##VIDEO ID:4G6cN_Z0nS0## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e and the Ridgewood board of education has been meeting an executive session pursuing to njsa 10 col 4-12 the minutes for this meeting will be released when the need for confidentiality no longer exists pursuant to the requirements of the open public meetings act advanced notice has been given to the Star Ledger the record and the clerk of the village of Ridgewood in addition notices were posted in the office of the board secretary and in all school buildings um I guess we'll go what we are going to have a report from our auditor um but he is going to run a little bit late so might we start with Harrison is that okay Harrison you're on hello okay um hi good to see you all happy uh New Year here formally on on the record to you all um I missed the uh December me meeting so there are just a couple things I'm goingon to go to uh from that report uh just that I think are still relevant just because I want to give certain people shout outs um but if you recognize somebody this say old news that that's why um so on November 14th if you can remember back then uh R High School welcome veterans from American Legion Post 53 as well as various other local veterans to honor them for their service and them to share their experiences with students uh we did that for Veterans Day so that was pretty cool uh and they're also offering uh American post 53 that is is offering uh a local scholarship to seniors now uh so that's cool um a group of rhs students recently headed to uh ramille college for their annual Bergen County Equity Think Tank uh the publishing team at Cambridge University press and assessment chose ridgwood High School uh for a School site visit this week uh this was again the week of December but uh they went into some um English classes at the freshman sophomore levels and just kind of observed and uh and they were doing kind of a study on what education at the high school level is like uh in the US so um rhs student Caroline Kieran has been named one of 10 finalists out of over 225 candidates in Sean Hall University's Pirates pitch competition uh on a project she started with the DECA group um and Saturday November 23rd marked the annual winter art full Fusion show which took place outside the school card there were record 14 bands there with a variety of different genres um I went it was a super cool event a lot of uh parents but also students from kind of all ages um and it was just some I got to say really impressive performances um from some students that I had no idea were even musically inclined uh so it was pretty cool um this will be a little shamess self-plug but uh the ridgwood high school's principal Advisory Board attended the HSA meeting in December which was uh a meeting geared towards um uh programs of study uh uh so like that's going to be Amad Alisa all those kind of uh High School groups um for specific you know usually multi-year um kind of academic focuses um so that's a group that I lead and we brought students to kind of just share experiences uh in some of those groups we had Amad Alisa um and rap and they just kind of talked about uh you know so that the uh the group uh teachers would would first start off and just share kind of the general details about uh those groups and then we kind of came in and filled in the uh the gaps of kind of what the student aspect and the student side of things was like um and then we also brought some kids who weren't at any program just to kind of show that you know you can go into no programs at all and still be successful still have a very interesting and meaningful uh High School career uh Miss Brogan was there she can uh maybe she liked it maybe she didn't I hope uh but I hope you know she thought it was some cool insights that we brought to the table um uh and the last thing I'll just mentioned from this this old report is that uh 23 rhs seniors uh have committed to playing sports at the Collegiate level so shout out to all them it's a huge accomplishment uh and wishing them the best of luck there uh and now to some of the newer stuff uh Johnny Jackson was recently featured in a series of pieces of media most notably uh from ESPN with uh both social media attention uh and an appearance on on the Michael K show um all of which have garnered him National recognition and praise for his incredible story which I'm sure you're all familiar with um battling stage four cancer and still being an incredible basketball player uh just a really kind of heartfelt you know out of a movie uh story so shout out to him um Dr Paul Nash of the fossil insect lab of the American Museum of Natural History recently zoomed into the mineral fossil Club to talk to the members about his work uh and research in paleontology rard High School had music students recently selected uh to the region honor ensembles so shout out to all of them um and that was across the band The Orchestra and um the choir um right before break for recent alumni returned to rwood High School uh for a Q&A panel discussion uh for seniors to hear about tips and tricks uh for the rapidly approaching uh transition into college uh chemistry honors students recently had a project simulating car airbags using baking soda and vinegar to learn about and appreciate some real world applications of their academic material uh the senior local scholarship applications were due this past Friday so all the seniors were there and got those all in hopefully anyway um and now they'll be awaiting those results um RS had its winter dance concert on Friday the 10th uh midterms occurred a couple of weeks ago from Tuesday the 14th to Friday the 17th uh they happened two weeks earlier this year to accommodate seniors to get their midyear reports into colleges because they were asking for those um and they originally supposed to be a little bit earlier than those stes but there was a deck of conflict so there was kind of jumping around but those were the dates um the school concert performances just happened this past weekend uh the program is dedicated to letting students of all interests and backgrounds perform together in a show ran by uh their peers so they're student run student driven uh and it was like a record setting group this year I think they had like 360 students participate across uh six shows um so a ton a ton of people did it it was uh and and I went one of the days uh it was it was super cool it's just everybody's having a lot of fun uh a lot of seniors do it just as kind of a last kind of harah with some of their friends so it was pretty cool um the RF grants and scholarship co-chairs presented seven rhs students with scholarships for the fall of 2024 or 2025 maybe that's supposed to uh the fashion design class recently did a project on eco fashion involving upcycling um and all rigid sports teams are at a time of the year when they're beginning to wrap up their regular season matches and start looking looking towards uh championships and the postseason um Richard boy swimming set out to defeat Bergen Catholic uh a historic Powerhouse uh and we narrowly lost in a nailbiter 86 to 84 uh defeat that came down to literally the last race uh which was kind of crushing but it's okay we'll beat him eventually um there's the closest a meet could be without a tie by the way so uh so it's basically a TI is what I'm saying um The arst Debate Club had a number of recent successes including by Junior AR mival who became the first debater in rhs history to qualify for the Gold Tournament of Champions uh girls and boys skiing are enjoying making the most of the snow recently uh with the girls coming first and the boys in a strong second uh in the recent competition at Mount Peter uh and the maroon and white recital happened recently at the high school with a slightly reduced lineup uh than initially scheduled uh since some participants were unable to perform due to illness um and uh senior Luke Pash became the first rard boy to qualify for the milrose games uh in over six years uh with a US number five performance he went a time of four 4:15 in his uh 800 which if you don't speak running that means uh really really fast um so shout out to him he's he's been killing it and he is committed to running for UNCC Chapel Hill uh in the fall so uh shout out to him so yeah that's all I have for you thank you there's always so much happening at the high school isn't there all the clubs and academics and dances thank you um I think we'll go to uh comments from the public if there are any um you um I don't know if you are aware of our new GRE um Sean just your name and your municipality no longer need the address Nike uh amazing place um so uh and just to tie on I was at Patterson at the steam school and I saw the Richard High School boys play and beat uh Mustang cliftons and Clifton Mustangs and then tomorrow at 4:15 hopefully we can find them playing Number One Bergen Catholic every High School and winning for the first time so we'll see if that happens but I'm very hopeful for them good um so I'm here representing Rood High School jambur which is the largest group of Volunteers in Ridgewood um and I believe it's also the largest scholarship fund in Ridgewood it's uh last year we raised about $250,000 in scholarship money um we actually raised more than that because the shows cost money um and our theater is uh not equipped for putting on shows uh which is at Benjamin Franklin so we have to uh pay for lighting we have to pay for uh sound because um some things that we need in our brid of theater but not yet available um the show is the 6th 7th and 8th of February and this year the show is called Las Vegas it's Viva Las Vegas jambur and it is a sellout show hopefully for Thursday Friday Saturday shows 6 7 8th and on Wednesday night we invite the public generally seniors and all uh teachers administrators and uh staff to please come and show their support for the uh dress rehearsal on Wednesday night at Benjamin Franklin we have about 730 seats so um lots of room for you folks and uh we're also raising money through a 5050 raffle which last year had a 27,000 $30 prize for the winner so um hopefully you can make it uh one last thing this is 79 years so we're very excited uh for the 80th year next year as well and uh we're excited to raise more money every year for scholarships unfortunately um we don't know how many need-based scholarships uh applicants we had this year coming in last Friday but we will know sometime um we have 132 parents and Guardians on stage we have 52 alumni on stage and we have 50 plus backstage Heroes and that's how I come up with our almost 250 uh volunteers that make the show possible and I thank BF I thank ridard ridard uh bed I thank rwood school system to um afford this opportunity for us to raise scholarship money for R High School graduating seniors thank you thank you there are still tickets available um and uh you can get them online you can just go to rhs j.org and um hopefully you'll be able to find it as well in uh newsletters and social media postings throughout the uh rid board ofed sites thank you great thank you good night um would you like to um do the superintendent oh excuse me let me just see if there's anybody that moving along I don't see any hands raised right now um so uh we'll close public comment and D SCH would you like to do a your report yes please thank you so much so uh a handful of things I just want to bring up tonight don't take too too much time but uh first of all I wanted to uh welcome our 2025 board to their first regular meeting and Miss handy your first regular meeting thank you for being here so much thanks for your service to the board um I also want just want to give a couple quick congratulations we have some new Folks at the table here we have Mr Ross this is his first regular meeting as our director of curriculum and instruction uh he started uh earlier in January we're really happy to have him on board for those who've been following uh the district and have' been involved in the district you know that we have a lot of Ambitions for the things that we want to accomplish in the space of curriculum and instruction and we're really grateful for Mr Ross's uh interest and capacity and enthusiasm for doing that work I also want to congratulate Miss Lauren Carr who was our uh Benjamin Franklin Middle School assistant principal who has stepped in to be the interim principal of travel Elementary School filling in for Mr Ross for the remainder of the year uh she's very enthusiastic about being there I had a chance to visit she's already moved into her office very enthusiastically and she's already really well engaged in the school I know she was going around and reading uh reading a book about a school as a family uh to to all the classes so she's really really off to a great start over there and helping us manage that transition very well um and of course as you know we have an inum uh we have a Dr G Dr malucci Who is uh the interim at Ridge Elementary School and so we'll do a complete search for both districts uh for both schools uh in the coming months we'll be uh actually next month we'll be putting out a posting and we'll we look forward to filling that position we also have a director of special services vacancy that is open we've gone through several rounds we had some very strong candidates and we have three finalists who we are bringing to a stakeholder panel round which we are in the process do we have a date yet I think we do have a date right so we so we really look forward to to to engaging with those candidates inviting those candidates and at our February meeting bringing you bringing you a uh a candidate for recommendation bringing the board of candidate for recommendation the 13th the 13th my wife would be unhappy I did that we had a meeting on Valentine's Day we were not I I may or may not have accidentally done that in the past um so uh and I also just wanted to welcome not all of you have had a chance to meet her but we have a really uh fantastic and experienced uh retired principal who is uh filling in at Benjamin Franklin Middle School to fill in for Miss Carr uh her name is uh Miss Jenny galitzia and she uh very very experienced principle with a lot of really great accomplishments I had a chance to sit down with her in BF and have a really wonderful conversation about School Improvement and uh and supporting students and creating a really strong academic climate at the school so she's there in an assistant principal capacity but I know that the team there is uh really eager to to benefit from her experience and we're grateful to have somebody so experienced uh filling in for the rest of the year we have a few new positions uh that are being listed on the agenda I do want to clarify that these positions are not new uh full-time equivalency positions meaning that they they're all filling in for something that we're already paying for in one way or another so one of the positions that we have is the director of School counseling uh this is not a this is not an additional FTE there's been a little bit of shuffling so if you're following along uh we had Mr Steven Burke uh resigned as he was relocating uh so that was a loss because Mr Burke was a great contributor to the district but after doing a lot of reflection uh on the administrative structure uh we made a recommendation to replace his position with an assistant principal position so instead of replacing with a set with a third GA we because it's a a grade advisor we replaced with an assistant principal and we changed the model so that way we have each of our two remaining grade advisors are working with two assistant principles and together as a team of four they are supporting our student body so Mr Bailey was providing the leadership role on administrative capacity to the guidance department at the high school when he was an assistant principal that's the position that we're changing so that position will be the director of School counseling right now that position is being filled on an interim basis um by um Cino I I I'm sorry I have a I had an employee with a very similar name in the other district and I always want to say her name when I see Christine but um and actually they the same first name so uh so but miss Saro is doing a wonderful job up there and she's doing it on interim capacity but we're going to turn the turn the position into a uh into a full-time directorship and we're going to expand it somewhat so whereas Mr Bailey was providing that leadership role for counseling and also being an assistant principal for the school and engaging in all kinds of other things that are related to the school this position would be able to focus solely on uh School counseling primarily at the high school level but also providing support and coordination through the middle school and the elementary schools so in the same way that the that the philosophy of the organizational structure at central office was to create Mr Ross's position as director of curriculum instruction and to separate separate that position out from the the chain of command between the superintendent