e e e 501 yeah Mike's dropping off my laptop because it was almost out of juice oh um so give it so you don't want to we can there he is one
let me know when you're um I need like two minutes we'll give him a did you call him yeah soing right on the front here I'm already this plugs right up I'm good I feel like I'm in the airport
thank you I who knew Olivia You're gonna laugh my husband just dropped off my laptop CU I got here and I was like wait I want to make sure it's charging could get
stolen make sure it's charging hold on Dylan does this one on the floor have power yeah it's lit okay is he okay Pam is he okay I don't know ready okay you ready sioban I'm ready
all right good evening we're going to call this meeting to or order this is the Village Council special public budget meeting February 19th 2025 the time is
504 adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by a posting on the bulletin board in V Village Hall by mail to the Ridgewood news the record and by submission to all persons entitled to same as provided by law of a schedule including the date and time of this
meeting roll call council member Mor here Deputy Mayor parin here council member whites here council member winegrad here mayor vaganos is not here um he's running late please join me in a flag
salute I to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all do we have anyone here for public
comment limited to three PE uh three minutes okay uh come on up let's see do we have a microphone for the public commenters okay if you would come to the podium over here for public comment state your name whether you're a
Ridgewood resident yeah is that on oh thanks it's been a long time since I've been at the podium uh Gwen ha 176 Cottage Place I'm here to talk about uh the community um Center and to tell you that I think if you're
if you're voting on a budget how important it is to start at home so you think about the community center which is a division of uh Parks and Recreation uh the community center is the home home
base uh we this is such a fundamentally um legislative building um but downstairs is where we invite the public in a way that seems perfectly benign and
unfrightened and it it's good for people it's uh I think it warms our hearts it sets a tone a caring tone for the village we socialize we recreate we learn we seek counseling we meet and we
gain access to Municipal facilities the Ridgewood Community Center um hosts activities for obviously seniors which is my favorite part of it something that I always try to uh grow and and help
subsidize and we subsidize it through programming and through funding we are not government we are not federally F subsidized um like the library is we really depend on Municipal dollars
Municipal dollars please subsidize the farks and department so we can have a healthier Community Center and I guess I could go on to say that um you know all the activities that go on downstairs we we host uh staff meetings downstairs I
was kind of surprised the budget hearing was isn't going to be in the basement cuz we do it down there a lot and uh it's where kids run in to get away from the lightning it's where you have Union meetings PBA meets down there um
election results uh families um take karate classes and you know pet snakes and the League of Women Voters have advocacy classes for democracy um we have uh drum classes for for blind people
um we have you know poststroke classes we have and most importantly to me are the Teenage U also Group which is recently it's 10 years old now but um we have 25 uh Juniors who work with seniors
and they uh learn about leadership through volunteering and it's a kind of Hybrid Club that mixes Ridgewood High School kids with the seniors who visit the community center so there's so many reasons we have the best staff uh in the
recreation department and please please please vote Yes for the community center thank you thank you Gwen um hi my name is Liz clo I live at 383 Vesta cour and I serve as the vice president of the community center
Advisory Board just to Echo um my friend Gwen um as many of you know the Ridgewood Community Center acts as a social and cultural resource for our village especially our seniors and middle school age children um like all valuable resources tipping points happen
and adjustments need to be made the current Staffing model at the community center needs to be reassessed to allow for evening and weekend programming and larger CommunityWide events its current form does not provide for any expansion or changing demands specifically Al the
timing of these events to judge our constituencies when they want to use that building is not necessarily between 9 and 5 I conducted a very informal non-scientific poll um and I learned that many of our
comparable neighboring towns have two or more full-time staffers and most have between six and eight part-time or perdum staffers man in their centers these keep programs running smoothly but
they also allow the regular staffers to work on existing programs expanding programs and reaching a Wilder ba a bigger base I think part of the problem is the person working there is running the events all
the time um so the advisor board is committed to providing additional resources to expand programs to make enhancement and to support healthy and social interactions sometimes with meals sometimes with other things but we can't
be expected to fund raise for salaries for Village employees I would like to ask the council to look into increasing the general line support currently going to the community center but also to as you walk work through your budget to
look at the Staffing and the expectations of that Staffing level I would also like to invite you all right now for our first lunch and learn for seniors on April 22nd um it's sponsored by The Advisory Board and it's paid for
by funds that we raised the community center advisory council with our towel and bottle sale last year it's our hope that these monthly social and informal get togethers for our seniors will always be free and we're going to look
for local entities to sponsor them moving forward so again April 22nd we invite you to come um and thank you very much thank you Liz and let the record reflect that mayor vagianos is now here welcome mayor thank you for me
everyone all good uh good evening gaale McCarthy 363 Spring Avenue uh thank you so much for uh inviting me Nan to come and speak on behalf of the casha memorial B sh um I did send an email uh
early in February so I'm just going to read that so uh everybody can hear it um thank you for meeting with me Nancy to review this summer concert series budget and to discuss some operational and cost issues the committee would like to bring to your attention and the attention of
the Village Council for 66 years the cashon memorial shell has presented music under the stars for the community of Ridgewood it has been my pleasure to serve on this committee for the last seven years and as the chairperson since 2021 the committee fundraises the monies
needed to produce a well-rounded summer concert series with musical groups of all sizes and genres people gather from across Bergen County to come enjoy our free concerts and as we approach our 67th year we are finding it difficult to
raise the funds needed to operate the uh these Productions we have very loyal sponsors that that come back year after year but as you know these local businesses are contributing to all of the organizations and events here in town when I started on the committee the
bands we had performing were smaller less expensive mostly targeted towards an older audience uh when I was brought on to the committee by our dear friend uh dear late friend Joe Delaney she said to me I want you to bring the young
people to the Shell kind of re Rive it so and and we joke often when na when when Joe Delaney asked you to do something you did it so the shell committee has grown the concerts and the crowds and we're enjoying a wonderful
reputation as a premier outdoor concert venue in Bergen County bands are clamoring to perform uh several of uh you have sent me band recommendations and a couple of them are coming this summer I'm very excited um two years ago
our operational costs became um difficult to meet with just the fundraising that we do to pay the bans uh the operational costs uh we lost one Village employee staff we used to have
two that worked at the Shell One ran the sound and one was there pardon me to just operate the open you know making sure the Band Shell was open and clean and all that um so we inherited um paying for the sound um which was fine
at first but now it has gotten quite expensive um so we have one signal Department employee at every concert who we pay out of our fundraising approximately $6,000 per summer they uh do not run the sound uh we hired a sound
company at the rate it's about 7 to 8,000 a year back in um I think we inherited that cost three years ago um the village of Ridgewood has kindly given us n allotted $99,000 per year um I am asking for an additional
6,000 to cover our operational costs so that's a total of 15,000 to ensure the venue not only looks great sounds great um but reflects the high standards of our village when it comes to Artistic and cultural enrichment if any of you have any questions or would like to meet
or come to a meeting um Evan thank you for becoming our liaison we've been trying to connect we haven't been able to do that yet but uh come to our meetings come to the shows enjoy it and thanks for everything thank you so much Gail thank you
Gail uh anyone else in the room oh yeah there you are okay my name is Rich Brooks I'm a Ridgewood resident um thanks for having me and I'm excited about the next year for parks
and wck I've been the chair for about 10 years of the parks recreation board conservation board um and I've been a member for I think about 20 but I'm not really sure a long time um at any rate I
just wanted to give you some thoughts about parks and wreck um as I see it I I read some a research report um the other day that that said that Millennial parents when they interviewed them they
said that 90% of them said that a solid recreational infrastructure was important when they chose the place that they were going to live um this is the largest cohort in the population Gen X is the next biggest and
those so if Gen Y the Millennials is those people between 255 and 45 and then Gen X are the 45 to 60 year olds and then the Boomers of course are old people like me and Paul
um but that's a large group of people but that's our target audience that's who we're talking to that's who Nancy talks to every single day that's who Katie talks to that's what Matt works for so um it's a big group of people
people 137 million of these people around the country I think those stats would stand up in ridu so it's an important group and they do a lot there used to be an outside we we've been saying for the last couple of years that
Co changed everything Co changed some things Co made people notice that they were outside but this has been an active group of people their entire lives the group up with Title 9 they're used to
having organized Sports they're used to exercising they're used to working out and everything around them says do that so this is the group of people that we have to function strongest for and we
do so I'm asking three things number one we have to maintain and improve our existing assets all of our parks and all of our public public spaces need to be kept not only up to
dat but in as close to pristine condition as we can the wear and tear as you can imagine and you know walk through vaness Park you can see the wear and
tear it it demands that we do enough to keep up there's overuse we need to account account for that um so what it requires different demands on labor as well as the
Machinery that we use finally we need to plan carefully for the future I would like a commitment that Nancy Bigos and her staff will be fully
included in whatever development plans for the Town garage property regardless of how far in the future future those plans will take place and I'd also like to say fix the diversion it's been hanging over our
heads for 15 years let's get it done let's put it behind us let's make it great again thank you thanks Rich on good evening Cynthia halby Ridgewood resident um I seem to dovetail very well
with what Rich was saying and I'm going to repeat some of the things he said um over the past 12 years I've had the great privilege of working closely with the parks department through the Conservancy the women gardeners and now with project Pride there's no doubt they
are an extremely hardworking group a great team um and they keep our parks and Gardens in great shape but the sad thing is I really do need to address the essential issue of maintenance we all know from our own properties
maintenance is critical and ongoing it's time consuming it's often expensive but it's essential for upkeep before things get totally out of hand and there's one area as Rich mentioned that I would like to address in particular and that is our
Memorial Park at vaner Square clearly over the past few years the needs of our community has changed and many more people are Outdoors enjoying the fresh air as a this park is in much need of an overhaul or at least a major maintenance
job the park was restored in uh 25 years ago and now desperately needs work as an example the bricks on the pathway are very uneven um the soil has washed away from underneath the benches leaving the
footings showing by about a foot um and the the all the plants around the area need to be either severely pruned or added to so we're all making a tremendous effort to make our CBD more attractive and vibrant and I feel that
with increased Staffing and funding the parks department could address this and other important maintenance issues so thank you for your time and your consideration thank you Cynthia anybody else Dylan do we have anybody on hybrid
access one person bring him on Christina milon Christina million Ridgewood resident um about the budget I wanted to ask about potentially considering investing in school resource officers
SRO for our elementary schools our six elementary schools currently do not have them and obviously they're one of the most vulnerable populations um it was my understanding obviously would like to be corrected that the salary rest with the Boe and the village picks up the additional needs of SRO which roughly
cost about $40,000 per SRO per year so I was wondering if you would consider that even if it means investing in one this year and hopefully uh we can build on that in the future and I'd also like to ask if the village would consider funding posos filters at all of our
school water fountains um parents advocated for this uh with the Boe and um last year we we managed to get one water fountain per School um equipped with one posos filter but that's obviously not enough and
truthfully in practice doesn't really work out especially for elementary school kids because you know teachers shouldn't have the burden of walking kids to the right Fountain to fill up all of their water bottles and injesting you know high pasos levels of water obviously we get these quarterly notices telling us that the most vulnerable tend
to be elderly and the kids and so I was just hoping you could consider this for uh background we did ask the Boe to fund all the pasos filters for each water fountain at the school but we're told it was too expensive and actually they directed us to ask our HSA about it or
potentially dad's night for us on the east side which just really struck me as almost inappropriate very odd um we shouldn't be putting HSA funds that are meant for fund school events for our children to clean water and since Ridgewood water is under your scope I just wanted to ask if you'd be open to
funding posos filters at all the water fountains thank you thank you Christina any anybody else and with that we will close public comment um first um I want to apologize for arriving late had a family emergency
everything everybody's fine so we're good um but I I want to take a moment uh first to note that this is the best turnout I have ever seen for a budget meeting which as we say every
year it all starts with the budget and I'm always always a little taking back that we are almost always speaking to an empty room and it doesn't surprise me that the people who came to speak were Gwen Liz
Gail rich and Cynthia you've all heard me say many times many hands make light work and you guys are there year after year after year doing great things um and we as a
community appreciate that every day um I want to take a moment to thank Gail because those those concerts that you put on are just a community gem that we love every year thank you so much and we
will be looking at all of these things because you're not asking for tremendous amounts of money I know Keith is cringing as I'm saying this um but you know we're going to do what we can to make sure you guys have the resources you need to serve our community um
Christina um both of those issues that you raised I know are being looked at by the Board of Education they are board of education issues that we have discussed with them but that is completely within their purview and we certainly want to
we we work very closely with them um but this is all their call so anybody else have any comments yeah I would like to I want to thank everybody that came up um to speak on behalf of parks wreck and I think it's interesting that out of all the Committees and disciplines that are
in Ridgewood parks and wreck touches the most residents and it's to me not a surprise that there's so much support here and just validates all the great work that Parks and Rec does and uh will be doing for many years to come so thanks to everyone sure I I want to say of course
a global thank you and I'm kind of mad I gave gave up parks and recks to Frank cuz it's awesome working with all of you I did um just want to make a plug that with the community center and additional space this Council this year is we have a CO for the shedler house it is an
option it is on the first floor ADA Compliant it's a unique space um I personally am looking to bring more of the public into that asset um we do have some hurdles right now with parking and the park is underdeveloped but I would very much like to get the community
center you know I don't know who's been there but if you could reach out to me we could get a tour you could look at it through your lens um there is a kitchen there um at one point might be nice place for a tea we could include a historical element so um that is an underutilized asset for us
and I know that this building and our parks are in constant circulation and that is additive so if anybody wants to go see it in that capacity I would love to take you and think about that and I know I know Frank would welcome that as well because we're really looking for unique uses that brings the public into
that incredibly expensive house um so think about that and I think that's it I did just want to say that this just you know people always talk about what draws people to Bridgewood whether it's the downtown or the schools or the library and for me parks has always been in you
know on that number one two list so Nancy this is a huge compliment to you and your staff and I just want to thank everybody for being here anybody else no good thank you all so much stay for
as long as you can stand it and with that Keith let's kick it off thank you mayor um tonight we're going to hear from our Parks and Recreation Department uh we'll also cover Gren pool the community center project Pride uh
following that we're going to hear from Chief lions with the police department budget uh from director Rooney uh from the parking utility and then we'll have a few other um areas to discuss with regard to trusts and accumulated leave and our staffing levels in compared to
last year so with that uh I would like to call up our director of Parks and Recreation Nancy beos along with Katie fry our Recreation supervisor and Matt andreula our Park supervisor The A Team or I should say actually the B
[Laughter] team so Nan if it's okay with you I'd like to start with the park budget assuming that your chair is operational yeah they've been outside too long they need to work chairs F
okay n if you could just pull the microphone down make sure that the green lights on good evening thank you all right and I think we'll start with the parks department budget uh we'll do salaries and wages and operations and then we'll
move to Recreation welcome Nancy Katie Matt and Deanna okay so I had a different approach for tonight planned sorry can I start with my Approach and we'll come back to Parks okay if that's all right
with you um sorry s we should have talked about this before I wrote my notes up but anyway I wanted to start tonight with gratitude um gratitude for the understanding and
collaboration and support of my Village Council gratitude for the leadership and expertise of my Village manager and CFO gratitude to my fellow directors division supervisors and all of the
employees that dedicate their time and energy to our Parks and Recreation Department and my Village gratitude to the many groups that this department partners with the crpl health Barn the women gardeners all of the youth sports
groups project Pride the cash out shell the Civics groups that work out to enhance the success of our programs the PRC board the open space committee the fields committee the community service Advisory Board sha tree commission this
all is under Parks and Recreation gratitude to my staff each one is dedicated and believes in our mission of providing quality programs services and properly maintained Parks
fields and Recreation amenities for our residents we are on our way to making a difference in this community we have spent spent a lot of time and energy in improving our infrastructure and our Park system and I'm very proud of where
we are today I want to share with you briefly if I could Village manager some of the some of our accomplishments just this last year quickly but I think it sets a tone for where I am in asking for
my request and my capital budget so this year I'm proud to share with with you a brief overview of our projects those of you know musco lighting and the LED system um not only for all of our sports groups that
utilize this facility four seasons of the year but also for the varsity men's baseball and our women's softball Citizens Park um thank you Matthew and your team for renovating remediating that old field removing
