conformance with the open public meetings act with adequate notice provided as follows notice sent to the Berlin County Times and the times of Trenton on April 25th 2024 notice filed with the township Clerks of Chesterfield Manfield North Hanover and Springfield townships on April 25th 2024 and notice of the annual meetings advertised in the Berlin County Times in the times of Trenton on January 7th 201 24 I will now call Ro Mr figs here Mrs Bond Mr Arman ente Mr bucks Mrs gamble Mr narwood here Mrs Janice here Mr Spence Mr Zimmer here Mr Haynes miss cardinus all right thank you very much at this time I asked everyone to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a Moment of Silence has any Board of Education member received Schoolboard related emails Andor correspondences that have not yet been shared with the superintendent right uh Dr zuckman if you'd like to give any updates for your superintendence report absolutely thank you so much uh today kicks off teacher appreciation week while it's certainly nice to give a special recognition to our staff this week I certainly hope that they know that we appreciate them each and every day they are the backbone to our organization and truly do outstanding things for our students all year long today also happens to be nurses day like I said about the staff we have an amazing group of nurses that work at Northern Burlington and while today is the official Nurses Day we certainly appreciate everything that they do throughout the year thank you thank you to our entire staff for working tirelessly to support the needs of our students the 2024 uh Northern Burlington Relay for Life is quickly approaching um this Year's Event will take place on May 18th and 19th starting at 6 p.m. on the 18th and ending at 6:00 a.m. on the 19th I know you've heard this a few times um this year's theme is movies it's lights camera action against cancer Mr Cat sent out an email earlier today with links so the any board member can sign up to participate if you're interested in participating and have any questions or challenges registering please let one of us know the end of the year activities have already started here are some of the activities to uh include on your calendar I can also include this in an email uh link for you and it's also in my superintendent report on May 8th we have the middle school band concert May 14th we have the Middle School Coral concert and May 15th is the Greyhound Gala on May 22nd we have the high school band concert the 29th is the High School Coral concert the June 5th and 6th is the Art and Design show on June 10th we have the district retirement celebration prior to the board of the June Board of Education meeting the retirement celebration will begin at 6:15 p.m. on June 11th we have the senior Awards night and on June 14th is graduation just a few updates uh for you that concludes my report uh thank you Dr Zuckerman I have a question real quick um I saw today Miss Bond was uh considering maybe putting a team together for well I can't make it my daughter's here from Texas but I'd be happy to donate and I don't know if it's a team for you or if it's the uh when Dr Lopez is running or what the deal is I didn't see any breakdowns like that Mrs Bond we can certainly create a a board team um I think I joined the the Greyhound Greyhounds for thank you very much grayons for a cure um which is the team that I that I joined so I mean you could certainly make a donation to the team and to the cause in in general or if there was going to be a board team I'm sure I can certainly switch over too no Sally's looking at me like no I can't switch so I may not be able to but I'll be there with every well I can throw money like Exxon at the but I can't participate so I apologize thank you Mr Cass if you would give us some updates from your business administrator's report certainly um so in my report I mentioned uh our main depository uh Republic Bank uh the state uh had closed them um the the bank uh Regulators on April 26 and the assets were given over to the FDIC um and over that weekend last weekend the FDIC uh made a deal with uh Lancaster Pennsylvania based Fulton Bank uh to assume all Republic's depos deposits and services um at this point there's been no interruption in our services and uh we've been in constant communication with the branch manager at Lumberton and the government uh banking manager and theyve assured us that it's business as usual so um just wanted to let you know um if you hadn't heard you know tonight we're going to have the public budget hearing uh also you'll see um renewals on our uh Dental uh insurance carrier and our prescription insurance carrier um we have uh will mck's facility and project summary uh in my board report um also uh we have inter local Services agreements on the uh agenda uh we're going to renew uh a three-year agreement with uh Chesterfield Mansfield and Springfield uh for technology services and then we also have an interal agreement for technology Services uh with hesport um in addition to that uh Steve Lee and I attended the uh Burlington County uh School boards association meeting on Thursday May 2nd um and we supported uh uh Joseph bucks who uh received the highest achievement uh offered by the New Jersey school boards as certified board leader um so congratulations Joe um the event also recognized Kevin Zimmer's 10 years of service as a board member uh I