[Music] good evening everyone we're going to get started Welcome to our special March 20124 hobo Conor of Education meeting thank you for being here if you're joining us this evening to speak on agenda or non-agenda items please use the signup sheets located at the podium miss good can you please read the statement of compliance this meeting is being held in Conformity to the open public meeting act tin colon excuse me t I'm sorry I'm going to start again this meeting is being held in Conformity to the open Public's meeting Act njsa 10 col 4-6 proper public notice of the meeting was published in the local newspapers on March 15 2024 if any board member or member of the public and attendance believe that the meeting is in violation of the open Public's meeting act the hoken Board of Education requests that they make a statement at this time the board wishes to make those in attendance aware that this meeting is being recorded on video and will be broadcast by the board at a later date on catv channel 77 and files channel 46 the full meeting recording will also be made available on boyu but can be accessed to the district homepage the hoken board of education is committed to preserving the deorum of the public process and it's mindful that we live in electronic age of computers cell phones and other electronic communication devices nevertheless we respectfully request that all meeting participants kindly silence their electronic devices during the course of the meeting and if use of device is necessary we ask that you please leave the meeting room if you need to conduct personal business thank you Miss good please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for [Applause] all miss good would you please call the role Miss Angley here miss katamori here miss delera Mr delator here Mr Grana here miss kanana here Mr kuule Miss Norwood miss mcer here you have a quarum thank you Miss good so we're here this evening for the um approval of the tenative budget to be sent to the county office so I'm going going to turn the meeting over to Dr Johnson for a brief presentation okay um so a as you know this is um merely the introduction of the budget so between this evening and the next uh couple weeks uh we will be um having some critical conversations we will be diving into the budget this is what we would considered to be a first pass um of the the budget and as you know uh there there's still work to be done um but it's it's an opportunity to kind of present uh where we are without um a whole lot of uh removing things from the budget just so you can kind of see a a baseline um as you know over the past 5 years due to the S2 legislation the Hoboken public school district has lost a total of almost $2.9 million in state aid even with this incredible loss and state aid we managed to keep our tax levy to an average of 5.12% since the 2019 2020 school year during this budget address for the 2425 school year from the governor we were expecting additional Cuts in state aid but we did not lose any additional funds in fact we did receive an increase in state aid in the amount of $725,000 we were pretty excited about it in fact it wasn't a loss but the increase came in the form of uh $19,300 in special education categorical Aid and 26,6 68 in school choice Aid uh any increase is certainly better than any Cuts in state aid but the funds do not cover the Rises that we're seeing in special education costs they do not um cover the cost that we're seeing associated with enrollment growth and they certainly do not touch any of the costs that we are seeing that are associated with aging facilities when putting this budget together on the very first pass through the tax levy equates to 24.3 5% increase over the previous year the tax levy reflects a year in which we have finally come to the end of uh are years of S2 state aid cuts it reflects the movement of items that were previously covered for the past few years in federal covid grants that are now being moved back to the general budget it includes contracts that demonstrate the gratitude for staff members willing to put students and this District in the Forefront of their lives during covid and to come to work each and every day to ensure person uh inperson learning and school buildings that are aging and desperately in need of continuous maintenance and repairs and upkeep due to inefficiencies that are just not possible as a result of the average age of three to five of our buildings being over 100 years old and the average age of two other buildings being uh an average of 57 years old again this is just the introduction of the first pass through of the budget which then will require critical conversations between and among board members and administration uh the budget for the 2024 2025 school year uh reflects the following the general fund budget is uh at this time 73 million um just over 73 million and the total general fund budget is uh 88 M3 uh 50,7 15 which includes um our preschool program as well but in order to support the general fund budget the first draft of the introduction reflects the tax levy as I said before of a 24.3 5% increase um it's important to keep in mind though as a board of education that we have a banked cap um and we can talk about this if you'd like um which totals 164 mil 87,000 so once again we have a banked cap total of $164,800 which is pretty much unheard of um and for those of you who aren't really sure or