M fitzi here Mr Mater Miss sha here Mr Tuma here M Joyce here Mr Carpenter here Mr Sai Mr Sai is not present Miss noo Miss noo is not present thank you can we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge aliance to the flag the United States of America the for stands Nation indivisible liberty and justice for all welcome everybody to the February 29th meeting of the Board of Education of Branchburg please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public in media consistent with the open public meetings act and that advanced notice required therein has been provided this is a meeting of the Board of Education of Branchburg at which formal action may be taken the public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda and I will hand it over to Dr Chase for the superintendent report okay um thank you I just want to let anybody who's in the audience who wants to access the agenda you can do so by uh scanning the QR code it's on the table over there or posted on the wall we're now working in BO docs um the second thing is today we are going to have two presentations the first one will be Mr David Ruben our school board attorney who will present on the subject of ethics and then following Mr rubin's presentation we will have our auditor um who will present and share the findings from the audit that was collected over this past year so Mr Ruben I'm going to turn it over to you you talking about so uh thank you for having me tonight once a year or so we Tred can we give you the mic just so people on watching you you're famous on YouTube so so anyway it's a pleasure to be here tonight once a year or so we try to do a quick overview of the school ethics act just as I as a license attorney have a code of ethics that governs my conduct my life be taken away from me if I violate some of these rules you have a code of conduct that governs your behavior and your seat on the board think that be taken away if we violate some of the rules that we're talking about here much what we going to about is a refresher course for most everybody year um but you know just like spring trading and baseball sometimes it's good revisit the fundamentals once a year so we're going to go through some of this we're not going to cover each and every provision of the school ethics act for a couple reasons number one we be here till midnight and number two they found about 15 different ways to say about three or four different things so we're going to try to boil it down to the basics of what the reals are just a little bit of background the school ethics Act was adopted back in the 90s in its original form they had a list of things that they called the list of prohibited acts most of them dealt with financial improprieties things that you would do to financially feather your nest to your friends to your family and then about 10 years later they added to that list what they did was they took a code of ethics that the New Jersey school boards Association I think all the way back in the 70s something no one could ever imagine actually law phrased very generally very aspirational goals to inspire to his board members nothing that I could even tell you what most of even mean said why don't we cut paste them and add them to the list too support prosec as well by the way um the school ethics act uh at least a portion of the original prohibited acts cover not only board members but they use the term school officials which means that not only board members but the superintendent the assistant superintendent any high ranking administrators who involved with procurement decisions and Personnel decisions are also covered by at least a list of prohibit X the I I usually begin these presentations by describing very briefly a board member is because most people will get involved with violating the school ethics act do so because they either out with their role as a board member never really focused on what it really was to begin with and here's where things get a little counter Inu it because when you're running for elective office like a mayor or certain positions where you can actually do something on your own you have executive Authority you have a staff you have people you can direct to do things Prov with information and get orders to um that is not what a elected School position is in New Jersey you're elected to Bo I to minimize the but has certain limited powers all important but they're limited what member of a five seven or n body basically policym body by basically minimiz it essentially an oversight for and as we see as we go through this one of the key tenants of the code of ethics is not good job to run the schools make sure that they are R up principally by Mak superintendent who's directly accountable to you I superintendent by setting budget by adopting board policies and by holding people feet to the fire to make sure that they are enforced principally the superintendent and the ba the folks who report to them are accountable to them they are accountable to you and that's basically how the system is supposed to work uh you do not the he take away this part of discussion is that have notive authority directly what to do if you need information the folks you see sitting here at the table here are the ones that you were to get I'm going to go through just a couple of the key provisions of the school eics act these are the ones that I call the frequent flyers these are the ones that will people get H these are the ones that that happens before the others you see the up on the screen the language of the original next which basically says down you can't throw your weightage your friends or family or yourself whether it's financially whether it's a personal benefit can allowed to be a parent if you have to be parent children the school district that's fine you can do anything that a parent does as as BR a parent but you can't confuse those two roles when acting as a sitting as a and here's another very important takeway which is that in my profession years ago we used to have something called the appearance of propriety do we have a list rul follow them years rule on top of that that said even if we followed all those rules if I might have looked at somebody like maybe we didn't we could be prosecuted for that too and have our license taken away because of what somebody might have thought we did even if we didn't do it um we all got together and we said to our New Jersey Supreme Court we think that's a stupid rule if you want us to follow the rules tell us what they are if those aren't enough rules give us some more we'll follow them too but please don't tell me that somebody can take my license away because what somebody might have thought I did but I didn't bad news for you the appearance of the propriety Doctrine is alive and well at the school as a matter of fact many if not most of people who get prosecuted and found guilty by the school ethics should do so not necessarily because of what they intended to do or actually did but how some hypothetical reasonable Observer might have thought that they did how it might have appeared to a reasonable Observer so keep that in mind as we running through some of these um this is the another provision from the originalist of prohibited acts that makes clear that we're not just talking about financial benefit that cross the line anything where you get some personal benefit even if it's not Financial that you get by throwing your board member weight around or by being perceived as throwing