brush shrubs overgrowth leveling the ground bringing in new clay benches and grass area all of this done inhouse it's such a great Improvement South Pleasant park or hor right depending on who it is and who you
are um complete renovation this fall so the entire playing area the benches sod new trees it looks amazing I hope you've been there and seen it The Pavilion um structure at Hackle has
been delivered the footings are poured we're waiting 2 weeks for this to cure and then within the next couple of weeks we'll be installing that new structure trees again this year trees trees trees right another 200 trees planted um
within our Municipal right of way a 100 saplings planted mulch Monday happened we're on our way the recreation division has successfully launched the MLS as we call it or Master library system
introduced youth sports groups we've trained Village employees and now working with the general public to better utilize this facility registration use system our community center has also expanded its offerings
to our mature residents our teens with new and added special events and bus Transportation so that gives you an overview of where we've been where our energies have spent um just right when we did our
budget calls um we were challenged to look at our old capital budgets and come up with creative ways to consolidate those and utilize those funds you'll see next month I've written two memos within the last week to you for you to consider
the repair and resurfacing of the Glenn Tennis uh pickle courts um those courts are in dire need of um repairs to the cracks that expand because of the elements and the tree growth and The Roots and the freezing and thighing so
that will be coming to you within the next couple of weeks and also a total repair and resurface of our largest Court facility Somerville which is used by our residents daily and also the Ridgewood High School junior Varity and
freshman tennis teams both in the spring and the fall I also want to share a uh Park inventory that was started several years ago by members volunteers of our PRC
board then interns and then our staff but I am so happy that we have researched and designed a Municipal Park inventory that identifies all of our Municipal Park property the recreation ameni is included in each and is now
located on our Village website I think we're definitely on our way okay um sir do you want to go to Parks or do you want me to do Capital your uh capitals last capitals last okay so Parks
division um how are we doing this line by line overs and unders questions from you I was going to suggest why don't you call without any major changes versus last year especially those where there are increases and then let's talk about
those okay so the very first one that I guess we'll have to bring our attention to would be the temporary and seasonal an increase in park maintenance seasonal staff and the salaries there so that would be
013 or is that that's uh the same I kept it the same but we didn't spend it all last year and I just wanted to share with you seasonal staff are hard to find um this is um not something that we're new
with we we did hire several young adults um I am looking to change my philosophy on that with being able to look towards more mature adults maybe some retired individuals to be able to provide these
services for us Nancy I I I looks like you were appropriated 30,000 and that's what you're asking for this year I know you spent less so I'm fine with that but I think the the big story is 01 um your your full-time wages are going up by like a quarter of a million
dollars is that just steps or is there extra people bringing on cuz that looking at this the page as a whole that's what's fun fueling the bulk of your increase which is not ins significant so I think Evan that that's what we're looking at is to be able to
increase our staff so can we talk about that like who are we adding so we're looking to add two Park maintenance um workers in that entry level position mhm and how much are those bolks costing us um
$53,000 a piece each okay right and then added um their salaries and benefits so of the approximately 250,000 increase about 100 is for new staff and then the remaining 150 is that just step increases for existing staff
correct and promotions okay um and what what is the thinking to do with those two new folks catch up that's it you know I said to be able to catch up you know um I think that um you've you've heard from
the public we are you our um our services and our programs our special events are expanding in all areas um all of our Parks Evan you know whether it's Memorial Park at Van square there's not
a weekend that there's not something happening in that Park and when we have events you need to be able to pick up trash you need to be able to empty the garbage you need to be able to Edge those facilities and and blow off sidewalks and and be able to maintain
them um you know it it's wonderful to have added um facilities and special events but also understand with that comes the need to be able to maintain our facilities know it's a fair point um
I mean I I looked over the I mean you know you have some increases some decreases I mean but they not a lot of money below that to me the big headline from this is just again a quarter of a million dollars is for us we got to find the quarter million dollars elsewhere to cut you know in order to fund this
understood so that's that's going to be our challenge going forward and I completely support getting more maintenance staff I know your guys your team works hard but just want to temper um expectations given that you know we're we're not in a position to raise taxes much over what we did last year I know that we're going to have some other
surprises tonight with folks asking for money for things that are beyond our control and at the end of the day no matter how um no matter how uh deserving an expense is there has to be an offset somewhere and so it's going to be Balancing Act but I appreciate the explanation I I mean I just want to say
that this is the problem right we continue to hear from the public that they want more Recreation more programming more events those events you know the big fear when you have let's say a casha if it's not cleaned up properly you're going to have a health issue pretty quickly we need
maintenance workers we need support staff we have a very strong volunteer base that sort of follows Parks but it's a lot of work and everything that we do that's additive since Co you know it's not just the parks for me it's always the setup in the maintenance after and
you always worry you know out here you have to make sure no one's in the bathroom before you lock there's serious things that go on with the parks and M maintaining them before the event and after the event and every single unless we want to cut programming we need to align the staff because
that's that's how it works same thing with trees you know we've had a clamoring for trees the trees require more watering more staff eventually as the trees become more mature they're going to require more maintenance and ultimately you know we we're going to
restore the canopy but it just the more that we put in the proactive foot the more we need to make sure that we're staffed so I mean Nancy I just want to make sure you're asking in terms of Staffing for one additional tree maintenance worker and four additional maintenance workers two full-time
workers two two full-time yes is there any potential to take any of that in that's not what that's not what's listed here it says four here yeah the the if you go to the detail on Parks 25 the tree maintenance worker three and offers already been made to that employee that's a that's a vacant position
that has been vacant we've had a very difficult time recruiting people uh to apply for the tree maintenance worker positions so we were grateful that we had a former employee who is interested in returning to work here in that capacity and that offer letter is
already so L presented to that correct and and just to jump in on this so does that mean that and because the the 150,000 for um steps and promotions seemed High to me I mean I don't I don't really know so you know according to
this it would seem that of the 250,000 or so increase in that line item it's actually about 220,000 that is for uh increased Staffing so just if I if I if I could if I could finish the detail oh I'm so
sorry thank you so so can I just ask a question that position's good at 72,000 it's already in it's already increased okay We Ready y okay um so if you go to the detail line 24 which is the bottom
salary request starting salary for a maintenance worker position in the parks department is $55,500 worker ones that's the increase in line 03 uh 011 in the in the detail for the parks division does that
include um the one worker that we lost this year yes so so one of those Replacements Deputy Mayor is accounting for that so I'm I'm prepared to fill that position because it was in last year's budget it'll be retained in this year's budget the decision that needs to
be made is whether or not the three new positions which In fairness to the parks department existed years ago before we had to make some additional Cuts back then um but this is to restore those three positions have oh I'm sorry and
and just so I understand in this approximately $250,000 increase um that means does that mean that 165 is for the three new positions yes and the other 80 is for two replacements
and one there's a $ 72,2 45 tree maintenance worker which is a replacement that's the offer that's already been made to the employee got it and then there's a position that has not yet been filled that is vacant on the table of organization for the parks
department for that that's $ 55,78366 seven eight eight people who are on steps existing employees got it but the the vast majority of this is for the five people the majority the Inc the increase there would be there is a
request for three new positions that are that have not been filled in a number of years and there are two employees who were trying to replace one is a tree maintenance worker the other is a laborer so it's and again I'm just trying to get my
ducks in a row here it's really three new positions that make up the do you have the detail up for that for the staffing for the parks department it's it's effectively 100 if you look at the four I'm sorry Council if you look at the four bottom uh requests right uh the
55 73s yep there's four of those yep one of which is the employee we just recently lost and then up above the 72245 that's for replacement of a tree maintenance worker which we've had a difficult time recruiting some want to take that position so to make Nancy
whole as of last year it's minus 125 effectively right because you have 72 and 55 and then there's the replacements of two 55s and then the added ask of 155 so we're really not looking at in the twos she's effectively asking for two
55s and then going a little bit further and asking for one more 55 because the 7 the offer already been extended and I'm glad we're addressing this now because when we get to staff counts at the end of the meeting tonight there's going to be a comparison of last year's Staffing to this year's Staffing which is going
to detail what you see here but we're currently it looks like about 13 people this year and we're adding five two two are part of the plan the tree guy has been missing and offer has been extended that's like a done deal was that budgeted last year for the three it'd be a body count of three
additional from what we had at right back filling two plus adding three new bodies Department of 13 existing full-time employees right on the head got it okay um did we budget last year for those two positions that were back filling no we pulled them out uh for the for the for the ones that are being
replaced yes yes so they were in there so we're paying for those two already so that's fine yes okay so it's it's the $355,000 positions that that are that are new requests although as I said before In fairness to the parks department these positions existed a few
years ago they were cut out of Prior your budgets is there a way to think about part-time employees or another cuz listen I I agree with shoban I'd love to hire these three people makes all the sense in the world it's just at the end of the day we got to pay for it so is there a way to do this cheaper can we do
can we make do with part-time folks is there other ways around it because it's not just then their salaries also benefits that we got to pay for those folks too right I think that's an operational question yeah I mean we certainly can explore that microphone we certainly can explore that okay so I don't want to I don't want to keep
beating the dead Bush because I know at the end of the day we got to look at Revenue to see where our bottom line is I'm certainly supportive of hiring folks but again my view is that there's only so much money to go around and there may be some tough decisions that have to be made at the end of this and I just think it's important to
note of the wide scope of services that mat team provides throughout the village you know it's like a lot of times you think oh it's just the parks but it extends beyond that I mean like even like some snow removal in some certain places um and things like that so it's
just it really impacts our down and so I think that that's important and I think for the public watching there's $125,000 that's backfill that's owed for the operation to be current you know because got that was in last year's budget and then there's an additive ask
of the 55 times three I just want to make sure because when the public watches that and hears a quarter of a million they sometimes Panic well and and and I think we fleshed out that of that $245,000 increase in that line item 80 is not really optional because that's
steps and promotions so it's and when I say optional in other words what's potential um Nan how long ago did you have these three extra positions I I know uh Keith said that we had these
positions they were cut and I'm just curious how far back that goes if you can give me a guesstimate so I want to say that it probably went back to when the Parks and
Recreation division under Dr grabbert um went back that far under yeah did you say Ken Gabbert yeah that's back so that was when we had the full contingent right so we've been trying to bring ourselves back until that and was that
2018 I'm not sure how long ago 2010 thank you that was that was a long time ago so you know we've been trying to had back after we had lost uh a major part of our staff at that time um and we keep asking we keep bringing it Forward keep
bringing it forward you know last year we had the opportunity that we had hired um an employee and he was with us 3 months provisional and it wasn't acceptable so we we terminated him so that position is still there you know um
good staff are hard to find you know that's the truth yes and one of the issues that Nan and I have discussed in these budget meetings meting up to tonight is the fact that you know we have made significant investments in our parks and our fields and our youth
sports organizations have also made considerable Investments especially in our in our baseball and softball diamonds throughout the village and I would expect that to continue based on conversations with Scott Mueller but you know they do that initial they make that initial investment then we have an
obligation to make make sure that it's being maintained to protect the investment that these youth organizations have made through their nonprofits so you know we're we're trying to come up with a plan and whether that's what's presented before you tonight and and once we have um
final numbers going into our March 12th budget introduction um or a combination of of full-time and and part-time uh to be able to supplement that you know we're we're we're looking at all those options it's I just want to because we'll we'll pay for it if we it's not just Youth Sports either it's the
conservancy and all the other donors who support us women gardeners I mean Parks is the recipient of a lot of third party money and I think the goal that we're still talking about is sponsorship because ultimately it's going to need that you know somebody could sponsor a park and it could be branded that way
because we're going to need it needs more money it be because it's getting more use and there's no doubt but I I also think Parks is the most heavily subsidized by Third parties with donations that way we get a lot of outside money which we're very grateful for and I agree with that the only
caveat I will say is that having sat in a meeting with uh representatives from the the youth baseball and softball Association you know Matt's crew has an obligation to maintain those fields three or four times a week right there's a lot more pressure on the sports Fields
um than there than there are in other areas not to take away from those areas because that areir they need maintenance as well but if we're not on top of these fields to have them proper playable condition for our youth athletes then we're not doing we're not holding up our end of the bargain and I want to also
share with you you know the Conservancy for Ridgewood public lands project pride and the women Gardeners of Ridgewood probably donate more than aund 200 man hours each year um out of the goodness
of our hearts of their hearts you know so whether they're you know Winter Rising the Children's Butterfly Garden behind the stable you know th those are man-hours those are teams those are you know them reaching out to us and saying can I have six or nine green trash
barrels on a Tuesday Morning in the day after Thanksgiving and could you have staff come back the next day and pick them up and take them away we're going to do all the work you know this is what I tried to share with you in my introduction today that's the gratitude
that I have you know and I am grateful for my friends in in in this part of the room right now because it is the volunteers that make a difference for us in the Parks and Recreation Department so the other point I'd like
to make is uh down in 098 um we have Incorporated in the budget proposal the request from Cashel um so Gail that that those dollars are in what's being presented to the council tonight so I just wanted to make that clear as well can I just ask
about that I was I was going to maybe ask you offline because it looks like we appropriated 29,000 last year and we're appropriating 35,000 this year where's the 15,000 extra so Nan if you could talk through the because the this budget for cash is somewhat complicated it was
actually in two different sections of the budget one on the park side one on the recreation side so Nan if you could talk Council so generally in the past um the $18,000 that we see there for performers are we on the same page right
yeah 098 right in right right so that that is what gal and her committee traditionally in years past has fundraised for us right the rest of the operating expense the printing the emergency repairs the salaries for
Signal the scholarship the printing of brochures all of that operating expense is is what's coming out of our Municipal budget gotcha okay right and then the sound system is what we're looking for is that we are looking to be able to
last year we instituted a group that is H is maintaining the sound for us it's really right into it and they bring their own equipment they set it up um and it truly makes a difference so that's that's that's the what we're
asking for this year gotcha okay okay are we good with Parks we are okay Recreation next sir please Katie are you ready I think the
red flag within the recreation division for us would again be salaries MH um this is one item that Katie has spent a great deal of her time on um as she definitely um oversees the operation of
the summer day camp um which is quite successful and also our grade and pool facil so I'm going to let Katie talk to you a little bit about um temporary and seasonal right now okay so temporary and seasonal uh you will see an increase and
we did go slightly over last year um some things that happen with our numbers is if we have a year that doesn't have rain um Camp is every day this year we
were blessed with no rain no half days uh we did not cancel so very very lucky um but that does hurt the account sometimes with who's working um what is great about our
numbers and one of the reasons that it has gone up is um the minimum wage did increase again so we do take that into consideration and our retention rate so out of 85 counselors we lose six mhm so
we have I was if I have that off the top of my head right it was somewhere around like a 91% retention rate with our counselors and that means that we're also paying out a little bit more because these are now 20 year olds 19y olds people that are responsible and
have been with us since they're 16 so they're a little bit higher on the scale it's great that we have that retention rate but those ones that we do lose is where we would then be able to save some money and it looked like on the seasonal you're going up about 25,000 or so and that's what that's
accounting for is the just paying some more Senior People a little more money and the minimum wage going up yes so what we do is we look I'm sorry to interrupt is your overall headcount though changing or is it just paying your existing folks more I'm sorry I didn't hear that question oh I was saying if the overall head count for the
seasonal workers was going up or is it just they're paying them more just paying them more we do follow a 10:1 ratio for the camps so with our 500 to 550 kids we look at having about 25 groups and to maintain that ratio we
have 10 uh three counselors to each group okay so we have we carry 75 counselors we do have some that are there as substitutes if needed because there are kids that do go away but for the most part it's 75 counselors a day 5 and a half hours a day 29 days out of
the summer um and then our three administrative uh counselors who put in 200 hours cuz it's that additional um 29 days Plus 8 hours of training and then they do interviews so we took all of those hours and the average salary rate
and this is what we came up with and if you deduct the minimum wage increase and go with last year's average with this formula it gives you what we actually spent out got so this is a little bit closer this year and so what was with the fulltime cuz I saw that was up about
67,000 or so for your fulltime folks so for the fulltime what ended up happening was last year we made the switch um when the signal Department brought in the uh cleaning uh crew we did have um Vic
