Hey, uh, welcome to the city of Hoboken, uh, budget workshop. I'm Councilman Phil Cohen. I'm the chair of the administration. Bill, you froze. Uh, and you're not I don't know if you can hear us. Chopper scheduled to go from 6:00 to 9 this
evening. We're going to be hearing from hearing for administration finance. We're going to be hearing from parks and recreation. We're going to go is uh we're going to have each Phil. You keep you keep freezing, buddy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You might want to turn
off your uh your camera. See if that'll work. All right, I'll do that. And I might move to a different room in my house. Maybe that'll be better. Uh, uh, okay. So, um, hopefully that's better. Thanks for the suggestion,
Michael. Um, no problem, bud. Good. So, uh, so we're be hearing from administration, we're going to be hearing from parksreation, we're going to be hearing from transportation and parking this evening. Uh, it's going to go from 6:00 to 9:00. That's what our schedule is. If it goes soon quicker than that, that's fine. Uh there's going
to be a PowerPoint presentation accompanying each of these uh departments. Uh then all the members of the C will have an opportunity to have any questions or comments they want to make. Uh then we're going to go through
uh all three and then at the end of the three presentations and the council's interactions, we'll open it up for public question and comment. And uh that's that's the plan for tonight. So, we're going to start with administration and I believe uh business administrator
assist uh Caleb Stratton is going to be making a presentation on behalf of the administration. So, I turn it over to you. Uh all right, I got we got to read the O Oprah open public meeting. Okay. I would like to advise all those present that notice of this meeting has been
provided to the public in accordance with the provisions of the open public meeting act. That notice was published in the city website. Copies provided the Bergen record Ellis Special Northstar Legend Jersey Journal also placed on a bolton board in the lobby of city hall.
Written objections if any shall be made to the city clerk. Salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation
under God under God. Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thanks for that, Jimmy. Uh Caleb, just let me do the roll call. Okay. Go ahead. Mr. Con here.
Fisher. Mrs. Jabore here. President present. Mr. Cano present. Mr. Ramos. Mr. Russo. President. President Doyle. He's here. Doyle's here. Do's there. Okay.
Councilwoman Fischer you and you called her name. She's all right. Sorry. Thank you. Okay. All right. Caleb, take it away. Thank you, Councilman. Can you guys all see my screen that I'm sharing right now?
Yeah. Yes. Councilman uh Ramos Ramos present present. Yeah, great. So, good evening council members and community members. I'd like to start the workshop by thanking the council for
the comments made during budget introduction. Although it may have been a difficult conversation to begin, it seems like this process is starting from a place of collaboration where the administration and council may differ in strategies to arrive at areas of common ground. For
the purposes of this presentation and for the public, yes, Manny, we do listen to your comments every meeting. Some of these areas where we do find consistency are moderating year-over-year tax burden for residents, expanding the ratable base to distribute
service impacts without compromising community character, and sound fiscal management of community resources. During the course of this presentation and those to follow, I would ask the council bubbles wait to ask questions until the end of the presentation at which time there will be
ample time for discussion. The administration has proposed a levy increase of 6.9% or $4.6 million to reflect growing pressures on the budget. The appropriations breakdown that will be covered during the course
of budget workshops include both salaries and wages as well as operating expenses which you can see year-over-year have increased 2% and 0% respectively. Major drivers of this year's budget are increases in debt service, health and liability insurance,
and pension obligations. And the reason why these specific drivers present such a challenge is that they have grown considerably over the fa last 15 years while our levy and ratable growth have not kept pace. Before we discuss revenue
growth, city revenue as a percentage of the city's overall budget is more than 50%. meaning that the levy is less than 50% of the city's overall budget. And you've seen these statistics before. Debt services is up 98%. Pension obligations have increased
82%. Health insurance costs have risen by 72%. And that's while ratables and levy growth have been flat. So let's discuss where we left the conversation last year with known challenges heading into this year. Our projections were very close
and the levy as introduced does not necessarily address many of these structural challenges. If you can recall, the municipal increase proposed addresses less than half of these existing budget drivers. One of the most significant outcomes of not addressing structural
deficiencies in the budget is the reduction in the ability to generate surplus. And for the first time, the city the city will be using more surplus in the budget than what it generated in years prior. This is represented in this slide as red. This is a knock-on effect of
creating a large budget gap as we plan for next year. So, let's break down the estimated surplus generated in 2025, projected to be in the range of $6.3 million, which is the result of a decreased in lapsed appropriations, reduction in excess tax
collections because we have cut the reserve for uncollected taxes. And in 2024, we had $3.9 million in excess revenue. But when we increase anticipated revenue in the 25 budget, that automatically decreases excess
revenue we could anticipate for the end of the year. Now, if the city is only projecting to generate approximately $6.3 million of surplus in 2025 and we use $12 million in this
year's budget, that creates a $5.7 million decrease in surplus that we can anticipate for next year's budget. Avoiding difficult conversations year-over-year compounds the pressure on this budget and future budgets. Right now, we are facing budget drivers next
year that will overshadow the first 100 days of the next administration. While some of these numbers may break in the city's favor, if they do not, which with the pension decrease this year, we are anticipating higher than average pension costs next
year. We are still facing significant 8 figure deficits in funding based on reasonable projections which I would like to describe in further detail. Four items surplus regeneration which we just discussed debt service
health insurance appropriations and labor contracts are projecting potential revenue decreases as well as expenditure increases. debt service increases next year related to the last trunch of funds required to
acquire the DPW site and for the emergency improvements for Sinatra Drive. Healthc care costs have typically increased year-over-year by 14% and healthcare expenses this year are outpacing our actuary recommendation for
2025, meaning that we will further erode our self- insurance reserve in 2025. To catch up on self- insurance reserves and to fund 2026 group healthcare at appropriate levels, we expect an increase of $5 million. And last, the city has only
settled contracts with three bargaining units out of seven. And the cumulative impact of settled contracts as well as unknown potential future settlements will likely have a significant impact on next year's budget. And as we enter the next phase of budget
deliberations, I would like to make the following recommendations to the council that will help sustain services, reduce cap pressure, improve financial standing and address underfunded lines in the budget. This slide is new material and I want to highlight that we do not make
these recommendations lightly and they were the same recommendations made to the mayor during the leadup to budget introduction and described at budget introduction to the council as the back and forth between the business administrator's office CFO the mayor and the council and this year we are asking
the council to make challenging decisions for the financial health of the community while these corrective actions will help pivot towards a structural balance there are multiple Other actions that we must take as an administration and the next administration that include but are not
limited to fee amendments, hiring freezes, program reductions, ratable growth, using the levy bank, and developing new products. Five or six figure budget amendments will not account for rising debt service, pension, and health insurance
costs and will cover a heavy cost to staff morale, quality of life issues, and the resources available to this administration in the next. If keeping taxes low is a higher priority than the maintenance and improvement of city services, then the steady progression of
this community will stall. These recommendations are driven by actual deficits and projections of deficits for next year that may become insurmountable for future administrations. And before we dive into some of the details related to the
perceptions of what is overspent and what needs to be cut in order to fix the deficit, let me start by pointing the spotlight at my department's budget introduction. Our expenses year-over-year are essentially flat. We are not overspending lines. We are
not filling positions left from attrition. We are white knuckling tariffs, federal funding freezes, increased costs of goods, and rising costs of non-negotiable contract increases by squeezing every dollar out of what we have while also balancing the
growth and investments demanded by our community members. The administration budget, which spans 14 divisions, is foundational to the function of municipal services. The staff which serve the community has hundreds of years of municipal
experience and I would hold their efforts against any community in this state. So often we focus on what isn't working in municipal government while overlooking what is. This is a great community that so many people love including every person on this council.
And I would say with emphasis, especially those of you vying to become the future leadership of this organization and the department heads coming before you this evening are going to deliver a similar message to what I'm saying right now. As I go through the next le three
slides, I will highlight areas of growth and areas of attrition and decisions made to avoid taxpayer increases that we carefully monitor throughout the year in order to balance growth. This same flat budget is what many of you may turn your attention towards in order to make cuts.
But please keep in mind that this budget only represents 6% of our overall municipal budget. The mayor's office budget line grew as well as community affairs to fund activities that celebrate the city's heritage and history, expanding
programming and events. These increases were offset by lines in the city council, business administrator's office, and city clerk. The reduction in the clerk's line is partially accounted for in new lines related to the primary and elections for this calendar year. What this slide doesn't show is the
needs of our division supervisors and staff members. And to provide just two examples, the BA's office did not fill an assistant BA position that recently left. There are two of us now doing the work of three individuals. The clerk's office staffing has been flat for years
and they process an extraordinary number of demands of for OPER requests that increasingly strain their capacity. There is not a position to fill that void included in this budget. The remaining division lines have held static or were reduced. The
substantial increase in this year's budget comes from special elections, a $130,000 increase year-over-year. The construction office needs an assistant construction code official and more clerical staff, which is not represented in this budget. They need to modernize
and digitize their operation, which last year was paid for by OE transfers from other divisions. The finance department is down two positions. The entire budget growth for this calendar year is represented in this single slide, a difference of
$35,000 or.36%. If you were to do the math a little differently based on the increased cost of the special election, you could arrive at the conclusion that attrition and OE management reflects a $100,000 reduction in expenses
year-over-year for this department. To break these numbers down further, OE for all divisions remains relatively static year-over-year except for the special election. And that means that requests all related to provisions of additional services were denied. To
highlight some of the larger numbers in the spreadsheet like the tax assessor, business administrator, audit, tax expenses and audit expenses are required and the business administrator's line represents a backs stop for any issues that arise. And I can give you a few
examples, but an engineering inspection for construction, uh, something that needs to get mailed for the court, an investment in our grant management process, which yields thousands of dollars for every dollar we invest, or something as simple as buying lunch for staff after a 48 hour shift cleaning up
after a hurricane or storm event. Between the court and our construction code, which have high OE and staff expenses, there are also critical functions that serve the development and public safety needs of our community. both of which generate revenue for the city. And one of the key
points from this slide is growth in the election line, which reflects the significant obligations and responsibilities of our clerk's office. One of the improvements we have made over time is hiring a full-time public defender and prosecutor, which have led to the highest rates of
adjudication and lowest turnover times of all of Hudson County. We've also added an additional attorney in corporation counsel which is reflected in the minor wage increase but will have the downstream effect of further reducing special counsel OE for next
year. Now if you look at the distribution of these expenses across divisions and by appropriation types you'll notice that each service the department of administration is fractional within the 6% of the overall budget. Meaning that any cuts made have
a sharp and distinct effect in the services provided to the community. And to emphasize this point, services to the community will be impacted if divisions lose resources. Total department staff is 70 75 full-time employees with eight
part-time employees. Although I'm sure all of you would argue that being on the city council is hardly a part-time job. I want to end my presentation by reiterating we are not here because of reckless spending. The city is not facing five figure problems that can be
solved by cancing a contract or trimming a few thousand dollars here and there. Will my presentation complete? Please take what our directors say seriously. Not just what's in this budget, but the needs that have been overlooked or underfunded within what's already been presented to this council. So, please
revisit the recommendations at the onset of this presentation to fully fund health care debt service, reduce the reliance on surplus from the general funded utilities, to plan for delinquent taxes, and to provide growth of the levy and the ability for this budget to
generate a surplus. and for the members of the council who take great pride in this city and for those of you who want to be its next leadership and members of the public. Thank you for your time and attention for what was my first budget workshop and depending on how the rest
of your year goes may very well be my last. That's all I got. Thanks, Caleb. I appreciate that. Uh council members uh any any members of the council have any questions, comments? Uh you can
either raise your hand or Dr. Michael Russo has raised his hand. Councilman, thanks Councilman. Yep. So D director, let's um let's start with some of those recommendations that you talked about, right? I'd like to kind of address this
in the in the way you kind of presented it so it makes most sense. Um, in those four basic although very important recommendations, were there recommendations to the administration throughout the last seven years to do
things like uh reduce the number of new hires or try to change um health care uh in a different way where we're not spending as much. um
talk about less bonding for our structural deficit to make sure that that's been reduced. Have those recommendations been made? Because I see these four, but I don't see any of the any of the recommendations that would actually make significant changes to those specific things uh that would
reduce in a and a reduction in our budget and our tax levy. Sure. Um, I can think of an example for both hiring and health care. Um, and this goes back a few years, but I think the
majority of you were on the city council. Um, we have implemented hiring fees in the past. We've, uh, attempted to implement layoff plans. Um, and I think that that was extraordinarily painful exercise um, for both the
administration as well as the city council. And I think that a number of those items were eventually walked back. Um healthcare, there was a attempt to renegotiate. These are uh contractual benefits. Um either mirroring something
similar to the state benefits plan. We had employees that were put on health savings account. Uh there's a number of different ways to approach this, but at at the end of the day, healthcare becomes something that we're contractually obligated to uh address uh
through through the seven different bargaining units. Um and as far as bonding goes, I think that we prepare the bonds. We put those in front of the city council. Uh we can prepare and we'll provide what that's a request
that's been made to uh my office on our uh debt forecast. So, I've shown you snapshots of that, but I'm happy to provide additional information about the expenses that the city has related to financing long-term projects. Yeah. Let's let's talk about quickly about the
um the headcount and and I didn't ask about layoff plans. I asked about additional hires. And I agree with you that once now potentially twice with the mayor's most
recent conversation about stopping any new hires. So in seven years potentially two hiring freezes, but after those hiring freezes are lifted, there's been significant hires in the city of Hoboken and and there's some in this budget as
well as I was going through all the information that I requested and I thank you for that. you got a lot of lot of information over to me and and you did that before tonight so I appreciate it. Um but there has been increased number of headcount which in turn increases
health cost which increases pension cost which increases our salary and wage line items. So there's been significant increases across the board because of those types of hires and I haven't heard that any of those recommendations even
in those off years of of a hiring freeze that they've been made to to the mayor and the administration. Have there been? And I'm just not aware of it or is it something that wasn't really talked about because we felt like we were on sound footing when it came to our our
spending and our budget? Um I I can speak to the department of administration because that's what I'm most familiar with. Um every single year as we develop a budget there's a back and forth on trying to like this year level out the budget so there's
dimminimous impact but there are recommendations made from supervisors. Some are entertained others are not. And I'll give you an example of recent hires um that I think have been wellreceived which is social workers. So those are
new new positions that are reflected in this budget and those provide essential services to the community and those are weighed against other requests uh sometimes not reflected in the budget which I also went over.
