to the for stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all we're going right into it okay presentations we have a budget presentation Dr HS yeah why don't you load it up and then I will we're loading it in right now in the board dos everybody give us a quick sec good right welcome everybody to our onative bug ton and then deliver to the county thank you Kev I hate microphones throws me off my game um so that's where we are right now uh Janine is loading it up so the board members can see it on their computers and then let's talk a little bit about what this agenda is going to look like so it's going to discuss where we are in the budget process it's going to talk about some of the challenges and have a description of the2 24 2025 budget uh Janine's going to do a state aid review and a comparison we are going to go through the budget highlights uh there's actually very few additions to the budget we're going to go over them uh we're going to review the the uh very generally the concept of what uh the budget cut would look like and then we'll talk about the tax impact that is included in this and then we'll talk about what is next so it's it's very important understand that Washington Township fell on the other side of S2 for those of you that don't know what S2 is it was essentially uh a reversal of the uh overfunded districts that then became underfunded so uh you you may know that Kings Way fought a very long hard fight to get on the other side of S2 uh back when this started back in 2015 I think Dr lavender mentioned that his per pupil cost was around $8,000 so they were very much struggling back then what ended up happening is that the sfra formula was frozen in time the state has not fully funded and used their formula that they designed to actually make sure that school districts were in a good spot and supported well in many many years I think it actually ceased being used under Governor whitmann um so it dates back I believe it was Whitman um many many years and what ends up happening is that for years that snapshot looked at enrollment numbers that just simply weren't true and I'll use Kingsway area as an as an example Swedesboro Woolwich was probably one of the fastest growing towns in New Jersey and they just didn't have the funding so what happened was is that they simply reversed they reversed it um so the overfunded districts lost money and then the underfunded districts gained money in reality a district Lake Township we lost about $9 million which is really considerable um you know in the end they want to make the argument that we were overfunded uh the state is is and you can look into this the state has been sued to actually disclose the way that they write this formula and they will not let anyone know what that looks like or why different districts get M it's actually baffling we don't figure it out we can't figure it out and they won't even let us figure it out we simply have have to wait on pins and needles for our state aid to come out and then just weeks later we are expected to have a budget struck so uh over the years what's important to know is that we've lost over $9 million which really kind of equates at $1,000 a piece to about 90 staff members it's massive and considerable so do you want to take the uh you want to take this one so one of the challenges that I don't walk around as much as Dr hibs does but one of the challenges that we you know if you guys that have watched some of these that we talk about every year is um The Limited additional financial resources that the that we have coming in so school districts only have two major sources of revenue state aid which either stays flat goes down this year we we went up a little bit so I can show that um and I do have a slide later in the presentation that Maps out the revenue which obviously drives how much we have to spend um and I guess when we get to that slide what you'll see is the increase that we do have in Revenue cannot keep up with contractual increases benefit increases just the everyday um increase in prices that you guys probably all see like when you go to the grocery store um so as you can see we have contractual salary increases just as an example from 20 324 to 2425 it's an increase of over $3 million but 2% on our tax levy which is really the only thing we can control is 1.8 million and and right away you can see you can see the shortfall of about 1.2 right there that's only part of the budget deficit that we had to deal with this year so for benefits uh where we are um we are obviously going up so we have an 11% Healthcare increase a 3.5% prescription increase 0% in in dental and when you average those uh additions up or those increases it's a 9.36 overall percentage uh in the premium that uh approximate increase is about $2 million you want to take a sec and talk about 44 sure and then also just to mention with the benefit increases um we have a broker from Brown and brown um they do try to negotiate with and we have been presented with several options so our experience as far as our members and the claims is not good right now so that's why um out of the gate we originally had a 15% increase from our current option so our broker has done shopping and presented us with a variety of options and got it down a little bit so again it's one of those things that is sort of out of our control control because um it's just like the the claims um for our employees and then the last bullet is the effective chapter 44 also if you've watched a couple of these presentations um a couple years back the state um changed the way you calculate um for certain plans anyway the employee share so the employee share that they pay um for their premiums the calculation was changed a little bit so it actually is Less on the employees which you know is good if if you're employee but it's more on the district and that's another reason why um the benefit increas is is hard to keep up with sometimes so it's important to know too that the 2425 budget will see the end to any covid relief funds that we had uh Township and uh all other districts received three different rounds so this will cease to exist so any that was funded in covid for districts that we use that money for either has to be transferred to the local and absorbed or it has to be cut and that's right there you can see you know the the rounds that we had and approximately how much money that we had through uh through all of the eser funds they all changed names they all different rounds they changed categories going through um but that's we're dealing with that as well Transportation increases so what we're seeing is uh there's about a 6% increase in our outof District transportation routes what's that called that's called the CPI so the state sets that rate so any um transportation routes that we have out with a contractor they can increase it up to 6% so so we have to budget for that so what we did this year one of our main goals when we sat down to have transportation meetings was to figure out how to get our GC runs back so we started with a meeting that really sought to do that gcit alone cost the district about $435,000 in outsourced runs now uh Janine Mrs weter did a great job in applying for extra stabilization aid for us and we had extra money which is allowing us to have extra buses the lead time on purchasing buses is is a long time we are in the process of doing that but we figured out how to bring gcit inhouse next year which will save us the almost half million do that meeting you know and and massive kudos to Mrs weter then turned into a conversation uh looking at our out of District students that do not go here that we are still responsible to transport and the rough number that we had uh from last year was about $4 million so what we did was we are uh exploring aggressively the option to lease buses which uh is much easier to do in the moment than it is to buy a bus and we are seeking to combine routes and in doing so we were able to to essentially save a million dollars out of this budget um approximately it will require us to hire extra drivers and assistants uh but I I I know that Mr Sweeney and the transportation department are going to be up to that task to ensure that we we do that well and just uh one more point so the past couple of years um we had trouble hiring drivers so some of the um the routes that got outsourced was because we didn't have buses and we didn't have drivers now the the routes are getting a little bit out of control with the contractors and we're able to hire more staff this year um we got back up to 100% so um and we got the additional money as Dr hibb said to buy more buses so that's why we're you know transitioning this way we're able to do it now in this current market and it'll save a lot of money tuition increases so we're seeing an expected increase of about 1.7 million this is to do with new entrance uh we have to have IEP compliance and we're seeing an increase in rates for out of District tuition just so you also know uh and you know we are also having a very hard time placing children at times um so we have that to contend with Mrs Miller anything else you want to add to that one good okay so constant challenges or staff shortages and substitute costs postco these have been just massive concerns there's also been the change in the sick leave Law which has expanded the allowable uses for sick time so that's a that's that's something that no one asked us about in any way shape or form or how it would