Mr. Lmanol or whoever, they're gonna just assume that that person is council person and I just Yeah, I just don't think it's appropriate. Okay, I'm going to report anyway. Yeah, good evening, West Orange. Uh sorry for
the technical difficulties. Uh but we are coming to you live from uh council chambers. This is the West Orange Township Council budget workshop for June 17, 2025. You are welcome to join us in council chambers, but there will
be no public comment on Zoom or in uh council chambers. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to our uh council president. Council President, thank you, Mr. Fagan, and welcome West Orange to our fifth budget workshop. But
before we go any further, I have to defer to Madame Clerk. Thank you. 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 June 11th, 2025. Let the record show that Councilwoman Castelino is not present tonight. Councilwoman Ruden. Oh, here. Councilwoman Scarpa
here. Thank you. Council President Koviaak here. Thank you. Okay, this is our fifth budget workshop. We have a little bit to uh uh intro the the meeting and I start with that the draft from the mayor uh the draft budget
from the mayor proposed to raise municipal property taxes by 6.2% 2% and we've been looking for efficiencies and savings to lower that increase. Uh, as Mr. Fagen said, we are not taking public comment. If you want to comment or ask
questions, please send an email to council@west orange.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 us and ask for distribution to uh the rest of
the council. If you need email addresses, you can search for council on the township website. Recordings of the workshops are on the township website. You can find them by searching by video gallery.
We at the last meeting at the last workshop, excuse me, we uh added a member of the citizens budget advisory board uh to the uh deis up here and we expect to have a member of uh the board
here. In fact, even as I speak, she walked in the room and made a incredibly uh welltimed uh joining us. Miss Bennett, please. We've got you over here in the corner.
So, uh, Miss Michaela Bennett from the Citizens Budget Advisory Board is joining us and she will be participating, I'm sure, in terms of asking questions, making comments, uh, which is the whole idea to get the Citizens Budget Advisory Board uh, more involved uh, with the process. I'm also
now going to defer to uh, Mr. Dinac, our chief financial officer, because he may have made some lastm minute changes that might help you at home to follow along. Mr. Tiniac. Thank you, Council President. Um, just bear with me while I hook my computer up
to the screen so I can show everyone at home. Can we also talk about the letter that was sent out to DCA? Yeah, I'm going to Yeah, I'm going to talk about that. Mr. Dutin, would it help if we turn down
the lights a little bit? It always instead of Okay, it also brings an element of suspense like in a scary movie. Okay, so the first bit of housekeeping, um I'm
looking at the Township of West Orange's brand new website. Um hopefully the people at home have checked out the the redesign. Um, what we've added is last week's budget presentation. So, the documents that we covered last week,
we've added a link to those documents. We have a link to all of tonight's documents, a PDF. Um, and I'll be referencing that throughout the um throughout the evening. And then tomorrow morning, we tried to get it up tonight, but I sort of ran out of time.
Tomorrow morning, we are going to have what sort of replaces, but I'm not going to get rid of this, but it's a 2025 municipal budget sort of where we're at right now. It's going to show all of the departmental cuts that we've talked
about. It's going to um recalculate the average increase and uh it's going to be better page numbers and a better index. Um so, look for that tomorrow morning. Um, we'll have the full budget document
that was submitted by the administration up with all the most up-to-date cuts, including what we're talking about tonight. Um, so we'll have that ready for tomorrow morning. Um, and just sort of where we're at right now. Um, putting the cart before the horse. Uh, we're
looking at Oops. [Music] Oh no, my referencing's off. but it's about $160 on the average home. I'll fix that referencing. Um, and we'll we'll show that a bit little bit later in the
evening, but we're down to $160 on the average home for the local tax. Uh, the one other thing I want to talk about is we mentioned it at the last budget hearing. We did receive a letter from the Division of Local Government Services, uh the director, Michael
Rogers, uh instructing the township to uh introduce a budget by um June 30th or the council will face a penalty of $25 a day. Um, we appealed
that uh that letter as per the instructions in the letter and we sent um uh a response requesting that we be allowed to introduce at our regularly scheduled meeting in in July. Um, so that letter that we sent
is really like an application to local finance board. So, we sent a copy to director Michael Rogers, assistant director Christine Zapiki and the deputy attorney general Craig M. Kaiser and also the executive uh secretary to the local finance board,
Nicholas Bennett. And we emailed a copy to applications at local finance board. We also sent hard copies to all the individuals I named along with all of the members uh of the local finance board to their assuming personal home
addresses as uh per the instructions on the local finance board website. Um I did have a conversation with uh assistant director Zapiki. Um she did not uh promise anything but we spoke about the situation and um you know I
was very clear about when we gave the council the budget April 16th and where we've been with the hearings and where we're looking to get. Um so you know the hope is that uh they will grant that extension to us. I I believe that they will. Um and then we should introduce at
July 22nd. Um, as I stated in the last hearing, uh, we can introduce and and amendments can be made. Um, just like last year, I think we had a few rounds of amendments.
Um, so the introduced budget for those new on the council, introduced budget does not have to be the final budget document. Uh, it can be amended through the actions of of this governing body. Um, that's all I really have to say on that. Um,
so if you want to proceed, Council President. Thank you, Mr. Tiniac. Just one more housekeeping issue. As as many of you probably know, uh, Councilwoman Gber resigned from the council effective immediately last week.
And so we're down to four council people on the five me five member uh, council. And uh Councilwoman Castelino is now on vacation and so she is not joining us tonight as uh the clerk mentioned. So we
have a what I would call a a bare quorum to be holding this meeting and we will be uh signing off at 8:00 tonight when we lose that quorum. And uh I know that's probably disappointing a lot of
you who don't have anything to do between 8:00 and 10:00 which is the scheduled end but so be it anyway. So we will continue to uh try to move forward as quickly as possible. Mr. Diniac, unless
there's there's one more issue too that uh uh Councilwoman Ruden raised uh earlier in our workshop process. A majority of the council at that time voted not to make any take any votes to uh make any modifications to the budget
either increases or decreases. Grieet uh Councilman Ruden would like to revisit that issue and uh normally for a floor vote I think don't we usually have to have
four votes for a motion from the floor? Is there is there any uh parliamentarian who can advise us then if if if uh if we're not sure that we can take a
floor uh motion or entertain a floor motion that's fine. So we should just move on. We'll continue to we'll continue to take the detailed notes that Mr. Tinyak is
taking uh on all of our uh decisions that we've made so far and uh we'll just continue to move on and when we get when we get clarification on the issue of whether we can have a floor motion uh we will revisit the issue. Uh
Councilwoman Scarpa. Um yeah, I just wasn't I thought um the clerk had mentioned to us the last time that I think it was when you wanted to add you needed the four person. Maybe she can clarify if she knows.
I think perhaps you're mentioning the issue of adding to the budget requires four votes. Uh uh reducing the budget uh takes only three votes. If if that's what you're referring to, we're not talking about that now. We're talking
about whether we can make a motion from the floor uh to entertain a a vote about taking a vote. Oh, okay. I just thought maybe she could clarify. No problem. I just did.
Okay. That's right. Go move on. Yes. Is there any other housekeeping? So, I'm reading here. It says a main motion um introduced from the floor generally requires a majority vote for approval. And a majority vote is defined as more
than half of the votes cast by the members legally entitled to vote. Okay. So my understanding of a majority vote is three and a super majority would be four. They're not talking about a super majority here. And so what you're
talking about is is to introduce a floor motion. Correct. Okay. Yeah. So, well, Madam Clerk, you have a lot more time on in this than I do. So, if you were saying that that's you're confident that that's the uh Yeah. I mean, Pete's going to try to or Mr. Smaldo is going to try to get the
attorney on the phone, but I I would Okay. Why don't we just wait for five minutes until Mr. Smaldo gets back and then we can entertain it at that at that point. Is is there any other housekeeping we have? Councilwoman Ruden, I just wanted to respond to Mr.
detent um letter to um um to the DCA. Um there was a measure before the Senate which raises the charges of the fees to the governing body. It just came out I think today or
yesterday that proposes to raise it to $100 a day, not $25 a day. So that's a lot of money and I would like to really understand from you why you are confident or feel fairly confident that we will be getting an extension. So the
letter references the $25. So I don't I don't think that the $100 is in play. Um just in my experience, the state really only started doing this last year. Um, and of the municipalities that that they
penalized, none of the municipalities ever made an application requesting extra time. So, we're now the first municipality to to actually come back and and and listen, the town of West Orange has been on this timeline for
years. This is not really abnormal, you know, introducing in June and adopting in August, September. So, um, this is something that DLGS is is just trying to get the municipalities
to introduce and adopt on a faster basis. Um, but again, we were responsive. Um, I've laid out a plan. I spoke to assistant director Zapiki about the plan and and I'm confident. So,
that's that's all I can that's all I can give you. I I can't guarantee it. Okay. Um, thank you. So the the this legislation that is that is before the legislation the state legislation right now is setting firmer deadlines for next
year as well. So um I hope that we are not in this position. Yeah, I think the the legislation also is making the extensions automatic and because they always it's always like all right you should introduce by you know the end of
February first meeting in March and then they every year they do a a local finance notice and they extend it because the local finance board votes on it. I think the legislation now is just saying this is the the due date that we always end up extending it to. Let's
just codify it. So, but you're right. Um, they they are trying to increase the the fees and they're trying to ding the CFOs as well. Um, you know, that's that's part of that legislation. Okay. So, just to follow up on that, I I I
know what you meant when you said abnormal. I consider the lateness of the budget over a a number of years to be abnormal, and I'm going to try to do everything that I can to to move this up on a even faster schedule. And my
understanding is the systems that you are currently putting in place is going to make that a whole lot easier, a whole lot more efficient, and a whole lot faster and earlier in the and and we're we're just going to start the process earlier. You know, we want to get this to you for 26 in October. So that even
if we had 10 of these for 5 hours a piece, we still will have plenty of time to adhere to the the calendar dates. And I agree adopting introducing and adopting a budget late in a year really does not give you a lot of say in the
spending because if you know if there's like 10 months have gone by and you know what can you really do? We've already spent. So I agree with you 100%. The process needs to be better and it needs to be much earlier and we you know I put
my name on it. I have already told DGS that we're going to they will they will look and see did we adhere to it. Did we start holding hearings in October like I said we would. Um they'll watch these meetings. They'll watch your your next council meeting. I mean they they don't
make idle threats. I understand that. And and they do uh they do their homework on it. So um it's not overbearing. They are absolutely right. We and just as you mentioned, having a late budget really reduces the flexibility that we have to
make changes and improvements. So, the the uh $161 per family or per resident um per household increase, what percentage is that? Um it's
it's like 4.06%. So, we still have a ways to go to bring it down to zero. I don't think you're going to get to zero. I really don't I I don't think that's realistic. Um I I I don't see that happening. Um
just because we had a 6% increase in salaries for because you know it's the effect of 24 and 25. I just don't see that happening along with the health care costs um debt service. I I really don't see that
happening. nor would I ever recommend giving to going to 0%. I I'll never tell you to go 0%. Um, so okay. Yeah. And if it makes sense, it makes sense. Uh, Councilwoman Scarpa.
Yeah. I would really like to see it go to zero. And if that means we have to wait and not fill any open positions, I think we need to look at that. And I also think we need to look at our staffing a little more carefully. Thank you, Councilwoman. Yes, Miss
Bennett. Just briefly, Council President, um I've had two requests from the Citizens Budget Advisory Board that when there are changes to the um the proposed budget, if copies can be made, I know there's a couple over here, but
if copies can be made for the entire board as well. Sure. Um, we actually had a problem with our copier tonight. So, yeah, I think I think we have a meeting tomorrow. So, maybe for tomorrow. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. [Music]
How many would you need? I have a copy. It looks like there's more over here, but I've had two requests and there's only two here. I'm assuming that I think there's How many of us are there? Five, six, seven. There's seven of us. So
maybe five more. Okay, that's and um and I sent around the digital copies earlier today in an email. It's entirely possible that not everybody would want to kill the trees. So um I'll find out.
