Good evening, West Orange. This is Joe Fage and I will be your Zoom moderator for this evening. Welcome to the continuing series of West Orange Township Council budget workshops for July 14th, 2025. We are coming to you live from Council Chambers at 66 Main
Street. You are welcome to join us here in council chambers, but there will be no public comment on Zoom or in council chambers. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to our council president. Thank you, Mr. Fagan. Welcome everybody
to our seventh uh budget workshop. I'm now going to turn it over to Madame Clerk. This is to inform the general public that this workshop is being held in compliance with section 5 of the Open Public Meetings Act, chapter 231, public law 1975.
The notice for this workshop was emailed to the West Orange Chronicle and the Star Ledger on July 11th, 2025. Let the record show that Councilwoman Castelina will be about 10 minutes late. Councilwoman Ruden
here. Councilwoman Scarpa present. Council President Koviaak present. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Uh, as I said, welcome to our seventh workshop. I think Mr. Fagan, I thank Mr. Fagan for not using the phrase neverending budget
workshops because I think we're getting close to the end. Uh we might have uh at least one more after this, maybe another, and then we will move on to actually getting this budget locked
down. Uh the draft budget from the mayor proposes to raise municipal property taxes by 6.2%. So, we've been looking for efficiencies and savings to lower that increase. If you want to follow along, please go to the township website, westtor.org.
uh use the search box in the upper right hand of the page, type in budget, then click on the first result, budget, and you'll see the mayor's uh the I'm sorry, not the mayor's, where you will see the most recent version of the budget, which has been updated with uh many of our
changes as of June 17th. Mr. Dutiniac, do we have any additional documents that we have put up on the website today? Council President, yes, we have uh the budget presentation for tonight that's up on the website. And um we're also
going to have tomorrow morning because I got it a little late was is the uh summarized budget cuts um to bring us from the original amount to be raised to where we're at now. That'll be on the website tomorrow morning. Um but what's up there right now is the are the
departments we're going through tonight. Super. Thank you, Mr. Tinag. Uh as Mr. Fagen said, "We are not taking public comment at budget workshops, but if you want to comment or ask questions, please send an email to councilwwest.org,
which despite what you may think, also goes to the mayor and several people in her administration. If you want to send just to the council, send it to one of the council members and ask for distribution to each of us. If you need email addresses, search on the website
for council uh and you'll find the email addresses. Uh recordings of the workshops are on the township websites. You can find them by searching for video gallery. Uh we have today on the deis Miss Edy
Bear as the representative for the citizens budget advisory board. So just to be clear, we did not fill the council vacancy and Miss Bear is not filling the council vacancy. She is representing the citizens budget advisory board.
Uh let's see. Just want to ask everybody uh who is speaking tonight to please try to speak into the microphones and speak as loud as you can so that people can uh everyone can hear. And last one, I urge everyone to consider time efficiency in
their comments and questioning to be sure that what you say is necessary. The faster we carefully go through the budget, the better. Mr. Diniac, you have the calm. Thank you, Council President. Um, just a quick agenda. Um, I'm just going to
speak about where we are at with our various rates first. Um then we're going to talk about the mayor's operating expense budget, the business administrator's operating expense budget, retired citizens salaries and wages, retired citizens operating
expenses, um pension uh the pension appropriation bills, and then health insurance uh operating. Um so it it Mr. Tiniac, I me I I noticed that you talked about expenses, the uh operating expenses for some of the departments. I
just want to clarify and I don't know whether you want to say it or or I want to say it but uh why don't I say it and you correct all my mistakes. Sure. We are not talking about some of the numbers tonight in the salary and wage
in respect to our ongoing uh settlement discussions and negotiations between the mayor and the council on litigation that's getting close to two years old now. uh and given
the where we are in that process, we are going to avoid uh discussing uh certain aspects of the budget and we will certainly have time if uh after we reach
some agreement and before we actually adopt the budget to address these issues a little bit farther down the further down the road. It's a perfect way to say it. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Smaldo, how are you?
We are fine. Um, so again, a very big thank you to the council um and also to the citizens budget advisory board. Um, we've been able to uh reduce down the initial
increase. Um, so I'm I'm happy to report that the increase on the average home as it stands right now is $90.97. Um, municipal open space I have calculated as 4 cents, but we're going
to get that. So, it's it's zero. Um, the library tax as it stands on the average home is $1821. The school district estimated tax levy um and the increase on the average home is $26327.
Our estimated county open space is $8.29 on the average home and our estimated county tax uh on the average home is $45.17. So overall, when factoring in all of the levies on the average home is $425.95.
Um what we're talking about right now and what we can control, we're at $90.97. Um, just if you're keeping track at home or or here, uh, to get down to a zero dollar on the average home would require
a reduction in the tax levy of $1,475,000 approximately. Um, so that's where we're at right now. Um, I will say that, uh, you know, I I had some conversations about, um, some additional cuts that's
factored in, um, related to parks and playgrounds. So, I factored that into um, into the local tax and obviously when we vote, we'll go through everything again in in in some more detail. Um, but it's okay. Oh, go ahead, Mr. Ch. I apologize for interrupting
you, but I didn't want to get too far away from the number that you talked about, which is the increase in the average homeowners. Yes. Of $90.97. It might be worthwhile to sort of track
where that was when we started this process back in mid April to give people some idea of uh of how much improvement we've made so far. Sure. So, we started at um and I'll make this a little larger so that everyone
can see. Um at home, we started at $243.31 on the average home just on the municipal side and um through uh some some revised looks at revenue and also a
lot of cuts. You know, we're we're coming up to about $1.3 million in in appropriation cuts. Um we've gotten that increase down to $90.97. Um and again that's the help of the council and the citizens budget advisory
board um that we've gotten to where we've gotten to. So and the directors the director and the directors. Yeah. I'd be remiss to I have to thank the directors and and and the administrator and all that for for where we've gotten to. So, um, a a
pretty sizable decrease in in appropriations and, um, and that's why we're at the $90.97. U, so, we're going to post this up on the website, this particular document. Again, I I just didn't get it to, um, uh, the office soon enough to to post,
but this will be up tomorrow morning. Um, and it just shows all the different pieces and and names all the different departments and you know where we started and what we've amended it to be. Um, so I think it's this is a pretty uh
interesting document to look at. So, um, but I'd like to start with uh with the first department. Um, let me go into present mode. Um so this is the mayor's uh
operating um expense uh budget there. Last year's budget, let me make this a little bit bigger. I'm sorry. It is pretty small. Um last year's budget was 2,230,000.
2 million $2,230. My god. $2,230. There's no increase requested for this year. Um last year we spent 99% of the
budget. Uh at this point this year um we have spent uh $381 of this budget. Um we have not proposed any cuts to it. Um
it's there's really not much to it. Um you know it's for printing different flyers and uh you know materials for the the mayor's department really for her admin. Um
so you know we don't propose any cuts to it. Uh, but like I said, we've spent so far this year $381.95 of the $2,200 ask. Um, so
do you feel that there's still the potential to spend uh all or close to the amount that we have here budgeted? Um, I mean, at this point in the year, um, you know, I I will say no because,
you know, we've only spent a couple hundred bucks and we're based through July. Um, but I I'd have to defer to the mayor and administrator on on that one. But I wasn't prepared to to make any cuts to this. Yeah, we we really didn't look at
reducing this because of the it is small 2200 and and and and if we had to make a cut and everybody's making a cut, you know, I guess there could be some monies taken out of here from the mayor's budget, but uh um you know, I I would say it I wouldn't say do
half because we are still halfway through the year, but if we have to cut something out of it, then you know, maybe whether it be printing, I mean, we could probably look at the printing line and cut it down a a little bit so that this way we'll just use more paperless.
But um you know I I I think she would be comfortable with doing that. But I wouldn't go too crazy. I mean she it made it a flat $2,000 maybe that would be enough to help out and we're and she's doing it a little bit of a more than 10% I guess that amount of
money. So in con in line with other departments. So thank you. That would be my suggestion. And let the record reflect that Councilwoman Castelino is now returning to the land of adults.
Uh Councilwoman Ruden, uh you have your hand raised, please. You have the floor. Yes, I do. Um thank you, Council President. We um have seen in our bill list um money going to the mayor's
Facebook um page for support for her Facebook page. Um why is that not reflected in this? That's not charged to this budget. Um so that's that's specifically for the
mayor. Why is it not in this budget? I I couldn't answer that. That this budget is really just materials. Um I I'm sorry, Council. I I don't have an answer for that. Okay. I'd like to see I'd like to see that actually reflected in this because
the council did um pay at least for the first two months for um Facebook um administrative work for the mayor. And I think it should be in this in this budget since it's actually for the mayor
and that's how it was designated in the budget. I mean in the bill list. Um council I I'll go back and uh you know I can I can get those expenses and and say this is what it would look like if it
went against this budget. Um I I just can't do anything today. Um, but I I certainly will do the research and and add it to um and if I if I'm not mistaken, this is for printing and materials. This isn't for services provided. That's a vendor.
What the conversation here right now is about a vendor. This is about printing materials and materials and supplies. So it's so I don't know and I'm going to defer to the the CFO, but I don't think this is for a vendor's purposes. those line items that this is for the
operating um but you're correct councilwoman that that those expenses are not reflected in in the mayor sub account. Um, but I will put together uh a schedule of how much we've spent
and you know, if we wanted to add it, we're going to have to take it from somewhere else and and put it here. Um, because obviously it's going to exceed the the $2,000. But I think it's a good exercise. I will put that together and
and then make the transfer from the account that it's coming from and ask to put it into the mayor's line item. Um that I can do for the next meeting. I think I think that's important to have an accurate reflection of what is being
spent from the mayor's office. So I appreciate that. I I agree with you. I would just I would just say that I don't really know the details of how Mr. Diniac organizes the budget in terms of who expends what,
where, and how it fits into the budget. But it certainly would be useful to have uh an accounting of exactly where that is because I think at some point uh this year that's going to stop, but I'm not really sure. Uh and this is all uh
primarily due to to the councilwoman's uh efforts. But I I'll take it from the budget account that it was from from a budgeting perspective. Um so that it would be properly reflected. Um because it's going to have to increase the mayor and decrease the account it comes from
and then we'll journal it. Councilwoman uh I'm sorry. Counciloman Ruden. Yes. When when you're done, if you could just say I'm done or something done along that line so we'll know. Uh uh you still have the floor so I didn't want to cut you off.
Neither did I. Thank you. I'm done. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman Castle. Thank you, Council President. Um so to that point with the reorgan organizing of this budget with obviously this being your first year moving to new systems I
would I would hope I'm never assuming anything anymore um that you are going to automatically move things of that nature because it is easier to see when things are from whether it's the mayor's office, the BA's office, you know,
anything that ties to a particular department because otherwise as you know again going over budgets year after year if it's all not consolidated to where it really needs to go it's hard for us to see what is actually coming out of that
department. So, I mean, there's there's going to be a manual process to it. Like the example we're talking about now, I would have to charge it specifically to this account and and change, you know, the way that it was inputed because it's probably
been inputed for the past few years and it just, you know, you you change the account number from 401 to 501 and and you leave all the rest of it. So, there is going to be a lot of like going through and saying, does this belong here or does it belong somewhere else? um
it'll be easier in in the new system um to do those things, but it's still going to require, you know, manh hours to do um to really look through and say, "Hey, is this the right
place to charge it or should it just like the IT, you know, we're going to have to redo it because, you know, it's we've broken it out so much that I think now it's sort of lost some meaning. Um, so yeah, I'm going to have to do,
you know, one probably department at a time and just say are the right vendors being charged here or do we need to reallocate far to that point? Um I without opening up the budget book
right now I would assume an expense like that would go under um public relations or probably and again where now and and to that category all things public relations
does that go under the BAS's you know or did you always have that under one separate department that really nobody oversees? So, which makes it tricky for you. I'm just like in in reorganizing there's so many
little pockets that you need to reorganize that I just wanted to bring it to your attention. Yeah. I I think we're we're probably going to have conversations like this for the next couple years. Like things will pop up and we'll say, "Hey, why why do you charge that to the clerk's
office?" And like, "Well, we've always charged to the clerk's office." And then when you really think about it, it's belong there. it doesn't really belong there. So, it's good to have these exercises and to get the comments like this because it sort of does make you think more about it because it can just
become very automatic certain vendors and certain charges. um you know but we'll do our best to accurately reflect you know and I think most of it is you know most of the vendors and expenses that we have are accurately allocated to the departments they belong to but
there's going to be things that yeah you know maybe we tweak or or maybe it's you know an allocation like 50% goes here and 50% goes there because they're really working with two departments. Um, so we'll do our best to, you know, if if the council points
something out, we'll obviously look into it and if we determine the right move is to change where I charge, you know, we'll we'll certainly do that. Just like Councilwoman Ruden pointing this out. So, great. Thank you. That's it. That was the only point I want to make.
Great. So, as a as a followup, I just wondered if if there's a feeling on the council that we would support a further even a further reduction in in the budget here, the operating budget. Uh, yikes. As an emergency alert for everyone for a
flood, flash flood warning in effect until 7:30. That's good. counters. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order. Do not flee your budget hearing.
Good. Here we're high enough. Although we may we may lose Mr. Smaldo. Um I I know the the council collectively has talked about how we want to try to save as much as we can. Uh given that
the mayor so far has spent $381 from a $2,200 budget, um do you want to uh reduce it by I don't know, would $500 be a reasonable estimate? And again, I don't want to cut
into if there's something coming up in the second half of the year that the mayor wants to to to spend the money on. I I'm good with that. But uh if not, let's pull it out of the budget because it's it all the little one all the little things add up and we're really
trying to get down this this uh budget increase. So, is there any feeling here among the council people? Would $500 be a a more reasonable adjustment to the mayor's budget for for this page here? What what line
you taking out of printing or I I would take out of materials and supplies. Um if I were to reduce anything, just take that line out. Yeah, because I I I think probably last year was a lot of sort of restocking
that office and and getting the admin um the supplies that uh they needed. And uh you know I I think I'll speak for the mayor and and say that um you know I think we can handle $500 and uh
obviously she understands the department heads have made um reductions to their budgets and I'm I'm sure that she would make uh one for this one. Well oh sorry no please go ahead. So to that to that
point with and I know the next page I saw you you're making a couple reductions there. Yes. So with the past couple years with and again this is where do you put all this in regards to marketing campaign which
we talk about marketing the town. We talk about um getting information out there public information. You know you you pass like tree ordinances and things of that nature. you got to get the word out whether it's a a letter in the tax bill. So again, I don't know where
you're pulling those kind of um uh funds out of what line items, but I I don't want us to tap into that too much because as we know, we do have communication issues that we need to get the word out on on many especially as we
change ordinances and um advertise and try to promote the the town. Um it it's not this budget here. It's not this. Okay. Is it the next page that we're looking at with the um not looking at it quite yet. Yeah. If we could just make sure we've Yeah, just just the the mayor's budget.
That's not where we're doing the majority of communicating. And you know, this is a pretty pretty small excuse me um operating expense. And and like I said, we you know, we would I think we could make a $500 deduction to this
budget in particular materials and supplies. All right, I'm good with that then. Sounds good. Councilwoman Ruden, you had your hand up. Yes. Um I would just like to know um what has actually been spent so far in
each of these categories. It's all of it. Uh m Mr. Tiniac said that out of the mayor's total budget, she has spent $381 so far, correct? This year. Um, so we've spent uh
um last year they spent $250 on printing and we've spent $131 on materials and supplies. 131.95. Okay. Then um given given the fact that very little is being spent, uh I would I
would say reduce it by a thousand. We're only 2,200. Oh, you mean the 500? Yes. I'm sorry. Yeah. I think Councilwoman Ruden is saying that instead of reducing the budget by $500, she would like to entertain a
reduction of $1,000. Do I understand that correctly, Councilwoman? That that is correct because you still have another you still have another $700 available. Yeah. And this might be a good time to uh to just remind everyone if they're
not aware or have forgotten that this money if we in the budget process uh is left over on in the line items at the end of the year, the money doesn't disappear. It is not wasted. It goes
pretty much into our surplus and is used going forward. So, uh, often times there's an approach that says we may use it and so we want to leave it in there and at the end of the year if it if we don't use it, it goes
into surplus and and contributes to uh uh future uh expenditures. Uh, but I we essentially have on the floor uh Council Ruden's uh wanted to suggest a cut of $1,000.
Uh there's also uh an offer of $500. I don't want to get into an auction or anything, but what's the sense of the council? Uh Councilman Ruden, you still have the floor, so I don't know whether you wanted to uh say anything else on this or maybe we could get input from the other council people.
Yeah, I would go I would go with the thousand. We need to cut every cent we can to get to zero. Thank you, Councilwoman Scarpa. Uh, Councilwoman Ruden, are are you uh are are you wanting to contribute to the
dialogue or you just want to see what uh the other council people think? It looks like she's offline, dear. Okay. Wonder if Council Castelino. Yeah. So, here's the thing. The mayor's
not here to to defend her budget, but in tw uh 2024, all the monies were spent. Now, I don't know what they were spent on. I guess I've been involved in a lot of activity in regards to things that we
use to promote and to inform the public. So, you you want to cut it, cut it. But at the end of the day, you know, we can't complain that we don't get the word out. and then at the same time, you know, depleted. So, and council president, if I may,
please, will you ask the other departments to to cut the 10 to 15%. If you're asking every department to do it, the mayor's 10 to 15% is not $1,000. That's 50%. I think in fairness to the mayor, she should be given the same consideration as the other departments.
My recommendation too would be if you do 500 I mean that's symbolic enough more than 20 more than the 10 like 20% almost 25%. Yeah. So I'm sorry Counciloman Kessle were you going to say something? Um or even you know again we're wait I
feel like this we're never going to get done with this budget. We're over $500. So, um I guess the CFO made a recommendation to take out line item 110 materials and supplies for 860. Want to just do that and call and we all support
that? Said Oh, you said 500. I said 500. Yeah, 500. Miss Beer, you had your hand raised. Yeah. um representing the board, somebody points out that even if we leave the money in the budget and it reverts to the next year's budget or
whatever other use, um it's still going into the taxes that the taxpayers are paying. Yes. If I didn't make that clear when I was explaining. Yeah. So, uh I'm just going to throw out
another suggestion given what was said. Uh uh we seem to have a distinction between 1,000 and 500. Uh would it be acceptable to a majority of the council to maybe split the difference and go to 750? Fine.