affect us they just simply made that change and we expected to deal with it but yet it it causes a strain on our resources which to be honest with you is something that we're seeing across education in general is that we are seeing um a almost a a literal Vice script choke hold on public education you know we while we spend a lot of money in the state of educ uh uh state of New Jersey on education we don't spend enough when it comes to the most valuable resource that we have prices in general so everything we all know this everything has gone up I gave you the example of Doritos and Sh inflation Doritos took out five chips from their bag and they charge you the exact same price it's you know it's the Doritos thing alone makes me very angry you know so for the rest of our lives now we're expected to understand that we get less Doritos because we had to go through what was a a very Global pandemic in our country but that's never going to write itself because people make a lot of money in taking those five Doritos out so we're seeing that across everything and just so you know too and maybe you've experienced this in your own home you know jobs Steel things along those lines it takes longer to get things done so our current state how have we managed this in the past because we're leading up to discussing what the budgetary gap which was considerable look like so in the past we managed that by looking at vacant positions that might have had you know some cushion there we managed it through attrition and looking at what we didn't need to refill or reform we looked at supplies last year last year we had a pretty big cut to supplies and then other resources so this year's budget required us to go line by line through hundreds of hours of sitting down and looking at virtually everything uh in this budget the only thing that we left really untouched to be honest was maintenance and and the maintenance and custodial line um we did actually take out some money we put aside for air conditioners typically because we're going through the energy audit which we think that will cover that but everything else was was visited to look at a fiveyear history so we went back five years just so you know because we wanted to go pre-co because those Co years aren't really fair to look at because there wasn't a lot of things that were spent in that time frame and quite frankly a lot of districts weren't in at times so it was a it was a false representation so we went back to look at highest amounts to make sure that we were we were developing something that could help us to make a good decision but our goal throughout everything was to focus on our students student learning educational outcomes and of course safety and compliance so this this this is the slide really here that shows where we ended up so we started from you know $3 million um of the contractual salary increases 2 million for the budget 1.7 for the tuition increases and we we also had to sit down and really carve out out of the proposed budget an extra 6 million that was a lot of our capital projects uh this is a very budget we do not have a lot of capital projects in here we are going to rely heavily on the energy audit to do a lot of those things over time we are hopeful that the energy audit will will gain us millions of dollars worth of work if you don't know what an energy audit is it essentially is uh it's it's through Department of clean energy where they come in they look at all of our schools they look at all of our lights and they basically say if you make these changes you will save this much which translates into a dollar amount that you can then spend on items related to energy boilers air conditioners hot water heaters unit ventilators um lighting is a guarantee uh for anyone that's walked TJ TJ is one of our darkest buildings it's lit by the the wonderful Miss Holmes back there but it's one of the darkest buildings we have it actually has half Lights I've never actually seen them before um all of that will get looked at we'll probably get new stadium lights for free um which would cost about a half million dollars all of that will leave need to our way of addressing our aging system so that's a that's going to be a savior when it comes and we we're not quite all the way through it yet but we'll know in the next few months where we land it's important to note that we received an extra 1.59 5948 in additional state aid that still did not put us in the black it only lessened the red it was used to just to manage the budgetary Gap so that was that was a blessing that came in we have honestly no idea where it came from a lot of districts receed more some receive less this was supposed to be the last year of S2 we were supposed to have an extra $300,000 cut that turned into a 300,000 red to a 1.5 million black a lot of districts you know I'm sure you've seen the news received very very disheartening news lenpy Regional lost about 5 million you could you know uh Clear View lost about 2.2 million that they weren't expecting without any any warning so what I want to take a second is is is really clarify what our challenges are not prek comes up a lot so we have Universal prek and uh we're going to talk about where we are right now we're going to talk about where we're going next year because we really we did we did some great things I think as a team this year I want to um give a massive shout out to to Gretchen who's in attendance to Christina who was sitting right there and Melissa also did some really good hard work right top three right um so this was a labor of love because as you may know we don't have enough room in Township to to to educate all of our prek universe in any way shape or form so we have to think outside the box so what we have is is that next year's budget uh will supply about $5.5 million in prek aid from the Department of Education that is Aid um they're saying that's an aidg Grant they're saying that it will never go away um I've been in education long enough to know that that doesn't really mean anything but it means that we have it for next year and we're going to continue to progress with it as long as we have it that will support about 365 uh in District students we get about 253,000 for Head Start and we're receiving about 2.8 million for our private providers all in that's about a grand total of 8.6 million that comes in the form of state aid so if you look at this you can see where we are this year versus next year year this year we have uh between grenlock and the high school we have 242 students with 17 classrooms and then we have at Head Start 27 students in two classrooms next year we in in uh in researching and going aggressively after Kindle again Gretch and Christina great job uh we are going to go from 242 to 420 and 28 classrooms and again great job gret and I think this one really has a lot lot to do with you our providers are going up to 14 so if you really think about you know the increase we're going from 268 to 630 which is an increase of 362 kids that we just Chang the trajectory of their lives by offering free pre which is pretty amazing and we're increasing increasing our classrooms from 19 to 42 and if you think about what that is worth to the taxpayers of Township on an annual level it's $6.3 million annually that we saved our taxpayers in paying for prek I wish we could do more that's where we could get to uh we're still aggressively exploring other options but just so you know there are dates associated with this so that we actually after a certain point we're not allowed to we're not allowed to aggressively explore anything because we're tied into what we submitted uh there is one property in town I don't want to say it on camera that we're looking at that could be very big but I don't know if that will turn into anything because we have to now wait for the next the next year so that's it's pretty amazing so I I think we should give the two ladies in the room a big hand for that that is just awesome okay let's let's talk about what the funding is and what it's not so when you when you think about prek you really have uh self-contained children you have inclusion children and then you have the Pea Grant so what ends up happening here is that imagine pea went away and it was they said next year you're not going to going to have it we would still be responsible for all the costs associated with the self-contained children and also our inclusion kids and we're required to have typical peers so even if the Pea Grant went away we are still responsible for the left two sides because people ask all the time you know what are the costs associated with prek the cost associated with prek would be here whether or not the Pea Grant existed or not correct Gretch correct okay so what does that look like so basically it's about a million dollars um in you know that that that comes to the district that we are responsible for but there's certain things that would exist no matter what even without prek uh Mrs Cox back there would still be the principal of grenlock it might look different but she would still be in our she would still be in our local budget the nurse the social worker the custodial salary the cost of uh the teachers the AIDS the things you know all those things would still be here so pea is a blessing to us for sure uh I hope that we can actually take that to all of our universe you know we we thought we put a a big dent but we realized this year we have to keep going a little more and our goal is to