Lori where are the far where are these at out front out front on [Music] the do you want to announce thatn thank you so everybody here hello can you guys hear me hi everybody uh good evening if you uh need a yellow card there are cards up front and then there's also QR codes if you'd like to scan the QR code that'll allow you to have the presentation on your phone or whatever device you have okay okay good evening welcome board has just left executive session um this is being videotaped so this meeting anyone not wishing to be seen on television may be excused may please rise for the pledge agents of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all okay our first agenda item will be the presentation of the 2024 25 school budget I'll ask the board to sit in front and we'll move down where's C where's C nice nice am my on can you guys hear me okay hi everybody um I'm Eric hibs I'm your superintendent over here we have our great B um yeah you good no it looks like it should be on yeah try it again testing there you go okay so welcome uh I'm going to start you know I'm Wanderer if I don't Wanderer it I won't be able to talk as well just kind of how my brain is wired I'm going to start this presentation by saying that there is not any Among Us that that took any pleasure in the development of this budget I started here almost a year to day ago in Township ially I think it was actually tomorrow will be a year and I didn't really imagin that we would have to come in and have to look at a budget the way that we actually did and I'm going to start by saying that when you are millions of dollars uh in the red there is just no easy way to close that budgetary Gap so I just need you to know from the bottom of our heart we everything in our power uh to to move Township forward in the circumstances that we had but the circumstances were the circumstances it was years upon years that we needed to undo uh and this year it it it it it came to a point where we had to make some very hard decisions so I just want to say from the bottom of my heart that this was a very tough time it was hundreds and hundreds of hours of spent in trying to develop a budget through a lot of discussions with a lot of constituents that will allow Township to move forward I want recognize our of Education uh so president Ross vice president Liberty and then uh Connie Pat Carol Stacy Shan stevenh and Dave and I want to recognize Eddie who is our uh student so great job and if you didn't see Eddie was just in Mr Washington Township he was absolutely amazing uh thank Eddie for being our rep okay so what you're going to have here tonight you're going to have uh a description ofet and the process the timeline talk a little bit about enrollment and show that it's pretty steady last four is years uh the challenges of this budget feel like I'm like old school how about that is that better that way fer guys got me better that way okay let's do that um the uh description of the budget what the challenges of the budget or not tax impact the budget exclusions and and inclusions the changes that were made and we're to talk about um we're going to talk about the vision okay this did not work try that again okay better there we go all right Janine you want take that one sure okay so this is a timeline as far as uh where we are and where we're going um the governor's address was in February on the 27th on February 29th um we find out how much state aid we have on the 19th we had our presentation of the tenative budget which we're required to do that the board is required to um submit approve to submit the budget to the county office for review the deadline to submit to the county office was March 20th uh which we submitted um the full budget it was reviewed and approved uh by the county office and tonight is the public hearing on our budget and the final adoption of the 2425 budget okay I'm going to have to read this to you uh it's a little small so when we looked at the uh development process uh really we started with evaluating the needs uh and then submitting requests to central office so all of our schools and all of our departments came together and talked about what they felt that we needed we had to review uh in that moment and we'll talk about it later that actually pushed us almost $6 million over where we needed to be in addition to about the 7 plus million dollar worth of cuts so we had to go back in and we had to actually really look at that with a critical eye then we delim uh uh delivered and and develop the preliminary budget um we had to uh re-evaluate the revenue news after the state aid release the board adopted the tenative budget a few weeks back and then we delivered that preliminary budget to the county tonight is the public hearing on the budget vote and then this budget will start on July 1 and everything that we did or try to do in this budget we tried to keep students at the heart of that because that was our decision-making process is what was best for kids so where does District funding come from so since the late 1990s uh Washington Township has actually you know at the end of this been considered an overfunded District uh as opposed to an underfunded District so what does that mean that means over the course of about the last Nish years or a little less we've actually lost money every year this is I believe the first year that we actually received more money than what we were supposed to in the S2 cuts that existed and had it not been for that infusion of almost $1.6 million what would have happened is that we would have had to cut an extra 1.6 million do out of this budget so right now what our job is is to Advocate that they actually fund the formula that exists there are promises made that they will do that but they haven't done that any time in the in the recent past the uh state of New Jersey actually makes it impossible for you to figure out what the funding formula is they've even been sued by several school districts and still did not disclose the funding process which is kind of well we could probably insert a lot of words there but very interesting to say the least so really you look at three different ways that uh District funding comes from so state aid is based upon the formula which they're not currently using uh basically we got a a an amount based uh you know per child which can go you know to a lot of things in the district I won't read it word for word but we have the state aid we have the local Levy which is the amount of money that we can raise uh from Washington Township residents that's you typically about $1.8 million and to just put it into uh perspective the uh wtea raises a loan are about $3 million a year and the amount we can actually raise a levy is about 1.8 so every year we're automatically starting about 1.2 in the red and then miss IUS uh and grants it's a much smaller federal state Grant type of a philosophy so where does all the funding go so when you look at our facilities so we have 11 buildings at about a million square feet we are roughly the size of the Cherry Hill Mall which is kind of crazy when you think about that it's a lot of space it's a little bit under the Cherry Hill Mall but we're we're right there when you look at how many miles approximately we drive annually it's about a million miles that is two round trips to the Moon that's how much we drive every year it's a lot of miles so we serve about 750,000 meals annually uh that's about 3,000 daily meals supplies Equipment Technology we're one to one uh we are moving to Chromebooks which will solve a lot of problems with power that we've had in the past uh and our Workforce we have currently 1,53 staff members which is a lot Janine this slide gives um some history on our enrollment the past five years uh the numbers that are pulled are from our October counts which drives the funding we um so each year that's reported the next year's funding uh is figured out off of this number that that is if it if the formula was fully funded so although we're lower than we were um back in 2019 we have been steady over the past couple of years State history yep and this this slide um it just gives the past um what do I have six seven years here um of our state aid history we have been losing money every year um and it's come from if you see kind of almost towards the middle the equalization Aid that's the number that um has been changing every year and being reduced this was the last year of um that S2 the funding Cuts we were expected to have um so we did expect a reduction of about $300,000 um what was interesting is um again it's very hard to figure out how we're actually funded by category but this current year or for 2425 anyway the equalization Aid stayed the same but we did get the extra money in um um my watch keeps doing that too in the categorical special education Aid which again was um positive to see that we did get more funding in the area of special education because with the state aid that we get and with along with some of the federal grants we get it never really um covers our full budget there um and again as uh Dr Hibbs may have mentioned the additional Aid was you know a a positive and and we were excited but it really just helped minimize the cuts that we had to make to this budget and you can see in the red those are the S2 Cuts so what are some challenges have been or what were they in in building this budget first one since about 2015 2016 we lost about $9 million reduction which is a lot of money if you think about a staff member who may be Allin costs about 100,000 and we get to 9 million you're talking about 90 staff members at $100,000 it's just it's it's it's a tremendous amount so when we look at uh other other challenges of the 2425 uh budget we had we have the we have limited Revenue that we can generate we have contractual increases uh that moving from 23 to 24 an approximate increase of about 3 million and I had mentioned the 2% raise about 1.8 million and then we also have uh over the last few years seen an increase in uh staff shortages as the entire nation has seen this and then substitute costs have risen dramatically as well um another challenge that we had with this budget cycle was an increase in health benefits uh mainly because just our experience has been you know uh there's been more claims than in the past which many school districts throughout the state um are experiencing this as a result of you know during the pandemic people weren't getting elective surgeries or things like that and then all of a sudden starting to um go back to the doctors and kind of get things back on track so the overall um premium and we did um shop around to get the best price that we could the overall increases 9.36% which was approximately $2 million um the different percentages that you see in the chart there are the percentages we got for each category um and then just one other mention in this if you've been you know watching these for a past couple of years the effect of chapter 44 has affected school districts throughout the state that was basically um it changed the way the employee contribut is calculated so it's less for the employee now if you choose certain plans which you know yay for our employees but it puts more on the district so it has been a challenge over the past couple of years um because more of the increases are absorbed in our budget and the board the Board of Ed budget so obviously you know just another increase uh that has outpaced our Revenue increases um and then one other challenge is just um so the 2425 budget the covid funds and if you can see on the chart there have been a couple of categories since you know the the start of the pandemic when we originally had to you know sadly shut down and leave school um the the the uses of the funding has changed so in the beginning we were using the money for you know disinfectant and you know things that weren't in the budget and then kind of progress to uses for um to help students when they were returning and with academic recovery with additional counseling there were was very specific uses for that that um we had to follow and amend our application and budget with the state as things changed um the problem is now the funds are going away but we we're still seeing the need for some of the services that the funding help helped us with Transportation increases so what we're seeing across the board is about a 6% increase for out of District transportation which is a big increase so the overall increase in vehicles gas supplies repairs a few years ago a 54 passenger bus was around1 $100,000 on the nose now we're looking sometimes 130 140 150 uh so it's the price of everything is up so what we did was we actually conducted an ad of District transportation analysis and we were able to figure out in this budget how to bring back our students that attend gcit which saved the district about 435,000 and then we figured out how to save about another million dollars in out of District routs uh by a mixture of combining buses and then a plan to strategically lease buses and put kids on it uh and what we're also doing is we hosting a uh meeeting of the entire Gloucester County school districts uh sometime in May and we were going to sit down and talk about how can we share services and put people and put children on different routes if different school districts are along the way to encourage shared Transportation costs tuition uh we're expecting an increase in out of District tuition in the amount of about 1.7 million uh that includes new students that would move into districts having to uh keep in in IEP compliance and then we're seeing just massive increases for students placed out of District we're also for the first time and Mrs Miller has done a wonderful job this year uh I'm gonna give her a shout out a little later on in the presentation as well but um we're seeing for the first time school districts across New Jersey refusing to take kids which we really haven't seen to the gravity that we've seen this year uh it's it's it's a it's a reality prices in general um I know you know this because you shop um and if you shop you know that everything has gone up so literally the prices of everything H have increased um this this increased cost is way more than what we had budgeted in the past for the same exact thing we're all saying the same thing at home with shrinkflation uh and the fact that every bag of Doritos has five less Doritos that you're never going to get back in life the rest of your lifetime they're forever going to take away your Doritos and Forbes recently just put out uh an interesting statistic that right now your family is paying about $1,000 annually just to maintain the same living that you did back in 2021 which is just baffling when we have to think about that so yeah this and and no one and no one cares I mean that's kind of what that was we we can't you can't keep Pace with that which is you know as a nation we need to do something about that but that's that's not this conversation um and you can imagine if you look at the fourth point and extrapolate that to us you know when you're putting a roof on how it could increase costs uh across the board so you know challenges in our current state so historically how have we managed these kinds of cuts so we we tried to look at attrition so if someone left a position we would not refill it we took a look in the past at lines that had more money in it and just so you know we have probably thousands of lines in this budget and we went through every one to look at a five-year historic and we went back before covid as well because you can't really look at the co years as as real because they weren't in a lot of ways um they were very real in others but not to the budget and we actually looked at every line individually this year We Can't Survive by looking at just vacant positions or attrition or supplies or other resources Township will not be able to do that moving forward um and quite honestly and I'll say this later we won't be able to survive another year that looks like this year because if we have to make the level of cuts that we have to make moving forward