WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 2
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=sKsJJYSDRGA
Video-2: youtube.com/watch?v=zO0SHol7UKM

Part: 1

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--------- This is a budget hearing for the city clerk's office and municipal council with the Jersey City Municipal Council. We had a scheduled 10 a.m. start and the clock on my cell phone is showing [snorts] 10:07 a.m. We have a roll call for the

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commencement of this meeting. Council person Brooks >> here. >> Council person Zupa. >> Council person Efro >> here. Council person Little here. >> Council person Gilmore,

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Council Person Singh here, >> Council Person Griffin, >> Council Person Lamaro >> here, [clears throat] >> Council President Wrigley >> here. Okay, we have six council members in attendance at 10:07

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a.m. In addition, at the time of this preparation, the notice of this meeting was similarly disseminated on Friday, July 17, 2026 at 3 p.m. to the mayor, municipal council, business administrator, corporation council, and

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to the local newspapers so that I can certify as to the total compliance with the sunshine law. At this time, I'll turn it over to the council president. >> Good morning, everyone. Uh, welcome to day two of budget hearings. Uh, this

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session is for our city clerk's office and the council office. And this morning, I will lead this budget hearing. Uh, we will start with the council office. And uh as in normal

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fashion, our council administrator usually presents on the council budget. So we have a new council administrator this year, Billy Wilson. This is his first time presenting. Be nice to him. Not [laughter] >> that the first round of applause.

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[laughter] >> And I will hand it over to Mr. Wilson. I'll ask that we um in the same fashion as yesterday allow him to get through his presentation. If there are any questions uh then we will take those at the end and we will do our best to be

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respectful of each other uh as we're asking questions. So I'll hand it over to you Billy or >> can we put the Oh, there it is. Oh no, not on our screen. >> One second Billy. They're putting the um presentation on our screen.

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Okay, we see it. >> Okay. Good morning, Council President and the rest of the members of the city council. My name is Billy Wilson, the council administrator, and I'm here to present the 2026 budget.

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We're going to start with the overview of the municipal council office. Uh the council office is made up of nine city council members almost 30 a I think 29 to be exact. We

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hope to hire a legislative advisor this year to um provide legal and procedural guidance. We we also have in the office the council administrator and the receptionist

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Go to the next slide. And here we have the organizational chart. You see at the top we have the council president. Branching off from her office is myself, the council administrator, uh the receptionist and her aids for her

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office, her three aids. And then you see the rest of the council members and their aids [clears throat] under them. Please go to the next slide. Uh our budget analysis for this year.

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You will see uh our salary and wages and also our operating expenses have decreased significantly from last year to this year. And salary and wages alone is over a million dollar a million dollar decrease

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from what was adopted last year to what is introduced today. in 2026. So far, the city council has sponsored over 50 resolutions and ordinances, attended over a dozen ribbon cutings for

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local Jersey City businesses, participated in over 20 flag raisins, officiated more than a dozen wedding ceremonies, and currently serving on 19 boards and committees citywide.

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The city council has also attended several city and community events including the police unity tour, grand opener of the Michael Yun municipal service center, St. Patrick's Day parade, read across America, and Roberto

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Clemente opening day parade. Next slide. Here you'll see uh the budget trend for the past four years of the council. You'll see in 2023 we had adopted a

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budget of 3.8 million and in 2024 just over 3.5 million and just last year it was 3.8 million but this year in 2026 we're all the way down 2.8 million.

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>> [clears throat] >> And on this page, you'll see the voluntary cost savings by the council office that include salary and wages decrease of over a million, a council stipen decrease of over $20,000

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and the special events decrease at $15,000. Total savings of $1,146,900. Next slide. And now we can open up for questions and discussion. >> Council,

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any questions on your budget [laughter] >> or any comments? If not, >> no, sorry. Thank you Billy for present. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry Sean. Uh thank you for

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presenting it. And um I have just one question. You have mentioned salary and wages decreased. Can you please talk more about it? Well, last year I think adopted it was over 300k per

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council member in for each council member to have for aids that was adopted into the budget and then this year it will only be uh 175k adopt introduced for each council member for their aids.

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So I think that's a big the largest portion of the decrease that we see there. >> Make a note for the public so that it's it's clear that there's a difference between the adopted uh budget of last year and the expended budget of last

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year though. Um so I just want to be okay. Thank you Sean. I'll do better with my mic. difference between the adopted budget of last year and the expended budget of last year. Um where the expended budget was 120k to 150k per

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council office if I'm not mistaken. Um and we have agreed to work with 175k for this year to make sure that we can staff up our offices as much as possible while being really considerate of the budget crisis. We just have so many problems in

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in Jersey City that our council offices are responsible for dealing with and as it is. Um I I'll speak for myself. Our our council aids just working incredibly hard and are underst staffed, but we understand that uh this [clears throat] is maybe not the year 2026 when we're

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going to go to the full $300,000 uh per council office that we are entitled to by state law. Um so I just wanted to make that note for the public. um anyone noticing discrepancies between some of what administration has uh pointed to in terms of the numbers and

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what we're pointing to in this presentation. So, thank you Billy for laying that out. I also just wanted to ask about um some of the the line item discrepancies. Uh if you don't mind just uh walking

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through some of the 2025 adopted um numbers like office supplies um and uh meal and food expenses and things versus the 2026 draft because you know we are um we are lowering those

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significantly. So if you can just explain um how we're doing with with those supplies and those other expenses how we're making do. And I'll let Billy uh explain that, but I wanted to piggyback off of what uh Councilman Efro said because I do want to let the

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council know that um I don't see anybody here this morning from finance, but um I am having a conversation with finance because all the years that I've been here, we introduce the budget with the full amount of our office even though we

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never spend it. in this budget, it is um being introduced with the actual spend amount. Um and um so I have some concerns about that about what is the right way uh accounting wise that we're supposed to do that. And additionally, I

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don't want to make it appear that if we are um doing something different next year that the council is increasing their budget when they're really not. Um so I know that can be a little confusing. So, I just want to uh have that discussion

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with finance. And then you mentioned um the 2026 draft. So, this is something that's also different this year. Um the budget belongs to the council. So, typically you don't really see changes um from the administration in our budget

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because we aren't a department of the administration. This year, the administration decided to make their changes to our budget. Um so what you see in the draft column is what uh the administration is proposing that we change. >> Thank you.

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>> I can make one other comment >> in regard to uh the question of salaries and wages for council and staff. Um so if you recall and I want to thank the business administrator's office um I requested

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2025 extended numbers and 2026 expended numbers and received that. Um, and so the applesto apples comparison of uh salary and wages for city council and I don't know if it went to everybody. I just got that last night um yesterday

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afternoon and um we'll make sure it goes to everybody. Um but the amount expended in 2025 for full-time salaries was 1,344,551. Um, in 2026, uh, by comparison, our expended budget

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for full-time is $925,447. Um, by comparison, our part-time salaries and wages um for municipal council are last year 577,193. This year paid to date $245,785. So whether we're comparing introduced

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budgets or actual expenditures, the council's numbers come in considerably lower than in 2025. Um which again just for me points to the idea that kind of the unfair comparison to even intimate or suggest or imply that somehow this

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this council is being less than judicious and being as uh prudent with our dollars as far as goes to staffing and salaries and wages. Sorry, Councilman Rolando. I have a question about council salary. So you are So we

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are this year you said 555 something like that last year. >> Last year for part-time staff the expended amount was $577,193. >> You you talked about council salary from

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last year to this year. What has been changed this year? So we have not spent that money. >> I don't have the detail on that. I just have the numbers of how >> I see. Because salary haven't changed. We are receiving what previous uh council was receiving. So how did we save that money?

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>> That means council members aren't spending. So you have a threshold for part-time staff as I recall the the the salaries range from 15,000 for part-time staff to 35,000. I know for my my part in my team um most of them have come in

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at the lower end of that uh uh that range and the same thing for full-time staff right I have um a full-time staff member and just added one more um but um uh in in in our case my full-time staffer comes in at the lower end which

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I believe is from 50,000 maybe I'm wrong there to 75,000 um is the range and so I can only imagine and spec it's complete speculation my that other council members either maxed out their number of aids and um and the

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amount of money allocated to them um or or they uh used the number just they just expended to the the maximum amount that they were allowed to at that time and so there their numbers are coming in higher and some other council members are coming in lower by coming in with lower salary ranges and expending less.

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Did you also mention uh council salary there was >> Yeah, the council salaries for full-time. Um so that would also include our full-time aids but also include us as council members. The expended amount was $1,344,551

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in 2025. By comparison in 2026, we're at 925,447. >> That's that's year-to date, correct? >> Year-to date expenditures. be just 7 months. >> Yeah. No, they're year-to- date. I assume this is year-to- date for 2025

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compared to 2026 year to date. I mean, I could be wrong on that, but >> that that that's my question. Are you talking about 2026 or you're just talking about yearto date? So, that's seven months. >> So, that's not that's not the right

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comparison. A couple things I'd like to point out for the benefit of the public. Um, last year the council did budget their full 300,000 for per office for salary and aids as is allowed under state law. They did not

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spend it all. They voluntarily saved some of it so that they could pay they could move money around at the end of the year to pay the police overtime. Um, that was that was the biggest portion of it. um because the police were regularly

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going above and beyond um what they were budgeted for overtime. Now this year, new administration um the the police and fire have both been working to reduce their overtime spending and we saw that yesterday and

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um the the administration has also budgeted more for overtime spending because it's a more accurate estimate. the previous administration would regularly underestimate um what was required for overtime spending and then um police and fire

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would or or I'm not sure about fire but uh definitely police would regularly go over that budgeted amount. So there was some accounting gimmicks going on where the council like money would be moved at the end of the year from the council pot

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into the police overtime pot. Um and and that is why that is one source of the discrepancies. Um you know I'm also just out of speculation, you know, I can speak for myself because we were not certain how much funding we would get

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for AIDS. Um I only hired one aid um up until May. I I was operating on a on an office of one up until May. And so that's you know that's a third of the year. And um I I now have two full-time

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aids and one part-time aid, but um you know, a third of the year I was only I only had one employee. So that will reduce the overall year spending. And I I think others are similar. They waited until they found out how much money we were going to have um in the

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budget before making their hires. >> Correct. And I feel like Oh, go ahead. I was just going to you're you're correct, Councilwoman, saying I don't I don't actually know that that 2025 expended number I just assumed it was uh apples to apples, but it may not be. It might

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be that that might be a 12-month expend >> expenditure. Um and so I I'll have to redo that analysis to be able to like figure out whether or not that's uh >> Thank you for clarifying, Councilman. And I feel like I kind of intercepted

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Councilman Efos's question and uh we might not have answered everything. Um so I'm going to circle back now and allow Billy to walk us through some of those uh other expenses because I know uh that's what Councilman Efos had a

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question about. So, Billy, if you would just look at the other expenses uh line items and tell I guess go through each and say what the 2025 adopted um amount was, what we requested for 2026 and what the administration is

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proposing. >> Okay. So for other expenses in 2025, what was adopted was $15,000. In 2026, we requested the same $15,000.

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The administration is proposing a $5,000 cut in that area to $10,000. So far, we expended in that category almost $7,000 to date. And

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>> and that was the office supplies line. >> The next other expense line. Oh, you mean other the other expenses is what um office supplies actually what I just what I just was covering. So the next line will be other expenses

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where last year we budgeted 27,000 and this year we requested the same 27,000 and where the administration is suggesting that line item be cut to $3,500.

