okay good afternoon everyone we're about to get started so if we can just silence our cell phones and close the side doors if you would be kind enough whoever's closest I greatly appreciate it okay good afternoon we are on the record today is Tuesday the 10th day of June in the year 2024 this is a budget hearing for revenues and unclassified items with the Jersey C Municipal Council we had a scheduled 2 pm start and the clock on our cell phone my cell phone is showing 2:20 p.m. we had an emergency wedding that we had to make sure that we had that done um may we have a roll call for the commencement of this budget hearing council person Ridley I mean priner here council person CLE council person Solomon and council president Warman so we have four council members in attendance at 222 excuse me 2:20 p.m. and just a reminder we do not need a quarum for the budget hearing in addition at its time it's preparation the notice of this meeting was similarly disseminated on Friday May 24th 2024 at 6:16 p.m. and a reminder was sent out on Friday June 7th 2024 at 4:37 p.m. to the mayor Municipal Council business administrator Corporation Council local newspaper so I can certify as to our total compliance with the Sunshine Law and I see council person bajano arriving we'll mark him at 222 p.m. so we now have five council members and council member Ridley at same time 222 and we now have six council members present at 2:22 p.m. council president I'm going to turn it over to you still not on after okay all right tting good afternoon um so director we'll turn it over to you and you follow your presentation and we'll ask questions good afternoon um members of the M Council um this is the Department of finances presentation on closer can't hear me uh on the 2024 Municipal budget additionally council president um we do want to talk about the capital budget today so if council members did have I just you know once we go through the presentation so we'll go through the presentation um answer any questions that you may have about last year's performance this year's um financial position City's financial position and then wrap up with capital um discussions you have a paper copy of the I'll give uh I would just say if you do have specific questions about the performance of specific departments the Department of Finance it isn't really equipped to talk about those details but I would say considering today that we have a Caucus meeting you have additional questions we'll take some notes and help relay that information back but really today's discussion is about finance and the city's position uh so on and so forth so with me today I have the assistant director Graves um additionally I have uh Kia Stanton who is here with me today she's actually our acting controller um that's been recently uh appointed in the absence of um the vacancy that I had in our position uh we also have here with us today's will Cox and Company step Willcox and Matt Wilcox who helped the Department of Finance help prepare some of the uh financial statements budget and other things that advised our department to get us where we're at here today so um I'll turn it over to Kyle so we can go into the details on the budget presentation good afternoon so start on page two is just a fiveyear uh uh Overlook of the total budget and the total employee head count and the employee head count uh accounts for open positions to see this this year uh comparative to last year is pretty steady uh Workforce number um we currently have 990 vacancies um but 64% of our Workforce is made up of Public Safety um uniform VES how many vacancies I can hear oh in the city uh for civilian vacancies we have 90 open positions uh 35 of those are new 55 are carryover from prior year budget um but the main point was 64% of Total Staffing is is the Department of Public Safety and as we go through this the slides you'll see the summary of uh what the budget is made up of and we'll start on the revenue side so on your left hand side of Page Three is uh breakdown of 2023 collections um as of December 31st and what was reported in our annual financial statement we collected 736 million uh we were anticipating 730 million and below that is the breakdown of of what that consisted of our biggest driver obviously is tax revenue where we actually did experience a shortfall due to County Board judgments and other tax appeals but overall we did um meet the anticipated uh budget Revenue number to offset our our expenses and then on the right hand side is what's being anticipated this year uh and there's more detail as we go into the the next few slides on what the local revenues are what the state aid is but it's a pretty uh flat budget um from on that aspect page four is a summary of our Surplus and fund balance so you'll see this year's budget we're anticipating 38.3 million in cash Surplus uh to fill budget gaps um and on the bottom of that chart you'll see a four-year Outlook I want to go back to 20 the year and of 20 20 where we had 35 million in cash Surplus and then you obviously see the drop over the next two years uh that we used in the budget due to the pandemic um not realizing all of our revenues and some some other um two-year impact items that we had but we're on the rebound and I just wanted to make sure that was clear to the council that we're heading back into the right direction regenerating the Surplus that we had in Prior budgets so if there's any questions on that would um can you sort of break down what it explain the increase in Surplus and how it got there yeah so um excess revenues we if you want we can actually jump to the next uh few slides and we could go over those items on what um that was made up of so if you go to page six it is a summary of local revenues which consist of Courts hotel tax parking lot tax um we exceeded the anticipated amount in 23 by about $5 million um the biggest driver obviously was hotel tax and core findes like I