e everybody's here flag disappear the echo is really bad tonight it's really bad okay we're we're just waiting for Jill two seconds thank you Mike look at you good job Mike you must have been a Boy Scout okay good evening everyone thanks for coming um in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act chapter 231 pl1 1975 announcement I wish to announce that the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affects their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the school district of the cadams board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted in the board administrative offices sent to the clerks of chattam burough and chattam Township the library of the chatam The chatam Courier The Daily Record The Star Ledger and tap Peter would you mind taking role sure M Ross here m m Allen here m alandro here M Kenny here Mr Ryan here Mr Smith here Ms Weber here Dr Zang here and M Chelli here nine president and count perfect please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance if you're able to standed flag FL the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all perfect thank you so much for being here um I don't have anything specific to discuss at this time a few things that we're going to talk about in board business so I'm going to pass it on over to Dr Lusa for the superintendent report thank you Miss chiarelli so two items one quick one not as quick first one is the calendar for next school year the policy committee met on Wednesday night of last week uh to discuss that calendar they did not recommend making any significant changes to the calendar uh as it relates to um school closures and that sort of thing they uh recommend looking at the 25 26 Calendar to start implementing or discussing potential changes to that calendar uh so we'll do that in upcoming meetings but there are two minor adjustments on the calendar for next year that I have in front of you that we have on the agenda the first one is to add a a day for staff after the school year and for students uh so if you look at June June 16th is a Monday that would be a staff only day and the timing should be good because of course that'll be the you know the two months ahead of the reconfiguration of some of our hour grade levels and then the other adjustment is to um essentially flip Columbus Day and Election Day from the standpoint of professional development so we would have students in school with us on Columbus Day but on Election Day which is a general election and we have a couple of different polling locations in the district we would close schools for students on that day and have professional development going for staff um so that is the calendar that uh we're recommending later on in the agenda and then the only other thing I want to mention uh with respect to calendar is this year's calendar we still have two days left for inclement weather school closings uh it's a little bit premature to I think alter the calendar formally um but we would if we get through spring break and we don't have any uh unusual weather events that cause us to close school then we would uh have school be closed on the Thursday and Friday before Memorial Day weekend like we customarily do uh so that's something that I may have to communicate out prior to our next board meeting because our next board meeting doesn't take place until April 29th perfect okay thank anybody have any questions for Dr Lusa okay moving on Peter for the well next bullet for me is the uh preliminary budget which we are required to adopt and submit to the county uh after at this meeting uh so I'll just ask you to make your way into the seats and I'll move forward yes it's not you yes do a all right thank thank you um so the policy committee met on Wednesday night so did the finance committee and uh we discussed where we are with the budget it's been a more challenging budget than we've had to put together in probably five or so years I'll I'll explain why and um tell you what the uh finance committee is recommending uh at the current time and I might have to move back here to make this work oh there it is right then I might have to move feel like Phil donu it's still not working there we go all right this is wonderful okay so I'll start with the big the big items the broad trends that are affecting us and then I'll move into our um expenditures and where the pressure is coming from from a cost standpoint then get into the revenues and then finally the the decisions and the proposed budget uh so first of all broad Trends on the enrollment side we are in the midst of kindergarten enrollment right now we've registered 213 students for next school year these are all of our current grade levels today K through 12 and of course in kindergarten we always bump up into first grade uh when we welcome more students who are in private kindergarten settings now uh but you can see on the left side of the the dotted line uh the average class size in our grades 1 through five is 246 and at the 612 level we are closer to 300 still so as has been happening the past number of years uh every year that goes by we're kind of losing about 50 students because we're graduating closer to 300 students and you can see grades 9 through 12 right now uh and then we're bringing in closer to 250 students so that Trend will continue even though we are stabilized if not ticking slightly upward K5 inflation is still a challenge for us uh the state calculates the CPI for transportation on an 18-month look back the current CPI for transportation is 5.81% you'll see in a little bit that we are forecasting our transportation costs to go up a little shy of that and that is with the expectation that our providers will renew their routes at that level and not uh decline any of our routes and we did last year have a couple of routes declined where we then had to go out to bid uh and then the national CPI is standing at 3.2% on the 12-month look back right now so obviously just those two numbers alone are greater than 2% which is what the tax levy can increase by uh not withstanding other uh waivers and adjustments I'm going to talk about school funding a little bit state school funding because this has been in the news a lot if you've been watching the news and listening or reading you know that this is the first year that New Jersey has fully funded its uh funding formula uh really probably the first time New Jersey has ever fully funded a funding formula uh because the preceding formulas before this one were not fully funded either which is what caused this one to be created uh so cifra is our current Formula uh it was enacted in 2008 under Governor Corzine and the then legislature uh but because we had a financial crisis right as Governor Christy was entering office uh Governor Christie abandoned the formula and never applied it in his time in office and then when Governor Murphy came in uh he continued the same until 2018 and you might remember in 2018 Steve Sweeney then Senate President had kind of a showdown there was a budget a state shutdown at least a threat of one uh in late June which is when the legislature has to enact the budget for the following year and a law that's called S2 which you would have heard in the news if you've been following this uh took effect or at least was enacted uh and S2 the the purpose of S2 was to return New Jersey to cfra and run cfra according to how it was meant to be run uh the reason why it hadn't been run in 10 years and the reason why the legislature at the time created a seven-year ramp to to get to cifra is because whenever the formula is run there are some districts that lose money and some districts that gain money so cifra is designed to account for the students that are in a school district at a given point in time the enrollment of the school district the the demographic of the school district so theoretically at least if you run cifra and one school district has lost 10% of its kids in the previous two years and another district has gained 10% enrollment in those two years the one that's gaining in the enrollment is going to get more funding and the one that is losing enrollment is going to get less so the reason why we have been receiving additional state aid every year in the past seven years including this one is because of S2 it's because of the the return to cifra uh not really return but the the Fidelity to cifra for the first time ever and this year we receive uh 376,000 more in additional funding so I just I'll explain this because it is important and it will uh there are a lot of questions about what happens next so I'm just going to go through in quick like like in a in a boil down four slide uh thing here uh how the formula works so the first thing that happens the first thing that New Jersey does is it determines every State's adequa every District's adequacy budget so the state defines adequacy as what a school district would need to meet the Constitutional Mandate of a thorough and efficient education the bare minimum and of course in places like chadam we exceed the bare minimum so the minimum