all right everyone Welcome to our June 4th Workshop meeting thank you for joining us this evening I have no president report so we will go right into the superintendent report thank you good evening everyone um this evening we have our elementary principles here with us to present their proposal for a new report card at the elementary level um and I'd like to introduce them uh to come on up Mr Bosman Miss palea Mrs leznik and if Mrs Conway if you could put their report up that would be great H their presentation excuse me thank you okay all right thank you m members of the board members of public everyone on Zoom thank you for having us here this evening want me to speak to the microphone yes people all right hopefully everyone can hear me at home too all right um we're very excited to be here this evening to present to you our new proposed report call for the um upcoming 2425 school year uh this is the vision of a couple years of a lot of hard work by a lot of dedicated um educational professionals and we're excited to present it to you this evening next slide please Mrs Conway so the vision of the committee was twofold um one we wanted to evaluate the current reporting periods that we have which is um a quarter format we are proposing as Mrs lusik will present in a minute a move to uh trimesters this was done after research on of other districts around Mammoth County and just getting a lot of feedback uh the second vision of the committee was just updating the report card there's been wide varied debate about the last time this report card was updated but short story it's been a number of years and we felt that it was the time to do some updates and revisions through our work Code system and we are now here at that process next slide Mrs Conway please so the rationale for the revisions as I've stated uh the revisions have not been made in a number of years we also wanted our report cards to reflect the recently updated New Jersey student learning standards is what um here in public schools that we teach we also want to include indicators for the behavior supportive of learning which M laznik and Miss Kay will detail in a little bit more um in a few minutes here along with the performance indicators we wanted to include more feedback I do think the overall theme that you will hear here is there's a lot more feedback that parents will get in kindergarten through fourth grade with this by including these um performance indicators so you will get a grade as well as you'll see the standard that the students are working on and they'll be evaluated and provided feedback there as well and we also wanted to include a rubric for special area classes some of the feedback I know it's my first year but sometimes parents have questions for the teachers and the supervisors is you know H how did I only earn an S and gy how did I earn a g and art how do I earn the O so you will see um in this presentation there's detailed rubrics that were um collaborative and approach with the teachers of where the parents you'll be able to click on a rubric your student had a g in whatever content area and we'll go through it without giving too much away right now next slide please sorry I'm excited we're jumping ahead um so the revision process this process uh started in November of 2022 with a local district report card research conducted by the committee like I said we uh looked at a number of Mammoth County Schools just to see what everybody was doing and get a picture of things in January of 23 the grading committee meant to reflect on the current report cards and set goals for the revision process February of 23 um they reviewed different prototypes and decide on the keys to the um grading language March of 23 they began working on the updated uh Behavior supportive of learning April of 2023 last year we did pause the committee because the student learning New Jersey student learning standards were being updated so at that time we did decide to pause because you know we wanted the most updated standards to include in our report card but however the committee continued the work on the behavior supportive of learning and developing the special area rubrics and then September through March of 2024 this year the committee uh reviews the newly updated skills and standards align those to our report cards and finalize the final report card language which will you will see here this evening next slide please Mrs Conway and now Mrs lusin okay so why triesters instead of Porters so these were some very in-depth uh conversations that were had with our instructional experts um on how to of course best serve students and these are some of the outcomes that we discussed and came to a conclusion about when discussing the move to trimesters um to really allow for a longer period of time for the assessment of skills to create a more meaningful Reporting System um and really give our students greater opportunity to demonstrate growth in all um areas to give teachers a longer window window of time to provide instruction collect data monitor growth and really allow for reteaching and enrichment when necessary to provide more opportunities to build those very positive and supportive relationships that we value tremendously and to allow for more meetings between students and their special area classes which in some instances is just once a week with the exception of fizzed where they're seeing their teachers twice a week next slide please so here you will see a comparison between the quarters and trimesters with quarters report cards were issued four times per year with trimesters they will be issued three times per year and our special ed progress reports will be aligned with quarters the number of instructional days was approximately 45 per marking period with trimesters that will be approximately 60 days per marking period with quarters our parent teacher conferences were held in the fall for pre-k through grades four and that was held in November in the spring for grades prek K and one and that would take place in April and when we move to trimesters our parent teacher conferences will still be held in the fall for prek through 4 but now moving to December and in the spring for prek-k and one but now moving to March next slide please so in the next few slides you will see a comparison between our old and new report card and here I think is where you will really take notice of the additional information and feedback that our parents will be receiving so in the old report card you see the grade key of OG GSN and F and the standards key which indicates that next to each standard the parent currently has been seeing a blank if it was not an area of concern and an X if it was an area in need of improvement in our revised and updated report card you will see OG GSN no longer a failing you will see performance indicators so next to each standard under the content areas of ela and math parents will see either an NA if the standard was not assessed during that marking period they will see a one representing need need support a two for approaching standard a three for meet standard and a four for exemplary with additional information you will also see behaviors supportive of learning now with either a plus sign to indicate an area of strength or a Carrot Top to indicate an area for growth and of course with every grade level particularly at the beginning we would expect to see areas for growth and then the hope is that by the time the students um reach June we we will have see those areas for growth change into pluses next slide please this is a comparison of our behaviors supportive of learning so you will see that from the old report card to the new report card um we have condensed the behaviors we really took the time to look at which behaviors really impacted the academic learning of our students and we created grade level bands so grades K through two we'll see one set of behavior supportive of learning and grades three and four will see a second set of behavior supportive of learning and again under each marking period next to each Behavior parents will see either a plus or a katop next slide please here you see a comparison of science and social studies update so on our old report card underneath science social studies really what was indicated there were behaviors so those behaviors had been transfer transferred to our Behavior supportive of learning where they are most appropriate and you will see our new report card just States science and social studies where parents will see an ogs or n while keeping in mind that many of our science and social studies standards are aligned with and connected to our GLA and math standards next slide please and here you see our special area update so on the old report card again you would see the special area class and really what you were seeing underneath were behaviors so on our new report card you will see the special area class along with a link to an attached rubric which Mrs P will go into further detail about that will give parents again additional information to support the grade that the teacher um has has indicated on the report card next next slide excuse me all right so um teachers um our teachers got together and came up with a rubric that would best align with what they're teaching the attributes were what was most time was put into um so under art you have time and management you have Behavior project goals and objectives and craftsmanship and under each one of those indicators you have different various needs of improvement satisfactory good or out standing I would guess most students thanks John most students would have a variety of checks in those areas and the teacher would come up with a final a final grade for that student for that marking period next for music the attributes are slightly different uh participation and follows directions citizenship uh uses materials and supplies appropriately and application of skills again as you can see half of it are about being a good citizen in the classroom and being contributing uh factor in music art and the rest is skill-based uh next this is the fizzed um again uh the attributes uh Wellness safety and behavior integrated skills cooperation during instruction motor skills development Sports specific skills and physical fitness uh skill level and obviously there's a lot more indicators and bullets that break down each of those areas into a better understanding now parents need to just click on the rubric this will come up and that will give them a better idea of exactly why they got an ID Fen instead of their um their All Shore athlete as getting getting a g okay next all right now I we we chose um we chose just to go over have you look at the kindergarten um and the fourth grade report card so let's let's look at the kindergarten report card as as you can see at the top are the rubrics in which you the the report card is based on uh the key for kindergarten is outstanding Goods satisfactory and needs Improvement and then the standards uh can you just move it up a little bit thank you um and again the rubric as as Miss uh Mrs lusik had talked about his behavior supportive of learning the carrots and and the plus sign keep going now here are the standards for ELA uh they're broken down now the student would get one grade for each marking period and then under each one of those standards will be a number indicating uh how how they're doing in each standard 4 3 2 or one so again the parents are going to get much more information by looking at this por card just see what the student needs to work on and what the teachers can better help the students meet success uh keep going and again this is all kindergarten based math is the same thing again one grade for Math and then the standards are listed the standards will be talked about um and Nas's will be used especially in math when sub certain areas are not taught until later in the year they'll see an NA but it'll be a cross District about where the na will fall keep going um here's the behavior supportive of learning and then the science and social studies above it so again already discussed and then as when you go on to Genesis the rubrics will just be uh hyperlink and and they'll come up when they want to look at it and then at the bottom are the comments which were in both uh in the report gr we have now but again the three marking periods will be listed there okay uh can you go go to the fourth grade report card now four fourth grade report cards are still a numerical based students will get a number grade but basically the setup is the same uh fourth grade does get a final average as you can see here which is different from the younger grades report card uh uh this will happen just in fourth grade with the numerical grades but the standards are obviously fourth grad based and the numbers will be appear on each of those uh indicators keep going Maran mat is the same fun of grades am I missing anything yeah and and again the behaviors supportive of learning are differently listed for for a third and fourth grade report c as opposed to um K12 no all right and again the same thing and the comments so again basically the standards are different and the behavior supportive of learning are different okay next slide all right so the engagement initiatives we're having the teachers work on the na piece getting themselves familiar with the report cards starting at the inservice day on Friday um the report cards were presented to the teachers at um PLC meetings before that and in the fall they will better work together to come up with um indicators for each report card uh we had parent our um three PTA meetings we had parent information sessions there'll be a letter going on in the fall as well again um any questions will be put towards us and the supervisors uh students are important stakeholder in this thing and again even a kindergarten or should know what is expected of them the teachers will talk about what they're looking at Behavior supportive of learning in the grades and and talk to them about what is expected of them and the expectations that will help them get a better grade on a report because they still are interested in things like that okay next I did want to read that there's thank you to the report card committee and it's it looks like okay there's a couple people listed there I have a list and I want to read the names to indicate all these people that were absolutely involved in this thing and it took a long time to get through this so I'm just going to go quickly read down the list of the number of people that were involved in this um Gabriel Gabriela excuse me Arabia Haley Arnold Carolyn Bean Brien branagan Jen Costello Alexis Cherry Allison connley Tina Cony Megan Doyle Nicole fena Jessica fiser Tammy Fort Karen Francisco Megan Haynes Sandra Kelly Caroline conell Mary kabasa Caitlyn lamb Marlene larkland Janice mcdell Christine m Lena Milling Sandy normile Jennifer rapuano Monique suit Stacy tetto our supervisors Michelle Shapiro rich rich ston Cecilia v v Christen vona Kelly male um and of course the three of us all worked on the report cards as well this is