all right let me I'll I'll read from my paper copy so that way get started I'm ready all right uh call to order the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Robinsville board of education has caused has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted in the Trenton Times on December 27 2023 in the township of Robinsville B Bolton board no less than 48 hours in advance of the meeting this notice was also posted at the Sharon Elementary School Pawn Road Middle School and Robinsville High School in accord with the njsa statute and policy the robinso Board of Education shall be bound by the provisions of the school ethics act roll call please here here here here here here here here present here thanks Nick uh please plan please stand for the pledge allegiance okay can I get a motion to uh allow the board member remote access for uh Mr Nandan and Mr Gadi so moved second thank you Tanya thank you Jeff all in favor I I any n or extensions not hearing any uh board president's report so thank everyone for joining us this evening um this is one of the uh important special meetings that we have in the year to review the current status of the budget and to prepare for passing the draft budget for the county by the March board meeting which is on March 19th so now I'm going to pass it over to uh Dr winki to get us going here thank you president olberg first of all I'd like to introduce myself to people that might not know me I am Dr wusi I'm the assistant superintendent U Mr Betts had a family emergency at 5:30 today which was unforeseen and unfortunate and um we hope that him and his family are doing great um but for tonight he asked that I would uh be able to sit in and leave the meeting um as president olberg said this is going to be a very important special meeting and it's somewhat in Reverse when we build the budget typically we work with our committees to build the budget and we would go through the committee structure and the finance structure to come to uh a tenative budget that we would have to have presented later on this month we did get information that our funding was going to be held flat for this year and the turnaround time for us to get something to the public and to be approved is so short that we thought that it would be um more beneficial to do this as a committee of a whole and so that's why we are all here together so we could have this uh this discussion in public okay um the majority of the meeting is going to be run through Mr mccre however for those in the public that know that we applied for the Pea grant for preschool um in the most recent posting from the Department of Education it was identified that next year we are tapped to get 2.81 million to potentially run preschool and we wanted to be as transparent as possible about what this money means and how it could be impacted with the public question so the money that we have for preschool can only be utilized for preschool the money we have for preschool cannot be used to help our general fund budget so we wanted to give a f minute overview about this because of two reasons one we wanted to be perfectly clear with the community what this money means because they did you can see it it is public knowledge to be able to be seen and we want to let you know how it cannot impact our greater budget so the money that we got that we can get from the state for next year will not impact our budget in any way so I wanted to be as clear as possible about that the other piece is that we um don't have any kind of formal congratulatory uh notification from the state I did reach out to the Department of Education and the director of preschool did reach out back and left the message saying that we should probably have something by the end of the week so once we have something by the end of the week then we can make this more of a formal presentation as to what it would mean if we are to use preschool the reason we are speaking about it today is because preschool and accepting the money for preschool would also indic indicate that we would continue with kindergarten and so that is something that we need to understand before we go into the development of the budget and so it gives me great pleasure to bring christe to the stage we all know how hard she worked on this and you know if we are having preschool next year it's really because of the efforts of the one person that I'm bringing up behind me so Christie can you give us an overview on the pea uh funding okay good evening everyone I am Christy defasio the director of curriculum and instruction and as Dr wusi was saying I'm just going to give a very brief overview of what pea is and what it would stand for for our district moving forward if we do accept this level of funding uh we will have definitely more in-depth presentations moving forward okay so preschool education Aid so you'll hear us refer to it as pea it does stand for preschool education Aid and it is not considered a grant it is considered state aid so we do not have to reapply for this once we get it it is solid it is our state aid as long as there's funding available within those lines so preschool education Aid it provides access to high quality preschool and it really tries to focus on making it Universal across districts which means every three and four yearold is catered to an offered uh Universal prek districts are eligible for funding to increase the number of children serve so if you already have an existing program it looks to expand that the length of the program day offered also has to match that of a kindergarten program and of course the quality of the program very high standards um State Standards completely separate curriculum budgets the whole nine we'll get into that a little bit further okay so eligibility to apply and the reason why I'm showcasing this slide your eligibility to apply is based on your free and reduced lunch numbers so as you could see here the first three bullets were always a part of the application process so that lets you know which districts were eligible to apply based on free and reduced launch percentile rankings for the first time ever which is why we were even eligible to apply they introduced the fourth bullets the fourth bullet districts with less than 10% free reduced lunch this is the very first time in the state of New Jersey that they introduced that um eligibility we hit the criteria we just made it by between ranging between five and 6% so it's pretty incredible that we were even given this opportunity I also want everyone to keep in mind as do Dr wisuki stated before you have to have a fully functioning full day program that is tuition free and offered to all kindergarten students so we need to be very clear about that when we're accepting this funding and just to give you a brief overview of the paa application timeline so a broadcast was sent out by the doe in December specifically on December 15th you have to attend a technical assistance which was this time was offered only through a YouTube recording and it was online for only two days and you had to attend it there was attendance taken um through YouTube and then the recording shut down and if you did not attend that you were not eligible to apply from there you launch into the application and budget workbook which we had from December 26th until January 5th the state the doe just partnered with near which is based out of Ruckers National Institute for Early Education research and they were able to review our entire application from start to finish and supported us with the budget workbook they were a fundamental part of us being able to get through this process so quickly and then of course the application deadline which which was January 12th now on there we were supposed to be notified by February 2nd however we waited we waited we waited and we still did not receive that level of notification and it was due to the commissioner being inducted um just recently and of course the current state of the budget which they're releasing now so hopefully by the end of the week as druski was saying we'll get a more formalized notification I'm not going to get into detail with this right now if you want to view the actual existing application we don't have the robins will one posted online but the application template is available online through the doe website it's the Early Childhood website I have a link provided here that we'll post on our district website these are all the components of the application narrative from facilities planning um transitioning programs from our preschool students into kindergarten uh supporting the community what do what does it look like from a staffing perspective all of that is very heavily detailed in the application our application was 68 pages just to give you a bit of an idea and of course the benefits of universal preschool it's very hard to kind of remove these I mean I think we all know and especially those that have um children that have gone through the school system understand what that means for our students across the district and what this will be able to offer them from social skills to language development um developing those fine and gross motor skills that they transition into to kindergarten it's a fresh start for everyone and it's Equitable across the board so here's where we get into our preschool universe and this is where the budget gets tied into this so the doe tells us what our preschool universe is and it's based on pretty much doubling our first grade population so that's the predictor for our three and four year olds so our current preschool program offered at Sharon Elementary School has roughly between 42 and 44 students right now for the 2425 paa Universe which is our total population of preschool students we're anticipating a launch of 182 to 210 students for the 2024 2025 school year our full Universe which we're unable to support within our facilities at this time is a predicted to be 314 students so we did not apply for the full Universe because our facilities cannot support it at this time and we'll have approximately 14 classrooms um for September now preschool Staffing this is mandatory Staffing as per the application so we have to have a general education P3 preschool to third grade certified teacher in every classroom we also have a have to have a general education instructional aid for every classroom so this is complet it doesn't doesn't tie to a child with an IEP or a special education student this is for every single preschool classroom we also have to have what's referred to as a pick which is a preschool instructional coach falls in the category of a teacher salary but supports with curriculum and instruction a preschool intervention and referral specialist so they run the same level of programming as k5w as you would in an elementary school for inrs but it's just at the preschool level for administrative oversight because of the size of the programming we would put in for an assistant director of early childhood education with the combined mandatory role of a community parent involvement specialist and that person is responsible for community outreach and services and resources for All Families an additional school nurse an administrative assistant and district registar and of course increased custodial staff now the Pea requirements so this isn't just a basic preschool program this is not something that you're going to get from a daycare service um or from a babysitting facility this is very State mandated in the sense that there's a 15 student capacity with an integrated model so we would combine our three to five-year-old students in classrooms and students with IEPs would also be within that model and classrooms again like I said one jened P3 certified teacher and I a in the room our state approved curriculum that we'll be going with is the creative curriculum which is number one in the state right now our assessment tool will be teaching strategies gold we have to offer family style lunch that will be served in the classroom so it does not impact our facilities in that sense of inundating the cafeteria we have to have integrated specials as well so a benefit of that is that the teachers are taking the lead in those specials which would be the PE component the art music and whatnot so it does not imp impact our Specialists um at each building there is a scheduled nap time as you can imagine with three four and 5 year olds they would definitely need that in a full day length day students are not required to be potty trained in this program majority of preschool programs that are offered that don't fall under paa you have to be potty trained walking in the door we support support families in working with them setting up different leveled programming to get them on track um and ready to go the school day must mirror regular school hours so if it's a 6-h hour day for K5 students it's a 6 hour day for preschool students and transportation must be provided so if we are providing transportation to elementary school it has to be inclusive to the preschool environment as well to give you a bit of an idea of what a pea classroom looks like this is very similar to how our classrooms would be set up and the type of furniture that would be in there so a very um age appropriate and very interactive environment also when you hear playground enhancements so we technically right now we have playgrounds at the high school that are Early Childhood related at Sharon that's a very active playground currently Early Childhood appropriate Pond does not have an early childhood playground at this time but these would also be in addition to the playgrounds that we currently have now some things that I want everyone to keep in mind when we talk about pea so I know Dr wisi hit on some of these before we started the presentation but pea functions as a separate program and budget they are completely separate there's the standard operating budget k12 and there's the Pea budget completely separate spreadsheets pea can only be utilized for the general education preschool population so it can even be utilized for special education students in preschool which which we are mandated to support within the general operating budget um and it can't be utilized to support um any level of K12 education a district accepting pea must also offer as we said before full day tuition free kindergarten and pea for Robinsville Public Schools would be a district level initiative so that means that it's not just housed at Sharon Elementary School we're looking at this as using our all of our facilities across the district at this time now the the bonus behind us applying for this in January was that it would open up the budget for this current operating season so that would mean we would receive the funding we asked for now and then again in July 1 so that's very interesting in the sense that we could potentially receive $2.8 million right now as well as $2.8 million July 1 first for paa which is pretty much unheard of in budget season they had additional funding that was left over we got very lucky as I went through before being accepted in that lower bulleted level for free and reduced lunch um but it is a great opportunity to really provide an incredible preschool program if we have to launch if we do receive notification that we have this funding available now as of right now we're only pretty solid with it being secured for the 2425 school year but if we do receive it now we will have to launch some level of this programming by June I've also provided resources from the New Jersey Department of Education The Early Childhood site there are plenty of resources there that you can access to review this further at your leisure as well as the National Institute for Early Childhood research which is near through Rucker University which really is the research behind pea and of course New Jersey strategic plan for Universal preschool we're in phase one of that right now and Robinsville if we are a part of this we're considered a part of phase one where Phil Murphy is working Governor Phil Murphy is working towards expanding that University across the entire state of New Jersey so great opportunities ahead and if anyone has any further questions I'm open to answering them now do you want us to ask questions now or do you want us to wait until you get an official word and then a different meeting we could start asking you can ask them however you'd prefer all right so the first thing that you mentioned that I ticked off right here as long as there is funding available so what would happen if that funding would no longer be available we would be on the hook for the whole fee for the whole no so if state aid it's just like any level of state aid funding if for example this state aid is cut in New Jersey then of course we wouldn't be able to support the program any longer but the the likelihood of that and I'm sure Mr mccre can share a little bit more of that is fairly unlikely yeah so great question um this was the same exact question I had I was asked uh in my last school district Mr Betts launched it I I help launched it as well Dr wusi launched it at his school district um same question eight years ago what happened you literally cancel the program and you let go of everybody now that was eight years ago it has not changed and every year they give you more money um it is a program that is on a high priority uh and they keep on funding it year after year after year their goal is to have it across every school district in New Jersey finding a teacher with a P3 CT is difficult fortunately we have I think about 20 of them in our school School District um and the funding that that you receive is almost $116,000 per child we don't spend that kind of money here and so it does help the budget to the point where it lets you do things that you could that we had abandoned years ago so we have to build a playground Sharon's been eaing a playground since the day they put that extra wing on there they didn't we had it in our our plan to build a playground spending hundreds of thousands of dollars but but we we cut it out we couldn't afford it um a program like this would allow us to do something like that um normally there's enough money in the budget to do little things every year you know so when the program first came out you could do a lot more things you could add bathrooms now after eight years like nope no Capital that's your problem only maintenance but interestingly a PL playground for three to fiveyear olds is considered instructional 5 to 12 nope it's only three to five and so you see the signs and they're a little bit lower and so forth and so um you know if we do receive the funds for this year right now we would hire all those administrators your nurse everybody immediately before everybody else starts hiring them and beat them out you would also build your playgrounds immediately and lock up those funds immediately and we're talking you know you buy all your supplies you buy all your materials you buy all your your furniture it's I mean Christy jokes and she's you know it'll be the size of the high school gym all the