maruso from signal who would be cleaning the stable at night and he would do double duty and be our nighttime supervisor so without having him there the full-time staff was now tasked with supervising the building outside of operating hours so that is for when you
look at the night and weekend use what we did was we looked at um payroll from last year and everybody's hours and all of the meetings that is for when Ridgewood lacrosse is there baseball meetings anybody at night the amount of
hours that they did times the average rate of our full-time staff that's the number that we got that 4250 but that's for overtime and that's yes and then we also looked at we just broke it down a little bit more so that we knew what we were actually spending
looking at the special events for Earth Day Street Fair and downtown for the holidays we took what we paid out and the three events and that was the number that we got and then for the village committee meetings um while Nancy does serve on those boards and goes to them
it's not a matter of supervising that is for when there is staff that goes and takes minutes so it's their overtime as well so we just added in everybody's time that they put in on payroll with our averages just to make it a little
bit more real based off last year's numbers so we knew where we were going this year okay yeah and I do see you actually spent you know about 15 16,000 more than you were budgeted last year so that makes sense okay so Katie I just have a question for you and then over
here so obviously missing on the budget is the fact that last year we increased the pricing so for the day camp so where would we see the revenue offset of that and because the last year we increased the price so the the uh Day Camp goes
into Rec trust okay and what we do is the registration goes into an account and we take that and transfer into the rec trust so that we can pay out for the buses the field trips and everything out of there t-shirts for the kids and the
operational part of it so we pay the counselors out of this account and then operationally materials and supplies comes out of our 030 on this how how much came in for the summer badge sale last year maybe tomorrow and then the second
question is with the space and the utilization for the meetings is there any thought process with the overtime of moving some of the nighttime meetings to here because this building's open all the time not like obviously not Parks they should meet in the building and I don't
want to like anybody out but this building has more open rooms and if we're opening it for people and paying staff maybe we could have like one building of the night so to speak like it could be here and then I I mean I've been in the stable when there's three meetings going on I've been in the
stable when there's one meeting going on but if we're using you know particularly for lacrosse or for baseball if this building's open we would gain the efficiency of it being open and then not have to pay the overtime staff does that make sense absolutely and it's something for us to consider yeah and I'm sure as
Master Library expands maybe we should just think about that having a building of the night and by the way the shedler house is available for nighttime meetings when we open the shedler house I'm going to keeping I just want to introduce miss winterr the real estate agent for the shedler
property it's just an idea man yeah that's a good point Evan any other items within the recreation division no like I said it looks like virtually all your increase was um was the full-time and part-time budget so yeah what are the rentals um
on the overtime for 3,000 so the rentals is anytime that somebody uh private entity rents it for a birthday party the weddings um our art gallery receptions it would come out of there as well now we do also put the money into that so it
is supposed to be covering it so it is um a overflow if we don't have it that makes a sense I don't know I explain I I have a question I think it's in community center um the and and I know
we're getting I just want to make sure I'm not missing it is our senior programs and there are they budgeted for in community center or yes Recreation okay good yes want to move to Gren pool this one I like yeah I know why you
like it nothing makes me happier than negative bottom line but but I do have a question with that Nancy like I I mean that I know that You' done a great job of making sure that we're fully staffed with lifeguards um while nobody else in New
Jersey seems to be able to do but how did you drive down the um for line 13 the uh your proposed budget for salaries there temporary and seasonal Katie can explain that lot of work um so what what happened with that
was and and the reason we did go over last year was We were still budgeting with the 12 guards that we had been getting last year we were blessed to finally get enough to staff uh 18 guards each day which means that every single
zone is operational and that we have enough people there to safely do Dives backboard and entertain larger crowds I know that in recent years when we've only had 12 and then somebody calls out and now we have eight guards we've had
to close zones and then people are mad the diving board's not open or the shallow section's not they can't do laps this allows us to fully operate so what we did was um taking two guard we got a larger number by doing budgeting for 18
this year I was able to whittle that down to if we have 16 guards which gives us all eight stands open but then we cut down the days so we've been doing it looking at a 94 day operational season this we based it off of I went into the
calendar and looked at when we would actually have all eight stands open which is the entire month of July the first week of August and the last week of June when we have the camps and the swim teams there otherwise we only need uh six of the stands open and in the
month of June on weekdays we only maybe need two to four during school hours when it's just our older population and preschool kids that are at the pool so by doing that we were able to figure out with the number of guards per day how many hours they would be working how
many days were affected by that and their average salary rate and that's where we were able to get something a little bit more realistic than doing the largest number possible and again this is one that would be affected by this is if everybody shows up to work every day
and we have Sunny 75 all 94 days I I guess my question though so last year you spent 391 this year you're going to spend about 382 I I I mean for what you described sounds great but how are we saving money over what we actually
spent so I'm sorry what did we spend so you actually spent 391,000 right uh the last line and that was you know based upon the number of days that we need I get some trying to understand given that like what you're what you're saying seems to be increasing coverage which is
great and I want to be very clear I joke about the bottom line at the end of the day if it compromises safety I don't care about the bottom line right but I'm wondering to Frank's question if we actually spend 391,000 on temporary and seasonal how we're going to have more coverage but spend less well one of the
other things that with that bottom line is the badge and security staff and that is actually reduced because we have have been tweaking those numbers we had a great management staff this year that did a phenomenal job leading their team
and being able to place them and work the security better we've also switched it where we now have instead of maybe three dedicated posts a walking security guard who should be homing the beach and looking everything so we're able to reduce those numbers a little bit so
last that line item in it of itself is being reduced by 20,000 wow that's great um and just to be clear the question I always ask of anything Public Safety do you have any concerns with this budget compromising safety in any way or do you feel this is enough money to provide our
residents the safety they need for GR no I think this this is would cover the safety we would not compromise safety at all I'd be fighting you guys if you told me I only had enough our priority I will I will beat you up on on maintenance staff occasionally but not on sa no the
safety is is a non-negotiable for us and I feel comfortable with being able to have eight guards on there with the administra administrative staff and the fact that we were able to count out all of the chairs it's just a matter of this
would if we couldn't operate it would just be a matter of closing zones down okay Katie um in terms of the maintenance staff at Gren you've brought down the cost of that by like $122,000 how did you Ma how would you be managing
that that was actually by h Hing more people we were able to split the day a little bit better so in past years we had only two maintenance staff and they would be working the full day and we had
about six young gentlemen this year and we were able to break up their day that we could have them come in for a couple hours in the morning get the bathrooms cleaned help drag the beach get everything ready to go then we would just have our full-time person on staff
we could send them home and then we'd have afternoon people come in and do another short so instead of doing a full 8 hour day we would have maybe Stagg two people with staggered hours that's great that's brilliant
M uh I just want to say that um you creatively adjusted your workload with your Staffing to get the most out of using less people people
which is something that you don't always see in the public sector and I'm really impressed with not only what you did but how you explained it so that even I could understand
it lucky that I am not an accountant so I really had to spell this out for me to make it understandable for you trust me I don't always understand what the accountants say so can we get Katie to look at police and fire next year maybe
I just I just also want to add in addition to like a great pool experience being the mom of two young adults this is an enormous first job experience for many Ridgewood kids and I know that um you know I have a 19-year-old and ass soon to be 21y old they all love working for the department they learn a lot and
you that's a a really cool thing to grow up here and work for your town so when you think about your first job being at Gren pool that's pretty awesome so um I did have the pleasure of going to gring with Pam this summer and it was great and uh I just want to say thank you it's clearly impressive but the kids and the
employment is not to be unnoted yeah and and and to that end I just want to say a couple of years ago we had a lifeguard shortage we remedied that we did by increasing their their per hour pay and
yet we can still keep this in check and I know that many pools across the country still have lifeguard shortage but by increasing pay we're not one of them and yet you figured out
another way to save money with safety being of Paramount importance and I I I will say that I was smiling when Evan was asking the question because I knew what the answer was I don't always know what the answer is but thank you very
much for that um the community appreciates it fees for recreation we 371,000 for 24 thank you Bob um I have a question on detail O2 three um the
coupon books we had them in 2024 but I don't see anything in that line item for 2024 are we done with coupon yes we have um been able to go electronic with them so instead of printing out the coupon books people
losing them in their drawers finding them seven years down the road and they don't expire um it is all on community pass so when you purchase it all you it stays on your account it rolls over to the next year the badge staff is able to
add and subtract from it and all you have to do when you fill out your guest paperwork is tell them that you have the coupon book that shows up on the account and they're able to plug in the numbers to redeem it that's great okay and then on detail 029 gust toown radio rental
what is that that's up by 30% I mean it's not that big an exp so that is um brand new last year so we have been working with hand me- down radios which have been generously given to us by fire and OEM um they don't always work the
way we need them to and they're quite staticky gust toown radio does um it was actually suggested to me D by Jeremy Kleinman who with all of the radios they have worked with them and goo was able to to deliver us a smaller radio instead
of the large black ones smaller ones that have a great frequency everything comes across clear you can make calls on it um it was a lot easier for the staff to handle them there were less mistakes on the radio this year and um it was a
great rental so we wanted to put that in there to show you that we we want to be able to do that year after year and um on 05 the purchase of other equipment what are rescue tubes rescue tubes are the long red rectangular lifeguard tubes
that you'll see them when they're on the stand they're usually wrapped around them or across their La it's another flotation it's a life saving device reach throw Rog go so you use them to reach yeah right or go in our case okay
thank you any other questions on Gren okay we'll move to the community center um before Nan gets there we we do have a letter that was sent uh around by Renee Watson the hilt president so I'm just going to share that with the council
while we talk about this okay okay so this is relatively pretty easy if you would look at this right I am um the only the only um addition I would have would be the um
request for overtime for um our staff within the community Center um we we are trying to accommodate the needs of all of our residents and expanding our programs having programs on Saturdays and Sundays and you will see that that's
that's the difference in when we do that we need to be able to supervise building use program use safety um accountability so that's what that is looking at for you so the 5,000 that we're going up for the full-time director that's steps and
then the really only difference is the 5,000 for overtime correct okay that'll cover week week weekend and nighttime program is Deanna the only employee at at the community center correct
mhm she's everywhere employe so I have a question and it's so interesting that this letter comes to me now is and and I know I've spoken to all
of you about this that our seniors are a group of people who contribute so heavily to our tax base and get relatively little and our programs are terrific for them but
relative to the amount of money that they give in taxes two-thirds of their taxes are for things that they don't use um how can we increase services and programs and especially
programs for our seniors what do we have to do do we need to hire somebody what do what do we and Dianna does a fabulous job but she's a one woman show and and you know I I I I look at
the seniors and which oh yeah I look in the mirror and and I see a senior I think sir and yeah I wanted to take a conf interest was ready yeah that's right I know but what would we have to do to increase programming and I know
I've had this conversation with de with you that I've looked at other communities that have an even more robust senior programming than we do and ours is very good what do we have to do to do that so
I want to tell you that I believe lives cloak explain that to you in her testimony this evening and and I walked in late oh I'm sorry she most certainly she most certainly addressed it um so would just for for the benefit of the
tardy um member of the council sorry would you would you repeat that or or summarize i' love for her to repeat that because it came from the public Liz would you mind coming back to the mic and fre forgive me it's here I never I never
walk in late to these meetings of course the one that I walk in late to we need you to go to the mic all the people okay um Liz cloak 383 Vesta Court um I serve as vice president of the community
center Advisory Board I'm also a member of the park and recck um board as well as many of you know the Ridgewood Community Center acts as a social and cultural resource for our village especially for our seniors and Middle School aged children like all valuable
resources tipping points happen and adjustments must be made the current Staffing model at the community center needs to be reassessed to allow for evening weekend programming and larger CommunityWide events its current form does not provide for expansion or
changing demands specifically timing of programs or something called the weekend I conducted a very informal nonscientific poll and I called a bunch of neighboring Community Center to get their I their Staffing
models no none of the seven I called have less than two full-time employees and most average between six and eight part-time positions or PM um program assistance to help programs run smooth
The Advisory Board is committed to providing additional resources to expand programs to make enhancements and to support healthy social interactions with meals and other enhancements but we cannot be expected to fund raise for
salaries for Village employees I would like to ask that the council look into increasing General line support as well as Staffing Resources for the community center more carefully as you work on a budget I would also like to invite you all to attend our first ever lunch and
learn on April 22nd sponsored by the advisory committee with funds that we you that we raised last year with our towel and bottle sale it's our hope that these monthly social informal getto togethers for our seniors will eventually be sponsored by local
entities moving forward thank thanks Liz and and this and and and so um it's so interesting and forgive me for taking a moment um I had breakfast with
somebody who whose mom lives in town as a member of Hilt and she and her mother are so grateful mother is 84 vibrant young
wonderful and the programming that we put on and that Hilt does and the volunteers put on has this woman living a wonderful full enriched
life and I I know that we spend look we spent a lot of time on our kids on on the schools on the fields I'm a huge advocate for the fields as everyone knows what do we have to do to make our
very very good program even better so that was would definitely start with additional staff you know even if we started with a part-time basis right um full-time assistant for for Deana to be able to you know expand
the program offerings um it's it's a challenge for her often times that she is split between two different facilities half some of her day is at the stable where she's part of our working staff she's answering the phone she's got residents coming to the
counter she's programming she's planning a bus trip then there are days when she's attending an age-friendly workshop and then there are days that she is escorting a bus trip you know so it it's um a lot of responsibility a lot of
vared Duties um and she goes back and forth um our staff like I said to you earlier today are incredibly dedicated and loyal employees I I have seen there's none better I have seen believe me I have seen Deanna
and I I am liaison to the community center Advisory Board and um you know she is running from one thing to the next so that so to answer your your question mayor it would be additional staff would be and the opportunity to be able to talk about it and have support
yeah and that's what I was going to say with the talking about it like I would suggest that we have some kind of special meeting which we could hold at shedler because I heard that's a good place for meetings thanks and then just take all the parties together and let's brainstorm um we could do Keith do we have do we
have I'm sorry have ask for one thing just one question do we have another budget meetings this our last one more 2 one more and and what I what I'd like to see and I don't know where it's going to go I'd like to see you guys circle
up and come back with a proposal for Staffing money to make our program a Premiere program for our seniors they pay so much and get
relatively little and I know as Evan points out all the time you want another x amount of dollars you got to take it from someplace else I really get that but I'd really like to see that because I know that I know the difference it
makes in their lives and again forgive me for spending a few extra minutes on this but this is something that's that we all know is really important and we don't do a lot to expand it so with with your Indulgence key um would you mind if
we if we did that and brought Nancy and Company back at our last meeting they're available the council wants I I also could I just add like granularly Liz I'd love to know the seven and um because if we're going to be looking at this I'd
love to get an essence of who the seven are what their programming entails if the other districts pay out of pocket um so just you know more detail about what we're benchmarking again and then to look at it holistically I think we have to incorporate some of the programming that the library does because the you
know we we need to be mindful that Parks is one element for seniors and I agree with you they deserve and should get more but they get a lot they just don't get as many dollars so um like if you went to wof I know my mom lives in wof and she does a lot with seniors they
just like sounds like a gang um but do pay out of pocket up there so if we could without making it like cumbersome I'd love to see the equivalent um and I too right so that's that's one thing that we have to talk about is that you know seniors are owed a greater portion
of our tax dollars but other structures in other towns because I have a senior I have two seniors living in other municipalities um it's sort of like the hsas you either get Allin which is Ridgewood right super nice but then they other programs have dues they even have sessions where they have to pay for
access to like a forum where police and fire come and we do that more Incorporated so it's you you get what I'm looking for just sort of like in so we can see like how great we are all in could I feel we have to be mindful that all seniors should be all in because
when you start to affix membership and fees they opt out certain ones opt out and that's isolating so that's what I would just be interested and I'm I'm available to be helpful too you can just email me there's something else that I think will inform this discussion which
is um the survey of the seniors uh regarding their usage of the senior bus that'll tell you what things they want to see or go to and attend um I don't know what the timing of that is though will we it's it's it's imminent okay