mentioned um so you'll see that break uh breakdown of my largest collection amount all the way down to $50 in rebates that we received um I will say year to date we are on Pace to collect what we're anticipating and obviously with the summer months tourism is up we do see increases in hotel tax um cour findes are starting to rebound we're averaging right now between 900 and a million dollar a month in core fines so we should meet that 10.5 million in core but we hope to see that number grow back to 15 14 million like it was in 2019 2020 page two uh page seven sorry summary of revenues is state aid and construction code fees state aid um pretty much is flat year to year um that is not something we have determination over uh one increase there is for the municipal Relief Fund that was a one-time appropriation made by the state in July um of 23 and the reason it wasn't captured in the 23 budget is because of the timing we int when we introduced so we were allowed to anticipate that in this year's budget um there's no clear indication of if get it again in 24 for next year but we should know that when the state adopts their budget uh usually in June or July construction code fees there was a rebound as well um see we anticipated 8.6 million we realized 10.3 so that is another um factor into the the cash Surplus that we have and as we expected when building permits were being issued and work was being shut down people weren't paying those for those permits until they started so now that everything's back to normal we're starting to see that rebound and our year-to dat collection on that is about 4 million through uh the end of May page eight is a summary of other items so these are majority pilots and tax abatement revenue and in addition to the MUA franchise fee I did make a note that 21 Pilots did terminate or expire in 2023 and we do have 3.2 million uh expiring this year and 9 million expiring the following year um but what we are doing is we are Outsourcing uh the audit of pilot agreements and billing to NW Financial we're trying to get a better uh understanding of true up billing and you'll see last year we anticipated 90 and we brought in over 100 million in true up payments on top of the the annual uh tax billing so that is also attributed to the Surplus um this year we've already build an additional 4 million in trups so that $89 million that we're anticipating we should uh surpass that uh even though we do have some terminations and uh expirations and obviously the bigger increas is in the franchise fee for the MUA uh last year's agreement was 20 2 million we are still receiving that 22 million and the amended agreement includes 30 million for this that the city received this year and then next year will be 10 million on top of the 22 in the following year and the rest of the items are uh either Capital Surplus or money due to the current fund that wasn't realized that year end which we allowed to anticipate in the budget otherwise that money would be in our cash Surplus and if there's any questions on those uh particular items we could take those now so is the um franchise agreement is that separate from the anticipated like surplus of you said 38 million that separate yeah okay just one to clarify thank you sure so um I just follow up so we are using I guess the the 30 million we got from the franchise Fe corre just in in the operating budget yes okay and then the capital surus you say more what that is I'm you got to click it on you got to turn it on should see a green light there you go much better that's from premiums received on debt insurances from the purchasers so people paid a premium to purchase our debt correct so it's basically an extra onetime fee for for that debt that correct gotcha okay and if we didn't use it in this budget it would just go into the Surplus for well it's in it's in capital Surplus right so it's in this budget to help offset the cost of Debt Service sure okay then the in fund is that basically that that's money that needs to be paid back into the into the current fund right from capital or grants or um I can tell you that believe it's a combination uh vendor clearing and the regular clearing account I think makes up most of it okay and then just for for next year right just what are the thinking if we're if we're using the $30 million um franchise Fe this year and obviously it's only 10 next year that's 20 million Gap up front you know what what are we thinking about for next year to cover that well we know we do know there are drop offs in uh some of our deferred charges uh Deb service there's a minor drop off so there are appropriation decreases and you know obviously with the performance of this year's budget we should regenerate the same Surplus if not more and you know it's one piece of the p right um you know we're pretty confident that we could supplement that 20 million with other new Revenue items like land sales that we're in discussions on that we don't have in this year's budget um you know and you know the continued trend of our our local stuff and and those regular items should you know offset based on what we're seeing now thanks all right so I will move on to page nine which is the summary of the municipal tax levy and what we are responsible for collecting for the municipal budget uh and some of our trust funds obviously we've already um explained that there's a 1.9 3% increase on the municipal Levy which is going to equate to about $6 a month on the average tax bill on the average home of 475,000 and then the other Municipal items are the library which is directly offset uh with an appropriation and then the open space and arts uh trust fund that doesn't go through the budget but we do SCT that and put it in a dedicated reserve for uh those committees to use any questions on the tax all right then page 11 page 10 is the levy cap calculation it just explains if the city did need to raise the tax levy by another1 million