hey one to what page will we be on here five page five word of Health OE okay I'm going to call to order the meeting of the West Windsor Township Council this is a work session on the
township budget for March 11 2025 thank you Allison can you call the rooll sure gaas here Jers here mandal here Weiss here Whitfield here and have we adequately noticed yes on February 21st
2025 to the times in the Princeton packet filed with the municipal clerk and posted that the municipal bill building and on the township website please stand for the salute to the flag thank you um we're having a little bit of a change in the order that this
morning um first one up is going to be Jill uh from uh Board of Health so if you will um our health officer so if you will introduce yourself and give a summary please thank you hi jel Swanson I'm the health officer for West Windsor
Health Department um as you know um as the Board of Health the health department provides essential services that are State mandated primarily State mandated functions we also provide services for two additional communities
through shared services agreements um I have distributed the annual report both on the website and to council so I will briefly go over our 2024 accomplishments um since you've heard many of these
previously um we um in 2024 we continued to receive um some robust funding through the Federal and State Health Department um for our services and this was in response to pandemic we um used
some of that funding in 2024 for supplementing staff and the work that was done was also um health promotion infectious disease Outreach um monitoring and some work within the building such as the um electric
generator for the health department vaccine Refrigeration now support generators and they the health department so that was all accomplished through grant funding um in addition um staff um
it are required to do cus for routine um training year-to year some staff in our environmental division have additional certifications that require regular updates and certifications so um both grant funding and our operating budget
support that work in addition we were able to have two of our staff members obtain the certified health education specialist certification in 2024 and our public health nurse successfully completed um certified
infection is now certified sorry I think I was losing that um so those were some big accomplishments we have not previously been able to um take care of and in 2024 that was a um big step for
our department having a certified infection control professional um on staff in 2025 we will continue to work with our partners doing uh Community
Health Improvement planning um that um greater Mercer Public Health Partnership has been a long-term um infusion in our department for that um very um specific need doing that
project alone would be very expensive for the health department so partnering with other health departments in the hospitals makes that feasible in addition Penn Medicine Princeton does a separate Community Health Improvement planning process and we do work with them on their Community Advisory Board
and we will continue that work in 2025 the department is also currently working on a local risk communication plan and we will work with um our state and County Partners um later this spring to do an exercise
exercising the county plan and our plan will be um will will reflect um some of the initiatives in that plan we are also encouraging our current Workforce Development in the inspection team and
the public health nurse to continue to work towards leadership training so that um the department is positioned for future transitions um we're nearly complete with transferring our historic block and lot files onto laser fish and we hope to
have um that work completed early this year and that will help streamline our oper request and additional um requests from the public for that type of information continuous quality improvement is also a priority and the
two projects we're working on in 2025 is our website Health Department website organization and um standard operation procedures refining those initiatives and um that about sums up
our 2025 um targeted goals for our budget our operating budget is a flat budget this year some minor shifts from Line to Line um again um I know I said this last year but we we continue to have that grant
funding through par partially through this year we do expect to lose those Grant funds um into um July 1st of 2025 uh one of the grants we were
notified earlier um last week in the early part of the week that we will um potentially have an additional 20,000 that we can spend through 2026 June of 2026 but um if you take a look at the last page of the accomplishments it
breaks down our grant funding over the last two years and you'll see that that's the 20,000 is not a lot compared to what we've been seeing to support our staff and supplies and and init initiatives we've had over the last couple of years so we are um looking at
some shifts and we'll be a little bit more reliant on the operating budget moving forward than we have been in the last couple of years thank you so that's why we're keeping it flat um instead of cutting it the last two years and then massive
increase this year we kept it flat even though we didn't spend it whatever we don't spend every two years goes back to fund bounds um because of the um the grant funding but that is now cycling out so so that's why we U we kept their budget flat for the last three years so
the operating budget's flat yes but this this salary and wages going up is that because you're going to lose the grant money and the part of it is um you know in um for normal increases and the grants um and I know you have um you
like a resource guide I know you just did a pet uh guide and uh I think there's a mental health guide too we did we um released one two years ago and we've updated it over the last year um in addition we um have been using as our
response to outbreak and communic disease the demand has transitioned down as the pandemic um came to a close those staff that were on boarded for those purposes have been transitioned into
health education and Outreach and also um public health emergency planning so our pod plan which is the pointed distribution plan was revised um that's a very large document um that guides US during an emergency for vaccination or
medic medication distribution um the risk communication again is a plan that we would use at times of um it could be a storm it could be an outbreak and any type of Emergency Response where um we need to get quick messages out um it
lays out some um guidelines for the office to move forward and some message mapping mapping so we're not starting from the ground floor during those um types of incidents so we've tried to take those staff and transitioned them
um from that high workload that diminished into areas that will be helpful for future emergencies and in addition for the the um partnership building and working with our seniors and our housing complexes so the the staff is out there on a regular
basis um forming those Partnerships and trying to solidify our interactions with those agencies I'm just thinking in terms of the public I think a lot of the public don't do not really know what goes on
and what's available and uh ways that we could try to let them know that this uh this is available um so I mean the council can do that and and you said you're you're redoing the website I assume that's being integrated with the website that's
being redone for the town itself so yes yeah so anything that can be done to let people know after you've done all this work that this is available um you know I it would be a good thing to do yes and and we do do um some
outreaches with email blasts so for instance we have email blasts with all of our faith-based organizations with schools with child carees so as we develop for example the pet manual that you um had mentioned that was forwarded to different contact lists that we
maintain within a department via email um so it it doesn't just go to the website and on a countertop it's blasted out to through different partners um and you know it's a fine line trying to navigate not inundating folks with
information but yet those important things getting them out to be partner with the school district um to send out information because that like District definitely has a larger email um blocks we do at times
and again we look at what we we are Distributing and decide which Partners we think it would be appropriate to send that out but the school system has been tremendously helpful especially when we have to get quick messages out
about communic disease or clinics that we may be having um notices that are in you know important um to catch everyone's attention and and they are very cooperative and helpful right because the school district H sends out
a um newsletter um every Friday um I think as long as you can get in the information by Wednesday they can include it in that and they do have a community um section in that so okay great that might be another way of um
including information yeah okay very good that would be you big thing measles outbreaks in other states like Texas and then you know just doesn't take too long before I think there case or two up in North Jersey and all so well spring
break is going on right now and coming up for our district too so when travel happens yeah yeah most of the cases um the the cases in North Jersey that you're um referencing were travel related um so it is important that as you're traveling
internationally especially if you have a young child that's unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated and some um older um adults um my age um may not have current records or may not have been fully
vaccinated when you're younger so that may put you at risk and we we often do um receive notifications of individuals who have been exposed um and they're um in a position where they're searching for their vaccination records from when
they were a child so that may be something to do on a rainy day make sure you know where those important information is in case you take a trip and you're exposed you have documentation and especially preparing um if you're traveling with individuals
who are immune compromised or young and not fully vaccinated you may want to reconsider where you're traveling or talk to your physician about having some boosters or early vaccinations and there are some recommendations for children if you're traveling in into certain areas
to receive some early vaccinations and th those of us who have had measles supposedly are okay I believe because that's what I've been reading yes if you have documented immunity yes there's no document yeah that's yeah
you I mean unless you take antibody unless you go and get U antibodies and get tested this right it's difficult nobody has any record or that um but I think I've been I think the thing is that 1957 if you were born before 1957
you can assume or yes you're presumed yes yeah H we have the travel tips on our website I'm sorry do we have the travel tips is on the I know we were working on updating them I'm not sure if they're up there yet um the staff was working on this over the last week to
try to um get some fresh information and reformat it sometimes the information hasn't changed so much but if it doesn't look fresh and um it looks the same there's not as many hits on it so we are trying to refresh some important
documents so it carers some attention and I I assume that anything that involves international travel you would send them over to the federal site which gives U gives the updates on what's happening in each area of the world right there's links on the CDC website
um it's um Travel Health on under CDC and you can put in almost any D destination you can think of and it will provide you with um information on what the health concerns are whether it's a
communic disease or um some other health related matter in in that area and also safety issues that you need to be concerned with in certain parts of the world I think there's even a way to get updates uh if you put in right you can
sign up for an email update yep okay um one of the things that we've been sort of talking about is just general Community engagement like how do we get this information out and get it to be more accessible um and you've talked about lots of
different ways that we can do that which is all great is there in your teams somebody who essentially is accountable for putting together a community engagement plan per se or sort of a more sort of comprehensive you know top level
view of how do you go about doing this it's it's actually probably something that I think every Department should um start considering of how they go about engaging with our community because that's I think without that piece everything else you do sort of has less
impact so know given any thought to how you actually go about doing this so we have um the closest thing that we would have would be our risk communication plan um that we're currently working on now and we have right now with um the Staffing that we currently have we have
an Outreach team and we beet weekly and discuss these types of topics such as which Partners what type of communication channels is it formalized in a in a written plan I can shoot over to you not necessarily um but it is a
weekly discussion based on the topic and what's currently happening and um that's important yeah and it's a diverse team we we have health Educators public health nurse sometimes our um inspectors will sit in depending on what the topic
is for example example with um if we have a communal disease issue um that was related to food born illness we will have the inspection team sit in um so it's based on what's Happening that particular week is there opportunities
for any paid advertising of its services have you ever done that before we have not no we have not obviously that would cost money yeah you you have been um um going to community events and having a
table set up i' I've seen last year you you did few of those so we do quite a few of those yes yeah yeah um we've gone to parent teacher night um we've also um we're at the senior center on a regular basis um some of the housing complexes
of The Gables we will go out and do specific presentations and it's a combination sometimes it's a topic that we want to bring awareness to and other times it's a community group that's asking us that um could be a Boy Scouts
group saying we need a presentation on limes and and the public health nurse and health educator will go out and do an um a program or could be initiated by our staff um during our Outreach meetings the topic of um our concern
maybe okay how are we going to get this word out and that's how we do our planning for for something um one problem is information overload everybody's getting everything so much that when the important thing comes they
don't even pay attention sometimes so when the important thing comes like let's say there's a couple of cases of measles right in West Winds or um how do we get that do we have a procedure in place that even if it happens on Sunday at 10 10 p.m and you find out is there
some procedure in place whether it's nixel or uh something to get the word out so people understand that there is a communicable disease assum assuming that's what you would consider something we have to get word out right away right so certainly nixel if we needed to get
word out to a large number of people quickly nixel would be and and we've used that during um emergencies such as weather emergencies where it's very quick um something like a communal disease um measles obviously our
priority is going to be um controlling in that spread and the immediate exposures the close contacts so we wouldn't necessarily start with a public notification initially initially we
would be starting with the close contacts and if we felt in a case investigation if we felt there was a need um say the individuals went to Community Day and there was a large exposure obviously then nixel would be
uh a mechanism we would use the township website um if it's School related we would immediately be working with the school system um and trying to P pin down the best way to notify the individuals that could be exposed I think School District
also has a lot of policies on on health emergencies and all that so I'm sure you work with them on that absolutely and they're very Cooperative to work with and very helpful and it's not it's not always that age group either so it could be it could be anything it could be
contamination somewhere it could be some some kind of Health Emergency or something happened in a restaurant where maybe there was something uh yeah um besides the physical health the mental health is
important too so have we done any anything new on that even for seniors even even for people you know your parents get older certain things happen to certain people you know I have this element that element but but then
there's also so things like um dementia Alzheimer's what what are the warning signs how do you deal with that I was just having a conversation with somebody who called me the other day about that um do we do much in that area so we have done um some programs on Mental Health
at the senior center our Public Health nurses have been over um I I don't recall how they framed it um I know um the um it was in the winter and they were approach approaching it as winter
Blu so they did offer um a session on that you know but again that's a um a small group that may be attending so when we do something like that the materials that we put together we will also post to the website we'll we'll
send out an email blast to different partners so not only are the 20 people who may have attended that session at the senior center but we try to use that same material and blast it out in different ways um so yeah yeah and um like as far as
mental health in particular I know the county has an organization and I think they've just expanded it to even add volunteers to it is this something that we can leverage by asking the county to come into various um places and and use
some of their expertise and their time to do that we can look at that we do have a member um I've talked about the greater merer Public Health Partnership in the community health Improvement planning process and one of the focus
areas through that group is mental health so one of our team members does sit on um that work group to try to coordinate with the greater um Mercer area and the partners within the county that have specialty in mental health so
that we can make individuals aware of the resources that are in are available if you're in the county cuz um I do remember when we had the Avalon fire a few years ago um I had contacted the
County Mental Health uh group and um we had a large event on a Sunday where we were all there and we were and there was Collections and we were giving uh money and collections to the people that were affected the 24 families um and the
county did send in oh like four or five people and we put them in a corner to do uh mental health and and it was actually very useful people were going in there were a lot of kids that were affected and um that was obviously an emergency
type of situation but uh it made me aware that they do have this ability and this facil this um resource that is available so it's something we might want to think of either on a uh emergency or special basis or perhaps on
a uh basis of um like a few times a year or something like that yes um okay does anyone have any questions in general before we do the budget anybody more you mentioned a risk communication plan so guess that'll be
done by by the end of this year yes I hope sooner than that but it is um a work in progress okay John you want to go through um go if just real quick page six which is the Housing section as you
know last year was the was a new new item for us because of the um lead base requirements and I just want to point out that the um salary wages stay the same and the OE has dropped from a request of 109,000 down to
28350 and that's because of um the great work done by Jill to um Source out a um consultant to handle all our requirements so we didn't have to hire staff and um it's it's working out well
so we're keeping that as a separate department but it's essentially a consultant that's being managed correct right and um we do have one um staff member who is the liaison with that consultant on a regular basis and um in
many towns this program falls under um through DCA under the Construction office um so you know we don't necessarily get that direct link at all time I just found out actually um yesterday that they extended the deadline for
compliance to 2025 that's so so we're ahead of the game um but we are only at about 44% um compliance of our estimated rentals so we do have some work and
there'll be a mailing going out again um to those properties We Believe are rent tools that were um built during this time period to try to gain compliance before this coming July and this is right now totally about the lead
compliance correct right so it's for homes that are being rented and the um it's a requirement that they are inspected either um by a private inspector of their choice or through the
consultant that we have partnered with at the township and have the the property inspected for any um lead paint has potential lead bait lead paint hazards um or to have a leadfree
certification which is a more in-depth inspection that actually tests the paint that's there to determine whether there's lead and then there um after those inspections are done there's a certificate that's issued it's filed with the township um and needs to be
renewed if it's a lead safe every two years right and do you foresee State passing something else that we now need to do something similar for uh could be blood could be water uh could be something else do you foresee something
else that would come under this I have not heard conversation to that effect but um you know I I I'm I have no awareness of something else coming from the pike we have a we have a line item in a department if if something like
that does come okay okay there's no other questions we could move Capital section under under Human Services Capital page 54 do you have one the Animal control-u
Health Services is that under you um no Animal Control is actually a contract under the police Department um we do interact quite often with animal control um but it's supervised under police I just want to double check yeah
that that went up yeah I saw that too okay so if you go to Capital under Human Services page 54 Jill has one item I do want to give you a little footnote right now as a placeholder we have 60,000 in for um our second purchase of
an electric vehicle um but um we're in the process to get quotes and look like the price the electric wheels are are coming down so that price may go down a little bit um when we get some State contract more information between now and the ordinance just just note that
that that amount May and and that would be an electric SUV either another maky or some yeah because of the storage requirements for their going out on location right and there's not you know I just want to clarify there's not a lot of options for the that midsize electric
vehicle so we're not necessarily choosing the Maki for its look or name or whatever um we're choosing it because it's a midsize hatchback that gives us some storage space
um the and you know in the fully electric there really are not a lot of options for US unless we go very small or larger or you start going to to Mercedes or something like that which I don't think we we're going to do um
so um so uh you want to how is how is that vehicle working out right now it it works fine um we still have um the two Escape so depending on what we're doing
we we may choose one of we have an escape and the Jeep so depending what we're doing we may use one of the other vehicles um but storage wise being being able to get out into the field it it's working fine
