[Music] good evening today is Wednesday March 20th 2024 6:30 p.m. we're here for our regular board meeting before that we're going to have confidentials so we'll start with roll call please Mr grippo Dr Hopkins inos senio Mr Jackson pres Miss Lort Miss Maris Mr Parker present Mr Shaban miss here just for the record Sammy will not be attending the meeting tonight uh can we have the open public meeting act please in accordance with the open public meetings ACT public law 1975 chapter 231 Sunshine Law copies of the meet public meeting notice were sent to The Courier News the home News Tribune The Star Ledger the Franklin reporter tap into Franklin Township Franklin Township Clerk manager district schools offices and associations PTO presidents and posted on the district website thank you can I get a motion to adjourn to confidential session for the purpose of discussing confidential matters including a student matter a special education settlement agreement and workers compensation settlement agreement minutes of the confidential session will be made public when the reason for confidentiality no longer exists I heard Nancy and then I heard Mr grippo thank you so we're adjourned we'll be back okay good evening today is still Wednesday March 20th 2024 we are back from confidential session not coming through you can't hear us is it better okay so while Albert helps Mr grippo just want to let the public know that we were in confidential session for the purpose of discussing confidential matters including a student matter a special education settlement agreement and workers compensation settlement agreement minutes of the confidential session will be made public when the reason for confidentiality no longer exists we're going to request Dr aali who's already on the podium ready for his presentation to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the United States of America to the for it stands one na indivisible andice thank you can I get a motion to adopt the agenda please moved by Nancy second seconded by Lori all in favor thank you um we will not have a student representative rep report unfortunately our students car had of flat tire so she can't make it and for the minutes our vice president Samy Shaban will not be in attendance tonight and we move on to Dr rali for his preliminary budget fiscal year 25 presentation great thank you president Singh so this is the 2425 preliminary budget presentation uh March 20 2024 and just a reminder the preliminary budget is not the finalized budget preliminary budget once reviewed and approved by the board get submitted to the county office the executive County Superintendent on behalf of the New Jersey Department of Education reviews it with his staff and finalizes it once it's finalized then it gets advertised and then the board in a hearing format which is different than this format um we'll host a second opportunity for me to review the budget and uh steveen Mr freed to review the budget with the board and the public that will be in a forum that that is a public hearing at which point different than this form we would actually be taking audience questions after the presentation is over as well as board questions but for the preliminary budget that's not the format so we'll make this presentation I'll turn it back over to you Miss sing we'll entertain board questions first then we'll sit down and then during the public comment section that would be the opportunity for community members to ask questions on the preliminary budget since it's not finalized so I guess why I told you that long why I gave you that long explanation because if you have any questions write them down because you're going to have to wait until uh the public comment the first public comment session would qualify for this because the preliminary budget approval is a motion on the agenda so you'll have an opportunity to ask those questions then okay on with the presentation here are our board members all of them are sitting here in front of you already um those that have an asteris next to their name they are members of our finance committee and I thank them for working hard in helping us to uh arrive at what you're about to see and notice the double asteris that identifies Miss Maris as our finance chair these are our budget managers and you can see there are a lot of folks that are involved in development of a budget a school budget um listed here is probably about 40 40 some odd folks uh superintendent of schools assistant superintendent for business so forth and so on 10 building principles all our content academic content supervisors our athletic director all these folks manage a piece of our school budget and all of these folks have input on our school budget as we build it for the next school year during this school year the goals for tonight we're reviewing with you the budget calendar we're going to review the previously approved budget goals we're going to receive Board of Education input and then public comment again during the public comment portion of the meeting uh which comes shortly after review estimated revenues and then review next steps um here is just the budget calendar you can see the my purpose of showing this Steve's purpose of showing this is I want everyone to understand this process begins in September so we're building we begin building the school budget for next school year as early as September of the year that we're in so it's a long process we got lots of folks involved as I said and we finally arrive at this meeting which is this year March 20th and then shortly thereafter we'll submit hopefully the approved preliminary budget to the executive County Superintendent once we have authorization Mr Fred will advertise that budget and then we'll host our hearing on April 25th after approved on April 25th the budget is then uploaded to the software and becomes available to staff to begin the process of procuring goods um as early as July our fiscal year for as a reminder runs July 1 to June 30th budget goals so our C begins every year in September with the board providing some direction to the administrators in the form of budget goals these are three of our budget goals and I'm not going to read them to you you're all very capable of reading them I'm certain but why I display this slide is because I want to make crystal clear that these goals also align very well to our Board of Education annual goals so our budget goals marry are board goals and those blue things are hyperlinks so when when this is posted online after this meeting you'd be able to go back and review all that not only do our budget goals align to our board goals but our budget goals also align to our strategic plan goals right it's important that we set a strategic plan we approved that strategic plan earlier this year a new three-year strategic plan and here is demonstrating how our budget goals for this year linked well to our strategic plan so budget goals align to our board goals budget goals aligned to our strategic plan goals which then allows us to set our budget and that's what keeps us focused during the budget building process when we have so many folks working on it the challenge every year we have challenges we want to support and grow programs while staying in whatever Revenue limits we might have and each year that challenge is different I want to highlight some of the challenges this year our first challenge increases in health care costs greater than 10% so that's a challenge right now we know we've got we've put strategies in place to help control Rising health care costs and fortunately that's helped to contain that number because many districts are facing numbers that are even greater than that so I think things like our health center will help to even further contain the growth of that line as we move forward but as we know healthc care gets is expensive and every year those costs become more challenging we have anticipated an increase in transport ation costs consistent with inflation you know gas prices are up uh driver shortages all of those things Drive the cost of Transportation we're actually out to bid on a new multi-year contract so we don't have an actual number there we can only anticipate cost consistent with inflation and um