e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e that e to section 5 chapter 231 Public Law 1975 this is to State for the record that adequate notice of this meeting has
been provided to the public by posting and maintaining the annual notice of regular meetings on the bulletin board of the municipal building by mailing the annual notice of regular meetings for 2025 to the news record and the Star Ledger in December of 2025 for and by
filing said notice in the office of the Township Clerk Mr daffis Mr DeLuca he's here he's just SLE here yeah I just heard Herman here mayor Adams here whereas chapter 231 public
laws of 1975 cly knows the open public meetings act far as old meetings of public bodies open to the public and whereas section 7A provides that the governing body has a discretion to perit or regulate the active participation of
the public in any meeting and where desired and governing body to comply with the Prov provision this act same time it conduct its business in an orderly and exp expeditious manner now therefore be resolved by the township committee Township mwood does
hereby prohibit accept to set forth in the formal agenda Act of participation in deliberations of the governing body by the public accept as otherwise by law does limit the public to the ob observations of the actions and
discussions of the governing body at all of its regular and special meetings moved second Mr daffis Mr Duca yes fle yes Furman yes mayor Adams yes please
stand for salute to the I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all thank
you good evening everyone and welcome to the Tuesday February 25th meeting for Budget hearings um tonight we'll be covering open space trust fund requests new employee
requests Capital recommendations revenue and budget recommendations then we will have public comment um and then we will journ to our meeting next week we're meeting weekly lately um so I will though say that since our members of the
public um on zoom and in the room um so that you don't necessarily have to stay in this room with us for the next couple hours um I will open a public comment for agenda items um at the top of the
meeting so if there's anyone who would like to address the township committee on and any of the budget um items you may want to uh speak to there'll be another public comment at the very end of the meeting but if you'd like to um
make a statement now you can come up to the microphone and you can watch the rest at home and if you prefer stay here whatever just giving you the option so you're welcome
terce I to be a regular attendee at your meetings um hopefully to do all Paris needs to be repaved this year um I'm not sure else I can add the comments I've
made before um we continue to see erosion on the the weather the CLS on salt the snow um so we are eager to find sit okay appreciate it and and I can
speak for everyone I think that we've heard you thus the power of public comment so thank you so much and do you have any idea when we will know no we won't make any final decisions tonight we'll be going over all the requests and we'll be
have the opportunity to ask questions of our professional asking for that money um and then we will you know take all that in consideration as well as the business administrator recommendations for what he thinks shall should or
shouldn't be included in the budget this year when's your fiscal year end it's our fiscal year ends December 31st oh so you're actually working on the budget yeah that's yeah and that's kind of how it goes we we approve a special
appropriation to cover bills until the um budget is passed yeah and then State Appropriations they don't pass our budget till July 1 yeah so for my next step what would you suggest
my well I can um you can stay all evening and then have public comment at the end after you hear the presentations from the engineer from you know uh for the capital requests we have a lot of Capital requests including road the road
program is an annual Capital request so um yeah we'll be working through it you you're welcome to stay or we're on Zoom also if you prefer to stay home but we we could we could fill you in there's right now there there are there's a list
of roads that are proposed your street is on that list so the question is two things do are we going to put enough money in the capital budget to cover all the requests that's number one and number two whatever number we put in there is it
enough to cover all the roads because we can make an allocation and sometimes the prices come in higher than we have an allocation so some roads drop off the list so you'll know you'll get a sense when
we make a final decision on the budget allocation for roads you know how how your road stands but then we really won't know until we go about to bid as to what roads we can how many roads we can do cuz normally we'll put it out we'll get the bids back
sometimes we can keep the roads sometimes we have to drop they we call them uh um what do we add them addition behind the bid or extra yeah I think what he's saying is it won't be definite until the road ped right now you're in
good shape because the road is on the list right in the pecking order it's number seven of eight we're number seven well that's just how the list works I don't know I don't know the priorities of but you're just the the one I saw the list I think you're number seven on the
on the eight but also there's a lot of roads that didn't make the list so don't make don't you know this is what he's recommending doing and that's why we need to have the discussion about it so if we could yeah um it's a it's a moving Target yeah
hopefully think that ours I I doubt it I don't think we'll get that detailed yet tonight thank you thank you and thanks for your advocacy anyone else Mr where is there anyone online who' be uh would like to speak in public
comment if anyone joining on Zoom would like to speak in public comment please raise your hand now I see no hands mayor okay thank you um with that we'll move into budget discussions so uh first up is open space
hi Gary Mr Nelson would you like to come up um either where would you like it Mr rary next to you wherever you like yeah yeah just make sure you turn on the mic welcome is the mic on Mr wor there you go
uh thank you for uhing us on the schedule course the requests came in even later this year but uh we try to put us at the end here I try to make sure it's you know as late as possible just you're welcome actually I think it's kind of
good it comes theight some of the stuff yeah yeah feeds into each other totally anyhow I'll give you a quick overview I know you have the list of the requests that came in uh we started with a 2024 balance unallocated funds of about 10
I'm going to round 140,000 and then the expected revenue from 2025 taxes is 62 total of available funds for 2025 for open space is roughly 730,000 or
760,000 um um the committee this year received six Active requests with full budgets and two potential future projects were identified but just were not did not consider those this
year um the total amount of the six Active requests came to 591 th000 five of the six uh what I'm calling active requests were actually Legacy requests which means um in our by
our definition continuations of ongoing programs or projects which OST has previously supported um that never guarantees recommendation from the grou automatics
but it does factor in um and requests included primarily um three of the parks in town Memorial Maple and important committee carefully reviewed uh all six of these active
requests uh after discussion and questions being answered ultimately recommended for approval because we know we don't actually approve but we recommend to you for approval all of the six active projects at their full request
levels so um I can walk you through them you've got yeah just why to just let them uh list them first one from Community Services was for board AR Serv there is has been an ongoing Bardon
Park uh Improvement project for several seasons uh and this is the latest phase this was a slight increase from the original request I believe but uh back into I think it also allows flexibility
of pickle ball is that right y yeah um so that was uh easily um recommended for approval the Maple Crest back uh Maple Crest Park back stops it's total of three of them a
safety I think Maple Crest Maple Crest is the safety issue right yeah um so that was approved at $86,000 that had a slight increase in cost the last the last
round Memorial Park lighting this is a project large project that was approved last season or recommended approval last season at $300,000 and apparently the um according to Paul the and Missy the
uh projects become slightly more complex than it was originally defined I think also the original request last year was for slightly more money and somehow it wound up with I think it was for over 300 and somehow only 300 W in wand up in
there so this extra 50 kind of writes it for the request that was writes it for the amount that the estimate for the cost of the project for the lighting okay we're talking about lighting at uh Memorial Park tennis and the basketball bring them up to LED
and all that kind well I think yeah and I think there's also I think it's slightly complicated Paul can start right situation um just a note when that gets close to
design I've mentioned this to Missy uh HPC needs to see that and probably Conservancy should be yeah yeah yeah when you get close to that stage uh summer intern program is for specifically Memorial Park and that's
been several seasons now uh we've had great success with that Jennifer R the landscape consultant who is working still with us uh part-time at this point also brought in a Horticultural
um consultant as well and um may or may not include actual interns but at least there are Consultants on work to help us with the uh continuing the planting and the planning programs that have been so successful over the years in Memorial
Park uh the next one is Park trees those are technically allowed to go throughout the entire community so Annie Park this is a quite a bit lower request than previous years but there is still if I understand correctly somewhat of a
balance of last year's is that correct Mr OJ is there a balance that uh for the tree planting specifically okay um and um the reality is you know we can only
plant so much and keep them alive too so yeah let's go as far as we can if the need comes up then uh perhaps find some money for more Memorial Park bridge this completes the trifecta of the Reconstruction of the Three Bridges in
Memorial Memorial Park this one for the library this is for the one behind the library um and uh once this is done all three will be done and hopefully good for years to come and that is the end of that
project um the two other projects potentially on the on the on the docket for the future is the inclusive playground although Dean indicated that that may or may not be what actually happens there so we
didn't have a full um proposal on it anyhow so we didn't included in this year and then the redo was also uh not fully defined or with a a real funding number here so
uh you know I we appreciate having the notice that these things might be coming down the pike obviously we don't I mean the numbers thrown around for Dart were significant usually beyond what we would ever have in our budget
right we know we we know that they may be coming our way some point in the future Mr did you just want to say something yeah just one comment on the inclusive playground so we have a $750,000 grant from the state for that we also have previous open space money
that's been allocated to a previous project that were that everyone has agreed that we'll be dedicated to this project I had mentioned it in our open space request because we're still very you know preliminary in the design so we expect to award a contract to a design
firm at the next Township committee meeting uh but there is an opportunity since we have some money left over in open space this year that should it be necessary uh we could go back to open space that'll be a a one it would be eligible and two it would be a continuation of a uh project theyve
already funded right cuz still have that money that was fund was like I think 860 or something yep we still have all that money yeah okay so um as I said we uh the six Active requests were
all recommended by the committee for approval by you guys and uh in their full amounts which total 591 th000 if you take that out of the 760 you've got roughly uh 168 169
at this point unless something else gets freed up right and the osdf Mr C if I'm correct benefited from the revaluation in um more money going into the pot for open space revaluation and the township committee's uh decision to leave the
rate at where it is okay can you clarify again why um the har Park wasn't something recommended did you say just cuz we didn't have an actual plan get a her number or there wasn't it's not a full proposal the
number was 2.4 million and that number is in the township request not the ,000 that's a $2.4 million project so it has to fund the entire project not just like a little bit it could fund a portion and even the balance debts remaining the township committee could
decide to um take that money and and dedicate it towards theart field the a nice thing about open space is that money's available so that if anything comes up throughout the year that you decide to fund it's an easier appropriation for the township committee
to make in conjunction with the open space committee um so it's nice to have a balance there but the township committee could decide to dedicate those funds to the harfield thank you for clarifying is the is the balance of the open space trust fund money the 170 or
so is that eligible to be used as a down payment for the 2.5 yes there's 168 or 69 remaining and what is the amount that is left over from the other project for the
um inclusive playground 300 50 or something I thought it was 8 840 the grant was 750 it's less than that because I want to say the total project as applied was maybe around $1.3 million so was the
difference between that and 750,000 which is what we were from the state I can get you exactly but I thought we approved it for the spray park before we got the Grant and we always said we were rolling over the spray park money towards the inclusive playground and that was 800 something no that was 350
oh really yeah yeah project it was 800 something and it was I just you know so you're not concerned about inclusive playground when we made the application to the state we have enough money to cover the project as we applied for right so right
now we're not talking about making cuts to that but it's a big project right and so we always want to leave ourselves some some room if we can and did I understand um from previous discussions that anything that we do for the bathrooms or the sidewalks or the
parking lot that would not be open space trust or it could be it hasn't been considered now for open space okay but it could be if it could be we could you it open space could be used for that it could be okay and it will that wouldn't be part of the 750 Grant no that could
be come that could be open Stace correct what you're thinking of is it it didn't it didn't go with the open SP with the grant that we got it wasn't right it's it's an ineligible cost for the grant the the parking lot is an eligible cost for theou
right okay any other questions for Open Space Mr DeLuca you look like you're think oh okay I saw the smoke coming out of his ears Gary thank you so Mr Nelson I should be more formal I'm sorry thank you so much for all your
work on this and for keeping lost some members yeah but appreciate it you are free to go and enjoy your evening okay thank you all right we're moving
next to new employee requests Mr Wy you want to take over yes thank you mayor so we have six new staff requests these are requests made by department heads um and all of them were
reasonable all of them have been submitted to the township committee for consideration um I have recommendations on what of these uh we are um I think in the Township's best interest and what we can absorb into our
2025 budget so to start at the top we have uh a pool maintenance worker and community services this position um we currently have a part-time position um that fills this role the issue we've run
into and this is a critical role this is the person who is uh Works directly with and underneath our pool foran on overall maintenance of the pool every day and given the number of tools we have amount of visitors we have it's a very big job um and we have someone in the position
now who who is um a great fit for the position but it's a part it's a full-time seasonal which means generally this employees working between May and maybe the beginning middle of October and as a as a not a full-time position
it's difficult to keep the right person um in this spot so the recommendation is to take this from a part-time position to a full-time position the salary for the position um is included in there the is
$45,000 the um there's obviously when you become full-time uh the added cost of benefits so you know health benefits and pension benefits there is some consideration though or some ease in this request in that it's already funded at a part-time
position seasonal position which is earns about $20,000 a year that's basically an increased request of about 25 that's correct yeah um correct Plus benefits so in salary yeah Sal you have
on the spreadsheet do not include benefits well it's a partial year so the the the the impact in this year's budget is partial year but but when I think about it when I discuss it with you you know we want to think about full year costs because that'll be the reality in
2026 and so the impact this year um is a is an increase of 25 ,000 salary plus um benefits says 18,000 for benefits on the right on the backup
information so that's 40 43,000 y but not having this position last summer um how much did we go over in overtime because I feel like so we spend a lot in overtime because we didn't have this yeah we had this
position as a full-time seasonal uh but when they're not a yearr round employee we have less of an opportunity to train them up and they have less of an incentive to train them up so this position last year was
not as um didn't do all the services we need and so you're right we did end up Contracting for an outside company to come in and act as the pool operator when our pool Foreman was not there so how much did we spend on that because I
feel like the cost of this yeah is probably we spent that in this other contractor that's right so CFM was was that contractor that was I think between 25 and $35,000 last year I can get you
an exact number there you know there may still be occasions that we require an outside company to fill in when when our staff are not available because it's it's difficult in the summer sometimes um but yes you're right that this will be an offset to that as well and for all of those reasons I recommend the funding
of this position so the um this is a position that used to exist it did and now it doesn't so a lot of responsibilities have fallen on to the pool other employees pool Foreman or
onto outside um contractors okay okay so I have a I have a couple things you like to say yeah I would like to say some things on it so I I think last year what we did to the pool form