We have a yes from Councilwoman Castelino. How about you guys online? Uh President, excuse me, Councilwoman Scarpa. Uh let the record reflect that Councilwoman uh Ruden has rejoined us. Okay. And uh I'd also just like to take this opportunity to make a brief
announcement. I am getting messages from members in the gallery that um they're not seeing the uh budget screen properly because the participants or I should say the panelists in the uh who are joining us online uh are taking up part of the
screen and I just want it stated that I cannot correct that and this will be my last budget meeting because I'm not going to take the abuse of the emails that I'm getting. So going forward, uh, whoever wants to step into this role as the Zoom moderator for the budget meetings can do so because I've done
everything in my power that I could possibly can for this and I'm not going to take the abuse any longer. Yeah, that's uh well spoken. I haven't seen any of the abuse, but I trust Mr. Fagan. He's been doing this a long time. Folks, we're we're trying our best. And
as we said at the beginning of the meeting, if you can't see the screen here uh on the Zoom, you can go to the township website and all the documents are there in the budget area. You can pop them up on your screen and there
will be no issue with that. I know it's a couple of uh uh keystrokes more, but uh I think Mr. Fagen does a pretty darn good job and does not deserve uh any abuse. Certainly a suggestion would be fine, but uh he has he has tried to
address this uh for a long time and there's just no way for the moderator uh to change that part of the software. So, uh, again, you can go to the township website and, uh, do a search for budget
and all the materials that we're talking about now are there and can be seen, uh, very readily. So, sorry, Council President. So, if you go to west.org, um, here's the front page. Um, and if
you go to departments and we're going to go down to finance. So, this is the new redesign. Yeah. it's a little bit easier to use. So now I'm in the finance um subgroup and if I go to budget
and we have labeled by the budget presentations. So we have today July 14th and you can click that and open up the PDF to look at the um please open
it'll get yelled at. Well, at least people will stop abusing Mr. thing and they'll start abusing you, Mr. D. So that these are the documents we're looking at. You know, you can save these at home. These are PDFs. Um, we have the full budget document. It gets updated
from time to time, but you know, we have all these resources available on the website. You can print these out, you can save them, you can email them. Um, so we put them in a PDF format. Uh, and we are going to be talking about these different departments uh tonight. So, if
you're having a hard time viewing it from from the the Zoom um and a lot of times it's how you configure your own personal um Zoom dashboard. You don't have to see the panelists. You can just focus on the screen. Um I know it can be
a little bit difficult to use, but if you're having trouble at home, please go to the website. Please download the document that we're looking at tonight. It's not going to be everything that we look at tonight. I'm going to go back and forth maybe to some different screens, but for the most part the we're
focused on um is going to be this PDF. So, um you know, thank you, Mr. Fagen. And just to point out, M council President, and in the event people don't know, the doors are open till the time the presentation's open, they can come
join us if they if they want to. And I'm extending that invitation. I'm not It's not sarcastic. It's just that we do keep this open for people to join us and and they're more than willing to come down and sit here and witness it. We we have supplies for them so they could see everything here as well. So, I just want to make sure we let the public know
that. Thank you. We we now return to our regularly scheduled uh meeting and uh need to sort of come out with uh with a number here. I think uh I've heard uh two
uh two supports for $1,000. I think that should be perhaps where we start with a with a motion and we'll just take a vote and see what we want to do. Yeah, we'll wait. Yeah. Um Madame Clerk, uh do I hear a motion?
I will make a motion that uh we that we consider and vote on uh reducing the mayor's budget by $1,000. And so I move that. Is there anybody who will second that? I'll second it.
Thank you, Councilwoman. And uh now to for final discussion. I see Councilwoman Ruden wants to speak. Please, you have the floor. So sorry, I just wanted a vote. Okay. Is if there's not any more
discussion, uh, we can move to a vote. Madam Clerk, Councilwoman Castelino, I'm going to say yes for the sake of Let's keep this rolling. Councilwoman Ruden, yes. Just interrupt myself. Uh, we had a discussion about this last uh at the
last budget workshop. Early on in this whole process, I can't remember the first or second workshop. A majority of the council at the time voted to not take votes. And uh and then there was some um rethinking of that and there seemed to
be a majority who wanted to take votes. And uh we had to make sure that the way that we noticed to the public what the budget workshop was and was not in terms of of uh of this
uh impacts whether we can continue to take votes or we can switch. But in any case, we need a vote to change the way we're not voting. And I'm not sure uh given where we stand now. Madam clerk. Yeah, I put on the notice that action
may be taken. Okay. So, we're good for that. So, before we take a vote on this particular budget, we need to take a vote uh on whether we want to start taking votes on the budget. Oh, okay. Does that sound right to everybody?
Yeah. As crazy as it sounds, it's right. So, I'm I I I've never been in a situation where one motion is we're in the midst of one motion, but we need to take another we need to consider another motion before we can get back to that. Madam clerk, any guidance on that? We
just set it aside and we'll I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. I would imagine. Let's I Let's make a motion to to start voting. I understand that, but but there's already a motion and a second on the floor and we're in the middle of a vote.
Yes. And I I I think what we need to do I think what we need to do is there's been two votes for $1,000. If the two of us vote against that it's a two to2 tie. The motion fails then we can go back and take the vote on on uh whether we want
to take a vote. I mean I'm not even sure this is legitimate at this point. But I mean it says action may be taken. So you don't really need to vote on whether you want to vote. We discussed that at the last meeting. We voted to vote. I believe that if you put action to be taken on your on your
notice that you can take action so you don't have to go through Yeah. I don't think you do that. I think you can just continue with the vote. That sounds good. And the reason too council president I you know we're there's been a lot of clock on how four of us can't make a decision and I'm going to I'm going to
prevent all ties if possible and help my colleagues if if you know that they they realize as well like you know let's try not to have any ties and let things die. It's try to work it out with quick conversation uh so we could get this this budget done.
Agreed. So we've now had two votes uh from our two Zoom correspondents. No, we had one from Councilwoman Castelino Councilwoman Ruden. Now Councilwoman Scarpa. Yes. And Council President Karpiaak. Can I just ask where the where the vote
stands at this point? 30 three for $1,000 then I agree. No thousand. Yeah. All right. The motion carries. Okay. The motion carries. We're going to
reduce the budget by $1,000. Right. And just so everyone knows, once the vote starts to be taken, there's not supposed to be any conversation. So that's all right. Going forward. Yes. Totally agree. Thank you. Next, Mr. Deniak.
Um, okay, Council President. So, uh, I've, um, I've captured the $1,000 increase and, uh, you know, decrease. Did I say increase? Decrease. Thousand decrease. And, uh,
and sorry. And, uh, just seeing if we were paying attention. He's going to need a vacation. We'll jump in. Um, okay. So, it's in it's in my materials obviously in the PDF. It's not going to be reflected until we revise,
but it's it's in my materials. Um, the next uh the next department I want to look at is uh the business administrator um operating expenses. Um recommend.
Well, we already we we did make um a significant number of of reductions to uh the business administrator's budget from what we first presented. Um so we made cuts of $18,55.74 um bringing it down to $160,685.
um you know the the big driver in in the I don't want to say I I guess there is an increase obviously but um the big driver is that um we're utilizing our grant consultants in a in a in a larger
way. Um the township has a significant number of federal, state, and county grants. um many of which the last couple years they've sort of uh I don't want to say fallen by the wayside but you know
there's a lot of administrative work that's involved with the grants um and we're involving Millennium uh in more of that administrative work. So we're asking for more um from our grant consultants. Yes. I just want to sorry
council president to to his point just so my colleagues understand that the state has a new program and I know because working with Miss Brill and uh Miss Van Djk it's called Sage and it's it's very labor intensive so it's great that we get in all these
grants but uploading into the system and utilizing that that SAGE program is a lot of work for us and I believe the grant consultant has been assisting with us as of uh of late. So, um
yeah, so we utilize Yeah, there's there's three different SAGE programs that we utilize. Um Sage Green, which is the DCA, uh Sage Blue, which is the Division of Highway and Traffic Safety, and and now there's uh Sage D. Um we
also have several federal systems um that we have to utilize and um related to mostly our law enforcement grants. Uh there's county administrative work on CDBG and um uh obviously there's the DOT
system, the PMRS which I believe is is their system. Um so there's a lot to manage and you know we felt that um again some of the grants um in the last few years have sort of fallen by the wayside and this is a way for us to get
up to speed and and get these things well the problem with the grants and and this is not just West Orange is many municipalities it's very easy to spend the grant money it's more difficult to get the reimbursement
um because most of the grants you get the money after you spend. Um, so you have to submit all the proper paperwork and and um hit all your milestones so that you get that money back. So, we're very good just like everyone else of spending the grant money. Uh, it's it's
the getting it back that's the the hard part. So um not easy. So that's uh and obviously we have the communications officer um is is part of this budget and you know those are the major drivers. It's the grant consultant
and the communications officer. Um the township physician is part of that but we we did reduce down um the ask to what we spent in the prior year. Um, I have a couple questions.
Uh, just a second. Miss Bayer, please. So, I just wonder if you could explain why the large somewhat larger increases on the communications officer line and the employee education line. Um, so the communications officer, I
think the role is exp. Oh, you want to go? Sorry. Well, um that's a vendor position and um so we we've advertised for that position and um it's a yearly contract and so this year the the there's going to be an increase to the contract and so we were adjusting it um
in anticipation of receiving um some bids. We're in the process right now of finalizing that and it could be up to anywhere up to that about that amount of money. We haven't actually awarded it yet, so we're anticipating it being about that amount of money. Um, it could
be less. Uh, but we have we're just waiting for we just rebid it the other day. Um, and um, so and I believe we we're anticipating to come back within 10 days of I think last Friday, correct? I think it was. Yeah. Yeah. So, so whatever day that would be
is the 11th to the 21st. I guess it's it's due back and then we can award it. Um and then the the township employee is the training of of our personnel. We have had a big changeover in our personnel with leadership and people in other roles and you know mid-level
managers and and senior management. Um and we're providing training uh ongoing continuing training for our our personnel. Uh we some of this is specialty training. Um we do have training going on now through our GIF. uh we just we're we're uh requiring our
employees to do online training which is part of our GIF but there there's specialized training and that's associated with this and it could be anything from housing it could be you know it could be from health whatever the case may be but it it's all uh related to um developing our our staff
and and we've spent $14,542 to date on employee education. So, you got to remember we've had some change in in positions too in the last year or so. And you know, so we're we're we're getting our staff up to speed and it takes time.
I just got my assignment today. Yes, we pushed out new uh new training modules. Counciloman Castle, I think you have the floor. I'll get to you in just a second, Councilman Scarpa. So, okay, great. I'm glad you explained the
uh training because I that was one of my questions. Uh subscriptions um you know other than what is it the the le the league I mean what or that had its own line league has its own line item. Yeah.
Yeah. So, is there anything could we do better on subscriptions or that's for So, yeah, we we've spent to date on the subscriptions and supplements $1,082. Um, so, you know, maybe we could cut another
$500 out of there. And then, um, marketing campaign line, uh, 2011. Mhm. So, exactly the 5410,
what did that go to? Because I know downtown does some marketing for the township as well. Like what what exactly did this do we know what this went to, Mr. Smaldo, or some of it goes to social media and things of that nature, promoting the
town and things of that nature? Um, and I believe what's the other that we're utilizing to help us with social media. I I can't think of the top of my head. Top of my head. I I apologize. Um, but that's that's what we're using it
basically for to help promote the township. Okay. And we've spent $3,200 to date. 3,200. Is that for the video clips? That I don't have the detail. I should have printed the detail. I only have this. Yeah. I'm curious to know the summary for it
what that went to only because I again I I think you could if we only spent how and we spent up to 3,200 this year. I would say we could decrease the 9,000.
Um I know we did the welcome to West Orange video. Um, so we we did cut 4,500 from it. So, yeah. So, we're down to the 45. Yeah.
Yeah. So, was that was that line the old line for the old social media coordinator, Mr. uh um the one company we had um with Mayor Prey? Did that line No, I believe that was under communication. I don't That's under communication. I don't
think he was under mark. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think I could see us cutting another I would bring that down to 7,000 at least 2,000 out of that. I I don't
want to cut it all out. Um because it is, like I said, there's if we do things right, we got the new target opening up. There's a lot of things we need to properly do that we have not been doing. And so you need some money that's there
for it, but I could see us taking another 2,000 out of that. That's what I'm going to make a motion for out of the marketing campaign. Yeah. Um the only thing is we we've cut it down to 4500 and we've spent 3,200.
Oh, I'm sorry. It was cut down at No, no, we cut the 4,500. Yes. No, then that I'm okay with. Okay, leave it. I'm sorry. I'm looking in the wrong wrong column then. Are you rescending your motion? I'm going to rescend it. Yeah, I'm looking at the 9,000 number right now.
4500. That's good then. Okay. Yeah, I'm done. Councilwoman Scarpa. Yeah. I just want to better understand what this communication officer is. I don't clearly understand it. We've got an RFQ out for this position.
Yes. It's basically What do they do? And is it something Mr. Yeah, it's Mr. Fagan, council woman. That's what it really is. It's the job of Mr. Fagan to help out with the with the communications of the township and this
is the current he he is the current officer and uh providing the service and we have to go out on a yearly basis and this is really he's he's we're looking to solidify this contract again. So this is in addition to his salary. This is like extra stuff.
Mr. Fagan Mr. Fagan is a is a vendor. He is not a salaried employee. He does not receive compensation other than what is in this particular contract and he does not receive any uh healthcare benefits. Okay. So this is his whole whole salary. Correct. You're telling me?
Okay. All right. I just didn't understand what it was. I I didn't want another consultant, you know, that we may or may not need. You're done. Councilwoman? Yes, I am. Thank you. Councilman Ruden.
Okay. Um, why are there two categories for advertising? I don't know. It's just the way it was set up. Um, I don't know if it had a different title at some point when it was created.
Okay. So, first of all, I'd like to see those two categories merged, and I'd like some more information. What What has actually been spent on advertising? So, between the two of them, we've spent uh $1,295.36. And what was that for?
I don't have the detail of of what we've spent on it. I I apologize. I I suspect it is things like the the the Chronicle, things of that nature when we have to go out to bids and things of that that nature when we have to advertise in in the in the um the
medium. So that's where this advertising may be coming out of um and with the new change in the state law next year may be a little bit different where we can start um doing it ourselves and advertise because that's what the governor just signed recently. Um but until then we have to do our
advertisement um online until we can we can start going into a hybrid system now as once the law goes into effect. I think it's another week or so. Oh yeah. Right. He signed it recently and it goes 20 days in effect after that. So um so but this is more of the advertising
in the local newspapers things that nature for the big bids and things of that that Yeah. It won't be in full effect until March of 2026. Right. So Okay. But and we are going to be advertising online on our own on our own. Yeah, we're going to have to develop along with the clerk. We're going to
have to de develop a policy on how to do this. We have to talk to our legal some municipalities are jumping into it right now. Um but they we we've heard that they've had some struggles with getting it correctly. So we're going to so we're going to we're going to plagiarize off other people and see how they do it right and wrong and and then implement
it accordingly. Okay. So I'm a little confused. Is the amount that you're requesting um 5,000 or is it um 20 2750? 2750. Yeah. Okay. So, I'd like to see I'd like to
see that combined, these two categories combined since you've only spent a,000. Um I would like like to suggest that another thousand come off of that. But can I just continue with my comments or do we have to go one at a time to take
to make a motion? I would second that. Well, you have to uh you'd have to make the motion first, but uh Councilman Ruden, you have the floor. If you want to go to a motion now, great. If you want to wait and get a list of all the expenditures and and make a decision
further down the road, we could do that. Well, you have the floor. Okay. So, I'm going to make a motion to um combine the advertising um categories 030 and 031 and bring the
total amount down to$,750 for I for that category. Have discussion. Yes, certainly. But first, we need a second. She said I second it. Yeah, Beaker Bon. So, we have a second uh and we have discussion. So, so here's where
I feel with all of this, and I appreciate my colleagues. You know, you're making a pledge to go zero increase, which is really awesome, but again, I'm going to defer to the CFO. If you could get this lower and you're okay, we're living, you need to give us
indication. I don't want to be in a situation where we um are getting to a point where we're dealing with bond rating and I but I also don't want to get to a point where you you you know where we could go lower and and
to to help our taxpayers. So you got you got to just tell us here is that okay? I I I get the thousand. Um it sounds great, but again, if we don't have enough money for advertising, it comes out of somewhere else. So, you're going
to have to be my guide tonight of where you want to go with this because there every line item they're going to want to cut, which I could support if we could operate with uh uh successfully for the rest of the year. So, I've I've said publicly that I don't
think getting to zero is possible. I don't think it's a good idea. I think the number we're at now is is a little bit lower than I want to be. Um, but I understand the revaluation. Um, yeah.
So, I understand. Um, I also gave um what I feel is a significant number of cuts. Uh, $28,55. So, that's what I feel that this budget
should be. So anything additional is is really on the council. Um we will make it work. Uh that's what government does. We do more with with less. Um so whatever you decide as a council,
we're bound by and we'll make it work. Um that's that's really all I can say. um you know if I thought if I thought we would cut more and be okay I would have increased I I would have decreased more
from those two line items. So um and again back to my statement before we asked all our departments to drop our budgets by 10 to 15% and as you can see Mr. Diniac brought you down 15.34% in this budget before whatever other
considerations you may have this evening. So we we are we are listening and we're doing what you've asked. So um it's it's been attained based on your recommendation and and and ask and we did that. Anything more than that that's that's your your call
and you and between those two line items you already spent about 1300 for Yeah. 1,295. So that would be 2600 if we were to times that by two and there's 2750.
I'm going to ask my colleagues to 2615. Yeah. The point the point that you're making, Councilwoman, is that we've spent roughly half of the amount that's in there now. Yeah. And if we cut a,000 from that, that's going to leave us with, I think, roughly
$400 left in the in the uh uh in the budget for the remainder of the year. And uh that may be cutting it a little uh too close. Is that the do I understand that correctly? Sure. It didn't act. Okay.
