is e once again we apologize the meeting is going to call to order at 7:58 the public has been duly informed of this meeting in accordance with the chapter 231 of the public bylaws uh of 1975 by posting at least 48 hours in advance a notice in the Bullington boards and the Stevenson and Church Hill schools a notice to the Township Clerk and a notice to the Pake Harold News and the progress everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance IED alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible and jusice for all public comments on agenda items only okay at this time we're going to have an audit presentation Brian if you would come up and introduce yourself good evening I'm Brian Co with niss ofat I'm the audit manager on your account I'd like to start with thanking Kathleen and her staff for all the hard work that you do during the audit process and thank you for making us priority I know that it's a disruption to your normal day and that everybody loves it when the Auditors come out but I really do appreciate your patience and hard work okay I'm going to briefly go over the four main funds um general fund ended the year with a $4 million fund balance this is comprised of $2.5 million in capital reserve $150,000 in maintenance uh prior year excess Surplus of$ 395,000 current year excess surplus of 400,000 and cces of $40,000 assigned for subsequent years expenditures to be used in the 2024 budget of 237,000 and unassigned fund balance of 319,000 which is down by 140,000 from the previous year due to the change in the state policies from the 4% of uh total expenditures back down to 2% that it was previously before covid uh the district utilized about $650,000 of federal grants during 2023 and this was run through fund2 the special Revenue fund uh in capital projects fund you have one ongoing project project that started in 2022 which was the electrical service panels at Stevenson school and that's funded through capital reserve and tracked in the capital projects fund uh Debt Service fund you currently have zero bonded debt um the 20 2002 School bonds matured in 2022 and we have no uh current year recommendations and there are no prior recommendations so therefore there are no repeat findings any questions from the board all right great thank you very much thank you very much we appreciate your time for enrollment okay so uh under Personnel uh certificated staff I have a few items for the board to approve um the employment of the uh full-time tenure track special ed position uh for number two the maternity leave of absence that's listed and the maternity leave of absence extension as well as for number four the termination of the employee uh for B the non-certificated staff the medical leave of absence uh to approve that as listed as well as reinstate the full-time technology network administrator position and also the change of assignment motion second Brian yes yes yes yes uh under curriculum and program to approve the attendance at the following workshops uh please note one of them is coming out of title to funds and that's it for curriculum and program okay you have a motion motion second yes yes yes yes uh under policy to approve the second reading and Adoption of the following policies uh for B we're going to table that motion motion second yes yes yes yes okay under business finance office resolutions um I'm asking the board to approve a approval of the minutes from um October 19 2023 for the public and executive under B Finance uh ratify and affirm the bills and claims from 111 and 1116 as listed on page five of the agenda as well as the payroll from October 30th and November 15th I'm asking the board in the bottom of page 5 to approve the transfers for the month of October top page six the treasures report that was already approved by uh Mr halic for October 31st amended tax levy payment schedule um that is that was resubmitted to the burrow yesterday and um under administrative uh approve the following grants the reflective math Grant in the amount of well for 40 seats uh on an online uh math program the other resolution is for 2900 to support special education from the Fairfield Education Foundation number two um accepts the appreciation of supplies as listed on page seven on page seven for buildings and grounds the building use application as listed community outreach as as well as Mr G's after school sports program um ratify and affirm the two quotes one from selli Electric for emergency repairs um at Stevenson in the amount of $ 484872 repair for the front the main entrance of Stevenson in the amount of$ 35.94 may I have a motion motion second discussion go ahead uh I just would really like to acknowledge um the Fairfield uh Education Foundation as well as uh all of those listed in the name of donors um it's really great regardless whether it's a huge donation or if it's um whatever um someone can spare um that they're thinking about the district they're thinking about the children um and uh it's really good to see that and um I definitely appreciate that and I'm sure my fellow more me board members feel the same way thank you Brian roll call Miss alai yes Mr Egan yes Mr feedi yes Mr D Pasqual yes okay under old business does anyone have anything I have a couple things under their old business I'd like to take this opportunity to address uh the recent election and the overwhelming support from the community on questions one and two and leading up to that there was a couple different committees that played a key part in in getting the information out there that was necessary for the voters uh to inform them to take the time to answer questions so I'd like to start off by thanking some of the groups first and foremost so our community outreach Group which we have a couple members here if you would just please stand up and and we appreciate your time and and everything that you've put into this it's your hard work and effort hasn't gone unnoticed uh our HSA and our Education Foundation which we have members here as well so if you ladies please stand up we greatly appreciate everything that you've done uh so leading up to the vote these groups were very instrumental in in helping uh promote a yes vote and for getting the information and knowledge necessary out to the voters so that they can make a determination on Election Day which obviously we all know was unanimous with questions one and two um leading up to it there was a lot of discussion with the community outreach group but one person in particular really did a great job and kind of spearheaded everything and that's Frank lamort from from the LaMore family so Frank thank you very much we greatly appreciate it in the weeks coming before the flyer went out that Frank orchestrated we were kind of back and forth because there was just so much going on and Frank's the one that said you know what let's make a final push and let's let's send the flyer let's let's have a couple dates let's let's meet with the community members which is why on that particular Friday we offered a morning session and an afternoon session with the community outreach and the community outreach members were there so so for that we we want to thank you we greatly appreciate it and then on Election Day I feel it's very important that we take a moment and literally acknowledge the individuals that were