furniture we have to buy in the materials and boxes it'll be massive um and that's just phase one because we don't have enough space could we do more classrooms if we could we would we'll try to take a look at more you get more efficient over time you trying to move things so you do get a little better but our biggest issue is bathrooms and size they have to be around I think a, 50 sare ft and the bathroom has to be in the room or within eyesight and the err program and I'll keep on going um I had my my oldest daughter in a great preschool program I paid you know uh it was not free in my town um and you know I'm paying over 10 grand now it's much higher I will and I saw what Christie did she's won a National Blue Ribbon it blows them all out of the water and it's 100% free and I always have carryover amounts to keep on funding the program um it got to the point where I got my own town to do it right here's the plan copy the plan apply for it go for it and it's changed the town think of your property values think of what comes in right so you get a grant like this an aid an application you'd be screaming from the rooftops but then we have the other point where you saw my presentation over the weekend we need to cut a lot of money and so how do you ju depose wait we got this great news but it also hamstrings us to you have to keep kitten Garden because that was on The Chopping Block right and so you know do you offer free preschool for three and 40 year olds across your whole universe where do you chop K garden and completely destroy your chances of Ever Getting preschool three and four again and so you guys know my recommendation go for it um save the preschool it'll be great for the kids because your scores will go up right we've seen the charts we presented at school boards her slide made it to the governor's office It's amazing And of course a national a National Blue Ribbon which only about six to 10 schools in the state get it out of thousands of schools so it is a major honor uh that she's earned before so uh will that happen here we're going to shoot for it but it's it's massive and of course with your permission and we'll bring it to a resolution at the March 19th board meeting uh we do have some more info to look at um but you know it's um you know it it's quite amazing that uh that we got this uh and it's coming so any more questions uh on that thank you Nick just and chrisy real real quick so the the link on the website will you know Point everyone to the application will the presentation also be on the website so that way people who can click on these individual links so that way they can get to the more information and actually read through your slides as well yes so I will we will post this on the website tomorrow by tomorrow we'll have this posted on the website and the links right here will direct you to the actual application it's not the Robinsville application but they can see the details and the extent of what this program can offer through the template great thank you Christie and regu if we can when we put out the summary from this meeting if we have the link to all those in the summary that'd be great hey um this is reg I have a quick question whenever you guys have time yeah um I do understand you know some of the advantages of having this particular program for district for this District specifically can you outline briefly you know what are the top five reasons or three reasons you know big reasons that hey this program is really good for this particular District here is why I know I'm putting you on the spot but I think that would be good for the community to hear um his question was what are really the top three reasons to have this program so I would just say off the top go ahead I'm sorry I think if I want to repeat that question I'm asking for top three or five reasons why this District Robins needs this program what is our district yes so thank you reg for your question so why does Robinsville need this program well of course I believe offering Universal prek across the board for our students is just it's phenomenal for our students developmentally and for our families in the community so it gives them the opportunity to Branch into the public school sector and not have to pay basically a mortgage payment you know many of us have been there um for daycare for appropriate daycare and it's Equitable to everyone um it's very I have to say it's a very extreme and rigorous program even more rigorous than a gdd school and I trust me my kids went to gdd school I love Goddard School um but it's rigorous and it has certified teachers that are trained so we're giving our kids such an incredible launch into education and into Robinsville public schools by offering this program gives families the opportunity if a mom is staying home and wants to go back to work it gives mom an opportunity to do so or dad whoever's staying at home with kids can also have that opportunity opens it up to Community Resources where we have staff that's now here to support you when you're working through those really difficult times you know we three four and five as adorable as they are it's tough I have to say it's a tough time when you're potty train there's no handbook for that we give you that opportunity to kind of work with you and guide you through those developmental phases and and support you throughout the process and like I said it just does wonders for our district if you're a new family starting off and you're thinking of moving somewhere you know Universal pre full day kindergarten there are programs still not offering full day kindergarten right now but now you have the chance to send your kids to preschool full day kindergarten that's pretty incredible that's a whole Early Childhood Program that would now be available through Robinsville Public Schools I I think that's just a wonderful opportunity across the board um and just when you get the chance to see what these kids are doing in the classroom it redefines what Early Childhood really is I mean they're writing their names before they leave this program they know their letters their numbers they're almost reading some of them are even reading when they leave preschool we have some students like that now in Robinsville but why not have it and offer it to everyone that comes into this community so I just think it opens the door for so many reasons and Ragu I feel like I can go on and on and on and on and I'd be happy to share more um if you'd like more information yeah thank you very much I appreciate it thank you thank you sorry um can I ask a question I I just want to say thank you I know how hard you worked I've been aerator on the sides I've sent thousands of emails probably to Chrissy asking her when we would find out um but I have some questions um and I don't want you to take these negatively but where would you house these little friends in the district great question so as I stated before this would be a district level programming because there's not one facility at this time that could house this entire program I have Dr boutier here and I know she would love to have this program here and has been just a full advocate for it um but unfortunately our facilities once's facility cannot support this um so we would be branching into potentially all three buildings to support um different level of classrooms in uh the district and of course when we're saying that we have a whole plan in place we're working with the administrative teams we're doing walkthroughs at this time um to make everyone a part of the process but the goal would be to really make it separate level Wings where they wouldn't be exposed similar to our fifth grade at Pond right now they really do a nice job of kind of involving them in the school Community but secluding them just based on their age and what's developmentally appropriate so we're aiming towards that as well as well I um just congratulations on that I know the uh immense amount of work it takes to do any Grant so 68 pages ain't nothing to sneeze at um but my question is more kind of technical about the transportation side of it um I know you said that uh I guess these students would have the Ava ability of buses but you know I can't picture you know 15 three-year-olds on a bus a bunch of car seats so um has any thought been U put into how that's going to impact like Transportation um for especially for arrival I'm thinking absolutely so that that has been um a conver an ongoing conversation I have to say our director of transportation is fantastic and has been working with us um we are not mandated to have car seats on the buses but we would have to have um an instructional assistant on the bus to support those students and strapping them in um making sure they're secured with seat belts um staggering arrival times for the preschool program U is a big piece of it so if let's say for example we have an entire Wing at pond that's housing preschool we wouldn't have the same exact start time as Pond it would really function as a completely separate program um with staggered times across the district and ensuring that we're up to code with Transportation as well chrisy have a question um great work I appreciate everything um but unfortunately they're going some questions difficult questions I'm looking for answers for what I had written down about Transportation as well um I guess for me what I wanted to two-part question is the grant going to pay for transportation for these participants and two is that Transportation limited to just the participants of this prek program yeah I I'll take this one so they allow you the first uh year to put it into the grant so you're losing your available resources after that when you do your October your Assa or drtr RS then you'll get funded for that Transportation through different Aid called Transportation Aid so the first year you take a hit within the program not a hit on our budget but within and then the next year that frees up your budget even more to spend more money on preschool but the transportation is not limited just to pre kids like would be able to share that with the other grades as well well they would get their proportionate share so they give you x amount of dollars for that Transportation right assuming that child actually rates Transportation we'll discuss about Transportation later because it's courtesy busting so for those who are mandated yes they would get it the reality is most parents are going to drop the child off right especially on the so we said three-year-old October so they could be two years and 11 months old not potty trained and watching their parent let go the child the first time it's a little difficult and so they first day is always a little rough um and so um but it's uh we'll cover that we have experience in that so thanks Nick I okay I have a a qu so Christie also just echoing the immense work that you did behind this I think any other year we would have been like boom do it quick you know but of course we have um the referendum question coming up and the possibilities of losing kindergarten if that comes up as far as budget cuts go but just incredible work and thank you to the team um just some clarifying questions if you don't mind um so wondering about uh as we think about the classrooms and like staggering the locations is there a certain so if for example just taking Pond right we know that that's a that's one of the schools that has probably the I think I believe um the most difficulties with space um and maybe that's maybe that's just wrong so let's just say all three um is there a certain number of students we can sort of cut cut off at as a lottery and say this is what we can accept based on what we have in our capacity as our school um is looking at our space so that's just um one question I had and and a few more if you can sure so it as of right now it has to be a lottery system because we're not hitting our full universe so regardless we're still going to have to launch with a lottery system in place um but to your point um our enrollment has decreased slightly um if you notice on some of our agendas as we're showcasing that for the district um our larger heavier populated classes are shifting towards the high school um so we do have some space available in that sense and just really looking at our buildings and re we can repurpose rooms and whatnot and I I truly believe that the plan that we put out we were able to support it with 14 classrooms in the district so we've shown slides before we have you know I I hate to say excess Capac capacity in the buildings right because it's not so cut and dry it's how many teachers have classrooms and so so you're looking really difficult and you're taking a Swagger of how much can you can you go because you want to put in as many children in this program now mind you it's a class size of 15 that's it you must reserve some slots that's 15 with a teacher and an aid you're talking heavy intensive oversight and then and it's all covered by the grant or by Aid we I'm sorry I use that exchange it is not a grant it's Aid the major difference between the two is you're allowed to supplant so that does help the budget a little bit so how many classrooms can we fit there's no way we can do 300 you might go out and rent the building and rent space in town so that's money for that building owner and property taxes and so forth another way and the majority of the way in many towns is you know we you don't have building and nobody wants to build a new building because you're talking a lot of money and we have to wait till our debt falls off in you know in five years um you team up with third party contractors right and there's four who have already reached us already so think about the people who are currently paying for their preschool uh for their kids we would cover it for free I would have to go negotiate with that person you get a little bit of extra money from the state but it's like okay I'm going to cut a deal with you I want to pay you x amount for this program and you educate our children but there's a huge caveat they have to follow our rules and our oversight and one of the major reasons you want these programs is listen we have kids in our schools from from kindergarten to 12th grade that's 13 years now you have them for 15 and now you're going to have alignment vertical and horizontal align alignment because their curriculum is doesn't match our curriculum and number another big thing is this is the echer curriculum Early Childhood rating system it blows them all out of the water it is insane what you have to do you have to time kids how fast they get to the and how far away they are from the playground and from the bathrooms and so forth you must have a color copier so in the budget I got to go buy a color copier because they print their name tags in color why well you're that's the color green that's the color red I mean it is in amazing what they do they sprayed down the rooms before Co was out she was you know why are you buying so much Lysol you know and she's laughing but you know right before she's like no there's a thing called Corona virus that we have to protect our kids it's in the plan and a year later she's it's right here number one on the Lysol list right um it is an amazing program um and I I can't T it enough because I've seen it I've had my kids through it um uh and what it does for the community and and across the board and of course we have to launch 150 more children in round two we can't house them so therefore we will pay preschool out in town for those children and those parents who have them in those programs by third party companies yeah now I appreciate the context because I oh go ahead I just really I just uh you've we've talked talked a little bit about the overlapping I guess benefit so you've you've mentioned you just mentioned like the the safety of using Lysol and the cost that that might Associated that could be covered by this budget correct like the aid might get that right but technology use security the nurse just kind of curious as to the overlap and helpfulness of what might come out of this that we could possibly also leverage for the general student body sorry so for the um when it comes to Staffing as well when we're looking at the administrative end of it as well too so bringing in the um assistant director of Early Childhood that spans now P3 so that can support us in the role of Early Childhood as we look at it from a P3 standpoint so that person would have insights as well and oversight over that as well um the school nurse obviously in times of need would support whichever building they're located in um so if another school nurse is out that's another opportunity they're just looked at as a school nurse to support the overall District um when it comes to technology there's also a percentage of salaries that can be utilized of our current staff uh it depends on how much they're utilized within the preschool program as a percentage of their time that can be utilized for example for the tech support like you were're saying so there's a bounce off of the salaries between the two budgets of that sense as well too um and of course we do have technology mandates within paa they're only allowed to be on for 15 minutes three days a week when it comes to technology so there's very strict guidelines but that does to support our technology plan of bringing in more technology the trainings and whatnot so if we're bringing in training for preschool staff for example on certain technology platforms that are used K12 why not bring that training across the board for the entire District so opens up opportunities like that as well too so um let me yeah let me let me jump in so um other items that you know like the irony is like they're going to have the best technology we're going to have all the best things but 15 minutes why devally appropriate because they get it at home they're playing on their iPads and whatever so they change it all up now budget wise how is it going to affect it after you've paid for all those things that you need to build build out your program all your curriculum all your books all your supplies all those things and your budget gets freed up in the preschool then you start transferring those fixed costs over so accounting wise say year two or year three I'll put let's just say it's 7% so the kids are 7% of the PO preschool 7% of the school's population all right that's 7% of my salary 7% Dr wisuki salary 7% of so so forth right and you can fix it that way now that comes down the road so those are the benefits down the road assuming everything has been fully covered initially um but there's enough cushion in the spikes I don't want you to think that there's a that's guaranteed going to happen but I assure you I will try my best to get everything in there I don't like any carryover funds especially with yes so yes and job security yes that's right all right um echoing what some people meant thank you for all the hard work and dedication like uh like Arthur said just the the Hoops they make you jump through for all these grants I know was a a ton