um and no maintenance issues no maintenance issues at all um yeah so no concern so far so good so far so good and we still do have an $8,000 grant for a um charging station
so we'll probably use that grant for this next purchase and just to clarify these vehicles are used by our Inspection Team primarily um they do not go home it would be a very rare um occasion that a vehicle goes to an
inspector's home I can count on one hand and 30 some years how many times that's had to happen and and it was worth related um you will see the vehicles at the mall because we do inspections of restaurants we do supermarkets we're at
the parks we do youth camps we do complaint inspections so you will see these vehicles parked in areas um that are commercial in nature well I assume that's been like that for 30 years or whatever right that we've had
our vehicle um the 8,000 Grand that you mentioned John is is there an um expiry date for that um I think there is but I think it's um next year so we should be fine y um well by the time we got
approval for the grant we applied before we purchased the other one but by the time got the approval it took them almost nine months um it couldn't be used retroactively so has had to be moving forward is the grant only for municipal
use um the public this is for municipal use yes there's there's other things there there is other grants out there um but so far we haven't received any so I mean there's other the public is a different program it's a whole yeah yeah
this is just for the vehicle charge one one advantage to that vehicle is that we we shouldn't obviously be idling in a gas car as the health people um and if they need to leave the heat on somebody needs to stay in the car keep air
conditioning heat or anything like that it's it's not causing any point pollution at that point so that is a big Health advantage to having that electric vehicle um hybrid or hybrid
well yeah yeah it's funny the preliminary prices that we got for the hybrid were a couple thousand more than the fully electric so it's changed a little bit in the last still put the gas still have to put the oil change okay
all right yeah um okay any other capital in here nope that's the only capital for health anybody have any questions on this Capital before we move on no no go good um any other questions for Jill thank
you thank you very much than you thank you y your next page would be um in your regular budget page six and Adeline please introduce yourself morning my name is Adeline fall
I'm the manager at this the West Windsor Senior Center division of senior and Social Services um can I get started yes please yeah if you could start like just give a summary of your of the last your's accomplishments and the goals for next
year thanks sure just basis um the senior center is a focal point of the the community for residents 55 years of age or older offering programs activities and services to our aging residents um we're open Monday through
Friday from 8 to 4: um our staff consists of a manager Administrative Assistant secretary bus driver program facilitator instructors and volunteers um the programs that we offer are health
and wellness fitness art and Humanities education Transportation socialization um as a place to be for the residents and um Social Services information and referrals um so our
accomplishments this year we were able to provide a couple more classes um for 2024 we had our daily program our activities that were provided they're both virtual and in person um we have um are in the process
of a hybrid technology um we are offering a ARP right now ARP tax services and we do that yearly um we also offer ARP driver safety we work with different um agencies to provide different programs
and educational programs and um programs for um resident in the community but also for ARP it's actually open to everyone um for anyone um
let so we continue to receive assistance from Mercer County who allowed us to borrow a vehicle um we have extended our mou as well until April 2025 the township has the old buz back um um
which is currently um not being used as often but we are using the other one twice a week and a slight update the county has a receiv received bids for a new bus for us um so just a matter I'm working
through the um Bill process I think they anticipate anywhere from six to nine months um delivery so hopefully so hopefully in Fall we should hopefully I mean you know you never know how that goes but it's been awarded and it's moving
forward at this time we have about 34 residents that utilize well um is there waiting list for that not techly no at we do have a and you know what let me just break some bad
news um we no longer have a bus driver so we are in a and this just happened at the end of last week uh notifications been put on the website so um we are in the process of looking for a new bus driver so if you know of anybody who has a bus CDL and was looking for employment
um contact HR okay I I noticed that you put out something saying there was no bus service for the failable future so that's that's what that was about I was assuming okay he resigned left yeah we can't discuss that yeah no personel
please yes we don't have a bus driver right so we're looking for a bus driver anybody has a bus CDL um please please contact HR okay y so we also um as Senior Center
we send out semiannual and annual community surveys and um for our instructors um and for any of the classes that we have to receive feedback from the residents as we plan to continue to do so in the upcoming year of
2025 um we we continue to offer virtual Fitness Le and programs for the residents um each program will be analyzed with the participants and submitted an anonymous
anonymously um are we um I have an open door policy um so and phone policy for the residents to come to me and staff as well with their concerns would also provide the um surveys as a means of communication for our residents um and
we also provide quarterly newsletters and monthly updates to our residents um we have an email blast that we send out to you know the residents that we have um a list of and it's their daily or
monthly emails we do it on our we send information on our websites as well on the website and um we mail to um our residents that have limited access to um email so I think that pretty much
um I really love what's been done with um communicating with the residents that you do have on the list um there's updates there's reminders there's monthly there's quarterly uh newsletter but there's also the mon the monthly uh
calendar which is simple and then there's also reminders and and quick notifications if something is canceled or changed do you have any thoughts for how we can um get out to say some of the seniors who don't realize this is all
going on and so aren't signed up is there something we could be putting in there that would get that information out perhaps going into some of the um Senior Communities perhaps going uh into other communities where some people have
their parents living with them and the in the rest of the communities or some of the older people that's still stay uh that sort of just age in place and now don't realize that this is now available to them at a at a certain age there some
way to be some some way there could be a program to sort of reach everybody to let them know um that even even if you don't want to be an active come every day and hang out that there's a there's some really good programs some music programs some lectures that are
available that you'd want to be on the list and you'd want to know about um so we don't have anything at this time but what we could do is Maybe you know as staff members reach out to the 55 plus communities and maybe
provided to their leasing office or um their their Department of recreation um we can also possibly work with um we do have an advisory Council um and for the senior center and some of them are you
know religious members of the community um that receive these updates that can provide that information to you know the churches and um synagogues and things of that sorts if they wanted to um so I
mean I can also work with the chief and see if possibly we can send out a nixel but that's like to the majority and I I know we're only reaching a specific population so I'm not sure if you know I mean we can we can attempt to do that to
see if that's another way of Outreach um so residents are aware that there are others that are that there a senior center here and that there are services that we are and I think sometimes people think that oh this is a senior service and that's only for people who might
need Medicaid or it's only for people who might need they don't realize this is for everybody um so uh ju just in general just the population when they think of senior center and um so if there's some way to
get out like that or maybe some program for next year how do we how do we get that information out um so you do have a senior center advisory council is is that something that meets is that something heardly there are actually
residents that live in the community that we meet with and um we discuss the senior center um and um you know ways of Outreach but also what we can improve at the senior center as well and how to you know best fit the needs
of our 55 and over community and that membership is um anybody can join people invited because of their position no so I guess there there is a process um
we do have a a I forgot what you call him but um so there is one the one person who you would meet with and I know right now we're looking for a nurse that may be interested okay advisory
Council um and um to see if they're they could provide us feedback with the community but also you know we work with them a so it's it's a cross-section from you try to get a cross-section of people or people who might be in certain groups
that could correct could get other people all right it's just something I would think if we can reach out to more in the community let them know that this doesn't have to be their lifestyle even they can come for certain programs and maybe stay for the lifestyle um maybe if if there was some
sort of a a actual plan put together to make that happen because I think we have a terrific resource but it may be not known as much as possible so I think this is again the community engagement conversation that we had with Jill like how do
we programmatically proactively think about ways um and do it in a thoughtful you know programmatic fashion um the more I think about it the more I think we might have a need or not necessarily doing that individually in every
department but more of an umbrella function um at you know I see Carrie shaky um at sort of at the administrative level um that can support all the departments in the context of how do we do community engagement and maybe that also requires you know a
little bit of funding for advertising and other stuff that maybe that's the right way to start so kind of just spit fling right now but I think uh I think Community engagement is an area that um there's opportunities for us to to do
more budget season so so if there's money needed in that greater discussion Now's the Time time I mean personally I'd like to see an app but that we can talk about that when Administration comes up but um
anyway if there was something and this is a very specific group so uh and then you know the friends of West Winds are senior citizens could help out but that's another discussion um but but let but we should be doing that kind of of thinking whether or not we do through
through other ways and stuff how do we how do we reach out and let people know what this is all about so all right uh different question um so in the past the uh multi-purpose room in the um in the senior center used to be available in
evenings for Community groups um there's not that many options in West Windsor for Community groups to to to meet um mostly um the library is really the the one option that most people use
and that's pretty you know pretty high demand um and I guess it was around the co time when the opportunity to use that multi-purpose room in the evenings for Community groups stopped and to the best of my knowledge it hasn't sort of started up again is there um can you
speak at all to that is there um any plans to do that and what's sort of what is what's preventing us from being able to make that room available um I'm is that more of an
Administration it's part Staffing where our facilities maintenance doesn't have the ability to break down and set up the room and clean the room so limited Staffing I think is the biggest um part of that right now so
that having the pro the doors programmed and having staff on site when we have outside groups there is a concern as well just with I think the state of the world as well to ensure safety for
all of our staff members but I think really the ability to break down and setup because the senior center does have a lot of classes that start at 8: a.m. and there's a lot of setup and breakdown that goes into that so I think that that's a big so that would imply
it's a resource it's a resource yes is this something we're actively looking to to open up again budget season so I think that's a later discussion so in order to be able to provide that
service um it's additional St there's additional costs and we need to understand understand what those cost yeah well I I know from the from the school board they have a policy because um you know they're open till late at night with all sorts of groups sure and
even even recreation basketball on the weekends it goes around the clock and and there is I guess a provision I believe in the union contracts that that they know the people that are sort of say renting out a room where the gyms
have to pay um for for the janitor services exp there's a whole formula depends on how big the group is or how small and things but it's not it's not free I mean there there's a a revenue coming in
from use of of the buildings yeah so that's something yeah my guess is that it's not necessarily completely funding it it's just supplementing their income but they they've created an organizational structure that can support that kind of operation and what I'm hearing is that we don't have that
organizational structure to support uh operation in the senior center multi-purpose room till like 10 p.m. and that's that's the C of the issue and I will say when we did it in the past um it wasn't until 10 p.m and we would charge the the organizations
the overtime fee for whoever the employee was that was there so we did get some cost reimbursement but just for the overtime cost yeah there was a whole thing if you went past 8:30 the clock started ticking yeah I know yeah it wasn't up to 10 it was a limited amount
of time and then um we would Bill and then refund against the budget the other thought would be like um the Dutch neck Church does when when um organization rents their freedom Hall that the setup and breakdown is the responsibility of
the group renting the space um so maybe that's a thought that we could we could have in the contract of renting that the group has to own the ownership of setting it up and breaking it down some
something to think about we want to do it how would we do it I mean it's right an easy discussion but you know out decide after that and from what I remember the school actually use the school for recreation and we we are build that facility charge as they
call it and it is it is a complex they use based on square footage and there you know and they Rel at it at one point and they um I think they were cheaper a number of years ago in the schools and then they did a whole relook at it I think probably around covid time and
recalculated what it was really costing and and their uh expenses so uh went way up you know it works for the school because they're already there I me because of the way they operate you know
so so anyway if there was a a desire for this we should probably take a look and see what would it take if we have to start actually hiring additional people then that becomes a whole thing if it's somebody that somebody could pay for the overtime and work something like that
out maybe there maybe it'll work okay under advisement thank you thanks um okay uh if we can go through the operating budget so at this time we request to
remain flat for the year of 2025 okay we're on page um John Page Six of the budget summary Senior Center Program OE it is flat from the prior year and and we do carry about a
$20,000 Senior Center trust fund that can only be spent at the senior center based on the revenues that come certain revenues that come in so that's always been a um a little bit of a reserve for the center if for any additional expenses during the
year uh Capital anyone have anyone have questions on operating budget at all no okay um one second okay Human Services page
56 and this is the um fund that we set up for the building maintenance that we you know put away $25,000 a year um for any unforeseen issues that need
to be taken care of in general I think we have a balance of around 7,000 plus the we have 68,000 you have here there you go good M and that's a moving Target it could be less by now but you know it's it's a
good you know we try to keep at least 50 about two years worth so yep any questions on that I see there's an expansion that's probably been here forever yeah that's just kind of a placeholder for the six-year plan you know we so we always put it at the back end of it just to let
you know that you know in case you ever decided to do that last time we we went under that and in expanded Senior Center we were able to get grants from the state and the county that paid almost 60% of the addition so if we Reily use it weekends and evenings and stuff it
makes it a little bit more yeah yeah so um with that said I think that's it for the Senior Center thank you very much alks moving on the
um one second mayor if you'd like to come up front thank you um you have a preference on doing fire in emergency or police I fire sounds
good okay okay thanks thanks um mayor has uh mayor has just returned from um the County election board uh from a meeting attempting to get us a early
voting location in West Windsor so I'll I'll break a out here and give you a minute if you want to say something no no later later okay thanks yeah okay okay Tim if you want to introduce yourself sure good morning
uh my name is Tim Lynch I'm the chief of fire and emergency services and the Fire Marshall for West wsor Township um fire and Emergency Services responsible for fire and EMS code enforcement hazardous materials response uh confin space rescue basically all
emergency services in the township other than Police Services which are handled by those guys back there um sure not sure where you'd like me to begin okay um start with just giving us a summary of the accomplishments from 24
and then some of the goals from 25 thank you and and his budget item under this summary is on page three I have I just had to pull it up sure when every you ready yeah we're um
sure 2024 was a busy year for us we the firefighters Union negoti contract resulted in an implementation of an entirely new schedule and operating time frame for us in 2025 so we implemented that we also hired a
series of we hired three part-time fire inspectors to take on fire inspection and we also hired EMT only for the first time in our history so we've got a mixture of firefighters and EMTs whereas historically we had kind of a jack of all trades model where everybody did
everything so now we're kind of splitting into diversifying and getting everybody kind of focused on the program of a little bit so that was a huge change for us um we conducted over 75 fit tests for the township volunte as
part of we conducted a new recruit and hiring process where we partnered with multiple other fire departments we partnered with Millstone in South Wall in an effort to try and draw a large candidate pool for uh our entrance for some example the
previous entry-level test where we ran where it was just West Windsor Township we had eight applicants show up for the test when we ran the novel test we had to shut the uh application process off at 200 applicants so we got a a really great turnout and a lot of great
candidates so we uh very proud of that um can't take credit for it that was Mike Maloney the new chief of millstone fire department that was his idea and he just added us on but I'm very happy that uh we were able to do that uh let's see we worked at the
administration to organize and oversee bring your child to workday coming up with a program for all the kids while they were here to have some fun and see what all the Departments do and we're actually working on doing that again this year because it worked out really well last year looking forward to doing that um we purchased and installed key
control devices for all the nox boxes so for those who don't know every business by State Fire code have a a lock box installed on the out that allows fire department access to the building um we open those boxes with keys that are kept
on all the apparatus historically those keys were hanging on a keychain they're now secured in the vehicle and we have a digital anyone who wants to remove the keys where they GPS location where they removed it how long they removed it for before it was reinstalled so now we have
a better handle on where those keys are what they're being used for and uh takes a lot of a liability off of the Township in case one of those keys happen to be lost so um um who has access to those keys anybody on the fire truck or so anybody
who has the authority to ride as an officer on the fir Tru so anybody it's not just any firefighter but um anybody who's been authorized by the chief of the organization to have control of those keys will be given access to them and uh it's a really simple process It's
All Digital on cloud I can go in and add or remove and uh you know the the point is not to restrict access to the fire department but simply to just have a trail of who was using the key and when so you know if there remember the fire department and the chief vouches they
can have access to the Keys that's the way it is right now so um operationally nothing's going to change except that we have a much better handle on where the keys are when they're being used what are they being used for that kind of stuff so each person who's permitted has their own unique key card everybody has
their own pin it's a PIN number they assign themselves and um so you know who took it out you know they put it back in they I can see at you know on March 11th at 1059 at this GPS coordinate the person with this pin code removed the
key for eight minutes before they reinstalled it so um the the next step is there's actually a transition from uh digital keys or excuse me mechanical Keys the old school mechanical keys to an actual digital key and we can have some better better audit trailing with
them about which box was open which box was open how long the box was open for and also if one of the digital Keys gets lost I can just shut it off and that way if somebody else comes across it it's a Rel and it's just a brick at that point so um we're working with the company the
manufacturer KNX they provide grants to transfer those key cores on the boxes from the mechanical key to the electronic key so I'm you'll notice that's not in the budget proposal I'm trying to work with the Knox company on getting a grant so that we can use their money to change the keys
over but that was a big win for us last year that's that was on my list when I took over of one of the projects I wanted done and uh they're done so we're working with the fire companies now on training for them uh 2024 continue purchasing additional
equipment to coincide with the county you'll see get into it later but Mercer County years ago purchased a new r with Federal that r all of the radios that we purchased in
West Windsor will be able to carry on to the new system the rest of the county participated grant that we chose not to participate in for this particular reason so the rest of the county bu all Ros but we will not um but there we