assistant superintendent and principles so that way for Urgent Stu and critical matters pertaining to students and Community concerns we didn't want the work of curriculum and instruction to get distracted from because of other types of things so so uh so we we really tried to is try try to buffer um Mr Ross's position so that he can focus on curriculum instruction we're trying to do the same thing with this position we're trying to buffer that position so they can focus on continuity of services in School counseling there are two additional um facilities related positions here and they are part of a of an overall redesign of our District's facilities services so Mr Matthews has been working to working with his team to really redesign this whole model Mr Matthews I was hoping maybe you could just say just a couple words on the director of facilities position and the custodial manager position yes so before you you have a uh two positions what is the manager custodial services so we need someone to really get their arms around the day-to-day operations around keeping our schools clean and up toate regarding like health and safety requirements and regarding like say capital projects and and additional items regarding maintenance repairs and just day-to-day repairs we need a chief facilities director to oversee the entire operations so like right now with the with the program through aromar I don't feel that it's really sufficient for the district in terms of what we're what we're g giving and what we're getting regarding overall custodial maintenance repair capital projects buildings and grounds fields and regular like uh HVAC Plumbing electrician all that work it's a lot of outstanding work that is that needs to be done in the district that needs to be supported and supervised and managed I ran a a report today for the high school um Ral High School um the two middle schools over 700 outstanding work orders as of today and when I ran that report so we need the kind of leadership in that area to make sure that the work is getting done so that we're meeting the requirements you know regarding comprehensive maintenance and repair and stuff like that this is why we're putting forth this recommendation Just Want to Thank You Mr Matthews and uh Dr Schwarz for the out this out of the box thinking um this is what we need to really kind of get our hands around the issues we have in the district so thank you for that and to be clear uh part of this is part of a significant redesigned and with the total net changes within all of our facilities Staffing uh we anticipate that this would be in the ballpark of cost neutral or possibly a cost savings is that accurate Mr Matthews we're anticipating it at least be cost neutral um so we we put out a bid for the custodial Services right that bid is due on Friday so after this is gonna be the biggest piece of the entire package so this comes out on Friday so we'll have a better feel on Friday we can present that at the next facilities meeting and finance committee meeting we're still waiting for bids regarding the buildings and grounds work we are still waiting to hear back from a couple of people that we met with regarding that whole package as well but we're we're putting into three buckets buildings and grounds and have experts take care of buildings and grounds custodial experts in that area and also field technicians which is an amendment part of the regular custodial bid we're also looking outside regardi looking at the contract services or maybe bringing some of those spots in house as well so we did put put together an or chart that we submitted at the facilities meeting back in December that kind of outlines the new structure thank you Mr Matthews appreciate that there were a few additional topics that I just wanted to touch on that of respect for the concerns that were raised uh we had a convers there was a conversation about um uh some some comments that were made with concerns about artificial turf for those who are following this topic you know that it's something that we take seriously is our health and well-being of our students so we've been reviewing literature trying to really understand um the the concerns and the UN and what we know from a science-based perspective about artificial turf uh we're rememoried the outputs of those of what we've learned by putting together some basic guidelines for for for proper hygiene when working with artificial turf and basically in summary um what we're finding what the guidance seems to be there seems to be a a general consensus in the in the in in the medical community and again there are some who you know they're they're always studies but the general consensus is that although there are materials in found in artificial turf that are problem that are that are concerning um it does appear that there's a there's a low risk to them having an impact on student health and well-being that said um we it would stand a reason given what we know that there should be some basic health and safety protocols regarding students interacting with artificial turf and as we were looking into artificial turf it became clear that there's some of these concerns also relate to natural Turf as well so we're putting together some guidance regarding General general education around hygienic and safe use of our turf fields we also had a conversation around um some concerns around uh Ro particularly some mouse issues that we're having in our schools uh we've had numerous conversations on this topic Mr Matthews I know that you were coordinating some effort there do you want to share a little bit about that yeah there's a couple of things um one of the things is we're saying that keeping the schools clean as a total team effort it's not just the custodians it's not aark it's not the uh not Lin the vendor and we're we're partnering with our food service department as well with this with this project so I you know we sent out notices to all the custodians regarding them reporting any areas where they may have seen droppings or any areas where mice may come into come into the schools and they're providing us with a weekly report of any findings that they have we also reached out to to um pomptonian and ask him to change some of the signage in his school so they have this whole digital publication they provide every month we ask them to put in positive messaging regarding keeping the schools clean and cleaning up after yourselves during cafeteria we've also asked in the monthly review of um the facilities department and and the principles that they talk about keeping the schools clean and having a conversation with their staff uh as part of the monthly meeting I've been into a lot of the schools I've taken pictures I've even sat down with principles and showed them things that I've seen for instance one morning I went to Glenn school I sold three pies out overnight this is like 7 7:05 in the morning so we brought that to the principal's attention they said they would talk to to the staff but we're making this something that's a it's a team effort that we all got to chip in and do our part to eliminate the problem and Aron Mark has been doing a very good job at doing daily inspections and Reporting weekly at our our Friday meeting about what's going on so hopefully with this new activity and this this new Focus we can um eliminate this distraction that we're having in the school so um we'll see how it goes and we'll keep you guys updated does aark do Pest Services currently so we we have a full IPM program integrated Pest Management control company Alliance that have all their licenses some of the things that might be lacking is a little bit of training with the custodians so right now we're kind of trying to trouble shoot some of the problems and do some training ongoing training as we as we fix the problem but um I think with partnering with pomptonian and and having this addressed with the principl every month in a monthly meeting you know we have an appointment and agenda we talk about what's happening in the schools but also keeping the schools clean and um just having the weekly updates because that's something that we really haven't been doing and receiving in the business office is looking at what they're finding and they making corrections I actually see more orders come through for um vements and and mouse traps and stuff like that so they're they're focusing on it and you know we want to put up the positive signs and not make it a negative thing we make it a a partner with the schools the principles the teachers the staff the students Aramark and also our vendor so uh we we'll stay on top of it and we'll hopefully um not have this problem uh sometime down the road thank you so much Mr Matthews thanks for your looking at that issue a few other topics um we've had uh we talked at our last meeting and also our superintendent coffee the topic came up there's some questions about now that we've done the special education state of the schools address what are we doing next and what's our follow-up so uh at the coffee we highlighted the fact that in our presentation we indicated how many of the efforts related to special education we dovetailing into our whole school reform efforts and well reform is probably a strong word our whole school uh support efforts we really want to expand our support practices and our intervention services for kids progress monitoring and all that and much of that will have an impact on all of our students including our special education students but there was uh some commentary in the actual presentation there was a line specifically about uh working with uh parent groups particularly the cpad group to find a way to formalize and be more systematic about uh collecting parent feedback and then providing response to that feedback so we're going to be meeting with Miss Davis who is the president of cpeg and uh if we have a did we get that meeting on the books too my calendar is just a ocean of appointments so it's going to take your word for it so uh but no with that but that's our priority we're going to coordinate and we'll take the next steps there so looking forward to those next steps we also received some questions about fairness in an rhs athletic funding uh particularly some members of the hockey team were concerned about the exorbitant costs that hockey payers play per pupil of course anytime that students have to pay out of pocket for any type of activity in our schools that concerns us and the costs are particularly exorbitant uh so we did an initial we did an initial analysis of all of the sports programs breaking out the individual costs and trying to determine what the actual District's contribution was for the programs after an initial review of that analysis it's clear that there are other factors that need to be taken into consideration so for example we were looking primarily and initially at the total cost the total outlay that we make we're looking at our expense side of things but we didn't take into account the first time around is many of the contributions that booster clubs make to on the revenue side because it when we talk about total District cost and contribution we really need to net out those revenues and some districts do pay do some some booster clubs do raise funds to pay for say an entire coach um some programs pay for all their transportation through fundraising so we so there's more analysis that needs to be done so we're going back and we're looking at we're collecting that booster club information to be clear some booster clubs fund raise so that they can have charter buses instead of school buses and that's fine that's they're welcome to do that but that that wouldn't we wouldn't want to factor that into the cost because that's a little bit more of a of a nice to have instead of a need to have whereas you have to have your coaching um I know that there was there was a some um some some a question uh from some folks in the hockey Community to about should you know being that there are no there aren't facilities costs locally related to maintaining you know ice we just pay for ice time should there be some sort of an offset factored into considering how much how much the ice time actually costs whereas like say we have athletic Athletics that play on our our our fields and the fields have maintenance cost so we're going to try to figure out a way to truly have a fair comparison about what the board's contribution is to each sport so that way we have some sort of an form basis to be able to say to to to set our budgeting and also to be able to say with confidence that we are we are budgeting in a fair way so that so more to come on that we're actually treating that as part of our budget process that last meeting uh was actually I think that was either before the holidays or just after so we should have this next round of analysis very shortly look forward to sharing that with the finance committee and then last thing is just uh we have some future presentations I just thought I would raise awareness of uh we have uh today we have um Andrew pente who is the district auditor with the firm Lurch Vincy so thank you for being here with us Mr pente he's going to join us in a second um next next time around we're going to give a presentation we've been talking about um the linkit software that we use the district has a subscription and it's a data warehouse and analytics platform and it's a what place that we can track um student progress so we're looking we've been expanding its use and uh we thought it would be a a board member requested I think maybe a couple board members requested like understand it better so we thought it' be good to give like a little window in we thought parents might like that too so we're going to give a presentation on uh in February on that uh also on April 7th we'll be rolling out our strategic plan so if you're interested in this output to the Strategic plan you can come and see that presentation our planning Partners will be with us um Dr Bill and Stacy Adams and then of course we have our I missed our I missed the March meeting didn't I the March meeting of course is the preliminary budget meeting so so we got a busy couple months so if you're interested in following what's going on in the schools there's a great couple months to to tune in and pay attention at least catch the recordings was the link no board meeting to parents of like in terms of the yeah like to maybe oh that's an interesting point so so what we started doing with the the superintendent coffe upon request was when we sent out the blast reminder we would throw out the we would throw out like some of the topics because they thought because people thought they might they might might grab more people or they could kind of get a better sensus to what was being presented so maybe maybe somewhere in the blast we can include what the the presentation is M Miss cor is not Yesa more link sure just the agenda yeah I think what so what we're talking about is is in the reminders putting it like kind of front and center like like this board meeting and we'll put the presentation right on top all right and that was if you couldn't hear that was Miss corus given some ideas that sound like it'll work really well miss corus our public information officer all right thank you all for your patience and and um I think that concludes my report for now thank you very much um should we go to the audit report since Mr parente is here I think we'll do that and then we'll go into the agenda good evening so everybody I'd like to introduce uh Mr parenti for those who are not familiar with the audit process school boards of Education are required to submit to an annual audit um we have a firm they really the audit really starts in the fall uh they start they really go through all of our district all of our annual records um and kind of make a determination um about how we're uh basically give us a final accounting of all of our financial position um they account they account for all of our balances in our different accounts and then also they look at our management they provide recommendations and they share with us any findings that they have that are of note in areas that we could improve for our recommendations so a clean audit would mean that we don't have any findings or recommendations we don't have a clean audit that's not entirely a surpris as we've had a lot of changes in our business office and um you know man having consistent Management in that space has been something that we've been uh going through a lot of work to get to so Mr Matthews we know is on his way to making sure that all of our practices in management is is in top form uh he's got a really really he's been building a strong team underneath him but it's going to take us a little while for for that work to take to to Really take form uh as a reminder this is a busy time of year because we're talking about three different budgets at the same time so we're living in the 2425 budget this audit is the 2324 budget and we're planning for the 2526 budget so everything we talk about right now today as soon