as you see on the bottom right we are legally allowed to do so that we are we are not exercising that right because it would result in a major tax increase and we feel the 2% is sufficient to cover operations so that's just the calculation on on what our legal limits are page 11 is the summary of Appropriations so we did already have budget hearings on the departmental budgets so today is going to be on the unclassified items that pertain to Citywide expenses like health insurance uh the regular Insurance Fund utilities Debt Service capital budget all those items but this total here uh reflects everything and you'll see we expended uh 743 million in 23 our original anticipated Appropriations were 730 million we did uh adopt a emergency appropriation for 21 million and a special emergency appropriation for $10 million so our total Appropriations last year were $761 million and we came we have 27 million reserved at year end uh for anything that hasn't come hasn't been built to the city yet or will lapse the Surplus at the end of this this calendar year our biggest cost is salaries and wages and health insurance and pension so a majority of our costs are our Personnel said there's an emergency yep we we adopted two separate uh emergency appropr rations one was a special emergency appropriation for $10 million for accumulated absences so that is any Severance paid out to uh civilian or uniformed employees um that amount is deferred out over five years so there's a $2 million appropriation in this year's budget the $21 million was just a standard emergency appropriation because it was for tax appeals and other General liabilities but we mainly used it for health insurance uh overruns so it's like a rainy day fund you put to the side just well we we we funded what we needed to pay for the end of the year to avoid any uh additional overex exended balance yeah the piece of it that was for tax appeals was specific to judgments or settlements that had been made where the money needed to be refunded the emergency gave the city the ability to do what we're in the process of doing is going to the local Finance board $18.7 million which includes that emergency and the temporary emergency that the council passed I think in March for I think it was about $1 million Al also for tax appeal refunds so we're packaging that 18.7 million and asking the state to allow the city to raise it over multiple years instead of having a oneye impact on the budget so there is a resolution tonight uh authorizing the financing and there is a second reading ordinance pending pertaining to that uh tax appeals we did Cover in last caucus but so we don't anticipate covering that again tonight at caucus but if there's questions I would say you know we we could be uh in attendance for that or we could take them now all right so moving on to page 12 uh again this is an explanation of our limitations on appropriation increases it's just the stat um go to page 13 is the calculation so we're $ 21 million under the appropriation cap same Theory applies for the levy cap we can budget this but we are not because of the tax increase then on page 14 is a summary of the departments like I mentioned we have already gone over with those directors so if you have any questions pertaining to these budgets uh you can send those to me I'll coordinate with the the budget team what I'm wondering is can you guys send us the spreadsheets for each department because obious when we saw them we saw it was proposed um this year so what we haven't seen is what wasn't funded and what wasn't funded okay no problem yep we'll do that great thank you I apologize I thought that was done already no all right I'll make sure it happens right so on page 15 are the items that we intend to cover today you'll see the top expense is health insurance cost we're increasing that by $7 million um that's based on the the projections from our actuary um acore this covers General Health insurance claims um Dental Optical retirement um benefits Medicare so that's the pot that that is in and our total budget I believe is $40 million but we do have employee um contributions that offset some of that but you know we we keep continually to see that that cost rising year-over-year and in some instances like last year the projection we had was was short declared the emergency covered our liabilities and you know back to square one uh this year is there any way we could like emphasize preventative health care or build like an employee let's say fitness center or something uh with nearby gyms to incentivize people to go U maybe something that would reduce the amount that they pay like monthly if they're able to like you know I mean I see it in the corporate world all the time and I'm just wondering why can't we do something and see if bears fruit you know like in terms of making people's overall health and well-being better at least for Public Safety you know um yeah so I don't know if that's something just throwing an idea the universe it's relevant I brought it up before as well I do know our our health benefits team and the business administrator office they do meet with Horizon monthly to go over where we're at um entertain new ideas um one thing we do as we have the wellness coach that comes all the buildings um and it's something I brought up as well that's not something we can really um authorize but it is a it is a you're on the right track and that that is true if you do do these preventative things it does decrease um you know the cost but okay I would say send that to health benefits see where they're at okay the next biggest item is Insurance Fund commission see the budget is pretty flat last year we did have have an overrun in the Insurance Fund where we had court ordered settlements and and judgments that had to be paid prior to year end um know they went over budget they spent 24 we budgeted 17 we we covered some with appropriation transfers But ultimately