I'd like to call this meeting to order Mr Walsh would you lead us in the flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all sunshine statement all requirements of the open public meetings act have been met for this meeting of the Board of Education of the Bureau of ordell notice of this meeting was filed with the record in town news and all persons requesting such notice Mr Daran would you read the mission statement the the orell public school district is dedicated to the ongoing pursuit of educational Excellence through comprehensive Innovative curriculum and instruction the district is committed to providing opportunities for social emotional and academic Discovery to Foster curiosity courage and character our goal is to prepare our students to become lifelong Learners who are self-directed resilient productive responsible citizens thank you roll call Mrs aosta will not be here tonight Mr Del Greco here Mrs Downey here Mr nutland and Mrs noran will not be here Mrs Walker here Mr Walsh here Mr Daran here Mrs wter Nichols here open to the public for agenda items only not seeing any we'll move forward um under uh my report tonight we will have a presentation of the 2223 audit financials by Mr Jeff Bliss our auditor hi well there we go good evening everyone good evening good evening it's a pleasure to be here to present the audit um for the year ended June 30th of 23 um we just met with the finance committee went through in in detail uh the financials and the uh the recommendations but I will go go through it again um but our main objective um after we examine the books and review the transactions um is to express an opinion on your financial statements and express an opinion on your compliance with major federal and state Grant Awards and to report on any uh weaknesses or deficiencies in internal controls our report on the financial statements were un was unmodified unmodified means a clean opinion clean opinion means the financial statements are fairly stated prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and there were no scope limitations in the audit um an unmodified opinion in a financial statement audit is an absolute must anything that creates a modification mean is the financial statements um there's an issue or a mistake M or a misapplication of how accounting standards were applied our opinion on your compliance with major federal and state grants was also unmodified meaning a clean opinion meaning you complied in all material respects with your uh compliance requirements of your federal and state grants um an unmodified or clean opinion on compliance with grants is also a must anything other than unmodified uh means there's a potential that you didn't comply and that funds may be due back to the granter agency caused for disallowed cost so I'm happy to say both financial statement wise and compliance on your grants that both opinions are clean or unmodified with respect to reporting on material weaknesses in internal control or significant deficiencies in internal control we had no findings that Rose to a level uh of that magnitude so uh we do not have any findings in the audit related to material weaknesses or significant deficiencies with respect to financially how did you do um if you want to follow along on page 74 is a summary of your fund balances um page 74 is the last page of exhibit C1 which is the budgetary comparison schedule of your general fund your general fund is the major operating fund of the district um probably accounts for somewhere around 98% of the operating cost of the district it's the budget that you adopt in uh April May every year the major sources of revenue are tax taxes and State paid um major expenses are salaries and wages benefits tuition cost plant operation and maintenance cost um on page 74 is a summary of fund balance um just overall uh your fund balance increased about 117,000 uh went from 4,626 635 to 4,743 59 6 so for the year end of June 30th of 23 you improved your financial position um all the the fund balance is not all available um as the board sees fit um the board has by resolution put certain money into specific reserves uh certain money is put aside in reserves by uh uh regulation of the state and I'm going to go through the each individual item of surplus or fund balance so you have an understanding um what these fund balances are for how much they are um because as you go forward especially you're going to start the 2425 budget process you need to know what monies are available going forward so the first item you see under restricted fund balance is capital reserve 2 mil 42622 and represents the capital reserve that the board board has set aside by board resolution to fund capital projects in the long range facility plan uh this 2,042 has not been earmarked for any specific projects so it's available to fund any future projects that are in a long range facility plan um if you decide to do one of those projects or you get a rod Grant and you need to put up your 60% of local funds the board simply needs to do a resolution to appropriate those funds to those projects in addition to the 2,042 you had an uh 330,000 of capital reserve that was designated for the subsequent Year's budget meaning that 330,000 was earmarked for specific projects in the 2324 budget if you do do not use all those monies on those projects the remaining balance will go back to the 2,042 622 overall the capital reserve uh increased about 600,000 from the year before