it'll be catastrophic to teaching and learning it'll be catastrophic to supervision uh our class sizes will not be tenable so there's just there's no way that we can physically do again what we have to do this year it's will not be an option so we looked at every line we had to make eliminations from the budget and our goal was to focus on students student learning student programs educational outcomes and of course safety and compliance there were three main significant budget challenges now there was more in here so I didn't list Transportation up here the increased costs for transportation were significant but if you really look at the top three the top three were the contracted salary increases at about 3 million the benefits increases at about 2 million and the tuition increases at about $1.7 million there were definitely others but they were the three main significant contributions to us having to eliminate so much from our budget uh as I mentioned before we also had to sit down and carve out uh some of the budgets that were prepared just to take them back to Center because you know we not only had to really trim approximately $7 million just from these three items but we we then had to look at the overall budgets and and take out $6 million more and there was more but that's those are the three main significant challenges we had and again to note we did receive the extra one uh almost one 1.6 million in additional state aid but that only helped close the budgetary gap uh without that we would have had to made the elimination of that exact amount of money um yeah Janine comparison to revenue yep so this is this shows the revenue side of our budget which again I'm just going to touch on a couple of things here but this kind of shows how if you look at the the bottom line and this is for our operating fund so the operating part of our budget if you look at the percent change on the uh bottom right hand side uh based on on the revenues that we're projecting which do include a tax increase and the increase in state aid we're on the revenue side we can only increase by 1.15% so when you put together the appropriation side or what you expect to spend and you're listening to some of the percentage uh increases that we've had with uh benefit salaries overall price increases you know the CPI for transportation being close to 6 %c you can imagine why you know when you hear the word budgetary gap what that is is you're looking at your projected revenues and then you gather all of your um budget requests from different departments and the expenses outweigh the revenues and it it's it that's as simple as that that's what a budgetary gap is and we had to as Dr Hibbs mentioned go line by line look at departments look at programs look at Staffing and try to get um you know because we have to submit a balanced budget um the next two slides I put in um just two different ways to show um the expense side of our budget um if if you don't know that all school districts have to use the same chart of accounts there there's it's a pretty long number and there's different um sections of the C accounts that mean different things so I kind of just categorized it we we categorized it two different ways so if you just look at um the totals and then the percentages obviously the most important part of our budget is everything under the sun instructional is uh close to $80 million and 46% of our budget you have um things like employee benefits um that does include um pension contribution and the employer share of payroll taxes and that that kind of thing but that's kind of How It's categorized in the state chart of accounts operations so everything cleaning repair and maintenance transportation again this is kind of just going by the state chart of accounts um and the percentages so if you look at just for example instructional employee benefits and support services uh instructional and support services are obviously um the areas that most directly impact students that's um over 75% of our budget and the total at the bottom is our total budget so that does include our grant funding so our uh preschool program is lumped in there because as you know we get grant funding for that and then also our debt service um and then we did it a different way which is more like the budget categories so salaries um the top line is all the salaries for the district so it's across departments this one's more um you know by category and not by Department again employee benefits so you can see um just salaries and benefits is 71 over 71% of our budget um and that's just you know for information okay so let's talk a little bit about what the challeng is are not so there's a lot of misconceptions out there with our prek uh we do receive a lot of money from prek through the Pea Grant if we did not receive that money and I'll talk about what that looks like in a second we would still have to fund prek in our District so we do get a lot we have to spend some no matter what because there's uh non-allowable costs in the grant so for instance if paa went away tomorrow then we would still have to have a principal gr loock and a custodian and a nurse and a counselor we would have to have all of those specific things but there are a lot of things that go into the grant so we get about 5.5 million annually in in in District prek student aid from the department of Ed so this is going to support 365 in District students we receive 253,000 719 for Head Start and then almost $3 million for our private Pro providers so grand total of about 8.6 million that we get uh in state aid for prek which is a fabulous thing and for those of you that don't know what we what we have to do because we don't have space in Township for prek every year we're going out and we're trying to figure out great great places to put or or places to have our children go because we didn't have any places this initially was rolled out with not a lot of space so over the last few years we've had to figure out different spaces for our kids to go this year coming up we're actually in a partnership with Pitman and Kindle to have classrooms so I'll explain that in a second so this year at grenlock Terrace and the high school we have 224 pea students at about 17 classrooms Head Start has 27 students for two classrooms next year for grenlock Terrace the high school and Kindle we're going to 420 pea students at 28 classrooms so up nine classrooms and then head start and providers were at 210 to 14 so we're increasing from 251 this is in one year from 251 students to 630 paa students increase of 379 going from 19 sections to 42 SE CS so this is probably the best thing we can do and focus on that will make a huge differ in the lives of all of our Township kids because this this ensures a quality prek and if you look at this what we do annually for the taxpayer you know going at about $10,000 a year for prek you know we're we're looking at you know 3.7 in annual savings um at the 379 and if at 630 you're looking at an annual Savings of about $6.3 million that we're saving the residents of Washington Township so we're very happy and blessed to have this this grant we are told it's never going away I you know I will honestly hope that is not the case uh if it does go away all that funding dries up and we either have to figure out how to do it a different way or it just goes away it would be very bad if it went away so the funding um when we look at it we have self-contained funding and inclusion funding which we would have to do no matter what the pea grant funding is the grant funding that we receive from the state of New Jersey so if pea went away we would still be responsible on the local end for the self-contained costs and then the costs for inclusion so and this is what that cost is so our local share is about $1 million uh a lot of these costs were previously in our local Budget prior the preschool educational Aid some examples are the principal salary the nurse the social worker custodian Etc and again if pea disappeared these costs would still remain challenge is not our vpa Academy we really took all of our existing resources and just uh Dr Nathan and uh Mr cigano and all of our awesome staff got together and we really put a bow on it and tried to make it into something amazing and I'm very proud of the work that they did uh I think it's going to be a great uh centerpiece for for our district and a great support for all of our kids in in the vpa academy uh the only thing that's in this budget that was vpa related I believe was keyboards uh no major impacts and we simply analyzed our current offerings on budsman I want to talk about this for a second so we currently utilize um budsman and partner for our students with anxiety and then students that have certain behaviors if they are not capable of attending um one of our district schools in grades 7 through 12 we were not especially uh well we we felt that we could develop a program that was better suited for our kids so for next year this is all coming back to us we are going to have a plan to address and help our kids that have anxiety uh which will involve a multitude of supports and the same thing for our our children that have um some behaviors so we are going to do that all in-house next year we think we can do it well and there was a savings of about $150,000 annually on that Janine Yep this slide um gives some information on the tax levy so um going back to the revenue Slide the the the current budget does include a 2% tax levy um there's also an adjustment uh it's called healthc care waiver Health Care adjustment so we're allowed to increase over 2% for certain adjustments one of them being increase in health care costs which is uh 88% um the total in dollars there is $833,000 so the total percent increase is 2.88% uh or $2.7 million um on the next slide we have um the impact on the average taxpayer so the line that's uh shaded in the middle is the average assessed home that comes from the County tax assessor you can see the current tax and then the proposed for an annual increase of $112 or $9.38 a month so includ included in this budget uh we have uh we're adopting curriculum uh we have equipment in the lease purchase we have vehicles that we needed uh so every year we have to make sure that we replenish our buses that reach their end of life we also have uh a maintenance van not foods that has reached end of life we have in the lease we have Chromebooks uh Chromebooks and we'll talk about that in a little bit um the switch to Google will enable a huge savings over time we did embed those savings into this budget um we have additional staff as needed sorry capital projects uh we have and I have a slide on this later but we have roofs uh and windows at two buildings we're doing flooring and field maintenance at the high school additional staff is needed to run un budsman and for special education we are Contin continuing our class three officers and our partnership with Township which is great and I'll explain the three deans of students right here so these are not administrators I say that very clearly these are not administrators I'm not adding Administration so what we did was um when I entered uh I had a lot of conversations and one of those conversations was that our elementary Vice principles were dealing with a lot of discipline well my first my first question was well how much is a lot of discipline can you quantify that for me and I was told it was a lot so I said okay you have to set step back and provide me some data so that we can look at this holistically so Mrs Gerber and the elementary principles did a great job of tracking and what we did was we tracked the hour spent on discipline uh from the beginning of September through the end of December before we left for winter break Bells progressive lenses Bells was about 304 hours burches was 294 her bille 302 TJ 253 uh wed wood 290 and Whitman about 270 so what we did there was and it's important it's important to know that we have one administrator in those buildings we do have a head teacher that works very hard but they still have teaching responsibilities what we did was we took an average so we averaged all that up and we came up with about 285 it's actually 285.0 if you divide 285.0 September October November December you come up with about 17 84 hours per week divide that by a 40 hour week and you come up with the fact that our our elementary principles we're spending almost half their their their week or half their daily time or half their time in general just doing discipline which is a lot of time it's just a tremendous amount of time one person there's no way that you can manage and and be in classrooms and and and be present with the instructional program when you're spending half your time on discipline and I think that I know that we have seen an increase in discipline since covid a lot of districts have and this was the the plan for that So the plan is to include three people uh that will be able to share schools to help principles assist with discipline and other discipline related activities based upon that data in the lease uh we have data and assessment resources so we're continuing our use of linkit uh and intervention manager we also have uh some online programs because we did a a deep dive into our digital vetting with our staff and we focused on I ready we focused on ST math and math I Exel uh we have some operations an operations vehicle Elementry speech equipment student devices which would be the Chromebooks uh Middle School Ela items language supplies technology requires a lot this year we have hyperflex which is access points and computer Replacements we needed buses we have supplies and equipment furniture for Replacements middle school science and an MD autism curriculum okay so this this slide is going to talk about the eliminations that we had to look at to enable our budget to be balanced administratively uh we're looking at four positions administrative support positions we're looking at five certified staff slash teing positions we're looking at 36 support staff reduced to part-time we're looking at 12 and support staff positions in general we're looking at 55 I I totally understand all right guys there's there's no way and I know that is very hard to hear and I know that nothing I will say will make anybody feel better about any of this and it's not supposed to however when you're confronted with what you have to do to move ahead my responsibility as your leader is to make sure that we can move ahead and I I take no pleasure in this I and I know it's it's it's not about me I came here we had and this is what this is what it was and there's no way there is no way that you can close a $7 million hole without looking at staff there is just no way and we spent hundreds of hours trying there was nothing the other option was to decimate everything for kids cancel all sports extracurriculars and that's that's not what we did I understand it's not I understand it's it's not a good spot okay so changes from the tenative budget so this budget is a little different than the tenative budget that was presented so support staff salaries uh the black means things were put back and the red means things were were changed and taken away support staff salaries had an additional 2,827 sport staff benefits had an additional 27,1 73 and then the red where we took from uh regular program software for 188,000 educational software for on buzzman at 44,500 and then the Boe budget for food was 3500 okay so what's the vision for what we're doing moving forward so so we're going to talk about a little bit about the things that we've done this year and the things that we're putting in place for next year so year one we really tried to collect a lot of data and and do an analysis and then plan year two we're going to implement that plan and build on the foundations and then years three plus uh we are looking to actually uh continuously improve so for right now just some things highlights we've done this year we've revised the grading system sorry for my back guys I I can't read it too small um we have new assessment platforms uh in linkit and