because I think that'll tell us a lot about what their preferences are okay you'll come back of course thank you we really appreciate it Dan you want to finish up with project
Pride uh project Pride yes so we have a new chairman and we have um some really good goals moving forward um I I would like to be able to um as you understand watering is a
big part of what we do so if when you're looking at the part-time salaries that's what that's what that is um that is also having staff come out for the planting days um for to be able to work with our volunteers to bring out the
soil bring out the plants bring out the potting materials um clean up after we're done so um you'll see a request um for $5,000 for salaries in that and then also a request um we'd like to be able
to buy new containers for the CBD some of our residents did an inventory for us and found that several of our uh containers were cracked and broken through snowplow U vehicle accidents you
know just old age freezing and thawing so um there's a project Pride meeting next week where we're going to look at the old inventory hope to be able to buy some new and um work to replenish the CBD and I just want to stress that the
additional amount requested from P project pride is also built into this proposal and again I'm wait before you go I have to say it just keep in mind absent the Sid pride is acting as that so if we want downtown to be beautiful
and charming and clean um we have worked very hard well in my capacity a lot of the special projects that I drop in whether it being removing dead head meters adding new garbage cans now these contain ERS um The Mulch Monday we rely heavily on the volunteers and we're
really improving it and it adds to the vibrancy downtown's looking better and we really need to um during the pot inventory you know the the containers there's several things one they're too tight so the plants die unless more frequently watered so we're looking for
larger surface area and at a certain point they don't match and we did take the time meaning we my awesome committee who's here um to walk to make sure that the pots were in safe places not obstructing Sidelines um we did lose I think two last year to cars hitting them
um so this is you know not only is Project Pride important because you know I like to advocate for my committees but there is no doubt that the more charming and beautiful downtown is the better the Commerce will be additionally we are looking at incorporating some um holiday
lighting as well because during the winter it really is a little dim down there so um anyway that's where it came from we're trying to Breathe new life next year we're going to talk about a trolley I'm just prep prepping you and so I just keep that in mind that if with if we
don't spend on some of this money downtown downtown's going to be filled with broken plastic pots filled with cigarette butts and we really need to make sure that they're ordered and you know beautified cuz they're in rough rough shape I mean listen I know I sound
like a broken record I don't disagree with the merits of anything you're saying but but we spent less than 15,000 last year and we're asking for 25,000 it's like a 60% increase um again it's it's it's a virtuous thing like I'm not
saying it's a bad thing to fund this but you know you have 10,000 here you have additional 10,000 for the community center it adds up after a while you know additional 150,000 for additional workers um at some point like we have to kind of figure out what we need and what
we like and I'm just saying there are you know depending on how our revenues come in like some of these numbers may need to be paired down to be I think a bit more efficient any other questions for Nan and her team we go through the capital yes
sir so as we continue to focus on the infrastructure within our Park system um I do want to bring your attention to the requests that we have before you this evening um the first thing that we will be um requesting for you is to be able
to finish the grade and pool fence um this has been an item that has been brought to your attention in the past um is to be able to finish the fencing along the burm um that right now is a
temporary plastic fencing that really does not serve a purpose for a security um within our facility it it's important that we have one point of um entrance and exit in order to maintain
the numbers at the pool have accountability be able to work that emergency system that we have in place and if you can hop over the fence it's all null and void so we'd like to be able to do that um one of the things
that we've also found is within the in infrastructure at Gren is that that that bridge that was installed in 1999 those Timbers are starting to Decay and they've been painted to hold themselves together but they're deteriorating so
I'd like to be able to replace those Timbers and also the awning outside of the um manager's office so those are three infrastructure items that are under fencing um fence SPM and upgrades for
Gren um what kind of fence would you put on the BM I'd like to be able to put the similar steel fence that we have around the yes yes and I'm going to have to be able to work with the engineering
department on the um rule by order right to make an exception for that but I am certain that you know at this point we'll be able to figure it out just it's a matter of location whether it goes on top of the BM which is out of the floodway right in the past I have asked
to be able to place it along the the outside of the burm so I'm going to have to work with engineering to get a permit by rule um in order to install this but it's important for us to be able to control that facility yeah I did see it
myself when a child went missing and PE everybody had to go look over at maple field because there wasn't a contained area correct and so uh that was chaotic um and the sun shade
replacement are you putting a sun shade where the tree was taken down correct okay so what we're looking to do this is actually multifaceted we have several different shade systems I'd like to be able to add an extension to the
children's area and increase the shade in that area and then a freestanding uh alone uh 20x 20 structure where the the ash trees have come down sadly you know the emerald ash Bor has eaten into all of the cambian in
our trees and we lost several at gron and those were those big Heritage trees um but they as you could tell they were infected and they needed to come down for the safety but in doing so you know we're pretty bare now and we have planted trees and are you know looking
to be able to sustain that but um it's going to take a while what's the grounds master of 5900 I was going to ask that too a great name but what is it so it is this and Matt you want to explain the
grounds you your wish uh good evening yeah the uh groundsmaster 5900 um it's to replace our uh pk11 um it's a 2012 it's got what is a
pk11 so it's a it's a uh large mower it's got a 16t uh wingspan on it um you'll see it cutting all of our athletic fields um I Pam I'm sorry they don't offer in an electric I looked into it um thank you but uh they do not offer
it at this time um but it's it it it gets a lot of work done for us um like I said it cuts 16t you know swipes at a clip and um you know with all of our athletic fields it it really uh expedites um normally we we cut athletic
fields twice a week um you know usually um that's good enough um summer months you know we can get by um cutting you know once a week um if that talk into the mic um but it's all weather dependent um but it's time we've we've
kind of you know I've worked with Mike kind of babying what we have and uh our mowers really tired at this point um and we pushed it off as long as we could but um I think it's time for a replacement may I suggest testing out an automatic
mower then you save on the Staffing um there's that place called ecoquip I think uh just over the Border in New York and they're happy to come and make a a presentation what is an
automatic mow it's like a Rumba a mo by itself you you program it and it Ms by no I got it that was the great illustration yeah we could we could certainly look into that um i' I've looked at some of the technology um even
with the field painters um I have some concerns you know um with um you know kids running around the field um but it's certainly something that we could look into yeah a test yeah for sure I have a question on the sun shade
replacement um Pam and I spent a little time at Gren on uh Labor Day last year the single largest comment made was where's our
tree we need more shade relative to and of course we're planting trees but that's going to take decades to replace relative to the amount of shade that that tree provided how how much shade are we
providing with this replacement guesstimate rough and dirty is it is it equivalent is it close is it a fraction of it you can you can go see this the base is that you have a shade receptacle where the tree is so you can
see the surface area and when I went to go see where the fence was I was like oh look at that there it is that's where the place is going to be yes so it's like a it's like a half a triangle sale so I don't think it's going to be as big as the tree cuz the tree had the canopy
both ways so it's it's it's pretty much where we hang out when we go um but it's I would what would you say Katie maybe maybe 40% yeah it's um it's a 20 X2 shade sale and if you look at
um to the right of where the tree was we have uh the one canopy by the swim Lanes it would be similar to that um I would be able to show you I do have pictures from when the tree came down and just from taking a grade in that would probably show us the cast of The Shadow
that the tree gave us but I would say it would be just a slightly less it's not going to cover all of it and if anything I think what it's not going to cover is the playground area and I'm just this is this is just the one sunshape yes so the
price that we put in is actually for four shade sales this is we want the one dedicated for that side of the pool by the the swim Lanes where the tree was right and then the others are the shade sales that could attach to the bases
that we already have to extend the area so this is for more than one yes it ends up being for it's one loan structure and then the three add-ons which if we needed to I think we could have the discussion about do we do two uh of the
add-ons on the Lynwood AB side and increase use the third shade sale to increase it on the um beach side and I'm just no and Siobhan threw out a number of 40% you had just said that it should
it's it's not quite as much which sounds more like 80% just and again I just think you're your best guess and I'm not told you I'm not a math person I I mean is is this is this close to replacing what's there or less half I think that it would be close because I
think that the full canopy of the tree also went I think half of the canopy hit the beach the other half was hitting part of the playground and the grassy area got it so so I think this would do the due diligence of what the the beach
is missing got it thank you so I love the sinking fund for Maple Turf that's absolutely C to stay uh I've lived in Ridgewood long enough to know that you don't mess with trees so I I have no issue with residential tree plan I would well let me ask you this
though what are your two or three priorities passing if you if Keith comes back to you and says we can't afford all of this what are the two two or three things that you absolutely need to have for next year well the as the Director the most important thing for us would be
probably the fence security and safety at Gren and then the playground for habernickel um the playground for Hackle is a replacement of that um wooden structure that's up there we did receive a grant
from the Department of Community Affairs local government Improvement for $668,000 so we were looking to be able to match that 68 with the 139 for the $192,000 that the playground's actually
going to cost us so the cost we have to act on that because the clock is ticking correct on the eligibility for that money to remain available down at the Department of Community Affairs so I also I'm sorry it's late but I feel they need to say this that that was an
accessibility Grant and um as the access chair we've had several parents highlight the fact that there are no accessible Ridgewood playgrounds um the Bergen County playground that had the red swings has taken the swings down and caused um and clearly that's Terri
terrible for the child in need of the Swing but it's also meaningful for The Sibling going to the park so this grant was fully supported by all of fields all of parks and access and so we've secured a grant to make us whole we need to do it and then there's the social
obligation that it will be an accessible playground um I also just want to say because for the public watching for shade tree we we have to go with that Capital spend otherwise we don't plant anything and the line item for that outside of saplings which is totally different is for 200 Street trees which
is great because if we get another 100 saplings that puts us closer to 300 which is what we want to be at so going back to my question that leads the sun shade replacement and the grounds Master 5900 where towards the bottom of the wish list am I
right okay we'll really hear a lot of complaints without shade on the Deep on the and deep Bend we hear a lot of complaints if we come back with a 6% or 7% tax rise too so I'm just trying to figure out priori the the again I just want to stress that the capital requests don't have an impact on the tax rate
other than the 5% down payment on on any of the uh spends that we decide to to incur and I can tell you that we are very close to um we have a few more numbers that we have to finalize in the capital budget uh but we are very close to being at the 7.5 million which we are
annually right how much are we rolling off every this year that we can spend for next year right CU I imagine there's cap the magic number 7.5 million on and a 7 a. half million off generally speaking and that incl and that includes the two Appropriations that you made in
2024 but we said we would um work against the 2025 capital budget proposal and that's $350,000 for the soil testing and the archaeological dig at shedler and $478,000 for the sewer plant upgrades which were necessary last year so if
it's 7 half million we can spend on Capital this year to go up to our budget or statutory maximum right correct and then of course we're paying interest on that we have we have additional capacity beyond that but it's it's slow and steady which is 7 and a half million on 7 and half that's exactly my point I I'd
like to spend less on Capital than our maximum so glad I mean I'm going to present you a budget that's 7 and a half million and if the council chooses to cut from there that's that's at your discretion it's not a statutory maximum it's really it goes to our AAA Bond
rating that if we maintain the same amount of debt relatively speaking I mean there's interest rates and all of that and we retire $75 million in debt and then we take on another $75 million debt that's what Bob and Keith are
always shooting for so could it be 7.6 could it be 7.4 yeah but um so what's the sum total of the capital s in this binder right now uh I mean based on what we have it down to or based on what the
initial just what's in The Bu I want to say I want to say the initial requests all in total were in excess of $12 million correct okay about 12 million so we've got 4 a. half million to cut right which which we already we already have
internally met we've had a we've had a director's meeting which is tradition here we've talked through with the directors what their priorities are what can wait till next year um we've we're talking through the timing on a communication system which we're not yet
ready to pull the trigger on but we we're confident that we will have a capital budget that falls within the uh traditional amount that's appropriated by Council each year for next week's uh budget meeting and and Nan asks were these all within the 7.5 million are
these partly that were affected by the the country the requests that she reviewed tonight are um in large part in the in request okay great I I do just want to say that capital and operating dovetail so the thing like the mower so two years ago when we took our seats our
Fields were in complete and total disarray right there were like things going on things that needed to be cut and so we've made huge investments in our Fields like Haws we just pumped a ton of capital money in there and this is like a shame when we do that and we spend the money and then we don't
maintain it so that's what happened with the pots that's what happened so you know I think this is fairly paired down I I will say because I saw the first version and I think you need to be careful because Sun fence their safety same with the playground safety you know
we're we're really small here for a capital ask compared to what parks asked for last year and last year we were well over a million dollars with the amenities that we as a group afforded so I I think it's great and I think I just want to Echo what Keith said the really the number one ask would have to be the
playground because otherwise we lose the grant money so we have the 65,000 in hand and I I just I know we talk a lot about Fields but when they go unmaintained that's when we hear a lot of complaints and we you know upper citizens was really dealt with and our
lowest lying field with Haw was really improved if we if we can't cut them we're going to be back into the complaints and I'll also say several of our parks are in need of invasives being taken care of that's not part of our
operating or our capital budget and some of our Parks will never look the same they will never be what we remembered them to be they are at risk and we're not taking care of that this year I I just want to take a moment to
say that and I said this I think last time um Evan's not a lone wolf on this Evan is watching everybody's pocketbooks whether we want to spend more we don't want to spend benm more he is realist
and we are trying to live out our dreams of what we want and I am grateful that we have the balance that he brings to this um his his cleare eyed um sometimes
painful view of yeah we want that but we can only go so far so again it's and here and I'm asking for lots of stuff too so like I said I just I just want to I want to support the fact that I am so
happy that he's looking at this like this and also that's why I'm also glad that um as Keith has told us at open space committee that the diversion may be taken care of by the end of the year which would really put us in a better
position yeah I mean think of all the other grants that we'd be eligible for once that's gone yeah Heather's got it this is our year she has got it stays tuned for an update March 3rd anything else for Nancy and her team just thank you again thank you thank
you mayor do we want to move right to the chief or uh well first I want to make sure Matt do you have any problem with anybody in the finance department you good black okay just want to just want to make sure you're good and and um uh I
think this is a good time to take a 15minute break we're going to keep it to 15 chenzo forgive us um and this way we'll get a better view of what you're doing e e
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e for for e e e oh I left my is cool okay everybody ready yes just do a roll do a roll call
yeah okay we'll resume the meeting um I just want to take roll call council member Mortimer yes Deputy Mayor perin yes council member whites yes council member windrad here and mayor vaganos here thanks okay mayor our next
presentation this evening is uh the Ridgewood Police Department we have Chief Lions here um Chief you want to jump right into it and uh we'll start with the salaries and wages part of your operation Bud sure so real quick I just wanted to briefly go over uh some of the stuff that's been
happening um our calls for service are up 10.3% in total call volume from 23 to 24 so that's 23252 and 23 to 25620 uh which is a total difference of
2368 um wait wait 20 5,000 calls in 2024 that's correct 25620 so it's up 2,368 calls which is um 10.3% of overall calls I will say these calls are of more serious nature they're not um business
checks or things like that a lot of this we are much bigger than we used to be and I anticipate that continuing the trend if you look at how we are operating so far in 2025 we are on Trend to be above that again and and what's
driving that it it just seems like well there's a couple policy changes that's happened uh which which I'll get into in a second but what's what's happening now is we deal with repeat offenders constantly whereas we used to arrest someone and
they'd be away or incarcerated for a while that doesn't that no longer happens they're out without within 24 hours so we see the same people over and over so some of that is driving those numbers up we're also just seeing a lot of people return to their normal schedule and it's 5 years after covid but it seems like people are still just
starting to return to work in businesses not working from home and um it's it's hard to say but people's interactions seem a little bit more abrasive and a little bit more Gruff so we're we're being called a lot more uh it seems that
uh people may have uh failed to remember how to drive in this time period uh we're having a lot more accidents than we used to and these roads are the same so it's not like the roads are changed or like things have changed situationally where we're like oh this is a a a defect in the road or the
roadway they're the same roadways it just seems that people are paying less attention and that also goes to do with technology now everybody's on nine different devices at once it's no longer a cell phone it's an iPad a cell phone and three other things ringing while you're trying to drive so are we seeing an increase in arrests as well so yes
our arrests are up again though a lot of them are recidivistic offenders we're arresting the same people over and over so where would be we arrest a a home burglar they'd be gone for three to five years we wouldn't arrest them during that period now we'll arrest them three or four more times within two or three
months because they're no longer incarcerated um the other main thing that I just want to put out there is we're seeing a seismic shift in policing um from reporting to licensing to training and the technology that's
