testing one two testing one two good evening everyone this meeting is being held with the benefit of public notice as required by the open public meetings act madame clerk would you call the role mr parabelli here mr whan here mr pero here mr ty here miss Phillips is
absent uh would everyone rise for the salute to the flag and the invocation 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 dear God let us demonstrate humility and compassion in all that we do let us never allow pride and self-righteousness to cloud our judgment we pray especially this evening for those suffering with loss and that for those who are less
fortunate we make all these intentions in your name amen amen all right welcome to the workshops the budget workshops we're going to be starting tonight with the department of community economic development provided
by director Fred Dumont welcome Fred thank you for joining us tonight thank you Council President members of council um it's my honor to present the budget on behalf of the Department of Community and Economic
Development and to speak about the hard work and dedication of the employees of our eight divisions land use planning zoning housing construction engineering HUD and economic development every application every proposal every idea starts in our economic development
office or landings office from there they proceed to planning and engineering eventually ending in our construction office and one of those success fire department was the construction managers in 2017 we took in 2 million 66
2,265,860 in fees in 18 2,230,463 in fees and 192,412,713 in fees when most of us joined here in 2020 we took in $2,987,319 in fees followed in 21 by
3,547,394 in fees 2022 3,600,528 in fees in 23 3,277,229 in fees and in 2024 3,77,724 in fees just as a point of
reference in March of 2025 to $594,000 in fees for a total for 3 months of $1.2 million so while we're proud to build we're also proud to preserve land we preserved last year
10.577 acres that was the Koosa road project and plant trees $33,000 that Kooser Road project was purchased for 3.4 million but only $287,187 was paid by the town of Hamilton in 2024 our engineering
division conducted capital paving projects on East State Street Extension that was a state grant marshall Avenue Hoffman Drive Samuel Street Englewood Jennese Streets and Woodside Avenue we did pedestrian improvements on
Montana Avenue Shel Lane and East State Street we performed the miscellaneous concrete project in various locations in the town and ADA improvements in various locations the total engineering road investment was 3,114,155.73 i'm also extremely proud of our business
support program take our job fair as an example no Kath I won't stop i'm going to bring it up for a year in 2017 our town hosted a job fair on two dates 10 vendors at each date for a total of 120 job seekers 2018 they had one event for
12 vendors again 120 applicants 2019 two dates 15 vendors each for 330 applicants in March we had a job fair that had 70 vendors and 1,266 applicants i started my position here in
January 2nd of 2020 never in my wildest dreams could I imagine I'd be standing in front of you presenting my sixth budget but this budget was difficult to prepare as I consider our normal workload and our additional challenges before us in 2025 like addressing a fourth round fair share housing
obligation opening our cannabis facilities managing our housing rehabilitation program and finally building our municipal complex in the end I believe we can accomplish all these tasks while reducing our 25 2024
operating costs by $29,85 and our salaries from 2024 to the tune of $28,98 so with great anticipation and excitement for what will be another successful year I'm happy to answer any
question you have about our 2025 budget so council president I have given you two breakdowns of our operating costs that we reduce second sheet is all the salary reductions for 2025 so these are um why so many that went down uh
decreases I guess which one and this this sheet that I'm looking at right here so what we did is we had people retire which is great i mean but so we had people retire and we moved people around so on the left side you'll see the name of the position and their salary in 2024 like for instance Sabrina
Bowling right her salary was 76 replaced her by Madison at a at a salary of 65 it was $11,200 savings kenny Enderly retired replaced them with a clerk rather than engineering staff right that was $22,000 of salaries and it just
keeps moving down okay very good and obviously you're still searching for a housing inspector to replace Vince Donado correct that is correct and another housing inspector to replace uh Rick Brandichek but we will bring both of those inspectors in at the
starting salary of $70,523 so how many inspectors do you have now in in housing so we have our our housing uh officer and uh uh two inspectors underneath him right now
fred so you said we've gone up almost over a million in the six years that and fees that we've collected correct that is correct pretty good that is what what were the what types of fees were those so that's construction fees
so for every project you have to pay a construction fee for each discipline whether it be building plumbing electric or mechanical and uh we haven't raised those fees at all those are the same fees as were in existence in uh 2018 was there any talk of raising any of
them fees for we we've not um councilman because the cost of uh of uh starting a project before you put a shovel in the ground is significant we want to continue to attract uh good strong economic development here so we like to keep the fees as low as possible
when was the last time you uh looked at the fees yes you adjusted them we didn't We didn't adjust the uh construction fees we uh adjusted the housing fees fred before we get into the admin sheets any
um how's how are things moving with the new multi- municipal complex and school development building i think we're moving we're moving uh well okay weather's hurt us a little bit you know rain doesn't help us out there um there