right now we have um our linkit common assessments but we are also going to build beginning of year assessments and end of year assessments at least in math so that we have information for parents and teachers we're uh keeping with our use of intervention manager uh we're developing District data teams we have the inclusion grant for prek and we've uh done more work with the Perkins Grant Dr Nathan has done a great job with the Dream Team trying to reimagine learning in our district uh we've done a lot of work with units of study and pacing guides and we're revamping and we revamped our program of studies um Mrs galdi I think I saw you this way did a great job of that thank you Jen I appreciate your leadership in that uh also with Caris Solis if you don't know what car Solis is it's a it's a it's a support network for our students and our staff uh we looked at our Pathways we looked at Option 2 PE uh we are making making the move from Microsoft to Google we have vetted all of our digital tools and instructional tools we really have looked at our hiring process we really didn't systemically do demo lessons in the past we are now doing demo lessons across the board uh we attempt to hire the best uh We've we're trying to do campus mini campus facelifts all over Township and we've created additional Pathways for both culinary and the vpa what we're looking at moving forward uh we we will have a full deployment of Genesis and Danielson Genesis will allow Power School to exit and then we'll also allow systems 3000 which is our uh our software accounting system to go away and that will allow us we had some issues in the past with uh in in the summer with vouchers this will make all that a seamless process uh we're developing systems we're going through the energy audit we're implementing Google we've expanded prek by more than doubling our universe we're continuing to to to look at our buildings and and really take a look at what we need to do to make them better um we're implementing support for our new digital content uh Miss galdi did great work with our counselors in our core four to deploy the concepts of respect responsibility caring citizenship and character uh we are looking at developing our own uh um budsman uh pathway for trades which is in the works and we are looking to launch that not next year but the year after um we have a new security program coming which I can't discuss in public but you will hear as staff members uh we've done a lot of PD we're going to update all of our job descriptions lots of new hires coming we're going to hire a new director or a supervisor of security a new person for buildings and grounds um and as administrators leave we re uh refill and then we'll have a new website as well okay all right guys so I want to take an opportunity and I want to go through some of the questions that we've had that I think is really important that you hear because some of them are really good so so one of those was can we just do a temporary hiring freeze there's no way for us as a district to do a temporary hiring freeze but what we do is every time time a person leaves we have to evaluate in that moment if it's necessary to fill that position there's lots of positions that we just have not refilled this year so things that have have sat vacant you know a lot of times District districts quite frankly will just leave that vacant pool there and that will be a pot of money that you know is a pot of money that you can cut from we don't have that we've actually already taken our vacant jobs back to Center so there's not a lot of excess there there but a hiring freeze across the board is not something that school districts do it is something that corporations do um you know corporations will are that are responsible to their shareholders look at a bottom line and every year cut X number of people regardless just to meet that bottom line for their shareholders we don't we don't work like that so if we didn't make any Cuts this year what would happen and what would happen if you simply refuse to cut moving forward so it's just against the law we have to submit a balanced budget we're not allowed to not do that if we did not submit a balanced budget we would have massive ramifications none of which we want in Township so there's just no way that we could just say we're not making the cuts and go away or next year we're not making Cuts we have to submit what is a balanced budget we cannot be in the red what's the energy audit all about and can we use that to save staff the energy audit will not be able to save staff what the energy audit will do is that and we're at the infant stages the energy audit will allow us to analyze our current energy consumption and what it will do is they'll they'll give us a number of what we could save based upon switching those systems to more energy efficient systems and then we can use that money to buy things like boilers or chillers or hot water heaters um all new lighting of course so but that that will not be a way for us to to save people or save jobs we honestly don't even know when this will be finished um in my last District it it took a long time for it to get to the very end however we're at the very beginning can you become a choice school this is something we explored as well can you can we just allow kids to come to Township the way Choice works is that uh students who live in different districts can come and then we get the state aid Associated we aggressively I don't know what I did there we aggressively explored that and in the end we are not allowed to uh sorry guys we are not allowed to be a choice District because they are not accepting any more applications come on okay here we go um do you need to refill the director of special ed and the corresponding supervisor the answer is absolutely yes the only reason why we survived this year is because Mrs Miller just did not stop did not sleep never stopped hustling give her a hand she's awesome awesome human being I don't know where we would be without you um but there's there's absolutely no way that we can we can sustain that way there's just there's just no way uh will we see savings from Genesis and Google the answer is yes but those savings are are already represented in this budget so Genesis uh annually you can't ever look at year one of an implementation and judge it against any other year because they always do an upfront cost for implementation so after year one Genesis will cost us approximately $60,000 a year whereas power school was somewhere in the 180 to $200,000 range uh Power School was also Naviance which is not going away and also schooly which is not going away um but the power school program itself is if you look at Google just the transition from the the Microsoft transition from the surface to a Chromebook which is probably going to have 12 to 14 hours of battery life uh you're looking at years one and two is Savings of $355,000 per year and in in years three and four of about $636,000 per year the reason why one and two were lower is because we added in an additional grade level to try to accomplish that faster because it was so much less expensive than using the surfaces but over four years we're about $2 million in savings just from that move alone with better battery life what was your goal with class size and the instructional program uh we went through you know we went through class sizes in general it's a lot easier to look at class sizes in the moment uh with Mrs Gerber and our elementary folks to see where our kids are right now and just simply look at what happened if they bump from third to Fourth or fourth or fifth or wherever they would go so in doing that we uh we looked at staff and and and we looked at sections where we felt it would be appropriate to either go from down a section or where we need to go up a section High School is a little more tough we have uh I think I saw Mr Anderson over there I think you're going to have final projections in by the end of the week with the kids with their course selections so we tried to not affect class sizes and we tried to not affect programs our goal was to ensure class sizes were appropriate and we didn't want to lose programs uh the whole administrator thing so we're not adding administrators I already kind of went all through this before the only extra point I want to make here is that I want to give a shout out to our uh supervisors are there any Elementary supervisors or special ed supervisors in the room raise your hand um give them a hand because they're awesome human beings um all of our supervisors are amazing I'm not saying that they're not um but what our elementary supervisors did this year that you may not know is that we actually we paired them with at a building and they didn't have two like they normally did they got paired directly with a building and they've been a wonderful partner with that building principle because quite frankly one adult in the building is just not enough when you have 500 plus children or 600 in our cases so the goal next year is that our supervisors will be out and be able to assist you in classrooms with the instructional program outside of those buildings that was our goal uh vacant positions I already touched in can't you just cut them hibs can't you just touch cut the vacants and save people we already did that we cut it to where we felt it was appropriate to go any further we would affect things for next year that you might need you know we can't cut a position that's not filled that we truly need so we cut as as thin as we as we physically could there how do we get here so the slide that talked about all all three of the of the main we really how we got here um and right now we have to actually get through this budget and then we have to figure out what we are moving forward because we will not be able to sustain the level of cuts two years in a row or even every other year uh is Township will not be able to sustain that as I already mentioned what happens next year and the years moving forward can we sustain the same level of cuts I've already addressed this there's absolutely no way we can do that um you know there's there's no way food allowance can we cut the food allowance it's been cut in this the board agreed uh a little while ago to to forego that so that's no more food at board meetings how many capital projects does Township have and what did we budget for so we have flooring at the high school uh we have field maintenance uh on the uh on the fields we have Windows at both grenlock and OV and we have partial roof Replacements at both Birches and TJ all of that uh comes at a 60% cost to US versus 100 so you know that's coming out of our capital account so we can't use that money in any other way and it it it comes at a 40% discount from the state of New Jersey and all of those are necessary projects um this was the extra 1.59 five million from this this year what did we do it was used to close the budgetary gap I I I have this question from time to time hey you're painting you're doing small projects we definitely are um you know if I asked you and I don't want you to raise your hands the last time to tell me your your room got painted you'd probably tell me like 1970 at times so it's it's not okay that we don't do those small things to address the needs of our school district so we are going to paint we are going to look at flooring where it's coming up and uh chipping you know I don't think that should be what we look like or what we represent so last year uh you got about a million dollars in stabilization Aid can you use that to save jobs we can't so last year they gave us a million dollars they gave a lot of districts extra money because of all the money they had taken from us so it was almost like hey we took 9 million here's a million left that you can only use in one year one time which is nice it's very nice however one shot infusions can't be used for staff districts and and we did this that used eser money to pay for staff the SRA money runs out there's no more money to pay for that staff it's not it doesn't exist in the local so we use this money for onetime infusions uh and that's exactly what those kinds of infusions should be used for things that are not recurring costs okay um again I understand that this budget brings a lot of emotion um I am I'm I I'm very sorry and sad about what we had to do this year we truly put forth what I think is the the budget that will not only be balanced but will allow us to move forward okay guys thank you and I I all right so the board's going to come back up now to the deis and then we're gonna uh open up for the hearing for public comment for okay uh the format we're going to follow if you have questions we'll ask if you fill out a yellow card and we'll call you up accordingly the B the board will go through the agenda and then when we get to the finance part of the uh agenda that's when the board will vote for the vote on the on the the budget so having said that Carol and [Applause] Corby all right no I don't need a step stool all right hi uh Carol I don't know if you need my address Carolyn Corby one Southwest Second Avenue Venter New Jersey congrats on the $1.5 million in state aid but what was the thought process over the past six years when there were you guys were underfunded you saw the writing on the wall and I know superintendent you're new but obviously you probably looked at what was happening before you accepted this position weren't you all seeing the writing on the wall and saving for a rainy day like most of us do number one if you're proposing a cut of 4.5% which is 36 certified staff staff members and teachers how do you propose that this will not affect class size I find that very hard to believe as a retired educator and a consultant now working in school districts please explain 55 support staff positions most support staff work in special ed classrooms how will you be in compliance as a trauma responsive educator I must speak to the sick day issue that was mentioned when people are under stress and traumatized their immune system systems are compromised thus leading to more sick days taken and that is a fact so the elective surgery comment I I found very offensive and one last [Applause] word the last word and I'd like to speak a little bit about this is loyalty the past four years have been the most challenging in education and these folks sitting right here are the folks that have made it work they have sacrificed so much they have sacrificed so much and now you're firing a hundred of them ouch I guess loyalty is is not a word in your thought process but let's not forget we are Township I mean that's what all the slides said Thank [Applause] you thank you Mrs Corby Heather witcraft hi I'm Heather whitecraft had 29 all the baron um I was wondering how these cuts are going to work being that the district is so short staffed as is I have four children that have gone through the district one has already graduated right now I have one in elementary one in middle and one in the high school my daughter has had to double up on their busing routes um has had revolving substitutes she doesn't get the right instruction um but I was wondering since there are so many support staff Cuts being made how will the special needs kids be impacted especially since those are ones that are more dependent on those supports St have um and for the rise in claims being that there is such a staff shortage in Special Needs sometimes those children are you know they don't cover their mouth when they cough they don't you know have the barriers they might have more behaviors so being short staffed you're more prone to injury more prone to being sick or overstressed um and then I was wondering for the shared uh Transportation if there's a student coming from our district to another district from busing from another one if that bus's District closes or has a delay our kids are going to be not able to get to school or have a delay is there a backup plan for that how will that all work um that was probably really it but thank you Beth [Applause] maresi hi my co-workers and I have lived in this town