which is fine um I'll be myart 15 e e e e e e e e e e I no no oh he does yeah I think a lot of kids she's going four let the record reflect we have reconvene with all members present melissan is absolutely excused for those who are able please uh rise to the Pledge of Allegiance I ask you remain standing after the pledge United States of America one nation under God indivisible liy Justice take a moment to remember long time madis res we lost over the last few weeks it was just uh last month we recognized Bob culus at with the mayor's Legacy award and he passed away at home after long illness on March 2nd at the age of 88 survived by his wife of 64 years Kathy as well as son David and David's wife Helen his daughter or Linda and two grandchildren Bob was born in Madison in a family home on Greenwood and interesting to know his grandfather Dr Aldo Bliss cultist delivered him into the world uh Bob attended Madison Public Schools uh attended RCA Institute in New York City and attained his associates degree in electronics and Union College worked locally repairing radios and televisions for Madison residents including Mrs Dodge in the 1950s he served in neighor reserves 57 to 64 1959 he married Kathy skull at the M Methodist Church in Madison and shortly afterwards he began work in Fair child Laboratories eventually establish himself in sales no surviv um they moved for a short time to Virginia for training then he was transferred to Portland Oregon and Huntington Valley until 1966 they finally returned home to Madison moving into Kathy's childhood home and they lived there he he lived there for the rest of his life and obviously cath is still there in 1973 Bob and Cathy decided to start their own business and opened a c Speedy Instant Printing franchise in marst toown and eventually left the franchise and change name their business print shop joined rotary in 74 marown rotary in 74 served as president 78 District Governor in 85 and Roary International board directors in the '90s he was honorary member of the Madison club and Bob M Cathy welcome many young people from around the world rotary exchange student over the years they hosted 25 to 30 students for about 6 months each and had had many uh short-term exchanges also and remain in touch with many of the students I was on the board directors in Madison y from 78 to 91 board chair 8589 as mentioned the proclamation he was instrumental in transort trans forming the old Anthony school it's the FM fby child care center and as it says in his obituary while he was a strong advocate for the wi Mission he spent his time at the Y and Su and TI never to be seen on exercise Bight or in the pool and Bob was also one the board trustees at the uh M Public Library C visited 32 countries and for those that uh know Bob and as I mentioned before he could take up a room with his laugh life advice and presence St Missy sobody in this friends um then Florence Casino longtime uh Madison resident passed away uh on March 3rd 99 just uh weeks away from what would have been her 100th birthday she survived by her daughter Patricia and her husband Frank and two grandchildren Prett deceased by her husband of 48 years Al and a son Robert she was born in Marist toown and ra raised there and attended marown High School After High School she worked at the office of M time and married and started a family and she's proud that three generations of her family worked for Epstein her mother herself and her daughters he married her husband alons in 1946 and saw the wife Madison with B her family and Al worked at the family business CNC Motors and it was very very proud to call Madison home for 78 uh years he's also a proud member of the thir Thursday morning club and also active at St V Mar church then Mary brag a long time resent Madison passed away on March 4th as it says she was 97.5 years old uh survived by two daughters Pamela and her husband Michael Susan and her partner Milt two sons Thomas and Richard Richard four grandchildren and three great grand children she predeceased by her husband Albert and her granddaughter Marissa born in Chad in 1926 uh she was born prematurely and was one of the first babies saved by an incubator and was first introduced to New York in 1926 after graduating CH of high school she went into a nursing program at St Michael's Hospital spite being told she was too small frame to be a nurse and she was chosen to be the ribbon cutting of the new Mar Town Memorial Hospital at the time he married her husband Albert in 1956 and he settled in Madison at that time when he raised her four children she was active in St Vincent's and going to be loved by many of the church she loved J all hustles and still have one going right up to the end and then uh Gloria neck of age 91 passed away on the 28th born in Spain married her husband Alfred in Madrid mid 1950s as he was working as a civil engineer rebuilding roads and bridges after World War II they had a daughter in 1955 she their daughter came to United States early in 56 New Jersey became a new home and she her husband Al moved to Madison in 1967 her husband died in 1993 she's survived by her two daughters Lor and Teresa and her son Carlos six grandchildren and seven grandchild big grandchildren lastly Joseph his own lifelong Madison resent passed away on the 27th February '92 leaving behind his wife for 62 years an Three Sons Joseph Steven and Daniel one daughter Jean 10 grandchildren and two great- grandchildren born in Mars town of 31 grew up in Madison attend Madison High School After High School enlisted in the United States Army served our country in PR and War and then worked for the New Jersey Department of Transportation for 32 years he met his uh wife an at Hanover Lane following alley in East Hover and they married in 1961 and stay in Madison Razer family who was been known for his impressive vegetable garden enjoyed sharing vegetables with neighbors and Friends he was also a member of St Mar Parish let's take a moment to remember Bob cus lawence Casino veryy brag glori and Joseph is let's pass our thoughts onto the families ands thank you have a motion for the executive minutes of February 26 2024 so move second all in favor I and a motion for the regular minutes of February 26 2024 moved second discussion or Corrections all in favor I welcome all and um apologize for the sight delay at the beginning and to those watching at home sorry for the delay we are here having lost an hour of sleep over the weekend and the extra daylight is nice but the trans transition is always tough especially since I haven't recovered from the extra day in February you know that weap here get some time um couple of things going on the last couple of weeks last Wednesday I cut the ribbon at the stay salon on um Waverly Place in addition to Madison CH chamber members we were joined by uh former member council member John Hoover sitting right here and also chatt andboro police chief uh Brian Gibbons and he and chief Gibbons was there to support his sister Tracy the own owner of State salon so stop by and please congratulate Tracy and uh welcome uh Chief Gibbons sister to town and many people know especially if you have young children this month is read Across America so I was at Tory J on Wednesday and Central Avenue on Thursday for reading night it's always a great fun to read to the families and I was given several books between the two schools with my favorite being uh duck for president it's fun or maybe quack read but uh it was enjoyable so it I'll be at Kings Road next month to read and on Saturday the weather wasn't so great but the turned out impressive for the annual Mars County St Patrick's parade in marown as I marched I saw a good contingent of Madison residence that weathered the cool temperatures and drizzle um and shifting gears a little bit uh one of the tasks I had over the last couple of weeks was signing uh Madison police certificates of Commendation for their annual recognition of superior effort and I was impressed as I read these certificates because each one described the uh event that um warranted the recognition and of there were a few that talked about great work on the on arrests such as the U Breakin at GX the the bank fraud issue and others but what it really stood out was noticing the U great work for light life saving efforts this including noticing people in distress and quickly rendering Aid there's also a couple that noted uh that police officers noticing behavior that were indicative of mental heal health issues with the officers inter intervening providing uh quick action they very likely s save lives by preventing suicide so we're certainly very proud of the uh support that they provide to those in crisis and very different note yesterday looked out my window and I saw a couple walking with a litter Grabber in a bag and I don't know where they were inspired by my routine of walking through town with my litter Grabber as I try to keep things uh clean or they started on their own it was certainly great to see so I highly recommend the activity of cleaning as you walk um it's uh you know it's kind of very rewarding and I think it'll be uh if you start up tomorrow it'll be extra special because um after uh the wind of the last 24 hours and especially when it coincided with the wind paper and cardboard pickup for district one there's going to be plenty to pick up um and another part of my lecture here is I don't mind the wind blown litter but I have to say I'm getting tired of picking up cigarette butts from those who think our sidewalks and streets are one big ashtray so if you can't quit please extinguish your cigarette and put in the garbage um and I do have a lot to cover today so I apologize you will hear shortly that we have a resolution to support the reauthorization of Transportation trust fund of the transportation trust fund known as a ttf this is a dedication of portion of our gas tax support Road road projects 50% of the revenue that is generated go back to local projects at the county and Municipal level this has been invaluable to Madison and all towns across the state over the last round we receive over a million dollars to support such projects as the green Avenue safety improvements Mill and overlay projects and Road reconstruction for uh such as Garfield Prospect and Woodland these Pro projects will either had been postponed or fully covered by uh Madison residents so in a way this gas tax is a property tax savings um initiative but uh what is different about this real authorization is it also takes into consideration EVS uh through an annual fee so they will pay