Adequate notice of this meeting was provided in accordance with chapter 231 public law 1975. Moment of silence. At this time, I pledge allegiance by commissioner Garcia.
I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Commissioner Capazola >> here.
>> Commissioner Garcia here. Commissioner Alino here. >> Commissioner Sar. >> Commissioner Romero >> here. >> Deputy Director Marawn >> here. >> Director Taylor present. >> Do I have a motion in second to accept and dispense with the reading of the minutes from the last public meeting? >> So move. >> Second.
>> All in favor? >> There's no question. >> We have a couple presentations tonight. Um the poster winner con the poster contest winners would be presented by our constitutional officers. So good evening everyone and
commissioners thank you for allowing us to present um the poster award contest winners. Now, I think it was WC Field that said, "I don't I don't like to work with animals and children." Clearly, none of the children showed up.
>> And they still might. They still might. Um but um since 2018, we the constitutional office or the clerk's office has created an election calendar. Um since 2021 we've been doing the by
county poster contest um which all of the constitutional officers in the state of New Jersey do but we what we do with our posters is not only do we give them a monetary award which is supplied by the three constitutional officers but we
also create um the election calendar and I'll post this is last year's these are the winners that will for this year. If you want to pass some around, um, this is all I have left because
they're very popular. Um, this year we had three, we've gotten, every year we get more and more schools that participate. Uh, this year we've had four schools that participated. West Avenue, Fox, Fairfield, my renown pal,
and what was the other what was the Marie Durant? I apologize. Um, the three winners this year, our third place winner. Third place, >> which always every year a winner has the
sheriff's department on it. every year. >> But the third place winner was Helio Smith out of Fairfield school. Our second place winner was um two students did a combined cont poster from Buckshing School. It was Brit Britney
Menddees Chavez and Kayn Perez Lopez. And our first place winner was Melanie Velasquez from West Avenue School. Wow. Um, FIRST PLACE will go on the cover and then each month all the students who participate get a
month and so >> yeah it is >> it's very nice because people love it but it's so it's very fun to read what the kids um write about Cumberland County and what they know. Uh we display the all the posters in the courthouse
for gosh almost two whole months that yeah ever since we start the poster contest we announce it usually in March. >> So that's it. >> One of the good I mean we talked about this before but one of the good things is like you will learn something about Carlin County. I guarantee you if you go
look at these posters because they research stuff that's went on in the county and I know that the year before I forget which one it was but I was like I never knew that. >> Yeah. >> So it's really cool. We walk up the courthouse if these posters are up there where they're displayed at because there's they go across the board with history of the county.
But you won't learn anything about the circus office. It's all about the sheriff. >> It's a big subject. Yeah, it's all about the hoping that
>> I'm hoping some of them might show up tonight. If they don't, um, that's okay. But if they do, we'll >> we'll stop the meeting. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. They're only fourth grade, so and only fourth grade gets to participate. So that's all questions. >> Very nice.
>> I think we should thank the constitutional officers for putting ON THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ALSO has um certificates to present the winners. >> Oh, wonderful. We um we actually visited their schools last week to present them
with their um their awards and it's very exciting, you know, because they're they're very excited to receive it. They they all clap for each other. It's very clear. So, thank you. You're welcome. Before we get into the presentation with
Inspir, I would like to um congratulate Miss New Jersey, who's a former Miss Cumberland County, Kelly Wright. And with that, and Spear will be doing a presentation tonight. Good evening everyone. Thank you so much
for having us on this evening. Uh we hope not to take up too much of your time. We know you have a lot of business to get to this evening, but um we thank you for inviting us, Director Taylor and Commissioners, to be here with you on this evening to talk about our find help
services that we offer through Inspira. to my colleagues that are here with me on this evening um will present on it. I am Robin Walton and I am senior vice president of external affairs and chief development officer, philanthropy officer for Inspira and um these are the
folks that actually do the work. So they'll talk to you about not only the work that they're doing but the opportunity that it creates for our community here and in Spir um glad to be able to partner with you
all. We know that if we are going to see improvements in our community as we think about the fact that we are in a community where our health outcomes continue to struggle and um that it's directly linked right intrinsically to
economic stability. There's a lot for us to do to move the needle and no entity can do it alone. The county can't do it alone. Our municipalities can't. As a health system, we cannot either. But if we come together to move the needle, we surely can. And Matthew Rudd, who is
leading our work with Find Help, is working with a number of CBOs and we're hoping to maximize that. And so he'll talk about it on this evening. We continue to see um a decline, if you will, around um
investment in healthcare. um as we think about what's to come and we won't get political with it cuz I you know I think we all have our views but what is true and constant is that when we think about our community here we've
made a lot of headway and we might see a good portion of that diminish um once we get past midterms and we think about the Medicaid cuts that are coming our way, the SNAP cuts and many other things that uh will ultimately impact not only the
health system but the people here most importantly that we're serving. So to ensure that we have resources in place proactively and together that we can continue um to move the needle forward so that we don't lose any ground as
things shift around us. It's critical that we have these conversations. So we're grateful for you having us here on this evening. Before I turn it over to Matt and Briana who will introduce themselves and talk a little bit about their work and then give the presentation, at the behest of um the
director and deputy director, I was asked to briefly mention some of the work that we're doing around substance use disorder programming throughout our service region. Um, we recently were able to put a program in place in Gloucester County in partnership with
the county that allows us to really focus on hospitalbased substance use disorder programming and allows for um us to support many patients who come through our doors in a number of ways that all of us might miss otherwise,
right? But someone comes in because maybe they have a heart attack, maybe they have um an issue with their diabetes or something else and we end up finding out along the way when they are in a patient that they have um a
substance use disorder issue. And this program allows us to not only get the services in place before they leave our hospital doors to ensure that success is set up for the patient and their family,
but it also allows us to be get to come together as a community and offer education, offer services for women who are pregnant, offer services for patients between the ages. When I think about our program in Gloucester County, we have
literally from October, I think it is. My my colleagues will keep me honest here. October to February, um, we served over 229 patients in Gloucester County. That frankly has less of an issue than we do here in Cumberland County. Um, we've been able
to not only help that many patients, but that many families who love their spouses, who love their parents, who love their children, and want to see them healed. So, we ask um that we think about the opportunity to do that work together here in Cumberland and we look forward to continuing to have the
conversation with you. I'm now going to turn it over to my colleague Matt Rudd. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you for that, Robin. Um, so Clean for a Reason is a is a provider that I had not heard of and I'm
guessing you haven't or either. And Clean for a Reason came onto our radar when our early intervention team was working with a family that had young boys who had autism. And the boys needed some support. But as
the early intervention team got with the family, they started to realize there was more that's going on. and the dad had a significant cancer diagnosis. And that diagnosis meant that there was additional burden on the family. And when they turned to find help and they
looked up options and support, home cleaning services for free for someone in the household who had a cancer treatment was available to the family and they were connected through find help. That's the example that I think bridges
the the reason why in in spirit is heavily investing in find help and the way that we're going upstream using this platform and trying to support people with connecting the needs of the families to the providers and the
community based organizations or CBOS as they are already here many of them but we need to help that connection happen all the more so if you're connecting uh with me. Let me make sure this is going forward here. So, here's what um
here's what it's supposed to look like. And for you in the the uh commissioner seats here, you've got the presentation in your folders. For the rest of you, please follow along. The idea of building out a trusted network for Inspirit is essential. So our social care team is constantly interfacing with
patients as you heard Robin talk about who have needs that are not necessarily health specific or they're maybe upstream. So the idea of a health navigator recognizing a need through some sort of screening or patient interaction would then lead to the
capacity through find help to transmit that need to community- based provider electronically, efficiently and effectively who then can offer the support and the assistance to that person in need. they can call the the the patient, they can call the person,
connect with them, find out what they need, and then my favorite part is that they have the capacity within the system to close the loop. There's actual transparency and accountability that's built into the platform. And I'll briefly describe how that's how that works. And this idea of closing the loop
with referrals, I think, is something that we're tracking all the more because we know the need is great, but connecting them to the provider needs more support. So this is what the dashboard looks like. And they've got nationwide over
900,000 programs that are inside find help, which is kind of like saying if you go to a Google search and you look up 3 million options, but you only care about the top five, that's how find help starts to add efficiency and
effectiveness to the system. So if I was to put in 08302, 2500 programs come up, but our realization is not all of them have the capacity like cleaning for a reason to bridge the gap between the need and the
patient. And so our uh connection here is building out the trusted network to make this all the more effective for our social care team. And what the beauty of find help is it also recognizes that there's the public facing side not just
for our social care team on the clinical side but that this is currently available to the public and the ability to use find help as a directory to connect needs and solutions is already in place through find help. And so when
our trusted network builds, it adds to the capacity of the county as a whole. And for us, I've been adding community based organizations, getting them listed with accurate information and updated programmatic points of contact. That has really turned into a lot more searches
that are then turning into referrals that are connecting with patients and the general public when a need comes up. Just like that family that I told you about at the top, it's zip code based, so it's proximity driven. And then you can see the categories ranging from
food, housing, all the way over to work and legal. And so they're very cognizant of the types of needs that we have in our community. And we have our own dashboard that allows us to track the analytics and follow up with some of those closed loops. So, if someone was looking for help with quitting smoking,
our quit center uh is on here and this is the program card that's live right now. If you were to search for this, you would able to save it as a bookmark like you would in any browser or if you're using an app, you could write your own notes. But my favorite part is the refer
button and that you could click refer and the information that you were looking for is now going to track your information and be sent to the programmatic point of contact. In this case, it would go to Tiffany or Marietta and they would follow up on that patient
with some basic information such as your name, your email, and the best way to contact you. and that is now on Tiffany or Marietta to respond to that patient which is what happened a few weeks ago when a patient reached out on Friday and we had an intake scheduled by Wednesday.
Those are the kind of systems that I think we're investing heavily in because the recognition of the need we have to have more efficiency and effectiveness to meet that need with the solutions that are present. So for us, that idea
of closing the loop is by far the the part that I think we need more help with. Let's see if we can get it back. So the closing the loop allows us to then work with the community based organizations and they have dashboards that will show
what referrals have been made and what's the status of that referral. So for me to be able to say, Tiffany, did you follow up? and she's saying, "I have it scheduled for Wednesday." is all the more effective because now the person has trust that that system is active
of the need that they put out there asking for help. And the more that we can help people, the more that we're going to see our social determinance of health and the patients that are often coming to front-end systems and really bearing burden on that get more and more
reduced as people find the help that they need. So, next I'm going to turn it over to Bri and she's going to talk about expanding access to >> Great. Thank you, Matt. And first of all, thank you all for having us here this evening. I know it's a very busy
time of year, a very busy evening. So, appreciate you giving us the space to talk about some of the work that we are doing. Um, as was mentioned, my name is Brianna Donnie who I'm the director of policy and government affairs at Inspira. And it's no secret that there
are some challenges in health care currently and ahead. As we look at changes to um Medicaid status for many p for many residents in our area and our our region, that's going to be an impact on both the county and on our health
system. So some of the ways that we've been looking to ensure that we can expand access for our residents and for our patients to information to resources and to healthcare to ensure that there is not a gap as we know that these dates
are coming. One of the things that was in the one big beautiful bill was the rural health transformation fund. So that was a $50 billion fund over five years for the entire nation. For the first year this year, New Jersey got
$147 million of those funds. So, we were very vocal at the table with ensuring that those dollars were coming into our region. And we do know that as they are putting out a number of grantees, a number of them are in Cumberland County.