I appreciate it. Um let's talk about debt service for a second. So what's our what's our total debt service for the year? Uh I'm running I am having actuary run an update. uh there is a forecast available online uh which is our 2024
run so I feel more comfortable representing that based on the new actuary update right what was the forecast over 17 million if I remember it correctly that sounds that sounds accurate right and and could you just explain
um exactly what goes into debt service what how does that how how do we arrive at that number Um, I can give examples of bonds we've issued in the past, but those are um, some of them may be roads. Uh, some of
them Sinatra bulkhead repair, bonding for park projects, bonding for facility improvements. Um, debt service has to be levied on assets that have, and it depends, but a 5, 10 or 15 year lifespan, sometimes longer. So, these
are long-term physical assets. Yeah. So, so they're they're it's a direct function of what we borrow in the form of bonds over time and that's the year that's the yearly bill so to speak, right? Yeah. Okay.
Caleb, did you say an actuary projected debt service? That's probably wrong. Okay. It's bond. It's bond counsel. Okay. And then just been talking to Chris Baldwin too much lately and uh it it impacts the language that I have close
at hand. Director, one last question and then I'll have I'll have my colleagues jump in as they need to. Um talk a little bit more about the the the help uh in the city of Hoboken and how we're funding that and what it looks like as far as
our self- insurance reserves. What is the total amount that we have in the reserve and what are we projected year-over-year for additional reserves? So, this was a question that Councilwoman Fischer had asked as well and immediately following this meeting,
I'll be sending out those statistics. I can read portions of them to you. uh if you don't mind. Our health insurance reserves year-over-year are declining. From 24 to
25, we've lost $155 million in reserve. Um the last three years we've adjusted the appropriations down uh $900,000 in 2023, 1.3 in 24, 1.3 this year. Um, and
that has what do we have in that reserve? I have what's available as of the end of last year, which was $4.3 million. Uh, the rule of thumb is approximate approximately 30% of our
overall spend. Uh, the introduced line this year for 2025 is $25 million. So, if you cut that number in a third, maybe that's $7.5 million. uh that allows for adverse development. Uh it also allows for expenses incurred
but not paid. So if someone has expenses November or December of the prior year, they get paid out of this year. Adverse development is currently the situation we're in right now, which is we have expenses in 2025 that exceed our actuary
recommendation. uh we will run our medical uh expenses at a deficit this year and that will further erode uh the reserve balance below the number that I just quoted to you. Uh which is why I am
concerned about underappropriating our healthcare obligations. And uh just to be clear, there is an adjustment to our actuary recommendation which is chapter 78 contributions. Um, so the appropriate the appropriation number is not
inclusive of that number. So that would just be So in other words, you're saying that $25 million for health insurance is only the city's portion, not the portion from the individual employees.
Correct. So, let's talk just real quickly about our excess carrier uh for health insurance. So, there's a secondary insurance fund for anything that we exceed depending on the limits that we
choose when we choose that carrier. Where are we with with that? What what is that number? What is the individual number? And then what is the overall number um for that carrier? I do not know the answer to that. I'll have to get back to you.
You're referencing stop-loss insurance, correct? Yes, correct. Okay, Councilman, is that it or do you have Yeah, that Thank you. I I appreciate it, Phil. Thank you, Councilman. Got it. Yep. And Councilman, thank thanks for the recommendation. Uh I think I think my screen is working
better now. I've changed location. So, yep. Uh any other council members who would like to questions? Uh, Councilwoman Fischer, you have your hand up. Yeah. Hey, Caleb, thanks for this. Couple quick questions.
Um, we we went back and forth and I know you're going to send some additional information. Um, 17 million in debt service. What What did that number look like a few years ago? Like, how has that number changed? cuz I personally I
believe one of the main drivers to where we are is you know we've we've acquired and built a number of things that cost a lot of money. We've bonded for all of it have not expanded our ratables. So our debt service number in particular I
think has gone up pretty um considerably in terms of dollar millions. Do you have a sense of what that is over the last you know five or six years? uh it's been a steady progression in growth. I'm happy to provide you actuals. I think that that to to discuss
it, but it is definitely higher now than it was in the past. I think if it it it's really just having a starting point. I almost don't need any of the middle. It's just saying if we're at 17 million now, like what was it in 2018 or 2019 before CO, right? Cuz that just
that number that that's all we need is is the um is the difference. And then the recommendations that you're making, are they what are they total? Are you asking us to effectively double the tax
rate? It looks like around 7 million. I don't have that slide in front of me, but it looked like it got to seven or so million, which is actually not even double the tax rate. That would add another 10% to the tax rate. I'm not suggesting that those are
all-encompassing and cumulative. I'm saying that should the council want to explore addressing some of what we consider to be gaps in what we are funding year-to-year I'm happy to provide more individual information on those and they are tiered
recommendations like if we can chip away at one great then two then three I think that in the budget introduction presentation we discussed that the challenges that our budget have right now were not created in one year and they're also not going to be resolved in one year and I think it's unrealistic to
think that we would try to make pivot uh the budget that quickly. I don't think that that's reasonable uh to ask from this council, nor is it reasonable to ask from taxpayers. I'm simply trying to highlight the areas where we are what I would consider to be under budgeting
for expenses that we are going to encumber. Yeah. Um thanks. And the other um you know we we talk about ratables which I think is um you touched on it very very uh quickly in
the beginning that our ratables haven't moved that much. Um, one of the things that we went back and forth about prior to this is, you know, for I I think for the city council's comfort as we think about this year, we think about next year is having
at least some sort of back of the envelope idea of what big ratables or what big projects are expected to complete in the next couple of years and an estimate for ratables. And these are back of the envelope. This does not have to be scientific, right? we we can come
up with a back of the envelope assessment and like I did it 6,300 units at an assessed value of, you know, 500 um $500,000, you know, gives you an
additional three billion in assessed value. And if our total assessed value right now is 12 billion, that's that's like a 25% expansion of ratables, right? And that's not happening tomorrow. Um it's not an exact number, but it's an
order of magnitude that is going to, you know, come into play over the next few years that will help absorb, you know, some of these costs. And I'm not suggesting that it means we should cut anything. Now, I'm just saying like, you know, there the reality is is our our
city is rolling forward and certain costs are movable, some costs are not movable. Um but we also do know that we are going to have an expanded ratable base. um you know that's already approved and in the pipeline, a pretty meaningful one. And
typically typically if we were in another town, you'd have additional municipal services um required to support them and and we'll have that. But you know, we have a finite amount of land, right? We can't we can't build seven new parks and seven new
playgrounds that will cost us another 200 million. We just literally don't have that space, right? So, we're really talking about an expansion of Raidables that is going to use our existing municipal services and maybe with some modest expansion, which just means that
the benefit is going to be to absorb some of these tax increases in the next couple years. So, two that's a two-part question. Yeah. Can we develop an asset inventory to reasonably project the value and the timing of these resources
coming online? And then a question, do we have a strategy to incorporate that into how we budget and finance city services? Yeah, I think it I think the first one is just back of the envelope and just the big projects.
It we don't need to know every small development in the city, but just kind of an order of magnitude when the big projects are expected to come online because those will move the needle, you know, the most. And then the second part I think is not something at all for this convers this this moment but it's
definitely something for you know the next year or so to really think about. Absolutely. Okay. Thanks. Thank you Councilwoman. Uh great questions and comments. Uh any other colleagues of the
council like to Councilman Re. Yes. you are on mute. Thank you. Sorry about that. I just want to uh talk about the the the ratables. I don't want to repeat what you said, but again, it's like a little
background with the ratables just to for the members of the public and as we go forward with this process when we talk about ratables is I don't know I don't know how Mr. Stratton could give like uh out outdates
when we look at like western edge that process started in 2014 is 2025 11 years. Uh New Jersey Transit which is we refer to as Elor started in in
2007. It's 2025. uh north end redevelopment zone started in 2014. It's 2025, you know. Uh, Western Edge or not Western Edge, uh, Southwest Development
Zone started in 2017, 2018, it's 2025. So, we we've and Newman Leather started in 2008, it's 2025. You know, we have all these red
plans, but these ratables really haven't come through. So we and that's partially I've been favor in favor of development over a period of time to try and keep this keep the ratables going keep taxes as minimal as possible and I give you
examples of that when and these things take time because in 2002 we adopted Maxwell place in 2003 we adopted the the T-building uh redevelopment plan there
and those took a number of years to come online. We approved it then and it takes a number of years. We absorbed those radio bases coming throughout the late 2010s, the early 20 uh the late 2000s,
the early 2010s, mid2010s, all those projects came online. So, we're able to keep taxes flat to minimal uh during that time period. So, you know, it I guess Kayla, I'm just trying to help you out. It's it's hard to predict when we
haven't been as efficient in adopting these plans where it's taken from 2013. All the examples I just cited and the length it it it takes us to do these things. But I think the only real major one that we have coming online soon this
year is 38 Jackson Street which is in southwest Hoboken. Now the housing authority we developed plan that's been we started that that started in 2011 when it was no longer the city calendar again it's 2025 so those are all things that we
have been moving it during this time period where we knew we're adopting we're we're buying new parks building new parks but we weren't doing the other thing at the same time to keep that keep those ratables coming in at a minimum to observe those costs that would preserve the surplus coming in
year over year over year. So I just want to make those couple of points uh as we go through those processes and in the future how we need to be a little more efficient when we talk about uh development and creating those variables for the city of Logan. So I appreciate
the time. Thank you council vice president council president. Thank you council. Thank you councilman. Uh councilman president zanna. Uh yep. Thank you councilman Cohen. Uh I'm going to take a little different question here. Um, it seems that we send tend to get
ourselves in a little bit more of inflicted damage with lawsuits and getting sued for no reason when we could have stopped ourselves. Going forward, I know there are a couple things that potentially could come through the pipeline. Uh, and I know some are covered by the GIF, some aren't.
