baron night instead of Gino's Pizza night tonight and I do this because I see what's going on I see what's changing my health insurance went up almost $6,000 for my family last year to this year and I I had to make plans for that I had to understand that that's going to happen and what I see is that you're saying you knew these things were going to happen but we still kept spending money we kept still spending money and we're not I mean with all due respect the the you built a beautiful facility the recreational facility it really wasn't your job that was the town's job that you know but we built it and we built it and we stay up here and we say it's this one's fault it's this one's fault but we all got suckered into building it and now I got to tell you as a wck coach it's a pain in the ass to get in there so I have to make an appointment I have to schedule it I have to hope there's time I don't have a field to play on I I mean they tell us to go to Nutley to find a ball field to play to practice on you know and and and it's just it's these things we we spend money on there was there was a a Facebook post I was doing some research today and it was a Facebook post telling us we're going to save I don't know was it $20 million on uh because of the electrical panels that we these monstrosities we put in the backyard and now I look and your your electric bill is going up $90,000 a year so I just as you say we're cutting we're cutting but we keep spending and we keep spending and we keep spending and one of the things you don't realize is that it's been a hund about $100 a year in the last five years that taxes have gone up and what that does is never mind the buildings you're pushing older people out you're pushing other people out when those older people leave in this town guess who moves in younger people with children that's also driving the the the uh the attendence up um you know we built this facility and it was supposed to improve Sports programs I could tell you I personally have coached two girls in the in the league that are tremendous softball players and you will never see them pitch in Belleville unless they play against you because they are going out of District we got kids playing out of District all over the place so as you put all these these you know the this money in we just want to see and and you got to oh real quick I need to know what MLL is right if you could say what that abbreviation was for just when you're done um um but like you said it's only 18,000 a person uh that we're spending but I don't know I maybe I'm I'm doing it wrong but the math comes out to like more than 22 if you just do the basic breakdown um but uh you know I I noticed that testing has gone up you have people in this District that are hoping their kids come up with special needs so they could get a better education and that's not that's that's I I could tell you there parents that I've heard say I'm going to get my kid tested and I hope he gets an IEP I mean it's it this these are things that are happening there's a reason why why the self-contained classes are through the roof what part of the parking problem and the driving problem and and the the school bus issue is you have the school buses with aside from the amount you don't have enough people we used to have two school buses in the morning School 3 has almost four buses dropping kids off in the morning and it's just I don't like it just seems like we you you say you knew this was going to happen I mean we spent $50 million on a referendum and and my kid's elevator doesn't work in the school she hurt her back and she's scared that she's going to get stuck in the elevator so you know and I was here fighting for you I went to the Board of Ed I went to the Town Council I I was up there arguing to get the money for the middle school and now we turn around and what we were promised is we were getting a field we were getting a ramp we were getting all this this stuff now we're getting a parking garage so that the the new karelli building can have more uh parking for it when it comes out so it's just like as you say yeah we knew this was happening we knew this was happening I know I know what's going on in my business and I'm planning for it in the future I'm making change I'm making Cuts I'm I'm doing things that are different so what we're kind of asking is what are we doing different it seems like our Administration is out of control if we only have 325 teachers forgive my i m we have 900 employees that's 5 to1 we we we have 16 to1 you say as a teacher ratio but our class size is 25 and there's 900 employees so somewhere the the the math is just not mathing in just basic terms and that's why people get frustrated and that's why people start talking and saying things because I tell my kids if you don't tell me everything going on in your life I am going to make stuff up in my head and you talk about the Facebook post and what people say it's because we don't know what's going on it's because we get this on Saturday afternoon you know what I mean we don't we don't know we don't know no offense to all of you I'm sure you do a lot of work behind the scenes all we see is eight yes votes once a month we don't hear behind the scenes we don't understand what's going on and and and you know I I understand you guys think that we're picking on you and we're we're bullying you we're not we just want some kind of I mean you don't get it as bad as the mayor gets it no offense I mean and but I just I I don't know I just I I don't see how our children are getting a $25,000 education I mean and you talk about uh uh trusty darl our teachers doing other teachers job other jobs the Middle School teachers are doing bathroom Duty because we have vaping issues in the school there are so many bigger things that we have to look at we have to figure out and it's just you say we knew it was coming but we just keep spending and we just keep spending and this is It's forcing us out it's forcing I mean I'll be honest I'm I'm I