good evening welcome to the Berkeley Heights Board of Education regular meeting in tenative budget adoption for March 18th 2024 as of 605 we do not have a quorum of board members yet so we are waiting for another board member or two to arrive so we are just going to turn off the mics and wait for a quorum to appear thank you e e e e e e call to order call 6 Mike's on Jeremy okay call to order there we go thank you okay call to order at 6:10 the Berkeley Heights Board of Education regular meeting and tenative budget adoption agenda for March 18th 20124 may I have a roll call please Mr Kiri about the was the email sent 48 hours in advance I sent it out on Friday I I addressed that early this afternoon with Mrs Conor who sent that email early uh can I just get a time stamp on when it was sent it was 48 hours in advance to this it was sent Friday at 1 o'clock or 12 o'clock somewhere in between that time I don't have the exact time off my head okay thank you so yes pres yeah Miss Bradford present Dr forger present Mr Heyman here M Jolly here Mrs Conor present Miss Penna yeah Miss Stanley meeting notice statement adequate notice of this meeting of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education was given as required by the openland public meetings act as follows on March 15 2024 notice of the Board of Education meeting schedule was sent to the Star Ledger in The Courier News and also also provided to all school PTO presidents bhe president and posted in the administration building a copy was also provided to the public library and filed with the Municipal Court could we rise for the flag salute please I United States stand thank thank you adjourn to Executive session whereas the Berkeley Heights Board of Education seeks to adjourn to Executive session in full compliance with the open public meeting act New Jersey sa 1046 whereas the open public meeting act provides that a public body May exclude the public from that portion of the meeting at which it mat it discusses matters related to those identified below matters rendered confidential by federal law state law or Court rule individual privacy collective bargaining agreements purchase or lease of real property if public interest could adversely be affected investment of public funds if public interest could be adversely affected tactics or techniques utilized in protecting Public Safety and property pending or anticipated litigation attorney client privilege Personnel employment matters affecting specific perspective or current employees be it resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education adjourns to Executive session to discuss matters related to Personnel students legal and con contract negotiations and be it further resolved that the minutes of the discussion of any of these items will be disclosed to the public when matters have been determined and confidentiality is no longer applicable do I have a motion to enter into executive session second right we are going to move now to Executive session oh sorry Voice vote sorry in favor all in favor I opposed abstain okay all right it passes we're moving to Executive session e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e we are back in session thank you all for your patience as we had a extra long executive session today we apologize so we're going to be starting with our agenda oh we need we need a first and a second to sry yes we need a first and a second to return so moved second all in favor I opposed abstained thank you the report of our student representatives and we understand that Jake is a little under the weather so Olivia thank you so much for doing double duty tonight of course okay so I'm gonna read Jake's report first hello everyone this past Thursday the spring Sports season kicked into full swing as our student athletes look to add an already impressive and successful Governor Livingston Sports year the final winter sports team to finish their season was the hockey team as they lost a close 4-3 game against Morris nolles in the State final at the credential Center the team put together another successful season winning their third straight State sectional title and getting back to the credential center for the third time the governor Livingston hockey athlete of the season is senior Jackson Benward coach Jensen said Benward was a great leader all year he played in all situations and we could count on him to score a big goal he also got his 100th Career Point in the last game of the season after having a career-high in points this season all right um good evening this March many clubs and organizations at GL have been celebrating St Patrick's Day on Friday the ASL Club held a party during lunch to celebrate the holiday on Saturday March 16th the governor Livingston marching band had the honor of playing in the New York City St Patrick's Day parade and was featured on national television of the event last week members of the future Business Leaders of America traveled to Atlantic City to compete in a Statewide competition five GL students placed in the top 10 in all of New Jersey for their events additionally this past week Juniors completed their NJ GPA State Testing at as it is one of the pathways to fulfill graduation requirements after each day of testing the PTO generously provided proved snacks and water for the students and Proctors on Thursday March 21st through Saturday March 23rd the GL Hilltop players are proud to present their spring musical the hello girls tickets are on sale online or outside the cafeteria during lunch for students there will be evening performances Thursday through Saturday with a matate performance on Saturday as well as the district near Spring Breaks students are anticipating the start of the fourth and final marking period on March 28th thank you and have a great evening thank you Olivia you can leave when you when you'd like okay um thank you so much for our students who are excelling in athletics and our students excelling in theater and in academics we are so proud of all the teams that we have and uh we appreciate everything that they do the extra time and thank you to the parents who also put in the time to support the students in their Athletics in the theater and their academics okay report of the superintendent which will be Dr giodo thank you thank you madam president uh real quick I just want to let the community you know at the next BOE agenda in April uh our give back days for not having snow days will be Friday May 24th and Tuesday May 28th and a revised calendar will be on the agenda for the board to approve that and once that board approves that um we will send that out to the parents a notification that's been updated so I just want to make make everyone aware of that thank you um you notice something different on the agenda on the agenda the very first thing that we have are our board goals and the board goals will be at the agenda um for each meeting and in looking at our board goals we're going to report to the community what we have done to accomplish those we have two accomplishments in our board goals our first accomplishment was the training that we had um uh with the ethics training when Mrs Reese came in at our last meeting that was our first one the second board goal that we're going to be uh debuting tonight and for our minutes is that the committee chairs will be giving their uh reports in public for everyone to hear and then those minutes will then be going right into the agenda so that you can see what has happened in the committee minutes and the possibility of being posted on the website has been discussed and we will we will let you about know about that so I'm going to start with committee and liaison minutes but first I'd just like to say that our our thoughts and prayers are with the family in our community that was affected by a tragic accident uh last week and our thoughts and prayers are with that that family um my first report is as Union County Educational Services Commission Mrs Conor was unable to attend so I attended as an alternate the US ECS presented and discussed their tentative budget for their five schools and the work Readiness Academy their budget is entirely revenu driven they do not receive any funding from t taxes so we have that budget um that we had to look at uh the Berkeley Heights Education Foundation met on Tuesday March 12 the members discuss financial and committee updates including grants and student wishes they now have two high school student Representatives who have joined the foundation the bhef is supporting literary lunches in our district and this is exciting the baf has purchased 2,000 pairs of eclipse paper glasses for k through eight students to use on Mon Monday April 8th during the solar eclipse they will be passed out the foundation is also approaching its 30th anniversary and a celebration is being planned the Veterans Affairs committee Le is on the first meeting was the week of March 11th and the one goal of the committee will be to connect the district's students with local veterans the Town Council met on Tuesday March 5th the mayor has established a wellness committee with the purpose of promoting Health Wellness of our community working to Implement a comprehensive program of Outreach education and technical assistance to promote health and wellness for Berkeley Heights the Kimberly Anne Wilson Foundation for mental health is a member and a sponsor and reached out to share information with the Boe the Town Council had a special budget presentation workshop on March 11th the PTO curriculum the administration shared and discussed the curriculum agenda with the PTO liaison from each of the schools there are no other updates for committees from me uh do we have any other committee updates yes Mrs is Conor would you like to go thank you thank you Gail uh I will provide the update from the finance committee we had I want to say three meetings since we last met here uh the first meeting was really focused on uh a lot of the district updates as it relates to the facilities we had our first meeting on the 4th of March we had the second meeting focused squarely on the budget on the 11th of March and we had another focused meeting on 15th to talk uh about the impact of the transportation on the budget so in the meeting on the 4th of March uh was focused on getting an update uh on the roofing projects some of the resolution recommendations that are on the agenda today um so AJ unless you uh want me to hold off on some of those facilities um I will just do a quick update so we talked about the roofing projects um currently they are delayed most likely till the summer of 2025 unless the school development agency paperwork um is is expedited uh it's not for uh LA from the district side it's it's a holdup for the agency to actually get the paperwork uh done in time we will we will have to assess what that does to any kind of potential conversations that we having on solar panels uh so TBD on that uh there are three resolutions on the agenda today that were discussed one of them is the wig Fern agreement to support the culinary art class requirements that we have in our school the second recommendation uh is around utilities audit firm and they will look for savings U that we would uh essentially pay them with so if they don't find savings then you know we don't have to pay them anything the third one is to implement a software module that will manage the time sheets on top of the existing system that we have and the goal here is to drive efficiency in the way our staff does work so eliminate as much manual uh work uh and dependenc as possible uh there was a conversation on the architect rfps now the last time the board uh had that conversation was December 2023 there is a summary of the discussions from the December meeting that will be circulated uh to all board members we talked briefly about the attorney RFP that was um initiated back in October since the committee can't really make a decision we are going to talk talk uh more about that later today we touched upon the budget process in the 4th March meeting uh at a high level and then I'll I'll I'll jump to actually the minutes from the 11th March meeting uh where we discussed the key assumptions that we have in the budget in the tenative budget right now uh regarding the tax levy increase uh how the uh budget is essentially based on estimates for uh a lot of parameters including health benefits the utilities and so on and we'll have a a longer conversation when we go through the budget uh today uh there's some decrease in the state aid we one of the the big um one of the big assumptions that we have in the budget right now is the state of the transportation and uh we have a couple of discussion items today that we will go through uh and the impact of that will have to be factored into the final budget that is uh due for adoption on the 7th of May uh we talked about uh the basis for the budget uh the majority of that being uh staff and salaries so we'll have more of that through the budget presentation today uh the third meeting that we had was really focused on transportation and the impact of Transportation uh I will say the impact of the transportation policy so our focus in the finance committee was is really to look at the impact from a budgetary standpoint because we did not want to debate necessarily the the merits or the demerits of the policy itself uh the the short uh update on the transportation is that we explored two scenarios what happens to the budget in the in the presence of a policy which is what you will hear through the tentative budget today the alternative scenario in the absence of a policy uh we discussed uh a number of points as it relates to the bus routes and and what it will mean uh the bottom line is there is additional work required in the scenario that we do not have a transportation a hazardous policy to be specific that will lead to you know uh some changes in our tenative budget thank you Mr Hyman any updates uh I'll just note I chair Athletics technology and strategic planning uh those three have not yet met have worked with an to get dates for athletics it'll be in April Winter season was busy so that will happen get with Jeremy as well technology would probably happen just after spring break strategic planning I would guess a little bit further beyond that one of the questions I have there is um obviously we had njsba in to present part of the conversation there would include uh a a strategic plan element to that so um that's less urgent because of the timing of our strategic plan thank you Mrs Dolly any updates no updates okay Mrs Airi any updates hi um as part of the strategic planning I requested um the business administrator for a facilities tour and but in Li of what's a priority for us which is the budget I think we're going I'm going to have a follow-up conversation with him about scheduling a facilities tour of all our buildings uh mainly to understand uh our capital projects what do we want want to do what are the infrastructure needs as say like grounds you know we we do hear a lot from the community in terms of sports Fields Roofing fans ventilation so maybe once we get through the budget sis like I thought let me give him some time to you know do the tentative budget and then I was going to follow up with him on that and anybody is welcome to join the tour thank you thank you Mrs Penna no updates Dr borer okay uh the curriculum committee met on March 12th for about 90 minutes present were Natasha Jolly Gail Bradford Dr gardano and Dr seminario I'm going to give you just the highlights since you do have uh all the minutes we established a meeting schedule of eight meetings for the year we talked about a new assessment system called star 360 that would replace I ready and Link it uh I understand this will show up on the April agenda we talked about whether it would be helpful to survey parents to gauge the extent of tutoring in the district we talked about some courses at CMS that are changing names for example art media becomes visual art to in order to attract more diverse students and advanced drawing and painting becomes Studio Art that's it thank you Mrs I'm submitting entire thing yes uh chairs will submit this to Mrs oats she'll put them into the minutes for the public to see Mrs Stanley so um we had a policy meeting um and so I'm just going to go over the policies so we have the purchases budgeted this is a new policy it was recommended by stress Esme um it had got put in uh back the committee in the fall had put it back to find out if our an incoming business administrator would want this policy um it went both to the county and the business administrator and both believe that we need it um no board members were concerned with policy language um for p 4161 and P 3161 that's Examination for cause this is a revision um there's one for teaching staff and one for supportive staff um there was just updating on the wording and it adds the board to the process um we have policy 2270 which is religion in schools again this is a revision mostly just updating the wording then we have regulation 8600 this is the regulation for student transportation this is new for us the leg the regulation is straight from sh Esme it gives guidance and on the statutes that provide busing for students the criteria for hazardous roads uh hazardous routes School Bus use and the operation of the transportation system um and then we had policy 6 sorry 8600 this is student transportation and this is a revision this is being revised to as hazardous roads which were chosen by the outside party the school transportation Consultants who presented at the February 26th meeting this policy would change our current how our current busing looks um we would only have three types of busing we would have mandated hazardous and subscription any student who currently gets what we call Courtesy busing would no longer receive it next year if not on the roads listed as hazardous the Consultants used a rubric that had four areas they looked at they looked at roadway walkways they the student grade level how old they were and which schools they went to and extraordinary conditions extraordinary conditions were more like is this road already considered hazardous by the town or the county um for Elementary and CMS it is really four main roads that would be deemed hazardous which is McMain Diamond Hill part of Emerson and part of horseshoe because those four are deemed as hazardous the roads off of them are also on the list for the elementary and CMS so if you look at it on the map right you're really looking at the McMain area the Diamond Hill area part of Emerson and part of horseshoe and the roads leading off of that if approved tonight there would not be much change to the high school as a Consultants found that Diamond Hill to be a big problem so most of the students on the other side of Diamond Hill which is the majority of students would still receive busing under hazardous um and then there's a few roads closer to the school that we we know are an issue so they are also on the Hazardous so it really just becomes this part of the hill of Murray Hill um coming up the street here so that would not be receiving busing for high school um this policy would allow us to receive aid for these hazardous routes however we will not know much until next year after after it has been implemented on how much we will get for these hazardous roads being listed in the policy um again during different discussions with the transportation department we know that um if this policy is not passed that we will have trouble with getting buses for Mary Kay Mountain Park and CMS because we will no longer have any busing if we don't don't have hazardous roads for Mary Kay and Mountain Park so we wouldn't not have a bus there which mean we would also not offer subscription busing for those students CMS we would be at capacity on our buses so again we would not be able to offer subscription busing to CMS if we don't move forward with our hazardous policy um also I believe if we don't pass the Hazardous policy um the the courtesy busing will remain in place unless we make a motion to uh remove it so I just want everyone to be aware that the Hazardous policy if it is passed we will be moving forward with only mandated hazardous and subscription if it doesn't pass we would remove we would go back to Courtesy busing um and then we would have to either decide if we're going to keep the courtesy busing as it is or we need to make a motion to remove courtesy busing and only have mandated and subscription um you can ask uh further questions later during our discussion time uh the Personnel committee also met twice we met once on March 1st um we had a um a central office person Le uh decide to leave um so we talked about that we also talked about Acting Superintendent and the role that they would have to take because of the various Road the superintendent has um not just in Berkeley Heights but outside of Berkeley height and Union County um our second meeting was on March 14th and we are happy to say that there is someone on the agenda for tonight to um replace that position in central office and yes that is it for my two meetings thank you uh chairs of the committee I know it's a lot of uh time and extra meetings and I appreciate all the work that has gone into the representatives the liaison and the committee chairs so we will be uploading these minutes to the agenda so that the public can see the minutes um we're looking now at uh board Communications there are three communications that I had received uh over the last last board meeting there was a communication about Mrs Bradford uh that I had received there was another communication was entitled the picture is worth a thousand words and last was uh regarding the Dei survey those were the three that I had received and that concludes the correspondence thank you we'll move on to the report of the business administrator which is the highlight of our