for e e e e e okay good evening I'd like to call this meeting to order this is the north runic Township Board of Education special budget meeting uh can we please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all Mr Ali here Mr Brockman Mr carer here miss James here miss Keith here Mr Lori here Dr Patel here miss to here and Mr W here we have a quorum thank you the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the open public meetings law the public notice of this meeting which included the time date and location was distributed by 3 P.M on Monday January 29th 2024 in the following manner posted on the bulletin board reserve for announcements in the board office 25 Lynwood place North Brunswick mail to the home News Tribune Sentinel and the clerk of the township of North Brunswick and delivered to the nine Julie elected board members good evening everyone thank you all for tuning in we have a special meeting tonight to discuss our budget um and we have that one presentation tonight so I will turn it over to superintendent choka good evening everybody it's wonderful to see you I cannot believe it's March already and here we are doing the budget once again so um I'm very pleased to present this budget for a lot of work that has got into creating this budget um with our teams since November and um we will have Mrs ke Mrs Hawk and Dr Johnson will also be presenting with me this evening um so this is the fiscal year 2025 budget presentation and it is our preliminary budget we'll talk a little bit later about when the final budget comes out that you will vote on as well but right now this is our preliminary budget and I do want to point out in this slideshow as you're enjoying the visuals every picture is picture of North Brunswick so there are pictures from local students and staff in this presentation so as I always begin the mission of the north bunso Township School District in partnership with the community is to educate Inspire and Empower our students to meet the challenges to meet challenges and Achieve success too never do that before okay um and as you recall our core beliefs are essential to um what we do here in the district that all students deserve to have the opportunity to learn in a safe and secure environment all means all we believe in high expectations for our Prof professionalism instruction and student outcomes we believe that all children are entitled to an exceptional education based on their needs characterized by a challenging and differentiated curriculum delivered by a highly qualified staff and we believe in the diversity of our district is a strength and that the education of all of our children is a collaborative responsibility of home school and Community as we develop this budget we keep our mission core beliefs and our um strategic plan in mind as we work through the basics now each year since I've been superintendent I've actually given you guys school budget 101 and I know you've had it before twice but I will do it again because you don't get to hear it that often right and you forget something it's just like working with technology if you don't you know get onto that computer and do a certain program you forget it so I won't go as in depth as I as I have in previous years um but I will go through the basics just to remind you about how the process works and some of the Basic Essentials of a school budget so as I said earlier we we began planning in November um with all of our administrative teams or our fiscal teams um and we assume a flat budget from the state we have no idea that early on how much money we're going to get from the state until late February which is when the governor gives his annual budget address so budgeting is an interactive process um with the schools supervisors principles executive cabinet to determine the wish list of needs for the next school year programs and Staffing are anticipated estimated um as well as enrollment and we work hard to balance all the priorities with our fiscal responsibility so different schools States fund schools in different ways our income sources come from three different places New Jersey primarily funds theirs through local property tax and state aid so before 2012 districts had to always present their budgets to the public for a vote every spring and some of you may recall the days when the community would vote the budget down right so in order to reduce the impact on property taxes the state imposed a 2% cap but in exchange it allowed districts to opt out of that public budget vote if they stayed within the 2% cap so school districts cannot Bond their own money like the township can and we cannot increase taxes the same way that they can um so we are limited to that 2% increase unless we want to go out and have a vote um which obviously we did not choose to do this year um federal and state grants may also vary year by year in how much money we get so you'll see here we have our local tax levy which is capped at 2% we get state aid which is funding from the state and I will explain how that's calculated um and you need to do degree in advanced engineering account accounting to figure that out and grants and entitlements which is funding for both federal and state sources called grants so we are a title one schoolwide district and that is some of the grant money that we get called Title One Aid and the uh our two Title One schools are nbtm and lywood school which are considered Title One schools um other Federal Grant include title 2A which is for professional learning title three for English language Learners um due to the pandemic each district was given additional Federal funding called Esser and Ark um the Esser money and the Ark money uh has to have been spent already the arpad be spent a couple years ago but Esser expires in September of 2024 and we are on target to have spent all of our money by that time we worked really hard to do that however that funding will no longer be here this year so you will see an impact on our budget um with the fact that Esser was going away and we knew that um and that was something we've been planning for and trying to make sure that the things that we funded with s are as best we could were not going to come back and um impact our budget too much so we were able to make those things work work um state grants will change from year to year and one Grant is also this the the pre School Grant which is a separate grant called The Pea Grant um in 2024 our general budget was uh approximately 139 million uh in 2023 it was 129 million um so you can see you'll see as we go through that our our budget numbers are continuing to grow just like you see uh every the cost of everything else is growing so the school funding formula which is also better known as SF um is comprised of several parts again you've got your state aid the adequate budget based per pupil amount local cost share and Equalization a or parts of the state funding formula so that formula is actually due to expire this year and so there will be a lot of discussion in the news and media about you know people being on committees to review and make recommendations to the governor's office and the Department of Education on updating the funding formula and bringing it up the governor has said this year that he fully funded the formula um so we did see about a balance of money coming our way for state aid um but there are also lots of unfunded mandates in this budget as well so the state does calculate the necessary funding level what they deem would provide the thorough and efficient education to each District student um and the adequacy budget basically starts with a baseline of how much it costs to educate one Elementary School student with no additional factors just your average Elementary student that's a 1.0 student this is the base per people amount the state recognizes that the cost of educating older students is more expensive you have multiple teachers um so they begin to add weights a middle school student is calculated as 1.04 students high school students at 1.16 if we were a vot tech we would get 1.26 per student additional weights are added for each student in the free and reduced lunch program in North bunsick we are right at the 50% uh free R number and I think that number will continue to go up as we have seen more registrations coming in since the start of the new calendar year um so these students who receive free and reduced lunch are considered at risk and in need of additional supports and therefore if a district is um above 40% % an additional waiting of each student is added at46 then if you have um students who are limited English proficient students or ESL students or now they're calling them multilanguage Learners we have lots of different acronyms um which hopefully I think we're going to settle on multilang multilanguage learners but you'll still see a spattering of different language throughout um state right now um so they those students get an additional 46 weight in how much state aid comes for each of those students so what we do is um in the fall we spend a lot of time really working and focusing on making sure we get those free and reduced lunch applications in and we worked really hard with our MBTA this year and our staff to get all those in our our office staff spent a lot of time inputting those um and then on October 15th we have the um student rolling account and that number is what they use to calculate all that data on you know is this student special ed is this student lap is this student a middle school or high school or are they free introduced lunch all that data is pulled by the state to calculate what we get in our state aid so if a student is both limited English proficient and at risk their waiting is 0 0981 um special education students also get an additional waiting so once they do all those pieces then they determine the local community that you live in and how how much wealth is in the community and then how much can that Community afford to pay I'm not sure we figured out how they actually do those calculations and I think a lot of people at the state um me that we go to there are percentages that we're not sure where