as Mr pry starts talking we are officially talking about from the time of July 1st 2023 to June 30th of 2024 so that P time period started 18 months ago okay I'm always behind the times thank you Mr freny the floor is yours um okay um we've issued uh two reports um the larger report is the annual comprehensive financial report and the smaller report would be the auditor's management report included in the management report would be any findings and recommendations if any again as Dr Schwarz said this is for the period ending June 30th 2024 as far as the annual comprehensive financial report is concerned it's primarily made up of four sections the first section would be the introductory section which is a a brief description of the school district prepared by management the second section would be the um management discussion and Analysis which is your financials in a narrative form the Third section would be your financial section which would include an Auditor's opinion various financial statements and then footnotes to those financial statements and then the last section of the audit would be a statistical section which would include miscellaneous statistics of both the village and the school district U as I indicated there is an Auditor's opinion attached to your financial statements opinion is opinion statement and free material misstatement okay that would be what is considered a clean opinion okay that's the opinion you want to obtain and receive on an annual basis okay um what I would like to do um I would like to discuss the district's fund balance at June 30th 2024 if you would like to follow along in your big book that would be on page 75 and what I'm G to do is I'm just G I'm G to focus on on the actual column that's the second column in on the right um and I'm going to go about halfway down a page uh the the district ended the year with 30,7 57,000 in fund balance okay that fund balance is restricted or designated for various different purposes and I'm going to and I'm going to get into each of those purposes so the the first designation um is was referred to as excess Surplus in the amount of 2.7 million that is the minimum amount of fund balance that the district is going to have to utilize when you prepare the 2526 budget this upcoming budget year the next uh designation is excess Surplus designated for subsequent years expenditures in the amount of 2.6 million that is fund balance that was utilized in the 2425 school year okay and just go shooting ahead a little bit anytime you see in column the four column to the left designated for subsequent years expenditures that means that it was used as a revenue Source in the 2425 school year okay so the next um reserve for fund balance be your capital reserve the district at June 30 2024 had um and I'm adding two numbers I'm adding the 8,968 and the 6,840 the district had 15.8 million in capital reserve of that number 6,840 662 was designated for the 2425 school year the next piece is your maintenance Reserve again I'm going to add two numbers together that's the 3 million1 146 into 1.5 million it's a total of 4,146 is set aside for future maintenance projects um the district utilized 1.5 million of that in 2425 the next piece is your emergency Reserve in the amount of $1 million 500,000 is in 2425 there's the district has set aside 200,000 for future Unemployment uh compensation claims the district has um uh reserve for incumbrances of one one 1.4 million those are basically uh orders that were entered into prior to June 30th but were not paid as of June 30th and then um the last piece of your fund balance would be your unassigned fund balance in the amount of 2,321 673 what that represents is uh basically 2% of your expenditures and that's the maximum amount that could be um in that unassigned Reserve there any questions about fund balance yes so um is it correct to say that these numbers were B these numbers do not include any um exess as of June 30th 2024 this is the total fund balance at June 30th 2024 there's the there your fund balance it's going to be either um allocated to one of the reserves whether it be capital reserve maintenance Reserve emergency Reserve um it's going to be in your unassigned the the the 2% number that I indicated you could have a reserve for incumbrances and then any amount of your fund balance in excess of that would then be reported in what is that first number that excess Surplus number so this includes our June 30th 2024 resolution which allocates the various amounts to different yes that resolution determined how these reserves are all established okay so prior to that uh resolution so I'm trying to understand what was the Delta of Revenue versus expenditures as of June 30th 2024 for the year 2324 how much money was there because when we wrote The Resolution we did not know the number and we basically said x amount to emergency x amount to maintenance and all access to Capital or up to that's how we worded the resolution and we left it to Mr Matthews Dr Schwarz and to you how to allocate it but I'm I still trying I'm trying to understand what was that allocation what was the final number this was this was the final number the the total number of fund balance was 30, 757 it but based upon that resolution is how it got allocated to the different reserves so what was the number that was allocated to different Reserve just for 24 because this is cumulative this is cumulative from prior years and what whatever was added in 23 24 yes so what what was the actual number on June 30th just for this one oh so so you so the question is what was added if you wanted to compare June 30th of 23 to June 30th 24 what was the added number it was um 3,447 173 and where do I see that if you look at the actual column right it's right it's okay access 3,447 so and how is it that different from prior year um in PRI prior years um I I'm just going to go back one one prior year just one prior year yeah yeah I want to say it was approximately 44 million in the in the prior year okay UNP right so so was it 3.4 + 2 2.7 no no no no no you you you started the 23 24 year if and if you look at that actual column with 27 million 310 524 okay okay so that's where you started you started with 27 million you you regenerated 3.4 which then got you up to the 30 mil 757 okay got it so but that's you're asking the right that's what I asked in the finance meeting right so it is important to look because that's actually been going down okay so that it's uh not directly related to how this these numbers were calculated but what can be done with these funds so what are the type of accounts where we are allowed to store or Park these reserves so our fund balances are reserves so that's so I would say as of now or during the last year we have about $30 million in nonoperating funds so we don't need that every day right we only need them for emergency for maintenance Reserve with a board resolution we would move it to a operations account and and write checks against them so what's the what type of accounts are we allowed to put this money because if I'm correct I see about 1 million and change in total interest in 23 24 um but right now even the government money market accounts which is a very safe investment because these are backed by the federal government they are generating more than 4.6 4.7% so if we get 4% on $30 million that's that's pretty substantial amount right so are we allowed to invest in those type of funds what well what I would say is this you are allowed to in to invest the funds on page 38 in the big book okay at the top of page 38 there's in the this is the investment footnote it will identify the type of Investments that the district would be allowed um to enter into and it it's it's pretty extensive but it but it's in this in this footnote so this 2.6 was the investment that that 2.6 that's primarily you guys have scholarship accounts okay and that's what that that represents and where can I see the interest earned in the last year the interest is on that exhibit um so that would be on page 67 now again I'm going to focus on that actual column um and the when the district does their budget they don't separately do anticipate a revenue for interest okay it's included in unrestricted miscellaneous Revenue so if in that actual column about the sixth number down you see 2 million 132 578 that's the total that's your total unrestricted miscellaneous Revenue but of that number 1.4 million is is interest okay so that's that's a good okay yeah approximately thank you so much that is a little bit more than 4% on 30 million I'm sorry that is more than 4% on 30 million so that matches that that rate right perfect thank you your mic on is that the right math because it's not 30 million just sitting in a bank gr interest right these are yeah 30 million is not touched right this is not operating yeah but that could be for example you put it into capital and then you used it no we have not this is none of this is unless we pass a resolution to use it we are not using any of this that 30 million is crewing interest if it's if it's sitting in the bank yeah it's pulling from maintenance right to pay error mark no that's annual operating maintenance is subject this is reserved on page 75 75 uh just for clarification when you say State a payments not recognized the extraordinary Aid is not recognized because it comes after the 30th of the of June right is that yeah right right and the state it's it's a little difficult your your financial report um because your your financial report has to be in accordance with gap generally accepted accounting principles okay but what the state recognizes is the budgetary basis okay and that's this exhibit that's why I always go to this exhibit C1 because it's it's probably the most important exhibit in the whole audit report because again this is what the state recognizes for you guys so although you don't receive um that extraordinary Aid as long as well as they withhold the June state aid which is the 633 th000 so although you don't um receive that until July it's still you still realize it as a revenue as of June 30th 2024 on a budgetary basis but that's what that represents okay so when you subtracted that three million from our 30 but we we really have 30 on a budgetary basis but and not the 27 just want to be clear that I understood this for the tinth time thank you no that's that's very when people see minuses it's a little concerning but that it it's just a a accounting reporting you what we're doing here is we're going from the budgetary basis then to the Gap basis that's what that is and and oftentimes I'm I'm struck by our our when we do scholarships when we had gotten uh in the past large donations and so we're not using the principle but we use the interest on those um at at some point are you do you give the um um how safe it is to to to take maybe more from the principle rather than just use interest generated uh for scholarship I think that that is pretty much determined by the the donor so if they if they want to just have the scholarships from the interest or if they wanted it to be in addition to the interest plus plus principal a lot of times that has to do with the with the donor requirements restrictions yeah donor restrictions yeah okay great I keep wanting to look at that um as uh as College get gets more expensive and interest rates going up we're doing better but yeah great thanks have you had some questions yeah can we get I don't know if Mr Matthews would have this or Andrew would have this uh just for later can we get that change in fund balance number over the last five years see the TR there let's look at from 2018 2019 versus today when you were on the board last time versus now I'm saying 2018 versus now you know the um part of the issue though would be covid and at in covid where we didn't have some of our transportation we we had some Transportation costs but we had other things that we were down in cost it might be that might ex sked it so just a note to see if if that's the case but I think um perhaps that was we had bigger Surplus those years but we were operating halftime at some point of the years too so thank God we're not there um should we go to your um findings sure if if there any any other questions Mary do you have any questions okay um the findings are in the smaller book and um the first finding that we have um is on page three what I'll do is I'll I'll read the finding and then if there's any questions I'll try to describe it as best I can I actually have one more question on on the main book on on the main book you have the orc chart um drawn is that as of June 30th or because this report is from June 30th right so the chart that you submit is as of June 30th yes okay thanks okay um at the top of Page Three um we had a finding our audit of the payroll agency trust fund revealed the following the payroll agency bank reconciliation reported certain invalid outstanding wires as reconciling items on any Bank Rec the only Recon reconciling items that there should be should be deposits and Transit and outstanding checks in the payroll agency account there were um out outstanding estimated wires um wire train transfers um we just have to go through that reconciliation and um remove those outstanding wires and then the second part of it was a detailed payroll agency deduction Ledger was not maintained by the district what we what we would like the district to do here is um there are employee deductions um for taxes pension union dues um there really should be an analysis of what's being deducted and then what's being paid out um and then that balance should then agree to the reconciled bank balance um we do that to just make sure we want to do that to make sure you know all of the deductions are being paid in a timely basis okay in the past have we had this Ledger or is this a um new recommendation this is this is um to us this is um this is a repeat this was in last year as well well um the next one 242 okay our audit of yearend open purchase orders in the general fund and Food Service Enterprise fund revealed certain incumbrances were deemed overstated or invalid at June 30th 2024 okay what happens here is um you have you have um reports uh open purchase order reports or encumbrance reports um the report that we received for the general fund had approximately 3.1 million in incumbrances at year end when we did our R testing um we had to cancel approximately 1.7 of that um it was primary there was one large contract um related to a roofing project um that the the the amount that was encumbered for the contract was overstated um yeah that was that one was um it was over by about 700,000 so we we had to cancel that part the rest of the of the cancellations um come from various open purchase orders or encumbrances what happens a lot of times is um will'll encumber funds um the the bills will be paid the vendors will be paid and then there's just still a balance on that open order so what has to happen and and I realize um there's there's been some some changes in the business office um staff-wise um but uh but what we just have to do is just look at those open purchase orders um and we and we really start doing this in uh April May June reviewing the purchase orders seeing what's what's still valid what should be closed um I know once we once we discussed this with with the existing staff they started going through the June 30th 24 list and they were closing they they were closing the purchase order um so they they've taken uh already already taken a corrective action with with the 63024 orders um and now as we enter really closing out 20 uh 425 the same uh process will be in place so that 1.7 million that was marked as um expenses and incurred um was that included in this 3.4 of uh yes because um it reduced uh when you looked at that C1 at the bottom there where I told you it was a reserve for incumbrance of 1.4 million on page 75 okay that that reserve for incumbrance number was reduced so then it then it goes into the other areas thank you okay actually on that on the same one where you mentioned the general and the food services Enterprise fund what was the uh overall um numbers for the Enterprise funds Food Services community school and itdc so for food it was it was um the it was just the food service fund and the it was the encumbrance related with the food service management comp company that was overstated right so that was the for the finding but I'm I'm talking about the actual um Revenue minus expenses oh you want to know right for the for the three funds the community school um the infant odler and Food Services okay so that would be if you go to page uh 21 actually you want to go to page 2 two for the revenues and expenditures so on page 22 um this would be your statement of revenues expenses and changes in net position um for the Food Service fund you had and I'm looking at the column to the far left hand side you had revenues of 3,074 you had operating expenses of uh 3.1 million and you had an operating loss of um 86,000 you then add interest earnings so the overall um change in net position for your food