in in um we can't repeat because he correct had uh you know he worked too much so we need to get him help but I'm unclear about what this person that we're talking about hiring is going to
do for essentially eight months of the year right now our pool Foreman is working here in this building because it's too cold over at the pool I don't know what or or I guess it's the pool maintenance person
um I I just don't know what these folks are going to be doing so if you told me that we're hiring this person they're going to be working at the pool for four months or five months and then the balance of the time they're going to be working at DPW doing something I just
don't want the person to be sitting here as another body in community services unless there's work to be done well there's no maintenance work the community services director has um and I can I'll share it with you has laid out
four pages of month by month what this person would do you shared that with us I will share with you just received it so I can share that with you okay anyone else I mean I'm in favor of
getting our pool Foreman help because he can't work the kind of schedule and we need somebody else there at the pool and he can't be there all day so I hear what you're saying Mr Deluca and I am interested in seeing the month by month and maybe can be a crossing guard
okay I agree with this budget request yeah and also I'd like I I think I've seen the breakout of all of those things um that that this person would be doing um I believe she brought it to the pool committee um so but that's important
yeah if you have that you can forward it while we're in the meeting too um when you're not talking the the back the backup that Mr request reting for that and the next position right Yes program supervisor so program supervisor this
would be someone at the uh Maplewood Community Center and right now we have a senior program supervisor um there who is responsible the title is senior program supervisor
it's not just senior programing they they do senior program but they're also responsible for um all of the uh programs that are run through the community center there and it's a uh a large workload which has increased with
additional programming and so the request is for um this person to assist the senior program supervisor with administrative help currently our town hall staff assists with purchasing requisitions roster creation a lot of
that administrative work U which stretches thin some of our town hall staff and and still in Recreation but some of our town hall staff um in this position and the request is uh would would U helps alleviate some of that
workload which as we have um added programs um has become uh more than can be absorbed into our uh our town hall staff but you're recommending not the I think there should be a discussion which
is already I think there's an interest in the township Committee of having the discuss discussion about how much programming maybe too much programming or at least what pace um that we're adding programming and as we we've added staff to community services in previous
years to assist with programming um I would you know we were're very very busy in the summer months and you know I think maybe there is an opportunity for just seasonal help when needed very very program specific but for a general a
more General position as a full-time annual position I think that we should take opportunities to consider what is our best programming and put all our efforts into that any question I agree with that recommendation I agree
too yeah we can talk about this in committee I think there's yeah a lot yeah there's some other things to talk about that we can dig into in health and human for sure on Monday okay next is violations clerk also recommended yeah not recommended
this one will be quick we in recent years have had a lot of turnover in our uh the title of violations Clerk and for that reason the court administrator had submitted for a higher salary for those positions and also an additional person just because with so much turnover they
are having difficulty keeping up with the pace of the work um my recommendation is in agreement with his request for U increase to salaries for those uh for the existing existing staff and with the expectation that we won't
have the same turnover and this position won't be necessary and I've discussed that with a court administrator and uh they are on board with that approach for this year okay anybody have any you okay with I'm okay with that I still include it because it was a good request and I I
want to no we need to know about it stands where okay uh the other one is floating crossing guard yeah so these two can be somewhat group together in that um they both of them have a benefit
to crossing guards we have 32 31 32 U crossing guards regularly staffed two of those are floer positions because when there's call outs um historically the police department had
assigned officers to cover those corners and we are in agreement that it's not the best use of a police officer's time we want those staffed with crossing guards um two things are impacting us covering all of those Corners when needed first you know we
may get uh more call outs in a day than we have right now we have two floaters we may get more than two call outs a day so once we hit that third we're automatically um pulling a police officer right to cover the corners the other issue is that this is a position with high turnover and if we lose one
person and it takes us some time to rehire we're we're pulling police officers to cover those Corners so with a third floater and I I don't even expect that we'll end up being three um crossing guards to having those three people staffed at all times just because of the high turnover
but the the request is this third position so that we can cover those Corners with crossing guards and not with um police officers similarly the second request when we do have some uh vacancies and Corners we also parking
enforcement officers and that's really helpful so we have right now two full-time and one part-time parking enforcement officers and the part-time officer works in the mornings this would be a part-time off parking enforcement officer to work in the afternoons the
benefit in they can cover afternoon Corners when we need them and when we don't need them they'll be out there enforcing uh parking regulations which uh one is in our interest because it's it's good for the community but also it would generate Revenue to cover the
expense to the expense of the position so I recommend both of those positions parking enforcement officer so we don't have any paid parking other than permit whether it's employee or commuter right that's right yeah and does our
parking enforcement officers enforce in the New Jersey Transit Lots they do they enforce all of the time limit parking the resident parking uh around the train station they enforce in our Lots they enforce too close to Corners too close
to crosswalks okay what's and they bring in Revenue right they do yeah I'm in favor I'm in favor of this same okay great I'm skeptical on the parking enforcement One do we know how much revenue they bring in we yeah
we're working on breaking that down I mean we know gross revenue of what we get it's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars it's $350,000 a year in just uh that piece of parking enforcement so we are going through data to pull that I might have
that for you in a maybe next week maybe as we get complaints about parking in the village they can enforce I think it's a two hour right yeah some is two and some is three we also have with what we're talking about with the parking lots and and having overnight parking and stuff we're talking about enforcing
there so you know we talk about how we don't have enough enforcement already and we talk about how police officers are always pulled off to cover crossing guards and during these busy times we don't have police officers out being able to enforce so yeah yeah absolutely not allowed to do moving violations like
turning the wrong way into a parking spot in Maplewood Village which 90% of the people who live here but they can do enforcement around the schools right when people are parking in front of the schools or in the drop off zones or every place that they're not supposed to be they can be there and adding support the recommendation from the chief is to
have this position be a tues through Saturday position whereas all of our others are Monday through Friday so on the weekends enforcement is just police officers this would have someone be able to enforce on a Saturday okay all right any other questions on this I think you have your uh and then the last one which
was an addition this week is public information officer we in our 2024 budget funded for the first time a public information officer um this person was uh funded at 15 hours per week we have had a great
public information officer recent hire um has just come out of of the gates with a a lot of new ideas and has made a quick impact in our I think we need to give her five more hours a week what's everybody else think I was thinking not
to cut you off but to cut you off that's I was thinking if she's if she was supposed to be doing 15 she's doing 20 yes I would kind of like to see it go to 25 because I feel like she's she's a she's all the work that she's doing right now
I want her to do I would like to see her do more as in like taking on campaigns and taking on projects and I feel like um if she's work she's how much is she working right now about 20 hours a week she so she's
doing 20 hours a week now yeah like to give it the position will have time when one I I think they you know we look to bring bring them back down of 15 hours a week but also when they're taking days off for like regular vacations and things so hopefully on average at the end of the year we still get to 15 hours
a week you could fund this position at 40 hours a week and we'd find work for them I think the question becomes what can we absorb into this year's budget and you were saying you want as you'll see tonight from the no 20 yeah from the
capital requests and also you know Mr Cog will go over kind of where we are very very rough draft budget um we have a need to be sensitive with uh new spending so I recommend hours yeah I'm not sold on this one on the five
hours no I'm okay with five mean I always thought it had to be full-time so I'm in support of it being 20 hours and we can talk offline in our green cloth about why five more hours a week would be beneficial to the township well my
understanding I guess is that if it's 15 um yet she's been working 20 she's going to run out of hours at some point in the year and just I think what Mr W was just saying though with vacation time and other things that it probably
time but also like if if not approved for 20 I will be making a strong push to cut backer hours just because that's the reality the TC has given me approval to have this employee working 15 hours a week and so it'll be you know without this approval it'll be my uh intention
to cut them back I think there may be a possibility of once she get because when you're just starting especially a position like this she's starting up new social media she's doing a lot of stuff that is um won't be something she'll have to do going forward I disagree
because every week she's collecting all these updates from all the Departments and putting together this document with the newslet and that information I'm talking about the the the fact that there's stuff she's setting up now that she doesn't need to set up once it's set up and then she can schedule everything thing I have a person doing the exact
same thing for me at my job she works 15 hours a week plus some extra remotely but everything's scheduled and once she gets to a point where she can schedule things social media I don't know I kind of disagree with it but I am supportive
of bumping it up to 20 hours um I also think listening to her I mean she stretched really thin even the meetings she has to go to and the time things take 15 hours goes really really really fast and I think 20 hours would just be tremendous for both her for the
administration for our Communications um for the public I'm in support of bumping it up I'm definitely in support of bumping up to 20 I would be in support of going a little higher than 20 as well um because I I really see the potential
for what we can have we're already having more um engagement with the community we're having um um you know within just a month like she just started and we're seeing um I I I think there our newsletter now a thousand more
people um our Instagram is reaching a lot more people and as we know we have a lot more people in Maplewood to reach and this isn't the only way and she's got ideas for how to get printed material to some other residents that are not able to read online and I think
that you know as we want to get this information out and engage um the community I think she's doing a great job and I would like to see more so I I it's hard to see more without I think we're two two and this is where we're like Mr daffis call in from your plane
well I think we have a majority that's in favor of 20 but I think we'll put 20 20 we'll put 20 hours into the budget again as we have a lot of work to do we have cuts to make you know as we talk about additions here we have cuts to make to this budget and so if we get to
the end in a Rosy spot it can always be reconsidered all right okay all right we'll move on to uh Capital recommendations yes so we only have a couple million right yeah yeah so flip to this it is the second page but at the
top it should say Department project number so you'll have that black line across the top here and at the top it should say what just have to flip to the opposite oh you you stapled them wrong it wouldn't say that I would
uh okay uh at the top community services so um and just to lay this out you got your department on the left each project buy Department gets a number a little description you've got hard cost so these are the um there's hard cost and
soft cost soft cost are things like engineering fees or financing fees or you know professionals things designable um so we kind of broke that out in the uh in the paragraph which I think only affects one project and then I have three proposed the first one is the
request in hard cost and then from that I have three proposed columns so um the uh the request this year from the Departments was over8 A5 million our Target is around7
million big amount so ideally we'd like to have it below $7 million and you'll see when Mr CL goes over our uh our ordinances for for Capital over the last few years and what our debt Services less than six would keep us um somewhat
consistent or less than 7 million would keep us somewhat consistent in that so we've received $18.5 million in request this year um I've cut that down in the first down to 14.9 in the second 11.5 in the third
8.1 there are Grant offsets to some of these although the township ends up borrowing some of that money up front just because uh we may not have cash flow to cover if the grant is a reimbursement Grant where we have to put the money out first and then get reimbursed so we may still have to approve borrowing in those
situations and some of these numbers and I'll highlight them as we go through are still being refined so we'll start at the top Senior Center flooring this is at the senior center to replace what is the carpeted
flooring um on their first floor they um this is somewhat of a uh a safety issue in that as the carpet is aging and sagging in places uh may become a tripping Hazard so um this is something that we recommend for this year for the
senior center this is for the senior that's inclusive of the kitchen at the senior center right the kitchen floor I don't see I think there's a rug covering a hole in the kitchen floor the senior center okay we're not going to
leave a a hole in the floor um I'll confirm that it's yeah you don't have to answer it now um because I don't see it in the description but yes this okay any questions on this any questions
anybody okay move on okay uh Community Center flooring the community center flooring while u in usual shape is very dated and this is a um this is in the community
room um and we are looking for a fresh aesthetic to the space especially because we rent this out for events and so to keep rentals high and revenue high and us to be able to maximize that portion of the
usage um it have been requested that this be considered the I mean everyone's been there it's that avocado green um tile The Proposal um is for um a uh a better
aesthetic in there um I think you know this is something that likely we um come to in future years given the size of this year's budget um I had recommended that it not be included in the uh third round of cuts it's a small amount $25,000
but okay any questions any questions on any of that okay and then Community Center signage which was a really nice request there were in the backups that were provided uh there were mockups of what it would look like and I think it has a great
look but and it's a reasonably low cost but it's in a budget year when we have a lot of requests so I not recommended um that project and I hope we can consider it in future years Ango I was just going to say I wonder if that's a project we can do with like boy
scouts or girl scouts or something signage versus spending money I don't know any opportunity there you think no I know that's a pretty big cost yeah and it's also yeah I mean the
signage that's proposed is um or just signage in general not necessarily what's proposed just in general I see Miss Herman writing a note so thank you any questions on that are is the committee okay with cutting that request
yes great I'm sorry that's not everybody but anybody else have concern I didn't know we were making decisions you don't have to no that's fine that's fine okay I'll leave that then um all right now we'll get into engineering Mr ker will join
us well here's the one that people are interested in you can start with the hottest topic of Road program sorry to rush you Mr just gonna keep going down no no no no you weren't you didn't get all dressed up for nothing get the bull
here good welcome Mr ker and uh yeah you want to when you're are you ready to just dive in or because you got your piles few seconds okay so the first item on here is for the annual Road program
we had shared the list of roadways that were identified for improvement this year um there were seven roads on that list based off of excuse me eight roads
on that list based off of expectation of uh the work and uh the current cost of uh contracts including asphalt uh the request was for $1.4 million Mr where do you have anything you could be sharing on the screen yeah
I can share uh the Excel file for the public plus my batteries dying in my on my laptop Mr ker you want would you mind running down the list of the recommended first on the list Richmond
Avenue between Parker and Elwood uh we're estimating a cost with uh the current budget to cost $277,745 Oakland Road between Tuscan Road and
Foresta $1,120 Brook Lane between Durand and the dead end that includes drainage $18,350 parting Street between Bon Avenue and jacobe Avenue jacobe street $