Is there anyone else who wants to join in discussion or are we ready to move to a vote? I guess we're ready to move for a vote. Okay. Councilwoman Castelino. Yeah. On this line item, I'm going to have to say no uh to my colleagues. I think Councilwoman Ruden,
yes. Councilwoman Scarpa, yes. Council President Koviaak, I would uh I would also like to avoid uh ties when it when it comes to this. Um but I I so I'm going to I'm going to
vote yes, but uh I expect that we'll be moving money over into this because I I just think we're cutting it too close given Yeah. the facts that we have now. Okay, the motion carries. So, I did combine the two line items and
then decreased um 031 by a thousand. Thank you, Mr. Tiniac. And anybody else have any further comment on this page? Yes, I do, but I have to pull up my my um
chart so I see it. I'm so sorry. Um, that's okay. Actually, if somebody else wants to go while I I think I'm gonna I'm gonna stop for a second. You'll if you can come back to me. I do have some other comments, but I can't I can't see it right now. Right. And just as a reminder, please just raise your hand and let Mr. Fagan
and then me uh recognize you just to keep a little bit better order. Councilwoman Scarpa. Yeah. I just um am thinking out loud and I kind of have a general question. Have we ever done an assessment of, you know, all of the grants that we've gotten,
what the cost of getting those grants has been? Have we itemized all of our costs for the grant writers and all of these services that we need to actually do the work because I think that might be something that might worth be looking at in the
future. you know, the grant writers do give us reports to say, you know, how much they've they've brought in and generated and the number the amount of grants that we get per year is in the millions of dollars. So, um, you know, at least from
the perspective of hiring a grant consultant and what we're getting from it, it the value of the grants far exceeds the value of of of the grant writer. Now, you know, the the bigger question is, is it worth getting the
grants because there's all these other costs associated with people's time? And um that's my thinking. You know, have we ever The grant consultant themselves, they're definitely worth it. Um the like I said we average probably four five million
dollars a year in grants between DOT and CDBG and uh um you know we've had some heavy hitter grants that no other municipality has gotten um like the mental health grant that we got for our PD
um you know that was like a national grant. Sorry Councilwoman that's okay. Councilwoman Yeah. Okay. I mean, I I'm just thinking like for small grants, you know, if there's all these computer programs and
stuff that are taking a lot of time, you know, some may or may not be worth, you know, looking at. I just I I'm sure we don't have all that information right now, but I was just thinking out loud. It would be good to know. Councilwoman,
yeah, I could help you out with that, Councilwoman. So, Okay, great. Um, so what I what I really like about Millennium and working with Katherine Capora and and her staff is there's been times where myself and
other uh former colleagues would put in for uh ask about certain grant opportunities, awards, and she would respond back just not worth it, not worth the time, not worth the the the money. And I think the evaluations are
done in the beginning of the process. Um because that's where you need to make the determination what it you know do you have to have a match a match? Do we have to have a match? Do we have to hire um support staff for a grant? So all
those determinations are supposed to be done um in the beginning of a grant cycle and Okay, great. Yeah. So, I know grants have been, you know, we haven't went to get um, you know, move forward with quite a few
because it just wasn't worth the reward in Okay, thanks. That's just what I wanted to know. Are we making good business decisions? You know, are we looking at the return on investment we're getting of our time? And thank you. That's very helps clarify. And Councilwoman, just to let you know,
I I don't see it right now. I I got to find it. But I did send you a copy of the latest report um of what we've what we've received from Millennium, what we where they're at, what they're what we whether we've actually applied for it or reasons why. So there are there is document there for you. I I can't find
on my phone right now, but okay, look for I can resend it to you, but I would I would check just check your emails for that's something from me like around the uh end of June, early July. I know I know I sent it around that time for you. All right. Thank you. I just want I'm glad to know somebody's looking at it
from a business perspective. Thanks. Yeah. And just to follow up before uh I give the floor to Councilwoman Ruden, uh two things. First, that's a huge document. They track and they're working a lot of grants, so it's worthwhile to look at it. And I also believe the
contract states that the in order for them to keep in order for them to meet requirements of the contract, they have to generate a certain amount of what they are considered new grants during
the year uh in order to uh you know meet the specifications of the contract. Part of the issue of course with a with grants is that the process can take many months uh to actually bring to fruition. So it's a little bit difficult
to test. Uh but uh I just wanted to sort of especially the federal yes federal get it under a year. Uh Councilwoman Ruden. Yes. Uh thank you. Um so I'd like to get back to I was going down the down the
line um for line item 081. subscriptions that is for the League of Municipalities and we already dealt with that in a prior meeting. So, what other subscriptions are there? Why is why is
that in this budget at all? I I don't know if this is for the league. Um I I don't have the detail of this particular account, but we do have the league set up broken out in a separate
uh line item. So I I don't I don't know from from what I'm being told is that part of it has to deal with our subscriptions to the local newspapers. One of them was the Chronicle. It was the was the ledger which is no longer in play. Um and we also um and I believe
it's something to do with our EEO EEOC compliance as well. So but we could get the details on that. We've spent $1,082 on this line. Okay. So, I don't really see a lot of expenditure for a Chronicle subscription
or or a Star Ledger subscription, which is just online. And we already dealt with the the legal municipalities, which was over $1,000. So, I'd like to see this really reflect what it is.
So, Council, so I'm sorry, I thought you were finished. Please go ahead. No, that's it. I I the legal municipalities is not in there. That's the biggest chunk. The Chronicle subscription and the um Star Ledger
subscription is very little. So, how can this be so large? I'd like to see this I'd like to see this cut. Mr. Tiniac, will you take So, I'm going to I'm going to I'm sorry. Please go ahead. I'd like to get some more information on what these
subscriptions actually are. Okay. So, I appreciate that it's that it's being reduced, but yeah, we we'll cut it to 1200 if that's okay with the council. You don't even have to vote. That's fine. I'm going to make a motion to cut this to 1,200.
Mr. Tin, I said that's not necessary. We We'll cut it so you don't have to vote if that's Okay. Okay. Fine. So, I'd like to understand what is the employee assist program? The employee assistant program is to assist our employees if those who are u
need assistance outside the the scope of work in a private uh manner that they they have troubles um in their personal lives and we can help them out with many different facets whether it be um family problems or or other um
health health issues or things of that nature. without getting into too much. Isn't that something that should be coming from the U mayor Sunshine Fund? That's for residents. That's for residents. The mayor Sunshine Fund. This is where this is where employees this I believe this is a subscription to to join this particular
this particular association. And u you know that's what this is really about. What association? The employees. It's the employees um employees association New Jersey I think is the title. EA O E O N I think that's the name of it.
What service do they So it's a service. It's a service. It's a service that we provide to our employees. That's what it is. It's to help them with their maintain their mental and and physical well-being. So we're not giving them No, this is not part of their health benefits. It's something additional. This is outside this is outside the
scope of that. This this is just a subscription to belong to the association that that helps provide or this this uh organization that helps provide assistance to our employees. Right. I'm I'm just not I'm not understanding how they how this is needed since all of our employees have
such great benefits and such good good health benefits including mental health. This is just another resource to help our our staff. Is this all all employees have have access to
mental health? Oh, can you give a situation when this service was needed or an example? I cannot. Okay. Yeah, it's confidential. You just refer to a third provider. Uh mainly uh different forms of
counseling and uh and and related assistance. That's that's if you want to cut $1,000 this association then then cut it. But it's just it's it's something that we provide we have provided for employees ever since I've been here. So it's that's up to you.
I'm just not sure that that this is that this is being used and um I'm not really getting any information that it that it is uh a benefit to to our employees. So I I guess unless I have other information, I would say that I'd like
to to cut this. I'm sorry. I did not keep I did not hear the last uh 10 seconds of what you said. Council room, could you just repeat that the air conditioning is a little loud right now. I'm sorry. Um I I I am not getting information that this
is necessary. Um so I don't think that you need to subscribe to this and I'd like to suggest that this be removed. Okay. Well, we have we we have the option and and you have the floor, but we have the option of getting more information and then making a more
informed decision or you can uh make a motion uh uh at this point if if you'd like. I'm going to make a motion to remove this. I think that we have very good health benefits for our employees. I'll second I'll second it.
I'm sorry. They've made a motion to remove the uh the service employee assist program. Can I ask a question? Yes, please. We're if we've got a motion and a second. So now we're discussing at this point. I assume I'm going to assume that uh you
have paid for this begin the year. We have not we have not paid for anything yet. Um there's nothing charged against this line item. So, I mean, if if it was paid for, maybe it went against a different line item, but um I'm not showing anything charged. So,
that gives me even more reason to say that if you're not using it, please folks, please folks, please folks, the floor, please raise your hand on Zoom. I know it's I know it's hard, but just raise your hand. For the sake of us all working together, I need more information on it before I
vote, so I'm not I'm not voting on it tonight. I'll pass or whatever. Abstain. Is there any further discussion? Councilwoman Scarpa. Yeah. To me, if nobody knows what this is and can't describe the benefit and if
we've never used it to date and we're in the third quarter, I think we should cut it. I didn't say we we didn't use it. All I said was I can provide get you the better information, give you the detail before you make the decision. If you want to cut it, then you cut it. But it's just that this has been a program
that we provided. I don't have the specific details of this particular program. I can get it for you before you make a decision. Um, but that's that's the the decision of this council to make. So who who is this a professional organization
oneman show? Who who organizes this? It's not a oneman show. It's a company called the Employees Assistance Association of New Jersey. I believe that's the title. I'll get you the exact title. I can get you the information, you know, to provide it to you. If you'd like, if you want to make that as an informed decision, um I just don't have
all the information for you at hand right now. Okay. Then I then I say that we table this until we have proper information. I'd also like to know if this program is required for us to to provide. Um, so I'm going to make a motion to to table
this and I would request that this that we come back and get better information. Didn't I already do that? Okay, I'll second to table it. Okay, let let's let's try to get this straight here, okay? Because this this meeting is going out of control and
if you're on Zoom, please raise your digital hand and be recognized before you speak. It it it is that okay with everybody? Absolutely. Okay. So, what we have right now Thank
you. What we have right now is we have a motion on the floor and it's been seconded. We've been discussing it and my understanding in Robert's rules is that once the motion has been made and seconded, you have to follow through
with a vote. So, I don't think you can make the motion and then as uh Councilwoman Ruden suggested uh table it. Uh but Madame Clerk, I have to defer to you. I don't have my Robert's rules with me. I think that if you didn't want to
follow through, you can the the person who made the motion originally can resend and then the second person would also resend their vote. I think that's how it goes. Okay, did everybody hear that? We can resend the motion. the the the mover can
resend the motion and then the person who seconded can resend the motion. Is that what you would like to do? I'm just going to call on Councilwoman Ruden because she's the one that made the motion. Yes, I I'll resend that motion
and I'll resend my second motion. And I'll resend my second. Found it. Super. So, uh at this point, uh Mr. Diniac and Mr. SMARD are going to take a to do to provide as much information as they can about the program and uh we
will take this up uh again at a later at a later uh budget workshop meeting like a plan. Yes, Councilwoman Castle. So on the state website, employee assistant program employee assistant program services
include prevention, identification, intervention, and followup on workrelated or personal concerns that affect job performance or balancing a healthy lifestyle. Circumstances at home can spill over into work life just as difficulties on the job can affect relationships at home if not address
issues that were once minor can become more serious. Uh we are experienced at listening, asking the right question. So it's it's it's again a it's a resource provided by the state I so can you that it is and the name of the company is employers
association in New Jersey at 293 Eisenhower Parkway sweet 345 Livingston New Jersey. So if you could get us information I'll get you more directly and then we can make get you the direct information as to what this service is and and I assume this is confidential so
we wouldn't know this is also service that can help us provide things such as training and things of that nature. It's a service. It's an overall encompassing service, not just employees assistance in that case. But I I'll get before I go telling you all the different things they do and don't do. I'll get Let me just get you the information. I think that would help
move this along. And also to my you know, again, we're trying to streamline the budget to my I I get what my uh colleagues are doing. Uh and at the same token, it could be a great program, but if no one is utilizing, can we find that out that
information? Yep. because if no one is utilizing it then maybe we don't support it but if people are utilizing it I think we need to reconsider that. Thank you Councilman Scarpa. I basically had the same statement.
Let's find out how many people actually utilize it. Okay. Thank you. Are are you done? I'm done. Miss Mayor, I think you were somewhere in the queue. No, thank you. My question has been answered.
Okay, great. Councilman Ruden. Yes. Hi. Um, so um I I wanted to continue down the extra $28,000 for grant consultants. Is that going to a particular person or is that going also
to Millennium? That's to Millennium. Okay. So, they will be they're they're going to be doing more followth through on the grants. Yes, they have in their contract um uh
um I can't think of the word. They put in their contract uh the ability to perform more administrative duties for an increased fee. And so, we're looking to take advantage of that for this year. So we we put in more.
I think that's great because I I I think that we have lost sight of some um reimbursement for grants and it's really important. Um what is calculator and miscellaneous? I forgot to ask that one. I thought that
who uses a calculator? I use an adding machine sometimes. I do. I like the adding machine actually. Mo most of the desks in my office actually have adding machines, but I think that's what it was for. It was for adding machines. It's more of like
a an office supply. Okay. Line item. So, I'd like to see that eliminated. Um, is there is there I mean you all have your machines, right? We actually haven't spent anything from
them. Okay. So then then I'd like to eliminate that entire amount. Um but I'm not going to make a motion to do that yet. I want to just be able to continue further down. Um what are PR
commission expenses? Oh, public relation commission's expenses. I don't know what that's I I could speak to that. Yeah, we we have not spent anything this year under that that line item.
Council Ruden, why why is there a request for $2,500 on the leazison? I could speak to Well, we're requesting 2,000 this year. Councilwoman Ruden, uh Councilwoman Castelino is the liaison. Uh perhaps she
can if if you'll yield the floor. She's uh would would like to sort of add in at this point. Is that okay? Absolutely. Sure. So, so for years in the budget, that line item was higher. It was when I first uh uh came on the commission. It
was at $6,000. And at that time, the uh the former uh communications officer utilized that as part of her budget. Um, one of the bigger expenses back then was a trifold that um, we have that's actually still
in the lobby that needs to desperately needs to be updated about the township. So, it's it's some of those marketing materials and supplies that um is essential um but needs desperately to be
updated and the commission has been um um really hasn't had the opportunity because of budget freezes to do that project. Um they were in the middle of it last year. Uh what they did do when COVID hit, they utilized that to buy the
when we the township went to well the state did to no uh you know no more plastic bags. They went out and they purchased the um and gave away at any town event the um the shopping bags for people to use um giving them to seniors
or whatnot. So they utilize they get a small budget for different promotions uh that they may need to do. Um last year we didn't do anything that costs money. We use supplies up that were there
prior. Do they need a budget? I ideally if they don't have the budget, it come come from the administration's office. But I mean, time to time, if we're going to continue and promote the township, they're they're going to need
about a,000 to $2,000. Whether you leave it in this budget or put it in the BA's office, it's up to the council, I guess. I think it's endeavor. This is This is the BA's budget, isn't it?
Well, this is the BA. Yes, I'm sorry. So, that's where it is. Like we had folders. There's a folder that we give to the real litters. We do the we did the real litter openhouse. That's one of our projects. Um restaurant week is one of our projects. We also didn't have to utilize the money
uh the past couple years as much too because Miss Bril has been successful in uh obtaining grants for marketing. And so we've been uh you know the downtown has been partnering with the town uh because they did get a town contribution
from the town that actually was taken away this year 20,000 in the beginning of the year. So I'm not sure how generous downtown can be with these type of endeavors, partnership endeavors, but that's you know part of the you know the
success that the downtown has had uh assisting the township. So again, you could snip it away. That's great. But we do at some point in time need to promote our town in some aspects. So I'll leave that to you guys. Well, I I
said since so much of our of our advertising is done for free online and um that I I would suggest cutting cutting this in half, especially since nothing nothing has been um spent so
far. So, I'm I'm just I just want to council woman. Yeah, please go ahead council. yielded it to at to Counciloman Castelino, but you have you still have it.
Okay. So, so my contention is that a lot of this stuff can be done for free online. Um, and that in a time of of really hard time for for our community that this is not necessary. So, I would I would say cut this budget.
I I yield back to you. Um, Councilwoman, thank Do you see my hand up? No. Okay, you do. I'm sorry. I just I don't think anybody saw my hand. Whenever you're finished, I'd like to speak on this. Thank you, Councilwoman. I'll just make
one more point. Listen, you know, um to renew the websites, subscriptions, um part of that comes out of that. It's it's not a lot of money, and I get it. I know we're trying to get things down. It's been a terrible year. But part of
promoting the town is is for our businesses as well. I I mean it's it's and and the better they do and the you know the more resources we bring in for them um the more investors we
have. So I I I like to see you leave $1,000 in there. It's it's not much, but it will help with some of this uh the subscriptions of the website for restaurant week. So, if you could leave that in there, that would be helpful. Council Ruden, you still have the floor.
Okay. Yeah. Um I I'm still Council Councilwoman Kesino, I'm really not not sure still what this money is being spent on. Um for you're saying for promotion of businesses. Um why is why
is that falling under the business? It's a township event. West Orange Restaurant Week is a township event that So, two two of two big events that um that the public relation commission
uh pro uh uh is responsible for is West Orange Restaurant Week that they work with the downtown and also real open house. Every other year we've been doing a real litter openhouse. We're due we're due to do one this coming year. Um,
again, it it just supports minor fees. We don't spend a lot of money, but just minor fees on literature. I mean, I know you say everything's online, but not everything's online. You know, we sometimes need hard packets um of
information to be given to people because not everybody's online with everything. I I know that's ideal to you, but that's not a reality. I'll give you a perfect example. You know, every year we have an event at um at Washington School uh for the holiday
openhouse, and I ask every single parent that comes through how they hear about the event. And it was the flyer in the backpack that had to get printed up. It wasn't It wasn't Facebook. It wasn't Instagram. It was the flyer in the backpack. So, I hear you. You don't want
to promote the town and just do it online. I don't think that works. I think you need a little bit of money and I think it goes a long way for the little bit of money you're spending helps to support to, you know, helps our our business owners who have been struggling the past few years and it
also helps our residents um uh participating in fun events for the township. So again, you know, you want to I'm not I'm not going to argue on it. Okay. So, just I I just want I just want to respond. I absolutely do want to
support our businesses and I do want to support um PR for our town. That's that's really not the issue. But my question is, isn't the the restaurant week, isn't that something that is promoted by the downtown alliance and
from the downtown alliance um budget? So, we partner with with that with the town. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I was answering her question. I'm sorry, Councilwoman. For the realtors, don't the Don't the realtors advertise? And shouldn't that be covered with their with their
advertising? It It's for the town. It's to get proper information out for the town. So, if you ever town of the real o attended the real open house, it is uh we host at Liberty Middle School. We have uh the
superintendent with his support staff give a a information about our schools to the realer and then the mayor I have Miss Bril say a few words about the downtown and uh whatever else we decide is important about redevelopment and to give them correct information because
unfortunately with the internet there's a lot of misinformation on the internet and and so just giving the you know proper information out having handouts um and things of that nature it really goes a long way and uh it it and that's
the charge of the PR commission is to get information from the outside of town to track people from outside of town into our township and that's their biggest task. Um and so they need a little tiny tiny tiny uh bit of seed
money. Uh like I said, you want to cut that to a thousand that's fine. Um, and downtown, again, downtown has been doing a lot of the marketing PR, but part of that was for the uh PR they've been
receiving. And the money that the township um again, we didn't have, we didn't even make $20,000 to give back to the downtown for the 20,000 that was taken out at the beginning of the year of the downtown budget. So, um, again,
I'm not sure how generous we're going to be able to be with with picking up the slack in the marketing, uh, for the township. So, I wouldn't cut these so low. You get a lot for for what you could do with the $1,000, $2,000 for the
township goes a long way in in return towards the township. I don't think this money's ever been uh abused or or spent incorrectly. And and I'm telling you, I we started out with 6,000 in the commission and it was lowered um because
we don't, you know, I I recommend to them all the time, but they always have ideas of how they want to spend money and I I always tell them no. So, we only spend it where it's absolutely needed. So, I would appreciate if you could leave at least $1,000 on that line item.
I think the two is fair, but that's all I'm going to say. when it comes to to to okay yeah we have a lot a lot of ground to cover I I think a compromise there is is fine um I and I'd like to revisit this obviously next year when we see what
what is actually being used um so the the next thing is that what is the marketing campaign then what is that being used for if that's not part of the PR commission expenses
well that's I had asked if heard the be beginning. I know it's hard with the in uh you you on Zoom, but I had asked for information more information on that because I wanted to know that as well. What exactly came out of the mayor's office with with that $5,400? I I don't
know. And I don't know what was spent this year. So, but I believe council and is there any information on that? They said no. They're going to get back to us on We're going to provide you that information. Okay. So finally I just want to wh why
is the township physician under the business administrator's office? That is for because anytime we hire a new um a member of the of the township we have to we are responsible for pro uh conducting the physicals whether it be
police, fire or any other department. Um and some departments require certain tests over others. Um so we have to and it's all based on HIPPA. So the administration is responsible for all confidential medical records.