night the presentation of the 24 25 budget before I can do that um what I did was I wanted to give the uh report that I have here first oh sorry um let's see here uh the district has applied for two electric bus applications uh one we have done already and one is the second one is due on in the month of May uh at GL there was a new Knight supervisor that was hired uh there was a repair of the library Water Co coil and the window spring project has been completed there over at Mary Kay the boiler pump replacement was done in house and that has been completed uh playground mulch has been ordered and a new classroom projector whiteboard has been installed over at Mountain Park uh the chimney repair has been completed by an outside contractor at William Woodruff uh Exhaust Fan Company sent out their roofer to repair a leak after a new fan was installed in the roof at CMS the window spring project uh has been completed districtwide we had our custodians complete their right to know training on February 16th and Lead water testing uh will be starting in July of 2024 at old schools and that completes uh my report at this time I'd like to uh go over the uh preliminary budget Mr MOX can you uh go to the second page please and just an introduction of our board members can you proceed through to the next this is just a basic process um Administration principles and department heads uh gone over the budget during the months from October to January finance committee had gone over the budget from February to March with Mrs Conor the chair Miss Bradford Dr forer and Mrs Stanley were part of that process preliminary budget vote is this evening our budget is due on March 20th which is this Wednesday and the public and the board the final budget will be presented to the public and the board will be voting on that on May 7th can I sure so typically what we do between the tenative budget and the final budget is we have a meeting a public meeting to talk through the budget and you know talk more in depth once we've had once the the residents have had a chance to look at it uh the tentative budget so I know it's not on the list yet but we need to figure out what is the the appropriate date for us to have a meeting for that particular conversation so just want to put it out there uh and we'll have to you know take into account the spring break starting next week so we we just have to check the availability to have that meeting go if you can go to the next slide please uh I'm going to go into the uh budget highlights of this preliminary budget the tax levy is increasing by just under 2% as Mrs cona had uh reiterated during her um committee report the state aid for our district has decreased by $786 uh as we went through with our finance committee we had about 612 account lines and 477 of those lines had remained flat or decreased which is about 78% the account lines in the budget were compared with prior spending um from the prior year of the the last few years I should say sorry about that uh a contractual increase of 3.2% for the bhea for the 2425 school year was included in with this budget the contractual increase of 3 3% for the bhaa was also included for the 2425 school year there was an increase to the bus driver contract to the hourly wage to attract drivers that was included in for the next year's budget estimated increase in the contribution to the public employees retirement system was included at 18% and normally uh that's an estimate that we have to provide uh the state it's an Actuarial figure that usually comes out sometime next year late right around uh April Property and Casualty Insurance rates are projected to increase between 10 and 15% that is the estimate that our uh uh Insurance representative lets us know uh the actual rates and where th those actual rates come in toward the end of the uh school year toward June they have to look at our risk assessment and what claims have been paid out and our insurance adjuster usually negot that negotiates that rate toward the end of the year health benefits and prescription rates are projected to increase by 11% again our our broker has to look at the claims that come in by the end of the year and that our broker negotiates those claims toward the end of the year our utilities were estimated at 10% which is electric and gas we included an increase of sewer and water at 5% again again those were trends that we've seen over the last few years another increase that we had was an increase in effective School solutions for mental health services before um this service was being utilized or funded through um ESS grants those ESS grants are coming to an end uh coming in September so now it is up to uh the school to start or or start funding that service to our children some of the other things that is uh in the curriculum for next year are 95 phonics core program it's a word study for a teacher presentation files we have open sci-fi supplies uh for grades 6 through eight which is a pilot program and is uh going to be utilized next year there is a heg bridge the gap intervention materials that's going to be instituted just words Wilson teacher kits and student materials is also going to be instituted and included in with the budget 95 phonics core program words study workbooks also the 95 phonics core program kindergarten and third grade uh kits are also going to be included in addition we have uh a reading specialist is going to be added over at uh Columbia Middle School we're going to have the addition of a District athletic trainer and also we have an addition of a halftime nurse over at uh Governor Livingston and there is an ESL position that was increased from 85% to 100% at Mary Kay the tax impact uh for next year with us keeping or or increasing uh the tax levy to just under 2% and the average assessed home is at 315,000 here in Berkeley Heights and I'm just going to go to the assessed value of 300,000 that tax increase for next year approximately is going to be $135 and that essentially will equate to $11.23 monthly and you can see what those other one the other assessments were at this time I'd like to invite any questions from the audience or board members thank you Mr jotz um so a couple of questions um you mentioned that there were you know X number of budget line items they came in under right yes so I'm looking at the um report of the secretary to the Board of Education this was page five of 10 and I think it was page 35 on the attachments right to the board packet and it lists um all of the expenditures correct and so what it lists is our actual spend for the 2023 re budget um plus incumbrances kind of showing us where we are relative to the amount that we've budgeted so when I plug those numbers in and I use that as a baseline for what we're asking for or what we're thinking our expenditures are going to be for the 24 25 budget it appears that we are over five million in terms of what we're going to be what we're going to spend this year so for example the bottom line number here between actuals and incumbrances comes to a total of 56 million I believe 56 643 versus what is on the proposed uh revised budget 20123 um which shows at 63984 so what we're asking for in the proposed budget is a total of 61 658 which appears to be lower than our proposed 2324 budget but when you look at what we're actually spending year to date plus our incumbrances our actual 23 budget 23 24 budget looks to be on track for a $ 56.6 Million number so compare that to the 61 658 that were asking for for the 24 budget it feels like it is um it's 5 million higher so I feel like that there's um it seems like that there might be some additional cushion or say or maybe Surplus that we will realize at the end of this year and so and so when it when comparing to the proposed budget it doesn't look like it's that different in fact it looks like we're asking for less but I still think that you know looking at our actuals it feels like our 2425 budget is a bit High I really can't answer that question because I don't know actually what you're looking at and I'm talking budget figures and you're talking 23 I'm not looking at that document I'm looking at the document that I had give uh I gave the full board on Tuesday which was the Exel document and that's the one that I'm referring to and you're looking at the board secretaries report for 2223 no for 2324 so this is the board secretary's report that's in our current attachments okay well um I would need to look at that one-on-one with you in order to answer that question because I'm I think we're talking apples to oranges at the moment I think if you if I think if you simplify what she's asking and she's asking are we going to have $5 million at the end of the year this year is the short answer to that yes or no versus what we budgeted yeah that's what she's asking and if that's the case then our 61 million looks like I don't think we plan on having right five million but I I think you have to remember that we have $1.7 million in a capital project that is not going to get done this year and we'll go back into Capital reserves right but these are just expenditures for year date um right so when you're looking at this we're not going to have this extra 5 million like there's no extra 5 million waiting so maybe in order to kind of just break down the questions there can you talk through in the budget that we have um on the agenda the 61.65 eight million is there any Capital project assumption that we are making in this number no there's there's no capital projects I've I believe that I've I've I've made that comment in my email questions or emails that several people had asked and made that clear I think on numerous occasions there are no capital projects in for next year so in the 61.6 Million number we do not have any projects if we do have to think about or plan for a project that will come from the capital reserve if we decide to do anything uh for next year uh and one of the things that we needed to do is uh select an architect which we don't have one yet uh then what I can do is as I I stated to the finance committee uh what we needed to do is I would have to petition the county office ask to take money out of cap Reserve then I would need to do is put a resolution on our board agenda uh have the money taken out of cap Reserve designated for a specific project and put it into cap Reserve fund 12 in order to do that understood so if I you know I think the question or what Natasha was probably trying to get to was when we look at how much money have we spent year to date based on the budget that we had last year and we look at what is the encumbrance plannned for between now and end of the year it appears that we have been taking the capital projects aside for a minute I think it's a $2.6 Million number that seems to be things that were planned in the budget last year but when we look at the actuals it looks like we would have 2.6 million remaining as we get through the end of the year and I think the question that she had was would you take that 2.6 million and put that in the revenue side in the budget for 2024 2025 or what happens to that money I've been ured in this budget right now so looking at or or having no numbers in front of me I really can't answer that at the moment I need to take a look at that sit down and and give you an answer I'm not prepared I don't have anything in front of me and I've been looking at budget 24 25 numbers for the last week so I I really couldn't tell you that number Natasha can you because I have some follow-up questions on that can you share that print out I didn't have a print out I have it on my phone like what we are looking at the board secretary's report no no with with Mr AJ so he can understand our questions better that's I have some followup questions so I think just can I clarify though I I I think there's a couple things that were said that were not how this how the budget works so at the end of the year if we have money left over right that would not roll over to 2024 2025 that would go to capitals of reserves correct at the end of the year you would either put money toward Surplus or like there's two resolutions at the end of the year where you can put money into cap Reserve or maintenance Reserve because that's why those resolutions are put on there so if that's the question that you're asking yes so you don't roll it over to the following year there there's no roll over it goes to Surplus or it goes toward um like what we're doing we're putting we right now there's money that was put in for 2.4 million for a budgeted Surplus that you have to use toward tax believe and 2.4 million was used last year uh 2.2 is being utilized for 2425 is that the question that you're asking so I think it's a little more fundamental question of you know we are it doesn't look like we're asking for a budget that's much different in fact it looks like we're asking for a budget that's less than what we had what our revised um 23 24 budget looks like so my question though is when you're looking at the actual ual spend should we be really asking for as much as we are against certain line items when actual spending this year shows to be a lot less like I think that you know again what's our basis of comparison because we're doing a year-over-year budget comparison 23 budget versus the 24 budget and it seems that you know since we've are not spending as much as we are in 23 should we be asking for as much against those line items for 24 so so I think there are certain line items that we need to look at again to see like what exactly are we going to spend this money on in 2425 what is your example that you're you're looking at sure uh Mr jodano if I emailed you a picture of this page that we are talking about could you share it with Mr a that way it will be easy yes I'm going to email it right now okay so for example we're looking and I think you mentioned this but maybe we can drill down a little more we're looking at um total School sponsored athletic instruction um where the 23 revised budget was 1.2 million we are asking for 1.33 million of a difference of 112,000 but what we actually spent was 1.1 million um and so if you use the 1.1 million as a baseline number for 24 25 budget you're asking for 209,000 above that amount so is it really that we need 209,000 or is it really that we need you know 112,000 in uh for the year I think if I had preparation and knowing this beforehand and looking at the the individual's budget I probably would have been prepared to answer that question but not having anything in front of me I really can't answer that okay and that's fine I mean we've we've got this version that I'm comparing I think on Thursday which was the line item budget so it's not that it's that you know new to me right like so I put this together earlier you know uh last night so um I thought the one Tuesday that I had sent had a better breakdown of it than the one from Thursday it's the same it's the same it's the total um and you know the expend the rolled up expenditure alems by category so I will share with you what I had ped together and then you could take a look I'm sorry and I just have one other final question I think this was around the um you know this the adequacy number versus our total uh budget I think it's uh 14 million over versus last year when we were 9 million over versus the calculated adequacy amount so we just want um just want to understand that better number one why are we over and number two to why are we over this year by five more than what we were over last year as I stated in that finance committee that adequacy number is a calculation that comes out of the state budget software I don't do the calculations I do not know any other questions Mrs Ziri yeah I just want to confirm if J Mr Jano got the no can he see it now yeah because he doesn't seem to like if you can just share I ain't going to be able to see it on my phone like because I just want to be we we're talking the same this is uh from the board secretary's report attachment e page number 35 so what we are looking at is I think the line items on this document are ex they line up with the line item budget or the detailed tentative budget we are about to adopt and what really calls out is I think there are at least five line items here and one of them is the one on total undistribute undistributed expenditures for transportation so we had budgeted for 2023 2024 year close to 2.3 million we have as of now only used about 82,000 and we're planning to use about I think for the rest of the year 740,000 so that leaves us with about 820,000 just on one line item for transportation and overall what based on what actuals we have spent till date in March and what we are planning to spend if we factor that all in from an unrealized perspective we are at 4.3 million you're forgetting about one thing there was a transportation contract that we didn't get from first student which that's not reflected in there uh right now am I Kelly am I correct and is is there something else because the U other the company didn't get us the contract so we have an outstanding contract with first student I think we discussed this at the last meeting if not wrong yes so my question is so are we going to fact so Kelly if you can just speak from the mic so that people who are on the remote so we have two Transportation contracts that are yet to come and hit this line item for Total undistributed Transportation so we just received the first student contract last month so that won't get paid until this month so and then we and then we also have a um an increase in our Union County ed services contract because we had a driver that resigned and we had to go out to their services to support that so will that add up to 820,000 how much is this cont so the first student contract approximately was7 471 plus 47 so 400 and you're always a month behind on your board secretary report you're not you're not more yeah you're right yep okay and then the other one through Union County ed services is about 60 to 70,000 okay and then we still have spring Sports correct oh correct yeah so the athletic uh transportation is also a line a line item in those budgets between co-curricular Colombia as well as GL okay spring is a is a our biggest so I I do have questions so yes okay so Stanley so as we were going through not for you sorry you can I just have budget question so as we are going through the budget um we we were talking about how overall it is down um but that includes the capital project that was in last year's um but when we look at the tax levy it's up about 916k um I know that I've heard from a lot of people including um AJ that this is a very tight budget um I don't know how many times people have told me we can only accept a couple more students before we would break right so this is a a very very tight budget already um because it's just like expenses at home go up and we have grocery bills at home that keep going up we are a public school with four 400 employees and 2 200 students and the bills are going up um so Anthony I just uh AJ I want to just ask when we look at this how how much wiggle room do you think we have is it a really tight budget like we have been discussing and that teachers have been saying the one thing I didn't want to have done here and what we tried to do is make sure that we weren't going to lose staff members this school is predicated on having staff members here to teach our kids I didn't want to do that we tried to go as tight and lean as we could the one thing is I think if we have one out of District student that comes in this District we might be able to absorb it if you're G to have multiple I don't it's going to be tough it's going to be tough I don't know what's going to happen but you know what we have to take it as one day as it comes yeah that's all I can say so this is a very tight budget even at 1.99 increase yes yeah and and and we're all going to say that we all model ourselves of our neighboring districts does everybody know what what New Providence their tax rate went up does anybody know went up can someone tell me what they went up in this room do anybody know their tenative budgets New Providence uh no Summit went up 2.9 and New Providence went up 2.4 2.54 and New Providence introduced a referendum there as well yeah I mean so when right when we look um we know that you know our teachers deserve as much as we can give them and we have to we just had our contract negotiation last year and we're at 3.2 increase right but we're only taking a 1.99 increase ourselves right so this this is getting Tighter and Tighter every year um as we only continue to take that 2% so um I really want to thank everybody who did this budget um J I know that you do so much of this but our staff too they've been working since September to come up way come up with ways that they could cut their budgets and I really thank everybody for doing that um because we have seen line items go down but the costs keep going up and um and then my second question is we are this budget is based on the Hazardous policy passing tonight correct well we've put in the budget the transportation of what has been of going on from last year okay unless anything changes um then we just accordingly that's that's all I can say Okay so we're budgeting as if last year's correct transportation is this year and that's what we discussed in our in our our finance committee okay um okay yeah and and and Miss charie I just want to know when if youd like to come in or or send me in an email what you are are pointing at I will be more than welcome to to show you whatever differences there are because once I go back to the individual budgets whether that be the athletic or whatever the case may be there will be an answer to it I just have to know and pinpoint what it is thank you AJ um and just to to follow on to the transportation um you know in the contracts that are pending or that we just received I'm just wondering um if that's included in the encumbrances like