councilwoman Belchure councilman Pagan here councilwoman G here councilwoman Goldberg here councilman Catz Debbie Mayor Belchure Deputy Mayor
Oregon here Mayor Schwarz adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by resolution number 300-2024 sending a copy to the newspapers officially designated for 2025 by way of resolution number 2-2025 filing a copy in the township clerk's office and posting on the municipal building and bulletin board and the
mayor hereby directed this statement be included in the minutes tonight's meeting March 20th 800 PM open session budget meeting council administration president tonight's meeting is everyone we have our deputy our
department we'll hear from shortly hash our township manager our township clerk our chief financial officer the north chair deputy township clerk Scott township attorney on zoom I
believe our volunteer table master and our department head is upcoming event council meetings for the public information we are currently uploading a hybrid format meeting we have people in person and on Zoom if our Wi-Fi at school building has an issue where the Zoom meeting drops we'll aim to retrieve
the connection and continue the meeting if you haven't yet signed up for our website alerts and township alerts please do so the township council will have regular budget meetings starting at 7 p.m on Thursday March 27th April 3rd and April 10th the next televised regular council meeting is April 8th
which begins at 6:30 p.m with a public portion beginning at 8:00 p.m a public access channels 47 and 77 and the website live streaming of meetings are temporarily down watch the upcoming township budget meetings on Zoom Facebook and YouTube and the recording
of tonight's meetings will be on the update will be on the website sometime tomorrow the council did not meet in close session and with that we will start our meeting see um good and welfare almost open to good and welfare anybody in the audience
would like to speak good evening Christina Markinson i'm here again you probably remember me from last year so I won't give you a long speech i would just like to remind you about the greenhouse conditions which
are getting worse when it rains there are several holes in the roof and we have big puddles on the floor but now we have a bigger problem because one of the vents doesn't really work correctly
anymore and we are afraid to open it when it's windy because we think it might collapse so if we can't open all the vents the temperature increases to 100 120 and we can't grow under those
conditions so please consider what's necessary for the township to get a well functioning new greenhouse thank you very much hi good evening my name is Anna Kurtz i'm also going to speak on behalf of the
garden club i'll just say that whatever Christina said I'd second it thank you that's former Councilman Zone um uh Tene resident in March other people look forward to Pi Day St patrick's Day the start of spring i look forward to the
release of the annual financial statement and I scroll right down to sheet 3A.1 and I look for fund balance and the fund balance this year uh is 5.2 million that's a drop of almost 3 million in two years and 1.7 million in the past year we're losing money year
after year even after a 5% tax increase this year could be twice as bad with a hole of 5 million or more to be filled to meet the promise of 0% budgets will the answer be build it would take five buildings each year just like a Alfred
Avenue to fill that budget hole by next year all of the Northeast would be covered with buildings and and just a year or two later virtually all of Tene would need to be covered with buildings we would need about 50 buildings with 20,000 new residents to fill the gaps needed for a 0% year after year for the next
decade but over the past decade only four new buildings have been built there's nothing under construction now and the site next to 329 Alfred Avenue appears to be seriously contaminated and looks like it won't be starting for quite a while build build build won't solve the
problem it will take budgeting budgeting budgeting what changes should be made how many police officers or firefighters should be eliminated what services should be cut i worked with a very wise colleague who had spent decades at IBM and he said when hiring he said "Lots of
people have been working for 10 years some of those people have 10 years of experience and some of those people have one year of experience 10 times for far too long members of this council have been dumping off responsibility for the budget and haven't learned the
fundamental details of how the budget works draining money out of trust funds piling up debt for old expenses selling off assets and playing budget games it's time that this council takes full ownership of this budget
form a budget task force we have 40 years of experience in just three people the mayor uh deputy mayor for life and deputy mayor one who can devote their time to crafting a budget uh it's clear Mr mayor that you don't feel that there's anybody who could really be
trusted to do things your way this is your budget you own it now it's your chance to learn the details and make the changes that are needed to this budget for the next hour or two the budget belongs to the manager after that it's all yours best of luck with this budget
i think you're going to need it and I think every Tene resident is going to need that i I hope that we can see success with this budget this year thank you um Mr council if you I believe most of your math is a little bit off you're compounding five new buildings every year for five years that re is an
additional $25 million so I think they're you're missing the concept of compounding um as it relates to only four new buildings in the last decade that's also quite off when you forget the factoring the hotels forget the factoring 227 scenic road frag at the
factory new bridge and river road um and probably a few others as it relates to the 359 Alfred Avenue um we met with the owner at the at the ribbon cutting which was a great event uh and he hopes to be closing on the site in the next one or two weeks he's already um that's already
been pushed off two or three times he's ready to build and he has his crews ready to build and that permit I think we did some math we have about $1.2 million of incoming permit fees we hope in the next year or so between 359 Alfred 100 State Street and 140 State
Street um if you'd like if you want to send me that speech I'll gladly review it with you on the compounding but thank you very much and absolutely we look forward to working on this budget and as far as the garden club goes um we can't find a building to fit the roof
that we budgeted money for and so we are looking into a full structure for you um but it's something that we're looking into correct manager yes we're we're retaining quotes now so a prefab building um should be in the near future
good evening Mayor and Council i would like to start by welcoming our department heads also known as my team and my work family they have had my back since my first day as township manager and continue to assist me with all of our day-to-day challenges and accomplishments i am proud to introduce
them this evening to give them an opportunity to share a brief overview of their department staffing progress and any statistics they would like to share i will start this evening with our soon to be retired tax assessor James Tai james Tai has dedicated 27 years of service to the township and has played
an instrumental role in interviewing uh for for his successor Francois Douter um they have already started working together um in preparation for his retirement date of April 1st so James if you'd like to come up thank you let's give him a round of
applause as well hey well yes this will be my last address to this body on this topic um and I won't be coming back to address on other topics i can assure you uh the tax assessor's department consists of the assessor and an assessing aid they're
staff of two uh we're responsible for the assessment of 8.4 billion worth of real estate in T-neck um that's the current total assessment our ratio's gone down to 97% because of market conditions uh properties continue to
rise in value so our actual true value was probably closer to 8.6 8.7 million um we had a revaluation completed for 2024 um we
are let me just get the uh statistics uh we had approximately 300 tax appeals filed at the county board level in 2024 the reductions totaling $14 million the original amount that was appealed was
$265 million uh so it's relatively small reduction compared to the amount that was under appeal uh most of those were just um redressing inspections that we were unable to make uh this year uh the appeal um deadline is rapidly
approaching April 1st i believe we're in pretty good shape at the county tax board we have about 30 appeals filed currently um appraisal systems is on board to provide the defense of appeals it's part of their u contract from last year our new assessor has been working
with me for most of this week he'll be working next week he's ready to jump into the job as soon as I'm done i think he'll hit the ground running we He has help for the uh appeals he's got a good handle on the new construction that's
been completed we're already entering uh added assessments uh so I think uh the office will continue to be run well and I think uh he will have a successful reign here and uh regarding our budget it's basically about the same as last
year it's fairly modest given the amount of properties that we oversee and I I hope that it gets funded so that we can continue to uh provide service to the residents any questions thank you thank you happy retirement yes
have a nice evening uh next we have our building department our construction official Mark Bikino you could please come up good evening mayor and council all right the building department is the local municipal enforcing agency which issues
construction permits conducts progress inspections and issues certificates of occupancy in accordance with the state of New Jersey uniform construction code building department administers the township of development regulations and provisions of the state of New Jersey municipal land use law to accomplish
this we must collect fees portion of these fees for the enforcement of the uniform construction code are required by state law to cover only the cost of enforcing the regulations our mission is to protect the health safety and welfare of all users of buildings and structures within the township to provide and
maintain a pleasing visual environment through the application and enforcement of the township's development regulations to assist in the orderly development of the township by applying the rules and regulations established by the council to assist the township council in providing a better community by suggesting the elimination of
unnecessary or obsolete regulations the alteration of regulations to recognize new and innovative technologies and to establish new regulations when necessary to assist applicants in the process of obtaining the necessary approvals for use and development of properties within
