e e e e e e e e e e e
speci in the commissioner meeting room at one Spring Street Newton New Jersey call please director space uh I'm sorry director Carney I apologize it's okay it's okay here deputy director space here commissioner degr here commissioner
Hayden is absent commissioner Henderson here number three moment silence and salute flag Al flag United States ofice number four public statement pursuant to open public meetings act chapter 231 pl1 1975 adequate notice as
defined by section 3D of chapter 231 BL 1975 as been made by regular mail such notice being submitted on March 2nd 2 from the administrative center of the county of Sussex located at one Spring Street newon New Jersey to the following New Jersey Herald Star Ledger and Strauss news and is also posted on a
bulletin board maintain any administrative Center for Public announcements that be submitted to the susex county clerk in compliance with act number five approval of agenda motion to approve the agenda commissioner Henderson second commissioner crew any discussion all in
favor say I I oppos carries number six executive session there is none number seven Proclamation certificates presentations there are none public hearings there are none number nine public session from the floor this public session for those
wishing to make a comment of three minutes or less regarding an agenda item please line up with the microphone state name municipality and agenda topic for the record motion to open the floor for public comment so moved second commissioner deputy director space commission de seconds any discussion
all in favor say I I oppos carries FL is open all right seeing no one motion to close the floor for public comment so move commissioner Gro have a second commissioner commissioner Henderson in discussion all in favor say I I I oppose stain carries number 10 commissioner
comments any commissioner have any comments all right we're going to skip over that perfect number 11 approval consent again there is none number 12 approval minutes there are none number 13 appointments Andor resignations there are none 14 resolutions there are none
15 Awards of contracts chain orders bid there are none number 16 Financial 2025 budget review with the um um different Commissioners that were on the different different committees and we all work very collectively to get the
budget where it is um it's very strategic very well put together and now it's the time in our history to get it moving and get it to the next stage in his life of adoption so with that Ela it's all
yours e ask for our GR our e e e off e public spe
get e e e e e our mil fa of think
must be addressed without further delay uh in collaboration with director Carney who we you know had discussions about uh we have explored capital investment solutions to resolve this issue um included in this capital budget is an allocation as you could see of
$500,000 um the task force F building uh is not only you know vital to the prosecutor's office but also serves as a keys resources for local and state law enforcement um with the capital budget as you see you know proposed I just firmly believe uh this is a priority that we really should address now rather
than later um and I know there should be a memo that has uh a bit more detail on what that 500,000 looks towards allocation so I just wanted to uh you know make sure that sounded good with everyone um and again that's under facilities prosecutors building
improvements yep perfect and just a segue into a little bit more I taking a tour of that I don't know if you guys have been there or not um we'll keep the location to a minimum but um it is a decrepit building that definitely been neglected as commissioner said um it's a good year to
strike our capital budget is low and this would be a nice accomplishment and you know putting the prosecutor's office which their other buildings are neglected as well um you know making sure that they know that we are taking care of them as everybody else in the county so agreed to that I think it's
probably helpful that last year we saved in capital with the chapter 12 funding from the college and then this year again Dr Homer the acting uh president of the college was uh worked well with us again this year to cut the chapter 12
funding in half again so that'll put into our capital for next year another 575,000 that we save right right and we are we are about five million um under what we normally are is
that correct perfect that's great thanks Jack that's PR ear this is actually remarkable that really is 3% that's $34 million and in under well
we'll just say we'll say seven years it's a lot I I I said this in some of the committee meetings when administrators come to interview at for counties and the municipalities there's three things we look at and it's like a Health Report one is your debt ratio you
look at that compared to two points and the counties at three you look at the of the U Reserve as as it relates to the budget and you look to see if they have an accurate and and appointed debt management plan all three of those have
the highest ranks in in the county I can tell you that we're in great shap well you're not taking a job because we're keeping yes we'll start with commissioner Henderson if you have any questions orun sitting down with these guys the other day for