incumbrances meaning like things we haven't paid out yet but are pending right that we are to pay or budgeted for um and right now it's at 74,4 169 so I'm just wondering if those contracts are embedded in that number I'd have to look because those only just came in did we approve them last month yes I think we did I think we did so I will send you my spreadsheet and you know and certainly we don't want to do anything to lose any teachers it's just not clear to me that the budget is tight given where we are in our actuals and year-to dat numbers versus what we're asking for yeah and if you could show me what you're looking at I'd have a better concept so we can be on the Apples to Apples basis that's all Mr Heyman try to keep them quick just three quick ones um looking at the the doc that's called tax rate re recap page yes um so looks like we're estimating activity fees increased 75346 do you have a and if not you can get back to me do you know the impact in terms of Student Activity fee cost what that will look like to to get to that increase one of the things that that I've looked at excuse me one second you were saying the uh the activity fee and again I assume this rolls up Sports and and and activity fees together one of the things that that I've looked at over the last few years is that before pre-o um they were up higher and of course we know there wasn't much going on during during covid and it's been steadily on the on the inkline and at the point when we were I was looking at this past year it was on the incline this year so we had I had increased those a little bit more for next year due to that in um when I was looking at it due that I've seen the increase coming up this year I increased it up a little bit more in that same line was the interest miscellaneous fees there isn't much that was in there I kept that at around $20,000 there's not much in there but the interest uh a conversation that we've had in our um our finance committee is that we we moved to a new investment vehicle uh I looked at interest in three different areas our current bank which wasn't going to offer us more uh they're at like 3% uh we went to another bank which is Pac Gladstone um they were about four and a half but not not liquid I couldn't take money out from there if I needed it so we went to New Jersey Cash management that is something that is run by the state that gives us liquidity and they're up over five 5.3 so so what we've been averaging out since we've been there they're about $438 a day that we've been earning interest on so they've been good I know uh the question has come up should we can we move most of our other funds in there to earn more uh I was going to look into that uh because that conversation came up the other day so I'm going to look into that and with the liquidity it's might be very advantageous to do that so do do you know specifically what the what the activity and sports fees will be to get to the increased number is is that built into this is there a number can I Notre no the fee is an increasing not increas right this is what we talked about in finance committee we are not what we discussed last year that the I think it was like 200 right that's that's jumping up that is staying at Great okay thank you very much so uh question two as as uh as as state funds go so it looks like we we were increased three straight years but now we're we're you know we've gone the other way any feel for why do we do we know what this was another conversation that we had in the finance committee meeting uh one of the things that we looked at was there was 137 districts in the state of New Jersey who received less funding and in Union County our district and kennworth were the two kennworth took 4 point 1.4 million hit we took 8,000 one of the things were is that I I had a webinar that my Association put on and it discussed Equalization Aid and with the equalization Aid what they discussed was that the town of Berkeley Heights has um equal uh assessments that are very high so there's quite a bit of building thats going on and we discussed that um Dr forer one of the copies he took a look at it himself and we discussed it one of the other things that has uh increased from last year to this year not only the assessments of the town but the equation also C calls for the income of the town that went up significantly as well so there's a thing called the fair share of what where what the state believes that we should be paying toward education well that went from 55 million to 60 million so with those factors that were all in the paperwork because after I got done with that webinar I met with the my Association president and had a one-on-one conversation with her and she said to us it doesn't look good for you for next year either so I don't know what that's going to be but it's going to be kite for next year so had that same conversation with the finance committee so we got a little lesson on that particular piece so I didn't know that was the answer I was not looking to bad news let you ask that uh my last question I I've got to asked one mountains side question which is this date a year ago maybe in the same seat there was a SL that had fiscal cliff and the fingers were pointed at the at the difference in Mountainside enrollment do you I'm looking at tuition estimates so from it looks like we're we've budgeted an increase of 15311 do you have estimates at this point for what mountains side enrollment looks like as it plays into these numbers for next year I think last wait I think it was two when I spoke to the ba there was 243 students okay 243 that's what they that's what they budgeted for and then you had one special ed student that had a you know special needs student so that was 244 okay thanks that that she they got that probably two weeks ago three weeks ago thanks any other questions on the board yes Mrs Penna so um AJ last year with the finance committee when they looked at tax levy and and overall budget there were a couple of uh options of tax levy some were slightly under 2% some were slightly over and moving higher up and I know there's a certain percentage that you can only get to did the committee because the budget is so tight did the committee potentially look at maybe just going over the 2% Mark to give you more wiggle room or that not something I didn't disc we could go with bank cap um if necessary um I didn't I didn't look at that um I'm going to say with the state coming out with the lateness of the state aid and also there's a thing um that we discussed there's a thing called uh edits uh the edits didn't come out till Friday and the edits are there are certain things that when the state aid is put in and you put in your um Appropriations or the expenses in the budget there are certain things that you have to clear in there and they're called edits so in order for you to clear those things out it tells you what you need to do in order to clear those out those didn't come out till Friday so that's the reason why some things were late so so and we all all the business administrators had to Grapple with all those things to get it done so for me to get that done I didn't get that opportunity and I know where we had this preliminary going to the next one could that be a discussion it could be um we'll let we'll let the finance committee decide that we can have that discussion CH in quickly in in response to that that's exactly right and I actually did kind of give him an idea of how G of Julie had laid d for us which was really helpful to understand you know what's the the flexibility if you will and honestly we you know in the finance committee we haven't had the time quite yet to go do some of those scenarios um and in all transparency in all honesty you know the time was short in what we did uh I think AJ did a great job in sort of putting all of this together to get us where we are thank but my expectation is I think the finance committee has some work to do in terms of digging in further into the detail lines working with AJ to answer some of the questions that are coming through this conversation your mic is not on seriously I said all of that hear a word no I heard so I actually heard you so it's okay oh now I hear myself so I think I think there's some um work to be done to make sure that we respond to some of the questions that are coming into this meeting going back to the finance committee uh and I think Angela you have a fair question and you know what is the flexibility uh when it comes to the tax levy and I think Miss penet answer your question a little bit more and Miss con as well the the committee and the board itself may want to hold on to that bank cap for next year in light of of what Mr Jess s just said that the state we may get cut more with state aid so it gives us a little wig room if we can make it work this year and tighten up our belts without having any layoffs and actually adding some staff that's needed and we can get through the year and we'll see what the state numbers are for next year might be advantageous to do that it it was more than with the budget being so tight what was the flexibility that was the main question so good to know thank you Dr forer yes I've looked at this budget I really don't think there's anything tight about this budget at all uh last year or the current budget Let's see we proposing to use 2.2 million of surplus and uh that's after a transfer of two million uh last June into the capital uh reserve and the maintenance account it was 1.5 and 0.5 respectively so that budget generated it was on a track to generate 2 million uh that got mysterious not mysteriously we transferred that into capital reserve and maintenance so there's 2 million there now you're also telling me that there's 78% of the lines are unchanged so I'm going to assume that this budget is really pretty much like last year so it's probably going to generate in total I would estimate about 4.2 million and then you're going to come to us in June and say well let's transfer out another 2 million so we don't gener so it doesn't look like we generated so much Surplus but that's what's going on here there's about 4 million or 4.3 million Natasha hidden on the head when she looked at the um uh secretary's report and compared how much have we spent so far with incumbrances compared to our budget we're on track to generate about 4.3 million so that agrees with my estimate here all right so I think there's about 4.3 million sitting in that he's built into this budget we could take instead of uh just 2.2 million we could probably take another million okay we just wouldn't have as much to put into the capital reserve and the maintenance account at the end of the year so there's nothing tight about this budget Mrs secui yeah so when I shared that picture that was exactly the page 35 on the bo secretary's report and I had four or five line items and I know you don't have a computer but I can send you my questions looks like we are even if we take out the capital reserve projects that I think the previous ba had withdrawn 1.7 million and I know they're delayed and if we put them back in there we are about 2.3 million sitting in in like you know unrealized so my first point is based on your most recent board secretary's report 4.3 million is an unspent fronts from this year's budget after accounting for encumbrances which could be these contracts anything additional that we have to pay for a part of the 4.3 million is $829,000 from undistributed student transportation yet we are proposing to increase student transportation by 81,000 that seems unnecessary to me there are certainly other lines that have much more more spending on them I would really request and suggest that the business administrator and the finance committee take a close look with a sharper pencil and come back with a revised budget final adaption that is close to less than 05% increase in the tax levy so I think we're proposing about 96,000 in increase I think we can bring it down to 0.5% my second point is the proposed budget is about 14 million above the adequacy budget of about 32 million for a student population of our size this is distributed this number comes from the state department of fed and I did call them to understand this and I think last year we were over 9 million from the adequacy budget number for 2,500 students 2450 students this year we're going by going over by 5 million from the adequacy and I really like that you asked us what do you know how much is a tax um levy on New Providence if you look at New Providence historically they are much more closer to the adequacy budget than us and they are a very similar size District so I would really hope that I would request that the finance committee and the business administrator look at ways and look at what money we have left and as Dr forer suggested instead of looking at moving that money this 2 million into the capital reserve bumping up a capital reserve amounts which I think till date until you made the move we're not getting much interest and as you stated in this presentation we don't have any proposed capital projects for next year so what's the point of moving 2 million 3 million 2.5 million into Capital reserves and increasing our tax levy if we don't have any proposed capital projects for 2024 2025 we might as well use this money to reduce the tax levy the other thing is it seems to me that spending 43% above adequacy needs some strong justification as to how that is efficient so I would really request the finance committee chair and the business administrator to look at where we have unrealized money that we have allocated as per the secretary's report and come back to us and one final question I want to ask is can we between now and I know we because of the situations here we were not able to get a head start but we have a board policy which is 6220 on budget preparation one of the key items listed here is the budget will be presented to the board of education to allow adequate time for review and adoption I received something like a high level information which was not in the same format that we are used to in our district on Tuesday we got the detail line item Budget on Thursday and even after spending close to 14 hours over the weekend I couldn't like tie it up so I would request we get supporting information for some keyline items like salaries and transportation and stuff like that and go back to the drawing board and see these unrealized SP funds and I think we should do a better job with our taxpayer dollars and instead of just moving them to capital reserve Accounts at the end of June look at reducing the tax levy and is that possible can you amend every line item in this budget by like with in the next seven weeks if you do find the money can you amend it yeah that's a question is every line item up for can we amend those line items want to cut be my guest no no no my question is be my guest you want you want to cut a million dollars go ahead no we we're not asking you to cut it with the money is there sounds like to me you want to cut it so can you amend the line items my guess that's all I have to say yeah so if we show you cut a million dollars cut a million no this is coming from your own report your this is coming from the board secretary's report that we have 4.3 million unrealized in the unrealized account so can we move that money and reduce some of our you keep referencing all the stuff with cap reserve and everything that's all from last year all that stuff I didn't budget it I didn't do it this is not even in my budget so we keep referencing all the stuff that I didn't do so where we keep talking about this we're not even here at the year end so I don't know I don't have that crystal ball just yet can these questions wait till we uh no one final question Mrs so exclude the capital reserves it's still 2.3 million in unrealized line items so can the finance committee look at it more closely like I said let's let's look at all of these questions we clearly have work to do between now and May 7th when we have to finally adopt it okay thank you are there any questions from the public on the budget thank you we're going to open now the comments from the public on agenda items during this portion of the meeting District staff and residents are invited to address the board of education on agenda items only the board requests that individuals State their name town of residence and street or School of attendance for the record all comments should be directed to the board president and depending on the nature and complexity of the question may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after the public meeting or the meeting has concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered the board ask that the members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by the members of the public please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjournment of the meeting each speaker's statement will be limited to to 3 minutes in duration do we have any comments from the public good evening everyone my name is Jessica NY I'm the principal of Hughes school and I'm here tonight representing the Berkeley Heights administrators Association as a union we wanted to take a moment to share our thoughts regarding the critical importance of the upcoming superintendent search our district is now entering an important time of transition the shift in leadership offers a significant opportunity to create positive change in Berkeley Heights and this search and hiring process is the perfect chance for this board to model true inclusion and collaboration within our community the importance of this hiring decision cannot be understated we simply cannot withstand further conflict and the continued loss of valued Personnel hiring process at this level must begin with broad stakeholder input and a detailed paper screening however this District truly needs a candidate who has more than just prior experience and a good resume the challenge will be to see through the resume to the quality of the person behind it we respectfully request that the committee dig deep and find a candidate with a demonstrated work ethic strong communication skills and a personal and professional commitment to our children and our community as a whole we need someone who cares about people include Inspire and Empower are three empty words unless our district leaders and board truly believe in and model those principles in each decision they make as a union we are respectfully asking this board to put aside your differences and come together as a cohesive unit with a shared mission to find the right person to lead our district your legacy as a board member lies in this decision while revising policy langu and managing bills are certainly parts of your responsibility it is this hire that will Define your time on the board we need a compassionate and inspiring educational leader to run our district and heal this community we need someone who won't just walk away while everything explodes but rather someone who will actually prevent the Flames from igniting in the first place through open dialogue mutual respect honesty and integrity the bhaa supports you wholeheartedly in this endeavor and implores you to include Inspire and Empower this community to once again reach its full potential thank you thank you Mrs nardy just as an update to our search firm um we have a one presentation that was made to us by the njsba and we are in the process now of looking for dates for the other three search firms to present their uh firms and their presentations to us at the end of April the last three weeks of April we're looking for those times at that time we'll have uh plenty of stakeholder opportunities for community and staff and we're looking forward to opportunities to discuss the qualities of a superintendent the board is in no rush the board is going to take its time and do it right this as best we can are there any other comments from the public at this time we'll close the comments from the public and we'll move on to our agenda items in terms of minutes resolution a all board members approval of the meeting minutes resolve that the Board of Education approve the following minutes regular session minutes from January 18th 2024 executive session minutes from February 26 2024 and regular session M minutes from February 26 2024 may we have a roll call vote so moved oh motion sorry who's the first well so so moved I need a second second any discussion so sorry Mrs J sorry so um you know it's a for for the Jan 18th um meeting minutes right um and this is for the regular session that is out there on uh video for everyone to see there are a couple things that um you know are questionable for me in terms of the one specific vote around policy 131 that was a meeting where we had um a f minute break and I don't think that's um documented and the way the minutes are documented um now um shows that it was a first um it was a first reading of a policy but that's not what the motion was it was subsequent to Legal interpretation um that came about a month later that that's what it was um so that's P my primary concern with the um Jan 18th minutes right the minutes need to reflect exactly what was stated at the time of the meeting and at the time of the five minute break I think Mrs Airi also um showed a case to um our to our attorney um in which he uh then reversed his decision on the motion in terms of it passing versus failing so I think that's an important point to include in the minutes and that's current C ly not there sorry one and one other thing and maybe this is for the attorney and this will be um you know important as we move on through the meeting there was um the vot the way the votes were counted in the Jan 18th meeting versus the February 26th me meeting changed so in the Jan 18th meeting for example for abstains uh meant uh a motion failed and then likewise when we went to vote um on February 26th for these same minutes again there were three