the township to maintain and advance quality of life of people living working and visiting the township of Tene some of the highlights from 2024 is we processed 695 zoning applications and issued 548 permits we processed
2,248 construction applications and issued 2,242 permits and conducted 7,393 inspections the average wait time for inspections was less than 3 days um we also fulfill an enormous
amount of OPER requests i estimate that I spent approximately 500 hours last year uh to help with that I ask that the uh council thinks about passing a records clearance or resale certificate ordinance to be introduced and passed
during the year we come across many properties where work has been done without permits uh usually by the previous owner or by house flippers uh and what results is when we find out about this we have to issue violations and the new owners are now burdened with
having to make these repairs at the great expense um so I ask that you think about that thank you any questions yes okay speaking of the resale
um I guess it would be an inspection when you say that your re your recommendation is that the council considered a resale certificate certificate of occupancy which would mean upon the turnover um of of a
property um as a building official do you feel the onus of that should be borne by the seller versus the buyer yes by the seller yes okay thank you thank you for the under three day wait
time for the permits i'm sure you made a lot of people very very happy yeah once in a while we run over but on average it's three days um that records ordinance is that something we can talk about in zoning subcommittee okay
thank you Mark all right thank you next we have our finance department CFO Issa Abasi who has spent countless hours with me uh preparing the budget for this evening um please come up good evening Mayor and Council Madame
Manager Mr deputy Manager Mr clerk Madame Deputy Clerk uh Issa Abasi chief financial officer also former executive assistant from April 2010 to June 2015 the clerk from July 1 of 15 to April 30th of 19 CFO from May 1st to present
uh amazing that next month I'll finish 15 years of the township it went by in the blink of an eye uh on staff is one deputy CFO Asisa Adawumi one accountant uh Brun Kelesz senior payroll clerk Carmelene Estz um tax collector Natalie Utino deputy tax collector Jessica Lewis
we have tax clerk Roy Matthews and our department is essentially responsible for effectively maintaining the financial administration of the municipality we basically supervise the division of finance which has division of taxation in it we also uh handle the division of payroll and tax collection
so essentially we um we work on the budget we oversee the budget we collect taxes we administer payroll um and we also part of that is treasury management so I know it's a little complex but we also manage the cash in the bank how bills get paid when they get paid we
work in collaboration with the purchasing agent with the manager with every department essentially so our goals for 2015 let's let's first look back at 2024 a year of a lot of change our main really task was the budget working with the purchasing agent the manager managers because it was under
Dean and also Jackie on selling the cell tower successfully thankfully and working with council to bring the tax rate increase down to 4.99% we thankfully also maintained our double A bond rating with Moody's when we issued 22 million in bond anticipation notes in November along
with 3,957,000 in special emergency notes um and we thankfully worked very well in onboarding uh the manager with all of our department heads for 2025 we're looking to increase our revenues through proposed fee ordinance or fee schedule um that should be forthcoming of all
department heads or select department heads rather we look to basically also increase our fees with now the coming online of the municipal pool community pool and monitoring how that works out um obviously with council maintaining
our current level of services while minimizing the tax increase on our residents and um adopting a bond ordinance much much sooner so this is something I've learned in prior towns I've worked in and work with in my current municipality we've already adopted our bond ordinance what that
gives us and can give us here is first crack at the apple with vendors specifically for road reservicing where three years ago in the town I was in we adopted our bond ordinance by March and we had enough money left over to pay five more streets so that's something that I really want to work with the manager and department head and council
on getting done any questions for now or we can hold them i'm here the whole evening the manager and council all right next person up thank you Isa appreciate it um next up we have from our fire department fire chief Joseph Burchold
who's been here over 34 years of service with the township good evening mayor council department heads residents watching i'm your fire chief Joseph Bersold so 2024 2024 started off as a very busy year for
us um multiple fires some fatalities unfortunately uh our staffing level we're currently tabled at 93 as our TTO we started off the year and continued most of the year last year with being four short in addition to that we also
lose members due to military leave we had two on military leave for the entire year six family leaves for multiple months one or two additional personal sick leaves which were multiple months all impacting the day-to-day staffing level of the fire department and
unfortunately flowing over into overtime in addition I have very little staff i have an administrative assistant i have a administrative chief chief handles the all the equipment care maintenance apparatus repairs purchasing buildings for houses four firehouses
injury accident investigations uh my fire prevention bureau consists of one fire official two fire inspectors and I have one training deputy chief as a reminder I remind all residents that it's imperative that we
continue to have working smoke detectors in your house and an escape plant as you may have as little as 3 minutes to escape a fire we're currently still ongoing with our smoke detector grant program trying to get smoke detectors out to the residents
that need that in 2024 we conducted 1542 fire prevention related inspections 700 of those were fire suppression companies 351 were our mandatory state required life hazard inspections required by a licensed inspector we did
424 smoke detector and carbonoxide inspections in homes and attended through the fire prevention bureau about 46 different special events that the town hosted i can't stress it enough that the fire prevention bureau not only functions as our primary means of
inspecting and ensuring compliance with our buildings but also remember they are uniform firefighters who respond on calls assist at calls 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days of the year they're available at nights weekends they come
back when needed and greatly assist the department with our staffing again I would remind everybody that the primary goal of the fire prevention fire department is fire prevention although we don't always get enough or have enough time to do that with our staffing
and personnel in 2024 we received 12 mutual aid calls which is a slight increase we also sent mutual aid out 44 times to our neighboring uh municipalities this has is going to increase due to lack of volunteers in your neighboring municipalities
we conducted 10,974 hours of training within the fire department that's a 2,000 hour increase again by sending our members out to additional train to trainer courses we allowed the cost to the municipality to be reduced because it allows them to
train our members not on overtime or sending them out fire calls for last year we had about a 2,000 uh increase with a total of 5,991 calls of service uh 129 fires which is about average for the previous
year we did see a rise in our emergency service calls uh we almost doubled that uh to 153 calls for emergency services that is an increase we believe due to the aging population uh the growth of
the municipality uh the lack of cost that our residents have and repairs and also coming out of co in addition to that we did 2551 service calls which are your gas carbonoxide calls smells of gas that was
a th00and increase from the previous year and we doubled our EMS calls for service from 397 the previous year to 88 84 assisting the ambulance corp out of the 136 structure fires 56 were basically small structure fires
like I said we had two major structure fires numerous brush apparatus uh vehicle fires again the fire department prides themselves on protecting the residents as best we can and educating when at all possible we continue with our service of
the game wall box system we have 353 game wall boxes through in the town which adds a savings in cost to the municipality as you know we have four firehouses they range in anywhere from 35 years old up to about 82 years of old
age and and are being maintained as best as the DBW budget the fire department budget will allow some other highlights we continue to work with our partners to assure grants we did accept a regional grant between the departments of Hackinac
Englewood and Hackinac for a $100,000 uh trailer that will allow us to do different types of roof ventilation roof rescue operations all within the municipality again saving the taxpayers money and overtime because we will not have to go up to the fire academy to
complete that type of training we continue to replace our fleet of vehicles we have an aging vehicle uh fleet we have quite a few 1990 Crown Victorias that we're slowly trying to replace and move off um out of service and replace them with new more modern fleet we were able to get a water rescue
truck last year and put that in service uh we were able to get a grant from the rescue plan grant which will go to updating the firehouses with a gear storage system and a a jacket that will allow them to not always have to be in their turnout coat which will save the
cost of the $3,000 turnout coat that concludes my report thank you for your time thank you Chief um next the clerk's office doug Rousion please come up good evening council manager deputy
manager Issa Mr deputy Clerk esteemed department heads it's a pleasure to be with you all here again for another budget cycle it's 2025 april's going to be seven years I've been with the township and time truly flies when
you're having fun so uh it also brings me great joy to constantly come here every year and be the department that is not a heavy budget for our municipality thankfully similar to the finance office we're a very administrative office that handles a lot of things in the township
and thankfully that doesn't necessarily equate to a large operating budget um our office here in the town hall consists of the A team the three of us which is myself Doug Rousion as we said Deputy Clerk Kristen Denorche and of
course our uh senior clerk John Macallum uh without John and Kristen our office would likely cease to operate so we need to thank them as well the clerk's office is a conduit for many different things here in the township all different kinds of licensing and permits uh we also help
