we're good okay okay good evening everyone and welcome to the cwell West cwell Board of Education meeting it's the public budget hearing happening today Monday May 6 20124 tonight the board met an executive session at approximately 6:30 p.m. in room 105 at James calwell high school 265 Westville Avenue the purpose of that meeting was to discuss Personnel litigation miscellaneous and old business matters the meeting has been advertised and is in compliance with the open public meeting act and njsa 10 4-6 also known as the Sunshine Law the matters discussed will be made public when confidentiality is no longer required and formal action pursuant to said discussion shall take place only at a meeting to which the public has been invited tonight the public budget hearing is going to be is being live streamed here from the James cwell high school cafeteria the Board of Education will welcome all Community questions and con comments concerning the public budget hearing here in person at James cwell high school cafeteria the cwell West cwell Board of Education public budget hearing portion of this meeting is now happening at 7:07 p.m. this meeting is in compliant with the open public meetings act and njsa 10 col 4-6 also known as the Sunshine Law notices have been sent to the progress in calwell New Jersey The Star Ledger in Newark New Jersey and tap into West Essex notices have also been posted at the Board of Education business office in the Harrison School building 104 Grey Street in West Caldwell and have been delivered to the clerks of the burrow of Caldwell and Township of West calwell for posting Brian can you please take the role yes student representative meline Alberta Miss D martini here miss Lindy Jefferson here miss Ma here Mr dimola here miss Gro here so we have five voting members present we have a quum great can we just rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands Nation God indivisible with Li and justice for Brian are there any Communications for the board there were none okay thank you okay so we'll go to the superintendent report I just want to wish all the teachers a great week for this week Teacher Appreciation I sent everyone a staff to email this morning and wish them well and um made a reference to Mr John bonjovi so I hope everyone appreciat it great um okay president's report I'm going to hand it over to Brian to do the public public budget hearing but also on behalf of the Board of Education we want to wish our teachers a wonderful teacher appreciation week it's kind of sad that we have to designate just a week for them we appreciate our teachers here in the calwell West Caldwell School District every single day our children spend more time with them in a day between September and June than they do with us they are invaluable to us we love and appreciate them wholeheartedly so I hope that they are spoiled rotten this week by their students and by their families um of their schools and at home also would like encourage to encourage everyone that next week is the gcms production of your good man Charlie Brown tickets went on sale last Friday there's $7 a ticket the performances our next Friday evening May 17th at 6:00 p.m. Saturday May 18th at 1 and Sunday May 19th at 1 the kids are working so hard um it's going to be adorable and you can be in the comfort of the brandle brand new renovated gcms Auditorium which if you haven't seen it looks absolutely beautiful so please go out and support our kids it's going to be worth it and that being said um it looks like Brian's going to get started with our budget hearing so we'll move I guess we could just turn well thank you um I'm Brian McCarthy I'm the school business administrator and the board secretary and I'm going to take about 15 minutes tonight to present the 2024 2025 fiscal year 25 fy2 school budget and I keep a similar format uh every year so some of you may have seen something like this in the past I always start off my budget presentations by explaining what exactly budget is and it's nothing other than a plan of the district's um spending and their revenue for the for the upcoming uh fiscal year and just so you know how it works uh in our district and many other districts this process actually started in October and we have every different department uh and head will uh give me uh detailed budget information and these uh these requests will roll up into our our budget numbers and we have a zero based budget so this is why sometimes you'll see changes in different programs year year in uh year-over-year because it's really based on what our forecast and needs are for that year and again it's it's a it's a it's our best it's a living document we try to adhere to the document but it's our best plan for the the upcoming year I wanted to preface uh the budget presentation by by talking about some of the challenges that are facing not only uh cwell West cwell but other New Jersey public school districts and I I will tell you that you know fortunately we're we're in really good shape we we do a lot of Ford planning um what I'm going to tell you about is not something that's new to us so districts are under since 2011 uh the statute is that we can only raise revenue by 2% without going out to a special vote with the public uh and and so that's something that we have to live with this year we're actually under the cap we're able to go 1.8% but that much said on the re on the expense part of our budget we're going up um 3 3% on salaries and other um costs uh we are going up health benefits the last two years we had 16% 16% um rise in health benefits and a 10% Rises uh in the health Ben for this year and so for many districts you've heard this obviously when you hear the math of this it's not sustainable so in the federal government they often talk about the fiscal cliff and I I say you know well what does that really mean I guess it's not really good if you go off a cliff usually you don't you don't do very well um for us the federal government can borrow money so that's how they live with spending more than they actually take in as a school district we can't borrow so we have to live within our means good thing so so we have to balance our budget um so we're we we're look with the eye of what is coming forward we plan we planned accordingly so what we've been able to do this year to get to our 1.8% uh tax lity increase we streamlined and I say what's the streamlining mean it means Cost Containment so we've looked at various programs across our budget and we reduced things where