e e e e e e e e e e e e okay I'd like to start this meeting pursuant to the New Jersey open public meetings as njsa 104-1 adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by advertising such notice in the no the home News Tribune the Asbury Park Press the board office the schools and on cable vision channel 118 and Verizon CH files 24 by fing such notice with the township clerks this meeting was scheduled for June 3rd 2024 the board will take formal action on budget of bills and adequate notice of this meeting has been advertised thank you yes oh he there okay thank you the Oldbridge Township Board of Education acknowledges that the law of this state establishes that 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 the 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 the board therefore takes no responsibility for such private recording and completely disavows any future use thank you Mr White roll call please Dan tuno here Gano here J here Francisco here lent here Marquetta maone here here s here solowski here we have a quum would everybody please stand for the pledge thank you okay the opening remarks good good evening everyone thank you all for coming today I I believe uh we're going into executive session first or at the end no no not okay at the end okay again thank you all for coming this will be our second public hearing for the 2425 budget this will be the revised budget that we'll be presenting on tonight I want to Welcome All and in attend and watching remoy to the public hearing presenting the 2425 proposed revised budget for the Oldbridge Township School District the outline for tonight's hearing will be a little different than our prior hearing as you'll mainly hear from me tonight our agenda is as follows I will introduce our board members and attendance here tonight our superintendent of schools David cadino will provide an opening statement we will review our budget priorities for 2425 I will provide a little bit of a budget review so to speak in relation to the state of our district I will then report on the impact of legislation Public Law 2024 chapter 12 and chapter 13 I will report first on the district revenues followed by the Appropriations I will recap the action to be taken by the board this evening the result of the tax impact from the pending action and finally a budget summary on the proposed 2425 revised budget the administration board members may have the opportunity to make any additional comments at the conclusion of final administrative comments we will then open the meeting for public comment tonight we have in attendance our entire board we have marger Dr Jay Slade Sal gordano Jen duno president Matt solowski Christina maone Elena Francisco Lenny Marquetta and Lisa lent from our Administration and attendance we have superintendent of schools Mr David cadino to my right to my left is assistant superintendent of schools Dr Kathy hoker and Dr James Tu assistant superintendent of educational programs will be helping on the slides tonight myself David wiell School business administrator board secretary I will now turn the presentation over to Mr citadino to provide a brief opening statement good evening thank you everyone for being here just uh a little bit as to where we are and how we started here in about the year of 2007 uh State legislation passed an S2 S2 legislation redirect directing funds from what they deemed as overfunded school districts to underfunded school districts but that legislation was left alone in school districts like Oldbridge which was identified as overfunded meaning that they were receiving too much state aid and not enough money was being taxed upon the local taxpayer uh were left alone and held harmless meaning that our state aid remained the same throughout all of those years from 2009 up until 2017 in that summer our state was approved and our budget was approved and then by mid July we the state took back um $1.5 million that came from nowhere there was no there was no um preview there was no warning that this was going to happen in fact they had only approved our budget a month earlier um and it put us in very desperate times and these were very bad years to be administrator and school school educator parent people here in Oldbridge and of course board members but I'm here to tell you today this year's board and I've said this to the public and I've said to them um was probably the most difficult year to be a board member because what the state did in without wisdom in in Trenton is they said that you were underfunded meaning you couldn't you weren't funding enough locally if you're taxpayers but it didn't give you a mechanism to adjust that it just kind of held you in limbo we're going to keep on taking money away and blame you for not taxing enough but we're not going to let you tax anymore and they just kept taking funds taking funds to the tune of where we had to sell us uh rent out of school property sell sell District property um close a school uh have layoffs year after year until the point where we relied upon grants and so forth to keep going forward so here we are in 2024 and the state in Trenton has recognized that their plan doesn't no longer work you can't keep on taking millions and millions of dollars from a district like Oldbridge and only allow them to gain two million um approximately and from local taxpayer funds the math just doesn't work you can't have inflation go up you can't have the price of everything go up while taking millions of dollars and only allowing Oldbridge to be capped at the 2% so the challenge was to come up with some legislation as all of these districts are now their seventh seventh year and hit the what I like to call the Doomsday wall where the only thing would have been done was to decimate a school district because you can't operate a school district that loses 50 almost 50% of its state aid and not have a way to make up those funds so I said to the board members you're going to be called upon to do something very brave and when you get a board and we've had some we have some veteran board members here we have new board members here I'm just very pleased with the board board members that we do have each of them has asked very tough