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So far we expended in that category $3,120.91. Um you could you explain uh what some of the other expenses are um because I we get council stipens, vehicle stipens. I believe my office has not accepted those

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um given the budget crisis, but I yeah, if you could share what what are those other expenses that are other expenses is a category used for community outreach by each council office. Each council office is allotted up to $3,000

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that they may use for community outreach. I know some officers use it for hosting senior events or buying supplies that they may need to host their events, you know, such as I know

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some office purchase bingo items that they may play bingo with senior citizens and they maybe buy supplies for gatherings that they may host for other uh senior events around the city as well. So things of that nature. Right.

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Great. Thank you. Oh, next next line item would be 299, the special events category. Last year it was adopted at 15,000. This year we requested the same 15,000 and the administration suggests to eliminate

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that line item. We have expended zero dollars in that category so far. The next line item will be um meal and food expenses. Last year the budget was adopted at $20,000. This year the same

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$20,000 were was requested and the administration is opposing almost a $12,000 cut in that area. Expended so far this year has been $6,841.35 and petty cash has been eliminated this

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year. That that's the end of that category. >> President, can I ask? Yeah, go ahead. >> Can I um Sorry. Can I um add something just to explain the administration's changes to the spreadsheet or would you

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like to wait until >> me? Yeah, you can. >> Okay. Um so, uh my understanding from the finance department is that we adjusted the um budget to 175,000 for

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the the council's office. um based on the actuals spent last year um which is consistent with what we did with every other department um in [clears throat] the city's budget. So that's answering maybe part of that question and then the

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other part in terms of um cutting expenses. I believe this was discussed with the council's office but um some of the the expenses were reduced um understanding that the council also has quarterly expense stipens so that was

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going to offset it. I just wanted to clarify to the first part I understand um why it says 175 but we've never done that in the past. So, I just from a a finance and from a budgeting standpoint, I just want to make sure that that's the

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proper way for us to do it. Um, we don't have any intention of spending over that. Uh, but in the past, we haven't spent. We agreed to a number and we stuck to that number, but the budget showed the full legally allotted line item. Um, and as Councilwoman Little

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said, our budget was frequently used for other stuff, right? Because clearly we didn't spend it. Um, so I just want to make sure that we're doing that the correct way. And then for the changes that the administration proposed, those were

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never discussed with me. Um, so we can discuss those changes offline and I think there is room where the council is uh amendable to some of those line items like special events was a carryover from the previous year. That's always in our

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budget. The council doesn't do special events like we're fine with that. >> Council President, I actually want to know what does it mean special event? When we talk about special event, >> we don't we usually don't have special events. So that's something that was in the budget from last year. We kept it in

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case the at the beginning of the year is when we submit the um [clears throat] our proposed budget, right, for the office. So, at the beginning of the year, we looked at the budget from 2025. Um, actually, it was submitted before we

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even got in office because last year's council president submitted the 2026 request. And then I went through it and so if there was any changes that needed to be made, like there were some changes to uh the salary for our receptionist as she needed her union increase. Um, we

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made some changes for the council admin, but we pretty much just kept everything that was in there. So special events was in there already. We just kept it. But we really don't do any special events with the council. So like certain things we can um remove, but we just didn't

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have that conversation with the administration before we got this budget. The questions. Okay. Good job, Billy. I will hand it over to the clerk's office. >> Okay. I'm Sean Gallagher. I'm your city

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clerk. Thank you, council president, members of the council for having me. Uh, basically what we do, we're a statutoily mandated office serving all Jersey City residents through the records, elections, and vital record services.

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Manage the city's records retention program and archives. We receive and process all OPER requests. Uh I serve as the secretary to the governing body. We do agendas, minutes, ordinances, resolutions, custodian of

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all of the municipal seal and all official records. Also the registar of vital records and that includes birth, marriage, deaths, civil unions, domestic partnerships, and administrating all municipal elections. I make it sound like it's a little, but

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it's a whole lot and we're not a large staff. Um, what we've accomplished so far, uh, we've we're on pace to set a record for OPER requests. We have currently 3,521

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OPER requests that we received and processed. vital records. We processed 3,761 birth certificates and 456 death certificates issued and marriages. Uh 758 marriage

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applications and 1,760 certificates issued, which basically equals out to 10,256. So last year we did 6,000 OPER requests. We're on pace to break that record. um

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and vital records and marriages. Uh again, that's another part of our office that um is very busy non-stop. Birth records have uh that was a large undertaking back in 2022 and we've been

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um steaming forward ever since then, but with a small staff. So the proposed budget, next slide, breakdown of our proposed 2026 spending category personnel 1,26,543. That includes three placement hires

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backfilling retirees. Um just so you know, the city of Newark has 50 employees, including the clerk. We currently have 12, including me. Um we're down three employees. uh 2025 I

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had one transfer out of the office, one retire and this year I had one terminated due to the layoffs contracts um proposed 130,000. This includes our court stenographer or

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municipal code which is MUN code. Um what else am I leaving out John? So >> we have um [clears throat] our vital records platform Unidex. >> Unidex. Yeah. >> And uh we also have uh smaller service contracts. For example, we have a

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microfich reader and that needs maintenance and service etc. So we could look up old vital records on microfich. >> Okay. And then the other is proposed 54,313

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election supplies overtime and more. Our total proposed 2026 budget is 1,230,856. Next slide. What we have already cut personnel. I explained before we're down 83,000.

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Uh that includes one personnel reduction in 2026 and partial personnel savings from 2025's cut. The contracts uh down 75K. Um, we did not pursue the contract with Hudson Community Enterprises. That's due

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to the scanning of our minutes. But right now, we have minutes, ordinances, and resolutions scanned from 1861 to >> 1988. >> Say it again. >> 1988.

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>> 1988. So eventually we're going to have minutes, resolutions, and ordinances on our website from 1861 to present. I don't think there's not one municipality in the state of New Jersey that has that kind of range.

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>> They will be searchable by keyword function. >> Um the other cut was 20,000 in reduced departmental overtime. Next slide. Looking ahead,

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uh, new revenue streams or core savings ideas. We're raising all the fees associated with the office of the city clerk. So that's certified copy fees. Um, we can't raise the marriage license fees because that's a state um statute set fee, but all the certified copy fees

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we raised uh with that last ordinance that uh the council just adopted. Um so that will help us down the road and help us pay for our certified paper that we use to uh to um produce certified copies

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of uh vital records which is very costly. The paper is we have to buy it from the state. We can only buy it from the state. Um we want to focus on customer service. Uh I want to have an intense customer service training for

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not just my office but for the entire city. anyone who deals with members of the public. Uh customer service is the number one priority in my office. We're a front-facing office. Usually when no one knows where to go, they usually come to our office and we usually guide them.

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So I think it's important to have um customer service training not just for my office but the entire city. But I think we should start with city hall first. Um that's basically it. I'm open to any questions that you guys may have.

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You have the numbers. Sorry Sean, you have been teaching me for last seven months. Um these numbers with 12 employees. I don't know how do you guys do it. So thank you so much. You it is such a

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efficient office. We request something and within 24 hours we receive documents from you guys. So, thank you to everyone working in city clerk's office. Um, I have when you talk about membership and

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subscription, I'm assuming you are talking about line item 306, you're talking about the subscription for software. So, we [clears throat] have um the Hudson County Municipal Clerks Association that the three of us are

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members of. And when I say the three of us, not just me, but my deputy John Halanin, who's next to me, and my deputy Amanda Bransky, who is conducting overseeing the meeting. Uh we're also members of the municipal the state agency, which is the municipal clerk's

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association. Uh we're also part of the registars association, which is a CMR. Um all of these associations have fees and dues and that's what that line item is for. >> I would also point out that um in order

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for those of us first of all everyone in our office has a CMR which stands for certified municipal registar certificate uh clerk myself and Amanda the other clerk uh deputy clerk. We also have RMC's, which stands for registered

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municipal clerk certificates. In order to maintain your CMR and your RMC, you have to take continuing education classes and pay for a license renewal. So, um, for the first time, unfortunately, the state also instituted

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a payment process for CMRs. So, now you actually have to pay to It used to be that the CMR exam was free. Anyone could take free classes online and take the exam. Now you have to pay for the CMR renewal. So that is a statemandated

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uh imposition that we have to abide by. All members of our office because we handle both vital and government records have to have a CMR. So the state has imposed additional financial obligations on us to try and uh compel cities to

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keep their staff uh compliant and so we have to pay additional subscription fees. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, John. And again, without a great staff, you don't have a good clerk. So, like you said, um I wouldn't be able to get it

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all done without my staff. And these are my two MVPs. It's my right and left hands. Um without them, I don't know what I would do. Um but, uh you know, we're a very small unit. At one time, I did have 15 employees, including myself.

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Um losing the employees has been crippling to the office. We're having a really rough time right now to be totally transparent. Um you know these are the summer months so people go on vacation and you know the work just never stops. So everybody's picking up

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um this lack of uh having somebody who's absent. Um you know we get a call in the morning, somebody's out sick. It's we have appointments and thank goodness we have appointments because it would be a free-for-all in my office and the line would be out the door on Gro Street if

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we didn't have appointments. >> Yeah. Go ahead, >> Sean. Um John, thank you for all your good work. Um everyone's going to come up here um saying that they're having to do more with less. Uh that they're living with

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austerity in their budget. Um, but I know that the clerk's office has been living with austerity for much longer than anybody else and has only seen this this budget and these numbers decline. And every year, and this is this is many people on the city council their first

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time seeing this. Um, city councils have told repeatedly that they want to see the clerk's office um have more resources uh knowing what the the workload is. And every year it never happens, frankly. And unfortunately, I don't know that it's going to happen

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this year because of the situation. Um that being said, um we will get turned the corner on this and I think you're more than any other office, the entire city, um you have borne the brunt of this uh um our fiscal challenges even in

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good times. Um that being said, um I just wanted to put some detail and color on to what uh your budget and c can you share with me when you assumed the vital services um function? What what year was that that that all happened?

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>> That was in 2022 is when we um started with birth certificates. But prior to that, we've always had marriage licenses in our office. I have marriage licenses that date back to 1907 to present and we

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took over the debt certificates um back in 2004. So that's due because of the Hudson County Vital Statistics Office that was shut down by the federal government back in 2002.

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Um because someone was selling birth certificates to people who were not born in the United States, let alone in Jersey City. >> You you've assumed the the birth certificates in 2022. Um and obviously Oprah just keeps going

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up every year. Um so your and conversely inversely your manpower has declined. >> Yes. And there was one other thing that was added to us from the former administration. Another duty that was

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added. Um it was a county duty at first. So it's the election supplies. Um so now they get delivered to us. They're the big suitcases that you'll see during or prior to the primary or general elections. The caucus room in the

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basement is filled um with these suitcases and our job is to um drop these suitcases off to all the polling locations in Jersey City. Uh usually that's the responsibility of the pole workers but since I've taken that over

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um first two years um I let the pole workers kind of do it and we had a poor showing so we had our messengers take that responsibility and you know start very early in the morning and there's approximately 80 polling locations

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because they consolidate a lot of polling places in Jersey City and we seem to get everything delivered in a timely manner. then um they have to drop off those supplies to us and that's another pole workers responsibility. But I'll get a

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call on election night at around 7:58 saying I can't drop off um the the uh supplies. Can you please have somebody come and pick them up? So, as you know, I don't have many members in my staff.

