That mail came in for you. >> For her. >> I have a pen. >> No, no, not the pen. >> Okay, >> Melissa, that's my phone by you between you and >> Oh, is it? Oh, I yelled at Cho. >> Oh, there it is. Oh, I thought you were talking about this.
>> Any hot and heavy calls? You can answer them. I'll handle it. >> Thanks. >> I don't get it. >> All right, council. You're good, mayor. >> We just passed it. >> Oh. >> Oh gosh. Good evening. >> Good evening. >> Madam Clerk, please call the role. >> Councilwoman Peterson
>> here. >> Councilwoman Scavage >> here. >> Council Zali >> here. >> Deputy Mayor Miseri >> here. >> Mayor Mig >> here. Adequate notice of this budget hearing was duly provided to the Verona City Grove Times by email on January 15,
2026, renoticed on the official township website on January 27th, 2026. Filed with the township clerk and posted on the public bulletin board in the municipal lobby building lobby in accordance with open public meetings act.
Item two. Is there any item anyone wishing to make public comment? Seeing no one, I've closed this portion of the meeting. Mr. Zeli, will you please proceed? >> Thank you, Mayor. Uh good good evening if it's the evening or afternoon. >> Um as the council's aware, we were
supposed to do this uh last Monday, but we uh had a severe snowstorm and the meeting was canceled. So, here we are today presenting uh the draft appropriations of the fiscal year 26 budget. Uh as has been the case in prior years, I'm going to go through department by department. Um this is the
first year that thanks to our CFO Rebecca, we did this fully in the Edmonds budget prep module. Um in prior years it was done uh by paper and pen and then by Excel and then Excel into the state format and now finally into our budget prep module. The way this
worked back in October, I sent a memo out to the department heads with instructions as to how to access the budget prep module in admins. The department heads then went in, entered their requested items. They submitted any capital requests to me. I since went through the budget u with the department
heads, put it into the prep format you see now. Rebecca and I are still working through it. We're waiting for the final uh financial statements to be completed at which point we will finish our revenues, marry it to the appropriations, and hopefully by March have a a budget to introduce to the uh
to the council. Any questions at any time? Stop me, interrupt me, but we're going to get moving so we can get on with our regular council meeting. Um, so the first part of the the um agenda is the town council, town
manager, town clerk, and elections. I have it on my Excel sheet through budget prep, also displayed on the television to my right, and you should all have it on your iPads as well. We'll start with my budget. Um the big difference that you'll see this year, which was not
included last year, was a line for part-time salaries. Uh this would be for a part-time administrative assistant to come two to three days a week. Uh just to alleviate some of the administrative duties. Um that's the biggest salary difference you'll see there. Otherwise, everything else is contractually related
to the standard 3% increase um that we've experienced over the past two years. Here on the right of my screen, you'll see what the 2025 budgeted appropriations were. This is how much the town actually appropriated for each account. And then
you'll see the actual appropriations, which includes any types of transfers um that occurred throughout the year after the council voted on a resolution in the last two months of the year or the first three months of the preceding year to transfer money within the the budget accounts.
It's going down through my um budget advertising, I don't have to advertise. That's in the clerk's department. So, that line, which was once funded, is no longer funded. That's going to be zero dollars for 2026. Books and publications, you can see that
that line reduced from 3500 in 2025 to 2500 in 2026. Um this is for some statutory provisions. Um a lot of my stuff is digital now, so we could purchase it out of here if needed. Um the next budget line is conference seminars and dues. Um you'll see a
slight increase there. This is for continuing education classes both for my law license. Um I'm also the municipal affordable housing liaison and a certified municipal registar. So any classes attended with that will be paid out of this line here. Fortunately this
year I had to certify my CL compliant. So for the attorneys they know that you do that every other year. I had to do it this year. Um, so I'll still keep my, uh, CL's going for 2026. There's a $500 increase in that line. Office supplies, uh, went up from 5,000
to $6,000. Um, this is for regular, uh, equipment in the office. Um, with a part-time assistant starting, I figured that would go up a little bit. Printing and binding stayed the same at $200. Um, the postage account, now you see that that's not I'm not spending $40,000
on stamps. This is for all the postage that comes out of the municipality for anyone who mails. Uh whether it's the clerk, the health department, the finance department, the tax department. Uh this is for our mail machine downstairs to pay for the postage that goes out. There's an increase from $35,600
to $40,000 in that line item. Uh professional service fees. Um, this is for uh any any fees that are related to administrative assistance or uh anything related to computer software maintenance, which is its own separate
line below. We'll talk about that. There's a slight increase from $8,575 to $10,000 on that. Television, that is what funds the CATV, the uh fees to cable vision, $6,000
there. Our website uh increased from $10,000 to $12,500. As the council's aware, we switched to Civic Plus last year for our new website hosting to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Um this increase reflects the hosting fee charged by
Civic Plus. We are also taking um the Cedar Police Department now under our own website. Uh so they don't have to host their own. So there's a cost savings in the police department budget now that they are being hosted on our own website. And then the the last big line share of
this account is um the computer software maintenance account for 42,000 which had an increase from 35,000. Uh all in all the uh increases in the manager's budget. All the other expense lines are really expenses that I'm not
um directly connected to. It's for computer maintenance. It's for ongoing computer support. It's for uh software that we use for finance uh and other software that we need to renew the subscriptions on annually. Any questions on this budget
to the very expensive township council budget? U this budget stayed the exact same as it did last year. Um $1,450 across the board. Uh I I moved last year, if the council remembers, a lot out of the council budget and into my budget just for some general
housekeeping. Um, whatever I moved out and put into mine obviously is reflected in mine and no longer in the the council's budget. Uh, books, books and publications, $150 stayed the same. Conference seminars and dues, $300 that stayed the same. Increased office
supplies to $500 and events to $500 for a total of $1,450. Any questions there? >> Township clerk, you want to do it from up there? >> Yes. >> Okay, perfect. Um the township clerk's budget every
year Dale does a great job keeping and holding the line as tight as possible despite increasing costs across the board and and outside of our control. You'll see here that the salaries and wage line increased uh to 1621 131. That's for two full-time employees in
the municipal clerk's office, consistent with the standard 3% increase across the board. Um there's a line for township clerk overtime. Uh this wouldn't be payable to the clerk. This is for anyone that helps out with the elections uh or any other events that requires them to stay after hours.
The advertising line uh stayed the same at $6,000. The next line, books, publications, $2,000. Codification services, $6,000. That stayed the same. Conference seminars and dues, that's $3,600. There's an increase
from $2,000 there. Um that's just a difference in the the membership. And there's new memberships that uh the clerk is a member of. Uh office supplies is $2,500. Slight increase uh from $1,900 as the clerk
noted in her budget prep. Toner is $500 a piece. And there's a lot of printing that that we do. Copier maintenance and supplies $1,500 to stay the same. And printing and binding. Uh you'll see a decrease there from $6,000 to $1,000. Um, this is for the ABC licensing
minutes um and binders associated with that. I'm going to turn it over to the clerk if she wants to explain any of the items in her budget, maybe the notification or the uh publication differences now with the new law, why we might be saving some money there. >> Okay. Yes. Um, and that's good because I
was also going to speak to it in the next meeting. Um, now instead of spreading out in its entirety like the ordinances and notice of contract awards, I simply have to put a small blurb in the newspaper twice a month just um letting the public know to check
the official website which is um as you know we we already have it in place. Um twice a month I have to let the public know to look at that website and see any updates that we may have like the special meetings um like this budget hearing that we had. we had to cancel it last week, so I had to renotice that and
the public should be well aware of what's going on right at that time um instead of waiting for the newspaper to see. And also to that point, um as we'll speak to later, it's called electronic news source. Um we do post on the Star
Ledger, but we also post in the Verona Seed the Grove Times. And I'll speak to those two newspapers later, but the cost for those are like $78 for twice a month. So, it's extremely um beneficial on our end. And instead of doing one,
which we if the star ledger alone will be compliant, I've also done it in the Verona City Growth Times. That's our local paper. Our local businesses really look at that. So, I wanted to make sure we kept that um going. >> Anything else in your budget you want to touch on? Oh, and one thing the
memberships that on the township manager spoke with, it's the state um the town memberships. Yeah. Not necessarily mine. It's like our um MCCPC, it's NJLM, those type of memberships that we have to it's like mandatory.
>> Those memberships go in like increase every year. So, I've made um a little increase on the budget just for those. >> And Dale does a great job keeping all of that active and current. at the League of Municipalities. We get a lot of information from them uh pretty regularly. Um so it's it's a service
that we benefit from. >> Any questions for the township clerk budget? >> No. >> While keeping in the same tune, Dale's not out of the hot seat yet. We're going to go to the elections budget. U that's line 84 in budget prep. Um there's a
substantial decrease here as you can see. Last year, um as modified by transfers, the budget line was 97550. Um there were a lot of elections last year. Um this year that budget line is now $35,000. Um that is for two reasons. One to
maintain a cushion in the event there are any charges that we don't anticipate out of the special election or the uh primary election. You never know what bills may come our way. >> Um and also in the event that next year this line needs to be increased. There's not such a direct a dramatic increase
from a zero to whatever that dollar amount's going to be. have a little bit of a cushion built into this account, but we certainly don't expect to be expending what we did last year for the the election account. >> So when there are special elections, the townships pick up the cost. That's what
Dale I don't think. Yeah, >> it's a special election. The state is actually responsible for it. So we don't have any cost whatsoever. The primary election is when we usually play pay the county clerk for his ballots and things of that nature. >> Got it. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Any questions on elections? >> Good. All right, we're going to jump to our finance department. Rebecca, do you want to come up? >> Sure. >> This is line 37 in budget prep. >> Hello. >> Hello.
>> So, Rebecca's going to tackle uh finance and the tax uh budgets here. uh big things that you'll see in the finance budget this year because we're working so diligently and you see a little bit in my budget too to better support our
water and sewer utilities uh both in the revenue sense and the appropriation sense and what do I mean by that? So the revenue sense obviously is how much we're getting in whether it's from con connection fees uh rate adjustments miscellaneous revenue interest in the
bank. We want to maximize our revenues because the utilities have to be self- sustaining. But another way to do that is to decrease your appropriations and some ways you do that is by bringing the appropriations from the water reser utility back into the current fund. Okay? And that's what you're going to see. You saw it in my budget. You'll see
it in Rebecca's budget here. So, in the salary line, you'll see full-time salaries and wages at 265,975. That's for three full-time employees. Uh, and in years prior, some of these salaries were distributed between the
finance department, which is in current fund, and part in water, part in sewer. So, the sewer utility paid for some of the salary, the water utility paid for some of the salary, and the current fund finance department paid for some of the salary. What Rebecca and I have been doing is slowly bringing people out of
the utilities and back into the current fund so that the utilities better reflect and are better supported without having that extra appropriation. If that makes sense. Does that make sense what I'm saying? >> Did I explain that clearly? >> Yes, you did. >> So, you'll see that's why the finance salaries increased so much is because we
took it out of the uh water and sewer utilities and we put everyone that was previously paid out of there in the finance department that's related to finance, right? obviously not the employees that are working in the utilities themselves. Um you'll see a a a slight decrease in
computer software and maintenance here from 21,000 last year to 20,000. Uh Rebecca did a really great job outsourcing and finding a new vendor um that we feel is going to meet and exceed our IT needs for a better price. Hats off to you on that. >> Conference seminars and dues 9500. Um we
have a new employee in the um finance department who's currently enrolled in purchasing classes. Um this is money that the township's paying for them to obtain their qualified purchasing agent license which Rebecca has. Um there it's quite costly I think right for the class. >> Yes. And we were going to do some of the
finance classes as well. >> Okay. You want to talk about that a little bit just what the next step for this individual will be once they >> Well, right now she's taking the purchasing classes and she's doing the accounts payable and those two functions they go pretty well hand in hand and
then once she completes that we're going to have her start the uh finance courses. So then you know it just the more uh information she has the better she can help out. So it's going going really well so far. So, our goal would be to to eventually train uh so that
Marissa gets the CMFO license as well as the QPA license. Um, just to, you know, kind of keep everything functioning, >> right? >> Copier, maintenance, and supplies, $1,000 that stayed the exact same as last year. Office supplies 6,500 stayed the exact same as last year. um
financial consultants. Um these are individuals who played an instrumental role in building out the general ledger in Edmonds from the handwritten ledger that we started with. Um performing bank reconciliations to kind of tightening everything up. Um which makes our audit easier which Rebecca and I are going to
talk about next. Um this number had a very slight increase from 40,000 to 42500 and again part of that came out of the utilities. Um we were paying for that out of water and sewer and we moved that into current a little bit as well. uh payroll services you see 9,000 uh
last year we spent $10,9979 on that. So um we increased it just a little bit to 9,000 thinking that there may be some less need and and um some variance in that cost that we can avoid. Any questions on the finance budget for
Rebecca >> on our audit? >> Just one job for me. I noticed that the um seminars, conferences, and dues kind of went up quite a bit. Is there something we're anticipating or is that
>> that's the courses that we're sending uh Marissa our accounts payable to? >> Oh, so she could get her license. That's the only reason. It's not an annual thing. Then this is a one time. >> So, um well, if she completes the whole program, then she'll probably be taking
courses next year as well. But then once she completes the courses, then you'll see that line drop back down. >> Okay? >> I mean, ideally, we would want to keep it so that she goes to take the CFO class next, right? Or whatever other classes there are. >> Um, but the QPA class is, what is it? It's 4,000 a class, I think. And there's
four classes. >> Yeah. Well, I think the whole program is probably about5,000. But, um, then she could be the assistant QPA. Um, and same thing, right now she's accounts payable. you know, maybe she could be the assistant CFO. So, you
know, >> trying to build up the the base. >> Thank you. Sorry about that. I I looked at it differently. >> Um, while Rebecca's up here, we're going to talk about our audit real quick. Um, the audit, the overall dollar amount,
um, was approximately $65,000 this year. What you'll see on this budget sheet right now in front of me, line 40, is $20,475. That's because the um water utility, pool utility, sewer utility, solid waste, um they pay their own portion.