How much have we actually spent to date, Mr. Dutiniac? So to date, uh, against the township physician line item is only $90. Didn't hire anybody yet. Only $90 for the township physician.
It should be more than that because I know we've we've done hiring, but that's that's all that's I'm seeing charged against the line item as of today. We've hired a lot of people this year. Well, we'll have to look into that because we've hired a lot of people this year.
Okay. Well, I I understand you've hired, but if they haven't been using our township physician, I I don't want to keep 1500. We use the township township physician for all of our um pre-screening applications,
pre-employment screening applications. Is this for the um care station that we've we've gotten bills for? Sometimes it is depending on the u the services we have to have. We we send most of our our potential employees to our township physician. Um but sometimes
we have to send them up to care station for either on the job injuries um or um in the case like our um employees that are have a CDL license, it is mandatory that if they get into a motor vehicle accident, we have to do a post u
accident uh your analysis to ensure that that they're compliance with their license and things of that nature. So there are some services that we have to you utilize the the care station cuz they're they're open on a greater more uh hours than than our township
position. And then those costs, you know, again, if it's like a workers's compensation case that gets charged against workers compensation and um but we'll find out uh you know, again, because the pre-employment screenings, they go to
the township position for the drug testing and all that. So, we'll find out why the Who is our township physician? Excuse me. Who is our township physician? Dr. Kelly. Okay. So, this it you I I really think
that this needs to be pulled and looked at. If only $90 has gone to to the township physician and you're allocating $15,000, this really needs a major adjustment. I would agree, especially since it's the fourth quarter.
And Councilwoman Scarpa, I I I would appreciate your patience. I know this has been going on a while. We know that as soon as Councilwoman Ruden uh uh surrenders the floor, I will call on you, but please Okay. Thank you,
Councilman. I'm so sorry. I'm I'm monopolizing the floor, but I would like I would like to see this cut. I I cannot understand having only spent $90 and allocating 15,000. Um, so I I would like to see this cut.
I'm really not clear on this at all unless unless we have much better documentation. So what I understand from from our qualified purchasing agent is that we make payment twice a year. Um, and it will total 15,500. So I I'm guessing
that there's an invoice that we're going to be paying for the first half of the year, but we will get that information to the council. Um, I advise I'm sorry. So then why did you say that only $90 has been because that that's all that's been paid or charged against the line item. Um but
again I'm I was sending a message to my QPA because again it it doesn't seem right. Uh and this is what she's telling me that we pay twice a year. So we would have just recently received his invoice from June 30th. June 30th. So
I I don't really understand why we need to have a township physician. This seems this seems really redundant to having such great medical coverage. Well, are we are we contracting with him because we've never we've never received
a bill on the council. Yes, we contract with the township physician, but when when someone comes to us and they're going to start, we have to send them for pre-employment screening. There's no health benefits to charge there. Um and we bear the the
cost of the drug test screening and all that. So the physicals, you know, when we send police and firefighters to the there's a much more rigorous um testing, especially when they do the PT, they have to do what's called the proof protocols and things of that nature. So
there's there's and then there's the drug and alcohol drug, you know, tox screenings and things of that nature. So we want to make sure that the employee that we're hiring, the potential candidate meets the physical standards so that we don't run into future problems. Yeah. So for our regular office workers,
you know, like when I went for the screening, I was like, "Were you going to take my blood pressure?" And all it was was it No, it's a drug screening. Um but as uh the BA said, when it comes to police and fire, it's it's a much more involved process. And that and that includes also our our
our non-uniform drivers that have a CDL. They're held to this they're handh held to the standard of the federal of the federal legislation. So there's I apologize, Councilwoman. I I did cut you off. Does
do do we pay per employee or do you give him a contract for to do as much screening as as needed? And how often has this service been used? Can we have some documentation on that? We will provide you. We haven't paid
anything yet. We will provide you everything that we can. Yeah, it's an annual it's an annual contractual in at the beginning of the year with all the other professional services contracts and and as we said indicated, it's pre-employment screening. We don't know
whether you know how many employees we make. We can anticipate retirements. Uh but when people either leave suddenly or for various different reasons or or there's actual anticipated retirements, we have to replace these employees. Um you know, provided we have the budget
for it. And so what we have to do is do this process. And this year we've had a very busy year. This year we've hired quite a few people but in all So the I can't give you a detail every year. I mean it could be one employee
next year. I don't I really don't know but it just I mean this year in itself I think we probably hired over 25 30 employees roughly. I would give I can get you the number but I would I would estimate between police, fire, DPW and various
other positions in the town. So, right. But what what I'm seeing as a council person is are bills for for checkups that are not being done by Dr. Kelly that are um that are being build
to care station. We have paid many many bills. So, I would like to really understand what service he is providing, how many employees he's met. And you said that we've hired 25 to 30 employees this year. I'm I'm estimating it. You know, I I'm not going to give I I will get you the
figures. I'm estimating that number. It may be 2530 over a little bit longer this so far this year, maybe within the last 12 months, but we've hired a significant amount of staff. Um, and we've interviewed quite a few people. Um, so so I I'll get you those numbers
and it's two different services, you know, one is one is for more pre-employment and the other one is actually postemployment. And maybe the simpler way to explain it, we use we use care station for the staff that's already working, whether it be workman's comp, whether it's on the job injuries,
whether it's a a post accident drug screening analysis, there's there's many other things that we can we could do that. We we utilize it for the pre-employment. We were told we were I'm sorry to interrupt, but we were we were told on the council that those charges
for care station were to do um uh testing for for um for new new hires that they were that they were workups for new hires. So I we we previously used them. We have a contract with Dr. Kelly. Well,
I I think to instead of perpetuating his argument or a discussion, we let us just get you the information and then you can make a decision on that because we this is what we do. This is the process we use and we'll we'll give you a more definitive breakdown of what we do.
Okay. So, just to to wrap up what what my concerns are, um subscriptions, is this something that you're going to come back and give us more details on, Mr. Jatiniac? So, we said we would cut it by $1,200.
Um, because we've already charged out the,082 or did I say it was,82? Yeah. Did that without a motion? Yeah. So, we did cut subscriptions down to we're asking now for 1300.
Um, and the charge that you that you made was for the League of Municipalities or are the other? No, no, no, no. I think we're We we'll we'll give you the detail, but it's it's not the league under this 081
um by newspapers and some periodicals and all that. Um we'll we'll give you the detail. Um I would really like to see all the details on on that. Sure. Um can you remove can you zero out calculator and miscellaneous please?
Um yeah. Yeah, we could do that. Okay. Um, you're going to lower the PR expenses down to a thousand. Did we agree? I I We're going to get you the information on that. That's where did you I I'm
sorry. Just do it. Just do it. Okay. And then and then finally, I want to I do have information on employee employee assistance. A little bit more
information. Um, so it is a it runs on a fiscal year state fiscal year plan. So we actually have to re-up it and it's to the civil service commission that we pay that directly to. It's $1,000 um directly to civil service and that would
cover us for July 1, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. Um, and it but it's what everybody said. It's a confidential program. You can you can contact uh the employee assistance program through civil service if you're
in some sort of crisis. You want to commit suicide, you can't get off drugs. Um and then they will work with the township in sort of finding the help that you need. And um that's that's what
that program is. Um I don't I don't know what employees have availed themselves of it. We could try to find out. I don't know if civil service would tell us a number. I don't know. They won't do that. Uh and not that they would tell us who I just mean. But that's what it is. It
goes to civil service. It runs on the state fiscal year. Um the township has been participating in it since 2012 at least going back to um isn't it mute if it's civil service a mute point? I mean if it's civil service
we have to provide it, right? We're civil service community. Yeah. I I won't say that we have to. I don't know that for sure. I don't want to say that, yeah, just because we're civil service that we have to participate in this. It's just that we've seemingly participated in this. It's going back to
2012. This is the service um that it provides. It's confidential. Um it's like an employee referral program too. Um it's more a referral if there is something that the employee had to use but whether
if they do have health issues they can then they can utilize their health insurance to help someone. All right. I just hope that our employees know that this is available to them. They do this required to advertise in every building
and they and they know about it. So, um, just just to recap, um, you know, we I'm taking the 1,500 out of calculator to zero that out and I'm taking the $1,000 out of PR commission
expenses. That's coming from administration. Um, so you don't have to vote on that if you're okay with the thousands. Yeah. Um this and 1300 you said uh I took 1,200 out of subscriptions
leaving300 if that's okay. So that's a total of 3700 from this category or was there more? So we could just be that particular category we've taken out 3950. No, 4,200 we took out of subscriptions
in total because we took 3,000 out before. Um that 16 goes to 20 and change. 21 20 23 something and change 20,000 deduction, right?
Um overall the deduction at this point and also based on the vote is that we're down to we've reduced 32,455 because we did have that vote on uh advertising. Okay. Mhm.
Can you reflect that up here? So we could just uh it's it's reflected up up here. Um this is what I'm keeping track of in my Excel. So that I'll recalc
the the document I have for the public right now. This is um and I marked that this one was a vote and these are all admin. Oh, Council President, um right, I'm sorry. You got to take a number. Oh, sorry.
Councilwoman Ruden, are you done? Uh yes, I'm I'm done. Great. Councilwoman Scarpa, thank you for your patience. Oh, that's okay. Sorry about that. Um, okay. As we look at this PR commission expense, I had asked Mr. Datiniac to
give me a number of all of our different commissions because as I've looked at them, some have monies that I think could be um a little more frugal with the monies they spend. And I wanted to look at all of our commissions and pair
them down and perhaps make a small uh amount of money where if these commissions need uh that maybe the mayor or maybe the BA would control where if these commissions felt they really needed money for something important, they could come and request it and let
us know exactly what it is they need and what it's for. Mr. Diniac, have you got that number yet? I did. I I'll email it to you, but I I did I excluded this PR commission expense. I didn't realize it was on this line. Um, so
yeah, put in the commissions. Yeah, I because I know there's other ones, too. And some have, you know, budgets that are close to $5,000. And, you know, we just have to be really frugal this year and fair to all the commissions because if you are taking a hit,
I I did. Yeah, I I I I did forward that. I don't I don't have my email in front of me. Um I mean I could sort of look at it. Can we look at all of the commissions as a whole and pair that whole thing down and maybe just get something that's a little more
prudent to distribute? I I think maybe when we go back and vote if you want to do that when we go back through to vote on that commission's line. Yeah, we need to see how much money we're actually spending and what we're
spending it on just like uh Councilwoman Ruden is asking what are these expenses. So, so it's probably when when you go and vote you can make some changes to that commission line item. So, do you have the number? Can you give us the number of what?
I don't have my email in front of me. Um Councilwoman, he did send it to you recently. Yeah, if you wanted I sent it this this morning. This morning you received in your inbox. Well, let's send it to everyone so that everyone has it and I guess we'll have
to address it at the next meeting. Okay. I mean, if if we just look at the support for commissions, um the request right now is at $81,000. Um there we go. If you
And then if you tacked on that other $1,000 for PR commission. So you're looking at $82,000. So I think there's a lot we can cut here. This is an area where we can get some real savings. Huh? We did this video.
We did. Yeah, we did this. But they have to vote on Yeah. cuts for this one. So, I mean, the arts the arts council, they already get about $40,000 if you look at the rent, the security system, and that
other expense. And now they got another And now they have another $2,500. We have to seriously look at these expenses. We have one quarter left. We're going into the fourth quarter. and we have residents who can't pay their bills. We really need to take a more
serious approach to this spending. Counciloman Scarpa, are you satisfied that you're uh going to get an updated uh email from Mr. Datiniac? Yeah, I'd like it to send it to all of my colleagues and I'd like us to all take a look at really taking a scalpel to this
and maybe creating a small fund that's managed by either the mayor or the BA where if these commissions really need money for something absolutely necessary, they come and make a request.
But this number is frightening to me. I will update it with the PR commission and give you a new um impact on the average home. And I might say the um older adults advisory board has no money and they
have no budget and they are doing an incredible job this year. So, we need to take a serious look at this. Okay. And I'll send it to the group. Thank you, Mr. Tinyak. Anything else, Councilwoman?
No, that's it. Miss Bayer. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I would like to take us back to the township physician operating expenses. And I know Mr. Smeldo, you said you'd get back with more information. Couple of specific
questions. Is Dr. Kelly under contract to the township? I believe he is, but we have to double check that line. Yeah, it's an annual professional service. Professional services, I believe he is. And do you know how much he charges per
employee? Because at $15,000, even if we had 30 new employees, it would mean $500 per employee. That seems excessive to us. Well, as I I indicated before, it depends on the position that's being applied for. It's if it's a
police or firefighter, it's a lot more expensive than it would be for say a uh person that's going to be in the clarifying position. Okay. Um and then there's also people who are also pre-application drug screening because of their their DOT licenses. So, so not
only is it going to be the the cost of the visit, but then there's also going to be the cost of whatever u pre-screening tests are required. So that's also included in there. So whether it be blood, alcohol, uh you know, blood, you know, urine that um um
or the be the thing called Bruce protocols um and things of that nature. We'd have to we have to you know, I don't know what those fees are. All right. But again, it's it's it it's all dependent. I mean, we just hired we just recently hired three police officers the other day, so they're going to be going
to the academy. So that expense is is it's much higher than the three uh clerks that we just uh may have hired recently this year, you know. So there's, you know, and again I I you know, I'll give you the numbers of the people that we hired in the last, you know, 7 months or the last 12 months,
but it's been quite a few. Here comes the National Weather Alert again. So everybody's phone's going to go off. So um the uh so so we we'll we'll get you those numbers. Thank you. D, you're good. Thank you. Uh I just uh
before we move on, I just want to suggest that perhaps we as a governing uh uh the governing uh system of West Orange that we make it crystal clear to
all of these commissions that they need to follow the same budget process that everybody else in the town is doing. And I would encourage you, Councilwoman, to ask the PRC to start working on their budget request for next year. And if we
have something in writing a budget request from these folks, we don't have to go through all of this time of asking questions that can't be answered in real time. So, I would just uh I would just suggest that uh going forward. I don't know if it's a
if it's something from the the business administrator, but we could we could do that. Well, that was never in process. U we can we can uh certainly notice in a procedure um all the boards and commissions we we've actually just started recently some other processes with with
purchasing with with those those organizations as well. So, and and I I know we're getting press for time, but you just mentioned we hired three police officers. Does that mean we've had three retirements? There was vacancies. So whether how the
vacancies were caused, I I don't remember if it was all retirements or not, you know. So I I believe they were, but I I don't remember. I don't recall. Okay. Maybe maybe if we could find out and just uh send an email to the council. That would be Well, yeah, I'll get you I'll get you I'll get you over I'll get you an
overall list. You got you heard it first from here. Um so I'll get you a list of of the various different departments. Councilman Scarpa, I'm good. Um I do think um we should make serious
cuts for this year since there's only one quarter left out of all those commissions and then we could maybe put this procedure in for next year for next year's budget where they could request, you know, what kind of monies they're going to need for what specific purposes. But I I'd like to see a fund
that's better managed so that they really have to request what they need when they need it. Okay. So my understanding was that the takeaway was we were going to update the list. Mr. Diniac was going to update the list and provide that information and I
would think that would mean we would address it at a future budget workshop. Is that what you're agreeing to? I guess Yeah, I guess we have to. But I'd like to see serious cuts out of that. That's a lot of money and we only have one quarter left. We can make some serious cuts there.
Okay, we will take it up at uh the earliest budget workshop opportunity we have. Thank you, Councilwoman Ruden. Yes, I'd like to support Councilwoman Scarpa's um statements. I think we have to reook at this. I thought that we as a
council had already decided that we were going to stop paying for the housing or the building um plus all of the u additional costs associated with the arts council. Am I uh am I correct that
that has already been cut out? I did ask for that from Mr. Diniac as well. Do do you have that number on the art on the arts council expenditures, Mr. Datiniac? Yeah, that was that was part of that email, too. I I think I said savings at
this point. Um because again, we can't move them in to the library immediately. Um I had the savings is like $20,000 for the remainder of the year. Um and that's if we were able to get them into the library like October.
Um, so is this still emergency going off? Okay. I think the sooner the better. Yes, Councilman or Council President, sorry. If I could just just to follow up. Did you say that the timetable that the
administration is looking at now to move the West Horn Couch Council to the Ten Rooney Circle building is now scheduled to place by October? No, no, no, no, no. I was I that was just my own estimate. Um cuz councilwoman
Scarpa had asked like if we were to move them into the library, you know, what would be the cost savings? So, I sort of tried to figure out a timeline um based on our we have a tenant there. If I may, you know, we have one he's done. Okay.
So, so the the the the thoughts were from various people that we um including the councils that that the arts council gets placed into the library itself. We cannot direct them into the library. That's a separate entity. That's a separate board. That's their space that they lease and that would have to be a
conversation with the library board and the arts council to try and come together on that. Uh we do have a space that we are currently leasing to a a movie production company that's open. If we were to move the arts council into that space, that space is not ready.
That space is good for a movie production company, but it's not prepared for a arts council presentation. And that was part of the feasibility study that we presented to you as well. So we would need some monies to to do that to accomplish that. So, um, you know, while we can encourage
the, um, the arts council and the library board to meet and try and and come up with a solution, which is probably a viable solution, we just can't dictate to them that that's where they're moving. I was thinking about the community room they have. There's a community room there that's not, you know, that could
still f function as a community room and it's not used all that often. How about moving them to the community room? So, councilwoman, that community room is part of the library's leased, what we consider the leased area to the library.
So, that it still falls under the purview of the library. So, again, that would have to go to the library board and the arts council to come to an agreement. And of course, the administration and the mayor would would would try to help facilitate that, but that is decision. Can we do that? Can we approach that
conversation? Myself, Mr. Myself, Mr. any act the mayor and um and Mr. Reynolds are supposed to have go to the the next board meeting and have discussions about the the inter agency cooperations between the public library and the township.
Also, I wanted the entire number on what that arts council is costing us. I estimated about $40,000. The rent is about 25. The security system is about 10 and then there was like another almost 10 for something else. Do we have a total number of what we're giving to
the arts council? So you you're correct on those figures. They give us $500 a month though for for rents. Uh there's there's a little bit of offset there. Um the other piece is the PSEG bill. Um but you're not off, you know, we looked at it last year and
and sort of came up with similar figures um when we looked at the 2024 expenses for the arts council. Yeah, I just don't think that's something that all of the taxpayers should be funding at that level and we need to do something immediately. I think I still have the floor.