are a little uncertain of what banked cap actually means or what it represents we can certainly have a conversation about that as well but I want you to keep in mind uh that number um because it it will be important moving forward um there are some major categories of expenditures that contribute to the tax levy that we've kind of put in larger buckets um that we are are going to talk about over the next couple weeks in committees um and as a board um if you recall there is uh $1.6 million that is going to be transferred into capital reserve that will supplement uh the current amount that's already in capital reserve in order to fund the modular classroom project at w Elementary School we feel it's critical to do this in order to free up space at Brandt elementary school as a result of the enrollment if we choose not to do this project the money would be used to offset the tax levy in the 2024 2025 budget the $1.6 million would equate to 2.19% of that total tax levy reducing it from 24.3 % down to 22.16% so keep that in mind as well if you take a look at the larger areas um that I've uh presented here you will see that the current staff salaries total uh just over $3.4 million which represents 5.8% of the 24.3 5% total tax levy increase and the uh current staff health benefits total uh just over1 uh million and this represents 1.81% of the 24. 35% tax levy increase but uh we thought it was kind of important to break out um the difference between the current staff members and the new staff members and why is that because in this particular budget there are uh just over 20 new staff positions I say just over because we're we're still kind of uh determining what we're going to keep in and what we're taking out but um what we feel is imperative to be in the budget our 20 positions um these include new teaching positions as well as rbts which are registered Behavior technicians for special education along with Apprentice teachers which are also uh support staff members uh similar to um support or inclusion teachers in the classroom for special education as well um along with new teaching staff for enrollment growth um we already know our kindergarten numbers are high but in addition to that uh if we look at our Elementary class sizes if we just roll those class numbers up uh a grade level we know what that looks like uh while our Middle School is staying fairly stable um in terms of number of sections our special ed um uh projections are rising a little bit at the middle school level so we do have a position budgeted at the middle school level but our High School uh teaching positions are definitely in need of increasing uh we didn't do so last year we held off a little but we do have um some positions that we have to increase at the high school level for sure um interestingly enough the school choice Aid um of the just over $200,000 it was great right because that helps but it covers about two positions with salary and benefits uh it doesn't really cover too too many positions but it covers a couple um and then the remainder of the positions fall at the elementary school level and fall in the area of special education um so uh so we did want to break it out so so that you could actually see that while the current staff salary and benefits do equate to a 5.8% and a 1.81% uh respectively the new staff salary and benefits equate to 3.26% and 92% respectively of the tax levy increase you can also see that our facility increases um uh reflect uh over 3% of the tax levy increase about 3.37% and um sometimes people kind of wonder what what facilities as a category includes and it includes everything from cleaning and maintenance supplies and materials to Professional Services including Plumbing electrical services um everything from elevator repair to um um masonry repair uh it includes uh utilities it includes um and just uh a comment to make our utility costs are uh extremely high this year and we are anticipating that they are going to be high again next year um it includes uh security um costs it includes Communications and um technology associated with uh security costs it includes Engineering Services and architectural services that would be associated with the modular uh classroom project um our special Education costs are are up um dramatically as well we did take some Liberties of removing some things from this particular budget which um to be perfectly honest with you um make both myself and the business administrator a little nervous um but it does reflect a $1.17 million increase over last year and a 2% um increase um as part of the tax levy there are other benefits that have also increased and increased at a higher rate than would have been expected and these increases are associated with pers and tpaf pers and tpaf are the two benefits associated with um um uh uh the teachers um pension um annuity fund and the um uh pension fund for um Power professionals and other uh service workers in the district Social Security unemployment and tuition reimbursement um in this budget something we certainly can talk about um is a a large bus and a small bus the small bus um was reduced um by $40,000 which was the donation from um St Mary's Advocates so we did leave the small bus in uh the budget but there is a large bus in there and there is um technology equipment that's in the budget that's increasing by about $139,000 or 0.24% but you can see these are some smaller increases we also