that's what we hope to see increase of approximately 12% in estimated Charter tuition that's a big number for us that's a $2.3 million increase increase and when we're talking about a growth limit of 2% on a tax levy that eats up 75% of that before we even do anything else so that's a big challenge for us a decrease in state aid of roughly 400,000 not a big percentage but it's money so those are the real challenges with this budget um so with all that said let's highlight some of the things we were able to maintain and some of the things we were able to add despite all this so one of our goals is to ensure the physical and mental well-being of our students and safety of our students and many of these things here are either new expenses or existing expenses that we're choosing to maintain and again given the challenges we had not an easy thing for us to do do first and foremost we know that kids face behavioral crisis every now and then there's a new expenditure that has come about in recent years and that is what used to be a free service to us at the county level is now a Charged service so the uh psychological screening services that once came to us um through the county is now for each screening we're charged it's a minimal amount but it's a new charge right so we've got to prepare for that um funds to support our transportation you know we're rebidding all of our transportation for a new multi-year contract that's yet to be returned it'll be returned shortly before the budget's finalized um but we are anticipating that it'll be at least consistent if not more than um inflation expanding three part-time security officer the full-time um obviously there's benefit costs associated with that funds to continue operation Great Expectations that's a mentoring program at our high school a community mentoring program at our high school that we feel has and we heard about that program last month if you remember when the OG folks were here to talk to us and we feel it's it's it's paying some dividends um we want to support our effective School Solutions program uh which is a a really a team of social workers that we use a Consulting Group that we use that support our kids um at the secondary level funds to support the adoption of a new threat assessment software piece so you know we have a module a new module that we're adopting uh there's new code in place as of this year that every school district conduct threat assessments and there is a module to our current software called hibster that will allow us to manage that more effectively so we're needing to add that in good news is we've expanded our maintenance our our surveillance systems we're done with that work but that doesn't mean it's over right so now it's our job to maintain them so we' budgeted some dollars in here to maintain that we're working on a meal enrichment program we're hoping to Pilot some of that at the very end of this school year but we'd like to see that happen next year um at one of our smaller schools that has the highest level of uh free and reduce population and we would like to do some kind of after school enrichment SL uh meal program funds to support operating our school-based health center we have a partnership with the township as you all know and we are about to bid out thanks to the township um who is going to help us to build a school-based health center we're about to bid that work out and they're doing that through a grant and then we'll operate it we'll have someone else we're partnering with with zu fall uh medical folks to staff it but we will have some expenses be that minimal uh energy costs and whatnot utilities to run that so we've got it's not a building we have so it's something we have to prepare for two is really our specialized programs our PR prek programs so forth and so on that's our budget goal and I wanted to let you know that we've got a lot of things in here we're maintaining and some things we're growing the first one is Grant funded but part of our operating or part of our expenses and that is we're adding another 85 prek seats that should give us um a little over 800 seats if I'm correct which means uh 8 years ago we had about 100 seats and we've grown that by 700 so we're using private providers we're using every available nook and cranny that we have and um we're hoping that we'll occupy another 85 seats will which will bring us much closer to offering a full Universal pre3 and four program so we're excited about that uh again that's Grant funded um but it is money that will come in and we will send back out uh in order to support the education of those additional 85 seats our Aviation program is taking off no pun intended um that used to be a club we this year created a class to support aviation in our high school next year we'll be creating a second class uh which will be the next level um we've got some exciting news recently that one of our students who and you all met this particular individual who came up to talk about how excited at one meeting a couple years ago he was about our program that we started a couple years back um we learned that his interest grew he went to Emery riddle he's recently graduated and he is now got his commercial piloting license and will be doing some work for commercial airlines so we're very excited about that and uh and so is he so um did I misspeak Mary that's exactly what that wonderful news was that his mom shared um we're adding and expanding our CTE program so you know one of the things we want to really do is start to grow our own teachers we know there's a teacher shortage and we want to take advantage of the opportunity to work to grow our own and our CTE coordinator our CTE supervisor and everyone else is working hard to try and introduce a new program at the high school called tomorrow's teachers uh we want to further develop our bus our business marketing CTE program and what I mean by CTE is Career Technical education we want to start to really expand that program a few years back we had no programs um now we have four four programs three go ahead Eric we have three about to four right and this would be four um funds to support Environmental Studies uh and that really is field trip funds we would love to get back to the center the Environmental Center we know that a major storm did some damage over there and we have to work with the township to get back to that facility and if we can't we're hopeful that perhaps we can utilize those dollars to go to some other places but we want to get our kids back in the field uh working on their Environmental Studies our elementary kids that is academic lab classes we want to continue to support our kids we want to build out our academic lab classes to better support our kids at the secondary level and add more sections um we want to implement we have a new literacy program called Benchmark advance and we're looking to implement the bilingual component of that there's an expense related to the training involved with that we all know that world languages is a challenge and it's a challenge because there's if any resource scarce World Language teacher resources are really scarce and um we haven't been able to fill all our vacant positions and we're needing to find Innovative and creative ways to support our teachers who are delivering that instruction uh and these are two programs Ed Edgenuity and Elevate that we plan to use to do just that uh expansion of our bilingual Ed program we're growing a mirror program at Claremont Elementary School to what we've been doing for years at um Pine grve and that's because it's a growing population and one campus is not enough anymore um we're expanding our elementary autism program uh very much for the same reasons we are continuing to support and grow with the Somerset County Educational Services Commission our transitional program for students with special needs and we'll be doing some curriculum writing and that's a rough estimate I venture to Guess that will be even a little steeper than that and we'll have to work on that but there are new standards state standards that is in the area of ela math and climate change that are going to require some summer work to make sure our curriculum is well aligned here are some things that we're