your board member weight around can also have you a violation of this um those are the two main ones from the list of the original list of prohibited acts that get prosecuted under going to move very quickly through some of the pr good flyers from the code of ethics that was adopted 10 years later this is the one that I mentioned before Prim primarily a policymaking body you confine your activities mainly to policymaking and then that usually goes hand in hand with this next one which is as I said before is pretty much the Cornerstone of the entire School ethic SE that our role of board members is not to administer the schools but to make sure that they are well run these two pretty much go hand in hand when one is Accused that violate one of these issues an accusation that they violated the other as well typically in my experience that I represent board members and school officials the school ethics commission every month um usually the people that are accused of violating these we find are board members who tend to have a lot of time on their hands maybe they retired you see them strolling the halls of school buildings during the day shaking hands speaking to people um you know maybe putting in a two cents about who the next football coach should be um Mo all the things that make it appear to people as if they actually work here have some Authority um and part of the problem here is that even if this is all well-intentioned the people who they're talking to perhaps could be a container school secretary whose contract that board members going to be voting on next year and maybe looking to extend those sorts of courtes again just human nature have to be very careful to make sure that we don't act that other people might perceive us as and actually in a position where we have to decline some of those even if we never asked for them to make sure that nobody nobody obser watching all this thinks that we have our hand up so to speak this is a key one on the frequent fly list um we have to be mind the fact that as individual board members we have no ability to bind the board or make commitments or act like we're making commitments all authority resue the board now there may be situations where the board May authorize one of you to be going out and making commitments or speaking on behalf of the the Tex example of this I have used this before presentation is imagine that the board is involved in labor negotiations with the Union the court has its negotiating committee the union has its negotiating committee matter of fact let's say nego going on tonight but board member a over here is not on the negotiating committee you're down at Shop Right doing some shopping you're in the produce AIS and you look down the is see the head of the Union at the other end and you both look at each other you know negotiations may not be going well and you both roll your eyes and say let's buy each other up here we'll solve this contract between the two that's an example of the kind of discussion that should not be happening nobody's authorized should to have those discussions have authority making any commitments um may very well be undermining the negotiations going on that very Night by the people who actually authorized to be having those discussions we can't be doing anything that looks like we may be engaging that and here's what the problem comes in particularly for your t board members because you don't get elected to the board by not knowing anybody you get elected to the board because you know everybody this is a people business and the Very people who you were free to speak with about anything the day before you got sworn in once you get sworn in and they know you're on the board very understandably folks will be approaching you or talk to about your business again they don't not familiar with the co ethics here and they're not expected to be but they may be looking for you to solve a problem for them and what have you you need to be very sure that in those conversations we're redirecting them back to the chain of command passing information along to the superintendent but not doing anything in those interactions that makes it appear as if we have some authority to go and solve their problem for them um can be very difficult we have to find our own vocabulary for doing that because these are people who we were talking about these things the day before we have to kind of circumscribe the way we speak to our friends and Neighbors afterwards it's going to be very very challenging um so again we have to do anything that that could be received as us taken positions doing what they're not authority to make commitments and then here's where the fun starts ever since we have age this Facebook or SnapChat or wherever you are we we're it's impulsive there's a conversation going on we all want to jump in we all want to say things post things um many of the decisions of the school ethics Commission perhaps even most particularly the last couple of years deal with social media activity by work members saying things online that may appear as if they're speaking to the board they're actually not and to be very clear the school ethics commission has acknowledged that board members have a First Amendment right to be talking about stuff there issues that are on your mind political issues endorsements you want to make that's perfectly okay you have the freedom to do that as long as you do it in a way that makes clear you were speaking only for yourself committee the commission used to have a very very black letter disclaimer Ru matter of fact even had a template of a disclaimer that they would recommend you use pretty long prettyy that they would recommend that to tack on if you were to the editor back in the old days or bu to think of social media thinking very very curious speak just for yourself that rule has kind of morphed over the years into something that is very very um to use a legal word squishy these days as of last month if you read their decisions of of last month something which I've been involved in myself as near as I can tell the disclaimer will go something like this um key is whether or not you're expressing yourself in a way that a reasonable Observer would perceive his speaking through the court the disclaimer is great explicit disclaimer is great but um even if you have an explicit disclaimer if it isn't conspicuous enough or if the overall context of the discussion it still may look to somebody like you're speaking for the board you could be found guilty oh and by the way you might not even need a disclaimer if based on the overall circumstance everybody would know anyway speaking for your how do I adise you on how to walking through raindrops how do I you short of stay on social media entirely all I can say is if you're going to be communicating on social media about anything relating to the business of do it in a way where you were that reasonable Observer sitting out there everybody would know you're speaking for yourself you have explain that's the test that they tell us anyway this month you're going to be apply very one of the big is here is confidentiality moment your board member you are immediately pry to whole source of confid information others Bo information to a board meeting about personel matters contracts we will be negotiating about relation strategy but all sorts of things by security measures but all sorts of things that should remain private here it's information board meeting whether it's session discuss