hopefully reach that in the next I would say two years and that could be done our goal is to find big places in town and see if we can lease that seems to be a viable option for us um because building is very expensive and then building is permanent so and if it disappears these costs would still remain I also want to talk about the vpa academy we've had a lot of conversations about this the vpa academy is not costing us anymore in staff the only thing that that's doing this year is in this budget is that we're buying keyboards that is all that we are doing uh I feel like this has come up an awful lot as a discussion point and it comes up almost as a rock that people throw and they say well you you you made the vpa academy all we did to be very honest is that we took the great things that we have and the great offerings and we packaged it that's we packaged it into and and Dr Nathan and and all of her staff made that look like something great and it is going to be great but it doesn't it doesn't cost us anything else to run we didn't add any staff correct Dr Nathan zero staff so we packaged it and we're ready to launch for 2425 and if you haven't been to one of our performances or to the Pops concert or to our amazing play Shout out to the prom which was unbelievable Angela Chilla was the lead um uh we had so we had five children reive scholarships after that play right of I think $10,000 if they if they choose to go so if you haven't if you didn't see the play it was it was truly a remarkable and and you can hopefully catch up with us next year um buzzman take a second and talk about this um what I will say about um budman is that next year it is going to exist inside our walls as opposed to out so right now we have children that are uh essentially outplaced for both anxiety and then sometimes uh behaviors our goal is to have this looking like something inside our district we think we can do a better job and we think that we can actually save the district money we have a projected savings right now of about $150,000 um um buzzom was set to cost us $639,000 next year and we think we can do it better so Dr Nathan is in the in the concept state of planning that out so that we're good to go uh you're going to see Savings in the upcoming years from our student information system not this year because you never have Savings in a year one transition and then also Google and then Chromebooks over the next four years is going to save us approximately $1.89 million uh and I think it's going to be a better option Chromebooks because they actually will have a uh they will have a charge time of about 12 hours which that's a concern right now because surface laptops after a few years they drop to less than a school day so charging has been a con has been a concern before I got here the chords was a question so the move to Chromebooks will allow us to not only not have as many cords out for our staff to possibly trip and fall uh but it will also allow us uh in the end to have a safer device in my opinion because you can't download directly to the Chromebook like you can in a uh in a Windows laptop uh and and there's a much much cheaper cost Associated turn it over to Mrs weter so this is our um enrollment for the past couple years I just thought I'd map it out for everybody um this came directly from our Assa which is a state report that we have to do it's a snapshot of all the kids we have as October 15th and then that is supposed to drive our state aid um so if was properly funded then that would matter but this is our enrollment over the years so you can see it dropped it has gone back up a little bit um so again we just like to present that at budget time yeah um this is our state aid history so we talked about this a little bit where um I think there was one more year that we were under the S2 where we lost but I I tried to fit as much where it didn't everybody could say it um if you look at the the very bottom the years in red were the losses that we had each year which obviously from the conversations we had earlier that just compounds the problems every year um interestingly enough we we as we mentioned before we did receive an increase this year it was in the um special education Aid category which if you take a minute to just look at the categories at the top the these are all the categories that we re reive so you can see for many years many of the categories stay the same so no matter what our enrollment does they stay the same the equalization Aid that's in the middle that's the number that they kept adjusting on us and reducing which you know we couldn't really explain and then the final year of S2 where we expected another cut in Equalization Aid we received more special education Aid which is which is phenomenal um you know the money that we get funded from the state and through our federal grants doesn't completely cover our special education budget but again it w it was you know it helped us um close the the budget Gap this year and just make sure to note that even though that's black on the bottom left we're still on the right make sure that it was yeah I wanted to just show that it was a [Music] positive um this is the comparison of Revenue slide so we always go over this because this just um kind of maps out for everybody our funding sources and if you look at the bottom um again this is the revenue so we have to have a balanced budget so on the appropriation side this is as high as we can go um so if you look at the far right the presentent change the percent change and you go down to the bottom the overall budget is only increasing 1.15% that's all the additional resources that we have to cover all the increases that we just mapped out out in the slides before um and I'll just take a minute um so the the top line is fund balance we do take our excess that we don't spend from one year to the next and it does support our budget um that is two years so the budget the fund balance that that's budgeted for 2425 is our audited um fund balance from 20 to 23 and then um any money that we expect to have left at the end of this year and the reason for the change is because in 2324 we got additional stabilization aid from the state um it came from a different year in their budget so we had to kind of run it through our fund balance and receive it that way and we budgeted that money since it was onetime onetime money for capital projects in 23 24 um the next line down is the local tax levy so again um local tax levy and state aid are the major re uh Revenue sources that we have we this budget has um a 2% tax increase which we're allowed to go up it also has an additional 88% or $833,000 which is a health adjustment that we're also allowed if our health insurance increases by a certain amount so the local tax levy is um again 2.88% 2.7 million which you know again just doesn't cover some of the increases in costs state aid we just talked about there's an increase of 1.5 95 the next few down um some of them are um driven by the state tells us because it's it's money that we can apply for based on services that we provide to certain students um and then finally I just want to mention the capital reserve withdrawal um that's money that in the 23 24 budget we funded our capital projects through money that we have saved for capital projects we do not have this this year for a couple of reasons one the money that we built up in our capital reserve we're going to use to do some of our projects that we received Rod grant funding which we have talked about um in previous meetings we applied for um grant money so certain projects we get funded 40% by the state so that doesn't have to run through the budget because it's already there um so again at the end of each budget we try to set aside money for capital projects it's getting more difficult to do that because the more we cut all the stuff out of the budget the less there is to to save um and I think that's it for that slide right can you explain just for a gap the general f what that would have looked like if we didn't have the Gap that we had what that would ch change does that make sense yes so that's what I I was mentioning before we talked about 3% increase in certain cost 9% increase in certain costs so you know that's all in the appropriation side but we have to reduce that part so we can match the revenue that comes in we only have an increase of 1.15% um this is just a snapshot again I mentioned this in the last slide but of the tax levy so it includes the 2% um increase plus the healthc care waiver um and and then that that's the totals there and then this is the tax impact of the 2% increase plus the healthc care waiver um we put a couple different assessed values the one that's in the middle that's shaded is the average assessment for our town and then you can see the the increases on the right um you yeah all right so what you're looking at in in the budget is uh we have curriculum adoption uh we have uh lease purchase of some equipment Vehicles which are going to be buses and a maintenance van we are not uh purchasing a Foods van because Kindle does not have a working kitchen we are making one of our vehicles functioning for that uh we are having Chromebooks in here as far as the capital projects go uh we are going to have roofs at two buildings windows at two buildings uh and then we have flooring and field maintenance uh at the high school we need to deal with one of our fields that is just not simply it's it's just not utilizing water and