However, uh have we made any predictions or or ideas to for a rainy day fund uh to handle these types of events? Uh we just narrowly avoided one when I first joined the council with the uh western
edge which could have been a hund00 million plus potentially the city paying for. I'm concerned um while I know the administration, it's an outgoing administration, but I'm wondering how many little uh time bombs are sitting inside city hall that we don't know
about and that could potentially uh have massive impacts on our budget or the monies that we have available. Is there any kind of clarity on that? I thought you were going to bring up the federal lawsuit that we found ourselves in today. I was prepared to answer that question, not this other one. Um, I
would I a little bit defer to Brian Aoya on this one to talk about because you're asking questions about ongoing litigation. Uh, but I don't I don't know if you want to give any color that, but then I can answer your financial question, council. And and I don't we don't need to say this to to a lawyer,
but obviously the extent anything is privileged and confidential, you obviously can't share it in a public workshop like this, but uh but you probably already knew that. But I'll just Thank you very much for reminding me. It's it's it's always nice to to think. Um, but over the years since
I've been corporation counsel, um, when I first got here for the first couple years, we actually brought corporation council's office the budget down to where it is about now. And when I talk about the budget, I talk about the outside legal counsel. And since then, it's it's maintained and it's around that $900,000 mark. Um, so it's been
very consistent, notwithstanding, I'll call surprises, like the surprise you got today with the federal government. um and surprises where sometimes the council or the administration or someone will will take on I'll call it a cause that uh we choose to take on ourselves
and then just sometimes you find yourself um in litigation because you want to accomplish something and somebody else has a different idea. Um but as far as time bombs I'm not aware of any time bombs. There's always special treats like we got today. Um,
but you know, I'm relatively comfortable saying that it's been a very consistent um, so we're prepared for surprises in the budget as we've always been. And uh, you know, that's that's the best I can say, but there are no surprises down the
road that we know of or something set up or teed up. Um, I'm sure, you know, we're not aware of every lawsuit. Obviously, they're all kind of surprised, right? like somebody gets mad or or somebody thinks their rights were violated or what have you. But as you indicated, we have GIF. We have um you
know, the GIF is also has secondary insurance on top of that. And some things aren't covered by the GIF and that's where my budget comes in. But you know, over the course of the 10 years approximately that I've been here, that's always been adequate. So I assume that it's going to be adequate again because that's what we work with. And
just just to speak more directly to your question, our liability insurance decreased by about 25% year-over-year, which I think it was maybe the second or third slide with we had healthcare and then general liability expenses. Was there was there
a contributing factor? Was it, you know, was it just general? I know insurance, all insuranceances seem to be going up, but was there anything like we had excessive numbers of lawsuits and that contributed to it or was it just the general insurance prices are going up?
There was nothing directly or indirectly that I'm aware of that contributed to that other than we put it out there. There there's more than just the Garden State Municipal Joint Insurance Fund. Uh we solicited um through requests for proposals the most competitive uh quote
uh RGIF was the most competitive and most comprehensive um and that's how we arrived in in the Garden State Municipal Joint Insurance. Councilman President, do you have any other questions or comments or is that okay shaking your head? No, you're good.
Council Yep. Council, uh thank you. Uh, council vice president. Um, director Stratton, um, I think there's a lot of good points about, uh, ratables coming online and the length of time that it takes uh, for
them to come online. I don't think that that length of time is unique to Hoboken. Uh, personally, uh, we see this around the country. Anytime, especially in kind of more liberal areas where we live where if you're looking to build that takes 15 years, some people see that as a virtue. I personally see it as
a flaw and would like to speed that up so that we can get some of these things done like ratables online like housing uh online to reduce the burden uh or to to improve our our housing stock and that will help with affordable housing generally. Uh but with that being said, you know, I think one of the my
understanding is that the vast majority of what goes into our budget are things that are not discretionary things that we need. um salaries and wages in particular with respect to our public safety teams. Uh no one will will argue that that we need those things. Um
funding pensions for for example healthcare costs that are just rising uh out of our control because these are national trends or just trends in a in an economy that is based in 2025 versus uh you know 2012. uh you know with that
being said um uh we're also looking at you know there's a lot of discussions about bonding and and that debt service but again thinking about the bonding that we've done you know in my experience most of it not all of it most of it has been for projects that again
we need uh fixing infrastructure water mains uh sewer systems that are antiquated that frankly should have been addressed a long time ago but are being addressed recently uh parks that we all like but serve dual purposes uh such as you know significant
mitigation of of of flooding which again are are public benefit. So I would argue that a lot of those things are necessary and things that we couldn't wait for. Uh so in an environment where uh you know we know it's going to take a long time for these ratables to come up. I think
one of the prudent things to do is, you know, is look at the other end of of the income stream or the two other ends which is our, you know, fees, whether it be through, you know, parking fees or or or or permit fees, but then most notably the tax levy. So my question for you is
um you know in your experience over the past eight years and if you don't know uh you know I'm happy to take the answer uh later but uh in most instances in my time the the the levy that's been introduced by the administration uh
versus the levy that's been adopted by by the council has it generally been reduced? So for example, I remember last year we we started off like a 7% uh proposed levy or something and we rooed reduced it down to three and change,
right? Uh so had we you know one I'm curious to know is are we always reducing it? So, you know, if if we're some of us are playing, hindsight being 2020, had we not reduced uh that amount over the past 8 years, year-over-year generally, uh would we be in a better
position today uh with respect to what levy we need to look at and what kind of draconian measures we need to take? Uh so I won't ask you to do color commentary on that last piece, but do we generally for the past eight years approve a budget levy that a tax levy
that is lower than what is originally proposed by the administration? Yes, and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong about that, but the cadence is usually we introduce a budget and the council reduces certain elements of it. Um and I think that the average over the
last eight years has been about 2% per year. if you go between being high or low, um it is it's a give and take between the administration and the council. And I think in this case and in this budget, we're asking for quite a lot from the council. So, I appreciate
your comments. Um and I know that you're all in a challenging position. Thank you. Is that all? Councilman Couta? Yep. Councilman Doyle, Council President said your hand is up. Councilman Doyle, we cannot hear you even though you're unmuted. I don't know
why. Now I can now you can. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. No, I I'm I'm politely listening and I'm I have to say, you know, the Councilwoman Fischer, I think, made some excellent points with regard to the, you know, we have a square mile
and we don't we don't have, you know, areas that can be rede be developed initially. We have what we have. But I I feel I would feel remiss if I didn't point that there is a lot of evidence out there that you know building
residential uh as a means of lowering taxes is the myth is not a sound planning. By that I don't mean we shouldn't be building anything. But what I'm saying is the
notion that if we build a a fair amount of residential housing, then those taxes will cause all of our taxes to go down when there'll be more children. There'll be more school taxes, which is not our municipal levy. There'll be more police
officers and fire officers and and their pensions and uh there'll be more fire equipment. So, we tried in the north end commercial development can actually bring down taxes and we zoned through
the redevelopment process the north end and because of circumstance you know COVID etc it's being chipped away uh the potential gain there is being chipped away gain in commercial uh development
and it seems to be gradually being replaced by residential to a large extent and I think we're losing an opportunity there to actually help us as far as our um you know our tax rate but
the reality is that you know costs do go up every year a lot about the eggs uh and so there is a reality that we if the expectation is a zero tax rate forever
then you know that's it's Maybe it's just a question of unrealistic expectations. But anyway, that's more of an observation, not a question for you, Caleb. So, thank you. Thank you, Council President. Councilman Russo, your hands up. Do you want to speak again? Yeah, I
just I just had a a a clarifying question for Caleb. Um, I may have misheard, but when we were talking about when when Councilman uh Quantero was asking you a question, you were referring to the differential of what was introduced by
the administration to what was passed by the council. You weren't talking about a reduction in taxes overall year-over-year. Correct? Yeah, that's that's correct. I was saying that I'm going to give an example that's inaccurate. If the administration introduced a budget at 8%, the council
may adopt a budget at a 5% increase. It was just a generally and I and I said, please correct me if I'm wrong, there hasn't been an instance that I'm aware of where the council has increased the levy rate above what was introduced. Right. But in all that time, there was
an actual increase in our tax um taxes in the city of Hoboki, not a decrease. Correct. That's correct. Thank you. And that was the question that I asked. So, we're we're consistent. Yeah, I may I may have miss misheard it.
Councilman Fischer, I think we had a decrease one year. I think we might have had a decrease. I think we I think I think the mayor put up a flat one and we brought it down to like a negative two and a half one year. Yeah, I remember that. Y I um I just want to clarify only
because I I'm not sure Councilman Doyle heard everything I had said. 100% we have increased costs when we add residential and I I have been probably one of the biggest proponents along with Jen and Jim to try and get as much
commercial as possible and it's been disappointing to see us just favor the interests of existing developers that only want to build residential because it's low risk high return. Um, my point was a slightly different one, which is if we were in a suburb and you were to expand the population 20%, which we're
about to do, you would build new parks. You would build you would just build a lot more physical things that cost a lot of money. And we don't have the ability to do that. We've already kind of built those parks. We kind of, you know, all of the open space that we've invested in really was for the future um population.
They just haven't been here yet to absorb some of those costs. So, yes, we'll definitely have increased costs for additional firefighters, additional, you know, police officers, but but we've already built all the parks for all of those additional 20% um of our population and we probably won't have
enough for them and we're just going to have to make do because we just don't have any more space in Hoboken um to grow, you know, to grow those types of of costly amenities. So, I just want to clarify that. Yeah. And I wasn't I wasn't reacting to you, Tiffany. I was I
was agreeing with you and reacting to others but but for the record that's why it's really important everyone that no matter what the first building for Elor not the first one the second one the main one that sits at the terminal um needs to be commercial. I know that's
their plan but we whoever is going to be mayor whatever we're going to do we can't change that plan we have to keep it commercial. Okay. Uh thank you councilwoman. I think that's it for the council and again the the the format for the workshop today. We're going to get presentations from
the three departments. Uh then we're going to have council questions and comments and then at the end of the three we're going to open it up for for public questions and comments. So I believe uh I had the opportunity to speak for
quite a long time as did council uh corporation council. I know that Jimmy Fina is chomping at the bit to tell you how good of a job the clerk's office has done and what their needs are. Jerry, do you or Jimmy have anything to add or you want to make a contribution before we leave the administration?
Uh the only the only uh request that I have is that you know our budget's been flat for the last several years. But what's happening now with the OPER request, we went from 125 OPER requests for the month and
now it's we're up to 250 a month. We're inundated with OPER requests. We received approximately 1,500 requests for 2024. It went up to almost
3,000. It will be 3,000 in 2025. Uh so most of most of the staff that I have now is like consumed with beside their other uh duties are inundated with these oper
requests. know somewhere along the line we're going to need we're going to need more help in that office. The other uh thing that we might we probably anticipating a runoff in uh December if
you know the maze election count at large six ward that that would be probably almost another $100,000 in expenses. The one good thing about uh the November election, the county pays for the uh
advertisements for the uh sample ballots. They pay for the board workers. They pay for all the advertisement, all the other expenses. If we have a runoff in December, then we we assume that burden to pay the board workers, the
sample ballots, the mailers, and everything else that goes along with that. So, we're we're anticipating that somewhere around $100,000 if if uh we get into the runoff. Beside that, that that's that's about it.
