Good evening, West Orange. This is Joe Fagan. We're I'm I'm coming to you live from inside council chambers. This is the continuing series of the West Orange Township Council budget workshops. Um, thank you for your patience. We are uh a
little behind schedule, but I now turn the floor over to Council President. Thank you, Mr. Fagan. Welcome West Orange to our sixth budget workshop for the 2025 municipal budget draft budget from the mayor originally proposed to
raise municipal property taxes by 6.2%. So we have been looking for and identifying efficiencies and savings to lower that increase. If you want to follow along, please go to the township website best orange.org. Use the search
box in the upper right hand of the page. Type in budget, then click on the first result, budget, and you'll see the mayor's draft budget that we'll be working that we originally worked from. It has been superseded by a uh updated budget dated June 17th. You also see on
the same page and that has subsequently been uh superseded with another version that we don't yet have up online and that we won't be using. But uh Mr. Tiniac has assures me that if you're online uh from Zoom for this or if
you're in ch Council Chambers, you will be able to follow along with everything that he's going to be speaking about tonight. We are not taking public comment tonight. If you want to comment or ask questions, please send an email to council westtor.org,
which despite what you may think also goes to the mayor and several people in her administration. you want to send just to the council, send it to one of us and ask for distribution to each of us. If you need email addresses, search for council on the township website.
Recordings of the workshops are on the township website. Find them by searching for video gathering. Uh tonight we have with us as our celebrity guest, Mr. Todd Deodi from the
Citizens Budget Advisory Board. and welcome Mr. Dogi. Thank you. Dogi is a longtime resident and has a significant uh real estate and uh financial background.
Uh let's see. I want to just encourage everybody to continue to speak into the microphone so that everybody can hear and that includes me. And lastly, I just urge everyone to consider time efficiency in their comments and questioning to be
sure that what you say is necessary. The faster we carefully go through the budget, the better. Madame clerk, you thought I forgot. I did. 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 27th, 2025. Councilwoman Castelino present. Uh let
the record show that Councilwoman Ruden is absent currently. Councilwoman Scarpa present. Council President Koviaak present. Thank you. Mr. Tidiac, you have the comm.
Thank you, Council President. Um, so I'm going to go through the agenda for everyone uh watching at home. Um, they should be able to see my my screen right now, Mr. Pagan. Correct. Um, so we're going to start with a what we're calling the cut summary. So we're going to go
from that amount to be raised am um per household per average household that we had posted in the original budget to what we are down to right now and sort of how we got there. Um then I'm going to speak about the IT budgets and we spoke about those at the last meeting
and the request from this council was that there would be more detail rather than the one line um that was included in each of uh the IT budgets. So we've detailed it out along with sort of a breakage or a difference versus what we've asked for and the detail that
we've provided. Um, we're going to talk a little bit about unemployment insurance, general liability insurance, workers compensation insurance. We're going to go through the tax assessor, and then we're going to get into the utilities, fuel, electricity, street lighting, fire hydrant service, and
water. Um, and that that will conclude um tonight's budget hearing. Um, and one thing I want to say is uh I I do have some requests like from Councilwoman Scarpa. Um, Mr. Debi has some some budget requests. I will get to those. I
I apologize. Uh we're just so in in inundated in the finance office. We have a early payroll this week and um some new debt service that's come online. So um but I will get to your your questions and and the other thing I want to say is
is a big thank you obviously to the council and to the citizens budget advisory board for their input um over these last couple months as we've gone through these hearings. I council president said this is hearing six. Um I think we've made some really great
strides and I appreciate all the input uh from everyone even though sometimes my face makes it seem like I don't but I'm a little bit expressive and uh it's come come across negatively. And I do thank everyone for their work and and uh
I'm going to be meeting with the CBAB after the holiday and I'm looking forward to really getting into the nitty-gritty with them and and getting their their input. So I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for this process. Um so
I'm going to move on to the uh summary. So, my Excel opens. You have not you have not emailed the uh the council and the board uh these specific spreadsheets. We're just going to follow along. No, you're just going to just going to follow along. Yep. Oh, you did? Oh, yep.
Where was I? Thank you. Okay, so as I stated before, our original increase on the average home was was at $243.31. Um but due to some changes in revenue and also uh the help of the the council
and the citizen budget advisory board and the department heads we've made some um significant decreases in appropriations. So uh on a very high level in in revenue um we've come up with 1.1 million and I will go through
the individual items that we've we've come up on. Um, and this is based on uh the amount received in 2024 and also in the case of a TSA rental, it's a projected amount for for 2025 based on
the new lease. Um, so we've come up in fees and permits $76,000. We had that headway uh um to come up when we did interest on cost on taxes. We've increased to 12,815. Again, we had the available revenue that
we had realized last year, so we can do that for this year. Same thing with sewer user charges. Um, we were able to come up $426,000 u based on last year's performance. And then on 2025 estimated pilot billings,
we were able to increase the West Orange senior citizen housing, Eagle Rock senior housing, St. Barnabas and Prism um for a grand total of for the pilots um $323,000. Um we do have a new pilot. It's it's
been included in the 2025 budget. It's Stone Hill. Um but we don't have any changes. Uh and that was already included in the original budget document. So I I just don't want anybody to think we left out Stone Hill. Um we did we did include Stone Hill. As I've
stated, there is a debt service that is is part of that development. That was, you know, one of the things we were going through today. Um, so the amount that we've anticipated takes that into account so that we're not over anticipating uh Stonehill revenue
because there's pledge revenue that goes to pay the RAB. Mr. I apologize for interrupting you, but do you have the detail on Stonehill at your fingertip? Oh, it's on page three. Yeah. 910496. 910,496,000.
So, so that's the unpledged revenue that less the county share for 5%. Um, it's helpful in that it the pledged is already broken out. So, you know, it's it would be difficult to actually
anticipate that. Um, but that pledged revenue goes to pay uh the bond and and right now we're sort of working on the amortization schedule. We had to make an acred interest payment today at $326,000 and we're working on the amortization
because it's five different pieces. Uh there's tax exempt pieces and taxable pieces. Um so we're we're still sort of sorting all that out and it's based on the the TCOs for the different buildings and um you know we'll have amortization
schedules to share once everyone's in agreement. Please go ahead. Um, so question, what page did you have the cannabis revenue on? Um, what was that like $16,000? Yeah, it's
in the local I think it's local revenue section. Let me bring it up. So, you you did you go back and look at that? I mean, for all that we went through and the times I think we spent more than $16,000 in legal fees on on that subject matter.
So, um, that's all we're projecting. Yeah, it's it's only 2% of of their gross revenue. So, um, yeah, it's just not I I don't know. I forget what meeting I spoke about this, but you know, I've been having conversations
with the other CFOs and um in particular, I spoke to Bloomfield because Bloomfield was really ahead of everyone else and and they saw a tremendous revenue when in the beginning rise opened up, I think it's called.
Yes. And as more and more open up, I mean, they sort of cannibalize each other. So, the more cannabis shops, and it's not just in town. I mean, it's everywhere. So, yeah, you know, the more cannabis shops you get, what's going on my Excel
here? Um, well, we saw Monontlair's Ascend leave to go to Mars County. They were the first ones ever opened with medical. I just asking because so you went back, looked at, you don't see any more. Yeah. you know, we're just trying to be very conservative on it because
it's it's a first full year and and I did the projections based on what we've got and you know, that's all I can really do because I have to support the number to the state and they are looking very closely at all the cannabis revenue, especially new cannabis revenue
because again, they don't want municipalities to sort of get in trouble with it by anticipating too much. So, I'm being very conservative with it. Um, I don't know what's going on, Mike. We spent over $100,000 or more on legal fees. The township did. Yeah.
And years of of uh wasted time in the council. All right. I just wanted to see if you had if you went back and looked at Yeah. I we we did again, you know, we'll evaluate every time we because we're going to get um
we're going to get another payment in well, they have till the 20th to pay their state sales tax. So, we're going to get it by the end of July. Um and we'll see what the quarter looks like and you know, hopefully the trend is upwards. But again, it's 2%.
So, what they report right now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know, I I think I appreciate you going back and reevaluating everything um as as things change and come in
um because yeah, a million a million dollars is a lot of money. So, my question I guess to you is I I again I appreciate you going back and looking at this, but like this information when we first got the budget didn't exist or you're just doing as a No, it it
existed. it existed. But, you know, we're there's a balance between using all of the available revenue and then, you know, putting some aside so that we can build fund balance up because that's West I see one of West Orange's biggest
problem is a true lack of fund balance. And I think it doesn't make us very attractive to, you know, the Moody's and S&Ps of the world when they hand out the ratings because their their number one issue is the lack of fund balance. Um,
and and and that's a problem that I want to tackle because the debt is so high. You know, those changes in in bond ratings could mean, you know, millions of dollars. So, if we had like a very low debt profile and I wasn't so
concerned about the ratings that we got, I would say, you know, who cares really about the fund balance? It's nice to have, but it's one of the major things that the rating agencies look like. You know, they're also going to look at the wealth in the town, which obviously it's a wealthy town. Um, so that helps us,
but they they consistently ding municipalities for a lack of fund balance. And the size of our budget with the fund balance sort of that we've kept historically, it's it's pretty low. Um, so that was that was the goal is to start building
that up by anticipating a little less revenue and bringing in more and building it up, but that's just really not the flavor for this this council or the you know what this council's really interested in. So, you know, we've gone back and and we're using more of that
revenue that we we think we can bring in so that we're reducing the tax rate. Um, and that's that's what the 1.1 million is. Sorry, C. My last question on revenue Essex Green because it's not a redevelopment, but it's been newly renovated. So, you know, the their new
assessments kick into the 2025 assessment because they, you know, they're fully vacant. Their renovations are are pretty much completed. Yeah. So, it's it's part of that. It should be part of the 2025 NVT, which, you know,
we're also seeing the effect of the revaluation. So, it's I'd have to like look individually if we had just year-over-year NVT change. Like, I could say, "All right, well, we had a $10 million increase and we could maybe
break it out." But since everything changed, it's hard for me to to say like, "What are the real movers in terms of like added assessments?" You know, maybe Jacob can can speak to that. Um, but for
me, I'm just seeing that revaluation hit and basically double our NVT. So, it's hard for me to pull out like individual, right? But it should be part of the value. Yeah. I mean, that's that's what's going to make this budget year so difficult because you could get to zero
dollars, which I don't recommend, but you could get to zero dollars and 40% of your residents are going to go, "Why do you keep saying that you you kept the taxes flat? my taxes went up $2,500 because of the effect of the reval. Yeah. Um, you know, and unfortunately
the reval is hitting I don't want to say poorer people, lower income people in town because the starter homes went way up. Yeah. You know, Llewellyn Park, those homes never move. They didn't really get impacted as much as the starter homes. So that's
that's what's like difficult about this whole situation is that the reval is yeah is hitting is well it's it's hit 40% of the people that went up and then 40% of the people that went down
you know you you could increase their taxes and they're going to say I I don't I don't know my taxes went down year-over-year because of the reval. Um it's a it's a tough year. It's a tough year for everybody. Um you spoke about the retirees. I will say because the
state did adopt their budget with 18 minutes left last night. Um and they've committed obviously to fully fund Ankor and senior freeze and they are talking about funding that program that would um
you know cap taxes for those 65 and over. That's $7,500 if you make under 500k. So, that remains to be seen how that gets put into place, but that's what uh Governor Murphy is is is touting and I
hope that comes to fruition and our seniors get more relief than than what they're they're currently getting. So, thank you, Council President, and good for them. Um Mr. Dutton, did you have a handout? Yeah.
I wrote about that supposed to pass all the No, no, there's more. There's his other everything he's going over tonight. This is the first page here, Councilwoman. This this fun serves
revenue. So, if we look at the appropriations, we have a lot of changes. I want to point out some of the big ones. Um, employee, excuse me, employee group health. Where does this employee group health change come from? And I will answer that after
asking the question. I will answer it myself and say this is the chapter 78 that we get from the employees. Um, which is uh statutory contribution towards your health benefits. Um we this
is something that we went back and looked at. So the way that we we budget for group health is we look at because we are self-insured for most of our our our health insurance. You know we look
at our projected spend and we also look at our maximum spend because we do have a maximum in place so that it's you know not going to just be $30 million. We have policies in place that once we hit that maximum, our
excess um plans kick in and start paying us back. Um so that's in place in any self-insured plan. Uh Mr. Zik, are you saying that you're already projecting that we're going to hit the excess? No, no, no. No, no. I'm saying like that's
that's part of how we we budget is we look at all those different factors. We we look at our spend. A big thing that we look at though is what we are going to get from our employees and we use that to reduce the amount that we ask
for in the budget. So, you know, a a real simple uh uh example, if we have a plan, uh let's say one person in our plan and the family coverage costs $50,000
and per chapter 78, that person is going to contribute $15,000, we would only budget $35,000. So, we wouldn't budget for the full amount. We're going to budget net of what we get from the employees. So, we looked at all
of the um the payrolls so far and we projected out what our new chapter 78 contribution would be. And that is the change. That's why we're able to reduce the employee group health by an additional $331,000.
So in a in a plan like if we were in state health benefits for instance, we have a defined premium that we have to pay every single month. So you you have your roster, they have their plan
choices no matter what that individual does. If they don't go to the doctor or if they go to the doctor every single day, it doesn't matter. We pay that premium and we charge chapter 78 based on that
premium cost and what they make and what their their coverage selection is. Single member spouse in a self-insured plan. If someone goes to the doctor or goes to the hospital, has a surgery, they may
cost us $200,000 in one month. We're not paying a premium to anyone for them. We're paying the cost of the claims. But in order to implement chapter 78, we have to come up
with almost a like per month or annual premium amount for each of these plans. And that's how we charge the employee. Then chapter 78. know our insurance company sort of works behind the scenes and figures out what is the true value
of this plan if it were like a private insurance and we were paying a premium. Um so that's how we calculate chapter 78 uh for our employees. So again, the chapter 78 reduces the amount that we
ask for in employee group health. And in the next presentation, then whenever we have our next meeting, we're going to really go in depth on health insurance. It's going to take a long time. Um we're going to talk about the health insurance plan. We're going to talk about dental. We're going to talk about Medicare and
our participation in the Metro HIF. Um that's going to be a pretty in-depth evening. So, we've sort of saved that for for the end. Um, but I wanted to point it out because it's it's a big mover on the appropriations.
The next big piece that I want to talk about is fire salary and wages. This, as I talked about a few meetings ago, we were able to do because we looked at the trending in OT for fire
and and Chief uh Veio spoke about this. Now that we are at um the the to0, we've we have enough employees that we're not shortshifting every single shift and having to bring in um extra people to
work overtime every single shift. Our our fire OT uh projection has gone down dramatically. So, we were able to cut, you know, $593,000 from that fire OT. Let's save our questions to the end of the night when
I'm out the door. Councilwoman Ren, I'm kidding. What was your question? So, but right underneath there is the fire OT which has only gone down. No, no, that's fire OE. Sorry, that's other expenses. Other expenses. Yes. So, in in there, can you break out a salary and wages and
overtime? That's just so that we actually can see we went through this already. like when we went through fire. I just this was like a real high level summary of the cut for that particular line. Um but we
certainly can I mean we have the we have the the breakdown but I don't have it in in this this was meant to be just sort of a a a quick look at uh you know where we ended up. Um the other big piece here that I want to
go through is the maintenance of the library line. This is where we had that money for 10 Rooney sort of buried in the library
appropriation line. Um, so we pulled that out and we applied that to public buildings and I'm going to go up to public buildings and you're going to see a positive 335 here. But the net is, you know, the difference
between that 700,000 we cut and the 335 we ended up just putting in public buildings because the the 700,000 that we had in maintenance of library in past years really should have been in public buildings. OA
and it was put into the maintenance of library because it kept it out of the caps um the appropriation caps. Um but it just really wasn't proper and I think we heard from Mr. QB um about how that sort of distorted
um the public's perception of what we were actually paying over to the library. So now we are accurately reflecting the the library levy that's set by the third of a mill and we have gone and and reduced the amount that we're appropriating for taking care of
10 rooney and we've properly allocated it to public buildings OE. Um so that that's that's in there and that's that's the appropriate place for it. Um excuse me. Did you take out the 50,000
the line for the 50,000 for the special request? No, we didn't because I don't think because I don't think we received their itemized budget yet. I didn't see it on server. When when you guys vote when the council votes, if you guys if you want to take that I just didn't take
it out because I was unclear of where the council was going with that one. Um Okay. So, that's not in this number. if we want to take it out. It's still included in the budget, his extra 50k. Yes. Um
to my knowledge, you haven't received his itemized budget, right? I have. Right. No. No. I think every he was told to send everything through Madam Clerk, right? I mean, so that Okay. But no, I haven't I haven't gotten anything for
that special request. Um he was Were you here for the meeting he spoke at? I can't remember. Oh, you were. Okay. All right. No, you That's right. Because you did ask him for it. Um, no, that's still included in the budget. Okay. Um, and when when we go
through the vote and we go through the individual pages, I mean, you'll see it's still in there. So, if you want to remove it, you know, we we can do that then. Um, but that's still in there. I I didn't take that out. Apologize. One last question. So anything we have
marked in our budget book. So that's a prime example. So this list here when we go back, anything marked in our budget book from our notes that we voted on to take well we didn't vote on to take out. Is all
that enumerated in here or only what you thought we were taking out or how are we going to make sure we didn't miss anything in this list? So we we took out everything that we took out as as the
administration or whatever. Um and then things we discussed in the meetings we we took out. But I mean we'll we're going to go through it page by page and if you don't see something in there, you know, we'll we'll add it. But I I
think I think we've captured everything. Um, but if you have something in your notes when we go through it, you know, we'll we'll look at it. So, you guys can ultimately cut what you want.
No, I appreciate that. I just want to I'm just thinking that's like a whole another night like trying to get like what is our timeline? So, I I I think and I think I said this in the beginning, we're probably going to need two meetings. We're going to need one more to finish up and then CBA is going
to need time to communicate with all of you and then you're going to need a meeting to do the cuts to like the votes. So, okay. So, I think two meetings. Okay.
Like two probably four hours. Like I don't think tonight's going to go four hours, but I think two 4-hour meetings because the one meeting on voting is going to take at least four. And then we got to vote, but we have to do that before the 2 or July 22nd
meeting so we can vote on the budget for first read in compliance or even have or even have a special meeting around that time just for the budget. Um because I think the the the July meeting is pretty stacked, right? There's a lot
on there. No. Well, keep it light because this is more important. So, Lord. Okay. I I Oh, I I didn't you didn't hear me talk about I I'll say it for the record as well. Um, so we did
receive a letter from the division of local government services instructing the council to introduce by the 30th. Um the instructions were to make application to the local finance board.