their share so we encourage the legislature to to quickly uh approve these um the funds so roads and bridges and traffic safety projects across the state can continue and I'm going off script a little bit but one thing that went through committee today and we are following very closely is the uh affordable housing legislature um I will probably in a future meeting go in more detail but we have very strong concerns at the fact that this is being rushed through without a Time deadline that is uh push needed rush through it is going to be the commitment of the municipalities across the state that deliver the valuable and needed affordable housing for residents and yet municipalities across the state have been cut out of the discussions for this bill so I will be uh reaching out and we'll encourage others to reach out yes we need a legislature but legislation to address this let's take our time and get it right because Doing It Wrong could ruin the state overdevelopment and stressing on infrastructure on a much more cheerful note an additional $4.1 million in Federal grant funding has been added to our growing total for the preservation of the Drew Forest uh so thanks to the Joint efforts of congresswoman Cheryl and Senator Booker for submitting this uh request as part of their Community funding project initiatives which were passed last week by the House and Senate and signed into law by by President Biden over the weekend this additional money brings our total of federal and County grants to preserving the Drew Forest to 9,162 79 and that's that odd amount at the end is from the Federal Grant I have to say I did play a pick four last week of 6279 it didn't get more money from Drew Forest but I did try um we continue to work in good good faith with the leadership of Drew University to reach a deal to preserve the Drew forest and remain committed to continue to apply for addition federal state and County funding that would assist us in the funding of our purchase offer for the preservation of the forest and lastly employee of the month and if I can have our a drum roll from our person behind the screens in the back are because our um employee of the month is communications director Michael pessier while the Personnel director was out to for a mother and then for bement leave Michael stepped up to keep keep that department running he handle the process of hiring several new employees which included scheduling interviews making employment offers and certainly without this help the hiring of these new employees would have been delayed by several weeks and they might not have become new employees if that got delayed so uh Michael thank you very much for your dedication and uh police officer manager Christy ke's 25th anniversary is today so uh if you see Christy in the office at Public Safety please congratulate her and that is all I have and apologize again for a long listen we'll move on to Public Safety Council president range thank you mayor from the police department on March 4th the AR New Jersey program officially began at the Madison police department this program adds Social Work resources to be deployed as part of our Department's overall response options as calls for assistance come in our social worker Adam began his shift 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and has already been seeing immediate results and instant feedback we're very excited to see where this program uh continues to take us on March 5th Madison police uh held its annual All Hands Department uh meeting and awards presentation as the mayor referenced 26 commendations were issued to officers for their actions during the past two years uh for actions above and beyond the Call of Duty a job well done and congratulations to all the officers ERS who received commendations on March 6th the Madison police department command uh unit met with Madison High School officials on the ongoing security enhancements on the front vestibule for the high school we appreciate the collaboration with the school administration and with the security upgrades that are forthcoming and this Friday March uh 15th Madison officers will be taking part in the law enforcement night at men and Arena uh this event runs from 7: to 900 p.m. and is open to the public it's always a great way uh a great night and visiting police departments are present to tell the public about their department and themselves as officers as well uh and tonight from the fire department uh the fire department reports uh that in February the fire department responded to 18 General alarms 24 still alarms 29 investigations and 48 medical calls that's a total of 119 calls for the month of February um it's that extra elak day that don't know um on March 5th uh a fire engine was requested to Main Street in chattan buror for reported a fire in an apartment engine one arrived in advance to hos line to the second floor where a kitchen fire was found the cause of the fire was found to be combustibles stored in the lower drawer of the oven that in this particular case turned out to be Broiler um so please be cautious as you're storing items in that lower part of your oven uh on March 10th the fire department received an interesting call from a local Urgent Care the Urgent Care had been struggling for some time to remove a ring stuck on a patient's finger and actually broke their Tooling in the process the staff had heard that Madison firefighters and the Madison fire department had a knack for removing uh stuck rings and um asked if they could send the patient over to Madison fire headquarters at her arrival the room the ring was safely removed within 15 minutes and lastly some good news on uh the financial front tonight the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs has awarded a grant to the fire department for a total of $55,000 um I think this was part of Chief wickman's budget presentation as well um the American Rescue plan firefighter grant program is used to purchase personal protection gear and the fire department plans to use these funds to purchase additional turnout coats pants boots and helmets for firefighters and lastly tonight from The Joint Court in February 2024 there was a slight de decrease in case load versus the same period last year in addition Madison burrow has a decrease uh had a decrease of cases uh and issues in February compared to January 2024 like in Madison overall The Joint Court uh including all four police departments had an overall decrease in case loads from February uh 2024 compared to the prior year thanks mayor that's all tonight thank you and finance bur clerk M Erick thank you mayor the clerk's office has the following announcements in anticipation of the June 4th primary election the filing deadline for nomination petitions for County committee uh as well as municipal office is March 25th 2024 candidates from municipal office must file nominating petitions in the office of the buau clerk by 400 p.m. on March 25th the 71st day next preceding the day of the June 4th primary election for the general election nomination petitions for independent general election candidates and school election C School Board election candidates are filed with the county clerk before 4 p.m. on June 4th the day of the primary election these forms are available in the clerk's office switching to finance tonight we will have our sixth presentation on the budget over the past several months we have discussed Capital revenues utilities and open space on February 12th we had a presentation on the municipal budget and fund balance on February 26th we then had a number of detailed and information Rich presentations from the department heads as we've discussed in all of these Council meetings and the runup to tonight's final hearing the budget is one of the most important decisions that Council makes the process revolves around the 2014 strategic planning guidelines and we continue to be guided by this important document thanks to the excellent work of our former council member Ben wtz tonight we will cover the utilities and the municipal budget one final time we will also go over the strategic planning guidelines in detail hopefully we will have a consensus to move forward and direct the staff to draft the official Municipal budget document that is int to be introduced at the March 25th council meeting assuming that happens the official document will then be posted and available for review VI by the public for 28 days as required by State Statute towns like Madison that are in excellent physical health are PR permitted to self-certify the budget for two years in a row but the third year the budget must be reviewed by the state this year Madison can self-certify towns that declared a special emergency in 2021 due to the pandemic are also required to be reviewed by the state every year fortunately because of prud prudent fiscal planning we were able to avoid declaring a special emergency during the economic upheaval of the pandemic we strive to be transparent with our budget process not all local governments publicly talk about the budget until the state document is introduced as a reminder all of our presentations along with a number of other documents including the audit the annual debt statement and the annual financial statement and other similar documents are available on roset uh and I want to say a special thank you to Jim I know we have more thanks to offer as the project process continues to unfold but getting us to this point as we have our final hearing before the budget introduced has been a big effort and I want to thank you for leading that Jim uh a couple comments from the finance and puring departments the UN audited annual financial statement or AFS has been completed and sent to the state of New Jersey this document is available on rosenet it is a precursor to the audit report which comes out later this year from the purchasing department we'll make note of a couple once a year large payments on the voucher list um t for tonight's vote larger apartment and condomini condominium complexes such as general Wayne Rolling Hills Court and the Madison Commons pay full taxes to the burrow but they do not get full Services they typically have private companies that plow their roads and collect their garbage and recyclables State Statute permits these Property Owners to get reimbursed for certain expenses the apartment complexes submit all of their paperwork to the purchasing department and the buau calculates the reimbursement which is based on the buroughs costs for these Services special thank you to Stacy duly in the purchasing