I think so. I'll figure it out wherever it is. That's where I'll eat copies. And I'll find out tonight before you Okay. Yeah. Thank you. That's it. That was all I had. Great. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Mr.
Diniac, I think we're now ready to move forward. So, we're going to go a little bit out of order. I apologize, but um we have Mr. Beyond here. Um and we'd like him to start. So, we're going to begin on uh it's page 22 if you're following
along at home. uh 22 of the the PDF for tonight and we put it in present mode. Uh this is UCC. Um Madame Clerk, they have the updated packets, right? The council the over there. Okay. They're not pageionated. Yeah, they're not. Um
why? They're on here as pageionated. I'm kidding. Okay. Well, it's there's only 25 pages. It's like the third from the last UCC. Um, [Laughter]
I don't know. I don't know. On mine, it's not third from the end. It's towards the end because there's only 25 pages in all, right? Okay. Yeah. Got Um, so you know, we won't go over the individuals. Um,
the total salaries and wages for the department. Uh, it's a mix of of salaried and and hourly pay. We're at $712,231. And oh, here we go. This is going real well tonight. Failed to load document. Um,
as a comparison, last year, I mean, the the salaries and wages have gone up um 14.7%. Uh, I'm going to let um Mr. Beyond just talk about staffing and and just how busy the office is and um you know, sort
of the need for the additional staff. Yeah, go ahead. My name is Don Bondi. I'm the I serve as construction official in West Orange. The West Orange Building Department plays a vital role in protecting the health and safety of residents,
businesses, and visitors of West Orange through the inspection process, including electrical, building, plumbing, mechanical, and fire safety. In 2024, we oversaw $114 million in new construction, processed 2500 permits, and our permit fees brought in $2.5
million. And this year, we may eclipse that figure. We normally have four full-time inspectors and four part-time inspectors. We have three office staff. Right now, we are short one full-time building inspector. And I would like to
add a part-time multiple licenses factor because of new GCA rules. I believe that will more than pay for themselves. I would also like one more full-time office keyboard clerk and I believe that extra person in the office
would bring in more than enough to pay for themselves. The reason I I would like another part-time multi-roll inspector is that there's no DCA rules that we have to be able to do an inspection at three days or the contractor or homeowner can call
in a third party in approved inspector to do the inspection. I'm not a big fan of third party inspections as we lose control over jobs and I believe paying a company for inspections is a huge conflict of interest. the companies that do those inspections
would disagree with the uh the inspectors the inspections are costly and the permit fees are already paid to the town. We would have to credit credit them for the cost of the third party inspections at the end of at the end of the perate at the end of the
inspections. I don't know if you want me to talk about Apple, you know. Well, not not at this meeting. So, okay. Um, there you go. Well, we had one car retire because it was dangerous. The
steering would go out intermittently. So, can I explain a little bit? Okay. We need seven. We only have six. And our newest card 2022. Okay, that's enough about I guess the
price. So, I'd like to move to the the other expenses as Mr. Beyond said, you know, the department takes in a significant amount of revenue. Um part part of it is paid to uh the state or the um
the DCA fee, you know, based on what type of permits are are done. We pay money down to the state as part of the revenue that we collect. Um, but as far as revenues exceeding the operations, um, you know, this is sort of the
department that you like to have that happen. Um, and it and and we have that. Um, our other expense ask is only $23,90. It hasn't increased from the prior year. I'm going to I'm going to jump to that right now.
Of course, my document won't load. Mr. Tun, before we move on to the O and E, I just want to ask you a question because I know I keep bringing this up. When I was on the council before, we would have the requests for adding
uh spots or adding employment as part of the budget process. And I don't see it here. So, I'm just wondering is have we changed that part of the process or So, we're not requesting any additional spots in this ask. Um, this is for our
current headcount. And I I think I've read the room pretty well that we're not looking to add to a budget. Um, so we are not asking for Okay. any additional spots. Okay. We can expect that in the
next budget. I would think we'll see. We'll see. Um, you know, we'll evaluate that in 2026, but for 2025, we have a we have a roster and um we're going to make that work.
Excellent. Mr. Beyond, can you explain how we are paying for it outering the the um positions that you say would be would save us money if we had the staff? Who are we paying for these services and how much are we paying? It'll be paid
through permit fees. We have uh certain permit fees that basically there's permits sitting there. We have to go every once in a while we have to go through them. Why that we need more information sometimes and that permit fee is not paid yet. Mr. Vande, I apologize for interrupting
you. Could you just move your the microphone head uh more towards the direction of that you're speaking? Yes. Yes. So that even when you tilt your head, it'll still pick it up. No, that's okay. That's okay. What what I what I'm asking is, are you outsourcing some of the the work right now? And who is
getting that work? And how much are we paying out? It's not. So how would this adding new positions, even though I know we're not really talking about this this this goround, how would that pay for itself? It would pay for it bringing more permit
fees in because after a while, we we we boxed the permit. We box these permits and they're never paid. So if we have somebody keep to keep on top of that, we would have we would have enough permit fees basically to pay the position.
Okay. Can you give me an example? An example? Okay. So we need information for for for a permit to be issued and uh we have shelves full of permits. We're waiting for information and we need we need someone to call these people and
and it's a big job to do to call these people, ask the information, find out if the if the job was done and if the job was done then then we have more issues. They they they can be fined doing the job without the permit. But we need that information so we could issue the permit
and collect the permit fees. And we also have permits that are ready to be issued. They're sitting there waiting for the payment and people aren't coming in and making the payments. If we had somebody go through all those permits and call them every couple weeks and right now my staff is
is overloaded. They don't have time to do that. And that's one thing I call it a special project. And I always I I wanted to have the uh the the kids that are coming in, the interns or whatever you want to call them. I want to put one of those on it. See if they they could
make that work. But we're not I don't think we're getting them this year. Wasn't enough. There wasn't enough. Uh I wanted two, but I guess not enough departments wanted the interns, I'll call them. And uh so we're not getting any any interns. And is any of this automated so that you get a notice when
a permit has no not automated at all. It's all handone. And with our old our new software, it should be it should be a lot easier to do with the new software. I'm hoping it's going to be easier to do, but that's a whole another thing. Or I don't know if you kn know about the new software we're getting is
the DCA is mandated that we we we accept digital permits, plans, and uh professional seals. Everything has to be accepted digitally. And right now, that's taking up the staff's time just to try help design it,
get the information that they need. We're going to classes, but it's taking up a lot of their time. I mean once it's implemented and I think it's going to be at least a year it'll be more efficient hopefully and it should help but right now our staff is overloaded
and they're uh being asked to do the extra work to develop this software. Thank you. Please go on uh with the OE please. So, as I as I stated, this is a a very
small Oh, I apologize. Apologize. Councilwoman Scarpa, please. Yeah, I'm sorry. I I had the same thought as Councilwoman Rub and I wanted an analysis of to what extent we can automate this function. And I'd like our the CFO to do a costbenefit analysis of
hiring someone, you know, versus, you know, subcontracting it or using, you know, a um a computer program to do some of these functions. I think we need to look at this more carefully before we hire another person.
So, we do have new software um that as Mr. Beondi said is mandated so that we can allow for the submission of these documents digitally. Um, so that that's going to go into effect and you know we're going to have some equipment that that goes along with that uh you know
iPads and and hotspots and all that to be able to do the field work necessary to to interface with that system. So you know that that will speed things up from a like an administrative work perspective. Um but we still need people
to process uh the permits. We still need people to go out there and do the inspections. Um, so you we're still going to need actual people. Uh, can we do this with part-time employees versus bringing on more uh employees that are
going to um be kind of costly with benefits and all that? No, we actually do supplement most of the inspection work with part-time employees. Um, our office staff right now is mostly full-time. Um, but you're you're right
and where we can we can save by utilizing part-time and not having to pay for health benefits and and pension, you know, we we obviously look to do that. Um, you have any more to add, Mr. Beondi, or
I mean, I I've surveyed other towns. We are we are very we have a lot less employees than most other towns are. size. Excuse me. I' I've called many towns and asked them. I I've found out that most towns
have all the staff in the office are are technical assistants. Um we right now we we're not paying anybody as a tech technical assistant. We have uh two girls that are have their certifications, but they're still
um keyboard clerks. Um, so this office staff for the size of our town, the amount of permits we bring in, I think it's understaffed and uh if you call here, it's it's affecting uh the
way we um take care of our our residents. Sometimes I go in the office, each each has a phone to the ear and I hear them the phone's ringing. Very often that happens. And the DCA makes everything is making
everything more complicated. Our permits are more complicated. What we require is more complicated. It takes extra time and our staff I think is inundated. Mr. Beondi, I totally agree with you. The bottom line is how well can we serve
our residents and the people who want to make improvements on their property. I totally agree with you on that. I'm looking at your your salary and wage uh table. It looks like to me like we have maybe four part- timerrs.
Uh is that is that correct? Inspectors we have part time. Okay, that's sort of but in the office there's three full-time. Okay. So, I'm sorry. We were we were still talking about the O and E. if you wanted to uh introduce that or continue
speaking. Again, we don't have an increase over the amount budgeted last year. Um we did have an over expenditure that we had to cover with the transfer. Um we do not anticipate having that for this year. Uh so we've kept with the the
$23,90 um from the prior year. uh not really any room to cut um again because uh it's just such a significantly small OE. Um and we have to be mindful too that um we
don't allow that delta between revenues and the operating expenses to increase so much that um you know it's it sort of gets the state to perk up and and sort of take a look at our fees and everything um because it's never going
to go well for us. Could I just ask one question about uh the O and last year uh line 160 fund for private property repairs. I I assume that that's what you were talking about. That seems to be the biggest uh jump from uh uh 24.