yeses four NOS sorry three four yeses three Nos and one abstain and the motion failed subsequent in the meeting there were four abstains on uh certain hip cases and then the motion passed so there was a little bit of flip-flop and so it's really unclear to me at this point going forward what how we are um Counting the votes and at the end of the day what the you know what the votes actually mean you know so depending on which way it goes does the board attorney have any comments on that I don't have minutes in front of me I can say that can sorry I don't have the I I can say that my recollection when the when the uh recess was taken I reviewed bylaw 165 on voting and to the question of how the votes are to interpreted uh and uh I reviewed the bylaw and the uh section of the bylaw which states that all motions shall require for adoption the majority vote of board members present and voting except this provided by statutes of the state of New Jersey this bylaw or parliamentary Authority and provided that the number of affirmative votes is at least a majority of the board's quarum so the board's quarum is five members so a majority of the board sarum would be three members so so does that so your final interpretation that if we have a scenario where there are four abstains and four yeses does the motion pass or fail that you would have a a majority of the quarum it would pass it the only the only distinction would be if you had a policy there are a number of circumstances that require a majority of the full board so where where a majority of the full board is not required then a majority of the Quorum would be required okay so then there then there are some votes that on the January 18th meeting that don't abide by this and were not challenged and so which impacted probably how we thought about voting in the subsequent meeting so I have a question um so right so extension really is when I don't have enough information or I have a conflict of interest right so I feel like um wanting to know the weeds of this means that we are trying to play with our vote um to try to play on how we pass things um right I can't think of any other reason why we would need to know exactly what an absens means in each case is that correct I mean I I feel like that's a good assumption to assume that that we're only trying to play with the votes by abstaining and wanting to know how my exemption will play on each one well it it deter you're you're you have a bylaw on voting which has the language that I just quoted to you so that would uh govern the determination of the votes so regardless of the reason your PO your bylaw states that extensions some bylaws read differently your bylaw reads exstension shall not be counted as votes a member who abstains from voting because of a conflict of interest shall indicate here or she has a conflict and that's just for purposes of the record but for purposes of the the members present and voting and a majority of the Quorum that's how your bylaw reads and again you have other statutes and other times on certain votes when a majority of the full board is required and in that case then an exstension might have a different impact than in a case where you don't have a majority of the full board requirement yeah I just know that when we go to ngba trainings they they remind you that exstension really shouldn't be used to get out of a hard decision um that that you know that is our job that is our role to make difficult decisions and that abstentions really shouldn't be used for that well perhaps that's why your bylaw states that if you have a conflict you should state it correct I don't agree with that I I was just wondering what is the interpret ation from legal because it was one way on one meeting and the second way in a different meeting there's no it was just trying to understand what we actually should have you know what it should have happened and what did happen and so we are crystal clear on what it means going forward policy 165 should be consulted so I I I I want to sort of piggy back a little bit on what Natasha was saying I think when I look at the the the to me the minutes are sort of one thing and I I'm looking at the minutes for the FB 26th meeting within the same meeting we have different interpretation I suppose is the word uh for one set of votes versus the other so the minutes might actually actually State what exactly happened but I think we are both questioning the way the votes were counted in that is not consistent and you know do we really are we all on the same page as to what exactly uh was the outcome of every vote that happened is there any more discussion yes Dr porer all right so a lot of things come down in life to what's the definition certainly in mathematics uh the definition matters uh so we have this term majority of the board's Quorum and it would be nice to know where that's defined that might be defined in Robert's Rules or might be defined somewhere in our policies I don't know there's also the notion of uh majority of that you have to have a quorum for the question and I think that sometimes things are decided that there was no Quorum for that question because so many people abstained and uh if there's no Quorum then you can't count it um so really where is majority of the board's Quorum where is that term ever defined policy 163 defines Quorum as consisting of five board members where the board intends to discuss or act upon an area in which the sending representative is eligible to vote that's that's that's like a general quorum to hold a meeting but you also have the notion of a quorum for a question I would you state that your bylaw is clear that a majority of the Quorum your quum is five a majority is three and so I mean I would just disagree with the premise that it's not clear in the in the uh by law some of us have Clarity some of us don't um so if four people don't vote then only four four people voted and that's not a quorum is it if only four people voted that's not a quorum bylaw doesn't require that a quorum vote to have a majority of your quarum carry a motion that doesn't require a majority of the full board okay well you're entitled to your opinion um so I've I've gone back and look at looked at the decision I showed you from the New Jersey Supreme Court and I also looked at our bylaws abstentions are not to be counted as a yes or a no so basically if our Quorum for based on our bylaw is five and four people abstained that means you only had four people voting on it you didn't even have a quorum for to conduct that vote and that was your interpretation you agreed with it on January 18th and you applied the same um Logic for multiple items approval of certain bills approval of this particular policy so four extensions is a no because you don't have a quorum now at the very next meeting you give us a different interpretation now we're asking for clarity so I really don't understand the use of having somebody sit through like 5H hour meetings if we going to get misleading information and we have all like as elected board members we've all had governance one governance two and some of us have had multiple trainings we've gone to njsba we've called njsba call the attorney line and we can be getting conflicting information from one meeting to another so if the Quorum is five and you don't have five people voting the motion has to just be T like it has to come back up again until you have the Quorum because extension is not a yes or a no it's as simple as that it's not as simple as that and as Dr orer said you're entitled to your opinion your bylaw reads V reads the vote When Miss Stanley abstained on policy revision 131 that vote passed because Miss Stanley abstained when the vote came for a second vote at the subsequent meeting she did not abstain and it did not pass no there were some bills I if there and if there may have been a mistake I I'd have to go back and study the bylaws perhaps there was a mistake but it's not that it's from meeting to meeting there was a lot of things going on at that meeting without board president with attempts to modify the agenda extensions going Etc so I'd have to go back and see if a mistake was made perhaps that's possible it's you know Perfection is not the standard and there's a there's a valid rational reasonable interpretation of your pil bylaw and there's really not confusion moving forward as to the interpretation yeah if you could put that in writing for us because you know what does four extensions mean what does because there have been Bill list items where four extensions the motion didn't pass so I would really appreciate for you know if we are spending all this money on having you be present here I think we need to get a formal documented legal memorandum that we can verify with another attorney because yes mistakes can happen and I agree but interpretations can't change and interpretations can't impact the vote of a publicly funded School District thank you okay we'll end our discussions and go to a roll call vote Miss Stanley Miss Penna yes Miss akiri no Dr forer uh no Mr Heyman yes Miss charie I'm G to vote um no on the Jan 18th meeting so that's item a I'm going to vote no on the executive session minutes and um I'm going to to um abstain on item C from the 26 so you were doing the um regular session oh wait I'm sorry I'm voting no on regular session from part A I'm voting no on Part B and I'm abstaining and part C Miss Conor no uh Miss Bradford yes so we have four yeses and we have four NOS with one exstension on C so the motion fails so this means that our board minutes have not been approved that is correct and they will not be shared with the public that's correct am I correct Council you have a however you decide to handle your minutes is how you decide to handle your minutes you the motion didn't pass but that what Miss Danley is referring to is some a board determination as to what you would do with your minutes yeah under Opa the minutes can be released but they have to be labeled as draft board minutes don't have to be approved board minut board minutes don't do not have to be approved it's a it's a process to attempt to assure the Integrity of the minutes for down the road uh that they've been reviewed but they it's not a requirement that they'd be passed so for the minutes for uh resolution a for all board members the approval of the minute meetings it has not passed is that correct that is correct okay move on to Administration resolution a through F all board members may I have a motion in a second so moved second discussion right should we do that one first or we have to fill in the blank for this sorry we have to fill in the blank okay Revolution oh sorry resolution F approve Acting Superintendent resolve that the Board of Education approves the appointment of Mr Robert Nixon to the position of Acting Superintendent of Schools effective today through April 30th and we have to add the wording as required by law a contract will be prepared and submitted to the office of the executive County Superintendent I move it again you must add that it's subject to County Su approval of a contract approved by the county superintendent subject to approval of a contract by the county superintendent do I need to move it again no just edit the work that's uh I just have a minor request if you're following Robert's Rules I think the vote the roll call vote should go by alphabetical order and the board president gets to vote in the end so I think we um Mr jovic if you're following Robert's Rules I think the roll call vote should go by alphabetical order according to Robert's Rules and then the board president goes in the end board president that's correct but anytime and I've always done this and that's my preference I do the motion and the second and then I do everybody alphabetically and the board president has a deciding vote okay but she uh she told you the according to Robert's Rules which is what our parliamentary Authority is we have to go alphabetical so maybe you and I do the first and second and I do it alphabetically and the board president has that are we are we gonna tell me now how I'm going to do my job is that what we're doing now I'm raising a point of order actually and and what I'm trying to do here is I'm I'm telling you that's what I do for the first and second everybody goes alphabetically board president has the last and final vote we're going to proceed with our vote discussion discussion I thought I had said discussion oh okay sorry discussion Mrs Airi yes I think on policy on Administration I think the a is District bylaws and policies um study and first reading so I would like to talk about um policy 86 and regulation 86 on student transportation I honestly we have had one presentation on the transport by the transportation Consultants where I think some of our questions were unable to be answered on some of the highlighted routes that were marked as hazardous then it took us almost 4 weeks to get a a decent list of hazardous roads um to be shared with us from the policy committee we as a board have I don't know if anybody else and I would like them to let us know right now have seen the actual rubric data or the supporting data for identifying 65 streets in Berkeley hides as hazardous how did you give how did the consultant or anyone in our district use the rubric that was advertised by the consultant to come up with these 65 roads and explain why only certain parts of Emerson Lane like on the list that here listed here there are only certain house numbers and they start from 229 and end at 459 but anybody who has walked on and in know that from the is the mic work from the very don't move you were fine okay so from the very beginning of Emerson L from I think something's happening there actually so I'd like to state to start again so there are 65 streets listed here we were unable to get any Clarity on the supporting data rubric data for identifying these streets and when I did finally after four weeks or five weeks of you know talking about this new policy the need for you know recognizing Hazard dis policy none I am not sure and I would like anybody here sitting at the table who has seen the actual rubric data giving waits for these streets to be identified to say so I haven't seen it what's interesting is some of the streets here identified only are recognized by house numbers not the entire Street and I want to quote some examples one of them is Emerson Lane it says 229 to 459 only anybody driving from my plane field at at the corner has a gas station and you turn on Emerson and there are some homes there and I believe parents have reached out asking for at least an eligibility for subscription busing and those house numbers are not listed here so I don't know the Rhyme or Reason why only some part of Emerson made the cut same thing happens with uh Mountain Avenue it is the whatever the rubric is I thought based on the transportation consultant's definition was for defining a street or a road as hazardous how did the rubric come up with own 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 nine house numbers so are we saying Mountain Avenue is safe except for these nine house numbers how did they come up with such Precision data now moving on on horseshoe raid Horseshoe Road again it's only precisely some houses I think some of the streets what what was concerning to me is out of these 65 streets that are listed anybody who has lived in Berkeley Heights for even a year know that traffic is really bad on planfield Avenue Springfield and Snider and we couldn't the the transportation consultant that we hired who was kind of who's an expert and who had a rubric we didn't see the data could not identify a single house on these Lanes so I want to question without looking at the actual rubric data how did we identify these 65 streets and on some streets just a few house numbers also um my other key I have a basic fundamental issue with this designating hazardous policy based on you know no supporting data is let's assume somebody goes like I go to buy a burger from Burger King and I buy hamburger I'm in line I pay for it and I'm waiting to pick it up there's a person behind me in line orders the same hamburger and Burger King says you just doesn't charge them so when I question I think as an entity the existential the basic fundamental question is how are we going to Define that we are going to allow some set of students to get free transportation for the same service while the the other set of student doesn't have to pay for it thank you for your question I have um one more followup so can we can anybody on the board sitting here answer if they looked at the actual supporting data for identifying the 65 streets on the policy committee we do not have that dat data because it is part of the transportation Consultants we hired an outside service to be able to do this so that we would not have to determine this uh Mrs shean you are with us today can you speak to this question I can so we hired a consultant who is I mean they have so many years of experience um putting the police officer aside the two Consultants I mean they are very experienced over 40 years both of them 80 years together with experience in developing and putting policy in place for transportation the police officer was a retired state trooper is now certified in school Traffic Safety he came to our town and he drove his bicycle around so that he could get a very clear picture of what our streets were like exactly as Mrs Bradford just said we did not want to have to make that determination so that there was no question from anyone as to why this was we put our trust in these Consultants to do that thank you as a policy committee chair right like one of the big issues is that if we do see the rubrics right like then are we going to decide well we should actually add this road then and then how are we going to not be biased in that when we live in this town and we have friends and right that was the biggest problem is that we do have courtesy busing that is currently completely there is no backing for it right and we need to find a reason why we we are offering busing and we came up with this policy so this is the recommendation of the Consultants then it was the recommendation of the transportation department to the policy committee and now this is the recommendation of the policy committee to the board right so again if we have these rubrics I actually I hope what we never share them because I do feel that then it will put it in our hands to say well you know what actually maybe we should add so and so's row and I think that is hazardous um to us because now it's putting in our hands um and we can be biased the second thing is if you looked at those Mountain um Avenue address you'll see that they're actually right here uh at the bottom of Murray Hill Boulevard and they would have to cross mountain and that has been deemed as an issue so the I believe the roads on this side of the road do not that's correct and and the same thing with Emerson Lane Emerson Lane the numbers on there that you Rec that you you specify that starts right after Apple Tree Lane there's a sidewalk that goes the whole length of Emerson Road up to Apple Tree Road roow Apple Tree row excuse me um so that's where those house numbers are are from where Apple Tree starts and goes all the way to the end but you can see how they were so specific right that they one side of mountain does not get busing but the other side does because the kids would have to transfer over the road he rode his bike around our town and he sat on Corners watching what was going on Mrs Dolly thank you so I don't think anyone is questioning the experience of the Consultants right you know it's to their Merit but I think I have an opposite view of Mrs Stanley in that we're being asked to vote on these roads and without any um supporting documentation I think actually having the rubric to show um parents who do email us and there were a couple of emails that I think that came through um prior to the meeting it's evidence to show look this is an independent scoring this is how everything was scored and this is how your road scored so being having like I I I can't see how we can vote on this and I've mentioned this before without having the underlying data and you know and I have questions not like I have zero skin in the game at the moment because my kids um they're drive to school at the moment but if I take a look at you know for example someone who's on D more a which is not on the um which is not considered hazardous but considered walking a potential third grader living there would have to walk 1.9 miles for approximately 40 minutes Crossing Springfield Avenue and railroad tracks to get to Hughes right so when we're talking about considering the age of the student like I'd like to see that I'd like to see how this was done and I think another road that is not on the list but um I don't know if it's on the mandated list but it's uh Bristol Court which was I think an email from a parent um that's not on the policy but I think maybe is beyond to the the distance so I think having those rubrics and having that exact information I think will actually do away with any um ambiguity but so that's number one number two fundamentally um I think uh folks need to understand that hazardous busing is not free busing there's nothing in the state in the statutes that said you know you have to offer this for free and that so so that's that's you know number one and so that's why it's very I think that's the Assumption and the policy in the way that it's written is not clear that that is our intent there is nothing in it to say that these routes will get free busing there's nothing and it says you may receive you know you may receive um hazardous route busing so what does what does that even mean right so at any point in time um someone who may be receiving hazardous busing that could be taken away because it says we may and we're technically not in