we basically uh we started with about a million 8 we used $400,000 on uh projects I think it was actually for the auditorium um and then we put a million dollars back when we close the books so in to in total you have roughly uh 2.4 million in in um Capital reserves maintenance Reserve we had four 543,000 in maintenance Reserve again these are monies put aside by uh the district to fund maintenance projects that are in the comprehensive maintenance plan um that 543 has not been earmarked for any of those projects so again going forward it there those monies are available to fund maintenance projects uh in future years you also had 100,000 in maintenance Reserve that was designated for the subsequent Year's budget meaning that 100,000 is being used now in the 2324 budget to fund maintenance costs um if we do not use all that 100,000 uh again it'll go back to the 543 both the capital reserve and maintenance reserves are specific for the their purpose they cannot be used to fund uh teacher salaries administrative salaries health benefit costs uh tuition cost or Transportation cost these reserves remain in there if you you you you appropriate them you don't use them again they go back um the maintenance reserve the to total of 643,000 is the maximum the district is permitted to have at the end of the year the district also had an emergency reserve of 13,425 uh these are monies that also were set aside by board resolution um very difficult Reserve to use except for security projects that are in the original budget adopted by the board or they can be used during the year to fund unbudgeted health benefit costs that exceed 4% any other purpose other than those two purposes requires the executive County superintendent's approval um and that approval is very difficult to get um they will look at other areas where you have funds to draw from before they they draw down those funds um the maximum that you're allowed to have in that Reserve is 250 you're about halfway there at 130 425 you also had 2,717 in an unemployment compensation reserve and it represents the money the district has put away to pay unemployment claims um many many years ago like most governments in New Jersey the board adopted what is called the reimbursement method to fund its unemployment claims basically means you're self-insured uh so when someone goes on un employment uh and that claim comes uh to the district the district signs off on it we pay those claims dollar for dollar um the funding of those claims is made up of two sources your portion plus the employees portion um the employees money gets used first the your portion the 25,000 is the the portion that is used last um this account has not changed in many years so we've we've been able when we do have claims to use the employees money that's set aside in the trust account uh we also at the end of the year had excess surplus of 357 356 excess Surplus is a required Reserve when the uh unassigned fund balance exceeds 2% when the district closes the books we make the transfers into the the reserve accounts the capital reserve maintenance Reserve even emergency Reserve in New Jersey anything over 2% of of the budget uh must go into this excess Surplus Reserve um this Reserve can only be used as a revenue Source in the 2425 budget so you cannot use it for any other purpose so so when you start the 2425 budget process the minimum amount of fund balance you must anticipate in that budget is the 357 356 can't use it for any other purpose that is compared to the excess Surplus from the prior year June 30th of 22 of 51645 uh in 22 the calculation was based on 4% um and at 4% the district was over 516 457 those funds are being used now in the 2324 budget as a revenue Source it's funding operating cost of the current year um so in all uh fact those monies are no longer available going forward to fund future expenses because you're using them to pay expenses of the current school year the next two items on the committed fund balance and assigned fund balance yearend incumbrances of 46709 and 88760 represents open purchase orders at the end of the year where the district has ordered Goods or awarded contracts where the goods have not been received or the contracts have not been perform you don't owe anybody money because you didn't get anything but you have committed and assigned those uh purchase orders to those uh purchases when the goods are received and the services are rendered we reclassify those purchase orders from incumbrances to accounts payable they get expensed and paid to the vendor uh as the services and goods are received and the services rendered those monies are no longer available going forward at this point in time they've been completely liquidated that leaves you with unassigned fund balance that's the Surplus the fund balance that's available uh to the board for future expenses as the board sees fit um that's $562,500 it represents the 2% maximum you're allowed to have which is roughly 277,000 plus you're allowed to add to that 2% any unbudgeted uh aid from extraordinary Aid and non-public school transportation Aid uh that you receive during the 2223 year get get added to the 2% uh so the 2% is 277 and about 285 of unbudgeted uh Aid comes to the 562 393 the important part of the additional amount you're allowed to add add to the 2% is that the board by resolution during the year can appropriate that money to the 2324 budget um without approval from the the commissioner of Education