Isn't that Isn't that something where we have to spend the money to uh fix a problem that the the property owner isn't fixing, but then we also get that money back? Is that what that fund is for? So, the hope is that you get the
money back because you end up putting a lean on the property, but if nothing moves and the house isn't the property isn't sold or the lean isn't uh, you know, redeemed, you know, it's sitting out there as a
receivable, but you know, unfortunately, you have to spend the money. Um, where did you get the extra money from? we took it from some other OE account um when we did transfers at the end of the year. It it's not a specific account. I
mean there's specific accounts we took from but it was part of an overall transfer resolution. So is did the did the increase in the spending we had to do on this line item did it indicate that there's some trend
um going on in the township that would require uh more of this funding. Uh yeah it's a case by case basis. We just had I mean we're just going through one right now. Correct. um with the tree, which I don't want to bring up too
much because um but yeah, we have to pay for the emergency removal and uh and then we're going to take action with a resolution and lean the property and all that sort of stuff. Um again, it's case by case basis. If if something were to
like really be a big thing, we would probably end up doing a special emergency and, you know, or a bond ordinance or something like that. But, you know, hopefully we can handle it with this sort of small OE account and
we only get one or two of these things a year. A lot of them are the on the property maintenance side are really just, you know, cutting the lawn. Either we do it ourselves or, you know, a a landscaper that we have on on staff um
on contract can do it. And they're small amounts of money. Um, there's also sometimes where the the construction official if there's an emergency such as a fire or a building collapse of some sort where we have to call out a a specialized service to come
back and come in just to secure the property because based on his decision, you know, that the property is inhabitable or unsafe or occupation that but the the people either they're not there or they've been burned out or whatever the case may be. And that we have to we have to make that emergency
procurement just to to secure the you know the building or the facility whatever it may be. In other words, we have to spend the money. Okay. Anything else? Council president. I Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't miss missed your uh hand right. I
didn't I didn't really put it up. Please go ahead. Um it's the same question. Three different areas. So 030 um 111 and there was one more 200. Um I see the
proposed I see what was spent. I see you're carrying forward the proposed. Is there a reason uh two of them were not I guess were not spent and one was under spent by $1,500. So is there a reason to carry
forward the other number? to the top first. So, um, for this year, we've already spent $3,72 on the on the printing. Um, so that's why we we kept, uh, the same
same request for, uh, for the 030 account. um regarding maintenance and repair. Um just to give because there's not too many of these I can give quick updates. We haven't spent anything in maintenance and repair um
for the code books. Uh the code books we've spent like $450. I'll let Mr. beyond the anticipate if we're if we need to buy more code books for the rest of the year or code books are usually good for three years and and
they all we have all different code books so some of you have to buy this year and next year we have to buy like say electrical code books so that's why it probably changes do you
have what you need for the next three years No, I have a list. I have I already have a list of things we need as far as code books. And then our It's not a big list. It's just our materials and supplies. We've
spent about half of what we've requested um as of today. Um and then looking at uh professional services, um we haven't spent anything and the fund for private property repairs. Uh
right now we have um about half $7,400 and and that was for that uh tree removal um that I spoke about on um uh St. Cloud. So, so there's I guess a potential um in the
code books uh sub account potential to save if if the council would like to to make a change. I would say do it in the in the code book section. Okay. And professional services also and professional services. I don't have anything. Um but I I want to let
Mr. to Beyond have a a chance to because I'm not sure what uh there was nothing spent last year so I don't know what would be spent on on the professional services side of things. I don't have an answer. I don't I don't know what the professional services line
is. I don't know what we use it for. It Thank you. probably is a leftover from, you know, maybe many years ago because I don't think this budget has changed dramatically in years. Well, when you uh if you want to update
these these two numbers, it looks like uh uh line 111 and line 200, we should be able to make some uh reductions there. you want to just bring this back uh in in in the update for the uh
for the uh draft budget when we get ready to introduce it or at least to review it again so that we can take votes. I'm just going to make a a note. Oh, I'm on screen doing that. But I'm I just want to make a note. Yes, council president. Seems like if we don't know what the professional services are being
used for, that should be zeroed out and then take a look at at what we need for the code books. Maybe half more of what has already been spent. Yeah. title. So, we're agreed on um zeroing out uh professional services.
Correct. And we'll uh I'll allow Mr. Beyond to just give me an estimate on the code books and you know, whatever the delta is, we'll reduce it. Sounds good. Can you tell me why we're sp spending so much on printing outside?
Um stickers, past stickers, uh stop work notices, uh unsafe structure notices. I'm guessing that's what it means for it's very it's costly. We just got a huge order in we outed them. So have you
met your printing needs for this year then? I I I can't answer that right now. I'd have to check with my staff. Yeah, we we've there's a lot of different documents for the permit
approvals that are are printed uh outside um with an outside vendor particularly DNM instant printing and K printing um are permit forms all yeah there's f there's folders forms um it's nothing we can really do inhouse
they're professional forms UCC forms Council President, just one other question. Yes, please. And in regards to this, and this is probably all departments, but because it's coming up here, digitizing like any of these forms, is there any um consideration
around digitizing? So, we're not purchasing paper at all. So, what I can answer that is that we're we're next week we're going to be training our staff in the municipality product that we've been talking about. Um, and this is going to replace the
Mitchell Humphre program at the building department. Actually, the the whole genesis of going paperless for the the township was uh through the building department. And what we did with the building department, we created this document. It's going to be going live July 8th right now because training is
next week. Um, but that's going to be for more out in the field when the inspectors are doing the reports. What that's going to do is allow the citizens uh to look like anybody's like it's going to cut down on open requests. It's going to cut down on on information on properties. We're going to be able to
let the general public be able to look be able to create an account to get certain information without have to go through operant to others. But part of it with the building department is um is that some of the applications can be submitted u some of the processes but not everything yet because the use the
the state of New Jersey the DCA is not quick to change a lot of the applications. Um so that's part of it. What we did do two years ago is we did digitize almost every single uh inspection and
plan and everything else in the building department up to 2023 I think it was I 2024. Um so everything it's everything has been digitized and we're using a company called Phobionics um which is working out very well for us. Um and uh so we
have digitized probably about 90% of or greater of the building department's u paperwork. So um but that that still doesn't do still deal with the the things such as um Mr. Beondi's u they have when somebody submits an
application we have to do the cards they have to do paperwork. They still have to put stickers out there. We're going we want to go paperless, but the reality is that there's still going to be some some paper that we have to to uh wide. Okay. Thank you. Well, just to follow up, uh
Mr. Beondi, could you take a look at what your code book needs are for the rest of this year and then advise Mr. Tinyak, Mr. Sorado, and maybe send an email to us, too, uh so that we can keep up with with these changes. Yes. Does that sound fair? Anything else on this
budget from anyone? So, I just have one other question and it's not it's it's just in regards to the uh fund for private property repair and I think it's just a general comment. How do you capture within the budget when there is
recuperation recuperating the funds expended? I I just I don't know how you're doing that in the budget. So, that that that's that's a great question. So whenever we would get if we were to get the money back this year, so
if we do the tree work today and then the lean is redeemed two months from now, that money would go back into that line item uh as a reimbursement. Um if it comes next year or the year after or
whenever, um we would take it in as miscellaneous revenue not anticipated. Um, so just as a revenue, um, you wouldn't generally anticipate something that small. Again,
if it was something big like we we had to demolish a building and we spent $500,000 and then I knew next year we're getting that money back, I would bring it to you as an anticipated revenue and say like, we're getting this, we should really put it into the budget to reduce
the impact to the taxpayer. Um, but for something small like we're going to get $2,400 maybe in a couple years, uh, we would just take it in as MNA. So, we wouldn't anticipate it. It would just go to replenish the fund balance
because I don't always understand this. So, don't I'm not No, it's okay. I'm not beating a dead horse here. So let's say instead of an expense you had revenue produ you know you how would that be reflected in the like how would you
actually reflect different line item or it would be a a plus I I if if I really anticipated it like I knew before the let's say we got it in February and it was $10,000 and I said I know I have it
in hand and I want to use it to offset the increase to taxation I would put it in the revenue side of things early on in the budget and it would be named, you know, return of whatever the lean number was. Um, so it would be spelled out, but
usually you you sort of get these things when the product uh the product uh property sells and then we get paid out on on the lean. Um, or sometimes, you know, someone will say, "Oh, I I didn't even realize this happened. Let me let
me pay you for this." and then we would just take it in as MNA or again if it's in the year that we spent it I can put it into the budget account itself and replenish it. So anything else on UC? I just have a question. Why weren't the interns used
this year since they could be so helpful in bringing in revenue? There was not enough departments uh requested and they had to have a certain number. I think it was 10. I asked two last year I had three interns. I'm sorry. So the intern
that was the county. So um they they insisted that we take I I believe it was eight or nine that we had to and we just didn't we didn't have to work for them. In the past we would say we need we would say well we need four or five whatever the case may be but they
insisted this year that we took a greater number. If we have any college students who are looking for work, um, can you take them? Absolutely. Okay. Two people have reached out to me. So, they would either have to be paid or the
work that they do would qualify for some college credit. Um, so we couldn't just have them be unpaid that, you know, they'd have to get something out of it. So if it it have it would have to qualify for some some sort of credit. So we'd have to speak with whatever the
university was. Mhm. Um so I don't want to run a foul of any labor laws or anything like that. Anything else? No. Mr. Beondi, it looks like you can go home now. Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. this morning. Council President, just to um so I spoke to Mr. Burke, if you'd like me to advise you on what he said about the procedures. Oh, please. Thank you. So, I spoke to Mr. Burke. I explained to him
that, you know, currently there's four members of council. Three are in attendance. um and that there was a a request to um bring something from the floor to make a motion. So according to Mr. Burke, he says uh because u there
was action. I have the advertisement here. I stole from the sorry I stole from the board. It says action may be taken. However, just above it, there's no public comment. So because there's no public comment, action is not permitted to happen tonight. If if we didn't have
this no public comment, then the three of the four could make that motion and approve things provided it was nothing to do like say with an ordinance or money or something of that that nature. But for a reszo or something of that, you could do three out of four. But because this clearly says there's no
public comment here, he says it's not it's it's prohibited tonight. So that's the advice he st. Okay. All right. We will deal with that offline and hopefully have a good outcome for the next workshop. Okay. Thank you. Yep.
Okay. Uh, Council President, can I move on with Township Council? I think you recognize some of these names up here. Sure. We can cut these guys. Okay. Um, yeah. As we we sort of already gotten rid of one of them. Yeah. I won't say we
talked because we didn't really talk about as a group before the meeting but um in speaking with councilwoman Ruden about uh Asarat Gberel is uh obviously resigned. Um so we can go ahead and
prorate the salary for this particular individual. Um, I would just want to know when or you know we're going to have a new if you I don't know if you'd even tell me that a new council member
otherwise I mean I would like to air on the side of caution just leave that amount in there. Um and if we're left with a little bit at the end of the year so be it. Um, but obviously we will put this as vacant when we put the new
budget up tomorrow and uh or I don't want to say I'll put it as vacant. I will put the amount paid to Miss Gabber Michael and then put vacant for the remainder of the $12,487. Still need to authorize that money because that position will likely be
filled soon. So maybe just leave it. Okay. So just a bottom line for vacant um right and you know if if we get a name we'll we'll add the name and and redo the budget document but uh yeah if the council
chooses to fill the vacancy then that has to be done by July 12. Okay. Okay. Good to know. Okay. Um I think we can move on from here. Uh this is the town council's budget. Um
it has not changed from last year. Obviously you can change it if you'd like uh through the vote, but um okay, that's I'd say lower the the printing and
stationary. We're done with that. One second. I'm sorry. I apologize, Councilwoman. Um, that line I believe is where we their business cards come out of that, right? So, we've uh
we've actually spent um $90 so far in that that particular account. Um, okay. So that there is there is something spent there. Uh and we would anticipate
then if we got a new council member potentially spending another $90. Was it 94 for three new positions? No, they're more expensive than that. I think it's $90 per
So then can we lower that to 180? Yeah. Yeah. I think I still had some council cards left over from the first one. So, yeah, I saved $90. You did? What is the duplicating and recording?
I don't know. So, that is for um Wes Orange's favorite son, Mr. Fagan. Um I don't know why I said it like that. I apologize. I don't He is um We should take a vote. That's for uh town council
zoom meeting and post-production work. Um and uh our subscription to the chronicle the world community newspaper chronicle that that's that much money for the subscription to the chronicle. No, it's
$35 for the chronicle but um you Mr. Fagan um is um moderating um right. Can we can we add that in the taping in the council and make that more reflective of what it is? Can we get the right screen up? Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I I
apologize. I I wanted to make a note to reduce the uh sounds, but I was like, you don't want me to grab the gavvel again, do you? No. Okay. I think that the first thing is that I think that there's a
misconception that diplomacy is incompatible. Councilwoman Scarpa, um I'm fine. Could you just hit this mute when you're speaking uh during the meeting, please? If if you're not
recognized. Okay, please. Yeah. So, in looking at this now, we need to move these over to the the 092 account. Um so, we'll do that. Okay. Is that the entire amount moving over? Well, the $35 will stag us for the Okay. So, they can
we can we change 031 to to subscription. Yeah, we can we can redo that to uh to change that sub account name and we can reduce it. Okay. How much have we spent so far on advertising? And when you say advert advertising, is that noticing? That's
noticing. Yeah, that's all world community newspapers we've spent so far. Well, um $1,567. Okay, we're halfway through the year. So that's
why why we requesting over 12,000 We want to cut, we can Okay, we can cut. I I suggest cutting that to a total of 4,000. Okay. I'm going to just go back to my Yes, Madam Clerk, please. Yeah. No, I fill in on this. Well, yes. So,
the advertising is uh all the ordinances have to be advertised um on first and second reading. um resolutions. Certain resolutions have to be advertised. The budget has to be advertised. Um
which is big. That's uh pretty expensive. Anytime we change any notice, you know, meetings or anything, all that has to be advertised. The audit um I mean certainly you can reduce the
line, but I wouldn't go that low. Okay. Um, how about to 6,000? That's definitely more reasonable. Okay, I'm I'm just going to switch back so I can record this. I'm sorry. Uh, dinner meetings. I haven't had any dinner here,
so I don't think the other council people have. Can we just reduce remove that? Stingy with food. H stingy with the food. That must be an old line. Okay. I remember you served pizza here. Pizza.