As we have been really trying to elevate the message of if you're talking about rural and New Jersey, that's really our region. So those dollars should be coming into our area over the next five years. And one of the things that we applied for at Inspira was enhancing our
find help program. And the enhancement for our find help program was a community engagement suite where it's going to allow and empower Matt and his team to reach out further into our communities, make sure that we are accessing all of those community- based
organizations that should be part of uh find help resource. So the more community- based organizations that we can get into this program, the the more access that our residents and our patients have. And I'm really appreciative to the director and the
deputy director from our conversation a few months ago where we were talking through this and you were like, you know what, we need to make sure that we provide a space for you all to talk about this. So, thank you very much for allowing us this space. Um, if there are any community organizations that you
think our team should be having a conversation with, who should be part of this, please let us know. We want to really amplify the amazing work of find help and what Matt and his team are doing. So, thank you so much. >> So, we almost You could clap in a
second, SW. So, we we recognize that this sounds like an episode of Shark Tank. However, I'm here to say that we're not predominantly coming asking for resources in terms of funding. We're actually coming to ask for resources in
terms of your promotion and your people connection. And so the the first ask is there are some materials that are inside the folders and I've left some cards at the entry that you would share and begin using this as a resource and connect us to the community based organizations
that should be on here. >> I tried to log in. It's blocking me here, but if I went home, I would be able to log in tonight and start searching. >> Absolutely. >> Absolutely. Open to the public. And then if you have people that you want to track, you could create your own user account or not. Right. So you have the option. There's an app.
>> It's like you can sign in through Google or put your username in. >> Exactly. Exactly. And then use that uh whether it's through our site or just the find help site. They're the same backend technology. >> Okay. >> Yep. So what I have done here uh so first start using it and share it with
people that have need as well as people that need to to join us. The second thing I've done is I've kind of gone through the county departments looking at who's already listed find helps technology has gone through the web and if there's a web presence pulled in the
information and put it in a standardized programmatic card format. So already I've worked with Cheryl with the division of uh social services and then Megan was already up with the department of public health. So both of those all those programs under those departments
are already listed and they're listed well with verified information and and points of contact. The middle column which is the office of aging and workforce development have some information that's up. Also I know that's not all of the information. So there should be there's some work that
we could do to get that up into a better level where the referrals are turned on or the next steps that people can take are very clear for those. Everybody on the right I'm suggesting you could consider listing. And so the last page in my um deck here is my contact
information. So, if you would share this with the department heads to work with me to get them listed, I would love to have them on Find Health so that our social care team can effectively and efficiently send referrals to the people who need it most. Thank you very much.
Are there any other questions? Happy to answer if there are any. >> Anybody in the audience? >> Thank you very much for coming. question. >> So, is is this function something that social workers used to do? >> The way that I would describe it is that
it's mostly designed on the clinical side for helpers who are helping, >> right? Social >> like social workers. Okay. If that's all you needed, then yes, I could go embellish it all day, but yes is the short answer. But it's a great tool. remember social workers. You still have
>> I hope not. >> We still have them, but it's a tool that helps them. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, one thing I will add to what Matt said, um, he asked you to share it with your networks and departmentwide and utilize it yourself. But if there are
also while we can't boil the ocean and be everywhere, if there are events that make sense for our team to be at, for Matt to present at and his team, please let us know and we will we can accommodate our group and all the time, but we'll work hard, you know, as hard
as possible to make sure we can be in some of these places to >> and many of them already have like the the HSAs and the kayaks. Some version of this I've done over 60 times now over the last year. So, I've been getting used to presenting on it and it's been a lot of enthusiasm. What we're finding is
that we need more and more of those trusted contacts of the people who are actually going to do the work and take the steps to get themselves listed. There is some work involved, but that's where I'm happy to walk hand inand make sure that that's done.
All right. Um, one of the things that we've been working on in the county is that a lot of people don't even know the programs we have. >> That's right. >> Okay. Uh, and one of the individuals is right here, the office on aging and is
now working closely with veteran affairs because we are veterans that are aging and they now are going to be able to utilize programs that she had and this wasn't being done before. Okay. So, I think it's going to be good. This is
only another level because now once we get our people to sign on uh then they will be able to contact our department heads or our our our different program to get the programs that they're going to need >> and people have no idea the programs
that we are available. There are tremendous resources that are out there >> and the resources we have uh a lot of people don't know that they they have the opportunity to get that. >> That's right. >> So this this would be good that you'll be actually referring referring these individuals to this. Is that is that how
I understand it? >> That's right. >> That's exactly right. So that would be the kind of departments that want to do direct service. >> Right. So those that are intending to serve people directly who want names and contact information of people that are actively looking for help, that's who
needs to get to you. >> You're talking about even mental health, drug, alcohol, all of that. That's the whole thing. >> Exactly. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. I'm Christy De Leonardo, Workforce Development. Um I wanted to just share with you we actually have a
one-stop operator um in Cumberland Salem and Kate May County and we have invited um Matt and his team to come and present in Cumberland Salem and Kate May County about this particular program. So the individuals and the entities that come
to these meetings are frankly the nonprofit organizations. So Matt actually goes through the entire program and they sign up and log in right then and there. and if we miss somebody, we'll have a separate session just so that Matt could walk them through step
by step how to log in. So, they've done a great job and I know there's a lot of work to do, but we commend all the work that you've done. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> And just so you know, it's blocking it from here. So, I don't know if there's a reason why, but we can't get in it from
here on this network. So, I don't know if >> that firewall needs to be taken down. Yeah, we'll figure that out. >> We'll figure that out. >> Thank you so much for coming this evening. We really appreciate it.
>> Appreciate it. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Resolution to read county budget by title only. Do I have do I have a motion and second to read resolution 2023 2026 county budget by title only?
>> So move >> second. >> Commissioner Capaza. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Alino. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Sar. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Romero. >> Yes. >> Deputy director Marshan. >> Yes. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes.
>> Do I have a motion and second to open public hearing on the 2026 county budget tax resolution? Commissioner Capazola. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Alino. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Sara. Yes. >> Commissioner Romero. >> Yes. >> Deputy Director Marshan.
>> Yes. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes. >> Anyone from the public? Can can you ask questions also during the hearing or is it just the public? Right now we we'll do the public and then when the public's done we would answer questions they already
and then I think commissioners commissioner responsibil township I had submitted a letter this morning to um the administration. I'll go over the
questions that I have here and maybe they'll be able to answer some of them tonight and maybe they'll have to get back to me on the others. Um in anticipation of having these issues adequately addressed before the public at tonight's meeting and presenting some of the questions below for your
response. Uh number one was to provide and explain details included in the budget on the accounts and amounts listed below. There was a a salary adjustment for $500,000. I'd like justification on. There's a
difference of $145,000 between um the board of elections and the clerk's office that I'd like some explanation. There's a million82,000 for correction salaries. Um in actually
that's an increase. Um if you could give me justification for that. there is a decrease in social services uh welfare. I'd like to see justification for that. And uh under the deferred charges, I
understand that that this is the uh 2025 youth detention that was carried over from last year. But my question was how many youth did this include? Uh two, will you please provide detailed
list of expenditures paid from the ARPA and COVID funds, the ARPA funds and CO funds? And three, what line item is lawsuits and judgments paid out of? Does the county have insurance for lawsuits?
And can you please explain how lawsuits against the county impact the annual budget of the county? And one of the last questions that I that one of the last that I had presented for clarification is the
juvenile detention shared services line item. I find it very concerning that we have a county 20 thou 2026 budget line item of $5 million plus an additional 2 million that we
still have to budget that was deferred from the 2025 budget. So that's a $7 million budget for juvenile detention for Cumberland County. $7 million budget for juvenile detention
for Cumberland County. That is a learning on so many levels. But the immediate concern is how do we stop this trend of investing in the wrong life cycles of our children?
We're improving our parks so visitors will want to come here with their children. But our own children do not feel safe here. They are often prisoners in their own
homes out of fear for their own safety. If the political elite from both parties can come together to divvy up our taxpayer dollars for their political campaigns,
maybe it's time for those same politicians to invest in our children's well-being and safety instead of just focusing on their political careers. I've spent a great deal of time
reviewing this county budget and given the fact that I had to use a flashlight and a magnifying glass to read the section of the county budget message structural budget imbalances page. I
thought it would be helpful to the taxpayers who are listening to hear what the professionals are trying to tell us and have been which is something our own leadership has failed to do.
Quote, "The budget is anticipating approximately 47% of its current fund balance available. In recent years, the county's appropriation reserve lapsing into fund balance has been significant, but these
were directly tied to under spending during COVID 19 pandemic and availability of COVID related funding. Consequently, the uh anticipated more in the budget. As a
result, there must be strict planning in place to taper the budget reliance on surplus in the next few years to balance budgets without fully depleting fund balance. The 2025 budget was incredibly lean and
as a result nearly 100% of that budget has been spent down as a result of the intro at at the date of the introduction of this budget. This means there will be minimal to no appropriation reserve
lapsing into fund balance where fund balance will need to rely on excess revenues and must curb the usage of anticipated surplus in years to come. Wow. End quote.
At every turn, our systems are set up to fail from the inside in order to justify changes that benefit special interest and party bosses over our own citizens.
This systemic failure has taken place over the last dozen plus years. And from what's becoming clearly evident is that things will not be changing
anytime soon unless we demand and make change happen. This is our money that you are spending. Thank you. Wait, you got one more. >> Good evening everyone. I'm Nancy Richway
from Upper Deerfield and Fairfield Townships. My question about this budget is I haven't been able to figure out what the tax increase is going to be. Is it going to be 3.5 cents
or 3.5%? There's a difference between cents and percents. And when he gave the budget presentation last month, I walked away. I didn't know what the
increase was going to be on my taxes. So, I'd like to know tonight. Thank you. Oh, hello back. Welcome back. Good evening. Wendy Patnney, Upper Deerfield and Hopewell Township. I just
had a question on the increase in the budget on the salaries. It went from 39.1 million to 42.3 million, which reflects an 8.2% 2% increase. Most of the union contracts
that were renewed, the top one was at 5%. So, I don't know why we're getting an 8% increase. Corrections is reflecting a 10% increase. Which my second question out
of that is I know PBA 231 was settled I believe in 2025. is some of the expenditures in 2025 retropay and that's why that number is inflated and consequently the budget's being inflated
and also contracted services for corrections is up 31%. Are we expecting an influx of more prisoners to send out to Hudson County or wherever else we're sending them?
And within the budget of those line items, are there positions budgeted that are not filled? Because we know in conservative budget planning, appropriations are overstated
and income is understated. I just want to know if there's any jobs in there that we keep continually budgeting for, but they're never filled. And with respect to Sy's comment on the juvenile detention, how many juveniles do we have
that we are sending out of the county? Thank you. >> Anyone else? Seeing none, motion to close. >> Second. Second. >> Second.
>> Commissioner Capazola. >> I'm sorry. Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. >> Commissioner Alino. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Sorrow. Yes. >> Commissioner. >> Yes. >> Deputy Director Maran. >> Yes. >> Director Taylor.