was a fall small glitch um had to do with the uh the back fill of the project uh you know we thought a little bit out of the box looks like we moved beyond that project with a minimal uh cost us so I understand uh plans have been
finalized to turn this building over to the board of ed uh that's above my pay grade council president so that's what we're working on yes we still are coming up with a lease agreement for the new building and it
will address what we do with with this building as well i urge you to go buy the building the new building the stair towers are going up one of them is done already the other second one will be done by the end of the week uh anticipating steel knock on wood somewhere you know end of April
beginning of May and then the project will start flying after that when are we be going to be cutting a ribbon 22 months maybe 21 months something like that all right but we are planning a topping off ceremony for uh September October so we're putting the plans to
that together that what we want to do is we want to uh have the last beam that they put on top of the building have it painted white uh the mayor was going to host a ceremony where municipal employees dignitaries come in sign the beam and then on a particular time they'll raise that beam into the uh on
top of the building American flag on top of it they'll secure it and then the building be topped officially we're always No did you want to go through any questions on I I I didn't have any really questions for it i think your budget is always you know um you know
impeccable it's it's very lean and uh the the only question I I noticed on the one admin sheet um which is page three of the admin sheet there was um this is good news it's a decrease I just um
was curious on the uh out of title category is that page I'm sorry this is under building code inspections so you're looking at salaries it's page three yeah no this is under um differential out of title it's called
um last three digits are 018 so um and I noticed there was 54 in 2024 but um we only have five um that we spent in the in the budget was the actual spent
in the budget in 2024 but now we're showing that um we're down to 5,000 which has been consistent and it and it didn't have any increase I mean didn't have any actual spend over like a three-year period but what was that what was that due to so in 2024 uh we lost
our construction official and then our plumbing official so we were shuffling to try to move people around until we actually found replacements for them we didn't replace both of them the plumbing official replaced in uh I think it's December okay uh those struggles cost us
that money cost us that money during that time in the end uh our entire department came under budget under budget because you didn't have those salaries right we just took we took from Peter to pay Paul okay if you look at the um the main line for salary and wage
it's way under budget because of those vacancies and we shift personnel right and it may have happened in years past but we just started tracking it a little bit more accurately now so we'll charge it to out of tight when we actually have
that okay that's fine that's good um I also noticed that we're um moving uh I guess in-house scanning which is a savings of almost 22,000 it
it is so we've got some of our lower paid clerks working on that also through the county we had five interns last summer uh we're hoping to get our five interns this summer you know if you want me to be on the budget you could talk to somebody there for um and we use people
like that for that also u Mrs monza provided for us um and it was outstanding fireman who uh was on light duty he came in did a great job for us and uh scanning some of our stuff okay
excellent and obviously the big one for us and you know I already talked to Kathy about this is just the um the health insurance number and that was that was the one thing that impacted us all through probably see this in most departments
right you know just the increase that we experienced with the health insurance absolutely so and that's charged separately because again this is a source of different revenue And so we can really put that in the red center here but it did go up
right mhm the crowd's getting antsy behind me you got anything that you want to update us on regarding uh capital i guess you Yeah let's take a look so the capital um quite challenging the mayor did not
want to increase capital at all um so in previous years you saw eight nine roads being done in engineering this year you're seeing one under capital engineering it is Clockner Road near the marketplace but we are hoping to move that off of our capital list and include
it into the um the project we've received the state grant for the rest of Clockner Road oh wow uh the reason it's still in there tonight is we have not received written confirmation from New Jersey Department of Transportation but we have received verbal so we hope that
comes off we also finance the other roads uh using uh TID funds that's not taxpayer money to do those six roads we're doing one road under CDBG and then the other roads are going to be done under a grant so still a large uh
capital engineering here for us so it's not just one that we're doing there's a a bunch of that are under we're using other not using capital okay not using township money okay so don't we're not setting ourselves up for like next year the year after to be concerned with oh
now we have this newer list of of roads that we're going to have to uh repave or mill and finish and um get up to uh you know a good quality standard all right that's good that explained it for me the big follow job on Clockner Road that would eat up a lot of our monies we're
doing that with a state grant so okay on page uh three or I think page four it's uh public facilities page one under capital you had asked for um was grounds yours or not they're not no it's not I'm