4,340 Ivy Terrace between the intersection and Bernett Avenue at $30,000 Darth wve terce between Kendall and the dead end $ 37,56017 $100,000 and I'll not that contrary to
years this is simply a million Serv so this is not reconstruction this is not reconstruction structures not significant drainage improvements other than Brook Lane Brook Lane this dra so
this list is 800,000 so so you have the initial list we got with the road back up was $1.7 million and if you just go to Richmond again you you had estimated 435,000 and
now you're much lower what's the difference just so we're clear about what the difference is not pie uh you know this is strictly in Milling and resurfacing we're not re resetting rates and elevations and
manholes we're not replacing out manholes we're not parging uh you know a lot of uh interior drainage improvements aren being done uh but that's that's the main cause to okay so you you brought you brought
these down to what was recommended by Mr weary okay so and and I'm G to put you on the spot I understand that you know we have budget limitations here um and you did the right thing by bringing it
down to 800,000 but my question to you is do we have any I mean you obviously thought that some of these roads needed more than just milling and Paving in your initial estimate so are we doing the right thing by just milling and
Paving and we're still going to have puddles or depressions or whatever on some of these roads well that's the difference I think between the original approach what we're considering now so there's some of the puddles and and uh
low has to be adjusted during ping and often times we work that out the field but uh we're not accounting for changing the grades adding drainage you know that that number that estimate that you had previously that considers those costs
right so yeah it's it you know it's a different approach I will say that many other towns take this approach the number of $800,000 I would say many towns take that approach here in Maplewood we
often try to consider drainage and take yeah while we're already ripping up the road and fixing that preventative right it's preventative at the same time were there roads that you left off the list that you had on when you tried to reduce the
amount so uh it's still the same eight roads there were three other roads that we considered roads those roads are in bad shape that's not part of this list and if you took the approach that uh you know we're looking
at for this year at 800,000 that milling and resurfacing without the you know without the other Frills then you're looking at an extra 128,000 for those three streets yeah I so to me um roads are important because people see them people
drive on them impacts you know property values on the street uh and so I am I am more inclined to add some more money to this line than than what Mr weary is suggesting um I think we should always be about a
million bucks million two in Road repair that's what we kind of been doing right yeah I I would have to say probably in general it's been around one to 1.2 million in it right and I just think it's it's a good practice um I mean I also just think practically
it's people see it you know some of these things we do and it's underground and no one sees it and they wonder where their tax money is going and here's a demonstration of where your tax money is going it's going to fix up the roads on your block so um I'd be I'd be
interested in putting some more money into this program whether you can do more roads or less roads or do these eight roads better um you know maybe do a little bit here in there where you think that you know there's we need to do some prevention but I would be
interested in putting a little more money into this thing so Mr kitner if you were to agree if the township committee agreed with Mr DeLuca where do you see that money being put do you see it doing um more than just milling and
resurfacing on some of these roads and doing drainage improvements and we try as well by drainage so we'd be looking at that we'd be looking at upgrading the casting the D
requirements making they're so those are and you can do a mix and match right some streets you can just do Mill and pave yeah now the other the other item that this is not pretty major right of these ramp operators now as far as I'm
my opin I think that town is very advanced in terms of ramp upgrades making sure comply and you know it's in keeping with you know the requirements I think a lot of times respect always keep up yeah so that's
another factor in the cost it's not just rage can I ask just like a question when you're talking about milling and Paving versus like more work so just because like we have our GTH weight terrorist people sitting here and what and and I'm just curious so like their street let's say if there was
more money would milling and P milling and Paving be what is recommended there or when you're talking about these dips or whatever is there actually more work that needs to be done I think the other streets and they also have relief there's a there's a bit of a hill to it so you know other streets are flat and those are the ones
that are problematic they're more problematic with drainage yeah we're not going to have public comment here sorry uh you can come up at the end of the meeting and we already heard you at the beginning sorry so like Walton is flat like that's what you mean right okay I
understand yeah okay all right lots to think about on that one um or a couple roads not on the list that I'm kind of surprised are missing but yeah of course yeah we know
that okay so you want to go to the next item DPW abatement this abatement is taking decades feels like this is the is this the last part of the batement at DPW
so you know the the DPW batement project that is the last part there was some pre-existing conditions this is not and this is mandated upon us now I've had some extensive
conversations with and Consulting engineer you know there is some fle there is some flexibility in this according to him uh you know but but it was his opinion that we should go forward with this because if we don't we
miss the deadline then D could uh actually us to an administrative consent order where they're calling the shots they're telling us when it has to be done in what order so it gives us more flexibility in terms of the we we did try by the way Bing this
out prior year yeah but pricing just didn't come in you know low enough for us to so are we anticipating that we'll have it this will be bid once we bid it out be at this
number Wei did we had right to get the proper pricing okay all right ni just a procedural question Mr weie on the first proposed second proposed third
proposed the second this is this is just for numbers these aren't expressing your values on is three better than two or two better than one they down they they go through a ser of cut so the the First Column is everything requested and then first
proposed is was a first attempt at cutting some of those SE right yeah I understand but I'm asking you if you had to make a choice between did you did you put is this just a numbers thing or do you have did you put values your particular value on the importance of going with number two versus number
three yeah I put my my particular value on and do you think we should stick to the number three line the third proposal line or the number two proposed line number three is cheaper I mean it's a difficult question because we're talking about tax rate right and so I
think this is I think you you answer my Okay the third proposed line is more than we've spent in previous years and was more than our goal so I would I would certainly my preference is less spending yeah okay so you're okay okay
what and we sent spent last year how much again well we came back so last year ended up around approved in the budget process was a little over seven but then we had a subsequent uh ordinance which was I think for what another two million
for the library yeah so was that was separate but five million for the library last year's project was $7.4 Million last year's Bond or so in between two second proposed and three proposed okay all right we'll move on to building improvements that's a big number oh
that's just for that yeah I got thank you so building improvements includes um miscellaneous improvements which we typically ask for each year it also includes the Civic
house uh which we listed some prior funding accounts for this project unfortunately we did try bidding it out once we just couldn't get a low enough pricing and you know that is in bad shape the parut walls in bad shape the roof's in bad shape I'm sorry which both
building Civic house oh okay yeah yeah yeah this also includes the police building the heat pump all right so based on the latest estimates that some additional monies would be warranted we did get a
$250,000 Grant a sey grant for that project and then uh the bird door if there's some work for the spring CRS as well the um Grant does that expire if we don't use it I mean the GR for the heat pump and
is it guaranteed or is that like a where' that money come from that's through the state does it exp yeah through the BPU through BPU the the Board of Public
Utilities and I think it's tied into the federal money that's what I it's a pass through thought it was a federal money it's part of I think it's part of the the stimulus or the so if we don't use it we might lose it it's usually the case with most but I
could find out is well we won't know a lot if it's tied into Federal we have no idea what we're going to lose do we just rent the Civic house out we don't use it ourselves right we just rent it yeah that's another discussion we could talk about
we lease it out Le to the Y yeah we use it for bathrooms right yes for Park bathrooms so they they let us use the bathrooms what's the part of the agreement we have a it locks the whole another conversation on Revenue timed locks yeah open that's a revenue who uses the there's offices upstairs who
uses the the Y the Y okay they have a sweet deal on their rent there okay Maple Terrace so terce we put in a request Engineers estimate had actually
a cost increase with respect to the mitigation component so through the project because we're impacting wetlands and Wetland transition areas there's a cost by based on the
indic you know wank requesting an extra $200,000 What's the total then so we're looking at approximately a million everything I feel like anything we fund the cost goes up the time we're
actually doing it yep everything yeah well this one was this was more dramatic this was dramatic and it also was um delays that were not our fault it was D and all the proposed fixes we wanted to
give to it that they denied over and over again right yeah okay uh utility repairs what's that for it's a generic this covers and what do we generally spend every
year on that line I consist I it's beart field reconstruction so we expect the design to be done this year and to be able to go out to bid for this this year I was thinking 2026 but that's
a big that's accurate I think we could finish the design uh you know assuming that we don't have back and for in the township terms of things that could delay us so assuming a reasonable amount
of time of back and forth I think I think it could be designed this year would help put it out to bid and we're probably looking at Spring construction spring 26 six but we need to secure the bond now this year in
25 otherwise otherwise otherwise we'd be this place next year without having not being able to go yeah I know just so I would I would like us to think about this project a little differently um this is a standalone
one-time project and this comes on the heels of the 2021 uh ordinance that was passed by the township committee to allocate $1.8 million for turf field which the voters then um put on the ball it and defeated
it 3,800 to 3200 so um what I would suggest is that we should move ahead with this 2.5 I would suggest we treat this as a separate um project and not consider it
as part of our annual Capital project it's sort of like the library it's a one-time opportunity to make a huge change um again we you know we I've been talking about this for a long time and I think that the other things that are on
this list are kind of the everything we have to do every year of keeping our buildings up keeping our sewers clean keeping our roads working so I think what happens is if we include this as part of this package we're going to squeeze out very important things that
we have to do so I I very much favor the 2.5 the reason and and I don't know uh Mr kog if it makes sense to to do it now now or do it later you know when when we go out to bond and what ordinance we pass but um because we're not there yet
we still have to do the design Mr kittner said if we don't have a lot of back and forth well I haven't seen anything that we've ever done where we haven't had a lot of back and forth so there's going to be a lot of back and forth on this so whether we can get all the planning done and everybody to sign on before the end of the year I I'm not
sure so I'm wondering if it makes sense to wait on this a little bit to see where where we land um and the reason I asked you about the down payment for the op open space trust is if we went out to bid at a different we went out to bond
at a different time we would have that money that we could use as a down payment be about $125,000 so I'm just trying to kick around how we can keep as many of these very worthy projects that we have in the capital budget in the budget and and
pull this project out as a stand I I agree with the pulling it out which I think is why I was asking why about open space trust funds because I didn't really think about this as like a laundry list and like you're saying exactly so I agree with that approach to it um I don't know about waiting till
next year if that's what you just said to fund it waiting later to this year we have next year but that we may wait to see I mean if we're not ready to do the design we're not ready to go out to bid then there's no reason to go out and borrow the money or even out you know
prove it but because the capital money we usually borrow by like June or July I feel like it we usually have a capital ordinance we do it along with the budget process but after publication and 20-day stopple period yeah usually we're
getting to award project so to Mr deluca's point we could this might be something once the design is finalized that we go out to bid and we find out exactly how much it's going to cost and then we wouldn't be able to go out to bid without having it right right right we'd have to right up to a certain
number in an ordinance I just said we certainly [Music] may right better not be more I'm not opposed to this I'd like to ask Mr Cog what the downside is of Mr
duca's recommendation if there is one downside of of bonding it out separ there is no downside we have the ability to pass a bond ordinance at any time as long as we have two meetings in available to us so December we run out of Road and would have to wait till
January we can pass a bond ordinance in October when we know we're sure or November when we know we're sure and raise the money as a as a a down payment then we also would have the ability if we chose not to use the uh open space funding that we can pass an an emergency
appropriation to serve as the down payment basically guaranteeing that we'll raise it in 20 26 so there's multiple options for us available to hold off on this uh if if that's what the governing body uh so chooses but when we do a bond ordinance it's
essentially just saying that we are authorizing ourselves the ability to borrow this money so even if you left it in this in this Bond ordinance now when when we go out to get a note to fund the roads because we know we're doing them right away we wouldn't fully fund uh the 2025 Bond ordinance we would leave this
section out because we know we're not using the money at this point in time uh given my choices as as a CFO and all the journal entries that go with with this process I would prefer to see it delayed as opposed to include it in in the ordinance but we can make either one work and the other thing is I'm sorry
the other thing is um if we included in the package then we have to come up with 5% now and that does impact the operating budget so in your other scenarios whether we used open space trust to be applied to the 5% or we uh promised that we'd raise it in 2026 that
would impact that wouldn't impact the operating budget this year for this right okay so it sounds like um how do you feel I I I think that makes sense as an approach I do think we need to like make sure that we're not still talking
about the design to your point that we can talk about things and everyone talks about things but like we want to get this done so I just don't want to push this keep kicking it down the road yeah no Design's done well well our committee will keep on it our engineering public
works well I think we also need to figure out um contingency plans for what we're going to do with all the players on that field when we get this done we're not doing that here yeah so there's like there's other things that need to be taken into account before we get to that point so I I think that
makes sense so I think we just used up our public information officers five extra hours explaining how we're going to continue to commit to doing deart Park if we do it that way so if we um basically it's almost semantics a little
bit so now we can still possibly say that our Capital Bond was seven million seven and a half million if we get it down to there as opposed right I mean it's just like you know six of one half dozen the
other all right what's next where are web 19 I know you're killing me which is sitting at right now yeah it' be nice if it was used we could do a ribbon cutting maybe it's used today oh well okay I don't want to get diverted
but we do need to schedule something okay that amount is we typically receive funding on about in the in the amount of around 200 looks like a 100,000 here is that
right no 200 you're right and the most of that is covered by cdbg grants that Mr palman does yeah all right I'd be in favor of keeping it at 190 what coverage in the grant but that's just me traffic
caling so uh traffic caling is uh used for a number Implement speeds where it's warranty we have policy people have to you know work through the polic see signatures a lot
of work for them and when that when that dictates that traffic warrant moving forward with it with the design not when the survey dictates when your analysis dictates that there's a the survey is only to for people in the neighborhood
to be like yes the survey the survey the hands yeah yeah authorizes you to decide but it doesn't dictate the result yes could did you tell us how much was in the budget last year cdbg no no traff
traffic coming left you in the dust 150,000 yeah I think this is a pretty big cut I agree with Mr Duca on that one because we talk about traffic calming like in every meeting every day and every topic everywhere yeah I was gonna I was going to ask that too definitely
don't want to go down to 100 250,000 last year yeah yeah I think we need I think we need inre that balance unused so from 2024 at least in November we still had $100,000 left in that line so that's