service was a loss of 65,000 for the year okay and then you could see you have infant toddler revenues 1.5 million um operating expenses of 1.2 million and a change in net net position of a positive 305,000 36,000 and then you have the two smaller ones the technology initiative and and the uh photography lab so you have been with us for a long time and you probably remember a few years ago we every year we were losing money in infant orler and um at that time we were also uh Bing our infant tolers uh the employer expenses into Kinder the elementary schools right this the Social Security and those funds were actually not being expensed to them and we were still losing money so what changed for these $35,000 profits certainly like what and number of students are now less so what changed there in last I'm I'm not really sure maybe I don't know have fees increased um I I know that that that you are charging um social security and benefits all those those expenses are being charged to the program um but I I really can't answer I'm not sure why um what has changed in order that now you you're generated a $35,000 profit okay and then also there we joined the or we at least submitted the application to join the pilot program I don't know the status of that so are we now operating as part of the pilot program where we can use this money in the general fund or are we still operating under Enterprise fund where we cannot use this money in general fund this is in the enter this is this is still its own Enterprise fund pilot hasn't started yet I don't think pilot started okay so that's for uh $35,000 for the 2324 school year what's the accumulated one for last two three years if you f follow right down right down along in that infant toddler column you started the year with 694,000 and then you added to that number 305 and you ended with with a million 067 in the infanti the fund balance so are we accounting for any facilities expenses that we are doing there as expenses like we added the uh the DCF asked us to add some playground the fencing improvements in the bathroom or all of those are those I did as expense from this Enterprise fund they they can absolutely be charged here so um what they and I'm looking I don't really see any any facility charges to the infanti the program in 2324 Matthews you may have to look at that okay because we we made several improvements for that would directly benefit the program yeah so any any improvements we made that directly benefit that program we can charge that towards this 1 million we've we've absolutely used that in the past to do do improvements to the school benefiting that yeah thank you on the Food Service LW is that a concern um when you look at um yeah one of you one of you flip to page 21 so so you have you have your food service right and the last number in the Food Service col say total net position 376,000 503 okay that number is broken up into two numbers the there's the net investment in capital assets which is related to your equipment and your depreciation the the real number for your food service fund would be your unrestricted piece in the amount of 103,000 Z8 um so let's basically say if 20 20 where we uh 2425 you had a similar $65,000 loss that would eat up that 100,000 would now be down to 35,000 so yes I mean your your unrestricted net position in a food service fund is is a little low at this point right um and I'm not sure that we didn't have some um equipment purchases but would that where would I see that because I thought maybe we had we there was a need to purchase something last year I think that that well that no I can say that that that was charged in your general fund it wasn't charged it wasn't directly charged to the food service but shouldn't that be charged to Food Service because that was from Food Service profits but but you really you don't really have much flexibility there you you you only have $100,000 in in operating fund balance in the food service service so maybe um we could have Finance take a look at that at some point on your agenda see what's happening in if there is a way to be more cost effective I don't know thank you for that Yeah we actually did chat a previous meeting about uh with Mr Matthews about setting up a I think part of it might be we need to set up a checks and balance system for their procurement process because I think the way the current contct structured is they basically will buy whatever they want their contract vendor contracts and we don't really have say what's happening a checks and balance system so at least we have a little bit of control the cost it's not and I think keep in mind we should all remember that we wanted we had put pressure on them to keep prices the same for the students right so that was coming from us which I think is a good thing we want to make sure it's affordable for students so I'm sure that weighs I think that I think that um is an action item just to take a look at and where do I see the community school numbers for the same thing um they are included in your general fund they're not in there there's not a separate Enterprise fund for that but is there are there separate accounts that can tell us whether what's the revenue work say expense um yes I'm amazed that you're remembering the [Laughter] pages I'm just glad I brought the right client a as are we um okay um Community School revenue on page 67 um was approximately I'm in the actual column was approximately 1.8 million and then the expenditures is that is that other no where where are you saying that on P page 67 did you say other other restricted miscellaneous revenues of of 1.8 million yeah is that that's only correct and their expenses and then the expenses are on page uh 75 and that's total special schools of uh 1,116 but but what doesn't happen here is there's no indirect costs are are allocated to that 1.1 million so there are there are there are other costs associated with the community school that aren't being reported so this is just the money that's paid to the the contract staff or vendors not to the Community School staff or their benefits and all of that right the benefits definitely wouldn't be here okay like benefits definitely wouldn't be in this number whether it be uh any um like custodial expenses that would go towards cleaning the classroom or Ps um items like that Mar um how many as I'm thinking about the community school how many employees do we have I mean not many right because the individuals that provide the services are independent contractors they're not employees I I was just trying to you don't have that exact but like less than 10 or okay I was just trying to get an idea I just know the the one woman okay great thank you perfect thank you all right one uh one thing SAR up to point out to go back to the main page we were at 75 so if I'm looking at the last year's right last year's year end the cences from last year's order was 372k only this one 1 Point 463 so you factor that difference it's difference is okay okay um the next recommendation is at the bottom of page three um the year end board Secretary General Eder cash account balances were not in agreement with the year end Treasures report and respective bank reconciliation okay what what happened here was um the treasurer um they completed their report as of June 30th um however what happened was um there were additional check runs or check registers um that were generated in the amount of 3.5 million um that were not included as outstanding checks in the T in the treasurer's year-end report um again um there was some turnover um within within the business office and as far as um generating the check registers in CSI that that your uh the computer system you guys have um there may have been a um some un uncertainty about it which was part of that that difference um now now the staff I'm I'm sure is aware of of the the date mechanism in it and and getting those reports to be in agreement with the treasurer um okay page four um the top of page four detailed billing and accounts receivable ledgers for special education and related service tuition receiv receivables were not maintained and reconciled with the general ledger accounts receivable balances okay what this deals with you guys um bill um other school districts other leas for specialed education and related service costs um at the end of the year um those District owed you guys approximately 200,000 okay but there wasn't a a list by Lea that made up that that told us X District owes you so much um so what we just need to do is do a it's called just a tuition Ledger that would track how much you bill from a district how much you receive from a district district and then how much that District owes you so for for this a similar uh use case we have facilities rental so we rent our facilities for example an auditorium or some classrooms to third parties or town um different groups um when do you when you AUD do you check whether all those uh rental agreements uh did you receive all the accounts receivables for those or not is that checked as part of the audit yeah we we didn't check to see if there was any um any uh any receivables related to to rents I'm looking at again the C1 um the rental Revenue was about 123,000 last year where is that C1 on page 67 so but that revenue is accounted once we receive the checks correct or so there's no cross check from the master Library software where somebody's renting to make sure that they actually sent us the check is there a Recon right there's not a trial balance for that as well our finding was specifically related to um the special end related Services because of the dollar value where you're you're billing approximately 2.5 million there okay so that's where that's where that recommendation is coming from thank you okay um okay the next recommendation is on page six okay this um this deals with um the state of New Jersey um Public School contract law um so we had a couple of things here um and I again I'll read it the first item um supporting detail for purchases made in accordance with State and Cooperative purchasing contracts was not obtained and verified to amounts build per vendor invoices okay what What's Happening Here is um as a school district for certain Services you could either have it bid you could enter a CO Cooperative purchasing or you could use a state contract um if you're going to use a Cooperative purchasing agreement or a state contract what what should be done is the amount that the vendors invoice you it should be compared to the approved Co-op rate or state contract rate to make sure that the vendor is billing you the appropriate amount okay the next item bid documentation which includes proof of advertisement so for this one uh finding number 5A which specific cases were that can we find that in the bigger report or no no no it's it's I have notes um it was um we purchased computer equipment okay um we had painting services and plumbing services [Music] okay thank you so where the was it that we just did not compare or did um we costs exceeding no you did you just didn't compare okay we want to avoid right part two yeah okay great it has happened okay letter B uh bid documentation which includes proof of advertisement lowest bid confirmation and 10% ownership documentation was not available for audit so you guys actually went out to bid it was for landscaping services and Roofing services um when you do that you get a you have to advertise um there's a a lowest bid confirmation sheet uh 10% ownership disclosure statements um that stuff we requested it but it just wasn't made available for audit again that had something to do with the change in Personnel I think for the Landscaping maybe the bidding was done by shared services from Glenrock and we we participated with them so they may have done the ual bidding and we may have just shared the cost there I don't know about the roofing part but Landscaping that may have been the case because we share the landscaper I think with the RO right then right then um who was a lead agency do do you know was it I think we okay okay right so all right let us see um National Cooperative purchasing requirements we're not adhere to um National Co-op is is a little different than a a um a regular Co-op if you award a contract to a national Co-op you need to do an advertisement for the intent to award the contract and then you also have to do a um a a lowcost savings analysis so there just a couple extra steps that need to be adhered to so which contract was that that was for Amazon you paid Amazon around1 24,000 last year because in all these things with your bid the state of New Jersey the bid threshold is it's relatively low at 44,000 so if an item is required to be anything in exess of that 44,000 you'd either have to have to advertise for a bid or Co-op or state contract so what was the second part you mentioned about the um one is the the intent to award so you would have to do an advertisement the second part would be you would need to do a a a low cost savings analysis so do we have to do the lowcost savings analysis when we award a contract to um say another government entity you say that again if we if we award a contract to a government government entity like a Bergen County or um any other entity if you were to use if you were to go through the and that was a County Co-op not County Co-op if if county is doing the work so for example if county has plumbers and if he call the county and say hey your plumbers can come and the only way you'd be able to do that is is if it was a co-op a Cooperative agreement with with the county or if another example I would say if we if we ask the village our village has um Parks and Rec Department or signals Division and if we call them and ask them to do uh striping on our parking lots so do we have to do a lowcost analysis there well if you would if if you would if the if the village had gone out and and bid those Services then you would have to enter into a local agreement with them but if you're are using Village employees to do that well then that would be that would be a little different if you were using Village employees um most likely it wouldn't have to be bit no no but lowc cost analysis not the bid no not even a low cost analysis so if the proper market rate for a service like striping I'm just taking example I'm just making up the numbers those are not the real numbers but if the if a outside vendor can May charge say $5,000 and if the village is charging us $20,000 we don't have to do any analysis there to see whether that's the right price or right cost to do that that work because just because they are Village of Ridgewood or minicipal no you you again you would have um you would you would enter well you would enter into the interlocal agreement to use the village employees um and then I think you in order to determine if it would be profitable to use the village employees you then would do that lowcost vender analysis that's what I'm asking is that is that required I don't think no I don't no it wouldn't be required but I think it would just be a good business practice to make sure that you know your your um you're getting the lowest cost okay thank you okay um letter D contracts purchases and exess of the bid threshold were not approved by resolution in the minutes um we we had it was computer equip equipment or network switches and then again it was Plum plumbing services and then the last piece yeah and then the last is business registration certificates were not available for several vendors um the state of New Jersey requires that every vendor you you pay has a valid business regist registration certificate on file so thank you but I have one more question on the national Cooperative purchasing so several times my impression um was that we cannot use National Cooperative we only they have to use cooperatives that are approved by state of New Jersey because state of New Jersey does not want us to go to National cooperatives but you are saying or are you saying that we can use National cooperatives as long as we advertise it and do a lowcost analysis yes that's the what the state does purposely is make it more difficult to utilize the national Co-op so if you do if you just use a regular state of New Jersey Co-op you just awarded to that Co-op I'm sitting here telling you you only you have to approve it in a minutes and then compare the co-op rates to the invoice rates if you use a national Co-op you should be doing those same things but also advertising it and preparing the lowc cost analysis to make sure you're getting the low costs so for example there's a a national Cooperative called omana they provides like a reseller portal from Home Depot Lowe's uh CDW a lot of the vendors that I often see our bill less to but if you go through omana which is a national cooperative for educational institutions there are discounts 10% 15% because that's what they have negotiated so it's a national Cooperative um Oman network.com if I'm pronouncing their spelling correctly and they have HVAC vendors they have lots of these um gingers because I see those bills a lot of the in our