[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] hey hey hey hey hey he heyy hey [Music] [Music] [Music] hey hey hey hey hey hey he hey [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] d d [Music] [Music] [Music] d [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] [Music] a e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] la [Music] [Music] [Music] B [Music] [Music] [Music] I know it is it the other way yeah yeah it's it's such a I like to call this meeting of the eam Township Board of Education to order um can I have a roll call please roll call Mr Bach here Mr Brown was a notified absence Mr Demar here Miss Fox here Mrs NL here Miss Lee here Mr Thompson was a notified absence Mr Excuse me Mr furo here and Mr conon was a notified absence we have a quorum thank you at this point in time can we please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you everyone for coming um before we start this is a little bit different than our normal meetings so just to kind of give you the lay of the land here we had our roll call or Pledge of Allegiance we're going to go straight to open public comment after that to the one item and fin Finance operations uh which is the resolution to approve the revised 2425 school budget and then from there adjournment all right so there'll be one public comment session for any items of Interest I'll go into that but I just wanted to again just in case you weren't able to see uh what the layout of today was because it's just a unique type of meeting want to kind of give you that plan and what was happening there all right so I am going to open up this uh P this uh meeting to open public comment uh for any item of Interest this this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items of Interest however if your questions pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person um if for some reason that your comments go above three minutes please feel free to email us a copy of them if uh you you so choose to want to do that is there anybody here wishes speak Mr peelman if you kindly state your name and address Kevin pman 33 snuff box Lane uh good evening I wanted to take a moment to thank Dr Smith and the board for using the tools available to them to restore teachers programs and services to the district restoring these Cuts will make a significant impact on the lives of the students which I believe is still top priority for the district I'd like to take a moment and reiterate concerns regarding the preschool expansion program there's not yet been a detailed presentation presented to the public or as far as I know to the board the presentation that we received was heavy on goals but had little substance surrounding how those goals are going to be met there are two primary concerns with moving forward with the preschool expansion program money and space for the space side the program will require 54 preschool classrooms there has been no discussion on what that will look like what schools will need to be redistricted where the students will be housed with the plan to return Evans to a full K through five school it will not be the solution to the problem this is a simple basic question that has thus far not been addressed or answered for the financial aspect no plan has been put forth with actual numbers regarding the significant expenses involved in running the program the huge additional addition in transportation and the addition of another ele School the numbers that were presented at the last meeting show that in the best case scenario the district will hopefully break even in the first year this comes from the expected $2,800,000 in state aid minus the approximately 1.5 million in costs and minus $572,000 in loss tuition payments and let's not forget that $2 million in state aid cannot be used for transportation the cost for the expected four bus drivers and four bus AIDS will not come from State funding the first year is supposed to be the easy year with a quick wins even the first year if we are lucky we will at best break even with the fact that the transportation costs can't be paid for by the state aid the district will likely lose money in the first year the fact that the presentation doesn't mention this doesn't bode well for how up front we can expect the rest of the information to be additionally we are now set to lose $1 million a year in funding to the Evans leases we will not make that money backup preschool expansion program in fact the district will have significant additional costs and paying for the additional administrative and support staff required to run both Evans and the preschool program and let us be clear the preschool expansion Grant will not cover these costs it can help pay for a portion of it but it will not cover the entire thing it can only be used up to the percentage of students in the school that are preschool students that is if 20% of the Evans students are preschool students 20% of the Evans principal salary can come from the preschool expansion funding and none of it will cover the transportation costs we'll be losing an additional $1 million in lease income and adding even more in new costs there is no plan for how the district will deal with this there have been months of meetings occasionally contentious to get to where we are now and we've been told to expect another $1 million in Cut to be required next year how can we possibly approve this plan with so little information the ramifications to the district and especially the students will be catastrophic again I implore you vote no to the preschool