e good evening ladies and gentlemen good evening this is a public hearing of the budget for the school year beginning July 1 2024 to June 30th 2025 pursuing to New Jersey statutes and the rules adopted by the Board of Education notice of this meeting was sent to the New Jersey Star Ledger and cable vision of Elizabeth on Thursday April 25th 2024 in addition this notice is posted on the bulletin board in a Lobby of 500 North B Street and pursuant to this act a copy has been filed with the city clerk of Elizabeth I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present for this May 2nd 20124 meeting of the Board of Education this meeting is being recorded and will become part of the Elizabeth Board of Education permanent records in order for the recording to accurately reflect the proceedings please refrain from speaking While others are speaking I also ask that you silence your sound of your electronic devices I am pleased that you have taken the time this evening to join us thank you for your interest in Elizabeth Board of Education we are here we are here this evening to hear the public Express their views regarding the proposed 2024 2025 budget in accordance to New Jersey statutes 18a colon 22-13 and I quote on a day and at the time and place so fixed the Board of Education estimates or Board of Education as case may be shall hold such public hearing at which time the taxpayers and other interested persons shall have an opportunity to present objections and to be heard with respect to said budget an amount of money necessary to be appropriated and the various items and purposes for which the same are to be appropriated for the use of public schools in the district for the insur ensuring school year there will be a public P portion of the part excuse me there will be a public portion for the citizens to address the board participants for the public portion must sign in prior to the start of the public comments to have an opportunity to speak the sign and Sheet States the name address telephone number and the reason that the person wants to speak whether it's an agenda item or a general education comment at this time Mr Kennedy roll call please Barbosa here carvalo here Cheves Jacobs Marine Ortega present naron here gavas pastana Rivera B dorley uh present thank you at this time we can all stand up so we can do the Pledge of Allegiance oh back s Dian to lead us in the pledge of Ethics oh I apologize I apologize I apologize at this time we're going to listen to The Pledge of Allegiance thank you oh say can you see by the dawn early light what so proudly we held at the Twilight last gleaming who's brought stripes and bright stars through the perous fight or the the ramp parts we watched were so gallantly streaming and the rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air gave prove through the night that our flag was still there oh say does that star spangle B our head wave for the land of the free and the home of the bra thank you at this time I going to have board member Diane Barosa lead us in the pledge of Ethics please as a member of the Elizabeth public school's professional learning community I will treat people as I wish to be treated to do that I pledge to understand that the school Community is a special place listen respectfully when someone else is speaking by paying close attention and not interrupting speak in a calm voice and use proper language dress appropriately for teaching and learning Inspire the best in myself and others by celebrating successes and learning from mistakes care about others by demonstrating acts of kindness be a lifelong learner by taking every opportunity to learn from others thank you you may be seated oh okay great uh again I just wanted to thank everyone for attending our uh budget hearing this this year uh thank you to all the board members who are present uh again at the end of the budget presentation there will be a comment or portion for the community to ask any questions that they may have at this time I'm going to ask the superintendent to uh present the budget thank you m thank you for 2024 2025 school year good evening I'd like to welcome members of our community members of the Elizabeth Board of Education and of everyone that is here this evening to present the 2024 budget presentation so I'd like to begin by thanking Governor Murphy Governor Murphy made a commitment to maintaining New Jersey status as the best in the nation public school system and in doing that he added an additional $98 million that was applied directly to K12 public schools for a total of almost $12 billion as an urban School District we benefited from these additional funds and my intented to be able to share with our community how it is that we have applied this funding in order to support our children I think it's important for our community to understand the level of dedication of our board members our board members spend countless hours together with Mr Kennedy and I addressing the goals of our organization and I think it's important for everyone to be able to recognize that it is not just about your participation in the monthly board meetings but all of the hours and committee meetings all of the hours on Saturdays and board Retreats with a very clear focus a laser-like focus on teaching and learning in this organization so for that I thank you it's important to be able to remind our community about our core beliefs our focus on our students on our teachers on our leaders on our families and on our teams together every member of our organization forms part of a family we work diligently to ensure that we're providing the best education to our students and I think that that is reflected in our core beliefs with regard to what our commitment is what it is that we strive for each and every day also would like to be able to reference our five-year strategic plan this plan focuses on our vision attaining the highest performing Urban School District designation in the nation