to start okay this is a meeting of the Hillsdale Council on this 4th day of March 2025 notice of time and place proved news and record coped on the bu boardside provided to any party please
silence all cellones and Mee 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
rooll council president Oso here council member colleti here counc member Fox council member maacha here council member ruko here council member chenu here Michael shinfield here no that's me okay it's okay it's
okay clerk um we have uh two names to put forward for the environmental Commission Zara thees uh for term expiring 12 3127 and David Cooper is alternate
number two term expiring 1231 26 can I get a motion motion second second R council member K yes council member Fox council member maach Chang yes council president Oso yes council
member ruko yes council member to yes time the council meeting from February 4 2025 I get a motion motion second second council member Fox stain council
member m yes council president Oso yes council member ruko yes council member choim Muk yes counc member kle yes minutes pass Council minutes from February 11th 2025 motion motion second second R council member mazang yes
council president Oso yes council member ruko yes council member Chim Muk yes council member kti yesc member Fox the council minutes from February 11th have passed now time for theion public comment it is limited to three
minutes uh on the agenda items only one item for speaker St town of res record make a motion for this Del okay great who would like to speak anybody on the agenda okay uh we move on to
correspondence uh we have an email received from GL requesting D through the will go distance rotis charity bike ride already approved by the police motion to receip and file motion second all those in favor
I see none pass we're gonna have the professional reports good evening everyone uh not too many items tonight first the uh the NJ doot fiscal year 2024 project that was put on pause at the end of last season due to weather um should be
restarting fairly soon we're having discussions with the contractor on scheduling that work so um as soon as weather permits uh we're planning on having that project restart the fiscal year 2024 project is for Melville Road uh then we also have the 2025 Riverside
Co-op for Paving that uh Co-op program is going to be uh awarded in April with construction kicking off in May for that program we have uh the following roads it is going to be Baylor AV from Ruckman Road to
West Terminus Cambridge Road from Arcadia way to Kent Road Saddle Ranch Lane from Hillsdale AB to pasak Road Colonial Village Drive from Parkview Drive to Clinton nav Clinton nav from Colonial Village Drive to Broadway and Weis lane from pas road to Stony Ridge
Drive uh so that is what we have included for the 2025 Riverside Cooperative Paving program for Centennial Field um I have been having discussions with the contractor Dakota on that project they are planning on and
again this is weather permitting starting by April um hopefully at some point towards the end of March and they're planning on around 3 weeks left of construction activities there um so once that that finishes we'll have a uh
a resting period for the sod and then we'll be able to reopen the field how many Cuts do long cut before it playable uh I believe they give I think it's four four or five cuts I I I can't
remember off hand cut day no no no it's when we're get the kids on the it's around once a week so we're we're looking at about 4ish 4ish weeks I would say from Finish of construction to opening plus or minus a week or two um
and that is I right yeah by by end of May I mean if we give it a little bit more time that's better it allows you know more time for the sod to take but we are using the large R so it should be it is
playable within around a month so rough time frame that's what you're looking at um and then for Memorial Field obviously um we've had on ongoing discussions on that project I'm sure you'll have questions for me on that um at this
point I think we're kind of just waiting direction from from the Council on how we're going to move forward so that's all I have okay anybody have any questions for okay we will move on to committee report presid leave us yes thank you
mayor um attended the rec uh commission meeting last night I just want to note uh a couple of important dates uh March 11th and March 12th uh summer camp registration is going to be open March 11th is for K through 4 and March 12th
is for 5-9 grades um Please be aware that it's going to be exclusive to Hillsdale residents uh through March 21st so it's important that Hillel residents go ahead and register it's going to be limited to 335 uh children um after the 21st it's
going to be opened up to uh Rivervale residents last year uh some of our Hillsdale residents were left out unfortunately because River and Hillsdale were able to register at the same time um this year they're allowing Hills residents to uh register
exclusively for the first few days uh then they'll open it up to uh uh River Veil Community um so again limited to 335 uh the spring brochure was released um with lots of fun things uh that lay
uh lay a away for course in the spring um you can find that on the what's happening email that's gets distributed every uh Friday and you can also find it on the burrow website um the rec director Dan KY will be applying for a Bergen County open
space Grant the C for the grant is $100,000 uh it's going to be specifically for Beachwood Park uh he hasn't uh identified the use yet uh whether it's uh for a playground or uh some other uh item there
um so we would be in a position to open that up to do use it for different things there without actually getting ourselves defined uh to a particular item um so he's going to the letter intend for that Grant is due on March 28th uh and the actual filing of the
application is uh for the end of April again that's cap out of $100,000 and it would be a matching Grant so the burrow would have to put up another $100,000 so you can go ahead and spend a $200,000 budget uh on Whatever item that you uh go ahead and identify for work
there uh also want everybody to note that the egg hunt is going to be held on April 19th uh so please put that in your account uh I think Mike Gali the ba is going to update us on the fields originally we had that slotted for um a
discussion uh slotted for next week's council meeting uh but we're going to go ahead and table that until next month because additional work is required okay that's it councilman Fox as far as the pool goes the new uh main pool pump and motor was installed the end of February
uh new umbrellas arrived um there'll be an open house uh May 17th 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. new members will get 10% off uh in the uh official openings May 24th uh DPW uh will be hiring two seasonal employees
within the coming weeks uh we had to acquire more salt due to the weather conditions from the county um there's starting maintenance on the baseball field uh and we're going to start uh they're going to start pothole repairs if anyone sees any potholes in the area
you could report it to the ba or the uh DPW councilman kti short update for the environmental commission um just as we discussed earlier we welcome Zara and David to the committee uh they were appointed by the mayor earlier in tonight's session uh
but a byproduct that came out of the recruiting process for that was we identified other willing and able candidates that want to continue uh and want to donate their time and and and be involved in community service so the commission is has invited these the um
these individuals to participate and to support in pseudo like volunteer associate roles so that was great uh in terms of pasak Valley Regional Board of Education their meeting was held um about a week ago I think the one of the relating topics to commended at since
we're having our budget discussion tonight uh is that uh Mr usami the secretary and the business administrator reported on the current status of their budget and where they're thinking numbers are going to come in uh they some of the headwinds that they're
dealing with consistent to what we see is a Lo in a local level as well here in the municipality rising cost well above 2% health insurance cost increasing over $800,000 uh there also have another headwind and that there's a trend of
declining enrollment uh which has been a trend per U quote Mr usami since 2012 2013 and they expect that to continue but there may be uh on the horizon an increase down the road a little bit in a few years uh they've also been notified