Uh if we felt we couldn't meet that date or disagreed. Um I made application to local finance board. I sent letter directly to Michael Rogers the director. So the the two updates are Michael
Rogers confirmed that he received the letter and that he would let us know what his decision was. Um, we have not heard from him since on this. And Nicholas Bennett, who's the executive uh, secretary to the local finance board
today, emailed me that the local finance board's not going to take this up as an application because nothing has been no decision has been made by Mr. Rogers. So, there's nothing to go to local finance board on.
So, you know, I I thanked him and his his board. Um, but that was the instruction was to make application to local finance board. So, he basically said just Mr. Rogers um Mr. Michael Rogers is going to make a decision and that's it. So, that's where we're at
right now. I'm going to try to speak to Mr. Rogers directly and sort of plead our case again. Um, I've already spoken to to Mr. Sepiki. I said that in the the previous meeting. That's his assistant director. I told her the whole
history. She knows West Orange. Um so, you know, the the hope is that nobody's getting fined. Um be lovely. But, you know, I'll I'll try again and and speak to him directly and sort of get the pulse from him. What did
you say about the 31st? Do we we have to Oh, when they said to to introduce by June 30th, that was in the original letter. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Now we're at July 30th. Jul as the new date. No, we don't have any Well, I
I said that we have a meeting on July 22nd. Um, and so that's that's what I put out to them was was to do this on July 22nd. I I will try to speak to Michael again or speak to Michael directly. Um and
again just plead our case. So it seems like it's up to him. Uh not funny. Quick question going back to the revenue uh the uh maintenance of the library numbers. Yes. The 700 that was uh
reduced. Mhm. Um so that entire 700,000 was moved to building OE. So we didn't move the whole thing. Um we we moved 335,600 and we cut the rest.
So question on that. um by moving $300 some thousand to building O and E for expenditures that would be to for the library does that not make it more difficult to track spending on the library? So,
so the way the budget is laid out is that the state says the distribution of the library levy andor any additional money that like the 50k you can put outside of the caps.
And that's that's why the 700,000 for maintenance was there because it gave cap relief to the township and it allowed us to have appropriations that should have been part of the inside cap
calculation to be outside. So even though we're spending it on the building that we own, it the library doesn't get to use it themselves. So it's inappropriate to put it in that line. not inappropriate. It's not allowed. I mean, it's just just from a budgeting
and perspective from the state, you're not allowed to put that in that line because again, it's outside caps. So, so our building caps is So, there's a there's a there's two caps. There's a 1977 cap. That's the
cap on appropriations. That's how much your government can grow. Okay. And it's usually three and a half% because everyone passes an ordinance that says we'd like to go up to three and a half%. And then there's exceptions like they'll
give you an exception on, you know, maybe pension for the year. If pension went way up, they're going to give you a piece of it that's going to be outside cap. Um, but that's the 77 cap is on the on the spending side. The 2010 cap is
the levy cap. that's how much you can get from your taxpayers and that's that 2% cap. It's not a hard cap because there's exceptions, but that's the 2% cap. Um, so why are they put into place? The state basically says even if you had all this
revenue, you had all this available revenue and you're like, "Hey, I want to hire like 50 new people and I'm going to grow my appropriations, you know, $10 million." And they're like, "Don't." And we said, "Don't worry, we're not asking
the taxpayers for anything." The state would say, "No, we're not going to allow that. You can only grow your appropriations a certain percentage because why do they do that?" Well, if that revenue went away and now all of a sudden you have to ask your taxpayers for the money, you know,
you've allowed your budget to grow exponentially. That's why they put an appropriation cap into place. So when I talk about like inside and outside cap for the appropriations that that's that's what I talk about on the outside cap stuff. You can we can
increase it however much is available you know from a revenue perspective. Um, so things like debt services outside of cap, whatever debt service has to be, they allow you to raise, but inside cap,
so salaries and wages, um, we are limited. Thanks, John. That's an excellent explanation, although I noted that you kept a straight face when you said there are some exceptions on the levy cap. Yeah, because they are big enough to
drive a truck full of Swiss cheese through and are done all the time. But it is I'm glad you express that because it is important to the budget process in terms of the impact on uh not only
spending but also on uh property taxes. So, right. So, and you when you go through the budget, if you go through the budget, I'm just talking about residents, you will see references to cap cap in capital letters, and that's where you should pay attention. And
you'll see some of the exceptions that Mr. Tiniac was saying, but and and and the caps, especially the 2010 cap, you know, that when Governor Christie was in that that has slowed the rate of growth in government because it really
exploded in the 80s and 90s um and early 2000s in terms of property taxes. And that was one of the things that that sort of slowed things down. Um but you're right, there's exceptions and they add new exceptions every year. Sometimes they'll take one away.
Sometimes they increase the amount that that can go outside a cap. Um, it's just really based on what the state sees as like big issues. if it's insurance or if it's garbage or if it's pension. Um they
sometimes cater things to allow for exceptions to the cap or you know sometimes we'll have an amount outside of cap for pension and then sometimes we won't. Um so that's set by the state uh and and the division of local government
services and sometimes local finance board. Thank you Councilman Scarpa. Thank you for your patience. What's up? That's okay. Um, I remember when uh Mr. Kooby made his presentation and we talked about the special request to the library which was for educational services and we we realized that that's
a nice to have and not a have to. We did. No one um made a motion to add it. Why is it still in there? Can't we take that out and get this budget as realistic as possible? I mean, if we get it down to zero and someone wants to
make a motion to appropriate it the funds, that's one thing, but we don't even have his budget. I think it should come out. So, let's work on getting to zero. So, if if that's the pleasure of the council, I'll remove it for the next uh
update and um we'll revisit that line before we move on to some of the new items and you know, we could see the impact of it. So, well, are we voting at these meetings or So, that was the that was the dilemma. Councilwoman, sorry to
to bounce in, but are are we voting or not voting? We are not voting. We took a vote as a as a body and the what won was not to take votes on on these cuts. So, now we have to loop back after we're finished with the process and spend the
time doing that. It sort of sounds like Yeah, we'll make a motion. Probably want to remove that. I'll remove that and uh and talk about library for the first item um for next uh budget hearing and and I'll give you an updated figure for
um what that does the amount to be raised. Thank you. I would appreciate it. Thank you. Mr. Dutin, does this reflect the cut for the Arts Council building? This does not. This budget does not. No. So, and that was one of my questions.
Yeah. Yeah. And also, council president, can we just take another vote right now just to say that we want to incor the some of the things that we are doing and agreeing on we can incorporate and then we can incorporate more when we have the citizen budget advisories um input.
Uh I think we've already discussed that once and I think we determined and madame clerk please help me with this. I think uh the lawyers have already appined that there's a particular way we have to structure the notice of the meeting to allow for votes. Yes. And I
and if we want to do that, we have to structure, you know, the next notice for a meeting that a vote will be taken and then we can actually take it. Let me see what the notice said. Check that. Yeah. And I thought he said something about if we're taking a vote, then we have to
have public comment. Yes, that's true. Yeah. So yeah, that's Yes, that's what it was. And I said no public comment will be heard. That's what Yeah. But but you're taking notes, careful notes anyway. And and I know that there was a request and I won't I won't say who, but
like to Oh, no. Please go ahead, Mr. T. You know, for to see what the budget would look like for some removing some other pieces. Um, you know, and I will I will get that that to uh Councilwoman Scarpa, but um if you have something you want me
to remove for next meeting, I will take it into consideration. Well, I mean, I'll do it. Take it into consideration. I'll do it. You can see the effect of it. I think I stepped on on Councilwoman Scarp, so I'm sorry. Then I'm I'm stepping on No problem. Let's just get the job done.
Okay. So, and we're getting to the end of the wire here. Okay. Before we move on, we've already introduced the idea of of making a change for the next meeting. Is do we need uh I guess a floor motion to to agree that that's what we will do
the next meeting? Next meeting we will uh determine with the notice that we can take a vote. Is that what you want to do? And then but that's going to mean allowing public comment. I'm I'm a big fan of public comment, but it could, you know, uh stretch out the meeting time.
though, uh, we don't have a motion yet. And so maybe I would like to make the motion to do that. Now, uh, Madame Clerk, I just want to be clear. We're about to take a vote, but it's not it it's I don't know how to
describe it, but it's something that the council will do in the future. So, it's not like we're violating the law now, I think. I I I don't I don't really know, but I think if you're planning for the next meeting, you're not violating anything. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, so we
have a motion. Uh, and do do we have a second? So, you're you have a motion to basically add public comment to the next meeting. All right. To allow to allow for correct. Yes. Can I have a discussion? Yeah. I just I need a I need a second. If there's a second, then we
can keep going. If there's not a second, then we can't move forward. Okay. So, we have a motion by Councilman Scarpa. We have a second. Okay. So, now we can discuss. So, as much as I like that idea and I originally supported that idea
originally and and lost the vote in the original to to have these votes as we go along. I just don't think we're not going to get this the next meeting done. Like where like how much more do we have to do? What do you what are we going to
get done tonight? So, the big thing for next meeting is going to be health insurance. That's going to be the major one. Um, and then we have the mayor's office. We have administration
and we have uh retired citizens and pension. Sorry, we have a pension as well. Pension is is easy. There's nothing you can do about it. I'll just tell you that it's a bill that we have to pay. Um,
you know, but health insurance will probably be long and, you know, maybe the other ones too. I don't know. Um, so but you you we might have like an hour of to do votes or you you might have an
hour to to vote so maybe we can get some of it done. Um, so I like my recommend so I guess my recommendation would be is to get through the work of the workshop to get to the end of this budget book,
continue to make our notes and then if we have time that night, I have no problem taking votes to to to uh enumerate what we decided we're going to take out and have public comment. But I think we have to get to the end or, you know, we're
I don't want I don't want to have a third meeting. We got to get this done. I didn't want to have two. I was hoping to get it done the next meeting and then we close out on the 22nd. But I I think we we'll get through we'll finish next week or the next meeting and then uh
if if there's time, it probably is a good idea to start voting if you can. Maybe a little lowhanging fruit, the the easy stuff that that you know there's really nothing to Are my colleagues good with that idea? Can we finish up and then if if we could start voting on
taking things out next meeting then we can notice. Yeah, I'd like to do that. Okay. So, Councilwoman Scarpa, did you jump the gun there or do you have something else to say? No, I said I like to start taking things out to get a realistic picture of where we are.
And and do we have another meeting scheduled? I didn't have anything on my calendar and I know Councilwoman Ruden is going away, right? Yes. So, when's our next meeting? We don't. Okay, let's let's stay on let's stay on uh this one subject and we
can bring that up later. Yeah, I'm trying to look at the whole picture. So the motion that's on the floor if we approve this today and say we can take votes next we will still have the option at the next meeting because we will have
to go through the the motion. So if there's a motion and people want to do it they can they'll vote for it and then we'll move ahead with that. If people don't want to do it yet, if they want to take your suggestion, which is finish the workshop work, and if we do finish that, then we can start taking
I like to I like Yeah, that's my motion. Any other I'd ra I'd rather take the stuff out as soon as possible. My original motion. But can I just um ask a question? Yeah, just just raise your hand. You don't even
have to ask. Just Yes, please. Okay. Um Mr. Teniac, it seems like in most of the most of the things that we have discussed that you are you are then reinccorporating it except for two things that we just pointed out which was the arts council and the library and
the library. So and the arts council we have a bit of a of an issue because more than half the year has been spent. So the maximum we can remove is 12,000 even. I don't even know if we can do that. So I feel like we are making the
adjustments. I just the only concern that we have or that I have is that we may be losing some of these. You know the the timing does and we've said it that the timing limits your ability to you know if we did it in
January you'd have a full year. I agree. I agree. Um Yep. Okay. But I I hate that. Um, I'd like to make a motion. Well, there's already a motion on the floor. Sorry.
There's a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Are we finished discussion? Should we take a vote? All right. So, this is the motion I have to allow action by the council at the next meeting and allow public comment. I'll take a vote. Councilwoman
Castelino. Yes. Councilwoman Ruden, wait, this is too Well, yes after we finish the workshop part of it. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you Okay. Councilwoman Scarpa. Yes. Council President Goviac.
Yes. Okay. The motion carries. Thank you. Now, Councilwoman Ruden, you were about to make another motion. No, that's okay. Okay. So, we're finished. Okay. So, we're back on track. Uh, so let me just
finish this up because I we have a lot to get through. Um, so where we're at right now is on the average home, on the municipal piece, not nothing to do with the library or the county or the board of education. Our current increase on
the average home is $1183, less than less than $10 a month. And that's that's on the municipal side. Um, that's where we're at right now with our budget. Mr. Percentage would like to ask what the percentage
uh 2.9 or something like that. Uh let me see. Okay, thank you. Okay, please go ahead. And just to for reference, that's down from 6.2% originally proposed. Yes. So that's significant.
Okay. I don't know what's going on with my I I don't know what's happening with my Excel. Can I have just one second? Certainly. Do you want to take a fivem minute break? No, no, no. It's okay. I'm into fivem minute break. So, what
was the original number? 277 or 278? Uh, I don't have it in front of me. I couldn't say for certain. Mr. 243 was the original budget we put up online. 243 a year. Is there a reason um police SNW is not
on here? What do you mean? Lowered. Oh, because there was no change. So, the change in appropriations on this page are just the ones that have changed. So if they haven't if they haven't changed so far they they aren't on this list but they
are in the budget but and so they can be impacted but uh this is just a sort of at the last meeting we were talking about trying to get an idea of of what's been uh suggested cut and that's what this spreadsheet is for. And uh but if
it if it hasn't if it's not on here it can still be changed in the future. It's a 2.52% change um in the levy for the average home.
Even better. Thank you. Okay. Okay. We keep interrupting Mr. Chinak, but please Oh, it's okay. It's okay. Please plow ahead. Would you Okay, let's get all my stuff open. Okay, so
last uh meeting we talked about the IT budgets and um we had a real lack of detail on the IT budgets. There was one line. So, what I what I did is and we're going to revisit them. Um what I did I'll bring
this up on the screen for everyone at home. Uh I'll zoom in as well. Okay. Um, so what I did is I looked at the major vendors that um that we're dealing with for each of
the budgets and I have the projected spend for the year. So the the top portion here is the original um way that the the sheet was uh was laid out. So in this case, this is it
technology other. We were asking for 114,000. This is the projected spend by vendor or type. And here is the difference between my projected spend and the budget requested. So we have a budget request
of 114,000. So, Microcomputer Consulting is a consulting company that we use. They have a base monthly price of $4,600 um for, you know, an IT person to be
available here. Uh we also pay $266 per month for remote access management. So, we have remote access uh module that uh not everyone has. Um you know, limited uh employees use it. that I use
it on my laptop. It allows me to get into my shared drives here at the at town hall. So, if I'm at home, I I can view my share drives. I can view my desktop. Um because we don't save things locally. Um and especially with all the
payroll data that we have, we keep it on a server side of things and we don't allow it to be viewed from home. It's always going through this remote desktop. So that's $266 per month. So it's $4,866
per month for micro computer. Um once a year we pay micro computer consulting for um a a total network firewall on the um non-uniform side. Uh so it's just
this um side of town hall. Um this does not include the police department. they have a much stricter uh requirement for their firewalls and their their uh spam filters. So that's a once a year um uh charge for microcomput for the
firewall. Uh Altech Business Solutions um does the majority of our copier services that on an annual basis for 2025 is $10,62. Um, JTOR Technologies,
uh, is really when we have repairs, specific repairs for some of our copers. Um, it's not an annual amount that we're spending. It's more of an estimate that I put in for $2,500. So hopefully we won't have to spend that full amount,
but that's what we're looking at for, you know, sort of miscellaneous copy or repairs. What have we spent this year? Um, I think for the JTO it's only been like $20 and something dollars. Last time I looked, have it in front of
me. I think it was one repair. It was like 232 or something like that. Um, so it's you're estimating about 10 repairs. I I I'm I'm Yeah, I put $2,500 in. like it's
if something breaks on a copier are usually like a few hundred bucks. Um but that's not covered in the service contract. Yeah, these are for some of the older machines. We use JTOR. Um MUNDEX we still will and we're going
to continue probably using the animal control program at least through next year. That's for $3,876. That's the dog licensing program. Um, Civic Plus, this is our website. Uh,
this is our annual fee for Civic Plus. Um, you know, it's includes, I guess, the hosting and support. And they just gave us a um a free redesign. Every few years you get a free redesign. So, we
just had our redesign. Um, these Yes. What is What is the animal control Munidex? Um, so Munex is, it's not even Munex anymore. It's really ZenGev, but MUNDEX is a company that provided our
our ERP software, you know, the purchasing, the general ledger, all the financial accounting, and they have a module that that handles uh animal control licensing. So the dog and cat licensing um has all the information
about the animal, assigns the tag and you know prepares the bill and then prepares a a monthly report that has to go to the state of New Jersey. So every month you have to submit to the state how many dog licenses you sold and you know how many were spayed, how many
weren't, uh how many were late, what's the tag number and then that calculates what's due to the state. So, this program does all of that stuff. You know, it's funny that we did not keep it in the health department or
charge it directly to animal control. Um, it's just traditionally been parked here. Um, it could be covered by the the the licenses that we sell. It's certainly um
a viable expense, but we we use the animal control for some of the SNW for animal control and then some of the other items that we purchase, that's what we offset with the trust. So, all the money that we get for the licensing goes into the trust.