we do have an overrun there which is raised in this year's budget rest of the items are utilities Municipal rent uh there is uh Bank adjust fees small amounts and uh minor increase for the ethical standards board which is uh operating again so that's why you see the increase there and you'll see those emergency Appropriations uh in that breakdown as well 21 and 10 million deferred charges over expenditure Appropriations like I alluded to uh a big portion of that was Insurance Fund the M majority of the rest of that is for Public Safety there was a resolution presented to the council for appropriation transfers to cover these expenses that resolution failed so that is being raised in this year's budget and the rest are um findings in AFS of other inter funds due from current and prior year bills that we have to pay can you just can you give us not now if unless you have it the full breakdown of that 11 million is it all public safety overe expenditures is it some other things built into that I have the I don't have the breakdown here but I believe it's in the AFS uh okay it's in the the the reports the budget reports within the AFS you'll see the adopted amounts and large amounts but I'll pull that data and and share it with you but about 50% of that is Public Safety 50% Insurance um obviously like I said this just there may be some other in there that small amounts okay all right so the next group of items are statutory expenditures our pension obligations pfrs police and fire ERS which is the city's insur uh pension fund PS is for employees still in the state pension and then non-contributory pension uh 118,000 Social Security which is charged by weekly uh we have unemployment in insurance which we do have to increase because we feel like it's a good opportunity to fund a little bit of a reserve um for unemployment because year to year to year it always comes in a little bit over and we have to transfer money so we're just trying to build a little cushion there and then um contribution retirement program any questions on statutory expenditures right agage 16 are some other items like I mentioned earlier the maintenance of the public library that's directly offset via tax collection we do have a $3 million appropriation for tax appeal settlements as of today that those funds are available um this is for any pending litigation that we get the rest of of the year uh this year I believe it was 8 million that we has have spent and that's part of the financing that was presented at the council so we don't have to budget that um you know assuming everything goes well with the local Finance board um tax overpayment and interest that's for current year tax overpayments um outside of tax bill settlements it's a pretty standard appropriation year to year um and in state of emergency overtime there's a million dollar appropriation the Jersey City supervisors Union had $850 $850,000 settlement this year for uh prior year state of emergency that wasn't paid out believe each employee received $5,000 and then the rest of that was uh a declared emergency uh from March any questions for the um 3 million for the tax appeals right now what's our anticipation of how much we are going to have to pay out in tax appeals so our audit division gave us an estimate uh for 12 million for the year we've already spent eight so and this is you know the last piece of the budget that we want to fill in to its capacity without exceeding that 2% amount so we're at 3 million um the rest of the year so just so as I understand it if we're anticipating 12 yeah we already spent eight we're adding three so basically we're we're putting in 11 at this point so we we right now we might have a million we at least anticipation a potentially a million more am I am I having those numbers right yeah and obviously when things are settled later into the year they can be deferred out um we typically we have 90 days to pay so we know anything settled uh in October we can either pay in this year's budget if we have sufficient funding or we will um know delay it till January or structure it in a way where there's installments rather than one lump some payment made okay great thanks and the last sheet of this presentation is the reserve for uncollected taxes uh I feel it's important to share because that number does did double uh from last year um and that's I mean mainly attributed to the County Board judgments so every year we make an appropriation based on prior year Collections and as collections drop the appropriation increases so there was 20 million in County Board judgments that we didn't realize in the fourth quarter those are I believe direct credits to The taxpayers and that ultimately uh drove this number up and in budget you know we did have a a tax sale where we did collect everything that we could but $20 million you're you're seeing the hit right here any questions on on that no that's the end of the summary that's the end of summary for the budget I didn't yet go over the capital budget there is a $3 million appropriation for down payments on Capital Improvements that's authorizing the financing of 57 million in bonds or notes um so $60 million uh in total for projects I want to emphasize the importance of that because we've structured our Capital plan over the last few years um where we're funding uh smaller projects on you know two to three year increments um and it's important that we continue to stick to that plan because if the capital funding isn't available we do have we would have to ultimately amend our budget to include some of those expenses um or otherwise you know projects may may stall come to a stop or whatever it may be but those 3 million covers does everyone have the breakdown uh the memo for Capital great yeah so if you see on the second page I broke down you know kind of what departments is going to at a high level um what we do is unless we have a very very specific project in which we