The library also pays their own portion to cover that whole $65,000 nut because it the service is divided amongst all of these utilities. Uh the library and the solid waste district included. Um on our audit, they were here a few days, two
weeks ago. um they completed our our annual debt statement in uh record time which I think is a testament to Rebecca because when they used to come in and have to go through handwritten pages um various notes and deciphering um you
know the old way Rebecca now has everything streamlined through Edmond. She has the reports prepared. Everything is linked properly and um easier to navigate. Uh and the auditors made comment to me about how much different it is now with Rebecca kind of running the uh the show with that. So, it's a
huge hat off and hopefully we uh save a little bit of money on that as well. They'll be back to do our audit in two weeks or AFS >> coming next week. >> Next week. U this year I'm going to have them present the audit to the council. I think it would be beneficial to see a little bit of a cycle um some of the
comments that we previously had. Do you want to talk about the um >> fixed assets? >> The fixed assets real quick. So, >> well, we are very happy. We had a company come in to do fixed assets, which that's been a uh comment on our audit for years and uh they're already
pretty much done with it. We're just waiting to get the report, but they uh went around and tagged all of our assets. They're over $5,000. They went to the DPW, the library. I think they even went uh to the parks. And uh so we're finally going to have that inventory done. And then, you know, we
have to do a little work here every year. We just have to go through and if anything's taken off, we have to let them know if there's anything that we purchased that needs to be added. So, the maintenance will will be simple at this point. But we're we're very excited about it because we wanted to knock that comment off of the audit.
>> For years, it was a comment for 30 years and and Rebecca decided this year that we wouldn't have it anymore. So, it's a positive. >> Yes. >> Any questions on the audit? I'm going to jump to the tax budget real quick. very very very very similar to
last year. Um you see in the uh computer software and maintenance u this is the tax component of Edmonds tax software of Edmonds. Um you see $15,000 there. Um last year it was 10. Again we took a lot of that out of the water and sewer uh
budget. Uh for dues $300 that stayed the same. Office supplies $150 increase from $1350 to $1,500. printing and binding, $10,000. That is your um bills that go out, right? The uh the paper, the tax bills, and job
related courses and training. To Deputy Mayor Miser's point, you see that's $1,000. That's just for the continuing uh credits, the CLES or C CEUs. Um there's no additional coursework in that budget line, unlike the uh same line for the finance department.
>> Right. Exactly. And that's basically what we're trying to do is to give the utilities a little bit of a relief where we can because we, you know, we've had to increase the rates for the water and the sewer utility. So, we're trying to look at all of the costs and just say, well, what can we bring into the current
budget, but we still want everything, you know, fairly aortioned to water and sewer and um and also can the current budget support it. So, you know, this is what we're going to try to do. We're going to go over it when we go over it with the auditors and we have the final
numbers from the AFS and everything. So >> once we get our numbers from the AFS, we'll know what our fund balance is. Um we'll get a good idea of what our appropriation cap is obviously what our levy cap is. Um and then we can build out the current fund and the utilities with respect to we may have to move some
things back and forth just to to make it work. Um but you know I think what we we are doing is working. We did not run any deficit in water or soore this year. Correct. >> No, we didn't. >> We had that was we for the first time in a long time, we had no deficit in water
or shore. We made it by a little bit, but we made it. That's that's the point, right? >> Yeah. >> Any questions for Rebecca? >> Great job. >> Thank you. >> You're good to go. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I'm going to jump to legal services real quick.
>> Can you just give us the lines? So, >> yeah. >> Uh, it's line. Do you want the Excel sheet line or the budget account line? The Excel the Excel sheet >> line 71. >> Thanks. >> Y >> good. >> Yeah. >> Legal services. Um there last year we
budgeted 195,000. Um I think we ended up spending as of today 114,000 which meant we had quite a bit of money left over. Um the legal hourly rate did increase a little bit this year. Um, so just to build in a little cushion, I
increased this line uh to 205. Um, there's no guarantee we're even going to come close to that given the fact that we saved such a good amount of money this year on our legal bills. Um, we're we're pretty judicious in that and and I think thank you thankfully we seek to
mitigate risk and don't really um expend the entire legal budget. Um, this is for the attorney annual retainer 65,000 uh tax appeal legal services. You'll see I moved money from non-retainer matters to tax appeal legal services. Um I did
that just in case there was any stemming issues coming out of the reval. So I wanted to move it from non-retainer to tax appeal just for this budget. So last year tax appeal had 20,000. I moved it to 65,000 this year, but I cut non-retainer matters from 115 to 75. Um
just because I think that that might be a little bit more accurate in terms of what we could expect this year. Overall, I do expect legal services is a budget line that we always have a little bit of extra money left in. Um, and I, you know, am comfortable that if we need to cut in this area, we can. Um, but also
know that we have a little bit of money left at the back end of the year if we need to make some transfers. Any questions on legal services? No. Okay. Moving right along, Terry. Oh, did I skip Rich? I Rich, come up. I missed
skipped you there. Sorry, T. The man of the hour, Rich Hamilton. >> Good evening, everyone. >> Hi. >> This is line 60 in the Excel sheet, the assessor's budget. Okay,
here you see salaries 134,755. This is for one full-time, one part-time employee in the assessor's office. um you'll see the added assessment line at $6,200 uh compared to $5,000. Now in your
budget sheet, you'll see where it's requested and the admin recommended. I moved that money as opposed to it being in the 015020002 account. I moved that to the salaries and wages line just because it's easier
to process um on admins instead of having to make that transfer. So that's why you see zero there. It's not actually a zero. It's just that I moved the money from another expense line and other expense account to the salaries and wage account. Um books, publications 250 stayed the same. Conference seminars
and dues 3,000. There was a drop from 3,400 last year to 3,000 this year. Office supplies 700. Uh slight increase from 250. Printing and binding 3,300. Um slight increase from 3,100. And just like I said about the legal services
budget, I built a little cushion in on the special appraisal/appeals uh from 16,000 last year to 21,000 uh for this year. Again, not knowing what the reval would bring uh when we were drafting the appropriations in December. We have a little bit of a cushion here
that again I'm confident in either modifying, reducing, or um changing in the in the event that we run into some type of appropriation cap issue. Um again, very very modest increases here for the assessor's budget for a total of
169750. Uh any questions for Rich now would be prudent. I know he has some things he'd like to share with the council about the the reval, but if you have any questions, ask and then we'll turn it to Rich. All you >> We've moved along in the revaluation
process. Um all property owners received their initial value letters last week. Um this is now the process where where we began where the reval company did inspections
and under their state regulations make a minimum of three attempts. Uh they've gathered all their information. Um again state regulations they're using two years of sales 2024 and 2025.
And from that information along with the sales they have now released the initial value letters um the letter to contact professional property appraisers our revaluation company if anyone has
questions regarding their initial value and I say initial value because uh we start with the initial values there's give and take between property owners and the revaluation ation company. Changes are made and then we will final
we will file our final tax list later this month. From there, everyone will get a postcard as they do every year. Um that will say this is your final assessed value and then property owners
obviously have the right to contest that either before the Essex County Tax Board or the Tax Court of New Jersey. Um, one thing that, um, Joe and I discussed, which we thought was very important because this process is revenue neutral,
was that when the letters were sent out, we show the property's 2025 assessed value. Right below that, the tax rate from last year, 2.687 687
per $100 of assessed value. Assessed value multiplied by the rate is the annual taxes. Now, we have the initial values for every property in Cedar Grove. to emphasize that it's revenue neutral
using those new assessments and using the 2025 levy because obviously the 2026 is yet to be determined. We're just in the early stages. We've calculated a tax rate of 1.581
essentially $158 per $100 of assessed value. So the new values are higher but the rate is significantly lower because we don't collect more money just because of a
revaluation. So, we thought it was important to show those details in the body of the letter so that a property owner doesn't take their new assessment and multiply it by last year's tax rate. I've spoken to other municipalities and
they didn't put the rate into the body of the letter and people were thinking, "Oh my gosh, uh it's just not the case." So, we've gone from a tax rate again from 2.687 687 to 1.581.
>> And to Rich's point, uh I I spoke with a resident today, uh reach out to PPA uh with via the phone number uh to schedule an appointment either um in person, which they are hosting an inerson meeting by appointment only at town hall here or over the phone and they will go
through the assessed value. They do make adjustments. They do consider any other uh testimony or evidence that you want to put forth. Um, so to Rich's point, this is initial an initial assessment. Um, and if Rich was here a week ago, we wouldn't have had this information. So in some senses because of the snow, yes,
>> we uh we were able to share this. Um, any questions for Rich either on the REVAL or on his budget >> and I've also separate from PPA, you know, they give me the data. I'm looking at the two years of sales. We have
approximately 220 sales just on the residential properties. So, I'm looking at the new assessments. I look at them by each and every neighborhood within the township and um it it appears to me
that they are fair values. But again, we encourage people to review if they have questions, you know, take that opportunity either by phone or in person to review the new assessment with the Reval company
>> questions. All right, Rich. >> Good job. Thank you. Thank you. >> Great job, >> Terry. >> Yes. >> Come on down. >> Thank you, Rich. You're welcome. See you tomorrow. >> Yep. Thanks everyone. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. >> Terry had a a a crazy last year with uh uh onboarding a new judge dealing with conflict judges
and new prosecutor. Two two new prosecutors. >> Yes. Um, so Terry and Courtney, um, they are the glue that holds the municipal court staff together, dealing with a lot of scheduling and and the PD. Um, so we thank Terry immensely for her patience
and her diligence, and it does not go unnoticed. Um, so here again, pretty simple. Uh the court has two full-time employees and two part-time employees. One of whom being the judge, one of whom being a uh
part-time um I guess records assistant is the what's the >> Yeah. What's the proper class the violations clerk? >> Violation clerk. >> Um so on the busy court days when Terry's sitting up at on the deis and Courtney's around the office, there's another part-time employee in the court
to help. Um this is where you see um the part-time salaries and wages very minimum increase from 61,250 last year to 65,000 this year. Full-time salaries and wages 151,000. Again, there's a little cushion built into all of this.