Councilwoman Scarpa, you had your hand up. Yeah. A couple things. Can we park that where it belongs? and uh micro computer consulting. What exactly does he do? What type of consulting? He or she what do they do
for $58,000 a year? So they they they do a lot of like the hardware stuff and wiring and um networking engineering server side setups. I mean that's I'm not an expert in all that. Um, but he
really assists Mauricio in sort of maintaining the IT infrastructure and and uh the cyber security for the for the township. It's it's the township side of things. Uh I mean it's the non-uniform side of things. Uh nothing
with the the PD, but it's just us here on the side. Is that Mr. Polaro? That's Joe. Yeah. Yeah. I teach he's on site once a week as well. He is. He is. He's on site for for a full day. Um but
he also is working remotely with Mauricio. Um but yeah, like I said, he's setting up hardware. He's doing wiring, network configuration, you know, he just um he just did a new setup for us uh so that we have uh collaboration between
the purchasing department and finance. We needed a new share drive um for the the bill list. We have a new bill list procedure. Uh he set all that up for us and um so he's really assisting Mauricio. Is this something that the Hold on just
a second please. Counciloman Scarper, are you finished with your questioning? Um I had one other question about the Zoom accounts that price the one uh $1,424.25. Is that just like a one-time fee? And then as as each people as they use it,
does do it cost more or is that the only cost for this? That's a good question. So there is a onetime fee in there of like $424. There's an annual fee that this is basically what um Miss Reynolds was
paying for um up until we we went through SHI. Um so she was being like reimbured for all these. So, it was the monthly cost plus the annual fee. Um, that's what the $1,424 represents. So, so if if the commissions
want to use our Zoom, you know, the commissions that we have, we're not paying extra for that or are we? Well, we only have a couple of accounts available. Well, I think that's always been the problem is that it has to be coordinated um
uh between when you're having the meeting so that you have the right type available. I I don't know that much about the difference between like the webinar one and Yeah. I mean, Mr. That seemed very low. I was wondering if that was encompassing all of our Zoom costs.
Like I'd like to see that cost, you know, like realistic broken out a little more. Yeah, this is the Zoom cost that Miss Reynolds was being reimbursed for. Um, and then we we got rid of that reimbursement so that we don't have to pay an employee and we don't have to
have an employee put the money out. So, we we're going through SHI and we actually got a little bit of a discount through SHI. Um, so where in the budget do we see our total Zoom costs? What it's costing us to do Zoom? Because like we've got all these commissions now and
stuff coming on Zoom instead of coming in person. Planning board, zoning board, the I know the HRC. Yeah. Well, we I'd like to see that, you know. Yeah. Because it it combines not only the cost of the Zoom but the moderator, too. Um. Right. So that
that's going to be We'd have to put together something that says, "All right, this is what we pay for the accounts and this is what we pay for the monitors." We can do that. Um, I couldn't just tell you. I couldn't tell you off top of my head, but yeah, I'd love to see that. That's that's pretty easy. Um, because yes, we're paying the
moderators as well. So, it's the accounts and the moderators, right? But but for this particular budget, this is just the this is just the Zoom account that Miss Reynolds was paying for, right? And one more thing, the community pass, that's like uh
$9,000. Is that just a program so people could sign up for things at the pool and the seniors could sign up? That seems like a lot of money. Can't that be in our new program that finance program? In most municipalities, that's that's really all it is. It's like recreation
based. West Orange is unique in that we run every revenue with the exception of tax through community pass. So every department is using community pass to record revenue. So the departments are
responsible for maintaining subsidiary ledgers. They have to have their own ledgers. So that's what Mr. gross made community pass is it's all the subsidiary ledgers for all the different departments and then can we straighten that out so that the costs are allocated
to where they should be. So we're do we're going to be changing that with Edmonds. Okay, good. year two of Edmonds. And that I say year two because we're going to have some overlap where in 2026 we have Munidex Zenv for Q1 and
then Edmonds for the rest of the year. We'll phase community pass out and use the Edmonds solution starting in 2027, but we're going to keep community pass for 25 and 26
because it's really how we post revenue into Munidex. So the I'll give you the quick um integration. So residents are paying through community pass. Our own people
are entering in the revenue that they get into community pass whether it's for a firearms permit or you know UC permits or you know copies for Oprah or something like that. It's it's all going
through community pass. And then what we do is we take an export on a daily basis from community pass and we load it into our current MUNDEX system and it does this like you know 200 line posting and
it posts all that revenue into Munidex. And then if you look at Munidex the way that it was set up is it says okay and I will look on Madame Clerk here because she's here. It will say, "Madame Clerk has $5 of revenue that she
owes the tax office." That's basically what it does. It sets up a receivable for the department. And then Madame Clerk that day or the next day comes over with her $5 and we deposit it in the bank and we clear we clear the the
revenue. So it is it is deeply integrated into the current system. It's used. I spoke to Community Pass. They said there's not one community out there that uses their program the way that we do with like such a deep integration and so
many different accounts. Um, so I know it's expensive. It is $8,900 is a lot of money and it's going to continue to go up. Um, but we will eventually phase it out, but it's not something that we could get rid of right now. It would
just Right. I'm confident you'll fix it when you can. I I if we didn't have it, I don't even know what we would do. Um, right. I trust your judgment on that. The last thing was these consulting contracts. How long have we had them and when were they last bid? Have we bid these competitively?
The um the IT contracts. That I don't know. Um I don't I don't know if we're going through state I I just don't have that information. I can like speak to our QPA and and get that. I mean, I believe
we've probably had micro computer for years. Um um I can find out for you. Um yeah, this just might be something that we want to look at moving forward to streamline our costs in the last 10 years. Last 10 years. No, Councilman,
you're right. Um you know, there's there's a lot of different vendors out there and it's worthwhile to see, you know, who's a little bit more competitive maybe. Um, you know, I I understand familiarity and, you know, that that
goes a long way in terms of an organization and I'm sure micro computer is very um, you know, well-versed in what we do here and probably built a lot of it themselves. But I it's it's worth looking at. I agree. Okay, great.
Thanks. That's it for me. My my last piece there is miscellaneous repairs for equipment. It's it's a slush fund, but things break. Um and so, you know, we we asked for the
8,500, but um yeah, it's it's if something goes wrong, um we we would have that in there. So, I could understand if you wanted to pull it out. Um, we'd be willing to do that, but full disclosure, you know, it's it's in there
in case something breaks, and you know, we can't charge a capital for it. It's an operating item, so we put in uh an allowance for miscellaneous repairs or equipment replacements. All right. So, let's see if we get down to zero. We might not have to take that out.
So, you're finished, Councilwoman? Yes, I am. Thank you, Councilwoman Ruden. Okay. I just wanted to follow up on a few of the things. I would like to see the Nunidex animal control shifted over to animal control. And um since it seems like we have a little bit of pad in each of these
categories, I would like to remove the miscellaneous um funds, the 8,500 miscellaneous funds. Um, for the Zoom accounts, I'm still really not clear on what the charge is
for us using a Zoom account. Is that the number that because you're saying that was what was reimbursed to Miss Reynolds? Yeah. So, what is the actual cost now with our with our Zoom contract? So, we'll get you the the full the full number. Um, you know, there
there might be another Zoom piece. I'll run a vendor history and and see, but for this particular you know, account. We were she was being reimbured $443 once a year for Zoom and whatever the hundred something dollars a month it was
afterwards. Okay. And um the the copier contract, can you Why is it that high? Well, it's a service contract. I mean they come out and and fix those particular copers and replace ink and
um you know like it tells the the company hey you know your ink is low and it send auto sends us you know a new cartridge. Copyers are very expensive. The cartridges are very expensive. Very expensive. Is that our actual cost? Yeah that's that's the annual service
contract. Yeah. And also with the Zoom account, I believe we were running into issues where more than one person had to use an account. So they had to add additional I don't really know how it works either,
but they had to add uh the ability for more than one commission or the council to use more than one account. So they had to add to that just in the last couple of months. Right. And that was the reason I was asking because some of these commissions really should be
meeting in person and you know some of them don't really need to meet over Zoom. But even if they meet in person, we still give them the opportunity to come in by Zoom like the council does, right? Well, let's look at the cost of that. Maybe it might not be so
necessary. We'll we'll give you a total Let me write it down. we'll give you a total for the Zoom software itself and then the moderators because I right I think that's the piece that you're you're also looking for. Yeah. And particularly if you know they're zooming it and nobody's actually on the Zoom or
one or two people are on the Zoom then you know perhaps that's an unnecessary cost. Um, council maroon, you have the floor to if my colleagues agreed with the 8,500 um miscellaneous cut
council. So, I think it should be cut. Maybe not in its entirety because I've been president in the building where you know copies can't get made because they machine goes down and they're waiting on on so machines do go down. I know what
did we spend last year the past couple years if it's minimal even put a thousand in just for Yeah. And I want I don't want them to have the inability to but they have the the copier contract for anything that that's that's a major expense. Well, the
and my other issue is that to Councilman Scarper's point, the copier contract as well should be, you know, that's been around for a while too. That should be Yeah. So put out. So we we just
full disclosure, we buy the copers and then we we get a service contract. So we don't we don't lease copers. We just we just do the service contracts. So yeah, you we could we could go out there and look for for some new service contracts.
Um and why don't we lease the contract the copers because they become obsolete so quickly. They used to be in a leasing uh company for years ago. it. Copier sales are extremely predatory and when you do the math on a lease for a copier,
you're spending like 500% of what it would be to to buy it outright. Um, but not if we're paying on the the you're going to get a service contract either way because you got to get a service contract even with a lease. le leasing
them is just it's I' I've been there for leases and had to break them um because they're so expensive. So this is the most cost effective way. But you know we have options with service contracts because again we're not leasing the
product from anyone. We're buying it and then we can go to whoever we want for a service contract. But um yeah, copier leases are very very expensive. I agree. I don't I don't mind cutting that out. Council President. Oh, thank you. Uh,
quick question for you. Um, on the consulting agreement, um, 60,000 roughly $60,000 and you said that he's helping out Mauricio and I assume any, you know, the
other department, the department head as well. How much of what he's doing could be done by the department head or the deputy department head? Uh, I it's that's I can't really say. Um,
you know, I I I really couldn't answer that. I could comment to that that he's done things in my office because I have no clue whatsoever. Dena is a little bit better than I am, but there's things that he's had to come in and help us with cuz we just don't have that
background. So, you know, Well, what about though? What about Mauricio? The No, no. Mauricio couldn't he couldn't do that, right? So, or he was busy doing something else and we needed it and you know or Dominic, you can't do that either. I'm sorry. Or the department
head. Well, if he's busy doing working on something else and Joe happens to be in the building, he'll have him do that. Or he he has helped me remotely as well. He's like literally taken over the computer and you could see him doing the work and whatever.
So the way the it is split is you know we have the one uh Mauricio here u Mr. Algro's PD and then uh what's his last name I always say it Joe I feel bad saying it Joe um is is is
made basically here so yeah I don't want to I I can't say like oh well Mr. are is more of like the sort of systems engineer and setting up the servers. I I don't have enough
information about that to say, but I I guess I guess I'll speak for Mr. Garcia in that he would probably say we would need a full another full-time employee um to do that work and we would end up
having to pay benefits and all that. So, um that's that's the only answer I could kind of give you. I'm sorry. Thank you. Real quick, one more question. The numbers at the end of the at the bottom, the department totals,
what is that number? The 336895 is is the detail. Oh, what makes up the 114 original? Yeah, it's it's just the 11385 is is the 114. Yeah. Against the 114. Yeah. So,
the totals at the bottom don't mean anything. No. No. I I took okay I took a existing um document and I just basically pasted this on top just for the example of showing the detail. So we always at ask
for 114 and then I'm saying well here's my sort of uh justification for asking for 113 and I came up with the 11385. Okay. Um, but based on um the feedback I'm getting is we'll come back with uh
when time to vote, we'll come back with pulling the 3876 out and putting that to animal control trust and we'll pull out the 85. Yeah. For the miscellaneous repairs and you know, so we'll reduce the budget by the uh you know, $12,000
or so. 123 um in case there's unless there's anything else for this particular Thank you. So, uh there were two questions here. I think one is to take away the the fund uh for repairs for
township owned copers and the other one is to take away or or move uh the unitex module for animal control program when we just heard that that's basically providing the general ledger the daily
ledger for every revenue source other than taxes. Oh, Mr. President, I'm sorry. Sorry, the Munidex animal control is just for the dog licensing. Um, we're going to move that against the reserve for animal control. So, the fees that
are generated from selling the licenses, the community pass is is what I talked about with the the revenue. Um, so again, we're going to remove the 3876 from here and we're going to put it to the trust and we're going to remove
8,500 just a straight cut um for that miscellaneous repairs for equipment. Okay. Say, so I want to ask about this because I'm sure well I would think you did not put in $8,500 uh for the repairs without any sort of
justification or documentation of that. So, no, I did. I mean, there's not You did. Yeah, I did. There's do that with every every line item. I just know that this is going to totally change the hearing. So, it's not like at this point we've had to
repair something for that much. This is just putting money aside for if something happens. Um, because with the salary wages, it's it's a little easier to budget to the penny, right? If you're going to pay someone
$100,000, they don't get OT, that's what you budget for. They work the whole year with the OE. I mean, you have to leave some wiggle room. Um, but I don't think that's going to be possible for this year. So, that's why I said, you know, we're fine.
We'll take it out. If that's if that's what's going to get this budget moved forward, we'll we'll take it out and we'll deal with it. Okay. So in the second half of the year, we've actually gone through half a year and we have a problem with one of the copers that we
own. Yeah. But we charged that to the Jour. Um that's was like the $232 that we've charged here. Um we haven't charged anything against what we would call miscellaneous repairs for equipment. Counted by That's why I'm saying I'm comfortable.
If you want to remove the 8500, we'll remove the 8500. Okay. So, I just want to clarify something. We we voted not to make decisions. Now, we voted today to at our next meeting to perhaps resin that and start
making cuts. In the interim, it sounds like what we're doing is we're making cuts without without uh following the procedure of of a vote and and that's required by the state. So, I'm a little concerned. I don't know. See, you say
it's required by the state, but I I've honestly I've never even seen a process like this. Like, you'll have to introduce a budget and that will have to be set. But what we do internally here, I don't I don't know like if that's really the way that it was ever intended. But I mean, what I'm saying
here is I'm agreeing to remove these if that helps. If that's He's tracking. He's tracking. I understand that. I understand that. But if we are making cuts without our agreed upon process, which is to vote on the cuts,
my understanding and and between councilwoman and I, we've got like 15 budgets uh under our belt on this, and we've always been told that we have to vote on every page. Well, you still have to vote. I'm just saying we'll put this up on every page. That's that's I don't
know. Maybe this thing's changed back and and revote every page. what he's doing for us is he is tracking all of our conversations which is a little confusing and we have to make sure we look at our notes and write the note
down that he doesn't miss anything that we may want and right now I haven't heard any of us be have a disagreement on anything that anybody mentioned so you know the council mentions one thing I mentioned another thing we all you mentioned something we all seem to be
agreeing to that cut so I don't think this is going to be as problematic as as we think it's going to be. It's just going to be a little time consuming. So, so I just just keep continuing as the rate we're going and everybody keep taking copious notes and hopefully we'll
have a nice vote on July 22nd. Okay. Um, thank any other comment. Uh, we moved on. Please go ahead. So, it took us way too long to get through a single spreadsheet. So, yeah. Again, I just encourage everybody to try to be a
little bit more efficient with uh okay with their please. Let me zoom in here. I think we're got a group going now. Next one. Online. Okay. So, central IT online expenses. We
originally had asked for $90,18610. We had cut it down by 15,000 to 75,18610. Um so I have uh laid out what uh what is
included here. Um so we have Pacio technologies. It is a vehicle tracking system for the e- fleet. It's $69545 per month. We have Comcast Internet Charges, which I've estimated based on
the monthly to be around 14,500. We have Atlantic Tomorrow, which is DocuWare, um, which is a which is a like a whole smorgesborg of like spyware, document saving solutions, uh, spam
filters. Um, that's 8415 per year. Uh and then Edmonds Govvek. This is a one-timer um for this year. Uh and it's part of the integration um of the transparency module, the whip and taxes.
Um, so next year when we have admins, there's a there's a piece that will go on our website that auto updates based on whatever parameters we choose to display, whether it's um revenue, expenses, um, tax collection percentage, and and
it's a module that, you know, you have to buy them all in upfront. You know, there's like a an upfront uh, integration cost. So, the majority of of this budget is really that Edmonds Govvek piece and next year it's going to
be far smaller. Um, so my subtotal is $74,1040, leaving us a difference of $1,175.70. Um, which, you know, we'd be happy to cut the difference, but again, I wanted to show you the different pieces um that
we have in there. Full disclosure, we probably will have some breakage in Comcast internet charges as well. Yeah. Um, a small amount. Um, but we're willing to cut the difference of that 1,17570.
Any questions? What do you mean you're going to have a breakage? I We're not going to spend 14,500 for Comcast probably. Um, you know, we're going to have maybe a thousand bucks left over, maybe a little bit less. Um, but I just request that we leave the
Comcast piece and we cut out the sort of unassigned difference um of $1,175.70. What is our actual Comcast bill? It varies by month. Um, which is the strangest thing. Um,
so it's No, no, it's it's this is just for internet service charges. Um, it sometimes it's 1,200, sometimes it's 1300. Um, and do you know why it varies? I don't I don't. Is there somebody who's
examined that bill? Is it based on usage or do we play pay I mean I could ask Mauricio why the things change when they do? I don't know if it's taxes or they adding devices to it. That would make I I'll have to ask Mauricio. It's It's
pretty small. It doesn't end up like triggering my sort of billless radar, but um I'll note it. Okay. Yeah. I think we said moving forward we're going to look at all of our telecommunications expenses, right? Maybe have a consultant do that if
necessary. Yeah. So that's that's on the um on the phone side of things. We're going to look into that. Um you should do data and phone. Yeah, you should do both. I think that they will
look at data as well. Um but we'll we'll let you know. Yeah, most consultants will do data and telephone, not one or the other. They're very interrelated and there might be some economies of scale. Also, some of the phone bills have different uh the cell phone bills have
different data plans on them. Correct. Yeah. Um and then I some of the plans have the hotspot on there. So, that would be, you know, an additional charge on the
phone. So, do you know when we will get a uh careful review? Do you mean by like a a consultant? Spreadsheet on assigning all each of the devices to a human being, not just to a
department or to know. Yeah, I'll talk to the BA. I I thought that that was provided for the phones. Um because I mean we certainly have the information. So, so again, you know, I'm I'm going to
note that uh we're willing to take the 11 175 out u for, you know, in the future when when when you vote. So, are we done with the online online spreadsheet, everybody? Yes. Move on.
And I'm I'm I like your idea for moving that 11 1175. Moving forward, we have the um fire department IT services. Um let me make this a little bit bigger for the viewing audience.
Okay, so we had originally asked for $17,371. We were able to cut $2,500. So down to 14,87182. Um this is driven by one vendor and it's pass CAC data services. Uh they provide
IT and cyber security support for the fire department at an annual cost of $13,500. And just as we did with the previous um um uh account um we're willing to cut
the difference of uh okay the 1,371. Any questions, comments? No, we will move on. Okay, this is um for Central IT Police Department. Um
we originally asked for $452,9855. We reduced it by 42,000 to 410 98555. Um let me zoom in for those at home. Okay. Um, so let's go through here. So we have micro computer consulting IT
services for $1,498 per month uh or $17,976. We have a company called Interaction Insight Corporation. They provide communication recording services. It's a one-time license, well annual license.