talking just those grounds not so we don't have any other funding in any capital other than the roads Yeah I'm good i don't have anything else we appreciate the reductions Brett in a in a in a tough year thank you for you
know working to to find those councilman thank you for the kind words but it's my staff my staff does the bulk of the work they uh they seek should be commended and I will pass your kind words over to them tomorrow morning all right all right thank you Fred all right thank you
everybody thank you for Fred have a good night chief you want to join us i know reduction redu decreases well supposedly they said everybody else is just going to follow right behind Fred that was a setup right there that
was do it to the new guy that's right how are you good good thank you for having so confused [Music] you have any opening remarks you wanted
uh I'm never going to follow Fred ever again that's a that' be a pretty good opening remark i feel like uh you know Yeah uh actually I would uh uh I'm actually honored to be here today on behalf of uh the members of the fire department uh some of the hardest
working people I've ever met in my life and uh they do an outstanding job protecting the residents as well as each other and we do appreciate uh any and all support that we do get from uh you and the administration so again this is my first budget uh
presentation to this council and uh my first time working with uh with Miss Monzo and uh as far as this so we we do appreciate and I of course the first one is got to be the toughest right so I think that our budget u it it does
reflect uh some increases in salary and wages uh due to a contract um some of those may uh initially appear a little higher uh but we were out of contract uh a little bit longer than a year so just uh we ask that you take that into
account um this year we've kind of changed the way that we're uh we're going to approach a few things uh we're actually in the process as far as capital uh presenting uh basically phase in plans threeyear five year fivey year
10 year as far as it goes to complete um ancillary equipment things with a longer uh service lives so that way we can take that out of our normal operating and it'll allow us to have a lot more flexibility moving forward uh we think that uh ultimately that sticker shock of
coming in and and you know we need to replace air packs and asking you for $800,000 you know now and then again in 10 years tends to kind of not really come off all that well so our our plan is to you know phase those things in so
that we have better control and uh allows us to uh kind of control our spending and keep up with the latest technology because um as you can see we are very manpower and equipment intensive very exp uh you know some of those uh costs are truly out of our
control and uh with the way that the supply and demand goes as well as current tariffs and things of that nature uh we're we're feeling that impact as well as you are so um I guess the easiest thing would be if you have any questions I'd be more than
happy to answer it um I would ultimately like to thank Deputy Chief Retalis also Whitney and Caitlyn who were also here uh in attendance um the fire marshals fire marshall's office um our FMBA uh both the 28484 and like I said every
member of the department who um is trusting us to do what we can on not only their behalf but the resident's behalf so if there's anything you would uh like to ask me I'd be more than happy to answer the best of my ability
thank you you know what can you slow down a minute you need to we need to catch maintenance of lower details that just need to be adjusted in that the overall total is correct at
87,6464 um we just have to zero out those multifactor okay right that you might see that in a couple of well that we're some of the
things other software items and we're centralizing that in it so this actually wasn't a reduction of these items they're just moved in but covered under it okay that's why when we get to it you'll see that there is an increase in
there so I'm kind of giving you the information thomas is giving you the information ahead of time so that you don't have sticker shock when you see that but just know that almost all of those items in there we move from other uh divisions or departments
are we fully staffed now as far as the department goes uh so right now uh we currently have two vacancies which we're in the process of filling um we we have we conducted interviews uh we are ready
for the next phase and we'll be doing a joint academy with city of trend start date as of right now initially was May 19th it's now been changed to uh May 29th um however uh we're now we're past interviews internal interviews for fire
department we're now to background checks um physicals and then the meeting with the mayor to see um the next step here so once we get those those members out of the academy which is approximately four months long yes so one of the
vacancies was we had a retirement and a firefighter moved up to the rank of captain creating a vacancy in a firefighter ranks that'll count for one member and then we had a vacancy in a float position um assigned to one of the engine
companies and that will also be filled provided both actually graduate from the academy that being said if if you were fully if you have the full amount of required firefighters how does that directly correlate with the overtime as
far as reducing it you know as you could see and I'm not I'm not picking on fire department by any means but you can see the gradual increases uh that we've seen throughout the years you know 2022 was 2.5 i think we end up spending 2.62 you know and it just went up and up
and up and then you requested 3.8 8 naturally you know they they settled on 3.1 but fully staffed how does that help with the overtime so there are varying opinions on fully staffed i will just full transparency okay right now for the
vacancies that we have those additional members that once they're added will allow us to um kind of especially the float position one is a float position that position was assigned to offset overtime so that
