e e e e e e e e e e e
to the flag United States of America councilwoman Goldberg councilman Pagan here councilwoman G here councilman Catz Deputy Mayor beler Deputy Mayor Oregon here and mayor
Schwarz here thank you 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 2225 filing a copy in the township
clerk's office and posting it on a municipal building Bolton board and the mayor hereby directs that this St be included in the minutes um welcome to the March 27 2025 um open session bu budget
the township Administration president tonight's meeting are jacn hashman our Township manager Doug R our Township Clerk easi our Chief Financial Officer christor our Deputy town clerk Scott on Zoom our to attorney Ron
Goodman our volunteer cable also we have our department heads who'll be hearing from shortly as well welcome everyone um upcoming events for The public's information we are currently holding a hybrid format meeting we have people in person and on Zoom Zoom if our Wi-Fi at the mun building has an issue where the zoom
meeting drops we will aim to retrieve the connection and continue the meeting if you haven't already signed up for the township alerts please do so on our website the township Council will have budget meetings starting at 7 7M on Thursday April 3rd and April 10th the next televised regular Council meetings
April 8th which begins at 6:30 pm. with public session opening at 8m Public Access channels 47 and 77 are temporarily down you can watch the meetings on Zo Zoom Facebook YouTube and recording of tonight's meeting will be on the website tomorrow the youth
Advisory Board Civics event where all are invite everyone's invited to the third floor Student Center at the Teck High School this coming Wednesday at 6: PM it will go from 6:00 to about 900m you'll meet local officials and learn how our local government works on Monday April 7th from 7: to 9: in our council
chambers here we'll have a community information meeting on a proposed Redevelopment of 8207 Road otherwise known as G's participation is in person but the meeting will be streamed on zoom and the council did not meet in Clos session tonight with that Mr clerk I
believe you're good to welfare right yes indeed good to welfare anyone room com on up ladies come one at a time as long as you don't push each other out of the way good evening Council Madame manager
Isa my friend and and and the and the clerk I'm here as a resident of tenek to advocate for maximum funding of the tenek public library hey I know money is tight I mean I looked at my 401k recently didn't you and you turn on
MSNBC and turn it immediately off right but good public schools and libraries are among the leading indicators of the health of the civilization and in particular one that is purportedly based on democratic ideals this is not an
overstatement we are all welcomed at a library regardless of gender race ethnicity or class the library serves the entire Community across all demographic markers prior to our libraryies closure
for renovation it was one of the if not the most active public libraries in Bergen County and we all look forward to its Reg gaining that position I have been proud to say that our library is
one of the anchors of this town as to the capital budget a bit later in the process I hope all decision makers will remember the promises made initially and we'll decide to complete phase
two within a reasonable time frame tonight director hun proposes an operating budget that in this inflation Ary climate is essentially flat surely the proposed budget cannot be cut any
further in fact it is probably wise to think about increased allocations once the library is up and running and staff as Staffing and collections have to be restored to their full strength we urge
Our Town manager and Le and our Council to support director Hun's budget as presented without further belt tightening thank you hi my name is Susan mayor I am a library Patron
whoops I'm short a member of the friends and a former officer of that organization I hope I speak for many but I am speaking for myself in support of the library
budget for the coming year because the building has been closed for renovations it is easy to forget how vital a role it plays in our town and it is continuing to do so even with staff assigned to neighboring libraries by the way a shout
out to those staff in all the neighboring libraries um for continuing to work on behalf of our library despite the dislocation the team pck Public Library continues to support all kinds of
programming at the New York at the New Milford Public Library and other venu for children adults ESL Learners Etc Our Town needs to support them so that there can be a seamless transition back to the library we all love thank
you we're on the honor System tonight good evening I'm Gina manx I'm a long time I'm resident of tenek and a member of the friends and I urge you to give your strong support to the budget that's presented for the library tonight I can't imagine that anyone would
disagree that the library is a crucial institution in our community I think the health of a community is really determined by institutions like the library and the school system but the library is unique in this community and
in every Community because it is A A Gathering Place for everyone in town no matter your age no matter your religious background whether you're a public school or a private school student your um economic status your ethnic
background so it really is a community building Enterprise and The Wider array of resources at our tck library are really mindboggling it's not just books as you all know it's all kinds of media it's online resour ources it's Museum
passes it's programs for kids for teens for adults it's book discussion groups it's ESL tutoring it's computer um courses in basic computer techniques it's just an amazing array of programs
so I urge your support um certainly you know we're all looking forward to the restoration or the reopening of the library after the renovations and I think we'll appreciate our library even more but I Echo s's point about keeping in mind additional um improvements
especially the the bathrooms that will need to be done in the coming years and to keep that in mind so thank you for your support else hello I'm Lynn Claus I've been on the board of the friends of the Chic library for about 15 years years and I've been a tneck resident for almost 50
years so I know this community and I know the uh The Firm place that the library holds in it and in that note I wanted to thank all of you for your continuing support of the library you've all in your separate ways been
supporters and I'm not going to call out one person or another because I know you're all strong supporters what are you laughing about okay are you making faces okay as you know the library offers programs and services for all
members of our community they offer offer story time for babies uh a vibrant teen program and for adults ESL instruction crafts movies and music in addition uh as a member of the Buckle
system the T neck residents have access to 5 million plus items to borrow to say nothing of digital resources and all kinds of other stuff um Shen and her staff have lots of plans
for when the library reopens for new programs and services and of course new plans means new money so I'm hoping that you will continue to support the library as you have and increase your support in fact in the this transition to the new
building so thank you very much again and thank you on Zoom okay any know more oh Alan son tck resident and taller supporter of the te Public Library um uh
all of my children uh really benefited tremendously from the library uh it's been a long time since I took my kids there I was really all my all my babies have babies already uh so maybe I could take grandkids to the library but I remember one of my kids showing me a
book um aimed at kids that let them know that cocoa beans are allowed by federal law to have rat droppings in them um uh I don't know Apparently one pound could have
somewhere between four or five rat droppings uh which both was very informative and very disgusting but again something that's that's very very good to know um I don't know if the Food and Drug Administration still exists or or what the uh the current limit is uh but we
all hope uh that that we can do better uh I had an opportunity to look through the budget after the budget document the budget book was was released and again I thank uh the township manager for her presentation and one of the things that I had an opportunity to look at was sewer billing and trying to understand
where the numbers come from un sewer billing uh I've had a chance to look through audit reports and other reports from previous years and seeing sewer billing wildly fluctuating from year to year and trying to figure out why that's happening trying to figure out from what
I from what I read uh that we won't be caught up on sewer billing until perhaps next year uh this is a source of money it's money that's owed to us it's money that we should have collected I would have loved to have had an opportunity to hear this uh in a in a budget discussion
in a budget subcomittee discussion uh I was very very hopeful when the resolution passed uh to open the subcommittees and I was very very disappointed to have been one of the very very few people present uh at the previous budget meeting when that resolution was rescinded um there were
it was at the end of a meeting it was not announced uh there was no text available there was no opportunity for public input I do assume uh that the township attorney will advise all of us that everything that occurred with the recision of that resolution was
perfectly legal but I think it was legal at the four or five rack dropping level we can do better we can show the public that what we're doing and what the work is uh on Sunday I had sent all council members a letter saying that the issues
that had been raised about opening The Bu budget subcommittees were related to uh notice were related to having someone's record the meetings uh the only response I got was from the mayor who indicated thank you for your email I don't think there was any other text uh
and I don't know when the budget subcommittee met uh but I do believe that it did meet and I don't think any member of the public was present and I think that whether or not that resolution existed the opportunity was present for this Council for the budget
