hello and welcome to the Monday March 18th 2024 Hillsboro Township Board of Education meeting in accordance with the state Sunshine Law of New Jersey adequate notice of this meeting of the Hillsboro ATT Board of Education was provided on March 14 20202 2024 to the Hillsboro Beacon and the courrier News Mr eer can we please take rooll Mr Davis here Miss Jackson here miss Craig here miss Lanning beer here Mr Lee Miss nurse here miss stats here Mr Hill here and Mr mourin here we have a quorum we'll now take a motion to move into executive session whereas the open public meeting D chapter 231 of the laws of 1975 provide that a public body May exclude the public from that portion of the meeting of which the public body discusses certain matters for which confidentiality is required as permitted in section 7B of the ACT res uh resolved by the Board of Education of the township of Hillsboro and the county of Somerset in the state of New Jersey as follows the matters to be discussed are a harassment intimidation and bullying appeal a student dis iary matter and a legal matter the matters discussed in executive session shall be disclosed to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exist can I get a motion a second so mooved second all in favor I we'll be back shortly thank you hello and welcome back to the Monday March 18th 2024 Hillsboro Township Board of Education meeting we have uh return from from executive session uh and in in doing that Mr record if we could please take Ro Mr Davis here Miss Jackson here miss Craig here miss Lanning beer here Mr Lee here miss nurse here miss stats here Mr hio here and Mr Marini here we have a quorum I stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance to the of the United States of America [Music] like to acknowledge the corresponden is listed and I think we have one committee report two Comm two two committee reports uh so we will start with uh HR we had a meeting scheduled for this past Wednesday March 13th um however since there was one Agenda night agenda item we were able to communicate via email the one correction that sorry it was regarding a Personnel matter um one correction to the minutes is that um it is not Mrs stats who is on that committee she took the place of Mr Marini um for that email conversation but I was left off of that so I should be on there as opposed to miss stats all right thank you uh operations operations most of the meeting was uh taken up by discussing the impact of the travesty of State financing on Hillsboro and the the terrific loss we are experiencing and what that might mean for the budget which uh our business administrator and that office uh have been working diligently at resolving uh we also talked about uh the project to to erect The Pavilion at Sunny me school and affirmed that that project is underway it's the it's the paperwork approvals scheduling uh issue that uh slows it up but that's basically all right thank you any other board members I think that was it for committee reports or do we have education education met okay so um at the Education meeting we did discuss uh course title changes thank you um that are on the uh action items for this evening one of the things about ESL is that the um rationale for the changes is to provide services based on English language proficiency rather than grade level we do have a new course proposal that we discussed the AP 3D art and design um policies and regulation review for first reading those items are on tonight's agenda as well um Miss stats brought up the question of literacy and math CP courses so we talked about how to go about doing the research um to see whether or not it's a viable option to um come up with CP courses that are um maybe a little less r for those students that um math and literacy may not be their their best um courses um we talked about the cap Lottery there was a a letter written about it so we we did a an administrative overview of cap we discussed summer credit uh advancement math electives um initially there was some difficulty securing mathematics teachers but um that issue has been resolved all right thank you uh and for governance I was not able to attend but I have the minutes here so I will give a summary and if anybody else that was there wants to jump in and add any more comments please feel free to do so so the meeting minutes from that um obviously the the budget crisis and state aid Cuts was a a topic we also talked about um we we prepared the binders for the budget uh information and we uh recommended the full board revisions to a number of policies uh for first reading tonight education Equity policies comprehensive Equity equal opportun equal employment equity in school and classroom guidance counseling Equitable education uh curriculum content and equity in school classroom uh different procedures and policies regulations um we also kind of I'll say most importantly we finalized The Retreat budget for uh The Retreat agenda for this coming Monday for the topics that we'll be covering at that meeting all right anybody else want to add anything for that meeting because I was not there no okay all right thank you very much um and now we'll move on uh the next is the board president's report and um I don't prepar statements here but I will say a little bit uh when I ran for the first time I don't know four five six years ago how many years was that I first ran it was because of the the teacher cuts um it was really the that craziness is why I ran for the board and I promis myself when I ran I would never allow that to happen under my watch and that's been taken out of my hands unfortunately uh a failure from the state a failure from our legisl legislators um not protecting this District if you look at Hillsboro as compared to the rest of our County as our superintendent has said over and over again it is ridiculous how much money we've lost it's embarrassing um I I moved to this town because of the district and the education it provides and to see our our numbers cut almost exactly the amount of our referendum that passed seems pointed and directed uh and a shot at the district so I am very upset um we will have to approve a temporary budget because that's our requirement and our duty as elected officials um but this drives me nuts um I love the teachers in our district the last thing I want to do to see any of them go so I will stop talking before I get more upset so thank you thank you Mr President before I talk about the budget how about I get some good news out there um that was recently shared to me by uh Chris Ireland our supervisor of Fine Arts and related areas our high school get that there our high school's Legacy show choir it first year as a course attended a Titan Tournament of choirs at the Cosby High School in Midlothian Virginia where they competed against groups from eight states and received the following accolades third place overall in their division second place for their choreography students Lily D Ebner and Connor ranek were awarded sportsmanship Showmanship awards for best performance and the director Mrs Matthews was recognized by the judges with the music educator award for the event which recognized the director who exhibited the most passion care and commitment to Excellence to their students congratulations to all of you and I think that last line can apply to all of our staff here in [Applause] Hillsboro as president Marini had stated um be sharing tonight the tentative budget and I what I can tell you is that this tentative budget you in ideal circumstances we want our tentative budget to match our final budget that we bring it out to the community uh things stay solid and our final budget matches our tenative budget that will not be the case this year our our final budget will be very different than our tenative budget what I'm asking the board to do tonight is to vote on the fact that I'm putting together numbers that have a balanced budget but because of the news that we got recently um and many districts throughout the state there's no way that you can come up with all of the right answers in a a two and a half week turnaround period uh we need some more time so while I present the budget tonight I want you to uh to be aware of that um as I point some things out to you and I'll start with what our tenative budget is going to be I want to thank all the budget managers for helping uh put together as responsible of the budget as we possibly can and as I mentioned this is only tenative there will be changes and if you come to the final budget hearing you'll hear exactly what those changes are uh nothing's being hidden everything is going to be transparent so we will have the tenative budget for approval as well as a couple of other items as we move through here and uh Mr eard and I are going to kind of tag team here on our budget presentation for today budget calendar so just wanted to take you through our budget calendar that we follow here um the process has been ongoing for the last several months in November we distributed allocations to our budget managers and asked them to submit their budget requests by late December once all budget managers requests were submitted we started to review the requests and had any needed follow-up discussions with individual budget managers in late January and early February budgets were reviewed with the superintendent and prepared to share with the operations Committee in February also in February the state opened the budget software and we're able to begin entering budget information into that software we learned our state aid allocation on February 29th which turned out to be 2.3 million less than anticipated the cut was was actually 2.7 million but we did anticipate a $400,000 reduction the operations committee reviewed the budget again on March 15th which brings us to tonight where we ask the board to approve the tenative [Music] budget following tonight the tenative budget will be sent to the county office for approval and then advertise in advance of the April 29th board meeting where we will hold the public hearing on the 20242 budget any changes to the budget between now and the April 29th budget hearing will be detailed during the budget during the public hearing on the budget as Mr vulp had stated so the budget goals that we originally had set for the 2425 school school year were pretty simple given an anticipated state aid cut of $400,000 all the goals were focused on maintaining and protecting the programs that are in place for the 2023 24 school year the Staffing levels for those programs and to do the proper maintenance of our facilities unfortunately when state aid information was released on February 29th we learned that our state aid was being cut an additional 2.3 million as a result of this unexpected cut we will not be able to meet all of these budget goals Cuts will need to be identified in time for the April 29th budget hearing that will still allow us to provide a thorough and efficient