Nov. 9 BOE Meeting Update

Quarterly BOE Retreat

Prior to tonight's public meeting the Verona Board of Education met for its quarterly retreat. The theme of tonight's gathering was data and its use to drive student achievement. This was a rare opportunity to have the newly composed K-12 academic supervisors share their expertise about the educational processes within the Verona schools with the members of the board of education. From the brief snapshot recieved, there is a strong sense of commitment to excellence that permeates the collaborative efforts of teachers and staff.

Some Highlights From Tonights Meeting

Finance Committee:

PERS Payment: This years Public Employee Retirement System payment increase $100,000 from about $225,000 to $325,000. This is an un-budgeted expense that is funded though breakage in the budget. The difficulty rests in the fact that the $100,000 increase is unanticipated and therefore money was not previously planned to cover this new expense.

To give some context to the magnitude of the effects of this unanticipated cost passed onto the local school boards in New Jersey:

• The Verona Schools Budget is roughly $28,000,000. With the new 2% cap this allows the budget to grow by no more than about $560,000. The PERS Pension payment accounts for nearly 58% of taxable monies, and this is before any monies are invested into developing the academic infrastructure of the schools.

Extraordinary Aid: This aid is provided by the State of New Jersey. Last year Verona's State Aid was reduced from about $1.4 Million to nearly $75,000, Extraordinary Aid may be close to follow a similar fate.

• The Verona Schools currently receives about $200,000 in Extraordinary Aid.