subcommittee the members of the budget budget subcommittee to demonstrate to the public that we really do care what you think we can do better as a Township thank you thank you else okay with that being said good and Welfare is closed any response
C you um I'll actually have a few comments and I'll jump right in Lost CFO okay um we just a few comments uh the budget subcommittee met on Wednesday and good
news and bad news the um the bad news is there will be a tax increase this year the good news is there will be no cuts um that said if you don't behave next year we may do that so keep that in mind we no cuts no um now let's talk about what we discussed uh we discussed
a few things uh what we've tried to do in the past we've done it up here we've done it in the budget committee is we reviewed and said what rate rate do we want to be at well for eight years we were at zero then we were at two then we at five I've never believed in all due respect to the police officers a councilman about 15 years ago 13 years
ago started grilling the chief at that point on the expense of the pants and I'm like God that's not for me I see how much the Pants cost that's not for me my goal I believe my goal was to keep that number as low as possible and agree with the Council on what rate do we want to pass as a form of a a rate increase if
any to our council members and we met with the CFO we met with our our auditor and the one there were two numbers floating out there that were able to take the 9.9 down to one was 6.9 and one was 7.4 is that correct C 7.4
7.49 and um 6.99 so um I'm tremendously um impressed by that number the CFO did an excellent job the manager did an excellent job along with especially our auditor of not seeing any cuts to bring it down from 9.9 to 6.9% and um so I wanted to get some
consensus around the around the table on that um that's number one number two we were able to start of the meeting at that 9.9 but more not more importantly worse at 19.9% for next year and by the time the
meeting was over we were down to 14% for next year now last year we were down to 15% and for this coming year and we got down to what 6.9 those are starting numbers but we'll continue to meet we looked at what what things we need to do this year to keep bring it down further and we'll continue to strive to those
numbers um primarily building building and we all know my saying building those are have been the biggest drivers um let's talk about sewer sewer is a very good point that was brought up um by the councilman own and the issue with sewer is unfortunately fortunately this was an excellent ordinance crafted by Deputy
Mayor Katz years ago very few towns do it unfortunately we rely on a third a third party which is the utility company uh the utility company is very sporadic with your data and we decided the last year to then stop what we were doing and
build a system within our own tax Billing System in Edmonds that has a sewer right on there and that cost us six months so well we did not lose the money we we are going to be double billing this coming year instead and we hope to be caught up by next year straight
through um with that said my my my I do not believe we can get the number down below 6.99% um as my fellow committee members know 6.99 was a fight not a fight per se but a an argument a a struggle with our bond
counselor with our with our auditor with our CFO um and really some some belt tightening on future expenditures and in in hoping that we don't see that large increase next year so we wanted to soften it like that so with that I'll
turn the floor over to my committee members if they want to report in on their version of the meeting sure can I add a little bit of color um so uh everything that the mayor shared was accurate I just want to add some color around how we were able to
reduce the um estimated uh Revenue in or increases on the rate for future years we had to make large estimates about what the revenues would be from these new developments we also had to make estimates about what um the you the
sewer Revenue might look like all of these numbers were estimates which make me very nervous we also had to scrape every cushion um we could potentially identify in this year's budget to come down from 9.9 to 6.9 and that what what
makes me nervous about that is something comes up that that's unexpected um there is nowhere to find additional dollars and so I recommended going up to 7.49 up 50 basis points to provide that little bit of cushion um
it's we never want to hear a 6.99 or a 7.49 um percent um increase it's it's tough you know it's an additional what was the number $400 per family or $400 so we we would never want to put that burden on families but at the same time if something unexpected happens we
don't want to be in a place where we don't have the dollars to support um to to cover that and so that's why I uh recommended that we consider the 749 um in addition to the 699 thank you I look I realiz the time you is
breaking as fast sorry um yeah um and then one other thing we we discussed which actually has to do with the library is possibly passing the capital budget as early or introducing the capital budget as early as the next meeting in
April because we know that you have um monetary constraints now that we're uh coming into the end of your construction and I can tell you everyone who spoke and Chen um that nobody will be happier to see the construction over than we
because we're the ones that get the comments every day when is the library opening when will it open and you of course but um everyone in town is waiting for the library to reopen and we look forward to it as well so we're going to see what we can do I know that
the um the um CFO is speaking to the auditor to see how how soon we can do that um we did get a revised fire budget today and it looks like it's much lower than the budget that we have here I just want to wait to hear back from the CFO
when he comes back from breaking his fast because it's $100,000 lower than what we have here and that combined with a few Cuts might actually be that half a basis point and maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle yeah so um yes he had a few other comments he wanted to
add after the meeting which I wait for the phone call of I found some more money so we used to call them the twists account um Council M catch do you have any comments on the 6.9 to the 7.4 I know it's not zero you're okay
okay may gun okay um you know I know you know hats off to the subc commmittee uh on the work that you've done and uh to our manager and CFO um I I think that you know um you know budget season is is
very um uh it's it's always a difficult time because it's it's we although we we love our town we have extraordinary services um that are not necessarily um shared services so therefore we we do you know
we have come all as you our residents have come become accustomed to um you know the great services that we offer but um it's you know it'll all comes at a cost so um just as our mayor always touts you know you know to build build
build I I I tend to believe grants grants grants is a way in which we we really can approach certain things um you know going forward and I know that you know we do have a a grant task force but I I really feel as if we we can uh
certainly can do as much as we can to identify proactively um uh even more grants to really cover some of um you know our short PS I I want to comment that actually interesting of course grants are great in this situation very interestingly the capital budget this year when we're looking hey could we cut
the capital budget and we saw a few things we wanted to cut and what we realized was by cutting those items out we lost grant money so we so we actually like we're actually almost forced to spend to get the grant because we don't want to lose the grant it was it was great 600,000 some huge amount of grant
money but of course it's how sorry over a million so unfortunately we're actually forced to spend to get the grant it's best money spent but it just interesting to say grants will actually cost us money but you know money well spent um probably should make a note I don't believe there's any ramifications
next year conflicts next year with Ramadan and the budget hearings and maybe one or two meetings that we should probably just start a half an hour later being that he is the star of the of the show and would it's also not fair to rush him so it's early but in the back end might be a week we'll just take a
look at the calendar um okay so um with that well we sorry oh I don't on to rush don't um okay the um fire budget the fire the fire budget guarantee
you had sent us a revised budget for fire yes is it really $100,000 less than what we had before did the formula mess up again let's find out Sandy did you get my check did you get my
check I've gotta go home so Deputy Mayor organ the number you're asking me so the request was 642 to10 correct is that what you're looking at okay what number do you
have in the book what you gave us the request was 675 910 and what you sent us today and the manager approved 675 910 but what you sent us today the manager approved 576 725 is that a cut the 576
is correct yes that would be the decrease was in new employees does that lower the the actual budget or was that just not no no so so the request was for 642 to10 the manager and I when we put
together the book came in at 576 725 it's still an increase from last year of 165 246 so it's okay is what's is what's in the book calculated into the budget or is what you sent us today calculated into
the budget did we just find $100,000 or no no no no so whatever is in the book is accurate there was one formula that was off that's all I was correcting it's a type but not a change correct oh that was discussion I missed uh no but I mean the manager and I are all
years so what what's the yeah 699 and 749 749 sorry I apolog the um you and I had spoken afterwards about to potentially be some more cushions which may make councilwoman G feel better because her only reasons for the 7.49 to
my 6.99 were more cushion based and comfort based not anything particular so is there anything I'm see that face I mean the more you go down the less you have for next year right so I I I don't think any person in my position would say the you know like limbo the lower