>> Yes. On the first question, salary adjustment the 500,000 including in that is the retro pay. We go back to January 1st of 26. Other expenses, election direct expense
is uh the five it's actually 145,000. Under go governor Murphy's law, we um went to early voting, so we had to increase the staff. Uh Kevin, do you want to take that? >> Sure. Sure, if I may. Um just to give
you a a barometer of where where we have increased and where others have increased even loster county um lost county increased their their spending to the board of elections in the range of 1.6 to 2.1 million. So ours is at a
modest 145,000 although it's a lot of money. It's we're we're doing the best we can. We're holding back as we're trying to hold down the line as much as we can. Um, uh, correction salaries increasing. Um, I I would ask I would ask, um,
warden, do we have any we haven't had we haven't added a lot of new staff. We are still in need of we are greatly in need of staff and we are still trying to >> trying to recruit >> trying to trying to recruit greater numbers. >> Correct. Correct. >> Um,
and I'll come back. Well, while I have while I have the warden involved, the question came up about the um the uh the added expense to um to the to the jail if I'm not mistaken. And I would assume that's for contracted
services. That would be services that the county pays for for a a multitude of services and and and and work that's done at the jail. We do have we just we just spent a large a large in in influx of money on on some rooftops rooftop
units over the last year and a half. Um part of the building itself is in dire need of repair and we're trying to work through that as an effective as an effective way we can >> plumbing emergency >> plumbing emergencies have been pretty active lately. Um and that's been that's
been a pretty dramatic thing. Um the um I I'll stay I'll stay on Miss Oavo's list. Um and I'll ask I'll ask um Cheryl Golden to explain the the justification
for the decrease which is a positive. Is that correct? >> Miss Golden. >> Hi. Hey Kevin. I'm here. So I guess you would have to see exactly what the decrease is. I know over the past several years the county's contribution
to the actual benefit amount has decreased because there are less people that are receiving cash assistance under those programs. So, and that is an amount that is actually dictated to us by the state in our budget. Um but for
most funding we've held flat or we have been able to um decrease the county share the past couple years because we maximize the state and federal dollars that come into our county for these programs. >> That's and that's correct. And and all the all at the same time with a short
shortage in staff uh staff vac or a shortage of staff to fill vacancies that are needed. Um and and the number the number Miss Golden was $348,582 in a decrease. >> Um >> yeah, >> that that sounds about right. Like I
said, it's because of, you know, it's maximizing the county share and again that decrease in the county share of the actual public assistance benefits that are going out, the cash assistance benefits. >> Correct. Correct. >> Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr.
>> Um. Sure. The next topic would be um the uh youth detention services uh the two the 2 million71,000 deferred if I'm not mistaken Mr. That's the first one from last year or this year. Is that correct?
>> Y that's a carryover. Um at present the question was um by two by two members of the um of the audience the number of juveniles involved and what what's it
what what this number is based upon is somewhere in the range of 22 to 24. Is that correct sir? >> Yes. What's in that range? Today there's >> 2419 that are pending and four years. >> Gotcha. So that's that number per day
costs the county approximately $1,100 per juvenile per day. They're housed there's only six facilities in the state. Uh most are up north. Atlanta County is unavailable to anybody in the state but Atlantic County now. So there's actually five left in the state.
We utilize Hudson. We util utilize ocean. We utilize Mars um for beds in space on a regular basis. >> May I make a statement on on this video with juvenile detention?
What everybody has to realize last year it was $350 per night. Last year that went through I think 6 months. After that it went up to 950 or 935
give or take and now it's 1,100. Now one of the things that we had to look at okay and hopefully there's a bill that's up and it might help us out considerably and that is um people over the age of 18
when they're incarcerated. All right. They're juveniles, but they're allowed to be juveniles according to the current status up until 26 years old. Okay? And with the new bill, uh, you're
able to actually bring that up to a judge and have the person removed and go into general population. It's totally absurd to have a 26-y old or a 24 year old in juvenile because you have your
corrections officers, your cos that aren't trained for uh juveniles and you have your juvenile detention officers that aren't trained for adults. And that's the situation that we're in right now. And that's the situation we're trying to get out of. But it did
increase. If I correct me if I'm wrong, I originally thought uh M prosecutor, was it originally last year down to 15? Now it's up to 24. >> It's it's been in the average of about 18. The
>> I'm counting the waivers because those are the some of those are the folks that you're talking about that might be 18 that are sitting there and if the law changes can go to the adult prison. But steadily for the last year, cuz I look at this every day, we're above 18. I
have a couple individuals, a couple murder cases where we charge more than one juvenile in the case. So, um, >> correct me if I'm wrong, isn't a majority of our people agree 18? >> No, not a majority of the people that are housed, right? But we do have a few
that are housed that are 18 that if that law passes may >> go to the adult. Okay. What what's approximately like the oldest child or >> I apologize. I can't tell you. They're
Oh, I actually can tell you. They range from 16 to 18, >> but we don't really have 26 year olds in there with them, do we? >> I would have to check the ages of the the waved adults. I'm not sure if they're that old, but but there is a law that
>> Okay. >> that allows you up to 26. I know it allows it, but is it happening? That's the >> I would have to check and see. I don't think they're that quite that old, but there are some >> could be like a 20-y old >> who committed their crimes when they were under 18, but have turned 18 since
they were in and and there are philosophies on whether it's appropriate to move them or not, depending on what the outcome of their cases are that we would have to discuss offline. >> Okay. Um so that the the um besido I mentioned
juvenile detention SSA um these dollars as you can imagine at $1,100 per per juvenile per night. And in some cases it's not just the juveniles if you only have 18. We buy beds. You have to guarantee beds to just make sure you
have that capability at at any time. And I ironically the warden and I have gotten calls on Friday at 11:00 at night and the JDC determines where you can take your where you can take your juveniles. We don't have that authority.
They tell us um and they direct us in that in that respect and it's so it's it's quite cumbersome. It's quite cumbersome and obviously the numbers are going to be driven to that to that high escalation point of $5 million on those shared service on those shared service
categories. Um the um you uh Miss Oavito asked about expenditures for ARPA arba and co um I think that's pretty much complete it is there is a little bit Joe who can
>> so the way the ARP funds work um co's done yes they've been uh completely thrown out by project >> um the ARP funds had to have been encumbered by the end of 24 and they have to be fully spent by the end of
2026. So everything needs to have had a project by now and if you don't send it back. >> I have those calls coming up actually other >> um I don't have a good answer for them but um the historical records of that
they're actually made to the feds and to the state. So I imagine that we do have them on record and can provide it's public knowledge. There's nothing high. >> We can get that for you. We can we we can uh we can go through go through that and get that for you. We wouldn't have we wouldn't have that at our fingertips now. >> Yeah. Uh the other thing I want to real
quick jump in um >> the budget last year as modified for juveniles detention was actually 5,77,936 of which you left $21 left over. So you spent up to that amount. This year you're budgeting 5 million. So, on a technical standpoint, you actually are
down 70 something thousand on a year-over-year basis. Great news. Um, lawsuit line item in our budget. There is there is a line item for lawsuits or is that a general is that a general expense?
>> Well, I think it really depends on the on the on the on the suit itself, right? I mean, it depends if if there's a judgment, you can pay that over time. If it's an insurance claim, you could take it out of the insurance line item, right? Like that's why you have these
certain things to cover what piece of it it really is. You're not going to just say, "All right, let's whack a a line item, per se." >> Got you really, you generally wouldn't um do that >> if it gets to that point. There's only certain things that we consider the budget. >> Yes. Yes.
>> And and more times than not, it's insurance. >> It is usually and and yes, we are insured. We do have two carriers if I'm not mistaken. I know Chub is one of our leads. Um, and they cover, they don't always cover everything in the lawsuit. They may cover some. They usually will cover most of it.
>> But I'm only talking about like sometimes your legal expenses go outside of insurance. So that gets a separate item for sure. >> Yes. So some some of that insurance revenue goes against our budget specifically. Some goes directly through insurance. Depends upon how the case is
mandated. Um, and let's see. Um, I'll I'll roll into Mrs. Ridgeway's question. Joe, if you'll give us the explanation of is it zero? Well, 3.5
cents or 3.5%. Overall, the county is going out 1.8 cents, >> but again, I don't know how that's going to translate into house. uh you know so it's on an overall basis I mean it's 4
is the is the uh is the answer which translates to a 2.06% >> we can't hear him >> oh I'm sorry >> can't hear the gentleman >> I can spin for sure sorry >> um it's going to be a 1.8 cent
um increase which translates to a 2.06% 06% increase on just the rate. >> So less than two cents >> less than two cents on the on the rate
>> tax rate. >> Mhm. >> That's perfect. Yeah. um to Miss Petron, Miss Petron's request, an increase in the budget from 39 to 40
or 42.5. That was that was salaries if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct? >> Total salaries. >> Okay. So, at this point, you you you you mentioned a relative 8.2% increase. Um and but the but you you
noticed a real increase of roughly 10%. Is that correct? >> 10% was just incorrections. >> Yes. So, so to your point, yes, the PBA officially did get settled and most of that has been paid out already, but we
also have um five union contracts that have to be settled that we're in the process of right now. So, we're accounting for some of that ahead of time. That's in our budget. So, it's not a new appropriation. It's it's anticipated in our budget for this year. So there's no there's not going to be
any magic any magic nuclear bomb that hits us that we're that we're not prepared for already. Okay. Well, I'm confused though because earlier when addressing the salary adjustment for a half a million, it was stated that
was the retropay and now you're saying >> some of the retropay and other and other different different changes. >> Yeah. Like think of the retrop pay like let's say we settle a contract, right? and we settle in July, right? You have to retro that to 111. So what we try to
do or at least a lot of municipalities try to do and counties, they try to budget like just a salary adjustment line to pull from is what they try to do. That way you're not cuz what happens if you go you can't overexpend a lot and you can only do
transfers at a certain point of the year where you can take someone that's under their budget you know you know and take it put someone that's over their budget. So you can really what you're trying to do is eliminate that from happening is what you're doing was a brand new line item on this budget.
>> Yeah. I mean that because of the amount of um labor negotiations. In fact, I was here all day doing negotiations with um you know what the county is being faced with right now. This half a million
dollar line item is addressing. >> Um we have >> our future contract to be negotiated >> as are being negotiated starting in 2026 being being in process right now. >> Correct. >> Okay. But was there retropay
incorporated in the 2025 expenditures that are inflating that number and now you're increasing it another 10%. 8.2. >> So we're talking you're talking specifically about the um pro not
prosecutors correction salary and wage line right. I'd have to dig into that and get the details of it. I don't want to answer out of term as specifically what's in the in the line item, but what we can do is give a real breakdown of it. >> Thank you.
>> There's not I mean to me there's nothing to hide on any of this. It's let's just talk about what it is and how about we give you that information after I can dig into Edmonds and pull that data out. >> Does that make sense? >> Well, there was a one time retro pay for
the years. Yeah, but that would not have been in this budget. This year's budget. I don't think >> I thought you were questioning last year. >> Yeah, I think PBA wasn't PB was 231, wasn't that a retro 25 or not? >> PDA 231.