got two I got one kid in in in in Catholic school now I'm trying to figure out a way to get my other kid in Catholic school I don't know how the hell I'm going to do it it's not by cutting out pizza on Friday night I can tell you that much but it it's you know it's it's just seems like there's no ending and you know I I know we sit here and we watch the news and the federal government just keeps printing money we can't print money our money is real our money isn't you know just send another $30 billion and we'll take care of it this is this is we're seeing this and I mean and the windfall is going to come from the town too so if we think that this is going to go up and then when the town is going to continue the town should be paying for that damn recck Center I mean kids don't have a place to go and you guys built a beautiful one and I'm telling you we can't use it and it's just and now you're going to build a tutoring center and we have places they so the teachers that are not able to teach and it's again it's not the teachers we're not able to teach them during the day now we're going to have to take those teachers and put them in another building where you're going to need another custodian where you're going to need another another uh a couple more security guards it's just going to keep going and keep going and keep going and where do this spending stop you know I don't know that's that's uh well yeah if you could just tell me what MLL is cuz somebody said it asked me and uh there was one more thing oh the free food uh with all due respect I I think it's very Noble but I have to remind you in 20121 when you gave out the free food and I know it was covid money that food was littered all over the town all over the town there were boxes of food because the kids didn't want to carry it home the point is the kids don't there are plenty have kids that don't want the free food hey you want to give away to free food but I just think that it's just a waste of money I I think it's a good intention but you know what they say about Good Intentions um thank you I know you put in a lot of work too so I do understand but please just remember that if we don't see it we don't know it okay and just we got to reain it in we got to we got we need some type of cuts if that means to the it it sucks but it is what it is just just take Red Baron pizza thank you Mr Rodriguez to the chair can I answer some of that y do you want to say what MLL is the special ed go ahead but I'll let you do multi multi language Learners it's your ESL population but that's what they go by now and just to clarify I know it's going to get mentioned in a couple of minutes there is no padding there's no hiding there's no Shady stuff in this budget you know like Mr France Antony said I think I've been transparent and upfront in seven plus years that I've been here when it comes to the spending and it comes to what's in the budget and and what we're planning for in regards to what Mr Rodriguez said about the spending there is a lot of things that are constantly going up that you you just can't stop as I mentioned before your electricity your gas your tuitions your transportation your employee benefits the district's growing or as Dr Tom Co has said multiple times the enrollments gone up 200 and something in a couple of months you need to cover those and by covering those it's either you let your class is go up to 40 kids in a classroom or you hire more teachers so you have a more amendable number there's just some things you can't stop thank you Mr Rodriguez I I always appreciate your comments I mean and I like always liked uh I guess maybe one of the last times I'll say to how you always say both ways um you know you always you're encouraging when it's good and you tell it like it is it's bed so I think we need more people like that that that are you know more well grounded but I will say that and I'm not saying for you but people are mentioning Saturday when this was posted and all that but I I don't think many people printed it out and looked that on Saturday everybody was waiting for Mr Sheldon to do his little diet tribe and get you all the information so with all due respect um so let's get realistic a lot of people didn't touch this until it got here tonight um the parking garage unfortunately um is something that we needed in order to put the field in um we had the whole plan laid out we had the ECI money coming off uh you all know how that went we got a no vote from the majority of the council uh unfortunately hopefully this uh when I leave the board can kind of ask them for to support it again um if that could happen the money was already budgeted for but after tonight that money might be gone anyway so I mean it's just a reality but um I will say that we planned that out almost perfect except for the fact that some of those um costs came in a little high for some of the site work that was first proposed we had to shift it a little bit which we did now and that bid's coming out and I'm I'm um you know lack the unfortunately the lack of support from the council um and again three of those members that voted no are gone so that's uh in my opinion uh progress um however uh I think not to back that is going to be very detrimental to the kids in this this community uh but you know it's really interesting because um I'm excited that you talked about not being able to get into the facility because we know it's being used not excited that you can't get in but you know at least it's we all know it's being used and we are generating some revenue from there we can probably generate more Revenue now that we've been for a few years we're going to maybe up some of those prices not from the W teams and whatnot but we can't have it both ways we can't talk about all these things we want for our kids insulate our kids you know there's there's I I know academics is important but you can't have academics without other things right one of the biggest things that was a push two years ago is you know