education as required by the state of New Jersey for the past six months or so we've had a link on the district website as well as allowing people to come to the podium here to talk about input for the 2425 budget the areas that we were that were requested were full day kindergarten healthy school hours Athletics increased bus driver eight hours hours NH HMS extracurriculars courtesy Transportation Elementary speech therapists Phil day preschool uh elective programs HMS parking lot instructional supplies and subscriptions and student athlete option two so at this point we'll start to get into a little bit of the of the budget overview so a quick overview of the proposed tenative 2425 budget our general fund is increasing by just over 2.9 Million despite our state aid reductions of 2.7 million the reason for this is our 2% tax levy increase plus the we are taking it a health benefit waiver in the amount of $777,000 um and the last piece that really makes this really increase is that we are taking um a three $3.25 million withdrawal from our capital Reserve account which will be used on onetime projects the grants and entitlements portions of the budget is comprised of federal state and local Grant in donations as the state recommends we budget 85% of the current year actual Awards since we not do not learn our Federal grant allocations until May or June the final portion of our budget is our debt service which is the principle and interest and payments for the bonds that were issued for the 2019 referendum also on this slide at the bottom we show what our state aid Cuts have been for each the past two years and are cumulative Cuts since the onset of S2 the reduction for the current 2023 24 budget was $913,000 and for the projected 2425 budget our cut is addition is an additional $2.7 million which brings our cumulative Aid state aid cuts to just over7 million since the onset of S2 so here's a few uh of the budget highlights in the on the revenue side a revenue for the 2425 budget increases by 2.8 million despite the state aid reduction of 2.7 million the original projections from S2 for this year where the state aid would be cut approximately $243,000 so just to be safe we initially built the budget around a cut of $400,000 unfortunately it went far deeper than our projections we are increasing the general fund tax levy by the maximum allowable of 2% and in addition as I said earlier we are increasing the tax levy this year year by an additional 777000 for a health benefit waiver which is due to increases above 2% the renewal for health insurance for 2425 budget is at 8% the other significant increase is due to a one-time capital reserve withdrawal of 3.25 million which is 2.25 million greater than the withdrawal used in the 2324 budget other Revenue highlights include continuing our annual $500,000 withdrawal from our maintenance Reserve account to fund required maintenance expenditures and then the last significant piece of our Revenue to highlight is a projected increase of interest of about $244,000 thanks to the increase in our interest rates from 2.15% in February of 23 to 3.14% in January of 24 and in addition to the district taking advantage the dist is taking advantage of investment in CDs with a current rate of 5.1% and at this point I'd like to turn back to Mr vuli thank you Mr eer thank you for all your hard work you and Miss LEF have done a tremendous job but for those of you who don't know I'm not an I'm not an easy guy to work for I think I'm a fair guy to work for but I have high expectations and I move pretty quickly and Mr eard and and Miss Lefever in a very short period of time have really done a lot of high quality work so I want to thank you for that I also want to thank several people the board for your support in the committee meetings realizing what we're doing with the budget I want to thank me the mayor and members of the township committee who have asked if there's anything we could do our state legislators have been very responsive to me uh I see assemblyman Fryman here in the audience and I'm talking with him on like an almost every other day basis and I appreciate your your support for Hillsboro too uh if you look behind me um it's it stands out um it was stated that this was the single largest investment in public education in State history and numbers wise that may be true there's more money flowing into public education in New Jersey than there ever has been but are we feeling it here in Hillsboro if you look at the county numbers behind me it's obvious we're not um this year uh there's another uh uh School District in t in the county that's taking a little bit of a hit Franklin is is going down a little bit but every other single School District in the county is gaining money from this investment and we are losing $2.7 million 21 Mill net of $21 million is flowing into Somerset County and yes Franklin's taking a $386,000 hit which we could have done it all our budget um we are taking a $2.7 million hit and I would just say that that's not fair for Hillsboro and that's why I'm appreciative of the support that we're getting um we have about three weeks in order to try to get some things done legislatively to to make this happen and that's why I've been speaking to our state legislators that's why I've been down in Trenton multiple times I said I do have a favorite parking spot down there right now on first floor 1e it's number I think 214 um and I'm willing to speak to any state legislature state legislator about any issue um that involves us here because I think it gets a little bit more dramatic when since the onset of S2 when you look at these numbers since S2 has started there has been an additional net of $16 million flowing into Somerset County and now you can look up and down that list and there has only been one school district that's in the negative that's us we're down $7 million I'm not going to read off every what every other school district gets um but there's millions and millions and millions of dollars and one thing that I would really like the state to consider in one way shape or form and I have some ideas about how this can be done is to approach school funding with a first Do no harm message whereas we could be at zero heck I'm not even asking for an extra dollar I would just like to have zero and if we could shave that number down to an extra $99 million for some Somerset County and distribute it proportionately heck I'd be okay we would be thrilled with that if we took if we took zero obviously I'd like to get more money but I think I'm really asking our state legislator to to approach this from a first Do no harm let's keep all school districts whole yes there are other school districts out there that are needier than Hillsboro I acknowledge that but our kids have needs too our kids deserve a thorough and efficient education and our kids deserve every single advantage that they can have I'm sorry that 15 years ago uh under another formula or 20 years ago that a school district may have been identified as overfunded you know what those kids are adults now they're out of school you can't rewind time and reallocate these resources accordingly we have kids here right now who deserve the same education that other people have gotten in Hillsboro as Mr record said I kind of wanted to point this out because I do think you know fiscally if you ask any of my budget managers I tend to be a little on the conservative side um I'm not a willy-nilly spender and what I want to make sure of is that I have uh predictable and rational ways of thinking when it comes to budgeting because we do have limited resources and everybody understands that so if you look at the history of S2 in that column on the right hand side there were projections as to how much we would lose and then the actual numbers as to how much we would lose in the first year it was off by 24% in our favor in the next year it was off by 30% in our favor then 47% in our favor then it was a little B higher than we expected it was 12% off then it was 18% off so you know what I said this year I said I'm gonna be off by like 65% actually 64.1% and I jacked up the amount we were supposed to be cut by 65% bringing it to $400,000 and I looked at the history of the data and said well I'm going way higher than any discrepancy in the past and when the state formula comes out and part of the problem is there's no review nobody's looking at these numbers they're just pushed out to the district and boom it came out and it was a 1,9% discrepancy nobody can prepare for that I don't care how good of a budget manager I am nobody can prepare that the cut is going to be a % higher than you had thought so that's where we are but I want to I want to at least give the people of Hillsboro the confidence that my business office and I we are looking to be conservative fiscally when it comes to these types of things because we know we want a budget to a place where all students can get everything that they need so we looked for $400,000 worth of cuts and it was hard for Miss Le fever and hard for Mr eer to find those but we found them we found them cutting it to the Bone when you cut it to the Bone and there's another 2.3 million to go um Miss LEF I actually thought you were joking with me when you came and told me that and then when I saw the look on your face I I knew it was serious but we take our budgeting seriously so we have to come up with what you know next steps might be and part of the reason why it's difficult for next steps when it comes to school budgeting I want to point out a couple things to you I've heard from several people in the community well your budget can go up 2% every year that's not actually true our budget cannot go up 2% every year by law the amount we raise in the tax levy which is 85% of our budget close to 85% that can go up 2% every year so if you picture if 100% can go up 2% that's a lot more than 85% going up 2% so we've already got those Shackles On Us I have some numbers behind me right here too so 85% of our budget can go up 2% let's look at recent inflation numbers 2021 7% 22 6.5% 23 3.4% and this year's not over it's approximate it's going to be about 2.8% so it's good that it's coming down but I would submit to you that all of those numbers are above 2% every inflation number when we look at our consumer price index numbers when we first came out of covid it was about 1.91% which is right around two so a lot of school district RS made up some money coming out of covid um because there were less expenses last year or sorry this past year it was at 5.86% next year is projected to be 5.81% those are both numbers above 2% and the Consumer Price Index uh is where we um connect a lot the costs for a lot of our goods and services most particularly Transportation so think about that a major part of our budget going up 5.81% when we can raise 2% on 85% additionally if you look at the at the last column I think our employees here deserve a raise