>> Yeah, because it was settled at 24 and we paid it 25. >> Yeah, there's a retro. >> It's possible. It's possible >> and that contract expired in 19 from 2020 forward >> because they were all out of contract
all during co >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Um I want to go back to I said the judgments before. Yes. You are budgeting $900,000 in judgments. >> Again that's going to be a debt payment essentially that is stipulated by local bond law. Okay. So
>> we have that >> 900k >> 900k in this year's budget 750 last year. >> This is also Can you >> do you hear what he's saying? >> Yeah, I think about judgments, right? >> Judgments are governed by a specific
statute how that works and like a lot of times it happens like I know one of them is affordable housing trust. They were using funds out of that, right? and it was improper and they could take you to court and just like you got to give it
back that's going to be considered judgment and then the judge will tell you all right you're going to pay this $2.1 million back over 3 years okay so like that kind of that's generally what that means that's just one example I'm not telling you that's common but I know
that um we have detail too here >> um I think um positions. I think I think Miss Pony asked about about positions. Um our goal from in most cases we we don't try and
negate those positions. We never try to negate positions for public safety, which includes prosecutor, which includes jail, which includes uh sheriff's department. So those there's always a great need and there's always a lack of staffing
response in that respect. But those areas we do not we do not remove those if and and and social services for Miss Golden as she was speaking. She she continually needs
to replenish her staff because they move on they don't last or move up the ladder. She has the largest single unit in the county. She is the largest group of employees in the county for any department by far. So that's a constant
that's a constant activity there and we don't look to cut those because they need them and they're actually increasing their amount of activity next year. So the only thing I'll add it's it's kind of like just you know when you look at like you say underbudgeted positions right or positions that aren't
fully being used for the whole entire year. Let's say we're budgeting for uh let's let's just say 200 you know corruption issues. I'll just make up a number and all throughout the year you budget you had 195. Now we could go back in time and say how
you going to be 195. We can just budget right at it. Problem is you won't regenerate surplus. So like what do you what do you do there when you do have those gaps that you can actually regenerate funds for future use and we're using so much of it. You know, you you can go with a lean budget, even
leaner than this, and really rider on a line so thin, but it comes with, you know, different challenges and pitfalls. That's that's the piece of it. But sometimes you get good hiring cycles and you max out and say, "Hey, we finally have every every position
filled." And that's ultimately the goal of the board is is my is the way I always look at it. And it goes back to the taxpayers eventually. Let's say we have that half a million dollar salary adjustment line and let's say there it's not fully needed right away. Well, that
goes back into our reserve fund balance that was mentioned earlier and then we get to use that and bring it into future budgets. So like there's good and there it's there just in case but you know it's also there to go back to you. Yes,
that's the way I would the way I would work. Just so you you think about the whole ecosystem of the budget. Um and I think that I think that we've touched every topic. We have a few things we need to get back to the public on. We can do that um as we as we get
that put back together. But I think we've got everything. >> Okay. At this time, I would like um to ask the commissioners if they have any questions. Remember, this is about questions only. It's not about making statements or comments.
Um, Commissioner Alena, do you have any questions? >> Did we make any cuts at all in the budget over last year's? >> Um, is a question directly to me? >> I'll I'll I'll ask you to answer. I'll ask I just want to make sure
turn. Um, I can tell you that the way most of these budget processes work, it's like you you you talk to every department. >> Exactly. Right. And you say, "What what is the need here today? Where are the contract negotiations of where our
people are and how the how in the world do we stay under the cap, right?" Like that's ultimately my job. A lot of times when we do this and I didn't like lead the process here, you got to remember I joined in the April office. So, I miss those particular meetings, but I could talk in enough, you know, tongue here
that I know what I'm talking about. But you you meet with everybody, they give you your number. A lot of times I like to put it all in see how much I'm over cash and then I turn around and I cut everything back down. And I believe that's what we we had here. We talked to Jeffrey Wagon. That's ultimately the way
you do it. You take everyone's ass, you bring it into the budget, you cut it to get under the the the leggy cap. and and and what's what's critical is these meetings, these budget these pre-budget meetings that go on with every department head and many of the
department heads are here tonight uh and are so they're knowledgeable of it, greatly knowledgeable. Um there's two sides of it. There's salary and wages and then there's operating expenses. Um and and those two the the salaries and wages will tend to grow without they'll
grow organically. you don't you don't you don't have a lot of ability to hold that back based upon we're mandated we're mandated to follow the terms of of the CBAs or any of the unions of which we have many um
so those are those are mandated we have no choice but to adhere to that we account for that uh so we know where our our money is going to go up every year we account for that and the and these salaries and wages but the operating side is where the creativity and and the
hard work begins. Um, department heads and in the office as myself and um and some of our staff from finance did it last year or did it at the uh going into the third quarter and fourth quarter of 2025 in preparation for this year. We
basically looked at what their expenses were to date. Looked at their looked at the revisionist history to go backwards even a year beyond to see exactly where they were. And we were able to say, you look like you're in strong position. Are you doing what are you doing differently? H
how are you making these numbers draw down? And then we can always adjust. Department heads as a whole will self adjust. We'll self adjust by saying, "Hey, I'm good on this number. I don't need to increase or I can I can I can I haven't gone over that $1,000 ever. I
haven't gone over 300 $300. Maybe we scale it back to 500." That's so that's an organic constant action going from the moment we start with the first first department head all the way to the end. And then as uh as Mr. Sardo puts it,
there's also a second pull through that really even purses it out even more and peels peels more of the banana away and we get a better view then. But say we don't usually have a target. The target's the cap, right? The target's the cap. That's where we have to get to.
But on a on a on a per department basis, the expectation is department heads work hard to keep their budget expenditures down whenever possible. They keep their hiring down to what's mandated and allowed for in the budget throughout the year. So does that answer that for you?
>> Yeah. But between the 25 budget and the 26 budget proposed, were there any cuts in the operating side of anybody's budget? >> Oh, many people many people gave back. And remember, these can go for $500,000. They're not they're not big bites all at
once. They're they're per department. We we didn't go we didn't go into the system and say and say to the department heads, everybody give me give me 10% back. Um they self they self police a lot of times and and come to us because the
numbers the numbers are clearer on the screen. When we sit in this room, we go at it. We see exactly where they're at year to date and exactly what they spent this year year to the prior year to date. we can tell exactly where they're at and that discussion is very organic every time. Did you want to
>> just give a simple example like you know I look at like salaries for streets, roads and bridges, right? you know it, you know, last year I mean we were at 1982 19 you know 1.982
million right and you're like well we're not going to come in how much so you transferred money out transferred 100 grand out put it to someone else and uh you only end up spending 1.76 million so between the budget that was proposed
in 2025 which was 1.982 this year it's 1.9 952 if that's what you're asking like there there is a process of how that's being worked out and um that's just a an example of it. Now you could turn and say wow could we
move that a little bit more? You can. But also keep in mind if you don't leave anything left over we ran this thing leaving 10 bucks behind in every line item. The one way that the county will regenerate fund balance and surplus is making sure that we have enough there.
And by law, the CFO, which in this case is Kevin, is he lawfully cannot overextend the line, right? So, you have to make sure there's enough there. And then we also want to make sure we're regenerating surplus at the same time, but not too much. And we want to make sure we're taking away too
much from the taxpayers at the same time. So, I think I mean I think this budget does that >> to the best of its ability. Um, but I'm also an open book. If anyone wants information, wants to dive into something. >> I don't think there's there's nothing
hidden, you know. >> Don't call. >> Yeah. >> I want I want to make sure everyone sees it, understands it, and and then, you know, we can go down the road. >> Commissioner Garcia. >> Yes. Mr. Sarno, how much is the county paying you as a consultant to come in
and do this budget? >> How much are they? Well, they're paying me not just to do the budget, but right now um as they're looking for a CFO, we have a um a contractor not to exceed 52 >> Yeah. 52
>> 2,000 or so exactly is what we're doing. And that's that's hourly. It's that's based upon hours. >> We only pay for hours. >> $52 an hour. 52,000,000 not,000. Yeah. And you're going to if you look at
our bills um my rate's 175 now >> and is there a requirement to disclose whether you've made any political contributions to any >> 100% there is >> okay and have you made any >> so this was a nonfair and open contract which means I am prohibited from giving
to any political party in this town. >> Thank you for clearing that up and Mr. Smileado. So I asked had several questions after the last meeting uh regarding our fiscal policies regarding um revenue and um and so you provided
that today but I had asked for it a couple of weeks ago. >> I thought that I thought I had previously because I had a big file and I was kicking and pulled but I understand. >> So this was from 2014. I haven't had a chance to review it entirely but so we are accountable to have fiscal responsibility and raise revenue every
every year. Is that correct? >> Correct. >> Okay. And have the board members been apprised of this um this particular board because of this budget this year >> of that resolution? Yeah. No, because it's and as I had mentioned in my state when I responded to you today, uh
resolutions are more of a of a of a yearly tool and vehicle. Um because the the finance policy and the and the and the monetary policy is usually geared towards a yearly basis. Times things have changed. I mean, ever since CO hit,
all bets have been off as we know and and all of a sudden prices have swelled dramatically and usually that that that kind of a resolution requires an annual an annual renewal. >> No, I understand. But it its purpose is to strengthen the financial position of
the county and preserve financial. >> That's correct. That's correct. So, in in saying that, the contract that was signed in uh April of 2024 by Director Silio, then director um regarding the Hudson County uh transportation of our
inmates there, that has been in existence since 2024. Did we >> actually was before that, >> right? But the contract was signed April 23rd, 2024. Is uh and regardless of how many actual numbers, so we're losing money every single uh year. So, did the does the county take that into
consideration when planning? In other words, we're tapping our reserves, but we're not increasing taxes little by little to meet that demand. >> That's probably right. Yes. >> Okay. And um are you aware that Carmelan
County, the poorest county in New Jersey has raised taxes uh a percentage of amount raised by taxation is 10.47 47 is the highest in the state of New Jersey. >> I did not know that. >> The highest double digits. Most of the other counties are less than double
digits. The poorest county in New Jersey has the highest tax increase in our budget. >> That's all I have. >> So, actually, I'm going to piggy Oh, I'm sorry. >> Go ahead. >> Were you about to go to me? I'm sorry. I apologize. Sorry about that.
>> Um, I'm going to piggy back off of that. So when you uh spoke to somebody earlier and you said something about 2%. It's really 10.4%. Correct. Or am I wrong? Can you explain that? So so in layman's terms. >> Absolutely. So the you can look at the
actual tax levy amount right pure dollars. Yes, it is going up the uh 10% number. However, when we look at tax rate, you get you get taxed right on the rate on the property that you own. >> Mhm.
>> And because ratables have gone up 8% or eight and change and the rate itself is only going up 2%. >> Okay, that's really how that works. >> Correct. But in layman's terms, when
people ask how much are the taxes going up, they go by percentage and they go by a penny and they said we say, "Oh, it's 2 cents. It's 3 cents." But this year it's 10.4 cents. >> No, it's not. >> That's why that's why I want you to explain that. >> It's 2 cents. But the rateables changes
that. >> That's correct. I just think it's like it's not nuts. I mean, you look at there's certain municipalities in, you know, Mammoth County that we deal with, double digit increases on that and then they could turn around and raise the gross re like think about it this way. They can raise
the gross of it up 7%. But because it went up 14, they could say, "Huh, it's a 4 cent decrease or 7 cent decrease." >> You know, you can really, it depends on how you you look at it because you could say, "Well, the value of your home went up so much, right?"