for examp example for a high school diploma is three years of science three years of mathematics most of our students take more than three years of science or three years of mathematics or two years of World Language most of our students take more than two years of World Language but it sets it it determines what is the minimum cost to educate a school district students according to the state minimum standards and it does that by looking at the total enrollment so obviously it takes more to educate 10,000 kids than 1,000 kids but it also looks at the grade levels that are present in a district uh so it it considers an elementary student like one but it considers a middle school student as I think 1.05 and a high school student is 1.1 student because it's more uh costly to educate a student in the high school than it is an elementary school and then it looks at the composition of the student body in terms of atrisk students and it defines atrisk students as student Run free and reduced lunch students who speak uh language other than English as their primary language uh and special education students students who are receiving uh special education support so that's adequacy one number for every district is the adequacy budget step two is the state determines if a community can meet its adequacy obligation ation and they call that local fair share and they determine or the state determines local fair share based on two items and two items only the income in a given community and the value of property the income comes from state income tax returns and the value of property comes from the county extractive ratables which we talked about this fall because the the the county extract of ratables is not dependent upon an individual municipality uh revaluation or reassessment process so if uh you know if one municipality hasn't assessed its property in 25 years that municipality doesn't get off kind of scot-free while another municipality like chattan buror recently uh reassesses its value and of course the value goes up if it hadn't been done in 25 years the county uh and the state of New Jersey have a way to normalize property values and that's what goes into determining local fair share so then the state looks at those two numbers adequacy your District's adequacy budget and your local fair share and cifra is designed to make up the difference between the two only about half of the districts in New Jersey receive uh what's called Equalization Aid Equalization Aid is what Bridges the Gap in between adequacy and local fair share and then another half of districts and of course we're in this half do not receive Equalization Aid because our local fair share is greater than our adequacy budget so if you uh well I'll get one more slide I'm skipping ahead so then aside from Equalization Aid so that's the the bulk of cifra is Equalization Aid regardless of how much a community a school district's local fair share is regardless of where it stand it stands cifra also says that the state New Jersey has an obligation to provide some level of support to every school district in New Jersey because every school district has to contend with certain categories of funding and they're called categories um regardless of their wealth or their local fair share and this is called categorical Aid so categorical Aid stands apart from Equalization Aid and categories include and these are our three primary uh categories where we receive funding special education transportation and security so this is what we look like according to the the state funding formula our adequacy budget is about 58 million so the state says to educate every CH chatam kid to the minimum standard established by the state of New Jersey should cost $58 million can chadam afford $58 million according to the state chadam can more than afford $58 million according to the state the income and the property value here would lead to a local fair share a local burden if you will of $132 million therefore there's zero Equalization aid but on the categorical Aid side and this is where S2 has come into play for us these are the numbers that have increased every year for the past seven years for us and just to give you an idea when our Aid was slashed in 2009 when Governor chrisy first entered office and there was a financial crisis our total categorical Aid was in the $400,000 range so we were hammered and we've been made whole first by Governor Christie who restored Aid as he moved forward in his term and then now S2 and Governor Murphy have increased the aid since then so our categorical Aid STS about 5.1 million and you could see almost 80% of that 75% of that something like that is in special education category all right so that's cifra and now that it's been fully enacted or fully funded there are questions and you will see this in the news too especially uh at this time of the year and really probably through the state budget is ratified uh there are a lot of districts that feel like cifra is inadequate that when cifra was adopted in 2008 it really didn't account for security costs the way every district is now spending money on security uh some communities believe there's too much um variation and bumpiness in local fair share because property value can increase somewhat dramatically from year to year depending on what's going on in the market so there's a lot of talk now about what's going to happen next with um with cifra and we don't know but we will see in the coming years so that's the state aid side in terms of our own budget right now what we're dealing with this year uh the biggest cost driver or the biggest two cost drivers in this budget are special education costs and when I use the term extraordinary special ed Education costs I'm referring primarily to outof district tuitions for an increasing number of students who we need to place out of District based on their needs the tuition rates of those institutions that are approved by the state uh and on top of that some of the extraordinary services that some of those students might require and they may include things like onetoone power professional support nursing services at all times uh there's a whole Bevy of costs that are associated with educating some of our most vulnerable kids health benefit premiums are going up 10% and I'm going to go through these in greater detail in a second uh inflation like I said is 32 transportation is up over five and then our salaries are up over three which is a result of collectively bargained agreements as well as the fact that we're incorporating some of the positions that we've been funding with federal dollars the last couple of years and that we think those positions are critical moving forward in the budget we can't let go of them they're mainly positions that that relate to special education costs and clinicians who help our students on the mental health side so a closer look at out of District tuition um we're going up we project about a million dollars uh that's number one because of a greater volume of students who need to be uh in a setting that that gives them more support and also because ironically even though our board is confined to a 2% tax levy cap uh approved private schools for students with disabilities have no cap and they can set their tuition at any rate they want and I just did a quick look over the weekend at the three uh schools that are approved by the state that are the ones where we have the greatest number of placements and you can see that the increase for one of them is double digits the other two are north of 5% uh and there's nothing that we can do about that the state permits that and on top of this it's not uncommon that these same institutions will rebu Us in the middle of next year year after this budget is set with a higher increase and that also is permitted uh by the state health benefits wise we have uh two different things happening at once so the first thing is that as you all know we're in the shift that's the school health insurance fund uh we've been doing well by the shift we've been in the shift I think six years now uh most years we have beaten the rate increase of the state health benefits plan uh but there's always an occasional year and this year is one of them where we are not beating the State Health Benefit Plan increase the reason why that matters is that the state health benefits plan um if it increases the state of New Jersey permits a board of education to increase its health insurance recoup the cost of its health insurance increase by the same amount of as the state uh at least above 2% so if our health insurance rate was going up 6% uh the state says okay you can you can exercise taxing Authority in the amount of the dollar amount between a 2% increase and a 6% increase it gives the Board of Education a waiver to essentially pass that cost on to taxpayers because we're above 6% we do not we only achieve the the waiver up until 6% and that which Falls Beyond 6% we get no waiver so the only way to account for that is to either reduce items in the budget um well to reduce items in the budget