by the state or the districts were notified that they can see reductions up to 3% in state age in state aid excuse me um and they're taking steps in their budget uh they plan to use excess Surplus um will also budget for
Extraordinary Aid in the area of5 to $600,000 and they do plan on using some of their maintenance Reserve as well fire department our fire department worked with superintendent leardi they hosted drills at George White it's something they've done the past couple years and they plan to do it in the
future uh the chief has met with Westwood Rivervale and alapan regarding a box alarm and mutual Aid plan uh within this plan Hillsdale will provide rescue to Rivervale and Westwood and Poss possibly alapan in turn Rivervale would respond as a ladder truck and
Westwood with an engine to Hillsdale alarms uh this will help with the Manpower issue that they're currently experiencing during the day uh and currently we can get a ladder truck on the road but not fully manned which is why this this this is needed uh this is
a trial but if successful the goal would be to make it permanent sometime in June July uh ironically at the time of our meeting the ladder truck was down and it was down for about a week uh that downtime
is uh pretty meaningful and that's because the manufacturer of the ladder truck is no longer in business I'm bringing this up just because it further justifies the new ladder truck that was approved by the previous Council and scheduled to be delivered in
2026 that's it okay councilman ruko thank you mayor the uh access for all met on February 24th remotely um they repeated their request to me for the burrow to appoint reps from uh police Recreation and the Board
of Health um I went back to check the original resolution that the council passed in 2015 that created the AFA Advisory Board and it authorizes the ba to contact those organizations and determine the representation on the access for all
Advisory Board do we have any latitude if we can't get volunteers to what the be just unfilled seats you don't fill the seats but they're they're asking for fulfillment of those seats they feel that they need representation particularly from the police um they're
planning for an art show on May 1st at the library um that continues I think it'll be a successful event as it was last year they had an arts and craft Workshop that was successful uh two weeks ago another one's coming up March
15th at the library uh they requested a copy of their budget um in the detail that they had submitted to the ba and the CFO I don't have it so if you could ensure that they get a copy
of their budget that would be uh helpful um I gave them an update report on the search for a grant to help fund the accessible playground in Beachwood Park as is the council's intent they just wanted a little recapture of what happened with the uh yeah with the a green acre uh Grant
uh Board of Health uh met um Northwest Bergen Regional they are renewing their state accreditation they're in the process of that and the board members discussed a public health situation for one burrow home location where police and fire
department responded last fall to the smell of gas that was taken care of it was addressed immediately but there was evidence of a public health situation the resident was not home uh and it needs further attention there are waiting quir clarification from the burrow um as to where things stand I
believe that they were intending to contact the burrow administrator um they want to know if there's anything they can do under what appears to be a very challenging situation to get this particular situation within the home addressed it's my it's my understanding
that nobody who responded reported back to the Board of Health is that the case uh I don't know because I was in the dark as well um I asked them about what they knew uh um some of them knew knew of it one of the members knew a lot but
um they're questioning why when the police in fire arrived it was I guess in the fall sometime um now the situation about the internal aspect
of the house is just getting worse so uh then the neighbors are noticing as well so they'll be here if we don't do something sure um the finance committee met on February 20th we reviewed the budget we
made some final adjustments uh the CFO David Young uh is going to be making a presentation later tonight but overall it calls for a decrease in revenues and expenditures of 1.8% from the prior year which brings our total Appropriations
including the library up to almost 19 million uh the bottom line for all the residents is taxes will need to be raised ra by 4.9% roughly 553,000 to fund the budget including the library and for the average homeowner
homeowner um that means a tax of approximately 3,284 and that's up about4 from the prior Year Dave will go through the the uh the actual numbers and and why the increases are are so um different than
than prior years can I can I ask you uh based upon that um so you all collectively put forward was this a unanimous decision to put this budget we all felt it was fiscally this was this was the budget that everybody agreed to to put forward yes okay yep we
we we all felt that it's fiscally sound that it's a necessary budget under the circumstances that the burrow finds itself in um and those circumstances include expenses that there a variety not directly under the mayor and council's control um uh but also
expenses from decisions that the council has made in the past and is likely the finance committee thought about what was on the plate what possibly the council may be approving uh next couple preview for where we're where we're going but
that's good yeah and and David will go into hopefully some of the some of the details on it um we've all received a copy of his presentation tonight okay thank you can I ask John a quick question yeah John uh you know you mentioned the library I think it maybe
uh worthwh exercise just to explain that the library is a number given to us by the state it's by the county in the county it's called the one3 mil it doesn't mean it's oneir of a million um it's one3 of a mill which is calculated based on the
uh property valuation um and I view it much like any other expense that is thrust upon us and we have no control over uh it's bcua uh same thing they tell us uh pensions
we have a little bit of control over it in the we don't healthare we don't we do to a certain extent on healthcare because we can choose the provider ultimately but right but it's it's di Minimus we're taking around the edges yeah but I I I always look at the budget as a combination of the municipal and
the library when I quote the numbers you usually Finding Me quoting them with the library and and the library total uh expense is around a million $900,000 I think we should really wait for the presentation yeah but Dave will go through it okay okay that's why he's here today that's oh yeah I it's one
last thing he has to carry he has to repeat it now I understand is that it that's it done okay councilwoman traim Muk hello hello um Library uh committee met last Monday on the 24th um other than the usual business
that they discussed uh what I wanted to inform everyone about is that um on the um website now there's access to um The Wall Street Journal um there's online access with your library card so um if
you're interested in that you know again I always say at every meeting go to the library website because there's so many activities and things on that website so this is new with the Wall Street Journal and then the New York Times will be coming on too so you'll have you'll be
able to like log in every day and read the newspaper um which I think is really nice um the other thing that you'll see on there is there's a a museum pass program and so this is where you can borrow a
pass for up to three days and it's for the Museum of Natural History the Intrepid the nework museum and the storm king art center and so that's also very nice and also there is an ad on there
for a help wanted a position a part-time library assistant so again I urge you if interested to go on to the website see what the um details of that position are and maybe you know you're interested or you know someone else that would be
interested it's a great place to work I must tell you um Dave does a wonderful job U managing and directing that Library um and that's it for me on the library thank you I have a question for you yes the Wall Street Journal a very
