Good evening, West Orange, and thank you for your patience. We are a few minutes behind schedule tonight, but welcome to the West Orange Township Council budget workshop for May 14th, uh, 2025. At this time, I would like to turn the meeting over to our council
president. Council President, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fagan. Uh, hello. Welcome to our uh first budget workshop of the 2025 uh budget. Uh let's see. The draft budget from the mayor proposes to raise
municipal property taxes a total of 6.2%. So we on the council are looking for efficiencies to lower that increase and we're hoping uh those of you in the uh in the township, especially those at the citizens budget advisory board, will
help us do that. Uh, if you want to follow along, please go to the township west website, which is westtor.org. Use the search box in the upper right hand of the page, type in the word budget, hit enter, and the first and then click on the first
result, which is budget, and that will take you to the budget page, uh, where you can see the mayor's draft budget that we'll be working on tonight. We are not taking public comment tonight, but if you do want to comment on the budget or anything you hear tonight, you can
please send an email to council at westtor.org, which despite what you may think by the title uh also goes to the mayor and several people in her administration. So, if you want to send uh just to the council and send send it
to each of us individually in the same email, if you need an email address, search for on the township website council uh and you will get the email addresses there. So, first item of business tonight is uh whether we want to uh
well, first we should have the deputy clerk actually legally open our meeting. Okay, sorry. This is to inform the general public that this workshop is being held in compliance with section five 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 April 25th, 2025. Councilwoman Castelino, present. Councilwoman Gber, present. Councilwoman
Ruden, here. Councilwoman Scarpa present. Council President Graovia present. All right. Council is now in workshop. Wonderful. Thank you. Uh the first item of business, as those of you who watch
our council meetings know, we start off the the meetings at some point with the pledge of allegiance. This is kind of an informal a much more informal uh process than the council meeting. I just want to throw it out to my uh colleagues whether they want to have a pledge of allegiance
or not. I'll skip it. We got to skip. I mean I'm I'm constraints. Yes, time constraints. We're starting late. All right. I'm good. It doesn't matter. I'm good. How about uh Councilwoman Scarpa? I'm good to go. And how about
Councilwoman Gichel? Same here. Okay. Only because it's a workshop. It's just regular council meeting. So, uh, as I mentioned earlier, we, uh, are not allowing, uh, public comment at a workshop. We do have several members of
the Citizens Budget Advisory Board here, and, uh, they are probably chomping at the bit, although they may we may be getting a a slow start with them as well this year. I just want to say we're going to consider what we might do to further uh, get input from you folks,
but we're not going to do that tonight. uh but we will make a decision. We've got several other workshops, several of the opportunities and we'll we'll figure this out. So, thank you also for for attendance. Thank you everybody for coming.
Okay, just for our council members, I would if you haven't had a chance yet, please take a check your email. There's a proposed schedule of departments for tonight and for upcoming workshops. And uh want you to just check that if everything works for you. If if nothing
doesn't work for you, let me know. Maybe let me know either way so that we can put this out and uh so uh everybody knows what we're planning to do. Um tonight we are going to have the uh municipal courts and the planning and
development office and this uh chief financial officers off uh uh budgets to consider. And the most important point tonight is to decide right here at the start whether we re refer to pages in
the budget by the page number that's printed on the budget or whether we're going to use the PDF number, page number that's on the right of a PDF. So I go Councilwoman, please. Sorry, Council President. I was
going to suggest that because we have the printed sheets and that's what we're going off of that we go off of the numbers that were that the our clerk printed for us. Yes, that's what I was going to say. Does anybody disagree with that? No, it's easier.
Okay. All right. We're almost to the meat. Uh last, I want to urge everyone to consider time efficiency in their comments and questioning to be sure what you say is necessary. The faster that we carefully go through the budget, the
better. So, Mr. Smaldo, who is your first witness? Good evening, members of council and the public. I want to thank you for the opportunity to present this budget. This is the mayor's budget and um we're here to uh hopefully come to
agreements and um and get the 2025 budget in place. So, our first uh guest this evening, Miss Yvon Hunt, is the court administrator for the West Orange Court system. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome, Miss B. I'm sorry. Good
evening, everyone. So, we would like to do whatever you feel comfortable doing. some uh directors who come uh give a presentation of whatever is going on in their department of significance and
then we can go through the actual numbers if anyone has any questions. Okay. Is that do a brief introduction? Super. Super. Thank you. Okay. And please just speak into the mic. So, no problem. So, um the municipal court is
doing fairly well as we always um do. We've um had a lot of changes uh after COVID. So, we are no longer a court that's just an in-person court. We um now have Zoom sessions every um court
session. The AOC would like to see more um Zoom sessions. So, we um have more people appearing online than in person. Uh that's a very significant um change
because now we have to uh have our court be up to date um to follow those changes. We've had a couple of um staff changes. We've had a retirement. We have a upcoming retirement coming
up and so we've been you know just mowing along with what we have and the resources we have as of now. We have had an uptick in um translation services. That's our biggest uh expense in the
court. Uh and that's partly due to Zoom court as well. We usually would have interpreters come maybe a couple once a month pre- pandemic, but now we have about four sessions that they're
there. Um they have to do all sessions they have to do in person and Zoom. So that's the uptick in expense. And any other questions that retiring? Um Path Kathleen Carcillo.
Okay. Thank you. Any questions on operations in the court or any of the budget items? Can we see what page is that on? It starts 28. So I see their their um salaries, but on the on the back side on
29. 29. Okay. So page 28 will be the salary and wage component of the municipal court budget. Sorry for popping my P's here. Uh page 29 is uh the operating expenses for the municipal
court. So you know if the council president and the council would like I I would prefer we start with the salaries and wages. Um, and I'm also prepared to for our discussion prior to the meeting, um,
walking you through the 2024 salary to the 2025. That is going to be in a, uh, a schedule that I bring up on my computer because of the timing. You know, I wasn't able to to include this in the but if you'd like to do that, we
can do that as well. So, Mr. Tinak and I had a had a conversation before the meeting uh along with uh Mr. Smaldo and I was talking about in the when I was on the council the first time uh we got percentage changes for a lot of the salaries for
all of the salaries salaries excuse me uh and I had just asked uh if we could have that at some point in the future because it makes it a whole lot easier than me having to do the individual and we didn't have enough time to do it. So, uh, something that if you want a percentage increase on something that
we're talking about, Mr. Diniac, I think should have it. So, I can do that tonight for for the municipal court and for planning and housing code enforcement. I just have a quick question before we get dive deep into salaries. So, I guess also in years past and again this is your your first budget
with us process. So, if there you know contractual salaries are contractual salaries. So, I mean they increase contractually. Um what we would get separately is a separate unless you sent it because I had asked about it um of if
there's somebody going from like keyboarding uh one to two or you know or if there's a promotion or those kind of situations which aren't contractual um and they would be on a separate summary sheet right so we do not have anybody in the municipal court that
meets that criteria um but I do have the components of the increases is on this separate sheet. Okay. But these are all contractual. These are all going to be contractual. Um I say contractual and also pursuant to the salary ordinance which you were
handed just just before. Yeah. So which is because we also have unrepresented employees um you know in in this uh in this department. So, so when you say contractual, when when
did these contracts end? So, these contracts um are are are brand new. Um the council in 2024 uh ratified um all of the contracts for our both our uniform
and non-uniform employees. and then the ordinance that uh um solidified the the actual salaries for those contracts along with the unrepresented which is what you have there the the management
um ordinance that was done in 2025. Yeah. The end of the the end of the year. So did the each of these salaries build in a percentage increase year? Yes. Yes. I think it's three 3% each
year. Correct. So in 2024 it was 1.5 on 11204 and then 1.5% on 712024 and then on 1125 it's 3% 11 126 is 3% 11 127 is 3%. Um ask me I believe
goes through 28 as well. Um yes. Can I just add to that? So just just so just to confuse you even more. So if it's a union employee, so when we give the raises, it goes to the the the
pool. So if they're um depending where they fall on the salary guide on the individual union scale, their increase may be more than 1.5 depending on correct. Explain that to to them. So all
of our positions um 99% of our positions have a step uh associated with them. So you know you not only are you going to get the the cola which I'll call the contractual increase the cost of living increase so
the 3% but you may move from step six to step seven and that has an inherent increase to it without tacking on the additional cola increase. So, so that's why some people may look like they're getting a larger race than
other people and some people may be on the bottom of the guide and look like they're not getting the increase. So, in in a slide that I'll show on here, um, you know, you'll see all the same names, but you'll see what their
2024 base salary was. And then I have notes in the comments and we can walk through them. Um because I think I think we just have all COLA increase all COLA increases for this department. But um in some of the other
departments we're going to talk about we may have a step increase as well. And I'll I'll explain that. And Council President, just as you requested, I did send to all the council members today the um the salary guide ordinance. So you did receive it. So you can you can review it on your your
computer if you have your computer or not. So it's voluminous if you need to print a copy we can get it for you but it's it's quite large. Yes. Thank you for all that background. Uh, Miss Bowers, before we move on to your specific budget areas, I want to just
raise an issue about revenue on that's on page four of of the budget. And that's summaries of uh revenues and and uh expenses or appropriations. And there's a line item under local revenues
for municipal court fines and costs. And as you I guess know it uh you uh the courts realized $80,000 more than was budgeted last year and the revenue went up to uh a little more than
$288,000. So this year it is proposed to earn the same actual or realized revenues from last year which would be a 38% increase. So that's a really nice set of numbers,
but I just wonder if you could tell us how that that happened that occurred. Well, I'll just I can say this. During the pandemic, there was a lot of um things that were halted. So
there was um no more suspensions. We could not um suspend licenses. we um could not actually go after anyone for uh payment. Um now those collection services as well that was also halted um
because of the pandemic. Now we have gone back to being able to get people to answer to their um to their fines. Now we can suspend licenses. Now, actually this week, we've had an uptick and more
calls because the suspension notices went out, proposed suspensions for parking tickets for we can now go back and try to recoup those monies. So, um, when I went through the numbers today, we actually made about
$18,000 more. Wow. At this point this year through last year. So last year from January to April and this year, January to April, we've brought in $18,000 more. So I just credit those
things to being able to actually go after those monies that we weren't able to, you know, really touch because of the pandemic. Nice. Thank you. So it sounds like the trend continues this this year. So yes, so be um I did go
through um our revenue. So last year we bought in 560,000. So a little over half a million. This um so far this year we're at
224,000. So we're we're on track to to bring in more. But I let me just say the court is not here to we're not a money maker. You know, that's not our purpose. But when we're talking about the numbers, we are on an uptick.
But then things get more expensive as as this happens, you know, like I said, we're we're using interpreters more. We're, you know, our efforts come with a cost as well. Yes. When you say over half a million dollars
last year, you're also including uh revenues that you have to send to the state to the county. Okay. Um for the township, we have um sent 318,252. That's last year. Um this year
so far, we've sent $127,19 for the first quarter. Yes. vote for school there. There's a question. Oh, certainly. So, just a quick question. When you talk about interpreters and um even the Zoom increase in Zoom fees, you know, you do
see that your your fees are up. Is that under professional services line on page 29? Now, the Zoom account is we use the township's account, so I I don't have any knowledge about what those fees are. Okay. It's all being charged over. Yeah.
I I can't speak to that because we we go under the um the township's account to use that. Okay. It's not a separate um in expense in our budget. It you're saying for the professional fees? No, for the Zoom fees. We don't we don't pay
out of our budget for Zoom fees. That's something we use from the township. We use the township's account. Okay. Mhm. And but all these costs that went up um are just from what you just said. Interpreting. Interpreting. Is that under professional services? Yes, that's
under professional services. So we have um we'll have inperson interpreting and also Zoom interpreting as well. And the Zoom interpreting takes much longer. It takes much longer because you're dealing
with breakout rooms. you're dealing with the prosecutor as opposed to them just being right there and speaking to the prosecutor and getting things moving quickly or having the interpreter cases go first. We just can't do that now in
in the Zoom world. So, it it takes much longer. Okay. So, it ends up being more of an expense. And then the re leave public defender again that's increased because of more cases that you're saying. I can't speak to public defender.
Um there he he's here twice a week. Um I'm not sure how he feels. I don't know his contract, so I'm not sure how he um how he builds, but he's here Tuesday and Thursday. It's on page 30 for all sessions. He's here in person and Zoom.
Okay. So it's a it's a per session and then there is a piece that gets allocated out to the public defender trust. Um, so this is net of what can get allocated to public defender trust. Thank you. Sorry about that. What is the
relief for the judges? That's when the judges are out and we have to call in an outside judge to um to take the bench. [Music] So I think you have two judges, right? I have two judges. Two judges. So if one
is out, Yes. you need to call in. They don't switch for each other. No, they don't. Okay. And why is the printing cost so high? Um, those are our tickets. So, whenever the e ticketing machines are
not working, our officers are using more tickets. It depends on which cars they're taking. Some of the cars don't come with the e ticketing machine. So, we have officers that come and get um the ticket booked. So, we run out pretty
quickly. So that that's that expense. Is there some way to do more e ticketing? It would depend on the police department. That would be more of the police department's avenue because they equip um the police department equips them
with the e ticket. So that wouldn't come from us. That would be more of a question for them because it cost several thousand dollars to equip uh if we just take the tickets. We don't. So, there's a cost to actually equip the
cars. I don't know what that number is. And then there's an ongoing cost uh for the um internet capability. Okay. Um, one question I I had to follow up I
think on uh, Councilwoman Ruden's is in the printing cost last year that was budgeted $10,000 plus and then but the actual was $927. So is that part of what you were saying
there there was a a both uh digital and printed tickets? Um, yes and no. It depend. It depends on if these machines are working. If they stop working and the officers are relying more on our ticket books, then we run out faster and
I have to do an order. Um, if we're good and it's enough uh books to go around, then I don't place an order. So, I don't place an order beforehand. I try to wait until we've kind of gotten to the end of it and then place the order. And also
things are more expensive. The um printing places are charging more. So, um so that's another increase. But I just did an order. So we probably wouldn't be using the printing budget again probably till the end of the year. So we we just did
an order for $3,75. And that's not just traffic tickets. That's also SC complaint books as well, which um property maintenance use. the tree the tree uh official use. So there's different people who use
different tech, not just the officer. So So can we cut that that line item if you've already just ordered this year? I wouldn't cut anything because I don't know what situation is to come upon like the tree ordinance change. They're now
using more um SC complaints. So, if those books go out, I'm going to have to place an order. So, I would not cut anything because I don't know what lies ahead. Mhm. I thought you said you had enough for till the end of It's enough now. Yeah, it's enough right now
for right now. If someone comes to the office and say, "I need 10 10 traffic books," I can give it to them. But if 15 officers come and ask for the same thing, well then now I'm running out of books. I'm going to have
to place an order cuz I'm not going to tell them, "No, you can't have ticket books that I just can't do." And we're going to be if we do the dynamic traffic and I have a feeling we're going to be writing a lot of tickets. And and you got to also remember too our officers were um not enforcing as much during the
pandemic years because of COVID and things of that nature. And now as we know that there's seems to be problems with parking around the community, our officers are more active in in issuing tickets because I don't know how many tickets are in a book or how many tickets you order, but if the fact that
she is ordering more and more tickets, it means our officers are doing their job. It's 20 tickets per book. How many tickets per order? Um, probably about 10,000. So 10,000 tickets our officers are writing. That's pretty pretty significant. Um, can you
tell me why the public defenders um salary went up? It's not a salary, it's a per session um cost. So, if there's extra sessions, Whoops. There's extra sessions, you
know, you're going to have a higher budget amount. Plus, we only have so much available in the public defender trust to offset the cost. So, public defender trust is down this year. So, because we used more in 2024, so we're raising the difference in 2025's current
fund budget. Councilwoman Scarpa, do you have any questions? Yeah, I do. Um, can somebody quantify the Zoom fees? And, um, I didn't quite understand why are we using Zoom?