part of the reason why there's less this year because we can still spend that money still have the same just to be clear though uh I don't know when that was taken but you had about a $35,000 balance that we
just awarded a contract for for traffic so that's going to two3 of that balance so I think we, bance I look at the
numb I would like to keep it back at the 200s we're going in the wrong direction keep it at the 200 no same yeah I agree I'm sorry but you ask me no no I'm agreeing with you we're wearing green do you mean keep it at the 250 from last year or keep it at the 200 the original
request understanding that we have to make Cuts everywhere we'll see where we end though yep you know how I feel about it okay perhaps we could get um yeah we get I get frustrated I think our engineer does too about
um putting more and more money on physical improvements while enforcement doesn't increase so I'd ask Mr DeLuca to try to work on that with the public safety chair yes because that I mean I don't want to say that that my my
husband's an engineer he can't engineer stupid right so or behavior you have to sometimes enforce the law so um also look to ways to get cars off the roads yeah let let the kids walk gets
cars off the roads less traffic in-house engineering this is a standard line that Mr C doesn't agree with so this allows okay Parker Avenue striping sorry
yeah Parker Avenue striping 200 Parker Avenue striping so that's just striping for the bike Lanes that's the bike lane striping $200,000 for striping 600 600,000 it's even worse wait what am I
looking at oh there's two comp to this component if you total that up signage that's imely three $300,000 then when you look at the replacement of push button head signs
that are solar powered out there that's another $300,000 so Dynamics estimate details that total is $600,000 that's Parker Avenue from what to what
the Maplewood to Irvington you literally could Mill and resurface the street for them can can you say that again how much is the actual striping it's approximately half of that the push signage is around
300,000 striping wait what is the push the striping is 300 on this and the push button is just CR signage beacons at the cross CR recognizes those and accepts those so if
we do this project natural impation would be to change those that's the new standard why there might be another new standard why don't they recognize this anymore is this a safety aspect it's they they have a
tendency to change their views and opinions Technologies is it mandated or not mandated by do well if we don't touch the sign leave it but so we already bought these signs
paid for them no just so every's those original signs put you had a saf the school's these new signs replace those signs because it's there no the the ones you're replacing the
ones with the little lights on each Corner that that are useless and now there's the one at the bottom it's the flashing Beacon that's much more visible they've been out there four five years it's it's you know they need to be
replaced or upgraded and when they go can't replace them right and how many $300,000 worth of those signs it just I'm just a little Shell Shocked by this 20 I I have a question do you just say that if we're going to do the the striping and Street improvements then we
have to change the signs or we or this old signs can stay and we can just do that part of the project and then do the signs another time I would whether we have to or whether it's good be able so let me just be clear so the
thing that they won't accept is a push button the oldfashioned well they will accept Just A Sign without any lights correct so conceivably where the where the intersections that we already know to be problematic and less safe we could put the flashing beacons and then at the
other Auto crosswalks just rely on the [Music] signage my only concern is we try to take a sign that's out there now station sign I think that's no we don't have
to not so I think I think our our commitment is to explore putting a bike lane there and um I understand this this and actually the the uh cost estimate that
Dynamic provided us is very helpful because as you say it's about you know almost 250 or so just to put the bike Lanes on there and then to improve all the crosswalks with the with the sign that we prefer and which the state now mandates if we want to do that it's
another 350 so that's where we get to the 600 so I would urge us just to the first year focus on the bike Lanes um those intersections that have the old-fashioned push they can stay
state is not telling us they have to come down they can stay there haven't been informed by the state right correct right right right so what's there you know we've also implemented the stop sign there in the middle of or somewhere
along Parker there so I would go with the I would put $250,000 in here for the bike lanes and if and then we could revisit that during this year if we you know what other improvements safety improvements we want to make well we also always do the way
we go about traffic calming is in stages we do one thing and see if that cause see solves the problem and maybe this will solve the problem the bike Lanes narrowing doing the road diet thing and then s thank you we could work with it don't talk
yourself out of a yes yeah just got 250 okay moving on bike Lanes though bike Lanes theis update what do you want to grand for that for state is requiring the town so previously in PRI years let me digress
your second we had upgraded our STM elri system and that went a long ways and it [Music] coming one of the things that they're requiring um you know for for
2026 updated upgraded Mapp that includes not only just locations and lengths but inverts pipe sizes um you know and descriptions so that takes a lot of time because we have so
many we have roughly 75 outs but we have 2000 sir okay all right yes okay any questions on this are they giving any grant money or any assistance I hate all these mapping
projects that they make people do that's called unfunded mandates n should have but we still have to bond for 200 anyway right okay 880,000 for C curtains at the
Woodland how bad are they can we can't wait they can't wait we had some money before for this right yeah didn't we fund this already did so 40 I don't think it was 80 um I might have it in the these curtains are
getting very expensive PR we I'll make some curtains we had prior anticipated just the curtain material right and when we had professionals out to bid on the project the issue became all of the rigging above it which is more expensive but
also in more serious need of replacement this is I don't know if it's original but it's old and it needs replacement this year and the mechanism for the rigging I mean Mr where that part of it too it's not just curtains no
it's the reason why we have an increased cost has nothing to do with the curtains it has everything to do with what holds the curtain to the ceiling support of the of the rigging and the mechanism to enact a curtain itself it's it's actually considered very Antiquated what
we have if not not VI so wait I'm confused are we just getting Fabric or is this got to do with the rigging the it's the rig everything money for the curtain itself and this is money now for the curtain the the rigging for the curtain oh so this is so we have the
44,000 for the curtain and then it's 880,000 the rigging okay so can you yeah maybe maybe but you're saying not to do it right well I'm saying to do it can you amend the line description to be more than just curtains well sure sure because I
think that your third well your third proposed line taking this he took it out he took it out yeah a lot came out in that third proposed line yeah okay I mean do we take the curtains up and down a lot at the Woodland I don't I don't no we don't we just take them off there but
is it is it so is it is this a safety hazard when people are on stage yes yeah sometimes we use the curtains for we use the yeah so they're not up and down I mean the open the issue isn't the function right so the curtains themselves the curtains are old
and dated and they need and the rigging is dated the functionality of it what we get will be much the same as it is now so yes we do use them but I'm saying we're not getting any added benefit from it do we need them I guess like just take them down oh could you take down
the curtains Al together you have to have you have to have that as a background for so so you yeah you but if we don't use them do we need the rigging to be able to use yes for safety for safety for safety safety but can't we just like you you would end
up seeing two pieces one into the wings which are not you don't want to see into the wings and two you would see the back of the Woodland there's a staircase there's a fan there's black wall it's not something you would generally see exposed no it's not
pleasing what color are we getting red red oh really okay like maroon red okay EV bus Grant so do we have to bond for this even if we're getting a fully funded Grant well it has to be included in our or it would typically be included
in our capital budget the question for Mr clo becomes do we just show the grant as an offset or do we uh borrow the money this is a reimbursement Grant yes that's ultimately his decision and what's your decision but I did note and that's part of the reason why I noted in the rightmost column yeah
that we get 964 so anytime we are utilizing a grant as a funding source uh we are can skip the down payment part of it so more prudent um uh fiscal could use my big boy words
sometime tonight the more prudent action would be to uh fully bond for the amount that you need to do we would note in the bond ordinance that we are off we anticipate a grant to come with this and so then what would wind up happening is if we got shorted on the grant we would
still have the capacity to borrow the the minor amount of our difference to finish the project so if we have a $660,000 grant coming our way we would fully uh borrow $60,000 against it that in theory gives us $120,000 to do the
project if there are some cost overruns and it winds up being 65,000 we get our 60,000 in the grant we borrow $5,000 and then we cancel the bond ordinance for the balance of 55 that we know we're not going to use so it anytime that there's something has a grant attached to it we should be
matching it fully funded got it where's this Grant from the state diesel oh the diesel I got money from them there okay well because they Li and they had to pay a lot of people a lot of
money including this apparently okay NJ do Municipal Aid Prospect fre design only so uh this is for 2025 do project
uh Prospect is a long road and expensive trip the past uh I know in the past we uh we have performed scope modifications to decrease cost you know in this case the
town really has several options one is to defer the cost this year and fund it next year um because an award under the grant would not be required until November of 2026 you basically get two years
so 2026 November is when we would have to reward to a contractor so one option is to defer the cost and you could only and if you funded the design fees we could have the design ready to go have that done this
year right and sometime in late winter early spring B out the project um and and once funding is available awarded right that's that's one option um the other option is the town could do a scope modification we could
do a part of the street of the half of it let's say instead of 1.8 and it be 900 the r amount by the way this year for the one year 25 is$ 4989 the recommendation is just we told
the people that we were going to do design in 2025 and Construction in 2026 yeah big design that's what this reflects correct the design 150 so the 150 is for the design and then next year we'd fund it we'd fund the actual project this is what we've been saying
it's your point as soon as the money was available out to bid with this award it and then you know that satisfies the requirement right so $150,000 design what that project's what about 1.5 million or more you would
design extent of right right right oh I'm sorry yeah okay but then if we designed the whole roadway from Union to South Orange we would then be able in 2026 to decide if we want to do the whole thing or go back
for a scope correct scope change right okay all right uh Municipal parking lot repair and reconstruction a line children we're strategist this is Green
Team all of our parking lots with stuff that gets us credit for the storm water utility no or is it just with regular no it's I'm just asking no if we're going to reconstruct our municip parking lots
right shouldn't we be looking at making improvements for the storm water credit oh um and help the environment we could gra make them all grass parking lots I think that our DPW is really doing a good job with some of the
surfacing so I mean I'd be more inclined to give them a little more money for asphalt and have them do it then then do this Mr heran is nodding his head yes give him more sorry you asked the question what does
this cover and it's 60 Woodland okay okay so we're moving the the next few not uh items are pulled out and moving to 2026 including the M some of these are
things that we've discussed we wanted to make sure that we at least talked about them here so you knew what the plan was uh Woodland structural we had recommendations that's the roof right the roof and and some other Associated Works structural work um that includes some floor or some uh work around the
staircases as well and there is New Jersey historic trust money available that we would apply for this fall so the recommendation is to wait until right and we're applying for that money for other things right can we just get the doors done in the siding removed before I die we're we're moving forward with
reconstru one door is a test door to better understand the project but we we do have money separate from this for doors yes all right so I'm sorry yeah no just so we're clear that we have
to put up 50% of this right so the money you're talking about from the state so if we got the state Grant we would not have any money to put up our a 2026 consideration that's okay but okay so are we thinking that the grant will
be 2026 or the grant will be 2025 we would apply this year right I want to say the the we can't remember the day September out maybe late in the year but the awards not until the year yeah okay so so we're not okay we're not leaving any money on the table no no no
no absolutely not we will apply for a grant I'm with you I'm with you yeah yep and I'm with you Duck Pond Rehab um sounds like a good TV we're getting a little Punchy and I've got an 8 am meeting this is
fun in person W system around the pond does need recru right getting worse each year so do you have the design that Jennifer Ryan did for the um uh storm like the uh I think
it was for the Riverbanks in in Memorial Park the question is do we have do you have that design that Jennifer Ryan did I asked Deb Lions to take it up because it's for storm water um you know storm resiliency for the walls of the river
know if you're talking about the one section by the firehouse that was ered yes she had did she do anything with regard to the duck pond no no okay so one of the things I think would be useful is I don't disagree with
putting this off to 2026 but in 2025 why don't we just have a round table with the conservancy and historic preservation commission just to start talking about what our thoughts are what their thoughts are so that we have some agreement as we move forward and that we
don't have you guys design something and put money in the budget and then next year we fight about well you should asked us and all that I think that's there another meeting no I agree talking beforehand
yeah no we were just joking earlier about our meeting uh weights I know safe Ridge to school moving that 2026 750 so uh we to remind everyone we did win safe to schools Grant and right now we're in
the preliminary design aspect we had previously phes design state does reimburse will be a construction element to this we suspect that El occur in 2027
is the actual construction cost we have we have the preliminary and final design already funded thank you might smell something cooking did somebody blow out the burners on the food in there or it proba they're off
okay all right sanitary sewer phase two phase two so that's just this is the second of the township sections done first phase of one two and okay and
now we get to your um toys mayor is there any way I know you said public comment at the end but since we're done with we're done with that can we do this sure we could do it do this piece the engineering piece because I think the people who are here want to speak about yeah public no I was
actually just GNA tell them not that is probably does uh anyone want to speak on garway Terrace or any other road on the Road program or we're going to make you stay till the end of this meeting that's okay yeah um so you know
I couple things I'm reviewing the list that um of the roads that are to be paved or the suggested roads um I'm pretty familiar with most of them uh probably only two of us possibly three
are streets that have no sidewalks right and so that's a bit of an issue for and for the residents as far as safety Etc um I made a note that this is
resurfacing only and it doesn't address the drainage and I think if anybody has actually and I know that some of you have actually come to look at the street if anyone's been on the street of recent we have a big problem with drainage at
the End of the Street um some of the residents it's actually a bit of a hazard for them to get in and out of their houses with the pooling of the water so barate for me you know what if resurfacing is the only thing that we can get Mr duca's suggestion to possibly
add more funds to address some of these um drainage and pooling issues um as I said I don't want to I don't want to derail the resurfacing but I would request that the committee look at consider adding drainage the draining
yeah because there are some serious draining could you offer up a price for that in a future meeting for adding drainage to that project my recollection too is that there's um damage being done to the roadway with uh some pumps
discharging into the streets which you're absolutely right yes which technically is the property owner's problem and and should fix but we can work together if if there's an opportunity to add drainage work to this
to this project then Mr kidner can contact those Property Owners where where the Sun Pumps are discharging and uh work out an arrangement per our ordinance to um have it connected to any
uh improvements to the drainage in the road right to tie them in yeah again we appreciate you looking at at gwe we appreciate any funds that can be put towards resurfacing um you know I my concern is
just putting a bandaid right oh yeah that's our that's why we yeah you we're on the same page I think thank you very much you're very welcome thank you anyone else Mr Vasquez I got your message
Leo thank uh just want to thank you for considering garway Terrace for milling and resurfacing and just want to underscore my neighbors concern about the draining at the uh bottom of the uh of the street uh one thing I was wondering if could be considered if