was later informed that Joe bucks also has 10 years of service uh as a board uh a board member and uh and I know Frank our arm manente was a virtual attendee because we saw his name up on on the screen there so I wanted to give him a shout out too um outside of that you know if uh if you uh wish to attend graduation uh please let me know I've only received several um several responses to this date so um that day is coming soon where you know uh we need to order your your gown and Hood so um and then I'll remind you that we have self avails and superintendent avails coming up and that pretty much concludes my report are there any questions I just had a quick question about the middle school security vesel can you tell us a little bit about what what that's going to look like do you have an idea that you could share with the board yeah I do it's it's not going to look any different than what it currently is doing it's taking the current vestival and making it more secure so uh the electronic door lock will be on both doors um the inside and outside um within the current vaval there'll be a door entering the main office and there'll be a um a uh window visitors window similar to what we have out here in the high school so um so for the cosmetically that that won't change the exterior of the building um we did have to rear arranged the main office and sort of turned it from horizontal to Vertical um but uh yeah so we're excited for that project y thank you Mr Cass uh Dr Karns if you'd like to give your middle school report thank you Mr figs our members of the board I appreciate the opportunity just to report on the goings on in the middle school first I'm go a little bit off script um not in my board report but I want to acknowledge that the passing you probably saw it in the news of one of our graduates uh state trooper marcelis Betha um member of the New Jersey State Police was killed in a training accident this this weekend he is one of Northern Zone in the class of 2009 and we want to acknowledge Him tomorrow in school you know for his service and and ultimate sacrifice here for for our safety more positively back to my actual board report and some of the the highlights um from that first of all some recognitions um I want to acknowledge Xavier Ducket he's our eighth grader and he was recognized as a military Youth of the year at the proclamation for um you know the month of the military child so shout outs to Xavier and his accomplishments there and I'd also like to acknowledge Isabella boom um she represented Northern Burlington at the e8th grade dialogue sponsored by the Burlington County School boards Association in March and she did a wonderful job representing uh Northern Burlington there a couple other highlights from my board report uh March was the uh the month when we welcomed our incoming class of 2030 um hard date to digest but um on the sixth we welcomed our parents of of sixth graders we took them around the the building they got to meet their teachers of the many different subjects that their children will be Tak next year and learn learn a little bit about our program and then on March 7th and then on the 8th we split our um School incoming school districts in half two come on one day two come on the other day we feed them lunch um have our our Bandon course perform for them take them on a tour of the school talk to them about course selection and then we do a little team building to uh again help them make make an adjustment as they're coming to the middle school this is one of our programs to help our students make the the transition from elementary school to middle school we have coming up later this month field day and then of course over the summer we offer tours and then when we open School in September we spend a significant amount of time the first couple days helping those students adjust but March 6 7th and 8th were the the beginning of of that process the spring musical um happened this this uh this spring as well we our our students put on Matilda Jr did an outstanding job over the two nights of the show so a shout out to the cast The Crew and the directors Dr gerera and Mrs Allen well well well done program and well received by the audience Dr zuckman already mentioned but while I'm talking about vpa look looking ahead we have our our band concert this week literally Wednesday and our Coral concert is is May 14th and the other highlight I just want to draw your attention to was um just before spring break we conducted a community service project in in the Middle School um thanks to our our donors who gave us you know the materials to make bagged lunches for uh the task the Trent area soup kitchen our students were able to put together 500 plus bagged lunches and we deliver them up to uh task just before uh just before we went on spring break and that concludes my my report there are questions I can answer for you all right well I thank you for your time have a good evening thank you Dr currents uh item 2.04 the content agenda is the approval of the superintendence reports uh standing committees uh for committee reports Dr zuckerman's uh report had the minutes anyone have any questions on the minutes from the Personnel meeting prior to the last meeting no all right uh I believe Mr Cass kind of gave the update for the the Delegate for the Burlington County School boards again congratulations both Joe and Kevin um so I believe