##VIDEO ID:cVWD9d6z5Y8## on January 13th 2025 Department of Community Affairs um Mr zelli could you tell us more about this yes mayor as you're aware this was on our staff meeting agenda U two weeks ago and at the time the township attorney recommended pulling it uh being that it's due to be considered before January 31st this is the last public meeting that this Council was going to have therefore it's on today's agenda um this is a resolution uh regarding the fourth round of affordable housing that the state set forth um um sending the calculations back down to the DCA this is the first step in a long memo that the council has regarding the adjustments that the township can then go and seek through a vacant land adjustment and other types of adjustments uh to reduce that number and also as the council's aware we're still in active litigation um with I believe 28 other towns now uh suing on this uh on this matter great um Mr zelly do those towns um are they continuing to increase as the week go on yeah I think they're continuing to increase a mayor and I also believe that um the litigation is starting to become a little bit more specific as to the issues uh which might make uh some more people join as well great thank you um may I have a motion please so move a second please second um roll call please Council misseri yes Council Miss Ali yes Deputy Mayor Miga yes mayor scavage yes item three meeting is open to residents of of the township wishing to be heard on any item on or off the agenda concerning Township business uh looking behind me there's no one here SE house um and Rebecca and Rebecca hi Rebecca um so I'm going to close that portion of the meeting and then um item four is uh you just need a motion to adjourn please so moves second uh roll call please councilman misseri yes councilman zazali yes Deputy Mayor Miga yes yes may SC yes just real real quick though um before uh we got started when I read the open public meeting statement I said budget hearing because that's next and not special meeting so I just wanted to correct that um on the record I know it's a minor thing okay thank you you want to read a new open public for the budget hearing yeah can you read the original okay yep so I'll read the original original budget hearing the budget okay perfect so we're getting We're Gonna Roll right into it can't you gota wait till 510 me 55 St up at 515 all right I could have take a break do that yeah do that so we're just going to take a a break till 5:15 for the budget hearing to start all right I'll I'll put the switch back on it um you you can keep it recording and I'll just put the switch back on at 515 if that's easier for you okay no no we're done that's already done so so we're going to resume at 5:15 10 minutes with public yeah let it run and I'll put the green switch back on and then we should be good cool all right text me if it's do you want to pull another chair up for the department heads no I'm going to I'm just going to do the first portion and then we're going to do Marissa first so she can get out and then we'll we'll go back with our regular order morning e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e for [Music] go ahead mayor okay good evening everybody um may I have roll call please Madam clerk Council misseri here councilwoman Peterson is out councilman zali here Deputy Mayor Miga here mayor scavage here um adequate notice of this budget hearing was duly provided to the Verona Cedar Grove times and the Star Ledger by email on January 13th 2025 filed with the Township Clerk and posted on the public bulletin board in a municipal building Lobby in accordance with the open public meetings act item number two public comment um is there anyone here wishing to give public comment I'm seeing none that ends the portion of the meeting um um item three we're going to get into our budget hearing now and we're going to start with um Marissa mayor if I may begin yeah um this is just the appropriation side roughly of what the uh 2025 estimated budget is going to be we're a long ways from finalizing this as council's aware uh we still have to finish up our ads our debt statement our AFS or financial statement and uh calculate some cap calculations uh the goal of tonight is to a rough picture of where things are at some increases that are unavoidable as well as some things that we hope to uh see changed over the next year uh this is the first year that we are presenting the budget on Edmonds and the template that you have in front of you and that's on the screen is from Edmond software as the council's aware there's a $100,000 Capital ordinance um appropriating uh the service that allowed us to do this um next year hopefully when the software is integrated on all the computers everyone will have their budget templates done through the software and it'll migrate nicely into this some of the numbers on here and I'll explain it as we go through uh we're taking when I began the budget prep back in October that's why they may not be totally current uh however that being said next year you'll see live data and also some of the data from here was converted from the old gfms system into the new edmin system that's why a lot of the lines and kudos to Rebecca have been Consolidated have been organized and hopefully this makes it a little bit quicker and a little bit more streamlined knowing that office supplies just covers office supplies and not each individual item accompanied there in we're going to start with wreck today I'm Rea Hi how are you good how are you good um I want to point out some things in wreck starting with the full-time salary and wages as you could see this number is $156,300 th000 that was appropriated last year that's not because everyone's making a lot more money but what happened here was uh two salaries were previously paid full-time out of the swimming pool utility and in an attempt to strengthen the swimming pool utility and make it um a little bit more self-sufficient self-liquidating we're trying to pull half of the salaries out of the pool and putting them into wreck whether this works or not we'll know once we get closer to our cap calculation and hopefully do it in a way that allows us to you know sustain a current fund of a moderate increase while helping the utility um putting them in Rec half the year and pool half the year also makes sense within the audit the pool's open half the year um and it allows some of the user fees to offset other costs that we see such as the increase of minimum wage which we'll get to um part-time salaries in Rec 115 there's an increase on that from 10,000 uh playground part-time salaries 37,000 was requested uh we budgeted 32 with the understanding that we may be able to move and transfer in the event that that runs short Building Maintenance and improvements 15,5 00 that's the same that was appropriated last year clothing and uniforms uh that got reduced from 2,000 to 500 conference indu is $1,000 that covers your CPO class right certified pool operator class is my conference for the New Jersey Recreation Association as well okay um Garden parking supplies 2,000 maintenance of other you'll see a $5,000 decrease from 55,000 to 50,000 you want just talk briefly about what this account uh in companies and what's paid out of here it's mainly clothing for the track all our clinics all our teams um will'll take mostly out of that line item um as well as trophies any kind of supplies that are needed for camps uh arts and crafts all of that in the summer um but that's mainly what's taken out of there um same with maintenance and supplies 10,000 that stay the same summer camp 2,000 rack equipment 10,000 um you see some of the other uh Project Graduation something we do every year it's $1,200 that stayed the same tennis 7,000 uh tree lighting 5,000 that also stayed the same track and field 3,000 um we're also cognizant that the council wanted to see an increase in services to the seniors um overall that's reflected throughout the various accounts in here as well and in other areas in the budget too so the overall wck budget in 201 24 was 266,000 that increases to $323,700 will set up um Bingo and other board games whether it's teaching them the games that they want to learn how to play or just bringing the games that they have there and letting everybody free play we have a couple trips set up we have one to Paper Mill Playhouse in April that already filled up very quickly um we did get a smaller bus for that but again I was just kind of trying to gauge interest so now knowing how popular it is next time I would obviously get a bigger bus and then we also have um a trip to Wine Creek Casino in Pennsylvania coming up as well so which is filling up and pickle ball and pickle ball thank you pickle ball that was a newer one so the senior C citizen pickle ball instruction um they really just teach senior citizens so it's rather than the adult program that we have um and the registrations are coming in people are happy about it so that's awesome and it's really great how quickly that all came together I mean really quickly so um thank you for all all the work that went into that we're going to jump to the pool unless there's any questions on Rec um just a brief aside on wre we're going to talk about it later but in capital for this year which we will talk about at the end of the meeting um we have an estimated 620,000 um appropriated in a bond uh anticipation note to retf Panther Park you won't see that in the budget that's a separate Capital sheet that's what we take the capital ordinance out on um but the turf field replacement is coming due and um as I explained to the council with some of the new rental fees that were collecting uh through working with Rebecca our hope is to set it up in such a way that by the time the next Turf replacement is there there's some decent money sitting in account that we can use to offset uh some of that so that's one of the capital items for w also in Rec when is that supposed to be scheduled so the capital Bond ordinance will try to mirror it with the introduction of the budget so hopefully by and then the funding becomes available 20 days after the stopple period with the adoption so um the funding is going to be there over the summertime the scheduling will be when it's the least amount of uh summer right right before the fall season definitely our goal is to definitely have it done and it's only like a what it should take two weeks it's not the not a huge turnaround that's the old purpose yeah yeah and has well believe it or not even though it's not there that long it's lived Beyond its useful life just by the sheer amount of use it'll be 11 years almost 11 years old by the time we do the work so and usually the life uh is 10 years so and the goal is to hopefully you know if it cost 600,000 this time maybe we'll have 250,000 in an account that we can use to offset some of that funding has the cost for Turf gone down since we I I heard it was more expensive years ago it kind of seemed the same I I wasn't there when they built it but from my understanding of what it was about 10 years ago it was it's it's compar it's so with inflation it's like so it's really down the cost of it because inflation yeah um any other questions on Rec we jump to the pool good pool good pools towards the back of the budget page 17 thanks Jo St uh as you could see here uh salaries and wages dropped from 91,000 to 6 65,535 and the reason we did that was to again help support the current fund with uh help support the utility by put into the current fund you also see there's an increase in part-time Wages that's because minimum wage is also going up uh again I think it's 15 we're at they seasonal Health 1430 for seasonal three 1390 last year so uh overtime slight decrease there uh some of the statutory expenses you could see in here chemicals and gas 43,000 that's because uh it's one of the biggest expenses in the pool that we continue to see but where're there's there's a big decrease is in the summerization and winterization of the pools um we used to pay for this service and U Mara found out that some other towns have someone that they train to do it and we have an individual who works at the pool that would be able to be trained that works for us full-time to winterize the pools so we're going to save probably close to 15 20,000 yeah wow by doing that um trying to go somewh most other accounts stay the same here it's hard to move the pool utility budget too much because of the uh you know it's it's relative instability uh as you could see health insurance just in the pool for those full-time employees went from 22770 last year to 3,155 there's a 17% increase in the state health benefits plan and our GIF multi-line defense went from 17280 to 20,000 um notably this year there is not um any money in the capital Improvement fund or in the capital outlay that we replace the pump last year again this is done in an attempt to help try and uh lower what we need to realize for the utilities uh just given uh we're not there yet with the final numbers on the membership numbers but hopefully they will support it this year uh overall the pool Budget on The Debt Service is the same actually slight decrease in debt service 113,877 to 11,500 um any questions on the pool budget question broke something um we're going to go to Celebration of public events and then Mara can go p is that that is page nine there's a overall ,000 increase in this budget um between real Panthers wear pink fireworks and Memorial Day picnic overall budget account last year's 26,000 that was raised to 32,000 this year so trying to make some events a little different a little bit more special adding $1,000 to the fireworks as we always do which really just uh covers some of the administrative costs as well any questions on this anything left for Marissa before we move fun great job good to go than all right you're good to go Mar Rebecca come up we're going to start way up to the top we're going Start Finance one oh one my D I see that all right we got Rebecca here and uh we're start with the finance budget on a positive note you could see the overall finance budget decreased from $238,000 last year to $216,500 this year why is that one of the main reasons is uh reducing the need to rely on HFA Consultants to help with the Edmond's transition as the council members we paid them to help build out the GL and assist in the transition between gfms to Edmonds uh thankfully we're nearly done using that service we're bringing a lot of the services back in house with Edmonds and that's where you see that major reduction overall salaries in here went from 168 to 168,000 277,000 computer software um which you could see on the sheet and on the screen um this cost is really just for the edins uh host fee uh to run the software conference dues and seminars 3500 that's for Becca cus and continue educations copier maintenance $11,000 office supplies $7,000 that increased from $6,000 and the financial consultants actually decreased from $45,500 to $10,000 which is why you see such a large decrease in the finance department budget any questions on finance so we'll roll right into tax collection next uh tax collection there's a very very very very modest that's the next line right underneath the audit as you can see the audit which charged a current fund only increased $664 again that might change depending on what we do with our utilities uh with respect to the tax collection budget last year that line was 115,000 uh this year that number goes to 8,479 and some of that changes comes from the salary of $94,400 which was 91,000 last year an increase in the computer software maintenance account from 9,700 to 10,000 and there's some readjusting on the accounts below uh which really kept them all consistent what they were last year printing dropped from 11,000 to 10,000 uh office supplies went from 1,000 to 1700 so relatively minor adjustments uh for this very small increase in finance any questions on tax assess uh tax collector n no uh Rebecca is working very diligently with our Auditors right now preparing our AFS and our ads and she's probably itching to get back downstairs do that yes all right thank you thanks REO um I'm going to do Legal Services real quick so I can get that off and then we'll have Rich Hamilton coming up Legal Services page two page two it's right after the tax sessor $175 decrease last year's budget was 100 9 5,175 uh this year it's 195,000 it's not because they reduced the rates it's because we use them very judiciously and uh as on an as needed basis as the clerk could probably attest any questions on our Legal Services Noone no okay Rich Hamilton come up hello everyone hello hey Rich so rich do you want to start with our um do you have our assessed Val uh assessed evaluation here okay you wanted to sure our total ratables uh for 2025 is 2 b275 m 47,500 that's an increase of 15 9 million from 2024 um average residential assessment is 4787 that's a $14 in $1,400 increase in value compared to uh last year um in a good real estate market we see a lot of building permits for additions and Renovations I think we had three new homes constructed last year um so those reflect those numbers um in a good real estate market we tend to see a lot of building permits so that keeps us busy um Richard we'll go through your budget first and then we can talk about the big Capital item this year sure uh tax assessor salaries and wages last year 124,000 that number increased 1225 577 added assessment that's $5,000 uh books Publications 