they come from in order to Discount those values but in the end they determine how much money we're going to get other factors that go into they give us additional Transportation Aid they give us um the special education Aid and they assume that every school district is going to have 14.78% special ed that's what what their assumption is and they use that to um calculate the special ed money now special education is one of those moving targets right Mr Harry it just changes every year and so there's something called extraordinary Aid that next summer we will go in and apply for Extraordinary Aid which will come back to us um in money to the district for you know maybe we had six students come in and register that we didn't know we had we're going to have who may have had you know out of District placements or specialized nursing and things we didn't know that were going to come our way and we budget we kind of anticipate how much we're going to need an extraordinary Aid or how much we'll get back an extraordinary Aid and we bud that each year and we've been pretty much on target that way so we get Transportation Aid and then we also get security Aid so this is everybody's favorite slide budgetary balance from Dr csky but it really does paint a picture of what we work hard to do here um we know um as a district we have um a job to educate all of our students to the best that we can and we um owe it to them to use every penny the best that we can but we also have to be fiscally responsible with that money how are we spending it how are we prioritizing it again using the mission the core values and her strategic planning to do so um but also to that our Fidelity to the taxpayers of North Brunswick because we also know that there are parents there are community members and it's important that we balance out what we're doing in our budget um so you will see some areas that we focus in on for fiscal responsibility um just a few of them I won't read them all but we do work to do a lot of Cooperative purchasing um we use escj and a lot of the other um companies that allow us to go purchase Goods at a preet price that allows us to avoid some of the bidding laws um we look to do look for retirements and consolidating positions um we we work hard with our Union to try and negotiate staff benefit contributions um the township helps us out they've been doing a great job getting businesses into our local stores which increases ratables and that actually makes a big difference in how our um our budget is calculated um we work hard to be a part of our state groups and Lobby for additional state aid we have Enterprise programs that we work with like Chartwells that also bring value to our program we are very careful to appropriate any cash reserves we have and utilize them to support projects that will maintain our buildings um we use our grant funed funding very well and we also do residency checks to make sure that we because we promote and provide a very positive education here a lot of families want to come here and bring their students our special education program is one that people will come here and pretend that they live here um but we owe it to the residents that we make sure because of state law that it's our responsibility to make sure that um we are providing for the residents of North Brunswick because it's their taxes that are paying for the The Lion Share of our schools and we we do have shared services as well with the state so as you look at tonight's budget you know every year every budget has challenges um and I think the big the big thing that you will see across this whole budget is the impact of inflation um in every every area prices went up so it was not just you know as we sat down with each of our departments it was very clear this year that the cost of everything was was more expensive so typically we've said our biggest challenges is charter schools and that remains a challenge but it's moved down it's not number one um I would say one of our biggest challenges right now is the increased cost of special ed and elll services based on the number of students we have and we'll talk about that in more depth um it impacts Staffing um it impacts programs um locations of things um many many things the cost of providers to bring in for special ed um has almost doubled it really is actually 100% increasing out of District costs for specializ placements 100% And we did ask Mr Harry to sharpen his thought his pencil and and make cuts and we did make Cuts but we got the costs from the out of District placements the cost from the out of District placements themselves and their tuition is their tuition um but you know we continue to look for placements using um cooperatives like es andj where we can get a better deal but they don't always have openings for our students and sometimes it's not the best placement for our students so those are the things that are outside our control um we you know continue health care costs we are self-insured and we do have a responsibility to um take care of our staff members through their health insurance those costs um are always extensive um Safety and Security is very important to us and we prioritize making sure that we have um a safe uh safe buildings and secure buildings and that comes at a cost we um certainly have to have competitive teacher salaries and we need to look towards retaining teachers um there is a shortage of teachers in the state in the country these days so it's important for us to have competitive sale at salaries um and maintain um you know a salary table that will encourage teachers to want to come to North Brunswick Transportation um also remains a challenge in terms of gas prizes they were going down um but now they're heading back up again um so those costs continue to go up and Ros will also talked Transportation about um our contractors that we work with and those bids shortly um we also have uh technology we committed to being a one toone District um during the pandemic we have to continue to maintain that and have cycles of of computers that get purchased we don't obviously buy every year but Chromebooks have an end life we cannot continue to use them for their testing and so we have to continue having a program of refreshing um old devices that are no longer supported and bringing in new devices and we've been on on uh you know refreshing our um Smart Boards our our new line interactive boards um and we have to make sure we're ahead of um cyber security risks so um in professional learning extra costs for um you know teachers to go to workshops and travel there we will be you know updating curriculum materials those are more expensive and then the cost of academic and mental health challenges and that's something we've been committed to since before the pandemic with our partnership with ubhc and you will see in this budget that um that is coming out of Ester funding so that's a million dollars that comes right from from Ester funding and goes into our local budget and given our um we've had you know a couple of sad student events suicides um in the last few years we've seen an increase in student anxiety and the need for counseling services and um those supports are really essential for our students and we are continued um to be committed to um having those Services I'm going to let you take a minute and we drink a little bit of water and let you just look at these numbers for a minute so as I mentioned before the multilingual language learn um numbers have gone up significantly so in uh in the district we are anticipating probably about 566 by the end of this calendar year um we are up to 491 when this number was given to me back in January 491 think about the size of your elementary schools that's an entire Elementary School of English language Learners they are spread across the District of course um so we've had an overall increase since 2020 to now of 29% 29% so the more elll students you have the more programs you're required by the state to have and the more um bilingual dual language uh Spanish speaking teachers you need to have if those speak those students are mostly Spanish speaking and in our case the majority of our students are Spanish speaking who are coming to us and so those numbers have been going up um the number of students who are not Spanish speaking has actually been going down but every school is seeing the impact of uh these students coming to us and so that does impact this budget as well so for the 2025 proposed budget there's uh I'm not going to read each of the numbers but 148 million in the general fund which is the current General expense plus Capital outlay plus the cost of charter schools goes into the general fund grants and entitlements is $10 million which is state and federal sources and The Debt Service fund fund is like our mortgage um is n you know we had to had to mortgage ourselves to to build that new Middle School right so and some of the other projects that had previously happened years ago um so it's just over $9.2 million for the board share of The Debt Service revenue and the local tax value how do we break this down look at the pictures because you can't see yourselves okay so for 2425 total revenue the general fund is 88.4% of our budget The Debt Service is 5.5% preschool Aid is 4.2% Grants and entitlements are 1.8% and for those mathematicians I did this add this up it's 99.9% but Rose and I talked about it because we didn't add the third digit it's still 100% promise general fund Revenue our tax levy is 59.6% at 38 just over $88 million um last year it was 62.2% so this year it's 59% 59.6% State AG last year was 34.6 of our budget this year state aid is up to 39.1% of our budget so that is that is a big help um we're using part of our maintenance reserves which is .8% of our budget miscellaneous re revenue is 2% 2% semi which is um money that we get from the federal government for reimbursement for like speech services and OT Services um we have some staff members who amazingly work hard to get all that money back to us um that's 2% but every penny counts and again we we balance out that responsibility by making sure that we are working hard