act 1.5. We will now start the meeting with the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
[Music] We will now have a moment of silence. Roll call. Committeewoman Dr. Co. Committee woman Miss Maddox Mantine. Present. Committee man Mr. Carr. Committee woman Miss Present.
Mayor Henley. Present. Also present is the township solicitor, the township clerk, township administrator, the deputy, township administrator, the police chief, and um the fire official and public works
director. We will have a workshop on our annual uh 2025 annual municipal budget uh introduced by Mr. John Barrett uh CFO as presenter of the proposed 2025 municipal budget. Good evening, mayor and council. Thank you for the
opportunity to present the budget to you this year. Um we have worked over the last few weeks in order to provide a spending plan that's obviously balanced in respect to our appropriations equaling our revenues in addition to uh working on initiatives and contractual
obligations associated with this year's operations. Um this year uh we have a um a levy that is uh increasing uh by about $469,000. Uh 242,000 of that uh has to
do with mandated pension increases as well as capital improvement funds. Uh based on our 2% levy cap, which was uh enacted back in 2010, uh we could have raised taxes an additional about $358,000, which would be an additional
uh 3 cents on the taxes. And uh through your leadership and your guidance and the administrator and deputy administrator, uh we're able to tighten our belts in order to achieve our goals at this moment. the net valuation taxable, which is the valuation of all properties that are associated in the
municipality that are outside of tax exempt properties such as this municipal building, schools, and those type of things. Um, they increase $29 million uh year-over-year. So, that's a good healthy increase year-over-year. So, what does that translate into? Whenever asked how much does a penny raise in
taxation, uh, in 2024, it raised about $119,000. We're around to about $120,000 per penny. this year went up uh close to $3,000 to $123,000. Our open space tax uh is consistent at 4 cents which will raise
491,000 and change associated with the open space tax fund. And uh with regard to our uh fund balance at the end of the year, we do have the current fund. We don't have any utilities in this municipality. Um, so right now, uh, this budget appropriates or reinvests $1.9
million of our fund balance, uh, which is a consistent level funding from prior year. Uh, if you were to, uh, increase that beyond $1.9 million, the goal for a CFO is to replenish that in the course of the year. Um, so I'm very comfortable that we as a municipality will be able
to replenish the fund balance that we've reinvested into this year's budget. The budget as it right now uh stands as introduced appropriates $27,000 in grants uh compared to prior year final grants appropriate about $83,000. Now some would say hey you know
what happened grant funds uh you know grants dried up for you. No. So what's going to happen is after this budget gets adopted and the municipality were to receive a grant award, a check, something of that nature, we will then do and you're very familiar with doing a chapter 159 resolution to appropriate
that grant. Last year we had a fire uh grant for about 66,000 and change that was done that way. Um so I don't want anybody in the public to think that grants have gone down in the town. Um our capital improvement fund uh last year we budgeted $55,000. This year we're going up to
$120,000. Uh when we do a capital ordinance for roads, buildings, uh improvements, equipment, that type of thing, we have to come up with a 5% down payment. So on a if you were to pass a million dollar capital ordinance, we would need $50,000 of of budgetary funds
to do that. Um if those funds are not utilized, they will be remaining for you in your capital fund for future year's ordinances. This year, uh you could go up to $2.4 million worth of capital ordinances. Not advocating that you should, but just to give you some idea
of what that $120,000 does. as I mentioned um uh privately with the members of the council that if you wanted to fully fund something as opposed to going out issuing debt um you could also utilize your capital improvement fund for capital expenditures uh in that respect um this
year um we have uh we're under self-reit once uh about every in a three-year cycle um two of those years are self-re depending if you don't have any deferred charges and caveats in the budget. Um that uh means that we have a
little bit of an easier way of getting through the approval process. So, uh Todd Sailor, your auditor, and I have been working diligently on on versions of this budget, as I said last night, uh after adopting a budget in another town. I was on the phone with Todd making some minor adjustments which I briefed you on
um uh this this evening. Um the uh Todd has certified the budget. He's reviewed it. He's made his uh commentary. He's been your adviser here for a number of years and he's a great individual to work with with Bowman and Company. This means that when we introduce the budget tonight, assuming uh I have enough votes
to introduce a budget, that it will be then sent down to Trenton Division of Local Governmental Services. Um and then when we have a um a public hearing on the 24th of June uh and we were to adopt at that point then ultimately uh the
budget is considered adopted in the eyes of the state and then our levy will be certified and we'll be obviously issuing tax bills and in conjunction with all the other levies associated uh in the course of the year. Now, one of the things that's going to be a little different this year, which I've um made an offer uh to the administrator, he's
