Shauna’s Notes on 03/30/2023 Berkeley Heights BOE Budget Meeting

Before I get into Shauna’s Notes, I want to thank the families, teachers, and Administrators of Berkeley Heights for showing up to the meeting. Representative Government only works when the rooms where government officials make decisions are full. We finally saw passion from more than a handful of people today, a spirited debate among BOE Members, a split vote, and a failed resolution that the public said was not good enough.

Congratulations, Berkeley Heights; we’ve taken an essential step to regaining our power and self-respect. The BOE took an important step (albeit small) to a more normative governing body.

Please don’t let it end here.

Shauna’s (who never listens to me about putting shit into an article and instead makes me mine comments to put this together) Notes:

BOE refuses to look at courtesy busing because “we need to take our time” suddenly, and a great deal of time is spent discussing bus routes and numbers and drivers.

Teachers love Ms. Scott.

With the proposed Director positions, they are not currently set up to offer the jobs to existing Supervisors first, though four of the five could apply. Varley stated that there would be additional certifications needed, and apparently one of the supervisors does not have that.

Multiple students showed up to address what were supposed rumors about eliminating classes. Lots of attention for something that was “misinformation”.

We can’t compare ourselves to New Providence, says Mrs. Stanley, yet she then went on to compare us to Westfield.

Mrs. Khanna isn’t supposed to ask questions at public board meetings, according to Robert.

Natasha Joly rocks, and it was a huge mistake for BH to not have elected her.

Families will be asked to make up some of the costs and help the athletic department by paying an additional $50 for the yearly athletics fee, along with the fees charged by PayForIt.

Some staffing cuts were saved by using Esser funds, which may not be available next year, so this is not a permanent solution.

Julie Kot insists we are not above the state average in legal fees by using the reasoning that the state hasn’t released the current
average, and the dollar amount in this year’s budget is an estimate.

By that reasoning, we will never be able to hold the administration or BOE accountable for legal spending, as they don’t have to implement measure to help reduce legal costs until we hit 130% of the state average – a number Ms. Kot conveniently will never be able to provide.