there's no other way to account for that the other issue that that is affecting us is something we've talked about many times and that's chapter 44 so in the midst of the pandemic in the spring of 2020 uh the governor and the legislature enacted a law called chapter 44 and that law created two health plans that that every school district employee in the state has the option to enter and any new employee hired in any school district after January January 1 of 2021 must enter and the idea and and the you know the the what they were selling was that these plans were less expensive and therefore would save everyone money we of course pointed out that they weren't less expensive they were actually the same cost as the plans that we were offering at the time uh but any employee who placed in one of those plans no longer contributes uh percentage of the premium for their health insurance instead they make a different contribution that's based on their salary and the net effect for every single employee who goes into this one of these plans the njp is the one where 99% of our staff go uh they save a couple of thousand dollars on average couple thousand dollar in their health insurance contribution and the board picks up the couple thousand dollars that they save so this is not negotiable the way the law is written is that this is what uh every uh School employee is entitled to but the net effect of that has been in chadam and we just did a quick three-year comparison um the cost of benefits see if I have a laser here the percentage cost of the benefits how much the the employee has been bearing versus how much the district has been bearing has been shifting and this makes sense because any new staff member we hire it doesn't matter if we hire an assistant superintendent or a teacher or a custodian when they come in they must go into the njp and if they go into the njp they contribute less for their health insurance than they did six or seven years ago before this law was in effect so it might not seem like a lot that uh 3 years ago or four years ago um employees were contributing 25% of the cost of health insurance and now they're contributing only 20% well 1% equals about $100,000 so that's a half a million dollars in health insurance uh costs that has shifted fully to the board and away from employees so good for employees but from a budgetary standpoint the Board of Education now is should in half a million dollar which is roughly onethird of the tax levy increase on a 2% I already mentioned transportation and salaries but they're uh pressuring us as well so looking at our major expense categories you can kind of see we don't have the percentage increase here but if you look at health insurance you can tell that health insurance uh net costs are going up about a million dollar you can see the outof district special education intuition is going up as I pointed out on the other slide and you can see the variation in some of the other categories on the revenue side um as you know the taxing Authority available to the board is the equivalent of 2% more than the prior year tax levy so the prior year tax levy is that top number 70.6 million you increase that by 2% that equates 1 4 million on top of that as we all know there were two ballot measures approved in November that falls into the base Budget moving forward so the new base tax levy if there were a 2% Levy increase would be the 73855 number over here uh as I mentioned the health benefits adjustment that the state permits our board of education is about 413 and then something that that I haven't touched on yet but that we all know about from prior years is that anytime a school district a board of education approves a tax levy that's below what it it is permitted to uh approve that that taxing Authority that the board left on the table stays good for three years and a board of education can tap into it three years moving forward so last school year in particular the Board of Education left about a million dollars a little more than that on the table didn't utilize it and that's mainly because on the health insurance side the board uh the school district of cadams did better than the state health benefits plan so because the state health benefits plan went up I want to say something like 15% last year though I I don't remember it don't hold me to that but if it went up about 15% and our plan only went up 6% or whatever it might have been that difference then is considered banked by the Board of Education and the Board of Education keeps it in the bank only for 3 years it expires after three but because we have a couple of years of banked cap there's another million dollars 1.72 uh that is sitting on the table that the board could use there are also of course priorities and and ongoing needs that we have in the district uh so among them chief among them I should say has to do with this building that we're standing in now so because we are going to reconfigure the grade level structure in the district in the uh summer of 2025 or fall of 2025 uh there's work that we plan on taking on here uh to get the building ready uh some of this is are items you'll recognize that were supposed to be in the referendum that we were considering in 2020 before the pandemic hit we've scratched off a lot of those projects over the past four years using other sources of funding uh but there are a couple that we didn't get to that would affect this building like replacing the ceiling fixures uh lighting fixtures in the SE the drop ceiling in all the hallways we would like to repaint the lockers which are original to the school and are a little bit beat up uh we need to modify some classroom spaces and then uh next summer or at least maybe next spring like a year from now we plan to do some work behind the school for recess and other activities that know our fifth graders and even our sixth graders might enjoy like the installation of Gaga pits and four square courts uh we also know that we're going to have a year from now an entire school all of Lafayette Avenue School will move to the middle school because grades four and five will all move together uh so we intend on hiring a counselor that will be stationed at Lafayette next year we also have three to four sections of third grade at Lafayette next year so we're uh increasing the number of grade levels in students there uh and then that counselor would come along with the whole school the following year uh so that we have a counselor for every grade level in the middle school once we have the four grade levels here and we have a counselor who is available to um you know Shepherd the students with them as they all move forward we're still working on the security vestibules the plans are being finalized and tightened up uh right now um that work should begin early summer we're trying to plan it as soon as we as close as we can to the uh end of the school year uh we have grading of the baseball field or the The Big Field behind the high school uh and just quick history there that used to be uh prior to the acquisition of what is cougar field today the high school football field was behind chadam high school and there was a track there um when that went away there was some degradation to the field and then when the seawing was built back in 2001 2002 which was when I entered the high school uh there was a massive amount of construction behind the school and that field has never quite been the same we've tried to at different points to pick it off and do something back there to improve it uh but we have that as a priority here because we think we've reached a point where we need to and we have some support from uh the baseball Community there and then we're still working on roof Replacements and other types of projects that we've um gotten some State assistance with we do have some staffing reductions that we're working on these are not all finalized but I'll just touch on a couple we have a vacant supervisor position right now because you might recall that when Anthony gonia who was the assistant principal here at uh the middle school left um to take another position uh we transferred one of our supervisors into that assistant principal position um we have been waiting to advertise that supervisor position but we don't have the capacity to keep it in the budget at the current time so we're booking a reduction there we had a German teacher uh re submit her letter of resignation a couple of months ago we advertised for the position we didn't get a single candidate when we advertised for the position and because our enrollment has declined uh at the middle school and it will decline at the high school uh we're in a position right now where we've added multiple languages in the past 15 years or so those two languages have been Chinese and American Sign Language but our enrollment no longer supports the number of languages that we're offering so what we are planning in part because we didn't have an applicant for the position and it's hard to come by World language teachers as we all know but also in part because we don't