did John ask you about [Music] that call this work session meeting in the mayor and Council order this time please rise for a moment of Silent prayer and reflection as we think about the asona family and the City of New
York please to FL to flag of the United States of America and to the republ stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all please not the fire exit the
back door into the main hall New Jersey open public meeting Flor was enacted to ensure the right of the public that Advance Nots of attend any meetings of public lotties at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acting upon in according to this act the mayor and Council the B of the mer have caused notice of this
meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted in the bur Hall notices have been sent to the record and the Bri news the mission of this governing body has provide essential Services through the establishment and implementation of public policy that will safeguard infrastructure provide Fair honest
courteous and Professional Services establish a sense of trust and accomplishment of all residents to research and prudent planning seek to minimize risk while improving our services we are sensitive to to the needs and satisfaction of our taxpayers while realizing that this governing body cannot be all things to all people
within the revenue constraints imposed by state mandates economic conditions and prevailing attitudes about taxation at this time I would ask the CER please call the L Council s Houston here councilman Sal here council president Duffy here councilman gry here
councilman Seymour here Council Grant here mayor here all right we have a couple proclamations up first tonight first one is for women's history Office of the mayor of cation whereas women's history month was first
observed in 1981 and is now recognized worldwide to celebrate women's achievements and empowerment whereas throughout our history despite hardship exclusion and discrimination women have strived and sacrificed for equality and equity in communities across the country
and made a contribution to the growth and strength of our nation and our local communities in countless recorded and unrecorded ways whereas American women have played and continued to play a critical role in the economic cultural social and business environments in every sphere of Life whereas American
women have played a unique role throughout the history by providing the majority of volunteer Labs whereas American women are particularly important in the establishment of early charitable philanthropic and cultural institutions whereas American women wom have always served to defend our freedom
in our country courageously in the military at home and abroad whereas American women serve as police officers firefighters emergency medical technicians and in all capacities that work to protect Life Property health and safety of residents and communities
Across the Nation whereas American women have been leaders not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity but also have contributed significantly to all other major movements to create a more fair equal and just Society for all and whereas this women's History Month as we reflect
on the achievements of American women across centuries and pay tribute to the Pioneers to pave the way let us recommit to the fight and help realize the Deep deeply American Vision of a more equal society and carry forward the mission of ensuring our daughters have the same
opportunities as our sons now therefore I Michael J patrino mayor of the B of the Milford to hereby Proclaim March 2025 women's history month and urge all residents businesses to appropriately honor the significant contributions achievements and impact women have had
and continue to make on our great country and Community thank you mayor can I say that perhaps you could send a copy of that to uh P Mr hegf who the Secretary of Defense he's removing all references to women's achievements and the services
from their website and he is not allowing girls who um live with their parents on various bases throughout the world to Eng engage in stem courses only boys will be allowed to do that so things are getting yes things are getting very difficult and I just want
people to be aware that while we are celebrating this there are forces that were are working against women and their achievements and their Futures do we not I seconded it if You' like to put up the postage I will give it to you and you can mail it
I'd be delighted to I'd be happy to put up the postage would you like to write a cover letter or we can write cover letter I think you should write the cover letter fine I'll sign it okay okay we have poison Prevention Week where are we going to send this one
whereas Congress designated the third full week to be National poison Prevention Week in 1961 and since then this week has helped to raise national awareness of the dangers of potentially dangerous medicines household products and chemicals environmental contaminants and other substances and whereas poison
control centers across the country will focus on the Public's atten on a free life-saving services provided by poison centers as well as educating the public on ways to prevent poisoning exposures and whereas the New Jersey Poison Control Center the division of the Department of Emergency medicine at
Ruckers university medical school provides 247 expert poison treatment advice drug information and prevention education at no cost to the public with the poison Health hotline and whereas New Jersey Poison Control Center Specialized medical professionals doctors Pharmacists and
nurses provide accessible free and confidential poisoning medical treatment advice and information to all and whereas unintentional poisoning is the leading cause of unintentional death in New Jersey and in the United States whereas a poison is defined as anything
that can can cause harm if taken in the wrong amount in the wrong way or by the wrong person and whereas allthough most reported poison exposures involve children 5 years old and younger most poisoning deaths occur in adults ages 20 15
whereas overdose and prescription opioids overthe counter Med medications and illegal drugs remain at epidemic proportions for both New Jersey and our country whereas poison Center experts encourage the public not to guess wait for symptoms or waste time looking up
medical information online when potential poison exposures occur but to call 1 1800 222222 whereas all residents should save the Poison Control Center Hotline in their cell Home and Office phones because a fast response can make all the difference in preventing Serious injury
and saving lives now therefore I Michael patrino Mayor of the bur of new milord we hereby proclaim the week of March 16th through the 22nd 2025 as poison prevention R and encourage all citizens to pledge their commitment to ensuring the safety of themselves their families
and their committ okay take a sit now be ironic there's poison in the coffee right we have the number yeah I didn't sign up to the tester may get a motion to appoint Janet
m to the mayor's Wellness Campaign Committee and bad Hodo to Recreation advisory committee second all in favor I any oppos thank you very much Janet and Dad we look forward to your service under unfinished business may get
approval of the minutes from the February 24th 2025 closed and public session meetings so moved second all in favor I any oppos obain one abion okay may I get a motion to table
ordinance 2025 col 9 until our April 7th meeting the reason for doing that is we need to get a um response from the planning board on the T ordinance move second get a roll call please yes councilman Sam yes councilman Z yes
council president du yes councilman Bry yes councilman sen yes councilwoman yes as I mentioned the public hearing on this ordinance We Believe will be at our April 7th un okay for adoption tonight is 2025 col 10 and when the clerk has the
opportunity I ask you please read the ordinance an ordinance to amend chapter seven of the revised General ordinances of the BB New Milford entitled traffic thereby amending subsection 7- 3.4 entitled parking prohibited during
certain hours on certain streets purpose of this ordinance is to resend parking restrictions on mmth Avenue Stockton Street and Trenton Street uh this as I mentioned last time was a result of those parking restrictions were set up for um commuters parking on in homes and
that hasn't been the case in a couple of years so the residents had asked if we could take a look at it and we did and we're going to make the change making a motion to open to the public for a public hearing on this ordinance so move second all in favor I I any ladies and gentlemen of the public if anyone has
any questions or comments regard this ordinance now is your opportunity to come for seeing that no member of the public wishes to come forward at this time I ask for motion to close the so Mo second all in favor iOS get a motion to adopt this ordance
on this final reading motion so I can make it a roll call councilman San yes councilman yes council president yes councilman gry yes councilman seamour yes councilman Grant yes okay under new business we have an
introduction tonight it's ordinance 2025 col 11 and the cler has the opportunity we ask pleas read the ordinance an ordinance authorized ing an emergency appropriation pursuant to njsa 4A col 4-53 purp this ordinance is to
appropriate $40,000 for the preparation of the ms4 storm water infrastructure map which shall be deemed a special emergency appropriation and provided for by njs 4A will be being required to do this by the state
yes so may get a motion to introduce this ordance first reading second a roll pleas Council s yes councilman yes council president yes councilman gr yes
councilman C yes councilwoman Grant yes public hearing for this ordinance will be at our March 26th meeting I think we're lucky we get to finance that over five years five years and it doesn't start until next year yes
item number one is fire department safer grants are there any members of the fire department here thank you or no they're [Music] sure I'll let you sit there
answer that works we're here to keep you honest all right uh first of all thank you for um supporting the the cancer bill I think um most of us um wholeheartedly support that it's been going on for a while um we actually didn't do that yet so when
you get to that thank you for in advance for supporting the cancer B um while we're also on that subject though we um I'll give you a a 3845 and 2632 is a companion bill in the Senate that's um before the Senate was introduced in
February um and goes over a number of things on the Recruitment and Retention side so the state of Delaware and the state of New Jersey both um commissioned a a recruitment study um using a number of people I can send that to you offline but um came up with a number of
recommendations for for legislative action and that basic that bill is basically the uh legislative response to it that's from the other day um that's basically the legislative response to it is a $750 typen for um per month for new
recruits to cover the six months that they're in the academy um as long as well as $1,000 property tax dedu uh gross income tax deduction Statewide for volunteers that do at least 100 hours of community service um and a number of
other things uh incentivizing um tuition reimbursement and a bunch of other things that's in there so we're definitely going to support it and we would ask for the council to do the same is this related to it's a that's a comprehensive recruitment in reationship Bill Statewide because they have in response
to the study they saw you know what the issues are um Statewide and they're trying to address them um so what of that bill or of this that
one um so safer Grant um so we have um discussed this for you know many of us for the past um several years since I was Chief in 2022 um and it's been brought up by number of Chiefs in the past um we got pretty much have' exhausted all of our
afg things that we can do right now from the afg program um we've been lucky enough through firehouse grants to bring in close to $2 million over the past eight years we thank the council for that support um but we've done very well compared to how other places in New Jersey have done as well as um really
good you know federally uh from a reimburse urement standpoint $2 million is no in reimburse it from afg is no you know nothing to look uh down upon um part of what we looking to do here is really it's a 10-year plan
um Moon many moons ago I sat at a table at the ambulance court and we had a as a lieutenant we had a big discussion about Manpower rigs on the road and and I said one thing and I said this is make no mistake this is our problem it's not the
Burrow's problem it's not the taxpayer's problem it's not the citizens problem it's not the mayor and council's problem I said we should do and we should come up with a plan to present to the council that fixes our problem I said because without it the mayor council is going to make some difficult decisions and you
may not be part of the solution to that problem all right and they didn't take me up on that but here we are several years later and we all know you know how that rabbit hole um went down I while we are not in Dire Straits right now I think that we are going down that road
just as every other Municipal Department that's volunteering the state is as well as every other state in the nation um Manpower nationally has dropped and average call volume nationally has risen by 10 15% if not more year over year like it is it is
booming and there are less and less people to do it along with since 2008 we all know what happened with the recession and then with the inflation that came after it it is increasingly harder for everybody to do what they did at the time on one salary um to move
into the burrow the the years the days of a 20-some you know having enough Capital to move into the burrow and be able to not only volunteer but to be able to support uh a house in this in this town is is very very difficult and a number of towns in the area have done
a lot to to rec ify that situation but we think it's all part of a comprehensive plan um I'll speak for Company 2 I mean as far as the last couple years we've lost way more people than we've brought on and 99% of them were under the age of 30 they're the people we need and the reason that they