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I can't personally drive around to all these polling locations with all the construction going on and get those suitcases delivered. So, what I do is I borrow a lot of employees from other offices um like um the prosecutor's

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office, uh their um some of the inspectors, they'll help us because they have vehicles assigned to them. Some DPW workers. Um I think a couple of people unfortunately did get laid off that do help us. So we're very concerned with this general election that's coming up

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if we're not going to have that manpower. Uh it's going to us um with the uh election returns. So that was an additional responsibility placed on my office with the former administration. Not that I'm pointing fingers or anything, but we were the

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only municipality in Hudson County that didn't do it. But there was a good reason for it because we are the largest municipality in Hudson County, second largest in the state, right? So around 80 election districts and I think we

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have 190 uh election districts in Jersey City. So just imagine taking that undertaking that we had to do and you know I have to have a staff to go through the suitcases. So when they return, actually when they when when we're stuff, we have to stuff them with

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the supplies. And I usually do that with John, myself, Sydney, Harris, and the record center, just the three of us. We stuffed every 190 suitcases. Um get them ready and then when they get returned, I have to break them down and get the

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little um what's it called? USB which has the voting totals on them and we have a reader from the county that automatically gets read and gets the um the results get sent to the county as soon as they lo upload that. But that whole process is something that my

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predecessor never had to deal with and that I took on and and we're moving forward with it. Um just sticking with the manpower question challenge there asked for the BA um could we get uh historic

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information on headcount um not just for his office but for all the offices um and it would be I'd ask for five years just headcount numbers across each department and division across divisions as well and some divisions may not even

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be in existence five years ago. So >> okay >> I recognize that. >> I'll make a note of that. Thank you. >> The the one other thing, [clears throat] excuse me, that I would like to just to point out is um you know, not only are we a small staff, but most of my staff

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is they're not paid well for what they do. Um, and I know we're in a budget crisis and I'm not gonna, you know, ask for something magical to happen, but just to keep in mind for future budgets. I mean, for the office workers down there for what they do every day, the

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dayto-day, um, you know, I don't think anybody in my office should make less than 55,000. Um, the starting salary in my office is 425. Um, I don't even know if that's a liveable right now. If you live in Jersey City, you want to work in Jersey

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City. You know, we want to hire Jersey City residents, which I'm all for, but it's really hard to, you know, have a job and then afford to live here as well. So, you know, without raising those salaries and it's hard to keep young people um I had a couple of hires

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who left because of the salary that was so low. So, you know, it's just something to keep in mind for the future. I'm not asking for today, but you know, any help that you guys can think of or any things you can think of to help us, whether it's a transfer from

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another department. Um, but I'll just I'll quote my predecessor, one of the best city clerks Jersey City will ever have is Robert Burn. You know, you dented cans. You don't want dented cans sent to you. So, the one thing I say is transfers are great. I mean, I'm a I'm a

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perfect example of a transfer. on me. I don't want to talk all about myself, but I wasn't originally in the clerk's office, so I'm a transfer. Some transfers don't work out, right? But I'm willing to take a transfer at this point because the person we just

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lost was the person who was responsible for delegating all the operating the open request and then assigning them to staff members. And just so you know, I'm one of those staff members that get OPER requests assigned to myself. So no one's

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exempt. Everybody is on OPER. Everybody does vital records in the office. That's why everybody, what John said before is a certified municipal registar. >> And Sean, there's more questions, but I just wanted to um I guess echo the

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sentiment that you just said. We do have to do a better job of making sure that um staff is receiving proper compensation, right? Because we we always hear and it's not just this administration, it's across

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administrations where we've heard, oh, we need to increase salaries at the upper levels of management in order to um retain qualified individuals for these positions, but we don't have that same energy at the staffing level, and that

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is something that we definitely need to improve on. So, >> appreciate that, Council President. On the note of uh salary increases and um clerk's office, you you all work really really hard. You all deserve uh

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the world. So, thank you for what you do. Um I'm just looking through the justification and comments uh where not just in in this office but throughout um these budget workbooks across departments. we see uh some it looks

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like anticipated uh salary increases of 3.75% uh for local 246 um but also JCSA uh I my understanding is that union negotiations are underway um currently

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so if the administration uh unless clerk office also has an explanation here the administration could explain just what the thought process is behind including these and where we're at in bargaining whether this has to do with CBA. >> All right, I'm going to bring up uh our

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finance expert to explain. >> These are steps that are already have gone into effect January 1st. So these are for 2026. Uh those, like I said, those are effective January 1 of this year. Um so these these justifications

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aren't anything additional for this year. Um, I'll let Ruby speak to the other um, contracts and what's outstanding for next year, but in 27 presumably there'll be another step increase. Um, that's yet to be determined though.

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>> Can you say that again about 27? >> So there's no um set salary increase for 27 yet because these unions are out of contract at at the end of 2026. >> Local 246 is out of contract at the end of 26. >> Correct. Gotcha.

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When you say step, um that is separate from an across the board. Sean's nodding. Okay. >> Could you explain that question? >> Um so, uh a salary step is different than an acrosstheboard increase. Is that

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correct? >> Well, what across the board? You mean like a a administrative decision to give staff salary increases or are you talking about contractually obligated salary increases? >> So the 3.75%

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reflects what's already in >> that was already negotiated uh between the city and and the units. >> Got it. So that means um and I I did request the the CNAs. Um, just to clarify if it if people are like moving

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up on a salary scale versus an across the board increase or both. >> Um, and I did receive your email yesterday. So, we are working on compiling those files and sending it over to you today along with the rest of the council all the um municipal

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collective negotiated collective uh agreements. Um, these are mandatory per the existing contracts. So I hope that clarifies. Um we are in conversations with the unions. So this

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does not reflect anything that will come out of um those conversations. >> The So the contracts were all getting copies of those union contracts. >> Correct. Okay. Can you just tell me off hand if which

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ones are out are not uh I mean that are currently still active. I know the local 246 which any others that are still >> I'm I'm happy to send you that information. I was not prepared to speak about that today. >> No worries.

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Oh, Kyle was so there are quite a few uh PSOA POBA which are the police unions are out of contract since December 31st, 2024. Uh

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local 1064 1066 which are fire officers and firefighters. They're also out of contract uh as of December 31st 24. the JCSA local 246

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and local 245 school traffic guards all expire at the end of this year. Uh Teamsters Local 641 expired 12:3125. I'm not sure if that's still accurate, but that's the last update I had. Uh

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operating engineers local 68, they expire the end of 2027. and then we are still looking for uh the first contract for the Jersey City Mag Associates. >> Can I just say that we'll send it to you

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in writing just to make sure we have the most accurate information. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. Um I had a follow-up question on the um the staff member that was uh the provisional employee that was whose

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position was eliminated. Um [clears throat] so could you talk a little bit more about what their duties were and then what the adjustment was for department? >> Sure. Um her name was Jordis Espananiel.

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Um she was originally employed with the city in the law department. She worked in um under Joanne Monahan. I don't know if many of you who know Joanne who Joanne Monahan was, but she was uh first assistant corporation counsel, also

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acting corporation counsel. Uh Jordis was someone who uh the clerk's office always wanted to have in the office. Uh she worked uh very closely with doing ordinances and resolutions. So that kind of is part of our office, too. Um she

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transferred to um the redevelopment agency. I can't remember the exact year, but I always associate things with football, right? So, when she became a free agent, I was trying to lure her into the clerk's office with my

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predecessor. And unfortunately, we couldn't meet um the salary that she was offered. So, she did go to the redevelopment agency. I was sad about it, but very happy for her cuz she deserves every penny that she made. Um, and when I became clerk, I think two

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years into being clerk, um, she contacted me saying she wasn't happy in the redevelopment agency and wanted to come and work for me, which I was totally blown away. Um, not only did she do that, but she took a 10 $10,000 pay

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cut in order to do so. Um, and since she's been in my office for the four years that she was there, um, tried to get her a permanent title. That's something that she did have previously. Um, and she lost it when she went to the

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redevelopment agency and came back and um, unfortunately she did um, wind up getting uh, becoming number two on a list of a title. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I can get it to you guys if you're interested. But

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unfortunately, it just never happened for her. And uh what she when she did come to the office uh she was one of the Spanish-sp speakaking individuals in my office. So if a Spanish person calls uh she interpret those calls, she handled

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them for us. And again, I think I touched on this before. She delegated all OPER requests that were received in our office. Um John handles the governance part of my office. Like if you see our organizational chart, John

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does the governance part. Amanda does the vital records. So, it may not seem like it's not balanced, but it is. I mean, the vital records, it's uh constantly busy and the governance part is constantly busy. So, I have both of

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my deputies overseeing those two portions of my office and I oversee it all. But with Jordis, it's just really unfortunate. And uh right now John is handling um delegating that. And uh you know I don't ask him to

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do this. He volunteers to do this but it's the only way that we can try to play catchup. He basically comes in, you know, when his daughter goes to sleep and he's um going in there and

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going over the open request and then assigning them to staff members cuz I've gotten emails like 11:30 at night cuz I check my emails. I'm I'm on call 24/7 and I think all of you know that. Um you all have my number. Um but I see those emails coming in and I'm like, "John,

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you know, what are you doing?" and he's like, "It's the only way I can catch up because, you know, we get so backlogged." And my biggest concern is that we'll so we'll fall so far behind that we'll wind up having lawsuits. And that's something that we don't want to

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see happen because at the end of the day, it cost the city money when if we lose. And I'll knock on wood when I say this. for all the years that we've been doing oper requests since 2022 when the law became effective. I mean, you can

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count on our hands, the two hands that I have on how many lawsuits um that we had filed against us, and I think we might have lost one. And most of them go to the GRC, which is the government's records council, and they

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get mediated pretty quickly. But we have a great track record for a city our size and the amount of OPER requests that come in. So again, without both of them, I don't know what we would do and losing Jordis is it was crippling to our

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office. Thank you for sharing that. Um, another quick question. I saw Councilman Efros had a question, but um just jumping in front of you. Uh on the contracts, the the scanning um Hudson

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County Enterprises um have we to refresh my memory um have we paid them for services rendered in 2026? >> So they are paid up to date. >> Okay. What we did was put a pause on the

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continuation of scanning the um minutes, agendas, resolutions, and ordinances because of the budget crisis cuz we know we're going to use them. Um they're a city, Jersey City company. They employ people with disabilities. I'm sure you

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guys have, if you haven't been there, you should definitely go in there and get a tour. They're amazing on what they do. They do fantastic work and it's a win-win for us and even for the taxpayer, they save us a lot of money, too. If you went to any other scanning

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place, they would charge probably more a lot more than what uh Hudson County does. >> And I would point out that the deputy mayor has an initiative. They're trying to put together a citywide records scanning process. So, um, it it it we are one small part of it and we're at

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sort of the tail end of our minute scanning. Just to give you a bird's eye view, we've scanned all of the minute books, as I mentioned, from 1861 until 1988. We have everything from 2012 to the present, digitized, either PDFed and

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searchable. And then after 2019, of course, we transition to eye compass. So what we're missing is 1988, midway through 1988 up till 2011 and those are now stored in banker boxes in the city's archives over in Marian

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Gardens. So comparatively a small percentage of our overall minutes and agendas, but um these were not stored in bound volumes. The old ones were these very large leatherbound volumes that unfortunately years of um being stored

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in in a place that didn't have proper humidity controls meant the leather cracked and then the without the binding holding them together we ran the risk of the books just crumbling and then the papers would be scattered everywhere. So there was an emergency need to hurry up and and get those scanned. The rest of

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the documents are are safe and they are secure and they are free from uh deterioration. Uh so we did have some leeway in in putting that off. But then fortunately uh Deputy Mayor Bryant is looking to uh do a city-wide program and this will be encapsulated within that.

