even to the flag of the United States of americais andice Melissa you can call the roll please miss miss crisal miss holl here Mr P here Mr sa Mr sh is Mr here okay notice of the April 29th 2024 meeting of the Board of Education was emailed to the clerks of the Burrows of essexfells North cwell rosand and to the township of Fairfield and the editor of the progress on January 5th 2024 and the Star Ledger on the same day okay we have the privilege tonight of having our business administrator give us her budget presentations I'll turn over to all right hi everybody you know this is my favorite part of my job um the budget process this year was not as easy as it has in years past not as easy but it was a little bit harder but um the budget process just for a quick recap before I get into the actual presentation the process starts in December uh we start with the salaries and benefits piece we move into to meetings with all the admin team here uh to see what they need and what we're expecting for next year we go off of our goals what our district goals are what our plans are and then uh the budget comes together this year we had it was a little bit tighter but we made it work and I'll you'll see it in the slides here um so what did this budget do so this budget maintains all of our existing District staff academic offerings extracurricular activities and trans ation um new we added an additional staff member um at the middle school um the high school 100 Wing which is our Arts and Music Wing that is having the whole Wing will be renovated this summer by our own maintenance staff we are on this agenda tonight you will be approving the bid opening that we had for the culinary arts and stem rooms but this is an addition to that uh and also it gives us additional security cameras and it meets the increases of salaries and benefits and operational costs so here's some of the information oops wait I think I hit it again okay we're good uh so the breakdown of the budget so the total general fund is 47 m274 22 the special Revenue fund which is grant money is $332,000 again I don't know this dollar amount this is a g until I apply for Grants so this is you know a guess at this point The Debt Service fund is $75,600 for a grand total of 48,1 14,48 okay I can't really see a screen that great but um so for regular programs for instruction that is just our general Ed salaries so that is 14, 371,000 um our schedule B positions and their their supplies $385,900 Athletics so that is all the coaching all the stiens uh and the athletic director secretary is 1,423 781 tuition that is out of District tuition this is one of our bigger line items so out of District tuition is 4,49 4,675 that is an increase of 1, 24,1 which is 29. 51% increase that increase this year for next year is so big because we have um students that are transitioning up to seventh grade that that are out of districts at the sending districts so we are now incurring the cost of that so that is that why that line is so skewed this year uh attendance Health Services guidance child s that's salaries and supplies is up about 31% instructural staff Training Services that's our PD lines that went down 3.04% obviously to accommodate some of these other line items that went up a lot I had to cut back a little bit on some things so PD PD will be down a little bit for next year media library services that includes the tech department that's up 1.95% General admin is down 7.28% School administration is down 1.96% Central Services and infot Tech is 575 uh oh sorry is up 99.6% uh that again is just a real allocation of funds operations of Maintenance and plant is down 1.7% transportation is down 2.12% but I just want to make this clear the only reason that trans is down is not a cut on regular busing I took a little bit of money out of the um field trip line because just so that you're all aware uh fairfields cut their busing so because fairfield's cutting buses we are incurring the cost for the buses that they have cut so we had to incur an additional $500,000 in transportation costs for next year so we had to cut from different bis um the employee benefits the the state is expected to go up a little over 15% next year so that's why you see that 15.95% increase not only did the actual health benefits go up but so did prescription so that's that increase capital atlay I didn't take any capital reserve out through the budget process so that's just down 7139 Charter School tuition we now have two Charter students and we now need to account for their their uh tuition so what they do the state does is they take this $ 48,1 for6 out of our state aid so that we could fund the charter school program so we have to show it on the expenditures and show it on the revenue side um special Revenue funds again is up 30,000 that's our grants I I would I'm hoping for more but I always am a little bit lower so that we're not over realizing money either uh debt service is down 0.6% and decreased $300 this is just a pie chart because I know a lot of times people want to see where does the money go um so this will all be posted on the website too if you wanted a closer look but obviously the instructional lines take up the majority of our money that's about 47% and that's your your salary lines and the rest kind of all falls into place so about 47% is salary and an additional 16% is benefits so when they say salary and benefits are the biggest items on a budget it's true that's about 63% of the budget so revenues and tax information um so the tax levy this year we were able to get an enrollment adjustment and a um benefits adjustment a healthcare adjustment so because we were able to take both both of those adjustments we were able to go over the 2% cap so next year's tax levy increase will be 3.22% um add of District tuition these are special ed students that we received from other districts went up $811 miscellaneous Revenue went up you'll see it has a significant jump 22.9% but that's because this year we were able to adjust our bank account our interest rate so from last year what we actually Revenue would be to what it's been has increased so Revenue had a catch up to us so it's at 900,000 we are at like 3.91% on our money for interest