an egglectic group of people we have elll teachers on here with special ed teachers um kindergarten 1 second third fourth um anybody else any there was there was a collaborative effort it took a lot of work teamw a lot of teamwork and I just I thought it was important to read it so uh that's it does anybody have any come on does anybody have any questions yes I'd like to give the board the opportunity to ask questions M Tarico thank you I just have one I just would like to know about referrals for IEP bills will this process Quicken that um like would it be longer to identify kids that need IEP evaluations or would it be faster with this process so do youbody go to the mic yeah so I don't necessarily know that it will make the referral process faster I think the goal is always to ensure that teachers have an ample amount of data collection and have analyzed data prior to referring to irrs um and I do think that for sure this is going to give them more time to do that um per trimester so for sure perhaps you know a teacher will have a better understanding of whether or not a student is struggling in which area they're struggling of course we always hope to look at our multilingual Learners and the diverse population of students that we have to ensure that when we refer right we we are doing so with a vast amount of knowledge about that student so that when we sit together as a committee we can truly put together an acual plan initially that will help for that child to succeed and we also have Dibbles and all the testing data that we use to BL and yep thank I a question um the conferences are going to remain intact right that's not going to change absolutely okay terrific any other questions Mr Schneider just out of curiosity the research related to moving 45 to 60 days like how how what was what did it say about student engagement better students so yes so in general the research is positive um there was also a lot of discussion around the table um with our instructional experts and how teachers really felt teachers who have been in the classroom for a really long time um new teachers um who have just come out of school and who have possibly been involved with a lot of conversations around these types of topics um and in general the hope is that student engagement is greater because teachers will be able to connect more with their children and I think a lot of what we talk about is connection between teacher and and their students um impacts behaviors positively which impacts student engagement in academics positively so the hope is that yes for sure student engagement um will be impacted in a positive manner with this change and not to rush into evaluating when they really don't know the student and I a lot in the beginning of the school especially for the young ones from the secondary levels a lot they're acclimating school still you know so and then just provides a little bit more of a window for us to collect more data and see where they're at socially and emotionally and act Mr Weinstein if this is just more curiosity if we are um following a trend setting a like what's the with the with the triem yeah have you seen other District well we did a lot of research and again many um Mr St on how many how many you you yeah was a lot of different schools in the area I would say yeah a lot of schools do following the trend but they kind of dove into it and then they're cleaning it up came it just right so you're you're kind of you kind of somebody's already tested the ERS perfect solution but thanks Mr do I just want to commend you for a great body of work um having lived through this a few years back yes um some people got their feet wet and got muddy um this is a beautiful presentation and obviously bringing that number of people together is a major achievement because we know what happens when you put a bunch of people in the room who are passionate so kudos to all of you and to the whole team thank you thank you Mrs Dan yeah I just also wanted to say great job and obviously it sounds like a lot of teachers worked on this so obviously the teachers are on board of going from at all the staff meetings very well received and the parents as well the parents as well at the PTA meetings last night they were totally on board with with what we presented it's good M Gilman did you have something did I wanted to also congratulate you on a very excellent revision I'm stunned by the kindergarten the the intensity so it's not just coloring and running in circles anymore it's delineated for for kindergarten which is uh a little scary but uh you did a very good job on the report cards and uh I'm glad that everybody had input so that it was totally team effort it totally total team effort I think that makes will ensure success for everybody so great job thank you are there any other questions from the board because I would like to ask the public if they have any questions is there anyone in the room that has any questions Miss Hayes this is about the the yeah yeah um I think this is a wonderful idea um to miss W and all the folks who made this happen in previous administration didn't move the needle much so I appreciate that you guys actually are making changes my question is about the uh parent teacher conferences well I applaud everything in this the only I got two comments from parents today um when they saw this saying that moving from November to December for some younger kids if you don't some parents won't hear from their teacher for three months after their kids have already been in school so what's the concern are there yeah I think with the feedback component this is something we talked a lot about that there shouldn't be situation our teachers are great with communication great with feedback that those conversations will be taking place from September throughout the the first trimester and that when we get to the conference it's kind of like you know this is where we're at with those conversations we we're very confident will be happening along the way that a child you we won't get to a point if your child is struggling and you don't find out about it till December that feedback from the teachers and our teachers are great with it um there'll be constant communication and feedback throughout the process we certainly we certainly make sure that happens throughout the year thank anyone else sorry that's okay it just brought up another question the comments on for teachers are they mandatory or can they be left like I just noticed like there's a big space so I think that one of the things that we talked about when we updated this report card is that the report card the new report card certainly alone without the comments gives an enormous amount of information that the old report card did not but the conversations that we have had with our teachers is how important it is for a teacher to provide a comment even if the comment just says I have loved having your child in my class and I've loved watching them grow and then they can refer to the report card where all of those very specific indicators for growth are can be seen but I think there has been a consensus amongst all of our staff that the comments are incredibly important and it just provides a more personal touch to the it's also written document that follows the student so if there's a problem in a certain area or a strength it can be followed through with a comment right there no I love that I think that's great that the comments are very important so thank you I appreciate that any other com uh questions in the room okay Miss Conway is there anyone in the queue that has any questions about the Elementary report cards Madam president there are not at this time thank you very much thank you all for coming we really do appreciate it was a great presentation thank you Miss Welden is there anything else I just would like to also announce a couple reminders we have our um senior prom this week Thursday night this Friday there is no school for students but our staff will be in District for a a professional development day District professional development day we have a lot of other um exciting end ofe ceremonies coming up all of our preschool moving up ceremonies are taking place next week and we have some parent information sessions for six incoming sixth graders incoming fifth graders our Tois 8th grade celebration is in June 14th um and just a lot of great things happening here at the end of the year so please make sure you're uh reaching out and paying attention to what's going on in the school and coming out to support our students for these final events if you if you have a child involved but again just most importantly that reminder that there is no school this Friday we are school is closed for a teacher wide staff-wide professional development day and that concludes my report thank you very much uh School business administrator report Mr Hastings thank you madam president uh Miss Conway if you could bring up our presentation on the additional funding option thank you you could go to the next slide so about uh two to three weeks ago uh the state passed uh legislation that adjusts the funding uh formula the funding that's available for the 2025 school year uh they passed two pieces of of legislation uh one that addresses districts that lost aid for the 2025 school year that's chapter 12 so districts that lost aid in the 2025 school year are allowed to apply for a grant to recover up to 45% of the amount that they lost in 2025 that does not apply to us here at Ocean Township the second uh piece of legislation that that was passed uh applies to districts that lost aid between 2021 and 2025 so they look at the aid we received in 21 looked at the aid we received in 25 and said the districts could take that amount and add that as a one-time increase uh to the tax levy for the 2025 school year uh the caveat on that was that the increase overall could not be more than 9.9% uh we had a meeting with the county uh business administrator the county superintendent uh the Bas and some super intendant of Mammoth County are on a zoom call with them uh they've uh addressed the fact that there is not uh final guidance out on how we would proceed should the district decide to move forward with an increase in the levy uh they talked about prioritizing one-time costs uh uh that could be supplemented uh with these funds um the county will review any expenditures or any increases that we do take and see how the district is use utilizing that money uh in the memos that have come out they talk about using any additional funding to sustain education and to support programs um along with this would be a new calendar or an additional budget calendar that sort of mimics what we did uh through uh March and April um if the budget uh if the board were to approve an increase in the levy the board would need to approve a new tenative budget and that tenative budget would have to be submitted to the county for review by July 5th and then we'd have to uh get input back from them and then approve a final budget uh by July 19th so we have a board meeting on June 18th so if we were to take action we'd need to adopt a tenative budget at that meeting or schedule a special meeting before July 5th uh and then uh once the county would approve any of those increases uh we have a board meeting on July 16th where we could approve the final budget which is 3 days before uh the deadline next slide please so again uh if you look at 2025 our state aid was $ 5.58 s million in 2021 we were at 6.76 one so that allows the district as a one long time increase to the levy of 1.74 753 in terms of an increase uh that we could uh uh put forward uh to the tax levy that's a one-time adjustment for this year that they're allowing uh districts to go over the 2% cap uh going forward uh you know this would not be available to us should we uh decide not to move forward on on this particular uh option uh the other thing to note is that because there's a one time increase that one time increase becomes part of our base so moving forward as any increases are put forward on um subsequent years uh that increase would be on that higher base next slide please again just as a reminder of what's happened with us with state aid over the past several years uh based on the S2 U legislation uh we've seen significant decreases in our state aid and the intent of the state is to have districts become more uh economic more efficient uh and to shift some of that burden from the state providing state aid to the local taxpayers and having the local taxpayers pay what the state calls the local fair share next slide please so estimated impact uh of a tax increase and the potential uses of those funds so if you look at the first row our approved 2025 budget which is already approved and been sent to the state and accepted uh increased uh taxes annually on an average home at $847,000 by $174.58 55 cents a month if we take this additional $1.17 million that'll increase uh increase the increase to $225 or $50 more or monthly to $18.70 or about an additional $4 four and a quarter uh a month uh the question is what would we do with that funding uh so during the budgeting process as as you are aware and as you've heard us say we've gone through and cut back on things to to have our balanced budget uh we've not approved certain things in the budget coming into 2025 so if the district were to uh look at an increase in Levy of $1.74 million uh We've have a list here of several things that were cut out of the budget for 25 that we could put back uh if you look at the bottom the total of those items is $1.88 million so that's $700,000 more so we would sort of mix and match and prioritize uh these items and and decide how we want to move forward with these uh we're looking at the potential of six buses at about 150,000 um a significant uh significant some of those buses would be smaller buses uh and that would assist us in perhaps creating more routes it would also assist us in after school activity and athletic trips that we would no longer have to uh uh send out to MTH ocean ed services over the past year we replaced three new boilers over at the intermediates school there's a second Boiler Room there with two boilers one from the 1970s uh another that's newer but again we just replaced out of necessity the three uh boilers so we'd like to move forward and and update the rest of that building with the new boilers we've talked over the past several months about uh staffing needs and specific staffing needs in terms of coaches and uh um special ed area MultiLing areas uh so again that's for consideration uh firewall servers the maintenance truck uh when we went through the budgeting process we asked our administrators to reduce some of their school budget supply lines as best they can we could potentially put that money back into those lines to the tune of about $78,000 we're looking at potentially upgrading GPS systems on the buses so we have exact locations of the buses so when parents call they want to know why the buses later where the bus is we'll have that information available um and then we've talked about lot Paving