questions each of them has called members in my team and myself sometimes late at night to ask questions to get documents to get data and that's that's part of the job you have to answer the questions but as well as as asking questions they all listened each each one of them listened they listen for a rationale they they listen to learn more because you don't know what you don't know when you you become a new especially when you become a new board member so I want to commend every one of you for asking tough tough questions looking for the documents even up to today I need to see this I need to see that so I can make an informed decision and every one of them did did that and they asked the right questions and is very important because what they did was allow us through a straw consensus to put on here a a a um a budget that allows us to maintain our full day kindergarten it allows us to maintain all of our CTE programs all of our AP programs all of the electives at the high school that we were so concerned about losing that makes us a comprehensive High School it allows us to do that because they listened they asked questions and they acted as board members and they acted bravely U so I want to thank all of you for that and being part of this because you know each year you don't know what you're going to get and this year we have a great team so thank you and every one of you who votes for this is voting to save all those programs and save a really terrific School District going forward thank you thank you Mr Zeno okay so first we have our budget priorities um for those that that remember and recall um this 2425 budget priorities slide given the situation we are in the priorities the priorities really have not changed we have the task to work within our means and that is what we believe we have done with this budget that being said I want to review the purpose of a school budget and all that comes with it the school budget is a planning tool next slide there we go the school budget is a planning tool it considers contingencies it manages to avert risks and should be fi fiscally responsible and sound it is a delicate balance as an overall Financial expression it is considered a blueprint but one that can be altered adapted and modified with limitations during the year to continue efficiency given the last presentation I want to provide some more insight as to the difference between our realized budget decrease and our budget shortfall on the next slide no you you're right there thank you in the first hearing I explained that our general feral fund expenditures decreased by 1.20% which was a comparison to the 2324 school year in this presentation you will see that number increase to over 4% that number is solely based on projections of real-time Revenue anticipated with the initial decreases in state aid and fund balance a 2% tax levy increase was simply not enough to make up those losses hence the new legislation that we have the $12 million shortfall perents everything we felt we needed in the budget to operate in the most effective way so there's two different um components at one was just our regular shortfall you can only estimate what revenues you're going to get there in comparison to last year they decreased but in order to make our budget really a full fully efficient budget we were really short about $12 million that was our shortfall we were realizing for for our district this year like many S2 districts we were we are experiencing a revenue problem with a broken formula I will explain explain in graph form on the next slide so this graph that I put together think of your personal earnings or and compare it to a revenue for a local tax levy for 23 24 so for instance $3,000 is a salary or earned Revenue over 12 months that equates to $36,000 additionally a household or a district district has t $10,000 in savings which is equivalent to $10,000 in reserves for a district then you also have $5,000 in available credit on a credit card or for a district the equivalent to $5,000 available in grant funding to use our expenses in 2324 both in the home or in a school district are $11,000 a month the balance for spending is 39,000 multiplied out to a Rel percentage which equates to $39 million now in 2425 we take our earnings from the household or a revenues from the district and multiply that by a capped 2% what that means is we only bring in $720 more in revenue or earnings we use savings to make it through the 23 24 school year for some expenses so this year we only have 5 ,000 left in savings or equate that to $5,000 in reserves for our budget more importantly our credit is maxed out we used all our credit cards we have no more grant funding available all the while our expenses have increased this year 12% similar to what we heard about our health care costs that are increasing All Things Considered for the 2425 budget we now only have $ 28,2 180 for for additional spending multiply that by the same percentage equaling $ 28,2 180,000 this quick example shows how a $10 million plus deficit is is generated in about one minute maybe 1 minute 30 however long it took me so where does that leave us now on May 14 20 2024 the last day we had by to adopt a budget Governor Murphy signed into laws bills A- 4161 and A- 4159 which created Public Law 2024 chapter 12 and chapter 13 chapter 12 extended the deadline to adopt a budget which is why we're here today chapter 13 includes all Financial aspects of the bill the first being the stabilized school budget aid grant program within this program districts who lost aid in 2425 will be receiving 45% of the aid back this equates to 1,137 717 back to the district next Slide the second component of the law is referred to as tax levy cap adjustments which is a bit more complicated so I'll try to to be as clear as possible here to explain a district takes all the state aid loss over the last five School fiscal years for Oldbridge that amount that amounts to 13,999 36 all that has been lost over the past five years however a condition of the bill was that the amount that would be capped would be a 9.9 increase to the local tax levy so a district must take the lesser of the two a 99.9% increase to the tax levy from 2324 