of 3% or more I think to go to 2% would be kind of tough in a lot of ways our health care costs go anywhere between 7 to 15% increase so every single factor is working against US inflation is working against us the Consumer Price Index is working against us the contractual obligations in health care financially are working against us so you got all that then on top of that you lose the state aid and we lost 133% of our state aid something's got to give this is not sustainable and not something that could be done over time so we can sustained over time so we have these shackles uh on us as president Marini had said it was a little bit of an insult to injury now I don't think there was some conspiracy out there to undermine our um successful referendum but it looked it just looks bad that I asked the people of Hillsboro to give me $2.8 million for Staffing for security Staffing and certificated staff and you said yes in significant number it was more than 50% it was it was a nice number and then four months later 2.7 million out the door so if you're thinking about this in the numbers of how many staff members can be affected like this we know because we just had a referendum for that we are we are looking at every option that we have when I've been talking to uh members of the community about this a lot of people have asked about the state formula and about the variables well what are they um I want to assure you there's no online calculator where you can go in and figure your your uh information out from year to year I also not sure I'm pretty sure it's not constitutional for the the state to say hey here's your cut this year and then following year and the following year they have an annual budget that they have to do there are some things I think they can do to control that which a lot of superintendents are advocating for right now but in the end it comes down to the variables and the three major variables without giving you boring boring you uh putting you to sleep are enrollment and demographics if you look to the right of that um you can see what our current enrollment is and yes since 2018 we're down you know around 200 kids a little less than 200 kids but there are years we've gone up a little bit there are years we've gone down and our state aid has always been cut it has always gone down and this past year too and I am speaking with assembly Fryman and I were actually talking about this earlier today and I appreciated that um he was wondering what my enrollment went down from year to year I have to double check this because my numbers might be off a little bit uh we'll be checking with this on this record tomorrow what I have right here is 17 kids 17 kids in my mind doesn't equate to $2.7 million if it does I want to be going to that school district um that's one variable another variable uh is the values of the property in our town what's called the ratables um you know our Township committee has tried to do a good job of bringing more ratables in because traditionally in the past before the 2% cap more ratables meant that more money could be flowing into our school district with the 2% cap what it does is it more equally disperses the tax burden among more taxpayers but the school District doesn't end up getting any more money so it kind of puts us head-to-head um in a way with the the township which it shouldn't be that way either they want to bring more ratables in which sometimes leads to more kids and we want to make sure we're able to educate those kids but we'd also like some of the the money that we can we can have along with that um but we also don't have readily ACC accessible information or that data in hand we don't have that data that goes to the County Tax Assessor's Office it's not something that we have that we can plug into a formula and figure out it's always this retroactive game of what's our state aid and then what was the problems and the last major factor has to do with the wealth in our town which that's held by the New Jersey Department of the treasury it's a variable that gets plugged into the formula and is then spit out and I believe that the current I want to make sure this is correct the current data is from 2021 so we're always being a little bit behind and um there are some pieces of legislation that have been sponsored out there that can help slow this these major variables from switching as much as they do um to help but this is what's involved in the state formula and a lot of it's not within our control and a lot of it's not even there for us to to verify so I've been getting a lot of questions about that so at least wanted to get that out there uh to the community gosh I Mr reer I think I'm really going to be boring people with some of with some of this information but I I have to let you know too that it's been said that there's fully funding for schools and I'm going to say that no that that is not correct now here's where I bore you there's different kinds of Aid that go to schools I'm gonna just ask you to trust me on this there's Equalization Aid which is the school funding formula that everybody's been talking about and there's also something called categorical Aid two different buckets so when you've heard that the school F the schools are being fully funded the equalization Aid formula is the categorical Aid bucket is not I want to make it very clear I have this on the screen behind me this is not specific to Hillsboro but it would still help example there is a type of Aid and categorical Aid that's called extraordinary Aid there have been promises over many years from many Governors over time to we're going to fund this to 100% And I think at one point it did get up to about 90% And then it dipped back down to 71% so if you want to really really say that we're funding schools completely then this Aid has to be funded as well again not specific to Hillsboro throughout the whole state if this was funded to 100% we would be getting another $437,000 back that we can use so I just want to make that clear to the people of Hillsboro because sometimes the people in education that's not even clear that there's these multiple buckets of Aid yes one is being fully funded it's the formula and one is not there's all different kinds of categoric laid in there too but I just wanted to pull out the biggest um the biggest number there so that you could see Mr eer I'll let you go back for a moment or two to talk about the main budget drivers thank you Mr vpy so here we just wanted to highlight the main areas of the budget uh for 2024 25 80% of this budget is allocated to our employees in the form of salaries and benefits transportation is the next largest expenditure category and makes up about 70 about 7% of the general fund budget this are things that such as contracted routes Fuel and bus maintenance again the uh salaries and benefits are not part of what we're calling the transportation bu bucket that's in the first bucket that I talked about facilities is the third largest component of our general fund budget at 6% this year it's higher than it has been in recent years because we've allocated 3.25 million for Capital from our capital reserve account special education is is one of the other large areas of the budget approximately 3% and includes out of District tuition contracted services and supplies but does not again does not include the salaries um and this only leaves about 4% of the budget for everything else including the allocations for the schools and for curriculum so here are some of the highlights within the budget Appropriations for the 2024 25 budget as stated earlier the health benefit renewal is at an 8% increase which is approximately 1.2 million higher than the 2023 24 rates our broker has worked hard to reduce the original C from Horizon which started at 15% as as a result of the state a Cuts this budget includes reductions to salary lines building and curriculum allocations just to balance the budget exact positions that are reduced will be identified over the next few weeks and reported out at as a part of our public hearing on the budget on April 29th the only additions to Staffing are projected to be for a for an Autism class or a teacher and .5 instructional assistant will be added and there will also be technology and security upgrades within this budget yeah Mr recer can I just stop stop you there for a second because I know you gave credit to our broker but I wanted to give credit to you and Miss Le fever too I I I want to make sure people understand how significant this is our our health care costs came back um and was told they're going 15% higher and we kind of knew that coming into this year but we were hoping for something lower but when they came in and and told me that I was like no they they can't be 15% higher and Miss LEF and Mr eard said we're we're going to work on some things we're going to try and get that down the fact that they got that percentage down from 15% to 8% and our employees are going to get to keep their same exact health insurance that they had this year without you know we don't have to switch um that's that's tremendous amount of work um about two $1.2 million right there and I don't want that to just be a little highlight on the slide because that's significant imagine if in addition to that state aid cut I was saying we had to cut another 1.2 million just because of our our health care cost so so kudos to you and our employees deserve some consistency when it comes to their health care cost so thank you thank you Mr vulpi uh on to our next slide which is we're going to get into a little bit of the capital projects that will be done in this budget there will be several Capital Improvements included in the budget it is important to note that these will all be funded by the capital reserve withdrawal of 3.25 million these capital reserve funds can only be used on capital projects and cannot be used to help offset the state aid reduction the projects in this budget are replacing the fire shutter door at the high school Commons hbac repairs and upgrades to multiple buildings field lighting at the High School stadium tennis court repaving at Amsterdam Elementary School and facade replacement at Woodford elementary school and just want to add on the tennis courts at repaving at Amsterdam that's actually going to be a joint project between the district and the township yeah and I just want to point out there again Mr re I'm sorry but uh if some people look at the numbers and just make sure you look at the part in the yellow um because there are numbers there we can't just take money from here and plug the budget hole we have to use this in accordance with our longrange facility plan and I also do want to uh thank the township for being willing to partner uh with us on Amsterdam uh Elementary School to refinish those tennis courts uh they have been dangerous for a long period of time and we're finally getting those fixed so now we'll get into the the tax