250 conference and dues 3,400 office supplies 250 printing abiding 3100 special appr and appeals 16,000 overall very very modest increase of $2,577 in the tax assessor budget very simple budget very modest increases over the years as well just like we did with Rec though I do want to talk about um a capital item that we really have no choice but to include this year is the um reval we are now the oldest Ral in the county I believe we are and uh the County Board of Taxation has been incessant upon us to uh perform the Ral so you want to talk a little bit about that where we're at with that processes and then you know what's expected of us I do um our last reval was performed for the 2010 tax year uh which as Joe said does make it the oldest revaluation in Essex County um during that time though there are tools in the assessors tool boox that if a neighborhood needs to be adjusted I have adjusted them along the way um Cedar Grove didn't need a lot of that because generally our real estate market uh is appreciating at about the same rate so it's not just appreciation depreciation but our our neighborhoods our are the different types of properties in town moving together and since they have is why we have an old reval um so last year the Essex County Board of Taxation ordered us to to do a reval for the 2026 tax year the first step in that process is uh revisions to our tax maps our tax maps were last revised in 2008 for the 2010 revalve um uh this month we received tax map approval um many thanks to Suburban Consulting it is a highly detailed uh voluminous uh job of over a thousand changes either to the tax map or to the assessment software so we've gotten approval for that U the next step in the process is the request for proposals um I anticipate that we will publish that request for proposals and about 20 days after that we will receive proposals uh by revaluation companies uh to perform the task of the reval uh my job in that reval is really to be um a guide um because reval company comes in from outside Cedar Grove um so it's my way to show them the town show them uh how one neighborhood is different from another um all the sales data that I have collected I give to them so that they can accurately fairly uh come up with values for every property in the township um then typically um after the November elections is when those IAL values are published we have uh taxpayer hearings um someone may come out and ask for an additional um inspection if if they think some some piece of data is incorrect we'll do that and then in January of 26 um we'll submit those values to the Essex County Board of Taxation so that's going to be um part of our Capital Improvement fund number this year um and we we we estimated that to be around $400,000 uh the the the county wanted us to uh declare an emergency authorization to pay for it out of uh this year's budget or bond for it as an emergency and Rich did a really good job explaining to them why that would not be in the best financial interest of the township because we would end up paying more in interest on a $400,000 note than we would if it was lumped into a $1.9 million note um and they were pretty receptive to that yes they were any questions for rich on just on the procedure so how does that work how does the revals work so they have appraisers that come out basically the company comes out right field inspectors um first uh the first thing we'll do is um we'll have a public meeting in council chambers just to explain to the public the process and then at before they begin inspections in any and all neighborhoods they will mail to those Property Owners to say hey beginning on this date will be in your neighborhood if no one's home we'll leave uh a postcard or a letter for you and then we can uh come back and do the interior inspection but while they're there typically they will uh do the exterior portion of the inspection a lot of measuring uh notes noting the condition size um all the factors that they use uh to estimate the value of the property and that typically would be about a six-month process for both residential and Commercial properties and then as I said uh after the November elections um is when those initial value letters will will go out one of the important things we'll say at our first meeting is please don't take your new value and multiply it by the previous year's tax rate because revals are Revenue neutral uh if you double the values the rate comes down so that you only col collect the sum total for school County and Municipal Taxes so that's one thing we try to uh allay that fear is that don't take your new value which generally if you're a 2010 to a 2026 reval your new value most likely is going to be higher so if all the values are higher don't use the previous years's rate I I I'll say that a few hundred times in the process um and then taxpayer hearings and then publish um publish those values um uh well just like this year we're sending out the postcards uh uh on about February 1st and that'll be the same for next year um and then if people disagree with their values they have the right to challenge that value so on the capital um budget that includes the mailers and everything else not just the appra the what we estimate all included yes um I put a you know figure in there just to placehold it um other towns are getting revals and what we're going to plan on doing is see how many lines they have on the tax lines and try to get an estimate of what that company's charging them for that many lines compared to what we are at with the amount that we have um there's not many companies that do it so you're kind of at the whim of probably two companies in the state right yes um and again it's you know it's not a professional service right so it has to go out the bid M so at that point you're stuck with the lowest responsive responsible bidder I guess and in the writing of the RFP things like those mailings is the responsibility of the reval company so uh when it's it's a it's a large document the request for proposals but it's it's all of those things uh that are taken into consideration great thank you and if there's so if these if there are tax increases for people it would become effective for 202 yes for 2027 2026 yes just like every year um when we pay our property taxes in February and may typically we are paying 1 half of what we paid the previous year and then when the town strikes a tax rate the third and fourth quarters uh billing is based on that new tax rate based on the new budgets so same in a reval year those first two quarters will be based on pre- reval taxes and the third and fourth quarter is the is the reconciliation but again we we're going to try we we'll publish those values um typically like in in our last reval um we sent out when we sent out the value letter um what we said was hey based on what we know about the budget so far and what we know about these new assessed values we can estimate a tax rate for people so that we'll give them that as much information as we can uh but there's there's always three types there's Property Owners whose taxes go down in a reval um they tend to be very quiet um once it goes up we tend to hear from the most and then the large middle is uh generally uh taxes stay about the same even pre and post reval what they're paying what they're paying in taxes yeah any other questions for Rich I do not good Richard good go thank you we're going to do Town Clerk and then we're going to jump into ipal Court Adam clerk P one yeah MERS Council good evening good evening uh as you can see the town clerk's budget last year 172,000 uh this year 178,00 uh the clerk as she always does kept all the increases very modest to those that were uh unavoidable you want to speak to some of those and and we can go through the budget then yes thank you um there are some small increases in our annual mandatory Municipal membership dues such as n njlm um which is based upon the population um mccpc which is one of our co-ops um and IM IMC which is actually the clerks Association International clerks Association that gets paid by the town um also as you know star lger is going digital I'm not sure of the new cost as of yet but to offset those costs I will prare the affidavit for all of our um to the official newspapers from now on currently the cost from Star Ledger if I wanted to get affidavit was 100 so you imagine 100 for the budget 100 for the audit 100 for the bond ordinances as well as Verona see the grow times they're $40 a little bit um less expensive but still you should see a significant change for the better in that regard if I do it myself and again everything else is a very modest increase here um from 172 to 1788 um we'll jump real quick to the elections budget which is um 987 as the council knows this is uh in every other year expense increase um this year we're are budgeting $73,000 695 for all three elections that will be taking place that's the May min ipal the June primary and the November General last year that number was 21,000 um if the council remembers we did that number last year with the intention that this year's increase would be less going from 21,000 to whatever the number was than zero to whatever the number is um a lot of these costs the clerk has done a great job at U getting a detailed explanation of and we're still continuing to see if there's any reduction that the county would be willing to uh consider um for various items that um we feel might be might be a little little inflated um overall this number is 73695 um and we can certainly expect that this number will drop during 2026 budget because there is one less election any questions for the clerk no no okay thank you one thing um it was mentioned to me before about State reimbursement for the salaries for the board workers so I'm definitely going to get a jump on that early um they may help significantly as well as um I recommended using Township properties as ping locations that will reduce some costs um I should hear later this week if those buildings have been approved and also um as the township manager said I'm negotiating with the county to see if there's anything that I can do on my end um such as signs I mean we get charged for what I would consider simple things so like vote here signs some poing locations will be moved I wouldn't mind going to Amazon or Staples for a little less expensive fees um in order to take care of those cross yeah thank you great thank you thank you you jge cido you're in the hot seat oh how the tables have turned you good good afternoon good evening good everyone this is Judge candido's first budget as the municipal court judge so it'll make it nice and easy for him um we'll go through it and then you know judge if you just want to give us an update on how your transition is going certainly and how the Court's doing uh I think that's appropriate too now this budget's interesting because you'll see this is um closer to the back not all the way at the back page sheet uh 12 so in here you'll you'll see uh full-time salaries and wages went from 160,000 last year to 142,5 this year it's not because we're paying carry and Courtney less that's because we moved some money um to the part-time wage line uh last year part-time wages was 50,000 but you'll see an increase to $65,100 and part of that is just some restructuring within the budget uh to better reflect who's getting paid out of where uh acting judge you'll see an increase from $700 to 1750 judge you want to speak to that just briefly um yeah the um we the need for the acting judge has been great with the transition because as I've been the prosecutor for so many years not only in Cedar Grove but in other towns uh we have a lot of conflict of interest matters and so therefore uh the use of acting judges necessary to handle the conflict matters in terms of what happened last year also as you're aware judge bendy was um was ill and was out for you know quite a period of time and that was before I became the judge and before I went to the judge uh training which I had to go through so for a period of time we needed to have an acting judge basically as our judge non-stop for a number of months yeah I would say three or four months yeah and and thankfully Judge Williams is still coming once or twice a month B basically any any uh matter even if judge cido was not involved in it but any matter that arose during the time he was the prosecutor here he cannot hear um so Judge Williams um with the help of Terry and and Courtney um and Samantha consolidate all of these conflict matters into one or two days a month and they clear out the docket um in addition to judge candido once a week regular schedule session the conflicts are getting fewer and fewer we're going to see them you know it tail off as we get into uh into this year um overall the transition I think has been very smooth and very good I really um you know enjoyed doing the judging here in Cedar Grove um it's been you know quite a change for me because of as I indicated as a private practitioner and as a prosecutor and sometimes defense lawyer out of County I I you know I'm in a different role but I I think it's been smooth the court sta is terrific it's second to none in the county um and I say that from my experience really Terry and Courtney and Samantha are just uh wonderful Judge Williams from Livingston has been great as a mentor in fact I think he was actually assigned that role to me um uh fortunately I haven't had to call on him too frequently but um uh you know it's been it's really been a a good transition I think and um if any of you have any questions of me I'd be happy to judge one thing I want to talk about was the um if you go through the whole budget you're going to see a decrease from $310,995 181 to $223,600 line which just made it very confusing when we had bills coming in and we had to charge a portion of it to the Municipal Court the building department senior citizen Transportation part of the current fund and the four utilities so with the exception of the water sore pool and solid waste District in current fund which is what the court the building department and senior citizen Transportation line is all in current we made that number zero and when we get to the insurance line You'll see an increase there and the reason you'll see that increase is because all of this money that was previously in court building and the senior Line is now in one line in current that line was always there for whatever reason there was money charged into the Municipal Court Rebecca and I felt that this more accurately reflects the actual operating costs of the municipal court and it's easier for recordkeeping to pay all of these bills out of the one current fund account as opposed to for so that's the big decrease there that you see the other increase here is the zoom licensing this is important because we are upgrading the zoom zoom Pro it's CRC is a CRC license which gives us the ability to zoom in with the jails right and judge do you want to talk why it's more important that we could zoom zoom in with jails now well yeah it's it's absolutely necessary because we're now that we've come out of covid we're you know issuing more um warrants there's more individuals that are going to get picked up that are going to be brought to the jail that need to be accessed on our Zoom Court so without having the the access to the jail we would be in trouble in terms of people be getting released and then we we be at their Mercy as to whether they show up or not and take care of their cases we're taking care of a backlog uh warrants are being issued uh suspensions of driver's licenses are being issued again where we've basically had a three or four year Hiatus on that yeah so and same with the language line judge that there's a slight increase there too um which is not uncommon from last year um um yeah if I can just point with regard to the the language line and again we've been seeing this I saw this uh last year throughout the other courts I've been in um but we we have a much higher level of or number of people that come in that need translations um you know very Stark difference from what the situation was you know 10 years ago or even five years ago so I think it's going to be leveling off but I for the for the foreseeable future we are going to have to have language line on at least a handful of cases every court session language line is a great service we call them in um they're certified so there's you know um they're translating accurately um and it's just it's you know nice service to have available yeah and and the the rules require us as I'm sure you're somewhat aware we we we must make sure that every individual that comes before the court uh can understand what's going on and um and if there are cases that go to trial even if there are witnesses that need translations we're going to need to use language Vol for that so I think it's been budgeted for this year that increased in the zoom fees everything else really stayed the same in here um credit card processing conference everything is really similar and and not increasing be on the acting judge language line in the zoom license yeah we do have some some money set forth uh for um security and again that's primarily going to be in the event we have trials which I expect we will be having some trials but you know a DWI matter where there's uh Witnesses people in the courtroom we're doing it live it's not zoom we need to have a security presence we need to have a police officer present for that Jo