Um you'll see under line 435 the judge. That's for a conflict judge. Uh it's a $1,400 amount. We had to spend quite a bit of this last year as there were numerous conflicts uh when the uh current judge former prosecutor switched to his new role. He couldn't adjudicate
matters that he was um the prosecutor on obviously or that arose during his time when he was appointed as prosecutor even if he didn't pro prosecute the matters. Um this required us to have a conflict judge come quite a bit I'd say number of
sessions just to keep the docket moving. um and any other conflicts that arose. So, that number is greatly decreased. You could see last year we spent $3,850 on that line. And that's decreased to $1,400 as we anticipate the conflicts are uh reducing. Um and and that they're
dwindling down. Still there, but nonetheless, um you know, hopefully by this time next year that number is even lower. Um you'll see here I moved the audit money out of the court budget because it's all in current fund anyway. So, I moved it to one line account. Uh books,
publications, $1,200. Um very slight increase from $1,080 last year. Conference seminars and dues, $1,230. That stayed the exact same. Uh court credit card fees, $1,500. Uh that stayed the same. Court security, um that
dropped to $800. This is for um if there's an inperson trial. Most of our matters are virtual um via Zoom um but certain matters must be in person um with a play in person. Uh if we can't get an officer to cover, there's money in this account to hire uh security.
Employee bond premiums 500 stayed the exact same. Office supplies 525. There's a decrease there from $645. Um we've also bought shredding bins now as opposed to shredders. Shredders are quite costly. Um, so we have a contract
every month where people uh a company comes and picks up five shredding bins. They come once a month. Um, so this money will be coming out of out of the municipal budget, but the court does have one of the shredding bins. Computer, software, and maintenance, $2,100. Slight increase from $1,700.
Um, printing and binding, $1,000. You'll see uh a decrease there from the appropriation last year of $1,835. We only spent 348, so we're comfortable reducing that amount. Subpoena fees, $100. Not that there are many subpoenas left anymore, but if there are, it's
$100 there. And Zoom court services, $900. This is for a special Zoom license. That would allow the judge to zoom into uh jail, superior county jail. >> We have the regular Zoom. And then we have it's called a CRC. It's a
conference room connector. And that allows us to go into multiple um jails. So if somebody's there, they don't automatically have to be roared. They can um be heard at the court at the jail, I'm sorry. Okay. Otherwise, the court budget very
very very uh similar to last year with nominal increases. Um the court does a great job at keeping the the operations running efficiently and smoothly. Uh really at the behest of Terry and Courtney, our court administrator and deputy administrator. Any questions for
Courtney about the court or for Terry about the court? I get confused here. Any questions about court operations budget? We're all here. >> I just had one. >> Yeah, >> that I don't know where the line item went. There was one about processing fees for credit cards.
>> Yeah. >> Do people pay their processing fees if they pay by credit card or do we? We cannot collect processing fees. The state website they do they have I think a two or 3% they call it a service fee
>> but the courts cannot do that. >> We have to >> eat the whatever it's a processing fee. >> Yeah. Wow. >> And a lot of people pay via credit. >> Yeah. I would think most >> Yeah. That's the whole thing now. People are paying it but the state will not
allow us to get reimbursed for that. But they in turn, if you go online to pay it, you're paying a service fee. >> Interesting. Okay. Thank you. >> Go figure. >> That's safe. >> I'll just I'll just leave it at that. >> Any questions?
>> Good, Terry. You're good. Thanks. >> All right. Thank you. Have a good evening. >> Thank you. You, too. >> Moving right along. We'll keep the public defender line right there. Um, last year was $6,600, minimal increase to uh $6,850.
uh prosecutor. Every time that the prosecutor comes, whether it's for a regular session of which there are four a month, or special sessions involving the conflict judge or trials that are outside of the regularly scheduled court hearing, um that's a separate charge. So
last year, you could see we spent $28,211.50 on the prosecutor. I increased this line to 32,000 this year. Again, hoping that we have a little bit of a cushion in there. We try to mitigate um trials beyond uh that would require special appearances or overtime from our police
department. I know uh the chief might talk about that a little bit later. Um but working collaboratively, usually there's a domino effect. If there's a special session, there's an officer that has to come for that that incurs overtime. Prosecutor has a new session he bills for. So, um the court's very
mindful of all that and they work very very well to uh try and make sure everyone's on the same page. Any questions on uh prosecutor, public defender? I'm just going to move to public buildings and grounds and then we'll do wreck.
This is line 269 of the Excel sheet. Okay. um really through uh Councilwoman Peterson last year, she was able to um save some money out of the library by
having uh the full-time municipal uh janitor also do services in the library. Um so here you'll see that there was a cost savings both for the municipality and the library because that full-time salary decreased from 48160 to 45,000 because the additional portions are
being paid out of the library. um for the part-time custodian 32,000. You can see we spent 30,000 853 last year. Uh so there's just a small increase to 32,000. Janitorial supplies 7500. And you can
see a big increase on building maintenance 21,000 from last year's 13,500. That's because we inherited a new building in the north end firehouse. Um so way back we only had the municipal building. We didn't own the south end firehouse. We didn't own the north end
firehouse. We're just worried about the municipal building. Um, now that we have two additional buildings, this money is for monitoring fees for the security companies, cameras, um, generator servicing when there's generators at all
three buildings, um, fire inspection services for the, uh, fire extinguishers, uh, any other elevator maintenance. Elevate. uh we have three elevators or two elevators. Now this is all expensive u service contracts that we have to pay. That's why you see such
an increase here. Overall this budget went from 105 is is 105500 this year from 97660 last year. Uh but we added a whole new building so it's expected. Any questions on building maintenance? No
recreation. >> So, we're going to do we're going to do wreck the pool. Um, and and then we'll do celebration of public events, which I know Marissa has a lot to talk about for this year. So, starting with Wreck, just like I
said about the sewer and water utilities where we're removing some salaries out, we're doing the same thing here. Um, previously, um, a full-time employee was paid out of the pool utility. As we know, the pool utility struggles every year, um, both in terms of appropriations and in revenue.
So last year we moved one of the two salaries out of the pool utility and this year we're moving the second salary out of the pool utility into the current fund. Um that's why you see the recck budget salary line increase from 1576 to 175. Um this again more accurately
reflects the current distribution of work and it also gives a little bit of breathing room to our pool utility um that unfortunately every year struggles a little bit. um part-time salaries is $46,000. That's where you see um a lot
of the increases in minimum wage for summer camp, for the pool, uh for uh well, the programs that we have minimum wage with. >> So, all the basketball workers, tennis helpers, really anybody that does any job for us part-time or seasonal.
>> So, the minimum wage went up, um which is why you see an increase from 43,000 last year to 46,000. um summer camp part-time salaries that went from 32,000 to 36,000. Um so there are substantial um differences here from what you would
have seen last year. The other thing is too, previously um all of these accounts were in the other expense line in recreation because they were paid out as a stipen. Um but the proper way to do it is to pay them out as a salary where there's taxes taken out. So we we ended
up moving the money in the other expense line back into the salary. So where the salary line went up, the other expense line went down. So it's not necessarily one big increase across the board. You see it more as an inverse proportion. What we took out of O and went into salaries and wages.
Um building maintenance and improvements. Um this goes to really any building that we have that's related to wreck. uh the lion's den. It could be um the snack stand up at the pool. Anything at Panther Park, anything at community park. Clothing and uniforms 2,000.
That's for um the wreck employees and rec staff. Conference seminars and dues, uh $1,200, small increase from $1,000 last year. Garden and park supplies, $2,000, same as last year. Um
maintenance, um this goes to our fields. This goes to um striping the fields. If we have to have a company come and grade the uh sand like they did last year uh for the softball field, the turf maintenance. Uh we have a brand new turf field with that or I shouldn't say brand
new, I should say newly reurfed field. >> Um there's a lot of increased maintenance costs on all of the fields. Panther Parks softball field. Um, >> you have three turf fields that need to be ma maintained and they have to come in and measure the GMAX test for
concussion purposes and everything like that twice a year. So, >> it's just three turf fields to get maintenance. >> So, last year we spent 44,000. Um, because of the new field, we'll think we'll be spending a little bit less because it's brand new. Um, so we we
ended up appropriating 25,000 um just because the there really not going to be much maintenance on the new Panther Park. Uh materials and supplies 10,000 uh summer camp materials 2,000.
Uh you'll see softball umpires is $0. It's not that we're not paying them. It's this is an example of where I moved uh monies from the other expense line to the salaries and wage line. Um, and the rest of this is is for our um
like project graduation is $1,200, same as last year. Uh, sports officials, $2,000. Any of the other programs that we are members of, what's that? Like the wrestling or >> suburban basketball, West Essex soccer, >> some senior programs coming out of here too, right? Yeah. Because I know that
was a big thing last year that we were able to incorporate. >> Um, tree lighting, $5,000. um the Clyde sales this year for example, right? That was there was substantially more money than the um helicopter. Yes. >> But we did it. We pulled it off.
>> Great. >> Uh any questions on the recreation budget because >> there's a lot that Marica does within her budget. >> No. >> No. >> Good. >> Great job. >> So, she's not off the hook yet. Um,
let's do um celebration of public events real quick. >> Do you want to just hit the highlights and I'll pull it up >> for the fireworks. >> I just got to say every year we add $1,000 to the budget line to make it a little bit bigger and better than last year. >> There was more than a thousand. >> We added a little bit more. Um,
celebration of public events. This is our Memorial Day picnic. This is our fireworks summer. This is the a little bit of the breast cancer walk. Um, so you'll see materials and supplies. 9,000 stayed the exact same. Memorial Day picnic 5,000 stayed the exact same, but there's a big increase from the $18,000
we spent last year on the fireworks to the $25,500 this year. Why is that, Marica? >> It's America's 250 effort. Okay, >> we're America's turning 250. So, we felt it would be appropriate to um increase the firework budget just a little bit
within means um because not only we can get a bigger and better fireworks show, but there's going to be some special uh >> we have some um a Lady Liberty Statue of um Liberty and Uncle Sam Stilt Walkers coming. We have a F and drum band and
drum drum band coming. Um, and again the fireworks just to make a difference where you can see that it's a noticeably better show what we had to put the money into there also. And then we also are giving out little
pocket size constitutions. >> Really? I'm shocked at that. Whose idea is that today? >> They're here. >> Yeah. >> Great idea, Maurica. >> Yeah. Thanks. >> Any questions on the other events that we we do here? Uh, obviously we're preparing for another great year with
REC. UAC does a great job with our tree lighting, with the breast cancer walk. Um, just great stuff all around. Any questions there? >> No. All right. Now, a less fun topic to talk about. Let's do the pool budget.
>> It's line 462 of the Excel sheet. Um, so naturally, and we expected this, unlike our water and sewer utility, which did not run a deficit this year, the pool did run a deficit. We anticipated it in the current fund. Um,
so you can see, oh, wait, that's the that's the wrong one. Hang on here. I'm sorry. It's line 588 of the Excel sheet. I'm sorry. So, this is just another example of what I say when I mean we take things out of the utility and put them into current.
You could see last year, right where my cursor is, uh we spent $60,525 in full-time salaries. That number this year is appropriated to be $22,000. So, that difference for the full-time salary worked its way into the current
fund in recreation. So, it's not that we're adding salaries or adding positions to recreation. No, we we took half of that salary or one whole salary out of here and moved it into the current fund. That's just another example of some some money movement to
try and better support the utility. Part-time salaries, you'll see we spent 173 656 last year, went up to 180,000. That's for the increase in minimum wage, but also we're going to really try and do a very conscious job at assessing
staffing needs this year uh at the pool, making sure that everyone is um it's adequately staffed and appropriately staffed, but not overly staffed. Um because uh that's one of the easiest ways to u be mindful of the appropriation amounts.