of work first for the aid thank you thank you for the correction thank you Mr President um so my question is actually um for working parents would the red program be available before and after and could that be a source of revenue for the district as well um for those before and after child care absolutely and Miss El's already made a price structure and she's ready to present so so uh that would be covered those funds it stays in red but it helps those Reds those children out keeping those costs low and as well as you know she does enrichment activities as well after school stuff so it would it's be across the board yes Pam has a whole plan lined up even for summer programming she's phenomenal so yes Nick what is the current Staffing oh just the current number of staff that support the current preschool program so we we have two teachers okay two two in special majority special education at this time and it's paid preschool so it's predominantly special ed and there's some extra seats and then those parents pay uh to help offset that cost because you have empty seats so they come in and we make a little bit of Revenue on that um that would have to go away and then we would integrate so these are integrated classrooms unless it's very specific special ed needs so um and then we also get the children earlier so you get to screen them earlier and pick up special ed issues that may have go unnoticed for two more years you get a little bit earlier so the early we catch special ed issues and and take a look at things not only is it better for the child but also maybe gets them graduated from special needs to back to to Jed thank you I think someone on the line had a question yeah this is reg one another question um I know we are trying to actually get this program um distributed among all three schools are there any infrastructure changes that are needed to support this uh because you know I know Robinsville High School is built for a purpose versus Sharon versus Pawn you know just wondering what is What that particular cost would be and would that cost be included um in the grant so there are some minor ones that will charge to the the aid packet um you have to lower the toilet seats in those classrooms um or get a little chair or something but the high school has two preschool classrooms built already the middle school has a bunch because they have a whole Wing designed for preschool and when you and they've had it before I don't know if the Middle School's had it but the high school has had it before and the program went away and so that's where the infrastructure currently exists it will not pay for infrastructure upgrades as in capital let me add a bathroom let me add air conditioning it it'll pay for do you need to paint the wall sure do you need to change the carpet okay change the toilet change the toilet cover yeah change the col that's it right not let me go let me add $200,000 sewer line but you can change them change the sewer line yes sure yeah and the HVAC filter so um that's why we were limited to to that could we add more classrooms Maybe but infrastructure wise like how we I can't I can't do that now would it be worth paying 150 grand out of the operating budget to to pay for that grant for another x amount of kids that's a business decision but that's for down the road and and and so forth but at the present moment we're not doing any of that major stuff we need every maintenance and capital reserve money to fix our current $17 million hbac issues so thank you quick question um for the 182 to 210 you're anticipating for I guess starting this coming year you did mention that the program would probably have the starts early is June 3D what is I guess two par is there a minimum that we need in order to move forward with the Grant and two what are you anticipating on day one if we start June 3rd that's a great question um so it is pending if we receive the funding of course for the 23 24 school year if we're able to launch for June otherwise it would be a launch for September um for 14 classrooms but as per the application that we applied for in January we would have to launch by June in order to receive that funding for this year if we are going that route and we receive that money for June we would do a soft launch in the district um so our goal we have more of a comprehensive plan behind behind that but would mostly take place with our current preschool students launching them into a full day program um instead of expanding into the other facilities at this current time um but then we would be moving forward September the goal for September would be to launch all 14 classrooms is there any negative connotation if say for instance you don't get the whole 182 by September what would happen then or is there no negative at all amazingly no you say you're going to get 182 they give you 182 and they give you the full amount they've never gone back and said oh you had 181 take back 16,000 they've never done that um we get the money now we would launch in June our two preschool classrooms would instead of half day programs we' say okay go to full day now that's a discussion item but you would get the full amount and another benefit is we put in here a secretary we were we cut a nurse we cut a secretary we're going to put a secretary back that secretary is also going to do all the preschool enrollments which currently Transportation does enrollments so now a transportation assistant can go out and do bus routes and save us money as opposed to sitting you know doing enrollments as well so there is some uh nice overlap that will be taken care of so when you're launching that's our soft launch but we get the the funds and told now listen we can start whenever the board approves it we're putting the ads out putting ads in the paper we now have Universal preschool start applying we also have to make a plan of action of who is going to you know the lottery it's first come first serve is there a line towns have done that towns have picked names out of a hat you have to reserve certain slots for special needs because it's when they turn three years old they can enter your school system in the middle of a year so you may not have 15 children in the classroom when you start it only may be 12 it may fill out at the end of the year um and then we'll go through that you have to save some slots for free and reduced and so forth and so there's a lot more to go through it um but it you know we can we can we've got many plenty of months to start building this out and there is no penalty if you don't get 182 yeah and if we are going to goord with it we'd have to start working with the committees like the Personnel committee because we're going to have to write job descriptions for some of these positions get those approved and then once they're approved then we could post for it so that's also part of like the the need to move this process is there a plan to move any current staff down to this grant pram sorry program we haven't spoken about that part yet okay yeah so just you you kind of started touching on it Nick just the 42 children that are currently in would would be then grandfathered into this program can you maybe just clarify that real quick yes absolutely they'll be grandfathered right into it and they they won't have to make a June payment so yes we want the least disruption for any type of launch that would be happening this school year we would have to go find a teacher immediately to to get into that classroom move some move some things around as a possible you know it it's we have to do something yes and we we currently have an incredible preschool staff I have to say um the program that's at Sharon Elementary School is absolutely fabulous so that's why we're so confident in being able to launch us as well too for the work that they've put in um and the current staff that's already there great thank you again chrisy thank you for you and the curriculum team putting this all together and making this opportunity available to the district thank you any other questions final clarifying clarifying question was if we the referendum does not pass potentially and therefore may impact our kindergarten going into fall this program would also go away that's right got it yes thanks sorry I have another question um when you say free I just wanted to to make sure it's free free it's not going to charge the the freest free of free yes it is a free no charging district for transportation not a penny not a penny you want the cute lunchbox and the cute backpack that's what Mom that are paying for that's it it will not affect property taxes it's it's completely covered yes okay I have another one sorry all right if you don't fill these seats if people say no I don't want free preschool and they don't come and you have open seats can you promote it to other districts and receive revenue for them no okay I already thought about that nope years ago no I was blocked so yeah just a follow up on that not another District or Revenue building but with the three to five-year-old um that this would cover would there be at all a chance where if it if all the seats weren't taken but there were spots in the room and for whatever reason there were five year olds in the five to six kindergarten program that maybe needed more developmental assistance could they join these prek class classrooms that's a great question there's always discussion for that but that would be considered a retention so you would want to I mean that would be a conversation with the parents with the families with the administrative team um there's always possibilities I don't want to say no that's not possible um but of course you know that could be on the table for that would not be funded though I would have to say through pea that would be the district just shifting a child that child would not be considered a part of paa funding and then could we just talk about how this $2.8 million Grant Aid is not covering the 2.75 referendum question can we just sum that up real quick again sure so once again these are two separate budgets so we have our operating budget which covers our kindergarten to 12 uh and and and post high school and this would be a brand new totally separate sheet and they can't they can't connect to one another so in no way is this impacting um our current state that we're in and for the reasons that we're going for the refer on them next week so just from my it's two operating budgets you have two separate operating budgets that do not overlap here they do not overlap at all so when you when you're making this budget it actually has two different budget processes it's actually very annoying um we have to submit it for next year you know soon next week um and you know you make your whole budget as we normally would and there's another tab to put your preschool money in there and you have to list it out as well so in the in the budget it'll it'll show that um and as you go through it how do you account for it so we typically talk about fund 11 right um fund 10 11 12 um and the 20s are all grants well guess what this Aid it's in the Grant Line no we were just I know yeah yeah so I'm confusing you but it's I think it's 20 218 XXX you know and they and they label it out so it's completely broken out and you cannot mix the two when you do your audit they'll report the audit separately if the program goes away it go that Grant SL a line goes away so that's how it's recorded completely separate um you still have to record preschool um disabled and special ed money as you would normally do so even though you have children intermixed hey you you have to educate special needs children through your operating budget but you have to break it up and so it it gets a little convoluted but it is a it's a wellth thought out program because of all the tricks you could pull um and it's been around for eight years so they've learned our lessons over time and what how to protect it because they really want State wants preschool we want it for those preschool kids we know how important it is how it affects the education of a future children and how many people can't afford preschool and so that's how they rolled it out and because I mean it's unheard of I think only one other school district below 10% has received this money um I want to tout this one more time and our last thing is I know there are plenty of school districts out there that don't even bother to apply because it's they're just lazy I know school districts who've applied got the money and then denied it like ran it for a year it's too hard I know a neighboring School District that has money and I'm like uh they should have triple the amount they don't they didn't put it in and they've had it for many many years it's just lazy because at the very worst he just contracted out to another third party company to run it for you and have the children right we were tasked with improving the school district improving revenues right find money it's here now unfortunately it's got that caveat it cannot affect your K to2 budget and that's where the Crux of the matter I like to switch over uh to so um and a man that's the whole reason we presented it tonight was we did not want anybody to be confused and because it's out there to be seen and it says Robinsville $2.8 million I did not want anyone to be confused so that's why Administration said we have to bring it up tonight even though it's not the most advant uh advantageous night to to present it because you want to really be able to celebrate this but we did not want anybody to question why do we see Robinsville with a $2.8 million line next to it this is why Nick have any other um school districts in Mercer County applied for and received this grant uh state aid yes um Princeton um and Lawrence had it and then Trenton got it for this year and then us they had Princeton had it and then no longer no Princeton has it prinston has it I think they have about 3.2 million 3.1 um Lawrence's was a little bit less than ours and Trenton was considerably High's had it for years because they're above 10% you was anybody denied yes yes were districts tonight thank you congratulations thank you has anyone lost it Mercer County that you know of other than their own choice no that I know of do we have a list of audits as to like I know you said it's difficult and pure laziness might play into districts just being like all right you know I'm not going to handle it but I wonder if we have just that list of all the difficulties that might come with making sure that we can ensure that we're not going to be in that camp but you know proactively take a look at why people were just like I'm not doing year two um I I ran it in Bradley Beach it's still in existence and they R ran it in Jamesburg and it's still in existence so we can tell you just from experience the difficulties that that will be and we could share that with Ed policy that's the that's the idea that if this goes forward then through Ed policy will be the the the remainder of the information as we go forward where it should lie um and you know under Tanya's uh leadership there one last question um currently you said there are 42 kids currently enrolled pre how many of those are going to age out into first grade I don't I think it's almost half it's it's pretty much 5050 so then we would theoretically have 21 grandfathered into this 182 yeah it may be a little bit less because the the paying families typically are are more preschool four than three uh but the special needs are about half and half I have a report but it's it's it's close enough but for June okay everyone would get it because they're still part of this year because for the 42 yeah okay and and most of those are special needs so they're they're automatically in but they're covered under special needs they're not covered under the preschool Aid they're not gened okay so I think we have 13 off the top of my head 13 or 14 who are current2 up to 42 paying I think it's something like that all right appreciate that clarity thank you any other question questions otherwise we can take it to the Committees I guess yes thank you everyone thank you CHR thank you Christie five minutes that was no was no I agree no jump into it all right I'll ask the question anyone need a break are we ready to jump right in great all right Nick the ba or board secretary's report please uh so we here to talk about the uh the school year 2425 budget uh you want to present yeah so Dr winki is going to present two quick slides that Mr Betts had created to give a a little big overview and then we're going to go in through uh a little more details with me thank you everyone so as we know this week uh the state figures came out and we were flat funded so um I didn't know I'd be in a position to say that's not the worst news ever right but uh in this scenario it is not in fact if you look at the final um bullet behind me the paperwork that Nick received found that if we would have gone above the 90% threshold that we've talked about before and we were at 89.4 89.6 um they would have cut $4.7 million from our state funding so that would have been a Monumental detrimental attack on the school district there's no other way to say it and so luckily we do have the flat funding which was part of our uh thought process however with the flat funding you see that the revenue challenges are not going away if we raise the the tax levy to 2% we're talking about um $825,000 a year but you can see fixed costs that we're aware of behind me with salary and benefits is going to outpace that alone never mind any new cont contracts that are coming up or insurance so we have no more Bank capped money so we cannot go to that reservoir of of money either so you can see off of the bat we are going to be in a difficult situation which is why we are continuing to um push forward with the idea of the public question for next week thank you Dr just a quick question so what is the inflation Target for the budget for this year based on the recommendation so is do you have that number neck for inflation the CPI I think it's 5.81 um right yeah so in essence being held flat is a loss because 6% it's 6% okay just want to make sure our local tax levy is about 80% of our operating budget and the rest would get filled in by the state right so 75 80% so where to go right and so now we do have have uh an information that we could close out this particular slide we had a number of different versions where it was if the funding if the funding will we know the funding is at zero and so what those potential pieces would now mean is that if we have the public question next week and it fails you can see these are the potential pitfalls for our district if we have flat State funding and we are short over2 million uh dollar you see that we're going to have to look at these areas and that's why we're here tonight right as I said this is where we would have talked about this in committee but we don't have the time to go to committee and we want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to talk to Nick tonight and give us Direction it's backwards right it