Thank you. Uh thank you, Jimmy. Uh uh I see Councilman Russo's hands up and I believe Councilman Fischer didn't lower her hand from before. Oh, sorry. You're right. You're right. Yeah. But Councilman Russo, do you have anything new or or Yeah, I I do. And and Caleb, thanks again for sending this
information over and I asked specifically about the election line uh and the breakdown of why it almost doubled. Um and in that breakdown that you sent me, Caleb, you have the primary elections at $67,000. Is it my understanding that the
county and the state is not paying for that those elections? No. What happens is that because we have the local Democrats and Republicans running for in the primary, the
responsibility for the sample balls is uh for the payment of the sample balls is ours. So that understood understood. Okay. Yep. Thank you very much. Thanks for the clarification, Jim. All right. Well, thank you, Jimmy. Uh and uh I
thank Caleb if if that's okay with you. I thank you for your administration finance presentation uh very helpful and uh for and you're going to stick around for public uh comment at the end which I appreciate. Okay, which gets us to parks
and recreation director Ailis. Uh welcome. You are on mute. Yep. Good set up here. There we go. Great. So, uh, the floor is yours. One second. It's slowing. All right. Can you all see my screen
here? Yes, we can. Yep. Great. Good evening, council members and members of the public. Tonight, I will be presenting the 2025 proposed budget for the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Public Works.
The Department of Parks, Recreation, and Public Works is proposing a $14.25 million budget, which is 10% of the city's appropriations. This is a 6% change from the 14 million 2024 adopted budget. The department consists of seven
divisions. The director's office, recreation, public property, and under work, public works is sanitation, fleet, street and roads, and parks. We operate 7 days a week across all divisions and respond to calls for service, day, nights, and weekends. Over the past
year, we have increase our recreation participation by 112% despite staffing constraints. Our public work division has also been asked to do more with less. There are several drivers that contribute to the 6% change. Those drivers are the year 2 hauling contract
in the amount of 3,744,000, increased plumbing and electrical expenses for our public properties, the landscape maintenance contract in the amount of 92,785, and an increase in general maintenance
costs. We maintain funding in the street and roads account in the event of a bad winter and for preventative preventative maintenance of our aging snow removal equipment. We have several pieces of equipment that are at least 10 years old and near their end of use of life. These
are key pieces of equipment that we use for snow removal. Here's a year-over-year change for each division. As I explained last year, failure to adequately fund our facil facilities will result in a higher
spending that I consider to be bandaids. Our firehouses are in dire need of full renovations. These include structural upgrades, historical window repairs, HVAC improvements, and more. Police headquarters maxed out their space capacity last year. We recently renewed
their lease agreement for the mobile office trailer for just about 30,000 to accommodate the staff that was displaced when the women's locker room was expanded. While we do conduct preventative maintenance on our generators and HVAC systems, it does not guarantee that these systems will run
without any problems. The multi-ervice center and the Damon Murray gym have both seen an increase in sewer backups due to improper uses that cannot be avoided and an aging facility that is no longer capable of handling the high volume of usage 7 days a week. Year to
date, we have spent nearly 17,000 in plumbing repairs at both gyms and about 54,000 in other facilities for a total of 71,000 year to date. In 2024, that number was 139,000 in plumbing related repairs across the
public facilities. If we do not plan to invest in new up-to-date facilities made to serve our growing needs, we will continue to spend money on repairs and operating expenses will continue to increase year-over-year. Aside from landscape
care, our parks require annual splash pad repairs, playground equipment repairs, turf maintenance, and more. The city maintains 13 city parks and playgrounds and seven dog runs. Last year we budgeted 313,000 in parks OE.
This year that number is 497,500. Recreation saw a total of 7,868 participants across 21 sports in 2024. 97% were residents, 3% were non-residents. To say that recreation division does not prioritize its
residents is simply untrue. We average the average registration fee was $40 for residents and 65 for non-residents, but the average cost per participant was also 65, meaning we barely break even to cover program costs in some sports. In
2024, we increased the participation fee in several of our programs with the within the current fee ordinance. Some of these programs are now at their max, meaning there is no more room for an increase for the foreseeable future unless there is an amendment to the
current ordinance. We also covered the regist the total registration fee for all participants on free and reduced lunch. An analysis of all the sports in 2024 showed that two the two most costly sports per participant were football and
cheerleading. Cheerleading was 665 per participant and football was 332. Overall, our increases are minimal compared to what they should be in order to staff and operate a department that directly provides recreational programming and quality of life services. I want to acknowledge the
incredible work the public works staff does on a day-to-day basis and the time and effort recreation pours into this division to provide youth and adult programs for our community. I can guarantee that you will not find an urban city of this population size that has one of the most popular waterfronts
in better condition than ours. Just last weekend, the Arts and Music Fest attracted several thousand of people and within two hours all of Washington Street was cleaned up. For a while, the Division of Recreation only had three full-time employees. This is a prime example of improper staffing in prior
years. Now, as programs grow annually, we rely on the help of seasonal employees, which contribute to 24% of the recreation salary and wages. If the goal is to run more pro programs inhouse, expand our programming to to other vulnerable teenage populations,
and expand our special needs programs, it will require additional staff to manage such programs. We estimate an average of 255,000 per month for our tipping fees, which would be about 3 million for the year under the sanitation contractual services. We
also provide community compost program, which has been a huge success since it was implemented. However, their contract also had a 3.2 increase this year. As many of you are aware, the wear and tear on those compost sheds has become so extensive, we had to remove one site
from Columbus Park. Despite a $35,000 reduction in the sanitation line, we still will look to uh replace those compost sheds. Uh here we see the percentage of each division by appropriation type. Operating expenses are 63% of the budget
and the contractual services contribute to the bulk amount under the sanitation costs. To conclude, our goals for the future are simple. We want to continue providing recreation programs inhouse and provide even better quality of life services. It would be in the city's best
interest to increase current permit fees in order to generate more revenue in the limited areas that revenue can be generated. These budget increases are not a result of prior year overspending or mismanagement of funds. Instead, the increases are a direct result of our
city rapidly growing and expectations continuously changing. I want to thank uh all of you for your time and the members of the public watching online. I'd be happy to take any questions at the end of the presentations. Thank you, Director Rob Biz. And uh I
did get people who used the composting bin in Columbus Park saying, "Where'd it go? where to go because they used it so regularly and uh and I and I understand that it is being replaced. So uh thanks for that. Any uh council colleagues have
questions, comments for director Ailis? Uh Councilwoman Fischer. Um, so a couple things I did um I did the I think it's helpful if you pull sanitation out of the total budget because sanitation just we don't have a whole lot of control over it but the
rest of them we do. And when you pull it out the rest of them the rest of the budgets around an 11% increase. What are the in the budget like what what are the biggest drivers to your increase of 11%
and in general um like park maintenance is one of those I I don't know that we have a lot of visibility around like the cost of maintaining our parks. Do we have do we manage a budget for each one of the parks so we have an idea of how much
each one of the parks costs to manage and have a sense of you know where money is going and um into which park or anything? So we don't have each park broken up as a line item. Um, I do have
individual work, say our iron works, our playground equipment, um, maintenance repairs, all of those are broken up into budget lines that we would charge to. Um, so if if you know, we have Madison Madison Park for example, that splash
pad we have repairs do uh every year when we activate, and that's simply because it's so heavily utilized during the spring and summer months once it's open. Um, so to answer your question, we don't have each part broken up in the as a budget line, just the work that we
charge to each account. Okay. I can look into that if if you if you would want to know specific is it um playground equipment repairs or any type of specific job, I can look into that. I I feel like as we think about um you
know, we're adding we're just still adding more parks, right? So, which is great and we're upgrading parks. you know, we haven't built the one. We haven't finished the Southwest Park um the expansion. We've not yet built the one at 8 Monroe. We've not built out um
Maritime Park. We've not built out Rebuild by Design, you know, the the the new Cove or Harborside Park. And so I think it's and and we know that Northwest Resiliency requires a tremendous amount of maintenance right now. It's like falling apart. So I think
it is helpful for us on a go forward basis to track those costs and even if it means we have a citywide landscaping just even allocating you know a landscaping cost to in some sort of way whether it's by square footage number of trees whatever and and start to come up
with a cost of maintaining these parks. we have a better sense and we can also have more visibility on you know what it looks like when we have the we have you know another four really big parks coming online in the next couple years right um so um I think that I think we
should be able to do that we should be able to project that um and then recreation I just still have at some point it'd be helpful to have you guys have done recreation summaries before where it's a nice little summary that says how many kids are each in each one
of the programs. And you know, I think that would be useful to get that summary again so we can uh take a look more closely because for example, this year we got a lot of complaints for kids that you know, like boys that couldn't get I I only got it for boys and I maybe it's
boys and girls, but um that you know got shut out of like the youth basketball program, right? And you know having a sense of you know do we have a restriction on how many you know recreation programs each person can participate each family can participate
or each child can participate in. Do we not allow you know kids from outside of Hoboken to participate in these and always prioritize our own like I feel like those are some of the things that it would be helpful as we think about how we want to if and how we want to expand our recreation programs and how
we use our field space. So, um, we do have a recreation summary already prepared, so I can share with that. Awesome. Great. Okay. Is that all, Councilwoman? Yeah. Thanks. Okay. Great. Councilman Rouso,
thank you. Uh, Councilman Director, you you made a couple comments. I just want to uh clear up. There was one particularly about the uh plumbing issues that we have at our gyms uh multi-ervice center and um the Damon Murray uh
gym. You said you attributed the issues to aging uh infrastructure in those gyms. Were you specifically talking about the multicenter and not the Damon Mari gym or did that pertain to both? No, I apologize. Specifically to the
multi-ervice center. Okay. All right. I appreciate that. And who who is our uh who is our staff member who is a trained plumber? We don't have a trained plumber. Um that is the reason why our expenses
uh are I had to increase them is because we have to contract out for plumbing repairs. H how many how many years now have we been having the issue of plumbing throughout the city of Hoboken uh to your knowledge?
As far as I know, in the two years that I've been in this position, this has been a reoccurring issue. Yeah. And and and I would venture to say it's been a reoccurring issue even before you've been in the role. Um it goes to my question, why have we not hired an in-house plumber? Why have we not hired
an employee who has that skill set instead of contracting out hundreds of thousands of dollars for not just the gyms, of course, but anything else in the city of Hoboken? Why are we not looking at hiring somebody in-house who's a uh union employee or or a union
certified plumber? Or why have we not utilized what we have in place already, which is a direct hire agreement that we have with Hudson County Building Trades to utilize somebody in that capacity? So, as far as why we haven't brought in
someone inhouse, uh the salaries that we offer for these specialized positions just are not um no one is looking to to accept positions at the salaries that we offer. Uh I've had this issue with the H with the HVAC um trying to bring someone
inhouse uh as an HVAC technician and our salaries are just not competitive enough. Could you dig into that a little bit? what what was the offered salary to we'll use the plumber as the example and then what was the uh yearly cost for all the plumbing throughout the city of
Hobok and for the year. So last year the yearly cost was uh about 139,000 across our facilities. And what was the what was the offer to the We we have not put in a job ad for a
plumber at least not in the two years that I have been in this position. Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood you. I I thought you said that they you offered someone and they declined. No, no, no. I said that we've had this issue with our H with the HVAC position that we did
advertise which is another specialized service since we also have HVAC issues at our facilities. Well, let's let's let's dig into that one then and use a better example. What what was offered for that position and what was the HVAC costs
throughout the city of Hoboken uh for the year? I don't have the total number. could get definitely get the amount of 2024 and HVAC uh improvements, but the salary that we were offering was 80,000 max. 80,000 max. And then if you could
if you could just shoot me an email with the uh total cost for any HVAC repairs, I would appreciate it. Um let's talk about seasonal employees. You made the comment that this year we're utilizing seasonal employees, but it's my understanding over decades in
the city of Hobok and we've been using seasonal employees for our recreation program. Is that so why would why would that attribute to an increase for our recreation department if we've been using them
historically? Did we increase salaries? Did we increase headcount? Well, yes. So recently the Hoboken little league contract theou that was approved by council did increase those rates for uh those positions umpire uh
scorekeepers etc. So that did um put an increase to those positions. Um also with the we pay based on the salary ordinance for those temporary seasonal positions. Um but it it is a high
turnover and as our programs grow we do need to add more temporary uh employees. So we've increased both rates and employees then. Yes. And and what was the uh if you know offh hand what was the increase in the rate?
