e e e e e e e e good evening this is the Village Council special public budget meeting the date
is February 3rd 2025 the time is 50:7 p.m. adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by a posting on the bulletin board in Village Hall by mail to the Ridgewood news the record and by submission to all persons entitled the same as provided by law of a schedule
incl including the date and time of this meeting roll call council member morer here Deputy Mayor parin here council member whites here council member Winograd here mayor Banos here will you all please join me and to salute to our
flag I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all
and we will go right to public comment seeing no one in the audience and checking to see if there's anyone online at the [Music] moment Dylan Dylan nobody no no one online so I will
close public comment and we will go right to our agenda Keith take it away thank you mayor um we have a number of departments and divisions to speak about tonight um the first portion of the meeting uh will be quarterbacked by Bob Rooney our Chief Financial Officer uh
he'll take you through items one through eight which will include the finance department budget tax collector all of our inter local services and shared services agreements our Capital funds our debt service our deferred charges our statutory expenses um and then a
listing of the shared services with other municipalities and other government agencies from there uh we will have uh Chris ruteshouser the head of our public works department and our village engineer come forward for
items nine through 17 which will include the board of adjustment engineering planning board traffic and Signal Building Maintenance water pollution control facility fleets Fleet Services yard waste and uh streets department uh
then we'll have Rich calby uh with Ridgewood water and Sean Hamlin uh division head for solid waste and recycling in and then we'll round out the night with the village Clerk's budget our elections budget The Village manager's office The Village council's
budget and the village attorney's budget um so that is the game plan for tonight so without any further Ado I'll turn it over to Bob bruny to walk you through the financial Administration operating uh and salaries and wages budget good evening first one on the list is
the finance department uh from a salary and wage standpoint we're up about three .4% basically is contractual um walking through the other expenses uh some of the significant changes you'll see is printing and binding and that's the
result of an increase in cost for tax forms and envelopes maintenance of other equipment is our copy release which uh the cost increases almost every year year to maintain um the equipment that we have other Professional Services has
an increase due to our fixed asset inventory um by uh intern for internal controls and for the GIF we are required to annually uh take a fixed asset inventory exists primarily of new items that have been added uh as well as
tagging those that we have in place this is 28 right contractual Services yes Professional Services okay uh 029 you'll see a real big change and that is for uh $24,000 uh appropriation for penetration
testing uh one this is an internal control process which is probably about a year or two behind schedule and two is the GIF requires that we have penetration testing so Bob I'll ask what is penetration testing so it's an outside service that we bring in that
takes a look at the controls over the our email addresses our server support our um Wireless setups and they basically tested to make sure that there are no problems related to security and
why is that on your budget and not on the entire budget for the village so it's I put it on my budget it had been on Dylan's budget right but with everything that you see on his list I said let me bring it over to me because it's really my but this is Village Wide this is Village Wide and when was the
last time we did this uh about three or four years ago and we're stally obligated to do it again yes we're behind we and we think 24,000 is going to cover it uh That's Mike estimate yes sir okay and keep in mind um this is also a requirement of the joint Insurance Fund that we're a member of um
so you know our risk assessment is obviously higher if we're not doing this on the the detailed schedule that they provide um so this actually while you see an increase in this line item this reduces our liability as far as our premium goes when it comes to the cyber
security aspect of our GIF coverage so just another piece of this is uh Dylan has set up inhouse training where we go into websites and and learn what we should and should not do with our emails what we should accept what we should deny so that we don't get compromised so
that's part of the GIF requirement as well so there's a an ongoing the more we use it Services the more we have to make certain that there's no issues related to security and it should also be noted that in the last few years there have been municipalities and school districts
within Bergen County that have been subject to cyber security attacks um two such municipalities down in South Bergen um one paid almost a quarter of a million dollars to retrieve their data the other was never offered a ransom so they never actually were able to
retrieve their data again um so this is not something that you know has not affected communities around us and I think that's important to note wait so B I have a question the the payroll is in there yes yes as well so how is that working since last year and why do we
need the additional 19 this year time because I'm assuming payroll is under time in attendance on 294 so time in attendance is uh we just set this up last year with prime point to eliminate the need for
paper uh it's an ongoing thing there's a lot of uh how can I put it we downloaded information which identified everybody's Department who approves it and who blesses time off our first phase was to
get everybody to learn to punch in and punch out that's the hardest part of this whole thing we're probably 95% confident that people are using it as they should the next step which will be sent out tomorrow is the approval
process so people wanting to take time off having their supervisors approve it going through that ritual so that is that will begin tomorrow um and then I would say by the end of February we should be removing paper um we have to
Now update what's in Prime point with actual based upon what we've done since we started the system so once we get that in everybody will have the ability to look at their phones to look at their computer um to see what where they stand with it and just to give a little
history on this um you know a time and attendance management system was introduced here in Ridgewood pre-o obviously during covid employees weren't com to work there was some remote access um that was taking place with employees never really got back to
it um when when I arrived here you know we rep prioritize this because a lot of the paper aspect of the time and attendance system is managed in my office and quite frankly it's not a great use of our time um we still have people on
paper documenting sending it to the office each month each week on a bi-weekly basis that all needs to be compiled um you know we're we're managing time off based on Outlook none of it is terribly efficient this will be a comprehensive system that will manage
people when they arrive here when they leave here when they request a vacation day sick day personal day that's all going to be encompassed in here year in addition to the approval process so if Beth in my office asks for a week off in March I'm going to get an email where I can either approve or deny that request
based on the needs of the office during that week um it's going to make for a much more efficient system and in the long term we have intentions of this integrating with payroll as well so that we make sure that our overtime is tracked in this relative to how much they're get paid so it's it's it's
definitely something that we need it's going to improve efficiency significantly and Bob's been doing doing a great job you know out of his office quarterbacking this we have sort of used a light touch in implementing it um but we're on we're on the road to success with this but that this year will be the
final light touch it'll be like by July by July 1st this is going to be the only game in town great great and at that point we don't have this expense in the F in future years or is this a subscription where we have to keep paying this is subscription we paid an initial fee last year this is by
employee so so this is like averaged to include permanent part you know full-time Personnel right now and part-time personnel and in the summer when it grows with the lifeguards and everything else we pay per head for that and they will also be signing in and
again with the intention that down the road within the next year or two this will be part of the payroll process okay and Bob on the full-time salaries I saw we were off quite a bit for what we appropriated versus what we spent can you give us an idea of why there's like
a $20,000 difference between what we appropriated last year what we spent and then my second question on that is it looked like in 2023 we spent 566 then this year we spent like 609 or last year we spent 609 this year you have us at the same I that's a pretty dramatic increase in full-time salaries
can you give us an idea of what's going on with that line so I operated last year with um a tax collector part of the year I had a vacant position uh for the the account clerk that assisted the uh tax collector so there's some gaps in
here and then when what we budgeted last year was based upon um an estimate of what we thought we could bring someone in at then when we found that we had someone who was U part-time that wanted to go full-time uh the adjustment for
the salary was higher than what we had budgeted for about $7,000 okay everybody good I am let's go okay tax collector let me just find
it what the heck is that TC let's see so tax collector um again we bought on the tax collector during the year so that was an adjustment to the salary again only had him for part-time um
the hold on one second I'm sorry I'm looking at large screen um so that was the rationale again with the count clerk only having part of the year so that accounted for the difference between this year and what we budgeted for last say that again I I lost you on that last piece so I'm
sorry let me go back to what I initially said about the finance department okay I'm sorry I was confusing the tax collector because I I look at them all together let's start with the tax collector and now I'll go back to finance so the situation with the tax collector was I only had one for
part-time during the year I had um a vacancy in the the uh count clerk position and then when we hired the individual it was at a higher rate than what we had budgeted for um but that's the reason for the actual being lower than uh what we appropriated and this
year everybody's at full boat um they all have their um increase step increases and that's what represents the increase in that line item and give me one sec I'm going to go back to finance I apologize and Postage and express
charges that's up pretty significantly no which which number Evan I didn't hear 22 22 where are we tax 22 22 so 22 has to do with postage yeah um you
know obviously we have um the all of the postage correct me if I'm wrong goes out of uh Bob's office and we have significantly increased our Communications um whether whether it be yeah whether it be the obligation you know obviously tax bills are are the big
ones the budget message is is a second big one we did the communications to um to uh enhance our data collection for emails and cell phones and all that when we went through the boiled water notice you know all of that postage gets build
to to Bob's line at it regardless of which department so I mean it's up pretty significantly for next year right I guess my my question is why do we think we're going to spend $112,000 right you know we spent 35,000 with all that extra stuff in 2024 now we're saying we're going to
spend closer to $50,000 that's my first question is why do we think we're going to spend so much M money this year versus last year given that we did so much more last year and secondly is there any way legally folks can opt out as some of these mailings and you know join the rest of the world where you just get everything
electronically Evan just to be clear it was 35 appropriate did we spent more no 29 it was 29 we spent 35 the request is 47 and I I do agree we should have an opt
out I I I well first of all we can't do that with eddm so the way we send out the budget message the way we send out the comm's message that was everyday direct mail so it goes to every house there's there's no way to opt out of that that's just the way the post office
system is set up um tax bills correct me if I'm wrong this is not my wheelhouse but we're obligated to mail the tax bill correct there's no ability to electronically receive your tax bill you you can go on and pay it online and you can see it online but it doesn't take the municipality Off The Hook from
statutorily mailing it to the person as well mhm and keep in mind there there are going to be additional Communications for example under D rules and I just signed a letter this morning that's going to go out to everyone within 200 feet of shedler okay those
Communications are going to grow in 2025 I think we're on our second corresponden to them just this year already um so there there are legal mailings that we have to do that people are not going to be able to to opt out of that we're going to be obligated to send by regular
mail as our c as that may sound yeah no it is okay I mean listen I'll defer to you on it's just going from actually spending $35,800 this year to 475 next year I'm going to stop because I know it's like $112,000 in a $60 million budget but um that did Shrek me as a bit much so the
last 6 months we've averaged about $4,000 a month so if you annualize that you're up to the 48,000 I mean listen we can we can look at cutting back that line and if it exceeds you know we'll have to look at doing trans transfers later on in the year I mean is there any way we could
start with one thing like the calendar to opt out I know two people down who would I mean could we pilot something that is optional to opt out of to to do the opt out you'd have to individually address the mailing which is going to
cost you more which is going to cost you more than the bulk mailing every day so it you're damned if you do you're damned if you don't and I I don't know what that math looks like but I can tell you that on the back of the napkin it's less expensive to send it to every door I think I think the only way out of this
is to contact our legislative team and ask them to work on legislation that would allow all municipalities to provide an opt out for the for tax bills and other required mailings so put it on
the list but in the meantime we'll we'll take a look at 022 and we'll see if we can sharpen our pencil on that M okay are we good good next statutory expenditures so is this inter inter inter locals inter no statutory
expenditures oh I'm sorry oh it's okay number seven oh we're St we're skipping ahead yep apparently so and that is under okay defer Char what is that under yeah I should say def is defc is an abbreviation for
deferred charges we're going to jump to that next which would be number six so we're going to jump around between three and eight but Let's do let's start let's do charges just to we're doing deferred charges before stat we're not doing statutory expenses we're deferred charges first we're going
to come back we'll go alphabetically so in deferred charges for 25 we have a requirement to raise $250,000 for um the emergency appropriation that we did this year for fire salaries and wages then we have 1/5 of the special emergency that was
created back in uh 2023 for the uh covid um emergency this will expire in 2026 um so this is the last year where
we have one more year we have one more year after this so this year and next year for the 26 correct and then that finishes the special emergency and then we have $5,000 which we put in against Capital lances to fund them manually questions yeah what is this so
the these are these are charges that are taken on in a year relative to fire snw that was last year when we because we had all the people out like John fire snw fire salaries and wages okay we were short because we incurred so much
overtime because we had people out on workman's comp we had people out on personal injury we're paying for last year this year correct that now now the special emergency you do a special emergency under the statute you have five years to pay that back so this was 2023 I think it was before I got here it
was 20 I'm sorry 20 2020 was a covid and a revenue deficit so this is the same kind of charges related to covid that we have five years to pay back and this is the fifth year however there's a criteria for a special emergency which you can spread out over 5 years right
the snw from fire last year didn't apply to that so you have to make that up I now completely understand got it thank you go ahead okay good good any any questions about those no okay next all right statutory expenditures statutory expenses is this
in the same tab no yes it is next page ah yes thank you a different one remind us what statutory expenditures are good so statutory expenditures are um full to the category
of unemployment insurance Social Security coverage pension payments uh they're required by law um most of them are um uncontrollable it's whatever we get built for from pensions and health care and things of that nature a couple
of these we budget internally to account for um cumulated leave for termination pay or for salary and and negot salary negotiation costs which when we enter into uh um non-union and directors annual
salaries um so we budget money to put into the reserves so that after they're negotiated and paid out they get charged against these reserves so for um terminal leave last
year we had $75,000 the target to replenish that account this year is $100,000 uh again trying to maintain uh something that won't impact future Year's budgets the same thing for salary
negotiation costs we budgeted 152 last year I'm looking for 175 this year uh I'll know better in the next I'm going to say month as to what our termination pay payouts or if there's any changes to
salary negotiation numbers that are fine-tuned uh so that number has some flexibility to it uh as we get down to Social Security unemployment insurance again these are amounts Medicare Part B these are amounts that I have no control over why
do they change so dramatically year to year I mean our overall you know number of employees has stayed relatively static why is these fees changing so much so some of this um is for Medicare for example you're always like a year behind so whatever statutorily the
government comes up with um premium payments you're being affected this year for so these are just statutory changes that we have to pay more just corre and what are OE budget credits so these are credits that get moved to other departments so for example I account for
all my Social Security here and then water department I I charge them so I credit this oh okay yeah where throughout the entire budget document wherever you see OE budget credits means he's charging another source most cases it's water because they have a
standalone budget mhm for things that affect their population of employees but just bear in mind that that is being charged against another account okay so then um Public Employee Retirement System and consolidate police
and fire again are all statutory I'm sorry and police and fire retirement system are all statutory uh so there's not much I can do with those everybody good let's go okay then we're into what's
sorry on shared services shared services and that's the handout no Debt Service I'm sorry oh debt Services number five right what do we do debt Services number five debt debt I'm going to guess yes