rates so we are definitely making more money than we had been um state aid went up 14.51% budgeted fund balance so that increased $339,500 so that was a 67.9 3% increase so just so you know what budgeted fund balance is is at the end of the year when we get audited on the prior year there's money left over and what do you want to do with that money so some goes into an unassigned fund balance and in that fund balance currently sits around like 1.4 million we use 500,000 this B this district has always used $500,000 to budget their B their um budget ever since I came so it's always been 500,000 this year because the budget was so tight especially with the increased trans ation costs coming out of Fairfield or out of District stuff I had to take a larger fund balance to budget to balance the budget we are looking into that to make sure that next year we're we're good at 500,000 we will work through that but um that's the increase so so the money exists it's just sitting in an unassigned fund balance the rest of the money always transfers over into capital reserve Accounts at the June 30th you see that um or maintenance Reserve so just to explain that to you that that we're not pulling capital reserve out through the budget there's no need we're using maintenance Reserve but we're also doing all those classroom Renovations and the 100 Wing um encumbrances at the end of the year through the audit encumbrances roll over from year to year that's money exists in 2324 because we had 434,881 because that doesn't exist yet we don't know what will we will end the year with open grant money uh local so local Source grant money that would be Wei and stuff we don't budget for that we don't know what's coming from anybody with grants federal grants was increased $30,000 Debt Service decreased $300 let me see if this work I might have went to screens ahead um again this is a pie chart just to show you where the money comes from obviously the majority of a District's money a school district's money comes from the tax levy that's our biggest thing um for us then you see debt services at 1% the other biggest one this year State a is 6.3% miscellaneous revenue is only 1.8% and miscellaneous Revenue just so you know is um from facility rentals the Chromebook fee pay to play that helps to offset the cost of are programming too so here's a budget comparison from 23 24 to 2425 um so you'll see that obviously the tax levy has gone up um and I mean the whole the budget itself has gone up but that's just a comparison chart for you guys so balancing District needs with local funding so again this is where everybody asked that question so our total expenditures are 48,1 4,485 our Revenue which is state aid miscellaneous Revenue budgeted fund balance tuition um I just blanked on one all the other things other than the tax levy is built into that Revenue number of 5,41 2016, 1871 so the overall tax levy is 42 mil so the big question we always get asked is what is the tax impact on an average assessed home value in each town so this is a chart again this is a guess this information is as of March um I can't speak to this these are the numbers they gave me I can't speak to what they do when your taxes roll out but I can tell you that this is what we're guesstimating so Ells your percentage share that you send here every year October 15th I have to do a state report called the Assa that accounts for every student that's currently enrolled in the district as of October 15th and then through that report I have to say how many kids live in Essex FS how many are from Fairfield North cwell rosand that then because we're a regional district determines the percentage share of the tax levy that each of these towns is responsible for so sxfs your percentage share decreased um by 3966 all those little numbers there so they had a decreas which means that their property tax for our district is decreasing $95.62 for the year $7.97 per month decrease fairfields their percentage share actually decreased this year uh they were sending less students here so they but they just had I believe they are it either just went through or going through I don't know if that you guys went through um a reassessment recently the the town the dollar amounts changed a little bit that they the town sent me so the increase for Fairfield is $706 and the monthly increase would be $584 North Caldwell had an increase in students out are sent here their average increase is $272 74 per month is approximately $22.76 and rosand increased the student share and they are going up about 173 84 for the year 1449 a month um just so you know these numbers come from the town when we asked for them they send us your net valuation taxable and then they give me your average assessed home value and I plug it into my spreadsheet and that's where these approximate costs come from so it's all information that the the towns gave me as of March so any questions I would contact the town not me but I'm just telling you it's my spreadsheet calculator so um that's it thank you guys thank you does anybody anybody have any questions yes so so far there's only two students this is the first time we've ever had Charter students um so one is a current a student that left from here and one is actually one coming up from the elementary schools so I don't know if we'll see an increase in that number um but this was the first time I've ever seen it since I've been here for eight years so yes so we'll look we're g to everybody knows that we be meeting again to kind of go through our numbers for next year we'll start earlier this year because we might go down to a zero based budget where you need to work for every dollar that you want to you have to prove that you need every dollar of your supply account every dollar of your textbook account we always give like we sit down your supply account is $2500 all right that's a fair number that get you what you need for the year their textbooks they do get me quotes for that we I add a little bit of extra in there because when they get me quotes it's in the winter so I have to add for a little bit more in there just in case because when we order it's June but for zero base budgeting you start with zero dollars and you need