bleachers at Dao uh and replacing loot lock sets in the fifth grade Wing at the Intermediate School uh so again these are items that we could utilize These funds for uh the county and the state have not put out final guidance in terms of how they want us to move forward with these things they haven't put out um specifics or details on how this money can be utilized or or or um you know what areas in terms of Staffing they would look favorably upon versus not uh so we're still awaiting that guidance from them uh and we would look to the board for uh guidance in terms of uh moving forward with this and answer any questions you may have so let's um let's have some questions from the board Irene I mean Mrs Gilman I'm sorry Mr Hastings it's a onetime expense how can you have positions so the uh increase of the $1.74 million is built now into the base moving forward so that money would be there to support positions should we need those we're we're because we don't have the exact guidance from the state yet we are being careful about positions because although this money is meant to change our base we don't know yet what our state aid will look like next year because the funding formula is coming to an end and and we expect guidance on what that would look like so we don't know how drastically we could be cut in that area so positions are recurring and I'm want to be careful and responsible in not adding back a number of positions until we are more certain of our future forecast um should we make it through that ition you know our see our state aid numbers in year two and and our base is where it is then we would talk about perhaps additional positions um and again together we we came up with a list that is beyond what we can spend so not everything on here would remain this was just some of the items we wanted the board to see some of the items that we have cut out of the budget over this year's process and maybe previous year's process as well certain things that have come up year after year after year but ultimately we cut because we can't afford it at that point we wanted to see what some of those items were once we get it first we need direction from the board as to whether or not there is an appetite for going for this additional money through the tax levy or not and then once we get the guidance and the board's Direction then we would be able to fine-tune this list to the amount of money we're able to increase not the full amount here that you see Mr Weinstein so I just want to give my reaction to this um uh my reaction is that um because we've had you know throughout the years a lot of discussions with the with the state commission Commissioner of education and representatives and um and the uh the thing that that kind of kind of sticks with me a little bit is that you know we're asked to do so much more as a school district and yet we're not getting our funding continues to go down and it kind of it bothers me that at the end the decision is the the the availability to us to fix that is basically saying okay we want to do is we want to now put it on the taxpayers right and by the way we could say we can make the decision we can make the have the the bance of the discussion that if it was some other way it might come to the taxpayers anyway but now it's coming directly to the taxpayers right but that's not here or there at the end of the day it's about the taxpayers and it it just doesn't feel great to make and the other part about that is that when you see over the course of Time how much money we've lost over the over the years the other thing that sticks in me is we're probably when they when the formula gets the formulas get redone I am not optimistic that that changes and that kind of concerns me so if everybody in the if all the school districts in the state said hey you know what we're not going to do it we're not going to increase our stuff everybody says if all the districts raise their hand and said we don't believe in this go figure out another way right then we would be pushing it back on the state to say to figure out another way but that's not what's going to happen right we don't collaborate with other districts other districts don't collude like this right it doesn't it doesn't happen so I'm kind of very much um emotionally in a in a like in a a Purgatory so to speak right it's like I feel like there's no great decision here right and that is a bad place that's a bad place to be usually these kind of things should have um a clear line that's the obvious versus not the obvious and this does not give me that and so you know I appreciate how you know as a as some who's leading the school district we want to figure out how you know the more funds the better right um but you know for me it feels like we're the this is being solved the in the wrong kind of way right and I also don't really in I don't really appreciate the fact that this process is late in the game when we already made all these other decisions right it feels like you know why are we having why are we taking a timeout with two minutes left in the fourth quarter and saying okay you know what we got to do we got to change the whole game game plan right we're down 10 points we need to score 10 more points we got to change the whole game plan so I just don't like the process that we're being has to do I don't necessarily enjoy the two Alternatives and at the same time I I'm trying to recognize the fact that you know Ocean Township as a school district is probably somebody in the future that will still continue to be asked to give as opposed to get so that I just wanted to kind of lay out my feelings about this I'm I'm a little less by way I'm a little less concerned about the individual things that we're asking for and more about the the way we're being asked to think about this is not is not is not the the greatest uh the greatest place to be so I just wanted to lay that out there we we'll debate about you know the actual line items and and all that kind of stuff but I felt like the process doesn't feel great to me fourth quarter I don't like having to have a different game plan and the fact that I don't feel like there's two obvious choices usually when there's two things to vote on you say yay or nay and I don't like the fact that neither one of them makes me feel good so that's my opinion if I could just add to or comment on a few things that you said um we agree that if we were predicting that we would say that we were more than likely in line to continue to lose in Aid so I worry that not taking this opportunity and knowing that that is also coming that we are setting ourselves up for double the cuts in the future um I also understand your point and and and and commiserate with you about this late in the game um opportunity but I will say that the state calendar is different than our calendar and and for the last few years we have been afforded a late in the game opportunity last year it was mental health funding years before that it was technology funding it is their calendar vers versus our calendar um and honestly I appreciate not necessarily where this is coming from but that we locally get to decide what to do with it instead of here are this amount of uh this is here's this amount of funding for this one purpose only you must use it for this this way we're we're deciding so I think we have been offered these late in the game type of funding opportunities before this one feels differently because it is put off to the taxpayer and I understand I understand your viewpoint on that um but I think it has been a process of sort of as they work out their budget and then there's funding they make that available in some ways and I think that was there as they stated and I think Mr Hastings included a few quotes there that was their response to the outcry from districts including ours about the S2 uh the Gap that S2 has created for district so Mr Schneider yeah now I just feel like to the to the two-minute thing if feels like the state failed once again on on their funding approach to uh to the districts and it falls in the backs of the of the taxpayers and and I think your point about us having a leeway to spend it sounds like they're going to come with some guidance as exactly what positions they would look favorably on so it is a struggle at this point to try to balance all this in in light of the the tax increase that we just we just put forth it does and we've often asked that the two or or commented that the 2% tax levy feels uh that it's outdated that that that is not the right amount of increase annually for a school to be able to function effectively and we've often made that comment and I think that's this is their answer to it so here you go you may increase that you know you you they're allowing this one-time adjustment to that um that although we don't have the very specific guidance would become part of our base and then you would be able to plan how you'd want to spend Mr Weinstein yes however the one year we had the stabilization a which was like one point was it $ 1.3 million believe so two years ago which is incredibly close to with this number it seems like there were I don't think we can I don't think we can have it have it both ways where one year they decide to solve it one way and then another year decided to solve it another way right so it wasn't it was only two years ago where we actually got that we got that big chunk of money right to help us solve all the problems so I'm not you know I'm not uh I'm not having I'm not feeling great about it I mean I'm not I'm by the way just to say that I want the district to have more money I want the district to be able to do more things with it but the way this is going is not a great way for it to go it's not a you know and not everybody and you know I think we I think sometimes we could all get a little bit um we could all get a little desensitized you know about you know look it's only $14 extra a month you know it's like you know we can become a little bit too desensitized to that I don't think that's a fair thing to do I think we're I think maybe we're we're taking our own mores and putting it on that where we need to not necessarily do that we have to you know to some people that might be important other people might not be important so I don't want to I don't want to take that for granted Mr McCarthy can uh Mr Hastings could you please remind me what was the final percentage increase that we passed in the in the Budget prior to this being provided to us 2.86 2.86 and was it am I correct in remembering that 3.5% was available to us without having to go to referendum I believe so that sounds about right and so this increase would be what percentage increase if we were to ratify it 4.5 4.5 I think the question that the Board needs to ask themselves is what is different now and perhaps the administration can educate us what is different now that we're not only not we're going to choose to not only go to 3.5 but we're going to actually choose to exceed that and to go to 4.5 that that would be that is since this has been presented to us I have been staring at my ceiling at night wondering if I'm going to to hamper my children in this District by saying no to this money or if I'm going to be in a and if I'm going to fail to be a good Steward of the taxpayer dollar and this is the this is the the two sides of the spectrum that I'm struggling with but the one thing I continued to come back to is that we had no problem saying no to 0 7% when it was available to us previously and now all of a sudden because the state is telling us that we should take this which I have I could be far more Brash than Mr Weinstein has been tonight about how they are handling this at the state level but I will choose to keep those comments to myself I'm wondering what is going to push us over the limit to decide at this moment that we should now not only exceed 3.5 but that we should also go to 4.5 right yeah I mean the the main difference there is that some of that would not change our base for future future forecasting but I understand what what am I misunderstanding then I think I think the other issue that Mr Weinstein touched on is throughout these past six years or so through the duration of S2 the intent has been to reshuffle the deck in terms of where funding is coming from so the state has looked at municipalities and said what's what's affordable for that particular municipality to pay in terms of local property taxes towards School RS um and that's where the shift is going they're pushing the responsibility back to the local the local municipality they're saying um we've heard legislators say you know we want our money to stay in our town we don't want to send the money up to Trenton and then have Trenton send not 100% of that back to us by sending it to this District or that District so so that's the one issue and I think the other issue that Mr Weinstein touched on was stabilization Aid and and uh some of these grants that we've been lucky or fortunate to get during the course of this S2 process and I think that is in part uh reflective of the significant cuts that were imposed as that S2 Bill rolled out where you uh the percentages that were cut were higher and higher over time uh and and the ability of the state through good Economic Times to have additional money in their budget to to provide to us so but but think this continues to be reflective of the state Shifting the responsibility back to the local municipality in terms of funding what does that mean though it does not increase our base so increasing our budget by 3.5% not increasing our base and now increasing it by 4.5% increasing our base what does what does that mean because I'm not I'm not understanding it you can feel free to talk to me like a gentleman is receiving one of our new report cards uh um well I think those are one-time adjustments based on uh healthc care waivers and waivers that may not become permanent okay whereas this will go into the base and then becomes a permanent part of the base so going forward example yeah 2% will Compound on on the new number compounding interest okay so now I understand well not compounding interest we would be allowed to have another $200,000 $220,000 next year as as so instead of adding and if we were to add 2% let's just say to $70 million now you're adding 2% to 71.1 million so that difference is is where it's changing over time and that's where the Staffing issue uh gets addressed in terms of being able to sustain those in part but a banked cap waiver to go above 2% or a healthc care waiver to go above 2% is not always there so the response to my initial question then if I'm understanding correctly is that our reasoning to go above what we initially proposed is because it's going to offer us more money to take in the future is that correct it's going to offer us the opportunity to take more money in the future or it's going to immediately increase that funding in the future well I I think two things yes one is it offers us that increase over time as we move forward in the district um the other issue is the uncertainty of what's going to