have the enrollment at the current time to support five different language offerings is we are going to begin to phase out German as an offering at the middle school so the incoming sixth graders this year will not have German they'll have to select one of the other four languages we will commit any way we can to supporting any student who's currently in the German program to keep taking German as long as they would like right through uh the time they graduate high school uh but for incoming students we would have them select one of the other four languages we're working on the reduction of a about $300,000 worth of additional staff that will take the form of primarily teaching staff at various grade levels in the district we haven't finalized all of those reductions yet and haven't spoken to all those individuals but that will be happening in the coming weeks uh as I mentioned we have a school counselor that we plan to uh put into Lafayette to help with the transition we have a music teacher at CMS here we had a music teacher resign from CMS a year ago we didn't replace the position and we really uh are in a bind now and need to for from the standpoint of scheduling and other things and then we need some additional special education support uh at at least Lafayette and possibly even uh at other grade levels but this is what's reflected in the current budget right now uh so the um finance committee discussed all of what I'm saying on Wednesday night we had a very lengthy meeting we looked at pros and cons and pluses and minuses and and all kinds of stuff um and at the end of the day what the board finance committee recommended uh at least in terms of this presentation and the preliminary budget that we'll adopt is uh to take the 2% increase on the tax levy take the health benefits adjustment uh and then tap into some of the banked cap so the proposed budget that we are presenting tonight Taps into 4 $242,000 of the banked cap 77 of that would expire this year if it goes unused so it would go away and we couldn't recoup it next year the year after but by utilizing 242 of the bank cap there is about 830 of Bank cap left and that will remain good for two more years and then it will expire if it's unused and doing all of that would lead to a tax levy increase of 2 .91 this is a look at the um at the at the revenue side of things and you can see the state aid you can see the tax levy and the and and the uh the total increase our tax levy still comprises roughly 90% of the budget in terms of source of funding uh and then we get some grants in terms of state and federal grants that are kind of toward the bottom there this is the estimated tax impact of the proposed budget and you can see um the chattam burrow average assessment locally is now higher than the uh Township assessment because of the revaluation um and Peter and his crew work with the uh County to and the clerks here in the burough in the township to finalize the numbers uh based on the the share of of Revenue into the school district and the assess value this is just a chart we historically show uh we've been slowly creeping up this chart mainly because our enrollment has been falling so as our enrollment Falls uh there are fewer students to spread uh the total budget spend over uh but we're still actually below the state median and the state average for districts our size so we're still St spending below the average uh and hoping to deliver uh as good a product as we can and that's it so you can come back up on stage and ask questions of Mr Smith or me or Peter or anyone else ass value figure into the whole form first that's the worst bud I've seen in my on board I know we're all in shock anybody have any questions comments go ahead Joel oh no go no no Mike you had a you had a chart up there that said 2023 the increase the tax levy was 4.55% and the proposed is 2.91% roughly it was one of the last slides it was in a chart form like maybe the third from the last okay what the 4.5 is that the what we raised taxes be with the regular budget and then this the questions yes on top of that yep okay so it wasn't 4.5 at one time it just over those two pieces yep what was it prior to those two without those two pieces do you know well it was two or 1.99 maybe a year ago two and then it was 2.52 with the second questions got it okay did you I oh okay I have a quick question can you hear me yes okay all right so there's a lot to unpack here but um I guess I'm trying to wrap my head around the extraordinary special ed increase of 25% how do you forecast something like this going forward and is there anything we can do as a district to keep more students here than sending them out uh maybe the par professionals now having benefits is there you know any solution there because this seems it seems like a blip but how does the finance committee think about that going forward well we're you have invested a lot in in building programs that do keep more kids in District and we have more kids with a greater range of needs than we've ever had that we are maintaining in District um but we have more students moving in and coming to us with more needs and you know how we've been opening preschool classes over the last three years or so um we have kids who are coming at three years old and some of them we can keep and we can keep their whole time here and other times we we just can um in terms of projecting that the only good thing there is that Dr sortino's been so good about uh submitting the application for Extraordinary Aid which we get reimbursed some portion of that at the end of the year uh I think just off the top of my head three years ago or maybe it was two years ago uh we had something like $516,000 returned to us in extraordinary Aid Dr sortino brought that number to 1.3 million last year uh so when we have extraordinary programming necessary for students Dr stino is meticulous about tying the needs of those students to uh the costs that we're bearing and then submitting them to the state for reimbursement um but it's a it's uh it's a challenge that's bigger than any of us a lot of districts are dealing with this there are a lot of calls for the state to change how it's funding extraordinary special education costes because TR costs excuse me because Transportation isn't even included is not eligible for reimbursement um but it's a it's a gigantic burden Dr sortino what would you like to add to that our department works incredibly hard to keep every dist every student in their least restrictive environment but there are certain situations where students have either extremely complex medical Behavioral or mental health needs that require an out of District placement and some of those costs as Dr Lusa had shared are are significant um we're constantly examining what services we can provide in District to try to either bring some of those students back or maintain them but ultimately there are students that unfortunately require a more specialized setting than we're able to to provide them [Laughter] with sorry this is the most challenging budget in my 15 years on the board the Mike I have a question do you know roughly what percentage of our students um require extraordinary special costs and again just roughly is it 1% 2% because to Susan's point point it's going to continue to go up as there's more development there's not less development in chadam chadam Township and you know we don't know who's moving in you don't know who's going to buy my house when I sell it but statistically speaking if you add 200 new units you're going to get a proportional number of students that are going to require so I don't see this going down I I see it increasing so I don't know how we're going to and the laws all of these laws are against us all of these laws don't help the the district budgets any District not just ours so even if we can pass the 2.91% as a board I I see this going ticking up every year and I I just don't know how to stop it like what percentage of our kids can is there any way to anticipate if 1% of our kids have extraordinary special education costs and we add you know that many more students each year how we going to adjust it because we can't just keep going 2% 3% 4% 5% we're going to get to the O'Neal years where it was you know 9 10 12% increases well you're you're in the neighborhood with the 1% um it's 1% and change are are requiring out of District type placements um there's a much greater percentage than that that are requiring some type of IEP service support and then there's a whole range in between that so there are students that are with us that are not out of of District but that do require practically one-on-one par professional support all day long and multiple adults in the classrooms in which we service them um the math will never catch up like I mean if we went back every year for 10 years a greater percentage of our budget is being devoted to special education than and Genet is syncing is is reducing while special ed is increasing that's just been be because it's not it's like an exponential difference in that it only