good evening pursuant to the New Jersey open public meetings act adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by advertising such notice in the home News Tribune the Asbury Park Press the board office the schools and on cable vision channel 118 and Verizon files channel 24 and by filing such notice with the Township Clerk this meeting was scheduled for Tuesday December 12th 2023 the board will take formal action on payment of bills and other agenda items Mr mer thank you Mr jordano the Oldbridge Township Board of Education acknowledges that the law of the state established as members of the public including members of the board have the right to record public board meetings using audio or video recording devices provided that that active recording does not interfere with the business of this public board meeting therefore the board makes it known that any such recording is to be considered the private recording of the individual and in no manner represents the official record of this board board therefore takes no responsibility for such private recording and completely disavows any future use roll call Mr antona present M JRE present Miss lent here Mr Marquetta here Mr Slade here Mr Singh Mr Sakowski here Mr Weber here and Mr Jano here quarum exists I'll rise for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under godis with liberty and justice who would like to read the code of ethics Corner next week I'll do I'll do oh Mrs SL got it thank you approval of minutes item number one any questions or discussion okay uh next week we'll have our report of the student representative to the board recognition item number one any questions or discussion I'll go over to retiree uh next week we have one so far thank you and um anything under superintendent report any progress towards goals you'd want to address tonight Mr s tonight we're going to have the um the auditor's report and I'll turn it over to Mr marer and you can introduce uh our Auditors uh thank you Mr cadino so present with us tonight in the audience is Mr Michael panel he's a manager of Samuel kleinon company who has prepared the audit for the year ending June 30th 2023 uh each board member in your packet you have two documents one documents is is referred to as a synopsis of the audit and the other doc doent is called the budgetary comparison schedules Mike will be reviewing uh some of the contents of the budgetary comparison schedules and will be available for any questions uh of the board also um I did bring copies of the actual one copy of the actual cfra and the management report if anybody would like a copy of this we can send it to you or you can pick it up or we could also send it to you uh digitally but it's a large it's a large document thank you Mr Michael panel uh good evening everyone um hope everyone's doing well today um as usual I'd like to thank Joe and his staff for their cooperation during the audit um it's always a pleasure uh working in the O Bridge School District um this is the first time in quite quite a while that the the audit deadline hasn't been extended um usually due to State um report filings um the deadline is December 5th and I'm happy to say that the audit was filed with all state and County agencies by this deadline um not everyone is familiar with the work that goes into an audit so I'd like to take this time to explain the process um each year the New Jersey Department of Ed releases what they call the audit program these are the requirements and Order procedures that we must follow to comply with state regulations um these regulations are divided into three sections there's General compliance uh specific compliance and Reporting um I'd like to highlight some of the uh relevant compliant testing that we do and then go over the uh report format of the audit um just a reminder um the audit that we perform is not 100% of verification um all our testing is based on samples and uh we based our conclusions on these samples to determine if there's any weakness in internal control okay so to start general compliance begins with an an appointment uh the state of New Jersey requires that all schools districts have an annual audit uh this audit must be performed by a licensed accounting firm and must be appointed by the school district uh my company clining company is a licensed firm within the state of New Jersey we were founded in 1921 and have been performing audits ever since um and I've been with the firm for over 25 years and we currently audit uh 12 school districts in the state of New Jersey uh second aspect is the scope um before you could be getting audit you have to know what your parameters are the scope here is we followed the um actual school year of the of the U school district which is July 1st of 2022 through June 30th of uh 2023 some of the audit testing that we do is um under General compliance is we review the minutes we'll go through the minutes mostly pick out um financial information and abstracted just to get a better idea of what another uh audit test that we do is we look at the application for state school aid this is the um count that takes place on October 15th um and um what is also based on your uh State um school aid so what we'll do is we'll make sure that the uh school school district has the required supporting documentation to support that application uh on file we also look at your budget we'll look at any uh budget transfers make sure they um are are in uh Conformity with State uh regulations we look at bids and contracts