e e e e e the May 2nd 2024 special meeting board hearing excuse me budget hearing of the Weber's Township Board of Education will please come to order roll call Mr secretary M Anderson here Mr Muhammad here miss perz here Mr treaser here Mr valz here and Mr Harris here Mr sedan is just running a few minutes late he'll be joining us momentarily Mr secretary is required by the sunshine low please read the notice of meetings thank you Mr President the new Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted as follows January 25th 2024 email to the home News Tribune The Star Ledger and the municipal clerk's office posted in Ross Street School number 11 and the Board of Education Administration Building also published on the school district website thank you Mr wolferman would everyone please rise for salute to the flag in a moment of silence pledge ALG to the flag United States of America [Music] the wber sship Board of Education welcomes and encourages active productive and respectful participation by members of the public and seeks to protect the First Amendment right to those who engage in the exercise of free speech at this Board of Education meeting members of the public are requested to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy of those whose legal rights May be impacted the public is now invited to speak regarding the agenda being presented this evening when you come to the microphone please provide your name and the section of the Township in which you reside along with the specific agenda item you wish to discuss as per regulation 1100d comments must be limited to no more than 5 minutes no response will be given until you have completed your opportunity to speak anyone wishing to speak this evening please come to the microphone good evening Paul lond hope La hi just to be sure it seems the agenda item is very straightforward it is the budget right in finance that's correct yes sir um I did a little calculation being a math teacher I I took the number for the budget 362 mil 68237 divided it by the number of students as of this writing was 13,830 and I arrived at 23,00 898 per student um and I'm just I'm guessing it's accurate but if it's in the ball park I'm wondering if you can confirm that for me um and then the last question it seems the prior year budget was 330 mil 560,000 and change so we're looking at a 30 million year-over-year increase so uh probably a little bit less than 10% I just want to make sure my my figures are are roughly in the ballpark are those your only two questions this okay great uh yes so your your mathematical calculation is accurate however the Department of Education as Mr wolman who I'll defer to here will tell you that that's generally not how they calculate the per student spending there are certain items that are certainly out of there Mr wolman did you want to allude to uh to address that any further do you know which dollar amounts are typically not calculated Mr L yeah uh as Mr Harris has said the way to calculate a per student cost is not necessarily just looking at that if you want to email me I can get you that information um so that you have an accurate number for it and again with last year's compared to this year's you're looking at only a a you know a snapshot of what's here but email me I'm happy to provide all that data for you thank you very much and and your question regarding year-over-year spending we were fortunate to get another $24 million from the from the state uh via state aid uh we get additional uh uh monies through you know Medicaid as well as you know finally the 2% tax increase that's associated with um you know the the tax levy increase however as you may have read through tap into or if you watched our our meeting yesterday or excuse me last week you heard that we're taking money out of surplus and we're paying down debt which cumulatively as Mr wolferman could tell you in far greater detail results in a net negative or net reduction in the tax levy this year on residents on the average household good news thank you yes you're welcome thanks for being here anybody else wishing to speak all right with that we'll go over to the finance and insurance agenda Mr tree baser thank you Mr President the finance and insurance committee on recommendation of the superintendent of schools and the business administrative board secretary presents the following one item I move for the adoption of the forgoing I have a motion by Mr tree waser do I have a second second I have a motion by Mr Tree waser seconded by Miss Perez are there any comments or questions from the board saying none Miss Anderson yes Mr Muhammad yes Mr valz yes Mr Harris yes is there any old business this should be brought before the board this evening any new business from the board none and lastly in keeping with past practice we'll Now open up the meeting for public comment when you come to the microphone please provide your name in the section of the Township in which you reside as per regulation 1100d comments must be limited to no more than 5 minutes no response will be given until you've completed your opportunity to speak anyone else wishing to [Music] speak Paul lond hopon I have to look up uh the page I had a second ago so I may use some of my five minutes for that purpose thank you and this is based on uh president comment you made at the last discussion at Town Hall over the new elementary school or the okay uh and um your concern over a couple Charter Schools pulling some students out of the uh the ZIP code schools or the main schools in Arizona there's 77,4 uh students that benefit