happen next year with the formula and what we can expect to receive from the state in terms of Aid and any appeals that we may make going forward to the state to say you know we have additional out of District costs or additional costs here or there that we need additional support for uh would then sort of raise the question of well we gave you this opportunity and you didn't take it so Mr dalon and know I'm pretty clear on this but I just want to make sure that the amount that's calculated here is the maximum we could discuss anything in between that's correct this Taro thank you um I just have one question so these items we cannot use any of the money towards repairing this building from this month because my concern is eventually we're going to have to go back out and ask the taxpayers for more money to fix this building so we can't use any of this money for repairing this building we can we can but this is a list of of items that we had in this 25 budget that we removed uh you know based on on the fiscal constraints that we had we had items to to replace to repair this building as well but we prioritize these things over that but obviously this was just to give the board an understanding of some of the things that we've cut certainly recommending that we look closer at something else is up for discussion this evening and do we have an idea of when we would go back out to taxpayers like what the time frame might be for the repair of this building oh well I don't know that we would go back out to the taxpayers specifically for this building at this point I think if we were to uh budget annually for a repair a roof here or and I believe those were the items that were in the budget that we presented and then quickly cut once we saw our you know our financial forecast um it would be part of the annual budget if we could fit it in and if we prioritized it as a spend go ahead Mr Schneider uh real quick just picking up where John uh left off I because I just want to make sure I'm clear on that so that when we were talking about the three three and a half and where we ended up at 2.8 we did struggle about that a lot as a board but I don't I don't recall that being a oneand done meaning that we get that increase this year then it comes off of our base next year I thought that that I thought we were discussed this that we were talking about we had this opportunity related to some of those uh um leftover tax credits to apply them to this year's uh funding and to get it over to 2% but then that that becomes part of our tax basis is that is that correct well we Bas had a healthare credit and we have part of our bank and that's what we used to apply on to the top % right so we may not generate this that was for this year that's what we did for this year then that not that money is now part of our base for next year that's why that's how it is part of the base but we may not regenerate any additional or you know depending on what healthcare does it may not be available going forward right but that's how we got to the yes and the reason we didn't go to the 3 and a half% is because we decided not to use all our bank cap we had to save some of it correct with the had to use the health care first right so I have a question uh so the repercussions I guess for our district looking forward hypothetically is that perhaps the state won't look favorably down upon us because we did not right take an increase um and looking ahead into next year what what could the repercussions be or not taking advantage of this now it's hard to say it is hard to say I mean we can't we cannot predict for sure what it will be I think I think in March when we agreed to the 2.86 we were aggressively appealing to the state for an answer and for support and we didn't have an answer in March we were continuing to commit to that work at the state I believe now we have an answer that that Avenue seems to be done that this is the option and that there are no other Pathways to get support from the state I think that would just be one another clear difference between March and now but all of the points you have made about the decision that we made at that time and we were conflicted I think we were some were at no not at all some were okay with the 342 or 356 whatever it was we sort of settled in in the middle yes we did and so again none of these none of these decisions are easy and entered into lightly I think though that we look at you know we listen to some of our leaders at the county and the guidance there and that we've asked for opportunities like this before you know and just present to you the options I would follow that up with over the past several years the state has taken this formula and said right What's the total number to run the district and then the next step is what's the ability of the local municipality to pay right so as property values increase that number increases which means doing the subtraction the state is responsible for less and less so again just economically as as property values continue to to rise and and the state is going to look at that and say the ability of the local taxpayer to pay is is is uh you know more burdensome CHR mcgoverin um I I know that you're you're looking for some guidance tonight um being that this is the first time we've seen this and and the first time I think I've fully understood the scope of of what we're talking about um I what if we I guess the question is in between now and June 18th um since you've come up with kind of a list of some of the things that you might use the money for is there a way that we don't give guidance tonight we can think about it see if more guidance comes from the state and kind of have this as an agenda item to make a decision that night like I don't know that I'm I don't know that right now and this is only personally I mean everybody has different answers and I know this is probably not what you want to hear but I I personally don't know that I could say yes I want to use this money or no I don't want to use this money tonight um feel like I have to think about it more so I don't know if that's something that we can do I mean if the rest of the board wants to make a decision tonight surely I'll come up with an answer but um I just don't know if we get you know if we get more guidance before June 18th I don't know what's your yeah so so what's going to be required of us is to present to you a tenative budget to vote on so the business office will take a number go back and redo portions of the budget and and create the new numbers and provide to you a tenative budget that we then have to send out to the county for the 18th uh well for the 18th which works into our existing schedule um you know if we want to have a special meeting uh at some point that that's certainly an option I think we would have to add a meeting if we don't get direction tonight on what we should work on just one other piece of just one other piece of data is that the other challenge we have is the property values are going up and the enrollment is slowly going down which is probably not putting us in a great position whatever the formula might be in the future and that's the that's the other part to this that's why that's what's that is correct that's right why I say we have to plan for probably those cuts those future Cuts yeah that we can't contr well just Amy's point I don't I think it would probably be wise at this point to really have a discussion about these points because I think I think we be just kicking the can and not not giving ourselves a chance to really evaluate whatever it is that we need to evaluate right so I think we should I think we should go through it and figure out what it means then we could all start thinking about it and at least at least have at least have what we what we what you all want to be that and then at least we can have our own thought process in the next week to be able to think it through Miss Gilman I think what you said Jeff is the heart of the problem and that is these inflated property values that have occurred over the last few years on the one hand everybody it's a windfall sell my house I can you know get x amount of money on the other hand people moving in may not be sending students to our district so I don't anticipate in the future that turning around in any way enrollment will go down and th just to be clear that list of where we might spend the money that's not definite correct the buses it's not definite and it's over it's over what we can even spend we'd have to prioritize that we have to prioritize that and we can have that discussion later on after no we have to set another meeting because by our Board calendar we have to present a preliminary budget that is specific with and you have to vote okay but we shouldn't provide if we need to know if you're interested in increase taking this opportunity or not or taking some degree of it before we can develop an addendum to our budget let me take question over here thought I saw your hand up Mr McCarthy I I'll pass on my question okay you Mr Schneider point of clarification on my part M palus I referred to Mr McCarthy as John earlier I just wanted to address that public setting thank you are there any other questions M McGovern if we added a meeting sorry if we added a meeting it would need to be before June 18th or before July 16th when does the first thing have to go June I I have July 5th and July 19th written down right so if we had a June 18th meeting and then added one like July 9th I'm just throwing it out there it would probably have to be one day next week next week because we have to submit to the county by July 5th so you have to approve a 10 of Budget prior to that date oh we wouldn't be able to do June 18th and present attend it okay yeah correct so how does the board feel H so let's take a um let's take a poll not a poll but raise your hand uh how many people would like to add on a meeting to give to give you all an opportunity to think about this to decide how you feel about it let's see a show hands for that and let's see a show of hands for those that um would like to so I'm going to take three three different how many people would like to not have a discussion they know how they feel about it they know how they want to vote H let's do that vote first so how many people would like to not see an increase at all and not go with this plan what would not like this an increase at all not not yeah leave the budget as it is not ask not go up with the percentage um I don't know if I'm if you're not ready to vote like that that then how many people know that is how they're going to vote five so that's four no five five oh four sorry did you raise your hand no no can't count twice so how many people would like to discuss it a little more and at a meeting and I think we would need to know what Elsie would need for us to provide at that meeting in order to have that conversation Beyond now what we what we already provided with you I can't I mean I can't even add thee next week um is there let me ask another question how many people would like are are willing to perhaps go up a little bit which we can do right we don't have to do the full thing the full amount and just go up another percentage I don't know what that would be at this point um let me put that out there and take advant and talk right and talk about that talk about it yeah we we would so that's one two three four five okay so it looks like um the majority of the board are okay with perhaps raising it uh not the full amount but a percentage a certain percentage um to um perhaps get some of the items or one of the items because they're very costly that are on that list so is that a discussion that we can have right now are you all can okay we're talking about it now because if not we're gonna have to add another meeting M McGovern can we go through the rest of the meeting maybe go through public comment and maybe have it talk about it in Old business um I guess we could do that I just we new business or whatever I just I I need think for I feel like I I feel like that there's probably there could possibly be public that's on here for this particular item that we should hear public comment if you want to hear public comment right now on this and then talk about it right after that's okay too in my opin again this is me I'm one person or um we can talk about it right now I just think I need to digest for if if we're thinking about like making these decisions right now of what we think are it might also give you know Miss Hast Miss Hasting Mr Hastings and Miss Walden a minute to prioritize what they think from that list they really think they even want us to do okay let me take some hands also that were up Mr Taro was your hand up no Mr Schneider ignorant question but like I feel like we're making decisions in a vacuum and not necessarily seeing the forest through the trees so with all the the competing variables that don't seem to be in our favor you see the town you know Investments and in local businesses our property values did go up exponentially they always raise the taxes like all this pool of tax money is out there but yet we're at a school district having to make these you know decisions yet again on our own which is seems to be unfair uh for all of us including the tax payers all the folks that are involved in uh the school system so I'm not sure how we could kind of right more transparent conversation about that we're in a tough situation is what we are in Mrs Gilman kind of agree with you Brian but as we see the town grow our school district is our biggest in wi and those of you with children in the district know that we we need to keep it to the standard that it's always been and even those without children grandchildren or uh senior citizens who have re tired but still live in town they want the school system to continue to be excellent because that raises their property values as well so I can understand what what you're saying but I try to look at it as an investment I have dedicated my life to this district and it's been excellent and I don't want to see it uh deteriorate even if RN rman continues to go down we've got our Spartan schools we can continue to grow those um in the future we can look toward tuition paying students there are ways to uh deal with the decrease in enrollment so on the one hand we certainly don't want to pass this money along $14 a month might in fact be more than some people can afford but on the other hand um everything else is relative compared to the school district if the school district isn't at its finest then people aren't going to even consider moving to Ocean that's the way I feel about that's my opinion Don I agree I agree I mean and I too am am caught in the middle with this thing um I'm I'm having a really difficult time um saying no to it for fear that you know for fear of the re repercussions I would hate to see our class sizes increase I would hate to see teachers being cut I know that down the road this will this will come back around and haunt us once again and I just I that is what is is as Mr mcy said he's up at night thinking about these things