there are additional radio that we will have to buy so rather than be a multi-on dollar project this is going to be maybe $100,000 so uh that was a big win for us with some long-term planning I have to give credit to uh Jim Yates for that one he saw that coming 10 years ago so um
and then the last thing I'm proud of we developed finally implemented with the the help of council a new shared serviceing our hazardous materials response program uh so we're going to be looking forward to implementing that this year getting some more money from
the county and uh one of the things listed on my goals for this year is to come in compliance with our physical requirements for the HazMat team that will now be on the County's dime they're going to pay for that so that was a big win for us
anybody has can can we get like quarterly reports I'm just curious how many calls will go out of out of town in town out of town too absolutely I can give you that I I'll tell you they're not gonna be very lengthy reports because we don't it's not a
very busy program I'll say but I can absolutely at any point you guys want to be happy to provide breakdown to the calls where they are what the costs were it that's not a heavy lift it's no I I understand that but in the
future we're going to need to get more equipment or trucks that are very expensive absolutely and so the the issue will come up is they're going to be sharing with the county if we're providing the service sure yeah that that was part of the negotiation last
year um the big issue with this is that I mean it's already pass so we don't have to go through all of it but the the H program in the county was basically kind of left alone years we just carried on on 10e shared service agreements when the new Administration took over was the first
time the team said we want some money to actually and they they stepped up to the plate even though they hadn't budgeted for it or prepared for it so that is part of the long discussion getting more money getting them to contribute to the capital replacement schedule whether
that be purchasing the apparat are contributing to it so that that is all part of do you first see the question of should the county take over Hazmat absolutely that was a huge part of the discussion so um the the the problem with Hazmat is as
you saw we don't run a lot of Hazmat calls so the countywide there's probably about 150 calls a year but you need to have six people on 24 hours a day dedicated to respond to Hazmat so that's not something something that is easy for
any on the cost of that in other counties for example middle sex county is one of the examples people use uh they have a full-time HazMat team provided by the county dedicated to respond but they get money to fund that so we don't we're
not Mercer County is not in the geographic realm that can benefit from UI money so we don't have funding to do all that so County I think longterm yeah that would be the objective is for the county to put a program on but right now
it it just I don't think it would make sense for any of them to put a team on like that you said there's 150 calls a year count or countywide for the county yeah and there's only two towns that are responding right now yeah correct so how
many of those did we get uh last year was 13 so Trenton did the other 130 yep because the the majority of the calls are in Trenton Hamilton and and actually actually hopo Township because the township prisoned or excuse me the
County workhouse is there and the number of white powder calls that Trenton smat gets to the workhouse for people who try to mail paria into the prison is almost a weekly occurrence um they they run a lot more
calls than us which is why if you look at the agreements they're almost tical but Trenton got more money than we did because they handle by far the calls and we we also are getting only responding to only five towns correct yeah and five towns that have a lower response rate
yeah yeah but if they need us we still oh 100% Y and we still have to have make sure we have people on that we only we we staff based on the needs here in towns we do not have six people on duty which is the requirement so we made an
agreement an operational agreement with the c that we operate for HazMat calls on an overtime call back system and if we can't comply with the six people minimum that the the standard requires we call Trenton they our backup teams because they have enough people on 24
hours a day so rather than coming to the town and asking for more people we came up with an agreement with TR where we'll handle these Five Towns we'll try and do it with our staff but if it's out of our scope or were unable to and they got more money than we did
okay and then so if we only can get four people because we can't get the two more on over then we go in assist then Trenton then Trenton just takes the call well we we work together with Trenton we have a very good working relationship so at that point our would stay Trenton would come and we would work together to
mitigate the call oh okay so we would still send out but then Trenton would take care the extra the majority the calls over 90% don't require of a HazMat team if you look at the I said at uh a breakdown of all the
calls we had in 2013 excuse me 2024 I don't know where that came from um the the 13 number that the majority of those calls are fluid spills on the roadway which we can handle with the on duty staff the problem is the way the state
statute is written anytime you come into contact with a hazardous material you have to be a technician level trained person which the fire departments in the state are not trained to that level so even if it's plugging a fuel tank like if someone's car starts leaking gas in
their driveway and they call AAA triaa won't tow it until the fuel leak is secured well the fire companies can't do that so they have to call the HazMat team so that we can crawl under and stick some Putty on a hole so I don't need six people to do that but it's still a technician level skill so that
happened to a neighbor of ours um I remember they y we're waiting for yeah because Triple A will no longer tow a vehicle that's leaking fuel so we get called out to all of those leaking fuel cars even if it's just a service call we're going to have to come and make sure the car is safe before they can tow
it that's a Hazmat call so there's no cost there's not a lot of time it doesn't take any off-duty staff but we still have to go and respond it's still a a data point for a HazMat team that's the majority of what we're doing as Hazmat in in my 20 years here in town on
the HazMat team I can recall less than half a dozen times where we had to do the true dressed out in a suit going in with an entry in a Decon team it's just not a very common occurrence so hasmat team how many technicians or they're
like firefighters but they're they're technicians that's very special certifications correct which take a lot of extra training correct many many hours yep are there ALS does an ambulance also go out it's required on each call yes so that would be two more
people right now that's so other 7 to3 Monday to anytime we have dedicated EMTs they are not Hazmat technicians but every other time other person that we have working for us is a Hazmat Tech that's part of our team so there could
be as much as eight people going out no there are four people on 24 hours a day that are Hazmat techs that's it and then in addition to those four 700 a.m. to 300 p.m. Monday to Friday we have 2 EMTs that work and staff an additional an ambulance outside of those hours the
four people that we have on duty split and two work on the engine two work on the ambulance yes my concern is about the ambulance service I mean if the ambulance has to go out on each of those calls then we have no ambulance coverage
here that that that is a big deal at least I think it is right anytime that truck is yeah so if we if we wanted that then we'd
have to go to full what two EMTs yeah we can discussed that in Clos now you're getting toward you know Personnel it is butel there's a lot of concerns Linda we can discuss that in Personnel thank
you well okay there's a lot of rules we have to follow and there's some discussions we can have we're not talking about Personnel we're just talking about of Staff correct and and and in this case I think and part of the mayor's recommendation is to hire two full-time EMTs so when we get there we
can have that discussion yeah I think Linda's not asking about the people necessarily but she's saying there's a truck and then there's another truck and and if this truck is going here and the other truck's going there then we don't have let's say it's a let's say it's an
ambulance an ambulance okay we'll talk we we'll talk just positions uh the mayor has um in this budget with is z increase he has proposed to hire one firefighter but there's one ambulance so and two EMTs no I'm so and let's not no
we have three ambulances correct yeah but we have three physical ambulances only one of them is staffed Andrea I mean what Linda is asking is the policy decision of who responds to what calls that's not a Cil decision I mean that's
a agreement between the EMS people and the w fire companies as I've explained currently we have uh six people between 6:00 a.m. and 300 p.m. and four people between 3 p.m. and uh 6:00 a.m. with the
addition of this now we have full four teams of four firefighters 24 hours a day plus we will have um fully staffed ambulance from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. 7 days a week correct so that's that is in
this proposed budget and who responds to what calls and then if you're on a call if another call comes that's all protocol that's been well defined and they follow that protocol I mean that's that's you can sit here and talk for
next 3 days about all the situations that happened uh but the the established practice that's what we follow you said 700 a.m. to 700 p.m. um 7 days a week we'll have um the ambulance covered but what happens 7:00
p.m. to 7: a.m. the four firefighters split and two R respond on the engine two respond on the goes out every time in those calls and every time an ambulance called out a and that's why we have an extensive um Mutual call
system in the county I mean of course we don't but it is what it is there's not never a perfect solution um there get I guess the real question is how many incidents have we
actually experienced where we had no um truck to respond and had to call somebody else hundreds hundreds a chart that I think that would inform us a a little bit because I don't we don't
I mean you got to be specific with what data one yeah when you say hundreds is very well defined protocol defined right it's called a box box yeah we have box plans and mutual Aid agreements so that if we're unavailable we have mutual a
from other communities that come into West Windsor so those calls did not go unanswered they were not answered by West Windsor how many times we in a situation where we couldn't provide service we collectively the county couldn't provide the service in the timely manner missed our in the county
including our mutual aid plans I'd have to look into that it it's not often pretty yeah it it would be almost zero it would be we're talking there's two things one of them is fire and the other one is ambulance so yes we are talking
about two things but in West Windsor they are the same but yeah and then there's a number of calls that we do Mutual Aid so how many how many times do we do Mutual Aid on either one of those probably pretty
big for somebody else time are be going town if you want I could just break down a call data for you last year last year we had 2825 calls for service um of those calls 2003 excuse me those West Windsor
calls or those including these are total calls for service I'll break it down by where they are this is the number of times we were dispatched was 2825 times of those calls sorry 1528 of them were
assments the rest of them were a mixture of motor vehicle accidents fires vehicle fires mulch fires building fires brush fires elevator rescue technical rescue water rescue Hazmat uh hazardous condition interior gas leaks carbon monoxide
emergencies uh odor smoke calls and fire alarm systems then for Mutual Aid we responded into cranberry twice East windser 16 times Hamilton five times heightstown four times Hopewell Two
Times Lawrenceville 65 times Plainsboro 54 times Princeton 275 times Robinsville three times and Trenton six times now the caveat I do want to add the way our system codes calls the 275 times into
Princeton some of them may be actually in West Windsor just with a Princeton mailing address so that that number is not 100% accurate but it's close I would say we're over 200 times going Mutual Aid into Princeton those Princeton addresses that our investments are will not be mutual Aid right they will be no
there there are calls and I say it's a coding it pop populates based on the mailing address and our people have to physically go in if it's in West Windsor but has a Princeton mailing address and change it over to West Windsor so I'm guessing some of them got missed but um
like I said not not 200 worth but some of them I'm sure got missed but it looks like lawrenville and Plainsboro are higher number US Plainsboro is having issues with EMS they can't hire EMTs and they had a number of people who had medical
issues so there were a period of times last year where they didn't have an ambulance in service for a couple of weeks Princeton has the same issues with Staffing if they can't get enough people to work they just don't have an ambulance and we cover their town so you know that but the idea of the mutual Aid
System is great we are not the only Town having these discussions everybody else is having the same Staffing problems we are so uh it's not just I don't want to think that this is a West Windsor focused issue but at the same time the mutual Aid System is getting
strained and you can't you can't charge well I guess ambulance you could charge if if they are not a resident so any Resident that gets an EMS Bill does not get balance build we build insurance carrier but we get payment in L excuse me taxes in Le of payment for anything
additional so we don't have to go send them to collections the Medicare reimbursement laws anybody who is not a resident of the community we have to attempt to collect so if they don't live in Westwinds they're getting built full balance yeah full balance so
if we get a um Mutual a call Princeton um they those residents are build the full balance the residents are built in Princeton in the Princeton whoever the patient is in Princeton we and that goes both ways
yeah yes that is correct yes right so our residents get full balance build if we are in a mutually a situation and they come into our town right that sounds a little odd to me because that would imply that the resident is penalized based on who ends up servicing
them they have no choice I equate it to the same thing as if you go to get a surgery and your anesthesiologist isn't covered by your insurance it's the same thing you had no choice in it at all but now you're not covered so and I don't believe in personally I don't believe in bounce billing I think it shouldn't be
part of the process but it's a federal mandate yeah and we we don't really believe in the balce spelling but uh we have no choice for yeah there is there is because it's a two-way street and you don't have a choice Medicare requires if you're going
to bill for EMS you have to attempt to collect from all patients the only reason that's exempt for us is because we're a government service so anyone who provides taxes to the government we don't have to bill but actually Princeton technically they are not a government service they're a private agency so they have to balance Bill
everyone so you know it doesn't apply to everybody we don't have any choice in the matter this is entirely covered by Federal Regulation if we want to keep our license be able to continue billing that's what we have to do trust me Mr Yates and I went round and on this for
some time Jim and I are in the same opinion about balance billing that I disagree with it entirely um we we are hang we don't have a choice otherwise we wouldn't be able to build Medicare for the service what if what if it's not Medicare what if it's um it all the
company if you're not compliant with the Medicare billing you're not getting paid correct so you have to be you have to do the same thing for everybody they are the standard if you don't meet the Medicare standard you're not no insurance character they won't pay the bill and Medicare has some weird R rules
yeah um do you have any feel for do we tend to do more Mutual Aid than others does it balance out over the years we pull more Mutual Aid in than we send out Princeton came into our town about 350 times last year and that's just Princeton I didn't look at the rest of them but we pull more Mutual Aid than we
provide and is that more for ambulance calls or is it more for other types of calls that's for all types of calls we we pull a ton of muta okay if you can go to page three um the first section of does
anyone for we go does anyone have any questions about anything so far we all weine okay go ahead person stuff so um the first budget is the uniform fire code and that budget is flat for this year y
questions on that then you can go to P which is the um Emergency Services budget and there is an increase this year for that yep uh so I'll go through the increases and if anybody has any questions about the other lines I'll be happy to do it but conferences and
seminars we increase from $500 to $2,500 just the cost of conferences is up um that's a bum no that's a lot that's a lot uh yeah everything goes up a little bit but we weren't sending people to conference we didn't have any money
so 500 you only spent 50 out of that account because I had to use our money for Lea trust fund penalty money to pay for people to go to conferences which is not what that money is intended for but get credits plus we had to
reallocate money for repairs which is the biggest increase on this budget line item if you notice it's going from 150 to 160 that's a six you know it's a um $10,000 increase um and actually the largest amount because the cost of
repairs yeah has increased as we all know it's something that's hitting all our budgets the physicals here yeah looking at went up 33% y but I'm looking at um the budget versus the expense and did we we did not spend any money on
physicals last year because the plan was to have the county spend the money on it but that didn't so was to use that purchase or pay for physicals for the volunteer fire companies which we have never done historically um but there's a couple issues that have come
up one uh we found out that part of the respiratory Protection Program is a fit test there's also training on a respirator and there's a third part that is a medical clearance from a doctor it's a questionnaire that has to be filled out and submitted turns out that has not been being done so we
had to absorp that cost it's almost $6,500 just for those questionnaires for the firefighters this year and I also started getting quotes to bring in an outside vendor that basically they bring in a tractor trailer that's set up as a medical office and everybody churns
through it and gets a physical and we could get them to come in and provide physicals to the volunteer fire companies because we have never offered them to the fire companies before how how much would that cost though I mean there's a lot of volunteers it depends on the the so for the truck the the the
truck where they come on site is the cheapest that we found the sending them to our vendor that we send like new firefighters for their entry level physical it's about $1,000 a person for a physical um the vendor that we came in it's a flat P fee per day they can get
up to 24 done in a day and it was about $600 a person so the idea would be to bring that truck in preferably two times a year it's not going to cover all the members of the Volunteer Fire Company but it's a St and right now we've got zero
Baseline Okay so that's what this is going for the intention of the keeping the physical lineup even though the the County's going to start absorbing the cost of physicals from my division now we could use this money to start providing physicals to the fire companies is that require like a law
that says the ordinance and the law requires that they have at least one physical that's a requirement to get into the Firemen's Association but some of these members have gotten physical sort of relief Association in the 80s or
90s and that was the last time anybody spoke to them so so this this physical is separate from what a person might do on their own corre their annual physical yeah right so and you just mentioned that there's a part part questionnaire
that everybody yeah respiratory protection questionnaire okay so and in addition to that you have to have physical by by vendor of choice yeah okay and this physical is it a just okay
we want to know a baseline or is there not is there a possibility of somebody failing there's absolutely a possibility of someone failing there's an NFPA standard that requires that you must meet certain Health criteria in order to be a firefighter and the the whole point is to prevent
people from dying while they're conducting the work of being a firefighter which you know the number one cause of firefighter fatality is cardiac health lack of cardiac health so not doing physicals on people so that they might just because they might fail
I I know I'm just I'm just asking yeah there is absolutely a possibility people would not fail and be able to be a fire so this is a past fail type of physical it's not just like well we we know you have this and correct there is a minimum standard yeah okay so
this is the first time we are trying to do it this year do we have a planned um or scheduled day to yeah I wanted to see if this was something the town was interested in continuing to fund before I looked any further into it so um I have gotten quotes from vendors that's
as far as I got though we haven't looked at scheduling or anything have you discussed this with the volunteer Chiefs uh two or three years ago but that was when I first started looking at trying to do this but it has not been a recent discussion I I would just suggest I I
know communication is an issue and I have faith in you and in the paid professional and I have faith in the volunteers that somehow some of these type of issues and other issues if we sit down we just work through it we
talk we communicate we have regular um meetings like the what EMS EMC em EMC committee meetings and we start building or rebuilding relationships that we can get through a lot sure a lot sounds like
a plan that's a goal that's a goal I think for 2025 to be added let work together let's have those conversations and let's let's let's make I would be happy to work together with anyone who's willing to come to the table all right any other questions if we could add that
to the 2025 goals it is in there any any other questions on the OE budget we can move to the capital okay if you go to PID if you go under Public Safety tab page 59 okay all right um page
59 AED program there's a $25,000 a year annual program to continue to purchase and replace aeds as they go bad they have about a 10-year lifespan on them this will give us the opportunity to buy between 8 and 10 aeds a year depending whether we need to buy hard cases or
wall mounts so we don't have a hard number but between eight and 10 aeds a year and rotate them through before they reach the end of their service life so we don't run into the same problem we did last year where all of a sudden we had 15 ads that just were no good anymore and this will allow us to keep