Uh you'll see audit money in here. Um we really really really kept the line pretty tight um with respect to what we spent last year. Chemicals and gases we spent 44519. We kept that at 45,000 this
year. Um trying to see any other big ones in here. The PSG um we spent 12,000 last year. We kept it the same as this year because what we're going to propose to do instead of running the heat in the building all year round to keep the pipes from freezing. We're going to
install a valve outside that way in the fall, we can completely shut the building, completely drain it, and not have to pay to run the heat in the building and just turn it back on for the spring or the summer. Uh so we anticipate saving quite a bit of money from our gas and electric bill in that regard there. Um, but obviously to
maintain the pumps, to keep the pumps running, the electric for all that gets quite costly. Just like everybody's, you know, gas and electric bill went up at your house. It's no different for the town. Our gas and electric bills are going up as well. Um, pool insurance,
$1,000 that stayed the same. Uh, and then there's some small portions of our other um our other budgetary items like the the insurance that comes out of here. It's proportionate to the overall multi-line dollar amount and our workers compensation amount. We bundled all into
one. That's $34,60. Slight increase from 31,880 last year. Um overall, you'll see a decrease in the appropriations from $400,210 to $395,348. Uh again, we're trying to reduce our
appropriations while increasing revenue. Um I'm going to have Maurice talk about the revenue in a little bit. What I do want to flag though is our debt service for the pool. We have two more years, well, three more years if we include this year of debt service. Um, this is the refinancing of bonds from 2011. I
think it was 20. Yeah, 2011. Um, before Maurice's time where we're paying 105,000 in bond principle and se and 12,000 in bond interest. Um, 117,000 of the pool appropriations go to pay debt. Um, and while if we did not
have to make this payment, we would still run a very very tiny deficit, this makes it much more difficult because of the the debt that we have to pay off um that was cast 13 years ago. So hopefully by 2028 um this will be completely extinguished and then we can reassess
our needs from there. Do you want to just talk briefly about the membership um some of the struggles we faced this year with some other uh >> Yes. So, um it was brought to our attention that Verona this year because of their um financial issues were going
to start taking out of town members as well. They had ne they never have. They always said they never would, but um I guess it's just an idea they came up with, something that they thought they needed to do to increase their memberships and
increase their revenues. Um, you know, as soon as we heard this, we started thinking about what we could do um to try to keep our me our out of town members, maybe even get some more just because again, you know, the Verona pool
is substantial compared to ours and has a little bit more uh thrills and frills. But um that was one of the reasons why we put together the pricing. um changes for this year,
>> early membership discounted early bird. Um we got a lot of our non-memberships in back. We got new ones. Um we've already taken in about $150,000 for the pool this year just for
memberships alone. I think that last year we were at 390 total. 390,000 total for memberships. So, um, we've only been doing membership for a month and we're already close to half of what we got from last season.
>> And the rates increased as of today, right? As of yesterday, >> Saturday actually. So, um, and people are able to pay with their credit cards this year online, which is >> awesome. Brand new um, in Edmonds. So they I I feel like a lot more people
came out and and or will buy the memberships in the future because it's something that they could pay off over time rather than having to come in and have the money come right out of their accounts as well. >> So we're going to keep monitoring it. Hopefully the revenues increase and we
can keep playing with the appropriations and you know eventually we can keep mitigating that deficit just a little bit just like we did in water and so >> any questions for Marissa Wreck celebration of public events. Marica is our website coordinator. She did a great
job really great job rebuilding our website last year. Um it's completely ADA compliant now as required by law. Uh Marica also helped out uh and built the the PD's website on our page now. Um so it's a little easier to navigate the
website now than the old one. Right. >> For myself and for residents staff. >> Any questions? >> No. Okay, you're good. I'm going to tackle the planning and zoning board real quick. Um and then we'll jump into the building inspector and code enforcement.
Uh planning and zoning. Um you'll see a slight increase part-time salaries and wages. Um, this was a position that was full-time two years ago. Uh, upon the retirement of that individual, um, it's been replaced um, by another full-time employee, but we didn't have to rehire
for the role. We just, uh, increase the part-time salaries out of these two boards. Um, to $10,000 for both planning and zoning. Um, advertising money for the planning board, $100. Um, we spent $49 last year,
small increase. a planning board attorney. Last year we spent $6,500. This year it's $8,750. Very, very small increase. Um, conference seminars and dues, $250. This is for um any of the classes if you're a new planning or
zoning board member. In this case, planning. You have to go uh take a class administered by the DCA to get the basic fundamentals of planning or zoning. That comes out of there. Office supplies. uh things for like the name plates if we had to pay for a transcript um or a court reporter that would come out of
there. Overall planning board budget $19,800. On to the zoning board which is line 98. Uh same part-time salary and wage line at $10,000. We spent $7500 last year. Small increase there. Advertising is
$2,000. The attorneys $9,750. We spent $7,222 there last year. Books publications is 100. Um, conference seminars and dues, that number is 600. We did add some new zoning board members this year that need the class. And that's why you see a
slight increase from $510 there. And office supplies is $1,000. It's the same uh little little increase compared to the planning board, but again, there's three new members there. Overall budget for the zoning board 23450. Any questions on the planning and zoning
boards? No. Okay, James, come on up. >> Hello. >> Hi. Let's take your question. All right. This is budget uh Excel sheet
number 119. Budget account U 6012202195. Okay. here um you'll see salary and wage line 175 650 um slight increase from what we spent last year 16812 uh complies with the 3% um cost of
living adjustment uh books publications and dues $300 I'm sorry $3,000 um that is for uh any any changes to the um uniform construction code any updates code books uh that come out which
changes pretty regularly. I'd say more than more than we uh >> more than we would like. >> Like >> um big one here that you'll see um computer software and maintenance. That's for SDL um spatial data logic. Do you can explain what that is briefly?
>> Well, that's just the software that we use in the building department for permits and it basically it runs the whole department. Without that, we probably couldn't do anything. We're going to be adding a seat to the SDL license for planning and zoning. Um so
now um just as all the building and um electrical and plumbing and fire permits are done through this software. Um the planning and zoning ones will also now be done through the the software as well. Um that way there's um you know integration between the offices, there's
redundancy in the staff that if one or the other is out, both can kind of cover and and do the difference. So, we're looking to add that seat this year. I believe we have this the seat available on the license, right? We do. >> We do. >> Um, line 129 is the mileage reimbursement
account. That's $1,200. It stayed the same as last year. Um, office supplies, there 3500. Uh, there's a decrease in that from 6,000 last year that went down. Um overall the budget for the
construction official is 199850 an increase from 1866 650. Again a lot of these have cushions built in. I have a separate Excel sheet with um some draft uh appropriations where I built in cushions that when the appropriation cap is calculated if we need to go back and
trim a little bit we can. Um it's the same for our plumbing uh fire and electrical inspectors. Um, as you could see, there's a salary, a part-time salary line of 28,500. Last year, we spent 23,000
uh for the plumbing inspector, and we spent 24,000 for the electrical inspector, but both are budgeted at 8,500. That's just an example of a little cushion that we have that we can always uh reduce, mitigate, or otherwise change. Fire inspections, you're going to see that line go up a little bit this
year. Our fire inspector is no longer able to do it. and also um a position that was previously not required to have a DCA certification um to perform smoke detector certifications is now required to have a fire inspector's license. So Danny
Donovan, town employee, um would go and perform smoke detector certifications for people who were selling their house or whenever there was a change of CO totally qualified to do it until the DCA changed the rules that now say you have to be a licensed fire inspector to perform the smoke detector
certifications. So what does that mean? We need to find a licensed inspector to do that. Um so you're going to see a slight increase in that line. I'm working that out now. Um but I don't think it'll be more than $11,000 total. Uh, so the difference between 7,500 and the 11,000 um can be made up from the
the the buffer in the other two accounts without really noticing much of an overall difference. Anything you want to add to that? >> No, I think >> we're busy with construction permits are keeping you going, right? A lot of active work going on in the town. >> Busy.
>> Yeah. >> Any questions for James? >> No. Okay. >> All right. All right, James, you're good to go. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Health Department. >> Thanks, James. >> Come on up. >> Hi, Amy. Everyone, this is Amy from
Montlair Health. >> Good evening, everyone. >> And you all know D. >> Hello. >> All right. Uh, as the council is aware, very recently you voted um
you voted to renew the uh contract with the township of Monontlair where we have a shared uh health service agreement. Um we've I'm pleased with Montlair Health Service. I think u the residents are as well. Um I get my blood pressure taken every third Wednesday of the month right
here in council chambers. Uh at times the results are not as desirable as we would all like them to be, but it is what it is. Um, so we were able to, uh, Amy and I really worked. We got a very fair contract. Uh, the township, uh, got a 4 and a half% increase on the contract,
which I think, you know, pretty fair and consistent with, uh, where we want it to be at. So, you'll see that that, um, budget account is $90,30054. That's the, um, 6012703302144 account, line 295 in Excel. Um last year
we spent $86,412. You multiply that number by four and a half% and that's our new contractual number. Um big decrease you'll see here. Um rodentic control services. Um for for whatever particular reason,
residents would would feel the need to have the township provide rodent control for their their their needs, their their pest control needs. Um, candidly, I never felt that was necessarily a function of municipal government. Um, you know, people have
homeowners and and uh as homeowners pay for exterminators. Um, so the difference here is is what it's going to cost us just to maintain the municipal properties, parks, the playgrounds, the buildings uh for road and control services um going forward. So, you'll
see a decrease from $4,000 to $2,750 in that account. you'll see a decrease in printing and binding from $1,200 to $750. Um employee physicals. Where is that one here? There it is. Physical exams. Okay.
Um we are hiring new employees whether it's in DPW or municipal staff. Um we send them for um pre-employment drug screening and physicals. Um that line we spent 1350 last year. Um we appropriated a,000 last year. So, I increased that to
$1,500 for this year. Deer carcass removal, $3,000. U kept that the same. Conference seminars and dues, that's for the CMR license, $500. Um, we only spent 125 last year, so I decreased that to 400. Uh, your overall health budget went
from 169 160,900 to $165,446. Any questions on the health contract? anything Montlair Health you want to share with uh the services you guys do great work for us beyond the blood pressure screening we'll talk about the uh >> um so most of you probably know we
inspect all the restaurants in town >> um and we've increased um the amount of inspections we're doing we do twice a year surveillance now just to really make sure that everyone's following you know the guidelines sometimes what we've found is a place will open up they're
doing great and then you go back the next year if you wait a whole year what happens is things kind of slide a little bit. So, um we instituted, it's not required by state, but a second inspection um for the higher risk restaurants. So, we've started doing
that. Um so, we do that. We also inspect pools, tattoo shops, um you know, other facilities, >> massage, >> massage parlors, right? In which we have a handful. um the uh I guess the dog kennel. Um sorry. And uh so that's
another piece of what the health inspectors do. The nurses, right, come in and do blood pressure um evaluations for township staff, but they also go to the senior buildings in town. Um we monitor all of the long-term care facilities that you have in Cedar Grove.
I believe there's five now. Um >> about to be another one, too. >> Oh, no. >> Yeah. Um, so it gets busy in the winter of course with, you know, flu season. Um, so we had a pretty rough uh, flu season this year. So we were monitoring quite a few outbreaks. So that's another
component that the nurses do. Um, we've had some Legionella in one of the facilities and we actually have a call tomorrow. This is their third case in the same facility. So we really the state gets involved and they monitor. We do water sampling. Not us, but they hire
a company. So, we got to really see what's going on there. They have a lot of old pipes. Um, so sometimes what can happen is the Legionella sits in what they call a dead leg. It's like a section of pipe that um just like doesn't get clean cleaned out regularly
enough. Um so we're going to have to, you know, look at that. They have all new staff there. They've had a lot of turnover and staff this one particular facility. So we're watching that closely. Um so those are our everyday activities.
um you know and then write complaints um you know roadie complaints and and other things. So we work with D when she has you know questions or complaints come up with restaurants um a variety of things. So I know the inspectors talk to you pretty often. >> Yeah.