throwing themselves at the cars that were coming in to park and vote so Frank was there again so Frank thank you very much uh Marissa lamort Lauren matano Nicole sudall Christopher ALG Ashley antonakis chrisen deatria who was literally jumping on cars as they were pulling in Christ crello Liz Sone and Tyler Masterson thank you very much you were all intricate parts of questions wanting to pasting so we salute you thank you so much does anybody have anything else on their old business anyone have anything on their new business uh new business I would just like to mention that in one of the correspondents uh we received about author day from one of the princip principles that um it was one of our own Fairfield residents one of our own Fairfield teachers uh who was the author who authored a new children's book um so that's a really great accomplishment not only for her but also for the district and the town to uh be proud of yes anyone else on their new business so on their new business we'd like to take the opportunity to introduce three of the members of our Education Foundation that met with us prior to the meeting we know there's a lot of Buzz and we know that they're going to do a great thing but we wanted to welcome Lauren matano Kristen deatria and Tyler Masterson they're going to come up and just say a few words about the Education Foundation and formally introduce themselves the committee members and their goal for the 2024 20123 2024 school year so looks like Lauren was nominated hi everyone thank you for having us um so just real quick uh very high level we want to introduce ourselves we are fef the Fairfield Education Foundation and we're a nonprofit 5013c organization originally founded in 2016 um during that time there was a little bit of a law um getting off the ground with all the buzz going on in the district and you know questions and funds and concerns we took advantage of the momentum and we managed to resurrect um we have six trustees myself uh Lauren matano Kristen deatria Tyler Masterson Cindy Halen and um Kristen um Ashley antonakis and Kristen Kelli who is our Treasurer so our mission basically is to provide ongoing and centralized source of additional funds and resour sources to the students of Fairfield um we're going to focus on three areas we're going to facilitate student development professional development and promote Community Support um we would encourage everybody to please check out our website um it is FF nj.org uh please join our mailing list and also please uh check us out on social media we do plan to hold um our first large event um we're targeting February 2024 um and we also encourage um anyone to reach out I've heard from a handful of people who have some really good ideas in the community that want to work with us um and do things that are ultimately going to benefit the children and we're all ears um we can't do this alone so we really encourage the partnership and the Locking arms thank you for having us thank you very much [Applause] Lauren anything else on their new business anything on their committee reports my personal favorite time of the night public comments on non-agenda items hi Frank lamort for Su El Lane um I have a question I think this might be for Sue or for Kathleen um I have a couple friends who are teachers and superintendents in the in the state of New Jersey I noticed the last couple hires we hired we hired somebody the last agenda at a step eight salary and this agenda a step 15 I know that they used to use that app track the state site for all the job postings it was I understand we had a few people leave after we had the layoffs do we have openings and where are they posted because I'm wondering are we able you know are we looking at maybe recent College grads people that can come in with lower salaries you know I know are focused on the budget you know so I'm just wondering where we're posting these jobs um thanks Frank so the Apple track is not um a job posting place so that's an actual application per District so let's suppose Montville has openings they use apple track if you post there it's only for Montville you go to Summit there might be another uh thing so that's just a a way for people to get their resumes in we post on New Jersey was it NJ yeah school jobs um so we post there um you can't go by the steps because when you're taking a look at the steps you don't necessarily know what number is correlating with that um our guide has several steps in it and our lower steps we um the numbers aren't as high as what you probably think they are okay so it's difficult to do that um when you're trying to be competitive you're trying to attract uh people to come to the district and hopefully stay you have to be competitive as well as how you're going to hire them right um they're not going to leave a district especially if they're tenured they're not leaving that district for less money it just doesn't make any sense who's going to do that um but especially when you're in the middle of a school year that that your application pull is low um I can tell you that our principals our director they reach out to the colleges to see if there's any graduates coming up um so we do that when we can um but I can tell you the and this is not just here in Fairfield because even the surrounding districts um I just had a meeting with them and they were asking if we had resumes that we could share with them because they have uh openings as well that they can't fill and it's just something that's going on right now throughout the state it's very difficult to find teachers that actually want to come to the districts as well and that leads us also to when you have maternity leaves very difficult to find because they're not 10e track positions either so we're doing the best that we can and we try to work with other districts as well and see if there's someone coming maybe off of a maternity leave there can they come over to us but you know that's how we do it okay can I ask one more question um also the the questions P one and two is there like a like I know what they you know the proposals had all the items and then the dollar amount is there public information anywhere on the allocations for those items I believe it was posted online but I'll make sure with one of the secretaries tomorrow that it will be on our line on on website all right great thank you okay so that brings Frank has a a great point when we post for a particular job who determines what the offered salary is going to be or is it just based upon the applicant and what they're they're looking for no well I do the final determination I go by their experience it's not necessarily what they're looking for but I can tell you we've had people even last year that came in with two years experience making well above our step 10 so okay it's very difficult I we had people that we had to actually say thank you but I can't match what you're making and we lost good candidates okay anything else on their public comments okay on to next meeting be resolved that the next meeting will be held in person on December 14th 2023 public wor section beginning at 6:30 p.m. followed by executive session with public section resuming at approximately 7:30 at the Fairfield Municipal Building motion for adjournment motion second yes yes yes yes thank you all very much no