That's AOC regulation. all courts um moved virtual during the pandemic and it's here today. Uh Councilwoman Scarpa, AOC refers to the state agency that uh right that
manages all the courts and for everybody here. Uh and okay, so they haven't changed it then? No. And they're not they're not okay. They want more of Zoom, less of in person. Okay. And it would be interesting just to quantify
them at some point if John could do that, you know, when he looks at the Zoom just to see what it's costing us would be interesting. That's all I have. Is there any is there any way to quantify what the Zoom costs are for the courts as Councilwoman
Scarpo was asking? Um, or is that to do? I'm not going to put you on the spot tonight, but if that if that's Yeah, we'd have to see because I know we have, you know, like a three or $400 monthly Zoom cost. I don't know if
that includes the court. Um, what I can see because when the storage is out, they're telling us, you know, take things off the council meetings coming up or this meeting's coming up. So, we're all on the same account. So, I don't know if there's any way to extract
what we're using versus what everyone else is using. We'll check with our figure it out. We'll check with our it about that, but we're on every Tuesday and Thursday. Thank you. Council McG, welcome. Did you have any questions for Miss Bowers? Do
not. Hi, nice to meet you. You too. Uh, thank you so much for your presentation. No problem. Thank you. So, if there are no other questions, are there any proposed changes to this budget? I don't think there's much wiggle room.
Well said. No. Then I think at this point, and again, you'll have to given this is my first budget meeting in uh four years. I know. I haven't seen you in a while. Yes. Yes. So I I I just want to check that the
process is that we uh approve individual pages. Uh Mr. Diniac, can you walk us through? So please, if you're approving the page as is, I think you can do it on consent. If you are uh
reducing, you have to have a vote of uh to 3 to two. And if you're increasing, it's a supermajority 4 to one. I I have a comment for my colleagues, not for Miss Bowers. Um, so I was
listening right while I was in uh physical therapy and the 10,000s requested for printing only 900 was used. Yeah, we just discussed that. Correct. Between your car and here Miss Bowers explained at
length about that. It's essentially has to do with the mix between the e ticketing and the paper ticketing. The more paper ticketing we use, uh the the more cost to buy the books. Last year there was a lot less paper
ticketing and that's why the actual from last year was and it it it's timing too. We we just ordered $3,75 worth of tickets month ago. A month ago. That's one. So, because I I hear where you're going because I was going there
too to the explanation, but is there any is there any be any improvement? Like we're doing this dynamic parking with the e ticketing like is there going to be another and you're changing a lot of our systems. Is there going to be something else in place that next year we don't have to or we'll see what we
ticket next year. like is that always going to be back and forth or are you putting a system in place where eventually it'll be I mean we we haven't talked about having e ticketing for everyone. I I think we're still going to have paper ticketing for the the
property maintenance and yeah always have paper ticketing that's that's never going to go anywhere because number one the e ticket machines depends on electronics. We know that electronics fail us sometimes. Um,
and we had that um, maybe I think 2023 we had that to where the e ticket machines weren't working for a long time. They were using a lot of tickets. Okay. Um, so it's hard to try to give a um, projection on what may happen
because we just don't know what happens. But one thing's for sure, there's always going to be paper tickets. Everybody's not in these cars. I was just pointing to somebody in the I wasn't pointing at you. I was pointing somebody in the audience. Yeah. So it
even um even if we have less traffic tickets, we may have an uptick in criminal tickets. So criminal and those are the blue tickets. So we still may have to order those. It's it's just it's kind of unpredictable. So I understand
that. My question I guess would be then since this is for the 2025 budget, we're already at half the year. Can we reduce this by half? I mean, do you need the 10,000 considering it's already May on basically June? Well, I'm at three or
over three already. So, and like I said, I don't know if at some point they're not going to be able to use those e ticket machines and the officers come and get these books or an ordinance change and Janice the officers have to write more tickets if I'm going to need
to place another order. If the money's not there, then I'm going to have an issue. Can you use the money from the revenue that's generated for the rest of this year to purchase the books? Does that No. No. Okay. The reason why I ask
is because there's an over 6% proposed tax increase and in order for us to reduce it by half, we have to eliminate $1.8 million. Right? For every $600,000, that's 1% that gets reduced in the
budget. So, every amount it's going to help within every department that comes and speaks to us, we're going to have to find this money, which is why I inquired. Um, no, I I absolutely understand. It's just that the court may not be the place to do that because
we're already operating a budget that's pretty low like you know we don't have as opposed to other departments like we we have one of the smallest budgets. So the court, even though I try to keep
things as low as I can, even to the point where if I can find something for cheaper, I always will to try to keep things low, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to be have to use this as some other. So, you know, that that would be
my only drawback. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Litornoff, I'm sorry I butcher your name every time I say it. You have a much easier easier first name than last name. You've you've been Yes, you've been raising your hand for a while. I typically don't uh call out to the
council chambers, but I do want to try to answer whatever question you may have. So, please we go there. We're going to be Please come up to Yes. If we'd start doing that, Council President, I'm just trying to find out what he wants to talk about. I've
already said tonight that we're not taking these questions and comments from the board and we're going to discuss that further. Thank you, Joe. Uh I'm Phil. I'm a member of the Citizen Bud Advisory Board. It's my first time on so I may
ask some dumb questions. No dumb questions. But it sounds like this group wants to improve on a line by line basis this section of the budget. And I have an issue or I've got questions on page 29
which is the the smaller expenses of the new report just John you did a great job showing current year and the new year which is basically goes from 19,000 to 29,000 that's close to a 50% increase on
the budget line and going back to what as Merrick was talking about with the 6% overall we're all trying to keep the spend down but then go back to page 28 and I understand what you're saying as far as contractual increases to people, but
there is no information on this page that shows what the 2024 expenses were against what the proposed salary for 2025 is. And when we go to constituents of this town candidly, they're not going
to hear well it's statutory and it's contraction. they're going to know what it relates to in the prior year that leads to the expense. So maybe you can't answer that right now and I'm not expecting you to, but I think as we go forward in order to approve any section
of this budget, I think we have a right to know where we're coming from to where we're going. So Mr. Litmanov, I I'm glad you came because we did want to hear what what you have to say and we want all the board members to say hear uh for us to hear from the all the board
members. But at this point we are not going to be allowing this sort of interaction at the actual meetings. Uh Mr. Diniac and Mr. Samaldo have we have already started talking about modifying the format uh to provide that sort of
information. So we realize that it's it's probably something that we should be doing. It's Mr. Diniac's first budget here in West Orange. It's my first uh budget in I don't I can't even remember when I was council president before, but
it's been a long time. So, so this is a little bit of a work in progress. We should be having that information uh for you. It's a it's a good suggestion. Uh what we want we have the information. It's just not in the budget. Do you see
what I'm saying? You asking for the paid or charged in 2024? No. No. I don't believe that that's what he's asking. uh he's uh I'm not going to get into that because it's just more time. But what we want to do is give you a schedule of what we're looking at in coming
workshops. When I say you, I mean the board members and then you can provide this information ahead of the meeting to us in terms of email or or phone calls or whatever so that those questions and those comments can be considered at the
council meeting. uh and uh we are not going to be taking up as much time at the actual workshops, I'm sorry, workshop meetings uh to to handle this. So, I appreciate your engagement. Uh but this is we're not going to be allowing
this uh uh for this particular workshop, but it's it's it's a great idea. Please uh board members and and the public, if you have other ideas or comments, please send it to council west.org. Thank you, Mr. Litwinoff. So, to answer
um uh Mr. Lwinoff's question, what I have up on the screen um and it's small. Maybe I can make it a little bigger. Um so, we have that number represents
the 2024 adopted salary and wage amount. Um so, that was in the 2024 budget. That was what was adopted by the council. The number next to it is the 43150957 is what we're asking for for
2025. If we go to um and this is what I was talking about earlier um you know going from a 2024 base um to what each individual is going to
be making for 2025. you know, we we sort of get to our total salary. Now, there's overtime that we've budgeted for. Um, so this is just their base salaries. This this doesn't include over because I don't know who's going to get it overtime. Um, but if we
start with our first employee in 2024, their base was 53 667 82. Um, in 2025, we're anticipating paying them 56,000.
Whoa. 56,949 a year over [Laughter] Have you got an AI friend with a bit of a sarcastic tinge to it?
Yeah. So scary these phones. I'm so sorry. Please. Yes. So the year-over-year difference is $3,281.18. Uh 6.11% difference. And and how did we get
there for this particular employee? This employee is in the ASME union. Um so there is a collective bargaining agreement for that union. And you know, I said it was 1.5% on 111 2024, 1.5% on
71 2024. So you can't just add them together and say it was a 3% increase because there's compounding. And then there's 3% on 111 2025. So this employees year-over-year salary change
is purely due to contractual increases. And we have that with with the uh the next employee up, the deputy municipal court administrator. Again, the contractual increases from the ASME
union. Um then we have the judges. So they were given increases per the salary ordinance and they are in the management section. Um, so both judges and then you have um,
you know, our court administrator who I I put your correct last name, right? Yes. Okay. Uh, I apologize. Um, so her increase is the same as the ASME increase. Um, that's what the township has followed for many, many years for
their unrepresented employees. And this is what has been approved in the salary ordinance that you all have in front of you. um 1.5% on 111 2024, 1.5 and 71, 3% on 112025. Next, we get into um an employee
that was part of the 2024 uh adopted budget at set at 47440. That employee retired or was terminated, I should say, not retired, was terminated on 9204. Um or you know, she resigned
resigned. Yeah. the employment was was severed. Um, so there is a year-over-year difference of -47440. Council President, if I may, I think at some point we have to stop with this is employees and salaries and, you know, I
just don't want to make sure that we're not providing information that may this is about individuals and things of that nature. Maybe something that we don't want to uh contract. Yeah. Contractual stuff like that. So, I would I would caution
going into the delving into the employees here at this at this meeting the way we're doing it right now. Okay. So I I it's a matter of personel. Is that is that acceptable? I I don't want to be talking about individuals. Um uh except I think Mr. Datiniac was just
using as an example of of how the information that he has and it's available just it's not available this evening. Is that correct? Council President and and based on our conversation, you know, I will I will do this same thing for all the the
different departments and provide it to the council and update the um the draft budget on the website of E3 we want to call it that um so that there's this walk through from 24 to 25.
Okay. Thank you. So, I think we are now back to the issue of how to uh give a a vote or consensus on uh the court, the municipal court uh budget, but we still have questions. So, Councilwoman, it's not a question, it's more about the
process. Um because we have a new citizen budget advisory board, we haven't even heard their input yet. I don't think we should vote on any of the departments until we've had an opportunity to meet with them, sit with them, hear their recommendations. because if not, it would be a moot point
in having them give recommendations after we've approved it. I'd completely agree. I had the same thought. Oh, well, that sounds like two votes. I can see a nod here. That's three votes. So, yeah, I was also wondering even, you
know, as another aside, we kind of really have to look at the whole picture before we say, "Okay, this one we're approving." Right. We appreciate you're coming in and explaining this to us, but I think we need I think we need to sit with this until we everything instead of
voting piece just kind of write your notes about where you know where you could possibly see see changes but let's come back and vote on it later. So, Councilwoman, are you suggesting that we go through, I don't know, five, six,
seven workshops and then come back and review and approve, well, we've already reviewed it, but approve each one at some point way down the line. Has that been done before? Yes. So, I I No. No,
it hasn't. But I think that if we are on a certain department and we should make the um we should hear them and then go back and deliberate. I think we should hear all the department heads and then go back through it in detail and
whatever revisions, whatever deductions or additions we want to make and then vote on it. Um, we're never going to get the I'm not Yeah, I'm not sure what what is the what is the additional wisdom and knowledge
that you expect to get after we go through all of these meetings and all of these departments that is then going to influence going back to each individual department to improve or to approve or change their their uh their proposed budget. I
mean for example we now know what we have proposed or we have proposed to us for the courts for the municipal courts what's going to change we know we got a 6.2% 2% increase
uh that we're looking at. So I think what we really should be looking at is where we can make the efficiencies and where we can make the efficiencies does not matter whether we see them today or whether we see potential efficiencies in 20 other departments. Uh those other 19
departments are not going to influence whether we find an efficiency here. either we think we found an efficiency and we should vote on it or we don't. I I hear where you're coming from. I just um with this in particular, there's
it's clear we can't do anything, but I don't think there's a rush to have to vote on this now. I think we should still listen to the input of the citizen budget advisory board and hear what they have to say. Um if not, then what's the point in them coming to all these meetings and giving feedback if we've already voted on things? We should we
ourselves as council people should be able to take detailed notes for each each page each section each department and you know decide okay this is good the way it is I have no problem so when it comes to vote on it I'm a yes on this so I can remember um but I think that's
on us to do that due diligence but I just I don't think we should vote on any of these departments without input from the citizen budget advisory board. Thank you. I agree. So so I hear what you're saying. And I appreciate all the folks taking their time and I I get that, but
we could always go back and revise something afterwards. I think you're creating a messier situation and you and no offense folks, I didn't vote for the advisory board because I feel that's our responsibility to do and I look forward to any input and I I know you guys some
of your but that's just the way I feel. This is our responsibility and we're sitting here having the in-depth conversations. But I do want to hear your opinion because if there's a way we could be doing it differently or better, I have no issue with that. But for now, I think
we should approve each section and then we could go back and revise it. Otherwise, this thing's going to get messy. You mean more messier than it is already? Yes. Yes. So, so just for the just for the benefit of everybody uh out
in the audience who has not been tracking the citizens budget advisory board the saga uh we created a citizens budget advisory committee in 2009. It was uh at varying degrees
effective uh as it was structured or ineffective depending on how you look at it. This year the council decided to move from a resolution that created the committee to an ordinance uh and expanded the purview and the powers and
uh of the uh board and changed the membership a little bit with the intent of making it a more effective tool to help the council with the budget. However, for a number of reasons, we
only recently got the board approved on second reading as an ordinance and as a municipal uh uh law. And in the interim, we were also trying to
determine whether the board could actually take effect or whether the previous resolution uh was going to be in place for a certain amount of time later on this year that would end later on this year.