valuable asset I think yes can is the library allow you to download it so that you can walk away with it on your on your uh laptop or is it I think no I think you can um yes I think you can because you don't have to sit just right there and read it if you access it if
you access it through your phone or or tablet so you can anywhere as long as you put your ID and you could do it from even have to be in Hill yeah I'll ask David the question I want to download download it now and read it in 4 hours I guess you could go print it all out if you want he wants to read it on his
phone but like 4 hours from now where I go with is where you know like on the on a tablet right if someone's just tied to Wi-Fi in your home but you're not going to be in your home can you yeah go go um yeah see I know what you mean yeah yeah go check go thank you okay councilwoman
maach Chong okay so uh ambulance there was a meeting on February 18th I'll update you on the call volume which is pretty impressive um so on January 2025 the ambulance resp to 75 calls which is significant increase compared to the 46
calls in 2024 as of February 18th they had already answered 46 which also surpasses the total number of calls that was handled in 2024 which was 35 um this trend indicates that their unpaced to out um to outpace last year's call
volume and they are prepared to manage increase Demand with their growing team also un counc woman can I just ask is that is that broken down is that the the paid that reporting on or is it every is it lumped in together you're reporting everything it's lumped in together okay
uh and then there is a membership update the past two months five new members have tested completed the EM course which again additional support that's the pce of the team um to the essential of the call volumes um increase um and as far as the Board of Ed I have nothing
to report until next week okay B thank you Mr Mayor uh one of our our employees fell on black ice about two weeks ago and uh she will be likely out for a few months uh she's doing okay but likely you'll need surgery so we're working on
U dividing her job between us and maybe having a a part timer to fill in uh the police chief's public hearing has been postponed for reasons beyond our control to Thursday March 20th and Friday March 21st both days starting at 10:00 a.m. to
4:00 p.m. here at Bor Hall uh the budget uh handouts will be on the website uh either after this meeting or tomorrow morning our intent after our CFO David Young makes his uh presentation is to introduce the budget
on March 11th next week and adopted on uh April 21st Centennial Field we are adding this is as recent as four hours ago we are adding a Wi-Fi service to the irrigation system uh the contractor is working on that so we have to get a service to that
to control the irrigation system we're also working on the Kora and kicker Bacher fields to reconstruct the pitcher mounds and Laser grade and groom the fields including adding about 100 ton of clay uh the two Fields will be ready to be played on
this season and and hopefully about the same time as the main Centennial Field is ready last night we had a walkth through at the Patterson Street development with the fire departments from the uh surrounding towns for the purpose of learning about the building
and how to fight a fire uh inside the building the building is all framed out at this point and expecting residents to move in sometimes around February of 2026 we did identify one issue that uh
we're working with the contractor on uh and it has to do with the length of one of the fire hoses inside the stairwell uh finally on the Memorial Field public presentation it's on schedule for next week uh for March 11
uh we do have the financing plan uh and what we can afford based on the available funds and a 15 uh 15E Bond I am ready to make the presentation next week however there are some more questions and more detail uh that has
been requested I have those details again as recent as this afternoon on the type of of materials being proposed uh the type and uh the maker of the turf uh the challenge was with in postponing if
you do decide to postpone it the challenge with that is uh the bond schedule will also have to change and that will affect other projects such as the bond for the fire truck uh and some of the capital projects we were uh we
were doing a a bundle you sort of uh of in projects into one bond to get a 15-year rate in the best rate uh with the postpone it to April it means that we will be able to introduce an ordinance to bond in May approve it in
June we have to wait 20 days uh after that which will take us to July to have access to the funds before we can authorize the engineers to actually work on on on the plan itself which will take two to three months at
least uh so I will leave it up to you if you still want me I know councilman uh council president Clemente said we can uh postpone it we can uh I I am ready I will be ready more throughout the week
for next week so we've been tasked with we tasked you with giving us the parameters of what Canon can't go into it based upon a figure and based upon certain criteria you're saying that you've got that I I have that as of this
morning and this afternoon working with Nick uh and Carl uh we we we you know we have the more uh you know detail working with the CFO we actually have the breakdown for a 15-year uh you know Bond how much that will cost us and how much we can afford
with down payment and then with the bond well I I don't mean to accelerate us on necessarily but why don't tomorrow morning you send that information out to everybody and we can determine whether we've digested it enough time so that you know
as you said it's all a domino right uh game here so that we don't necessarily have to or unnecessarily delay something but still have the public have an opportunity to see what we're going to do I can absolutely do that uh and if we have to separate the bond fire truck and
all that it'll cost us more maybe but we can absolutely do that and I do have an answer to uh counil maros on on the house that had the smell and U and the police was cold uh we did give the address to the police they looked at that you told the Board of Health people
this or cuz they're the ones pressing for okay they they W I'm just the messenger mess the Board of Health wants to know sure I will like why hasn't something occurred since the fall to
address not the leaking gas issue because that was addressed immediately but there's issues issues the condition of the I cont that's all I have Mr Mayor okay great thanks yeah mayor yes yeah with regards to the fields as of today I had not seen
uh the information that I wanted to see none of us as recent as this afternoon that's why we're going to try to get it out there and and again I want to make this a fire drill uh for a $5.2 million investment to get this done in in six days well let's see where
we yeah I I I second the views of councilman Oso I think you know cers was going to redo the the the design of the of the feel to accommodate comments that were made earlier in the week and to
bring it under the $5.8 million limit right um and I think if they've done that and they and you've just gotten it but seven days from now the public may not see it until then if you put it on the
website it's still not to me it's not adequate I think you should be you should make it available on the 11th you could we should probably make it available sooner than that have a discussion about it on the 11th and that allows the council to hear what the
input on that particular permutation is and then we can take it up in the first meeting in April I I I I I see the logic in that I also just say that let's get it out there so that we at least can figure out if that is the course y um I go ahead I
mean I I just want to say if you just got the information today send it out to so we can see it tomorrow it may address or answer or resolve whatever we but we don't know right now we'll know tomorrow whether we think that's a good plan or
not a good plan let me package it moment I don't know let me let me package it yeah and I think it's also relevant to ask the question about what will it cost us to delay if we have to debundled right the bond what what's the what's
the cost of waiting so let's I I'd like to have that analysis but we're making not to say we won't go one way or the other but we should have that information you want me to predict interest rates it's not necessarily interest rates we think we know where we're going to be with that that's but that's that's not which is a great Point