maybe there I know that there are SE several drains at the bottom of the street there's possibility to create with drains in the middle of the street so that more of the water would flow into the SE system meaning the gets caught earlier sure earlier I'm sure Mr
ker will'll look at that yeah thank you can go ahead to the mic Durant Durant Street drainage on sides yeah is that something that could possibly
help absolutely not yeah no I wasn't gonna be that no typically not they are they are they yeah okay question yeah sorry for being so direct but
yeah anyone else speak anyone online want to ask questions all the engineering projects we just went over since we allowed people in the room anyone joining on Zoom would like to speak on the engineering capital budget please raise your hand
now um what time is it I see no hands mayor huh no okay so I by my calculation I I would I proposed $530,000 and then you proposed another
$80,000 so and then I suggested 2.5 million out so I come down to a number of 4.2 65 okay plus 2.5 we actually went up it's with all those cuts what's another
five hours we're we're on the right track on a track um I'm gonna I'm gonna recess for a few minutes literally a few minutes in case anyone needs a break
real quick so be back here by 752 e e e e e e
e e e e e e yes I knew it so 7:53 wait for be no ready all right so we're to your toys
trucks and bucket trucks and dump trucks and little tractor trailers go ahead yes okay that you didn't think you added all these other
ones the list no that's just it great so the the go ahead list only includes the 12 buck or for vehicles I wouldn't say the Cent list but the third proposed column
third proposed the third proposed the second proposed adds in the pickup truck and the tractor snowplow salt spreader so why don't you just very quickly tell us what the conditions of
the existing equipment Mr heran you can go to that mic if you want to um chime in existing equipment that you're replacing I see it's replacing a 1999 truck but you know s didn't catch that last part uh just just some
justifications for it like what's the existing equipment that is uh well the small bucket truck like Mr kitner reiterated it would be replacing a 1999 uh Chevy 2500 with roughly 85,000
uh miles on it does it still work it's got suspension issues and every year it's got to go through a dialectric testing which is oosha regulated anding more and more difficult to get that certification for that vehicle and this is a piece of equipment that our
building maintenance of Arman uses to you know replace lights in the park hang B banners on you know they used to the gutters and right yeah I'm not saying we don't need a bucket truck I was just wondering about the existing one isn't
need to be replaced okay go ahead you see the dump truck uh I think the single axle dump truck we removed from the list currently I mean we have gotten several throughout the years I mean there are yeah others that we need to replace but I think at this
point in time it's less necessary we take that one off the list okay and then the pickup truck um the pickup truck I would say the same I mean we are in need of vehicles but I think that that pickup truck right now can be moved off to possibly next year
the vent Trak tractor is a piece of equipment that again like Mr kitner reiterated we do use all year round uh we use it to groom the ball fields in the spring and summer months we use it to mulch the leaves in the parks in the fall and obviously during the winter months we use it for Bo and salting all
the keer path in town and what's the condition of that one because it's it's cut off the list but only on the second um third round it'd be replacing a for tractor that's from 1993 um continuing on we have a two-ton black top hot boox the one that we
currently have prior administration had bought requires a CDL license to use we do have a handful of people in our garage that have it currently uh we only have one person in the road department who has it unfortunately uh the past
summer he did get hurt and uh caused us to have to pull people from other department who have a license which obviously obviously makes you know those Department struggle when we have to you know pull someone else to operate piece of equipment that you know you don't
need to operate in this town you need to De be like a okay I think that's a piece of equipment that we would benefit using because obviously other people be able to use it not just one singular person all right when that makes sense
to move it over to a a proposed proposed yeah um like I said I think a lot of the other stuff on here were already removed I think it was mainly the top five that
we wanted to focus on okay no it's not in the proposed you're talking about this the uh the 40,000 for the first proposed it's in the first proposed I'm moving into the Third and yeah so these you know when we looked at at least the second proposed column this was done in consultation with Mr kidner
so the you know asking him his preference for cuts in terms of Big Ticket items um he preferred cutting the dump truck as opposed to the bucket truck and as in the small ticket items it was his preference to cut the hot box
first okay so functionally what's your preference the hot box so you have people I mean the the one that we have like I said it it works it's functional but you only have a few people who can
operate it that's correct yeah so are these things ever able to be sold like the one we have we have done s we did two rounds of auctions uh last year and obviously whatever we get this go around those vehicles that we would be replacing would be auctioned
off I I think if we have a functionality issue we might want to buy it and then see it get rid of the one that right presenting a problem for us maybe a bigger town with different people on their staff could buy it okay so we're just at 195 plus 40K or
are we doing the the pickup truck and the tractor then track we're the question was to Mr Kar he was the one who ranked these so I think that it was if he's changed his preference he can certainly consider it but are you okay with if we add in the
thing that doesn't require a CDL it requires a CDL but no the one the new one doesn't they do that's not what I just heard that it requires a requires a cdla a Class A CDL current right still
require CD B license which is what all Public Works employees are required to have answer your question mayor I mean all five items are important justify right are you asking us to no I was just
asking questions you want $40,000 you want the extra 40,000 good answer took a little while but good answer all right thank you Mr h so now the page that was supposed to be first and a second we go there
now right these are DPW what happened we don't want DPW uh yes you're down to uh Fire Company 2 boen heat system no Grand Master mower mower ground Master mower
251 those were all things that they cut before they got to the top five oh I I'm sorry yes they are there's some that are recommend recommended in the third column not until the fire code to boen he those are DPW things yeah yeah aren't
we still on DPW we're still on DPW I thought we were in engineering no no have 25-01 are those the list and then we to 252 right that's Heely it's a stapling error making us all confused
yeah okay what is that fire company to and needs to be upgraded have not gotten press the [Music] pumps
yeah so uh moving on from that D part FL roof is a de roof the community center roof you mean the community center I think it should be called deart Community Center because the plaque says
yeah I think we go by the plaque so there is a section of that needs to be replaced we had rickleton Square electric upgrade that was just a thought of putting a formal electric box every year we have the Christmas decoration bit
a process to get power to those decorations and but Mr heran does Yan's job of that bad we can't move the one from y's Corner that took forever yeah that we don't need anymore it took forever this should be just a
formal I like I like watching like swarmm a little bit before the flip the Swit he was he a poor guy who's so upset the first time I it didn't light last year a year ago last
Christmas but we sang I sang to fill the time that's pretty scary okay out some of them areen just because of their they on there's heat it's there's
too much heat in here I always find it awfully warm in this building it depends where you go and I think that's part of the reason for this project in areas of this floor it's warm you go upstairs and in areas inks and re's office it's cold yeah I have heard
complaints about that should we move that 30k over to the third row I mean I think we're trying to cut money we keep moving I know I just know that they're freezing upstairs and boiling downstairs I mean it is it's
still you get fans and heaters still warming up for warm enough for a workspace the question is you know it could be improved what's anybody nobody has an opinion on this I mean I would leave it out the
administrator's recommendation of leaving it out if we're trying to cut things versus we're already adding things what's your thought leave it out well miss Herman doesn't have a strong opinion either I don't have a strong opinion okay fair enough I
do think we should leave out I mean the lights at rickleton oh the the elect out that was already left out yeah all right all right now we're at Administration are we done with you Engineers I didn't know you wanted to
talk about stor water yes oh yes we do want to talk about that if you flip it's not pages will be on storm water flip two pages if I trust that oh there it
is okay in green go ahead you mean that's the part that's unfunded unfunded Okay so so the first uh consideration is part
Mick Mikey sharing compon come up with it's 20% of the pr cost if you calculated that out at 239,900 the total then is more like 1.4 1.2 and well it's 1.2 is the propos
oh that's combining the no if we add the soft cost to the hard cost right there's no on on that line we just had we didn't include what the soft cost may be it's included in the total project budget here so it's 1.1 project cost and a
$959,000 grant I missed the last part about and a $959,000 grant right I'm still it just me [Music] um so the we don't get I see hard cost is 1.1 N9 have the money I see hard cost
one million1 199,000 then I see nothing in soft cost but he just said 239 938 he's talking about the portion that we would have to fund that's not covered by a grant so the project is fully
covered by a grant right yeah it's a c sharing for the yeah got it thank you she understood that what I was asking unlike Grant don't have to frontload it
yeah and what do we do if that Grant goes away we have the money right we have we have the grant the but do we have the ACT Mone money's there for the 900 no I know might go away right like I mean with what happens
federally it's it's we don't know no we don't so we're moving forward as if we have the money we have no indication that it would be pulled back at this point and this is direct Congressional approved spending so this doesn't flow through any other I I understand but yeah moving forward as if we have the
money we're a little worried but when is the plan for this project to take place when are you doing this project in 2025 like designed it'll be designed in 25 or anticipating in 2016 okay when do we get the when do we get the money
after the construct no you said we don't have to reimburse that like when do they actually get send you the money so there's a vou a vouchers yeah so it doesn't have to so we don't have to write out a check okay and the grant can pay for the
soft cost or no because if we're doing the design this year we would have the the it could be included in our portion so this what Paul's right proposed as 1.1 that's the total cost of the project including design fees okay so it'll come out of
there so these categories of hard cost and soft cost we shouldn't worry about it for this project no I put them in there when Paul had them or when they were being considered as separate portions of a project okay St Lawrence St call 250 yes 2
000 uh you know that includes rebuilding the structure fair amount of work it's also Baker Street uh to a drainage structure um we're requesting an additional 250,000 for that there's
Tiffany place we're requesting $170,000 for that I will say thaton did sign the good thing we ran into them so Tiffany is would be ready to go once you get that we recommend deferring
metor uh the full cost of that to 20 because has to finalized it's not going to be ready okay so the total is 1.8 with a grant of 959
yes so that that leaves approximately $910,000 out of the storm War utility I don't think we're going to be getting that much no and so this would be bonded
through the utility just like we do like at the pool okay and so it'll be paid back as Debt Service in future years we're starting that service right away well well that's what you normally would
do yeah that's right because they long-term plans you pay over time pay over time the life of the project yep hopefully were projects that were kind of teed up and I think it's important to make some effort as we bring this new uh
utility on board so um I guess if we're if if we're looking to do a bond and create some Debt Service why would we not include metal no Brooke it's not ready this year we could but they we don't need the money
this year so it's not ready yet and I expect you know we'll do another Bond ordinance next year likely and it the project will be ready next year and it will be included next year could you do it absolutely let's have a talk because you know part of this also is showing
folks that we're dealing with some yeah visible projects we've been talking about Meadowbrook for a while and um I'm thinking of you know the Fe structure over there and all that it might be good for them to see it on the
list we can talk about that yeah I'd like some background on that too okay so just on this so so the first operating budget or the first well the first budget we have to approve a um a storm order utility budget
some of that will be whatever we're pulling out of DPW you know the the street sweeping and all that and then whatever else and then there's going to be a line for debt correct yes Debt Service okay you know some money for down payment for service want to comes
okay so we're we haven't seen that yet no no and it I mean we're we're just just putting that all together is building that you know we're gonna be conservative the first year because we don't know what the fees is going to look like I mean what the revenue is we you know we want something that's
balanced but some of those expenses are offsets from the Township's expenses for storm water so that gives us some flexibility okay he are we done with W engineering any other questions for him I don't think
so you may go or you may stay but you'll probably go thank you Mr kitner Mr Barry we didn't hear a word from you still not I know he's ignoring you may he's ignoring
he's ignoring you mayor Mr Barry the mayor is talking to you that's all we wanted no he wanted I won't tell you what I said she said we haven't heard from you tonight thank you you guys hi guys have a good
night so we're now under Administration hey first item here 8,000 now come out the scissors we get the scissors now wow yes so this is for a liquor license
this is under the new State legislation where the township may have an opportunity to purchase a liquor license from an adjoining Township we don't know how much that'll be because it's open public bidding no idea so it could 5,000
it could be 5 million it won't it won't be 5,000 it would be in you know certainly in the hundreds of thousands of dollars there's a this hasn't been done yet and there's you know so we don't exactly know and I think that's kind of why it was left off in the second and third proposals you know that
they're putting that the municipality is putting out the bid they don't doesn't work there oh we put out the bid and we have to have a minimum right that's confused what we have to get from an adjoining town is their willingness for
the bidder from that town to bid on our project doesn't putting it in the budget tip our hand you have no way of yeah I know don't so no way of doing it otherwise and and there's also a point where there
there may be other ways to do it and but they're it's a guessing game anyway and we're going to end up with the highest bidder so does it tip our hand it's going to be around this number could it be is this something that we could this is capital right this is that's right so is this something that sort of like the
what we were talking about deferring it to later so we wouldn't we could do the bid and see how much it is and then bond for it rather them budgeting for it in a bond like if we have General I don't know the timeline becomes the issue
there yeah with any with anything like any Capital project you know in that it takes a while to get a bond through and then make a purchase with it what we could also do is wait until we open bids and then um do it as a deferred charge to be raised in the next year's budget
by that time hopefully we would have resold maybe we could use that money to offset why would we not do that instead of this I mean it's it's a it's just your preference it's it's but it's unlikely
that we will resell the the the license within one year you think yeah it's unlikely you also don't know how much you're reselling the license for and so there's a lot of question marks here why is it unlikely yeah I don't agree
they're expensive no but I think there's interest it becomes what the market is and so the township would then hold an asset we have to be responsible for when we take that to we couldn't get it if there wasn't interest or a market right how long did it take us to sell the other for that other liquor
license how long did it take the last one we saw that's the one that was exclusively for like Springfield Avenue or something that took a long time I thought oh we got no bids on that one right that's what I mean yeah the the other one we had multiple biders we had
at least two bid on the last one right we had Baker and nework way times right and what go to Avenue Pub no they had that one go to Avenue Pub was V they got V so who did that one go to or is it still around huh the new one went
to the one from the one we're talking about that b out three times arst oh they end up taking them I just don't think there's any you know the develop we thought maybe there'd be a development at the movie theater and it's not happening yet so yeah I
doubt even you know just general construction if if the thing started this year it would still take a year and then we're probably talking 2027 before somebody so if we were to wait till like next year to think to do
this is that the year that they have more licenses available right yes what is it two or four and I think it's it goes to about 10 right now there's one and it goes to I think somewhere around
10 so there's possibility of I don't know maybe this is something we wait till next year on greated yeah yeah but it's something we we we will continue talking yeah yeah I think we were talking about getting being among
the firsts might there be a benefit what is your your sense Mr DeLuca I don't know it's you know part of it now is that could we get a good bid because nobody else is going to be doing