violation of the policy so I don't think it really does a lot to remove any ambiguity having the rubric would not mean that we're picking roads either I just think that it's needed for clarity and to really I don't know know what we're voting on so it's just to answer some of that right so 1.9 child who's a third grader who has to walk across a track that doesn't mean that they are in an a hazardous route it just means it's a long walk there are plenty of students in our district who are in kindergarten and have a much longer walk so it is it's right we can't we can't say that one child is going to get it and not another what's the difference is is that we're looking at hazardous roads and we had a third party come in so that we we are not in charge of picking who is getting busing because that is a problem um the second part of your question was about the May um I know we talked about this in policy committee this is so that way we can say we are closed and we may provide busing right it's it's in there on purpose and this is part of St esme's policy through all then underneath we say we're adding these rows as hazardous right so it doesn't say we're only going to give this yes we can as we've discussed we can put a price in there we are not putting a price in our policy policy right now because we know that that would take a long time to get through the attorneys and all that we also know that this needs a first read tonight to pass in order for the transportation department to be able to send out their transportation Letters by the end of next month right it usually comes out after spring break who you get an email saying that you are on the transportation route would you like to take this busing and accept it we know that if we don't pass this tonight right it's going to be pretty much dead in the water because we need to be able to do this by the end of next month so it's okay if it doesn't pass but we have to realize that the Hazardous policy won't make a difference for next year if it doesn't pass tonight Mrs Penna so I would like to just to re reiterate this whole presentation and bringing the consultant started back with the finance committee over a year ago when we had major concerns with parents regarding courtesy buses subscription bus and and all mandated busing and the reason for bringing in the consultant was to do it make it fair and Equitable we felt that we needed to bring an outside consultant in to do the roots to look at it all and to make determinations people with experience and that is where this came from and I think we need to not lose sight of that that's important why we brought them in in the first place and this is supposed to the plan is for this to to take effect in September of 2024 so everybody needs to keep side of that and Mrs she had agreed to come in at the end of April to have a town hall to address any parents issues as to their roads work of course Mrs Jolly sorry um I just wanted to say you know on the point of equity um you know looking at some information that came about from Mrs shean um on Thursday in terms of uh at the request of the finance committee in terms of what it looks like when we have the policy versus when we don't have the policy so when we have the policy um there would be 17 kids uh for for Mary uh K and Mountain Park that would be deemed qualified um that would leave potentially 81 subscription seats um available so it would be potentially 81 kids paying for busing versus 17 that are not that was on the data right so I you know so that doesn't quite feel um and again this is for you know project did for next year based on graduating um you know the kids um so I think and and the fact that there is um this uh continued ambiguity like it just doesn't and doesn't feel that it's quite Equitable at least in that particular scenario I I have a point Sorry Mrs you you want to have Kelly answer something go ahead yes you have an answer to that well I'm not sure where you're looking at 17 so we have 14 under if the haard Road policy is passed we have 14 from Mountain Park and 13 from Mary Kay I'm sorry so those are two different schools so we would have Mary Kay and Mountain Park there's 14 students that and and keep in mind these numbers are estimated we have people coming and going every day so 14 from M Mountain Park 13 from Mary Kay so you would then have one bus at each of those schools we have not been able to run a subscription bus program for Mount park or Mary Kay over the last 3 years because we've had a driver shortage we now are going to be hopefully fully staffed by September if the policy were to pass we would then be able to run a subscription bus program for those schools one at Mountain Park one at Mary Kay if it doesn't pass and we get rid of C well we don't have courtesy right we don't have any no we have no one in courtesy absolutely so we've I've tried to discuss this a little bit because I'm getting a feeling that this might not pass tonight the Hazardous roads if it doesn't pass we because we don't have a policy that states C anything about courtesy busing currently the way we know it um it would just go back to Courtesy busing we would just go back to having mandated courtesy and subscription unless someone made a motion to change that so yeah so this is what I've I've been discussing I think um Anthony gardano can talk more to that right so the board if if this policy isn't passed then we would just do the status cor what the district has always done the board would the board itself has to make a motion if it wants to change how we've been busing students I guess ad nause before I got here yeah understood I don't have a scenario for that so I'm happy to make a scenario for that if that's the route that um the board chooses to go um I will say that if the second scenario that we discussed was that if the Hazardous Road policy does not pass we would have students transported and I guess that's the motion you're referring to would need to be made students would be transported based on their state qualifying number whether they're further than two miles or further than two and a half miles if that is the case then you would not have a subscription bus program at Mary Kay or a mountain park because there are zero students who qualify for the bus there's no one in either one of those schools that lives further than two to two miles to either of those schools so you would not have a subscription bus program again which that this would be the fourth year the the other school that would be affected would be Colombia we currently have I believe 46 students that use the subscription bus program and we lost some of those um last year um because we didn't know if we were going to be able to have that program and if you remember right before we were able to work it out and and get those students a on the bus so we have 46 students about that take it to Columbia the way the estimated numbers look right now we would not be able to offer any of those students a subscription bus if we're just transporting based on mandated um numbers Mrs Conor did you have a question um I did and sort of going back one year when I go back to the question or the problem that we were trying to solve last year was this inequity of there are students in the district that get a service uh and they don't pay for it there are students in the district potentially the same street who are getting the service and they're having to pay for it so at at at sort of if I look at it at the most basic level the inequity was coming through the fact that we were offering a service uh for free whereas making somebody else pay for the same service on the same bus there was no policy established to put the this in Equitable system in place as far as I can tell there is no policy there was no board resolution there was nothing officially done my understanding is that all of this at some point somebody made a decision it was probably you know come through the the transportation into the budget and we have been providing the service for as long as we have been so if I go back to the principle of if we want this to be Equitable for everybody which is if you are within the two or the 2 and a half mile radius from the school that you are supposed to go to you don't get busing you are you are eligible for busing for just beyond those distances in the way I have understood the policy and I've repeatedly asked for the data I've repeatedly asked for the rubric and I haven't seen anything when I look at what is being proposed by the Consultants the first question in my mind was there are a lot of kacs that are in that list I have no explanation I have no understanding of why they're on the list what am I approving them on the basis of what if somebody was to ask me that question I would say I don't know that's not a good answer for a process that has taken us one year to get to this point which is if we need to make an informed decision on making a policy we need to be informed and I can confidently say we are not informed as to why that list exists because we haven't seen the rubric when the consultant had the presentation they talked about various scenarios and how you could potentially get some roads off the list by doing certain things in the absence of the scoring in the rubric I have no idea if putting a crossing guard on a certain street is going to be a good way to get that street off the Hazardous Road list I have no idea because we don't know what was the scoring how did that street end up in that list in the first place we don't know if there was a DPW you know let's go paint the the roads better for that street to get off the list that's on the that's On the Hazardous list right now we have no idea so in the absence of that information I'm not going to be able to be you know supportive of a policy which in the end is going to be another way to do exactly the same thing that we've been doing over the past few years or many years perhaps whereas our mission last year was We need to get to an equitable answer here you are correct mistakes were made in in the past and we are attempting to rectify those mistakes by bringing in a third Independent party as I understand it Mrs Sheen after we if we approve the policy next year we could look again at hazardous RADS with our rubric and make any changes that we seemed necessary absolutely how would we do that when we don't understand the rubric in the first place how can we change something well so are we call the consult again this is where overreach runs in right because we are a board that takes recommendations from the district so I would never remove a road without the transportation department telling me hey things have improved in this road I've worked with the police and we believe that this road is now ready to be taken off the Hazardous policy I would never be able to tell you guys hey I think we should change this policy and remove certain roads that would be inappropriate of me as far as the cues act question goes right I I think I have covered that a couple of times where McMain for elementary right we're talking McMain Diamond Hill some of Emerson and some of horseshoe are too dangerous in those areas to cross which allows everyone in the culdesac to not be able to cross those roads safely that's where that comes in right so when you look at McMain I forget the road that's off of it is it Ridge Top way right so Tip Top way Ridge right that's all off of McMain so because MC main is really the problem those kids cannot safely get to school so we put them on the list those are just one if I if I look at the list for I think this is the list for GL the one with the one with the maximum number of roads on it and I mean just GL it's mostly Diamond Hill right no it's not it's it's it's a bunch of streets on the list the small the small ones which I did State just let let me complete what I'm saying to me it's not necessarily about one street or the other it is the principle of how are we coming up with this list in the first place and to your point is if we are going to go back and look at this again how do we know that a list can be off the the list a street can be off the list if we don't know how it got in the list in the first place back to what I said before the principal idea is that we do not put the roads on the list we are we are not we are not we are being recommended to us if we are approving the recommended to the policy Comm committee that these roads be put in hazardous we do not get to decide which roads are hazardous we should never we need to understand the basis of the recommendation that's all we are asking for we had a whole presentation and I said it tonight right they based it off of multiple things roadway walkways student grade level and ex extraordinary conditions we know what they looked at and it's it's common sense if you look at these roads right so D Diamond Hill we know it's a problem right I've my kids laugh at me because I call the police all the time because some drama has happened on that road and it is dangerous so we know but I also want to make sure that everybody is aware this is not courtesy busing right this is hazardous busing and why some roads are on the courtesy right now will be on the Hazardous those are the same but there are plenty of students who will lose busing even if we passed this so this is not courtesy busing this is making it Equitable and it is making it in writing these people are getting it because they live on hazardous roads so when Mrs shean gets questions cuz she will she can say this is why because it's on a hazardous Road that's why your neighbor is getting busing and why you are not just like in the mandated part we have people who are at 1.9 and they get really mad because their neighbor at 1.1 or 2.1 get busing and they get really mad but we have something to show them right now St with that we don't no but that's what I'm saying is we don't have anything stay with that point the but you're 1.9 stay with the point it is measurable 1.9 versus 2 2.1 2.5 you can measure that the way this policy is right now there is no measurement there is no measurement available so there was a rubric that they use and they measured it based off roadway walkway student grade level extra right but we shouldn't because then we would start making decision Mrs shean can you give us any information on this so you guys are um you're all thinking of it in two different ways neither one is probably wrong when when you you look at the expert that came in you have a State Trooper who's a retired state trooper he's certified in school safety um School Traffic Safety he came he looked at I mean I drove them around two times for a very long time he came on his bicycle several times drove around he he did his own his rubric to determine what it is some of the culde saacs that are listed there you have tiptop way you have laca maybe that's another one you're referring to I I mean you can spew them out I know where they all are but um you know those those roads are roads that would need to cross a dangerous road um I don't believe that I don't believe that there's a road on there that I as a transportation person I me this is my ninth school year that I would say is doesn't belong on there this is Dolly so with respect to the rubric when we did ask um Mr J to reach out to the transportation consultant because during the presentation they did say we can definitely access it we ultimately got a rubric that was used for Scotch planes so even putting aside like the actual scoring of the roads I don't even know what the rubric a blank slate for the rubric looks like for Berkeley Heights and then finally I think having the rubric and the independent scoring would elay a lot of the questions that the public might have Crossing Springfield is also dangerous right maybe Crossing railro Track was like a Layman I might think is dangerous but maybe the rubric will explain to me why it's not so I think it's it I I I just I don't understand why we wouldn't want to see it we're not picking roads but we are putting something on a policy and while we may have questions about why certain roads are there or not the rubric would help us answer that and then we would not pick the roads we would say oh look here is what the scoring was and that's this is what we take do you do you do you think that if you had the rubric with all due respect do you think if you had the rubric that people are not going to question you and say no I don't believe that that's true no they I'm sure they will right that's what I worry about for all of you everyone's gonna everyone's gonna have questions but I can't just say like oh because it's on a list I could say oh it's on the list because an independent consultant looked at it and scored it X Y and Z relative to every single other Road and use the same measure for every road and that's how I can point to it it's measured it's actual here I don't know you really could say that now because they did that but I haven't seen it so if they've done' done it why can't we see it I don't think you want to see it we do want to see it Kelly because you want I'm not I promise you I will not choose the roads I want to see it because I'm voting on something and I don't I I only brought it as an example to because somebody from the community had emailed and that's right I would like to understand why I'm not picking it but I'd like to understand why something is deemed hazardous and why something is deemed not hazardous I would think crossing railroad tracks would be a hazardous thing for a young person to do he did and um New Jersey Transit I I they have a stance on it our railroad tracks in our town have the little gate on the side that stops you um on the sidewalk and that's what deems our railroad track a safety perfect so why not show that to us in the rubric well as a transportation professional I know that so I do know I mean I could speak to it so the rubric right so I know you said it has Scotch planes in there it has Scotch planes at the very bottom it just says Scotch planes it doesn't have any numbers doesn't have any roads listed so I I it's their rubric that they use again if I saw that over by Woodruff and the kid has to go to Hughes if I saw the number 12 on there that wouldn't tell me whether or not the railroad is dangerous right so it would just be a 12 I would have to just take it as it is because again we are not the experts we hired experts to do this my biggest thing with this policy if it doesn't pass is that we brought in someone to tell us where hazardous RADS are and by not accepting this I'm I'm a little bit worried that then we put ourselves in an issue because we hire someone to come in and tell us that these are are hazardous and then we're going to say well we're not going to have a hazardous Road policy so I am worri so ga just please one final question um we mentioned at also that um in a year we can revisit this and um again the board would not be S deciding which roads come on or off it would be the transportation consultant or the Transportation uh uh Personnel so does that mean we have to hire an independent consultant again no it does not we have our transportation consultant the person who's the most highly qualified to be able to look at that and look at it again and if she needs to go to outside Source she could but I guess my question then is then why did we need to hire one now if our transportation you know Personnel knows the roads inside and out and if she's able to make the decision in a year without going to external um you know uh Consultants a mistake was made years ago that we are rectifying we did not want to take that responsibility on as board members so we hired an independent consultant to come in to do it for us right but the question I'm asking is I'm saying forget the board the board is not going to make the decision on the roads which roads are hazardous but if Mrs Sheen in a year's time is going to go and revisit the roads and maybe some come off again not by the board by by the transportation folks my question is why did we need to hire a consultant this time around if Mrs Sheen has the knowledge to understand which roads are hazardous or not we are getting the most highly trained professionals that we could and we paid money for them to do this service for us Mrs Sheen Will Carry On from there I don't think that she knows how to deem a road hazardous at this point because she wasn't shown this this information from them am I am I correct correct I I had nothing to do with the list that was made um I think I think part of the the reasoning being an outside consultant the the board made a decision last year that we needed an out side unbiased person to come in and look at it and make determinations for us as to what was happening to to eliminate the courtesy busing make it fair for everyone and they have obviously given recommendation that we put a hazardous Road policy in place they have then put that together for US based on their expertise and can pass that on to us for certain I will tell you that I wouldn't have changed that list though if I did it myself and we'll be receiving hazardous Road compensation from the state after a year of going through this process and receiving money from the state which we have missed out on for all these years and I I believe AJ said earlier that it'll take about a year after the first year is when we would know how much we the consultant said that from their expertise because I've I've never been through that before Dr porer okay I I need to correct some things here uh you say you're eliminating curacy busing but uh you're just renaming it uh you're calling it hazardous busing and um the truth is that there's only two types of busing according to the state there's the mandated which they call the students are eligible because they meet the mileage requirement everything else is courtesy busing okay now within courtesy busing you can charge so that's subscription busing but it's