we're live good evening uh we were now called a regular meeting order is now 7:00 requirements of the Sunshine Law been met the meeting was advertised in Bron County Times on January 7 2024 electronic notice was given to the njc 5 39-15 we will now start with the Pres Allegiance I pled Al to the of the United States of America and stands one nation God andice for we will now have a moment of silence roll call committee woman Berkeley presid committee man Carr here committee woman committee woman wri present mayor Henley present also present Township solicitor Township administrator clerk police chief approval of minutes March 19th 2024 regular meeting minutes have a motion make a motion to approve the minutes second Berkeley any discussion Roll Call Berkley yes Carr yes right yes mayor Henley yes motion cares 4 Z we will now open the meeting for public comment on agenda items only please remember to state your name and address for the record reminder this is for comment only where's my boy Gary should we send a v check send check uh with no comments we have a motion to close all in favor I ordinances first reading 6 St 2024 calendar year 2024 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a c bank do we have a motion make a motion for six 24 second any discussion roll call Berkeley yes Carr yes Wright yes mayor Henley yes motion carries 4 Z do we have a motion to table 7-24 I think we need a documentation or we need something from the CFO if I'm not mistaken correct correct that we don't currently have correct I make a motion table 7-2 72024 second any discussion roll call Barkley yes Carr yes right yes mayor Henley yes motion carries SC zero resolution 5-24 payment of vouchers this resolution approves the payment of the bills through for April 2nd 2024 do we have a motion motion right second any discussion Roll Call Berkley yes Carr yes right yes mayor Henley yes motion carries for zero 52 -24 resolution approving the deferral of local school district taxes do we have a motion make a motion for 5224 second any discussion roll call Berkeley yes Carr yes right yes mayor Henley yes motion carries for zero 53-24 resolution to introduce the 2024 Municipal budget do we have a motion motion right second any discussion yes certainly I had asked some questions and I was told to better ask them in front of you um so I'm if you want to follow along I'm going by this that we in front of me or in front of excuse me in front of me no I'm just passing I about to say because we had not gone over it before um on the second page um and I had asked this the construction official salaries and wages there's two people in that office I was curious why there's a 15 $1,000 uh increase to that uh one's a major person and one is an assistant could someone tell me why there's a $115,000 increase mayor Henley would you like me to answer that certainly so in the Construction office there's actually a few different salaries that pull from that salary line item it's not just the official and the technical assistant there are other people who are involved with the construction office that have their salaries pulled from that line as well the construction official and the tech Tech assistant are both Union positions so they each get a step plus we are anticipating a promotion for one of the individuals in the office and the inspectors also pull from that there's also another individual whose salary pulls from that line atem okay thank you very much um underneath the vision employee insurance we don't offer uh vision insurance to our administrators I'm sorry what was the question at the bottom the blue part the bottom vision insurance we don't offer that to our administrators I thought we did we do it just may not be a budgeted line item so how are we paying for that I'm sorry think that's the dental it hasn't appeared on our budget for several years it's probably looped into one of the other categories it's just not broken out on the copy that you have but it does come out of the operating expenses okay thank you um fire hydrant service I was like shocked that they're increasing at 25% um I know that they had asked for an increase in January of the state and the state has not gotten back to them is this their estimate that the state's going to give them what they want or is this a permanent 25% increase for our fire hydrants do you know anything about that I do believe that number was given to us by the CFO so he I believe is aware of the billing that comes through the office and he provided me with that number okay um under Public Works and I just think that there's a lot of increase in public works I'm not going to ask you to go through it but things like miscellaneous just doubled and when we have a tax increase of 6.7% I think that's a lot I think that that's increasing without the schools without the high school without the county and if the schools in West panon are going up 2% that's 88.7% and all we need is 1.3% between the high school and the county and our taxes are going up 10% I'm I'm just very concerned that we need to really buckle down and get what we need not what we want and just keep throwing money into places it really would have helped if I could have seen in 2023 what we budg budgeted and then what we actually spent in that and when I talked to the CFO I know that's why we lowered the uh cost for gas because we did not spend it last year things like that make sense to me um municipal courts do we know why we're not going to be making as much money in the municipal court I'm sorry I don't think I understand your question um it instead of $10,000 it was $7,000 that we anticipated making in that might be on a different page are you talking about the revenues yes because Court revenue is down as a whole court fines are down because of the B reform okay if I'm not mistaken the court revenues have been down for the last couple years they continue to go down because of the correct the bill reform and now looking at this page um when it talks about miscellaneous revenues there's there's nothing for 2024 in body armor or bulletproof or storm weather or recycling recycling tonage Grant and clean communities are we not anticipating getting anything from them cuz usually we get something every year from them so we are not anticipating it on the budget because we haven't gotten notification of it coming through if we were notified prior to the budget's um completion we would have added that as a line item we will add that as a chapter 159 later okay and just one up on shared services um we do the Shar services for the court for