Uh, it's there's an annual license piece to it and then there's like a service component piece to it. The two added up add up to $2,544. Um, Eastern Communications. I'm sorry, Mr. Dick. What actually communications
are are recorded? Is this from the dispatchers? No, this from the This is from No, the phones. the phone recording any points of place. Every time you use the phone and you get
the recording equipment that's that integrates with Ring Central even in this building. Mhm. Okay. And what's that what's that used for? What's the utility here?
They calls are recorded. I don't know. I don't have anything to do with them. I don't get to hear them. I don't determine Yeah. When you use a town, if you call into a township phone, you get a recorded message. Yeah. Say the clerk's
office, you're going to be recorded, but it tells you that you're being recorded when you first call in. And I'm assuming this is just a charge for the police phones. No, this is for the this is the whole system. It's under their their budget.
Okay. Yeah, this is part of the telecommunications we need to look at, right? Yeah, it's it's a license, I think, for recording. So, yeah, it's probably why record on hard drive or a one drive. I guess there's an issue that they could play back. Is there a reason
why we need that? I remember a time when every phone call was not recorded and it feels really awkward when you're you call into the municipality and they record every conversation and they don't do that in other municipalities that they do. Not in everyone.
They may not tell you, but they do. Okay. Is is it is it a something that we should be doing to protect ourselves or is it something that we can lose? I can't I can't answer that. But I I agree. When I call somebody, I 90% of
time I go, "Don't hang up." Because they hear the me and Madam Clerk, I'm sure, deals with it. They hear the message and they're like, "Hang up on this." I'm like, "Don't hang up." My line's not recorded, but Dena's line is. So, but I'm not the one to answer whether it's
appropriate or not. It's You'd have to take it up administration. Still confused. What is the utility here? Is it that the municipality can always check what happened on the actual phone call to clarify discrepancies or what? Why are we recording calls? Sometimes
people opra for them. They want the recording of the phone call like a resident if they call a department and you know they're not satisfied or whatever they want that recording of that phone call. Really? So if we don't have it doesn't exist, they don't get
it. Right. Yeah. Well, we do have it because we get we're paying $2,000. If the line is recorded, we have it, right? If it's not. Oh, so some lines are recorded. Some lines are not recorded. Correct. Yeah. I don't get to set who like my line's recorded. Every time I call out,
it's it's recorded. So, if that's the case, maybe it's not necessary. If some people have it and some people don't, maybe it's something that's not absolutely necessary or we don't have to have from a legal standpoint. This was implemented by the former mayor. So that's one we
may want to look at that. I don't like it. I want that's part of our IT looking at our telecom and data. That's all part of this review. I would like that removed. I really don't like calling here and every every
conversation being recorded. And frankly, I don't know who's listening to these recordings and if they're ever ever used and how long are they even saved. Yeah. If it's possible, why not get rid of that until we have a some kind of understanding maybe from legal about why
it's even necessary? Okay. We're all asking good questions, but there are no answers that we're going to get tonight. So, I'd like to just flag this and Mr. Tiniac, somebody either who works for the township or is a consultant can explain this to us and and maybe that's
what we need to do at some point. I I realize it's only uh $2,500 for for everybody, but I would like a lot more information about why this is done. Now, it may be that we decide that it is important that we record certain
conversations. Um so that should be flagged. Um, yes. So information it's before we take it out. Yes. Yes. As opposed to taking it out before we have a we an informed decision making as we can. So need info. Mr. Tiniac, could you
just take a note that we need to talk to somebody about what this uh what this is? I mean the message says for quality assurance purposes. And I believe it's the former mayor's voice. No there, isn't it? No, it's our IT person's voice. It's like a Yeah, it's Mauricio's
voice. Um, Eastern Communications. This is for the radio systems, the um, public safety 600 megahertz radio systems. Um, grants for that. We occasionally will get
grants to buy new radios. Um, but this is like the annual service service for maintaining all those radios and the repeaters and all the equipment and and then there's a Motorola related
Motorola service cost on on the radios um as well. Can you explain that? Which one? the eastern communication on the eastern why there's an an additional Motorola cost.
Motorola is like the hardware service piece of it. Um Eastern is you know is is dealing with like the dispatch uh communications um all the stuff in the cars. Um,
Motorola is like the handheld uh the say walkie-talkie, but like the handheld radio, but the Eastern deals with the communications equipment in the cars. Okay. Like a 600 megahertz transmitter and and big radio setup in
each of the cars. In addition, they each have additional cell phones in the cars as well. This and a cell phone. So they have hotspots in the cars to run the um the computer that they use for lookups
and and all that sort of stuff. So there's there's data for for all the cars um so that they can you know access whatever networks they access. Quick question. Quick question. The micro computer consulting is that the
same company that Yes. for the central IT. How many other contracts do we have with that particular consulting firm? I I think it's just these two. Just these two. Yeah. Yeah. I will verify though and and get back to you. Thank you. Yeah. On
that note, I would like to look at what our contracts are for a lot of these that keep popping up. It's micro computer, this PAC data services, um the power square. Um maybe we could see look at all three of those and see
like you know what the contracts are and when they're up and how if they've been bid, how long we've had them. Okay. So guys, I just want to flag something. We are getting a little loose and relaxed on on uh our uh organization
here. Mr. getting interrupted a lot and I would just appreciate if everybody could just again I know you want to talk just raise your hand or in the case of uh Councilwoman Scarpa just uh flag uh uh
Mr. Fagan, but I think we're losing a little bit of our clarity here, uh, particularly for people at home. So, please um, what Mr. Bod had a followup question or who's asked uh, if VPNs are in use and
how are the hotspots secured? Um, so we we do utilize a a remote desktop um software. Um, so you're you're really actually you're not even
it's not even a VPN because you're you're um you're logging into your own computer here. Um, so I don't know if we use like like a a Citrix or anything like that
VPN. I I think he uh Mauricio has everything go through the remote directly into your computer. Now, on the police side, I'm not really sure. Um I I don't know if they utilize the same approach to like off-site remote access.
I I I can get the information from Mr. Alino and get back to you about if it's if there's a VPN. Um the what was the second part of the question? Uh hotspots. Hotspots. Hotspots. Yes. Um
I think probably directly because of either it was the budget hearing or it was a meeting that we had. You know, Councilwoman Ruden had raised the question about hotspots. Um so Mauricio, our our IT director has started that
process of like making sure that we have all of our hotspots secured because sometimes hotspots were just sitting in a in a drawer. Um, and he's looked at updated pricing so that instead of just
paying $20 a month, it would be all right, if you don't use it, the minimum is like $4 a month. And then if you use over 50 gigs, you hit $20. So, it's like if it's being put to use, you're going to pay the same $20, but if it's not
really being utilized that much, we're going to pay less. So, M Mr. Garcia did um I I think I want to say it's implemented because we did have the conversation again directly because of what was discussed here. Um and I think he is
trying to put together a better inventory um to to get those ones that are sitting in a drawer back, you know, and I know I won't name names, but like you know, he's reached out to somebody that said like, "Hey, you you haven't used this thing in a year." Well, but I I might need it. That sort of thing. So,
we're looking at if you're not using them, you're losing them. Um, to either reallocate them to somebody that truly needs it because now that we have the uh municipity where we have tablets and we're going to have guys and and uh men
and women um out in the field, if we don't have to buy a new hotspot, we just take somebody else's. We use that so that they can power their their their iPads. if they have a phone that has a hot spot, you know, requiring them to use the phone with the hotspot and
and not buying something new. So, um I know it was sort of a long- winded uh answer to your question, but yes, this particular process and Councilwoman Ruden did spark um you know uh some
action uh in that regard. So, you good, Mr. Boie? Council. So ju just a a quick comment. I don't want to belabor the the point. I wasn't here at the last meeting, but I I appreciate all your efforts in explaining the IT department,
but I I think next time the the IT department head should be here. So you're not put in the hot seat here. All the other department heads have to to be be here. So I you know, we needed to pick a different night, but whatever. I
just you know, I appreciate you you're you're doing a good job here, but it I think they need to to be here. So, we'll we'll request um you know, Mr. Garcia come in and for next time. I I agree. Okay. So, everybody crank up your
questions for Mr. Garcia. Um so, the next item I want to talk about is power DMS. Um, it's a subscription and the annual cost, it's an odd cost, but I think it's based on on budgeted manpower is how they
calculate it. So, it's $5,599.34. Power DMS is used for scheduling, public safety scheduling, and also um like they called up a policy management system. Uh, it's basically all the internal policies of any sort of larger
police and fire unit. you can integrate into PowerDMS. It's scheduling software and policy management. I I don't have a lot more to say on it. Um but it's, you know, how they're setting their shifts, you know, setting their tours and and and how they
integrate all those sort sorts of things. Um keep going. Uh Pascac data services. So we saw them for the FD department. They have a larger contract um with with PD.
They provide again it cyber security. Uh they sell us certain products like um firewalls, spam filters. Um, so when you factor in all of the sort of individual items along with um along with the sort
of monthly amount that they get, it's it works out to be 48,657. I might be off a few bucks, but it's about there. Um, uh, Philip Cashiano Associates, uh, is I actually don't know what this
product is. I'll totally honest with you. NetCloud Mobile Essentials. I I I think there's something related to the cell phones. I've I truly I don't know what it is. I'll get you the information on it. I do know what it is.
Oh, okay. Um it's a distributor or reseller of that equip of equipment. And I'm not sure why we need to hire a distributor or reseller. So, I'd like to question that that amount
whether we still need that on. Counciloman, is this hardware? Is this software or is it networking or it looks like, you know, cloud service? Um, no, it's hardware. Oh, put on that list. I'll have to radio equipment and
accessories part of the audit. So, I'll I'll get more detail on it. Thank you. Um, Pquare, we actually just passed a resolution for Powers Square.
Um, this is what the dispatch center uses. This is their main software. It does the GPS locations and uh uh you know they create the sort of individual report for each call or allows them to
enter in the information and and get that information out to the officer, the ambulance, the fire truck. Um it's expensive, but it's extremely powerful software um that you know we're using 247 uh 365.
Um but again we just did a resolution for this uh software package. Um Rave mobile safety is the Swift 911 um replacement reverse 911 um
that's really all to say about that one. And then um business information systems another one I really don't know what it's for. It's just what we've spent um for this year. Um
so we have a difference of 45,629 uh 52. Um you know I think at this point we're not willing to cut the entire amount but you know I think we're comfortable cutting
25,000 of it. Um if if that's okay with the council, I'll I'll mark a cut of 25 down. And if you think it should be more when we vote when you vote, um you know, we'll change
it. But we're willing to to cut 25 out. So the the spreadsheet indic seems to indicate to me that you're proposing to cut 42 grant. Well, we've already cut 42. Yeah. So this that was our first round of cuts for this particular department. But then when we, you know,
do the work and and look here, you know, with the major items, um, and based on spend through June 30th, um, because we did update it for tonight's meeting, you know, we have we have this difference,
but, you know, we don't want to cut the whole thing because things happen, but we're willing to cut 25,000. And you know, if you want to do more, you you have to vote. That was one. And I appreciate
that. And here's my frustration. And I I agree. We'll cut it. But we're at meeting number six. And why is the council have to do like with with you? Like why wasn't this work
done before it got We don't want to cut this. I I don't I don't think we should be cutting these things, but I mean, all I'm hearing from this this body is that it should be zero or so.
I'm not going to fight you against a fight against it anymore. We're I don't think we should cut it, but this is what you guys want. So, when you say you don't think we should cut it because you're afraid of like something Yeah. happening? Yeah. I
I I I don't think you can you we should be budgeting that close. I really don't. That's it's too tight. Okay. Well, that's the answer I'm looking for because yeah, I I don't understand why, you know, we can like we're making substantial progress. But
again, what's the flip side of that? And what is the chances of, you know, something drastic happening that and say something drastic doesn't if it does, we'll have an emergency and then we'll overexpend and we'll come back with a resolution or we'll do a transfer from
somewhere else. But the more we cut that limits the ability to transfer from the other, like I said, we'll we'll we'll deal with it and then we'll see how things shake out at the end of the year. So, okay. But, you know, my personal feeling, no,
I I don't want to cut it. I don't want to raise taxes on anybody. I, you know, I I understand that. And And I think we've gotten to the point It's really raining. We've gotten to the point we're at $101. I I think that's
probably too low. Um, but again, I think I keep hearing zero, zero, zero. All right, we're trying to get you there. um this diff. Hold on just a second. Councilwoman Councilwoman Scarpa. Yeah.
I just wanted to say I think one of the reasons we're able to do some of this is because we're three quarters into the year. We only have one quarter left. So some of this money that we budgeted for for some of these expenses, we haven't realized, you know, we haven't realized the expense. So I think that's one of
the reasons why we're able to do some of this cutting. Are you done, Councilwoman? Yeah. Counciloman, the difference of 45,000, how much of that have we actually used this year? We haven't. We haven't used
it yet. No. If we've used it, then I wouldn't I wouldn't even put it up for grabs, right? But I think we all know what's going to happen if we cut too much out of the budget and we find out that we have to spend something either for an
unexpected emergency or or overusage or whatever, we're going to pull that money from somewhere else. So uh in in terms of in terms of the uh the impact to the actual uh budget, what will happen is we
as Mr. 10x it said we'll move it from somewhere else and uh what that essentially will do is is cut into uh any surplus that we have or fund balance as as uh Mr. Diniac likes to talk about because he cares about uh our high debt
load and if the if the uh rating agencies come after us that's what one of the things they're going to look at. So, uh, you know, we're not we're not just cutting numbers on a on a screen or a piece of paper, this stuff has
potentially, uh, far-ranging impacts. And we we can make the budget look better, but if we have an expenditure we've got to make, it's going to come from somewhere. And if we don't have it somewhere else in the budget, as Mr.
Tinac said we're going to have an emergency uh borrower an emergency appropriation. So it's just something to keep in mind and uh uh I for one depend on Mr. Dinak to tell us the real the real number the real issue because these
are just numbers and what's really important in the budget is what's the spending and what's the service and what's the cost behind it. So at some point as Mr. Tiniac's pointing out we we may get too close to the bone. So, I appreciate you flagging that and we'll
keep that in mind. And uh I don't think it's a uh uni uh a unanimous uh belief by everybody on the council that we can get to a zero uh no property tax increase. So, so I so I think it's good
that Yes. And Mr. Dinette has said that multiple times. We have given everybody in town a 3% raise this year. And that's that's really hard to uh to make up with. It's but it's really six because I
I don't think that the 2024 budget really contemplated a 3% raise. So really it's really two years worth of raises. Retroactive. Yeah. Well, it's usually retroactive. Yeah. We we've gotten in this habit of going through zero uh zero years where
there's no increase and then we we back fill. Right. But I guess the contract was signed uh last year at the Yeah. the last council meeting of the year. So So you're right. I hadn't I I I apologize. I didn't I didn't understand that that that uh Yeah. that we have this year's
3% raise and last year's 3% raise. And if you really want to be sticky, last year's raise was actually more than 3% because it was two one and a half% and the and the and the math works out even more. So, okay, we're really off the path. Sorry about that, Matt. But we
need to understand it. Councilwoman, um I I hear what you're all saying about being too close to the bone, but it seems like in this particular budget, we're talking about fixed costs and subscriptions where I don't really see something major breaking
that we are go that can justify that kind of a pad. So you're offering 25 to cut to cut it by 25 and I would say because of the nature of these items I don't I think that even 25 is too big
when you vote if you want to increase it and and again I want to uh look at look at um Philosio's uh service that that I I have that noted the netcloud. Yeah. Okay. So that would
be my my point of view. Have we have we drained the police department uh budget? We can move on. Well, and and that's a point because Well, I I just want to because cuz again, just kidding. Been around a long
time like you and I have been around. Um, you know, last year we needed um overtime for, you know, we had some issues in town and we were able to, you know, have police overtime in certain parts of town to
cover some situations that we had and and we were able to to have that available. So, we got to be careful of I'm just talking about just one time, please. But it's an overall thing because if it like to councilman's point, if you know it's needed, if it's
short here, it's coming from somewhere else. So, I'm going to respect the CFO when he says he could do a 25 and and leave it at that. Um because I do appreciate the 42 he's already taken out with the 25 knowing where this council
wants to go. And I think we need to be a little respectful of that because when push comes to shove, if there's another situation and we have to provide protections in town, I want to be able to to do so and not cut into services. So,
can we agree to take the 42 and at this point in time leave the 25 there if he's comfortable with that? Is everybody good with that? We could just set it aside. we could put it in there as a footnote and uh and just see what how we're feeling at the time. Does that sound
like a plan? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um uh the next section is the non-uniform department IT services. So this this should be pretty easy. Um, so we have this system called Fauvionics
and it's uh it's a way to go paperless and also to archive all of our you know anything that we have printed out we can archive and and have it in a
searchable scanned secure um uh platform. Um, so this Fodionics, we've already actually spent um the 37452. Well, we've encumbered the 37,452
uh for this year. Um because I think we're doing we just did another 18,900 for some new document submissions. So, we give them everything and they go ahead and and they archive it and scan it and all this. So, it's a it's like a
manual process. It's not just like a software system that we're loading things into. They're actually taking uh documents. Um Arbor Pro uh tree inventory software. We actually got a grant from uh DP uh for
the first year that we purchased this. Um but this is the new uh subscription amount for uh for Arbor Pro. It's I'm sure Councilwoman Ruden has seen it. It's it's pretty neat. Uh it's it's cool software. It basically allows us to
inventory every tree uh by type and condition and um it's a really neat program that our tree expert uses. uh municipity. This is uh a new software platform um that the township has been
developing and um it it it allows for uh our uh inspectors to go out in the field and um do like real time reporting and billing and all the things that they do on these tablets and have it integrate
with our software so it can generate uh bills and um generate licenses. and all this sort of stuff. Uh this is the the annual cost um for that municipity municipity platform. Um we debuted with
the merkantile licenses and you know the team's just been sort of building it up uh uh you know trying to get um construction code onto it um so that we can leave our existing platform for the the construction code billing. Um it's
just a big really powerful software solution. Uh this is the excuse me didn't mean to make that noise in the mic. Um this is for the Munidex financial software package. This is the last year that we're going to be paying
um this particular Munex fee. Um and this is for the GL software uh which is going to be replaced by Edmonds. So you know next year we're not going to have the 4872 in the budget. Um the last thing is what we've actually spent. We
bought batteries, double A and AAA batteries. Um I I forget how many packs. Um and we spent $107 on on batteries. Uh I I don't I don't think we're going to
buy any more batteries from here. So we have a difference of $967. we're willing to to cut that full amount out the $967 cuz this besides the batteries, we're not spending any more on any other items. Like this is it.