>> I just wanted that explained. I understood that and I asked that question when we met. I just wanted to make sure other people understood it. So that's the main reason. >> Um and I have a question like can we can vote on this tonight? Correct. >> We can. Okay. And and can you explain
why we can't vote on this tonight? >> Yep. So >> you can't you can't adopt a budget without the approval of DLGS this year. >> You're not in self-re. So we said um you know after our introduction uh the
budget was sent to the state for the review they are so far behind that the division right that they came back with comments for us to address on Friday night I mean Kevin didn't see this until Monday
>> and they're asking one of the there's a lot of clerical things that need to be changed within some of the workbooks that lead into the budget but one of the um um the curveballs that was thrown was they disallowed us taking a deferred
charge until it was a levy cap calculation >> emergency appropriations from the 2025 number >> saying well you didn't have notes for it so it's not technically an emergency so the solution to that is we're going to grab more data from our shared services
that we talked about with um Hudson can counties >> so we're kind of beholden to them until they get us that information. We can't vote on this. >> You can't vote on tonight. No, >> but we can't even vote on it until we get that information from those counties. >> I can't They have to like I have to give
it to them. They have to give a blessing really to Kevin >> and then I can turn around and say then you guys could have your up and down. >> So, here's my question to Kevin. How is our relationship with those counties to get that done in a timely manner? That's what I'm worried about. enough relationships there um within
all of these that we can we can we'll make the calls as we need >> we will we'll involve the state too they're not giving us this data that feeds into our workbooks >> I mean it it's literally against everything you're saying so I feel very confident we'll get it and we will knock
the door down to get it soon >> $2 million cap impact some somewhere in that range >> you know it could be but I'm also confident that we'll get $2 million back by doing this. Thankfully, we >> had somebody in our state, Tina Zap, Zapiani, whatever. >> That's part of the
>> she's she's not she's no longer with it and the person is not going to rubber stamp it. So, this could hold things up. >> The division >> I shouldn't say rubber stamp really had turnover. >> All the all the good old times we all knew, right? They all retired. >> 40 years in it.
>> Yeah. No statements, only questions at this period. So, you know, think about four years of experience and CFOs would just call her and she was and you know, you got to give the new director, you know, a chance here, but it is it's hurting a lot of
municipalities and they're getting this like the last minute and it's one by one they're all pushing the budgets up. So, they're having hearings and then like coming back at later. >> So, it's isn't something we should be worried about? That's my main question. >> I don't think so because it's not you're not the only one. Okay. Okay. I know clients have the same thing and they're
just like, "What do we do?" And I'm like, "I want an answer for you." >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> We're going this way. Commissioner S. >> Yes or no? Isn't this budget mainly was developed by Ridgeway?
>> Mostly assets. >> Okay. This is the same gentleman who the whole time I've been on this board and even when I was on the board with other CFOs, I've never seen an individual do a budget without getting a comment. Now,
every time he ever did something when I was on this board, he never even got a comment from the state. You're >> asking a question that the state >> No, I'm asking. Okay. Am I correct? >> That's that was my understanding. >> And the reason why I'm asking that question is because here you have the state
asking all this stuff from an individual that never got one remark from all the budgets he's done for this county. >> But and I think but I think taking the step further to what Mr. Mr. SH said that the new people are are not and I think you would ask this as well
commissioner capel the difference in Tina who would just make pick up the phone make a call and say yeah okay I got you now it's people who are not going >> we would have two weeks >> to address the comments >> yes >> a lot of times you would get you would submit the budget right we introduced
this last month right fire that thing off you you it was the expectation was I had any budget comments Any little changes I had to make, any little explanation, done. >> Exactly. >> Within 2 weeks. Now they're asking for why does this go up or down? That's
never happened before. So that's a whole new regime. >> You found that out yesterday. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> We came into it and actually >> and it's not like super terrible like I I'm confident enough that we'll get through it without having to really amend the budget. You know, fingers crossed here that we get, you know, I'm
confident we'll get it. Still, it's we're not lying. >> A little while that, you know, assuming board here has to wait. >> No, it's already in. It was I I hit the submit button the morning after the la the morning after the meeting that we presented. >> So, we're okay with that time
>> presented. Now everything is once it's in their hands there's no you know there's no I mean some of the items that they requested >> were included in in the budget in the budget submission >> and they either missed them you know
whoever knows who knows I mean it's a pretty big it's an ominous document let's face it it's a massive document and consequently you know this one gentleman was you know sending it out Friday sending it out Friday night is a little dangerous so I'm sorry. I'm I'm I'm I'm I was trying
to give every commissioner. So, you can't go back and forth, Kevin. >> Got you. Sorry about that. >> But since we did, >> Commissioner Garcia, you have >> Thank you. So, my question uh is to you Kevin, do you receive a stipen as CFO, acting CFO?
>> Not at this time. I do not. >> Okay. So, when Jeff Rididgeway left in March, he said he sent out an email saying that the budget was 99% complete. >> Correct. I asked for a copy of that, but I didn't get a copy. I've asked for it several times. I didn't get a copy of that. I know that he's on the committee.
He also asked for a copy of that. And he keeps telling us it's the same, but you know, I'm elected as we all are. And if I asked for a copy of your package, it it was included in there, wasn't it? >> I don't think it was. I'll have to look and see. >> I'll I'll check with Mr. Bon tempmpo or
a finance finance man >> cuz I basically I thought I grabbed every document in that folder and sent it but I'll confirm that but it's it's basically this was Jeff Ridway's budget um before he left he said he and you would ask because it was specifically
the date in March because it was I think our meeting was in February when we first looked at it in budget we all looked at it together that night when the when the finance committee looked at it but then it was moved forward in in March. So,
>> okay, we're done on this stuff. >> Commissioner, sorry, are you finished? >> I'm done. >> Commissioner Romero, >> well, I'm afraid of saying anything because it's going to all change in about one more month. >> So, I encourage passing this
question. >> Sure. >> All right, Mr. Sarno, I know we talked about this a little bit and I think this is the confusion. We're talking about it going up percentages and pennies and yada yada yada. And I think most people are just like, hey, how's this going to affect my tax bill? Right now, I think the answer is you're not going to know
that till you get your tax bill because it is based on whichever municipality you live in or two municipalities and also what your assessed value is. Right. That's a fair statement. Okay. >> So, but based on the numbers that you gave us, it appear that commercial township was flat and that was due to the equalization. Is that correct?
>> That's right. >> All right. So, they will receive no tax increase in commercial township. Is that fair to say? >> That's right. >> But if you live anywhere else other than commercial township, you will be receiving a tax increase from this budget. Correct. >> Correct. >> Okay. And approximately it's going to
look like about $20 per month. Is that a fair? >> That is. >> All right. So, the average assessed home, I think we had it broken down at $150,000. So, if you live in Bridton, Bland, Milville, the average taxpayer is going to be paying about an extra $20 per month. Now that could change and vary
based on assessed value. Fair to say that's all I got. >> Be real short. >> Are there any cuts in this budget? Is there any fluff? >> Who's blocking it? >> Any extras? >> Any gold toilets going in?
>> I think I touch $2,000. >> I'm going to give an answer here because I talk about it a little bit. You know, how do I say this right? We have fund balance on one side. How do we regenerate the fund balance? It's money
that's left over. Now, can you budget a little bit more there so that you're regenerating it? You can. Um, you know, and I if you I would say that we are safe in this budget where we are, you
know, and um, you know, it's just an ambiguous way of looking at it. Is there enough there to cover everything? Yes, in more cases than not. I mean, you last year would be the case study, right? We have enough money on the reserve side of it that
made its way there. I mean, I'd be lying to you saying that there's not money left over. Of course, it is. You know, you had a, you know, millions of dollars that would be there. But if we cut that all down, we had everything budgeted within $10,
you're not going to regenerate that in fund balance. you have to be perfect, which no one really is because you don't know how the year is going to go. >> And and to to your point, Mr. Sarno, as well, we talked about salary and wages specifically in public works uh public
works streets and roads. Um we had two modestly aggravating, painful snowstorms January and February. If we had a longer period, we had ice, but if we had a longer, we had a longer more
uh more intense storms, three or four storms, that that 100,000. Was it 100,000 or was it what was the amount that was carry pulled out and moved on? >> No, it was 100. >> It was about 100,000. We'd have been
over. We would have been over. Um, so they look at they look at those numbers very cautiously and make sure that we're not adding fluff. We're we're being prepared. You know, last year we
spent four, five, 600,000 just in salt. I think it was a massive number. We hadn't had a we hadn't had a strong winter in several years. Um, we had been sitting on a reserve of salt for probably 3 years available in our in our
bank went out the door in a storm and then we have to start buying and then last year we had big storms specifically with the ice storm. It would melt a little bit then freeze and we'd have to resolve. So that those are the kind of issues that we always you always have to be ready for in a budget.
You always have to be ready for it. I'm praying you don't have to use it. Well, thank you for that. I know I took a little extra time because I wanted to make sure not only did the public have their questions answered, but also the commissioners and keep in mind the
commissioners have had several weeks to reach out to um Joe Sorno to get their questions answered. So, I appreciate everybody, you know, putting in a little extra time having some of their questions answered. And I thank you for
>> uh taking all the time with with everybody tonight. And I need a motion to close public >> session. We did not do that, right? >> We did. We did. >> Okay. So, um you need a motion to table resolution.
>> Yep. So, the next thing is I I do need a motion to table the budget. >> Second. Commissioner Capazola. >> Tabling the budget. Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia Biki. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Alino. >> Yes.
>> Commissioner Sorrow. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Romero. >> Yes. >> Deputy Director Mar. >> Yes. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes. >> Can I ask one question? Just want to know about how how long do you think we'll be able to vote on a budget?
>> Yeah. You know, we talked about this because it's it's hard. Like if it was if I knew I needed a week, I turn around and get a special meeting. Right. Kevin, maybe hold the audience here. You got 4th of July and maybe we try to do this because you always want a budget adopted as soon as possible. Um, your next
meeting is July 21st. It may make sense to go to keep it that far, but but if we start getting the information sooner and the state approves our budget, um, I'll keep everyone, you know, through Kevin um, apprised of everything that's
happening. totally transparent of like when we're getting the information and let's say I need to make an amendment to the budget. Let's say I oh I only got a million and a half. We got half a million dollars. I will come back to the commissioners here and say hey here's what we're looking at. >> So the commissioners have up to a month
to ask you more questions. >> They can. Yeah. >> Okay. >> That's what we're going to I'd say before we left your office was like let's just leave it on the way it is. >> Yes. >> Is probably the right move unless we get lucky. >> Is there a mandated date that it has to be? This is a this is interesting,
right? Like um you know, you wanted to get the budget done now. This would have been like the mandated date, but how can you do that when the state's given you till Friday, like the night before? So, when I talked to folks this their understanding of that, um in fact, I was talking to one of our other
professionals at the firm. They're like, if you don't get it done in the next meeting in July, then they're going to send letters to the commissioners, especially if the state's already given approval to approve. I think it's when you're dragging your feet and you have a budget to adopt is when the issues start
to arise. You don't have to worry. >> Okay. >> Do I have a motion and second to open public comment on resolutions only? >> So move second. >> All in favor? >> I department has comments.