East Hampton hesport and us I know you have mol which we don't do but hesport was missing so could we add what we're going to get from hesport to that in in um Revenue that might change a few pennies or something I'm sorry where what do you mean it was missing uh shared services it's on the the page that looks like this why okay um that was actually filled in by our auditor so I can refer back to him with that question I don't know why he did not put any revenue from the haes Park Court it just could be that we're not anticipating it on the budget which really doesn't hurt us in an introduction of the budget because even if we don't anticipate it if we are receiving Revenue it's still going to come into the township right but we we've had Haze support for a couple years that we've been doing and we don't have mol yet it's it's kind of there even though there's no money there right so please keep in mind that with the municipal budget every cent that we add to the tax rate is $120,000 in Revenue so we would have to generate $120,000 in a revenue Source in order to cut a penny from the budget okay that's very helpful to know thank you do you have any other ideas or what we would you want to do or would you like to see to order to cut some of the budget do you have any ideas that you want to discuss before we vote I just had a lot of questions I don't know what's really needed and not needed but I I would like to see I would like to see it cut so that we're not going to be raising the taxes 6.5 cents per person or resident fair enough I think that just my opinion as a committee we'd want to or as a committee or individually if we want to cut then along with that comes a plan in order to cut it like us saying that we want to cut it listen I agree with you committee woman Berkeley like I'd rather it not go up 6.7% either but all fairness we clearly you know we talked about you know um and I and not to point you out but you one of any who pointed to the sign behind us that we want to be able to keep you know as much open space as possible but with a growing town right and you keep as much open space as possible with no with with no construction at all we have 572,000 5 over $500,000 in construction fees last year and now we're down to $72,000 so we're missing a half a million do on something like on something as simple as that I'm not saying that everything is appropriate and what we do but you got to remember that 85% of our budget is based upon the people who work here and their salaries right and so if we never do anything to generate any value of any income coming in then eventually the taxes have to go up because that's the only way you can continue to build and to to fix the things that are here and to continue to keep the people who are here not to mention that we've cut a a multitude of salaries by people who have retired and then utilizing our shared service which has also come under criticism but the shared service there's there's shared service positions that have that have been cut over $35,000 anybody that we've hired to take the place of other people there's nobody that that makes the same amount they're all considerably less than the people who are currently working because they're coming as an entry-level position and they have to grow in those positions so on my end that has always been my plan to make sure that we try to keep the table the the taxes it's the taxes as stable as possible but the other end of that is is that eventually we're going to have to do something we're going to have to build we're going to have to do something to generate more taxes more income empty land doesn't pay taxes right so that's going to be an issue I think our I think West Hampton's with 11 Square ft 11 what is it 11 mil 11 miles s ft 10 yeah right so I think that's seven of those miles is open space do we have any anticipation of new taxes coming from the new um apartment and and um town houses I'm glad you asked that because when we were going over the budget one of the things that I asked when we were talking about generating a number and I and I sat with our administrator and talked about it I called I called Todd saor and and had Todd saor talk to our tax assessor and they said that we can probably count on generating about $400,000 of taxes next year from our new development so in all that new development that you know has been critical at some point or another is going to generate over a million dollars for this Township or close to a million dollar 00,000 and it'll be $400,000 year after year and as it continues and and obviously all those ta all the tax revenue won't come from there next year because you have you still have building and you have some places that are empty so I mean I just I just think like food for thought like we we we continue to talk about planning ahead and that's a part of planning ahead there's some things that we're not going to be be able to get out of the way of or they're going to or they're going to suck us up and I think that if we go back to the tapes one of the things that I did say was was that you're going to generate a tax revenue where people won't be a to stay here anymore we can lose good people right in our Township by saying that we want everything to be open space it just doesn't work like that and as time goes on that's what's going to happen I can pay but that it's not just about me it's about the town as a whole I know you know I did text or email our administrator with some a suggestion about Personnel cuz we have hired people at a higher salary than the person that is left and we need to be I mean you can't say who with department administration um and Court I don't know about that um I know that you I know you had a question about one individual but I think that you got to talk to who that person reports to to know like it's easy to say so first of all it's very irresponsible it would be very irresponsible this town to hire someone 3 months and lay them off when that person could have a family that person could have left a job that person could have done anything to come and Trust in this Township and then the discussion is is that we walk away from that position I think that's extremely irresponsible if if if it's not irresponsible of our staff it's irresponsible of our committee to allow that to happen right and I'll shoulder that blame as much as any of the other five people all the other four people who are up here but with that being said I think you have to talk to the person that that person reports to and ask them how they how they're doing with their job