Um, so the taping for the council meetings. Um, why is that coming out here rather than in a salary position? That's part of part of a salary, isn't that?
So this is again for Mr. Fagan. Um he's a contractor with the uh with the township. So it's an other expense, operating expense. Okay. And what have we paid to date? Uh we've paid um out of this particular
line $5,95. Uh oh no, let me take that back. Um, yeah. $5,945 and then the money that was put to the wrong account with still within town council, just the wrong sub account. Um,
tack on another, you know, $2,500 about What do you mean tack on another 2500? because there were early meetings that were charged to the duplicating and recording account um for Mr. Fagan, they
should have gone to the taping and council meeting sub account. Again, it's all still within town council. Um so, I'm just doing the the sort of quick math there. Um I don't recommend cutting this. I think we're we're going to hit that mark um simply because we're
halfway there. Um and that's we've spent about you know, a little over $7,500. Okay. Um, going down to miscellaneous frames, I personally, um, would like to see us
getting rid of giving out plaques and stuff like that. Um, so I'd like to reduce that budget. And how much have we spent already? So, we have spent $21089. How do my colleagues feel about that
also eliminating plaques? Okay. So, we've spent them for the year. I'm in agreement. We We'll need one more name plate. So, when everyone retires from the council after serving so many years, you don't get anything. No, we don't need a plaque. I'd like to
get a tree. Yeah, I me too. Plant a tree and I'm in. Great suggestion. Councilwoman Gber Michael has resigned. I sus I suppose I suspect. Yes. Uh and
suggest that we consider that we would do something for her to memorialize that in some sort of uh uh some sort of hardware. I think it's a waste of money. I do too. I don't know. I don't Well, let's let's
make a note of it and when we bring it back to for a vote, we will uh How much are the debate? How much are the plaques? Off the top of my head, I don't know, but I can certainly find out. Okay. So, we spent 210. If we're going to give a
plaque, one more plaque, maybe another 150. Yeah. I I just don't think it's a worthwhile expenditure. They end up in the garbage. I agree. Maybe Councilwoman Gabbor Michael would like to plant a tree
instead. We could ask her. Well, Mr. Diniac, could you just note that? Yes. When Yes, Council President, I I I did note that we have potential cut to sub account 111. Okay. When we revisit this permanent property,
what is that? It's probably a leftover. We haven't spent anything from it. Okay. Can we eliminate that? Yeah. Okay. Madam clerk, I remember bringing this up when I was on the council the first time, doesn't it? It's
it's it's whatever office furniture or anything that we're required to have uh in the in the office. Yeah. Nothing was spent. Yeah. I honestly I don't know. So, let's just say for example, a chair breaks, right? You got to have the chair because somebody's got
to sit in it, right? You buy the chair and then it goes into that account, right? We would probably buy it from existing capital funds for, you know, office furniture. I I don't I don't think we
would I don't think anybody even remembers that there's probably money in there for something like that for this particular room. Um, and that's where we would spend it, just from those existing capital accounts for for furniture and equipment. So, if you'd like to get rid
of it, we can get rid of it. Yeah. Unless there's there's some reason to keep it. Let's certainly like I I know uh when I was here before, we had to replace the audio recorder and that was a significant amount of money.
Uh, sure. So, I don't I don't know. Why don't we think about taking it out for this year and we can look at that for next year. Man, once it comes out, it never comes back. What is um codification?
That's when we codify all the uh ordinances. They have to go into the municipal code. So, they're all codified and general code does that for us and it's very expensive. How much have we spent?
We've spent actually $8,715. And the more legislation you pass, the higher the cost. So why is the budget request under? Because we spent $6,000 in the last couple months. So this was prior to
entering in the request. Um, and again with ICC General Code Publishers, $6,650. Well, we're going to we should really make that more reflective of what we what we spend instead of moving things around in the end.
So, would you like I I'll increase this one. I think so. Okay. What do you think? You said to increase if you've already spent over what you're requesting, you're going to need to move money eventually. True. We're pulling down from other accounts. Let's fit the
money in there. Correct. Councilman Scarpa. Yeah, I would agree to the extent possible. Let's clean this stuff up and have this budget reflect to the degree that we can the true expenses. It'll make it easier for us as we move forward. Is there some way that
codification can cost less? No. Because not not all. It has to be a certain entity that that puts this up. Yes. Yeah. There uh there's a lot to it.
Okay. And years ago, they used to buy books, the municipal code books for every department, which is a great expense, and we did away with that. So, my department's the only department now that has the hard copy of it.
Miss Carnival, can you estimate given what we what our run rate is so far, I think it's somewhere a little bit north of $6,000. Can you estimate or project? It depends on how much more legislation is passed
throughout the year. Now, last year we changed all of the ordinances because the fees went to resolution. So, there was a great greater cost. I don't think it's going to be as big a cost this year
cuz it was literally almost every single ordinance we had to change and recodify and all of that. So, I don't think we're going to get that high, but it really just depends on how much legislation has passed. But already
this year, you're saying we've spent 8715. What? 8715 this year, but we haven't really changed that much. No, you've you've done a lot of changes to ordinances this year. Yeah. And remember like the storm water or
storm water or that's what I knew. Yeah. So it depends on that as well. Okay. Right. So is it the consensus that we just keep it the same? I No, I say that we increase it to reflect what closer to
what it's going to be. Yeah. I would say increase it $5,000. Are you okay with 5,000? So going up to 10,100? I would agree. Yeah, that that that that may be even under
what we actually spend. We're pulling 6,000 from advertising. Mhm. So maybe make it 11,000. So I'll make it I'll do six. How about I I do six.
Increase the cotification. So, the new number for cotification is uh $11,10059. Yeah, that's a good number. Yeah, I like the 59 cents. Miss Bennett, just one question if you have the data. If you don't, maybe you can get it. It's the on
the little higher up on Sorry. No, no, it's okay. Uh taping. So, 092. Yeah. Do you know how many meetings and do you know what the rate is? So the it looks like the average rate or the
rate that occurs the most times um is about $515. I think I think the standard rate is $475. Um and if it goes past a certain time um
if it goes past 11 that's that's that's when the additional fees go in. But if if the meeting ends at 11 o'clock, it's 475 per meeting, right? It's a rate per meeting. Yes. Correct. And there's um on
average 20 council meetings per year. Um and then whatever special meetings are called throughout the year, that's additional. Right now, we're on track for about 27 meetings so far.
Has there been any consideration on making that a part-time role? No, we have we haven't made that consideration right now because it was through a vendor because in the past we didn't do it as many times. It's now it's been increased uh a little bit the
last couple years. I think was it two years ago? I think we had something like 40 meetings between I don't think it was that many, but it has increased over the years. Yeah. Getting a part-time person in here would be we we could look into it, but we assume we
pay an hourly rate and everything else that would be that we have to see what it would cost us. I know Zoom moderators cost about $50 to $75 an hour. I don't know how that changes the analysis, but and this is no statement
about Mr. Fagan. This is just simply about the money. Well, we would have to do it for next year anyway because we have a contract now with the the Zoom moderators for this year. So, if we were to do any consideration, it' be for the 2026 budget. Right. Right. And I think it's also beyond being a moderator, he
also has to turn around the whole um Right. So, there's the production postction. Yeah. Okay, moving on. Council President, would you like to move on? Yes, please. Unless there's uh any anybody else wants to
talk about anything on the council uh budget, I think we can. Please. Okay. Uh, council president, this is, uh, central telephone. Um, it's called central telephone, but I mean, it really
also includes some internet service and the wireless and, um, we have an increase to this budget. We do not feel that there's any opportunity for a real cut to the overall budget. Um,
so it's going from $312,99461 to $319,500. We spent 95% of the budget last year or $297,000. Um, okay. I have questions on that. Yes,
please. All right. So, um, I've reviewed all of the cell phone bills and we found several irregularities and that was supposed to be paired down. So, once the people who have been on it for a year and a half who should not not
be on it are removed, that should be a savings. Plus, we're getting rid of a lot of MiFi. Um, plus plus each phone should be assigned and there shouldn't be all of these random phones all over the place. Um, I
don't understand why there shouldn't be a significant decrease rather than an increase. So, the the increase comes from um with utilizing Municity, we're going to be putting in 20
30 uh tablets. Each tablet is to be used in the field and will require either a cell phone for a hotspot connection or the MiFi individual hotspot. Um so that's you know an additional 30 devices
a month. Um that's in addition to the cell phone. They have a a tablet for those that don't have the cell phone. You can add well you have to add the hotspot plan to the cell phone. Um, if you don't have a cell phone, you're going to get a a hotspot as a, you know,
a township employee. Majority of the phones that we're purchasing now are going to have hotspots built into them. So, we don't have to have a hotspot. So, so we don't need the MFIs. Well, we need MIFI for certain things, such as the police cars. There is a need for MiFi.