running water off the right way and we're having problems what you will see in here is um three deans of students because what we've saw consistently this entire year is that discipline at the elementary has really been a rough go for our elementary principles some of which are in the building right now um and they don't have any real help with discipline so we are going to have three people they will split buildings and then they will be able to help them with discipline so our principles can be in the in their classrooms and being instructional leaders because that's where they need to be but we also recognize that we have to deal with specific behaviors because without dealing with the behaviors we can't help kids move ahead and if we can't deal with the instructional program we can't drive that as well we will need some additional staff for um budsman um because we're bringing in house but that will still come at a savings um we have I believe it's an an extra ER room correct and at the middle level ER for next year and we are proud to have a continuation of our uh class three offic officers and uh our SRO officer Bell give it a wave um you know we um we have have uh a great partnership with Township and we're very lucky and blessed to have them and in our buildings keeping us safe uh in the lease specifically we have some data and assessment resources we have technology uh there's four main things that we're looking at we have some science adoptions an Ela adoption uh we have furniture that we need to replace because it's just end of life uh we have uh items for the MD and autism curriculum we have buses in here and operations vehicle and then of course our Chromebooks so we are we are trying to be as prudent as possible with the things that we need um you know and some of them relate to safety issues so we spent probably hundreds of hours talking about this budget it was a very hard budget coming about eight months ago uh it was very hard to enter with millions of dollars in the red so what we're going to see across the board is you're going to see a eliminations across the entire district and hours will be reduced in specific circumstances we tried to keep the cuts as far away from children as possible as presented uh because we really wanted to keep the continuity of our programs we didn't want to shut down existing programs we actually want to grow our programs for kids but we have to be pragmatic and we have to have a balanced budget I can't go into next year and not have a budget that matches Where We Are we have to balance um it was it was very hard and the specifics of that will will come out at a later date now is just not the appropriate time for it um but it was a very hard budget and the time of just cutting things supplies uh attrition vacancies are they're gone there's just they're gone there's there's no other way around it so what's next I'll hand that to Janine what's next is that um we submit the tenative budget to the county office they have um three to four weeks to review the budget they let us know if they have any feedback once the budget is approved it gets advertised in the newspaper and then on April 30th for our regular meeting we have a public hearing on the budget so you'll hear another presentation if we make any changes between the budget that we're submitting tonight and the one that we present at our public hearing we will sketch it out um during the presentation and then we resubmit it to the county um once it's approved um so the budget is adopted on uh April 30th do you want to talk um yeah I I think that what came out of our conversations with the board or one of the hundreds of things that came out of conversations with the board is is really working together to talk about sources for alternate Revenue moving forward and possibly putting together a concept uh for having the community to be a part of that so that we can look at different ways that we can offset the budgetary Gap moving forward so that we are not making Cuts year after year because our our district can't sustain can't sustain the cuts um again this was a very hard budget it was it's going to come at the cost of of a lot of things that that were that are important and people are important but we did the very best we could in the moment to develop what we thought was the most appropriate budget to put us in a spot to focus on teaching and learning and moving forward into the 21st century that's it thank you sorry it's my diabetic alarm sorry I apologize for that okay right along School community relations car nothing okay good uh old business any old business I just want to say uh that I've been working with Dr hibs uh relative to the town hall meeting and we'll have all the specifics worked out by next week's board meeting hey Ralph just one quick thing um Dr hibs I don't know if you can answer this yet but um is there any update to the calendar in terms of graduation date I know there's been a lot lot of people just asking in general I don't know when you can finalize it or if you can now but yeah um so I I can't finalize it right this second and Ray uh currently is uh supervising all of our seniors uh so the goal would be in the next few weeks to do that I think we typically send that out the end of marchapril so that would be the same goal it will it will it will definitely move backwards because we didn't use all our entire allotment but we'll do that as soon as possible awesome thanks yeah any other old business yeah real quick just um I don't know how to the word to describe how in awe I am of the directors and the um uh cast and the stage crew production crew of that play I probably bought about 10 people and it was absolutely unbelievable so just thank you to um our staff it was absolutely incredible yeah it was it was amazing formance very powerful um great message of acceptance I think he's wonderful okay this time will open to the public may I have a motion to open the meeting to the public on agenda items only second all in favor okay if you need to say anything fill out a yellow card over there Julie can simple hello Julie kmle Ted Schneider Court um I'm commenting on the budget um first of all I I want to say I'm glad to see that prek is getting the Kudos that it deserves that was always meant to be something that was brought to the district so that people would move here and increase the tax levy so I think that that's actually happening and that's something that we should all be happy for um and I like how it was presented as not a problem because for a while there it was being discussed as if it was a problem um I want to talk about the budget just a lot of change and I I want to try and be very succinct so I actually have notes this time um there have been a lot of changes going on in the district this room is one um and a lot of things in this building and a lot of capital projects that we've been seeing that I didn't see in the budget last year so I went back and looked at the user-friendly budget from last year and I saw a lot of things that were zeroed out in that budget that that I know still happened so one just one example is the work study program um that there there was budgeted money for the work study program and then the work study program had zero budget yet that continued this year so there were other things like that I I want to know if I have I'll list out my questions but I want to know if the board is aware of these things so like the special ed Transportation um the sub budgets the work study program athletic supplies maintenance supplies all of these things that were cut financially from the budget but still happened so my questions are first were items or programs that were cut in the budget last year and then still ran did you pay for that with Esser funds that's one question um if you're in the position that you're in now are you considering a referendum for next year or any sort of Outsourcing because I i' in the years that seven years that I was on the board I've never seen anything like this and I know that you did give some historical background as to the cuts but those were dealt with every year when we got them so um just confused about that um are you mentioned that there were positions that are being cut and I want to know how many of them are union jobs I also want to know how many of them there are I don't know how the board can vote on that tonight when it was very vague like that usually it's listed out this many administrators this many certified staff this much support staff so it's very unusual to not have that listed um and I I think a lot of people here are interested in that information um how much was spent on unbudgeted capital projects so far this year and is there any money left in your um in your maintenance budget and your construction budget and then related to the buses you said you're going to lease buses and you need drivers which is very difficult to find and train drivers how many drivers do you need and how many buses are you going to lease and then my last question is with all these cuts that are happening will the superintendent be taking his Merit bonus which is $40,000 when you're cutting bodies from the district thank you thank you uh Mr Vini question yeah we'll look into them to the extent that you know response is able to be we made at the appropriate time superintendent will get back to you I'm sorry what superintendent will get back to you get back tonight no not tonight uh the superintendent will take the