it as opposed to maybe next year when maybe one or two other towns might want to do it I don't know supply and demand they'll be more available I don't know I don't think we should do it this year personally my opinion it is a gamble but it certainly doesn't have to
be done right now no no and to Mr Clo's Point earlier when you pass a bond ordinance you're just approving spending you're you're approving borrowing but you're not you're not you don't have to expend passing any contract to actually execute that borrowing right so you know if you
do a you have a million dollar Road Project doesn't mean you're you know you're passing a resolution to award that contract but it it could crowd out other things because there there's a cap of what you can bond for too right and borrow
the cap essentially is the down payment so you know on things that are Grant related throw it in because we're not having to put anything down but on something like this we're going to have to put 5% down of $850,000 and that could conceivably crout out some other
$850,000 worth of project right I yeah I feel like we might have time to wait on this one given you know the lack of movement on some things the second item $155,000 this is
for more General um it upgrade so like purchasing uh computers and and bulk and things we this is a line that had been funded in previous uh Capital budgets prior to me and we we have run through
that money so next one 15,000 requests the next one uh 1.5 million is for it server switch firewall and access point Replacements been working with our it vendor gtbm it's a it's been a long process and
they're still trying to put a finer point on this number I mean the 1.5 I I've discussed with them that that's not something we could do all of this year I think that we can get that down to you know $500,000 worth of
investment this year but there will be uh a few years of this invest given the size of the project too uh we will likely put out an RFP and get multiple proposals on what should our Network look like what upgrades are most
pressing um so we talked to one other it vendor and we anticipate going out to RFP on this so the numberers a little bit fuzzy at this point but I think $500,000 this year is what we would revise this number to and just make the the committee aware that uh this will be
a multi-year project all right um the next item scfd Capital so there's two pieces to scfd Capital uh so you see two lines there the easier to
explain Line This is the second one and that is for our buildings uh we lease our buildings to scfd the township is responsible for making Capital upgrades to that so things like Windows Doors roofs uh you know more structural elements like
HVAC and so the scfd has put together a list of requests I had cut that down a bit so their their requests are 76,7 I had cut out some things that I don't think are capital for the township
things like painting or gear lockers for um for their equipment and we so the number came down to 44,500 we still need to walk through the uh firehouses with engineering to take a
look at their Capital requests and um refine this number uh but it you know it's going to be somewhere around that you know $44,000 number the larger number this is scfd capital that will be approved by the sefd management
committee and the this is for things like purchase of um fire engines um it could be turnout gear breathing apparatus hose and those are things that had typically been included in uh both Maplewood and South oranges
Municipal uh bonds and would now scfd is asking us to uh borrow for those the that uh capital budget is still being considered by the scfd management committee so we don't have a um a an exact number on it I had you know their
total request to the management committee was 1.8 million I'd gone through that and just you know for the the purpose of this um exercise reduced that to what I think they might arrive to somewhere around $660,000 um but that'll be a process that we work
through with that cfd in the coming weeks do you want to add anything I do those the those scfd lines similar I guess to the it line I I expect in the next three weeks um I'll be providing updates to you uh but well in advance of
us introducing a budget the next lines are file cabinet encounters for the Community Development Office they are overhauling their file system and one thing that they're having an issue with now is file storage large
enough for their plan sets uh which aren't conventional sized and is typical right now that means that they're storing them kind of in boxes on floors and you know not how is in any um not as organized as you would want it to be and
so they had made this request for $99,000 it includes some counter as well that would go on top of it so when you go into Community Development it's those counters on the right um that are underneath the countertop area the second thing in speak you recommend this
because you yeah I do yeah I mean it's it's off the last one just because it you know we look to make drastic Cuts there but yeah I mean I think this is a this is a good request and would go to good use the last item here uh an office partition the construction official in
the rear of his office is a storage area for the office itself so you end up with people through his office um somewhat continuously during the day and his request was to put up um a uh half wall
partition uh to give them some privacy um I think it's a reasonable request but not something we need to do this year given the budget constricts so I'd propose that that's not included in any of the walk through the clerk's office all the time post you have no privacy in there can you get like a partition off
yeah yeah any questions on Community Development I I always walk through maybe he could sh the office with M dep yeah they can both work at it's a big office there's a big office in there get rid of some of the plants make room for the construction
code official I'm sure she's watching I know that's that's why we're saying these things be here in a few minutes to Advocate oh wow stay stay home uh okay then moving on to the police department so the first item body cameras for our
Department's body cams the company that they had purchased those through and I Maple was somewhat of an early adopter for body cams um the company that we had purchased through is no longer in business and no longer offers support
placements or up grades uh and this is one of those things that just you know there was no advanced notice to us and but I I think you know some of that is a function and they were one of the first people in the space and since then there's other companies that have emerged like Motorola and axon that have just overtaken them and so um this is
for that means we end up having to replace all of our body cams which are at the most of them at the end of life anyway um and also includes a in replacing the inar cameras um for all of our
vehicles right so this is 20 20 it says 20 incam in car and 60 body cam so that's right okay so that's everybody you're proposing to do less than everybody well no it would the 250 would just be for body cams and not for car
cam oh okay and do you recommend that recommend I mean they need all of it uh but you know I think that if you were looking for a place to cut the incar cameras would be the first place to cut because there would be some coverage when the
officer is operating the vehicle of their body G how come you keep Shifting the decision to us I they don't uh ask my vote when they call the budget or the bond or oh okay so do the car cameras still work we can
discuss this in public safety if you don't mind okay that's right no I'm if you think we need it we should get it I think it's very important because police accountability is something we've been talking about a long time and I think the police feel that cameras help them
also yeah yeah absolutely so I I just think you know it's a it's a smart investment I don't disagree we can talk about it also though we can talk about it at Public Safety yeah yeah okay and then police vehicles this is a routine
replacement of uh of vehicles they obviously get a lot of use and they're more or less the office space for our officers we have um about 20 Vehicles currently used by Patrol um you know there it's 24-hour operation so you know ideally we'd have
about 10 on the road at the time we have vehicles in Patrol that are over 10 years old so uh this is a quite a necessary purchase the last column there would be instead of replacing two to replace one this year and each they're each 65 that's
right and and part of that is you know the vehicle is not 65 but one it's expensive a regular vehicle but then you have lights you have everything that goes into it the uh you know the dividers and all do we have any vehicles on back order at the moment we do we're waiting on two vehicles two
vehicles so if we were to make this order when do when would we get it 2030 it has been improving and some of the delay on the vehicles we those two we have the vehicles and we're waiting on lighting equipment so it's been getting
better how long um the ones that we're waiting on now are probably six to eight months purchase okay so if we did not buy two this year then next year we would probably not be getting a new vehicle or would get one instead of two
that's absolutely right yeah yeah and in order just to kind of repeat ourselves every year we should be looking at two as opposed to one yeah there's going to come sooner or later right you would recommend two oh absolutely I mean when you look at a fleet that has Vehicles over 10 years old and some of those Vehicles the township had purchased used
from Milbourne Police Department yeah we need new vehicles and these These are we're we're able to capitalize these used to be I thought you couldn't do police vehicles these are you can do anything if it's a uh SUV and there's I think now new
exceptions if they are um batter if they're battery right yeah EVS yeah so we can do EVS uh SUVs and SUVs yeah but these they don't SUV it's very hard to find police sedans
anymore yeah very hard they're all SUVs at this point are these uh I agree with not buying a parking enforcement vehicle by the way so okay yeah and the parking enforcement vehicle you know we we do try to get them old police vehicles but like if you look at like the roving
guard on Ridgewood that's a an old crowned Vic that has got to be it's old it has 110,000 miles on it it's old like what happens if we approve that part-time parking enforcement do we have
more usage on a vehicle no we have vehicles we can scr up vehicles but they're not Vehicles we generally want to keep in circulation so if we give them that yeah it's a shortterm fix forget what year that vehicle but this vehicle isn't just for
the the uh peo that you would consider as a part-time because again that's going to be part-time in the afternoon we've got a part-time in the morning this is really we have very old or some very old enforcement Vehicles so are you recommending this uh yeah at least in
the first two rounds of cuts yeah yeah but your last one you're not that's right I wouldn't be in favor of it okay I what I what bugs me is when I see the the mileage in those requests of the existing vehicle and it's nowadays
110,000 is not a lot of mileage on a vehicle yeah it was back when when you know Mr Deluca and I got our driver's licenses but well this but but this says it's a 2008 Crown Victoria with
11,295 Miles my son's car is a 2005 you'll see a driving around town you can 200,000 miles on it just saying I know what you mean yeah absolutely okay you around Vic is old I thought you talking about
me oh what do you Trump King Vic I say make himself put himself a crown do we are we going with this stuff we are done with capital all right we'll move on to revenue wait we didn't do pool we're done with Municipal Capital we've got oh where did the pool go it's not on the
agenda it's under capital is it on this thing everything's under oh it's uh it's on this page here it's just two lines little page yep so this is a request for tables and chairs to Place uh and chairs
that have broken over the years and for a new PA system which is sorely needed so both of these are recommended I agree with both those it's just a relief not to see like15 million under the pool sure and we definitely need that PA system feels like every year right Joe
great both are needed all right cool awesome Revenue so now we're on to revenue where's that piece of paper we didn't get we didn't get a handout for except a spreadsheet right it should be one which I couldn't open up up there we got a hand out yeah but and you got H you should have something that looks
like this in your pack this oh no this one yeah yeah you want to put it up on the screen I will yes you want to go through that first or this is what I that's that's right I know but I couldn't get open on my uh when I can
out yeah my I did I thought that thing on my desk was actually powering my laptop but it was not it's only for the internet is that right Mari you know that little plug by and by my desk they plug the laptop in that doesn't charge
it huh it's an internet for your internet no wonder it didn't charge my laptop what he say just ignore him okay move on he walked out there's no break let's
go income Revenue so revenue and what will save uh taxes for for last uh the state breaks Revenue down into several different sections the first is local Revenue which is all standard stuff that um that comes in and does not require uh
State approval on uh so things like parking meters interest on the deposits that we have any fees that we're charging uh those things all pretty much standard uh and the state uh moves forward with with um allowing us to
anticipate up to what we brought in the year before unless we can document somehow like we're changing the fee structure so we anticipate we're going to see more money because charging more for um you know food food distribution
uh permit or whatever uh I will say that looking at section A here uh we have pretty much rebounded from prepandemic levels at this point so we're starting to see the numbers that we used to see uh before the world came to a standstill for a little while uh underneath that
you would see our um Pilots those are based on the calculations in the agreement there are two pilots that are missing right now uh Mr Dort and I are going through the pilot agreements that we just received so that we can calculate out and put them in I anticipate that uh Parker West
will be a decent number uh 92 Tiffany is going to be a relatively small number it won't have a large impact on uh our budget if we move down to section B we see state aid which is flat for the gazillionth year ever um there is a
calculation that we will provide uh to you as we come to introduce the budget uh that shows what happened when the state took over the energy receipts tax and uh for anyone who may be unfamiliar years ago the
energy receipts tax uh was uh specifically given to each town so you had your utilities that would paid directly to Maplewood and and 563 other towns and the state came in and said you know we got a far more efficient system
you we're just going to have psng pay us directly and then we'll turn around and distribute that money to you and it was supposed to include an escalation Clause uh from all the way back in 2006 I'm going to guess uh two years in they
stopped the escalation Clause so if we took into account if the escalation Clause was actually moving the way it is supposed to uh we would see this line go up by $632,000 from the from the year before
unfortunately uh that's not the case because the state is once again holding us flat they had some legislation about three or four years ago and so they were going to start to fix this uh we saw that as the municipal uh property tax
relief program which lasted for two years and we're back to flat is is the new uh is the new increase uh if we move on to our shared services or our uccc fees we see that there's a significant drop over what we
did in 2024 that's a function of major projects now not online anymore and and it's uh predominantly residential that is uh that is fueling uh that funds we look at our shared services we we see that uh we're doing pretty darn
good uh We've expanded the number of shared services that we're doing uh you know we're continuing to provide administrative support to sefd um we're continuing to provide Health Department Services to South Orange uh we have our Milburn and our uh
our Milburn electrical and plumbing inspections that are still in place and of course Municipal Court which is probably one of the first things that we did as a shared service it may be worthwhile to start to take a look at the uh shared court and some of the fixed costs that were put into place
because that has been reiterated now for several renewals and those might be numbers that are you know close to 10 years old and and might be fair to start to refresh the square footage that we're charging uh you know the the cost per square foot Etc what about that Health
Department that's flat Health Department uh is is an increase over what we had the prior year um it looks the same to me it does look the same so I'm GNA I'm going to take a look at why it looks the same be actually it looks the same because we
took what we anticipated the year before that number actually went up by I believe it was 2% so it's it's going to come in at more like 223 so we we will adjust that accordingly so so that uh we're fully utilizing what the agreement calls
for uh in terms of Grants we typically will only put in grant money that uh you know we know that we have at this point in time uh Municipal Alliance is a good good example that we have not plugged in any of these numbers yet but we need to bear in mind that grants are offsetting so whatever Revenue we're bringing in as
a grant we have an equal expenditure that's going out so that really doesn't have an impact on uh our budget and then items G are the uh wait can I ask a question on that is that so we have to wait until the state passes their budget
to know we're getting it or why is it waiting I just want to understand that a little better you said we can't we can't plan for them or put them in that column uh it's it's it's basically just an accounting it's it's really just an accounting method uh in the sense of we
can budget $50,000 for recycling to come in and then if we turns out that we've got 53,000 that came in because the state recalculated whatever in sent is 53,000 and then we're going to do a chapter 159 and add $3,000 to our budget anyway so it's just a lot simpler to wait for them to say here's what we're
sending you and then we put before the governing body a chapter 159 we put the revenue in we put the offsetting expenditure out and it winds up being a wash so it doesn't the most grants do not have any uh budgetary impacts some of them that have matching funds to them
uh do but none of these grants that we have here uh would would fall in that category well except some of them pay for our health department employees correct I see strengthening health is on here and so what we do is when we get the op yards check in we wind up doing a