to get every bit of that money back again that totals up to um 100% so instead of doing the chart I mean instead of doing the the circular pie graph where you really couldn't see anything in the past um we just put this broke this down for you this way um obviously salaries and benefits we were we're in a people business and um North buwick has approximately a th000 staff members so that's where our money go most as our money goes to um paying salaries and benefits about 70% of that um operations excluding salaries just the regular operations and the running of the Daya aay uh business is about 10.6% Charter Schools take up about 6.2% of our budget all other costs are about 4 .1 special education costs including salaries 3.2% tuitions 2.9 so that's really part of special ed Capital costs 2% University Behavioral Health which we said was formerly Sr funded is 7% and again that gives us um 100% of our general fund this is the number this is a pretty amazing number if you think about it so previously I said we were at 1479 159 this to last year so last year um so we're at 167 m439 183 for our budget this year so that includes all the pieces the general fund grants and entitlements and repayment of debt so that is quite a lot so we're going to break it down for you a little bit Mrs ke is going to come and talk about personel that picture wasn't really in the library by the way in our new Middle School that picture was taken at school boards at the um you must say Architects booth and it looks like because we were in front of a backdrop and it really looks like we were there yeah thank you Mrs shoka um um for unlike last month I only have three slides so will not be as lengthy as last last month um but I will you know uh obviously provide some depth to the slides as well um a couple years ago you know uh we all I also started to include a slide you know and Mrs sha does such a fabulous job of really breaking down what goes into our school budget and how New Jersey funds us um fund school districts um Personnel needs again these do change um but for the most part they continue to remain the same our needs are you know priority keeping our students in District especially as we see those Charter School costs continue to Rise um it is imperative for us to continue to provide more opportunities for acceleration for success and again continue to provide comprehensive specialized programs um particularly it goes hand inand with the the increase in our student population um again meeting the needs of our preschool Universe um with the preschool expansion aid but again meeting the academic and social needs of our growing subgroups and to remain in compliance and again that goes to what Mrs shoka uh stated a few slides ago about one of the number one priorities and challenges is our increase in our special education students as well as what the state is now transitioning to multilingual Learners multilanguage Learners formerly known as and still known as ES English as a second language or elll English language Learners all three you know are interchangeable um but that is where we are seeing the increase in student population and you will see that our proposed Personnel uh for the new school for the next school year does reflect um these priorities again we continue to work on closing our achievement gaps um providing increase intervention enrichment supports and again you know as the former director of accountability and special programs uh code for overseeing the federal grants uh majority federal grants for the district for eight years um you know I do understand the importance of utilizing those fedu Grant funds and build sustainable programs to meet our Personnel go goals as best as we can and as Mrs shoka pointed out the district um and I know unfortunately she couldn't be here tonight um Mrs Chang who's the current director of accountability and special programs has really done a fantastic job with those covid grants you had x amount of time to spend a lot of that money and we had to really work to prioritize and work with our building principles our teachers what was working what do we want to keep in and slowly but surely We Knew by September of 2024 that money was going to go away so how did we slowly start to build in um and we could go back to last year's sign the year before where a lot of our Personnel needs in program we started to see we knew a couple years ago even going into it each year we needed to move a little out cuz if we had to do all that in one shot we we just wouldn't be able to um so luckily we you will see we are able to do that again and prioritize things to come out of um those grants that are you know the money's going away so our proposed new full-time personnel and as Mrs shoka said we start this work back in November um it is very detailed it is um very interactive um it really doesn't it it starts as us as a cutive cabinet but we do provide the tools for our building principles our building administrators our district administrators to input their wish list and then we meet with them individually with cabinet and then we go through it and then they start to prioritize you know what what is really you know achievable um and we understand they want to throw everything to the wall and SE wood sticks and and absolutely they want the best for their schools as do we um unfortunately we don't have the money tree but you know we do work with them um we do do it in phases um and then you know finally once we get our state a numbers we're able to go to their priority list meet with them again and you know finalize so this is what we are proposing in terms of full-time Personnel uh preschool again uh because of the paa Grant and both of these positions are Grant funded we are looking at with the expansion adding a social worker um and a preschool intervention referral specialist as well again those those will be fully Grant funded 100% uh at the elementary level we are seeing an expansion um particularly at ja so we are looking at an elementary add an elementary teacher um we are looking at a bilingual power professionals two one was esrr funded so we are able to pull out of that again to support our Rising bilingual um and uh ESL population the middle school we are looking at a math academic support teacher as um formerly Grant funded and you'll see the same thing with the high school as you as Mrs Chang has shown us with the test scce we know there is that deficit in math and it's falling in in those two buildings primarily so we are looking to add an academic support teacher um at the high school one was already at the middle school it was formerly Grant funded we need to pull it out of the grant um and we have prioritized that there road to success teacher um at the high school was formerly Grant funded we are pulling that out of Esser as well um and adding it to the local budget um Avid is been such a successful program at the high school it is now at the middle school again it is that acronym which were're famous for acronyms is advancement via individual determination um it would be partial teacher but also part partial site team coordinator which is a component of the AVID program that is highly recommended um um so the uh it also will eliminate a couple of the six teaching periods we've seen for Avid um because this person will be teacher salary based it will be teacher teaching a few periods but then also the rest of that day would be spent as that site team coordinator in Special Services again growing population we see we have a need for um an additional MD um or multiple disabilities elementary teacher and two additional uh teachers of AU autistic students one at the elementary level and one at the middle school level one of the growing I should say I should say overwhelmingly um wish list item of our administrators at the building level and District was the addition of a recommendation for a district bilingual and ESL coach um we felt very strongly um that this was a priority given that you saw the chart that Mrs shoka showed um we are at 29 % District wide um of growth and we did you know we are hopefully um going to be able to find and this is teacher level so this is not an administrator position um this would be this is a teacher level and you know we've got a great staff um but they need that support as well so we have a great um World Language ESL supervisor um she does fantastic work but she's one person and having an instructional coach like we do for special ed and we have the literacy and math coaches at the elementary level um we know that this would be such a great uh service for our students and our staff we do have a few proposed stien positions um the these have been P the Athletic Club at the at Lynwood because they do not have sports at a club um was piloted this year it was highly successful um they had to actually rotate students in and out because it was at least 60 kids um for each session so they have uh proposed two Club advisors they will be Grant funded through title 4 um for next year uh and then they already have an Hydroponics aquaponics Club um that has grown as well so the uh proposal was to split it into one Hydroponics Club One advisor and then uh in the Aqua Club Aqua Culture Club will uh stay the same so uh the proposal was additional advisor vote they will be splitting the club into two um at the high school level uh winter Color Guard advisor again with our growing and nationally and locally recognized bam program um they do have a summer and fall color guard advisor so uh we will be uh asking to add a winter Color Guard advisor and again because of the growing population uh particularly in our 18 to 21 year old program at the high school of special education um they have aser to additional six periods of student needs um and those are our proposed staff positions and any questions about Personnel at this point I have one question uh so with the uh the paa grant um how long will the uh the social worker and the PS specialist how long will we have them for under the grant funds well it would oh yeah would we have them the whole time it's very it would be very similar if for some reason which we do not