up correct yeah this not only we replaced all the aeds that were bad with money that the council allocated last year the plan now is to continue to add to the fleet and rotate out older AED as they go so we have a constant rotation of four or five a year that'll just get
surplused and then we'll get Replacements we have aeds on each apparatus not yet no uh so the all of the front line the first responding pieces will have them all the police officers have them the ambulances
have them there's been four assigned to each Fire Company um and then with the money this year we're hoping to start to allocate more to the rest of the fir Fleet and to start getting some of the secondary Vehicles like Chief's cars the inspector cars things like that so we
would have more aeds available there's also funding to add one I know there's request to make sure there's one in the Arts Council and we want to evaluate all the Township buildings I know um uh Ken from wck Department asked about adding one at the Pavilion in the uh Community
Park yeah Community Park yeah so we're going to look at things like that where we want to add them a lot of events occur there sure there Ward Field maybe like you any of the township own areas where there may be a need for something like this is where we could look at field would be like all the sports
Fields where we have lot of events and and the upside events would be yeah exactly and the upside of the aeds that we have or that we're buying is they're uh geolocated and we can cloud-based check them for make sure the batter's
okay the pads are okay so you know a if somebody grabs it and uses it we're going to get a notification that an alert that it was used we would also know if somebody took it so just in case they happen to walk away and then if anything goes wrong with it we'll know without having to drive to all the locations and check on them all so we
probably need some good signage letting people know where these are and the places out too I mean it would have to be right if you're I hear Community Park where would you put it at the Pavilion on the outside we'd have to look and see where the best you know we want to make
sure it's visible and easily located and accessible so you we don't have location pick but I'd work with Ken and probably Public Works to make sure that we had it mounted somewhere that was so we're looking at adding another 10 12 about five a year excuse me between eight and
10 a year so then at some point this is going to have to go up for the replacement number too probably if the prices increase but for as as we have to replace more of them no the the plan is with the money that's allocated this is enough that we will be able to rotate
the older ones out and replace them so this this is enough for the new number that's going to be higher number that's out there y yeah by the time we get all of the apparatus allocated we'll be back into rotating out old ads and we'll just keep purchasing and replacing as they go
bad how how how long will that take it's about a 10 to 12 year lifespan on the ads so so so it's 25,000 enough each year for now I I think that as we get closer to the in 10 years or so when we get closer to the end of the first
rounds lifespan we'll have to reevaluate that but yeah and then that's done every year yeah like Tim will take when he puts his budget together next September um is when we actually start uh for the following year um the the items from 26
on are just for for management purposes and it gives us an idea depends on the cost correct so he may come back next year and say he needs 30,000 40,000 and this is just Capital if there's um the parts like the pads and stuff that have to be replaced that's just that's an operating correct yeah we have money for
that in the operating budget and that's the other thing these aeds the old ones had a lifespan of 18 months to 24 months on the AED pads these have four to five years so so but and that'll come under the operating budget and those and you'll be able to keep track of all those especially if they're all
networked cor okay so the fire trucks get them all this year uh they should maybe not every fire Tru but every Frontline piece and probably most of the Chiefs trucks will Happ them at the end of this year so essentially anytime there's an emergency call there should be at least one vehicle every time
there's an emergency call there's four or five ads on scene at least because every cop car every ambulance our firet Tru most of the front Lin so yeah there's a lot of aeds floating around in town okay Y and in fact I think that one of the next things we wanted to look at
was the Public Works vehicles at least having like supervisor vehicles or something well that would have the advantage of a vehicle that might be on its own exactly yeah that would be there all right next uh next is the communication uh this is I sry to
mention it before the county is phasing out their radio system to update to a new radio system so this is the final round of us purchasing from our original purchase and then as you see the money goes down starting next year that's for the parts that we're going to need as the county they haven't yet chosen their
radio system so that's kind of a holder right now I don't think we're going to need more than that based on what we've been told but once they actually purchase their new radio system we'll have more details on that but you as you mentioned we could use our current radio system and transition into they may need
to be reprogrammed but the physical radios that we have will still be usable on the new system is this for the the three fire companies or is it just for the um for 45 it's for everybody yeah we we we purchase and maintain the radios
for all three agencies uh the next is an annual uh project $75,000 a year for replacement of Fire Equipment um the equipment has a lifespan it starts to go bad um and do we have how much previous funds are
left not not with me but there's not much there is much I'm using last year's money and there's probably less than $15,000 usually when we have um something that's a sort of an ongoing fund we kind this this this line item gets spent
pretty quickly yeah because at a cost any items yeah you know fire hose the thermal iming cameras now cost four or five, thousand like everything is just very expensive and to make it worse all the regulatory agencies are starting to
put total lifespans on everything so now we can't just keep it until it's no longer serviceable we have to there's expiration dates on equipment what is like do you know what how many years usually it's 10 or 15 years that's what they're starting to go with but like the
ballistic equipment that we use for active shooter response is a five-year lifespan on it their personal protective equipment has a 10year lifespan this last year it used to be the PPE was only your coat and your pants now your helmet gloves boots can't be more than 10 years
old and the helmet costs that used to be about $400 are now about $1600 so everything is becoming way more expensive and has a shorter lifespan on it so this $75,000 a year does not have the legs that it used yeah I guess
bicycle helmets have a date also so so that's something to look yeah he may may adjust that in the future that might go up yep yes yeah right this already did in the LA two years ago or three years ago it was $50,000 every other year and
that wasn't so this is doing well for us now but as John said it may in the future need to be reevaluated next page 62 um modal data terminal and automatic vehicle locators merer County who runs our fire dispatch system 62 oh
I'm sorry skip 62 is the pp sorry about that uh yeah PPE for firefighters uh this is PPE for purchasing turnout coats boots helmets gloves um we also use it to purchase
technical rescue PPE life jacket helmets uh things like that for all of our other Specialties for us and the fire companies um so we we provide for all the volunteer fire compan yes yeah the town purchases and and provides all the PPE
uh right now we do not provide hoods gloves or boots to the fire companies that's an old agreement trous we buy the helmets the coats and the trousers which are the most expensive that's about a $4,000 piece of the the set
um yeah it 4,000 about I can give you exact numbers but about 4,000 yeah because there's a lot of new volunteers coming online Junior Firefighters and all won't get into all of that because you can work with Volunteer Fire companies as to how the equipment is
being used by home you know and and to sort of save money too hopefully we get more volunteers and next year we'll have to increase this lineup yeah there's price I do see that all right do we have a backlog of um ppes in
either of the three three agencies or we have a backl like do we have sufficient ppes uh uh no we had to rent seven sets of turnout gear to send new firefighters through for training yeah so how what ises like a full suit
cost uh for boots gloves pants coat helmet everything it's about 5200 5,000 somewhere in that range did it depends on what kind of gloves you buy what kind of boots you buy you know rubber boots are cheaper than leather boots and a plastic helmet's cheaper
than a leather helmet and so it depends there's variables in there will they have different shelf life for a plastic no they used to but now no everything so so that's not a think 10 years you said 10 years BP um Okay so so you're basically
looking at 10 sets here yeah about 10 sets so the the plan was we would give four sets to each Volunteer Fire Company and two would be allocated to the career staff [Music] um I ideally that gives us a 100 sets on
a 10year rotating U because they're only good for 10 years and actually I want to clarify that the state statute does not make the gear expired at the end of 10 years so for example my turnout gear that's in my truck right now is 13 years old and it's still perfectly legal
perfectly acceptable I can keep wearing it it's when we send people to training academy specifically for firefighter 1 or firefighter 2 the entry level training all of the firey in the state have adopted the NFPA standard and won't allow anyone to attend training in gear that's more than 10 years old which
means we're sending people through initial recruit training and brand new turnout gear which gets destroyed in the training and then we have to buy new sets of turnout gear so this is again not just us as a Statewide issue but um it's it's a problem and we have not yet come up with a solution for it it's more
Academy enforced yeah cost as a the way the state statute is written as long as your gear isn't horn as long as it's still serviceable you can keep wearing it so we have to do annual turnout gear inspections which is under the law we have to do it and as long as it passes the inspection you can keep wearing it
so we have gear that is serviceable for 15 to 17 years and Tim has actually um there there's um a vendor and at of State that specializes in repairs and Tim every year sends several um pieces of equipment to this vendor to have them
res sertified yeah what we try and do is when the gear hits 9 years old we send it to the vendor have anything replaced on it repaired and then it gets recertified and that way we're good for another four or five years unless something happens but so it almost seems like it's better to rent borrow or
whatever rental way too expensive for 6 months we're paying about $6,000 for 7 cents a year it's way too much one set or foreven seven sets a gear for seven set it's like seven or 800 I don't remember seven or $800 for a six-month rental of
turnout gear and that's just we had to do it because we didn't have gear to provide these guys to go through training so we had to do it but I would never want to do that again we could look at long-term leas purchase options but that changes how we can
so yeah it's a and it's a six month training then not quite as four 4ish months yeah okay maybe need a swap program somewhere you you mentioned we we are we do not have sufficient ppes
available does it make sense that we raise so we could get more like raise the budget so we could get more ppes because at the end of the day safety of our responders is important um uh Allison why don't you put that on
the wrapup yeah that that would be great we're kind of coming up here where there does so increase Capital uh PPE yeah and if we could have before that some kind of an idea of what like how many people we send or what what would what would be
the ideal number he can tell you right now then yeah maybe I don't have that information the problem is we don't have a we're in the process of doing an updated inventory yes that's good okay
okay yeah yeah so it it would help for before the wrap up if we could have we'll have a we'll have a rough idea for you yes we'll give you something yeah Tim will give me an idea on what he thinks he he would need uh and as far as number of units and I'll just translate that into the do yeah and if you could
send that to us we the wrap ups on Thursday yeah yeah we'll try to get it to you tomorrow yeah so we can get something tomorrow so we can take a look at and maybe even if you want two levels of I just want to clarify what exactly you want you want me to tell you how many gear sets of gear we would need to purchase or what this from what you're
telling us we're probably not replacing gear as much as we need and then there seems to be another issue with the training which I guess everybody's going that's an issue we also have an inventory control issue um well at this at this point we don't want to leave
anybody without proper gear so that's that's I think first priority we don't but if we can if we can make it dent in the gear issue what um what would you you know you you can give us your absolute ideal and you can give us I
think this will help sure you by Thursday tomorrow that's when we're doing our wrapup so and then they want to start working on the final budget so um I will work on that today right thank you okay thank you page 64 anything else on the
gear um yeah just looking at page 63 I see $400,000 64 I know not just throwing that one in here it's it's for next year um that $400,000 is something we would need for HazMat y um so this is something that's
been on the books for a number of years and we just keep pushing it for right but we were just relating into what we were talking about with County that that becomes a matter of is this something we we want to keep some kind of track of if we're going to stay in this business how
much we need somebody to come up and uh and help out show we so the one thing I do want to point out is whether or not we stay in the county shared service agreement we still have hazardous materials issues here in the community which is why all this gear was purchased to begin with so yeah talking about this
truck here what I'm saying is e whether or not we participate in the County Hazmat agreement we still have to have Decon supplies for our hazardous materials so you know whether if we presumably if the County took it over I would assume we wouldn't need to have a hazardous materials if the county took
it over but I don't okay so or or if we're asking the county to pay our true cost then this becomes Tim has that right vehicles on what items that he would have let's say last year so we're still
gonna get goals yes regardless of the county correct well no if somebody else is responsible for it they get the call instead of us if the county took over the whole program so the or if Trenton they're gonna do it I don't think they have any plan or interest in
doing that the latest was that if we were not going to do it they would turn it over to Trenton and I don't know if Trenton has any interest in doing it okay but but this is a cost for us to stay in the business for the whole County and we should we should know what
that is he does have that information yes and um the next page page 64 the county is switching the way that they dispatch fire apparatus historically it was based on uh each fire chief would Define a
plan I want East Windsor's engine and I want planes bro's ladder truck to come to my fire that's not the way the County's doing it anymore it's going to be based on closest available unit so if I'm going to design a response plan let's say for this building and I want two engines in a ladder I tell the
county I want two engines in a ladder not that I want Plainsboro engine and Robins Hill's engine and then they dispatch based on closest available unit so that way everybody in County gets the fastest best service that they can get but part of that is purchasing and installing automatic vehicle locators in
the trucks so that's what this is for is for us to get mdts and avls that would tie us into the County Dispatch Center we would be able to get live CAD information from them on the MDT and they would be able to use the vehicle locator to dispatch us to the closest
available we'll have to install it in every apparatus basically correct yes and the county will know where each of these vehicles are at any time correct uh for the record they already have we already have these in the ambulances so they're already tracking
and it's it's helped quite a bit because uh it's changed the mutual Aid System it used to be whoever was the most convenient person for the dispatcher to send was who was going to get sent what I mean by that is if there was an incident at Quakerbridge Mall Well
County Central in order to dispatch us has to pick up the phone and call West wsor Police and say hey dispatch the ambulance to go to Quaker Bridge Mall so they'd send Princeton because all they have to do is push the button this is going to change all of that and they're just going to send the closest available unit will get automatically NOC Lo
notified um it's going to be a much more efficient safer system for everybody in account this will be more quicker response because ideally everybody should get a better faster response under this system than they were before so based on the location of the incident
whoever is closest gets there first and an example I'll give you is that right now all the dispatch locations are based on what the station is but if our truck is out of the station say over at Mercer County College doing an inspection and a call
comes in at Harrison and Route One well we're not very close anymore because we're over there so they'll send Princeton and Plainsboro and instead of us because we're on the Hamilton side of town so it it allows for that movement of vehicles and getting you the right piece at the right time okay sounds
sufficient next page would be 73 and I know you're going to 73 but 67 this one is for next year replacement of engine 45 the cost is 2.25 yeah like right now
wasn't it last year or this year for an engine is 1.2 million 1.2 or 1.4 thought yeah it's just an estimate at the stage so I mean subject to change a bigger unit yes the idea is to replace it with a a a it's called a quint so it
would have a ladder on top you ever seen ladder 43 yes very similar to that but with a longer ladder on it that's the the plan right right now how high can the ladders go like four stories it depends the ladder 43 is a 75t ladder and it
depends how close you get to the building because that 75 ft is at 80 degrees so it depends on where you are in the building uh ladder 44 is a 100 foot ladder um but that's also a much larger truck and has a larger spread so again it depends on where you could
place it but uh we we could use four or five stories is about what we can get depending on placement of the vehicle the plan with the new truck would be to buy either 105 or 107 foot straight stick ladder that we would be able to get closer to the vehicle and have a
further reach with um that would help us with a lot of these new larger Garden Apartment style buildings that are coming in uh this was a goal of not just me but the volunteer Fire Chiefs when Engine 44 was up for replacement but we didn't have enough money funded for that
so the choice was to move forward with truck and budget to replace this truck with a quint instead e go up to 10 stories no no no six probably about six with six stories is all we really need in town the tallest building we have is Black Rock
on Alexander Road at six stories and we also have a very good relationship with the planning board so we're able to develop these buildings where the apparatus can get close enough and park where they can reach all the places that we have to so um yeah Le Aon
yeah page 73 um this is just you know the general fund that we set aside you know like we do for any other building that we own uh as for prin Junction Firehouse it's a $25,000
fund any questions do we know how much is in there now this one I do not not much I know that a lot lot of it has been used we had to replace an air conditioner we had to replace a roof there were issues with the doors we we've been steadily uh depleting that
fund over the last couple years the sprinkler system at at 43 I just yeah talk about that now or is that different Administration discuss uh
funded so it would be funded I think I think it was 175 two years ago it is funded um so that's the agreement that we discussed that we were working on right and then will because it will have to go out to bid and engineer so that's something that
the process we funded that two years ago will that the fund that we funded like you know budgeted two years ago work now two years later with the inflation and costs and everything else that's that's what I'm worried
about and and I don't know we had budgeted for for an architect to come in you know it's an older building uh because you know when you start opening up ceilings or walls you find a lot of different things and the
codes have changed right they have changed tremendously since it was installed decades ago so that's my worry if we're getting into doing other sprinkler system Renovations or or new sprinkler systems shouldn't we have
money in there for an architect to look at this I don't know if it's just a clean I don't know I've never done anything with the installation of a sprinkler system that's why I think the agreement was is the essential part of this because it is not our building but
it is equip yeah so it's a little and that's why I think that having that agreement that I've been but we can use part of that 175,000 to hire an architect if we so desire if we need to hire an architect we can use part of that money to hire an AR
fine like my my concern is we budgeted it two years ago will that the funds we probably won't yeah we won't know until an architect kind of takes a look at it and and tells us to be honest with you but yeah but I think that's that's our
fear that you know and this is coming up because well then I'll have to come back to you and ask for more money so if that's the case um and we'll go from there first we have to get an AR get an agreement once the agreement's done then we will go and hire an architect and figure out exactly what the C I think
the issue here is that it's already been two years and we don't want to have we say we'd get the agreement a couple weeks whatever that might take and then we get the architect and then the architect comes in yeah we can't do anything do we have an agreement because we don't own the building that's part of
the I understand that I'm just saying we I think we what everyone's a little concerned about here is that we do all that the architect comes in and comes in with something that's 30 ,000 over what we already have for the last two years and then somebody says oh we have to
wait for the 2026 budget so I I think that's that's the concern is there funds somewhere that if there is a reasonable increase in this cost we will still be able to do that this year once all of this other stuff gets done we will we
will unless it goes like up 10 times we will have money in the budget to do that so oh so the deal is nobody's gonna if it's if it's like the mayor said if it's reasonable we could probably work something out if not then we may have to come to you for more money 50,000 more I