Which rate for the seasonal employees? That was an hourly increase correct. There's different there's different rates for each position. rather than try to go through all of them, could you send me those again just so I have them at the top of my list? I
appreciate it. And then and while you're doing that, just send me the number of uh employees that we increased as well, what it was last year to what it was this year. Sure. And then the other question I had when it came to
recreation when you send out that um that breakdown of each of the uh sports that we have and then any non-sport related recreation as well. uh can you also include the redundancies that we have in the city of Hobok and for
example we have our youth football program and then this year I know uh the school system is looking to do a middle school football program um whether it's a soccer program that we run as a rec program versus outsourced soccer programs in the city of Hobok and so
could you just break down what those redundancies are and then what the priority is as far as field space is concerned for each of So I can answer on the priority for the field space. Um the recreation programs
come first. So when we are planning for the year, we put holds as to what our programs will look like for the upcoming season. And it's our priority to serve the residents and our participants
first. So regardless of how that is looking for outside organizations to then have field time um our top priority is to first put our programs. Yeah. And I was I was speaking more to like in in
the sense of if there are more than one nonrecreation vendors, how are we prioritizing them? So, if there's, let's just say field hockey, if there were three field hockey, um, you know, and I'm making that up, of course, but if there were three different vendors for
that, how are you prioritizing amongst those three vendors that in essence would be on equal footing, right? And and again, if you know it, you can most certainly answer it, but if not, please just put that in in what you're sending over. Sure. It does go based on on the
on the ordinance um that we have. We have our recreation programs. Uh schools are next. Um nonprofit organizations, for-profit organizations, outside organizations. Yeah. And and as I said, those that are on equal footing, how how are those
prioritized? Is that a first come first serve or is that size of program versus non-size of program? Don't we have don't we have two traveling soccer teams or two traveling soccer programs? like why do we have two traveling soccer programs?
That I can't answer since the city has zero control over these private organizations and what programs they wish to run. Um it again I I don't have an answer why there are two that exist. Yeah, there's three I believe. Yeah, I'm
not so worried about how many exist. I'm worried about how we're prioritizing them. So again, you don't need to answer it now, but just include it when you send that information over. I would I would greatly appreciate it. And then the other question uh and this will be the last one so I don't take up everybody's time all night. Uh the other
big question for me has always been will always be our hauling and our tipping fees. Uh by my estimate here we're talking about $6.75 million yearly for our garbage collection and disposal. Um, I asked
last year, I asked a year before, and I asked a year before that, and I'll continue to ask. Have we looked at bringing this service inhouse, and what does that look like in comparison to $6.75 million? What would the cost of
that be? Yeah. So we are working on the waste utility study. A preliminary um report that uh we reviewed from the um from our consultant uh showed that bringing it inhouse would not produce
any cost savings to the city. Um so that is currently being I just want to make sure I heard that you said there's no cost savings to the city bringing that in house. No no cost savings. Okay. that is being worked on. Um and once we
have the completed study, we will be sure to share that. Yeah, please share that because all all my research um of course shows me that there'd be significant savings to bring that in house. But uh but we could compare those two when we get them. Okay. I appreciate
it. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Uh Councilman President, thank you. Um, I just wanted to ask one quick question to follow up on Councilman Russo. How many garbage trucks do we own?
We have the two electric garbage trucks and uh, drawing a blank here. I believe we have five other ones, the standard diesel ones. Okay. I'd like to be included on an
email that Councilman Russo is getting on some of that other information for sanitation. It seems like we have a good we have a good basis there. Um I'm gonna ask I'm going to start off with probably the hardest one. Um we earlier in the year we had an employee outside I think
believing in Virginia and the only way we really found that out was by watching some of the um the bills that we were paying. We were paying a Virginia tax. Is that employee We were told that employee was moving to our town or our area. Is that happen or are they still
located outside of the uh outside of Jersey? Um that employee still uh is not yet living in New Jersey. Um he is still within the time frame uh to finalize his residency.
Okay. Um what what does that mean? Yeah. What's the time frame? The guy running our wreck programs does not live in Hoboken. So what's the time frame to change that? That's ridiculous. Also, if I could just add that it's a part-time position that does not require
being here. Um, I actually think that having this employee has been a tremendous help to our division because it has taken uh away that pressure of he this person is handling the permits. Um,
and the permits are incredibly time consuming season over season. uh and the this person is able to dedicate the time to communicate with applicants, be able to move the calendar and play around with it so that it works
for everyone. Okay. Um I don't I'm sorry, Councilman. I don't I don't think the the qualifications of the employer what's what's in question there. I think the I think at the end of the day, there's a concern, at least from my perspective. I
don't want to speak for anybody else, but from my perspective, I'm sure there's a qualified candidate in the city of Hoboken who is willing to do that same work and probably has the same skill set as that individual employee. We've extended now, I think, beyond a
year for them to move into the city of Hobbook and I think they've been on the city's payroll for quite longer than a year if I remember correctly. Councilman, uh, you know, I I I'm a little concerned that we're veering off into personnel matters. Uh, and I don't
know I don't know if if if corporation council any thoughts about this, but I mean I think we we may be going beyond the budgetary questions into personal issues, personnel issues. I don't know. Corporation guess. So yeah, you understand, but you're going
off from the budget, but so far the employee has not been identified. So you can speak in general terms as to whether or not you want people to live in Hoboken. Okay. Council Russo, I'm going to take back over. Right.
Um yes, that's fine. Calvin, uh director, um if you assume that there was an eight-hour day of recreation, let's say overall, and this might be paralleling Council Maruso's question. If you had to put on a percentage of
let's say we just had one fe uh all our fields it was an eight hour day how much would be going towards cityrun programs and how much is outside programs whether nonprofit or profit. Um, so we have to keep in mind
that our youth programs other than during the summer months don't start and cannot start until school is out because that is the population that we serve. And uh, so we're looking at somewhere between 300 p.m. is when our programs
typically start in, you know, fall excluding summer when we do have day activities. uh until about nine o'clock, 10 o'clock when we close our parks. And no, but what would you say in those six hour time frame? Would it be 70% uh
wreck activities that we run or would it be 5050 between profit, nonprofit? Uh I'm just trying to see the breakdown of our field usage. No, it's majority of of our uh recreation programs. Um, keep in mind that some fields are can only serve
specific sports. Um, I can definitely provide you with a more detailed plan in an in an email offline. Um, just of a breakdown of our parks and what programs can go where. Okay. Thank you. And then I'm going to parallel off a question. I know that this is something that
Councilman Ramos and myself have tried to work with the um uh the HBOE and and Dr. Johnson, the superintendent, that we were looking at a summer recck program. Now, that said, in those talks, the the school district seemed as
if they would be willing to offer facilities to us. So that would be potentially allowing us to have open field space for different types of uh for example if we use their football field and there's a baseball on there or
we use a gym it might open up other fields for example for adult softball on on let's say Mama Johnson field or you know at other parks it might open up the gym for more pickle ball for seniors I don't know has there been any
conversation to do that to potentially increase some of the increase some revenue to offset some of the other services that we're offering that by us getting more space it allows us to offer more. Has there been anything to do that to kind of increase services uh at no
real cost to residents? Yeah. So I believe that I provided you with this update uh a couple months ago when I had when you had met with Dr. Johnson and then uh myself and uh BA Stratton also met uh with Dr. Johnson to talk about
how this partnership would work. It was specifically discussed about the summer camp that the schools run. Um so my understanding is that during the school year their facilities are occupied and or they have other uses for them um in
the evening or at you know night times. Um but if we're looking specifically for that summer camp discussion, yes, we we both agreed that we this is something that could not happen for this year because they had already uh finalized their summer camp plans. Um but
potentially for next year, it is something that we can look into and see how we can create a partnership where we utilize those board of ed facilities um and we're able to have programs there which opens up other facilities of arts for other programming. Okay. And one
last question. Fees that we charge for field usage uh to many of these uh outside rec services. Uh have we amended them to levels? Because it it it's interesting to me that we have a lot of
outside programs that come here and they seem to be pretty successful and I don't know if that's because of the price they're charging or that we're not charging enough for use of facilities. Is that something that we visit every year on a every year to to repric essentially. Uh
or is this something where we've kind of been stagnant? It's a $100 an hour or whatever it may be. Uh it has not been revisited since last year, I believe. And uh the only discussions that have been uh brought up by the council is to actually wave the
fees for non uh for nonprofit organizations, which would greatly impact any sort of re revenue. we we generate from that. So, I would encourage the council to revisit that uh those fees and potentially create an
increase uh because as you were saying, there's a lot of outside organizations that come in um and want to use our field uses. So, our fields um for their own uses. So, it is something that we could benefit from from an increase.
Okay. Thank you. Uh thank you uh council mullen and thank you director uh director just one question uh how many uh kids are in our wreck program right now? Um so I I can give you the 2024 total number um that we saw in
participants and that was 7,000 800. Hold on. I have it here. 7,868 was the participants across 21 sports in 2024. And what and what has the excuse me, council me and what has the trend been with respect to
enrollment in in in the wreck program? It says 7,800 and change this past year. Yeah, we continue to see an increase yearover-year. Um we have a wait list for just about all of our programs. Um
you see registration goes in the matter of minutes when we open up. Specifically that's the case in tennis that can only take on a specific number of participants per session and it is such a popular in demand sport. Um so we are
seeing an increase every single year and I think we have new programs as well. I think golf came online last year as well. Um, golf was I believe three years ago. Oh, three years ago. Yeah, we it ultimately we were not we did not
continue that program. Um, but yes, we we expanded with the adult pickle ball and we just um signed the contract with the New Jersey Devils to bring on uh ball hockey. So, those are programs that will the ball hockey is going to come
online this year. Okay. Councilman Cano, you've got your hand up. You haven't had a chance. Go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Um, and thank you, director. First, I just wanted to to say recognize the uh hard work that you and your division uh accomplishes with finite resources, not
only the uh the uh uh the Department of Public Works, keeping our our city as clean as possible and and and and dry generally after raintorms washing everything down. Uh it's a significant challenge and you know I I want just want to recognize that as well as on the
rec side uh there uh are increased pressures as Councilman Cohen said you know uh enrollments are up uh and uh you know I I think uh a lot of times folks unfairly criticize kind of the the level of service provided because generally
speaking I think it is good. uh sure uh could things be improved I think yes but I think when we are seeing uh these challenges it's because of these resource constraints because we can't add the 25th hour to the day or you know forget that people need to eat and sleep
uh as well so um so with that being said you know I appreciate uh the the new additions to alleviate um some of those burdens uh but again we always have to think about how we're going to pay for these things you mentioned we we're we're basically flat with the amount of
revenue that we're getting in from the wreck program specifically. You reminded me that the only uh I think we did try to to update some of our fees for events and and you know I was part of the the crew who who agreed and was pushing for rolling some of those back. But back to
the the wreck fees, when was the last time and can you remember that we kind of had a material increase uh in in those fees with respect to participation? So, for example, you know, I think uh my kid when she wants to play softball, we're paying 50 bucks uh which for me is a incredible bargain
uh with respect to the level of service that she gets. But when was the last time we we took a look at that? I believe that happened three years ago when the council adopted a range for the fees to be uh adjusted. Um, so we've
used that range and last year uh did a5 or $10 increase in in programs. Thank you. Okay. Is that all Councilman? Thank Councilwoman Fischer as Y. Yep.