department for working on this important annual project that's all tonight mayor very much Al works and Engineering Mr landri thank you mayor uh sewer jetting is continuing the locations are posted on social media and the borrow website emergency sewer line and manhole repairs were completed on rosale Avenue the rose department is patching pool and repairing curbs Mechanical Services are preparing equipment for maintaining the parks sports and recreation Fields the parks department is readying fields for sports for spring Sports and finally the sewer department responded for the third time in the last month to issues at the Lorraine Road pump station they ask residents not to flush wipes floss and hygiene products thank you mayor thank you and with utilities and Community Affairs Mr Helen pis got it now there we go see you didn't have to throw anything at me Eric got it so thanks mayor H members of the community uh the electric Department first we would like to offer our best wishes to our electric utility superintendent Jim Jim matina who's recovering at home after knee replacement surgery Forman Dave arig glair is serving as Acting Superintendent doing a great job in Jim's absence our electric crews are busy in town tonight due to the high winds we have polls with Transformers on Community Place and cook Avenue damaged by the weather currently being replaced to restore electric service to the residents of the affordable housing development owned by the madis Housing Authority on Community Place our standby Crews will remain on high alert in Madison this evening we're so fortunate to have that service available for our town we're experiencing extended supply chain delays to purchase Transformers with delivery delayed for up to 2 years our practice has been to replenish our inventory on a regular basis to ensure we can always meet the needs of our residents and businesses no need to be alarmed because we do have Transformers now to service our current needs late last week electric Crews pruned branches from primary secondary and House services due to the advanced weather forecast of high winds so again very proactive Department fortunately for us our standby Crews were busy late last week responding to emergency markout requests down wires and no power calls Madison always has two electric crew members on standby Duty for after hours responses Crews removed the damag pole and set a new class 2 45 ft Riser pole on lra road for a new tie point to serve the neighborhood new poles are planned to be installed on Walnut Street bridgedale Avenue Greenwood Avenue and one additional pole on the Rain Road on to the water utility didn't have as much activity uh there's continuing work at wellb for the Redevelopment and upgrades that should be finished hopefully by the end of the second quarter of this year uh the dwell booster room was painted an inspection testing and flushing of a new main was completed at 286 to 294 Main Street and a new main is now in service I don't know which building that is sorry two Water Services have been shut off in disconnector for new development and all normal work markout shutouts shut offs and meter Replacements continue around the world and from the uh I'm going to read the report uh in place of uh councilwoman honahan she's not not here tonight there's a lot going on in town um this is from the Downtown Development commission the Director of Business Development is Lisa Ellis the Downtown Development commission's next regular meeting will be held on Thursday March 21st 7:15 in the second floor committee room in heartley Dodge this building the public is W welcome to welcome and invited to attend the Downtown Development commission plans to reinvent the Madison Farmers Market for the 20124 season it will now be called the Madison farm and Artisan market and it will be held on Saturdays from May 25th through December 14th in the pr Pro Prospect Street parking lot from 9:00 a.m. to 2: p.m. that's the lot next to the ambulance core building in front of the uh train station the big parking lot I think that will be a good alternative for a weekend venue the hope is the new format will allow for greater participation closer to the heart of medison information and applications have been sent to prospective vendors vendors should contact Lisa Ellis at DDC rosenet.org for more information so there's just one week left to get your tickets the taste of Madison 20124 event roast City's annual fine food and drink tasting Extravaganza takes place on Monday March 18th one week from today like I just said the new venue for 2024 edition of The Taste is at the Madison Hotel I'm anxious to actually see that myself I haven't been there since they've done a renovation uh VIP tickets are $125 each VIP tickets will feature early admission and access to all vendors at 6 p.m. in addition VIPs can participate in a cooking demonstration with food and wine tastings and will rece receive a special gift bag and an entry into a special raffle general admission tickets are priced at $85 and entry to the event will begin at 700 p.m. the taste of Madison features a silent auction a Tricky Tray and a 50/50 raffle the proceeds from the taste of Madison benefit local charities Business Development and civil improvements in Madison the organizers of the taste and Madison are the Madison Chamber of Commerce the Madison Downtown development commission and the Rotary Club of Madison tickets are now available at Gary's wineing Marketplace at 121 Market Street in Madison and www.tasteofhome.com a total refresh of the event formerly known as Mayday last year the event is now called Madison Green and clean the event will again incorporate a townwide beautification day on Saturday April 27th from 9: to 2 p.m. all of the community is welcomed and encouraged to attend the rain date will be Saturday April 28th that same day the annual Arbor Day celebration will kick off the event this event also Now features a focus on eco-friendly initiatives information on sponsorship donation and volunteering is available on roset the Chamber of Commerce the Madison Chamber of Commerce will host some of the community's favorite events again this spring right now the fine Shelly the Easter egg scavenger hunt has begun it started this weekend Easter FunFest will take place on Saturday March 23rd from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. the Madison Community Arts Center there always a lot going on there uh multicolor viewpoints is Katie truck's multimedia work it continues to exhibit at the center's rosium Gallery through March 30th M truck will be hosting a closing reception on Saturday March 30th from 400 p.m. to 6: p.m. Gallery hours are posted on the mo Madison Community Arts Center website in the weekly count calendar section the summit Film Society will show loow Capitano a film about African immigration to Europe on Sunday March 17th at 5:00 P p.m. and the spotlight kids company will present The Music Man kids March 15th to 17th this coming weekend Friday and Saturday night shows are 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday manise are at 2 p.m. tickets will be available on the mcac uh more Cultural Arts Center website and some really fun events are uh Wednesday open mics that's coming up March 13 Music open mic go and uh show your talents and perform in front of other uh attendees March 20th is comedy open mic and March 27th is yes and it's featuring a writer's workshop and literary open mic uh then there was something happened on March 6th which already happened events for the tire year entire year can be viewed on the Morris Cultural Arts Center landing page at Madison Arts nj.org mcac thanks mayor thank you sh report and March 20th ComEd night so I have to start practicing and we'll now go to Health Mr Forte thank you mayor from the health department uh a bit of a Co update the CDC has now changed covid isolation guidance and has lumped it into General respiratory Guidance the cdc's new guidance says that individuals with any respiratory illness including covid and flu should stay home until they are fever free for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medication and until they feel better where most symptoms have decreased New Jersey has yet to officially change their guidance in accordance with this this is guidance only and each school and Child Care Center will be responsible for determining what their own individual policies will be the CDC is now recommending an additional dose of covid vaccines in individuals 65 and over and the Westfield Regional Health Department which provides services for Madison is still offering free vaccines to all regardless of insurance status there are upcoming clinics for all residents age 6 months and over from 4: to 6:00 p.m. on March 14th 21st and 28th information can be found by visiting www. westfieldnj07090 70 thank you mayor you now move on to Communications and petitions none received mayor all right we're now on to our first of two invitations for uh public comment this one is limited to our agenda items and also the resolutions that are part of our consent agenda our um genda discussions are electric shuttle bus for the seniors and the second one is a 2024 Municipal budget hearing and strategic planning guidelines and these are the resolutions you may comment on resolution 103 uh is professional service contract NJ Edge for Extraordinary unspecified Services related to cyber security and this is um part of The Proposal of 4,756 756 um resolution 104 is authorized submission of Mars County historic preservation Grant regarding the Madison Masonic lodge and this is 50% of the purchase price of $1,125,000 resolution 105 is declaring Madison Green and clean day 2024 to be held on SE Saturday April 27th resolution 106 is authorizing in the Madison uh farm and Artisan market for 2024 as already rained resolution 107 is authorized and shared service agreement with a buau of kennworth to provide information technology services and this is a renewed uh contract resolution 108 is appointing Robert Dunn to the position of fire captain in Pay division of Mars in the Mars in the Madison fire department resolution 109 is uh supporting legis legislation a411 and Senate leg legislation s 2931 which re reauthorizes the New Jersey Transportation trust fund as I uh had already reported on resolution 110 is um authorized submission of Grant application New Jersey Department of Community Affairs for the all accessible playground at Dodge field and that is it so you may com comment on those resolutions or the two agenda items if you wish to comment