session short some of those are everything that you have access to only because you're a board member must remain confident you cannot be shared with anybody and this was a challenge probably more of a challenge years ago when when big think paper package used to be get sent home different districts don't do that this one does I don't know um but you know when the papers are sitting around the house and we have uh family members or whatever it was very very difficult the best of circumstances to keep information confidential you know with the Advent of femil and what have you it's probably a little easier to keep things secure if you have the discipline to make sure that it's in a tected account but the burden is on us as school officials to make sure that we take the appropriate measures to make sure the information we get is kept impr they take this one very very seriously people forget this section that's an entirely independent requirement that has nothing to do with confidentiality says down at the bottom of the screen all other matters are provide accurate information to the public that has nothing to do with confidentiality but sometimes people get prosecuted violating that what does that mean it means this is not about people expressing their opinions about this is about Mak mistakes about objective fact that are clearly textbook example budget season disagrees with the budget that's being proposed um and wants to talk about publicly about their disagreement the budget that the administration would be proposing how to do that but you post something on Facebook that says M item XYZ contains X doll and that shouldn't be when it doesn't contain X dollars it contains something small fraction of that a clearly objective fact that's the muchal we could be prosecuted doing something that is objectively false Creations so we need to be careful about that um this is one from that list of uh in the code of ethics that the school boards Association put out that is now the law this first came into effect you know 20 30 years ago um as a lawyer I I don't know what to tell my clients this even meant do this mean we have to esort teachers to the cars afterward you don't know what this means um 20 30 years later with that many years of decisions from the school ethics commission we know what they think what they think it means is 99% of the cases brought under this section have to do with board members humiliating Rank and file staff members in typical scenario um and an English Department a presentation to the board about what's going on English Department says that's the silliest thing I've ever I'm an English teacher myself this is the silliest thing I've ever heard this person doesn't know what they're talking about I don't know you hire this person and you start taking them on in public humiliating them that sort of a scenario cannot be doing um they leave a little bit more Flack talk about Dr Jason right now they a little bit more Flack to have some back and forth with the superintendent reports directly to you they're in that themselves but even there are limits there as well but by and large shouldn't be going after staff members in that's not something we should be doing and then finally on the list of Ethics place keep officer this is about playing Goa hates game of Goa whether you're playing demonstration whether you're playing each other if there's a problem going on it's important that people have the ability to address the problem be informed about it have an opportunity to solve it before people embarassed public coming out left field and this is one people prut um the school ethics commission has one of their main functions aside from people Viola act one of their main function matter of fact I think their most important function for my purposes is issuing what be called advisory opinions um you're a board member you're thinking about doing X Y or Z you're not sure if it's okay or not you read all the commissions decisions this one kind of Falls in between them you're not really sure you can write to the school ethics commission and say hey School ethics commission I want to do s YMC or I going to hold this particular position or I'm about to take this job and I'm not sure if I'm allow to take it will be a board member you can write to them give them the facts and to their credit uh they a very small staff they only be once a month fairly quickly they will write back to you say this is okay or that's not okay or more likely what they'll say is well this could be okay as long as you stay on this side of the line and prain for doing exy over here and if they think that it's a scenario that's likely to recur enough around the state they will post on websites can see them go right now to the website commission and see them 20 or 30 years advisory op the entire G all sorts of subject matters and as long as you stay within the four quarters of a particular advisory opinion supp lawyers Safe Harbor you can rest assured that not be not guilty even if the school ethics submission later on decides to change mind as long as time you comp with that okay most of those many of those most of those advisor Ops deal with um situations in which Bo members are conflict from about particular matters they have a whole bu of them that deals with conflicts regarding negotiations person matters basically designed to make sure that that hypothetical reasonable Observer out there no one's ever met by the way dis person male or female educational background is we know nothing about this reasonable Observer there but we have to make sure that whoever that reasonable Observer is doesn't perceive that you're in a situation where because of your board member position somehow Advantage yourself family so that for example if you or immediate family member or employ teacher the districted from being involved in negotiations here because they're concerned that they may go home and share what's going on about negotiations that they might go and tell their District Statewide Union we know everybody talks to each other as they should but to make sure that there's no perception of that could even happen to establish a firewall they want to make sure you're not and by the way that's as much for your protection um as for the projection of the process and obviously if you have relatives AO in the district here included not only obviously person matters relative but for person matters anybody can a vertical supervision up from relative all the way to the superintendent so that's they have um some advisory opinions that I find somewhat frustrating I think just try to down there but they have um a number of advisory Pats that limit your ability to volunteer for certain things which I find a little frustrating only because what are you if not volunteers this is a volunteer position here by have volunteered from other stuff in town it's by your nature in your DNA that's what you are then you get on the board and you want to continue stuff and are told them we really can't where the basic guidelines for the school meths commissioning again don't the best uh they don't want board members in positions where you're acting like you have executive Authority case point would be for example just open for the director of the high school PL or the Middle School play uh maybe you have a theater background maybe you a Broadway director yourself where there's an opening if you're willing to volunteer your services to do it school ethics commission was say can't do that