is was this at the end it was it was just it was just before Finance two tax we good yep all right so for uh General obligation principle we're up slight over slightly over last year but
General obligation interest is down uh so it's roughly a 7% decrease from last year bond anticipation notes we anticipate or we'd like to pay down $100,000 of notes and our interest on notes is uh flat to last year so total
debt service is down roughly 6% for this year just to show you I I ask questions even when I'm not complaining um it's okay why is it down and what is our overall amount of debt we're C we're currently carrying uh that I have I'll get to you
by the end of the meeting tonight okay um or the reason it's down is the interest rates on the short-term debt is Down based upon uh the rates that we got we had two sales last year to note sales January and October and the rates are failable to what we carried from the
previous because interest rates are going down and we have that AAA Bond rating right that's why those rates go down for us again it's all based upon the market but we are at the the ones that share the best rates uh as far as the um principle depends on the age of
maturities so um it's up a little um this year but the interest rates that go with it um they start to fade away and and become more favorable to whatever we sold them for great so Bob can I ask just a general question cuz it's the 20th year
of Hackle is that in included as an open Bond here I mean when you talk about the bonds is that just going to disappear once it's paid off from the budget so you don't it's not issued for a specific project it's usually issued for group of
uh projects so if shedler is I'm sorry Hackle if it was in there for short-term financing for example and we're in our third year most likely it's in a bond okay we bonded it but I I'll get you that information as well just to
let you know where that is because it is 20 years I'm just assuming you know and that was a pretty what was it 10 million something like that but I thought we paid it off in 2024 so if you're in a different Zone here so if you're talking about what was funded
through um open space is that where you are I I'm assuming I don't think we had I don't think we had $10 million in I don't know what the structure of the 2004 deal was I'll clear it up for you by the okay by the end of the night because it's just been 20 years okay
I'll I'll share with you what I and I only know that CU Liam's 20 years there you go there you go you got something to gaug it against any other questions on debt service no good okay I just have two three other items there so you have Capital Improvement fund uh which is the
5% down payment required on any uh new Bond ordinances we have for the year um so I kept it flat to last year and then we have the contribution to Joint meeting um which is an annual um
assessment that we get from Consolidated dispatch okay we good y good all right uh last is the uh shared services so I handed out or left in front of you curiosity interlocal Services did we cover same as shared services
it's one in the I use sir and did we do Capital funds or is that so common Capital Improvement fund is what we're covering that we just covered okay it was a quickie so the shared service agreements uh show whether we are the lead or we
are the recipient I listed all the the ones that I was aware of for the last three years on the right side it shows what the either we are receiving or paying for that service and then there are a couple of open items which um are based upon um
signed agreements which I may not have a copy of but I will certainly update this when I do uh which would be the to be determined so it looks like we're we're this is we're paying this is an expense everything in the far right corner right
so no if we are the recipient we are paying out if we are the lead we're receiving and just because people can't and we have two new potentials coming in
this year right you have Norwood yes and recycling with more styrofoam which is good I I think this is a great document I'd love to see it at two pages keep in mind too um on Wednesday Night's at Wednesday night's work session you're
going to consider a shared service with a whole Focus for some services from signal so if you've you look at your packet you'll see that you know we're growing this we grow it slowly while shared services is important you need to be able to deliver or
the lead agency needs to be able to deliver and you need to have a level of confidence that that's going to work before you enter into it um but we'll we'll talk more about what're the services we're going to be able to provide from the traffic signal division to hocus Wednesday night good
great would love to I agree with Shon I'd love to see the two pages next year is this great and no changing the [Laughter] font that's it for me got any other questions think you got a easy
Bob got a yeah Evan's just getting warmed up thank you Bob thank you Olivia this is I know I just want to thank you guys because it's a lot of work and I know the email thing made it super hard and this this is great this the
presentation so far has been great thanks it is great when it works you know I say that all the time technology is terrific and one of the things about Ridgewood which when I first came here I was fascinated with the amount of it that was available and
as it grows and grows and grows you we are so far ahead of other municipalities it's unbelievable really yes yes you you take away the big cities like the Jersey City and the hobok come down to our size and they just don't have the same all good where's
zba well I think it doesn't matter because we're still waiting for the director to come in on that one so I think we're going to why don't we take a break until he walks in great which could be any moment you know what this is under
zoning second se's here yeah I just turn it so mayor engineering is actually waiting for a few division heads to arrive uh because we're running slightly ahead of schedule um so with the council's Indulgence uh we're going to have Sean
present sanitation and recycling uh prior to engineering and public Works arriving if that's okay excellent welcome Sean Sean you have a preference as to uh which topic you speak to First welcome no not really
okay all right let's do uh sanitation first how's that okay we starting with operating yes okay come on it's here this is about yes this is solid waste it says sanitation we give we'll
give Rich a second to open up his laptop since uh we threw right into the firing pan here on yes but it's under sanitation and then and then recycling is Senate R
yep yeah so the first tab will be solid waste operating budget and then we'll talk about Capital then we'll go to recycling operating and then we'll go to Capital on that fair enough sounds good all right let's go all right Sean feel free
all right so for solid waste um I know our numbers going up this year based on the fact that we had uh we signed a new contract with uh with iws our disposal fees went up so you're going to see a pretty steep jump there um that was
unavoidable that was for disposal disposal yes and oh that's the bottom one is that at yes the bottom number and yellow the 188
971 that's what it's anticipated to to to jump where's that reflected I'm having trouble seeing that above this cuz your salary and wages look pretty flat right yeah then your other expenses look oh I'm sorry the vehicle rental is
where we're up the 87,00 that's why it uh that's what I was waiting for yeah yeah5 uh so the vehicle rental we're working hard to to get that done uh hopefully as soon as possible I put in
the resolutions for them to purchase them uh hopefully in April um we'll get to that in capital later but uh that's what the funds that be needed to if we if we don't uh solve the budget before May that's what we'll that's the number we'll need to pay for
the rentals through May so just to bring the council up to speed um I've asked Bob to work with Heather and our bond councel to prepare a capital um Bond ordinance to introduce early which is what we did last year and it would be
for the same two areas that we did last year which would be the road resurfacing so that way we we can authorize Chris to start to prepare the bid for 2025 and when the weather breaks he can get into the ground we would also be introducing
uh the ordinance that we need to purchase the two Rental Vehicles so that would be the second part of the ordinance so I anticipate that we'll be talking about this at our next meeting um and then you know we'll be able to move forward with the with the introduction and the adoption but that
will um come before the remaining Capital items which will be introduced and adopted in sync with introducing and adopting the budget um roughly it's going to be 2 point um 2,250,000 on the
paving um and while we're in the process of refining a number because we're applying some old capital um it should be somewhere around 500 to 550 on the purchase of the vehicles give G give or take don't hold
me to them because again it we're going to try to apply some old capital if it's available so that we can pair down these numbers and we're not taking on do that no because I'm still trying to figure this out uh yeah it's going tobly be a little bit more than
that right right but but I guess I don't know maybe I'm just dense but I'm having trouble seeing where the increases are on operating uh on 055 the vehicle rental right 87600 yes
the so so maybe let let me let me let me talk you through 055 so in 2024 we rented two sanitation Vehicles yes sent somebody out drove them back from Ohio we now have them y with the
understanding that we would rent them for a period of time and then that rental would convert to a purchase so last year we budgeted 16 uh 3 244 to pay off the rental rental has to be paid for through operating
this year we're budgeting 876 because we're only renting it through May okay and then by may we will have purchased these vehicles through the capital Bond ordinance that I was just discussing so the reason that that 163 is 87 is we're only doing a portion of the year as a
rental and then we're going to buy these trucks and we're going to hold them out right yeah we we we have we have the quotes on the purchase of the vehicles so that's you know that number is a given um it's a matter of how if we have funding and this is my my goal here we
talked about it last meeting I'll talk about it at every meeting until we spend it all um but I want to go back and look at old capital ordinances because if there's money from prior administrations that's open I want to use that before we ask this Council to take on any new debt so we're going to
make that application to Sean's trucks that's why I gave you that window of 5550 somewhere in that neighborhood we're going to see what we can apply we'll introduce a bond ordinance to to cover the Delta and we'll own these trucks by the middle of the year and do we get credit in the purchase for the
what we paid in rental yes we do yeah we're getting about uh about $40,000 it's not a full credit uh it's credit towards what we spent on the rentals we get 25% of what we spent on their term 25% yeah and and and I want
to say you know that this is not customary in municipal government to do what we did with the rental into a purchase but we were so desperate last year to have trucks on the road that were efficiently picking up Solid Waste and Recycling that Sean came up with
this creative idea it got us the trucks immediately and now we'll own these trucks moving forward and hopefully with the help of our Fleet division get a a nice useful life out of these vehicles vles and I'd also like to add that uh with the vehicles that we uh ordered
last year that should be here hopefully in the first quarter or so uh with the addition of these rentals that will put us back finally at our full Fleet which we haven't been at in years if if my recollection serves me um I believe that
before we needed to rent these vehicles um in the prior budget cycle you would said we desperately need more trucks and this council did not give you all the trucks you requested correct just check thank
you so um are we good to move on to the yes we are so then the other the other line item um that I was uh referring to earlier as the was the um the Tipping fees or the disposal fees and uh that is
is line 048 048 yes so that that that number is going to go up this year based on our new contract that was uh that was unavoidable so uh it's it's a pretty big
increase but uh I'm glad we have a new contract with them because a lot of people are still paying a lot more than we are questions move on all right all right um Sean why don't you go to recycling operating and then we'll do Capital
together is that okay yep okay so for recycling um operating uh everything is pretty flat here um we're going to save some money this year uh by signing the new contract with Atlantic Coast recycling uh our our disposal fees are
going to come down uh pretty significantly uh we are asking for a uh we have a part-time employee right now well a part-time position we don't have an employee right now um and over the last
several years we've gone through about six or seven people to fill that position because they come in and then we train them and then they leave for better job jobs and then we have to start fresh all over again and these are these are employees that we need to
train you know we put a lot of effort into training them they have to know how to work all the equipment at the recycling center they deal with residents those of you that use the recycling center know them um but it's tough so and and when we don't have that
employee we're using supervisors like myself and Moses borona to fill the position we have to stay at the recycling center all day so we were hoping to to um to make that a permanent position a full-time position and
uh to offset some of the cost I I went through some of the numbers and right off the bat every time I have to send um my supervisor Moses on a route he he goes and he has to dump the truck he gets overtime for it we spent about five uh
$5,600 in overtime last year because we didn't have an employee to fill in that position and uh obviously that would uh for a employee that's not a supervisor that overtime number will come down significantly um and that guy the
permanent position will have a uh will have a CDL so we can send him to the dump which will also save us some some money and it'll give us someone that we can train I have a a fellow in uh the sanitation department who has uh worked there before and he's getting up there
in age and he loves it there in the res love him as well so I was hoping to move him there and then hire a younger person in his position at sanitation recy labor yes
yes and he would come in at around 58,000 a year to start as opposed and and there's a the part-time employees we pay about uh I think $330,000 and uh but we never have them I mean we do
but then they leave we had a wonderful gentleman that we hired from that worked here in town at the uh at the vacuum repair shop uh Mike and he was great and I was hoping one day we could hire him full-time but then he found another job in Cleveland and he left and it broke
all of our hearts there questions so it looks like it's the disposal fee that's really driving this right yes okay sure very
yeah we we can ask uh Johanna to to talk to Carol and see what they could put together I mean a lot of the um recycling messaging is is driven through recycle coach which is the uh you know the app that that Sean's team uses down there but we can certainly work to
extend that into more of our general Communications that come out from I do have to say since Carol arrived red we have been working with her and doing a lot to reach out and uh and and just try and get people to recycle better and she's been awesome at that but
eveny Market we a lot of theer generation love the secondary Market so to your to your point we're working on a uh and we we haven't done it yet so I don't want to I will say we're working
on a report for the um for the uh styrofoam densifier report and it's going to be awesome and we're we're just getting some numbers together on how it affects the environment what we took out of the the uh the waist
stream and um also you know what we've gotten in we've taken in so far uh over $10,000 in in revenue for the for the styrofoam program which is more than I would have thought and we're it looks like we'll be able to expand uh to take
on other towns as well so I love your enthusiasm Sean um I'm going to make a statement not a question I mean it's like $285,000 your budget's going up by um I can't hear I I said it's like $285,000 that this is going up so we're
going to have to find places elsewhere to kind of cinch the belt um I will Echo Siobhan's comments you've been coming to us asking for new trucks for years so not questioning um you know the the wisdom of what you're asking for just the sheer fact that we're going to have to find some money elsewhere what you're
what you're going to find is that in both of Sean's budgets and when Chris and Mike uh come forward to talk about yard waste you know um disposal fees are again you know I categorize that like pension costs and health care costs
fixed cost it's some it's fixed and we're at the mercy of where we're going to take this material um to Sean's credit you know he he renegotiated our contract with Atlantic recycling who was closed for a period of time because they experienced a fire at their facility um
you know I I do think that while the number is is significant you know we we negotiated a pretty good contract with them uh especially when you compare it to what is happening across the state and in other municipalities um but this is one of those areas and again you know
we're we're looking for pluses and minuses in this budget but there are going to be things that there are going to be things that we see that are going to be fixed that we're not going to have control over and this is one of those areas I appreciate that and I'm not arguing with the discipline and and the Integrity that you showed in getting us the best deal possible but to your point
I like like that statement pluses and minus this is going to be a plus so the answer is we're going to have to find other places to save money to make up for this plus so this because this is the only reason I'm getting on my soap box is I think this is the first one we've heard where there's been a significant jump over last year and I
understand we've got to pay it but that means we've got to find other places to find and you're going to see that in the police budget too so yeah I I do want to say it's a big plus I mean clearly this service in in these anecdotal conversations everybody says such great things and this is a service that Bridgewood loves and you're sort of just
left and I appreciate the the and I think this you know a big bulk of this goes away after this year with the with the purchase of the trucks and uh and once we get back we really dug ourself a hole with the garbage trucks and that
there's no avoiding that we're still digging out of it but I think this is going to be and keep in mind those rental fees that $887,000 in rental fees will be off the books completely completely so you know cuz then we'll we'll have financed uh through the capital budget the the the purchase of the truck so you know that that was a
big nut last year was cl I will reiterate that full squarely on the council's shoulders because um if we had if we had purchased the trucks when Shan had requested them we would not have had the rental
fees um that we've incurred um and again there were competing interests all the way around and there was a reason why we couldn't we couldn't do it at the time but it it came back it came back to us so I mean looking looking backwards Co relief would have been great for this
cuz I'm imagine you know sanitation went through the roof because everybody was home and improving their homes I mean that would have been a great use for that money yeah unfortunately that ship is sell there's lots of other things that that money should have been spent on that it wasn't but we weren't here so it is what it is like I said you know again Sean I do agree with my colleagues