are we saving money with the zoom um specifically would we have to pay to bring a prisoner here present is that something that the town would pay for you pay one way or another so we had to go pick someone up and the cop took an extra of time that would result in comp time or overtime that we'd have to pay um but the judge candido's point I'm not going to speak for him a lot of bench warrants were not issued previously that you know U judge candido has been issuing and and yes um I would assume is going to continue issuing issuing in the event there's an offense that would require uh you know the warrant be issued same with the um um suspension of driver's license anything that that could put you in jail so yes we will go pick up a prisoner and bring them in we don't hold them in the municipal court jail they will be held in Essex County but with this new license it's going to allow the judge to you know more efficiently resolve the cases yeah ter ter state to that what happened in the past would be the the police would pick somebody up on a warrant and they would call either the judge or I and if I can't zoom with the with the JL for me telling them to bring the person down to the jail they're being held there the next day I go in I got to release the prisoner because I can't get that Zoom connection yeah so for the public certification really I mean there's savings there too there's Financial savings for Police Department too and they have access to our language line so if they get somebody in that they need it they can access that line also and anybody in the town really that any Department that has to use it we give the um code to them so that they also able to the important thing is with the the zoom now too to ter point it could keep a offender you know that should be imprisoned in in jail right um people aren't catching release uh to the extent that we can avoid it on the municipal level I believe that's a philosophy of the township and the council to to do just that judge one question I had it's not really budgetary but um sort of um now that you've been on the bench for for bit and I know you obviously been a prosecutor for so many years here is there anything the council needs to do any adjustments with the ordinances with fees or anything is there anything that's maybe out of uh you know out of time or something that perhaps needs to be upgraded not specifically I do think there's a need for an overall review of all of our Municipal ordinances bringing some of them up to date some are archaic uh some are um poorly wed that's a a Herculean task and and I know that Joe and I talked about that when I was prosecutor we we were trying to see if we could somehow put together the time to really sit down and go through the whole ordinance some towns have done it and and they've improved their ordinances um Cedar Grove needs to do that uh but in terms of fines we have generally um a lot of latitude uh with the ordinances many ordinances violations uh you know the potential fine is up to I think $2,200 very significant not that we typically U you know do that we try and do things that are obviously fair and reasonable Cedar Grove has always been uh unlike some other towns that I've experienced you know we've never made the court a money-making operation where that was you know the uh primary goal primary goal being to do justice and to treat cases properly and fairly for everyone so um I think the ability to impose fines are is already exists I do think that some of the uh the ordinances need to be updated okay great we could start we could start that process by looking at some of the more frequently used ordinances that needed and you know adjusting it from there anything else with the judge thank you okay thank you thank you very much guys I'm going to just come back to some of the ones that don't require uh anyone in here if that's okay do you care if we yeah yeah of course um next up on my list I have uh Dan come let's do planning zoning and Engineering ladies and gentlemen Dan Donovan hey D so everyone as you know Dan is director of zoning and planning and uh Works in our engineering office Dan how long you been here I've been with the town uh 28 years I didn't feel you need any hand signal or which is one one year more than I've been alive U Dan's been doing Planning and Zoning for a number of those years and has really worked to um you want the sheet number it's on page page three Dan is worked to uh you know help modernized planning and zoning as the council was aware previously the Planning and Zoning coordinator position was a full-time role that assumed a $65,000 year salary since that retirement we've no longer and and a pension and health insurance costs in addition to that dollar that too since that retirement we did not replace that but rather U appropriated some monies to another employee who's doing the job and she's doing a great job at that that's Tonia Mercy uh so you'll see in the planning budget uh full-time salaries and wages of $7500 um you'll also see the same 7500 in zoning that's the additional money that Tony receives between the two boards for her service as Planning and Zoning secretary um the attorney line in Planning and Zoning did increase $1,500 uh from 6,500 to $8,000 and the reason for that um was the attorney was opining on some more matters that we are now trying to um push through client escrow the the town's philosophy at least now is that we shouldn't be funding a planner zoning board attorney who has questions that he's answering relating to client's application um the planning zoning board attorney is to guide the township and guide the township ordinances uh beyond that the client posts escrow money if they have questions regarding their application we could charge it out of the escr so there's a little bit of an increase there um for the planning board conference indues 250 and that's for the uh any planning or zoning courses for any new members uh one of the important lines here and Dan's going to speak to this too um in the zoning line is the sdl software um which you'll see was $0 last year now went to 1750 do you want to talk about that a little bit so what that does and how it integrates with the building department yeah so what that is is the building department already has that software and has had it for a number of years um they can just at the swipe of their computer pull up any permits that were taken out on any given property at any time it would help the building department and it would certainly help zoning um if we had zoning included on that so um we've talked about that I've discussed it with the building department it would definitely be a win for the town it's really about modernizing and streamlining you know what we do um the way it had been done in the past was old fashioned it was literally in a notebook and if you didn't know where that notebook was you couldn't find that information but this way the building department would have that information on their computers we'd have it on ours the Planning and Zoning Coordinator would have it on hers so it would definitely make life easier um and certainly speed up any processes you know as far as um approving or reviewing zoning applications any questions on planner zoning pretty simple budget we're going to just jump to engineering which is on page three of the uh budget uh engineering engineering always had um a very small budget last year total budget was $ 9,934 and this year you'll see an increase to 29,500 why is that again we're trying to support our I'm sorry what two starts on page two ends on three sorry about that thank you so you'll see that line uh 50120 0165 2024 for what you'll see is that that line is for uh scce Suburban Consulting Engineers um that was always paid out of the utilities um and again to try and support the water utilities it's important that we practice what we preach when if we do a rate increase we should also be adjusting and monitoring the Appropriations in there as well so we're trying to take out from these utilities expenses that we could try and slowly integrate into the current fund whether it's a salary whether it's another expense whatever that line is so we're going to start um this year and eventually next year increasing the uh consultant contract um it's still in the water and store utility as well but it's also going to make an appearance in current here uh for $20,300 that brings the overall budget in engineering to 29,500 everything else remain the same but for that increase in SE Dan you want to talk about that a little bit your experience with the uh Consulting Engineers and you know the cost savings we've incurred with that yes so um Alexandra Handel is is um the engineer who we've been using that is you know employee of suburban she is here two days a week um Tuesdays and Thursdays and we've really it's been seamless I was honestly wasn't sure how it would how it would work from transitioning from a full-time engineer to having a Consulting engineer but um she's always very reachable by email or phone um and she's been outstanding so uh I'm impressed it's a great company suburban and they know the town very well she's very familiar with every aspect of the town so it's it's really been a seamless transition and uh if it saves the town money I mean it's it's it's a win-win you want to talk about the road openings we we realized in Revenue north of $150,000 and Road opening permits yes so one of the old engineer um you know older regimes we had Road opening permits curb cutting permits which we still do but we've upgraded that I mean do you remember what the fee was to open a road I do it was it was between 5 and $10 um which is I mean unheard of in any municipality or city so one of the first things that Alexander did was to really revamp our permits um it's now a $100 permit just the permit fee itself which which is not excessive in any way and then there's inspection fees and depending on the scope of the work that you know that that can that can go up and or down sometimes we have to hold money uh you know in bond just um upon completion to make sure they repair the road right and and it stays repaired basically so it's she's done she's done wonders we also have Dan to thank for working with green ship to bring in our um electronic recycling council is where that was considered on the last council meeting Dan are recycling coordinator in the town here well thank you for that as well so yes that well again another win-win for the town it will not cost us a penny to have that put in place and in fact we'll we'll make some some money off depending on what they're able to recycle from our Electronics we'll get we'll get a certain percentage per pound so it's it's good and we get I mean in this day and age people are always replacing flat screens computers so we have quite a you know a call where can we get rid of our Electronics garbage Sol waste won't take it um the county does offer it twice a year but you have to either wait till May or October when the county runs it this way it'll be our at our recycling facility and it can be used Monday through Friday all day and Saturday's half day so it it'll be it'll be a good addition any questions for Dan thank you Dan good to go thanks for coming thank you all right stay on page four we're going to jump with the construction official now James hello hello James Hoffman our building inspector here um like I explained in the Municipal Court budget this is another example of um a decrease which went from 311,000 in 2024 to $198,200 helping our cap calculation no because it's still going to be reflected in current in that same Insurance line that I was talking about before but this gives a better and more accurate representation if someone were to pull the state budget off the computer all they would see is that the uh building department has a salary and wage line in 2024 of 154,000 or 164,000 and they had an O and E line of the difference and that really wasn't accurate because $85,000 was budgeted in the building department budget for medical pension payment Social Security workers comp and dental and by taking that out of building and putting it into current it's a little bit more of an accurate picture um James we we did increase the budget a little bit for the sdl software which is what Dan talked about a little bit do you want to talk what you guys use that for that's your bread butter right that's everything yeah that's everything that that that's what we run the whole building department on it's it's all our records all our permits and everything and so now we would incorporate zoning into that so that would that would also help so we'll also know now um what zoning approved uh before we issue a a building permit whereas we weren't really 100% sure before yeah so by adding zoning they have access to each other's information talking to each other yeah U which is good because you need it for a few other things right you need you look at Co changes right you need to look at um uh variances or setbacks that James would need to consider before going out and inspecting something right so having everything kind of in one spot U where it's organized everyone can talk to each other again you know it's nice when you have the office inter office memos that go Circle you around but it's not livetime and I think you know the software is something that you know helps preserve records keeps things accurate um so it's one of the things that we're moving towards uh the building department has it already which makes it easy to implement we just add a license and we go from there anything else for building building's been busy we've uh had a lot of projects going on right Jim has been active with the firehouse he's been keeping an eye on that for us right everything else in t right yep anything else for James not for me James you're good James yes you want to stay you could sure thank all right thank you while we're on here stay here I'll knock out Plumbing fire and electrical real quick you're good you're good thanks plumbing inspections 29,500 that's an uh increase of $1 13,000 $1,300 excuse me from 28,200 2024 fire inspections $2500 increase $7,500 from a appropriation of $5,000 in 2024 electrical inspector that mirrors the plumbing inspector $29,500 an increase of ,300 from 28,200 is our parktime inspectors any questions on that there no no let's jump to the health department come on up Hi how are you everyone this is Amy nice Amy Amy's from uh Monclair right and mclair health is our uh our provider it's been great working yeah page eight trying to keep it as tight as I can it's been great working with Amy you're relatively new in the role still right you're here just over a year no almost two years two years okay yeah um so and we have a good working relationship with uh mler health department and you know we're pretty active we're going to work with Council Peterson uh to talk and scope out the health advisory committee too and which I'm sure the council will be getting recommendations on as well um Health Department we'll start right here salaries and wages um that line $6,000 uh increase from $58,000 last year conf dues decreased from 1,000 to 500 deer carcass removal uh 3,000 all these numbers again because they're in the o line they can go between any of these accounts and they're you know pretty fluid U the big uh item in here is the monair health department contract which I believe is a fixed um contract and it increases 2% annually right right and we're in our our fifth year that's it then right yeah so then we'll be talking later who do I have to talk to about that um me and then the manager Drive the price down that's we want really good deals on that tell Michael po I'll call him tomorrow we can get it down quick we'll do we'll see what we can do no but seriously montclair's been great for us they provide a number of resources including free blood pressure screening uh on the third Wednesday of the month um that's important Our Town Hall staff uses but it's also open to the public um so the public wants to buildings as well um that's it's important and you know something I look forward to every third Wednesday hopefully my blood pressure is lower depending on a multitude of factors um so overall this budget went from 159 640 but that's what it is this year uh and it was 153 last year so there's a $664 increase there um something I want to talk about we'll go through animal real quick and then we'll do senior citizen Animal Control a very modest U $1,748 increase our contract for animal controls with Wayne um I think as people are home more we're probably seeing some more calls for animal control uh depending on you know the time of day usually it's raccoons that are out or uh we get some for animals that that need to be um sick animals sometimes um they they're good for responding for uh lost pets lost dogs and things like that and we just had a sick pigeon an injured pigeon you want to tell us about that de rescued the pigeon herself and waited for animal control to come and get it I told her to wear good gloves now yes I wore good gloves and handled it it was it was not sick it was it was actually injured the wing was the wi was damaged but it was coming it was on B and it was during the time that the high school was out so I wanted to get it before they came so and Wayne was here right away picked it up took it to a bird sanctuary and it's all good um something I want to talk about too um this is out of of Amy's control but it's something