from what I learned about recently something called an empowerment scholarship account and it's described as parents having the right to choose what's best for their family and have their education tax dollars pay for the school that meets their child's needs I think we have to uh recognize that there's diverse needs whether it's special needs or uh needs of um conscience you know not everyone agrees with with Dei they find it to be very divisive and disempowering to children not everyone agrees with with uh teaching second graders that uh gender is a choice with the esa program the money that would pay for that student's education in a neighborhood School follows that student to whichever School the parents choose for their child including education at home Esa dollars cover multiple education expenses such as private school tuition curricula educational supplies tutoring and more and my question is what's wrong with that is that your only question this say it is all right great well I will New Jersey we don't we don't have a I you know I'll speak from this from a professional standpoint as well we don't have a a voucher program like some other states do where taxpayers if you will or parents could take a sum of money that the government provides them to go shopping and and choose a school they're they're liking that's that's something New Jersey has uh as a matter of fact there there actually is a proposal before the legislature couldn't tell you where that's going to go we've seen that in the past Governor Christie had the opportunity scholarship act proposal back in the day that that ultimately never went anywhere uh I I think as you know uh I I think you've taught at Catholic schools and other non nonpublic professionally parents have certainly the the right to to choose to send their their children to those schools they have a right to homeschool their children as well uh but uh there isn't money that that follows that and and I think New Jersey's position has been that uh tax dollars are not all a cart where you get to simp choose pick and choose where where and how that money is spent you you you get the right uh at uh every November at the general election to choose how your how your government operates so that's that's my position on it I couldn't speak for the state of New Jersey up here on why certain programs do and and don't exist so that's uh that's my take on it I can tell you from a charter school standpoint we have 80 students projected next year to attend Charter Schools attending nine different charter schools in in the region from Nork to planfield to Franklin to New Brunswick to peran boy 80 for that whole region yeah 80 for for just woodbrige Township uh the number of students that that happened to attend charter schools and of course I think last year when we were going through the aid in Le of Transportation matter that that came up when the state didn't provide us as much a in Le of transportation to provide transportation to our non-public students I think there's nine Catholic schools that uh that our students uh happen to attend whether a St Joe's or St Thomas and uh uh I apologize I lost my train of thought where I was headed with that but um you know that's so to to butress your argument to to some degree is we have many families in our community who who elect to to send their students to to a nonpublic school district and we have students and parents who send their students to to County vocational schools the the Middle Magnet School so there's there's there's Choice today and people exercise it for sure yeah it's just de facto difficult for a parent like myself I'm paying between my state income tax and 60% of my property tax around 7,000 a year is going toward the public school system and now if I had children I want to put in parochial and pay tuition on top of that it it's it's prohibitive and that's why I asked you know and you guys don't it's not a state option right now my question was what your take would you welcome the competition basically I think the competition already exists there today so if okay and I I think we we provide a competitive education that uh I sort of disappointed that the students and their families decide to to go out of District uh to the charters I I think we we provide a better experience because I last year we have about 55 of our students attend the uh minis County STEM Academy it's the per emboy charter school I I elected to go check it out how uh 55 of our students are going there why you know what are they doing better than us and you know they seem to be a caring uh Community but frankly I thought our facilities are far better and I we offer competitive salaries to our to our teachers teers and um I I would put up our educational program next Thurs any day of the week okay thank you president thank you thank you have a good night you too anybody else wishing to speak this evening uh good evening John verar I don't know I don't know what was said or not before but uh you know the question was that people are very concerned because the number you know you talk about again 10% from last year I we don't know previous year before that how much was it people just care because we all know things are not easy over there uh are those things planned before uh some federal grants were supposed to come into the budget or state or federal or somebody else but it's just a a big big big number when you tell people how how much the Schoolboard me scho budget they kind of said you can't believe it I said well that's what it is you know we used to make fun of it is to