Good question, Council. Yes, just real quick question. So, just to, you know, move as we're moving things around and reorganizing. So, should the Arbor Pro be in the Shade Tree? Uh being that this $4,500 again, another
like this is to to track our trees in town. It's going to cost us 44 4,500 a year. Yeah, that's that's that's the subscription for the platform. Yeah, we we covered it with a grant for the first year, the D grant. Okay. We bought um a
tablet. We bought Arbor Pro um and then we paid for data services through that grant, but the grant's over. We fully expended it. Should it be moved to the shade tree at this point in time? And then would the fees the permit fees for the trees pay pay that or? No, no, no,
no, no. The per permit fees I mean that just goes into a general fund. So it wouldn't be like strictly allocated to pay for the dog like that's why I asked the dog is different in that we we put that money into a trust. So separate from the current fund, it's in a trust.
Um but the tree permit money would just go uh any fee and permit money goes just into the general fund. But it, you know, it begs the question of like should we just do away with the this IT
thing in general and sort of allocate out the different pieces, you know, we would allocate out municip, you know, maybe the finance platform or yeah, you know, Fauvionics goes to admin, but you know, Fauvionics like
everybody's using and that's sort of why they put it here. Arbor Pro really is just the tree expert using I I agree with that. Um I will note it to to maybe pull it out because again there really is
no other cross department uh integration of Arbor Pro. Like health departments aren't using Arbor Pro. I'm not using Arbor Pro. Um I I I will move that into Walt's um Mr. Kip's budget. Sorry. We had a specialist come and inventory all
of our trees. Can you tell me what the need is for Arbor Pro? This has already been done. I think Arbor Pro has that inventory in there. Um, so what we paid for paid for somebody to do the inventory. Now we're paying every
year 4,500 just to look at this. Yeah, that has all the information in it. GPS tracking. Um, you know, you can put you you can create a work order per tree actually. You know, you could go out and
and you know, put in there, hey, there was some growth on the bark or fungus on the bark or something like that. Like it's very granular. Um, and then you can sort it out based on tree types. And I mean, Mr. Kip can show you the stuff. to
me. I, you know, I'm sort of just wowed by the bells and whistles of it all, but um, you know, he he can actually show you the need for it. Um, I'm just surprised that it's an annual cost. Everything's a subscription model now.
That's the subscription. Yeah, they get you with the grant and then they get you on the yearly subscription. Yeah. I don't know if how long we have to keep it. If there's anything with I didn't see that in the grant document cuz we just in the last month or two,
you know, completed the uh um the reimbursement on the grant. I don't remember seeing anything in there that says like you have to keep it for so many years. Um you know, but I think Mr. Kip is using it and uh he sees a need
for it. But yeah, everything's a subscription model now. I mean, that's just the way of the world. Um, but I encourage you like to take a look at it if you can. Um, because I think you'd find it very interesting. So,
Councilwoman Scarpa. Yeah. I was just wondering if like some of these things can be incorporated into the ED Edmmonds when we get the new Edmonds software to kind of alleviate some of these fees. So, so and if they
could be coded, you know, like certain things we're saying we want to know what our overall IT is, but we kind of want to know what department it goes to. So, is there some kind of mechanism for coding things so that you can like sort it like you would on an Excel spreadsheet? Yeah, that's that's a perfect question. So, the first part of
your question, so the Munidex will be replaced by admins. Um, Municity, I thought at first when I heard about Municity that Edmmonds would replace it, but Municity has really turned out to be um, a software solution for our people
out in the field, especially our inspectors, our, you know, our building our code inspectors. So, Edmmonds is not going to replace that. But what Edmonds the functionality built into Edmonds and again it you have
to put good data in um would allow us to track things like you know we might say how do we track um you know what it costs to put on a council meeting and if there's different budget accounts that
are impacted we can create project codes to say hey this is the council meeting project code excuse me good yeah that's and we spend you know, we spend uh um $2,000 on the newspaper and we spend, you know, $50,000 on the attorney to be here and
we do all these things. As long as we can code those POS with that project code, you could simply run a report and put in the parameters that you want, whether it's by year or or by amount, and you can run that report. And I've
done it before with Edmonds and um great you know I will say the township of Nutley has been using that for years in sort of tracking products and commodities and and they've been really good about saying like this is how much it costs to do this. Great. I'm hoping
you'll set that up for us in your free time. Oh, thank you. Well, I to to to add to that, my goal for when we get admins and we train the departments is I want the department heads to see the need for certain things like that, right? and
give them the tools to do that because you know I'm one person and of course I might have sort of things that I want to track but I'm hoping that the department heads will say like this is meaningful for my department and I want to be able to come to a council meeting and and
talk about these things so that you know John doesn't lose his voice every meeting. Exactly. I'd like to see all our directors become uh very very um adep adapt at uh not only understanding how these functions work but really
tracking their own costs. No, I agree. And and the system is built for that. It's not just built for people like me. It's it is built for a department head to say, "All right, here's some canned reports that you can run that are useful." the issue we have with our
current system. I don't want to bash it, but it's it's complex. And you put in one parameter in incorrectly and you get nothing from it. Um, and from a department head perspective, that's I get that a lot, you know, is that I tried to run a report and I didn't get
anything or I don't see it. How do why do you see it? I don't see it. Um, we're not going to have that issue with admins. It's it's set up so that non- finance people can utilize it. Mr. Bob, quick question related to
Councilwoman Scarpa's question. You had said previously that you were going to combine IT uh department budget items. Um has that been done and can we see? Yeah. So, no, we we we didn't do that yet. We I wanted
to just detail what I had originally shown for here. Um but I think it's worthwhile to to look at that. Um I still I didn't do it but I I think it's worthwhile to to explore that because we have five different pieces. Um and I
mean I detailed out each piece but maybe moving forward we don't have five different budget pieces for it and we do combine these things. So um the answer no I didn't do it yet but it's it's
something that I'm kicking around. Yeah. I think we've we almost drained it. Just one last comment for our newer colleagues and you may remember this council president but just up until like eight years ago we didn't even have an IT department that was formed and so
this you know antiquated process is hopefully evolving into a more uh streamline one. Council president I request just a couple minutes uh break um certainly if that's okay. We are at 7:31. Let's be
back at 7:37. I'm going to give everybody an extra minute. 7:37, please on the clock. Thank you for your patience. Sorry. We are returning to the budget workshop. We just had a short break. Now I'd like to
turn the floor over to the council president. Thank you, Mr. Fagan. Are we recording? Yes, we are. Okay, Mr. Tekk, you again have Okay. Um, so we're going to move into unemployment insurance. Let me just
bring up my report. No new spreadsheets to hand out, right? No. No. I'm going to tell you the page number. Hey, John. Do you have copy of the work you handed out originally tonight?
No, I gave my last copy over. I could print another one or print one. You sure? Well, I'm already slowing myself up with this part of it, so um Council President, I'd like to take
the opportunity just to make a brief announcement if I may to the Zoom audience. Earlier in the meeting, we were having an issue with the uh Mr. Tiniac's screen being shared with Councilwoman Scarpa. I was able to put Councilwoman Scarpa still on screen up in the corner and we have a better view
of Mr. Tiniac's screen. Uh it was a setting on the back end. I made the correction. Hopefully moving forward that won't be an issue. Do you want me to come back on? If it is, just cut off uh Councilwoman Scarpa. It's fine. Councilwoman Scarpa, my
apologies. All right. Should I come back on the video or do I need to keep it off? No, you can stay right like you are. Okay, great. She's grown accustomed to being dissed on Zoom. So,
okay. So, this is page 38. Um, well, this is the updated budget document that we have out there. Um, so it may be 37 if you're looking at the old version, but this is page 38, unemployment compensation insurance. Um, so I'm asking for
$90,000. uh to give you a little bit of a background on unemployment. Uh many of the municipalities in New Jersey um do not pay into the
insurance program. They pay claims directly. Um we don't do that. We're more like a private company in that they redo our rate based on the claims that are paid
out. Um, so we actually pay unemployment insurance with every payroll. So, a little bit different than what most municipalities do. Um, most municipalities, like I said, just pay the claims. Um, so they're responsible for the full amount of the claims. They
get a bill every quarter and and they whatever was paid to the employee, ex employee, I should say. Um, they have to reimburse. Uh so our our unemployment insurance is tracking
to be about $90,000 for the year um based on our payrolls and based on our our current rate. So that's why I'm asking for the 90k. I look there's really no way to cut this. Uh it is what it is. So um we really have no
no options. Uh we're we're going to get to uh Councilwoman Scarpa and Mr. Debove in just a second. I just want to ask a quick question. So far, you're projecting that our claims for unemployment insurance. Oh, no. Just
what we have to pay in unemployment insurance um are the employer share. We don't pay the claims. We pay to the insurance program. So, we get a defined rate. Okay. Councilwoman Scarpa, thanks for your patience. Yeah. Does it work
out um where it cost us so much more because of the way we do this versus other municipalities? It's I can't say that off the top of my head. I will say most municipalities
pay the claims because it probably was more advantageous to do that um rather than just be in the insurance pool. Um, but it it's it's hard to say. You know, maybe maybe they switched when there were there was a lot of unemployment and
a lot of layoffs and it was more advantageous to be in the insurance pool. I really don't know. This is I got it. There's a lot of variables. This is the only town I've ever been in that doesn't just pay the claims that they pay into the insurance pool. So, this is charted territory for me, right? I'm
wondering if that's just another thing that we should look at down the road. Mr. Deovi, um, on this item from last year's budget, uh, we ended up spending 81% of the budgeted amount. Um, do you
have any idea where we are at this point in the year? And, um, you know, are we going to end up with a similar discrepancy? Yeah. So, we're I think with this most recent payroll,
we're up to like 483 or something like that. Um 383, excuse me. 383 uh in terms of unemployment. So, so it doesn't seem like we're going to get to 90. Wait, wait, just a sec. Just
a second. So, we're going to see more OT in the summer and that's going to drive up the payrolls and then the calculations going to get higher in the summertime. So, that's one. So, do you feel the need to
switch this the way we've been doing it? And if you do, obviously, when would you review that to so that I will say I don't even know the process to switch it. Um, so I I couldn't even tell you how long it takes or what you need to do. I don't
know the process cuz I I've never been in a municipality that didn't just pay the claims. Um, so I couldn't even give you like a timeline of how long that takes or what is involved in that. That would be
something I'd have to look into. Do we have a tracking of what the claims are so you know the difference? Well, that's that's what we would have to get. Yeah, that's what we'd have to get. Now, normally a municipality gets a quarterly bill
and CO sort of messed all that up. Um, so actually what's happening in the municipalities that paid claims, they weren't getting quarterly bills for a while because the state couldn't even determine what was real and what was
fraudulent in terms of unemployment. So they wound up like years a couple years later then starting to send quarterly bills that they feel they vetted out and so municipalities were paying like tremendous amounts of money out of their unemployment trust. Okay. Um we we did
well so you know maybe maybe we would have been part of that where we would have had a lot of bills I don't have the answer to that question. Um okay we certainly could look at it. Um, again, I when I first got here and I was like, "Wait a minute,
why are we sending unemployment insurance money down to the state?" You know, again, I'd never seen it in a municipality, but that's that's the way we do it here. Um, you know, I'll I'll try to when I have
some time look into the process. And so, but this is what we have sort of now. when uh you know again the OT is going to go up for PD and fire in the summertime. It does and then that unemployment charge in the
next probably five payrolls is going to go up and that's sort of what and then at the end of the year too OT increases. So that's sort of like we're tracking right now to be lower than 90, but I know it's going to go up for the July payrolls and the
August payrolls because EOT is going to go up. Thank you. Cuz you've worked in other municipalities. Can you give a comparison of how much is paid in other municipalities for this? I mean, everybody's different, you know.
It depends on usually depends on your crossing guards is is what dictates a lot of it. um you know and what you do with your crossing guards. Some lay everybody off, others sort of keep them on and utilize them for other things so that they don't end
up paying the unemployment. Um so everybody is different. Everybody's got different situations. So I'd like to reexamine this whole thing since you're saying that this seems irregular. Okay, I'm done. Oh. Um, just
tied to the same thing, the OT that you're talking about is seasonal. Um, and presumably that occurs each year. So, I guess the question is, you know, will we ever see the 90 or are we going
to end up at like 75, you know, I which is an increase over last year. I think we'll get closer to the 90 because they increased our rate um our unemployment rate based on utilization. So to the 24 rate was lower to get to that 68. So the
rate is higher. So I do think we'll get closer. I really do. Now maybe we won't hit 90. Um but the remainder I'm going to just put into the unemployment trust for future years. Uh that's this is something that will not contribute to fund balance. It's going to go into the
unemployment trust. Uh any unspent money. Do you know what the rate increase was percentage basis? I don't know off the top of my head. I I can get that though. Okay, I think we drained this.
Okay, the next item is the general liability insurance 39. Correct. Um so the the general liability insurance uh is a fixed amount. We get a bill um from
the GIF. I will say and and I think this came up in I don't know if it was a budget hearing or a council meeting exploring other options. Um, our contract with the GIF does end at the end of this year and we've already sent a letter um letting them know that we
are going to be uh soliciting um you know other business uh for our liability coverage. Um so we have put that out there and uh if we find something at a better price, you know,
we certainly will go there. I mean, the GIFs were set up um to make uh in insurance affordable for the municipalities. So, they may still end up being the best overall deal, but we are going to do our due diligence and
see what we can get out in the open market. Um but for this year, we have a defined bill. We pay it over in in uh three different assessments. Um and the 1,28593950
is is that amount. Um the uh risk manager is is a contract that we awarded earlier this year. Um and it's part of it's part of this whole uh GIF model. Um
there I I don't see movement on any of these things because they're just defined amounts. Um but again for 2026 the hope is by going out and getting something new that we'll achieve savings year-over-year
or at the very least know that the GIF was the cheapest for us. And I thank uh Councilwoman Ruden. I think uh sort of burned that on. So, anything else? No, I would have a comment on the next
one. Yeah, we're still on the same page. So, I just wanted to ask a question. Yeah, general liability. Yeah. So, um it's part and parcel that the risk manager has to come along with the Jeff in this. No, no, no. I just I I think it's it's just part of the contract for
the last few years. This is how it's been done. Okay. So even if we stay with GIF, there's a possibility that do we need the risk manager? You you may not need it for it may be built into a future quote. I mean another company could offer that service along with the
liability insurance. That's that's why we're going out and seeing what we can get for the rest of this year. Is that something that we've have we ever used the risk manager? They do. Yeah. No, they they do. They regularly communicate with the risk manager. Yeah.
Okay. And um the libraries workers comp, why is that in this section? That was my question. Um I I don't know his I've looked back historically that's been part of the general
liability for years. Um aren't they just covered under all workman's comp in a general fund? they've broken it out uh for a specific policy for library workers comp. I I I
don't know why I could try to ask, but I looked back in some budget years and and this has been there. So, yeah, I seem to recall when when I was on the council before that they reimbursed us for this that it was more efficient for them. But, you know,
again, I I'll quit saying it, but I I don't know what has happened in the interim. Please. So, not the last meeting because I wasn't here. The meeting before, if you recall, I um had asked a question in regards to health insurance with Mr. Q.B. So, I remember
there was some other expense that the township was picking up for them. So, they they reimburse us for health insurance. Okay. But this they do not. So, maybe this this be paid. Yeah. So, again, this shouldn't this be moved to
their their budget. Well, so it again, unless we're just giving them the money, we can't put any additional expenses in that line. That line is specifically for
giving them the money to use however they want, whether it's their levy or that $50,000 that they've gotten in the past. if it's just expenses on their behalf, they have to stay in the line item that uh you know it's for. This I believe is
something the former mayor worked out with them for whatever reason when I first came on the c not too long after I first came on the council. I I I h I'll have to find out. I'll speak to the administrator, acting administrator
about this and see if this is something that uh we can be reimbursed for like we are for the health insurance and then maybe like I said the extra 50,000 for the special request and I knew there was another fee that we paid out for them. So I guess this is where it was. I was
trying to look for that night in the budget. I couldn't find it but obviously it was on this page. We drained this. Yeah. Moving on, please. Mr. Digniac. Uh, so the next uh item I'm going to talk about is workers
compensation insurance. Yeah, this is way up way up and wide. Just go. Okay, Mr. Z, a quick follow-up question from the previous screen. Oh, yeah. Where you talked about risk manager? Uh,
Councilwoman Ruden and I have been uh working with the workers compensation uh claims and uh is that the same risk manager that was uh through the GIF? because I have found his advice and his experience to be pretty helpful in
helping guide us on how we move on some of these claims. Yeah, that's why I said there's constant communication. Yeah. Um, so the workers compensation insurance is
so it's not it's not really a paying for a policy here. We're paying for individual um medical claims and lost wages here. Uh and right now we're at a spend of
220,000. So even this 312 might not be enough. Uh and if that's the case, you know, I'll come back later on in the year with either a transfer or but we had some workers compens again, we can't talk about these things, but
we've had some expensive workers compensation claims um both in the medical side, replacement wages side. Um you I don't want to say anything about the people involved, but it's it's been costly. So we're at 220 the spend. Um,
we have a claims third-party claims adjuster who reviews all these things and they are aggressive in in trying to not pay. Um, most insurance companies operate that way. Um, but we we get a
check register and you know it's been reviewed by their attorneys as well. Um, and we get a check register and we put money into the account so that they fund that check register. So, like I said, we're at 220 spent. Um, so I'm fearful
that the 312 is not going to be enough, but uh, we're going to stick with that and if we need to, we'll transfer money at the end of the year. Um, you know, but that's sort of the state of the workers compensation claims without saying,
you know, who is really the source of them. Um, but yeah, it's up to share, right? So, so, um, have you I don't know how much you know about what's going on with workers comp,
but can you discern why the costs are up so far? I guess roughly a third of from where they were last year. It's mostly medical. Um, with wages, I mean, you you kind of know where wages are going to go because a person makes only so much. Um,
it's it's the medical, it's attorney fees, you know, those are the ones that that really drive the expenses. Um, so Councilwoman, uh, do you know if we have any pending
claims? Yes, we always have pending claims. Yeah. and and just the claims that we've had have been costly. Say that. And you know, for the member, it's you
know, it doesn't go against we're self-insured, right? But we don't we can't put these things against the self-insured claims. It has to be allocated out to workers compensation. So, um we would pay probably either way.