you go the better um you know I would just caution that you know again it's it's a domino effect whatever you cut from this year you have less for next year okay that's not helping me okay got it when you say you have less for next year you mean in terms of reserves for example you know it depends how we want
to do it right so I was working with the auditor you know we advised that there are some potential revenues you can increase you know there might be another option where we can decrease some Appropriations as well uh but if we really on the Seesaw decrease the appropriation you have a little bit more
cushion to go you could it's work of art you could still go to 699 with one way and you could still go to 749 the other way so I mean depending on what the majority wants to do is a percentage wise give us the tools you know give us that number and responsibly we'll get we'll get you there as
responsibly as possible want to start the meeting with the good evening Council and tinck residents uh tonight we welcome Chief Andrew mgur deputy chief Seth kgal from our Police Department Chief Joseph berold from our fire department chenet
hun our library director and Scott salmon our Township attorney on Zoom this evening we will begin our budget review with these departments so we can outline and answer any questions in reference to their operating budget um I was going to have Chief mcer present first but I saw the friends of
the library were here so chenet if you'd like to start I did switch gears a little bit because they were here and they just exited so um if you'd like to come up and present your budget first um thank you um good evening everybody
um I before we start the meeting I left a renovation progress report at everybody's um desk so I'm not going to go over everything but uh it kind of outlines why there's a delay and what
we're doing right right now what activities have been happening at the library while we're closed um so the library uh project we were hoping to reopen in September but due to the uh
abatement um and delays with it and it when we did abatement we uh it kind of came with more work need to be done uh so we found more work um so it added more time to our completion date so
we're looking at now at the end of OCT over if I'm positive and there's no other hiccups after this um but you know the second page you see some of the painted walls and that's what we're doing right now a lot of supplies are
arriving and we are trying to make our archival space downstairs with the stack room so those pipe pipings in the basement area that is not in use is it it was used for old heating system that
we're actually framing um to hide those pipings and to make it more safe for the uh for our residents and uh it's shaping up a little bit but we are far beyond behind our schedule at this point uh the budget this year um it's it's based on
my my primary goal right now is to reopen the library successfully with before the end of this year and uh my goal my goal is that and and I thought my operating is pretty much minimal at this point we're doing
core services and um what we can do we cannot really buy the same amount of books that we used to buy but we are looking to reallocate those amount of money for our digital collections so that I actually see a high uptick in our
um all our Digital Services at this point Hoopa for example it's a service that we pay per use because there's no wait time for that Services the hoopla actually we hit multiple times our daily
limits in January and February so we are looking the trend and see if we need to increase those monthly budget for those services and our um bestseller a digital copies are the waiting list is pretty
long so we're trying to buy more copies to a accomodate um our patrons needs and and they meet the meet the demand at this point um last year three full-time step Member and seven part-time step
members left um so my plan is before reopening I need to reassess my staffing needs and then we'll probably need to hire more staff members to open the library at this point we do not have enough Staffing to reopen uh but instead
of doing one-on-one swap I want to reassess everybody's work responsibilities and um and and see the need where it it is essential to have the staff members to be hired and trained um so I'm also considering uh I need to discuss it with the board
members but I'm considering doing restructuring of the library staff and see if we can um run the library more efficiently um also one of my plan this year is I like to start redoing our absite website to be uh ADA Compliant we
have it until April 2027 but i' I'd like to get a head start on that one while my staff members are working at other uh library locations um some other libraries are already got complaints on that one so I really want to work we put uh at the
footer of our website we put a notice right now but I don't think it's not it's enough we have to be fully compliant by uh April 26 2027 uh our contract uh luckily the buckles
bill which is our biggest spending in our budget uh it's only $200 more than last year which is a good news uh the reason is um we had a lot of collection in our library and before the
renovation uh started we weeded out a lot of our Collections and some of the charges are based on the amount of items we have in the cataloging so that I think reduced the that because the entire buckles bill is going up and then
ours is only going up1 which is pretty much the flat budget for us programming is continuing for uh children families in new mil Ford and we are doing some adult programming this council chambers in person uh on Fridays twice a month
and some other programs are offered virtually the summer reading program this year will be all virtual um I I noticed that analyzing the library use right now uh majority of of our patrons are going to Bergenfield
or buod and the num library is the third uh most used library at this point and I figured if we're doing just inperson summer reading program at new for I figure we're kind of excluding big majority of our kids who cannot get to
new for we're going to run it a little bit differently uh hoping that many people can still participate our summer reading programs uh this is my fourth year in EK and over the past four years the
Library operating expenditure has been decreasing I don't know if you anybody noticed 2021 the total expenditure for the library was 2.9 Million by 2024 last year it dropped to
2.7 million this is despite Rising costs in books database supplies and benefits I am committed to optimizing operations with the limited resources available thank
you thank you chenai um I'd also like to um mention your Capital items yes if you'd like to um share them with the council so um we somewhat anticip ated um abatement when we were beginning the process of
renovation but we did not know how much it was going to be actually costing uh to do the abatement and it actually went over pretty significant amount uh almost $200,000 so um at this point I need
extra funding to complete the renovation um and and um so hope hopefully that it's a approved um also another item is
um librar uh phone lines and security cameras so um we actually want to I think it's it's important to have a proper working high quality security cameras because things happen accident happen incident happen at the library
and I think it's it's safe for staff and residents all together thank you Chen I'd like to mention that Chen I commend her you know during this project we've come across some hurdles and Chen has navigated those hurdles uh very professionally she's come to my
office um with the abatement that we had to that had to take place it did uh give us um an over 100 day delay which we are going to work through and hopefully open this Library like she said before the end of the year um but your attention to detail um I do I do recognize and and
you you're doing a great job uh council do you have any questions for chenet um I I do actually um so thanks for saving us um money um for next year we have another $20,000 in there to do
the bathrooms is there any savings to us if we put that in capital for this year and have them do the downstairs bathroom while they're already working in the building and the library is closed um I need to talk to the architect when we started the preliminary work for this renovation
those Auditorium and bathroom was not included so that means to include that into current renovation I don't know if it's possible in terms of timeline uh that means I may not be able
to complete the renovation yes this year yeah what will they have to shut down the downstairs when they do the bathroom well my my my plan was I finished the first phase of the library renovation and then open the library and then apply
for Grant to renovate the bathroom yes and then not shutting down the library while we're open we may close downstairs only during the construction that was my plan you so much for your presentation very informative um one of the things I
I noted uh in your uh discussion was about the digital resources that you're really uh looking to to to um to bring on on board um do you find uh any ways in which we would have um savings cost savings uh as results of going from you
know to digital from you know hard copies of things that we so a lot of people think that digital copy is cheaper somehow but it it's not true digital copy is a lot more expensive than actual print copy so one digital
copy usually it's not like we are we're purchasing uh copyright per se so then um it comes when we purchase a eBook it comes with 24 checkouts when it's done we have to Reby it the price of ebook is
average $75 right now versus $ $30 for hard copy books and uh audio books is sometimes more expensive it it either expires within two years or it only gives us 24 checkouts that's how in industry is working right now uh it's a
big issue for us because the demand is very high but it uh the the price is not really uh comparable to the print items sure I I understand licenses LIC issues an issue my second question is uh
regarding um grant opportunities do you feel as if we we could do um more when it comes to Grants you see grants that we're perhaps not really tapping into that we could um that you the library could benefit from uh my at my previous