person's been able to move throughout the companies so what that will allow us to do is have two float firefighters per position or perh platoon excuse me i'm sorry um just just an explanation on the float mean they they can go from they're
assigned a different h like how's it work yeah so the easiest way is um for example engine 2 for us on South Broad Street Station 13 they have a float firefighter assigned so it's a fourperson company right now and the
fourth member can be uh relocated for the day to offset overtime okay but we cannot drop below our three man minimum for that engine company i got you so Okay um look there's only it's very difficult with fire department right we we're different from PD where we don't
have uh patrol minimums and and those things we we're almost always at a minimum um our engine company minimums are three uh truck company rescue company squad company which are all part of special operations andor um rescue
companies uh have a fourman uh minimum so that's where you start seeing some of those numbers kind of uh I wouldn't say that they never really level out right can contractual increases you'll have those um the other item taken into
account is also as members you know advance in the department as far as years on a job they're going to they're going to acrew more vacation time they earn more vacation time so my opinion there's there's kind of
uh the services that we provide are necessary i will say that so there's kind of two ways we we work to fund the overtime but you know for us the biggest offset would be additional manpower increasing number of the companies allowing us to then drop those
you know those additionals it's not ideal but it is kind of the the best of all worlds here the other thing that's going to affect uh the overtime is going to be injuries right you have if you have people that are out you have people that are injured somebody's got to fill that you can't ever uh predict an injury
you can't predict somebody getting sick so that's also you know something you're just not going to be able to it's a great point and last year was a tough year with injuries but you know the way I can best equate this uh to to you know everybody everybody's job is difficult
but I would suggest that you tonight just think about this for one one brief second when you get home um keep the lights off put your hands over your eyes and walk into a room that you're fully aware of every single day see how many things you run into now we do that while
it's on fire sometime in hoarding conditions i make no excuses for injuries they're going to happen no matter what the job um but unfortunately there is an inherent cost to it and uh Councilman Pero's direct uh his direct response is perfect to that the other part that you have to think about with
the overtime going up is salary and wages go up because of the the raise so every time somebody gets a raise what's also going to go up because they're directly correlated is the overtime rate so when you're paying somebody an increased salary and then you have an injury and their salary went up it's
just natural for that number to go up too the only way to reduce that number is either put more firefighters on or don't have people on the street right you don't want to keep the street unsafe so you just have to find we have to find a balance on you know where the s the
true savings is going to be okay sorry no that was a good answer yeah and the minimums are dictated by contractual agreements at each of um safe stand is that statute is that
standard for response also contract doesn't necessarily spell that out okay um but engine companies in general operate at a minimum of three preferred standards would be four nationally um you know but again it's it's been a
practice that we've had and we work forward or we look forward to working with the administration to to adding staff in those positions you know we could we can definitely sit with uh with you guys and develop a phased in plan uh as uh as we move forward what what does
that mean a phased in plan so what I mean by that would be instead of you know like coming in and saying we need 12 people right it might be an engine company or you know I hate to say engine company we'll add four people perhaps in
the spring four more in the fall so now we're we're adding staff while you're recognizing and receiving a little bit of that savings instead of eight in the beginning of the year you phase that in now you're paying them essentially half of that year um because we're going to
potentially run into an issue um and we've talked to to Miss Monzo about this is within the next uh few years we could have a large number of retirements so uh when I talk about phaseins I'd be remiss
if I we weren't already planning for potential retirements right you know we want them to stay but ultimately you know that's that's the game plan and if we're not preparing ourselves on our end and developing a plan for those
potential retirements the overtime number is then going to jump drastically because now we're going to have voids in our response the the pro the obstacle that we face in both of our jobs is when someone retires they have time they're
either going to burn they're going to walk out the door if we don't have somebody ready to step in right and it's not just hey I'm going to take somebody off the street and put them into a civilian position there's obviously specialized training so when we turn around and you know this as well as
anybody when you turn around and you have a firefighter or police officer retire it takes you know 10 12 20 something weeks to get through certain trainings right depending on where they're coming from so unless you're bringing somebody in who's already trained now we're paying overtime for
potentially mass retirement that overtime is going to go from whatever it is to a lot more and if we're not prepared with getting people ready right whether it's through transfers or whether it's through bringing other people on when those retirements come