believe that you know the state is going to take away uh the preschool expansion a that's been going for six or seven years um it's it's not something like Esser where there's this time limit on um so as long as we have the grant funding okay thank you you're welcome um and I will continue just a little bit before I introduce Dr Johnson for curriculum instruction and Technology I did want to think tie in this ties in perfectly good good segue um into the preschool expansion so we are delighted to actually announce that we have been approved to expand our preschool additionally with um local partners in the town um and I think that was one big concern as we started to expand that a lot of the local businesses felt that you know they could not um continue to run their business if we were taking away their children um however we have done an exceptional job and I think we are a model program um in how we have partnered with outside districts and we've done it strategically and we've done it slowly and I know a lot of Partners maybe wanted to partner with us sooner but we were not quite ready so if you see the timeline here it says 20 2015 we we had our um Early Childhood Hood center with our Small Program half day at the Early Childhood Center in miltown um and then we got the opportunity to write the grant um and we partnered with acelero and we had a location um in 2019 adding in acelero Jud Livingston Park and light Bridge Academy as locations for preschool students full day and and then we added students John Adams in 2020 and Parson elementary school as well and then this year coming on in the fall coming on in the fall um coming in in the fall we have um some movement we will be bringing on kids our kids which is over by between 1:30 and Route 1 um and kitty Academy which is also on Route 27 um we'll also be having each of those will have two classes and then light Bridge Academy on 1:30 right by Renaissance will'll have um an additional um reshuffling of their classes because they have some classes on Route 27 they will bring some classes over to um to our Renaissance location because we do have a great number of students in the Renaissance loation thank you [Music] Dr just couldn't put them near each other did you get over there no don't you try that one maybe I'll keep talking um in terms of U I'll swap out and let you so we are adding a net how many Mrs HW four classes four classes um and 60 students 60 students and there is funding in the Pea grant for transportation for the first year of expansion right so that will be funded through the preschool Grant this year and hopefully we'll continue to lobby with the state to fund more transportation for preschool as well thank you Dr Johnson um additionally to your question because our student numbers are going up we have over 500 students in our preschool program now um and then next year there will be there will be more joining which is fantastic news but the state has certain requirements on Staffing and so the the person specialist um and Coach they require those people based on the number of students we have in the program so make sure that was clear all right thank you for the microphone folks and Dr Johnson let you continue to talk about curricular resources all right thank you Mr shoka uh good evening U Madam president and members of the board members of cabinet uh thanks for allowing us to uh be here this evening and present to you and share the work that we've done you heard some um backstory already about the work that we began in Fall pretty much November and it doesn't stop cuz you know a lot of us projecting about where we think we're going to be lot of reaching out getting quotes and estimates and in this as you might have heard that there's been an increase in some areas 100% some places are 40 and 50% and I kind of chalk it up to as a price through business particularly in the tech world there's been some things like it's a 50% markup and there is no bottom line it's even cheaper than that and if you go cheaper it's not the quality you won't support your infrastructure the choices have to be made there and we try to be uh Frugal as best we can but we want quality and that's important because we owe that to you our citizens we ow to our students and our staff as well so a number of curricular resources this year um that are actually proposed in this budget we're looking at textbooks um we have a lot of textbooks throughout our district from the KA level all the way up through grade 12 if there's a certain point in time we do have to change out our textbooks because the standage Chang we have to get current relevant research based and um and and and peer reviewed um textbooks and materials for our students that have quality materials and that's a key important piece um you can pick any level I know that I was looking at like the high school one textbook she see about $250 minimum one you're going to need at least about 100 so do the math multiplying rather quickly the key is that we actually do a review of the textbooks make sure as the continent as relevant that matches the standards and of course nor New Jersey we have new Ela and math standards that have to be in place by fall of 2024 so we all so we bet through textbooks we pilot them we take a look at them to make sure it's not a sticker that says it meets your standards we actually open up and look in it from cover to cover page to page to make sure it's an appropriate resource that we can use that our students can have um Quality resources to work with um our consumables this what we do to kind of maintain some are digital some are in traditional book form as well um Even in our digital resources we found that there's been an increase in some of those costs as well that's just where we are the digital platform is the world it might be L for students I have to carry that book with heavy a book bag with heavy textbooks but to maintain the digital even they have to be refreshed so often because even with that I'll talk more about the technology aspect that we start talking about Chromebooks um curriculum writing that is an ongoing thing that never stops uh members on the on the board here at the education subcomm heard me talk about curcum running is an ongoing thing when the state issues a new memo and says up here's the newest latest version of the standards you usually get about 12 to 18 months to kind of update the most recent one we won't even get 18 months we found about it I'm going to say November right after Thanksgiving oh they're going to be coming out they doe next fall as in 2024 not 2025 so everybody's like okay we've got to look at what we have we waited to receive a number of those crosswalks from the current curriculum to what some of the changes in additions were a lot of it has to do with what we call bundling where they're clustering certain R level bands and certain skills and Concepts and strategies which like we have to go back into our curriculum make sure it appears as such um we've just come through twac review that's one of the things they're looking for on sum of the curriculum of what we've had to put in place th far yet there know other changes will be ongoing we do a lot of our curriculum writing in the summer time um a number of our teachers volunteer for that with the support of our coaches as well so that's a that's a build that kind of keeps on going whether you pick Ela math social science Health PE um ESL ml Le it just goes on and on and on as well um we also look for culture Evol curriculum resources um something we noticed that even with our qack reviewed as important that even though we write curriculum we have to make sure it's culturally relevant that we have um inclusive inclusive representation within our curriculum we're looking at our general population our special population our MLS multilingual language Learners in there what type of combinations do we provide for them to make sure they can access the curriculum apply their knowledge and demonstrate their understanding as well that must appear also in our curriculum writing within our curriculum overview as well as our units of study um resources for our English language learners there are not a lot of robust resources out there for English language Learners so just because we choose a textbook there is not something that is always comparable in Spanish in that language the cover might look the same but when you open up and look through you begin to see there are a lot of differences a lot of resarch tend to be lacking so there's very few they're getting better with that in terms of the book the book book companies and Publishers and that's important but we spend time getting that that those resources through because we want to make sure that we don't want to have to spend a lot of time trying to create and build and write it because that takes more time from our teachers so our Focus has been on trying to get our teachers peerreview quality resources that they can use to teach and deliver out to students therefore free up their time not ma not maximize their time of trying to write it and build it because that's exhausted so that's what we're trying to avoid doing as well um new High School courses there have been some new High School courses that have been recommended um some elective in some changes or rebranding of some courses including our Middle School um our a program continuation um we have it between our middle school and our high school I can just tell you it's approximately $27,000 to educate and train our staff to do those programs as well that's outside of the resources and material they need to actually operate those particular programs too and glad to see that we have in the budget the propos of the request to actually have a um facilitator with that that's a youth joining task it is research based and best quality practices to have someone in that role and it's key so we can have that vertical articulation between the Middle School and High School those students do move up so we keep continuity right there in a bridge and a connection for them so we're very um hopeful excited that will continue our g&t um our sore program