and yet yes the taxpayers are on the other end of this and um and it has to come out of their pockets so um it isn't fair that we have to make these decisions but unfortunately we are in this position Mr Weinstein yeah so the the the the biggest challenge we have is that that the whatever cards would Delp it's actually part of the game that's been established right and so the unfortunate part is that the way the game is established is that every year we have a budget and every year we're allowed to increase it by 2% so that's the problem right the problem is that we don't take a it's not every year it's an assessment of what everybody wants to do and figure out how to fund it and all those kind of things it's basically based on the base that you have and how to go forward so for all of us who are trying to be pragmatic we're dealing with a non-pragmatic game right it doesn't take into account whatever Vibe we're trying to go through in the town it doesn't TR take into account any influx outflux any kind of dynamic change so so I want to not in I want to not take do this okay but if I'm but if if we're going to play the game we probably have to figure out how to play the game so the game is at the event vage of the school district at some level because at the end of the day our fiduciary responsibility is to figure out how to make the school district better not to not make it better and unfortunately that's the part of that quoti is how well the school district is funded so that's the that's the problem so some people might be here because some people might have been on the board to figure out how to save taxpayer money or do those kind of that might have been your mindset but the actual responsibility is to figure out how to make the education environment better for the students and keep our buildings and grounds whatever whatever those things whatever so that I'm just trying to go back to the fiduciary responsibility that we have so let's do this let's give ourselves a few minutes um we could bring this up again at the end of the meeting and this way we it gives us the opportunity to hear public comment on this as as well and then uh in Old business we will bring it up again that is okay with everyone else and have and continue the discussion is that okay all right good all right with that we will go on to public comment regarding agenda items only which includes beds [Music] right well technically it doesn't but we will take them so again all motions are posted on the district website at this point of the meeting we will now conduct the first of two public Comon sessions the first session will be open for public comments on agenda items only and the second session will be at the end of the meeting and can be on any topic would anyone from the public like to comment on any agenda item at this time anyone in the room Miss Hayes hi there Alex from Oak curst did you just say you're taking questions or is it just comments I didn't hear what you just said that's okay um I'll get um some other things out of the way first these are all agenda items um I could not click on the minutes online Mr Hastings the two links for minutes when there is no little clock to click on the minutes um I was just on live and I couldn't do it um congratulations hopefully um to the new promotions that we'll hopefully be going forward today um unfortunate to see Miss uh Hansen has announced her retirement as well um congratulations oh wait that's that'll that's not on the agenda so I'll say that afterwards and okay so got those few things out of the way um I'd like to remind you all that you turned away $250,000 um for that summer camp that was going to be at one of our schools and that $250,000 is about a third of what you guys are talking about right now at about $ 850,000 so you all said no to $250,000 um and I think having a discussing a discussion about raising taxes rather quickly without much public discourse when you're sitting in a a building that needs millions of dollars of work is potentially a horrible storm away from disaster um and could probably be sold for $5 million or more I I cannot fathom how this board is talking about going back to the taxpayers when we could have been proceed proceeded in the process to sell this building it's almost malpractice if you ask me that you guys are considering raising taxes up to four and a half percent when we're sitting on such an asset right here um that's about all I have right now okay thank you thanks Miss Conway is there any public comment in the que we have in the oh I'm sorry I didn't see your hand I'm sorry hold that thought Mrs Conway I'll can you hear me sorry uh Allison Connelly uh Wall Township but also president of the TOA and District teacher completely was not going to talk tonight so I apologize for any inarticulateness in advance um I've been in these seats I I completely know this battle um where you're all at and I do appreciate the the time and the transparency of having the conversation in public like this um I'm going to put one more thing on your plate to think about um Miss Gilman's comments regarding the district and the way it impacts your home values and things like that they the district really is the heart and soul of this town you don't have real downtown to speak of your access to the beach is through other towns this is your thing this is what drives your property value um and it's your biggest investment whether you have children there or not as our enrollment declines which I heard Mr Weinstein say I think we also do have to think somewhat in terms of business even though I hate aligning schools with businesses because even though our enrollment might be declining the needs of the students we have are constantly changing so as we look in an increase of special education students and increase of multilingual Learners um increased importance on special excuse me on um social and emotional learning things like that that all comes with a price tag um and so even though the number of students is going down what they need from us financially is going up just like all the costs in our own lives are going up and so when you think about that base and you are playing poker um not knowing what's going to happen with state aid but the idea of the ability to increase That Base ahead of those needs when you don't what your state is going to look like um I I just you know I just would like you to uh think about that as well um Mr Hastings I will email you because I know that this is not the form for questions but I just want to make sure that my governance training from all those years ago is suiting me I do believe if we sell a building it doesn't actually help us much Beyond a year um so I want to make sure about that and um again I think that this board listened to the wanasa community and turning down to $250,000 just wanted to clear the record on that thank you thank you Mr colie anyone else in the room just as a point Clarity it was $200,000 that we were considering for 250 students thank you anyone else in the room I hope I didn't miss anybody behind Mr Dalton no okay Mrs Conway is there anyone in the queue yes uh Madame President Keith Chapman please go ahead thank you good evening Keith Chapman Oakhurst um this uh tonight is sickening I I must say it um I I can't believe our our our Township our school district is in this much disarray with its budget planning because it's horrible we're turning away money um if funding is this bad then go back to the oldfashioned chalkboards okay cut everything cut Sig figure salaries cut administrative salaries cut excess administrators bleachers GPS they're not needed to teach children my children can learn with a book and a pencil if need be we're setting ourselves up if we don't take this missed opportunity it's not like it's a a free ticket a sale or something that it's you're you're going shopping oh they're not going to offer it ever again you need to take this back and I believe someone on here alluded to it take it back to the state and say we can't we can't afford it anymore we can't do this anymore our tax money um you know the tax money and what we have available it are is our Township or is our school district actually getting its fair share from the tax that is collected a great School District I I'm questioning it and I don't dis disrespect anybody of the the the the teachers and all they do a fabulous job but I question are people really coming to our district for for our school district anymore because honestly you know if I could right now I I'd leave I would take my kids out because this is depressing we can't afford this you have to go to the state and I I love the idea have all the school districts get together and say no we can't do it anymore and find a better way I bet you the state would turn around and say hey we got you something different thank you for listening have a good night thank you Mr Chapman is there anyone else Mrs Conway no Madam president there are no further comments mentors in the queue thank you very much all right with that we will go on to the action items Mr McCarthy were we this is a point of inquiry if there's no minutes attached to these uh items are we allowed to approve them yeah that's should table there are no minutes they are attached to 7.1 well hold on let me click on the clock again yes not when I looked at them oh no I'm not seeing them attached it's there for 7.1 I'm on SO oh is not mine did not but let me reload my page I mean if they weren't on we can I do not see attachment 72 correct I don't have do you see view minutes no oh I hold on I I take it back I happen to be hold on you have 72 well I I can't even open now so I don't want no I don't I definitely didn't have S I don't have 1 you do not have either I do not have so he doesn't have either of them I have we can approve the minutes at the next meeting all right we will push that off till the next meeting good job John uh thank you Mr McCarthy Personnel M mcgoverin uh move to approve items 8.1 to 8.13 may I have a second second this for all items 81 to 813 Mr Dalton yes Mrs Dam yes Mrs Gilman yes Mr McCarthy yes Mrs mcgoverin yes Mr Schneider yes M Tarico yes Mr Weinstein yes par yes motions carry financial management if I may just for a moment I'd like to just recognize Miss Christen Bona who's in the audience here one of our new reers is also here one of our preschool instructional coaches Miss Michelle konich Co congratulations thank you thank you for that okay financial management and Resource Services Mr Weinstein uh thank you Madame President um I like to uh move um forward with uh for vote for 9.1 and 9.2 and then we'll have 9.3 through 9.12 is a discussion 9:31 second Miss McGovern second it nice job me but have 931 thank you oh 9 no I'm sorry to 931 yeah in discussion1 anyone have any questions on the two items 9.1 or two thank you uh this is for 91 and 92 Mr dton yes Mrs Dam yes M Gilman uh yes but recused from the use of facilities for the wrestling group thank you Mr McCarthy yes Mrs mcguy yes Mr Schneider yes Mrs Taro yes Mr Weinstein yes Mr pamus yes motions carryed okay Mr Weinstein is there anything you like to discuss or point out um Jeff between uh well those remaining 29 items yeah would you like to read them all and then discuss them or the board's pleasure certainly um the uh reason for the number of of items on the finance agenda is the end of the year uh we're renewing a number of services uh that we do annually uh appointing uh folks to positions acknowledging um different uh titles that folks will hold in terms of UPA or in air quality uh life as homeless coordinator those sorts of things um so again these are all annual items that we approve you'll also notice we're reappointing our professional service people um that's reappointing them for the year however should the board feel at some point during the year they'd like to go back out to bid or RFP for services we can certainly do that um so again if anybody has a question on a specific one I'd be happy to entertain it anyone have any questions for Mr Hastings no okay all right we will move on to instruction education and Student Activities M Gilman yes Madam president I just was looking at something there are three items for uh discussion 10.1 10.3 textbooks uh and professional development any questions or comments annually we approve new uh the textbooks that we use annually and also if there are any new uh textbooks that we're budgeted for we approve that as well so you see those and then you have the professional development uh activities as well just please ran one question Mr Schneider I guess this would be for Miss Welden is the is the form or maybe Miss Gan is the form uh State driven or is that something that we that we developed uh at a district level well these required that we approve textbooks the Board of Education reviews and and looks at textbooks yes in that form I think we probably created that based on the guidance from the state I'd have to go back and look exactly um where that originated but it is part of our it's part of the requirement and it's there the certain questions on there are things you have to look at as a board and as a district you're welcome okay so there is one item that we need to to uh move yeah 10 yes you want to make that motion motion to approve uh 103 Second approve 10.3 Mr Dalton yes Mrs Dam yes Mrs Gilman yes Mr McCarthy uh Mrs mcguy yes Mr Schneider yes Mr Tarico yes Mr Weinstein yes M par yes motion carries all right policy and um Mr McCarthy just stepped out so maybe I can ask Miss Wen to talk well here he comes policy it's Gman I'm sorry I keep going back to you it's Gilman you have to say I didn't want to interrupt okay so this is a a a first reading of a revised regulation for 11.1 and if you opened it up there's one change in red that report cards will be issued uh rather than quarterly for K12 they changed it to at least twice per year for all students and that was as a result of the presentation which you saw at the beginning of the evening um in order to move forward with the plan that our elementary principles and supervisors and staff have presented um we do have a policy that would be contrary to their plan and we do need to make that adjustment and so that we have the flexibility at elementary middle and high to meet all the different reporting periods that we have we have uh are proposing this slight change to this policy so this would be the first reading and it will be up for a vote on the 18th okay anyone have any questions okay Mr Hastings this is 11.1 Mr toon yes first reading first reading question that I was just looking at the um right the side my apologies on that feathers on that one okay sorry sorry all right with that we will move on to Old business and um well let's see so the board have any old business other than the other I have small business okay yeah so um in the beginning of January I did I did talk about the idea of us uh discussing our cell phone policy and smartphone policy inside the schools and so I we we were kind of paning about it but I really no one we really didn't pick up on that discussion and so I really