equates to a m 11,310 and 300 well excuse me 11, 310,000 in Aid the law allows us to only go up $1,310 in comparison to the 2324 tax levy on the next slide here's our original tax levy cap that we started when I had to submit a budget on March 20th I believe is the date here's our tax levy cap represented by a 2% increase plus any allowable adjustments for healthcare costs the next slide is a is a screenshot from May 30th where our budget software shows a pre-populated amount of other adjustments that a district could take on by increasing the tax levy as a component of the new law this is a revised tax levy calculation based on 99.9% the highest possible tax levy increase which which is the solution that brings the the most possible funding back to the district here you will find that based on our initial budget submission we can only raise the tax levy an additional 6.93% so in total our tax levy is at 99.9% on the next slide it should be represented so the top you'll see uh the 2% in purple the next is the allowable adjustment of 97% on the bottom half you'll see the numbers equ out so you have 2% was that amount the 97 and then that that equals 6.93% remaining to make up for those allowable adjustments that we can go up so just for a point of clarity Mr bi uh David the 2% is required by law there's no there's no going around that so what we're really looking at here is going up to 6.93 which is the most we can go up outside of what we have we have to go up correct okay next slide we have a quick summary of the financial considerations of public law 2024 chapter 13 so this just has a summary of the state aid that you'll get back the 45% and then the the total tax levy um allowable adjustment next slide is a more detailed breakdown of our budget before the law and after the law with the difference in the local tax levy and the stabilized school budget program Aid we can see an additional 9, 50,7 126 in Revenue can be brought to the district totaling 168 million 29,7 42 as our excuse me as our new Total operating budget so those pieces alone those two pieces which are the two components of the bill will equate to just over 9 million back uh to The District in Revenue however on the next slide even with that additional Revenue the scary part is the the status of the district is still $7 million or to be exact 7, 314,000 735 under adequacy meaning we're still underfunded um obviously we we're increasing our tax levy here as proposed um but we're still over $7 million under ad adequacy comp compared to what the doe believes we should be at okay now we talk about our revenues as I I as I have stated in the past revenues Drive expenditures so here we have an updated chart reflecting our revised revenues you will see that the revenue here matches our general fund our operating budget our on the next slide you'll see our unusual and notable Revenue items stay the same this is the same slide that was presented on the uh first budget presentation but on the next slide you will see those new Revenue items listed that are currently in our budget I believe it's lines 100 is the local tax levy is the new revised line and line 500 is other state AIDS now that we allowed to bring in um from component one of the new law again revenues Drive Appropriations that's our biggest um thing to remember here so let's move next to the Appropriations on this slide which is similar to those you've seen in the past I've summarized the budget into seven categories as previously mentioned now the district is budgeting a 4.42% increase in spending this is a result simply of the new revenues allowable by law most notably our program costs have changed drastically at our first budget hearing we were seeing program cost decrease 7 million 49,1 163 or a negative 8.94% in relation to 2324 program costs now represent 49.0 7% of our general fund budget the employee Ben benefits line represents 24% of the budget containing many semi fixed cost items such as health benefits prescription benefits Dental Envision Insurance Workers Compensation Insurance pension costs payroll taxes and other employee benefits as we save employees jobs we need to account for those Associated employee benefits so that's why if you compared from last budget presentation you will see that number increase as well the projected increase is 99.63% the largest component within those costs is Healthcare premiums as we are enrolled in the state Educators health plan we are projecting premium increases of anywhere from 12% to now 18% for the first half of 2025 statutory changes to employee benefit contributions have continued to create a substantial burden of the increased cost to the district the next line is our maintenance and operation line which is 10.72% of the budget this contains required custodial Services security and energy cost we are working hard to try to keep these cost as flat as possible even through increasing mandates to necessary repairs and maintenance required throughout the year the transportation line is about 9.25% of the budget containing Plus for salaries to operate our own Fleet of District owned buses contracted services or outside vendors that provide daily busing for students you will see a percentage change of 24.6% which is to combat the increase of contractor route pricing shortage drivers from contractors increasing fuel costs maintenance and administration of the entire Transportation operation the administrative cost line is 5.54% of the budget contains the cost of Staffing of the main offices of all schools such as school principls and secretaries the superintendent's office the business office and districtwide Technology components this number proposed is down from the prior year budget the tuition cost line is about 2.74% of the budget hasn't changed from the last presentation contains costs from T tuition out a district students in private placements and tuition for students that attend vocational schools the capital outline outlay line is about 1.47% of the budget contains cost for facility upgrades SDA assessments for past referendums and as VI as just a reminder as vice president miss duno said uh a few meetings ago what is important here to remember is that the funds for facility