mean that's what we're budgeting for some of these other sprinkler systems that's what's catching our attention too yeah it is the year of the sprinkler system yeah yeah and if if we do need senior center
yes both yeah yeah yeah it's it's the year of the sprinkler so the question is if we do need to find that money so once we start start doing those we'll get a better idea too we we would want to put the money in now as opposed to should we match the money with the other system
that we put the money now we we will have money in the budget as I said I mean if it's you don't know how much more money to put in if if it's not unreasonable change uh there's money in the budget as you know when you issue
Bond you don't issue Bond or you don't uh you don't identify every item with X item y doll y item Z doll you have a whole bunch of items identified and a fixed amount of money that money can be
I mean one item comes higher one item comes lower as long as the overall items come within that uh allocated money we are okay so we will I mean worst case scenario we'll have to come back to the council and say that okay we may have to
move money from this bucket in the bond ordinance to this bucket in the bond ordinance but as long as the price increase is reasonable we'll be able to do that so there's no need to add more money no I I understand that what I was trying to get to is based on because as
John said this is the year of sprinkler system and we are funding different projects should we try to match the same amount for this 43 as well I said I mean when we present you with the capital
budget we we do it planned according to how much bonds we want to issue how much bonds we want to retire what the interest is going to be in future years there's a lot of thought goes behind that and when I tell you there will be money in the budget we will find money in the budget in the worst case I just
have to come back and say we need to move money from bucket X to bucket y all right the worst case is we have to do a budget uh ordinance Amendment which requires a resolution and members of the public who are listening to F to try and
follow this discussion there was a it's the township paid for the sprinkler system yeah 30 years ago 30 years ago whatever the numbers right and it was there was an agreement at the time when it needed to be replaced the township would do that so just so people understand yeah even like you know 43 is
old owns the building but we have Township uh expensive Township equipments hous it's a good investment I'm just yeah yeah so yeah and and that was all discussed and approved about two years ago and just waiting for that to happen
okay you'll never hear me try to talk you out of putting in a sprinkler system I know I know you're the sprinkler system uh yes okay um page 74 five five 75 and um this is something we've been
putting off for about four or five years and it's it's we're at a point now it's time to you talked about that it's pretty I'd invite any of you to come down and view the parking yeah it's CR it's been it's been
a while that we have gotten a tour of the building maybe happy to show you around lot of changes benefit the council to come I'd be happy to I think that's it for me it is thanks
Tim is uh anybody have just give throwing one out if anyone else has any other questions for Tim we're all good thank you Tim thank Tim than before police or we could have lunch after
police now been here so I'm thinking I want um we can probably do lunch after yeah uh at this point I think we're looking at having the police come and present and then we'll probably take our lunch break
before something me to order something oh no something special orders yeah yeah you can bring the police dogs in they can come sniff at it you know yeah all right thank you everybody in the town knows the chief but please
introduce yourself and U Rob garal chief of police for West WIS or Township and uh we can start with the 2024 accomplishments and the 2025 goals sure well good afternoon I would say good morning but we've clearly passed
that point it's officially afternoon yeah except if you're thinking daylight savings and then we're still in the morning so okay my kids have delayed H School opening this week thanks to um Juniors
um sitting in on NJ GPA tests so in 2024 our accomplishments thank God are numerous I'll give you the quick highlights so we responded to over 35,000 calls for
service we handled over 1,400 motor vehicle accidents we conducted nearly 6,000 car stops radar enforcements and selective enforcements so we're out there yes we're out there over 6,000 we've done of
those 1900 people plus 1900 people receive tickets in some way shape or form so we are out there our drone unit has become 247 where we are on call 247 with our drones probably one of the most
successful units in the entire County and now it's being mirrored by the entire County so every the gam oh we were not without controversy uh you know many many years ago caught a lot of grief oh no we yeah we we back it I
supported that remember oh you guys did and you know what you're supporting that drone unit and the mayor mayor's uh support of that drone unit you guys have saved hundreds of lives what you've done is directly
responsible for people who were saved on the brink of suicide and other issues and because of that drone being in the air they were spotted and saved so I think it's worth it if we just saved one person so you are directly responsible
for that and most recently we had a um elderly female who had serious dementia she left her house and she walked over a mile and a half on the train St train station tracks in the pitch black dark and
literally feet she was on the tracks not by the woods any of it she was on the tracks feet away and walked over a mile and a half on those tracks and we had dogs officers we had everything out there and the first unit to spot it was
one of our drones and spotted her from the air and we were able to get her the help shoo oh yeah was freeezing cold I'm amazed that she was out just in in you know little clothing as possible and we brought her out safely
the family could not be more ecstatic that was that was quick too yes but that's the direct result that's what kind of results these these drones can have you know and previously we had a suicidal individual another one that was a direct save this woman was going to
the train station to commit suicide and thankfully we had drones up in the air and we our guys were out there looking we had people walking all up and down the tracks we had people everywhere it's the middle of the night and they picked up a little blip of from the heat seeking uh thermals and they were able
to pick that up they ended up going to that location and she was sitting there waiting for the next train and she was going to jump in front of the next train so and now she's healthy happy and and because of those efforts so extremely successful unit and I can I
thank you guys enough because with your support we continue that and now the entire county is on board with that think I think we started that was it 2018 when we did the first mayor's ball and W back yeah so I remember we really
we really um pushing that and that unit you talk about with our 2025 goals that unit is expanded enough where we are 247 the count is now involved with that with a drone Strike Force as well and you're talking about water saves you know
people that could be stuck on the ice we can get a drone and a life vest out to them some of the major hurricanes we've had we've had people who were trapped on top of their cars and water flows we've flown life bests out to them with a rope so there is just I mean it can we can
spend the whole time just just talking about you know how we've helped the people of this town and other towns with that so we move on y um Community Care we'll move past that K9 unit operations we continue to do that our canines are
uh bomb detection as well as uh narcotics detection and our narcotics detection has done a great deal of work with the state police because when we put our narcotics detection dog in place many years ago that dog was one of the only dogs that was not trained we saw
the foresight in not training that dog in marijuana right so because of that State Police lost just about every dog they have and they utilize ours in and around the area and we were part of that team for quite a while so we have taken a lot of very bad and dangerous drugs
off the street with that our bomb detection unit obviously works all over if you know every single major event we have at the park and we have at our park and any type of event including the holiday tree lighting or we always do some type of bomb sweep so when it
doesn't matter what type of event it is we try and make it a standard for everything just to make sure everybody's safe you know it's it's what we have and we utilize it and if we can't get a dog because we're part of this partnership which is the render safe uh task force we can ask for a dog from any number of
other agencies out there and when we had an issue at the school many years back we had some type of event where we thought there was a bomb in the school this was years and years and years ago uh we contacted the render safe task force with our dogs and we had 17 dogs show up in 15
minutes so and they were able to clear that school a matter of minutes and make it safe for the students to go back in uh our task force and tactical collaborations we are part of the Mercer County homicide task force where we send
detectives out with that and they become part of that we have officers assigned to the computer crime task force and of course the Mercer County Tactical Team which all our officers participated and because of our participation we reap the benefits of anytime we have an incident
or anything we can utilize those units and we get priority for those units so it's very useful the class three program has was something that of course was uh controversial almost 10 years ago uh which I know uh very well I remember
that and now I supported uh when we have a class three officer who's not in the school because he's out sick we get yelled at where's where's the class three offic why aren't they here why aren't they in my school and we are now now a leading program in the nation for
that so people are asking us from all over how did you do this this is a great program our residents are mad at us because we don't have such a great program the the cost that 300,000 if I remember 2018 19 whatever that was that
that hasn't changed so was that no it's a shared services with the um School Board the total budget is 485,000 um which we could use between salary and wages and OE um we have had broken it down in the past 300,000 for salary and
wage 185 for equipment and training and things of that nature this year um if you notice when I give you the state format it's only going to have on line item for the shared services so we don't distinguish between the two um so would give us more flexibility for the because
our salary and wage we actually hit the limit last year with our salary and wage we're fully staffed I think now on our class 3es and we never were in the past so um it's more of salary wages than anything else our um OE budget is is rather small compared to what we used to
put in the budget so to give ourselves flexibility I made that change this year in the 2025 budget doesn't affect anything between us and the school it just allows me to pick between OE and salary and wage um because when you do a shared services you're not allowed to do
a transfer so if you put that line item that way outside because you're outside caps it will not allow you to um do a transfer and now we're fully staffed and we're still covered and everything so we're using more of the salary and wage because we um with the Plainsboro the
school district and West Windsor all agreed a couple years ago to um increase the salaries minimal each year before it had been stayed flat just for recruiting purposes so um the salaries going up I think it's a dollar an hour a year uh
it's not a lot but it does help prob now they pay 100% School District right yes they do but it has to come under the police because the you know the laws and it's yeah plus we are very selective about our class 3es as we stated in the program you know 10 years
ago that they need to meet our standards as a West WIS are officer so they get our training our equipment our everything so that we know that those people that the officers that go in that school have our training and our
community standards that we we so now our our school district is Westminster and Plainsboro so we we look into Westminster schools whereas Plainsboro looks into the schools that are in Plainsboro but we have students going from either of the
towns to either of the schools yes so we partnership with Plainsboro police department and so together and work together Plainsboro picks the people the officers from pboro we picked it if I remember one of our big selling points
here is that when we're bringing these officers in they come through our Police Department they're not random or correct uh and that was one of the big uh selling points that with the community right we personally interview and hire every one of them and then we train them
to our standards no matter where they come from do you know if Plainsboro does similar they do you know they keep it up to they do the same things they interview and they train but you know I can't you know it's tough because it's not only a different town but a
different County right so you know they have a different prosecutor they have a different here yes but you know that we try and mirror what we do in in our H process it's not like we're going through this very precise model and they just randomly hire people on their side right EXA they have the process yes they
interview they try and do the same you know so and lastly Our Community caretaking and Mental Health initiatives we have strengthened our partnership with Capital Health I I think one of the biggest things that we do on a daily basis is our mobile Outreach and our
crisis transports so as you know every person that has any type of uh mental health issue any type of mental health problem we deal with on a on a daily basis sometimes four to five times a day so that is a big initiative with us we partner with Capital Health we also work
with them very closely on every week we provide them an updated list of follow-ups that we're looking for so if we've dealt with somebody in the mental health capacity on the previous week that Monday we will uh start a spreadsheet that will give them information as to who they should come
out and do follow-ups with we have found that that follow-up care actually reduces the number of recidivist calls that we get to that residents because they're now getting Continued Care yeah and they need that right I mean right but people under the misconception that
or at least they were for many many years that oh we're going to call Capital Health directly or we're going to call mobile Outreach directly because we don't want the police involved because the police don't know how to handle mental people with mental illness or any type of disability and uh you
know they're only going to cause harm uh what they don't understand is if you call Crisis Support they will call us to go out there first make sure it's safe for their workers right so we have a great deal of experience and our I have to say our police officers are probably some of the best in the nation when it
comes to dealing with mental health calls you trained for that exactly we train for that not just once but yearly and constantly including we're doing a big initiative now for uh people with Autism we did many years ago we had a sticker program get put out where we
were people were able to register if they had a family member with autism they were able to register with the police department that person to say look if you ever have to deal with this person here are their triggers here are the things that will make them upset here how you here's the the ways you can
come Cal him or her down so that program is in place for many years and we have a little sticker that people can put on their car and in their house that basically says Hey the person behind the wheel of this vehicle has uh mental health issues and they may be triggered
by Loud Noises by yelling by Sirens any of that they may become combative those type of things because it helps the officer even if it's a different town identify that that person might not be being combative because they don't want to cooperate it's because they're
dealing with issues that are causing that that is only for autism or sticker basically says mental health issues but we are pushing a big initiative with autism that we're also working with the county on a blue envelope program as well and the blue
envelope program works in your cars where you have your documentation license registration and insurance in your car and that gets given to the officer pulling the person over and it's a blue envelope that the officer train to identify as someone with a mental health issue or with
autism so we're working on that program as well along with some other few things but our big initiatives are the community caretaking what we're looking for in 2020 and 25 is an expansion to that to include Ted because one of the
problems we're running into is when our officers go on scene we have to wait for someone from Capital Health to come to make a final decision whether somebody should be transported to the crisis center for evaluation we can do that if certain triggers are in place like if if
they tell us they're going to commit suicide or if they tell us they're going to do certain things then we can make that decision but in most situations we have to wait for someone to come out that can take up to two hours so now we're tying up two police officers for two hours and we're trying to keep the
person calm now you can imagine in two hour time frame with someone who is going through a mental health issue how difficult that is for two hours I can't even sit here for two hours I have to stand up okay so it's that up and down escalation so we are working trying to
partner with them and actually I have a meeting Thursday that we can try and get what they've partnered in a lot of other parts of the country with Ted where they're actually taking that and we can come out with an iPad and as soon as we get out there we can immediately connect to a mental health professional and they
can immediately tell us okay yeah this person needs to go or you're good to go yeah so we can see that 2our time frame and those programs would be funded by the mental health teams through capital or whatever resource is being used yeah I know tellah Health has being used for
mental health all the time now it's it's very very common oh yeah yeah yeah so also in 2025 we're looking to enhance Our Community Education and Outreach we've been doing a ton of that through our social media one of the programs we've been trying to get off the ground
which has been a little slow running is our stuff with YouTube we're trying to get on YouTube and do uh some type of uh podcast so that we can talk about different issues in town what I'm trying to partner with is the high school so we
can get students who are into the media of the high school to be partners with us to put these programs together so we get the local students to be part of that and then we can get out a message on YouTube and other areas like we want to meet with the bike and pedestrian
Alliance and talk about bike and pedestrian safety coming up we want to talk about burglaries and how to better protect yourself and devices you can use all these things that are part of that so we're a little slow running I wanted to have this program up and running already I have the hardware we need I
just need to get on board with some more stuff but our Community Education and Outreach we're trying to expand into every medium we possibly can and pedestrian safety and decoy programs we continue to work on those we are putting officers out on the street just to do
pedestrian safety and also Vehicle Safety we're trying to get out there our decoy programs we work at the different intersections where we have pedestrian Crossings and we will set up with officers we'll have them cross the road and as a pedestrian and then if someone
violates the law we will have a a police car waiting that will pull the person over either hand them literature or depending on how heinous the violation issue them a summons for that but most of the time you can hand out literature that will explain the crosswalks and things like that many people don't even
realize I didn't even realize when we first started doing this that the crosswalk you need to wait till the person clears the entire crosswalk you know I mean you never see that right I mean you're lucky if you still have your shirt on by the time the cars com across but I didn't realize you need to clear that entire crosswalk
before it's a thing yes so not many many drivers they do and I know the people on Alexander Road arts building right I mean they we we've done walks and so they're concerned about safety there and
and the speeding that goes on there yeah we've been there we we walked it we've walked yeah few months ago yeah yeah what I play decoy all the time on all the roads around here but you know and lastly we we're continuing our speed enforcement you know we use technology
to track the speed on on certain roads roads and then we take that technology and we figure out whether or not that road is extremely enforcable or something that is we we better suited picking other streets other locations it's it's going to give us that 85th
percentile which you can spend about six or seven days talking about the legitimacy of an 8 8 F percentile and technology and surveillance we're working on expanding our camera and License Plate Reader Program so we're looking to put at key locations in town
License Plate Reader cameras on different poles and that program was started by Mercer County and because they are running the program and running the software it makes it very affordable for us to just purchase cameras and get on that program so we can do it we just
tap into the yeah we tap into their software which gives us now access to thousands of readers across the state so that helps us with burglaries it helps us with thefts at key locations we can see if a vehicle cross that location if it's something that uh we are looking
for or even someone who has Alzheimer's and has been driving around we can then plug that license plate in and see where that license plate has crossed in what part of the state or where they are are located and we're working with the prosecutor's office to really kind of
enhance that program this is something I know the mayor was very excited about because I think we can bring more Safety and Security to the residents for a lot of different areas that we're looking into and you know also our website expand ion we we continue to add more
and more content to our websites we work with the Girl Scouts on many occasion I can't tell you how many different gold and silver Girl Scout teams I worked with Y one most recently was for our animal control stuff oh she had she got her award she's gotten her course she
she did a great job oh she was all over oh she was great and she was on task with me too she wouldn't let me slack one day so she was on me day and night like did you update that did you change that she was she was incredible uh but it was good stuff because she had found some model animal control stuff that I
thought she said well we're kind of lacking on and I said I agree with you so let's do it you know so really uh good stuff so again we're partnering with the community to make that a group effort and they did a great job fantastic so I'll bore you no longer but I really think our biggest push is for