takes one or two students with really really significant needs that one you can't catch up to it so we've made huge Investments and huge strides and we have some staff that are doing phenomenal things and we get emails even today I got one from or yesterday maybe it was from Dr sortino about um a student who's really thriving and and and things are going great got another one today about the other end of the of the spectrum so we're doing everything we can um the state needs to get its handle on extraordinary special education costs and it still has not done so even though it's they've been funding it to a much greater percentage we used to only get 50% back on whatever we put in for uh reimbursement for Extraordinary costs and now we're getting closer to 90 or 95% back which is a huge Improvement um but this is a massive challenge that is Statewide um can you comment on how come our um health insurance costs went higher up than the state I don't know I I can comment a little bit um and like I said most years since we've been with the shift we've beaten the state so we can't beat the state every year what our broker told us and what other superintendents have told me who are privately insured is that our medical premium increase was about the same about on par with the state uh increase of 6% but the prescription costs are about 15% and what's driving prescription costs industrywide are the new he uh weight loss drugs that they're extremely expensive the they're being prescribed to a much wider um set of conditions than they ially were prescribed for and they're lifechanging and life altering and doing a lot of good for the individuals taking them so because they're so costly but are becoming much more prevalent it's just blowing a hole through prescription uh drug costs and the premiums are are showing it now and is that something that we negotiate with the broker in terms of what's covered and not covered or not really um Beth can comment on that but there are the health insurance companies and we have Etna um they have like a formulary and they make determinations about which drugs are uh covered based on the physician you know uh whatever the physician prescriptions and that's not something that I don't think we can negotiate at least not right now since we just end you know just started the first year of a five-year contract but Beth why don't you talk about that a little um excuse me agreed and we are also Bound by an equal to or better than um provision in the contract which also um you know creates a complicated situation when trying to negotiate on such a granular level the other item regarding a question about this my doctor said that and said no about the state benefits is the State kind of did an average of between their increase for their ehp and Garden State Plan was less than their increase for all the other plants and they took the general average which came to 6.2 or 3% and applied that across the board for their benefits but their nonp plan went went up in the tune of 15% so the state took the average to I guess control what they can fund to the districts will fund the district mov on the slide that aside from the extraordinary special needs uh cost the the slide that really hits home for me as well is where the one that he shows the 2% tax levy cap and then Transportation up six Healthcare they're all going up and we explored everything from buying buses on our own to everything in between and it's it's like we've said a million times before it's just really bad math 2% Revenue higher costs nothing we can do about it some of it St regulated yep most of it how do we become one of the districts that borrows money from the state and never has to pay it back well I mean how does the state look at that as you know our taxpayers are bearing the brunt of it whereas other districts are just borrowing tens of millions of dollars and not having to repay it how do we get on that plan I mean how does the state see that as I mean they talk about this Equalization and fair share and adequacy and they're just throwing money at some districts and choking others yeah I don't have an answer to that um yeah I mean you know look on the positive side of The Ledger we in my opinion the finance committee is being being conservative in not eating up the entire banked cap so that there's some Bank cap in reserve for next year and the year after the way districts get into doomsday scenarios and you see this in the news you'll probably see it in the next month where they're slashing 45 positions or or 50 teachers because they are so you know they're $2 million in the hole and they can't get out is that they don't have the abil you know they they eat up what they can and they don't make certain adjustments we're not at a doomsday scenario yet but we are definitely and I mentioned this like a year ago when I was talking about the teacher shortage the cost of of hiring and retaining a teacher is going up and if our revenue is locked in at two or 2.91% the only solution there is going to be to hire Le to have less teachers we're going to pay fewer teachers more money and when I say teachers I mean staff as a whole we're going to pay the staff we have more money to hire and retain them and we're not going to have as many because we can't afford to have as many and we will be there I would surmise within a few years where we are you know tangibly increasing class sizes which we have not done yet and we still have pretty good target class sizes at all of our grade levels um the high school will be the first one that we start tinkering with and instead of having a Max Target of 25 or 24 it will move to 28 or 29 which is common in most and many of these districts have 30 and more um but we're we're not there yet with this budget but if things keep on this path we will certainly be there in the coming years and we'll pay fewer teachers more money and have fewer teachers because we can't have the the number that we have bad math yeah I think you know we look at all of this in in the finance committee and you made the determination at this point not to Tinker with the class sizes I mean that was one of the one of the important things that we said you know can we reduce the budget more yes we could um but we would have to increase class sizes to do that so we decided not to do that at this point we said this before there's just there are only so many levers you pole mhm class size is kind of the last one we're cutting German we're cutting certain programming and leaves us with class size that's kind of all we have left okay anybody else any comments questions I just want to say one more thing in terms of special special education I think people are going to be shocked by looking at those numbers but uh what it doesn't show is Dr stinos and her staff you know the the job that they're doing actually bringing kids back into the district right um those numbers don't reflect that but you know that's happening so that combined with more PA of professionals um we hope you know you got to predict it's going to get worse but we think it's going to get less worse because of some of the other things that we're doing anybody else all right thanks for that Dr Lusa um moving on to the business administrator's report Peter my report is uh fairly concise and stock Lusa covered a good majority of my points in his budget presentation but just to reiterate the architect is finalizing the plans for all the security vestibules and hopefully be going out to bid shortly we are planning uh for all of the work at CMS that was mentioned in the presentation and also all of the uh summer construction uh with the roof projects and the work on the field and the uh new lighting poles for CHS so that's all I've I've got okay thank you um ahana is not here so we'll get a full update from her at the next meeting um moving on to committee reports for personnel Miss Weber we have not met but we will be meeting on Wednesday March 20th okay uh curriculum Miss Ross same as Personnel our next meeting is going to be this Wednesday the 20th perfect uh finan and Facilities Mr Smith uh yes we met uh last week as Dr Lusa described to go through the 2425 budget um in addition to that we spoke about uh CHS sport funding for 24 and 25 including uh sailing paddle and girls ice hockey um uh we also spoke about F day kindergarten and what the tuition would be um um we came to an agreement that uh $5,000 would be the number for full day kindergarten and uh we move that to the 2425 budget our next meeting is Peter one second sorry in a couple weeks I think a April 10th April 10th is our next meeting okay perfect Bradley what's the timeline on the budget this is the preliminary budget here this is the preliminary budget when does it have to be finalized the preliminary one goes to the uh Dr Lusa can you remind me of the timeline yeah preliminary goes to the county after tonight right they go through it and are in communication with our business office and then the final budget has to be adopted on April 29th April 29th m policy and planning Mr Ryan policy