I need 50 pencils how much is 50 pencils I need two gallons of paint how much is paint like it would be an actual itemized like pretend you have nothing and work your way through it so we might be looking at something like that for next year but we we would start that process way earlier um everybody knows I mean we've been all speaking that we would be meeting earlier in the year it's not that they get just anything that they want but we've always just kept it the same and if they don't use everything at the end of the year that rolls into our Surplus next year I don't know that Surplus will be as big given that we have more out of District students coming in you know which increase our out of District tuition costs so we're just trying to I'm planning for the worse but hoping for the best I'm very you know I like to know that I'm in good shape so we will start earlier to really look at everybody's accounts and what they need and what their wants are and what we need I can so we received seven out of District tuition students for next year I believe I can't say the towns but I think it's seven we're between like seven and eight that are coming in and those out of District tuitions alone the cost of them when they came to us was about $750,000 alone for those seven students and then on top of that it's just that out of District tuition can increase 10% whereas a school budget could increase 2% so on top of that you're adding in the kids that we already have that we place out of District that can increase up to 10% on top of it so that's why that line jumped so much this year that that was the 1 million that went up 1,241 30 so that was so we received so incoming seventh graders there's approximately seven of them I seven I think maybe six seven it's definitely s it's definitely seven okay and they're out of District these seven students and they're out of District tuition for their placements cost about approximately $750,000 I don't know the exact number off the top of my head I know it's around 750 but then on top of that um Liz and her Childs side team they keep a they have a spreadsheet and then on that we look at what the tuition goes up for each out of District placement so they can increase up to 10% and then their AIDS their any other services summer school all goes into account so that line went up significantly compared to where it's been years past but it's really what what we like what's coming up to us from the sixth into seventh yes yes yes in terms of what do you mean like I could transfer yeah so that's that goes through the board so that's part of that like when you do the treasures report when you approve the treasures report and then you have a monthly transfers on there so for like February you for this board me you have February's treasur report then you have Fe February's transfer report you could see I put like why I'm transferring the money and what account it's coming from and two and the dollar amount so yes I can reallocate money within the budget as needed if I get over um 5% I have to apply to the county it's about 5% I think um no maybe a little bit more but around 5% I have to apply to the county for the approval from the my my County VA I've never really been there um because if there are certain lines that you can transfer within but if you go from say transportation from tuition to Transportation if it goes over the cap then you have to apply to the county for the transfer any other questions okay thank you than job okay so I'll I'll read the budget adoption of the 2024 2025 school year budget will be voted upon in one motion and Ive Miss yes Miss Christal yes Miss H yes Mr par yes Mr Miss C Miss thank you moving on I just have one thing I want to mention in my board president's report um Mary mcginness uh our athletic um secretary she's on the agenda tonight we will be approving her retirement um I just want to mention she's been with the district for over 22 years or just finishing her 22nd year and if anyone has been to the athletic department she runs um she runs it well um she's been a big part of our school district for many years and um just want to wish her well in her retirement and um hope she enj I just want to commend Melissa on putting together another um another uh great budget we're very lucky to have Melissa on our staff here she keeps our um District financially stable so thank you Melissa uh I do also want to mention uh Marian mcguinness's retirement um as um as wajt said 22 years in the district um I had the pleasure of working with Marian for seven years and um anybody that goes in the athletic office knows that Marian is is really the person that um she's the glue to keep that department together and I know that the coaches and the staff and the faculty definitely miss her tremendously and certainly um we wish her the best of luck in her um retirement um I just have a couple things um congratulations to our middle school and high school for being designated uh by the ADL as a gold star no place for hate school for the 23 24 school [Applause] year um several of students staff a couple of our board members will be attending a banner ceremony in New York City on uh May 22nd to be recognized by the ADL um from the New York New Jersey region um we will proudly come back with our Bann and display each of our schools um I definitely need to just uh extend a thank you to all of our students um the program is very student driven so I just want to thank the students for buying in and really all of our staff members our teachers for executing the lessons in their classes the administrators um and the supervisors for their flexibility and allowing us to come into the different content areas throughout the school year because um that program would not work if we didn't have buyin across all departments um I do want to thank um our culture and climate coordinators uh Dr Westerville and Mrs Hol and um for for taking the program and and doing a great job and I also want to give a shout out to Dr dun leevy for actually bringing the ADL uh no place for hate program to to the district um at the beginning of the school year so um a team effort there um a couple other things academic achievement day um Caesar and the staff