flag salute flag United States of America the stands one na indivis roll call Mr balamo here Mr baglia here Mrs Dan Che Martin Dr deia Mr fraginal here Mr Scotty here Mr kazinsky here and Mr ferer here oh Mrs Quirk I'm sorry we now come to the portion of our meeting where we allow members of the public to address the board in this section we allow comments on reports resolutions and all School related matters our board regulation 0167 all low 20 minutes for these communications each person shall be limited to three minutes and we ask that you try to stay within this requirement speakers may speak more than once only after all others wishing to speak on the topic have been heard all statements will be directed to me as the chairperson and no one may address board members individually please be reminded that if your statement is too lengthy abusive obscene irrelevant or redundant your par participation may be terminated comments concerning District employees and our students will not be responded to please remember to state your name and address each and every time you address the board for questions where the board may not have immediate answers the board will take information and respond to it at an appropriate time does anyone have any comments hi everyone um my name is Erica dhy I live at 435 Prospect Street and um in some ways I'm just sort of catching up to all of this and I can't attend the budget meeting tomorrow so I just wanted to ask some questions after going through some of these things um one of the things I was hoping you could speak about is um what is the board's strategy in equitably distributing reductions across schools um and programs just so to ensure that no one group of kids or programs are experiencing undue burden um do i g to give you the other questions right now too yeah okay the board strategy um and they've informed me that we are working through uh top- down uh Vantage points to um consider the impact to all students and it is our strategy to look at efficiencies the way we schedule the way we use resources to make no um no cuts that impact students okay um um in so then more specifically um I see that there's about $5 million in reduction in the general instruction and the support services category do those mostly represent Staffing eliminations or could you speak a little bit about what those likely would be yes so depending on um where the where the final budget lands we're looking at um and this is really part of discussion for tomorrow but we're looking at looking at inefficiencies in in materials it uh all all across the board some is Staffing uh but some staffing um is due to um inefficient use of Staff restructuring the admin team things of that nature sure sure sure I I can understand that um and then I think a comment I have is um seeing that there's a reduction proposed for speech OT special services and things like that and I don't know if that potentially represents just a single position I don't know if weuse a Contracting Agency for those services but that was something in particular that felt concerning trying to make sure that of our kids who really need those get those K through 12 um and then just a smaller logistical question is looking at the extended day Cuts I don't know I don't know how extended day is funded other than how parents pay for it and so does that mean most likely parents should anticipate just increases in those fees and might they be significant um I think extended a runs via an Enterprise which is kind of separate from the general budget that you're looking at um I think extended day will be something we'll look at we've traditionally had a small increase from year after year we have very low extended day cost I I wouldn't anticipate a significant increase but I do think there is a um year-to-year increase associated with extended day okay that we'll go through I I don't see extended day being impacted it's not a general fund number it's kind of self-funding itself I must Mis I misinterpreted B before and after school okay item line before and after school is is a different um things like clubs and stuff like okay got you proba for older kids okay um okay then I think I can't attend tomorrow but I look forward to hearing more about just specific strategy I think one of the biggest things certainly my greatest self-interest is in my own children but as a part of the community really wanted to make sure that no burden is felt in any particular place unduly um and especially for our kids who really need the most the most support thank you does anyone else have any comments [Music] hi good evening I'm Jessica gut line I'm live at 23 Oak Crest place here in Nutley um and I've attended the last meeting and I've been watching online but first I want to say that I'm in agreement with all of the recent testimonies calling for the board to keep class sizes small keep our amazing teachers in our schools and meet the needs of our special education students but tonight I'm going to focus my testimony um on the needs for us to maintain the quantity and quality of our school security and I really hope that school security is not being discussed for potential Cuts but needless to say I feel the responsibility to share my grave concerns on behalf of my children and the children of Nutley I'm going to share some disturbing facts and I wish we didn't live with these growing concerns but as you know these are the realities that we face I'm sure you all heard that last Wednesday a student who came to a Wisconsin middle school with a gun was neutralized before he could even enter the school and hurt anyone else one of the first officers at the scene was a school resource officer and prevented any other tragedies from happening the school officer on site all of our schools each and every one of our schools must have Quality Security I hate that I feel that I need the have the need to remind you that the tragedy in Uvalde and Sandy Hook were both elementary schools this year alone there have been more than 18 school shootings four on college campuses and 14 on kindergarten through 12th grade school grounds according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness one in 20 us adults experience serious mental health illnesses 177% of Youth age six to 17 years old experience a mental health disorder now I'm not trying to say that mentally ill individuals are dangerous but what I am saying is that people who want to do harm to our children at schools are not mentally well my children go to Spring Garden Elementary and our school resource officer knows my children's names and I have no doubt that he would protect my children at the time of an emergency this whole situ situation has made us question the quality of education for our children and please do not make us question the safety of our children in nutly schools thank you answer Mr President sure thank you um so I agree with a lot of your points our security uh Team here our footprint we create is a combination of uh wonderful security resource officers uh that we have in District I'd like to thank them at this time I also think there's a lot of mental health programs running in District that add to the security I agree um they contribute to our culture and to our daily um daily atmosphere and you see what they're doing not only in security related matters but also decreases in discipline events as well as chronic absenteeism that the data supports I can confidently say here that next year's budget we will not decrease our footprint on security that makes me feel so much better you don't know how many times I've actually I try to time myself on how quickly I could get to my Spring Garden school just in case I heard anything happening there I didn't grow up with security guards at my elementary school but I understand and know the need for ours today in the day and age so I thank you so much for that thank you thank you anyone else have any [Music] comments hello gentlemen of the board ladies of the board it's Emma cores 206 High Street um I just want to make a little