there were all these commercials with you know uh women's confidence being built because of sports get girls involvement Sports and look what happened with the with now with Caitlyn Clark and all these other things what an incredible influx of women leadership and all these things because of sports right so that was a big thing this town very minimal in Recreation very minimal Rec Recreation here they've been talking about putting up a recreation building the program um was diminished it was hurting our feeder programs we were losing good kids to other other schools absolutely uh we had covid that came there was no place for kids to hang out anymore so what do we do this board comes together we come up on an idea of putting together this in training facility and to and to share it with the entire town and look what's happening now kids are getting together kids are working out kids are so the social emotional Wellness is is increasing there these are just incredible things um for the board to to to do that because we saw something lacking in this town and and again we tried to partner with the wreck we did that we tried to Shared Serv which was phenomenal and it worked for um I don't know maybe season or whatever and then thought it was like a wck takeover all that all the again all the rhetoric but that facility is is a phenomenal thing for a community like this because again I'm very about equity it and I don't mean color creed race that's always important but I'm talking about kids on one side of town getting the same as kids on the other side of town or one Town versus the other um Etc kids going to um Catholic schools and tuition that's a fantastic thing but there is no way any Catholic school I don't care all the way from the top Catholic schools to to the weakest Catholic schools can provide any of the service a public school can can uh can have all right it's impossible the only thing that a Catholic School can do or or a parochial school that a public school can't do is kick kids out this kid we don't like for whatever reason don't come back it's the only difference that's what it is let's call it what it is right let's call it what it is um you know we talked about SAT scores last week but I didn't want to say anything because you know we had some students that were here at the time but we have kids got got up to Princeton this year weight listed at Harvard they took the SAT I mean again we keep talking in Aggregates let's stop talking in Aggregates let's talk about growth let's talk about things that are things our kids need those places the the uh indoor training facilities open 7 days a week all night again we're generating re off it those are important things uh same thing with the tutoring center you know we can't have it both ways everybody gets up here and talks about the scores our scores have to be better our scores aren't better because we only have one board meeting a month I mean ridiculous things that I've heard in my nine years ridiculous things that have no connections but you know what we do have a problem with what parents talk to me when they talk to me and I tell the board is I'm really having a trouble helping my child at home with this math I just can't do it I can't teach the way I don't know what to do I don't know what to do so what do we do the board board graciously says let's do something at night let's take some money we got sponsorship from Renaissance we did all these other things and now we opened up an an evening tutoring center we took this major tutoring Grant we're doing some um uh some stuff virtually there as well and we're going to put some of our teachers there we're going to put our National Honor Society students there um colleges we're trying to um hook up with for internships to to teach our kids um all these great things uh because we listened but we can't have it both ways you can't come up here and say test scores are horrible now it's cut programs we can't say oh we want responses to intervention but let's C cut RTI we can't do those things you can't want growth and then take the growth the things that make growth away so I don't know what else to say if you want us to cut those things or if you want this board to cut those things stop talking about the rest of it that's it I mean it's the reality um again when I first got here people didn't even realize the demographic shift there were people in this audience that didn't even know that we were over 70% Hispanic in high school people were floored right we have a school that's at 70% free and reduced lunch that means 70 seven out of every 10 kids in that school are poor poor nobody believes me okay they're poor they don't believe me you want you want them to uh feed their kids breakfast I don't know they're poor it's unless they're lying on their on their on their um all their papers I'm just saying this is what it is I don't know I don't know really um you know I I I know that all these things are great things here vaping uh just to mention vaping we don't have people watching bathrooms because of vaping we have people watching bathrooms since when I was in school school but there's vaping issues in every school every school not just here um you know and again I didn't know about the elevator but thanks for telling us how I wasn't aware that it was out so thank you Dr TOMCO uh anyone else for public comment Gary Hinton come to the podium Gary Hinton 307 Fairway Avenue some things never change just keep on making it harder and harder for the people to come and voice their opinion by making your your meetings at five o'clock when people aren't even home from work yet you start printing these here uh sheets out but you can't even read I got my glasses on and I could barely barely see it it's so small to stop us be from being able to discuss any of the line items on this a concerned about the kids grades in school that the SATs that it's horrible it's really horrible then you sit here and you tell me that you you discussed you want to discuss