I I think the world of your department it's just the financial reality at the end of the day we're not going to raise taxes on our in 5 6 7 8% because of disposal fees it's going to be in coming upon us to find other places to find efficiencies to offset those disposal fees that we have to pay with that you want to transition to
Capital on both the uh Recycling and sanitation side so as as we get to that um I will tell you that we we have been using that $600,000 number as the placeholder for the new garbage trucks goes to my earlier comments about uh trying to find
open Capital um if it exists uh to reduce that number slightly um so I think we've covered that one but if you want to talk about the two requests for recycling Sean wait can I just ask a question Keith you're saying 600 but I wrote down five that was the 600 was the
placeholder okay and based on our capital budget meeting that we had this morning and some of the other factors that are going to affect the capital budget we're we're trying to get that number down to five or 550 I'm sorry which which tab are we looking at here sanitation sanitation it's near the
back sand cap yes this is for two so we use that placeholder because that's the the overall value of the trucks but then you when you start to minus what we get back uh from the rental fees then that number comes down and then like he said we're going to be
looking at we had some unused Capital that I think we can apply to these purchases to get it down a lot what's the average lifespan of a garbage truck they say 10 years or 100,000 miles all right so we should be not seeing this again for a little while then right the
next time the next time right now is uh probably 2027 we have two 2017 trucks that in 20 in in uh 2027 think about two years okay and and Sean doesn't know this yet but based on um you know the
the end of the rentals purchase of these vehicles once that's settled we're going to ask Sean to to prepare like we asked chief judge to prepare you know a 10year schedule which is what John just completed for us relative to the fire apparatus we're going to ask sea to do
that with regard to both the sanitation Fleet and the recycling Fleet so that we have a plan and we can space these payments out and we're not at a point where we're asking a councel for you know four trucks in a year not a fair situation for for anybody so you know that's that's part of our our long-term
planning on the uh on the capital side that's great and that'll make it so that the next time he needs a truck and we have competing interests we're not going to say yeah we can't afford it this year and get ourselves back into the same bind so I want to thank everybody for
learn we all learn from what's happened and we move forward and this is a good plan Sean why don't you to talk about the F350 and the lock rooms so the F350 uh we uh we had a surplus truck 273 it's a it's a Ford F250 uh it just served its uh its
purpose it's uh at the end of its life um and the uh oops I'm sorry I had you guys in my it's okay what do we what do we use these trucks for like the so the yeah so the the small pickup trucks for recycling we have two pickup trucks and
two rack trucks we Ed them for the collection of the metal on the on the bulk days um so right now we're using the supervisor's truck but it's not suited for it because it doesn't have a tailgate lift and um also it uh I know
Mike's Fleet dep depends on that truck for plowing so we're down a plow right now as well and the 250 were replacing how old is that that was a uh 2013 okay um $30,000 for locker rooms so
$30,000 for the locker rooms right now if you've been down to our break room in the uh in the recycling center we share it with Parks the uh the floors are all ripped up and the lockers are old and there's not enough of them so we're
looking to take them out and put in more lockers because we have more employees than we used to um with the with the parks and and recycling growing and it just not a pleasant place to to be if
you want to break for lunch and and they that's aide of the I know last year we put in for the uh 65,000 to do the bathrooms because right now we only have one bathroom for 24 people so we did the bathrooms no not yet we you put it in
for we didn't give it to you this no we we got it but um bigger problems came up and we had to put it uh we had to put it on hold until we figure out a plan we're meeting next there's essentially two ways to solve this problem because there's sanitary line issues that exist
there too um so rich charlon and Chris have been discussing with Sean and Rich how to best solve this problem um without question and that's why the $30,000 essentially made the cut during our capital budget meeting is to do these two work efforts together we have
to address the restroom facility down there you cannot have one restroom for 24 employees there's all kinds of issues with that um and in addition to that you know every employee down there deserves to have you know a space that's their own a locker area where their personal
belongings are secure um you know we're trying that that facility if you have not been down there I would encourage you to you know reach out either through me or directly to sha or Matt andula do a walkth through down there because it is somewhat eye openening um but we want
to we want to get this project underway and we want to get the uh the facilities down there uh to a standard that we can be proud of when it comes to our Parks Division and our sanitation and recycling so if the bathrooms cost 65,00 that we didn't do what does the 30,000 get us the locker rooms the locker rooms
lock the the the existing Capital would only effectuate the improvements to the restrooms so the 65,000 we didn't spend but we have it to spend still and now we're asking for another 30,000 to do the Lockers in addition we do the project all at one get the you know the economies of scale if we're going to do this we we should not do it peace meal
that's the recm it be more efficient Evan with the carryover capital I'm assuming that 60 yeah the other the other reason it hasn't been done as well is because get with the sanitary line issues we're going to have to do some ripping up of the parking lot and we're planning to pave the parking lot we've
been waiting for to get on the schedule I think we're on the schedule for this year or relocate the restrooms to the relate the restroom but it sounds like the restroom is a done deal you got your 65,000 last year that's going to happen right it it well we're either we're either running a new sanitation line across the parking lot and somewhat
across the building or we're moving the restrooms to the other side of the building and that's the equation that Chris and and that's paid figure out it's it's it's a funded done deal but not an executed done deal so we still have 24 employees in a less than and
I've been there less than ideal situation so if we're going to do it the improvements now for this year 65 is done like that was last year right so that's fixed the bathrooms whatever you guys come up with that money's been allocated everybody gets new bathrooms as soon as you guys finish that that's good right so the 30,000 lock for the
locker rooms is what is what we're adding is you're saying right correct I I just think it's it's you know this is a very physical job those numbers are very high it's a very uncomfy space back there and I think it should be improved I mean we
improve we all we have beautiful amenities and there's a lot of and I know this more not because of Shawn but because of parks and I just that is a stunning number to the other the other issue down there with the locker room is that the locker room is right outside of johanna's office there is no changing
room she's walked out of her office to get supplies and guys are in their underwear and it's uh it's less than an ideal situation we have an Antiquated facility that we need to address and I'm confident that we can
recommend the $30,000 in the in the final capital budget from what I know of what Keith refers to as the Hunger Games if this made it through that facility is in really bad shape
and and I I do strongly encourage you when you have some time to have Sean just you know give you a f- minute tour that's all you'll need to understand what we need to do down there understood anything else for Sean nope you're good all right thank you Sean
kick Rich calby thanks Sean off yeah well and we're going to invite Chris and his team up uh to do their departments and then we'll bring Rich back up for the for the water presentation once the rest of his team gets
here Chris come on up uh nine we're start we're going to go from 9 to 17 with Mr rudus Howard yes sorry so this is zoning board we're going to good question I don't know where that BM
I have blz is that it Olivia what's zoning under blz yeah how about Mike how about how about we start with you Mike we'll we'll work our way from the bottom up um this way
we can get the division heads in and out if that's okay sure so we'll start with streets yard waste and Fleet which are all covered by Chris and Mr J are we starting with streets now is it co streets start with streets is Str yes
Str Str good evening mayor and councel hey Chris all right for the street Division I think our budget is pretty much unchanged anybody has any questions we'll try to ask you have to bring the microphone up to your mouth
please okay does anybody have any questions here we go questions so you're going up $187,000 yep you want to walk me through where that is where we spend the next extra money we have some significant costs on disposal uh Keith alluded to
that one of the things which plan item is that let me go down here other contractual service number 29 okay line item number 029 and that's disposable that's that's
a significant significant jump over what we spent last year yeah we are getting rid of our street sweepings in a prompt manner we hadn't done that for a number of years we had accumulated them in a location I will not divulge and dp's
been very polite about it with us we did finally find a facility that will take them is just over the New York state border it's in Rockland County right and we trucked out a whole bunch of stuff last year pretty much cleaned it up and if
you can we're going to anticipate that this year every bit that we clean up street sweeping is going to go off to Rockland County or Orange County we also had our yard ways disposal although that's more in the yard waste budget I'm sorry wait Chris
are you on 29 cuz 29's related to cold weather only for me I'm sorry on 29 029 is only I'm I'm seeing it only as cold weather like it's it's blank is anybody else on the same it's all blank on the
top it's all snowing me it's all it's all cold weather related on our form it's also where I think we uh dispose of our street sweepings that's a big issue that came up this past year yeah I'm just not Olivia help us out here I'm not seeing that as a line item as cold
weather that would just what we usually use is salt right now we're in a very high salt winter right we keep having these storms like we had this morning no no I'm just trying bear with me where where are where the leaves in the street leav it's
a separate budget okay you're going to have a different spre you're going to have a different spread sheet as long as it's not supposed to be in 29 because 29 for us is only cold weather yeah you're going to have yard waste and actually 31 T if you click on Tab 31 it takes you to the rock salt calcium chloride brine
line items and that uh you know that request is there for 75,000 got it so in addition the prior year we used um snow trust funding about $150,000 to reduce the
appropriation are we still doing snow trust funding so maybe uh depending on where we are um I'd like to keep building that up if possible but depending on where are with the budget overall we'll figure that out okay get your mic
on I don't think so so actually just going back temporary and seasonal why is that up so much pardon temporary and seasonal employees you spend 33,000 he's on the main page it's
260% line 13 yeah we haven't asked and last year we spent a lot less because we couldn't get anybody to work for us and what what is what does that line item cover uh that covers the people to pick up the yard waste uh during yard waste season they're 28 hour no more
than 28 hour a week employees so they don't get benefits um raised their salaries a little bit uh but we didn't get much interest this past year so how do we cover it last year we used our staff that didn't do other tasks we took
them off from pothole fixing Road repairs cash Bas repairs and put them on picking up yard waste okay and going back to 29 I'm still lost as to how we're going to spend $190,000 more than we did this year or last
year so last year's appropriation was also reduced by $60,000 in that line added for snow trust if if you go to the to the detail on 029 right you'll see in the bottom right hand corner in parenthesis the number of 150,000 mhm that's the that's
the application of the snow trust so he took money from the trust fund and moved it over to offset this particular line item we haven't applied any of those trust fund accounts or budget credits yet we need to see where we are we need to get through these hearings with the
council we need to determine where our Surplus stands and you know where are so that's helpful so the $1,700 that we actually spent last year we actually spent a lot more than that we were just able to offset what we actually spent with the trust which brought us down to 117 correct cuz what what we what we
budget for snow and we've had a few light years of snow we're able to take that dollar amount move it over to trust for future years we've been doing that regularly so now when we need it we can apply it so we think this number will come down that's correct
okay what's left in the trust excuse me what's left in the trust that you'll get before the end of the night [Laughter] too the only thing I will say on the temporary and seasonal is I supported Chris's recommendation on trying to up that line item um Leaf season is a bear
in this town and frankly the more trees we plant the more leaves we have so you know there's a there's a cause and effect let's call it um and it was taxing on Mike and his crew um
you know I would get complaints daily about leaf collection um not because these fellas weren't doing enough a good enough job but there was an expectation that the day the landscaper put the leaves out that the next morning Mike and his Crews were going to be out there picking it up and that's just not
necessarily a realistic expectation in every situation so again being able to have additional temporary and seasonal staff to support that task um is is going to be beneficial and make the process more efficient we had guys out
they're working 6 days a week if you remember Chris came into a meeting and and asked permission uh to start the process at 5:00 a.m. which we we granted um with um half powered leaf blowers I think was the uh was the provision that we gave them and the marching orders uh
to to go out there and work that early in the morning um but we we need more support during Leaf season it's it's taxing on the crews and we're taking guys off of other responsibilities in order to help meet that need so Mike I don't know if you want to talk more to that but but that's that's my
assessment of the situation yeah no Keith is right on that we're we're pulling guys from different departments we're pulling guys is that on make sure just make sure the green light's on m y it's on you just need to speak close to it okay um so yeah we're we're pulling guys from Fleet we're pulling guys from
other divisions so we're getting behind on other work um and the guys are out there 10hour days 6 days a week um and and the part- ERS we only have them for 28 hours 7 hours a day so when they're done we're pulling people from other divisions to
come and jump in and help it's are we going to be able to get guys because I remember you just said we couldn't get them or did I miss here um I don't have a crystal ball on the economy I think last year the economy was very good um
maybe the economy is going to go a little down this year and there might be some interest it's hard to predict but but mayor along same philosophy that this Council used you know back in 2023 with lifeguards yep you have to be competitive to get folks to come out and
do these jobs which equates to having a line item like this in here now maybe this isn't sustainable by the time Bob and I finalize this process this might be you know this might be on The Cutting Board I don't know that but in concept I support being able to help streets with
the yard waste and especially the leaf collection in the fall what were we offering on an hourly basis in the year last year and what are we offering on an hourly basis this year I don't know that off St my head last I just want to chime in that wait I don't I don't know that off the top of my head I'm just saying
you said we're being more competitive so are we offering more cuz I think I think the the offer was around minimum wage right I think it's a $20 an hour yeah and then if they had a CDL and it's 22 then it went up to 22 um and last year
it was not no that was last year and it was not we were not that successful what we do do is Mike and I belong to an organization called the Bergen County superintendant and directors of Public Works we talk to our colleagues and our
colleagues circulate any job ads they have so we see what other towns are offering we're right there with the rate uh with other towns yeah I'm just I'm just it goes in in terms of you know to to go back to
the Lifeguard analogy if we're and look and I I never want to spend more than we have to but if if we're not if you're not getting any applicants at 20 bucks an hour you're probably not going to get applicants at 20 bucks an hour this year
I mean it's just well you know it's just simple once the budget is approved we'll see what we what you folks allocate and we'll proceed accordingly once we start advertising we'll have a pretty good feel within a couple weeks whether there is any interest uh one of our permanent
part-timers just transferred over to water pollution to fill a vacancy over there um another Perman part-timer that had left last summer is also interested in a full-time position with the village so we often times dangle that as a
gateway to other jobs in a village because we get to see how the individual works it has been successful in the past but again the starting salary has to be there to and I'm just saying that if if we need temporary and seasonal people
you know look it's it's the if you know we can be right there with everybody else the same way we were with in the Lifeguard shortage we were there with everybody else and there was National lifeguard shortage the following year there was still a national lifeguard shortage but there wasn't one in Ridgewood because we paid more and so if
we need to get this done and it's probably going to be here I'll I'll go out on the limb and say cheaper in the long run because we're not paying overtime um than it might be worth it to look at this line item at the end of the day and say paying 20 bucks an hour
maybe we should be paying 24 because you can't pay 21 and expect people to come you got to give them a little extra if we're having trouble filling this um and I do remember also last year as I recollect didn't we didn't the cold come quickly and the leaves all fell at once
did and that was and that was a big part of the problem because they didn't fall gradually so we couldn't pick them up gradually and all of a sudden the streets were filled so um what I I think I think before we finalize this you guys have to take a look at what was offered and what we
want to offer if we really want to address this or if we just want to put it in a light on and and and hope and pray and and I think that answers you know the the what we were paying Chris 20 $20 an hour non-cdl 22 CDL correct and we're going to have to take a look at what makes the most sense on an