say the osber park school cost $35,000 to send a kid to Asbury Park school and they were fail in schools and I don't know we are close to it but you took about 360 some million dollar for 40 some th000 kids that's awful lot of money uh question would be that I would ask is the what's going to happen next year it's going to go something not 10% year after 10% 10 this is not a now and you know not for a while because uh if you look at it it's not easy they talk to the people like most of us do uh they're crying they're crying you know he said then you know most what I don't like to hear he said why do they do pay because I don't have a kids in schools no more I said well somebody pay when you kids went to school I agree with it now you people do great job and I mean if you look for some other Source before you kind of a make a decision I'm sure you did already but again the question would be additional schools you going to have to build that's going to be additional money it's going to come to the average taxpayers and I don't know when you take the all those uh what you call it the the the call warehouses all those project all those are they affected too because they don't pay school taxes so they don't care and so comes to the average taxpayer average working may like Paul just said every individual uh I don't say you you are kind of a um throwing it away I I agree with it but again can we look into it kind of tighten the belt a little bit and see before the all this morning is coming from because we don't know what's going to happen next year yeah next year next year and it's uh it's scary you know we don't want to scare the people they're going to turn around they get let me get the hell out of here you know how many people I meet over those years that I moved to Carolina would there why why why Texas Texas Texas then I did talk to a friend of mine just went to Carolina supposed to to move there two months and decide not to go there because they said well listen you know uh you got a 9% sales tax over there which I didn't know most of us probably don't know my my Social Security will be take 70% if I move there so some people just go because of a property tax is high and it's not the people with the money I would that's people with the you know they have that kind of money but we got to take care of them to stay here you know it's it's not not that I don't see people with a big more money coming to Woodbridge period you follow me I don't see people from exclusive communities move to Woodbridge I'm bu 60 years here I don't see those people coming here we know it's was coming people those people are penny pinching and like now most in apartments and of course the land is going to have to raise the tax to TI is I don't say you didn't do it but I said let's look into it because last couple years we get a lot of money from state from the governor are we going to get any more money because 10% from somebody else to pay for this budget so if you can hold on something that to do it now of course I said before if you build a new schools you're going to buy again for new schools and uh it's scary you know that's all I want to say I'm sorry I wasn't earlier so know what's going on but I'm telling you what people telling me what people that we talk about it so I'm sure they probably telling you too and you we hear I I I do believe you make cor right decision but again let's just for help from somebody else to help us thank you thank you thank you as uh noted earlier the uh the the jump in the size of the budget 95% of it was attributable to the the aid in um the the last payment if you will of what the state was ramping up on school aid uh this was as you know Mr wolferman may call it in his field in County was like a balloon payment 24 million of our 127 million in state aid was this year and this now becomes you know I I can tell you professionally this becomes sort of a plateau in year seven of seven of a seven-year ramp up so this should be our number and I know uh in conversations with Dr matam Mano and Mr wolferman that this becomes sort of the Baseline for us we shouldn't expect a dramatic increase or dramatic decrease relative to school aid because the school aid for formula has been in place since 2008 approved by the New Jersey Supreme Court and it should remain uh level from here on out and the formula goes back to money following the students so unless we have a 100 students move out of our district next year or gain 100 students would our would our numbers fluctuate significantly so uh we're we're pleased to have that that state support from the state and uh as I pointed out uh before the the most recent speaker got here was that we are being responsible with that money there's there's not a significant increase in in uh and programmatic spending in fact for the first time in our first opportunity that we had to do so now that we have uh flat school funding is that we provided a tax decrease which is a significant deal uh as I pointed out in a couple writings as board president that for years wber Township taxpayers were carrying a larger load of the tax burden because the state was under was underfunding us now our first opportunity to uh show respect and appreciation to our taxpayers we're sending money back to them so uh that concludes my remarks uh unless anyone else wishes to speak this evening the chair will Entertain Entertain a motion to adjourn so motion I have a motion by Mr Tre waser do I have a second second second by Mr Sedana all in favor hi carried have a good night everybody we'll see you on May 16 [Music]