chapter 159 we add the money in but but at this point in time because we've been receiving opioids money for the last couple years at this point we have about $99,000 in that Grant so we have a sufficient amount of money to charge what we need to charge to the opioids grant for our health department and the
money that would be coming in this year we again we'll do the chapter 159 to amend the budget and that's just replenishing what we've been using that we've stacked up over over the course of a couple years and then the last section is uh typically uh what the state will
scrutinize in terms of uh what we put into the budget unlike section A which are pretty much all boilerplate you got fees and and you got permits and so this is where you go and so things like our cannabis transfer fee uh police outside Duty uh the state typically requires us
to provide a greater amount of detail as to uh why we have the numbers that we have particularly if we anticipate more uh than than we had put in or had received from the prior year so uh in the event that the JMU refund is going
to be higher than it was last year which was only $6,000 and we get word that it would be $25,000 if we get word before we introduce the budget we would obviously change the budget to uh uh reflect that but the state would then either require us to show them a a cash
check or uh you know some sort of letter that says we're going to be sending you $116,000 not Sixx uh the reason for that going down is uh I guess two years ago they had an issue with the way they build it out and I believe it was Newark that wound up
paying more than they were supposed to and so they were entitled to a credit and all the other members had to make up the difference because they were overcharged uh we were asked if we wanted to pay it one time full right here and right now or if we would prefer
to see that uh taken out of our refund check and the governing body's decision at the time was to have them take it out of the refund check so once that gets done being paid off uh we will see an increase in this uh line once again
American Rescue plan money that was just a final amount of money to move over so that we didn't have to send anything back to the federal government uh so obviously we're not anticipating anything this year uh the move was predominantly to put it into our general Capital fund so that we can use it for
infrastructure projects and at this point in time we typically do not budget for any sale of Municipal assets but as was asked back when we were looking at Capital requests yes we'll put up the a dump truck that needs to be sold or right back HHO whatever and this is the
line that that would get recorded on we take a look at what we have from a surplus perspective we're anticipating basically the same amount of money that we had used roughly the same amount of money that we used last year uh our state aid again is re remaining flat our shared services will go up slightly when
we make that adjustment for the uh South Orange Health Department our local miscellaneous revenues are going to remain where they are and that gives us a total amount of money uh the delinquent uh receip from delinquent taxes are fixed based on what was owed
as of December 31st to 2024 so that number is not going to significantly change the fact that it's gone down uh means we've done a better job of of collecting taxes and and Sewer payments uh last year um uh the state requires us to put in a something called well we
call it rut but it is the reserve for uncollected taxes the municipality is a uh basically a collection agency for the other governing bodies the school district the county and so when the school district sends us a bill whether we collect 100% of the money not doesn't
matter we need to SP send 100% of the bill over to the school district and over to the county so this line for uh reserve for UNC the taxes is a mechanism in order to balance the budget to make sure that we can meet our obligations of paying the other uh governing entities
uh the library tax went up significantly from uh last year that that amount that we see in there is uh uh basically the onethird of a mill uh we that's the minimum we need to put in in order to qualify for uh state aid for our
libraries so it's not a number that we can typically cut and so that puts us to down to the the last number and where most municipalities bring in the Lion Share of their revenue and that would be the local taxes and so what we're looking at
right now is a budget that was roughly 59 million dollar uh last year and it is now somewhere at 60 million. eight um that pretty much covers where we are from a revenue
perspective what could you explain why um what we budgeted and what we actual received on the total taxes is different is that the uncollected taxes correct okay so presumably we added that in the reserve
would we have enough to cover what we were supposed to no uh well the the calculation that the state has us put together yes would be enough to cover it but just we're putting together a calculation based on a collection rate for this year doesn't necessarily mean that next year's
collection rate is the same so yeah you may see a variance in the performance so are you seeing a trend of more taxes not being paid we're seeing a trend of taxes being paid late
at this point in time uh predominantly our our issue has been not with the taxes but with uh our sewer collection sewer collection yeah okay and that and that may be more so this year when we add the third line for our
storm water utility or maybe we'll collect it quicker because we'll make people aware that it's coming I think sometimes people don't we'll always collect it the question is do we collect it this year when it's due or do we collect it next year when it goes up to tax sale but we'll always ultimately right no but that's what I mean I think
sometimes people miss it because they don't really look around for it and mail is it's lost So based on the increase here of about 2.5 million we're talking about a six almost a 6% correct increase is that right. 7% s% shot picture right
now with the numbers in front of us 7% I like my number better 5 yeah that's okay yeah I had 5.8 okay I'm sorry I like your numbers better now and just to reiterate Mr worry's um statement at the beginning of the meeting this is where this is our starting point right you
know we're we're by no means finished with what needs to be done but uh this gives you a snapshot photo of of where we are in terms of everything that's been requested and and everything that's uh facing us right now I'm taking my green shirt off and going to Cuts not spend did you bring like a red sweater
or something I'm gonna have to go get was adding all the back that's that's the process process yeah I know I was gonna take them all away can we look at uh where we can increase fees um specifically whether it's Jitney
and commuter permits um um we Recreation fees yeah things like that we talked about offline a little bit we can we will but that unless we change our fee ordinance prior to
adopting the budget maybe even not then we wouldn't be able to anticipate it as Revenue right yes absolutely well because we haven't in a long time and I think we need to look at it um so mayor one suggestion would be to charge every subcommittee with that responsibility
before um a certain point in time I don't think it's going to impact this year as Mr we said because we have to use the last year well we got to start talking about it because every year we don't we have been we started talking about it in health the community services last year right we did but like the Woodland fees the rent yeah we've
talked about there's a lot of things grandfathered in or old rates and we've talked about stabilizing things we started with the Woodland we is we need a straight up spreadsheet from the department heads from those conversations shows what the proposed fees are to be
increased I haven't seen any of that no I think we talked about getting that at our last meeting yeah we keep talking about it I'll I want it to happen after the budget process is concluded we'll have at least I will have more time to work with the
department heads um no yeah listen like I I do want Mr Duca point this to be on the agenda for every subcommittee of what the budget fees that come out of there so whether it's Health and Human
code so those department heads need to be made aware to bring those fee schedules to those meetings so we can start talking about it and then you have some direction for when you work on it after the budget's done yeah that's so
in the operating budget what is the um the capital uh down payment what were you what were you using $150,000 so that we can do $7 million wor projects but I will 7 million you said yes that's that's s million of of
projects that require a deposit a so if there were grants some of them didn't because of and probably closer to eight eight and a half Mr K also has a presentation on kind of the budget overall P up now
got that right that's what there's more green we about double we increase the color ink no we but we did do we have a double-sided paper this is not double sided I know this is not double double
sided we have a double sided policy and this was backwards stapled no there is we had issues with the printer that is capable of doing double this was a hot mess in the stapling this is good though now we have to have a staple policy like got the double-sided but we need a
staple policy like you like no Staples or Staples these are Staples Staples are fine if they're on the right side and always you know you're we're literally starting backwards all right let's go what else we are it's the good
news okay let's go want to be here by n walk us through our 2025 budget uh as quickly as we can here um and I think we saw this slide previous this is a breakdown of of the various percentages that each department uh comprises our
budget so that you can see for the most part Public Safety uh is by and large uh you know the largest chunks of what we do here um I have three shaded areas uh labeled statutory utilities and insurance those three pieces of the pie repres
presentent almost 40% of the budget those are those are things that we can't affect at all uh unless of course from the utilities perspective you closed a building where is the debt Debt Service would be in part of the statutory
okay the pension uh Debt Service uh down payment for uh you know new Bond ordinances that's all falling under statutory we look at the next next slide you know this is basically a real broad overview of of
what's been challenging to us the shared service for sefd is going up $1.9 million the new Police contract that we just signed is going to cost us roughly $1.2 million we've created storm water utility for $290,000 as our cost for an $800,000
utility and insurance costs have uh gone up significantly in almost two and a quarter um thousand we Mr wey on on the the stormw utility this we have not yet done
an allocation of what was existing Into the Storm M utility from the operating no we're working on that now yes okay so that would be an a brick on either side right yeah we can we can kick that one out correct and did the the um scfd did
we do we calculate a deduction from the EMS fee yes is this a net number yes so then on on the uh the wind side for the good guys our debt service went down uh slightly this year
$116,000 and uh our pension significantly went down by $1.5 million but that is a function of we no longer have the fire department uh pension payments to make so that is if if Mr Duca is calling it bricks the the shared
service of 1.9 million is being offset by the $1.5 million that's coming down from from uh pension payments we take a look at some of the historical data that uh that we have uh you can see that our total assessed value significantly increased that's
because that was the year of the reval it has gone back in into a somewhat normal stage the slide to the right shows that normal stage so bringing on $20 million worth of additional assessed value is is going to make available to us roughly 100 $6,000
in in uh new tax money that was not being paid uh the year before where did that 20 million come from because we didn't have development that are those Pilots rowing off no the 20 million on the added omitted are people that were doing work on their homes really yeah
okay uh Mr Dort is very very on top of and aggressive in terms of making sure that he's working with Mr pama's department and getting those permits and going out doing the inspections and then uh posting in the added omitted uh we
better get her filing cabinets then we approved the filing cabin just not the partition all right not the partition I just wanted to take a quick get a shower curtain how about a shower curtain she doesn't get heat no heat in the shower C before we
go to the historical data I just wanted to take a quick pause and take a look at what our tax rate and and the impact is on an average assest home so the slide on the right is showing what uh we were uh charging as a tax rate in order to uh support the municipal budget uh as it stands right now snapshot photo we would
be looking at 66.8 cents uh in order to support the budget that we have there's still more work to do so that number will go down the slide on the right uh kind of translates that into uh real dollars so you can see that you know taxes from 2018 uh now to 2025 have gone
up from you know $3,700 to almost $5,400 uh and this year's increase over last year would be a little under $300 if everything stood uh the way it's been presented so far uh this takes a look the next slide takes a look at what we've done for
capital projects and and investment and so we can see uh we'll start with the slide on the right because that's the good news yes we now have more money to spend on open space uh than we have in the past and and that will be helpful in terms of either acquiring more space or
improving it uh the slide on the left is showing our bond ordinances and what we've borrowed uh when I first started here in 2018 you know we were doing projects for roughly about $5 million uh that changed to roughly $7 million the large spike is obviously uh to cover uh
the library that we had in place uh but for the most part we have shifted um since I began here from doing projects that have been roughly about five million to doing projects that are roughly about 7even million and considering the Aging infrastructure of our town uh and that we've been here for
over a hundred years uh that really is kind of a shoestring budget at this point this kind of show the next slide will show our actual Debt Service obligation we look at this in the finance department to to manage uh as best we can so that we don't see any
wild swings so that one year we're paying way more and and the taxes need to go up in order to support it and then that they're going down uh but you can see that you know starting in 2025 uh even though we went down from last year's budget by roughly
$20,000 or so it's going to start moving up uh in 26 27 28 as we wind up approving Bond nances and borrowing money uh through notes we're going to need to start to service the the interest on those notes and after two years we will need to start to service
some of the principal as well as the interest on those notes uh ultimately they will be converted over into into long-term bonds as the market uh is advantageous for doing so that we can save money on debt
payments uh the next slide kind of shows you that there's light at the end of the tunnel for us this is the Deferred charges that we've picked up over the years uh so uh we had Ida That was supposed to stretch out for five years but in 2023 uh the state made us pay back the
entire amount of uh uh the Ida defer charge debt we put on the books particularly because we were getting FEMA money in at that point and so we were able to clear that out uh we are still working on the covid Lost Revenue note that we uh produced for ourselves
it was a a $2 million note so over the course of five years we're paying that back uh we are in the fourth year of paying that back and so we've got one more year next year and then that will fall off uh $200,000 was to uh help facilitate the
uh scfd merger and so we were going to see that until 2028 or 2018 and then we also have the reval that we started to pay we're in year three of being able to pay that back but you can see that you know 2025 and 2026 are pretty much going
to be the same hit but then come 27 we're going to see a significant uh uh reduction in what we need to pay back and another reduction in 28 and by 29 we will be uh finished with deferred charges uh the pilot Revenue just
because it gives you an idea of where it Stacks up uh in in terms of what we have you know the Claris is off now and is fully uh being taxed Baker Street is sort of replaced that but it's obviously not as big a project uh Parker is uh in
its infancy and as I said Mr tort and I are looking through um the agreement so that we can come up with the calculation and build them accordingly so they that'll be a a significant shot in the arm for us which is currently missing uh from the uh budget document that we're
looking at uh cannabis Revenue has dropped uh uh you know pretty pretty significantly uh I don't know if that's a function of competition or if that is a function of uh you know there's not an appetite for it anymore but uh you know
we pretty much peaked in 2023 at $610,000 last year we brought in $48 ,000 and so that's what we will be anticipating as Revenue this year uh this is to just give us an idea of where we are with the with the health
department because they are largely funded by grant money we have a significant amount of grant money that is available to us and so uh we can certainly afford to uh charge grants to maintain the department that we have at this point we will likely be able to do
it as well next year uh but come 2027 uh it may be a a point where instead of being an 820 split it's going to now wind up being a 6040 split or a 50/50 split but for the next couple years the health department is by and
large funded through grants that we're getting from the state wanted to show what we were doing in terms of fund balance uh you know fund balance is generated basically uh one of two ways we either bring in more money than we had anticipated in the
budget or we spent less money than we put in the budget to spend so uh those two things combined wind up moving our fund balance we have a policy here that we won't use more than 50% of our fund fund balance in our budget uh that is
viewed very favorably by rating agencies so I would suggest that we continue to uh you know adhere to our policy or in the case of last year we actually exceeded what we did uh from a policy perspective because we certainly uh could have gone more if we needed to but
part of what we've been doing here uh for the last few years is we have been actively working on moving our fund balance up to a healthier position and when I first started here in 2018 we were borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and uh there were times in the Summer
where we would need to call the school district up and say we're going to be able to give you half your money in July we'll give you the other half of the July payment in August and then once we get August taxes in we'll be able to get your full payment in for the rest of August and September we've reached a