because what is the director of the play do you're the boss you had to decide who gets what parts you to may decide V we're going to purchase materials for for the sets or what have you you got a lot of authority we don't want board members executing or having executive Authority can't be doing um they don't like it when you're volunteering for positions where you're just in the building every day and it looks like you kind of work there um they don't like that um some examples of things they told us they don't have a problem with um going to put on your doct suicide come to read loud day whatever they call that day come no problem with that um you want to put burgers in the concession stand in the football game where you're basically theow person totem Authority kind of helping out extra set of hands problem with that anything you're in a fixture on campus exercising executive Authority they want you to do that um so quick recap here um before I move on just a couple of the things before I wrap up um and we'll use our position to SEC benefits for you your family and friends respect the chain of demand and confidentiality and as I said briefly Mee um otherwise known as Sunshine stat basically says that any time we have a meeting and I put thatas anytime we have a meeting the meeting must be in public full view of the community tions shortly meeting must be to the public get show that they want there's a couple of exceptions for extended circumstances we're allowed to call a special meeting about 48 hours notice something can't wait till the next regular schedule board meeting and we something can't even wait that 48 hours we can call an emergency meeting explosion in one of the elementary schools a pipe something we need to conv be in the board to deal with an emergency we can hold an emergency the type of um the reason I put quotes rather word meetings is that we have to be right what a meeting is a meeting is any Gathering of a majority of the board to the purpose of discuss business now seems obvious enough but again digital age Rea can be all sorts of things that as a as a practical matter function as meetings even if you didn't think of them that way um superintendent sends an email to the board updating them on some particular matter she's allowed to do board member gets that email everybody's copying on presses reply all saying well I have a couple questions about that and some opinions on that and then board member the next board member press reply all and jumps into that conversation and all of a sudden we have what amounts to a realtime conversation among the majority of board members it's happening online it's happening digitally but that is now find ourselves in the middle of an illegal meeting have to make sure that we don't do that whether it's a text chain an email reply all or obviously in the old days you know just taking each other out to dinner to talk about you know who's going to put next board meeting whatever it is we cannot have a real time discussion going oning again um there are exceptions to the public discussion requirement U and by the way I'm not on the list I'm not going to go through the whole list of exceptions because Sunshine Law applies to all public bodies but the the private session exceptions not all of them are situations that school boards in particular address those um just the spoiler alert there is no exception for just stuff we'd rather the public not he about there's no such General exception for that has to be one specifically on L of things that we're allowed to discuss public look those a minute um to have at least some accountability minutes must be kept of private session uh what happens in private session but those minutes themselves must be kept confidential read from the confidentiality sides so what are some exceptions these are the big ones that school districts Ty deal with um some of these are intended to protect our privacy for example consultations with Le the council about end case or you my opinion on something we're allow to have discussion that's to protect your privacy a labor relations we have Labor negotiat coming up and what's our bargain strategy going to be makes no sense the public is not well served by having our strategy sessions in public that would be an example again of something that should protect our privacy interest Personnel matters which is probably the most frequent matter we discussed in private session that's to protect the Privacy not of us but of the employee we're talking about we're requ to protect that privacy unless the employee being discussed wants to wave their privacy and insist that whatever discussion we're having be in public which they have the right to do and their per usually does not well because we're discussing it in private for a reason and usually the reason why we're discussing it in private once it's in public it's evident why we were discussing it in private usually it's not to the benefit of even though they have the right to wave it and they're free to I've never met one who's glad they did so but they have discussing student related maaps again that's not to protect our privacy to protect the privacy of the student we're talking about guess what they can wave that too if the wants to again get their Peril doesn't work out well so the bottom line here is that the things you see if on the screen are the ones that 99% of the time cover the matters were allow required to discuss a CL session um where we find ourselves Beering La course and again have five seven or n members in discussion sometimes the discussions leading I we we find ourselves drifting into areas that really are public session items um you know we all have to be V Vigilant and you know I think this part is pretty Vigilant keeping an eye on what's going on and if we find ourselves drifting in an area public session discussion stop the discussion at that point save that for public discussion um just wrapping up here public record act and I bring this up for a reason open public records act for sure was the same general philosophy as the open public meetings they could meeting that the public should not have access to several dozen exceptions the reason I bring this up why am I talking to board members about but in roundabout way you kind of are so I'll explain the moment a government record includes any information possession or control of the board or any employer officer that relates to normally we don't think ourselves as record Keepers but an email from one board member to another about board business that's presely a government record that's the subject matter of that email fit within one of the exceptions um and there's no except no blanket exception for in for for emails between board members if the subject matter of the email is something that would be confidential that's one thing but we need to be mindful of the fact that applies to text messages voicemail messages even and as a result of the case decided here in somerson county that even on your own private password protected email if you're talking about board business not state government record not business administrat some point saying I've got a open request here seeking records to which your private emails may be responsive and if any of them are discussing more business they can beable as well the wise you know email AG elic I'm not suggest shouldn't be just know a good lesson board member just being human being generally we want to be careful put the emails to write exists for so