Go ahead. Is that okay? I'm so sorry. Um, yeah, I totally I I totally agree with you. I don't understand why Council Ruden I'm sorry to interrupt. Can we just take a five minute break at this point? It's uh Absolutely. It's 7:08. Let's be back
here at 7:13, please. Is that okay with everybody? Okay. Okay. Yes. Going to go kill us. Okay. Thank you, West Orange, for your patience. We are coming off break and
resuming the meeting. At this time, I'll turn the floor over to our council president. Thank you, Mr. Fagan. Uh, Councilwoman Ruden, you still have the for, but before we move on, I just wanted to make sure that you knew um
uh that Miss Van Dyk uh is here to uh address any issues that might come up with uh seniors and uh would certainly like to get her uh through this and get her home. Uh so, Councilwoman Ruden, you
have the floor. if you wanted to address anything else on this page. Yeah, unmute yourself. Oh, maybe she's not back from the break. Oh, yeah. It's probably uh Council Warren, can you hear us? If
you can, please unmute yourself. Uh, Council President, she's normally very responsive. I I would uh She may not be back. Yeah. Uh, Councilwoman Scarpa is not in front of her screen. Uh, she has her camera on. Okay. Well, did did we drain this page
and then and then another page that we're not on? Yeah, because I think we talked about all of the to-dos. Yeah. And and all of the uh modifications that we made, right? So, we voted on a modification to 030 and 031. Uh administration gave uh
decreases. This is obviously not shown the decreases, but we gave decreases and then we um said we would try to provide information for the township physician 220 line. Um and I think that was I believe everything. Correct.
I believe so. Yeah. Town subscriptions, town calculators, uh calculations, the payroll, uh the public relations expense, and the employees assistance. Yeah, I'm going to to back to the cuts here. Yeah. Mhm. I think we captured it. Council Ruden, are you back yet?
Yes, sir. Council Scarpa. Oh, okay. I'm back. Thank you. Is Councilwoman Scarpa, are you back? She's not in front of her screen. You got down 30 thou uh from that page. It's down 30,000
in in total. Yeah, we're down uh including previous including previous. Yeah, we're down uh 32,455. I'm back. Okay, great. Uh Council Ruden, I think you had the floor uh
before the break. Is there anything else you wanted to discuss on this page? Well, no. I just wanted to go back to the arts council because we are, you know, keep going on and on and we have we have they are on a month-to-month lease. So, I hope that that this will we
can provide notice for them to empty out the the um the building and we can be out by September 1st. Um, so I hope that this all comes back at
the next at the next meeting with the a better look at all of the commissions. When you say the next meeting, you mean the next uh budget work? Next budget meeting. Yes. Next budget. Next budget meeting. Okay. I think we're clear on that. Councilman
Scarpa, anything at this point on this page? Uh, no. I just want to make sure that we have we're clear on what we're going to do with all these commissions and that we're going to take really get that arts council spending under control. Sounds good. Councilwoman,
so I I just want to weigh in on the arts council situation. So I here here's where I'm disappointed with administration because and and don't you know it's it's not it's not here.
We had a conversation in January very early on about the arts council and the expense and I believe Councilman and I um when the first rental agreement first came up about um you know my our colleagues expressing to you know let
them find a new home. And we we we agreed that and we had conversations with our colleagues to not you know not just kick them to the curb and and get this figured out. Now here it is you
know almost August and there's there's not a a not a plan for them. I mean the from what I'm hearing and this is what's problematic for me and I've always supported them because I I think it's a great institution. It's something we should have in the township. But the
complaints that I'm getting about it since a light has been shined upon the issue, not realizing all the costs associated with it is that the a lot of the artists and are, you know, making income off of having that rental space.
And why is the town only charging them $500 to be there? Now, what what I don't know what's true, what's not, you know, what is true, what isn't true. Also, there's a lot of artists from out of town utilizing the space. Like there's, you know, our liaison, I forget, I don't
think any one of us, do we have a liaison there or not at the moment. So, they're really, you know, our liaison should be honing in on their monthly board meetings to get oversight from the council. So, maybe we need I think maybe
uh our prior council woman was was there. Yeah, she Um, so maybe one of us immediately should uh we should anoint one of us as the liaison to go to these meetings to speak for the council so they have an idea and fairness to them
of where we're at with this budget crisis. Maybe not sure what's been articulated to them and and and what has and hasn't been articulated. So again, um, they provide a great service. They're, you know, a lot of people in the community really enjoy them. I enjoy
them, but we have to get this settled and there needs to be a meeting with the administration with them ASAP because I don't see how we carry this debt uh for the community when we're having this kind of crisis. Well, as I said, next week we're
actually scheduled, we were scheduled to meet with them next week on the 24th, which is now another budget hearing. So, we're going to have to kind of split up our duties. We have a meeting scheduled with the library next week to discuss that issue and and several others. So,
the mayor, myself, Mi, M Mr. Reynolds, and Mr. Datiniac, we're scheduled to to go visit with or have a meeting with them next week at 7:00. Now, that's the 24th. That's their and we're going to meet with their full board and discuss that with them. We now have another
budget hearing for that day. So, I just telling you, so we have it's going to be hard to go to two different places at the same time. So, and so maybe Mr. TA comes here and I go up to that meeting. Um, but just so you know, we we have already planned for that. We have a lot of items we have to discuss with the the board.
The board mean the library board? Library board. Okay. So, here's my issue with that. So, the space that we have up there that the movie studio is renting right now, I would love and again this is another conversation maybe not for tonight because I feel bad Miss Vanike has been here and she needs to get her turn in.
Um, but I I I strongly feel that we keep that a rental space, those offices, and we continue to uh increase uh revenue on it, especially with all the repairs that need to happen in that in that building. I wasn't here for the feasibility study,
so I was wasn't able to get my my two cents in, but it's something that I've been preaching to anyone who will listen to me. As far as them utilizing some of the community space, that is the general library area. Um, I could be okay with
that and that will have to be a schedule worked out for their meetings. But I am in no way having uh interested in having them in the rental space unless they're paying full boat for it at 10 Rooney. think we we're missing out a big
opportunity at 10 Rooney once the movie studio is done with that space we need to rent that out to somebody else because that is great income that we need to continue uh and again as I mentioned earlier whether we rent it to another tenant other than the move we did absolutely nothing to
that space yeah I know and it's and and they're using it for what they're utilizing if we're going to rent it to somebody we're going to need capital to improve it and to do it understand that Um and whether we and we also offered up the arts council to
maybe hang some of their stuff in our our um um hallway wall. Yeah. Open space common common areas. I said common areas but um but again as far as going into the library itself that is a conversation that has to be held with the library board and
their people as well. Thank you. And that's honestly on the subject. Councilwoman Scarpa, you're Councilwoman Scarpa, you have to unmute yourself. Okay. I would like to completely agree with Councilwoman Castelino when they did
that study at the presentation. I know you weren't there and I did say that that space really needs to be a revenue generator. Um, and so I completely agree with you there and I would like to know who in the administration is going to
meet with the with the arts council and I think we should give them 60 days and they should find a home. They we could put their artwork anywhere in the library. They can use a community room for their um events. Is that something you can do, Mr.
Soraldo? I'd like that to be an action item. Uh, I could have that conversation with the mayor as far as what we're going to do as far as the payments to them. I'm not going to be the one who's going to evict somebody from another place in 60 days without that. That's going to cause us some other angst. I
cannot I cannot force them into a space that the library is using. So what I could say to you tonight is that I would like to have those conversations with people so that we could at least try to move forward amicably so that we don't cause ourselves more angst than we need for something that some people love and
some people are not as in favor of. So it's just there's so few residents that use that and with this tax season with this budget we have to we have to address it. We don't and I understand I understand that councilwoman. That's why I'm I'm having a meeting with them next week.
Okay. Thank you. Okay, Councilman Ruden, I just wanted to say on the record that our library is currently closed and we really don't know when it's coming going to be back open. So negotiating any sort of solution for the arts council there
um does seem a little bit out of place at this point. And I'd also like to suggest that why um doesn't the art council um work in one of the schools with the with the art departments in one of the schools and use space there. Um
and I I do disgree with um Mr. uh Smaldo. I think 60 days notice is a bit too lenient. We've been talking about this since January. I would like to give them notice immediately. Um, we have five more months and um, I think that they should be given notice effective
immediately to be out by September 1st. I agree. Good. So, first of all, Councilwoman, I I have to discuss with the mayor. Second of all, it's 60 days is not September 1st. That's more like 45 days. Um, so again, I'm trying to do something
amicable here to get everybody in that same place. And I would and since I'm recently being engaged in a lot of these conversations, I would again ask you for the same considerations that I'm asking for before that I can start performing what I need to do in this position. So
I'm going to try and do what I can to help this out and I would appreciate everybody's cooperation and give me the extent the at least the latitude to try and get some of this accomplished. Thank you. Councilman Ruden, are you done? Yes, I'm done. Thank you,
Councilwoman Scarpa. Yeah, I'm done. Oh, okay. Can we move on to the next page now? Thank you, Council President. Um, so I'm going to invite uh Miss Van Djk up for this part. Um, I'm going to quickly go
through um I'm going to stay away from from from names even though I sort of have it up on the screen right now. Uh let me get off that and I'm just gonna love that. Um just give a very quick uh
comparison of the salary and wages and what's driving um the increase. So uh the 2024 adopted budget, I know this is small, I apologize to people at home, was $191,32.
We're asking for $278,294 uh an increase of 45%. We are asking for um a keyboard uh clerk slash um senior livability coordinator uh an additional position
um for this department uh at 40,000 $1 I believe $41,600 Oh, okay. You want to talk about that? Yeah. Um, I will let Mr. Smallo talk about sort of how the health department
and retired citizens is going to be cooperating here, too. So, council president and members of council. So, we we decided that this this department used to always fall under the office of the mayor. Um and in conjunction with speak and I'll let Miss Van Djk speak to it more um intimate
about what we're going to do uh in the roles that she's looking to take on is that we're looking to actually transfer this department to under the health department. We feel that be best served under with the with the direction of director Fonino and his access to all of
his ability with the grants and other services that he provides with his healthc care nurses and things of that nature and allowing Miss Van Dyke to really um put forth her efforts in a lot of the areas that she's she's trained in and which will help our citizens because
even though she's currently serving in one title, she holds many different unrecognized titles that she does a lot of work for us that and she helps a lot of the citizens and and and I'm sure we've heard you've all heard as much as we've heard uh all the accolades she receives
for all the work that she does. So in con in meeting with director Frana you know and Miss Van Djk what we did was we decided that collectively and and with the mayor's blessing is that we're looking to consolidate or transfer this this department into the health or this
division into the health department. um so for ease of operation, efficiencies, and things of that nature. So, I just wanted to lay that out prior to what she's going to present to you because this is going to be in conjunction with that that service. Did I do okay?
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And and so again, just to reiterate in this hour and wages, we do have an open position. It is unfilled. Um and we budgeted 41,600. Um I know Councilwoman Scarpet asked about open positions. This is one of the
open positions that I I did send her. Um, excuse me. Is this a new position or open? This would be a new position. Sorry. Open as if somebody was already there. Position. Um, do you do you see my hand up?
Yes, I had asked Mr. Diniac how much we can save if we put a moratorum on all open positions. I would not be open to any new positions. We're in the fourth quarter and we have a budget crisis. We need we cannot hire
until next year. What is the number with the if we don't fill open positions? So, it was $11 on the average home. How much total on the budget? 178,000.
All right, let's save it. I'm going to make a motion at the appropriate time not to fill any open positions. Even the planner except the planner. Okay, that's the only thing that's urgent. No. Okay, so planner is not in the 178.
No. Okay, so let's let's save some money here. Got one quarter left to go. Second the motion. Wait a minute. What do you What do you There's no open positions get filled for the next three months, for the next last
quarter. Okay, let let's just uh take a step back here and uh you're asking it it appears that you're asking for a vote when we have next to no information. The only information we have is that the plan
totally it's $178,000 in savings. I don't know whether that's an annualized or that's from some point to the end of the year. Uh and and we we are excluding the planner. Uh I don't know where we stand with the planner.
So, I I don't think I can keep you from making a motion, but I I got to tell you, I'm not voting for a motion to make these uh make these decisions now without a lot more information. So,
you have the floor and you can you can do what you want. But I'm I'm telling you, I think this is a a a serious issue that we need to get a lot more information on and uh not only on the cost, but also the the individuals and talk to some perhaps some of these
directors about, you know, how important it is to them. So, I don't even know is the 178 does this include this position you're It does. It does. It's three positions. I would, my recommendation is if you're going to vote to decrease anything
related to an open position that you would stick to, not no offense to Miss Van Djk, but this department only. And when we go back and vote on the other um departments, then you can pull those open or new positions out.
Okay. So, we'll start with this one then and and we could do it one by one if that's the way you want to do it. But I'm very clear with we're in the last quarter and we need to get this down. We cannot fill any positions. They can wait till next year.
Okay. All right. We let her speak. Yeah. I if we can let Miss Van Dyke just give a quick breakdown of the retired citizens if that's okay. Council President, Councilwoman Scarper, you are finished speaking, right? Yes, I am. Okay. I wasn't clear whether
Councilwoman Rud Councilwoman Ruden had asked for the floor. So please, Council Ruden, Council Ruden, you have to unmute yourself. Okay. Um I wanted to if if um Councilwoman Scarpa had made a motion, if that was on the floor, I just wanted
to second it. It sounds like Councilwoman Scarpa did did not follow through on that motion. We certainly don't I I don't think we have a second, but let's if if you'll yield the floor, let's go back to Councilwoman Scarpa and ask her what she
wants to do. Yeah, I'd like them if we're doing it one at a time, I'd like to make to make a motion not to fill the any new positions on this um on this one. I I actually don't think we should fill any of them unless somebody comes back to us
and says that there's a dire need in the next four months. Well, I'm just wondering if we let Miss Van Djk and and perhaps the other members of the administration to explain this further about why they want to do this that will give us additional information and then we can decide if
you if uh if anyone wants to make a motion on this. Does that sound like an We have heard we've heard from all the other others already, right? No, Miss Van Dyke is still waiting to speak. Okay. So, let's let her finish and then we'll decide what to do. She didn't start.
I didn't start. Okay. Miss Van Dyke, welcome and the floor. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to speak if you if you can hear me and I'll do my best to really uh express this, but
we we had a social worker in the health department that we haven't had for a while, but maybe you haven't felt it because I've been doing my best to manage those needs. So, I'm doing triple
duty to try to attend to our older adults, which I have my little stats here, of which 30% of our town are comprised of 55 and older is 30% of our
population. 65 and older is 18 uh 2% 18.2% of our population. And we know we're in an a time of aging, right? And here's some data. By 2034, there'll be more Americans over the age of 65 than
children. So, we're trying to do our best to provide a enriched environment for our older adults that attends to all levels of need from social emotional to
recreational to um providing informational workshops and services. So, that's a huge task and it's a great task and it's an honor to do it and do it well and we take pride on that. uh my staff and me. But we also have a
tremendous need for social work support in this town and it's only getting greater with what's happening currently at the federal level. There are cuts coming and there are needs and I have been um
attending to that. I I I will receive um the health department will receive emails from police or fire when they when they are called out to do a wellness check or um and and there's a
need for followup or support. Um and it's just not possible to do a good job at this staffing level. And I think if it's $11 per household, it's worth it. It's we make our community stronger
by caring for every single person in it. And we can do that better with increasing some staff. I wish we didn't have to. Um but it's not sustainable to manage it all without more help.
Okay. Question. Yes, please. Thank you, Council President. So, here's my question because I just got a little confused with So, this right now is under your department, correct? Where where are
you? So, why is it here and not in the health department this position? No. So, it's so let me pivot. So, as um Pete said, we would be going under the umbrella again as we used to be under my senior services would be under the
health department. And so, I would be working a lot in the social work role as well as continuing to um direct my department. And so to get in more help at sort of that support level to carry
through some of the programming and the followup uh is more economical um is one of the things we discuss. Yeah. So again, Miss Van Djk has the credentials necessary to perform the
social work function. She's just inundated with all the day-to-day programming. So this this open position is going to free her up to do the big stuff. Um the real important more technically challenging work.
Okay. So I guess so just for organizational chart sake because you're a director and now you're going to go under another director. That's where I'm seeing layering. So that's where I'm getting confused. Are you going to continue to stay a director or
So, Miss Van Dykey's title is the director of senior service. She's not a director in a sense when we've spoken to her about making the title a a different title in a sense from a civil service because we have nine directors. We have nine departments. We're not creating another department. It was just that
that was the I guess the budgetary title that was given to her a while ago. Um she's a senior level manager. Yeah. and she directs that department, but we don't have directors reporting directors. So, we're going to look to uh challen change that title to be more
appropriate, more applicable to what the job she's providing while still giving her the same authority as a department head. So, she's a she's a head of the department, which is a division of of of or division of of of a department. So, Mike, the director Fonzo will be in charge. She would report to director
Fonino. He would guide his resources to help her out wherever he can. and she would still provide the services to the public based on her recommendations here today. But as far as the budgeting purposes of this department, that's going to fall under Mr. Fonzino moving forward. So
next year when we see the budget, this whole section will be under the health department. Is that how it's going to work? Correct. Right. We would I I'm sorry again the details but I I I I don't want to duplicate I'm not gonna I'm not going to talk if
they have it it's going to be it's going to be a section under the health department as whether had his own page. I'm going to leave that up to the finance guy. So next year he would be sitting in this seat to talk about senior services. Not Miss Van Dyke. No, she could come here too. She would still be talking. No, I'm just trying to not duplicate. She would still be here. Who knows?
Yeah, we we we encourage all of our staff if we anybody who wants to come and speak on behalf of what they do that we you know we we would want them to do that. You know, I'm just not be get in the weeds that way. I'm just trying to think of the organizational chart and who's going to be reporting to who and who's going to be doing the budgeting. That's
all. Okay. All right. And we would have that reflection for next year's presentation. Yeah. Because this just took me by surprise that you're merging the departments. That's all. Okay. Um I'm good for now. I may have another question, but sounds good. I'll I'll yield the floor.
Miss Bearer, the health department is a large department of this town, and I'm wondering if they have capacity to absorb the responsibilities that you're thinking of um
um giving to this new employee. It's a part-time job. Do they have capacity to help you out with senior services with employees that they already have? I I don't understand the question. I'm sorry. It would be a new hire that would
be assisting my department of senior services, right? I understand that you need the help to free you up to do more social work. I get that. The question is whether the health department as it is now has the capacity to provide the
additional support you need for senior services. They used to I understand it now. I understand. I don't believe so. When this discussion came up with director Fonino that wasn't presented as an option. Um
I can't speak for him but I can Yeah. So before um I responded, I just wanted to make sure yeah, director Franzino says that, you know, he he is willing to help take this on and help direct that and and and staff it that way, but he currently does not have that extra
ability with the staffing hours that he has currently. He just recently filled a couple of the open positions that we've been looking for because he he was behind the eight wall as well with um with um the uh not the regional health nurse um it's um
environmental specialists and things of that nature. So those are the things that he's he'll be focusing on with his inspective and things of that nature. His office doesn't provide any social work right now. So none of his staff has been trained actually into that into the into the area of this particular department. It's just a matter of
consolidating from one from under the mayor's umbrella to under the health department. What we're just doing is just doing a lateral shift within our budget process process. Mer you done? I'm done. Thank you. And and and to point out, council
president, just one last thing is that this department was under the health department at one time. Um it just for various reasons a few years ago it was switched back. It was switched out. We're just what we're just trying to do is make it whole again and bring it back to where it was originally. That's all.