Library I renovated the library bathroom and the door system to be ADA Compliant using the uh cdbg Grant so that was what I was thinking CU our bathroom downstairs is not Ada da compliant so that was my plan to use
those Grant funds thank you okay thank you Chen um Council just so you know I am looking for approval for $57,200 um it's the same budget that Chen presented last year so her budget remained flat for this year as um as
described thank you Shai for your time thank you so much um next we have uh Chief mcer and Deputy Chief kgal from the police department if you could please come forward good evening mayor Council manager thank you for having me tonight
Chief not to interrupt uh Council we're referring to tab five page 60 for the police department budget for your reference go ahead Chief um I'll also just um Reference last year the police department's 2024 adopted budget was $357,900 and this year they are
requesting $476,500 $26 go ahead thank you um the proposed 2025 operating budget and capital budget for the tentin police department has been created to achieve operational objectives and to attain long-term goals consideration has been given to the
anticipated workloads required personnel and equipment needs only items necessary and mandatory to effectively execute the police Mission have been included we have an authorized Staffing contingent of 97 sworn officers and a current complement of 94 sworn officers
in 2025 nine officers one civilian dispatcher and four clerks will be eligible for retirement we are unable to project how many of these officers or civilians will actually retire during 2025 we request that we request that all retiring Personnel be replaced
expeditiously funding has been budgeted for pre-employment screening and related equipment for replacement officers in addition we respectfully request a staffing level of 100 sworn officers in 2025 to include the creation of positions of an additional officer in community policing uh an additional
officer to assist with body Waring camera redaction work and an officer an additional officer in the traffic Bureau to uh increase community relations and the Department's overall effectiveness in addressing traffic related
issues um which before I go any further there was something I would like to bring to council's attention uh something that we have for the month of April in Autism Awareness we created a patch that you'll see officers all wearing during the month um as we did in October with breast cancer awareness where they have the pink Badges and we
also have suvenir patches that we had made to again bring attention to autism awareness and um for families that would like some attention thank you uh and also in preparing this budget
one of the things I did is speak with uh my captains and uh and with the deputy chief and we spoke about the changes that happened with our department and law enforcement in general over the years uh each year you know we talk about how much has increased and what we do now as opposed to what we did five
years ago 10 years ago and uh Captain fante prepared going through the different divisions of the department four pages of highlights of things that we do now that we didn't do before uh training alone is a whole page of new types of training that we have to do so
it's just you know it's something that we sit back and don't realize until you start putting it down how much we have to do now body warn cameras alone the footage that that creates uh is just hours and hours of requests that we get from Oprah for the officers to try and
redact and we're behind a couple months on that right now just because of the volume of requests that we're getting um we are short in that respect and we have to find a way to get additional Personnel to help out but we have Sergeant AAA in there doing that function now uh the ID officers try and
help him as well uh but the ID officers are very busy with other functions to include Firearms applications uh just this past year I had over 900 applications come across my desk uh for approval uh it's a very very busy function that number is astronomical compared to what it used to be um
there's a multiple uh different functions that we do community policing that over time just kind of morphs into handling a little bit of everything you know we have the arve together program that we are working with the Bergen County on where they're overseeing that program and working closely with them uh
we have a drone program that we're going to be putting out very shortly that they're overseeing um the blue envelope program also dealing with individuals with autism is something that they're overseeing as well getting us on board with that um our Traffic Division as many people are aware they constantly
doing traffic surveys um car seat inspections um you overseeing construction sites uh just and dealing with complaints addressing traffic related issues throughout the town um and Patrol uh more checks that they do
now as a level of threat Rises and lowers we're constantly increasing what we do on a daily basis to ensure the safety of the public um and the reports that they do the amount of time it takes to do stuff now although everything seems like it goes more paperless it's
more timec consuming there's more restrictions or more steps that are put in place over time by the Attorney General's office the the prosecutor's office and what we have to do paperwork wise to document everything and review everything whether it be use of force sens ents body warn camera random reviews there's just a lot more time and
effort that goes into everything that we do so in that regard that's just something I want everybody just to have in mind I can provide more information on that um at another time if you like but uh when we talk about increasing Staffing it's it's not do the same with less people it's you know we're constantly having to do more and more
with the people that we have so as such you know each year we come forward and trying to request additional Staffing but this is what we're trying to do is keep up with what we do provide the services that we have always provided and um you know keep tck safe happy and um you know up to
date thank you Chief um I'd like to uh go through some of your subs um and you have some increases in some of them that I'd like you to describe to council as to why they went up looking at sub account 213 we saw an increase um under
machine maintenance of about 68.3% could you give us an overview as to why yes three of the items here are uh just increases in Annual fees L off which is our CAD RMS program went up by
th000 uh VCS POS software which is uh for scheduling and payroll works with ADP um that went up by 540 we've been using that for over a year now um all Traffic Solutions that went up uh because we added a third traffic analyzer again to deal with all the
different uh traffic surveys that were being asked to complete um but the big items are all new new items this year uh veritone redaction which is $5,000 that we began using last year for the body warn camera redaction uh it helps to
speed up the process it's a software uh that Sergeant AAA uses we paid for it last year when we started using it partway through the year with forfeiture funds but now it's it's an annual fee that we'll have to pay but it does help out quite a bit with his function uh
Paladin drone and the docking station those two items uh are both service fees that are annual fees for that program One deals with just the Drone itself uh the software that enables us to operate it effectively throughout the town and the uh the docking station which is
going to be mounted on the roof of our headquarters uh it's an automatic docking station such that we'll have the ability to Just Launch and have it come back at any time without having to physically go outside and set it up uh each time uh number 18 on the list Motorola
integration 8,7 $72 what that does is that's a service fee for the cameras that are in the cars the car cameras can act as license plate readers with this software so whatever they capture while the officers driving around they act as license plate readers uh because we
don't know we don't longer have the ones that are mounted on the cars themselves and the last one police app marketing for, 1500 yes the incar cameras in the police car that record in the front
yes correct yeah the ones that were mounted outside uh were not holding up I believe they're getting damaged or just not because they're exposed to elements on the outside of the vehicle so with this software it's I think 500 or $550 per camera uh for the annual fee to have
it operate as a license plate reader while it's being operated not the same no it is obviously limited to what it captures in front of the vehicle whereas the other one had cameras that went uh you know more of a 360 kind of an
angle uh and police app marketing component that is uh for advertising uh opportunities employment opportunities in our department such as our dispatching um officer openings it's a program that accesses social media and gets information out there in ways that
we haven't before thanks Chief um also jumping down to sub account 240 for communications maintenance and 911 dispatch we saw an increase of 87.7% can you please explain to council that was 244 244
yes so one of the things we here we have here is the portable radio replacement program uh we $15,000 in there to replace portable radios um as council is aware we are trying to go to a digital radio network um over time like any of our equipment we have a plan for
replacement each year um the old radios that or the current radios that we're using cost approximately $1,500 a piece the new radios that we're looking to go to are going to cost over 5,000 a piece um if we get to the digital Network as we are planning to um and hoping to so
15,000 was originally put in there um to which would give us approximately 10 radios for the existing radios uh we have to keep up with them there it's one of the things that uh gets damaged the portable radios on people's bodies they get banged around a lot more than most equipment
so that was what originally that was for 15 that would give us about 10 radios now that would be about three radios a year and the other thing that was added there uh number seven is a bit optimistic but it's an anticipation of if we are able ble to