for our district and that is what we work diligently towards and most important is our promise our promise to our students to provide an Innovative and personalized learning environment that ensures that every child achieves Excellence our goals are college preparedness career Readiness for every child and that is reflected in our 2425 budget and in this evening's presentation and then what I uh commonly refer to as our pillars teaching and learning social emotional Wellness Workforce Development parent and Community engagement and organizational Effectiveness all supported by our foundation of our core beliefs and commitments our focus on managed performance empowerment and most important of all the three e Equity expectations and high uh and expectations and excellence each year I talk about the steps of success it reflects our internal and our external accountability system this is what we share with our families we talk about the expectations at the various grade levels as measured by various indicators attendance performance extracurricular activities and we ensure that we spend time with our families so that they can understand how it is that we support our children each and every day in the classroom so now I turn to a overview of our school system we are currently serving 28,896 schools we are the second largest urban School District in the state of New Jersey our our student demographic is as follows we serve 7667 Hispanic children 15.10% black children 1.55% Asian children 6.49% white children and other which is defined as a Pacific Islander n% our student profile is defined as serving 57.5% of our total student enrollment are general education students 29.9% are multilingual Learners and 10% are special needs students coupled with 2.6% children that are both multilingual Learners and also special needs so they are served both with bilingual Services as well as special needs Services when we talk about our enrollment of 28,8 19 it's important to note that we have grown by 5,750 students in the past 13 years when we when we look back at the 2223 school year we were serving 28442 students and we have since grown to 28,896 n% last year in June we graduated a total toal of 1,628 students and actually correct myself both in the June graduation and our August graduation we're one of the few students that celebrates the accomplishments of our students during the summer months so combined 1,628 students and in terms of free and reduced lunch we are 81.5 and our Workforce we're comprised of 4,262 team members in our organization so it's important to share with our community how our population has changed when we look at the 2021 school year and compare it to where we are right now so if you take a look at the 2021 uh bar graph to your far left on your screen 65.9% of our students in 2021 were general education students when you compare it to where we are now in April where we were at as of April 30th we were at 57.5% general education students so there is a decline in the general education population however let me Point your attention to the next bar the orange bar in 2021 our multilingual Learners were defined as 21.2% of our student population and if you continue through the graph to where we are right now we have grown from 21.2% to 29.9% multilingual Learners and I'm going to translate that in terms of the numbers so we were at 5,873 multilingual Learners we are now currently serving 8,605 multilingual Learners so in tremendous growth our next population a special education population we were at 11.4% and we are now now at 10% but that combined when we look at the next category of our multilingual students who also need special needs Services we were only at 1.5% and we have we are now at 2.6% and that translate to going from 48 multilingual learner special needs students to 746 students so important to be able to talk about the growth over time and how our organization meets the needs of the children next uh be my pleasure to introduce the budget highlights for the 2425 school year I'll be addressing the new facilities as well as additional staff and investments in our Early Childhood Program so first we begin with the acquisition of imag culate conception jbj STEM Academy 9th grade Annex we have an opportunity to expand jvj academy by adding an additional 250 seats right now Immaculate Conception has 12 classrooms that will house our ninth graders for next year and in terms of the investment in our budget we dedicated 4.4 million million doll to ensuring that the n9th grade Annex will be ready to welcome our ninth graders in September everything from facility upgrades to the furniture to the technology everything that is needed to a school because we have an obligation to address over enrollment in our school district we have an obligation to ensure that our children have the appropriate class size so that they can learn so that they can thrive in their classrooms and the way in which we have done this in this school district is by acquiring the parochial schools and we're very fortunate to be able to um have acquired all of the parochial sites in the city of Elizabeth so that they can serve our children next another highlight of our budget is the acquisition of SAA dalbert currently s aalberts is an Annex for school number nine however there is a second building that is part of SAA Alberts that has eight classrooms that will serve 170 additional students at school number nine and we have committed 1.6 million dollar to expand the number of seats at our elementary Academy next our budget highlight as it pertains to Personnel we will be funding an additional 106 new certified Personnel in the amount of $8.7 million that is both the salaries and the benefits and as I shared with our community the statistics as it relates to the population that we serve it is reflected in the Personnel that we have on our screen before us so we will be adding 10 bilingual teachers six ESL teachers five art teachers