are funding we like to keep the funding allocated for general purposes like like General Building improvements so it gives us wiggle room to cover City Hall uh persing field libraries things like that so if we did have that detail we included it if not you'll see um under building improvements is 2.3 for other city- owned buildings but all that funding will be that 7 million will be lumped together for for all buildings that's just our internal plans on how we're going to spend the money um any questions on how that funding is going to be spent or there's a project that you're looking to see the status on you know we could look into that for you or confirm if it's incl included in this plan um I'm working with councilman boano on a dog run and turfing up the field in Persian field it's something that you know it would need the same drainage system so it has to be done at the same time um I was wondering if that is part of this plan so if you look into uh the budget summary there is a section for parking movements and as of to as of last week Friday we had 13.8 million available for uh Park improvements so you'll see the the highest budget right there is 3.5 for General parks that funding can be used for anything in the city um I would recommend coordinating with uh director of Recreation and Parks seeing on on their plans on uh that funding specifically we are adding a million dollars this year for Park improvements mainly for um you know resurfacing um playground improvements things like that but there is adequate funding to cover um these projects um that you're mentioning okay so if if there we have a montelo court that they've been working on for a number of years we had some issues with p and g they're finally ready to approve the lighting so if we've already requested this is it safe to assume assum that it is budgeted into this General allocation or are can we get a list of what has already been proposed so we understand how much like like what this dollar amount means y because $2 million is you know goes very very quickly when it comes to park and park improvements yeah so yeah like I said there like there is there is 13 almost 14 million available from other projects and you'll see the detail there of some of those and I know Lucinda is looking into her inventory to seeing what she can repurpose for right new projects cuz some of these may have been completed um but yeah I could get you a breakdown of because we we have multiple Pro projects that have received different buckets of funding and some of them need a little bit more to get past the finish line for like I'll use Pavonia Marian is one monel quartz is another the the dog run that you guys are talking about it just um you know we just because there also parks that had improvements and upgrades and Renovations done they also receive open space trust fund dollars for them and some of them have still not come to completion so I just want to make sure that I understand moving money around year-over-year might you have to do that but things that have already been allocated that were not completed in Prior Cycles just want to make sure that they're on deck and that the 13 million you know no offense was it's not going to all go to the City Hall Park project so um we got the request so overall we got like a $300 million request from all Department Citywide and then when we broke it down what was needed immediately this is what we parsed out from from the Department give us a two threee plan um and continuation of your projects timeline requests and the things that you're asking for we need to get that from the Department so we do plan to have like a midyear review with our departments to find out the status of other things and we can provide that in like our reporting back to you in regards to when you're funding projects if something Happ happens one project that's laid well then what's in the up next right in regards to prioritization I think that's kind of sort of missing here um as we we collected the requests okay thank you I just want to ask what is this city hall Park are you talking about the front of the building that's considered a park uh that was the 22 ordinance the original plans were to redo um outside of City Hall um I don't know where they're at with with those plans but that was pretty recent that's the front of the building right as surrounding City Hall there were plans to redevelop um way it looked but you're not talking about the back of the building taking away the parking spaces I don't take away any parking spaces oh the better not and then I have another question you said before as you know and most homeowners want to know you we're raising the taxes 2% where the heck is the money from all these buildings in Jersey City why we keep on borrowing from the MUA they raised our water rates 7% people in this city have had it with all this development Journal Square Downtown where's the money what the heck is going on we borrowed what 50 million from the MUA and now they're raising our water taxes 7% councilman we can't speak on to the MUA but I can speak to um to your point about all these buildings so last year we commenced um like Kyle said an audit of our pilot and debated portfolio it had been a while since someone had looked at that and reviewed it we haven't had pilot abatement in many years then we had the impact of covid now I'm working with NW to do phase two of what was missing over these PRI years so we can get a better assessment and at least put a fiveyear plan of what's coming charging off what's being um terminated so that we have a better collection I think that is a real analysis piece that we're we've missed and it happened and so um as soon as we have an outome of that that report we will share it with the council but it is a working document that we've been working on you've seen it materialized in our trup billing and some of the items that Kyle did speak to about um I think