facilitate land auctions of course one of our favorite things that we're all familiar with is OPER requests uh those come through our office as well it is the responsibility of the township clerk uh clerk's office to be the keeper of the code every year we have been working
on a constant recodification of our code to keep our code book virtually and hard copy up to date um a number of years ago some members on this council might remember that it was a hefty expense to do that big recotification and thankfully since we did that as long as
the township stays on top of it every year that expense is rather minimal um two other things that I just want to bring council's attention to as you do look at the clerk's budget is two things that uh are kind of expensive when it
comes to our operating budget and that's our elections line item um we still have I think uh quite a bit of money in there for operating expenses in regards to the election uh expenses that come from Bergen County are passed on to the
municipal clerk's office and all of the towns uh throughout the county so we do need to have money aside for that and also as you all are aware we have coined and pioneered the poleworker meet and greet here in Tene which does have a minimal expense to it also and what it
is is really a space that we invite all of our poll workers tene has more than 100 pole workers we invite all of them to come to uh actually here in council chambers before an election to just kind of get on the same page with each other meet your fellow pole workers that are
going to be with you on election day and that has been a huge hit also we have been able to develop a relationship with our board of education in involving many of our young students from Tene High School in our elections working the polls um which is great because the
township does not pay poll workers it actually comes from Bergen County so uh that's a great example of something that we've been able to do that actually doesn't equate to an operating expense um so aside from elections being one of the heavy bits of our budget the other thing that we always need to pay
attention to is our legal ads by law we have to publish various kinds of advertisements uh in the official newspapers of the municipality we have three different official newspapers in the municipality and each of them are very expensive to place an ad in their
respective publication however you will realize as well as we mentioned that it is a state requirement that we have these official newspapers it's a state requirement that we publish in these newspapers so uh they they kind of will get our money no matter what and the
price just kind of keeps increasing so as time goes on uh I think really where council will see the most fluctuations in our budget is in the elections line item and the legal advertisements and with that that's the
clerk's office thank you Doug uh next I'd like to invite up our new health officer Michael Meyer um he has been here a few weeks comes from us from Pamis um and he's doing a great job with our health department would you like to come up Michael
good evening Mayor and Council my name is Michael Meyer and it's an honor to stand before you this evening as health officer for the township of Tene although I've only been in this role for about two months now it's already abundantly clear to me that Tene residents take great pride in their community and are deeply invested in its
well-being i'm also sincerely grateful to lead a dedicated and hardworking team of public health professionals who demonstrate their unwavering commitment and passion for improving the lives of those we serve as health officer my foremost responsibility is to promote and enhance
the health and safety of all teen residents i oversee a full spectrum of public health activities ensuring compliance with state and federal regulations while spearheading initiatives that directly benefit the health of our community our environmental health division uh plays a vital role in this
mission the division is staffed by one full-time chief registered environmental health specialist and three full-time registered environmental health specialists this team is instrumental in conducting essential services including inspections of retail food establishments investigating complaints
ensuring compliance with TX property maintenance code performing lead inspections in rental housing units and inspecting each and every rental housing unit in the township upon change of tenency our vital statistics and clerical division consists of three full-time employees who are responsible
for issuing vital records such as birth and death certificates and marriage licenses in addition they ensure the smooth operation of the health department by assisting residents both at the counter and on the phone while also processing a wide range of licenses and applications including those for
pets food establishments and rental property health certificates additionally we have a full-time social worker on our team who provides support to individuals and families by assessing their needs connecting them to necessary services and offering counseling and
advocacy for public health nursing and health education services we contract with Holy Name Medical Center the nursing staff investigates communicable disease cases provides guidance during disease outbreaks conducts childhoodled case investigations and performs immunization audits for both public and
private daycarees and schools in Tene furthermore through our partnership the health department is able to offer monthly child health clinics as part of our vaccines for children program these clinics provide free vaccines physical examinations and lead testing to uninsured children in our
community in support of these initiatives the health department is currently utilizing grant funding from two key sources the strengthening local public health capacity grant and the sustaining local public health infrastructure grant together these grants provide over $265,000 in funding which helps offset
staff salaries cover the cost of our nursing services contract with Holy Name Medical Center and supports training opportunities for our staff to enhance their skills and competencies i'm also pleased to announce that just this past week we applied for and were awarded an additional $25,000 in funding to further
strengthen the health department's ability to address health equity priorities and drive progress within our community looking ahead I remain deeply committed to working closely with community stakeholders to better understand the challenges our residents face by building and strengthening these partnerships we will continue to create
sustainable programs and services that promote the optimal health and well-being of our residents thank you very much for your time tonight uh any questions thank you very much thank you Michael uh next we have our library director Chennai Han um if you'd like to come up
she has been overseeing um a very large renovation at our in our library um and also the staffing in our staffing is relocated to Bergenfield and New Milford go ahead good evening um everybody my name is Chenhan i'm library director um
I am working with mine members of the Tinet Library board of trustees library is a very vibrant space especially in Tene uh where people learn create and stay connected with over 200,000 items in both printing and digital formats
we're proud to offer our TC residents access to more than 5 million items through Buckle System in 2024 we circulated over 300,000 items and our patrons borrowed over 140,000 items from
other libraries in Buckles the demand for digital um collection grew by 24% we purchased over 8,000 ebooks and e audio books to meet this growing demand we offer a variety of programs to
support lifelong learning including the friends Friday lecture programs ESL classes resume assistance and technology training tuesday tips program provides valuable information on topics like Medicare healthy living and finances our
arts and crafts programs for adults are especially popular the registration has become very competitive for our younger residents we offer playtime story time afterchool activities and STEM activities our teen advisory board
offers leadership opportunities and volunteer hours our for our teens our calendar is filled with programs such as writing workshop book clubs cooking classes hiking Sunday concerts kids music programs and coding workshops and
the list goes on the library also celebrates TX diversity through our cultural programs bringing our communities together all um our annual summer reading program engages hundreds of residents last summer over 600
participants read more than 3,000 books we also collaborate with local organizations like Farmers Market and Age Friendly Tene and we visit our senior housing facilities to deliver books and tech support since the library
has been closed since September our staff has been working at five different locations in our neighboring towns at our temporary location New Milford Public Library staff continue to provide in-person assistance to our residents
and part of Buckle system our residents can also use any library in Bergen County system the library staffed currently by 15 full-time and 18 part-time employees all working very
hard to meet the evolving needs of our community we couldn't do this without the generous support of the township the TNT Library Board of Trustees is truly grateful for the council's dedication to supporting the library's mission thank
Thank you thank you Shane anyone have any questions thank you i'd now like to call up our court administrator Craig Ferdinand who's been with us since 2017 thank you Jacqueline good evening
everybody actually this year this week I begin my ninth year here uh so like Jacqueline said I'm Craig Ferdinand the municipal court administrator for the township uh the mission of the municipal courts in New Jersey is to achieve justice while remaining neutral and independent of the executive and leg
legislative branches of government judicial independence is crucial in ensuring confidence in the legal system by the litigants we serve and our office continues to strive daily to achieve that mission the Tene Municipal Court continues to have jurisdiction over all traffic criminal and local offenses that are
filed within the boundaries of the township uh most of our cases that we process are of course issued by the Tene Police Department however we also ma uh we also handle matters filed by the New Jersey State Police the New Jersey Office of Weights and Measures and Fish and Game
Violations all offenses begin with the municipal court however uh offenses of an indictable nature are processed by our office and transferred to the Bergen County prosecutor these matters are either presented to a grand jury or or downgraded back to this court we also hear matters transferred to us on
changes of venue from other municipalities uh the court processes numerous citizen complaints uh conducting probable cause hearing before our judges uh where it is determined if those matters will issue the court also refers minor neighborhood disputes to