five music teachers two preschool disabilities teachers two general education teachers 12 autism teachers eight learning and language disability teachers one moderate cognitive teacher three resource teachers six six art teachers six music teachers additional two English language arts teachers one math teacher one science teacher three Career and Technical teachers and as we continue with 106 new certified Personnel two physical education teachers two World language teachers one vice principal one English language arts supervisor one mathematics supervisor one bilingual ESL supervisor uh one full child study team uh comprised of an ldt learning disabilities teacher consultant psychologist social worker and speech pathologist we will also be funding 61 new non-certified Personnel in the amount of 4.6 million Safety and Security of our schools is our top priority we are adding 14 security guards to our schools 23 multi-purpose assistance 18 classroom assistants or Child Development Associates if they are in preschool classrooms two accountants two secretaries and two nurses and another budget highlight is it's important to share with our community the funding of our high quality Early Childhood Program that serves 2,770 three and four year old olds for a total amount of 52.7 million the $ 52.7 million is provided by the New Jersey Department of Education under what is referred to Early Childhood Program a however this funding does not cover all of the expenses of our Early Childhood Program the district supplements the program with an additional 8.7 million and that $8.7 million ensures that we have our lunch assistance that serve our preschoolers it covers the rent it covers our transportation costs our utilities our wraparound program it covers the salaries and benefits of 22 security guards 23 custodians two Master Teachers two nurses art six um art music and physical education teachers 13 Preschool teachers and 13 Child Development associat uh assistants for our preschool classrooms American Rescue plan back in 202 1 the federal government allocated American Rescue plan um funds to school districts for the purpose at that time we were returning from the pandemic but that funding wasn't solely towards the safe return of our staff and our students it was also dedicated to learning loss and also the opportunity to be able to to address social emotional and academic needs this funding covered the time period of May 2021 through September 2024 what was important to our Board of Education was how it is that we were going to sustain programs the services that were most impactful to our children and those were lengthy conversations with our Board of Education members so we conducted a very thorough analysis and evaluated those Services those programs and we made a recommendation to ensure that we were addressing the issue of sustainability and ensuring that the 2425 budget Incorporated those Services those programs personnel so I'd like to be able to share with our community those services that we have embedded in our District budget the total funding dedicated is $8.4 million funded under American Rescue plan and now embedded in our District budget so it begins with sustaining ARP funding for 26 certified Personnel in the amount of 3.2 $2 million eight social workers a district social worker three guidance counselors two homeless Liaisons one bcba three instructional coaches um two are instructional coaches and one is an international balic coach and uh two child study teams learning disabilities teacher consultant psychologist social worker and speech pathologist as we continue on we also dedicated 5.2 million out of the 8 million towards the programs and it began with sustaining professional development for our team members for our teachers by maintaining our partnership with children's literacy initiative that provides Co valuable coaching to our teachers in 14 schools in the school district children's literacy initiative works not only with our teachers but they work with our instructional coaches with our admin administrators and with the district leaders in implementing those critical strategies that help improve early literacy the complement to that is our partnership with Carnegie Learning mathematics Co coaching from kindergarten all the way up through High School in all of the schools ensuring that there is a coaching model that addresses mathematical Concepts strategies and ensures that there is support all throughout the organization in the mathematics content area as we continue on we will be offering the El's bridge program for kindergarten through 8th grade and high school will serve our multilingual Learners to increase their English language proficiency levels across the four domains speaking listening reading and writing as we continue to serve our multilingual Learners the point of entry after school program for kindergarten through 8th grade through uh 12th grade excuse me and this program is specifically designed for our new entrance at the elementary level where they will receive leveled instruction in ela math science and social studies and we are extending that all the way up through high school and our bilingual achievement strategies program at the high school level again to support our English language Learners in need of literacy and math support these are children who um struggle with their attendance and therefore we are providing those supports to fill those gaps as we continue on for our special needs students the academic growth after school program in order to ensure that our children increase their skills by engaging in interactive activities we also have uh contracted registered Behavior technicians that provide onetoone behavioral interactions in order to teach communication social and living skills in order to ensure sure that we are addressing um those critical behaviors that uh children need that extra support and of course continuing on with our partnership with the