upgrades come from a separate bank account aside from our general fund budget and could be only used to fund facility projects next are these num numbers these figures represented in a pie chart you can show clearly that our program costs um that are included here make up uh about half of the budget however let's break these costs down further on the next slide this is the important one program cost details program costs include regular education programs all special education programs including learning and or language disability programs behavioral disabilities multiple disabilities resource room or Resource Center programs autism programs preschool disability programs for half day or preschool disabilities programs for a full day it includes academic support bilingual programs co-curricular or athletic programs and alternative programs these programs are supported by attendance Services Health Services speech programs extraordinary or related Services programs um those are for students IEPs guidance child study team Services Improvement of instruction Services educational Media Services or instructional staff training these program costs could include items such as Staffing supplies textbooks software licenses for different softwares used throughout the district are outsourced Educational Services and their supports while this detailed chart may still show negative changes it important to note the size of these changes for example to compare regular program instruction has changed from a - 13.86% or 6,410 1853 at of a loss to now a negative 2.94% so again that's a huge change uh almost 10% there if not more of 13.86% change it is important to review the context of the figures and compare the line relative to the total percentage of the program costs so when the costs altogether are much smaller and there's a change you're going to see much a much higher percentage change um just based on the lower um total percent of the budget on our next slide we have our Capital Aly this is a repeat slide from our last presentation this slide is a summary of the capital expenditures included in the 2425 proposed budget repairs to the retaining wall in the back of Oldbridge High School in conjunction with the uh New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection we have Paving and masonry upgrades and playground upgrades are all included the district will continue to look for and apply for as many facilities grants we could find which are not represented by any figures within this presentation the other items are State mandated items for our Appropriations our unusual and notable items remain the same as we are still experiencing the same CH challenges of inflation and ex extremely high Rising costs as well as now the expired Federal grant funding for covid-19 next slide J so tonight as Mr sedo stated the toughest year probably ever to be a board member is upon us the board will be voting on our revised budget with an increased tax levy and a stabilized school budget aid grant five votes of yes from the board will bring 9,507 126 of additional Revenue meaning the following all school buildings to remain in operation the moving of Old Bridge High School to a six period or shorten day is abandoned all educational programs at Oldbridge High School are to remain academic intervention at the high school is to remain reinstatement of full day kindergarten at all existing locations junior varsity freshman and Middle School athletics all to remain Elementary School related parts to remain no shortening of an elementary school day maintain two sections in grade one at all elementary schools instrumental music at the elementary schools is to stay existing level of effective School Solution Services to remain and our Middle School summer program to remain last but not least our hours of Summer service for our guidance counselors are still intact however on the next slide you'll see um the 9,507 126 in revenue is a figure that is still short of our total short total shortfall difficult decisions still had to be made by the administration and in conjunction with the board the additional funding did not make the district completely whole for the 2425 school year the district may experience the changes to after school extracurricular Transportation reduction of employees through attrition not most notably these these reductions will be based on projected enrollments at schools and existing retirements reassignment of subject area responsibilities reassignment of Elementary Technology support responsibilities please note for any program having reductions or or cuts the administration carefully considered the programs that would least impact the educational progress and achievement of all students the next slide is our 2425 tax rate calculation this slide is the one that looks very familiar to most from previous years however on the next slide I've added this slide to represent those figures in a different way in comparison to 2324 we will be increasing revenue from our total tax levy by a total of 11 million 31,41 for an average assessed home home of $156,500 this would equate to a total of $282 28 cents annually as an increase the tax levy or the taxes rather or $23.52 per month again for $282 annually of an increase to your taxes you will be bringing back over $9 million to essentially save our district as Mr Cino provided in summary our 2425 budget summary remains as follows the proposed budget for 2425 aims to continue to support as many educational programs as possible despite significant reductions of state aid compiled over seven year six years of S2 overwhelming increases to expenditures and inflation with this new revised budget we believe we did that and we did so successfully through these challenges the proposed budget aims to continue supporting healthy learning environments across all schools made possible by our staff we wouldn't be here and stating the good things about our district the accomplishments that we skipped over tonight we wouldn't be here without them the proposed budget for 2425 extends the useful life of current Technologies used for student learning and achievement the proposed budget for 2425 provides funding to ensure all curriculum and