one-onone explanation was excellent that's all that's it the rookies got minle M to say okay commissioner deputy director I just want to thank both of you ladies Ron Chris Christina the rest of the
board um this has been a process that we started back in September and meeting with every department and hearing everything you know when people say that they they go over things line by line we really did go over everything line by line multiple times back in the office
Chris and I like to change a lot of things there's no doubt and we we weren't always the easiest but there are some things in this budget that are remark remarkable I think I already used that word but I'm using it again um we added a line item for the food pantry
last year you know we know that the food pantry was a big topic and we added $100,000 line for the food pantry which comes to, 1900 something additional food a week because the food pantry has taken a hit uh Allan volunteers at the food
pantry and we went how many pallets were we getting eight or nine 10 two two so we need to provide for our less needy and we were able to do that with keeping this budget low and I know uh uh the the
fire academy was a big one for Chris and the county is able to take over the cost for the volunteer fire departments to send their recruits to fire school and the county will be paying directly the
$500 Fay so hopefully we'll get more uh firemen wanting to take that on I mean we just have so many good things in this budget I could go over it you know but we did go line by line I want to thank uh Dr Homer and Gus Moda for both you
know from the Sussex Tech and the college for coming in and working with us we were able to uh Tech has a huge deficit this year and they're under negotiations their insurance went up and we were able to give them an additional
8.85% in their budget which is huge I mean that was the most that we could do and the college remained flat but with their shared services um it's only going to get better in years to come so but I'm just really really pleased in my three years this is definitely the best
budget I've seen and you know I can't thank you guys enough for all you've done and I'm hoping that the board will support this budget tonight that's all I have perfect thank you commissioner de um just the capital budget uh project question that's all I really had um as
commissioner space said you know thank you to everyone who worked really hard on this um really happy with you know what we came up with so that is all did you said you had a question or uh no I got address before okay thank you sorry all right yeah absolutely listen we appreciate what you guys do um you know
Ron and and Lorraine and everybody who has a piece of this um as Jill said I've been I'm going on my fifth year four years on the budget committee and it might not be our lowest um budget but it is the most gratifying for sure um as
Jill said with uh the college keeping them whole helping out the tech where we can two new employees at the DPW being able to give our non- reps the same as our our uh our reps which was a little bit of a fight with me um but we're going to work that out and that's good
that's good for morale um so lot of lot of good stuff and again I I as Jill said mentioned that yeah I think this is probably the best budget I've seen and the most gratifying it really is uh to stay under 1% you infation which I don't buy is 3% I buy that whatsoever Senator
right um a little higher but but that's good and I guess the question I have for you is our tax rate our tax rate has been down for the last three or four years do we have that information if our tax rate is get down again perfect just another statistic the
finished their evaluations of number of employees in counties and susex county is the third lowest employment rate in the state of 21 counties the next one to us is Warren County and the next one is Hunton and then it doubles from there so
we do a lot a lot more with less that's the point yes and I think we have perfect and this one's under one I'll take credit for five all right no that's good we really appreciate it what you guys do so yeah
have unless anybody has a uh any other comments that's I'd like to make a motion to push the budget as is get it on next month yeah have a second commissioner group any more
discussion I we could do all uh all in favor ready all in favor say I I all right carries thank you perfect thank you guys all right number 17 personnel there is none number 18 administrative report
good night everyone thank you very much perfect count County Council report all right 20 any unfinished business all right any new business all right number 22 public session from the floor this public session for those wishing to make General comments of minutes L on non
agenda topics please line up with the microphone state your name municipality for the record motion to open the floor comment gr have a second second deputy director space any discussion all favor say I I I oppose abstain carries floor is
open all right seeing no one motion to close the floor for public comment return regular business Mr Henderson second deputy director any discussion all in favor say hi those carries uh 23 reminders our next regular
commissioner meeting is scheduled for Wednesday March 12th 2025 at 6m here in the commissioner meeting room number 24 adjournment motion to adjourn the meeting so moved director motions the group seconds any discussion all in
favor say Iain carries is over 629 pretty good