when I do the bill review so we directly go to garingers or Amazon or Home Depot or low lows and we buy stuff from there versus if we buy through omana which is a national cooperative and they because they have this contract there that if you are a nonprofit or K12 institution they have discounted agreements already in place so that should be allowed and that would save us money yes you if it if it they're identified as a national Co-op yes then you could award the contract award the contract as the national Co-op get those discounts but then when when you're getting compare those vendor invoices to the actual approved rates to make sure that those discounts are reflected in the vendor's price right so for example if we see a lot of the bill list where we somebody has just purchased plumbing supplies from Home Depot for replacement versus if you go through omana there is a contract there for 10% or 12% discount so there so would the would the vendor be Omar yeah it would be through through them to Home Depot like it's going through the portal to Home Depot just you order from there but through omana networks because they have they have all the contracts in place there uh pre-negotiated contracts so if if Home Depot was to say to you yes we are a national Cooperative vendor through them through Omar exactly yeah and then exactly what I said with the then you then Home Depot will be a national Co-op vendor and you should be doing the intent to award and the lowc cost analysis and in that scenario if we have uh can when we have uh so suppose we are replacing a water heater right or a HVAC unit which is which cost $30,000 and for manufacturers U train or Mitsubishi or those manufacturers have contracts through this National Cooperative that if any educational ins tion buys it through us then we have 64% uh pricing for of of or 36% off MSRP so can we ask our contractors to purchase through that contract and charge us only for time and material or for the installation charge yeah if if again if if the if if that vendor is Indica the vendor is going to indicate to you what Co-op they're a part of right whether it be a state of New Jersey Co-op or a national Co-op so if the vendor indicates that they're a part of that that Co-op then you would be entitled to any discounts through that through that purchasing or pricing thank you okay um page seven um this is this just deals with Student Activities um in a few of the um elementary schools in middle school we have some Bank reconciliations that include prior year reconciling items they go back to 2018 um we should get that cleaned up the athletic account was in a deficit of approximately 5700 at year end um and then the bank wreck and the athletic account has old reconciling items that go back to 2010 and then um the last recommendation is on page eight um and this is a repeat as well we noted copers remove from the district inventory that would be the fixed asset inventory in Prior years continue to be included in the inventory report um there are copers from 2012 to 2016 that are still on your fixed asset report they should be removed so for the Athletics one or the school ones are these being maintained by volunteers or do we have Boe uh business office resources allocated to them to help with these accounting stuff this would be Boe Representatives and I think the the issue um is just it's it's been with the um uh reconciling of it through the QuickBooks so um I know there's a member of our firm that that U knows QuickBooks pretty good um they can come in sit with sit with your employes and then we could just get this cleaned up once and for all you know to go back because this is coming every year right so I think we need to provide some help to clean it if if it's just waiting for some expertise from our accounting department we should provide that help get it done this is every year I've been on the board yeah so so I think that we need that expertise it's not it just needs to be done that's all it just needs to be cleaned up and that's that's it that's thank you it was very informative part of Correction is we're doing training on Thursday with the district on all as procurement stuff so we have Jim sh coming in from the state of New Jersey going through a comprehensive compliance on bidding laws and contract procurement and stuff like that so that's part of what we're going to do to kind of get people you know come sometimes making wholesale changes it's difficult but we got to start the process in terms of getting people to change the I had uh one question that is not really directly related to the audit report but um the role of Board of Education in the bill review process in what Bill review Bill review so every every board meeting we get Bill reviews my understanding is anything up to $44,000 we have a designated business administrator is responsible to award the contracts and when 44 up to 44,000 business administrator is certified and qualified to to award those contracts so they are qualified and certified to look at the bills and make the payment anything more than $444,000 once the board allocates the money and approves a resolution then whe whether to pay the bill or not that should not ideally be the board's perview right because once board passed a resolution the board committed the money board said okay we are going to hire somebody for say $55,000 and when you sign that contract you are committing that money now whether that work was performed or or not and payment can be made or not that can be decided by the business administrator so what is the board's role in every monthly board meeting to approve the bills why does the board approve because I've seen that at every school district what's the board's role to approve the bill bills um I mean all all checks that that are issued from the school district it's just a state of New Jersey requirement that they all must appear on a bills list and then be certified by the board of aded so we are certifying that these payments are made we are not approving or or are we approving can the board decide to hold off on a check or two because I've seen that with some of some boards you yeah you could qu you could question any any any payment that's on a bills list but so sometimes I've seen boards um holding off some Professional Services payments uh but or some specific payments but once the board hires somebody like if if we hire an auditor and if we agree for $150,000 per hour or $160 per hour or $30,000 per year then what's the what allows us to hold off that payment once we are hired you because you you could you could have a qu you could have a question you know um what was a part of that invoice you know what services were rendered how many months you know you you could be questioning that particular bill so we can question but once the business administrator say okay this was the service provided then we should not do we have authority to actually hold off on hold on to or not prove it we can question it but once we approve a contract then we are legally bound to make the payment right once if if it was approved yeah I mean you're questioning it and then if you're happy with the with the explanation then it then it could be paid if not then you could pull it okay and um from the from the future perspective from budgets have you heard or do you have any silver ball to to see what's happening there at the state level because all of the governors that I see they are running they're all talking about efficiencies bringing property taxes down to Connecticut level 15% down 5% efficiencies different numbers and we are not going to get any more State AIDs that we were getting in last six seven years every year increased so where are we going in future budgets perspective do you do you see what's the what's coming up well I mean you guys know there's been increases in transportation over the last couple years there's been increases in health benefits over the last couple years um you know certain costs are just you know are not going to be in your control but how about the like from state aid state perspective or I I don't know what the state's going to do okay thank you thank Youk you very much did I did I answer your question about the corrective action yes and for last year I think we need to um look at that the correction action plans were completed we actually did look we did look we are looking at them so we need to need to have both is is the norm we should really have an asteris for the repeat findings on the findings but I was going to tell him that at another time anything is repeat findings should have an asteris next to great all right all right we'll go to consent items regular and routine um attendance at conferences I move attendance at conferences is listed yes yes yes yes Administration and there is the um a first reading and Adoption of a corrected policy on um this is for the high school right this is we discussed it at policy it's on the graduation requirements um it's it's not a change in our policy it's correcting the wording of the policy to be consistent with what we're doing and what's required by the state which is why since it's not a substantive change which is why we kind of tried to I'm going to use the word FASTT trct it to make it on first reading so that it you know the quicker we fix it the better it is so that's why it's like that so I know we had received um a um an email that was y that's exactly what spurred us to look into it and it's been correct so um will someone take that responsibility to um maybe Dr Schwarz to just uh respond to that uh parent and um let them know thank you yeah we indicated the initial response that we would take a look and then get back to the person so we will we'll let them know that it's beened great thank you okay so um I'll move Administration would someone like to second P by m second by Mr mm dney yes Miss handy yes Miss MC yes M mm yes M broen yes motion by Mr Don second by Mr mmud okay R for Mr Donnie yes M Sandy yes M mcau yes Mr MCM yes M Brogan yes and if I could um save some time what you see on the agenda under curriculum instruction is basically what was in our minutes for curriculum instruction committee okay the extended day extended um work um Human Resources motion by Miss br second second m m roll call Mr Donnie yes Miss handy yes M mcy yes M mmud yes M Brogan yes resources pass that was a long one uh we are now on page um I think it's 15 uh Finance um at this point we will be um asked to approve vote on the audit um I'll read into the record so I move Finance um and I'll move into I'll read into the record um the donations Ridge homman School Association for $3,885 a gift and kind of school science and Earth Day assemblies Ridge home and School Association for 15,000 a gift in time gift in kind a gift in kind of enrichment experiences occurring between January and June 2025 for Ridge Elementary School Bridgewood Alpine race team uh 8,946 to be used to pay for the ski coach salary as approved at the October 14 2024 Board of Education meeting Ridgewood back court Club Incorporated 1,300 $51 to be used to pay for the extra cost of hiring a charter bus for the Varsity Boys Basketball team Valley Hospital for $3,000 to be used for super science Saturday events Bridgewood high school girls basketball association $641 to be used to pay for the extra cost to hire a charter bus for the rashley girls basketball team Bridgewood Education Association 4,00 to be used to pay for supplies and expenses for the production of super science Saturday events Ridge hom and School Association $1,348 a gift and kind of upgrades to the sound system at Ridgewood at Ridge Elementary School this was combined with a gift received in June of 2023 Ridge home and school associ Ridge home and School Association $800 gift and kind a calming area in the first grade Hall to support students focus and build problem solving skills PA home and School Association for $188,000 to be used to pay for the 2425 field trips at Haw Elementary School Deca $75 gift in kind a gift in kind of a microwave for the Ridgewood High School store and finally Somerville home and school associate ation $67,000 a gift in kind of enhancements to the playground at Somerville Elementary School tremendous um fundraising and generosity and I thank sir Miss brooken um some clarification for the super science Saturday EV um is super so shouldn't that Rood Education Foundation be paying to Super sence um Saturday committee and then they paying to Rich the board of like how are how is reud Education Foundation no I think that Super sence Saturday to my knowledge I don't I don't have any part of the finance part of it uh but to to my knowledge they don't pay anything to the district but the money is used for supplies it's used for the rental of the tables for the um that we have um all over the school um and uh most likely it pays for some of the food costs um but mostly it's the supply this the tables the rental of the tables and um supplies I think that's where that goes to I think there is a stien for the um uh Michael Aaron flicker uh and maybe another stifen to someone else who's really doing the the heavy lifting yes so so UC Foundation pays to border ofed and that goes to the uh paying the bills for um Super S Saturday as far as I know that's how it works it's worked that way for we're in our 36 they're in their 36 years so these two funding sources have continued to support super sign Saturday year after year year I know that um Mr flicker I did meet with you right Mr Matthews to to sort of talk about super science yeah we met like uh been like more than two months the last time we spoke supposed to be it's been Yeah question did anybody move it you already I have a motion by m Brogan I moved and read those second second by Mr C roll call is yeah I have I have a question before roll call um so there was uh for this E3 there's a grant for local recreational Improvement for $11,000 so when I looked at the finance committee minutes on the on the top summary part that's reported from the public um it mentioned that there was a project being considered for rich but uh the finance committee did not move with that and so can you give us some background on what was the rich playground and what was the objection to that and where will this money go now I think Mr Matthew the local Recreation Improvement Grant is a grant that maxed out at $100,000 the work that was being looked at Ridge was in excess of $900,000 so I actually wrote a letter today kind of putting a pin in it for now regarding Ridge in the playground for allinclusive playground so actually right now what we're doing is we're going through different projects in in the district that we could use for the $100,000 for the grant um the grant allows you to use stuff for playgrounds uh uh Improvement or supplies equipment um so there's a lot of areas that we can cover at $100,000 so actually honor and I have been looking at different things in the district we found some things at GW at BF we got some supplies so the grant is us um is do on on Friday and um we're coming up with enough projects to be able to U fit into the $100,000 project and uh what is the uh funding source is it a state Grant County it's a it's a reimbursable grant so we have to apply for the grant give them a list of projects okay uh submit the Grant in once we once we're okay we have to now give them the backup the supporting documentation invoices that we pay then we submit in for for reimbursement so we have to actually expend all the funds and give them all supporting documentation to get reimbursed from the state it's uh it's through the DC okay and and this Ridge requirement for 900,000 is that part of Rich special ed uh classes or like what is that where is that requirement coming from for the rich uh playround Improvement those were preliminary costs for the all-inclusive playground at Ridge so we had some we had to do a land survey we got some cost we didn't really get through the entire process once we saw that it was in excess of or or nearly a million dollars this grant wouldn't wouldn't be able to fund fund that project but Dr Schwarz from the process perspective uh I haven't SE that project on the facilities committee so should it even go for to finance to fund it before we see the scope of the project I I think it Bears more looking into the issue is just that it came it came to us with with a the initial the initial way that we were conceiving it was that this was going to be something we to find funding for not initially something we would have to make up the difference regarding so so so we certainly so we want to I think Mr Matthews you want to move it forward because there's still some hopes that we could use some it it came under Jake's law I I was familiar with Jake's law so it came to me as an all-inclusive playground so I was familiar with the Jake's law but then I I wasn't we didn't have any numbers we had to start with doing a l survey we started getting into some of the initial cost of it and we knew that this was a local Grant was only $100,000 it wasn't a good fit it doesn't mean that