um wrapping up here any questions going to answer now or later but U this in in a timely man that this time any questions you ever done that before me you ever done that before no first time thank you Mr Ruben we always enjoy seeing you and learning from you so our next item on the agenda is to hear from Miss Katherine manell who is going to be sharing the audit report from the 2022 2023 school year uh who should be we go sometimes I need that anyway um he does a really nice presentation and he reminded me of a few things while he was talking so uh not with uh you know I I'm not going to speak as fast as Mr ruin or have as much to say but uh I thank you for for having me come and talk about the audit a little bit and uh I guess we'll just I realized when I got here that I didn't make the copies that I typically do for you so is everybody okay but I'm going to be talking about numbers you probably can't see visibly you good I'll keep it keep it simple okay so when I come here I have few little analytics that I look at and I bring them to your attention so if you look at the fund balances of the district last year compared to this year last year's total balances were1 15,46 when people hear that they think that's a big number and it is but I think I'm going to start working from the top down to talk about all the restrictions there are and come back down to the unassigned fund balance and then June of 23 you were down 535,000 you at 14,870 in that we talk every year about the fact that you can only increase spending by 2% tax levy by 2% there are very few exceptions to that rule but there are a few and um so with that those of you who have seen me and heard my Spiel it's pretty much the same that when you can only increase spending by 2% it's very difficult to deal with maintenance that happens in spite of itself Capital needs of the district so I always recommend over the years when the pandemic hit the state has the excess Surplus calculation that's in the next to the last two pages in The Thin report that's called the auditor management report and so before the pandemic the maximum mon assigned was 2% for two or three year two years of the pandemic they increased it to four and then this was the Monumental year where it went back to to 2% and we knew that that was going to happen and um some districts were utilizing Federal Co funds for operating expenses and we would say don't do that every time we would present a a topic of accounting interest we would just put out feelers don't do this don't do this and I think that Branchburg really did listen to that now there is one thing though when the state does the budget software which is coming up very soon and I did not know that today those numbers were going to be released so from all ends of the state people were saying oh my goodness oh my goodness so um it's just even though you followed all the rules and you were for thinking it's still just becoming really difficult because we know during the pandemic some of some inflationary costs just went off the radar and they haven't come back back down and I didn't realize that because when I as your external auditor when I'm looking in there are a few criteria that I look at and so I would say in the last three weeks I have spoken to many school business administrators saying that it's just a challenge this year that inflation has not come back down in some districts that work to your favor because that change in fund balance over the course of the Year obviously the interest rates were up and um it's really a little bit astounding um the momentum that you get from some interest earnings so I also want to explain that when the state says you are allowed to have 2% of your adjusted expenditures there are allowable adjustments so again in the past most of the districts that we represent we always say don't don't budget the extraordinary Aid have some flexibility at the end of the day and so at the end of the year um those adjustments were 800 44,000 it's the extraordinary aid for Special Egg costs that the state Awards I think the application comes out in May because I know the school board or the SBA conference is in June and everybody's scrambling to get it done and then the Awards come out sometime in the summer and the cash comes in in August so the state allows you to appropriate that for any purpose in the subsequent year now what was a little bit so we come in we do the audit for junee 30th and I know last year it was later because we were waiting for the gby 75 information from the state so this year they came out a little bit earlier mid October and didn't extend the date and so I took it a little bit personally saying that we were always the ones looking for the way to get the audits out get them out get them out get them out and then we were pretty much between a rock and a hard place place but we still stayed the distance so I think we're a little bit later than last year but now we know what the expectation is for next year they decided to do a two-year pilot program this year was one year of the pilot so we have one chance to revamp how we do things to guarantee that we always partner with our clients saying you know here's what we're going to have to do this year let us give you information and so we just have to get more synchronization with that process and I'm sure we will be able to do that so during the year the um oh the district is K8 so your your high school students are sent out and so you have that formal send receive relationship and so you're allowed to reserve 10% of the annual tuition or a tuition Reserve if you get hit with a an adjustment the law says you can estimate tuition two years later the school district could come back and um charge you an adjustment if the tuition rate was certified higher I don't know if that's happened or not but I know that we calculated that 10% at being 900,000 so we're trying to keep that momentum going and so I think this year it was actually there was only 8853 that we could use for tuition Reserve I don't know that that's problem atic um in terms of itself because I don't think that the district ever really had an adjustment that high but you always want to take advantage of any way you can set yourself up for the unexpected things that could happen so at the end of the year the um let me make sure I'm saying the right thing here I put so much information capital reserve at the end of the year was 4.8 million the maintenance Reserve was 423,000 emergency Reserve was created way back when that sounded like a good thing to do because we know we always are faced with emergencies but the use of those funds was very very limited and then they expanded it I keep saying it seems like yesterday but it was probably more than five years ago that they said you can do it use it for security so you have 120,000 there and then this tuition Reserve is annual so the $1.8 million that you have at June of 23 represents two years and then you're budgeting one in this year and then that 883 will be available for the 26 budget so it's always two years ahead excuse me and then food service I just put that on there so you're aware of it again lots of Regulation with the NJ Department of Agriculture so over the pandemic a lot of districts and let me take a look look here um had subsidies and those subsidies you know the increase in the net position can only be used for kids who are eligible for the program but it it's not an issue in Branchburg so at the end of the year the unrestricted