we look at expenditure classifications um there's a chart of the the state of New Jersey Department Ed has a specific chart of accounts which must be U filed so we'll make sure that um the school board is following these regulations um we look at ledgers uh year- end procedures and when necessary we'll provide the school board with um adjusting audit journals uh section two is specific compliance these are your um these are geared toward more specific funds within the school board first one is your general funds which is known as your fund 10 we look at the board secretary's report we look at the treasur report make sure they're in agreement with bank reconciliations we'll review those for um accuracy we look at if there's any unusual items on these reports and we'll follow up with that um we also verify revenues and receipts um such as your unrestricted state aid payments that come in uh twice a month from the state we'll verify your District um state or um taxes that um are raised in the budget we also look at um payroll testing we'll sample um we'll do a sample size of um High salary employees we'll do a random sample we'll verify pension we'll Trace um salaries to approved contracts we'll also look at um health care and withholdings on that we also do test of trans transactions for expenditures so we'll do a sample of our of um your vouchers or your purchase orders where we'll make sure that um there's proper support there's signatures um that they're being approved on a bill list we also look at uh your fund balance classifications um make sure that there's backup to support those balances such as there's an excess Surplus calculation um if you have approvals for capital reserve accounts maintenance Reserve accounts um so we take a look at all that and we also Trace um the uh two deferred state aid payments we'll make sure those come in in the month of July uh the next fund I'd like to speak about is the special Revenue fund this is your Grant fund um these are all your restricted state and federal aid that come in Grants such as the uh No Child Left Behind chapters 192 193 you're nonpublic any local grants and then just recently there is the um American Rescue plan grants and the co grants all all those funds and expenditures get recorded here um also which is new um just for a few years you have to record your student activity funds here I know um in the past before Joe was here there was um had some comments and concerns about the Student Activities and uh when Joe got here and made it a point to um clean up the Student Activities and I can say that since Joe's been here there hasn't been any issues with um the Student Activity accounts um I know that um we have met with coordinators and um we work with them and um I know um they bring in used to bring in uh to the business administrative office uh their um records for CJ to review to make sure that all the expenditures are student related uh next fund I like to speak of is the capital projects fund this is the fund where all your construction projects are recorded um anything to do with boiler Replacements if you had um roofs floors new windows any type of those any of those projects need to re um need to be recorded here and um we check any funding sources um capital reserve account money gets deposited in here and we'll verify any expenditures to make sure they're all construction related uh the next fund is your debt service fund as it relates to overridge um if you have to sell bonds to fund any of these projects that'll get recorded here um So currently there was a bond sale back in 2022 for the high school construction so all the um Bond pay Bond principle and interest gets recorded here and um all payments are made from this account fund 60 is your Enterprise fund um this is where your food service records are recorded um we look at Child Nutrition programs to make sure that the reimbursements are being properly um process we look at lunch applications we also look at the food service contract to make sure that if there's any um guarantees that they're being met um couple other things that pretty much takes care of all the financial funds there's a couple of other um categories that we have to look at as well which are capital assets we have to verify that your Capital assets are being updated each year we have to look at long-term liability such as your compensated absences uh your pension liability your um other post employment benefits something new in the past year has been we have to rec um record leases now um and then there's the single audit we have to um perform that's Grant testing there's a whole set of guidelines for that known as uniform guid guidance and um based on expenditures we have to determine what grants to test and then again it's more Peril testing and it's more expenditure testing to make sure they are allowable under uh the grant guidelines after all that's said and done then we have to file an electronic form called a data collection form and upload that to the federal government and then there's finally there's um what called the J section which is all statistical information there's about 20 exhibits with all different statistical information um concerning the town and the school district and then finally is the actual report all that information I just spoke about gets um recorded and in this book here this is the um annual comprehensive financial report and it contains all the schedules just smaller thinner report is the auditor management report um this report