mediation when uh when applicable uh the court is staffed with our two municipal court judges Jeppe Randazzo and Erica Youngblot uh myself the court administrator the deputy court administrator and Marie Gallagher and uh the rest of our staff consists of four full-time uh keyboarding clerks so in
2024 the court staff processed 15,596 cases including parking moving and DWI cases criminal matters and township ordinance violations when comparing those numbers to 2023 uh filings increased approximately 7.4%
total revenue collected in 2024 totaled over $929,500 of which $546,523 uh was turned over to the township comparing that revenue to 2023 revenue in 2024 increased by just over
20% in 2025 uh core filings compared to this point of last year increase 48.2% and comparing the revenue uh the total revenue increased 74.5% compared to this point last year and actually 90% 90%
higher to the township uh compared to this point last year so there are a couple reasons for that there was a huge influx of snow emergency tickets this year and that increased the revenue additionally uh in the final quarter of last year the state did two things or the administrative office of the courts
did two things one they turned back on delinquent time payment notices which uh facilitated us sending a huge amount of uh delinquent notices to defendants that have been held back for over 5 years and in addition to that the state is
allowing for the suspension of driving privileges and registrations as it relates to unpaid parking tickets which as you may imagine over the course of four and a half years were thousands of tickets so those actions which continue to this day continue to increase our um
revenue quite substantially uh so finally the court does continue to conduct four sessions uh each week those sessions continue to be mostly virtual we do do four sessions uh in person uh about four times a month
um typically to conduct trials but you know there's a lot of people who want to see the judge at this point too so that's really all that I have unless there are any questions we have three judges the reason why Oh you said two or Oh well we have that we have one yes i'm sorry judge Donbeck our
our temporary judge that'd be a point on a on a on a monthly on a yearly basis thank you thank you Craig uh next um our police chief Chief Andrew McGrer who's been with us over 31 years and chief since 2023 welcome
thank you good evening mr mayor council manager deputy manager uh department heads and members of the public uh as uh the manager stated I'm in my third year as the chief of police with the TK Police Department the mission of the Ten Police Department is to safeguard the
lives and property of the people we serve to reduce the incidents and fear of crime and to enhance public safety while working with diverse communities to improve their quality of life our members are committed to the highest ethical standards and to providing public service with honor integrity and respect our department is accredited
with the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police and has an authorized strength of 97 sworn officers presently we have 94 officers along with 16 civilian support staff two parking enforcement officers eight auxiliary police volunteers and one police
chaplain the Tina Police Department also continues to be the primary public safety answering point for the township of since we completed a full renovation of our dispatch center in October of 2022 in 2024 our department received 54,918 calls for service and we ended up
filing 8,595 reports in 2024 our department dealt with numerous demonstrations maintaining peace and ensuring the safety of those involved and affected i'm very proud of the men and women of the Tina Police Department the job that they do and the
level of professionalis professionalism they consistently display keeping our department up to date with technology training and resources is a top priority for our current administration this past year we obtained $39,000 through a pop-up party grant that was used to purchase
barricades helmets shields and batons we purchased and installed license plate readers throughout the town um we also purchased new updated tasers we restructured our patrol staffing this year to accommodate a power squad we remediated and replaced acoustic panels
and ceiling tiles in our gun range we replaced defective HVAC units that were in our uh dispatch and watchoffs areas we also began working with the New Jersey Arrive Together program to improve the manner in which our officers respond to members of the community experiencing mental health and
behavioral emergencies this year work will be done to update our roll call room we'll be switching to uh switching out all of our outdated department handguns with new 9mm models within the next month or two we'll be instituting our new drone
program we're also working with an outside vendor to in the spring to create a promotional video to assist in our recruiting efforts we're also in the process of trying to switch from our uh from our current analog radio system to a digital system to improve the clarity reliability and interoperability of our
communications this year we'll be also undergoing uh the process of reacredititation which takes place every three years our department has also uh become focused on ways of improving pedestrian safety to include some reflective sashes that we received recently we're distributing to the
public and orange uh flags that we're placing at certain intersections around town for people to carry across the roadway we at the TK police department are dedicated to providing the best police services possible for the township we will always look for innovative ways to provide our services and we will continue to work with the
community to better understand their needs the budget for the police department was crafted over several months and considers the needs of the department the level of service that our residents expect and the impact it has on the overall budget of the township thank you for your time and if anybody
has any questions yes that is correct we have uh three intersections up and running right now uh fourth one is just waiting to get powered up and we uh already identified a vehicle from a distraction burglary last week as a result of the license plate readers in place
anything else thanks um next I would like to call up our DPW director Travon Romeo good night everyone i'm Travon Romeo uh public works director i've been employed with the township
for 22 years now uh we started as a mechanic um a sewer supervisor um assistant um superintendent of public works and today um public works director uh this year's
uh DPW budget reflects um the collective commitment of the township manager and myself to ensure that township infrastructure remains strong resilient and capable of meeting the growing
demands of our township my department is responsible for some of the most vital services that impact the quality of life of our residents from maintaining our roads ensuring
proper flow of sewers from our homes and maintaining and managing leaf collection snow removal and recycling operation the public works plays a critical role in shaping our township present and
future in preparing this budget we are focused on two two uh priorities um efficiency and sustainability i recognize the importance of maximizing the impact of
every dollar by streamlining operation i am committed to delivering high quality service in the most effective and cost effective manner
possible key highlights of this budget the tongue improvement and maintenance upgrades to swim to our new acquired swim club um our agent municipal building our
engineering office and our police headquarters fire stations and recreational um buildings we also had um emphasis on um
sewer and sanitary storm upgrades uh like I said we are fully aware of the financial constraints or and economic challenges that the town faces that's why my department remains committed to fiscal responsibility and
our goal is only to maintain the township infrastructure but to enhance the improving and the quality of life for our residents i want to extend my
gratitude to our hardworking township manager for her valuable insight in shaping this budget your invaluable contribution to structuring um this
budget and and working with our department together we'll build a stronger more resilient town for generations to come thank you you've discussed fiscal importance and
responsibility one question are you prepared to lifeguard the sun um sure practic go practice the whistle back forth i can show you how thank you for your help while I'm trying to open up the pool i appreciate we all appreciate
thank you Mayor i will say um I do commend Travon and I know a lot of department heads that have been involved in opening our Tina community pool um but I have been meeting with Travon probably every day i have named him 247 because I literally
call on him 247 to help help out with everything and he always answers and I know that is um exactly what Dean said you are you do get it done so I know all of our departments very grateful for you and your team um in getting it done and being as efficient and as cost effective to to get this done for us so I thank
you thank you thank you um next I would like to call up our township engineer Farah Galani who has helped me with many projects keeping me on task and making sure that we collect as much grant funding as possible so
welcome Farah thank you thank you Jackie uh good evening everyone um I'm Farah Galani township engineer and I'm also current president of New Jersey Society of Municipal Engineer i have I have been serving the town um as a township
engineer over a decade um our department plays a crucial role in maintaining and improving tenic infrastructure ensuring the safety functionality and sustain sustainability of our community tonight I will provide an overview of our
responsibilities key projects completed this past year and what's ahead so some of the key responsibilities include overseeing township infrastructure system including roadways storm water management sanitary sewer traffic signal
parks and public building we develop and implement capital improvement program ensuring the taxpayer dollars are used efficiently and to maintain and enhance our township uh we also review residential and commercial development
plans to ensure compliance with township regulations and prevent adverse impact on uh neighboring properties and public right of way in addition my department actively pursue grant opportunities from
federal state county agencies to fund uh key uh municipal projects reducing the financial burden on our local taxpayer tech uh last year alone we secured funding from NJ DOT NJ EPA and Bergen
County for various projects last year we secured over $2 million in various grants we also manage township permit including road opening crane operation right ofway access curve uh um curb and sidewalk improvement ensuring all
construction activities adhere to township standards uh my department consists of myself and uh two secretaries which I share with DPW so uh let's look uh at what we achieve in 2024 uh roadway resurfacing
we paved almost 2 miles of roadway in various roadway improvement projects including total reconstruction and drainage improvement of Hamlock Terrace which was a gravel roadway ada compliance upgrade we in install ADA