for many years and Sen our kids through the school district we work in self-contained MD and ASD programs and thoroughly enjoy working with our special needs population fost stre inclusion and support we are proud of the work we do and Dr hibs earlier in the year you voiced support of our positions as valuable members of your team so now as we are faced with a possible reduction of hours loss of our positions or even our benefits we wonder how much the program these kids and the staff really matter I implore you to consider the ifications of cutting our hours are eliminating our benefits as our benefits are not just a perk they make our wages livable it allows us to continue serving this community with passion and dedication cutting hours would result in the loss of many fabulous assistants who treat your children as their own our most precious population need quality Care from assistance that want what's best for them these reductions could drastically diminish the care the students get during the day it would disrupt their consistency that they crave and several years of their hard work and progress even when you're in compliance of their IEPs there are times when we feel understaffed and stretch ourselves to keep that classroom safe environment for the kids and for learning how will you attend to the needs of our self-contained population if you get rid of those who truly care and know them please maintain the well-being of your dedicated staff members and as a result our special needs population by sustaining our current positions and [Applause] benefits thank [Applause] you ien Healey een Healey sorry with 1.5 additional Aid you still propose to riff and cut um cut positions um we heard about how he healthc care is rising it also affects our employees in in the the audience um have you considered buyouts that might help save some money too on health insurance part-time positions um being in in put in place means that um you are now putting pensions at Jeopardy um some people may lose their pensions altogether I don't know if you thought about that or if you even care um you want all the people that's are supporting the house of cards in this District to um take all of the cuts what cuts are you making in this [Applause] area sorry there a minute sorry I'm really upset I come from a district that was underfunded for so so many years um yet they managed to their budget still being underfunded year after year after year and they never had to put student um the the students that you say that you care about so much at Jeopardy what you're doing to your budget is catastrophic you cannot run a school without the foundation these people in here they're your foundation you get rid of them you're your students are going to [Applause] struggle um sorry I lost my notes in our district we really thought outside of the box we were one of the first districts to have a preschool we had to give that up that allowed us to get different state aid um parents stepped up our community stepped up um sports that are so important I know to Washington Township they were important to our district as well it became a a pay to play if you needed to do something that that helped bring in some money too sharing of materials there are so many things that I didn't see in your slide that we did that were outside of the box thinking what your appros oppos uh proposing thank you is catastrophic if you truly have students at heart cutting these positions that work directly with your students and have the biggest impact is not the way to go it's going to devastate your students their families and your most loyal and hardworking and lowest paid employees getting rid of Staff has been a problemsolving strategy of this superintendent and other districts if historically underfunded districts can come up with smarter budgets why can't Washington Township this budget isn't smart or effective more work needs to go into this don't approve this budget thank [Applause] you thank you rob scar Scardino [Applause] that was quick Rob Scardino wtaa Executive Vice President tonight I'd like to address the Board of Education and the administration on the topic of due diligence I understand that the budget shortfall in state aid is a significant figure I do not envy the task that you're charged with and uh that you have to undertake with this shortfall however tonight I come before you to ask if you have done your due diligence have you all reached out to your local senators and assemblymen to get answers to try and seek restoration of funds in order to avoid our budget crisis have you directly contacted the governor's office to explain to them that this is a Monumental mistake on our state government's part and it is unrealistic for our district to operate under this shortfall I ask that all of you take some time and call night Andor day lobbying for your students parents and staff of this District because as of now our legislators have let us down you must perform your due diligence furthermore does anyone in this room believe that increased class size and reduction in force benefits the education of the students of Washington Township have we made the powers that be in trendon understand the impact that this will have on the education of our future leaders have we asked the question will the taxpayers of Washington Township see a refund in their taxes due to this cut in state aid or are we standing by the wayside and letting our Le legislators pull a fast one on our community we have a proud tradition of calling Washington Township a Premier Community with some of the best schools around but have we all done our due diligence in contacting our legislators and demanding answers and increased funding the time to act is now the time to write the Injustice remains it is time for due diligence and time to make our legislators uncomfortable and let it be known that their positions are just a temp job and that if the wrongs are not writed consequences will result from this community it is time for due diligence not a time to curl up and allow greater class size and reduce Staffing thank you Jerry Gerra I am Jerry Tashi and I'm also the president of the wtaa you know when I first contemplated how I was going to make a presentation this evening I thought to myself well should I start off by I don't know being critical of the administration should I attack the Board of Education maybe I should just take the five minutes and stand here in complete silence and let them contemplate what they're doing seriously thinking about it but then I also thought about some other things and Rob touched on those are there areas in our administrative positions over at Central that are topheavy can we reduce some of those do we have too many administrators in some of our existing buildings right now as has been suggested by some of the people who already spoke shall we go back to the days of eliminating freshman sports or reinstate pay to play like we did several years years [Music] ago there's a lot of things that could be done but we're ignoring the true problem not only here in Washington Township but in the whole state of New Jersey and Rob addressed it partially it's Trenton you saw the budget you saw how they listed all the aid that we get from the State it's insufficient it's ridiculous to use some formula that they won't even let us know what the formula is and let me give you some facts there are states in the United States that are able to share the burden of funding public education here in New Jersey primarily who funds public education all of us taxpayers we do it through property taxes there are Estates that have in excess of a 7% sales tax within their state 3% of that 7% is earmarked specifically to fund public education that state and the revenue they get from that funds almost half of the funding requirement for public education within their entire State what do we do let's have a little audience participation how many in here remember when there was no sales tax in New Jersey oh crap it's just me Ralph you probably remember how many of you remember when there was no legalized gambling in Atlantic City well there's a few at least how about lottery in the state of New Jersey when there was no Lottery no scratch offs no pick three pick four pick your nose none of it now we even legalized marijuana let me explain in some of the states around the country real quick cuz I know that I'm down to like 30 seconds or something they actually have situations in some of those states where they do indeed Encompass a whole way of funding public education they even have when people come in from out of state they buy things in their state they're paying the sales tax they're gambling in Atlantic City they're eating at our restaurants they are now sharing in the burden of funding public education I can't stand here and blame them they've been dealt a hand that is ridiculous we need to have njaa and I know our representative is here to Lobby the state legislature to change the way in which we fund public education and until we get to that point we're going to have all this to deal with over and over again I know I've been experiencing it for over 50 years it's time to step up thank you I have Angela Tusa but you said on agenda items only I don't [Applause] know I had stuff written and I'm just speechless 55 positions 55 12 positions part-time full-time to part-time I'm just speechless I'm literally speechless the lowest paid people in this District lowest paid people I'm a specialized assistant and the president of WT SSS paa our support staff Union I've worked here for 16 years and I've been a resident of Washington Township for 37 years my children also attended school here I am a past heri PTO president and past president of president's Council in the district as well as a former School Board member I'm here to talk to you about our incredible support staff as you are very well aware the staff that will be on the receiving end of these proposed cuts are once again the lowest paid employees in this District they are our food service workers and our assistants our food service staff work tirelessly to serve our children the nutrition they need to be successful for some children it may be the only meal they get yes we do have families here in town that are food insecure they are many of our food staff at times take money out of their own Pockets to pay for students who may not have it and do not qualify and do not qualify for free or reduced lunch they show up every day with a smile and a determined work ethic and often with bare minimum staff they keep our kitchens Clean safe and running smoothly and they keep our students fed many of them do not receive benefits either those that do get benefits need them for themselves and their families the hourly rates for our assistance range from 1540 to 1754 per hour 1540 let that sink in the majority of our assistants do not receive benefits as they are just 15 minutes below being benefit El eligible that was the most recent example of the board saving money on the backs of the support staff those of us who do receive benefits are now at risk of having those taken away we are the dedicated staff that work directly with students the neediest students in this District we keep them safe teach them to comb their hair brush their teeth and yes toilet train them we change their diapers work on reading whether it's a book or a street sign that indicates danger we prepare some of our students to get paid jobs within our community we make coming to school a happy and loving place that they want to be in and yes we love them we are vested and take great pride in their successes our clerical staff are vital in keeping our schools our school offices running smoothly we live here work here and many of us and and our children went to school here on a daily basis we go above and beyond what is required of us we transport our students safely to school the classrooms and buildings are clean and safely maintained we are vested in our students and our community we love what we do isn't that what township is all about taking care of our community we are town Township we are Township for most of us here we worry every year about Healthcare I spend much of my time helping many of our support staff find Affordable Health Care through the state I've also helped some of our support staff get food assistance that's not okay it's not okay many are single parents trying to raise their families on $116,000 a year so imagine going to work one day and being told that you're losing your healthare or your job take a minute and think about that how about not taking the easy way out instead of putting the burden of the cuts on those least able to afford them why not look elsewhere will the Cuts really be across the board and include Administration without specifics I guess we'll just have to wait and see let's hope this board Takes A New Path and it's not just more of the same I'm asking you this time to do the right thing thank you [Applause] Ron lucarini uh um Dr hibs I can sympathize with the emotional arguments that are being made here tonight I can sympathize because I am a real liberal I'm a union guy from way back real unions uh not like the one that I had to belong to njaa where the president was of the Union was making $300,000 $250,000 a year uh spent $45,000 for campaigns and that sort of thing but I am a believer in labor unions and unions and I also have been the beneficiary as a teacher of having a great number of AIDS in the room who were really did a great job and were a major help I just wrote to the board today about a woman I don't even know if she's still working in the school district I don't think she is Gail mes who uh was a one1 aid for down syndrome uh child and uh just did amazing things in that uh that particular class so as a real liberal old fashion liberal uh I am a believer that we should keep all these positions keep everything because the more people you have although not everybody is competent but you know the more people you have is going to be have a greater effect on the kids it's going to make it easier for teachers easier for the custo you know easier for everyone but what I haven't heard here tonight and I don't want any cheap collapse what I haven't heard here tonight I've heard that and I'm proud to say that uh people didn't come up here and say uh you're inflating cost and there is no uh you know deficit or whatever there's a real problem here a $6 million gap right that you had to make up as or seven whatever it might be there's a real problem and people will have acknowledge that it's a real problem I don't agree with Mr trashi and Mr Scardino that all of a sudden we're going to shift the argument to the state we got to deal with the problem that's here I don't vote for Mor Ari okay I don't vote Republican right I can't do that but in most cases but I don't vote for these guys because I don't believe in them so Shifting the the blame to Murphy and to State Legislature which is predominantly Democrat uh is a long-term solution in my humble opinion all right so what we need to do is I and what I haven't heard is where do we cut these six the6 million 7 million gap you can make a statement why I see we're already cutting four administrators but you got to start being realistic so I'm for putting everything back in and that's my question that I want answered after I sit down uh what happens if we put in a budget that was that included everything number one does it go out to the voters for a referendum or does it go to the uh in the old days it used to go to Town Council after it got turned down for a vote okay but let's put it out there then because I haven't heard anybody say anything about what are some realistic uh cuts that we could make you know we Dr hibs know I you know I don't mean to embarrass you but everybody say his Merit pay his Merit pay it was $25,000 it's a pimple on the world's ass when you're talking about a $160 million budget or whatever okay so let's get serious and if we're not going to suggest as a board of education I'm dying to hear what you're going to say but I want to hear