left most of them was because they could not they had children they got married they moved out of town to West Milford and various other P County towns because they could not afford to live in this town and that's unfortunate it's unfortunate that they would have to to I mean part of the part
of rectifying this problem is recognizing how how we overcome that barrier and this really is the the 10-year plan and I do think that a comprehensive stman Recruitment and Retention program gets us into the next 10 years at least um part of uh the
first thing on the first page um marketing and recruitment campaign that's 92,7 over the life of the grant um and if you go to the page two I'll just quickly run over what that is for you um this is uh a company called um communication solutions group The at
Pennsylvania they work very closely with Volunteer Fire and EMS and they do pretty much do this day and night um so they come and have a visiting session with us they meet with us come up with a marketing plan and how the messaging is going to be branded they come out and do photo and video shoots for and that's for recruitment for the recruitment
program for advertising um and for our website and all and all parts of the following campaign um part of what they're doing is targeted social media advertising they create the content they post it for delivery um and they really work on
growing your number of followers so uh from a from a fire department standpoint I think our our Facebook and our social media is great we have a lot of followers I'd say that 95% of them now are not your L towns people they're hey a guy from war fire department or the guy from rib BR or you know fire
departments following the page so it's not necessarily all of the people how who we're trying to get our message up to so part one of the things that we really need is targeted social media advertising um I've run campaigns in the past brief brief little ones because they threw a couple dollars at us for
free um as far as like the um the fundraiser that we did for Christmas that we uh do $5 and Santa comes and delivers them um I posted those at at an advertising rate and from like age 25 to 40 in the burrow only um targeting moms
and dads and it and it did very well and it was like but it's like you know $40 a day $50 a day it goes up and down depending on how many people are falling into that bucket um so really what we need is a targeted social media advertising program and this case for that and through comes with the content
creation and delivery um they write design and launch a um Standalone recruitment website so most of what they did is join New Milford fire.org um and rather than being coupled with our regular website can drive to that website but it's more of a very targeted
messaging specific website for recruitment um along the same lines they design print um and do targeting mailings of recruitment brochures and postcards they do it on an alternating year one year they'll send out the postcard to all the residents next year they'll send out the brochure and vice
versa um every other year for the four years um they do that via targeted mailing list for the same thing what are you trying to Target 14 years old to you know uh 45 years old 53 years old which is our cut off um for joining um within 3 miles of the burrow which is our T you
know which is our cut off as far as um the distance for joining that and they would Target that directly to them um creation print and delivery of recruitment lawn signs we've done very well as far as um we did law signes probably 10 years ago when Jerry Nolan was Chief and we got a pretty good turn
out as far as people interested in joining I wouldn't say there was a good conversion rate as far as those that came in the door but at least it got the message out um and we did do very well off of that same thing we had updated the sign at River Ed and river and we' brought in a number of people through
that sign um on average I get maybe 60 to 80 you know information requests a year through the website many people say they saw the sign um or the banners that we put up on River Road and Boulevard throughout the year so um it's really in delivering the message better and trying
to convert those people um creation fabrication and delivery we have a booth display for events like National Night outs we'll do a whole display with side banners and stuff um going over everything that we want to say yeah firear day uh National L now all the usual things that U we've been
coming up with to do throughout the year um creation fabric uh generation of press releases and publicity contacting of local reporters to pitch stories so they will work very diligently on print electronic and broadcast they contact the reporters pitch a story hey the fire department's doing this would you like to write about it blah blah trying to
get it out there um and they've had um good response on that but they do do quarterly press releases regardless um for whatever like hey change your change your clock change your battery time or just change your battery if we don't change our clock I guess we'll see how that hands out um they do a recruitment
training workshop with Personnel it's all great and everything but if my guys don't know how to push the right message then they may turn that person off they came over for 30 seconds right so part of it is a good workshop for what to say what not to say in the dos and don'ts and how to push uh your overall vision
and get them in the door um banners the same thing it would be new banners to deliver the right the right message um they do do uh SP recruitment at sponsored Sports and community events so they will take some of that money and maybe sponsor the Little League put up a banner at the Conelly or whatever um and
also engage um whoever it is that's running the community events that they see like shop wrer shoppr doing thing and they see it upcoming they're going to call shoppr and say heck in the Department participate um and have that boo set up and push their message um but they've had good things with that and then last thing and this is um is a
monthly content creation success stories upload photos and SEO so they're going to do very good search engine optimization um to make sure that we stay at the top of the people's search results um but also they're going to they write monthly stories and they keep
our feeds regularly updated so that it doesn't get stale um we try and do it on a regular basis I know many of you have seen some of the posts they're not always the written the way I'd love to see them written and by the time I get to them to make them I don't know just a little bit more English or a little bit
more better grammar or better worded to make us look a little better uh it's a little bit late but you know uh they're going to write these messages make sure they're branded correctly that they almost everything that goes out is pushed to the overall vision of bringing more people in um at the green spot at
the bottom it kind of goes over a couple areas that um have used them um um Tom's River Saw 129 online applications they brought in 25 new members in their first year obviously Tom's River is big comparably in size to us um but as a
short town or close to a short town they you know they have similar issues with you know trans seasonal population and stuff like that so that's you know it's it's good that they to see those kind of numbers for that kind of Department um de for Township 189 online applications uh and 49 new members since 2020 ringing
Hill which is a small inp um I think that was 35 35 new members during the four-year campaign from 2020 to 2024 jenkinstown 73 on the applications 25 new members in four years and um West Manchester 47 new
members since last March there any towns in New Jersey or in buron County other than you mentioned um not that so in New Jersey what she had written depford East Freehold glower Gordon Corners I'm not sure that is Hanover Township hell
Valley Jackson Fire District Lawrence Harbor moristown Princeton um Rocky Hill Ship Bottom they're they're centered I think their office is close to Pittsburgh uh jenkinstown close to Pittsburgh so they have that South Jersey that corner population um but the
reason why this was recommended by the grant writer he works very closely with them he thinks their program works um he's comfortable writing it with them in mind um because he thinks that we'll get a good return on investment from from from specifically I'm sure there's
others out there I had a very good meeting with her for about an hour going over all of our intricacies and she wrote up a really great proposal that kind of took into account all those things um uh and very specic very specifically they wanted us to get into and obviously we're going to get into
the um the schools very heavily um part of it is getting into the high school getting into the middle school trying to get that 14 to 18 Explorer crowd we've T and Junior crowd we've talked about it many many times in the past that has always been the lifeblood of the fire department and those are the
peoples we see converting and becoming lifelong members so we definitely want to not miss out on that um so they also um they make targeted brochures directly for that for the high school and middle school population um so that we can get out that message in in an age appropriate manner um and really try and
get them posted beforehand um and it's also going to do the part of the training workshops is pulling those kids aside that are already Juniors and teaching them how to go out and spread the word to their friends um and get out the younger population so that's the social media portion of it
was um what social media platforms do they use uh I mean currently right now we have we're have we have um they they'll use whatever we're using um right now we are very heavily into you obviously Instagram and Facebook um I
think we do have a Twitter account I don't even know if it's active anymore i' have to look into we hav't we haven't we haven't posted anything on it in a very long time CU um I don't even know who the you know manager is of it then I'm going have to call Elon to try and take it over but um nothing's been
posted on it in years and years and years and years and years um but it's out there I mean yeah there's the Tik toks and the you know not willing not trying to go there um I think Instagram and Facebook are pretty much our target audience and I think that pretty much encompasses most most people look at
that on the regular what about some of the these new things blue sky and some of the others that have come out recently yeah yeah Blue Sky threads um what the other one um there's a couple of them out there that we could definitely uh look into surely if there's somebody managing it
and pushing out the same message it's a lot more manageable they just one two three post post post um our website used to have some integration where if I posted it on Facebook it's instantly on the website that's no longer um so it's very difficult to you know at work I can just add something real quick when I see
that there's a call I can't and I then I can just quick copy and paste it on posted on Instagram also try and getting on our website I got to go somewhere log in download the pictures upload them to the website make it tastes much more time and you know something that has to wait till I get home or I try and do it like once a week um so that's why the
website's not as updated as I'd like it to be so part of that um obviously he's going to be working with them to try and improve those plugins and make it much more automated so we don't have to worry about that but um safer safer is really obviously it's the um Staffing for
adequate fire and emergency response it is um really born born towards volunteer Recruitment and Retention where afg is more born towards apparatus and Equipment um so part of their a lot of their um items in the notice of funding opportunity is is all based on
Recruitment and Retention so um they will pay for marketing recruitment so that marketing plan is 927508 take advantage of it it's not really necessary going to Holy Name um part of the issue with Holy Name why we pulled amm and urg Urgent car and also a it's
cheaper pulling in charg is like 160 or something like that now and amm's 135 um and the hours were terrible like the hours of poing name like 8:00 till 3:00 Monday through Friday there's no late nights there's no time for anyone who works odd hours to go um amm mergent care they can go to Norwood there's like
five offices but they can go to Norwood or there's one in Bergenfield they can go at midnight if they want 3:00 in the morning make it E sure um so part of what you saw um coming through uh the Department of Labor and the league of municipalities all these OSHA kind regulations for firefighters that are
kind of up in the air um one of the stipulations that was floating around in there is whether they would require an nfba 19 1592 physical which is basically requires it's a normal physical plus a pulmonary function test and an EKG which then you can imagine takes the price
from 135 to about 1,500 or more it's very akin to our our Hazmat physicals which Ralph will tell me I think we're at 1,700 yeah so it's much more in the range of 1500 to 2 Grand now than it than it is 135 so um we don't have we don't have to do
that currently but if the if the regulations change you know on the fed from uh or on the state level from pios we may have to go there with new recruits to begin with this would fund um three recruits at that level to begin with um I can adjust I'm can adjust all
these so now we just got the hazma physical information so I'm going to adjust that to 2,000 a three recruits a year so I talked to him about this today um everything I'll get into it as I go but if you bring in one in the first year if if the money carries over the
money is the money if you get so 18,000 total I'm going to make it I make it um 6,000 so it'll be uh 24,000 so that 24,000 will be for the life of the grant so you could do one
person this year and three people next year you have 24, money carries over the money carries over same thing with the with the everything later so turnout gear averaging three recruits in the first year we put in 6,000 um orell got this grant um last year with the turnout
gear they requested 62 or $6,400 per set FEMA knocked them down to $5,800 a set um we I put in um six a set and we'll see where they go they may not