any of those please step forward at your name your address and the agenda item or resolution you're addressing and try to keep your comments at 3 minutes but we'll give you one minute grace want to wish comment please step forward seeing none I close this part of the meeting and we move on to agenda discussions Jim and [Music] Peter okay well um we've been working on replacing the senior bus for a number of years uh it is now um 11 or 12 years old I'm not sure uh has uh almost 100,000 miles on it uh and apparently has a maintenance history which calls for replacing the bus and um it currently takes 12 people and two wheelchairs uh seldom full except for for uh twice monthly trips that are made to Walmart uh where they take a few more people and um uh those are the times when they use the the full capacity um our range requirement on this bus is not great the average day for the bus is 35 miles we found one day last year where they went 60 m in a day uh but the average is 35 to 40 Mi uh a day so that's an issue with electric buses uh which typically um 100 miles or less in their One battery charge we've applied for a number of Grants to njd in fact we even applied for one Grant to um NJ Transit uh to see if they would lease us a bus uh none of those came through until December this year when we were granted uh a bus under the NJ uh a grant under the NJ um um d sto the soot program which it comes from the regional greenhouse gas initiative the multi-state initiative that New Jersey is part of um this grant is structured to pay approximately the cost difference between an electric bus and a um gas or diesel powered bus it's not a grant to pay the entire bus so for smaller buses as the slide says um the grant is for $155,000 uh and for the larger buses which right now are very expensive and they're typically $300,000 items um they pay for the class 4 bus is 160k um One requirement of the grant that we received was that we decommission completely decommission the old gasoline bus we have negotiated to have that requirement removed so that we will be able to use the old bus as a backup or a standby or a bus for for when we have large large group on next slide please okay the available buses break down into three categories uh the first is what we're calling upfit E450 buses these are buses built on Ford E450 chassis um and a third party takes that um E450 Ford product with its gasoline engine rips out the gasoline drivetrain puts in electric uh Motors and batteries and then sends it off to another company that puts the bus body in it in the chart you can see we've tried to list those various organizations for the three that we investigated there might be some more out there uh but we looked at three of them in in some degree of detail had some zooms with them and U talked to them in detail and uh those were all $250 to $300,000 buses and we would receive a large Grant for those buses and uh one issue is how easy are they to procure are they on a state contract or not so we looked at that as well and we were concerned about maintenance will maintenance be nearby or local and in all these cases there are New Jersey based uh maintenance locations for all these buses Our concern about this is that all of these companies um are smaller companies that were started over the last five or so years as startups uh to uh go after this market and what's going to happen at some time in the future is that uh Ford or Chevy will say we will produce a 450 size chassis with electric motors in it ourselves and uh that'll put at risk these companies and uh so there's concern about maintenance there's concern about warranties um will these companies be there in 5 years to take care of the bus U and the electrics of the bus Which is the the key issue so that's what what we've uh talked about here in the bottom and um that's one category of bus on the next slide there is one company that makes buses uh that are built from the ground up as electric buses it's green power there in uh California I think and they also build buses in Kentucky the plant Kentucky um and we had a demo of these buses in 2020 I don't know if anybody here was uh at the garage for that demo they've built several hundred of these buses and they're out west however we did a little bit of a financial Deep dive into the company and they do appear not to be in very good shape um and so we'd have the same concerns about that bus if we bought their bus um it would be almost as big as the other one um and um again same kinds of concerns you see some of the floor planes and layouts here um on the next slide you'll see a third option that we're exploring which is our recommended option uh which is that Ford has taken what is essentially their E350 chassis they turn it into something called a Transit um chassis which you see plenty of um as delivery trucks and uh workmen Vans going around town um and they now are producing an e Transit which is an electrified version of that complete from Ford with somebody else putting the bus body on it and again here the bus company in this Cas is a company called Forest River which is a very large uh vehicle company that makes lots of buses and special purpose vehicles uh the size is a little bit smaller and uh the price is a lot less uh it's a lighter weight class 2 vehicle and we would um obtain only the $115,000 grant for this vehicle but again the net outlay for the burrow would be the same for any of these buses Let's see we had a demo of this bus um about a week ago uh at the garage and uh it was we had a test drive as well uh very smooth enjoyable ride and um the dealer has already ordered 180 of these buses for distribution Nationwide it's a large dealer uh reliable uh they will be there in 5 years to take care of uh take care of this and and and other buses so um they believe we can get one if we order it in the next month or two um later this year and this would be our recommendation uh what makes this recommendation a little easier is the option of keeping the previous bus on the lot uh using the previous bus um maybe once or twice a month if we need to to keep it running as a backup and for large larger groups anything I forgotten okay about this this is a beautiful spreadsheet oh um yes uh a little spreadsheet here on the history for the senior bus last year and over its lifetime um mileage on the first row gallons consumed tons of CO2 attributable CO2 emissions attributable to that fuel consumption and uh rough cost uh of that fuel uh at $3 a gallon and then if that had been the current proposed electric vehicle uh we would be using this much electricity 3,37 kwatt hours um and or this over the lifetime of that bus we would be uh emitting at the generator of that electricity uh those many tons of CO2 and um you would be paying for electricity at that particular rate these amounts here so the electric bus would be saving us uh 9 tons a year of CO2 emissions and $3,000 a year of um fueling costs and in addition there is a pretty good history now that these electric vehicles have a significantly lower maintenance burden uh than their their predecessors their gasoline predecessors now how about you Peter EXC I just say the the Bo game Cher is smaller it it's uh feel like you're in an uh seat in an airplane so Michael if you go back one slide um it may be that um we typically have only six people um here uh the passenger seat and then others depending on on and and that's normal for us to only have six it's only when we go to Walmart so instead of going to Walmart twice a month maybe go to Walmart every week so we have a few more trips going but um um it would be just a more comfortable smaller vehicle easier for the driver to drive around and park and quite frankly the decision for us to recommend this is mostly driven no pun intended by um it being a Ford warranty on a Ford drivetrain and Ford uh electronics and everything else the there's a lot of concern that someone just takes a vehicle rips out the entire drivetrain and puts in some batteries and their Motors and then what happens through years from now and that company's not there about $1 120 $130,000 is what it's going to cost us in any of these options which is what it would cost us to replace the gas powerered senior van um with another gas powered senior van so seems like um a logical choice for us to pursue this we want to give this presentation to council to get your thoughts so thank you so we're cost are similar with the grant the uh savings and um CO2 and um fuel costs over the life for over 10 would be impressive um seating a a little tight is are we talking Jet Blue Airline or Spirit Airline tight I was on the United I think they're pretty bad too well yeah say that publicly I'll lose my miles A Plus Card uh it's it's it's economy okay it's not not business class um in terms of the spacing but so often we only have four five six people in the bus so the sides that have two seats there'll be a single person sitting there so and um so I we don't we don't see it being an issue we don't transport um a wheelchair person that often but it's something we we really feel like we need to have in the vehicle so we're going to continue to have it in the vehicle Bob yeah I guess the existing bus it's pass it's past its useful life I saw it was 11 years old and 91,000 MI so realistically its reliability has gone downhill correct and we're going to you know we have a wonderful mechanic staff and we're going to ask them to keep it going and they're going to keep it going but you know if this goes well who knows who knows what we're going to end up doing I mean I think this is going to be an impressive vehicle that um you know we may down the road buy a a second one shared with shadam or something who knows but um to that's what I was getting at I mean the existing bus uh we really shouldn't use anymore on a regular basis it's purely just for backup exactly correct and then this makes perfect sense because if you got to replace it because what you have isn't working properly anymore then it's this is the right way to go yes sir questions or comments done this seems like a a fairly good option to me I I really like the idea of going with Ford a national brand because of the issues that uh could arise going with a lesser known vendor um I think that's very prudent for us and I'm hoping that we'll get uh some traction out of this and and expand this program yes and the cost of it we have not talked about or looked at but we'll have some time to look to see if there's a sponsor that wants to our our past van was sponsored by a local bank we could look to