we've taken that project off the table because Jake's law is something that we should be considering and trying to trying to do down the road but not through a grant that has an allowance of $100,000 yeah it was actually a grant discussion and what should we do with this grant it was not a facilities playground discussion specific but do we still have a need for a playground or facilities there's still an interest in having a having a playground like that I mean we there's a I mean I think we're interested in that across the district I think the the issue is when we when we fund a playground we're typically talking about something more in the ballpark of $100,000 so this is just a pretty exorbitant cost so we so I think it fars conversation in facilities committee we'd be happy to bring it there I just want to add to it that it's um it you know the reason that this came to be is that we don't have anywhere in the district an an accessible playground right and so um there's already been a lot of work done by volunteers to fund raise there's been a survey at Ridge I apparently there's a lot of interest there so it's it's kind of starting to take shape that's how I look at it and I think that there was this push because uh the thought was that with Jake's law or some other grant that there'd be some significant Grant monies available relatively quickly um I don't think we're there yet but um that's kind of and it but it still needs to go through the process as you're saying thank you and I'm not sure when it be was percolating that they realized that it would be that expensive did not either um you know this is something that kind of started with it was total Grassroots right with with a parent who's um really passionate about it and it's put a lot of work into it she's already I she may have already started she's got a 501c3 on her own that she wants to do so you got a lot of dedicated people that want to make it happen it's just and another question I have is finance number seven so we are revising the rate for tution students in the reach program do we have uh tution students in red and Rise programs also or it's only reach program only the reach program they uh they came to us and we they came to us and we had a meeting and they had to start their advertising for next year and they needed to get that approved um like now so they can do all their advertising and get their literature up for the next coming classes so that's why this was the rate they had recommended so we brought it to uh to the committee they were uh in agreement so this is why I time now thank you we'll be approving the audit at this um or voting on the audit at this time but I don't think we need to do that separately right okay we'll do we'll do it all together did you get a second I got a second from M from Mr from miss m so roll call Mr Donnie yes Miss handy yes m m yes M mmud yes M Rogan yes F yes pass okay resolutions and motions not included in consent agenda um would you like to take them separately or can we do it all together I think we should take them separately okay so um I move a which is the um Oak Street um Step programs uh lease motion on a there a second second second Miss Sandy a question hear none roll callani yes Mandy yes M maau yes M MCM yes M Rogan yes he passes the next is approval of agreement with uh uh France France France it's France sorry it's Law Group thank you and that is a um this is a this is a class action suit right so under the juwes class action suit I did this in a previous life and took about two years we got a big lum sum of money $600,000 650 whatever it was so this group is doing this this suit under what's the drug it's insulin right insulin right so over excessive charges over insulin so they I reached out to the same group again to see if we could you know take advantage of this class action lawsuit so this is the resolution uh before you for consideration there's there's no exposure to there's if there's no resolution if there's a resolution there's a a fee of I believe it's like a 10 10% 30% fee but again there's nothing for us to do but just be a part of this class action lawsuit and this is is um regarding the state um prescription State Health Benefit Plan yeah yeah and their charges on on this the charge of this insulin okay and and also there is was just a blank in the document I think m m brought up that the that that that blank should be filled with superintendent of schools so upon upon your approval of the resolution the the the design would be superintendent of schools or superintendent of schools designate um so in the FYI you said which M yes oh is that what I said in the well so it says it says designate or or designate of the the individual so I would I would designate Mr Mr Matthews regardless so sorry I'm being over foring I apologize thank thank you for catching that I'm sorry we have a lot going on here would you like to move Mary bity I will move it I will move it um 9 B I'll second it okay motion on 9B by Mr second by Miss Sandy questions it should not be n because we are ABC Finance okay yeah n b question no roll call Mr Donnie yes M Sandy yes m m yes m mmud yes M brogen yes B pass okay and now see approval of a shared service agreement with the village of Bridgewood um do you w to um talk about that at all sure thank you sure so uh the the agreement that's being proposed is in response to conversations and requests specifically from the village who were interested in uh in in seeking support from the district R to extend the lighting project that they had uh established for the baseball field at Veterans Field uh to also include the softball field the original ask was for $160,000 um obviously this is not our field Although our our students stand to have some benefit from the field being lit due to the increased flexibility of scheduling uh there was much there was some dialogue uh with with uh some of our board members and ultimately uh we're moving forward with a recommendation for agreement that will uh that will effectively uh set forth the provisions for there to be a one-time payment to provide a portion of to to assist with the um the enhancement of the field in the amount of $80,000 and in exchange there is a clause specifically uh that clarifies uh the district's uh that CL clarifies that on the board's terms the district would then have uh first right of access to these fields as needed uh for the baseball and the softball teams and so uh and that that effectively there's a there's an extension clause and that really can only be broken if both sides agree so it gives it gives the board a very very longstanding and strong access it also has includes indemnification Clauses so if there's any kind of an injury or issue on the fields in these particular Fields then they would be um that there would be mutual indemnification and each would ensure the other so that way we'd be we'd be safe in case anything anything God forbid happen to a player on the field um this this is uh the idea of using a shared service agreement outside of this particular Arrangement where there is a payment is something that I think that we should continue moving forward we know that we have some some informal Arrangements particularly one that involves uh uh sharing costs for cover covering uh the repairs to our tennis courts and and many others uh we're also working on a redrafting of the fields committee policy to turn make that more of a formal shared service agreement uh that's a little clear about indemnification Clauses and things like that something to consider as we have this conversation and we recommend this agreement is that uh the village would still have to also authorize this agreement as well before it would take effect so effectively what we're saying and making this recommendation the board would be voting on their side of things do they feel that this is this is uh this is of a positive benefit uh and and the right right action but but The Village could decide that they're not comfortable with those terms and then we would not be able to proceed and let me read um because rewarded it um and so the motion is um the Ridgid Board of Education pursuant to njsa 18a colon 18a b5b and njsa 40a colon 65 one at say and upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools approves the shared service agreement with the village of Ridgewood for the Veterans Field Improvement and school use cost not to exceed $80,000 and then there's the account number and I would just say just as an add-on as we vote for this just to be mindful and I've shared this with our friends from the village um that something that has to be considered for as the board considers is the the idea that um you know we as a school district have many properties and we have many obligations and you know we're we're working here to to to for Mutual benefit of the players and the students and the community but um but we hope that uh that that if if this is something that the board approves that we would hope that if we were in a similar circumstance that we could uh we could expect some reciprocity in a similar way thank you so I move uh see second o on C by m broen second by m mm question so I have a statement that I'm going to read as part of my vote um and if it can be memorialized U as of Friday evening I was planning to vote no on this resolution however over the weekend The District administration took the time to address several of my questions and made revisions to both the underlying agreement and the resolution I would like to thank the administration for those efforts and I have decided to abstain from the vote rather than voting now I'm pleased that the revised agreement up for vote tonight guarantees the district's Priority Access to Veterans Field for the next 20 years in exchange for a one-time investment of $80,000 however I cannot vote in favor of this resolution and will abstain due to the following reasons number one timing and process the contract language was delivered late Friday afternoon leaving insufficient time for board members or the public to thoroughly review it and raise questions before Monday's Vote or tonight's vote the public still does not have access to the agreement we are voting on today this request from the village has been in place for over four months yet it was rushed to the board at the last minute outside the normal budget cycle without adequate adequate transparency and planning by the time I received the agenda for our Monday meeting I noticed that the Village website already had their agenda for Wednesday which Awards the contract for this project to the vendor it is unclear to me and I have asked for clarification whether the village has earmarked the fund FS without our contribution or if someone from board made promis to the Village Council without a board resolution I noticed missing auditor opinions in the January finance committee meeting meeting minutes for this project the December committee minutes mentioned that an Auditor's opinion would be obtained but if this was done it was not shared with the entire Board number two budget prioritization The Districts The District faces urgent needs such as replacing single pane windows in elementary schools providing adequate funding for hockey team and installing PS filters in our elementary schools these critical priority should be considered when deciding how to allocate funds available funds number three concerns about the shared service agreement I'm deeply concerned about seeing a president that circumvents established processes in Ridgewood the Board of Education manages its own facilities and the municipal government manages its own historically no usage fees have been charged for reciprocal facility usage between the two entities The Village has several upcoming projects that are currently not fully funded and I'm concerned this agreement could set a precedent where the Boe is expected to fund The Village Capital projects while the proposed project is valuable the current agreement bypasses boe's facility and capital project processes discussions about prioritization vendor selection occurred outside boe's perview in this case Boe should not be providing money for any project at the last hour when all discussions regarding the need for the project took place somewhere else the Boe is limited to a % cap on property taxes municipal government is not um and our commitments for next four years already have around hover around 3.5% over the past four years the board has saved funds for a critical capital projects by being fiscally responsible meanwhile the municipal budget has significantly increased redirecting our saved funds earmark for Vital projects like heating systems up upgrades um water filtration towards other local units without a comprehensive districtwide budget plan is not prudent again I'm not just concerned about this one project but setting the expectation and precedent for future or pending projects so despite these concerns the revised agreement addresses a critical issue by secur securing priority facility usage for 20 years therefore I I will not be voting no but I'll abstain from the vote thank you thank you m Miss handy yes M Mel yes M mm yes M Rogan yes passes approval of bills um Mr Don so I reviewed the bills there were a lot of bills that's one downside of monthly meetings that bills are a lot of bills but they were all in order and uh I'm happy to move the bills is there second second second a question call Mr Donnie yes M Sandy yes m m yes Mr mm yes M Bry yes okay board member announcements um so we've um we've seen that um both the Education Foundation and Valley Foundation have given money for super sign Saturday so make sure you know the date which is March 1st at the high school starting at o'clock um last year we uh we had a new initiative um which I thought U was really positive where for the first hour where it's a little less uh busy we did encourage those uh students who might want a little less noise and activity um a little quieter sort of uh sensory friendly um and we'll be working again with cpeg to make sure that um I mean that will happen again this year and um information has been shared with cpeg so um we're we're thrilled that students more students take advantage of it but it's March 1st starts at 9: we do have Liberty Science Center coming at 9:30 with science circus um and we have a number of new presenters firsttime presenters so we've roped them in um so right now we're about up to 39 um adult presenters um and of course we'll have our traditional egg drop competition I think we're going to be doing inside again which was was amazing last year all the eggs that didn't smash were um saved and a lot of a lot of the students had really bonded with their egg so when it didn't smash they had to take it home in their cradle so it was really cute um but uh we'll also do the rocket launch at at 1:30 so please try to stop in um um March 1 and the other is a really congratulation to our Korean and Indian and and uh Chinese um I'm not sure if there was another organization um parent organization yes uh for the um Lunar New Year celebration did you get to I went oh great amazing the dancing and the the skill level yeah it was very very quite professional and the groups there and lots of food before and the room was packed so it was great um congratulations to them um and it was a wonderful morning a wonderful afternoon um is anybody else have to mention the Wizards game uh tickets are going on sale for the Wizards game um Thursday Thursday and in like what two minutes afterwards two minutes they sell out every single year but there's two games on Sunday and Dr Schwarz you're playing right I'm teasing I have no idea if you are I I coached last year but unfortunately I have a family conflict this year it's always a lot of fun you get to see your favorite did you say the date February 23rd it's February 23rd right but I just mentioned the tickets going on sale and you know we've gone through a long meeting right so jamere buy your tickets for jamere because they really do amazing work for um scholarships for bu so it's a bargain to watch that show for the prices yeah it is it is so okay any no okay no um okay board committee reports a lot of what um I saw on the agenda was connected to our um what's happened in our um our subcommittees um Finance did you have anything else you wanted to add no I actually double checked everything we covered um facilities um s why don't you do facilities you can do that okay facilities um basically the good news is we do and we haven't um done a deep dive into it but we have received from uh J ficaro our facilities assessment and that was linked in in that meeting so take a look at that I've only just begun but I know the uh facilities committee will be uh taking a deep deeper dive into that soon I think that's already scheduled um and um let's see what else ums sorry do have it I don't I don't know what else uh s Rob do you have any um I can I had it give me one second I can pull it up oh here it is um we did have a presentation by um an architectural firm on uh flooding remediation but