We finally got clarification on the board's status earlier this week and as part of that as part of that issue, we're going to uh have to add another member of the board and we're planning
to do that on Tuesday at the council meeting. But suffice to say that I don't think anybody thinks this was the ideal process for the board uh to get on board. I don't know how much information or analysis or comments that you would
like to make on tonight's hearing uh the subjects of of the various budgets. But uh going forward, we want to tell you what we're going to talk about and then as I said to Mr. lit enough that we are going to accept your comments and your
analysis and your questions before the next workshop so that we can get your input uh going forward. So, uh I don't think that issue with the board is going to be an issue going forward. We are
going to make sure that we get your information even if it's individually. Even if you don't have time to meet as a board individually, you can provide this information. So, we do not have to hold this up for
the board to get more aligned with us. You're already aligned. You have the capability. Today, tonight's workshop is a little bit uh messy uh because you're just getting cranking and uh I don't think that's going to be an issue going forward.
So, uh, I'm really not sure how to move at this point except to say that perhaps we take a vote, uh, you know, with a motion and discussion on how we want to do this if we, uh, as a council want to
approve these individual departmental budgets as that's been done at least in roughly the 15 years that I've been involved, or whether you want to take a new process. Uh um so I will at at this point entertain
uh a motion if that's what you want to do and we'll vote on it. Your motion. Well, I I don't want to make a motion to approve it. So I'm not going to make a motion to do you want to make I'll make
a motion. Wait, wait, wait. Just one at a time and speak loudly, please. So everybody can hear for the cons. Okay. Just so everybody knows, I'm on a time crunch this evening. So, uh, I'll make a motion to approve this section of the budget. And I'll second.
So, is there any further discussion on the issue of of voting on this budget tonight? Well, why don't we just vote and then they could Well, typically after you after you get a second to discussion and then uh is is
there uh Councilman Scarpa, do you want to uh weigh in on this? Yeah, I just really agree that it would be more prudent to sit on this and to review it as a whole with the rest of the budget. Um and I agree that we should wait and
get the feedback from our uh citizens budget advisory board. I'm not ready to approve it tonight. All right. So then vote. Council President, I'm obviously not an attorney. I just want to point something out that Councilwoman Castelino's motion was to approve this section of the budget. But I
think your intent is to make a motion to take any action on approving any section of the budget. Is that correct? I just want everybody on the same page because that's how I understood your discussion. Um, that's what it appears to be that the
it's sort of two sides of the one coin. We've got we've got a uh an opinion that they don't want to approve any of the departmental budgets until we get through all of the workshops and uh uh and that would be the the other side of
that coin would be what we typically do is try to take a vote on each departmental budget. Understood. My apologies. But it's it's either way we're going to get to what the majority wants to do. Uh but the immediate impact is going to be tonight. And I'm sorry,
Miss Bowers, you have to sort of sit through all this. Councilwoman, and and just just to add to discussion and again for the the the committee members because I don't want to think I'm disrespectful. It we could go back and
amend anything we approve. So, at least we're can move forward. If there's a note or someone comes back with something that says, "Hey, don't you shouldn't do go with the printing line item." And we go back, we always go back and amend and change it. We're not voting on the final, you know, budget
tonight. We're just creating a system that we've been doing it this way for many years. It's organized. It's helpful. But that's okay. I I just want to call the vote and we got to get on to the next section. Some sometimes change is good. Yeah. Or not. But go ahead.
We'll see. So, we have a call for a vote. Can we have a roll call? Madame Clerk. All right, Madame Deputy Clerk. Councilwoman Castelino. Yes. Councilwoman Gabber, no. Councilwoman Ruden, no. Councilwoman
Scarpa, no. Council President Kovia, yes. Okay. Okay. So, the motion failed. There will be no vote on the budget uh for the courts. If there's nothing else, can we please release Miss Bower so she can get on
with her life? Thank you, Miss Bar. Hopefully, you won't have to come back. That's fine. Have a good evening. Get home safely. Thank you, Mr. Have a good night, Mr. Dinian. Why is um a capital budget not being
presented? Council, could you just speak into the mic so everybody can hear what you're When when is the capital budget going to be presented? probably later on in the the budget hearing schedule. We're only presenting today uh municipal court code enforcement and we're going
to be talking about debt probably for a while. So, it it's it's a lot for just this. Yeah. Okay. But it it'll be one of the the last items. Why is it one of the last? because it seems so important that we be able to put a it's important but
the budget implications are not as great as you think they are because everything is going to happen in the future. So we're going to focus on what is impacting the 2025 budget and capital is
is really for future budgets. Not all of it, but because there's a down payment p component to it, but like the debt on anything authorized is going to be in the future. Okay. Planning. Go ahead.
Council President, be before I introduce our director of planning and zoning, I just want to do a public service announcement. Our staff is working diligently today to put a a potential New Jersey Transit strike contingency plan. Um, so it is up on the website. So
if there's anybody listening tonight, they can uh visit our website. They can go to the Pacio app. They can also go to Facebook and I believe X or Twitter or whatever else we're calling it these days. So So um I just want to make sure that people know that and it's available
there. I will tell you that our our director or super supervisor of the Jity did a fantastic job that it's not going to impact any of our citizens having to park somewhere else. We're going to still be able to pick them up at their current sites, just they will be
transported to uh various different bus terminals, but with no guarantee that the buses will be readily available for them there. So, we just want to make sure that's a public service announce announcement that's brought to you by the township west. Thank you. So, it's my pleasure to introduce
the planning and zoning director, Miss Director Janice Gary Adams. Good evening. Good evening, council president. Good evening, council. So, how would you like to proceed? Would you like to uh talk about what happened last year, what's happening this year,
what you expect to happen this year? I could do a little bit of both. I could do a little bit bit of both, but um my eyes I'm a little older, so you're going to have to make that a little bit bigger for me. I have it here, but um let me just go over the department.
Um uh one of the main uh stems of the department obviously is code enforcement. We have three experienced code enforcement officials. Willard Donz is our senior, Lou Deasqual, and Fatima Agular. We just um hired a new code
enforcement trainee. He started 30 days ago. Um and he is getting up to speed. Some of the new legislation in the state is that all of them have to be certified as fire inspectors. Uh we have two years to do that. They've all attended that
training. So next year you will see in the budget that we um pay for those training classes. They are quite expensive and we take it with the firemen. Um and Tony Beio, director Tony has been um uh very generous as to how
much he charges us for the classes. Um so that's that's something I want to talk about as far as training. Um they will also in code enforcement have to take a reertification for what we call HQV. Um Fatima took that class last year
and that certification is online, but it's about $700 per um inspector. Um, I stage it as I always do. I usually send one and then another one because then that doesn't make them available for
inspections. So, some of the um my train of thought with the court is that we bring in a lot of those fees. A lot of those ticket books we have to use. I have one ticket left. So, don't cut out the ticket books. They're paper.
And until we get Municity up and running, I think we're going to be doing e tickets also in our cars. We need the paper tickets. It's there's no way around it. We have to send out letters, that's paper. We got to send out envelopes, that's paper. We're not paperless yet. So, just a FYI there. Um,
so we contribute to a lot of the income that the court brings in. In addition, the administrative clerks or secretaries, the board secretaries, you know, they're the administrative arm of our department. You have Diana and Jamallette. And then I have Rose who
works part-time. Tremendous help. Um doing Opas a thousand a day, taking in garage sale permits, CCOs's. The town is on fire, as I say, every year. Um we have a lot of renewals of apartments. We
just got in like 50 for one apartment building. Oh wow. When we do that, I only have three inspectors. and the new guy, right, who looks at me every morning, it's like, "Oh, you guys are really busy." Um, in in addition to that, that's the property maintenance
CCO section 8. Okay? So, that's what they're doing. But on the administrative end, you have two people that are taking in all that work. And guess what? They're planning and zoning board secretaries. So, every application that comes in, they have to go through it,
make sure the professionals get it, and then they have to work at night like we're going to do. tomorrow 7 to 11, you know, make sure all the professionals have their Zoom links. So, that's just all the interaction, but that's bringing money also into the town. Those CCOs are $200 a pop. So, I don't know if that's
somewhere like what we bring in, but um I was just thinking about that. So, that's um code enforcement, my administrative um personnel. We also have the new merkantile license, you know, uh where all the businesses have to register. That's a state code. Now,
you have to have a minimum of $300,000 of liability insurance and they have to prove to us that they have that insurance. Um, create a log on, upload the insurance, and then pay us uh for that online
transaction. In addition, I am doing all the zoning work. So, I hold two hats. Um there is no one else in the township that can sign off for zoning except me. So um I think it's critical that um
what one of the people that work for me now will be shadowing me hopefully by the end of the summer to start learning zoning. Um because if I go away like I am and won't be in Monday, nobody can do that. Nobody can answer a zoning
question. It's it's me. So, just so you know, it's two hats. It's director and and zoning official. And I have to review every single permit that comes into the building department that deals with zoning. So, I know I've said this over and over again, but I
feel like I need to like kind of reiterate the amount of work that's there. Okay. Um, so I do have some suggestions though on where I can save money. Good. I know you wanted to hear that.
Um, so I don't know what we want to do first. You want to do planning? Okay. Planning board. Planning board. So the conferences that 3616. What page are you looking? I am on page
23. I don't know. Is it the same page as? No, I'm sorry. It's It is page 25. Age 24. I'm sorry. Why is it separated like that?
Conference is 24. Yeah. Training is 25. Page 54. Oh, it's on page 54. So, it says 24. No, no, it's 24. Has advertising, conferences, court reporter. That's what I'm looking at first. Unless you want to do planning and development. Doesn't matter to me.
Oh, I thought you wanted to do planning and development. Okay. Okay, that's fine. So, planning and development. I apologize. Page 54 for you. page 53 for me. So, just so you know, the PL Township Planner 070, that $9,000 that we spent last year, that was Paul
Grigo's monthly fee. Okay? So, we didn't spend this is page 54. What line item? So, I just want to explain 070 township planner 070. That was the yearly fee we paid all. Oh, here
it is. And remember, he left end of April. So, that was the amount of money that he was paid last year. Yeah, we only paid him. Right. Right. Because he left at the middle of the year, remember? Okay. And and while that we're there, uh, Miss
Adams, uh, you're recommending a, uh, a large budget increase this year. Why is that? Large budget increase item for that line item. 30,000. Well, that's going to be up to the administration. I I'm I'm going to
leave that one alone. I have some other suggestions someplace else, but maybe he wants to speak to that. Just just just for clarity, the column C, if we're looking here, the final 2024 budget is what was adopted. The next column is what was paid or charged as of 1231
2024. And then the budget request is what we're asking for. So if you're just comparing budget request versus what was adopted last year, it's 2% increase. Um, but this is what was actually charged against that particular line item. Ju
just so we're all on the same page. Okay. But I'm sorry for my confusion. Mr. Brael has not been in service to the township for some time, right? Is there somebody else that the administration is planning or the director is planning to
use for this planning situation? I know that I recognize that the mayor and the council have a slight disagreement on the planning res planner resources for the township, but I want to try to get a
better idea of why uh we think we're going to do $30,000 worth of expenses this year. Could that be for affordable housing? Is that the affordable housing issue? I I mean, we're going to need a planner. No. Uh it's it's either going
to be a vendor or or someone else like Well, the affordable planning could come out of the township planner, but 30,000 is probably not going to be enough to do the affordable housing plan. It'll probably be around 40,000 just for the plan for the next six months. Um so that
would be an additional fee and that probably should be I have a question. Just hold on please. I want to follow through on this. So, so again, the 30,000 and change that's in the budget request, it's it's for an undetermined
usage. Is that what you're saying? We we you've put it into the budget, but you're not really sure where how we're going to spend that. It it's for it's for planning services. Um, like I said, last year we budgeted $30,336. We're asking for
$30,9900 for for planning services. So, Okay. So, council president, some of the planning services include when we ask someone to do an ordinance, when we ask them to review our ordinance book, all those different um challenges that come
actually even from the council, we have to pay somebody to do them. There's an hourly fee, usually 195 to 212 per hour. So, we did the cannabis last year, we did the quicks, that costs money. Somebody had to do it. Yeah. Please, please. any sort of non-escrow planning
services would be charged here as well. Okay. So, thank you for that. This is more of a services focus rather than a personnel or a vendor focus. You have to hire the vendor or whatever personnel to do it. But what we're talking about here
is expectations of what you're going to spend for the planning services for a planner. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Councilwoman, you uh Yeah. Thank Thank you, uh, Council President. Okay. So, here's where I've been confused all year. Okay, so we have on page 24 the
economic planning coordinator, which was all about that report. So, the services that uh the consultant that we had last year uh came out of there just for economic
development. So, that's 125 there. We have budget 8. That was Yeah, it was budget 125. Yeah, you're now talking page 24. Excuse interrupting. I just want to make sure everybody this was Nishuain. So they they had two services with us. They had the economic development which created
the the report at the end of the year that all the due diligence for that uh was 125,000. Then we have and this is where now I'm confused and you got to help me out director. So Mr. Griel was
our consultant and did the planning services and we only paid 9,000 in 2024 I understand. Yeah, because he was only here up to April 15th or something. Yeah. And some of that probably went to Nisha Wayne also for some of um the ordinances that
they had to write. I I can't remember what we paid him. No, it it would probably would have been all because we paid him like 3,000 per month. So, he was here till April. So, that makes sense. Okay. So now what about the fees that go into the escrow account? Is that
shown anywhere in the budget? No. So if you come to me and you're getting ready to build XYZ and you have an escro account, that's not a part of this. We pay our professionals through that escrow account. Well, that I know because I seen some bills from some of our um business owners that got charged
like $5,000 or whatever. So, but but so now if we didn't have that professional and we had a full-time planner on staff, who would be doing that review and where would that where esco has nothing to do with the personnel? Councilwoman, if you come in and you
have a commercial business, a major development that that um according to the code, you have to pay escrow. That has nothing to do with who reviews it. Okay. So, so follow me on this one
though because I'm trying to understand it. So, I'm g a hard time just trying to understand it. So, we have a business owner. He's putting an addition on. Yes. I You're talking about and so he got a bill, right? And that bill so far
was whatever say $8,000 and now he's Can I stop you there? Yeah. The bill is for his attorney, for the planner to review the plan. Yes. For his engineer to come to
the meeting and say the ward is not going to go next door. A lot of those are his professionals that have to be paid and the township professionals that have to review after they submit a report. So, I'm talking slow because
Okay. Okay. So, so let's go back to that. So I saw the bills from Nishwain. They were like $5,000 for two bills. If we didn't have Nishuain or any consultant, not picking on them, I just we say we had somebody in the chair all
week long, right? Is would that person have reviewed that? That person can review. Yes, a planner can review and you're going to pay them whatever you're going to pay them and possibly pay them to attend meetings depending on what
their contract is. I think So Bor got rested. So I think she got paid. That was the point that I was trying to make. So we had somebody in the seat that 5,000 or whatever that number was just to that consultant the township would keep or or we would
charge a different fee. Would our fees be does not come from us? But the but the but the the escrow does not come from I understand that. But so but we're still paying the person.