taken me up on it, is that between now and uh June 24th, we're going to have a little public information session. Uh just a conference room is big enough, I think, for some of the residents who might be uh might have some questions regarding a budget. Maybe they don't like speaking in public. I heard there's not a lot of folks that don't like
speaking in public here, but uh in a lot of towns that I work in, uh it's always a good opportunity to go page by page of this budget document that is usually foreign language to many people and basically go through it to show them and answer questions that they might have. My job is to uh you know the size
Sperling the Cloier had a very famous line. He said an educated consumer is our best customer and sometimes after uh residents have gone through this budget they realize there's no fat. There's no fluff. There's no hidden agendas. It's simply a very boring document at times. And me being a financial geek, having
done this since I've been 27. I'll be 56 this year. I like going over. It's it's exciting. It It doesn't really get me a lot of extra cocktails at cocktail parties cuz no one really cares about it. But in this setting, I always love in, you know, educating folks at the local level so they can come and make an
educated comment um about the budget because when we do have, we're not going to have comments on the budget tonight. Uh but during the public hearing, I'm kind of reiterating this. You guys already know this. That's a time where members of the public and certainly council members uh can have comments about the budget, questions and answers
type of thing. Uh I will be here for that, but I hope to also uh make myself available uh previously for that what we call public information session and I think it's very helpful to the residents. So the end result is this. This budget obviously is fiscally
balanced. Um it does raise taxes. um the tax. Now, let me clarify this. It does raise the levy. Um we do not calculate the tax rate at the local level. Even though the document itself, which will be posted once we have it certified at the state, will be posted on our
website. There's a tax calculation that it does for us. But the county does do the tax calculations. It's a very simple uh equation, a numerator denominator. The numerator is the amount of levies uh for all for specifically for us or other entities divided by the net valuation
taxable. Based on the information we have from the assessor and based on our levy, we're looking at a 1.9 cent tax increase. So for an average household uh valued assessed value at $250,000, say their value stayed the same from 24 to 25, we're looking at
about a $48 increase for the local municipal taxes. um those taxes obviously the levy will be certified after adoption um and then all the other levies will be certified and then those will be put into our financial software so our tax collector can issue the taxes
at that point. Um, that being said, I I hate to say it, but somewhat of a if you like last year's budget, you're going to like this year's budget because it's really similar uh for the exception of some contractual obligations, changes in debt service and obviously our increases in our pension obligations, which is not something we can uh say, you know, tell
Jim, we're not going to pay that pension. Well, you're going to pay the pension. Uh that tax rate was 79.1. I don't have I apologize. I would have been prepared for No, no, no. I'm sorry. I know I bring it up when you I was looking at comparison from last year to this year. Like I think that last year the tax increase
was higher than 1.9. We were saying yeah I think 6 cents from my recollection. Yeah. This is significantly lower. Right. And as I as I mentioned the out outset um you know we had obviously an increase in pension obligations with regard to uh in our capital improvement
fund about $242,000 just there. Um, and the rest was contractual obligations. Um, so I think it's a very sound budget. Uh, Todd would not normally be here, but he's obviously, uh, signed off on this and, uh, which obviously he's been working with you a long time. If he didn't sign
off on, I'll let you. He'd probably be here, uh, tracking this budget down. I have nothing else. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. CFO. Uh, approval of minutes April 22nd, 2025
regular meeting minutes. Make a motion for the minutes. Second. Any discussion? Roll call. Miss Maddox. Yes. Mr. Carr. Yes. Miss Abstain. Mayor Henry. Yes. Miss What was
that? Abstain. Abstain. Okay. So, there's um three. Yes. One exception. One obst. April 22nd, 2025. Executive session minutes. Do we have a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? Roll call. Miss Maddoxy?
Yes. Mr. Carr? Yes. Miss Long Abstain. Mayor Henry. Yes. Three. Yes. One obstension. We will now open the meeting for public comment on agenda items only. Please remember to state your name for the address. M. State your name and address for the record. Please remember again. State your name, address
for the record. This one comments. I'm sorry. Agenda items. Agenda item. That's on agenda. Agenda items. I'll tell you when we get to the next one. All right. No worries. Uh, all in
favor to close on public comment. I. Ordinances. Second reading. Public hearing 4-2025. Ordinance of the township of West Hampton amending chapter 88 of the township code entitled animals. Uh Mr. Mayor, I motion to
table. There was clerical error in the public notification or posting. I second to table. Any discussion on tableing? Roll call. Miss Maddox Pantene. Yes. Mr. Clark. Yes. Miss
Yes. Mayor Henley? Yes. Four. Yes. Motion passes. Ordinance first reading 6-2025 calendar year 2025 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a CAT bank. Do we have a motion?