get onto the county Network um approximating a number for what it might be for an annual service fee we're trying to allocate a certain amount of money for uh a third of the year of what we anticipate we might have to pay if we are able to get on that so again being optimistic I'm hoping that we do get on
that system and uh that this would be what we would need to pay for this year great thank you Chief um also jumping down to sub account 270 ammunition and Armory supplies um we saw saw an increase of $16,000 or
they come out and they do protection details you see them in the malls at times during the holidays um they look very similar they're equipped very similarly but they use different weapons and the ammunition that they use uh is a bit more expensive for the long guns um ammunition in general has gone up but with them with the qualifications it has
gone up and this year also as we are trying to migrate to new handguns the 9 mimers um there is a certain amount of familiarization training that every officer will have to do that is going to be more than just the twice a year uh qualifications we have to do so we are expecting to go through a bit more
ammunition this year than normal with that qualification great um also under sub account to 80 special investigations we saw an increase of 140% um even though it's only $2,800 can you just explain to us um
what that entails yes uh as investigations are getting more and more technology driven um this deals with uh fees that we have to pay to cell phone um providers to access information off of cell phone towers when trying to
identify Suspects on criminal cases uh it's what we call a cell phone tower dump where they put in information so if we have crimes that occur different times different dates different locations we can try and triangulate what number was used at the same locations at the same dates and time on
those different Tower dumps uh doing this so uh it is something that we are seeing more and more that we're having to do it is very effective our officers have been very uh proactive with it and um it's something that we may see go up in the future but this is each time it's costing us a certain amount of Mone
money and it's uh been paying dividends great um Chief did you want to go through your Capital items um and explain to the council what we have listed there sure we have our um portable radios
replacement rifles um police cars and our surveillance vehicle yes so um again the portable radios the mobile radios um this is something that I had spoken with Council before again we're trying to get
on to this network uh the infrastructure in TK is falling apart it's it's not reliable weather conditions affected too much and we have times where we just can't hear clearly what is going on uh it is it is and has been a main priority
for us to improve our Communications for years uh it's just getting worse every year um I know members of the Union are concerned for the officer safety with these calls we're concerned with being able to provide uh you know police services for the town as effectively as we need to and if we're able to get onto
the county Network and the difference in what you hear on the radio alone sounds like somebody sitting right next to you as opposed to staticky and broken up communications uh that we're dealing with now uh it is more expensive with these these radios uh as I said with the
Portables Alone um this cost uh would cover 60 car radios uh 120 portable radios uh a couple pieces of equipment we need for our Dispatch Center for them um but I feel that this would be one of
the best things we can do to improve the conditions of our department at this time um and would be for a long time you know we are just not able to communicate as well as we really should be um able to uh the second item the 58,000 is to
replace aging rifles again these are rifles that are used by officers in our department as well as the officers that are on loan to or not on loan but work with those specialty uh units um the ones we have are aging the newer weapons uh have more Effectiveness as far as range and um penetration
ability uh 15,000 for landscaping Improvement we have a local contractor same uh business that has uh worked on Cedar Lane in town uh lemone that has come over and looked at our building and we're looking to try and improve the Outlook or the appearance on the outside
of our building um I know we we rely on DPW for just about everything under the sun as does everybody and you know they're spread very thin and um this is something I think that we could do to take it off their load and um you know just get the the outside just looking better than it has you know it's a it's
a nice building just outside is just looks a bit disheveled um in that regard we've also requested a $1,500 kind of a maintenance in our operating budget for the same company to come by just a couple times a year to upkeep what's out there so that it doesn't fall to the
condition it is now uh and then um number 15 is uh police cars again that's to give us eight police cars for this year um you know we during covid we like all of the
Departments had issues getting vehicles it was a big problem for a couple years uh even up until this last year we had to use forfeiture funds to purchase seven Vehicles the three parking enforcement cars three of the Ford Explorers and the transit van was all forfeiture money to purchase those cars
and upfit them which came at a substantial uh expense um we need to have a regular rotation of vehicles the the amount of mileage our officers put on them um you know unfortunately there are a number of accidents that occur throughout the year as you know we take steps to try to avoid that but it's
inevitable when you have cars operating 24 hours a 7 out there in traffic responding on calls uh so in order to maintain a reliable Fleet we need to have a rotation of cars uh I would almost defer to the DPW to have Glenn come up here and tell you
because when I talk to him about the cars he just kind of cringes a bit but we're at the point where we have to double people up sometimes in the cars because we don't have enough patrol cars to put everybody out and finally uh $355,000 uh to purchase a new surveillance vehicle we like to rotate
the surveillance Vehicles every couple of years sell the one that we have uh which would offset I think some of this for bring us down to that number but we need to have new vehicles every so often so it's not the same one that people get used to and maybe start to identify thank you Chief appreciate it
um I'd like to re reiterate what um Chief was mentioning about um the vehicles and you know the program that we've been doing on a year on an annual basis um we did have a conversation on you know how many vehicles he would need for this year and to keep that program running um to keep to maintain um your
Fleet so um we did keep it in our Capital um I am supportive of that knowing that I have a little more information on the status of some of the older vehicles that we can't actually utilize right now and have to use for other reasons so I appreciate you educating me a little more on that um also I look forward to our upgrade to
our radios I know we're all we've all been um getting more and more educated and um I look forward to hopefully um getting those for the police department um being alongside Chief I was actually at a demonstration and the radio actually um wasn't working and I was standing next to him and I actually
witnessed how it went out and the communications were were not sufficient so uh we look forward to supporting you and getting those radios for the Department um council do you have any questions for chief this going be a question for you or or the chief um do you feel we are
really optimizing all that we can do on when it comes to Grants because I know there's a lot of capital Improvement you know in in terms of you know equipment radio cars Etc I have been working very closely with Sarah I from Millennium
strategies um I have been upping our meetings with her um to optimize our grant opportunities but as you can tell in our capital budget once we apply for these grants we now have to um you know they get added to our um to our total you know and we have to leave that
amount in our capital budget so I Know Chief whenever we get Grand opportunities uh captain tesser and yourself uh do um do review them so go ahead and one of the things we have found working with Millennium is that there are a lot less grants for law enforcement than there are say for volunteer fire departments because so
many departments are volunteer um there's not many out there that would apply to radios uh we're in a situation now where the county executive is uh opening the uh the door say for us to he's considering the opportunity for us
to join on their Network for a fee um it's something that we haven't uh been you know hasn't been an opportunity for us before but their Network would well- Encompass this town and some you our our coverage would be tremendous for here based on where they have their repeaters already
set up for their Network um and the grant process is very long but again we we've talked to them quite a few times about any opportunities and there's very few for police departments because they're all paid departments there's more grants that are available say in the uh fire field because again a lot of
departments are volunteer um the technology is is really exciting in um in 213 the drones are very exciting I know that uh you know as um you have different investigations going on and then and then you actually catch
people or or find things um we get very excited when we see the result um so looking forward to you using that um we've noticed the campaign that you have going on on social media to to hire now
so um that that's also very exciting is there a way to hire civilians to do some of the work some some of the things that officers would be doing is there any room for civilians to do any of that um with some of the work we have going on
say with the redaction work on uh not redaction but theun the expungement work that was done on um after marijuana got legalized I think we had a list of a thousand cases that that had to be expunged which is a lot of work to be done we have one of