hourly basis to to try to incentivize people to apply for these positions and do you pay benefits no just so that's why I would support it yeah but again at the end of the day if if our and again I don't I don't know what what our what our guys
get paid but if we're paying them time and a half um our our regular staff members well that's going to be significantly more than the 24 an hour so at the end of the day it's if we increase the the
hourly wage for the seasonal people it's not actually going to cost us money it's going to save money because we're not how much do we know what our our average hourly cost is for our regular staff members so also for the permanent part-timers they can only work 28 hours
a week they have a certain amount of hours in a year so if they hit those amount of hours in November we have to lay them off until January 1st I understand do we know what our average um uh full-time staff members make we we'd have we'd have to get that
we'd have to get that from payroll and here I'm I'm going to for example I'm just going to say let's say it's 25 an hour now we're going to pay him 3750 an hour to work overtime right instead of 24 an hour for a seasonal people um to
get it done more quick more quickly more efficiently and at the end of day cheaper so I I I urge you all to take a look at that um so that we can address this in the same way that we address the Lifeguard shortage just one thing to keep in mind you make a good point but a lot of the stuff that's done by the
full-time staff is not stuff that can be done by part-time employees such as the running a heavy equipment driving into big trucks it's I I I I understand I understand completely there the it's a different skill set right but we need hands right we need more hands on deck
absolutely so and that's why I'm saying we need to look at this in the big picture so that we again we're not saying oh well we don't want to pay them that much right at the end of the day it's a lot cheaper than paying everybody overtime and it's not killing our guys right um because I look I I know they I
know they make extra money and it's and it's nice in the envelope but you know they go home at night and they're dead yes so um that's for sure yeah I just wanted to say too that to Paul's point I think anything you can incentivize to you know because it is a backend burden
now I mean these trees are holding on forever and I also think that because the public is sometimes watching this this is a general safety issue as well you know with daylight savings the leaves become a hazard for our roads and I think you guys do a great job I agree
for we should incentivize it and I'm imagining you know when we overwork people we run the risk of disability as well so I just want to say thank you for everything and literally I I'm a big Walker and I watch these trees and this year they really did hold out a lot and you got it done so thank you thank you
um I hear I hear that other towns require that leaves be bagged would there be any room for efficiencies if we required residents to have their leaves bagged not with the not with the systems we use we use
the leax we have two of them thanks to council funding for it they are very very useful to keep the streets clean um the other thing is the loaders we pick everything up with a loader so a bag would just get broken up anyway okay uh most if you have bags the
most efficient way to pick individual bags up is usually you have to send a sanitation truck out with the a driver and two guys loading so that eats up the staff that's where we run the staff shortages we're we're set up
differently we're that capacity at Lake View right now I think you could speak into sorry I think we're pretty close to capacity at Lake View right now and adding thousands and thousands of bags might put us to a point where now we're
paying to get rid of stuff um so that's yeah so can ask where's Paving on this or is that another tab I'm sorry all capital it's all capital pavings all capital right engineering so when we get to when we get to the end with Chris we'll we'll go
through that and like I said earlier that that's going to be asked to be introduced earlier than the regular capital budget just so we can give Chris a head start on the uh on the bid this year all right so he's up 187,000 right mhm yes streets okay and 188 from
recycling so numbers be in mind you you have you have some credits that are going to ultimately be applied to this budget right that's what you wanted to hear right I I want to hear listen you can eat the sandwich from either end right if you're telling me revenue is going to be up to offset these costs I'm a happy camper or if you're telling me the costs are going to come down and
revenue is going to be flat I'm a happy camper I'm just looking at the bottom line for the taxpayer at the end of the day so I hear what you're saying I will put my IR aside until I hear the revenue numbers and and I and I just I just want to be clear with the council that you know this is a living breathing document
it changes daily right and we don't apply the credits until we have a full understanding of what the priorities are and I say it all the time a budget is a set of priorities and those priorities change from year to year that being said
once we have a full understanding of the direction that the council wants to go in once we have a full understanding of the top priorities of the various Department Ms you know we're going to tie this all together we'll make those applications to those budget credits that where we can um to try to further
drive it down using trust fund money and the like and once we have a full handle on Surplus which we you know are still working on year- end numbers from the end of last year you know we'll we'll put it all together and you'll see a very different document by the time it comes up for introduction in March
anybody else good Mike thanks so much uh not so fast not so fast not so fast Mike Yard Waste yeah we have yard waste and then we have Fleet Services Central Garage those are two other divisions and departments that Mike is responsible for
so let's let's let's flip to yard waste and then we'll do Fleet after that on looking looking looking y waste see any questions hold
on another 100 Grand huh yard we you're up 100,000 right uh for disposal of uh the grass clippings so the big the big number here is 048 um the request is for 150,000 and
again this is this is the disposal aspect of what Mike's operation does when it comes to yard waste so Chris do you want to just talk a little bit about that yeah we have a leaf composting facility it's great we're allowed to compost leaves we're not allowed to add
grass clippings uh leaves require a 275 ft buffer that we have to the nearest occupied buildings grass requires I believe a th000 foot buffer we do not have that so D has mandated in our operating permit
that grass clippings that we collect be put into a container into a a box or roll off and removed within a day or so being collected just so I understand why is there a greater buffer required for grass the thought is that grass CLI in
stink more wow mhm good thank you could we put grass clippings in our compost absolutely but the EP would have to approve it thank you for the succinct explanation that even I can understand stink bad so what about other
contractual Services you're doubling that other contractual services are the wear equipment on the tub grinder and the windro right Mike the windro is a very large machine uh we just replaced it a few years ago
and it churns the leaf windro aerates it and reshapes it it's a great machine you got to see it in action I'm sure it's for for doubling your budget I hope it is have no doubt oh that's nothing the machine cost I think 750 800 I say that's that's the that's the main
machine at the Compost Facility correct it is one of the two main machines we also have the tub grinder yep uh that we run everything through before the material is windr or before the material like brush is put out to our off-site
disposal and why are you up 11% on salaries which changed your salaries and wages are up 11% what what's changed from last year versus this year uh we gave a slight raise and increase to our lady who is
the guardian of the gate um she has to log every truck the guardian of the gate oh yeah you can't come in there unless she logs you in because D requires us to do that and she prepares the reports quite well for when DP comes by to audit
us they drop in on us very unexpectedly and we've been doing pretty well with so the guardian of the gate is the $115,000 $166,000 difference yeah we have to give her a raise last year you you also have an employee who's on a step this year so you usually you you
have that built into the to the settled amount that we discussed in I would expect to see 3 4% with steps hopefully less than thre but that's why the 11% cost yeah you do you do have a couple of employees on steps and you you'll see that in the in the salary detail on the right hand side anybody else the one thing I will
say is on the disposal fees you know once we solidify our recycling trust fund you know there there could also be some credits that may be applied last year I think we applied $25,000 to this line item um so again depending on where we fall with those revenues which we'll get to at a future budget meeting um
there could be some applicable credits to this line item as well everybody good y all right fleet Fleet Services or Central garage so what's the tab under Fleet it's a six or seven tab or
four all right any questions yeah you want to walk us through it sure um materials and supplies costs have gone up uh we pay more for oil filters and parts uh AR
mechanics we have had four of them do a very good job they do all the preventive maintenance services on the village owned vehicles um they don't have really time to do that for the leased vehicles because I think there's some
discussion right Keith on budget line item in the police department for the least Vehicles yeah we're going to talk about um body work as a police department L when the chief comes in at the meeting on the 19th body work is also expensive we've had a
a few things here and there so we have to fix those so half a million huh yes okay qu I I what happened with 26 was it just deferred and not
done 026 maintenance of other equipment you had 16 and the actual was only 570 and then it we had a a number New pieces of equipment brought into the garage tire changer um lifts and so forth they're starting to age our tire changer
actually I was in the garage one day and the tire changer had a a mechanic Jamie was working on a tire and it exploded um it was a truck tire I I can see that but we we had an appropriation of 16 and we didn't use it oh we didn't we tried to
be very cost efficient okay no it's just for us it shows up as like a 2,000% increase because you only spent $500 from the appropriation last year so yes okay so so $60,000 more this
year for tires versus last year for tires yes purchase of tires um 3C we might be we might be bumping up against that if we have to buy loader tires okay might come much your load tires 6,000 a piece speaking the microphone about
6,000 a piece what not buy them year over year we only buy them when they need to be $30,000 increase for lubricants $30,000 increase for lubricants I saw it
yes why we exactly price is going up and what lubricant is in motor oil what do we what do we motor oil transmission oil hydraulic oil all right you know what a we have several different stuff that we have have to use
for the several different pieces of equipment um and most of them are geared towards that specific piece of equipment so they kind of have you stuck to that you're buying a product from them and not you know aftermarket and the prices have tripled prices have doubled
easily okay where's the rest of the money I mean you're asking for half a million dollars more that's 90,000 right there your salaries and wages look fine 3.5% that that looks great um where's the the rest of this money
going it's going into the maintenance of our Rolling Stock no individual line items what are we spending so much more money on versus last year we had materials and supplies last year well let's see Material supplies
030 we're ask for 225 and our actual for last year was 212 2141 184 so that's pretty close close right other contractual supplies are act last year was
19670 we're asking for 220 so what does that mean that's $30,000 more than you spent last year this for the oil so probably for parts probably y okay there's actually an 18 bullet point
detail on what that line item entails on 029 if you go to the detail for example in O 3C purchase of tires we're asking for 95,000 our actual at the end of the last year was 43 383 that's cuz we hadn't
bought any loader tires if we buy like a set of four we're looking at 25 26,000 per loader we have five plus I I cut your budget last year about $10,000 in that lineup but I'm still having like what
are the big ticket items that get us up to an extra half a million I think I think what Evan is saying is that okay there's 50,000 you've shown here and 40,000 there he does he doesn't see and I'm not sure I see either um that it all adds up to
51,000 that's not that's not the Delta last year you may want to bring this so I I just want to be clear that that that highlighted number in the lower leftand corner is not the budget over last year what you need to look at here is item
well I'm looking at it in a column but item k for those you who are on a laptop and modified 2024 budget Appropriations which is the second column from the right has the total budget for Fleet at 888 916 that's this year the request is 968
593 so it's only it's it's an $80,000 increase yeah this is that that that that highlighted number in the bottom right hand corner is the 1% increase over last year's other expenses in in total on the total budget so they're not asking for an extra half million now no
no no no no okay1 was a Target yeah what what what you're looking at as the Delta is the second column from the right which in this case was 888 91684 and then the request for this year
is the First Column after the detail which is 968 593 91 but I guess my question would be I'm I'm actually looking one over then but they actually spent was $793,000 what they're asking for is 968 correct the only caveat that
I will tell you and Olivia had a uh a family emergency so she had to excuse herself but keep in mind we can still pay 2024 bills until the end of the until the end of March you'll have so so not all that number of 974 uh 794 not
all of this of 2024's expenses may be may be drawn from that yet I just submitted a whole bunch of vouchers right that I signed today that are all from uh 2024 and they will go against that 794 amount so that that 794 number
is as of the day that she generated the uh the documents that's about two weeks ago so it's about 175,000 then is what what they're asking for over over what they actually spent last year no because you have fourth quarter still payable out against 2024 so we see this with the
trees and so the 794 is not fully demonstrated for 2024 that they he could have invoices that he just processed to get you let's let's say it's $100,000 then you're closer to the actual appropriation of 880 and then the
increas is 968 so like on trees because we plant late in the fall we were just going over this we might not see the actual eyes like you might be like wow we spent a lot less on trees but we really didn't because we're waiting for the tree vendors to give us it's not it's not like t plus one Evan there's a
there's terms like 30 to 60 days so you could be paying particularly with this you could still be paying for things that occurred in probably help me out here November December I would hope not October so we don't know what we've actually spent yet is what you're saying
right yeah but that that $794 is not is not closed for the year 24 so in a perfect world we ask the Departments to encumber the funds for those items that they know about for example tires when the budget's adopted they'll come in and they'll give me a purchase order for like
$500,000 estimating that's what the cost is going to be for the year to purchase tires when it's not encumbered and it's on a voucher that may not be in here as Chris said he had a group of them that may have come in late that we haven't
processed yet so that 794 will definitely go up okay so what you're saying is we're only 7.75% above appropriated last year correct about 80,000 correct and and that can be lower if the
invoices are process it well no against appropriated Camp no appropriate it's going to stay the same against the expend expenditure all good yeah okay next all right Michael thank you Mike
thanks so much uh Jim if you and Bill want to come up we're going to do uh water pollution control next so just on a responding to your questions the snow trust has about four $450,000 in
it the recycling trust has $123,000 in it and the outstanding debt for General is uh total of $75 million as of
1231 24 it's $30 million in bonds 32 million in notes and 13 million authorized unissued at if you want parking and water I'll give you that as well how long are our bonds outstanding for each for each every time we go out to
bond so in the general fund it's it's all predicated on useful life so in the general fund it's mostly equipment so that usually goes 7 to 10 years max if you have a purchase of land or a building things of that nature that can
go out 20 25 years water is usually for the big items 30 years 30- year useful life because your treatment facil things like that right Wells go for 30 years or they they can go up to 30 years
yes again each one's got a structure to it but generally speaking water has the longer useful life so be can we get a copy like I know I asked for this last year because now can we get a copy of all open trusts and what they are you know to reference during this sure and we will be covering
this towards the end it's part of a future budget meeting yeah no no I know just because we're going to toggle about back and forth with I'm sure so that isn't completed yet that's part of the financial but I get it to you as soon it's available okay and mayor if I could just do a go back um the only request
from the streets division for Capital this year um in a tier one priority is a $44,000 investment in a new HotBox trailer um which I believe will make it through to the final budget but um Mike you just
want to very quickly just explain why you need that yeah the one we have right now is years old us issues from we really can't hear him so if he's gonna yeah talk he needs to speak into the mic so the one we have right now uh it's
about 7 years old um it's given us problems pretty much since day one it's been back and forth to the manufacturer uh it's to the point now where it's got to be plugged in pretty much we get maybe 3 4 hours out of it and we're losing a lot of material because
everything's cutting out uh parts are getting harder to find for it and it's time for a new one and this fills the potholes so every time one of you gets a complaint from a resident and lets me know and I tell Mike this is the device that we need to
properly fill in yeah I get a lot of complaints from a resident living at 280 Rivera Court um about potholes so I thought you were going to say Evan loves to complain my b no no no my wife so okay all right so let's move on to
Water Pollution Control uh Chris if uh you and Jim want to take us through uh yeah uh we bid out chemicals as we do every year uh that's reflected in our budget request we bid out Lab Services uh we're going to be having more lab
services our lab manager had a very good idea she's going to take some samples and run run them for posos before the posos plant at the water pollution facility comes online so we have a
baseline to see if they have any impact on our effluent questions uh the only happy news since councilman whis likes positive news we made about subject to Bob about 150,000 last Year from our liquid waste
acceptance program that's where the haulers bring in liquid waste and we treated for them if you're familiar with the term honey Dippers yeah those are the ones that are coming in nothing that you
