Township precipitate Troy Hills Township Council special meeting April 14th, 2026. The meeting is called to order by Council President Hernandez at 6 p.m. The agenda of the special meeting to the extent known as as follows. Review and discussion of the mayor's 2026 budget recommendations. Formal action may or
may not be taken. Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings law by following notice in the office of township clerk and by posting the meeting notice on the bulletin board at the Mr. Building on March 26, 2026 where it's remained posted since that date. Copy of this notice appeared in the daily record on March 26, 2026. Can I please ask
everybody to stand for the >> flag of the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.
>> Okay. Roll call. Mr. Karifi >> here. Uh Mr. um well Mr. Kavanaaugh is on his way. Mr. McGrath >> here. >> Miss Patel >> here. >> Mr. Hernandez >> here. >> Okay. Uh also in attendance are Mayor
Mayor Pa Desai, township attorney Donald Skarinsky, uh business administrator Mark Seaman, township clerk Ked Madden, and uh CFO Angelica Sabatini. Uh at this time before we begin with the budget summary, I'll turn it over to the mayor for a statement.
Thank you everybody for coming here tonight. We convene our budget meeting which is an important step in ensuring full transparency and accountability to our residents. This process provides our department heads with the opportunity to clearly
explain their operations and how public funds are being utilized. It also allows members of our council to ask questions, engage in meaningful dialogue, and gather the information necessary to make informed decisions. Following that, we will open the floor
to questions to the public during our public session. This is where the residents will have the opportunity to ask questions, share concerns, and provide input. I want to be clear that tonight is not the end of this process.
After hearing from our department heads, the council, and the public, I will carefully review all feedback. My goal is to determine whether these are responsible ways to reduce the overall impact while still putting Pipony on the right path forward. I'm committed to
doing what is right for Pipony. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh thank you, Mayor Desai. At this time, I'll turn it over to our business administrator, Mark Seaman, for the uh budget summary and presentation. Thank you. Uh please bear with me as I'm
recovering from a cold. So if uh you can't hear me, just give a yell and I'll try my best to speak louder. All right. This is our uh budget presentation of the overview. So, our goals are transparency, responsibility, and execution.
>> Excuse me. Out. Can everybody hear Mark? >> Okay. How's this? Any better? >> How about now? >> All right. Want to switch a mic? Maybe a different mic. >> Can you reach one of these over to the podium?
>> Yeah, we can try. Maybe. Uh, >> how's this? Nope. Hello. Hello. No, no, not not any better. Right. This one's not better. >> What about the better? No. >> You got one more over there. >> Let's just take the rubber band off of that thing.
>> How's this? No. Worse. >> Yeah. One of those. >> Is this any better? >> Little better. All right. Not once have we talked about increasing the budget for this, but that's fine. >> All right. Well, that is going to be
happening by the way this year, just so everybody knows. >> Okay. So, some of the things that we've discovered while we've gone through this budget process, in the past, we have not taken the advice of our employees and hired professionals. the recommendations that have been made to avoid some of the
issues that we have presented uh since this started are now being made today to fix them. $500,000 in CAR's Act funding that was given to municipalities for CO 19 efforts are currently in jeopardy and we are actively working with our consultants to find ways to expend this
funding. But there is a chance that this funding is lost. When we talk about unfunded lines, the two major unfunded line items that we continue to talk about which is a contribution which is which is contributing 3.12%
to the overall tax increase is the accumulated absences and the capital improvements. Accumulated absences have been underfunded since 2015. Residents are being double taxed on this item because the differences were being made up by financing them through
special emergency bonds. Capital improvements were being underfunded by $900,000 and were kept artificially low through excessive use of the capital reserve fund. These are just two examples of short-term relief issues that have caused long-term problems.
Now, let's talk about some of the misunderstandings that are out there. Employees did not give themselves raises. Non-UN employees receive a 2% cost of living allowance, which is the general standard in most municipalities. There are contractually obligated increases through our union contracts
and department heads are given the opportunity to put in for merit increases that go above the 2% and are evaluated on a case-by case basis. When we talk about our seniors and the senior tax freeze, if you are a senior and you are in this program, the increase of this budget is not affecting
you. We will be doing a better job of publicizing this program on our website and creating times during the year where we will organize times to meet with you either through our community center or other locations throughout the community. Now, let's talk about the chief of staff position. This has always been a
budgeted position within the mayor's office. Whether the mayor chooses to hire one is another story. This administration will bring on a chief of staff to assist with the progress of this township. the request to hire employees that were fired on since uh hired since January
1st. We're not starting this administration with terminations or layoffs. We are not putting the blame on the people who applied for job opportunities. We have already made adjustments to the requests that we feel comfortable with within this budget. And while we do have budget challenges, it does not warrant a
layoff plan. And that is one of the reasons why our departments are here today to explain why their increases are occurring. Reducing employee benefits. We are required by law to provide a standard of health benefits to our employees. So
while we can make adjustments, removing benefits is not possible. In all of our union contracts, it also states that if there are adjustments, it has to be better than or equal to what they are currently receiving. Now, when we talk about hiring, for instance,
I apologize that I have to be the one to say this, but we are closer to a Fortune 500 company than we are the town of Mayberry. We have over We have close to 500 employees, which is subject to constant turnover. We provide two major utilities to the township. We run a golf course. We handle our own garbage and
recycling program. And on top of that, we have all the other required government services that we provide. Any delays in hiring will result in negative impacts to our operations, which is why this administration had to jump on early with hiring. External pressures. On the next few slides, we are going to
show that some of our invoices did have tariff increases on them. Fuel costs are obviously going up, which is directly related to the war. This will also increase the cost of asphalt and infrastructure materials which will directly impact the volume of roads that we will be repaving each
year. Two major snowstorms came in to start 2026. And while we knock on wood, we hope that there are no future emergencies, but they could occur like hurricanes and floods. And we'll move to the tariffs. So, this is just an example of one of our invoices that shows um the
tariffs that have come in. And we did a preliminary look through last year's purchases. And while we did not do the complete deep dive, we've already identified $16,000 that can be attributed to tariffs. That's the next slide. Okay, next slide.
Next to the departments, we have many department heads that are operating while wearing multiple hats. Some department heads don't just manage another department. Some manage multiple departments. They've done this out of a commitment to the township, not because it's sustainable. And when they ask for support, those supports are based on
operational needs, not simple inconveniences that they're dealing with. Some of the realities that we're facing here is that department heads and employees are working over the top for this township. And what frustrates me coming into this is that departments are
shocked when I answer the phone. Departments are shocked when I respond to emails. Departments are shocked when I set up meetings with them just to meet with them. That's not normal. What's normal to our residents and our employees is actually having communication with your staff. And that's what's going to continue while I
am here. Vacancies. Some vacancies are due to retirements, transitions like promotions. Um, our goal is to hire at lower salaries whenever we can, but the goal of this administration is to evaluate every position that comes through regardless of how the employee
is separated. We want employees to grow here, and we want the ability to promote from within. We discovered some instances where candidates in the past were interviewed and even verbally offered positions, but the prior administration never acted upon these requests. That damages our repres rep uh that
damages our reputation as an employer and it makes it harder for us to attract talent and that could also force us to hire people for more money than we would anticipate. Our goal is to make reductions in overtime because it will save the town money, but it also helps
our current employees have a better quality of life, which is a of major importance to this administration. Programs. We have been asked to cut or completely kill some programs for this year. The following programs cost the town little to no money, and they will not move the tax point if removed. We
have our farmers markets. We want to go back real quick. farmers markets or summer camps. Our fall festival is co-sponsored at a low cost and the summer concerts are sponsored entirely. Now, let's talk about understanding our taxes. We all get one bill. It has a
municipal, school, county, open space, and a few other various items like our fire districts. Each is a separate driver, and we want to ex we want to be able to understand it all together. Now, a lot of the things that were being said was
our 9.5 increase plus the school's 6.5 increase or whatever the number was at the time is gives us a 14 or 15% increase. That's not the case. The school is on a fiscal calendar which is July 1st to June 30th and we are on a calendar calendar which is January 1st
to December 31st. So the entire cost of everything every um function that we've discussed at top it's a 7.65 increase. What that's going to I know it's a little small right there but it's going
to ultimately come out on the average assessed home to $71.86. $71.86 >> on a month a monthly basis. Now, the school is having their presentation, I believe, in two days. >> Thursday. >> Thursday. Their numbers will be
different because of the fiscal component. We spoke with them earlier today to ensure that we were explaining that part because I'm sure when you guys are there, you're going to ask the same questions. Now, what you're going to see this year, you're going to see a focus plan on improving roads and infrastructure. You're going to see better communication
with projects and timelines. We're going to show that execution is not just plan planning, but showing progress, not just talking about it. And when we talk about transparency, let's talk about the pilots. The mayor said at the last meeting that he will be forming a committee on pilots where we're going
to be transparent across the board. Our goal is to add a part of our website that is going to show on a quarterly basis what are we collecting from pilots so that the residents have no surprises at the end of the year when we have these totals. Now, let's go from an ethical perspective to our council president,
Councilman Karifi and Council Member McGrath. I am sorry that you were not told how the previous administration was keeping things low. I'm not sorry that I'm the one telling you because it's my job to do that. And you are going to get that from me every day, every day that I'm here. I'm not
here to bash the past. If I have to, I will. But I'm here to correct what I can and move us forward. my promise to the governing body, to our employees, to our residents. As your business administrator, I'm not afraid of the hard questions. I will confidently tell you when I don't know the answer, and
it's my job to get you that answer in a responsible time frame. When questions are ignored, people lose trust. My goal is to gain that trust. This administration is here to gain that trust. There is trust lost, but we will
gain that back. Thank you. Okay. Uh, thank you, Mark, for that. So, at this time, we're going to go ahead and get right into it, and we'll call the police department up uh for their budget presentation. Uh, thank you, Mayor and Council President, and uh, new council members.
Welcome. Um, we've been doing this with this group uh, probably about 5 years now. Um, I gave everyone Yeah, is it muted? Good.
>> Nope. >> You hear me now? >> Yep. >> Okay. Um, thank you for having us here tonight. Um, we always look forward to, uh, speaking about the police department. Um, listening to what, uh, the BA was just
saying, uh, that's basically what our budget is going to come down to. It's going to be manpower, retention, uh, and how we how we work around that. Um, it, for those of you that have been on the council more than this year, you have noticed that our budget usually is the
same. Our numbers don't change very much. Uh, most of our changes are maintenance and upkeep to our building. Um, our overtime is an issue that we deal with constantly, but that all lends itself to hiring and retention and also
promotions. You know, we work with contracts for the uh the workers um and we have a a very narrow window with scheduling and um uh changes that we can make to schedules and stuff like that. So, that's where we're working with what
we're working with. And what in the end is going to come down to what we're asking for is basically manpower. Um we've lost 23 people in the last 2 and 1/2 years. Uh so we're down a quarter of our department uh just in in people we
lose. Now uh Councilman Karifi could tell you uh the process of hiring is not the same as it is for the rest of the town. We only get two shots at the apple. Um, we just had an application um, a a hiring request where we received
applications for people that are interested in being hired. We have about 2 weeks to start that process between going to the academy, getting them sworn in, I mean um, through their physical um, all the doctor's appointments, interviews, and stuff like that. So,
we're dealing with a time limit. So, uh, when we ask for the amount of people that we ask, and I know this year we asked for 10, uh, that's taking into account who's leaving, who left, and how much time we have to get them through the process. Um,
more so than normally, um, I I've noticed in the past couple of years, this town is growing. I' I've been around for 35 36 years in Paripany. Um, and when I don't get on the road as much as I used to where I would drive around
a lot, um, more in the office, but when I do get out, you see the building and you see the amount of people that are probably going to come into this town. Um, our our department is low if we look at it that way. Uh, I've had discussions with the mayor and the BA about um, our
max, we have a max currently of 113. I think eventually, maybe not, obviously not during this budget or maybe not this year, but that max should go away. Um, this town is going to be to where you're going to need a department that's probably going to be in the 130 area,
uh, just with the amount of people that we have moving in and the businesses. Um uh I if you could just take a look at the um budget info that I gave you. Uh it deals with the amount of people that we have in the township, all the major
highways that we go through. It breaks down our current staffing. Um that's another issue. Uh when we talk about overtime, we're way behind on promotions. And I've know that the administration has talked about this with me. Um, and I know we'll come to some kind of conclusion on to when uh to
make promotions, but that does have a direct relation to overtime. Um, because when you do add it in with the contract, how many officers we need on the road at a time, how many supervisors, because it's all with us, it's all about supervision. Um,
uh, we're we're very low. Uh, we've been without a deputy chief for eight, nine months now. Um, we're down two captains. Now, last year, if you remember, I know, uh, a couple of you were up here. Um, we did a little change
with our schedule and we thought that that was going to help our overtime and the amount of money that we're spending. I hate to say it, but it's not it didn't work. So, we're going to need to make those changes and add the supervision to it. Um
uh and that would substantially I can't say how how low it would be but that would lower our overtime um a great deal. Um hiring itself is is big because we do want we are a community oriented police department and we want to
maintain that. Everybody knows Remo Delisandro was our um community officer. He retired last year. That's a big void. We have another officer Ross that's doing the job now. We'd like to build on that. Uh in our budget, we asked for a
civilian to assist with community relations. Um I think that's that's moving in the right direction. We try to teach our guys and girls that work with us, our officers, um community relations is not just one
specific person. So we try to get them in that right mode, but we do need point people for that position. Uh we have a lot of different functions that go on in town. We'd like to be at them. You saw mayor the u uh response we had to the uh night to shine
>> which was a big success and that's you know Captain Carney's big with that um dealing with them and those are the guys that just come out to volunteer which is great. That's that's unusual in you know in our line of work where you know guys will just volunteer but they see the
need for it and that's a great cause. Um so most of the most of what we have down here in our presentation that we gave you is like I said it's our chain of command uh our accomplishments that we've had in the past. We just got reacredit Well, we're in the process of
getting reacredited through the state uh uh police chiefs, which is a a a big task. Um those of you that are are uh know what that's all about. That's the best practices for police departments throughout the state. And uh our
officers all did a great job in uh uh participating in that cuz there was a a lot of things that need to be done by every rank and different officers handling reports and and practices. So I'm very proud of the officers in the department. Um I can't say enough how
good your police department is. And it's not it's not it has nothing to do with us sitting up here. It's the guys that are working on the road, the officers on the road. Um they're they're trained up. They are are uh very aware of their
surroundings. Uh the people in the community, they really do care about the community. We've hired a lot of different people from town. Uh probably our last 20 or 30 guys were mostly local throughout the county. Uh and I think that's a big plus for us. Um and I'd
like to continue that. Um we do want to get a little more diversity in our department. I I I don't say that in the sense of I I want to pick one specific group of people. I want the best people that we have, but if there's a tie, I'd like to get some more women and I'd like
to get, you know, some more uh different diverse groups um uh in our police department. Um so, a lot of the a lot of the when we hear from the community, a lot of it has to do with traffic. Uh we've had
meetings today about trucks going down uh certain roads that they're not supposed to go down. So traffic enforcement is big with us. We have bo uh boosted up our traffic division in the past. Um again, hiring more people will allow us to put different people in
different spots that they could focus solely on that. Um our production has gone up. If you if you notice in in here um going back to the community, you could see the 65 presentations that we did
last year. And again, that was one guy organizing it. Um it would be great if we could have a couple of guys going around um you know to do that. But if you notice here uh with the crime statistics, uh overall our crime has been down. Uh you'll notice here that
burglaries went up um but overall crime has been down and our calls for service have gone up. So just from last year we went up about 2,000 calls. Now if you go into the later in the packet there's another part that talks about calls for
service also and the numbers a lot higher. That number is these calls on that first page are the ones that where people are calling us. The other one is everything that every police action that they're they're doing. So, there's a about a 30,000
uh uh difference with that. Um, our summones have gone up, our car stops have gone up, um, and our arrests have gone up. So, the guys are working hard. Um, and uh, and and they're not complaining about it either. So, it's not like, you know, I'm coming here to
tell a tale of wo. They're they they really it's really great for guys like us that have been around for a while to see the younger guys taking an interest in this profession that we love. So, it's really it really is says something about how they're trained and also the guys that have been here already just
leading them along, you know, along that right path. Um we are closing a lot more cases. Um we closed 384 cases last year. So, those are follow-ups from the investigative uh division. Um, and we have uh 93 cases
that are open now, which is down from uh the 97. And uh we closed almost 100 more than we did last year. Um so, like I said, our our total calls for service are 75,000.