what page was it on presentation you have it as a reference yeah but the point is all these buildings have been going up for years and our taxes are going up up up up and people have had it and uh the city was in fiscal trouble this year we had to borrow from the MUA we had to keep on borrowing and borrowing it's got to stop and you know I'm a homeowner and I've had it and I see half my neighborhood moving out and they're getting out of here people are just disgusted with what's going on something has to be done fiscally coun we borrow from the MUA in soorry we amended our franchise agreement that should have been done in other prior years and we looked at the impact of what happened in covid with the MUA of not paying us over an area of time and so in consolidation with our financial advisers budget Council like try to put up a better plan and approach last year the Department of Finance gave you guys a 5-year Outlook of what it would be like because often times we were just rolling in year one we experienc it year two we experienced it so we came in at 1.93 no one ever likes to increase taxes but at this financial position and what we're getting out of and in what Kyle alluded to we are recovering rebounding we have a cash surplus of like $38 million back to the year end of beginning of 2020 so while I am very sympathetic about increasing things today's discussion is about the city's financial position and where we're where we're at well I see them spending money on bike lanes and all the stuff around the city got to stop it you're the budget Department it's got to stop the taxes should be being lowered and well I would ask that you you pass you should have at the meting year and not make us um include it and raise it in our defer charges as well something has to be done because it's gotten out of hand tired to listen to people I was going to ask I mean I I know the Board of Ed was able to not increase taxes because of the growth this year you know and prior years they had raised taxes um you know to to the levels that you know are upsetting a lot of residents but because of the growth of the city that we have been able to they they were able to save off a tax increase this year my question is absent let's say a franchise agreement absent the $38 million surplus that we have is that uh like how much would we have to increase taxes in order to make up that Gulf a lot like are we talking double digit tax increases are we talk like what give me a like ballpark figure as to what what the alternative is I mean qu Kyle what would another $60 milliony average homeowner yeah you'd be you'd be looking at over like a 10% tax increase okay yeah I mean I think to put some context to this conversation yeah um I do a lot of this work across the northern part of the state and the 1.93% is abnormal based on what I've seen in other municipalities and counties throughout the northern part of the state um the ratable increase and the continued and I went through this in Edgewater about 15 years ago when they started redevelop redeveloping the Riverside of River Road and the same questions from again longtime residents is all this stuff's going on why are taxes still going up and the simple reason at least for today is taxes are never going down not when health benefits are going up 20% a year now you're self-insured so you get a little bit of a of a break year by year depending on what the claims are um salaries are not going down the the you know that we had a 2% cap on contract awards for three years and then the legislature and the governor and everybody else said I'm not renewing that let it sunshine so now those contract awards are greater than 2% and that goes for the teachers as well um nothing's going down the inflationary impact over the last year 18 months on every government on everybody on all of us on you on me on him it's it's Troublesome but the increase in ratables helps buy down what that tax increase is to the average resident well how come then these problems aren't in North Carolina South Carolina Georgia Virginia Delaware and it's like only New York and New Jersey that is screwed up and that doesn't make any sense because go down to North Carolina you can buy a million dollar home you pay $3,000 in property taxes month and their population is bigger than the state of New Jersey course one school system they have one County uh uh thing it's it's a joke up here and I'll tell you something I got my back broken this weekend I was at two Affairs this weekend because of things going on in the city and people were after me and I had nothing to do with it and people are tired of it the taxes got to go down got to stop people from moving out and it's got to stop again the budget's 65% or more Personnel pension health benefits so unless you have a market reduction in the workforce nothing's going down most people usually go into the government sector for job security let's just be honest and again I'm a little I'm a little older than than there's more job security than some of you and it used to be you got a government job the salary wasn't great but the pension and benefits were top-notch absolutely Ely things have evolved in the last 25 or 30 years where a lot of the government jobs now are commerate with corporate jobs in terms of salary and that's by virtue of it costs money to attract qualified people so you again I I I I I hear this I understand the frustration of of residents I'm I live in a I live in Wayne I'm a taxpayer my taxes go up every year unless you cut Services unless you cut Personnel unless you cut your taxes are you're never going down and the ratables and the other revenues help buy that increase down to $6 a month didn't you say in the beginning of this presentation what 65% of the money goes to Public Safety like uh 65% of the head count head count okay and but over 60 almost 65% of the budget is total salaries total health benefits pension costs all the