uh New Jersey transportation department uh by providing bus passes for our displaced um High School AED students ensuring that they have free access to busing as we continue we're also going to be uh offering the career in technical education work-based learning after school program at the high school level assisting our students in obtaining those uh the work-based Proficiency in their chosen strand with the ultimate goal of achieving their industry certification we will continue to offer our social emotional learning after school program from kindergarten all the way up through high school where group counseling sessions are provided to students after school and our sub our very effective substance abuse alternative Saturday program at the high school level which supports our students through real life discussions on prevention and self-regulation as we continue we will uh offer our youth Athletics program both during the summer as well as um during Saturdays during the school year for our children in grades one through 8th grade and this program focuses on those fundamental skills and competitiv skills in various Sports the Arts enrichment Saturday program for our students in grade 6 through 12 will continue to be offered providing our students to participate in a variety of workshops access to Art musical theater dance instrumental music and of course sustaining our Jazz Ensemble incredibly talented students and this extracurricular Ensemble will focus on all genres of jazz performing at a variety of concerts and competitions as we continue we're reminded of our foundation of our organization that our this budget uh was one that was built to follow the principles of our three e of equity high expectations and Excellence so I turn now to um new initiatives and we are um as the present time we have Avid in 30 of our schools however Avid is at the middle school level so we are introducing at the elementary level two new programs that Avid has to offer the first is AVID Elementary and this is an opportunity for um a pilot program at Dr Albert Einstein Academy school number 29 where the Avid Elementary program that was um currently at school number eight as a K8 program this newly designed program is for kindergarten through fifth grade where children will learn about organization study skills communication self- advocacy and most important is the opportunity to expose our children to college and career opportunities at such a young age so that they can begin creating their career plans at an ear at this early age Avid Excel also particularly um exciting opportunity where uh we will be providing an elective that supports instruction for our multilingual Learners through academic language reading writing language academic vocabulary college readiness skills and I think what is really important about the Abid Excel program is that it has a firm commitment to biliteracy which is what we believe in here at the El Public Schools it is important to support child in both their native language and also in the English language and Avid and the El public schools have that common goal the Avid Excel program will be piloted at school number 25 and School Number 27 and we now move to New initiatives at our high schoolies with a focus on Career Readiness at Jefferson Arts Academy the new theater career Strand and this course develops the knowledge and experience in the technical aspects of theater production so it's those critical elements of design correct scenery lighting properties sound costume hair makeup uh design analysis stage management uh production management and this is really an opportunity to expand the uh theater career strand at Jefferson arts academy by adding this program new initiatives that are being offered at our STEM Academy under the biomedical science career strand electrocardiograph technology designed to prepare our students for employment as electrocardiograph technicians EKG technicians cardiovascular technicians um this program offers a sequence of courses that provides rigorous content aligned to the state standards and of course what is uh most important is that technical knowledge that our students will gain uh that will give them an opportunity to explore additional careers pharmacy technician is also uh being introduced in the 2425 uh school year and this will be a pathway within our biomedical science strand for our students during their senior year the certification Dr Barbosa is thrilled thrilled I see this certification program will equip our students with that knowledge those technical skills and those work habits so that they have that first exposure to the pharmacy field or a related area uh the program will offer an added steroid compounding certification with this Pharmacy te uh technician program and it'll allow our students the opportunity to be able to work in a hospital pharmacy fantastic um opportunity lies ahead in our 24 25 school year and we are also expanding successful programs at uh two of our high school so at Thomas Edison Career and Technical Academy we are expanding our manufacturing program um with Ignite ignite is a foundational skill development program and its purpose is to be able to um stimulate the students interest in the field of manufacturing and Industry so students will learn about the various careers years and experience them firsthand by performing those tasks in the um industry um and virtual environments as well and with that our successful uh EMT program emergency medical technicians program at Admiral William F poliy Health and Public Safety Academy our students will be eligible to earn their EMT certification and of course the topics that are included in that certification program are uh medical legal and ethical issues the human body uh Baseline Vital Signs pharmacology respiratory cardiovascular diabetic emergencies sample history um Airway management uh seen size up and this is an opportunity for students to be able to become familiar