Not as much as we Mr. Garcia has has looked through. He's he's reducing some of the uh electronics that we need. He he just recently completed an audit. He's looking at where we can get rid of some of these. Um but in things such as
the police cars and with the mobile data terminals and and things of that nature, there's there's a there's a need for certain electronics. we're becoming a paperless um entity or a you know government and with that we have to you rely on
electronics a little bit more and with this munic for our our personnel to go out in the field they have to have a d a tablet that's going to upload the information that's going to be real-time information and um so that's what we're looking to
do right now okay some of the people also have iPads Are those being recalled? Are we having iPads, tablets, phones, Wi-Fi? So, there's, like I said, additional iPads. Well, they're not iPads, they're tablets. They're like Samsung Galaxy
tablets. Um, so they're we're putting more of those out into the field for municip. So, do those tablets also have phone capability? They don't. They don't. They're they're I don't want to say they're cheap because nothing is cheap, but they don't have a built-in
cell um modem like a like an iPad would. You know, these are like $200 tablets. Um so, you have to pair them with a phone. I mean, just through June 9th, I don't have through June 17th, but
through June 9th, you know, we've spent uh about $160,000. Um, so we're like pretty much halfway uh on the Department of Wireless, the
telephones. Um, when you say 160, is that just for That's everything. that set everything not not just one sub talking about wireless and what I'm concerned about is that that this should have been fully reviewed and each of the phones assigned
there are phones for people who are in buildings who don't need a phone. Why do why does everybody have a cell phone and a landline phone? So I don't think every I I wouldn't say everybody has a phone. Um, you know, it's up to the department head to
determine who has a phone. So, in my office, nobody has a phone. Um, with the exception of me. Um, so it's not every employee gets a cell phone. Um, if they're out in the field or they're expected to communicate after work
hours, then they will probably get a phone. Um but for the majority of our office workers that you know they would get OT if we were calling them after hours you know we don't give them phones. Um but
on the PD side and FD side I'm sure there's the majority of our phones are are there DVW all our inspectors whether it be health the inspectors for property maint property maintenance health our
police cars that have the laptops have built in. So that's that's a charge for every single car with the computer in it. Um, how many MFIs are going to be eliminated? I I couldn't I couldn't say. I
I don't think I don't understand why a police car needs a MiFi. Don't we have wireless all over? No. No. They they use a cell signal for the computer to do their lookups. It's a it's a cell signal. And also with the police vehicles, you
got to remember there's there's a another level of security as opposed to just somebody with a cell phone in their in their pocket or on their ear. So they they're transmitting um information that's not supposed to be out to the general public. So they have to have a more secure network. What is the
difference between the telephone service and the departmental wireless? list of central right telephone services. So that includes Ring Central, the Verizon trunk lines. Um so that's the
hard lines. Um it includes uh blockline systems which is another voice over IP um system. Um so it's I want to say hardwired because
but Ring Central really is voice over IP but that's that's what our our hardwired phones are. Ring central. So with Ring Central on every uh employees computer that has that has a phone um they can receive their phone calls on their
computer. Uh they can retrieve their voicemails on the computer. Um you can even send messages through the different Ring Central lines to each other. So like almost like a text messaging type thing. Um that's that's our hardwired. And then we have the Verizon uh trunk
lines um that we have to pay for on a monthly basis. Is there any way to cut any of that? Well, I will tell you this. The Ring Central contract expires the end of this year. I spoke to our IT director about that. So, we're going to have to go out
um soliciting bids or um I believe we're we're looking to do it at the end. We're going to look to put the bid out probably sometime at the end of the summer. Doesn't mean we're going to get rid of Ring Central, which is but we have to we have to explore it. As for the Verizon
trunk lines, there are companies and and I have to speak with Mauricio um about this because he's been here a while. There are companies that will do audits. They're usually ex Verizon employees. Um PSCG uh there's people that do it for PSENG as well. again, usually XPSG
employees and they will audit the bills and they go back, you know, one to two years and they can look for, you know, lines that we could potentially cancel and then they get paid based on the savings. So, if they don't find
anything, they don't get paid. Um, I'll ask Mauricio when the last time something like that was done. um because that can that can yield a savings that continues on because you'll end up getting rid of trunk lines or they can tell us, you know, how to reconfigure
um and save money. So, I will definitely bring that up to him. And is there a policy that that phones get turned in when somebody is no longer works here? I I would imagine I mean if I had anybody in my office that had a phone
and they quit, I would want their phone and their computer and their keys and you know all those sorts of things before. Yeah. How did we not know that three people who were deceased were we were still paying for their phones? Oversight. Mr. Garcia rectified it.
He he he's turned them off. He's he's taken care of it. Well, where are those phones? I'm assuming he collected them. I don't know. The phones are the phones are turned off. I I don't know where exactly they are. They were turned off like within the month. What he told me, I
assume they turned them off. I don't know if they were recycled or not. I can't answer that question. Okay. So, it doesn't seem like there's a policy to get back phones. There is a policy. Okay. There's a policy to return equipment. When any every employee retires, they
have to turn in their equipment, whatever was issued to them. It could be, you know, a badge. It could be a pair of boots. It could be a pair. It could be a a construction helmet. Could be a vest. If if they're if they're deceased, it
then there has to be a policy as well. When they die, we'll we'll figure it out. Well, if if I may suggest just so we can move on. And uh again, Councilman, you're raising good points. Could you could you get the policy and just send it to the council when you get a chance? Absolutely. And then also if
you could check with Mr. Garcia and just what I'm pretty sure that we we accounted for those those three people. That's fine. It just I I think Councilwoman Ruden is uh looking for data. Yep. Council President, just um it
just from the citizen budget advisory board perspective, it isn't just the fact that the individuals were deceased. They were no longer employed with the township. And so I think that's a concern just just a concern and just making sure that
that waste since we're obligated not to waste the taxpayers's money is accounted for. Well, I think I think my request to Mr. Smaldo should cover that uh in terms of we can see what the policy is and we can see what the status of the three phones
they were discussing. I'm just uh trying to trying to move on. Any uh any other questions? Yes, the data the data lines. Um oh, I'm sorry that's not that's not carrying through the maintenance um communication equipment. Has anything been spent to
date? Uh, no more councilwoman. Nothing has been spent on um maintenance communication equipment. So, um, if you'd like, we could zero that out. We'll we'll do that on our end. Okay. Thank you. Um,
Council President, just one other question. I'm sorry. I'm just I'm sorry. I I I am trying to watch you. I just The laptop is is sort of blocking. No, you don't need to ap I'm not putting my hand up. Okay. I I'm speaking up when everyone else is finished, but I'm apologizing because I said I was
finished, but I noticed that there's another board member who asked a question. So, I just want to make sure that I believe it's um your appointees question gets asked. Do we put out our own bids or do we use the state's database of goods and services? Is one
less expensive than the other if you know? So we do both. Um I think for for Ring Central it's our own bid. Um but where we can use the
state contract or a national co-op or you know any of the sort of local co-ops um we use that. Um, a lot of times municipalities will use the company SHI um because SHI has the state contract
and it's easier from a purchasing perspective to just go through SHI as state contract and then get different um services, technological services. Uh the one thing with SHI and you sort of have
to balance it is that you know they're going to charge for that ease of uh of purchasing and so you know they're going to they're going to hit you with a 5 to 10% you know profit margin fee on there.
So you know I'm mindful of that. I don't want to just use SHI if it's going to make it easy. Um, but we we have we do use SHI like and and we've done it in the past and we probably will continue to do it, but case by case basis.
Thank you. Just as a followup, Mr. D, does does SHI and its competitors do they actually give you a an excess charge? Do you see that it's five or seven? Yeah. Mhm. Oh, so they they do because they're required to give us they're required to give us the price
for the goods or service that that they've agreed with the state and the state's reviewed, but then they also add whatever the Yeah. And they they don't hide it. Um they I'm I'm sure that's what they've worked out is that they have to show it, but yeah, you're you're
they're getting the taste. It's like uh it's it's very uh New Jersey type thing. So you have to sort of before you go into this, you have to uh figure in that the that whether the bidding might undercut whatever Yeah. SHI is offering,
right? In addition to their profit, right? Because it's not just that state contract price when you're going through them. Yeah. Right. That's one. Do we have a policy that if somebody no longer works for the township that they are no longer entitled to a phone? Um,
I mean, I would want to just say yes, but I don't know if that is codified in our employee handbook. Um, so to answer that, we don't have a policy that specifically says an employee gets a a retired employee gets
a phone. To my knowledge, not one employee has ever received a a a phone into retirement. They do have the option of retaining that number. Uh we had we had some people who had that number issued to them in other municipalities
that came here and then they took it from that municipality here and that retired took you can do that but they but it's not something that we pay for but we don't maintain their their phone lines once they retire. Okay. And that's part of I believe I I I can't say for certain but I believe that's part of the
equipment um the equipment policy turning it in. So to my knowledge right now, I I could say with only certainty, there's nobody that we pay for retirement falls for. Okay. So if we found out that there was somebody who is no longer employed by West Orange who is
still receiving a phone and and still we are paying for their phone, would we request that there be reimbursement for that phone? Absolutely. Okay. Can I request reimbursement from Mr. Leapore for the phone that he had um a line assigned to
him. We'll look into it. Councilwoman Scarpa. Yes. Um I've kind of talked about this before, but you know, I work for the schools and we're asked to use a certain catalog and the prices are like through
the roof that I don't even buy anything because I can't justify paying three times the price. And I think that, you know, I'm hearing some of this is kind of similar with some of these other, you know, state contracts and SHIS. My question to Mr. Datiniac is, um, I think
we need to better manage this area and these telecom costs. Are there consultants who specialize in municipal, um, with municipalities that could manage that cost or or it'll take a look at it? Yes. Yes, Councilwoman. There
there are um companies out there and what's great about it is is that you know they're going to get paid um based on the savings that they find us. That's how I got paid. Yeah. And and the uh
and the savings are are are long term because it's not like, oh, we we found a mistake in your February 20 24 bill and now you're going to get like a couple hundred bucks back. They're usually, you know, we're going to eliminate lines or reconfigure
uh trunk lines and so the savings can continue on hopefully at infant item. Um so I will speak with Mr. Garcia, our our IT director, and find out when was the last time an audit was done for for the
township. We we might be right before for one, and we can bring in a company. again, they're not going to get paid unless they find savings. And you know, we would obviously have to agree with whatever savings they bring us um before we pay them. But uh it's a good
exercise. It should be done every few years um and we will definitely look to do that. regarding um you know Ring Central which is you know basically our landline service um you know our contract is expiring and and we're going
to go out and and look for you know something that is more effective and more costefficient. Um, I have to imagine that, you know, as the years go on, there's more competition in the voiceover IP field and, um, you know, we
should hopefully have a bigger pool from which to uh to pull from and, you know, the economic uh thought process is that when you have a bigger pool, you're going to get better prices. So, um, we are going to look at that and and hopefully we come back with something
that is going to save us significant dollars. So, right, I would like to see that happen because I used to do that for a living and I know that there's people who could do that very probably very well. Yeah. They're again, they're usually ex Verizon employees or, you
know, utility employees. They've been there for a million years. They know all the tricks. They know all the, you know, the sort of like pitfalls that municipalities and big customers get into and you just sort of keep spending and spending and spending and and you don't even realize it. So, okay, great.
Let's get right on that. I will talk to Mr. Garcia and and we can look to to start that process uh as soon as possible as long as you know we haven't done it recently. Okay. Thank you, Council Ruden. I'm done. Thank you.
Um, so just to recap, we are going to reduce the maintenance, communication, and equipment by 1500. Is there anything else from from the council or the citizens budget advisory board? Okay. Um,
move on. Okay. Uh this is central mailing. Um the majority of this is our poster postage meter. Um we have a slight increase for the year. Um
what we spend a lot in postage and it it only gets more expensive. So um we're requesting that we maintain the our budget request. Um, but if you'd like to discuss, we obviously can discuss. I'm confused about the department
wireless. Oh, we're going back. Okay. No, no, it's on this it's on this budget as well. Another $118,000 for departmental wireless. Okay. We were just looking at central mailing. Are you saying we need Oh, I'm
sorry. You put I'm sorry. It's a It's a duplicate. Oh, is there a duplicate page? Yeah, sorry. Okay, just a test. We'll pull that off of the website. Just a test. Okay. Um, so we're still on central mailing.
Central mailing. Yes. Um, so uh we're asking for $108,350. We spent 101,000 last year. Um, if you'd like to discuss, uh, we're open to discussing.
What have you spent so far in postage meter usage? Let me just pull that up. Apologize. So, we've spent so far um 40,000. Okay. And we have the third quarter
mailing to go out, right? Is there any other major mailing and the fourth quarter along with, you know, first and second of 2026. How much is each mailing? Uh, I don't have that number off the top
of my head. That's I can get that for you from the the collector. Okay. So, if we spent 40 and we're half halfway through, doesn't it seem like it should be 80 instead of 105? Well, we have two two big mailings coming up. So, we have the Q3 and the
and the Q4. Um, so, you know, we we put m we put postage onto the machine. So, we do it in like in bulk. So, like I can see, you know, we added $25,000 worth of postage on on this day and then we add, you know,
$15,000 of postage on this day. But I will get from the collector the actual um cost of mailing out the the Q3 tax bill and the Q4 tax bill for you. Okay. I'd like to see that reduced. And I also just want want to follow up on my
question from last week. I had asked if in the um Q3 mailing whether or not there's going to be any information regarding our tree ordinance. So, I spoke to the mayor's office and the mayor. So, we're going to put a um a letter together and we're going to put
it out there and it's going to include that we did have a correspondence in email um clarified. So, we're going to put the links in there. So, I I did speak to the mayor's um office and so we're going to be putting something together. It has to be it has to be submitted um by June 25th I believe is
which is next week. So yeah I was just asking for one sentence not with links because links are hard when you when you're sending somebody hard sentence and we we would normally we we like to put the links because some people actually believe not look at it. So okay so we we will make sure they know. Thank
you so much. Thank you so much for getting that done. I appreciate it. So, I mean, I kind of see a savings there. So, I'd like to make a suggestion to reduce that. What line item are you talking about? 110. Thank you. We're
halfway through. We've spent 40. We have two more big mailings to go out. Doesn't seem like we're going to hit 105. Well, it sounds like we're doing we're you've asked for research to find out what the cost of these two mailings are
going to be and uh maybe that's good information we should use to come to a perhaps a more informed uh number. Does that sound like a a way forward or do you think Yeah, I think I think I think we should cut it
and also get the information. So, I'm suggesting cutting it by at least 15. Council President, just a question from the board. Can we offer residents the option of receiving tax bills electronically? I think we do have that option. Um, but
I believe we have to mail out tax bills by state statute, but we do have the option of receiving bills electronically. I think if you go on the website, you can sign up for for that. Um, but I believe statuto, we still have to mail them out.