our civilian staff doing that full-time uh on top of some other uh tests that she does uh with the cameras uh it's dealing with the the redaction work on the cameras there's different things as far as sensitivity as far as who can see
what who can hear what um you know we have a sergeant doing it because if the sergeant sees something that needs to be brought to our attention it's you know it is done so there's also training things that come up whether it be you know new officers that need to be told how to do things something that uh might
be they haven't seen before but the officer can the sergeant picks up on that and forwards information to the correct divisions to make sure that Corrections are made I'm I'm bringing it up not um so much as a cost savings but because it's hard to hire and then there's the training involved in getting
someone on the road and getting someone into the department but if there's work that has to be done that someone else could do and it would be easier because they would be focused on that I was just wondering if it might be easier to give certain tasks where you could just train a civilian that's that that was the
reason you know and and not wait to get an officer on the road if if that's been a challenge um and then going just a suggestion and then going to the radios um I I uh hope that that the county executive allows us on onto their
frequency I I we certainly want the officers to be safe and we understand where the Union's coming from and I hope that's something that can be done sooner rather than later um the cost in here the entire cost in capital that could be if that money was in
forfeiture uh the forfeiture fund that could be taken out to pay for this because it would be the first year and not maintenance though the entire amount yeah that's in capital that would be it's about one point yeah I
one I'm not sure if we have enough to cover all of that if we did it would really drain it it would drain it and the forfeiture account we use for different things throughout the year um our operating budget is is very low from
the size Department we have as a result of I was covering a lot of different expenses like I said seven vehicles in the parking lot uh this past year was all paid from there um the handguns that were getting for the Department is all coming from there uh so we've we've purchased quite a bit and
um kind of talking about having a little bit of a buffer uh we do like to have you know a certain amount in there so I don't want to cut it too tight if we can I mean obviously we can use some of the forfeiture for it absolutely um and it is like I said a priority so uh you know
whatever we can do to try and move forward with the radios I think we need to we could maybe split the baby we could pay for the cars and okay we can talk but as far as the civilians as well um as you you may remember we had officer Garcia Danny Garcia and officer
Mark Elli both come back uh work six months at a time after retirement to assist with backloads in the uh firearm application investigations because they were well versed in how to do it so yes there's times where we have certain functions we will do that okay thanks I have a question about the firearm
applications you said they're up substantially like how how much higher were they this year versus historically um this past year I think we end end up receiving might be off a little bit about 700 750
applications um and typical is typical is probably the fours so almost double and and do you think do you know why what's been the cause is that sort of the the unrest that's been going on in town speak to the exact mindset of people that apply I mean it can be
political activities going on in in the world it could be anything going on outside of TAC that makes people feel that they should get guns if they feel they may be restrictions coming I'm not sure but okay thank you deputy chief um yeah I do have yeah with
regards to actually the deputy chief just brought to my attention um you know some of the grants that we do put in for uh and it has offset some of our expenses with uh enforcement so we have a distracted driver Grant pedestrian safety Grant grants um but
traffic enforcement grants totaling $ 51,2 last year so you know we do explore grants I know we put in from all the time I know the traffic just submitted something yesterday for next year already I think it was for The Pedestrian safety Grant oh yes in the pop-up party Grant
which was 39,000 I think it was about 39,000 which we used to purchase uh new batons helmets and uh shields for officers we've always discussed in the past years you've always mentioned oh I have guys out on assignments but we
didn't get access to Forfeit funds it actually seems like the forfeiture funds are actually a nice source of Revenue far exceeding probably cost of putting the guys out there are there other opportunities like that to maybe hire 10 more cops and get 10 more million dollars back or that other towns are
doing that other towns are hiring people to be able to put people on loan because um these these agencies they work on federal cases you know large seizures and agency that has somebody involved gets a portion of whatever is seized and based on the involvement your office you
might get more than uh than others I mean TX location is ideal for these task forces because of our proximity to New York City the major highways they go through the hotels you name it um there's a lot of you know activity that can come this direction or is already
taking place here um our officers get involved in the cases they they we've had people on loan since I was a sergeant and you know they they rely on us to give them good people we've had a good track record with the DEA and with Homeland Security so our
officers uh perform well there we we see the results here if there's anything more we can do to get those I mean those are literally a grants so let us know boost that and I mean I guess you're asking for more guys so would in effect go there but we're also kind of
behind in hiring also that uh right now yes we're down we have uh like I said 94 officers presently we have one officer that indicated an upcoming retir July 1st so that put us at 93 and we're in the process of right now doing background investigations hoping to have four officers to put us at 97 for the
upcoming class um do you have anything else oh yeah so the deputy chief is just bringing up what we talked about with the radio system uh and going on to the county system so we had gotten a quote from gust toown as to what it would cost to just create our own infrastructure
which which is about $1.2 or $1 1.4 million to create an infrastructure that we the township would be responsible for upkeep you know if anything happened to it we'd have to have our people come out and fix it uh just like we're doing now this other system that the county has in place already we would be paying a fee
to use it and they would be responsible for the upkeep any problems with it they would be taken care of it and that that that cost is spread out across the county thank you Chief appreciate it um I also like to mention um our pedestrian safety
uh campaign that the police department has been actively working on uh we are also going to continue that the rest of of the year working with Easy Ride um and and hopefully making the township a little bit safer with our pedestrian Crossings um also to mention um your
overtime I know it's been the same since 2017 600,000 it has not gone up this year um I know you had some reimbursements um and stayed within that amount even though um a lot of demonstrations last year were up over $110,000 I know this year this quarter
Chief and I spoke um he's over $11,000 in overtime cost that thus far this year um so he is managing the overtime uh keeping us all safe and I I commend you for your professionalism and organization of all the officers for our recent demonstrations so thank you very
much just just to be clear the the demonstrations do put us over um I was taking that up but just um absent the the demonstrations counting the reimbursements we get for those grants uh reimbursements we get for overtime from the DEA and Homeland Security as well as the Richfield Park
fireworks that we send officers to um and there was there's four large events at the Town sponsors that we end up having to pay a substantial amount of overtime for officers to be there for that but outside that you know we we end up coming in under our budget uh without
those involved thank you for clarifying and also just the demeanor of the officers has been wonderful they they're um we watch them interact with the community and um they're really so pleasant and it's it's really nice to
see so thank you it's for pants it's totally totally the pants I thank you thank you next we have our fire chief chief Joseph Burch toold present to review the details of his 2025 operating budget Chief can you please come
forward last year uh the fire department uh their 2024 adopted budget was $ 41,47 this year the 2025 budget request is for $675,000 to which 250,000 for dispatch
services from Hack and Sack is included in the increase of their budget this will be our first full year with their with these services to which things are going very well I am requesting Council approval for the amount of 67,900 looking at sub account 240 um unless
Chief you wanted to speak first or did you want to do some sub manager go ahead no problem good evening Council mayor manager department heads I'm Your Fire Chief Joseph burel residence watching from home I want to thank you for your continued support throughout the previous year but at the
same time ask to continually to proper staff and fund the Teck fire department to allow us to provide the best protection and safety to our residents as I've said in the past year the tenac fire department is one of the cheaper more efficiently run fire departments in Bergen County and I would be remiss if I
didn't say that the Personnel that work for the T fire department are probably the best in the business I have to admit it's not easy standing up in here in front of you talking about the T fire department I've watched many of my predecessors before ask for equipment