net position in the Food Service fund was 223,000 and again you use that to operate the program and to you're responsible for the equipment for the cafeterias and then the last piece of financial information or long-term liabilities they really don't impact the numbers that you see every month so that board secretary's report that you get are those numbers that I always put at the front um and there are some adjustments that we make for the audit so could be a little bit different and so serial bonds you had serial bonds outstanding they're being retired over their life along with the premiums that were issued at the same time they expire at the same time and then I guess it's now nine years ago the pension rules came out and so you're reflecting the PE pension liability you have no control over that each year you receive a bill for your annual contribution and that's paid and um that liability when it was first created was a number and then then the first three years it was fluctuating a lot and I think that's because the state had very big accounting firm um and act where calculating those amounts I think that it just took some adjusting in those first three years so it's gone up it's gone down for various reasons interest rates and everything else that they used to estimate the liability so at the end of June of 23 that's 5 million to 325 and that's for a very extended period of time so for anybody in the district who is in the PS pension program the actuaries say what's their age what's their expected life and they determine what it would cost to pay their pen the board share their pension throughout their lives so very long term compensated absences are a little less uh that's the unused second vacation time of the employees and that does not fluctuate much only if you have retirements or some one um meets the criteria so just want to remind you that the primary objective of an AED is to look at the financials and make sure that they're accurately stated New Jersey Department of Education has a lot of compliance requirements that they Place upon you and us to um make sure that things that they have put in place or happening and so most recently I think that would be the State Health Benefit program where um they wanted to achieve some savings and then beyond that if you spend more than $750,000 in federal Awards or state Awards and of course state aid is over that amount so you always have a state single audit there are compliance supplements that we have to find we have a matrix to determine which programs we can't audit the same programs three years in a row it has to be a cycle and it has to be based on risk certainly with the covid-19 grants they were higher risk only because they were new but if you go to an idea grant that you have every year and your program people understand it and know it there's much less risk that anything would um you know you wouldn't know the requirements and then in every school district report we had some general we've been saying this for the years of the pandemic that if you were subject to a desk review their review would be much more intense than the compliance supplements that we're required to look at and there were you know with the Department of Agriculture putting more emphasis on those federal funds and their control over different things it's very important that the district is reconciling the Food Service management companies reports with their records because they have program tools nonprogram tools and the allocation of what is part of the program and what isn't and I really do think that the food service companies work very well with the Auditors we go to County meetings we talk about things so we really try to be one big network of people helping each other understand the requirements and then um with covid Awards um it's really important to be drawing down those federal funds on a monthly basis if Poss possible so there were some federal grants that they may have been expended later in the year not everything is spent ratably but just to always be mindful of how much money is being spent on those grants and seeking the reimbursement as quickly as possible then we've never had audit recommendations and I just want well we haven't in a while depends um the first recommendation was about County Superintendent for a transfer it was only a $3,000 transfer I think it's just you know transition and so I really don't think that is a big deal but it's compliance so we included it as a recommendation and then we came to find that with a statement that was adopt implemented a few years ago where the schools information is included in the district's report and as Mr Rubin said tonight that oversight responsibility it's a little bit more more you know uh Bas when they saw it wanted to make sure that they had good numbers if they had to put budgeted numbers in for Student Activities accounts a little bit far removed from the operations of the district there were the schools were doing creating reports and so was the business office and so we came to a nice conclusion we talked about what made sense and so I think the schools are going to continue to prepare the records and when we say reconciling there's only a few reconciling items but it's important that you say okay if our number is 50,000 and the bank has 51 we know what the difference is so it's really not um a serious issue but it's certainly something it's a control that's in place and I think it's important for them to report back to the um to the business office so two recommendations but they're not bad recommendations and it truly has been a pleasure to serve in Branchburg so thank you you have any questions i' be happy to answer them thank you you're welcome thank you for that comprehensive report we appreciate all the time you and your team took to to look at the operation um of the district that's one of our district goals is to make sure that we're improving our fiscal operations so we appreciate your input before I forget I just want to remind everybody that tomorrow evening we will have the Harlem Wizards here um Mr Mater I believe you may be playing on our team okay um so I will be serving in the capacity of manager so I will make sure Mr Mater does a great job representing us uh but I want to thank the PTO I know there's a lot of work that goes into planning tomorrow so it's sure to be a great event the children love it um and it's actually a fun Friday night for me as well so that is my report thank you Mr Carpentier thank you okay next up is public comment on agenda items uh the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and school matters of community interest in support of this position the law establishes a period of public comment at every board meeting individuals wishing to speak must State their name and place of residence comments are limited to 3 minutes per person for a total of 30 minutes an individual may speak a second time after all others who wish to speak on the topic have been heard please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer and no participant May address or question board members individually all speakers are requested to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy rights of others whose legal rights may be affected please note while it is not the board's intention to stifle comment on matters of legitimate concern to the school Community the public should be aware that if their statements violate the rights of others under the law governing