Um and that's car stops, uh police actions, uh property checks, and and that stuff. Um we currently have 13 um uh officers that are for telecommunications. So we have 12
full-time. We just uh hired our last one. So that gives us uh full staffing there. And we have a full-time supervisor for um communications. Um we they do a fantastic job. That's a 247
operation as everybody knows. Um they we have a half of them probably have been here a while and the other ones are fairly new but they're all they're all doing very good work um getting people and you know they take an interest that they're it's more of a personalized
thing than uh maybe being someplace else. Um so budget highlights uh increased staffing including supervisory and command staff. Um, our population growth is expected to continue to increase. Um,
Monday through Friday, we probably double our our population. Um, and we're continuing to want to civilianize more positions. So, in this budget, I only ask for uh one full-time civilian position, that would be the community
policing, and one more part-time position that would assist in body camera work and Oprah. And that's a that's a full-time job in and of itself. But, uh, we have one person doing that now. It would help greatly if we had
somebody else to help. Um, with body cameras, if you open a body camera and there's five people on a call, um, and the call's 2 hours, that's 10 hours of video that you have to watch and redact. So, it takes a full day basically just
to do that one. Um, and we get quite a lot. We do get uh people that I think are doing it as a a career just asking for body cameras and different Oprah stuff. So, it makes it a little difficult. Um uh
these two guys are good at the technology aspect of it. So, if you have any questions about, you know, the radio systems, a lot of that is upkeep. They're, you know, by all means ask. Um uh and our inservice training meeting required guidelines and directives by
the AG guidelines uh special orders. Um our we use power DMS um for all our training or most of our training we use power DMS and we have mandated training that we need to do. So guys are constantly being trained um whether it's through the attorney general guidelines,
the county or whatever operation that we have. Um, that's all I have for now. I I really look forward to working with the new council members and um, again, I I really am confident in this police
department and the way they work and uh, um, they really do care about the community. I think that's the main thing. >> Thank you, Chief. Uh, at this time, uh, if council has any questions for, uh, the police. Well, I I want to thank you
for your thorough presentation. I really appreciate I appreciate all you guys do. Um you do have an exemplary um department and that's known throughout the county. Um I do have a question about the system of um
are you guys and this is going to show that I really don't know about the communications but when the fire departments and everybody changed their whole system in the county are you guys on the same system? So, we we do our own
dispatch. Um, I think currently now and and you looked at the right person when you glanced down. Um, >> Jay could go into a little bit more about the fire companies, which we have three, four that come with us and the other two are up at the county. So, we
would love to have everybody with us cuz that's just more efficient that way and more effective. Um, but uh we do have some, uh, fire companies that branched off and it's, you know, they they felt that that was better for them and that's fine. We're we'll always be willing to
try to get them back, but that's totally up to them how how they would come back. >> Okay, that's right. I'll we'll talk about that too another time. Um, also I know you're asking for 10 because you're losing people and people are retire have
are retiring coming. Um, you also added some people in the last couple of years. So it's just this is just an ongoing >> Yes, it's an ongoing. So I had just happened to have that sheet right in
front of me. So in 20 we lost four guys. 214 228 23 111 246 and 257. So if you notice the numbers hovering around the 10 area. Um and again that by the time we get them
through the police academy and get them trained up, we have a whole another cycle of people that are going to leave. So it's a constant catch up for us. This is, you know, what we we think we maybe there's like uh a couple of weeks in the winter where we're not thinking about it, but the rest of the time is just
constantly, you know, thinking about hiring and just getting, you know, getting the men on the road. >> Got it. You just never feel like >> Yeah, we had I know there's a um resolution that says that when somebody leaves, we hire. Again, that's that's
that would be fantastic and it's great that we have that, but it would be a lot easier if we were like everybody else and we didn't have to we could just hire people and put them into place. It's it's literally a year from the time they apply going through the academy, the
whole process, the FTO uh field training officer and then get them on the road. So, um like we have a a deadline now. It's probably I would say probably two weeks we have to start getting them in to uh you know getting the backgrounds and applications and everything in. So >> Okay, understood.
>> Yeah. And we do lose some people along the way. >> Yeah. >> That apply and then once we lose them it's a little too late. So >> Okay. Um I have no more questions. >> I know on the sheet here it says current staff are at 95.
So out of that 10, but there these all these a lot of these openings that we have, they're those positions are already in the budget. They just haven't been filled, >> right? So our our our supervisor positions are in the budget. Um so so if we were to promote, they would be there already. So we're only dealing with
coming in people coming in. But yes, I I know what you're saying that, >> you know, like for you know, it's the we were supposed to have four more in this academy class that didn't make it for whatever reason. >> Right. Yeah. So we had we had five apply last year. We were going to hire five and we only got two.
>> So and once once you start out of the gate, you're done. >> You know, you can't you can't get anybody else. >> See, that's the problem with the public. It's it's at least a 6 to 8month process >> from the from day one once you start looking to hire somebody till they get
hired and get out of the academy. And then there's what they call the FDO program where they're riding with somebody for another >> 18 weeks. >> 18 weeks. So it takes that long to get a trained officer actually on the road. >> Yeah. >> Chief, of the the 23 you lost in the
last few years, because we do have that resolution, were they not rehired? >> So off the top of my head, I don't remember what we hired last year uh for the whole year. Um it all depends on timing. So, I think the intent was there
to to hire. Um, but by the time it came up, the budget passed, we're already passed that that one part. So, it really came up to January. And then, like I said, we went for five in January. We only got two. So, um,
>> everybody got anywhere. >> Yeah. Yeah. We're not We're not really moving ahead. We're just maintaining. >> Yeah. So, so the 10 will keep you at a static 95ish over the end of the year or we're saying we'll get you back up around >> Well, I'm thinking, you know, if everything's as normal? >> Yeah.
>> Uh when they're on the road, we'll probably be back in the same around the same spot. Maybe one or two. >> Okay. >> You know, more if it goes uh usually we get guys that leave uh you know, after September, between September and uh December.
>> And all our promotions are internal hires, correct? So, we're taking from within and moving up. Yep. >> Okay. >> Yep. Yeah. We don't hire from outside. >> And what is the starting salary we hire at with police officers? >> Um if I'm uh I'm not 100% correct, I think it's 50,000.
>> Roughly 50 and change. >> Yeah. >> Um and then you had also Sorry, give me one second. I had a question. So um it had mentioned that we needed upgrading in the fleet. How often would
you say we need to upgrade the fleet and how large? >> Every year. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Every year. So uh if you notice um past budgets, we always put in our capital budget for cars. >> Okay. >> Um because again, they're running non-stop. You know, they're they're just
the and our our garage does a great job. And I forgot to say before, I talk a lot about the officers, but our civilian personnel is fantastic. Um, you know, they're doing a lot with less. Um, and, uh, our garage is over the past, I want
to say five or six years has just transformed. It's night and day what what it was. And, uh, yeah. And they and they work for the other parts of the town also. So, they do other township vehicles. So yeah, but our fleet needs to be upgraded every year.
>> Do you have an idea of how much that typically costs us in a year just for the fleet alone? >> So that would be in the um in the capital. Um what do we have for maintenance now? >> About 600 to 700,000 for cars.
>> Yeah, because we ask for usually five or six cars. So >> thank you. >> Okay. Any other questions from council? Okay, seeing none, I want to thank you, chief, uh, and thank you, Captain Carney and Captain Wieners for your time. >> Thank you.
>> So, you guys can just stick around for a little bit. Okay. >> Okay. At this time, I'm going to go ahead and call up the water department. Uh, come on up, Sean. agenda agenda. >> Thank you so much.
>> We go agenda. >> Thank you. Hey Sean, before you get started, I just want to say thank you to you and all of the members of the water department. Um, I know we've experienced a ton of water mane breaks over the over the winter.
Could do you know, off the top of your head, do you know how many? Say >> 50. Yeah, I think >> close to close to 50. Yeah, we're at like 56 right now, I believe. >> 56 >> this year alone. >> And and these guys are out in, you know, minus 10° weather fixing these things in
the middle of the night. So, just want to say thank you. >> You're welcome. And that's all to our uh our rank and file staff. The guys are out doing the repairs. That's not me. They don't want me out there doing that pipe work. So, that's totally, you know, that goes to uh our rank and file staff.
say that. >> I definitely will. Thank you for that. >> Good evening, members of the township council, residents, and colleagues. As the township's water superintendent, I am responsible for directing and managing the operations, staff,
strategic planning, and business activities of the utility, ensuring compliance with state and federal regulations. The township of Piponyany Troy Hills owns and operates what is considered a large public community water system. Public utilities such as
this water department are regulated by the federal EPA and state department of environmental protection. This department is in charge of and is responsible for the supply, chemical treatment, and distribution of safe
drinking water throughout the township. Approval of this budget will ensure that the utility is appropriately staffed and equipped to maintain water supply, adequate fire protection, and the uninterrupted delivery of water to the township's residents and rateayers,
which speaks directly to this budget statement requesting $6.9 million in operating and $20 million in capital appropriation for this fiscal year. Our budget request this evening will be presented by my management team comprised of water department engineer
Sophia Dyer who handed out our agenda, assistant superintendent Kevin Bucent, who will provide a summary of our operations and operational goals for this year. Environ environmental engineering aid Gregory Schneaman who will review the utility's compliance
requirements and water quality challenges followed by a review of our capital program. In 2025, the water department produced and delivered 2 billion gallons of water to our rateayers, generating $12.4
million in revenue. Water production directly affects what is known as firm capacity. Firm capacity refers to the water supply available even when the largest source of supply is out of service, ensuring reliable water delivery during peak demands. The
township's current capacity one year ago was 9.2 million gallons of water per day. Due to the aggressive capital improvement approach we have taken in conjunction with this council support, approval of public funds, and the township's borrowing capacity, we were
able to successfully increase our own source supplies, resulting in a total firm capacity of 10.8 million gallons of water per day, securing our resources for future development and growing population. >> Good evening, council and
administration. My name is Kevin Buen, assistant superintendent. Sorry, assistant superintendent of the Parcipony Water Department. Thank you for the opportunity to present our $6.9 million operating budget.
Parcibany holds the highest classification for both water distribution and treatment system size as defined by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection under NJAC 710A rules governing the licensing of
water supply and wastewater treatment system operators. The water department is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We maintain a large and diverse fleet including administrative vehicles, utility trucks,
emergency response vehicles, dump trucks, excavating equipment, valve turning equipment, forklifts, and portable generators. All vehicles are routinely serviced to extend their useful life. However, due
to aging equipment, we budget for the replacement of two vehicles annually. The water department operations division is organized into three units. Distribution unit, the services and meter unit, and the supply and treatment
unit. We have recently added an engineer to our staff to assist with capital improvement projects and strengthen long-term planning and project oversight. Our distribution system includes 280 mi of water main,
approximately 15,500 service connections and meters, 1,900 fire hydrants, and 4,000 inline gate valves. A system of this size requires consistent annual investment in
vehicles, emergency response equipment, tools, materials, and personnel. Our staff responds to a wide range of water related emergencies including water main breaks. These breaks can be caused by
factors such as pipe age and material, pressure fluctuations, ground settlement, corrosive soil, freezing conditions, thermal contraction, and seasonal temperature changes.
In 2025, we we responded to and repaired 51 water main brakes. So far this year, we have already addressed 50. In addition, the department inspects and maintains every public fire hydrant
annually to ensure optimal water quality and reliable fire protection. Each spring and summer, staff also exercise and inspect a portion of our gate valves. These inspections generate a list of non-functioning assets which
are promptly repaired to maintain system reliability. Crews routinely inspect water service lines and curb stop shut offs. Inoperable components and outdated galvanized services are replaced as
needed. Water meters are also tested for accuracy and upgraded when necessary to ensure proper measurement of consumption. Our increased budget request reflects the department's ongoing commitment to providing un uninterrupted water service
to our residents. The high standards upheld by our staff ensure continued compliance with the DP's Water Quality Accountability Act. Our supply and treatment unit operates 19
wells and water treatment plants, six booster stations, and 10 storage tanks across six pressure gradients. Tighter regulations for the removal of PAS will require upgrades to each source well to meet new standards.
These upgrades have already begun. Well, 21R is an advanced oxidation treatment facility designed to remove 14 dioxane and utilizes carbon absorption for hydrogen peroxide and POS removal.