here is what most people are um interested in because it'll say if there's any audit findings and I'm happy to report again this year that there were no audit findings uh for the 20223 school year I'd like to take the next moment to go over the fund balance allocation into the school district these figures can be found on the the C1 that Joe passed around uh so to end the year as of June 30th 2023 the districts had total fund balance of 4,162 19926 that balance is comprised of the following reserves there was 10,684 548 assigned which has been assigned to support your current budget 2324 there's 146,147 designated as excess Surplus $228,800 190 committed to yearend encumbrances $295,500 76 cents designated to the state unemployment insurance Reserve uh these next two balances were established by board resolutions uh the first is the capital reserve projects you have 14 4,768 th330 um these are could only be used for projects in your longrange facility plan uh next is the maintenance Reserve has 7,431 431,500multifamily is your unassigned fund balance has 6,542 5685 this is the maximum allowed to keep as your undesignated fund balance which is also referred to as your 2% fund balance um in summary I like to say the district continues to maintain compar Reserve balances on a from a year-to-year basis thank you uh anyone have any questions yeah Mike can you just explain to the board members a little bit more about the uh the application for state aid and what actually happens there because it's kind of misleading what the basis of that is and how what is what information is communicated to the state through that application uh yes so each year on October 15th the uh district has to take account of all the students uh in the district those that are being sent those are being received and um they're all compiled so we go through and we verify that there's proper backup for um all those students in the district and that um like I had said before that calculation is used to determine your state aid so it's actually the verification of the number of students that are in the district uh correct yes so how far do you just do sampling for that or do you get into the well we'll go through we'll look at the workpapers to make sure that there's proper support uh that agreed to the application that was submitted and then we also do a sampling size based on the the order program based on the size of the district it tells you how many students you have to test thank you Michael you know I always ask these questions because in the past few years members in various parts of the community have raised allegations that are erous that um members of my team may have misappropriated funds or lied about the number of students enrolled in our schools to gain some type of favor in which I don't know what would be um but you said you've been doing this for 25 years how long have you have been auditing orridge Township Public Schools I've been in orbridge since about 2008 okay are you an employee of alberge Township Public School I am not so you're an independent auditor yes assed by the state of New Jersey and approved by state New Jersey to audit schools yes so during that time have you have you found any audits or findings in which this District may have misappropriated funds I have not during that time in which you've sampled the uh enrollment of students have you found at any time that anyone has lied or misappropriated the number of students in our on our roles I have not has any member of my team or myself ever asked you to lie or fudge an audit for us never thank you very much thank you any other comments from board members okay any corresponds oh sorry thank you Mike thank you have a good night everybody okay so there is no correspondence this week um we going over our special committee reports next week do any board members want to speak on them tonight anything or yeah I'll speak about the curriculum next week okay thank you all right hearing of the residents on agenda items only seeing none moving on to policy any questions or comments curriculum and professional development items one through five any questions or discussion okay Finance items one and two will be voted on tonight can I have a motion Danto will move lent second any discussion Roo Mr Slade yes Mr silakowski yes Mr Weber yes Mr antono yes M JRE yes m l yes Mr Mara yes and Mr gardano yes resolutions 102 pass items three through 13 any questions from the board okay uh Mr par is going to go over number 10 in in executive session yeah yeah just let letting the board know thank you okay and um nothing under Athletics non-certificated personnel office I don't items one through three we voted on tonight can I have a motion danve by all means go ahead Jody will second any discussion roll call Mr Sakowski yes Mr Weber yes Mr anono yes M JY yes Mr lent yes Mr Marquetta yes Mr Slade yes and Mr gordano yes resolutions one through three pass and items number four well not there yet non certificated Personnel operational item number one can I have a motion J will move Dan second any discussion roll call Mr Weber yes Mr antono yes M JRE yes Mr lent yes Mr Marquetta yes Mr Slade yes Mr Sakowski yes Mr Gano yes resolution one passed items two and three any questions or discussion non-certificated Personnel other items one through five any questions or discussion certificated Personnel items one through three can I have a motion slat move jel second any discussion roll call Miss JRE yes Miss lent yes Mr Marquetta yes Mr Slade