seeing our achievements ride we started with our elementary school um Broad and Universal screeners those have costs our coab um is one of them that we talk about as well those have costs that we actually have to renew those or you know because they're digital resources as well so we bring those in we also talk take a look at our curriculum to make sure we have some enrichment experiences within the curriculum that we write that's challenging our students as well well so even though we do curriculum running we've got to look at all these different elements and components as well that are important to see in there um technology I think someone asked me today about how much of my time is spent there on any given day I can go from 80% technology to 20 curriculum and on some other days I get to flip it on the other end on the other end of the pendum itself um to maintain existing software and Implement new software well I will tell you that one blessing we found with our Chromebook so far is that Google's license has been extended out to 10 years it was actually had a shorter window so that meant that gave a little bit longer life on the licenses because as much as we have Chromebooks that we need to retire at some point the license is another component that has a cost it used to be less than that about 5 years maybe maybe six if you were lucky and if they push out a new update through Google then we're grappling with that do the devices we have can handle the new updates and changes as well so those costs are just continuing um to increase and go higher but but that Google one from a tech Department standpoint we thought was really a mountain was moved for us to kind of go thank goodness that buys us some more time our Chromebook refresh um in our prek to 12 level um what we've done is some members of the board you have some students in our schools who've seen that we've had to do a switch and change well we already knew what the life expectancy was on that device so we knew which great we wanted to change and then try to give that student a device that he or she can have throughout the remaining years so the example would be the end of last year's 12th gr we took those in and we brought them back down because we know our license is still in TCH we don't need new licenses because we have the extension and we can give it to another laboral student and move it forward as well um in the tech department we've actually have a plan out through 2036 in terms of where we need to do a switch rotate flip move here and there as well um but they that refresh will continue as devices improve as well eate technology upgrades and wiring I know we've been very productive in terms of spending that money I know Ros is noding because she's always asking questions we're like y we're going to do this we do our wiring our infrastructure is like the 60/40 split we've got the funding for it and what we put in from the local side of things as well um and we've been very Vigilant in that the last number of years since I've been in this position and even prior to me but that that works just continent to make sure that we go get the money that's available to us and we make sure that we dot the eyes and cross the tees that what we're putting in for meets the criteria because that's also point you just can't put anything you want it's got to be certain things that will qualify for it as well um continue our new line interactive board refresh cycle for smart boards and replacement um we've got smart boards they've been in the Life we've been moving switching them out to our new line boards um part of our plan has been the last number of years is that at the high school we've done 12 minimally standard we've done as the district we've actually gone up to about 16 or 18 per year because there's a lot of rooms in the high school we need to get to middle school was just retrofited because brand spanking and so we probably added some in some small instructional areas because of an increase of Staff as well to make sure those teachers have those resources to use to make Interac with their students in their delivered instruction Elementary we H eight M just asked actually gave Mr shro can actually spreadsheet in terms of where we stand right now in terms of new line board and when we might end good news is that we could have every building have been refreshed by the end of next year but we also know we're going into another refresh cycle because whatever we put in years before has an end of life time frame so we're also looking at other products and services that actually get a little bit better over time but that will continue for we try to do it strategically in pieces cuz at once it's a very Hefty Bill cyber security oh yeah that's a favorite one right there that's fun because um with the cyber security is tied to our district Insurance those have premiums they have requirements um knows as we talk about that um in terms of what you need to do to have the insurance going back to Dr Z I think he was a bit ahead of the curve to kind of think about having it then of course a couple years ago the price started going up and then each year look at the insurance what they say do you have the following I would say that um given our current insurance plan that we have and the provider we've actually checked the boxes of what we need to have to make sure that we're protected on our side to make sure we don't have to have an issue subit to another District had a number of weeks ago um so say secure email Gateway is a new piece for this year um that we want to bring in MFA is multiactor authentication that's something we have with our Duo where we have to authenticate a lot of times you'll see do you want to do uh authenticate from your own cell phone when you're accessing onl accounts we do a similar thing here as well a piece for cyber security Insurance also is the training we have an embedded built-in training component um we do something we send out fishing emails pH not f i just so you know we send those out to staff and we look to see who bites um on that particularly um and if they do it kind of prompts them and leads them into a training regimen to build even after you've done the inial training so sometimes we S no out because that's part of what we're supposed to do um and we do what we call S into a penetration test to kind of see how far could it go and we know it as well as as much as we do to protect oursel it does not stop from some of those what appear to be scam type emails but we teach our staff to look for certain things so for an example might be here's an email from Mrs Jones and Mrs Jones says that she's in um Rwanda and she's in an orphanage and she needs um gift cards for $100 needy but I can't get to a map now I just changed some names but that's a real situation and actually one of them I saw on my name and as if it was from me and this is when I was a principal John Adams 3 years ago and I was like I'm not even Randa I know so that's just just the way it happens and I go say well if you look at the address and the name you know mine I usually put you know it's going to be for me like you just saw me yesterday and you might get on Saturday no that's a that's a fishing one just not it and document it and then we go back and we try to trace it as best we can but they actually have where the people who are doing the damage they like bounc the opinion from one location to another so you really can't come them there those are things that we need to do for cyber security as well um the good thing I will say I'll share some good news with our cyber security um based on what we've been doing and I shared a couple weeks ago with our cabinet that um the insurance premium should there be a situation there actually happens to be a $50,000 you know the initial cost you have to pay we actually have a credit 25,000 because been doing the right things making sure we have these things in place as supporters so suppos looking for that $50,000 you have to put up first becomes Less in that it's a lot of money still it's not like 50 great all right professional learning that is ongoing uh with the changing of Standards we have to do a lot of professional learning any changes in curriculum or new adoptions for um textbooks and materials um our update New Jersey student learning standards K to 12 that is in ela and math and that's part of that what has to happen by fall of 2024 so that also connects to the curriculum writing our units our overviews um New New Jersey tier assist support something we began now we said about 2 and a half years ago we're in our third year of it um our tier systems of support um we were able to bring in a universal screener for map testing which we do grades K through nine because that was something we need to do to have that data piece of it look at Ela and map our map testing is our um Universal screening which is an Adaptive assessment that tests children about where he or she is versus have one that's out there you don't really know where they truly land but this one we can we use that and we bring that data back and our buildings actually have what we call data teams where they look at if our Ela and so are paired together as a data team looking at the ELA looking for a Common Thread of the tier one Focus for students meaning at the classroom level that the majority of our students can be impacted that 80% is what you want to go after then we go into our tier two which tend to be about our next 10 our next 10 to 15% of the population of students who need the in-class direct instru plus one of those interventionists so you see interventionist in there as well um and then on tier three they get the classroom instruction plus tier one support tier three means you're increasing the the um the intensity of the service the number of times per week typically and but it's really drilled down specific what the Fred need for that particular thing what skills are we focusing on and there's progress monitoring on that so we've had coaching in this year we'll continue that coaching because as much as we started we're getting better at it um something I do know that we we have a few of