the police department is community initiative and making I tell every single one of my officers when I meet with them a couple times a year is when you go somewhere you need to make it better than when you got there so when you arrive by the time you leave that
situation needs to be better and I think we need to do that for all the residents of West Windsor or wherever we're meeting individuals is we have to make their lives better now maybe some people don't agree with that they're being arrested for shoplifting but it's respect and dignity for every single
person no matter what they did and that's what I can be proud of most with our West wi officers is that they do that every single day and I can send you which I do occasionally but I can send you hundreds of feedback from people in and around town who have experienced
that so thanks for this opportunity I do want to remind you that I have asked if if Council wants to do ride alongs I think you said you were starting to do that again so well we try not to but we can work it out try and work it out for you guys depending if you you want to do
yeah um so think about that and make sure whoever wants right um page four um before we do that does anyone on Council have any general questions no I just wonder if we could get like the wrapup that you gave us if you haven't in writing you know accomplishments
2024 yeah goals for 2025 we we we did get your um we got this one but we didn't you said I carried over from last year to this year so yeah it's a very brand you know that that really needs to be our full accomplishments but I I have a copy of this saved I can give you that yeah
thank you no worries um does anybody have any other general questions before the budget no thank you okay if you go to page four and that's the police OE we start with okay so the areas of concern where we had uh slight increases we're looking
at what has happened in the years transpiring and of course everything has gone up so I want through them quickly just stop me if there's something of major concern for you uh 2114 is our dues that has gone up due to licensing fees if then the reason why that is a
different increase is because now police are required to be licensed so because of that great piece of news that's going to cost you $500 an officer for any new officers so of course you know what licensing costs money so that is
something we have to budget for and proactively get involved with so that's why that there's a change in that our 233 is our equipment maintenance office furniture I know it's misleading yes it is that's also their it budget it's kind of mixed in historically for whatever
reason the police budgets it's always been under this type of um nomenclature so um you have to ask Mrs H about that how we got there so we're keeping it there for historical um comparisons but um um he can explain for what you know
as we all know the licens and fee for it is going up yeah quite a bit uh 238 is physical and medical doctor exams of course that we're doing a lot of fit for Duty exams now they do quite comprehensive medical and psychological
testing which they are increasing cost quite a bit but it's required as as part of the job 241 are printing cost just because we're starting to do more with our community policing and our autism awareness and police reports stationary it's kind of
all of that again a lot of these are minor increases but that's why I want you to just know about all of them 272 which is our training and educational as again as we get more and more attorney general mandates we are required to do more and more
training 276 uniform cleaning that one has gone up slightly not a whole lot 278 vehicle repair this one's killing me every year I have to stop in June and tell them stop fixing cars and hopefully we can get because we
run out of money it's just unbelievable transfers in November um you know 332 office supplies again this is general office supplies not a not a big hit a small amount and 354 Technical and
specialized supplies sounds misleading but that fits on all our categories everything to do with our canines our drones and more specifically all our supplies for our detective so those are ID kits and everything for
fingerprinting and bagging supplies and everything in between it's also our firearm supplies our backers our targets those type of things all those so it's a very broad category that handles a lot of different things 357 are uniforms
these costs have gone up significantly and we're trying to reduce the amount of cost in between them and lastly the big one which is our uh Vehicles 424 that has always been a a major problem for us because every time we try and go up then four and everybody else
goes up behind it and the uniform cleaning is that also includes shirts pants sweaters like like all all of that not just yes yeah and and as you all know I think Jim is no longer around who was our vendor of
choice so we've had to it was rather difficult trying to find a replacement but was able to told me they were going to go over there by Whole Foods I don't know yeah do you have to bid for that though
uh no um you know we we're going to see how it goes this year um we did U rfps instead um but uh we haven't gone over the bid threshold in the past um but we're not sure about this year you know
the B threshold is it 1755 it is so we should be legally bidding not necessarily we're actually under yeah okay well we're we're budgeting 23 we
are we spent let's say 9,000 eight n correct and that fluctuate from the year to year um we do you know and if if it the money's not used like that's one of the lines that Chief would maybe transfer for vehicle repair at the end of you know November when he needs it so
there is a little bit built in there and with the new vendor um for the dry cleaning I know the cost have gone up correct yes who who we youing I know that too yeah yeah it has like 40 50% so we're gonna see where
we're at this year we may have to go out next year we're not going to get anybody to bid on it we've done this before we've gone out to bid um because of it's um you know the police want pick up delivery and for some reason people don't want to provide the technical
requirements for bidding um uh so we've never been able to get a bid this usually small guy you know shops and stuff do we have we have one now yes and I don't even know who it is I think it's yeah all I know is we couldn't even
get people to want to just even do it yeah yeah it took some time but um the lieutenant was able to get somebody they wrote it down on a piece of paper like what their prices were they wouldn't even give him prices oh my you don't even know what he went through
you want I can bring him in no no it's trust me not happy yeah so we'll see where that goes yeah okay yes now you did bring up the animal control yes that number it's actually in a
couple places here there's it's in two places one is right on page five okay so why the increase there um it is because in the past the cost was never $7,500 if you notice we've always spent this full
amount but we always had the animal trust fund as a backup for any additional cost but since the pandemic that fund has dwindled down to less than $2,000 so that's the reason why a big increase this year um because I have to fund that
additional cost and I can no longer use the animal control fund because we need to build that back up um so that's control fund that is all the fees that we charge for animal uh for dog and cat licenses goes into that fund and then we
use it to pay for only items for animal control vet bills things of that nature there's a lot of call when we pick up a stray animal that the township has to pay for and so we usually use this line item and the trust fund but um last year
literally I think we were down to around $1800 when we used to carry around $18,000 so um you're saying that there's been more than this amount money spent we just haven't seen it as a it's a it's a combination that we've been spending more because the costs are up you know a
stray cat we have to hold for seven days we have to do all this other stuff cost us anywhere from $800 to $1,500 per stray if you get one colony of stray cats that we have to take care of that it's thousands and thousands of dollars well I see it we all yes see it in the
bills and claims correct um so that that's something and the um um the licensing is down quite frankly also so yeah that that was a discussion that we had we need to do little more of Outreach to the residents
yeah right yeah so I was concerned about that shouldn't be down everybody JS to the hospital so while we're speaking theal we still have the shared services with e do and that's going up 10,000
this year um we haven't increased it for about four or five years we just did a renewal and we've been using that service a little bit more um we also pretty much maxed that budget line item last year so uh this was the year to increase both of them so this 25,000 is
that including what we're paying that is not for East Windsor that's in a separate line that's outside the budget um because it's a shared services and that line will be going up $10,000 okay because that was always a decent deal so yeah and and we also pay
per right that's a that's a contract that you just recently uh renewed and it's uh we pay a flat fee per month plus per call retainer plus a yeah and retainer is not much it's right around 500 if I recall 450 350 some you have to
look at to find an animal and different things it's cats and dogs it is Animal Control lot more it is's paying for the hospital we are right if it's a stray and nobody claims
it if it's someone's Wild yeah that's that's on us yep yeah aren't there some Under fishing game if there're certain kind of animal I think I don't know that's beyond
me yeah so if somebody hits a deer so yeah that's right we um we have a service we call and they come pick it up so well yeah they and we pay for that also I mean it used to be free when we
had the tiger tiger lady Jackson but yeah okay any questions legs are broken or something yeah any questions on the um Animal Control you said there's another line item on Animal Control right yeah let me
find it for you it is on page 11 uh toward the bottom it's called Animal Control I LSA and it's it's $10,000 as you see y okay so we do all of this within the
statutes of what we pick up correct yep and most of those even if we didn't have the if we did it our ourselves we would still have to pay for the hospitals and we still have to pay two separate issues right you have you know Animal Control enforcement and then you
have just the cost for the services provided okay yeah all right anything else in the O and [Music] budget then we can go to public safety and start
under page 76 the largest request this year is for technology uh included in that would be the department wide replacement of desktop computers majority of our department computers are over five years old in Le replacement it would also
include a replacement of Aging monitors keyboards web cameras portable hard drives and other pereral devices another element is would be seen liting to assist with crime scenes and missing person searches lar laser measurement devices for traffic enforcement and then throughout
the year a large amount of money is needed to purchase and Implement security measures that meet the Cyber GIF cyber security framework requirements and best practices that's a lot of money throughout the year um the reason why this is so high comparison to other years is we had a large uh
purchase of the axon Fleet camera system um and that's why there's such a difference this year that Fleet camera system upgraded our current systems and we'll add a um new camera to an additional vehicle in our Fleet and the council had proved that in December it
was for u a little over 300,000 of which 195,000 was paid to toward a grant um so we kind of wiped out our balance that we were carrying for this so that's why we have the um increase this year what is that explosive gas
detection devices in that it's into the the detail justif P 76 at the bottom like what what is that hold on let me gety here say this technology includes
routers switches cameras readers uavs monitors fze small explosion detective devices so we have devices that will like the fire department will sniff out that a lot of what I put into the program just
is because you know many years ago I was told we got to make sure we cover any of the different areas that would be considered technology right I gives this flexibility when when when I go to bond is co come under that too carbon monoxide yeah but that this is more
explosive detection gases so carbon monoxide detects you know we're talking about actual explosive type gases up if you have a gasit to your house and some of these devices you can get them for yourself I mean they're 30 40 $50
they're very good sniffing out exem important oh yeah everyone should have one of those Co and exposive yeah we got the se but not the gas one got a brand new stove it's like why am I spending a
little that took a while to get PS out yeah turned it off got another one okay any other questions on that one or do we Okay page 77 software replacement cost to replace
vital software and Licensing including new software needs each year among those would be Adobe SOS Network management screen connect among uh various other software we use okay um security systems upgraded which is hold on what's page
79 yeah you good it okay uh cost associated with the current security systems hardware and software uh we need an upgrade um to our department Access Control hardware and software has not been updated in many years and was
initially installed in 2014 so seems like U there's a relevant small amount every year that goes into this so was so this isn't one big upgrade you're doing right now well so last time we had an issue with the door locks the um the door company came out
and said basically that we need an upgrade because it's not it's not able to get they're not able to get support anymore from the company they need an upgrade to get that support so we talking an upgrade to the physical locks or are we talking software software so just software upgrade supports the
physical here what we try and do is so the cost astronomical we keep it so that we can replace a lock here we replace lock there oh so you have to physically replace the lock or is this a software access but this is a software major software upgrade that has
to take place software that is part of that physical blocking system so they're know what part of Hardware component will also be part of it because a lot of times they will include with that that has to be a board that has to be replaced physically on the panel itself
okay so it's a combination of Hardware software yeah so they're setting this aside now so you don't you know so you don't get hit with one big project it's mentioned that additional funds exist do we know how much funds we have in this
off top my head it it I think we have about two years worth so it should be about 20,000 next would be DWI and DB in room axon system what page page 80 the police department uses utilizes axon systems for Fleet body warn cameras
interview rooms and taser the axon interview interview room cameras were purchased in November 2022 in November 2027 our contract expires and we we will need to renew our contract and make any necessary upgrades um so this is just basically putting it aside a little bit out a year
so when we are time we're not getting hit with the a giant bill at once next page would be page4 multitask and surveillance solution in August 2023 the department
deployed uh automatic license plate recognition cameras also known as alpr they've been useful in the apprehension of suspects we plan to deploy more of these cameras throughout West Windsor and it would provide officers with investigative tools that enhance Public Safety and operational effectiveness so
with these cameras as Chief already explained um the back end of it is done by the county we basically just purchased a camera there's initial cost of purchasing each camera there's also a um operating cost because we need to have a SIM card in them so we do have a
monthly cost associated with that also uh also the initial cost of the camera includes five years of Maintenance but after that we would either need to replace the camera or go with an maintenance program okay is that um cellular annual cost wouldn't that be an operational
expense actually um because we do it's do five years you bundle it as a fiveyear so it's a fiveyear useful life um yeah and so in this way we keep we keep our cost level you
know and then we have vehicles that are operating expenses so it's we do um the division of local government through the and the statutes did change that last year we technically could take that out of our and put it into but it's not a
best practice um police cars are um not very let's just say they're used 247 disposable correct so to get truly get five years out of a police car is is kind of pushing it so at this stage I'd rather keep it in the current fund um
because we have a we have the ability to do it and not Finance uh police cares through through bonding uh the SUVs and other those other vehicles we purchased do last a lot longer and and do fit that bill but as far as the actual patrol cars and
things of that nature uh I think we're better off using the model that we have okay yep next would be virtual environment 85 it's been identified that our servers which are six years old will require
placement sooner than expected to due to enhanced space requirements as well as cyber security protections I I see for 2028 we have 250 thousand that is just a scary projection right to kind of say hey this may be an
issue so hopefully not hopefully not but if it may be an issue and for next two years 26 and 27 we have zero amounts would it make sense to put right and that's something FS towards that yeah that's something they'll look
at I guess what I'll do is I'll reevaluate it as the year comes to and say this look like it's going to be a scary proposal if so we need to start putting it it's a great SUV replacement which is Page 90
each SUV cost approximately $45,000 this cost does not include our department paint and decals emergency vehicle equipment or labor labor to install that equipment uh the majority of our Fleet are Ford Explorers and the yearly SUV replacement would manage our
aging SUV Fleet es escalator incident command capabilities as well as our major incident and inclement weather response plan uh we do try to replace the vehicles before their mileage gets too high as Chief said that the repairs do get C LLY um how many of them are we talking
about for the 135,000 I'm sorry how many SUVs yeah I mean probably around two so this is this would be two SUVs yeah two two or three yeah and just so Council knows um the police actually keep these vehicles for
10 12 years uh they rotate them into the um extra Duty pool which is what we get reimbursed for that um so these these vehicles that last a very long time next would be replacement of firearms and related
equipment uh what page is that no we have 93 the ATV uh ATV EOC vehicle Police Package responder this would be used for special events at Mercer County Park um those
events have become become more common over the years there's usually you know a big terrain over there that our officers have to cover and using a vehicle isn't feasible and this will make it easier to navigate the scene and provide emergency response so this is something new you don't have have it now
correct correct okay you don't have these carts now okay no um so this is going to be kept in Mercer County Park and basically only used for the park for the most part I think the best thing is to keep it there let them maintain and help us out with it but it doesn't mean
we can't trailer it and bring it to another location okay we have in on the train trility or our community you and you guys are there almost every weekend aren you or certain
times a year for for for the season have we thought of trying to get some help for paying for them for the park if we're yeah I'm working on the park on it having the park I've already talked to the county Executives about a emergency
Operation Center set up there so we can set up a command post in that area that is permanent does tent don't cut it when a when a tornado hits doesn't work very well and also as for is working on our License Plate Reader Program so we
really want them to cover the costs for in and around the park area for licensed readers I think that'll be good because for we we we are the ones who respond to mer County Park and all year long there there events events that happen we are
the ones who are yes I always see several of the officers I think I've met you out there yeah whenever there's any kind of big event out there yeah there um is this something that we should think about for something like community park for us to have would that be useful because
there's a lot of places in community park where you really can't drive a car yeah I mean it's something we can continue on the program you know think it goes well next year so when this vehicle I mean it's if it's in the Mercer County Park Garage we
do you have like set control so that this isn't being used by all sorts of people yeah we'll have access to the Keys they'll be they'll be charging it for us and do that type of thing but it'll be with their police type vehicles with their security vehicles so it's not just going to be sitting out in the park
it'll be in in a garage yeah I just want to make sure when it's in the garage that you're not using this without us knowing oh it's going to say West Wind or police on it and everything yeah understanding
there do wheelies out Lake I recognize that replacement of firearms and related equipment h94 the annual call syst to covered a replace spoon of equipment the handguns were replaced in 2024 and have a service life of to seven
years right you remember you guys purchased you know we had a pretty big expense last year so it's back to to the normal build a fund up for replacement next we be replacement of portable radios this funding covers the as needed replacement of the current police board
radios and allows for an adequate level of Replacements this this year I ordered um four new ones and accessories and it cost over $330,000 so they are quite expensive uh we also have been adding new officers to our forest in an attempt to keep Pace with the town's growth which has created
the need for an additional Port you know additional portable radios also how how how many would we be able to get in 30,000 well I I bought four four was 33,000 and that was with accessories so maybe you don't need you know I bought a
stock of belt clip holders and stuff so I would say four for $330,000 at the current price point next would be replacement of Emergency Equipment for patrol Vehicles 96 uh like anything else that's cost is
rapidly Rising we do try to save money by transferring operational equipment from old vehicles to new vehicles uh those trans the transferred equipment would include Mobile Radio Systems Inc car video cameras radar units mdts MD Docks but even with
transfer and that equipment it still costs approximately $14,000 to outfit a detective an Administration police vehicle and approximately 25,000 outfit a patrol vehicle um besides the car it needs to get emergency lighting siren package gun
gun racks mounts prisoner dividers trunk organizers and new cabling so if you were starting from scratch on a car with without anything it's 25,000 no no that's uh that's just transferring over what we can but we don't transfer over to light bar or
siren package so 20 the 25 000 would be car with with uh transfer over some things like transfer over incar radio the fleet cameras but we don't transfer over lighting cabling we've run in issues where we try to save money on cabling and it's basically it's dry
rodded next thing you know we're ripping paying a big money to rip a car apart to save $200 on cabling and being you know cost prohibitive so okay so the 25 is with all of the savings of patrol car yes obviously they're more than the detective car lighting so detective you