would like to have that be an agenda item that we really talk about and discuss all the pros and cons and what that means to the school district what it means to the parents and all that kind of stuff so that if we wanted to adopt something we could do it for the beginning part of school so I would like to have that discussion put on the agenda at some point okay how do the board feel about that can I can I comment first before the board can I just add some some context so since you have brought that up and since Educators Across the Nation are discussing the impacts of cell phones on our youth um I have had many conversations with our PTA presidents about it and also some some board members as well who have approached me about it so um I have convened a cell phone Task Force of parents and school administrators that we are going to start over the summer and I have asked Miss danam to join me as well because she did bring it up as a a concern so I'd love to also invite you to be part of that too but it was my hope to report out to the board about about our discussions and I believe that the goals would be to set practices not maybe not necessar po not necessarily policy however we can certainly include that in our conversation ation that are age appropriate high school middle and elementary at our at our three different levels so I I have picked up that ball right and have moved forward with some work on on that but um Gonna Bump Caitlyn off and put me on that happy to have more board member who can join us for conversations about that all right so that's coming the works thanks thanks for picking that up I didn't realize that was going on thank you I I'd love to be included in that absolutely thank you all right is there any other old business besides the budget no um just Gilman compliment on last night's um ceremony for the National Honor Society and a congratulations to all of our new inductees and to our um advisors and all the mentors and everything that went into it it was a lovely evening great thank you very much um okay so I think we need to pick up where we left off maybe about five minutes um with the budget and um so we did mention that the board would like to discuss perhaps um increasing the budget by a certain percentage and what would that percentage look like anybody have any ideas or thoughts on that Mr Weinstein well I guess I would really like to I mean I if you had this list that you put down I guess I would really like to understand um Miss Wen what is really important to you that you want to resolve that you feel like you really want to resolve or what do you see every year in the budget that we every year say no to that like the I know bleachers are not something that is you know but the OTS bleachers have been in this budget and cut from this budget for at least six or seven years um I know we it was easier to put off for a long time because we had a gym teacher who actually loved them for a long time over there um you know there's things like that that that we know probably will never pass a budget um you know I don't I don't know if that's something to think about like we're a firewall and also a firewall server is something that I think technology sometimes ends up getting in there because we need it you know more so to his point what is what is like your you had priority one two and three if you had to do that what would that be and if I made Miss Gilman I I mean my concern is a little bit different because I'm more concerned about how are we gonna pay for the buses next year that was my question you know if if we you know we lose Aid how are we gonna pay for those buses that would be more my concern so maybe you can I wasn't by the way I wasn't that I needed the bleachers I'm saying where do we get we give that to you and maybe you can let us know your thoughts yeah right I think to sorry Mr oh sorry sorry yeah it's okay it's my fault I'm sitting right next to you can't see me I I just want to add that you know I'm not in favor of any increase at all but I would advise those of us that are looking to to and and I think before we're this is all said and done I'm happy to explain my my thoughts on that but um I would highly encourage the members of the board that are in favor of this that uh we do not if if we're trying to be fiscally responsible here and considering what we're going to do in the potential that we're scared of losing funding in the future we should be very serious about not funding anything that is going to increase our operating budget in the future and there are a large amount of things on here that are going to increase our operating budget in the future so I just would ask that the administration and the members that are in favor of this consider that as we move forward in this discussion what would you say is going to increase the any funding to buses a maintenance truck and then unfortunately as well position of a of teachers are going to are going to add to that hold on can I clarify because if we were to purchase buses those buses have maintenance costs those buses require fuel so are you then saying that in years from now if we're going to lose funding I'm I'm encouraging the board and you can take it or leave it anything that is going to require more money to feed it in the future if we are doing this in preparation of considering a wall of funding we should not do anything that is going to increase our operating costs and our operating expenses that's a recommendation you you don't need to take it but you need to take it the about it m McGovern I'm say I'm not saying I need to take it or leave it I understand that but what I'm saying is is that a bus that needs to be are we talking about is this six additional buses or these are six buses to replace AG so we lost about um eight buses over the two years that are aging out with Co extensions as well uh we have just enough now to operate as is okay and but in but next year how many buses do we have to retire I don't have that right on the tip of my tongue but but but there are buses retire yes there'll be buses so there's that are going to have to be purchased in next year's operating budget well the concern is is in that um you know we have a growing preschool so um so unless we're going to become a district that does not bus anymore we're going to add have to add buses most likely year Well you either don't bus you bus yourself or you hire out to bus okay and we have not been able to we have cut down in the time frames where field trips can go out the time frames when after school programs can go out atics athletic bus opportunity all things to Mr McCarthy's point if we put back in increase our costs but just to give a full picture of the transportation situation which is also driven to some extent on availability of Staffing drivers of drivers which is also we're experiencing that a little bit as well um we have had to go out to other uh bus companies or M moesc for support in our for our transportation but yes the B not perhaps not all six but the buses that we would have to replace boilers that stopped working you know this year and we had to use money funds to replace we have the same age boilers in other places so to be Forward Thinking and prepare to perhaps replace those I would would wait for the guidance before determining what we should do with positions and if the guidance seemed that we were it would be basically responsible to add positions the ones that we would consider are the ones that do meet the needs of our multilingual Learners and our special education students and those may be coaching positions to help all teachers meet the needs of those students better so that it has a larger impact not just in one classroom to increase uh decrease class size or impact just one part of the district but in coaching positions that have an impact on um leveling up all teachers ability to meet the needs of the students and the behaviors and the cons and the learning gaps that they may have and present to us but again I would wait for the guidance to determine whether or not positions is the right move here you see here a list of things that we have often cut that I believe to be primarily onetime onetime costs um so you know the maintenance truck again eventually those trucks are going to die and and we need those we need those or we need to contract out to provide whatever service to the plowing that the truck is is doing for us so miss Gilman I think it would be irresponsible not to keep up with the buses but were we ever in a lease program am I remembering we do have some lease buses yes but not the whole F correct and so the ones that uh complete their lease we put them up for auction we get some money back from that not much not much no well we own those after the term of the lease after correct I thought there was a a sale I think you're thinking of the go deal yeah as the buses age out as we get to 12 and 13 years on the buses we can then go to gov deals or some other process to sell those buses however after 12 years of of service on the roads the ones that are are retiring ing out right now uh not worth much and probably dangerous too okay yes Mr Weinstein so how so if you go by the line how vital is it to get six buses how vital like give me like give us an idea it is number one on the well I don't know if it's number one because it's 900,000 or it's number one because it's uh number one I think buses is prior is is important I don't know that we would go to six buses correct if we did four okay the boiler isn't the boiler coming out of our um Capital maintenance fund that we have our Capital maintenance reserves that we that we accumulate every year each year we put money into Capital reserves in the past we've utilized those funds to pay for things like that yeah uh however that is dependent on putting money back in as our budget reduces and and we get a little bit tighter um and and we have other so the grants that we approved we're paying 60% of almost $3 million for the roofs uh we have on the agenda for approval next meeting uh preschool Grant which again is a matching situation where uh the bathrooms to put into some of our preschool classrooms would be about $750,000 so we'd have to match 60% of that where the state would give us 40% so um yes there's an opportunity to to use capital reserve but again that's an account that fluctuates and and you want to to remember we had a fair amount in that account is that right we did we do we do okay so so yeah so do you wanna want to yeah Kelly make so tell us what tell us what's important here I believe that adding buses the boilers the two positions should we find out the once we get the guidance I also believe that the maintenance truck is important I think some of those other things would probably not make the cut if we were going to go with less of of the amount Mr so I have to ask firewall server what do we know about that because that just concerns me with hacking and things that's happened to school districts and that we're maintaining the safety of the school district and don't end up with like rantom weere or something like that so the server that handles the firewall is getting towards end of life so this would be to replace that piece of equipment right and our typical our typical stance has been wait till the till it isn't like right just to just to I mean you know it's not off warranty still on warranty we have about a year left of yeah yeah right so it would normally be something that next year they would say okay it's out a warranty let's let's have our technology budget budget for it that's what you know it's not uncommon to Let It Go end of life and then have the so it's something that is supported something that is current today so then so basically go ahead M I was gonna say so I'm hearing that we should if we're going to discuss what what some of us believe we should spend money on we're going from the six buses to the replacement M maintenance truck and making a decision between and there I thought maybe four buses four buses four bus I'm not saying do all six I'm not saying do four I'm just saying we should focus our attention between the buses and the maintenance truck and taking out the or the buses boilers positions maintenance truck or an amount of money that you're comfortable with increasing the tax levy I don't think that's I don't think that's probably at least for me that's I think I would need it to be tied to um the things that we thought were important to do now like I don't I don't want to put a dollar amount out there I think that that's probably not my liking it would be more to say for you all to say here's what we need here's what's more important here's we can't wait till next year right here's the things that we wish we had that we were not happy with that got cut okay but but we did we did pass a budget and said that all of this could wait till next year so to your point this is these are the things that we cut from the budget but now we have this opportunity to reopen our budget and look at the things that we cut and these were the things that we prioritized as things that we often put off and if we are going to take advantage of this opportunity these are some of the things that are very diff we find very difficult to get into the budget because as we mented some of the things towards the bottom of the list have been on here every couple years so so our approach has been wait till it ends end of life wait till it you know all of those things that's true and and we can move forward that way we were prepared to move forward that way this year this opportunity came before us so we wanted to present it to all of you and to explain that that then increases the base moving forward that could perhaps set us up for perhaps impending state aid cuts that we predict will come although we don't know for sure that they will come um and as you said it's coming in the late in the game sort of this opportunity to so what do you do do you prioritize these one-time costs like buses like perhaps boilers facilities maintenance technology security type things that we often can't get into the budget take this opportunity to get them in because if we have those cuts that come next year then we're sort of right back to where we were where these types of things may not make it in in future years and that's that's why they're here on this list but as you said you know we were going to move forward into next year without these things we were those were the decisions that's how we prioritize these before March that we would move into next year without without these things try and convince the state to give us some money for them but in Tech and Facilities but well Ju Just just um in either case you're you have a $711,000 difference so in either case you have to you have to tell us how you're going to get definitely down to that and then we can make a decision then we can decide to parir it down photo from there so either case you have to tell you have either case you have to prioritize it anyway right because you have to come up with a $711,000 two $711,000 7 and I believe Miss Weldon did that