information considered and we'll provide a response at an appropriate time if it's necessary uh I mean this isn't a question and answer session just to be clear it actually hear exactly right now it's a right now we're in public comment Okay so I'm not uh necessarily aware of what Mrs kmle was referring to I'm not an expert uh but I do think she's right that she asked a question to get an answer it all right and I I have a question as well all right and um brief history lesson on what I know about budgets ever since they started this 2% thing it's been the strategy of all the boards since then they're all guilty all right and I think you're guilty as well the strategy was always to get the 2% no matter what no matter what the effect is going to be on education all right get to that 2% and uh I think that's still the strategy but has there been some consideration since everybody wants everything has their you know because they're all interested in education politics have nothing to do with it since they're all interested in that and that's what they feel is the pulse of the community has there ever been any thought to like okay well let's go out for vote to the public on it that's my question all but before I that wasn't really my planned question but it is now one of them my other question is a yes or no question from or answer from Dr Hibbs which I'm assuming the answer is going to be yes um at this time in our history I'm talking about nationally and locally and the financial problems that pres presentent themselves the education across the country all right uh it's really important at the local level to have trust in the Board of Education right I I mean you're presenting things to us trust is very important in terms of the success that you all say you're interested in which is education all right so my next question is uh how can I as a taxpayer have trust no offense Dr hibs in Dr Hibbs Mr Ross Mrs Baker this other guy uh Mrs Blom after I listened to those arguments last month about cutting the time for speech all right I just it befuddles me how any one could have presented some of those arguments all right and therefore I came away with the conclusion which I had already come across the time uh Mr Tomac decided he was going to try to have gravitas with the community and and tell them the sad story about his daughter thinking he's a thug But after those arguments excuse me just this is limited to after those arguments I got five minutes sir after those arguments uh after those arguments I came to the conclusion that I didn't have trust that we're acting in the best interest of students that's all so I would like to my other question to the board members do you think the public should have trust at this point based on the last I don't know 10e history of the Board of Education and what has transpired over the last couple years thank you I'll wait for your answer I guess I'll wait for Mrs get answer all right committee reports HR negotiations committee have a motion close to the public yeah there is no Mr Liberty asked a question there's there's absolutely no no plan for a a refer at this point in any way in any way shape or form um I I I'm going to take a second just answer a couple of the other ones that I can right now um there's a a very real answer why that happened last year's budget was last year's budget was very difficult and we realized at the 11th Hour that there was things in there that we wanted to move inter internally around budget transfers are actually not uncommon they're actually very common to have budget transfers um we talked about Esser things throughout the uh through the budget but essentially almost everything that was funded through Esser is not included in the budget with the exception of some cafeteria assistance that were partially funded um that's really all I can talk about you so but no no concept of a referend motion CL second all those in favor post okay committee reports HR negotiation committee Mr swe no could you speak loud I'll be reporting we can hear you at all okay the HR committee uh Personnel committee met on March 11th uh present uh was Mr Ross Mr Serano Mr Sweeney Mrs Chilla Dr hibs Mrs Rector uh it met approximately from 4:30 to 2 7:30 uh dur in that meeting we discussed Personnel agendas uh we talked about job descriptions that are going to be approved anticipated job postings uh contract negotiations and looking at the uh non-unit salary ranges uh to update those ranges and the ESS sub rates for uh 2425 5 uh also uh on March 22nd we'll be having a college fair uh job fair where we'll be um having people come in from colleges looking for U employment opportunities here in Washington Township uh we also had a presentation from Dr Hibbs and Mrs Rector on the budget that was it thank you thank you Mr Mrs Baker um Mr mran policy yes thank you Mr President excuse me so policy committee had to due to extensive budget talks discussions and meetings that we had policy was shifted from 3:11 to 3:15 at 2 p.m. board members in attendance were Mrs Baker president Ross uh myself and Mr Tomac administrators in attendance Mr Sweeney and the topics discussed uh the following policies are being set forth for a first read and these were small small minor revisions made based on Strauss ese recommendations so policy 5456 High School graduation policy 1140 affirmative action program policy 1523 comprehensive Equity plan policy 2260 affirmative ative action plan for school and classroom practices regulation 2260 as well that falls under that policy policy 2411 School counseling policy 2412 home instruction due to health condition regulation 2412 as well policy 5570 sportsmanship policy 5750 education equal Educational Opportunity policy 57 55 equity and educational programs policy 5842 equal access of student organizations regulation 2200 curriculum content policy 24 31.4 prevention and treatment of sports related concussions and injuries uh the policy as well as the regulation and policies uh that I wanted to bring up for discussion were the valid dictorian policy I'm not sure why that policy was originally discontinu uh but I don't really agree with it with the high school not having a valid dictorian so I was the one who wanted it back I spoke with the committee they're in favor and the administrators at the high school are in favor as well we will not be having we won't be able to based off Mr Sweeney's recommendation and advisement um it's too short notice to have the valid dictorian pick this year due to eligibility criteria needed to be set up so that will not happen this year but it will be in place for next year here uh we also discussed there was a few emails that I read regarding policy 5756 uh transgender students uh after being informed by our Council and after discussing it with committee members after discussing it with Mr Sweeny uh it's a very controversial uh policy one that I personally do not agree with uh but at this moment there's uh litigation at the state level pending if I'm if I'm not mistaken counselor okay uh litigation pending at the state level and our advice our legal council uh advised us to just see it through uh and watch what happens at the state level and uh we go from there so I don't know if you wanted to add anything okay all right um so that is the that is what we discussed in our committee meeting and one more item was the use of school facilities policy and regulation needed to to be cleaned up by our Council and we should be expecting that back hopefully by next committee meeting right I think we have it I think we just the the policy on the facilities I think we do have yeah I think I think we just need to finalize it as board okay so uh correction we need to finalize that policy as as a board the our Council has Revis the document and send it back to us so thank you awesome perfect thank you Mr sh uh Mr L Liberty business thank you all right business uh the normal business commit meeting was on March 13th it was uh the full business committee myself Mr Ross M bloom Mr Tomac Mr hibs and M weter uh we also met on the 7th and the 18th to go over the budget in detail in those meetings uh Mr Tomac could not make it Miss Baker came in his place uh we spent a lot of time on the budget talking through many of you saw there the situation that we're in with um The increased costs and how we were going to come up with a balanced budget um talk through the options of how to uh how to get a balanced budget frankly and most of us didn't like any of the options um but try to come up with something that we could all live with and something that would be in the best interest interest of the 7,064 children that are in this District um Administration put in a lot of work coming up with options there and trying to make the best out of a rough situation and actually looked into some additional options for us as we said you know could we keep this and cut here and you know there are other places that we can dig into and we talked through that extensively um we also talked about some upcoming purchase items going out to bid for roof and windows using the rod Grant project so um those will be going out and uh also open up an RFP for The Physician Services because that was on a three-year cycle that we uh have for our policy and uh we'll have an upcoming bid for Food Service supplies talked about uh Kids Choice summer camp and that that'll be being held at obms this year and uh the rent will be $950 a week for that and then we uh discussed that