changed uh every cost is way up everybody's capitalizing on well this is the new technology and this is what you have to use and this is the cost and this is the um the 15% a year contract that goes up every every year 15% you're
like well that doesn't seem fair and they're like yeah well we're so Source provider so deal with it um and that's happening everywhere it's obviously not just a Ridgewood thing this is and it's actually not even just a New Jersey thing it's a national issue but I will say to my eyes and I'm obviously not in
every profession but I don't feel like many professions have ever undergone this type of shift since 201 to now the shift we're experience experiencing is is no other way to say but it's just it's a paradigm shift you've now taken
to regulate every facet of policing and by regulating and mandating every facet you've increased budgetary items you've removed police from the road to do training which then creates a hardship on the officers because the each officer who's on the road has to take more calls
for service CU other officers are off on the road so where we're kind of in uncharted waters the policing that I was hired into 22 and 1/2 years ago is no longer relevant it is a completely different time to police and everybody's
kind of navigating that curve but I just as we go through these numbers and what we're doing there are major shifts and it's a lot of it is not oh the police chief decided to add this and to buy this and to we're just actually trying to maintain and keep up with the current
trends and is it is challenging is much different than it's ever been but just to go over a little bit the administration functions and I think I've been speaking of this for a couple years every year they're going up so now we have licensing without getting up in
up into it too much but there's a whole separate computer system that does the licensing that takes a 25 to 30% of my time it never used to exist before last year now I have to focus solely on that and I'm not the only person who who does that what do you mean by licensing every
police officer in the state of New Jersey now has to be licensed so like an attorney would have a license through the bar association now the police have a license through the PTC police training commission so they've come up with standards and you have to do a background check on all your police officers now granted we've done
background checks when we hire them we have to redo them and they're very extensive and they're very labor intensive which again means that I have to take detectives off cases to investigate our police officers so you have to do a background check you have to do um social media check which which is challenging but doable and you have
to verify all their training now the training last year was pretty much training we've always done that's changing this year they've added new training which will come at a cost next year it's changing again they're adding more training I'm anticipating and I don't know this for a fact I'm anticipating every year they're going to
add a little bit more training but the side effects of the training first off let me get this out of the way training is fantastic I I I I'm fully behind the training and we do we're very good at training but the problem is as we train officers they're off the road we don't
have a large enough police force no one in this area has a large enough police force to actually maintain Patrol functions and train at the same time so you have to bring officers in on their days off to train that costs a significant amount of money um and the
biggest problem is instead of saying oh you know maybe 2 hours 3 hours they're they've put in 16 hours of defensive tactics 18 hours of active shooter 32 hours of training for 43 people we're currently at 43 right now which is six
people below that is not the fault of this Council we you've authorized me to hire it's extremely hard to hire but um I'm just trying to get you to understand that policing has seismically shifted so I know a lot of people look at it and be like this is a smaller town which we are we're large in this area but smaller in
in in the United States but it's becoming more challenging we're getting busier and the state regulations you know sweep through every single um agency regardless and chief if if I can use that as a segue into the salaries and
wages budget in line11 which is our full-time employees obviously we're budgeting to fill those um vacant positions that were authorized by Council last year but due to the difficulties of finding uh new recruit police officers we have not yet filled
those positions um and then you get into the overtime request which to the chief's point a lot of that is based on this these new training requirements that are mandated by the Attorney General's office and we need to pull people you know in um often times during
shifts that they're not working to do this required mandated training that we have no choice in the matter exactly there there mandates that they did not provide the training really briefly and I don't want to take up your time but in 2024 we did a lot of projects with Council to en pedestrian
safety um we got our motorcycle unit up and running which is fantastic uh we're still working on getting additional officers onto it but we've actually done some funeral details and other things it's a good face uh to the public and the public actually loves to see the motorcycle out there uh we did a
complete audit of the evidence I know that sounds like just some we had thousands of items of evidence and every single one has to be audited track and put into a certain system so that's actually a massive undertaking might just sound like a small thing we also put the uh special law enforcement
officers in the schools we have three it's fantastic we're hoping to expand that as much as we can and last year was the first year of Licensing so it was a major undertaking just because it was new it's going to be a major undertaking every year but last year was especially difficult because no one in the state
even knew what was supposed to happen um we did all of that while being close to Six officers down and we mitigated the overtime as much as possible by kind of decimating our um detective Bureau our traffic Bureau we
we took all the people out of there put them on patrol the primary function but that hurts us in the long run because now we have no one left to pull but we do have three people in the academy right now one person who's already an employee in two alternate routes that are scheduled to start being paid around
the middle of March so that'll help but again those when they get out in June they still won't count till probably October for personnel uh statistics 2025 is accreditation uh we will actually have our onsite so it be New Jersey state um
accredited again it sounds minor every single policy and procedure we did had to be reissued so the police officers have to reread every single policy and procedure and sign off on them so it's it's a massive undertaking Chief if I if I may just interject there I just want
to point out with the accreditation piece um the accreditation piece not only is beneficial to bring the department standards up to current um levels rules and regulations are all updated it also helps us with our insurance premiums so when we go in and
you know let's say the police department is hit with a lawsuit The Joint Insurance Fund can then defend Us by stipulating that all of our rules and regulations all of our policies and procedures are up to- dat current and have been professionally reviewed so when we go to court and we have an
attorney defending the village and the police department um everything is in order when it's presented as part of the testimony during a potential trial so the The Joint Insurance Fund really values the accreditation effort on the part of the police department so that is
another benefit and once we are accredited we'll be able to submit that paperwork to the GIF and potentially experience the savings there as well that's great yeah um recruiting hiring and training of new officers so obviously we've just stepped up um our
recruiting efforts we actually partnered today with Bergen Community College we had um one of our captains and our Sergeant there and they were handing out information on civil service exams and what the alternate route program is just to get interest in uh obviously we're a civil service community and we can do
alternate roots so we're just kind of spreading awareness of this is how you can get into this profession uh so we did that today we were also um recruiting for parking enforcement while we were there so we're kind of you know doing all of that there once we get these uh officers on board training is
intensive we have a four-month training program that is highly intensive and we have to actually get we take our officers and they Shadow them and it's it's a laborious thing so if we're hiring eight which we're trying to do this year that's going to take up a sub a substantial amount of our time and
resources to actually get these officers up and running um we have new training requirements as I said we came up we have a whole training committee we went downstairs we mapped out the training for the whole year because each and every year the training is going up and we want to make sure we are at the
Forefront of having that completed not just for licensing purposes but so we have every single officer trained as well as possible and lastly thanks to the work of the council and the village manager here we have a new sergeant that will be liasing with the schools and
helping providing the uh the class three specials with a direct supervisor and making sure we can just kind of make go to each and every school and make sure they're as secure and safe as possible while kind of enhancing that Community
uh policing effort uh he's very good with the children and you know the the children will be attending some classes they teach classes pedestrian safety bike safety things like that all the officers will participate in one function or another so that's kind of
our goals for 2025 and what we did in 24 um if you want to go through the lines so I mean yeah I mean so you're up 825,000 is it's like a 10% increase to your credit the the the I'm assuming the full-time wage increase looks like to be
probably just steps is pretty di Minimus yeah that I mean honestly it's this is including the eight officers that we hope to hire so I think that will be beneficial give you credit for that so where is the other where's the bulk of it coming I see you're overtime you're
asking for a significant bump in overtime some money more for clothing uniforms and looks like vehicle leasing is up can you walk me through those or the other ones that are driving the 825,000 sure so the major deltas here that we have are the um the
$165,000 extra in overtime and most of that is being going to be driven by the mandates of training and also the fact that we are actually short officers all the way until probably March of 26 because even when we get these three we
have two more leaving it it's very hard to actually get so we're going to be short all this entire year and into next year um so we will be short then but um the train combined with that that's why we're asking for that more money that's one the other one would be the uh
contractual services and this is kind of a tricky one here what's the number uh on contractual Services 029 so the actual from last year was 5649 169 and this year is 724779791
so 65,000 was cut um and then so you'd be up only only I don't mean to say that but you'd be up $81,000 after that cut had it stayed the same and it would actually be down down $6,000 but the contract for the school Carson guards is
up $887,000 so in reality and I know it's a funny the way to look at it but we would be down $66,000 but it's up because the crossing guard country uh crossing guard contract was $87 ,000 um I have that with me and I can
explain some to it if you want to but um the short and the long of it is we are the largest school district around here we are larger than hackin saac I know a lot of people don't realize that but we are um we have 62 post including morning
and afternoon posts 31 actual static posts towns around us have six 11 12 we have 30 and and and when I say six some of them are not staff in the morning and only in the afternoon so the real number we have is 62 posts and those are
staffed um the we were having a hard time even with the outside Outsourcing of the crossing cards getting and retaining employees so that salary had to go up I mean it's a little bit over minimum rage but it's not very much if you do the math even if we were to take
it back which we are not in any capacity to do we don't even have the Personnel to to to um to staff those even if we hired outside you're still not going to recoup that money so this is a major major I mean it's the largest budget item I have outside of salary and wages
is this contract and it went up and I mean there are some administrative fees in there but a large portion of that was their their raise and then mandated healthc care which came from the state and benefits and things like that you added to it says and we've add and we
add we keep adding Crossing posts which I don't disagree with but you know for the safety of kids we did add two and they were in the area of Clinton and uh Daris so I I do want to mention that uh the chief and I had a meeting yesterday with uh Mark Schwarz the superintendent
of schools here in Ridgewood and we are going to Embark over the summer on an audit um of each of those crossing guard locations um especially in the more sparsely um residential areas uh this way we can make a determination whether
or not the uh all of the Guard posts are warranted um we're be conservative about making those decisions because our priority is to keep pedestrians especially children safe um but we need to match up where the children live in conjunction with where the
guards are actually posted so we're I'm s didn't interrupt so we're going to work we're going to work with the school district to identify those locations um and I anticipate that Sergeant mormino will be will be part of that as we get into the summer months I I was going to just say that instead of looking to cut
I would say to look to where they could be um redeployed um because what's interesting is you opened it up and said how the calls have increased and how people's driving skills have decreased and so if driving's becoming more of a problem I you know I think it's
important that we think about how great the crossing guards are keeping our kids safe so I would more like to see about deploying them elsewhere as opposed to looking to cut plac I I think on a case-by casee basis we need to determine need and if there are needs other places we need to identify that too but we need
to justify each of those positions um vehicle leasing you talk to me a bit about that cuz that's a pretty significant so basically what we did if you when we get to our Capital we've removed vehicles from Capital so all the vehicles that you so we would be asking
for in our Capital $320,000 to purchase Vehicles we are not we've CH transferred all that money now into our operating expenses so um we still have about 145 I know we're not up to Capital yet we still have some that's for the equipment that goes in
the vehicle not for the vehicles so we' basically removed 320 from capital and that is what increases the 114,000 in operating for vehicle leases it should also be noted that we're leasing Vehicles now so you cannot make lease payments under the capital budget
you have to make it through the operating budget um it's also my philosophy and I shared this with the chief when I first arrived here that police vehicles especially which need to be rotated in and out on a every few year basis um that they should be part
of the operating budget we shouldn't be we shouldn't be expending Capital funds uh for the rotation of police vehicles uh don't disagree front line so we're so you know some of these adjustments you know again are painful at first because
you're moving from the capital budget over to the operating budget but this is where they should be and if they are leased it's where they have to be so are these just patrol cars or we getting something new and different no these would just be patrol cars so we've also downsized some of what we what we get um
we are trying to get one larger uh truck because it can have a full cage in the back so it could accommodate two prisoners but then most the majority we get now are the Explorers which are the um Ford Explorers or the Durangos which are the let's say midsize SUVs so they
are smaller than what we used to get which was all Expeditions and tahos than okay the just because we're going through different um resources and like the crossing guards and all that what about like the for the school resource officers what's the plan there to expand
that into more schools so I've spoken with the superintendent of schools and he's going to bring that up in his budget and try to see what they can get for the actual finances because we get reimbursed their salaries from the school board and the schools so we're
looking and I said we will if they can get the funding for the officers we will find the gear and the training we can morph them into us and then we'll adjust next year yeah so step one is that the theorized budget and then we can yeah cu the way that we've set it up in the past
and by the way this is one of those un I think unsung victories that that this Council delivered on with in conjunction with the Board of Ed was to get those school resource officers in um and to do so in a way where we were paying for some of the hard fees like the uniforms the guns they they the this the but the
Board of Education was paying for the bulk of it which salaries um I know that it's it's not our money to spend it's the school boards I firmly agree with getting more of those uh special officers they are a win across the board not just for safety for public relations
um I know that when the school budget comes up I will be in in a minimum of my personal capacity I will probably check with with maty if I can say in my in my public capacity uh very vocally supporting expanding that program out it's been wonderful and I'm really glad that we were able to get that done uh
let's see how much let's see now we can finish it for all the schools uh at the next board of education budget so the only complaint I've received about the class three specials is that there are not enough of them that's the only one I've got I've gotten KN positive reviews and how wonderful they are and how
they're they're fitting in I think we um the team overall did a very good job hiring the correct officers that fit in very well with the schools and that would be my utmost goal as well is to find more to complete all of the schools yeah and listen as stickler as I am
about budgeting if the Board of Ed is going to pay for it I agree completely with what you just said to Frank before we will figure out a way to pay the inal cost somehow out of our existing budget chenzel could I ask just so with the schools when you say the elementary are you including Glenn in that just in
terms of scope I do have that included at scope we would try yeah we would try to to you know complete all of them but but don't you need I'm so sorry go ahead that's okay I just so and then in terms of Staffing could I ask you a couple questions about that that's that's always what the public you have a total
of how many now including the three incoming 43 so we have 43 and then three in the academy okay and then that does not count the three SLE EOS that's only the active police officers and so and then how many are your carryover from
last year are you remaining three so we we still so if we have the 40 if once we get the three out of the academy we still need an additional three um however it it's sounds funny we're losing two right by the end of this year so we would need to hire five to
actually get to the number because the two are slated to leave mid to late this year and do we have them highlighted as retired or we no because they they haven't filed yeah so you're you're down total from past year past due three
and requesting an additional two based upon future retiring yeah so we would our our number and I had had I had broken it out in a in a memo here our number has always been 49 and we have not been at 49 in a very long time because what happens is when we get
close to hiring that because there's a over a year delay between hiring an officer and actually having them count people retire in the interim so you're like oh we hired five you were down five I'm like we were down five now we're down nine because four more retired so you're replaced a five you're still down
four you hire four three more leave and you're like well I was very close but so at at a certain point that's why if we can hire five at the end of this in the middle of this year they still won't catch up because the people will be gone before they're they're ready but we'll be closer we probably like four or five
months behind not nine or 10 months okay um and we add one more thing sorry um I do want to just say in addition to a great job you did leave out the brag that um the police force has partnered with access and gone through the autism training just like the fire department
and I want to give that a shout out cuz that's part of the inclusion aspect and they attend all of the events which I'm very grateful for so thank you yeah we're we're trying to we're trying to be as uh involved in the community as possible and luckily I have a lot of wonderful officers who are very willing
to participate and actually enjoy going to all of these events that's great Oh I thought you were next um okay on the list of um officers there are several several who are at the top of the steps and then as I read across to
to um 2025 um there's a blank entirely blank for their salaries are those the ones who are retiring yes okay yeah okay and
then um what is the honor guard so the honor guard goes to funerals they um they go to um the 4th of July if you've been down to the 4th of July for the flag raising we always have the police Honor
Guard um next to um troop 53 or we basically use them for ceremonial duties they lead off the um Fourth of July in the parade uh carrying the flag Memorial Day Memorial Day yeah they're used for mostly that and also anytime we have a