that we need to all talk about collectively uh the United a ride in the senior citizen Transportation as the council remembers the Verona Township manager reached out because this line item was always $5,000 for the past 10 years 10 years uh he ran some numbers on it and 5,000 is wholly inadequate to cover the cost of the service I asked the council I think we actually suspended the service right away because U we didn't want to have to pay it right away and they were generous enough to continue it at the $5,000 but you'll see that that this is budgeting the new dollar amount for the United dial ride um that's why this budget goes from 29,000 in 2025 proposed to from 11,000 in 2024 that's a big increase it's an $18,000 increase but that's because that service for the dial ride went up um I mean people use it right so it's yeah it isn't a large amount of people that use it but it is needed by people because it's you know older the older folks don't have I'm not going to call Uber or lift there aren't taxis anymore and and sometimes they don't get um you know they don't have the ability to Essex reg ess6 um Access Link can help but they're not always available for the the um purposes that they need it for so I think we get something like we have aund and something folks who use it over the year it's about average maybe you know 100 to 75 it changes every year um it's basically been stable as for how many use it and we did increase the fee for the user as well I think we went from $7 now as opposed to five seven supp one not that's not round one way um that that's the one that went in a certain radius it's it's a limited it's a limited access yeah doctor visits and yeah it's for doctor visits right okay um any questions on senior Transportation no this is separate in a part of the um what you'll see is the 14,500 is parttime for the senior bus um grown in popularity it has grown in popularity got we we we average about 12 um Riders per per ride per time and the reason for that is you know I think the bus used to run every day the bus used to run every day now it's down to now it's down to Tuesdays and Thursdays one week and then Tuesday Wednesday Thursday every other week um just it didn't pay from a liability standpoint from a call standpoint to run the bus with one person on it you know we had our our um bus driver who was a full-time employee here plus the one individual on the bus it just was losing money and a great great liability so by reducing that um you know we're able to provide the service to more people which makes it you know better for us to do too have you looked into um the County's easy ride program we have not but that would be something I think we should if you have information low numbers um what they do with they've been working this is really since the pandemic and a lot of the buses were pulled off the road you know especially for seniors so they were they're doing uers and lifts for medical appointments groceries um you know any anything within a certain you know range um and then we were limiting it to so many rides per month depending on what we wanted the you know budget to be um but then you just have a car going out and and the senior just calls easy ride and they arrange the U so it's not like they have to get the app and do all of the that's a good that's good that's a very good they make one call and then that's it if you could tell me that that would be huge so the senior contacts easy ride and then they arrange for an Uber exactly that's great yeah yeah so might not need the the other not yeah okay and then just one other thing I just wanted to mention so um with Aven flu you know we've been reading a lot in the news about it so I just sent do something about um handling of birds so residents staff police officers right right um should not handle the bird at this point they should call njd there's a hotline set up and then they'll advise them depending on the scenario so that goes for so you should put something on your website probably yeah about that and we're pretty um we're pretty good with um public announcements like that we're trying to be better with it keeping up the website active as the council we're updating the website too so right the language and the Press relas from get that out there so that goes for you know it's a good tip cuz you never know like you know even DPW could be out in the park and they see a bird somewhere yeah you know think about it they just go to pick it up and it's like second nature so we we do have home chickens that are being raised in town too so we have is that is there an ordinance that is that violative of the ordinance or no no oh you can have chck we have an ordinance that allows chickens they're inspected make sure that they fulfill and then and but we I I want to educate them about it too so she gave me some flyers to send out to them new I didn't even think we could have chickens but we can there's several people I know yeah it's got much more common and and sometimes there's four people that have at least uh three chickens each there you go all right anything else for health you guys good no see the um the Raby shs are coming out short yeah February 12th is that it's located here it's the library it's at the library it's going to be at the library so you would take your pet towards the library it's not in the library in the library it's actually in the library yes yeah we we it works out perfectly there's enough space um we have them set up where they're you know coming one way and then going out the other and and it it yeah it we've had it I think this is the this is going to be the third time you can tell I don't take the dog my husband does yeah and um it's yeah we haven't had I'm afraid of dog so I'm going nowhere near it and for this time of year there's more room for people to line up in inside as opposed to outside the C where we had to here with the fire department it also obstructed you know if the front AP was closed the fire trucks were in and out could this works out perfectly the library's been wonderful and um I just lock up when I leave okay perfect thank you and D just gave us the perfect transition to go into the library budget so thank you thank thank you thanks Amy y keep the birds away Council that's all we need Catherine how are you good how you do good this is you have the page number nine n nine Y and I know Catherine is very upset that the old budget books and binders are not circulated yes I miss lining it up with the ruler making sure in R I feel like I missed out on that I'll get you one I'm good I'm good I can give you my old there's 15 in my office from imagine me bringing that into Tom will be like what are you doing now um so uh just like every other account we went through uh Edmonds and a lot of the lines in here um are pretty much the same some have been uh adjusted and and told Catherine need to rename any of the items now's the time for us to do it um in here you'll see full-time salaries and wages uh increased from 330 to 3670 uh part-time had a $500 decrease uh everything else remained relatively stable within the operations of the budget uh like I said to Katherine during our uh budget hearing last week the only things that are subject to change are the um health insurance numbers the the GIF multi-line defense and workers comp numbers which are almost being finalized uh now which will be charged out appropriately and um reflected in here uh the maintenance line in the library uh that increased but that's accompanying a lot more other subcategories that previously existed combine things for that one so you'll see that was 30,000 last year and is now 45,000 this year uh janitorial supplies went from 2500 to 3500 um office supplies 238 to 35,000 some of that um janitorial supplies is the town hall uh is now sharing U the janitor with the library it's our understanding through the library board that they eventually plan to go do the floors this year so to save some of the uh money with respect to the cleaning contract that previously existed we're sharing a service now I believe it's going relatively well it is yeah um and it's it's good again that's just another way of us reallocating resources it all comes out of the same tax pot and you know taxpayers is appreciated when we could save them any dollar that we we can um anything in your budget you want to talk about no I mean everything's pretty much the same nothing no big changes yeah uh the services like U the programming and whatnot um Falls an office yeah office supplies that's well you'll see an increase there from 238 to 35,000 uh there's a contingent account in here uh I just want to talk about that briefly that account is the difference between between the state required millage and um the other expenses in the budget so right now um you know there's money in the contingent account which would be you know nice to touch into there's a problem that you need to tap into after the health insurance numbers are lined out uh unlike the um building department the court or senior citizen bus the library budgets outside the municipal appropriation cap which is why the salaries and the health insurance of the full-time employees the dental and all that is TR to the library uh for that reason any questions on the library nothing good no I just had one not to be annoying but uh I saw there was like a a good increase for the books and Publications what's the plan is there like is there a certain specific thing that's happening or that's just a increase materials over we wanted more on the shelves so great okay anything else for the library no all right cther thank youate thank you Pete djano we stole Peter from Northeast Equipment very good Moss yeah hope he come good evening everyone everyone guys know Peter Peter uh resident mechanic track of all trades master of them all okay I'm going to get you guys the page number this is U seven seven I think bring my laptop you could tell Joe's No rookie I always go the wrong way doing it's in the back it's in the front whatever way I'm going go the other way just to help Peter is that better that's better thank you um equipment maintenance this is uh Peter's main budget see the salary has an increase from 98,000 to 100,000 again uh our goal eventually is to pull some of the salaries out of the utilities and put them into current um to help with the appropriation cap there a $4,000 overtime line in there um for equipment repair and maintenance other expenses uh Building Maintenance improvements $4,500 that was the same as last year um building material and Supply $250 that was a increase there a lot of the increases here are rather nominal considering um the overall budget last year is 11 16,200 and this year is 11 16,250 uh the $50 increase again is just some adjustments and uh we cut where we didn't have to spend and we increased where we had to um one of the other main lines that Peter has is the vehicle uh maintenance and repair line uh for DPW vehicles uh which increased I believe to uh 32,000 I will pull that up now we're at 40 40,000 yeah 40 40,000 um here it is yep DPW Vehicles is 40,000 that's Parts repairs um fire has its own budget of 35,000 for that police has 39,000 and the senior bus has 2500 um while Peter's in here might as well just talk about some Capital items in here um just in DPW as it concerns Peter a new mechanic scanner I want to talk briefly about some of the reasons for that uh with the new computers and whatnot well for one thing we we have a a guy in the DPW now that is very familiar with uh the new electronics computer and how to tap into vehicle diagnostics so it's prudent for us to have a device that he can access that and do the repairs um you know that's really become a young man's game knowing a lot of this stuff and you know some of it's it's beyond me the nuts and the bolts are there but you know the the plugs and the wires are for a young guy and Frank's real good at it and it's really required on it technically you can't do a brake job now without being able to go into the vehicle's computer and reset parameters Etc the other item in DPW 2 is a leaf tag repair those are what we suck at the leaves up with um we have three of them we're going to try and rebuild two uh but you know a new one is upwards of 140,000 I believe 100 almost 150 now I was just fing speed couple days what's the lifespan of those uh those trucks honestly we're well beyond I mean we must they must take a beating they do yeah they do we're beyond the lifespan of them but uh with a rigorous maintenance schedule we've been able to keep them going and uh let long as long as possible yeah I mean the ones we have now the latest one we bought was 2007 and that's when they were meant to last yeah and you know that was I think $38,000 and now they literally on 50, wow wow there's only one company what's a TTC down in South Carolina it's or Ohio that rebuilds that yeah yeah down in uh Richmond Virginia so it's not even like you could you know it's a matter of getting the company to rebuild the Box itself um yeah so yeah you know it's way backs we used to have one that was like six and a half yard which is Tiny it's tiny tiny these are 20 yard like a regular landscape may have the smaller one like you see in the back of the dump truck and believe it or not the reason that these are um so utilized and so big requires our DPW drivers to have a class A CDL whereas without the leaf tags you could get by the class B and be completely fine but with the weight right uh from the once the tag is full you then go into the needing the higher CDL yeah fully loaded Leaf tag is 25,000 pounds oh wow yeah so and as you guys know that what that does to your trucks too um also and we could talk about this too I put in forther the capital Improvement fund which is money we don't bond for a new single axle which is a new big dump truck big dump um the oldest one is How old uh 2006 the Internationals in 2006 um could we limp by and get by with that one probably however the state passed a law that says you can no longer buy new uh diesel trucks from a dealership that doesn't sell they have to sell one electric truck to the one diesel that you're buying right well no one makes electric dump trucks of that size nor would we ever consider buying one so that made it very difficult and it's only going to get worse for us to try and procure one so they had these loopholes and workarounds where you could buy a used one but it has to get registered in Pennsylvania they have to drive it 7,000 miles crazy crazy so we actually reach out to Senator curado and they actually we're introducing something to hopefully pause the law but if we can't get the Mac dump truck can't tell the leaf tags can't Sal the streets you know that's like our yeah one of our bigger assets that we need so we put money in the money that we put in was to U hopefully buy a new one and take the dump bed which is stainless steel and in pretty good shape pretty good shape and you put it on the new chassis right right looking to save money wherever we can so MH but that's that's something we have four single axles right yeah we run four generally so hope we try to yeah but again as you guys know the water main breaks too if we have three single axles ready to go salt and we have a water main break well I have to have the extra one either go to the waterme brick if take a Salter out it's like a whole orchestration you know yeah yeah there's a ballet that goes on when there's a snowstorm and a water main break there's you know between Jerry and Mike and Tommy Tommy you got a lot of we got a lot of factors down there that just you know help contribute um guys have any questions for Pete I mean Pete and Frank they really keep the the town going and the garage going and we're very grateful for for what they do because and Frank's a great addition Frank's Great Frank marelli uh he's great mechanic um he's out there working he's on every main break he's you know learning from Pete and Mike and Jerry and yeah real do all guy yeah so but the uh the garage is uh well functioning keeps our trucks maintained nice um finally Peter got his own pickup truck right which was a long ways coming uh but what we did for how long 27 and a half years 27 and a half years but for peach truck what we did was we we kind of expect it out a little differently uh to make it specific to Peter's needs there's toolbox in the back there's water tools there's mapping so whenever there's a waterm break if his truck's there he's got everything he needs he doesn't have to go to the yard pick up what he needs it's ready to go yeah um so we try to streamline that process a little bit too anything else for Peter no you're good to go Peter had a long weekend so he needs to go home thank Jerry Jerry hi everyone everyone Jerry video Jerry's Jerry's running the show at DPW so when your streets are plowed and salted and the parks are nice and green and the Pooles are filled and the trees are cut this is the guy you uh you can thank for Ling to no this the guy you can thank for that Jerry has a few budgets so we're going to start with the shade tree I'll pull it up for you guys that's way up um believe it's sheet three or four yeah so the shade tree budget um there's a a slight increase here from 45,500 to 48,000 um this is money we use to prune trees to remove trees to remove stumps and also to replant trees so anywhere around town Arbor Day uh when we put in the new trees this is where that money comes from uh trees are a huge part of the budget and it's a huge issue