Our well 1 AR uses ion exchange technology for POS treatment. Both facilities require regular media replacement to maintain treatment effectiveness which is reflected in the $625,000
budget line item. Looking ahead, all water sources will require PAS treatment. Additionally, all wells and booster stations are equipped with pumps, motors, control valves, and SCADA monitoring systems, all of which require
ongoing maintenance and servicing. In conclusion, this operating budget supports the maintenance and operation of the critical infrastructure managed by the water department. Our mission is to provide safe, reliable drinking water to the nearly 60,000 Parcipony
residents. We take pride in delivering highquality water and maintaining strong public trust. Joining us this evening to speak further about water quality is our environmental engineer, Gregory Schneamon. Thank you.
>> Hi, I'm Greg Schnaman. I'm the environmental engineer for the Parcipony Water Department. My responsibilities include, but are not limited to water treatment, monitoring water quality, and regulatory compliance. We maintain safe drinking water across the entire
Parcipony distribution system. The water department is purely a community-based corporation. It's staffed and operated by members of the community who ultimately make decisions on a daily basis by asking ourselves first, is this in the best interest of the township and
the residents who we serve? Not is in the best interest of some distant corporation or stock shareholders. We field calls on a personal basis and address residents concerns about water quality, answer their questions immediately, and we do that on a very
personal basis by visiting their homes. Our department, like our administration, has an open door policy for residents to voice any water quality concerns. The department is focused on transparency and publishes all water quality data in our consumer confidence report annually
and that's published on paripony.net. net/water report. Resident health is our priority and is the top consideration during all utility decision-making. Providing clean, safe drinking water to our critical customers
and vulnerable populations such as elderly, children, hospitals, dialysis centers, medical offices. Their needs are always met. We have 19 active wells, two consecutive connections, and several distribution sampling points. We routin routinely
monitor and test throughout the paripony distribution system. The parcipony department testing and monitoring budget for 2026 was reduced this year. The budget reduction is a result of bringing certain testing analysis inhouse in an effort to focus on sustainability and
also to expediate the time it takes to get our results. Some parameters that we test for are volatile organic compounds, semi-organic compounds, radiological compounds, inorganics, secondaries, 14 dioxane, lead and copper, PAS, iron and
maganesees, disinfectant byproducts, cifform bacteria, and ortho phosphate. Our system has been without a single violation since 2023, and we are currently in compliance with all state and federal drinking water standards. Optimum water quality parameters are
maintained for corrosion control and to maintain our infrastructure. We have a full accounting of all galvanized service lines within our inventory. With council support, the water utility is and will continue to work on the removal and replacement of all lead and
galvanized water lines within the township over the next 5 years by the Dline of 2020 2031. The utility has over the past year commissioned two new PAS treatment plants and plans to upgrade and combine
source water facilities efficiently to remove and comply with the 2030 D PAS deadline. The water utility monitors water quality, ensures resident health and safety. We humbly perform these duties without a need for acknowledgement or praise. The water
quality improvement projects of this utility will undertake over the next few years will have a profound ripple effect and an unquantifiable impact to the overall health of the population of Parcipany for generations to come by reducing the overall risk associated
with these emerging contaminants. Shawn will now be presenting an overview of some active and completed projects that we have identified by our parcipany water team of professionals. These projects will support and benefit our local community and its growing water
needs. So, as a township and utility, we've accomplished a lot over the past calendar year, investing $8.6 million in capital appropriations. And as discussed earlier, the increase in firm capacity is a direct result of
the replacement and redevelopment of underproducing wells as well as mechanical and process improvements made to our treatment facilities and booster pumping stations throughout the system. Our infrastructure is aging and well past its service life. Last year, we
successfully replaced 2,300 linear feet of water mane in some of the more vulnerable areas in our system, adding to the resiliency of the distribution network. To remain in compliance with the state's revised lead and copper rule, we are continuing to facilitate the township's lead and galvanized
service line replacement program, keeping us on track to get the lead out by 2031. This utility requires significant investment in building and maintaining infrastructure such as the ones previously discussed. To cover the cost
of providing a safe and reliable supply of water, our billing and tax collections office must be able to bring in revenue, which relies heavily on accurate metering. Accurate metering reduces unaccounted for water and drives utility revenue. Phase two, the
township's meter replacement program is on schedule. The water department operates and maintains 10 steel water storage tanks at a total capacity of 10 and a half million gallons. The township stores its water strategically by gradient zones
and at higher elevations in order for gravity to push the water downward, generating the necessary pressure to flow through pipes and into homes. We invest over $2 million per year towards the maintenance of these tanks and an effort to reduce total costs
incurred to the township. Help stabilize our budget by spreading costs over time without new debt and eliminate the risk of a coding system failure. In coordination with the finance and purchasing departments, we have finalized our public private partnership by entering into a contract with utility
service group. As demonstrated in our 2024 POS feasibility and master planning study, PAS is present in our water supply. As Greg previously mentioned, we have successfully commissioned two PAS treatment plants associated with
replacement groundwater wells. Our third treatment plant is slated to start construction this fall with treatment plants four and five to be shovel ready by 2027. This will result in a total of 8.1 million gallons per day of POS free water. Five additional treatment plants
are planned for construction in 2028 through 20 uh 31 to meet the new MCL compliance. Pipe remains a leader in the drinking water industry. We are in compliance with the safe drink and water act and are proactive towards the maintenance and improvements of the
township supplies, treatment facilities and infrastructure. These capital improvement projects will have a profound ripple effect and immeasurable impact on the overall health of our rateayers for generations to come. Our staff monitors water quality, ensur ensures resident health and safety and
humbly performs these duties. $20 million in capital investments this year keep us on track with our goals. By working closely with our CFO, business administrator, and mayor, we have already made the strategic cuts to not only keep this util utility
selfquidating and sustainable, but to reli reliably deliver safe water to our customers. At this time, we are happy to address any questions you may have regarding our 2026 budget statement request. Thank you. Um, thank you for taking care of all of
our most precious resource. Um, so you you finished two wells, I mean treatment centers for two wells, >> correct? >> Right. And they both are you both treat them differently? >> Yeah, they have two very differing
treatment technologies. >> Can I ask why? Yeah. So, um we've done our own research and have worked closely with our consultants on this and you know is an emerging contaminant, right? >> Yeah. >> There's it hasn't the the treatment
technology for that hasn't been proven long term. >> You know, we are part of that group proving it out long term. >> So, you're proving it. >> Yeah. We know it works. you know, the the technology out there um uh is is uh permitted by the state D, but there's
not a lot of data out there um in terms of media life expectancy. There's studies, but again, um these treatment plants are newer. It's not like they've been around for 20 years. We don't have 20 years worth of data, but we do know the treatment works. What it boils down
to is cost effectiveness. And in our case, really, it's real estate. Our wells are not on big pieces of property. Um our one well which you have pictures of our well 20 21R treatment facility
that's a uh carbon facility. Um it's primarily treating for 14 dioxy removal um which um has an AOP system like Kevin explained. Advanced oxidation process uses UV treatment to re to break down 14
dioxin chains present in the water. Before we pass out water through the UV light, we have to oxidize that water with an with an oxidant. That's done by the injection of hydrogen peroxide in the water. Once we inject that, it goes
for UV. We destroy the 14 dioxin chains. We then have to remove that peroxide before we deliver it to our customers. We do that by means of carbon carbon filters. The carbon filters remove that dioxane by absorption. we have the added benefit
at that facility with the carbon to also absorb the POS chains that are present in the water. So that 21R facility again it's a 14 dioxane plant uh primarily but we have the added benefit of carbon to also remove POS. Okay,
>> we had more space there to put these these gak vessels. Hard it's hard to see in those pictures, but uh let's just take a 2 million gallon per day well would need four carbon vessels um that are 12 ft in diameter each and
well over two stories tall. We don't have that real estate throughout the township where our current wells sit. our well 1 AR facility which you have photos of did not really have that real estate available. So we chose to go um
with a uh ion exchange treatment uh for that long-term um these other facilities are going to mostly be by ion exchange. >> Okay. Which are >> I was wondering because you have all these other wells. >> Yeah. And again it's coming down to real estate.
>> Okay. operationally. Um I think collectively we prefer operating as as water operators ourselves to operate carbon facilities um but we just don't have the real estate there. >> No. Okay. And when you had that um
annual firm capacity wheel dip, was that after the drought? >> That dip that we show on our graph? >> Yeah. So that dip was when we had to take existing well 21 offline and existing well 1A offline to facilitate the construction of the replacement wells and treatment facilities.
>> Okay. All right. Um I know it costs a lot. I know you have a lot to do and I know the lead and galvanizes all mandated and I really don't have any questions because you got to do what you got to do. >> That's it. >> All right. Anybody else have questions
on I have further water. Um, so first, thank you for the 56 uh water mane breaks that you guys fixed this year so far. We really appreciate you. >> Um, so when you go out and fix a water mane break, do you guys update or upgrade the piping if it's lead and galvanized at the same time or is it
just replaced and then it's later down the line project? >> So if a water mane large diameter pipe breaks, we are just repairing the pipe either by throwing what's uh what's or installing a repair clamp on it. Um, and there's times when we can't just put a
repair clamp in it and we have to replace pipe where we cut a section of failed water mane and put a new piece of water man in. Um, if we do expose a letter galvanized service, we are required by law to then make the provisions and replace that. So, yes, if
if we do expose it, we are replacing it. >> Thank you so much. >> You're welcome. Any other questions? Yeah, Sean, in the past you you've talked about the 50-year problem of our pipes in our town, and you mentioned you replace about 2,300 linear feet. How much more do you have to go? As I recall, it was miles and miles and
miles. >> Yeah. So, we have about 250 miles of water man throughout the town. We have made a very, very, very small dent in that. But, and as you remember, uh, Councilman, I brought up that
150year plan. >> Yep. Um, that was a requirement of the state DP. We were required to come up with a 150-year uh water man replacement plan. I don't know the numbers, but we have a a long way to go.
>> It's going to go past our lifetime. >> None of us will be here. >> No. Thank Thank you. >> But the plan's in place so we can confidently turn over to the next. >> So, you get an A for the plan and uh an F for execution cuz we haven't executed yet. So, >> we've executed it. It just takes a lot
of time. >> So, so part of the concern is obviously you guys are almost at the same number of water main breaks now as you did all of last year, right? What What's the risk on these pipes if they should have been replaced 50 years ago? Cuz as I recall, it's like $400 a linear square
foot times 5280 a mile times 250 miles, right? What what's the I guess what are we budgeting for? or what are we anticipating for the rest of this year in terms of other water main breaks? Like do we have some sort of
like view into that or or potential view? >> So I feel we our our budget the the budget we're requesting now is going to it should take care of the
labor and material we'll need for anticipated water main breaks. Did we come into 2026 anticipating 100 breaks by the end of this year? Sorry. Sorry, Kev. No. Um, but we are
well staffed. We have very uh good uh staff that responds to our emergencies. Um, very well trained staff and uh we store a lot of material on site on a regular basis. Um, so when we do come up
with emergency, we're not scrambling to find material. we we have it all. Um so we're in a good place now. Um I don't see uh a need for us unless we have something catastrophic beyond our abilities um or beyond what we're
anticipating as routine water main breaks that we can't take care of within this budget this year. >> If that answers your question. >> Any other questions from council? Okay, with that being said, uh I want to thank you guys for your time and I also want to echo what the council has said and thank you for all your efforts you
guys have done with those water main breaks. I mean, I do see the effort you guys put in and you guys are incredible. You're out there. It's freezing cold. You guys are done within hours. It's it's it's amazing. So, thank you guys. >> Thank you. >> Okay,
come on up, Joe. We got Stewart next. Good job. >> Okay. Um, >> you don't need it, but we need it for the record. I do agree with you. >> Water department. >> You got suits up front. Sean,
hello. Hello. Here you go. >> Up front. >> Yes, sir. >> Uh, okay. Thank you. Um, Joe Beckmire, the school superintendent. Greg Alb, assistant, Gina Calib, office manager. Um, thank you all. Uh, first I want to
thank the administration for pushing our budget forward as we presented it basically. And in the past we've always had very good uh rapport with the council made the presentations and our recommendations were accepted. So thank you. Um for the most part uh well first
thing I want to let you theore utility uh we run and operate a uh advanced wastewater treatment plant uh permitted at 16 million gallons a day. We do about 9 to 10 million gallons a day. In addition to almost all of
Paripony, uh we also handle waste water from uh East Hanover, uh most of Montville, all of uh Mountain Lakes and some of Denville. Uh and one of the
things to remember is that uh our our budget is funded uh by the user charges, the sewer rates charged uh to the customers again based on their water consumption. Uh in fact, in the past capital budgets, we've already put money
in to help Sha buy new water meters, replace the water meters, so we get accurate accurate readings for our wastewater charges. Uh but in addition to that that we really don't affect the budget uh since 40% of our flow comes
from those custom municipalities I meant the four of them uh 40% of the revenue uh expenses at the treatment plant are paid by those municipalities. So it's not always just residents paying for it
but it's spread out somewhat. Um so as we go through our budget is basically flat. Uh we don't have the problems with water main breaks or collapses like that as much as the water department does.
Our pipes are usually deeper. Uh and we really haven't had that many problems. Uh we had small problems. We we take care of it. Uh our biggest issue is usually with the uh the house connections because in Paripany the from the sewer main down the middle of the
street to the curb line is basically our responsibility and then everything from the curb line to the house is the homeowner's responsibility. We try to work with them and in fact we have it on the website that if you you notice a problem in your house give us a call first. We'll try to put you in the right
direction because sometimes uh citizens will call up a a contractor or SW cleaner and they'll tell them they need a whole new sewer line and we find out it's not even their problem, it's our problem. We'll solve it for them because we're responsible at no charge to them.
Uh Gina handles in addition to keeping the uh the finances in order, she works with the the uh uh the finance department and the purchasing department and so on. She also takes all of the calls during the day for the citizens uh
when they have complaints and then dispatches the the crews to go make the repairs. Uh Greg basically makes sure I don't make mistakes or forget anything. So we we keep thing running. Uh also he handles all of the the safety training and so on which we do free of charge
through the GIF. Uh which makes it easier for us. We you know we I think we buy pizza so we keep everybody around so we don't get lost during the day but we keep the place running. Um our budget is basically flat uh as we what we control.
