okay it is now 6 o' I will call the meeting to order we'll start with our FL there yeah that's why that's the only I waited I thought take the okay yep it's oh oh I'm sorry yes call the meeting order so move second can you please take yes Mrs yes Mrs yes Mr yes Mrs Perry yes Mrs Quinn yes Mrs Reynolds yes Mrs Robins yes Mrs SCH okay now I'd like to introduce our Spanish interpreter Mrs suette Carter thank you 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 meeting of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the act the board secretary has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted on the bulletin board located in the hallway outside of the administrative offices a notice was provided to The Courier News the home News Tribune and the middle sex barl club now we will have our budget presentation good evening um as you know I'm Dr Freeman superintendent of schools and this is our Act in business administrator Anette Deano and we're going to go over the 2024 2025 school buget so a little bit about the Community Middle sex borrow Public Schools is a Corner Stone of our local community offering comprehensive education to approximately 255 students of those 200 255 students 373 are special education students and 176 are multilingual students so as you know our community is very diverse and our programming is to address the specific needs of the community backer so tonight in our budget what you'll see is we'll go over understanding the budget we'll talk sustainability expansion and Innovation which is all included in the 2024 2025 budget and our hashtag moving forward nothing's going to stop us now okay this is generally an overview of the budget that actually gets submitted to the state and every fund that we are required to submit a budget for general fund budget is most of the operating uh activ of the district uh tax flows into tax ly flows into their state aid General state aid flows into there uh special Revenue fund is your federal and state grants that are earmarked for specific purposes and Debt Service is to pay back any bonds that we have and the revenues there are Dent service aid from the state and also tax L local tax okay this is an overview of the general fund Revenue you have your tax levy which makes up a majority of the revenues coming into the general fund state aid is the next largest source of Revenue fund balance that is funds that are on hand at the end of the year when we close out the Year this particular amount was available as of June 30th 2023 um that is considered Surplus and then that comes into the budget as a revenue for the next year capital reserve is M monies that we put aside for capital projects uh maintenance projects that need to be done roof repairs roof projects parking lot projects things like that things that are in our long range facilities plan um that money is put aside also at the end of the year and it is um reserved by law to used for capital projects only other income that comes into the general fund is mostly um interest earnings on our bank accounts uh building use charges uh athletic gate receipts and things like that miscellaneous and any tuitions that we collect from any students that we bring in District from other districts and that makes up the total general fund revenue and all of this looks familiar it's because we did go over this so there's no changes to the original what we originally presented back in March this is just a review okay general fund Appropriations this is the other side of the equation revenues have to equal the Appropriations so the first item general education programming that is most of your teacher salaries uh classroom supplies textbooks anything that goes specifically um directly towards educating the students the general education students likewise special education programming that's the same thing teacher salaries classroom supplies classroom textbooks things like that that go directly to toward educating special education students employee benefits that's kind of self-explanatory that's your medical benefits prescription Dental for our employees also in there is the board share of the F and the Medicare taxes that we have to pay on each of our payrolls uh student Support Services that's um a catch all almost for all the other services that are provided to the students in there is library and media center uh Services Health Services child study team guiding Services all of those things are that are not necessarily directly to the student students but they support the students as they go through the the gr tuition and transportation that is mostly for out of District students we also have Charter School tuition and that is in in that number um transportation is ALS also mostly for uh special education students plan operations and maintenance that uh comprises building mainten that's not considered a capital project be replaced four or you know in one classroom just with the trial things like that um also in there is custodial Services all the custodial custodians that clean the buildings the supplies and and things like that um also in there is maintenance of grounds which is outdoors playgrounds Lawns things like that and also security security is included in plant operation next we have Administration that is overall administration of the district you've got superintendent's office you have school administration your principal's office so that would be like your principal supplies superintendent supplies salaries for those Office business offices in there technology offices in there co-curricular and Athletics that's your after school clubs and your your sports teams and all the salar and supplies and equipment that's required for those um programs Capital Improvements we talked about that a little bit that's Capital Improvements and Equipment included in there are any um Capital Improvements that are budgeted for next year pretty much that's offset by the capital reserve money that we're using as a revenue the only thing that is not offset with the capital reserve funds or any equipment items that are going going to be purchased and there's also a state debt service assessment that's in there for all the SDA all the rod grants that the state gives out they uh charge each district a certain amount and automatically you're required to pay that for us it's 30,000 so that's included and that is an overview of the gentleman Appropriations side of the so if we take everything that Anette just said and we put it into well what does that look like actually in programming and what does programming look like for the 2024 2025 school year it's summed up on this page here so first and foremost when we talk about expansion and even sustaining our Autistic Program we are expanding at Hazelwood where we need to add a teacher a teacher assistant and an aid for for the Autistic Program also we've had conversations this year about um pre and how we do not offer Universal pre in the district yes and as a result we do see sometimes that there are our prek it's very challenging um we are seeing behaviors that typically would show up in prek in kindergarten and we have fairly large kindergarten classes so to be able to really manage that class and get down to what needs to happen in kindergarten this much includes six teacher assistants for the kindergarten classrooms also because of our numbers there will be a grade four one grade four and one grade five icr resource for teacher or teachers for Woodland a guidance counselor also at Woodland so at Woodland and at mger when you combine the numbers the numbers are larger than the highy school and Woodland does not have a designated guidance counselor we know that there's very specific needs for that intermediate level so it's important for us to address those needs also grade eight resource room teacher this is