So, you're talking about what's in place now is a Belgian suspenders. They can get them digitally, but they're still going to get them in the mail. Yeah, I think we have to mail tax bills out. Like if you had a water sewer utility, you don't have to mail those out. you can just provide those
electronically, but I believe with tax bills, you have to mail them. Um, I'll I'll check with the the collector though. I uh I have to say that I am uncomfortable with uh cutting the budget request substantially below what we paid
last year. Uh given Mr. Deniniac's observation is that the cost the per piece cost tends to go up every year and even if we just repeated what we did last year it's going to be more than
99,000 unless unless uh there's additional information as as to uh what's different from this year uh compared with last year. You also got to remember too that there's other departments that have mailings too like recreation, police, and things of that
nature. Sometimes they do events. We don't know what they're, you know, what they're going to be sending out. It could be stuff for the seniors. It could be, you know, it could be anything. So, we just u I don't know what the exact number is, but we can look at that would be. So, before we make a a dramatic cut, I would like to at least find out what
they anticipate for the other departments. I'm I'm not suggesting cutting it um lower than what was used last year. I'm just cut I'm suggesting increasing that but cutting it from the um from the from the request from the
budget request. In 2024 they they paid 70 uh 74,000. This year they're asking for 105. Well, we budgeted 74,000. you budgeted 74,000 spent 99,000 last year. So we were well over budget last year
and I thought what you were suggesting was was somewhere below significantly below 99,000. That's why there was a lot of mailing supplies last year budgeted. Um so I took that out um and put it into the postage meter usage to more
accurately reflect um what the real spend is on for that account. So good idea. Um, you know, I I will if you want me to put the decrease in there so that when we do go back in
in a future meeting and vote, it's at least there for you guys. My request was that we leave this particular line item alone. Um, but I just want to have it noted so that you know, this is something that you brought up that you'll be able to vote on.
Okay. My request would be then to to lower it by 5,000. Okay. And just be sure to flag it so that uh if that's out of line, we pay attention to Yes. And we we asked the collector about um
about what each particular big tax mailing costs. Um yeah. And if there are any other mailings that are substantial, I know when uh uh Parks were was in here, they
were talking about sending out a mailing uh we were talking about the potential to get advertising on that before I heard that the card was like up 8 and 1 half by 11 or something. Not even that big. We did research into
uh if there's a potential for advertising on a tax bill. There's there's not because um there's some situation that happened in the past where it's it's basically putting the township seal of approval on
a vendor. Uh and we can't do anything like that. So, um, it's one of the reasons why, uh, if you see like a neighboring communities newsletter, for instance, it's not sent out by the town. It's sent out by a separate third party that then can do
the fundraising because it doesn't come from the actual township. Um, uh, Councilwoman Scarpa, um, I think the question was answered, but I would just wanted to ask Mr. Can we accurately quantify that cost so
that we can put a real number in there? Is that something we can actually estimate fairly accurately? We can. We can with the tax and and the the big sewer billing. We can we can um give a good estimate on that, you know, based on line items and and all
that. But uh we'll try to look at on the meter itself what we've spent uh because it's not like the meter starts with zero postage. Excuse me. At the beginning of the year there's leftover postage. So,
it's probably a good idea to see how many or how much money we've spent, you know, starting one 2025 to okay, you know, whenever today to see how much we've actually spent in postage because as Mr. Smaldo said, you know, other departments are sending out mailings.
Nothing as big as our tax and sewer mailing, but you know, we have we have other mailings that we do. So, we'll see what we've actually spent year to date in terms of mailing because again, we're starting the year with postage on that machine. And great and even something
such as like I could tell you like the um the section 8 housing. We went to a new electronic system where we're by now we're emailing a lot of things to our um our participants, but there are still some that have to um you know get receive paper, but we're trying to cut
down on those costs by doing things electronically. But there's there's but when the prices still go up from the post office, they've increased the price this year again. So we're we're trying to cut down in certain areas where we are going paperless. But you know, at the end of the day, as Mr.
said, you know, you know, we have to send out tax bills. You know, there's certain things that we're just going to be governed by. Yeah. On the on the section 8 landlord payments, you know, we don't even cut physical checks anymore. We a all that money now. We eliminated that. So, there's no we don't
even buy the checks anymore. We don't So, we saving that cost. Um we we don't send the packages out like we used to. Anybody comes in now has to use a portal. So, we're saving on that kind of stuff. So, we've made some savings that way. Uh but there's still other things like you say the recreation department
they they come up with an event for all the kids in school now that becomes an expense. So okay great thank you woman are you finished with the subject? Yes. Okay we can move on. Thank you.
Um so now I want to talk about information technology. Um so looking at the the request again not looking so much at the individuals. Um
there is an offset of of $10,000. That's because we have a department head in in a different department that assists with IT and website design. Um, so part of his salary, it's not an
additional money, but part of his salary is charged to the IT budget instead of just to the board of health. So it's not additional money, it's just how it's allocated to the department. Um
the the rest of the the two other employees are non-union. Again, we talked about the increases for the year. Uh the the one and a half on 1124, the one and a half on 71 2024 and then the
3% on um 11205. Uh so I will go to my other sheet here. One second. Is this longevity every single year? Yeah. So,
so the way longevity works is again it's a program that's people non-union members do not get longevity anymore. So, someone new like me, I don't qualify for the longevity program. Um so this particular employee
because of when he started he he got longevity so every like five years you go up a percentage. So if we have someone with the same title and they don't have longevity their base salary
is $100,000 that's what they get. But someone with a longevity of 10% you take the base salary and then you tack on 10%. So they every single year it's it's always a multiplier to their to
their salary. But that's a $16,000 increase in one year for one not an increase. It's part of the salary. It's part of the salary. So it's like always in effect. So as the base salary goes up, you keep applying
the 10% longevity. So if someone doesn't have longevity and they get a 3% raise, they get a 3% raise. But someone that has longevity, the effective raise is greater than 3%. Again, because the
longevity is multiplying on the base. Is there any way to rein that in? So, it was eliminated for all non-union employees. And I don't know the date that it was eliminated. Um, it was eliminated for it was prior prior to 2009 because I
don't have it. So, ask me um union does not have it anymore. Um, does fire still fire police and fire still? They they still have it. It's um
Oh, sorry. I was going to go to the uh Okay. Not everybody receives 10% when it goes to the U. The increments traditionally in the longevity is 2% every five years with the exception of the 24th year because
in the police and fire service when you're in the when you're in the uh pension system the the pension is based on your last 12 months of service. So the the contracts read that the 10% kicks in on the 24th year so that when
they get to 25 in theory they could have that extra money in this pension. Um in the um PES positions the their pension is based on their best three years. Um and but with these newer employees or
the employees from prior to 2000 I don't remember what year it was they eliminated it but uh they don't they don't get this this uh longevity into their into their salary or into their pens. So once somebody has passed their 24th year they get 10% increase every
year. No they get 10% they get just a 10% longevity stipen that's added on at the 24th year. That's 20 at 10%. And so the they've been getting longevity. So it's it's it's basically tack it on. So again, if if your base salary is
$100,000 and you're in the longevity program, tack on whatever longevity percentage you are. Someone that's at 10% because they've been here 25 years or more, um they're actual salary is going to be 110,000.
Um, so it was eliminated for the unrepresented because it was easier to do. Um, but it's still in effect for our, you know, police and fire unions and they have collected bargaining agreements and, you
know, it's it's going to take, being truly honest, it's going to take uh, you know, we're going to have to buy it to get rid of it. Um, because it's a good benefit to have if you're if you're in the police and fire union
because it's increasing your salary. But for new employees like myself, you know, I I don't qualify for the longevity program. I don't qualify for lifetime health benefits in retirement. And even my pension tier is based on,
you know, the average of the last five years. Um, unlike tier one. um and it's also a lower amount that I qualify for for pensionable base. So, and it's a different calculation. So, you know, things have been done at the state
level, things are done at the local level um to try to rein the legacy costs in. Council President, this might be a please as good a time as any. Um if and if you're not the right people to ask I
can ask this question elsewhere but um are there any policies precluding outside employment if you know so I don't know if we have anything in our handbook I believe we do we do okay
I should know that that's does it preclude or does it require uh notification of outside employment if you know I don't know off the top of my head but I I do know it's in the handbook we can provide the cop just so we're not
so we're going to need the um we'll get provided that one along with the equipment we'll provide the cops one other question are there any policies or preclusions from working another job at the exact same time that you are on the
clock for the township of West Orange if you know there's no policy that I'm aware of that does that at the same time you're not supposed to you're supposed to be doing your job and you're supposed to be filling out your obligation um per hour but I don't know the we don't have
anything that specifically includes that. Okay. So, a full-time employee being paid a full-time salary by the township of West Orange should not be employed full-time
somewhere else, same hours. I don't believe so, but I don't have that answer, specific answer. Thank you. I'll share the information privately with you later. Um so just looking at the um comparison to 2024
um the increase and again this is why I brought it up when there's longevity in place and you have a cola increase like we did where it's essentially 6%. Um you know you're going to get a little bit more of an increase because again the longevity is going to apply to the base
salary. So we have an increase of 6.26% 26% year-over-year of $19,100.36. And that's that's due to the um the cola increases from 2024 and 2025.
Um can I move into OE? Is that okay? Yes. Any more questions on this page on the salary and wage? We can move on. Please go ahead. Um
um the one thing I I do want to add is in the in the packet that we're going to make available to the public um we added in uh a section to each page to say when the hearing date was that this
particular item was reviewed if there was a revision. And then um when we vote, we'll put in well not when we vote, when you vote, we'll put in the date that you voted um for each page um so that you know we're keeping track of
of the changes and and you know when you've actually approved a page. So um fair I'm bringing that up now. I helpful. Thank you. Okay. Um, so the first IT department that we're going to start with is because there's a few of them. It's uh
central IT. Other expenses. What is central IT, Mr. Ziniac? You were you were hoping I wasn't going to ask. Like, please don't ask me that. Um, it's in the middle. So
rather than applying IT because everybody uses some sort of IT services and rather than allocating them to the different departments we've cho the township and it's not me it was this was done way before me has
chosen to say this benefits everyone let's put it in its own category but then at the same time we have central IT specifically for PD and central IT specifically for FD. So, you know, we still,
you know, broke it out for for different departments, but that was, I think, the intent was to say that this benefits every single department. Let's keep it as its own um, you know, profit center. So, okay. So that that said, what's the uh
what's the run rate so far and why does it seem to need to go up uh I don't know seven or 8%. So we're requesting an increase of 2%. Um and I'm going to bring that up right
now. Well 114 from 107 or 108 from the paid charge. Okay, I understand. So, I mean, we have a lot of different uh services in here. Um
different remote access uh uh services. We have Zoom. We have um we have copier uh software on here. Um but
our our total spend so far is $64,19 and that's through uh June 9th. So at that run rate, we're likely to exceed it. Well, no, because we have we have some
of like the microcomput consulting group, we have, you know, an amount encumbered for 9 months in here. So, I I think we'll be fine with the 114. Um, you know, I'll do the math and see if maybe we could shave a couple thousand
off of this. Um, I I just wanted to Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I'm sorry. I'm just I'm still confused because we have IT and then we have other IT then we have fire IT and police go through all of those individually.