There are parts of the budget that are on beyond our control such as the salary increases that are by contract and health care and things like that that are beyond our control. But uh basically we have vehicle expenses up $5,000. uh
vehicle equipment up 5,000, consulting services up 5,000. Uh mid and high voltage testing again with the corrosive atmosphere, we have equipment down there that needs to be tested and so on. Not a capital, but a operating thing. Uh last
year we uh last year we we we put them at 70,000. However, we only spent 45 uh sometimes trying to get projects out of the street and bid them and get the the POS and something is challenging. Uh as we try to follow the local public
contract law to the tea, uh most towns don't. Uh we're doing it here and it's it's something we got used to. Uh but it just takes more time to do it. Um the uh so we're looking for additional money there to make up what we didn't spend
last year. uh we put a new line item in uh as the treatment plant gets more sophisticated and the pump station and so on with skater and so on uh we've gone where we now have we have a person that basically handles all the electronics and controls and so on. So
we've separated that taken out of electrical repairs and put it as a separate account so we can monitor those expenses better. Uh equipment maintenance upgrade $5,000. Heating $10,000. House wine repairs another
$10,000. Incinerator control reduced 10,000. We used to use some of the money for there for control panels and so on. We've now reduced that because we're moving over to the other line item. Uh laboratory supplies 10,000. Laboratory testing 5,000. Uh legal reduced by
50,000. uh we're trying to get that so it's properly uh charged to our accounts. But again, many times the legal costs are tied into with a capital project with contractors and so on. So we can pay for it out of the capital money or the the miscellaneous funds
that are part of that capital project. Um, office supplies are down 3,000. Plumbing supplies up 5,000. Repairs to our meters uh at the treatment plant are down 5,000. Safety 5,000 increase and security 10,000 increase. And the net
for that is basically is $132,000 increase over the parts of the budget we control. Um, two things I want to look uh point out though is in the budget item 505 is called uh infiltration and
irrigation and I'm going to work with uh Angelica to change that. There really is info and infiltration so we get it what the proper term is uh and that's at $50,000 and also the purchase of water. In the past, we've gone at 160,000.
We're now down to 125 and we think a lot of that was due to the reel elimination of pump station number four. Uh you might have pump station number one was one of the big projects on the north
side of Route 46 and 80. And my concern always was since it was constructed in the 60s, what happens if the pipe under the highway fails? How do I get the sewage from the north side to the south side without throwing hoses over Route 80 and and that would be a problem,
Route 46. So, we wound up replacing we wound up getting uh did a low interest loan through the infrastructure trust and we wound up replace eliminating a pump station and tunneling a 48 in pipe under those highways so it comes to the Troy metal interceptor which was
underutilized. So, now we've eliminated that pump station. all of the on andm that goes along with it. We don't have to replace it. We don't have to replace the force man. Uh in addition to that, we wound up getting a $4.3 million grant
uh through Congressman Congresswoman uh Sher's office. However, we we're too far advanced. So, we've moved that grant over the other projects and we wound up getting $2 million of principal forgiveness from the D because we've eliminated the electric cost and so on.
uh looks like we're right now we're uh reduced our electricity about $1,300 a month and water uh about 40 4,500 gallons per day by eliminating a pump station. So we've helped around any way
we can. Uh also we we have the uh on staff by us uh we have the township plumbers and the township electricians and we go around and help the other departments uh where they need it. Uh also improvements here in in town hall
and other municipal buildings. Uh and that's about it for operations. And under the capital, the biggest repair is replacement the inlet valves to our final clarifiers. Uh they are
36in butterfly valves down in the down in the tunnel. And if they fail, we can isolate different clarifiers. we'd overload some and we'll be able to maintain them. Uh other than that, some vehicles, uh aation system improvements,
uh uh plant HVAC unit for the main office, uh redo the men's locker room, uh to get it started and a couple of vehicles. Um, you know, it's one of those things where uh had a discussion with a uh a reporter yesterday and it
was tried to explain that, you know, everybody flushes the toilet. No one knows where it goes or cares where it goes. >> But if it doesn't work, >> they're on the phone. They call Gina. What's going on? How do we fix this? and it's our responsibility to go out and uh
respond to the complaints uh and get the system back up and running. So, we've been fairly successful in doing that and um we've got a few letters of of congratulations and thanks from some of the citizens. Uh we appreciate anything
we got. Um and that's about it. Uh no additional We had one open position from last year and everything else is flat. we just fill these same positions where people uh leave. Again, one of the issues is as the DP now puts in new
regulations uh we now have it where we can't use uh chlorine to disinfect our waste water because of the uh CPOS's uh trihalomethanes and so on produce that we've gone to parasitic acid. Well, in a
laboratory it works good. Uh again, we're probably looking to a project in the future to switch to another process to get that uh get that taken care of. But again, the DE puts a new regulation through and they just say, "Okay, you meet the permit. How do you do it?" Well, we don't know,
but you'll figure it out somehow. And if you're not, we'll hit you with fines and penalties and so on. So, uh we work with them as as well as possible. Uh but again they depend mainly on the the permittes like we are to find solutions
to the problem. Uh a big problem we have coming up next year is uh I think hopefully next year is the long-term bioolids project. Uh when the creek plant was built back in the 60s, they had digesttors which would basically uh
cook the sludge to reduce the volume certain temperatures and and uh destroy the the organics and the the material there. Uh then in the 80s they went to sludge incinerators. Uh and then after that the counter chip had a contract uh
with a uh major sludge disposal company to redo the incinerators and Pipony would just they would just take our sludge and other outside sludge and operate the incinerators refurbish them and so on. Uh there was about 1918
no 2018 they want my god 2018 they uh they pulled out of the contract left leaving us with nothing. So now we've done a study it's been going on and we're into design right now where we would be redoing the digesttors which were reducing the uh volume of sludge
significantly. uh instead of having like five trucks leave the plant a day to take it to a landfill in Ohio, we'll probably only have one to two a day. Uh in addition, we've already been talking to the county as taking food waste in which will be
generating uh additional uh bio gas uh as more organic material is put into it and then the bio gas can be used on site for heating and also electric generation which should be another phase of that project. that that'll be coming on. Uh the other thing
is that when you go to a uh an advanced wastewater treatment plant and you use more sophisticated equipment, sometimes they don't last as long as the old things did. You know, sometimes uh you know, I know some people used to have cars for like 15, 20 years and everybody
gets a new car like in 3 to 5 years. So those are things that change where we the new technology sometimes requires additional and sooner replacement to keep that high level efficiency up. Uh and therefore we have to hire the employees uh and train them to be able
to take care of this equipment. Uh we've been fortunate we have a core of good individuals uh and uh we handle the the problems that come up. Uh and again, one of the big tasks is when when do we handle it in the house and when is it
time to have it go outside to an outside contractor. Uh because you have to know when beyond what your ability to do things. So we've got that pretty well under control now. And I tell people it's finally after me being there 10 years, I have now have a staff that I'm
not afraid to go on vacation, >> which is a good sign. So >> good. >> That's basically the presentation. Greg, anything else or? >> Yeah, usually I say >> No, you're speaking up for everybody. John, >> I once I start I go, but they're here to help me in case I forget anything. So,
thank you. >> Any questions from council? >> I Joe, you speak for everybody. True. You You started with EPA, huh? You probably started when EPA was starting, right? >> No, no. EA when they started. Yeah, it was a couple years later. But
>> anyway, I did get a tour of the plant. It started as a primary. Now they're doing tertiary which is pretty amazing. It's a very great plant and they get good um results and then we do get the food waste in a couple in a year or so. It'll be great if we can you know
process that. Um I have nothing to add. It's like water. If with the waste water doesn't stuff doesn't work then you're like what what happened? They're taking care of this thing that's waste water. It's amazing thing that you're doing. Um so I have no questions for you guys.
just keep doing the great work that you do. >> Thank you. I just want to add something though. While we've had a we put together a few came down for a tour and we put together a a presentation sl uh PowerPoint presentation maybe sometime in the future we can get together and
show some of the time or >> I think everybody see how a plant works. But with the treatment plan, it's expanded over the years and basically uh you're trying to make the the silk purse out of the SA's ear and you've had old
antiquated ways of doing it. We have tanks that really weren't designed properly for the process that they're doing now, but we're able we have been able to get them to function to meet the permit limits. But it's a challenge because it' been nice if the entire plant was designed specifically for the
process it's running now, but it's not. So, we have to change things around and get it to work that way. >> Right. >> Right. Thank you. >> Any other questions from council? >> No. See, Joe, he's always very thorough. You see that? No questions. Huh. Thank
you. Thank you, guys. >> All right. At this time, we're going to call uh it says Department of Public Works, but we're really going to call up uh Justin and everybody else behind him. Come on up. Hey, Justin.
Oh, we got to do this again. Let me play uh you know magic playing. I got one. Okay. Good evening. Uh I'm Justin Leisa, municipal engineer and also the public
works director. Um I oversee not only engineering but the divisions of uh parks and forestry um streets and roads and sanitation. Um and I I'd like to just start by um thanking all the staff
in the four divisions that are under public works. Um the guys uh and girls on a daily basis do a tremendous job. Uh you know what you saw this winter with the snow removal. I I can't thank them enough for what they do. Um but all of
them take a lot of pride in their work and their job. Uh I appreciate what they do and I think the results are um are showing. You know, last year they've made some great strides and in continuing through the winter and into this year and and I just want to give
kudos for the work that they do. Um, I'm going to present the budget for the engineering division and then I'll turn over the other budgets to uh Marge Vul who will be uh um doing the sanitation. Ken Mo will be doing streets and roads
and Bill Sford uh bless you will be doing uh parks and forestry. And uh just uh on the note with the divisions and way they work, uh they're all under public works. Um and yeah, they're divisions, but they all of them work so
well together. Um it's a very tight-knit group. Um you know, it's not uh probably a day goes by where um sanitation isn't relying on streets and roads or parks and forestry with um with the streets and roads or engineering. And um it
really works well and they and these people, you know, foster that that um togetherness and the the work ethic to uh really make a a really good product for the town. Um and um I really do, you know, thank you guys. Appreciate for
what uh the work that you do. Um as as far as engineering, um just a quick background, engineering, there are eight full I'm sorry, uh yeah, eight full-time staff members. We have two licensed engineers, one uh being myself and then um uh Paul in the alpha is another one.
Three engineering aids, uh two road inspectors and an administrative assistant. Um, we also employ part-time help uh over the summer and we've been doing that for numerous years where it gives uh an opportunity for people to come in and you know some of it is
clerical work but if um you know there are engineering students we put them work you know we give them you know real life experiences in the office on you know some minor design uh related stuff but also uh I think which is more valuable the construction aspect and
we'll put them in the field uh doing an inspection with one of our other inspectors and they get a very good uh perspective on um that uh aspect of it and how things really get come together and and are built. Uh and we look forward to continuing that uh this
summer and in the future. Um engineering issues about 500 permits a year. You know, uh the vast majority of them are for soil moving and rightway permits, but we we have a bunch of other permits that we issue. So, it it's a very busy office where there's a lot of um
turnover. We we deal a lot with the public um drainage complaints, contractors with all the different types of construction uh that goes on and and we pretty much monitor any type of construction uh that's um outside of a
building per se. you know, the building departments will do their inspections inside the building or the immediate perimeter around it, but any other work that gets done, if it's uh water, drainage, uh grading, uh storm water, it's all on us to make sure that it's
being built properly. So, that could be capital improvement projects where uh it's a road that um is designed and we bid. We make sure that it's being built in conformance. We do all the construction administration um like I said the inspections but also
pay certificates to make sure the contractors are paid for what they appropriately put in. Uh private sites uh we do the construction inspection on the private sites as well. So um you know we we are in charge of making sure
that there's compliance with the approved set of plans that the either plan board of adjustment approves. So, anything that gets built on the site, uh it's our responsibility to make sure that yeah, they they you sort of the uh watchdog for the owner to make sure that
they're being they're putting the uh infrastructure in properly. Uh it's to the specifications and we do the final approval and work closely with the building department on um uh acceptance before they issue uh certificate of occupancies.
Um you know, in a nutshell, you know, and I I don't want to take away from um everyone else's time. That's pretty much what we do. Uh the budget that we're presenting um to you tonight is, you know, fairly close to what we've had
last year. There's going to be a a significant increase in one of the line items for um engineering, parks, and forestry, and for streets and roads. And that's under the um 261 line item.
That's computer hardware and software. We are hoping and we want to get moving forward with a computer um uh program that would help make all our lives more efficient. Um right now
work orders uh inspection reports, permits are all done by hand. Um I I tell you just a simple right-of-way opening permit for a small 2 by two opening there's probably eight or nine pieces of paper that attach to this permit by the time it's done. It's so
inefficient and archaic. Um so this uh per uh program which we're sharing between the three departments uh or divisions will um take care of a lot of those inefficiencies. We we want to streamline the process. We want to make it easier for work orders to be um uh uh
created, processed, and completed. There's a huge storm water management component that is part of this program, which um you know, if if you know the the storm water regulations that we are imposed with by the state and the EPA um
every year seems to get uh harder and harder to comply with. This program will help us track what we do, the inspections, the reporting. Uh matter of fact, May 1st, we have to do the annual reporting for last year. All our information is on paper. So, this
program will help streamline that. It'll make us more efficient. There's a a huge component with that as far as tracking and um the inspection. So, that's one of the big changes that you'll see in the engineering uh end of the budget. Um we
there are some minor changes. Um nothing of really any significant um uh stature, you know, uh couple thousand one way or another, just more so just to um correct some problems we had in the past with
either we're underfunded or overfunded. So, uh for the most part, the operating uh budget is uh pretty much intact except for that new computer program. Um the bulk of our request is really through capital. Um and you have the
capital request and um you know these are for improvements that we're making for the infrastructure through the town. Um there are various drainage uh improvements. It's resurfacing of roadways. Uh fixing uh handicap ramps,
uh curbs and sidewalks that are damaged by um uh municipal trees. Um and then specific projects. So, it's upgrading uh traffic signals uh trying to uh improve the detection on each of them. Um
uh the flood wall and uh floodgate improvements and then roads. Uh we we just uh resurface or uh paved Jefferson Road. We're looking to put a sidewalk and we've gotten a numerous request from um uh people who work in that area that the buses drop them off, but there's no
place for them to walk except in the road. So, it's part of a uh a sidewalk improvement there. Uh Fanny Road improvements, uh improvements to some of the streets up in Glenmont. Um and uh some just uh maintaining the streams and
rivers. Just every year with these storms, trees are going down. It's a matter of just destagging them, trying to open up those waterways so that we can keep the water uh flowing through those areas. Um, and the other two are uh just replacement of some of our
vehicles that are aged. Um, we we try to get it on a 12year replacement plan. Um, the mileage is, you know, usually in the uh 70 to 90,000 range. So, not real low mileage, but not super high, but it's
that stop and go and the wear and tear on those vehicles really takes a beating. And what what we're finding is if we can, you know, replace them after 12 years, uh it saves a lot on the back end with the downtime because once a vehicle's down, now we're sharing vehicles and trying to uh still do the
uh inspections and and uh other work that we need to do in the field. So, um yeah, I can open it up to any questions on the engineering uh budget. >> No questions. >> Anybody? >> Anybody? >> Okay. I appreciate with everything that
you do. We should talk. >> Yeah. >> A lot of grants out there for some of these things, especially with the MS4 permits. >> Yeah, that would be terrific. Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. So, now I'll I'll have Marge W uh talk about the sanitation division. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you everyone for having me here tonight. Um sanitation has a total of 45 employees, three in the office and 42 men out on the road. Some of them are in the recycling yard, the yard waste pit. Others are
supervisors. The rest are on garbage trucks. On a great day, we have 14 trucks out every day picking up garbage, recycling, and yard waste. That doesn't happen too often. So, normally
when the garbage guys get done, they have a yard waist section that they've got to do. So, they're doing double work. Um, I have not requested any new employees. I have one replacement because I have one man that transferred from sanitation over to road. Luckily,
we are able to supplement our our employees with under through the clean communities grant. I hire um college students that come normally in May, work through August, which helps us out because a lot of our guys of course are
taking vacation during the summer. Um we don't really have too much that was increased. We have one line item under uh oh my god I can't even read it. It's a licenses and permits.