we're going to have holes in the budget we're going to be paying you know double the overtime we're paying it's it's a it's a problem because you can't you can't guess anybody's you can't say "Hey he's leaving this day." Yeah it's it's a it's a difficult
some of some of the what we've done you know in a number of times or whatever if we have a little bit of lead time like if somebody puts in their retirement application six months ahead of time which is ideal for us or it's better
than just a few months right and it gives them time to go through the process for that and have that approved but then we can we can overlap hires and make sure we're getting somebody time to go into the academy to do it for police too so there's been several times that
we've had kind of an overlap and had replacements you know kind of in academy waiting for that retirement to to happen so um you know it's it's hard it's it's hard to and when you don't have that that lead time it it makes it even more
difficult so it's tough it's it's a challenge for sure on both sides right from your side and from the administration side it's it's tough to try and predict if somebody's going to leave or not leave and you don't want to push anybody out the door but you still and plan for that because you're right that you do have all this training that
has to get done and you know they can't just jump into it you know the day after somebody retires so agree so it's also important to note one last thing on that is we also operate as a one forone replacement because we don't have the additional I don't want to say staffing
but um available manpower like you know maybe the police department does you know not to throw the police department anything but we work completely different so just understand I know law enforcement's been been uh before you for since its inception right and they
do an outstanding job so just understand that we are a completely completely different entity and I know that even though it's been a few years we are still a uh there's a learning curve and a and a a bit of understanding to move forward um but we do appreciate that and
we also uh uh we were just talking the expected number in the next few years was it next year the 2001 class was almost 30 something people came on so by that they'll hit 25 years so almost 30 something can go off and that's not
counting the seven or so that could go right now was a big year so we're we're potentially looking at anywhere from you know 30 to 45 members of the department retiring in the next three years could leave yes absolutely that's what we try to narrow down right we know this many
can leave and that would be terrible right but then realistically who's going to go and when are they going to go and you know there's no exact science to it so if you you could predict that maybe you could buy a lottery ticket i don't try to
predict it we just try to have some conversations but thank you appreciate your question a lot of the the professional services agreements the contracts with the the uh computer stuff all I mean it's it's beyond their control but the numbers are
just outrageous yeah software has been that way for a while and it just seems like it's gotten worse in the last handful of years too right it's just but we need it right we need to have these things in place the technology in place and I don't think we have anything
extravagant it's really just kind of what's necessary to get the job done it's the same with the vehicles the vehicles I know with the cost of everything and now what's going on yes what are we looking at now down the road it's a lot kathy I forget do we
typically put um under vehic for vehicle maintenance or repair that's never put under capital is it no not just for vehicle purchases yeah cuz I saw I maintenance of motor vehicles i saw a few there that um the fire apparatus repair was a you know a little bit of a
larger number um are we we're not looking to buy another vehicle we're just looking to repair it uh no we we also requested a new vehicle through uh through fleet through capital this year
um again with as as I'm I'll echo Fred for a second um you know we are attempting some grant opportunities that's what I was going to ask you so we're always looking however we requested um
um well price of a new engine right now just to give you a little sticker shot is well over $1.1 million i agree with that um that's for a simple engine right so um we had requested uh funds um in the attempt to do a a um 10-year fleet
plan so you know we would we would attempt to you know kind of manage those so now it's this year we we come in and let's say we ask for $1.6 million and then the following year it's the same number and the same number so we can kind of kind of project for that right
so that was the original game plan um given you know the the demands on the budget this year uh the mayor has uh has asked that that be held off and possibly added to next year now over to capital we're talking about No I Well I started
talking about vehicle repairs which brought us to you know I asked the question about vehicle purchases which swung us over to capital um back to maintenance just to go back to maintenance for a second we work in an
industry where uh we are not easy on our vehicles right first and foremost so there's a reason why we recommend 8 to 10 years for frontline vehicle replacement and then they go into a reserve status so they'll be available when the front lines either break or
something else happens to them they have to have routine maintenance which deputalis handles um the issue ultimately becomes like anything else if you look at the fire department's fleet um kind of like your house right if I
don't replace my roof every so often right and I don't pick up keep up with those initial repairs knowing that okay in 10 years I need to put a new roof on now that's going to cost me a lot more money we are in the same exact boat which is why you'll see the overall