yes Mr silakowski yes Mr Weber yes Mr antono yes and Mr gordano yes resolutions one two and three and the rest of the items four through 16 any questions or discussion okay non-certificated Personnel Transportation items one and two any questions or discussion Transportation items one and two any questions or discussion supplies equipment and services items one through seven any questions or discussion miscellaneous items one through six any questions or discussion okay no items under board secretary and board business moving on to hearing of residents on any school district issue hi Scott Mella public relations coordinator just want to give a shout out to Oldbridge High School pier and Guy Lassen you know my job sometimes they get to be on the front line of just witnessing something pretty amazing and guy and the pier students today uh went went to I think it was eight schools in the administration building to collect toys for Toys for Tots and they filled an entire School Bus like not a little school bus a big whoops big school bus uh to capacity and they rode in another school bus and they brought what had to be thousands of toys down to Neptune to the toys uh for tot's um collection place I mean we're talking thousands of dollars and thousands of toys it's going to make so many kids happy so I want to make sure to give them a shout out and thank you to all the families of Oldbridge and all the kids who donated and I hope everybody enjoyed a special treat today as Santa joined everybody somehow that I don't know how he arranged it he's so busy this time of year but he came down to help out and made the kids very very happy and you could see a whole video about this on all our social media pages so check it out thank you anyone else sorry microphone yes my name is Antonio carvalo 27 kraton Circle I'm here to address policy 5756 and why Oldbridge needs to adopt this to me this is a political policy these facilities were designed with Men's Rooms ladies rooms now I've grown up up in the Oldbridge school system 38 years in Oldbridge I work construction all over the world everybody has bathrooms for ladies and men now I understand that we live in a new culture where we have alternate genders and we have provisions on the books there laws that govern equal rights and care to take care of students schools don't understand why we have to put a policy in place and besides it's a framework I read it over I mean the Salem Witch Trials look just as good I mean what happens when somebody confronts somebody else that their feelings are broken where where the money going to come from for those lawsuits taxpayers going to pay for that I'm not going to pay for that in fact I'm going to the council to find out why we're funding anything like that weren't masks enough didn't we realize masks didn't work I worked in Manhattan two 300 guys on a job nobody wearing masks nobody got sick got more sick on the bus people coughing and that was a political agenda so I'm here to say that if we continue on this course of action somebody gets hurt in a school and we have to be again in the in the news for something of that nature I'm going to throw money at and there are other people that won't raise their voices here in this room because they're afraid to stand up that parents are being taken out of school boards okay so they'll throw money out and there's a lot of people in Albridge that'll throw money in and I don't think this is a course that we should go on if we have a student in this school it feels that they're transgender and then we have a section in that policy that says forget what the parents have to say so if the parents get irate what do we do take the CH the children away from the parents is this a back door to child care I mean I I it's a web of legal Intrigue now I understand that we get a lot of people here that have more sophistication than I do but when it comes down to it when you look at that paperwork we're deciding whether somebody of some type of genitalia feels they the other gender those bathrooms were made for Waste Services of a particular gender so that females can be safe going to the bathroom and not being objectified or touched or rape God forbid and Men could do the same thing now I don't have to sit here at my age and tell everybody that this is bad and I don't understand where we have all this brain power somebody is is a transgender student they have just the same right to come to school but if the parents are not involved If the parents are overr by this school system that is a problem and I won't stand for that and you're a lot of parents I won't stand for that that's all I have to say he anybody else okay closing hearing of the residents old Business board members yeah I have old business regarding the presentation done tonight and Mr cino's comments at the end um the people in the community that he's referencing was me um a couple of years ago I was just getting involved with everything I thought I knew what I was talking about there was a lot of stuff that I said that was not accurate um the budget stuff not accurate um the students not accurate the The Cutting of programs so this Administration even through what I've learned is that even through the budget cuts they do whatever they can to maintain the programs for the kids what I learned is that they are the students are always at the front and center of everything that they do they could have cut many programs to not try to save the budget they could have done many things to try to save the