resources are aligned with all state standards the proposed budget for 2425 provides academic social and emotional support mechanisms for all students regardless of their talent and abilities through various obtainable Resources with that concludes the presentation of our revised 2425 budget we now open the floor to the board or the administration for closing comments Mr suasi may I say something sure go ahead thank you so Mr wal and Mr cadino or correct this was really really difficult we were faced with two bad decisions raise taxes or cut programs um and we met we talked about this and with the information that Mr ell gave us we realized that this vote um would put us in a better position so that we didn't have to do the same thing every year and keep coming back every year to decide what programs we were going to cut and see if they would allow us to raise the tax levy tax levy we can only raise for one year um in the end I'm really proud of us as a board because we debated over this we discussed it we I won't say we argued because what we talked emotionally about it um and we agreed in the end that what we were going to do it was the right thing for the students um so I thank Mr cadino and Mr woodell for acknowledging how difficult this was and um it really was a difficult decision anyone else the difficult decision lies with the board now okay any other comments from the board no yes any comments the public now just on the budget itself yeah for any for any public comments the public comment period will now begin you'll please go to the podium yes state your name good evening my name is Richard Dunn I live in 58 Norman Lane and I was very pleased when I saw this draft agenda come out which told me as previous board member that there was a consensus on the board of preserving our programs obviously as articul as uh David Saida had represented at his opening statement he's very proud of the board and I got that sense when I saw this agenda come out and I know it's a very difficult and arduous decision to make to raise taxes I get it and we need all need to realize that it's important that we Preserve our programs for our children we all been elected or served up here for the betterment of the children and I understand that there's different educational ideologies out there there's two different spectrums on the board it's always been that way and for this board to come together in a consensus hopefully is very refreshing and I want to speak very positively because I've been up in your shoes and the ultimate goal is to preserve our programs for our children we serve the children you serve the children and what I'm getting out of this discussion and what I see on the agenda is very refreshing because the nine board members up here realized that they serve the children and that's refreshing and I'm very pleased to see that I get it I get it that a lot of you on the board have gotten phone calls from other outside pressures telling you to vote a different way or a certain way but ultimately is your decision and I'm very proud that there's some sort of consensus here that's going to take us to a position where we can and preserve our programs listen our real estate tax um our real estate values are based upon our schools and if we were going to decimate our schools and put them down in Dums where they're not going to be um highly performing it would cause US problems all over town so with that said uh I'm going to ask uh all the board members here to dig down deep into your heart and vote Yes for this budget preserving the programs is important we have one the full staff in this District we don't want to lose any of them I believe over 200 of the staff members were received Rift notices they're all disconcerted right now because they don't know where they stand we lose great teachers we lose great staff it's just going to hurt us in the long run I've served with Mr silakowski for many many years I've served with Sal G Adano Lisa lent I get it we've always had our differences but ultimately I see that we are together on this and I'm appealing to the board to please approve this budget as is because it will preserve our programs I want to say thank you Mr silakowski and the entire board who's given this serious consideration and hopefully we get a guest tonight thank you thank you Mr dun anyone else state your name Darren auli citizen councilman of Oldbridge look I know we're all here today and it's it's tough every single one of them up there got to be challenged I can't imagine what you guys go through thinking about all the people that will say you did the wrong thing or did the right thing I actually called The Senator gopal's office myself and I asked him specifically why are you doing this to oldridge and he specifically called me back within 24 hours and said these words your taxes are going up because your home prices went up 40% so you can afford to pay the taxes I said is there anything else I need to know that's it it's very fuzzy we understand that but I have just one question how long and this is for Dave probably the ba how long did we know that these Cuts were coming and how many meetings have we had over the last year or so to talk about it because if we knew that we were losing $14 million I would just assume that we would have conversations daily knowing it was coming I don't think anybody here including me I got two girls in the system I don't want my daughters to suffer and lose programs and can you imagine how the teachers are feeling right now I've been to the volleyball games I've been to grand openings I've been all over town the last 6 months they're so riddled with anxiety not knowing what's happening they're getting emails from everybody they're getting board stuff they're getting going to lose their jobs can you imagine what they feel right now scary and we're all going to clap if taxes go up taxes go down who's on political sides who's not listen I learned a lot over the last couple of years I was an Angry Dad and so my kids suffer for two years when the schools were closed I don't want the kids to get hurt I believe we have a great town we have good people but when you have a board and superintendent and a ba if we know cuts