it down to 5,800 a set but I mean we can surely you know $200 a set is something that we can absorb and figure out what are you guys recruiting right now for year um I can tell you from the from company two last year we brought in um
two and one's already done um because the had Mo out of town um the other one company one brought in three a we B in three last year we have one it's actually coming on this month Junior
that turns 18 the middle of the month which we at8 the reason I'm asking is what if what if you have more than three well so we could front load a lot more of the money right so you have 24,000 if we need to front load it we can frontload it but it'll come out it'll come out of you know what we plan for for the
following years I mean I'm not saying I don't want you to be what I'm saying is if if recruit more than you're intending then this this is not enough this is pretty much the max that you can that you can request which is why we we did go with the max or they actually did
2233 um I made it three get they did and I made it three across the board I um that that's not a sacred thing the next one go that this isn't who got the grant that's not who got I'll get that's
who's paying statement but I'll get um station wear obviously we provided um last year through the uniform allowance um we bought everybody a new button- down shirt you know we're trying to get everybody uniform especially for all the events we're doing the you know Easter egg hunts and all the stuff that we've
been doing since Co you know they're great and all but I I as well as you guys I'm sure would rather people aren't in you know cargo shorts and t-shirt and this one's in that shirt and this one's in this shirt professional yeah so um
Jerry uh got everyone a new set of station wear last year this would pay for the same three recruits to get all those stationar um non-uniform apparel incentives this is really um a bonus right so this is for hey you are the top fall taker from each company you're the
most improved your percentage last year was terrible and this year you've improved the most um to go out and get them a job share with their name on it or a um uh jacket with their name or whatever fire department jacket um so that would just be incentive money and that's you know we can play with that
that's one of those things where I can play with the money a little bit um to get to where the the max of what they'll allow us to put in for that um low sap reimbursement so it will cover the price um for additional low sap to the tune of
I just put in um what we have right now and he um Dave's looking into the way I wrote it was obviously three in the first year three more in the second year with the first three you know just compounding it um he believes that that's correct he's just going to make sure that that is
correct but but I do believe that it that that would be correct they're not going to fund it for the first year and then full the funding for this second year but um he's getting me the final on that one um Recruitment and Retention coordinator the grant funds obviously somebody needs to figure out all the
percentages for this it's not a short you know it's a good part-time gig it is something that it's going to spend you know somebody's going to spend a little bit of time on on a monthly basis um so that is Fed so it's a $33,000 stip in for that person to write all of this either submit it to FEMA and do all the
necessary paperwork or we'll talk about how um what we've done in the past as far as fir house Grant supporting some of that work um the last one lead skip over typ in for minute we'll come back leadership training um there is obviously you'll
see many of us you've seen our face before in many roles from Lieutenant to Chief um and you see us coming back again every other year so we've had to you know as far as who's eligible to be an officer and who's going to take this department into the
future is dwindling and we'd like that to we'd like to incentivize that um one of the things that they will do is pay for leadership training for people to go out to the fire department instructor conference which most of the time is in Indianapolis although you know it's been moved before um and put them through the
class it's great there's a number of leadership classes instructor classes out there and it really is good for the officers or anyone who wants to be um and they would fully fund um those trips so I just got to see what the max is that we can ask for in there but we can figure that out over
time um and finally is monthly stien program reimbursement um FEMA and the safer program will fund up to $50,000 per year but we'll just call it uh 200,000 in total um that does roll
over so if we only used 25,000 in the first year based on the way the programs written the money would keep rolling so $200,000 pot over a 4-year period to do with it what you wish um the money specifically has to go to bodies on
trucks getting trucks to seen it is not for um obviously we have you know George you know he's in his 90s you know we have a lot of people that are very participatory in the fire department but they obviously don't ride the trucks anymore they will sit in the radio room and dispatch if we need them to they
will do a sorted other task and they keep the not for nothing they keep the companies running on a regular basis um and they do all the ancillary work that somebody in their 20s and somebody in their 30s wants nothing to do with nor has the time to do it um so part of uh
but part of this money cannot go towards incentivizing those people because it's all about bodies on the truck truck to see faster um what you've seen on in the bottom two boxes um was based on um 24 people if you look at what uh
who was eligible for lowp last year not not who was able not was a who was able to collect but overall if everybody made it it was about 24 people who doesn't who is operational and can ride the trucks um so the of the people that were eligible is 24 in total and you can see
the um totals based on if you paid a monthly s in now I spoke to um Dave Schwarz today and went over this whole thing with him um female will not let you do a percentage um so you would have to do a
paper call system so if you just go to the last page real quick I just took the last 36 calls um and out of those last 36 calls I pulled out the or doll and and River only that only company one um is responding to um so that Manpower doesn't get reflected
on that out of the last 36 calls the average man power turning out the door was 14 now of that 14 so I made the average power for the purposes of figing that's out 15 now of that 14 for the day calls you have Dave Stormer John berd
let's not use names okay um your DPW Manpower that responds and is getting paid during the day they obviously would not be eligible for the paper call during that time period because of the grant money um after work hours or if they were on
vacation or if they were off um whatever they would be entitled to the paperfall dollar amount um so I use average Manpower is a little loose because if you took the day calls and pulled that Manpower out um it would definitely bring down the average I'm not really sure how much yet i' have to spend a
little bit time I just did this like two hours ago so once I got off the phone with him so I'd have to go back and see what was a day call what was a night call how many of them were there and really pull them out and see where this goes but I think 15 for current standards is a pretty good um average of where we're at um can I ask you a
question sure you said on the or call so they know they wouldn't get paid for an oral like you don't get paid for that no I'm just saying I I I didn't want to skew the average Manpower number so I still took this number out of the final the yearly is out of all calls but I
didn't want to skew the average Manpower by just doing single company stuff so average Manpower for 36 calls that everyone responded to in the last 30 month or so because we do it about 30 calls a year a month is um 15 um so per
call $10 time 15 people 150 a call yearly that's 60k if we took the grant money out of that you're at 10 of a barrel contribution um if you went up to 15 you're at 225 per call 90,000 yearly
40 $20 per call 15 PLL $300 $120 for our contribution of 70 now I'm going to bring up one request right one of the things that we have coming to us on the burough side um is the ARP funds we have $73,000 in um reimbursement from last
year's ARP uh American Rescue plan Grant that's coming back to us this year um I have not submitted for the reimbursement yet because we haven't gotten the gear yet the gear is on like a 3mon back order um so it's been back ordered due to um they hadn't got the materials to actually make the gear with back order
from the manufacturer um as soon as the gear hits the burrow we'll get the final invoice we can put through the final payment to them and once we get the canceled check so we can answer the reimbursement but that 73,000 will be coming back this year um as unanticipated return to General funds for next year um so one of the things we
would like to ask is to to cover the cost of the to cover the cost of the grant yes so it's not going to doesn't just I mean for paying name out y it's not rolling into you know a place where we're not using it no no but it would would not go it would go back to the
general fund next year wouldn't it no because we we we B we're bonding for money to come you included that in in The Bu Bond okay yeah I got you I got you well I'm just putting it out there to say what what a contribution on the burough side would look like
we just being realistic on page two I'm going to tell you what everybody else yeah huh I know it's better than nothing but I mean it is better than nothing I mean honestly um there's two schools of here right Demis is paying and I'm just
going to look at locals right Demis is paying $475 a month that includes sens lowp and clothing allowance not inclusive but they also kept their lowp and kept their clothing allowance currently they're only spending on that on the Sion portion of it 53,000 was
what they budgeted um this year or last year and they came very close to it that's based on a point system so when you see 35% they include in it's a percentage of the points so say they got a point for calls um they have maybe more points for calls during you'll see
how Mawa down the line did $40 for midnight to 6:00 a.m. because that's one of their you know hard hitting times so they want to incentivize that more um maybe during our hard- hitting times we give two points instead of one point for every call then they give them two points for every drill you know Etc so
the 35 is really 35% of the total points available for the month um not just calls because all that time is is much time spent I mean we spent thousands and thousands and thousands of manh hours um every month in truck checks over like
5,000 man hours just in truck checks and extra credits alone outside of normal just Falls um and that's just for company to so add in company one you're talking close to probably 10,000 man hours of time that's donated to the burrow on a monthly basis um hallworth
is doing 400 that's sipon they kep the low and clothing allowance they budgeted 65,000 for this year Dumont is in 12 with the burrow right now but their intent is to try and do $20 per call um and maintain
clothing allowance and low stop Crest skill which obviously you know um has a career staff engine of four people or four or five guys on each shift every day Staffing so that's Career Staffing paid salary with Ben with pension and benefits um outside of that
they still maintain their volunteers volunteers still come for calls they definitely come when there's um fires or rescue calls Etc the volunteers on the volunteer side in addition to the multi-million dollar that they're paying for the career staff engine are sented
and also getting low s so they're doing they're getting 450 per month I was waiting for an answer on what the requirements to get that 450 is what the percentage look like um so that's why it's unknown right now but I will have that within the next week or so um teny
teny the reason it's 41250 is because they pay it quarterly um so it's uh it's for basically it breaks down to 41250 for 35% their clothing allowance is 1,200 it's basically an additional siphon they
pay 1250 quarter for the clo for the um for the stien and then the closing allowance is an additional stien trap of 1250 on top of that they also um have low sa and it also includes extra credits I mean you have to review every single one yeah you you get the Point um
obviously I'm trying percentage and you're saying that that's not what we're so so if we kept two schools of thought and that's what I if you if you put kept the money in and tried to get the 50 which I'm not saying Turn it down but you're bound to their
rules right and their rules is operational on the truck contributing to Manpower 100% so you really couldn't do a percentage it has to be pay per call if we take their 50k at least for their 50k and but that would be a Monumental recordkeeping thing just to try and
figure out what part of the 50 goes directly to calls and how to figure out it's to motivate people if they don't understand how corre any correct correct um it's not I think I think somewhere in the middle of that 15 to 20 is is the best
starting point um I think that listen I make I make personally I'll just say my me I make as much as I can make with the new baby at home and everything else in January I made 17 out of 30s something calls and last month I made 11 okay so part of that was you know I'm work 12
hours a day Tuesday Wednesday and Friday and a lot of those are day calls a lot those are work so it is what it is but um that would have been 170 the first month at $10 a call or and you know $110 so it's not terrible obviously it's not what we would like to see um I don't
come in here naive I'm not I don't want to come in here with a handout and say hey throw me 200,000 or throw me 500,000 and I'll fix the problem and I'm not going to give you any data I'm going to give you all the data but we have to have a a reasonable starting point to
get you that data um I'm not going to be able to bring you the right data necessarily if we don't have the right dollar amount to incentivize fixing the problem so while I understand that we may have a starting point going into next year that we have to that we have to meet we'd somehow have to get up