other ancillary things that go into having employees well why do we have go down Charlotte North Carolina one one town one fire department One Police Department come up here we have 12 different towns here 12 police Chiefs 12 Fire Chiefs uh 12 Public Safety directors it's got a St I don't disagree with your analysis but this is the system that's here and i' again I've been around a long time I've been involved in discussions about closing firehouses and and regionalizing police and they never go or end up in a positive nature because at the end of the day the public wants what they have I mean not necessarily want to pay for for it at the level they're paying for it but the public wants if the firehouse is here they want to know the firehouses here and you know I've got involved with discussions that they didn't want to regionalize the police department because the uniform colors and the car colors were going to be different just just some context based on being an old man even Hoboken shot it down recently there were like talks to like merge the fire departments and they shot it down I mean there's 590 districts or towns municipalities in New Jersey and each one's got their own like you know function in government Fire Department police XYZ like you know if you want to know why taxes are so high it's because everyone wants what they want and they you know they don't want to work together I'll give you a perfect example example there's a couple of towns in Bergen County they still have backyard garbage pick get off the truck go to every single house go around the back pick up the pales dump them and bring them back well plus two or three times what normal garbage pickup would be and when you raise the issue well you could save 500 600 a million dollars they all look at you like well we don't want garbage pales in the street but again that's the level where this comes down to in certain areas so yeah they pick up the garbage cans and then they fling them across the street question in regards to the uh building improvements do we uh for Public Safety buildings what are the difference like it seems like some things are listed twice and I don't know if that's that's accurate or not but what's the difference between for example like North precent and North District uh there were just different ordinances uh where the funding came from um okay however they were named obviously which is it's a minor umy but that's you'll see the ordinance number in in front of the the account description okay so just on the capital budget um couple questions one is you know just where where is the sort of money that is going to go to kind of the persing field ice rink work yeah so that would be a part of our Uh current year building appr improvements um we have I believe let me go back to we have overall 19 million for building improvements 7.3 of that will be for uh City Hall and other buildings right now we're intending uh 2.3 for outside of City Hall but there should be some uh Surplus year end once we wrap up what we're doing here with the tile work and everything like that and cover labor um that funding can be shifted around for buildings like Persian field but I just want to be clear so the 2.3 that's listed here could be a little bit more but but you know because obviously it says here for other City own buildings and contingencies is that for five other things or is it for kind of persing field ice rank well for what what we know now is City Hall persing field definitively um as other things come up and may require uh short-term funding we could use that for those projects But ultimately those are the two uh priorities um I I think you know I talked to team and ba but I think it'd be nice to have a little bit more certainty on it um just given that obviously we know that the solution we're working on now is a temporary effects which is great but it's you know we don't want to two three years from now be in the same position we're in today with the rank as we obviously want to be able to start the planning kind of immediately for what the long-term repairs are going to going to take right so obviously if we adopt the first reading and we want to make amendments to the purpose of the funds to ensure x amount is dedicated to one project I believe we could do that um prior to the second reading sure as long as it's within like the same general purpose on the um $5.5 million for traffic signals um there there's two locations for stop lights that I I've kind of gotten requested a ton of and you know my general understanding is this traffic signal contract kind of covers the general maintenance as as opposed to new construction of a traffic light um so I wanted to kind of ask about the opportunity to add in my understanding is that cost about a half million dollars and I I don't know if other council members have them too but but one or two of these traffic lights that have been priorities uh kind of the funding rolling yeah so what I would recommend is um I wouldn't like I would want to increase what we're borrowing now because it will impact a down payment requirement and a budget amendment and I think the best approach there is we could look back at what infrastructure has uh in reserve I know they have uh a decent amount of funding for those types of improvements yeah they still have about 7 million from prior ordinances where we might be able to knock out those uh sure I'm I'm happy to have the conversation on that front although what I would say would be and correct me if I'm wrong but if if we increase this ordinance by um you know 1 to two million you know the down payment is what uh 5% 5% so it' be a couple hundred, this year budget which I think we could probably find right yeah it would just delay the process a little more so sure sure but but I you know I don't know when we were intending on introducing the amendment but um well let's see we're gonna see where the state comes back