So, I understand what you're saying, councilwoman. So, I'm the planner, right? Yeah. And I don't charge because I'm reviewing your application as an employee, right? You're still paying me. You're just not getting a separate bill because I'm on the vendor. It's part of
your salary. It's part of I understand that. So, that's what I'm saying. So, so we're paying the vendor or the CL the the the applicant is paying the applicant's paying the vendor where the applicant I would
assume instead of paying 5,000 to a vendor would pay whatever fee we would charge for reviewing that application. We're not going to char Yeah, that's correct. I don't think the bill was 5,000. Councilwoman, I think you got to reook at that bill. I saw the bill two bills that total 5,000. Okay. That
probably was CM and the engineer. That probably was not. No, that was a separate bill. Bill, he sent me the bills. Okay. But when you apply to the board, I just have to be straight up front. If you have a commercial business, you have to know that you are going to
pay some fees to professionals. You might need a planner to come to the meeting. You're going to pay that person separate. And I'm going to get back to the Yeah. You might have to have a separate planner because it's a non-permitted use. That's under municipal land use law. If you come in and you want to do a three family and only two families are allowed, you need
a planner to come to the meeting and you're going to pay them, let me finish, and you're gonna pay them 195 an hour. You're going to pay your engineer 195 an hour. You're going to pay your lawyer whatever you're going to pay them. Okay? So, that's going to be separate from inhouse. If you feel as though this is
just this is your arm, not mine, that paying a full-time planner, whatever you're going to pay them is more or less than what you pay the vendor. That's your decision. Normally, it comes out to be less when you pay a vendor,
okay? Over time. And that if you look at all the bills of what we paid in comparison, you probably would, you know, except for the big application like what's says, you know, there's some normies. But I understand what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. I understand what you're saying because the the the the
Well, it's a resident, but I don't want taxpayers to think this is this is like a misnomer that that escro money is coming from taxpayer money because it isn't. No, I I know. Okay. But but that's what's out in the atmosphere. They're they don't pay for escrow fees.
No, but but the applicant our applicants feel that if we had an in-house planner, the fees would be more cost effective for the person making the application because you're not paying the consulting. I guess I would have to see the application. You're still going to
pay an engine charge like you for the service. So anyway, all right. So moving off of that, I don't want Yeah. Yeah. is can I take a Councilwoman Castleina still has the floor. Oh, okay. Go ahead. Councilwoman Ruden has uh her hand up to
so we'll get No problem. So I guess where I was just trying to figure out where all the So obviously so money that the consultant made was from escrow from the majority. What vendor are we talking about specifically? The nishwain. So
they not the economic development piece. We just discussed that. The other piece came from this line item with there is no line item for escrow. No, no, forget the escrow. We're done talking about that. The the other fees that we paid them was you're saying came from this
$9,000 some That's Paul. That's Paul. Okay. So, where did we pay them other than the escrow? We didn't. So, they didn't have any other services with us. They had some services which they generously included
in economic development like when they did the cannabis um ordinance. I think they did the quickserve. Some of those ordinances and some of the things that the administration asked them to do was included in the economic development
including a whole project on Rock Spring which I don't know if people are aware of. There was a lot to it than just quote unquote economic development. Okay. Well, that's what I was trying to get down to. What did we get for the 125? Well, oh, do you want a
presentation from them? Like I I I can't remember. I I apologize. I'm No, that's okay. That's okay. I just know the top about the the what was done and if we had a full-time planner just to equate the cost. You have to compare it. You know, you would really have to compare a
hundred. So, you say 125,000. I'm just making it up, right? Versus a full-time planner that may be paid that may be paid I don't know 170 180 with benefits. So I don't know that's just an administration choice that's okay but I see other places I need to
step in here to step in here please because you're talking about something that took place in the past and that nothing on the the budget is requesting this. So you're making a good argument. I've heard it before. I I don't have any fault with it. But this is, in my
opinion, is not the place to be arguing about. I'm not arguing. I'm just trying to get a handle on what our needs are moving forward. That's all I'm trying to do, Council President. So, you know, I I always let everybody else finish their comments. I I'll be done now. Um, but
basically, I just wanted to get a handle on, you know, we're talking about a full-time planner. The line items, we can move the money. Obviously, there's 125 from that one line item. And then I'd like to hear the director uh talk about this deputy department head
because that's almost $93,000. And between those two lines and now this the the 30, which from what I'm hearing, um may or may not be a need. That's what I'm trying to determine, it seems there would be plenty of of money
in here already for a full-time planner. That's the point. I'm just trying to put the pieces together to figure out. So, I'll give the floor to Councilwoman Scarpa. Uh, actually, yeah. Can I uh Councilwoman Scarpa, just a second. Councilwoman had her hand up like 10 minutes ago. So, I just want to make
sure that she gets a chance to I just I was just going to follow up on that question. Can you explain um the open position deputy deputy department head for 92530? Yeah, I mean they voted on it last year
to give me more staff, um, two additional code enforcement trainees and a deputy director because as I', as I've said several times, there's nobody else that knows zoning, right? So, we've hired a code enforcement trainee. Honestly, the
other trainee, this is this is where I was going. Uh that's on page I guess I don't know if this is on 54 or 55. I probably am not going to be hiring another code enforcement
person. I need someone that knows zoning. So the deputy director when you voted on it last year that was supposed to be the person that would start assisting in learning zoning. So we have
a person in mind. Councilwoman Ruden, I took one of your suggestions and that person is going to be shadowing me. I don't want to talk about personal matters. No, you can't. Yeah, I can't talk about personal matters, but that um could
be a person that what else? Okay, you you got what I'm saying? I did. Okay. You have that person already hired. I mean, that works for you. is a current staff member.
Council marudin, are you still So I don't So um Okay. So would that person slip into the open position job? They they it depends on civil. It depends. This is a civil service
question because we have we have this person in another position right now. We're training them to go into that into possibly within the same department. So once we we figure out and determine that they all the training is done and everything else, there's also another role that that person is performing. So
we have to just make sure get this taken care of internally. But we're we're exploring that option because at the request of the director to give her the assistance that she needs. Okay. So the code enforcement trainee council woman
is coming off the 30,000. So I don't get claps. I don't get anything. You get it. No, that's 51,000. You did a good job. We'll start for the day. Yes. Yes. 51,000. That's all, right? All right. I mean, thank you. Yeah. I mean, we have a person right now. We have Charles. He's
new. So, um, she's Let's see how that works out. So, you have the deputy director. That's a possibility. And as Councilwoman Castelino said, that's an administrative decision
regarding the other monies and how they may be moved. That's not something I can speak to. Question for Council SC. There could be there could be some um leeway there because that's a pretty high salary jumping into the the 90,000.
You're saying 92. Yes. So is that is there some could we save some money initially on that person's already making that that money if they're already making it now I don't know I don't have in front of me yeah they're already making more than that they may be making more than what's already in there but but it be it becomes a dual
title then then we would you know we we have to explore like I said they're they're in the second position so we have to look that option okay we can present that but right now we're in the process of training this person it's kind of a succession plan it's kind of a training because they're not fully trained and not up to speed in the
position. So to give them the actual title this year, it's going to be No, it won't be this year. They they would have to be with me six to eight month zoning. Listen, I've been doing this 24 years. This person's going to have to be with me a while. So I wouldn't want to
delete that position. I'm willing to do it for the code enforcement trainee, but they're going to need some of that 90 something,000. Got it. because they're going to be doing a dual role. They could be the assistant zoning official, which a lot
of towns had. I don't understand why we never had one. An assistant zoning official that okay, I you can do this part, you can do the letter, you could, you know, there's a lot to it more than just um I think what people assume. So, the person has taken the class, they
passed the class and um they'll be shadowing me in the summer. That's a big deal. Yeah, that's a big deal. So, yeah, we need succession plans in the Yes. I mean, I'm used to doing succession of I mean, listen, I have 25
years next year. So, not that we want you going anywhere. Do you want to do you want to talk about the the planning and development director department? Could you speak into the microphone? So, that's okay. I I've asked my question. Go ahead. Go ahead. Councilwoman Sar.
Yeah. I just um I want to thank um Miss Jerry Adams. It's like really clear from what we hear year over year that this job is insurmountable for one person to be doing both planning and zoning. And I want to talk about um Councilwoman
Castelino's questions and thought process about the economies of scale uh in the planning department. And one of the one of the things, you know, that that I think she was kind of alluding to are how we could get more revenues
rather than giving them to consultants. And when I wrote the storm water management ordinance, I did a lot of work with um a colleague from Verona who's on the planning board and that was one of the things she talked to us about. the Verona uh planning board has
quite a bit of fees for their engineers to actually review these things that come to the planning board. And we don't do that. And that's kind of the missed opportunities that we may have for us to be recouping some of that money rather
than paying it out to consultants. So, I think we need to look at this very strategically and as a whole. And I think that Castelina uh Councilwoman Castelino's comments are very important and very warranted. I I agree with you, Councilwoman uh Scarpa. So So one of the
things we've been thinking about and you know I'm sorry you just can't get to everything in one day is that we've already raised our fees like like literally we had not raised our fees since 2009. We raised them last year, right? So the
f Yeah. I'm sorry they Yeah, I'm sorry. But I mean when you go to other towns, I mean you you pay. We never charge for reinspections. Yeah. 50% of the inspections fail. That means my inspector has to go back out. They have to go back. They have to email the
person that they have to go. Right. So now with the reinspection fee, do you know that's up to like 70 something%. I did it the other day. That's a big difference of not having to just go back out because like oh you don't charge anything. I'll just fail and not have the fire extinguisher because you're
going to go back for free. So now we're recouping that money. So to your point, I do think as far as the planning and zoning board applications, the individual homeowners, and I hate to say this because this is almost like a fee. They don't pay us for,
right? So Zabth reviews that application. If you do a deck and your deck is too big, we don't charge them really anything for that because we have a municipal engineer. And then Nisha Wayne may do a
report like a small report but charge a minimal fee. So that's just something maybe from the legislature then that you might want to consider. I'm not saying to do it but it might be something you want to consider. I know other towns do that on small residential applications.
Yeah, we look at we need to look at those overall operations and make them more efficient and get better use of taxpayer dollars. I'm sorry. What did she say? I don't know. Councilwoman Scarpa, could you repeat what you just said and just speak a
little bit slower, please, so we can hear? Yeah, I I think we need to do a lot more of that and we need to look at the real efficiencies and the and the opportunities, the economic opportunities in that planning department and recoup, you know, more
dollars for the taxpayers from the taxpayers. No, no. rather than to consult giving it to consultants. We need to get our own people paid for these services rather than hiring consultants to do them. I think that
would be a better use of taxpayer dollars. So, the one thing to consider is that, you know, we we'd have to look at the land use law because if we have an engineer, I mean, we have an engineer, we have a planner on staff, we can't
just take the escro fees that a third party and say, "We'll take it because we're going to review it." The land use is is is pretty clear about if you have on staff professionals, you can't then charge them the escro fees. the escro fees are for the third parties because
we don't have the personnel or the professionals to make the review for the land use port. So, we don't want to I don't want anybody to think that if we're giving 5K to CME that now we can
take the 5K in and offset our engineer salary or offset our planner salary. Um, we just wouldn't charge the escrow because we're doing the work ourselves. So it it's not like we're leaving money on the table, per se, by not having the
planner available to then take this escrow money. So thank you. Thank you. I I know Miss Adams could explain that much better than I did, but No, you explained it perfectly. I got it. Okay. But Councilwoman Scarpa
still has the floor. Councilwoman, that's okay. I'm I'm good. Okay. Uh, Councilwoman, thank you, Council President. Next in line, I just want to make a suggestion because I feel like we're bouncing back and forth from page 5624. My suggestion is if we're going to discuss the planning board that we go
through that page and ask every council person if they have any other questions on that page and then go to the next page because now I have to go back to what you know, whatever page we were discussing because I waited for all the council colleagues to speak. Um and it's getting a little confusing and time time
consuming. Um so yeah, so back to page 24 with the economic development coordinator salary. So we don't have this role currently. Correct. So we have
$125,000 there. Yeah. Um, so I'm going to make a recommendation because we don't have it this year and it's six more months left until the end of the year that we remove this line item. Um, and so I'm going to make that I'm going to make that uh, well, I'm not going to
make that motion, but I'm going to make that recommendation and wait until I guess we speak to the Citizens Budget Advisory Board. Um, so that's that on that page on on page 24. Um, but actually the court reporter 2024
final budget was $4,100, but we only paid $314 last year. So why are you requesting $4,100 this year? Why not request $1,000 or $800? Well, so I'm going to tell you about the court reporter. That was going to be my third thing. So I was trying to go into
successive order. Okay. Um, so sometimes when uh they do the POS, they might have taken out a planning board. It's supposed to be zoning board. So I I had planned on reducing that amount anyway because I have
a plan that I don't have um um I have a plan to reduce that amount by using current personnel. Okay. So can we can't reduce it a lot. I will reduce it some. I can agree to that. Can you give us a number that you think so we
can write it down? We talking about um number for court reporter line 090 line 90 board. Okay. Third line. Um we could do it in half. In half.