very proud of that again will require continued professional development uh this year we've rolled out a restorative practices kind of approach to discipline to complement our punitive punishment program um we don't want to simply just suspend a child give a child A detention we want to make them understand where they went wrong and how they can perhaps do better next time and eliminate those repetitive kind of violations and help students to grow while improving the climate and culture in our schools um it's proving to show good benefits uh I can tell you anecdotally and Mr Wilson will share that data with you in a future meeting that we're having less repeat offenders than we had which means our attempt to use strategies that support restorative practices are working um and the same with CLR training you all know what that is um and that culturally responsive training is something that we've invested in and we plan to continue to invest because school belonging is important and every kid should feel welcome in their school environment and CLR helps us to do that Danielson we are migrating hopefully migrating over to Danielson 2022 which is a new teacher evaluation rubric which aligns better to the kind of um practices that we're using in our classrooms because there is more of a focus on those practices that uh and pedagogy that is involved with culturally and linguistically responsive teaching so we're there's not a big cost I mean Daniel since Danielson but the cost comes in the training of folks and and we're not there yet but we'll be working with our D committee our district evaluation committee to plan for that transition Orton Gillingham training uh we all know what that is maybe not everybody knows what that is but that's training on foundational reading skills and um very effective highly effective it's been great here we've utilized it um and this is enough to help transition new teachers and teach new teachers all about OG and how those effective practices can work in their classroom professional development and special education uh and website training for folks because we are going over to a new website again we have a new platform next year new platform by that company listed and it has some neat bells and whistles and we're going to need to work with folks on how to take advantage of those bells and whistles to communicate with our families trans translation services very important for us um something that obviously gets a little more expensive each year but we take advantage of the opportunity and we have so many programs where we invite folks in we need in cases where their first language might not be English we need the ability to make them feel welcomed and communicate with them and involve them in their child's education so that service becomes very important to us um you know we have a video production that comes out quarterly semiannually depending on what's going on and we'd like to keep that going because many people have found that uh to be very informative and we also participate in the Franklin times newsletter so that there's a print version of what we do going around and we're going to look to continue working on our invention competition districtwide and continue to expand it and the Satani Foundation does in fact support most of that but there are some expenses for us as well and then I really highlighted this slide I'm not going to go through those first couple things you can see what they are but the neat thing on this slide is the bottom two things solar panel revenue and electrical savings so you all had the uh foresight to encourage us to put our own solar panels on the Claremont Elementary School once we continued the construction of that and finished the construction of that we came back years later and we talked about perhaps getting involved in a s a system similar to what we have on the rest of our buildings where someone else would come in own the panels we would get the Energy savings and they would perhaps get the revenue from the solar stocks that were being sold but then we decided and ENC and we were encouraged by you folks to maybe do that in a different way and we did it and this is what is happening now which you all know if you're on a facilities committee happens all the time uh monthly but we estimate annually we are now taking in as miscellaneous Revenue which offsets expenses to our regular budget $85,000 through the sale of those solar stocks and we're saving annually about 83,000 in energy costs so what does that tell me that was a really good move right a really good move and um something that we should explore expanding as we retire the other systems that we have the county that are county-owned perhaps we should explore doing some more of this in the future so I really wanted to highlight that I know it's not an expense but remember a budget is both revenu driven and appropriation driven and this is on the revenue side that I I think it's just fantastic so kudos to you all this is just a slide that shows basically the staff that will be added to support much of what I said a little bit earlier on the only thing I didn't talk a lot about was that additional teacher in health and physical education and that really is to meet student demand that's at the high school um our classes are fairly large and you know we've I won't say we've grown but we definitely would benefit by breaking those classes down a bit more we have grown the department in that we offer more and more electives so that puts a little bit more Demand on the teaching resources dedicated to physical education but I'm proud to say that uh you know we're very supportive of that we truly do believe that kids get a real benefit from health and physical education and this budget includes the addition of a teacher to help meet that Demand on the revenue and appropriation side I'm going to invite my friend Mr freed up here he's our school business administrator and I'm going to take the opportunity to let you know he has done a wonderful job this is his first time through the Franklin budget and he has done an excellent job on the number side of things so uh Stephen you're up the whatever good evening folks so I'm just going to give a quick rundown of the numbers I'm just going to give a quick rundown of the numbers these next couple of slides are uh predominantly the revenues so this slide here is a summary of our tax levy um the 2025 total tax levy we're projecting to be 162,163 that represents um 84% of our general fund budget so this district is very highly dependent on their tax levy that's made up of the uh regular uh tax levy which is a 2% increase on the prior year tax levy which is 16974 396 but uh it also includes a healthcare adjustment of 1.1 14589 that Healthcare adjustment is what the doe allows us as an increase to the tax levy to help offset what is typically the single largest budget appropriation and is also typically well above 2% so it's an allowable adjustment to help districts uh pay for you know health care costs these next two slides these next two slides are you know a summary of our cap reserve and our maintenance Reserve withdrawals um they are both uh basically parking places for uh unspent Appropriations from two years prior if you don't spend down all of your Appropriations that you budget in a given year and in this case we're talking about uh FY 23 um that money typically stays parked in cash in your bank accounts and you can uh that you know it goes into your different reserves this process happens uh via the annual audit and you know this became a topic of conversation probably in you know September October it was decided at that time we were going to use about 1.5 million again of budgeted Surplus at that time we didn't know that we were going to get a decrease in state aid and a huge increase in charter schools so um as I'll show you in a further slide we ended up using a little more Surplus in the form of unassigned surplus which is basically the same thing but use it later you know now in the budget process as opposed to then its budgeted Surplus you can't change the budgeted Surplus number once the auditor certify it in any case these next two slides are us withdrawing from our two reserves capital reserve and