we were awarded uh njsig safety Grant in the amount of $2,422 administration is looking at ways uh to put that money to good use and we'll uh submit the application as soon as possible and then we uh discuss the preschool budget and uh that that would be going forward and had that put into the presentation and again I know we already gave everybody Applause but great to see the expansion of that prek program and I think that also opens us up for some other options as well with you know budgetary and potentially moving people that's going to create new jobs the expansion of that program will create new jobs that will be funded through state aid it'll be a great thing for the district as well and uh that was it all right thank you Mr Li Liberty uh instructional instructional affirs Mr Blue yes we met on the 13th thank you we met on the 13th and I was there Mrs Baker was there Mr Ross was there Dr Nathan Mrs Miller Mrs Gerber Mr Gregor the first thing that we talked about was that the district will be using the Danielson evaluation inst instrument for the 2024 2025 school year these evaluation tools will be in Genesis and will follow the guidelines tenur under New Jersey achieve for tenured and non-tenured staff and that's replacing Marano and they're very similar so that's probably not going to be a very big change for the staff or the people who are doing the observations um under Human Resources there will be a Middle School El Ela text and book club research the curriculum work will ensure that curriculum is appropriate and standards aligned when materials are selected for the students a parent information guide will be created the guide will share summaries of topics and materials that will be used in class the guide will provide information to parents on topics or materials that may be considered controversial or sensitive and lastly the board will be asked tonight to approve a newly hired staff member to Pro Proctor or substitute as a proctor for the high impact tutoring Grant all Proctor are funded by the grant money that the district has received and that's all I have for instructional Affair thank you Mr SP uh reported the superintendent um I ask for a motion and a second to approve the hip report to the board pursuing to policy 5512 of the superintendent so moved second second second discussion discussion good roll call Mr Lindsay yes Mr Serrano yes Mr Tomac yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Mrs chillo abstain Miss Deo yes Mr Li Liberty yes okay Mr Ross Yes structural fairs no items at this time policy no items at this time Student Activity Communications say for a motion and a second to approve the sack item number one so moved second discussion roll call Mr Serrano yes Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes Mrs Chilla yes M de Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Tomac yes Mr Ross uh yes student activ uh let's see Human Resources y 1 through 41 Human Resources 1 through 41 so move second discussion I said uh couple retirements to call out so we had uh Laura Bessa 35 years Ronda Patterson 30 years and Abby meatski 25 years [Applause] congratulations okay finance and facil ities sorry it's okay Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom yes to all except for number 17 I abstain um for the people there J G and k e okay Mrs Chilla yes Mr Deo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Tomac yes Mr Serano yes Mr Ross Yes okay financing facilities uh items 1 through four so move second discussion yes I something I want to say yeah regarding the the budget that we spoke about uh so we've been in extensive conversations uh those conversations have been heated at times and um I just want to say to all the colleagues on the board when we're up here it's business it's not personal so I don't want any of you to ever think that I'm taking anything personally that gets said any behavior that is directed at any other board member or myself we're all adults here we can be adults and it's all business so um second um I just wanted to address the budget itself so ladies and gentlemen of the public and members of the board members of the this governing body are being asked to vote today on a budget a budget that makes cuts to benefits at the ground level a budget that unfairly and disproportionately targets those employees closer to the bottom of the pay scale the board was provided with secondary and tertiary options which are abysmal quite frankly these options present cuts to staff and programs at the elementary middle and high school level in key areas where we need them tonight is not a vote for the budget tonight's vote is for a bailout of the Washington Township School District due to Reckless spending and overall fiscal irresponsibility whether that was under Dr hibs leadership or previous superintendent that has occurred and under the leadership of previous Board of Education presidents tonight members of this governing body are being asked to approve and impose a 2.88% tax on those hardworking residents of this town not to invest in new and Innovative programs not to invest in poor into the student body and not to ensure that we can begin the process of project initiation for capital projects for our crumbling infrastructure this increas is solely for the covering of a district deficit that to my knowledge keeps ballooning not only are we being asked to increase everyone's taxes but we are also being asked to approve cuts to programs and staff again elementary middle and high school level to make up the difference I am not voting to increase taxes while simultaneously cutting programs and staff to get us out of the hole we should not be in to begin with if we bail out the school district once this sets a precedent that we may have to do it again on some level I'm not saying that conversations hard conversations and decisions do not need to be made but I quite frankly am a new board member recently elected and I am not going to vote for a budget that I don't fully understand I'm going to be completely transparent with everyone here I need to sit down and understand the budget understand the line items and understand why we need to do what we do what we have to do and what we need to do quite frankly I don't feel I have enough information so for that reason this budget I'm I'm going to vote no to the tenative budget thank you any other stat I like to make comment I said it person oh sorry yeah um unfortunately in life we have to make a lot of hard decisions I don't love the budget but people elected us to do the best that we can with what we have try to be responsible with taxpayer dollars we spent lots and lots of hours we've asked lots and lots of questions the Administration has presented tons of different options and sometimes in life you're given problems that there's no good option for solving but unfortunate not unfortunately unfortunately you have to move forward we have to remember that there's 7,064 kids that you know a lot of them don't have the choice to come here this is where they come to get educated we have the responsibility to give them the best education responsible possible and uh it can be a tough decision also I hope that my fellow fell board members will'll take Dr hibs up on his numerous offers that if you had questions or needed more information to reach out to him at any time we offered to meet after work on the weekends be build phone calls and I hope every will take advantage of that so you can get the information you need to make a decision and if you don't like it I hope you have suggestions on ways to tackle it in a better way that's it thanks anyone else yeah I just want to comment that one of the major responsibilities of the board is to oversee the budget and uh that is something that we need to take very seriously thank you anyone else uh just real quick I feel as though it's becoming uh and I hope it's not a trend that we say that we haven't been given enough information because there's everyone else that got the same amount of information and I would say it's a ton of it and we have opportunities to ask questions to what Scott said um I I feel as though that's again to your point Steve not personal at all but Strictly Business um to use that as a reason to not vote on the budget to say you don't have enough information I I think that should have been discussed before we even walked into this room and let me finish please let me finish please ma'am so um we discussed lost a lot and I will remove executive session material from my comments but um I'm very surprised at this discussion that we're having right now I think it's a little bit of a mini Ambush for no reason I think we discussed a lot in terms of it not being a pleasant I think Dr hibs and Janine did a phenomenal job of outlining why we are where we are and to even intimate to be evaluative of Dr Hibbs and that this could be his issue I think was unfair and a possible violation that I don't think we should be doing I think he was here his anniversary is coming up May 1 so I highly doubt that he put us in such a deficit I think this is a product of board after board and this is no fault of anyone particular that sat on the board or any one particular superintendent but what we are now is in a situation is a product of continuing to Kick the Can and now we're at a pivotal point where we can no longer Kick the Can and we are all going to be faced as we were elected to do to sometimes do really unpleasant job of approving a budget that