Okay. So,00 2,000 we'll say. Okay. And then the same thing with um materials and supplies. It shows we only paid 448. The last one 1117 5,000 110 material supplies. So final 2024 budget is 5200
but only spent 44 $448.94. So we can reduce about $4,000. Well, I wouldn't reduce it 4,000. It's up and down. Last year I spent more like it it just depends cuz one of the things that we do and it gets into this whole
minutia pop because I have code enforcement. Excuse the language. I have code enforcement, then I have planning, then I have zoning. And sometime the zoning might use the the code enforcement, the code enforcement might and that's why how I end up saving money. So I don't want you to take 4,000. I would do it in half. I think
I'm being pretty What if what if we reduce 3,000 and keep 2,00? Well, I was going to take conferences out. Good. That's good. Okay. So pause on the planning board. It's rare. We did it in the past, but it's rare that we go to
conferences. And if I go to conferences, unfort I I pay myself. I don't want nobody want do what I want to do. So you ever send the takes out 30? So we're taking out zero the recommendation. No, now they go to training. Training but
not conferences. Conferences is out. So do you want to dip any in the materials and supplies? Yeah, she said we can take half. Oh, so 2500, but leave the 2500 there, please. Because we're going to a new system. I don't know what I'm going to need. I'm going to need iPad. I don't
know if that's a part of the IT budget. I'm going to need other materials because hopefully we're going to be using a new system and I don't know what that's going to entail by the end of the year. Do you ever go down to the league? You never go to the league? I always go to league. I go to everything.
Okay. So, you know, you should get compensated for Yeah. They could take it out of somewhere. I mean, you know, um, we don't get compensated. Yeah, we signed up for this. It's ridiculous. So, all right. So, right here. Yeah. I
usually, Councilwoman, I take it out of the board adjustment educational courses and trainer. I usually get it out of that 450 when I do it. So, that's under the board of adjustment. So, I don't want to decrease that at all. So, All right. So, I have no more questions
on page 24. What's next? Councilwoman, I mean, we have page 25, which is board of adjustments. You have questions? I'm sorry. Councilwoman Castle, did you say you had questions on 25? Okay,
that's got to tell me because my pages are different. It's right behind it. Okay. So, this is leaving there. Yeah, my PDF has one off. 27 the paging you guys are talking about. So, Councilman Giver Michael has the
floor. She wants to move on to uh I don't want to cut anything from board of adjustment. Board of adjustment. I I'm not looking to cut. I just had a question. Okay. Okay. Councilman Gber still has the floor. Yeah. I I I don't have any uh questions
for page 25. Looking at what was paid last year and what's requested this year. Um I'm fine with this page. Councilwoman Castelino. Thank you, Council President. So, just going back to 24 real quick. My recommendation,
maybe I didn't make it clear enough and I apologize for my colleagues and the public, but I wanted to take the 093 planning economic development coordinator position and transfer that uh to a township planner position. Yes.
and and whatever other monies from other uh line items to to make a a a salary line item for the planner and introduce it to where it needs to be uh fixed appropriately. So, I just wanted to
clarify where I was going with my questioning and I'm apologize if I wasn't clear enough, but that's where I want to go. Been talking about this. I think that makes a lot of sense. Thank you. uh in regards to 25 and looking at the planning board of adjustments. So
training for members and this is where I did have a years ago a conversation with Mr. Griel um where he did come in if you remember um director that at one time he he had given some training to some of the
in-house staff member. So our um our chairman do that now. Who does that? Bill Neuer and Bob um they do it now. Yes. Okay. Cuz that I felt was, you know, and well, you had requested that years ago. So, you're okay with that
training for members only being 153? What? On page 25 now? And educational courses. I mean, because I just want to make sure and I'll get educational courses and training. I don't want to change anything on this. I'm not No, but you have enough. So, and
I'm going to tell you why. because I when I went to league this year actually Mr. Albert came down and he attended some of the classes which were very beneficial for him and said you know I wish we you know again he's former schoolboard member us former school
board members always used to Mr. Charles is in the audience. Uh, you know, we always had to go do training classes all the time and they're very super beneficial. So, I just want to make sure that your your planning board members and and and staff in the office are have
enough training when we go to train police and firefighters. You know, we make sure they have what they need. So, I just want to make sure you have enough money in the line items for this. That's So, I appreciate that. Um, so are you expecting that a board member would be reimbursed for training?
Is is that what we're saying? Can I piggyback on that? I I I mean I don't know. I I mean No, I'm just asking so I can clarify. I don't it I think I think you want to train your board members to to know the different laws and what's current. I mean to me that's beneficial
to the commu community. I mean, how many times did we hear negativity towards board members? If they were better proper training, I think that's beneficial. Is it not? Well, they do attend the class. They have to attend the classes when they first are
appointed. Um, the additional training, I mean, we can take it into consideration. I I'll I'll hear you cuz I know um we just upgraded the um storm water ordinance and we have somebody from the watershed institute who is willing to train everybody on the land use and and the entire council which I
think is really important that we get up to speed. I think it I think it would be a nominal fee. Okay. like he works he works for the watershed institute so it would be like a contribution to the watershed institute but I would like to that to be covered and be able to offer
that so I don't know if you know but NJO they send us the classes okay so during the year like they just did a storm water class they did but ours is different our storm water is different than the No I understand but a lot of the classes are free I'm not saying I don't want to take away the money but
I'm saying a lot of those a lot of those classes are free online and they're hours because I send code enforcement to it even though they're not on the board. Just so they know. I just ask and that's No, I don't want it reduced because I've reduced enough. I think I've been reducing enough. I I just want to stop
here for just a second, please. I can hear I can hear almost everything that is being said among the people in the audience and that's not appropriate. I we just heard somebody else is having difficulty hearing. I'm having difficulty hearing.
I am fine if you guys want to talk. I I think it's very beneficial to the township that you do, but I'd like that you not do it here. If you want to go watch it, the the feed, the Zoom feed, and talk among yourselves, that's great.
But if you're here, I I I really need there to be quiet in in the audience, please. So, go ahead. Uh uh we were talking about the fee. Councilwoman, yeah, you know, I I'll leave it I'll leave it there. I just wanted to make sure that what that we're
covered. Um I'm good with other planning. I just like I said, I just wanted to make that recommendation because, you know, to to be able to cover cost of a full-time planner and we don't have to figure that out tonight, but that's the direction I want to go. Okay. And I'm also going to have to
excuse myself because I have to take the rest of the meeting uh from home this evening. So, I apologize for that, but thank you, director. I appreciate Did you want to go over housing code enforcement before I before you leave, or you have to leave now? Well, we're on we're on page uh 25. Yeah. Oh, so is
there anybody else on the council who has questions about page 25? Um I just have one comment. Um, I wanted to um tell uh suggest to Miss Jerry Adams that you send me a list of all of those classes that people take because I
took the one the first one that planning board is supposed to take and it was very cursory. It was really an outline and um I learned a lot more from the person from the watershed when I did storm water and I would like to uh take all of those courses. So, if she can
just send me the list of anything that's free as it becomes available, put me on her list there on her team, I would appreciate it. Um, Councilwoman, we just um for for several years we did not have all the board members as a part of the
NJO and we actually just did it last week. So, once we start getting the newsletters again, you will get it along with all the rest of the board members. Okay, great. Thank you. and specifically any coursework that you know planning board members can take would be very helpful. Sure, no problem.
So, it appears that we've drained page 25. Okay. Councilwoman G. Michael, what's the next page you'd like to go to? I think we should go to page uh 53. I'd like to discuss the deputy department head role. Uh we're it's been budgeted for
$92,530. Now I see here that it's already on step two. But how is that possible? If it's a vacant position and it says it's the person vacant person was in the role for one year. It shows as of this year one year and step two,
but there's a vacancy. So I don't know if that's a typo or No, it's not a vacant related to the to the the pay uh range. But there's no one in that role. It's vacant. Right. So it was it was uh budgeted last year at step two. Um so
this step two reflects the COLA increases that went into effect for 2024 and 2025. And then date of hire is just saying that you know we're putting in like a full year salary for it. Um but you know there was obviously there's no
one there but uh that's just it's just a carryover from last year. Got it. and the step that it was budgeted for last year. So, because no one's in that role now, do you So, I have two questions. One, do you anticipate someone being in that role by the end of this year? If
it's not until early 2026, I would like to make a recommendation that we remove this line item. Um, because that's another 90,000. I'm not going to know because I don't know how this person is going to pick up zoning. I don't know if they're going to hate it, they're going
to love it. I I can't anticipate. So that's really something the administration if you make that decision and the person that's going to shadow me you know that's six months that I don't know but that person has a salary they have a they have a salary it would
transfer into this budget. My question, my second question would be then would it be okay if we reduce half of this because it's already May again by the time we approve this budget. It's going to be fall. So I don't think that
you know honestly I mean my first year here in 2023 we approved the budget in September and last year approved in October. So I I think we should reduce it as much as we can even if we leave just three months you know like last quarter of the year. Yes. last quarter of the year versus keeping it in there
because again we need to reduce $1.8 million if we want this proposed tax increase to go from 6 point whatever percent to 3%. So that $1.8 $8 million is a lot of money and I'm you know every penny I'm helping out a lot I think you
know helping out a lot just a lot the only thing is that Councilman Castelino requested to remove this and to add the 125 for the planner you may need this for the planner and we removed again
nothing set in stone I'm just trying to follow the request so I took away the 92 2,000. I added the 125 for the planner taking the 125 from the economic development director sub account. Um, so
I just want to be clear like, right, so how do I pay this person if if we were to pay them maybe the last quarter of the year if you took the deputy director money and the economic and and the deputy director? Well, um, we have the
other open position So just leave that open position then my open trainee. Yes. Okay. You know and then remove the uh deputy. Wait, hold on. You had another You had two open code enforcement trainees. One was
filled. Okay. I didn't hear that. I'm sorry. That's what I was referring. I wasn't referring to 51. Never mind. Oh, okay. I I didn't hear that. That one was filled. So I thought we had that. Okay. So, even with this planner, first off, did the mayor confirm she's going to
hire a full-time planner? Because if she didn't, again, now you're talking October, September. If we pass this, there's no point in keeping that $125,000 a year salary when we're not going to approve this till September, October. Why would we wait till September, October to approve the
budget, council? Because I'm just going off of what I know since I've been on the council with all the meetings that we've had. We've gotten this very late this year, even later than the previous years. Well, we need to giddy on up. I am not. Listen, I'm not saying we don't need to giddy on up, councilwoman, but
I'm going based off history. LA, this last year we approved in October, the year before we approved it in September. I'm trying to look for ways to save money. Why should we keep the full $125,000 salary when we're already end of May? You're never putting it back in the budget. Once it's out, it's not
going back in. and and and and no disrespect, councilwoman, but you're looking for $1.8 million. Yes. If you would approve the bonds last year in 2024 with the salary ordinance at the end of the year that we always uh traditionally that's the way we pay our
severance and instead of putting into this budget, we wouldn't be we would have had that $1.8 million and and now we're you're looking to find it by not getting the right personnel that we need to move forward. I've been hearing about this planner for 10 years and we're at
the point where hopefully the mayor is going to approve it. We could move forward with it. And now you're saying don't get the planner. I I'm just I never don't get a planner. Don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying it's already basically June. There's no need for the 125 salary in there for this
year. So we can remove half of it this year and they can put back whatever it is when they work on the budget next year. That doesn't affect next year. We're talking about this is the 2025 budget, not 2026 budget. Councilwoman one, hold on. I want I want to respond to her. Second, for you to say what you
said, you're wrong. Okay. Why? Because you want to bond the 1.8 million last year and now the taxpayers have to pay interest on that. So, it's either they're going to pay for it now or they're going to pay for it in the long run. So, you're wrong with that. And we
can't with good conscience based on the report that we got from the comproller who said that we were an error. We're the elected officials who are voting for this. If we vote for this and the comproller comes back, look who looks bad. That's you, him, me, her, and
Councilwoman Cast uh Councilwoman Scarpa. I asked for them to go to the comproller to make sure that it was a lawful decision, and they didn't. So, if we're not going to go to the comproller to make sure this is okay based on the report that we had the year before, I'm
not in good conscience going to vote for something. So, don't sit there and disparage me for doing my due diligence. Thank you very much. Please, let's try not to make it personal. Stick with the facts. I thought I am both of you did really good job on sticking to the facts. Thank you. Councilman Castle,
just a second. There's a colloquy going here and I just want to make sure No, no, no, no. So, listen again. All I hear is planner planner planner. I Mr. Soraldo is is if we transfer the
line items to create a position for the planner in the 2025 budget, would that be acceptable to the administration? We're not prepared to answer that because there's still litigation out there. So, you know, I the mayor, you know, has made her position clear and I
don't want to I all I can say to you is that because we had discussions recently, you know, if you put the money into if you put the money into the the budget and the mayor approves it, then what we could do is if if she approves it, I'm not going to say she is or isn't
right now, but if if it is approved by the mayor, then we would we would look to hire a person in that position. So my recommendation is to is for this body to figure out to put funds in and take it
from there. That would recommendation and and this this that's what I'm just just want to make sure for 2025 finish talking with each other. I guess I don't want to bring it up later. I guess the last thing I'm going to say is keep in mind
we still need to hire a business administrator. So we still have to fund that position and role too. So, think about that when you're thinking about adding money in this budget. I've thought about that, too. So, Councilwoman, so um uh Councilwoman, you
were talking about holding aside 125 plus 92. Well, I wouldn't I wouldn't discount being that we're not approving anything anyway this evening and we're only making notes. I would note to take the 125 and look at the 93.