Every 5 years we have to rellic our garbage trucks from we get stickers from the D and we have 34 truck no we have 34 trucks at $178
and our dumpsters also have to have a sticker on them otherwise they can't dump at the transfer station. We have 60 dump 60 dumpsters at a cost of $22 per uh dumpster. So that's why that increased. Next year that'll go down
because we don't have to pay for that every year. Uh the other increase is in our uh contract line item. That is where we pay to get rid of everything we recycle. Our vegetative
waste, it's normally around $300,000 a year, which goes out to bid. um our tires, our motor oil, our concrete, our asphalt, that all comes out of there. Everything just is going
up. As far as capital, it's basically replacing a couple garbage trucks that are
12 years old or Yeah. 12 years old. uh a pickup that is um 20 years old. 22 years old. Yeah, 22 years old. And another pickup that has a dump on it that is used um for one of
the employees. If we have a miss on garbage and we got to send somebody out to pick it up, we can't just throw it in a a pickup. It's going to fly out. So, that costs a little bit more than a normal light pickup. But my guys do a great job. It's the best crew last year,
this year that we've ever had. I hear it all the time from the residents how great, you know, and the services that the township provides is not provided by any other town, even close. We schedule special pickups for metal. Other towns
charge $5 to $10 for each item that they put out. We do we do bulk pickup Thursdays and Fridays every week. They're really a hard, you know, working group of guys. They supplement road penny with salting and plowing and then
come off of that and go pick up garbage. I guess that's about it. You have any questions? >> March, I I just want to say we by far have the best sanitation in the county, probably the state. I mean, you guys are phenomenal. really phenomenal. >> Thank you.
>> You said you do bulk every bulk twice a week. >> Yes. Thursday on one side of town, Friday on the other side. >> That's just so you know, we're we're probably the only town in the county, maybe even the state that does bulk once a week. Just want to put that on the record, >> right?
>> They are great. >> So, thank you for that. >> And then my newspaper on top. Good evening everyone. Um Ken Merl, superintendent of streets and roads. Uh thank you for having me
here tonight. Um roads presently has a staff of 28 individuals. 21 are on the road. Seven are mechanics at the garage. Um, I'd like to start out by saying I I
just I can't tell you how how proud I am of my team after dealing with one of the worst winners we've had in 10 years. Uh, every time I called these guys up, guys and gals in the middle of the night, 2:00, 1:00, they all answered. Thank
God. Um, you know, sanitation, parks, uh, water, the sewer. I'm grateful to have all I call them allies working with us to get through this winter. They were all big part of it and I want to thank them all.
Um so few things I want to go over. I just want to let you know that the sweepers have been out since March 1st and they will be going in neighborhoods uh when there's no garbage on that day
so they can get to the curb. Okay. But we have been out since March 1st. And we're trying to our goal is to get the town done twice this year. All right. With two sweeper operators, two sweepers. So there's 200 miles of roads in Paripony. And um you know, we're
doing our best to get that done twice. And I'm once again, I'm very proud of them for doing what they do. Everything is mapped out as far as what we do. So you know, it's it's all confirmed. Um, the sign crew is updating our street
signs, so they are more visible at night. Um, and they're much they're much larger. They're easier to read during the day as well. People can see them, and they're much more they're much nicer than the older ones. Okay. Um, we're
also painting crosswalks, stop lines, uh, drainage. There are 6,000 catch basins in town and we have to make sure that we're compliant with the D as far as face plates. And usually when we up uh when we pave the roads and do any um
upgrades, we we def we put the face plates on the catch basins and we make them compliant. That's so garbage can't go in >> screen. >> Yes. Okay. >> Yes. Or we'll change the curb back which is the piece that's by the curb so nothing can get nothing can you know like plastic or anything can get in it.
So, we're working on that with uh with Dustin, trying to make sure that we're complying with the D. Um, but you know, like I said, there's 6,000 drains in town. It's a lot with uh you know, the drainage crew has six six employees on
it, six people. So, um Ashwell crew is still out there filling potholes. Um, and they will be probably every at least a few times every week, you know, the whole year. Um, we're doing our best
to stay ahead of that and I'm really proud of the guys for doing such a great job because there's once again a lot of roads in Paripany and yes, this winter beat the roads up bad. But we're doing them different than most towns. We're actually we're not using hot p or cold
patch. We're we're using hot and we're rolling each pothole. And if you see us out there, we're out there rolling them. We're tacking them. Um we're milling, we're paving, we're doing our very best to keep the roads intact. And some of them are really bad. And
yes, some of them are getting um you know, repaved this year, but the township can only do so much. So, we're doing our best to you know, do what we can do with what we have. Uh so um
with that being said, I'll go into my O and E. Um few changes uh signs. We're looking to increase our sign uh because we're getting our new uh street signs and
crosswalk signs. Um the computer for the open gov like Justin mentioned before uh we're putting in for that too. Um education and tools because the cost of tools have gone up with uh metal going up and
everything else. As far as my capital, um we're looking to get a uh a hook lift asphalt patcher, which is 8 tons. Right now, our hot boxes only hold four.
So, an 8 ton hot box would be uh it would make us much more efficient, especially when we're doing water patches. Um, so we definitely could use that. Um, replacing a 2006 Ford F350
pickup. Replacing a 2013 Ford F450 mason dump. Um, we're requesting a Western Stars triax dump truck and we're replacing one of our sweepers,
which is a 2012. Um, and we're uh new roller. We're looking to get a new roller because our roller is old and we're piecing it together every day. >> So, does anybody have any questions?
>> I like your wish list. >> It's pretty simple. >> No questions. Okay, Billy, you're up. >> Thanks, K. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for having me.
Bill Sanford, superintendent of parks and forestry. Um, as Justin said earlier, we work with many different departments, including some uh the police department and administration, the IT department. Um we
have a great working relationship with all departments and help out each other. Um just to give you a little bit of idea of what the parks and forestry department is responsible for uh we maintain all the parks township sports facilities and landscape of most of the
township vehicle uh buildings. We have over 100 grass stops on our small cut crews and we maintain roadsides and rights of rights of ways. A right ofway would consist of uh a township tree or or clearing roots from sidewalks working
with engineering. Um our tree personnel take care of all the trees that are in the rightways or or township properties. We currently have 36 employees to to cover the large township and we would like to hire three
additional tree people to to compensate for the lack of uh for the retirements and a lack of experience. Um we do plan on training from within. We we could potentially have a couple of candidates to move up as opposed to brand new hire.
Um uh we are in the process of of hiring a secretary to handle our office work and telephone calls. Um due to the workload and and statemandated in compliance issues, we need additional help to to
cover all of these things. aging facilities um and new uh B uh field renovations and necessities are in the works and in the process most
of which we're trying to do with a lot of in-house labor as opposed to hiring some stuff out. Uh our budget has not doesn't really change too much. We have a a couple of uh
things that we we added um some of our building maintenance is we added $5,000 too because our our office is aging. Um, we added in education, we added 10 uh $5,000 to it because we want to get
some of these people trained and get some formal training so when we put them in the tree bucket to and chainsaws, they have the appropriate training. Um, equipment maintenance, we changed $20,000 from our another account to put
into equipment maintenance. The other account is kind of like a a open space type of fund account and we did that because we can repair some equipment that doesn't quite fit into that category.
Um the gypsy moth uh ash bore trees fund we raised by 50,000. That was on a a recommendation of a council meeting last year to try and get ahead of some of the trees that we're taking down. And we're
hoping that with the additional tree people that we hire, we can bring that number down in the upcoming years because we'll be able to do more tree h tree work inhouse. Uh that's pretty much the major changes in our in our OE
and our our capital is is kind of a a big list. We we have a lot of aging equipment and a lot of stuff that we're putting a lot of money into. Just a for instance, one of the trucks that we rely on on a daily basis was in the dealer
last year three times at a cost of I think around $25,000. So that's a big hit. Um so we're we're looking to replace some trucks. Uh we used to pride ourselves as having the nicest trucks in the township. Now
unfortunately we don't have that anymore. So we want to not it's not wants, it's more of needs. And uh we're looking to replace a 2009 hooklift truck, a 2008 pickup truck, a 2014 Ford
Transit van, uh a 2006 F350 pickup. We need a a trailer, a landscape trailer, a single axle dump truck, and another pickup truck. Now, we also do need to do some renovations on some of the some of the uh the bathrooms in our park
facilities cuz we're looking at 30 years and some of them that, you know, we just been bandating them together. So, we really need to to start systematically taking a a bathroom a year and and and start renovating some of them. But, we
narrowed it down to the ones that are in the worst shape to try and do this year and then next year look at the other ones. um our department the employees are are definitely working out well. We're learning together um from the lack of
experience or the experience that retired. We're learning together on how to uh do the jobs that come up and we're doing a lot of cross trainining. So, we're trying to get a a well-rounded staff back which is definitely something that we haven't had for like the past
six six years. So that's pretty much all I have is any questions? >> Any questions from council? >> You can ask your question. Um, so you had mentioned the park bathroom renovations,
>> the park bathroom renovations. Um, so does this include bathrooms that are not ADA accessible and are they taking priority or how does that >> No, we're we're going to look into some grants for those. I didn't put them in this. I only put the ones that are are falling down.
>> And that we potentially aren't going to be eligible for some grants. So, we're going to be working with uh Suzanne, Justin, and and whoever else to try and figure out if we can get funding through I forget what the what's that CDBG money
or or other types of things. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> What is CDBG? >> Community development block. Oh, okay. Um, you've been doing great. So, I mean, but you're saying there's a lack of um
experience, but it's you've been doing great. You had a lot going on in the last few years. How is it going with the ash trees these this last year? >> We with the $50,000 that that we had last year, which brought the recommendation to do the 100,000 this
year, we were two years behind on the list. And what happened is as we were progressing and the list was moving at a steady pace, we had retirements. So with that being said, now our our
tree staff is at a minimal right now. We're training some a couple of guys. We did hire one guy that is a tree guy, so we do would like to put him in one of these tree positions. So that's going to save there. But as as far as like
we have to hire out for the assistance, which we're hoping with the additional tree positions, we won't have to do as much and we'll be able to catch up. So, we're about a year and a half behind now. We did catch up to about uh you
know a year and a half a half a year but as storms come time progresses you know the the list becomes the the second priority when we're in an emergency situation. So we we're not always on the list every single day. Got it. >> So our goal is to have a truck on the
list every single day and have the pop-up stuff being handled by less experienced people. If it's on the ground it's not as dangerous, you know. Right. >> So, >> tell us why you need people. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Can I just say something before public
session? Uh, just quickly back to the Department of Public Works. Just want to say thank you to you guys for everything you did with the snow. It was an immense amount of snow and there were so many roads to clear. I don't think I've ever felt so safe to drive after a snowstorm. The roads were that clear. So, thank you
so so much. You guys stayed up all hours of the night. You guys did not get sleep for days and we are so appreciative of all the work you did. Thank you. >> We couldn't do it without you guys. >> Okay. No other questions. Okay. Thank
you guys for your time. Appreciate it. >> Okay. So, at uh this time we're going to go ahead and go into the public session. Uh you can during our public session, you can comment on any matter you would like. Uh but we do ask any questions you have you reserve strictly to budget
since this is a budget meeting but you can comment anything you'd like. Okay. So with that uh being said and then you can ask other questions but that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be answered at this meeting. Uh so with that being said uh can I entertain a motion to open up the public session please?
>> Motion. >> Motion made by Mr. Kavanaaugh. Seconded by Miss Hernandez. Roll call. Uh Mr. Karifi. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kavanagh. >> Yes. Um, >> Mr. McGrath, >> yes. >> Miss M Miss Patel, >> yes.
>> And, uh, Mr. Hernandez, >> yes. >> Okay. The floor is now open to the public. Uh, you can comment or speak on any matter and you can ask questions about the budget. Uh, please state your name for the record. Do not give your address. And you have 5 minutes to speak. Okay, seeing no, we're going to
close it. No, I'm just kidding. >> Oh, boy. mic. >> This is the only mic that works well right here. >> Yes, sir. >> How you doing? Uh Tony Pasano. I'd like to thank our public works department as
far as uh snow removal. Unfortunately for everybody, >> Unfortunately for everybody, we are in the beginning of El Nino, so get used to it. We're going to be turn around and hitting uh basic years of late 1990s through 2010.
As far as your maintenance goes, coming as a hybrid from the trucking industry, 10 years operations, 10 years in maintenance, I basically 20 years of maintenance, I basically worked on everything and 10 years in safety. uh you're 15 years behind the times as far as your work orders and return on your
investments, repair orders, work orders. If you need help, I can help you digitize the systems and you can see what's going on. Uh as far as your fuel costs, your fuel costs aren't just going up due to the war. Your fuel costs are going to go up tremendously because Bayway is closing. They are the third largest. They are the actually the
largest refinery in the tri-state area. And duj our poor governors they turn around at the meeting shook man's hand says now you can close it he said thank you very much the CEO of Bayway you just saved me $500 million lady
as far as transportation goes our governor's previous governors could have spent 50 cents more per rail put in commercial rail into our railroads and we could turn ran heavy duty rail besides passenger rail but we went with this decision because everybody want a
passenger rail. So, what that stopped is a lot of rail heads that we can't use. So, now what you're going to do is you're going to if Bayway goes down, you're going to have a 30% increase minimum of your trucks running on the road.
