e e e e e e e e welcome to the special board meeting uh for approval of our budget scheduled for Friday March 22nd if everybody could please rise for the flag salute I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act I wish to announce that the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon notice is announcing the date time and place for the special meeting were sent to All concerned individuals associations and sent to Union County local Source in accordance with chapter 231 of public law 1975 for the roll call Miss Stanton here Miss Kelly Miss ER here Mr cologne here miss con here vice president Justice here and president Cho here you have a quorum very so welcome to our special meeting for the 2024 budget which is the only item on the agenda uh any comments or questions from the board members on the 2425 budg that we do have to have a public comment on the 2425 budget anybody would like to make a public comment I see none so a motion to uh close public discussion of the agenda item please so moved second all in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries Now we move to the uh next item which is the actual approval by the board for the 2425 school budget you read the yes I will read that uh approval of the 2425 school budget resolve that the final budget be approved for the 20242 school year and sent to the executive county superintendent schools in accordance with the statutory deadline for review and approval 2024-25 total expenditures from the general fund $ 85,3 67,341 from the special Revenue fund $777,000 no funds from the debt service for a total of 86,1 45,1 less anticipated revenues of $1,133 400 from the G general fund and $777,000 $73 from the special Revenue fund for a total of $12 m911 911, 1173 for a local tax levy to be raised 73 m233 n33 further resolved that included in the general fund Appropriations The Summit City Board of Education authorized the approval of withdrawal from capital reserve in the amount of $650,000 as follows $150,000 for handicap ramp repair at Summit High School $100,000 for interior and exterior door replacement districtwide $350,000 for Jefferson playground update $50,000 for bathroom Renovations at Summit High School and further resolve that as per njac 6A colon 23 a-14 point2d included in the general fund Appropriations The Summit City Board of Education authorized the approval of withdrawal from maintenance Reserve in the amount of 550,000 as follows $350,000 for replacement of flooring in the High School auditorium and Senior Lounge $100,000 for architect and Engineering fees for districtwide projects $100,000 for floor replacement at the lcj Summit Middle School and further resolve that the Board of Education include an attentative budget the adjustment for enrollment in the amount of $364,800 amount of $ 37,8 52 the additional funds will be used to pay for the additional increase in health benefit premiums thank you Mr chess I will ask for a motion to approve the 2425 budget please moved second Miss Stanton yes Miss ER yes Mr cologne yes Miss con yes vice president Justice yes president Cho yes motion carries and that concludes our business for our special meeting so I now need a motion to adjourn sove all those in favor I I any opposed any exensions and we are adjourned at 104m thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e this is so exciting like get to order and we'll start with the flag salute flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands Nation indivisible and justice for all in accordance with the requirements of the open public meeting I wish to announce that the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of bodies at which any business affecting their interest that discussed or acted upon notice is announcing the day time in place for the special meeting were sent to All concerned individuals associations and sent to Union County local Source in accordance with chapter 231 of public law 1975 call Mr colone here Mr Cho here Mr miger here Miss Allen here mayor F here you have excellent thank you um we are looking to approve the minutes for March 27th and 2023 and March 7th 2024 I have a motion to approve minutes so moved second second second Adam beat me you did all those in favor I any opposed any extensions motion carries thank you okay I have no announcements trying to make this as efficient as possible no I want to say thank you to um our uh Administration and the board of ed for working so hard at this budget and um and for all the work that you do on behalf of our kids and and making this District the best in the in the nation so thank you um okay 2024 2025 anual I will uh I'll say a few words on the budget before we we move forward uh so thank you mayor uh president Cho uh as well and and uh speaking to all the members of the board of school estimate um I will comment on the budget itself uh but before doing so I would like to to acknowledge uh the leadership of our school district and it business office superintendent Huff business administrator Derek Jess assistant business administrator Kathy Sarno and all the members of the business office milot tus and others thank you for an extremely well-run and thorough budget process the Integrity of this work is critical to our board in fulfilling our responsibility to both our students and our taxpayers and we're pleased with the work that's been done the budget process undertaken by the administration for the 2425 school year was rigorous and comprehensive every line item in the district's general ledger was examined to determine the value added to our educational programming and students I will share another insight into this year's process which reflects the discipline exhibited by our leadership the original fully loaded bottomup budget had a year-over-year tax levy increase in excess of 7% from this original budget a significant amount of work was done to achieve a let's say a more taxpayer friendly outcome uh which involved trimming new numerous expense lines streamlining the higher plan across the district and utilizing excess fund balance which is the accounting terminology for Budget savings uh that has been acred from previous years uh which reflects a history of fiscal Prudence uh for our district and the business office additionally and most importantly uh in my view and I believe the view of the full board this budget aligns the proposed expenditures with the goals of our district including the investing in our future steam initiative the bottom line of the process is a budget with a year-over-year tax the increase of 2.95 6% this result is above the New Jersey state targeted increase of 2% due primarily to increases in staff salaries and benefits Insurance expenses which represent approximately 84% of the total costs within the budget Additionally the inflationary environment of the past few years impacted the expense lines that represent the remaining 16% of the budget including Transportation utilities expenses classroom office supplies technology