>> Seniors and Right. Right. Um let's see. So that's that's it. And you know those are the the main things. Do you have any questions? Car's our our nurse. So, >> okay. >> She I'm sure this is all ringing true to her and making a bunch of sense, >> right?
>> And former advisory. >> Yes, you guys do a great job. Thank you so much. >> Thanks. Um, so the other thing I did want to mention because we did shift over the responsibilities to the governing body. >> Um, you know, we do reports that we
would send to the advisory council. So, what I can do them going forward is I can send them to you, Joe, if you want to distribute them to the council members. Um, we do monthly reports >> so we can just forward them so everyone can just kind of get an idea of what's been going on. Um, it's it's pretty
straightforward snapshot. >> Yeah, I think that's that'd be helpful. We can include in the council packets when they go out to the council >> and then certainly if there's an issue or you have questions, I'm happy to come, you know, council meeting um if you, you know, want to discuss anything. But usually it's it's pretty quiet and
uh nothing too big. So >> excellent. >> Cool. Anything on the health department. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um no, D, you're not you're not done yet, D. >> Animal control. >> The animal >> and uh senior citizen uh health bus. Uh
animal controls is pretty straightforward contract. We we have that through uh Wayne Township. Uh standard contractual increase. Last year it was uh 42,500 budgeted. This year it's $43,310. Nominal increase. And Wayne does a
pretty good job for us as well. Um senior citizen transportation, the senior bus. Okay. Uh last year we appropriated $35,641. Of that amount, 11,000 was for um part-time salaries and wages. And the
other part was um for the actual bus and the dialer ride service. Um, this year we budgeted $32,500. So, you do see a slight decrease. Um, one of the things I was really big on when I got here was not running the bus every day if there was only one person
on the bus. Um, didn't pay to put the bus on the road with fuel and costs of insurance and liability. Um, so since we've consolidated the dates, I believe it's Monday t uh Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday one week and then Tuesday, Thursday the other week. >> Right.
>> Right. and our ridership has increased by a lot. >> All right. So, by consolidating the dates, ridership has increased um which is better, right? Because we're not just running the vehicle just to to get it out 5 days a week. Um and alternating that Wednesday date is also um important
too because now we can streamline the stops and make it a little bit more uh efficient for both the riders and our and the township. >> They're happy. >> They're happy. And if they're happy, we're happy, right? All right. Any questions on senior citizen or animal control?
>> No. >> No. >> Oh, you have a a uh vaccination thing coming up, don't you? >> Rabies rabies. That's >> be February 11th in the library. And the library is working out really well for us to do the rabies clinic there.
>> Good. >> Okay. Any questions? >> Good. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good night. Uh environmental commissions to keep it
flowing stayed the same $700 as last year. No different. Uh CATV committee think that I think we took that out of the budget and moved that into my budget. We did. Uh so the CATV committee any um fees associated with running the
cable studio, running the um software, that's now paid out of my budget as opposed to its own separate line line item. Um, all right. So, I I received an email from the library director before the um
budget hearing was set to commence that she would not be able to make it. Um, but I met with her last week and I'm happy to do the budget uh right now. Why isn't this working? Okay. This is budget account 36
68 uh Excel account uh line 368 or budget account 6129390. Um, so very simply, the state of New Jersey sets the funding formula for public libraries. It's known as a third of the mill. So you take your
total assessed valuations, you divide it by a million, you multiply it by one/3, and that is the dollar amount that you are statutoily obligated to give to the public libraries. Okay? Nothing less. Last year's third of the
mill was1,6,75141. This year's third of the mill is 1,110,97723. Okay. Why did that increase? Because our assessed values increased. When the assessed values increased, third of the mill increased. Okay.
Of the 1,110,97723, $369,000 is broken out into full-time salaries. 103,000 is broken out into part-time salaries. 36 I'm sorry, $3,800 is appropriated for the audit. $78,000 is appropriated for books,
publications, and dues. $31,750 for office supplies. uh $5,000 for each of the following categories: adult programming, children's programming, movies, summer reading, speakers, classes, and programs. Um, and again, this money is interchangeable. We could always move it
if one needs more than the other. Um, $12,500 for janitorial supplies. Uh, Councilwoman Peterson, I believe you would recall back when the library is paying a cleaning service, do you remember how much that was costing? Roughly >> 22,000.
>> 22,000. Okay. Um, so that that money is um the township's probably saving around $15,000 by having the um full-time municipal custodian go to the library um as opposed to paying the the cleaning service 22,000. Um some of the bigger expenses in here
um are the statutory expenses, the health insurance, um our GIF, municipal insurance, pension contribution, social security. Um the GIF contribution for our um municipal liability insurance and workers compensation, $36,890.
Our PERS um public employee retirement system contribution $64,361. Uh, dental insurance, $4,510. Um, health insurance, I didn't talk about it yet because I didn't get to it, but by far the biggest increase the township will be facing this year is the
36% increase to the state health benefits plan. Unquestionably, the biggest increase we have, we are exploring other options to see um cost savings either within the same plan um or equal or better plans that would offer a cost savings. Um we
were not marketable enough for that plan to this year uh just given some loss ratios. Um but we are constantly running our loss ratios trying to see if there's some type of adjustments or modifications we can make either within state health benefits um or an equal or better alternative. Um but that's what
you see a big increase on here. Um overall the the library is ultimately set by the library board of trustees. Uh the council does include it in the municipal budget, but the statutory minimum is that one-third of the mill that we must um legally appropriate for
the library. Um I spoke with library director last week. I can answer any questions to the best of my ability right now or I could pass them along if you have any questions now. Um happy to consider them. >> What happens if the library doesn't spend their entire budget? Does it be
>> so for the first three years three years first three months of the year um the money is in appropriation reserves which means if there's any bills that come due at the back end um it goes to you could still spend it for the first three months of the new year out of the old
year. Um typically what happens is the money under municipal accounts lapses to our fund balance. it goes to basically our surplus and then it just sits there and that's what we use to either fund debt service or capital projects. Um >> Oh, including the library even though the state
>> So the library the library has a state aid account. Um and some of that money will lapse and we'd have to either put it into like a trust account or some other um incumbrance for them so that they're not um it's there but it's not as part of their operating budget. But
for years prior, um, the township would always fund more than the millillage amount. So when they would fund more, that money would come back to us anyway because we were overfunding the library, if you will, more than the minimum. Um, because we're just funding the minimum now. Um, oftentimes they run very close
to, if not uh, right at >> right at where they need to, >> especially there's February and March left this year to pay 2025 bills out of. So whatever we have left right now, we don't know what's actually left because they could still use the money to pay bills. Gotcha. Um, so we'll know around March if there's anything left there.
>> Yes. >> Just one comment. The uh renovation was done solely on donations. That wasn't from their budget. >> Yes. >> Just so you know. >> Any questions?
>> All right. I'm going to run through real quick. Um the Stay right where you are. will do the utilities budget and I don't mean water and sewer. I'll get there next. Um, you know, this is a big expense that the
township has every year. This is our gas and electric bills. Um, this is like gasoline, diesel, um, if we need to make improvements to the generator beyond just regular maintenance. Um, water and soar bills,
we do pay ourselves for water and soar. So if the municipal building uses x amount of water, we pay the utility that, right? Because that's how we make sure that the utility is properly funded. Um our biggest increase in this this year is the heat, power, and light
account. You'll see that at um line 407 in Excel. That is I'm sorry, 409. 407. Yeah. Um that's $600,000. That's for gas and electric. That's for the electric on the um street lights in the
street. That's when we put the holiday decorations up on the street. That's the electric that comes out of there. Um in these accounts, you also have our phone bills, our internet bills. Um so there's quite a bit of of expenses in here that really the public doesn't get to see
them in practice, right? But they're one of the larger portions of our budget. Um and just as I said before, your gas and electric bills are going up. So are so are ours here. Um, so to be prudent about that, as the council knows, we replaced all the lights in here last year. Um, they're a little bit better
efficiency, so hopefully we can mitigate some of those costs. The new buildings obviously are built a little bit better with better insulation. Um, so we're mitigating some of those costs. Um, but this overall line item uh for the heat, power, and light went from 550 last
year, of which we spent $533,424 to $600,000 this year. Um, gasoline for public works. Uh, I put 33,000. Um, we had 30,650 last year. Um,
municipal building, telephone, and internet. Um, we spent $82,679. Out of this comes some internet costs for things like the ALPR cameras that are throughout the town. Um, which I know the chief's going to talk to about some of the internet costs that are
associated with that. Um, diesel for the fire department, $15,000. Gasoline for the fire department, $15,000. Um, overall, we tried to hold the line here. I do have some cushions in here in the event that I do need to make cuts with
respect to the appropriation cap. Um, there are some accounts in here I can tweak and dial back. Again, we won't know that till we finalize um our our cap numbers, but there are some cushions in here that we can we can dial back. Right beneath that is our contingent
account. um which has $13,500 in it. Um this is capped at a statutory number. It can't exceed a certain dollar amount. This is just an emergency account if we needed something and something wasn't uh appropriated for. It's a contingency. Um if you just scroll down a little bit
more um to line 419, you'll see very large appropriations. Um, you'll see our PFRS, that's our police and fire retirement system pension contribution.
That number this year is 1 million848,628. Um, that's quite a bit. That's a a large um portion of the municipal budget. Uh, for PERS, that number is also large, but some of that's broken out in the water and sewer utility as well. So the employees that are in the water and
sewer departments, their PERS contributions are paid out of that budget line, which we'll cover when we get there. From the current fund perspective, that's $238,300. Um, Social Security and Medicare, $265,539
and unemployment insurance of $25,000. Uh overall that number is 2,399,967 um which increased from 2,290,432 in fiscal year 25. Um these are just some of the statutory expenses we have. Um additionally like I said before our
joint liability insurance through the GIF and our workers compensation insurance um that also increased as well. All right, let's run through some DPW accounts. Unfortunately, none of our DPW employees
or department heads could be here because they are on their second water main break in 24 hours. Um they had one last night on um IRA and today it's on Harper Terrace. they had to wait for Southoun school to be dismissed so they
can actually operate the water man, shut it down so that there was no disruptions to school. Um, so I promised that they would rather be here doing the budget hearing than out in the freezing cold fixing their second water man. But our thoughts are with them as they struggle through this. Um, real quick, parks and
playgrounds. Um, not not a big increase here at all. Um, our parks guys do a great job keeping everything clean, uh, cut and and looking really nice. As you all may know, I do have a special spot for
landscaping in the township, and I want to make sure that all of our parks, the municipal facilities, everything is super clean. Um, you'll see the part-time salaries here at 16,000. That's just for our summer help where uh, the minimum wage increased, full-time salaries, $222,100.
This is consistent with the DPW contract. Um, overtime 2750. Last year we spent 2,000. Building materials and supplies, $8,000. Chemicals and gases, that's like um for
bees. If they're bee nest or wasp nest, they'll spray it. Clothing and uniforms, 3550. It's a contractual number provided for in the DPW uh works agreement. And you see, uh, line 357 maintenance. Um, one of the things I did when I was
here, um, we had we had a lot of parks employees. Um, and I found that I could privatize certain sectors of the parks maintenance, uh, and save quite a bit of money by not um, hiring parks employees.
Um, so two of the properties, the municipal building and Panther Park, was cut by a private contractor. Uh the municipal building cost $7,000 a year for full uh year- round landscaping. Um fall cleanup, spring cleanup, pruning the shrubs, and weekly lawn maintenance.
And Panther Park, all of the park, all of the grass uh costs around uh $13,000 a year. Um both numbers combined, it's called $21,000 to play it safe, is substantially less than we would be paying an employee or benefits or health
insurance. Um, and it allows our parks crew to focus on community park, um, George Street, anywhere else that they need to, uh, actually focus on the parks. Any questions on the parks budget? Overall, you see a very, very slight
increase uh, from 286525 last year to 289 325 this year. All right. less than a a $3,000. I think it's just a $3,000 increase.