still courtesy busing because it courtesy busing is only defined by mileage now as to this idea of we may bus you uh we may charge you that is leaving it up to the staff we are the board we have to find who gets charged that's up to us that's a policy decision a budget decision actually each year so you can't just leave that kind of decision up to your staff you have to give them Direction uh now as to the criteria if you do not put this in the policy how is each one arrived at then you don't know when you need to revisit that okay somebody makes an improvement to that area they put in a sidewalk maybe they paint a crosswalk maybe they do something to the street then you need to revisit did that is that still a hazardous route so that should be in the policy we should show how we arrived at this if we have an objective CR I won't call it objective we have the Consultants criteria we have their rubric that should be actually part of the policy okay we should disclose all that um there should be no secrets here um Mrs oh sorry yeah um but uh now it's very interesting I listen to what are the Hazardous roads there were four listen listen mentioned and Mountain Avenue was not on it neither there was Springfield that's kind of interesting I would have thought laana Boulevard a culdesac which does qualify as a hazardous route uh was probably because you have to cross Mountain Avenue you get a 100 points in the rubric if you have to cross a hazardous road so I was I don't know how lacana Boulevard gets there I'm not I know and it's very strange why wouldn't Mountain Avenue declared hazardous okay Mrs not all the way not all the way Dr bger will you let mrsan answer some of your questions on the definition of yeah I wanted to go back that I made I went and got my pen I went and got a note so you are absolutely correct as far as the state is concerned when we submit our drrs district report of transported resident students every year everyone falls into courtesy that doesn't mean that it's courtesy as we saw it before where we had people making deals saying oh yeah you want the bus okay you can have the bus that's basically what was happening so that is not what this means though this means that as a board we as Administration have put to the board a recommendation for a hazardous Road policy that does not mean that these are people who one person lives here the other person lives here they cross at the same place but because this person had a friend they got the bus that is absolutely not what this is so will the hazardous people roll up into courtesy on our drts yes they will will the subscription bus did you say stop not all of some of them will roll into hazardous correct the Hazardous bus people will roll up into courtesy on our drts the subscription bus people have already been rolling up and that was one of the questions that came from somebody like months and months ago about why are her numbers so off the numbers are not off they're just the the state designates the numbers differently than we are discussing so the subscription bus people they roll up into courtesy as well so that's why the courtesy bus number looks like oh my gosh we have so many courtesy bus people but in reality the subscription bus people were there the Hazardous people now some of these people probably should have been hazardous for the last you know 20 years but there was never a designated policy that was put into place so here is the policy if you choose to adopt it that's that's I mean you're the board you get to make that determination um if if you think that there's more discussion that needs we we are coming down to the end of what we're going to be able to commit to for September and you know if you're not ready to do it and we're not going to rush through it to to do it differently then we just need to figure out what the next step is in terms of transporting people to school in September so if we pass the first reading of this policy and we're looking at it again you would be able to be on track to um move ahead to uh inform the parents and the students of what's happening and then we would have our town meeting and you'd be able to identify and talk to parents about it right let me let me ask you a question like and then the other thing that Dr forger said was we should have criteria added to the policy so people know exactly what the the the reasoning is for for the determination if if the and I don't know the answer to this if the policy on the first reading is passed tonight are we able to go back and make a change to it we're not we are we're not policies can always be changed yes in fact but then can it pass for what we usually do we usually go back to First reading and that would not make it available for you for for next month um so I think that that's what we have been doing I know Dr gadano has some different ideas on how that looks um because from his experience so maybe we wouldn't have to necessarily um but actually the regulation does have listed in there criteria for hazardous roads and all of the rubric that the company used does fall into those areas I did look into in the regulation so I don't think it would be necessary to go back to add more to to add more to that policy because if you look at if you look at other districts like we looked at another district and um that was sent to I think the finance committee they did not have the criteria listed there either so it's not like we are doing something that we shouldn't be doing if we went to May 7th for a second reading would that be far behind for you it's not really I mean no it would everything is doable but the longer we wait to give people their designation of what they're getting it's just I like to give people some time to say you know yeah I'd like to pay the $1,000 dollar or I'd like to you know I don't know so May 7th and then you're you're giving them until yeah it's absolutely doable if you got a second reading on May SEC 7th we would then go out the following week that week we would go out with our letters to say you are getting Transportation or you're not and then the following week we would have the town hall and then we would just start to I'd suggest that you brought up some concerns here today let's put them in writing whatever committee you want to meet whether that's policy um Finance I don't know about Finance at this point in time um put them together let's let's discuss this and let's see if we can come back for our first reading at our next meeting and hopefully we can get something together for a second meeting now again we you brought up some points let's get those together and let's meet so I do worry though because once again this is just delaying the decision and I do feel like a lot of these questions have been answered they've been asked and answer it over and over um it's just that some people just don't like the answer but we we've spent an hour right with uh Miss shean in the finance committee right I've spent time with Miss hand going over this especially after the policy right when I answered a ton of questions I made sure I talked to giodo what happens if the policy doesn't pass so we we have gone over this at nauseum um we also know that we have a budget to pass by May 7th and we need to make sure that we are ready for that um so again I'm not really sure what other answers we can give you um I've just heard a lot of I want the rubric and I want to see the number of the road and again right like Miss shean hasn't even seen the numbers for all the roads because again she doesn't want to be responsible for the one choosing it because she has neighbors too right and she needs to be able to say no this is from the Transportation Company right this is what they deemed hazardous they went through our roads it was a a State Trooper they know this and then they worked with the police department to say hey maybe these are some areas we can fix and then they will come back to us and we can change this again I know I've said it before we can add money to the Hazardous route I just don't think it's a good idea to do it this year because we are behind right and it will just delay this um and we don't know how much state aid will get what if we get a good decent amount of state aid next year and we won't have to charge parents as much for hazardous routes and we know that this current hazardous routes fits in our budget this year so I'm not sure why we would continue to delay it I'm just not seeing the reason why we would continue to delay it because the questions have been asked and answered and we know right so even our our 126 students for subscription busing that's an estimate right of Revenue that would come in $126,000 we know as the finance committee learned it would actually go down because we would have less spots available because we would not be able to give it to CMS and we would not be able to give it to Mary Kay and we would not be able to give it to Mountain Park so some of the kids on the Hazardous routes wouldn't even be able to get subscription busing next year so just can I say oh you can go ahead well it just seems that we um have we looked at other Alternatives um for example somebody um a Community member suggested a while ago um that perhaps you have staggered starts to the school days and also the subscription busing is also predicated on having a bus route for either mandated or qualified do we not can we not have subscription busing offered to um potential bus routes like if the policy doesn't pass for Mary Kay and Mountain Park um just purely a subscription bus that was something that we talked about and um we if if the policy does not pass we're going to have to go out to rebid our routes so we're going to have to go out to rebid we are likely going to be fully staffed in September so we would need less contracted routes than what we would need we have no idea what those would cost because we are at the liberty of whoever decides to bid on our routes the last time went out to bid first student was the only um uh contractor that came in they came in 62% higher now that was a preco postco you know increase but it certainly would be higher than what it is now I don't know that it would be responsible to add a route and charge I think you would end up not making the money back on that subscription Route M she and if we also contract out we don't have any uh control over those drivers and their vetting is that true but if we have our own drivers here we know who these individuals are correct I mean their drivers are vetted though they all have to go through the same very stringent process of becoming a bus dver Mrs Bradford can I can I say this I went and searched on New Jersey Department of Ed and New Jersey school Finance because this is the budget time they have a very nice questionnaire and one of the FAQs and I did share it with some of us is is I'm going to read this one question and then I have two points is it a District's responsibility to provide transportation for students who live less than remote and remote in definition by the department of Ed is 2 miles to an elementary school and 2.5 miles to a high school so is it a District's responsibility to provide transportation for students who live less than remote from school when hazardous road conditions exist the answer on the New Jersey school Finance side Boards of Education are not required by law to provide busing for students who live less than remote which is 2 miles and 2.5 miles from school even for safety reasons however boards are permitted at their own discretion and expense to provide transportation for students who reside less than remote from school and may charge the students parents or legal Guardians for the service municipalities may also contract with Boards of education for this service and charge the parents that the trans charge the parents this transportation service is called subscription vessing so my two four questions are what is preventing us at this time if we are unable to pass this policy from sending an email to everybody which the transportation department has and saying hey we are unable to come to a conclusion so if you want to ride the bus starting next school year which is 2024 2025 you have to pay $1,000 this is coming from the Department of Education what is preventing us from doing it number two number two as a publicly funded School District without seeing supporting data without having clear objective criteria I feel it is reckless on the part of of us as elected representatives to designate 65 streets without seeing what the rubric or what the supporting data is and how these streets were identified she can you address that at all I know exactly the FAQ you have I've published that before actually um so yes there's nothing that stops you from charging for someone to do that the problem with with not adopting it is that you then go back to rebidding your transportation which obviously takes time we can we have we have time to do that but you go out to rebid your transportation you're going to be rebidding less routes because you're not going to requ you're not going to have enough required people to allow for the subscription part of what you're referring to how would we know that Mrs shean how would we know have you sent a survey or have you even sent an email no have you sent an ass sought feedback from people who currently ride courtesy mandated and non-mandated without I have not done that I'm happy to do that we've discussed that in the finance committee I'm 100% happy to do that tomorrow but my my point to you is and I think that you might have missed this is that we not have enough seats to help with those people we would not have a route at Mary Kay or Mountain Park so those students would be no trans no uh subscription again for the fourth year Colombia our biggest kind of user of it we wouldn't be able to do that because we would only need uh let's see two buses at Colombia based on the qualified number of students no but my question is we're making all these determination that we don't have buses but I did look at the document that you created for us if we approved the policy you were going to have 17 buses if hazardous policy was in place you said there will be 17 buses if the Hazardous policy was not passed you said 14 buses so how are we how is how is it Equitable and I have heard what do you mean Equitable can you like why if the policy is passed you're going to have 17 buses if the policy is not passed you're going to only have 14 buses what is stopping us as a School District if the policy is not passed sending an email and saying hey this is what the New Jersey Department of Education says this is the FAQ if you have published it before I have not seen it on our district website publish it put it in your email and say if you want to ride the bus next year this is what you have to pay for the second thing that i' I've heard it and multiple times today the rubric was based on you know do you have a walkway EAS to cross well come say that to people who live by me element school children were told during pandemic that you can just walk across a train State train tracks how is that and whoever this consultant was I I wanted to ask him this but I was not allowed to ask this basic question we keep calling them an expert how many peer reviewed papers or research have they presented who has evaluated this rubric which has clearly data from Scotch Plains and you are expecting us to blindly look at this data I'm not expecting you to do anything I am not expecting you to do one it is put to make your own decision and I am like whatever you guys decide I will go to and make it work with all due respect M shean that if this resolution is on here it has been wetted by a committee correct and we are expected to trust the experts the experts have given us data without supporting information with data from Scotch planes with mentions of Route 22 and I am not comfortable understood I respect your opinion thank you for certain I thank you all for the discussion we're going to close the discussion now Mrs shean thank you so much for your time you're welcome and for answering these questions Okay so we've had a motion we've had a second district uh resolutions a through all board members accept um Mr Heyman is not going to be able to vote on policy 860 District bylaws policy regulation study and first reading resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approves the following District bylaws policies regulations for study and first reading um I would like to go through uh just this one for a vote is that is that possible board just the policies could we just vote on the policies um sure just give me one second I just wanna the moot the motion was a through F oh sorry it can be amended but the motion the motion was a through F thank you Mr Heyman okay we're GNA go through it and we need a roll call then sorry so we're keeping it as is correct keeping it as is and Mr Heyman he cannot vote on uh policy 88600 and Regulation and regulation it would just be a regulation like it's it's based on how do we use our bu well neither neither one of them yes abstain from or can't vote all right Mrs Stanley um yes a through e I'm going to abstain on F A through e and you're abstaining on F uh Mrs Penna yes on a through e no on F Mr Ki yes on policy 2270 I'm abstaining on policy 3161 which is B uh so 3 3161 you're abstaining yes and 1161 you're abstaining as well yes and it's a no on 6421 86 policy and the regulation 86 hold on hold on so 4 64 21 is a nay yes the rest of the policies are all nay 860 and the regulation 860 only the first one 2270 was an a yes yeah and we're doing a through F you're correct yes so B is a yes approve professional development dat and travel reimbursement C is a yes D is a no e is a can you just kindly to just to make things easier yeah just give me all of just get let me know what you're saying no to do you want me to repeat the policy stuff too no no the policies I'm fine with just let me know your Nos and then I'll I'll the the rest are yeses because that's where my confusion lies okay D is a no which is a approv report of superintendent and so where where are we with b b is a yes okay so so you said D is a no what else is a n and e is a yes and F is a yes B is a yes yeah approve professional development days travel reimbursement is a yes C is a yes approve development additional expenses yes D approv repent um I think this is the Hib it's a no e is approv uniform memorandum of agreement that's a yes F was the new resolution that got added on that's a yes okay thank you very much Dr forer okay um on the policies I'll yes on 2270 yes on 3161 yes on 4161 um no on 6421 no on policy 8600 and no on the regulation 8600 on uh professional development days that's Item B that's a yes approved professional development additional expenses C that's a yes superintendence report uh no I'm going to list uh three of them that are no 257 493 mkm if I go too fast stop me okay so so we're on D right now correct we're on D yes okay so there are there are three uh hibs that I'm voting no on first one is 257 493 m km all right hold on I I I don't have room in here so just bear with me one moment okay so uh which three cases are you not voting I'm voting no on three of them 257 493 257 493 yes next one 258 012 258 012 012 and 258 434 258 034 258 434 434 yeah and then there are some other ones I vote Yes to okay I just need to nose for those yeah that's for D okay then a uniform State memorandum agreement is a yes and the item f is a yes okay Mr Hyman I'm a yes to all except for the two 8600 which I'm not voting on yes yeah M JY so I'm a yes on policy 2270 3161 and 4161 and I'm a no on 6421 8600 and regulation 8600 yes to b yes to C yes to D except case 257 493 mkm wait 25 uh hold on 257 493 mkm that's the only one that's the only one okay yes let me just I I I have to go back with the policy so you had 2270 was a yes 6421 was a nay and both 8600 was NOS correct um also a yes on um 31 61 and 4161 so there are three policies that were yeses 3461 and what was the other one no it's 3161 and 4161 4161 and what was the other I'm sorry 3161 3161 okay so it say so one more time uh yes on 2270 3161 and 4161 got it okay and NOS to the rest so I had B and C was a yes correct B and C were yeses D is a yes except case 257 493 correct okay uh yes on E and yes on F okay thank you very much Miss Connor I'll make it easy hopefully uh yes on everything except policy 6421 policy 8600 regulation 860 so that's 6421 8600 on both or Nays correct and you have yes for everything else that's right okay and Miss Bradford yes to a b c d e and no to F okay going to need a few minutes to tally these Vates for the N so it looks like 6421 and 8600 we're at four Nays on those so those three do not pass hip cases we have three of those one of those so it looks like the hip cases have passed it looks like f passes here this is 6421 8600 8600 regulation okay those three do not pass on the policy 8 through e as it looks those are the only three with policy and looks like everything else passes now I want to go back because I'm looking back at one other vote that I seen before in the minutes C did pass I want to make sure and note that because we did have an exstension and the and the votes were four to three that it did pass and that was letter C uh regular session minutes from February 26th we had four people that did approve three that did not and one exstension so it does pass just making note Mr giodo can so we officially have not passed the transportation policy and it and um the Hazardous routes on it so we as of right now we will continue with mandated courtesy and subscription we do have an Acting Superintendent now so that questions probably left better left up to him um but for right now my standpoint the Board needs to give the administration some direction on what it wants to do so we can let M and they let the Acting Superintendent and the business M know so they can give direction figure it out okay as