by saying buses boilers maintenance truck positions well that's what I was going to say it looks like the top five right are the most important items which we can't do all five you know the buses the boilers well the positions are the only ones that some amount of buses some amount of yeah not all of them some of our cutting pairing this down was going to depend on the board's appetite for doing no if the if the board has no appetite for doing any of this then nothing has to be prioritized if the board has an appetite for doing all of it then we know where we have to go with that but but yes and I don't want to speak for Mr Hastings but I would say primarily the top of the list is is the most where we would focus our attention based on unless unless the increase was so was was nominal and we could only do some of the smaller items so you do four buses $600,000 that's half already half of of the potential increase right and there lies the problem the buses are the most expensive thing thing so how does I know Mr doton stepped out for a moment the boilers are how the bo how many boilers are there that we're talking about is that one boilers 295 no we did a project for three boilers at the U on the other side of the intermediate school for 295 okay was that on the fifth grade side or the other side the other side so the fifth grade boilers should be a little bit newer but they're not you said they're 1970 they're 19 one is 1970 the other was place but it's still in need of repair replace so how much is one boiler 100,000 yes this on a bid from a year ago but yes so is the question so the question is is it is it irresponsible to do only one instead of doing three I'm just no I muttered under my breath that it's not going to be worth 100,000 anymore my humble opinion okay so but it was not a sideways do two you would do two yes and that would be that would take care of the intermediate school so 295 was for three but we only need to do two but cost has gone up so you're expecting it to be around 295 yes these are estimates okay so does the board have an appetite to um to increase the levy um to allow us to purchase I guess we said the buses the four buses the two boilers correct me if I'm wrong Mr Hastings and Miss Welden the um the positions you said you're ready den you're already over that's why I come back to we need to know the Comfort level of an increase and then and then we might be able to so what what is I it's hard to say it's really hard to make that it's very hard to make that decision at least I'm finding it very difficult I don't know I think I mean I guess the thing that's kind of coming out here is uh which is interesting is um uh there doesn't seem to be an emergency to do any of these things you're not feeling like as an emergency except for the bus I don't know if I would say that I would say that we have been we have been concerned that annually some of these things we are unable to do okay and the late in the game offering that we have had year after year which has been very you know different each year we want to prioritize things that we believe are not recurring costs I know Mr McCarthy made a a Counterpoint to that and I appreciate his his view on that I do but these are primarily in the in the scheme of a school district one-time costs that then should we be cut through state aid Cuts coming in the future we have not rehired back all the positions that we cut that we now need to tell all of these people their livelihood is now being taken away from them again so I understand that things like buses and boilers maybe there's not this oh my goodness that's going to change the game for a student but really we do have aging facilities we do have we're running our bus fleet at a tight level so these things do provide for us opportunities to improve our infrastructure and and it is also I believe as fiscally responsible as we can be in taking this money because they are for the most part one time costs so that was how we approached looking at the things that we cut we cut a number of personnel positions everybody knows that but we didn't put backfill all of them back here because of what we are what what is the unknown for us but we also knew we were going to have a healthy conversation here at the board level as to whether or not there was even the interest to do this so I get the feeling that the board is not ready to make this decision well you mean to like give the to give um Miss Wen and Mr Hastings a number a number some kind of Direction well I think we you have to give him some kind of I know I I I mean I would took a poll Miss McGovern I would say that I would I would probably say that I would like to say it as close to as half of the amount of money which is still a lot like 600,000 and I would say get the boilers done and then you guys decide between buses big buses little buses maintenance truck whatever Transportation world you think is important with the other amount of the money that is my personal opinion I think that you know you may you may prioritize the maintenance truck over a bus and I don't want to tell you that I prioritize a bus over a maintenance truck I think you guys know better what our needs are um so I would say that boilers to me are something that could easily go and and need to be done and is something that gets kicked down I would say and I would say buses Transportation whatever you think in that realm would make up the other part of my money so you're saying 600,000 saying if they told me it was 625 because that's where it fell in like you know but I would say between you know I would like to stay around I mean I don't even like it going up to half I think that I think that this board can appreciate or maybe they can't or people in the audience can appreciate that yes we're a very split board in this decision number one and we're also very split in in in our comfort level of the people that are making this decision now because we're split on people knowing they're definitely not going to vote for this that the rest of us are very split on even giving a number because we don't feel that it's what we want to do but I also feel like not raising our cap a little bit and not raising our things without knowing our funding you know without knowing what next year is going to bring scares me that there are going to be things bigger discussions that we have a we you know busing is is a very you know sacred thing in this town that I think that having the we have we have avoided the conversation of cutting busing in this town for years we have it it has been thrown out there sometimes and we always back off of it because we know that our students and our families need the buses in this town and if we're going if we are literally at and I can tell you from personal experience of my own child that the same bus does not pick up my child every day my child get gets picked up often on a different bus because her bus is being fixed often so I do know personally that we have bus issues so if we have an opportunity to fix some of that even though it is painful to do I think and and we've been here here many late nights at least Mrs Paramus I know Mr Weinstein and possibly Miss Gilman have been here many late nights over the years talking buses so I I don't feel so the uncomfort level doesn't kill me getting buses that are going to work to transport our children and are going to afford the activities that we are already trying to keep for the experience of kids to be able to go on trips or go places that they're no longer able to do because we don't have the busing to do it okay thank you Mr Schneider I don't think we're at the point where we could discuss what number we're going to use because if I heard Mr Hastings and Miss Welden correctly it sounds like we have to wait for guidance from the state so if they decide that we have to hire the positions that becomes one fixed chunk of the money that we'd be able to I'm sorry I think if we know the direction the board would like us to go and then we start working on the budget based on that number if if there is any direction to increase here and the guidance comes out we will be able to fine-tune the specifics of that and present it on the 18th ver book this Gilman sounds like you want a number so if if or don't or don't move forward or you know I think we need to move forward the consensus was to move forward so I'm just going to throw out a number and say that the the last three things um High School Paving bleachers lock lock box for the fifth grade um that we remove those so 1.5 million that's over the amount say that wait you all said the same thing have we have to get it down from the request is 1.8 something and it has to go down to under one point under 1741 1.1 is the maximum that we can take okay so what okay M Mr MCC I Amy I uh I don't think I don't agree with it raising this at all but I don't think that if if half the board is o is okay with raising this that they should hamper their decision to raise it in order to please the four members that object to it yeah you know I that's all I want to say like in you're like I I think that if you think that this is the right thing to do for the district and you want to go all the way and you have a majority Coalition on this board that is in support of that that you should do so just so we're clear I will not support it but I think I don't want you to do that to please oh I'm not let's not cut the baby in half you know trust me I'm not I'm not doing that to please anybody I personally am not comfortable going I I don't even feel comfortable going over by a dollar but I know that there are things that need to happen and I and I know that there's things that we don't do and that painful decisions get made and I I agree with you earlier earlier tonight when you said we were okay with not going to three and a half why are we all sudden okay with it and I think to me like you and I can disagree on what a recurring cost is and what a recurring cost isn't but when I when when I think about buses and I think about things that are costing us probably a lot of money just being maintained that you know and and things like that too that to me maybe that maybe that if we spend 400,000 in buses maybe it's not actually 400,000 because maybe we actually saved 60,000 in you know different things like that so like that's my personal way I don't really want to spend one point two and I do think you know I I talk about bleachers like tongue and cheek that there's definitely things that will constantly get cut and maybe they never need to be done because you know what we can put chairs in in the rooms you know and and uh and you know it is it is what it is so it's not that I'm saying that I'm I'm wanting it to be 600,000 for for you guys I'm just saying it's it's a hard decision we all in this room can appreciate that it is a difficult decision no matter which of it you're on so if if they all want to go up to one point I'm sorry they all but you know if my Coalition wants to go up to 1.1 whatever then that's what it is and and I would probably support it because we're at the point of whatever but that's not really where I'm comforted so so there's two numbers out there's 600,000 and there's 1.1 or whatever1 whatever that number is so those two numbers are out so I think I would like to ask with a show of hands from the board who would support the 600,000 I don't I don't think I'm I don't think I'm at that spot let me just say something before you do it okay okay so just to just to kind of talk to Amy part so every year we always have a problem with the buses it's always a big problem you know we went to then uh we decided to go at least one year but no one was really so great with that we did it anyway um but it's always been a big problem and we take the buses to the past the end of life it's like we wait till the we wait till the very end before we have to do something with these to come we can't we can't drive them past the time they come off the road and we do not yes we come off right they have to come off the road and it's always a big deal here right so um you know I'm more I'm more and also I I want to get my head out of playing uh chess versus Checkers or Checkers vers chess right and the checkers part is that it's hurting us right that we're that we feel bad about it now but we might feel better about it later right and I'm not sure how much we're gonna the thing that's unknown is if we don't take this if we don't take the path now will we feel regret later that's the checker part that I'm not sure about right I know right now I have bad feelings about doing it now but I don't know if I'm going to have worse feelings about not doing it now and regretting it later like if we're sitting around in um in in February next year talking about the buses and how we got a big problem and our state aid went down right we are going to feel terrible well that's a repercussion part that we were talking about yes by the way why why do you shake your head on it I I won't feel bad I think this board has done a lot to try to fix what's what we've all admitted is a flawed game here I think that that this board worked extremely hard to reach out to our legislators to our legislature to ask them to increase and improve our funding formula to shed light on what it's going to be in the future we encourage the parents of this town to do something about it and they have given us a flawed system I think that we've done everything that we can to try to fix this and so and and this is also a legislature that passed in in the previous few years A2 billion doll tax Surplus that they chose not to reissue to their schools in their state after a massive loss of learning due to the pandemic so so so I just want to say if you you ask I'm answer so I just want to say I I won't feel bad I'll be I'll be irritated at what they have done to fail the students of our our state that won't that does not change the pragmatic part that we may have a problem buying buses so we may say we did did all we could and we may feel like you know what it's a floor system but when it comes down to it we are going to have a problem possibly funding buses and that is where it come that's where theoretical and political and all that kind of stuff goes out window maintaining or maintain class sizes that we have now right whatever it is interventionists coaching positions things that enh Career Technical educational programs at the high school the things that enhance our school district we may we may and you're right it's chess and checkers and we don't know we don't know what our state aid Cuts will be but we do but we do know we do know that all indications are that our state aid will probably not go up that's that's all indications right as I said before predicting this enrollment is down and those are two facts that we know are going to exist Mr Dalton trying to listen trying to consider because I'm I'm conflicted right I I feel like we made what we felt were the most responsible decisions for the taxpayers and having sat in the State House back in 2019 and testified in front of the Senate and sat in Senator