now I will say that I do that often to to check to see and I can tell you that that person works 57 hours last week I don't think that's the person we want to walk away from when they're getting paid for 40 hours did that person submit overtime did not submit overtime because they are is not a position that receives overtime and that person worked at least 57 hours so I think that if we're going to look at cutting personnel which I don't agree with and I'll go on a record saying I don't agree with it then we have to look at strategically the right Personnel but you also got to remember that we utilize shared service quite often and we've cut a lot of cost doing that I think that the plan needs to be how we generate more income for this Township responsibly and how we still continue to make it comfortable for our residents to live here that's just my two SS but obviously it's something that we all got to work with together fair enough y mayor Henley last comment F I may yes so the budget process is actually a year-long process after we pass the current budget I already begin working on next year's budget just to project what we're looking at and where those numbers are going to come in as the year goes by now when I meet with the department heads for their quote unquote wish list items and they can back me up on this I tell them that they need to come in as conservatively as possible a lot of the items that we are requesting are necessary for us to be able to do business and be able to provide for the residents but this year especially we are working with an extremely high rate of inflation which is driving up costs everywhere and if I could say one of the other things you know we looked at we we also have to plan in advance right like one of the things that we've been critical of and I've always said that we need to learn from the mistakes of the past and listen that's why I tend to try to have as many conversations as I possibly can with the people of the past who work here who've been elected Etc to try to make sure we don't duplicate anything that we we move forward and one of the things that they always said is that we need to plan going forward with the Personnel like we need people here why the other people are still here who are going to retire to be able to to tell them basically what the town is about um to be able to establish the flavor of the town so that these people even if they don't live in West Hampton they understand how West Hampton works and I think that we're also trying to do that with a with a retirement position that's coming up and basically I think and I always say about having a conversation with the people who work here right like this person told me that six days or 6 hours out of their week is about um is about doing the payroll so we've looked at outside sources for doing the payroll and to be honest we've gone back and forth as hard as we possibly can to make sure we get that number down and we're going to save probably at least $40,000 off of that as well as the person's time whoever they decide to hire who comes in here in that new position so again I think that when we're talking about raising the taxes I think that if that happens this time right and it's happened before but never this high that we have to have a plan going forward to be able to make our residents comfortable to be able to keep the flavor of the town to be able to keep the established people who are working here working here but also we want to create a happy environment and a satisfactory work environment and all those things tie in everything that we that we can possibly do for them and again that's my two son so um if do you have anything else before you vote no like I said sometimes there's a bunch of things grouped in in a thing and I can't no I think that you're a th% correct when listen when I first started we we would look at that thing I would look at that thing and it and it looked like you know everything's bunched together and not being able to understand it and in fact I may look at the paper but I I really learn better by having conversations and and asking and asking questions and just and then just talking to everybody about what their Department looks like and and then try to figure out a way that I can introduce it to you guys to maybe you know looking at how to make this Township run the smooth as possible but I understand that it does look jogged up it looks confusing and and you're a th% correct with that so I do not disagree with that being said uh roll call Berkeley no Carr yes right yes mayor Henley yes motion carries 310 consent agenda resolution resolution notc me mayor did we skip one of the ordinances I don't think so a brond ordinance oh we tabled it we voted on table I thought that was the cola we taed no you said we didn't have it we taed it you voted okay well I remember getting a note that says we're going to have a cola ordinance we tabled it remember I said that we didn't receive the documentation that we needed from the CFO and we tabled it and I I thought you were talking about the col nah no words now I got to start to read all over sorry cons agenda resolution resolution note cons agenda items are considered to be routine and will be enacted with one single motion any items requireing expenditure are supported by the certification of availability of funds and any items requiring discussion will be removed from in agenda is there anything that anyone would like to remove mayor I don't want to remove it but I would like to make a comment on one sure I might even shock you okay I think that's tough to do but I like to see it on 5424 I I think for the sake of the residents who are either listening online or out here it needs a a transparency uh explanation it seems like we're buying a um a new state contract for the fire vehicle which is not that old for a fire chief but there's a completely different reason in the last couple years there been a lot of news about occupational cancer and firefighters and um we've had actually two of our fir Fighters come down with cancer that was determined by them fighting fires and and the gases that they're uh they're inhaling and and everything they've had and it becomes a real concern and all the other um vehicles that we have have a a cab and then a back that's separate from the cab with a foot over it so that the person driving it sitting in it is not inhaling all the stuff in the back of their truck um and the fire chiefs cab does not it's one continuous thing so every time he's in there unless you scrub it with everything you've got