impact of this Budget on both Hillsboro and Millstone as a result of this budget which includes again a 2% increase to our general fund tax levy in addition to the health benefit waiver you can see here even though we are increasing the tax levy by the maximum allowable the school tax rate for residents of both towns is actually decreasing the decrease is the result of an increase in ratables for Hillsboro of $746 million and of 3.75 million for Millstone for Hillsboro the 2024 School tax rate will be 1349 9 2 which is a decrease of 0415 when compared to the 2023 School tax rate for this year the assessment for the average home in Hillsboro is $547,500 in school taxes for 2024 this will be the sixth consecutive year where the school tax rate for Hillsboro has decreased in milstone the 2024 tax rate will be 8608 which is a decrease of 0.434 when compared to the 23 School tax rate for this for this year the assessment for the average Millstone home is $396,500 $3,411 in 2024 school taxes this is the fifth consecutive year where the school tax rate for Millstone has decreased again even though we are increasing the total dollar amount for the school tax levy the actual School tax rate is decreasing to to determine the impact on your school taxes for 2024 you would need to multiply your recently received 2024 assessment by the appropriate tax rate for either Hillstone or Hill hillsbor at War [Music] Millstone so the next steps for this budget is for the board to approve a tenative budget during tonight's action agenda and for us to submit that budget to the executive County Superintendent for review and approval once approved by the executive County Superintendent the budget will be advertised in the curer news and the beacon in advance of the April 29th public hearing on the budget once the board appro approves a final Budget on April 29th we will post our userfriendly budget on the district website and in conclusion we we are being forced to make difficult decisions to build as responsible budget as possible due to the DraStic state aid cuts and the and the increases in healthc care costs the 2025 26 budget that we will be discussing this time next year will be the first post S2 budget and we have not been given any guidance as to what to expect from state aid so just to recap our state aid for 20242 is $7 million less than it was in 201819 we will continue to work with our legislators to advocate for additional State for the district and at this point I'd like to turn it back to Mr vulpi to provide his final takeaways on the proposed tenative budget thank you my takeaway normally I have a whole list of things but I I just have a quote behind me and I want to read what what the governor said and and I'm hopeful that the governor the legislature and everybody can come through to fulfill this exact quote at his uh budget address this year he said we need to cultivate the potential of every student includes Hillsboro in any way we can that means we can change legislation in order to do it whether they live in Cranberry or Camden that also means equipping our state's Educators with every tool they need to help our children learn and grow I think everybody agrees with this but that should absolutely apply to Hillsboro as well I want to make sure we have funding for every kid I want to make sure we're doing that in every way that we possibly can and uh I want to make sure that our Educators have every tool that they absolutely need sometimes does come down to money and we need that in order to get these things done if you are concerned and you want to contact uh our legislators I want to thank assemblyman Fryman for being he's right here and I'm sure he's willing to listen to people I also do want to say I've heard regularly from Senators wicker but everybody else on here um also needs to be working for a lot of the schools in the district the governor will have to make decisions the Senate President assembly speaker may have to call extra meetings in order to get things done and I think some of those things are being discussed so you as the residents of Hillsboro have the opportunity to reach out and say hey you got to get things done in three weeks and um I feel that we can I feel a sense of hope and optimism I feel in my regular conversations particular I'm sorry Roy but you're just sitting right here with assemblyman Fryman that we are going to be able to get some things done but we have a short period of time in which to do this and I'll be sharing this slideshow with all the numbers and everything for people it'll probably be on the website tomorrow and out in Hillsboro happenings but time is of the essence I don't want to come to you on April 29th 29th yeah and say you know what our legis lators didn't get things done in time and and and here's the here's the list of cuts it's not in good shape in Hillsboro but but other school districts are hurting too and it's not just the the S2 districts anymore so that's why I have some hope um that people are are taking this in in a very serious Manner and one thing that I want I want to let you know too is is I was able to testify to the assembly was also able to give written testimony to the Senate and who knows I might be back in Trenton before this is all said and done for those of you who haven't had a chance to hear it I just wanted to go over briefly um what some of my testimony was for those of you who have listened before or who know me um I don't just come here for my job I live here I'm a Hillsboro resident and have been since 1999 I have four kids who sorry I have yeah I do have four kids but I met I have three kids who graduated from Hillsboro and I have one who's a senior right now uh I'm going to be living here for a long period of time so even if I'm not a superintendent for x amount of years I'm still going to be living in Hillsboro so I wanted to be a good Community I want my property values to be high I want it to be the place that we all know so I provided some testimony from a context from a parent even though I'm the proud superintendent in Hillsboro and I'd like to share that with you for those of you who haven't had a chance to read it or hear it three weeks ago I was in Washington DC and I visited the Russell Senate building as I walked by Senator Coon's office and then Senator Graham's office uh the next office was actually my destination it was the office for the Senate armed services committee when I got into the office I was proud to find my 23-year-old son there who serves this country as he works with the staff of this committee and US senators on significantly important items that affect you and I in everyday life nuclear strategy missile defense Space strategy I am really proud of my son and his work at such a young age and while many people often say you know it's good parenting you're doing I counter with the fact that he's a product of good schooling in the Hillsboro Township Public Schools let me briefly tell you his story I'm gonna get emotional now in kindergart he was identified as a struggling reader however through work with an interventionist it turned out he was actually gifted and not behind in Reading soon thereafter he received gifted and talented services and started to Blossom Al due to low class sizes he was able to develop relationships with his teachers not just simply learn academic content from them they were invested in him as a person that's why in fourth grade when his mom and I got divorced and he took it hard our first call wasn't to a therapist but to his third grade teacher thank you Renee Meyers she came to my house and played pool with my son and assured him that everything was going to be all right he soon realized that the world was not going to end while he continued to excel in academics Zach my son also had con some confidence uh problems in middle school but they started to grow as he excelled in cross country and wrestling where he won multiple Awards upon entering high school he was exposed to an incredible array of academic offerings including a slew of AP courses where he again excelled as he put pressure on himself he needed the support of mental health professionals in the schools to make himself realize that he didn't have to be perfect and who he was was enough in 2019 I'm proud to say he graduated fourth in his class of almost 600 and went on to the Georgetown School of Foreign Service where at the end of his freshman year he told me that Hillsboro High School was more challenging and rigorous than Georgetown and that made me proud and scared in some ways he then completed his undergraduate degree from Georgetown in three years due to the tremendous amount of AP credits he earned while he was in our high school next year he completed his Master's Degree in security studies and was soon then hired by the Senate armed services committee where he serves all of us just recently he was named a presidential fellow and the next step in his career will'll find him somewhere in the executive branch of our federal government again serving his country I'm proud of my son both as a father and as an American my son is able to serve his country today at a high level in large part due to the excellent education he received in Hillsboro but I need to let you know that due to these State funding Cuts every service and resource that I mentioned my son was privileged as a student to receive in this testimony intervention services gifted and talented Services small class sizes Middle School sports mental health supports advanced placement course offerings and anything else you can think of it's all now on the chopping block and may no longer be there for the students of Hillsboro and I want to produce more students with the profile of my son and have students Excel to whatever uh potentiality that they have and I need resources to do it and a lot of that is going to depend on the actions that this legislative body takes now boring you with some other things to go over in that I I know my son I believe he's exceptional but I want to make sure that every child uh I'm able to cultivate the full potential of them because every child can be exceptional in their own way we need the financial report uh support and resources to do so Hillsboro you have a chance in the next few weeks to reach out to our legislators to let them know that we need to keep Hillsboro Hillsboro that we can keep doing tremendous things for our students that we can give our teachers the resources that we need and that we can set us up for Quality um economic stability in the future if we do that we can produce many more students who can do more wonderful things than than my son and even things that we think might be on a day-to-day basis um are wonderful in different ways we can create more teachers we can create more electricians we can create more of of any kind of student that you could possibly think of we just simply need the resources to do it and I'm sorry to uh get a little sniffy