have um this new vehicle sponsored and they could help defray the cost out of the Burrow's pocket of $125,000 there's there's opportunities for sponsorship there if we're looking for the words out of my mouth there sorry I'm Mike on ready took the words out of my mouth with the sponsor that's good we got to do that in a few places and then where are you going to charge it a DPW Yard probably so it's going to be parked there at night when it needs to be charged which might be every night that's the most logical place for it it can be plugged in any one any one of our level two Chargers yeah so if we do potentially well when we do when we do make the Masonic Lodge a senior center maybe we can put electric charging back of the senior center y right that'd be a good idea more than Mar yep sure maybe some seniors will be taking advantage of that too I mean there there's an argument to keep the bus near to here Tom because the employ the the employee that is works on getting the schedule from here and kind of works out of here so we may end up um putting it over at the fire department Public Safety the Ambulance Corp building keeping it on the side here we haven't figured that out yet we want to keep it outside that's basically kind of a general good rule of them with electric vehicles and but regardless a charger at the mic Lodge would be a good idea so we keep that on the radar Rachel thank you both for this presentation I I want to thank you Peter for your year-over-year effort to pursue this grant I know it was a long time coming you were very dogged trying to get a grant for this bus and when it finally came through last year it was like a breakthrough so I appreciate not only your attention uh to to this effort but then the the effort it took to get the demo bus and to do this analysis it's just so much leg work and uh I just want to thank you for making this decision um an easier one by presenting all the the facts in such such a clear way which is is your style so thank you for that and uh thank you Jim for um working with Peter to get us to this point from the Burrow's perspective I feel like this has been a joint effort um and he did all the work I really did nothing well he did all the research and everything I was the nudge that said what about this what about that so so Peter deserves all the accolades thank you I have to say that whenever I walked into Ken O's office and said you should get electric this or you should get electric that or you should he said wait a minute he said you should get us an electric bus that's the first vehicle that we should get and I said okay Ken and that's we are yes yes I'll and the good news is that we took delivery of the electric mower I think that might have been announced at the last council meeting so we have delivered the electric mower so we're able to see that at the same time we saw this bus a couple weeks back well I'm looking forward to getting a snazzy custom paint job on this bus I hope we can the way that we did with our uh Chevy bolts in Chevy vaults in town and um I think people will be really happy to have a clean quiet non-smelly bus driving around town because it's really time to uh put the other one out to pasture driving very pleas the Yeah question in the in the weeds I I know some buses come with a noise generator because they're too too quiet does this one yes okay and um so what I'm hearing is consensus to move forward um the process but uh starting with see working on a uh sponsor correct mayor we're gonna um you know once the budget is passed um appropriate dollar um look to place the order soon thereafter um and then while the order is placed we'll look to obtain a um a sponsor sponsorship very good all good all right we'll move on to uh the budg budget thank you mayor as uh councilwoman erck said this is uh I believe the sixth presentation that we have on the budget um the tonight we're going to talk about updated schedules and we're going to focus on our strategic planning guidelines there's no vote tonight but the hope is that we will have consensus this evening because I've got a big state budget document that I have to draft I I I basically create like four budgets I create one in admins I create one for you to see I create the user-friendly budget and then I also create the state budget document thank you Peter so uh no vote tonight but hopeful for consensus um Michael if you go to the third slide um uh go to the third slide Michael one more apologize um this is the proposed schedule um and we're uh getting towards the end of it hopeful that we'll do budget introduction at the next meeting um next slide is just our goals and important questions which we have presented before so I'm not going to go over them but I would do want to go over the next slide which um has a really cool picture of an incredibly old 75y old water meter that was recently replaced in town the guys who replaced the water meters National metering Services replace hundreds of thousands of meters a year and they were surprised at this so um it was uh installed uh at my church when the sanctuary was built in 1950 so uh it's been been around a while um but in terms of summary comments with his budget uh there's no reduction in services uh the burough is taking over the EMT and now offering that as an ambulance service which is a big lift you've heard that from uh Chief Wickman fund balance is stabilized um we are able in this budget to finally set aside more budget and capital um new construction has generated additional tax revenue um we have reduced our Reliance um on Municipal operations with the electric fund which is something that we're shooting for because we know um next year and then the year after we're going to start to feel the impact of new elect electric procurement um costs strategic uh guidelines um are compliant or moving in the right direction um and we uh in this budget are fully funding the MRC carport and I maybe maybe should pose this as a question um Administration thinks we should take the revenue when we do get it in from the federal government as you know um we're going to hopefully get $600,000 from the federal government for this um through the direct pay and we're anticipating getting over 15 years $1.1 million of SRE funds if we fully fund the MRC carport then those monies will be coming in over the years and it may make sense makes sense in administrations um to um put that money in a reserve for the next sustainable project so um we want um Council to consider that don't need to make that decision this evening and then the water meter replacement program all those things are going on this year next slide Michael um uh concerns are affordable housing obligations as mayor Conley said uh uh s50 is a a serious um bill that's going through the legislature that could increase our obligations significantly um next year and the year after um we're looking and trying to make sure we have enough funds to save the Drew Forest um we've done great but you know we need certain amount of funds um to be able to do that um cost of electricity is increasing in 2025 new debt payments tax appeals um property taxes on Office Buildings are going down electric utility substation upgrades um reval the Boe referendum and a reminder that the 2% property tax increase only generates $320,000 for the budget so with that we'll go to the budget document um the uh budget and brief and this document is replicated and has been replicated for about 30 years you can go on roset and see something similar to this we've changed it over the years but you can see a very similar document and track um what the buau has done budget wise this document changed slightly from the February 12 presentation we had a little increase in sewage processing costs that we wanted to take into account quite honestly was actually an increase in state aid that we applied to the um sewage treatment costs we had a small reduction um in other costs that allowed us to increase sewage um Appropriations toward sewage costs as well and then we had the grant that uh was mentioned by by uh councilman council president range for Kyle when we get a grant it basically goes to the revenue side and the expense side so the revenue shows up on line B8 which is Grant revenue and then the appropriation in this particular instance the the expense side shows up under Department operating expenses and grants so um those are just basically minor modifications to this I do want to point out that there's certain Appropriations that are going up significantly and then there are other is that I can tell you are going up but we're not increasing the budget on them we're trying to manage the generation of fund balance and we have uh new interest income that's coming in from the higher interest rates that has benefited our fund balance this year but if you look for example at the um uh b28 the Madison Chad and Joint me sewage processing it's it's budgeted to go up 2.6% I think you all know from your meetings with the joint meeting it's going to go up by more than that our allocation is going up and their expenses are going up but we are ratcheting back on that and being more precise in the budgeting and you know trimming away the little bits of that we can to to keep the the budget numbers down so there are numbers like that um throughout the budget that um are important to note clearly our our health insurance is is not is almost not going up in the budget um we had a little extra in there last year that generated fund balance we're going to again be more precise with our budgeting and uh so health health is going up by 6% we only have it going up by a very small amount so all of these things are being done to try to manage our generation of fund balance and manage um a a tighter budget is probably the best way to say it so and that's the way we're able to um keep the uh that's one of the ways we're able to manage um to keep the budget at 2% uh property tax increased the next slide is fund balance which um has not changed I'd like to go to the next slide which is the electric utility budget and um there's uh just uh one change to this the budget allocation for Capital was uh increased so that is let's see e um where is it here contracts um e13 was increased um from the prior uh budget significantly um we have a lot of electric utility Capital expenses coming up and we have almost nothing left in the electric utility Capital fund um that's the lowest it's ever been at the beginning of a budget year so we always have some money left over we we almost have nothing so um we increase that budget appropriation