where you're going to cut it otherwise if you're going to vote no then tell me where you're going to cut it or tell me that you're going to put it out there to the voters or to the county or wherever it has to go with all the this this three or four or5 million increase that you're in the red and you're going to ask the voters to pick up the slack with rather than $112 increase in their taxes maybe at I don't know average 250 I don't know what it is but um as a as a resident I'm also here as a resident I'm willing to pay for it because I have a I have a horse in the game so so to speak or in the race I have a granddaughter she's in sixth grade she likes the school system I don't want to see any changes he's a good student good kid a so that's my investment you know I I I I'll pay for it but you know there's only a at best 200 people in here what will the other 35,000 residents do all right if I ran for mayor under that particular platform I'd lose by a you by Landslide thank you I was lost for words anyway and that's what I think it is so I want to hear from the board members who do oppose the budget where they would cut it specifically we can all make and how much it would cut from that budget thank you thank you Deb Reinhardt all right so I don't work for the town or the district I graduated from Township four years ago but first thing I'm asking the Board of Ed can you put down your phones and look away from your laptop for two seconds while everybody's speaking the basic respect that you ask students for when teachers are talking so I'm an accounting student I know a thing about budgets budget cuts you know can't have the red line but Dr hibs I really hope you enjoyed that uh that Walt Disney trip you took and I hope that came out of the $2,500,000 you made yearly and not out of the budget recently I just down in Ocean City to scoop ice cream you can get paid $17 an hour more than half of these half of these workers make so are you saying that the kids in this District are are worth less than a scoop of ice cream half the time your your W your special ed program is doesn't have enough staff to fill so you're cutting out these staff who's going to take care of these children one day go and do the job that they do you wouldn't last a day and you don't want to you don't want to pay them so you sit up here for the whole time I was in this District I couldn't tell you a single Board of Ed member but you all sit up there with a figure head and you get paid all the big bucks do what they're doing and I'd like to see what you guys have to say then L Randazzo good evening my name my name is l Rand dazzel I'm a field representative from the New Jersey Education Association I represent 1300 of your employees here in your schools and uh during the presentation I heard shout outs to different individual administrators and to administrative groups but I didn't hear any shout outs to the non-supervisory certificated staff secretaries or support staff in either of the two unions whom I represent so I would love to give a shout out to your hardworking members of the staff right now I appreciate you uh an item on the staff uh Cuts slide as well of the 112 cuts um 91 are members of those two unions 81% of those cuts from the unionized staff so I'm here tonight as a result of your board meeting that Miss wector referenced six weeks ago on uh March 19th where you first brought up the notion of cuts right in the budget for the preliminary budget to go to the county superintendent uh in the intervening 6 weeks until today I in my office in Mah Hill I've received hundreds not dozens hundreds of calls and emails from uh these members your employees concerned about not only their positions but actually many calls uh from longtime staff members who are concerned about cuts and the impact that they'll have on students even though they know they will never reach a cut themselves because they've been here 20 years or have seniority and some statutory position so uh those concerns have kind of boiled over to members here and that's why I'm here today um you you see the you've heard from everyone this evening and you see the number of folks that are here this evening with those uh same concerns so I'm I'm going to Echo those same things and I want to kind of thank one board member who um seemingly right unprompted immediately at that March 19th meeting spoke out and said hold on I'm not in favor of these Cuts I don't know where we are what's happening but I don't think we should have cuts to staff and that was from Mr Serrano so Mr sorrano We Appreciate You voicing your opinion I'm on a public body in my home municipality and I understand the realness of having to you know especially as these meetings are televised voice your opinion so we appreciate that support from wherever it is and we would ask other members of the board who already have and could still again this evening reaffirm a similar position to say you are not in favor of cuts so uh the cuts that have led here us to you here today uh I don't necessarily concur with everything that's happening so I'm waiting for our own budget analysis so on March 22nd I Miss wector um and copy the full board and the superintendent for a copy of the current 23 24 school year budget and she sent it to me thank you Miss wector appreciate it and I see the audit of course is finance item n number 20 on this evening's uh agenda and uh we'll receive that as well afterward and my colleague from nja research and economic Services Greg Yori will be doing an analysis of the budget for uh our members to see where the actual issues are but even procedurally for the board members here this evening and for the benefit of every one in the audience are watching at home um if you were to vote no on the budget either previously before to go to the county superintendent in March or even this evening um it doesn't really have a real impact right it still moves forward if that makes sense you have board members very limited statutory Authority when it comes to the budget I'm not saying you're uninvolved that's not a criticism of the administration that's just a real picture of you know the statutory uh Way by which the budget is produced so what I would say is uh separate of the budget in future subsequent meetings if you are not in favor of cuts you do have very precise defined explicit statutory Authority with Personnel matters as you know board members you take action on all Personnel matters whether they are promotions hired transfers uh reductions in force leaves of absence Etc so in future board meetings if you see Michael Smith or employee number 1 2 3 45 or Personnel attachment 12 with 50 names to be reduced in course you are empowered to vote no I want to make sure that you're aware of that Authority uh lastly a very learned individual said you show me your budget and I will tell you your priorities and you've heard from your employees people that work directly with children this evening and I hope that that is very alive in you as it is in me tonight because that's very opopo to this situation because while I would say is through those hundreds of employees I spoke to not one told me they think the district regardless of its bargaining unit position placement thinks you are in need of three deans of students when you have classroom assistants that make $15.42 an hour where Walmart in Turnersville in town starts at $16 an hour so board members on Personnel matters in the future you are empowered to vote no to reduce positions and tell the district to find another way thank you thank you Sandy Rudy good evening board members friends family I wanted to take a minute to make sure you look at me I am the assistant in the nurse's office at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School and while we're struggling to figure out what's going to happen next year with the budget as a Friday we don't have a nurse and right now we don't have all the days to the end of the year covered with having substitute nurses that's what I live with every day the stress where are my kids we have a number of children who need medication every day about 30 different students need to be in the nurse's office between 11 and two for different things and that's why we're here and we do it and we don't complain but I wanted to tell you that stress is real I just now am out of the hospital from a 7-Day cardiac event it it was stress they did all the tests I don't have insurance I'm one of those people that fall below I don't have a really good support in my building some of my friends are here tonight some of them are watching on TV I just want you to know that when you cut this face these faces it affects the little faces that aren't here right now we have become so shorthanded at TJ with our autism program and not having enough AIDS and and we mix and match and we try to give everybody what they need but I want to ask you when do we start to also remember that the regular ed kids are getting affected by this too because I have have kids that are throwing fits in the hallway that take four and five people to come and calm them down and while they're screaming and hollering in the hallway for something that they can't express I've got a class full of kindergarteners who are scared to death at what's happening out in the hallway so now we are not only compromising the education of our special ed students we're starting to compromise the education of our regular ed students we're affecting the health of the people that work for you who don't have benefits who just make enough money that I should go scoop ice cream but I'm here and I love my kids and I've done hours and hours and hours of things that I'll never get paid for but that I did for my heart for my children for these children I am a Class of 84 graduate of this high school and I had always been proud of it I hope moving forward that you can somehow make me once again proud to say I work for Township and it's not together with pride together we are Priceless thank you Julie cmle hi I'm Julie kmle night class of 95 here um former board member former board president um I never would want to see Lou at a board meeting that I was running um there's so many things I want to say and I I I only have five minutes but sadly I have to repeat questions that I asked over a month month ago and then emailed to the board and then I was told they'd be answered in um old business and they still weren't answered so I'm just going to put them out there again also for the record this is weird like to ask questions and not have them answered like that new policy is bizarre um everybody talks about like everybody talks about how they want to have a a town hall but like you could also just answer questions when we ask them um were there items I'm just going to repeat the questions again were items or programs cut and then still run and was that money found because you paid for it or was that money not found because you paid for that with Sr funds which are running out um if you in this position now are you considering a referendum for next year are there any positions that are being cut that are union jobs I guess I should say at this point how many well I did ask how many last time um how much was spent on unbudgeted capital projects this year um I had questions about the bus drivers but that's all resolved and you gave shout outs to certain people but you should have given a shout out to Sue from Transportation cuz she saved you a ton of money here are some things that I noticed be money being spent on and I preface this by saying I have a child that plays football I absolutely love Mike shatzman I have nominated him for Teacher of the Year several times he's been like a dad to my daughter that aside when we're talking about budgets why did you spend $100,000 on a weit room when you could have gone out to those parents those booster parents that loved to spend money on the football program and just asked them for the money I mean I can think of five families right now that probably would have given you money for that um that said it's beautiful but it's $100,000 that's like putting that's like whatever it was it's like putting a gazebo in your backyard when you can't pay your electric bill um or your babysitter or your house cleaner or anything um there are some new bathrooms in Central Administration I don't know why um the superintendent gained a halftime secretary I don't know why you hired an HR Director that's making about 30 to $40,000 more than Sharon re and you still can't manage to not lay off these people also the campus facelift I more than anybody was always very loud about how the buildings look and trying to get grant money to fix those things but the simple fact is we were working with PEG Mian as RBA and Peg's attitude was that's what's got to go was Capital because we had as a policy as a board like don't even Janine can attest to this because you keep talking about previous years Janine's been through four budget Cycles so she is your history right there um but you know I talked to Joe bandorf and we're like why are you blaming us for this like we dealt with it all along we just always had a policy you're not cutting bodies like Janine can admit like we always said don't even bring us that as an option we're not doing that I'm a member of njaa I personally am a member of njaa I work at camon County College and when they have to cut things they cut admins it stinks because sometimes things don't run properly but they don't ever touch the the tenur staff they don't ever touch the faculty I should say and and other staff so those of you that ran on the platform of Union strong Mr Lindsay you know you cannot vote Yes on a budget that's cutting that many union jobs Mr Lindsay if you vote yes to that budget give up your card at your union [Applause] hall Morgan lman good evening oh gosh sorry I don't do big people I do little people so this is very intimidating to me good evening thank you to all of you who have spoke on behalf of our staff this evening there's obviously a very large turnout that is in distress over the future of our buildings I'm approaching the podium to question how we are doing what is best for what is best for kids what's best for kids has been the quote for the past year and admittedly I appreciate it it's a mindset I follow in my classroom and it's something that I will continue to fight for for my longevity in this District which is going to be like 68 years so I'm here to stay this budget shows that we are cutting about 103 employees in total whether they're forced to go part-time or be completely eliminated these employees support the students of your District every day they hold their hands they wipe tears celebrate successes they clean our buildings cook their lunches provide instruction complete Behavior plans the list goes on and on so my question is how is that what's best for kids how is removing these positions going to benefit the children who is going into our self-contained rooms who is aiding a student who's having an anxiety attack and needs counseling intervention who was working onetoone with our students who need the greatest intervention whether behaviorally or academically when our class sizes increase what is the expectations of your teachers to meet the needs of our kids how is that what's best for kids recently I watched uh previously recorded board meeting and it was mentioned that there are liaison schools for the board members prior to you voting for this budget I encourage you board members to go visit the schools that you are liaison for walk walk into those classrooms visit the kitchen staff go to Transportation get on a bus ride a bus that'll open your eyes see see how the kids that are in these programs see how they are going to be impacted by this budget I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said yet this evening I'm very aware of that I guess my question is why are we the ones that are going to be impacted which directly impacts the learning of your children that are in this District thank you thank you Chrissy Kosar [Applause] good evening everyone I'm Chrissy Kosar