um but this is very personal to me this is personal to me because I've lived it and I've seen what Hillsboro can be and we're at a Tipping Point if I have to come back to you on April 29th without some kind of legislative action I'm gonna tell everybody here news that they don't want to hear and I don't want to be able to do that so I want to thank you for your time and there's a couple other people that I want to thank as well though I thanked several people uh you know Mr Good Hugh president of the haa and I as far as far as I know you don't know what I'm going to say about him yet so I don't know why you're clapping me uh I believe we were the only um Union president and Superintendent at the assembly when we went to testify we were the only combo there I believe when we showed up at the Senate education committee uh I know you testified directly but again I think we're the only superintendent Union leadership combo there and we are working very hard on this I know um Mr Good Hugh has started a letter campaign that I think is about 1600 letters right now maybe a little okay closer to 1900 letters to our to our state legislators so uh anything that we can do will certainly make a difference I want to be able to come back to you on April 29th and say gray there was a solution shortterm long term we're moving in the right direction um and I need just everybody to continue to support the schools to reach out to your legislators I know this is a longer budget um presentation than normal but this is unusual time and we need to come together as as hillsbor in order to make this work for everyone and again uh assemblyman Fryman I do want to thank it's not easy to sit here to see all of this but I know you've been working very diligent with me to try to get these things done I'm hopeful I'm optimistic we're gonna get it done and uh I'll leave it at that that's my budget presentation that was too long I know all right all right so we'll continue with the agenda um we'll move on to the approval of minutes 9.1 motion to approve public meeting minutes February 26 2024 uh can I get a motion a second so moov second any discussion seeing none all in favor all right we'll now move to the first public comment section public input on the action agenda and the 2024 2025 budget you very much welcome in the public during meetings there will be 2:30 minute periods of time that the meeting will be open public comment where members of the public are invited to comment which they may do if they are attending in person during the first public comment period members of the public make comment on any about any items that are listed on tonight's agenda before the board votes and the budget uh during the second public comment period members of the public May comment on any school or School District issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residence of the school district as per bot 0167 before you state your comment you'll be asked to provide your name and address there's a three minute limit on public comment please understand that our public fors are not structured as question and answer sessions rather offers opportunities to share your thoughts with the board in instance where board believes there's a misunderstanding or inaccuracy the board president superintendent will address the comment there may be times when the member of the public makes a comment or ask a question about personel hiring decisions kindly note that the open public meetings Act and the priy rights of public employees Encompass therein do not permit the board to discuss Personnel issues in public session good evening um Henry Goodhue Hillsboro Education Association just want to offer some commentary budget related if you'll allow me um you know I there was a lot of thank yous a lot of work that's going into it I I do appreciate the collaboration on that uh Mr vulpian honestly that's something for years that the union asked for um and sought through different uh administrations and we weren't successful in having teamwork on that so I really do sincerely appreciate uh working together on that um I also want to thank assemblyman Fryman uh for pioner he was outside in the cold with us when we were rallying outside um the entire ld16 team you know Senators wicker and assembly woman Michelle drulis have been you know at at both beck and call um staunch advocates for all of the districts that were harmed by this and working for us so I do really sincerely appreciate that but I want to just take a moment uh on behalf of the association to thank the community um because they have come on board with sending these letters with making these phone calls um countless community members have reached out to us through social media saying hey I sent mine what do I do next you know we've sent them the phone numbers and said hey make this phone call um so Hillsboro really is a town that has rallied um to support the schools in this need and on behalf of the association I just wanted to take a moment to thank them for that and if they are watching right now you know get the governor's phone number call his office leave a message and let him know that you would like us to keep working on it so um again I appreciate a few moments of time for that so thank you thank [Applause] you any other public comments for the first public comment session good evening Roy Fryman um I'm live on snowbo place here in Hillsboro um I want to thank you and I also want to thank the community um this budget formula as I've mentioned before the math does not add up um it has um and we continue to push back on it but we need and we are getting the unified support of everyone to push in the same direction and I and it's truly and it is paying off there are over 500 districts that are smiling and have been smiling over the last number of years because they keep on getting more and more f um funding and those like Hillsboro have been screaming and saying well a minute something doesn't feel right something's not is not appropriate of what's Happening Here you can't be throwing more and more money at school funding overall for the state and you have such huge swings this is broken and the message has gotten through in the past we've been successful in getting short-term funding on for hillsbor on a number of occasions but that's not enough uh we have an inherent problem and we also have as you mentioned before Mr vby a very short time frame to act within if we're going to affect your April 29th budget we are I suspect we are going to get and I'm optimistic and I share in your optimism that we are going to get something to deliver um because I have the attention of the legislature because you've came and you showed up along with um Henry good you together to voice your your opinions everyone is writing we have the attention um um I was there today um we were prepared to vote on one of the measures we didn't have the Senate and the governor lined up tomorrow morning we're meeting with the governor's office to talk about solutions for this um because the 153 small districts can't continue to operate like this you can't continue to plan for $400,000 reduction and get a $2.7 million you need predictability you need the ability to be able to know what's coming and oh by the way wouldn't it be nice if you actually got more money than less money overall on top of it um this this formula is just it's not transparent it doesn't give you the ability to to plan it's unpredictable and it cannot continue so we are pushing along with you and I really do appreciate your support of making these changes that are that are necessary we're going to get some short-term changes in place and then we're going to rip open the engine in this thing and fix it permanently but thank you very much hi my name is Leisa Gaber bis I live in Hillsboro I wasn't going to speak today but since we have a little bit of a bigger audience than we normally do I thought I might share a couple words um when I spoke in Trenton last year I mentioned there's a triple whammy on towns like Hillsboro one who are growing what does that mean we have a lot of affordable housing but with that comes a lot of market rate housing I just pulled up on my computer three CIS statements one from Van Fleet we're supposed to get $3.9 million more for the schools only for from Eminem West trct that'd be 2.8 more million Royce Brook would be 2.48 million more if only we could just simply add this money from these new market rate homes may be them one bedroom two bedroom three bedroom be them condos be them market rate homes if only we could just add that to what we could use I've suggested that that could be even a separate line item on our budget uh and it' be very easy to track that to see that everybody else's budget everyone else's money only went up the 2% or even less possibly and we just add this to us I believe that and I haven't looked in about a year but I believe that the township has the ability to go up a very small percent on new ratables the schools nothing we have to educate the public that's what's going on we need to talk to the township on when these things are going to be built if they're going to be built okay so that's one whammy right so second whammy we don't have access to a a fee schedule anymore in the past developers used to pay into schools Parks roads things of that nature infrastructure police I think even possibly uh I believe uh California and Florida have these still or at least they did as of last year we don't and I think what's the third one oh right so when you add more market rate homes what happens those market rate homes usually are more expensive right so who's going to be able to live there people with higher incomes so not only is your property valuation going up because forget about assessments that stays the same just adding these new market rate homes increases our valuation that goes against on the state aid formula as well as the income that's coming in from these new homes so I just wanted to point that out and if you want to help understand that um I can try to help you thank you so much thank you for your comment all right seeing your other comment I'll close public comment and if there's any board members that would like to make any comment uh before we move forward Miss nurse um I feel like being on this board has been very eye openening and and seeing the numbers that Mr vulpi has put up for the past two years again has been very eye openening because I've lived in this Township for a while now but not only have I lived in this Township I've worked as a teacher in two neighboring townships that we are often compared to Montgomery and currently Bridgewater where I've been for a very long time and it is unbelievable to me how much we do here for how much less we get here um I watch and I am grateful to be in Bridgewater where we're not facing these cuts and but we are in a world where every elementary school has a staff developer that's devot voted 