with initial assessments as well as the history of medical and Trauma of patients so very successful uh partnership we have with the city of Elizabeth and this is an opportunity to leverage our funding to be able to expand the emergency medical technician program and also uh new this year is score College management system so for our students uh historically we had uh utilized navian at the high school level with score we have the opportunity to expose students as young as sixth grade to various colleges that they would uh be able to align their interest to so for students that looks like a platform that allows them to very easily input criteria the location they may be interested in attending uh the college or university the size of the school their personal interest activities that they're interested in um they're they have this opportunity to receive a list of matching schools schs and then they can click to learn about the school it they can take a virtual tour on score and they can even see the posts from those respective colleges and universities in terms of the clubs and teams that they offer parents have access to score and of course score is Guided by our amazing guidance counselors uh and it helps to stimulate those conversations in terms of the area of interest for our students and what is wonderful is the student is able to keep that information or be able to dismiss what may not be of interest up to them so it keeps uh very much aligned to our priorities of keeping the student experience front and center front and center so on the screen before you you see additional capabilities of score and we are piloting uh that system uh at this time uh and we will have the full compliment for grades 6 through 12 in the New Year next we have uh the free application for federal student aid FAFSA expansion of our seminars historically we have always provided uh seminars as part of our budget for our students and our parents however a reminder to our community that in January Governor Murphy signed legislation requiring high school students all high school students to to complete the financial aid applications so the best way in which for our students and our families to understand the importance of all of the funding that would be available to support their uh careers their uh College choices is by ensuring that our students uh fill out the application but in order to do that we have to be able to expose our parents and our students to the importance of this new requirement I always uh enjoy sharing with our community our Partnerships and I only have two slides dedicated to the multitude of partners that we work with in this organization and I think it's wonderful when we um find organizations that are like-minded as as we are and we have the opportunity to work side by side on supporting all of our classrooms all of our students so on the screen before you are just a sampling of our K12 partners parterships and as we continue on additional Partnerships that we have that have benefited our organization greatly um as well as uh referencing our dual enrollment programs opportunities our students have to be able to earn college credits while in high school and next we turn to some of the highlights from our um operations budgets so we begin with uh funding 2.25 million in repoint envelopes it's an opportunity to be able to address um the bricks that uh cover our schools correct and ensuring uh that they are properly maintained so as you can see here 2.25 million is dedicated uh to ensuring we are Shoring up all of the brick exteriors on our schools and the schools are listed on the screen before you and that also includes a central office and one of our warehouses as well next we're dedicating 4.7 million in roof replacement and coding and the schools that you see before you School number 1925 are Early Childhood Center School 50 um our FY Annex our children's Welcome Center our dun Sports Center and our one of our warehouses so that's a de we're dedicating 4.7 million to ensuring uh we have roof replacement taking place in the upcoming school year next we're allocating 2.8 million to Asphalt replacement and all of the sites that you see before you on the screen as well as funding 1 million in painting projects so the entire building School 19 and the school 9 Annex will be painted and then we also have taken on additional projects as it relates to painting classrooms cafeterias offic at school number 16 at school number 21 at school number 25 as we continue on we're dedicating 600,000 in hallway floor replacement at school number 19 and school number 26 followed by dedicated funding of 400,000 in gym floor replacement at school number 25 and our Early Childhood Center School number 52 Dr Martin Luther King Jr as we continue on it's important to be able to attend to the needs of our team members our food and nutrition Department our food service workers as in schools where you may not have the necessary equipment to facilitate bringing the breakfast the lunch to those upper floors so we're dedicating 450,000 to the installation of a small freight elevator intended to carry food at school number 16 we're we've we're addressing uh the replacement of doors at our Hy Academy and the funding is in the total amount of $155,000 in order to replace the doors we're dedicating 120,000 for bathroom upgrade at school number 19 and school number 20 we're funding 120,000 for outdoor seating replacement at our main complex our dwire Academy and Hy Academy as well as school number nine and school number two which are the picnic tables that are outside of the school replacing those to ensure that our children have a place to be able to sit and enjoy during recess and this was a priority for our board to ensure that these areas were being addressed when we turn to Safety and Security uh Begin by introducing a new initi itive and um it is our security officer registration act training that is referred to as Sora training that