>> You say department had comments. Not yet. Don't move on. >> Seeing none, a motion to close. >> Second. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Department head comments. >> Mr. Mr. S is going to excuse himself.
>> That's fine. Can you wait for one second? I'm not going to it's not going to be long. >> So, I uh am Jennifer Webb McCry. I happen to be the Cumberland County prosecutor. Um I had a chance to look at the budget. Um we were in negotiations all day. Thank you, Mr. Sono, for being
here. My salary and wages budget is being cut by $85,000. I was told by Jeff Rididgeway I was getting what I asked for. I'm really not complaining because I have 115 people. we go through fluctuations where um we
can't fill all our positions frankly sometimes and we talk about this often our starting wages are so low I can't even get people to come in as legal secretaries because they can make more in the private sector but my issue is we
work really hard to prepare these budgets and if you're going to cut my salary and wages budget please let us know about it shame on me for not looking at it earlier and I know I'm going to be able to ask you questions. I'm going to work this out because I
constantly have people leaving and coming. I just think there has to be back and forth between, you know, us and you so that we can address these issues. I work really hard to prepare a real budget. This is my
money because I'm a taxpayer here and I spend it like it's my own money. And I have a feeling I can ride this out because we generally don't keep all the positions filled because I'm very picky and choosy about who I hire. I want to hire the right people. I want to hire
qualified people. That is always a challenge in this county because we just do not keep up with wages with our counterparts. I understand we're the poorest county, but if we don't want to have a poor mindset, we have to be thinking long term with long-term
strategies. So, I appreciate that. I asked for more money in my operating budget and it appears to me that that was granted because I need that for technology and and what have you. But I just think I'm probably speaking for most of the department heads. There really does have to be more dialogue
back and forth. This is a unique year, Kevin. My hats off to you acting as acting CFO. But if we're asking for what we asked for and we're not going to get it, I don't think I should read it in a budget. No, >> I think we should be told about it. I'm
going to be all right. God bless the child who has their own, but I happen to be the one constitutional officer that can file a lawsuit against the board if my positions are underfunded. So, I would like the respect of being told before I see it on a budget line item.
So, those are my comments. Thank you. >> Any other department? Good evening, Christy D. Leonardo, Workforce Development. Um, my department along with uh employment and training, we are 100% grant-f funded. 100% grant-f
funded. So, tonight on the agenda, we are supposed to or you all are supposed to approve contracts that begin for the in and out of school youth programs that begin July 1. So, in addition to that, we just received our allocation from the
federal government through the New Jersey Department of Labor, and we cannot start spending any of those funds, especially for the in and out of school youth contracts, until the county approves the actual budget. So, even
though we're going to approve the contracts this evening, I cannot have those contracts begin on July 1 because we can't spend money we just don't have. It has to be approved through the actual
budget. Um, so I would really really hope that there would be a special meeting and not to wait um until the end of July to approve the budget. So, I'm hoping that um everybody will get together and um and I commend the
director for tonight and I thank you for allowing all of the dialogue happened tonight. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> No other departments. >> Okay. Consent agenda resolutions. Do I have a motion and second to vote by consent
agenda on resolutions 2026-338 through 2026-362? >> Move a second. >> Commissioner Capazol, yes. >> Commissioner Garcia, yes. >> Commissioner Alino, yes. >> Commissioner Sars. Commissioner Romero, >> yes. >> Deputy Director Marsh, yes. >> Director Taylor, >> yes.
>> Do I have a motion and second to adopt resolutions 2026- 338 through 2026-362 by consent? >> Second. Sorry, >> Commissioner Capola. Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia, yes. Commissioner Alino, >> yes.
>> Commissioner Sorrow, >> yes. >> Commissioner Romero, >> yes. >> Deputy Director Maran, >> yes. >> Director T. Resolution 2026-363. Resolution awarding a contract for providing in school youth career pathways program services in Salem for
Pay County by means of the Cumberland Salem Pay Workforce Development Board RFP number 26-16. Do I have a motion and second? So move second. >> Commissioner Capazola. Yes. Commissioner Garcia. Commissioner Alena. Yes. Commissioner Sar Commissioner Romero.
Deputy Director Maran. Yes. Director Taylor. Yes. Resolution 2026-264. Resolution boarding a contract for providing out of school youth career pathways programs in Cumberland County Salem Cumberland Salem and PM County by means of the Cumberland Salem PME Workforce Development Board RFP number
26-17. Do I have a motion and second? >> Second. Commissioner Cavazol, yes. Commissioner Percy, Commissioner Ostino, Commissioner Sorrow, yes, Commissioner Romero, yes. Deputy Director Marshan, Director Taylor, >> yes. >> Resolution 2026-365.
Resolution awarding specifications for 2024, the road program, Township of Deerfield, Cumberland County, New Jersey, bid number 26-22. Do I have a motion and second? >> So move second. >> Commissioner Capazola. Commissioner Marcia. Commissioner Alino. Commissioner Sar. Yes. >> Commissioner Romero.
>> Yes. Deputy Director Maran. Yes. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes. >> Resolution 2026-366 resolution awarding contract for specifications for 2025 overlay program of bridged in Milville and Bine Burough of Shiloh and townships of Green Witch Copwell, Lawrence and Upper Deerfield,
Cumberland County, New Jersey. Do I have a motion to second? >> So move second. >> Commissioner Capazola. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia. Yes. Commissioner Ostino. Commissioner Sar. Yes. Commissioner Romero. Yes. >> Deputy Director Marsh. Yes. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes. Resolution 2026-367.
Resolution awarding contract for replacement of bridge number 0600-32 CR733. >> Do I have a motion and second? >> So move to second. >> Commissioner Capazola. Yes. Commissioner Garcia. Yes. >> Commissioner Ostina. Yes. >> Commissioner Sara.
>> Yes. >> Commissioner Romero. Yes. >> Deputy Director Manton. Yes. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes. Resolution 2026-368, resolution authorizing assignment of hearing officer services for appeals of disciplinary actions by employees of the county department of corrections. Do I
have a motion? Second. >> Move. >> Second. >> Commissioner Capazola. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia Biki. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Oino, >> yes. >> Commissioner Sorrow, >> yes. >> Commissioner Romero, >> yes. >> Deputy Director Marsh. >> So, on this one and the next few that
are coming up, I'm going to be voting no. And I've had this conversation with Kevin and the director. I'd really like to see these come in-house and save the county some money. So my vote is going to be no to to send these out. >> Director Taylor. >> So my vote's yes. I vote yes because we
have a backlog on um on issues from where we were we didn't have a HR person. So and the number is like 25. So yes, resolution 2026-369, resolution authorizing assignment of
disciplinary actions of county department of corrections employees. Do I have a motion and second? >> So move second. >> Commissioner Capola. Commissioner Garcia, >> yes. >> Commissioner Alino, yes. >> Commissioner Sar, yes. >> Commissioner, yes. >> Deputy Director Maran, >> no. For the same reason. >> Director Taylor,
>> yes. Resolution 256-370, resolution authorizing assignment of disciplinary action of Cumberland County Division of Social Services employees. Do I have a motion and second? >> Move. Second. >> Commissioner Capzola. Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia Bleak. Yes. Commissioner Alino. Yes. >> Commissioner Sara. Yes. >> Commissioner Romero.
>> Yes. >> Deputy Director Marawn. >> No. For the same reason. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes. >> Resolution 2026-371. Resolution authorizing assignment of disciplinary action matter of Cumberland County Sheriff's Office employee. Do I have a motion and second? So move second.
>> Commissioner C. Commissioner Garcia. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Alino, >> yes. >> Commissioner, >> yes. >> Commissioner, no. >> Deputy Director Marine, >> no. >> Director Taylor, >> yes. >> Resolution 2026-372, resolution authorizing the assignment of disciplinary action matter concerning
Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office employees. Do I have a motion and second? >> So moved. Second. >> Commissioner Capazol. Commissioner Garcia Biki. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Alino. Commissioner Sorrow. >> Yes. Commissioner Romero. >> Yes. >> Deputy Director Marshan. >> No. For the same reasons. >> Director Taylor.
>> Yes. And I would like to state after we get this stuff caught up then we will be using in house for for this or these situations. Resolution 2026-373 resolution authorizing grant agreement with the New Jersey Department of
Military and Veterans Affairs for transportation services for veterans. Do I have a motion and second? >> So move. Second. >> Commissioner Capazola. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia. >> Yes. Commissioner Alino, yes. Commissioner Sar, yes. >> Commissioner Romero, yes. >> Deputy Director Maran, Director Taylor, >> yes.
>> Resolution 2026-374, resolution authorizing approval to submit a grant application for the extreme risk protect over. >> Do I have a motion to second? >> So move. Second. >> Commissioner Capazol. Commissioner Garcia. Yes. >> Commissioner Alino. Commissioner Sorrow.
>> Yes. >> Commissioner Romero. >> Yes. >> Deputy Director Maran. Yes. Director Taylor. >> Yes. Resolution 2026-375 resolution signing Kavanaaugh and Kavanaaugh to provide legal services for civil commitments and representation of the Cumberland County and the county adjusters office. Do I have a motion and second?
>> So move second. >> Commissioner Capazola. Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia Biki. Yes. >> Commissioner Osino. Yes. >> Commissioner Sara. Yes. >> Commissioner Romero. >> Deputy Director Maran. Yes. Director Taylor. >> Yes. >> Resolution 2026-376. Resolution authorizing the subgrant
agreement with the Cumberland County Approvement Authority Clean Communities Program. Do I have a motion and second? >> Move. Second. >> Commissioner Capazola. Commissioner Garcia. Yes. >> Commissioner Ostino. Commissioner Sorrow. Yes. >> Commissioner Romero. Yes. >> Deputy Director Marshon. Yes. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes. Resolution 2026-377,
resolution authorizing increase of monetary sealing for legal expenses of all matters relating to Victor Bermudez in accordance with NJAC 5 colon 30-5.3 through NJAC 530-5.5. Do I have a motion and second? >> So move second.
>> Commissioner Capazol. Yes. Commissioner Garcia. Yes. >> Commissioner Oino. Yes. >> Commissioner Sorrow. Hopefully this will end. >> Commissioner Romero. Yes. >> Deputy Director Marshan. >> Yes. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes. >> Resolution 2026-378,
resolution authorizing increase of monetary ceiling for the labor matters involving UAW contract negotiations in accordance with NJAC 530-5.3 through NJAC col 530-5.5. Do I have a motion and second? >> Some move to second.
>> Commissioner Cavazola. >> They need to get this done and yes. >> Commissioner Garcia Blei. Yes. Commissioner Alsino. Yes. Commissioner Sorrow. Yes. >> Commissioner Romero. >> Yes. >> Deputy Director Marine. Yes. Director Taylor. >> Yes. And just a second. >> Mr. Sarno, thank you for everything. You're welcome to leave.
>> We can't afford you. >> I know. I I know. Um the prosecutor wanted you to stay for her, but you're welcome to leave. We're >> I don't think we need >> We're almost there. We're almost there. >> Okay. >> You're off the clock then. I'm sorry.