point with our fund balance now that that's not an issue from a cash flow perspective we pay our bill on time to the school district and and we pay Bill to the county every quarter on time without any uh uh threat is our goal to get up to that what was that the top
number three million three million $3.3 million was the amount of money that was used in the 2018 budget to balance the budget and it pushed down our fund balance to a percentage that was below uh what rating agencies typically look
to see in order to give uh you know uh the market would give favorable interest rates too so we've been able to um over the course of of years and some hard decisions because it wasn't easy for governing bodies to sit here and say sure we're going to raise taxes by 4% uh but because of that we've been
able to rebuild it to the point where when we go out for notes uh we're getting um you we're rated as a doublea um as a doublea community here and we have been able to get rates as if we were double A Plus so they recognized
the fact that you know while we're not not quite where we need to be from a balance sheet perspective that we are working on it and and when we put out our official statement and explain all of that it's been it's been very favorable to us so I anticipate that if we stay on this course uh we will get
that double that d double A Plus rating uh and then hopefully we would be able to continue to talk people into now giving us triaa rating interest rates so um I would suggest that we kind of stay the course on this the next slide actually shows where we've gone from
fund balance and so you can see in 2018 uh we had $1.8 million after we used $3.3 million uh to balance the budget we only had $1.8 million left 2019 saw a further dip and then in 2020 we started making some very difficult
decisions 21 and 22 uh were essentially an increase that was a function of both the American Rescue plan money that came in and FEMA payments that started to come in and that has reached us to the balance of where we are now we anticipate that uh you know we we
replenished what we used last year in terms of the $2.2 million and so we actually have a little bit more than than we were going to have uh the year prior and so the last page is really so you're saying that in
2024 8.7 million is the fund balance right and we use 2.2 for the budget currently this budget is reflecting 2. 2 million right so it's like 11 million right $1 million the 8.7 and. we
have oh we have 8.7 G use 2.2 of it which is going to then drop us down to to 6.5 and then we're gonna the goal is to replenish that 2.2 and get us back up to the 8.7 by the end of the year okay is there a number above that that you're shooting for or is the rating agencies
typ the rating agencies typically want to see 10 to 12% of your operating budget as fund balance so our operating budget right now you know is is sitting at uh you know somewhere around $60 million so you know they're looking to see us come in at somewhere around where
we are right now for a height is that I know that's what they'd like to see but for a high tax municipality is that sort of the norm that's pretty high fund balance it is a pretty high fund balance but yes it sort of is the norm
considering some of the obligations we have the other advantage of having a a fund balance that is healthy is um our Our obligation to the Joint meeting for our Capital project which was somewhere around $900,000 a little less than $900,000 we have the ability instead of
go out and borrow the money and pay interest on it we have the ability to lend the money to ourselves at a 0% interest rate and pay that down so you know there's a lot of working capital that comes with with a healthy fund balance that if managed properly also
generates additional uh revenue from interest on the accounts that we have in place and if we know uh right now we've been parking it into some pretty short-term um instruments but we can also start to look at putting it into
maybe a longer term like a six-month CD that will generate even more interest for us uh and then that interest uh income winds up being able to offset uh any tax increases that we might see so it um it's a it's a fiscally healthy
approach to have the balance and and I you know and and I've been on both of these sides of the argument to create a healthy fund balance and to try to keep the fund balance at
a you know modest number so that we didn't have to raise taxes because people are very sensitive to tax increases yes and our you know even this is is a significant $300 and that's just the municipal side the school boards going up and everything so you know it's
there is a there's a cost of doing business your way and there's a cost of doing business um by not having a a healthy fund balance yes but a healthy fund balance creates sustainable budgets in the future right uh rating fund balances
puts us to 2018 where we have $1.8 million uh in fund balance and we're calling up the Schoolboard to tell them we're going to give you half your payment this month and we'll give you the other half of the payment next month and then the balance of your payment at the end of the month and then we'll start making our reg no no I understand
that I understand all that and our obligations and all that it's just you know I think part of this is that it just reinforces that we've got to go take a look at our spending and and take a look on that side too because what happens is with you know you get sort of sucked in you got a healthy fund balance
you can meet all your obligations you know people want more programs you want more this more that and we say oh yeah we can we can afford it but you know it we can't afford it right we just can't afford it any more so the last slide uh basically
shows where we were uh last year at 6 point uh 632 cents uh for our tax rate to support our our budget uh as it's presented right now we're at6 68% so that's roughly a three and a half uh
Cent increase over a rate change uh this shows the numbers that we were talking about earlier and the 5.7% increase that Mr Duca ran in his head um essentially a tax point now based on the reval is
$621,000 the average assessed home is worth roughly $887,000 the slide on the right Mr worry had me put together that kind of show the impact of where we need to go if we're concerned about where we want to land in terms of a percentage increase
and so basically for every $392,000 that we can either cut from spending or increase from revenue uh that would represent a 1% change in what we are um seeing the rate move to wait can I just say that in other
words make sure I understand so if we wanted to get lower than 5.7% to get to 4.7% we'd have to cut 39247 is that what that means yeah yeah so it's either you cut it or you change your Revenue yes
yeah and is there a possibility of changing Revenue yeah we'll just raise taxes no no other than taxes I mean there's always things that we look at to try to refine so like one of the items Mr clog had mentioned was the pilot from Seven West Parker right that's one thing
we're gonna small things like we highlighted tonight we need to update the U South Orange Health number right so small things like that that we we'll keep looking over yeah there'll be some changes and and then on the biggest thing on the revenue side and you had
started to discuss this is what do we anticipate um from fund balances Revenue right so what amount of surplus do we anticipate and even in this budget that you presented to us it's lower than what we used last year right last year was 2.25 s or something like that right
$59,000 less than what we used yeah okay we didn't even talk about the I guess the pool right yeah that's what I was just thinking too like does this 5.7% keep the pool rates flat or lower G over pool Revenue the we did not discuss a
cut to the pool membership fee excuse me pool where where was that's was that in supposed to be in tonight's disc or we can have it tonight yeah was it I mean we we we went over the pool budget but no we haven't talked about exactly where
we're going to land and there's know it's a kind of a a difficult conversation because last year we cut fees by 10% and we saw we didn't cut by 10 we cut by five percent 10 10 you cut by 10% last year
and we saw a an increase in revenue from membership fees yeah and so I we I don't know I mean I think Mr clog and I need to talk more and we need to come up with that I mean I think that the max we considered per year was 10% I I think
that there will be a cut to uh membership fees this year I I I think and I'm interested to hear your thoughts as well um but I think that will be coming yes I think what we need to see is the budget sort of like maybe like we need to see the budget
impact and like how you plac it here with the three different options you know what I mean like if we're going to cut another 10% what that's going to look like because we're we're missing the Recovery Fund money um and then we would have to maybe
put on on top put in more on top of that so I don't know what's in the budget currently right now we have a balanced full budget that's what was presented to the township committee and so that considers uh less money from the American Rescue plan or no money from the American Rescue plan and an
increased amount of funding from deferred charge funding from the municipal budget to support the pool budget so when we had done revenues for the pool so last year um for example we had anticipated for membership
fees how much side yeah I have too so again it went up so do we cut 10% and hope they stay flat or do we cut or and expect they stay flat do we cut 10% and expect they go up like they did last year do we
cut 10% and they go down um very difficult to figure and I think some of that's okay and that we're not going to we're know we just need to make a responsible decision so that budget so the budget that we went over that first budget hearing the pool budget that you're talking about where we put that line in was that to keep rates flat or
it doesn't really matter that was to keep rates flat rates flat well I mean we don't know because we hadn't made a decision where we had made a change in the pool budget to reflect a further reduction and we also kept the 25,000 in for pool Pals we did that's in
the municipal budget that's not the pool budget that's I'm just just remembering absolutely yep yep so for on the on the pool Revenue side I want to say it was it was over $800,000 that we had generated in revenue from memberships so if you 10%
do you expect $80,000 less or do we do what we did last year and generate more um we never really got an analysis though about like how costs were affected or if costs went up well we had also made changes in last year's budget to the pool to cut some
staff and I think that worked well so some of our staffs went down we had made some changes to how we handled heat days and that and we gave raises for pool for swim lessons for lifeguards and stuff like that so I don't think we ever really saw the pnl that I never saw and
maybe you guys did late after but the numbers hadn't all been reconciled yet to figure out what actually came in and what actually went out for the pool yeah we know we never saw that and in addition like some of the recommendations from the pool committee were that were to increase some of the
rate like swim lesson rates yeah and to do more and we didn't right and we didn't we haven't seen any um yeah any um sheet the pool so the pool rates even if we in that was a recommendation last year that didn't happen and I I think it was again in recommendation this year to increase the fees that we charge for swim lessons and
but even if we do increase that we can't put it in the revenue line until next year because we have to we have to actually earn it before it can go in but I'm still curious to see like what we brought in and how much we went out in the pool and like where we are I don't even know to talk specifically
about lesson fees if we adopt not just lessons the whole I'm talking about over yeah but just but like there are some things where if we change the fee ordinance prior to the adoption of the budget we Mr CL and I would make the case to the state last year we had 300 lessons we increased by
a dollar we're GNA have we're going to collect another $300 this year right so we can make that argument to the state and that's should be a winning argument to so I know that's just one piece but yeah there are opportunities there to make some changes but I think on the lessons we collected how much 57 lessons
I'm sorry 18,000 $18,000 so we can look at changes um I don't think that's going to you know make up for nor do I know exactly what we expect because of last year but it's almost March and we need to start
selling our passes soon so we need to get this nailed down yep I agree so I hear a request from our CFO please to do the what went in and what went out with regard to the pool in 2024 we have that
we have the updated I know you have it yeah absolutely we can circulate that and we have a subcommittee meeting on Monday where we can further discuss that if you'd like right but if you get that to us tomorrow yeah
yeah yeah but then I won't look at it yeah because I think what we want to see is if we're going to maintain another 10% cut sort of what that's going to look like and I I know we're not going to know if that's going to increase yeah or decree you know but
we'll have to see CU like Mr delca said before we're going to have to find that that point you know where it um where it's not going to keep you know we have to find that right point and we don't know what that is yet right where you have all the members you're King what was the line what was the money we set
aside for for the fee decrease last year that we put in the budget to decrease the fees for the pool well we just had anticipated less than otherwise would have been expected from the the membership Revenue yeah but didn't we have to put 250 in
then that's what I yeah we did we put 250 in plus the 25 plus the baring and rescue M 251 251 740 to be exact we put in and we're anticipating this year putting in 379,000 but that increase is not a function of membership fees but
because that was just replacing the American Rescue money the increase is replacing the American Rescue money right because we had a whole right so this year I to miss Herman's point would it be another $250,000 that we have to put in or
500 if we're making it for the rescue F so no the 371 makes have balanc pool budget that that will circulate tonight so the question is additional if you were going to cut another 10% from a revenue line that generates over let's
say $800,000 $80,000 so that's your max where we would say maybe you put in another $80,000 from the town but given that last last year we didn't see a reduction in membership fees maybe we put in 40 and
see what's generated I don't think that's unreasonable you you have to make some assumption so so maybe we say let's in good faith go halfway there well we have a fund balance don't we have a fund balance in the pool we do so we're anticipating what yeah what you're saying is could make sense I mean I
don't know if those are the right numbers 40 or 80 but we do have a little cushion there in case we had we didn't meet that yeah yeah makes sense yeah okay so we want to see but I think we need to out for the pool from Finance
we need to make that decision though right because yeah maybe at the next meeting at the next Township Comm and lock it in because as you say Miss Herman we have to sell those passes soon right yeah and if there's any other rates we need to put in that ordinance maybe we want to do that ordinance now so that we can do it before we we'll
talk about it at health and human and then we can bring it next yes okay anything else anybody I just think we need to cut things because 5.7% is too high yeah I agree just gonna say that out loud too high because we're not the only
entity you you saw the school boards cutting yeah you know we were clear at the beginning I mean that we came we know that that's um what has to be done this is part of the process right we put right now we've talked about everything that we want in the budget right so
we've had a conversation about every detail and now we're going to start pairing that back to what it um you know to a a responsible rate so what happens next this is our last budget hearing right so some of this will be I think we should follow up with in subcommittee
right so we're fortunate in that uh well let's let's back in from budget adoption which will be April 1st so we have a good amount of time between now in April 1 to discuss what the final budget is we need some time obviously to get it in a budget format let's say two weeks but um
we we have the majority of our subcommittee meetings at the beginning of the month and we so next Monday we have uh health health human services next Friday we have Finance subcommittee the following Wednesday we have um police uh Public Safety engineering and you know I think that's where a lot of
the discussions we have engineering and so I think after that group of subcommittee meetings um we'll be in a good place for what that you know what the the budget proposal will be and and at that point it's it's more of a you know we can share with you that uh
budget document but what are we talking about at the subcommittee meetings because the the the driver I mean what what's real for us is is to Tinker with the OE we don't have we're not going to unless we cut staff we're not going to affect salary and wages we're not doing
any of the statutory expenses so the only thing is OE yeah well well there are staff requests St requests we we we'll cover what we're going to talk because like we've been talking about things in health and community servic is for like a year and a half about figuring out like what costs are what's doing well and that kind of thing or
these they know I don't think we're going to just magically get all this information on Monday to figure out like what to cut so that's what I'm just wondering like I think it's got to come from you you got to make some recommendations to us I agree yeah and I a lot of that comes from today's conversation so appreciate it
okay but we just added a lot of things in did yeah it's okay so you're going to get your red line process so do we talk as a group so we so so next time as a group we meet next Tuesday at our public meeting do we talk
about this again there like when do we we don't have any other budget meetings set on the calendar I think we well we have the finance committee next Friday next Friday we don't have our subcommittees till the second week in in in March I would say that conversation
should be at the second March meeting right of us second March second March not March 4th no yeah right I think it would that would give you'll present a a new recommended budget at the 2nd March meeting we can make a more formal presentation at that meeting we will be
circulating budget documents prior to that yeah yeah I wouldn't want to wait until that meeting for the first time you know everybody see it so it'll be it'll be an ongoing discussion right motion to adjourn
before anything do do do you want to take any Public public comment yeah right is there anybody here there's nobody on Zoom okay yay good J motion Mr Mr Luca yes SLE yes Thurman
yes very right