significantly we can do it this year we may not be able to do it next year or the year after with electric costs going up so we figured it would be appropriate to put that money aside now um the water utility the next slide um there's no changes there um then I'd like to go to strategic planning guidelines and just recognize councilman wtz there um and his great smile and uh just um everything that he has done um started in 2014 and this uh discusses um the strategic planning guidelines just this slide there I'm going to go to the next one which is the actual strategic planning guidelines these are metrics what does debt versus um total Appropriations look like what does fund balance as total Appropriations look like Capital Improvement that we're setting aside versus total Appropriations they guidelines they goal posts that we're supposed to stay in and green is good so the very right hand column right hand column is uh is good we're barely compli so guideline 1B uh on fund Bal we're in compliance guideline two we're in compliance which is um the operation shortfall and how much is being funded um by uh electric and water utility guideline 3A um is the amount of surplus transfer we're barely compliant there we're transferring a lot um but uh you know I think that's that's reasonable in this particular instance because the utilities have been generating a fair amount um guideline 4A which is the debt service to Appropriations you can see that's slowly gone down we have not taken on any more actual debt payments um in uh you know you know Bas um you know basically have not taken on um any significant debt payments um so we're you know we have um uh debt payments for the joint meeting but in as a percentage the um the percentage has dropped which is which is good I think it's appropriate it's more of a pay as you go um type of model and then finally Capital Improvement we're um we'd like to get to and I think next year we'll get up to 3.8 million we're only at 3.5 million this year um that'll be where we're really funding things at a at an appropriate level we're okay with 3.5 million this year because we have um 1.6 million in the capital Improvement fund currently right now um I was joking with my wife saying I was going to tell a story about her during the budget and she's said I better not but I'm going to um when when we were when we were engaged um I literally had people come up to me and say well you know the Frog got the princess here I can't believe this there's a story to it I swear and it ties in and um my dad called and he goes I really I really like her you know great family but I think she's a spender he like Whispers it in the phone that she's a spender I'm like what are you talking about she's very frugal you all know her she's wonderful she's put up with me for 32 years um Bob vogle was the spender so but Bob vogle is not here this year so I think we're gonna have a little less budget spending going on this year because we just have to get our engineering situation intact so that's why I'm tying in the funny story about my father and my wife to the budget which is um Bob vogle was a spender um in a good way but I think this year what we have set aside in capital for capital projects we may not do all of them we may not do the slip lining in the sewers we may not do certain projects and by by being able to do that we're able to kind of survive with 3.5 million in capital hopefully it'll go up next year next slide so we'll see if I get in trouble when I go home um so the other guidelines are not uh are not math math guidelines they're just are we compliant um you know in a general sense and uh Surplus and excess of upper end of of guideline 1B um is high but we're using it to fund oper and we're using it to fund operations it's not I don't think that's I don't think it's a terrible situation with guideline 1 c um guideline 3B we're compliant which is the amount of surplus from the utility that's transferred guideline 4B is new borrowing we're compliant there guideline 6A talks about property taxes um being uh prudent and not moving um high up or down significantly in any one year um guidelin 6B um the reserve for uncollected tax at 2.63% um you know if we I'm not going to ask Michael to flip back but if if you were look at the budget and where Tom and I were talking councilman harn pus and I were talking about this today the reserve for uncollected tax is about $2 million like wow that that's a lot of money on a $35 million budget it's not a $35 million budget that you should measure it against it's $75 million in property taxes that we collect and there have been years where we don't collect all the property taxes and that's what the reserve for uncollected taxes there for if um we are successful in collecting property taxes and we have been Chris's done a great job all that is is the fund balance that you're spending next that you're spending the following year so in 2024 we're spending $6.2 million in fund balance some of that is La most of that is last year a lot of that is last year's res um reserve for uncollected tax that false that so it is really prudent and not in my opinion the right idea um to change the reserve for un collected tax because all it does is keep us in a strong financial position that would be something that would be flagged by the um rating agencies if we were to consider doing something like that um that's administration's position on that um the next slide is one that you've seen before I'm not going to go over it except to say that the property tax uh increase this year year is uh $514 um per month on the average home um in town so that's for the municipal side we don't think that's too much and then the last slide which I think is fantastic this Ray said to do this and he was right this is a great slide um the mayor's discussed this we've all discussed this in different pieces but here it is all listed out all the grants that we have won this is unprecedented this is wonderful as a CFO to see this is I can't say how enough how great this is we've never in the history of the burough had anything close to this $4 million from the heartley Dodge trustees $5 million from The Drew forest and then today over the week at the 4 million um plus from Mikey Sheryl and Cory Booker for the Drew Forest 2 million in special Appropriations for Walnut Street affordable housing um all the library Grant all this money adding up to 8,838 851 it's it's fabulous and it's allowing us to do things that um uh that are important so with that um I will uh take any questions start Eric thanks mayor thanks Jim thanks for going through this and as Rachel mentioned um at the top uh thank you for all your hard work and pulling all this together um and and kind of steering the ship throughout the the process here um as you know um we are hitting many of our strategic planning principles and ahead of the introduction of the budget next meeting and some of the discussions I'm hoping we can address maybe two additional priorities um without kind of moving out of compliance or moving further out of compliance with those uh planning principles and kind of not putting us in a sticky situation in any out years so two of those uh things that I'd be looking to get your feedback on and we talked about the one during uh the fire chief's budget presentation is the possibility of fully funding the fire the new fire truck which I think is 2026 or 2027 I forget the exact year now um but doing that now locking in the current prices because every time we talk to them the price goes up another 20% and they're saying hey it might be 24 36 months before you get that apparatus so if we wait until 2027 we've got lots of escalating costs and that apparatus doesn't go into service until 2030 um so that would be one if that's doable within the budget um and the second one would be the possibility of some relief on the tax increase side of things as your one slide points out we provide exceptional value for the municipal slice of the uh of the tax dollar um but I think given the stewardship of the administration and prior councils um that I think there is room in this to reduce that estimated 2% and maybe do something more in the range of like 178 um but I'll leave that kind of to you to sus out if you think that's even a possibility sure um let's talk about both Michael can you go back to the slide that has the municipal um Budget on it just so we're front of it going back that's it um so uh we'll talk about the capital request first um couple of options um we could uh authorize debt and know that we could pay it back um that kind of changes our strategic plan guidelines another option is um we do have the 1.6 million in general Capital we're putting in 3.5 so we're going to have about 5 million we're anticipating appropriating about 4 million of that if you were to go back to the presentation that we had that had all the different Appropriations um and uh so if we I would say that that's possible if we were to uh keep our powder dry or decide maybe in August once we have a better understanding of what capital projects we can and can't do this year and then um see how much in Prior ordinance we can cancel if you recall when we cancel a capital ordinance it also goes back into the capital Improvement fund so if we have 1.6 million in there now um we need 3.8 million to fund this year there's another uh about $700,000 for the remainder of that truck um we're almost coming to the bottom of the barrel ever if we don't do all those 3.8 million which I anticipate we're not going to do because of engineering and if we don't uh and if we cancel some ordinances so I would say I'm cautiously optimistic that if we look if we return to this discussion in August that we'll be able to do it we don't need to make that decision tonight but understanding that that's a priority to council from Council will help us will help Ray and I in terms of managing um the capital projects going forward so that's a really long really long answer so Mr vog the short answer Sor I I vog I vogle I'm sorry so the uh short answer is you would not recommend increasing the capital Improvement fund uh transfer for this year but you would anticipate that we could probably uh have it come out of the total that's already in capital funds with prior and uh this year's transfer um and our biggest project we have is already been fully funded but that's probably taking most of us sitting in so we we have 15 currently 15 six free free available dollars and cook Avenue is has been appropriated at um oh you're going to ask me yeah about 1.1 