maintenance Reserve we're taking 2.5 million out of capital reserve and that's a list of the items we are going to be uh doing our Capital initiatives uh that list was developed in conjunction with you know Dr rali uh Brian and the facilities manager and these are typically items that are too large to fit in the general operating budget similarly these items are the maintenance Reserve withdrawal items also done in conjunction with uh Dr valy Brian and the uh manager of building and grounds this slide is a snapshot of our local revenues tax levy same numbers I indicated before going up 2.72% fund balance is our uh budgeted Surplus number that I mentioned the 1502 that was decided on you know during the audit uh tuition Special Ed this is two tuition students that we receive revenue on I budgeted as flat the expectation is that we'll continue to have those two students capital reserve 2.5 million you know a slight increase from what we took last year and and that by the way recycles each year we put money back in take it out put it out you know you know each year maintenance Reserve we did not use last year so we're using 1 million this year unassigned Surplus that is the add digital the the additional budgeted Surplus that I was mentioning that we decided that we uh do need to use as a result of the loss in state aid uh I think we were kind of planning and hoping to get between 1 and two million of an increase in state aid and instead of getting zero they actually took away almost 400,000 so that that created a challenge and we decided to to reach into our budgeted Surplus our unassigned Surplus and that unassigned Surplus typically is 2% of your total expenditures and that's for us that would be 3.8 million so that's usually where it sits and so we'd be taking a a you know a u a million out of there so we're comfortable doing that you know I did it in conjunction with you know Brian and superintendent and with our Auditors just to make sure we weren't going off the rails there um and miscellaneous and interest income this is uh for the most part made of the solar panel revenues interest income building rent income and all other miscellaneous revenues that don't fit in any other major category and looking at Trend we felt comfortable pumping that up a little bit this next category is our Aid Revenue uh total state aid as I said went down $386,000 those uh State AIDS are categorical transport ation Aid special education Aid Equalization Aid and security Aid next line is extraordinary Aid We're projecting this to uh go up roughly $650,000 you know that's I think a modest increase that Aid amount is driven by you know an application that we put in it's this big calculation wherein we uh summarize all of our added district tuitions for private schools public schools and then the state kicks us back a certain amount because you know they know that it's a huge cost for districts so because we have more kids going out of district and and the related tuitions um we're also going to get an increase in Aid so the more we send out we get put back more in Aid on this line item and the semi- aid that's special education Medicare initiative Aid that number is actually fixed by the county office they tell us annually what to book there um and so the total general fund revenues this is fund 11 only 1994 million 074 956 up 4.09% and of course the expenses they balance exactly to the revenue same number the next category there total special Revenue special revenue is the special Revenue fund it's fund 20 it's our grant fund and uh that um is you know it looks like it's going down 7 $175,000 and that is because um it's standard practice to book 85% of your current year allocation on your title grants your idea grants and your non-public grants because the applications haven't been done yet for next year you don't know what your Awards going to be so it's best practice to uh book 85 or 90% I typically book 85 and that's what's been done here past few years as well and uh in addition to those it's also our pea Grant and the next one is Debt Service this is our bond principal and interest this is uh completely fixed by our amortization schedule and actually is going down 45,000 bucks uh so the total operating revenue and total operating expenditures for that matter will be 220 m6635 an increase of 3.18% that's all I have I'm going to turn it back over to Dr R yeah we'll take thank you sir president Singh I would uh start with saying thank you for the presentation and open it up for the board members for any questions so I'll start on my right Erica I have no questions at this time Jimmy um question is there a cap on Charter School tuition increases there's not no so and let me explain that uh because I probably didn't do a good job explaining it so how that works is the Charter Schools file a projection I think it's around January of how many seats they think they're going to grow and that's checked against their Charter numbers what's you know what what what allowable what their allowable numbers are and then their current attendance and then the doe takes that projection and asks us to budget it as an appropriation or an expense which is the challenge so then what happens is and we have a history of this if it's over projected there is a regulation and I forget the exact citation but there's a regul ation that then in December um Mr freed will get a report and it will adjust the remaining tuition payments down and that has been the history here uh the challenge though is that we're being asked to budget that money up front and now which means we've got to make staff decisions and program decisions for next year and then if we get a reduction ction on the other end in January well you know for lack of better terms the ship is sailed right the teachers have uh we have to notify teachers on May 15th if they're being rehired or not we chose not to do that and we chose to uh use different strategy we used some um on assign Surplus and we used some maintenance Reserve which allowed us to reduce our maintenance expenses on the appropriation side which allowed us to fit some of that increase in there um and using some of the on assigned Surplus as uh Steven alluded to allowed us to help negate some of that impact and then of course the the waiver the health benefit waiver that was allowable helped to reduce the impact of the health benefit challenge so um that's the real challenge with how that works now we've got a history you know I'll I'll start my 10th year here in July and I've we've tracked this and we've got a history here that demonstrates a trend of a 6% over projection well our total tuition the tuition we were asked to balance is$ 2,983 th000 and some change but call it for a lack of better terms $222,000 22 million rather 22 million call it you know 21983 call it 22 million so 6% of 22 million that's a lot of change right 6% of 22 million 10% would be 2.2 million so half of that and then add some right so we could get an adjustment I'm not saying we will but we could we could theoretically if history holds true we can get an adjustment that would adjust that number down for the remaining payments starting in January saving us $1.2 million but doesn't do me much good in January thank you that answered three questions you're welcome Bill uh John so the mayor the mayor said that um getting feedback with these things the mayor said to to expect the tax hike then I read that there's going to there may be a water hike and we lost 400,000 do you see anything in the tea leaves here oh yeah I I mean if you're growing your taxable Revenue by 2% plus a waiver I mean what do I anticipate we'll probably have a reduction in tax in in in tax rate probably a slight deduction a reduction in tax rate due to an increase in valuation which is typical here um and I would guess will'll probably have a stable increase of what we typically have but we're not there yet because I can't give you that number until the county looks at our budget and finalizes it because they could change anything they could tell us to take something out they could make us add something um it probably won't change these numbers much but until we have that we really can't give you that true impact but my guess is it'll be