that I know the council's familiar with um we're very busy I mean Jerry's got a list that goes on and on never ending never ends goes on and on um and what we're seeing is with a lot of the road work and whatnot especially on Myrtle we just saw one an otherwise healthy tree no car went in to put in a new gas me I ripped out a bunch of roots and we're not paying for that and they have to cut that tree down but if the homeowner would like it to be returned no car would pay in that instance but anywhere else around town we try to replant where we can um you know and get out there's a sidewalk that's impinged by it or it's sinking or or uh raised because of a route we'll take care of it the right way we'll do the sidewalk which is in capital 2 we'll talk about that separately um but that's the tree budget any B any questions on the tree budget just a modest increase there well stay on that page real quick environmental commissioned $700 stayed the exact same as last year just so I can get that off my l oh so you're killing it there keeping that budget the same out running a tight ship we're going to jump down to streets and Roads uh a little out of order here I'll find it for you that's six six all right this is um another big account here you'll see the full-time salaries and wages went from 347 to 366 uh again some of that restructuring is pulling portions of salary out of the utilities to try and and sustain it in the event that the appropriation cap ever becomes an issue they're go right back in the utilities where they came from um just going through some of these here some of the big items General equipment and and Hardware um it's a $155,000 line General hardware and tools 13,000 these are guys who are rebuilding the catch Basin rebuilding the uh curb boxes and stone right and U yeah any any other big issues out in the roads filling potholes um potnick which is what we use for potholes potholes and water repair water repair yeah that's $10,000 there from 7,000 last year um just uh the the first aid kit comes out of this budget I believe it's um $100 a month roughly um and they come and they stock it so that way it's always in compliance and there's no issues with us having to monitor it uh catch Basin repair and cleaning as part of the ms4 permit that Lexi did uh we have to record which catch basins we repair which ones we uh you know resume and keep going on and I think that's important for us to keep a log of every time there's a storm Jerry's guys are out there you know checking the Brooks checking the catch bti as I tell all of you to prevent any uh you know backlog um they're going to be busy this year with the catch bases you want to talk about that with the roads and last year what we do is when we rebuild the catch bases we also clean them and we we make a list of them and all the streets that are paved we replace all the chaos things in the heads and uh that's pretty much what we do with those and especially with the new uh road coming up what we're having is um all the streets that were being paved we're rebuilding the catch Bas before we go and M the road um and that's something that it would really drive me nuts if we pave a whole street and have a catch Bas on a block that's disintegrating falling apart the the head is not supported properly and it's sinking in causing a depression so we've got probably close to 50 or 60 between Carlson Parkway Lopez Road um and Park Ridge Estates and the other streets that we're planning to pave where DPW is going to go through rebuild the catch basins block it all out and insect them prior to the paving this way cuz after they pave we don't want to be back now you're cutting the road open again so we make sure that everything's you know complete and rebuilt and ready to go so they could pave and any questions on the streets and roads for Jerry no all right we're going to jump to uh snow Jerry's favorite line snow removal last year's budget 20 $288,300 Jerry was able to cut $350 off that budget which we're very appreciative of um you see here is overtime is 990,000 unfortunately for us our snowstorm thus far has been on a Sunday which is you know a lot more overtime DPW loves it I hate it um salt you want to talk a little bit about salt jar we as you could see last year 150,000 was budgeted for salt now some issues that we have with that is that if all that money is budgeted for salt it's only earmarked just for salt so I cut the 150 in half I put 75,000 to salt and 75,000 to vehicle parts and accessories for a plow a plow is what $8,000 now 6 and half foot Western yeah I mean so you're looking at like and these are just for regular pickup trucks when you get to the bigger what do you at put that 25,000,000 right so to put a plow on that Mac that we just talked about you could buy a car for the the cost of the plow almost right so I felt and if the council disagrees by all means we could change it the the money might have been best set split up in a different account that we could draw on as we needed it as opposed to just buying salt and if we run low on salt we could transfer the money back in but I think there's more of a need for us to put it towards the vehicles than the salt absolutely um I don't know what do you know what the price of salt is I told you salt is yeah 6180 right now per ton next year I think it's going to drop a couple of dollars actually according to the Essex County Co-Op that's wor about so yeah um and with the salt too you know we keep it fully stocked at the salt Dome um I know you guys probably got annoyed by my text when I say hey we're hitting all the streets we're salting early we're getting out um rather be safe than sorry and I think we were pretty good with the last storm you know we receive no complaints to my knowledge I give kudos the last storm my street was one of the better times that my street was done you want to talk about what we did with the contractor that that's been working for the past two years unlike in Prior years yeah sure so we the contractor always play on the south end from Sweetwood all to all all the way to uh Franklin so they would do it solo separate from the DPW workers so starting last year we combined them with our guys and it's just it's so much easier everything gets done I don't have to babysit these guys we know you know the the work gets done so we by having a town truck with the contractor and splitting it throughout the town DPW trucks have radios in them constantly everyone's in contact no one's missing a beat and everything stays nice and tight um so that's a new way that we uh tried to pla's been working pretty good saves me time because then I got to keep checking on these guys because they're by themselves but now our guys I know what's going on they know what's going on and how does that work exactly that they're with the DPW guys so if let's say we have four zones in town right four zones yeah um that we split up so previously the South End Zone was only plowed by the contractor a PW truck wouldn't go in there other than Jerry tracking on it but let's say the contractor has four trucks and they put four trucks in the South End Zone well now what we did was we took one of the contractor truck in each Zone and instead of having four contractor trucks there they may have one or two DPW trucks and a contractor truck working together in each Zone that way they're not left to their own vices over there the DPW guys know the streets better they're on them every day they know what you know hot spots are and the DPW guys are able to guide the contractor as to what needs to be done and where and they have the radios too the contractors have the oh yeah I give them hand radios yeah and I like to keep everybody in the same area all the time so they get to know where to put the snow where not to put the snow everybody learns their areas and it's just more efficient that way and you know the work get done nothing's missed you know as a Southend resident so much better yeah just so much better yeah as a South resident I agree um any questions on snow I mean it's you know end of January so hopefully we get through the next two months with relative Li Miner oh you said it all loud February so um Jerry's other budget is parks and playgrounds he got Jerry's busy that's uh n page nine okay last year salaries uh 181 this year 215 550 again we're not paying a uh a lot more out we're just restructuring who's paid out of where um and you could see that because the overall budget last year was 266 uh 266,000 and that number now is $271,700 is for the maintenance of Panther Park that's where we pay a landscaper to cut Panther Park U there's other lines in here um as the council's aware we prioritized the grass cutting at Town Hall also uh in an attempt to uh provide less restriction in front of the the fire department so it's not tied up all day and also um so DPW can can focus on other areas such as the pump stations for the water utility u which previously had a full-time person assigned to that but what we're going to try and do is restructure the duties um without having to rehire for that position and have uh the current staff cut that um try to go through here a little bit chemicals and gases that's for the bees yeah bees spr yeah be that's right the rest that's right I forgot about that it's Mikey's budget clothing uniforms 3550 that's a contract item based for each employee in that division Garden parking supplies 6800 uh General equipment and machine and parts in capital this year uh which we'll talk about now um there's a new lawn mower in there for about $15,000 I believe that's going to replace a belt a hydro or a belt driven hydro hydro 36inch walk behind uh for the landscapers in the room those are like the Bobcats and the scags of the world pistol grip um still walk behind mowers and unfortunately you know even I remember when those mowers were probably around 8 ,000 new and now they're quite a bit more um but thanks to um Pete and and Frank they keep the MS in good shape um the tree lighting also has additional monies in here for $647 um trying to think of anything else in here conference to do is we send for the trees yeah the tree the arbor certification out of this we send four guys every year to a a tree class um yeah they go down to Cherry Hill for the Federation for the credits and then we have the maintenance for Manning y for Panther Park yeah and panther Park is subed out contractor goes there Thursdays Thursday morning um gets it done for the weekend gets it in order um and that's coming out of here that was previously paid out of capital which you couldn't do so that's why you see it back in this budget now um just real quick in capital um for for um where Jerry's concerned um the sidewalk replacement always had a $112,000 line we increased that to 20,000 um one the cost is getting a little bit more to do the sidewalks and we are doing more sidewalks too um I this is on here okay so here take that so you could see that that's a a $220,000 increase or $8,000 this is what we're anticipating to bond for um the lawn Mar I put 15,000 in and an F350 single cab with a plow um to replace a pickup truck $65,000 that is just a lot of money for a pickup truck with a plow but with that number comes the back the back rack to cover the back window the Amber lights and the snow plow so it's already outfit ready to go and what our plan is is to take that new vehicle Jerry would take that and Jerry's vehicle which is how old is that five six years old yeah I believe so yeah would then get passed to the parks department who then would use that as their everyday vehicle right so we're not giving brand new vehicles out you know to put on the road um we'll kind of recycle them a little bit and go from there there's really no money in selling the vehicles anymore on gov deals we don't really see it and I'd rather us use them and if it's an extra vehicle the plow you know Jerry still will put the plow on if he has to right I always do yeah run around and help everyone uh any questions on any of that some of the capital items at DPW no no all right J you're good to go thank you thank thank you all right Council I'm going to make up for some time here if I can and go through starting with our original schedule bye Peter thanks for coming bye have a good night take care we're gonna go all way to page one of the sheet now start with the town manager budget uh last year's Appropriations were 176,000 this year what we're anticipating is 216,00 that's not because I'm getting a raise but because we are now moving a lot of the it budget into my budget and the reason for that is because again it was spread throughout so many different departments and it was in so many different areas it got confusing to pay out of so by removing out of the utilities account the water utility the sore utility and some other accounts um we're going to keep it all under my budget um and this is going to pay for the website hosting the internet um like our Microsoft Outlook subscriptions which is through the email and um our it through law soft um again this money Mak find its way back into the utilities in the event there there's a problem but that's where we're at for that um employee training $1,500 that is for my attorney registration um my cles continuing legal credits and any other uh items coming out of there conferences and seminars and dues I cut that that's if there's any conferences I would go to Municipal Managers Association um office supplies 5,000 that increased from a th000 because we took a lot of the money out of other areas just to charge it all out of one account now um Town Council your budget uh very modest increase that went from $99,100 again that's a very modest increase uh being mindful of the cap a lot of this comes for um conference ad does which used to be the magazine subscriptions name placards um and any the other expenses that come out of the council's budget I believe we paid for the tablecloths for the senior citizen event out of this budget okay so we did all of that we're going to jump down to the municipal prosecutor and get that page right that is believe wa down that is page 12 good news is Municipal prosecutors line stayed the exact same 25,000 public defender line um increased from 5 6574 to 6600 public defenders only used as needed and assigned by the court and this prosecutors here every Wednesday while we're on this page if you look down a little bit you'll see two lines Capital Improvement fund and Debt Service the capital Improvement fund is money that we take from our pilot revenues and place into the budget it requires a capital ordinance for spending however there's no debt associated with it we're basically resp funding it with Surplus from the pilot revenues um you could see last year that number was 1,926 th000 this year an estimated number is 1,992 th000 and that's for the capital projects that um we'll discuss towards the end of the meeting some of which we've already discussed in here if you look down a little bit further on that page you'll see our debt service now that number is slightly less than it was last year however you can still see we're paying very aggressively towards our uh ban principle and our bond principal um the interest rate I'm happy to say has dropped because we continue paying the principal down pretty quickly so if you look at the ban principal which is the bond anticipation note last year we paid $1,937 570 this year we're planning to pay a little bit more on principal of $1,938 535 and the difference is that we're paying less in interest on the band interest and on the uh bond interest as well so you actually don't see an increase in what we're paying for total debt service you see a decrease between $3,744 650 to$ 3,692 1872 but the principal payments are still increasing because the interest is reduced Bond anticipation notes have to be paid off within 10 years I believe with this we'll be paying up to year 2025 which means we're 5 years ahead of schedule and part of the council's philosophy has always been to use that Surplus money for Debt Service Capital Improvement projects and land acquisition that's it right there any questions on that public buildings and grounds sorry to make the jump back again this is Page seven this is um a relatively big account the public building grounds full-time salary and wages went from 40,500 to 43655 part-time went from 24,000 to um 30,000 everything else relatively similar uh postage did have a slight decrease um overall budget here 118 255 from 11101 and there's some buffers built in here in the event that we need to trim it back for our cap calculation moving right along I want to talk about our health insurance now there's a good topic [Applause] page uh it is Page it's going to be earlier in the budget so it looks like it's page four or five yeah four page four all right so there is a 177% increase in state health benefits for fiscal year 2025 when you you can only raise your budget 2 1 12% plus your 1% through Cola that's very unsustainable um the state I believe is allowing up to a 14% cap exclusion um which just means it doesn't hit your appropriation caps but it does hit your budget still and it you know ultimately hits the taxpayers so if you look through this insurance line You'll see Medicare Part B reimbursement that number is zero last year is 80,500 and again the reason for that is because Rebecca decided to lump and I decided to lump all of the insurance payments into one line just keep it simple keep it clean keep it easy um the health insurance