every time you have a fire he's breathing in some of the stuff from the fire and it becomes very dangerous uh and I certainly do not wish any one to go through some kind of cancer on our behalf serving us so that's why uh when I talked to him he determined that he wanted to get a a um a different kind of truck that had a separate cab and a separate back that would be enclosed and not even connected to the cab it is expensive because it's a Chief's cab um but his cab is in such good shape his truck is in such good shape that he said he could either give it to the police department or the rec department so that next year someone who wanted to buy a new truck or whatever would not have to do it because it could still be used but I think that uh in our minds I don't care how much it cost but Health to me is number one in taking care of our employees and our residents so I'm partly in in charge of this the only thing mayor I don't know what we can do about this I'm very concerned about the the interest rate if we pay it off in 5 years the interest rate is 22.86% what are we talking about talking about this pickup truck if we pay it off in 6 years it's 26 if we pay it off in 4 years it's barely 20% like I don't know are the pickup truck are no it's not just the pickup truck um but the pickup the truck is a $70,000 truck when you time when you add all the things that need what's the interest rate on the truck the interest rate I said if you pay it off in five years what's the interest rate that they have it as that's what I'm saying it's 5 years 6 years or four years where' you get this that was sent to us this is Max usage this is so the truck is a lease truck is a lease purchase now I said why not then try to put it in the bond that's not and he said if put it in the bond account you but have to pay for it you said this way uh the funds we get from the they not that's about the max usage of it that's not they're not there's no because if it's a lease lease Vehicles even that $70,000 is the interest rate is more or less about the usage of the vehicle and the um what's it what's it called the use of the how how they utilize it they use a number what you going to say something they use a number to basically register to the vehicle or they give mile it's more detailed than that they're not paying 26% on the's percentage LED on that right here you have to pay 86 449 instead of 70 something if you keep it for if you buy out the lease I'm sure but we are leas and we're using the money that we get from the fire marshal to pay for it so it doesn't these figures that's that was in the in the agenda that we had who wrote this Max what is it called the differential I think it's called that's not on my copy do you know anything about this V ises what we did type of it's a lease right Le it's usually a 5 I know there's some obious fin but I don't numbers being that significant and actually the pick up that driv I know that's kind yeah can you I don't I mean yeah Craig would no but that's not on that number I think 26% on the lease is outr that's not where the rates are rates like and on the government contract huh and on the government contract and it's a government contract I don't think it does I'm just saying this is what was in our agenda there's handwritten figures on that copy you have but that's not on that was my math yeah subtracting the lease payment from the original percentage so you came with the percentage I did it by using your numbers yes I I don't how to do that why did you say that in the beginning of this like this isn't so M Berkeley yes what was the percentage you came up for the 26 for 5 years I came up with 22.86 22.86 over 5 years so that' be substantially less each individual year so the total interest it would be approximately $166,000 16,100 if you divide that by 5 years the total price would be 17,289 that's 777 $289.99 annually years so the total cost to the township over a 5e period would be the 86 49.9 so the interest would then be the difference between the 86 449 and the 70,000 which I subtracted the two got something like 16 something and then came up to 22. that's over a 5e period so your interest your annual interest is and just using round number 16,000 ided 5 is about $3,200 a year so so it it's it's substantially less than 20 a 22% interest but overall that's what I'm talking about right but that's not how the interest is calculated yeah we pay it off four years it we save some money the interest is $3,200 a year right you okay with this yeah I just wanted to bring out that there is a way we can kind of negotiate that this is being purchased in accordance to State contract so we don't have the ability to negotiate we don't fore interest okay but I am partly in favor of spending any money we need to to make sure that our employees are cancer free and healthy even though I'm a penny pincher do we have a motion I move for the consent agent was that a motion I make a motion for the consent agend I second any discussion roll call Berkeley yes Carr yes Wright yes mayor Henley yes motion carries for Zer we now open the meeting for public comment please remember to state your name and address for the record remember this is for comment only good evening uh Chris Hamilton 16 St Andrews Court um I'm also president of the school board and I came here to thank the Township Public Works um for taking down our horrible um uh skating R uh looks much better out there so just thank you I appreciate your acknowledgement any other comments do we have a motion to close not closing H oh I'm sorry do we have do we have a motion to close on public comment Mo motion close public comment all in favor I than to remember next Township meeting will be April 16th at 7:00 Land Development board meeting will be April 3rd at 7 historic commission April 24th at 7 Recreation committee meeting April the 10th at 7 take your child to work day April the 25th are we participating as a town student yes we are absolutely I like it you guys make sure he has some prefence or something here huh not a bad idea I'll see you guys on April 25th um executive session resolution 4 to 2024 resolution authorizing the toship committee and support staff to meting private to meetting private session and AU Rising exclusion of the exclusion of the public from the portion of the meeting dealing with specific issues requiring nonpublic discussion attorney client privilege contract negotiation do we have a motion I make the motion a second second any discussion Roll Call Berkley yes Carr yes right yes mayor Henley yes car good night oh we didn't even get