close to what other people are doing once you have Hall where demist Dumont Bergenfield has a paid engine on during the day they supplement with lowp and clothing allowance they do not have a STP in but they have that paid Five Guy engine that they're paying over a million dollars for to staff
so once people see that hey we're going to give them 175 but hey they can go join hallworth and hallworth to give them 400 they start pulling people away Demorest and hallworth hor Manpower is almost entirely made out of of people that do not live in hwart 50% of them
probably live in in Dumont you there a mileage so Demis for example has Bergen County as their mileage you live in Bergen County can join um I'm not looking to go there at all I think three miles that we expanded
to is pretty comfortable but we have to be competitive um I'd hate to throw 170 my My worry is this say we threw 175 a month at them but it's not really up to the par of what the area is doing I would hate to for people to say this
program failed because it didn't make the change as big enough as we would want it Demmer saw a 10% increase in Manpower in the first year and I would hate to say that I can't give you that 10% or you know or we fall way short of it because we didn't provide enough to
be on par with everybody else and then obviously the answer then is two trains of thought it either failed entirely or it failed because we didn't throw enough money on it and we didn't incentivize it along with on par with what every else is doing and we lost people to them versus you know I think I think the biggest thing to remember here is we
need to figure out a way that that guy does not have to work the overtime shift that that guy does not have to work a second job and that guy does not have to do all these things to live in the B New Milford we have on average we went over the people that we brought in We Lost Jack zardi really Jack zardi is living
in an apartment um one of our guys is living in an apartment he just got married he's in his 20s he moved went to an apartment um with his girlfriend they are not living in town because you can't afford Renton New Milford um another one just moved to West Milford we lost him
because he can't afford it uh and bought a house in West Milford I talked to him extensively you know I talked to him extensively about what's keeping him out and what's and it really is just the cost you know Demis torth and C yes
they're the they have the highest taxes in W ofb County they're in the top five of world good County so they could afford I I hear you I'm not I'm not disagreeing with the with the monetary side of it or the cap
I'm saying they could also recruit every person that I have that actually right and and like if you're saying hallor is made with 50% of out of towers then yeah I could see that it's true it's true but what I'm saying is we can't compete with something like that well that's I mean
that's and that's the thing from from a longterm from a long-term plan um and I think that's why hopefully the state steps up this time I hold my breath on that very Loosely but um hopefully the state steps up they have to start incentivizing it just like loap was not
contributory to your tax cap they're going to need to make these most of these incentives not contributory to the tax cap because it has to something has to give you know um just because that we all agree on that doesn't mean 100% 100% the concern is you know it's it starts
at 20 well you know 4 years from now 20 is not going to be the number and 4 years from now the 50 is not going to be part of that so it starts to become you know exponentially more that the town has to in year five up to 10 I mean if
you start with the with the 20 that means we have to come up with 70 the first year in four to four to 10 years might be bed with 23 million to to the overall
200 we could frontload some of the safer money to get us two three years down the road we could expend it all in the first two years if we wanted to to meet the numbers um but and the only the only other cap that really exists is there's a there's a cap on um a percentage of
the price paid for a salary of local career sta um which is we're under that I think it was um it's over $700 it's over $1,000 a month that you'd have to be you have to be a portion of a percentage of the um
overall where is it [Music] uh has to be 25 20% of what the average career person earns in the area now that number I said well what what's the area he said it's really loose depending on how you do it it could be the state
could be locally and obviously locally they're getting paid much more than Statewide so I definitely go local numbers but I mean on average locally we're they're well above 50,000 so it's you know from going back to the contribution yeah if this grant was awarded depending on what the numbers
are and how successful it is our number would change each year depending on how many people qualify how many calls because not everyone's going to qualify or whatever yeah and then after the four years MH if there's no reup or another Grant opportunity I don't think anyone
can make a commit commment that said oh we're going to keep this exact thing and do this because in 4 years we might have to change Like Chief said or something may be different we're going to be in a different place in four years the department can be in a different place in four years so I don't think if we go
for this that it's automatic in year five oh we're just automatically going to get this I yeah I mean in in year five we can or in year four we can resubmit for another four years um and I mean part of that is going to be great data collection great reporting which
we've been I just got a letter from afg last month um he wants me to write a whole success story for the afg program because he read of our performance uh progress report the last one that we submitted for the radio Grant um and it was so great that he wants us to pitch something nationally for afg so it's to
C we're doing we're doing very good on reporting um and part of selling it is showing that it worked and showing that it's going to be beneficial to give it to we still have a 50 person cap on FR right you yes right a what there's a 50 member cap oh yeah sure sure I think
it's per company yeah I think you're right so it's 100 member cap and if we ever got there you're that's that's there can be sure how many local towns um I don't have the local with
um know D did Demis did years ago but I went but I'm not sure what year it was River and orale have not put in from on the stiens POR things um or do got it on with basically the other stuff the gear and
everything but they did not put in this Ty and why why not well I think because part part of the discussion is that it is restrictive and that you have to it would have to be payer call versus incentivizing everything like obviously a
40% of all of the things we need them to show up with for a set amount of money is much more easier for me us to manage right from a from an operation standpoint um but really benefits all the things that we need done rather than just calls they're very specific on calls so if you take that money it goes
specifically to that so are calls treated equally in this is a 15minute CO call calculated the same as a 9h hour Street FL so so many people have it this is based on the way wew write up the
program um so you could write that the first hour of a call the first two hours is one and then you could another 10 if it was 10 another $10 for every hour past that you can you could work it out like that um the only things that kind
of fall into that category is the floods and big stuff it's not often maybe three four times a year um I mean compared to compar well compared to 400 compared to 400 calls a year that's not that bad but you can you
can also take that and assign assign of smaller value to it rather than just you know so many years ago over 30 Chief you're going to have to move up so we cat sorry that's fine when I first joined the credit system
when we would go out at call was done kind of hourly and then whatever points you accumulated at the end of the year went towards your clothing allowance because that's the only thing we had there was no low St no nothing else and what we were beginning to find is guys were
penalized first of all if there's no dat time calls or the more daytime T night and then you get that one call that's like 9 hours like you said and that's the one he's on but he didn't make the other 10 that were only 1 hour he loses so we just went to a regular you make
the call you showed up he gave you time we've been doing that for years and it's worked out beneficial so the flip side of doing something I would be afraid would be that we could actually lose people oh I can't you know I'm doing what I can but I I'm still
short because they're showing up that's what we're looking for we're looking to get people in the door we get them in the door and we got to keep them right how do you measure the success of the Sten well through niers I have all the data I mean I have the data by average
response time from Paul going out till first unit on scene I like listen he of you guys in this room sure it's it's it's good to give it to you because you deserve it because you've been working hard and you you're going to be here and you're not going anywhere but like the new people that we
get in the door there's no guarantee right but how do we know whether they're not as successful So to that point the as I can give you by hour of the day how many calls happen at 2 o'clock every day 3:00 4:00 what's the average Manpower on every single one of those calls by hour of the day and we're going to have to
pull all that data we're going to have to look at in the first six months this is where the inquiries was whether there was or not and the first year of the program this is this is where we did we shaved four minutes off the response time we got got three pieces to the scene rather than one you know we got or both pieces out of Company 2 rather than
one um and the average Manpower was six instead of four like it's going to be all of those things and all the data I'm already entering iners which is the great thing about it but um we'll be able to pull off is that a job of the person the administrator this that $3,000 yeah I mean it it's
really so that person's going to have to well I I'm I'm still G to do yeah I'm still going to be doing the I'm still going to be doing the niers and N centries but from the reporting standpoint yes from uh from uh that person is really going to be doing the daily so the companies are going to have to report to that person their manow and
attendance um that person is going to have to compile that um part of Dave Fe um which is on the first page and in yellow on the bottom so I know this is going crazy but very confusing um this is also the one
issue we talking about when you do a pay for call type situation is I feel there's less accountability if we were able to do a 35% and we have a bigger power of a stiping I feel that's a little bit better than this cu the paper call you're going to get random people
showing up and yeah we get the call here's your $10 $ whatever but it doesn't really hold them accountable to show up for their 35% or to really make that effort come you know that's why we
originally spoke about a regular s in and hold these accountable for 35% cu the ultimate go is just to get trucks out you know pay for call it's it's a bit different I don't see it they could just pick and choose at that point yeah I mean you'd have to think about you
could obviously incentivize like um was it pramis like Paramus did incentivize the the difficult times right the difficult times in paramis Ms was you know midnight to 6:00 a.m. and then uh the early hour track rush hour right was from probably from Midnight to almost
9:00 a.m. it was rush hour time in the morning and then it was 3:00 4:00 in the afternoon till 7:00 um the nighttime rush hour that everybody's not coming so they incentivize that at 3 hours of credit for every hour of call um rather than two hours for every hour so there's
ways to incentivize obviously you could throw $20 a call at the overnight calls which you're seeing even less and less people too um and it's not the big listen it's not the house fires that were mean we're lacking a Manpower on the house fires definitely but we're turning out a number that that's
comfortable and meeting our requirement federally what it's those 500 activated fire alarms at 2:00 in the morning that it's like I have work in 3 hours so I have to get up and go to work I can either get up and lose all the sleep and then go function at the hospital for the
next 12 hours somehow or I'm going to die in this one because if I if I do it I'm not going to be you know I'm not going to be alive so it it's making that trade-off and that's why on average our our overnight Manpower you're seeing you know seven six or seven guys total you
know including your Chiefs as an overnight Manpower for your routine calls not your rescues and of the people who' come to the fire department in The Last 5 Years how many of State I mean I'm not asking how many states of the people who
joined in the last five years um honestly Company 2 I well one one that wasn't even the last 5 years they came they've been on for 5
years had 10 or 12 guys show off they're just not staying you invest in them completely with everything as soon as they come in no well not with gear or stuff like that but as far as our time yeah we go through the whole but I think all of us
could agree too I I can't give him $6,000 a a year but I'm not sure fill out an application when they first walk in the door we sit down with them and Stell it all out oh 100% whatever all the man hours that are
required the biggest chunk of that is obviously getting the train to go to my two nights a week six months when you walk in off the street the academy you're basically allowed to do nothing week yeah I don't I don't think the biggest problem is that people can't afford to live in your mil I think the
biggest problem is that the volunteer commitment is not the same as what it used to be that that's that is definitely true also but anything that takes away from their ability what we've seen as far as people we lose has been monetary as far as the people we've lost from our company it's been mon out of
control I I see the reten inside of it and we spoke about this last year too retent retention is the most important for me it's nice to get new members right um this town the demographic is very difficult it's not