probably stable which for us you know runs in that neighborhood of a little less than $10 a month yeah okay Dennis just two questions um with your first Slide John you um you stated that you was going to move um three officers from part-time to fulltime now are we going to replace the um others and place them into a part-time status or it's just moving one to the other are you replacing yeah so well moving the part-time to full-time has an expense because if you're part-time you're not getting the benefits if you're full-time it comes with some benefits so that's the expense I was talking about the overall plan um we're still shaking that out I don't know where he went we're still shaking that out but that's a possibility the answer is that's a possibility and um Part B of that is uh I'm I I may know the answer to this already but have we identifi the need of where we going to put those full times at not yet not just yet right and that's always the challenge with a school budget is we're one of the only that I know but again I've you know only been involved with school budgets but we're one of the few entities that has to forecast so far in advance you know we're looking at a budget it's March 20th for a school year that begins in September right so um that's what makes this real challenging so the answer to your question is we're still evaluating that but we know we're going to need to move and there is a want to move uh three folks uh or three positions to fulltime and we know that comes at as an expense so we're preparing for that and assuming that we may be keeping everything else now if we don't well then there's a little bit of savings there that's part of the forecast though Walter um no questions I just want to say uh Stephen and everyone else involved in the preliminary budget great job and thank you Nancy I want to Echo what Walter just said um congratulations on your first budget for us and congratulations and thank you to all the budget budget administrators and thank you for putting together a really great budget um one comment about the Charter Schools they're getting all the money up front right so it prevents us from doing what we need to do but they've already gotten all their money up front so they're your paid for and the rest of it is coasting rest of the way even though those numbers aren't might not be accurate correct yeah I mean speaking as a school administrator your for a lack of better terms the spending season if you will you know occurs from July to December I mean that's when you're ordering your materials that's when you're buying your books that's when you're purchasing your paper um you know there are things there expenses that go on all year long don't get me wrong but you're doing most of your purchasing uh in the beginning of the year uh and many people start the closeout process in April you know March April so around this time we're beginning to look toward closing the budget out because you close it on June 30th so yes that's what makes as I had shared with Mr Parker that's what makes it challenging is when we see the savings we're seeing it at a time when we can't benefit the most from it um you know we would much rather it be more consistent all year long but you know that's the challenge of and of no one's fault that's the law and that's the challenge inherent in the law God bless that's the challenge inherent in the law is that it's you know it's it we're being asked to budget an appropriation based on a forecast that may or may not come to reality it just so happens we have a nine-year trend that shows it doesn't come to reality and then we have to deal with you know the challenges related to that but again what I'm assuring you folks is we're dealing with it a different way and you know that H aign Surplus um that main is reserve when that savings occurs then that would fill those reserves back up you know as quickly as and we're anticipating it'll happen and if it doesn't we'll have that covered as well as a followup to that we have to stay within a 2% cap to charters do you know no that theirs is based on a projection there's you know so they can what they're capped at is their approved Charter enrollment so it's based on enrollment and I can tell you exactly what that is so you know um we have about six or seven charter schools that kids go to um some have declined their enrollment and so we pay a little less but then there's two larger that have have projected increases and then there's a formula that the treasury Department uses to estimate what the cost per student is and it's based on all your categorical AIDS as well as needs of that particular individual whether they qualify for Title One Services those kinds of things and then you're charged you know they calculate an amount and then they add them all together and that's what they give us as their project or what we're supposed to be budgeting so uh I hope that answers your question they're really it's capped by the number of seats that are available in their Charter the amount of room that they have and what's supposed to be considered as enrollment but you know the challenge I'm having here is we've got one or two charter schools that have had declining enrollment of Franklin students but we're yet still getting a forecast of enrollment that's why I'm confident that what we've done here is safe because I don't think those numbers will come to actual fruition and and again you know so using that on assign Surplus and using that maintenance Reserve is probably a better way for us to deal with this you're welcome Lori I don't have any questions I just want to say thank you very much to Mr freed Mr banano to you Dr rali and to the entire list of people that really worked hard to make sure that our students despite really formidable headwinds in the area of Aid our students are still going to get the many wonderful programs that we've started and I just want to say thank you very very much good job thank you thank you and I will Echo what Lori said Thank you to the finance team the finance uh uh Team on the administrator side side Stephen you've been phenomenal with you know presenting your first budget um I really hope um you know I want to put this out there that we can continue to maintain our programs our staffing and you know provide excellent education to our students uh My worry is that you know this doesn't stay on a downward Trend that we keep you know getting declined in the budget so we have to like make difficult choices in the following year I really hope we don't get to that stage but for this year we're doing good and I hope you know the county superintendent approves it and we're on the right path thank you and now we're on to our superintendent report just big news is the budget and that's really consumed most of our time and I to I too want to thank testing I too want to thank Stephen um was his first run through but by no means was this his first budget that was pretty obvious to me so good job Stephen thank you uh these are some real challenges real challenges every year and it does take a lot of time and effort to make sure that we are really putting a circle around those classrooms and keeping anything we have to do to try and make this all work out of those classrooms and a lot of what you saw strategy wise came from Stephen and his office so thanks Stephen thanks Brian Mr banano he worked equally as hard on this and um and so did all of our budget managers Dan and uh Mr Wilson and everyone who and I see Eric is here he's our science supervisor um everyone who manages money in this District had a hand in helping to put this together and uh I just want to thank them because it wasn't easy for sure and that's my report thank you and now we're on to the board president's report um again a very solemn moment I would like to begin with a moment of silence for our vice president Samy Shaban who at this moment with the Gaza fighting has lost 20 members of his family so please join me in a moment of silence thank you so Child ID kits our district will be working with the Franklin Township Police Department in the upcoming weeks to distribute Child ID kits to our student families these kits are part of the national child identification program and can be