do so Chris on the on the full-time staff requests we have uh two laborers that we're seeking replacements for right which will come in at a at a starting salary um and then we have one additional laborer request uh to add to the
headcount do you want to just explain to the council why you Jim are making that request uh yeah the two individuals one is moving over to the water company and the other one decided to retire so we have to replace them with the laborers starting at step one we're requesting a
new employee to put on the collection system truck uh most of the time the collection system truck goes out with one person on it and it's getting very difficult for him to pull up the manholes and do his job so he needs some
help so you're only asking for two right cuz there's three on here well asking two Replacements two two Replacements and one new body one new person correct okay so if we're asking if we're asking for more bodies would that not help us
with overtime uh it it can um overtime still when an OP we run 247 if a shift operator calls in sick Jim has to get somebody on overtime to cover the
shift but I'm okay I'm I'm just struggling with if we're bringing in more people to help part-time again wouldn't that help us with overtime I get your point why you have to pay overtime but wouldn't we expect to see less overtime if we hire more people uh not necessarily because
again as I said the shift operators the shifts are assigned shifts are from 7 to 3 3 to 11 11 to 7 if the midnight guy at 10:30 at night calls in sick right we have to get a person there DP requires
the plant to be staffed and that person is then paid overtime Jim what shift would the the new hire that's not a replacement what shift would they cover the rotating shifts I have a guy that's on the rotating shifts now that I need to make
full-time days so he can go on the hydro with jimmmy that I used to do so when you made me a supervisor I essentially came off that truck and it was never replaced so a lot of times he's working by himself that limits where he can work cuz I'm not going to put him in the Middle East ridgew AB by himself you
know um and this other gentleman who is on call for the truck is still on rotating shifts so when he's not on 7 to three Jimmy's going out alone I need to make him a full-time day guy and replace him with you know a new hire that would
work the shift work okay any other questions good Jim thanks so much thank you appreciate it yeah uh you want to do water pollution uh Capital Chris which is which actually I I take that back
because that's the appropriation from last year which was credited to this year right yes that's correct and this year uh working with Bob Rooney we're going to use old capital for our Capital needs so I will call the council's attention again when this coming Wednesday night's meeting I think
there's eight or nine requests for equipment and um maintenance topics um from Chris that are going to be discussed at the work session all of it coming from prior Capital that's still open so there's
going to be a heavy emphasis on this at Wednesday night's work session yeah I think water pollution I think has maybe five or six resolutions before you I have several resolutions from uh streets also before the
council all all concerning open Capital so good all right all right uh Building Maintenance Rich you want to come up do that and Signal sorry which tab is this the BM hold on I'm still thinking
here evening Rich mayor how are you good nice to see you you too all right so um on the employee side uh this only covers one of our our employees now um one was transferred out
um to another division um as part of us bringing in a professional cleaning contractor under Co-op to uh perform the cleaning in this building and other buildings um so the salaries and wages is pretty self-explanatory um I want to get into
the other expenses Rich obviously the uh 772 line item which is the the cleaning service you want to just talk us through that how how we procured them what services they're performing here in other places
and um just want to call the council's attention to the fact that last year's contract was not a full year so the request in there under line 772 is for a full year of their services but go ahead Chris right so we uh transferred the evening custodian um to another department and for less money than what
we were paying that custodian at 8 hours we replaced it with 12 hours a day of service so we're getting more hours service for less money um take care of that so we're up about 80,000 it looks
like I mean why I mean you know why is and I see you have other expenses you have the building maintenance against a bunch of town assets why is everything up so much most of our buildings are getting older they're requiring more care a lot of our HVAC systems need more service
the water company just had a heating plant go out in one of their buildings uh last Friday they required staff to fix it over the weekend but like Lester stables for instance you're tripling the amount of money it takes for that one building
like why is that like you know you budgeted Lester Stables assuming I'm reading this right you budgeted $4,800 you actually spent 3481 but I get it could be another quarters worth of money there and now you're saying it's going to take 16,500 you're tripling it part of the
custodians uh the contractor custodians are working at lesser stable yeah but why is it three times as more expensive in 2025 than it was in 2024 and and you see the same thing on line 37 those are the two biggest building
increases which one was that my Solid Waste main building and so it's 244 with Lester stable and then on the outlier 224 on the main building of solid waste
that's 4 424 per. ler Lester stable in the detail uh details the janitorial supp the janitorial supplies and to your question uh the solid waste main building M requesting $1,480 and
our last year's total was 5,23 uh we have to fix a floor over there and we've had to repair a number of things this is in the garages at 220 Chessa Street wait hold on last year's appropriation was 2000 not five yeah it
was 2000 but we spent 5 you spent five I mean like same thing vill you're up $50,000 versus last year right because as I said earlier that wasn't the full year for the cleaning company there's only a partial of the year so the 152 reflects the entire year and the
HVAC systems are starting to get problematic after 20 years Chris a lot of these figures that are building specific are for specific projects of things that now need
replacement is that correct uh no a lot of them is also general you know if the window needs to be replaced or repaired if a floor cracks up and needs to be fixed and repaired you know that's that's exactly what I'm saying is that okay this this floor is done we need to
get a new floor here I mean that's that's what a lot of this is for example if you go to the detail on 770 which is the solid waste main building you you're going to see that there's fire sprinkler repairs that are necessary there's a garage door maintenance issue um there's
a annual fire extinguisher annual inspection you know all all those things are detailed in the back pages of of that under tab 770 I mean I see the detail and I'm not going to go line by line against the detail and I do appreciate it's in there it's just very hard for me to understand why these
expenses are going up exponentially more than what we spent last year as as a as a as a whole I think that's what I'm questioning I also Bob why on under operating is shedler even here shouldn't it still be in development we went from
shedler has a line item and operating it 2,000 I mean it's only 2,000 but how are we operating it and not hitting it like under Capital shedler we have you know signal goes by the B uh by shedler how often
rich now during winter time every week but um the regular season probably about once every other week so are you going in the house Rich yeah and you're just checking and checking and all the water's turned off water we shut off yes we're making sure the heat's still the
heat is still on and nobody's got in the building and and and can I just say that this has nothing to do with Park development this has to do with maintenance of the house that we're now responsible for so you have $1,000 in there for cleaning M general maintenance
Pest Control you have uh $200 for cleaning supplies which you have to have there you have the firing stiger uh inspection which needs to be budgeted for for every building that we maintain um you know there's there's there's expense there's expenses to maintain that house even though it sits empty I didn't realize staff was
going by that makes me feel better is there any way um to get a list of like what the utilities are on that now because we have a demonstration even with the heat low because if we're thinking about talking to a tenant we we have a meter there right we don't see you know myself and Rich we
don't see the utility bills for the building for gas and electric um they go directly to fin so we have no knowledge of that but you have that now Bob because we've had a CO now for about a year so I do have I have to look and see what the bills are for that piece of
property okay like I mean outside the budget just because that's a longstanding I'd love to see what the utilities are because if we do get a tenant we'd want to negotiate you know maintenance into that yeah yes no I understand okay the with a tenant you
have to bear in mind right now we have the heat at what do we have it at uh it's 55 it's like you sound like my mom and my the the building's empty the building's empty there's no reason box
over lock it to change the heat yeah um if you if you do start using the building the utility costs are going to go up because the heat has to go up and you're going to use more electricity when people are there right now there's no lights on and the Heat's at 55 cuz no one's in the building just love to see I mean last time I was there was during
the summer and I thought it was going to pass out because the air conditioning wasn't on I just think think for General as the house comes into discussion I didn't realize that that kind of and thank you for checking on it I I don't think anybody realized we were attributing operating costs on top of the capital investment right are you
with me council did any of you know that I I hadn't I hadn't thought it through but now it makes complete sense okay so I don't I mean again I I you know I'm going to stop because I I think you know Keith I'm going to leave this to you but again I struggle fire headquarters CS
$15,000 lesser stable 16 ,000 fire if anything I would think the fire headquarters would cost more for maintenance um you know it's $80,000 and and we're getting to the point where it just these little things are going to bring up the tax bill and I I'm just this page just really I'm having trouble
digesting it well for example fire headquarters we are requesting just a hair over what we actually spent in uh 2024 which is great but why is it that that one was flat but other ones you're
seeing 226 per increase 2 44% increase and I know you're broken it down but I'm just I I don't I don't follow why some of this stuff costs this why the increases are so exponentially more than versus last year we have a very lot of very old buildings again I'm going to go
to and I don't think that maybe it wasn't understood when I suggested it or maybe I'm off base that when we have exponential increase it's because there is a part of the building that has failed or is it the end of its
useful life and we now need to replace it whether it's windows or floors or heating system so that's a specific item that we are spending money on is that correct yes we got hammered this year on fire headquarters excuse me um we had
two air conditioning compressors go out this year to we had the replace those are5 $6,000 each we had three garage doors that break down garage doors are not something that you cannot have work in a firehouse they have so so these are not these are not okay we pay our guys
or a service to clean every every week or every month or all of that that's not what we're talking we're talking about there's a specific problem when we see a big increase in that building that HVAC system needs to replace carpeting needs to be replaced bathroom needs to be
replaced things like that correct yes and in the uh sanitation garage all the sprinkler heads the fire sprinkler heads are 25 years old they have to be replaced we can't do that inhouse we have to have a contractor come in who certified and fire sprinklers they have to come in and take off every single
sprinkler head there could be 50 of them at that cost that's going to be a large building maintenance cost if that's not attributed to um custodial or paper products right that's that's coming up this year um so let me explain to you
one thing about specifically the fire headquarters they have four air conditioning systems separate for the whole building it's a big building um we put in capital capital request this year to have two of those systems replaced two of them are original to the building
in 1993 MH what's unique about these units is usually you have two parts to an air conditioning system the air handler inside the building and then a condenser outside the building usually in the condenser outside you can replace a compressor and move on these two original units M they're proprietary and
they don't make them anymore so when one of the those two outside units goes we also have to replace the inside unit um we pushed it off the budget from this year it's not happening this year if one of those two air conditioning units go down this year
we're going to have to find a way to change the inside unit at the same and that's a lot more work because you're dealing with drop ceiling systems taking those apart taking out other piping putting a unit inside that's not same as outside so we have been putting this in
for Capital but it this gets pushed off so a lot this happens a lot in facility maintenance where we request something to be changed and it gets pushed off and then we end up fixing things that are too old um that should have been replaced already so um some days we're
working magic keeping some of these systems apart um EMS we're fixing we fixed that unit again today I hear what you're saying it's the number of of exp of extraordinary expenses you and I get like stuff is going to break you're going have one off years but you have at least a half a dozen here that have gone
up by more than 100% versus last year and then looking at 20123 you spent 91,000 you appropriated 91,000 last year you appropriated 164,000 this year you're appropriating 252,000 so in two years we've gone from $91,000 to
$252,000 wait till we start to replace the roofs on Village Hall and elsewhere okay that's coming up too but my point is all the stuff you're describing to me are things that should break periodically we just had a really lousy 2 years that you're going from 91,000 to 252,000
like I said Village Hall is a prime example the renovation is now it'll be 20 years old this year a lot of stuff is breaking down at the water pollution the last upgrade was finished 2005 20 years ago that's why as Keith said before the
Council next Wednesday you're going to get a lot of equipment purchase requests because we have to replace a lot of broken worn out equipment so listen I we could spend all night in this but Keith I can tell you and Bob I mean tripling this budget in two years I I'm I'm just having a lot of
problems with it I I I think I think EV that you can look at this a couple different ways one is that it's that these are really bad years or the prior years were not so bad
and that when you have a complex as significant as ours and buildings that are older there's going to be every year signif I mean they're again they're not looking for you know riches and saying give me $100,000 for stuff that breaks
it's I need 22,000 for an HVAC system I need 33,000 for this I need there these are specific line items that they're getting costs on that need to be replaced or repaired so that's I think
that that's why we're getting such big swings in this and I think that that's beyond our Beyond anyone's control that's and again that's just how I look at this this is different than you know the in that in that line item we were
looking at before where lubricants doubled or tripled well we're not buying any more lubricants we're buying the same thing that we buy every year this is as things break we fix them and if we have a good year it's kind of like kind of like snow if we have a good year we
don't spend that much on snor I think it's important I think it's important to mention too that last year you know we were coming off of a very difficult and challenging 2023
budget and we had a lot of gaps to fill right and if you go through each of the details that I've been referring to tonight the backup in those books you're going to see areas that have Bob's initials they go
rgr phase one rgr phase 2 these were cuts that Bob made with my approval last year to the individual line items that make up this budget and these department heads coming into 2025 is budget are looking for
restorative to restore those line items it's just like to restore those cuts that were made to get us where we needed to be in 2024 so again you know we all understand that this is as I said earlier a living
breathing document we have a goal as to where we want to bring this budget in some of it's going to be contingent upon Revenue some of it's going to be contingent upon Cuts but I just want to level here that there were significant
Cuts made last year and many of these requests that you're reviewing both last week this week and again on the 19th are going to be departments looking to restore some of those cuts that were made last year totally makes total sense I just want to say you know it's like a house with deferred maintenance and I
also just want to Echo for people that our buildings have people in them and we had to do the emergency appropriation here because the Deferred maintenance created a dangerous situation so I mean I think the summary is that this is my third budget when we defer one year it's
not going away it's just deferred and this is you know sort of how we were when we denied Sean the garbage trucks because we did I still feel bad about it but we had to and then the next year they're there this is sort of catchup for this very important Division and you
know all of these buildings have people M as shedler but we're working on that have people in them and deferred maintenance can be a big issue when people get hurt or like here you remember when the ceiling collapsed that was not good and I'm sure that was deferred maintenance as well so I just want to say thank you I sometimes it's
fascinating to me to look at how much square footage we actually are responsible to maintain and I do feel like renovating my house now I feel for you and I'm grateful for all the effort um and I you know I too would like to see it slightly lower but the reality is is whatever we take off this year is
going to show back up next year except for shedler because I'm going to negotiate it into the lease when we get a different issue but again I mean these increases are unsustainable I hear your point about deferred maintenance and I'm all for investing um but at the end of the day it's really easy to be Santa Claus before you got to
pay the bill and I mean I know we've got this a living breathing document I'm not going to agree to any significant tax increase over what we've done historically over the last year or two so at some point we're going to have to figure out ways to pay for all this stuff and that's my concern listen I I I I just want to say that at one point you
know the roof caved in on the third floor in this building and when that was brought to my attention we addressed it because I'm not going to have another employee have a piece of cement fall on their head so with all due respect councilman and we will do what we do with every one of these budgets that's