Uh but it ends up in the claims section of the budget. We drained this. Shall we move on, please? Uh next thing I'm going to talk about is the tax assessor. Let me get to his page, their page.
tax collector 57 and uh I'll go through the SNW very quickly um we have I'll make it bigger for everyone. Sorry. Um so we have we have three employees in
the the assessor's office. Um obviously uh we have our tax assessor. Um so the ask for salaries and wages for the department is $294,000. Um we do have uh because we've been talking
about longevity. Um we do have a union employee uh in this um department that has longevity. Um and again that's part of the contract grandfathered in and all that. Okay. Um looking at the OE budget. So,
uh, the the OE budget is is interesting because we have obviously a need to spend on things like appraisals, um, which is the majority, which really what
the department does. We spend money on the appraisals, um, but we fund it with the reserve for tax appeals. So the actual ask from the taxpayer is $113. Um what we do is we replenish the
reserve for tax appeals. Um because we have a high collection rate, we can take money from that that amount we collect in taxes to put aside for this reserve. Uh it's a mechanism the state put into place um so that you're
not really asking your taxpayers in advance for this money. It's based on how well your collection goes and then you can take some of that. So let's say we realized um $100. I'll make easy
numbers. We realized $100 from our taxpayers. The state says, "Okay, if you need money in your reserve for tax appeals, whether it's to pay for appraisals or to pay actual refunds back, take it from that $100." So, we
take $10 and we put it in the reserve for tax appeals. So, now we realize $90 from the taxpayer, but we have this $10 that we can spend on things like this. So, you know, we take a small portion of the total amount of taxes collected and
we put it aside to pay for the office. Uh, essentially, um, you know, we can't pay for the SNW, um, but we at least pay for the office operations with that reserve for tax appeal. So, um, it's not
costing the taxpayer any extra money. So, what's the run rate on these appraisals in the year of the reval? I mean, I I realize it's happened in previous years, but this is where the rubber is meeting the road for Yeah. So,
it it it's lower, but we still need it for to do the added uh and omitted. Um because even despite having the revaluation, it's still somewhat old data because now we have new added and omitteds that we have to send them out for. Um so, we're
going to need them for that. So, uh, again, it's it's $113 to the taxpayer. Uh, it's it's not even calculable the the cost. Um,
and we've built it into the revenue model, too. Like, you know, thinking about that 80,000 we're going to take from the top of taxes. So we we understand that that is going to be reduced um because we also collect more
taxes than that amount to be raised, right? Uh because of the addeds. Um we usually get that as additional tax money and that helps drive our our revenue anticipated versus what we asked for. Um
so again, we're taking a small piece of that extra and putting it aside to run the operations of of tax assessor. It's a fantastic way to do it. Um, many municipalities do it to uh to figure um
to put aside money for um appeals, state appeals. Um and we help offset our operations with it. So, council, um can we just go back to the the previous page? Can you describe to
me what the difference is between a keyboarding clerk and a principal account clerk? So, they're defined civil service titles. Um, and they're also defined in the ASME contract. Um, so it used to be,
uh, back in the day before computers, um, a clerk would, you know, move paper and you had to take a test to be able to use either a typewriter or a
word processor. And so you would have somebody in the office that was trained to use a word processor. in civil service said, "You have to pass a test to do that and you're going to get a different title and you're going to make more money." And then the principal account clerk,
you can only have one of them per department. So you could have a department of, you know, a hundred people like go to the city of Newark, you know, you tax office and there's a million desks there. You can only have one principal account clerk in that
department, civil services, you can only have one and they're going to be the highest paid. So, a there are a lot of like leftover titles, but you know, if you go on like the civil service page, they they do define what each title
can do, how long you need to work to get to that title. So, are they doing the same job? No, I I I don't think they're doing the same job. No, I mean I don't want to get
into individuals and you know their work but um you know there's more experience you know and and again I don't want to put one person down by saying that but it's true there's one person they have a
lot more experience and and they handle they do the heavy lifting for that department versus the other the other might be more clerical or uh you know answer phones but you know one is dealing dealing with the law firms cuz we deal with a lot of law firms in that
office of people that um are filing appeals and um it's all that's like all I can really say about that. Okay. But these rates are are set by the union. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they're they're they're part of
the contract um and then codified in the salary ordinance that you know we asked the council to pass. So even though the the contract is defining it, we always will do the salary ordinance to say all
right this is like you know rubber stamping uh the contract and and it's a more public way to show the salaries too when we do it in the ordinance. You know you're not looking through a you know 70 80 page collective
bargaining agreement. you can go on and look at our our salary ordinance. Okay. So, again, there's nothing to cut for the assessor because it's $113.75 and we'll just I don't know. It's kind
of fun to leave that number in there like that. Um um but you know, in the previous year, why did why did we not really have that much charge to appraisals was because of the revaluation. So this year it it it
definitely will go up. Not not that it again impacts the taxpayer, but that that paid or charged amount will go up. Um you know cuz again the reval's over. It's sort of getting back to business as usual. And you know we had we had the
inspectors we paid for the big reval now. Um that was they were doing the appraisals. So Yeah. And it was well over a million dollars. Yes. Next, next we're going to talk about is fuel.
Paige, that's one of my favorite topics. We know. Um, I'll give you the page in one second. Oops. I've got a PDF page 108, so it's probably 104, the PDF page.
Um, I have 112 in the new one. Okay. I don't have the new fuel. I have the new one, but I don't use it. All my notes were from the original. It is 112. Um, so, uh, we originally,
um, requested $58,000. We did cut $25,000 from the diesel fuel. Um, and so we're down to $483,000. Um, I had this the spends I did provide.
Um, did we get a paper on this already or no? What's that? Did we get a paper on this already or no? No, there's an updated budget from June 17th, I think. Yeah, that was the June 17th. Yeah, but we didn't get anything
today on fuel. Okay. So, we we did cut 25K. Um the spend so far on gasoline fuel, we're at $132,000. Okay. our spend on
on diesel, we're at 48 uh 43,885 and our spend on the fuel maintenance is 10,800. So, um we're tracking pretty well uh for diesel fuel and fuel maintenance and um
little bit behind on on the uh the gasoline. Um, so I provided to the to the council. The way that we buy um fuel is we buy through the Morris County Co-op. The
rates change on a weekly basis. So we we buy in bulk. Um we fill up our tanks and um we have various tanks throughout the uh the township, some at the recycling center, some at FD5. Uh um obviously DPW
is where we we have the the biggest tanks both gas and diesel but we we buy in bulk um and you know I provided the averages for 2025. I don't have them in front of me, but um you know,
competitive prices and um yeah, so the uh vehicles we the electrical vehicles that we purchased this past year, so you calculate it like taking them out of the equation for the gas you need for them. No, we we just looked at it from a spend
perspective and what we're we're buying in terms of the gallons and the rates that we're getting and you know that's that's sort of how we're we're coming up with the budget. Um again, we're tracking pretty well for diesel fuel at this point because uh these numbers are
from today. Um gasoline, you know, we're not we're not obviously halfway. Um so we're doing better than than what we budgeted for. Um just to go to see so okay just
an observation um fuel prices or cost of gasoline this time last year this time this year the difference is about 50 cents a gallon significantly down. So that could end up impacting how much of this we'll end up
spending. Yeah. I mean that's the hope like um you know also hopefully we are using less gas um as we change the fleet out even you know even just newer vehicles are going to use less gas and that's that's part of the fleet
management that we have but um you know we we sort of landed on the 350 number and uh you know we we cut the 25 out is there room for a little bit more from gasoline fuel you know I think it's worth going back and and and we'll look
again. Um you know, we have the updated numbers. I'll see what we have in the tanks when our next um we're anticipating our next purchase to be. Um I'll talk to to to Mr. Reynolds. So,
right now you're good with 25. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I I think we're right on the money with diesel fuel. Um and we may have some more room in gas. Well, I'll talk to Mr. Reynolds, though. Excuse me. Is that 25 in what
you gave us already? Yeah, that's that's included. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, it's not extra. Okay. Also asked, "What's fuel maintenance? What is that?" Um, that's that's for the inspections and work on the tanks, the
storage tanks and the pumps. Pumps. Yeah, council. Sorry. Yes, I raise this every meeting whether it's budget or or council. We have a lot of cars that are being used for personal use and I now can see the gas gas. I understand the
administration sent you the Yes. Yeah. So now I can see and um I don't understand how personal cars are being filled up every single week and we have pages and pages for each individual who has a who has a vehicle and according to
our uh municipal code only two individuals are entitled to have personal take-home cars. Um, and I understand that we also have animal control that use it and sometimes take it home, but what about reigning in on the other on the other vehicles and
stopping this enormous gas consumption? So, I know the administrator has sent you those records and, you know, that's a decision that he's going to have to make with the administration. Um, I don't
have a say in that. Um, I mean officially, but I think he brought it to his attention. You know, he's I'm sure looked at the records and, you know, we'll see what what comes of
it. So, but don't we have a say just in terms of the budget? We're paying we're paying for this. Yeah. I mean, you you have a say like you could you could cut the budget, but I mean, you're going to be you you'll be cutting everyone. I mean, it's not that you're you're cutting him. I
I mean ultimately you have a say in the code, right? You're you're the ones that can change the code. Um so you could I'm not a lawyer. Um I wish there was one here. Um
Mr. Saraldo is not here either, so we can't take this further tonight. So maybe he'll be back for the next one. Yeah, we got to see what's contractual and what's not. I I have checked that only two cars are are contractional not contractual none none of the cars are in
a contract again we are not going to satisfy this issue and I'm sure that's what you want you want satisfaction we're not going to get that until Mr. Schmaldo is back and we can uh we can engage him directly on this so and Mr.
Ziniac has already waved the white flag, so he can't contribute this either. So to be to be uh condoned. Yes, please. I will say though, I I hear you on that. Um
and you know, I'll talk to Mr. Smiraldo as well, like we'll we'll have a discussion about this, but I hear you. Um and I will relay if he's not watching at home. um I will relay you know what we're discussing here. So um but back to
what I we I will talk Mr. Reynolds and and we will look at gasoline fuel and see if there's any other room there because again I know where we want to get to. I'm not promising any more administrative cuts
to gasoline fuel. Um but I will take another look at it with Mr. Reynolds um and see what we can come up with. Mr. Reynolds, his staff, you know, I will say his staff is very good about pulling information from me. So, next
please. So, next uh sorry, council president. Next is electricity. Um we are asking for the same amount that we asked for last year. Um and just to to pull the spend on
electricity for um building and property right now we're at a uh $168,000. Um,
and that's that's paying through uh April. Oh, April. Yeah. So, um I I think this came up uh in a
previous meeting. Um we are looking at um we've already signed up for like an energy aggregation program. Um, I know that the township has done them in the past. Um, but we're doing it again for
electricity for uh for the different buildings and you know there's no cost to us um because of the way the program works. So we are actively engaged in in trying to
reduce our uh I want to use the right term the supply cost not the transmission cost because we can't control the transmission and that's that's been sort of the issue with electricity rates in
the state of New Jersey. I know the state is trying to do something about it. the the transmission comes from the Pennsylvania Ohio connection and that's what's getting so expensive and they're constantly raising the rates and that gets passed along to us. Um but we're at
least looking for um a new supply contract and and and that's what those third party programs do. They you know they lock in a different supply rate. Um well there's a lot of auctions going on
too, right? Right. Um on the recreation electricity spend side we are at uh $41,000 um $823 and that's through
April as well. Um so even 41 if you multiply it by three times it's still significantly lower than the budget request. So so yeah we so we we reduced it by 35,000 um the electricity for building and property. Um now I realize we we did cut
that Mr. Reynolds and I um the sheet no because this is this is a new one but uh it's in that top sheet. Yeah. Um just like with the gasoline, I'll go back and um look at the May
bills. I hope we have them. Um and uh we can project out again and maybe there's some some savings in in electricity recreation at very least. Yeah, because you'd hope in the summer too the lights go on later too. All the parks. Yeah.
Everything assume is timed for later. Yeah, probably at this point they probably time the fields for 8:00. I I think is I'll I'll I'll ask uh Mr. Kio, but I or Edwin and I think it's 8:00 the lights are going on at the fields.
Anybody can correct me if they go past them, but I should be eight. Uh uh Mr. Dolby, did you have a question? Uh yeah, somebody wanted to know uh do we benefit from any programs that promote alternative energy that might go
away due to the new federal budget? That's a good question. So we looked at we've been looking at solar integration. Um and originally there was a plan to do
a solar build with the schools. Yeah. And I think the schools didn't want to participate, so we were going to go at it by ourselves and and we put some some
bid stuff out there. Um, and we were going to do this design build program. Uh, and it turns out because of the size of the project, we couldn't do a design build. So, um, it's sort of fallen a little bit by the wayside. I mean, maybe the engineer
would say, "No, it's just you haven't heard too much more about it." But I know that there is a a concept of having um a solar uh structure out in the lot and then some solar integration up top.
And that would then basically pay for the electricity for this building. well would cover the electricity for this building and potentially generate um access uh through the the structure
outside and then we were going to do electric vehicle integration and all that. Um that's the only thing that I know of from like an alternative energy uh type program. Um, but you know, maybe the
engineer could speak a little bit more on it. That's this is just the only thing that I've been in discussions for. And we talked to a few different companies about solar companies and how they would do it and how you could design it. And, you know, of course, you
got to build though, like that, you know, we would have to put capital funds and and build out a structure and and buy equipment and all that sort of stuff. and you know then like the hope is that it pays for itself over so many years and all that. But um
yeah, that's that's all I really know about alternate um energy which just be the the solar um which is great. I mean thank you Councilwoman Scarpa. Yes. Uh I would like to make sure that
this program is competitively bid if we do any of it. Uh, I know there's been some um questions about it. Uh, council um Rutherford and I had had and it looked like they took a piece of this
program and gave it to the Rena House and it was not even competitively bit. It looks very expensive to me. It's one of the things we've questioned. No, I agree. Uh, it needs to be done the right way. Um I I don't know too much
about the the the rena house and um I I think they have they do have solar panels um up there. They took the program that we were looking at and we the administration recommended it to them and they took it and purchased it
without competitively bidding it. Oh. and it does not look like something that um you know that they're going to get the best return on their investment on. I think they could have done better if they properly bid it. And so I want to
make sure that does not happen to us. Yeah. I think step one would be, you know, getting the right consultant that, you know, is going to build it out or, you know, do the design for the buildout
that number one is is feasible because obviously putting a lot of equipment on the roof, you got to have, you know, the right structure for the right equipment. and then you know hooking into our our grid and do we have like the right power
requirements and all that. So you're right like that needs to be carefully considered and then it's got to make sense financially and if you're going to spend a ton of money and then you're not going to achieve the savings that you're looking for. as well. Yeah, exactly. I know there's a lot of costs associated
with that that need to be factored in and need to be uh looked at and look at the return on investment and and that's I think that's why they wanted to go the design build route because that would be you just sort of pick someone and say
all right you know you guys just put this whole thing together and build it and all like but the size of the project dictates we can't do it that way so we have to come up with the specs ourselves and then put the specs out on the street and find, you know,
the the contractor to build it. So, it's a more traditional um project. But you're right, the math has to make sense. The money has to make sense before you do something like this. I agree with you. Thank you. Good. Yeah. I like I just like want to
know, have we done any retrofitting for all of the the light bulbs throughout? Yeah. So, they they've done projects like that in the past. Um PSEG is always sponsored projects. You know, they get state and federal money. Um they've they've done LED upgrades in the past
and again we're looking at a we met with PSCG months ago about a new round of uh it's a study first um and then there's equipment upgrades that you can get from
it. So they they do the study and they figure out because they've got this big pool of money that they have to spend. Um so they need to go out and and get these projects. So we've had that conversation. I know that uh Mr. Smaldo could fill you in better than I can
because I'm sure he's been to every one of those meetings. Um but you know we routinely when we when is available we avail ourselves of those projects and change things out and you know we we've done that in the past you know way before I got here I know the township
has upgraded you know certain lighting and HVAC and and the project we're looking at now is is upgrading like the big stuff like a boiler or um you know the the the box that comes is in
whatever. I'm not a electrical engineer. Um, but like the big stuff, uh, that's that's what they're currently talking to the PSEG reps on. Right. I'm just talking about prioritizing our LED lighting. I don't I don't see it in here or in other in other places in the
municipality. And do we have um smart thermostats? No. And my thermostat is like from the 70s. Okay. So would that help in terms of our energy costs?
Yeah, I I would imagine I would imagine. I mean the HVAC equipment like we have the new split units and there's those individual units like if you go into the admin's office, they have those individual units so that you don't have to run a big system. Um they've made
those upgrades, but yeah, the thermostats and stuff again like my thermostat in my office is is from the 70s. Um, so I hope that that that they look at that when when they do these projects. So
anything else? No. Okay. Um, the next item is street lighting. Um, so we don't have any proposed reductions for street lighting. Uh not to say that we won't come back
maybe after this uh and and and revisit it, but um so our our street lighting spend as of uh right now is is $245,000.
Um and that's that's through May. Um, and our our condo street lighting spend is and I mean these are these are reimbursements. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Um, our spend on that is
uh we've encumbered $93,000. Mr. These are prior year. So um these are absolute fixed costs, aren't they? Aren't we charged by the pole? The reimbursements. Yeah. Yeah, it's fixed. But even even our street lighting, doesn't PSCG just charge us for a pole?
Yeah. There's no there's nothing we can do about it. Uh there's nothing we can do about it. Correct. Yeah. But if they raise the rates and like certain ones are fixed cost, certain one is based on um the actual usage. They're not all Oh,
some of them are based on usage. Oh, okay. Excuse me. Is this all reimburseable? This is all to the community. The condo line. Yes. Okay. So, for the street light lighting in our town, are those um
uh energy smart bulbs that we're using? We don't It's public service. We don't do anything with them. It's public service that manages them and they install the bulbs. Yeah. they're responsible for anything to do with with the lights. I
mean, it's in their best interest to uh to utilize the most energy efficient. Um but we we don't go up there and change anything out. Mhm. So, I haven't seen you up there on that ladder a couple of times. No. Okay. Just want to be sure. I
thought I thought I had Okay. My father worked for PSEG for 28 years. He was an engineer, civil engineer for them. Got you through college, huh? Yeah. Nice. Anyway, I didn't mean to get off
track. Any any other questions? No. Keep going. Keep going. Please keep going. Fire hydrants. Yes. Okay. Exciting. There's a fixed cost if there ever was. Yeah.