Resolution 2026-379 resolution authorizing increase of monetary ceiling for providing legal services for civil commitments and representation of the county of Kremlin and the county adjusters's office. Do I have a motion? Second. >> Then move second. >> Commissioner Capazola. Yes. Commissioner Garcia,
>> can I ask a question? How is that different from the other one to 375? What's the difference? the overage from last year. There's a com the way the way his contract starts, it starts late and ends the next year instead of a calendar year. >> Okay.
>> Commissioner Oino, >> yes. >> Commissioner Sorrow, >> yes. >> Commissioner, >> yes. >> Deputy Director Maran, yes. >> Director Taylor, >> yes. >> Resolution 2026-380, resolution Cumberland County, New Jersey, supporting Revolution New Jersey to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States and the
New Jerseys role in the revolution. Do I have a motion and second? >> Move. >> Second. >> Commissioner Capazol. Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia Biki. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Alino. Yes. Commissioner Saro. >> Commissioner Romero. >> Yes. >> Deputy Director Marshan. Yes. Director Taylor. >> Yes. >> Resolution 2026-381.
Resolution authorizing assignment of litigation matters contact systems incorporate first county of Cumberland Superior Court of New Jersey Cumberland County Law Division docket number CUML 369-26. Do I have a motion and second? >> Move. Second. >> Commissioner Capazol. Yes. Commissioner Garcia,
>> can you explain what this litigation is? Uh, Kevin, >> yes, it's regarding the phone system. Um, they were a previous um, they were a sub agent to our previous supplier. They no longer have a state
contract, but they found their way to SHI, uh, a vendor of ours, uh, in North Jersey, and they're, uh, they were happy that we moved to Comcast. >> And this is the one that emailed all of us, correct?
>> Yes, that is that is correct. >> They emailed all of us about correct >> two months ago, maybe. >> That is correct. >> Okay. And yes, >> Commissioner Austin. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Sorrow, yes. Commissioner Romero, >> yes. Yes. Deputy Director Marshan. Yes. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes. >> Resolution 2026-382,
resolution authorizing purchase from New Jersey State Contract vendor for purchase of 50 shack bar shield light fixtures for the Cumberland County Department. Do I have a motion and second? >> So move. >> Second. >> Commissioner Capazolda. Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia Bicki. Yes. >> Commissioner Ostino. Yes. >> Commissioner Sorrow. >> Yes.
>> Commissioner Romero. >> Yes. >> Deputy Director Marsh. Yes. >> Director Taylor. >> Yes. >> Resolution 2026-383. Resolution ratifying authorization for Kevin Maniato, county business administrator to effectuate services with Apple developer program for county
website citizen request mobile app. Do I have a motion in second? >> Second. >> Commissioner Capaza, Commissioner Garcia Biki. >> Kevin, can you explain what this is? >> Yes. as um as a um as a partner in the
Apple um developer program, the county for no charge is involved and offered the opportunity to to join to join in the in the the development plan and help assist. >> What's the app that they're developing? >> Uh it's all the apps that are used by
the county. any of them if they're used on a if they're used on a um on a an Apple phone an iPhone basically they would be you would need an Apple an Apple app to do that much like if it's
not if it's not an Apple phone or an iPhone it would be an Android >> um separate separate u separate uh apps and the county the county just basically participates in that program and and signs on it says that we support
basically all this but there's no cost to the county and we're treated as a favorite favored child in this because we're government agents that's all. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Alino Commissioner Sorrow. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Romero. Yes. >> Deputy Director Maran. Yes. >> Director Taylor.
>> Yes. >> Resolution 2026-384. Resolution awarding contract for supplying and delivering drainage pipe and materials for the Cland County Department of Public Works bid number 26-23. Do I have a motion and second? So move second. >> Commissioner Capazola. Yes. >> Commissioner Garcia Biki. Yes. >> Commissioner Oino.
>> Yes. >> Commissioner Sorrow. Yes. >> Commissioner Romero. >> Yes. >> Deputy Director Marsh. Yes. >> Director Taylor. Yes. Resolution 2026-385. Resolution memorializing ratifying acceptance and execution of a grant agreement amendment for the small city CDBG-C1
grant program for the county of Cumberland. Do I have a motion and second? >> Move. Second. >> Commissioner Capazola. >> Yes. >> Mr. Garcia. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Ostino. >> Yes. Commissioner Sorrow, >> yes. >> Commissioner Romero, >> yes. >> Deputy Director Maran, >> yes. >> Director Taylor, >> yes.
>> Do I have a motion and second to accept treasures report as provided? >> Move. Secondly, >> all in favor. >> Do I have a motion and second for authorizing payment of all wages and salaries? >> Secondly. >> All in favor?
>> Do I have a motion and second to open public comment for new business? >> So move. Second. Second. All in favor? >> I business. Told you I was back. Good evening. Nancy Richway from Upper
Deerfield and Fairfield Townships. I recommend that you have a special meeting to get this budget passed as soon as possible. It's ridiculous that the budget isn't going to be passed by
the end of June. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> See you guys. >> Thank you, Nancy. Thank you very much. >> Just a comment. Um there was so much emphasis on the 10% increase on the levy. Um, looking at the levy without
looking at the ratables is like looking at half of the equation. I don't have all the numbers, but I did have some of them. From 2015 to 2021, the local levy went from 89 million to 101 million.
Meanwhile, the ratables pretty much were flatlined 50 million from 2022 to 2026. We went from 103 103,700,000
to 118 while the readables went from 9 billion to 13 12 billion. It's a 4.3 billion increase. So you can't look at just the levy. You also have to look at the growth in the county and how that tax is
being spread across everybody. to to get back to fiscal accountability and being responsible, you have to look at the whole picture. Okay. The other part is I took the liberty of Oprah requesting the settlements, the lawsuit settlements
that have transpired from 22 to 26. They amount to $9.8 million. 3.6 was just part of the jail. the jail that was pulled for no reason and never
voted on. The legal fees associated with all those lawsuits, 675,000. So when you're looking for responsibility, let's look at everything, not just a little piece.
>> Thank you. Anyone else? Sorry, I should know better. But um I'm just going to have to bring up a couple things. I don't know if you still have >> name. >> Oh, I'm sorry.
Blicky used to be now Robert G from um used to be. So I'm asking, do we still have JD AI? It's a joint detention alternatives initiative. It was a federal program and it helped lower our
count from 54 down to eight while I was the warden and it's a it's still up. I mean it's pretty good count from 54 have 20 some I think you said but I don't know if you still use that and you may have some kids locked up that could
be somewhere else. The pro the alternatives initiative gave you options that you can do besides putting them in juven. Next part of that is we contracted with Burlington County at the end and closed juvenile detention.
We got the fem that we paid from their budget what it cost them to house their juveniles there. These people are killing you with these stupid ridiculous rates and it shouldn't be any more than
what it cost them and they're going to make money on it and that's good but they don't need to be it's like triple what it ought to be or maybe more. And then the last thing is that the um I don't know where you're at with the money from the jail, but it sounds like
it might not be a bad idea to build the general intention center at some point. And it's probably that's way off. But um you got the you got the basement put in there and all the stuff goes with it. And uh I don't know how I'm in ignorance
how you're going to spend that 97 million I think it is. And um so I would at least think about doing that and then you don't have to pay any money. And then this last thing is the idea that we
pay for beds that are empty is insane. I don't know who agreed to that. I know I never would have. And I think at some point we should stop that because that's ridiculous. I never charged anybody. I only charged them for Boston County. I charged them for how many minutes we
had. had 100 and that's all I joined them for and if they only had 50 then I would only join them for 50 minutes and nuts. So that's all. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else?
>> Wow. Motion to close public comment. >> Second. >> Second. All in favor? >> Excuse me. You want me to address the juvenile situation at all? >> You can. >> The juvenile um the juvenile rates are
are based upon unfortunately um not just housing but education services and and many other charges. Um yes, the numbers are very high in my mind as well. Um uh the only way to guarantee slots is to
guarantee beds. Um we have we have a choice. If we don't if we don't pay the guarantee beds, we have nowhere to put these shields. And we have they have to be out of sight and sound of adults. They cannot
be housed near within within earshot or anything of of adults. Um, and I think this goes back sometime if I'm not mistaken with the same mentality in in Hudson where we were paying a
guaranteed minimum in beds as well. So, and and I think I think I think building a JDC would be a wonderful thing for this county, but we have no say on the authority to do that. It's purely based upon the YJC, which is the Youth Justice
Commission. um they determine all those all those features. Um I know I know deputy commissioner I mean deputy um deputy administrator Liz Vasquez did speak at at one of the events and discuss that topic. >> Sure.
>> Among other topics when it was related to the juvenile the youth justice or youth justice commission. Um so there's it's a real mess in in Trenton right now with that. They are building a new state
facility at Enor right now. They will be building one in the center of state and one up north and they will take they will take over for what was known as James >> for many years. The juvenile prison up in up in I guess it's cranberry.
>> No cranberry cranberry. >> Cranberry. Yeah. I'm sorry. But basically it is um it is it's going to be in relationship to that. They're going to spread it out. try and spread it out. But you can comment on that if you
>> do do you have a completion date on that? >> Uh the one the one at um the one at Anora I think is pretty close. I think that was the first one that was started. Um but that's mostly that is has nothing
to do with the county's housing then that is in relation to permanent status. Is that correct? Jamesburg is for well the facility that he's talking about that they're replacing is for youth that are adjudicated. So the youth that we're
talking about are pre-adjudicated youth. So they have not either been waved yet or adjudicated and sent to a program. If I may, I just want to share uh with Mr. Gut that I do still chair the juvenile
detention alternatives initiative. I also serve as the prosecutor's representative on the state juvenile detention alternatives initiative committee which has a meeting tomorrow. I wrote a letter that I shared with a previous board where I
somewhat condemned it was written a comment to the what formerly was called the JJC somewhat condemning the plan that was put in place when we started this process. We did our job very well. We reduced the number of youth by almost
50% in the state um you know through juvenile detention alternatives. What the state did not do well was anticipate that there would be spikes in juvenile crime over time. And in our case, it's violent juvenile crime. Out of the 24 youth that we have in detention, I
believe there's one in there for a bench warrant today. He'll be out probably soon, but the the balance of them are there for first or second degree offenses. It was foreseeable that there would be a spike in juvenile crime at some point when the state went on their
initiative of shared services agreement. There should have been talks and and 14 of the 21 county counties closed their detention centers. There should have been plans on how counties would
manage this. Surely no county should have to pay more than 20% of what it costs to house a youth. And that really has not ever been vetted out and um solved, so to speak. So the sending counties are ships in the middle of the
night when we need a bed trying to find a detention center who will take our youth. And the receiving counties, because there's no guard rail on what they can charge, generally don't want to take our youth. We've heard numerous times that our youth are too violent or they're gang
involved, so they don't want them at certain facilities. So, what do they do? They raise the price to discourage it. >> What really needs to happen is there needs to be legislation that corrects this problem. And every chance I get to bring that up to the Youth Justice
Commission, I bring it up. They say we have enough beds in New Jersey to house all of our youth. Therefore, we shouldn't have to spend money for infrastructure to do that. What needs to be solved is the fact that counties who have facilities should not be able to
charge a big >> for the housing of our youth. I actually think it makes sense to plan. So, we should enter into agreements with counties to say, "Okay, we're going to we're going to negotiate with you and you are going to hold seven beds for us." That way, the women doesn't have to
be up in the middle of the night begging for some or Kevin doesn't have to be up in the middle of the night begging for somebody to take our youth. But there needs to be legislation to govern this area that holds the you justice commission accountable because oftentimes they pull pull their hand
backs and say they're helping but they're not really solving the problem and also hold the counties that are receiving our youth to a fair wage for housing our youth. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. >> And I can share that letter. I can
circulate that letter again so that you can see it >> about to to comment on on the prosecutor's statement. One of the things that the state doesn't recognize is okay,
they keep saying we have enough beds. Well, Camden has a number of beds that are not full. Okay, the problem is there's no one in order to be the the the officers to oversee the you know the juvenile officers. They don't have the
personnel. Are there beds open? Yes, there are beds open. The problem that I see is that the state has such a control over this and they don't allow the counties to do what they think is best for their own people. And I disagree with that wholeheartedly.