funeral police related or just a you know a member of the public a lot of times we we'll use them to do um what we call um casket watch they'll post on both sides of the the casket it's really just a a ceremonial guard to you know
kind of show our respect for past future officers things of that respect okay and then um on 029 that detail um it mentions there's a social worker contract for 40 hours a month and we're
paying 18,000 of it and the other and then that's only half of it so my question question I guess is to Bob where's the other 18,000 coming from health health okay thank you so basically the deal we worked out
with the health department is um when we have our people that are not really uh able to be helped by the criminal justice system we need to get other resources available to them so what we do is we used to go to the health department and the health department
would can hook us up now with an outside vendor who will be our social worker to help provide long-term relief for people who really don't belong with the crial justice system but need some sort of help and we didn't have this expense last year right we had a uh part-time
social worker that worked inhouse that was completely paid for by the health department I believe they had a grant she's moved on to a new position and this is how we're back that I see and since we end up referring most of the clients their way I believe they
wanted to split the budget with the police department um and then under detail 832 that amount is doubling or almost doubling um this is clothing and uniforms um and I was wondering why that
is oh so that that reflects uh uniforms for eight police officers so whereas last year we only did it for two police officers now we have eight so it should be even more than double I believe it's over double um was that 32
chz oh you took all okay so you took out some yeah so it's 74 it's up $53,000 250% so that's a that's a restorative cut plus the need for this year yeah this year it's a lot and then thank you
to whoever donated a motorcycle um did we um authorize a resolution for that so we're talking about the I don't remember it cuz lorine was very excited about it she was Pro motorcyc so we we have one motorcycle that we purchased and then we
have a second motorcycle that we just authorized a resolution to get fixed because it has some mechanical problems so we're going to get that up and running very shortly what happens is the um Maryland state police motorcycle course uh has an 18% pass rate that's
how complicated that's how hard it is if you have a course that only 18% of the people pass so this second motorcycle that we had that we got very very only for the basically the price of uh of fixing it uh will be the training bike so we can have people train so when they go to this course we're not sending them
two and three and four times um and on detail 055 um there's mention of two pickups asterisk income generating tell me about that so we rent those we don't keep them the entire time and those are the
pickups that we generally have go out on extra Duty details so when you see psng or Verizon says hey we need to block off this road we need to do this those pickups are generally the ones that the officers will use so PNG of Verizon or
any other contractor is actually paying an hourly fee to use those pickups and because we use them for so many jobs the amount that we rent them for and the amount we make off them not only offset they end up coming about two to one back to us so we actually make some money off
of those oh good and I assume those trucks don't have upgraded suspensions don't have necess all the things a regular police yeah these are just the basic United Rental pickup trucks all they need to do is carry cones caution tape things like that and they go back
we only use them in the height of the season so right now we're pretty quiet because it's so cold out but we have those generally let's say May June July August September and then they go back so we'll use them four or five months but generally they they actually do not only pay for themselves but pay
dividends in the back end that's great I have one last question sure um on vehicle maintenance yes uh last year was a zero for vehicle maintenance this year it's $125,000 and is that part of our policy
shift that we're leasing rather than so it's a little bit Capital it's a little bit of a change this actually used to be in the fleet budget so it wasn't in the police budget and what happened was I think they wanted to kind of segment more of what we're using the money on and how we're fixing the cars so it
moved it kind of moved over to this budget so it's not a new expense it's just moving from a different to the police so basically what happens is unfortunately and I'll knock on wood for this one our officers get involved in accidents people hit them things like
that the cars get damaged and this is the budget to make sure they remain professional cuz we've had a couple of cars that you know they get D dented up dinged up broken windshield and they're out of service for too long and we we have to get them up and running so this will just help our department keep
better track of this is what we actually need to to spend to keep our vehicles just to take that a little bit further uh Public Works Chris's position has been we don't always repair Body Work depending on the condition obviously
that consideration is a little different for the police department based on the fact that they have to present themselves we're not going to have Ridgewood police officers R around with cars with large dents in them right um so that's why we move moved this specific line item out of the fleet
budget and over to the police department because this will be exclusively for the repair and maintenance of police cars which again going back to my earlier point we're leasing so in the course of the lease if there's damage to the car we have to repair it so um it just made
sense to bring this over to the police so do they go back to the dealership for maintenance or repairs no because most of our vehicles are leased through Enterprise um so we do have a a relationship with the body shop I believe it's in Midland Park um that
both the police department and Fleet use um but it really depends on what the nature of the damage is okay so can I ask a question to your question for all leas vehicles we do have maintenance packages on each one of them so for oil changes things of that nature that's all included body work that's this is for
body work and keep in mind too um you know vehicles that are damaged and it is not the fault of the employee you know we're recing we're recuperating from insurance on that as well so does the outfitting damage them so honestly when we do our
outfitting it's a it's negligible in the amount that it's actually depreciating the car what we have seen though is like if a car gets damaged let's say the hood is damaged and we fix it we can probably fix it and I'm just making up numbers no one can hold me to we could probably fix it for $1,500 if we were to turn the
vehicle in with that damage the depreciation on the car could be 35 to ,000 so it's in our benefit to actually fix the vehicle return it because then we're getting that money back because when we turn it in let's say the car is worth 20,000 that 20,000 goes back into
the leasing of new cars whereas we'd lose extra money because we didn't fix the vehicle outfitting does obviously depreciate the car but they're pretty good about you know minor holes minor things like that it's it's not as bad as like you know true damage
okay um I have a couple questions first when has there been a a dent to a vehicle that only cost $1,500 to repair so this was actually the one I was talking about it doesn't exist it was it was hail damage I was yeah there you go
so um uh but to real questions um so police officers full Staffing your after retirements and after the new officers come on and are certified what does that bring us up to from 43 46 is
it so we're trying to get to 49 so where does it where does the current funding bring us to it would bring us 249 really if the officer didn't leave this year if they didn't leave the year but because they're leaving it's going to bring us
to 47 yes okay that's that's so then the hope the Hope was that in January we would hire an additional two got it um but like I said we're always chasing the 49 because it's very hard to actually get that number because people you know come up for retirement and got it so um
you said we have the largest school district in the area is it the largest school district in Bergen County I believe so it we have a very very large school district and the from what I've heard it is larger than hackensac which would be the closest um now hackin saac
also has magnet schools that doesn't count so when you start adding the specialty schools and stuff like that I'm not adding those Public Schools public schools no I I know that we have a very high um per household ratio of students so I
got that so um cars you talked about downsizing some of our vehicles to Explorer size is it possible and you and I had this conversation a couple of years ago
is it possible to downsize two sedans for a couple of vehicles maybe not all of them but for a handful of them for all of the obvious economic and environmental reasons so the what we did do this year and we actually have the
first one coming in is we got a hybrid we don't know how it's going to work but we're going to try the hybrid um so we just we actually think that's coming in this week or next week um hopefully that'll work but for size-wise the amount of equipment that we have would probably not fit in anything other than
a the biggest sedan you can think of like a Cadillac you know what I mean like like the old Impala like yeah so we're not going to be downsizing or getting any sort of uh gas savings the best thing we can try to do now all electric hasn't really worked yet with
the the systems the electrical systems and stuff that again that could change we all know how technology changes it could changes in a day but right now we are trying the hybrid we've had good success with the hybrids because we um rented one and it worked very well for us and we're thinking the hybrids might
have now enough power and capability that we can actually get a decent you know mile per gallon rating on a car and if that's the case then we start trying to get more of the Explorer hybrids the size of the Explorer is probably as small as we can get if you if you remember we have to put a cage in
there so a person has to go in the back with you plus we have to get all our equipment in I know you got a lot of gear it's it's too much gear so what is the relative cost of an Explorer Hybrid versus a an Explorer gas powerered vehicle so the hybrids are a little bit
more expensive but right now they're not uh cost prohibitive like some of the some of the ones were cost prohibitive I want to say they're $35 to $4,500 more but we should make that5 $4500 more than the regular gas powered for for purchase
so for purchase so since we're leasing them we could look at the numbers and there's so many different factors when you're leasing the car but you're you're not going to be looking at much more it's going to be under $100 a month I'm assuming I'd have to look to get you the exact numbers on that cuz we actually have have we have we just ordered two
different ones but it's also very difficult to get vehicles which is a whole another story so sometimes We'll be asking for the Dodge Durango and then we don't have that we have a Ford Explorer but the Ford Explorer is equipped with xyc and that is more
expensive because we have equipment we don't need but if we don't take that one we can't get a car so you end up having that 35 or $4500 extra for something we don't need so we try not to order it so you're so you're you're going to try out one
hybrid Explorer see how that works out and if it works out well and it's still uh cost effective going to start to look at expanding our Fleet exactly how many cars do we have so we have right around
22 cars um but we have different phases of cars we have our Patrol Ready cars that are actually used close to 24 hours a day 7 days a week then we have our administrative cars that are used basically Monday through Friday Saturday and Sunday during the day things like
that and then we have cars that are towards their end of life but they go out for the extra Duty Road jobs they go out for you know um patrol overtime things like that so we have a large Fleet but they're not all you know in the same level like we have some brand
new ones that get used all the time and all the way down thanks I'm good no problem I have a comment and a question um under um conferences I'm glad to see that you're going to iacp and I was just wondering that because it really struck
me when you said paradigm shift and you know that so is there any do you subscribe or is there any thought going to perfs meetings as well I wouldn't mind trying you know I I like to get as wide range of knowledge as I can I've
actually never attended the iacp before this will be my first year uh going to it but uh from everything I've heard from past Chiefs it's it's one of those conferences that if you don't go to you're actually at a disadvantage cuz there's such a wide you know breath of knowledge so I went to the FBI National
Academy not the actual National Academy but the FBI National Academy like briefing and seminar to learn and when you you see the experiences from people not just from here you start to relate to how they deal with problems and how some of their ideas even though they
might not work here give you a little insights to hey we might be able to tweak that and they've actually dealt with this we haven't seen it yet but it's coming this way and this is how they fixed it maybe we can anticipate that and work to mitigating its effects prior to it actually occurring so yeah I
would I 100% I'm always for looking at training or sending someone to to I mean so I'm look at more at the manager but perf is a a Police Executive Research Foundation and then there I have read stuff that talks about the Paradigm Shift there and a lot of the deescalate
and bringing in the social worker and stuff so there's newsletters you can subscribe to but they also do have conferences and I would fully support if you want to look at that because to me the better trained the offices are the better it serves our residents so that
that's my comment I wholehearted agree also with that that actually is one of the reasons everything takes a little longer which I'm not complaining about I'm just explaining how the resources are reallocated differently policing used to be show up arrest move right now
it's show up deescalate Maybe back off right 2 to 3 hours 4 to 5 hours maybe call negotiators so a scene that might have been wrapped up and albe it might have been wrapped up improperly I'm going way back you know 15 20 30 40 years it will be wrapped up properly now
but it might take 12 hours and if we only have a certain limited amount of resources we're calling people in on overtime and I'm not saying it's a bad thing it's probably the right way to do it but because of that shift in the way we think we operate it creates a lot of pressure on
the officers to not only get things right but to slow everything down and then also they're like well I have eight other things to do that I can't do so we got to call on other people well especially with everybody having a phone it's so important that the officer is aware and that's where the extra stress comes from so oh totally get it um all
right so that's that was my comment my question is talking about the um the speed signs with the the radar um are those in here or is that in capital so we have found some money uh Bob and team found some money we have some money found from Year's past Capital that
we're going to order some of those cool so we have some I mean I don't know how many we can get we can get a few I mean I know there's a lot of and then The Pedestrian crossing signs are built into the uh capital budget for the signal division that's why that that that you'll see next week when we present the
capital budget in and thank you and I I figured that from was in capital but that's why I was curious about the signs if that was capital or operating I didn't the the the speed signs would be on the chief The Pedestrian crossing signs would be on Signal understand on that so and we we found we found enough
I'm going to say three or four depending on the cost keep changing I'd love to tell you that we know the cost but every time they change contracts and cost everything goes up yeah I mean I to me I think that those are such a a a great way to control speed and again by what
you're saying the number of calls that you're going on the traffic is up so it just seems that if we can prioritize getting those come assum that they're also less expensive than the uh The Pedestrian activated crossing lights they are so to me if we could maximize
getting those and like you know you're able to identify where the problem intersections are or streets right so if we get the more of those we can get out I think it only helps us yeah we we have we have funding and I've already asked by Traffic Division to start researching and to see how many we can get when we
can order them all that excellent well thank you and Bob thank you for helping them find the money for those that's it I'm done no problem anybody else all right Chief you just want to real quickly run through your your one Capital request yeah to
say I just want to thank the chief and and Bob cenzo's um request list at the onset of this process was far more extensive um because we were able to locate some open Capital funds uh that were not used by the prior
Administration the police department um where down to actually one request and that's for vehicle outfitting $145,000 and that again as the chief alluded to earlier um is to take the police cars that we will be leasing out of the operating budget and properly
outfit them with the lights the radios and all the other packaging that goes along I love the single line Capital request I was just thinking the same thing like I I I've haven't been here all that long but long enough to to look
at this and say unequivocally this is the smallest capital budget for the police department I I don't want to be the bucket of yeah I was going to say cold water here tonight um might be might be might be where I'm at but um I just want
to set expectations that we are still in ongoing uh discussions with the burrow of Glenrock uh last year when we talked about Capital we talked about 2025 being the year where we made some investments in Communications um we're just not
ready at this point uh we're still talking to the two vendors that can provide this service to us rich Charlton from our signal division's been intimately involved in talking to both vendors along with some of the police brass down in Glenrock um so we're not going to be in a position nor is Glenrock going to be to make a decision
on this later in the year but I would certainly uh say that for a 2026 Capital app allocation regardless of when we introduce that uh it'll go against next year's capital budget it's going to be a significant amount to rebuild the infrastructure on the communication
system that we have and also bu the requisite portable radios uh to support the police the balance of the radios that we need to support the police department uh some in the fire department and some in Jeremy shop as well and and and that's fine it's
that the police have very expensive toys and true every year that cuts into the capital budget of every other department mhm this onee respit gives the other departments a chance
to get a few of the things that they've needed for for a few years and I I know that you know the radio it's it's coming I just don't want I just don't want anybody to have the misbelief that because it's not on this paper n that it's not coming it is coming we're just not ready for it and you know this is a
little bit uh more work intensive because we're dealing with another municipality um and build rebuilding out this system and that was a one point2 ke ask yes the the the I don't want to nail myself down to a number uh the
number that we were talking about initially was 1.2 uh there were some things in the proposals that were um absent and I know the chief and the chief and Glenrock and Rich are are working through those items um which again is why you're not seeing it in this capital budget because we're just
not ready to present it yet well good thank you so much Chief no problem thank you thank you and thanks for allowing me to come a second night the last night hour was scheduled I was way too sick to have uh to answered any questions we are pleased that you did not show up sick
yeah so tried you got you and Nancy are always bookends you're last year you were in the beginning and now this year at the end it's nice thank you yeah let's go all right so we're going to move on uh to Mr Rooney so that he can
address the uh parking utility budget so from there tabs the back so first let me just share Keith's compliment to my reviewing the capital so what Taps see this last Park Park thank you the
finance andula spent a lot of time scrubbing these down dealing with the Departments to make sure that there was money there that we could use so I have to give a lot of credit to Olivia she dug deep on these things so uh I'll share that that
credit so it's parking utility operating budget yes it's towards the back under rgr yes that'd be me and it says Park we're going to have to ask what the G stands for Jean G NE e on not to be confused
with Eugene okay that's cuz my uncle was Eugene and my father said there's no way I'm going to call my son Eugene there you go I'm not okay so you ready not quite okay M I make you work to get back there don't
I okay why don't you Bob while we're preparing why don't you talk about the uh the Staffing levels with uh parking enforcement at this point want I start there sure So the plan is to have a full-time at least one fulltime and two part- timers uh I lost one of my I had
two full-timers actually last year I lost one um so now I'm down to one and I uh would like to at least get two full-timers in there um I'm only budgeted for one at this time because by the time I get to uh the budget being
adopted it's only going to be half a year basically um so that's why you see just one in there uh but for the most part the um costs are down uh the projector costs are down from last year's appropriation by about 2% so as you work your way through the