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So it's no longer solely on us but it will be part of an overall citywide initiative. >> Thank you. >> Just some questions about the elections. Uh this year uh we have general um our

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primary has passed. Um would you just share some of the requested uh funds or some explanation of the requested funds the general primary and then the requested funds for the municipal? Um I know we're not getting any we don't have

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a municipal election this year but just curious like what kind of resources you think are important to have municipal lease. So I always like to have some money in especially in the municipal election account. And the reason for that and again this is god forbid if it

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ever happens if someone resigns if someone I don't even want to say it. Um a vacancy appears. >> Thank you John. Uh that's the best way to say it. So >> if that happens and we have to have a special election. >> Yeah.

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>> We always have to have money in that account in case that does happen. And in my career in the clerk's office that started back in December of 1997, I did see a lot of vacancies, including the mayor's office. So, you always have to

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be prepared. And if we don't use the money, we can always transfer it to another account. And finance can correct me if I'm wrong on that, but I'm I've been here pretty long. I'm pretty sure that's correct. So that's why we have um I always say that and that's why my hair

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is getting a lot grayer every day. Um that's why we have that money in that account. Um the money that's in the primary and general elections, we have to pay for the mailing of the sample ballots that go out to all of the

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registered voters in Jersey City. Um there's quite a few registered voters in Jersey City. So we have to pay for not only the sample ballots but the postage for those sample ballots. Um and uh you know uh elections happen every year. So

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we'll always have a primary and a general. Um, at one time prior to consolidating the school board and the municipal to uh the general election, we used to have an election in April with the school board and then every four

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years we would have our own election, municipal election in May. We've definitely saved the taxpayer a lot of money by moving our elections to our municipal elections to the general election because as long as the sample

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ballot doesn't increase and I have to say to all of you, especially the council members that you guys won during the election, my biggest fear was this was the largest municipal election we had since 2001. So my fear was that we

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were the ballot was going to grow and we were going to be on the hook for that growth because anything that grows and we're on the very bottom of my mom always said save the best for last. I'm the last of eight children. So just saying but you know we're on the very bottom of the ballot. There were no

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questions. So we lucked out and we that we didn't have any extra costs with that large municipal election that we had. And it's another reason why I budgeted so much for our overtime in 2025 because I thought, you know, we were going to get buried with petitions and the law

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got changed. You know, you went from having to if you were running at large or for the mayor, you went from 1,730 signatures to 100 signatures. And for the council, various number of signatures to, you know, 75 signatures.

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So yes, we got through them pretty quickly, but a lot of people filed and you know, I had to prepare, but we did get through them and we locked out with that as well because if everybody filed and we and

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that law didn't change, I don't know what would have happened. We would have been working around the clock to be honest with you. as as recently [clears throat] as 2024, uh we had four elections in one cycle when when we had the uh the unfortunate

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death of Donald Payne while he was in office. So we had a primary, then we had to have a special primary, then we had to have a special general, and then we had a general. And these all took place within a span of four months. So um you never do know what what may happen. and

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that that was a major overtime uh uh burden for our office. >> Just to uh ask a bit about the um having moved the dates of the like school board election um and the earlier municipal

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election all to the general um certainly we're saving money there. In in your estimation, do we see a a drop in voter turnout and participation in the down ballot those down ballot elections

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because they are overshadowed by the you know higher up offices? >> It's it's a great question. So, I I I I will say this since we moved our municipal elections from May to November, that was one of the things that came up, but we're going to

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have larger turnouts. Always remember this. We always follow a presidential election. We never run during the presidential. And if we did, yes, we would see a larger turnout just based on people coming out to vote for president.

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It doesn't mean they're always going to go all the way down the ballot because again, we're last unfortunately, but it is what it is. The the turnout has basically stood the same. Um, but this past municipal election was one of the

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larger turnouts we had in quite some time since we moved from May to November. If that answers your question. And I just want to um give a special thanks to my fiscal officer, Mercedes, who's here uh in the audience. Without

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her, uh again, it doesn't get processed properly and our uh department of finance, our business administrator. I'm looking forward to working with Ruby. Um I think, you know, we're all working together. What do I say after every meeting? Teamwork makes the dream work,

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right? I really mean that. It we do. We're on the same team. We want to move Jersey City forward. I've said this numerous times. I live Jersey City South, but Jersey City is in my heart. I love this city. If I didn't, I don't know if I'd still be here after 33

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years, right? And I play the drums to stay sane. >> I'm going to get me a drum set. Sean, [laughter] >> it would be great to have at council meetings. Thank you so much, Sean, for for all

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your work and your team's work. Um, did you just call Bayon Jersey City South? >> Yes. >> I love that. >> Yeah, I don't think the mayor likes it too much, but I I'm I'm just being totally transparent. Uh, I I've have a lot of Jersey former Jersey City residents who moved to Bayon, and when I

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tell them it's Jersey City South, they're they get hysterical as well. Yeah. But I was born and raised here and you know first 26 years of my life and the first four years of my son's life I lived here and I wouldn't trade it for

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anything. Um I would have never left if the school system was better when my son was ready to go to school. It's the only reason why I left Jersey City. But I'm I'm working here 33 years more than half of my life. Love this city. That's actually a perfect seg into my

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next question, which was if if the uh school board elections were to be moved back to the spring, how much would you anticipate that increasing your budget? >> I I I think it would cost the taxpayer um money down the road. Um if we did do

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something like that, I think it would also decrease the turnout. Um, one of the main reasons to move the school board, cuz I believe that was the one that was moved first was to increase turnout because having all asking a

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voter like John had just uh said in is 2024 that when we had all those elections, it's very hard to ask a registered voter to come out more than twice a year. Let alone now you would be asking when we had those special

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primaries in those elections. You're asking a voter to come out four times. It would go back to almost like when before we move the municipal and the school board. We were asking one year we would be asking the voter to come out four times. Really hard to get the

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voters to come out. Um I don't want to say I I don't have I I don't have a I can't vote in Jersey City. So I I don't think it would be a good idea, especially at this point where we are budgetarywise to even consider something like that at this point unless data can

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show that the turnout would be more. And I don't think you're going to be able to do that. I don't think you be able to show me or the county that this the turnout for a school board from moving it from back to April would be a larger turnout. I don't believe that's going to

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be the case. >> Okay. Thank you so much and thank you um again yourself and your staff. Um you do a lot on on a very lean budget. So I think your work is not unseen and we appreciate you. >> Well, I I really do appreciate I

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appreciate each and every one of you and uh [snorts] looking forward to uh getting the city back on track and uh one of these individuals will wind up replacing me uh soon. So,

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how soon? >> Not not as soon as you think. [laughter] >> That ended on a sour note. All right. If there are any other questions and thank you to our clerk and our council administrator and all the staff here for this session. I am going

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to motion to adjurnn. >> Okay. Motion to adjurnn at 11:15. Second and by >> second. >> Okay. Motion to adjurnn by acclamation. Please say I. >> I. Okay. >> Thank you.

Part: 2

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the 22nd day of July in the year 2026. This is a budget hearing for the office of tax assessor before the municipal council. We had a scheduled 1 p.m. start. The clock on my cell phone is showing 105 p.m. May we have a roll call for the commencement of this budget

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hearing. Council person Brooks >> present. >> Council person Zuper is absent. Council person Ephro >> present. Council >> person Little >> present. >> Person Gilmore is absent. Council Person Singh uh >> here, >> Council Person Griffin is absent, and

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Council Person Labaro >> here, >> and Council President Ridley >> here. We have six council members present at 10:05 p.m. Notice that this meeting was disseminated on Friday, July 17th, 2026

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at 3 p.m. to the mayor, municipal council, business administrator, corporation council, and the local newspapers so I can certify as to our total compliance with the Sunshine Law. I'm going to turn it over now to Council President Ridley. >> Okay. Good afternoon. Uh this is our

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budget session for the office of the tax assessor. We thank our tax assessor for being here and uh this session will be led by Councilman Rolando Lavaro. So I will turn it over to him at this point. >> Thank you. Thank you, Council President.

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Good good afternoon. Uh thank you, Mr. Curry, for being here and thank you, Miss Choy. All these budget hearings, you're here, so thank you for being here. Um so before I begin um I just wanted to explain to the public but also for my colleagues um how I intend to

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chair this hearing. Um it'll be a slight departure from what we've done to date. Um so going to ask and I just spoke to her at the start director Taruri just like um all your predecessors before this you'll have um I'm saying 15

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minutes to do your presentation. If you need more than that, feel free to continue as you need. Um and so um ask you to do that as as the council president has said in the past, you'll do your presentation without interruptions from the council and ask folks to keep their questions until

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until later. Um following the director's uh pres presentation uh the tax assessor's presentation I should say um I promised that I would go line by line uh through all of the detailed budgets. Um and so that's the intention here

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today to go line by line and giving every council member an opportunity to ask questions related to each line. So, for example, if you have a question related to line 101 salaries, I'm not going to go through each individual salary, but if you have a specific question around line 101, I'd ask you to

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ask that question as it relates to that, even if it's related to the um presentation. Um, but and then we'll go through line 102, line 103, 105, etc. I'm going down through each item and making sure we cover all of the items. If there are no questions on particular

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item, we'll we'll just keep moving on. Um see and then after that if there are still questions we'll open the floor to broader questions about uh as long as they're they're related to the budget in some way hopefully um connecting it to

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the budget items that relate to the presentation itself ask you to save it there and and priorities obviously again if it's related to a specific line item you can bring it back to there. Um so I wanted to walk through that uh with everyone and the public. Um, does anyone have any questions or any concerns about

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that approach? >> Okay, I turn the floor over to you, director, uh, tax assessor. Um, thank you. >> Can you hear me? Okay. Good afternoon, council president and council members and everyone in attendance. My for the record, my name is Laura Takuri. I'm the

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city assessor of Jersey City. I'll just go to the second sheet summary. What my office do, the tax assessor, the ter >> I'm sorry, the presentation isn't on the screen. So folks watching at home might not be seeing the presentation.

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>> I apologize. Perfect. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, Laura, >> did I start again? >> Start again. >> Okay, let me just go back. That's um good afternoon, council president, council members, and everybody in attendance. My name is Laura Takuri, the city assessor. We're going to the second

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slide. The tax assessor office determines the assessment values of all the real properties in Jersey City and maintains a fair and equitable assessment in accordance to the New Jersey law. Few things that my um actually things that my office work and do in the yearly

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basis is that we prepare and certify the annual tax list. We inspect the properties and new constructions, renovations, any property had went through the demolition process, properties that have changes such as extensions, additions or anything that change the property values. We also work

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in the process of adding omitted assessments. Basically, when they pull out the seals or certificate occupancies, temporary certificate occupancies or certificate occupancies, we reassess the properties based on any changes in value. And that one is due in October 1st of every year.