I don't think any of us including Dr hibs including Janine and everyone sitting at the back table that's incredibly thrilled with because we have to make tough decisions so I'm making this comment because I think we have a lot of information and I think as we discussed we're going to have continued conversations but to use that as a reason to not exercise your vote when you were voted in by the public this is is one of the most important functions we do as a board is budget and hiring the superintendent and to sit and say we don't have enough information makes everyone else feel as though we're just kind of shooting from the hip and voting and I take offense to this not personal I'm just letting you know okay so I am exercising my right to vote and that's it's a no so you said okay but the lack of information is not accurate but but it is though because you've been on this board how many terms and and this is my first time so I'm not only hold on now I'm not finished okay go when I'm speaking uh okay you don't have to lecture me go ahead I'm I'm not talking about goad okay all right so I don't have the experience that you have number one number two I don't feel I have the information so you can be given less information based off your experience and come to an to an educated informed decision I can't I need more information okay not because I can't grasp the information but because I'm still a new board member right so two questions did you reach out to doctor hibs at any point prior to this meeting and let him know that you can't make an informed decision because you have questions or you need more help did you reach out via phone via email via text and take advantage of that we had that discussion and maybe one or once or twice about certain line items and certain things that I didn't disagree with no it's not disagreeing it's not having enough information that was the reason why you said you weren't going to vote right and experience okay okay okay okay okay my only by the way you don't have to continue to go back and forth on it all right I'm just saying what you said about not having enough information you're now saying you don't have enough experience you have enough experience you were elected by the people of the community and they thought you were had enough experience to be here to not raise their taxes which I'm I'm not I'm not doing that and I'm I'm also don't have like I said information and experience so yes so you're not going to be able to vote on the budget because you don't have experience I didn't I said information and the with the information that I have not enough experience to decipher what is being told to me so I can definitely understand what you're saying but understand that I I don't agree with any option that we've been given coupled with the little bit of experience that I have coupled with the fact that I think that these Cuts disproportionately affect a certain class of individual okay so respectfully you must have enough experience because Mr Ross Made You chair of policy which is a pretty important committee well I was just duplicating what you did last year's president making someone a chair who had little experience I'm just saying he keep saying doesn't have experience chair you had faith in can we move on can we move on the only thing is I just I feel um and I respect how you feel that's not my point I think there was a lot of accus accusatory comments uh blaming negative um so I don't know how you can say those kind of things and say you don't understand the budget enough like it doesn't kind of go hand in hand but I mean you can vote however you want I'm just saying I think making negative and accusatory comments like that but then at the same time turning around saying you don't understand it enough to vote it just doesn't it doesn't make sense to me like how I don't know how could people said well well I I don't understand why it doesn't make sense because uh earlier Mrs Chilla made uh a comment that uh uh other people were getting more information that she got and she felt that she wasn't getting enough information that other board members got um that's because you were having private meetings and one-offs right you were having yes you were Connie let's not even if you want me to talk about it I'm happy if you want to talk about transparency let's go because I'm happy to be super transparent with phone calls that you've made I think you've had a lot of different meetings with a lot of different people so that's what I was upset about Ralph I was upset because I walked into a meeting tonight and I thought okay here's the proposed budget and then I saw other iteration by other people that had other meetings so that's what I asked obvious whated session right and I'm not speaking about specifics I'm just saying Ralph brought it up and said that I was upset because I had didn't have enough information I didn't have the information that people had private meetings that's the information I didn't have okay can I comment on the on the budget sure trying for for a couple minutes here um so on the budget nobody on the board's happy including Dr hibs Miss weter like it it's nobody wants to see this we're we inherited a problem and I think the biggest thing we have to realize this is the tentative budget like Steve pointed to there we were given a lot of information in a short amount of time um it's actually pretty impressive with Dr hibs and Miss wer though in a matter of two weeks on all the information they put together for us like it's impressive it's a lot of information um we can move from this right this is just a tentative budget like this is the framework for what we have to do and we can move on from here um that that's how I feel like this doesn't have to be the final one there's still time for us to go and look at it and try to digest all the information but I think it's important to realize that this is just the tenative budget this isn't this isn't definite yet this isn't final does that make sense yeah I hope it makes sense because I just want to reiterate the same thing with the yet if we've approved this budget and it goes to the county correct Jean and then it comes back to us and we can make changes in it so all right haven't said that let's have a roll call a roll call okay this is a yes or a no okay we will start with Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Lindsay yes Mr Tomac yes Mr Serrano yes to one two three and no to four Mrs Baker yes to one two one two and three no to four Mrs Bloom yes to all and I just wanted to reiterate too we do still have some things that we want to work on and we're going to use this next month we have some ideas I'm not sure where we're going to end up but it's not like because we're voting yes tonight that everything's going to stand the way that it is so please keep that in mind thank you Mrs Chilla yes to Mr Mayo yes Mr Ross Yes I I want to qualify with that yes as you could see what we went through this evening and I don't think there's anyone here that dislikes anyone else it's just a matter of philosophy of we went up and down this budget and said yes for this no for this and Dr hibs was able to bring us together to vote for this tentative budget and like uh Stacy just indicated that we'll uh we'll be ripping it up and down before it's finalized so what is it all right so 72 pass okay that's that special education new items negotiation uh a motion and a second to approve negotiations items number one and two so moved second roll call discussion discussion uh I'll be abstaining from everything in negotiations because most of you are well aware of my wife is a teacher in District anyone else roll call lawyer has to give his zingers in here sorry guys we had a technical glitch where it look the same but it's it's not it's okay good yeah we thought that the the thought process was that we uploaded it was there are two different items but we thought that we uploaded the same thing twice which we did not so there's two separate items here good okay we're good uh any uh the roll call I'll do the roll call Y Mr L Lindsay yes Mr Serano yes Mr Tomac obstain that's right Mrs Baker yes Mrs Bloom abstain Mrs Chilla yes Mr de Mayo yes Mr Li Liberty yes Mr Ross Yes okay any new business I have one one thing you know I've been working on policies as far as what our district goals are and more so our board goals and I don't want to get into a lot of it tonight but I'm not I know that we're not going to change them right now but I would like to ponder the board Ponder not tonight but just think about the fact that we add a goal that the board seek training from the New Jersey School Board Association for board members they have a lot of training out there that I think would be help helpful as we continue as a board and I think that would be a great goal to have Okay I uh Lori do we have goals to hand out or so that they can review them or is that next week that's next week yeah I asked Lori to provide all the goals the district goals the superintendent goals and our goals so if you want to if you want to add to them or anything like that you'll have an opportunity to look at them I know they're I know they're online but uh because actually they're supposed to be um reviewed publicly four times a year and I'm not sure that we're doing that with either those set of FS there's a timeline I know March is one June is one um somewhere I wrote down the other two but that's something that do we not do that as a board