million yeah Ray probably knows better he's good with numbers um so uh yes mayor that's it so so basically you you wouldn't recommend touching the Appropriations as we see it I I I mean one other option it's not going to move the needle significantly so we can increase by $100,000 take an addition $100,000 out of fund balance increase um the capital Improvement it it weirdly puts us in compliance with the strategic planning guidelines so if you're like wanting to score points um that would do that with one of the strategic planning guidelines and that will be fine too um it might make it a little easier so it could be a little from colum a little from that decision would need to be made um at budget introduction and I'm comfortable with doing that so be say hey Jim put 100,000 in now I'll create the budget document that does that that gets us even maybe a little more comfortable with making that decision I I think that's where my comfort level would and then uh the second one is uh a little more challenging um Appropriations um are going up 2.7% and as I talked about some of those Appropriations uh while they're being budgeted is going up 2.7% we know health is going up we know others uh joint meeting is going to be going up there's going to be other expenses however um however uh going from an increase of 2% in property taxes for existing ratables which is line B uh B3 um down to 1.75% um I'm kind of looking at Ry a little bit I think we both feel like we could go we could go to that level I don't know that we would I don't I don't think we we I would not recommend going below that I think it's um you know I look at Bob because we always talk about small incremental increases every year and talk to Rachel about that um is important because we all know costs of everything are going up so I would recommend um if you're looking to do less than 2% that Administration would be comfortable uh maximum going dropping it to 1.75% 2000 exactly yep thanks we'll work our way around here so thank you Jim um looking at yes this same sheet when we look at the overall Appropriations going up 2.71% but you you mentioned a few examples that are going up we anticipate they'll go up more than what we're budgeting for such as health insurance which seems to be the biggest Delta between what we're accounting for here and what we expect to pay and uh sewage processing so can you explain to me if if it if the health insurance costs go up considerably More Than This 22% not to be so uh basic about it but how are we going to pay for it sure it's not in here so we've always been um very conservative on budgeting for health insurance because you don't know if an employee is and and it's I've always felt it's important to be super conservative with that you don't if an employees going to come and say I got married now it's going to go from an single employee to a married a couple oh just had kids I'm going to go from uh I just got married and have a kid so it's going to go from single to a family which is a significant increase in costs so um we've always been um conservative there and so there's always been um a little bit of wiggle room so I'm saying we can reduce that wiggle room and still pay the bill so I feel comfortable with that the same thing with the joint go ahead May and the percent is over the budgeted amount so the wiggle room is coming from the percent over for the actual yeah the actual appropriate amount same would be with the joint meeting we're always concerned about um big having to make a big trup payment which we actually had to do a couple years ago was make a big trup payment but we've now um I believe negotiated with the joint meeting and with Cham that we're not going to do true payments anymore we're going to do a a a smoother averaging of that um it it kind of is unbelievable that it goes up so much I don't know what what how how the in the the flows to the Joint meeting can change so much but so for that reason I feel like even though the joint meeting is probably going to go by 5% we only have it you know going up by um a smaller amount by 2.6% In This budget because the extra money that I kind of have set aside for that tup is never going to happen so those are the two examples that I would use in that regard um and it gets more complicated with inside the cap outside the cap and budget flexibility and stuff like that but I don't want to voal it and my other comment is that um I'm in favor of the proposed Upfront outlay for the carport I really like the way that it seeds us you know sets us up to make continued future Investments that will be cost savings and cut carbon pollution so it seems wise I feel like our strong planning that has gotten us to this point allows us to do things like that that would be beneficial to the bottom line and and to to the burrow overall so I'd like to pursue that and and we are looking to do a um start researching the possibility of a carport for the police um which they're looking for to protect the vehicles but it would also generate solar and um in Prior presentations you've seen that we are looking at solar at Public Works and um maybe eventually at the pool if we can get um Community consensus at that location um be nice I'm sure for the mayor to park in a shaded spot instead of baked in the sun um you everybody fights for all those spots over to the right in the Shad so this will give more shade over there and it's a parking lot that doesn't require to be being plowed in the winter so um I think once the MRC solar carport is up we'll be looking to advance other projects so having that money would be great agreed thank you B okay first of all you did a great job I come right out and say that um I guess I just have one broad comment you know somebody just walking into the room right now and hearing this would say boy Madison's in wonderful shape they they're rolling in the dough so to speak the reality of it is this is a very prudent budget what it's done is it's looking at how things are now not anticipating that it's going to remain great forever so you know that kind of gets back to this whole I'm have the early arguments about fund balance and transferring money well there's a reason for that because we don't know what we don't know yet and Things Can Happen down the road so I I like the way this is set up and the property taxes you know it's a nice thing to do but I remember the early debates where we had with 0 and 1% you know you're cutting off your nose to spite your face with that because down the road you got to make up that difference um I think there's a lot of Merit to what Eric recommended about the fir Tru because kind of like with the bus the electric bus I mean if the cost are going to go up in the future and this budget kind of looks at the future it what we could do and if it's possible is start to maybe move that fir truck a little closer and maybe get it sooner because it doesn't make sense to pay more now or pay more down the road when you can get it cheaper now it's kind of like when you buy a car so if we could work that in I think that's good uh beyond that oh the other thing is when you looked at those grants I mean that's all wonderful but there's a butt to that each one of them are for a specific reason they're not just going into the pocket of the burrow they're going to be used for a specific purpose so again going back to the budget itself while the grants are nice this really tells the story and it's not we're not spending too much money we're holding back on certain things and I think this is in the right direction it kind of goes along with Madison's historic president of plan for the future be Thrifty and really don't pay for stuff or that you can't afford and that's what this does thank you for saying that um Co came nobody expected that right and we had a worldwide pandemic and it hit home and we were in a relatively strong financial position there were other towns I thought I going to mention any Garfield that um had to have 12% tax increases and had to to have serious service reductions and had to um do what's called an emergency appropriation and when you do an emergency appropriation um the state then has much more oversight over you we we are in what's called a self-review year um and uh we have two years of self-review then we have a state review so last year was uh a self-review this is a self- review next year will be a state review if you had to do an emergency appropriation you're self- reviewed or your state review every year and you have to pay it back very specifically over a certain period of time we had the financial strength to weather that storm and we're now back on firm footing but I'm I'm cautious and so I always want to make sure that that we're um in good shape also I've said this before but I think it's just important to reiterate when we do the budget here and when we decide our make these fiscal decisions we get to touch the control I think of it like a boat when we're trying to a shipping carrier point to Tom um and we get to touch the controls for a couple of months and then we have to sit back and we can't change anything we can't change Appropriations we can't change Revenue if you own your own business and you get a new contract and you're getting more Revenue you can now change your Appropriations we can't do that here so we always are a little more cautious with the amount of money that we set aside for rock salt we don't I don't know if it's going to be a bad year or a good year so um it generates fund balance the fund balance then is used the following year and that's that strength of fund balance and that strength of uh cautious fiscal responsible budget gets us through the tough times like the pandm I'm just going to give one more example remember on Hurricane Sandy pound in New Jersey Madison thank God had the money in its pocket or in the fund balance to take care of the new expenses that popped up here some towns have to go out and bond the money to repair their towns we didn't have to do that it's because we've always been very careful again as reflected here about how we put money aside for the rainy day and that's what this does and it was proven back then million dollars for the crews from Louisiana and do Delaware to come up a were energized weeks before other other towns yeah but they introduced me to everle and that's good stuff that's not good moving along uh you're done we'll go to a Tom all right that joke went over my head to tell me about it afterwards that we're clear oh well we okay for another day sure so one question Jim about something you just said