should be going the other way but we don't have time to do it that way so Nick and I are here today to look for direction because these are potential areas where we could look to find the money to fill the the uh the gap and so once again none of these are ones that people feel strongly about as a good idea but it is a necessity and so we have Sports Staffing increased class sizes facilities programs those those are the three main place you know the three main places are going to be staff programs and facilities and so Nick is going to talk with you tonight and then he's going to look for some direction and then we have a business committee meeting on Friday and we will be able to give more uh direct recommendations from what you speak to Nick about tonight as well as I am meeting with the admin teams Thursday and Friday to get recommendations from the building leaders as well okay so our goal is that Nick is going to be able to present to you and then you are going to be able to have an open for to discuss this in true transparency so just real quick the when we talk about staff cut the Staffing Cuts causes the increase in class sizes it's not yeah right that just to be clear that's correct it's not an enrollment increase it's that's correct so if you had 10 teachers and you go down to nine you're going to cut that one class up and and redistribute it yeah just want to make sure everyone's clear that's that's what's causing it okay all right ready yep okay so it's a working group uh um we're going to go through this we have to pass a budget as if the public question did not pass so um questions next week it has no impact to our budget meetings right now and therefore we'll have to find uh these Cuts uh budget for them uh the 19th is a tenative budget we'll we'll do that um just as last year we had rough numbers as we went in people were like well what position is it who's name is it and so forth then we have to drill down and as we drill down that's when we go through the uh the April 29th board meeting um and have the final budget so there's six weeks in between in that time period the state's going to take a look at it the county department of education did did I miss a number is there something we took out that they're mandating us to do we have to put it back in uh and we'll go through that process in between we're going to have a lot of discussions right so let's let's be honest so uh after this meeting some of you are going to have some issues of concerns get with your your committees then get with the business committee you know so we're going to have some numbers or Dr Ruki and the whole Administration is going to meet up uh the next couple of days after this after your direction of what we can and cannot touch so tonight we kind of want to know what's a sacred cow hey don't touch this or all right we don't like it no one's going to like this but we're open depending on your risk factors so we're going to go through risks and scenarios um and we'll just go around the room so once again we typically do this in in committees it's private uh it's a discussion the state prefers it that way um because you can people they've noticed over time you can be more truthful um when all your you know um working group is out you may not say stuff as you want but the reality is this is this is not a good topic right when you're getting extra money we're always looking at what are we adding what are we doing it's a great time at this point we have to how much are we preserving and what is the goal is the goal attainment or is the goal achievement right and so forth so um as we go through this uh at the same time the Committees are important so we have a tech committee meeting on on Monday we're going to go schedule um and then you know because as we built this budget out I told all the budget managers put in what you need and what you are requesting we had a problem last year and the years before that when we cut something they people thought I thought we'd had that in there no you it was cut so you have to make your budget work so our new budget software system that we have we're putting in there budget cut and calling it out so we have a historical record because we cut some things and we had board members wait I thought that wasn't the budget no I'm sorry we had to cut it and then an issue happened and it cost us money okay and so so we want to be very specific of what we've cut out and so forth and you're going to get these copies um the spreadsheets and so forth over the weekends as I make them and have more information and go through it and and we're open for that discussion privately uh to straight to me now normally as we said we would go to the business committee meeting you know hey we got an extra $2 million from the state you know uh inflation is not that bad we're good and we figured things out now it's a little bit different you have your presentation slide deck this is the slide that were hidden I've took those out those hidden slides were from last year those weren't updated so that confused some of you and I'm sorry about that but it was last year's presentation I was updating as we do it I have a lot of stuff to do in the next two weeks um I do want to call out one slide I was asked about this can you go to slide uh 20 and so one of them was what does it mean for us what what is our data the 2023 taxpayers guide to educational spending came out and this is our spending uh Trends across the whole entire State uh this is the 22 23 numbers um and they were they were put in there and so when these budget numbers come out um you get to see the the trend now these are old numbers uh as in the 2223 uh cost per pupil so um you have a choice of of choosing like like districts so what is that there are 74 school districts that are like us to compare k12's right there's k8s out there there's High School only so we are K12 between 181 and 3500 students right the bigger you are you typically are more efficient the smaller you are the costs go up and so uh I I just highlighted our County and so you can see the ranking six of 74 and that was the 2021 actual costs six is six from the bottom then we went third out of the bottom and now we budgeted second from the bottom um and and we recall this year we had a cut uh 27 and a half staff positions so it's a race to the bottom so this is where is not just a revenue issue it's an expense issue and so forth but I want people to know that you know we're not spending a ton of money where there's a lot to cut okay I know we have some neighboring districts actually everybody spends more than we do uh in the thousands of more some in the $10,000 more that is not us right we are far more efficient um are are and that's why I don't want people get confused on our numbers and our expenses extracurricular because we're going to talk about sports and clubs okay so what are we spending on average we are budgeted around the middle 32 of 74 okay now our percentage of budgetary cost per pupil is a little bit higher once again when you have a lower cost you know you're spending more of your percentage okay and then operations and maintenance that's always a big thing because when you cut what's the first place you go you go to your building your building starts falling apart you don't make your air conditioning repairs you don't you know and so forth and so where are we spending in operations and maintenance eighth from the bottom okay um operations wise we're spending around 3 to four million a year in operations and maintenance that includes over a million dollars just to clean the building so I'm not sure if you should count that or not we count it in the budget why I say should you count it or not if you go look up online they say hey you should be spending around two to 5% of the cost of your buildings our buildings are worth about $400 million so we should be spending at least 8 million and so when we look at Capital and maintenance Reserve right that's why some of these things get so expensive for us when you're trying to save hey I know my roof's going bad I know this hbac system's going bad and these systems are not cheap the little one here is a quarter million the one at the high school auditorium is 75,000 one of the other ones high school gym 750,000 every wing we do is a million dollars and so right now we have $17 million in requests to fix over the next couple of years we only have 4 million ion in capital and maintenance reserve and there's nothing in the budget to really do those big projects I know there's been information out there what's capital capital is anything in is replacement of equipment that is more than $2,000 capital is not just I'm building a new building or a wing so think of any piece of equipment more than $2,000 that's capital you buy a Piece One Piece of gym equipment that's $201 that's cap Capital different budget line item so um and now I'd like to go through the checklists um right now uh how much is our shortfall so after raising 2% you don't have to go away I'll just call it out um 5.7 million so I we need to cut out 5.7 million now now those are the requests a lot of it fixed some of it and we'll go through as a lot for one budget manager okay but that was a request from that committee we'll have to go back and figure out what to do okay so we got to figure out 5.7 roughly slide 27 now these slides update over time people are changing my numbers in my computer system because it's live so I've directed the budget managers if you start cutting so anything you don't need as of now you can afford to start cutting and keep your notes in there and I want those recorded not only for yourself but for everybody across the board so um by Department Athletics up 16% um about 114,000 out of a $849,000 budget a lot of it increases in in and so we have an increase natural increase every year for the cost of our our personnel our coaches but also there was a massive increase around I think like 25 to 35% in athletic officials massive increase this year and it's going to go up next year as well so that was struck after our budget and we had to move money around for these things buildings and grounds owned by the way I I'll go back remember we received $983,000 from the state that was so we have original budget then we had to add the 983 well I don't have that 983 and most of that money went to recurring costs so that also inflates our numbers we have to go back as if that 983 did not exist so buildings and grounds up 72,000 about 177% uh 162,000 is just in custodial uh Mr Murphy put a lot more money into HVAC repairs so HVAC is hitting us us so I had to move 60,000 go find 60,000 already uh for these repairs I mean um we have stuff to fix and that'll be a discussion of do we stop fixing air conditioners and there's ramifications for that so if I don't fix air conditioners how hot does it get do we cancel school if we have to cancel school for that day now we'll know the temperature ahead of time uh heat I have to fix air conditioning I do not have to fix okay you can call OSHA you can call everybody you want I don't have to fix AC the only intent is open a window or move the classroom now let's be honest these are newer buildings I one of my District's buildings 1921 I love that building had natural air flow natural the 1971 Wing or building Edition they put on horrible it was designed for air conditioning they never put it in it was so so hot our buildings are newer and so what would that do to the parents what would that do to your schedule did you push back a day right if you have to cancel class it's $150,000 just to make up a day assuming all three schools curriculum up 37% 344,000 um they're trying to improve the curriculum budgets they're trying to add new curriculums and improve our test scores and these things are not cheap how expensive are they about $300,000 a piece depending which version and how many grades you're launching and so forth um another interesting thing what we did was we moved all the software the curriculum software outside of the principles into the curriculum budget so gby 96 came out this an accounting standard and they said any any software package that is a one-year contract or lower must be or longer must be reported in the audit and so we're trying to get Corral everything into one department and it was amazing how many stuff was how many things we had out there that were bought during covid for multi-year plans uh and we had to Corral those things so naturally you should see the principal's budget goes down and the curriculum budget go up so District about 2.9 Million uh up what's District well that's $48 million I'm District I have all the salaries right I have insurance I have health benefits and so forth so the budget managers they run their things and I and I control all the higher items so uh around 4% increase a little bit more for for salaries benefits up 600,000 10% is the estimate Insurance up about a 100,000 Esser money ran out so we had a couple positions in Esser and we said said this over the years we had four or five people the next year we took out a couple and another couple well it's done so we had to put those positions back into the budget so that also went up debts up a little bit uh but maintaining flat relatively flat Elementary uh budget down 133% predominantly because we took out some items guidance up once again mental health that was eser money so that pushed it up as well High School a lot of clubs and and requests for items and supplies to maintain her high school at 157 up it this is the big one one and a quarter million one and a quarter million for it so uh we're going to go back to the tech committee and say you know obviously that's cannot be accomplished prioritize your items and if you need to fight get with the business committee and tell your reasons why and justify you need certain things okay um for example you know we' got 300 teacher computers that are 12 years old 12 years old they were in the budget last year we took it out 12 years old so think about cyber security and your issues and so forth Middle School uh flat funded uh student services up uh 11% um which is is child study team um sorry it's Mr Betsy's going to try to call in so we'll see he's going to watch it as well um transportation once again up okay so uh 11% now in that Transportation increase it's not as bad as I thought is two buses here's the risk buses are getting old we have to maintain our buses they have no spare buses we would like to buy a bus or two if that doesn't happen I think we can survive but you're looking at three to five buses in a couple of years from now every year for numerous years each bus is about $125 to $150,000 each and so you push it you push it you're going to need a bus and so I can't imagine having half a million dollars in buses in one year or you can contract and when you contract it's going to cost you more there's a reason why we brought the buses in house so we typically run our own special ed runs um because they're very expensive so we'll bring them in house um and then we contract the General Ed runs where there are multiple tiers two or three the big buses so we typically have the smaller buses uh and so forth Nick Nick s to interrupt you real quick um and that's also Revenue driving too right the buses in District so that'd be something we'd be if we didn't keep up with our buses that's also Revenue we'd be losing long term because we could do runs for other District and pay out no we do runs for for ourselves I don't contract out but cont okay yeah it's expense driven it's the other way and so um we'll take a look at okay this route I kid you not some of these routes are $100,000 well what's the cost of having our own um bus driver what's the cost of fuel what can we do but if we don't have a bus that's an issue so in last year's budget we looked at buying a bus to save money but the problem was it took over a year to to get a bus so you'd have to buy a bus wait a year to go save money yeah it's a good return but the goal was to save teachers so it's a cost of a teacher plus so discussion points this is where I like to go and and get your input and and your feedback so I know I dumped a lot of news on you a lot of information um but this is what we're looking at voted yeah let me go so discussion Point Athletics this is where I need your input um it's about a million dollars for sports across the board can I touch sports are we cutting maybe 100,000 in sports or we're not touching any sports or we can raise the cost of feed for clubs and sports I'd suggest that as opposed to cutting okay I agree with Tanya on that yeah I agree as well what what are the current fees right now about $110 per Sport and I think it's half I have it on now is what they were years ago when they received the $3 million in Fusion from the S2 funding formula they cut the sports and clubs fees in half and we put it back again it's not unheard of to charge $300 we have some expensive sports that cost almost $22,000 each and some sports are after the children pay the $110 it's like about $110 to run the sport right and so yeah and we have some sports that are they're dying out that are not going to be around in three or four years so maybe you want to cut it now and save $100,000 just in one that one sport so my question and sorry if I'm interrupting you but would increasing the cost and I don't know what the number is per sport cover it completely or is it partial cover and then the school still has to have $500,000 in the bank for sports we if if we don't make that much so right now I think we're on Target around 175,000 in clubs and sports fees but we're running over a million4 for clubs and sports so there's a SL deck now this is last year's numbers um number 12 Nick thank you Anthony now Mr delesio just made the fall one uh in the winter and so he's waiting on the spring so he has updated numbers some of these Sports uh these numbers have changed but this is a trend line for you um and you can see uh the these these numbers um this is what's 2223 and you can see some sports are $2200 a child and some as low as 500 and so if you're collecting $110 you can figure out that math the weight at average is of $756 per child so um and then the ramifications you cut a sport are you cutting freshman JV or varsity and then the reality is how many children are going to be seniors and they won't have that so uh I have updated numbers I can send it to you um tomorrow or tonight tomorrow um Nick I'm looking at this and I don't I don't know if people in the audience can see it but yeah it's really for for for us to talk um I hate it's like this is a working group but they we're going to present this presentation on March 19th so I'm going to include all of this in here so that's that's once again that is the preliminary budget there's still time for the final budget now as a business administrator hate to say that because when you want to do your preliminary you're done and I can go work on other things to catch up on but we're not in that boat I'll be working all the way through that uh just as last year because it's that important