are coming I just want to have a question simple question how many meetings we had and did we discuss it and for the ba he said the taxes are going to go up $282 for the year if you could explain maybe if my tax is a 16,000 how is it $23 a month I just have those questions that's pretty much it thank you thank you anyone else good evening thanks uh thanks for the opportunity just a couple of questions your name is Sir Joe Manas good Alber resident uh in light of the PowerPoint and this documentation uh how accurate is that in accordance to the documentation is is it the same same material okay okay next question would be for the uh new programs how many are federally mandated if any how many are and what would they be or are they just voluntary programs David okay do you not okay so you had said you had said some of these are new programs you have to implement some new things understand understandable are they just mandates from the federal government or are they just things you want to mandate you want to implement in the system in light of what's your name David Mr y but we'll we'll let you ask all your questions then once you're done no that's it that's all I have that's basically it oh okay thanks a lot thank you don't try to answer go ahead Andrew Lewis Oba glad to be reading this set of remarks tonight as opposed to the other versions that I've prepared over the last few weeks I want to commend each of you for your dedication and commitment to our students well-being and the success of our schools we're at a Crossroads faced with choices that were undoubtedly challenging the decisions being made tonight will have far-reaching consequences not only for our schools but for our community it's in moments like these that our mission must be clear and unwavering to put our students first based on tonight's presentation it appears that you are doing just that I hope that your votes this evening will reflect your commitment to our students and our staff our students are at the heart of our community the reasons that we're all here the reasons that our staff works so hard that board members and administration work so hard the reason we strive for excellence each decision that you make should be guided by a singular sing singular question how does this benefit our students I urge each of you to reflect on the profound impact that your decisions will have on the lives of our students how does a yes vote benefit our district students what impact would voting no have on our students our community has fought against these budget cuts for seven years we have an opportunity to begin to repair some of the Damage Done by TR in and by S2 I commend everyone sitting up here tonight for their work and starting to do just that the decisions that you make today will Echo for years to come it's a challenging task but I have faith in this board's dedication to doing the what is right I ask you to please make choices that reflect our highest values and our aspirations for our students future together we can create an educational environment that truly prioritizes and nurtures the potential of every student thank you again for your hard work your dedication and your unwavering commitment to Excellence and education I look forward to hearing all nine of you vote Yes this evening thank you anyone else I guess not did you close it sir okay Mr sadino all right now answer the question go ahead yes uh first Mr as's Question um your your first statement uh about Miss Senator gopal and thank you for bringing that up I also met with a few Senators legislators and this is how asinine the system is when we're looking at Trent and elected officials their response to me was the same the home values have gone up the income of the residents has gone up so you can afford to pay more said through what there's a 2% cap it doesn't everybody there could be a room full of billionaires from New Jersey lot in here and all have kind have gone up but we can only go up 2% and that's been the problem since S2 was initiated and they said we've underspent when they say underspent it's not like we didn't try to spend money they we underfunded locally we didn't get enough of the taxpayers but the school district has a cap on it can only cap tax that 2% so it doesn't matter how much everyone's making or if the home values have gone up and I'd like to think the home values go up in in relation to the school district doing well so that's the part of the frustration for us is it's based on a funding formula that is kept under greater secrecy than Fort Knox and if you ask how many times do we meet we meet every week we've been meeting every week since I've been superintendent we meet every week to go over the unknowns of this budget going forward and one of the things that is I I think you should know and everyone should know we don't find out what our form funding is until February 29th and then we have to have a budget adopted by March 15 can you imagine you're running $160 million business and you have two weeks to put together a budget based upon a number you don't know what it is going to be that's the way they operate school districts in the state of New Jersey That's the Way Trenton expects us to be successful we don't we can't tell you what you're going to get in state aid until after the governor's address you're going to get it on February 29th but please turn that $160 million budget around and get it back to us get your board to absorb it talk to them break give them all the information they need to make an educated decision and get it back to us that's the frustrating part I thank you for being in service for being an elected official because maybe you can change something because this isn't working it hasn't been working since they adopted it in 2007 and it hasn't been working since they they beat up Oldbridge in 2017 um Mr Joe say it to me again Joe I'm sorry Manas all right so yes that is those are the same materials I I don't I'll ask you for C there's no new programs we're not introducing any new programs we are bringing back or maintaining the programs we have there I just say there are no new programs no no when I when I said Pro new mandates that was in regards to the maintenance line maintenance