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And also my department administrates exemptions, deductions, and residential tax abayments. uh short-term tax abayments, meaning for one one family to two family home, five years tax abayments, anything more than uh three units and up, they need console approval for those. And also, my department

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maintains the ownership records. We update the property ownerships through the deeds and we update the tax maps once the property went through um consolidation, subdivisions or any type of of changes in the lot size or any condominium um projects. We update the

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tax maps. Also, we change the property mailing addresses when the taxpayer wants to move out of state or they want us to use any different address that we have in the tax records. Um, also we represent the city defending the county appeals and the tax court appeals. Um,

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aside of that, we do the we support the redevelopment projects meaning that when they pull in the certific um site plan approposals in any project, we reassess the land based in the number of units that they they um got approved. And that's basically the values that we

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use for the rateable base every year for the city. So we are the main source of revenue in the city because we reassess other properties in Jersey City and every year the third page. So one of the accomplishments that we do every year is the certified tax list.

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That's the one that I'm um um stated that we do every year for the ratable base every year which is doing January the 10th. That's the one that we accomplished recently. Regarding to my office, we reorganized the staff and streamline the internal procedures. Also, we keeping up to date with the

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proper records, the tax maps as I mentioned before. Any change in land size, subdivisions, condos, we um update it. Same thing with the address assignments. When they do have a new condo project, any new high-rise or building, we are the one who assign the property addresses for the new projects.

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Uh impact delivery, we actually are working in defending the county board appeals and the tax court appeals. We work alongside with the law department and also with outside council. We going to the third. The proposed budget for 2026 for the

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personal I have a 1,68,599. For the professional services is 343,164. The professional services included four um companies that we use. Two of them are in the appraisal companies that we use to defend the county appeals and the

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tax court appeals. The second is the civil solutions which is the one that we use to update the tax maps. And the third one is called coar which is a server that provide the real estate information meaning the cap rates any recent real estate sales. Those um

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financial data help us when we defending appeals because they can tell us how the market is doing when it comes to income producing properties in Jersey City and the northeast region. We going to the next slide number five. the what we what the administration and

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the we cut in when it comes to do with the budget is that we decreased the salaries and wages we cut it like $49,000 a year overtime 28,000 the supplies and materials of 5,300 and the printing and others was reduced um

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$9,000. We going to page number six. What we're looking ahead for this for my department is basically um I requested the law department to review the the tax abatement fees since was never updated

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for the past probably 10 years just when they apply for the tax absments the fees is like $100 I'm requesting them to change it to $200 per unit and new constructions when they have multiple dwelling uh to increase the fees for per unit to apply from 200 to 300 to

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increase it. The other change um the number the the second um recent um the second um idea that I'm proposing to kind of check the tax base is that we're going

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to be mailing over 4,000 chapter 91s. Those are the forms that the state um actually is in a statutory requirement for us to send this to any income producing properties meaning uh commercial properties, apartments, 5 units and up and any um industrial

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properties for us to know what is the revenue that they collected in 2025. That data help us to know um how to defend appeals in 2027 and also how can we approach properties and how the rents are doing how apartments rents are doing, how much they renting price per

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square foot and any commercial spaces in the city. So that help us a lot. So we want to be mailing those soon is over 4,000 letters for income producing properties that we selected through a review in my office. And the second is basically working alongside with um with a planning board with building

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department to capture any new constructions um certificate occupancies and anything and any other permits that they that can help us um basically um generate revenue to the city. Also, I forgot to mention that other source of way that I'm I'm planning to work on is

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just to go after social media. Uh because we noticed um they don't using MLS anymore to to basically expose any properties in that is being in the market. So we going after Tik Tok, YouTube, anything data, Instagram

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because now they don't posted anything in Netherlands. It's more about social media because they capture more attention to the people who want to rent it or buy. So that's why we checking also. Um so that yeah that would be my last sheet. That would be everything in my presentation. Thank you.

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>> Thank you. Um so council members I would like to open up for questions. Again starting at the top of the line item detailed line item budget line 101 salaries and wages regular. Does anyone

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have questions in relation to um this line item? do. Um, >> Mr. President, >> I know in the presentation they say that salaries and wages are down

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um by 49,000, but I'm not seeing that reflected in the um itemized budget. Can you speak more to that where those reductions were? >> Uh, yes. Initially I requested um assessing a inspectors and a deputy. Um

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I don't have a deputy since I took over the office. So I requested for a deputy and also an assessing aid which means inspectors. I only have three right now. So that's basically the items that was reduced for the 2026 budget. Three

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inspectors and um one deputy also and an assistant land use which is the one who can help us with the tax maps. So, but those were reduced for the 2026 budget. >> Okay. So, you're counting the reductions from what you requested versus what the

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administration uh in their draft budget. >> That's correct. >> So, it's not down 400,000 from last year's budget. It's down 400 from your original request. >> Yes. >> Person Oh, sorry. Council

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>> person. >> Yeah. Can you please talk about uh overtime wages? Why are we paying overtime? >> Oh, we're still on 101. I'm sorry. Line

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101. You you jumped to 103. >> Okay. >> Okay. So, anyone else on line 101? So, I just want to echo what the the council president just referenced. So, the adopted budget according to this through

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these records, this information show um 2025 98,000 and then we're the 26 draft proposed is a slight slight increase of 33,000 over 2025 and certainly below what you

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requested. Um I I I just have a specific question about the assessing aid who was terminated on July 10th. um your org chart um refers to someone by the same first

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name as well. I just want to clarify that for my own um identification that that person that that position is now vacant because it it currently shows on the org chart as being occupied. >> Yeah, that's correct. That's one of the

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thing is who got laid off. >> Okay. And then anyone else have questions on 101 otherwise I'll continue. >> Um I I guess I just have questions about uh what your assessment is of the capacity of the department right now of

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the office right now, excuse me. Um and you know the gap between what you requested and what is in the draft. Um can you just speak to the kind of capacity difference that you will have to effectively do your job with with

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that? um $400,000 difference. >> Well, the ideal for the big city, we are the biggest city in the state of the judge when it comes to line items. So, basically, the more inspectors that we have, the better revenue that we can bring to the city. So, having three inspectors for over 64,000 line items is

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of course we're short stuff when it comes to inspecting because the inspector is the eyes of the assessor. >> 64,000 is >> it's over 60,000 line items. We are the biggest in line items in New Jersey, bigger than New York in properties. And one line item is one property >> like a one property account. Yes.

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>> Okay. Right. Um and I can might be difficult but can you estimate some kind of uh financial impact of you know where is the tradeoff of having a couple more

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aids or assessors um and being able to reap more accurately the taxes owed to the city versus okay we're going to have to sacrifice a couple aids and assessors and this is a a kind of estimate of what we would sacrifice. I know that's

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probably a difficult calculation to make, but can you speak to >> um Yeah. Well, I I did create something to the VA um every year um in the the city. Basically, uh the way that I did it is basically um since 2024, 25 and

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26, we actually increase over $1.6 billion in ratables. And that's basically with five assessors and fire if you take the number divided by five meaning the all the data that is provided to us is because inspector provide the inspections report and we were able to generate 1.6 billion in the

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past two years every year like in 2025 we generated 1.62 billion and in 2026 1.67 and change billion because with the staff that I had back then I have four inspectors and five assessors. So just taking the ratable dividing by five

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because again the assessor I mean the spectctor is the eyes of the assessor. So whatever they produce they can help the assessor value the property. So basically more or less they can generate over 300 um 300 million 167 divided by

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sorry give me one sec. each assessor can generate a certain amount of increased assessed value potentially. >> Just doing the math. Sorry. I I'll just say that um Laura and I have

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had a lot of conversations about this and I agree with you that um you know if there is a way for us to invest in bringing her more staff in order to do these assessments and generate more revenue for the city it makes a lot of sense. Um, so she and I actually have a

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meeting next week to go through these numbers and also present this to other members of the department so that we can um, you know, look at her her staffing numbers again and make adjustments based on that business case. >> Thank you. So I I just I want to

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understand it correctly because I I look forward to hearing about how that conversation goes. um the the more aids you have the or assessors you have the more you can really generate even with the same number of properties just based

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on the efficiency of um >> that's correct yes because we are able to act on it when we see certificate occupancies temporary certificate occupancies but however it is other properties in the city when they don't pull permits to do renovations and that's what I just state before we go

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through social media we go whatever we see in the in um social media platform for us to inspect. >> So that's how we see renovations there. But if I'm able to have more people to inspect and then I can be able to bring more revenue. Right now I only have three inspectors to cover the entire

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city is it's going to be tough um for 2027 for me. >> And and just last question if I may. Um I just slipped my mind. Come come back to me. Come back to me. >> Okay.

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Council person and 101 line item 101. Still >> 101. Yes. Okay. So technical assisted land use if we have um if we take outside contract

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we are taking help from outside contractor right now. um if we hire it's going to make difference instead of technical assistant how is it working right now and what

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>> well for the technical assistant land use I mean I would prefer to have my inspectors >> as a technical um assistant and use I can have other stuff do the job in the way because it is basically reviewing plants doing subdivisions and stuff but

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the way I see is I wanted somebody who can go outside more. So I will be put more weight into trying to get inspectors and I can live without the technical use because I do have my uh tax map if I have something that I need help with. That is a bigger project when they divided um the property in like

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multiple lots like for example Bayfront they dividing one piece of lot into like more than 10 15 that is a like a major project. I can trying to work with the company which is civil solutions that one that manage the maps but uh the thing that I'm want after is more is

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inspectors if I can get another assessor that would be the best for my office to be able to generate more revenue >> I had I remembered my last question if I may very quickly um just on the the train of cost benefit of analysis of

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these salaries um do we also see a reduction in tax appeals coming to us when we have a more fully staffed assessor's office. >> It's two different things. It's like apples with tomatoes because having a staff doesn't have nothing to do with with the market outside. We don't

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control the market. The market is already there. So if the assessment is stay steady, but the market goes up, it's going to be in appeal there. So it's nothing that we could I can have 20 people there is going to still be in appeals there. So we don't basically my

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department don't control the appeals just to give you like um an idea more or less how the appeals work. In 2023 we have 2,967 appeals in the county level. In 2024 we have 1,498 appeals. In 2005 we have

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1,245 appeals. And in 2026 is 1,843 appeals. So I just sharing with you the data. So you see that it's not in a steady number that I can predict it how much it's going to be because it depends on the fluctuation of the market. So whatever the assessment is there how the market is and how the ratio goes. So

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it's it's is I mean it's going to help having more assessors because in this time we have like a 1,843 appeals. Then I had to give like a one or two calendars for one uh assessor in a week. Each calendar is almost 80 cases and one

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every case every property you need to basically um find three compatible sales to support the data and aside of that you have to review that data to basically say why they deserve a reduction or not. So for one property you can spend over an hour just to

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review one property because we need to compare that market. So that's basically covering the point of the overtime. If we don't have if we have so many appeals we need time to review them. So for one person reviewing 70 appeals in a week, it it takes a lot of time. It's not easy, especially when you have a

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high-rise and you need to check all the leases and rentals. And then aside of that, you need to figure out vacancy. You need to do inspections. You need to see um you know how much is expenses and everything. It take a lot of work. It's nothing that you can do in an hour or two. So because it's it's dollars, it's

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nothing to do with nothing. >> Understood. Thank you. I have a Yeah. Um, business administrator Choy, uh, you said that you were going to have a conversation with the tax assessor about, um, staffing. Does that mean that