and on March 13th uh as Dr Lusa mentioned we made an adjustment to the school calendar for 2425 uh which would eliminate um Columbus Day and give the students off on Election Day it is a presidential election year uh you might recall we did this in 2020 as well where we did not have school on Election Day that year um we also discussed a couple of versions of the calendar for 2526 um we will still review I think there was a suggestion about um discussing moving the calendar days off to federal holidays uh we didn't address that in this meeting but we may continue at subsequent meetings to look at look at that as well um we had a tuition student request that we reviewed and a residency issue and also we talked about a couple of kindergarten appeals appeals appeals for um waivers to tuition for kindergarten for um got it families and financial distress got it okay perfect um okay great anybody have any questions for Mr Ryan okay um Le excuse me liaison reports anyone Susan just a quick one for um CF a reminder to get your tickets for the 30th anniversary celebration I've already purchased mine uh Saturday April 27th from 7: to 10: p.m. at the Park Avenue Club there'll be a live ban there'll be Su auction live auctions and all the proceeds will fund grants at all of the six schools so just encouraging everybody to buy their tickets thanks anybody else any other I'm reporting you mention Miz this we oh yes lay Miz is this week at the high school uh Wednesday at 4:00 um and then Thursday Friday Saturday at 7 is it 7 every night3 7:30 so yeah if you haven't cutting your tickets definitely get them I'll be there four on Wednesday and that's why Ohana is not here she's rehearsing right now oh that's right she's rehearsing she's got a solo a solo she has a solo awesome um yeah it's going to be amazing um okay perfect moving on to the minutes from the last meeting Mr Dilla sure only Miss Allen needs to obstain um is the regular and executive minutes I just need a quick second if I missed anyone second Mr Smith thank you um Regular and executive minutes from 3:4 M Ross Yes m alen obain Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes Mr Ryan yes Mr Smith yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes and M Chelli yes resolution passes 801 okay perfect thank you um okay moving on to our um first opportunity for public commentary notice of public comment hearing of the citizens during the public commentary section of the agenda is an opportunity for any member of the public to be heard about issues which are or are not topics scheduled for the current meeting to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers will be asked to limit their comments to a reasonable length of time if you do go up for a public comment if you wouldn't mind just signing in stating your name that would be great hi hi um I'm Alex scarvey freil I have four children uh within the districts here in chadam um I wanted to come before the board to address the kindergarten 2024 2025 funding Etc um as you know I'm also representing a several moms that have been here uh throughout the last year talking about full day kindergarten so um on behalf of those parents we are excited that there will finally be a full day free a full day offering um for enough seats for all of our incoming kindergarteners for next year this will put us in line albeit as you guys know late um to the other 97% of New Jersey that offers full day kindergarten for all of their students that said I'm still very disheartened to hear that as a result of the full day uh offering for all it's at the expense of not having a free day offering for any um I find it unacceptable I think it's unacceptable that families have to come before the board and bear their financial distress in order for their children to qualify for free public education here in chadam New Jersey I find it unacceptable that there are only several families that I can think of or know about that offer or receive um free lunch which I think was one of the hurdles that had to be met in order for you to have free kindergarten so I'd love Clarity there um I'm concerned as a mom that every kid has to pay $5,000 I'd like to understand Clarity on where that number came from I know it was 7,000 previously um as a mom of multiples of been more concerned that that means that parents who have two or three children in the kindergarten Inc coming year will be paying 10 plus, a year and I'm just with again like Clarity on how we came to that the surrounding towns New Providence Madison Summit from which I grew up Etc they all offer free full day kindergarten um how come despite our taxes which are in line and in many cases above those surrounding towns we're still unable to offer free full day kindergarten to some of our youngest students in fact as many of you guys may know New York is offering or working to offer free preschool so it feels a little out of touch it feels like a little undervalued and it feels um extremely like I said out of touch in terms of the area uh I know funding was discussed I know it's extremely complex I know there's so many options and things on your plates that you guys have to make sure all of our children are met however last year we said we were holding aside $500,000 to pay for security security um I'm just curious now that we've pushed for the residential taxes to increase indefinitely to pay for some for the security vules which I voted yes for what happens to this new approved funding once those vules are paid for um how are we going to allocate those funds could we make a commitment that we could allocate those funds to free full day kindergarten in years following or is this the be the Boe stance going forward that despite all of our tax dollars that residents are putting towards education um that taxes will still not be allocated towards our kindergarteners that states around us will start paying for free full day preschool and we'll still be working on paid kindergarteners thank you good evening to all Bill Heap um first thing is um do you think it might be a good idea to have a presentation on the special needs um situation uh what the politics of this is this is a Statewide problem it's a massive problem everybody's aware of it who's for it who's against it is anybody doing anything about it um it might be nice to kind of uh have that presentation because this is not something that just uh happened yesterday it's been ongoing uh we are under one party rulle down in Trenton they can do anything they want it seems that somehow this is not a priority on anybody's agenda and we have folks in the special needs Community here who might want to weigh in and we can get uh all sides of of the situation because this is clearly not going away and it's only going to get more expensive uh second thing is I'm going to take issue with uh previous uh um commenter um my feeling is you you have have uh spent the last uh half hour 45 minutes painting a pretty bleak picture of the budget uh we are in a situation where we have the right to charge for a service that is not mandated um we have a product that everybody wants we have a clientele that is not only willing to pay you have over 200 uh students enrolled we have a client tell that is able to pay we may not be the 1centers but we are overwhelmingly the two three and four percenters I get the fact that not everybody fits the profile for those who can prove need they would be subsidized but you can't cry poverty and then go ahead and give up a revenue stream uh I multiply 200 by 7,000 a million something that's not pocket change and on a tough budget it just seems to me that you can't cry poverty and then leave money on the table that's a tough thing to do so I would well I guess the 5,000 has already been set but uh you can't have it both ways thanks okay anybody else I guess that's it for this anything you want to address at the moment Bradley anything you want to address at the moment we're closing the public we're closing the public commentary for this section no I mean we we've in terms of of I'm sorry I couldn't hear uh your name but in terms of uh full day kindergarten we hear you it's the intention of the board and I think we're all in the same page that we needed to get full day kindergarten in place unfortunately due to the budget we can't afford to give it for free um yet uh it's Our intention to try and get there at some point but giving the current uh budget pressures um we have to continue to charge for it I I'll just on a technical point the as I explained in the presentation the the uh proposals that were approved in November including the one for the security vestibules that now becomes part of the base budget that's booked into this base budget so the in terms of allocating money towards full day kindergarten like Mr Heap just said we'd have to reduce a million dollars someplace in order to bring full day kindergarten on for free so the reduction of a million would be staff in probably just about entirely because that's the primary recurring cost that we have in the budget and that would affect