I suggested earlier um there's concerns and questions if you can bring forth those things as a if you want to do it as a group uh questions that came up tonight rubric everything else that you wanted bring them to me and we'll go from there meet as a group committee whatever it is maybe policy committee whatever that might be uh well the sooner we do that the better that we can be prepared for that next meeting and go from there I have a followup where is this assumption that if just because the policy did not pass automatically courtesy busing continues This concerns have been raised since last year the year before there is nothing that the Administration has instituted in writing that we are going to continue courtesy busing and what we have been told since last budget session and correct me if I'm wrong dipy you are on the finance committee and Mrs fenna that we were going to do this and we were going to take our time do it right and we came up with a policy and this was not voted so that doesn't automatically turn this over into whatever was in existence that that was my point earlier there is nothing which states that we will uh have to provide courtesy busing as far as I can tell there's nothing in the policy this was a practice that was followed and I think when we were in the budget conversation last year um we came close Goose to saying we will not provide it for 2023 2024 uh at that point in time so my understanding is that there is nothing automatic about it thank you we we did take our time we we got a we we told everybody that we would get a consultant in that we' bring somebody in with expertise to make those determinations and we've done that so I don't know what you're saying we we took our time I'm I'm I'm actually just determine that we we're going to do it took time you didn't hear my question I said you were going to take your time you took your time policy committee came up with the recommendation of hazard's policy it did not pass my clarification from you guys on the finance committee last year is just because the policy did not pass for hazardous routes doesn't automatically kick in or basically say courtesy busing is still on is going to be offered I think if anything that was TR discussed today is basically we do not want inequitable Solutions and maybe the transportation needs to basically reach out to parents and say if you want to continue busing then you got to pay thank you can I can I say something to that again we have an Acting Superintendent now so so are you do you want him to make that decision because in my experience the board should be making a decision and then we should be implementing that we we need more than just a couple board members I hear what everyone's saying but Mr Nixon and Mr Jess are going to need five board members to say we we no longer want to do business the way we did in the past that's a board decision that doesn't come from Administration that was just brought up before right that's that's doesn't come from us that's your decision you want to do that that's something that you live I'm not saying it's my decision I'm saying there is nothing automatic about it which was stated sometime back that we're not in a new budget year yet so when that new budget year is and you got and this board makes that decision that's a decision you live with and and we abide by it that's what all comes down to a transort without a vote there is nothing in District policies that says we are going to offer courtesy busing forever that is true which is why we tried the hazard policy my understanding is that we will have to address this through the finance committee because this this changes so if we don't have a policy in place this changes the assumptions that are being made in the budget and this is exactly the scenario that we discussed on Friday scenario number two in the absence of of a hazardous policy we have to go back to the drawing board to make sure that our costs and revenues are in line in that scenario thank you all right we'll move on to education resolutions a through F all board members I have a motion so moved second second thank you discussion no I just wanted to ask uh Dr Gano so we um I know last year we were able to get all of our uh K through five into field trips um and I know that after Co that has been very difficult especially because of busing and um even with nurse uh getting substitute nurses it has been very difficult do you think we are on track for all K through five to be on a field trip this year everyone is already booked for a field trip this year we're all good to go I see that our kindergarteners at Mary K McMillan I think are going to the fire department so I'm excited for that I think that was really fun for them thank you Jared on Dr jar any other discussion Mrs Jolly just just a quick question um for item e the approve additional contract to serve is this something that's already budgeted for or I because I think uh if my math is right and it's a little rusty right now so it's what another like 7,000 6,000 $7,000 $88,000 uh additionally so just wondering um where that is going to come from what line item is that through the grant Mr chtz the idea Grant now and I think you're right we should put on the budget whether things are budgeted or not budgeted I think that would be clarified for everyone but again that's someone else's decision that's it's going to be coming out of the CST budget off the top my head I don't know but I know he has Services all budgeted in there so when you say CST uh child study team budget stud team I'm sorry yeah I have a question on P approve um I think the start date for this employment is we're on education right now any other dis okay if there's no other discussion we'll go for a roll call vote Mr Hyman yes to all Miss Penna yes Missi we are in education right correct yes and education it's a through F it's on page six okay A through f I think it's a yes to everything hold on a second yeah U just had a question on that F like what has changed like why is this recommendation coming in now I have to defer to on F the retirement of Staff okay because he's retiring so the board just that's F no no no that's no no evaluate sorry psychiatrist U that's what the child stud needs they need extra Services the students are being sent out we already have one and we we have this this independent psychiatric contractor yep we have we need more yes ma'am okay thank you it's a yes to all Dr forger uh yes to all Miss Jolly yes to all Mrs Conor yes to all Miss Stanley yes Miss Bradford to motion passes moving on to Personnel resolutions a through M all board members resolutions n through P Berkeley Heights only may I have a motion please second second who's the who's the first Miss Penna thank you any discussion uh yeah on p uh why is the start date from June why are we doing the start date is June 30th 2024 and is this included in the 2023 2024 Budget on P yeah the start dat seems I'm sorry it's too be determines the start date Miss I'm Sorry Miss Hannah go ahead Ju Just to confirm my understanding was that the start date was TBD and the end date is that yes the start dates TBD the end dates 6324 and um it's included in the current budget for this well yeah we're going to have to find the money for it because I don't know if that's a uh I don't know if that's a replacement do you know that Anthony from my understanding I thought from my understanding it was a replacement it was a replacement so it's already budgeted for can you confirm that lat yes I will okay thank you Mr nion any other discussion roll call Miss Penna yes Mr Hyman yes on items a through M Mr Kiri uh it's a yes to a b c no to D abstain on E and yes to f g and h i yes to J and uh yes to K L M is a no n is a yes and O is a yes and a p is a yes so the only two I have for nay is a d and an N yes and I have exstension as e and I yes was that M or n n as in Nancy was your nay no was M no no no I thought it was m m m as Mary so it was D and M as in Mary yes that was your nay yes okay Dr forger yes do miss Jolly yes to all Miss Connor yes to all Miss Stanley Miss Bradford yes to all motion passes can I say I'd like to thank the board for approving um that that new hire and I will as I amend the contract I send everyone that email I will once it's amended I will send b to everyone tomorrow morning thank you thank you moving on to business resolutions a through J all board members resolutions K Berkeley Heights only may I have a motion so move Mrs Jolly thank you second second Mrs penis second discussion so um sorry Mrs Bradford yes um so on item c um I think there is an error um so at the end of the resolution there is a number um stated of a maximum of 76577 for the 2425 school year I think as per resolution above that in B the maximum for 24 25 school year is um higher it's 77151 hold on one moment here one of these should not have been in it I T took one of these out how it came back in okay give me one moment here 76577 and Mrs Bradford and yes um there is sorry um on item D um is I know I I made a motion but that could have been a little too soon um so sorry it's a little late um an item D for the maximum um uh expenditures we wanted to um potentially propose um uh changing those so I think we would need a motion but I might be out of turn the motion is already on on the floor but a motion a motion can always be amended was 77 for last year would say I motion to change yeah okay if she wants to if she wants to amend D she should do that now right we're just waiting yeah just waiting for a correction so it looks like can see I need that has to be on page 14 instead of that 76577 that needs to be 77151 thank you too many numbers I've been looking at that's correct thank you very much for your help I appreciate it that's correct so Mrs Dolly you wanted to make a subsidiary motion doesn't matter yeah yeah yeah do we want to read it out loud oh okay just a second we're going to reread that one is that Cor correct yeah the the number change in that paragraph right before D yeah that's the second paragraph 76577 should that's wrong it should be 77151 the be it further resolved that the Board of Education includes in the tenative budget travel and related expenses reimbursements in accordance with njac 6823 a sub chapter 7 to maximum expenditure of $77,500 board members for the 2425 school year the school business administrator will track and record these costs to ensure the maximum amount is not exceeded correct make um so before we vote on this Mrs Jolly has a subsidiary motion for uh for item d so I'd like to make a motion to amend um the legal services maximum to um 150,000 um and amend the public relations maximum to uh $10,000 on based on what I I'll second that just wait discussion can can you give a reason yes um sure I just think that um you know you've heard me speak about this quite a bit I think the legal fees have gone on significantly they are higher um this amount is higher than what we currently have and I think we have to try as a board to try to bring them down by giving um an adjusted maximum and having um the I guess the powers that be who um you know reach out to attorneys to try to get those back down so I mean if two years ago was it three years ago two years ago it was like in the $889,000 range so this is just my um attempt to try to kind of rain it in a bit and it's not and 150,000 is still a significant amount my my question becomes and I'm not what happens when those legal bills go over I don't control those legal Bulls when they come in that's what I'd like to know what's this what is the suggestion when when we do hit that Mark what do we do fair question and the way I look at sorry can you still hear me sure MH so the way I look at it is we are setting these as maximum you're setting these as limits almost as targets right and I think in the in the spirit of trying to maximize our tax dollars towards the classroom towards the schools towards the Athletics oh believe me I agree and we I I believe me I agree with you I know you agree so I I think the the spirit that I'm taking Tasha's amendment is can we set a Target to be more efficient with how we uh put the dollars towards the legal fees let me say that we had our discussion today in executive session so those those are prevent if there's a way to prevent those things from happening I'd love to because I don't want to see it go there Mr vinel sorry we haven't asked a question of you we are just debating what I was going to say is his your resolution says what you can do his question is answered in the resolution it says the board May adopt an increase through formal board action so thank you if we do go over the max we have to have a discussion about well here's the question when it comes time for that and it goes over I'm just going to have to uh probably come to you guys to say I'm gonna have to go over we we we've done that repeatedly in the past just the last three years also including the Tom on the board as well yeah I and I did send an email this I think yesterday and you said that because of the timing of the budget you weren't going you weren't able to get to us I feel publicly we can get a listing of everything all the and we and I think we've had that happen in 2022 where we wanted a listing of all the legal issues or claims against the district and how much we have spent also we we're getting reimbursements and I've asked you this question and you you and I said you can answer this later but what are the reimbursements looking like and why is there a you just asked me this morning morning I sent that yesterday because based on the line item budget yes so when you get yesterday yesterday you sent it okay because we got the line item Budget on Thursday Mr again you sent it yesterday yeah because it takes 15 hours to again I spent all day today answering questions and giving information to the board and I just got done telling you I will get to you but you just sent it yesterday am I correct yes and do I get back to people with questions and answers no nothing that's my point I'm getting there yes my point is we got the detailed 95 line item Budget on Thursday sometimes I feel like I waste my time because I just got done telling you this today but you have to reiterate it four more times I I I go out of my way to tell people this but I seem to fall on deaf ears no just that to this discussion if you could don't interrupt me to this amendment is we need to look at the full picture before we authorize an increase thank you we're going to end the discussion can I say can I make a suggestion Madam president I'm sorry and I I think it's a good idea M A to do that and I just would just my experience to give to you guys if you want to take it or not when you're looking at legal bills and and we have ethics charges and things going on a lot of that goes out to insurance and we have a deductible through our insurance so it may be a one-time deal of paying $10,000 for the deductible and then all that legal fees for those is is is paid for you don't you should not getting bills for that so you need to separate what what your and when you when you look at it you want to separate you want to separate what you know we paid $10,000 for the deductible everything else we're not paying for and then what our board attorneys are doing and there those are separate things so there there are separate numbers I just like to throw that out to everybody Mrs Stanley so I also need to we need to remember that some of this comes from special education that some of this comes from students who are having an issue in this in the classroom who we need answers from the attorney on how we can handle this situation I I I I think that right saying that we want less legal bills I think we all want that we all want the money spent on the students that's you know trying to say that that's not what we want we all want that but we've seen over and over and over that is not what we can do because we cannot control outside sources we can control us yes how many times we go to the attorney sure but we have also run into major issues as a board that we have to go to the attorney so I think that we need to take some self responsibility for these legal bills as well um instead of just blaming the District right like this is this is on board members as well we're getting emails with accusations in them and incorrect information all of that is part of the legal bill process but by putting this number there and saying that we can only go to 150 I think you're putting us in a very difficult spot to not be able to pay attorneys when we have a student issue in the classroom and I think that's irresponsible sorry and I I think when we've ever we've had limits as Mr Heyman pointed out we we then came the board you know because we've had limits before and then the board would vote to up them so why not try because I I there's nothing to prevent us from breaching this limit as well before and then coming you know coming back for a vote again so why not try for the things that we can control to try to reain it in to try to have a different Target as opposed to thinking like well we could spend up to this amount and and I think Natasha to add to your point is some of the lessons learned that we've talked about like look at our history and wait for the report from Mr jovic and then adjust so we have ended the discussion on the subsidiary motion and we need to vote on the subsidary motion first what's what what what was you said it was 150 so the subsidiary motion Mrs Mrs Jolly if I could reinstate that you would like to change the uh item d adopt uh 2425 maximum expenditures for Professional Services Under legal services from 185 to 150,000 and then under public relations from 18,000 to 10,000 is that correct correct and it was seconded yes correct so we need a a roll call count on the subsidiary motion just are we just voting on The we just doing d right this point or the whole thing just modification just D the amendment not pass got it Mrs Jolly yes Dr forger Mr Kiri yes Mr Hyman no Miss Conor yes Miss Penna no Miss Stanley Miss Bradford so we have a tie which means does not pass correct yes then we'll go back to the motion that we have uh for business adoption of resolutions a through J all board members resolutions K Berkeley Heights only ask one one question uh yes on on H the the uh attachment that we received this is for the utility audit it it had numbers of of 50% savings for a window of I think 36 months and then in the agenda is different it's 40% it's 40% I so it changed from the attachment that they gave us I I had negotiated it that's what I had when I was at um I figured something changed between what they submitted versus what we're actually AG to okay yeah and I would like to amend a the adoption of the 2024 2025 budget to be reduced by 2.5 million thank you yeah I move to reduce the tentative budget for for 20125 by 2.5 million so on business resolution a adoption of a 2425 tenative budget resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent in the business administrator authorized the submission of the 2425 preliminary school budget to the Union County Executive superintendent of schools with the following fund allocations and where would you like that Mrs Ziri in the chart what no my motion I don't have from the chart I'm saying from the overall budget like we discussed when the presentation was made yes the bottom line okay I'm just going to let you know that in two days I will need to come up with $2.5 million in Cuts just to let you know now during that time I don't know if that's going to be possible and to have those discussions now if this was a suggestion back two weeks ago could have been possible I don't know if that could be done and to get this all together and submitted to the county office by Wednesday it's we as we as I've stated once before we have a preliminary budget now to be submitted by Wednesday preliminary and I'm going to state that again preliminary we have seven weeks from now for a final so if as again Miss Connor as we've stated before there's seven weeks to do something in between if that is something that you wish to do during that time I would suggest you you speak to the committee chair and speak to it then to do a $2.5 million cut in two days and submit all this paperwork and redo everything in that budget software is virtually impossible thank you for your comments but as I said we got the detailed budget last Tuesday and the 95 page 95 line item Budget on Thursday so I would like to make an amendment to reduce it by 2.5 million and we did point out where the money was Mrs Airi are you willing to withdraw this uh uh subsidiary motion toward doing work during the tenant after the tenative budget is approved no do we have a second there's no second the motion doesn't pass go ahead with a roll call please right resolutions a through j under business all board members resolution K Berkeley Heights only uh so we had Mrs Jolly was the first and Mrs pen was the second correct okay just making sure miss Jolly uh so with respect to the budget I think I'm going to abstain for now because I do want more information um I'm also going to say no on item D for legal services and uh public relations and you're going to uh nay on D nay on D for legal services and public relations was You' have to be abstaining from the whole uh resolution why maximum if you if we already had a subsidary motion on that and I don't think that you can break that up right because it's a whole motion I don't know if you can obstain just from pieces of how is that any different than like the Hib report that has separate components or the policies or anything else she could call for a division of the question okay uh abstain on no I'm I'm voting no oh I'm sorry I have it here D is no on legal services and public relations okay okay um yes on E yes on F GH think yes for all the others g h i j k we had a you said yes to b correct yes so the only abstain is on a and the no is just