line You'll see here is the biggest increase last year it's 200 2,436 500 and this year that number is $3,296 615 this number is so much larger here for two reasons one because we took it out from the court in the building that I described before this is the line that we then put it in into and also because of the increase from the state uh in the state health benefits plan uh again you'll see that there's a modest increase in our workers comp number from 161 310 to 174 940 as well as our multi-line defense through the GIF from 186 922 to 20600 um insurance is the biggest second biggest driving cost uh in the municipal budget it's the second biggest line item there's really not a whole lot we can do to control those costs um and just do our best to hope that the state's understanding and exempts it from our cap increase do we have like if you don't some companies I don't know if townships if you don't take the insurance you know husband and wife work if the wife works here and she goes on and weaves here we have it here do we have that here if you look in um health benefit waiver 0210 2112 there's $166,000 budgeted for that right um the waiver is calculated uh the percentage that you would have been receiving on the plan that you would have had up to $5,000 whatever is greater so either $5,000 of your contributions or um I'm sorry not whatever is greater not to exceed $5,000 so if you had to contribute to your health insurance and the most that you would contribute is $4,200 that's the waiver that you would get from us so we're Capp at providing the $5,000 waiver not everyone gets it uh but there's only three or four employees that actually opt out of the uh health insurance not any just looking for ways yeah from your mouth to C disability again 13,000 you'll see a slight decrease there because we moved some of that into the utilities uh same with dental which could always come back into um let's go through our let's go through the lighting account I'll find that in here real quick here it is uh it should be a little bit further down than that page 10 s Heat Power and Light account this is what we pay for fuel for our vehicles diesel for the DPW uh electric um you could see that there utilities yeah that's utilities yep yeah you could see that there used to be a line for Township email of $220,000 that now is zero because we moved up to my budget um this is where the big one is the heat power and light says $550,000 that is for all the ELC El in our building the South Firehouse the North End Firehouse um a whole host of other uh Municipal facilities including the DPW building and our Wastewater uh treatment plant to the extent that the utility can't cover that we cover the difference in here these are massive operations that are running 24/7 at least for the Wastewater where there's pumps that just constantly go um and like everything else that number is not getting any cheaper overall here you see the uh budget went from 72567 in 2024 to 776 650 in 2025 again you know there's a little bit of a cap buffer built in here with the expectation that if we get close on our appropriation cap we could trim it back a little bit in here but to the extent that we can avoid it we will if you look down a little bit more on the uh contingency line I increased that from 10,000 to 1250 uh 202 00 increase that's just a little bit of a buffer for the township to tap into if you know something goes south or doesn't cover much but it's nice to have importantly if you go down a few more lines you'll see our um pfrs and our PS payments these are pension and health and um uh Purge payments for the police and the public employees this number was uh$ 2,257 th000 last year number has changed to $2,230 245 reason for that is some that is reflected in the utility budgets for water and sore um we take the pension contributions of the employees paid out of there and assign it to the uh utilities as is the library so there's a line in there for that as well all right we did the utilities we did vehicle maintenance lowp stayed the exact same if you scroll down a little bit on there let's see loap for the fire department 53,000 last year same as this year 53,000 loap ambulance and rescue squad 24,000 there was a slight increase there 26,500 um overall budget 79,500 from last year 77,000 again that's outside the cap so we're not going to notice any uh increase there um since we're waiting for Mike we did the statutory expenses lighting you guys want to go through capit real quick keep it moving I I should have printed more of these I'll just read them if that's okay for not I can email these out um we talked about Recreation with the turf field replacement uh that's around $620,000 we talked about adding um cameras and electronic door access to the bathrooms at Panther Park which would allow mace to open or close the doors electronically and also be fobbed in and out so we don't have to worry about who has keys Keys who is going where we could totally set it up even during the day to be open um that's $9,000 and the concrete pad for the batting cages included in this year's capital budget um where the entire cost no just the concrete pad um and the Board of Ed or the Salle team will be responsible for erecting The netting and the turf inside of the cage if they choose to do that great if they don't you got to concrete B right um for our DPW as the council discussed a few months ago Road overlay of 1.2 million that's going to include all the Park Ridge streets um and a lot of other streets in town that have been paved in addition to a PNG is Paving you have the list of those streets there's $400,000 for Reservoir Ridge in Mountain Way we received a $398,000 NJ do Grant to almost completely offset that cost um we went through the mechanic scan and the leaf tag with Pete the tree replacement with Jerry this is money that we uh put in every year to buy more trees in addition to what's in the operating budget there's 45,000 in here to buy more trees uh whether it's for Arbor Day uh VFW site which we have some money for and which we are still seeking proposals for uh the removal of the asphalt to return it to a natural state sidewalk replacement $20,000 the single axle we talked about $250,000 lawnmower 15,000 and the single cab F350 65,000 another big item in here is the bank stabilization of the Pacman River uh we're proposing to put um $300,000 in this Capital Improvement line to stabilize the banks along 615 Pompton Avenue um those plans are currently being submitted to the D pending approval so hopefully by the time we hear back from the D we'll have the money ready to go to stabilize that bank with respect to General government there's $200,000 for various Improvement to Municipal properties $85,000 to budget for running water in a bathroom to The Barn at Morgan Farm um I took that out tax revaluation of $400,000 we're estimating the uh 2025 2026 reval to be that rich Hamilton spoke about uh it improvements $330,000 $220,000 to redesign the website $1,500 for a new catv camera for the catv committee which were allow them to film events outside of town hall and live stream those events whether it's the fireworks the tree lighting ribbon cuttings um any event that the Township's participating in um that camera will do that there's money for the Mini Splits uh the AC units of $122,000 and $116,000 budgeted for digital zoning Maps um this would allow for our zoning maps to now become digital identified with the block and lot number which zone they're in it'll link you to the code as to what's a permitted use a necessory use a non-permitted use setback requirements all online uh right now you come in you get a sheet of paper it tells you what the zone is but you don't know what zone you're in so you have to look at the map it all be online and that's something that's uh again the these are all fluid I tried to keep the dollar amounts similar to what we bonded for last year that was kind of my goal um I'll wait for the police to speak uh to their Capital items but as it stands uh $1,478 n60 would be bonded through a bond anticipation note and 1,987 th000 will be placed in the capital Improvement fund um the bond anticipation is less than we bonded last year and the capital Improvement funds around $2,000 more any questions on that let's see where Mike ises is there any anticipated land acquisition in that Capital there's not we would do a bond for that we wouldn't do a bond anticipation note because for uh land Acquisitions you typically the useful life of that is much longer than what the bond anticipation note would be and you could get take a 30-year bond out on that um again before we do that I wanted to see what our real development potential gets adjusted to with making land adjustments from the planner and the affordable housing um but we could always the council four votes could cast a bond ordinance tomorrow let's see where mik is it's to come up to see like all right Mike's going to call in he's fixing a water be here let me call here can I can I call you you want to do it on the phone here real quick yeah we'll do it on the phone real quick um no it's all good Mike Mike was fixing Harper uh not Harper I'm sorry Hower all day Mike you're on speaker at the council meeting with the the council here hello everyone how are you hey Mike how are you how are you so Mike Mike's uh buttoning up the last repairs so we're going to go through the water and Shore budget um with him real quick on the phone Mike and I met last week pull up real quick this is I'll get you the sheet here yeah 13 13 13 page 13 of the budget you guys are good you study I think Jo read these last night I think so memorize um again our goal our goal her goal has been and continues to be to support and strengthen the water and store utilities um it goes without saying that they were and continue to be in not the best shape as seen with the um uh rate adjustment that we needed and just forced increases that we have absolutely no control over um as we go through the water budget I'll point out some of those items um salaries went from $6,750 to 63112 um with the understanding some of these may eventually come back out of water utility go into current um that's our our goal there um Leak Detection $188,000 that's has been a valuable essential tool for Mike Mike you had them out there today on Hower too yes yeah they the ones that pinpoint leaks that don't come to the surface so what they do is they drive around uh at night usually listening for Lee underground it helps us better you know Zone in and scope out where the leak is actually occurring so when we go and drill we see where the water's coming out um but that's a dollar amount that went up too last year was 15,000 this year it's 13,000 uh you'll see the Edmonds line in here too that's for water billing Edmonds has its own feature as well as for law soft it support 37,000 last year and it goes to 38,500 also included in this line is Mike skada system the SK system is arguably the most important piece of technology that the township has that tells Mike when our water tanks are low if there's a security issue um you know if you Council remembers a few meetings ago there was we were losing water in one of the tanks Mike right we didn't so we knew we had a leak uh and the skada system was what alerted Mike to that and then allowed us to go look so that's taken out of there correct um CP engineering um Council may remember that's who did our water and sore rate analysis um they are essential for Mike with the compliance issues uh that D requires they've helped us with waste U I'm sorry not waste water with drinking water parameters if the council members the EQ and pH uh notices of non-compliance they helped walk us through that they help mik with a lot of the reporting Mike you want to just touch on a little bit what they do briefly oh yeah they they like Joe said they basically go through all of U our correspondence back and forth between anything with d uh help with compliance and paperwork that's just over our our heads an engineer would need to sign off on so uh the next line in there you see sake Valley Water um that dollar amount is 400,000 what was actually taken from there last year there is a forced 6% increase between SE Valley and North Jersey water it is an unavoidable cost that U we will be incurring as we purchase all of our water from either North Jersey or Pake Valley uh and you could see that down here monq South that's North Jersey that numbers 535,000 so of this budget a million dollar is to purchase water and that's what we need to stress to the residents too is that you know no one wants to see rate increases no one wants to pay more but we are not you know not for profit and we don't make money on the utilities we can't lose it either and we have to at least cover these basic costs and I said it before heat power light account that's a huge account because Mike is running these pumps for the uh Towers for the the water towers and various other operations for the water department throughout the town it draws a lot of power draws a lot of electricity um permit fees you could see we're paying the state $88,000 a year just to run the water facility uh there's a water tax that the state charges to us um these are unavoidable fees that we have to pay uh water main repairs you'll see that there's 20,000 in there it's a catchall account that we use to tap into where we need to uh part of Suburban is in here 85,000 um and you can see the water tax again that's just a fee that we can avoid also in here you'll see the health insurance Dental uh short and long-term disability this overall budget is 24871 se2 that number is going to go down a little bit I got to tweak some salaries and some other expenses to get it a little bit closer to where we want to see it but that's where it's proposed at right now you'll also see The Debt Service decreased from 44 $ 6,798 to $355,100 more than what we had last year um and again you could see on the sheet a lot of the accounts were moved to to one if it says move to hpl that got moved to heat power and light it got Consolidated salaries here went from 652 698 to 676 700 um audit is in here General equipment and repair um various licensing for the sewage utility uh engineering for CP as well U testing permits big thing here two of the biggest items are chemical line it's $85,000 and the sludge hauling is 250,000 those are avoidable but unavoidable and when I say that the reason the Sledge Hing is so much is because we're hauling off a lot of water still whereas some towns are having SL sudge removed two or three times a week we're having them come at remove Sledge every single day and the reason for that is because the infrastructure is so old down there it's not able to refine the sewage anymore so they're taking like what you say like 70% water 30% sludge out it's more liquid than it is a solid so that's that's our goal to start working on getting it to a solid state and the problem to do that though is that you need to invest Capital Money in the utility upwards of probably close to3 and. half four million to replace a digestor and RBC but you can't do that until the utilities become self- sustaining and self-liquidating because you can't come up with the down payment to cast The Debt so everything is kind of tied to one another whereas if if the utility runs a deficit and we are anticipating it run a deficit this year even with the rate increase just because it's you can't cure a whole deficit in one budget cycle eventually our goal is to have it run a surplus where we have money returning into the utility for capital projects or down payment on debt to fix a digestor to fix an RBC to fix uh the chlorinators and the uh the UV lights um the infrastructure is from the 50s right Mike digest are that old yeah the Dig was the original um piece of equipment plant so you know these are costly Endeavors um unfortunately the township doesn't qualify for um ibank principal forgiveness if we did that would be great because what we would do is apply for through the ibank for a loan basically the ibank is a state sanctioned infrastructure Bank where they give you the money but we don't qualify to get the principal forgiveness so the extra hurdles it takes for us to go through the ibank is just not worth us doing it when we could bond for it and eventually pay the debt service um same thing here Debt Service here is a very slight $10,000 decrease um I'm happy with the sore budget as is um Rebecca is right now probably working on finalizing some of the final numbers which is going to really determine what and where deficits are any deferred charges are which ultimately impact the cap bank and ultimately impact what this budget would be for next year you have any questions for Mike no no Mike's been busy Saturday they three more in breaks in three days so you know the cruise have been out there and it's it's not easy but it's that time of year right Mikey oh yeah plus we're also wrapping up all of our end of the year state required paperwork so that's working on over the weekend nothing for Mike one question go Council a question from the 250,000 for sludge removal yep how much would that go down if we had a new uh digestor Mike how much would that go down can you estimate what the sludge removal contract would be if we had a new digestor uh I would like to see it at least cut by 100,000 um you know a few years ago the state required us to have phosphorus removal so we remember we had to increase the chemical line because we had seed