we have to figure this all out uh and maintain what we have as much as we can I just want to narrate what I'm looking at though and make sure that I'm looking at it correctly so let's say that I'm a Cheerleader and I want to make sure the cheerleading team continues in order for the cheerleading team to continue per player would it be $371 for the school district not to have to pay out anything yeah so right now this is last year's numbers so obviously you add one more kid or less we would change um 371 is the cost that sport so you would take out the 110 now and so but that sport cost 15,000 right assuming fault yearly for last year costed two coaches their events their sign up fees and so forth that doesn't cover other ancillary items like athletic trainer athletic director and so forth what's in here as well is transportation right and so there's a whole spreadsheet I'll send you the whole spreadsheet Mr delesio did a lot of work on it um he's doing his leaders to leaders training and he's using this as an example uh because he's doing a deep dive on all these Sports and collecting all this information he's been doing it for a couple couple of years now um I've never seen athletic director do that and I'm very happy he's done it because we have more information now um and then we can make a decision but it could be you know do we just double the fees now if you double the fees you can make another $150,000 both in in clubs and sports the problem I have with doubling the fees or something like that gets into the equity issue so you know wanting to keep Sports um at least some some programs you know I mean maybe levels is something that we could look at you know making sure that maybe we can't offer a freshman team but we have the other levels to make sure that it's available maybe some kind of increase of fees but doubling it what I fearful with that is now you might be pricing some families out of being able to participate at all I think we run the risk of putting too much of that burden on the family so I think what Tanya mentioned before is looking at an increase fee that kind of help offset some things still trying to offer the amount of sports we currently have maybe look at levels I think could be fair but I think you know going any more than you know we'd have to kind of maybe work on a percentage the I think but doubling I think would be very uh uh very difficult to um put put that kind of burden on our families so we went from 55 to 110 so you could split that maybe another 50 or something we'll do the math on that and we'll go through the analysis um and then you know or and are we allowed to recommend any sports being cut or quick question Nick um going to a man's example yeah um cheerleading 37175 um Min is to 110 means it's costing the district $261 75 cents for each cheerleader or each child participating cheerleading correct yeah I would yeah so I would do the total it's 11 Grand yeah after they pay has there been any discussion about a combination of maybe looking at eliminating some increasing fees but eliminating some sports that are not as well received like we look at some of these we have participation so we were looking at so like I said this is last year's one of the sports keeps on going down and so we're looking at that and so from what I'm hearing we're open to it you're not closing a door on it but we need tojust ify it I I think if we're looking at these numbers and basing it purely on these 20 2223 numbers I think on average when I did a quick analysis the average breaking point for me is 44 students in a sport when you look at the total number of students or athletes 924 21 sports that comes out to about 44 per sport so I think what we should probably look at if we look at what that Medium participation rate is and then look at the cost and see which sports are kind of helping us in breaking even or not because for instance like when you look at field hockey we have 24 students participating it but it has one of the highest rates that we have another big one is Spring Track it's expensive but there's a lot of kids in it and their average per player cost is very low other sports are high they don't have many kids other sports are in the middle how good is that team too that's going to have a play that could be a championship team and then we have some sports that we don't have Fields here for them so we have to transport them far away do you just say sorry we're cutting out busing for you and you have to transport yourself and if you do that hey Nick there's some risk yes sir yeah Jay uh I think you may have touched upon this but maybe a question for you population what's our percentage compared to other districts how many kids are playing sports or I I that I don't know but I know that what we are funding is in the middle a little bit below average uh and they they choose that funding of dollar cost per pupil um okay and overall from a resident to student population are we at average above average below average a what is that percentage that that I don't know overall for participation I don't know so Nick I think we're talking about you know what is the impact with potentially increasing fees if you can show maybe the Committees what the trend in each of the sports are over the last couple years that might you know just something to look at for the Committees but definitely let's look at what the increase in the fees would be so we'll take a look at that um it's okay we'll move on to the next one can I just make a point about the um cutting Sports cutting clubs whatever it may be even if a sport is not very well attended there could be one kid I know we want to just do we want to work on the general population but sports clubs these are so important to kids especially in terms of mental health so just think about that and and you know question whether or not it's it's a good idea to eliminate a sport because there could be a few kids who rely on just that that one thing all year long that that keeps them going so just be sensitive to that too okay Nick is there any way and trust me I understand the issue of equity but is there any way way to charge full price for Sports in order to keep the sport yes you can um we would have to take an estimate collect the money up front and um we also have to take into account is everyone going to pay for that now if they're free and reduced they're already waved so they don't pay so the equity issue is is quasi solved I know the dollar amount is very low and U what qualifies for free and reduced and there's people who are above that threshold and it still hurts um because it's a national number and it's it's New Jersey we're a lot higher than those minimums uh nonetheless if we did that how many kids how many families would actually pay $2,000 how many kids would actually pay how many families would actually pay 500 or 800 right I don't how many fundraisers would you have to do so I think we have to take a broader look um and as Administration we'll come up with some numbers we may come back with we found money somewhere else but the reality is you know um there's some sports that may have to go in exchange to save a program like a teaching program these are the tough decisions and we're going to bring it to you I need some guidance and I know it's difficult I know everybody wants to say sorry we can't cut certain things but and I know people are going to say why are you cutting everything you're just hitting my kid sport just to make me let's be to vote like no like I'm I'm dead serious I can't find all this money I have yeah so what we don't want to happen like guess it happened before is we put a recommendation out it was changed it's changed and things happened and we thought it was in it wasn't we're going to spell it out completely as best as we can we pass a budget you know more we passed a final budget you know more by the way we've said it I said it before last year it's a live budget we can move money around after the budget is struck so if there's something you really really want something the community really wants we'll try to make it work but something else has to give I already have the tightest budget there is you've heard that and so we'll make it tighter we'll continue making Tighter and taking more risks but there's there's a point where you have to go um I'm Sorry Miss banduka yeah know I think I there was an issue that came in another school district and I wanted to mention it here and it was sort of Home homeschooling families like sort of pay to play Within District so I'm curious to know if that's ever been explored or if something we can consider as far as people willing to pay 100% cost Mercer County homeschooling families that qualifying I don't know our homeschool you know the home I don't think we charge I think we just charge the same rate as we would as if they're our own student uh but I don't have I can't like they're already a resident in town okay yeah okay got it so it's a good point yeah because think about the homeschooling parent like hey I'm paying taxes and I'm educating the child myself I don't get any state aid but you get it so you can't at least give me the sport for free yeah so surprisingly other districts don't offer what we what you just mentioned we do so that's great yeah yeah all right so we've talked about there's the I'm trying to clarify I guess Jay's question so I think Jay you can correct me if I'm getting it wrong but you know how many residents are in town versus how many students we have versus other towns is that right is that right Jay yeah that's right because I think uh one of the things uh from a cost per pupil and if you think about our our total population and this is I think uh something we just need to get a good understanding on so if our residents in Robinsville are say 15,000 and of those 15,000 3,000 of those residents are students so that means our pupil in town which is attending school is 20% in comparison to other towns is at 20% 25% 10% uh we double the size of our student populations uh what is that number next so uh Mr galotti um is making a great point so when we were doing the fact finding report uh for negotiation we were looking at the trends what can we afford what what's the history and our attorney picked up on it um wow you have a lot of kids so we pulled the percentages I don't have it on me I can go pull it up uh it'll take me a few minutes but I think we were around 20 22% and everybody most of the county was at like 12 or 14% so we were tracking around we have thousand kids more than we should for our population right and so a th000 kids at $14,000 you're talking $4 million extra hit right we have a lot of young kids um and and the mayor spoke about this like why is you know the population changing and the enrollment changing homes aren't flipping people are still staying here they want to be in Robinsville their kids are aging out and we see it you see it at the younger grades right for the last three four five years um I'm estimating another 60 children less this year I mean next year mostly in Sharon and pond and they're graduating out we had a massive class High School class graduate uh a couple years ago and so you know that takes time because we had a lot of developments built and you can do the math and it was part of the presentation that we had done so you have a lot a lot of children here um more than you normally would for a more developed town I can't do anything about it but um it is what we have and so that's where the burden comes in oh my gosh why our tax is high we have a lot of kids to support and we have a lot of debt a lot of new buildings built at the same time and that debts dropping off in five years when that debt drops off you're looking at five million coming off now that five million coming off does not that affects your taxes but not your operating budget I can't take that five million and put it into educating kids it's just for Capital and so you can do another referendum and fix your buildings and so forth so um but that's five years away and so we've talked about this a couple of years ago can we push back can we push things back tennis courts I mean I think we can say we're not rebuilding the tennis courts the roadways yeah they're going to be potholes so we're going to have to keep on repairing them and therefore your operating your operation maintenance goes up to repair instead of buying you right because we're going to have have to repair all these broken things and after a while it's going to be well it's cheaper to just replace it then continue to repair and so we'll have to make those business decisions in the future so I'd like to move on um Nick could ask one more question on Athletics just for clarity uh what did the The Legend for the colors like red green orange I'm just trying to that that's my color it's just Robinsville it was the whole sheet is gray and white gray and white so I just called that us um and you can just Google that it's called NJ tges taxpayers guide to educational spending uh I actually have a hyperlink on our on this slide so when we post it people can click on it and you can go back a like a decade and see trend lines on massive spreadsheets no no I meant about your Athletics when you broke on oh that's color coded um I just did a a color code um expensive you know you know high cost to low cost and it it's just a color scale so that column is put into color scale Nick before you go on um I want to just clarify the reason we're going over all these Cuts is because you don't know what's going to happen with the referendum next week and then you know the referendum is at 2.75 yet you're asking about 5.7 so there's still some gaps there can you explain those please yeah that's the that's the gap between what uh the budget managers have asked and what we can afford so um we're going to have to cut a bunch of things out um to make it in there if the budget passes at 275 we'll make it work uh I don't think we'd have to let go of many staff and programs we have to do the more math on it but once again we have to make a budget as if it's completely gone and then we'll have to add back that staff and program cost um now now at 575 you know listen I I've got I can cut out two right off the top that's me making a judgment call not going to the Committees that I think we can cut I really got to go find three and a half million and that's when I have to go everybody at the back like if okay so increase clubs and sports okay let's just say it makes us 100,000 all right we're down to 3.4 million budget managers principles find me 3.4 that's 34 staff members at least I'm assuming 100,000 each why do I say an assumption because I don't know if they're a step one or step 10 by the certificates are they waving benefits or are they taking the full family the healthc care benefit plan next year is it's going to 37 ,000 plan right it's expensive and so I have to do all that math and the data and so it's a little shy of 100 but kind of use 100 as a rounding number um but we can make it work now if you don't have to let go of any staff you don't have to worry about the lawsuits when you fire people right there's 100 Grand more in lawsuits you don't have to worry about unemployment insurance I have 100 Grand in here for unemployment insurance right because you have to pay if you let go of 30 staff members I have to pay unemployment and even out 100 it's not enough why because I have a $300,000 unemployment Reserve right now right so when we let go of 27 and a half staff members it was 50 Grand a quarter and Mr Betts did an outstanding job getting finding most of them positions because he shot an email to the whole entire County hey I have all these position who wants the opportunity we'll do that again um if we do launch preschool and we're cutting let's just say 10 positions out of the out of the elementary school and we have people with a P3 CT we can shift them over so that's 10 people less that are actually fired but they're just shifted over and that's 10 people less that I have to worry about unemployment insurance so there's a lot of factors that are going on in this um that are as well but that's doesn't matter right because you said if the referendum fails then we don't get the the money for the preschool yep so the money the preschool is is a little different but yeah I'm just saying if the referendum fails I have to leave at least 100,000 in unemployment insurance I have to leave legal costs in there so it it it's a double cut it's a triple cut right um right these are the other risks that we take when we when we let go of Staff right we're just assuming they're going to find a job somewhere else and some of them Sue even though they're losing every one of them they still SU so and what happens if they win one that's a lot more than 100,000 and we got to find that somewhere and so these risks are put in there I can go with another risk special ed right now I have four students in there anticipated at about 75 grand a piece right on average if I say all right let's take a higher risk and just only budget two extra children but we typically get more than that and so we you hope nobody moves in or child doesn't get classified I used to budget in my previous district for children and it was a quarter of the budget right this is where we get razor thin in the right so if you budget four children it doesn't happen what's a turnover at the end of the year oh it's fund balance oh how dare you have fund balance you should have spent the money well no it's going to get absorbed in the next budget year you're lucky you have extra left over so that's how what we call fund balance operates um yeah so any more questions before we move on to another item oh you going to move on to building and grounds yeah I mean we just talked uh let's let's do I did alphabetical order but let's skip it and let's go to clubs so all clubs are for 25,000 you know we try to limit the clubs uh we try to put a line you know do I just say $50,000 Less in clubs and we let the building managers the building principles figure out which clubs to keep and go that's what we historically done and so um we can do that again um and keep it flat we do have a lot of clubs but clubs are great you should see these children want to come and they present you these massive presentations to launch more clubs it's amazing it's amazing what our high school kids are doing and now we're talking about sorry we may be cutting your Club I would Echo the same approach with the Athletics which is out of pocket costs for clubs as a possibility so clubs I don't have that data on the clubs uh clubs are a little simpler some clubs are a lot more because they'll get on a bus and get transported somewhere sometimes those clubs the children raise their own funds for it sometimes we pay for that bus I don't have a into that detail uh I know Miss mow has an incredible amount of detail so I'd have to get with Miss mow about that um yeah if we could look at it that way Nick because I mean I want to go hear what Tanya was saying for sports if there's one kid that wants to be in a club