we could so one of the things that we did did was we brought some of our teachers that were um acting as instructional coaches back into the classrooms um we didn't actually it's a 4.2% reduction uh in full-time equivalent salaries uh there will be no layoffs in the districts because we're able to um through um through retirements and um uh we were able to move the the teachers back into into into the classrooms and and again no no reduction of force we we uh we lesson this or we're going to stop uh spending on the smart academy and the smart academy was a program that was initiated really out of um a couple years ago uh mostly with Federal money and we we we started spending some local funds so we're going to we're going to pull back the smart spending we are reducing slightly our supply budgets um a slight increase a decrease in our required maintenance of facilities um our technology budgets uh we've done a very good job in the last couple years with our onet toone initiative so we're largely supplied with Chromebooks and laptops we're still had that some of that in the budget but not to the same extent we had the last couple years and we're also looking to uh improve uh the costs in our in our technology uh initiative these numbers are kind of small but I think you can see them if you look this is like a six-year look or at least a comparison so although we've slightly reduce some spending we still have a robust if you look at spending in instruction regular instruction we're still over about $2 million higher than we were six years ago uh our in the instruction for um Regular instruction for supplies we're still around 600,000 we were much higher the last couple years you saw like 7 to $900,000 numbers and again I'll go back and saying a lot of our computers they're they're supplies so that's all our our one toone initiative would have been in those lines we have our textbooks are still um you know about the same that we've had the last couple years you'll know we have more digital textbooks than we actually have uh paper textbooks but that is is still you know robust spending on textbooks improve instruction we have um we still are spending a um a large amount of money to improve um you know the um the the test scores in the district and we still have a large effort um and team uh in place to for that endeavor staff training if you'll notice where we were we're back to say fiscal 20 and fiscal 21 levels um or even 22 so we had a large jump the last two years and much of this was money that was covid related in addition I put a footnote on the bottom here what happened is we had so much of this esff money which is basically the covid money that we're able to spend um some of those funds in areas that we would have done out of local funds that we could to help uh bolster some of our curriculum spending all right again these are small but I'll explain is if you look on the left side this is our operating budget our total operating budget is 56,600 539 on the left side uh where you see the green green that's our Revenue our Revenue mainly comes from the tax levy so of our $56 million $51 million $984 come from the tax levy which is from West cwell and calwell we receive about $3.6 million in state aid uh we were up 334,000 from last year and um this was this was you know we were I was pleased to get this money I will tell you that the last six years we were the beneficiaries of the state funding re form act so there was a big realignment of state aid we were fortunate that we were on the on the plus side because you had other districts in New Jersey um that were losing aid over the last six years in on the same um proportion I don't expect going forward we're going to have additional um state aid will be really tied to our enrollment as I told the board if we have a we have a large increase we'll get money for new students and if we lose students we'll probably have some you know our our Aid will be decreased uh we have Interest Bank interest is slightly higher um because rates are now 5% as opposed to zero and so again our total operating budget is 56,600 th000 our expenses on the right side and again this is just a quick summary of our expenses we have approximately $33 million in salaries uh we have 30 um 10,787 th000 employee benefits if you'll notice we are up 11 .6% in health benefits last year I said 10% is actually 11.6 the number and between our 56 million if you just do a quick add there 33 so about $44 million of our $56 million operating budget is salaries and health benefits so it's a large portion of where we spend the other two funds that run that round out our budget are it's called fund 20 which is special Revenue the district regularly rece applies and receives uh federal grants um Ida is one of the grants it stands for the IND individual disabilities Education Act and we're budgeting 541000 um excuse me um for uh this year and this money is directly subsidized subsidizes are out of District tuition we also received Title One grants they used to be called uh No Child Left Behind and this is federal money that's targeted uh or given to schools that helps uh uh promote after school tutoring um and and and education related services to support that that those types of of of of of supports finally uh down here you'll notice that our ARP Esser last year this was our last tranch of the covid related funds and we have 80 ,000 left that we have to spend by September 30th and then that'll be the last of the uh three different programs for the co funds they called that was called the American Rescue plan that's what the AR acronym stands for uh the final fund here on the bottom is our debt service so this is a fund they call fund 40 this is a special fund here it's we we allocate where we have our we pay our debt service um so these are some of our we talked about the referendum we have some debt rolling off next year we hope to replace that's in fun 40 that's our debt service fund this is this slide here uh is a comparison of all the different programs again if you take that 56 uh, 600,000 and you slice it to all the different programs from regular program instruction uh special education co-curricular all the different programs here's the difference we have between last year's budg budget and this year's budget and they may be too small to see all those things here but I will look on the bottom right corner in the green you again you'll notice that our salaries are 59% of our budget and then our employee benefits are 20% so again about 79% of