said was like 14,000 14,000 for detective or Administration MDT replacement in 2026 we plan to replace our fleets MDT uh mdts they're getting older and the programs we run are requiring more memory requirements and
so they're not sufficient anymore I'm I'm sorry sorry M so what what what what's it what's it of you mean like the old the old oh no no I remember the original car phones
they were called car phones with the big antennas in uas program which is age 98 and explain what the uas is what was that aircraft systems so this is your drone program we've already talked about that
yeah keeps us uh you know Chief told you about the success we've had with the drones our Fleet of the drones is aging um this year we plan to replace um one of the smaller drones and also our larger drone so plans to replace two
drones and we do notice with the Aging of the um drones that batteries aren't holding up anymore and we're finding that we put it out to try to find a Miss person and 10 minutes later we got to bring it back because it's batteries dying on us so um it's time to you know like any else Technologies is getting
out because I think this was funded in what 2018 yeah or 19 2018 we yeah we collected the money 2019 I guess even in the middle of that year the technology totally changed we were
going to buy one large drone and I think you were able to get four smaller and a big one or different yeah it's quite different and the last would be General improvements and this would consist of just misleading improvements to the police and Court facilities you know our
normal um because this building's a little larger than the rest we we've bumped it to 30 instead of 25 because it's encompasses the police and the court do we have balance on this I think we are if I recall we try to keep it I
think we were right around 45,000 at the end of the year um so um as of the end the year was probably right around there you see that you're finally getting some improvements done at the
yeah there yeah these people listen it is real mess between them and the EMS building that with the new roof like any construction you know you got to break some eggs to make a good omelet so can't break eggs yeah oh yeah that that's
true capital budget now for the eggs yeah you gotta capitalize that's pretty good all right I think that's it for the uh anyone have any more questions for chief thank you for
everything thank you thank you for app here a lot of compliments um of your department so thank you they incredible men women so I'm very proud absolutely thank you thank you all right thank you good
job okay all right um we need to formally break for a recess at this point so can I have a motion to go into it's 12:55 should we make this
1:30 uh motion to go into a recess until 1:30 can I have one3 second all in favor okay we will at 130 registration I believe and um then we'll go into any public comment and
then we'll go into Clos session than three hours straight e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e okay I'm calling back together the
council meeting for March 11th we're doing a um work session on the budget thank you okay first up is going to be krie Carrie can you introduce yourself just turn turn your microphone
back on sorry switch it up Carrie Giblin a Special Assistant to administ ation and helping out our business administrator currently so I'll go over our 2024 accomplishments and then 2025 goals and
objectives um part of our 2024 accomplishments included um collaborating and supporting the different department heads and division managers in implementing their goals and objectives completing projects recruiting efforts and succession
planning efforts as well as the continuity of operations uh Administration supervise the functions of buildings and grounds human resources and purchasing also acted and served as the Director of the Department of Human Services divisions
of Health recreation parks senior and Social Services uh in 2024 we brought on additional staff in administration for human resources which assisted in recruiting onboarding and training uh additional staff within the town ship um
and also assisted in oversaw the education and learning opportunities uh for all the different departments uh approving tuition reimbursements and looking at that and continuing education for um various functions within um
Administration including workshops through the league uh Municipal managers Workshop um and various annual conferences in 2024 executed the 2024 uh operating Capital bug budgets
with finance and the other departments the S&P Global ratings report affirmed long-term rating for AAA um which stable in a signed the short-term rating for SNP um and we also had a $2.5 million
band sale Administration also coordinates um weekly with the township clerk's office and um assisted um with the transition 2024 for the clerk's office and US
learning and um going through the request for Council actions resolutions and ordinances for all of the council meeting agendas and packets um in addition with I Our IT department and Facilities maintenance
buildings and grounds we maintained improved and fortified the Township's Municipal Network infrastructure for tiers 1 two and three uh certifications uh of Technology H which complies with the Mel GIF cyber risk
management program which is the m Jersey GIF insurance coverage requirement um Administration also coordinate and manage the township approval process for special events requests involving any use of Township
Properties or outside properties including the county parks so we work with the county park uh police department and all the other various departments where permits or um other things are required to make sure that the uh special events have a successful
safe event um in consultation with the finance department we consulted and helped to implement a new payroll system um and more to come with that which started in 2025 um or business administrator served
as the executive committee member secretary and Treasurer to the mid Jersey GIF um continued out on the municipal building construction projects um and the project close out um trying
to get more information on our current website to Residents um and try to streamline that process and then also uh collaborating and with facilities and it on the future of the websites so that
will be in the 2025 goals uh assisted the West Windsor Parking Department parking authority um with its proposed facility and grounds improvements at the Wallace Road bus garage site and their storm water management plan um in conjunction with
engineering and a couple outside groups as well um and then also uh filed reports with appropriate entities regarding the Township's compliance with its third round affordable housing obligation and began to working on the fourth round
affordable housing obligations and conferred with staff legal counsel and Consultants to transmit information to njdca by statutory deadlines in 2025 our goals uh include
continuing um implementing goals and objectives for the different departments and division managers within the township Contin continuing um supervising the same functions um additional learning and education goals um continuing education
within the township for all of our employees uh within Administration um certified public manager program and a masters in public administration um and then attend additional local seminars and there's
different um certifications that require cus for all the department or all the divisions that we try to um also support their goals in education and within Administration as
well um continuing with the payroll system that was implemented in 2025 um implementing additional modules within that program uh including time management um time and attendance benefit tracking and Human Resources
tools and workflow automation uh and then also assisting uh it with the implementation of the new Township uh website which is we are hoping to have streamlined Communications and modernize these user
experience and enhanced public engagement and Outreach um within the website and then see what capabilities we can do for that because I know communication and Outreach is a huge important thing so trying to one streamline some of the information so
it's not all over over the place um on the website to get information kind of in the same place so it's not going to a calendar over here and here and here so that it's just one place that we can get the information out and share it so it's not out there for um trying to dig for
hours on the website um 2025 also includes executing the 2025 operating and capital budgets um coordinating and continuing with uh the Township Clerk on request for Council
action resolutions um and meeting agenda and packets assisting with resolving issues and disputes involving Township departments divisions vendors and contractors continue to serve as the executive committee member and secretary
to the mid Jersey GIF do a final close out on the Township municipal Pro building construction projects um continue um and hopefully update the special events process and requests so that you can continue having events
within the township and that includes outside organizations that come into the town special events um continue to um over be and assist
with um townships affordable housing obligation information and uh settlement agreements with fair share housing as well as um anything that comes out for round four uh monitor proposed improvements for the
NJ Zs um County Road 571 projects bridge over the DNR canal and uh the Mercer County Route 571 from Clarksville to the intersection um walk and work with the different
departments um securing our um executed agreement with West wisor fire company for their sprinkler system um so that is something hoping to have over to them in the next few days so that we can continue um to
move forward on that project um continue to assist and support the Historical Society of Westwinds or Township uh maintain communication support efforts of West wisor bicycle pet Alliance and West wisor friends of
open space to ensure compliance with the master plan and then also um continue to maintain um the municipal Network infrastructure for the requirements of the insurance
company thank you that seems to be pretty much everything involved with the government in the town so um it's uh it's pretty um pretty extensive um just one thing I'm GNA just throw out here um for the um events and
also for our parks uh one of the things that probably could use a little bit more information oration would be if somebody wanted to rent our park for a certain Pavilion I was actually looking online the other day I couldn't find a way to do that and I know for events
people are not really sure uh like they want to use the Historical Society buildings um what what's involved and if they want to bring food there so there there are whole sets of procedures but I don't think anybody either under either knows that these places are available or
uh they may not know how to how to get how to get them so some sort of information and then hopefully eventually perhaps even a slightly better system where you can take a look and see if if some of these are available online for the weekend so you don't even bother if they're not when
you want to go some so some system filling that one in right right now you have to call the recreation Recreation Department to reserve any of the parks and it and there should that we can we get with the new website if we can there
should be standard procedur standard pricing and then uh if you want food who you have to who you have to put in the form to so so the way if we can automate that I think it'll get a lot more interest and a lot more use and I think people will be happier that realizing
that we offer all that amenity here in the town that's the website too bring all that information one place they have to go to merer county park for reserving any of the Pavilion but we have Community Park we have vanest park at least those two parks that has Pavilion
that can be reserved and we do do a lot of events at duckon Park too so with the improvements at duckon Park that might be available as well so whatever whatever we're willing to whatever whatever is right now on the list for us to uh rent out so to speak um then we
could put that in there and then for the special events which uh which I know sometimes involves several meetings and things but there should be a way to start that process at least online um and then I'm sure everybody's interested in the in the um website at this point
also any if you have any timeline on the website yeah so we are doing um the sitemap so it's kind of the overview of how the different departments and divisions um so they just they gave that to us just recently pulled from our
website so I know there's some changes that are going to be made to that it um and then is there any plan right now for some kind of an app for the community I would say not at this moment I think we want to see how the website functions
and then um but I think it and speak a little bit further on that so I don't know if there's a way to start that discussion at some point but yeah I mean I think the the website map is you a necessary part of the process but
usually the map is built on functional requirements yes and I think we should be having discussions and collaborating and getting input or the administration should be getting input from the council if not from the entire Community what
those functional requirements are just like Andrew is talking about you know having a a way to online Reserve Pavilions and having all that information that's not that's less about that map but it's more about what functions do we want to serve I think
everybody I think those I mean I think there's a list of things like that we have a lot of great ideas that doesn't necessarily mean they're all going to get in there but I think there's a lot of ideas and and smart people here who understand sort of what the needs are and I think we should be having that
conversation discussion sooner rather than later I know I know the council was given an opportunity to send in some suggestions but it kind of ended at that point I one second have we received anything uh actionable IDE ideas from the council I
think during the the request list and any of the meetings I've been taking that into consideration I know I had I mean one of the things that I had suggested I've been in many of these view end up after 2 three hours of discussion and nobody's clear what was agreed so what I had suggested to Andrea
is collect actionable ideas not that we want a great website that's not action so give me 200 300 whatever you have and then that is a starting point and I even offered her if she wants to have a discussion among just yourself no
problem but just give actionable ideas rather than just gener because gener doesn't and one of the most thing I always complain about is Manpower we have one person it Department right with somebody helping so perhaps similar to
the what kind of did in in other discussions is that we collect that information um distribute to everybody and then during one of our business meetings we have a discussion okay I I had sent something in at one point did you get more stuff than there yes I
believe Andrea had sent information and I might be Dan even contributed yeah that I think what I'd like to is like because you're meeting with a consultant right um and at certain point you get to like a draft it's starting to come
together and then show up the drafts to like we like this or we want to add something different think once you have a working draft it's easier to give more yeah Linda there's not too much back and
forth if we start before we come up with the working draft you give us that these are the 15 things we want to see that's lot because otherwise we come up with a working graft and I will guarantee you five of you will we have six different
opinions right and we don't know and then we start if you say we don't like it at all this is garbage right then we start from scratch I've been asking you for number of times give me actionable ideas let's use them to create a working
draft then you comment on that at least we have something to go with I mean right now we are just guessing what you guys want well I think that's a good idea and I also think it would be helpful for us if you could provide whatever functional requirement or
design document or any kind of you know correspondence you've had just so that we have that Foundation see you you are users right you are users of the website sure right you're are not designing the website so from user point of view okay
like she said I want easy way to book Pavilion great very actionable idea these are functional designs very actionable idea yeah give me whatever ideas you have like that you want user
you want end user ideas one second U just email them the towns that our website designer has designed website for okay right list of towns so one thing is go and look at those five towns six towns say we like this we hate this
like this we H this some that I'm trying to avoid reiterations because at the end what I'm trying to avoid is I don't want to spend a lot of time giving you all these ideas only to find out that you've already Incorporated them so um if you can give me some kind of Bas it's okay
if you say you have an idea and she's already done it that's a good thing too I mean good to know the problem is not if you in tell if you have not incorporate any idea that's a problem yeah right so if you give us something I'm just trying to make it as efficient as possible and we
will give you we are using a a provider that has built website for five six 7even 10 different town we'll give you a list of so many towns you go on their website come up with a list saying that I mean just Fel like we like that feature on the Rob exactly we hate that
feature right same like you did for Budget uh that these are our ideas right this is what we find useful we made sure when I sat with John we made sure every one of them was addressed or as best as we could address so if you give us 100 ideas I've told andry I may incorporate
only 50 but at least I will tell you why those 50s were not Inc fine um why don't we do this um I know there was some letter sent out a while ago asking for ideas um let's let's collect that from anybody
who has any specific ideas and these are uh these are actual ideas not like hey I want it to be pretty and I want these colors or anything like that presumably but you know I can't stop anybody put what you like functional some functional ideas some general ideas why don't we
collect them and why don't we plan at our next meeting to have a um uh probably the under new business let's do a discussion and we can share what the ideas from each other are we'll probably all wind up with a lot of the same ones
and um that will be some more uh Direction at this point and um we could even if you want give um you know let Curry see them before the meeting so that way if the topic comes up she might be able to tell oh we're already doing
or we we're looking at this or that can't be done because it'll cost too much or or or get you know so let her see them ahead of time um does that sound like a that person ever come in at a meeting to talk with us for a little
bit they are not out of New Jersey so no again Linda I mean if they come and talk and at the end of two hours I get nothing I mean I've been through so many of that I have no idea exactly what you want if you think and put something on
paper at least I know exactly what you want I mean I have had so many such discussions and at the end of two hours I keep wondering I'm no better than what I was two hours before I'm still completely confused what you want I'm just trying to make it very
yeah we have to bef yeah we gonna give specific actionable items we will just sort of discuss them to get a feel no budget put it together send it to council right not gonna put ranking systems and all that stuff like like I usually do this will just be a list and
it'll be um different and if there's certain things that you can we can see there's kind of a consensus that everybody really wants that then then I think you'll you can know and then Carrie will send you the list of towns with this so uh and when don't we plan that for the next meeting since I think
we're getting far into this process here and I don't know how apparently some people haven't submitted any ideas yet so this way we'll put them all out in the open and uh there enough in there that we could review I thinking like because I do a lot of or ordinance work
so Administration planning boards you know who whatever they give us something it's something to sort of feed on you read it you say this is great this doesn't you know this needs to come out this needs to be added it's like a something to but that's what the other
websites are for I mean our is going to be designed based on I mean he's going to not come up with a new idea for West wi he's going to use whatever he has used for fire other towns so if you look at working website yeah and you tell us that I hate this this is great I
definitely want to have it like you you ranked one through five your budget priorities yeah something the same way you tell that this is must have no matter how much it costs I want to be able to schedule and
that that that he is so we've done just like the basic layout of it and so now it's into you know the different departments and trying to streamline that process so taking you know some of the things that you're saying and I could we can send you a screenshot of
what they've sent us of it as well and then with your ideas we can give that to them to see how to incorporate into the next phase of it for sure I'm curious what they're coming up with all of their experi so they kind of have like templates of different websites and different and they're all very very
similar so I think taking those priorities of what you see on other Township's websites and the feedback that you that you know we're missing from our current residents and how they use a website is the information that um
we're lacking is um reserving things online because a lot of like now people don't pick up phone to call they want to go online and just plug it plug the information in and hope that
that information gets passed on right so that is I think very important for us to move move to you know that would be a huge Improvement to our website and and I think the other big thing is ease of if you have something you need ease of
finding the right place to turn that in or or to wear the question so you don't have to go from place to place to place place to find it something you could do within a couple of Clicks in a where it is um Carrie I believe you have to leave it too correct so we we'll have this
conversation when we do next uh council meeting and uh I think we're all happy with moving along with that H different things um and then let's and then let's go on with the other stuff does anyone have anything else no nothing else just
send us that thing if you can I mean anything else encourage us talk yeah um we're on what page one Administration OE um there's a slight increase from last year
3.27 um highlight some of those items um line number 214 I'm sorry 210 Consulting fees is up yeah yeah that's yes um the mayor has asked asked
us to put in money for a study for um the Public Safety Division oh that's what that Consulting that is what exactly what it's for we would do an RFP and then we would hire an outside consultant independent outside consultant to do a study of our a Public
Safety Division okay all right uh the other line item that's increasing is the um physicals and medical as we know the cost has gone up and and
um well it was a small light item it was only 1,800 and it's going to 4,000 so you know see add a couple but that's not that's not that's just for who it's for mult it's any anything that falls on physicals for the