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the administration will be presenting, uh, an amended version of line 101? >> Um, I don't foresee us being ready in time for the budget needing to be approved. So, we are trying to find creative ways. Um, for example, we are

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um in discussions about hiring an intern who could potentially help um and you know, we'll have um to take a look at the 2027 budget and see what we can do. >> Thank you. >> But the council could amend the budget

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for this process to if we wanted to add funding and underline 101. As was pointed out previously, we can't say you have to hire this person, but we can add the money and and then it becomes incumbent upon the administration

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uh to either add additional staff or or let the money go unexpended um or uh and carry it over to the next next cycle. Correct me if I'm wrong. >> Same thing with reductions in dollars. Not not suggesting that that's the case

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here. I'm just saying well we can say remove this position of that we could make reductions in the line items and um with the if we have the number of votes to make that happen and um Sean if you could clarify for me um because it was suggested by corporation council I think

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in a previous meeting that any additions would require six votes and any reductions would require five votes. Is that is that accurate? I >> I believe it is. Um, >> okay. >> And also, um, I don't know if the administration would be subject to the

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state approval if you're going to add anything to the budget based on theou. >> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It would be subject to DCA approval. Um, just just staying with line 101, if I may. Um, can you just um there's a

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justification comment about compliance for EPA. if you just speak to that. >> EPA stands for Equal Pay Act. >> Equal Pay Act. >> Yes. So, um those adjustments were uh approved through the process reviewing

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those salaries based on EPA. And was that um something that was done by the administration as a uh proactively to address was there a compliance issue there

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ensuring that uh we're in in compliance with the EPA or in as opposed to the past administration I guess. >> So um I I am still learning a lot about this process myself. There is a member

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of um the law department that reviews any complaints from employees about uh EPA and that lawyer goes through those complaints and um has a process of comparing people of similar roles and

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responsibilities and um uh discussing with the departments whether there should be an adjustment in the salaries. Um that is my understanding. I'm happy to go back and um tell you more about EPA.

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Um but that is how it's reflected in the budget. We I don't know if anyone from finance wants to correct my my explanation of that in the budget. I'd I'd like to make a request because this

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isn't the first time that it's come up um on the budgets and um it was a question earlier from news media of why certain salaries went up and it was another salary that had the same

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comment. if we could get a uh link from the law department uh to the Equal Pay Act so that we can uh familiarize oursel with the rules. Uh that'll be helpful when people have

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questions. >> I'll do that. >> Sorry. Um, >> Council Person Little, >> thank you. Um, still remaining on line item 101. Um, you know, I wanted to circle back to Councilman Lavaro's point

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that, you know, it it sounds like conversations are still ongoing as to your staffing needs, but um I just want to note for the record that uh the tax assessor's office requested six positions um that are currently vacant

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and these six vacancies were cut by the administration between the requested and the introduced. Uh this is three assessing aids, one tech assistant, one tax assessor and one clerk or or one deputy tax assessor, sorry, and one clerk. Um so my question is is sort of

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twofold. Um what are the shortfalls if you are expected if you're unable to hire these positions and given that the tax assessor's office is is a necessary function in order for the

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city to collect the revenue that um keeps the city running. is would it be prudent as Councilman Lavaro said um perhaps for council to amend to provide

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funding for maybe one of these vacancies so that you could fill one of the you would have the flexibility to fund one of these vacancies this year um just and make sure that we're not leaving money on the table. >> Yeah, again we use short stuff. So more people outside to inspect and more

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revenue I can bring because I have more eyes outside inspecting properties. So anything will help one assessor I mean one inspector or two inspectors but because they can inspect more areas and then can adding more revenue to the city. >> Sorry just a very quick followup which

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titles inspect >> is I'm sorry it's assessing a that's basically an inspector is an inspector member. Sorry. Yes. >> Um I will also note for the record that these assessing aids the salary requested is only $45,000. These are not

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particularly highly paid positions. Um, so if if you think you might be able to hire one and if you think that that additional aid would allow the city to, you know, continue operating and bringing in the amount of money that

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it's supposed to, maybe it would be prudent for council to fund one of those aid positions. >> Yeah, that would help me a lot. Again, it for the amount of properties that we have with only three inspectors, I only have three cars also. So, it's it's short stuff because like you say, we are the main source of revenue for the city.

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So, the more people that we have, the more uh revenue that we can bring to the city, right? >> Have a followup question on this. Did do you did you not fire uh one assistant assisting aid recently?

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>> I didn't fire it was layoff. >> Yeah, laid laid off. Sorry. Did so I I I didn't do the cut. >> Yeah. I mean not you. I'm sorry your department. Uh right. Yes. >> So uh is that true? >> Yes, that's true.

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>> Was terminated on July 10th according to these records >> along with the other 30 to 30 something. >> That's correct. >> Other employees at that time. >> Any other questions from council on 101? So ju just trying to understand where we need uh more assisting aid and uh one

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was terminated. >> That was not my call. Uh because >> Okay. No, I'm not I'm talking about you. >> But again, just to clarify, no, I don't want you to think that I'm asking for something that I let somebody go. The person who left, her name is Karen. She was a really good inspector. She got

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licenses for for land use and everything there. So it was not my call. >> Got it. Thank you for clarifying. have any questions? >> This does seem frustrating that one of the layoffs was in a department that's underst staffed, is critical for collecting revenue to keep the city

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operating, and was only making $45,000 a year according to this spreadsheet. So, that that does seem very frustrating for my part. I'm just going to add as just a comment. another um one of the priorities for me as I said is finding these cost savings and efficiencies but

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also um making sure that our money is in revenue generating activities and personnel right so um so happy to continue looking at this and working with the council and the administration um to to be able to make sure that we're

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fully staffed and maximizing because revenue there's two sides of the equation to all of this right revenue and expenses And um we need to pay more attention I think to the revenue side of things at this point. Um I I do just want to ask a few more questions as it relates to 101.

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Um in in a previous council meeting we talked about um site plan approvals uh triggering a reassessment. Right. And so these the these are the positions the assessing aid who would go out in that case for those site plan approvals or

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>> an assessing a is an inspector. So if they let's say they pull a site plan approvals us to a warehouse that they're planning to demolish and we send them to inspect it if the property is demolished and then once they demolish then we can reassess the property. Uh but if the

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property is a pure vac then by only reviewing the site plans we can reassess the property. So it's a case by case basis. Yeah, an inspector which is an assessing a that's the one who goes and inspect to see if there's any demolition going, if there's any renovations done, if the property's under construction and

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everything they take a photos, the square footages description. So that's basically what they do. >> So So I I believe you said in in previous council meeting that that you try to stay on top of all of these site plan approvals and to reassess the

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values of those properties, right? >> That's correct. Um are you caught up on all that stuff? Is there a backlog? Um where do you stand in that process? >> I mean we still have time to do them. Um like the tax assessor have a seasons

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like from April uh up to actually today we working in the PO season. So we are April, May, June, July. So we're working in the PO season right now and then we jump to the added assessment which is due October 1st. after we finish October 1st. Now we had to jump to do the

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readables of 2027. So the site plans are going to be taking effect in 2027. So we still have time to value them for the book of 2027. >> But do do you have a list of the site plan approvals that we need to assess

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and or are are there properties that have site plan approvals that have not been reassessed as >> Yes, I do. I had a list actually you the priming asked me for it. I forward to them last week. So yes, it is a list that is being updated by the planning board and then we follow the the list

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and also we check the you know the PDFs as I plan when they have those hearings but yes it's a list I forward to your office when you you staff requested to me last week. >> Okay. Um any other questions on line item 101 council members >> this is a this is a general question on

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spot assessments. Would that be this be the appropriate time to ask that since >> um sure you can ask the question. >> All right. Thank you. Um, so I have a a question from a constituent. Um, this constituent purchased a home in 2018 and

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um, the next year found that a chimney liner needed to be replaced and they were told then that they needed a spot assessment and their new assessment was 75% higher um, than their previous assessment. And

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so, you know, that that made a big difference in their taxes obviously and um you know, they they sort of feel that the spot assessment practice is unfair, but um more so they're they're also

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interested in learning more about um if it will be easier to appeal these spot assessments. um and whether it would make more sense instead of doing spot assessments to sort of do a a sort of do

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revals on a shorter timeline. just to address the spot assessment. I don't know when the property was um purchased and I don't know what data was used. It's again it's in case by case but if the revaluation in 2018 that's

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when the revelation happens in 2018 based on the data of 2016 and 2017. So if they did anything after the REA that we became aware of like renovating kitchens, bathrooms or anything. Yes, we we reassessed them. So that's I don't

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know if they pull any permits. I don't know if was I had to check the property. I cannot tell you on top of my head because I don't know how what is assessment before the rebal. I don't know if was border up during the rebal and when they purchased we noticed that was renovated. So then we had to reassess it because it's a change in use

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changing um updated or renovated. So I had to see what the data was determinated by the rebel and when that changes happened because the rebal company have notes there the condition of the property when they inspect it and then if we if we see that something

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happened after the rebal yes we're going to reassess the property and they have the right to appeal the assessment every year they have to prove market value so they can do that every April 1 of every year. Um, and can you tell me a little bit about the appeals process? Like, is that

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accessible for the average homeowner? Do they need to retain an attorney? >> The process of appeal? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Basically, every year they can appeal the property. That deadline is April 1st. And they if this a let's say it is a two family home, they need to find compatible sales. if my office

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assess the property let's say in the market value of 1 million and so if they think that the property is under 1 million so they had to find at least three or four compatible sales to prove that two family home are worth less than a million dollars to have a good case

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but if they find homes in the 1.5 million 1.6 six that means that my assessment goes in line with the market cuz they had to come up with a market value because that's the only way that they can have a decrease in assessment when they say oh no the accessory reassessment to a higher number but

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properties in my area are setting for lower they need to provide me the compatible sales for example the 2026 appeals they need to give me the compatible sales from October 1st 2024 to October 1st 2025 so it's a year window for the prior year. So, they need

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to provide me compatible sales in that year to prove that my assessment is not in line with the market value. >> Okay. Thank you. Um I I guess you know this constituent felt that was a little unfair simply because they needed to replace their chimney liner. They were

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hit with such a big increase. Um but my my question is rather than doing spot assessments like this, would it be more equitable to do more frequent revals? And what would be the pros and cons of doing more frequent revals?