and required maintenance to upkeep the school building for instance there's a required there's a a mandate New Jersey Department of Education makes you test your schools for lead testing in the water every few years this year 2425 school year we're now required to test the last time we had a test was um 2122 I believe so we'll see this year we have to take on that that added expense that we haven't had necessarily the past few years we don't know what those costs are going to be how much did inflation or those Services you know increase that's one there's another new mandate um that's coming out this year starting for July 1 for menstrual products um female feminine products um we are required now to to purchase any those those products um from grade six through 12 the state will eventually reimburse but that dis that upfront cost is going to be Beed by this by the district and typically have we seen these new prams sometimes the reimbursement doesn't come till the following year after your year is done then depart Department of Education those are both two New Jersey Department education mandates um for this year additionally it's just the the continuing are upkeeping our buildings for codes codes often change um we have to update you know different things for for instance in a high school if there is a if we changed use in one of our rooms um we have to up get that up to code for pertaining to that use and that increases costs based on the township looking at it to make sure that those are all in in compliance with code so there there's definitely just increasing mandates such as that um that add costs that are are just not born in Prior years it's only newcoming go and going forward so those are just some of the new mandated programs and they're typically Department of Education anything that we're changing a use is in conjunction with the township of Oldbridge we we talk to the building department directly on that you're welcome thank you Joe yes yes what was the question just repeat the question the tax question you said it was going to be in oh for everyone is $282 correct but if my tax is a no just hear me out if my tax is a $6,000 some 15,000 some is 17 how does that equate to 23 so I just asking y it no problem it's based on the average assessed value of your home so at if your home is assessed at $156,500 42 your annual increase based on calculations will be around $282 if your home is assessed maybe at um half of that you know take it down a half you're going to see 200 or or 100 you're going to get half of that 282 if you're over that 156 by um you know half of it then you're going up another half on that so it's all relative to that $156,000 average home value could be more could be less though right could be more could be less and but it's not exactly 282 right I just wanted to everybody just to just to kind of be transparent cuz I had some people call me Dave honesty said hey how is it only this that's great so if it's more you'll pay a little bit more right okay exctly we can only base it upon as the state gives us the average number and that's the average average assessed value in Oldbridge but we you know to to be transparent we did a little research on that too we saw like a million dollar home in Oldbridge is assessed at 350 right so it's it's going to be double you know less than double of that 282 if you're living in a million dollar home I don't know what kind of home you're living in but you seem to roll nice right but but those calculations are ultimately provided by um each year in in January we get I get abstract numbers from the township so I get ratables from the township to say here's our base of ratables here's the average assessed values of the homes and there's just formulas to put in to make those calculations work so anyone else from the public go ahead thank you hi lava just to um give a little more um your name please Bridget lava okay um So based on your $166,000 you actually have to look at your tax bill and see what portion of that is this oh yeah for for example we have to have we need to address the board we did close the public portion um yeah okay all right so please just address the board and okay close the public portion after this young L you finishes thank you so a little added context um if your taxes and I'm going to use round numbers are $110,000 you then have to reduce that amount that's your total including Municipal and library and this that and the other you have to look at and look on your tax bill it tells you the percentage of your total tax bill is your school tax I'm going to say it's roughly 60% of your total so if your total tax for the year is $10,000 $6,000 is your school tax that's the number that you then have to multiply by 9.9% to get to what the increase is so don't freak out that you know you're getting 10 almost 10% on your entire tax bill that's not the case look at your tax bill and it will tell you what percentage of your tax bill is for the school tax thanks thank you and 58% 58 can I get someone can I get the board to move one through three danuna will move can I get a sec J real second any discussion I'm going separate two and three separating children spr for discussion yes okay who is that uh s yep two and three for discussion well discussion and discussion and action okay okay okay we could vote on one can I just can I say something yeah can I just ask my fellow board members last meeting was very confusing when we were saying yes and no to certain numbers if we're voting one way for one set and one for another can we separate numbers for voting so that us as board members and the public can follow along please yes okay so just to recap we had a motion by danant tuno seconded by jri gordano then separated resolution number two and three for voting and discussion okay Mr J vote on no I want to vote on one first okay you want to vote on number one first okay okay roll call please for number one so this is going to be for roll call for item number one only number one yes okay lent item just a clarify item number one is to approve the stabilized school budget aid grant program in the budget which is the 1,137 7177 lent was a yes correct yes maretta yes mazone uh yes Slade