increase every year for fleet services okay you'll see that increase for maintenance you'll see that because their prices are going up the on the newer vehicles they're now out of a warranty right so now we're
seeing the little nuisance uh repairs that are happening there you know how this is starts out in your car as an O2 sensor before you know you're replacing this and then you're replacing a radiator right we are no different so that's that's where you see those numbers and again out of our control
they've done a very good job of controlling that cost through uh competitive bidding and we have a really good uh relationship right now with our vendor um who's been who's been more than helpful but Chief of Talis does a a really good job of of trying to keep our
our fleet running and sometimes some of the the costs are just unexpected like last year we had a we had a motor blow that was $60,000 that nobody expected no we will have that we had a vehicle
recently who um uh the spring brake was sticking went in thought it was just going to be a simple repair ends up having two cracked leaf springs on the back of the vehicle plus all the brakes need to be replaced these are sometimes beyond your control yeah thanks i like
what I said at the same time last year we're into the next level of repairs as these trucks are getting older you know in the last three weeks we've replaced motor mounts you know the first year you replace O2 sensors stuff worse you know this last month was um major suspension
issues broken springs broken motor mounts um seals between the transmission and the motor you know it's not your car those repairs are $4,000 $6,000 never ending and the repairs the first three
years first one's bumper-to-bumper warranty the next one's limited warranty but as you hit five six seven we're at 100% cost now that we have to pay and you know an alternator 2 weeks ago it's not your car alternator it's a $4,000
alternator you know that that's why you know our our budget asked reflected all that because we're at that like I put it a minute ago the next level of repairs you know we're not just replacing any more windshield wipers and door it's you know window motors like it's you know
three seat belts in the last three weeks well the seat belts are $1,400 a piece you know we have some amazing seat belts yeah it's for a boat or a fire truck right it's expensive i'm in the wrong
business i'll just Right right so and I guess these the grants for any any type of like pumper or whatever that you go after is probably super competitive cuz cuz everyone's going after like is it the same particular it's very
competitive in fact um for some of the grants especially the the FEMA grant should they still open back up last year we applied for one but in order to even be considered for an apparatus they're looking for apparatus in excess of 30 years
and there's extremely few grand full purse ours will not make 30 years so yeah i mean we've we're running some of our engines are in excess of 100,000 miles on them now which for a firet truck is
is beyond crazy used to be 40,000 miles and hard miles and then you move that on you know we're big on engine hours that's really what dictates a lot of our fleet replacement that grant that we had submitted for for the fire the safer grant for manpower
yeah any movement with that or is that even cut out at this point i don't know if we that was last year and we did not get that we didn't get money for that yeah we didn't get that one i mean we have gotten money for the ladder truck um that was great recently and you just
re um bought a used um vehicle as well yep which will help a little bit on those repairs right because from what I understand you're going to move the the unit that's being replaced to a reserve status so you know that'll help every little bit helps but yes the capital
budget this year has been really paired back in every department um and that's because we know we're we're taking a look at what the debt service is going to look like in the next 10 years or so and you know we want to be able to not
take this you know painful huge hit and spike when we start to finance the municipal building so and to Miss Monzo's point please understand us finding this rescue truck is a rarity so it's not it's not the the
norm it's truly the exception so it's easy to to kind of look and be like "Wow we found that let's go find another one this is I've been doing this for over 30 years this is the first one of these ever in 30 years that we've been able to come across." So just be mindful of that
as we kind of kind of look at the the budget in its entirety and then it that's a used rescue truck out of Mansfield Township how do we build how do we uh get did we just have a relationship with them we you know they they knew there was a need
how did that No they were actually uh they're in a manpower uh they're having manpower difficulties and um they were having difficulty getting the unit out they were switching to a squad style concept which is putting the rescue equipment onto a standard engine um and
I think they they tell us they could get it out 25 times in the last year it was a lot so their chief has a a vision and a plan to move their department forward and that was part of their agreement with their their council was to sell the vehicle and we just happened to be at
the right place at the right time good so so they use they use the vehicle uh 25 times per year how often do we Every day all day every day it goes out yep once it's in service yeah we're our our department last year ran over 17,000
calls for service i mean the population of Mansfield is a fraction yep but they have large travel large travel times right so uh they're kind of like our our our Groville station right they are very busy every company we have here is very
busy but they have rural areas where they have longer response times they're not beating on their trucks stop and go like we are here in our urban and suburban setup so you know they definitely and I will say that they did an outstanding job of maintaining their