I'm a resident I'm a 19-year veteran of our transportation department and I am currently the county president for gcea so I have about six and a half thousand members that come to me and discuss things with me when there's an issue uh 55 esps what about 45 administrators having their time cut in half so we don't pay them benefits but you'll have twice as many administrators but you rather it be 55 esps people that probably don't have health benefits or very good coverage no pension 55 43% of esps work in preschool kindergarten or Elementary School 53% live in a small town or rural area 49% work as par Educators 84% work full-time 65% receive an hourly wage and 81% a female and the average age is 53 so we're not really spring chickens are we we're at the age where we kind of need our health benefits and we need our hours yeah 55 esps 55 education support professionals play Vital roles inside and outside the classroom they keep schools and campuses running and ensure students are safe healthy and ready to learn one out of three Public School Employees is an educational support professional but you want to get rid of 55 of yours Clerical Service esps are on the front line of all office operations I want how many other the 55 are clerical custodial and maintenance esps keep schools safe and clean for student staff in the community wonder how many are there 55 or maintenance Food Service esps ensure students have access to safe and nutritious meals which impacts their behavior how many of the 55 of those a lot of them thinking because you're already taking the benefits from 12 of them you've you've advertised that health and student service workers this wonderful lady over here that spoke earlier how many of those we losing how many of the 55 are in that group par Educators assist with the classroom instruction and provide Direct Services to students families and the community we know you've got it in for them so there probably quite a lot of the 55 security any any of the 55 in security skilled trade workers our hbac plumers locksmiths how many of the 55 are in that group Technical Services Transportation esps more than 2.2 million K through 12 esps work in public schools the average salary for a support staff person is $22.58 per hour in New Jersey many of our support staff work a three-hour day when full-time positions are split into two part-time positions so that you can save money they don't get health benefits or pensions and many of them are the minimum wage earners 29.75 is the amount of hours just keeping them underneath eligibility for benefits at 1513 an hour that's $450 a week would you like to survive on $450 a week would you like your health benefits removed would you like to have to stand in front of people and beg for your jobs how dare you food food stamps food stamps are one of the major benefits that support staff use to put food on their tables you want to take that away from 55 of them where are they going to get the money from another job so that makes four jobs instead of two or three we are Township we are Township we are Township we are the taxpayers and we get to vote I hope everyone here anyone watching at home those neighbors colleagues who we all meet at the grocery store all come to the conclusion that they have witnessed enough unjust unfair prejudicial treatment simply because they are different categories of job class classification and we are the easy target discrimination is unfairly treating of a person or particular group of people differently than others we are discriminated against by our board and just to finish the great Martin Luther King Jr said we shall overcome because the Ark of the moral universe is long but it bends towards Justice thank you Jackie Williams Emily Ward wock [Applause] I uh I didn't plan on speaking tonight but I'm going to change it up a little bit I value everybody that has spoken here tonight but I'm going to put in a different perspective I'm 29 years old I am a Wilmington University graduate and I have two degrees but my job here I'm a specialized assistant for the most amazing kids in the world I always dreamed of working at my alumni High School which is not here like you I'm a I I'm a Kingsway graduate loved my high school but my home is here my home is with the people that I go to work with every day because when I wake up my drive into school is I am so excited to see the kids that really really make a difference in your life I work in the ASD program at the high school and I would not change any minute of my job at all your your perspective changes when you realize that my little sister her senior year of high school was working part-time at Chipotle and made more money than me and I would talk to her and she's like it's just yes money it's it's just getting me to pay for my yearbook for my prom dress I I hate my job I make less than her and I would not change my job for anything we have seniors that babysit on the weekend and make more money than us it's disheartening but at the end of the day this is more more than a job you say you sympathize with us but are you going to be the one to replace us and be the one who wipes the tears for the kids when they're having a hard time when we're the one when you're are you going to be there when our kids get to finally experience something that's been unified for them and they're included because things are inclusive at the end of the day the sports the art classes they're all enhancements for our for for our high school experience but who makes the difference with your academics who makes the impact schools are schools because of the teachers the staff the nurses our cafeteria workers the the maintenance it's so much more than just having a pretty football field it's so much more than having you know the the best you know stadium in the tri SE I get it but at the end of the day it it doesn't start with how we look on the outside if we're failing on the inside we are people [Applause] too it's it breaks your heart that we are just seen as a budget and as a number I am more than that I am an assistant I am a friend to our students I am a caregiver to our students I am the ones they need when they're having a hard time we are so much more than a budget we are more than money because if if if it was about the money the school would not happen on the on the paychecks that we get and I'm only saying that because I value everybody that I work with I have some of the best friends in this school who are my co-workers and they would not give up their job if it was adding another digit to the end of their salary you need to stop and realize the ones that are working for pennies aren't doing it for the money you will not find a group of people who love their job more than the ones who were working for pennies we still drive in every day and we love our job jobs because you will not find people who truly love our jobs if you're just viewing us as a number we are more than a [Applause] number so consider that when you reevaluate your budget and I'm so sorry that you lost your um special food for your board of ed meetings but at the end of the day you should be you should be seeing a new perspective of the ones who are fighting for their jobs who make pennies because they love their [Applause] job thank you Jackie [Applause] Williams hi I'm Jackie Tiger Williams I teacher ver heril I'm sorry I missed my turn I was cutting after I gave my card I was cutting across the lobby to go back to my seat um I wasn't planning on speaking tonight but I think the thing that I've got a thought that keeps rolling through my head I understand the pot of money is the pot of the money right like that is what it is and we can only control that to the ability we can that's it um but I'm thinking a lot about our instructional AIDS and the fact that I think people sometimes undervalue them until you don't have one when you need them and then it really stands out um we really uh do push in heavily as much as physically possible um at the elementary level and it really stands out when we are short staffed on an instructional Aid um and it impacts our students with IEPs but it also impacts our gen EG kids as well who are in those rooms and so I keep thinking about like how quickly the wheels fall off the cart in an academic classroom when we don't have an aid when we should have an aid um so I'm hearing we're getting the um budsman is coming in um hoping that also is coming with if support staff if there is pushin model to that I'm not really sure but um I'm surprised and again I understand the pot is the pot we have to deal with with what we've got but I didn't hear cutting any clubs or the pay to play or cutting a sport um maybe cutting freshman teams of something so that we could keep those instructional AIDs that keep the wheels on the cart the instruction they provide all right thank you uh we have no more cards so I have a motion to close to the public close the public budget presentation this the public the budget presentation have a motion so moved second have a second second good all those in favor I opposed I just a reminder that we will vote on the budget in a few minutes when we get to the uh Finance part of the uh the agenda so it shouldn't take long to go through this having said that any discussion on any uh any items no I I'm not sure what we can discuss about the budget sorry I don't know what legally we can discuss about the budget I mean after all of this I think we should at least have a discussion when you oh okay that will be when we will okay thank you okay school and community relations anything on that Kathy she's com good evening everyone just two quick notes if I may uh just a quick reminder that our food bank is scheduled for May 15th behind the 910 wing of the Washington Township High School from 8:30 to 10:30 clients visiting the Washington Township Public Schools mobile food pantry are asked to enter the back of the high school at 509 herfield Cross Keys Road off the ganttown road entrance and park near the basketball courts which is where the pantry will be staged clients will be asked to provide proof of residency at the time of registration and one other note is the Washington Township Public Schools are partnering with the American Red Cross to host a blood drive on May 7th the blood drive will take place in the boardroom at the Eileen Abbott Central administration building from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. and only 50% of our appointments are filled so we're asking the community for help uh you can sign up to donate by visiting redcrossblood.org and enter sponsor code wtps or your welcome to contact my office at 856 589 6644 extension 6321 and we will gladly make an appointment for you and for those in attendance you can also scan the QR codes on the posters that are by the entrance of the auditorium thank you thanks Kath um I want to take a second and I W to I want to at least respond to some of the things that I I can respond to um I don't think it's fair not to I need a second I no one up here and I can't speak directly for others but no one everyone values people there's there's hard decisions at times that that I know personally I have to make which I know everyone sitting here can respect and I think if you had the option to sit in my chair right now there's not one person that would probably come up here to take it my responsibility is to try to make sure that that Township stays okay I know that losing people is not okay I don't want to lose anybody I don't want anyone to be affected I don't want anyone's life to be affected I understand and I wear it and I take it home and I understand it so I know it this is this is a a very tough time but I don't want you to think for a second that anyone up here doesn't take this seriously you know there are real cuts across every level and I can't go into specifics by law but everywhere is is is going to feel this in in some of the questions that were asked and it was I'm going to answer what I can the concept was raised about you know what if we do put kids on a bus with another district and there's a delay we're on the infantile stages of that that conversation stemmed from the conversation the lack of conversation that had happened in Gloucester County so that is a way for all of us to try to share resources we'll be happy to share what comes of that in theory and and in practice um I I did reach out to our legislators just so everyone knows to schedule a meeting to have conversations because conversations need to be had because unfortunately when people look at us they don't feel bad for us because what they say is they say that we were overfunded for so many years but what does that really mean what it means is is that at some point we have to lose a lot of money which equates to real people and we have to 100% fight for that so all all you know and and Jerry and Rob spoke about that the only thing that happened here when the underfunded became overfunded is that the exact opposite happened the other way and they took from the halves and they gave to the have knots creating more have knots and we need to fight for that be but just so you understand what we're looked upon is they looked at us as we're overfunded and we had too much money right now it does not feel like we had too much money and we understand that we have to fight but I have already reached out have we considered buyouts buyouts are not something that I think legally we are allowed to engage in to have conversations we do allow people to buy out of their insurance that's different so I took a buyout let me explain so you can opt out of using your insurance and you can get a separate pot of money when people say buy out I take that as hey can we offer a buyout to people at the upper echelon of the staff and say you can have this money to retire early that is not something that we can do Mrs kmle you had um you had some questions so yes 100% um 100% that we um we definitely did take move money around in last year's budget there is not one budget since the Inception of time in Township I'm guessing that money has not been transferred in accounts there are no plans right now or discussion on a referendum job Cuts we discussed you want to know how much unbudgeted Capital how much we spend on unbudgeted capital projects that number is zero um and why didn't we spend money from the gym and not go to the football boosters well there's a real simple answer it's because what we did was we took that one time in fusion and we put that into uh both our gyms our adaptive and then we created an outdoor space that literally used to be a maintenance garage where we would drive trucks around children which was is simply not a good practice but what all of our students will have access to those facilities including our 12200 student athletes so it's not just a football gym actually I don't think I put a dollar or the board put a dollar into the football gym because I think Mr shatzman does use boosters to do that and his football gym is actually looking it's it's got a lot in it but we did revamp the um the Adaptive which honestly had a lot of machines that were broken and then we did revamp the maintenance garage but we did that not only for the entire student body but also for the 12200 student athletes could we spent that in different things sure we could have bought doors or lights or anything else but honestly I thought that was a really good thing for our kids in our Township uh Mr lucarini it's not really my question but you asked you know what happens if we just say no you're not allowed to just say no you you can't just take this budget to to the cuts you're not allowed to submit a budget that exceeds what you're supposed to have it will not get will not get taken by the county it just it's not that simple we have to stay within the parameters of what the budget the budget is for everybody that spoke and spoke from the heart thank you very much okay okay correspondence we have uh no correspondence at this time one motion to approve one two yeah motion to approve one and two okay so I have a motion to approve items one and two yep so moved