different situations that you have here and nobody wants to talk about them why what this isn't that what this board is for you sit there and discuss the different uh different problems and and budget things that you have and you don't and you don't want to talk about it is that what you you're telling me then this the schools the schools used to have a um guy that went around and got the illegal students you don't do that no more right you got kids from coming coming from nework over here to the schools you stop doing that because you're taken away from the numbers of the students and you get paid student there's just so many things that makes it hard for you pushing the the taxpayers out the seniors out it's only going to bring in like the fellow said it's only going to bring in new F young families with more kids it's going to multiply the problems that we're having so you you need to sit and discuss these these situations that you are popping up for you and and not avoid them so I'm just really discussed with the with the school grades the SATs that the school puts and just keep raising raising taxes raising the taxes you're pushing the taxpayers out of out of the town I thank you Mr hon yes yeah thank you Mr so let's discuss the SAT scores because I wasn't going to but obviously this is something that you need to know so let's talk about it so something you don't know is that um school ranking that uh usually comes out U well it just came out again school ranking that comes out uh is a formula and um one of my things I promise everybody the 25 years I've been here to do after I retire is to go to um Trenton to argue about the formula because now the formula per se talks about chronic absenteeism right right so you get banged out for chronic absenteeism that means that a kid is out for more than 10 days a year but chronic absenteeism obviously affects the score too because they're not here right however I can't send one of my domicile officers which we have two that you said that the investigators we have two of those officers um we can send them out there and say ma'am your child's not in school um we're putting the cuffs on you we're having the police arrest you you're going to jail it's not how it works okay we can send a letter we can send two letters we can send three letters we can knock on a door we can make a phone call we could tell please get your child to school we can call dcpm which is the old dius we can file a I think it's a harassment or some kind of criminal whatever it is it's a misdemeanor doesn't matter if you're a parent and you can't physically get your kid to school for 10 days or so it's called chronic absenteeism so we have nothing to do with that so unfortunately some parents are having issues postco getting their children here some parents decide to go on a trip to Florida for 7 days and that's 7 Days absence right away there's no more excused absences like you think there are like when you were sick and mom wrote a note and doesn't count anymore if you're not in school you're not in school regardless all right so for all of your neighbors and stuff that have kids that are home they're affecting our scores that's number one so let's just talk about that another thing that affects scores is not the actual SAT score listen to this how ridiculous this is It's how many kids actually take the SAT okay so if you have a 100 kids in your school that are eligible to take the SAT and a 100 kids take the SAT you get like a really high ranking that's what you get right so we've never been a district until last year to push the sat on students that didn't want to take it however this town this board this Administration we keep well these rankings are low these ranking so we got together and said how can we push the rankings well number one we did a really good job increasing uh a P um schedules right we have kids taking advanced placement now whether they're special needs or it doesn't matter we have more kids taking advanced placement classes and we said every kid has to take the SAT we got them free vouchers if they were reduced lunch so every kid took the SAT so when you have every when you have an aggregate here we go again we'll talk about an aggregate right there's another word that we all should be familiar with when you talk about an aggregate of kids all taking a test right if you ever seen a bell curve or Mr Sheldon could probably go over that with you you guys all right if these things were going to happen right when you have all these kids and half of them really don't want to take it well they're not going to perform well so when you come up here with your average SAT scores I understand it I get it the ACT let's talk about average nobody wants to talk about an average kid let's talk about our kids that got into Princeton Harvard John's Hopkins a few years ago um Naval Academy right we have kids that do that so we have kids that are scoring right high so that means that obviously our teachers and everybody everyone's doing something else here to go back now to the most incredible thing of the 5:00 time it's 6:30 now 6:45 by the time Mr Sheldon's on is going to be about 8:00 somebody can walk in right now after after they it's still on they could come right from work and come on and still and still have time to talk so so that's a moot point now too with all due respect um and the per the per pupil spending um really doesn't mean much when you consider that we want to keep all these students here to make more money that's not the first time someone said said that and it really doesn't make much sense to me because if we have 10 less students let's say that don't live here then we don't need resources for 10 students right so really don't even need their money right that's the biggest fallacy and I think um some people the township have said that a few times to me and I've kept my mouth shut because but it really doesn't make much sense so if aund I think when I first got here um Mr um madingley was the one in public