will be provided to 175 security guards um in our district this will be in partnership with the Elizabeth Police Department uh where we will be providing the required training uh to ensure that we are supporting our security guards as critical team members we're also dedicating $30,000 for the installation of a security gate at school number 23 we are funding $230,000 in additional security cameras at the schools that are on the screen before you and this has been an ongoing uh commitment from our board to ensuring that we're reviewing all of the schools and locations in uh collaboration with our security department identifying those areas where additional cameras would serve us well as we continue on uh we are upgrading the electrical wiring and panels for the roll out of our electric school buses and transportation is critical correct we uh transport uh children um all throughout the city uh this is an opportunity to now see the potential of the electric buses in our community and for that we have to prepare for ensuring we're updating our infrastructure it is my pleasure now to be able to introduce Mr Harold Kennedy our school administr school administrator well thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening a little bit about the numbers uh We've off to a great start with new stuff new initiatives and but the budget is the budget so here we go um this slide gives a uh a look at the Timeline to put the budget together it starts right after Thanksgiving in the finance department um Where We Gather input from stakeholders for my department that means um taking everybody of those 4,000 employees and taking their 2324 salaries and rolling them over into the 2425 budget system at contractual rates moving up steps and then um adding on their benefits so that's the that's the start in November then phase two is determining the needs based on October 15th enrollment and what that encompasses beginning in December and going into January um the directors sit with the building administrators and go class by class and we have the enrollment from the October 15th count and determine the needs of that building based on that enrollment count how many classrooms how many teachers so on and so forth um that continues on from December through um January under phase three where there's face-to-face meetings with all of our principles and they also review the the existing inventories in the books in the buildings and the requests and then come um February we meet face to face with all the instructional and operator operational directors to determine what their needs are they put in request but we also look back to see 2324 what they actually spent what their proposed budgets were and how 24 25 matches up to that um that continues on in phase four with a line by line Department budget review allocation of funds within the each individual school and then um the finance department compiles all that data puts it into a userfriendly format for presentation to various um people in our organization the first thing we do is have it reviewed by our Financial Consultant he looks at every line by line also with us and sees things that might not that we may not see from our vantage point and then the big thing that happens in the beginning of March is um collaboration with our finance committee three four five times late hours in the night zoom zoom meetings and so on and so forth which brings us to the point where we're waiting for state aid at the end of February um so then that state aid comes in hopefully in this year as in the past it was very favorable to us and brings us to this uh budget hearing this evening so another way some of the other things that were in that timeline is um as I said before we look at prior year spending data we look at the school-based needs individually classroom principles enrollment we also go back to our strategic plans as the superintendent showed with the pillars of um um how we accomplish our strategic plan um enrollment and data projections as I said before Staffing based on those enrollment projections and also the facility needs that um are over 54 buildings um it's quite a quite a facility review we do do during the budget process so that comes comes to fruition with the announcement of state aid at the end of February and what that calcul to on a revenue basis is our budget is 759 million 359 982 and the biggest piece of that is our state aid of 640 million 84% the next biggest thing is our federal aid of 44 million um the local Levy and the balance appropriation local Levy is about 59 million and miscellaneous Revenue is $3.1 million so what do we do with that we of course we appropriate and expend it so this chart once again a balanced budget the expenditures equal the revenue 759 359 982 but that is a total of um a combination of federal and state and local funds in the general fund so the general funds budget of that 759 is 662 million the special Revenue fund is $96 million um that's where all our grants are accounted for So within that 662 million 75% of the expenditures go to salary and benefits of approximately 500 million the remainder is what we determined to be non salary or 25% of that 662 122 162 million and of that 162 million on salary 70% is covered by five categories tuition is um 41 million Transportation 28 million instructional supplies 22 million repair and maintenance of our buildings 17 million and energy and utilities 10 million so 25% of that non salary of 162 adds up to 118 under those five five categories on the chart what that what shows is that 75% of our total budget of 759 million goes to instruction 571 million the next biggest piece is Operation and maintenance of plant 79 million other is combination of community services employee benefits Transportation capital outlay and debt service for 85 million and administration is 22639 531 um same percentag is coming from the chart but a little easier to see it instruction is 75.3% where it should be