funding and support I also do not want to let the firefighters in the residence down when I try to convey the importance of a properly staffed and funded fire department at one point in 1970 the TK fire department was staffed with 127
members somewhere in the 80s that number dropped to 107 and later in 2009 it was dropped to its current Table of organization of 93 as I st stated last week that number is not always filled and due to Medical leaves sick
leaves family leaves injured on duty requests that number generally tracks much lower throughout the course of the year and and definitely Falls below the 91 uniform firefighters on April 1st
2005 the fire department will be short seven firefighters and that does not include the four in the academy currently uh last year we started the year uh four short and dropped even further as the year went on the NFPA and a lot of other organizations have done studies for
residential structure fires and they recommend 20 firefighters is truly an important number for a fire department in a small fire in a residential house fire however most of the days the T fire department are is only staffed with 15
firefighters on duty this is also our minimal level of Staffing thankfully due to our career neighbors of Anglewood and hackensac we can generally have that 20 number of firefighters on the scene within the first 10 minutes that 20 firefighters on
the scene of a residential structure fire and this is a residential house we're talking about within those 10 minutes of a fire will help to ensure that the victims are rescued the fire is contained and the fire not will not spread to the neighboring structures we are very fortunate enough to have these
two career towns that bring eight members in 7 to 10 minutes when Reed unfortunately due to the growing demand of service costs and everything else we do see a huge decline in our Volunteer
Partners that also support us we do welcome them when they arrive if they arrive through my years of service I watched the te fire department shrink in size and watch the equipment age as well as the buildings grow in town when I was first hired the town was very proud to
open its first brand new Firehouse in many years in 1990 it's actually hard to believe that a career Department of that size was replacing a wooden Barn that they were currently using as a firehouse back then the plan was to then to build after that
a new police station Town Hall Community Center DPW and eventually a fire headquarters in fact the field across the street from fire headquarters which once stood a school and then a community center was promised as that property it
has long since been sold to a school fire quarters is 83 years old it's outdated it has asbest water leaks mold lead problems and unfortunately no longer fits our modern fire uh apparatus and it does not provide a cancer free
work environment in 2024 the T fire department responded to 5,951 emergency calls for service ranging anywhere from fires gas leaks emergencies water leaks rescue
extrications and emergency medical calls the men and women at te fire department work very hard for this community every day to provide the best quality of and safe service to our residents under some very unique conditions they struggle each day with
equipment issues repairs aging apparatus and Fleet some of our Fe Fleet is 30 years old and we struggle to keep it in service our buildings are also aging and range anywhere from 35 years which was that new Station built in 1990 to 83 years which is a fire
headquarters I am very proud to stand up here and represent those hard men and women that work for the T fire department they work extremely hard every day for you I also want to thank you and would be not remissed for the new engine and new ladder that is on order and we hope
to see at the end of 2026 I have a couple questions can anyone tell me where most fires happen believe it or not I'll answer for you most fires happen in one and two story residential structures tenek has about
11,064 Residential Properties about that out of that also T has 67 apartment buildings roughly or on average 381 commercial properties and 12 industrial properties do we know what the number one cause of structure fires
are men women and children what is the primary cause of these structure fires lack of working smoke detectors a little bit about comparison about our neighbors EK is 6.24 square miles and about two square miles larger
than our neighboring hackin saac which is 4.9 the population of the city of EK 41,021 population of the city of hackin saac 4,736 current size of the tck fire
department 93 although staffed and short seven the city of hackensac 107 firefighters they have four we have four Battalion Chiefs or tour commanders on duty they have four Deputy Chiefs on duty they we have one captain and four
lieutenants per shift they have two captains four lieutenants per shift we've run three engine companies they run four engine companies we each one run one run one ladder company they run a rescue company we
average if we're staff 18 to 19 per shift they run 25 per shift in addition to that they have some additional Staffing functions uh we do have a battalion chief in training they have a captain they have a public information officer we both have administrative
Chiefs of course we both have Chiefs their fire prevention Bureau in their fire prevention Bureau they step with a deputy chief a fire sub codal Lieutenant which EK used to have which is now a civilian in the building department and they have four
other inspectors in my fire prevention Bureau I have one Fire official and two lieutenants at one point we there was the Fire subcode official and another inspector in that position of course they have a beautiful mechanic shop with two mechanics to work on their ratus 247
we have to rely on the poor DPW struggling out of quanset huts and other buildings the FD salary is a little over uh 10 million their salary is 14 million our our other expenses roughly our operating budget
411 they have 373 but they also have 743 in th000 in fire prevention budget another 23,000 in fire prevention other expenses uh they're dispatching which is
1,137 and other dispatching costs of 12,000 all our expenses roll into our actual budget so just a little comparison about the city of tenek and Hackensack that being said if we're going to keep tck residents safe we require four
stations staff 247 365 adequate Staffing levels strict code enforcement Advanced Municipal alarm system a progressive fire investigation program proactive fire prevention teams carbon oxided smoke detector programs for the homes
proper Fire Equipment modern apparatus and no obsolete fire stations again I want to thank you all for your homework um hard work dedication and continued support to the tenic fire department if we now we can go to your budget thank
you Chief uh yes um turning to uh page 86 um for the council if you'd like to follow along sub account 244 Communications maintenance has gone up 43.9 7% uh Chief if you could just go
through uh what that increase was for what manager what number was that again sub account 244 Communications maintenance okay sub account 244 radio maintenance contract that is our annual expense to goo toown uh in that is an
additional repairs for um the next line item repairs to portable mobile radios and our r system at fire headquarters which although we are dispatched from hackin saac still gets utilized by hackin saac um alarm system replacement wire that's the game wall box system in
town and then a millennial fiber repair request which is actually is not or was not funded the past year and that's to ensure that the fiber run from T fire quarters to hackin saac fire quarters which is how all the equipment gets the Hack and Sack as opposed to duplicating
it there uh is maintained and run thank you Chief um sub count 246 is our shared dispatch services I don't know if Chief you want to add anything in there is a 100% increase there but for uh the reasons I had said previously did you want to add anything Chief uh so as you know the currently dispatching all the
functions of the tck fire department being handled by the city of hackin saac uh we do share some of the costs on our ends with our computer records management system which is a previous budget item of about 21,000 if you look in sub account 2013 that's our Cad and
Records management system that goes up about a th000 or close to a th000 every year uh we need to maintain that in order to have that records and and dispatch done by hackin sack in addition to that the 250 is for them to cover the cost of them actually operating The
Dispatch Center in hackensac answering the calls uh so far since October it's been working very well and has allowed us the extra firefighter uh that used to work 24/7 in the Firehouse cleaning toilets and stuff like that to now at least get on the fire apparatus and uh
increase our staffing on a short-term basis great thank you um also we have sub account 260 under training that's up 61.3 3% um or $11,100 chief can you uh explain the increase in training that
you have added to the budget okay is regarding training so over the years um the tck fire department um takes a lot of training on itself we send our members away to school to bring them back in to do some in-house training um due to legal requirements and other
requirements we've sent more firefighters away for that type of training and bring it back but also with the influx of officers and the changing of the upper management level we've had to bring in outside uh Chiefs and or other experts to give our firefighters
some extra Level Training especially the officer level development we have tried to use our GIF for some of that training which is free which is very beneficial but they have not been able to cover some of the basic command and maintenance uh programs that we need to afford also our we have never been
really accreditated as far as Sops s sogs rules and regulations so if you see item number two the leopole accreditation program that's the program to try to get our Sops compliant and legally in line to reduce any type of liability for the
township great thank you council do you have any questions for chief yes u a few things first of all you know the comparison to Hack and Sack was off on many many levels for example they 4,000 additional residents many many of them live in apartments um if you give me