based on numbers of need because of scheduling here at the high school um the World Language teacher that is now split between the high school our French teacher is now split between high school and longer there's a need to have her full time here at the high school so that presents an opening for a world L lers teacher at w we also included a school counselor who is going to be a licensed clinical social worker to address that social emotional health in our students that's also replacing um we for the past few years through the ark um funding we were able to partner with Rucker's Behavioral Health to provide us with a bright program and as you know Ark ends this year this is the last year of our funding so we have written to the budget because we have identifi that there is a need to have a a counselor a school counselor a licensed social worker to work with our students also just looking at um our students that have special needs and need a little bit more we pay a contract rate now for a board certified Behavioral Analyst and looking at how much we spend there it would be better for the district to employ a BCP so that is also included in our budget the district has also spent a considerable amount of money and registered behavioral thre therapist for our students which are rbts so we are looking to put in three rpts again it's better for us to employ them than to contract out yes yes one M as you know we have this winter we took on our snow removal ourselves this summer we're taking on our grass cutting so to ensure that we're keeping up with the maintenance in the building there is a need also to add one maintenance person to our maintenance department two administrative assistants one at the High School one in the office of HR and they will also split their time in the superintendent office school security yes we've talked about it before this budget includes a larger amount allocated to school security because it is time that we answer the call we will continue to work with the town on school security but we did build into our budget funding so that we can handle ourselves if we do and lastly curricular enhancements there's been many initiatives we've piloted a lot of programs and next year it will be taking them on full full-blown so last year we piloted our math program or I should say our our new way our math implementation and this year it was a fullon we took it on all the way in every classroom this year teachers have been piloting in English language arts the CK program and next year it will be implemented in all classrooms okay capital projects that are in next year's budgets uh we have two fire alarm systems one at Parker one at watchong those are older systems and they are high priority on the long range facilities plan the number that you see there is not the complete picture each of those are 450,000 each but we already put some money in this year's budget at a capital reserve so that is just the the remaining funds that we need and then we'll tackle the project in next year uh longer sof repairs that is right in the front of the building over the main entrance there's some um damage that needs to be repaired there's uh water that's infiltrating there front of the building so that will that that also is in our long range facilities plan and um so that will be all repaired next year and then we have the high school generator which originally we got an estimate for 600 but it came in more at around 900 so um during the year next year you will see another withdrawal from capital reserve to cover the increased amount that that generator is important because everything runs out of this building if the internet goes down here and the power goes down here the phones go down here that means it's down District that's so sing with me goodbye so in this budget we're saying to buy to fees for advanced proficiency exams parents families will no longer have to pay for their children to take Advanced proficiency exams and we're really excited to do that also we're saying goodbye to activity fees so no more activity Fe so what's the estimated tax impact of the proposed general fund budget the average home assessment in middlex bror is 42 24, 77 monthly that means an imp of $656 and yearly $198 69 we want to talk about the estimated impact on our schools and Community as a result of that and number one first and foremost is investing in the education of the students in middle size Mor secondly maintaining and enhancing programming you all know that we have embarked on so many different projects and they're truly making a difference we've taken on things that typically would take three years we've been at we've been able to do it in a year so taking on block scheduling that's a large one taking on being a member of the elnick and taking on new programming when it comes to English language arts when it comes to mathematics and having the experts who really develop those programs working with us we want to continue that that going and that's what this budget is about the third thing quality teachers and staff you know someone said to me recently it's an employees market and I've never heard that before you hear it when someone's buying a house right that it's a seller's market or it's a buyer Market but that's how they're using education out they're saying it's an employees Market that teachers we know there's a teacher shortage and that teachers are actually going from District to District looking for the best deal and sometimes they sit down in front of me and they'll say I have two other authors and it's almost as if I'm negotiating with one person so this budget includes what we're trying to do is to continue to recruit and retain highly qualified Educators for our students and lastly the long-term benefits they speak for themselves the benefits of a welled education system extend beyond the immediate term shaping the future Workforce promoting Civic engagement and contributing to the overall Vitality of humanity and with [Music] [Applause] that stop us now so now we will we will now open the public comment portion of the meeting comments at this time are limited to the public hearing on the 2024 2025 budget only please come to the podium and put your name address email address and subject of your comment into the record book before speaking please give your name address and subject of your comment to miss Anette gordano acting business administrator board secretary director comments and questions to the board president you may speak on Tuesday separate topics for up to three minutes each nobody I will now close more oh no now close the public comment section meeting often times it may appear to members of our audience that the Board of Education takes action with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote before a matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting the Administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent of schools if the superintendent is satisfied that the matter is ready to be presented to the Board of Education it is then referred to the appropriate board committee the members of the board committee work with the administration and the superintendent to assure that the members fully understand the matter when the committee committee is satisfied with the matter it is presented to the board of education for discussion before any final action is taken only then is it placed on the agenda for Action at a public meeting superintendent of schools recommends approval of the 2024 2025 final School District budget as presented second any questions comments oh am I okay and that can you please take the role Mrs Bry yes Mrs Deus yes Mrs B yes Mr Nikolai yes Mrs Perry yes Mrs Quinn no Mrs Reynolds yes Mrs robt yes don't have not necess okay motion to adjourn all in favor we good to good good to disconnect