100% of the day to helping with Statewide testing helping with our teachers to be successful in their classrooms and here we have done with so little and haven't been able to put in place what we deserve um I can't believe the amount of and not just Educators and teachers but administrators and uh supervisors it's just unreal how much we ask of our people here so thank you all very much um I do because uh Mr Fran is here I I do thank you and your constituents for helping us but I I it's very hard to look at this budget and to see that what the state has done is putting such a burden on our schools our staff our children and and taxpayers and I know that we are working on legislature to try to help with the um 2% tax levy and that to me is an answer it is not a great answer we should not be the burden of what the state is failing for us um so as much as I appreciate app all that you're doing I I think we need more I I think for the 11 the other 11 months out of the year we have to fight this fight so we are more prepared especially with the unknown going into next year because we are at a bare minimum you know our Township worked so hard to get the extras that we need and now it's just pretty much disintegrated and my vote tonight when it comes to 13.1 and 13.2 has nothing to do with the hard work that Mr vulpi and Miss LEF and Mr eert have done I I commend them but I can't in good conscious say yes to a tentative budget that hits home so hard and negatively impacts us so much and to me the answer is not making taxpayers pay more so and to not put if we get money back a limit to what we can use that we need money back in our general funds that is what we need that is what we are all hoping for um so and Mr Good Hugh thank you so much for driving the letters that are coming in um I didn't make my calls they are on my list of things to do but this has just really given me um the decision to make sure that done first thing tomorrow morning um at the expense of sleep or whatever else I have to put aside to make sure that I do my part as a taxpayer and a member of this community you thank you Miss nurse and I'll just add on to that the solution for the state cutting Aid to Hillsboro is not to make the Hillsboro residents cover that amount I know there's some proposed legislation to allow us to tax increase to the amount of lost state aid but putting that on the burden of the the citizens of Hillsboro is the least Fair approach that we can we can have um this this is difficult for me as well okay because I I come from a different a bunch of different angles on this but the one thing that I would like to hear maybe from Mr Fryman is who's taking accountability for this because you stand up here and you tell us that it's unfair it's unfair you're doing everything you can but this is going on for years and we're finally got it it and I don't see one person standing up and taking full accountability for this and that's what's infuriating and I too will not vote for any tax increases and what I'd like to see too is you indicated you've given back to us over the past few years so is there a way to get a list of how we've been given back to I know last year was $600,000 for a speaker system but that's not necessarily where the money would have been bed best spent so stand up take accountability tell us who's accountable for it it it's really enough now I mean we are totally gutted with this and it's not acceptable and Miss Jackson I just to Echo your point we need operational dollars not Capital dollars so we need to be able to fund the teachers we don't need exactly a new roof at this point [Music] so um thank you Miss nurse thank you Miss Jackson so miss nurse touches upon something that we brought up briefly in operation so I just wanted to ask the administration what happens if the board does not pass tonight's budget well number one I would hope that certainly doesn't happen because I think I've been ultimately transparent as to what the passing of tonight's tenative budget means it means I have put a budget in front front of you that the numbers work out um as far as the details of what those numbers are that's what I have to do between the tenative budget and the final budget but process-wise if you're unable to uh pass a tentative budget which would be unusual um it goes to the executive county superintendent and the executive County Superintendent can do you know I know our our executive County Superintendent I think I know what he will do but an executive County Superintendent can do anything um he could say yeah I saw your budget cut another million dollars he could say keep it exactly as it is Mike uh but an executive County Superintendent uh doesn't know the people of Hillsboro um doesn't know you uh he knows me um but I wouldn't want to put the fate of our budget in someone else's hands other than somebody who really cares about Hillsboro and if if I could add to that um the one thing the county superintendent cannot do is add funds to our budget so he would not B to solve our issues can I a followup question sure if it goes to the county superintendent that's still for a tentative budget that doesn't become the final budget that he has to say over correct it would be this the uh same process for the final budget though too if if the board if the board couldn't come to consensus on a tentative budget that I put forward I would find it difficult that you would be able to come together on the final fin budget that I put forward because the tentative is only tentative that's why it's in the word it's a work in progress um so I don't know if that answers your question directly but it would follow the same process St plus I I anticipate if we uh have it go to the counting superintendent that would we'd have to wait until he comes up with whatever and then go from there I mean we're already limited with time which I've so many think everybody's made all the points already but it I think it's really sad that there's all this lack of transparency and lack of time and a ridiculous formula that's outdated that we can't you oh well you you you have wealth in your community but we're limited by the 2% cap yeah there's anyway my main point I got off track was I I would um this budget that's being proposed is sort of like maybe for lack of better term is a placeholder and we have to submit something and now we'll use whatever little remaining time we have hopefully all of it to come up with the best possible thing that will not that will hurt the least amount of people yeah essentially you're correct and the one point that you made too I've never had a tenative budget not be voted for so I don't know what the turnaround time would be for the executive County Superintendent to get back to me so I would just hope that I have enough votes to pass the tenative budget tonight Miss Jackson would it be possible to look at that tenative budget again before we vote on it can we put the points back up you can you can do whatever you want it is actually in the motion the numbers themselves I believe the the overall numbers are in 13.1 and again like I said as far as the specific of the tenative budget um as I mentioned during my budget presentation the specifics are going to change um we just had to put numbers in there right now that work um think about it too there's other school districts out there who have been cut $10 million I don't think they were going to be able to put together what their $10 million worth of cuts are um in that short period of time so it's truly just as Miss stat said a placeholder at this time and I can keep the board informed um over the next couple weeks as I do in our weekly communic as to what I'm thinking and where we're heading but the overall numbers are in um 13.1 if you open up 13.1 you can see the overall numbers and they were what um Mr record had spoken about and and taxes are in excess of the 2% cap we are uh putting the uh the healthcare waiver 3s at about $770,000 yes you know I'm going to say just because this is very very hard for I know for a lot of us and I I just finished saying that I have a very hard time and my vote has nothing to do with all of your hard work um but the principle of what the state is doing to us having had this further conversation I don't want to be a detriment to moving forward so I can see it as a placeholder and and and passing this to continue to do the work that we need to do but I think that it's still needs to be very collaborative and a group effort and I know that you have a lot of pressure in your office but I think you know in in in talking to the board too and how we're going to pass something that can't be just our staffing um is important to a lot of us so I just can see moving this through and and voting on this tentative budget and and being ready to do a lot of digging all of us to collaborate so we can get something to pass absolutely just just to follow that up too it's been spoken about in a couple of committee meetings I know it hasn't been in all the committee meetings because of the timing and everything too but we are looking under every Rock we we possibly can to to find funds um I don't want to cut staff and that's not my first priority but I also just want to make it clear that if there is a $2.7 million cut we don't have enough other stuff to cut uh staff will be affected which is why I'm working so hard and trying to I'm trying to be in Trenton a little less time than assemblyman priman is um but if I need to go back to Trenton again to to express how how serious this is um I will do that will we be discussing this in uh committee committee meetings uh before the final yeah I I can't imagine a committee meeting between now and April 29th that budget is not going to be a high priority topic yep all right so I will close board comment and we will move to the action agenda thank you Mr President I would ask for the board's consideration in the area of Education to approve the following motions travel and related expenses firming the superintendent harassment intimidation and bullying previous cases uh approving staff for literacy wraparound program approving Essa summer school coordinator new course proposal for AP 3D art and design curriculum writing course title changes overnight trips New Jersey stem Advisory Board Grant application uh Hillsboro Education Foundation grants submission of the teacher climate and culture Innovation Grant uh revising a prior action item agenda on the agenda and approving the continued long-term suspension of student can I get a motion a second so moved second any any discussion by the board is there an additional item on this one there will be ones on 14 later okay addition on so can I get motion second we have so move do we have a second um any discussion see n move to roll Mr Davis yes M Jackson yes M Craig yes M lenning beer yes Mr Lee yes Miss nurse yes Miss stats yes Mr heo um yes but I need to recuse myself from 11.10 which one 1110 11.10 and Mr