students across the The District in other ways so the finance committee discussed all of those kinds of variables we think going from I think going from 7 to five is a move in the right direction to get to the destination that we are all hoping to get to uh but we can't do that right now without gutting a significant portion of the budget uh we can't get there all at once and well as it turns out we need additional staff for full day kindergarten not reduced staff so Tak a million dollar out of the budget but to address can I address Mr heap's comment um because I've been working on full day kindergarten for the better part of two years and part of the discussion bill is yes we're leaving money on the table but it's not fair to put the budget balance our budget on the backs of the kindergarten teachers but by by the same token it's not fair to budget balance the budget on the backs of taxpayers so we're trying to do the best we can to make nobody happy to split the baby a little bit and you know the kindergarten people aren't happy about paying tuition you're Furious that we're not charging $20,000 so we're trying to meet in the middle and do the best we can and I I I I challenge you I disagree with you most of the time but I disagree with you on that we can't cry property when our expenses go up 10 12% and our even if we took every Bank cap and blah blah blah we we cut every year we cut we cut we cut our expenses go up up you know I know you know this because you've been doing this you run your own business it's a balancing act you know and we felt it's not fair to the kindergarten parents to shake them by the ankles and balance our budget by the same token we know that there's a lot of residents on fixed income that we can't push it all off to them as well so we do we do hear you we hear both of you you know and the best negotiators nobody leaves the room happy and we understand that nobody's happy but that's the balancing act that we're trying to do and and we've always said it's a public education we're trying to get to free we just don't have a path forward this year or next year but hopefully we're going to keep reducing it and Bill's going to come yell and I'm okay with that um but I just want to there's some history behind that but I mean to to raise a million dollars as Dr Lusa said we would have required cutting 16 17 teachers which we're not willing to do which we're not willing to do at this point I mean flat out we're just we're not willing to have 30 kids in a class right we're not willing to tax our excellent teachers more than they already are with unfunded mandates and then put if you put 10 more kids in a class the quality drops we're not there yet oh and I know and sorry your other point about the uh the the money raised for the security vestibules we were very clear when we raised uh that money that that will go towards security expenditure in uh in future budgets which we're already putting out 800,000 plus yep right out of our budget now that's right thing I want to mention is um the Acoustics is not really good here Mr Heap I didn't hear everything that you said but you mentioned something about special education and I think that's the key to the whole thing controlling those costs right and the reason that every District in the in the country has an issue is with this is because when Congress passed idea they promised to fund it fund every school districts special education cost at 40% uh that was 25 years ago and they've never gotten above 15% of funding so if that ever happens right we have a we have a lot of um folks that are politically inclined here that you know can can Lobby Congress if Congress ever funds that that'll ease the burden on every school district in this country and taxes will go down and we'll have a lot more programming like we're talking about in all day kindergarten Etc that's the key to the whole thing fund idea fully we'll all be better off everybody good okay um okay moving on to our regular agenda um action items for personnel Miss Weber yes thank you an I'd like to move items one through 15 and looking for a second excellent thank you any questions for Beth she loves questions questions and I make a resolution that I get a new volunteer job recess lady because budget is no fun totally you want to be a recess lady how about it yes I would crush them at Four Square okay agenda items A1 through a15 M Ross Yes M Allen yes Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes um for all items except item 11 which I will stain from okay Mr Smith yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes and M Chelli yes agenda items oh I'm sorry Mr Ryan I thought I I thought I got you sorry um agenda items A1 to1 and 12- 15 pass 90 A1 passes 801 okay perfect uh financing facilities yes I would like to move B1 to B9 which includes uh B2 is the priliminary budget that Dr Lusa uh went over in addition to donations from the Lafayette the lafette PTO um the Middle School theater program the chatam middle school PTO and a king's gift card Bank from Acme so thank you for those donations I'll [Applause] second hand second I know I was waiting for any questions okay and second I I was wait we don't have any question questions no questions agenda items B1 through N M Ross Yes M Allen yes Mr delandro yes Ms Kenny yes Mr Ryan yes Mr Smith yes M Weber yes Dr Zang and M Chelli yes agenda items pass 90 okay perfect um curriculum M Ross I'd like to move uh C1 to C3 and number three includes the changes to the calendar that uh Dr L mentioned second agenda item C1 to C3 M Russ yes M Allen yes Mr delandro yes M Kenny yes Mr Ryan yes Mr Smith yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes and Miss Chelli yes agenda item is pass 90 okay perfect and nothing for policy okay moving on to board business um I do have a couple things I want to sorry you okay over there couple things I want to bring up um the first is I want to inform the public of an intriguing proposal that has come to our attention chadam has been approached by the Harding School District to explore the possibility of accepting their high school students grades 9 through 12 as tuition students to attend chadam high school it's important to emphasize that at this time no decisions have been made regarding this proposal Harding still maintains a contract with their current receiving high school and has another two school years remaining on that contract so just to set expectations this is a long process no decisions have been made or will be made quickly before chadam even considers the proposal paring has to first get approval from the county and state authorities after that there are many details to be discussed and agreed upon at the end of the day this Arrangement has to be mutually beneficial to both districts for it to be successful and that is what we will determine over the next coming months um in addition to myself I have tasked Miss Weber as chair of personnel and Mr smth as chair of Finance with facilitating any necessary conversations and proceedings as we explore this proposal we will ensure that all relevant information is gathered and presented to the board of education for thorough consideration and discussion and we will keep you posted as this proceeds but just wanted to make you aware that we are in very preliminary discussions anybody have any questions comments concerns any idea when you'll be hearing anything on the next steps date wise you know what it it's out of our hands right now because we have to wait for but they just you know they just proposed it to us but they still have to get approvals we have nothing to act on or do or you know there's really not much we can do but when an mentioned the benefits the benefit to us is obviously Revenue the benefit to them is a quality education continue a quality education they have a quality education now we're we're located you know adjacent to the town um but there's a lot to iron out so you know who knows if it you know how it unfolds but it's interesting like Ann said I think it's an interesting proposal you know there's no other way to get revenue and this is the first time you know we've been able to gain some revenue and we've been asked in the past and we've always been had to say no this is the first time we are able to say maybe right but it's still maybe just remind me how many kids are currently in grades 9 through 12 in out of Harding I guess Jill 25 kids a grade okay I have a question um and you mentioned that they still have two years left in the contract does that mean that they need to finish the contract or they can terminate earlier not necessarily they could it could overlap there could be a dual contract but that all has be worked out with between Harding and their current receiving District you know ideally you don't want you never want to disrupt a student so anybody that's starts at the current receiving District they students should be able to finish there right if they choose to right if they choose to but they also may have an option to go to chatam as well um and Sally some of their students