in a School District operation and maintenance of plant is 10.5% benefits Transportation capital outlay is 11.3% and administration is 3% of that 759 appropriated expenditure another way to look at expenditures is on a per pupil basis the state uses its c um software to calculate our per pupil based on the data that we um input into our budget so for Elizabeth our comparative per pup cost on that 759 million appropriation is $ 22,88200 and the and the um per pupil cost that the state focuses focuses in on is Administration which for us this year is 1,858 what they look at is you're allowed to have 2,585 that's the Northern Regional cost per student for administration the allowable cost you can't spend more than that per pupil and in Elizabeth we're under that we're at 1,000 $858 per student on Administration um I always like to say we don't create our budget in a void we have our Financial Consultant we have our finance committee looking over our shoulder at the same time but we also have the Department of Education we have to follow their rules their software their their budget um tax budget budget compliance book um we follow the instructions incorporated into that data collection manual published by the NJ doe office of finance and following these rules and using the software to check and balance us um the budgets are and information submitted for approval to the executive county superintendent and the executive business administrator are complete and correct in accordance with their rules finally um we believe in an open and transparent budget process all Board of Education meetings are open to the public an agenda and meeting minutes are available at our website WWWE epsnj.org copies of the full budget are available in my office in the Mitchell building at 500 North Broad Street or via email it's it's in a PDF format I can send it to to anyone requesting it and it's also will be posted on the budget the district's uh website um tomorrow actually so thank you for the time so let me say a few things about the numbers I would like to close by um extending my thanks to everyone and a special thank you to our board of education for your hard work and effort in seeing us through this process of developing this budget a special thank you to my cabinet to our school business administrator our comproller our assistant superintendent a special thank you to our instructional directors and our operations directors our School principles Vice principls write down to to all of the folks in our organization our teachers that play a prival role in ensuring that they're capturing the needs assessment for their respective classrooms everyone is involved in developing the budget for a district and we cannot do this work alone it is only through the efforts of our administrators through uh the efforts of all of our team members in our schools that were able to present a budget such as this the presentation ends with our accomplishments for this year for this school year to date and this is going to be uploaded to our web page for everyone's enjoyment but I wanted to be able to say thank you to everyone good evening uh thank you madam superintendent and Mr Kennedy for your presentation um I too just want to say a few thanks I definitely want to thank uh the chairperson of the finance committee Mr Jacob Jerry Jacobs as well as his committee members on the finance committee step uh board member Stephanie conalz bana and vice president Stan naron along with the entire board as well but I wanted to thank you guys for working with um our superintendent in her cabinet and making sure that the budget um is what it is uh today I also want to thank our superintendent for all the work you've done all the hours you put in especially today um to make sure that we are moving towards um the right direction in our district um and again all of your cabinet I'm not naming individual people but to your cabinet to your teachers to all of our staff in our district who assisted in any way possible thank you thank you and thank you at this time I'm going to open up the floor to see if any board members would like to say something starting with our chairperson Jerry Jacobs thank you m thank you Madame President I I'd like to also Echo um your gratitude and thanks to uh our Madam superintendent um Mr Kennedy and Mr multure along with our assistant superintendent the directors you know it's a joint effort you know our principles and every person is involved um I'd also like to thank my committee uh chair people uh committee people um commissioner Stephanie gon pastana and commissioner Stan Naran um I also would like to point out uh to my understanding I think Mr Kenny that this budget is also a 0% tax increase as well yes it is I'm sorry I didn't mention it's the 10th year that the tax love you's been the same yeah so this is the 10th year that Mr Kennedy and his staff Mr molter have been able to to put forth the budget of this size uh with a 0% tax increase to the citizens of Elizabeth New Jersey I also find it uh very encouraging the fact that we were able to uh keep approximately $8 million in arp fun programs um and uh positions in the current budget for this year and I we have to note that that that those funds will be running out um at the end of this year um so next year will'll be um maybe a very difficult year for us uh we are very I'd also like to say I'm very grateful to the governor and also to our uh legislative district team of Senator cryan uh assemblywoman andano assembly and Regional Atkins for the work that they do down in Trenton to make sure that our district is is adequately funded so that we can provide the services that our children desires for the education that they need to receive um I'm also very excited uh with the new programs and initiatives that we saw especially you know I don't want to take any seing with but I want to give um I want to give accolades to our commissioner Barosa and her passion and desire for the