Any questions? Let's go to roads. That's line 225 in the Excel sheet. Budget account 601260290. We did a lot of road work last year. I think that goes without saying. A lot of that was funded through our capital
projects. Um we paved a lot of streets. We fixed a lot of catch basins. We fixed a lot of manholes. We fixed a lot of potholes. A lot of our roads are in really, really good shape. Um there's a lot of work that we can be doing now on roads that were recently paved, but we
can be replacing the um sore grates to make it compliant with D standards. Um in this account here, uh you'll see a decrease in full-time salaries from 410,000 to 355,000. Um this decrease is because some folks
are retiring. um we're not going to be replacing those positions or there's some breakage in the salary. Um so this is one of those areas where we're saving quite a bit of money that might be finding its way into other areas of the current fund uh so as to not affect the appropriation cap.
You'll see conference seminars and dues. Um we increase that account by 2,000 because we want to send u some people to classes whether it's tree pruning classes um snowplow driving classes uh whatever the case is. We want some of the employees to uh at least learn a
little bit more. Last year we had an operator come um through OSHA and for two days he certified I believe six of our employees to operate the mini excavator and the uh loader. Uh they received OSHA compliance with using
this. It was really great uh for our insurance um that they have this compliance now. That's something I'd like to do again this year. It gets them a little bit of seat time. There's also a classroom component to it as well. Um, so obviously that costs money, but if it gets them a little bit safer, um, and it
helps reduce our risk and liability with the insurance, there's ultimately a savings with that. Um, hot mix, you see $10,000, that's for the, um, potholes. That's just standard. I think we spent 10,760 last year. Uh,
so we'll keep it the same this year because we're anticipating not as many potholes given the amount of roads that we we paved. Overall, your streets and roads budget decreased from $459,750 last year to $414,850
this year. It's a pretty substantial decrease that again, given the appropriation cap, allows us to make some movements uh within the current fund. Any questions? Scroll down a little bit. You go to equipment removal. I'm sorry, equipment
repair and maintenance. Um this is another example where I took a salary out of the um water and soar utility and I moved it into the current fund. Um one a portion of one salary was paid out of both and I moved that portion and I
moved it to full-time salaries and wages. Last year it was $100,000 for full-time salaries. Uh this year it's 125,000. I took that portion that was previously in water and I moved it here. Um, bearing that in mind, the only
increase that you will see is in um, building maintenance. This is for the garage. Um, it's different things that the garage may need. That went from $5,450 to $8,750. Um, otherwise, the biggest increase comes from me moving that salary out of
the utilities at the current fund. And that's why you see the salary appropriated at uh the total line appropriated at 149700 compared to last year's $120,250. Again, that almost is entirely between the building maintenance increase of
roughly $3,000 and the movement of the salary over. Any questions there? Scroll down a little bit more and we go to snow removal. and we're doing a lot of snow removal and we're doing it on Sundays which
means double time. So, um we have this really cool uh setup. Rebecca was brilliant when she did this. Um snow removal cost us money. We know that. Um we're anticipating next year spending a little bit more just given the storms
we've had already. Overall bottom line on snow is 265350. $265,350 um which is an increase from $230,000. But mayor, you asked a very good question before about what happens with the money that's left over. So usually with any money that's left
over in the budget accounts, it carries over for three months and then after that point it lapses to your fund balance or your surplus. But in snow removal, what we do is any money that's left over, whatever we didn't spend, the council will vote to move that money
into a storm recovery trust account. Storm recovery trust account. So every year, if we don't spend that money, it doesn't go back to our fund balance. It goes to the special account for storms where we may have $2 $300,000 sitting in that account for a rainy day that if we
ever run low on snow money, if there's a really bad hurricane Sandy, we have an emergency account separate in a part of the operating budget that uses leftover money from the operating budget that wasn't spent to fund its reserves every single year. Um Rebecca's really good at
monitoring that and making sure if by March we didn't spend X, Y, and Z from 2025, it'll move over to the storm recovery trust. Um so that's just one application that a little bit of leftover money still serves a purpose down the road. Any questions on that? Salt is costing
us a lot of money now. I think I just paid $105 a ton to get it here um last week when no one get could get it. We we did get it um thankfully. Um, and we're still waiting on 300 tons to arrive. So, any questions?
>> Do you need a resolution from us to access the storm trust fund? >> Nope. >> Okay. >> If it's an emergency, if it's a declared emergency, yes. So, what would have to happen is um Rebecca would have to certify that there's an emergency and
there's money that we couldn't otherwise appropriate or couldn't otherwise spend. like a true emergency, like something just popped out of nowhere, like when the um the wall on the river collapsed in. Um she would have to certify and then you guys would have to vote to ratify her certifying that there's the
emergency. Uh but for regular operating expenses coming for, you know, snowstorm, if the governor declares a state of emergency, it's usually accepted. It's more when it's localized that it's an issue. Questions?
All right, hang on. Um, the engineering account. Another thing I'm doing previously, uh, this is line 76 of the Excel sheet budget account, um, 0165. I am moving some money out of the water
and so utility and back into the current account to pay for engineering. Uh, last year we paid approximately 25,000 or 20,000 towards engineering. I moved $10,000 um out of the water and sewer utility, 5,000 each, put it into current to pay for this difference. That's why you'll
see $30,000 for the township engineer in here. And every year, my goal is to build this up and help support the water and sewer utility a little bit better by removing that out of there. Um we don't have a full-time engineer. That's why you don't see full-time salaries. That number is zero. It will remain zero.
Everything else will be paid out of the other expense category. Any questions on engineering? No. Okay. Jump to the water utility real quick. Um, this is line 470 of the Excel sheet
and it is budget account 6055510. Okay. Um, you'll see a really big reduction from what we budgeted for, um, full-time salaries last year. Um, you may see this number as a little bit less here. That's because we ended up transferring some
money out of that account into the other expense account. So, it's a little bit of a misnomer, but what you really should be looking at is the 2025 appropriation, which was 544,74. This year that number is $535,000. Now that number is less because of all
the reasons I've been stating before where I'm moving salaries that were previously paid out of here back into the current fund uh for Rebecca for the um equipment repair and maintenance, some of the engineering money. So that's why you see this number decrease because
I moved it back into the current fund. Um the water utility overtime. Um up until this morning, I kept that number a little bit lower. And then I came in today before uh the budget hearing, I increased it just given the sheer amount of water main breaks that we've been on,
knowing we have to go flush hydrants twice a year. Not sure not sure what next fall will bring. Uh so I'd rather play it a little bit safer. Um and then then be sorry. The audits $12,400. You'll see a slight decrease there from $12,720
last year. the CCR, the water consumer confidence reports, $3,500. We have to mail that out every year. It has our water samples, our water um standard, uh that's mailed out to the public. Sand uh sandstone and seed. That's for water mans. We have to fill in the event that
there's a water mane break. Um computer software and maintenance really, really big. This is for our SCADA system. The SCADA system is what we use to monitor water levels in our water tanks in various areas around town, what the pressure is. Uh if the SCADA systems
fails, we're in really big trouble. Um there's some plans to do capital upgrades this year uh in the SCADA system as well. Um big items that I want the council to really pay attention to. You'll see here under line number 495 Pacific Valley
Water. Um there's about a 10% increase in the rates that they're charging us to buy the water this year. Um so last year you could see we spent 526 915 on it and I'm appropriating 580,000. Um and the other big account there is
Wanq South. That's our North Jersey District Water Supply Commission. Um they supply water to us as well. There was an 8% increase in water rates that they're charging us. You could see we spent $517,645 there last year and this year we're
appropriating $580,000 for that as well. Um lab testing $12,500. We switched labs from PACE to Garden State. Um the bottom are the statutory provisions.
Uh health insurance $280,000 um $33. GIF insurance $132,900. These are some of the statutory increases. Um, PERS payments. This is what I was referencing before for the employees in the water utility. Um, their PERS
contributions out of the total bill is $132,721. Social Security and Medicare is 14,250. Um, one thing I want to point the council to is the debt service for the water utility. Um, you're going to say, why is it so much? And what I will tell you is this
year the notes are coming due in our water utility. Every 10 years you have to pay your notes off or they convert to long-term financing. So not sure where the bond rates are right now. Um it probably be prudent if we can pay off that note. And because we received so
much money in connection fees last year, um which the council's aware I updated you every time those checks came in. Um we received approximately 1.2 1.25 25 million in connection fees. My recommendation would be consistent what we do with the pilot fund is to fund
debt service and capital improvements for the water utility with that money. It's a onetime revenue. It's a onetime expense to avoid having to refinance the bond. Let's increase our debt service and try to pay some of that down. Um we
did sustain the water utility by water rents alone last year. We made approximately $43,000 more than we anticipated just by the water rates. Okay. On tonight's agenda, there's a a consideration for another rate adjustment. U but the water utility was
self- sustaining last year, which is crucial because for years it was not, right? And it's not self- sustaining because of the connection fees we we received. It's self-sustaining because of the rents. Water consumption was down last year historically, but because the rates were adjusted, we were okay. But
my recommendation would be with the surplus we received in the connection fees, pay down the debt, put it in the capital improvement fund so we can make improvements to water mains for water meter projects, whatever the other onetime expenses would be. Um, we don't need to make that decision today. Um, I
would like to see what the water uh annual financial statement looks like before I present the budget to uh you all for introduction. Obviously, I'll keep you all um in the loop on that, but I think that would be a very wise and prudent uh use of this one-time funding.
Any questions? Yeah. >> Uh I I see a huge jump from the insurance. >> Yeah. >> It's more than the 36% increase >> in in the water. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, some of that is also in what's included that is Medicare uh part B
reimbursement. So, it's not just active um health insurance. It's a portion of the health insurance that goes towards retirees. So, whatever employees retired from the water department that are still on our retirey health insurance, we have to pay that portion as well. Um it's
also for um I have a statutory expense sheet. Um some of the dental that's a separate line. So, if you look at the health insurance increase when you go over, if you scroll to the right a little bit, you see where it's
28303 for the amount requested. >> Mhm. >> Um, not only is that for the active employees, it's also budgeting in the event we were to rehire some of the water employees that left. Um, I budgeted for family plans, which is
about 36,000 a piece. I did that to build a little bit of a cushion. Um, in the event that they come and they're singlepayer, we save a little bit of money on that. Um, but again, this is this is just a little bit higher because we do have some open spots in the water utility to fill. Same with the sore. Um,
but that number will likely be dramatically reduced once we run the appropriation cap and the cap exemptions for the health insurance and we decide what health insurance plans the new hires will be going on. Um big thing though is the water um that
we're purchasing, right? That's the big increase. We're spending over a million dollars on buying water every year, right? We don't treat our own. Gets pumped in from the reservoirs. Any other questions on this?
Um, I'll as part of a staff meeting or part of my report, um, at a subsequent council meeting, uh, once the auditors finish the AFS and I get a final number on our surplus, we can then decide how much, if any, the council wants to appropriate towards increase in debt
service beyond the minimum payments, the capital improvement fund, so we don't need to take out new debt, whatever the council desires. Okay, scroll down a little bit, you'll see sore utility fund. Um same thing there. Last year we
appropriated um it was 656 696. Um you'll see 2025 is a little less because we modified it for a transfer which we moved to the other expense line. Um this year that full-time salary amount is 615 615,000.