our administrators Mrs Chang uh believe Mrs Havens one of our special super they've actually gone and presented in jpsa and shared some of the work that we've been doing in North BR when it comes to tier C support and we actually had districts come in and be here with us when we've been been presenting as well so we are feeling pretty good about the work that we've done but we need to continue that because we're getting better constantly um tier one classroom management strategies um that right there might come down the classroom responsive classroom strategy sometimes we hear that might be applied in C schools um another one might be like each school has a plan because as much as there's a data team on content Ela and SE Math and Science there's also anal Behavior data team what do they do when it comes to climate and culture to impact our students to make the school an inviting and pring place and what behaviors do we need to work on and how do we support our children as well so that's also where some of that coaching comes in and we're looking to continue that work working with Mr Harry director of student people services to try to continue some of that SEO and support work going forward next year um math professional learning um that will continue we have a partnership with Ruck University we actually have a Dr Dan batty who comes in he's been doing support um supporting and coaching some of our teachers and the nice piece is that sometimes we're able to get a little Kickback a bit when it comes to some free PD offerings so he's able to do that because I've been able to work with him a number of years um our GNT consultant we've been able to grow it in our cater for we're looking to extend going through our a and going up to kind of look at what we have and making sure that we're providing enriching challenging experiences for all of our students inclusion training for special needs ajci TR a little bit Mr Harry's willhouse a bit but we do collaborate together on inclusive training piece we talking about differentiating we've had another pres number of presenters coming and support Lynwood this year as well as a middle school to make sure we're servicing our students in the special population including our high school work so we kind of do a K to 12 not just in certain Pockets but those are the ones that just coming to me now um our Behavior Support professional training we collaborate on that one uh from unic awareness training um if you've been paying attention to some of the different provided by the state there been a big focus on phonetic fonetic awareness and training going in our only hitting r k to three we were actually H the curve I can tell you about a year and a half of that Anders of the board on the subcommittee you might remember I came and present and talked about heg and the day we saw we had a lady by the name is Jessica nor who presented as well so we were already doing that work and we're finding results in that work continue that work to support our teachers how do we move to the next level as much as we're advancing we're trying to move forward as well and there are a number of things in there that are Grand all right next time we'll turn it over to Mrs H are there any questions Dr I do have a question um on our Chromebooks for our 12th graders when they graduate do we collect all of those Chromebooks back every one of them we collect all 12 graded Chromebooks they have a turn in time for that okay so we don't allow parents if for any reason they wanted to buy it we got them all back last year and all those were recycled back to where they need to go next we do collect them all we've collaborated with with the high school about how we collect them at that level and what days we need to get them and if person doesn't show up with we go looking for them perf they do have access to their Google gole okay yeah that too how to pull that out com out my guidance counselor gu guidance Department as well to make students aware of that also and on rare occasions student may have forgotten or need something sometimes we might get a request in the fall and we bet it through to make sure who go to the high school they can confirm who it is and then we create an opportunity of a window for them of when they can gain access they can get some of the information some stud use it for research at the next level great thank you oh I have a question sure so you mentioned uh you haven't plan until 2036 yeah so um as as far we fig we need to stop okay so at the moment how is like the sustainability could you just talk about that uh what that looks like a little bit and how that's going like how's the cab it like let's say you left right not saying you will if you left how could the next uh you make sure that plan is implemented well the plan we have is something that we actually put together two years ago so we actually have it as a living document that is shared so there's me as a director there's a supervisor as well of technology so we have it we know what's happening in the department and what's going on there we also shared that plan with the superintendent said here's what we have is an overview of how we're projecting forward the reason why we did that we wanted to see what break's going to move where and how does that relate into uh the expiration of licenses because that's something we look at as well so each year we we're going to here we already know okay next year it's this model device that will expire where's that model device at how long do we have with it what does that look like that we need to do and then we just kind of moved forward okay and Google Google provides you like with all what provides us with all of that the licenses yeah we have access to that so we already know which devices that we have it's about having our there's a device and then there's a Google license so we have it and then we we just upload it and it's programmed as way we needed to do and so we already know which devices are going to expire when and we have it tied to a certain model okay thank you you're welcome thanks Dr Johnson good evening everyone so we're going to have a little discussion on the buildings in grounds and um transportation which is really our operations of the building or of the building so I'm going to repeat what of the other administrators have said before we do start this process very early on we actually walk every building we've done that for the last couple of years we'll walk with the plant managers um Mr Roa and I will walk with the principales and we talk about what's important to them what's going on in their buildings where we see some of their strengths some of their weaknesses as far as the facilities are concerned and we then do ask just similar to um Miss ke when she was uh saying about the uh requests for uh Personnel we ask what would you like done in your building where do you see where you want to go we take all that information we prioritize we make lists we talk about the challenges of perhaps putting some of these things into motion and here we are today so here are some of the things for you to just read through I'm not going to read through all of you all of them we don't ask for help on these because these are things that we have to do anyway you know all of our inspections we know we have to do some of the upkeep of our windows of our shades of our tiles um even our carpeting we're starting to develop a plan well how do we keep all of our buildings all of the floors um in shape because they do wear out and we're starting to develop a plan for that next year you'll probably see that in that budget in the following budget um but these are things that we all talk about we talk about that with the plant managers our maintenance our custodians we bring everyone together we listen to everyone's um opinions and everyone's requests and again we then have to come up with well what are we going to really do oops it right wrong way sorry so as you know in our budget of about $1.8 million and that's just for maintenance uh maintenance and facility cost um we have many projects in there and it's our budget um needs a little assistance so that's why we have our reserves so this year from our maintenance Reserve we're going to pull out $1.2 million just a little bit if you recall last year we withdrew from our maintenance reserve $778,000 a little bit more this year and you can see our priorities right there just about every building is going to have some type of resurfacing or their walkways repaved and so on it's very important that we keep those buildings safe while our children walk there play there um our staff members are in the parking lots so we are going to use $600,000 a little bit over of our maintenance Reserve in order to um keep our um the grounds safe additionally we're also going to replace one uh gym uh floor and we're going to also do some refurbishing of the high school FL uh gy floors and that's where the $200,000 is coming from as well we're trying to be very strategic with that as far as replacing of the floors try to do one every year so that we're not overwhelmed when you know we have to do our Replacements we want to have a plan similar to what Dr Johnson said about replacing our technology we need to think about uh some of our facilities in the same um vein the high school um last year if you also recall we did some painting and replacing of Windows the exterior windows we're going to continue on that path and pick another section of the school another section um to paint as well as replace the exterior windows again so we're not doing it all at the same time we want to have a plan be strategic about what we're doing playgrounds so if you uh visit any of our facilities you'll see that living Park um we replaced their uh their playground uh this uh this fall next year we're going to actually build one for the first time on the Parson grounds uh normally we actually use the one in babage park which belongs to the township but we are going to install one of our own and then last talking about a flooring plan lywood has been on about a 3 or four year flooring plan uh we are very close to finishing but again