programs that she initiated um at the jbj STEM Academy because that's one of the purposes that we are that we choose to serve um with this District to have these type of um options available to our children sort of to prepare to prepare them for their future uh I think I've covered everything so I'd like to say thank you again thank you Madame President you're welcome thank you any other board members all right thank you again at this time the microphones are open for public comments to those who have signed in prior to this session I shall call the individuals to the microphone based on the order of the sign and Sheet each statement made by the participant shall be limited to 3 minutes in duration the total time of public comment shall be limited to 60 Minutes no individual is able to yield their time to another individual all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer no participants May address or question the board members individually each speaker shall comply in all respects with board policy 9322 and it were copies by the signning sheet the following rules shall apply time limits will be strictly enforced no personal attacks on individuals or naming of individuals no vulgar or indecent language a person may address the board no more than once during a single meeting and comments will not be debated as a reminder this is a meeting of the P Board in public not a meeting of the public at this time I call Mr Maria Loren good evening at uh this presentation we touted a graduation rate of 87.9% that's still way below the state Target level which we haven't met in quite some time so I didn't see anything in your budget to address our graduation rate similarly uh the dropout rate from 9 to 12 never met a state Target uh we are at uh hovering at 2 to 2.7% for the dropout rate there's nothing there to remediate or address any programs to um address that concern um Elizabeth like I said always fell short in graduation rates I think it's quite disingenuous as well to say and separate special education at 10% and 2 2.6% I believe I saw was the figure for sped and ml um that's very disingenuous to show that there was a reduction of 8.3% in special education classifications and very misleading and gaslighting to the citizens to say that you have an 82% increase in ml and special need students that should have been reported together they're not separated out uh the 0% tax increase this is something that this board has touted for quite some time I guess the question is who is the cost being passed to because somebody's picking up that tab um don't understand why we need more staff and special services when our classification rate isn't quite high at all compared to other districts and it keeps dropping uh no Youth Athletic summer programs uh don't know what programs really exist for the special needs Community as it seems that special Olympic seems to be quite selective um should be actually all categorized together with Athletics and they should have an opportunity to also play with their neurodiverse um peers uh the College and Career Readiness uh the state is leading in students in AP and IB courses uh students with disabilities actually and the dual enrollment course the state is leading in that in English Learners and homeless students where we're failing in that category uh school 28 additional targeted support for African-American students see anything that would address that hle target support for consistently underperforming groups of students with disabilities um they were cited for that by the state and Thomas Edison comprehensive support for low graduation rate nothing in your budget addresses any programs for that and I'm still wondering um why you didn't report on the buildings that have asbestos abatement a lot of parents were not informed that their children were attending schools where there was ASB bestus present and they did not receive notices that that has happened so I guess you should possibly double down or triple down on your for attorney fees cuz I'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot of parents that might sue you thank you thank you at this time I close the public portion of the meeting all right since there were no comments before Mr Kennedy may I have adop may I have a motion in a second to adopt the 2024 2025 school year budget motion to adopt the 20 2425 school elth school budget Mr Kenny has something to say yes yes there's actually um I don't know what's going on with the feedback actually resolution one to good there's two resolutions before you um we're required to also adopt the Early Childhood budget that's incorporated in into that first budget we're adopting we can adopt both at the same time yes let's try this again may I have a motion to adopt the 2024 2025 school year budget including the 2025 20 2024 2025 Early Childhood budget as well motion I make a motion it's been probably it's been moved in probably second to approve the 2024 2025 school year budget including the Early Childhood budget any questions or comments seeing none roll call please Barbosa yes carvalo yes Miss Chev oh thank you chevis yes Jacobs yes Marina Ortega naron yes con pastana yes Rivera yes bis dorley yes thank you yes thank you everyone um again just want to thank everyone for attending thank you to all our staff members who are here um for attending and being in the audience we appreciate you I hope you guys have a wonderful evening enjoy the weather again God bless and take care oh no at this time I need a motion to adjourn certainly do I make a motion to adjourn tonight's speed I second that motion it's been moved in 5 Second to adjourn tonight's meeting at uh 6:51 p.m. roll call please Barbosa yes good night everyone carvalo yes congratulations Cheves yes good night everyone Jacobs yes good night naron yes good night congratulations and great job of you canavas pastana yes good night everyone Rivera yes B Thorley yes thank you and have a wonderful evening take care