compliant ramps along Cedar Lane in uh preparation for full length roadway paving um uh park and recreation enhancement what park tennis court received new lights uh the splash pad at
park was upgraded with shade structure and a shelter completed design and start construction of heric park improvement uh this project reflect our commitment to enhancing mobility accessibility and
quality of life for tinik resident looking ahead uh to 2025 uh for coming year uh our focus uh remains on infrastructure improvement and community development uh plan project include 2024
roadway resurfacing program uh continuing our work to improve local streets palisad Avenue improvement with additional funding of 250K um in NGOT funding we will continue upgrade uh this key roadway reconstruction
uh 550k NGOT local a grant will support critical improvement uh ADA ram installation tenic road will receive ADA compliant ramp for uh Cedar Lane to Degro um aligning with Bergen County
repaving effort uh park recreation upgrade complete completion of what park north restroom complete construction of Heric Park improvement partially funded by NDP Greenacre grants construction of new uh pickole court at Andrea's park
and a tennis court at Argon Park drainage improvement along uh and u um u along B Avenue uh which include rain gardens and detention system on Bal Avenue funded by NJDP and EPA grants
these project demonstrate our continued investment uh in safer greener and more accessible public space um uh in con uh the engineering department remain dedicated to improving uh tenic infrastructure through the strategic
planning efficient execution and responsible funding i want to thank mayor and council and township administrator and also um uh department um all all um other departments for
their continued support and I also like to acknowledge my team for this hard work in delivering these project efficiently thank you so much any questions thank you par thank you next I'd like to call up uh Simona
Cassian Serbo our purchasing agent it's also her birthday today so she's celebrating her birthday happy birthday Stona yep good evening Mayor and Council um yeah the cat is out of the bag
so um as um you all know my name is Monakan Serbu i've been with the township of Tene um for 14 years um as the purchasing agent for the last eight uh the department is uh con consists of
a staff of two people myself and my uh purchasing assistant Alagaria Mosen who has been with the township for almost three years and we are responsible for the procurement of all the departments that uh are here tonight um all 12 of
them um our budget for the purchasing department and um um the central supply consists of less of than.5% of the total budget of the township uh we are responsible for the
procurement of all township equipment supplies and services we support the finance department in monitoring the budget and departmental spending and we also fulfill this the function of accounts payable purchasing department ensures that all townships purchases and
contracts comply with the requirements of the local public's contract law we oversee and assist the development of bid specifications and RFPs and oversee all public bid openings the township is a member of various state county and national co-ops and the purchasing
department ensures that all purchases made based on this contract follow the procedures as stated in each individual contract to be used and they ensure compliance with the rules of the local public's contract law the department is also responsible to ensure compliance with state affirmative action contract
regulations New Jersey state regulations pertaining to New Jersey business registration certifications New Jersey pay-to-play laws and all state and federal laws concerning procurement ethical standards and public contracts the purchasing agent is the designated public agency
compliance officer for the township and as part of the duties I oversee compliance with the New Jersey prevailing wage requirements in all public works contracts awarded by the township we prepare resolutions for the council agenda and make recom recommendation of
awards as the case may be um in 2024 the purchasing department issued purchase orders totaling over $7 million we process payments over $7.5 million that's because we had some uh
payments that from 2023 we issue purchase orders and the payments were issued in 2024 and we held uh 25 public bid openings thank you thank you Simona next I'd like to call up Sean
Powers um he is our acting uh superintendent of recreation good evening mayor and council uh I have been with the recreation department going on 23 years 18 as a recreation supervisor four as assistant
superintendent and just recently taking on the acting role of superintendent and trying to fill the very big shoes of Glenna Crockett whom you know just retired after 46 years of service the recreation department is located in the award-winning Richard Roa Community
Center the facility is open seven days a week and is over 51,000 square feet it is made up of three core divisions administrative youth and senior each serving a crucial role in providing a wide array of programs events and
services to our residents the department provides positive year-round leisure time activities and quality recreation programming for residents with a goal of enhancing quality of life and providing services all while providing excellent
customer service to the very diverse community of Tene behind the scenes we have a dedicated team of 12 full-time staff and about 190 part-time and seasonal employees working to make all of this happen we offer a diver diverse selection of
classes and activities that cater to all ages from toddlers as young as 18 months to our active seniors over 90 years old whether it's educational classes fitness programs or art arts workshops we offer
some we offer something for everyone these programs are held at the Roa Center in our beautiful parks and at off-site facilities all for nominal fees or even free of charge we are all about making recreation accessible and
enjoyable for our entire community in addition to our classes we run several statelicicensed programs that serve our youth this includes our full-day Sunshine Garden Learning Center an after-school program that uh reaches its
capacity year after year and two amazing summer camps that provide children with a fun and enriching enriching experience these programs are critical for families and young learners in Tene the administrative division plays an
important role in enhancing year-round recreation we offer open gym basketball and soccer for adults and open gym basketball for children in grades 5 through 12 throughout the year this gives residents
a chance to stay active and engaged the division also sponsors field trips in partnership with the Ten High School Forum taking groups to exciting destinations like the Brooklyn Nets games Six Flags Great Adventure and
theater performances these trips are a fun and enriching way to bring the community together our outdoor parks and facilities are another vital aspect of what we do we manage 13 developed parks offering permits for tennis and basketball courts ball fields picnic
areas soccer fields and our award-winning sports plex indoors we schedule the use of the Roa Center for local organizations and township groups and this center serves as one of the nine county sites for early
voting we're also especially excited to announce that we're now taking over the TX club and transforming it into the T-neck community pool expanding water recreation opportunities for our community in addition we operate several sprinklers in various parks and our
splash pad and vote park the TX Senior Center also on site at the Roto Center is the largest senior center in Burton County serving 650 plus participants weekly over 50 fitness educational and social
recreation classes are offered seasonally along with a host of special presentations and field trips through this division also we also offer a congregate meal program through the county Monday through Friday where
participants can have a well- balanced meal and socialize with fellow participants for our senior and disabled residents we offer free transportation services 5 days a week helping with medical appointments grocery shopping and other errands with two to three vans
on the road daily depending on demand we ensure that our residents stay connected and are able to access the services they need in 2024 we completed over 6,000 one-way and roundtrip rides we sponsor some of the most anticipated
townwide special events in Tene such as the Fourth of July celebration movies in the park the summer band concert series Tene Day and the holiday treelighting on the municipal green these events create a sense of community bring people
together and provide fun and engaging activities for all the recreation department is truly a hub of activity and support for our entire town and we look forward to continuing to provide these vital services and programs that enrich the lives of Tenk residents from
our youngest to our oldest thank you thank you Sean and for I'd like to thank him also for taking on the role of running our recreation department especially when we're taking on such a big task of the you know community pool he's been a great uh team player and um everything's been running smoothly so
thank you Sean um I'd also like to recognize Andrew Fischer who is here tonight um he does uh work under the direction of the deputy manager and myself and I'd just like to recognize him just because he does operate almost as if he's a
department head and has has done some very um important um jobs since I've started here so um I didn't bring him up and he did he probably doesn't know I was going to recognize him but um I'd like to recognize that he has taken care of a lot of our Wi-Fi he has changed
over our email to Outlook some of us like it more than others um that was something I did want uh when I came on here so I know there's mixed reviews but um it was a tall task um he has also got our website up and running worked many
hours on that um our new phone system cyber security camera installs i know all of our department heads have relied on Andrew for um our emergencies with our computers so I did want to recognize him because as much as he uh does fall under our direction um he does operate
on his own and has taken care of a lot of responsibilities so thank you Andrew for being here tonight and uh for taking on those responsibilities um lastly I could not end without mentioning my deputy manager Anthony Verley who has t who has been a tremendous help uh to me these last few
months um anything that needs attention or um he has used his many years of institutional knowledge to help us um in the township um he has been a true asset to my leadership efforts so thank you Anthony uh for all that you've done for me all of these department heads are
dedicated professional and have work really hard to see that my visions become reality and that our residents receive the best service they have been so forthcoming with their experience to ensure we make the best budgetary and logistical decisions uh thank you for all you do and for being team players