who said I think when I first got here did a reregistration we saved like over a million dollars because all these students left with a re-registration um again if that happens well some if that happens again which I don't foresee it but our enrollment goes down because of the re-registration we'll have more room for kids we'll have all these incredible things um so again I don't really uh I don't think that per pupil um spending things in in uh that important and the last thing let's be very clear maybe this is something that um Mr Palo and I could work on before I leave um is the senior tax freeze we talk about seniors are moving out because tax there's a senior tax freeze um seniors that that meet certain requirements which are most senior citizens don't have to pay the the increase on their taxes so I don't know if that's not being told to the seniors here or um or whatnot but something we have to look into maybe that's something that the the council can look into as well if you know um if you're a successful candidate maybe it's something we could put in there because I don't want to see people leave um when they know they don't have to pay their taxes I mean doesn't really make any sense that's called the senior freeze and it's available yeah it's any tax increase yeah it's any tax increase there's criteria there's criteria so I don't know maybe some people make too much money in their retirement funds I don't I don't know but but still if there are people out there that aren't taking advantage of that that would help that conversation I mean that's an important thing so we'll definitely look into that we'll talk to Mr Esposito so thank you thank you any more public comment Michael Sheldon Dr TOMCO I promise not to go too long um I'm here we're here for the I brought my C I brought my C we're ready to go it's 6:30 I uh I I hope to be finish long before s because at 7 o'clock one of my favorite episodes of The Big Bang Theory is on TBS so uh the zazzy substitution but uh speaking of senior freeze uh I believe the town website has information session coming up either this week or next week on this very matter if you pop out I think they have a seminar scheduled to help remind seniors about it uh all right well I'll I uh I'll try to keep my comments short and sweet and and relevant um start off by saying that uh next to Festivus this is obviously Mr Paladino and my second favorite day of the year uh just to set a couple of little factoid straight um there was a lot of discussion earli night about covid Co hit us starting mid-march of 2020 it wasn't 2019 it was 2020 March 2020 when uh that virus that pandemic hit us uh there was also some discussion about the average uh cost uh expenditure per student uh Mr Rodriguez tried to correct the record and I agree with Mr Rodriguez the proposed budget the operating budget for next year is 118 million the number of students including prek that was quoted a little while ago was 5250 so if you do that that quick little bit of math and you don't have to know about hous dorf differentiable manifolds as you may have read from my email this afternoon to do this but it's uh it comes out to to $22,700 per student not 18,000 so it's U quite a bit higher than 18,000 um I want to start off by uh just quickly making sure that we're all on the same page when the words adequacy and Equalization are tossed about because this is important to for understanding the budget whether what the numbers you're giving us are are legitimate or if we really do deserve to to question them um adequacy the adequacy budget and I'm sure all the board members know this because it's pounded into our heads at every njsba meeting but the adequacy budget the the Brain Trust and threaten looks at a given Community the number of students it's resources Etc and they come up with a a number which they feel is is what is required by Mandate of the State Constitution to provide a thorough and efficient education for each of the students in that Comm community so they they come up with an adequacy budget then they look at what can that Community realistically pay in property taxes to run their school system and then they look at the difference between the two the adequacy budget and what the local school tax levy is realistically at and the difference between that is supposed to be the equalization Aid that's to offset any difference now Governor Murphy since he took office in 2018 has been promising that before he finished up and he has a two-term limit that he would see to it that districts like ours were fully funded that when you do all those calculations the state would give us whatever offset so that we would be fully funded and there wouldn't be any need to increase any the additional or have any additional increase in the local school tax levy and he said in February that he had achieved that with this budget with the the 2425 fiscal year budget that we would be fully funded in fact if you know you look back and you know there was some walks down history Lane during this meeting tonight uh in the years that Governor Christie was in charge he kept our state aid Frozen at 25 million but since uh Governor Murphy has taken over that number now has increased to 75.4 million for the next academic year so he has increased our annual state aid by more 50 million and every year when he gives his budget address and treton he says make no doubt about it every additional Dollar in state aid is one less Dollar in local property taxes but and every year Dr TCO that you've been here local school taxes have gone up and if if I remember correctly when you your first couple years here as CSA the uh the total District's Workforce teachers and staff was about 500 we're now I think well over 900 and yes we do have prek so that is a a complicating Factor but we've almost doubled the size of the workforce here uh in the nine years that you've been been at the helm so uh the numbers the two critical numbers here the total operating or the revenues as posted on