yes danant tuno yes jodano yes jri yes Francisco yes solowski yes resolution one for finance passes okay discussion uh number two and three please yes correct okay so um for last few meetings I've been telling the public to get in touch with me about their opinions on the budget uh we had a great turnout um a lot of people approved it there were some that didn't approve it but overall the unbiased population um approved to increase the taxes 99.9% I respect their decision and I supported the board when we came to this agreement of passing the budget but however I still have to represent those with no children or those older citizens that will be getting this steep tax increase out of nowhere so unless the board any board members have any other relevant objections specifically to the budget um I'm going to support those that are going to be negatively infected affected by this and also this was the most student participation there were a lot of students that uh Express their concerns for AP classes and um all of them were ahead of my time based on where they are now in the classes they're taking so I'd like to congratulate them for their participation and for their emails thank you thank you any other discussion on two and three yes so to understand and again I'm respecting everyone's right to have an opinion and things like that but so while you congratulate the students understand my watch it doesn't understand while you congratulate the students for their effort on the AP exams by voting no on it you're thus discontinuing their opportunity to quote unquote following your footsteps which you say every meeting because now if we don't have approved the budget there could be no AP classes David correct me if I'm wrong if we vote it down the state steps in and decides everything it would be the county the state and although we keep saying 9.9 we figured out it's 6.9 is going to be the increase so out of the $282 the $28 that's the 9.9 so 3% of that you were going to get taxed on anyway am I understanding that correctly I'm just representing the older citizens and those without children I I'm not disagreeing with that but did you just congratulate all the AP students for their hard work and their accomplishment that they're ahead of your time and now you want to take that opportunity away to NE the next year students correct no if there's four let's say hypothetically there were four board members I would approve it I'm just saying when the vote is all done I'm going to be representing those that are affected they those are the ones that are affected okay I think we had enough discussion on this uh so no I I know people are going to misinterpret it well that's what I'm asking for clarification that's what the discussion is yeah yeah I'm explaining it so okay okay so what we're going to do is we're going to vote on number two separately and on number three separately was there discussion on three both together I they we're together yeah yeah we could vote both them together two and three together Mr Jano asked for the separation so you're okay with them being voted together yes okay roll call okay roll call on two and three please okay for resolution two is the tax levy cap adjustment allowed and resolution three is the adoption of the 2425 revised budget lent yes maretta yes maone uh yes Slade yes Dan tuno for the children yes gardano pass J yes Francisco yes solowski for our community yes resolution two and three [Applause] passes this you supposed to come back to me it was supposed to be no yeah so no no for me thank you no problem so no I want to thank the board for their votes uh and uh this will conclude our meeting aren't we allow okay oh yes comments if you have any okay but all the programs are here and all you people nobody lost their job thank you I I would like to just say I'm glad that's over but there's plenty of work to do I got a lot of work still to do so thank you all okay hearing of residents on any school any school item anything anything to do with our educational system state your name please yes yes can you hear me now we canar all right I'm always the short one um I want to address s your name please oh my name is Mari Kamal Wix thank you um S I know you're always talking about being physic address the board president pleas presid please direct your questions and Mr Sakowski please oh I have to address Matt first and then I'll address it's like playing the phone telephone game all right the only reason why I wanted to come up and say something I know it keeps being mentioned about covering everybody when it comes to taxes and it comes to saving the schools yes we save the school for the children but yes we do know taxes affect our house value so if you pay attention to nerd wallet physical finance and everything else Boomers will be retiring next year they're going to want to sell their homes so if we have no school system they're taking a loss so I just want him to know that to keep that in his mind when he said he's trying to represent everybody thank you anyone else on any school district items thank you hello um good evening everyone my name is Megan Valena and I was that member of the class of 2025 five that spoke at the last meeting um I just wanted to address the board to say thank you thank you for listening to your constituents upon what we what we believed was best thank you for making an informed decision and thank you not just for myself but for the students and the staff any any member of the Oldbridge family that will remain because of this for making the best decision for us after giving us the tools the needs to succeed we all knew that they were going to be cuts no matter what situation it was but thank you for doing what was best for Oldbridge for giving me my senior year and giving the kindergarteners everything that they need for the next 13 years of their lives thank you so much thank you anyone else on any school district items no one okay thank you okay that concludes the meeting we're going to go into a uh close executive session for a short period of time thank you very much I need a motion to go into an executive session can I get a second thank you good night all are you two going to go home and go to bed now