I also don't want to short change our I'm not willing to give up the whole 93. Yeah, I'm not willing to do that. I know. I know. I know. So I I She needs code enforcement. So she needs to So again, I we may not have the answer tonight, but I just we need to figure
these pieces out on the chessboard and and get the full-time planner again. 10 years of this. I I like to see it get done this year. Okay. Cast one. No, I mean 125 seems fair and
it's only half a year if this gets there's only half a year salary. Exactly. So, Mr. Diniac, are you clear on what they're all talking about? Because I'm not even though what I gave up now I'm like
so focusing just on on uh planning and economic development. Um, I've marked the open position for removal. If someone wants to tell me it's a different amount other than fully
out, which open position the deputy department head? No, not we were just trying to figure out remove half or 75%. Just reducing it and taking out the whole planner economic coordinator and
creating one. Isn't this position like that? So, so now we have half back in there and and we're taking as per Councilwoman Castelino's request prior, you know, the last 10 minutes, we I added the 125,000
in and that comes from the economic development uh director line item. So, it's out of OE into SNW. I still think that that's too much. I mean, if we're going to hire a planner, what is their salary going to be? You're saying that if that's for half the year,
is your salary going to be $250,000? That's ridiculous. So, I think we should cut that in half for half whatever the half the year is. So, for now, until we get pricing on what a a fully experienced person would be, yes, I
agree. I do would not want to spend that kind of money, but for for the sake of like moving forward being since we have to September, October to get this done, um we we just put that there for now and we
could always take away we get more information as we go along. This is a work in progress, but for now, let's just leave it there and then revisit that. But we we you'd pro you don't want to just hire somebody without
experience. You want to hire somebody with a lot of experience. Since 2023, I've been saying we need a full-time plan. Okay. So, so I I just want to mark it so that when sure when you get one, you know, they're going to hire consultants. So, I make sure I say that right. You're still going to hire
vendors no matter what. You're going to end up hiring other planners. So, just Okay. So, leave the 125 in there and we'll figure it out just like every other town. So, yeah. I wanted to just make sure that when we do go vote later on um in other sessions that I have all of the the changes and then we could
always change it anyway um before you vote. So for now I'm I'm reducing the open position in half cutting it in half from 92 530 to 46 265 and again keeping that 125 in there uh that came from the
OE uh account so it's reflected on both sides. Thank you. So, Mr. Diniac, Mr. Smaldo, I was only involved with budgets for a decade. I always operated that you could not change the mayor's proposed
budget without a vote. Well, it's not being changed. It's just I'm just memorializing it so that when we go back at some point, we remember all of the suggestions that the council had. And so th this this is just for for the council
here so that later on we can revisit all these things. Okay. Okay. Have we drained page I think it's page 55 or is it 54? 53. Sorry I have code enforcement. You're on. Now we're
on 54, which is planning and development director there. We didn't go through that one in detail. You just spoke about in the beginning for the No, we were on page 53. Now we're 54. Remember you started off on page 54 and talking about it, but we never went
through it in detail. I'm just Okay. I thought we finished this. We talked about it. She said there came We talked about already, but we didn't go. we don't get to go through and ask you our questions. Um, so if we have money for a township
planner, then there's no point in keeping the 070 township planner line that's budget for 30,000 if we're keeping in the 125. I mean, again, we're not going to get to reducing $1.8 million if if if we need
somebody to do an ordinance or something, how are we going to pay them? like like like every ordinance that you guys come up with has to be reviewed by a planner. So we have the money that we're keeping
keeping where the deputy director half No, you can't use that money of it. Remember? No, no, but I'm talking about township planner should be somebody that we're using to do whatever ordinances we have from now to the end of the year. That's what I'm thinking. Even affordable housing, I don't even know
how we're going to pay that, which which we still have to do, right? It like you you can't reduce that. Okay. And uh I don't have any other questions on page 54 then. Does anyone else have any questions on page 54? No.
Right. Materials and supplies. I guess page 56 would be the next one. So this is the uh housing code enforcement and um to recap, Miss Adams, you had requested removing. Oh, just on the salaries and wages, we
just just to be clear that we uh Miss Adams requested to remove that open position. Yes, I I am willing to remove that open position because nothing from housing code enforcement, the department is going to be removed at all.
So I have a question on page 56 the Okay. Um there are several line items here minus two where we haven't spent any money last year. Yeah. But can I just ask before we move? Sure. Does anybody
else have any questions about 55 about page 55? Just want to make sure. Of course. Okay. Let's No. Okay. So let's go to 56. Thank you. Um, so 2024 we haven't spent any money on several of these light items, but
you're requesting, you know, up to seven $67,000 [Music] um $6,000. Can we have that budget? Well, get rid of training courses and seminars. I can't reduce because we have to send them to
that HQV training and it's very expensive. I think it's going to be over 2,000. But did we didn't send them last year. They didn't have to go last year because their certification. This is new. Um cost $2,000. You It's like 750 per person. I have four inspectors.
Right. So, and computer and printer supplies, like I said, that minutia of, you know, when we do planning, zoning, and code enforcement, like we all use the same supplies, but we're going to a new system, Unicity, and I don't know what that's going to cost us as far as
new equipment. Somebody's camera breaks, we need a new camera, digital camera. Like I some years we use it, some years we don't. But for $2,300 I know it seems like 2,300, but that you know when you add up 2,300 on all these.
So how much have I cut already? I I came with a plan to cut and I think I did a lot. I just If you want to cut a computer supplies and give me a thousand. Okay. I mean, no.
So, we're going to cut it by 1300. That's it. Yeah. Thank you. Listen, it counts. It's It's every I know every amount counts. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if not, we'll never get to that goal number.
Yeah. Yeah. And we um because we have the new inspector, I had to order like new furniture and everything. We don't even have a seat for people. We don't have a computer. We don't have a phone. Need the money. Like, so can I
ask something? Other government entities, and this is I guess for you, um, other government entities often get rid of their furniture that they don't need. That's usually in really good condition. Have you guys thought of reaching out to see if anyone like So, you do have furniture that you can use.
It's in good. So the seats that are back there, I went in that seat on 911 2001. That's the chair that and the desk that Fatima sits at and the prior zoning official sat at that chair. I'm here 23 years. I think it's time for it to go. A majority literally I'm saying is there
are other government entities that get rid of really good furniture. Trust me, we got the whole and what I'm saying well that's what I'm saying. If we reach out to other entities instead of them just throwing out their couches or their seating, you can get really good quality
furniture, buy nothing, you know, for free versus having to spend money. You could go to Facebook Market. Have you guys been back in my department? We're like this. It's really, really tough. You're You hear everybody's phone calls.
I mean, I'm trying to help get you free furniture. Okay. Do you understand what I'm asking? I gota So, we looked into some of that. Um, well, you got to realize a lot of our furniture we have been replacing was actually donated from the old credential
building up on Rosland. So, all of that's just falling apart. Um, and so, you know, we we always look for things like as recently, uh, we purchased a bus off of Facebook Market and we have another bus come coming in front of you
because our jity, we're buying used buses. So, we're looking at quality used items that we can. So, you're going to have another another reszo in front of you for next council meeting to buy another additional bus because our buses are falling apart. And that's just to use an example whether it be furniture
or vehicles and things of that nature. We've we uh we have looked for things like that. So, okay, let's get let's get to some bigger ticket items if I could. Is it anybody else have any questions about uh page 54? No. So, it's just the third 56. I'm
sorry. Yeah, it's okay. So, it's just the 1300 that we're reducing. Uh line item 130 by So, it'll be um what 130 computer print and printer supplies. We just saved 1300. And you're okay with that, director? Are you sure?
I'm okay with that. I mean, I I don't We're trying here. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm trying really hard. I'm Thank you for working with us. Um Yeah. You live here, too. We're trying to reduce your tax. Yes. Listen, that's why I came in with a plan. That's
why I didn't come here saying I'm not going to do anything like that. I appreciate I page Councilwoman. And I think that's it, right? Is that Are you done with your part of the budget or do you have more pages? No, that's it. She's done.
Thank you, Councilman and Director. Get home safely. Can we take Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Okay, we're up to 100 $14,000 in savings. Let's keep going. Is is uh any objection
to just taking a five minute break? No, I got home. [Music] So, we're we're journing for five minutes. You can't say intersectionality all the Democrats stop talking like
college professors and just start acting like real people. personally list you and the whole strange with all that and everything else. lost their mind. think they do that very
very much for years and years and years but then they struck up Chicago New York what they were saying there So hard. longevity. Thank you for your patience. Uh those in
the Zoom audience, we are resuming the meeting. We had a short break. There was nothing wrong with your audio. At this time, I'd like to turn the meeting back over to Council President. Council President. Hello. Thank you, Mr. Fagan. Uh, hello again, West Orange. We are now
going to move to the finance area of the budget presented by Mr. Datiniac. Thank you so much, Council President, Council. Um, I'm going to talk about one item and it's one very big item um for the remainder of our time and it's our municipal debt service.
Um so for for reference our our municipal debt service for 2025 um including our NJ infrastructure bank loans that we have uh represents a total appropriated amount of
11,820,791. Um I'm going to go through uh the the four pieces here. um the the fourth biggest components of municipal debt service. So we're going to start with the payment of bond
principle. And uh so this this uh sure let me tell you this is not in the budget. So it it's in the budget. Um it's just in the budget summary. And I'm I'm scrolling quickly
because I'm trying to find it. It is page 13 and it's this section right here. This municipal debt service payment of bond principle. I'm going to bring up a schedule um that I've come up with on my
screen here. Um, and I want to go through the different components of of the bond principle and then I'm going to look at it uh from as a summary perspective by year uh and and talk about sort of the debt cliff that we
have. Um, so we have permanently financed debt. The oldest um uh bond issuance that we have goes back to 2016. So this is the 2016 bond. It's uh an original issuance of
13,295,000. It also includes open space bonding and there is a special assessment bond associated with this. For our purposes, I've removed the special assessment debt. Thank you, Mr. Fagan. um from this because special
assessment debt for for those in the council that that that don't know um a special assessment is paid for by uh the individual taxpayers that receive the benefit. It is not a general obligation. General being that the cost of the
issuance is spread equally amongst the taxpayers. equally based on on on the amount, but obviously your assessment dictates what you're paying for. Um, so the special assessment component of this debt is is not in here because it's not
part of the the current fund budget. It's not it's the the taxpayers that are impacted pay for it. So this 13,295,000 bond issuance um was issued at relatively low interest
rates. There is one piece of it that had 4% um and it's not uncommon to have different interest rates throughout the life of the debt. This is going to be paid off by February 1st, 2028. And we are going to pay
um you know in total with the principal um I it's a475 cuz that's the open space piece. I added this at the end but in in total repayment it's $15,857,000. So there's there's interest of
$2,87,000 associated with this $13.7 million issuance. The next issuance that we are paying for is uh is is the 2017 general bond. Um this
is going to be paid off again in 2028 as well. And it had a mixed interest rate of 2% going up to 2.25 25 starting last year in 2024 going up to 2.5 in 26 and 2.75 in
27 where it finishes off. Um principal 8.8 million interest of 1 almost 3 million for a total debt uh number of 10.1 million. Then we have our 2019 bond
issued in August of uh 2019 for 7.6 6 million and this will be paid off in 2030. Principal and interest together is $8.5 million. Another a year later, we issued
another bond for $6.6 million in July of 2020. That bond goes out to 2032 and total principal and debt repaid over the life of the amortization is 7.5 million.
This is the 2021 redevelopment bond issued in March of 2021. Um, again, variable rate, but still relatively low because at this time rates were were were low in the municipal bond market. This one carries
out all the way to 2050. Um, and because of that long amortization, the interest amount goes up and uh we're paying 9.2 million. Sorry, just a quick question, Mr. Virginia, if I recall correctly, this is
this was a bond that we issued uh to pay for primarily the infrastructure for the downtown redevelopment. Correct. Phase one Edison loss. Correct. And if I remember correctly, the
redeveloper is supposed to provide half of the uh debt service. So, so we get that through the pilot. So that's the Edison Loft pilot uh debt repayment revenue. So that revenue is built into the anticipated revenue. It's not
separate. It's it's through the pilot. Correct. Okay. Thank you. We also did a bond for 9.1 million on July 29th of 2021. Um, this particular bond was all at 2%.
And over the life of the amortization, paying it off by 2037 is 10.7 million. Um, there was a refunding bond done in June of 2021 on old debt. Um, so
there was some savings that was achieved by doing a refunding bond. Was it's basically like a refinancing like you'd refinance your mortgage. Um, that bond is paid off by 2026 and that was for 3.9 million and we pay interest to 454,000.
It retired callable debt. I can't remember what the bond was that it that it paid off. But um that's what a refunding is. It's like a refinancing and it had to be at much higher debt if we were able take I mean this is 4% and down to three but
correct. So is this is this the next bond? This is the next bond. So the 2021 Yeah. 4%. But it it retired debt that was that was much higher. Um and when you to do a refunding bond, you have to get the permission of local
finance board and you have to demonstrate the savings that you're going to get. And so it's not just a a legislative process here. It's uh requires state approval. Uh now we get into um the 2023A. So there's 2023 A and
B um debt. This was issued in March of 2023 for 7.9 million. And obviously you could see the interest rates um much higher rates had gone up sort of postcoid. Um good for your savings
accounts, bad for the municipal bond market. Um, so this is a $7.9 million issuance and we're going to pay $2.3 million in interest on it. Um, for a total of 10.2. Uh, now we move on to the the most
recent permanent financing. It was for 21 million 21.3 million issued on November 8th, 2023. again, high interest rates, um 5% going down to 4% in 2034
and for whatever reason they they made it 4.125%. So whenever someone was doing the amortization table, that's how it all worked out. Um so this carries a very large interest uh expense of 7.2
million for a total repayment of 28.6 million. Um, if rates come down, uh, we will work with our our financial advisor and look for opportunities to to
refund some of this debt. I don't have the particular uh debt in front of me. It has to become callable before we can go ahead and refund the bond. Um, so, you know, let's say it becomes callable uh in 2030. We couldn't refund it until
then. Um so these these debt instruments are called permanent financing. They're bonded. Um we have to repay these. Uh there is no way around it. The only thing we can do is to do a refunding and
hopefully save ourselves some interest. Um but these are effectively set in stone and they will be part of this township's budget after all of us are are gone probably. Um so now I want to go back to
um to my summary by year. Um so I started with 2024 as my control for just permanently finance debt and it was you know 5,995,000 in in current fund debt and
open space debt uh excluding the assessment debt. And this year, and it's it's on my anticipated uh my appropriated schedule, we have principal payments of 6,185,000 with interest payments of
1,952, uh year-over-year, um $171,000 increase. If we look here at the chart and I mean at the uh the worksheet and then we also look at the chart you know we are going to have an
opportunity in 2029 where the debt begins to fall off. Um so our principal payments are are going to go down. So you can see year-over-year 28 to 29 is a decrease of
2.2 2 million. Then it's a smaller decrease and then we start getting into larger and larger until we really hit 2038 is where the majority of our our debt is paid off. So this is the first opportunity to really start to
think about the debt um and and what our options are because we have to pay all this back. There is no getting around it. We have to pay all this principle back. There could be a reduction in the interest we pay back based on refunding.