R and we're not seeing people coming to volunteer and the ones that we are they're leaving what's the difference with culture yeah I mean we get we get a very we have the apartments is between Dorchester New Milford arms brookchester
Madison arms is a huge portion of that overall chunk right and a lot of them are transient you know a lot of them stay for two years and then move on so so it's very and they come you know probably 50% of the people that inquire just inquire don't even come down to
actually find out after the inquiring part but just inquire about joining or in the apartment and for whatever reason they don't they don't come down to get more information but and I follow them up you know two or three times in the
first six months call you know you or send them a text or send them an email see if they're going to participate and they just don't show up so um part that I think is the transient population orell doesn't have that River Edge River Edge has a good chunk of that but I
don't from what I've seen as far as their Manpower goes that's not which one making up their Manpower they their Manpower and they were been very successful in bringing on a number of more people last year um part of that but me many of those were um uh um Sons
and Daughters of existing members that just became of age to be able to join um so it looks great but all in all it's it's something organically that happened anyway um and then them bringing on their friends which has been very we've been very sessed with once you get a couple of kids then you get a couple
more and you get a couple more the problem is you know obviously many of them look to go away to college and and do other things that take them away from the area and the department for long periods of time losing we lost three guys and they were start a life with
family and bought a house and different town whatever it was but losing guys like that is the worst because they're already trained they already know our operations they know the area they know how we fun and they're experience and those are people
it's really hard cross to is there a benefit to opening it up a little bit further in my I don't think so me personally I think we're I think we're where we want to be any anything more than that it risk people getting an accident coming honestly I still think that depends
where they are they're not helping us get in that second engine to quite honest yeah it's taking them too long to get to the Firehouse by that time the holds usually and the other thing was thing perfect example back in December near
the end we did have a fellow that got our off the website came down to company one and inquired he wanted to supplement his income and and when we explained to him volunteer you know what that means he was very polite
we never saw him I don't know what he thought he was going to get you well I think you but he said don't it depends listen it depends on on the guy but I think a lot I think a lot of people are struggling to get V talk about the Fe for the application um
so on the on the $19.99 is a one time fee that's for the application itself there is um a $1,500 per quarter um reporting thing um so on that and that's Dave does all of the leg work as far as
submission of all the necessary reporting um $1,500 per year per quarter the reporting is, 1500 a quarter so it's six a year 6,000 a year um on the afg side for these equipment grants we beginning he charges a 500 onetime
fee but that's because the period of performance is a year and it's one very easy report you either bought the stuff or you haven't bought the stuff yet and why and then the final so it's very easy this obviously is a lot what he's doing different than what the program coordinator so he what he has to do is
basically write th those performance progress reports are like a one sheet narrative about how the overall is is working um so they that needs to be very well and specifically written I don't necessarily think that whoever's doing
this can't do it i' obviously for the ARP have done like those and I've done for afg I've written you know written some so um or yeah for I did it for the fgs the um Co supplemental one that we did that we did outside of him um I did the performance progress approach of
that that I I know this is kind of the devil that I don't know so while I would say that it might not be 100% needed I would budget for it because I need to see it to we need to look at it first I don't I don't know what all the requirements are as far as that kind of
reporting and what they're going to be requesting of us and whether that and whether this person is going like that's going to fit in enough man hours for $3,000 year What's the timing on when the application is so so this really yeah so this is really I'm going to say
earliest um let's talk last year last year's AF safer Grant went in um I think it opened in um February closed
in um March and then they finished giving out the last round of Grants September 23rd so after that September 23rd date it's 60 days before it goes into effect we're already late they said they were going to open March 1st clearly that's
not happening um my gut they haven't even announced that it's coming soon like usually there's a little flurry beforehand hey it's going to be opening in a month that doesn't even happened yet um so my gut is that we're going to be into May which is good for us to gives us more time in rate of compelling
application and get all our our ACC together um but my gut is that it'll be April May June July August September probably before they're done at least we probably we won't even see an approval until October is and then you got 60
days so I think we're in next year's budget before we have to worry about money on top of anything or the you know the cic committal portion of it past what they're willing to do if we go there um and the and the reporting side of things
so we we maybe have to report one quarter before the end of the year so maybe $1,500 or 3,000 we put as sign on the reporting end of it um or I I would I would budget the first year of it obviously the 6,000 for the first year just so just in case um but chances are
of that we'll probably only see one quarter of maybe a reporting if we need if we need to dig into those funds and have him to it um the application side side is a onetime fe so obviously I know you know Christin talked there was the 5,000 was set aside for afg so this
would really be 6,000 above what's already set aside to to apply s 12,000 yeah you have five five five five $ 49.99 but you probably put a little
little buer in there I had six in there okay um so another additional six for yeah application application okay yeah and then I think we should put at least a
quarter away maybe two as a buffer definitely one I don't see I don't see it opening before April I don't think before may I don't know though we don't know no I don't know but even even when once it opens it's still 30 days before it closes so we wouldn't get this though you're
saying till October um 60-day weit correct before before you have to start performing I don't think we have to and then obviously the I I mean look at the gear the gear was the same time and we
couldn't do anything until yeah y yeah they they strung us along on that American Rescue pay for months and months and months before they finally put the money in the account for us to do anything we got the year which all good but we were a year and year
somebody of deciding you know only ask the questions yeah I I wish I wish we could have had a separate discussion about stiens before we were into this Grant
and all the other bells and whistles of the Grant had we been able to sit down and just talk about the scheduling and what the department each company and what the department really needs and what does this money really mean um I
think it would be a little clearer for some of us around the table these are really two separate things correct you're saying I mean it's not and I'll say that well they're connected but they're not the same so the grant that you're
applying for would ultimately cost us $476,000 $550 right corre but what's on the next page with the it wouldn't cost you you would that was what you be awarded you're aing for that is the 1199 but the next page has nothing to do with this the
next page is specifically what the area departments are paying in sment to be competitive so they can be dealt with separately these two issues or um well you is part of the we could the whole point of the of the
grant is Recruitment and Retention this people in the area paying 400 that's where the people they're recruiting are going to go be recruited um but I question I mean do you think demoris to spending that in recruit in recruitment are they spending the money that is
shown here for these campaigns 23,000 a year so they they did not they had not they're doing this outside those places are not necessarily doing it through the grant program they just put in a stien so how are they doing they're funing it municipally 23 Grand year they're
they're funding their budget in foror was for last year with 53k and and Demis put 65k for just specifically for Sion programs and they didn't go over last year he said no I'm saying for
recruitment for recruit for recruitment specifically they're not they're doing organically what we do they're posting a Facebook post they're getting it without the recruitment but they're getting it mainly because they're paying
47 I wouldn't say they're necessarily getting the amount of people that they would get if they did a comprehensive like $100,000 recruitment program like campaign but they're not but they're not losing people yeah make you bet if we give a s in 500
a month and see how many people come running it's true and listen I I'll I'll put it this in in two in in early 2000s I was a member of foras now foras is a different subject altogether it's much bigger municipality a much
bigger call volume and but lower tax but at the time they paid $350 a month and if you did an extra 24 hours of of time you got an additional 150 that was banked until December and you got to pay that R Before Christmas R before the
holidays there were PE there were they got out 99.9% of four rigs every single day because of that they were fully staffed for four rigs every day there were people driving up here from barnegate for the weekends riding a duty shift and
going back so depending on how you work it Money Talks if somebody needs a couple more dollars to get by they're going to come you know come out of the woodwork for a couple more dollars or there it's between you know jel me and Jal said I've left early I've left work early last year you know in 2022 to come
to Municipal meetings to have discussions about what needed to be done you know I've not taken that overtime shift to come here and have that discussion Jerry has done the same thing so and many times you saw me at the you know jumping on a jumping on a zoom meeting from work hiding in my office
you know so we're all we all we all put in the time but municipally it's going to come down to that am I going to pick up that overtime shift that's going to pay me $500 or would I rather go home and hopefully there's a fire call but either way I'll make I'd rather make my sement you know most people are going to come home be with their families is a
call they're going to take it you know and it's going to boost Manpower that way um but it is really making that distinction is not going to make this difference in somebody be able to stay in I mean it's it's a it's a start it's a start and it's a broader discussion for the future and it's a broader
discussion for it's all part of a comprehensive plan like we talked about with losap losap was never supposed to be just loap it was supposed to be a comprehensive recruit like yes they it was instituted as a single thing but people were supposed to put that into a program to recruit people there are many
there are many departments in this list that have um prescription and medical health plans for for their members like a number of other things as part of a comprehensive plan to recruit and retain people obviously we're not going to have that discussion but those are the that's reality the reality is the the more
benefits you have the easier it is to stop someone from doing that over time shift or stop someone from trying to from staying at work longer from getting that second or third job especially lately um I think gon the times where the where the you know again we'll let them remain nameless but G to the times
where you had some of the people that are in their 60s and 70s now that had Municipal businesses or in the very close proximity to Milford that were able to say hey shopkeeper I'm leaving I'll be back in an hour I have a fire call and so go be gone for in a couple hours on a fire that's what we had in the past these people don't have their
own businesses anymore they're trades people they're working in the city from 9:00 to 5: and now they're all being called back to the office you know so they're even more gone so you know one of of our main guys who was took a the breath of our calls is now working in the city as a project manager for a
company and he's gone from 9 to 5 and he leaves at 8:00 and he comes home you know sometimes by 700 he's walking up the street to the Firehouse to get his car so it's it's the a big breath of his time 5 days a week is not with us you know so we've lost all that local N9 to5
you know six to six people definitely which is our biggest hard hit time um and then the overnight the nature of your volunteerism come at any hour whereas there's other groups where we know we have a meeting a month it's at this time it's on Thursday whatever yeah I mean what's throwing me
off now on this is the paid for call instead of the percentage the I I like the percentage if we take their 50,000 we need to follow their rules that's the I can put this whole thing in without the 50,000 at the end of the day if we really wanted to
but we have to follow their rules now that's not to say that we can't come up with some other program on the side to supplement that and not call it St I don't know we'll call it something else completely volunteer incentive program and we could do it on the side with you know and still take their money and give it out per fall I you know that's not to