with me i really appreciate it um council do you have any other questions um no not even I just um I just wanted to say congratulations to Andrew i graduated high school with him so congratulations
okay i I actually had something to say um I'm sure tonight is not the most fun night for all of you especially for Simona but this is my favorite meeting of the year every year and not just because people aren't yelling at us i I do love to hear each one of you present and um for the public to hear how much
exactly you do when you bring up numbers it sounds like I don't know if you've been on a cruise at the end when they tell you how many pounds of meat everybody's eaten and how many eggs and desserts and it just there's so much work that goes into this that um it's really nice for people to hear the
figures when we um had people from the swim club come up and approach us about working on it for us it was kind of easy we we worked with them we made sure that financially it worked out but then we had a meeting in February with the manager and the deputy manager and
almost everybody in this room is either involved in this one project that only kicked off at the beginning of February or will be involved um at some point m maybe hopefully not Craig or or Chen um but the clerk was sitting in the meeting and the CFO was sitting in the meeting
when we met down at the um pool site lease were there and fire were there hopefully your your input will be minimal also um Andrew MIS is working on it very very hard um and Wreck uh thank you so much Sean and Trayvon what's
fallen on your shoulders um thank you for picking all of it up without complaining and as the years go by and we open up the snack bar health will be involved and if we want to fix tennis courts or makele ball courts there engineering will be there building will be there and for sure purchasing will be
there so each and every one of you are involved in every project we work on but I don't think anything shows this to the public like this past month did so we don't run the town you run the town um thank you so
much for being such a great support to the manager um we're grateful to have her on board also thank you for being such a great team for us um just want to say thank you for your presentations they are very insightful um very informative and and just kind of
gives us and and also you know most importantly our residents a really good indication and idea as as to what uh goes into the making of our town the management of our town the running of our town and uh each one of you represents um you know so many people
and so many uh initiatives that are uh we're all as council uh leaders are um very proud of um it's a sense of newness in town uh because of the swim club and all the the uh the the things that have uh come about for the T-C community pool
we're super excited about and also in terms of the the uh the renovation of the library that's that anticipation that's in the air of of it's opening soon when is it opening and so forth so I just want to you know personally thank each and every one of you for your presentation and for the efforts that
you put forth i know it's not an easy job we're a growing dynamic um interesting town and we we appreciate appreciate each and every one of you and what you do for our township thank you yeah yes if you would you you are
dismissed if you'd like to uh leave now if you're more than welcome to stay for my budget presentation but you're also free to uh to leave for the evening thank you again for for everything thank you everyone thank you so much
okay i would now like to start by mentioning that this was a very challenging budget process that um Isa and I have gone through uh we've spent some many hours compiling um the budget and looking for a magic wand to um create a
um singledigit u municipal budget tax increase um many important and respons and responsible decisions need to take place in order to present this here tonight um with that being said Doug I'm going to get started our first slide here is um just
a a combination of items to outline our budget present preparation process first um in September of 2024 department heads are asked for um to present their requests for ES and I
to review in October of 2024 um Isa and I sat down to review um all of their requests in detail uh we had held public uh department head public hearings November 4th through the 6th and then public input was also um
was also available at our council meeting of February 11th and February 25th i along with the CFO and the auditor did a budget review in March of 2025 we spent several um meetings reviewing the
budget our annual uh debt statement due uh January 31st then our annual financial statement was due March 7th the manager's budget to the council was due on the revised
statutory date of February 27th or the next regularly scheduled meeting the council review and public hearings are scheduled for March 27th April 3rd and April 10th council introduction of budget by
revised statutory date of March 31st or the next meeting would be April 8th which is our next council meeting hearing and adoption of the budget is by the revised statutory date of April 30th or next meeting being May 6th assumptions um 2025 budget is dependent
upon the following council's determination of 2025 municipal budget appropriations our fund balance or surplus available for 2025 the 2024 municipal revenues analysis and 2025 revenue
anticipations date aid allocations for 2025 and special emergency financing for terminal leave next slide appropriations versus revenues versus rate this is anformational slide appropriations um are is what the
municipality intends to spend on any operational costs revenues is what the municipality earns through various fees and and the collection of taxes the rate is the amount of taxes to be raised the net property valuation simply stated the tax rate is a percentage of your
property value that you are taxed on next slide this slide is our 2024 tax breakdown total property taxes is $184,180,2644 the proposed budget refers to the municipal portion of taxes only
board of education and county taxes separate from municipal portion all taxes are paid to and collected by the municipality's tax collection office the taxes are forward to all taxing entities bi-weekly or quarterly and as you can see on the pie chart everything is
broken down in percentage um our total school levy being 55.4% our municipal levy being 32.4% the library 1.4% county levy
9.9% county open space levy 0.4% and the municipal open space um at 0.5% doug next slide known impacts of the 2025 budget reduction of general revenues increase
in contractual obligations to employees increase operating and other expenditures budgets increase in utilities BCUA telephone and electric increase in our library minimum tax computed via our state formula next slide
some other known impacts here um are net increase of $2,658,337.30 in expenses beyond the township's control you have here our salary and wages increase of 1.8% other expenditures is up 5.3% our capital improvement fund up
67.8% debt service is up 9.1% our reserve for uncollected taxes up 17.2% 2% and BCOA BCUA is also up 10.76% i will make a note that our salary and wages line is subsidized by
$600,000 in grant funds used to reduce the total increase in the 2025 budget next slide we also have a list here of one-time revenues totaling $3,885,000 that will not be available
for our 2026 budget these include the grant funds to offset our salaries at $600,000 the cell tower sale proceeds of $ 1.5 million surplus funds from can from cancellations from 2024 at 1.5 million our capital surplus 100,000 and
our reserve for payment of debt at 185,000 next slide our proposed 2025 municipal budget proposed tax rate increase is
9.97% the average home is assessed at 627,54959 increase in taxes per year $4621 and per month is $38.52 the tax levy is equal to the budget appropriations minus revenues
appropriations cap issue in 2025 if the cap ordinance is not adopted no foreseen tax the levy cap issue and the budget will be reviewed by the auditor next slide this slide is
anformational slide um with um outlining the appropriations cap versus the levy cap doug you can go to the next slide 2025 local finance board action um they issued a notice
2024-21R on March 13 2025 that allowed for the following appropriation increases in excess of 3.5% for 2025 budget this is a list of the items um we have not used any exceptions in 2023 or
2024 next slide important appromp importance of appropriations cap banking this is anotherformational slide the cap bank ordinance has two purposes allows the township to budget up to the permitted amount if needed and allows the township to carry over unused amounts from the
last two prior years adopting the cap bank ordinance does not add funds to the budget and the budget can always be reduced by council prior to budget adoption regardless of the cap bank ordinance if not adopted the township may be required to reduce services in the current year or a future year based
on the cap calculation passing the cap bank ordinance provides the township with budgeting options in the current year and in future years the cap bank ordinance needs to be introduced at budget introduction how we arrived at the 9.97% tax rate increase our original
increase was at 15.25% in line with the 2024 forecasted amount of 15% increased costs beyond our control is two 2,295,269 reduction in onetime revenues from 2024 is
1,712,000 these include the cell tower at half a million arp funds at 950,000 and liquidation of reserves at 262,000 use of nonre nonrecurring revenues for 2025 total 3,885,000
next slide we will cancel uh we will cancel TW 2024 appropriation reserves to increase surplus by 1.5 million via resolution on April 8th surplus is built in two ways not spending complete
appropriations and realizing higher revenues than anticipated we will utilize special emergency financing for terminal leave in 2025 in addition reduced capital budget for went from 16.5 million to
12,740,000 this includes 1.4 million in grant funds for projects that we've already received grant funding we utilize $600,000 in grant funds to offset salary and wages budget the Nacho grant recycling tonnage and clean communities statewide reduction in
additional state aid from 2024 equaling $352,47927 for Tene future impact on the 2026 budget terminal leave may need to be budgeted for in 2026 added special emergencies terminal leave 2025 estimated over
250,000 state of economy cost of goods and services are always going up increased capital budget to fund projects increased hires assuming retirements in our police and fire departments bless next slide
some more future impacts on our 2026 budget include the Tina community pool expenditures 2026 health benefit premiums 2026 pension contributions potential increase in BCUA annual sewer bill contractual increases
um and reduction of 3,885,000 in one-time revenues our next slide is our 2025 proposed budget appropriations categories totaling 86,136,446.92 you can see here salary and wages at