Mr. uh Mayor, I motion for 6-2025. I second. Roll call. Miss Maddox Canteen. Yes. Mr. Carr. Yes. Miss Yes. Mayor Henley, yes. Or yes. Motion passes. 5-2025 ordinance adding chapter 110 of
the code of the township of West Hampton entitled criminal history record background checks. Do we have a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? Roll call. Miss Maddox Canteen. Yes. Mr. Carr. Yes. Miss
Yes. Mayor Henley? Yes. Or yes. Motion passes. So, we're going to do our resolution separately. We're not going to do a consent agenda. So, resolution 73-25, payment of vouchers. This resolution approves the payment of bills through 5132025. Do we have a motion? Excuse me,
mayor. Yes, sir. On ordinance 5-2025. That's a second reading. So, you need to open the floor for a public uh public hearing prior to adopting it. Do we have any public comment on the criminal history background checks?
Any questions? Certainly. Ma'am Houston, uh 14 Kabi Drive. What exactly is it? It's criminal history record background checks. Okay. Who's it being done on? So, mayor, would you like me to give a brief summary of it?
Certainly. I'm sorry, I missed it. Um, so this is an ordinance to um allow the township uh to require any adults that are dealing with youth sports to undergo a criminal background check. It'll be conducted and overseen by the township.
Uh and any coach or supervisor, referee, anyone of that nature, uh would receive a verification that they've undergone it and cleared the background check. Great. Thank you so much. You're welcome, ma'am. I can move on to resolutions. Uh I'd
recommend having another vote on approving the ordinance. Uh I would I will make the first motion. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Roll call. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. Yep. Roll call. Miss Maddoxy. Yes. Mr. Clark. Yes.
Miss Mo. Yes. Mayor H. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. We will now start with the resolutions. Resolution 73-25, payment of vouchers. This resolution approves the payment of bills through 513 2025. Do you have a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion?
Roll call. M. Mat. Yes. Mr. Park. Yes. Mr. Yes. May Henley. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. 74-25. Resolution approving approving tax appeal settlement with UHS of Hampton, Inc. on property located at
650 Rancok Road, block 202, lot 4.01 and 4.01 qualify. Do we have a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? Roll call. Miss Ky, yes. Mr. Bart, yes. Miss, yes. Mayor Haley, yes. Four. Yes.
Motion passes. Resolution 75-25, resolution in to introduce the 2025 municipal budget. Motion. Second. Any discussion? Roll call. Miss man, yes. Mr. Park, yes.
Miss, yes. Mayor, yes. Four. Yes. Motion passes. Resolution 76-25, resolution authorizing support of solar renewable renewable energy. Do we have a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion?
Roll call. Miss Matt Dying. Yes. Mr. Carl, yes. Miss Mono, yes. Mayor Henley. Yes. Yes. We will now open the meeting for public comment. Please remember to state your name for the and state your name in the chest for Sir.
Sir. Sir. Open. Thank you. My name is Guy Anderson. I live at 720 Woodland Road over at the Firmwood Spring Farm. And I'm glad to see that people are talking about public in-person public participation in the township affairs um which favors uh New Jersey
administrative code 5.39.1 except the planning board does not allow inerson public participation and you guys should kind of rectify it. That's my first issue. And the second one is have you been down at Timbuktu lately and seeing next to the graveyard the abandoned house that's boarded up
covered with graffiti which is disrespectful and I hope the township addressed it. Thank you. Thank you sir. Thank you Gar 138 Winstead. Um my my comment is uh I had reached out to Chris. I was
asking about whether in receipt from Burlington County, the commissioner's the supervisor of roads report and Chris shared with me that he had not received that report. Uh the reason why that's somewhat significant is because
according to the press, I believe that uh Bronco commissioners did pass their budget. I I could be wrong. I'm not sure if they introduced it or did they pass it? It's introduced. Okay. Introduced. Um I had inquired about um what spending
package the supervisor of roads had planned potentially for any projects here within the township. So in other words, county infrastructure within the township. They were supposed to provide that. Um, according to the last time I had
gone to a meeting, um, that report was being prepared and supposedly information was going to be made available and then theoretically shared with officials here within the township. I sort of assumed it was Chris that was getting that information. According to what he shared with me, he did not
receive the information. So, I I think it would be helpful as we're planning and working on the budget. I know the fat budget's been introduced. I don't know if we're going to go to a skinny budget at some point, but um I think it'd be helpful to know if there's any spending going on by the
county for any roadway here within within the township. There's there's a couple of reasons for that, but primarily um and one of the reasons why I reached out to Chris was because behind my property on Springside is a bike lane that's owned
not by us, but by the by the county. Now, as near as I can tell, that has not been maintained probably in 30 plus years. It's in bad shape. It does need, you know, potential repair, resurfacing, etc. The
issue is is that um as part of the repaving in the developments, that bike path has been cut into by the contractors. So they degraded that bike path um according to whatever their civil
engineering plans dictated that they had to follow. So a bike path that is way overdue for repair probably should have been coordinated with our contractors who were going to affect the repairs in conjunction with the repaving etc. So
now they're potentially going to have to kind of reduplicate the work in some way, shape or fashion. It just doesn't make sense. It, you know, I mean, just from an efficiency standpoint, from an economic standpoint, I'm just bringing it up to just illustrate the reason why I'm even mentioning this. So
um, we've got the liaison folks. I don't know if you want to deploy them in this situation to see if they can, you know, formally ask. Otherwise, I know that Mr. Mr. Brady's job is to be the liaison. So if you want to come up with some mechanism where we can work with Mr. Brady to act as
liaison to bring this up to the county, I'm certainly happy to do that. Me as a private citizen going there is going to have no impact. Zero. You called this the supervisor of roads report.
Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. We'll now have a motion to close public comment. Motion. Second. All in favor? I need things to remember recreation committee meeting is March 14th at 7.
May. What did I say? March. You sure? Yeah. I didn't recreation committee meeting May 14th at 7 p.m. Next Township Committee meeting is at May 20 May 27th at 7:00 p.m. Historic Commission meeting May
28th at 7 p.m. Land Development Board meeting June 4th at 700 p.m. Committee reports. Um, I'd just like to speak to Gary's comments. And while it's not hard evidence, uh, I know the mayor did
receive complaints about some raw materials being posted next to your neighborhood. And after some inquiries, it seems like they're getting ready to pay within the next 90 days. Yeah, the main street, but not the bike path. Not the bike path. Okay. But that's it. Thank you everyone
for coming. I'll look into the supervisor roads report. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I don't have any comments tonight. Just uh thank you everyone for coming. Um thank you for the uh workshop pertaining to the 2025
annual municipal budget. Um Chris and company, thank you guys so much. The crosswalks that we have talked about so much are being taken care of in Dearwood. We appreciate that. Um we already talked about the rec uh committee meeting on tomorrow night and
Timbuktu. Guys, we're preparing for a wonderful Saturday on June 14th, 2025. Sherard and I attended uh Debbie Price's last meeting. It's going to be uh a wonderful experience of reenactments, food, music, um historical um legacy
families of um actual Timbuktu members. So, we're super excited about that. And now that um I I will be going by Church Street again probably when I leave here just to see that house with that graffiti because obviously that's not something we can have with hundreds of
people coming to Westampton for this event with the house, you know, with that on there. So I'll be taking a a peek at that. So we want to see what we need to do with that. And that's it. Chris said the other taken care of already. Uh I was just getting ready to ask. I
put that in my in my questions asked. We'll go over um thank you uh Mr. Barrett for you know not only working on the budget but making sure everyone was involved making sure everyone knew all the moving parts. So I appreciate that and you know the administrative team that really worked
you know with that. Um one if I can talk about the meeting that we had today briefly. One me one thing we talked about today is the homeless and you know how we can be helpful and implementing some different things to trying to to try to get you know a hold on on making
sure that we're being appropriate with not only the homeless but you know the people of West Hampton that live in the area to make sure we're you know we're taking care of both sides of that. So, you know, we have we discussed some light plans that we're going to look at and put into place, but I think it's important. We want to make sure that the
residents know that it's something we that we care about. Just something that Jamie brought forth the other day that she, you know, she really wanted to address. So, um, obviously that's I think that's a part of having like a bunch of different We're I've said this a million times, well, not a million times, probably four times, but it's
very unfortunate when we have people who live all in different areas of the town. So we don't let things get too far because we see we can see it and then we can talk about it and bring it back to the group. So I think that was really positive. Um congratulations. I don't know if this is true but I've seen this
somewhere that this is National Police Week. I might be shocking you chief but if it is but thank you for your service and thank you for the police officers in West Hampton for um for making us feel safe.
Uh John's question we we dealt with the 10x2. What was his other question? Public meeting board. Landboard meeting. I mean that's something we can look into, but I can tell you that we we have more activity in a land board meeting with the Zoom. Um whenever you go on it,
like last week we had I think 23 people on the Zoom. I've been in the Lam board meeting when it was in here. I don't know that we've always had consistently the amount of people. Even, you know, with the unpopular with the warehouse, we had 150 people, 200 people on the Zoom. We
couldn't fit 200 people in here. Not to mention that you have some of the members who have who are Snowbirds. So, when they're away, they're still able to join the call and act as of as a member when when they're not in town. So, um it's something we can definitely look
look into, but I don't know that it helps um the productivity as far as getting things done in the town and and things moving along smoothly. So, with that being said, do we have a motion for adjournment? Motion. Second.
All in favor? I I Thank you.