say that we can't do that um but obviously these are you know this stuff's going to take a year to figure out for next year's budget and how we're going to go past that and these and like I've said since 22 like this it's going to take a long time to write it it's going a long time it's a long time of waiting
and I don't want to kick the can down the road so they haven't opened the grant yet no my guts my guts May so we have time people have time to digest this sure yeah I mean I don't need an answer question I don't need an answer by tomorrow but surely I need to you need
to write the ordinance for the grant writer and I need to actually sit down and write it like I don't we don't have to write ordinance for the grant writer we have to put it in the operations subject okay could you explain the percentage thing to me again I'm sorry doesn't apply anymore
I still want to understand it say we scra say we scrapped the stien in the Grant and we just came up with our own program and the municipality funded it um some of these PE some of these towns their percentage is calls strictly calls like um Edgewater that's
strictly well though they included work nights and trainings and drills yeah somebody else was strictly Richfield is percentage pretty pretty much every is a is a percentage of a point system
explain so if you on Thursdays every day every Thursday a company to we go to truck checks we start all the saws we check all the equipment we make sure the air packs have air in it we're there from 7:00 to 10: right um that would be included say they give I'm just throwing it out there as an example maybe we
would give of those three weeks that we require maybe two of them you can get points for and it's two points per work night this think harder to confuse is when you look at on the second page it says percents these towns are not in the saf
for Grant yeah the towns are making one or the other the towns are coming up with the money however I'm still just curious how they figure out percents and what perent I mean there's other things we like to to incentiv OB clothing allowance and low it's all based on
percent did by hours how many hours did you get a month yeah like uh the clothing allowance is based on the work nights the drills and the calls the low sa is based on the drills and the call and the actual call volume minus exra cred so this most places are doing it
along the same lines they're giving a a point amount and that's 35% of the total points that were available for that month okay um because really incentivizes everything I need just people at the drill to drill together and train together just as as much as I need them at the call so it gives them a little bit of leeway so if we went by
percentages we don't get $2,000 municipality would take that upon themselves how how would we how would we budget for that throughout the year I mean that actually makes budgeting it a little bit
easier because you work back from a I work back from a budget number to how many can I fund and I figure out well already 24 people this year qualify but our hope is that incentiv with the money you're going to
gain and they're also going to show up so just adding like six I added up to 32 people for next year just to show like where that where that would how that would change based on more people being eligible so but the the flip side of doing it pay per call is that you start
with the number and I can only if more people make it then instead of giving you $10 a call now I might have to give you eight otherwise going run out of money or I get $10 in call until you run out of money and then there is no more money like it becomes much more difficult to manage rather rather than working back from a pre-approved like
knowledgeable budget number with a little bit of P you know just to make sure we you say you're giving them $10 you're going to give them $10 regardless then we're going to end up having to transfer money that's what happens um no it's it would be until until the once the money runs out that once that 200,000 if that
200,000 ran out in year two you have you don't have to keep it going so you're running this so that would be like a pilot program yeah you're looking at this as as a pilot program to experiment yeah I mean amount in two years that's
probably a good indicator that it's working yes correct yes very much so yes hopefully my my data will be very easy then about selling the next four years after that yeah we'll have a lot of recruits for two years and then where' they go I think it's they're all in it
be foolish to assume that we're going to peel it back I think you have to go in with the attitude that this is probably something that you committing to I mean whether or not it's an actual commitment yeah but I mean for instance like very hard to take it back the alternative down the road is paid Department other
towns are start they were paid professionals which is health benefits and everything else it's going to be the county having the department not've been saying that for years it's not it's not going to be a town I mean I I I I happen to as you guys know I represent all the towns I
represent but I also am the general counsel for the patters enironment and I can tell tell you right now that there's there is no chance that there is going to be I mean Englewood they're trying to get Anglewood hackin sack and Teck to trying to do that for years and my and I was a teen attorney as you all know for
a long time I suspect that at some point that will have to happen yeah there just no way that the towns can sustain their own fire departments yeah I I mean but the det the volunteers the detriment of that merging is just geography sure you could merge Patterson and hackin sack but they're also 15 minutes Patterson
hackin sack and te yeah no definitely definitely but there's also been talk about I mean even when Mutual Aid wise Hackensack will call Patterson before they call South hackin in because voler in p and Patterson his career and in a local so yeah I mean geographically it's
sure it sounds great on paper that you're getting guaranteed Manpower but you're also waiting 15 minutes for it and if if there's a life in the balance and that person doesn't make it though guess what somebody's going to be knocking on the door looking for the payout why don't you call them they had 10 people waiting for you to call them you know so it's that actually that
happened down the shore um last year specifically I agree with you that that's down the road someplace I don't know how I not our lifetime right right North Hudson did that years ago yep not working so well North B wants to pull
out I'm well aware I represent God all sound great on paper and like yeah we're going to save this used to own watch three truck I mean just like we they had multiple pieces Department 3
something million correct between the of them well individually you could until something happens sure that works for the activated firearm but that doesn't work for the storm on a storm day we're running 40 calls in a matter of eight
hours that's not running for three to that's not happening in three towns with one Department and be Standalone not at all that's why every time we've always had the discussion of P why can't we just call or why can't we just call Milford why can't we just call you know River Edge because when the hits the fan no
offense they're not coming everyone needs to be self-sufficient and self- sustainable and if we're not that means paying your own full-time department and honestly it means more than just one engine it means two engines in a truck we are probably almost one and a half
times sometimes two times the call volume of wo and River one because the um and large scale calls but um but on average we have always been more than oral and River substantially more um for worth and Demus we surpass them by they
probably do 250 Falls a year yeah we do double yeah 375 to to 400 yeah we're doing 375 to 400 calls a year so it's it's a much different egg crack even if you brought them all in
together if if micro are this year we're on the same tra same PA you know no's coming so one thing um what we talked about last year too what we're worried about is we have our rules and rs bylaws
35% 60% with extra credit all this we're not abiding by it if we were to actually abide by that we wouldn't have more than five people in the house I can I'm speaking for company to oh yeah right and we're at top position where we go I
gotta throw this guy off we can't afford throw off but this this is what we're like this is serious yeah I mean could you just you know speak a little more on that so we remember we
met last year yeah I brought all the paperwork and we'll have our normal percentages and I'm speaking for company too I didn't have company ones information at the time but we have our certain rules don't you have to show up for 35% 6 60% with extra credit so
that's work nights drills some guys if they're not making the calls they'll come down clean Firehouse get extra credit just so they can stay on so we have guys that are not in that range and you throw guys off of that I got a
letter in my file 12 years ago for Fe at 58% I was 2% short in a quter that's how things used to be and we tried being loose with these guys TR working with them we understand guys who work different jobs things are a lot more
expensive but now you can't you can't get rid people you can't you because you don't have the maner and there a lot would I be yeah I need to write this application if I wait to the last this is like afg is pretty easy it's like a
4,000 word paragraph the actual you know outside the nitty-gritty of like stuff very soon this is like a 50 page like comprehensive like every one of those every one of those pces of the application a good narrative and and a
program to back up% this is a safer this is yeah this all and and it's that's those are state or federal this is female yeah miss the last yeah this this is going to be like a I'm just guessing this is going to be like we're not just saying hey I need a
s 20 years old I need to actually go with them with here's the point system everything I can tell you I just did the numbers real quick um last month we had 24 members Al together on Company 2 and
that could and that includes the over the no longer riding Crowd by a couple only nine of them are 37.5% made 35% of actual 30 37% so now remember our we don't kick them up for that we kick them
off for including extra credits but extra credits is not getting the truck out the door so actual people getting the truck out the door only nine out of 24 made 35% are better and and I'll say I made 41% of actual
and that's with taking every single call that came in that I wasn't at work minus maybe two I wasn't around maybe Min is too that I wasn't around yeah I'm sure company one's in the same boat but you made a good point before though also is if you pay them by a call
they can decide which calls they want to answer and which call they don't unless you incentiv in you know wa it but obviously we can't the only way you can wait it 25 yeah I think it's the overall monary
number I think 17 that's so we need to talk about they need to know if we want to go ahead with this grant I think writing the grant we still have time to play with if we're going to do the co or a percentage thing or something like that that's the grant
unless he doesn't unless they don't use the $50,000 the grant also includes the marketing it includes actually the equipment the turnout gear for for new recruits which would help us right so the grant is $12,000 we have
six we have to find six budget which is going to be AAR reporting just in case right 24,000 for reporting for the year plus the 12,000 application fee one of the questions I was going to ask is no 6,000 a year 1,500 according not 6,000
ACC oh that's what I asked you and I thought you respond no 1, 1500 per quarter 6,000 per year so we should shell out the first quarter just in case it it it C hits this year got okay so the the quarterly reporting doesn't come out of this grant we have to fund that
on top of yes yes okay so the extra money we have to find for this grant is there anything the fire department can help us out with like we split it 3 three for that's six from where don't know operation budget I mean you end up
a little try to do I'm just asking I mean it's we we had money left over this year but that doesn't mean I last year but doesn't mean we're going to have money left over next year and you know I don't it's hard it's hard to answer when we haven't even bought the things that we need to buy
yet all right well I mean we've cut listen I I cut you saw I cut a $1,000 off of equipment I I didn't do that just because I didn't want $1,000 I I I cut every little thing that we cut this year you know when we prepared that budget um and I want but I want I want it to be realistic but I also wanted to give you
Bare Bones and that is Bare Bones are we going to have money left clearly obviously me and Chris met you know before the end year to figure out how to the couple last minute things that we needed to purchase I clearly didn't touch the clothing allowance money even though we may have been able to because we hadn't even extended it yet so I you
know I'm not going to go there um so sure there there could be but you know that's really the only money that's on the table towards the end of like training already expended I already have we already have classes ready I already put deposit down I got to supplement it with you know this year's budget um
equipment we defin there's already stuff that we need to got um so why don't we you just say it's possible we'll look into it we no I absolutely look into it I don't I just don't know where you know question is councel do you want to move
forward with this grant for all of this and then we're going to figure out the bigger issue of the pay per call if you want to go with that you get the $50,000 I think if you do that you have to add you have to add $7,500 to the GR
in order to you can't say well we'll see what happens we're either going to put it in the budget or for what 6,000 additional for the application and, 1500 for the first quarter of reporting so $7,500 is this 122,000 to the application we
have oh I see I mean and this would start in 26 just just to hit just just to be if we did paper call right just to be a $10 a call the budget the burrow would have to take an additional T that's next year no I understand I'm just saying just to hit that number there would have to be an additional 10