or the county superintendent um the the uh practice of not budgeting that state aid is very financially sound a very good practice as it allows the district to add it to the 2% and it gives you flexibility in the subsequent year if something comes up that's unbudgeted you can draw off this sun ass sign to go into the 2% portion um would require the commissioner of Education approval uh to get that you would have to be basically have no money and that's not going to happen here so financially you improved your financial position you're in very sound stable Financial condition um you have Capital reserves you have maintenance reserves uh you have a small emergency Reserve you have ex Surplus to apply to 2425 so I think overall um financially in very good very good position there's any questions be more than happy to answer them no okay as far as recommendations again we had no um we had three General eneral recommendations they're in the smaller report on the last [Music] page again they they did not rise to the level of material weaknesses or significant deficiencies um or reportable conditions of non-compliance uh the first one um under financial planning accounting and Reporting it was recommended that the district maintain a payroll deduction Ledger by individual deduction category for the entire school year uh the district uh does in-house payroll you don't have a third- party uh payroll provider um and as such it's important that you keep a ledger by deduction category meaning Federal withholding Social Security state withholding pension contributions union dues of how much came in by category compared to how much went out and what the balances remaining of those categories that book was maintained for the beginning of the year um you had some change over in personnel and they stopped keeping that record so I know Peter has instituted uh that process again um and again as doing in-house payroll it's a very important record to maintain item two also deals with payroll um in auditing the deposits to the IRS uh we noted uh at least one instance where the the deposit was not made timely the monies weren't remitted timely um and therefore the district uh incurred a a penalty and interest charge um obviously it's imperative that our payroll remittances to the federal and state government be made timely should be done immediately soon as the payroll is done just should be done should be no waiting the final recommendation is the facility and capital assets uh and it's just recommended that greater care be exercised to ensure all current year additions are included in the capital asset inventory report the district underwent a complete Capital asset uh inventory physical inventory um but for some reason they didn't pick up some of the uh uh current year additions soone going through the audit when we're tying out your records to to the the capital asset inventory records there were some items that were not included so we we have a full accounting of that I know we gave it to Peter and Peter I believe submitted it to the fixed asset company and they submitted a revised report but we just got to take greater care to make sure um that the company includes everything in that fixed asset report uh no repeat recommendations again um no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in internal control um just these three uh General recommendations uh if there's any questions be more than happy to answer Walker did you have a question before um going back thank you very much very comprehensive um going back to the bigger book here yes um we have 2.4 million in capital reserves correct yes you roughly 2.5 4 million 2, 372 okay so roughly 2.4 correct is there a limit to the amount of time that we can retain that no there's no limit on the amount of time there's a limit on the amount you could put in um the statute says the maximum you're allowed to have is the local share of the cost of the projects in your long range facility plan the long range facility plan is roughly 6.3 million the local share if the state gave you the 40% grants that they're supposed to give you the maximum would be about 3.8 million um but the reality is they're not going to give you that so the max is somewhere between the 3.8 and 6.2 million but there's no time limit I think the important thing is in you know what I see in in in in aidell is you put the money in the reserve but you use it to do improvements meaning you're not just putting it away to Sock It Away uh there are districts that just put the money away and they just keep putting it away and they don't use it so um you know you funded this whole project here with capital reserve funds which is which is good saves the taxpayers tremendous amount of cost with interests borrowing and cost of issuance of borrowing and going out for referendums and oh yeah the whole thing is yeah so it's it's okay thank you it's a good Reserve to have any other questions thank you Mr Bliss you're welcome thank you good night everyone next year yes we appreciate it um um most of that 2 million is actually spoken for Mrs Walker can ask Mr Darian we have projects lined up I'll be anxious to hear those the uh we've already identified 330,000 and of the 2 million that's in C Reserve we've already identified half of that so yeah part of it's been postponed though right get the yeah part was postponed from the summer to the following yeah yes yeah okay um we need to set a b& committee meeting a policy meeting