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>> Just to give you an idea, the last revaluation prior to 2018 was 1988. So funding to do a reval um has to be with the city because the last time when I think they put out a bit contract to do that was over $5 million back in 2014

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when they start the process. And actually having a revaluation doesn't mean that uh it will be collecting more taxes. is basically putting all the properties in an equal market value. So it's nothing to say like oh because you're going to do a real my taxes are going to go down. No, just just imagine

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that today's market is nothing to do with 2016 market. The house in 2016 was value 500,000. Probably today is like 800 or 850 which means that all the houses has to be 100% of the market value. Doesn't mean that you had to pay lower taxes. The only difference is that

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everybody has to pay their equal fair share or everything will be up to the market. Basically, if you're planning to do a reval in 2007, all the properties will be assessed on 100% market of 2006. >> Yes, thank you. I I understand that the revals don't result in a decrease in

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taxes um or they don't guarantee a decrease or an increase in taxes. It's just an equalizer for the whole >> just a distribution of taxes among all the properties. But again, everything is just to bring everything up to the market. Okay. And and so you're you said that it costs over 500. It costs over

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five million to do a reval. >> Well, I just No, I didn't say that. I just I'm saying like I somebody asked me about it at um taxpayer and I was just looking at the data when they did um the bid contract to do that back in 2012 or 2014. I was just looking my my history

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and that's why I saw but uh today's state I don't know how much would be because the amount of properties that we have also um you know the labor uh workers are more expensive than before so um also I'm aware of that it's probably only two or three companies in

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the entire New Jersey that they doing revaluations so just to just to put it in order to do a reall has to come from the administration then the county has to approve it with the state of taxation and may take maybe like four or five years again because they had to inspect

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the entire properties cuz that's how I g an example the last one was 1988 after 2018 so a reval itself is an expensive process to undertake but um you know

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based based on the experiences at at least at least in my ward um people's property taxes skyrocketed after the reval be because it had been 30 years since the last one and um I I

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feel like by waiting so long we make it worse when the rebal So in your opinion when when should we begin budgeting and and when should we begin planning for the next reval? >> Well technically um based on the New Jersey statute when the ratio goes below

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85 then that's basically when you're supposed to do a reval. The ratio right now is 70 to 82 but again we've been down in the ratio 23 66 years before it is other municipalities where the ratio is one digit because you know companies outside is not many to do rebounds again

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it's not something that you can do like four or five years it takes because they need to inspect every single property in the city so it's >> if we can just get back to the line items it's okay um I think it's an important discussion and important and we can continue it after if you want to

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continue that. Um, if I can just return to So, the next line item is salaries and wages part-time line 102. Anyone has questions about that? >> Councilman, I just wanted to correct myself. So, you had asked um about the

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amendment, budget amendment, >> excuse me, and the vote on the budget. They both require five votes. It's not six votes. >> Okay. >> Just so you know, you already have a full membership. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. A line item 102. Any questions, council

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members? >> This is part-time salaries and wages. Hearing none. Line item 103. I think someone had a question about overtime wages. >> Did Laura already answered uh my question? Sorry. Oh my god.

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Again and again, Sean. Um Laura, you answered my question, but if you want to add something, it was about overtime wages. Why do we need over time? >> Yeah, again we have um three busy seasons which is the appeal season, the

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added season and the tax season. So depending how many properties appeals we had to reassess, that's basically why we need the overtime and appeals it uh we don't know how many appeals we're going to have every year. So like this year 2020 2026 we have like a 1,843 appeals.

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So we use overtime for the assessors because like I explained it take a lot of work to research one property. Then uh when it comes to the added assessment then I need overtime for my assessors to value the properties and same thing for my inspector assessing aids to go and inspect properties for us to do the

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added assessment list. Once we finish that we working in the tax list meaning anything under construction we assess for the variable 2027. So then I need assessors and inspectors assessing aids to check the properties for me to be able to generate the the revenue for

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2027 and the extra work that we cannot do between 9 to5 or 9 to 4:30. That's basically the overtime that I'm looking for. Right. >> Um acting position costs line item 105

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questions. >> I have a question. Yep. Is that um like a union contract stipulation if someone's working out of title? >> Just to clarify, I didn't ask for nothing in 26. The money was for 2025.

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So nothing for 26 in the column, >> right? But just a question. >> That one is because the person who actually you want to say >> I I don't know the specifics of 2025. So maybe you can answer that. So what happens is in my 10 my uh technical

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assistant land use um retire in 2025. So I basically put a three staff members of um to take classes and training to help me out with you know with the bug work. So that's basically the 5,000 that happens in 2025. >> Understood. Thank you.

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>> Um moving on to other expenses. Um line 201 applies. Any questions about the office supplies budget line? No. Line 204, drafting and printing supplies.

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>> Questions there. >> Line 215, wearing apparel. >> Line 305, printing advertising. >> Oh, >> back up one to 215. >> 215. >> Wearing apparel. What uh exactly is that

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covering? That's basically the uniforms for the inspectors, any um you know jacket or t-shirt or anything that they need for doing inspections. Assessors also when they go out to do inspections >> and they're going in >> with a uniform.

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>> Yeah. Knocking on doors, doing something like that and they're talking to people and presenting their >> Yes. because they need to use, you know, a t-shirt with a logo city and the the badge and everything when they go inside a property because, you know, they need to identify themselves once they go inside the properties.

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>> Yep. Understood. >> Um, any other questions on that? No. >> 305 printing and advertising. >> Um, you requested 8,750

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administration um nothing in 2025. at 150 a little bit. >> I just actually spoke with Ruby before because that's the money that I need to mail the chapter 91s, the 4,000 letters for the income producing properties. It was reduced, but Ruben is going to help

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me allocating the money because I need the data for um like I explained for the PES and also the income data for re for the properties for 2027. So that was an item that I think is going to be amended, put it back. >> Yes. So that is a change um that was an

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error on our part. we didn't understand um what she needed the money for. So, she and I discussed this um and we're going to be making an edit uh to pull money I think is from our mailing and >> help me out here. some

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another funding source and putting it in their postage. >> Was the administration's wish to have that reinstated? >> So, we were planning on making that adjustment. >> Okay. Um, line 306, memberships and

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subscriptions. Council members, any questions? >> Yes. Um can you just identify what these memberships and subscriptions are? >> Yes, the assessor because we are certified assessors by the state. We need to renew our license every few years and for that we need to take

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credits. So we the state give us classes and training. So we had to go to them to be able to keep up with our licenses. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And these are annual Laura >> the classes training. Yes. Annual. Yes.

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because you need to you know they different laws tax court opinions that we need to know so that's how we go to those courses yes and we have five sessions in the office >> line 308 mileage allowance >> same when we go to conferences or any appeals or tax score that we need to

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travel that's the money that we use but can I ask sorry can I >> go ahead >> do you do they use cities uh uh transportation cities cars >> no when we go to the conference says, "No, the the cars is only for inspectors

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to work inside the city." >> I see. Okay. Thank you. >> Inspectors use the use vehicles >> just to do the inspections. Yes. If it's something major like to pick up like a book for the tax list maybe, but uh everything now is electronic. So, we

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don't go outside the city. It's only local. >> I'm just looking at the amount expended. Again, I I not sure. I guess the 2025 number I assume is for the full year. Looked like it was $300 for the year. Um

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just going to say I'm probably going to be looking at those things and trying to rightsize that stuff. Um the uh last >> Yeah. >> Sorry, Councilman. It's 2,800. Where do you see 300? >> Mhm.

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>> In the report that was provided um the BA's office that uh how much was expended in 2025. >> It shows 2,800 2,800 28 >> that's what's that was what is adopted at >> that's what was uh >> budget but they spent 300 >> but they spent 300. Okay. So if we spent

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300 in 2025 um I guess why is the request back to 2800? Why do we see it being more this year? >> That's what I've been suggesting is that we we need to rightsize some of these numbers. Um, and I'll be looking at that myself and just trying to now that we

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have these 25 numbers can kind of look at where the numbers would be right sized. not looking to decimate people's budgets on this stuff, but in a tough year like this, it's a >> because because you the

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if I uh jumped back in listening at the right time, you said that the inspectors use the city vehicles for the inspections, right? So, these mileage I guess reimbursement is for when they travel for training. >> Yeah, the assessors or Yeah, it's more for the sessors when they go for any

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training, any classes. But again it varies because depending if maybe we busy that's the that year and we many maybe three or four went to the trainings maybe only two stay working. So depending that's why it's not like a same number every year depending how busy we are because if we are in appeals

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we're in addition and we don't have enough time to go to the trainings they don't go like last year we couldn't assist too many because we were very busy with appeals and addits and everything. So that's the reason why so this year we also we currently working in the peels we didn't even finish yet.

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So, my assessors didn't go to many trainings uh this year yet. and and I vaguely recall just in I don't remember when it was uh and it's just off of memory at this point but that at one

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year or time uh mileage allowance mileage reimbursements were centralized under either the BA or finance such that if people wanted to get approvals for that they went through one office and they were able to monitor that and make

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sure kind of those numbers um state within budget in that regard. Um I I share that just as a for consideration for the administration to think about. Um any other questions on mileage

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allowance? No other questions? And moving on to item 312, professional consultant and specialized services. This is the largest portion outside of salaries. I think anyone have questions about >> Yes. Just if you can sorry

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>> go ahead. >> Just if you can talk Laura if you can talk about this item number 312. Yes. So basically that's um my department uses uh two appraisal companies to create reports to defend appeals even in the county of the tax

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court is 80,000 each contract. And the other one is the contract for civil solutions which is 139,625. That's the one that updates our tax maps and keep up to date with any subdivision or or um creation of the new black or lat. And

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the rest is for the cost store which is the software that we use to uh for the real estate information with the cop rates, sales, leases, anything that we need for the any income producing property. So they generate the cap rates, the market trends for everything that is happening outside. So they can

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help us when it comes to valuations. >> Thank you. Um yesterday from the law department we learned that um where possible it was cheaper to have an in-house attorney working on things rather than contracting them out to an

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outside law firm, but that that wasn't always possible. Is is that also true in the Texas Assensor's office in that it would be more cost-effective to have the work done inhouse? And could any of this work be done in-house if you had the appropriate staff or or is this

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specialized work that could not be done in-house? >> Well, I'm sorry. What is Are you talking about this um professional services? That's what you say? >> Yes. Could Could any of that be done in-house if you had the appropriate staffing levels? >> No. Because the for the appraisal

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companies you need somebody from outside when it's to defend an appeals they have to have their own licenses and you know because they working kind of in the tax court with their own appraisal report. So it's nothing that you can do inside okay inside house when it comes to appeals in the tax maps they have a

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software that is approved by the state. So it has to go through uh to to to the company. It's nothing that we can do in house because then you have to buy the software and you have to buy people to keep up to date. So it's going to be more expensive to do that. and Costar is the data that we're looking for any real estate changes and

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market. So we cannot do in house. >> Thank you. Thank you for clarifying. >> Anyone else? >> I have a question. Yep. >> Council Brooks >> on with regard to line 312. Um are these contracts that we have

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already approved by resolution and or um I see Sean nodding. uh and have already paid through an ETA or an earlier ETA. Two separate questions. >> Well, two of them was approved which is um I mean there is two appraisal

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companies uh that was approved already and one of them is coming in the next few weeks is the civil solutions. Um that's the one that is coming I think in the next meeting. >> So there's three contracts and we have already approved two of them. >> Two contracts approved. The other one

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doesn't need a contract because the price is below the threshold. So they don't need to get a console approval because that's the cost store the software that we do use to track the real estate data. But uh appraisal company was already approved I think um like a two months ago and uh civil

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solutions is going to be in the next meeting. >> Okay. So there's not a lot of flexibility with this particular line line item. >> No I mean that's a data that we use for able to function. So we need it. Thank you. >> No problem.

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>> I'm gonna respectfully, director, um disagree a little bit. Um and I and I I want you to know it's going through this with every every department. Um so again, thank you to the BA's office for the information about actual spend. If

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I'm reading this correctly, again, I don't know. I'm gonna have to contact your office just to make sure I'm interpreting things correctly, but the actual spend for 2025 for this line item was $174,888. Um, and so our our spend to date, again,

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if I'm reading this correctly, is uh $151,136. Um I know from again from those conversations with division local government services we don't want to uh trim it down to the bare bones and not

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leave any but any cushion. Um but I would like to see and I think I may have asked for this already if I didn't uh the five-year um spend on this particular line item for this particular department office.