I can't stop that. As far as if you have trucks with police department being pulled over, I suggest you pull in a DOT officer cuz what's running around a lot of our roads are double axle rigs. and I will kiss somebody's butt in Macy's window. If you can tell me that a tan
axle rear truck is registered for 25,000 pounds, most of them manufacturers if you open up that door is $36,000. Your fine, I think, is about $100. Their fine is $2,000 plus towing. Uh, as far as this gentleman here with
city war and sewers, can we get the rest of the town's water flows and see what they've been for the past 5 years and due to all the construction, project that out to the next 5 or 10 years? Cuz if they're paying 40%, should they be paying 45, 50? We don't know.
>> Correct. >> We do know. Uh, they have meters which they calibrate every year. They send them to us. They measure how many gallons they send to us. >> Okay. So, we do know. So with all the construction going on, we can turn around project and come up with five year plans. >> All right. >> Yeah. And just to to add to that, the
amount they're build is based on >> usage. Okay. That's what I'm asking. >> Uh like I said, if you need help, if I'm available, most of you have got my phone number. >> Question. Can we get into the 26th century uh year 2026? Is there an
objection to 1, two, and three sitting down here with us? because you could use that screen, change these presentations to PDFs. Yep. >> And everybody can see it on basis until we upgrade the systems. >> Everybody's sitting out here. Everybody's talking about PDFs, uh, cold
patching versus hot patching, maintenance. As far as the answer DS question, your average on replacement is a premium average of replacement of equipment is 10 years. The weighted average of 12.8 years is, you know, hard to use. If you don't do that, you wind
up down to tubes. Like you said, you have equipment that'll be down. Now, my question always is is if you have equipment down to parts, why maybe you need a remand and you need another engine sitting on the side. You go for engines, Allison transmission. I have a
list of all the vendors. And if we're worried about paying out of state, out of uh tariff costs, try and buy America. It happens to last longer. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pano. Um,
>> anyone else? >> Thank you. Um, Justin Misell at 39 H Highidge Road. I just want to deliver some comments tonight uh based off of my observations of uh the last council meeting and this meeting tonight. Uh I think that residents were pitched a 9
and a half tax increase. Uh one of the largest in recent memory for sure. Uh but when you look at this budget, it it's clear, at least in my opinion, I don't think this increase is is inevitable. I think it's the result of
of choices. Um and we're starting off on on the wrong foot. And and I'd like to begin by saying that, you know, I've been where you are and I understand the pressure, the competing priorities, and how difficult these decisions can be.
And it's, you know, certainly not easy work. But I'm not just here to criticize the problem. I'm also here to present some solutions because, you know, what we're seeing right now is simply not sustainable. When you factor in the board of education increase, we're
looking at nearly $2 million in salary increases on the municipal side, about a million dollars in new positions, a $2 million spike in health insurance costs, and millions more in structural adjustments and corruptions. Now, this
is coming at a time when families are tightening their belts, and our own local government is expanding. And I think that's backwards. I also think that if we continue down this path, this kind of unsustainable budgeting will not just hurt one group. It'll make it
harder for younger families to stay, harder for seniors to afford to remain, and harder for our small businesses to start and grow. And I think that in between now and the next council meeting, the uh the council should avail
themselves of everything they can do to uh bring down this increase and before asking taxpayers to pay more. Um I have some suggestions that I think could be helpful. You know, for starters, we should conduct an analysis uh and talk to the county because the county is
going on its seventh consecutive year of no increases in the county tax rate while managing a $47 million budget. We should seriously look at I understand that the position was uh we don't want to have a a freeze on hiring, but uh
that should be seriously explored. uh we should consider looking at all of the unused town land that we own and selling it off so that way we can see if it would offset um future increases. Um I would suggest monetizing our township
assets such as the parcipony transit system uh through ad revenue for instance having all town celebrations. I understand that uh they are minor expenses paid for by the taxpayers, but I would encourage you to look at um
asking for donations or business sponsorships. We have about 4,500 businesses to defay the cost of those events. Uh putting real controls on overtime and salary growth. Uh aggressively addressing health insurance
costs by seeing if we are as competitively bid as possible. And lastly, it may not be popular, but requiring departmentwide spending decreases. And then lastly, re prioritizing or delaying non-essential
capital projects. So, I don't believe that these are radical ideas. I think they're responsible common sense solutions. Um, and if we can take these steps, I think we would significantly reduce the burden on our taxpayers without sacrificing the services that we
rely on. And I think that the culture of town hall uh has to change which historically has been treating taxpayers as the first solution to every problem and they should be last. So tonight I think that the council and the administration, you all have a choice
after what you've heard and hopefully what other residents say um that you can make some different choices. Reduce the size of the increase prior to the adoption of the budget on April 21st. Thank you and have a good night.
>> Thank you. Thank you, JUSTIN. >> Come on up, Nick. >> Are you here? >> Just pick uh pick one of the mics. Magic mics. You pick one. >> It's going to work for you, Nick. It always works. That's the That's our luck. Um,
I have a a couple of question, but a remark on uh about Mr. uh Mousella. We pay taxes in this country, but we're victims, all victims of a giant regressive tax system.
As citizens of this country, we pay taxes for war as economy. We don't even have basic passive rights, health care, affordable housing, education. So, the problems stem from the top the mandate
of heaven to to us down here on earth. Uh the Jefferson uh you said Jefferson Road sidewalks. Now, isn't that a corporate uh corporate
area down there? Why should the town of Precipany pay pay for sidewalks? Why don't the the corporate real estate down there uh take care of the sidewalks for their uh workers or clientele, who's
ever uh walking around uh down there. Uh the um the parks and forestry department when I last check uh last checked years
ago, they didn't even have an arborist. So if there are if they are going to hire another employee, I hope at the very least we have an arborist. So when he looks at these trees, even
ash trees that might not be diseased or you know that to make scientific uh assessments, not just uh you know deforestation, they took a lot of trees down on an old golf course. Some of them
are obviously diseased. Other ones look to me like there was nothing wrong with them. met a friend of mine who knows a lot more about trees uh than I do. We we're taking a look at some of them. Oaks for example. So oaks are very very
uh valuable. And uh how much open space money has been used uh for equipment for uh parks and forestry or or road works. I understand we changed the rules that we
could use open space money for other purposes, but wouldn't it be better to use our open space money to acquire open space in precipany rather than sell it for
uh more corporate tax ratables who who have gotten this town into trouble with the, you know, with pilot deals and I didn't hear any mention from any any of these departments how they feel
that these pilot deals may have you know affected their uh their budgets. So, if you can answer any of that, especially in the sidewalks down here, >> when you're finished, we can maybe
answer one about the open space. We'll get you an answer on that because I don't know. >> I don't think you I don't know. >> But I'll get you an answer. >> Any other member from the public? Come on up. You don't have to raise your
hand. You can just walk up. >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> No. Ladies first. Oh, no problem. >> Go ahead. >> No, go ahead. >> All right. You're already >> I will be quick. My name is uh Desa. I moved to Pasi Pani almost 9 years ago.
Within 9 years, my property tax has gone by 45 to 50% up and I've not seen the corresponding visible good things around the paripelli including the roads and roads are particularly very very poor quality very bad. I go to Danville, I go
to Dway, I find much better better roads. But when I drive in Parip, I really feel very sad. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, sir. >> Go ahead, ma'am. >> Uh, I'd like to address the last gentleman's uh question. >> Thank you.
>> My name >> Go ahead. Let her and then we'll address it. >> Go ahead. >> Let's see. It's working. Okay. So, my name is Diana Orbitson. Um, I have been a lifelong resident of Pipany and my one
of my biggest concerns is with this increase is for the senior citizens. I'm going to read something that was sent to me. It says, "I have lived in Lake Precipany for 70 years. I survive on
social security alone and go hungry some days because I have to choose between eating and keeping a roof over my head and meeting the needs of my family.
We have 10,000 seniors in this town, most of which are living on a fixed income. We have to keep that in mind when we're looking at a tax increase like this. We have a very young town council right
now. We have our finance department that have only been here for a few months. I don't know if you know the neighborhoods, if you know the people and and how we have so many young families
coming in here that are living on paycheck to paycheck and they can't afford $100 or $78 a month. What that means is they're going to take away from their children because they're not going
to have the money to spend on ne um on not necessities on >> luxuries. >> Yes. So um please keep that in mind when you're looking at this. And I have a
question for Mr. Simone, where you talked about the previous administration um didn't build up funding for capital spending or some other line items.
Is that a financial calculation that you're using to come up with that? >> No. >> Okay. >> No, that's not a financial calculation. So if you look back at since for the accumulated absences right that covers the cost of when people are
leaving for separations money that is owed to them. So on average we are paying about a million dollars annually >> million. >> All right. And they were budgeting $10,000. >> So that's clearcut. >> Okay. So is that on a yearly basis or is
that overtime? >> No, that's that's on a yearly basis. They were underfunding by over a million dollars. Okay. And are we doing anything to prevent people from building up on their vacation time or on their sick
time? >> Yes, that is being done. Uh there are contractual obligations with our unions and we have just uh put out a memo in the last month, I believe, with our non-UN employees just to continue to decrease >> that liability. And I know that you said
that the chief of staff is a position that is available, but is that really a want or is that a need? >> Because we really, not we, you guys, okay, I have to depend on you
>> that you will look at every line item and decide >> if it's really necessary. >> There's some ask. >> No, no, it's okay. We'll we'll we we'll allow the back and forth. Yeah, we'll allow the back and forth temporarily. I will jump in and stop it only because
it's a budget thing. So, since we are and it's very civil, so it's not an issue. >> Yeah. >> Um, another question I had is does the golf course make the town money? >> Let's hope so cuz
>> it's something we are looking into it. Uh that's going to be one of my pet projects going forward to make sure that utility makes that money for the town. It has done that in the past. I looked at the history. I have no idea what had what has happened, but it's something I
started looking into with day one. I can tell you before I got into anything in my life when I was young, I actually ran a country club. Okay? I worked there. I know everything about catering from wedding plannings. I can still do wedding planning if somebody wants me to
help you. Uh including the golf course and everything. That is something that we're going to focus on, you know, and make sure it's a premier place. One of the reasons I had my after inauguration, you know, uh party there is just about 80%
of people who showed up saying, "Oh, this is ours." You know, when I told them, "Yes, this belongs to us. It's is a trans utility just like water and sewer." you know, it is ours and we should make money on it. It is not being advertised, you know, as it should be, you know, but there's going to be a lot
of focus on that, you know, and you will see that. >> Okay. Now, that >> give us a chance. >> I don't care if it breaks even. I just don't want it to cost us. >> It's it's supposed to make money. And just to piggy back off of that, when I was the deputy county administrator at Bay County, we ran a golf course as well. So, I do have experience in golf
course management. So, that we have a lot of it's a priority of this administration to make sure that's going to make money. >> Thank you. So my request of the town council is there's a lot of learning for a lot of
you on this council. Um >> you have 30 seconds. >> Okay. Thank you. But I would really hope that you all work together and make sure that this budget gets down to what the
township people can afford. It's not just about running the town. It's about the people and you work for us. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> My name is Hank Keller. Is this working? >> Yeah, it's working. Hank, >> my name is Hank Keller and uh I really
am very concerned as this young lady mentioned about the the senior citizens in in the town, although I'm certainly not one yet. Nevertheless, I I do have a question that's really geared toward our attorney. Um I I know that you all you
all know that uh many people are dissatisfied with the pilot programs that have been so far accepted in town and there's there's much talk about that and I'm I'm wondering if there's a possibility of possibly going back and looking at whether or not the town can
withdraw from any of these programs because uh recently I read something I think it was in focus but I'm not sure or maybe Facebook uh Bob Denisia had had mentioned that that from the agreement
that that that the town had made uh on a particular uh pilot program uh we in fact were uh enjoying less revenue than we did when it was supposedly a nonfunctional uh piece of property. And I I don't understand that and I don't
understand if that's if that was correct and I don't know that I don't know the facts. But but if that is correct then there certainly must be something that we can think about doing to withdraw ourselves from situations that in fact
we may not have understood what we were getting into. Thank you. >> We can this is about the budget but we can talk about pilot. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we'll have to me it's all >> only because only because >> so only because it's it's Hank we're
going to allow this exception this time around. >> Yeah. Moving forward, we're going to have you know a pilot transparency committee and there's a little bit Bob has a little bit mixed up about some of those the pilot that he was talking about. We could
>> before you start ma'am >> before you start allow him an opportunity to just respond to Mr. I I just want to say we are looking at the pilots that is happening. Um it's not a budget issue, but it is in in another in another.
>> All right, ma'am. Come on up. >> Hi. Hi. My name is Susan Milvich. I am here because I'm an elected member of Morris County Republican Committee um for District 22. Um, I moved to Pipany
26 years ago because I work in financial technology and it is an easier commute to Wall Street than my hometown of Jefferson. So, um, when I was walking around in
district 22 campaigning for people, I heard from senior citizens who at that time, and that was like a a year ago, um, very very concerned about tax hikes. Um, people aging in place is a much more
compassionate way to go through the getting older process. um than assisted living sometimes and other considerations. So I think we should exercise compassion when we look at the taxes. Also being in the
financial technology industry when I heard at our committee meeting last week that there are corporations which are moving from Paripony um I wondered why because that offers an exceptional
amount of tax benefits. So I know that there are currently very large corporations here. For example, I worked at ADP for about 5 years in Rosland. I know they have a campus on I think Jefferson Road and Waterview Boulevard.
Very thankful for those taxes that they're paying. Um, I know that Barkclays has a Whipany campus, a beautiful Whipony campus, and they're housing their information technology and operations people. Very good jobs.
Very, very good jobs. People in Peripany would welcome the opportunity to not have to commute into New York City or Jersey City and work close to home. And we certainly have the current vacancies. And I was wondering if anything more
could be done to, you know, kind of loo these very rich employers with deep pockets into Pipony to bring in taxes and also to offer jobs
to many of our people and even new graduates who do not want to have to experience going to New York to have that on their resume for 5 years before they can trudge back to New Jersey.