and a curriculum meeting so maybe we can meet afterwards to get those committee members can meet after to get set up dates um and I'll turn it over to the superintendent good evening we're at that time of the year where it feels like every week is busier than the next last week ell Public School raised over $45,000 for the American Heart Association through the kids heart challenge the driving force behind that program is our physical education teachers Miss myella and Mr Kelly so a very special Thanks goes out to them they owe me a little bit too because we are probably the biggest earner in the state of New Jersey so the American Heart Association loves to send me emails and ask us to do even more last week also saw 12 of our staff members participating in a zoom call to learn more about The Fairly Dickinson University Orton Gillingham teacher certification program this is a 12 credit Graduate School courses that will run at Ops in the fall as long as we have the required number of Staff members last week also ended with the Hoops championship game Hoops is our inter mural basketball program in sixth grade we moved the program to the winter from the spring several years ago and it continues to be a treasured sixth grade memory I cannot tell you the number of parents whose children now go to Ops who when I speak to them go my team won the Hoops game including the principal of irell high school if I remember correctly special thanks to Dr Roth and Mr Mrs adinos for stepping in to run the finals in Mr Kelly's absence we also learned last week that all 23 of our sixth grade teams that submitted video entries to the New Jersey Schoolboard steam tank challenge qualified for the regional competition Mrs Cataldo will continue to work with the teams as they create a prototype and sales pitch for their inventions last year was our first year competing in steamtank and our goal this year is to see at least one team make it to State finals this week our high impact tutoring gr program began with third and fourth graders our robotics Club continues to meet after school and has turned into a highly successful program that we look to continue moving forward we took a new field trip after school today going to the Blauvelt mansion with students involved in our lunchtime Art Club Mrs Holly spent this afternoon sending me photos from The Blob Bel so if anybody else has never been there and wants to go with me let me know a team of teachers and administrators met with River Edge and River Del counterparts to create a K12 language arts and math Continuum which focuses on identifying a vision for teaching and important entrance and exit skills at each grade this document will be placed on all three District websites we also have a team of teachers and admin right now who are attending a fractioned boot camp professional development through the prism program at Monclair State University with tonight being their final session to take you through some of the items on tonight's agenda on the Personnel addendum you will notice several staff members are being approved to facilitate the Dibbles Parent Academy occurring next week all parents in grades K12 K2 will receive their child's Dibble score report and an explanatory letter by the end of this week the parent Academy will provide additional information on how to read that report and what types of learning activities can be used to strengthen and Knowledge and Skills you will also notice that an amendment has been submitted to the E the Esser ARP Grant the amendment focuses on 16 days of professional development with K5 math teaching resource which will provide our all teachers in K through five with two and a half full days of professional development and additional materials to support the work three days of structured literacy Workshop over the summer um by winds learning that will be for up to 30 members the grant will cover the cost of the workshop and the district will cover the cost of as we know our teachers get paid $30 per hour for professional development outside of school hour so the district will put that cost in our budget for next year it will Al the SR ARP will also fund a Prof staff developer to work with 14 staff members for five professional days during the Spring and Summer to rewrite our writing curriculum that new writing curriculum will also include um an emphasis on grammar as I spoke recently about our curriculum and our chance to re-envision it the staff developer that I am talking with is specifically known for the work she's done with h grammar mini units and we talk a lot that Esser is a little confusing because there are different pots and different pots of money can only be used for certain things so one pot of the money is the beyond the school day money it has to be used for programming outside of the normal school day and we will be doing K through six steam experiences there will be a kindergarten parent child steam night a first grade parent child steam night a grade two through three evening and after school experience it will begin with a parent child night um children will then have the opportunity to spend four days in the steam L lab with a group of hired teachers to work on Steam experiences and then we will bring their parents and children again together for a night event so that the students can show their parents what they have learned we will repeat that experience with grades 4 through five and then we will also be running an application