Councilwoman Fischer, go ahead. Sorry. Sorry. Uh, just a quick question. When you said I think we had the same discussion last year when you said the number of enrollment is that the number of children or the number of separate spots across all of our sports programs.
So that number is the total number of participants in our sports. So uh could it be the same person in soccer and volleyball? Yes. And do we have a sense of how many kids are being not not the
number of participants but the number of children that are behind that 7,000 like let's say it was 3500 then in theory every child is participating in two on average. Um, I would have to go back to
see if our weight lists are still track the number um for those past programs to see how many were were left in in on weight list. No, I don't think it's a weight list question. That wasn't the question. Yeah, that wasn't the question. It's if we have seven if we have in round
numbers if we have 7,000 part if we have 7,000 slots basically or or participants um 7,800 and what' you say 7,800. So we have 7,800. Let's say you know there's
let's say it's 39 children are actually if you just counted the actual number of children and let's say 3,900 are participating then in theory that would be each child is participating on average in two
sports. So a a good that may be that may be a good average and that maybe that's what we look for. If it was a different extreme, say it was only 700 kids, then every kid is signing up for 10 sports and that's probably like too much,
right? Like they probably aren't participating. They're not showing up. We are we tracking the, you know, people showing up. We've heard in some instances, and I'm not saying it's plagued, but we've heard in some instances that parents will get on and just sign their kids up for as many things as possible, but they don't necessarily always participate. And so
like that, you know, how how do we how do we navigate and ensure that, you know, the the programs that we have are working for the most number of children in Hoboken? Yeah, we we do have those families that simply sign up when a registration opens
up, right? But it's it's those families that typically do come back and say, uh, I I signed up, but we're not going to participate after all. So there are withdrawals uh after we have registrations. Um so these numbers and
are really showing the participants that stayed through the program. Got it. But still I think it's helpful to know how many kids are behind how many kids are we serving with the 7,800 spots. Yeah, I could run a report of the unique users.
That'd be awesome. Hey, Councilman Rouso. Yeah. Um and I appre Tiffany, I appreciate you asking the question. It was it was where I was going to go. I mean, my kids all four of my kids play multiple sports. So, I I think if I remember it correctly, the unique users,
at least according to my memory in last year, I think was a third of what the overall overall number of participants was. So, um but please verify that for me. I I would love to know what that looks like. Um and then the only the only other thing you know and and this
is not this is not a comment toward uh my colleague uh Councilman Quantero but but it is a comment that I think it's really important to make that although for some parents you know those fees are are a bargain. There are a lot of
parents in the city of Hoboken that they are not a bargain for. There's there's a lot of parents who have multiple children who play multiple sports. So, it it adds up. It adds up quickly. And and I don't want to discount that
for those parents. I think it's important that we always really look at the the lowest common denominator in in these kinds of conversations because we have to always solve for those that struggle the most. So, I just want to remind my colleagues of that and I know
the director knows this and and I appreciate, you know, all that she has done and and directors in the past have done for those who do struggle with with some of these fees, but it's really important for all of us to remember that. So, I appreciate it. Thank you. I
think you put your hand out again. Yeah, I just wanted to say of course Councilman Russo is correct. I would never forget that having grown up in, you know, earliest memories sharing a bed with my brother, with my aunt and uncle, other kid in another room and my aunt in another room. Certainly
understand what it's like to not have and and be grateful for uh the the resources available within my community. With that being said, you know, again, to to to Councilman President Zano's point from a couple uh weeks ago, nice things cost money. And so if we haven't
raised these fees, I think maybe it might be time to look at that since we are facing these issues. But we should do so in a way that's compassionate to those who are uh who uh would find any of those raises to be a struggle. For sure. Yeah. Thanks, Councilman. I appreciate that. Okay. All right. I
think that is the end of council. Uh we've got some uh uh residual hands up from Councilman Fischer and Councilman Riso. Um, I believe the council's done uh with parks and recreation. Director Davillaas, if you could stick around for public questions at the end in case
there are any. Uh, and I think we are now moving on to transportation and parking. And Director Weber. Good evening. Hang on. Uh, evening director visible. Not yet. I don't see it.
Are you in a dark room, Steve? I am not in a dark [Laughter] room. Um, let me just Well, maybe you could share this screen, you know. I mean, there you are. There you Hey, it's it's the shutter on the It
was a mechanical thing, not an electronic thing. Yep, we can see you. Thank you for your patience. Uh, let me share my screen. [Music] [Music] Okay, here we go. All right. Yeah, if
you could put that into slideshow mode. That's what I'm doing right now. Great. So, thank you very much. Um, good evening council members uh and um members of the public. I'm Steve Weber. I am the new While you're speaking for
you to present this in a different way so we have the full screen, please. Yeah, your your notes are are visible to us and the screen is a little bit You get what I'm saying? There you go. No, no, there you don't go. Slideshow
format I think is what you want. Maybe dis maybe at the top it says display settings on your screen above the screen. Uh, that's not it. Hold on. Top. Uh,
it was right under Jim Doyle, at least on my screen. Okay. All right. Oh, here it is. There it is. Yep. Pat, carry on. All right. Well done. Thank you for your patience for the old guy. Um, okay. Good evening, council members
and members of the public. I'm Steve Weber and I'm Hoboken's new director of transportation and parking. I've been with the city since January and have truly enjoyed developing a partnership with each of you on the council. I'm delighted to be here this evening to
discuss this year's operating budget. The 73 hardworking men and women of this department are responsible for ensuring the safety and mobility of our city's residents, workers, and visitors. We manage Hoboken's 32 miles of streets and
sidewalks, approximately 9,000 curbside parking spaces, and nearly 3,000 off- streetet parking spaces. We operate the hot hop shuttle bus service that has more than 200,000 riders per year and manage contracts with City Bike, which provides nearly 500,000 annual bike
share trips, and with Zip Car, which provides about 8,000 annual car share trips. With this budget, we will continue our highly successful Vision Zero program, which has become a national model and has helped us go more than eight years without a traffic
fatality. And we are continuing the to redesign our streets to reflect the needs of pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, transit users, and those who are receiving deliveries. This year's budget, we um represent this year, we are presenting a
$23.6 million budget, which represents an 8% increase over last year. However, at 34% of these expenditures, which amount to about 8 million, are transferred uh from the parking utility
to the city's general fund, which will reduce the tax levy on our uh residents. Uh and if we removed that transfer from our budget, then the increase would be about 5.4% over last year.
On the revenue side, we are anticipating the availability of about 3 million in surplus funds from last year. We anticipate that our garages will see an increase in revenue of about 3%, meter income will increase by 4%, and permits
will increase by 5%. While not part of this budget, we've also identified opportunities to expand our Sunday meter program for the rest of the business district and to increase the short-term rates for our garages that would potentially raise annual
revenue by 820,000, almost all of it coming from non-residents. We've done everything we can to hold our expenditures down, and this budget reflects a 5.4% 4% increase in department expenditures exclusive of
the transfer to the city. Our headcount is lower than last year. Where we have been able, we have reassigned staff to meet increased needs rather than hired from outside. The 4% increase in salary and wages reflects mostly programmatic raises across the workforce and
increased Sunday enforcement of metered parking on Washington Street. There are limits to working within our current headcount though and if we were able we would hire an additional engineer or planner who would be able to increase our capacity and responsiveness
particularly with respect to mitigating the impacts of construction. Our operating expenses increase by approximately 8% partly as a supplement to professional staff but also reflecting investments in parking
enforcement technology and the pursu and pursuit of contracts to maintain our signals and to refresh our pavement markings which are essential to maintaining our stalled our installed assets and operating a safe system. We are also undertaking an update of our
vision zero program, a consultant project using federal funding that requires a 20% local match. Here's a breakdown of our budget uh of the information we discussed on the previous slide focusing on salary
and wages and on operating expenses. On the salary and wage side, nearly half of our budget goes toward enforcement, which has expanded to 7-day operation. The go the garage operations contract on the other hand is the big driver on the expense side because we largely out
outsource operation of the municipal garages. I should also point out that while the temporary closure of the garage at 916 Garden is a real inconvenience for residents in the north and central parts of the city for this year it represents a net savings of
about $100,000 in operating expenses. Plus, we have redeployed four of the employees from the garage to other units in transportation and other city units at no additional cost. About 58% of our budget goes toward parking and enforcement.
Enforcement is the biggest driver also for sta salary and wages and the garages are the biggest driver for operating expenses. And then finally uh this slide shows uh the breakout of uh expenditures uh by uh
by appropriation. So you can see operating expenses represent about 20% 19% of our budget. salary and wages about 23%. Uh and
uh more than onethird of our budget goes uh to the city as a transfer to support uh other divisions. Uh meanwhile with with respect to revenue, we're getting about uh uh a little more than a third
of our revenue is coming from garages and parking lots. Uh we're getting about 13% from the previous year's surplus and about 31% from parking meter income. To wrap things up, we're
presenting you with what I would call a hold the line budget. We are doing everything we can to make this department more efficient and effective with existing resources. However, we are investigating opportunities to enhance revenues by expanding Sunday meters to the rest of the business district and by
increasing daily rates at the city's garages. As I said, these two measures would increase revenue by as much as 820,000 in a full year. With additional funds, we would be able to expand our microtransit services to evenings and weekends. We would be able to accelerate
our repaving program and launch the development of a citywide transportation uh model that would help us improve our management of impacts from on street construction and more effectively plan our network for all users. I want to thank you for your attention this
evening and I am happy to answer your questions. Thank you, director. Uh Councilman Russo. Thank you, Councilman. Um, director, you you made a comment about uh potentially a new employee
uh for uh planning to mitigate construction. Uh which I I I love the idea. However, isn't that really part of what our office of emergency management does? We work closely with emergency
management, with uh HPD's traffic uh division, and with the city engineer. uh it's it's a cooperative uh endeavor and uh what I would say is that uh transportation and parking is in a
position and has and and would bring the expertise to uh look at construction on a more citywide level and uh be prepared to plan and uh
mitigate the cumulative impact of construction that both uh public work and private development. So, uh we're seeing uh multiple projects uh that are occurring with a great deal
of adjacency and uh we need to be able to better manage the cumulative impacts of all of that work on the traffic network uh and on the quality of life of our residents.
Yeah. And and by all means, I I appreciate that and I agree with with the overall sentiment statement. However, I mean, and it's not tonight, but I know in emergency management, we're talking about a $150,000 increase
in salaries there, and in the city engineer, you're talking about um an increase of probably $30,000 there uh year-over-year. So, so my concern would be that we're
increasing in all those departments that you're suggesting for a need. Why are we not figuring out what department is going to handle that mitigation and only increase in that one
department or if in fact it has to be moved to your department then why are we not doing that? That that's my concern here. uh as I broke down most of these salaries after um our business administrator sent out the things I requested. I mean, we're looking at an increase in in those salaries and both
of those other departments for whatever reasons, but I'm assuming that that increased headcount or increased salary should be able to take care of that major concern of mitigating construction throughout the city because it has been a major concern as as we all know.