our budget I gave you the numbers before are salaries salaries and employee benefits this is just a slide where I made a note of the different programs and I told you before it's a zerob base budget so we're going to see differences based on need in this case here what I did was at the bottom I said if we they're all expenses so I put in red means we're spending more and green is not Revenue but we're spending less than uh last year so SP education we're spending about 111,000 more that's literally the the difference in the projected salary increases regular programs we're down slightly because we're up on we're up on uh the salary increases that are built into the budget but we also have you know 4.2 less FTE tuition we're up 100,000 and this is just basically increased into forecasted tuition tuition unfortunately is another one of those budget items that often goes up uh goes much higher than the 2% you know sometimes it goes as high as 10% and we have to absorb that cost and and sometimes we don't have a lot of say because the state um allows the private schools a certain amount of increase every year staff training uh is uh down 284,000 I told you about that before uh in uh operations and maintenance it says we're down $846,000 last year we had a lot of excess Surplus so I remember if you remember last year I told you we had we were doing a lot of projects there one-offs around the district which we continue to um to complete and that's why you have a large uh difference in the in the operations and maintenance budget if you look at the employee benefits and health insurance we're up 850,000 $847,000 compared to last year equipment is um reduction in Data Center Technology things that we use to support and to uh build out our infrastructure in our technology efforts uh again and the capital outlay we had a uh a parking lot we hoped to do or we planned last year to do over at Wilson we decided to reallocate the money to a different place in the district so that's what this slide is here so everything pretty much over 100,000 these are some of the things that we accomplish uh this year we substantially upgraded the cameras and the door access systems um in the district so right now we have we have card readers um and badges access at every door uh we have cameras that that now are operable within the district so it's uh that's been completed we did a a refresh for the Grover Cleveland Auditorium so I don't know if you've been there but it looks a lot better than it it had uh been uh two years ago we're not quite done we we still are going to finish the technology piece of that and that's going to come out of our main Reserve was something we budgeted last year but it takes time uh we still don't have those plans we're hoping to get that maybe out to bid this summer uh we have almost if you've been in the back here we're almost done with the tennis courts they finished uh the paving it uh the fence should go up quickly and they should be uh putting the top coat on hopefully it's done by June 1st Harrison renovation if You' seen Harrison there was a lot of a lot of stuff going on in the district so we are largely complete with the uh the renovation um if you've driven by there you'll notice that there's a new vestule that's going up uh we're going to have uh heat and air conditioning in the gym when it's done we finished the administrative offices we have six new classrooms that are done and um just again to to note this renovation was largely financed from um a million dollars from the arbesser grant that's that comes off in addition to those things that facilities we uh we we had a number of purchases in FY 24 for uh Chromebooks and prometheum boards and we uh we continue to require uh we will continue this is for this coming year so we still despite the fact that we have brought back some of this expenditure for facilities we still are spending above average for the required maintenance of our of our facilities and for the masonry for instance at Grover Cleveland and Lincoln these are projects that we're hoping to include as part of our referendum our budget continues to support the Arts um so we have nothing has changed from the levels of spending uh for Grover Cleveland High School for the spring and fall Productions and again we we were making sure that we always have enough uh devices that work for a onetoone initiative tax impact it's what people care about if you look at the difference between uh fy2 24 fiscal year 24 and a new one uh which is fy2 these numbers on the left they're just small but the total tax increase is 1.8% and then if you look below that our debt service the debt is actually our payments are slightly less than last year so that's increased by 1.61% these are the TA the net taxable valuations so between cwell you see last year to this year we're up slightly it's a billion 50 from a billion 44 uh West Colo we're 2.3 billion and they about two two 2 billion 350 for West cwell slightly higher than last year these are the tax rates so for cwell we are up 3.2 8% so 3.2 cents um for the cell uh tax rate School tax rate and for West cell or up uh 1.88% 1.9% and for the average taxpayer this what it means so for cwell for the average uh assessment per 100 is $32 so you have a if your house is assessed at 500,000 um you're going to be up about 150 in taxes for school taxes for West cwell if you're you're assessing said 500,000 you're going to be up slightly under $100 excuse me uh $100 so 18.8 per 100,000 as of tomorrow I did get it on today the userfriendly budget should be on our website all right uh we are um I've already put it in there but Carrie is out today so I'll probably put it on the website myself tomorrow if it's not there and we thank you okay thanks than you does the board have any questions on the budget for Brian at this time nope so BR the only thing I'm going to ask you Brian if you could just quickly just share with our group here and anyone who's watching from home just a little bit about our relationship with shared services and the services that we share with the towns to be conservative with other costs around the district sure so we uh we actively um we meet uh couple times a year and and part of our meeting is to make sure that we are talking about things that we can do to offset expenses between the towns so we share we work with the DPW and we share um we share uh salt we share Landscaping um we're looking to go out to bid with them for garbage removal uh the next time the your contract comes up which is January