now we are at uh 4.05 is the non-consent agenda item to open the public hearing can I get a uh motion for item 4.05 and a second all those you need to all those in favor I I all opposed abstentions all right we can now open the public hearing Mr K second Paul 7.11 bricks this thank you Mr Lee um good evening everyone good good evening public uh this presentation is is uh turned around uh a little bit from the tenative budget um we start off with uh the enrollment and uh other information and work our way up to the uh impact on the tax levy so um oh I think I get it right so uh the budget process actually starts back in November again we uh we have a finance committee meeting to discuss uh the budget assumptions and develop a uh budget manual that is shared uh not only with all of you but with our administrators and their support staff um and then on November 30th we kicked the kickoff uh meeting by sharing that uh budget manual and addressing any questions and uh we have some Dialogue on the goals of the budget um and then uh we pretty much uh zero based budget and people enter it into the software this year we had web-based software uh systems 3000 is updating their accounting and uh budget software so uh we are one of the pilot districts and and it went very well so um by February 12th we introduce uh to the finance committee uh a tenative budget uh we still don't have state aid state aid uh numbers come at the end of February after the governor's uh fiscal address um but we give the the U uh the finance committee a indication of where we're going uh what the 2% uh tax levy looks like uh so so that when we do get state aid and we got state aid numbers on March 1st um we again uh shared that information with the the finance committee members uh we not only uh through an email uh sent them uh what the state aid numbers were but um gave them some some rough uh rough figures as far as uh uh impact tax impact at a glance uh on March 18th uh the finance committee reviewed the tenative budget with the state aid numbers and we later presented that to the full board uh that evening at a work session presentation and then we sent the uh after the board's approval sent the tenative budget off to the state uh for review uh the state has till April 20th to come back and uh provide their feedback uh so um I said April but it's March 20th on um April 9th the state did give approval of our budget uh submission our tenative budget submission and we've uh advertised on April 17th uh the the the budget data and the public hearing uh for tonight so that's that's the process and again this all starts back in November and ends uh any time at the end of April beginning of May so today's presentation we're going to review enrollment projections uh the regional apportionment that's the percentage share of uh each municipality's uh portion of the tax levy uh we'll review uh Revenue uh we'll do uh appropriation highlights uh we'll look at um capital outlay budget uh Bank cap calculations those are um the state allows us to uh obtain tax levy increases for future years um also we will review the tax impact at a glance and then uh the district adequacy notice which indicates uh if you're spending below the state average or above the state average so uh our enrollment uh for the last uh six seven years uh has been somewhat steady I know the uh chart you know uh for 1819 says uh we had 2,187 students and uh um we're projecting 2,145 students uh for next year uh so that's that's you know that's only a a decrease of 42 students but as you can see it pops up and down um and last year you know we had 2,133 students so we do a demographic study every five years and uh we we use that information as well as um the current uh counts as of October 15th uh not only uh Northerns but our elementary districts uh to help uh project enrollment and we've been pretty accurate um over the years Mr Cass before you move on to the next slide I had a question about the enrollment where are we in the five-year sort of like assessment and then does that proposed 2025 number include the incoming seventh graders that um um Mr um Dr I'm so sorry the principal was talking about over at the middle school Dr CN thank you yes um the uh demographic studies is prek to 12 so uh we look at births at each uh municipality and we do a projection um through prek to 12 so it is inclusive yeah I noticed the numbers for the seventh grade was like 20 there was 20 more students in the seventh grade class than in previous years I just was wondering if that's like the start of like an increase coming our way again it it it varies I know uh Dr Kerns can tell you um about uh eight years ago we were over maybe it was less than that we had over uh close to 830 840 students in the Middle School yeah yeah so so when we had the our highest numbers they are probably now seniors in in the high school so um and then as far as the demographic study goes uh we're we're in the final year and again the demographic study uh gives you a plus or minus um but you know we we I look at it every year uh what was projected versus our actual and I come up with a percentage to adjust our our um our projections as well so this isn't intended as a gotcha at all I'm just curious how can you uh anticipate the military and who's going to come in with what students I mean I know we have to absorb them regardless I mean is there any way that those numbers