37,88751 other expenses at 28 around 28 million being about 33% our debt service is about 5.5 million or 6% statutory expenses at 12% or almost 10.5 million capital improvement fund at about half a
million or 1% deferred charges 1,881,875 or about 2% and reserve for uncollected taxes at almost 1.7 million doug next slide this next slide is our proposed salaries
and wages in total at 37,887,51 you can see our percentages here our fire our police and our additional um departments once again our DPW salaries have been offset by 600,000 via grant funding doug next slide
salary and wage increases required by union contracts totaling $37,887,51 you can see under contract we have 28% under binding arbitration or public safety 61% and 11% is um under
our excluded employees and department head doug next slide um this slide just is uh gives a listing of where we're currently at with our collective bargaining units um I will be setting up negotiations with our library um they
are expiring December 31st 2025 um and then next year I do have ASME and the DPW non-s supervisors otherwise everyone is um currently within contract till 2028 or 2030 doug next slide um our salary and
wages summary and recommendations this is for our police department 2025 recommendations current table of organization provides 97 sworn officers with 94 current officers we are rehiring a parking enforcement officer um come the spring
2025 um and two new hires for July 1 next slide this is the salary and wages summary for our fire department current table of organization provides 91 firefighters current staffing of 87 firefighters four retirements um as of
April 1st and four recruits are currently in the academy next slide salary and um and wages summary and recommendations for our department of public works currently staffed for 55 positions um acquisition of the Tina
community pool will require um at least two additional hires and $600,000 in salary and wages is being offset by grant funding next slide uh salary and wages summary and recommendations for our recreation department um recommendations are for one full-time
seasonal pool operator which is budgeted um not filling a second superintendent of recreation position and budgeted for a superintendent of recreation hire for April 1 next slide salary and wages summary
and recommendations for overtime um we do have a slight increase in our fire and DPW um since we have been going over these um annually 20% increase for fire raising them to 600,000 for overtime and a 7.2 increase for our DPW bringing them
to 350,000 the police department will remain at 600,000 next slide uh this is our appropriations um and other expenses chart uh totaling 28,34,556 this shows our group insurance for
employees at 24% our utilities at 29% contributions to self- insurance fund 1.25 million um other insurance premiums also um about 1.5 million 6%
and department operating expenses at 37% or 10.5 million um our utilities um pie chart here is a total of 8,13,000 uh you can see here our Bergen County Utilities Authority at 69% and um
a breakdown of all the other utilities on the um on the pie chart shown next what are our special emergency appropriations preparation of tax maps reevaluation codification of ordinances preparation
of master plan drainage maps and flood control engineering planning of sanitary sewer system municipal consolidation severance liabilities or terminal leave preparation of sanitary storms or storm system map tax appeal
refunds um appraisal systems to handle the 2025 um appeals per contract Our next slide is our deferred charges utilize uh special emergency for 2025 terminal leave including uh terminal
leave special emergencies 2020 to 2024 CO 19 pandemic special emergency and 2024 revaluation costs contributions to our self- insurance fund an increase from 2024 appropriation based on our claims
experience and our risk managers recommend commendation of 150,000 workers comp and title 59 torque claims coverage and proposed settlements to be funded from this line item um totaling 1.25 25 million other insurance premiums um from
our PEGIF premium increase is 26,000 these coverages include our auto liabilility and collision employment practices public officials our facilities with our new pool included cyber security general litigation and
claims our debt service um totaling 5.5 million or 7% our highlights are our increased note principal at 29,000 increased in note interest 260,000 increase in bond principal
25015,000 decrease in bond ordinance um -451 194 total line item increased $458,86 or 9.8% 8% in our 2025 budget statutory expenditures um this is
10 almost 10.5 million or 12% major adjust adjustments PFRS decreased $19,882 hers increased 63,352 social security increased $54,500 and our total line item
increased 97,97 $70 or 0.94% capital improvement fund our total cost for improvements 12.7 12,740,000 capital improvement fund at
567,5% down payment less grant funding which will be reviewed at our April 3rd meeting this slide is our estimated revenue this is a breakdown of all our revenue totaling 86,136,446.92 you can see the breakdown of our municipal and library levy state
revenue local revenue surplus and delinquent taxes our next slide is our estimated local revenue this is a total of 7,621,000 on here you see our municipal revenues
our fine um totaling 2,670,000 our fines and costs for municipal court interest and costs on taxes investments sewer use charges our hotel occupancy tax licensing um our
host community hospital cable franchise fees so this is this will outline all of our estimated local revenue next slide this slide is our estimated state revenue um totaling 3,419,592 energy receipts tax um at
3,419,592 and our total revenue um at 96% next slide uh this is our budget wrap-up slide our appropriations always equaling our revenue you will see that um our appre appropriations total of $86,136,446.92 equaling our revenue of
the same next slide our strategies short and long-term sale and development of selected mun municipally owned property upgrade of our police radio communications health Department accreditation enhance
ratables through business attraction and development improve infrastructure to attract economic development continued redevelopment townshipwide parking lot improvements electric charging
stations infrastructure improvements to fire headquarters and fire station 2 pedestrian safety campaign next slide doug road resurfacing municipal building basement renovation and library
upgrades parking renovations and park bathroom renovations in various locations our consideration of a skate park consideration of our new garden club uh potential development American Legion Drive
um of eched reevaluation within our court um escrow our building department and our recreation department continued work on our new DPW facility additional field renovations sewer and drainage upgrades
community policing programs Tene community pool code enforcement sixmonth trial which we just started on Tene Road um eicking we just implemented for our health department zoning and code enforcement our upcoming budget meeting
tenative schedule for Thursday March 27th will include our police department our fire department our library and our legal department and we will go through their budgets and and outline any items that have increased and the reasons for that within our budget or any questions that need
addressing um our um next uh meeting after that is Thursday April 3rd um that will be a review of our recreation uh department our DPW our capital budget and also the manager council and clerk budget our April 10th meeting will be
determined based on how um how far we get with the the first initial meetings and discussions um I'd now like to um say thank you to the council for your support um as we put together a very difficult budget i also would like to uh
say thank you to our auditor uh Dan Danchi who took our phone calls and answered many questions for us and um most importantly our CFO Issa Abasi and deputy CFO Asisa Adawumi who put in a lot of time and effort to um help me get
this budget um as as prepared as possible um for to present tonight and to all of my department heads and assistant department heads who work with me every day to make sure we um get the job done for the for the township residents so thank you very much
actually my general question is where do we want to see this budget end up number we've actually done this earlier this year we've actually done this early this year
where other what other pounds are where they're at and then lastly Mr manager could you if you may not have it on you the deadlines statuto deadlines for implementation i know it's usually the X week after the last meeting it's a whole the whole formula you may not know it off hand i don't think No it's okay um
Issa do you have those on in front of you i know we have those on Mayor I think introduction was like April 8th and then adoption would be in May um there's no penalty we've done it in the past where you've gone beyond that uh if you get into July as we did
the last year the state will send you a letter and say "Hey look if you don't introduce by this date then you're going to start getting fined $25 a day." So there is time at worst you lose a question on that all best practice checklist that we're always nine questions over so I would I would say
let's not rush this let's do it right uh 100% yeah you have you I haven't heard Have you ever heard of other towns that have released their budgets yet i know my other neighboring municipality is coming in at 7.5% we actually scheduled to introduce on Monday uh but it was
tabled because we had a few more revisions to make we are at 7.35 and most likely end at 7.5 for reference last year they were at 2.98 so this is just things we're seeing across the state on my CFO uh group chat that we
have uh via email a lot of other municipals are experiencing the same thing health benefit health benefits are up across the board uh we are fortunate that we don't have to take on garbage in-house or outouse that the residents privately contract which is why the local finance board made that exception
um you know we are fortunate for several things actually uh because we transitioned last year before the manager retired back to state health benefits that actually was a savings this year for us rather than having more money set aside for that and having an unknown weekly bill um but those are the
towns I I am aware of i looked at other towns I haven't seen um you know anyone really having anything up that quickly yet i know last year we actually delayed our meetings so we started our meetings on time this year and Leslie do you What do you think is more interesting though the CFO chat or the clerk chat what do
you got to take uh definitely the CFO one there's a any time and this happened back in January when the current president decided to freeze grant funding my eyebrows raised really high because that that affects us in every aspect it can affect Bell Avenue for all I know uh but thankfully that has a stay
and that has been reversed so finance changes it's very fluid uh this is why whenever we travel I get the complaint of why do you have your laptops with you and I said you never know it can happen and I'm always working on vacation like the manager quick question for I guess I don't know manager or CFO um based on