rest of the budget the the highlights are in the other expense it's up 24% um if you go back to um the other expense category for um 029 030 058 on a summary page uh the first
increas is for an anticipated use of Walker Consultants uh you've heard the name many times I've talked about it before uh we're looking for them to uh get involved in giving us Direction on signage uh the placement of kiosk the
flow of of traffic going in and out of the garage a better use of the garage uh so we put $50,000 in there again I I just got their proposal I haven't been able to to vet all the costs uh but that's a placeholder for now uh the other increase in in there is for
security that we've been using up at the garage um we have an outside service providing us with coverage to um for certain hours during the day to minimize the potential of any um kids going up there on B icles and doing things that
they shouldn't be doing so it's been very effective and we're going to want to continue that right now until um you know we feel a need that we don't that it's not needed anymore so um I'm I'm sorry it it took me a while to get to where you are you're on other expenses
right yes yes okay security for 2200 hours that one yes okay and that's a private company yes that we hired yes we looked at the uh cost of having a police officer uh do that service and this is substantially less these are former
police officers or retired police officers that are filling the role uh so the cost of that is much less than they're not armed uh they are not armed okay good um they do have licenses but they are not armed okay um if we could next year have
numbers on the pages that correspond to the detail I'm sorry parking is just it's there's so many different pieces that flow through with allocations and everything else it's but I can Surly take yeah it's hard to follow okay thank you anybody else um what were the special
emergencies that contributed to the 142,000 so back when we had the um covid we had special emergencies in the general fund and the um parking Utility Fund for Revenue shortfalls that were
anticipated so the state allowed us to pass a special emergency which is funded over 5 years um to put into the budget to help us get through that uh loss of Revenue so to speak um and move forward so I I think I have two years left on
this okay so that does sound familiar now they essentially filled the deficit from the lack of parking during the co correct okay then the other increase you'll see is for Capital Improvement fund uh when we get to my capital
budget um this is a down payment that I would put in there the 5% down payment for uh Capital item so we haven't had any in the last several years but that's the reason why we have uh $55,000 in there this year and I with the kiosks is
there any like reporting movement on reporting the outages you know about text one two3 to report the out when you have kiosk problems so my understanding is every kiosk has a phone number on it right that you can call to report a
problem with it and that is tied into uh signal okay or I'm sorry into uh Northwest central dispatch who then calls signal to send someone out there to address it you know what I remember you said that and when I checked
downtown the kiosk I was using did not have a phone number on it me too that's why but I'm going to go out now I have a dog walk tomorrow to go check it so if you identify those that don't have it please let me know because when we purchased them and put them up they all had them actually why don't why don't we
have why don't we ask the parking enforcement officer tomorrow sure as he's in his travels to take an inventory of each of the kiosks to determine whether that sticker is there this way we can take that back and get that get that is this because I get up early well that help a lot this really because you
know that dog walk's coming and uh um when is our contract up with this kiosk company so what we have right now now is just maintenance we've paid for all the kios there there there are we just are paying a maintenance to have the system
processing credit card transactions things of that nature and one of the things that we want Walker to do and we've had some extensive conversations with them obviously parking downtown is a consistent issue uh one of the things that we want to do is before we go and
just replace the existing kiosks we want to have an understanding of the warrants as to where they're placed are they placed in the right location are there better places to to to locate them is there a um new technology out there
relative to kiosks that is more ATM like rather than you know push button these are all the things that we want to we want to talk to the consultant about to make sure that if we are going to make a large investment in upgrading the kiosks that we're doing it right we're doing it in the correct locations and that we
have the best technology and and since you're talking to a consultant that um when with the campaigning I heard a lot of seniors have issues with the uh kiosk and that that's preventing them from coming downstairs um you know
so we could talk to our resident senior citizen to see if he feels the yeah no there there's there's definitely frustration out there with that I think it's specific to to older people and so that's why I'm suggesting that maybe and that's and that's why we're looking for a new technology
you know you know think about how think about what it was like to use an ATM 15 years ago vers an ATM that you walk up to today I think that's what we're we're looking to really research and come up with the best solution for Ridgewood thank you yeah one day maybe when you're
old enough to get a driver's license um you know it'll be something that you you know will have fixed by then so thank you for that my pleasure anything else on parking we good on parking yep okay good TR an accumulated leave let me just do Capital no oh here go ahead so the anticipated
cost of these new kios is roughly a million doar um how much assuming time out assuming we replace everything where it is today no I'm saying to replace every single one right would cost approximately a million dollars that was my opening remark first how many kiosks
do we have 99 wow we have 99 kiosks yes sir we used to have 1,00 parking meters w we're downsizing and so how many without those parking meters how many do we so we we still we
will always need 99 that's that's that's the purpose of that's the purpose of our discussions with Walker and and and and and did the locations make sense right you know and and what is the technology these are all these are all the things that we need to discuss because maybe we don't need 99 maybe we
need 150 who knows I mean I I don't I don't the answer to that that's why we want to talk to an expert who does right with you and that's this year we're we're have discuss Walker we're paying the service contract to assess it like the flow where they are we're putting a 5% down
on the million dollar purchase for a capital spend of $55,000 right and just and just to piggyback off that the only thing we're asking from you tonight is for the 55 for the down payment this will the the million dollars again
that's a a a estimated number if we were to replace everything that exists today which is not the plan so at some point in the future once we know how many where what technology we'll have a better understanding of what that cost will actually be and then that would be
a standalone Capital Bond ordinance but we're no we're not even close to that point at this so the million dollars is basically a placeholder for right now right the down payment of a million dollar so that come November December we have a plan in place we don't have to wait till next right so the million will
be set aside for Capital all we're asking for is the 5% and then you'll come to us with a bond or and spend a portion of that right on it okay so once and keep in mind too I'm sorry about keep in mind this is coming from the parking utility so this doesn't hit the the the tax so my only question is the
kiosk vendor because it's it's 1.1 Evan because there's $100,000 and it's 5% so have we swung the name by Walker of who we're putting the deposit down or have we not engaged Walker had that discuss because we've used Walker in the past should we do that mean we did we did a
lot of work with Walker in 2014 to like there was the Walker report it was mentioned like you can't I read the Walker report but I'm fine with it and I understand how they dub tail but maybe if we're going the vendor that we deal with do they only provide one
kiosk the vendor that we currently have right now only provides their kiosk I made an inquiry as to whether or not there was an upgrade to it or any other type of software change they said no not for their model I mean
my only suggestion it's only $55,000 would be do Eng gaug Walker and make sure before we give them the deposit that there's nothing Walker is not is not who we're buying the kiosk let me just back up walk is going to do the assessment right let me just back up a second possibly could be somebody else but that's who we're talking to now with
that being said I then reached out to about a dozen other vendors all providing different types of kiosk the cost ranged anywhere from 500 $ to $7,000 okay every one of them did something different some had a lot of
bells and whistles the pieces that go internally as far as the way it's processing credit cards and things of that nature is critical to the cost and that's where Walker comes in to be able to determine what what of those 12
vendors have the best deal got it and what that cost would be and going back to Walker we've had them for years they're the best of the best as far as I know um I could certainly look out and see if there's other vendors that we want to they were excellent they I think
they are they've always been supportive of us they've been very knowledgeable and they know the village they've done studies on amount of spaces the time people are there and they're more than willing to keep doing that if we wanted them to do it so I I think they're they're top- Notch and just so I
understand Keith you said that this goes to the parking utility so this isn't part of our 7 and a half million dollar Capital outlay then nope good thank all by itself and and yeah this if you if you decided that we were going to make these upgrades to the kiosk just as an
example this would be paid off through a bond that would come from parking Revenue not from tax right now as as as Evan characterized it's just a placeholder correct it's it is essentially zero until we actually
decide I need to start someplace this would be this would be the starting point good I think it's exciting anybody else let's go all right trust to count so I gave you a summary of what our uh
trust activity was for the year um the ones that would affect our operating budget the way they flow through would be recycling trust Reserve uh Recreation trust reserve for
open space reserve for terminal leave terminal leave water and reserve for snow removal those are the big items that flow through the budget that we've used in the past uh for balancing our
budget so it's on the sheet that I hand that I left on the on the desk P yeah got it okay so the money flows through here example is Recreation trust um we have money that comes in from those that are participating in programs
that goes into the trust and it's used to offset the cost of those programs that's a a simple explanation um when we get into things like the uh recycling trust funds that come in from the sale of any types of um recycling that we
utilize and then we pay out so these reserves have built up over time or are starting to diminish over time snow trust going up up until January then I anticipate that this number got eaten into quite a bit the first couple of
first six weeks of the the year um so that's going to have an impact as to how much I can utilize to offset any of the snow removal costs that we have budgeted and operating any questions on any of those Reserve accounts looking um with request
to the with respect to the open space trust yes up till this year or up till 2024 we were using it pretty much exclusively for Debt Service right how much is freed up now that we've paid off
habber nickel so I have to get that for you I I meant to bring that with me tonight uh the 38,000 was the last 20 it was paid in 24 to um pay for The Debt Service of heracle and I think if I'm not mistaken North Monroe is that the other and shedler too rightler sh so
open space was shed so one I think is completed so I will get back to you on what that what's available for that great thank you yeah great question Pam yeah maybe that can help with some of the things that were in the Parks and wreck operating budget I'm sorry I
didn't hear you maybe that could help with some of the things in the operating uh parks and wck budget yeah we did determine it can work for maintenance a park so there is some Poss ility of that yeah which which line item you looking
at Pam uh reservation for uh reserve for open space is about six down from the top thank you and Paul that'll go up because Tabernacle paid off that might be the one yeah I have to I have to check and that's what you told
me last year Y and I said it publicly so that's why I remember it and if and if that's the case we can start to have the conversation about repurposing that as well yeah how we use those funds how we use these funds well I mean I think we'd want to increase the reserve right we've
been catching up for a while well we haven't ever C caught up because we've always spent it on debt service right because we bought those two large Parcels very early but maybe as as you're saying maybe we should stockpile it and just let it increase and increase so that when we want to buy property
it's there it's there you talking about the I'm sorry can I say one thing cuz that talking about I'm talking about the the reserve for open space if if if 284,000 the 284 284 470 right yeah and
what what could you repurpose that for um anything well for example we talked earlier tonight about invasives taking over right 20 Pond use that as an example you know do we allocate $30 $40,000 and I'm again I'm spitballing numbers here but do we
allocate that to take on some sort of project there at some point in the future because if we're not using it to pay off the debt service at hackel we'll have the ability to take on some of these other types of projects or if the council's desire is to build it up so you have it for a day that you're
acquiring uh new property to preserve his open space you have that option as well or it's a dedicated tax so it does have constraints as to what we can spend on it and that's what that's dedicated so we couldn't say I want to take open space and buy uh can or garbage truck
it's it has scope so Ridgewood assumed it in 2001 right by referendum it's one/ half of one cent the average taxpayer pays $3 35 to $40 per household and it acrs but very quickly after that in 2004 we bought habernickel and then we bought
um shedler and I believe we still have the bond on the basos property Heather is that right yes so we bought all three of those properties very quickly and we assumed all their debt and they're all good purchases so if we you know if we acrew it it lets us be nimble when and
if a new piece of property becomes available because those properties let's say well I'm not allowed to really talk about a specific property so I'm not going to a specific property in my head becomes available you know people don't wait for us and then it would have to be Bond so it's a unique opportunity so
like you kind of want to build open space reserve and that dedicated tax is our sharpest tool to overdevelopment because it allows us to acquire it but to Pam's point if you're just acquiring and acquiring and building kind of a
development War chest opportunity goes so maybe you do something like uh like college endowments do do 80% to the reserve and 20% to the expense but it's an and it's you know it's open space pretty much supports Parks got it okay good yeah and and Bob with that is there
any way for us to see I'm going to just double down on the open space the actual bond for shedler the bond for habernickel you know that will Zero out and the bond Heather is it basos is that the only other one that we [Music]
bought okay if we could see those three because that's the bulkiest we did a massive amount of purchasing the minute we got that tax Y and then we've never really purchased anything else yeah I can show you the activity that go that's what you want to see right yeah okay I
think and you want to see what was paid off to Mone and like the like the mortgage statement how much is left right okay perfect okay anything else on on trust counts no to Staffing levels which is in your
binder it's a long long sheet so this is a comparison by Department of the full-time employees for 2024 and the anticipated 2025 shows you actual on board and those
that were identified in these various Department discussions that we had where there's going to be Replacements or they've asked for new employees the bottom line how many where do we wind up were we net I know that we're adding more cops and to replace those are
leaving but how do we are we growing or we are we if you go if you go to the last page the totals are at the far bottom yeah and I didn't know how to read that is it 324 or is it 28 298 so
fulltime you're going from 286 to 298 and part-time you're going from 24 to 26 and again that's the proposals that's the that's those these are part of the requests so after tonight having gotten the feedback that we've received
you know we have um some work to do in scrubbing this document uh we have to finalize the revenues so that we can bring to you next Thursday uh Where We believe We Stand heading into March 12th which is our anticipated introduction
dat tell me how you read this there's a middle column where the retired people are listed or do I look to the left or do we look to the right so the middle column represents those on the leftand side for 24 that retired right
uhhuh okay so that that middle column is associated with the folks on the left MH Pam and then to the right of the second box there's notes on that side too which correspond to those people in
the second box does that make sense here can you see me this corresponds with this yeah these notes correspond with that oh okay so we're growing by 12 full-time headcount right I know the police chief talked tonight
about hiring additional folks and we're not seeing the offset of the two that we're losing right so that's sure driving the numbers up I know Nan asked for three additional which we discussed just remind me where are the rest of the additions coming from two
new firefighters okay which are which are already hired and again and again they they it it's while the head count is that number that I just read off and that you reiterated councilman keep it in mind
that in the fire department for example he has more retirees coming so he's trying to hire ahead of the curve because they have to go through almost a Year's worth of training before they're actual you know full-blown Standalone
firefighters so some of this you're going to see a replacement for people but you're not going to see the replacement until next year if you follow what I'm saying um and that that that's applicable to the police department although he's so far behind that those two retirees from the police department that are
anticipated this year are going to need to be replaced next year so if we got two cops and two firefighters we think retiring this year that's that's of the 12 that brings us down to eight three of them are the ones that Nan spoke to us tonight were the remaining five so you have you have two new POS if you look at
the bottom if you look all the way to the right of the sheet and I'm working from the bottom up uh you're going to see uh two new positions in the water department okay okay one is an environmental engineer training the other is a building manager Public
Works inspector um and that has to do with I don't want to reiterate Rich's budget here but that has to do with the uh the lead replacement lines that are going to be happening and the need for that inspector so that we can keep the work at a reasonable Pace um one is the overnight shift at water pollution
control which Jim Fels talked about when he and Chris were here to talk about that budget hearing uh the three in uh Parks which again are restorative from your years ago um we have a request for a part-time registered environmental health specialist which is essentially a
health inspector in Dawn's shop um we need that because we only have one person and the sheer volume of events that need to be inspected here especially on the weekends warrants that position unquestionably um you have a replacement and sanitation you have a a new position
which uh Sean Hamlin uh emailed me about and I passed that uh memorandum to you yesterday I think um that's the laborer position in the recycling division MH the firefighters we discussed the police department we
discussed you have two labors and div Recycling and sanitation one's one's a replacement one's new we're just we're just speaking to the news right now um we did that and and there was replacement and that's it oh I'm sorry the building department
we have the administrative position um the uh additional uh keyboarding one clerk in that department so that that's in there too I mean listen I understand that there's some explanations and again the fire and the police I get you talked
about nans what I'm going to hear from my neighbors is Ridgewood as a you know the population Ridgewood isn't growing why are we growing government and I hear what you're saying and you know the Rood water folks you know I kind of feel a little better about that that's Rood water they pay their own bills um but it does cause me
pause when we're adding full-time employees because first now we're on the hook for benefits and second to me when you on board new folks you're making a promise to them that they they've got a job here for a while and that means we're going to have to pay them for a long time and you know I was here my
first year was a pretty lousy year in terms of budgeting and we're were looking at things like furlows and I don't ever want to have that discussion again so I would just urge us to be really judicious in bringing new people on especially new full-time employees because not all years are good years