Police I mean I will say police have a lot of their own systems because they need specific firewalls. They need specific email management. um you know things with the body cam uh
footage they're more unique in terms of their IT needs than than we are here right other than other than police and fire which are very specialized why isn't everything just together I mean there's only I think there's only one other there's the online expense
which we'll go through and then oh and then there's the I I can't answer why they put this into place years ago. Um, we have an opportunity to change it for when we go to Edmonds and if it makes more sense to
to combine certain things, we'll do that. Um, you know, I I I don't know why Mr. Gross he had a specific reason, I guess, that he wanted to separate these things out. Um, but I I don't know why
he did and I'm not opposed to changing it for next year. Um, you know, again, if it's if it's going to give the public and the governing body better information to have things spread out differently or to
have them combined, I'm all for that. Yes, I think it should be combined except for the specialized departments. The only thing is is that you know then you have to dig in if you said well what are we really spending on police and that that could be why Mr. Gross did this years ago. He might have gotten a
question from the deis and said, "Well, how much are you spending for police? How much do you spend for fire?" And he said, "I'll break it out." Uh, no. I think police and fire should be Oh, you want to leave that, but just combine the other expense, the online expense and the non-uniform. I mean, I'll speak to Mauricio about
that. Then get a better breakdown of what what is involved here because we're just looking at one number without an understanding of what's actually being paid for, right? Um so I yeah I will say just just going through um we pay for Bermunidex
um we pay for the remote um uh desktop software um we pay for Zoom um and then we pay for
you know IT services um it Joe uh you know referred to that's a a consultant that we use um he's part of this um yeah just in budgeting though the bigger
your your uh your cost center the less detail you can pull out from that. So yeah, you need to be a little careful so that we can see some of these individual numbers. I agree. The only the only thing is though with admins is that
within the cost center you have the ability to assign tracking IDs. Um so that you know you could have tracking IDs that go uh across different accounts. So I've used it in the past for sort of like a big operation where you know maybe
recreation is contributing and finance has a piece of it and then you would just run the tracking and you could say the total project cost x amount of dollars and it's not so dependent on did I run the activity for these particular accounts. So that's one of the
advantages that we would have over munex is that we can assign those tracking ids. So you know we could say run a tracking ID you know we would assign a tracking ID for IT services across you know PD FD and this combined and and and
we could get you know one report based on that. So um yeah and you could get real usage and costs. Yeah, actual um so I agree having just the 010 IT services as a catchall um
is a little bit difficult. So we'll look to to break things out. Is it possible to do that when you update this when you put this on the update to bring all three together and then just give us a breakdown of what you're paying in each category?
I can I can do that when I come back to you uh if you'd like. Uh, I'll have to sort of create some dummy accounts, but you know, maybe we can better I say dummy accounts is because they don't exist in Unidex, but Mauricio and I can add some accounts and give some better
detail uh and break out the ask of the 114 if if you prefer that. Um, would it be possible to do all your IT expenses on one page that are broken out
by and maybe this is what you're saying and I'm just thinking that's what I'm asking for but including the police and fire all of it on one page but just different line items for the different that way the actual costs of it are all
on one page. Yeah, we we could do that. We could do that. I mean I I would want to just for for the council's sake, probably add some lines to here and and for all the other ones. Um, and I'll see
if we can do some more uniform lines. So, maybe it's like five sub accounts and, you know, we could list them all. Um, and say this is the sub accounts for PD, but put it all in one. Um, I think I understand what you're looking for and
and we can definitely do that. You think you could do it with five sub accounts? I mean, I'm I'm giving you an example. Um, because I don't see that there's so many different pieces. I mean, for each each one of these, yeah, just, you know,
15 or 20 uh probably I mean, we'll see like uh you know what I can get from Mauricio, but we can combine the it um for all
just so it's easier to to sort of evaluate being mindful of still maintaining what is PD, what is FD, what is everything else. So, um, so if you want to sort of punt on
Oh, uh, no, I need to call in the calvary. Councilwoman Scarpa, thank you for your patience. Yeah, I I'm thinking along the same lines as you guys. Um, my question is how do other municipalities do it? Do they have their central
situation too? It and is this um I'd like to see these costs allocated to the specific places to the extent that we can even if we need a consultant to help us do that. And who is it Joe? What is he paid and how many hours does he work?
Um so other municipalities uh I've seen it done where because police usually ends up being either the highest or the second highest for it. they keep it in the police OE budget. Mhm. And you know, it was it's possible
that it was broken out so that it didn't look like it inflated the the PD budget back then. Um and then I've just seen municipalities where central it is one line item in a budget in the legal budget document. Um,
but you know, I've never seen it the way we do it where it's there's five different in the legal budget document because it because it is broken out, excuse me, in the legal budget document this way.
Um, so like I said, usually I see it just as a a separate OE item within PD. Um, so what is your recommendation of the best the most effective way to do it? It's I mean it's really what we want to
show the public, right? Um because the public will look at our legal budget document and you know we have to decide as a group or you have to decide as a group you know do you want the public to have
um a greater level of detail? Now, I mean, it's a legal budget document. It's not a it's not like a sub account level of detail, but you know, if you feel that telling them this is what it really costs our police department,
um then maybe that's valuable to you to have that broken out. Or if you don't feel like that's valuable, you just want to say, hey, it cost the town, you know, $800,000 in total, then you would just leave it as one line. Um, it's I think I'd like to see it allocated to the
extent possible. So, I I think just for coming back for a vote, you know, we can we can put everything in for blast off.
Um, we can we can put the document together to combine all the it while still maintaining what is PD, what is FD. um and provide a better level of detail. I'm going to have to work with Mauricio
on that. Um but I can come back with to you on the 26th with uh you know, not just a 010 IT services account. you know, we'll we'll really try to to break that down to a
more granular level and um you know, hopefully that will make your job a little bit easier in terms of the sub accounts that you want to look at. Okay, great. Thank you.
Just the way that's set up, Mr. Denniac, it avoids the obvious. I mean, I my account was threequarters of a million dollar, but you're at $800,000. That's a I I think you don't recognize the gravity of that when it's broken up into
five pages. But together, looking at the sum total on an IT spend, sure, I I agree with you. I I'm I'm not going to deny that it spreads it out and it also doesn't
add to individual departments like we said it doesn't add to the PD OE. Um so but again I think it's up to all of us to decide you know how do we want to show it in the legal budget
document um because the public is going to look at that but um let me just write a note for myself and oh can I just ask about it Joe our consultant who that is and what he's paid and how many hours we use him
um so I don't I don't have the exact number of hours that um that IT Joe Joe Polar Joe Polara I shouldn't have said it Joe but Mr. Mr. Polar um works but uh I can speak to Mauricio about that and
and and and get sort of his schedule and it's actually we have a contract with MCG um consultants or whatever. I I don't know the full name but they're out of New York City. Yeah. micro micro computer consult micro computer um and uh and he is a contract employee with
them. He reports here Tuesdays one day a week which is typically a Tuesday. He here he's here for I believe the entire day but also their services are remote in they provide services. It's not just on-site services. It's also off-site
services that they cover for say when when our other staff are out they can they can come in and um remotely and provide service to us. So their their services are not only um uh just providing computer support. They also
maintain our firewalls. They maintain all our uh um requirements that we have through government. U we have one of the higher ratings through our GIF u all the municipalities in in in our particular GIF. I think it's I think it's 33
municipalities now. Um, we've maintained the highest rating on our on our security and and they're part of that part of that plan. Can we get some numbers on what they've been paid to date and what the contract looks like? Sure. Yeah, we could do that. We could
do a vendor vendor history for MCJ. Yeah. He's not just a part-time employee like as if we were trying to say supplement. We just spoke previously at about the building department. This is more a comprehensive service. If he's not here, they also send somebody else. They they're contracted to send an employee here once a week. Uh to How
long have we been working with them? They've been they've been here a very long time. Um I would say at least back to the uh early 2010s, if not earlier than that. They they've helped develop our system
and build our system up. They we can we can find that information out when they when they started. I I don't honestly they've been here so long I I couldn't tell you what the start date was. Okay, great. Thank you. Mr. Diniac, are you still scribbling or
No, I was just waiting for council. Oh, would uh would we like to take a fivem minute break at this point? I I realize we're half an hour away from ending, but we're not going to be doing anything. So, let's uh let's be back here at uh
7:32, please. your emails. I'm not retiring. Oh my god. Let's not go live till we get Mr. Siniac back here. Welcome back, Rest Orange. We were on short break. There was nothing wrong with your computer. I am turning
the floor over to our council president who in turn will turn it over to our chief financial officer. Thank you. Um so I think where we left off we were at central IT other expense I I think I've explained I'll try to
redo how we request this budget in terms of the level of detail. Um, so you know, I'll briefly talk about central IT online expense. I think we have to come back to it, but you know,
we are we are um putting in a $15,000 decrease here, but again, we'll spell out in more detail what online IT services is. Uh same with the PD even though we are ask we're putting in a
$42,000 decrease on uh the police department IT but again we'll come back with more detail. Same thing with FD. We have $2500 decrease but we'll we'll come back with the with the level better level of detail.
Um and same thing with the non-uniform. So, uh, we'll come back on the 26th for these. Okay. You, um, last year it was 287,000 that was spent. How much has been spent to date? I'm sorry, Councilman. Where,
where are you now? This is on the central IT PD expense. Please go ahead. just wanted to know where we were. Thank you. Please go ahead. Okay. So,
um we have spent so far uh this year $198,000. Is there any explanation about why we would we would be spending over $200,000 more?
Well, I mean, we're halfway through we've spent 198,000. Um, and some of these these costs are are monthly. Um, but we'll come back with a with a more detailed ask. Um
and then we can go from there. Okay. I'd like to make a recommendation that that come down to to double that amount that has been spent and that then itself is generous in my opinion. So bringing it down to 396. I might suggest that you get a breakout
to understand exactly. Yes. how how that large number because if 287 was actually spent last year, you might be very generous. Very generous. But the point that you're
making, Miss Bennett, is that we don't have that information yet. So, I'm not inclined to reduce this until we get all of the information and can make a better informed decision. And hopefully we'll still right we'll still reduce it if if uh if the council if the council
believes that that's the right way to go but we we're we're kind of blind right now. So of course it's just hard to approve. I hopefully you're not inclined to approve or reduce until you know. Yeah. We need to know. Think that's what you said. You just
said it better. That's all. Okay. Um, are there any other categories that you want to know the current spend on or Yes. The current spend on on the fire department? Sure. And uh something to I just realized
we're not doing is when we move from one department to another, we're not giving page numbers. So if there's anybody who has actually accessed these uh these digitally from the council, I mean from the township website, they're we're
losing an opportunity to tell them where to go. Oh, so we're on page 10 um right now for central IT FD expenses and we have spent to date um $9,000. Okay, so just to clarify for my own
purposes if not for everyone else. So we spent uh $10,200 last year, correct? For the entire year. And so far this year for the fire, we've spent over $9,000. Correct. Okay. And you can't really tell us why that
might be. Sounds like Mr. Garcia's gotten away with a with a certain amount of felonies by not being here. So maybe you bring him next time, please. So, I'm going to say just looking at the
way uh the POS have been booked, um we could cut this budget even further. Um because it looks like we've encumbered for uh the full year for the Pascac Data
Services, Inc. So, I I think we can we can leave this at $9,000. And uh that include I the only thing I don't know was with them. We may want to find out. It won't be the full amount, but um
I believe some of the charges for like the on board like medical equipment may need when they report to um the EMS EMS provider, insurance
provider, but drawing a blank on the name right now. Corona Health for Corona Health. Um, so I don't know if that that's the only thing I would suggest because what they what happens is our our firefighters when they get to the hospital, they have the ability with their iPads and things of that nature,
they can they can actually instantly load um the patient bill to Corona's Health who can can start the billing process to recuperate some of the money. So we may want to just make sure that that's not included in that. That's all.