we should try to accommodate that as best we can so let's see what we can do to ensure you know all the clubs that we have right now just let it be an opportunity it it's what it is on the families if the families are willing to pay for it at least it's an opportunity exactly I mean the same data you if you could show us where the trends are in the Clos that' be great I mean it's just data I'll try to get that thank you okay does that 425k include like salaries for advisors or anything yes that's that's predominantly it they don't have many cost for supplies it's mostly advisors so I think the high schools around 150 to 175,000 I think it's about 175 the middle school is a lot less and the elementary school barely has anything so they might have a couple of yoga and a running club so um but it's predominantly the high school and that's obviously you know um all right so we'll look at that buildings and grounds right now we have 4 million a little over four million in capital and maintenance reserves we're going to pull what we do every year pull 300,000 of the maintenance Reserve into the operating budget to help maintain our buildings and and the rest is going to be uh used for part of the rod Grant where we're going to get 40% of the money back for hbac so the Architects are getting together with our building grounds manager to figure out which ones to do um try to maximize and get rid of the oldest worst pieces of equipment that are the most expensive and get them replaced um probably go out to bid in a month from now if not two an installation in the summer of 2020 5 right it takes that long to get this equipment in and we're going to miss the summer so um a lot of people ask can you use Capital money into your budget no uh why did you put money in capital because we have a lot of needs and if you don't how are you going to fix things and so um it's not in the budget to continuously put it in here some schools do do that they'll just say carve out $1 million of the budget to go into Capital every year we know we have this project to do in the future called the long range facilities plan the architect has done it I've done a pro fora based on all these items it's over $3 million a year it was 2 million it's pushed to three now he's probably saying it's going to go to 4 million a year we are not generating that kind of money at the end of every year to put into these funds so we're short we're short we're short we're pushing it off to the referendum more equipment is going to break we'll try to fix it um I'll try to keep this flat sorry this is what you got last year this is what you're getting this year or you can direct me to go even lower but accept that we're going to have a lot of broken stuff and so um we'll see how that goes I'm not too hearing much Miss Banda yeah just a question when we go out to bids for these HVAC repairs or if that's how it works um do we not I mean are there installment plans I mean ones that we could give preference to the ones that are allowing for deferred payment so how we do it is uh you have to front all the money but you don't give them the money you just reserve it in your lines and so it's carved out you make a purchase order it says if I cut a check out of my checkbook and to see at the end of the budget year you're going to see that in the in the lines where people like oh you have $9 million like well it says right there to for purchase orders right we've cut a check against it they just haven't cashed it and so uh when you do a bid anything above 44,000 goes out the bid um typically bids like this are so large that we want to do as much as we can but we don't know the exact price and so you want to have no numerous biders bid and what you do is you do an option here's my base bid for let's just say we think it's going to be 2 million and then put an option for this Wing that wing and that piece of equipment and um you see what they come and you're like well that's a lot more expensive than I thought but I can afford this one and that one so let's do option b and c but not option A and you can figure that out but when you go out to bid you have to have the money set aside you have to say that I have the money right we can't have vendors chasing us so um it's reserved now the good thing about the rod Grant is that there's no expiration date as of this moment moment so you know say we generate an extra million dollars and we put it in capital reserve uh that's left over at the end of this year that's a that's a discussion to be done at the business committee to be brought at the June board meeting that allows us another million dollars next year or we may put nothing and so um you know we'll we'll see how that goes yes is that Mr Gadi I'm sorry this is this is regular had a good question Nick I think I think one thing that I would actually kind of request is you know some of these has uh related safety um concerns like for example hitback and stuff like that so which we might not want to touch or which we might want to actually you know kind of spend and repair compared to like you know Athletics and you know clubs you know if I'm just looking at this you know it's an easy measure to say hey if we ask the entire Community to pay for all Athletics and all clubs you know that that's 1.5 million you know easily there but but I'm not actually kind of you know saying something that we should do but the one other thing that I would like to see on this one is one is you know hey what are those particular safety concerns if we kind of you know cut some of this are there any safety issues that we need to be worried about number number number number two that I did not see in this particular slide is I think we should put everything on the table including staff admin you know um all that you know for us to understand what's the impact if at all if we need to do any Cuts there um I know it might be in the other slide but I was just trying to make sure you know everything is on the table yeah everything on the table we will get to Staffing towards the end I just wanted to figure out how much we can pull out uh of this um but no it's it's going to be mostly Staffing that's it's most of our budget you you know so um so let's go through this uh increased Revenue so we we knocked all these out um I just U but going back to buildings ground I just wanted to tell people we we have the architect who says you have $17 million in repairs the next couple of now through the next couple of years and after that you have roof repairs and you have to have certain things so we're plotting all those things out uh and it gets gets kind of expensive it is very expensive so next thing is kindgarten this program is a about a $1 million program um it is not mandated you can cut it and I mean cut it completely so there's options of cutting it as in we don't offer it that's up go home or we can say okay we're going to charge a tuition now I'm thinking it's $8,000 a child everybody has to pay me $8,000 a child now well if you're free and reduced are you for free we're not going to charge so that cost is going to push up maybe to 9,000 I'm not sure um what everybody pay right here's the risks oh and by the way you need to pay up front I'm not doing installment plan I have a hard enough time chasing people for minor fines and lunch and and food like you need to pay UPF front and so um now they can take it off their taxes I think but I'm not giving you tax advice um or do you re charge a reduceed rate now if you cut or charge or do anything preschool is gone preschool is gone so obviously um we're pushing for the preschool program it is phenomenal phenomenal for the community it'll help us defay some of the issues and cost and unemployment issues it is great for the kids in the end you know how much can we do for the children and maintain our scores um but over time it will free up items that we could never pay for before with the preschool Aid and shift some of that burden over but that takes time and the biggest thing is do we get the money now or next year for preschool so I'd like to get your opinions on kid Garden what are we doing so like we said tonight we have the budget as if we don't have the public question right so I think you know we need to look at for the business committee on Friday Nick what it looks like to have a partially paid for you know by the parents or the residents for for kindergarten versus it being eliminated right so if if we can look at that holistically to see incrementally what that would look like based on the other um like fee increases or Cuts holistically does that make sense to everybody it does I think the priority is to keep the program obviously um like with everything else with you know Sports everything I did have one quick question Nick just for clarity about how many kids are in kindergarten projected I'd have to pull it up but it's about 150 she said currently it's 168 thank you Dr poop um if I have two questions one are there any other towns in New Jersey that do not offer kindergarten I know there's 11 towns that offer half day maybe 10 now so that's the first question the second question is how would cutting kindergarten impact our state aid going into the future so there are school districts that um only offer kindergarten on a tuition basis or they'll do half day and then pay for the full day um I don't know if anybody flat out doesn't uh offer it but I would I would have to look into that as do you know the state how it would I would just put I don't know but if I put myself in someone who's reviewing our package why would I give money to a person who already denied me I have other districts begging for it and it's decreased enrollment so will be cut further in the future yeah um yeah all right so what am I doing with kindergarten just giving numbers and paying paid kindergarten got to figure out the number I I think it's just what does that look like based on you know it incrementally reducing it having parents pay for some of it so we keep it yeah or or or all right so business-wise I would say look at what they're paying for kind for like Services somewhere else and do you want to compete so what are the non-public charging so in Allentown they charge $5,000 for a halfday Kinder program yeah I thought somebody else was charging six so you're looking about would they pay the eight I can't do two half I mean you could do half day and if you don't offer I don't they got to pay Transportation or you don't you don't give them you know I don't know the answer for transportation because if they're paying I'm not giving you Transportation how many an assumption sped kids do we have in kindergarten and would we then have to pay for an APS to teach those kiddos yeah with all of these kind of cuts you have to remember that the special ed students would be offered whatever is in their IEP and so um you know if we're saying that we are around 15 16% so if we're at 160 take 15 16% of that per grade level and that could probably give you the number uh of students that would be identified in kindergarten so let me just work that out my brain so if I have 15 kids who are identified as special education I have no kindergarten program or no full day kindergarten program to offer them I would then have to pay for an APS setting which is about 75,000 to $125,000 roughly for each of those kids correct no yes in theory but no we would create something here for those students you would would be that would be a wiser decision to do what you're doing right the um so I'm tracking 148 kindergarten children Jed I don't let's assume six of them 6% of them are free and reduced true but I'm I'm just trying to think this out then what you're actually doing by creating a program only for special ed students is you're then creating a self-contained program and you don't offer that gened inclusion program and it's the most restrictive setting therefore those parents are going to fight you in due process and send them off to an APS um you might be able to like we do with the preschool fill it with some general ed students uh on a lottery based system so that you could have the inclusion setting hold on just so I'm clear we're just speculating about kindergarten or we talking about um actually putting that on a chopping block from right now sounds like we're putting it on a chopping block but you you want to do a straw poll and tell me in or out oh I'll say I'll say no to that no but don't charge or just or stick with preschool I mean no sck no I'm just saying have preschool oh say that one more time I'm sorry you want to stick with free PR kindergarten so we have the preschool yes this is not binding this is just a straw pole oh well yeah I'll count me for keeping uh kindergarten yeah I'm for keeping kindergarten as well me too okay yes for keeping it but exploring options yeah then that that's the way I've been taking this whole thing is understanding options right right so I'll do a little let me do the math you know I'm I'm tracking 148 take out free and reduced we're going to lose some kids let's just say it's 5,000 maybe we get 100 children to pay so it's half a million dollars so we'll do more math more analysis and more guessing uh on it um but we'll proceed further this is a sacred calf don't touch it when I'm here would you agree that this is a low priority please don't touch it okay all right wait low meaning low don't touch it or low meaning I think it's low priority of cut like we do not want to cut it that we do not want to cut this I don't think we want to cut anything so I want to be clear I just don't want to prioritize one thing over another I think all the children deserve Our Fair attention to that when we're doing the budget I mean I I think it's preferred to exactly I think I I agree with that we we don't want to cut anything right but I think we have to understand what the overall impact of all these programs are so that way when we are going through it holistically we understand everything right right but what Nick and the administrators are asking for is for us to try to prioritize a little bit and to get a sense of direction from us so where you know our core values are so while I I agree we represent all the you know kids and all the different programs and I think for anybody listening at home or or for our guest in the audience here these are discussion points this is not binding this is you know you're watching you know when you come to a board meeting you're watching an open public meeting we don't talk about in private because it's against the law to right so this is our opportunity to kind of brainstorm pick each other's brains you know review things um transparently out in the open so I think that while you know it is important to ask these questions for you know for Nick to try to concrete numbers it is also imperative for us to kind of give some direction and to give some priorities that way um as he's preparing the budgets you know he kind of knows where you know where we might be leaning it doesn't mean it's binding he might come back and say well you know what I know you guys said this but here's what this actually will cost and how this breaks down that might influence us changing our mind so it's good to do our due diligence get the research but I do think that you know for us to kind of say hey where a priority is that's what Nick needs from us right now and I agree with that Jeff that makes total sense so right now we see it here it's a million dollars right kindergarten costs a million dollars so I think it gives us enough information to say that that's the impact to the budget but I think I'm willing to say from my perspective that kindergarten is a sacred C I'd prefer not to touch it that's will be my vote right so I think if we prioritize other things first Nick and then we can look at Kinder Garden last that's kind of where I am thank you I agree with that and thank you Dr Pierre for that I mean we're also it's tight it's a tight turnaround and we're lucky that state aid numbers were delivered that day and on time there was one two years ago he delivered it a whole week late and they had even less time and so I don't want to spin and neither you know to spin my wheels on something we're not going to do do and the same thing for you you don't want to get a report on something we're not going to do so we'll go through it all right here's one uh transportation and this is a recommendation uh courtesy busing all courtesy busing except the two routes that the township is for paying to be cut so uh on here on the it says 200 I I have the the numbers for Sharon as well Sharon was more than I thought actually um so courtesy busing is transporting any child within two miles of their home for elementary and middle high school it extends to two and a half miles that's door too if we cut courtesy busing especially at the elementary school we also need to change a board policy there's a board policy here that says we transport all elementary kids it's not mandated we have to change the policy so that's just something we would have to do if we go forward with this um I've listed the routes and the locations for Coury busing um and and that would be about 300,000 so we are being refunded $52,000 from the township it's actually 152,000 they said they would honor it to continue to honor it um so 100,000 to offset the SRO which cost almost $300,000 a year a little shy of 300 it depends on their benefits and who it is um and 52,000 for the two Town Center routes so let let's just stick with transportation for one second so that we have confirmation that they're going to honor that for this year they have verb said it I don't have anything in writing but they've said it and so if that doesn't come true then s then it's cut and you can cut it after the fact but I build a budget as if they will honor it they've said they're going to honor it I have no doubt they're not but obviously I their budget is done after our budget right and so if they have something that is more important or detrimental or something else then they can make a decision based on that and then then we would have to say sorry we don't have it we're cutting those two routes for the future now so then the courtesy busing I'm sorry Nick is is actually $252,000 if we're not if we're budgeting as if we're getting no extra money from anybody yeah it's no it's it's 350 something thousand okay it says cut 200,000 assum that I updated the slide so sorry gotcha okay just be clear yeah um actually the rout are listed those are accurate I didn't change it here um go to so slide 13 and 14 it would save 300 because we would honor the the two Township routs now you're going to have a lot of complaints on this one uh you will hear that my street doesn't have a sidewalk there's no sidewalks is not a mandate it's not nice it's not as safe as it should but I probably half to stay doesn't have sidewalks so which one didn't have sidewalk which one do we know which one I don't know you'd have to look at them up but I'm sure a lot of them out and by Sharon have no sidewalks I'm look because I'm looking at the middle school bus the