as as we're rolling into the interest rates why don't we turn to our CFO Dave that's your introduction to walk us through the budget our CFO David Young thank you for being here tonight so since November of this year we have been working with the finance committee on
the budget and our esteemed CFO has been uh doing an amazing job uh the worksheets that he has uh is just all the linkage and all that excellent job I will change the slide as it give me the
signal um first it's not just the administrator and I it is all the department heads it's all of the volunteers um you know that have commissions and that work with us on their budget process it's a long process it starts actually in September uh when
we go out to the different departments we start meeting with them in October November finance committee gets engaged with departments and Us in December and eventually we wind up here um there's some significant challenges in this year's budget uh both on the revenue and
the expense side but all things being equal I think we've drafted a pretty good solid responsible budget that will allow you to meet the needs of the residents of the community and provide the services that we need to provide so we can start
on the appropriation side or the expenses um salary and wages and this is for you know all of the regular salary and wages does not include the recreation nor the swim pool there are separate budgets but for all the rest of the salary and wages we're up about
8.6% the the big chunk of that is the police salary and wages uh those salaries are up alone 365,000 of that $455,000 increase that's a contract that's well part of it is about 76,000 of that is
for a new sleo uh safety officer at one of the schools there's an offending revenue for that so while the expense is up the revenue for that is up as well uh but yeah the other 286,000 is due to the contract contract
it uh has us fully Staffing to their order of organization their table of organization the police force um so it's got every position being filled based upon the new contract which isn't necessarily the case in any given moment
at any given moment you could potentially not have a position filled but if you don't budget for it you don't plan for it you can't pay for it you know you don't know when they're going to be filt um the other big increase is on construction you mentioned that Patterson Street um that's going to be a
huge increase in the amount of inspections that have to be done uh so there's actually about a $75,000 $78,000 increase in the uccc labor costs for overtime and other maybe part-time people to do the inspections
that also has an offset on the revenue side we anticipated more of the fees from the project so that they they wash out in the end uh after all of that the balance of everything else for salary and wages is up by $115,000 you know so we've been able to
manage through some contractual rules changes uh the health department no longer has an employee on our on our payroll we've moved that to a contracted service the senior bus driver is no longer a salary position is also contracted with the neighboring town so
so net net you take out the police um and the rest of the salary and wages are are holding pretty well for us insurance and pension uh they're up about 9% um this year uh biggest
increase there is the 133% increase on the health insurance um pensions in both the pfrs and pers they're up around eight or eight or n% each um that's significant in terms of the impact we have very very little control over it we
get the bill from the state for the pension and we get the bill from the state for the insurance uh departmental OE um this is everything that's specific to those departments running their their businesses for us uh that's actually
down slightly um and that includes a $200,000 increase in solid waste so the Departments have done a really really really good job of trimming excess looking at places where they can do different type of services and reduce our costs um so kudos to those um we
actually came into the finance committee in December a budget was a little bit higher uh a council president not to be named asked us to go back and see if we could get some additional you know stuff back from the Departments and they were able to come in and when they met with
the finance committee they were able to say yes we can probably reduce this by doing something else so you know it really is a collaborative effort to get the budget to where it is today uh the library as mentioned is a statutory third of the mill uh that's up
10% around $75,000 again that is statutory so we don't have a a whole lot of say over that uh grants grants will always look down at the beginning of the year when we adopt the budget uh we can only anticipate the ones that we know about throughout the year we will have
additional grants so you already talked about one the Bergen County open space Grant uh there'll be added to the picture later and hopefully we'll turn that picture around and we'll do more grants this year than last that's kind of a Double H they're matching grants so we're going to have to come up with money that we wouldn't have necessarily
allocated for that that's correct that particular one is matching there are many out there that are 7525 there's some number so they they are different so where do we pull that from we if we decide we want to accept a grant and it's a $100,000 Grant we have to come up
with 100,000 or 2500 whatever it is we have some reserves okay very small reserves which is one of those reasons why we want to continue to work at improving the level of our reserves so we're able to do that uh we do have the field Improvement Reserve that we're
putting money into every year um so that money also could be used for if the grant is relevant towards it otherwise we're not really allocating it for what county open space almost any Burton County open space Grant will be eligible for a field reserve the way we set it up
uh that Reserve is for any Park field Improvement okay uh miscellaneous um this is actually it utilities reserves the reserve for uncollected taxes we actually pulled insurance and pensions out as you can see um but that's
actually down slightly and that's down because we had a line item in there from last year to fund a capital ordinance from a few years ago it was an audit identified issue that we had to do was about 130,000 so if you take out that 130,000 reduction miscellaneous o is
probably around flat from where it was last year and uh finally Capital uh capital is down by a million dollars in terms of what we're putting into the capital Improvement fund uh it went up by a million plus last year because we wanted to do the catch up on the field Reserve
so this last year it went up this year it's just back down to what we probably consider hopefully normal levels of capital funding moving forward uh the next slide is actually just a different cut uh people like to see where we're spending our money by
department so you can look at the different areas of the services we provide uh Public Safety or public Works uh you actually just get a different breakout the drivers are the same what's impacting the cost increases or decreases but just allows people to see
which departments and and how we spend our our money a little bit more transparency for what we do there not going to spend a whole lot of time there unless anybody has any specific questions I just want are we anywhere in these slides going to go over the money that we did save through
shared services is that reflect reflected in this what we would have had to have done if they weren't in here uh we will talk about the impact that shared services had yep on the revenue LED okay and Dave the other the only other thing I'd um want to clarify is when there are terms here that most
people won't know what they are pers pfrs um the first one is for pensions for non police non um corre non police not fire Public Employee Retirement right and then the PF FRS is fire well our
fire doesn't come in under that because they're volunteer but this is for the police thank you thank you all right on the other side of the Ledger is the revenues um that we need to bring into the buau in order to
afford the expenditures uh that we just talked about I'm actually start at the bottom and work my way up uh grants on both sides of Ledger are an offset if we're anticipating the revenues we have a corresponding appropriation that we're going to to spend uh delinquent taxes um
this is again one of those statutory things we're allowed to anticipate so much based upon how much taxes are left in terms of receivables at the end of the year that's up slightly Surplus um this is utilizing our fund balance some of our reserves uh