Again, Rebecca's salary was previously paid out of there. Last year, my salary was previously paid out of there. I moved mine out last year. I moved Rebecca's out this year. Um, anyone else that we can move into current next year. We will continue to do that. A $65,000 line for overtime. As the DPW
salaries go up every year, so too does the overtime. Um, you see the audit um increased slightly from 10,000 last year to $12,346. Um in the soar, your big account is the um heat, power, and light. This is the
gas and electric to keep the sore treatment plant running. Um we have $150,000 there. We spent last year 126 uh 535. I'm sorry, 353. Last year we spent 126 353 and I appropriated 150,000
this year. Um sludge removal contract. Um, this was just awarded uh for a two-year term. You'll see that's $325,000. Um, that's a contractual amount. Um, GIF insurance, uh, you'll see it
went from $148,000, $130 to $200,000. Uh, to Deputy Mayor Miser's point, you'll see a very large amount for health insurance. Uh again, um this is to budget for the retirees that were still receiving benefits and any uh vacancies in the uh sore operating
budget. Um that number will likely be reduced once we have to start calculating uh the appropriations within the soore utility could be justified by the revenues. Um same exact situation as the water utility. Um you'll see our debt service is substantially higher
especially on line 579 ban principle. Last year that number was 42,000. This year it's $363,100. If we don't pay that note, it converts to long-term financing. Not the end of the world. Um, but if we have the money um that we received from connection
fees, it may be prudent to uh pay down some of this debt a little bit. Um, you'll see we have no deferred charges, which means we didn't over expend or overappropriate any budget accounts last year, and we did hit our revenue. The water and sewer utility did not run a
deficit last year. That's the first time in a number of years. I think we can we can say that. Any questions on water or sore? I wish Mike was here, but like I said, he's out on the water main break right now. Um I encourage you if you have any questions about any of these budgets, not just water or sort, email
me. I can get with the department head. We can schedule a team's call, um phone call. We can just answer them via email. Uh any of the questions that you have? Okay. Any questions? Uh oh. Let's go.
Let's go fire department first and then we'll end it with the police. Make it easy for you. >> What's up, Al? >> What's going on, guys? Good evening, everyone. How are you? >> Soon to be sworn in chief. He's chief now, but he'll get sworn in in about 20
minutes. >> Alex Boamp's here. Um, our fire account is very, very, very similar. It's been said before, I'll say it again. The fire department's the best savings that we have uh in the township.
Um, they run a a professional outfit for a very, very small budget comparatively. Um, one thing I do want to talk about and I'll have the chief talk about it in a little bit is the u increase in the vehicle maintenance account. Yes. But we'll run through your operating budget real quick and then you could do some capital.
>> Um, the operating budget last year overall was $25,850. This year it's $212,500. Your biggest increase in there um I'm just trying to see where we can put
that. just some vehicle maintenance. I think it's software maintenance. We increase software maintenance. >> Um, so I'm going to quickly turn it over to the chief. This is a very nominal increase. Again, 212,500 proposed for the operating budget, but I do want the
chief to talk about vehicle maintenance and also um the capital request that you're putting in. So, uh, as you all know, we've approved the, uh, new ladder truck, but that's still at this point probably late 2028, early 2029, so three and a half, four years out. Uh, 74
downstairs is approaching 25 years old. The ladder truck and cost of parts and repairs have gone through the roof. Um, it's an aging vehicle that we need to keep running for the next four years. So, we bumped that up and we have some other apparatus are approaching 20 years now, too. So, >> so we I'm going to pull that up. The vehicle maintenance,
>> if you can pull that up, the actual number. So, for fire last year, uh, vehicle maintenance, uh, 35,000 was appropriated. Uh, we spent every single penny of 35,000 and then some. Um, this is just for steering boxes and, um, you
know, any pretty much anything that needs to be fixed on the larger apparatus. >> Correct. Uh, and then upcoming this year, there's a turntable issue that moves the ladder left and right and another steering box as well. >> So, we appropriated 50,000. We increased that budget line by 15,000. uh again to
keep that that apparatus moving. Uh do you want to talk about some of the capital items? >> Yeah, so we uh we requested $80,000 in capital for this year, $50,000 for uh new turnout gear. Uh each set's costing us now about $5,000 to outfit um one member with gear. It's only good for 10
years. So we on a trying to build in a replacement cycle so that we're not hit every 10 years with this huge expense. So, uh, $50,000 for that, $25,000 for a new gear racks to outfit center company downstairs to bring them in line with what's in South End and North End, and
then $5,000 for gas meters to measure carbon dioxide and natural gas. They're one of the uh biggest calls we go on, CO alarms and odors of gas. Their useful life's about 68 years. We have four of them that are need to be replaced. So, we're going to replace um the gas meters
um for the chiefs and for the vehic for the apparatus that go out. Um the fire department's done a really really great job uh over the past year with recruitment. Um so, that's something that Yeah, captain towers. added uh five or six uh full-time members and a bunch of juniors that we brought in that
hopefully stay through high school and start filling our ranks. >> And um that's something that the township has uh obviously endorsed wholeheartedly and supported with respect to any type of u material that they need, tents, tablecloths, banners. Um it's it's just a great um dynamic and
something that the Captain Tower and the fire department's really been doing a great job at. Um, aside from the vehicle maintenance account, uh, which obviously did see an increase because the apparatus are getting old and they are quite costly to increase, the fire department budgets really constant, um,
fire department does a really great job at maintaining that. Um, and I'm I'm hoping that, you know, this year is no different. And the capital request items, um, the gear racks here will be great for the members at center company to get something new and exciting, um, and functional as I think they gain a little bit of space because it goes up
>> a little bit more space, a little bit taller than what's there now. >> Um, and then, uh, the turnout gear, obviously, if we can get that on a a cycle as opposed to a one big hit at a time. >> Yeah. >> You know, it would be >> work that out for the next going forward
instead of trying to hit it every 10 years. >> Any questions for the fire chief? >> Thank you. Good. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for all you guys do. >> Thank you. Thank you for supporting us. Great job. >> Good job. You can't leave here. You're
getting sworn in. >> CGPD, come on up. >> We saved the most expensive item for last. >> Thank you. >> I'm trying to figure out was it an accounting degree or law degree? >> School for >> either. You want to pull one of one of
those chairs up? You could sit up here. >> Good evening everyone. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. Good evening. >> I'm going to throw Chief Pumprey a curveball only because it's right where my screen is right now. Um, so we just talked about how we increased the fire
uh vehicle maintenance account. Um, and then you're going to look right on the screen. You're going to say, "Why is the police maintenance account 0 when there were $39,000 in there last year?" Uh, and it's not because they're not getting any money. Uh, what happened there? It's
not because they're not getting any money. It's because we moved this into the police department's operating budget. So, I don't want the council to say, "Oh my god, the police maintenance account is zero, but the police operating budget increased $40,000.
I moved the money from here to the police budget, >> right? Why' we do that?" >> Uh, it makes more sense to have it in one place uh for really accounting. Uh we can get a better handle on where we're spending money on our patrol cars. Uh, one of the best things we've done,
we implemented a few years ago when we purchased the new cars, we build in a 5-year, 100,000 milei warranty. Uh, we normally don't hold on to the car to the end of the warranty. So, any major expenses related to maintenance, and we
cause them transmissions, coil packs, uh, transcoolers, radiators, >> steering racks. >> Yeah. Steering racks. Uh, Ford fixes them under warranty. So the majority of our maintenance that we're spending every year, oil changes, tires, and brakes. And uh what we did was with the
advice of the CFO and Mr. Zeli, we took that out of the general utility account and put it into the police vehicle account where we can watch it closer and make sure we're staying within that number and uh gives a better picture of how the police department spending every year.
>> All right, so we're going to go through the police's operating budget. Um, I'm sure the council may have some questions for you or anything you guys want to opine, jump in. Um, so salaries and wages, again, as the council knows, it's contractual. Um, you'll see this number
as 5,175,000. Pull your mic closer. 5,175,000. Again, that's a contractual increase. Um, right beneath that, you'll see part-time salaries and wages. Chief, can you just speak to this one briefly? last year. There is no money appropriated
there, but there's 26,000 appropriated right now. >> Yes, we took the uh position from records from a full-time position to a part-time position. Uh prior to that, it was about a $70,000 line item. Uh we've cut it down to 26,000. Uh I think a substantial savings to help offset our
overall operating number. Uh considering the appropriation cap. >> Um thank you, Chief. You you'll see the line below that is police overtime. Um I a cool little fact was shared with me earlier today. I don't know if the chief is able to share it, but u you'll see
the police overtime is $175,000. Um I will say that our officers, the chief, the captains do a really great job at um being very judicious with the overtime amount. Um our officers do not take it lightly. Um do you want to
>> Yeah, that last year was a tough year for the PD between retirements and staffing. Uh we ran thin. We had a family leave issue with one of the officers. Uh having said all of that, compared to some of our neighbors and keeping tabs with them, we're uh
approximately half of what they're spending on overtime. And I think it's a credit to the officers. Uh they really pulled the line on it. Uh it adjusted their ability to take time off because we were running at minimum constantly and to not cause overtime. the officers
would just manage their time off a little bit better and wait till the schedule allowed it so it wouldn't create uh an overtime for the township. Uh we did a pretty good job uh considering going into this year. Uh we also have mandatory training now related
to licensing. Uh they require uh four hours of defensive tactics. Firearms runs about six hours per officer plus active shooter which the state has generously mandated on all of us without any funding. uh a rough number for the
police department since it's mandated. Uh most of the officers are pretty good. They'll take compensatory time or we adjust their schedule for when they're working so we don't incur any costs. But if we had to pay that obligation, we're looking at about 45 to 50,000 in overtime, which I think kind of explains
the jump in our overtime. From last year, we were budgeted about 120. We'll be at about 175 this year. The same thing, we have to assume they're going to take it. If they don't, we have a little bit of a cushion built into that number. >> Um,
>> real quick, Joe, the contractual increase for the salaries and this year we're also fully staffed. Well, I don't know if it's fully staffed, but in comparison in comparison to 25, fiscal 25 now we have more officers. >> We're we're getting back to full officers. I think what's helping us is probably the breakage.
>> They're starting they're starting at >> step one low salary. >> We're looking at about 10,000 103,000 in salary increase. We offset it by about 40,000 by going to the part-time position and we ate up another 15,000 in um operating and expenses that we're not
taking this year to kind of cut that number in half for the increases this year. >> That's great. Thank you. >> Um you also see here crossing guard salaries and wages 172,000. Uh I know the chief and the captains work very diligently and closely with our crossing
guards. Um we, as the council's aware, two years ago, we increased their hourly weight range. Um >> there was a very skewed system where the guards were paid um more hours than they worked to overinflate the dollar amount
that they were receiving. We got rid of that. We pay them for the hours that they work at a rate that they could that makes sense. Um and I think, knock on wood, it's been been working. >> We've been doing well. Yes. Yeah. Um, again, this is important because if the guards are staffed, that does that means an officer doesn't have to staff that
post, which means one of two things. A, we don't have overtime, or B, uh, the road isn't short by patrol officer. Uh, so that's it's crucial. Um, >> and we're fully staffed there, too, right now, right? >> On the guards, >> crossing guards. >> Yes, we're fully staffed. We're just trying to find some substitutes now so
that we can >> Now we're getting Yeah. Yeah. It's a dream. Maybe one day. >> Okay. Um, I'm going to move down to all these accounts really stayed the same. You're going to see a big decrease in conference training and dues from 37,000
to 27,000. We cut that by 10,000. >> Yes. >> Why? >> Uh, that was the promotional exam expenses for last year. It was actually across two accounts. It was about 28,000 total we're able to take out of the budget this year. >> So, we're saving 28,000. We're not doing a promotional test. Um, computer
software and maintenance 99,000 last year. It's 117,000 this year. increased a little bit. Um there's just ongoing costs with that. >> Yeah, the we rely heavily on the technology and it constantly increases each year. They they find a way to get us for licensing and storage.
>> Um the other big one I want to talk to is police vehicles. Um last year it was 149,000. This year it's 190 uh,000. Uh not because we're buying an additional vehicle, but because of what I Go ahead, explain. We moved the money. That was moving the money from the one
maintenance account into the police vehicle account. So, it's all in one area for what police vehicles are costing the township. >> Okay. Um overall the police budget um where was it last year?