the revenue sheet and again it's small but I even brought my little magnifying glass I've been doing this so long now I come prepared so according to your own sheets the total revenues are $ 134.4 five million and your operating budget for the next academic year is 118.1 I think that's eight six 18 11 18.6 million so there's roughly a difference there of16 million what you're saying what you need to operate the district and what you're expecting to collect from tax the state the federal government Etc $16 million in difference there now I there may be some very esoteric explanations for that that difference but in each of the last several years owing to fiscal management when the audits are given we every year for the last few years we've had roughly a$1 million general fund Surplus so that in my mind what that seems to indicate is that we're collecting way too much in taxes from local residents then we need to properly run the district because at the end of every year you're swimming in a general fund Surplus so I have a lot of difficulty accepting the fact that you now need to raise the local school tax levy over $4 million which translates to a $416 increase on the meeting assessed home I don't know if it's a coincidence but as you alluded to earlier tonight Dr Tom go um earlier this year um and I think you even said this much at the last Council uh the last Boe meeting uh the the council basically threw the Board of Ed Under The Bus by not allowing an an ordinance to be introduced wherein you wanted to get another $3.75 million loan from the Essex County uh Improvement Authority now maybe it's a coincidence but what you what the town hall would not endorse would not you know provide you the collateral that seems now to be what you're looking for in additional taxes from the community 3.75 in January now you're looking for four $4 million rough a little over $4 million from The Humble taxpayers so I have a lot of difficulty um um believing that this 4 million dollar in extra school taxes is Justified and I'm not going to I'm going to stay true to my word I'm not going to take you guys past 7 o'clock let me just get my you're eight minutes already all right well well you worry though well I uh I I you know I'm scanning through the the sheets and I I I you know I did print out my own copy making it a little bit larger so you know down in the years to come if you guys ever want larger copies let me know you know I can gladly produce it for you but you know as I do every year when I look at the the salary percentage salary increases for just for our through 12 teachers now unfortunately to the best of my knowledge even though you guys approved a new five-year contract for our teachers last August it was in August of last year what you printed were just the new Sal the new salaries for the coming year but to the best of my knowledge you never have printed the contract and I think I had made an open request but somehow you know I I I can't well but that'll be forthcoming I want to get the uh I would like the copy of the contract but the previous contract when I sat on the board the teachers were getting three roughly 3% annual increases and I assume the new contract is is roughly the same May hopefully they doing a little bit better but I assume it's probably not anything more than four or five five% per year can can one of you just say yes that's the ballpark what what is what is the for the F next for this current new contract that was approved by the board last year what is the annual percentage increase for our teachers is it 4% 5% three and five all right all right that's what I expected it to be but you know when I when you look at these line items uh grades 1 through five you're looking for an 11 11 almost a 12% increase and then uh grade 6 through eight almost an again an 11 uh 2% increase what I see that is overfunding if the teachers are only getting in their contract three to 5 percent a year then why are you looking to increase once again and this happens every year and a few times you you and Mr Paladino and even when M rean was kind enough to be present at these meetings you guys would all scream at me you know heretic blasphemy how dare you accuse us of padding padding the the these line items but there's really no I still don't see the explanation for things like this if you unless you're planning to add a new school you rough have roughly the same number of K through 12 teachers from one year to the next where with that Workforce getting a 3 to 5% increase then why are these line items which in these These are the biggest ticket items on the budget as everyone knows why are these items going up by 11 12% a year my my opinion is that it gives you a bit more wiggle room it allows you to to transfer funds to other areas during the course of the year to take care of other matters now on the same on the first on the same page the apprach Appropriations page um item 3100 textbooks uh for 2223 you put down here that you spent only $5,000 $ 5,294 for books which seems crazily too low but uh for 23 24 you have and I this is why I get suspicious when these beautiful whole rounded numbers appear in a budget sheet you have $1 million for textbooks for 23 24 I don't know how much you've actually spent currently on textbooks and the same number for next year a million dollars now I'm not saying we don't need to buy new textbooks but you know we've been on a a rampant campaign for the last nine years to buy all new textbooks and what I what I here here's here's a way to maybe cut a million dollars off the budget no one's really giving you a a specific idea here but I'm going to throw out one in this current budget you're making the last two payments to the ECI which is about $716,000 and the last payment for the uh State loan that brought both Mr rean and then you Dr TOMCO to Belleville the last payment I believe is in the next year that's $416,000 so together that's between 1.2 two and $1.3 million right in next year's budget you're not going to