we're actually going to be anticipating about a million less uh again last year we anticipated a million more uh because we wanted to fund the field Improvement Reserve so on both sides of the Ledger that's coming down so it really is kind of a just really flat offset uh state
aid is going down uh that hurt uh we weren't planning on that 120,000 being taken out of our budget so we have to make that up elsewhere and elsewhere becomes taxes miscellaneous Revenue mayor is where those shared services are in terms of that increase in Revenue
about 200,000 of that is in shared service Revenue that's where we anticipate $200,000 additional Revenue there based upon the services that we have on the other side is that out of the 306 or is that just out of the 306 200,000 of that increase is in shared
services okay um first aid uh the sleo the SRO the shared all all the shared services that we do yep okay bu driver right okay um and then you know at the at the top that leaves you with your
taxes which are in support of the budget uh most of the other Revenue line items if you look at them in in total they kind of zero each other out based upon what's going down and what's going up and what has a big offset in terms of reduction in expenses basically
everything that we're doing in terms of increasing the Appropriations is having to be paid for this year by the taxes um that's one of the reasons why you we're really looking forward to 2027 uh when the pilot comes on for Patterson Street because that's going to
be a big influx of Revenue to help ease the pressure in the budget off of off of taxes into other ratables and the storage unit is another possible one I know Mike and and the governing body work hard at trying to find developers to come in and and work on getting those
ratables here because that's the answer at the end of the day if inflation's at 3 four 5% you know it's been at all those numbers over the last four years your your budget's going to be impacted accordingly if you're not increasing rateable and that's going to be taxes paid by the burden of tax that's that is
how it is in the state of New Jersey y um any any other questions on G Reven so the tax increase will be 553 uh tax increas is about 553,000 uh
the next next slide kind of is sums everything up and it gives a really I think quick picture of what's what's driving to budget um we've talked about all these but I'm just going to summarize again Police salary and wages it's contractual
you know it has been agreed to so it is going to be contractual and very little control over it for the next four years of the contract um headcount reductions is about all you can do there health insurance same thing it's
$186,000 it's driven by the state's plan uh they send us the bill uh councilman you know you've talked to us you know me about you looking at the GIF the GIF last this year is in the same position two years ago I would have strongly urg you to try to get into a gif um but
right now it's a wash uh my increase there was 13.2% um you know so the the options there to reduce that are very very limited um in terms of what we can do the library is a library Solid Waste at $200,000 increase
that's contractual based upon a contract we did a couple years ago and we're going to see that for three more years uh and finally accumulated absence was a big hit this year again this was an individual contract which defined the terms of their separation uh so we had to increase those Appropriations so that
we could pay off that uh when it comes to pass so that $837,000 increase in those five line items is really what's driving the budget this year and they are contractual or they're coming from the state or the statutory and we as a
governing body have very little input to them at this time in terms of the budget they're they're set in stone unless we are talking headcount reductions now 837 is a lot more than 553 so that other 285,000 is what
departments and Mike and we've gone through and done some additional shared services and we've looked at new contracts to do to try to offset you know that big increase so we've we've actually taken the rest of our budgets down by that $285,000
uh so it's pretty pretty good job in in this environment David do do you want to just take a minute just to discuss interest rates and how how much money were uh down from last year to this year just because of the interest rate uh yeah so so last year we realized about
$700,000 in interest earnings uh two things are going to drive that for us this year one is we spent some of that money we have less money in the bank so that alone is going to make a change but the feds also have twice has done a reduction in the rate the feds do a reduction in the rate and we get a
corresponding reduction in our interest and they've done you know five basis points uh so we've had to take that into account in terms of anticipating that revenue and based upon January and February we're about right you know we're we're anticipating roughly around
75% of what we got last year and that's about what we're getting this year versus what we did last year right but that's two or $300,000 which is like a 2% increase it's significant yeah it really it really is does make a difference now we got the upside of that
a couple years ago during covid interest rates were at 25 basis points then they dropped up to four four points of interest and you know all of a sudden you got all kinds of surplus Revenue in which allowed us to have the Surplus to afford to do the field Reserve funding last year you know so those things go up
and down we just have to try to manage them over time y thank you on the bottom half again these are the big three items that we've talked about they all have offsets uh the revenue or the appropriation increases have an offsetting revenue for the uh class three and the uniform construction
and a capital decrease has a corresponding Revenue decrease um so they basically wash each other rout but there's significance so I wanted to highlight them one more time any question on the KE ragers all right and uh finally just kind of look at the history um
councilman roko has already talked about where we are in terms of the change 4.9% um I added the green dash line there at the bottom if for the last two years solid waste and health insurance hadn't been at 158% if they've been at
6% which is still high for a year-over-year increase and still well above inflation you know our our tax levy increase would have been down around two two and a quar per. so those those two things have been driving us for this year and last year and those
two items are probably going to be driving us for the next next two or three um over time if we look back to 2014 the average increase in terms of the change to the municipal portion of the tax bill has been about 2.4
2.4% um CPI over that time has been a little bit over three and a half so we're doing better than CPI but last couple years we've been catching up David with regards to Patterson Street you said that I think they going to have
occupany in 2026 so we'll be able to uh experience the revenue at that particular time like when what budget does that actually hit so we will have to have a very sure idea of how much revenue we're going to
get before we can anticipate it um we certainly won't be able to anticipate the full in 2026 uh there's the formula that drives the revenue that we get from that pilot it's based upon you know occupancy and revenues um so it's it's
going to be very very variable that's what they're targeting if they're on time maybe we can anticipate a certain percentage of it SS we can't we should get some relief in 2026 from inflationary pressures
right um with that pilot yes maybe may I I again it depends upon where they are if if we're if we're introducing a budget in March and they don't have occupancy yet okay then I I can't anticipate it and if we do you
know get any Revenue that will go to Surplus after February or March yep so a nice problem to have it's better than the poke in the eye with a sharp stick it it it is and that's that's going to be one of those things that we'll be watching carefully through the fourth quarter to see where they're
at we'll be in regular touch with them and then we'll say okay what can we reasonably expect to do uh if if we don't have hard numbers yet but it looks really good we could probably go to the you know the DCA and say you know what