expansion plan take the time before the next application cycle in 2025 to figure out how exactly the plan will be implemented get Community Support excuse me please wrap up I am please don't rush this vote for the sake of fomo the future of the entire District depends on it and I know this isn't for this meeting it's for next meeting thank you it's okay Mr pman it's any items of Interest you're in your right anybody else uh wish to speak all right seeing none I'm going to close this portion of the meeting all right and now we're going to move into item three finance and operations uh I need a motion to approve item 3.1 resolution to approve the advised 20242 school budget do I have a motion motion by miss snull all right and second it hold on one second I'm sorry okay seconded by Miss Fox sorry I lost my page on here I apologize all right seconded by Miss Fox um any questions and comments before we go in Mr Mars um I just have a few thoughts I'd like to put out there regarding this plan um as it was discovered when the state of New Jersey uh passed the law that allowed districts to raise property taxes up to a certain percentage more than they are normally allowed to um I thought it was incredibly irresponsible of them for this to be their solution to the problem of state aid being reduced to the districts all across the state for the past 5 years uh in the AIS of of millions of dollars um you know and obviously each isn't the only District that's been impacted by this you have districts I'm I'm speaking to school board members teachers over in Ocean County in Thomas River who says some of their class sizes are in excess of 40 kids 40 kids which is just insane so um you know just to give perspective to how impactful that issue at the state level is for for not just our community but other communities um but tonight I I want to speak not just as a board member but as a as a recent Cherokee graduate um New Jersey is the number one state for college students that leave and don't come back I believe that one of the biggest factors that leads to that is unaffordability if we're going to you know setting aside you know the the economic factors that contribute to this with Rising housing costs inflation uh and just Cost of Living in our state being generally higher um you know those alone make you know the prospects for My Generation Um extremely Grim in terms of you know trying to continue what keeps Eve sham Township such a special town and such a special Community um and I can't vote tonight to continue to that trend of year after year of of additional property taxes um you know obviously we understood that there was going to be some level that was needed with this budget uh being that the budget was figured out being that it was addressed uh it was voted on um I I don't see the Merit in I can't look at my friends and I can't look at this generation and the Next Generation the generation that currently we are is our duty we took an oath to serve in these schools and say your community right that that that is everything from your up upbringing that everything has has shaped your values right we're going to make that increasingly harder for you to stay in as you grow older and and and I I have to urge that you know kids nowadays they're graduating college with $200,000 sometimes in student loan debt right and sometimes you know that that crisis is another crisis in of itself but again being that this was figured out being that the budget was passed I I I I simply cannot vote to continue the trend of additional property tax increases I have to say that between you know from my estimation between what we're doing here at etsd what L Regional is going to have to do what the township might have to do right people could be seeing a property tax increase of of you know on the average assess home $500 right if your home is more than the average assessed home it could even exceed that it could go higher than that and and and that to me is just it's insane like when do it stop when is it going to stop in addition looking at some of the programs that are being saved I'm not saying that those don't deserve a place in the schools and that those don't you know take it from me right I I know what it's like to watch a program that means a lot to you get thrown in the can um I I decided to join ROTC at College uh to one day uh hopefully enter the Armed Force as an officer because of the RC program in high school and that program is currently being completely washed away at the high school level uh at Cherokee high school so to know that the kids after me aren't going to receive those Services it it it's it's unfortunate but at the end of the day it's because the state of New Jersey took away so much money from our community and the legislators who write these laws they draft them not keeping eam values or so many towns values in mind but they do it instead for political purposes and and I you know I I can't give in to what the state gave us as an option I can't subscribe to a plan that follows along with what they gave us in a message saying that is okay we'll just fix it by putting it on the backs of the future generation of of Eve sham homeowners and the current homeowners the seniors the veterans the low-income folks it's it's unsustainable in addition and I'll and I'll wrap up in just a second here but some of the things that what this money is be not being spent to right talking about busing right this is an issue I'm big on I've been very clear about this safety of students uh you know we had some pickups with the roll out of