M yes motion passes in the area of Human Resources I'd ask for the board's consideration to approve the following motions retirement and resignation appointments change in employment status leaves of absence athletic site supervisor a coach co-curricular advisor mentor and Buddy student teacher winter volleyball Clinic TurnKey trainers sixth and seventh period coverage and extra coverage can I get a motion and second so move second any discussion seeing thenone we'll move to rooll Mr Davis yes Miss Jackson yes M Craig yes Miss Ling beer yes Mr Lee yes Miss nurse yes Miss M stats yes Mr yes and Mr M yes motion passes thank you uh Mr record for the operations um ones are we doing those the Walk-Ons 14 14 okay thank you in the area of operations then I'd ask for the board's consideration of the following motions approving the 2425 tenative budget approving the health benefits waiver resolution wow resolution for travel reimbursement expenses before my computer dies uh Professional Services maximum capital reserve withdrawal maintenance Reserve withdrawal corrective action plan for semi approving The Cooperative purchasing agreement with educational data services approving The scesc Joint Transportation agreement approving non-public agreements for the 2425 school year with the Somerset County Educational Service Commission approving monthly bills approving the disposal and sale of obsolete equipment accepting donations approving a settlement for a CST case and approving out of District placements can I get a motion in second so moved second any discussion all right seeing none we'll move to roll Mr Davis yes Miss Jackson yes Miss Craig yes Miss Ling beer yes Mr Lee yes Miss nurse yes Miss stats yes m Mr Hill yes and Mr Marini yes motion passes in the uh items for policy and regulations as followed I ask for the board's consideration approving policies and regulations reviewed by the governance committee for first reading approving policies and regulations reviewed by the education committee for first reading and then we'll um add two Walk-Ons uh 143 be it resolved that the Hillsboro Township Board of Education here in referred to as the board hereby rejects the Hib determination in Hib case number AR ARS 2023 24-2 which was a subject of an appeal hearing before the board on March 18 2024 and transmit a copy of the board's decision to the affected students parents and 14.4 be it resolved that the Hillsboro Township Board of Education hear and referred to as the board hereby adopts the recommendation of the superintendent to continue the suspension of a student whose name is on file in the superintendent's office until the next regular meeting of the board as more specifically set forth in the resolution that is attached here to and made a part hereof be it further resolved that the school's business administrator is requested to provide the students family with the written statement of the board's decision together with a copy of this resolution can I get a motion in a second move second uh any discussion Miss tats uh regarding um 14.1 policy 2411 I I uh brought this up I guess via email but I and this is just the first reading so I encourage uh looking into using other verbiage besides guidance counseling following recent uh suggestions for that yes yes and we will be looking at that thank you Mr H and then I just had the um by email also with regarding bilingual education the statute that I'd sent you I just heard about it recently yes um so there is that last line that we could look at in the school board's discussion you had discuss again only for first reading so we'll take a look at that between the two readings all right seeing no other comments we'll move to rooll Mr Davis yes Miss Jackson yes Miss Craig yes Miss Ling beer yes Mr Lee yes Miss nurse yes m stats no for 14.3 yes for the others Mr Hill um Yes except I'd like to abstain on 14.3 and Mr Marie Yes except for 14.3 no uh that being said the motion passes all right so we'll move on to the second second public comment period we very much welcome input from the public during the board meetings there will be 2 30 minute periods of time that the meeting will be open for public comment members of the public are invited to comment which they may do if they're attending in person during the second public comment period members of the public May comment on any school or School District issue then a member of the public Fields may be of concern to the residence of the school district ASO 0167 before you state your comment provide your name and address there's a three minute limit on public comment please understand that our public forms are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather offers opportunities to share your thoughts with the board in instance where the board believes there's a misunderstanding or in accuracy board president or superintendent will address the comment there may be times a member of the public makes a comment as a question about personal hiring decisions count not deal hold Mee act in the Privacy rights of public employees incompass their ended up the board to discuss personal issues in public session hi Amy Salinger um ha treasur teacher at Aon road I was not planning on speaking tonight but after um everything that's happened tonight I just felt I wanted to comment on the budget process I want to thank you for passing it um this is not an easy time for anybody um I you know prior to tonight I've been very happy to see all the collaboration the unification the coming together of the community of the board of our members of Staff of students parents everybody so it was a little if I'm being honest a little disheartening the conversation leading up to it when it seemed like perhaps it was not going to pass this it's really important to stay unified we have to trust this process right now you know I've I've been to many many board meetings and been through the budget process we do have to pass a tenative budget I'm glad you all did it and did not put it in the hands of somebody else who does not know our story and does not know our community this is this is your charge it's not an easy one right now but this is what it has to be um I'm going to St hopeful that come April things improve I want to thank our ld16 legislators they've done everything they can I do not hold them accountable for the fall S2 has been around for years and years there is an issue with that and I believe they're doing things that try to improve that it's it's I would not hold Mr Fryman accountable for this and um while I I respectfully understand the 600,000 may have been for Capital only I I would argue that roofs are very important and needed and as someone who works in the building where we have leaky roofs and ceiling tiles that have fallen in I would say that's a pretty darn important uh budgeting to get reim to get back into our budget to be used so again thank you hopefully moving forward you know we will get some positive news and April 29th will be a much better uh budget presentation thank you thank [Applause] you hi Robin De Vinson 721 dcamp Drive I too was not um going to speak tonight um I was on the agenda last month as a retiree of Hillsboro I'm going to be retiring the end of this year after 38 years of teaching in Hillsboro I absolutely love my job I love I work and live here I have two two girls that went through Hillsboro and I'm also a proud mom like you Mike um where our kids we we watch our kids grow and we see all the work that these teachers do and I believe that my my children and what who they are today has a lot to do with those teachers I'm here because um tonight to thank you also for passing the tenative budget I know this was extremely difficult to swallow I was in tears because I have been through I have up with this mic lots of times um for teacher contracts um to fight for every inch every amount of money possible to keep our schools strong I appreciate Mike bupy so much because one of the comments you made early on when you became a superintendent shuck aord with me and I actually wrote it down probably gonna misquote you but here it goes you said that we should never balance a budget on the backs of teachers and I so appreciated that comment um we work like Miss Nur had said to we've worked so hard every day to make sure our students get what they need and finally we had a breath of fresh air right the referenda passes and here we are so I just want to ask all the board members to talk to more um you guys are educated because you've been listening and you know there are many people out there there's much as we have the happenings out there and all the videos we have and and all the types of communication we try to do we know know that so many people just don't know what's going on not that they don't choose to know they just don't understand the process so please just if you tell two people or three people um and have a discussion to make a phone call we can get this to work I want to leave on a positive note that I want to see that this continues to be a a great place to work and to live and to raise children so I appreciate um the legislative like Miss F and miss Mr fman Freeman excuse me um for you coming tonight thank you and I want to say one last thing I am so grateful that Henry good Hue and Mike vulpi and the union and the Board of Ed are coming together finally working for the same goal so I hope that continues so thank you very much thank you for your [Applause] comment Henry goodu uh Hillsboro Education Association uh similar to the comments that my colleagues um just said I I feel compelled to come up and kind of address what took place and just speak to how disconcerting some of that was um we have been working since that Thursday when I got a phone call from Mr vulpi and he said what the numbers were we've been working in lock step we haven't been seeking blame we've been seeking Solutions and the reality of it is is this formula has existed since Chris Christie created it you know and since this formula has existed we've suffered under under it but this is one of the first years we're actually trying to address it but every other year prior to that as Mr vuli showed you we lost and we lost significantly but then when he showed you the numbers it showed you perhaps we didn't lose as much right it's because we have friends in the legislator legislature who understand what is going on they're speaking on behalf of our communities and they're supporting us in that so I just I want to caution us against um you know perhaps looking a gift horse in the mouth sometimes um and coming across somewhat disrespectful in some of the support that we've received in the past I mean specifically we're talking about what has this done for us last year 66% of the loss was returned to us because of a bill that ld16 sponsored that's jobs that's programs that's students not piled up in classrooms that's a lot right and you want to say what does a roof do for us