after school steam experience for our sixth graders where they'll have more of an opportunity to use some of the steam materials they don't always get to use when there's so many kids in the steam lab so whether that be the 3D printers and some of the coding materials that we're using um and this way we can really focus on Steam because we have always said that it is a great way to build student engagement to work on perseverance but it also has a little other goal for us we know from our njsla data that our weakness in science is physical science so every one of those activities will also work on physical science an additional item on the agenda tonight is the memorandum of understanding with the police department I thought it would be useful to give you a little little background about that that's a template agreement between police departments and School District officials that puts protocols in place for everything from when a district should notify the police so for example if we call dcpp um about a concern with a child it is in that memorandum of understanding that we also notify the police department about our concerns it identifies when search and seizure can be done um issues with drugs in a school body cam video footage for police departments on school property and that will be submitted as soon as it has signatures from the three required individuals and I'd like to end tonight with something that I am so proud of with this school community and that is that we do have the largest and oldest PTA around so a very sincere thank you to the orl PTA for their generous donations on tonight's agenda I tried to find which one I was most excited about and I have to say it is probably the art one with the digital cameras because we've always said that our PTA is working hand inand with us when what they're doing is supplementing and complementing what we're doing so that digital media unit is a brand new unit in our sixth grade art curriculum and now we have to do less sharing because the PTA has helped us to have the cameras to really let our students experience something a little different so thank you to the PTA and that concludes my report thank thank you Mr iell I'd just like to say that we are in the midst of preparing the 2024 25 school budget the state just released the budget calendar uh this afternoon so I haven't had time to review it as to when the budget is due and the public hearing dates I will get that to you as soon as I have that and that concludes my report thank you moving on to Minutes review of January 24th any questions or comments please email email Mr iell we have approval of January 3rd whoever makes the motion I would like to make a change um the adjournment should not be the motion should not be by me it should be by Mrs noran so I would like whoever is going to make the motion for the January 3D to Just note that it's with Mrs noran um adjourning the meeting do I have a motion I move that we approve January 3D's minutes as remended do I have a second I second any questions call the question on the role Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs Walker abstain Mr Walsh yes Mr Darian yes Mrs Nichols yes committee reports administrative Mr Daran uh yes uh I'd like to introduce um oh items A1 which is a hi report and a uniform memorandum agreement with law enforcement I'll second it second by Mr Walsh any questions call a question on the role Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs Walker yes Mr Walsh yes Mr Darian yes Mrs Nichols yes buildings and grounds Mr Darian yeah I'd like to introduce so before I do that I just wanted to say we have not had a uh B&G meeting prior to this board meeting so I have nothing really to the report um just to put a little perspective on our audit and the capital reserve account uh the longrange facility plan which is a 10-year plan uh we can have up to 3.8 to6 million in that res Reserve in order to cover that long range plan but that's a 10year plan it's not like we would want to do everything on that long range plan all at once so the fact that we have 2.4 million uh out of the 3.8 to6 is a pretty good number um in terms of you know managing the balances in the capital reserve account so that we have the funds to do what we need to do in order to maintain this building and not have it run really low so with that said um I'd like you introduce item B1 which is for facility use I'll second it second by Mr Walsh any questions I just have a quick question the book clubs are those PTA those are PTA yes they are any other questions call the question on the role Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs Walker yes Mr Walsh yes Mr Darian yes Mrs Nichols yes uh curriculum Mrs noran is not here Mrs Downey you want to take that okay I'd like to introduce c one I'll second it second by Mr Walsh any questions call the question on the role Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs Walker yes yes Mr Walsh yes Mr Daran yes Mrs Nichols yes Finance Mrs aasta is not here Mr Daran would you take that uh yes I would like to introduce items uh D1 through d11 I'll second it second by Mr Walsh any questions I have a comment Mr Daran yes um on D5 D6 uh these are expenditures for Lan uh Lan is or Lan Associates uh is our architect of record and whenever we're doing projects like the HVAC replacement it's required by the uh state that everything is drawn up and uh bid is uh created and so um L is a a vital uh partner in these