more chemical to um basically remove the phosphorus out of the Wast line so by doing that it also increased our sludge production so so that's why you know looking at different types of filtration and also upgrading the digestor I like to see that line item be cut weight and also the chemical line item would be cut down too so if you cut the chemicals in half that brings it to 45,000 roughly and you're saving almost 150,000 in the operating budget right which again but to get the utility to be able to support the debt it's got to be self-sustaining it's not there yet hasn't been there in probably 10 years and we couldn't use like pilot as a down payment to get that to get the problem is could you it's hard it's hard because pilot is a miscellaneous Revenue not anticipated coming from the hilltop development or other developments that we've approved Pilots for um the theory behind the utility is that the users of the utility support it right you pay your sore bill you pay your water bill the use of that goes to that can you argue that they are paying water and sore bills um and that that pile of money could support it you probably could I don't know if the state would accept it as a reason to like we paid the water meters out of pilot funds but why could we justify that because everybody has a water meter right everyone is benefiting from it to the same extent would everyone benefit from a $2.5 million do digestor yeah because you wouldn't have to raise it in your taxes and current fund or theer charges so on and so forth so that's a question for our Bond counsil and for our auditor but I would like to say it could be because we have we would have the money to do it um but that still doesn't negate the fact that we need to get the utilities to a stronger Point even this year coming up we still need to work on getting them where they need to be right but I'm just thinking that that might be a wise investment for the township yeah if we were able to do that sooner than later it's not you're also saving $150,000 a year you know you could always recast the bond when the interest rates go down it might be a huge savings long term for the council and it's not one of those you know it's in comparison to what we were talking about earlier it's not like a DPW truck right right we're talking about a digestor from the 1950s this is going to you know I'm assuming if we get one in 2025 26 that's going to last us a long time like how would that work it last yeah but uh you know we did look at that CP was down um a few months ago we started doing some investigation as far as what pieces of equipment you know we would do as far as rehabbing the digestor um I've started talking to other operators and go visit other treatment plants to see what would work best for us in the long run so we can explore the pilot option yeah I would look into it just so we know if it's even if it's a possibility if it's not a possibility then we can't do it any other questions for Mikey no water or sore related no no keep up at it Mike you button that up keep it going no problem thanks buddy see you uh Chief dony you're in the hot seat all right hey chief how are you how's everybody doing good how are you nice and quick the fire department budget easy budget page five it's 67 five bottom [Applause] bottom okay um fire budget's relatively uh similar to what it was last year we'll just do the overall because I know the chief has a eventual big Capital request of the governing body um last year's budget 201850 it jumps to 205 850 this year biggest sole reason for that increase is new software for the fire trucks do you want to talk about what that software does what we're looking at sure so it's it's a new reporting system for our state mandated um reports that have to go into the state it's called niffers um excuse me so with this new Reporting System we actually have uh iPad tablets located in the rigs um so when the Call Comes in it pops up right on the screen gives your GPS locations we can track real time where the rigs are and the uh the officer of the rig will actually just hit in route on location it gives us a real time uh evaluation of how long it's taking us to from the time of the call to the time we're in route to the time we get there so pretty it's a pretty neat system um in in fire Capital we have some discussions for some new computers for each of the fire houses as the council obviously is aware North End is hopefully going to be done around May um which will be huge for fire department know everyone's eager to get out of DPW Yard and get in there and we are eager to finish and put this project behind us um that being said uh the chief and the committee have been working towards uh scoping out a new fire Tru it has reached its useful life uh for the insurance rating I believe that's correct um it's 21 years old 21 21 years old um what's the insurance rating what's the usually for a ladder truck's about 20 years yeah so with that slipping and given how long it takes to get a fire truck they've started the process relatively soon you want to talk a little bit about that sure so we started the process about a year and a half ago uh looking into um what type of apparatus we want do we want to get something if we could go a little bigger or something smaller so at the end of the day um the committee uh decided we're going to stay with pretty much what we have uh including the same vendor so the truck the new truck will it'll have a little more space for our equipment but it's going to look relatively the same you're not going to see much of a difference in the Aesthetics but uh it does take about 3 to 5 years buildon now um there's not many manufacturers left in the United States of fire trucks so the weit time uh once you put your order in is about 3 to 5 years um there's also some temporal limits here because the truck is at Center company which is where we are uh it's very limited space there's about three inches between the bumper and the back wall yes it's not like we're we're swimming with options here as to what can fit in there um it's 105t ladder 105t ladder the new one will be the same 105t ladder that's from the ground to the very tip if it's straight up in the air um like Joe had mentioned you we are confined by the space that we have in the bay downstairs when we got this ladder truck we actually extended out the front of the building about 4 and A2 ft so that we can fit a new ladder truck um as technolog is advancing the trucks are just getting bigger and bigger and bigger uh so this actually has to be custom built to our specs so when we investigated a couple of other truck companies that build trucks um we would say listen it has to be no bigger than 39 ft9 in and they're like well we could do 401 no this is the hard line it can't it won't fit so um that really helped us n down which company we're going to go with and and again we're just taking the specs from the old truck almost and and building a new truck with it here A D question do you like trade in an old truck um you can sell it sell it down south yeah usually down south um they they'll they'll buy used apparatus from up North and they that's what they do down there they just run them so they can't run anymore and the equipment that's on the truck most most most the equipment is going to be move moved over yes so most of the equipment um even though the truck ages a lot of the equipment on the truck um reaches this expiration date before the truck does so it's changed it's you know when things fail like we just had a ladder fail so we're going to replace that ladder with a new ladder cuz we're still maybe 3 to five years out from a new truck so that ladder will just go from the current truck into the new truck so a lot of the equipment that we have is going to just go from one to the other Chief how old is the current truck it's about 21 years old yeah so by the time you see the new one will probably be closer to 25 with an average lifespan of 20 yes the the the the NFPA rates in about 20 years so um we weren't expecting such a long lag time with from from you know ordering to to actually getting it but it it's it's this way with almost every uh distributor and every truck out there it it's and by the time that truck comes you'll be doing the process for an engine yeah any questions what's the yeah uh you're looking between probably 17 and eight said yeah um that could be used for pilot funds pilot funds could pay for that that uh again it the cost I know it's the current truck that we have now was was about 850 and again 20 years ago but a year from now at8 could be 22 it and how does it get funded because it takes three years what do they expect so I would I have a meeting with Pierce to do that what I don't want to do is cast a bond ordinance this year and not have to pay but have to pay interest on it or principal on it right yeah so I'm going to see with them is if we could just certify that we have the funds which I'll send our uh doublea plus bonding capacity from standard and pores I'll send our fund balance our utilization of the debt and what our our bonding capacity is uh we're well under our bonding capacity which is great um because we continually to aggressive pay down our debt um so I'll send them all that and hopefully that's enough for them to at least get started um and then next year if they need a one3 payment we'll Bond one3 if they need 50% in two years we'll Bond 50 % I don't want to bond 1.8 million right now have it sit there and then have us have to pay interest on it for two or 3 years and but we'll have to pay principal before the trucks even here so then we're sitting here it's like well you know we're paying all this debt on a truck we don't even have it's not even built yet so I have a meeting whenever Pier schedules it we'll sit with Pierce and discuss all that so the the dealer actually explained because I said how does the the payment scale work is there a deposit he goes nope they just town just has to show they have the funds to buy the truck so as soon as that happens they we can we can get the ball rolling if you will you know um but you engines are a lot cheaper right so we hope we hope uh but a town close to us just bought an engine for One S 1.7 yeah I don't I I I don't know lot money I don't know what they did but yeah that was uh a very high price so in my opinion but you know again and the truth is the the the apparatus aren't having more maintenance required on them right we just did a steering box on the truck steering box on the truck on 72 currently right now we're waiting for a new uh gas tank for the truck because it it's starting to rot out uh the fuel gauge won't work uh the sensors are going bad so that's been ordered we're just waiting for that to come in and that'll be installed so that the uh the gas tank doesn't rust off the truck which would be not a good thing so but these are real you know considerations to take into account from where we live um when we're responding a call especially now in the winter time with salt and snow all that stuff gets kicked up and underneath the truck so that's kind of where the problem started from underneath the truck it starts to to rot it starts to you know it starts to break down if you will and that's where we seem to have a lot of the issues and we had that big storm with the rain and um it did go through some flood waters no damage to the truck but it does eat away at some of the components underneath any questions for does the state help with any of the funding for fire fire departments no we've looked into this before Noy there's no there's no grants there's nothing out there to help that for volunteer fire department there's nothing for career either oh for career either no they they they're they leave that up to the municipalities and say you've got to figure it out figure it out and buy your own trucks so we're going to do it okay figure it out that's what we do any other questions for the chief no thanks good to go thank you great thank for your service acting Chief py good evening everyone everybody doing we're gonna talk about the police budget do you need a truck for 1.7 million it's good to follow those yeah it's good to follow that I don't know how long it's going to last but it's good to follow those numbers our biggest line item in the municipal bu yeah I think fre police cars is about 149,000 so we're doing all right um P you all right let's start the police budget what page is the police budget is right before fire bottom of page four y two pages you you went the wrong way too I went the wrong way it's always okay um all right police budget as you could see iies increased uh it's contractual increase 3% 4,943 673 to 5, 270,000 for this year uh police overtime 120,000 was budgeted for that college credits 19,000 um something I wanted to talk about was the crossing guard salaries and wages you'll see last year $143,700 can you speak to that for a little bit yes so uh prior to Mr zelli coming in and Rebecca as the CFO we used a convoluted scheduling and pay scale system for our crossing guards whereby we paid them partial hours per day to try and give them more hours on the hole for the week it was in a way to keep the hourly rate down it was a scheduling Nightmare and it was a finance nightmare uh luckily with m Mr zelli and Miss Roth uh we were able to look through the budget and come up with a set rate that was comparable to surrounding towns of $24 an hour we had lost so many guards going into the new year we had a deficit of seven guards coming into this school year but because we were able to get a competitive salary with the surrounding towns we actually got in excess of seven applications which was nice because we were able to go through and actually pick people that we felt were a good fit for Seer Grove uh unfortunately it does drive up the line item but in comparison going into the school year the first two weeks of the school year we spent close to $122,000 in police overtime Staffing crossing guard posts uh now we're back down to where we can take an officer from Patrol and do it whereas we were holding night shift over and bringing uh people in the afternoon and early or holding the detectives in the afternoon to cover School Crossings because we had such a deficit going into this school year uh also it gave us the ability that we were able to add one additional post at uh Cedar and Ridge Road I don't know if anybody's familiar with Ridge Road at School dismissal time but it is a parking lot for a good period of time uh Cedar was one of those intersections uh through my research I I would probably say the 70s or 80s we had a school crossing there it was decommissioned with in the record there was some push back from the residents when it was decommissioned I think walking habits die down they have since increased afternoon dismissal there's a large as we would call platoon of children that make it across that intersection usually they're going to Panther Park uh especially fall and spring Panther Park has a huge draw after school so if they don't disperse down Cedar Street they make it up to Bradford where we have another set of guards so adding it actually made it a safer Crossing because there's not a lot of control it's a tough intersection for a motorist it was tougher for the kids so we were able to pull one of the guards we had somewhere else uh readjust them also uh the guard we pulled was North End School if any of you were familiar with North End School we had two guards that sadly we knew didn't equal a half a guard uh down there it was quite difficult we were lucky to recruit somebody uh who can handle that post on their own even the school principal was a little surprised she was upset we pull the guard away we ask her just be patient give us time we have one very competent person who can do this Crossing and uh it's worked out she's happy I think the parents are happy down there so the the the school Crossings uh I always explain it it's my Penance I train the guards uh for the year any agency you talk to or Township will tell you it's a very difficult thing to staff it's typically retirees that we draw in so you're constantly you know repl ring looking for people to back fill and it's tough they give up their days they come out in this weather for us like I I mean through the frigid weather we've had all our guards showed up so I you know joking aside I can't say enough good things about them when they show up it's zero with a wind chill and they stand out there for an hour for us on that Crossing so that's why you see such a big increase there but again we'll hopefully reduce the overtime expenditure to offset some of that um and again you know that's just the going forward will have modest increases in that category um this account here very large increase that's going to come out next year this is um for the township to fund an exam this year so I see 37,000 under the conference and du's account from 19966 um I think we owe a shout out to patrolman maoy who does a very diligent job on on the police budget and I don't know if he's watching at home I'm sure he is um but a lot of the Police Operations exist and exist in such a tight confin because of of Jeff's work deal we we've nicknamed him the banker uh Jeff and I I have to say as as a steart of the public tax dollar there's nobody better than Jeff uh we really couldn't do it without him for 25 years he has run our budget with a razor sharp pencil and every year he's brought us in either on or under budget uh with everything