on the legal services and every uh and the public relations everything else is a yes b c okay uh Miss Penna so I'm voting yes to all I just want to clarify that c is the amended amount right that we're voting on 77151 that is correct want to make sure that we so uh yes to all Mr Ki um I'll abstain on the budget um as we have said I don't think we followed our own board policy on budget adoption and we need more more information supporting information uh yes to BNC and D I'm going to no on legal services and public relations yes to the rest of the Professional Services so you have D you're going to say no and that's for legal and public Rel a s okay and uh it's a yes on everything and abstain on H so your D that's going to be e f g and then your H through K uh it's an abstain on H and everything else is yes i r k Dr forga I thought you'd never asked I can't wait I'm stain on a yes on B and C uh yes on D except no on legal services and public relations and yes on E through okay Mr Hyman yes on items a through J Miss cona yes on a yes on b c uh yes and D except for legal services and public relations and then yes for E through K the rest thank you Miss Stanley Miss Bradford yes to all okay so we have three abstentions on the budget so a passes Let's see we have four D's so D let's see D for the legal and the pr since we have a 44 let's see the legal and um PR if that's a 44 tie and that fails and everything else passes could you repeat that d d the legal and the U public relations fails for that and everything else passes thank you moving on to finance resolutions 8 through D all board members Mrs Jolly you were the designated uh board member to review the bills did you review the bills I did and um so uh there's um I guess maybe it was very informative I have to say um it's a lengthy process um and uh yeah so I think for the ones that I checked and I have them highlighted here um I was able to see all of the receipts and uh the staff was very kind and provided information when I needed it so as far as the bills go I am comfortable with the exception of one thank you so Mrs Jolly was the designated board member and she has reviewed the bills uh there were three undesignated board members who reviewed the legal bills for themselves Mrs akiri Mrs cona and Dr forger uh we reviewed all the bills Mrs Bradford not just the legal you reviewed all the bills for yourself as un designated board members you just read that it was just legal bill so all right I'm looking for resolution a through D all board members a motion so moved a second second thank you any discussion okay Mrs Jolly so uh yes to uh a with the exception of uh check number 20983 n and then yes to everything else and is that an exstension that is a no no Mrs Penna yes to Mr Ki for for a it's a yes to everything except two check numbers 209 893 and 209 839 839 and what was the other one 893 8 93 oh actually I want to that's that says for a right yes and for B it's a yes and C and D I want to abstain Dr forer okay on uh a is a yes but a no on 2098 839 and yes to BC and D so you're voting a c and d and you're also 208 839 209 209 839 is a no and 209 893 two as well no just just the one check just a one check Mr Heyman yes to all Mrs Conor yes to a accept check number 209 839 yes to b c and d Mrs Stanley Mrs Bradford yes to all okay so we have 209 839 does not pass there's four for that check and four against everything else passes thank you we are now at the part where we have comments from the public on any topic during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on any item the board requests that individuals State their name town of residence address or School attendance for the record all comment should be directed to the board president and depending upon the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after this public meeting of the public meeting por concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered the board ask the specific the members of the public to be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding mans are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by the members of the public please note that if any board member of the public sorry any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjournment of the meeting each speakers be limited to three minutes in duration do we have any statements from the public oh thank you for staying with this good for you we will close the public comment section and moving on to uh new business okay discussion on increased legal spending I'd like to postpone that for the next meeting discussion on annual professional appointments expired in December 2023 I'd like to postpone that for the next meeting uh discussion on attorney RFP so uh thank you g um this was an item that I had brought forth I think it was also kind of touched upon in the last meeting I think um we definitely need an RFP for um an attorney there was an RFP that was referenced that was executed back in September but I it wasn't approved the execution of the RFP was not approved by the full board and then subsequent steps um once the RFP date was closed were not followed so I propose um I'd like to make a motion that we put forth an RFP for a new attorney for uh the school year of um I guess beginning July 1st 2024 through the end of June in 2025 I second it so you would like to uh well we can't vote on anything in new business but you'd like like to make a motion for a resolution to be on the next agenda yes that is correct thank you um CSA search during the two do I have a discussion and we would need to vote on it no no I yeah I want to ask that question who's making this determination that we can't vote on right it was 48 hours ahead yeah it was okay so I have some concerns on that though because um disc finance and Facilities committee um did put out that they recommended that um we told um AJ to move forward and reach out to uh the companies that had already filled out an RFP to find out if they're pricing and if they would uh be willing to stick with the new date um so we did that was our recommendation to AJ to move forward with the current a um RFP so I'm I'm concerned that this is a conflict let me if I can yes clarify what we talked about in the finance committee was AJ to go and check if their pricing would remain valid we did not and couldn't make a determination that we would say yes or no to the RFP process because that became a board discussion that needs to become a board decision so actually right so there's nothing that makes us have to vote on an RFP that's one but two we did discuss in in the need to excuse me I'm I'm talking so right during this discussion we actually did talk about how if AJ went out to these companies and then we asked them to then reapply for an RFP it would be extremely I don't know unprofessional to do that because we're now asking them if they will move their if they will keep their pricing and then we're going to go and say well actually you have to reapply again so we did talk about that in the meeting decision there was no decision made that we will only stick with the you know the last RFP process which was no but we made a recommendation that to move forward so that way we could find out if the pricing would hold and if they were even willing to go to a new date that's all we as for do that that's all we asked for I know but why would we do that if we categorical in saying the committee will not make a decision that's not true I think you put pressure after the meeting when the minutes are out because I think that during the meeting we had a really big discussion about how if we do this and then we asked them to reapply it would be extremely unprofessional to do that because we just asked them to hold their price we asked them why would we then go back out and ask them to reapply we said we would ask them if the pricing would remain valid that is not a commitment why would we ask that that is not a commitment that well you make them a commitment anyways because you haven't hired them you would need to just interview them you right so Mrs you had a question so so when we did the the RFP process and I I don't know exactly how many um companies attorneys applied and I I know it was filtered to some degree but the board or the committee didn't even get to the point where we knew who they were why can we not just keep them and then continue the process that we would be doing why does it need to go out for another RFP yes so so I sent this email to the board secretary and I want to I want to retrat the same thing here so after I saw the minutes and I saw that they were going to renegotiate like reconfirm the rates so what I sent was regarding the RFP for attorneys I had contacted New Jersey school boards Association for the advice given njsa 18a colon 18a hyphen 4.3 competitive Contracting indic initiated by Board of Education resolution process Administration 47a in order to initiate competitive Contracting the Board of Education shall pass a resolution authorizing the use of competitive Contracting each time specialized Services specialized goods or services enumerated in section 45 of PL 1999 c440 are desired to be contracted if the desired goods or services have previously been contracted for for using the competitive Contracting process than the original resolution of the Board of Education s suffice so please note I cannot find the resolution by Board of Education in 2023 to use to issue an RFP so because the the process Mrs Penna of collecting these responses did not follow the state statute I confirmed it twice with the legislative head in New in New Jersey school boards Association and I also looked online on what the state statute says so that means we would need to go back out for the RFP for the um uh Food Services because we didn't vote on that either yes because if if this was not legal Food Services this year so miss Stanley with all due respect I am sticking I'm stating the point that the RFP for the attorneys the initial process was did not follow the state statute so it is it was you can consider it as like a corrupted file or whatever and if the board didn't vote on it so you can say we we're going to REO go back and use those responses that we got thank you for confirming that after you saw the minutes you were upset about moving forward with the RFB Mrs P I did not say that and Mrs Bradford Mrs Bradford I would really appreciate there has been a lot of back back and forth talk happening so I would really appreciate everybody to be professional here I'm asking Mrs Penna has the floor so AJ I don't remember if you were are you saying that the process was not I I wasn't here during the time that was that was during the inm's time so are we basically been told that the process was incorrect no that's for competitive Contracting for Professional Services which is what our attorneys are among other Professional Services you do not have to do it by competitive Contracting you can but you do not have to do it by competitive Contracting you can do a fair and orderly process you can use an RFP process as a part of a fair and orderly process just to have a a systematic way of going about it but there's an exception to the public school contracts law for Professional Services so what Miss secury is referring to having to pass a resolution is if you're if if you are doing something under the public school contracts law that requires competitive Contracting so it's an incorrect statement to say that it was violative of the law or not done properly does it mean that you can't vote and approve they follow the RFP process but it's incorrect to say that you have to do it by way of competitive contract so so to your explanation can we not just continue we have multiple attorneys who have responded we I don't think we can call them out not just go through their process they hadn't got to that point yet so I'm not sure why we need to go through the hollow RFP prises so what I'm trying to understand why do we need to go through that process when we have attorneys waiting I've said it we we haven't discussed it they haven't been interviewed but we have a number already so I'm just curious to know why Angela I believe it's right now it isn't AJ's decision this is for us to decide as a board our path forward and I think the fastest way to get there but I'm trying to understand the process Mr so the original RFP you know had a start date of January 1st which is incorrect by issuing a new RFP we'd have a cleaner process we could potentially get other firms who have not applied we could answer the question of pricing because the firms will come back with their with their pricing so I think number one it may actually relieve uh Mr juskowitz from having to reach out to the firms wait for a feedback etc etc and then um and if the only thing that's holding us back is because we might look unprofessional because we might have contacted them before if they want the job they will apply and we'll have a clean process and uh with the right dates and with the latest uh firms that are willing to uh make their bids so can I have the floor yes this is I would like to say that's all true we can do another RFP we can have them reapply and they could also put their rates up or they can not reapply and we only have two candidates and we don't have as much sure it's a free country anything can happen speculate on what they will initiate that's what I'm saying it's either way right like we can go either way there's no reason we have to do this you haven't given me a reason Mrs Dolly so um you know by the same token right they can come back if they were going to raise their rates they're not obligated to give us the rates in their RFP they could also come back and say no the pricing doesn't hold so that that's why it's it's just a cleaner way just to you know put it out there and have them come back with whatever their latest rates are see who we have if there's only two that come back then AJ's Outreach would probably yield the same result so it's saving him work while we collect them so he's not calling the so he's not calling them he he he has to outreach we have an RP already there I got to insert the dates and do all that other stuff so we're going to end discuss making up a reason I'm just saying this would be a clean way to get a a new RFP with the most current list of candidates at the most current prices Mrs Penna last very very quickly so how will this then impact the timeline because I know with regards to the process it takes a while extend our timeline it also would extend our timeline because we now have a superintendent search firm we have an interim superintendent to look for we now have an RFP out for attorney and we still have the architect so we are pushing the ball down the road so does that potentially mean that we could not have an attorney come the end of J of June June correct and then we would have to hire per day okay Mrs Bradford can you maybe explain that a little bit because the whole point of issuing the RFP now is that there's certain process and certain timelines associated with it that would get us to a point where we would have an attorney by the end of this school year I'm not sure of the exact days I think it's a 60 day um turnaround I I would have to look that up to be sure no it's about 40 so right because the the last RFP was issued in oo in September with an October end dat so I think you know if 30 40 days yeah 30 40 days so I think that that's why I think it's important that we do this now so that we don't run into um you know into time issues Mrs Jolly would you restate your motion please if I can't do it correctly so I'm making a motion to um for the board to issue an RFP for uh Professional Services of an attorney for the period uh beginning July 1st 2024 through June 30th of 2025 and I second it so there's a motion for the board to issue an RFP for Professional Services beginning July 1st 2024 through June 30th 20 25 for attorney for attorney sorry okay can we have a roll call vote please miss Jolly yes Mr Kiri yes Dr forer yes Mr Heyman no Miss Connor yes Miss Penna Miss Stanley Miss Bradford no so we have four yeses and four NOS motion fails may I have a motion for adjournment wait wait wait hang on go you also had number four on new business oh I'm sorry just the dates for CSA I'm sorry the search CSA search stes for um the search firms and I think Mrs Jo brought this up and Mrs Mr uh Jessica Woods you are reaching out to those search firms to come up with a date I have dates here available just so you know 4M their earliest date they had was March 27th then they had April 8th April 9th and April 10th Nick ferson who's the other group they were open with all their dates uh would it be easier if I just emailed these out yes give us the over if you can tell us the com and taking out a spring break yes definitely I'll just I'll just email these out to the whole board so the the one other um part of this um item was to actually so we had um a February 8th meeting that was scheduled for the purpose of discussing our process right of how we are going to go about the search it morphed into um a meeting for presentations um and then I think ultimately ultimately that was the March 7th meeting that March 7th I think that got cancelled so we still need a meeting not just to hear the presentations but we need a meeting to talk about our process um I did send to Mrs kaana a uh preliminary rubric and she was supposed to work on that and she and I are supposed to work on that we haven't got that developed yet that's right now that we are somewhere further ahead with the budget we will go to the next step there um and I think I I agree with I think the point Natasha is making is the rubric is one part of it you know how are what are we going to ask what are we going to evaluate and also just agreeing on the number of steps between now and what it takes to choose the firm again I would like to point out that most of these superintendent search firms are the same the only only difference is in the price and maybe a little bit of of of who is doing the Consulting who would be our our person and I know Dr forger had some things that he looked at and I did look at those Dr forger um as requested so there's not much difference but the real work begins once we find and then we can tailor it we can say we want this many public meetings with our community with our staff with this these are the characteristics we're looking for and we can have this process stretched out so the process of picking a search firm seems to me to be moot because they're all basically the same if we get a feeling for one or the other looking at price and then move forward we are just pushing it down the road again by having another meeting to get a process to get a search firm doesn't have to be a separate meeting it can we can have the conversation when these firms come and present um so we will wait for you to come back with whatever is the date I want to throw out the the public meeting for the budget also on the list of things that we need to come back with is a date so depending on what happens with this we will need to schedule a different date for that meeting so I just want to put it out there the other thing I I think to put those dates for that search firm in there is to probably discuss or or describe what those search firm terms do um handson or hands off um and having that discussion with New Providence they elected to have somebody hands off they wanted to be involved here I don't know whether you wanted having hands all hands on and having the help you know with the with with what we see is going on you may want to have that help in here so and the second way that it's going about is you have the four that I've seen you have two people school boards and there's another person that's in there that that are not associated with superintendants they're an outside group looking in and they're kind of the hands off type of group and then you have two sides that are superintendant that have close work working relationships with them who can go and recruit those individuals to come here so you got to look at it and know respects and I will put that in that email along with those dates you can decide on what you're looking for based on that information yeah um can I just say why we need a separate meeting thepi at the reor we we wanted to it's already March we haven't decided on how many meetings we might need so I don't want to be we came here at 6 o'cl today every meeting this year we have been some of us did I didn't point of order uh Mrs Ziri had the floor continue Mrs Ziri no I would like him to repeat it I didn't understand what you said I said some of us did some of us got the memo that the meeting started at 6 so usually I don't know when we get past 11: I get reminded hey it's late stop talking yeah so some of us came here at 6 I was correcting that yeah and some of us and all of us were not informed by the board president with all due respect that she's changing the time she never asked for feedback from the board to change do you have a point no yeah I have a point and I would like not to be interrupted like how Mr Hyman did I was basically stating something about the need for a separate meeting to discuss the process and I don't want to be sitting here for so long so at the rork what we added on as a special meeting has not yet happened yet and it was moved with no reason given from February 7th to a different date then we got stuck with the snowstorm and here we are on March and we still can't have a separate meeting just to discuss the process thank you very much for your comment and in future Mrs Bradford I would really appreciate if you're planning to change the start time of a meeting I would request that you can reach to all of us you have our board email you have our cell phone numbers thank you for your comment I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn for this evening second all in favor I opposed abstain thank you