defamation or invasion of privacy they may face personal liability to the injured party if speakers are uncertain of the legal ramifications of their comments the board urges them to seek guidance beforehand from their own legal advisor anybody have any public comments on agenda items you're our wrestler good evening my name is Russ heighton and this is trevan heighton and uh we just wanted to stop in tonight to thank you for um letting him wrestle we had a great season um I believe it was the first time the school ever won the champ Championship as a team um in a long time or may it be ever I'm not sure of the details exactly um and he had a great year he had one loss and the kid he lost two he beat in the championship in the end so congratulations it was a great season and I just want to thank you for all the hard work you did to make it possible um we're super grateful and excited for next year in eighth grade and hopefully in high school so thank you for your time and your effort greatly appreciate it we had a great time and I can't thank all the staff as well the coaches the the teachers everybody that we came he had to come early and go to the office all everything went amazing so I just want to thank you nice to hear it's really nice to hear thank you conratulations go to States thank you thank you anybody else good okay we will close the first public comment we will move on to governance I have no report but we do have a few voting items we have one approval of minutes two approval of Hib investigative report three approval of Hib Bings report four approval of 2023 2024 uniform State memorandum of agreement between education and law enforcement and five approval of revised 2023 2024 School District calendar can I have a motion to move those items any questions or concerns yeah could you just clarify the Dr Chase the investigative report versus the findings report for us so the investigative report is the report that I present to you during executive session so you're accepting the report findings and then um the you would accept the voting on The Following board meeting do you remember how we used to have that table on the old agenda yeah okay so we don't have that table on there anymore we do it okay okay so that's thank you you're welcome no um as I said in my report it's a requirement for all school districts to put into place so it's something we do annually um with our local law enforcement thank you for that question this will be our first board did it yeah want us to do the roll call I think we should still do verbally do the roll call yes so roll call vote uh Miss fitzi yes Mr Mater yes Miss noo oh Miss No's not here miss sha yeah Mr Tuma yes Miss Joyce yes Mr Carpenter yes okay one down uh we're moving on to policy Mr Sai is not here um we have one voting item policy and regulations to be abolished can I have a motion to move this item any questions or comments about that can we have a roll call please okay it's open as a vote um Mr carpet here yes do you see do you see me we do not see it yet not yet okay there it is Mr Mater yes M fitti yes Miss Joyce yes Miss sha yes Mr Tuma yes okay the motion's passed thank you next up is curriculum and instruction Mr Mater do you have a report yes uh we met few weeks ago um discussed uh Friday before President's Day the wellbeing day for the staff offerings we also got went further detail about the uh potential needs in special education Staffing um that there's how many students can be each classroom why there going to work for additional uh for additional staff next year budget um we also discussed uh the Athletics to middle school and you know potentially finding ways to get coaching for different sports um cool thank you very much we have five voting items we have one conferences and travel two approval of student teacher three appr approval of field trips four approval of service project and five approval of contracted service can I have a motion to move these items any questions or comments about those can we have a roll call please okay Mr Carpenter yes Mr Mater yes Miss fitti yes Miss Joyce yes Miss sha yes Mr yes that's everybody yes push and passes thank you I know we're at now you have to do double duty you have to do that and the The Voice sorry if I'm moving good um next up is Personnel Mr Tuma do you have a report no report uh Personnel committee will meet next Thursday okay thank you very much we have a few voting items under Personnel we have approval of personnel two approval of revision of extra duty pay three approval of leave four approval of revision of personnel five approval of revision of RTI coordinators six approval of substitute seven approval of lead custodian stiens eight approval of revision of leave and nine approval of termination can I have a motion to move those items motion any questions or comments about those Yeah question on item nine can you give us some more information on the termination I I can't publicly oh okay but was it the one where we got the email yes okay R response to intervention so that is a strategy for um helping students who are struggling uh with evidence-based practices I'm sorry let me go back to where where are we and mine looks completely different than your so now I'm in a where is that under the um number five under person oh oh I'm sorry okay so um the district receives federal funds title one which is part of the esca grant so this is a program that the district has put in place for many many years and essentially what that requires is school districts to create programs that are going to remediate students who are struggling and one of the big points that needs to be noted in those programs is it has to be supplemental so it has to take place beyond the school day so these are sttip and positions for the coordinators who run that program sorry I didn't just generally gave you a definition of RTI none of us can go back anybody else can I have a roll call please Mr Carpenter yes Mr Mater yes M fitzi yes M Joyce yeah sh yes Mr T yes yes thank you next up is finance and Facilities Miss Joyce do you have a report I don't have a finance and Facilities committee report I have to get used to saying that instead of business it's more words um literation however um this is somewhat related so I would like to give a report on the referendum committee uh who met last night I am not officially on the committee but uh Mr Mater who is our chair was unable to be there so I got to serve in his place so I want to give the board a quick update on and the public uh an update on what was discussed um uh first just to catch everybody up the committee has only met once before for correct um and I was not at that meeting but that was when our bond Council presented to the committee the financial side of the uh potential referendum last night we met with the architect who spoke about the timeline um he talked about which parts need to be completed by what dates um while there are various options for these votes our architect offered either spring or fall of 2025 as reasonable choices uh the committee discussed the pros and cons of the timing and given that we have a lot of information gathering and decision making to do prior to the submission of our referendum to the state uh and that must be done uh seven months before we actually are going out for the vote um the committee deliberated asked a lot of questions and decided that we uh would eror on doing it later rather than earlier so we would have plenty of time to carefully