Yeah. The former mayor did that. But the reasons were about Yeah, I know. Yeah. So uh it looks like there's no uh hands up so I can ask a few questions. Oh, I'm Baker Harden. Councilwoman Scarpa, please.
Yeah. Um I want I want to understand the structure of the department. Um it now Miss Van Djk has Noelia Perez as the administrator. No names. No names.
Oh, okay. And we have another person who is on a grant but also has we had appropriated an additional $10,000 last year. So we she has three people in her department. Why can't the
administrative assistant do some of this planning work? And when is that grant up? And are we going to apply for it again for the third person that is in her department? The the that grant was a one-time
$10,000 in 2025. It's not a part of So, uh, so we it was a $40,000 grant, wasn't it? And then we added another 10,000 to it.
If I remember correctly, this was a grant from 2019 that was filled by another employee for two years with an understanding that the township would then hire that employee. That did not happen. And so when we sat
back down with Partners for Health to to honor our uh commitment to that, they agreed in that year to give $10,000 to help us
um move forward with that plan. So that was for the first year and then it was last at last year's budget hearing it was agreed that going forward she would be an employee. So that 10,000 wasn't permanent permanent
right which is why we don't have it factored into the So she's not she's not actually an employee then is she that third she's an employee. She's an employee. She is an employee. Correct. Then why do you need another one? And I don't understand you. You've got three.
This is I based on our staffing level. I am advocating for additional to support to help manage the the various needs and programming that we offer for our older adult community of which I
would be overseeing and helping with the with the planning and then the carry through. We need more staffing to assist with that. That is what I'm here today advocating for. So you So could you just give me a rundown of your staffing and what each
one the dollar amount of each person? I don't see it broken down here. There's your salary, then there's the other one. What? And then there's the third one. What are the staffing salaries for those three? The the salaries are what they are. Um,
it's it's right on I don't see them on here, though. I I don't see them broken down here. Oh, I'd like them broken down. So, they are one the other page the other page she has. Yeah. One one salary is at $63,682.
That individual is at max step. Um, the director's at 125187 step 8. Uh, the other individual is at 45,825. And then our new position is 41,600.
So um tallied up together with overtime we get to the 278 294. Okay. Yeah. I I just really don't think we could hire this year any new positions and including in this
department in any department. But we've got only four months left. we could look at that next year when we're not in a budget crisis. So, I'd like to make a motion, you know, when it's appropriate not to fill that position.
Thank you, Councilwoman. Uh, Miss Van Djk, this is a part-time position. How many hours a week? Uh, part-time about 25 hours a week. How many hours does your other part-time work? 25.
And there's no health benefits with that. I I didn't um I didn't see that there was a a substantive increase in either synergy moving back into
health or efficiency. uh in the way that this was described. Am I missing something or is there more is there more uh bang for the bucks here than than I'm perceiving? Council President, this was just something that we were coming up with and we were waiting to come here to present to you so that you would
understand how we were going to move this forward so you could see this. Um this wasn't like a surprise to say look you know aha we're just looking we're looking to as we're presenting the budget and these different departments to say this is how we're looking to do the the efficiencies of of moving it
back. This is our recommendation. Of course, this kicks on now. Uh this is our recommendation to to move that over so that we could have a more streamlined process under the under the health department and and uh and still provide the service because we we do recognize Miss Van Djk, if you walk down her her
hallway, her office is extremely busy these days. more and more people are coming for social services and um and not just um senior senior livability senior senior uh p u senior citizens themselves. It's that we have a lot of people who are struggling in this
community. As we know we have a we have a certain population that's that's needs more assistance and uh we're looking to provide that and at the same time provide these the mental health issues. We have we have a very um large mental
health um uh concern in this in this municipality um in this township and and and and as indicated by the police chief and and the and the police department. We're one of the we were the first in the state and we're one of the few that actually provides mental health with a police
officer on scene. We've trained our officers and this is in conjunction with the program and we get a lot of a lot of calls for services that sometimes don't require a police officer but could also have the assistance uh from one of our social workers whether it be a contract
contracted out to a service or to somebody who's in house who can directly respond to it. And that's what we're looking to do is try to provide an enhanced service to a to a community that's starting to um provide show more struggles throughout the township. Thank you. Can
I just add something? Sure. So I I do just want to add that already we work very closely with the health department and the health center and the nurses. We meet monthly. We have a senior a local senior coalition meeting within within town hall with
wreck with the nurses with senior services with senior livability. Um so regardless of where my department lands that will continue. So we work very well together and it's in our discussions of
gee we really need a social worker. How can we do this? and I I really need more support. It and we when I arrived 6 and a half years ago was the first time senior services was under the mayor's department. So it came it it stemmed
from that history to return it there. But regardless of where senior services lands, the way we work will continue. the way that we have our tasks and roles and responsibilities and the way that we collaborate
to address the need. Uh we'll continue. So I'm just going to continue my continue my question. Um, when a a department or a manager's responsibilities for their department
changes, sometimes you change the type of service or the amount of service that you give in order to deal with a greater need. So in this case, you're saying that there's a greater need for social work. Is there is there anything else in
what you're doing now that you have considered to step back from? And I don't know what that might be uh to give you to free up resources in order to do this because what you're talking about is is adding another uh headcount here
and uh continuing to basically do everything else you did and increasing the amount of social work services that you provide. So, has there been any consideration as to what else you might that you're doing that you might step back from that might bring some more
efficiency uh instead of just a a direct hire, right? So, I guess the way I would answer that it was instead of stepping back, it was stepping forward to assist the health department with meeting a need for a social worker, a vacant
position that's been vacant for at least six months. So, so I appreciate your question. Um, but then there's an equal need amongst our older adults to maintain this sense of
building community and helping combat things like social isolation and the the increased uh levels of that postcoid and and that. So, okay. So, okay, you you'll you'll have
to forgive me. I I was not paying much attention before late last year to what was going on in the in the municipality. So, you're saying that the that you used to have a social worker, the health department did? The health department, correct? And the health department was was that social
worker just basically dealing with uh uh seniors? No, it was a social worker dealing with community resident issues, various issues. uh not necessarily senior related. Um and what happened to that position six years ago? Resigned. She resigned
and that that position was never filled. So as a result, you know, I'm a licensed clinical social worker. I've got my degree since 1995. Um I've have two postmaster certificates. I mean, it's I'm passionate about my profession and
I'm passionate about older adults. So, and I like to try to help where it's needed, probably to a fault. So, when that position is vacant, police or fire are reaching out, you need someone to follow up. Um, we try to we try to
assist with that. Um, so what I'm trying to do right now is just really identify that that need continues for and that was just a part-time social work position and um that need persists. So this was one strategy for
trying to manage that increased need of um helping with the social service component. So my department is department of senior services. Before I arrived it was it also managed the um welfare which is now division of family
assistance and benefits. So there's a history in the department of meeting needs of meeting benefit needs. So, we're still on Social Security's phone list despite us trying to give the correct phone number for people to call who have
support needs. So, we do have to then, you know, just give the five minutes to to make the proper referral and give the proper phone number. But there's, you know, just a history in the town of that piece being connected to my department. And even even if the history wasn't
there, there's a great need of our aging population who haven't made plans and h don't have family and now their memories fading and they have no plan in place and who's going to do this? Oh, Laura, can you help? So, it's like, well, if I
don't help and I call adult protective services, they're like, we've done everything we can. It's a police matter. And then the police is like, well, what can adult protective services do? I'm in this now. This isn't this is a real time example. So, it's it's a it's a crisis
and I'm trying to put on, you know, my next event. I'm trying to get us on the cruise next month in Lake Akcon and carry that through or get the groceries from bingo and my colleagues do an amazing job. We just need more help.
Council President, um I think from a dollar and cents perspective, the two things I think the first question you had about synergies of combining the departments, um I I I don't I don't think we've really looked at that. Um
and it it goes back um also to Ed's question like I don't think um Miss Van Dyke's admin are going to then be taking on board of health work and vice versa. Um, so I don't think we've really looked
at it, but um, what we have talked about is if we're hiring a social worker, you know, we're going to be spending $80, $90,000, whereas if we're freeing up Miss Van Djk to do that work, you know, we're only
spending $41,000 to get the same effect because, you know, now she and she's doing the social work as she's already said. Um, this just really frees her up to do more of it and then we can backfill it with a
lower um skilled I don't want to that sounds mean to say but you know a more different skilled admin role um again to do the programming. I've heard that the crews on Lake Aakon's very good. Um so that that's sort of the
conversation that I know you know admin has had with Mr. Fonzino, Director Fonzino and and Miss Van Djk is again, you'd have to spend a lot more to get a social worker for the board of health when we already have, you know, a very
uh qualified and um um dedicated social worker right here at home. Right. So, there's there's uh you know, thousands and thousands of social workers uh out there uh even licensed clinical social workers. But do you do any referrals at this point? Do you
refer to other agencies? But even that takes work. So that's the goal is to refer, but you you got to you have to put in some time to kind of get to that and to to make that link. But that's the goal. Okay. So the licensed the the the clinical the social worker you're
looking to hire would be doing that sort of processing and referrals. Would they be actually providing services? No. No. The hiring in my department would be for the programming through the um the senior services needs programming actual
programming of our different recreational programs are our all of our offerings. It's to help with those tasks and needs and planning and programming. Okay. So, I misunderstood. Yeah. I thought you were hiring a social
worker. You're hiring a social worker. You're hiring a differently uh person keyboard clerk senior livability. Yes. Okay. So now so instead of Miss Van Djk, you know, running to Shopright and then hanging up the decorations and, you know, she could
help out Okay. a senior in need. Okay. I'm sorry. I I missed that. Just one more question. I'll I'll stop uh talking. Uh you've obviously heard Councilwoman Scarpa talking about how she wants to uh prevent as not prevent
but just to push back any hiring this year. This uh this position that you're talking about $41,600 a year. Is that an annualized rate? That was that was contemplated back when we came up with this budget. So prrating
it at this point is going to reduce it significantly. Yeah. Okay. And what would be the difference, Miss Van Djk, between having somebody that would be hired, I mean, if we if we pulled the trigger on this, I don't know how long it would take, but let's just say a month or two months.
Can you wait until January? What would be the hardship in in hiring? Yeah. And waiting. It's a fair question and I'm I'm up here, you know, respectfully hearing what everyone is stating and, you know,
I think I've proven since I arrived, we we pivot. So, if it's what what the majority determines, we'll manage. That's always been what we've done in CO. So, we'll we'll pivot. I got to say, you've done a remarkable
job since you came to West Orange. So you carry quite a bit of credibility and respect, but I just wanted to see if that was something that might fit within uh the parameters of what the council was looking for. So I now councilwoman Scarpa Council,
you take another take another break. No, no, no. So, um, I really appreciate you coming forward and as always, just always thinking of our residents and, you know, I I echo my colleague sentiments. You just done an outstanding
job. Thank you. You hit the ground running here. Um, I do like the idea of putting this department back under the health department because that's where it did come from and it was successful years ago there. I also do and and the reason
being I think that um Mr. Fonino will need to work with you in regards to you know some of his admins could pick up some of this uh work that you're you're desperately need to need assistance with
in regards to uh the events and and I I know the clerical stuff that goes along with the events. What I like to see you do and what I think what you should do is I'm going to agree with my colleague on holding off on this here. Here here's a problem
we have. The budget we received the original budget did not have this position in it and I I get it. You're here now looking for it. So this is an extra add-on to what we originally given. That's number one. Number two, when Mr. Fonino came this verse I'm
hearing about the social worker and and whatnot and the lack in his department. He doesn't even have on a vacant position on page 92 of the original budget or the updated budget from April. Um where's that when did that person
leave us that social work the social worker position last fall? in the fall. I have here a deputy municipal, a department head, a REHS public health trainee, uh the department head himself, another
REHS public health, a deputy registar, keyboarding clerk, three and administrative secretary, registar of vital statistics, right? So I have those folks there. Um and no social worker. He didn't even ask for a
social worker, right? We we we didn't. No. Okay. So, that that's problem number one. So, I would like to see I'm uh I would like to see the department merge and then maybe give them a little uh
some money for overtime for some of the staff to pick up any programming needs that may need met. They may could probably easily be done through because it's it's not social work that you're asking for for the position, but the needs of a keyboard clerk, which could
be easily done between who you have in your department now and the folks uh that Mr. Fonino has. So maybe for now, just to the end of the year, uh put in for some overtime to help help with
those events and admin uh uh task. and then next budget re-evaluate this position and and see how the streamlining the two departments is working out. And you may need a full-time social worker at that point.
You may change your mind. I just think you need some kind of this is, you know, some kind of leeway there to see how this going to flush out because we I'm telling you now, it it's hard um it's hard to um get through this last
quarter. I've been making decisions that I usually don't, you know, it it's tough that we we got to we got to scale this down as best we can without hurting our bond rating. So, um I'm in supportive of
that. So, I guess I'd like to make a a a motion to to Well, I guess I would second Councilwoman Scarpa, but I would also like to uh after that, if that's a vote down the road, second uh or make a
motion to add a little bit of overtime that may be needed to to to replace some of the need here, if that makes sense to everyone. I'm not sure how my colleagues feel on that. if that's a appropriate you're saying for the balance of this
year for the balance to get through to the to January. Yeah. To help to help with the I I understand the the admin part of it and the um give them a little help and maybe once the departments are merged they
could figure out maybe somebody in the department could pick up some slack on Mr. Fonino's end and um in the interim. In the interim Yeah. like see how it works out before we go hire another employee because we this wasn't
originally in the budget. That's why it's even harder to put a position into the budget. Like when we did the planning position, we took money from other categories to accommodate that position. Um we got rid of the economic developer and and that's how we did the
planner. So it's not like we created extra additional monies for that position. we we actually deleted some of that that money and got the plan, you know, planned for the planner. So, I would ask if it's okay um if if you are
going to remove the 41,600 um that you do add 8,000 of overtime um to the existing uh aotment to allow for Miss Van Djk to, you know, try to continue to do the the
social work and, you know, have her staff fill in. Um that that would be my ask. uh if you're moving the 416 a little bit better. So how much what would an hourly rate be for overtime for
those admin positions? I don't know off the top of my head 50 probably. Yeah. Close to time and a half. Yeah. So someone's making Oh, would that show because you have a full-time employee time and a half.
council. Yeah, you're talking about fulltime employees that are at top pay. So, it's not not you're not talking entry level like we're talking say it's 10 hours a week. That's 500 a week. 500 a week. August through December is how many
weeks? 8,000. Uh 20 weeks, say by the time this budget kicks in and we get rolling. 10K. That's 10K max. So 8,000 is reasonable. I could I could
I'll make a motion. Uh I would agree with administration if Do they need a motion to remove the 40? I take the 41 first. Yeah. And then do that separately and then for the Yeah. Counciloman made a motion
of seconding it. I don't know what her motion was. Yeah, we do the Oh, I'm sorry, Council President. Yeah, Councilwoman Scarpa. Yes, I make a motion not to fill the new any the new position. I'll second.
Okay, so your the motion on the floor is to not fill this position this year. Correct. Yes, exactly. I'm going to second that. And there's a second. Okay. Is there any further discussion? Madame clerk,
do you only Oh, Councilwoman Ruden, please raise your hand. But go ahead. Yes. Hi. Um, I'd just like to to offer a suggestion that some of the um
administrative work that Miss Van Djk is explaining that she is um relegated to um be shifted to or to administrative help. um staff so that she is more freed up to um to do the social work um which
she is qualified for. Yeah. It's not just me. I mean I I have a a teams. I'm just saying in addition I'm a team player. So yes, I think that's generally the strategy. Councilwoman Okay, that's all.
Is there is there any other discussion? Madame Cler. Councilwoman Castelino. Um to remove the position. Yeah. To not fill the position this year. Sorry. Okay. Yes. No, no, no. We're removing it from the budget. No, it was to not fill this position
this year. No, we want to remove it. My motion was to not fill this position this year. Confirmed by Council President Koviaak. I want to make a motion to remove it. Well, you have to resend the motion and
then uh Councilwoman Castelino has to rescend her motion then because that was not what was said. Uh I'm sorry. I didn't I thought that's what I said, but that's that's what I said and that's what I meant. Councilwoman Scarpa, are you rescending your motion? Yes. I Yes. And I want to make a motion
to No, no, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Counciloman Castellini, do you resend your second? Thank you. Okay. Now I want to make a motion to remove it from the budget.
Yes. From the budget. Is there a second? Michelle seconded it. I'm sorry. Councilwoman Castelino. Um, hold on one second. I'm sorry. Okay. Councilwoman Castelino. Yes.
Councilwoman Ruden. Yes. Councilwoman Scarpa. Yes. Council President Koviaak. Yes. The motion carries. That's okay. Okay. Now, is there somebody who wants to make
a second motion? I'd like to make a motion to add in You said 8,000 or over. Yes, Councilwoman. Yes. Is there a second?
And is it clear? Is the motion clear? Want to add $8,000 to the overtime budget for the senior services uh to carry them through this this year and then uh well that's that's the extent of the motion. The the new total would be $10,000
for the overtime budget because it's already 2,000. Okay. Oh, I thought 8,000 total. I'm I'm recommending you're you're Yeah, you're increasing it $8,000 to make it 10,000. Yes. I was going to be 8,000 total. So, I
guess I would increase it $6,000. Okay. All right. So, to add $6,000 for the overtime budget for senior services. So, is everybody clear? It's to add $6,000 to the existing $2,000 proposed
overtime budget for the department. Everybody clear? Yes. Unless my colleagues come with a counter offer that. Is there a second? I would I would counter this with with
um 5,000 overtime for 100 hours. I'll second it. Which one you wait? The five. So, so, so we have a motion on the floor looking for a second for $6,000.
For $6,000. What I think we want to do, and I I'm I'm not sure if that's what Councilwoman Castelino was heading toward was we need to to take a vote on one of them, and if that fails, then we go to the other one and see if that one uh passes or fails.
And thank you, Council President and ladies. The reason why I lowered it to the 6,000 is I was hoping you would approve that and I'd get a second. So again, I'll just make the motion. If there's no second, then we move on to the next number. So I make the motion
for the 6,000. I second them. Okay, perfect. Councilwoman Castelino, yes. Councilwoman Ruden, no. Councilwoman Scarpa,
no. Council President Koviaak. Yes. Okay. The motion fails. Okay. Is there another motion? I make a motion to um have an additional 5,000. I'll second that.
Okay. Yes. Hold on. Hold on. Councilman Ruden, what were you saying when just now? the the 5,000 works to be a 100 hours of overtime and that's 20 hours a week.
Well, it's 5,000. Are you specifying that your motion has those particulars in it or are you just asking for a motion to add $5,000 to the budget or are you saying that that that $5,000 also has to be uh divied up
by I'm just explaining that the 5,000 is for 20 hours a month of overtime. That's what I'm explaining. Okay. But you can't dictate. No, she's only explaining. She's not dictating.
Okay. She just is making everyone aware of that. Okay. Should we have the motion? Do we have a second? I second. Okay. Is there any discussion? Uh I'll discuss. I think 6,000 is a better uh yes,
a better idea than 5,000, but I'm going to uh uh try to avoid ties. Agreed. So, I'll I'll I'll vote yes. Okay. Are we ready for the vote? Any other discussion? Madam Clerk,
Councilwoman Castle, yes. Councilwoman Ruden, yes. Councilwoman Scarpa, yes. Council President Koviaak, yes. The motion carries. Okay. Thank you.