used by families to gather and keep important information about their children which can be used by authorities to help locate a missing child school counselor award we recently received word that Franklin High School counselor Dr Wendy bordo was named this year's counselor of the year for Somerset County by the New Jersey school counselor Association so congratulations to Dr Wendy bordo from all of us news from the Franklin High School future Business Leaders of America the FHS fbl recent trip to Atlantic City was a wonderful experience for the advisers and the 112 students were there who were able to participate it was a great event and the students were so professional reported Karen Benise one of the club's advisor along with the many distinctions awarded to our students Diane mondoro District City coordinator received the chapter volunteer award and Dr Jessica nageri was named outstanding local chapter advisor student successes will be celebrated at a special Board of Education meeting in June now for some athletic news congratulations to athletic director Ken margin and assistant athletic director Anthony bro who will be recognized with Service Awards by njsiaa at their upcoming Hall of Fame dinner later this month congratulations to them and the entire athletic department the following students name were recently named as scholar athletes by the following organization ations for Skyland conference Zoe Ling and Ryan Mork for seaa mahib Singh and Jessica uzor for njsi AA Maya zavatsky our girls track team won the winter season group four state championship and high school senior Daniel Arana won the triple jump at the track and field meet of Champions congratulations to everyone and here we have news for our Franklin High School Musical which will be Chicago this year the show is for only one weekend so make sure you get a chance to go tickets are $15 which shows at 700 p.m. on April 11 12th and 13th and at 2 p.m. on Sunday April 14th finally summer meal benefits for our student families if you have not already filled out an application for free and reduced meals please do so by April 15th if you qualify you will also be able to receive benefits to help pay for groceries for your family over the summer more information on this program is available in the district announcement section of our website and that ends the board president's report and now we are on to comments from the public 5 minutes per speaker agenda items only can I get a motion to open for public comment please so moved by Bills second so second seconded by Dennis all in favor I public comment is now open for agenda items only 5 minute per speaker saying no comment Madame President I move to close the public session okay comments from the public are now closed Brian you got the names Bill motion Nancy seconded and now we're on to committee and liazon reports can we have um Erica can you do Communications please yes okay um the um oh you can't hear me and it's on hello got okay okay so for the um Communications and public engagement committee um report can you still hear me you may have to use the mic closer see hello that's it okay so maybe it's volume I don't know okay all right so um for the committee members that were present myself committee chair Dr Dennis Hopkins uh Dr John uh John ravali emman Singh our president uh Mary Clark and Bill grippo the meeting began at 7 uh 45 p.m. the committee reviewed and discussed the online alumni newsletter which was sent to our student families earlier this month and to date had over 6,750 views work on the new website and phone message platform is underway in preparation for launch next school year it is expected that a preview of the website template will be shared with the committee at their next meeting recent and upcoming events to feature in the township newsletter or other communication Vehicles include the FHS Aviation Club balloon event on March 13th where members of the club assisted in blowing up a a hotti balloon and taking short rides the Garden State Film Festival on March 23rd where the challenge a short video highlighting and depicting an assignment in the aspects of video program will be shown the C America in colors Civics forum at FHS uh which will be held on March 28th and the upcoming Chamber of Commerce award ceremony on April 17th where superintendent ravali will be one of the honoraries finally in anti in anticipation of an upcoming tabletop emergency situation drill the committee discussed crisis communication considerations including guidelines and expectations for student families during a crisis the meeting ended at 8:00 p.m. respectfully submitted thank you Dennis can you do curriculum please not coming through the curriculum um instruction um committee meeting uh was on March 11th um the me Mee began at 6:00 p.m. those who was in attendance was myself uh Willam gripple and our president Aran sing also um Dr Dan lerin Dr John rali Miss Sarah Monty Agri did I pronounced that correct okay thank you Dan um Dr uh cpra and U Mr Eric um seagull uh the new business that was discussed itinerary analysis unit of a study by the common L lit 360 this comprehensive unit would be pilot in grades 6 through 8 Eng English language arts classes in Spring 2024 and aims to enhance critical thinking reading comprehension and literary uh analysis skills among students through engaging in diverse Texas no cause to the district a new course digital media workshop for students in grades 10 through 12 beginning September 2024 this course will be available for students who are currently not enrolled in the television production CTE program the next thing uh the search ration study for Rowan University on the topic of culinary responsive teaching in elementary mathematics the next one a gr application in response to the teacher climate and culture Innovation NGO made available through the NJ doe this grant if awarded will provide up to 200,000 to develop policies and programs aim to reclaiming teachers time VI a reduction of paperwork and other administrative tasks which the purpose of understanding their impact on teacher climate and culture within participating schools and lastly a Grant application responsive response to the expanding accessing access to Computer Science High School course NGO made available through the NJ doe this grant if awarded would provide up to 4 $40,000 to develop a course in cyber security at the at Franklin High School and one of the items we discussed was um a poet um Lett concept and um the meeting was adjourned at 6:40 thank you Jimmy can you do policy please policy committee report the meeting was held on Monday March 11th virtually committee members present Dr Dennis Hopkins committee chair Erica and enso Committee Member myself Dr John ravali superintendent board president aroman Singh and Senior manager policies regulations and Communications committee Miss Mariel Clark uh the committee reviewed and discussed revised policy 2423 of bilingual education the revisions in the policy and the related administrative regulation were required to reflect changes to Administrative Code which Revis the requirements for bilingual education in public school district districts these changes address the services multilingual Learners need to meet or exceed the New Jersey student learning standards the policy has been revised and Rewritten to incorporate these changes and the title has also been updated the administration of Regulation will also be updated to reflect the changes in the code and will be reissued by the superintendent after the second reading of the revised policy in April the meeting ended promptly at 7:45 p.m. thank you Walter Personnel please okay excuse me the uh Personnel committee met on March 13 at 6:08 p.m members present was myself as chair Nancy Lor Samy siban president arnaman sing Dr John rali Brian banano Jackie Snider and Colleen Deon the Personnel in negotiations committee reviewed and discussed the following items Personnel report uh today March 20th 2024 number nine the Personnel committee reviewed the Personnel report appointments included include teaching staff to start after this meeting and the upcoming school year in addition stien recommendations include family engagement nights Parent acade