being presented to you we will do our due diligence we will weigh it out we will determine what's absolutely necessary for these guys to function vers what might be a wish list right um and we'll make those adjustments as we get to the end of this process but if it
is something that is um a significant safety issue I can I can tell you that we're gonna we're going to do everything can compromise safety Keith but again at some point this stuff will add up but but Evan you got to look at the reality of our situation and I think
we're going to go round and round these are really old buildings I mean Lester sta is now housing a place of it was a barn when I was a kid there were horses Clyde stales in that barn and now we've no I'm not joking there were real horses on Maple LA and now it's a building and you you're using it for a different
purpose and it's beautiful and needs to be maintained and there's dozens of people hundreds of people I'm going to go like literally hundreds of people in and out of there all day um and it it's just you know it is it kind of without T it is what it is we have a social
responsibility to the people we put and invite into these buildings to upgrade them I mean I don't want to increase taxes a lot of and listen in Fair In fairness to Evan Evan's just watching the money and we all and I no no no I listen we all
are it's a little more cute for Evan and he and he watches it really carefully and we have to make sure that he gets explanations that satisfy him because otherwise he's not going to support this
budget and so you know it we we need we need his um sharp pencil on all of these things and he helps make us all more careful agreed but the reality is is if we don't want to hold so many assets we sell some of them and I'm not suggesting
that like in any and then we provide and the operating increase you know we the beauty of Ridgewood and so many of our departments as it it's in-house which longer term keeps the cost down I mean we have a significant amount of property there's just no doubt listen two two
year and by the way thank you Paul I appreciate for stating my position probably more eloquently than I was but I remember two years ago having to sit right there and tell people like the ones sitting here that we're going to have to Furlow them I'm not having that conversation again that's why I'm being and and and you won't all right and and
you're not and wait and you're not being difficult you're you're just you have a sharper pencil and with that let's move on because I think we've I think we've covered this and just so you know after trafficking signal we're going to take a 15minute break um because we've been
here for a long time so well you got to finish Chris up he has engineering too so no I I and he's also got zoning and planning so that's what I'm saying we have we have to we have to stop some because otherwise we're not going to stop till 8:00 yeah all right the next one would
be the other department that rich oversees which is traffic and Signal staff there are the ones that do a lot of the building maintenance um we're very proud of the staff that they can do a lot of the HVAC repairs and install what have is this traffic signal
where is it oh traffic got you they do a lot of the work inhouse because the the guys have developed a good skill set um rather than have to call a contractor for every HVAC unit that uh breaks
down they also maintain our traffic signals but they maintain our signage The Village has as some police officers have been very happy to tell me way too many signs uh we do have a couple residents that like to send us pictures of faded
signs so we try to replace them to stay current that's an ongoing issue so which my my biggest question is um look I've always said that signal guys can fix everything so how come you can't fix all the other
stuff that's that's in the prior budget so that you know Evan's happy so that we don't have to go out and get it done I mean you guys are come on you're really good at this so uh we'll do our best I know I know you do so 15% another 140 Grand all
right which line item so I'm looking at the bottom line right we're going up versus Appropriations right 15% which is about $140,000 with my back of the napkin math right I don't know uh again look about 100,000 to take it back
comparing it to end of 24 I'm looking at modified 2024 budget Appropriations for 680,000 you're asking for 780 this year so about 100,000 more 15% right uh we did have an increase in salary and wages that was long overdue for the
guys um that was negotiated uh with Keith and I think they're happy yeah we we had a number of title changes um in this division um as Chris alluded to you have an exceptionally
talented staff here um and there are a number of people who are extremely valuable um their skill set I mean Rich can walk you through how you know the money that they saved on replacing HVAC units on municipal buildings that we would have had a probably pay double um
on a on a private contractor to do um so there were some structural things within this department that I made the conscious decision I thought were Justified and and right um especially for retention purposes um and they also
have a um significant impact on Revenue that we collect from other Municipal agencies um I mentioned earlier tonight that we're going to be entering into a formal uh shared services agreement that we'll discuss Wednesday with hocus um we have a similar arrangement with Midland
Park with uh Glenrock um Rich does a lot of work for for other places so there is a value on the revenue that this uh division brings in as well um I can tell you that just by looking at this on the um and we've gone through this budget multiple times um but on the oper
expenses side um there are some restorative Cuts in here uh you can see that from where we were in 2023 in comparison to what's being requested this year uh so there's some modifications this on that and then Rich if you could specifically discuss 064
which is the sign and Supply the signs and sign supplies um and the additional emphasis uh that's been put in that space um sign materials are going up like all other materials in in Commodities um ink um film aluminum we
don't buy signs um pre-made we buy Bare aluminum we buy the film and we have the the plotter or the printer whichever type of sign you want and we manufacture the signs custom made so it looks like more money up front that you're putting
in to buy these but if you had the signs the amount of signs Ridgewood has you go out and buy the pre-made signs like other municipalities on our borders do um that number would be a lot higher than that 54 so it's we're putting out
more signs now than we ever have um we did a lot of sign changes when Valley Hospital moved out a lot of sign changes when a parking garage was built and had to direct people to signs so there are so many more signs that we make now than we made 5 years ago and they have to be
maintained um replaced upgraded we had a serious um sign left two years ago and last year street signs just went missing um that's expensive uh we have upgraded and stepped up our game we now go to a
Vandal Proof um theft proof type of sign Square Channel not round um and through bolts on the sign plates so the sign plates can't be stolen um we'll see this year if we have better luck um and those new sign theft proof signs um are less
expensive than the um the older style that we used so um signs is most of what we do and we also do bring in Revenue we do make signs for some of our bordering towns when they need a customade sign so and there was $8,000 cut from
that budget last year and Rich you have you have to mention it or I will we we launched last year in a very limited assigned prevention with the grad with the high schoolers so not only did they secure the ones that we put in but we sold 64 signs so people could take them
to college and hopefully that would be I'm going to say half of them probably would have taken them and that reduced it and we're going to go bigger with that this year and that was great it's good for the school it's good for fundraising and it's good for theft prevention
questions rich thank you so much and you'll forgive us we're going to take a can we just we need to do Capital mayor oh that's a quick one so under traffic signal um we have a request here which again this is um something that is a
work in progress uh but Rich you quickly want to uh explain to the council uh the dialogue that we're having with the two vendors regarding the communication upgrades uh for not only Ridgewood but also for Glenrock sure
um so our original radio system that supports from Central dispat co-owned by Ridgewood and Glenrock um we started to talk about this last year and this is the year that we're going to actually make the upgrade um the original system was put in in 1994 it was upgraded in
2012 and it's time again to upgrade the system and redo the system for police officers and firefighters and and ambulance Corps people who use the radios the Portables that are on their shoulders um and the radios that are in their cars um it's the most used system
by the all of our emergency service Personnel they need to talk to each other and back to the Dispatch Center so this would cover the entire village covered Tire Village so I think I think I think what's important is that there are there are two quotes that are being discussed from two different vendors one
is about a million two one's about a million four um with some requests that have been recently been made by Rich and the public safety leadership in both Ridgewood and Glenrock uh to refine some of those quotes So this is very much a
work in progress this is essentially a placeholder number um keep in mind this would not all beond the backs of Ridgewood this would be on you know split in some capacity uh with Glenrock so we're in discussions I've talked to
Lenora Benjamin who's the business administrator in Glenn Rock uh we talk almost weekly about this topic Rich is still in discussion with the vendors and with the public safety teams so this is a work progress but again I think we talked about it last year as far back as
our 2024 capital budget that there was going to need to be an emphasis in 2025 on Communications and also on the water pollution control facility which we were able to adopt the ordinance last year and get that those improvements underway um the second piece uh rich is The
Pedestrian Crossings which I know councilman Mortimer requested uh be included uh for consideration in this year's um capital budget you want to just talk a little bit about that that sure those are the you if we went back to the communications piece real quick so can we show this then at only half like why do we got to show the full amount if we think we're not going to be
on the hook for the full amount be because I don't I don't have the apportionment yet with Glenrock so again work in progress you know we'll we'll I'll have a better idea by the time we introduce the capital budget you know to get your full blessing uh this is a
placeholder number but that is the estimated the lower estimate of the total cost of the entire project and um again we won't see a line item for communications upgrade from police Fire EMS because it's all going to be right here yeah and and that's something that
we have to refine as well because um we have requests from OEM fire and mainly police uh for new portable radios right the plan is to bundle that into this right so let's say it's 125 and we split
it with Glenrock I mean spitballing this but 600,000 each we may have to build some money back in for the portable radio piece so again it's a work in progress I put it in here because I think it's important for you to know that this is coming down the pike and that this is not an inexpensive price
tag but we will refine those numbers and as we prepare the capital budget you'll have a better number before introduction this is what you mean when you say this is a living breathing document it is the 1.25 million is living and breathing as
we speak correct and and all Communications I think the whole Council was interested in the idea with especially with First Responders of the encryption part of it MH that that is that is part of the proposal that we would we we would move to work off an encrypted system I Know Chief Lions has
had a number of conversations with the chief in pamis who just recently moved to um encryption and um he's learning more about that and I I know that's a priority for rich as well that's excellent anybody else no well you going
to talk about The Pedestrian Crossings uh yeah pedestrian Crossings the push buttons um at the crosswalks um we work with the police department Traffic Safety Division they tell us where they think the best spots are for pedestrian safety around the schools and Uptown um
how many does 34,000 get it will get you two intersections so um and that's at two intersections you figure that's two crosswalks one on each m one on each side so it depends upon it really depends upon the
intersection is exactly how much money you're going to spend um some need more lights some need less lights so thank you everybody good MH good rich thank you so much we're going to take a short break thanks
all about contamination I like okay turn mine off don't want to hear them chomping e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e for e [Music] e e e we are reconvening um roll call roll
call council member Mortimer here Deputy Mayor paron here council member whites here council member Winograd here and mayor Ros here and so um Chris thank you so much for your patience we will now go to your three
other departments where do you want to start let's start off with the easier ones uh um I easier ones but not cheaper ones uh Board of adjustment yes zoning board yeah um I don't know if you folks have heard
yet but a second applicant that had appeared before the board has now filed uh that would be outfront media yes yeah okay so we don't know how that's going to proceed so you're talking about legal
fees yes yeah that to me legal fees are going to be the huge unknown mhm for the zoning board so we currently have one AC of uh appeal with the zoning board ruling and
another was filed just last week um so we are working through um what our legal budget needs to be in order to defend the board of adjustments position on both of those issues
um we also if the board decides on one other applicant um that has had an objector attorney uh we don't know if it's going to go to litigation also Chris excuse me one second it's blz yep the tab is bldd
z here you want to see here there it is got it I'm sorry Chris continue uh yeah zoning board may come to a decision on an applicant this year uh that applicant has an objector
attorney involved so we don't know that's why it says on the line maybe less than that's the applicant so we don't know how that's going to go either that may also go to litigation so we are in conversation with uh legal counsel who represents the
board adjustment to try to get the best guess as to what our legal costs might be obviously they are going to be higher this year than they have been in Prior year due to these appeals um but we will be finalizing a number and you know we'll present that to you as we finalize
what we think the number should be right that I mean that was foreseeable you know we had a we had a even though they they uh outfront lost by unanimous zoning board um it was anticipated that they were going to file an appeal so other than that there's not a lot of
significant change here good then we have the planning board currently things at the planning board are a little bit slow so continuing our cost saving measures from last year um we do not hold a meeting unless we have
some real business to discuss um for example tomorrow night's meeting has been cancelled um we shall see if the second meeting for February has any applications coming before the board if not again meetings cancel not a lot
being spent there so I would like to do training on some of those off nights that we don't have an applicant because we're going to have three new people on the board well the three new people are going to have to take the storm water seminar that's a mandatory from the
DP and there is a seminar that's usually put out by the local bar association for new board members I don't know when the last time it was given but that's also it's I don't know if it's a requirement but it is very well worth it I've taken
it myself and and do we pay for that uh we have to pay the uh the application fee for that the storm water seminar for the D that's a free me okay the other Professional Services why that excuse me
other Professional Services why is that up so much so so if I may Chris so there were actually some adjustments made to that since the U binders were generated um because of the affordable housing piece okay um when Bob and
Olivia initially prepared the first budget uh with Chris we made some um adjustments to accommodate that mandate however subsequently we're going to charge all of Beth mcmanus' uh fees to the affordable housing trust fund so
that will be extracted some of those that number will go down CU we're going to extract those fees from uh from this proposed budget which is permissible I think it's up to 20% we can do yeah so not administrative costs good all right okay other
questions engineering uh no change in Staffing for engineering um there is some there is overtime it's a bigger jump than we had last year Chris Chris can you talk about some
of those overtime initiatives in engineering I think it's it's worthy for the council and the and the public to understand some of the overtime obligations that your staff has uh one of the one of the biggest overtime generators and drivers right
now is trees um engineering got tasked with the issuance of tree permits um also with the sidewalks uh one of our staff members Peter will spend often has to
spend hours at a single sidewalk loc location dealing with the trees whether we do a round out whether we can save the tree um he's usually joined by our village arborist uh that's a real driver of time
usage and then there's a tree ordinance that's you folks have introduced that may increase the demand on us in Engineering in administrating it I thought Declan was I thought Dean
was in Parks yeah he's in Parks but the permits are issued by our office the uh tree companies come in to us we issue violations if we catch people doing the work without a Tre without a
permit a a huge amount of the enforcement has fallen in engineering so like when we have a nebor on neighborhood situation and they ask us the permits are all pulled through them and then Chris has to deal with it to see if The Replacements been done and
anything that's adjacent to a sidewalk there's an engineering inspection as well and the private tree property no and I want to thank you all the times I've called in to say hey they're cutting a tree on such and such a street do they have a permit and you've run right out there so I really appreciate
it that takes time away from other tasks um the trees are one issue another issue is uh there's been a request to address intersection side obstructions um I had court two weeks ago I had
16 uh cases on the docket uh we're grinding our way through that right now uh that also takes a tremendous amount of time so what's going on with the fulltime salary wages we added a bun of people we double this since
2023 thank you Paul I was just saying what is going on with the full-time salary and wages you're doubling since 2023 anybody we had the there will be salary increases for the staff due to the blue uh the white collar collective
bargaining agreement is there a typo because it says and maybe I'm misreading it but it says 2024 budget appropriation 289 2025 budget proposed that's so again if you go to line 01 Z there are budget
credits so many of the many of the tasks that are assigned to the engineering department are funded through Capital so so the there's a budget offset for example Road resurfacing sidewalk development y any of those projects the