4,000 more residents figure 2,000 more Apartments eight more Avalons that'll bring us $12 million I think we could take a vote and give them eight more firefighters um but I I appreciate all the hard work that the that the fire department does 24/7 there's absolutely
no doubt that a paid fire department is far safer than a volunteer at fire department especially in the light of the decline in volunteerism that said is there the thought and you know just came up with this as you mentioned the comparison to hackin sack and you discussed I believe
you said that you have four Battalion Chiefs you have five Deputy Chiefs and additional Chiefs the expression of too many chiefs not enough Indians is there an is there a talk about merging departments I know we talked about moving the dispatch but if all of a sudden we combine forces and I understand that we're a little bit
smaller than them with Hack and Sack the offic efficiencies of scale between the two towns two cities would U probably yield us quite a bit of savings not as a return to the pockets of the residents but more as an increase in safety to the residents any thoughts on that
discussion with your fellow Chiefs that's a great thought it's always a question of chiefs that's well above both Chiefs levels that's at a council level to a council okay so Mr manager I'll I'll discuss that with you offline and maybe we'll set something up to discuss absolutely I think um as a whole I think
we've been um having open discussion about shared services across the board for different towns so uh we'll continue conversations thank you I I would suggest you might want to revisit North Hudson and the problems and concerns though that you might have
with that I I have a quick question um earlier in your previous um initial discussion you mentioned about the uh use of um potentially ccos as um as something certificate of Contin doing occupancy on on
transfers and and you had basically indicated that um that's something that you would you know could see being um borne by the uh seller when sellers are selling that there'd be this this on on transfers this this inspection um have
you thought through what that would look like and the second part of that question would you have the Personnel to do that those types of inspections whenever a property turns over well currently our fire prevention Bureau does every home sale smoke detector inspection so that person would be doing
that work already so would actually be a benefit you'd be collecting more money with very minimal provided you not change the our fire prevention Staffing and if you were to look at what that increase would be or that that fee could potentially be
based upon other similar towns have you done any types of research in terms of what that would look like uh not as far as the fee structure that I would say we'd have to discuss that offline how much that's going to cost we're already charging a fee for the smoke detector inspection I don't think
it's going to be a big increase however um you're doing 400 something home sales every year so it would be a little bit more money back to the township thank you anyone else no we're good thank you Chief uh in addition just as far as grants go we do apply every year for the
American Rescue Grant the L GR Grant the fire Subs Grant the sprinkler and fire safety Grant two FEMA grants the safer Grant and a fire prevention Grant so we're always trying to work with grants however I would say that although Millennial is a nice company to work for
we it still requires a firefighter or an officer in my department working countless hours to provide the documentation uh the resource and all the additional information to make that Grant actually appliable Grant so I don't necessarily necessarily think you get your bank for your buck
with Millennial thank you chief for your input um Council I also wanted to just comment um Chief Burch sold has been very um instrumental in um overseeing several projects that we have going on
uh station 4 is hopefully due to um open back up by May 1 so he's been overseeing a lot of punch list items and um getting that sorted for us as well as us uh looking at headquarters roof getting that prepared for um fire headquarters
and the apparatus floor in Station 2 so I want to um just say thank you to Chief bold for overseeing that and the professionalism and service that um the whole fire department gives to our community so thank you Chief Madam manager I'm sorry Chief what was the year could you remind me that station 4
uh shut down yeah apply for immediate emergency funding to back I'm okay yeah yeah I guess so station 4 station 4 originally
started under Sandy when the roof blew off uh it was an immediate uh remediation to try to get the roof patched back up but there was also excessive water damage and mold that started to incur some OSHA violations then occurred on top of that uh at the time it was under Chief verley who then
applied for FEMA money uh to get the to do some upgrades to the station um at this time we still do not know why that FEMA money never went where it went uh we kicked the can down the road a little bit further the station did need some upgrades
eventually it was sat down and discussed with the pass manager to do some upgrades uh was supposed to be minimal upgrades as they started doing renovation the building found some more uh it was always recommended that they go back and readdress the roof issue which then caused a longer delay and
more costs to get the roof finally patched and fixed um so we are about 3 years into this renovation very painful thank you very much thank you um now I'm going to switch over to Legal Services and costs we have Scott
salmon on Zoom it is page 40 um under tab five last year we adopted 977 th000 and spent $822,000 41 this year I'm requesting Council approval for the same amount of
$977,000 go go ahead Scott uh Scott salmon 818 tck Road lifelong tck resident uh I'm here to talk about back your chickens if that's okay with the council uh I uh as you guys know I've been the township attorney since 2023 uh
the law department handles every legal issue imaginable for the town the township um whether it's drafting ordinances and resolutions reviewing contracts advising on you know employee related issues we're involved in zoning questions negotiating with vendors and
so on um we handle all the litigation the with the township is involved in which includes about a dozen lawsuits more than 20 workers comp cases over 100 T active tax appeals and and so on um despite all that activity I am pleased
to say that we were able to keep budget flat this year after after a decrease the previous year uh and even though our budget decreased last year we still came in under that budget by about 150,000 as you just heard saving the township considerable amount of money we are
aware of how seriously the uh Council takes this budget process and keeping taxes as low as reasonbly possible and so we're continuously looking at ways to become more efficient and provide uh you uh in the township with the same excellent legal services for less money
uh I think we are probably looking at another decrease next year uh but we have a um uh we have some lawsuits that we expect to come to an end towards the end of this year uh and so we want want to reserve some money in the budget to to take care uh care take care of them
depending on how on how they wrap up um the only thing I want to say is I want to thank the council for the trust and the faith that you've placed in all of your legal professionals the law is often a zero sum game uh which means that being a lawyer means that you are constantly at
war with basically everyone all the time including very often your own client uh so it is very refreshing that this Council constantly seeks our guidance and then when we briide it you listen and work with us and not against us so we thank you and uh we're happy with
this this year's budget so happy to answer any questions oh just I think he's done an excellent job with his budget the last few years I know it I appreciate anyone else on Council have any questions for Scott how you feeling I'm not quite sure which way is
up or down but other than that pretty good um I have a question just a general budget um question so for these for these line items where we come under budget are have we already priced in the savings from 24 into the proposed budget
for 25 I'm sorry one more time very good question so the question uh that I heard from Deputy Mayor G was have we factored in the savings from the 24 budget into 25 the answer is no and here's why um
when funds are unused for a department they are the budget cycle is open for two years you have this year's budget the current budget and you have the appropriation Reserve last year's budget as uh Miss has Matt said last
week one of the ways that we are bringing in this budget lower than the original 15% that we had forecasted was cancelling $1.5 million from appropriation Reserve I don't recall I don't believe legal was one of them but
to answer your question whatever wasn't used from legal or any other funds that we don't cancel will then on January 1st go into Surplus so that's how you build Surplus is not realizing your full revenues so sorry is that
confusing okay so yeah the way you build Surplus as we said in last week's PowerPoint is if the hotel revenue is a million dollars you're legally allowed to realize a million dollars but I wouldn't recommended I would say do 900 because then that 100,000 will build your Surplus in the next year let's say
if you get a million 50,000 in Revenue same thing with your Appropriations from last year you don't want to cancel too much because you also want that to go into Surplus on January 1st so January 1st is a beloved and sometimes despised date by me depends but yes I mean it's always a good thing to come in under
budget it doesn't go to waste you know during budget transfer season if another department is a little bit shorter everyone knows everyone's budget's Fair Game come November and that's how we have to keep everyone's budget positive if we end the year on March 31st in in a negative somehow in an account or if
later in the year another department overspends their budget you're legally obliged to raise ra that money in next year's budget so it's very important that everyone's positive uh on 1231