tools tuition for Summit students educated outside the district etc etc etc although the year-over-year tax increase is above the 2% State cap we are not required to utilize Bank cap for this budget as the district qualified for adjustments to the cap for enrollment increases and benefits costs that eliminated the need for banked cap our board as represented by the operations committee has reviewed the key drivers of the overall budget and we have determined that the budget reflects fiscal prudence and spending discipline while supporting the level of Education uh educational Excellence that Summit demands for its students as such our Board of Education supports this budget and respectfully submits it to the board of school estimate for approval any other comments anything to say um any other questions or I do have one question um thank you for putting this together I know that it took months uh to put it together and it's a huge amount of work and and planning um I had a quick one more question based on a comment from last meeting the intro um and it has a bit of a leadup so bear with me uh Mr Jess you had mentioned that the budget in at The Bu budget introduction about that 2% cap and prior year increases as well and you said that prior Year's budget um if they would have had 2% increases that instead of several that were under 2% that we would have had more in the fund balance and would likely not have had to increase by 2.95 six% this year do you recommend and or anticipate budget increases to be at a minimum of 2% in the future I think that's going to hold depend on how the formula is funded for state aid and what our increased state aid will be uh this current budget year for FIS year 25 is the last year of um the law where the governor is recouping money from districts they feel are overfunded Distributing that to other districts we were one of those districts that received a portion of that aid from other districts that were overfunded so next year as we have a new governor and the law is now expiring it's going to be interesting to see what is going to happen with the funding fory I know that there are many districts who even though they may have gotten modest increases in state aid are asking that the formula be updated to affect current trends and so before I say yes or no to that um I want to see what happens with the funding formula because that's going to make it very interesting next year okay great thank you so much you're welcome okay um can I slide this over mayor absolutely thank you for everything you do um I know that budgets are a heavy lift and I know that um Board of Ed worked very hard to make this work as a parent of two boys who've gone through the school system and one is in college I'm really proud of the young man that he's become and how the school has prepared him so I just wanted to say thank you and for um many of the volunteers who have given their time so um I just wanted to make sure you knew that and two questions um first is kind of a to what Andy was saying is that this year we got extra funding because of the inadequate which I can't even imagine they call it inadequate um school district and so because we got that money this year what would we do and I don't know if there's really an answer to this but just thinking forward if we became if it came back next year as an adequate school and we lost that funding like what does that mean for us that means that superintendent Huff myself Miss Sno and others would have to take a very hard look at the budget to see what happens there are several school districts out there this year who anticipated an increase in state aid and they were cut um one of my fellow business administrators lost $8 a. half million dollar worth of state aid this year because of the way the formula went when they were anticipating getting at least three million more so it's it would be some very hard decisions that we would have to make okay how do we replenish the um reserves did you take I don't know the exact to I think it was around $600,000 that came out of the reserve how do you replenish that so there's two ways um if there are projects that we do not do that are funded by the reserves uh and we have money that that money goes back into those reserves if we spend money on a project but we don't spend all of it that money goes back into the reserves as well and then at the end of the school year as we're closing out our books when we meet with the Auditors they will tell us how much fund balance we have left and we're allowed to keep x amount of fund balance to help fund the district and then we can take the rest of it and put that into our reserves which is what we have done over the past several years so for the past five five six seven years we put in approximately $500,000 a year into our maintenance reserve and 1.5 million into our capital reserve excuse me and so you know as long as we are Mindful and we continue to watch our spending and we have that money at the end of the year we can either put it into those reserves to help replenish it to move forward to the future or we can help that to come and fund the budget like we did this year where we went from $2 and a half million in fund balance to $4 million in fund balance to help Stave off a higher tax increase okay and one last question um I know a lot of kids are still struggling you know the the ramifications of covid and and mental illness and so forth um one question I have for you guys and again some of these questions are sticky I don't know if you know how to um answer them directly but um given that we're going to continue to face tough choices when it comes to passing a budget and trying to stay within the 2% cap um how are we monitoring certain costs and benefits of programs specifically like an SEI to make sure that we're really leveraging it and the kids are um getting something out of it so this is something that we go through as a community every year we weigh in with development of our goals and the values of the school district as you know our number one goal is our mental health scl and wellness for our students and staff um we're currently reviewing some data right now about cost and to share with the board next month because that was a question that was ask oh okay I'll stay tuned till next month then okay sorry anything else there's a place oh public comments right we'll open it up to public comments is there any are there any public comments okay hearing none there's a place that says motion but I'm not sure what we're motion close oh motion to close public comments so move second all right thank you all in favor so okay moving on to the approval of the 2024 2025 annual school budget um may I get a motion to approve budget so moved and a second second okay Miss Allen i m Mr M hi Mr Cho yes Mr clone yes mayor yes motion carries and my most efficient meeting ever in my lifetime may I get a motion to adour so moved and a second second all those in favor I opposed and we areour 27 thank you na