Oh, did I Okay, I had um so we've spent uh through May uh wait. Yeah, May special program chart. Hey,
it's looks like it's actually going down. What's up with that? What's that? It it looks like our fire hiding cost is actually going down. Well, we had the we had the 850 budget last year and now we got less on the request. Yeah.
So, our our request reflected the the actual um so we are on track to spend 74 if I do the math right. Yeah, almost
$725,000. But that's still almost 15% less than last year. What how could that be? So I I I think what it was was probably being totally honest that this was a
place to transfer money out of in in prior years. So we've we've trimmed that. We appreciate your honesty. Yeah. I salute it. Any questions? We're just New Jersey American Water and they just charge us
every year. Yeah. Oh, so you're not So you're not going to use this as a partial slush fund this year? There's no cushion now in this. Yeah. I thought it was a miracle we were witnessing, but okay, let's move on. Our
last item for the night is water. Um, and this is all New Jersey American water. Uh, and this is water for um water usage um for our buildings. Uh it's just looking at
so our spend for the buildings right now um we're at $16,174 and for recreation which is all of our parks and um include the pool or is that the
separate uh pull out budget wise? The pool's separate. Yeah. Uh it's $4,300 we've spent um for for recreation. Yeah. So, we're going to we're right on track for
recreation and we'll probably end up a little bit less for the the the building. Um barring any sort of like break or leak or is this is this irrigation? It's any water usage. Yeah.
So, how are we watering the the parks? Joe plus goes around with the uh water truck. It it's just any metered usage of water. I don't know exactly, you know, from a water fountain to
um God bless. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it's like a sprinkler system or but any any metered water usage is captured um in here. I'm just not understanding the difference between the recreation and
the property. So the the recreation is for the different parks. Yeah. Okay. Um so we have Carter Street, Park Avenue, Carter Street Park, Liberty
St. Cloud Avenue, Bowling Drive, Franklin Avenue. You guys would know these properties better than me. Um, Ralph Road. Okay. But as far as I know, they there's no irrigation there. No, they have a water truck, but I'm not
sure if that's what they're they're I'm not kidding. There's a water truck that goes up and down Main Street. I don't know if it goes right directly to the parks. That's why I want Yeah, there might be like water fountains and I mean it's it's not a lot. We've only spent
$4,300 for recreation. Okay. Why? So, you have a lot of bills. It's like minimums probably 22.65 2265 2265 there. This is minimum connection fees. You might not even have any water flowing through, but there's a water
connection and a meter. Um, Bowlolan Drive, $362. Uh, Ralph Road, $181. Um, Bowling Drive there, refilling Silver Lake, you should um it's a lot of minimums
based on what I can see here for the for the parks. Okay. Since since we spent 35 on item line um 147 last year, shouldn't that be reflected in this year instead of the budget request?
I mean, if if you want to do that, yeah, just when you vote, knock it down. Um, so, Mr. Tinak, will you flag that course when we come back around, please? Yeah, let's get a little more detail on what actually happens.
Well, I just gave it to you. I just told you what we spent. And we could save another thousand dollar in water recreation as well if I still I don't really understand where it's going. It's just a water truck spending that
much money. No, it's not the water truck. I don't think it's it's there are connections. There are water connections at these different parks. Again, if it's a if it's a fountain or if it's a water um like a water fountain or something
something is metered that American Water is charging us for and and a lot of it I'm thinking is we have bathrooms at some of the parks. There is bathrooms. Yeah. I mean they're minimum charges. So we're probably not even hitting the water usage to trigger any sort of excess billing. That's what I was
wondering if that included the cat factor. Um I but I I'll I'll flag the the line 147 or or or both for Yes. Um well 147 can be reduced and 150 I just like to
understand more where if we get that sprinkler system at uh at the library we'll be using it when we get it but right now we don't have it. Yeah. I mean, they they're they're such small with the exception of Bowling
Drive. Um, and this Ralph Road, they're they're really small. Carter Red Street's 127 bucks, but again, it's like a lot of 2265, 3275. we can supply you with the American water bill um
for a month and you know maybe that'll give you more detail or it would possibly explain what the uh um you know what the appliance is or what the connection is. I'll have uh Miss Reynolds email that over. Club few of
them have little club houses, stag fields where they have running water. Mhm. So there is water on the properties. Don't forget we also own uh you know some buildings too. That is this for Rock Spring as well?
You need a breakdown. Rock Springs's got to be on here. I mean, we must be paying water for Rock Spring, but it's not. It can't be in recreation. DPW, it's definitely not in recreation. DPW, no, they're they're they're paying for Rock Spring. Uh
Kemper Kemper's paying. What am I What am I saying? Yeah, it's part of their operating expense. Separate building. This building. Yeah, we're paying for water sprinkling up there. you know, I'd fall out of my chair probably because it sure it'd be a lot,
but um so but I will mark that. Um we'll we'll discuss possibility of uh um a cut and I will have um Miss Reynolds send you the the water bills for recreation and hopefully it has a
little bit more detail. Okay. Thank you. So, um, this is all I have for tonight. Um, oh, I'm sorry, Council President. Uh, I'm I'm trying to ignore her, so just keep going on. I'm just They didn't answer for tonight. Uh, but if you could
look into I don't know how everybody else feels. We, you know, they're they're great magazines, but the next page Oh, yes, you're right. I I should have gone over NJSLM. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, is there any way just to get that online? I I mean, I feel like I I get
that book. It's It's a great book, but everyone 4,000 a year. I I if we could get it online, you have to pay. I feel like it's such a waste even to get online. They ask if you want a hard copy or an online version. Is the online version a
lot cheaper? I I could look into it. I'm not sure. To be honest, yeah, I mean, it can't hurt. I mean, I stopped getting hard. We already paid for this year. Okay. So, have to look forward and then Well, you could probably you could if you wanted to, you could probably
um stop it and get reimbursed for the the difference. Well, a lot of people like the magazine and I've asked in years past if they would go to the online version and most say no. We want the hard copy.
Yeah, it's not. So, is is this fee just for the hard copy? No. Yeah, I bet I vet it online. So, I guess let's find out. Just Yeah, it will. It will. And does this also
include a number that we that we get? It's all uh like directors that get it. Um I don't I have the list. I just We get it. Council gets it. there. Yeah. I mean, it's a nice
magazine. It's just expensive. Well, maybe we could just look at who's who's receiving it and who who really is using it. It's a good organization to support. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people, you know, they they do like it. So, from what I
Well, I just figured we're cutting water, might as well cut that paper. I'll look into that. Okay. Yes, Mr. Daui, I'd like to ask a question um on a topic that was brought
up a couple meetings ago, if that's okay. It was um related to Central. Um the previous the first original issuance of the budget showed 430.
Right. Right. Mhm. You then announced that it was now the ask was 600, right? You were asked to explain that and you did not. Can we get an explanation of that? Yeah. So, I revised it. Yeah. 70.
Yeah. I revised it afterwards. Um, you know, after we posted the budget. So, um, yeah, it's an increase, an administrative increase, I guess you can say it was. Um, you know, I I reduced it
before I really heard the DPW director out and so he came to me and said, "Hey, you know, we we're not going to be able to survive with this." And so I put it back. So I changed it after the fact. Yeah. The the the spend from last year was
3.88 uh off of a $800,000 budget amount. Yeah. So that was the spend as a 1231 2024. Yeah. Um so we're spending 200,000 a year more. I I can give you the year
the as of today spend against the 2024 budget and I and I think it'll it'll it'll look much more realistic what we're budgeting for for 25. Um I I will give you that or you know I'll send it to C president to to distribute. Um
right about the first thing. Yeah. I I went ahead and changed it and then you know now it's the new iteration in in this version of the budget. Well it's been for a while but yeah it changed from from the first budget. And did the
department head give you any anything you could offer us today that explains why we need more? Not just saying we need more money to Yeah, I think you know I think Mr. Reynolds talked about it when he was here. Um uh you know we
have a really aging fleet. Uh everything is more expensive. Um you know that's really his justification for it. Again, if it's the council's prerogative to cut it, you know, they can cut it with a vote, right? But this
is why we're asking questions and, you know, it it helps to have good feedback back from those questions and we haven't gotten that yet. So, you know, just make an observation here. Yeah. I
mean, I guess the only thing would be to to show the current spend. Um, I mean that that would help obviously that that so we we we owe you that. We'll give you current spend and um you know we can't
predict the future for the big repairs. I mean we kind of know hey every month this so and so is going to get an oil change here but you know sometimes like you know a Durango engine goes out and it's 15k and it's like
um but you know we owe you the current spend. I I agree with you on that. Mr. Deote to Mr. Deobi, sorry. Um, and and we'll supply that. Yeah. And if it's something you can bring to us before the next meeting, that will give us a little bit more to chomp. Yeah. I'll have send
uh send that around. Miss Reynolds, just to follow up though, you also had said that most of the vehicles we have are leased, right? No, no. I've explained this several times. It it's it's called
a capital lease, but we really buy them. We have to pay for maintenance and up. Yeah, we buy them. It's just the way it gets like spread out over so many years, but we own them. So, like after we make
our lease payments, we own it. Um, so I know I call it a lease, but it's not a traditional lease in the sense that's like, all right, we'll put 2500 down, you pay 400 a month, and then after 36 months, you hand it in. We're financing the full full boat. It's just they call
it a capital lease because that's what you can do in government. So, so we own it. Yeah. And we get the car afterwards. I think usually the leases are about six years. I think that's what it is. Maybe it's changed, but then we get the then we get the vehicle. So, yeah. And by
going through that's essentially what you know, we're doing the the program um for the fleet management with Enterprise, you know, they're supposed to tell us like, all right, you know, they're supposed to track all the the maintenance and they say, "All right, it's three years old. You put it this
much money into it. Now is the time to sell it." and then you can put that the sale and roll it into a new purchase through them, right? Um, so that's what they're supposed to be
doing is like monitoring that and saying now's the time to strike and get rid of this car and get something new and you're going to have better gas mileage and you're going to have less uh maintenance work and all that. Mr.
Who manages that for the township? You keep saying they're supposed to. They're supposed to. So that's No, they do. They do. They do. I I mean, I'm just I'm always sort of like I question, you know, they're making money, right?
They have to make money from this. I hope the enterprise doesn't sue me, but like they're making money for it. I know they make it sound like they're very altruistic in helping us, but you know, they're making money at the same time. So, it behooves them to say, "Yeah, buy a new vehicle. Now's the time." You
know, we'll sell this one and you roll it in and buy a new vehicle. But, you know, is it always in our best interest? I would hope so. Um, but again, they have a vested interest that we buy the cars through them and they tell us it's time to buy new cars. Um, and then, you
know, we have an employee. Um, now I won't bring up their name, but like we have an employee that works very closely with them and manages the fleet. So, Councilwoman, uh, did you have a question? Council, can you send us the
page with your update, looks like it's page 90 under central auto and from what I could look under auto parts line 151. Originally it was budget at uh the department had asked for $799 392
and then um spent in 2024 388 236 you budgeted 430. I'm going to assume you bumped that up 170,000 and made that uh 600 online. No I mean I so as as was pointed out spread it out more on other
parts of this page. Well, as was pointed out with the original budget document, I'm trying to navigate to this. The original budget document had a lower amount requested. Um, I could probably bring it up. Yeah. I'm
just curious. You put in I I mean I I I I changed it after the fact. I did. So, yeah. I didn't get that copy. Maybe was that last meeting that No, no, no. This was like early on. Um because when when uh Mr. Reynolds went for Central Auto,
you know, the new amount was in there. My notes on it. So, well, certainly u uh car prices and replacement parts prices have been going up. I I think the tariffs has al has
also negatively impacted the pricing. So I I I don't know, but I'm just spitballing what you But I think you know we we definitely owe you the spend because that is some of the best data that we can give you is hey we've spent
x amount of dollars halfway through the year. Um you know that's one of the few data points you can really utilize uh for your decision- making. So we we'll get you that. um
and you know help try to help you make that decision um the best way that we can. So anything else anybody? So what's next time? Senior service. So next next time is going to be the mayor. Um senior services administration and
health insurance and pension. Um, right. Mayor, senior services. Mayor, senior services administration, SNW and OEE, um, health insurance
and pension. And if we have time, we could just start approving the cuts. Yeah, we're going to have four hours. And when when is this meeting? We don't know yet. Well, that's the next question.
What do we do? What do we know? This card. Um, well, next week, I'm sorry, my calendar. July. So,
I know that we're uh Mr. Mr. Fagen is available on the 8th. I am available on the 8th. I don't know who else is available. I think we might have something else scheduled on the 8th. Okay. Uh special meeting. Yeah.
Okay. Well, let's talk about that in a second. So, we can't talk about it during the budget workshop because it's Yes. not been So, what's the next availability after the ETH? Um I'm not available on the ETH. I'd have to look at my calendar. Um,
nobody talked about the ETH. I'm not available. So, I know no Wednesdays in July um because the zoning um director of zoning asked me to leave those open for any special meetings that she may have to schedule. So, um they were
confirmed this afternoon. West Essex Highlands, okay, is going to be on the 16th, 23rd, and the 30th. Okay. So, thank you, Joe. Um, and then I I don't I don't know. I don't have the
calendars in front of me for other I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the No, no, no, no, no. It's fine. So, but if you could just come up with uh dates. Yes, sure. Uh, please. And I'm sure all the council members will be very attentive and very
responsive once you send those uh those out, please. So the first date available, we're not going to take it for the budget. You want to take it for something that that can we that's can we do that something
not on a a public meeting or what do you mean? If you're all meeting forum, you have to it has to be a public meeting. Well, last year. Okay. And Councilwoman um Ruden is on vacation next week. I'll
be away. Yes. Yeah. So, we we can't go till the 14th. I'm sorry. Sixth. Sixth. And when's she coming? When are you coming back? 16th. Oh. So, we really have to uh iron out
this other problem. Yes, we do. I think we should do it instead of procrastinating. And we can't talk about it tonight at all. We can talk about it, but we can talk about it, but we cannot take a vote. Okay. So, let's talk about it and
then we'll make a I have a legal opinion from Mr. Burke. Perfect. Uh, let me just read it so that everybody's on the same page, please. Since this wasn't advertised as a special meeting, the discussion is probably not limited to only the budget.
However, the council should not take action without public comment. The council should not try to remedy this by allowing for public comment now since the meeting has already been advertised in advance as not allowing for public comment. In other words, if the council
wants to discuss the council vacancy, it can do so, but it should not take any formal action. Why don't we discuss it and then have a emergency meeting to take the vote? There has to be a reason for an emergency meeting. Yes, you have to have
an agenda. You have to have an agenda for emergency meeting. Yeah, you have to have an emergency. This isn't an emergency. So, uh we we seem to be continuing to uh you know, not be able to find a consensus on on
moving ahead on this. But here's what I've proposed. I propose that we schedule two special meetings that both I I hope can capture
uh Councilwoman Ruden before she goes on holiday. So the first meeting would be to consider and take a vote on whether to keep the vacancy open until the special election in
November or to decide to have uh to fill the vacancy. And then the second meeting would only be if the council votes to fill the vacancy.
And at the second meeting, we would then interview the candidates. And I I just threw out a suggested perhaps uh the interviews would be seven or eight minutes a piece. And I believe there are 16 candidates. Yes. And then after that
we can discuss and decide. So the first meeting would be to decide whether to keep the position vacant until the November special election, which is going to happen anyway, uh or if we wanted to
fill the we would vote to fill the vacancy, in which case we would have the second meeting. That way we don't have candidates coming to the first meeting if we're not going to be interviewing. so they can watch it
on on Zoom or something. So, but that's my suggestion and I was just looking for time. So, council president, if if that first meeting sounds like it would be relatively brief. So, maybe that could be via Zoom during the day via public comment. It could, but you
have to have public comment. And if you do it by public comment, you have less control over that. True. and uh than you would at a p at a a in-person meeting where we would limit the public comment to but I think it's really important to
have the public comment right no I think that was my thinking and then Councilwoman Scarfa did you have something to say please please just oh that's okay I can wait till you're done and then the um you know talking about budget and all
that so there's a cost to having both those meetings as Yes, indeed. But I don't see any way around them. Um, and if we don't take action on it just remains vacant. It just remains. Okay. So, that's a possibility. I think we need to do the
budget first. We need two more budget meetings. How are we going to fit in all these meetings? We are going to lose Councilwoman Councilwoman Ruden shortly. So I think that's an urgency that uh we
could still meet the budget issues uh by and have a meeting to introduce the budget on the next regular meeting which is July 22nd, but uh we're going to run into the deadline for the council vacancy decision well before that and
certainly well before uh Councilman Ruden is is on holiday. That's so I think that should be our our priority. Well, I can't be in person until the night. I could be on Zoom, but I can't be in person depending on the time.
Okay. Well, maybe we just do it to do the third at all. Is that what people want to do? Councilwoman Scarpa, thanks for your patience. Yes, I prefer to Well, I'm on Zoom anyway, and I just think we need to get this over with as soon as possible so we can focus on the budget.
Yes, I think they're they're both important priorities. Uh I noticed that Councilwoman Ruden is mulling this all over. Could you you know let us know your thoughts, please? Well, I was just wondering with the four of us are here
right now, why can't we make a decision about whether or not we want to um make a decision? I think I've already made myself clear that I do want to make a decision and I do want to um fill this seat. Um if the if the three of you are
not have have and I I know that councilwoman Castelino has made her position very clear. Um I and I think I have too. Please council could you just let councilwoman Oh, sorry. So my my
question is that why can't we have the first part of the meeting here right now? Because it wasn't advertised. You have to advertise meetings. Okay. You can't just, you know, you can't add something to something that's already been advertised. So, I know that the
rules of advertising are changing and they were just posted. Um, are we still required to have a 48 hour? Um, yes. The only thing that changed was you're allowed to put your notices online. And I don't think that takes effect until March of 2026. Right. But how are we
going to do that until then? Because it also says you could put it on the board. I'm waiting for a legal opinion on it. So, I have to cuz because it doesn't take uh effect until March of 2026, I may just leave it as is the way we do it
now. Right. But we're still we're still guided by OMPA regulations. Yes. So, how do you do a 48 hour notice if we are no longer having a um you would notice it online? Where online? We're going to put notices. We're going to have a special
section for notices right on our website. Melanie and I have earlier talked about it. We're going to sit down and work it all out. Okay. So, is that also going to be obvious to the public because that is now our website. Is it is it going to be on the front front and center so that so that people know? We
haven't worked it out yet. We just had this discussion today because they just changed the law. So, so the earliest we could have a meeting is on Thursday. No, we can't. Joe's not available. I'm not available. Dean is not available. Michelle's not available. So Thursday is
out. Okay. On and this has to be a Zoom meeting. No. So if if we do a Zoom meeting, as council president said, we have to have public comment. There's no control over I physically can't be here Tuesday
night, but I can be on Zoom um Monday late afternoon and Tuesday. No, I could be here Wednesday night. But no, I can't be on Wednesday night. Tuesday night I could be here and that's when they wanted to do the budget I think.