projects and so um this is not something that we're just doing because we don't feel like doing it ourselves um I also like to mention on d11 um our superintendent uh Miss Boos thank the PTA um but i' just like to mention that $22,000 is a lot of money and um it's much appreciated thank you any other questions or comments Mrs Walker um I have a I guess it's a question or an explanation for G for the approval of special education Medicaid initiative I'm sure that's been on our um approvals in past years but maybe someone could explain it Mr iell can you take that we have identified actually zero students it's fewer than 40 students and there's really no money tied to it so but you have to say you're waving it so but there aren't any students that qualify we have no students that identified that qualified thank you thank you you're welcome any other questions Mrs Walker and just to comment uh on Greg's do donations by the PTA it it's wonderful and all of these things are dedicated to the kids there's nothing here that really is uh functional for the workings of the school it's all dedicated to the kids and amazing at almost it 219 almost $222,000 just amazing and especially when they're the oldest and largest think but think about it the oldest is it the people are the oldest or it's wonderful any other Finance comments Mr Del Breco yes I would just like to also thank the PTA for this very generous and diverse list of items as a parent myself um I can say that it is very well appreciated uh especially some of the items for the kids so thank you how many pizza slices did you buy and donate to this cool school supplies Pizza more than you know it adds up any other questions call a question on the role Mr Del grea yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs Walker yes Mr Walsh yes Mr Daren yes Mrs Watson Nichols yes delegate report Mr Walsh I have no report Personnel Mrs wer uh yes we haven't had a meeting but we are going to schedule one tonight and with that I'd like to present F1 I'll second it second by Mr Walsh any questions I I just have one quick question on onea is there a replacement for that Aid that um has resigned as of right now we can fill the position because of some other situations in the school with staff that are already here and we're going to see how that goes and if we need to go out for to hire an aid we we actually keep a live posting for AIDS on our website at all times so we can go into that pool if we need to thank you what's eln I The Early Learning Improvement Community it's the program we're doing with the state of New Jersey and also the state of Vermont at the same time it looks at early math practices so they came um professors from um rers came here to look at our teachers teaching and we're actually going to go to another school and that's also part of the program and see some teaching there so the staff members live closer to this to Middle sex than they do us with the mileage one definitely does I'm not sure about the others so we're just not okay all right any other questions Mrs Walker and then what's the advantage for us to have the rers folks come here to to expand our Horizons as we say all the time being a one school district is a curse and a blessing and it's really important that we look at what other people are doing and we learn from them so in this case that's given us that opportunity a key component of this program is also teachers videotaping themselves and looking and studying their lessons so it just lets us go and study someone else at the same time do they actually teach lessons also for this teachers the the folks from ruers do they come in and take over um I don't think in this time they did they really came to watch observe and say listen what about trying it this way thank you any other questions call a question on the role Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs waler yes Mr Walsh yes Mr Darien yes Mrs Nichols yes policy Mr Del Greco um we have not had a meeting so far and we're going to schedule one tonight public relations Mrs Downey nothing new to report at this time we'll open to the public Hi how are you I'm Jen abavo I have first grader currently um can you just sign the book and put your so we don't forget yeah yeah yeah so this question is really just um whether it would be possible to um perhaps move the um meetings from a YouTube streaming to more of an interactive platform like Zoom or teams or blue jeans only because there seems to be a lot of um support from the parent community that this the time is difficult for people to come and although there's a big volume streaming they don't have the opportunity to interact so if we could move more towards a zoom platform at least you could see the involvement from the parent community and then at the end it would also give people a option to interact from a distance so just a suggestion thank you thank you for coming if there's no one else we'll move to old and new business for the board any old or new business we we do need to go into a Clos session for legal SL student SLP Personnel Neti issue so Mr Daran would you mind making that motion I make a motion that we go into executive session I'll second it second by Mr Walsh roll call on the role Mr delgreco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs M Walker yes Mr Walsh yes Mr Darien yes Mrs Nichols yes we will not be taking any action after the Clos session thank you for coming and this is just a quick assignment