next year any less than that no I think any less than 10 find out when this has to start 60 days after it's awarded it has to start exactly 60 days 60 days after it's awarded you have to spend the first dollar no no no you have to spend the
first dollar you have to start the pro the process so 30 days after this here 90 days after delivery Talking Mary Cru yeah I I think I I think that's fair but just in case I want to be is there anyone else have any questions about
this because I'm going to ask someone to make a motion second we're going to go you guys going to vote around the table any more questions I don't know way we're going to get 7,000 I think we need a table to discuss some more this was a lot of information it was a lot to discuss a lot to digest
it's not entirely clear it's a little bit confusing I think we need another session to disect the information clear what are you hoping to get because you'll you'll get it around this table and from those guys if there's anything else really
specific otherwise I think a lot of us are feeling that way um however I mean the facts are the facts they're not able to retain you know membership to the proper
level that it should be um that we have to provide this service to our Town um and this looks like it can Avail us to some interesting things now after
four years you're saying we don't have to reapply you don't we don't have to do anything after years yeah um and stop the you could yeah yeah I mean anything is possible you know we could see what
everything looks like at the end of right but the question the long way down the road question is do we want to apply for the grant that's the question do we want to apply for the grant and I I think personally for me as I said before
um I always think that applying for a grant is a great idea however by applying for this you guys are approaching um you know the idea of a stipend is really you know a procedural
change completely it's something new that we have never done before well we could surely so it's you could surely pull the typen out I think I think $100,000 recruitment campaign is well worth even that Standalone the first
item is well worth than $1,000 you know people get stuck on the strangest things you know that I mean so uh for me I was just like hm so does that mean we approved that when did we approve that you know I guess by us applying we're
saying yes we're saying we're going to give it a try we're going to give it a try so possible so these list I mean we still have to pass an ordinance with all with all of the things setting aside the
program that that it doesn't make them an employee sure 100% we have time a little bit I would imagine uh hadie just brought up all these things mandatory to be included or mandatory we can pick and choose
different items nothing's mandatory were there more items that you discorded and you pick these um uh $10,000 up to $10,000 for exercise equipment we all pretty have a good amount of gym stuff uh tuition reimbursement um minor interior
renovation so there were other things that you omitted yeah LED sign we didn't you know where we going to put it they pick the things they think were going that's that's really it though that was really it though an LED sign interior renovation up to 10,000 to convert like into a bun
room I mean other than that company one and I don't think people are going to like an interior sign on the residential LED sign on the residential street do you come up with these numbers for each of these things or these in the I mean I mean those are really what those are really what we're paying for now like
6,000 is is what we're paying for gear now L we pay for that man Len to pay for that it wasn't best time financially when my kids decided to go to college but I invested in their future so right
now I say yes I know we are I think we should do it we're going to learn from this because we can't just keep kicking things down you know the can down the road because now we're going to find out if something like this works but while we're doing that there's all these other
things that we are going to get funding for that not coming out of our pocket equipment uh the low there's there's two 6,000 a year right thereal I think it's a good idea to go
for the no commitment after four years because I don't know what it's going to look like but I think I think we should go for the grant and see what happens see this let's try it I'm going to need someone to make a motion to well right well does yeah did
you say anything can we like fine tune our motion because like I think it's worthwhile that's that's out that's okay Recruitment and Retention is
important and the fir uh our firen put in a lot of work fire Personnel so and uh and and a lot of training and I think it's important to support that and to
have a grant to do this um is you know I love grants you can't pass up money right so but with the um the stened part that we're calling like the pay for call I think if we put
that in as a pilot test program to review later no if we're including that in the grant if they apply for it and cuz we don't know like if we're going to get all of it right if you they can they can reduce things like
they can go and say change around I asked for1 18,000 for physicals they can go and say we're only going to give you you know $1,000 a person but only give you 3,000 a year instead of 4500 they surely can but I I agree with you like we there's decisions that need to be made this is a good way to collect some
data and depending on what is awarded we have might have to rethink some of the like you said if they change the lines or whatever MH but the bottom line is do we go for the grant and try to start this program see what we get and then how can we best take that to
help them with their needs and help our community with our needs of having a Dependable functional fire department professional fire department of volunteers right all right you guys you guys ready for a motion or do you
have more questions I'm just fig out well we figured it out see okay so all right you always have like a stash somewhere may get a motion for this issue I'd like to make a motion
that the uh that we so how do you want me to say that the fire department the mil fire department uh weiz the application authorize the okay what she
[Laughter] said I know that was second may get a roll call please yes councilman sand
yesc yes counc yes Council mski yes counc yes Council MC yes start writing get going turn that computer on and go thank
you um I think the last thing I'll say is clearly I think we'll have um a lot of work to do together on the overall ordinance and what this looks like over the next four years I think it would be best obviously for all of us to put a committee together to focus solely on this like we've talked about in the past
um I know I've spoke with George Adeline in the past and he was willing to sit as a unaffiliated um person on that committee um I could follow up with him again and see if he' still just so we have some if we if we wanted the the say of a lay person um in making
recommendations can I ask you a question did anybody do a resolution that that's just that's I just saw that well come up with a resolution motion second 5 minute
break I know know I swe my trial right now for like two weeks I'm like that's why like [Music] okay we're going to go to item number two Council committee report
dck okay um you know I just wanted to talk about this with everybody um I I'm one of the repeat offenders I I have always given my report you know live it
at a meeting rather than uh like book report style so I was thinking you know maybe we could revisit the idea of uh giving our report during our meeting now
I think we uh at the time uh went to you know hand it in because there were a couple of council members that would come in with like four pages of you know comments to read
into the records so if we can come to a balance that says you know we've got the mayor reading events for the month uh each of us could do you know a short um paragraph you know a short speech uh
about our month and uh you know eliminate the written reports that's really all I wanted to talk about I think everyone's reports are great and I love hearing that I have to say say so if it's going to be recorded then more
people will hear it I don't know I find I feel it's more effective so that's all I want to say I kind of I prefer I like doing both you know until maybe eight or
nine years ago we just did oral reports and as you mentioned some council members went on and on and on and our meetings went on and on and on some of those meetings lasted until 11 or 12 because the council reports went on some of them are still going on that's room
you know some some of the council reports would end up you know all together would take an extra 40 to 45 minutes and so it was decided at some point when um an Brey was the mayor and I don't remember exactly which year I think you may have been on the council maybe you were at the time too um to
just limit remarks at Council meetings to just a few highlights just a couple of minutes each and to put all the detail in Greater depth you know into something written uh so that people would be able to access it and I think it's actually more accessible when you write it because it's appended to the
minutes which are then put on the website whereas um otherwise they have to you know go to find the um video and then wait through it to find the remarks which tend to be
brief and most of us when we give our or reports refer to notes anywhere way so it's not it seems to me it's not that much that so difficult to just transform that a little bit put it you know Capital at the beginning of the sentence maybe instead of just a little note and
add that to the to the U minutes because that way it's more accessible to the public and I believe in um letting the public know as much as we can they they should know as much as they can about what their effect elected officials are doing in my opinion and it doesn't
really take all that long I don't um once you get into the habit of it and you can do it as detailed as you want or not too detailed but perhaps a little bit more than you just uhu mentioned at the council meeting because some of us
um it's very hard sometimes to just limit your remarks at the council meeting to a few highlights some people still go on a little longer not as much as some previous council members however um who shall remain this um but forever
in our hearts right um so I I kind of like it and I I guess I'm somebody who pretty much doesn't most meetings I do miss a meeting once in a while but I would say I've done it pretty much and I know Randy you've done it um some people
have um not but I still think it's a good idea if whatever we can do to make keep the public informed to me is a good idea the verbal reports are transcribed into minutes briefly it's just a matter of I mean we should be the your report
should be what you think the public should hear it doesn't have to be a complete everything that happened at the committee meeting because all of those meetings that you go to are also open to the public and they also take minutes I remember when you were on the council and you submitted your written reports they were quite detailed now I know so
you know now that you're saying it could be different yes it could be they could be shorter I think I think I think the live streaming and the recording has has been a game changer that's where people see our meetings you can see the views after our meeting a week from now you can see how many people watch our
meetings I think you know whether or not you want to actually write them and submit them even though they're going to go in our minutes I think we should be at the point where we're saying more in the minutes it's still the highlights that You' represented sometimes there's more detail that is not maybe not worth
it's not quite a highlight but actually gives more information to the public about what is going on in that particular Lea Zone un unless you want us to start you know giving the entire Report with all the details you know which is just going to lengthen our meetings you know another
40 minutes there's no don't want there's no written policy on this this has been it's a it's a council thing we're going to do what you guys decide to do right it was changed once it can be changed back or not yes things change with the times right this was the change that
needed to happen N9 years ago and now we're at a point where it doesn't need to change because we change it depends on what the council M think it might need to change because where we are now yeah it might not we're going to find out you're
up do you have an opinion on this I'm I have no opinion on this it's fine if I I feel like uh the highlights are good and and everyone has uh access to committee meeting commit committee
meeting minutes as you pointed out everything's open to the public so if people want more information they it's accessible um committee meeting minutes are they posted somewhere committee meetings of your minutes for your committees they're they're posted
aren't they available on the on the B website PO for all the Committees not for all the Committees but they're open to the public people can attend people can make phone calls and ask and so I
know if someone wants to add supplement to the to the to the minutes that's fine with me I just don't want I just I guess my curiosity would be is and the substance is it a requirement um because
some some substance is subjective because sometimes yeah what you think is substance someone else may not and there's no requirement of how much you actually have to no that's absolutely true right true but I kind of based I remember reading
yours and they were thorough they were as I mine are I try to make them as thorough as possible so that people really have a good idea of what's going on I'm sure add and we might have only read each others only included them right I mean like
it that could also be a policy well also just the you know it should be optional optional if it's something you know something a major meeting something whatever you could council person has a discretion say I should write this down well
unfortunate that some council members have never filed the council EX on report despite voting despite voting for it at every um public session they're voting for them to be filed yes but they not voting that every