routes and I'm just just by looking at the cost and then how many students stand there so like Tindle Branford 19 students and so you've got 24,000 divided by 19 that's 24400 per child versus the other routes which have like 50 56 60 kids at this you know and cost about 489 so I'm just I'm curious to know if we just look at it from a pure numbers perspective you know every route so um I'll give you a little bit more on transp ation so we have single routes double routes and triple routes or single Tier double tier and three tier three tier is the best same bus company same bus route is doing uh or bus driver is doing elementary middle and high school that's the most efficient so the state does a transportation efficiency how good are you we're pretty good at that and so but you can also figure out there's more at the elementary less at the middle and the least at the high school number of routes why is that cuz kids drive themselves that it can or get rdes from their friends and so some routes are different costs and so I don't have all that info on me of which route is double or single or triple at the same time vendors bid sometimes they bid low and sometimes they bid high sometimes they're the only bidder some routes they don't rebid they just go to CPI uh basically inflation and they're allowed to renew it at inflation well just I think you're talking about the I mean if you look at the how many stops like take couly Meadows there's two stops 24 kids 24,000 that's a th000 per TR like versus some of these which are 25,000 total six stops for 56 kids just from a value perspective it could be it could be a consideration here I would say yeah to look at we so she took what her current routes are and and how many buses there are because that could be a double tier a two-tier not a triple and and there's only 24 there there's no room on somebody else and so forth so I don't want to go too much into it but these are her numbers my Transportation director she spot on and if you went through it but I usually typically say it's $1,000 a child to transport it's a little over it on average right Aiden Lou is I think 1164 something like that it's about 50 Grand a bus 60 Grand a bus right now um and so so some are fully stacked some is just one stop some vendors give you a great price because I can make another run to another school district depending on the time of your school so ideally everyone would get their times correct and everybody can have a quadruple tier um but I think going back Nick you know just to give the administration direction are we open to having transportation cuts and I'm open to exploring it I'm open to expl you just need more data and that's what will come at the maybe maybe again I mean this is probably just throwing a wrench in there but the way that we're considering having families pay out of pocket versus a working family having to do the drop offs have to deal with the logistical nightmares that happen at all our schools potentially putting a fee in place as well so here's the risk so we have a we cut courtesy bus scene a lot of those kids are they're they're going to get there's going to be a longer drop off line to pick up that's going to be a nightmare um but it I think it's something that we're going to have to accept and try to figure that out better uh what you're talking about you can do you can charge it's called subscription busing I don't want to do that and I'll tell you why um same thing with the other stuff you need to pay up front and you have to get that bus loaded I tried doing it in another District before it never really works because okay I this bus is what's the price of the bus I don't know I have to go out to bid okay we're guessing it's 50 kids all right the bus comes out to let's just say it's 50,000 and the parent hey it's a $1,000 pay up and the parents like ah I'm not going to pay now I got 44 kids do I go back and change the price or do I eat the cost and now I'm chasing the money and so um it's called subscription busting we areow owed to do it I don't know if we have a policy on that uh we may have to take a look at that but it is also very intensive and there's it's get the money up front and it's when people find out wait that bus is now, 1500 no I'm transporting or I only I'm leaving the district halfway through the year I'm not giving you your money back I already had to paid the bus for the whole year and so we we could research it I'm not but I'm highly um skeptical of it working now if I talk my Transportation director and she says no I've done it before it's piece of cake ni don't worry about it but I highly doubt that as well so I'm open to it but I give it a a low chance of succeeding yes I think we're at this point open to exploring the transportation options and it's you know I I'm sorry to keep us moving but I I look at the sro's kind of the same way I mean I love the sro's don't get me wrong you know all three of them are fantastic individuals I'd love to keep them 100% um but I think we need to get the confirmation from the town for again transportation and the sro's to see where they are and I understand their budget cycle is a little bit different than ours but we need to understand that so I would say unless anyone disagrees that it's probably on the table as well as much as I would hate to say that but you know we we have to look at all options and then come back on March 19th some something I'm just looking at as we're discussing I'm just writing down the things that we're asking families who have kids in Robinsville to start paying for so it's now busing sports clubs I'm curious of what the total cost average estimate for families would be at this point now versus what the cost of this referendum is going to be yeah more than referendum say it in the mic buddy more than a referendum for those families affected yeah um the this um school safety issue does concern me let's just keep that in the back of our minds I I'm not saying that we we wouldn't be able to hire out very qualified um possibly retired law enforcement I to Tanya's point with that yeah I I know I brought this up last year but looking and talking to the township about class three officers so class three officers are retired police officers they are police officers they're certified in the building um they have a a lot of experience they get trained in Sr program as well that could be an an Avenue for us to explore I know we you know we work with the township on that that would be something that we'd have to talk to the township about creating though um on their end if we were able to utilize a program like that all right last topic Personnel um Outsourcing so there's a disc discussion about Outsourcing um with the new state laws there is no there's no option for outsourcing as long as there's a current contract so currently we have uh we have a contractor for Food Service contracted transportation for for most of our routes but not all of our routes and uh custodial cleanings of our buildings and so um there was one item left but it's off the table until the contract expires so I know we wanted to talk about that but that's that's off the table um and that could have been potential 400k in savings but it's off the table um so the majority of cuts so oh you're looking at sorry Nick go ahead um in reference to Staffing do do you have like a um a list of like uh retirees so there's a number for breakage yeah so we only have a couple if not three um it's three yeah yeah I should have on average 10 almost 300 teachers 30-year career that's 10 per year any possibility of an a retirement incentive you could but you'd have to pay the other thing that I'm finding and I'm not sure for other Educators on the board um and Nick if you could chime in too is what I'm noticing is breakage is not what it used to be you know because with the teacher shortage um the competitive nature teachers are you know you're hiring teachers at higher steps um to attract the talent that you need so you know the the old adage of you know a teacher who has 30 years of experience retiring and you're hiring a year one teacher and that breakage and savings you're getting just it ain't there like it used to be it's it's very very true like it's our settlement um um should be for next year 38 but I'm over 4% just the way the guide was structured um we have teachers higher on the guide than the average and then when you try to find people they're they're jumping and they're making more money and God bless them um you know but you're not going to step one it's very hard right any experience and so the breakage isn't there and the new uh healthc care law that came out there really isn't any savings for us so they went from chapter 78 to chapter 44 the savings is going to the employee not to the not to the school district and so um there isn't much there so so let's say we cut 20 teachers what is the impact on classroom size at that time so that's going to be dependent on the school grade level for instance at this point um we made a decision last year to keep class sizes low lower in the primaries K12 um and so those would be impacted but they were already at a lower rate than let's say our third and fourth grade which what felt some of those impacts last year um as far as looking at like the high school for instance it might not be class size it could be more programmatic um we saw that with the elimination of programs last year uh we would look at some of the perhaps some of the classes that have the least amount of participation um you could look over a historical Trend to see what the that impact would be um because then those students if they were not given that choice would have to be absorbed into another uh class so that would be part of that as well so um it's not as cut and dry as to say all class sizes would go to but if you cut class sizes at Sharon um I would say that you would see similar class sizes in K1 two as you're now seeing in three and four which is about 25 26 yeah um if you added those kids to those third and fourth grade classes you'd be at 27 28 um and then at the middle school you'd probably see class sizes in 30s um and at the high school the elimination of programs and and frankly you know I the town I live in has been decimated as well and that's like the norm for what my kids have you know do we have data for the town to understand what happens when there's a class size of 27 and what happens to test scores and things like that um we don't have it here because we don't have that historical piece but I'm sure that somebody's done doctoral digitations on that that we could find that kind of research the so I'm tracking probably 25 staff members at the present moment um with that globally average across the board probably five at least five more per class so if you ask your child what's your class size just add five to it now is it four is it six it could be 10 it depends on the program I'm talking 30,000 foot view just total staff and people and moving around um and and that's where you know right now we've come up with about a million and a half I got to find out the rest and so U and assuming the other two million that I think I can cut right off the top of programs but there's going to be more discussions so get with your committees and go through it um you know personnel has their piece Tech has a huge piece because we' know we've been hurting for technology for many years here and we try to fix it um Safety and Security has their piece but we didn't put any extras in Safety and Security we're talking big bucks we're trying to find it internally or with grants um we're very good in security we have a security audit coming out um they're very impressed with all the stuff we do but you always want to increase security and it's always a weak spot that you can find somewhere um and then then there has been requests by other uh outside departments for us to do so we're looking at those as well um and then we'll keep on doing rounds of this not in public like this but we'll go through committees um you guys gave you know board members you've given me a lot of Direction you've given Dr wusi and our principles and our staff a lot of Direction right now we're going to go work on some numbers they have the hard part to do now it was hard to give me the direction I know it's difficult but they actually have to start putting names to positions and programs they're going to have to start putting names to positions and programs um and we'll make this work whatever it is we'll pass the budget we will make it work we'll see what the numbers are later uh and we'll go through this are there any other last questions uh and information right I have a question going to be an non poopular question but since we've talked about not looking to touch kindergarten where are we looking to start I think we owe the public that what areas are we looking to prioritize first I know data is still needed but I do want to clarify that so I think we're saying we're and I don't mean to speak for everyone I think for myself that I I'd prefer not to touch kindergarten prefer but again we have all the numbers available to us and then you start playing the what's in and what's out perspective you see I I I don't think we can really give that without having more numbers and data from from Nick and the administration agreed but I think we need that for everything which is why I think we need need to look at this holistically and I want to make sure when we approach this we're approaching this from the entire District view not saying like well we can't go here yeah so the question on the table is what what what are we saying to prioritize and I think we said I think we talked about transportation to prioritize that I think you know yeah where we're going to start B where's our starting point and we're going to work our way down we talked about increasing the fees for sports increasing the fees for clubs exactly that's what I'm trying to do y then um you know I think we talked about security with the SRO but again you know this is barring you know we need if we get commitment from the town to to do what they did last year then then that just becomes a non-issue and it should also be understood that they're still supporting data that's needed for all these decisions we're not just going based upon what we have here here we've made a request to get additional data so we can make a more informed decision on where we're going to start exctly we just have a starting point but doesn't mean that's we're we're going to land correct correct this is these are discussion points to review to get more information from but I think to what Pete just said you know talking about transportation we talked about sports um you know maybe levels maybe increase in the cost for that and clubs as our point to start I think what you're talking about Anthony so um you know and I think that while we're not saying that kindergarten can't be we're saying it's the lowest priority and we want to do everything we can to save that is correct yep and I would look at you know building and grounds if you keep that flat like you like you mentioned Nick that's ALS that's also a pay cut right or that's a cut in cost because of inflation so um I'm sorry one one last question we've been talking about staff and I think my assumption when we were talking about staff is classroom teachers but is there a possibility to look outside the classroom as well yes yes what what does that look like um admin um secretaries secretaries nurses you know those the same that same groups that we look at in the past now if you cut certain positions the risk may not be worth the reward m and so we're looking at that as well like and we'll get you that data um we saw what happened with nursing going down to five one more like I'd have to pay so much in Contracting cost it would never be worth it right there's certain things that you touch that looks good on paper oh great I just cut that now you know we're being taking emotion out out of it hey it looks great let let's cut this wait a second that just not only screwed over you know staff and children but it actually costs us more money later in the long run it was the same discussion when we first got here we never had a bcba we can never have a position I'm like but you just had a lawsuit that costs more than the bcba and a bcba can take care of more than one child put that position in there so we have to go through that right but I have all departments looking into their positions because it's is a collective effort no one's no one's going to go unscathed here we're going to have to ask people to do more with less and so forth and kindergarten you know here's what I'm I'm tracking we talked about clubs and sports increase fees maybe cut a sport or two maybe cut some clubs but we have more work to do kindergarten if it's paid or not okay maybe makes us 500 Grand but I assure you in the long term preschool will offset that and so you just impacted not one not two but three years of education and a very very formative years for our children and the future of our of our town um can it be done sure but not we're not recommending it but we may have to uh Transportation probably 300 Grand so I'm going through this what we can touch and go through and these are high level I'm looking at 25 to 30 staff okay and so once again curriculum with the principles are going to go through troop to task by name assignment of what's it going to mean and what programs and you're going to start at certain positions now then you have to look at bumping rights this teacher bumps that teacher but I like that teacher more than that one I don't care but that's a great teacher and then if I get rid of that person and the other other person goes in and they can't teach that subject maybe they both have to go both programs these are the tough calls we're going to have to because I cannot cut this much without touching staff and programs we can't do that if we can please prove it to me um you know so you said we're getting a staffing list I mean like by positions like not not by the March 19th if it's great we can but it won't be official till the April board meeting and because those names could change and in two weeks I mean you're going to have to speak on this one yeah one of the things that we found last year when we went through this process that we had ideas of names and then what Nick was saying before when you actually put that person in or out of the budget depending on their step their benefits you know you're trying to get to X whatever that X number is $2 million and if that person's not taking benefits okay then we have to find somebody else too because that person didn't have as much value or or had less value in the budget than somebody else that was taking benefits and so then that's why we had to take an extra um staff member last year when we actually got the the names and put it in the budget could I ask a quick question about that personel because I'm not on that committee but when you look at the total staff and I think say we're going to go with 20 right is there a