have to to make those those payments so is there any way you might instead of asking for a million dollars up front for this year maybe cut back I'm not saying just postpone all your book purchases for a whole year but maybe scale back to $500,000 and then next year when you no longer have to pay those two IUS then make up you'll have that money already there because you I'm sure you're you're going to try to carry over those items into the 25 to 26 budget but you know give a break to the taxpayers without completely throwing out the idea of buying new textbooks so this is just one particular instance where if you're a little prudent if you wait a little bit longer cut don't buy as many books as you might want to during the next academic year wait till the following year when you no longer have two big ticket items facing you then you can you can purchase books then without necessarily increasing the budget now you know I could go through and I'm G to instead of wasting all your time tonight and babbling here at the microphone I have a lot of line items here marked and what instead of uh uh ra rambling on here I'm going to send you later tonight this with my ideas where I think you can realistic basically cut some some items trim without undermining any District services or any having any staff Cuts all right so I I'll share this with you and uh give you guys a day or two to ruminate on this before I I publicly post any of this so the rest of the community can see my ideas but uh I let me see what else what I wanted to say here uh the I was looking through the revenue sheet hoping that I could find some proof that all this anticipated revenue from the expansion of our special ed program over these last few years as you've acquired new properties on Greylock um and and added new staff to special ed at every turn there was always this promise that instead of sending our kids out of District to other facilities which typically cost at least $80,000 that was the ballpark number that's always been thrown out every child that we send to another school to another facility for special ed purposes costs at least 880,000 there's some children unfortunately where that expense is 150 to 200,000 because they they need round thee clock hair they need an aid with them all the time special Transportation so as you and Mr Paladino will regularly say you you you hope as a school year gets underway that you don't suddenly have a family move in with three or four new special education students because that could essentially blow all the budget but every time you guys had a new program along this line you always said Dr TOMCO that this is going to finally change things in our favor we're going to start seeing kids from other schools coming here because of our our increased number of professional we won't have to send our kids to those districts where is that Revenue stream I don't see any sign that that that's happening that's materializing all I see is a continued escalation of these very high water costs to send our I'm not saying we can't we have to do it obviously and forget about the what the law says it's just you know basic Humanity we have to provide this level of service to bevel's children but yet I don't see the the delivery on the prom prises you you made that all of these specialed program expansions would start producing Revenue stream you know and I and when you when we look at the claron field project when we were uh selling that to the community and yes you know I was chair the finance and operations committee and kind of played the lead role on the board at that time but I remember you you saying to the community that you had a lot of folks who were already lined up to use Claremont field and that you expected the field itself to be an income stream it would be a significant Revenue stream last year I filed the op request to see how much money had come in during the first two years of claremon and it was only it was only $4,000 and at that rate it's going to take 1,700 years for Beville taxpayers to realize the $3 million that the claremon field renovation project cost us so you know I'm not saying we can't do we we all want to do everything we possibly can for kids but promises are made that all this Revenue extra revenue is going to be generated with whether it's Claremont field the new Athletic Facility and the valley Etc and I don't see any any any real Revenue coming in what's coming in is buckus and uh you know but at the same time we're we're we're stretching resources very limited taxpayer money in Beville more and more and you know we're getting to a Breaking Point and so is it 7 talk yet no all right I still got a couple minutes to get home and watch the zazzy substitution all right uh thank you Mr Sheldon um I will send send my my notes to you to look at if you want to talk to me separately about this I'm I'm more than happy to do so but uh I think you guys if you make a serious effort can uh uh uh trim this tax proposed tax increase from 400 to well under 200 and that's kind of what we're you know used to doing every year it would come in at you know initially 300 and then we would hear well let me go talk to my manager in the back of the showroom and then two weeks later lo and behold the tax increase got cut by 50% so uh I'm I'm expecting the same thing to happen before you guys have the final public hearing on the budget but I will try to help you along the way by uh showing you some realistic areas where I think you can cut without hurting anyone very good thank you thank you Mr Sheldon does any board me um before we go to that do I have a motion to close public participation Some Mo second second all those in favor did any board members want to make any comments anybody after hearing any of the okay Dr tomc cor Mr Paladino do you have any comments all right then I think we're going to end the meeting so do I have a motion to close motion Workshop meeting second second can we do all those in favor hi I thank you everyone have a good