are you kidding me we had elementary schools where you couldn't turn the lights on because they were filled with water I had staff members who were going out with chronic respiratory illnesses because of the conditions that were in there and that was that was years ago that was prior to this board that was prior to the superintendent I just want to be clear but that's what was going on there were plastic bags coming from the ceiling going into garbage cans and kids were going underneath them to hang up their backpacks so yes thank you for that roof we needed it you know if you looked in the in the auditorium at the high school where we were growing mold on the wall and the ld16 team helped helped us get HVAC money to repair that thank you we needed that you know and it's not necessarily what we wanted in terms of fairness within the formula but it's something we absolutely needed it's something that made the conditions better for our students it made it healthier for everybody so I just want to say you know I I get the frustration I do like I am frustrated trust me superintendent can tell you that when he called me I had Choice words it was not good and then I said oh am I on speaker phone so I own that um you know like I get being frustrated about this but the frustration is not here the frustration is not with people who are actually carrying our message forward and seeking solution the frustration is with the formula itself it's with an an amorphous ambiguous formula that makes zero sense but as you heard our assemblyman say after we figure out what's going on for this year the next step is tearing that thing apart and fixing it so I want to urge the board to be solution oriented to take that frustration and do something with it encourage sharing solutions for the formula reaching out on those kinds of things and making those phone calls and sending those emails for what we can do in the current year and the year after that but make sure that the frustration is sent in the place it needs to be thank you so I will correct the misunderstanding or inaccuracy nobody said a roof was unimportant what we are saying is that Capital funds may help solve a problem but this year will not help us save teaching positions and I think that's the point that the board collectively feels that's great we appreciate it we sincerely do but we want to have a balanced budget that keeps all of our teachers employed and moves the district forward that way um good evening everybody my name is fiz Bal and this is juliean Shu and and we are representing Hillsboro High School robotics team 75 the robber Raiders and now team 428 the Bora blasters we came here to share what we have accomplished since our last update Yes you heard that right we successfully introduced a new team dedicated to freshman and sophomores team for 28 the Bor blasters similar to the parent team the Bor blasters with 36 students have their own technical department the goal of providing more opportunities for underclassmen to be more Hands-On in the robot building process through mentoring team 428 students improve their leadership and communication skills and become self Alliance this program allows team 428 students to be more confidently to more confidently join team 75 building a strong stronger foundation for both teams most notably on March 2nd and 3rd we had our first competition of the Season at Mount Olive high school over 30 teams from all over New Jersey participated in this year's thrilling music team competition two alliances of three teams each competed in a time frame of 2 minutes and 30 seconds to gain as many points as they could team 75 made it to semi-finals and we also won the prestigious engineering inspiration award for for our expansive steam program and team 428 made it to the playoffs which is an incredible achievement for a new team on top of our achievements at competitions both robber Raiders and Boral blasters made it a priority to give back to our community to start we held our monthly donation drives where members donated items such as gloves hats blankets and shirts in total more than 100 items were donated and we are so delighted to be giving back to the people who need it most moreover our crochet and nit initiative Crow Initiative for short recently held its annual Valentine's Day sale at the high school and raised over $230 for the American Heart Association we also recently volunteered at the Amsterdam elementary school science fair where our team presented FL robot prototypes to young children and talked to them about our robotics program we have had several other robot demonstrations this season too including a demo at MLK Youth Center for underprivileged Children and a stem event at our public library in pursuit of our five-year environmental sustainability plan students from our Raider pollinators initiative ran an event here at the element at the Intermediate School where students designed their own pollinators and learn about the critical role they play just last week we showcased our first program to over 800 girls at Princeton University for the Young Women's Conference we introduced these girls to the robot design process from designing the robot with CAD to assembling it from many different parts we then had a display robot to show the c um to show um how it all comes together also we are holding an event in April in collaboration with the Brazilian BB Tech um robotics team that we we Mentor we will have numerous women in stem as guest speakers and to present and further unify both of our teams we have another competition coming up this weekend and hope for continued success on behalf of Mr McDonald our faculty advisor and all 170 High School Robo Raiders and burrow blasters thank you so much we are so grateful for your continuous support and we are hoping to provide you with more updates and we hope to see you soon thank you all right seeing no other individuals up at the podium I will close public comment and open it up to any board members if there are any additional comments or Rio we'll start with you so I just want to give a brief update on the action committees regarding the bathroom rules in the high school so earlier this month the action committee met and discussed adding more sanitary and hygienic items to the bathroom and this is all in an effort to ensure that that bathrooms remain accessible and um in the future remain accessible for all students whether it be like what time of dat it is and in the future we hope to meet again to discuss other points to better Implement more changes which better reflect the wishes of the students and we also have other action committees to discuss other points such as Recycling and the testing policies that I talked about in other meetings and we hope to do that in the future thank you thank you I just want to say thank you for your advoc advocacy for students because as you can imagine when I'm dealing with stuff on the board like I was going over there to um thinking about what's in the high school bathrooms is not on the Forefront of my mind but it's important to high school students and if somebody didn't take up the Mansel and advocate for that things wouldn't get done so thank you for your advocacy I wanted to say the same thing Rio and also just ask a follow-up question has there been any movement in keeping more bathrooms open or to try to do away with the closure five minutes the first five minutes and the last five minutes of each class yeah so after speaking with like people of the action committee and Mr doola we found that it's really important that we keep a balance between ensuring that bathrooms are well monitored to ensure that stuff like vandalism doesn't happen and to ensure that uh students have accessibility to the bathroom so in terms of the five minute rule that I first brought up like when I first became the representative the student representative we are trying to implement a solution that meets the needs of both the the faculty in the school and the students I don't think uh this action committee and I don't think it would be feasible to get rid of the five minute rule in itself because we do need time to ensure that the bathrooms are clean and no no like vandalism for example happened in the bathroom but we are working towards implementing some rule that it that the bathrooms do stay open for longer and I've noticed that uh after after bringing up such a solution that teachers are more flexible regarding when to close the bathrooms like if if a student for example like really needs to go at the end of the period they are willing to be more flexible and we are seeing changes like happening within the school so great thank you oh oh Miss Jackson oh okay yeah and uh I'm GNA apologize because I don't remember remember the last meeting but um I just wanted to um congratulate Hillsboro girls basketball the team won its first ever State sectional title with a 5946 win over Elizabeth so if they were recognized I want to give them a second shout out because I think um they should be we should support our young women and their hard work and and three freshman starters on that team excellent he a central Jersey coach of the year on that team as well so good future ahead of them for sure Mr Davis I'm sorry for not knowing this but what department in the state oversees the S2 formula what specific Department I don't know off the top of my head oh there you go I can find out I can find out for you ucation who runs this thing I would be guessing one of those two departments but I don't know that off the top of my head so I find out and let you know we'll follow up Mr I think it's the Department of Education um I also just wanted to support my fellow board members in expressing their opinions um just I feel like diversity of ideas is really important on the board and hearing everyone every board member's opinion is important so I just wanted to put that out there I agree thank you Mr H is that I just want to talk about a couple of times a couple things that I attended um yesterday I went I uh I saw um the Adam's Family at the middle school of course lots of talent it was very enjoyable and I appreciate the hard work that the students and staff did in putting getting that together um and also um I went to uh Amsterdam school as part of their read Across America and I read to miss badar's kindergarten class actually I read a book that I read to my sonone many years ago called The Very bumpy bus ride and in Miss Brat's third grade class um she she's also Amsterdam teacher of the year um I read the book mom and dad or paland Dres which was lent to me by m Trio um sort of coincidentally because my last name is pal Drome and both classes were amazing uh very enthusiastic very respectful fun and uh so I appreciate uh that opportunity thanks for the update all right seeing no other board members looking to make comment we'll take a motion to [Music] adjourn so moved second all in favor I see you soon thanks