And I don't think that's expensive, but okay. I will I'll note that. It may be included in the service, but I just want to make sure it's not, you know, we're not short of ourselves. Not to go backwards, Mr. the teniac just understanding it budgets aren't I I
think most of the time you pay for much of the service early in the year so we we try to encumber the majority of our when we know we have a contract or set amount we we do try to encumber it so
I think we've done that for past CAC data but if there is anything additional I'll just I should ask the chief before I I go ahead and and make an additional cut. Um so so I'll do that. But I still think that there's an opportunity there. Both police and fire and I think we
should resist the urge in thinking so if we're halfway through and this is how much we spent that the other half will spend an equal amount because that may not be be true. Much of the budget may have already been spent and so therefore there might be extra and I think it's important to have actual information.
Yes. Um yeah. So where we can identify like recurring monthly costs that are not encumbered then you know we'll obviously have to project that out. But yeah in the case where we've encumbered for the year it you know if it's $25,000 for the full year and we've already encumbered
it and it's part of the paid charge then you know it's not going to it's not going to increase. That's that's it for the year. So I I understand what you mean. Definitely. Um can we jump to non-uniformed? Sure. and wondering why you're requesting an $11,000
increase. Sure. So, we're talking about we're going to be we're going to be going to page 11 um for those looking at home. Um central IT non-uniform expenses. I'm sorry. I don't I don't know if I stepped on you, but if it could be a
bigger feet, we could counciloman. question was why um why are why is this department requesting an $11,000 increase? So this is a this is not an increase over budgeted. This is an increase over what was spent. Um
correct. And so the majority of this is for our our fauvionics which is that image retention system that we talked about um
and and we actually do uh we have some other systems like our Munidex system. The actual ERP software is charged here. Um what else do we have? Um
it's mostly Munidex Fauvionics and oh our new municipity system is charged here as well. Um so we're actually Mitchell Humphre
in there too. Uh Mitchell Humphre is not charged here. Um we have the Arbor Pro software charged here. uh municipity and fauvionics. We're going to we're going to spend this entire budget. Um
so we're at actually overexpended. We're at 61720 617209 with everything encumbered um for the year. So I'm actually going to need to increase this by a couple hundred bucks. Couple hundred or couple thousand? No, a
couple hundred. So can we make this accurate? Yeah. Yeah. We just booked the the phobionics. So I mean not not the fobionics. We just booked the municipity recently. So um that's what brought us up to the 61.
So I I will make a note to increase a couple hundred bucks. So are you looking to increase to 62? I was going to bring it up to the 61720, but I could bring it up to 62
because I think everything is encumbered here that we need for the year. So like they're not recurring monthly fees in this one. All right. So Mr. D comment I and Council President
just very as quickly as I can. I just um took the opportunity to look through the what was handed out tonight and I just want to point out that um something that you mentioned in previous meetings so I just took a look at it really quickly.
Um I'm going to do it quickly. Central IT online expenses. Sure. 2024 budget 28% of what was budgeted was actually used. Right. Next page, central IT PD
expenses, right? 63% was actually used. Um, next page, central IT fire department expenses, 59% was actually used. Right. Um, central IT non-uniform expenses, 82% was actually used. If you
look at the remainder of what you handed out tonight, you're in the 90 to 97% of what was budgeted was actually used. Mhm. So, this seems like the place where there's a lot of opportunity to save the
taxpayers some money. Yeah. Well, I I think when we go through the exercise of breaking them out, you know, we can we can better start to cut on the sub accounts. Thank you. Yeah. And and just to just to acknowledge, you had already begun the process of we we did some We
probably still have more to go, but thinner cuts and uh we'll see. Hopefully there's there's more room. Yes. So, Councilwoman, you have a hard stop at eight. So, is there anywhere else that you'd like to go particularly
before we close the meeting tonight or you want to just continue on? Continue on. Plow ahead, Mr. Diniac, please. Um, so yeah, I'll try to do some, you know, maybe let's pick
we'll do we'll do comproller. Yeah. Um, so we're going to do comproller. It's page 12. Um, so this is the SNW ask for comproller. So it's $443,287. There's no longevity. There's no OT. Um,
it's this is base pay. And if I pull up uh the prior year, um, there's actually a decrease in the budgeted salaries and wages of
$34,496.60 or 7.22%. So um you know we have a we have a decrease in salaries and wages for for division of accounts and controls versus last year. So that's you know because of
differences in salary and um you know that's that's why we have the savings there. So, one of the few SNWs where we have a savings. Um, and that is because Mr.
Gross was making more. Yeah. Mhm. If Oh, I I apologize. I'm going to the wrong spot. Um, if I go into the comproller OE budget,
um, we're requesting, uh, a reduction of 14,000. So now the budget is is up. Um, but I I explained that we're purchasing a new payroll system. So we have an initial
uh um acquisition fee and conversion fee and then we also have the initial conversion to Edmonds. This budget next year will go down dramatically. Um you
know we we have some savings in the audit. We're also not using uh some of the professional services that we've used in the past um like PKF Okconor Davies and Battalia to do a lot of the the work for the department.
Um so we're going to have a a sort of big year for for spend because of the two new systems and then it's going to go back down. Um you know, I've I've looked over where I can trim more. I'm asking my my bank to
pick up more of our payroll services uh to give us a larger um allowance for payroll. We currently get $48,000 paid for payroll by um by Provident Bank. You know, I've asked them to do better for
next year. Uh we're also going to look to possibly do an RFP and seek, you know, a better banking service um so that we can reduce these expenses even more. Um
I would like to ask you, excuse me, about u a line 110 supply subscriptions is that big jump there budget request that's what are we subscribing to? Are we using like soft is it software as a service?
Yeah. So it's not Okay. Edmonds Gv. Yeah. Okay. Unfortunately everything now is software as a service. So we're not paying for a big software package. We're just so we're paying for the conversion and then we'll have an annual subscription because with that
you know they're updating the code every other week and you know they're providing the support and they're constantly enhancing the system and you know they're going to be running the whip which is the the online portal um so that when the taxpayers go in you
know they're going to be able to to make their payments and you know I will say taxpayers are going to love it because it is a much better online experience. It's safer. Um it's just it's a better system of paying your your property taxes and your sewer
taxes online. Um you know, they're going to maintain the portal that we have on the website so that uh we're updating data in real time, revenue appropriations, so that the public, you know, it's a public facing portal. they
can look to see where we're at with you know tax collection or where we're at with uh you know the SNW spend as of so you know that's that's going to be sort of like an it doesn't update in real time it updates every night pulls from
the system but you know the the public be able to see those things so um it's it's going to be a really good system I I think everybody's going to enjoy it so um but there is an initial conversion cost right Okay. No, I I understand. What is the yearly? If if you could, I
just want to finish asking another question if if you could. Uh just wait a second. So, uh on line 090 on the regular audit, we spent uh over 94,000 last year and you're asking for 75 this
year. And I'm just I'm actually asking for 62. Um Oh, cuz that's the for Samuel Klein. Yeah. So, they they came in at 54. Uh, and I just leave a little bit extra in there if we have like an OS
that we have to do and I need to charge it to the OE or if there's some additional report because we're probably going to need them to do a HUD report for us. I left a little in there for for that. So, you wouldn't you wouldn't
ordinarily put the the development of an OS report into the audit line item, would you? just I would probably take it from the existing that's um soft cost but just in case it it's really more for that HUD report that I think we're going
to need them to do for us. Excuse me. Um for section 8. Okay. Uh Councilwoman, please thanks for your patience. A couple of questions. Um what would a forensic audit cost? Oh, we we talked about this hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the years that
you're looking at. you know, could be up to a million. In fact, Samuel Aquin was I think I think really they were the only Well, I should watch what I say so I don't get sued by one of these firms. They we asked for an RMA firm um to do the
forensic audit because again, we have a very specialized form of accounting um and they were the only RMA firm that responded. So, um, but just in talking with other accounting firms and and forensic
accountants, you know, for the amount of years we were looking at, at first it was like a million bucks. And then when it went down, it was, you know, probably a couple hundred,000 per year to check even checking individually significant items, not every single transaction, but
just doing individually significant items, full audit on that is expensive. Yeah. Yeah. Could I just uh uh clarify when you said RMA, I'm not sure everybody knows what it is, but it's just basically municipal accounting. Somebody certified to understand municipal accounting, which is very
different from generally accepted accounting principles. So, right. So, um so the RMA is a is a unique license um to state of New Jersey. I I think Wyoming has RMAs or my Montana has RMAs,
but it's it's not the same sort of uh uh licensing. So, an RMA just for the public and and and for everyone here to be an RMA, you have to be a C a CPA. You have to be, you know, a CPA in good standing. And then there's a a test
offered by State of New Jersey every first Saturday of every December. Um, and the joke is that an RMA has to die for a new RMA to be made. And it's a it's a very difficult test. It has a very low pass rate. But that's that's
why our audits are so thick. Um, if it was a GAP audit, it would be much smaller. Um, so that's the the sort of very conservative accounting system that we operate in and we need specialized auditors to do uh to opine on the
financial statements and all that. Okay. I'd like I'd like just to send that over to the budget advisory committee to consider and maybe consolidate a year or two that if if that is still a recommendation. Um, uh,
line 70, miscellaneous junk drawer. Mhm. Can you please give us some information on what that is? Sure. So, is that an RMA term, junk drawer? Okay. So, then the answer is this and that.
So, so in the miscellaneous section, um, we used to utilize an outside consulting firm to do a lot of the the work for the finance office, reconciliations, um, the submission of, uh, the quarterly
iRock um reports which is a their pension forms for PS we've scaled it back so we use we use this company Battalia Associates um when we initiate our payrolls they they perform some
independent payroll testing and they will point out if we have any significant changes in our payroll um whether it's OT or um changes in base salary and so they
are always sort of benchmarking the salary ordinance that's in effect. So if if someone you know a change is made and someone's now making $200,000 a year, they're going to come back and say, "Whoa, you know, we we did some data analysis and this doesn't make
sense. This person's salary should only be, you know, $45,000." So we use them for that. Um, and it's a service that we're going to probably look to get away from because a lot of times everything is fine and
there's no real findings and, you know, I sort of cringed where I'm like, okay, we just spent, you know, $900 and nothing changes. Um, so I'm trying to transition that to my comproller to be able to do that same sort of data
analysis work because that's what it really is. It's data analysis. It's taking Oh, it's taking um our payroll data from from Kronos currently and basically putting it into pivot tables and and doing some rudimentary data
analysis and comparing it against uh the ordinance that we have in Excel. It's a massive document. And then also looking at OT, so OT variables. So if anything's over 15% of the prior period, they're flagging it and saying like, "Hey, what happened here? did somebody enter in
something incorrectly or, you know, is this really the case? So, that's what we use them for and that's primarily where um that that miscellaneous money is is spent. And so, it works out to be, you know, about $25,000 a year if you're
doing it every payroll. So, okay. Thank you. So, um I'm so sorry I have to run and I'm sorry to end the meeting. No, it's okay. No problem. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Council President. Another productive meeting. Please go ahead. Oh, so a motion to adjurnn.
Second. While you're hearing I motion I make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I I Oh, the meeting is adjourned. Our next meeting is a week from tomorrow, June 26th
at 5:00. Same bat time. Same bat. What's the second channel? Thank I'm going to take the