really nothing has been we didn't we just had the presentation we really haven't done a deep dive into that um nor um it I'm not sure that um the information that we received really would be helpful at this point um about about that um and our Rod grants might might you speak to um we're going out uh bid on our how can I get a copy of the bit spec sheet for uh for the rod GRS for the hedback projects for the rod ground projects thank you okay so we're on track and um also the dust collection system we are we still waiting for some of the um materials on that and a ventilation at um the maker space we where that is on target to happen in the spring yeah so uh curriculum commit we saw that on our agenda all of the um esy um and we did some we did talk about um uh um professional development for our Middle School and High School teachers Ela would you like to comment on that at all um Mr Ross thank you thank you thank you Mrs broen uh yes we did touch on profession development opportunities for our secondary ELA teachers in the area of literacy and just making sure that all of our teachers have the you know understandings that they're going to need to U Move the instruction forward for all of our kids and all of this is linked to you know some of the uh objectives that we have going on even at the K5 level as well so it's all interrelated it's an extension of that ongoing work that we have great and also I was very um supportive of the fact that you have um you have some committee um meetings going on about Ela and its implementation um and you've had I think three meetings so far since you started in this Ro we've had two two official meetings we have the next one coming up uh couple of uh excuse me sorry a couple of weeks and uh we are going to be taking a deeper dive into our instructional practices with our with our staff K5 and just getting a better fix on our needs so we can assess that properly and um you know uh create a road map for for where we need to go so it was a a short meeting productive and we look forward to our next meeting thank you thank you yeah um policy anything Mar Mary took this were you you were in Cambodia when you were on yes I was in Cambodia the middle of the night yes it was I was so I mean other than the corrected policy we talked about um AI That's that's something that uh NJ sba's policy came out um something going be working on shortly and um we also began a discussion regarding um policy 5111 which is uh staff tuition and we just started just assessing it and evaluating it um and then I need to give my cpad update as well so uh just a reminder that the next cpad meeting is um next next Wednesday February 5th at 7 pm here um and Michelle Lockwood who's been working with the district on inclusive education is going to be the uh speaker so that that's going to be a good one so we invite everyone to come um there's a sensory friendly dinner at puos on February 10th the gala the tickets are available for the fundraising Galla for cpeg that is on March 13th buy your tickets now Park West LA and um in advance of the Wizards game what they're doing this year is that there's a unified basketball clinic on the Wednesday before which is February 19th and this year the Wizards are going to go to that unified Clinic um and work with the kids there so that's just another opportunity for uh yeah it's really fantastic they're you know they do great things so that's the CAG update at the moment great so um for the policy committee um Mary and Mary um there is so there is this policy for a staff tution um that originally came up two like last round of negotiations so not the last year's three years prior to that so about four years ago um at that time uh basically I had voted for um making it a percent of our per student cost and that came from the attorney at that time the recommendation because he said our policy was discriminatory for special ed students we were not allowing um out of District staff to bring their special ed students into the district so he suggested two changes that we should allow them um with certain uh cost items and then also he uh suggested that to offset some of those costs and to meet with what other uh districts where our attorney was representing at that time a fluent districts what they do he recommended that 30 32% whatever that number was so that's where it the what came up in the current policy is basically a copy from Chatham so chatam was the original recommendation from our attorney and at that time I framed my opinion based on that recommendation that what other affluent towns are doing what Chatham was doing what some other towns in moris County were doing and um the the concept was that if we allow too many students that we had some Elementary School level we had class size the class sizes were growing up really High and the local property taxes so those three were my main concerns at that time when I voted for that uh and advocated for that and agreed with the recommendation at that time during negotiations um reflecting back I think um because now we are hiring more and more staff in house for not just teachers for various other uh support staff facilities and we we have more diversity coming in from staff perspective so it's not just teachers right because this policy applies to all staff and when we hire more and more diverse staff I think it's an opportunity to bring more diversity in the district if we reduce the Deion there so I would be willing to uh support the original uh 2000 or 2020 levels right so whatever Dr FB had I think when I joined the board it it was close to $880 um I may be wrong that those were the approximate numbers 880 or approximately that and he was Raising it by five or 10% every year so whatever that with inflation or whatever we have raised the facilities I think four or 5% every year so somewhere in that range whatever was the pattern from 2018 2019 2020 so yeah 5% so whatever that pattern was if if you're are following that so if you are if you bring back that type of policy I think primarily because that will increase diversity in the district so that would be uh my rational to support it uh because um I did not support it at that time but I would support and if you want to do that then you'll have to move fast because if we are we propose those rates in June the policy has to be in place by June so and a policy reading will take three to four meetings and now we only have one meeting meeting a month so you'll have to backtrack from those June or July dates when the resolution will go for the fion prices you need to look at I think specially education um uh parents with uh students with IEPs that would come to the district with pay full cost of that of the special education it is the tuition it's the tuition um at 35% for um jet yes but you can talk to uh our attorney uh because he has been doing negotiations that what was his rational for that proposal at that time what's Chatham's policy to compare that and and but at that time I just went along based on that recommendation but now U that's my new thought process that's good to know because also I think that might also encourage teachers to come and be hired in Bridgewood because um since that policy went into effect I think no teacher has ever taken you know brought their children to the district at the cost so I think then teacher ret that only applied to new teachers right right the new teachers right right for for three years now yeah so if if we are hiring more and more staff from outside District I think that's an opportunity to bring students from outside District but thank you for your historical perspective right thank you great um okay a goals I sent these all to you um but I copied them out in case you didn't [Music] and just you can pass this okay so um I didn't hear from anyone but Mary so Mary and I actually ended up working on these um and so um these were the goals draft goals s uh suggestions so um I hope you had a chance to look at them and um the first is the Board of Education will continue to Foster Public participation collaboration and open communication with all stakeholders this year with a specific emphasis on our special education Community to that end the Boe will prepare and distribute a survey to all parents and staff connected with special education programs in order to eliminate and better understand the special education experience and to request a report to be delivered by the end of the school year with from the administration detailing progress on the action items identified in the 12624 special education report to the board so there there are two aspects to that one is to have you just report back on on on the progress made on the things that you identified and the second is to um and this would go out proba this would go out to the communications committee to work with Christine to develop um that uh that kind that survey so this is not this is not the survey that was already conducted this would be a new survey mid prior to the end I'm not aware that there was a survey conducted for all um special education oh I guess I was I guess I was confusing the comments of the public and the people that we surve yes okay so this is something this is intended to be specific to address the special education Community specifically yeah and they would be the people they would be the families that would be answering the survey yeah rather than everyone right involved who are involved right whose students are involved children so that was one um the second was settle the Raa contract goal three is support monitor the district's work to implement the Strategic plan goals and action plans um the fourth uh and we can take something out if you want work with a superintendent to develop the 2526 school budget that meets the needs of our students in the district and is mindful of the property tax impact that's a continuation really for the last few years we've had that um as a goal and continue investigating and identifying blood mitigation solutions for a high school fields in collaboration with the village though we know right now if it doesn't rain we we we got to pass so I I I don't know how you felt I didn't get any feedback from anybody which is fine um but I didn't know how you felt about them or good with these good I'm good with I think it's very comprehensive of all the issues okay all right then these are our goals these are for the 2 five years so it's from January till next year until next December okay that it's not it's it's not the school year right we did it from for a year yeah calendar year thank you just before you all vote can I just ask for just a couple clarifications yes so um under number one uh prepare and distribute to survey to all parents and staff connected with special education programs in order to illuminate and better understand special education experience we're so we're going to be meeting to talk about how to best go about this um I don't generally don't like to hit people with lots of different surveys because then people deal with survey fatigue but that said we if we build too many questions like Branch out questions like for special education within our general state of the schools address then we might give only special education parents proun fatigue for that address so I just would look for just to hope for some flexibility from all of you was as we have to do that for you and just trying to figure out the best strategy for collecting that data absolutely and you and you would work hopefully with the communications committee and abs that your ideas and and and figure out how to do it our our our goal in this is to just understand that perspective that sounds great and then additionally um the flood mitigation you know we're we're we're starting to kind of run out of things to do really uh we're talking about um you know so I guess so the commitment is we'll continue to have that we continue to try to exhaust our possibilities you know finish our to work with the the village and Army Core of Engineers come in to be present and part of those conversations as it really does impact impact our our Fields okay um that that um right now it's right today it's not an issue because we had a really dry fall right and I personally would wanted to see it on our board goals because um I wanted to uh make it clear that this Still Remains a priority because if we have a wet spring we have problems and we we don't we have some potential Solutions but we don't have a solution if we lose the entire lacrosse season for example and that I I think that we have to find some we have to find some Alternatives or something to um so that we don't have the disaster we have last year and and in so far as a lot of the reason I ask about this one too is because this is going to be it's a board goal but it's going to require a lot of administrative effort so I just want to make sure that the expectations are clear we have we still have some outstanding efforts that we're engaging in obviously Army Corp we're talking about some plantings we are still exploring some sort of covering system um we also you know we're making effort to uh to um uh make the BF field a playable field right so but but beyond these things that we've talked about I don't necessarily know how many new things I mean anything that comes up we happy to look at but I just want to make sure that we're all in agreement no in terms of I think that's fair if we have a sense of what's going to happen if we lose the Stadium Field again yes um uh I I that's that's just what I want to see that that you know to signal that it's it remains an important priority great because it was so disruptive no that that's great I appreciate that everything else I think is is very very straightforward for me I for me putting those fields on is just that it doesn't fall off the radar okay I I just I I thought figured as much I just thought I just want to make it explicit yeah I'm sorry Michelle if I can just add for your consideration the goal for um number uh one uh includes all parents and staff but it doesn't include the um students and if you know if you could see fit to add it it would be a little bit it could be a challenge um but I think there's a lot lot of confidence and a lot of student centered approach that we're we're aiming for right now and I think to get their um perspective in addition to the other two would really round it out I think it's an excellent idea than yeah that would be fantastic yeah it's added yeah so are we all in agreement on these goals then and as far as timeline these are these go through December 2025 yes just want to clarify that yeah okay great well thank you all thank you Mary for spurring me on there um do are you gonna do you need do we vot on them I guess we do need to vote yeah we have it as a discussion it do you want to vote for them or do you want to save up next meeting yeah I gu we might as well formally adopt them so would someone like to move I'll move them I will move I move that the board formally adopt the 2025 board goals one through five as set forth in piece of paper we're all holding now and read into the record by Sheila with the addition of adding students with the addition of adding students exactly yes I second it one through five one through five there's five goals yeah we could make a six one but I'd have to think about that maybe something for Mr ending meetings before 10 yeah I just want to know when is our Target date for this survey are we trying to do it before June of this year because this does go until the fall I think that is something for you all to discuss in terms of what is the workload what what feasible what's your yeah so whether it's this spring or next fall I think that's something you have to think about in terms of what's that data you're collecting how useful is it when when would it be most useful to you that kind of stuff I think our friends at cpag would be a really valuable input on that because you know they want they have a lot of feedback they want to give they want to certainly be included in the General survey like so what would work best for them yeah so that that's your you know make it work for the district in terms of uh collecting data and and having that information all right so we we uh first we had by miss m second by Miss Sandy roll call Mr Don yes M Sandy yes m m yes mm yes M broen yes goes pass okay that's you want Meema okay um uh me see acceptance of minutes December 16th regular and executive um Mary Lou you'll be yeah you don't need to so um I move December 16 uh both the regular and the executive session minutes do I have a second all in favor except for Mary I okay okay um other business could we get out by 10 comments um then I'll move to uh comments from the public uh we have no public here present let's see if we have uh oh we have some um Cynthia you're on with the board good evening Cynthia o'keef rwood resident um I just wanted to make a comment and Echo back what I think I heard um Dr Schwarz say about the artificial turf obviously this is a topic I've dialed in about um previously um also to Fields committees and I believe