so we we have it on calend and make sure we talk be part of that we share with the town um some of our security so it's an informal where the police are here um so we don't as you know we don't have uh school's resource officer or Security on staff but we have informal Arrangement um with um with the police to make sure that they're patrolling our facilities and at the same time uh we also work with uh West C Recreation so they it's sign of they they get to use our facilities um they get to use our fields and so we do things that we can to make sure that things that we would spend otherwise we can we could share with community so it's an ongoing effort and part of our discussions each time we meet are what things can we do in addition to to off to help each other thanks Bri okay so I'm going to open up public comments on the budget presentation only um public participation shall be governed by the following the participant must be recognized by the presiding officer and must preface comments by an announcement of their name and address statements are to be limited to three minutes duration and may only address the item on the agenda which tonight is the budget uh participant may speak no more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard and all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer boards use the public comment period of the meeting as an opportunity to listen to Citizen concerns but not to debate issues or enter into a question and answer across examination between the public and individual members be aware that not all issues brought before the board this evening will be resolved boards May respond to public comment by seeking additional information or by delegating the authority to investigate the issue to the superintendent or his designate the presiding officer May interrupt a warn or terminate a participants comments if they exceed the allotted allotted time or are objectively obscene participants may be civil liable for any obscene defamatory or slanderous statements made during public comment so does does anyone want to get up and ask any questions about the budget oh good written down that's great that's good that's great thanks L you're okay okay good okay so I just want to before we take a roll call on the budget I just want to on half of the behalf of the board Brian to say thank you you're a wonderful board secretary a wonderful ba you've been so wonderful I hope that the public feels that the budget process since this board has been together has been much more transparent um Brian's been a large partner in that in ensuring that you guys have access to it it's your doll you have the right to see it ask questions on it and to the both of you thank you for being here and for asking those questions because it holds us all accountable which is really important for our district um I also want to say that I'm just really very proud of the board I it's very difficult like one of the biggest things we do is pass the tax levy and it's such a difficult decision because we're trying to balance like being fiscally responsible to the taxpayers of both townships as well as trying to move the district forward and being captive the 2% is difficult for us sometimes uh last year we took our bank cap this year we tried to be merciful to the taxpayer come a little bit under the 2% and be able to sustain the things we're doing I think that if anybody Googles or is paying attention to the districts around the state particularly scary enough in our own County there are many that are laying off teachers there are many that are under going under the um scope of a state monitor we never want to be a district that has either of those things happening so um we just appreciate everyone's patience with us um you're coming to the meetings asking questions we're trying to be as transparent as we can be I'm and trying to make the best decisions the one thing we always stand by together the five of us is to say nothing taken away from children right programs opportunities for children that's where we're focused if we can slim down in other areas so that the children are not affected that's what we're going to do and get more creative with the resources that we have in District instead of pulling from the outside just trying to reutilize what we what's going on inside okay so that's just my two cents anyone else have any comments or anything okay so then um we're going to move to the vote y so I'll read uh the adoption of the 2425 budget resolved that the Callo West cwell Board of Education in the county of Essex adopts a 2024 2025 School District budget this budget meets the requirements for providing the New Jersey student learning standards and consists of the Appropriations listed below tax tax in Authority whereas the district has taxing authority of 1.8% over the prior year which totals $919,000 180 therefore be it resolved that the Calo West col Board of Education proposed 2024 2025 tax levy is 51,9 184,185 rise over the prior year travel and related expense reimbursement 2425 whereas School District policy 6471 School District travel and njac 6A colon 23 a-7 do3 provides that the Board of Education shall establish in the annual school budget a maximum expenditure amount that may be allotted for such travel and expense reimbursement for the 2425 school year and whereas the maximum expenditure amount allotted for travel and expense reimbursement for the 2324 school year was $40,000 now therefore be it resolved that the Caldwell West calwell Board of Education hereby establishes the school district travel maximum for the 20124 2025 school year not to exceed $40,000 this resolution to take effect immediately okay and may I have a second I will second it okay Brian whenever you're ready okay Miss D Martini yes M Lindy Jefferson yes Miss Mack yes Mr dimola yes M Gro yes 5 motion carried great and that being said since this was just a public budget hearing I'd like to make a motion for the board to exit the public budget hearing and enter back into executive session at approximately 7:36 p.m. I'll make a motion and can I have a second a second and Brian if you would all in favor I all against nay any extensions motion carried okay great our next meeting is we're going to be at Wilson School the traveling troop and I believe we are at it's the 20th and the 28th so 20th is a Monday 28th is the Tuesday because we're closed on Monday for Memorial Day so happy Mother's Day Liz everyone come see Charlie Brown and we'll see everybody on the 20th okay okay