what can we do division local government services we can say hey we really think this is coming online we don't have the specifics yet but what will you let us anticipate it'll be the same for the Self Storage also some Revenue may be realized in 26 but that goes a surplus
if we make it through 2026 2027 I think is going to be much much better year than 2026 yeah 20 2027 really gives us a lot of relief um on on the budget on future debt on the increase you know it's right
right across the board we we're looking really really solid for where we project the the revenues to be um all thing all things being e we don't get any bigger surprises health insurance insur every year you know but if that if that doesn't happen you know we'll be we'll
be looking back you know at a normal what I call normal 2% Levy increase for you know 2 3 4 years after that okay and we'll be able to build up our reserves too right and we'll be able to build up the reserves thank you I appreciate your support of that because you you understand what that that does for us
questions so next I just have a just a quick question on that chart at the bottom you have average change and you have 2.4% going across every single Year yes what is what is that the change of what so the average change of the um
percent increase to the residential tax so this year went up by 4.9 on average over the last 10 years it's gone up by 2.4 that number is in there like that just so it draws a chart usually I hide it I forgot to hide it oh so it's it's that number is in there
just to draw the chart and and David just to be clear this is on the municipal portion of the TX the municipal portion not on your overall correct we do not have any I do not have anything unofficial from the schools yet M so mayor next week when we introduce
the budget David will not be here um it's the same information that you're seeing now but it will be in a more formal you document as introduction right U so if you have any questions between now and then or after that uh we will have him back if we need to but he
won't be here next week uh adoptions scheduled for the second meeting in April that's when we would have the public hearing um so the introduction is literally here's the budget and we're find on the calendar with that to get it to DCA so y we we are compliant uh we are under State review this year uh so
as soon as we load that into the system uh State reviewer will come down and tell us how wonderful our budget is and that they bless it okay we hope should be no reason not to we are compliant to all the caps um both the levy and the
Appropriations cap so there's no issue there um if you wanted to you can spend more money but I think this is the right amount of money to spend any other questions no I thank you thank you thank
you David appreciate it uh we're going to move on to ordinances 2507 for adoption second read Capital ordinance of the burrow of Hillsdale in the county of Bergen state of New Jersey authorizing the undertaking of various improvements to
Stonybrook Swim Club in by and for the swim pool utility of the burrow appropriating therefore the sum of $93,000 and providing that sum that such sum so appropriated shall be raised from the swim pool utility Capital fund
balance like to get a motion to opening to open this ordinance to the public motion second second all those in favor signify by saying I I okay great it's now open to the public uh if anyone desires to be heard on
257 please come on up seeing nobody I'd like to get a motion to close the hearing to the public motion to close second second all those in favor I I and anybody oppos no okay we're going to take a motion now to
adopt 257 is there a motion motion second second any discussion beforehand will the clerk please read the role council member chimu yes council member klei yes council member Fox yes council member
maachan council president Oso yes council member ruko yes ordinance 2507 is adopted uh now therefore be resolved that this ordinance is adopted and the clerk is authorized to advertise the same according to law we're going to
move on to the consent resolution 2586 through 2591 um does anybody want to pull anything yes uh 25087 please 2587 anything
else seeing none can I get a motion to for the consent agenda 25086 through 25091 with the exception of 25087 motion second second will the clerk please read the role council member kti yes council member Fox yes
council member m council president ooso yes council member ruko yes council member choim m yes the consent agenda is passed uh we have one item now on the non-consent or offc consent agenda 2587 can I get a motion motion second second
great um councilman ketti that discussion sure um so this is a memo of understanding between the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for the blue Acres Program and Hillsdale between the two um to summarize its
intent it's the D buys flood prone Homes at market value from willing homeowners it demolishes them and then turns the land into open Green Space y to act as a natural buffer against future floods right um so let me start by saying right this program is obviously a godsent for
the homeowners who are in a very difficult situation so this is excellent for right but depending on the scope and scale of this and what it may expand to there are implications for the town and what I'm curi ious to is if we have an
idea of what this may grow to do we have a comprehensive plan or should we be working on a comprehensive plan to counter the financial implications because we will be losing the tax revenue on these homes plus we're picking up the maintenance of the properties post um and it also
aesthetically the neighborhood changes too right you could have end up with every other home being being vacant um so things will change from this and they're changing on a permanent basis uh so it's just a conversation I think
we should be having yeah I mean I address there wouldn't be any homes vacant right uh because once the property is in fact acquired by D and purchased by D and managed by the
municipality uh they're demolished and so um space it becomes burrow open space uh as I've said to several people up here New Milford did probably six of those in one year in that really hackin sack
River evacuation by boat part of New Milford um I I I note that on exhibit one there look like there are six eight 10 10 or 11 properties um so the
program can't really expand beyond that those are the properties that are on the list and I I I don't think anyone thinks sort of it's a state funding priority so I'm not I I don't know that you have to be
worried that they'll take too many of them um but of course you do have to plan and you make a really good point does the removal of these properties from the tax roll at least speak to something we should plan for and um of
course that's the council's discretion as to how they handle that um I don't think Mike we have anything if the if D chooses to acquire a property and they reach an agreement um yeah we're kind of out of it we're we're we're asy in part
we have nothing much to say about yeah six six of the properties have already been closed so there's really four on here that are still open and they're open because the owners don't want to sell yet um and they have have the
option it's not uh not mandatory absolutely not right but if the map if the flood map changes in the future and we have more floods and the de changes the flood map and determine that more more homes that are yeah so that that
you know that that may change so I do have my blue folder for the blue acres and uh we have a contact at uh a blue Acres uh that calls me once a month uh that's why we wanted to have this as a a
formal uh resolution so we actually hold the title to that property I I think the D does miss the state the state has it it's just Our obligation to maintain it it's off the tax roles and it is a godsend to
somebody that has this property otherwise comes open space you know the other component that um and I think I don't know if it was you Robert or councilman ruko who sent over the the blue Acres
documentation the the getting these these properties in the flood plane out of out of impervious coverage actually serves the greater
benefit of Simply buying out a homeowner who's in trouble but also does something for the community in the sense that you create more usable pervious space um that benefits the entire
Downstream effectively it'll absorb more water it absorbs more water and that that's really how blue Acres tries to sell this it's not just a lifesaver for a family right the the essence of it is or at least from their perspective is