did an awesome job so awesome that we'll be running it again next year um just another great day uh to celebrate student achievement bring uh guests into our building and get to get a feel uh for what it's like to be a West ess6 student and and um get and receive a West essic education um so kudos to the high school for that um great job to both buildings uh for bring your child to work day we had over a hundred students attend um and thank you to all the staff members that provided our uh our facult faculty and staff all their kids with just really exciting activities uh for the day um couple other things um I sent um the spotlight the wires uh spotlight video to the board um if you get a chance take a look uh the stories where there where they have interviews and video footage showcasing uh different topics that were chosen by the students I know this month they have um facilities and services there a on the buildings and grounds department and um pomton and food service and then there's a feature on um some of our staff members U Mr dberto the principal Tony emmering Christina pavetta and Dean rajac um so if you get a chance I would encourage you to check out the videos uh they're pretty cool and last um just in the Athletics World um Mr manella our athletic director has been selected by the Essex County athletic director asso with the super conference to be recognized as the 2024 athletic director of the year so Mr manell has been an athletic director for nine years and as we all know he's retiring so congratulations to uh Anthony he'll be attending a banquet on May 6th well we're he will be honored in front of his friends family and uh colleagues and last in the Athletics World coach madori also known as Mondo reached 3 career wins this week or last week in a home Victory vers Milbourne she's been our head softball coach since 2005 and um she was able to achieve that Milestone here on our home field with um alumni family and um friends uh in attendance so congratulations [Applause] Manda that's all I have I'll turn it over to uh Jocelyn wedn others plans that College School I've already seen the stress for many students with multiple AP sessions that place after school and even ons over and there's just a lot of teers students ACH and hopefully Willen two weeks and after the exams will be Oni service and Will May 1i are loal synes and churches and some will be going back to their elementary schools I will be staying at the school and helping out the art I'll still be in scho as May team will re team is stilling on and final activity that is not required but just to give ourselves a little back [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] also congratulations any other comments from the um I just want to um reiterate about academic achievement day it was my third one um I thoroughly enjoyed it um Mrs vtz and I um were bombarded with a lot of questions from students I guess they thought oh I've got people here maybe we can get things and we told them they needed to go through Joselin and then they needed to come and stand at the podium but needless to say they had some good ide I mean there was one that was a little crazy but um given that there were a lot of things that they really wanted us to understand about their day and and we told them they were great ideas you know we would never squash them and they just needed to find you know go through the chain of command and bring them to us so it was great it was very different than the other two academic days um of course we went into family Fe which that's you know always the best and um it's it's a nice feeling to be in the school with the kids because you know we just sit up here at these tables and do with adults and it's just um I don't know just kind of brings you back to what you're really sitting here for and it's for these kids and to listen to them and what they want um I think I have a different level of it because I went here um so it's like being back at school again you know so it it's just a great day and I have to say that we had thank you to miss hobot waffles hot waffles fresh I mean like oh my God it was the permeating of the smell just like you know it was great so it was a great day congratulations to everyone who participated the students the staff the administration it was just nice it was a nice feel for the day great I will add on to that I do you know know was this year but I do appreciate and I do enjoy the um the honor societies how they each have their ceremonies you know sometimes there at nights you know I try to go as many as I can over the years but you know there's so many different nights so it is kind of nice to have it Go each one yes that you can go from one to one in the day so um I did I did like that soet induction cere don't remember lasty M as want to just thank the administrators for coming tonight um you know our budget is benefits all of us so we listen the we definitely appreciate you guys coming out here tonight suppor bu us and our students all right at this time we'll open up the floor for public comments on agenda items comments questions comments misso Miss chrisal yes Miss holl yes Mr yes Miss yes Miss yes Debbie Holland would you like bu coms Miss CH Miss H yes Mr P Miss yes questions comsa yes Miss cisal yes Miss H yes Mr C yes Miss yes Frank do you want to take curriculum please sure the following curriculum slenda it questions comments misso Miss chrisal Miss h yes Miss Calderone yes Miss bwoods yes questions or comments Miss yes Miss cral yes Miss H yes Mr PR yes Miss Calderon yes Miss yes um I also just want to mention um on our miscellaneous items on our agenda uh for the public to be aware there are some changes to our calendar um Monday May 13th 2024 will be a regular school day it was previously a two-hour delayed opening um for students PD for staff Thursday May 23r will be session day 127 dismissal for students and staff and Friday May 24th we will close the school um Usinger everyone have Frid weekend and D almost got Christmas card taking off his list all right I just want to make the public aware of that and St okay do we have any um I'll open up for non-agenda item anybody have any public comments on non-agenda items great