Academy night curriculum writing stem tutorial teachers and literacy leadership team ftea full-time release president Mr banana reviewed the request from the ftea for the full-time release president for the upcoming 2024 2025 school year workers compensation settlement review reviewed and discussed settlement re requests appearing on this board agenda summer schedule 2024 Mr banana reviewed the proposal for the summer schedule for 11 and 12 month staff District buildings will be open Monday through Thursday July 8th through August 15th ftea negotiations the committee reviewed the fte's initial proposal in preparation for the next meeting scheduled for March 28th um we had to get up the order and the meeting ended at 7:52 p.m. thank you Nancy facilities please the facilities committee met on Tuesday March 19th at 6:07 p.m. present was myself there Walter Jackson Lori Maris arteman sing John ravali Brian banana Steven freed Mark mcamera and Ryan Ellis we discussed for um updates on the Boe Township projects meeting on April 4th um there is a uh joint meeting that's going to be held between um representatives from the council and the Board of Education certain select members from that pending change orders Mr banano described two change orders um how you make this go up um sorry um a credit for asphalt paving at the new buildings and ground building that was not completed and a second change order to approve additional work at the Franklin Park School annex partial roof replacement items currently out to bid are three projects um the toilet projects are Chiller Replacements at Franklin High School Franklin Park School and Franklin Middle School at Hamilton Street campus toilet Renovations and transportation contract to and from all routes facilities Ro facilities use the committee discussed the request from Tamil sangram to host an event at Franklin High School an energy report which is apparently is like the highlight of our meetings um Ryan Ellis provided a glowing report to the committee regarding the status of the Claremont solar system and the meeting adjourned at 6:54 p.m. thank you and last but not least Miss Maris finance committee report the finance committee met uh remotely on Tuesday March 19th at 7 pm in attendance for myself Lori Maris Mrs Nancy Lort Mr Walter Jackson Mrs emman Singh Dr John ravali Mr Brian banano Mr Steven freed Mr Mark McNamara and Mr Eric Seagle under the topic of financials and contracts the committee reviewed the supplemental bills list for the month of March our Charter School payments the district paid 1,677 651 in tuition and $ ation for the month of March this brings the total Charter School costs to 6,594 600 for the year to date for tuition Transportation year to date $349,250 there was discussion uh regarding southbound Brook Dr ravali discussed the feasibility of exploring regionalization study where southbound Brook students would attend Franklin Township High School boundbrook currently receives the South boundbrook students at the high school level and we had a presentation on the fiscal year 25 budget Dr rali summarized some of the challenges we faced balancing the fiscal year 25 budget increases in healthc care costs of 10% Transportation costs between 5 to 8% and Charter School cost increases 12% combined with a decrease in state aid of roughly 400,000 in addition Dr ravali gave a quick run through of the budget highlights and goals and Mr freed summarized the revenues and Appropriations by category totals the meeting ended at 8:39 p.m. thank you do we have any liazon reports Su County Ed Services Commission as I serve as vice president uh this month we met with a negot iation committee uh for sus County ed services uh to resolve some contractual concerns uh a lot of Franklin students uh participate in that program so uh I keep my eyes open thank you Bill and now we're on to new business for new business okay sorry um Dr rali can you clarify the regionalization yeah I just want to clarify that because um that was a little uh I'd like to color that in a little bit uh that was a request that was a query by the southbound Brook School Board I simply brought that to the finance committee because that was an email sent I think they're exploring I don't know if everyone knows this but legislators are talking about or introducing bills about the possibility of regionalizing this happened years ago as well um I was actually in a school district at the time that uh was part of the elimination of a non-op and we were asked or forced to regionalize with a district that already had a send receip with that same dist with us so I think they're just exploring and we are one of the districts they sent an email to to say hey would you be interested in exploring this and the finance committee marching order was to just go back and say well at the end of the day we don't have any special interest in doing so but if you want to explore you're certainly welcome to look look at it I think that's what the marching order was I just wanted to clarify that um you know because that's all that was was a email query as if to whether there would be interest or not so thanks thank you and uh I just want to give the opportunity to the board members if they had any questions on the committee reports Dennis Walter Nancy Erica Jimmy no questions bill yeah Nancy will you be in a position to give a full report to the board uh as to the two committees meeting for the preschool uh we really want to take a full look at this each month as it develops so uh I just want to put that on your radar for the future Lori new business any questions on the committe reports okay so then we're on to new business all right I'd like to move R1 monthly reports M1 minutes of the board meeting A1 adoption of the 2024 2025 preliminary budget A2 travel and related expense reimbursement A3 affirm harassment intimidation and bullying decisions A4 affirm harassment IM intimidation and bullying decision A5 National alcohol awareness month A6 women's History Month A7 pea budget A8 donation a donation of 3,000 from the Franklin Athletics Boosters club to be given to the Franklin High School student activities account and a donation of $8,000 from the Elizabeth Avenue school PTO to be used toward the purchase of a school digital Marquee A9 revised policy first reading A10 revise policy second reading A1 new policy second reading a12 facilities use a13 sustainability Grant submission A14 employee work schedule for the summer 2024 a 15 special education settlement B1 warrants and payrolls B2 contract approval B3 and that's I'm sorry B2 is a through p B3 change orders B4 purchasing manual B5 Award of RFQ for nursing Services B6 Award of RFQ for Physical Therapy Services B7 Award of RFQ for social work and school psychologist Services B8 Award of RFP for therapeutic Mental Health Services B9 broad Grant agreement number G5 6564 and number G5 6563 C1 out of District school year 2324 C2 field trip destinations C3 field trip applications C4 new course C5 dissertation study with Rowan University C6 application for expanding access to computer science grant C7 application for the teacher climate and culture Innovation Grant C8 pilot unit of study P1 ftea Association president full-time leave P2 workman's compensation settlement P3 Personnel report number nine dated March 20th 2024 so there is a motion to move R1 M1 A1 through a15 V1 to B9 C1 to C8 P1 to P3 can I get a second please second seconded by Nancy all in um sorry Brian roll call Mr grippo yes Dr Hopkins yes Miss inosencio yes Mr Jackson yes yes Miss Lort yes Miss Maris yes Mr Parker yes and Miss s yes motion carries thank you and now we're back to comments from the public five minutes per speaker on any topic can I get a motion to open for public comment so moved moved by Nancy seconded by Erica all in favor I thank you comments from the public on any topic is now open MH please state your name and address and you can come to the podium and make your comments okay hi good evening good evening uh my name is Katherine saki I live at 1465 East Avenue in Sommerset uh I just came here um just to talk about um the level of equity that we have with communication uh there was an email sent um asking uh parents that have their children in fifth