And and and until the the the state starts to release the leash on us, we're going to have this problem. We're going to continue to have this problem. This isn't something that just happened overnight. This didn't happen five over 5 years, 10 years. It's been ongoing.
When was it that we closed our 2014? >> I want to say it was approximately that time. We we brought the count down to like eight years, >> right? >> And when the county closed the detention center, they saved $12 million. And how much did they save per year by not
having that many personnel costs and people? Obviously, what counties do when they save money is they plug other holes. But I can't >> where I'm getting at this has been going on since that time. >> But I cannot I cannot emphasize that there needs to be some legislation
around and guard rails around this area so that everybody has a fair shake. >> Now, isn't it correct that the state of New Jersey wants to start to be the individuals to build the facilities and and then and then house them and start taking it away from the rest of the counties?
>> I have not heard I have not heard that for pre-adjudicated youth. I can inquire tomorrow, but I have not read that. They, you know, even when we beg, like we need somebody to help us fix this problem, they help, but again, they
can't force counties to set their wage or agree to take our kids. There's there's times where we have a youth that police are sitting on the youth overnight. They're not supposed to keep them for more than 6 hours. They're keeping them for 14, 20
hours because we can't find a bed for them. >> You started a fire that big guy. We can stay on this for now. >> Go ahead. Never mind. Go ahead. >> Okay. Motion close. >> I think we already did. >> We did.
>> Okay, we're done. We're just Okay. Commissioner's report. Uh, you want to start? >> Sure. Since the last meeting, I've been in the finance committee twice and discussing the budget. I've spoken
to uh Steve Cervini of the veteran affairs. He's working at a uh a plan for the veteran cemetery. We're going to set it up into sections and have it numbered or lettered and then have a master list of who's in what section. so that
friends or relatives that aren't familiar with it can easily go look at this master list and find whoever they're looking for. And there was also a problem with the concerns about a neighbor who was encroaching upon the cemetery's property. They investigated
that and found it wasn't true. I attended a hope day in Milville which was a outdoor event. A lot of booth set up where people could come there and find out different services available to them. I attended the CCT Tech scholarship
ceremony and it was my honor to present one of the scholarships that I probably been presenting to either the college or the tech for the last 15 20 years Jun breakfast and violent I attended
walkathon and violence for the Spanish American relief fund violent cruise night I attended man from heaven men's recognition kite and color at the fairground this past weekend. Very crowded. It great to see a lot of people there and great to
see a lot of people from out of the county coming down and visiting our county where we have to offer and that's about it. >> Commissioner Garcia. >> Yes, I attended uh like Bob uh Commissioner Mustino, I attended a lot of those events as well. It was a
wonderful May and June. Um, in particular, I enjoy attending the seniors events, the senior spring fling and the volunteers lunch and the 47th annual RSVP volunteers recognition lunchon. Um, so yeah, our calendar's full. We do a lot of different things, but congratulations to the county for
bringing all those events to our county, in particular, the fairgrounds, which is a good use of our facilities, and people come from all over and spend their money here. One of the things that I want to highlight is announcements. Um, uh, Christy De Leonardo put out an email informing us that South Jersey Connects
officially launch launched six free shuttle routes operating across all seven South Jersey counties, connecting existing New Jersey transit lines with the final few miles needed to access final destinations, helping workers access employers and students access
campuses and patients access health care. Really important information. It's on our uh, county website, I believe. and um there's plenty of information. I know she can share that information. So, thank you. That was very made me feel good because I know a lot of our students struggled to access the other
campus. Um also, I attended um an open house that the uh Southern Regional Food Distribution Center had and I was really impressed. It's one of the facilities that I chose when I was president of the bar association to sponsor and do charitable events to help support their
endeavors. And we're very lucky to have that here in our county. They have 118 distribution centers in 11 counties. They produce 3.8 million pounds of food that were distri I mean they were distributed in 2025.
Um they served 522,000 individuals. I know we're a poor county, but boy, what they do, the work that they do with the resources that they have is very impressive. And you know, they they do work to prevent homelessness. They help students who are
uh there who don't have a family and they also help families. So, it's a worthwhile place to visit and support and you can adopt a student if you want for $100 for one year to help that student transition into appropriate housing and help them with education. >> And that's all I have. Mr.
>> All right. I want to start off talking about um what um I was supposed to call you Sheriff Alino. I'm sorry. Commissioner Alino. Um sorry to break that habit. I apologize. Uh, Commissioner Austinino uh talked about the uh scholarships at uh CCTech. Um
there was $225,000 in scholarships given out that night. And it's not just for college students. It's also for students that are going out in the workforce. So that's an amazing number and that's you know what they're doing over there. What Dina Rossi is doing with that school and the administration is amazing. Tomorrow
night is their graduation. So, congratulations to all the seniors that are graduating over there and we wish you nothing but the best of luck. Um, I want to congratulate uh our county clerk and our board of elections for another amazing election, the primary election.
You guys put a lot of hard work in. I know it's a thankless job, but thank you for everything you do. And we have a free affair and election in this county and they do an amazing job. Can we give her a big round of applause? That's pretty much it. It's we go to a lot of the same functions. And so you don't really care all that.
>> Commissioner, >> do I say the same thing? >> No, you know, I mean, I went to the CCT varsity letter Award. Okay. And CC Tech awards, the RCSJ meet and greet and conversation where we met with the
college and talked about different uh situations that we had. Divine fishing der derby. Uh we all I think we all went to the Lenny Laape uh pow-wow rock of salvation man from heaven which was for great fathers. I thought that was a
really great affair. Uh something that was good. on the No, no, no. I had two Zoom meetings with the SJED on some projects that I actually can't say anything about just yet that have proposals that will be coming or might
be coming into South Jersey which could produce a lot of a lot of jobs. So, uh we're keeping our fingers crossed on that. And also, uh we all attended the fire academy that Yes. So, that was really great. It
was 21 uh individuals that passed the fire course on the first try. >> Mhm. >> Okay. On the first try. So, I just want to say I want to com commend all the instructors over there and also all the
individuals that passed it. It's I think it's 2,200 hours. Correct me if I'm wrong. Might be 21. I'm not sure. But I thought he they said it was 2200 hours that they had to study and work at. And uh I think that especially our having
the fire facilities that we have on the bi tremendously to uh teach these individuals. So I just want to say that uh we're very proud 21 new firefighters and that's uh it's not a record but when you think about it we're losing
firefighters and EMS's. >> Wasn't there a father and daughter? >> Father and daughter. So that's interesting where the father actually followed what the builder did >> instead of vice versa. But anyway, that that's his direct. I >> believe it was 320 hours.
>> 220 >> 220. I'm sorry. I'm call by a zero. Okay. >> Well, that's a lot. So >> go ahead. >> Well, I don't want to go over a lot of the stuff they went through a lot of those two. Uh but when I was sitting
down on the jung uh I was thinking about all these countries around the world that are not free. You know, Antigua 1947, they got theirs from England. Uh Cuba is still under a government that is killing
thousands of people, starving a lot of people. Is that part of freedom or is it a part of what we call you know taking over a country because it has wealth you know and uh when I look at what went on in uh in other
countries like like we we we were there and they said we took their oil you know listen how about the freedom of those people that were given to them you know I was thinking about that and and some of these countries are very unfortunate
not to spare his freedom. I mean we, you know, I I am so gifted and I thank God every day for being in this country and uh and and it was very emotional for me to sit there and and finding out in 1965
they were given their freedom and today you know I I was I was actually fears are coming out of my eyes because I'm still looking for the fear of my own family in Cuba. So, you know, I just want you guys to think about that. And
when we make comments about, oh, they just want this country because of tourism or they just want this country because he has petroleum. Think about the Christians that get caught uh caught up and killed in those countries just because they are Christians. We shouldn't be killing people for any
religion whatsoever. Whether you're Muslim, Christian, whatever, Buddhist, whatever. you know, we all have we all believe on on somebody. So, I just wanted you guys to think what
was going on my mind uh when we were speaking about AP65 and and and uh you know, just pray that some some people see it the way I see it, you know, and and that's what I have
to say. >> Thank Glad you're here, >> Commissioner Moran. >> Thank you. So, I know it was touched on a little bit earlier, but our fairgrounds is a real gym. I've been to a few events over there recently with the Powow and the Kite and Color
Festival, and they were great events. Learned a lot, a lot of fun uh to be there. But you can also see that that the investment that we put into these fairgrounds were being noticed. Uh people putting them on, vendors. I got a number of comments saying noticing all
the improvements, thanking our public works for what a great job they did and getting the grounds prepared. So, just attending the events was great in and of itself, but it was also nice to hear that and know that our county is is is doing what we want to do to move forward to make sure that we have those events to come here. All these other events we
talked about, they're fantastic. The firefighter graduation, that was a great experience. 21 uh firefighters, new firefighters, we have 220 hours was talked about. Fantastic. Um, Shiloh had a 250th uh anniversary and this is a
funny one. It was an event that just sprouted up out of nowhere. I heard about it like an hour or two before the event right around the corner from me. He said, "Sure, I'm going to go to that." I got to tell you guys, I think the entire town of Shiloh showed up. The place was packed. I couldn't believe it.
It was great. It was a a nice ceremony and it was it was great to see so many people come out for that. when we got Fourth of July right around the corner, the 250th anniversary. It was it was a nice um preempt to that. So, that was a beautiful ceremony. And then we also have all these graduations that have
either happened with the middle schools or happened with the high schools. So, let me be one to say, you know, congratulations to the class of 2026. So, hopefully I'll attend some of these graduations and and watch some of these young men and women graduate. They're always beautiful ceremonies. So, that's
all I have. Thank you. >> Thank you. I I as well attended a lot of events. One of the events that wasn't me mentioned was um the the museum, the historical society in Vinland. That was a great event and and it was in honor of the 250th
anniversary. Dawn Hunter was Lady Liberty. It's great sport, I got to tell you. So, I I did want to um give a shout out to those folks that showed up and in a period of time was uh very nice. I do want to give a shout out to Matt
Pazarski as we talk about the fairgrounds. He's the man that's making it all happen. So, I'm very happy TO have a lot of paint at the kit and color. >> It was fun. And I'd also like to congratulate all the graduates. That's
all I have. And um we need have a need for executive session. >> Not motion to second. >> Second. All >> in favor. >> This has been a QVC television production in association with our
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