I mean no that's just a I mean all right so let me ask historical I guess historical data right when it comes to that rich if I may yes as we as we've talked about in some of our committee reports with the new classification that the that the Bas has received um for being compassionate BAS am I correct on that Nikki that's um by being compassionate based that we are um the mil people in the military have the opportunity to come uh to be able to get support for their special needs students even if they are transferred elsewhere they their students have the opportunity to stay um so that from that we've already seen an increase in the number of special education students that are connected to the military I am expecting that that's get increase in in the in the years to come because of that class classification so how many we have no idea um rich and myself have already started kind of connecting with naph and trying to get additional funding um for that connection again we I think we still have a long time to go before we see that but then we're we're hoping to be proactive in that so again to go hand inand with you know sort of what you're asking um here's the regional enrollment uh by municipality uh the military base is uh encompassed within North Hanover um so you know this year we had 712 uh North Hanover military Affiliated students uh we're predicting 718 um Chesterfield is the next line that's the uh aqua colored line and we're going up from 636 to 642 uh Mansfield is the Blue Line uh and it remains level at 555 students um but you can see Mansfield was up uh back in 2021 uh higher than Chesterfield uh by about 20 students so uh and then Springfield's been somewhat uh uh consistent over the last four years uh at 179 students and then you have our choice students at 51 so that's the enrollment uh and trying to Rich can I ask you a quick question on a choice yes where's the funding come for the choice students is that actually from the sending districts or the district it's state aid it is state aid state aid we receive uh close to a half a million dollars okay thank you forward now back is that where we were yep all right so the next slide is the tax levy apportionment this is the percentage share of each municipality's um responsibility to the tax levy there are two tax levies uh the general fund and the Debt Service The Debt Service is uh equivalent to one's own personal mortgage it's the debt that we owe on uh our facilities so uh it basically looks at each uh equalized value of each municipality and then prates that by the elementary enrollment and the regional enrollment so for in this example Chesterfield uh Elementary percentage is 51 1.52% um so uh it's calculated the elementary equalized value and if you subtract that from the Township's total uh equalized value you come up with the regional equalized evaluation once you come up with the regional equalized evaluation those percentages are struck um up through the apportionment so uh you see Chesterfield's been increasing every year from the growth of the municipality and also um the elementary percentage is coming down so that means there's more Regional percentage so at a zero increase um you know Chesterfield would taxes would go up just because they assumed 2.2% more uh of the tax levy um likewise uh Mansfield went down uh a little less than 2% uh 42.8 versus 45.4 last year uh North Hanover uh went up by about a point and uh Springfield went down about a half percentage so um and this information is on the agenda it's attached for public View and as of tomorrow uh this presentation uh the userfriendly budget and uh couple other uh budget related presentations will all be on our website so state aid is a is a big number uh for us um and so uh we were underfunded for so many years and uh we're playing catchup um this uh this year we received $260,000 increase um and you can see uh the categorical change uh categorical special ed Aid uh went up um and they all went up with the exception of impact Aid and the state provides us impact Aid in addition to the federal government and uh it went down because we received more Federal impact Aid so the formula for State impact Aid uh is based on the federal impact Aid we receive any questions so Debt Service this is uh the other side of the coin this is what we owe uh for the referendum um and some of the other uh capital projects that we had over the years uh the budgeted fund balance is the interest earning on the referendum funds uh so that's the board's contribution uh towards the tax levy uh The Debt Service Aid is a little over a half a million uh that went down by you know insignificantly by uh $2,600 uh only because the debt uh total debt went went down about $40,000 so um in 25 we'll have uh a bond refunding coming off the books uh that'll uh reduce uh The Debt Service by about a quarter of a million dollars so here's all the revenue summaries uh fund balance is the board's contribution towards the uh the budget uh about $1.5 million um then you have the state aid numbers uh I'm sorry you have the local tax levy so this is the general fund tax levy uh we're capped at 2% uh plus any allowable increases uh we have allowable increases but the board chose not to use them um and I'll go into that a little later when we talk about Bank cap uh you got tuition uh for uh some uh special needs students that we take uh from other districts and put