Well, what I would say is we we're all working together uh in in all of the units that I just described. And if we if we decided uh really working with the business administrator's office that the appropriate
uh division for a new a new engineer uh who who was focused primarily on construction was an OEM. uh I would support that. Uh I would expect to uh be able to work with that person and bring
my own personal expertise in construction coordination uh to bear and and uh uh to help uh that person get on the uh get their feet on the ground and uh do the best job uh
that we can for the city. Yeah, I I I appreciate that. And like I said, I mean, it goes back to our conversation earlier about our administration departments and and the finances of the city. You know, all these additional um increases increase our pension costs,
increase our health care costs, increase all these other things that we year over year say are things that we can't change, but in fact we can if we just plan a little bit ahead. And and I think this is one of those opportunities where if we're going to raise in a different
department, uh then we should make sure that you're utilizing that one individual or or whoever that may be in that department for the things that you need to mitigate those construction projects. The other uh big question that I have is uh we went to a Sunday
enforcement for parking in the city of Hoboken and uh in your slides you showed an increase in salary and wages um for that. Can you break down that uh expense
that we are incurring versus the revenue that we're uh reaping in the form of our Sunday enforcement? Um well I That's uh that's a difficult one for me to
answer, Councilman, because uh I I think it's actually a good practice that enforcement revenue does not go to my uh uh profit and loss. Uh so it's not something that
uh we're budgeting to. uh the the enforcement unit is under my supervision, but uh the the revenues uh really aren't aren't visible to me. Uh we we do pay attention to the
productivity of our of our officers uh to make sure that they're uh deployed effectively. Uh but we don't watch the uh the actual uh amount of revenue that they're bringing in.
What? That that concerns me. What? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Why? Why are the city does, but but I I I do not I am not uh I am not working towards a budgeted amount of enforcement
revenue. No, I I understand that. I and and I appreciate that because I've said this countless times that the city should not be this massive for-profit organization. our goal is and should always be to pay for the services that we provide and and not anything more
than that. Um, however, concerns me that you are not on top of what the revenue streams are in and again I I don't want to make that sound like you're not doing your job. I'm concerned that that's not your primary focus and someone outside
of the department is concerned about that more than you are. I think in every department each director should be on top of not only their expenses but their revenues. Right. Right. I think what I'm what I'm saying is can I just answer this
question? Go ahead. Councilman Russo, I think part of part of the reason why this is difficult for Director Weber to answer is because if HPU writes a ticket that's adjudicated through the court and we see
that as a separate stream of revenue where we don't have the same granularity or visibility into those receipts coming from the court. And if I could push back that on a little a little bit and I'm not talking about
just the dollar amount in the in the form of a summons. I'm talking about the revenues in the entire department. So sure I app I appreciate that you have that that differential there but we could always ascertain at least a
roundabout number for the prior year's um adjudications and the number of summones for the current year and we could come up with a roundabout number for budgetary purposes for those specific uh tickets and those summones.
So your point back a little bit there. Can I just jump in real quick? How about the the meter revenue itself, not the enforcement portion of it? How much are we gaining from the meters themselves? So, the the the meter revenue for Sun
Sunday meters just on Washington Street is about $4,000 uh per Sunday. So, that represents a little more than $200,000 a year. and our expenses were over
$200,000 according to your numbers. Uh the expenses for uh our our expenses for uh for um for the raises our expenses for uh
labor have been relatively flat except for the step price. I'm sorry, director, that that is not what you said. You said the increase was about $230,000 and you attributed that to our Sunday enforcement.
So, what you're telling me is we're we're making about $200,000 a year in in in revenues for that enforcement, but it's costing us more than the revenues were generating from the Sunday enforcement. Now, you you may have
misspoke and you may have the wrong numbers in front of you and and I'm fine if that's the case, but that's not what you said. What you said here tonight was that it's costing us more money to enforce on a Sunday than we are reaping the benefit of a revenue stream in that
in those meters. So I I understand I understand what you're saying. Uh I haven't I I'll be honest, I haven't thought about it the way that you're uh you're presenting it. Uh
and the the revenue maybe director maybe that's something you can look you could look into and report. Council let him finish. I I appreciate him being candid. No no but it does seem to me council that he only identified one revenue stream that comes from Sunday
enforcement which is the meters. the the uh the business administrator Russ suggested there would be tickets that be prosecuted through the court system as well. So it's just that's not the entire and and I don't thank you councilman. Um
I I don't have access to I I don't have access to the increment on enforcement from uh those uh you know from the tickets that are uh being written on
Sundays. uh we can we can look at that and we can get back to you on the specific amount of uh new ticket revenue we're getting from uh enforcement. We can we can get that from the court uh
the court system. So why don't you get that? We probably we probably should we probably should get it um because we approved that at some point last year, right? So it wasn't a full year. So my guess is if that revenue is going
through the courts and that's where it's sitting because that ticket revenue is not going through your budget, right? It's going through the courts. That's correct. That's that's why it's not it's not particularly visible to Wait, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm sorry. I I am absolutely sorry everybody. I didn't I was asking
specific questions and I appreciate everybody trying to jump in and cover up for the decisions that you all made to have a Sunday enforcement. But the reality is that what's been presented here tonight is something that I was fearful of from the beginning that it's
not going to reap any additional benefit to the city of Hoboken. It's just going to cause more strife and more concern for the residents who have to park in those areas. This is this is a this is a big issue for me. I mean I just had yesterday someone came up to me and and
he has there are so many things that residents in this city in this city are being taxed upon. Whether you call it a fee or you call it an additional uh cost for a permit or you call it an additional day of of enforcement,
whatever that may be. We continue to tax and tax and tax some more in the form of every one of those things. Whether it's fees, increased in increased amounts of of um ticketing, whether that's
increased costs for parking, whether that's an HBA tax or an open space tax, it is all indicative of an increase to our residents. So, I appreciate everybody jumping in and trying to cover this as fast as they they possibly can,
but I appreciate director that you've been very candid and that there are some things that have come to light in this conversation and I really wish that you could get all that information to us. So, now everybody else could have at it and you could all say what you need to say, but I appreciate it. So, let me let
me clarify. No one's trying to cover it. I think we're trying to get to a similar place um which is when we originally approved Sunday parking, we were told that um we needed the revenues, right?
We needed the net revenues, the net, you know, positive revenues uh for our budget. We talked about the cost of doing it, but we assumed that the revenues were going to significantly exceed the cost. So I think we should understand if that is the case and keep
in mind that we we got Sunday revenues anyway before when people didn't realize parking was free on Sundays. So we have a starting point of Sunday revenues from the meters that we should look at. We should look at the Sunday the uh meter revenue we get now. The point I was
making about the um the tickets is typically I don't I just don't know um Director Stratton if when you guys budgeted out the municipal court fees revenue for this did you look at the the
fact that there was only like a half year or whatever it was for the Sunday um the Sunday ticketing. So, if we ended up having or Sunday meters. So, if we ended up having tickets for only, let's say it was $100,000 for 6 months, are we
do we only have $100,000 in potential revenue this year um in the budget or really should that be 200,000? And that number should be higher. It actually be more like 400,000. So, we would take we would take first quarter actuals and extrapolate them out through the budget.
Um and I think and you already did that then. I think that answers your question and the answer to it is yes. Okay. But going back to what Councilman Russo said, if we can't demonstrate that the meter revenues doesn't cover the
costs of of enforcement on Sundays, we should revisit that. I understand. We will. Yeah. And and let me and let me just also say I'm not looking to cover anything up here. I just wanted I just wanted this to be accurate. and uh and
councilman Russo made a conclusion that the numbers didn't add up without having all the numbers and that was the only point that I was making that there are other numbers. The other point I would make is that we didn't strictly make this decision based on revenues. We also made this made this decision based on
the fact that we wanted to support our businesses having turnover and people were using Washington Street as a parking lot on Sundays in front of and we only limited this to our business district where we had active businesses. We did not have uh the entire uh city.
We had just a portion of our business district where the stores are open for business on Sunday. Uh and that by having turnover it actually helped our businesses as well. So, it was not strictly a revenue discussion. It was uh but any case uh I will turn it over to
Councilman Cana. He had his hand up and he hasn't had a chance to speak on this. Yeah, I'm just Councilman Cohen, you stole most of my thunder there, but uh you know uh as an older uh person, my memory goes, so I I don't exactly
remember um if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall the primary motivator for the Sunday enforcement being the turnover aspect of it. Uh with with the rest being kind of uh mitigating efforts, things that would help. uh as we talk
about any of the fees associated I forget who said it on on the line um uh you know we don't want we're not intending to be a for-profit entity we are a government uh we are not uh a for-profit entity and anytime we're looking at fees associated with anything
it's never to turn a profit it's never to uh to um you know uh uh reap that financial benefit but it's to defay costs to to try to cover try to cover expenses as best we can um so that we
don't have to uh burden our community in other ways whether it be a tax levy or something like that right and so and so I think that um for sure we should get the numbers we should understand uh if if the uh you know Sunday enforcement is
a huge net losser from a financial perspective because then it then we look at the situation and say hey is it worth dipping into this expense so that uh so that we and you know maintain that increased uh turnover at those curves. You know, I think that's a legit
question to ask, but I think for me at the time, the primary motivator wasn't the increased revenue. It was that was a plus. Uh but the primary motivator was to help our businesses to increase that turnover so people didn't use Washington Street uh as a parking lot on Sundays.
Hey, Councilman Cano, Councilman President President. Yeah, I I I'd be curious to ask Councilman Russo, do you know what our or have you been alerted to what our intake from the court system has been uh
as of recent? Because uh without calling you out on it, we've seen a substantial increase on from the courts. Uh it's something I monitor regularly and that's up been up substantially. I don't know if that's
coming from more enforcement on garbage regulations, rat regulations, or parking regulations. So, I think this is kind of a a little bit of a conundrum to clearly answer the question, and I'm not trying to defend anybody here. I'm just saying I understand there's there's revenue
sources coming in from all different places. And, you know, maybe some of that revenue that's coming from the courts is from Sundays. Maybe it is from having those those workers there. Now at the some some point if it's a parking meter parking meter runs
itself the that is revenue that comes in from us. If the parking attendant gives a ticket that goes into the court system. So that's where some revenue that we don't you know is kind of fudgy. Uh so you know I I'm not trying to
defend anyone here. I'm just saying that it's about 250 to 300,000 and our fine court costs have gone or court revenue has increased probably since the beginning of the year, even towards the end of last year. Yeah. So, the the only thing I would say
to you, Councilman, is you have to compare apples to apples, right? This isn't this isn't ticketing for garbage. This isn't ticketing for other things. This is ticketing specific to a Sunday meter, right?
That's all that's all we're talking about. So, if we're going to dig into the cost, you need to dig into specific citations specific to the meters in that zone, not across the entire city, in that specific zone. Right? So, if
there's been an increase overall in ticketing across the city, that has nothing to do with Sunday enforcement on Washington Street. I'll use a statistic that I think Council Marissa will just kind of end this argument and we can move on. 80 I
think, and correct me if I'm wrong, uh, Director Weber, almost 85% of the parking on Washington Street is out of town parkers. It's roughly around there from what I remember in our presentation. Is that correct? Uh, that sounds that sounds about right.
On a Sunday. Yes. Yeah, that's we were told. That's I remember that as well. Okay. So, so what does what does that have to do with the dollar and cents of it?
Whether it's somebody from the city of Hoboken, somebody outside the city of Hoboken. If we're if we're hindering 15% of the parkers that are city residents and we're not making money on this endeavor, why are we doing it? Now,
there's been some there's been some the core of your question is what are the expenses and what's the revenue? Yeah, absolutely. That that that has been my concern from the beginning, right? And and just and also what is the what has been the effect on turnover?