budget now they didn't Automotive right I thought Automotive was going to be cut wasn't cut what's the other one that I said the hair haircutting cos cosmetology wasn't touched so that's credit to them Joe Mara who I made pretty like Dave said egregious claims does a heck of a job with the budget um as you could tell people on the outside don't see it and I know what people who supported me in the past I know what they're thinking but you have to be willing to open your mind then learn and put the other stuff aside to try to make things work so I learned that two years too late so my apologies for what I did two years ago that's it thank you thank you any other board members for old business I have two things please uh one give kudos to Joe and the administration team for the clean AUD it with no NE recommendations um it just shows the level of your dedication and your work to the district of Alber so thank you um in addition I brought up last meeting uh we have evaluations that we're supposed to do as a board we have a board self- evaluation and a superintendent evaluation at this point there's been only three board members that have completed both and the superintendent has completed his part as well um I'd like to see and challenge the board to complete it by the end of this year for some of you it's you're finishing your term I think we owe it to the over 8,000 students and 1100 staff you know this is part of our job up here and I think we need to do better so if everyone could complete their evaluations that would be great okay anyone else for old business any new business I just want to jump on and just um thank Mr M shut up for his words and um I think it takes a lot of courage to to say that but and I wish I was just speaking about him but that definitely not the case he wasn't the only person who made that that accusation um and when he made it he wasn't an elected person there was people who were elected in this town who made the same accusations against uh our administrative team and you know to to stay that people are stealing or mis misappropriating funds really has an impact on their livelihood going forward and if that's the case people are doing that then they deserve to be brought forth by the um you know whether the prosecutor's office or whatever to to ensure that's not happening no one's taking from the taxpayers and our students but to say that without anything to back it up is you know totally egregious and you know we one of the worst things you can say about a public official so thank you Mr Mor yeah I want to discuss for a minute about one item which is going to be new to the full board this year uh which was we we made a presentation about were we ready to go in to the uh three and four year olds coming to the system now we do already have children in preschool and I think the three and four year olds special ed and some general Jody you know off hand approximate number combined wallpark doesn't have to be totally accurate okay so the obligation that the state has decided that once we file file application and it gets approved uh is set it based on the average class size of 550 students students uh so what they're saying is they want te as much as possible have a class that's includes 15 students 10 students who will be uh general education students the three and four year olds and then five students who will be some you know various categories of special ed so uh a couple things we'll have from that based on the 550 stud students they want us to have two full grades which would be 1100 students at its maximum they will allow you to achieve 90% of that and of course you would take away the 150 or so that you have so the number would be all small probably in the neighborhood of high 800s I don't know personally that you're going to get that many for the simple reason that uh if two parents are able to stay one of them is able to stay home child and they want to they want to enjoy those four four or five years before they consider it so but no matter what it is it will involve a large increase in the enrollment and the cost that was presented at the time to us was that it would cost if we had to use an outside facility because we don't have enough rooms to do it uh it was around $1,400,000 a year for a student and if they were in our Au building it would be roughly 11 to 1200 now since we're at $22,000 for all students I can't imagine unless I don't even know are all of these teachers going to be totally certified uh to the state standards of a full teacher or are they going to be something in between uh that hasn't been clearly articulated at least very cool um so I just want to make everybody aware one of the things since you're in the budget process now is if you're ever going to put this in place Now's the Time to try to find things that are going to reduce your cost and one of those things to consider is H what's done in a lot of other towns in this district and the state where if you have two small schools uh you do something one of them turns into first and second grade the other one is third fourth and fifth by doing that uh you your class sizes will rise but you'll have less there but whatever other things that can be found to raise raise money because I don't think the the number that was given to us by Dr tuy which he got to the state is going to categor cover we already know that on the first six months of this proposed one uh we were going to be short $400,000 just on Transportation uh if you double that to $800,000 and