second all those in favor opposed okay approval of the minutes we got approval of the minutes motion so moved second all those in favor I oppos old business any old business committee reports the old business here okay committee reports um HR negotiations Mrs Baker none at this time yes the committee this month uh reviewed uh the uh HR director's recommendation personel items anything else anything else that's it good policy Mr Sano thank you Mr President so not too much went on in the policy meeting this month uh policy meeting was held 4:15 at 1800 Mrs Baker myself and Mr La Liberty were in intend the administrators in attendance Mr Sweeney Dr Nathan Dr Gregor Mrs carry as well as Dr hibs we discussed the following policies and they are going to be brought up for a first read tonight policy 1530 equal employment opportunities regulations I'm sorry policies and regulations uh regulation 1530 policy and regulation 1550 Equal Employment anti-discrimination Program for employment and contract practices policy 3211 code of ethics policy 5841 secret societies and we also discussed the finalization of policy and regulation 7510 use of school facilities which is still being worked on but we should have a an iteration over for first reading hopefully by the next meeting or the following that's all Mr President thank you thank you Mr Sano business Mr La Liberty yep all right we met on uh April uh April 17th in attendance myself Mr Ross uh Miss Bloom uh Miss Baker stood in for Mr Tom Zac Dr hibs swre and then we had a presentation by the auditors um went through the annual audit uh which uh we fared very well in there were no issues reported during the audit we did go through some improvement opportunities that they outlined um several of those will be addressed with the switch to Genesis which uh was encouraging to hear um we also asked some questions we talked through transfers specifically because I knew there was some questions people had about transfers and we're allowed to make those transfers and while the transfers inbounds with what's allowed uh the Auditors confirm that everything they saw with transfers was um allowable and and done accordingly so overall uh you know they expressed we fared very well so great job to our business administrator and her staff on um job well done with the audit we also talked through some upcoming purchase items uh timings of things going out to bid relative to the rod grants we needed to get those projects moving so we can take care advantage of that Rod grant money because again the state's given us 40% on those we talked through the health insurance renewals and uh options there and um and finally we talked about the budget and we talk through the budget a lot there were a lot of hours spent talking through this budget and options and trying to find ways of uh finding money in different places and and things like that um spent a decent amount of time on that a lot of time on that and that was it okay instructional Affairs uh Mrs Bloom we did not meet uh any uh at this time I'll to entertain any old business or someone anyone they all business okay we'll have a our student representative Mr Mill here no just at our last meeting um Dr Nathan went over um a new possible policy for the grading scale but that's still in the work so we'll um with the superintendent's cabinet so we'll still work through that and I'll be able to report out um probably sooner about that or I mean later about that but thank you okay open to the public on agenda items Joe Milan good evening everybody I'm kind of nervous so just bear with me please second all in favor okay all right the way I'm dressed I am a nighttime custodian here in this building thank you we are the bottom of the totem pole the part that's buried in the ground holding a pole up that nobody sees and nobody even thinks about now like I said I worked night time or nighttime last week I work daytime in the first one hour of my shift which begin at 6 o00 I had to clean up vomit I had to unclog a toilet and I had to sweep up Goose feces all in one hour anybody up there ever do that no I didn't complain because it's my job they told me to do it I did it I didn't smile but I did it because I know I wouldn't be getting paycheck now you're going to cut 55 people and roll back 12 to part-time we're hard workers we bust our ass all day all night we get thank yous every so often not a lot but they feel good when we do get them you know and like a teacher wants something we do our best to get it done for him okay the principal wants something we're right on it we got to be because if we say nah we we'll we'll do it when we can that's not going to fly now if you cut us and bring in other people that really don't give a crap they're not going to have the motivation to do it they're not going to be ah who cares so it don't get done and it's just like you guys got to think about the little people the ones who make this place run the on who keep it clean the teachers ain't going to keep it clean no offense to the teachers they got a lot of crap on their plates okay maintenance they're busting their Stones fixing this building we're busting our Stones cleaning this building in the summertime it's even better because it's like an oven in here you can't have no air conditioning the air conditioning runs in the rooms that aren't even being used now it I mean I've been here 13 almost 13 years okay hopefully I can retire here that's what I'm shooting for I got a little ways to go but if I got to work harder for the last 5 seven years because we're underst staffed we're already under staffed if somebody calls out in this building I got to do their area plus my area now I don't I don't about it I don't complain because I do it okay I'm I'm out there busting everybody's out there busting but you guys don't want to see it you see the place is clean how does it get clean the little elves come in at Night Cleaning you know and I'm sure if the trash can don't get dumped after lunch somebody's going to notice okay and who's going to take it out students nah principes no who the the the the the bottom of the wrong people that's us we're making this thing run and would you guys wanting to cut people out we got to work harder then we already work hard okay but I'm not complaining about it because I love working I've been working since I'm 11: I'm way past 11: now now like I said I work nights tomorrow I'm coming in I'm leaving here at 11:30 tonight I got to come back in tomorrow to open up the building I'm what two hours sleep I do it because my boss asked me to I'm not going to tell them no but I'll be here I'll be here opening the building for everybody make sure all the lights are on make sure there's no water in the on the floor so I can mop it up real quick and just be ready to go when the toilets get backed up again and same toilets and maintenance knows which ones I'm talking about it's I don't know you guys got to think you want to you want to trim a tree you cut from the top you don't cut the roots thank you thank you no more cards on agenda items only so motion to close to the public second all those in favor opposed okay report of the superintendent items number one through five second discussion roll call is my mic okay Mrs Bloom yes Miss Chella yes Mr de Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes to one through four no to number five Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mr Ross Yes okay instructional Affairs a motion to approve item number one so move second any discussion roll call Miss Chella yes Miss de Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Mr Ross Yes okay student activities communication motion to [Music] approve no policy okay got I'm sorry uh policy items number 1 to 21 ask for a motion so move second have a second second second second second discussion roll call Miss too yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serano yes Mr Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Miss Chilla yes Mr Ross Yes Student Activities Communications no items Human Resources motion to approve Human Resources items 1 to 50 so moved second discussion had a couple R yeah retirements to uh recognize here we got uh elor Elliot uh cafeteria playground assistant 21 years retiring Laura Depetro Elementary School teacher 30 years of service Antonia benichi music teacher 25 years of service may I say something is this your time to say something kandra or not 18 years of service Elementary School teacher Patricia sedron French teacher 24 years of service Richard Harris military science teacher eight years of service Julia phone kindergarten teacher 30 years tell and Kevin hanra hanran fed teacher 35 years it's 191 years of service [Applause] thank Tony Tony come on up give her a hand here we go okay hello well I thought when I was going to retire it would be a little meeting with nobody here but uh that's not the case tonight but you know um I just wanted to take this opportunity I would like to thank the members of the board of ed for the support of the Arts in Washington Township because of that support I have always been encouraged to be creat creative no matter the diversity of their backgrounds or Talent children find a place to belong in my Orchestra at Chestnut Ridge I'd like to share a story from one of my seventh graders I've always been a fan of instruments she says I began playing piano and then started playing the violin the violin has changed me in an incredible way that is irreversible whenever I get the chance to play any instrument I play the violin whenever I'm in a bad mood I play the violin whenever I'm dealing with pain I play the violin this particular instrument has had a huge impact on me for the rest of my life this instrument lends me peace and mindfulness I rely on this instrument whenever I am having a bad day or even if it was an average day the the benefits of this instrument makes me feel as if I'm a better person for example I intended my uncle's funeral and played the military song song Taps to honor his military Act of Bravery this instrument has brought me success as I proceed to grow I hope I will continue to play the violin because it touches my heart and the hearts of others I just wanted to share that story that one of my seventh grade students gave me as I'm retiring um June 30th and I just want to thank you for the opportunity to reach these children through music thank you so much thank you Tony Finance I'm sorry I have a roll call on items number one to 150 yes did that Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Miss Chilla yes Miss de Mayo yes Mr Ross yes okay here we go finance and Facilities there's items 1 through 28 but I'm going to ask to hold 28 for an individual roll call so items 1 to 27 have a motion so moved second discussion roll call Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Mrs Chilla yes Mr de Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Ross Yes okay can I have a motion on item number 28 the budget so moved a second second discussion I think we need to discuss it some um could you our attorney I'm not sure if I'm right about this but if we don't pass the budget tonight can you go over what happens yeah this is something we talked about at the last meeting um the budget at that point will be in the hands of the county superintendent it this doesn't happen often I've never seen it happen personally the county superintendent might very well kick it back to the board and require you to hold a special meeting and try to figure it out amongst yourselves or the county superintendent would have the authority to accept the budget as presented to him or her or even have the authority to it as he or she he or she sees fit those are essentially the three possibilities um any I just with this budget it's really really hard um morally I can't vote for it but when I think of the fact that I think even if it does go to the county it's not going to change what we have in it I wish I could say it was but I don't think it is is and there's some things in here that we can't discuss right now that are hinging on this budget that I'm not sure that I can morally say no and have the possibility of that maybe not happening so I'm feel very conflicted what I've tried to do is I've tried to not come in I know some people were saying oh it's already 54 or whatever is out in the public I personally I'm speaking for me not for the board have um tried to to wait and think about so all I've been thinking about for the last couple of months and then I've listened to all of you tonight and I'm still not sure I think it's a tough tough decision because from what I understand I don't think the only thing it would change it would be if they sent it back and said for us to work on it more correct is that true that's the only way it would change really is if the that would be the only way you have the ability to make a change if I mean there are other ways but if we're going to go through that I'd like to go into executive session and think that's a good idea we have been through these [Applause] discussions else Scott's trying to talk Scott oh is there a motion there's ation still discussion I think we discussion yeah can we go I'd like to make a motion to go into executive I'll second it I I I didn't hear she's making a motion to to go into executive that means we go and I have ation go and we talk about to go into executive and we have a second for attorney client advice based on what she said for attorney client advice so we have a motion in a second I guess we need a roll call for that got SE second we're going into yeah this is a motion to go into executive session we really don't motions for apparently based on what Pat's asking it's for attorney client I'll withdraw attorney C there was a discussion hold on so there's a got to be discussion of the motion on the floor right second first I'll withdraw it withraw I she withdrew the motion so we won't be going into executive sessions any other discussion Scott yeah so yeah I just want to address and say um I can only speak for myself can't speak for the rest of the board but uh really appreciate everybody coming up and speaking tonight I'm just saying we've spent and I've spent a lot of time on this budget we've asked tons of questions and I'll just say in the discussions I've had with all my fellow board members no one here has um enjoyed this process and everyone here in my opinion from what discussions I have appreciate all the hard work that you folks do and I think myself and from what I've seen of the others I think many of us are agonizing over this it's a horrible situation that we're in um unfortunately when you have that much of a gap there's just not a lot of levers to pull to make up that big of a number many of the things that were thrown out tonight we've looked at um and I wish there was another way but I just want you to know like it's not for lack of appreciation that's all I want to say please let him talk please that's I finished that's it any other discussion this is on number discussion no okay roll call is a yes or a no do all right let's go let's go with the roll call please Mrs Baker I just want to check uh what what happened with that motion did anybody second that motion she rescinded it my vote on the budget you're voting on the budget no [Applause] Mrs Bloom yes Mrs Chilla yes Miss Deo yes Mr Li Liberty Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano no Mr Tomac no Mr Ross no Mr Sano no Mr Ross no passes passes Lor 54 pass 54 passes 54 passes [Applause] [Music] please please let's finish special education motion to U motion for items number one to four so moveed second all those in favor I I post I have to I have to roll call pass negotiations no items at this time new business any new business oh yeah no new business I have some new bus a minute all right so just to keep things moving under new business all right I I got this we did all in favor is that okay all right special education motion okay roll call for items number one to four Sano roll call roll call Mr Serrano yes Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Mrs Chilla yes Miss to Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Ross Yes okay new business yeah one thing R yeah go ahead um so we we've been discussing on on the business committee about the need to have a a a three-year Lookout on the budget and to start earlier in the process and we also talked about wanting to include uh members of the public in some type of task force so we can get input from the public and uh get their ideas considerations on things for both potential Cuts as well as Revenue generation so um I'd like to get put forth a motion for the board to support the business committee looking into creating a task force made up of both the business committee and community members to look at a three-year plan for the budget you know working with business committee administration of course you you wouldn't we wouldn't be able to discuss any Personnel matters or confidential matters with any of the public members and we'd have to develop criteria in a selection process for how we would go about selecting community members but I propose the business committee would come up with an initial plan and come back and present that to the rest of the board is that a motion I we we're going to discuss who's going to be on at the board passes it motion second second second second I second have was first and second y discussion anyone okay let's get a roll call on that one Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serano yes Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Mrs Chilla yes Mr too yes Mr Ross Yes okay Scott you can yeah I'll take I'll take point on that with the business committee we use the next meeting to come up with a draft of the criteria and then present it to the board at the next business committee read out okay any other new business any board members no seeing none okay motion to open to the public so moved second all those in favor opposed okay Mr lucarini yeah I I really want to discuss something that uh was out on social media the last week or so um it concerned a letter that Dr Hibbs had sent to the board uh someone had put in an Oprah for the letter it was mentioned last board meeting that there was a letter by m you know Mrs chill mentioned it and that uh basically resulted in the Oprah all right during before that happened I actually had the letter read to me by someone who was not on this sport education okay but the letter was so damning about the behavior of some of these board members um that included Mr Ross making comments now whether it's true or not that's another story I'm just telling you what's in the letter about Dr Nathan and other women uh it included Mr Ross supposedly in front of witnesses of by the way a lot of these things occurred making statements uh that he was really not opposed to the budget but he had to you know vote against it because of his base which uh smacks of politics right when you say you're base and and there were numerous other things and as a result of that I think we have a problem with trust I don't know who to trust anymore right I feel for people people that came out here and are losing their jobs that's a fact but some of the people that come up here uh they they were just embedded in politics in some of the things that they did over the years and this board of education leaves me wondering and and this is a just just as a an example Mrs Bloom you voted no to the budget I mean yes to the budget right you've been in concert with the you know the other four board members who all ran with except for Mrs Baker I don't know what her thinking is but all ran uh with thousands of dollars being supported by soft money through the uh campaigns of this thing called the people for betterment of Washington Township or whatever totally political whenever you see see $10,000 being spent or $20,000 being spent on a board of education uh election that smacks of politics and then of course we have the letter from Dr Hibbs to the Board of Education about the behavior of not just Mr Ross Mrs Baker uh Mrs Baker one time told all of us in the community don't vote for slates they're bad vote for me don't vote for slat no sooner she got on the board of education she started supporting all the people who ran under slates it's fascinating Mrs Baker all right uh but I think that's a problem and Mrs Goble brought up something although you did address it this time uh Dr Hibbs numerous times people come up here and ask questions I can't believe we agree on something Julie that people ask and then they don't get an answer now this situ here to me I actually think in my crazy mind my conspir mind that Mrs blo voted yes because the other people on this board the four no votes don't really care about those jobs they just wanted the Fanfare for all this now is that sick all right well you say that but uh I have a letter in my possession that Dr hibs wrote where Mr Ross even said I don't care but I have to just say no for my my uh base okay so I don't know whether there are other positions that we could cut in that budget and it's uh you know unduly affecting 55 people or not all right because there's no trust so I think based on that letter that we can't just let that go we can't just say oh you know how Ralph is oh no either hibs has to go because he's lying or Mr Ross you have to go thank you and I don't care which one it is I just want the person who's not telling the truth to be the one to go thank you thank you Mr lucarini Becky Bates hello Becky Bates uh Washington Township alumni uh I do not like to come up and speak it makes me very nervous um but after watching all of these teachers and supports leave this is what our school is going to be run on now this is about the amount of people that will be left in our schools to take care of our children now a lot of these kids have special needs they have anxiety like me right now um and they need I know I have people that will pick me up if I fall over so I'm okay um but they need these people that will be here to hold their hands and they all just walked out of here again this is not the first time we've been here we've been here before and the thing is is it affects our kids look over the last 14 years look at all the behavior of Health we have coming out now all the mental illness that's coming out all the suicidal kids that are in our schools right now and again you just cut all those people that care about them why there's 15 of you sitting up here making I don't know what's your total salaries cuz I've heard all of theirs and it's meager it's acceptable I don't even know what the unacceptable number that you're planning on firing is yeah but most of them are gone this is what your schools will look like at this point without the support and all these people will be way overworked they will not want to work because they can get paid more scooping ice cream or working at chipotes or bartending somewhere else that's all I have to say Heather qua good evening I wanted to come up and speak on behalf of our CAG which is our special parent advisory group and invite everybody to our next meeting on May 15th at 6 PM over in the boardroom we will be having um a Advocate come out to do a presentation for us as a parent workshop on IEPs and tips and and things for the parents so we hope that everybody will be able to come out and join us and listen to her speak and we do have some other initiatives that we have have going on um I don't know how many of you guys are aware of um the Jake's Place playground the initiative that's being led by Nicole Ludi and she is working to get a inclusive playground set up at was Washington Lake Park excuse me for all of our kids to be able to go and have a safe place to play so this she did receive a grant to help fund part of the cost but there is additional funds that need to be raised to help make this a reality and this is something that will benefit all of our kids and provide them a safe place the closest one right now is in Cherry Hill and for those that aren't aware it's based on Jake's law you can look look it up if you go out to their website that has more information about it there and you can see like it's it's you know wheelchair accesable it just makes it a generally good place for kids to interact with other kids and families to bond so we hope you know as more funds fundraising information comes out on that that you'll be able to support that as well that is something that Nicole is doing through her Blackbird foundation so yeah we are trying to support her as much as possible to help with raising awareness for it and um you know in in general you know if any parent wants to come out and join our cpad committee with helping to plan meetings or anything like that you are more than welcome to do so we do have a Facebook page and a Gmail account that you can email if you'd like to support it we will be putting out some updates soon about some other initiatives that are going on and some things that we're planning for the fall thank you April renetti I wasn't planning on coming to speak but I keep seeing and hearing the aid in my mind that has been coming to see me for the last three weeks fearful that she's going to lose her benefits so I felt like I needed to say something ask a couple questions um I don't know Dr hibs if you realized the message that you sent to this District I get money's a problem I get it four administrators I don't want to cut anybody why isn't that more of an even number why was it 55 of the hardest working people that keeps your building running and the way you want it to look and four administrators who make six figures and you took from the bottom of the you didn't even come close to half you didn't even try to split it that'll never make sense to anybody in this District that is a very ugly message that you sent a very ugly message and I don't know that you understand the climate you've created the people have been on pins and needles for weeks with this budget should I apply elsewhere should I leave should I give my notice I don't know I don't know what to tell you but I have a 72y old Aid who's been here almost 40 years who's worked with the most neediest population from day one scared to death and all I see in my face is her four administrators four Janine I don't know if you can disclose this tonight I don't even know if it's a number that matters the balances of the lunch of the kids that don't ever pay their bill do we know what that number is and would that number make a difference in any kind of budgetary spreadsheet or and this is why I'm asking I can only speak for the high school I have a kid that walks in with $175 sneakers probably four five six different colors he's got an $1,100 balance he's still going to get his diploma I'm not talking about kids I'm not talking about kids I didn't mention a name I'm talking about a situation I am talking about what are we doing as a district because I live here I'm a taxpayer what is happening with the balances of the lunch monies that are not collected I know we have to feed them but here's my thing if they can't pay why can't they bring something from home and I know I know some of the home situations I teach those kids but can that money somehow be collected thrown back into the budget and I don't know if it can that's why Janine that's why I'm asking you that but I know there's significant balances out there that we just don't touch um we've been asking for years and we've met with Gretchen numerous times about the discipline issues at the elementary level and for whatever reason and I don't know because I I was not the elementary VP I know that I sit on the executive committee I was the executive VP I'm now the high school VP and I know we have been hearing Elementary problems for years no Solutions nothing offered we're making cuts and all of a sudden we're fixing the problem by adding four de of students how does that make sense we have been begging for help with that no Solutions tonight we're here and we're going to add four none of this makes sense none of this makes sense and All We Got Tonight was numbers so my last question is when are these people now going to be told specifically it's them when is that happening thank [Applause] you any other no other cards ask a motion board for motion to Kathy Brown thank you Mr Ross I'm currently employed in the school district as a library assistant um background in business Library assistance my second career volunteer in the school district since 2001 Community resident over 30 years various volunteer positions in the school district including a six-year tenure as co-president of president's Council served on Dr Cheryl Simone's task forces when she was a superintendent here but the story I want to share is a postco story as we all know remote learning then hybrid then back into the classrooms finally so we're a special area that first year back we didn't have our children with us they were in the classrooms they stayed in the classrooms they didn't travel the buildings you're looking at one of the people have figured out how to get library books in the hands of our student every week without them stepping foot into the library we figured out a way for them to sit in the classroom and select the books that they wanted my library assistant cooworker she's with our younger students she spent hours looking at list that they and their parents had written about what kind of books they like and indiv individually selected the books for all of our babies but getting to the story I want to tell tonight is the story when we first opened joyfully and I mean joyfully and that's why I'm here and not back in the business World business world was very satisfying very rewarding great highs I know about saving a company money the amount of money I saved my company on one of my projects today is still significant and that was quite a few years ago at this point but the story when the kids came back into the library I cannot tell you this sense of relief on those faces class after class of students after everything the world went through it's still Mrs Brown it's still Mrs James it's still Mrs Gerber it's still the library it was about a lot more than books and what we do in the library is about a lot more than books for every student every day of the week but the story is to illustrate the great role in security among other things emotional and otherwise that the adults in the building provide for our students those children were so relieved it was still us it was still a library in this stressful world World in which we all live in there was a constant and we provided them that constant again I'm from the business World budgets budgets money constraints money constraints I think we could have done better I do I apologize I do apologize for saying that I think we could have done better we are cutting the legs off of the stability of these kids to get rid of this many staff members we truly are as a parent years ago I made a preschool decision for my youngest child graduate Washington Township all three of my children graduates Washington Township many of the preschools in the area were very becoming very technology intensive and technolog is very important obviously our children must be trained in the technology and ready to enter the world using it I chose to keep my daughter as small preschool that didn't have computers because the human interaction is so important the social skill development is so important we're preparing our children to enter Society we're preparing them for World we're preparing them for life I ask you to take another look at this for the sake of our children and also for the sake of the employees again who are your lowest paid employees and the lowest paid uh in comparison with other districts we're here for the joy of it we feel passionate for this we could be doing other jobs we choose to be here for you I thank you for your time and I thank you for your volunteerism thank you for your service thank you see no yellow cards more yellow cards asked a motion for a motion to close to public second second second second all those in favor oppos motion to adjourn second second second all those in favor oppos for