and E e8th grade right now who are rising to sixth and and ninth grade in September to do a re-enrollment form and so the communication was only sent via email and I believe that it does not give the parents other parents um the opportunity to have the full 30 days because not everybody have access to email nor do people check their email so I'm just asking that um you do phone calls you communicate with the parents with through te with the teachers and um texting because I know we get phone calls for every single thing um but this one I just think it just lacks a little bit transparency and also I would ask that um in the documents that you all are requesting that you also list secondary documents that are acceptable by New Jersey state board of education and that's all thank you out the form anyone else from the public so since there's no other M president I move to close out the um open session for the public second okay closing public comments motion by Dennis seconded by Nancy all in favor public comments from the public session is now closed Dr rali would you like to address this please sure thank you for bringing that to our attention and uh we certainly will ask Mr Wilson to look into this that's under his purview and we want to communicate as many ways as we possibly can so I'm going to ask you to follow up Mr Wilson and as far as the SEC secondary documents comment fair enough and we'll see what we can do to work with Mrs Clark our Communications officer to see what we can how we can make that better so thanks for the feedback thank you you're welcome and now we are on to good of the order so we'll start with Dr Hopkins anything for the good of the order no uh um well just one thing as we close out um women's month um let's um give honor and special um thanks and give our women in your life the flowers that they so deserve and um let's close out women's month in a good way thank you Erica I just uh would like to thank all um all of you that put in the work um for the regarding the budget um um just wanted to say that since I didn't get an opportunity to do or not that I didn't get an opportunity but I didn't I failed to do that earlier I want to say thank you um for all the hard work that was put into that um it was it was great thanks thank you Walter um I just want to Once uh also say uh to all the amazing amazing women on this board uh Happy women's Heritage Month uh to all the women in this room um happy women's heritage month and a special special shout out to someone who we are all deeply going to miss miss uh Jackie Snider who is retiring um thank you so much for your committed dedicated service to our district um I know you would truly be missed by Dr rali and his cabinet but you will also be missed by us so thank you so much keep in touch don't have too much fun missing us but we will definitely miss you thank you thank you Walter Jimmy yes um I just want to reiterate that uh the committee's thoughts and prayers are with the Siobhan family as they deal with the incredible loss that they have had and I know that uh based on the community work that he has done the community is uh deeply uh behind as well thank you ncy um regarding women's history month we are um shout out to all of the women um I'm one of them but we also need to make sure that we build strong women and that we build confident women and that we build women that can succeed um and I think that's part of what we do here um serving on Board of Education in this district is providing programs um for everyone to succeed but also programs for women specifically to succeed um and on to another woman who has been an amazing woman that I've known since I think I hired you um and you have just been a joy to work with jocky and all of the person meetings all the negotiations all of the answers to things and putting on a business hat in addition to your um School District hat and I know that Brian will be lost um which is okay but um I I want to wish you the best of luck and enjoy the next phase of your life and your family and everything else um and to Jimmy's Point um um our hearts and prayers go after sami's family and others that have suffered a loss and I can't imagine what that feels like so um um we can just pray for peace and um and that's it thank you thank you Bill yeah just a few things um I had the pleasure this month of um going to four or five schools to read for read Across America and it was really uh great how each School prepared and enhanced reading a special shout out to Franklin Park School during that process as I was leaving the building I noticed a class going over to the new library that's built in Franklin Park so I followed them and I went in and preschool teacher read to the children I got the librarian and you know I said I've never been in this building it just opened in Fe in September and what a partnership to have a library from here to that door to the school and the kids going back and forth into this beautiful library and I went to the council meeting and complimented the council for because we used to have pocket libraries in Franklin Park different stores and things it was was so nice to see um SGS play that little mer made was great I attended that and it was terrific I look forward to Chicago um Pine Gro Manor I attended their math night last week and uh principal Hennessy does a great job uh with the the bilingual activities with they had a cafeteria full of people which was was great in that cafeteria full of people were representatives of the Franklin food bank which brings me to the next announcement that the food bank is celebrated today the reception of a million dooll Grant from uh the bzo family whatever it is but it's a million dooll Grant we were one of uh a few in the country I say this at a board meeting a public meeting because of our relationship with the the food bank and our relationship especially at Pine Grove Mana School uh the food bank is very excited about future growth in the township but we need a new building and that's a Paramount right now um and then just the last shout out is to Saturday I stopped over at the high school to see what was going on and they were oh there must have been 40 parents preparing baskets for Saturday nights trick Trey so this is uh sponsored by the PTO of the high school and the booster club for our kids to see those parents working on a Saturday uh you know it was just inspiring so good luck to them that's it thank you Lori I really don't have much to comment other than to wish Jackie well on her uh next chapter and I'm grateful to hear that you will still be checking in every now and then with your buds so we look forward to seeing you be well thank you so in closing women's history months so Bill may I correct you uh the Franklin food bank got the fund from McKenzie Scott's endowments that she has built as a women philanthropist and and not the bzo family she does not belong to the bzo family anymore um secondly um Jackie wishing you well we've been doing that since we've heard the announcement of your retirement and uh don't know if any of you paid attention to the Personnel report tonight we have another veteran leaving us retiring uh Mr Foo the principal of hilr school he will be here until the end of the school year but I remember Mr Foo being the vice principal for my children and one of my son has graduated already and the other one will be graduating this year so Mr Foo if you watch this or the message gets to you you will be dearly missed hopefully we'll see you at one of the board meetings before you retire and finally I want to close with a women gem who lives in our town and and this is for you Dan her name is Amy Joe Burns and she's a women author she has written her third book called Mercury and her latest book is a Barnes & Noble book club pick book of the month pick People magazine book of the week and an editor's Choice selection in the New York Times so if you're looking for a women who can come and read to children or read about her book all her three books are part of her own life stories and uh she lives in town her children go into our schools so if you need that information I am here to give that to you and with that I wish you all well and meetings adjourned [Music] [Music]