whole town that could be for CDLs that could be for um workers comp it could be for a lot of different things so that would come under admin comes under admin yeah P so fire new hire sometimes you know things that it's not fire no those
are mostly CDL the police of fires is specialized physical which is totally different correct policy some hire they have to get a it's annual testing that has to be done
that's um required by uh the federal motor carry for uh CDL for CDL licenses random Tes uh and annual um reporting that we have to do annual um queries on their licenses so
it's the administration of that and the cost of that as well and that with the increase of CDL drivers that we have now that cost has gone up and that's mostly on the DPW I assum correct yep um if you look at line 268 there is
a decrease in that from the prior year but that's because we slid a lot of cost out of that line item if you recall to construction and Engineering for the sdl program um to do a more um matching of
what the services are actually for uh especially with 98% of the license to feed being for construction we slid it to their OE budget so when I do my reporting to the state I can I can show that as an expense for running that department we move the SD
yep yes okay um let's see and the last one is the miscellaneous item which is $7,500 to 10,000 and that's for um Community Day Community Day Day so that's the increase
I think we did go over that with Rec no it hasn't no and we did spend a little over 10 grand for that and that's why we put the 10,000 in it okay yeah all right and there is no capital for
administration so Carrie good luck thank you thank you Carrie thank you okay um if you can introduce yourself Lorraine Jones I'm the tax assessor finance division thank
you if you can go over your 2024 accomplishments and goals first then we can get in the budget thank you um thank you um the uh accomplishments um I broke down there's there's a lot of bullet points here but uh my my main priority
as the tax assessor is to manage the Township's ratio um if if you've been following along with the ratio it's it's it's dropping very quickly our 2025 ratio is down to 65.8 3% just three years ago in
2022 we were at 86% that's reflective of the current real estate market housing prices have soared and our ratios do not change on an annual basis they only change when we do a revaluation so our ratios are getting
further and further away from market value secondly I managed or tried to limit the number of appeals our residential appeals are way down because the ra the assessments are so far away from market
value they don't have a case however it flips and now the commercial appeals are up um so commercial appeals are costly um because we have to engage attorneys
um sometimes appraisers and if we have a reduction in the tax base it's generally a lot deeper than a reduction on a residential property [Music] um one of the other accomplishments for
this year is managing the amount of development that's going on in town right now as you know all the new Residential Properties there are 900 new residential line items coming on uh we've only um put about 70 or so on for
this year so that's another 800 plus over the next two years that's keeping us quite busy um we were successful in hiring a new clerical assistant who's working out extremely well um she's gone through two of the assessing classes
already um and has passed with flying color so we're very fortunate to have a strong staff in the assessing Department moving on to goals for next year it it's more the same it's managing
appeals it's keeping the ratio um as tight as I can um just to give you some um comparison in Mercer County we're not the lowest
um Heights toown is down to 59% in their ratio Trenton city is down to 60% so if the county does start to order revaluations we're not going to be first so we'll have a heads up that this is coming I do anticipate um probably being
ordered to do a revaluation townwide maybe three years or so um it's coming and I I will add that the last time we did it did it the cost was about 1.3 it wasn't here it was 2006 but it
was just over a so 2006 at 1.3 it's going to be probably close to three or four million it was be that's just a guess and the only fortunate thing is we can fund that over five years the division has a mechanism where you can't bond for
it but you can what called a special emergency we declare it we hired a professionals and then we pay 20% each year for five years so we don't have to pay for it all in one year um part problem is the hiring of
professionals there's only a handful revaluation companies left in the state they are booked for the next few years you could not hire a person right now they're not available I'm I live in Ocean County and Two Towns were forced to do do this and they the board of
Taxation have given them another year because they couldn't fire find any professionals so is there a statutory requirement to do the re evaluations guidelines provided by the state generally if your ratio Falls below I believe it's 80 or 85% which are well
below but they also look at a number called our deviation standard deviation um and if you're getting getting to a deviation near 15 that's another signal our deviation is only 10 so our our our assessments
are tighter than a lot of towns so we're good in that respect so again we won't be first in the county to to to do a reevaluation we'll have plenty of warning that it's coming it's not like you have to do it every 10 years or the rule of film used to be 10 to 15 years
and if you look back historically we had 2006 we had 1993 and I believe it was in the early 80s so we've stretched this out almost 20 years so we've been fortunate that we haven't been ordered but you also don't want to do a revaluation in a volatile
real estate market you want the the market to settle down and I don't see that happening um from what I've learned through education classes it's not slowing down until the number of houses meets the demand we're not going to see
a decrease in pricing so again this all comes back to we have a lot of exposure on the commercial side of our our rateable base I remember the reevaluation in 2006 and going through that whole thing and then
2008 hit and sudden all yeah and all of a sudden I was hold totally up in terms of valuation right so then then the assessor at the time had to do maintenance plans for a few years to try to get everybody back on a Level Playing Field we want to avoid that as
well [Music] um again the goals for 2025 is just to stay on top of of the uh the 900 properties that are coming on we're going to have very large added Assessments in 2025 and 2026 which is
good news and these won't become exempt we had large uh added assessments for the University and then they became exempt so y okay the OE page three and
it is flat for 2025 on the top any questions and there's no Capital items for the assessor's office so with that said I'm about to say thank you thank you thank you and
thank you for keeping keeping us on track thank you okay Kelly you can introduce yourself please hi I'm Kelly montesinos I am the tax collector um our office is to collect uh
the property taxes Lorraine's office will put the value on the properties and our job is to collect it in 2024 our uh percentage of collection was 99.5 um the importance in that is that
the less or the higher that number is the less of our uh reserve for uncollected tax would be in this year's budget um so we strive to keep that number High um we are we have completed our first phase of the tax software that
is complete um they're up and running residents now have the option to store their tax payment like their banking information online to make their tax payments if they want to do auto pay they could do that if they want to set up their own autopay where say they want
the taxes to come out on the 10th versus the 1 when I would do it they have that option as well they can go back in and see the payments that they've made um in 2025 the sewer portion of that will be available we're hoping by the early
summer that that is good and then we will have the same options for the sewer as well which I think will be a big help in collections because the sewer bill tends to be forgotten from time to time um so I think with autopay people just
go ahead and sign up for the auto pay with taxes good 50% of the properties here are mortgaged so you're not going to see as many people jumping to that um but I think for sewer we will have that um and then in our tax sale for
2024 um we had no properties that were struck to the municipality so that's good for us in the sense that we don't have to pay those debts um and then for 2025 uh we're we'll see the sewer come
on and then the state has recently changed their programs for senior citizens so right now we're trying to educate them that the property tax reimbursement is no longer going to be that booklet it's going to be a PSA one
booklet which will combine the property tax reimbursement the senior uh which also is the senior freeze the anchor program and then the state New Jersey program so it'll be one application for seniors to file so anyone over 65 would file that application for the rest of us
that are eligible for the anchor benefit you would do that the same way as you did in the past so in the fall you would file that um yesterday we actually had a program at the senior center we had about 140 residents come uh the state
had offered their services that they can come back yearly so I think that we're going to do that from now on therefore people are just aware of the changes and like what is going on with the program so that they're aware other than that I think we're pretty much
it has a reserve for uncollected taxes has that changed at all yes that went up this year a couple hundred, it's it kind of had been level for many years and it's a com complex formula used to offset um cash flow and any monies we
don't collect and with the uh um how can I say is the county had a substantial increase last year in their tax rate um and the school went up ours was flat so therefore this year when I went to do that calculation it did increase it it's
um a little over $2 million it was at 1.8 and change and went up [Music] roughly uh let's see 3,000 from the prior year and requirement was there
any 99s it was 99.5 this year or which is fabulous yeah I mean on a $50 million budget we have a little over a $2 million set aside Reserve which is a
very low amount okay lucky our people pay our taxes yes guys I got people who want to pay me two years in advance and unfortunately can't do so you know um we still do collect cash collect cash
yeah we are required to collect cash any questions for Kelly her OE budget is on page three and that is at also than Kelly than you very much Kelly thank you thank no I think we're
good Alison we're good to 2:30 all right do you want and that's going to have to include the closed session too do you want to extend to 3:30 can I get a motion to extend the clock until
3:30 second all in favor I okay thank you Ryan if you want to introduce yourself when you're ready sure good afternoon I'm Brian arenson I'm the facilities maintenance manager for the township and I oversee the division of building and grounds as
well as supervise the network and IT staff um I have Lite Joshi here with me today he's the network and system engineer uh for the Township municipal Network um the main responsibilities of the building and grounds division uh pretty much entails proper upkeep of the
township facilities um which includes hpac Plumbing electrical lighting and just general cleaning of the Township buildings um I also have direct responsibilities which include ensuring compliance with state regulations and mandates associated with the Township
buildings um which includes pering for the township boilers uh the Miss building elevator the mobility lift at the um West windser Arts Center the emergency generators um our annual fire safety inspections as well as um testing
and certifications of the sprinkler systems um and also with the underground fuel storage tank at the police department um additionally I also oversee numerous Capital Improvement projects at various Township facilities um and some of the accs in 2024
include completing the installation of the emergency generator for the health department um we completed the installation of the electronic digital message center out here at the intersection of North Post in Clarksville we completed the metal roof installation at the uh Red Barn at the historic farm as well as completing the
gank Farm State condition assessment in conjunction with the historic preservation architect we installed two EV Chargers in our complex for Township electric vehicles um we completed the sprinkler analysis for the princeon junction Volunteer Fire Station as well as began
engineering documents um for public bidding with regards to that um we completed the roof replacement project at the West Winds Art Center that's approximately 99% complete um we have some minor punch list items we completed
the roof replacement at the West Windsor fire and EMS facility again that's about 90% 95% complete with some minor uh punchless items and the contractor is currently working over at our Police Department finishing up that roof replacement project um I would guess
that's probably about 80 85% complete and we should be wrapped up probably within in coming weeks um I applied for and received approximately $630,000 Grant from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities under the Direct Energy replacement
program um for the HVAC replacement program over at the police and Court facility the entire project costs are about 1.45 million and the state is providing us with about 43% of that as well as a 0% loan for the remainder of
that um project cost which is paid back over believe a fiveyear period yes um we completed the replacement of the Ada Mobility lift at the West Winds Arts Center that's 100% complete we're just waiting on the New Jersey um safety
elevator Bureau um for their final inspection we initiated the HVAC replacement project at the police department which I talked about with regards to that Grant currently the manufacturer has production of the rooftop units and we're probably looking at sometime in the summertime to wrap
that project up um we also initiated uh the new website design I believe Carrie spoke about that previously um and Elite pretty much um is wrapping up with replacement of the computer upgrades associated with the Windows 10 operating
system support cumulation which ends in October of this year and I do want to bring one item to your attention U at the last meeting I said that we did purchase our Microsoft stuff I was mistaken we are now paying on a subscription service so I just wanted to
make that clear uh we are no longer purchasing we've already changed over to the license corre yep wasn't wasn't there some sort of a whole thing about that a couple years ago where there was yes yeah yeah I thought so yeah okay
thanks sorry I'm finally went to readers and getting some adjustments getting all stinks okay does anyone have any questions for Brian before we go to the um budget no well I guess the goal another goal would be also that since you have
so many sprinklers so I was hoping we could we to that yeah so in 2025 um we're hoping to um complete um the computer upgrades um as well as replacing our off-site
Disaster Recovery um equipment at our site up in Bridgewater um on March 24th you guys will be presenting with a present resolution to approve um replacement for equipment up there currently um the equipment up there is
fully functional and um operational um but however due to the age of the hardware the manufacturer has ceased free replacement of the hardware in the of a failure and um is stopping support of the existing equipment so we're trying to be proactive and get that stuff replaced to try to keep our um
Network secure with the most up toate well I think what Linda is referring to because I have a notes that your goals don't include the 20 um 2025 43 um sprinkler system 40 uh I'm sorry West
Winds are West Winds are fire company uh number 43 West Winds are number one the the West wior Firehouse they volunteer Station 43 I just real that's the not our town right but it's part of the goals was yeah once
the administration gets that that agreement done then we can move forward yeah there's there's an agreement because we had we had approved the money in the capital budget a couple years ago right for but then then there was you know this this need further review for an agreement so I don't know if you're
involved in that or he's not I'm not aware of that currently unfortunately we'll tell you we're telling you now it's going to be another goal for 20225 that's fine there right yeah we have other projects that probably there'll have to be an engineering or
Architectural Review of it and design of it and then there'll be an installation at some point so and the money is's already there okay okay yeah I'll add that to my uh list senior 45
yeah this thought I was missing have to bid each of those projects separately um so you can try to do an economy of scale and bid it all at once the problem is is that if one of the if you do it as alternates and one of the project comes in higher then and
you can't award the base bid you can't award the other two alternates just because they're kind of customly designed for the building right yes so it's not like a cutter we can't get one one contractor to do all the projects and next roof a flat roof we could try to bid it that way it's just that if one
of them comes in higher than what we have budgeted then we can't award the project at all so that that kind of was like wasn't there that whole thing at one time that we were trying to bid something out one guy could do a could do a steel roof and another guy could do a wood roof and we couldn't one or the other even though it would have saved
his money yeah yeah was the gank F no that one that was the pole barn yeah yeah that was the PO it happened twice it happened twice yeah so you got got to be careful with that so I added that to uh my goals and accomplishments for 2025 thank his
budget is on page 10 and there is a slight increase I think one light item went up yeah so the um I'm requesting a a small 2.8% increase in the um 251 service and
maintenance contracts and the reason is because the state requires us to maintain and inspect our mpal elevator and the contract that was provided under installation of the new elevator associated with the renovations has expired so we have to have a a company come in quarterly do maintenance and
then do the final inspections every year for the state did you move over the uh it stuff budget we're good with that yep good next will be capital capital under Administration and page
one so is that the uh Network and computer yes Y and this is for everything but what police and emergency Services uh no just please just please yeah we we're responsible for all of the missal
networks please we keep separate so this is that's required um so this is basically just a a general request that we do every year um which can um provides for the replacement of computer systems um as well as servers and uh Network
components um and software replacement to try to keep our our Network up to date and uh with the most uh efficient computers that we can we can do so you see we have a balance of about 3 16 yeah
but with the the um Council packet that would be provided on the 12th I believe that's about 112,000 that we're going to be spending for the offsite Disaster Recovery site so it'll be down you know to a little over 200,000 I believe
yeah uh the next item is um page two quest for um a small to midsize pickup truck um currently I am provided with a uh monthly um stien to use my personal vehicle um but within the next couple years I'll be retiring after about 30
years with the township and I'm trying to plan for um succession um so anybody that may be hired U might not want to use their own personal vehicle um and this would also provide as a backup for the uh building uh div vision of
building and the grounds um for when the EIT cargo van is in the uh shop for either recall work or warranty work um we've had that in there I want to say a handful of times and um for um recalls or warranty work and each time in two to
three days so that isn't providing we're not providing the services on either public works or the Historical Society um if need it on those days when we don't have somebody that can go down to the uh those those locations is that something that could be put off for
another year sure we talking two years to retire they yeah buy a new one next year the year after that's sure I just flag that you want to put that on the you want to put in wrap up
yeah uh page three is the $25,000 uh General Improvement we have for the missile complex um we try to plan every year for a small increase to try to um increase our reserves so big uh increases don't come and hit us all
at once um currently we have approximately about $60,000 in the account built up for this building um and that does not include what's remainder of the uh Capital
Appropriations for the renovations as that's kind of being froze right now um as we're under litigation for project closeout the next one would be page six fire sprinkler yep so this is for the fire and Emergency Services building
station 45 um this would install the fire sprinkler uh system as well as the chemical uh suppression system for their kitchen and update their fire alarms in those three buildings just just to clarify this whole thing isn't for the
kitchen I'm sorry no oh it's sprinklers for the entire building as well as fire alarms for all three of their um buildings and there's a compression or chemical suppression system in their kitchen that's required by code um where they cook that would be
tied into the fire that's just part of this okay next page currently that's already been working on you guys awarded a contract with spel a few meetings ago so they're been out to the station 45 and have
already started doing some of the initial layout and design work so this will actually fund construction we're trying to get ahead of the curve um for a couple of the buildings for the sprinkler systems um this one and the prince and Junction Volunteer Fire Company we talked earlier um about the
west wings are volunteer fire sprinkler system make sure that there's enough because we might need the architect to to go in there too so so more like we'll have to hire architect to go in there um and pretty much come up with public bidding documents um I believe there was
$175,000 yes allocated in 2023 um current pricing is somewhere around $12 a square foot being conservative so I'm not sure how big your building is um
but the price of steel uh going up in the future sure is a definite possibility with the possible tariffs um that the president might uh impose on China so um it's possible that we might be able to I'm I'm guessing that you're
building maybe 10,000 foot 12,000 square foot I don't so it's possible that we might have enough money for that so and the mayor did commit to that if he didn't he would a big number I'm sorry you gotta pay for the architect I don't know how much that's gonna cost where's
the arch Tech money is that come out of the it comes Capal Capital comes out of the capital so if we have 120,000 then we need to spend 75,7 we have 175 then if we need 25 for an architect you might be pretty close um typically we'll take usually take the
um Architects fees out of the the general Improvement funds that we have for all of our public buildings but there isn't one for that because it's a private building so ultimately The Architects have to be paid for out of the capital funding but it it it might be you might be close you might be able to work it so
definitely want to work it you know um because we made promises two years ago and and the mayor is for