So, we're done with salary. Is there an O and E that we want to Yes, Council President. So, um as with every other department, um the retired citizens uh program has agreed to some
uh reductions in their their operating budget. So, um we have $3,250 in in reductions. Um, just for everyone's information, at this
point, uh, the department has spent, uh, $15,282, um, through today. Um, so I'll open the floor if Miss Van Dijk wants to talk about the different department, uh, different sub accounts
or what the department does with the OE budget, she's welcome to do so. Great. And also we had talked about like the other departments these are antiquated lines that we're right going to be working to
change. Yeah. So what they the names of the accounts don't do a good job of reflecting the spending. So it's going to be frustrating when you're wondering something about photo
supply or so I just want to miscellaneous. Right. So, um, you know, we we try to come from a a kind of holistic place when we do our programming and we do a variety of
things. Some are um you pay for the ticket, other things are subsidized. We try to do a combination of that. Um, prices for all things are going up um including paying for van a bus, you know, a private bus. We've also
worked with the county to use their buses at no cost for um which which are which has been great as well. It presents some of its own challenges with sort of comfort level or no restroom, no facilities. But we've we're working
wherever we can to um to save money and collaborate with our neighboring communities and provide, you know, not necessarily duplicate programming or if we're not offering something and uh our our colleagues in Livingston hold a
walking club at the reservoir and it's open to anyone, you know, we look to really work together. we have a good relationship with our neighboring communities. So then um the way that we are spending it's on different uh parties or lunchons or our cafe
series or materials. Food is a very big component of our programming and truly we are building community. So we are and what helps to do that is to to to feed people um physically and emotionally
quite honestly. So, um, and it and and it creates a a a good feeling, um, and a good time. So, a lot of our spending goes to that as well as then when we do have an event like the cherry blossoms where we'll take our group with our Jity
down to Branch Park and um provide a little, you know, snack bag of foods that, you know, and no charge. So we like to try to balance those activities that charge as well as those that don't and then when we can maybe to subsidize.
Okay. So the miscellaneous could you explain that would be that could even be you know paying for a DJ for the the picnic. Um, so something like the the picnic is a we
charge, you know, about eight$8 or $10 for that. So that's a a a lunch and that's costing us significantly more. Um, so we're subsidi subsidizing that to a greater degree. Um,
what's a nutrition program? Sorry, council president. I didn't Yeah, it's again it's going to be frustrating but so for so for something like that would be um you know if we have our cafe series and we have a chef come in that's going to teach about say the Mediterranean
diet and then we're going to provide a lunchon that's based on those those kind of healthy foods I'll use that budget line for some of those those foods. Yes, please go ahead. Keep going. So, senior livability nurse, why isn't that
under the health department? And nurse, I don't know why it ever said nurse. It shouldn't. It's not nurse. It's other expenses for the senior livability line. I don't know why that that's another example. It's not for nurse. It's other expenses for the senior
livability. And from that we pay for our monthly newsletter that we print and and distribute um in different places like Shopright, the library, the different senior buildings um or different flyers
uh or posters um come from that line. So that's all pretty much printing supplies like print. It really varies. Sometimes it's also food, you know, we have a bingo, a weekly bingo. So, we're offering light
refreshments at our weekly uh bingo. Okay. So, the line items are all over the place. They really That's why I'm saying it's frustrating for for you, I'm sure, because unfortunately they're terrible. They just are. I'm sorry. They don't reflect
rental actually bus rental. is actually but that's probably the most accurate line. You're right up there with Mr. Kio and his Mullikin. Yeah, but we we we're committed to changing that.
I know. Yeah, I get get some some humor in eight hours we work here. Um Okay, I'm I'm done with my questioning. Thank you. data is important. Just a just a follow-up question. Mr.
Dinac said you folks have already spent more than $15,000, but if uh under this new budget, that leaving you with what 11,000 and change, a little bit more than 11,000 and change. Can you get through the rest of the year with that? Again, we'll we'll make it work. It's
it's one of, you know, it's hard. This is where it is hard to run a department when there's not a budget. So you were doing our best to oh try our best. Um well because obviously last year you
spent 95% of the budget or so. And so so I appreciate the question and we'll we'll just we'll honor what we have and and we'll work within it. We don't really So a lot of your programs as you said you charge a small amount which then
goes into the trust and and is used to offset the cost. So there's always the ability to have to ask for more um you know from the participants. So um I'm sure you make it work. Yeah,
of course. The wish would be that it but that we didn't have to take cuts, but it it it is what it is and we'll we'll make it work. Thank you. Uh either of the council people online, any questions?
No, I have no questions. Um, I I have a question. Since these categories are all intermixed, wouldn't it be better just to have a like a a some cut to the entire thing and let Miss Van Djk figure it out in another
way? Because it sounds like these are not real figures in any in any category. So we do give the departments the ability to overexpend each sub account but they cannot overexpend the total
account. So um I mean Miss Van Djk can charge the accounts that she wants to charge uh and it still won't let her exceed what we're looking at $26,970.50 50 cents. Or, you know, I could let her
just say take it from wherever you want as long as it's the 3,250. I think it doesn't really matter to the council. Um, as long as that the cut is the 3,250. So, that's up to Miss Van Djk, however she
wants to deal with that. I feel like what Mr. Ruden is saying is how we're working in in the sense that like what you've just explained that if if what I'm needing is more sounding appropriate for the lunch then yeah if you want to take it well if you want to take it all for
miscellaneous or if you want to break it out in a different way I guess yeah that's fine with you as long as we keep it 3250 as a decrease I I'm okay with that. I I think you can still vote on um the overall cut and
then uh Ah, what am I doing? Um and then we can distribute the overall cut as Miss Van Dyke sees fit. I'm fine with that. Again, as long as you're just voting on the $3,250 decrease or if you want more, you know,
you're going to say more. Is did I get that right, Councilwoman Ruden? Sort of letting her allocate out. Well, I was I was kind of going towards can we come up with a a small amount to cut um out of this budget and let her
reassign what she needs, which it sounds like she's doing anyway. Um because what right now you're talking about having um $2,000 a month on spending for um for programming and is that actually what is
needed? I'm also not getting a very clear clear sense of what is being spent on bus rentals. How much has been spent to date? We put in for a program to in August. I
think that is our first one. Yeah. $1,025. Yeah, cuz we had our last program and we used the county, so there was no charge for that. We couldn't get We tried to get a private bus cuz it was quite a
distance, but it was a busy time of year and and we couldn't so the county stepped in and helped us out. Can the Jitneys be used? Oh, the I can't say enough about the health departments working with us with the Jity. It's just tremendous the kind
of ways we've been able to go to the paper mill and to down to um the uh you know the m uh cherry blossoms and to um branch park and to the museums. It's been wonderful. It's been program
changing really. That's great. So then is there going to be another need for any expenditure for bus rentals? So, we have another Yeah, we we there are we have planned a
trip to PNC in September and then to Hunan Hills in um October. Those are two those are two bus rental fees. And how much do you anticipate spending? It's it's roughly around a,000 or or
1050 each. And do the seniors um contribute to this budget? So that part is usually what is subsidized? They'll pay for the actual ticket. Like for example, Lake Kapakong, that lunchon cruise is a $60 ticket. So
they pay the total of that ticket and then we subsidize in this instance the cost of the bus. Can the seniors be charged 70 so that the char the the cost for the bus is less? We any of these are up for
discussion. It's something we could try. We really there are certainly people for whom that makes it difficult. Um, so it's something we're always trying to balance.
All right. Um, I I would just propose a a slight cut to this in to this total budget. Um, so I'd like to I'd like to propose a 10% cut to this budget if you if you could.
So, in addition to what's already been cut? Yes. Okay. Another 10% cut would be roughly uh 15 16%. I I can't do the math in my head.
Um, is that what you're talking about? Because the budget that we're looking at now already has a 7% decrease, the $3,250 and it's it's making up, I don't know, the spending so far has been 60 roughly
60% of the budget. So, right, and we only have five more months. Is there some way to to just cut back on some of some of the um some of the expenses? It sounds like a a lot of money is going towards towards um food
and there should be enough in this budget for the food. Should I answer? She's holding her hand up to me so that I know to call on her if Councilwoman Ruden has the floor. So, please respond
to her if you can. Um well and so um in this instance is where I would really just try to advocate in terms of the size the amount of residents you know that we're addressing here and in terms when you think of it that way and it's my little
budget is trying to go a long way. Um I I respect what you're saying and certainly I always you know I'm rooting for the whole community. So um it's a it's a fair request. I also just do feel strongly that we already have a small
budget even without the cuts in my opinion based on the number of older adults in this town. So, um that's that's just my response. Um can you can you inform us how how many um seniors you are servicing?
Hundreds. Thousands. are are we working with? Um well, it's I I wish I could answer that better. We do have um we we're regularly increasing our outreach and
and each week are adding reaching more and more people. Um we do have um you know, all of our uh recreation classes have waiting lists. They fill up quickly. um we have
to give notice that we're opening to registration starts. So we'll give people two days notice to um to register. So um I could look to give you a better figure on actual people but to try to speak to the need and what we're
providing and the um aspect that many people end up on waiting lists. Is there any any area in here that you see that you can make cuts like $2,500? Actually, you're asking for $1,750 for a
holiday dinner. What is included in that? And do you ever get donations from from our local restaurants? The past couple of years, we've had our holiday dinner at uh Bella Italia at a pretty fair rate. So in that way it's
he's working with us. Um we had our salute to seniors at the high at a um you know a a rate that made it you know possible. Um
but to your point I mean there are different options at times for sponsor sponsorships um to maybe help offset or support. We try to be responsible with that as well.
Okay. Thank you so much. I'd like to see I'd like to see more of that and I would like to make a proposal um to to cut 10% of the budget. Uh a motion. I'm sorry.
So, Councilwoman Ruden, you're moving to cut an additional 10% out of what is here now on top of the 7 7.2%. Uh, so you're talking about basically another $2,700 cut?
Yes. Okay. Is there a second? Nope. President. Uh, Counciloman Scarpa, sorry. Oh, I have my hand. Yeah. I just want to say I know that um
that Mrs. Van Dyk works on a shoestring budget and um I all of the money she really doesn't have the kind of budget that other departments have. I and I don't want to cut anything out of here, but I do want the money to go to
programming for our seniors, you know, not for headcount. And I would I don't want to cut anything out of her budget. Councilwoman, you done? Councilwoman Scarpa, are you done? Yes, I'm finished. Councilwoman Castelina.
Yeah. Thank you, Council President. So I so I am also not going to support um that motion and mainly because we've been trying to build up senior services for many years. We're still talking she's working doing all this programming
with increased participation with $26,000. Um you know we have a half million dollar shade tree budget. We have other things that we spend a lot of money on. I I this is one area that I know she's
been very mindful. I even felt bad with the support system that she asked for this evening and we couldn't give her that because I know of the volume. Uh a lot of times folks you got to remember I know we want to get down and every little bit helps but you know $1,500
$2,000 for her goes a long way with helping a lot of residents. So, we have to be mindful. We we we you know, I respect what everybody's trying to do to get this down as low as we can, but you know, it's all about balance. Government
is also about balance and health and welfare with our residents. And um yeah, this this one I I I definitely don't want to I definitely don't want to touch that. And uh you know again her t entire
budget on this is is now 26,000 uh dollar. So I I appreciate her. Uh and again looking at newsletters, flyers, posters, I know when the new age of technology, you know, that's not all our
seniors. It's not even all our parents. I got to I got to tell you that. I I talked earlier about um about the backpack. send home a simple flyer in the backpack. So again, you know, we're people move here for our services and this is one service that we built up
through the years and I I think we need to to keep it there. But I do respect what my colleagues are trying to do. I just not going to go there. I felt bad about your um position you asked for and I get that. Um but I won't touch this.
So, Councilwoman Ruden, I know you have your hand up, but we have a motion on the floor. And when I called on Councilwoman Scarpa, I thought she was going to second the motion. Obviously, she didn't. So, if if there we have a motion on the floor. If we don't have a
second, then the motion fails and we can move on. So, does anybody have a second for Councilwoman Ruden's uh motion to cut an additional 10% out of out of the budget? I'm seeing no second, so I'll I'll
pretend I'm Madame Clerk and say the motion fails for lack of a second. And I think we're done with this now. Now, Councilwoman Ruden, you had your hand up. So, now if you would like to speak. Yes. Hi. I just wanted to say that this
is nothing personal about Miss Van Djk's services. We've asked every department to to you know we've pushed them to the limit to try and see what more could be cut back. So it's absolutely nothing personal. Um and I I accept you know my
council colleagues decision on this. But I I also want to say that we did add uh 20 hours um per month for for Miss um Van Djk. So um and that's what she she had originally asked for um 25. So I
hope that that that is a a sign of support for the department. It it is I I appreciate everything you've you've you've shared and your efforts to hear to hear me tonight. Thank you. I I yield the floor.
You may now go home. Miss Van Den, thank you very much for your Thank you very much. I see. Yes. Okay, this one will be quick and I wanted to do pension because again it's going to be very quick. Um, so we have
two major bills that we have to pay every year and these payments are made on April 1st. I've talked about these a few times. The first is the public employee retirement system appropriation bill and for for 2025
that bill was 1,539,100. The second is the police and fireman's retirement system bill and that actually went down year-over-year and it is 7,449,281. That's a onetime pay it on April 1st bill. So
in one day we wired out nearly $9 million. Jeez. Um, I wanted to just show you, um, uh, to everyone at home, uh, and I'm going to go here first. This is the New
Jersey Division of Pensions and Benefits. And I've talked about how um they come up with the employer bills and and what they're what you're seeing here is that they're taking the June
30th, so it's the Q2 2023 report of contributions. So every quarter we report to pensions what our base uh pensionable base salaries are for our employees. So they take that
report from June 30th 2023 and they annualize it. They multiply it by four and then they apply a percentage and this percentage is is um calculated by an actuarial company uh AON.
And so for the public employee retirement system, they would take this annualized rock and then they say you owe us 17.11% of that and that's how they come up with the
bill. Now if we look at police and fire, they do the same thing. They base it on the second quarter report annualized. However, you can see that the contribution rate is significantly more than the public employee retirement
system and the pensionable base salaries are significantly more to begin with for our police and fire. So, that's where we come up with that that huge bill. Uh,
and the reason for it is because you know our police and fire they it's an incredibly stressful career. So, it's not something you can really do till you're 65 years old. Um, so, you know, they can retire at 42, 43, 44, 45. Um,
and then they're going to be paid out that pension. So, the contribution rate that an actuarial company would figure out is going to be significantly higher because somebody like me when I retire at 65 um, will probably die a couple days later and not collect the thing.
So that contribution rate will go down. So why isn't there a separate fund for CFOs? Yeah. Well, we'll see if we can get that uh changed legislatively. But um so I just wanted to show the public and and
the governing body how this is calculated out. And again, this is based on um the performance of the the different pension funds because the pension funds are invested. Um you know, they're out
in the market. uh there is an employee out there who manages the fund obviously working with different uh investment banks and all that but you know just like your own 401k or 403b or 457b
the pension fund is is out there in the market and as you know the stock market does well the pension fund hopefully is doing well and is going to reduce these contribution rates. Um, but you saw year-over-year if I go back to our
pension um, sorry. If we go back to uh the numbers here, police and fire did go down. Now, what are we going to see in the future? We're probably going to see increases to these contribution rates in the future.
Um it just seems to be the way of the world that uh you know the pension fund liability percentage keeps going up. Now the state has been doing its job and funding it to what the actuaries require of the
state and so that helps us um you know by by making the fund more solvent. So, uh, these are the two bills. They're already paid. Um, so there's really no discussion about
yet. We have discussion. Is the 457b plan being added into the pensionable base? And let me read the whole question. Yes. do we to have New Jersey taxpayers
paying pension on a benefit enhanced number? So the 457b plan um that originated because the township was able to get rid of lifetime health benefits
um specifically to police and fire um increases the pensionable base. It does for new hires. Let's be specific, right? For new hires. So, for those participating in that program,
um it it increases the pensionable base. Now, the the thing to also to consider with the new hires is they do have because they're tier three, we're talking about police and fire. Those individuals that are in this plan are tier three. They have a lower
pensionable base, maximum maximum base. And so that'll be an issue later on down the line. But um to answer your question, yes, the 457b factors in to that pensionable base that we report in the iRock. So it is increasing their pensionable base. It
increases the contribution that they make. Um they have to contribute 10% of that pensionable base and it's uh it's reported on the rock. So, it will increase
this bill. It's going to be part of this bill because it's going to be part of the calculation. Um, from my understanding is that it's allowed. Um, I haven't heard otherwise.
So, uh, but yes, the the 457b for the police and fire is included in the pensionable base. Um, full disclosure, I have 457b. It is not part of my pensionable base
because I'm tier five and my pensionable base is lower. So, it does not get included in my pensionable base. Um, so again, full disclosure. Thank you,
Mr. Tiniac. Why did the uh why did the PEF go down this year? The bill that we have to pay. Um, it it it must have been something in 2023. Maybe there were some
retirements um in that June 30th, 2023 uh that reduced the pensionable base calculation, that annualized calculation. I I don't know. So that was a 2023 event
finally has its impact basically two years later. Yeah. Okay. Mhm. H and this is part of like the fringe benefit costs of an employee. Um and we don't talk about it that much, but you know, you could say if you're, you know,
if you're paying someone in public employment in the PERS system, if you're paying them $100,000, well, a fringe benefit for pension is $17,100 is going to go to pension on their
behalf. Uh and for a police and fireman uh who's making 100,000 well what I say was 36%. So $36,000 is going to be paid on their behalf to um to pension. So it's one of the fringe
benefits. Not so fringe. Uh Councilwoman Ruden. Yes. Um I just want to Mr. You're talking about a 457 deferred
compensation plan being added to the pensionable base. Is that is that legal? Is that typical? because it seems that you know the um pensional base is
typically only the um income that an individual earned not necessarily the um well it is income oh I didn't hear the last five seconds because the air conditioner went on
you said it's typically only income and then what did you Usually it's not usually referred to the 457 is also being added. You you yourself referenced I think there's okay. So I'm asking you is it
really okay other do other communities do this? So I as far as this is like a pretty new program for New Jersey. Um, I've not seen it before. Um, but it went through
labor attorneys. Um, I think the former CFO reached out to pensions about this. So, as far as I understand, it's legal. We signed contracts with the with the unions. Um,
based on this plan, um, it is income. It gets paid bi-weekly to the individual's 457b plans. Um, that's all I can really say. I'm not a labor attorney. I didn't create the
program. Um, I don't work for pensions. It hasn't been rejected by pensions. Yeah. Pensions accepted it. It's part of the rock. Um, and they contribution. This is what about six years or so now. I don't remember when they exactly started. It's a few years. It's good
maybe whatever the time frame is. It's been a while and it's been accepted. It's not been rejected or kicked back by pensions. I mean, listen, we we could get a letter tomorrow that says it's it's not allowed. I can't predict the future, but
um for now, it's accepted and it's what we signed with the the unions. Um, so the other side of it would be that we give them health benefits back and it's that's far more expensive than the
contribution with the 457b in retirement. Health benefits of retirement. Want to be very clear. Health benefits in retirement. Yeah. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Um, excuse me, Council President, and pardon my interruption. Uh, we lost Councilwoman Ruden about two minutes
ago. I suspect she will return. Yeah, I suspect she will return. Sorry for the interruption. Shall we take a pause until she comes back or can she just listen to the replay? Ma'am, I'm I just more for your benefit.