potential split you're looking at within the classroom versus out the class outside the classroom and also in addition to that do you look at like most baying for your buck so to speak like when we looked at sports if we look at sports that have a higher cost to the budget do we look to make potentially either charging more or removing those first like how does could you walk me through how you look Personnel really became a byproduct of the decision to raise class sizes and then then you basically look at bumping rights right so typically your least senior teachers are going to be the ones that would get bumped in that scenario um if you were looking at like for instance the high school we looked at programs so those the teachers that are associated with those programs were the teachers that then became uh you know that that were released so as far as so we talked about class size can we go back to the preschool question I know we said 14 classrooms for for preschools or for let's say 14 sections right now does that does that mean if we were able to actually contract with the the local uh private ones would that offset some of the need to use our classrooms because we're using their facilities or Would we that wasn't in our plan for this year so we we don't we weren't approved for that okay we did tell them that we are going to start doing that we have met with uh we we have at least four partners that want to work with us but that would it be until the 20 right 25 26 phase two and go out and get another 14 classrooms outside the um so as we go through this you know I have my budget lines and it's like okay elementary teachers x amount of millions of dollars like all right I may have to put a number in there make the budget go through for the March and then refine it when I have a real name real numbers and okay it's x amount of millions and $38 or minus 32 like we'll go into more detail um and then you know people leave or come and go and people put retirement in after like last year then we would hey please don't leave we really want you to stay we we got a different name for you and we flip it and then I I take the risk on that of like hey it was it was 10 grand less or 10 grand more um but we already struck the budget so I put that down and okay where's it coming from and then you I hope people don't you know it's healthare right that's where we have some money in there and it's like why do you have money in there and you're hoping people don't uh you know don't get married don't have kids right and so forth um and and to figure that out unfortunately we're pretty good at accurate and forecasting healthare um and so forth if we keep everybody I didn't talk about this before question passes keep everybody I don't have to put $100,000 in unemployment insurance I don't have to put extra money in legal you're also allowed to take a health care waiver for like $220 something thousand um above your 2% now if you're letting people go my health care costs won't be as high so I can't take a away waiver to go above 2% on healthare and so there there's your wiggle room and your risk that you helped get back um and so it's a lot of moving Parts it's difficult U but we're going to get through this and um yeah the reason why we're doing this is we have to we have the budget based on funds we know yes all right that's that's so we have to have we're trying to be transparent we're trying to work through with funds that we know we have available to us right now and like Nick says this will this could and will likely Change Daily if not weekly going forward um I just wanted to say and as an educator up here it is incredibly hard to have these conversations it is emotional and frustrating um we have a very low attendance and I don't know what the attendance online is but I think that there is some onus on our town to really step up and have these conversations um and so I put it back on the town as well to start spreading the word about this information this is incredibly important and it cannot be just done in a silo like this 47 online and this session is recorded so we can share it with other people or I'd encourage those online and here to share it um I have one more Staffing question just for clarity um if we are in a position where we keep kindergarten and we go with the state aid and we do have to make Staffing Cuts is the percentage of those who may potentially land on this list to be pushed into that other budget of the aid budget to go into the pre and will they be given priority if so um if they were a teacher that we were looking to retain and they were being cut and had the opportunity to go there they would be given priority so we have about 20 20 with a P3 CT that's preschool the third grade CTS a new certification 20 is surprisingly a lot more than I thought we had and we were all shocked and we're very happy at that um so you can realign and shift now do they want to be a preschool teacher it's a different story um and and woring About diaper changing but uh um but it does keep them employed at least within the district it does all then they cannot take unemployment insurance yeah they can try but we'll fight it now for unemployment insurance we're actually self-employed we have to pay 100% so that's uh it's a burden on us for that it's not like corporate where you just pay your insurance actually we are self-insured for that good thank you I want to thank everybody for their time and attention to this tonight uh as I said at the beginning this isn't how it is normally done right we're normally able to do this within the confines of the um committees but due to the timing of this we needed to have this out in in a public setting um we're definitely going to have more information on Wednesday right after the vote on Tuesday and that'll give us Direction on how we are going to go um and you know we understand that that is on the the 12th um for and the the polls will be open Nick 6:00 AM to 8:00 pm here at the High I mean over at the high school here at at the high school um as a normal uh if you've voted there before it's the same entrance and same procedures there'll be a lot more voting booths please come out and vote um and then um we'll see and you can see um the reasons behind going for a public question that's what I can say just so we can be clear to everyone who may be online and unsure what are the hours for the voting next week 6:00 AM to 8:00 pm on Tuesday March 12th do we have to have a public comment we do we do okay I just want to make One Plea um in support of Educators it is we we don't want to cut anything um we need to be sensitive to the fact that the it it is very hurtful as a teacher to hear at least you have a job okay so keep that in mind it yes you have a job but sometimes you're displaced to different buildings and you've worked somewhere for 15 years for whatever it's worth just let's keep that in mind thank you uh Jeff Jeff take over okay okay motion to open public comment on agenda and non-agenda items moved second all in favor yes Amanda all right time will be allotted allocated for a public comment at this meeting members of the public wishing to address the board of education on school related matters must State their name municipality and the group of any they represent a member of the public shall not be prent to speak until he or she is recognized by the presiding officer in according with District policy 0167 each comment shall be limited to 3 minutes no participant may speak more than once no dialogue between a speaker and the board under superintendent shall extend for more than three minutes the time provided although the board encourages public comment the presiding officer can interrupt Warn and or terminate the participant statement question or inquiry when it's too lengthy and may also interrupt and warn a participant with a statement question or inquiry in an Abus of obscene or may be defamatory moreover the presiding officer can request any person to lead the meeting when he or she does not observe a reasonable to Quorum time open Miss guber Amanda guber Robinsville resident um so I would ask that when it came to um what you prioritize when you're looking at Staffing cuts to prioritize admin Cuts before teachers um I also ask that I do know that people will come up here and ask for free labor from our teachers to volunteer to run clubs to volunteer to run Sports and I hope that you would make it clear that that's not something that should be done they should be respected in the work that they do and I want to make sure it's clear to everyone that they should not be requested to do work for free and I know that that's obviously a legal issue as well but it would be great to have some support um as many of you know I have a child in um special education that has been here since he um was three so he did have to get busted from his um private preschool here um I can tell you for transportation that's going to cost you a lot and um I don't see how we're going to be able to afford transportation for prek especially if this um public question is voted down um when you have a child that is three that has to get on to the bus they know nothing about their seat belt you can train them much as you possibly can but they're not going to know how to buckle their seat belts you're going to have to go into each child to do you're going to have to since we're mandatory to bust them you're talking time frames how are you going to get these kids to three different schools at the exact same time that you're going to have students getting dropped off and as much as it's like yeah parents are going to want to see their kids off yeah for the first day and the second but we can't do it all the time there's a reason that we use and it's something that we need to prepare for and I think it's something also that in the big scheme of things if you cut kindergarten we lose the prek if you cut kindergarten we're going to lose enrollment we're going to lose also funding because people are not going to send their kids here so I don't EnV you for the decisions that you have to make but when you also talk about prioritizing items recognize that if we keep kindergarten and we keep the prek you're going to have to PR has money towards that Transportation so yes we probably are going to have to cut clubs and we are going to have to cut other items but that would be my request is to really take into account how much it's going to cost for funding for those buses because it's going to be massive along with the time needed for that to get them dro off and picked up thank you thank you thank you can I respond to that U the first question that Miss grber asked is that yeah um there there is policy that we have in at in uh it's I don't remember the policy number but it's regarding teachers not volunteering for clubs that's a new one do you remember that chrisy did you remember that I I have to look that up but you might want to check Che the the um the website because there is new policy that uh does not allow teachers to volunteer for clubs contract sorry there's a policy that Lees in the contract and it's in the contract as well yeah Hello friends n can Robinsville I don't know where to start to be very honest with you I'm sitting here almost three hours and I am dumbfounded I am upset I don't have children in a school that's the point that I want to make um nick uh said we have a lot of children in this Township that we have only 15,000 people in it and you're right we have lot of children in here but at the same time one of the biggest argument that you would hear if you attend the other meetings that you will hear that there are a lot of people that are budgeted income they are a lot of people that they have children and they are still staying in here they don't want the value of their houses to go down they want to give back to the community what they have been taken but at the same time as you all know everything is going up so nobody um is going to say um anybody blame you guys for whatever decisions you make I just want to make sure that you understand something when you are in a household and one of the people who makes the money loses their job now you have to make ends meet which means you're going to go through cuts which means you have to go through that difficult times so right now that's where we are there is no other money coming from anywhere you have to do some Cuts we have to understand you have to do your best but at the same time we do not want children to suffer how do the children suffer Tanya said it correctly we do not want them to go through problem with their brain and you know their self import and self-confidence and anything like that what brings that for them the teaching or for example I'm just saying an example and don't shoot me um sitting in a bus for example so you have to make sure what is the value and again I'm leaving it up to you guys and you just need the support from the township and from the residents at the same time um I think this is the time that you have to understand and because you guys are most of you are residents of Robinsville that the when the money is coming out of your pocket is the money out of your your pocket 60 65% of it comes to the school but is it still money out of your pocket that you're paying monthly for the taxes and everything else so there is has to be lots of conversation to the other time other building that to see what we can do and what we can have maybe this whole thing has to be reconsidered um I'm sorry that I am going over three minutes I'm sorry Nick uh but um if you permit to continue I would appreciate that uh can you pass that is it okay thank you so that's one of the things that want to I wanted to talk about a lot of the stuff that you guys talked about and you already answered it and I appreciate all of your transparency to ask the questions that I would be standing here and asking and not getting any answer I appreciate all of you and thank you very much for that you made my life much much easier like we were talking about are the admin heavy but you said that some of the people that make may be getting caught it could be admins correct correct me if I'm wrong and then you said that you're going to talk to the about those uh teachers that may or may not be as productive as the others and I hate to say that and don't kill me I'm just saying it I'm just reporting what I'm hearing from other mothers and families I had those days um to here um we have um the question is um you said State One wants us to have the preschool they really actually want us to have that program that that preschool and the kindergarten can we kind of play with them that if you do not pay us more money for the kindergarten we cannot have the preschool that you want us to have so kind of like put it back on them I don't know if it is an argument that would win or not but somehow um we learned that the politicians they know how to move things around so how can we move it around for them and play it that game that you want us to have this but if you don't give us that we cannot have this and um also um about the 14 classroom that you were talking about um very nicely put it together thank you very much but I I want to know where are those 14 classrooms that you're are going to find because from what I remember from Sharon school from PUD and from the uh high school I know that high school had the program that I remember the children were touching each other's hand and walking through the hallways when the uh grown kids were in a school I remembered something like that when my kids were in a school but how do we have 14 classrooms because then the people are going to start worrying about are we going build more buildings are we going to go now through something that we have to pay more taxes for it so you have a lot of work to do a lot of numbers that you have to work on and I'm hoping that um people go and actually vote and it's not going to be only 10% of people like today that everybody should be watching and talking and they are not here so uh I'm hoping that you get a better turnout when the people are going to vote uh next week but again uh we understand you have to cut you have to cut somebody lost their job you have to make ends meet mortgage has to be paid so we understand that but at the same time just be wary of everybody else put everybody in that pocket not only the 3,000 student and their parents um there are lots of other people in the township that they can go vote and they can go to the other building and talk so just uh I just wanted to make sure you are very aware of that and next week Tuesday on the 19th there is again another meeting in the other building that is going to be as important because it's about more houses more children some other stuff that I cannot be here and there so this is something something that maybe we should think about how we are going to do because that's the meeting that it should not be missed either thank you thank you any more y good evening everybody um Jenny poino Robinsville Education Association I want to um thank you for your work on um applying for that uh state aid for preschool and presenting all of this information as painful as it has been um we're curious about the capacity to house these classrooms for preschool there are no empty classrooms at Sharon there are four preschool rooms with bathrooms and three kindergarten classrooms with bathrooms but there are currently class cles there there are already shared spaces and specials on carts the pond fifth grade Wing isn't a whole preschool appropriate Wing it's four classrooms housed in the fifth grade area one of which is an Autism room where will the fifth grade go of the two preschool classrooms at the high school one has been transformed into a physics lab where AP Physics is taught will we lose a lab if we do not have the facilities to house this program and instead contract with a third party would the classes at that third party facility be taught at Robin by by Robinsville Public School Educators or that third parties um we are concerned also about increasing class sizes to the number numers that Mr mccre quoted because it violates um Board of Ed policy 3 2312 adopted in 2004 which states class sizes in grades kindergarten through four shall generally not exceed 22 pupils and in grades 5 through 8 shall not exceed 24 and last no one wants to see any staff cut we all have important contributions to the Learning Community how about cutting those expensive pieces of software like Atlas And linkit when looking at cutting staff though unfortunately um will you also be looking at the board office and the curriculum departments how about administrative bonuses and last I want to know if the budget slides will be available online uh tomorrow thank you thank you thank you anyone else for public comment okay not seeing any more can I get a motion to close public comment and adjourn the meeting for tonight so moved second thank you Tanya thank you Jeff all in favor I any needs or extensions nope thank you everyone have a good evening thank you everyone thank you