consider everything and put everything in place before uh we went out for a referendum vote uh the next commit the next meeting of the referendum committee will be a review of the current long range facilities plan with recommendations from the architect on which items should be included in the referendum and which will need to be paid for out of our regular budget through our Capital funds um so that's my update on the meeting last night and I just want to point out a couple things on the agenda for tonight um first actually I wanted to point out something that I'm sure everybody uh uh Miss mantel ref referred to it um has seen today I'm sure that the uh the school uh state aid numbers are out came out today and we did have an increase of just under $400,000 just uh 11.6% increase so we're going to be getting 388,000 plus from the state this year in state aid so while that's good news um I'm sure when you really think about the cost of everything right now it's still a drop in the bucket um of what we're going to need to educate our kids going forward um the committee uh I also want to point out excuse me on the agenda that there are uh we're accepting tonight uh some grants from the state to pay for some of our um facilities work that we're doing so we're very happy that our new ba is able to you know is on top of things and is getting all the money that um we obviously are all spending on in our taxes to the state we're getting some of that back for for the schools which is fantastic and the business the finance and Facilities committee will be meeting um next Thursday so I'll have a report for the next board meeting from there that's my thank you very much can can I just bring um attention to item nine and Micha you just asked a question about the RTI so you're going to see that we have received additional allocations of title one that's the funding from the federal government I have no understanding or uh def reason why we got increased funding but we're very happy that we got an additional 10,638 to run those programs and $40 for PD which we probably can't pay for anything with $40 but one maybe thank you very much we have some voting items we have one bill list two acceptance of 20122 2023 audit and auditor management report three acceptance of New Jersey J school's Development Authority grant for approval of resolution and agreement for participation in coordinated transportation services five approval of 2024 2025 Somerville High School tuition rate six approval of donation from the Megan Rose Bradley Foundation seven acceptance of section 15 Grant state of New Jersey schools Development Authority eight uh capital reserve withdrawal and nine approval of amendment of fiscal year 2024 Esa Grant funds can I have a motion to move those items any questions comments I'll make a comment about the the tuition rate as I do every year um Terry wants to hear what I have to say um I do always almost always vote no in Somerville when it comes to the tuition rate because I just feel that we're so under represented and sort of just at their uh at their Mercy when it comes to how much we have to pay I've seen that number uh grow tremendously in in my time on the board at a far greater rate than than our budget is allowed to to raise but what happens is we're sending fewer students they want the amount of money to basically be the same they are under they can't just come up with the dollar amount they're under serious constraints about how that that number has to um be formulated um but it sticks in my craw to you know to watch it go up thousands and thousands of dollars um over not a very long amount of time so just so that you're all aware I do routinely uh uh vote no and and listen to the nine yeses um I I generally vote Yes while we're here just because we have to keep the you know obviously the wheels turning but I just wanted you guys to be aware thank you I just wanted to mention the Megan Rose Bradley Foundation I think I don't know the past few agenda I've been reading your name so thank you for all all you're doing for our schools and all the donations that you uh have coming in anybody else okay just a question on voting if I there's no way to vote no on one item right so I would have to vote no on everything I could then put it in a comment section that you voted no for something okay peria Sor is that better can I have a roll call please okay Mr Carpenter yes Mr Mater yes Miss fitti yes Miss Joyce yes Miss Shaw yes Mr Tuma no on number five yes on everything else okay thank thank you very much that brings us to our second public comment on any topic anybody who wishes to speak on anything at this time is welcome to come up good you're the only one here no good okay moving on to H boardon reports I think Kristen you kind of just gave yeah that was it that was it that was What mattered okay um PTO the t-shirts are very nice this year so are there still tickets available for tomorrow or is it told out notching I'll stink you in Charlie just come in with that but then that's an ethic just call me and I'll put you on face put you on my phone we'll broadcast it okay next up is Somerset County ad Services we have not met since my last report uh New Jersey school boards I have no report that brings us to Branchburg Township liaison no report uh bef Mr Desai is not here and finally Branchburg cpag I do have a cpag report so I um I attended the town Hall uh CAG town hall meeting on Tuesday evening um uh M Anderson Emma said Hower wow that goes back um Miss Anderson and her team of fantastic uh uh uh I'm G to get everybody's name wrong so I'm not even going to try but um her Fantastic Team gave a wonderful presentation I encourage everyone out there to go check it out um they spoke up to us for about 45 five minutes um and and really taught everybody what is involved in um the special education process identifying specialed students um or I should say identifying students with needs um special needs and you know what's included in that and what's not so it was really educational I think for folks who don't have children um in the programs that they can understand exactly what goes into this process it's very detailed process that takes a lot of work on behalf of our staff um everyone it follows a lot of uh legal rules as well and they went over a bunch of that so it was very very informative in a very short time um they did record the meeting and it is posted so if you go to the district website um you can find it under it's uh town hall meeting recordings present yeah under what's the thing at the top CAG oh under organizations right I don't know there Google Branchburg cpeg right here there you go Google Branchburg cpeg and you'll get right there but if you if you get a chance um it's well worth spending the I don't even know if it was 45 minutes it might have been a little less than that but spending the time to watch uh the work that our staff is doing uh it's wonderful that's my report thank you very much so that brings us to the end of public session we are going to have to reconvene our executive session for student matter for a student matter um can I have a motion to close public session thank you very much we get five minut break yeah we will get a five minute break do we have to do we have to vote on that do do we vote on that motion [Laughter] I not a fan you're gonna be eating at 10 o' the delay like well first of all I can't see it really if you just use the arrows you're just clicking for and I was able to C