the uh MMS rwood walk Zone um and you know now looking at having kindergarteners go along the same route every day where you have vehicles that according to traffic studies are are are are not following speed zones and causing extreme dangers for kids that you know that's that that's not that's not okay that for a for two bus routes it was $60,000 as far as a million dollar tax increase that we were putting on the residents of eam I do not know why that was not included in there when I go and I talk to the students themselves on the you know at the softball games right and my sister plays softball and they came up to me and they said you know bring back family consumer science and I'm like well that's something the kids want you know I I don't know if much consideration was given to that uh or or the field trips right I mean you know what's the plan for that um I'm concerned that the money we build in now with whatever the state's going to have to do later um whatever they you know funds they cut from us later there's no promise that you know even though we raise ta ta taxes now those programs are still going to be able to be there next year or the year after um so for all those reasons you know for the sake of again my generation being able to afford continuing to live in this town with all the other factors that we have going against us I cannot support the additional tax levy raised upon Eve sham townsel residents thank you any other comments or questions thank you Mr dearcy any other comments or questions I'll say something real quick um I'm not going to talk into those regards I'm going to talk more about the process of this um this has been a long and exhaustive process and I don't mean that for the board I mean that for the entire Community um I feel like we've shared in that uh since I mean honestly since really February going all the way into a date far exceeding what we normally do I have never my career passed or or edited a budget or revised a budget in the year the month of June at this point we're we're wrapping up and we're we're closing out the school year I mean my my daughter's getting clapped out next week and we're revising a school budget it's just it's odd it's an odd it's an odd year uh it is and I I understand you know there's no decision that's made here that is singular in its aspect everything everything connects there's there's a connective point a connective tissue to every decision we make nothing is singular and that's what ultimately makes this as exhaustive as it is we are constantly leading ourselves into into this path what I'm trying to say is this um I fault none of you on on your decisions because it's not where we are in terms of of how we think about this and how we think about whether it's pre school or uh we think about uh team teachers or everything um we are very invested in our ideology and our belief and sometimes and and I am just at fall this too it is sometimes very hard to Swerve out of that and even even I can get very heated and upset at times and I apologize anybody if I've ever been that way to you and I know that I have um what I'm trying to say here is this is that no matter how we go and how we turn out here all right we will move forward and we will do our best as we always do all right um how we vote primarily up to each person here and no judge or fault I try not to judge you by how you vote that's always been a a very important factor for me right uh but understand that regardless of that we will move forward we will have a meeting in two weeks and we'll keep the business as is because that's our job all the time to do the business of the Board of Education and of this Township we'll work together because we're a good board to do that and we'll work together for what's best for kids and I just want to relay that message a little bit get away from the numbers because we've been a little we've been a little crazy about that last last time and I just wanted to to pull us pull us back together to remember that that one message that's it's what we're here for our ideologies may be a little bit different our our viewpoints what's important to us may be a little bit different that's okay that's what makes us a board of nine and makes us uh unite it in our causes all right but no matter what happens here as a board I respect all of you here every one of you have worked incredibly hard all right even before this vote uh and I look forward to finishing out this with you so that's my closing comment any other questions or comments there yes I just want to say um obviously Aiden and I have different votes coming on this but I do not disagree with reasoning for your vote um we are going to be looking at this again next year and I think everyone that has sent us the emails um you you need to Lobby the state we we can only make decisions based on what we have in front of us they are the ones withholding the funds and that's really who needs to hear from parents from kids from everyone to C tail having to cut something every time we meet it seems that's it thank you Miss Fox anybody else all right let's go to a roll call please roll call vote finance and operations Mr Bach yes Mr dearcy no Miss Fox yes Mrs null yes Miss Lee yes Mr fisicaro yes that motion carries thank you Mr Yates at this point we're at 4.1 adjourn the meeting I don't have to do with myself uh so can I have a uh motion to adour Mr demarcy seconded by Miss Lee all in favor right thank you everyone have a wonderful night we'll see you in two weeks [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]