5,677,400. uh very nominal increase from 5 million uh5,526,647 last year. Uh Chief, can you just talk to your capital points real quick? If there's anything else you want to share with the council, bud. >> Sure. We're we're wrapping up 25 capital because we seem to run behind. We have a
new alco test that should be arriving hopefully shortly. Uh we're going to start charging neighboring towns because we're still up and running on the old instrument. Uh we put seven new defibrillators in the cars last year uh with capital. We have two new laser units which arrived today, a new
evidence computer and we did some renovations to the building. More importantly to not be taking reports in the lobby anymore. Uh we can bring them inside where there's a little uh more decorum of privacy. Uh when people are reporting some of their troubles in their life that people walking by don't
take it in. Uh going into the 2026 capital uh we have to finish up a component of the new desk which is a recording device to record the phones and the radios. Uh that was the only piece we couldn't get in when we did the desk. We'll do it this year. Uh we have
the NextG 911 coming. Uh that's third quarter of this year. Uh we're shopping prices still. We have our current vendor uh is coming in at about 76,000 uh to get us up to snuff uh through Motorola. We're looking at Zetron also,
which is our current desk system. Uh we're going to do a FirstNet radio integration. Uh these portables run anywhere from $3 to5,000 a piece. Uh we're able to put them on our phones. Uh it's about $10,000 to do the equipment and it's about $8 a month per phone. So
there'd be a substantial savings there instead of buying these and paying licensing fees on the state system for it. Uh we're doing that also because of the OEM. Yeah. Big expense into OEM. >> Uh and then uh there'll be some building improvements IT related. Uh we need some
new runs for uh our computers. Nothing crazy, but just we we do a good job. We chip away each year. We we pick a little project to not do it all at once. And uh we'll be doing the same thing going into this year. >> Um what about cameras? Any any new
cameras? >> We have quite a bit of AOPRS. We have three more waiting to go up. We're waiting for the weather to break. Uh it's going to bring our total to nine locations. Uh what we've done is uh we've worked with Veron. I have a meeting with the chief tomorrow. Uh
we've blanketed the Ridge Road corridor. Uh we have a good net so to speak along Ridge Road because that's where we've seen an increase in our stolen vehicles and burglaries. Uh we have 23 covered where we meet Verona. We have Fairview covered and we're going to finish out
the north end. Uh North Caldwell has Mountain Avenue. We're going to take 23 and we have East Lindsley. Uh the cameras are unbelievably helpful. Uh we cleared at least 20 cases last year with them. Uh one of them was up on the
fairway as a result of a occupied burglary and they stole two cars. We recovered the two cars and five of the six subjects have been charged. Uh now Detective Christopher Lynch is a unbelievable resource for our agency in the township. Uh he how he clears things
is beyond me, but he is good at it. I'm not a social media person, but he is. Uh we've used it um shopliftings uh where we're able to find a car once we get a description, hit and run crashes, and then other agencies also uh
get our data now. Uh we're set up through the state through a repository for all the ALPR systems. They're able to query our cameras and it's led to other cases they're able to clear. Uh some occasions, too. We just flush them out. uh they hit our cameras. Uh it hits
headquarters and our cars. Uh the officers start going to the area and usually we're able to prevent it before it even happens because of the cameras here. They're they are unbelievable uh what they've done for us. >> There is an increased cost with running them though with the data and and >> I'm working on that with FirstNet. We're
going to probably get the prices down. >> We just had them in recently. We're going to uh do something different to bring the cost down on the data and the phones to save some money there also this year. >> Fantastic. So, yeah, we we we enjoy having them. Like I said, the technology helps us. It's definitely a force
multiplier. >> Um, real quick, anything you want to add about our new officers? >> Yeah, the the new officers are doing very well. Thank you. Uh, they've assimilated well into the agency. Uh, they were received well. They're very anxious to come into work every day. I see a lot of smiles. Uh I I think the
benefit of coming from another agency is they've had a taste of what else is out there and they see what Cedar Grove can offer them and they truly appreciate it. Uh they've been doing a really good job. Uh we got we were fortunate. It was a a tough process to go through that many interviews. Uh somehow we weed it down
that list and I'm very happy with the officers we've got. Uh they've been doing very well. >> And the promotions too. >> Promotions have been tremendous. Uh the captains uh we restructured a little bit. so to speak in uh responsibilities. We reworked our table of organization
and divided out personnel almost evenly between the two captains between the guards, the detective bureau and then patrol uh to kind of lighten the load on everybody and uh internal affairs has been moved under the administrative captain. And with the admin officer,
Officer Mroy retiring, uh we have split out his responsibilities through the two captains and myself. Uh, so again, it's a a position I'm not going to be replacing, but we're doing pretty well with the technology. Uh, we're we're getting up to speed on it. Yeah. I don't know if the captains knew exactly what
they were in for. >> Uh, but >> they show up every day. Still show up good. >> They're smiling. >> Yeah, the lieutenants and the sergeants, everyone's meshing well on their squads. Uh, we've had a couple of injuries. We're hoping to get them back within a week or two, at least on light duty. But but again, uh to the officer's credit,
even with being down from injuries, they're they're towing the line and keeping our minimums without generating overtime. Uh so we do owe a thanks to the officers for being cognizant of that uh with the township. >> Okay. >> Excellent. >> Any other questions for the police department?
>> Well done. >> Again, there's some some cushions built in here as the chief indicated. Once we get our appropriation cap with where we're at, we can uh make any adjustments we need and go from there. >> All right. Excellent. >> Last two things I want to hit on. You guys are good. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you.
>> Last two things I want to hit on the OEM budget and the debt service. We'll do debt service real quick. Um this is my world 455 on the Excel sheet account 601450900. Uh I want I want the council to look very closely here. um
for $100,000 more for $100,000 more we can be extinguishing all of our notes up until 2021 2021. >> So if you look here ban interest that's our statutory minimum that we have to pay for the interest on our notes. Um
bond principal is a minimum payment 916,000 bond interest minimum payment 47,000. Where we have some flexibility is in um ban principal. This is how much of our bond anticipation notes we could pay down every year. We aggressively
aggressively pay down. If you look last year, we paid $1,938,535. My recommendation this year is to increase that to $2,15,195, a difference of $99,670. Why? By doing that, we will be five years ahead of our debt payown schedule,
which is incredible. We're eliminating interest. Um, I would recommend to the council that we either a not take as great of a bond anticipation note this year, or b reduce funding of the capital improvement fund, which is no debt whatsoever. It's cash. Uh, we don't have
as many projects coming online this year. Um, our overall number that we need for capital is going to be less. So, we can either fund it with cash or we could take it out as a a bond anticipation note. Um, but because we're not taking as many projects, I think it would be wise if we pay down uh this
debt a little bit faster. Um, I love paying it down. It helps our credit. Uh, if we were to ever go get a credit rating again, it would likely go up, especially next year. If we can prove that the utilities ran uh self-sufficient for two years, um, we'd have really strong financials to to run with. We're already double A plus. I
will not be happy till we're AAA rated municipality. Um, again, this is areas where given the uh tax levy and the tax points, uh, we could play with this number. We don't have to pay down as much. I could cut the 100,000 out and we'll still be ahead of schedule. Um,
this is just a recommended recommended payown schedule for now. >> How's our fund balance look if we do that? >> I don't have it right now. Uh, that's part of the annual financial statement. Last year, our fund balance was around 11.8 million, um, which was pretty good. Um, our goal is to constantly
regenerate. I think will regenerate a little faster last year because we had some money left in appropriation reserves. Um, and also because pilot funds from Hilltop, I don't know if it's this year, but next year are set to increase. So when the pilot funds from Hilltop increase, when the pilot funds
from 1201 hit our books, when the pilot funds from Cliffside Drive hit our books, that's all going to go to our fund balance, right? Um, our interest in our accounts, we exceeded our anticipated revenue, we made over $900,000 in interest. All that goes to our fund balance. So again, if we're not
funding the capital improvement fund at $1.2 million, which we did last year, I'll show you real quick. If you look at the capital improvement fund, last year, we took $1.7 million of our fund balance and put it into the capital improvement fund. If we put
$500,000 this year, we're saving 1.2 million. We could put a h 100,000 towards the note payown, we're saving 1.1 million. Stays in fund balance, right? Also, uh Rebecca and I are working on cancelling old debt. Um she has resolutions pending that we can cancel debt which goes back to our fund
balance as well. All right, last I'll do OEM and then we'll wrap this up. As you know, we have a new OEM uh team. Um here we we moved a lot of the money. You see this 37,000 right here? Um this was
for um the state police radio access. As the chief said, we just paid 5 uh,000 per radio. We also pay a a a fee every year for each radio to be on the network, including the board of ed, the town, the DPW, the police, and the fire department. That's coming out of here. Um, I built up a lot in this account. We
can cut if needed with the appropriation cap. Emergency notification is 10,000. There was 5,000 in that previously. Um, conference seminars and dues. That's for all of us to get the ICS training that's required. Um, there's ICS 100, 200, 300.
um and so on. Um I have 100. Um everyone has 100. We're going to go get 200. That way everyone's compliant with the OEM directives. That's why you saw that increase a little bit. But again, there there's some money in here um that we can play with and cut with respect to
the appropriation cap. >> Any questions? >> Um I have a question, Joe. I know we're over time. >> That's okay. >> The word of the day is water main break, right? So what where does that come out of and how does that impact our overall budget? >> Sure.
So if you look at the water utility account, um our big thing is the biggest cost with that is the labor around it. When it happens on a Sunday, we're paying double time, which is why this morning I came and increased this account a little bit. >> Um >> but the the parts and materials um we
have a pretty good stock of. Um, usually at the end of the year we buy more because we know our budget's winding down and we want to have the supplies. Um, for all intents and purposes, the big cost here is this the the labor. >> Uh, which is why we increased it. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> Um, average water mean break like yesterday probably cost us >> close to 15 $20,000. >> Okay. Any questions? So, I'll wrap this up so we can get the council meeting going. Um, I just want to end with a brief statement. Um, these are just
draft appropriations. Um, by local finance notice and state statute, I have to present this to you by a certain deadline. By no means are these final. Um, I have yet to go through this with my fine tooth comb. Rebecca has yet to go through it with hers. Um, as we get the AFS in with our fund balance, with
our tax points, with our appropriation cap calculation, how much we can raise, with our levy cap calculation, how much can be funded by taxes. We will then sit, she and I, together in the conference room for probably two days, crunching the numbers with the final
appropriations, going through with the fine tooth comb, making any necessary adjustments, funding the utilities differently, reducing the utilities differently, funding current fund uh appropriations, reducing current fund appropriations until we strike that magic number that I'm hoping to present
to you in March for introduction or April, depending whenever we get there. Please, please to the members of the public watching, to the council, this is an open and transparent process. Members of the council, if you have questions, members of the public, email me, call me. I've been doing this since October
of this year. Um, I live in this world. Rebecca puts time and time and time into this. Um, and hours upon hours. Uh, we really want to strike the perfect budget for the residents. Uh, being mindful of everyday expenses that we all experience at the supermarket, in public, anywhere
you go. Um, but we still strive to provide really good government service of all the essentials at a really good price. Um, please reach out to me. I think this concludes our 2026 very rough draft budget appropriations. If there's any questions that Go ahead, C. >> Just one real quick. Just for the public
and for us. Am I reading this correctly? That our adopted and proposed budget for 25 was greater than this year's. >> Um, if you are looking at >> 663. >> Yeah. So that includes all of the utility accounts. So if you take our
current fund, our water utility, shore utility, pool utility, and the solid waste district, solid waste was exactly the same except for the increase in contract which was on for tonight's bid award uh which went from 815,838,500. As it stands presently with the health
insurance increases, there is a decrease in overall budget appropriations across all funds, current water, sore, pool, and solid waste gas. >> Right. I'm going to mention in my report, but I want to say it here as we're concluding. We have a 36% increase
in health insurance and we have increases across the board for costs of materials and everything else and labor and our budget is less than last year, our proposed budget, just for the public to understand that. But thank That's the goal. Appreciate it. >> Um, okay. I I think that concludes my portion. I'm going to start packing up
if you want to ask for an adjournment, mayor. >> Yes, I would love that. >> Thank you. May I have a second? >> Second. >> Roll. >> Roll call. >> Counciloman Peterson. Council SC. >> Councilmani.
>> Yes. >> Deputy Mayor Mer. >> Yes. >> Mayor Ma. >> Yes. Could you get a two-minut break before Andy starts? You guys could start without me while I finish this. >> Thank you very much, Joe. You did a great job.