so I have I have just a couple things to say because it I mean nobody wants the budget to go up but and and people don't want to raise taxes but there's always a clamoring for services and so we're left with the harsh reality unless we want to cut
Services we have steps which account for a lot of it and you know I I hear you Evan but after all these presentations I worry about like what we're saying to our staff because they you know the first budget year was tough for us but they didn't get anything that they wanted because of all the inflation and
so part of this is catchup part of this is you know if you if you wanted to cut the budget I think we all know some things that we could do which would in you know ignite the public people really enjoy their services we I don't think
it's an you know and with the police and fire the additional doesn't factor in the ones that have left and the ones that are retiring so I mean it's clear trly all of us want to cut it but the options that we're left with is to
provide less and cut services and then that results in less employees and nobody wants to do that I mean to be clear I'm not proposing a 0% increase on the budget I've been here long enough to know that we've got to pay for the steps increases and you know on average that's going be 3 to 4% even before you add
anything right you're going to have to pay that off the bat my view though and my point is that as we add more things right that's going to be on top that 3 or 4% that we've already got a figure out a way to build in and and you know again I'm not going to lie to the people watching actually watching this and say
oh I'm going to keep taxes flat that's that's a pipe dream right and everybody knows that but you know if you're going to go above and add additional resources and additional projects on top of the 3% or 4% that's already there because the step increases that's going to start to drive our tax rate up to a place that
gets seriously uncomfortable and I've made this point before and it's getting late I won't keep making it again is it's really easy to look at all these very deserving projects that everybody wants to do and virtually everyone agrees need to get done and are virtuous until it comes down to that last meeting when we've got to figure out a way to
pay for everything so while I'm maybe the bad guy now my my point is not being the bad guy again and again I'm very still very much have in my mind standing right there looking at a bunch of very angry rightfully angry employees and having to talk about Furlow I never want
to have that conversation again of course not but tonight we looked at a very clamoring public who wanted more for recre ation and more for entertainment cash shw and all of that I mean I don't even know what we're saying with all these words we've asked our
staff to come in after their very bad year our first year was really bad for us but it was guaranteed worse for the people who work for us and it I just don't know what to say like none of us want to increase it we keep saying the same thing I mean I'm hoping capital is
a different story because capital is an investment and we're going to stay within 7.5 but the operating you know we're still making up we don't have enough police we clearly don't that's like obvious and that's a a big bulky step number that we need to rightfully
restore so I I mean I think this is is a good fair shot maybe we could cut one or two positions which I'll like give you my input maybe tomorrow but we can't all we're saying is nobody wants to keep it flat nobody wants it too high but yet we
didn't disagree with any of the additive stuff and like been this year it's been hard to make a meaningful recommendation without touching Services what are we going to cut well I mean I'm I'm not going to tell folks what to you know that's why when I was talking to N I asked you know what are your priorities
and ultimately when it comes down to the individual priorities I'm going to defer to them that's capital the priorities that's capital that's capital if we want new employees that that those are also you know priorities if we think we need an employee to do something new that that's a priority and that's something
we've got to think about uh my only Point here here is that you know as we keep going over this is that we we we've really got to keep folks feed to the fire and listen I would love to have years where we're good where maybe we don't raise taxes by the three or four or 5% when we try to save a little bit because the problem is that if you keep
spending a little more money over one year over the next when you get to a really low as a year like we had two years ago you got to do some really drastic stuff which is terrible I cut really badly into Services agreed and I don't want to argue and it's late but when you defer you pay later this is what happened to us so we have the
capital and we didn't ask anyone Staffing priorities we just ask them Capital priorities and you know they've done so like the the garbage trucks the first example we denied it and then the taxpayers probably ended up spending more because we were in that situation we're on the same page I just think
unless we want to make meaningful can I just outline this real quick sure so of the 12 let's say new positions two of them are already hired that's the firefighter so and that will they will eventually replace folks who are I I
we're down to 10 right so let's just talk about those 10 positions so three of them are the parks laborers which was discussed tonight one is water pollution control facility which is in overnight position um one is a part the part-time
health inspector one is the recycling laborer one is the keyboarding clerk in the building department one is the part-time tree enforcement uh for shade tree and then the other two are water okay so these are new not Replacements yeah right these are position so I mean
what I need is I need to know what we have support for here to be quite honest and then I did hear tonight that there may be a request next week for additional uh Staffing at the community center so I don't know if that comes to fruition or not but I mean are there
priorities here because I don't want to have Bob and I go back tomorrow and spend the next week putting together a spending plan and then not have support for certain position they would not be in this proposal if we didn't think they were warranted that does not mean that they may not be a
casualty as we finalize our Revenue numbers and we're able to finalize the tax levy but if there's not support for any of this I think we need to know that before we walk out of here tonight and and and I'm going to jump in for a minute so if we're taking police and fire off the table in terms of new hires
um because it's safety then I know here I'm looking at the one in building um I I will tell you that since and I've only been counting since the election um there have been nine
separate incidents of people contacting me saying where's my permit um and I've worked with Keith and Beth and Tony and Paula to get those permits that have
been lagging behind moving they they need more people and and again we can we can say no but these permits some of them are for the CBD some of them are for residential
but these are things that we're not keeping up with and and I and I just lay that out there whether we get it or not we have an issue in building and part of at least part of that issue is staff
um Parks again you know the point was made earlier we're looking at three more people for maintenance we spend a lot to build our fields and you know one of the things I've learned over the years is maintenance is everything that if we
don't maintain stuff then it it turns to a pile of stuff and and so bad stuff yeah and so and so and again I'm not saying we we do it we don't do it I'm saying that's a pretty strong case because we have a big
investment in in parks to protect I cannot personally comment on health Water Pollution Control recycling I did note that Keith said with the health department person I'm trying to remember
the word that you used um in describing how much we needed it but it was basically yeah we have no choice it's a necessity because at right
Street P truck you name it every weekend something amount of events we have hang on we may not be recording am out and do these inspections so whether it's Street or an event
something that chamber are doing truck we have these inspections that are required all the time and the alternative to not having someone else who can do it is to start saying no and you know what's going to happen if we start to say
so is there way maybe that's where we charge people some more money for having their events and associ yeah and and I just wanted to isue well and I just wanted to lay that out
in terms terms of look I was in the room when the staff was sitting there and we were talking about Furlow so as I said before your point is well taken I'm just saying these are the competing interests so so is there a way to look at maybe some of these asks to look for
part timers instead of full-timers I know like for instance when Nan was talking about you know upgrading the fields you know the fields don't need that much uh maintenance during the winter months I mean is there an opportunity there to look at some part- timr my other piece again I don't think we're going to figure this out tonight
Keith I know you're as you're hoping for for us to kind of fully endorse and perhaps my fellow colleagues are willing to do it but I'm going to put a little bit more of a challenge I guess on you and your staff and that can we look at part-timers to do some of this extra work and also are there existing roles that we could repurpose are there other
places where we've seen an efficiency gain we have somebody retiring we have somebody that could be cross Tred are there other existing roles that we can repurpose to fill in some of the blanks that you're talking about and again I'm not arguing with the virtues of what you're saying I'm just having to look at the sheer fact that we're looking to add
you know again 12 midly including police and fire additional FTE to you know a 280 290 person uh employment and long term like we can't just keep growing if the population of rid would is static
well what I what I heard with a lot of people though was it's not that we're necessarily growing it's that we're doing all these replacement positions and then two like so having spoke to Shan outside of this I can speak to the recycling person is that it's like a revolving door with a part-time person
so he's having to pull people off of Sanitation and other places so while we may be adding staff in some cases it's it's detracting from other areas so I think that you have to look at the overall cost involved too if we're getting more overtime because he's pulling people off then that's still an
added cost yeah but no no pension you know with the part-timers the other problem with the part-timers and I I think it's a good way to soften it and and I'm all for exploring it but often when we bring people in they cultivate their craft here and then they get poached by another municipality who offers them the full-time with the
benefits and that that happens a lot particularly in Recreation which has kind of odd hours to be a recreational specialist you have to be a True Believer you have to work weekends um the one idea that I do have is that with respect to the additional that Paul was doing exploring with you know senior
citizens we should be looking maybe for a grant for that Paul because it is you know are eligible with our commitment to Aging in place so I fully support that but that's added to this so I think we could maybe um explore Grant are you open to
that okay so I think that for that new position that sort of emerged tonight Keith we should maybe go back uh to Millennium and look at offsetting that with the grant additionally I mean Nancy Nancy seems restorative we've had a CO
really did a number on Parks and W and I I really would like like to say I'd consider you maybe one but we we need them all we we really need them all and every otherwise you know remember when we got on here and they wanted to bring back swimming at Gren that's only possible because we had the staff
assigned to let the eighth graders and the fifth graders swim I just and particularly with Recreation it's often kids they have a smaller ratio I just can't see us cutting that and and and let me I I think I can sum this up that
that look this is a community that values its services yeah um again I always point to valet garbage pickup um not a lot of towns do that and the
council that threatens to take that away is not going to be the council in two years um by the same token as Evan points out yeah and the council that comes in at a big number tax increase the presidents aren't going to
be happy so Keith in answer to your question I think all of this is going to depend on where you bring this back what number you bring here you know you bring this back at a big number well then we're you know we're not getting all
these new people if this can come in at a at a good number then then I think there's going to be support for these positions because they provide valuable services and again as I said earlier we still
have work to do on this budget this is this is a process it's a living breathing document it changes by the hour right um especially when it comes to the the two people sitting to my left um and I just want to know that if some of these were an absolute non-starter
regardless of Levy appropriation Cap all that I just want to know that up front I think I have a better understanding of where everybody is now and uh we continue to work on this and we'll have something to present next Thursday I think I and forgive me I will try and speak for the council if anybody
disagrees with this by all means pipe in I don't think anything here is a non-starter I I think that again everything is depending upon that living breathing document where it comes in and then we look at it but there there are
no nonstarter here and if anybody disagrees with that no there no there's nothing I heard that I was fundamentally against funding I did have some concerns around Chris rud House's budg frankly I thought it was not as well thought out as some of the others um and I think that we should take a real sharp pencil
to that budget and really look at it um and I agree listen if you come back with you know based on Revenue if we come back with a very reasonable tax increase and you heard me talk about my expectations I don't think they're unrealistic um that will make things a lot easier I think onon us I will say
though on the headcount that sticks with me just because of the fact that those folks are going to we're going we are making we are obligating ourselves to pay those folks for a very long time I don't want to be in a situation where we're having to look at layoffs down the road or reduction of force down the road so I don't want to hire people that we
don't think we can comp keep on the payroll for the foreseeable future so when I see us adding a lot of folks and Grant that the fire and police I get because we're going to see an offset and I heard the police chief tonight to say his number is 49 he's not proposing going over 49 I'm fine with that the same thing with with the chief judge he
also was not increasing the size of his Force but when I hear like you know Nan talked about adding three people to to a group of like 15 that's like a 20% headcount increase I'm going to question that a bit and again I like Park maintenance too but I also know the reality of like where this eventually ends up those folks might be really good
to look at part-timers or maybe you don't need three maybe we need less and again I'd love for us to see if there existing roles that could be repurposed somehow and and which brings me back to can we use an automated lawnmower and free up a staff person um for parks and
also I just want in addition to the priorities that that Paul mentioned that memo from our recycling director um brings up that why have a director driving the garbage truck it doesn't
make sense um it's not a good use of funds and does that lead to poaching and somebody who's really good in our staff getting lured away no I I agree and a director or supervisor should not be driving a
garbage truck until it's time that there's nobody else to drive the garbage truck and then to the leadership's credit here they they will um you know I've I've watched supervisors in the river cutting trees down uh you know
cutting trees apart after a flood event you know they're they're they're Hands-On and they're they're willing to roll up their sleeves and do what they need to do in order to get the job done and that should be commended but from an operational day-to-day standpoint we need the bodies
in the appropriate job classifications to be doing the work that they're assigned right and and is per DM different significantly from part-time in terms of our budget if we were to hire people in
labor positions I have to tell you I think we can all acknowledge that the um there have been significant changes in employment generally since Co yes it is very hard to get as Nan said tonight um
the standard of employee that we're accustomed to here in Ridgewood generally it's even harder to do that on a part-time basis and even more difficult to do it on a pum basis because if there's not consistency there's not necessarily motivation and commitment and and that's that's a
concern um and listen you when you are looking for a part-time employee you have to find the right part-time employee someone who's going to want to do it for those hours and and be here on the days that they're required to be here and I think we've done a generally we've done a pretty good job with that um but I I I think we we know where we
need to go from here um and uh and we'll start that work tomorrow morning just one last question and and I'm not going to ask it to you Keith because you're not going to know the answer I I think I'm going to ask it to Heather or Bob historically five years ago what was our head count 10 years
ago ballpark can you I I'd appreciate if you can let me know before the next meeting I mean to me if we're if we're staying roughly flat with where we've been the last couple of years I'd feel a lot better if we're gradually growing that's where I start to get a little a little concerned and and and the question I
have and and I just want I think you you answered this before of the 12 new people how many people how many of them are police and fire we just two two the two firefighters the police aren't in that number well because we have three on
boarding so it okay wait but we're bringing more police they're all Replacements all replac to Evan's point no we're not increasing the head no never mind in fire we were increasing the headcount because we had people out on on disability we had people who were out injured we had people deployed and
we have people retiring so it's a combination of challenges I didn't hear chief judge say that he was growing the size of he was say Ste so again if somebody can get me offline or something I'd just like to know what our head count was 5 years ago 10 years ago doesn't even be exact okay but I I want to say a couple things because embedded
in that and we're going back around in 21 but that like to me like we have to take Co into consideration and if if Evan's going to look at that I'd rather look at before Co yeah do you want to tell me 28 2018 yeah can you get me 2018
261 to to 300 that doesn't that doesn't help that's that's not good that's Bob I don't think your mic's on I don't think your microphone is on okay so if you want to give me we'll talk about it next time because that
that's that's disturbing if that's true let's let's move on wrap up in next steps I I just want to say because people I mean we're walk we have a very talented staff who just spent as much time on this budget as us and I worry
and Evan I totally hear you I get your perspective police and fire are super important I'm very supportive of them but safety applies to a tree worker which is on here safety applies when you have a public event and it's not properly cleaned up and like a raccoon
takes over vets field we no it these are serious things that can happen we've had them show up we've had them show up at schools and so I think you know police and fire of course fully support but we've had an enormous amount of tree work and those trees are related to
Public Safety and public enjoyment and I just I feel bad me personally in my own capacity that our staff came foot we we have to flesh this out and we don't realize that if we short Change sanitation let's talk about the disability number let's see where that
is we can't just focus on one number because a a budget is holistic so you know the reason we have supervisor driving trucks that's because we don't have enough laborers it's true I'm going to ask Bob and Keith just to get back to us on that because I don't know if we can have intelligent discussion on this but I'd like to see some numbers from
the last five and 10 years because that I again that that's disturbing I'm hoping it was an anomaly but I'd like to get numbers for five or 10 years out or back and and and again I think that that's a good place to end on end this on because we can just go back and forth um punching in in a in a bag here so so
mayor our next budget meeting is uh next Thursday night the 7th uh at that time we're going to review the complete capital budget uh with the council which I would venture to say as of tonight's about 90% complete and we under that $7.5 Million
number that has been uh traditional here when it comes to Capital expenditures on a on an annual basis and then from there uh we'll review the revenues um and we will start to talk about where we stand with the tax levy um and again that may
not be a definitive number but we'll have an idea of where we are because I do believe that after the 27th we will have some work to do as we approach March 12th which is the tentative date for introduction of the budget this year will we get actual proposed numbers next
meeting in terms of like you know tax increase okay anybody else good let's go back to public comment seeing no one in the room Dylan anybody on hybrid
AIS no are you certain because we've had some people saying that they were on on okay I I don't want to I don't want to lock anybody out of this good all right with that then we will close
public comment and entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor I I I let's go for