statement about uh a bill that was uh passed in the assembly on April 15th the New Jersey State Assembly approved a bill S2 to help school districts that have seen cuts to their state aid since 2020 2021 school year to raise levies that is the taxes up to 99.9% without voter approval um that is they want to effectively remove the 2% mandated cap now this is just pass the assembly it has to go to the state senate I personally called our state Senator Timberlake uh at 973 39511 66 to urge her to vote against this bill can you speak just broadly um uh to how the short fall in our budget may be um and the anticipated budget coverage within the 2% mandated cap because this looming Bill to raise to abolish that cap to 99.9% without voter approval of course we don't know what's going to happen definitively but it's but it's out there so can you give us some broad statements regarding the 2% cap so with regard to to the budget to the budget so yeah I mean we're we're limited within that 2% cap um I think what you just were referring to is districts that had their state aid cut yes not fall this is what question ask state aid is is different um we have not had our state aid cut last year or this year okay so effectively this this if this passes will not impact nutly at all is that correct it doesn't appear it will based on what you just said but I mean of course we'd have to look look at the language of it you know if it passes but it hasn't gotten to the point yet I do believe it has been uh restricted to those school districts whove had their state aid cut since 2020 2021 so if Nutley doesn't fall within that category then is that correct Mr panion correct we've we've seen increasing state aid over the past uh three years that I'm aware of right now I don't going back I that's four years I'm not sure about that but yes no we've seen an increase in state a this past year we received $3 million more in state a that's true forgive my ignorance on that it was something that uh I hadn't uh even thought about recently until I read about this and thought well it hasn't been addressed outright so I brought it to the board thank you and I just just just so you're aware I mean this this board of education over the years has has stayed within that 2% cap yes oh yes I have been aware of that thank you okay thank you any anyone else have any comments Hi how are you I'm not sure if you can hear hear me okay yeah could you just um if you can can you just speak into the microphone because uh it's hard to hear up here sometimes if you don't can you hear me better I can yes okay great okay uh I'm Dr perali Hoy I live in 19 Lake Street both my children go to Spring Garden school um I just have really high levels of concerns with the amount of money that's missing from you know our children's education essentially along with the fact that we've had infrastructure problems across the schools now there's money missing and um the biggest cuts that are being made are to to our special education population based on what you've put out so far so I would just like further clarification as somebody who's also worked for the district in the past I already know the limitations that exist already so the further cuts that are being made how is this going to effectively like implement the IEPs and provide high level quality level of Education to our special ed population thank you perali um first state the money is not missing uh we have uh mismanaged money um with revenues and expenditures um but the money has been spent toward our programs just in an inflated fashion um secondly the what you're looking at especially with the speech comment before was preliminary budget where we must submit numbers to the state in March uh since then we have heard public comment we have adjusted those numbers to include no cuts to special education um no cuts to speech no cuts to otpt which will be presented tomorrow um with the revised numbers okay and then once these adjustments are made you know I'm not a finance person so I won't speak to that or act like I actually know what that even means um but what I would like to say is how are we further developing the school buildings and what are we doing to add for example simple playground for our children during recess time as research shows that some of these things are important and lead to a better mental wealth uh well-being of all children and our recess programs don't provide that level of Education there's already cuts to par professionals how are you adjusting these um finances to improve the school systems overall do you want me to answer I'm sorry about that I can say looking at um where we are we have um created a operating budget that exceeds the revenues coming in so we do have to make cuts um I think we are doing the cut strategically and looking at um some inefficiencies that have been built in over time and moving back to um operating procedures that make sure our teacher student interactions are very high our administrator student actions uh interactions are very high from the top down I think we need to uh think through where we put our money so that we can plan for infrastructure Renovations I know the community I've heard the community want changes in playgrounds or buildings or trailers and I think that is still possible uh with appropriate budgeting and we hope to take the first step with that in right sizing the budget uh for next year okay Y and so tomorrow night is our budget presentation so um I I would I would suggest if you can make it tomorrow night that's when we're going to present the budget for the 24 25 school year and will that be published shared with the public yes okay excellent thank you I look forward to that it's going to be online but we're also going to do a presentation here great thank you thank you uh Nick fry 66 North Spring gardav uh I have more fact finding for tomorrow night so the budget that's online currently uh that was generated April 30th Is there going to be a new updated one based off of Saturday's meeting and tonight's meeting so that this is not the final one that you're proposing for tomorrow there's more to come correct the the preliminary budget um is the setting of the budget um actually on March 20th is when we we put it in that the county then approves it okay um based on the tax levy set and the allocations of money districts U the board can change the tax levy and districts can reallocate money and you can continue to reallocate money to submission so anything that's discussed tomorrow can go on to go between the lines um that's the point of the public hearing to hear the public based on where the money is in in the final budget and then there will be a board resolution that speaks to the submission of the budget okay great and then um the facts the FAQs that are online those go back to I think April 17th are there more that have been released since then or that those are the only ones that have been released so far that's what we have so far but we are working on on additional ones to uh to put out okay for tomorrow or just in general uh I don't believe it's going to be ready for tomorrow but it we will have them out at some point in the next week or so okay sounds good thank you thank you anyone else uh wishing to come up have have a [Music] comment okay seeing n can I have a motion to close the public citizens hearing portion of the meeting okay any old business to come before the board any new business whereas the Board of Education will be discussing matters exempt from public discussion pursu to njsa 10 col 4-12 now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education recess to close the executive session at this time to discuss Personnel anticipated litigation in contracts be further resolved that the results of the discussions will be made public by inclusion on the agenda of a subsequent meeting of the Board of Education or when the reasons for discussing such matters in closed session no longer exist no action will be taken motion to adjourn into executive session okay thank you everyone