>> Okay. Is there are we is there Yeah. Thank you. >> Okay. I was just wondering is is there anything more that can be done? Can anybody explain I'm sure you can, but does anybody know now um why these corporations are
leaving? This was told to me by a very good source. And um yeah, why why are they leaving? H how can we how can we get good companies, good white collar, good paying
>> six figure, you know, jobs? >> I've been on council. They've been telling us they've been leaving. They've been leaving for years. And now I don't know why they've been leaving for years, but they've been leaving for years. And I don't know what
the effort was to bring them back. I'm just like I'm saying, they've been leaving for years. For a long time. >> Um, >> we'll look into it >> and we'll look into it. I mean, I can answer. >> You could talk about ADP. >> I also worked at ADP for 30 years in
Rosland. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Oh, wow. at at headquarters before I >> Yeah, me too, actually. Yeah. >> And I was in uh security. Uh >> Okay. >> Yeah. But anyway, >> what year? >> I I just left in December. I've been there for 30 years.
>> I I was I was there from like 2000 to 2005. >> Okay. >> Awesome. Uh I can tell you Pipony is open for business. Uh I recently visited uh a business that actually came back to Pipony a few years ago. uh but I can
tell you majority of the businesses left after co because of the whole remote from work situation you know uh corporation just felt they looked at their bottom lines and saying yeah we don't need as much space as we need you know so they downsize and in some cases
if they couldn't downsize they left the town you know but now things are normalizing but just about every corporation is doing you know 3 days from home so some of them are coming back I just visited one recently where they made the whole campus as if when I
visited, you know, they have gyms, uh, laundry facilities, you know, uh, all kinds of kitchens, the entire places look like a home where people can come work and they're hiring. So, you know, we're at a transition phase where many
corporations left and some of them are slowly coming back. The pace is something I can't decide, but if uh any business wants to come in, I'm open for business. I will talk to them. >> Yeah. I mean, I was just a contract employee at city city bank in Jersey
City. I know that they have a Rutherford office and I know that a lot of people would welcome working in Paripany. I know you know it there there's you know those guys some people are moving to Texas some
people are moving to Florida but this is also a very good location and perhaps especially because technology is compounding exponentially. Um maybe people can be, you know, maybe
people would want to or prefer to move from Jersey City over to Pipony and and that would be fantastic. It really was. >> Maybe those texts would be we have some leaving some. It's changing like a transition.
>> Yeah. Had so many businesses. So maybe it'll be less. is changing, but maybe the tech companies will come in. It's changing. >> It would be worth pulling together for us. >> I can tell you >> I Hey, I volunteer. I'm going to help
you know. Seriously, >> I can tell you besides a pharmaceutical company that's returning to Paripany, >> extremely high-end manufacturing companies also coming into Paripony, >> you know. So, think I think uh the future is bright for Pipony.
>> That's good. I'd rather not because of the environmental impacts. I'd personally rather not have manufacturing when we could just as easily have >> this is not that kind of environmental impact manufacturing but it's uh >> you know >> Okie do.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you guys much. >> Great job. >> Any other member from the public? >> Yeah, good evening council Prahepani. Uh so I was at the council meeting two weeks ago and I saw the number I'm just trying to understand did the budget
numbers change cuz in the two two weeks ago at the high school I believe it was 9 plus% increase and now it's said 76. So I was not sure about that. The second point I wanted to make was I appreciate all the department heads coming and talking about their budgets. What would
have really been helpful is to understand what the delta was how much they were first talking about increasing their budget. It was useful to get the qualitative sense and the color behind the changes, but I do not know if we the public have access to that kind of information, but appreciate the
feedback. Thank you. >> Budget is online, sir. So, you can you can you can pull that up online >> by department. >> Uh I don't know if it's by department. Yeah, I see what you're saying. >> Yes, it is. Uh the departments are listed by >> So, it is online by department.
>> Okay. And then again speaking about the uh 7.65% 65% increase. That is for everything. That is for the municipality, for the board of education, for the county, everything that creates your taxes. That's that full number now. So, our increase on the municipal side is a 9.5% increase on our
budget. But overall, in the scale of it, it's a 7.65% increase on the entire budget on the entire tax bill. >> So, keep one thing in mind. When we presented our budget two weeks ago, we did not know what the board of education
number was. So we are only responsible for the town. Now then today from since then we learned what the board of education number is going to be because everybody in here gets one tax bill. You don't get a separate tax bill for the county, board of education. You just get
one tax bill from the town hall. That entire tax bill, you know, when you take 9.5 and uh the board of education, you don't add that together. It's a weighted average. So when you get your next tax bill is going to be 7.65%.
That's the actual increase. You're welcome. >> Nick, I'm sorry. You came up already. You can come up here and talk to me if you want. I can't break the rules for you. I like you. >> Go ahead. Shout out. What's up? >> The town administrator made a statement.
He said, "This will not affect senior citizens." I wish he would explain it. Okay. All right. So, you said it. So, well, if Go ahead, Mark. >> Yeah, no problem. So, if I misspoke on that, I'll make sure I'm clarifying it. If you are a beneficiary of the senior
tax freeze and you're already signed up, then no, it's not going to impact you. >> Okay. >> So, he's basically saying because of the tax freeze. Come on up, Jack. >> That is an ongoing program. So, if you're a senior and you're not in the program, you can fill out the paperwork and apply for the program and your taxes would be will be frozen going forward.
>> All right. We we got to ask the public not not to speak in the audience, please. Thank you. Not you. Come on. We're not talking about you, Laura. Go ahead, Jack. >> Anyway, Jack, >> want to get choice here? >> You uh pick one of the magic mics, sir.
>> Uh just a few things some clarify. First of all, it looks like the total of the ratables went down year on year. Is that correct? It looks like 18 million or so. How could that be with all of the
construction going on in this town? It it just defies culity. Uh my second thing is uh the the the BA mentioned the that only half of the increase in the school
budget are reflected this year, which means the other half is going to be reflected next year. So we could expect like another at least 7 and a half% budget depending on the increase in the health insurance next year. We're going to expect another significant tax
increase next year. This is not just a one-time thing. This is going to roll over into the next year. Um so I think and if I'm wrong, just tell me where I'm wrong. Um, and
where do the pilots, and we can't just say the pilot, we're not talking about the pilots because that's part of the budget that the the pilots, where are they included in the ratables and in in the revenue projected, you've got
revenue projected. You've got 1515 is online and so is 2 and three campus drive. And I would imagine there's going to be a number of other pilots online before the end of the year. And where are they in the budget as well? So, uh
the the uh presentation was kind of short and we you know been would have been nice to have handouts, but I did take some pictures and and it looks like the ratables went up 7.65% from 3.452 452
to 3.716. Now also when we figure out the ratables does that take into account an increase in housing values. So if our housing values increase mean is the tax is that going to change the tax? Okay. So you
know a few things for consideration and but yeah we're going to get smacked again next year but the other half of the school school increase next year. If we're only counting half of the increase this year, that means we're rolling to next year. And if I'm wrong, you know,
correct me. >> Yeah, I'll address one part of that question. So on the pilots, as Mark mentioned, we're going to be transparent with pilots. All the ones that people are going to request, they're all going to get a fair shake. And we're going to
start presenting quarterly exactly the revenue that we're collecting from the pilots. So I think transparency is something that out here people are going to have to get used to. Uh I know you have been given that but I'm going to give that to you. And then when it comes
to the board of education, you know, uh yes, they work on a fiscal year, we work on a calendar year. We're just projecting this information to you. Is that going to change things? I think Mark can probably answer that better than I can. >> Or Angelica. >> Yeah, I I'd defer to Angelica on that
one. But to go back to um why the pilots the only only having the few pilots listed in revenue is because those are the ones that actually paid us in 2025. And we've said it a few times and I'll make sure that we continue to say it. We can't project more than what we took in.
Do we know that those are going to pay us? Yes. The three we have 1515 that has been on for a while and the two other campuses that you mentioned came on late in the year. We cannot add those projections until we've received real dollars. Once we receive real dollars, we can add that. That's why what we're
going to do, as the mayor stated, on a quarterly basis, show you what it's looking like on a quarterly basis as things are coming on. We are going to show that we just not we just cannot project money that we have not physically received. >> So on that,
>> is this okay? >> Well, no, Jack, if I'll take it. >> Yeah, if you want Jack, I'll make this one exception, but you got to talk to the mic. You get one more question and that's it cuz I can't have too much of a back and forth since she already took your seat. You see Jack stayed standing I would
have let you. >> So um there there was about $296,000 projected for 1550. Correct. I didn't see any numbers projected for two and three campus drive. But what's going to happen is our taxes are going to be
raised even though you will be projecting revenue. If you if you your a business projects its its revenue not on what it collected last year, it protect projects up what it anticipates collecting this year and and they and
they do their business based on on that. And but here for some reason we're not just because uh two or three campus I don't know did they pay any money in 2025? >> No because they came on at the end of the year so we did not collect any money from them until the beginning.
>> But you have a contract with them and if and if I don't pay my property taxes you take my house. So they should be held to a pretty high standard. if they're getting a tax break, they should get at least the same treatment as any property
owner here. >> And I understand the frustration that you're coming from 100%. But our laws don't allow us to do that. That's what it comes down to. I can't just if we know that we're going to take in a million dollars and we haven't received that million dollars, I cannot budget off of that million dollars. I just
can't do it. And there's state laws to back that. >> Okay. He answered the question. That's the way Jack, I got to cut you off. Just I want to point out again, we want to be able to answer your questions. We're not trying to hide. If we don't have the answer directly, we're going to get you the answers.
>> Come on up. >> How are you guys? Chris Maserata. So, I'm going to say one thing. You did say before you were elected that pilots are no good. We're not going to take them. You just stated they're all going to get their fair share and we're going to share that information transparently.
So, we'll leave that there. Now, I'm going to play dumb. You're saying it's a 7.65 increase. Municipal is 9 and a half still. >> Mhm. >> Why is the rated going to bring that down? Cuz the zero from the county.
>> Can you explain it to me better? >> Like I said, I don't explain to me better how it goes down. >> Yeah. >> When they're going to add to >> Okay. So, if you I think on our first uh budget presentation, we had the pie chart and you can see the school is 60%
of your tax bill. We're about 20%, the countyy's about 20%. So, the school's 60% is weighted higher. So, their increase counts more towards the total increase than ours does.
>> And the county does help us. >> So, the municipal is still nine and a half. It's not that's not anything different, but you can mask it with the >> the count of the >> board of Edwin. All right. Thanks. >> So, I think it's just simple math. >> Yeah.
>> Okay. Hey Bob, before you go on, I'd like to address Mr. Mazela's uh question on the pilots. >> Okay. >> Uh yes, I did say no more to pilots during the campaign. Okay. But once I'm in the
seat here, if any applicant comes in, only reason they're going to get a fair shake is because the public never got a fair shake of exactly how pilots are. The entire council was kept in the dark. They were lied to last year. So, I'm just going to I'm going a step further
to be completely transparent. And I I'm open-minded. I listened to a Republican councilman to say, "Can you start a pilot committee?" I said, "Yeah, it's a great idea. Let's do it. And we're going to put in addition to council members on there, people from the public, we're
going to go through a process, at least for the first one, and let the public completely know, completely transparent. And obviously, logic dictates that if it does not benefit the town, and somebody's going to lose, they don't get approved. But at least it'll be a
transparent process. >> Mike one more time. >> Uh, go ahead. Since I've given everybody else an opportunity, why not? Chris, come on up. Just one question. Okay. >> Just one question though. Okay. >> Question. >> Maybe just a statement. >> So if that's the process you're going to
take and you're going to be openminded about it, you should run on that to start, not change it after you get there. >> It's a democracy. Everybody does a fair shake. Sorry. >> No. Well, if that's the truth. It's a democracy. You can you cannot let a
developer come in and just deny it without giving them a fair chance what they have to say. They could all be nos. Okay, Chris, to be fair, >> that's what I believe in. It's the truth. The truth is uncomfortable to you. I'm sorry you have to hear that. >> I want to say something. To be fair,
>> we before the end of the year kind of got blindsided. So, they're taking We did. >> I I said no to everything. You said yes to all. >> I know. BECAUSE YOU BECAUSE HEY, I >> I wanted to fight you, Judy. You guys
didn't want >> open up the M. >> Yeah, that's forever thing. I wanted to fight it. You said no. >> No, we were talking, me and you, separately. And >> and I told you I would say no the whole time. >> I I know, but you know you could because we all Why
>> Judy? That's an absolute lie. >> That's not true. >> Judy, you knew we all had to. >> Judy, you are recorded here saying you would say no to pilots. You know that, right? >> First Yeah. >> Yeah. So now think about what you just said. You changed your whole entire opinion. Hold on. >> I'm the only state trip.
>> You understood what was at stake and you know that you were the only one that could get away with not. >> So tell me what was at stake. Please. >> You know what was at stake? >> Tell me. I I just need the audience to just not speak. >> No. What What was at stake though, Judy? >> We would lose our immunity, right?
>> Yes. We were afraid. We were afraid of losing our that fair share housing plan. And what does that mean to lose our immunity? >> I don't want to get into that. >> No, no, no. You brought it up. So, what it means is the developer gets to build what they want. You let them build 1100
units at only 10% affordable. >> Can you just let me finish my conversation with Chris? What I was trying to say to Chris Maserella was that coming into this administration, our mayor and our new council was
backing up me because I voted this way and they came in saying no and they were right. >> I need her into the mic. Judy, >> I am we're going to go back to the >> to the mic, please. >> Mic. Into the mic. So to get >> yes, the circumstances for me changed
and I felt like I was held hostage. That's the long and the short of it. I'm not happy about it, but that's what I felt like. >> So So Judy, when I told you why we should fight it, >> recreate happened. I >> because it's going to happen again another time. >> And that's not going to happen again for me.
>> So So you know to all pilots hostage. >> That's what you're saying. You know to all pilots. >> Okay. Cuz No, hold on. Cuz you can't say what you just said and then expect me not to react. You were a no. I was a no. Multiple people were nos. And then
everybody changed to a yes. Judy. No. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Not for that. You're one. >> All of them. >> All right. So, uh, so all right. So, we we've I'm going to have to stop this now. Um, at this time, we're going to go ahead and just please stop screaming
from the audience. There's no reason for that. Okay. Uh, so at this time we're going to go ahead and open the floor back up. Anyone that would like to come up to the mic are more than welcome to do so. >> Hey Bob, you enjoy the show, buddy?