is there a reason why we don't do it or have I just miss that I'd have to look into that timeline your reference and I've never heard of four time four times per year when I'm doing my training that's what I'm I'm finding out right still okay thank you P can you grab that from the training and send it yeah to so we can reference it whether it's like a recommendation or it's a requirement yes I found that some place it may have not been training it might have been the New Jersey State office and for anything else but yeah I just got a little something to say um I had the I had the the privilege to go to the uh to go to the prom uh drama theater show I have to say I was thoroughly impressed with what I saw uh I have to give a bigger shout out I mean again theater scenes not really what I do but I was very impressed with the flow of what was happening between the acts and also the stage crew I got to give a major shout out to them the scenery flop was Flawless there were no mistakes and you could definitely tell that all those kids poured their hearts in the that show and it was one heck of a performance so a big handle all those guys that did everything thank you yeah also want just give a shout out to the uh RC program um had the honor of going to the kickoff there of their review and uh they uh Regional representative came in and reviewed the whole program and drill and ceremony and everything else and they uh they had a great great review passed with I think the highest uh rating that they possibly could get so congratulations to that whole program Colonel Lumpkin and everybody else that runs it and Scott thank you and to president Ross for attending he's awesome anything else okay I just uh just want to make this public I don't know if it's a good time doing it or not but I passed out the school Representatives uh the the board member who has asked for the school I think I held that pretty good and if uh I guess the protocol is to contact you if they're going to the school yeah yeah anybody wants to visit a school just contact me let me know we'll set up a visit yeah okay uh could you uh could you elaborate a little bit uh School of school representative obviously I'm I don't really know what that really entails um is it just more like a representative for like us to go and talk to the principal for yeah if you want to go and see I I don't you guys can't go and talk to that I mean we should probably have this conversation offline the limits of what you do oh my apologies but it's definitely not to you know administer oh no no you mind if I say something go ahe just real quick I won't um because I think we should have it offline okay but um the purpose historically has been to have school Representatives so we as a board can highlight all the awesome things that are going on at every school um so for instance you know Stacy has Bells so if you know the bell's principal um she would you know obviously go through Dr Hibbs and just kind of find out what are the school events that are going on at Bells and then you know if she's allowed to visit and participate and then it just gives kind of everybody an opportunity to just report out and that's something that Ralph can decide how he wants to do it but you just kind of report out and give an idea of all the cool things going on in the district and then that way we as a board can highlight it instead of just kind of hit or miss some people go to things sometimes they don't but anyway that was the purpose of it and you know Ralph I'll let you take ownership and figure out how you want to do it but that's the spirit out there thank okay I have a motion to uh open to the public so move second all those in favor opposed okay Lan Clancy all Lane plcy 23 St we drive Turner Hill first of all I want to just mention that I know how difficult it is to be a board member so I want to thank you all for that my first thing is whether you're a new member or not your responsibility is to ask the questions ahead of time find out the information take the time to reach out if it's budget you could talk to Mr Li liberti you could talk to a dror Hibbs um they're all available you need to ask the questions ahead of time also you don't just place somebody as a head of a committee because they're new being on the policy committee is important just like any other committee so want to make a comment there um being a liaison to each school is very important because then you get to see all the great events that go on in the school um I know that when I was on the board we each had a school that we were Lea on to and it was amazing because you got to see the different great programs that go on um get to see what's going on in the the classroom the the great things that are happening in the classrooms it's important because then as a board member you know what the kids are doing and what they need just by seeing them perform or seeing them um do their certain activities it's important so I'm just telling you that um my other comment is you need to speak into those new microphones we cannot hear you so when you're talking to another board member make sure you're talking into the microphone please so that we can hear you and not trying to like figure out what you're saying so anyway I want to thank all of you for what you do thanks elen I think um your a point on going to the schools and seeing what the kids are doing I think that just kind of emphasizes where our priority has to be regarding it's the kids it's instruction that's it's all about the kids so thanks elen okay something on that on the school I think uh Shameless plug for bells I've been told right now I was uh Bells is leison but um that's what you asked for that's um no so uh seamless plug Cupcake Wars Thursday 6 to8 BS Cupcake Wars is it B cupc Bells Cupcake Wars Thursday 6 to8 um just to answer M Clancy I thought I did a pretty good job of picking those heads of the chair of the chair sorry say that again thought I did a pretty good job pick no I agree you go back and okay Charlie blue yes I want to speak uh on respect and I'm sorry that Mr lucarini left tonight as he always does a few meetings ago Mr Liber talked about respect and the lack of it on both sides of the bench during these meetings an example would be the board Lo lost the meeting of the Township High School the last meeting excuse me during the meeting a board member was speaking Mr lucarini sat in the office like a Rabbid dog he was ready to pounce and was making faces mumbled to himself and groaned audibly to the extent that the student sitting in his vicinity was looking over at him to see what the distraction was all about well I know board policy may not be able to extend what community members do in the audience the real disrespect took place when Mr lucarini came to the podium and listed off accusations against Miss Baker none of which were related to her service as a board member but instead because of the events that allegedly took place on her personal time it's not a good example for students in attendance well we don't know what other board members do on their personal time as long as they uphold the oath of office that they're reelected for it shouldn't matter one thing we do know about personal time is that Mr lucarini runs home after meetings and jumps on his computer and starts spe his slanderous garbage in emails listeners if my mem serves me correctly his school email was shut down years ago due to ambushing at township resources and disseminate some of his slanderous information here are a few examples uh none that were permitted to share during these meetings at one point Mr lucarini shared disrespectful thoughts about Mr Tomac and it ended his rant with something along the lines of I know because I taught you Mr Tomac didn't even reside in Washington Township during the years that Mr lucarini claimed to have taught him he uses false information and suggests that he personally knows something that is not common knowledge to the general public because he taught someone as if it provides more credibility to his false accusations and unknown re residents and students listening to his rants a number another example example is when he shared a slanderous email to his followers but he taught my daughter and she only got her teaching position in the district because my wife was a teacher and somehow was on the end on the hiring process and influenced the decision to to extend her a position he has this conspiracy theory that my wife is now a board member that she is somehow corrupt again this is slander and his information is false my daughter who Mr lucarini has taught had never had employment in the township she teaches in South Harrison Township at a meeting before before the board the recent Board elections Mr lucarini accused several board members of having a master we all know Mr lucarini has a master because he is someone's puppet it's evident that someone on the board feeds Mr lucarini information and you know who you are lastly it's a shame that the students and the community members have to listen to disrespect the entire board listens to Mr lucarini when he speaks but when another board member speaks some board members make faces whisper to one another Mr Ross These children's seats need to be moved as any teacher would do in the classroom thank you thank you Mr [Applause] B okay anyone else motion to close second all those in favor oppos okay okay motion uh uh Mo second all those in favor IOS as they say uh That's all folks e