God knows you know how long this will last for I'm sure once it's there it'll be there forever so uh I would say that what you do with the budget I know you're between a rock and a hard place you're going to get 2% as a cap and you have to spend all 2% you really have any other way of raising the taxes do you job there are automatic cap adjustments for certain type of expenditures that exceed the regulations but U generally it relates to health care costs and enrollment okay all right so I say just be alert for that and uh I'll send or I'll ask Dr three to send that you don't have it the proposal given to us at that meeting which we decided not to go forward with the application thank you thank you any other I'm confused because didn't we vote to not go through with the application yes we did but the problem is the applic the process is still alive and at some point it's going to have to be done yeah that would have been part of the strategic planning that we've never had the meeting on that we were supposed to have in the beginning of the school year well you didn't get the application for this one they only they only if you go on the state line Dr two we explained at that meeting that they only got the information on Late July and we voted in a yes we we knew that we needed to apply for it to get the information we voted it down and it was something that we were going to look into and the administration was going to look into a this school year to see if it's something that we can make in the budget work next year yeah I'm just trying to be helpful and letting people know what the potential cost is going to be and I won't be here after December 31st or I thought that share any other new business I just want to say and part of the reason we voted it down was because it took programs and um Services away from special education students I'm not questioning on voting it down I think that was totally appropriate at the time what I'm saying is I think there's a lot more here that has to be thoroughly investigated because the problem's going to be when you don't have enough money to do you're going to have a public at your door whing warning or complaining justifiably why don't we have a state problem that the states as we should have okay uh anyone else yes um just to change the I guess the tone I I'd like to have the opportunity to kick Joe off The Throne of his ugly sweater title that he got last year so I was wonder if you guys are interested in doing the ugly sweater thing again this year sure chipping money 10 bucks and he cannot go out on a high note we got to take him down I AG that's what I mean we got to kick him off that Throne so and next meeting wear your ugly sweater and okay all the sweater that you think is nice that we think's ugly and the winner will go to our F your favorite charity so good great yep and um as a reminder the next meeting next week is going to be at seven o'clock in the auditorium I have um I guess a question for the board or or policy one of the classes I went to at the school board um convention discussed the scientific academic Health attendance and athletic benefits of starting High School later in the day because of the kids natural um sleep schedule and stuff like that so I just wanted to explore that a little bit more if we could add that to a policy meeting and talk to the public about it see how everyone feels and see if that's something that we should think about I think um I I think we I we talked about this was briefly looked into and at the time there wasn't a lot of support for it but I I see no reason and why not to look at it especially you know as a board members requesting more information on it um I you know I think it it it goes beyond policy though because it's it's going to impact Transportation um parents you know a parent might not look at a maybe a policy as a concern but maybe if it's like you know we talked about long long range planning type of meeting that would be may maybe more an appropriate where it begins because you're you're going to affect Child Care issues you're going to impact uh busing Services um so it may have an impact um obviously it have some impact too on the townships before and after care as well so if it's you know Mr Parton I don't know you you serve other districts as well do you know where they kind of look look look into that investigate it uh a lot of times it's in a completely special meeting Committee of the whole for whatever purpose but it cuts across curriculum Athletics finance and policy so it would it would probably be a f a committee of the whole no matter what so you could you could start it as whatever committee you chose to do everyone would be involved well if I'm gonna stir the pot I might as well stir all the pot all right so do you wan to we'll we'll set a date for after um the new board members are on and started for January okay and I think you're right may it probably should be a standalone meeting so we don't have to because it's going to take up the whole meeting so there's no sense in having you know other issues on the table that are not going to get the services or the time that they need so we'll work on it put something together for for a future meeting anyone else okay the board will be going to Executive session to discuss matters relating to to pending litigation can I have a motion to go into executive session SL second all in favor any opposed any exensions the board will go into executive session at 8:14 p.m. thank you and have a good night