Um, but we'd have to see when things become callable. And then what is the market like when when those items are callable? It could be in five, six, seven years. Interest rates in the bond markets could be like, you know, the 1980s and and we're talking almost
double digit. Um hopefully that's not the case. Um, yeah, of course. Sure. So what you're reviewing right now and what's up on the screen is just the debt as of now. This doesn't include if we
were to bond money this year and next year and every year like we have historically yeah we'll we'll get to that in a little bit. But this is this is our debt. Yes. Okay. This is not correct. This is not anywhere close to to Yep. Right. I just
want clarification for the public so they're not not confused. Right. This is the permanently financed aka the bonded debt as of today. And and for the public's sake, when we go out and we we issue debt and
we sell bonds on the open market, um you know, we get our financial advisor together with our our our bond attorney and um we come up with I'll show you an example of one. Um, this is for a note, but it's called an OS or official
statement. I'm sure there's someone in the audience that knows what this is. Uh, and don't hold it against us that we're using SNP. Um, so we go out and we get a rating from one of the rating
agencies. the township uh has traditionally used S&P because we feel um that their rating structure has been more beneficial to us than the other big rating agency. Um so a lot of work goes
into the issuance and and and this document as you can see if you can it's like 122 pages long and there's all different financial statements in there and and then a lot of legal ease and and everything. Um and then you know we have an auction an electronic auction where
you know big companies put in bids uh on the debt and uh um that's that's how we sell debt. Um and it's to very large institutions you know Bank of America um you know Chase and and and all that. So
that's the the the bonding process and and like I said once you bond um you are generally locked in until you can do a refunding and that's that's only when your debt becomes callable. So let me go back to
my schedule here. So these are the bond anticipation notes that we have um that we have uh out there right now. So what is a bond anticipation note and how is it different from permanent
financing? A bond anticipation note is short-term financing. So you can only have it for one year. Um, and it's supposed to give us financing for our projects. So if we talk about the life of a capital
ordinance, we come before the council with a bond ordinance that says we need $5 million and we're going to put down $100,000 and we're going to borrow the rest. And we go through the first reading. We go through a public hearing and a second reading. And if it all gets
adopted, you know, we can start our project, but we don't have the that money. So, let's just say we start with zero in our bank account and we had the $100,000 down payment. So, we have the $100,000 in there, but we don't have the remaining 4.9 million. So, how would we
pay for the project? We pay for the project by going out and issuing a note. And it's a similar process in many cases to to doing the bond. um we get a rating. it's not as rigorous uh an exercise in a rating and the
ratings are different for um for bond anticipation notes like you know you'll see something like MIG one two and three um if you're going through Moody's um S&P has their own uh uh rating but we're
still going to go out there and we're going to um advertise and and seek bids out electronically. So, let's say we go out there and we say, "I want 4.9 million." And someone
bids, Bank of America bids, and they say, "I'll give you 4.9 million at 2.5%." And maybe another Jeff says, "I'll give you 5 million at 2.4%." Because they're going to give us
premium. So, we take in all the bids and we figure out what the net interest is on on the issuance. So now we have our cash and we could spend the cash on the project. At some point um well a year later that note is going
to come due and that institution Jeff is going to say okay you owe me 4.9 million plus 2.5% interest and we have to pay that full amount. Well how do we do that? because
we already spent the money on the project. So, what ends up happening many times is we're going to issue another note. So, we'll go ahead and go through this whole exercise and we're going to
say I need $4.9 million and someone else, Bank of America, is going to give us, let's say, that $4.9 million. and they're going to say it's at 3% interest because rates have gone up. We get the money and we pay back
Jeff. Now the interest that 2 and a half% I mentioned that comes from the taxpayer. So we don't increase the amount we ask for in the ban the interest that we have to pay back these financial institutions we raise in the
budget. And so we have we'll talk about the first note. This is band series 2024. Principal amount of 11,592,464. We issued this note. Um let
me pull it up. Uh we issued this note back in March of 2024. um and it's due back to the winner um with
interest and we paid it already March 24, 2025. So the interest that we have to put into the budget is $462,410. Yeah, the question on this on the cover
for the OS it said that the yield was somewhere around 3.15%. Does that mean we sold it at a premium? So we got premium for it. Right. That's the addition that they paid to get. Okay. Right. So they said rather than just saying I'll give you
11,592464 um at 4%. They said, "Well, we'll give you, you know, 11,700,000 at 4%." So, we take the premium and then we anticipate the premium as an anticipated
revenue, but this is the amount that we have to pay. Um, right? And we have to budget by the premium, right? But we have to budget this amount. And so DLGS will look at division of local government services always looks at
every municipality's debt issuances and they make sure that the amount for principal for interest loans is correct because they do not want a municipality defaulting on debt and it never will
happen in New Jersey but the Division of Local Government Services takes it very seriously that the amount in there to pay debt service is correct. This other piece here, what does this principal payown mean? So we can stay in
bands for 10 years and 4 months after the third issuance. So, if we issue a ban in in 2024 and then we renew it in 2025 and then we renew it again in 2026, in 2027, the state of New Jersey
and its per statute says you can't just renew it for the same amount again. You have to pay it down. And there's a calculation and it's an interesting calculation. You would take the original principal amount and you divide it by
two times the useful life of the ordinance minus one. I'm not kidding you. That is the formula. And the number that you get is what they call the legal installment. And they also call it a
principal payown. So we have a principal payown on this ban for this year and it's included in our budget. So you have to anti uh you have to appropriate it. So when we go
out or we went out for the new note to renew, we went out for I know it's small 11,439,928. So the state wants you to start paying down these notes and so
they require it. after 10 years, we have to permanently finance this. So, what I've been looking at doing, and it's taking time because there's a lot of different variables, and I'm working with my FA, is do we
have opportunities coming up to start paying down these notes using the principal payown rather than going out and bonding and paying a lot more interest through the
amortization because you know how a mortgage works, right? you know, it's like you're really getting hammered with that interest. So, can we avoid the interest amortization of a bond issuance, which a bond issuance is also very expensive, and start paying
down the bands that we have. We also have two sort of special cases because one of our bands is linked to Rock Spring where Green Acres money is going to come in and we're trying to stay in bands so that as Green Acres money comes
in, we're going to pay it down. So if we get 1,50,000 from Green Acres, it's not going to go in a general fund. it's going to go to pay down the debt because obviously we want to pay down the debt that we have. We don't want to be paying interest on that
acquisition if we can get half the money for it. The other piece is 55 Lakeside. Um and you know when that deal closes, hopefully it does, the money that we get will be used to pay down the note that
we took out to buy the property. Um, so this these numbers here hopefully in the next couple years are going to go down purely for those reasons. But for the 2025 budget, this
is what we have to budget for with these notes. So, we have this massive $54 million note that 4% we're paying 2.1 million on and we have principal payown required
by the state of New Jersey of 406,000. The final note that I want to talk about is the special emergency note. And the special emergency note is related to the previous year's
um accumulated sick and vacation payouts. These notes have an aggressive principal payown because pursuant to the special emergency, we have to pay them down within five years. So this is going to get paid down in the
next few years simply because state statute says you have to pay it down within five years. But the these are stacked. So this special emergency note deferred charge is is like a bunch of different years. I
could show you right here um in in the budget some Oops, that's the wrong I don't know why I'm looking at the screen. I look at my own computer. It's probably So, if we look at these deferred charges,
um it's related to like 2020 severance liabilities, 2020 special emergency, 2021 severance liabilities. We are paying these down because we have notes um for these the question while you're
on this page. What are you anticipating our severance liabilities are going to be this year for 2025? I know there's some big payouts expected. Um so, you know, we're probably looking at $500 $600,000 by the end of the year. Um,
just off the top of my head, uh, we haven't had any big payouts so far, but projecting out, you know, $500 $600,000, will we be getting in will we be getting in any money from Green Acres?
So, that's the goal. Um, we are working on finishing the green acres survey. Um, I know they've been out there. I talked to the engineer about this the other day. Um, it it
should be completed soon. Is the appraisal done? Well, they had I don't know if the the interim BA can talk about this. There's one that we have on on file from a couple years ago when we purchased the uh the property, but we h we currently have Mr. Hendricks looking
at at the appraising port. So that's not completed yet. We had a meeting with him the other day and he working on it. So once we have it then, you know, obviously becomes available. Didn't the council authorize two different appraisals for this property some time ago? Yep. Our
council. Yeah. Yeah. So there go ahead counciloman. Speaking of Rockspring, would it make sense cuz we, you know, we lost revenue on it this year. Does it make sense to sell it? I mean, if we were to put it out to bid, obviously has to remain as an as a golf
course open space has been applied for. Um, if we were to sell it and get, you know, 12 million or whatever it is, how does that impact our our budget? I mean, so if you sold
it, you could use part of the money with the permission of the Division of Local Government Services. You could use part of the money as a reserve for debt service to pay down the ban that's associated with it. Uh the remaining money, they probably would make us
reserve it and amortize it, bring it into the budget over so many years so that it wouldn't be like a one-time uh special revenue. Wouldn't it make sense to use that money to pay down debt that we have so that way the taxpayers
aren't hit with another large increase in subsequent years? So again, the state would have to allow us to bring it in as an anticipated revenue because I don't think that they would let us bring it in as MNA. So they would probably force us
to reserve it for sale of land and then they may say bring it in over 5 years or you know we'd have to make a case. So it would have to be a discussion with local government services. It's certainly a sale big enough um that they would have a lot of input
on it because I could bring it in if there was no oversight. I would bring it in as MNA and it would dramatically inflate fund balance and then you know this council could say all right well let's pay down bands you know five six 7 million and
we'll just anticipate it in fund balance and that would probably be a good thing but local government services might not go for that um just because I've seen it before where they forced
a City of Orange and Essex County when they did the reservoir and the county of Essex gave Orange a big upfront money, they forced them to then bring it into the budget over the course of so many years so that they didn't put it in all
at once and then create this sort of revenue uh valley because it's like way up and now you've used it all and now it's gone. and then you know you've raised appropriations up and now you don't have
the revenue next year to support it and now you're hitting the taxpayers over the head. So they forced them to sort of, you know, bring it in so that it was a more level uh revenue increase. Thank you. Isn't it possible that we're going to get $3 million from Green Acres this year? Uh
it's it's a possibility. Um, I would think we might just get the year one and two. Those that's three million. Well, it's a it was 1 million50 was year one and I think year two is the same amount. Okay. Um, was close. It
would be great if we got both in. Yeah. Is it guaranteed we're going to get the million this year? They've Well, no, I don't want to say it's guaranteed. Why? So, I I to the audience, sorry, I wasn't speaking to the mic. I asked the CFO, "If we get the million dollars from
Green Acres this year, A, is it guaranteed? B, can we use that million dollars to help reduce the budget, you know, by more than a percent, almost 2%. So, because then we don't have to find
800,000 or more, you know, more more if we can. Obviously, the goal is to reduce as much as we can, but at least we have a million dollars." So the goal is always the goal has been that the money that comes in from Green Acres would be used to pay down the debt. If you wanted
to reduce the budget, you would be using that as an anticipated revenue and not increasing the amount of the the pay down of the ban. And I don't know if DLGS would let us
even do that. Number one, um but then we're losing the benefit of paying down the debt. Yeah. With that money, especially because we're hit because the state didn't, you know, that the schools funding was cut by the state. So hopefully the state would do
what they can to help us with that and help our taxpayers. Hopefully, they'll be good partners and do the right things. Well, and then they're offering the schools extra money if they jack up the levy to the max. So, that's the offer that's that's gone before the school
boards. Um, you know, it's, you know, our our res the tough bill to swallow. Our residents are hurting. You know, between the reevaluation and now this 6% tax increase plus the increase with the schools. I'm just trying to think of
creative ways that we can use money to bring down the proposed tax increase. I I've not seen a green acres just allowed to be brought in as a special item of revenue. It may have happened um but it would require their permission because
it would fall under that special item of revenue. I'm confident it could be used as a um reserve for debt service to pay down the note. No, I I I I I think they would allow it
because it's so tied to the acquisition um totally. Well, I mean, it is 100% tied to the acquisition. Um that they would allow it to come in as the reserve for debt service and pay down a ban because it's that's why we're not staying uh that's why they're not
permanently financing it. We're allowing us ourselves the flexibility of being in bands. Now, the negative side of staying in bands is that the fluctuation of the market. You know, these are one-year
issuances. Permanently financing, you know, you're locked in. So, you look for those opportunities to permanently finance. So if rates were to go down like they did a few years ago, we might just say let's permanently finance
rather than remaining in the ban market and even doing big payowns because the savings is going to be there with the lower interest rates. So you know we may end up pivoting with that. Um but to your getting back to your point, um when
we get the money, you know, we can have that conversation. Uh, and we're gonna have that conversation with DGS as well. Thank you so much. The the one piece I want to point out that's not tied to a note
um is the 15th of the severance liability from 2024. So, we weren't able to do notes for it because that didn't pass. Um, but we did pass the special emergency. So, I
still am raising the 15th of that 2024 special emergency. Wait, can you can you talk about how that happened in 24, please? So, the council agreed to pass the special emergency resolution, but
did not pass the ordinance that would allow us to issue notes. So, I couldn't issue a note for the whatever it was, the 1.8 million.
Um, but I was allowed to do the special emergency for the 1.8 million and I can raise it. I just didn't have the cash for it. I can explain what happened. So, that was a very long council meeting night. It was like a 1:00 a.m. 2 a.m.
meeting. Oh, that's No, that was that was like a two 230 2:30 in the morning meeting. And myself and Councilwoman Scarpa both were against this. This is $1.8 million for contractual severances because they couldn't guarantee that the comp controller said that it was lawful
to vote for this cuz we got a report that it was unlawful. And so therefore, because it was so late, I apologized. I didn't pay attention. I voted yes and so did SCARPA. Then when it came to the resolution that failed. So therefore it
failed and we we didn't bond the 1.8 million. Correct. So that's what happened. That's why we shouldn't have meetings after midnight or really 11. So So even though you didn't borrow the money, you still have to pay back basically one. We still have to raise it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we put it in as
an emergency because otherwise we would have been overexpended in the trust. Um, and if we were overexpended in the trust, we would have been forced to raise the entire amount. Um, so the emergency resolution saved us from that respect, but we don't we're
not allowed to borrow the cash to fund the 1.8. So, we've really funded it out of our own current funds. Yeah. The the last piece I want to talk about because I know it's after 9ine and um I'm starting to lose my voice anyway.