go go to private schools because they've never had a high school their own high school um that may change maybe more kids will come to chatam you know that's an unknown but there's about 25 kids in they're eighth grish right Dr D to the high school 25 kids go on to the public high school thank you for correcting anybody else any questions comments okay perfect so we'll see where this goes and we'll keep everyone posted um the other thing I just wanted to bring up in case anybody had any questions or comments about um the um changing of the vote for the board vote from November to April we discussed it at the last meeting um you know as Dr Lusa stated at the last meeting the benefit of it especially for for the district is that you know things that are then approved can come to fruition for the following school year so for instance you know we had these two questions pass in November but we're not going to have the benefit of them until later on in the school year if at all right this school year so um you know that's always been one of the benefits of the April vote for school districts so that they can get things passed and then have them up and running for the following yes so give you a different another example as well a couple of districts in the past two or three years have achieved full day kindergarten by putting it on a ballot proposal in November and because they didn't they weren't offering full day kindergarten if we were to put a ballot measure forward about full day kindergarten and I know that's not something that this board has discussed at all but doing it in November if it were to gain passage it could not be implemented until the following school year right if it were part of this discussion that we're having now in April it is either rejected outright in April or it's approved in April then it can be instituted in the immediate school year right preed proceeding so this is an example of the type of item that if it were put on a ballot it would be dramatically different between April and November and there would be no downside to putting it on other than if it's rejected it can't be incorporated into the budget or asked again for the period of one year right is that if in the November ballot then it would take place for the 25 say 25 26 school year but if it took place the election took place next April the the the school uh the full day would still begin in 25 26 yes but what I'm saying is let's just say that our if if our election were in April now yeah and you were putting that forward now it would be the the the ensuing school year where you would Implement yeah okay okay right that's fair and if it doesn't if it [Music] were in April and did not pass then you can't request it for another correct correct and and just to be clear you can't put it on the ballot in November unless it's included in this budget right you have to do that well you have to do that four months or whatever it is in advance and it has to be approved by the county and signed off and all the rest of it yeah so Dr Lusa you saying that we don't ever have an opportunity to Institute a a ballot measure other than in November when we hold our Board elections correct you you have the ability Boards of Education May propose a referendum which is just a vote to borrow money to undertake capital projects and such there are five dates over the course of the year one is in September one is in December um one is in March and I think there's one in June and then it's whatever date of the the election but for a ballot separate ballot proposal to increase the operating budget permanently that has to happen on the the whether you're April or November one or the other do referendums yes capit it different but not for ongoing uh operating expenses as a background can you just remind us when they switched the school board election from April to November they did that recently right when they did that in they 2012 was the law that enabled districts to do that and what was the turnout like in April elections was it decent voter turnout relative no it was lower it was low the only the only to remember if the district goes back to an April or election the district has to bear the cost for the pole workers and the printing of the ballots right right and we don't know how much that is yeah we don't know what that is right I would think it would be approximately between 15 and $220,000 how much between 15 and $20,000 because the last time we had a bear the cost the poll workers now I'm sure make more money right right 15 or 20,000 in 2012 right I'm estimating what it would be go you know in today's dollars okay and that would be annual yes every year Mike is there an an advantage um I see councilman Strickland out there the municipalities collect the taxes for us is there any advantage to some of that facilitation moving in in April or will we always get a separate tax bill well it's definitely better for them if there's a separate proposal I'm sorry repeat that it it's definitely better for them if a separate proposal is approved okay because they have to recalculate all of the tax bills if with an approval in November but if we move to April m is there an advantage also well that's just more convenient for them I mean correct me if I'm wrong Peter it's yes because um if the district when the district passes its full budget in April the information goes to the let's say the Township in the borrow by the end of April they incorporate that into their funding and tax bills that they create that are due August 1st and then the other F the supplemental three qus of November uh February and may when the past year the district passed its 2% budget we sent the B we sent the tax Leeves out they Incorporated the payments for the four months then in November we sent them the adjusted Levy for the um for the second questions they each had to go back and send out revised tax bills for February and May so the burrow and to the burrow and Township get extra work because of second questions and they incur additional cost because they have to pay for reprinting remailing and everything else second questions aside if we move it to April is there some operational savings on the M municipality side or it's a wash no because they they do the exact same thing they will do the exact same process if we had a vote on the regular budget as if we have a vote uh no vote well actually there would be no vote if we're not doing a separate proposal there is no vote so there is no vote so there is no change for them right but if they're cutting their taxes in August if they're doing their calcul if they're due August 1 and today we don't we can't tell them what our budget is until November don't they have to recalculate but if we do it in April they'll have that information ahead of time before the August 1 but regardless of the way chadam oper the way the district operates now our budget gets approved in April by the board the only time we have an election the only items elected in November are the board members and if there's second proposals gotcha okay if we voted to move the election back to April yep yep the only thing that would be voted on would be the board members and if we had a second proposal so if we have don't have a desire to do second proposals for one two years if we move them then we're just en counting extra cost to have the board members voted on in April that's all that would be on a b got it got it got it okay I qu up yeah thank you and I would in just thinking in Thinking Out Loud that may be a good thing for one of the groups to propose to the state in addition to this law if the district doesn't have a second question could the as long as there's a primary could the board election be pushed to the primary in June so that there's not additional cost but I just thought of that now is that an option no that's not an option not in the new law it's not it's not a current option but is that an idea to save money notic okay all right right when do we have to make a decision on that uh what is it 90 days before 90 days before what I know it's 90 days we have to make a decision on that 90 days before I would say April 1 I'm going to give you a guideline of April 1 next year got it we aren't we there now oh next year okay next year it's too late to do it for this year that would be next month got it right and also just to be clear there was the one stipulation on anyone who's up for election in November if we were to try to do this they don't get extended correct correct [Music] right right okay any other questions anybody have anything else for board business okie dokie enough that being said we will have our second opportunity for public commentary as I stated earlier if you will just sign in and please just state your name that would be great no one okay um we will be having an executive session action not why action will not be taken will not be taken executive session okay perfect all right thanks everybody thanks for coming everybody gets home safe we can go out these doors since we're in foreign land does that go outside e for