strategic we do a section of the school every year and then eventually they'll have to be replaced but clearly floors last a little bit longer than our technology so yes so that's where we are with that so we're going and you'll see that in your um budget presentation that that's the amount of money that we are going to be withdrawing from the maintenance reserve the mainten maintenance Reserve is still quite healthy we're able to put money in there every year um we're fortunate that way which then allows us to do some of these bigger ticketed items without having to really um take it away from some of our other instructional um funds Capital spending that's our Capital outlay um last year it was a little bit higher it was almost $6 million but if you recall we also had uh money in our budget last year to uh build uh uh some science classrooms at the high school obviously we're not doing that this year uh we also had money in there for hbac and so on so this year if you look here our biggest uh cost item in our capital outlay is actually the repaying back of our EIP uh U program that we started in 2019 if you recall we uh we took a lease a 15-year lease of about $14 million to predominantly upgrade or replace the HVAC units on the first and the second floor of the original High School um we also did LED lighting throughout the district we had analysis done to make sure that thermally we were um efficient and of course this is a 15-year Payback and we're on year I can't even do the math year five or year six so that is repaying back almost like a a mortgage as Mr said when we do our Deb service um our instructional equipment that is the refreshing of the new line boards as well as the prome books uh that is the amount of money that we've set aside in order to do that uh facility uh equipment that is for um buying of some of our um scubber some of the bigger ticket items in order to keep our um to keep our facilities clean it also has some furniture in there um we are going to and if you can look down at the very last line we are remodeling our um uh Media Center here at lywood to expand a couple of classrooms so we need to buy the furniture for that as well that is all built into that number uh one thing that we've been talking a little bit about is security I think you saw that in one of the priorities we are looking to repl the cameras as well in all the elementary schools those cameras are actually outdated some of them Obsolete and it's it's time we've U actually gotten a couple of proposals and uh we're close to uh signing the deal of course pending approval of the budget but we will see new cameras at all of the Four elementary schools um the broadband and systems enhancements that's exactly what Dr Johnson again was referring to making sure that all the wiring throughout the district is sufficient enough to carry all the information back and forth um reaching out to the um to the internet and so on as well as keeping our Hardware up to up to date with the servers and so on and the morois that's all built into the 177 almost $178,000 and as we mentioned uh the lywood um Media Center will be realigned and we are hoping to put some extra classrooms in there as you know our U student population is expanding we have different programs and then is there we are working with our architect of record in order to ensure that that is not only um designed uh built uh but obviously ready for the children on September 1st or when the first day of school is sure I get this direction let's not talk about my sense of direction ladies um another very important part of our uh operations here is transportation and we take that very seriously we want to make sure that we always have enough Transportation the quality drivers quality vendors that we deal with um so right there are just some of the important points that are going on in the transportation area we continue to be a two-tiered busing which means uh the prek through sixth uh grade are start at one time and of course the older children start at another that's why we call two tiered we have a significant map of U children that are bus and you can see that there's a percentage 67% actually ride a bus as you know we go out uh we actually have our own bus drivers on our payroll they are our employees and they transport a significant amount of our special needs students throughout the district um and then most of our two and from routes but we know picking up the general education students throughout the district that is through our vendors um but as you can see there uh we are going out to viid on number three we did renew many many many of our uh routes that we have today at a 4% um increase hence you heard about all the inflationary rates and the increase of costs the CPI published by the Department of Education was 5.81% um we did a little negotiating and we got a 4% increase uh we agreed upon that with most of our vendors some did not agree to that we will be going out to bid the bid is at the end of March for as you can see there 43 um in in District routes you know gas prices continues to be a challenge we've talked about that before the driver shortage we have been very fortunate here we do um have a great staff um we've been able to retain many of them uh the issue here sometimes we have people who retired and now trying to find replacements that's becoming a challenge uh but we continue to run all our routes with minimal disruptions and that's just a testament to um the employees that we have and um you know the work culture here in North Brunswick last but not least a subject that we continue to talk about is Charter School uh we have two schools that we must transport our students to they are this uh those two schools belong to North Brunswick as far as students a record and you can see that almost a little over $800,000 in our transportation budget is simply um for those routes for the 500 and so students that are leaving our County to go to other um ter tools most of them too any questions on the operations [Music] side perfect thank you thank you [Music] Mrs okay so the additional revenues obviously we got from the state is a total of 11 .2 million that we are proposing for additional spending from last year so 9.5 million to that is from the state a increase and again 1.4 of that goes to the Charter Schools um the proposed tax levy increase is $1.7 million uh for a total of $1.2 million to show you that secret um what do we do with the additional revenues 11.2 again um majority of that goes towards salaries $2.5 million is salary costs and again remember even if we pay for all of our salaries try to just use it under that with that 2% cap it wouldn't work with that 2% cap money um it won't even pay for all of our stack raises um and we are actually this is for salaries as we know what we predict they might be but we have not come to a complete negotiation with our NBTA Union or our ntaa administrators Union so those are um projections and those could change um tuition costs as we know went up um that's $1.8 million um and you can read the rest on your own obviously 1.1 Charter goal uahc maintenance and so on those all add up to um how we are spending that additional 11.2 million and I will you know reiterate that you know this is not a you know this is a Frugal budget you know it's a lot of money but it is still um done the best with our money that we can um I do want to continue just continue to let you guys know that the Charter School enrollment has grown back in 20145 we had 81 students again just almost much like our multilanguage Learners there are 519 students that are in charter schools now that are not in our district schools and you know we're replacing them with multilanguage Learners who come with challenges um and in many of the students who go out are sometimes our strongest academic students um which does also lead to some challenges for us um and the charter school costs continue to Rise um each year you can see in the blue as tuition cost that we pay the district the money flows through the district to the charter school and you can see that money goes up each month each year so last year it was 8 million that went to the Charter Schools again 9.1 5 is their projection for next year um and then that $84,000 does not come from what they give us for the charter schools that specifically comes from our local budget which $800,000 could buy a lot of teachers could buy a lot of books could buy a lot of things so here's the big question the tax living impact and we'll remind you that in fiscal year 2021 during the pandemic there was a 0% tax increase in 2223 we did the full 2% last year we went up only 1.95% we did not take the full 2% we were able to make that work this year we are going on asking for the full 2% given the inflationary costs that we are dealing with but I also want to let you know that as a board and we heard you as a board that although we have the the option there are other places that we can take taxes up through health care costs the bank Capital um but we are we have made budget work without adding additional taxes to the um citizens of North bonck and we thought that was very important that we were not using um over $2.16 million between Bank capital and Healthcare waiver costs that we could have um added to additional tax base but we chose not to so we just wanted to make sure that you guys that everybody was aware um that we again we are working on that balance so the impact to the average household is $884 a month or 106.6 per year on the average assessed home value of 16,9 157 so again um it is all about budgetary balance it's trying to make it make it work within the confines of what we have but also to provide the best for our staff and students in that educational integrity and keeping up with the expectations of what we and you as a board expect for your children and for the citizens of North Bron the budget variables again this is a preliminary budget so other things might happen to make a you know changes before we when we come back for our next vote which could include the um the county department of education review um other retirements that may come through which