have some other insurances like workers comp and property insurance and student accident Insurance that's increasing by pretty small amount and then all other items in the budget including um Improvement of instruction and some of our school-based items um are are increasing at at a rate of 3.94% and we have the uh ability to certainly go back and look at those areas but that on the first pass through that's where we stand um and we wanted to provide you with the most comprehensive um overview of the budget on the basis of what our administrators submitted to us in terms of what was needed and to provide you with um a pretty accurate picture of what our facilities our special education needs and our staffing needs are for for next year so that's that's where we stand right now and we have a few weeks to kind of discuss and talk about it and if anyone has any questions uh both myself and and Joyce are here to answer those questions for you thank you Dr Johnson miss good do you have a business administrator's report no actually the budget is is our business administrator's report um as Dr Johnson said we will continue to look at this this budget and if there is any way possible that we could reduce it we will certainly reduce it um I want you to kindly note that the original tax levy was a lot higher than this so um painfully we did reduce it down to this level and um if there is any way possible by way of Grants and or um any type of state aid that may come towards us like it did last year after the the budget was struck um we will certainly bring that information to you um this is this is quite a large tax increase but as it's broken down um into the categories you could see that there's basically no fluff in this budget at all and it is um it's it's truly streamlined um we will meet with the administration um in the next couple of weeks um and inform them that the budgets that they presented are not the budgets that are reflected in here because we took the Liberties to reduce those budgets um and to remove items that um we thought mean Dr Johnson and I along with um Miss Lopez that we thought we could comfortably remove um if when we meet with them if things change we will see where we can shift and um adjust to not allow this this tax levy to increase more than it already is thank you Miss good um one question do you know with the levy increas as it stands what the impact for the average assess valuation would be the average assess value um at $526,000 came in at $623 U let me give you the right number I did text it to Christine earlier yes 600 excuse me $632 please note that the uh the tax rate has not been struck yet in Hoboken so once the tax rate is struck um this may adjust up and down this number that I just gave you reflects an anticipated tax rate increase so with that we will bring you the information as it becomes available to us thank you so much Miss good I don't have a president's report this evening other than to say we've had several years of very low tax increases and when you think about anyone who pays bills at home has seen that insurance has gone up for everyone whether it's your homeowners insurance your car insurance your health insurance um utility bills have definitely gone up I feel like I hear that from everyone um so I appreciate all the work that has been done on this budget school districts are not insulated from inflationary pressures or increases in utilities or insurance and when you look at the types of programs that are being delivered here plus the intense increase in enrollment that we've had over the last 7 to8 years with an obligation to instruct every single child that enrolls regardless of their needs I think that we are seeing a couple of forces come into play and maybe just have to look at it with new eyes and try to figure out what can be potentially paired down and and move forward as best we can with that being said does anyone on the board have any questions for this evening you just want to raise your hand Miss K I do have a question I think um in our next meeting when we actually reviewed the budget I think it is important to explain Bank cap to the public to the board because I do think it plays a part in our budget okay do you want me to talk about Bank cap now or you want me to wait I think we should wait okay so um what I'll do is I'll prepare a document to share it with the public to and after the board to inform you on exactly what bank cap is and what it means to the Hoboken Community yes okay thank you Miss cona and miss good any other questions Mr delor Mr pupel all right all right well moving on to uh public comments on agenda items there are there are none moving on to our consent agenda is there a motion second wait was there first yeah Miss good when you're ready would you please call the role Miss Angley yes Miss camori yes Mr delator yes Mr Grana yes Miss Conor yes Mr kful yes Miss mcer yes motion passes and I I personally and professionally would like to thank you and I um um would like to thank Dr Johnson and definitely Victoria Lopez a lot of work went into this budget um and we like I said we will continue to push forward and see how we can streamline it a little more okay and there are no comments on agenda or non-agenda items so that will be um concluding our meeting do we have a motion to adjourn motion second all in favor say I I I meeting adjourned thank you thank you [Music] [Music] oh e e e e e e e e e