that it's good for your community especially all those other properties down now of course if you need more information I leave it to myself Mike we'll we'll try to get you any additional information yeah and the only concern here from my perspective is
proactively planning for a potential financial burden down the road that's all well according to according to the map now we have four remaining properties that are eligible that's it so so we know with certainty then that list of I believe it's 10 on there that's not going to expand to 30 40 the
map changes again if the map changes if D changes how they look at it somehow is it possible yes but not under the current format of where we are it hasn't been my experience in any town I represent 10 15 years that that might
change that they're falling over themselves to fund these they're looking and and what I found in in other communities is that once they sort of seem to get a row of two or three that's when they start to think in terms of okay there's one more house on that
block block there's one more house that is interrupting water flow continues with repeated habitual flooding we we should focus our attention on getting that last house and now we've created essentially a block ends in open space
instead of you know there's an there's an effort to assemble Parcels is what also happens thank you I um from Mike when I got the exhibit I saw the properties on the right column I assumed
three were already done right because it has an acquisition date next to those three properties right I also have four that's not on this this is from from us here uh there's a you don't have to name the the no but
there there are four four that are that that closed in January of 2024 and April 2024 okay because when I looked at this I said like similar to what councilman klei was thinking what's the revenue
loss to the burrow I looked at the four at the uh one two three four five six seven properties that didn't have an acquisition day and I said they all come to about $74,000 in total um it's actually the effort is quite consistent with what the council decided to do back
in 2018 which was to do a flood acquisition plan which um at the time we thought was a good thing I still think it's a good thing because as the attorney said it will allow people in a
flood zone to exit out the D picks up the cost um we get the res we get uh the the land to weigh basically phow it's funny when I looked for councilman kle for that for those um the rules of the
of um the blue wakers and what you could I was interested in what we could do with that property um when sorry the mic wasn't on uh what we could do with that property when we do maintain it when we do get I guess it's not the ownership
but it's uh the responsibility and back in 2016 apparently they allow D allowed you to do ballparks uh certain things more more active now the new rules on the DP website basically say passive Recreation
so you're limited B basically to walking trails walking maybe a garden you may you may get away with a garden of some sort yeah I'm not I think you could do a bike path uh but the trick is always and I think Mark was alluding to it to get the the properties
in contiguous order because if they're scattered it doesn't do much for you but if you can get like five it doesn't do much for the burrow it certainly does for the homeowners absolutely but right yeah I mean the very fact that we're going to be passing or hopefully passing
this resolution is a sign that the owners can proceed and negotiate with the with the uh and just to put it in context $74,000 we have five times that in uncollected property taxes I mean you
know put it all it abs and flows right and well this that was the battle that I had with the prior mayor um because that mayor didn't was concerned about losing a certain amount of property tax I get it but but I I I like you I thought that
the benefits of of getting the the the residents to exit out in a respectable way and getting us the at that time I think it was to own the property but according to this we're never going to own even if we owned it there's nothing to be done with
itely we have to maintain it well we we maintaining it anyway whether we own it or not the obligation through blue acers is that we're we're not going to allow it to be o blight to the community that's our responsibility but I I think Bob's point is let's start thinking
about in the future if this program grows we will lose Revenue but right now we're limited to four more property so growth is not an option unless the Maps change so we're really debating this whole thing over four properties for the foreseeable future and if it comes out
in 10 years they change it that Council will have to deal with okay so you just said something interesting so it's only these properties that qualify at the moment yes that's it there only four more properties that qualify under blue Acres the other component which may be worth
considering I think um I think CH Chief Frank ailia may have mentioned back in 2018 when we were discussing this was you know you also have um you have emergency services under stress every
time there's one of these potentially life waltering events you have our Police Department exposed to risk you have or or may have to borrow things literally like boats and other equipment
in order to save people's lives and there's there's both a literal and figurative cost to that and um it may be in tangible but there's a there's a cost there that also weighs into this event
and just to clarify because I I know we need to move on I completely support this like I said it's a godsent for the home owners and and I'm supporting it voting yes I'm thinking you my whole career has been risk assessment and planning right so I'm thinking how do we need to plan for this going forward
right all right okay so any more questions or discussion okay we've already motioned to will the clerk please read the RO on 2587 council member Fox yes council member maach Chang yes council president Oso yes council member ruko yes council member toim yes council member CL yes great
that passes 25087 passes it is now time for the public comment on any topic they so choose please state your name and town of residence for record there is a 3-minute time limit well we didn't even have to wait there you go there you go thank you Patty Morrow nicker Bacher Avenue
Hillsdale um I just wanted to bring to the council's attention regarding Memorial Field um it's a $6 million project um the company I work for is Olympia lighting um our salesman who works this
area is also mayor in Northvale Joe Maguire he has reached out to Mr Ki regarding uh the lri grant funds which is local Recreation Improvement Grants he offered to assist him and help him with that but
the deadline was January of this year so I don't know if you guys are aware that that's a grant you can go after or what have you um I have also emailed members on the council um we are part of
escnj and Hillsdale is in escnj which means you can come to us for your LED products and you don't have to go out to bid for them we have a contract with escnj uh also I don't know if you're
aware but psng is giving rebates and we've helped many municipalities get the sports lighting that they've needed and it's called cost them pretty much nothing I know you guys are pushing for Moscow um they are a good product but I
don't know if Moscow offers the incentives that Olympia lighting can help you get so by these incentives ESC NJ you don't have to go out to bid psng you get rebates um if you need more information
I'll be more than happy to provide you with whatever I can but I do believe this is is a big moneys saver for the Memorial Field project thank you thank you very much thank you who else would like to be
heard 64 Westdale got somethingi it's Rick Savino here we go what you know how do I know that I've heard first I would like to thank the council mayor and Denise especially following up and posting the minutes
that are being were being approved tonight my wife and I both read I hadn't said anything in those meetings but she had and it was well done I would I I had suggested that as a transparency effort and I thank you um and just I want to point it's
just an observation on the blue acers that single lot or the four Lots or a drop in the bucket when you look at the per impervious surface that is up stream in Rockland County that's really where
these flood waters come from and yeah every little bit helps that's the goal of the D in in this program where you know and if but our floods are coming from upstream and it's a it's minuscule