vehicle as well which is why it's still in the shape that it's in while we're talking about fleet maintenance for one second too we are taking this year some uh measures to save Yeah y to save some money for the
first year in the four the garage is starting to do some more things we're working with the garage um we outsourced to a tire vendor for the last few years this year the t the garage is working on our tires so there's going to be cost savings there um in the past six eight
months we started going to them for the stuff they're able to do like lights and wipers and you know so we're slowly working towards that we're a little ways away from them being able to work fully on the fire trucks but we've had plenty of meetings with um Chuck and his staff
to eventually hopefully get to where they become our shop and that will save on some you know labor charges um it's a little while away but you know we're working on slowly getting them to uh maybe work on that cart
time's everything um but we're you know we're taking some costsaving measures to reduce that line item by the our garage being able to perform some stuff [Music] good vision under uh um this is janitorial
this is page 10 uh janitorial laundry household supplies so we're what we're doing is we're going to have a decrease of 15,000 for public works on one of the line items and we're going to increase your budget the plan that we're
looking at uh for I think it was janitorial cleaning supplies cuz I we're going to have each I guess we're taking the expense away from DPW that's how I'm reading it the reason for that and you can correct me if I'm wrong is there was some things we found
over the last couple years public works can't get for us so we're gonna buy it in-house okay you know still like state contract stuff and still you know so there's not going to increase cost but it was easier for us to get cuz they don't stock it i'm sorry gotcha next
there chief I saw on the uh cap i'm sorry can we move back to capital or you guys right feel free yeah cool just real quick to go to capital uh I'm looking at the radios i see you had requested about double what was uh
recommended for radios yeah what's the um so the original ask on the radios was uh 140,000 so again we talked about doing um phased in uh programs so we
have right now we have about 48 portable radios actually we do have 48 portable radios that are at end of life they're also not going to be operable on the system um by the end of their three-year phase in so we were doing a three-year phase in at 140,000 each year plus
adding uh at that point 6% was our seems to be our normal uh moving forward so the ask for year one was 140 we ended up having uh existing capital for radio still available to the tune of around
70,000 so uh Miss Monzo recommended that we drop the ask in year one which would be this year to 70 and utilize the older capital still giving us the 140 so it would still allow us to to do what we intend to do but we would utilizing
utilizing old capital or existing capital in addition to this but we wanted to do that over a three-year period as opposed to coming in and asking for almost $500,000 in So the other twoirds of the radios will
they still be able to be replaced in the next two years yes as as long as uh moving forward there's the additional funding in the capital yes but we we're we're working to put these plans out and work we're actually working in uh um
pretty closely with with Miss Monzo on this so um we would rather be able to phase all of these in and I think it's a it's an easier way for all of us to project and manage our costs so twothirds of the radios are going to
have a compatibility issue down the road yes three years yeah yeah in the three-year window they're no longer we we will no longer be able to get parts for those and they're no longer going to be supported these were originally purchased on a radio grant oh
god can't even tell you probably sometime in the 2000s so it's been a while we've gotten our life out of these um and then some um in fact they were they need to they need to be sortly quickly replaced so we're able to um
once we start getting phase one in we'll be able to use the parts from the old ones to extend the life of the existing ones so that'll buy us another year and then another year but by year three they're all garbage and that's only a portion of our radios so the 48 radios
is just a portion of our radios we we have quite a few radios each member of the department has a radio on your on a firearm so we have quite a few three years for no good we have to go back no
just these areas are yeah no no we've gotten you're talking about the compatibility compatibility yeah on these yes all of our newer radios which have been purchased say in the last you know five to seven years they're going to be good for a while right but but this is a change
that we can no longer parts manufacturers and supporting it and then as far as how it's going to operate on the existing communication system they'll no longer uh be able to to work properly as effectively on it so we're trying to get ahead of that by by doing
that in a three-year phase chief I had two uh questions just looking at the revenue pages um and I I I'm certain I know the first one is the uh ARPA fire grant obviously that's a one-time injection right that was the
American Rescue Plan grant yep what page are you looking that's on page one of revenue section section four or five I'm sorry so there was a $75,000 grant and I'm assuming that was from the American
It says ARP is that American Rescue Plan page may I ask what page yeah it's page one on this section four i don't even see that i don't have that yep i definitely don't have that yeah that's what that would be that's got to
be what that would be yeah and do I've never seen that so okay is there I was just saying is there a concern that did that ghost was that placed for obviously for a specific project or purpose or um is that like a concern that we're