them in our program uh transportation fees these are uh jointer uh that we uh join with other school districts to provide uh transportation services to out of district schools uh interest earned on Capital uh Reserve account uh obviously the interest rates have gone up so uh that increased and then you got miscellaneous Revenue which includes um interest on our our uh our general fund accounts also srex uh facilities use uh to to name a few so uh then you have the state aid uh $260,000 uh you can see the increase in Impact Aid a quarter of a million uh as far as what was budgeted uh this year compared to last year and then you got Federal revenues that's your title ons in uh your nonpublic as well as uh your title twos and Esser funds and overall the the total revenue increase is 1.7% of the of the total budget now on the other side of things they call it Appropriations but these are the expenses uh salaries and benefits uh uh amount to uh the majority of our increases um and then the numbers in red are decreases special ed tuition we we had uh a decrease in in some of our special ed students that have either aged out or moved out of the district um facilities uh is the utilities increase um and then Transportation uh we contra tracked I'd say about close to 70% of our routes and uh the increase allowable increase uh of those contracts is 5.81% so uh that went up that and last year we we had to contract three additional runs because of lack of drivers so so that's uh that's a significant cost Capital outlay we'll go into more detail but that came down uh Debt Service interest service principle um and again uh when you see the bottom line there total budget change it matches the revenue Appropriations 1.7% 94 close to $95,000 so this is a a more detailed breakdown by category uh you can see uh General current expense uh regular program special ed programs those are in in-house instruction um those accounts increased uh then undistributed expenditures instruction those are the special ed tuition that decreased uh again you see uh operations is utilities student transportation the significant increase employee benefits uh significant increase so that's that's primarily you know um where where the money is being spent and again you'll see uh general fund grand total so Capital outlay these are uh projects um that uh we put into the budget uh to either maintain or increase the safety uh of our facilities um this is the last year for the health and fitness center uh so we did a lease purchase uh to construct that uh fiveyear lease purchase this is year five so that comes off the books next year um the SDA assessment this was on the grant that helped us build the Middle School um the state just HS us up for this and it's been this way for about at least 10 years that I know of so um you see the interest on the capital reserve account uh and then you got the public address system uh in the middle school that that hooks up into the electronic door locks and the telephone system uh we we added the LED lighting uh project uh back in the Middle School uh we've done about four phases already uh this would uh pretty much complete it with the exception of the uh I guess the media center and the cafetorium uh this security film uh window security film at the middle school the middle school vestule and the middle school electronic door lock so a little over 2 million uh last year we budgeted 2.7 so it's a decrease uh and you can see uh what we've done prior years I have a question about the public address system does that enable a teacher to call a lockdown from anywhere in the building that's they they could do that on their phone um but yeah now that we we've installed internal or electronic door locks yes it would so Bank cap analysis this is the amount of of of money that the board could have raised over the 2% uh limitation of the tax levy uh again we we've been fortunate enough uh to have this Bank cap uh how you earn Bank cap is when uh you budget uh less your tax levy is less than the maximum so they allow you to keep it for three uh consecutive years and then it expires so you can see back in 2021 you know we had about $912,000 uh that expired um we used 350 th000 of it in 2122 uh in 2223 uh we banked another million dollars we did not increase um the general fund tax levy that year and so uh we're in our second year of that so I think that get uh that's available next year and then we earned 100 87 let's call it 188,000 this year um based on um increase uh in our health benefits and you know here's here's the bottom line there's the tax impact at a glance uh you can see the general fund uh on average uh two cents is the increase and then you can see it spread out amongst the municipality uh Chesterfield 7 and a half cent increase Mansfield um a decrease of uh 4.3 cents uh North Handover uh 66 Cent increase and in Springfield it goes down 2 cents uh The Debt Service is pretty much even uh across the board uh no increase and then uh you see the average assessed homes I get these numbers from uh right from each tax assessor from each municipality and uh basically you see um the decreases in Mansfield and Springfield and then the projected increases on the average assessed home in Chesterfield and North Handover Mr Cass yes Qui question for you the um The Debt Service Levy how's that actually allocated is that separate from the way that we do the rest of the levy