Uh is the authorized but not issued and this is part of our net debt. So, anytime we pass an ordinance, even if we haven't spent a dime, if the council adopts an ordinance and there is an
amount that is authorized to be borrowed, it adds to our net debt. So, it's a very conservative uh system that says you have the capacity to borrow this. So, even if I haven't borrowed anything, I haven't spent anything, it's still part of our
net debt. So I want to show what we have authorized out here that we have not issued either permanent financing a bond or a note for. So the top piece here is everything
related to the joint meeting. So as as members of the joint meeting, we frequently have to do uh ordinances to pay for the amount that we've been assessed for the joint
meetings capital projects. So just to interrupt you, you might want to explain to people what the joint meeting is. It's has nothing to do with cannabis. Right. So the join meeting is is a a sewage facility and our the
majority of our sewer um we have some that goes to Verona too but the majority of our sewage goes into the joy meeting where it's you know processed and cleaned and released uh you know as a as fresh
water. So we pay and it's part of our current fund budget. We pay uh an operational amount and then when the joint meeting authority, so it's a state authority, does a capital program, it
assesses all of its members. Some municipalities go ahead and raise that. We can talk about Milbour. Milbour goes ahead and puts that into their current fund budget. So they prepare for it and
they reserve amounts every year for joint meetings so that when joint meetings says, "Hey, we need $3 million for this capital project," they have it on hand and so they won't have to go out and borrow and and be part of a bigger
issuance with the NJI bank. Just to follow up on that, Milurn does not carry debt. Is that correct? They didn't carry debt until this year. Oh, um they are carrying debt now related to the uh um
renovation of town hall. Um so they bought a building uh and they're temporarily staged in that building for the next year and a half, two years and then they have debt related to um the renovation of of town hall and they're doing a new council chambers and
courtroom and all that. And then I think they may have had to issue debt for um um for the the playhouse um because they they took that over. They owned that. That's right. And and uh they they pay their assessments. They
don't borrow to correct. So they reserve a smaller number. Right. So they they reserve their assessments. They also um again up until recently they've they've always done a pay as you go where they'll say we're going to put a
million dollars towards a firet truck or let's say $500,000 towards a firetruck and then after four years they got $2 million and now they can buy the fire truck. Um so they do pay as you go financing. Um so the joint meeting authorizations
uh we have not borrowed because we don't borrow until we're told to. Um a piece of this is related to a project that the joint meeting has done um to bolster its
infrastructure from flooding. So if the sewage facility floods and the power goes out, that's a real problem for everybody. Um so they've done a lot uh in the last few years um
to sort of prevent future flooding, you know, the hundred-year type floods. Hopefully 90% of that is going to get picked up by FEMA. And if that happens, we're going to end up cancelling a big part of this
authorization and then only having to go out for the 10% um that they need. I don't know when that's going to happen. I've only been in touch with the the financial advisor for the joint meeting because they call all the the entities and that was the
conversation that we had. So, you know, fingers crossed FEMA is going to pay for a lot of the joint meetings capital and then they're going to tell us, okay, out of the 18.8 million you have authorized, you know, maybe you only need to pay us
2 million, for instance. Um, but for now, we are going to carry these as as authorized as, you know, because joint meeting tells us this is what you need to do. So, we've done it. But hopefully in the future, we're not going to have
to issue 18.8 million in joint meeting debt. The other piece here, these are all of our uh ordinances. Yes, we will cancel this ordinance. 254418. There was leftover from when
they permanently financed this ordinance and it's still being carried. But these other projects um the the two 21s and the 24 um we have not issued any
debt for and uh um you know we just haven't needed the cash flow really for these. Uh this is the most recent one that was done at the end of last year. No, no, maybe September I think we did this one. Um,
so we haven't needed to fund these projects. We have sufficient cash flow in the general capital from our other issuances. I have a question for you. So I noticed we bonded money for the sewer last year. Did you get a chance
to speak to the water company to see if we can move to usage based uh model just because that what was what was promised from our previous CFO and it was never delivered and we have residents that ask us constantly because the fee is very high right so I haven't spoken to the
water company I spoke to our soon to be new partners Edmonds and we have a discussion about this and it can be done with Edmonds utilizing American water data with our current munex system. It cannot be done.
It just simply cannot interface. We don't have the right is antiquated. Yes. Okay. And it's the block and lot structure that we have set up. They don't have a solution to cross reference with the account IDs that American Water
does. Edmmonds can and they've done it plenty of times in the past. So, how soon can we get that data? So, from admins. Edmonds is not going to be online until the end of Q1 2026. That's our transition. That is the fastest that Edmonds can do it. They are a company
that is growing exponentially every year. And there's a a long transition wait. And I have begged and pleaded to get our tax system done even before that to no avail. And I mean, we're going to be a big client for them. And still they
just don't have the bandwidth to take us on until then. I mean we've started the process. I have a weekly meeting with Edmmonds talking about the transition, but they will not have us up and running until the end of Q1 2026. So unfortunately our there won't be any anticipated changes until next year with
sewer. For 2025 we have updated bedroom data due to the revaluation. Mhm. Um, so that should be more accurate because we've had inspectors in, you know, not I'm not
going to say every property because they don't get into every property, but hopefully we have more accurate bedroom data. Um, that's sort of our option right now. Okay. U, we just can't interface munex with American water. So, thank you.
Uh, Councilman Castle, Councilwoman Castalino has a question from above. Yes. Thank you, Council President. So, Mr. Datiniac, thank you for the explanation. So, with the uh joint meeting, are those bonds or those those
ordinance items, are they included in your debt ratio statement currently? So if FEMA does come in to save the day, that would significantly lower our debt ratio. Correct. So it'll cut it down. It'll cut it down. Yes. So we would have
to take action as not we you would have to take action and cancel these ordinances, you know, as per joint meeting and and bond council would would direct. Um but it would reduce the net debt.
Um if we if we just look at though what we have like sort of recapping um authorized but not issued total right now is 39,961,000. Our current bands
um as of 1231 is 71 million in bands. And then we have um what do we have remaining in oh leaving off
2024. Um it was 170 170 million and change at the end of last year. That's what you're looking for. So we have we have 60,349,000 in uh in bonds including the open space bonds. I'm not counting the
assessment bonds because again those taxpayers that have been assessed whatever whether was a sewer or some sewer connections uh it was u sewer and road improvements in the wellland park in the park. Okay. Um they're paying for
that as part of their their tax bill. they get a separate special assessment bill. Yeah. So, you know, that's what we owe from a debt perspective. It we also have to pay back 15 million. It's just not part of our net debt, but we have to
pay back 15 million in bond interest. So, this is going to be part of the budget um for the foreseeable future. It's not included in net debt, but I don't want to pretend that we don't have to pay for it, of course.
So, so yes, we we have a a sizable debt portfolio. There's no getting around that. The difficulty is in, you know, normally you could say in 2029,
one of those bands is going to we're going to turn it into a a permanent financing because we have the debt cliff here in 2029. And so now we can start absorbing more principle. Um, same thing is when you get into the later years,
you go out and you can finance those bands. Um, you know, I'm looking at the modeling of paying bands down with just taxpayer dollars. Well, it's all taxpayer dollars, but paying it without going to permanent financing.
The difficulty is number one, you have to set a base year. So, do you use 2025 as a base year and say, you know, we're going to pay however many millions of dollars and are we comfortable with staying at that or
even growing that by a few percentage points for the foreseeable future and at some point in the future we're not relying on bands. We're actually doing like what Milbour does and reserving a
lot of our our money. But that's the difficulty just like uh losing weight or you know budgeting or it takes discipline and you know we may not have the stomach for keeping debt service at
those levels. So, I I know it's taking me a long time, but there is a lot that's going into the modeling and I don't want to present something that's halfbaked and I've been getting my financial advisor, who's not charging me for it, thank God. Um, to look at these
things and give me his input on that. Um, but Oh, sorry. No, that was it, right? This you're done with your presentation. It seems like you were closing. I was going to say something. It was and I was so close to my closing. No, go ahead. I
just I'm done. Thank you. You know, in this my third year and in the first two years, we never got such a detailed explanation or breakdown like this. So to see your graphs, to see your charts, see your Excel sheet and then your explanation that you've, you know,
broken down in layman terms, I appreciate it and I just want to say thank you. So the the one piece that again we we need to figure out then and you brought it up earlier uh Councilman Gber and and this whole council has
mentioned it in in many of the past meetings is is figuring out then what the annual authorization needs to be as part of this plan. Mhm. And and that's the difficult part because early on it
it might not be enough. Um you know, authorizing only a couple million dollars for our size and and our needs might not be enough. Will not be enough. Um so that's the other factor that goes into this. The ongoing needs. We I can't
just worry about paying off the things that we've done. We are going to continue to do things. Um, and and and that's that's part of this this equation, too. And I don't have an answer for it tonight. Um, but it's it's part of what we're looking at. Excuse
me. I still have another question. Please go ahead, Councilwoman. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Jane, can you go back to that chart with the where the joint meeting was on top and then we had the other items on the bottom, please?
Sure. So you're talking about so when you got to the middle of the bottom tier with the capital. So as we know we do have some capital projects still out there such as that Lafayette Park. What other
items still haven't we have been completed or just hanging out there? like would are you going to either cancel the projects or bring them to us or how are we going to proceed with projects that um we have ordinances
on that are not completed yet? What are your thoughts on that? Lafayette Park is is part of that $54 million uh bond anticipation note. It it is part of that um particular issuance. So, we
have the cash for that one. Um, okay. Big picture though, I understand what you mean, is we do need to review old projects and cancel out or reallocate, you know, depending on what
our needs are and and sort of just do a cleanup and our and our auditors have recommended it. You know, they not only recommended the the the grants to look at grants, but, you know, they've also talked about going back and looking at ordinances. So, that is definitely an
exercise that we're going to have to do. Um, and if we have things just sort of hanging out there that the project is not going to happen or it's done or whatever, um, we can do some cleanup and either put them to something new or go
ahead and cancel them. Um, if it's I will say if it's a if it's a a ban and you cancel a project that you have an outstanding note for, we would not renew the note for the amount that we've
canled. So, it essentially pays it down. Um, still pay interest on the original issuance, but you would just renew it for less. If you have a project that's fully funded um by permanent financing and it's cancelled, that money can go
back into fund balance and then it can be used as a revenue. If you wanted to pay down, you know, more debt, you'd have that revenue available to use. Okay. All right. Thank Thank you. And I echo my colleagues comments. I really appreciate the extended information
um that you've been giving us and breaking all this down. It's it it has been refreshing and informative. So, thank you. I'm done now, Council President. Thanks. Thank you. Can I have one more? Sure. Questions, but please go ahead. Okay.
Um the amounts that that I've talked about, um there's really there's no negotiating these numbers like you can't and I'm trying to say this in the nicest way possible. I have to make this payment. There are a
few things as a CFO I can do without your approval and one of them is pay debt. So I would pay the bonds. I would pay the interest on the notes for whatever it would need to be. So there you can't and even the principal payown. Now principal payown you could say you
want more. Yes, you could say you want more. You can't say you want less than what's required. Where are we going to find the more? And you've already made a payment this year. Yes. But you you could say that you want more.
Yes. And the dynamic of that is the more principle you pay down, especially early, the lower your interest costs on the bands. Correct. It's that's the big benefit. But as you pointed out about discipline, you got to be disciplined and and uh what is it? Uh what's the
phrase? Uh delayed gratification. Yes. as opposed to everybody coming and saying borrow from my project now. Yeah. Right. I have a question. Oh, hold on. Hold on just a second. Hold on a second. Councilwoman Scarpa. Yeah. So, given that um how quickly are we going to look
at review old projects because that seems to be the way to do it. Review old and reallocate funds. We could start looking at it now. I mean, I think we should the old projects, all projects. Yeah.
Every project we should be looking at and prioritizing and it's a multi-part process because in some cases like Lafayette Park, we've already borrowed the money. Correct. So, we need to decide if we're not going to do the project. And I'm not talking about Lafayette because I think it's a
great project. Just want to make sure everybody's clear. But there are probably other things that we've already borrowed for that the money is sitting somewhere that we can't earn hardly any interest on because of state law. Our federal law, I guess. Yeah. The arbitrage law. And uh uh
but we can we can get to it, but we just have to we have to get a list of of all of these different aspects. And it's I'm sure it's going to be a total pain because that's not as easy to pull together as the information you've you pulled together here. But that's what we need to look at to start trying to
figure out there. There's a good audit schedule that we can, you know, we can sort of copy where it's it gives you the balance of the ordinance and then tells you, you know, is it financed by permanent financing,
is it financed by notes, or it's, you know, authorized but not issued at this point. So, I could try to mirror that and that probably will give you all the information that you'd want in one schedule. Um, because then you could see what's unspent and then, you know,
what's funded and what's not. So, and we'd have to match that with the actual bond ordinance which actually said what we were going to borrow it for. Right? You you're just talking about numbers, but we need to get the the spending or the the project, right? So, so like
if even when you look at uh like a ban issuance, um you know, they'll they'll give you like here you go, you got acquisition of Rock Spring. Um this is the 11 million. So, it'll give you the the ordinance
number and it takes the description from Now, that says gold course. Did we actually buy a gold course? Because now we can take care of all of our debt. This is great news. says, "I never read the OS." Problem solved. Wow, that's
uh it's quite a typo. I I I happens to best of us. I didn't write this. So, so for somebody, all of the bonds that that are borrowed, they have to be spent
for that particular project unless we change it. Unless we as a council change it, right? And what is the process of of changing it? So, if if you're going to reallocate, you're going to have to do a new ordinance. Um, if you
cancel funded projects, I've seen it done as a resolution. Um, but if it's not permanently financed, you're going to do another ordinance. Okay. And that's all I have. Council President, looks like you drained the
subject. Any questions? No. So when you ever whenever you can find time to start pulling all this data together because the sooner the better. Mhm. Please. But this is very informative, very helpful. Thank you. I hope everybody in town sees this
presentation. Yeah. Anything else? Oh, I just want to thank John again. Thank you, Councilwoman. And I hope you're feeling better. Thanks. This makes me feel a lot better that we're on track.
Can't tell you how much better. Should I make a motion to adjourn? Well, what I would like to do before you do just I I'll I'll save it for you, but I just want to give the details of the next meeting if I could at least tenatively
speaking. Our next council workshop, budget workshop is scheduled for May 21st. That's a week from today, again from 6:00 to 9:00. And we will be we plan subject to perhaps change to go
over the budgets for the health department, recreation, engineering, and public works. So if we fit all of those in in three hours, I'll I'll be very pleased. May 21st. Council President, we uh I just sent back to the clerk's
office to publish that um as the notice and I'm going to let the directors know. Okay. So that we then that we agreed on the you know and I would like all the council people to take a look at that at at Mr. Samaraldo's memo that went out. Yes. And just to make sure you you guys
are okay with the areas of uh of interest that we're going to go over and that sort of thing. So maybe we can send it out tomorrow. Okay. If that's okay. I'll rely on Dena outing job. Drum roll. I make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Do I have a second? Second. All those in
favor? I I miss the meeting for you guys. Next week I have to join virtually as well and then come in when I'm done with my Okay. Thank you everyone. Thank you. You had fun. Mr. Fagan, are
we finished?