accounted for uh I know as the town is transitioned to Edmonds even Rebecca gave a shout out to Jeff that he he's done a fantastic job at keeping everything in order and we I think we were one of the easiest transitions yeah I I think I think to you know the the PD's credit a lot of these expenses are unavoidable too you know it Maintenance and Service $999,000 that is for their CAD that is for lost off that is for E tiet that is for the body camera I mean there's a host of software that the police department has I'm not even scratching the surface for some of it and that these are just regular costs so when you see this o and $100,000 goes to you know servicing software 150,000 goes to purchasing three new police vehicles right so $250,000 in the O is for vehicles and software right that's not including the uh training for our officers That's not including um supplies $112,000 is to be on the state police radio network right so there's a whole host of expenses in here that while they benefit the police department they don't trickle down to patrolman on the road right because it's a software cost it's a new vehicle that we're paying for out of the operating budget there's a lot of of that as well yeah and again I would give a lot of credit to officer mroy and the way we do things in Cedar Grove we recycle our equipment in the patrol cars we try to get at least three transfers out of a patrol car we get an on average two years per car but uh if you look at neighboring towns most of the time when they buy a vehicle they upfit it completely new uh new console new light bar new cage new storage in back new partitions uh we recycle it and we purpose it into another vehicle we have the light switched over it brings down the cost of the upfitting significantly uh because we get the money out of it I I Know Chief Kennedy was here last year and the year before I do have to thank the council you did fund us with uh the new model police vehicles there were some changes in console configurations you generously funded us we will get a little more life out of them now but the patrol cars are uh uniform the light bars actually talk to one another uh we've done some research on safety studies on bringing the power down on the light bars at night sinking the light bars up into a flash pattern that doesn't cause a motorist to go blind as they go past them uh I in general I do have to thank the council you very supportive of us in my 26 years with the township the council has always been supportive uh you literally put your money where your mouth is and that we do have good equipment we have a nice building uh we chip away at it conservatively I think in line with the way the town likes things done uh we pick a little space every year freshen it up uh you know maybe whether it be the bathroom a squad room something like that but it is very much appreciated by the members of the police department they know know it and I just want to extend our thanks to you for the support you give us throughout the year that was perfect overall here 5,970 380 to five from 5,665 379 we went through some of the increases and just to round it out um I'm going to have uh back and chief go through some of the um Capital items uh for the police department which are pretty uh nominal compared to other Capital requests and just briefly touch on each one and what they do yes so the the BWC docking station is for the body warn cameras uh again you're going to hear officer melroy's name a lot tonight uh we stuck with the tried in true company we've been using for our camera systems we reached the life expectancy on the docking stations uh the cameras get docked we load everything to the cloud now which is why you see some of these fees for software it was becoming too expensive to maintain the server inside uh to store all the video and the video is in and BWC and MVR which is the car cameras so uh we're going to replace uh two of the docking stations for that cost and then we'll have another two we'll see we can get a little more life out of them Jeff does a good job at patching them and then uh down the road we'll probably have to replace them the defibrillators uh I can't say enough uh when I came to the Cedar Grove Police Department we were one of the first agencies in the area to carry a defibrilator it actually looked like a scene from remember the show Squad 51 yeah had that in the paddles we've now gone to the smaller ones uh we put them in all the vehicles uh just over the Christmas holiday we had a save at the grasshopper because of the defibrillator and the Lucas uh we run two lucases as well you explain the lucases real quick yeah it's it does chest compressions for CPR it just provides consistent uh like a rhythm time timed and depth for compression uh early intervention with that and the def lat usually results in somebody's life being saved in the case of the grasshopper was a gentleman lives upstairs they shocked him three times uh they weren't even sure when they got to the hospital but they got a blood pressure and a pulse back uh they did some emergency catheterization uh Chief Huber from the squad even reached out that uh they commented it was the officer's early intervention uh with the equipment didn't change the outcome for the individual so all our officers are trained on all that equipment yes all of them yeah everybody's trained on defibrillator Lucas and CPR so uh we've always uh proud ourselves on that I think a lot of our former members to a little history of the PD they came from the squad uh we we it's kind of been ingrained in us over the years uh we we try to work closely with the first aid in Cedar Grove help him carry and things like that so uh again we've gotten our useful life out of the defri relators over the years it's time to upgrade them to some new ones the ALCO test is a item that is out of our control uh we're operating on an instrument that is no longer supported by Drager the state picked a new device they're rolling it out county by county uh Essex County in true fashion is the last county in the state of New Jersey who's going to get it uh we're on borrow time on ours actually we're one of the last instruments that's still up and running in the area I believe uh this is the breathalizer machine for DW uh two weekend ago we had East Orange Belleville Monclair and Verona here to use ours uh little fallos has been in recently we're one of the last ones that we've maintained our equipment so we I'm hoping they don't wear it out on us they can't use the new one when it comes in here yeah I told I'm going I'm going to put a quarter machine in and start charge them for mouthpieces uh some improvements to the police commentary again like I said every year we chip away a little bit at the building this is on the first floor in the hallways it would be flooring match the new desk area some fresh paint and some new ceiling tiles uh some of them from going up and down over the years of broken uh the weapons purchase uh we had put in four new rifles and I know it's something people don't like to talk about uh why we have to have Patrol rifles uh they were transitioned many many years ago because of active shooter incidents uh unfortunately uh they're much more accurate at distance and they reduce the chance of like a shotgun having a widespread on the double O Buck have unintended consequences of hitting things you wouldn't want to uh our rifles again we've kind of patched them through over the years but we're looking to standardize them in the event wherever uh hopefully not here if we go to somebody else for an active shooter event are those in each vehicle yeah we put them on the road each day uh we we've we expanded we replaced our shotguns and went to patrol rifles it's a uh a more stable weapons platform uh much more uh easier for the officer to use the Glock 43x is it's a small version of the weapon we carry for the detectives and the administrative officers uh sometimes they're referred to as hip howitzers when you carry the full gun all day but by virtue of what especially the detectives do sometimes they're in plain clothes or they're in a uh BDU uniform it's a a smaller firearm to carry around that they're not carrying the larger one on their side uh the radar units uh we were able to get one through last year and we're going to get one more so we have a uniform radar unit and all the vehicles and somehow uh we burnt out our LTI laser unit the company isn't quite sure how we did it uh I like to think it's for the amount of use we give it but uh it's beyond the repair cost so it would be um more feasible just to buy a new unit uh I think the last one we we got close to 10 years out of it for Speed enforcement uh we tried to keep it a little light on the uh under 100,000 this year for I know the council was very good to us last year uh we added the Drone and we did some other things we had the desk project go through so uh this year we're trying to keep it down a little bit for everybody well we appreciate it but the one question I had um Chief how how's everything as far as you know we still have these issues with the home invasion the burglaries and car thefts throughout the county and the state um you have the license plate readers you have the cameras in town how's everything working is there any new technology that's available to help you know the police department you know to to fight against that the the a alprs have been very very helpful uh the surrounding towns are getting theirs up we have a few more to put up ourselves uh they help us uh preemptively go after it when we get a hit on them uh they've also helped us a lot in the followup the overall the home invasion if you will or the breaking and entering and the stealing of the cars the numbers have been down uh I I do have to give credit to officer Lynch and detective Johnson uh they we've charged multiple people recently uh I had some things that to get to Mr zelli for the end of the year uh they've participated in jobs throughout Northern New New Jersey uh the individual from I believe it was Clara I think everyone is familiar with where the resident uh took up arms to chase them out of the house we just recently charged somebody for that uh they were able to track them down through social media uh detective Johnson and officer Lynch uh Chris Lynch I I think we've gotten a little better with it the officers are out there at night the alprs again if they hit early especially the suring towns have them and we're sharing the same system it gets them to the areas where we think they're going to be coming uh based on what cameras they're hitting on uh the Le I know the legislature actually this court has changed the uh grading and they've also changed the Matrix for pre-trial release for those crimes again to try and keep them confined uh when we get them and charge them with it uh I don't that's for adults the juvenile still hasn't changed right the laws for the juveniles the juveniles yeah and a lot of times unfortunately we do see there are juveniles involved in these crimes they're using them the last couple we've charged were adults though uh we've had a pretty good success rate uh we had one on Cedar Street which they finally got back some subpoenas from banking institutions and the detectives were able to charge on that as well uh the individuals who we believe were in the house so uh we've had some Pursuits again the officers are proactive and that they're coming across the cars before they get a chance to do something uh results in a Pursuit uh they're using good judgment in it uh once they're out of town we break the Pursuits off uh typically the vehicle that's fleeing has no regard for the safety of others and the officers acknowledge that and uh we kind of flush them out and uh hope they don't come back later but we've we've been doing pretty good I have to say the off especially at night they're they're on it we have some younger officers so the readers are helping a lot the readers are helping I know the towns now our surrounding neighboring towns are you know by them adding it it's it's helping us too yes North col and Verona are just finishing the Builders out we have a few cameras left we have a line on maybe getting a free trailer we're thinking of maybe outfitting one of the trailers with our alpr camera so we can move it around a little bit better that's so we're holding back uh I don't know if you were also one of the things we did with the alprs when we upgraded the car cameras we put alprs in all the cars so we stuck with the same camera system we've been using the company we run two cameras in the windshield one is for the video and the other is actually a Plate Reader uh kind of like a force multiplier we put five cars on the road we now have five mobile alprs around that are hitting on things uh you know plates that don't match stolen vehicles unregistered uninsured suspended uh plus some of the fixed locations uh if the state the state would give us the green light we've been waiting for we really want to get them on the state signals uh that that's where they're the most effective when they're centered over the lanes at that height for reading so pmpt in 23 yeah that that's what we envision we've worked it out with Verona where we deconflict it we're going to share roadways uh where we border same thing with North calwell so that you know if we want to put a camera on Grove Verona doesn't put on Grove it's cuz it's redundancy so they'll take Fairview Avenue and then you know we each take it same thing with Pompton at uh the plaza we want to split both sides of the highway with the cameras the county was good Essex County has been phenomenal uh they've been putting them up for us we did Bradford and Upper Mountain uh which has proved very useful uh because we've tend to get a lot of things that'll come up from Upper Montclair into Cedar Grove we get a heads up on it the officers can get to the area and uh again try and flush them out before they get into anything well it's that's I'm glad to hear that uh it's down and you know everything is is you working well and that uh you have it you have a good system in place for for you know the night and getting everybody out there so we appreciate it I know that's a big concern for all the residents and a lot of the data obviously they're not up to dat with the data so if they they read a news article about something that happened in another Township they're concerned about what's happening here in Cedar Grove so yeah I think that's one of the worst things somebody could go for is to have their privacy invaded like that somebody in their house especially at nighttime yeah uh our our residents like residents in general have gone good they don't leave the keys in the vehicle we we didn't expect that they criminals were going to up their game and try and come into the houses which is was surprising to see uh but like I said the officers they are Vigilant out there the the alprs uh there is some federal money which I have to speak to Credo from North uh there was some money through uh believe it was representative Mickey cherl did it that we there should be some money there also that we can expand a little bit more with the camera system great any other questions anything PD related any uh anything how about down at the park did we ever uh are we still using the county yeah we get a trailer on that still comes on Lo and still working well yeah good it's been a decent turn effect I would imagine more so than anything yeah St at Devil's Hole yeah I couldn't think of the name of it you know if anything it just it gets us there quicker yeah right right you know it's we're not wasting time getting out when nobody's there but when we see people arriving we can get there and let them know they shouldn't be doing what they're doing good so anything else good to thank you Chief thank you thank you C well you know not asking for a $2 million fire engine stay safe right I like thank you okay Council that concludes our 2025 initial budget hearing um this these numbers are not hard and fast as I said when I began these numbers are fluid and subject to change um pending the cap calculation our insurance exclusions our utility deficits and a whole host of other items that we just got a work with um I will continue working on this until adoption uh if you guys have any comments or feedback between now and anytime obviously reach out to me I hope you found the new uh template a little easier to go through and a little bit more streamlined than um what was used in Prior years we got it done in one night one night that was the goal right under three hours too yeah so you know thank you all for for availing yourself for this and if there's anything you need between now and budget adoption you'll be seeing and hearing a lot more from me I'm sure great thank for all your efforts Mr tell that you have I might have seen your truck here a little or two on weekends that's when I get all my work done evening hours perhaps to the clerk she's here too all weekend too we get it done and we're never annoyed I'm going to speak for the group we're never annoyed by your by your uh snow truck and uh plowing updates especially when they're like and I might be in a truck list got to do what you got to do guys survival you picture his smile definitely not ance and um I think we need a motion to adjourn please so move second roll call please councilman maseri yes councilman zali yes Deputy Mayor Miga yes mayor scavage yes thank you everybody you thank you thank you