And turn turnover for me is is is a non-issue, director, but I understand it's an issue for others. If if it's a two-hour if it's a 2-hour meter, it should be a two-hour meter, there should be enforcement on that turnover regardless of the um regardless of of
the cost. That's that's one. Two, I had a couple other questions that um I just had for you, director. You made a statement of on street parking, off streetet parking. What were those numbers again? How many on street parking spaces do do we uh account for?
We have we have about 9,000 on street uh space equivalents. So that's uh that's encompassing all of the uses that we have at the current. Okay. And
and off streetet how many? Uh about 3,000. About 3,000. And then how many private parking spaces do we have in the city? That is an excellent question that uh we
are trying to get to the bottom of that. The the private garages are not regulated by uh my department. No, I I I know they're not. And and I asked this question of your your predecessor and and he had a number um and I just can't remember it off the top of my head. So
there may be some staff members who remember that or who could dig up that uh research that he did. Um so when you get it just um just let me know. And then how many cars are in the city of Hoboken? Do we know? Do we have a do we have a count?
Uh I can get that number to you. I don't I don't have it at my fingertips, but uh I I know that we have we have about 12,000 residential parking permits. Uh
and there are uh uh that's that's a number that continues to puzzle me uh in some ways. Uh but I think at least part of it is uh people who park off street but nevertheless get a uh an RPP because
it uh provides a discount for metered parking. So and it also is a convenience uh when they want to uh park on street in front of their building for a short time. So, we have, according to your numbers, we
have enough parking spaces that are controlled by the city of Hobok and 9,000 on street, 3,000 off street for the exact amount of residential stickers that we we allocate year-over-year. So,
we have enough parking spaces for those vehicles. I I wasn't saying that because the uh we we don't see as much overlap with the uh people who are in the public garages.
Uh and those public uh garages are not no uh fully Yeah, I I I understand what you're saying, but but I'm saying as far as pure numbers, we have 12 12,000 spaces and we issue 12,000 resident stickers. They may not be the same people, but the
numbers are the same. Correct. Uh yes. And then you have you have other people who are paying for off- streetet parking and you have uh in the public garages and you have people who uh are paying for private parking uh in a
private garage. Right. So when you get So Yep. So when you get me the number of cars and you get me the number of private parking spaces, uh I'd like to do an analysis of all the cars in the city of Hoboken to the number of parking spaces in the city of Hoboken. That's
why I asked the question. I like to know if if there is enough parking in the city to accommodate every car that's actually in the city. Uh and that's been something that I I kind of u want to know. So if you could get those to me, I would greatly appreciate that. And then
this this question, this last one is is for you, but it's really for everybody, and it's something that's been missing in our um our presentations here tonight. Every year, we get an organizational chart for each department. Uh and then I usually and
then I usually ask the administration to provide an overall organizational chart as well. So, if uh Caleb, if you could do that for each department and then those that would present to us in our next meeting um to make sure that they
include that in their slide deck, I would greatly appreciate that per department and then an overall organizational chart as well with the number of of headcount in the city. I I would add um I would add to that that typically in the past we get these
org charts and it has in there how the number of staffing has changed. So if we're down one in a department it says minus one. If we're up one it's plus one. So we can have a better sense of comparing like last year's budget with
this year's budget. And that that's something that we had we've had every single year. Um I think last year they removed it for some reason. I don't know why but especially given the the strains on our budget right now. I think that level
of you know understanding of each one of our departments um is important. So the year-over-year staffing changes is easier for our department heads to address. The entire organization chart will take something for me to work on and respond to the entire council. I
think if you just I think have but I think if you just have each one of the department heads create a staffing chart at least for each department you know that is a starting point and we can worry about you know the overall city at a later date. Um but to Mike's point I
think at the next meeting we should have it for especially public safety given that number is just moving all over the place. We should have what you know what the numbers headcount was in the budget last year what the headcount you know is in the budget this year and we should be able to see those differences in every
one of the departments. Well tax director of fanti right now start working well not just him I mean it's all all of them. Um well Chris Brown is a little more straightforward and Jen's listening. So yeah. So is um but it would be great in advance of that one to have these these departments have it um
as well. I know the clerk's office is low, but um and the other thing just going back to what Mike was saying about um the total number of cars, etc. So, just a couple things. One is I don't think Mike you can do the um 3,000 plus
9,000 equals 12,000 because um that's math though. What' you say? I said that's math though. No, no, no. you there there were 12,000 residential permits, but remember we also have the however number of monthly uh parkers in
all of the garage that have to be added onto that plus all of the regular day parkers that would have to be added onto that. So, it's not really an apples and apples unless you actually account for all of the existing uses in the 3000. Um, so I think you'll see that our, you
know, the 12,000 residential permits plus all of that exceeds our 9,000 um, parking spots and our 3,000 um, parking spaces in the garage. And second, as it relates to the private parking, um, you should talk to the HBA. They had an inventory of private parking garages.
You know, they did a couple years ago. Um, it may be slightly stale, but at least it has all the one all the big ones that exist. Um and second that park private parking was actually what the um Kimley Horn was supposed to do as part of their overall scope on what the
existing conditions are. And we've had this conversation with Ryan. I've had it, you know, multiple times that we cannot just look at the public parking garages in Hoboken. We have to look at the inventory of all a available parking in Hoboken. We we just can't look at the
public garages in isolation. And we have to do that inventory. We have to keep track of the inventory. We just have to be on top of it and know, you know, all that information. And if it's in our or if we don't get that information and we need to change our ordinance to require that they give us reporting on number of
spaces and whatever we need to get, then just tell us we will change our ordinance and we will require all local parking garages um that would have to provide, you know, basic information. But that that was something Kimly Warren was supposed to do and they didn't. Uh uh Rod, can you please uh have
Councilman Do be admitted as a panelist? Somehow he's got bumped off and he doesn't I've tried to allow him in twice. I don't know what the issue is. All right. Well, I'll just say that he is online and listening even though he may not appear to the community. So, he
just wanted me to share that with whoever whoever's watching. Jim is here. So, I'm sorry. Councilwoman, I appreciate your position on on that. I think it's just a difference of how I want to approach parking in the city
of Hoboken versus how we are currently approaching parking in the city of Hobok. And I don't I don't disagree with you to say that there are other people who come into Hoboken to park for purposes of commuting or visiting our our our businesses or whatever that may
be. I agree with you to say that there's other factors involved, but to start, I'd like to know how many parking spaces there are and how many cars there are in the city of Hoboken. And then those other factors will be factored into that
equation. That's that's why I asked the question. So, I don't discount what you're saying. Uh it's just a different approach and in how I look at things. So, I don't I actually don't think our approaches um were different. And I I was just saying that you have to you have to kind of add the monthly parkers
at the very least, people that live in Hoboken that just park in in the municipal garages that may or may not have a residential permit. Um I just think we need to incorporate incorporate that into um the analysis. The other thing too of the 3,000
remember that um 916 is out of commission. So that's about 300 spots. And I think where are we on? Midtown is down, is it 40% or something? So we're down a couple hundred spots um at Midtown right now. So we're really not
operating with 3,000. We're operating at like 2500. And clearly with plans for GarageB and plans for the hospital, you know, we potentially wipe out another 1,500 at the same time. So um you know, we should factor all that in as well.
Okay, thank you. Uh I believe that is it for the council. Uh we still have a little more than half an hour before nine o'clock which is the schedule for tonight. Uh and it is now time for the members of the public. If there are members of the public who would like to
participate, have questions and comments, please raise your hand. uh and you will be acknowledged and admittedly hopefully more successfully than council president uh to participate. Currently there
nobody has hands up in the uh Manuel Rivera. We saw it. There it is. Manny, uh you've been recognized. Rod, can you uh have Manuel Rivera enter so we can speak?
Manny, you you should be able to speak now. Uh thank you very much, uh council vice president, members of the council, members of the public, uh everyone who's presenting, the directors. Uh it was a very uh I would
say, wow, it's it was very informative. I was going to say another word, but I'm I'm going to just use informative. Um I prefer better last year's um format where we were able to ask the questions as the presenters were doing it. But of
course um that would be me. But um I have concerns here. Um I've heard council member uh Russo made a lot of interesting um concerns. I would hope that members of the public um who feel as he does can also see um the the
information that was requested um in regards to the Sunday enforcement. Um it is and I was looking at the chart as the director of transportation was presenting it where um
the amount of overtime versus the pay is almost equal and that I don't know where where in there the enforcement would be because if it's if it makes no sense again I see that we don't want
Washington Street and 14th Street to be garages and I particularly believe they would be because people would move their cars. But um I just I just feel uncomfortable with that with that uh amount of money being um used and um it
it makes no sense to have no revenue really erased by by enforcement. So um if you can rectify that or if you can check that in your negotiations and in your um reviews, uh council members, members of the public would appreciate that. in regards to as well. These are
just you don't have to answer them. These are just um comments and and and and uh things that are necessary to have said here. Um, and I'll be brief because I know I believe I have five minutes, but um I don't know if I have five minutes, but uh nonetheless um as well
as um in personnel I'm going now back if there's members of the public still listening to the beginning where where council corporate council was discussing um the the personnel that there is just maybe one new hire in that um particular
department um to deal perhaps with the outside legal issues. uh members of the public like to understand how would that affect this budget or is that just a projection for for next year's budget meaning um we have one more uh lawyer
one more lawyer to handle every other thing that comes in um uh to our city. I was just mentioned that um something came up federally today which I'm surprised it took this long um for the federal government to to uh do legal action to Hoboken. um also in the
clerk's office once again um the personnel to handle um open requests if if I heard correctly in in all the presentations that there are ways that some employees within the city's uh
departments uh could perhaps if they have the training or the expertise to do some work in the clerk's office maybe to offset um uh you know uh Hey, we could also maybe move somebody there uh to
help us out to to lower that cost. Um I mean there there are many uh uh people in there and again everybody is working their hardest and we appreciate them but we're talking budgets, dollars and cents as Mr. Russo said before, Councilman Russo said before and Council Member um
Fischer. So those are the concerns and also I have another one which I remember from last year that I asked a question and a a uh council member uh then president uh Gentino my sixword council woman who is again we
should honor her she's not here um but she made efforts to explain to members of the public um in regards to when sanitation in the garages um especially the revenue that we get in the recycling versus the cans and the the the uh
cardboard or the paper. Um that wasn't uh specifi specified tonight. Um if again in your conversations you could also look into that and let members of the public understand uh how how uh that revenue is um being offset with with
cost. And uh with that council vice president uh I believe that uh there were more points I wanted to make but that's all I wrote down that I could remember at this moment. But um I thank you all for your time. may thank the the department heads for their time and their patience and again I hope we can
get this budget um within a reasonable range so that uh the Hoboken residents are not burdened any further. With that I say good evening and God bless you all. Thank you uh council vice president. Thank you Manny and uh and
there will be another budget workshop on Tuesday the 27th. Uh so if you think of a question that you wanted to ask tonight, uh you'll have another opportunity to do that at the end of that one as well. Manny, uh uh I don't
see anyone else from members of the public who have their hands up right now. Just give them another minute or so. Uh uh but I don't see anyone else who's who who would like to speak. So, I I guess I I would like to thank the members of the public for attending this evening's uh
presentation. I'd like to thank uh the directors uh and the business administrators who shared uh this their information this evening. And there's a number of outstanding questions uh from council members that we'll look forward to getting answers to. Uh and uh we will
we will reconvene again uh after Memorial Day weekend on Tuesday evening 6 pm. leave the same uh Zoom dial in for all of us. So, uh uh so with that, I'm I'm going to uh I guess we don't need a
motion to adjurnn, but do we need a motion to adjurnn? All right, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. Second. I I Thanks everyone. Good night everyone. Have a nice holiday weekend everybody. Byebye. You too.
What do you do?