engineering piece um is charged to the capital rather than to the operating budget understood completely but you're still a sizeable chunk right even taking that into account last year we budgeted 233,000 this year you're budgeting 304 so you're still up 30% so I'm
assuming we're hiring more people wait hold on are you on Z1 01 the we're on salary and wages total salary and wages yes modify 2024 budget Appropriations 233 right but actual was 339 we got to
go from the actual so it was 233 but 2024 was 339 and their budget request is lower at 304 total salaries and wages for 2024 was 696 869 for the Department
this year it's proposed to be 719 137 right but we have a credit so the actual spend well where where the money comes to fund that 719 is divided between the operating budget and offset by some of the capital budget credits but the
request this year and in demonstrated is actually $30,000 lower than the actual from last year when you factor in the credits it's slower right yes when you factor in the credits 40 actually there's a greater there's a greater
budget credit given to us in 25 than was considered in 24 yep yep so did we hire more people nope no so I'm can all right maybe it's getting late I'm still not following but
total salary wages modified 2024 budget 233,000 which is all the money minus the credits right was 589 minus 46 right total was 233 so that takes into account the credits this year that same number
is 304 so we're going up like $775,000 is from from Appropriations but actual demonstration was 339 which means we're going down no no actual was $229 so we spent a little less I mean but again the the modified the
appropriate what we appropriated last year was 233 now we're appropriating 304 I I think that the distinction and Keith correct me if I'm wrong is the is the amount of the budget credit from year to year that it it that
fluctuates far more than the actual salaries is that accurate Bob yes we ask engineering which I haven't done for 25 yet this is where I think we're going to be to tell me what percentage of time they put on each one of these capital projects so I then take their Department
I allocate the time and I generate the credit so what you're seeing is in the modified section the $46,000 that's um most likely where we wound up as far as what the credits are the 381 on the actual most likely means
that it there's a journal entry missing yet cuz remember I haven't closed out I still got work that I'm doing so that 381 could be even a little bit higher than the 406 um but that's the the the Delta is the capital item that we we
charge right because the because the the salaries are pretty static yes correct that one mayor give us one second sure that's a force number yeah okay so I think that there's an issue with the formula on this so if you
go on the summary page um modified 2024 budget Appropriations you have 589 706 right if you go to the next page the next physical page for Siobhan it's engineer 2025 and you look at the total the grand
total for full-time salary for 2024 it's actually 696 864 if you see that so there's something that that that 696 should be in that 589 field okay that's that's that's the that's that's
that's where there's a disconnect here okay that makes one so I unless Olivia had a reason and again she had to excuse herself but unless she had a reason to gen to generate that 589 uh that number should be should be 696 and that and that that should answer the
question yeah because I'm looking at the actual far right is 712 and the proposed for 2025 is 719 so that's about as static as it get it it the actual salary increases from 24 to 25 go from 696 to
719 all right so that that makes sense so that that's the you didn't hire an extra body it's no there's no extra body and the summary of you know I think one person hits steps the rest of it is is cost of living increases that's all that's all uh summarized on the engineer
25 page it's the amount of the credits that that they still need to flesh out right um but that's that's where the distinction comes in so um yeah we Haven we haven't hired more people we haven't given them giant raises or anything like
that right okay okay anybody else nope no I I just want to say with the credits uh thank you because clearly our Capital plan for us politically is very relying on you guys and I really I really appreciate that so it's in operating but
these are long-term things that make are good for the whole village but very good for us so thank you so if we just move to Capital um moving from the bottom up the 350,000 is
the soil testing and archaeological Bond ordinance that we did in 24 but credited to 25's capital budget for shedler um so that's already been approved and appropriated um Paving we're moving it
from 2 million uh to 2,250 uh a lot of that has to do with police protection on these Road jobs so Chris if you want to speak to that I know you Bob have had extensive conversations about that uh Keith you're absolutely correct when we pave on our streets we usually need the Traffic
Control Officers um we try to use officers from our Police Department uh because they know our residents best um it's unfortunate but nothing has The credibility of a uniform armed police
officer telling somebody no you cannot drive down that road because we're Paving it you can have all all the flaggers in the world waving all the flags they want they'll get ignored and we've seen it all too often um what we are able to do working with Bob and
finance is the cost of those officers is charged to the capital account um when we run out of Village officers we use officers from surrounding communities um when there was a lot of work going on in the village like last
summer we had officers coming here from as far away as the pal into State Park police so good questions so and then mayor the final one is is for The Pedestrian tunnel um we know that some of the estimates on this this project
are somewhere around a million dollars um we're not asking for complete funding for that uh because we really want to aggressively pursue both Bergen County historic trust money and New Jersey historic trust money um however I can tell you that in speaking with
Millennium strategies and has done a lot of research in this area she sits on that committee with jeie Johnson and the folks who want to bring the artistic element to this project um we need to have some pen on paper skin in the game um in order to be competitive in these
Grant applications so I would almost encourage the council to to view this whatever number it ends up being and the number on the table right now is is 500,000 um but I I would almost look at this as like a syncing fund to the same way that we approach maple field Turf and and the the the fire apparatus um
where if we did put this on the books and we did um you know fund this um we wouldn't spend it immediately but it would make our grant applications to both the county and the state much more competitive um and that's that's one of the main reasons that we want to include
this um as a recommendation uh for the capital budget for 2025 so I have no issue with this line item remind me when we got that presentation I think it was Millennium strategies how much did they think it was going to take to do the work well actually Conley and hickey did the original study on that um and it it
was just south of of a million dollars and that's for the structural piece that's without the artistic element so this you know if you want to compare it to something similar to the lighting project right that we sort of celebrated last Wednesday this would be you know some money from the Council on the um
Capital side it would be it would hopefully be State and County grants and then you would have the fundraising element with jeie Johnson and her committee to to bring that out it so again this is this is not a break the ground 2025 project but I do think
that we need to um show the state in the county that we have some skin in the game on this so I agree with everything I have no issue with this I would like to see some other bids though besides conell and hickley I I was a little underwhelmed by by their presentation this has to get done in the next like year or two like it's like an eyesore
certainly if there's structural issues that's got to get fixed too but um I'd be interested in seeing some compe and the one thing I do want to mention is you know Chris and I had a conversation just last week um being that we're not moving to go out to bid on this project we don't have all the funding and this
is going to be a multi-e task we do want to get that um repair made um on the east side where the car struck the uh the brick wall there um so Chris is working towards getting that done you know sooner rather than later and then
as this project evolves you know we'll we'll be working on the uh the Aesthetics and some of the structural issues that are shorted up in The Pedestrian tunnel and and I Echo um Evans uh desire to get someone in addition to Connelly and hickey to bid
on this and we we will we will as we get further into this project we will uh we'll look at other uh professional service providers good other questions the only other budget I have is utilities if you want to go over that yes
please um utilities Telephone Street lighting bulk water well bulk water has gone up because of the additional charges to deal with utilities it's under it's utility and bulk water budget are we in
operations or operating it's yeah go ahead uh go ahead Chris yeah bulk order has gone up because we have to pay the P charges to help fund the P
treat plants uh the only unknown is diesel fuel and gasoline last year diesel fuel and gasoline behaved in terms of prices um I have no idea what this year will bring us given the Way Washington
is going so it's a bit of an unknown R of dice unfortunately with the taxpayers money yes and listen it's uh some things are out of our control that's absolutely correct we need X number of gallons a
year yes whatever they cost we still need the same amount pretty much so mayor yep uh the one advantage we do have is uh we're about 98% 99% done with the new fuel tank installation um that is a big sigh
relief for me because the previous tanks were just a couple years over their life expectancy thank goodness those tanks did not leak however we did find an old fuel tank that did leak so we're going through the process of cleaning that up right now we had an expensive Bill to
get rid of the contaminated material uh the groundwater monitoring well was just installed about a week or two ago uh look forward to see what those those results will be good questions we are good Chris thank you so
much thank you thanks Chris appreciate your late night here welcome everyone so tonight we're going to we're going to try to be as quick as we can and and save as much time as we can for your questions I'm going to give a quick
introduction uh a little bit about a couple minutes and then Mike's going to go into a presentation uh the presentation is necessary to put this on the record not just for this meeting but for the four communities we serve in the 61,000 uh customers throughout the four towns and then certainly we'll entertain
any questions you have along the way or at the end regarding the uh details of the budget uh with me tonight uh you all know Jill Fano senior engineer for water utility Michael cor is business manager for the utility um Bridge of water consists of
46 active employees um we currently have one vacancy makes 47 in addition to that the village provides essential services to the utility um including the village manager's office finance department led by the CFO engineering department that we just heard from Fleet compl Services
signal and and many others that provide services to the utility rigid water continues to grow to meet state and federal regulations we're doing all that while balancing improvements to an over 100y old system and a very old
infrastructure regul regulation wise we have three major compliance buckets posos lead service lines and the water quality accountability act and these are three of the largest regulatory actions that have happened in the drinking water
sector in the last three decades now why do I say that because these three things are driving this budget posos as we all know 12 new plants have to be constructed two are already in service six are under construction we expect four of those six completed this year
and the final four will break ground this year getting us well on our way to completing all the projects by the end of 2026 in addition to that we're constructing miles of roll water main to connect 21 satellite Wells to those P treatment plants that is well underway
with 9500 ft of pipe in the ground of the 52,000 ft total and the third of four contracts is breaking ground this March lead service lines to date we have replaced close to 800 Utility side lead
service lines and coordinated work with about 200 customers on the private side and this year we will go out to bid for the first Fort toown contract that will allow us to start the lead service line program to help fund private and public
services to the properties within the four systems water quality accountability actwise we are redrafting utilities Asset Management plan that allows us to keep track of all our assets and the maintenance of those ass assets we're
continuing with our water main replacement plan where we expect to replace close to 4 miles of Main in 2025 we will complete an American Water Works Association water loss audit and are looking to contract for leak detection Services starting with the
intermediate Zone mostly in minland park this spring and into the summer we are near completion on a revised hydraulic model of our system they'll help us tune how the system will be operated after centralization with the 12 new plants with a focus on how to
be how to better distribute water while maintaining disinfection pressure and other water quality standards throughout the system we have completed the evaluation of the intermediate Zone pressure issues that happened this fall and have drafted an improvement plan
that we'll be sharing very soon with the highest priority of being able to construct a new pump station on West gland Avenue the pump and parts have been ordered some have been delivered already and are being stored at our car facility and 50% % of the work that's required in Wiis Glenn Avenue is already
completed by our staff our de permit D permit is under review and we expect to get some response on that very very soon in this full regard we have drafted plans also to enforce Irrigation in the entire system to a level that we've
never done before thanks to the cooperation of all four municipalities and are seeking out firms to assist with messaging to our customers not just on this topic but on P and how the water system operates in this world of Regulation today the 220 2025 budget that we're
about to present wraps all this up and it's a $25 million proposal Mike will get into the details of it and I won't answer any questions that you have thanks rich thank you Rich I know it's been a long night for all of you so I'll
dispense with my normal pleasantries and uh just get started with the bottom line up front um this year we are proposing a our 2025 budget in the amount of 25 million1 123,124
19 million of which will go to support our 2025 operating needs and 6 million little under 6 million will cover our current debt service overall this represents about a 7.5% increase over our 2024 budget
though keep in mind 5.5 5% of that is related to that Debt Service while 2% is related to our operational increases that are coming this year while Debt Service is a more direct calculation our operation expenses and decreases and increases that can occur
across the many budget lines and spreadsheet columns are a bit more complex this slide gives a bit of a breakdown of some of those factors that have contributed to this increase in our operations budget I'm H I'm happy to elaborate on each one of these but I thought for some time sake I just
mentioned one or two and then move on if you have any questions towards the end uh there are two main items up there um one of which uh the count an example of our increases where you see about 255,000 coming to us with the rising cost of our employee benefit program on
contrast you might see our laboratory expenses where last year we invested in our laboratory's capacities and are starting to see the fruit of that labor I want to thank our chemist Alma Burgos for taking the time to not only work toward the certification of our lab um
for previously outsourced volatile organic compound testing but also for finding areas that we can safely reduce our annual lab budget while still being prepared for emergency situations I want to take a moment to emphas Iz our
2025 P du account collections program the last time we performed collections was back in 2015 2016 it is not only a timec consuming process but also very labor intensive usually following on the backs of our overstretch meters in our markout
division with the collection restrictions related and related delays associated with the pandemic we found our past du accounts to have reached over 1.7 million therefore it's becoming a bit of a priority our Senior Management assistant
Justin popek came up with a great solution to manage the challenges of the growing accounts and the limitations on our staff he recognized that our building software firm cubes manufactured by computel LLC has collection services in its product line
with that in mind we launched a small pilot study at the end of 2024 using nine accounts as a control group and had almost perfect success out of the nine accounts all nine custom customers either paid in full or entered a deferred payment plan to pay through
their quarterly bills this equated to about 15,000 in immediate income with another 39,000 still being collected through the deferred payment plans we proposed this bill last year this um program last year with a not to exceed of about
$53,000 this chart helps break down our operating budget into a couple distinct categories and and shows how much of each category is dedicated towards our pasas treatment master plan couple of points to emphasize when looking at this chart um some new guidance and state
statutes have meant that we can no longer separate certain expenses on our funding applications um thus this slide showcases how the environment around pasos rules and regulations is an everchanging landscape thus salaries and wages and statutary and deferred
expenses do not have that P cost separation I'd also like to point out that our debt service which represents the amount of debt we have to pay each year amount of debt down excuse me you can see how nearly half of our 2025 Debt
Service is related to that posos treatment master plan this particular graph is breaking these categories down a little bit further separating items like taxes and source and Supply from our other expenses line item as you can see the majority of our budget is within three
specific areas our salaries and wages at 22% our operational expenses at 24% and our debt service at 20% we also have source and pl Supply coming in at a distant forth touching briefly on some of our Capital Improvement budget our general
capital budget is keeping to an annual Milestone of around $5 million the vast majority is focusing on upgrading our aging infrastructure and our distribution system the other three areas or smaller portions focus on uh including some things like vehicles to
support our growing staff facility improvements and upgrades to our well houses in preparation for this pasos treatment centralization the last few slides focus on our expenses the remaining will focus on our met Revenue
stream in order to meet that 2,231 197 budget we calculate our Revenue stream through three main areas our water rents our miscellaneous income in areas such as cell tower rents in-house Services hydrant
services and increases to our water rents that are associated with proposed rates we'll be discussing in a few slides I want to point out our water rents is a value that is by Statute cannot exceed to previous years that's why we separate out some of the increases in our