could also impact things um benefit rates grants enrollment uh changes Charter School enrollments could change um final contract settlements and transportation bids I think the most likely are the final contract settlements and transportation bids really that will make the most difference so this is the number that you're voting on tonight 167 million4 39,18324 25 budget approval this is what it looks like on your sheet which is on your agenda tonight see that down at the bottom it's very small there which is why I it really [Music] big and I just you know continue to remind um us all that an investment in knowledge P the best interest because we have seen so many of our students many of you here coming back to give back to the district and coming back to get back to teachers and staff and um being part of the continued cycle here learning in North Brunswick so I thank you for your attention this evening and any questions I'd just like to make a comment um one thank you I feel like this is my favorite budget presentation we've done thus far since 2020 so this is year four for me um but I appreciate you going through the budget 101 for us each and every time I think it remains helpful um seeing how well our budget aligns so closely with our priorities especially for personnel and I have to shout out Amy because 70% of our budget is Personnel right like we're investing in people this is a people business for sure um and I wouldn't say that our budget is Frugal but it's lean like it really is aligned in the way that it should be and I just want to thank you guys for the time that you all have dedicated to actually developing this um seeing where you all are putting Staffing seeing that the ESL the elll MLL population that's coming in um will'll get the support they need is wonderful trying to figure out how we can you know invest more in our special education programs um because we are losing to some of those private schools and losing to some of those Charter Schools um and just rethinking how we can reinvest in North Brunswick and let everyone know how well we're doing here is critically important and I'm just I'm proud to be a board member tonight so just thank you I think this was a really good presentation so thanks anyone else I just have two quick questions um in the very beginning you mentioned how the state assumes just under 15% of special ed um where are we we are we are we really are we're not over over special ed classifications at all you usually get flag you're over the number you okay okay the other question was about um how we fund that line item every year for Charters um um did we on that line item put in exactly what they recommended because I remember from years past even them saying that once you dropped dollars in there they were they were locked into there yeah we the we did last year for the 23 24 and it came in really close we actually had to find a little bit of money so we're going with this sum because the increase is not that high okay the the number of children that they're predicting to increase is if I want to say 20 20 or 30 so it's not that far from the market okay thank you thank you thank you um so a question about earlier um you mentioned I forgot which person but we were talking about advocacy and really just fighting to get more funding so as a board and you know me being the leaon for the school board um what can I do and what can we do or how can we Advocate more on behalf of us as a district um that would be something nice to know and I love to help thank you um you know I think as board members as you youve been part of school boards you know when things will come out this fall this this school year and this summer about the funding formula being reimagined and I think that's the time that we will work with you and encourage you to be active citizens and reach out to representatives and try and be you know a voice for making sure that um you know our needs as a district are met and we will be very active in our associations um in making sure that we're heard and you know I was actually on the committee when I was at the charter school that created what made a made a adequate but thorough and efficient education um and ironically I was on that committee with somebody knew Dr zakowski um because I was a charge school um but you know they will go ahead and get that committee so hopefully we can get some you know a staff member on it um I think that would be very beneficial for us to get our voice for the things that we're saying um and those unfunded pieces um that always end up costing us more money you know that's like well you just need to do this um it's not going to you know it's not that big of a deal but then it ends up costing staff time and money so we appreciate that as a board that you guys are willing to do that we will definitely keep you guys updated as as supports needed for that and um I guess even speaking a little earlier I know I was going to update us next week when we have our our well our next meeting but um last when we had we were talking about teacher teacher shortages in our last County meeting and um Senator gopel what he was trying what he's basically saying is that um this year or next year I I have it at home but the goal is they're trying to reassess um uh Charters cuz at first they were they were here to come around support us when our districts were failing but we're not a failing District so you know hopefully that does something for us and hopefully everything aligns at the same time where we as a state and we as like you know Educators um and support Educators hopefully we could um you know just find that critical mass and really try to get that funding change and just really try to get more money back into us so thank you than well can I just interject there for a second we just a couple of years ago when Governor Christie was governor that state aid number had dipped all the way to $8 million we're now at where we belong that's correct the issue is is that we belonged there all along correct so that's that's the rub with the state funding for I think the bigger issue now as we continue to go forward is this charter school funding issue and why does it have to come out of our number right so I think that's the next battle so more to come and quite honestly the preschool Transportation piece um you know getting getting aid for expansion class is great for transportation but especially if you're you're in a suburban area and you're um transporting students to what they have asked you to do to um preschool Partners that's a lot of money out of your local budget they should be providing that money in the preschool budget to pay for that as well so those are kinds of things that we can advocate for thank you sorry one other comment that I had is I thought that the charter school transportation cost was an eye popping number of $84,000 in addition the charter school costs are not just 1.1 it's 1.1 over last year right so I just want to emphasize the way that chart looked almost made it look like it was nominal it is nowhere near nominal um so we are paying sub substantial amounts um for Char School costs and I really understand the value in parents having an option to choose but North Bruns is a wonderful place to be it's a wonderful District we provide truly a thorough and efficient education as we're required to um and as I've seen as being a board member here we've been Visionaries in a lot of ways um student achievement is on the rise we to you know have some areas for improvement as well but I really think that we are worth investing in and worth giving a try um and those numbers are taking away from our population from the students that we are here dedicated to serve so one of these is inth exactly started Central Jersey prep T Thomas Edison greater Brunswick Charter School Patterson link Community Phyllis Academy they're not even you know count there are not even within our bounds so it is even more alarming for that reason but I hope that in the near future we will take a closer look about um what options if any we have to alleviate that thank you I want to also Echo what um Vice President James said in the beginning this was a very in-depth and thorough presentation definitely one of you know my favorites of being on the board for the last couple of years as well we really are so blessed to have you all and so you should be really proud of yourself so thank you for all the hard work that you do every day thank you very much and I want to thank my team they're amazing and they work highly so thank you guys all for being here late tonight Mrs CH couldn't be here but um you know everybody put put in a big part of this so thank you great all right so we will return to the regular portion of the meeting um I will open it up to the public for a public session on the 2024 2025 budget if anyone would like to come up to the podium and speak to the budget specifically um that you could have uh 3 minutes we ask you to just please state your name and sign in seeing none can I please have a motion to close the public portion of the meeting second all in favor I anyone opposed the public session is closed thank you Mr lary can you please take item number seven my pleasure Madam president I make a motion to uh adopt the following tentative budget for the 2024 2025 school year as listed in great detail on pages two and three of our agenda second I'm sorry who was second Mr one thank you very much uh I'm going to take roll call uh Mr Ali yes Mr Carter yes Miss James yes Miss Keefe yes Mr Lori yes Dr Patel yes Miss to yes Mr W yes the budget is adopted thank you thank you all right um moving to item number eight we'll open it up to public session on any matter if anyone would like to speak um to the board you can come up to the podium we ask that you please state your name sign in you have 3 minutes seeing none can I please have a motion to close the public portion of the meeting so moved second all in favor I any opposed this public session is closed thank you and last we will adjourn can I please have a motion to close the meeting move second all in favor any oppos thank you all so much thank you yes