what you said so correct me if I'm wrong that literature was reviewed um and you took a science-based approach um to study artificial turf and the general consensus was that turf was considered low risk for student health and well-being um um I'd like to know was this an exhaustive search who participated in this uh exercise um how long did it take what were the data points and are there footnotes and will this be published for the public um you know so many doctors and you know studies are coming out every day talking about the negative impacts not only to Children's Health because they have a weaker and de um lesser developed immune system um and and that's why why many organizations caution the use of artificial turf but uh we're also neglecting the environment and the fact that it's not um recycled and we're you know next to bodies of water like the Hocus Brook um next to the high school field Etc so I'm just concerned it seems like a really maybe an oversimplification maybe I'm missing something um I didn't hear that the study was taking place previously so I'd like to know um what was studied what the the peerreview um you know articles were that were Incorporated in this and uh definitely the I think the public um deserves to have more information on this topic thank you thank you okay uh uh Jamie Davis you're on you're on with the board hi hi everyone how are you good keep it quick I'll get you out by 10 um just wanted to um just wanted to thank you all I know um you know just conversations with Dr Fenwick and Dr Schwarz in the coffee chat I know there was already an internal commitment to hearing from parents um and everything uh following on the December presentation but I just wanted to thank the board um for formalizing that even further um by uh you know know hardwiring that into your goals and I really look forward at Dr Schwarz is February 12th we're meeting um so you can highlight it in your book but that's when we'll be getting started in the discussion and really looking forward to having those conversations and um additional thank you to Dr Fenwick for the suggestion of adding in the student input because I um I thought that was a great suggestion and I agree that that'll be um really helpful so looking forward to that and just want to thank you all uh more formally so that's it thank you and have a great evening thank you um Amy you're on the um you're on with the board thank you Amy mcbridge um Ridgewood resident Dr Schwarz I'm gonna kind of echo what Cynthia said you claim to have reviewed the literature from a science-based approach regarding the turf um like she said I would like to know what studies have you actually reviewed if you're going to claim you've taken a scientific approach then you owe the community the transparency to explain what data you've relied on if you're going on the epa's turf report it explicitly stated as not a risk assessment it does not conclude on the overall health risk associated with it so you can't say it's safe for the kids um until independent thorough research is conducted the epa's conclusion remains unreliable and again you guys are talking about the Army Corps and this and that and you know I find it kind of disturbing you know joking about you know we we need more rain and and what not like what are we teaching our kids about the environment and how important it is you guys have two turf fields which you you know you are you know being proactive now after years and years of contamination and happening into uh the rivers and not once has the Board of Education nor the council bothered to test the soil all or the water for contamination what you guys are worried about is what's going to happen if the lacrosse season is canceled this is like borderline criminal let me remind you all that under the super fun law pfoa and p p with an o two P compounds commonly found in Turf are classified as hazarded substances if these chemicals are in your turf fields and they've been flooding into our Rivers for years you literally will have a National Emergency on your hands this isn't a local issue it's a potential super fun site in the making and if you don't know what that is it's a disaster Zone you can take the Hanford site where radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project is still leaking into the environment decades later because leaders ignore the risk and fail to act the fact that you guys haven't even tested the water and soil for contamination from years of flooding is not just shocking it's like insane to me you're ignoring clear warning signs and downplaying the gravity of the situation how can you claim to approach this issue scientifically when the most basic data testing our oil our water and soil does not even exist Dr Schwarz the responsibility here is enormous if rid Soil and Water are contaminated with hazarded past compounds especially those two as all the evidence suggests the problem is not just theoretical it's here it's now it's urgent continuing to push for more CH Fields while ignoring the years of contamination from these two existing ones is not just irresponsible as I've said before it is dangerous not just to our students our Community but for generations to come and everybody it affects down the line it's negligence of the highest order the community deserves action not dismissive claims and half-hearted excuses and jokes about maybe it rains or the lacrosse might miss their their season these kids might have cancer way down the line and their kids and my grandkids and and generations to come so please test the soil test the water before you guys even think of doing anything else uh let the students know what's going on because they they have no idea um and stop pretending that this is not a serious threat to our health and our environment and our future I mean this is crazy we we don't even have drinkable water and Ridgewood but but we're we're contaminating with our turf fields with no thought to the environment what example what tradition of Excellence is this it's it's a it's crazy I can't look my athletes in the eyes knowing what I know know now and and again I'm coming as a Ridgewood resident I grew up in this town I was an athlete I have two sons I served in the Marines and I study biological and environmental hazards chemical exposures this is huge this is not a joke this is big and I think you guys are are not taking you know you know put it in your goals do a deep dive on that a real deep dive thank you thank you Christina hi Christina Millian Ridgewood resident can you hear me yes we can okay thank you um the decision to allocate 80 grand for a softball field on a non booe field for lighting um I just want to say raises some concerns I'm curious why the Boe is stepping in to address what appears to be the village of ridgewood's responsibility when the baseball field lights were recently updated by The Village why weren't female athletes prioritized as well for their softball field because it feels like they were an afterthought and it seems like a clear case of the Board of Education compensating for The Village's failure to prioritize female athletes and the facilities that they deserve I am 100% all for women getting what they need to compete I am not in favor of that money coming from the Boe for a non booe asset spending 80 grand on a field on field lighting when posos filters are still not installed in all of our water fountains in our schools and our elementary school kids remain vulnerable with no retired police officers at any of them God forbid they need them is a glaring misalignment of priorities that's a lot of money that could be put to a lot of items that benefit all kids not just those who wish to swing a bat at night the Optics of this decision in my opinion look very poor for you and suggest to many of us a complete lack of focus on critical health and safety issues of our students I appreciate board member Donnie's comments regarding this as they definitely offered a level of transparency that frankly the public deserves and that no one else up there was likely to provide to us which is extremely disappointing the village of Ridgewood can bond for this softball field lighting project they have options to make it happen so stating that the village asked the Boe for $160,000 for this project and you're cutting them a check for 80k as if it's some deal to taxpayers is frankly comical thank you um Boyd's iPhone uh good evening Boyd a loving Ridgewood resident I too would like to to comment on the ask for $80,000 from the board of education for lighting at vetfield I do appreciate Mr Donnie's comments and I do appreciate his uh reason for not voting or for abstaining on this I agree with with a 100 agree with Mr Donnie 100% for why he abstained on this uh I'd also like to point out that you there was a $160,000 ask you've gotten it down to 80 I believe that ask was made in December however on January 15th The Village manager revealed that he had accepted or had received $47,000 in donations from sports groups so my question now is is your $80,000 ass going to be reduced by 235 or is the village going to use the entire 47,000 to reduce their portion of the ask that is a question that needs to be addressed with the manager and brought back to the board to determine what's going to happen with the 47,000 that was donated thank you thank you um there are no more hands raised close public comment um I don't know if you if you want to respond to anything at this Point yeah if you don't mind I just like to acknowledge everyone sure so um so for starters um uh the folks who Chim who who jumped on about uh just with concerns about our turf fields just want to clarify that um you know we're not uh we're not here to make declarations about uh about Turf and and about um even the fields that we have per se but that said you know it is important us to make sure that we're making informed decisions uh and so while I'm not committing to doing a complete comprehensive individual dedicated study on tur Fields specifically um certainly we're open to reviewing any kind of literature that's there so the the the language that we're using for educational purposes was actually derived largely from a lot of the information that was produced by Mount Si and shared to us in the Mount Si letter um we're also not having conversations right now at all about expanding artificial turf we're talking actually about the only the only work that we're looking to do is actually to most immediately turn the BF field into a natural Turf playing surface as an overflow field um and we're not in any kind of timeline for replacing or addressing the field that we have and we're certainly not in a position to be decommissioning Fields nor have I seen any information that would rise to the level that a field should be decommissioned that that that said respect the fact that people are concerned I think it's good very good for our our community members and for people in general to be concerned about health and well-being I also want to be clear that when it comes to Turf the literature is clear that Turf contains compounds that are not good for the envir environment and they're not good for people to ingest or to absorb into their skin I mean that's that they're not not taking that kind of a position the question is when the playing on these surfaces cause harm and that's where some of the governmental and also with respect to a lot of the studies um often peer-reviewed studies will have comprehensive literature reviews and a lot of the studies on this they're more medical based studies they don't have the same level of literature review so if anyone has any literature reviews they want me to read I'll include it in my list we have some governmental accounts including miss m Cambridge I believe referenced the EPA report that is a that is a federal report that refers to it um again we can have differing opinions scientists see themselves differ on their topics but you know I'm not trying to weigh in on this issue and I make my comments I'm just sharing what the findings are of just uh in terms of just generally what I'm seeing in the literature so again happy to review anything that anyone would like me to review as well um and again there are contaminants all over our environment uh so when it comes to testing our facilities if there's something very specific if we have reasons to believe that there's if there's soil being exed if we have aili reason to believe that there's concerns around students being exposed to something that is outside of the range of normal um then we would certainly do that but when it comes to testing for contaminants uh around our Fields you know we know that Fields have contaminating substances we also know so do cars so do roadways so to many other areas plus our our stream itself travels through many numerous towns so um again open to suggestions appreciate all the thinking about it um certainly concerned about the environment as well but again foundationally right now we're not talking about making any changes we're not adding tur fields at this time but we're certain and we're also certainly not talking about decommissioning our fields at this time um with respect to Miss Davis really appreciate her time and attention uh to to all the needs of our special needs Community um we look forward to meeting with you on February 12th and we'll talk about some of these topics particularly uh including gaining feedback from all of our all of our special education community members um and then um Mr loving thank you for joining what was presented to me and I can only speak for my account in talking with the village manager is that what was the reason for the reduction in the 160k ask was that the board was asked to uh that that part of the solution in getting that cost down was asking other folks to contribute so I don't know what the status of their contributions are we can follow up but my understanding was that uh that they were trying to fundraise the rest that we were not going to be be contributing to um I just want to say a final reminder just everybody please don't forget the coffees this is a limited Forum here and I don't want to necessarily go back you know I try to be clear and give a response and show respect to everyone who comments but please know my intention in responding is not to not to try to get a last word in or anything like that quite the opposite I'm really actually trying to dialogue but I do invite anybody who wants to have more of a act back and forth actual participative conversation and absolutely respectful regardless of anyone's uh uh feelings about any issue the coffee is a great place for that we can have we can have extended conversation we can share resources we can really talk at that point in time so I really just want to encourage folks to come out at that time so Dr Schwarz if I understood Amy's comments correctly um for the testing or for contamination I think she's raising two points there one is are we contaminating the uh the Water that's the the creek by the fields so when the flood situation happens and the the fill the artificial turf fill that goes inside when that goes into the water wave into the stream um are we contaminating that and are can we be liable for that for that like that's where I think she's referring that as a super fund site because we may be contaminating the water Downstream and wherever that water is going the U the fishes and everything right so that if that can be tested somehow and the second one I think she's mentioning is the field itself that have we with all the after every flood when that s deposits there have we tested that post post s deposit that what's the kind of situation there we we we're approving an environmental consultant today so we can ask them specifically if there's any benefit we had some conversations about this before and it really wasn't clear what what exactly the testing would consist of what we're testing for so I'd be happy to check with an environment consultant see if there's any due diligence that we need to be doing I mean I don't think it it when it floods Phill from the field washes away so it ends up in a water source and I'm sure that's the case um the qu how much to what extent does that become something that's a super fund site I mean I'm I'm not qualified to answer that um I'm sure that they're we're one of many where this is the case and it's a concern that we all have but that said um you know that's beyond my qualifications in terms of making a judgment on so we can we can ask an environmental engineer uh further but I I'm not really sure what else to howse to respond thank you so um I I moved to adjourn the meeting the meeting second by favor all in favor everybody have a a good evening we are back on February 24th but there'll be a lot of work going on in the Committees I'm sure in the business office budget 330 and um a strategic plan there's a lot happening in the district a lot of movement and of course the board will be um getting a preview of the budget with our small group meetings so when that happens right great thanks I I good night