is no it's the same percentage same percentage so whatever the share is C whatever the apportionment share is it gets applied to both General and um Debt Service so here's a five-year uh average at a glance uh Chesterfield has had an increase the past five years uh Mansfield uh you got decreases in two of the last five years in North Hanover you have decreases in the tax uh Levy um apportionment uh uh four out of the last five years and uh also in Springfield you have a decrease in taxes in the uh four of the last five years this is hard to read you need to see this up close but this is the uh this is the district status adequacy budget and it indicates what we should be spending H versus what we are spending and it creates a District adequacy budget as determined by the state and we are 1 699 uh million dollar uh under adequacy so this means that we are spending below um the state's adequacy budget that's a good sign and so in reverse order as the tenative budget there any questions from the public any questions from the board if not then I thank you for your time and uh you will see a non-consent agenda item under the business section uh to approve uh the state approved budget for the 2425 school year uh with the adoption of that budget tonight uh we will open up the budget to um uh next week next Monday uh internally and we'll start ordering supplies and uh uh various items for next year's budget so I wish to thank you uh the members of the finance committee the administrators uh for all their work in in this development rich I did have one more one last hopefully easy question for you again related to The Debt Service Levy um we get funding we get Federal impact Aid when that Federal impact Aid comes in do they segregate between um that Aid is it broken up or just one laral Su the federal impact Aid could be used for whatever the board wishes it to be used for okay thank you you're welcome so just one thing in addition to that is um it's the challenge with budgeting with the impact date is because the federal government is their timelines are not necessarily realistic for anybody else's um as well as should anything happen with the federal budget then that impacts the the amount that we get which is where the the we continue to increase that amount based on on the historical data all right item 4.0 6 can I have a motion to adjourn the public budget hearing I make a motion second Mia all those in favor I all opposed extensions all right thank you right uh Mr Lee do we have any public comment thank you right um I'll move through the content agenda items uh by header obviously we will uh go through them in more detail during the regular meeting next week uh section five is reports to the board any questions or comments for Section Five all right uh section six is approval of bills any questions or comments for Section six uh section seven is business and financial uh any comments or questions on the consent agenda items all right uh 7.11 is non-consent agenda item for the approval of 2425 budget uh can I have a motion I'll make the motion all right uh any discussion needed for 7.11 all right all those in favor I all opposed uh no no abstentions right thank you section eight is students any question on Section 8 consent agenda items right section n is Personnel appointments any questions or comments for section 9 right we have nothing for Section 10 uh section 11 is leaves of absence any questions section 12 the separation of appointment uh any questions for section 12 just had a brief a brief question y um I know it's certainly not the bir the board's purview um but operationally um do we conduct exit interviews and do we we kind of go through that process and use that to inform uh our next rounds of hires um so yes uh since I came aboard um both myself and Alison Malone our our human resource manager we do conduct exit interviews with with anybody who's leaving um even if it's retirement it's just what can we do better um I mean what can we do to kind of like improve things um if there's somebody leaving for another District we may ask some other questions as far as why I mean and just to be able to gather that information um and then we do provide that um that feedback or if necessary make adjustments from that and so on all right thank you uh any other questions for section 12 all right we have nothing for Section 13 Personnel miscellaneous and nothing for section 14 programs um section 15 is policy any question for section 15 section 16 is transportation we have any questions for section 16 all right uh section 17 is use of facilities any question for Section 17 all right um Mr Lee do we have any public comment no all right thank you um board we have uh next week is the policy committee meeting prior to the regular meeting uh in case you weren't aware the curriculum uh committee meeting was was canceled due to a late and we had to reschedule our policy so that will be next week prior to the regular meeting um and then we have a regular meeting again in in June obviously there there's a lot of events coming up to school as as were mentioned from Dr Kars and Dr Zuckerman um we do not have executive session tonight or do we we do not okay um all right at this time can I have a motion for adjournment make a motion to adjourn and a second okay so Paul motion Laura second all those in favor I all opposed abstentions right uh have a good night everyone