Oh no no no I'm mistaken. I'm getting confused with but the meeting. Okay. So she's got she No, but I I will get on to for this for this. Um yeah, I'd like to have this as soon as possible. I think you had
requested that this be take place on Thursday. And is that still possible to have it on th Oh, Thursday is not a possibility. No. And then say say, so here's my problem with with and why I'm not supportive of
filling the the seat and it's unfortunate because there's a lot of great candidates. Could I just could I just wait? Can I just stop because I don't I think we need to save this for when people have been noticed and they're coming to it to hear what we're
doing and they can come and speak. What we're trying to do is trying to schedule two meetings that we can actually do this. Okay. Can I just say one thing? So, we heard from Councilwoman Castelino and Councilwoman Ruden and Councilwoman Scarpo. We haven't heard from you as to
where you are, what your thoughts are. I'm Mr. Consensus. Whatever everybody else wants to do, I am available. No, I don't mean that. I mean about the vacated seat. Clearly, Councilwoman Ruded wants to fill it. The other two council people do
not. Again, it again, I think it's vitally important that we properly publicly notice a meeting to discuss the vacancy. And it doesn't do any good for us to be talking about it now. And then we get the meeting done. We have public
notice. everybody who cares can be on the call and they can hear us and more and perhaps just as important if not more important they can tell us what they want to do right but I understand that but if you're not interested in filling the vacated seat then this is
all for time I I have not decided at this point what they want to do fine okay I just want to add and it's unfortunate I know it couldn't be helped by you know uh councilwoman
uh uh Deborah Michael that you know the timing of her announcement but again you know it's the timing is tough here you know it's you know I was gone for two weeks I just got back we're not done with the budget you're leaving it's and
we only have it's not like we have an extended time we only have to the 12th to get this task done which I just feel is impossible to to get it done properly that's why I feel the way I do and I just want to say that publicly because I
didn't get a chance the last meeting. That's all. Yeah. I just want to say I think it's irresponsible not to be focusing on the budget which should take clear priority. So what we have out on the on the it's not a motion but we have it on the floor. We're trying to figure out how to
have the two meetings. Have we even agreed that we that that's the proper way forward that we have planned two meetings. the first meeting to decide whether we want to fill the vacancy and the second meeting to decide to interview the candidates and decide on that. Have we even agreed on that? I had
suggested a procedure prior to that one meeting you know each candidate comes up introduces themselves has five minutes then the council has five minutes to ask questions of each of the candidates as
they're you know as they go along. 16 candidates done. Council adjourns, goes into executive session, has a discussion. No decisions will be made in in executive session. You come back out. Council makes their nominations, takes a
vote, the mayor will be here in case there's a tie and we move forward that way. It's one night, one and done. Four to five hours. I like one better than two. if we have to if we have to move forward
because I I don't think there's that many days in the week where everyone's going to be available and this has to be done by the 12th. Yes, absolutely. 30 days and I don't think we should be inviting the 16 candidates to a meeting where we
might not uh even a agree to interview. I agree because I don't think that's fair because when I was appointed and it's hard for me not to appoint somebody when but I had a year to prove myself to get reelected. When I got appointed, obviously people
had made up their minds and I felt bad for the people that came and interviewed and and felt, you know, a different way. So, I don't want to do that to folks, especially if some of you already know who you want and then we're wasting all
these people's time. It's the middle of summer. I don't think I'm already getting phone calls. What are you guys doing? You know, we we you know, should I be around next week? Like, I feel bad for people. It's it's this worst time for this to have happened. I know it could have been helped, but at the same
token, I'm not going to feel bad because I mean, we all have plans already set in stone and so do these folks. So, it's it's I think, you know, the decision needs to be be made as soon as possible whether we're going to do this or not so people can move on with their lives in
the summer. It's not fair to hold people up. I would agree. A lot of people have been calling me as well. I've gotten a couple emails. Yeah, I don't blame them. I'd be antsy, too. I was hoping that everything would have been decided before I got back. That's why I clearly stated how I felt before I
left so you guys would have had a decision made whether you're moving forward or not. And here I am two weeks later and and and there's still a stalemate. So, I I get it. It's really tough, especially with a lot of pressure from people in the community. And um I
just don't see us sitting there with 16 resumes and making a decision that night knowing the history of of how fast we roll along. So this is not a tough decision. We have a mandate to fill this. This is our our obligation. We
don't get to choose what we're going to follow and what we're not. This is our obligation. The the electorate voted for five council people. Unfortunately, Asmerret had to step down. We owe it to the public to be fairly represented by
five individuals. The reason why we're having all of these problems is because one is going or one is going and and I had I had a funeral last week and if I hadn't had a funeral and we had filled the seat, we would have we would have had a had a quarum. So, I feel that
there there's this this decision needs to be made. you were the beneficiary of this decision at one point when the council did not hesitate to fill that seat and the right thing to do is to fill the seat. I I agree but the time
the timing is important because we are running into into problems because we're not a full compliment on the council. A question for you. Are you looking at the 16 applicants with full with with open mind on all 16 or do you have a pre
preconceived notion of who you want? That's where I have a problem with this that we're going to waste people's time when you already know who you want. So just go ahead and and have a vote. So we could work this out next week. I'll make myself available
Tuesday night, I guess, via Zoom. I could I I'm not sure if that works for Mr. pagan. Oh, congratulations. Congratulations. Listen, it's a crazy, you know, it's a summer. It's like that's why we should
have done this right away. And I'm not really sure why we waited since we had you had already made your I let just know I'm going to be out of touch. And I and I respect that you made your you made your position clear. I don't know why we waited and and frankly we're
waiting for for Councilman Koviaak to make up his mind because at this point at this point that's that's what's try to put pressure on me. That's fine. It's not working. Okay, just so you know. Okay. I think it's important to do this in a properly noticed meeting where
people can uh see what we're doing and and speak at public comment if they want to. That's that's my position. Yes. said, "Councilman, that's exactly why I followed the procedure that I followed with getting the resumes from people cuz I know a couple of the council members wondered why I did that." That is the
procedure we have followed in the past. That is the procedure for transparency sake. Otherwise, there would have been a lot more issues with the public and making decisions behind closed doors and and everything that we've dealt with
with over the years. So to avoid all of that, you know, there was a call for candidates, resumeumés, a fair opportunity for any resident who may not have previously been involved but wants to be involved or you know, thankful. So,
you know, and the interview, you know, that's how we did it when you were so that's that's the pre time crunch like now this is Well, yeah, it was different time. This is in September. That's unfortunate. Sure. Um, so again, what when's everybody
available? Here we go. Just let me know and I the 9th. Joe, are you available? Wednesday. And if not you, is there someone else that is available that may be able to help us? What about during the day?
Take a What time would you be talking about? I I I would say night because during the day we work and I have things I have to do. So I I Wednesday night, Wednesday's 9th. Is that the night? It's a Wednesday. Yeah. It's the only Wednesday
in July that's available. I could make myself a I don't know. Could you confirm and just let the clerk know, Mr. F? All right. Thank you. Okay. So we if not the 10 Michelle I I
know I can't uh do the 10. What I would suggest is and I pardon the interruption is I would schedule the meeting for when you guys are available. Sounds like a meeting. You don't have to schedule it around me. No, I know if we do it tonight, if you want to schedule
for the for uh Wednesday evening the 9th and that's when everybody's available and that's going to work. I would suggest doing that whether or not I'm the zoom moderator. Councilwoman Castle said I can't do the eighth. And I think uh Councilwoman Scarpa also I can't Yeah, I
can't do the eighth. Why can't we do the third? Because I'm not available. Joe's not available. Dina's not available. Yeah. No, I understand. I'm just asking. Yeah, people have plans. So yeah, that's why people are they're, you know,
I have plans with my family. Dena's off that day. She took the day off. So, um, again, nobody knew this was going to happen. So, it's like, all right. So, you're available to 10. Councilwoman Rudy, you'll make yourself available,
correct? Yes. Okay. You're talking the ninth and the 10th. Council President, are you available? I'm available anytime 24/7 until we get this done. And Councilwoman Scarper, are you available the 10th? Yes, I am. All right. So, unless there's something else, you know,
we're going to 10th. I could be We're going to do Right. We'll do the 10th. You have a separate meeting if somebody is going to be installed. Yes, I could do the 10th. And when would that be? Because if you if you're scheduling the 10th, the 12th is the is the deadline.
Um, well, I go back to my suggestion. Bring the candidates in and if the seat remains vacated, that's a chance you take. I mean, I'm sorry that 16 people will have to come in and and be heard and and all of that, but in the end, you don't know. They're not guaranteed
anyway. So, why don't you just bring them in and have them interviewed? you know, five minutes they speak, five minutes you guys ask questions, then you go into C um what do you call Wait, Melanie just and that's fine if if you know that you're going to be open-minded
to all 16, I think that's a fair and equal process. But if some people already know who they're going to pick, I think that's disingenuous to those 16 people walking in the door. I I don't think that's fair to them. The zoning board had Oh, no, that's the
public. I think the the more important question is instead of who since we've all seen the resumes, the question is whether or not that seat will be filled and if that seat is not going to be filled and that's going to be decided at that meeting and calling all of these
people into a meeting that has no purpose is a waste of time. Yeah. Well, that's why we have the first meeting. Then we could we could talk about that at that meeting. That's why I don't know why we can't do that publicly sooner
than than the 10th because the 10th is putting us up against a wall because of everyone's schedule. I mean, Councilwoman Scarp is not available without you. Well, yeah. So it so since councilwoman um Castelino has already
made her opinion clear it her schedule should not really well on the vote she should be absolutely included. Okay. Yeah. That's that's not right for anyone to be excluded for that.
And I agree with her. I think we need to focus on the budget and get the real work done for three months. This is ridiculous. you, M. So, Councilwoman Castleino, you're not available. So, say we were I'm available Zoom on certain times. Okay. So, say we were to do the
shorter meeting. The pro the problem is with the public comment. It could be five minutes, it could be two hours. Yeah. If if I knew I had like just a half hour meeting hour, I could give you more time time frames.
But again, I Well, why not do something on the 9th and the 10th? You guys would have taken care of that because I have a both week. Um, what was I'm just going to make a phone call to see if I can be available on the 9th.
I I can't I could be here like at 7 on Zoom. John, do we have something between 5 and Casey's not available? Miss, she's a moderator. Yeah. I wonder if she could do the Ace and then Spark.
Are we still live? Yeah, the A is gone. Huh? Yes. Oh, yeah. Miss Brill is a Zoom moderator. Do we need to still be live? Yeah, it has to be a public. It has to be in public. No, I understand. I'm I'm talking about right
now just to make the date. This is still I uh Oh, no. We don't have to waste everybody's time. We can get off and figure the date. Yeah, we're just figuring out a date right now. Still, you still have a quorum, right? And you're making a decision.
Statement from the attorney. He said we could discuss it live and we're already into the discussion. So, yeah, but he's got to call me uh Miss Brill to see when she's available for Zoom. So, why don't you just like what I'm trying to figure out is give me the dates and I'll spend
the half hour. I just um I convinced my son to elope. So I'm available on the 9th. Invite him to the to the zoom. Give send him the invite. I'm available on the 9th. Good
job. Okay. Yes. All right. So So painful. Who's on first? Right. Is everyone available on the 9th? Yes. Yeah. Yes. If I'm alive,
I am not between 5 and 7 7:30. I have something. So, we'll do a late meeting. I could do Zoom. I'm interested in doing late meeting. I don't mean to be difficult. I mean, I have night. I mean, during the day I'm good, but
only Zoom, right? Only Zoom during the day. Yeah. Well, there going to be three people on Zoom then then Joe will be here. That doesn't make any sense. But you might as well go on Zoom. Do it all on Zoom. But I guess if I'm here, but but
if the if the candidates appear, well, they'll come on Zoom. They can talk on Zoom. No, the candidates would be coming in on the 10th. They're just doing public comment just to say, okay, if maybe nobody shows up. you're if you're working on two meetings, the 10th would be the meeting where you make your
decision as to the vacancy. You interview and make your decision at that point. We're trying to discuss the meeting prior to that. The 9th is the meeting where we decide whether we want to fill it or not. Correct. You're okay, that makes sense.
Six. Six. So, so what happened to the seventh? So, yeah. Zoom on the seventh. Seventh is fine. and is making herself available. Why? Why can't we meet earlier? I could do Monday the 7th at later. Well, the
right because you were you're only available via Zoom during the day. Yeah. So, that's where we came to the discussion about the public comment and not being able to control, you know, who calls in and and all of
that stuff. So, it's literally an impossible situation. Why can't we have a Zoom meeting? You're worried about like I'm not worried about anything. Council President is concerned in this particular case since we have
three council people who who may be virtual. Um I think we're going to need to do a Zoom meeting and have it open to the public. We can do that. We'll just uh take our chances. Yeah, that's fine with me if that's if that's what works for
everybody else. Again, I'm just looking for consensus. Okay. So, we'll do that Monday, right? We can do that on Monday the 7th, the Zoom meeting. Well, get it over with. Yeah. I mean, I don't know when everyone is available.
So, um when are you available? I don't remember what you said. like one one and the seven. Okay. And the other I have a doctor's appointment at 2, so I can't be available till 4 or like noon. Noon. Well, 4 is actually
better for me because we we work. But actually, Monday is not good. I have a prior commitment on Monday. Monday night. 5:30. Oh, 5:30. I should do 12. I could not be on the 7th. I can do the 9th and the 10th.
Okay. So, let's go back to the ninth. At the seventh. All right. We're going to go back to the ninth. And we just need to decide on a time. Okay.
7:00. Too late for you. I guess it was Zoom. It's Zoom, but you have people calling in and making public comment. I mean, we'd be here till midnight and then we have to come back the next night again. So, it's just it's what it is. So, at the seven
seven on on on the 9th, we assume. Does that really think we're going to have more than an hour of public comment? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, they get five minutes each. I know. Do you really want to further
complicate this? It sounds like we're close. Oh, go for it. Well, you're a member of the Citizens Budget Advisory Board. Grab a microphone.
Seriously, you can participate. You have very understandable, valid concerns about being exclusively on Zoom. So, Council President, if you can be in the room, you can do your public comment from the room. Everyone else will be on Zoom
and Councilwoman Castelino arrives when she can arrive. You'll have your quorum. You start your meeting 6:00 on the 9th. Start your meeting. Start your public comment. It's your meeting's not going to finish by seven. And even if it does,
you know what her vote is. So, I would just suggest on the 9th you get started. She arrives when she can. You get to business. Sit down. We can start at 6:30. Huh?
6:30. All right. Business time. Well, the if that's what everybody wants to do, that's fine. But again, I don't want to restrict people's ability to speak to make public comment on this. That's
that's all. And I I don't want it I don't want my presence here to be the mechanism to try to avoid allowing people to speak. I think we're trying to avoid it. I think we're trying to avoid any issues with people calling in like we've said all this year. We're not
trying to silence anybody, right? But if you don't take Zoom, if you if you don't take Zoom comment when three of the four council people are not here and and who knows where you'll be when we do a secret every week with Councilwoman Scarpa. Yeah, we've been
having it just though happens that this happens to be some time where you know but to open up public comment on Zoom that absolutely not necessary. You can people can come in person. They can send emails.
they can call to make their voices heard. Well, the if again I'm just looking for consensus. If everybody else has agreed to do that, then I I've agreed to it. I just I've spoken my concerns. So, and I appreciate your flexibility and people have to understand, too, like you know, we we
were supposed to be off these weeks like we weren't scheduled to have anything when we set our calendar and so there's plans that people make. So again, I I really appreciate you guys for for really putting yourselves out there and
and being flexible. I'm not trying to be non flexible. And I've been I'm always flexible. These past this past month, I was very vocal. You know, even before we knew this happened, hurry up, get the budget done because I'm going to be booked up in the end of June and beginning of
July. And here we are. So I I I just don't want the public to think I'm not being flexible. I've been advertising on this was a Right. So, are we agreed? Yes. Via P via Zoom and in person on the 9th starting
at 6:30 and then what time on the 10th because that's the night that the decision will be made. Uh just for clarity, public comment's going to be permitted only in person. In person. Okay. You'll confirm that, Madam Clerk, in email. Okay. So, the 9th at 6:30,
correct? Okay, I'll schedule the Zoom platform. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Not to complicate things further, but if the vote is we're not going to move forward with applications. Well, then would the 10th be a budget hearing or or no, you won't be you can
it doesn't matter. You don't have to jump. But, you know, as necessary, you know, does that work for you two nights in a row though or No, I I'm here 247 whatever needs to get done on these two issues. So, don't Yeah, I'd like to
work on the budget. I could do the 10th. On the 10th. The 10th. I I can be. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, what time on the 10th should we Well, you have to do it early because you're going to have uh 16 and Yeah, you have to come up with a timeline. I would do four o'clock.
Oh, really? That early? If you have 16 people and you're going to if if the vote goes that you're interviewing people, you have that's more than two and a half hours if you give them 10 minutes. So, so, uh, then you got to deliberate. Oh, what
about public comment? What about public comment on the 10? You have because everybody's going to have their gonna have their supporters. Oh, please. This is Oh, that's right. Because it's not personnel. Yeah. Well,
four o'clock it is. Sound it is. And we should probably allow the candidates to try to choose their time within certain limits because there'll be people there'll be people who can do it at 4:00 that can't do it
at 6 or 7 and then there's opposites. There's another problem. If say somebody is away next week and we you know I I just want to give people an opportunity so they get Don't some of these candidates work? Some might not be able to be here at 4. If they have a job
they'd probably work till 5 or 6 then they would sign up till they would sign up later in the evening. Pose that question when we have have the let's get to see if we're even going to have Oh yeah. We can we can uh discuss it further at the first meeting if we decide to fill it.
plenty of time. All right. Okay. So, 79 6:30 via Zoom in person. 710 4:00 via Zoom and in person. Thank you. I make a motion to close this meeting. Thank you. Okay. Is there a second? A second. All
in favor? I. Any opposed? No. The meeting's adjourned. Thank you everybody. Happy 4th of July.