in the scheme of this Watershed just like the woodcliffe Lake Reservoir a foot of elevation is minuscule when you look at the water that's coming Downstream right okay thank you thank you
thanks all right Chris's yourr Martin 219 Washington um two things with all due respect to one of the one of the comments previously about the lights sounded a little bit like a sales pitch what I I didn't like but it's not so much the dollar amounts with the lights which yes is a big number this is about quality of life issue for the people who
live in and around Memorial Park this is not about and again the dollars are huge as we just sat here and watched this budget and the next few years are going to be very dicey for this town apparently and it's it's and things are only going to get more expensive you watch the news every day we all do um but this is a quality of life issue that's why we've been all coming to
these meetings to to you know about the light issue secondly my favorite parking issue I was curious if there's been any Headway or if that's still being tabled by the council and where that we we haven't Mr Martin would like to figure out some sort of parking
sticker area for parking on the street or resid who don't have the ability to park their cars on the street to be able to park overnight without worry of a ticket or having to continue I've called the police station or the dispatcher every three days for the last five months it's to me it's a waste of my time and I think it's a waste of the
dispatch to tell people that you're going to be on I think it's silly I think it's silly for people who cannot who don't have room currently on their lots to park more than two cars or whatever it is um I have four cars and I have only room for two nothing I can do about it so that's why we spoke about it I'm hoping it's being considered yep all
right thank you next we have people don't be shy come on up it's a lot of fun Audrey low hi Audrey Hillsdale resident so um one I'm really excited thank you on seeing the new verb Visions I'm excited to see that
I hope it has less of a negative impact for the community specifically there um but I really wanted to touch on a few things last time I started talking about Turf and then I did a deep dive on Turf
versus grass and I just got some facts in it so whatever I should talk about here I have some of the stuff I can send you links or videos and whatever so one of the things I wanted to talk about was the safety player safety and I'll read
some of it just so I make sure I get it accurately the artificial turf um we all know it was linked to soft tissue injury and some additional stuff like that but what's more troubling in some of the new there's a lot of new information that's
come out about Turf um and more trouble troubling is the exposure to the harmful chemicals like the pbas and the microplastics um these are called the forever chemicals and they leech into the ecosystems which we had heard based
on the environmental people but it also is now being proved that that it is harmful for us um these toxins have long-term health risks including cancer neurological disorders and reproductive
problems these turfs also there someone in one of the meetings had mentioned that it goes Turf is like 15 degrees hotter it's actually 50 to 70 degrees hotter um so it is well over the 200 um
degrees now above that we also have that these concerns have been echoed by professional organizations and medical experts and this is the thing that got me very surprised is NFL players
Association FIFA Major League Baseball Major League Soccer Women's National Team and in their lawsuit one of the things was that they no longer would play on grass and Mount Si um have all SED this as issues FIFA
has baned Turf in the World Cup venues and several US states and towns including in 2026 New York state is prohibiting the use and the laying down of turf in new
Fields um I have an article here that I can always show you mounts actually published their article on the concerns and the health risk to children um that being said there's also still
some in the environmental one of the things in the engineer only gave information he knew at the time because there was a discussion of CLA you just wrap up three minutes your time I'll finish next time just know there's a new development in grass and there's some
counters on um the turf okay thank you so sorry no no thank you that's that's what it's for who would like to come up next okay having seen anybody no one else wanting to speak I'm going to close the public uh commentary and move on to
council commentaries I get to start I'm just going to say thank you CFO young for your work uh thank you to the budget committee thank you for everybody that has put in the work that's kind of behind the scenes here but that we can't
we'd be nowhere without it uh it really is the blueprint for this town and I greatly appreciate it um we had a Ramadan SK uh event last week uh it was great this place was filled I'm sure Denise was not happy the fact that they
brought in all the food and poor Dan KY was here vacuuming cleaning up the place uh it was delicious but I understand so it was and we took the event out to to the uh to Veterans Park was the first year we did it seemed like a very positive
experience who welcoming them back next year it's great to see other cultures um so that's just one person's opinion here thank you uh that is pretty much it I will turn it let's start down here at this time uh councilwoman maach Chong
well you stole what I was going to say so I'll just put back the vacuuming I no not the vacuuming part um I was honored to attend the first annual Crescent Lighting Event which was held to recognize and celebrate Ramadan here in Hillsdale uh it was remarkable event it was a standing room only I know there
were some people here it was really awesome to watch there was a lot of energy in the room um really great performances by the children I just wanted to also uh thank DPW for their support and making the event successful as well as Mike Gali and Dan Cony for their hard work and making and planning and doing all that really great
celebration so thank you that's all I have okay Council woman Jim I have no comment for this thank you okay councilman ruko yeah I uh tended the Ramadan event it was uh it was heartwarming frankly because um today uh
with the discussions going on at a national level I think an event like this uh really did uh represent an extension outward uh from uh you know a an American town to immigrants who have come in with different religious
backgrounds who um are unfortunately now engaged in a lot of vitriolic commentary um and I think this was a good uh unifying event for Hillsdale so it was good to attend um I want to thank
the uh CFO it's been my pleasure to to work with him um probably going out on a limb but I think he's probably one of the best CFOs that uh I've had the chance to to work with let's hope certain people aren't watching on video
now well frankly frankly Scarlet I don't I hear you R I hear you um I want to wish my uh my granddaughter Hannah Valentina ruko a happy birthday today she's four years old and already has brought great joy to me and my wife uh
as well as to her older sister Giana um and also a reminder to everyone in the burough daylight saving time um begins next Sunday this Sunday at 2 a.m. yes turn the clocks ahead 1 hour this is going to redistribute light from the morning to the evening and I frankly
don't understand what the big big buhaha is about going into this I always laugh when I hear people talk about oh we we have an adjustment to make because of the hour and it throws our body off meanwhile these are the folks who travel uh hours to go to China Norway Italy KS
and and yeah and you know they have no problem adjusting at that point but anyway it's a good thing gives us daylight in the appb is that it that's it great councilman kti I just want to Echo uh to thank you to David Young it's been a pleasure to work for you through
this process finance committee uh what I particularly like about your approach and I think is important for everyone to know is that you're not just thinking about this year you're setting us up for Success over the next two or three years and I think that's critical so thank you councilman Fox I also want to thank
the CFO the finance committee and uh the ba for their hard work on the the budget that's it thank you Dave that's where we are okay well um that was nice um can I get a motion to adjourn
motion second all those in favor I we are adjourned and we will see you back here