first sure um they may require some amendments okay and we'll go through that process with the council um but if you if there's other requests for amendments obviously yeah you can send them to us and we could do the other thing I'd like to get funded um which could either be capital or operating um and I think it's probably a Citywide issue but um you know I think we hear about trash complaints all the time right that we just get you know trash right trash major issue in the city and I think there's a couple different ways to address it but one simple way is the city purchases the recycling bins for pickup but it doesn't purchase them with tops and um I have now done research that shows that that actually increases the amount of trash on our streets and that by by capping them you know having to have some form of a cover uh so I'd like to for the city to be able to purchase the recycling bins with the the tops um so that we can give them out instead of the ones without the tops or just purchase tops to add them to the ones we have um open but I think that will start the process of addressing the trash issue we're having in the city um and we don't we're not g to get you know enough for every household in this city but if we start that process now and we see that it's going to hopefully it'll work um and and start the reduction of trash over time okay I'll see if if that could fit into the current budget for uh sustain sustainability or if we need to tack on the DPW right great thank you if you are going to do that I would not recommend getting tops I would just getting whole new bins because we all know our tops end up in the recycling when they dump it yep they either throw it off and play Frisbee or it goes into the truck so if you're going to do it that that that I'm just saying that would be a waste of money sure um yeah well I mean any amendments are going to be proposed for the council to decide on and conversation proc we can do different things but just something with a you know it's got to have coverage yeah know you want covers uh Madam council do you want covers too or no covers I don't know separate conversation just had a meeting about trash this morning so it's top of I'm getting me but I don't yeah we don't need to cover this here any tops need to be attached to the can yes can we get the solar belly compactor no solar belly compactors that was a huge waste of grant funding after time no absolutely no we're not going to agree next oh council members I know that you know this year's budget process we started early we got request in um a few months ago we're now getting into basis of hoping to adopt it if you have um additional like recommendations things that we discuss here like KY and I took notes um we would want to see those kind of s amendments before adoption because then we would assume we're taking it as is and I would hate for you guys to get to the meeting you're saying well we're adopting the budget and you're like we didn't propose things so I know that we changed the format timeline we're discussing the financials we do plan on having meetings with the departments on midyear performance and what we're going to realize but just for clarification purposes how you sort out you know some of the requests that you're asking us here today so what what would be a general deadline for us to have top of mind for any proposed amendments yes so we have the public hearing on the budget Wednesday we still haven't received comments from the state's budget examiner on what they need from us so ideally if there's not if we get that back uh within the next week from the state we can prepare uh amendments and adoption for the next meeting doesn't I checked in our CFO today uh I'll let you know on a better timeline but I would I would say probably the July um the July meeting we're going to look to adopt uh the latest okay so I know there was one instance where one of our divisions had a position that was open but then it was cut even though it was supposed to be refilled so that stuff like that that I would like to cont take take a look at sometimes that's not always true so I would say I'm not I'm not saying that true or not I'm just saying this is a proposed amendment I would like to make should it be true when would you like to have that information that's my question I would like to have it by the end of this month okay assuming we don't get right uh a better idea from the state on when they're going to give us their comments but if there are plans to amend and we can all agree that bring the budget back in the July meeting and it's not expected the next meeting in June say by the end of the month okay and then that also goes back to the councilman's original request about what we saw at the end of last year beginning of this year with the proposed and like what what what's going to come before us just so we can clarify those questions that are coming to us yeah so end of June if we could get proposed amendments this way we have time to run it by the state they have to approve uh or proposing again and we also have to ensure that we don't hit any of those triggers for another public hearing on amendments um but we'll work with within all those uh confines what would trigger another uh public hearing is there a certain threshold or percentage 10% of 10% an appropriation greater than 10% yeah there's there's three major ones um if we add a new item in a new Revenue item I could give that to you okay just wanted to know y thank you any other questions council members motion to adjourn I have a motion to adjourn at 3:17 pm. by council person have a second second by council person rener all in favor of the motion to adjourn at 3:17 p.m. all council members present by acclamation please say I we are out of here at 3:17 p.m. thank you so much everyone present and everyone watching at home remember Teamwork Makes the DreamWork and the caucus will start at 4 p.m. thanks