Is it is Which mic? >> Not anyone, but anyone. Bob, >> this doesn't it works? It likes you. >> Okay. >> Bob Vanzia or Sipony. In last year's budget, resident Bernie
Clark identified a large discrepancy in the amount budgeted for utility employee group insurance versus nonutility employee group insurance. There's a similar discrepancy in the 2026 budget and a few other issues with the group
insurance line item that need to be explained. On page 12 of the budget, the line item for budgeted group insurance is listed as 12.6 million for 416 regular
employees. And that's compared to 9.5 million for 107 utility employees. And note that I I had to use 2025 employee counts because the employee counts are not available in the 2026 budget.
Based on these numbers, the average group insurance premium per regular employee is about $30,000. While the average utility when you do when you do the division for a utility
employee is unbelievably about $88,000, almost three times as much. So, regarding the group insurance line item, please explain the following issues. Why were the why were number one, why were the employee counts not included in
the 2026 budget when they have always been included in past budgets? Two, does Paripony still self-insure? Three, um, can you confirm that the average policy amounts that I just quoted for regular employees versus
utility employees are correct? If they're not, what are the correct amounts and how should they be calculated? And lastly, why is there such a large discrepancy between the average health care cost of utility workers versus
non-utility workers? Thank >> I think that's uh questions for the CFO and do I have any answers for Bob? >> Sorry. So um the insurance is broken up amongst the
current fund, the water utility, the sewer utility and the golf utility. There are lots of employees that do work that work in town hall, but they do work for the utilities. So, a portion of their insurance costs are spread amongst
the utilities. This was a formula developed by the auditors years ago, and it's been consistent every year. So, every year if current fund goes up by 15%, water goes up by 15, sewer goes up by 15, golf goes up by 15. It's been the
same formula for years. So like myself, Mark, the mayor, we do work for the utilities. We're not strictly general budget employees. So a portion of our costs need to be spread amongst
the utilities. >> Okay, thank you. Uh I that's an answer. I'm still not yet. Why is 130,000 18? >> Yeah. Bob, Bob, Bob. Bob, I need you to speak into the mic, sir. >> Speak it into the mic. >> We can hear you, but the audience can.
>> Yeah. >> So, what I'm what I'm saying is like you're there are employees that the portion of their salaries and a portion of their health care costs are charged to the utilities that you may consider
current or general budget employees. So like finance staff, the clerk's office, the mayor's office, administration, we do work for the utilities. So a portion of our costs need to be charged to the utilities. That that's where
that's coming from. >> You get that, Bob? >> So essentially, our salaries is divided. >> I don't know. It sounds >> not good. Not good enough for you. >> Shuffle the money around. Do >> you have any other We're paying a lot of money for health insurance. Way out of line.
>> That's a state mandate. Health insurance is the one thing. >> Uh I don't know about the state mandate because >> because the board of education's only paying about 27,000 per employee. >> Board of education is a whole another discussion. >> Oh well, they don't have cheap
insurance. I'm tell the teachers do not have cheap insurance. >> A lot of things aren't cheap at the board of ed. >> Maybe we ought to piggy back on their health insurance and pay 27,000 instead of whatever the hell we're playing. Thanks, Bob.
>> Anyone else? Come on. We're just starting to have fun. >> Eric Zimmerman. So, I understand that we have, from what was described, some of the best-in-class services in our town. I don't think anyone would argue that
that cost a lot of money. Maybe we got there by means that we couldn't afford. And it's nice that we have all these great things. It's nice that every vehicle can um expect I mean, sorry, every uh department can expect however many cars or vehicles or equipments that
they're used to getting year after year after year. But I'm sure that there's a lot of people in this room that are not getting what they used to expect to get year after year after year. We've all had to make some cuts and it sucks. We can only take so much out here and it's
just going to get more expensive. It is. So my question to you guys is how serious are you guys about reducing town hall expenditure? Maybe are is there some equipment that
might not be the best right now but will do the job until next year? Are there some personnel that we really don't need? Are there some positions that are redundant? Is everyone actually performing to their
task? I've said it before, we're a township. We're not a family. Personally, I don't want to pay for someone who has been here forever just because they have. We got to get competitive, but we can't take it out here anymore.
And I'm sitting here listening to all these people say, "We have the best this, the best this, best this, the best this." Well, maybe we've been spoiled all these years and we can't afford it anymore. And maybe we have to take some cutbacks and it's going to hurt. Maybe we could work our way up to the best of everything. But from what I'm hearing,
from what I'm looking at, the math doesn't add up. And we can't afford what we got. So, let's make this work. But don't tax us for it. Mr. Zimmerman, I'll let you address on the vehicle issue. Uh, every single vehicle request that
has been made, it was uh followed by saying we're replacing this vehicle because it's, you know, we we've had it since 2005 and we've been repairing it for years and years. So many of the vehicles being replaced are at the end of their life beyond what it could be
done. You can't even sell them at auctions. You know, they're in such bad shape. Uh I visited every single motor pool that we have and the mechanics do fix things and they work it and keep things repaired and keep it on the roads. Uh so I think you know when they keep these things and when they make the
request they earn a little bit of bragging rights that they do a good job you know for us you know uh and they do more with less. So it's you know uh I don't think they're just asking for vehicles because they want it. They don't.
I'll be honest with you. And you know, uh, your comment about, you know, well, let's do, you know, uh, we maybe we don't need to be the best. Well, everybody strives to be the best, you know, at their job. I'm trying to, you know, do my best, you know, and so is
everybody, you know, that's uh that's employee that's on this diet. And even the council people, they get paid. They're trying to do their best, you know. That's just that's just the way it is. If you want to cut back on that to save money, I don't think that, you know, I don't think anybody has it in them to do that.
>> Respectfully, I want the best household. I want to run the best companies, but my budget won't allow me to do everything I want to do this year. Maybe next year will be different. Maybe my hard work will pay off. But right now, I'd be a
fool to take to get all the best stuff for all of my companies. I'd be a fool because I can't afford it. It put me in a terrible place. And I think that's the same thing for this town. I don't think it's too different. I don't think that we can afford the best even if we're used to
it. And that's that's the hill I'm willing to die on. So, Mr. Zimmerman, I remember at the town hall meeting you made some very good points, but you also said one thing that I need to uh bring up. You said that if you have to do unsavory things
because I we inherited a mess, you know, that you should do that and I'm the wrong guy for that. I'm not going to do anything unsavory. That's not my style. No, I just won't do it. You know, I I you you risk you you risk do not doing
unsaavory things at the town hall level to do unsavory things for the taxpayers%. >> Okay. Um >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> This makes no sense. >> Okay.
>> Do we have any other member from the public that would like to speak? >> Okay. Seeing You can come up. Sure. No problem. Take your time. You don't have to be You don't have to be quick. You can be slow. You got five minutes. Take as much time. No problem. >> Yeah. I'm uh Danny Mallerie. Uh I just
basically want to second what he just said, everything. And Mr. Mayor, I know you want the best and you know, you want to please people, but like he said, sometimes you got to make hard decisions. And if times are tough for me, I got to make sacrifices, too. And
why is a town any different? You're a town of people. So that's uh that's all I ask is to like even like what Justin said, just look at everything again and again. There's got to be some like the one thing I stuck out for me, I don't know if it's still a thing, these splash
pads. >> If you have to raise our taxes as much as you do, I don't think we're ready for splash pads. >> No, actually we're not spending a single tax dollar. >> Oh, we're not. >> I'm going to use all grant money to do that. >> Okay, that that's just one thing that stuck out for basic. If that wasn't made
clear, I apologize. But >> I mean, you guys, it's for these uh in the audience. Please, just we just need to It's a distraction in the audience. Please. >> It'll cost the town to run it though. I mean, or the grants, they work forever. >> We have to explore, you know, I'm here to explore, you know, right now we're
looking into it. This is what it's going to cost. Okay. >> What is it going to build? We're, you know, and if it's not feasible, we're not going to do it. >> Well, I think if it costs anything over a dollar, it's right that we we can use. Just saying just this increase >> we got to cut things somewhere that's it.
>> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Also keep in mind the bad financial practices that have been done through three administration you know. >> Yeah. >> A lot of people have asked me it was one more year. You know there's definitely insanity to keep doing the same thing
year after year and expecting different results. >> Yes. But also the last administration said that about the administration before then. >> But I have this I know I know I understand that. I I don't I wasn't on board with 100% either. >> But we have to stop looking like for the
the problem and look for the solution. >> That's it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I will disagree with you there. >> This is the solution. >> Okay. I see someone coming up. Come on up. >> Um Bridget Cazetto, I just wanted to say
that open space funds should not be spent on splash pads. That we This is the suburbs. This is on inner city. We have different We have I'm not sure if the mayor is familiar with the water recreation we have in this town, but we have lakes. We have pool clubs. Um
there's no need for our open space fund to go to splash pads. >> Okay. Member from the public. Come on up. Nicole. >> Hi, I'm Nicole Francey. Um, I was a
public employee. I ran a department. I had a lot of different hats when I ran that department. I ran five different programs. Economic development planning, emergency planning, emergency services, hazard mitigation. >> I'm sorry. So
when you are a public employee, it's a sacred trust to have people's money. You're taking it from them and you have to be very discretionary about how you spend that. When you're looking at this kind of increase, you don't add a million dollars worth of new positions.
If we we have good departments, if they need to fill vacancies and keep those people like in police and water, I think we're all for that. I mean, I I am. And if we have infrastructure, trucks, things that need to be replaced that are
very, very old, a lot of them seem to be the same. Two dump trucks, a lot of trucks. Are these things we can do as a as an all-encompassing bid? Does the state have any bids? I mean, in New York, when I worked in New York or Pennsylvania, they would have bids done
by the state and then you could buy a truck through their bid. So, I think maybe trying to control the cost a little bit there. I would ask that when you have these presentations, you have to have this information that they're giving you available to us because you want us to come up here and comment on
it and I'm like doing it on like by the seat of my pants and I've I've prepared a lot of budgets for a lot of cities, villages and towns and I you know it's very difficult to do that if I don't have the information from the departments. I will ask too that if you
these departments are facing a lot of state mandates and I think people think that it's their decision and it's not their decision. You heard that a little bit in some of the water and sewer information the storm EPA stormwater regulations. You need to make it clear
what's our burden and what is the state putting on us so people understand that a lot corporations are leaving because of the state the regulations and the taxes. I'm not in a party. I'm not affiliated. I'm just a person. So, what I'm saying is those things are really
important for us to know. You know, as a taxpayer, I want to know that. And for you to say that $864 a year isn't a lot. Is tonedeaf and what people are dealing with now. So, $71 a month is about $864
a year. And my question with that is if we have 10,000 senior citizens, how many of the people here do have a tax freeze and then does that burden get shifted to the people that don't? So I don't know how that works, but I think maybe I, you
know, people might be murmuring about that. If I'm a young family and I have three or four neighbors that they all have tax freezes and they're not going to pay that increase, does that increase then go to other people? You're shaking your hand. I'm just asking. Um, so the the state uh the senior tax freeze is a
state program. So the state pays us for the difference in tax. >> That's what I wanted to know. >> And it pretty much everyone is approved for the program as long as they meet the income requirements. >> Okay. So >> um I I do want to say like when the departments come up, I think most of
what they were talking about was filling existing positions, but it's not necessarily clear. It should be clear what's existing and what's new because I think they're basically like the police department was saying like 10 positions. I'm assuming those are people that they have a lot of people leaving. They need to fill that. But if you're talking
about a million dollars of new positions, I'm assuming that's not positions that we had last year. That's unacceptable in this year. You could phase that in. A lot of these things could be phased. No splash pads. Grant funded or not. I've written millions of dollars worth of grants. you do a grant
program or infrastructure and then five years later that grant program disappears and you're maintaining that infrastructure or you're maintaining that program that everybody the last administration thought was such a good idea and it's not. Um
I was really confused about the 911 redundancy like so the police department has the room but then the fire department goes through the county. Does that cost us something with the county? No, >> it doesn't. It's okay. Good. I was going to say we could maybe combine that if it
wasn't. >> Um I was looking at the health and human services line item in the budget. I maybe I didn't understand that. It said something like this 365%. Is that an increase in the town budget? I wasn't sure on
that one section. I have it on my phone. But um the other thing was um you talk about not letting people accumulate. You have uh obviously people who have unions and that's in their contract that they can accumulate
vacation or sick time. But in our contract up to date, we had specific things. So you have a section of your law 57-1. A memo is not going to do it. You need to change the local legislation to say that people get four weeks of vacation or two weeks of vacation. If
you're going to carry over more than 20 days, you get have to have approval from your department head and that's only granted in certain conditions. This shouldn't be a piggy bank for people for retirement. If we can't do anything about the unions, that's fine, but a lot of those people are not union workers.
And some of those positions, they're not police officers or are workers who are out, you know, doing snow 24/7. That never should have been allowed to happen ever. And that's every administration. And again, unaffiliated. I don't care who did it, but we have to make sure it
doesn't happen again. >> Um, >> times up, man. >> They just they just came in and they just made that new recommendation for the staff here. But the 10 the 10 years of accumulated absences were 10 a million dollars for those 10 years.
>> I'm just saying. Okay. >> Don't just send a memo. Change that. No, we're we're doing that. So So just so you know, we put we put a I apologize for interrupting, but no, a memo was put out letting them know we're doing a full evaluation of the personnel policy and procedures manual, which has not been
updated since I think 2017, 2018. So that is being updated and that is being included to cut that bleeding. >> And I just have one other I couldn't find the development fees section. Are we doing that getting development fees from I couldn't find that in the budget. Could you just direct me to what page
that was? So that's not a budgetary item that goes directly into the the color trust. So it's not it's not a a budget item. So >> any other uh member? Okay. So at this time I'd like to
entertain a motion to close the public session. Motion >> second. >> Motion made by Mr. Kavanaaugh, seconded by Miss Patel. Roll call. >> Mr. Karifi. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kavanagh. >> Yes. >> Mr. McGrath. >> Yes. >> Miss Patel. >> Yes. >> And uh Mr. Hernandez.
>> Yes. >> Okay. Um at this time, could I please have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Motion made by Mr. uh Kavanaaugh. Second by Mr. Karifi. Roll call. Mr. Karifi. >> Yes. >> Uh Mr. Kavanagh. >> Yes. >> Mr. McGrath. >> Yes. >> M Patel.
>> Yes. Mr. Hernandez. >> Yes. >> Okay, we're adjourned. Have a good night, everybody. >> He was asking