Sweeney's office trying to appeal to let us go above 2% back then so that it wouldn't be all of these years down the road that districts were um year dealing with multiple years and the compounding effect of this um my conflict as I'm listening to all of this and Mr Weinstein thank you for your comments because I think it's helping me a little bit is it feels like the signal from the state is you have to do this and next year if you didn't do it shame on you that's what I'm feeling like when I think about this you know listening to the discussion and so then I go to you know what is our responsibility to maintain our programs maintain our buildings maintain our Fleet of vehicles so that we are a great school district and have everything we can to support everyone so it it's a really tough spot to be in in one night to look at this and say we made what we thought was the most responsible decision a couple of months ago and now the state voled and listening to the whole conversation it feels like the signal is going to be oh well you didn't take advantage of this opportunity in a year from now and and that's where I'm a little bit concerned and and I understand everything everything everyone's done with the legislature I know in my former role I appealed I wrote letters I marched on Trenton so I I was there um and there was no response at that time there was not even an inkling to go above the 2% it was tough luck and if that was the feeling then and help feeling like here's your solution oh you didn't take it tough luck like that's what it feels like and maybe that's not the case but you know this is a signal and I didn't have conversations with people at the state level on this and I don't think a lot of conversations were had this was a very quick solution that two of you had to spend a lot of time processing and putting things together um and so it's it's a really tough spot to be in because I am looking at this I'm sitting here with a pen trying to look at these numbers and say okay there's a tax increase and we don't know how the whole Community feels about that but I do know that I think of because I was with Caitlyn a lot her little kids being in school in the next few years and what's their experience going to be like I I have to think about that and so you know I'm trying to balance in my mind where did we leave off with the approved budget and what feels comfortable and I'm having a hard time finding that Comfort um and think about you know what would be the next thing cut because this is the list of items not funded but if the cut next year in state funding if we whatever decision we make if we get cut even more State funding then we're looking at programs like right I mean yes there's no two ways about it we're looking at programs I'm proud of the fact that we have field trips but I know many districts that's it there's no field trips right so like and once that becomes very emotional with our public once you start cutting all of those things and they're great opportunities for our kids but we may find ourselves saying sorry no field trips unless it's everything's paid for you know sorry there's I I worked in a district where Athletics at even at the middle level was cut and it was subscription you had to pay to be in athletics talk about an equity issue like how do you address that so you know it I'm I'm concerned about where we left off and yet we're getting this message from the state and how do we interpret that message of the number so yeah so unfortunately we are going to have to make some kind of a decision here tonight um so I think the best way to handle this is to do a vote and everyone votes how they feel whether it's a no or whether it's 600,000 whether it's the full amount um I think it should be brought out in the vote is that is that okay with everyone I mean we could stay here few more hours talking about this because I don't think we're we're going to come up with a A solution that everyone can agree upon so um discussion or the problem is if you come out if you come out with that vote yeah and you have four people say no three people say the full amount and two people say 600,000 then your majority opinion is no so I would say that you yeah that's true that's true need to have aart Kaitlyn I think you said like we already took yes or I think we already took the yes or no vote which Kaitlyn should be the first vote so now it should be that is actually what I meant but didn't come out like that unless that has changed unless anyone wants to change their position yeah right the discuss suggestion no that was it that it should be a yes or no if we move forward or not and then we vote if if it's yes well not a vote a straw if the poll is yes we should move forward then we PLL on what that forward is okay so we will do that is that okay Mr Hastings so we're gonna do a straw poll on whether we take any increase yes or no yes or no yes and if yes what that increase would be okay 600 did we do the yes already yeah we're GNA do it again do it do it again with a number with an amount okay so so yes or no and the yeses need to give an amount okay are we doing a roll call or you just taking a show hands it's just it's is a point of information that's not that's not what was just presented it was that you would take two votes and that the first vote would be a second a reiteration of yes or no unless you want the initial vote to stand all right and then the second vote would be 600,000 or 1.1 million that was what was yes right correct so how many people vote no they don't want any in at all with a show of hands one two three four how many people say yes how many people is that just four on yes yes five okay of those five I don't think I now I'm sorry back to point point of inquiry are you saying now that we're going around even to the no is about 600 or the 1100 yes no just yes saying that we go around now and we say 600 or 1100 because it is yes we are raising it and now 600 that's the appropriate course of action oh yeah you're right all right so it should be another vote 600 so how many many how many people would like to see it go up by 600,000 show a hands I guess so that's four how many 1.17 so that's the problem here I think you should start with the 1.17 pass fail and then go to the 600 pass all right so 1.17 how many people vote for that so one so that's fail that's a fail fail so 600,000 show of hands you can vote for more than one you can vote for that you can vote for it's yes if you would like get money yes for this i v okay so that would be six six so it looks like the the board to go back and develop the budget based on a $600,000 correct can I yes I mean it's around 600,000 right if turns out to be 650 550 right it's in that 600 ballp okay okay at least it gives you a little bit of direction rounding Rule and all of that is that helpful yes thank you thank you all um is there any other is there any we're done with the old business is there any new business is there any public comment from anyone in the room Miss Hayes Alex say is oir it's hard to tell how many people are on the meeting um but I know when Miss um mcgoverin asked like it would be nice to see what you know the public thinks of this which was a a novel idea um there were only two commenters because nobody knows this is happening um it was posted on the school district's website the uh information about tonight's meeting what this afternoon normally it's like 24 hours in advance that it's posted online but today's for whatever reason went out today um the public has no idea that you're considering raising so if you um you know don't engage the public who elected you all of what their thoughts are um that's quite a shame I think you guys should be talking to your neighbors you should be talking to your parents who still live here you should be talking if you don't have kids to people that have kids or to retirees what they think um mindboggling okay um other uh some things that I wanted to bring up um the cell phone Task Force superintendent Welden that's phenomenal I'm just curious and I can you can get some of these answers to me um another time just curious how many parents not Schoolboard member parents but regular parents are on it and not PTA parents but like regular parents not PTA board member parents if there are any regular run-of-the-mill parents on it um I don't know if you all saw the um nj.com that's the Star Ledger the massive um bus investigation that came out a few days ago um and I did want to talk to Mr Hastings possibly offline I do believe that some of the buses in 150,000 bus um inspections that they put into their this database that they created I do think they put in some Ocean Township Ocean County in in addition to the township of ocean mammouth counties but it did reveal that Ocean Township which I'm presuming a majority of the ones that were listed um failed State bus inspections 40% of the time that's crazy um and the state by law has to inspect buses twice and you get reinspected and many of them repass but 40% failure rate you guys are talking about buses and buses by law have to be um uh recycled or renewed or re-bought every 10 years so the buses is sadly an important uh reality um couple other things um I was kind of hoping for um you know with some change in this um District leadership and the board that maybe there might have been a pride Declaration of pride month I know we didn't even um this board wasn't gutsy enough to do an anti-racism policy when the whole George Floyd stuff came out um but in 2024 it would be really nice if this board came out in solidarity of a lgbtq declaration of either pride month or uh affirming our lgbtq Tia students rights um a couple more things um hold on sorry in 9.11 um you all did approve a board official position for next year but it's you approve somebody who resigned so they're resigning in August and you approve somebody for a position that starts next school year so that might have to be attended to and uh lastly Mr Hastings 9.26 um the say of the bills in between board meetings I completely forget if there is an answer to this but I'm just wondering what instruments are in place for the public to kind of review when that happens because I know you post the bills you know at the monthly meetings but I just can't remember if some of those things that you have to do in between if they actually make it to that so I'm wondering if you could get back to me on that and um that's it I just want to leave you with the fact that there's what 28,000 residents in in this town and nobody knows that you're discussing a possibly 4.5% increase you should talk to constituents thanks thank you M Hayes um Miss con is there anyone else in the room public comment Miss Conway is there anyone in the queue yes madame president there is uh our first commenter is Heather Krueger please go ahead hello everyone can you hear me yes we can hear you hi hi hope everyone's doing well um I just have a quick question uh I was wondering if there's going to be a sign up or a poll for interested parents in being a part of the cell phone Task Force um that sounds like a great idea um and as a parent I would love to see some policies implemented uh for cell phone usage during school hours and I would love to be a part of that so I was just wondering um if I should look out for like a sign up or where that would be coming from that's all okay thank you for your comment thank you you wouldn't mind just um you know reaching out to uh Miss Welden tomorrow or when you can and um ask her that question we would appreciate it okay I will do that thank you very much thank you is there anyone else Miss Conway yes madame president our next commenter is baa van nostrom please go ahead hi everyone um I have uh just a question it's hard to see on the zoom and since I don't think you did the actual vote if you could say who voted um against the increase um I'm just curious and then also um I I mean I knew there was a meeting tonight I knew what the agenda was and I thank all of you for um obviously all the thought that you've put into these decisions I know that they're not easy to make um obviously we wish we could do everything um and just you know thank you to all of you for uh for taking this on and um I hope you all have a good night thank you Miss Von nostrom I if you wouldn't mind reaching out to Mr Hastings he would be happy to um share that with you okay great thank you thank you Miss Conway is there anyone else in the queue yes our last commenter is Lauren Mahan please go ahead uh actually it's her husband Patrick Mahan uh good evening everybody uh just want to thank you all for your time and energy and effort uh I just wanted to comment on the fact uh that you guys are seemingly electing to not Max maximize your opportunity here um to ensure that not just buses not just boilers but actual classrooms actual teachers actual supplies actual staff actual things that are needed to run the building and to allow our students our children to actually grow and investigate and ask and learn what they actually are passionate about um I think it's a huge mistake for you guys to settle for 600 or some some number near there uh I think you should absolutely be going I am a taxpayer I've lived here for 12 years uh $150 a year when my taxes are going up every year anyway uh knowing where that money goes uh I would find a lot more Solace and be very okay with knowing that about $15 a month uh is what I'm being taxed to ensure that our town our kids our future has every opportunity and no excuse as to why they can't succeed so I appreciate you guys worrying about the taxpayers um however the 12 years I've lived here my taxes have gone up every year uh and I haven't seen anything tangible for that so to know that the $15 a month would go towards Staffing our buildings and as I believe the ba and the super did a fantastic job of also laying out how that number can compound over the years uh I I think it's I think you might want to reconsider I understand you don't know every line and every number number and you're not going to know that till the state gets off their butts uh but I still think you have a fantastic opportunity and I forget the gentleman I apologize but whoever made the point that this is the state saying to you straight up this is your one chance if you choose to not do it um it's a mistake I don't know if people on the board are trying to use this position as a political uh setup in the future and you want to be able to look back and say look I voted to not raise your taxes but I think it's very nearsighted to not go for the full amount uh and I think you guys should absolutely do such things um and again I just appreciate you guys putting all this time and energy and effort in um and uh that was all thank you for your time and thank you for allowing me to speak thank you Mr Mahan we appreciate your comments is there anyone else Miss Conway uh no Madam president there are no further commenters thank you so much at this time I'd like to ask the board for motion to motion second second thank you all for coming out sorry for the late nights have a great night