going to have to now fill that $75,000 not that I'm aware of no I'd have to follow up with with Miss Monzo on that but okay I was just curious it's not significant well and I understand you're not going to uh you know have instant recall on every
line item so we're not sure what that money was used for is that right that's what I was just asking yeah okay and then amount so it was 75,000 ARP firefighters grant i mean it's got to be
American Rescue Plan right oh yeah so um I would Is that the washer and dryer that's the Yeah so that was a onetime grant okay so is Yeah okay but it was for like uh it wasn't for like a specific it was for a c equipment
purchase is that what we're saying like it's for the equipment to uh manage their their right the turnout here okay it was equipment they need that was able to fall under the it was a grant you could apply for if it's that one that is
almost a given that you're going to get it but it's very select things this year it's a different topic every year this year was uh like health and safety it was gear cleaning was the only thing we could have done with it okay so we where we're able to acquire three gear
extractors and drying cabinets okay we're actually taking we're getting right now as traditionally ordering them now the equipment now so reimbursement on the other okay we don't show that though for 2025 though okay
under that that ARP grant well that was a oneoff so that's just a oneoff yeah the grant's already in place we don't have to But it's a one-off we're not going to get it again correct okay that's why I just wanted Yeah i just wanted to We may apply for We try every weekend we can do
a great job of applying for whatever's available and um you know so it it just depends no I I I guess my point is that is this American Rescue Plan Firefighter Grant is that what it's called or is it Am I reading that wrong the acronym ARP
no you're right so this is tied to the you know had to be encumbered and spent by the end of 2026 obviously these ARPA dollars so this is a one-time grant um but we'll pursue other grants i just wanted to get you know get some clarity on that we'll never have one under that
heading again but it'll come from the state it comes through the state okay if we got a washer and dryer then that's going to Yeah we got three washers and three dryers the year before we also applied for the same grant and we got it it was $75,000 and you had to spend it towards
we spend it towards uh self-contained breathing apparatus bottles so we got $75,000 worth of you know $2,500 bottles whatever that math is so we do apply for it every year and we've been successful the last few years of getting it you know next year they're going to have a
topic and you have to stay within that topic if you want it so but it's not out yet what it is but if there's a grant out there we're going to try to try to get it okay and I guess my other quick other question is on page page two under um the current budget revenues i saw a
slight decrease it's not that much but it went from um the projections went down a little bit 30,000 for fire protection revenues from 590 to 560 590,000 to 560 the fire prevention bureau fire
protection revenues is that for like fire inspe uh um yeah Scott's office um you know the the businesses are required to pay their fees uh to one to the state one to the township and the state anticipates what
your revenue is going to be on the value of the building the value of the property okay you know so if if properties closed then that year we don't get that revenue so the revenue went down a little bit maybe you know some businesses are not around or properties closed it fluctuates every
year goes up and down okay yeah it's not a huge decrease but I was just curious yeah and we're we're only allowed to anticipate whether you know the state sometimes comes out with guidelines but when they don't it's uh we're only allowed to anticipate up to the amount that we collected last year so we
probably collected a little more than 560,000 last year and we just put it up to that level assuming we might collect the same so So we didn't collect 590 last year no we did not we budgeted for it and I I think we probably fell short okay understood the state sends us uh
every year um anticipated revenue if and it says right here if every business paid what they're supposed to this is what you should collect okay and then understood there okay so there's a line item of revenue uh we didn't have
previously the NJ DCA police and fire capital improvement that was a grant that we received and that it says police and fire but I think
it's for the roof of the fire um for the police department building and there may be some repairs or whatever that we need to do for fire as well if there's still the funds available but this is going to be almost a complete replacement of the
roof at the police station [Music] how long's the economy running four months [Music] where's he going to have graduation at excuse me where's graduation going to be i believe last year it was at the uh at
the the arena although this year the class size is uh has dropped down trenton's reduced their their numbering uh so they're anticipating 12 in this new academy class the original projection was going to be around 50 members
that was going to be one uh one heck of a site so but I think just for Trenton no no it was a combination between I believe uh Euing Township and then our our initial projection or the original ask so they held positions for us so
everybody's I think Euing may have backed out so it's Hamilton and Trenton in this one but this seems to be the uh um kind of the way of the future working with their staff moving forward and you know we have some we have some highly
trained members of our of our own um as far as instruction so right now it's a blend between the two they're already established um so so far it's going to we'll we'll see how this first round goes [Applause]
[Music] so I'm good for whom the belt holds very good we're good we're good Chief we appreciate it thank you very much for your time [Music]
ajourned