this number what will next year's budget look like so we were in discussion with the auditor our goal is first to deliver this tonight as accurately and as low as possible uh once we meet with the committee and that's what I'm interested to hear where everyone is at with their
number we will start formulating those percentages because without having really where the council wants to go we can't really start to forecast it so if you throw out some percentages of where the council would like to be at we could start doing those models and meet with the committee in the near future and go
over them cham no so on that note um I know that that uh at our last meeting we we passed um the resolution about the subcommittee's meeting and scheduling 5 days out and so
far I you know I I understand the transparency and um I'm on board for a resolution that makes sense i wasn't but I am now but we are missing a zoning subcommittee meeting tomorrow and an
affordable housing meeting tomorrow because when we looked at our schedules and were able to plan them with the professionals it wasn't 5 days out and so I understand advertising as soon as we get them on our calendars but to have to start cancelling meetings and the
work of the town in order to um advertise in advance for the public this is going to slow down work for the town and if the clerk's office was to advertise for a zone for a budget subcommittee meeting tomorrow they would
not be able to meet until next Thursday right before the meeting if they're available so I think there are kinks in the resolution that have to be worked out i think also the time of the clerk and the manager weren't necessarily
taken into account um if we're going to be posting a Zoom of the meeting online I don't think we have to pay somebody to sit and take minutes i don't think we have the money to spare this year so I would ask um my colleagues if we can um
resin that resolution and then reintroduce it another resolution which I'm happy to work on maybe the three sets of eyes that were not part of the original discussion could sit down and look at it and take input i would reintroduce it on April 8th but for
right now to be saying because um of a transparency resolution the budget subcommittee can't meet before next Thursday to me at this time it doesn't make sense um adding additional overtime hours or or hours for staff to
me doesn't make sense and the fact that I took tomorrow off to have a zoning subcommittee meeting um and we can't because it wasn't advertised um also doesn't help and then when the planner said "Wait I'm free now so let's do an affordable housing subcommittee
meeting." And we couldn't do that either we're actually uh stopping progress because of this and I don't think that was the intent i think there's a better way to do it and I think right now it's critical that our budget subcommittee can meet before next week so I would I spoke to the attorney i would ask my
colleagues if we can um I I don't know what the language would be but Scott if you could help me out I'd like to make a motion to walk it back and then resend that resolution um and then if we could reintroduce on
the ETH something that um makes a little more sense sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don't get it right and it's okay to switch uh Doug do you know the name of the uh or the number of the resolution from the last meeting i just pulled it up it's 113-2025
so I guess it be the res the resolution that you're suggesting would be a uh it'd be a resolution to to reset resend that that number that number resolution yes and I think um yeah what what what you would be doing Deputy Mayor is a motion to resend resolution 113-2025
um and I I I don't know that what this resolution ever will be i'll get back to you on that in just a minute but yeah we'll be resending this resolution um if we could just have discussion about this for a moment um I I I would also um take uh deputy mayor up on her
recommendation to sit on the uh the uh subcommittee to revise or to give input yes the task force yes thank you for that yeah the task force to to um to really kind of add the the types of
things that because truly yes we it is slowing us down you know i mean it's just a matter of looking at the calendar it's not it's not even a matter of transparency it's a matter of uh looking at the calendars and looking at people uh that uh that we have or the professionals that work with within our
township uh their availability not just our availability but the the availability of of those that uh we depend upon so uh that's the only comment I would have comment so I'm second that motion to resend resolution 113-125 it was a
motion from Deputy Mayor organ second from Mayor Schwarz councilwoman Goldberg absolutely not councilman Pagan no councilwoman G yes can we uh put a a timet on that didn't
we say that that would be April april 8th april 8th okay so April 8th would be the date that we would revisit this and the only reason why we're we're rescending it is because we're in budget season correct and uh we have some real
specific timelines to address and and this morning what happened with the affordable and the affordable housing requirements because we are under compliance dates that we have to make um so given that and given that we do have a specific time that we're
revisiting this and uh Deputy uh Mayor um Ogden is will be sitting on that um that task force to give her input i vote um that we would uh Yes can you can you guys just remind me that task force one more time i don't know who the third
would be so far it's the two of us well it was I can tell you it was myself Councilwoman umberg and council Yeah maybe a fresh set of eyes also was what I was thinking okay whatever you guys would like to do i will step back and let someone else
serve on that i'm I'm happy to have you i just want wanted a third person also okay i I can do it okay absolutely rescending resolution 113 until revisiting on April 8th establishing this task force to meet and
discuss about it DM Oregon Morgan DM Belchure CWG it was a motion from Deputy Mayor Morgan and a second from Mayor Schwarz the roll call was Councilwoman Goldberg with a no Councilman Pagan with a no
councilwoman G with a yes councilman Katz isn't here so we're at Deputy Mayor Belure yes deputy Mayor Oregon yes mayor Stewart yes rescended and the matter will be back on the And just one more thing if we could get input from the clerk and the manager let us know what
works what doesn't work it'll it'll make it easier also attorney we can go ahead and schedule that affordable housing situation and we can also schedule a budget uh meeting as well yeah excuse me
Mr mayor that affordable housing um is there a a timeline a date for that that we're giving uh we're responding to DCA do you remember what that date is um I don't remember exact the exact date i'll ask but I know if we should definitely have it soon i know it's coming up so
yeah so I I would ask that if the affordable housing meetings being scheduled that be scheduled before uh if we if we're doing one imminently they would be dealing for I think Tuesday i didn't really understand the scenario are you saying can you go back to that email string and start it up again if you don't mind if you're in front of a
computer i can do that not a problem sorry we don't have a computer in front of us okay excellent okay okay um budget then I guess the next step would be a budget subcommittee meeting and I believe that is Councilwoman Goldberg and Councilwoman G myself is that the
committee is that what is that what you did ask for Mr cfo that is what you said in committee correct yes yes okay schwarz Goldberg G alternate Melture okay so Mr cfo while we're all here while you start the uh opening
bid with time states um I'll spare 45 emails and do it right now yeah i mean I'll check in with the auditor but either Tuesday or Wednesday morning does that work for anybody possibly even Thursday they all Tuesday Wednesday work great for me
monday and Tuesday go um I am not going to be able to make it i'm going to have to defer to um Deputy Mayor Belchure i can sit in Wednesday if you want wednesday 9:00 okay wednesday 9:00
um I would like to formally quit the budget subcommittee in light of the transparency or Thank you okay i'll take it excellent wednesday 9:00 you'll check with auditor yes I'm checking out uh do
we have any scenarios that you want us to prepare in advance for that or do we want to just have a discussion and see where we're at i think we can have a discussion see where we're at jump right in the deep end at 901 but you know the real answer is I'm going to take say yes what does 6% look like i'll answer okay
what is number six or 6.99 in that range okay six to seven okay 5.99 to 6.99 on house we could do that exactly thank you for comments can you also just share what um other if you have data on what other towns you're estimating yeah I can
I can re reach out to some colleagues and see where they're at i I just have a couple of questions um Mr cfo is there and I I know I haven't gone through the the manual that we got to uh receive tonight but I wanted to talk about little projections and kind
of what whatif scenarios like um we heard from our building department a recommendation to the council to consider um pretty much um charging certificate of occupancies um for sellers upon the sale um of of
properties what would you know if we could look at projections in terms of fees you know where where is the lowhanging fruit that we can um look at that can potentially impact our budget going forward uh is that some type of a discussion that you perhaps could have
with the the subcommittee yes so when uh and again you you're not on the sub committee but what we show is a spreadsheet that the auditor and myself come up with where we we actually do simulate and you you saw how we were within a quarter of a percent this year that that was just fortune uh I mean a
lot of things oscillate throughout the year but we do as de as mayor Schwarz knows we do show hey look if this project comes online as a ratable this is what we could look at we do also try to forecast our expenditures there are unknowns the BCUA bill being one of the
largest ones along with health insurance um any other insurance premiums um but for the most part you know there are a lot of things we can forecast debt service so yes we will take into consideration revenues of course though as you all know um you can only forecast based on what you have in cash in the
prior year on 1231 it's already past the middle of March so we would basically prorrate that let's say for maybe half a year and show you what that would look like there are a lot of scenarios we could play with but u you know that's a good starting point from there for a few scenarios we can prepare for Wednesday
i'll have a few I'll send you an email a few other things so not to take everyone's time right now thoughts I broke down for this meeting sure i'll email you so we can be prepared and not you know hit you up on the spot yes no problem i'll CC the committee so they know we discuss them okay anybody
else okay motion to journ second