Okay, please go ahead. Or maybe hers. Uh probably mine, everybody's. Yeah. So, when that negotiation was made, again, it's a negotiation with the union. It wasn't like, you know, the town just gave them
that that benefit. It was a negotiation. And as the CFO said, we were what was on the line was the lifetime benefits were running uh to be extremely more expensive. So again, you know, you couldn't take that away without giving
them something. And that was, you know, long and that was a very, very long negotiation and a very stressful one. So that didn't we didn't come to that decision easily. Um to to you know that
came over time and a lot of a lot of angst. So Oh yeah. The same thing with longevity. Yeah. The exact same thing with longevity. Yeah. Uh in order to get rid of longevity for new boys, we had to give them something else. Something else. Yeah.
Yeah. No such thing as a free lunch. Uh, Councilwoman Ruden has rejoined the meeting. Great. Councilwoman Ruden, did you want to raise your hand? Sorry, my internet is spotty. Um, I I
did miss a little bit of what what went on while I was off, but you know, I just I was just questioning because a pensional a pensionable base generally refers to the comp compensation on which retirement benefits are calculated. And
I've never heard that that it'd be including with a 457 um plan. And I you mentioned that this was approved um by our our prior CFO. Um there were many questionable practices
done under our our prior CFO and I'd just like to know if you yourself um got a legal opinion on this. Well, so the other I mean we had two sets of attorneys, well, multiple sets of
attorneys agree to it as well. Um, our own labor attorneys and the labor attorneys for the union. So, I'm assuming that they all felt that this was legal. Um, you know, but I'm not an attorney. I'm I wasn't here for the
negotiation. um until I hear from the state of New Jersey division of pensions that this is not allowed, you know, we we're going to continue the practice under the contract. Um
to remember the contracts are ratified by this governing body. You had to approve it in order to approve. Well, this was bad. I'm saying, you know, the old it was not approved by this governing body. Imagine. Well, the township council, the township, I apologize, counciloman. I didn't mean
to throw you under the bus for that one. It's just that it's but the governing body of the township of West Orange approved this and and I think it was back in 2019 or 2020. It's five or six years now because so it's been a while. So, this is the
first time that I that I've had a chance to examine this and in to to the best of my knowledge, contributions to deferred compensation plans like 457bs are generally not included in pensionable earnings. So, I'd just like to ask if
you can reach out and get another legal opinion from the state on this. So I I would say that I don't even think I've seen anybody any employers give contributions to 47b. That's why I'm saying it is a very new
plan and you know I will do my best to talk to the state and to our attorneys and try to come back um to the council with something.
Okay, we jumped over a page on health insurance. We want to go to that now because that's just as simple, right? Yeah. Is that where we're headed? Yes. Um,
so I I do want to point out um that and I had made this a a while back. So as part of the health insurance, we collect
um chapter 78 deductions from our employees. So if you're getting health receiving health benefits from the township as an active employee, you must make contributions under the
chapter 78 legislation. And the chapter 78 contributions are based on the plan that you have and your total salary. and the contribution percentages range from 1% to 35%
of the total premium cost. Now, we are self-insured for our medical claims. We have a traditional insurance plan for prescription
and then for our Medicare we contract out with Metro HIF and and we have a a traditional plan and dental we have a traditional premium plan but for the claims we we pay the claims. So we have to figure
out sort of like a plan cost and we use Fair View Insurance and they they calculate a plan cost for us so that we can then tell the employees, okay, 35% of the
plan that you have is $14,000 a year, let's say. And then we would collect that $14,000 from that employee and we do it through the bi-weekly payroll. So in total
last year we said we would collect $1,891,239. This year based on what we're collecting already and the plans are not going to change during the year and then projected out through the rest of the year. We are going to collect 2,223,183.84.
That's what our employees are going to contribute to their health benefits and that's what we're using to offset the health insurance. Um the the amount that we asked the taxpayers. Um, so we came out to
um $17,383 um 17,38,362.52 um as our budget request. It's 4.68% increase year-over-year. Um we we at this point um
we have spent $9,925,000. That does not include that's not offset with our deductions. Um so we are right like right at the tip of spending about
17.3 million. Like we are not really going to have much left over. um uh at the end of the year. Um so that's what you pay out all the claims.
That's paying out claims. That's paying out um Medicare Part B reimbursements to our retirees. Um, so what that is is that if you have lifetime health benefits with us as a retiree,
uh, twice a year you submit 6 months worth of your Medicare Part B claims that you've paid, we pay you back because we promised you lifetime health benefits. Um, so we make those payments twice a year. Um, we have prescription
plans um for our active and our retiree uh through Benard. Um, we pay Medicare Advantage through the Metro HIF. Medicare Advantage has gone up pretty dramatically in the last few years. So,
um, we're probably we probably should be increasing this budget line item a little bit more, but again, we understand that, you know, people are having a hard time with the revaluation. They're having a hard time paying their bills. They're
having a hard time staying their house. So, we are sort of foregoing any sort of reserve here. Um, and we're sort of budgeting to where Fairview thinks is more of like a the not minimum, but like the medium amount. Um, so they provide
us like a min, medium, and a max of what we should be budgeting based on the stop-loss that we have based on, you know, how much we have uh enrolled in our different plans, especially the ones that have the premiums. Um, so 173 is
sort of the medium point. Um there is really no room to cut. Um I've looked at it with Fair View. Uh I'm looking at it based on the claims that we're paying um and what we've spent to
date. You know, we we gave an increased amount for the employee contribution. That's really all we can do. Um, so that's that's what I have on that. Well, that's really interesting that uh
uh that the employee contribution went up I think over 15%. I'm not good at putting doing this in my head, but so I think the 1.8 8 was probably a hold over for a couple years and it allowed
um the budget to increase to provide more of a cushion. So then when the actual chapter 78 came in, there was a bigger cushion there. So even though it was budgeted at 1.8, he might have brought in I think he brought in 2.1
million. Um so again had more of a cushion. This is a more exact number. So, I'm not gonna see 2.4 million in chapter 78 contributions. I'm only going to see that 2.2 million. Question.
Yes, Councilman. Not so much question, but well, I guess a question if I'm figuring this out right. So just going back to why we went to that other plan and and to come off the retirees benefits from what I'm adding up what's budgeted here over 9
million is just budgeted for the retiree. Yeah. And then which and we have a total of 173. So more than half is going to the retirees. Yeah. Few years ago. Yeah.
No. Well, just so it's understanding for our newer council people to understand why we went to that other plan and negotiated out the retirees benefits. Yeah. So the the legacy the legacy costs are exceeding the
active because we get the contributions from the activives that we don't get from the retirees because the majority of our retirees do not pay anything. Um, so they actually, you know, if you think about it, it's when
you're an active employee and you're making a high enough salary and you have family coverage and you're contributing $14,000 and then you're also contributing 10% of your your salary to pension. Again, this is like for police and fire when they
retire. Now that 10 they're not paying that 10% towards pension anymore and they're not paying that $14,000 for health insurance anymore. You know, they're getting it for free. So the legacy costs are just like astronomical now. And it's
going to take a long time for it to sort of level out as, you know, our existing retirees die out and they're replaced just with the retirees that are not getting the the health insurance. Um, you know, what we're also looking at too
is, you know, we're in a traditional prescription plan right now, uh, insurance plan where we pay a premium. So, Benard is the insurer. Um, we're missing out on the reimbursements that
they get from drug companies. So, Benard is benefiting from them. If we were self-insured like we are with the claims, we could see the the benefits from reimbursement. So, you know, we have a lot of employees on I can say this a lot of employees on like WGOI and
OMIC and um not so much Zepbomb now because of you know Etna and everything but um we don't get any of the reimbursements that you know like in Etna Etna the reason that they're moving on from Zepbomb is
they just get more money from WGOIG costs more money but they get more in reimbursements um we could see those reimbursements. So we are through Fair View always looking you know at the next year or the year
after and seeing you know what can we do to reduce these costs. Um on the on the claim side we have stop losses um for individuals and we have a stop-loss on an overall claim. Um, now we've started to do things where they're I think I
brought this up before, they're lasering out certain claims. So certain individuals we've lasered out and you know that's reducing then the stop-loss coverage in the next year. Um, so we do everything that we can to try to keep
these costs down. we have a third party that's reviewing the claims and um you know making sure that they're doing their due diligence to see what's we don't fraudulent things in there and u but it it
health insurance is extremely expensive and you know per our contracts we provide very rich health benefit plans or Cadillac plans Um, so
I should have did this one first. I'm like so spent. Okay. Any questions? Very informative. Thank you. Yes. I I have a question. Sorry. Yes, counciloman. Get my hand up fast enough. Um, do you
said that that the our prescription plans are are are not are are the Cadillac of plans? Do we all of our plans are? Yes. Okay. Is there is there any discussion of moving them to better um either uh
cost-saving or requiring our employees to mail order drugs negotiation? So yeah, the the the problem is is that all of this is covered under
um collective bargaining agreements. Um and the unions are very hesitant to move on on the actual benefits. Um,
so what usually ends up happening is like a lot of these plans they peg the coverage at the state health benefit level. Um, which was like and still is the gold standard. I mean, it's it's it might be very expensive now, but it's
still an incredible plant. Um so without reopening contracts um it's difficult to move on what we're actually offering for benefits. It's not impossible
because what is happening is it's getting so expensive and even though you're capped at 35% that 35% it's going up and up what you're contributing. So if it ever gets to the point where the memberships of the
unions just can't deal with the increases in the health benefits because in a lot of ways it eats into the cost of living increases. So you may get a 3% increase but your health benefit goes up 8% you know what you're paying. So it's eating
into these increases then there could be an appetite for hey what can we do here? Can we accept a lower benefit for reduced contribution? So there could be opportunities for that. It's just got to
hurt enough or we're gonna have to offer enough to change it. What opportunities would you suggest and when when can we change some of these practices? I mean, we we could we could ask the
union to reopen a contract. But again, we're going to either have to offer them something very lucrative or the pain of these contributions is going to have to be great enough they're going to come to us and say, "What can we do?" Because our membership cannot keep paying
7 8 9% increases in what they're contributing. So, but they're capped at 35%. It's 35% of the calculated premium. Um so that percentage is not going to go up but the premium goes up so the amount
they contribute. Council president. So so councilwoman um the only alternative we have and that's if the broker could find us a plan that is the same um or or better. That's that's it. So
when you have these negotiations, same with the school district and and other uh unions, it's if they have that clause in there, which we have and most of them do, is the plan has to be equal or better. And so we could find an equal
plan and they also go uh the you also do a comparison as well with the providers like they do a review of the uh the provider. So if they were to find another carrier that was the same or better, they would also have to provide
a percentage of the carriers that are on our existing plan. So the union couldn't object to the switch in that plan. So um that's some that's one alternative that our our broker uh has if he changes the
carrier. And so, yeah, and our our broker is is shopping around and and giving us different options. Like I said, you know, some things we're self-insured. Um, so the hope is is that we're not paying a lot out in claims. Um, you know, but we hope that for everything
because when an insurance company looks at us, they're going to say, you know, what did you pay out in the prior year, you know, versus what you collected in in premium. Um so the healthier our employees are and we use ramp health um we actually I don't have the numbers in
front of me but you know something like 50 individual employee uh interventions where you know reducing blood pressure, smoking s c s c s c s c s c s c s c s c s c s c sessation um getting employees to lose weight and exercise. So we
provide that to our employees because we know especially when we're paying the claims ourselves, we need healthier employees. So we try to do things to offset some of those um claims costs. And again, our our broker is out there
and looking at different ways, whether it's participating in the health insurance funds, which have become more popular, becoming self-insured or going with a uh a traditional insured plan, you know, multi-year contracts, like they're out
there trying to to get the best deal for us. Um but it's you know we're also at the whim of the health insurance um um sector as a whole. You know, it's,
you know, I used to like to blame the employees when I was an auditor and say, why do they get such great benefits? But then you sort of have to look at the industry as a whole and say, you know, also why does every health insurance company have record profits every year?
And, you know, it's like, so, you know, we're we have to exist in that space as well. Um, but I do like your idea of trying to be aggressive. um with the the unions and and the
benefit plans. We just need to have an opportunity where that can happen. And like I said, it's either going to be so painful for them or we're going to have to offer something lucrative to get them to either reduce their own benefit or sell
out the unborn. So, the the ones that haven't come yet. Maybe a possibility. I' I'd also like to explain I'd also like to understand um the 90 and 95 what are these other
why is that not other claims HB claims other administration HB claims why is that not in in 030 in employee HB claims I I don't I have to research what those were from 2024 that's why I don't have
them in the budget request um I'll see why they were broken out and I can send you the detail and do do our employees pay anything for uh dental. Um so they I mean do they contribute?
Yes. Do they contribute? No. Um but you know they're they're going to pay co-pays or co- insurance based on on the work um that they get. When was the last time we changed in
insurance brokers? Well, we almost did last year. It was 2023 was the year we today we went out to advertisement. I believe it was 2023 prior to you. Yeah. I I don't know when I believe it was 2023. We actually last
year we're going to change change from the current and then I think it came back to the table cuz it did. Yeah. Was it was it early 2024? I maybe we would negotiate it 2023 and I think that's I forgot the exact It was It was around that time.
And when is their contract up? It's a No, it's it's a three-year contract, right? With a two-year option. It's options. Yeah, it's a three-year option. It's a three-year contract with two one-year options. which would be if it was 24 then we're looking at 27 with a
two-year option up to 29. If it's 23 then it's one year less. Okay. No more questions. All right. No more pages. That's it. Council President. Thank you. We can look forward.
So the plan is to basically take the budget as it is now, correct? And introduce it. Yes. On Tuesday, at the July 22nd, next Tuesday, council meeting.
So, um, even though we're introducing, the budget can still be changed via amendment. Um, so I'd recommend still having uh obviously the budget hearings and continue to vote on the pages, but
we want to introduce so that you know no one's getting fined um by the divisional government services. Uh we still not heard from from the state about No. Okay. They're probably looking to see if we introduce on to that's that's probably
what they're looking for. We have we've have introduced some doubt in their mind. So have at least a month. Madam President, Madam President. Well, not in my mind. Madam clerk, 28 days, right? Yeah. So, we're going to have at least a
month um between introduction and when we could actually adopt. I'm guessing we'll probably adopt in September, uh is what it'll work out to be. Um but we can make amendments. the council has made amendments in the past um to make
changes to the budget and um you know it's a it's a resolution um basically and if they make amendments the amendments could be made the same night as it depends it depends on the type of amendment there's the major hearings
yeah there's ma major and minor amendments if they're going to be major amendments 10% of a budget line item or increasing the amount to be raised by a certain percentage. You know, we'd have to advertise and hold separate public hearing, but you know, we'll give ourselves enough time to figure out what
those amendments are and take proper action. Okay. Um, but an introduced budget is by no means the final budget. So, I don't want any I know you've been on the council before, but for those that are new, um, it's not the final budget. It can be
changed um, before it's adopted. So, you're going to take out what we did tonight hopefully. Yes. Well, the ones that you voted on, I'm going to redo and come up with a new amount to be raised, which it's going to go below $90. Um, and then you're going
to have to vote on the individual pages because that's probably what's going to generate an amendment. You know, if an individual page changes based on a vote, you know, that'll be part of the amendment. So, and when are we going to vote on those
individual many individual pages? Well, I think the 24th is uh is a hearing date. So, you know, we could start workshop. 24th 22nd
22nd the council meeting, but 24th is still a budget hearing. A workshop. Yes. Oh, budget. So, we could start then. Yeah. Okay. Start going through them then. see how far we get. And yeah, well, we have a lot of to-dos from tonight and I think maybe from the
previous workshop, but he included he included what we voted on. You have a lot of stuff was not voted on at the beginning. Yeah. The first five meetings. But it's in there. It's in there. It's in there. Yes, it's in there. Right. You just have to So the only ones that won't be in there
are the ones that you didn't put in what we discussed, but people could change their minds. So, you know, we have to go through every page and, you know, it may change. Someone may say, "I want 10,000 instead of the 8,000 we talked about last time." So,
commissions. Yeah. You guys already voted on the commissions, and now it was brought up again tonight. Yeah. No, I'm I'm willing to look at that. So, we'll go we'll go through it page by page and make sure that we're clear and comfortable and
Okay, Mr. Fagen, is there a pending uh hand raise? Councilwoman Ruden, sorry about that. Hi, I just wanted to before before the evening is over, I just wanted to again reiterate my request to Mr. Diniac to
get another legal opinion if possible on um contributing the 457 plan to the um compens to to the um define I'm sorry to the um retirement pension
pension plan. I don't know if that's what she's asking. I'd like to I'd like to know I'd like another opinion on that before you know we we rule on that. I'm not sure that it's um completely
legal. So, I'd like to get another opinion. Miss Bear, I also have another question from the um from the board. Who uh we were talking about the insurance uh consultant? Who's the option? Who has the option to
renew the consultant or us? Us. Always us. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. It's not like baseball. Okay. So, the changes that we made tonight obviously impact the spreadsheet that was the PDF that we started out with
first thing in the meeting, right? So, did I understand you that you're going to update that with what happened today? Yeah. And then also that'll change a lot of numbers. Yeah. So, we're we're $8860. Okay.
Mhm. So, and you will post that tomorrow in the budget section uh of the township website and so people can read it and get the most up to date. Okay. Is there anything else to discuss tonight?
No. And I just want to encourage my colleagues that uh if they have anything additional they want to talk about or discuss that they try if possible to do the research
have discussions with Mr. Datiniac or Mr. SMaldo or whoever uh before the meeting starts so that we have a greater chance of having more information available so we can make a more informed uh decision and not have to put it off
anymore because we're we're sort of running out of time. Uh so just something to think about as as we're moving forward. Is there anything else we need to discuss?
Very nice job everyone by the way. Thank you. Councilwoman Scarpa. Yeah. I just want to make sure that we um seriously flag or you know uh highlight all of these the open
positions because I really would like to see um all of them filled next year, not this year. Um, so I want to make sure that that's clearly outlined and that we have the real number on that because I will want to make amendments at the next meeting to uh kind of have that
moratorum on the hiring. I want to make sure Mr. Smearaldo realize he has an action item to deal with the arts council ASAP because I don't want to continue to fund that. That's a serious problem as well. And um you know, I just
want to make sure we take a serious look at these these areas where we have some leeway. If you're concerned at all, you can uh send them an email. Okay, just a document. That's a good idea.
We'll respond. Sounds like it's time to entertain a motion to go to dinner. Do I hear a second? Second. A second. All in favor? I. Any opposed?
The meeting is adjourned. John, so the flash flood warning