proposed rates at the bottom then we evaluate how much of our Surplus will be needed to meet those operating expenses we calculated this year we are anticipating a need to use 4,389
773 from our Surplus accounts this slide represents a visual representation and percentage base of our Revenue sources the pie chart to the to the left breaks down the revenue streams I mentioned on the previous chart the pie chart to the right is breaking out our largest income stream
our water rents our water rents are a summation of our fixed our facilities and our pasos charges as well as our variable volume and usage charges it's important to keep in mind that 66% of our water rent Revenue comes from
variable charges which can be influences by such unpredictable F uh factors such as weather our 2025 proposed rates have been calculated based upon our increasing Revenue requirements and the increased income needed to meet our
budget as well as ensure we are not overextending our Surplus this chart gives a breakdown of our 2025 rate proposal it is broken down first by meter size which has seven distinct categories as well as into two fixed charges our facilities charge and our P
foser Charge then at the bottom you'll see our volum metric rate is uh listed to better understand how the proposed rate will affect the average user we created this bar graph these are the annual costs associated with our most common meter size the 58 in meter
and based upon the average monthly consumption of about 70,000 gallons per month so this represents the most typical average customer the 2024 average annual cost is on the left bar and the proposed 2025 rates are shown on the right bar in the
center is the uh New Jersey state average overall our rate proposal is going to show an increase to about 80% I'm sorry $80 to the um annual to the average users bill which equates to about
11.5% over our 2024 bills our R consultant raap spent some time researching comparable systems and put together the following chart to see how our rates compar to similar systems around the State the two yellow bars are the Ridgewood water annual Bill
estimates the yellow bar to the left represents our 2024 rates and the yellow bar to the right represents the 2025 proposed rates it's important to keep in mind too that most of the comparable systems are based upon the 2024 rates as we won't
know what their 2025 proposals could be see I see Deputy Mayor looking closely I'll leave this up for a moment does this include the P fee this is all completely out of pocket yes and also I assume some of these other water utilities have even started
their pasos remediation that you of course are several years into many of which in fact I believe some of the larger ones haven't even started that treatment in are years away from it as most of them are surface water for the Public's benefit I want to speak about some of our uh next next budget
steps um after tonight's meeting there will be mostly four additional steps leading up to the final Council approval this budget presentation and rate review will be published to website on and about February 21st on March 5th The Village Council will hold a second work session to
discuss our 2025 proposed rates then the budget and rate ordinance will be introduced in a public session on March 12th and finally on April 9th the final reading of the Ridgewood water budget and rate ordinance will be conducted in preparation for the village council's
vote each year Ridgewood waterer hires a Financial Consultant to review our budget and to provide recommendations for the second year we have contracted rafis financial consultants to perform this review that final summary memo will be available upon completion of our
website um upon completion on our website at water. rdwood nj.net with that uh thank you very much for your time and uh we'll be happy to field any questions questions just a comment this is by and far the best presentation I've
seen in my two and a half years here two years plus um I'm obviously not happy with the idea of a 11% increase um but I think the justifications here are are pretty pretty so strong and solid and I can hope in a couple years when the PS
remediation is completed we can maybe look at some relief for our people um but this seems I can't believe I'm about to say that 11% increase seems reasonable but 11% bra seems to be reasonable thank you very much for the kind words about the presentation and
definitely we share in your sentiment who are you and what have you done with council member whites I mean they're not looking for $60,000 with Lubin I guess but still and and I think it's important um Rich what year was the consent order signed
2023 so I I think it's important to put in perspective that um you know the planning for the posos piece for the the lead piece and now for the distribution piece um the distribution is a little
more discretionary right than the than the puss and the and the lead piece but necessary nonetheless um um I think it's just important to know that you know when the commitment was made to invest $1 150 million into building these posos
treatment facilities again D consent order you know required to to to comply with this mandate um you know there was going to be a price tag associated with that and I think it's important to to put that into perspective what I can tell you is that I need to commend rich
and his team at Ridgewood War because this is not something that they take lightly um the potential for rate increases to pay for these enormous infrastructure improvements um are significant and they
spend a significant amount of their day and their week trying to figure out how to help offset the burden that's going to be placed on the consu the customer throughout the service area and from you know working through through uh the
legal system to try to get these folks who um you know um did this to the water um and the the the ongoing litigation uh concerning these manufacturers um there's a lot of effort
put into that to try to recuperate funds um to offset these costs in addition to the fact that you know we're constantly aggressively trying to seek Federal money we have money for Ravine which is the posos treatment facility that's being built over on goel Road near the
horor border um $2 million through the efforts of of Congressman gimer in that regard um and you know we've made a number of requests now uh to the state legislature talking to all three legislative teams because there are nine
legislators total that represent the customers within the uh Ridgewood water service area uh but now we're especially talking to the folks in Glenrock um about continuing to pursue um some State funding to offset these costs so I I
just think that's important to point out in this context you know we're looking at rate increases that's not a secret um but we are also aggressively pursuing ways to reduce that burden on the customers who are serviced by Ridgewood water so to Mike and Jill and and
especially Rich you know kudos to you and your entire team over there for that continued effort and and I want to take a moment um just to point out I had a I've had had several conversations with Rich calby um water infrastructure is not
cheap and needs to be maintained and replaced year after year after year and if you skip a year you're going to pay for it later and it's probably like some of the other things we've discussed tonight going to
be more expensive and in the short term when you're trying to save money you can do this in any any any given year because nobody sees it and that Maine water main that lasts 12
years probably going to make it to 13 or 14 I believe Rich you told me that there was Zero infrastructure improvement from 2000 to
2015 these are facts $0 spent where we're supposed to be spending money every single year and so that chicken has come home to roost and
we are paying for it now and and I will tell you one thing this Council will never ever skip a year in terms of its maintenance but to go for 15 years and to keep that place
together with tape and Band-Aids and now we're going to fix it old business that's going to be taken care of now thank you w really appreciate your time anybody have any other questions I I just want to say
that always proud of rard water at the presentation and I'm hoping the next significant rate height we see is for tiered pricing because then that would be everyone's most favorite rate hike because it would have the duality of you know reducing and eliminating and it
would be better overall so I I know I've mentioned it it might be my mantra for 2025 and I think Pam's going to join me but thank you it it it really is something I'm always forever proud of you know that that you guys have done this and dug us out of a very serious
hole thank you and tier pricing has been something on our our list for many years um we decided that we need to get past posos first and once that's complete that we could then you know move forward a proposal for that so it's coming soon
thank you thank you well and have a good evening thanks thanks thank you Rich okay um we're going to Pivot to the Village Clerk's budget and also um Heather will present the elections budget for 2025 as well
welcome Miss melander thank you all right so we'll start with Village clerk sure um overall there's a modest decrease I believe say one more
time what's say Point 16 no decrease right yes thank you I believe I believe if I'm correct all right Mr please correct me if I'm incorrect um we have a newer Deputy Village clerk um so she is
going through the classes for her RMC which is a certification um so and she's making less than the previous uh Deputy who was here for many years um we have
hired from within we also did a hire from within to replace that person who was working in the municipal clerk's office and is now in the um Deputy position and um I did interviews uh
Friday for to replace the part-time receptionist in the morning and I'll be making that decision probably this week and hopefully that person will be on board within the next couple weeks so that's salaries and wages do you have any specific questions about
particular so other professional Services went up pretty okay so that's um the preparation of the meeting minutes um we have not been build for the first quarter of 2024 yet for the minutes that were prepared and so that
included the regular meetings as well as budget meetings so we're waiting for those um invoices to come in to pay them so I've reached out to the vendor and hopefully that will be um rectified soon so what you're seeing what we we
actually spent it's not the total amount because we have a full quarter's worth of invoices we haven't yet paid yeah but I was looking so 6300 was what we appropriated though for 2024 right I'm sorry say it again sorry 6300 was what we appropriated for 20124
correct uh yeah yeah and now we're looking to appropriate 12,000 right just because I you know I don't know how many meetings you're going to have if it's all based on the meetings you have how long they are um so you think it's cheaper to do shorter meetings correct
correct so the less you speakap be if you go to tab take that under advisement take it if you go to tab 28 you'll see where I reduced that last year that's that's okay so we set a placehold listen it's not a lot of money so I'm not going to complain but hopefully that comes down if uh if me
and my colleagues can speak less right sure sure any other uh questions on that I think we're good okay yep so election oh you're going to elections now yep okay please so elections um the money that we pay out
in salaries and wages is for election day itself so myself my deputy and those who help us with the delivery of the um packages to the uh polling locations as well as in the evening when all of them come back um to check them and then take
them to hackin saac are paid um to do so um in addition I mean it's a minimal 3.68% increase um we did have um an increase this past year in 2024 for our
primary election expenses um we did question it and it was reduced but um we never know what it's going to be sorry just I think maybe there's another mistake here cuz so last year we appropriated 49,000 this year we're appropriating 43 so we're we're down
aren't we it's showing here as an increase I'm going to leave it to them yeah so it says we we appropriated $49,000 last year and we're appropriating 43 ask yes isn't that down this know I gotta trying to get more
credit for Heather here total budget line anyway it's not worth spending it's not a lot of money so but I'm just wondering if there's some mistakes in the in the logic increase yeah I think the um the
33770 might have come down to 29 or something I think it was like a maybe 30 um that was the primary election cost so yeah I'm just saying it should be reflected that you're decreasing that increase right no I understand yeah
they're pretty much either way no other questions for me I'm I'm just looking at the numbers not the percentages numbers very very good everybody else good yeah I I just had one question sure I mean with early voting how soon do you think ridgewood's going to see a reduction in
polling locations and pole workers but we already have a reduction in pole workers because the they're all in one now like in other words when you used to go to Willard School it's three District used to have pole workers for each district now they're all one big
district with the new machines so you've already reduced the number of pole workers um whether or not we can further um consolidate we need room for all those machines and they're big like especially those scanners and those bmds
also which are the actual voting machines um so I I don't know um and it's something we can look into and it it has to do with the county too because the county uh Board of Elections has to come out they have to send inspectors they have
to make sure that we have um the proper number of outlets the proper number of um the the proper amount of space to accommodate all those voters and although we don't have a 70% turnout
which probably in person was maybe let's guess 60% 55% um you know they were in person the others were mailin or early voting um we do we do get a fairly good turnout
usually unless there's no contest so um I I don't know the answer to that um and I don't think the county is looking to do it this year certainly because it's gubernatorial election so you know maybe in the next two years after that they
may consider doing it but I don't know that it's going to happen that soon anybody else I think we're good thanks thank you have a lovely
evening no you got to go back up there actually I think Keith I think the rest of this is yours yes so we'll move to the manager's budget um full-time salary that's um the three full-timers in my office myself included um and actually that number is
um there's there was a cola built into there that's not applicable so that number is actually going to come down by about $4,000 um in the request um part-time that's our senior bus driver um and then you'll see uh 01z um those
are the budget credits to be offset salary from Bridgewood water and other places um with regard to the um increases proposed under 028 um
we have a this is relative to primarily relative to the background checks um that we need to conduct um within the village uh that is the biggest expense uh for new employees and that's a that's a line item of about
$112,000 um and then we also have built in there some education um performance appraisals in there as well those are the two highlights on that one uh um going back to it uh senior
Transportation um we are are spend last year was not as much as what we're asking but um in discussion with at least two of The Village Council Members there seems to be an interest in expanding Transportation opportunities uh especially for our senior population
um so we're working through um and can actually going to launch later this month a survey uh into the senior community with the assistant of um Sheila Brogan and Beth Abbott from age friendly uh to sort of assess exactly what the needs are within this senior
community for expanding those Transportation uh opportunities um so that's something uh that we will be able to uh refine and report on as we get into uh the second quarter of the Year any other questions on that
otherwise we can move to the Council budget everybody good yep let's go I think we should say good job good job Keith what I do
no all right um boot up here okay um so with regard to the um Council budget uh we're not talking about really any significant change here uh the request last year was or the appropriation last
year was 96140 this year it's 96950 I don't see any questions here okay let's go move to the Village attorney's budget okay um so here um we have the um annual retainer um that's appropriated
for the village attorney um down below and these I want to stress are also a work in progress um labor attorney expenses um we budgeted last year 53 we're bringing that down to 50 um litigation 150 you want to talk about
that as a restorative cut 046 so we have potential claims which in our discussion with um Matt Rogers is what the potential would be out there for things that he's aware that are still a work in progress
and we do have one for uh sanitation which is a result of a one of our vehicles rear ending a another vehicle at at a stop sign and that he feel that's are deductible as it
relates to that claim so that's uh still moving forward he's there may that may go up just a little bit for attorney fees but right now that's uh we're talking about the deductible for that one yeah um the giant increase in
litigation I know you just touched on that but that's a pretty significant increase what what are we looking at that's that's our that's our deductible on a pending case um and Matt's making the recommendation to put that in after Consulting our insurance company that's a placeholder we're not going to spend
that unless we need to right I think we're going to spend S I think I think that's the number that he needs to uh this individual has been through several surgeries already and uh all those claims haven't been filed got it so that that that comes
with Matt's recommendations so you want to talk you know if want to talk off Ling closed we can certainly do that no that's a hard number based upon a specific instance and and that's not for legal fees that's that's for settlement settlement am and and again like that's
that's one of those things you know that's a that's a this year expense that would come off the books in 26 if if that's where we actually land um prosecutor is steady um Union negotiations we had initially um proposed $225,000 in that light item um
I I made that adjustment uh in light of the fact that we have settled both white and blue collar um just waiting for the union to get back to us on ratification on that so I'm hopeful there um we will go into PBA negotiations this calendar year um however I think a
$10,000 um line item uh for Union negotiations with regards to our labor attorney uh will be sufficient um and uh miscellaneous we've actually reduced that line item by $5,000 for this year there's nothing here for public defender is that somewhere else it's a it's a
separate line I we did that when uh Erica wol was here uh for her but for Municipal Court yeah so any questions about that anybody else we're good all right mayor that's uh all we have for tonight uh the two
main departments that we'll hear from on the 19th are going to be the Ridgewood Police Department uh we rescheduled Chief Lions cuz he was under the weather under the weather uh from the uh from the first session and also we'll hear from Parks and Recreation um obviously
we had a uh loss of an employee in that department so that was rescheduled to the 19th as well um and then we'll have uh hopefully a recommendation on Final capital and uh the overall tax rate when we meet on February 27th that's what we have good let's go back
to public comment seeing no one in the audience Dylan do we have anybody online nobody so we will close we've got one let's go all right as I
wrote that's a shame okay uh then let's close public comment and entertain a motion for adjournment so moved second all in favor all in favor I let's go turn your turn your mics off guys
think