single person does technicalities that's the way the world isn't I think we have the V online video and people so you like optional I like optional I don't have a strong opinion either way um I therefore agree with the
optional councilman only I agree optional I will option okay put me down as required okay that long time so schedule of
events Oh wait we're on budget I'm sorry budg okay saying I I did circulate the draft um prior to the meeting of where we were at and noted a few things that we were
planning to change um in that email based on some other things we talked about tonight a few my committee members and I briefly discussed other options what we could do in order to make that happen so originally we talked about cutting
Capital Improvement by 25,000 and by cutting accumulated absence by 5,000 um but in order to accommodate the additional funds for the Grant application here and addition funds for public events that I was not aware about
um we need to try and come up with another $5,000 which I suggested that we could take out of the miscellaneous equipment line which is somewhere where we we find the need occasionally to uh have a we
edit it in a few years ago and it turned out to be a good thing because we would find ourselves during the year in need of certain things that we didn't have a budget for and Diana said you should probably just put a nominal amount in and this way you're cover and it also becomes a line that we can transfer out
of when we need to make transfers at the end of the year because you can't anticipate every single emergency right we lost a snow cloud we lost a car in a flood currently we have miscellaneous equipment in the budget of 15,000 I suggested that we could drop that to 10 we're going to drop the accumulated absences to 20 and
25 Capital Improvement we're going to drop to 25% to 225 from 250 that was the discussion of the budget committee um when we talked on Friday and I think also we also um circulated
the capital budget proposal which included all of the requests and the things that we thought um should be covered for this year um I mentioned briefly earlier that there was a request for
$26,000 for security cameras from the DPW and it was something that we wanted to fund and Diana pointed out that we have Capital money that's already appropriated from 2022 that is going unused and she suggested that we could
amend that ordinance to cover that one expense and we could take it out of this year's capital budget thank you take it away I I thought they had cameras down there they're 10 years old and they need to be they going to be incorporated into the police department
but they do it's a useful life of 10 years and they're already beyond their useful life so click your iPhone before I say does anybody have any questions about the budget everybody well I'd love to look at a worksheet I have nothing in my
hand I didn't get that I have a question sorry I see that the library has been GI of course the library has been given it's oneir of a mill but I am understand also that you're taking back $125,000 this year last year you took
$100,000 back am I correct Matt no oh how much you the goal was to have them become self-sufficient over a period of time for their medical coverage because they're supposed to pay for all of their expenses out of their third of a Mill and they don't currently there are other
things including payable uh some insurance costs that we cover for them as well so we've slowly been trying to increase it so that they would be self-sufficient as far as their medical coverage so how much are you taking back then 125 you are taking so but last year
was 100 yes so what accounts for that difference they're still they're still not at 100% they're still not covering 100% of their cost so how much is the burrow C covering if they take this $125,000 back are they been adding money
to that yes right I also have a question on on the um capital budget under the library there some some things that I know were on the list that they requested but actually they're not really Library issues um and I see none of them getting
any money anyway but one is the curbs uh the curbs are nasty up front but that should not come out of the library budget those curbs are owned by the burough same as the parking lot lights last year come oh I know but it's listed under Library buildings and grounds
buildings and grounds okay okay you're right I'm sorry didn't see B&G there okay thank you any other questions no okay uh the capital budget uh request
requests were approximately 1,634 th000 uh what we're looking to fund is $864,000 uh not inclusive of the 5% of for bonding and legal fees
uh we did a pretty good job uh on that as Chris said 25,000 was coming from a prior Grant plus also we had in there the GIS mapping originally was 95,000 it went down to 40,000 speaking to our uh
our uh Bond uh attorney that's coming out of that that's not in the capital that's yeah it's not in the capital it's coming out right that's where what I'm saying it's coming out of that so uh that will be uh part of uh
Capital 77 775 okay I'm using my other sheet 249 is going from Capital Improvement okay uh we originally had Capital Improvement at 250 we cut it down to 225 we had about 22 left in from
the prior year which would have given us 270 now we're taking out 249 from there so it this down to the 180s 180s because we're using 5% for the
other can I tell can you tell me what that is pleas instead of just numbers what's the capital bu approv yeah what is capital budget that we're proposing is is 350 for Road
program uh 345,000 to replace a dump truck1 18,000 to retrofit two side for the police department yeah are we replacing them or getting two new ones no retrofitting retrofitting and then 515 for fire department equipment and
11,000 for a mower for recreation a what a standing mower for recreation lawn mower Fields oh yeah so they they own it but we St it so to
speak yeah so to speak but DPW uses it and then there's an add DPW 6000 main it DPW maintain for the field corre additional
16,000 of equipment for the fire department sorry I wasn't here you know like a lot of times you're not here yeah and 8900 for the health department thank you you know some of the things the
library has requested that are under buildings that grounds have been there for years years and years not been addressed I'm sorry some of the things for the library that are under buildings and grounds have been requested for years and yes we had a conversation with
the they came in to talk about their their budget one of the things we talked about was the fact that they put in they put a list of things that they want but part of requesting Capital funds is you have to have an estimate of what those
things are going to be so we're going to have continued conversations with them we wanted to talk to them some of the things we were talking to them about the possibility of using some of the money that they have in their Surplus and possibly funding some of the
rest of it out of capital future Capital budgets from the mayor and Council but we need to have more fleshed out information in order to make decisions about the things that we can and can't do well if it's a building grounds then would that be um Vince kahill working with the library to come up with these
estimates always available to assist yes and that's been offered cuz he has the expertise whereas the library do actually but it would be nice to get someone something funded for a change I mean I don't know if you hear those
bathrooms they're Dreadful and they're not ADA Compliant the windows are from the 1950s and the cement pads are pretty bad outside and so on so maybe next year we can the priority the priority is the
windows and the doors I would agree with that and then the bathrooms after that but as I've said before you know it's a burrow owned building right we recently you know it wasn't too long ago we did the roof and the parking lot yes so parking lot nice job
right everyone year tries to keep the budget down as much as possible of course because the build is so expensive to live in everyone has the same challenges and we work really hard really hard for resp but these few
things they've been on the list for 10 years you know I just I remember when the flood lights outside were on the thing for 30 years but there were things on the list that were funded like a circulation desk and there have been other things that were funded but the library paid for a good part of that that wasn't so much from the
bur capital budget the whole thing I don't know what the whole thing cost I remember it was $25,000 it was expensive I do we do we do right we don't neglect the
WR okay if you say so that's not the feeling at the library well then they can come here and tell us them I am I don't know I thought we had a really good meeting with them and H well I guess it's good if everyone
thinks because we don't give everyone everything they want we can't everybody does feel we sat with got C I never feel that way listen it's a challenge every year yes and uh always hard
decisions any other questions about the budget okay uh at our 26th meeting our auditor will be here for introduction yes that is on my oh I'm sorry okay sorry it's not like to giv anything away yes we're going to be introducing it the
next meeting on the 26th which is a Wednesday remember in order to accommodate the auditor schedule so we come here on Monday we won't be here March 25th right yes okay item number four schedule updates okay here we
go there's a lot of them if I forget something I'll ask you at the end so just help me out okay Friday March 14th uh annual empty bows fundraiser sponsored by New Milford High School art Department it's from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the new high school cafeteria I know
it's $15 all you can eat and you get a student me bowl and all the proceed 100% of the proceeds go to New Milford food P Saturday March 22nd is the Battle of the band sponsored by New Milford wrestling Foundation it's from 11: 7 to 11:00 p.m. at the newford
YMCA on Thursday March 27th is the 2025 Gala sponsored by the New Milford Education Foundation starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Alpine Country Club for more information if you're interested you can go to mmef Galla 25. gsm.com
on Saturday April 5th is the opening day parade sponsored by New Milford Recreation and New Milford little Matt you have a start time on the parade I'll find out for um starts at the old shoper parking lot and it'll go to Kennedy Memorial
fieldcom Field on Saturday April 12 is the Easter pancake breakfast sponsored by the New Milford athletic boosters is from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the New Milford High School cafeteria at the same time is Recreation annual
Easter egg hunt which starts at 10:00 a.m. on night's field so they working together so people can go to the breakfast and then go out right to the a hunt on Thursday April 24th is annual black poster event sponsored by the New Milford Municipal Alliance and alumni
recovery it is from 1: to 5:00 p.m. at the New Milford wari CA on Tuesday May 13th is suicide prevention symposium sponsored by the New Milford Public School District and nj-45 what was that date that is May
13th thank you it is from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. at the New Milford High School auditorium on Monday May 26th is new milford's annual Memorial Day Parade sponsored by the public events committee it's from nights field to the
burough Hall and 9:00 a.m. start and on Saturday May 31st is the second Annual Arts in the park sponsored by the New Milford Arts committee it is from 2: to 4:00 p.m. at the nights field Pavilion okay so we need to confirm the
opening day parade time and I'm pretty sure the Memorial Day perod is at 9:00 if that changes some time I will update that is there anything I missed real yeah all right excellent
administrator report I they have my report um the 2024 audit is under way we've been feing the Auditors uh a lot of information that have has been forwarded in advance and they will begin their onsite work next week as mentioned
earlier the 2025 budget introduction is going to be at our next meeting on March 26 and the next meeting is uh Wednesday March 26th at 700 p.m. that's my any questions for the administrator okay resolutions everyone
has a chance to look at them if there any need to be pulled for further discussion Andor vote okay at this time I would ask for a motion to open to the public motion second all in favor any opposed the public if anyone has any
questions or comments regarding the Gooden welfare of B of Milford now is your now is the opportunity to come forward seeing that no member of the public wishes to come forward at this time I would ask for motion to close to the public Mo second all in favor any
closed okay make get a motion oh actually one thing before we go into Clos so I saw exciting news did you see the Milford Milford was uh awarded to become
a revolution New Jersey count community so in the email they had sent us this graphic right I added new Milford so what I'm proposing is I would like to make a couple of street signs that are the same size of new milford's 100th anniversary signs so we can post one at
River Road in Newbridge have one on the entrance from ell to New Milford and I was thinking of actually putting one next to the cemetery so what do you guys think IDE these are the banners or these are the the metal
signs this be sign what does that say reolution it says Revolution New Jersey engage the past shap the future community so New Milford is a revolution New Jersey Community how many communities have been designated as such that I don't know how many quite a few
throughout the state yeah state county um you have to adop a resolution to say I know that we have such a history with saying is everyone okay with a couple of street signs similar to our size of 100th
anniversary sign put absolutely mhm yes yes yes I need know $64 in I don't know that's come out of operating
exactly we can tell them tomorrow two bag fizer down makeing a motion to adopt resolutions 2025 col 94 through 2025 101 motion second all in favor any
opposed okay ladies and gentlemen we are going to go into Clos session at the end of Clos session when we come out this body will take no action and we will immediately adjourn the meeting they get a motion to go to close so move second all in favor I any oppos
thank you very much have a good evening and star join spring spr okay