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Uh so that's line 31 312 for the office of assessments uh and see how much was spent so that if decide to do some sort of right sizing of that um that line item um then we're

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doing it based on past historical data. Um and I'm happy to talk to you about it. uh director um taxor um yeah >> just just to added a comment to what you just mentioned about the 312 um in 2027

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um it was uh I I see the difference but uh again it's in case by cases because it is a lot of uh tax cases spending but it's depending in the case management time so if the judge wants us to finish in in certain time that's basically when we're looking for an appraisal report so

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that's basically what happens this year We're trying to get more reports and trying to finish more cases because the judge I think is uh retiring in the following year. So they're trying to finish the the sooner the better the case is spending. So that's why we probably want to use the money more than before because before they give us uh

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like few months to to basically accomplish the appraisals and when it comes to civil solutions the number changes based on the request of the tax maps and updates. I >> I'm happy to go through this and get all the data and discuss it further. Um I

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I'll say if if we could find say 60,000 savings on this line and put it into an assessing aid um that would generate more ratables for us. Uh I'm willing to make that a trade-off or something like that. Right. Um so

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>> okay thank you. >> Shall we move on next line item? Uh next item is line 399 petty cash. Any questions about that questions? Line it. Last line item in the line item budget is line 407,

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photographic equipment. No questions. Yes. So I I I want to open the floor now if anyone else has questions that maybe weren't specifically addressed. I know we had a conversation about the reval. if um councilwoman if you wanted to pick that back up or any other any other

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topics of uh conversation related to tax assessor's office. >> Thank you. Council me question on revel. Uh Laura, do we get funding from state for revel?

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>> I I was not involved in the rea but I don't think so. I think the money came from the city. Thank you. >> Well, um, >> yes. Thank you, Councilman Lavaro, for providing us opportunities to ask more general questions at the end. I wasn't

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sure if this was coming, which is why I tried to put them all under personnel because the personnel are the ones doing this work, >> but um I appreciate it. So um you said we are already below the like

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we are already past the threshold at which point a reval would be recommended >> correct because it's below 85% of the ratio. >> Okay. Can you explain a little bit more about what that ratio is and how it's calculated? Well, basically the ratio is a calculation um done by the state uh

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the New Jersey state the division of taxation when they basically compare the assessment values with the current market based on the sales. So that's how the ratio is actually lower because in 2018 everything was 100% of the market value because they use a market of 16

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and 17. So everything wasn't 100% of the market value meaning that if the property was selling for 500 the assessment was 500. So since then the market went up so the assessment remained the same. So that's how the ration instead of going 100% is going

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down every year based on the sales. So the state compares assessment value with a market value based on the sales and that's how the ratio it keeps going for 100% down. Last year was 79.59 2026 is 72.82.

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>> Wow. Okay. But again it's not just in Jersey cities in the entire state beyond Hoboka. Everybody got the same impacted because of the market going so high and that's basically what makes the ratio going down. >> Thank you. Um so I understand

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it is not good practice to leave it for 30 years like Jersey City city did last time. But I have also heard and I don't know if this is accurate. So that's why I'm asking. I've also heard that every 10 years can be used as a rule of thumb. I understand the ratio is probably the more accurate way to um calculate that,

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but in the interest of not having our residents taxes jump too much all at once. Um is is is 10 years a rule of thumb or or is that misinformation that I've been >> Well, it has to be in a study done to be able to to see how it goes because again

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you compare one assessment values with the taxes. I mean the taxes are going up because of the budget. The assessments remains the same. So again, if you can do revaluation today or in 10 days and 10 years, but doesn't mean that it's going to be making the taxes go down because everything has to be to up to

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date in market value, right? >> It's just a distribution of taxes, but doesn't doesn't mean that somebody's going to pay late taxes because now the market is again a house that says in 2020 2016 at 500,000 now they selling for 850 double than the price. That

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means the value is going to go up to 850. Even though the ratio goes down, it's not going to be a difference in taxes. It's just going to be distribution among the entire city. That's basically the difference, >> right? >> But taxes wise, I don't again, I don't think it would be a big difference in going down if that's what you're looking

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for. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um I have um another question um unrelated to the line items uh assess values commercial properties. Um can can you share with the council and the public how uh commercial properties are

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assessed? >> Yes. Income producing properties which is um commercial properties uh class 4 a mixuse and apartments five units and up is considered class 4 C and industrial class 4 B. All of them are based on the

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income producing market. Uh Jersey City's market in the past I would say three or four years has been like rental apartments market. So that's basically the highest of the income producing properties. As you can see it's highrises everywhere. Next is the retail

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spaces and the office space is the one that suffer the most especially in the waterfront and everywhere because nobody's working in the offices anymore. Everything is basically hybrid or working from home. That's why it's a lot of vacancy inside office space and some of the pieces actually for these areas

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is based in the vacancy of office spaces. So everything um income producing is based on the income that's how we value those properties. >> Yeah. So in terms of uh value valuation of these

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properties based on income producing yes produce >> how do you get the income? How does >> no that's what we send in the chuck the 91s that's the data that we send the forms that we collected from the property owners about what they renting

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how many apartments they have how much they charge in the leases so it's not that we have to check if it's accurate data so let's say they tell you that they make 120,000 so we check the prior data to see if that's the truth and we investigate also um I always trying to

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talk to my you know my staff we always review what is the market there. So if whatever they're providing is with the market there, then we fine with the data. But if they come back to say like I'm charging an apartment 1,100, but in reality we notice that they charging 2,000, then I'm using the 2,000. One of

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my biggest uh resources of data also is the tenant and landlord because they register the rents with them. So that's another source of comparing my my rents when they send the CH1. So I compare the rents. So if they're not registering their rents or >> I if they have any case spending or something, I tell them that I'm not

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going to move forward until they provide me the rent registrations. >> Understood. Um and and in terms of these chapter 91s and and evaluating them and reviewing them, how are your staffing

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levels to be able to do all that kind of work? I can just imagine it's quite overwhelming or there's a large load of that large number of those. Well, when it comes to value of properties, depending when if it's a new construction or not. So, I do have a staff my I have three of my staff

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members who are um realist, you know, CTA and also they have an appraisal licenses. So, yeah, we we investigate everything and then we are able to to cover the the big projects. So, that's the ones that is more important that brings a lot of money. >> Okay. Um I'm going to switch subjects

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just to uh tax abatements. Um, does your office have any role in um, tax abayments? I mean, they're not paying conventional taxes. Uh, but I'm wondering and specifically like in the last more more recently there was uh,

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tax presented to the city council that got pushed to September's meeting. Um the annual service charge is calculated based on um a percentage of those annual gross revenues um that the developer

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will be reporting in future years. Um that's set at some percentage 10% 11% 12% whatever the number is. Um but it's also compared according to the documents that were provided to council. It's also compared to they compare that number

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versus conventional taxes as a percentage of conventional taxes. So in the later years for example in years uh if my memory serves me it was years 26 to 30 um it was like a 13% annual service charge based on 13% of annual

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gross revenues versus uh 80% of conventional taxes that they pay. So for these tax abated properties, um, is your office also, even though they're tax abated, still looking at their what

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their calculating what their conventional tax burden would be for those properties? >> And no, my office, I mean, the pilot is totally different. That's handled by the tax abatement office and based on the financial um, agreement that they have with the city. I still value my my

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properties has they are taxing same like same tax the same same income and everything else. The only difference is that we have a codes that we use that is a uh that we put in a system that is a pilot that's it but uh the assessment value wise is assessed like every other

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property. So when they pay the pilot is based in what the payments calculations are being done with the with the administration but my assessment is done based in actual income. Okay. So, so it seems to me there might be a um a gap uh for the city to look at

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if we're comparing annual service charge versus percentage of conventional taxes and trying to and and the and the agreement the pilot agreement calls for them to pay more whatever is more. Um according to the analysis that we were

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provided again in years 26 to 30 it was going to be 80% of conventional taxes. So if we're not staying on top of that number and making sure that that conventional taxes and making that comparison to maximize again our revenues um not for the ones coming up but for the ones that are currently

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active um we should be looking more closely at that. I think >> I can provide because when they do the pilots they ask me for the assessments I can provide based on the calculation higher right with the value and then they can see the difference between

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taxable and under the pilot. >> Yeah. And to be clear, this is not your office's responsibility. >> It's not. No, mine is only as >> not sure that it falls under anyone actually to be frank with you at this point. >> That's why just to be clear, I don't manage pilots, so I don't know the agreements how it's handled. I just

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reassess the properties based on, you know, the income data. >> You you had mentioned earlier in the presentation about the five-year tax basis. >> Yes, that's a different um what council mear is talking is a long-term which is usually 30 years, 25 or 30 years. The

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ones that is approved in my office is a short-term abatement which is a five years. That one is for one to two family homes uh when they're brand new or if they renals that's approved by my office. But when the properties at three units and up new construction usually

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has to go in front of the council to get an approval then they can apply with the tax assessor. My office only approves short terms one to two family home. If it's a short-term um but multif family that the council approves, does it go back? Short

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>> term one to two family. Multi is uh three units and up, they go in front of the council. >> Understood. And for those that come before council that we have to approve, um if they're not the 30-year abatements, do they do do they go back to your office afterward?

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>> Once it's approved with you, yes, come back to me. um since I don't recall any of them being approved lately like uh small short terms >> right >> okay um can you can you share how you feel like just in yeah in your

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estimation um how effective the um five-year short-term pilots are um and abatements are for homeowners in the city I mean is this like is an effective tool that we should continue using I mean what kind of cost uh is it is it

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are we facing because of um the like litany of different 5-year and other short-term abatements on the books right now. >> Basically, a tax abatement uh in a new construction for example for one family home, we reassess the property based on the market and then we take a 30% of the

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improvement value for five years. So in numbers they saving depending where the property is located. So they can save two to maybe5 or $6,000 per year in taxes depending where the property is located and depending the value. So that's basically how it's been done.

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>> Do we have an estimate of um how many of these there are on I understand it's a rolling basis. There's not going to be all of them at just one period, but um how many are on the books right now? >> Um I I will have to check. I can I can back to I can get send an email to you with how many we have.

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>> That that would be helpful to get how many there are. and also um an estimate of for maybe the past three or four years uh and including 2026 um how much money is being withheld from the city uh based on these abayments.

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Understanding that um a main target of what we need to do on council is to scrutinize the really big ones, the um largest developments that are the longest term uh pilot programs. But I think it's also worthwhile looking into this and understanding

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this practice is really effective at supporting uh new homeowners who are trying to make these improvements and things um and to at what cost to the city. So that yeah I appreciate that data. >> Yeah, I can give you a list of how many properties under the the short term so you can see the difference if they are

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with without the p without the ament. >> Thank you so much. >> No problem. If there are no further questions, we'll close this hearing. Thank you to uh the tax assessor. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Miss Troy. >> Thank you. >> So, can I have a motion to adjourn at

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2:17 p.m.? >> Motion. >> Motion made by council person sing. May I have a second? >> Second. >> Second by council president Renley. All in favor to the of the motion to adjourn at 217 PM. All council members present

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by acclamation, please say I. >> I. >> We are out of here at 217 p.m. Thank you so much everyone present and everyone watching at home remember teamwork makes the dream work. Have a great rest of the day. Stay safe. You