wasn't really what I was going to ask but Midstream during the year we can't change revenues but we can um receive revenues like as an example if the uh old movie theater building is finished by may they will start paying taxes in June so that will come into the burrow as an added Revenue you're just not accounting for it goes right to F right to fund balance but it's still our money to spend how come and maybe I'm missing this I was just glancing at our strategic planning guide lines why don't we have any estimation for short-term and long-term Revenue increases in within a strategic planning guidelines well anywhere guidelin I don't know yeah I mean it's good to have these guidelines about how we should function each year and and also some you know Capital expense uh budgeting and stuff like that but it doesn't talk about planning for other things that are coming down the road which is good because that gives you anticipation and could be responsible planning like you're planning for the MRC carport and you're going to plan for the next carport you're going to have more savings unless it doesn't happen so we don't have that at all in there so capital is fiveyear yeah five five we have a 5-year Capital plan but State Statute doesn't want you to be anticipating revenues that you don't have and state statute doesn't want you to be um you know it it purposely has a levy cap which means you can't increase expenses by too much in any one year and it has a revenue cap uh you can't increase taxation by by too much in any one year so everything is small and incremental and we can't anticipate Revenue that we don't know if it's going to come in or not but when it does come in it comes in as fund balance and we end up spending it the following year and this year we're spending $6.2 million of of fund balance which is ex of revenues big one was interest income right we talked about that a couple meetings ago where interest income we anticipated at this because we didn't know if interest rates were going to drop I don't know this year if interest rates are going to drop and we got this much so that went into fund balance um same with the rock salt we anticipate this much to spend in rock salt that's we're going to have need a lot of rock salt this year I don't know what it's going to be like at theend at the end of 2024 but if we only spend this much that becomes fund balance not and and not to put words mou Tom but I think your question might have been less about this year's budget where we have state state guidelines to me but more of where we could be in five years in C our own our own internal I think we though we don't present that I think some of that goes into the um the thought process such as health health insurance we know that those over the next five years will probably be well above the 2% so we anticipate that I think we're already anticipating onction electric side the fact that we know the contracts that are coming up are going to be putting more sure slicing into the uh Surplus and the transmission costs will be going up and so not part of the presentation part of the thought process but I I think it's a good thing that you know maybe yeah that's planning thank you mayor that's planning for expenses but I'm also just questioning about planning for Revenue when we finish installing all the all the water meters in the burrow we're going to probably get a little more money yes they're all done that's the whole point right you and then you also I I was looking at the the debt and and you I know you said this to me I probably asked you a couple times some of that debt is going to expire within the next four or five years some sizable part of it right 2028 um that's that's MRC debt that's expiring which is paid out of the open space trust fund so that's not part of this but um that doesn't even show up on your debt service the majority of the debt here is the debt for the joint meeting and the debt for um the big renovation we had here and Public Safety and actually we bought a fire truck many years ago so th those debts and I'll get the debt um schedule on those Thomas I do have she good to know right so they know maybe by 2027 or 2028 I remember going down little bits every year for sure yes sir fantastic Jim and I agree with Eric about possibly funing the fire truck if you can maneuver that you know that would be a great idea okay um and and I also am in favor of at least a review to see if there's any relief on the tax increase if there's not it's still very reasonable what you're proposing but if there is some relief we could be sensitive to just the inflation around the whole community and then we know that next year we're going to probably have some additional taxes for the community not from us but from the school budget that's going to be coming up with the uh Capa referendum so we have to just know that's going to happen whether it's from the schools or from a still for the burrow to absorb but that's it Jim you did a great job thanks so much thank you John here we go uh thanks Jim I think uh you know from my perspective one of the things that's most telling is when we look at the list of grants that we're receiving uh it just shows the amount of work that's happened here in the burrow $18 million is a striking number but I I think it also sort of highlights uh challenges and opportunities because each one of those grants represents an opportunity to us that we are meeting by going for the grant or it's a challenge where we've used a grant opportunity to meet that challenge and it just highlights to me that while we look at this budget and I think this is a very prudent budget and it's very well done the it's not as if we're we're flush with all kinds of cash that allows us to uh meet meet all the needs and all the challenges that arise so I think um we should view it that way and we should view it that we are incredibly prudent in the way that we're managing this I think um this is my first year obviously on the council during the budget season uh professionally I think you all know that I I see a lot of budgets um on a routine basis uh this one I think is it's very tight um and and it's not lost on me that we're getting a lot done with a very tight budget and again the the amount of grants that we're looking at we should be happy that we're getting that grant money but we should also realize that that's necessary money to do things do a lot of good work in the burrow and meet a lot of challenges so it's not as if you know this budget gets us everything we need thank you for those comments um I'll put a resident hat on I'm Jim berett resident uh Main Street in Madison um I think what you guys have done un believable saving the Masonic Lodge um getting money for the Drew Forest getting money to have a passive um uh affordable housing residence the library Grant um a fast charger for that's I just think it's unbelievable that's it thank you jimber 16 thank you resident Jim I think uh to emphasize what you just said and also emphasize what uh John said is to get these grants it takes money our money to get or money and so it's our good management that has allowed that to happen I think again you talked about some of the money that might flow back in capital such as retired U ordinances but the other uh flow will be when we get reimbursed from uh department of transportation from for our you know think projects funded by the transportation trust fund which I gave a shout out for before but that money we have money coming back in for like green Avenue Greenwood and others when that money comes in that goes right back to Capital so and then we have the accessibility uh Dodge field which we have a major uh project in for through J of 700,000 that would flow back to open space right but that will help us on one of the concerns which is Drew Forest are we ready to attack that so hopefully we have money back that flows back in there so we we'll hear more about those soon but again that that helps it so just to capture what I I think what I've heard is concept of increasing Capital appropriation by 100,000 and looking at what you think would probably be the maximum is taking the uh uh revenue from uh tax revenue down from 2% increased to 175 if that if that works so you'll float those two in the spreadsheet and that's and that's what we'll come back with for introduction in two weeks thank you for the guidance I'll be have that document running in two weeks Council captured it consensus on that for good thank you than' okay thank you Jim excellent very good we now move on to ordinates for hearing will the clerk please read the statement the ordinances scheduled for hearing were introduced by title and passed on reading at a regular meeting of the council held on February the 12th and February the 26th 2024 they were posted and filed according to law and copies were made available to the general public requesting SC I call up ordinances for second reading as the clerk to read C by title ordinance -224 ordinance of the Bure of Madison amending and supplementing chapter 195 of the bur code entitled Land Development regarding storm water management I open hearing for ORD sign anyone wishing to comment please step forward seeing none I close the hearing mayor I move ordinance 9-22 second any Council discussion just a quick note that the planning board uh this came from the planning board but we went back to the planning board and we uh at the last meeting gave it the big thumbs up and Rachel I I just want to acknowledge the work of uh volunteers on our green committees who worked hard with our engineering department to um improve and fine-tune the language of this ordinance to really reflect um some of the challenges and the values we have here in Madison so thank you to those committee members our MEC chair chair Claire who I know worked on this it was a a joint a group effort thank you and um while the uh it was required by state to update as you mentioned it was the values of Madison that took it to better level so thank you any further discussion roll call vote please we need a motion may need a motion to sorry no did we have that we had the motion we had the motion yeah yeah already had motion and second discussion I thought I was losing that roll call vote please um what do we have Miss erck yes Mr landri yes Mr range yes Mr harn buus yes Mr for yes I declare ordinance 9224 adopted and finally passed and ask the clerk to publish notice there newspaper F the ordinance accordance to the law ordinance 10- 2024 ordinance of the burrow of Madison appropriating $5,250 for from the general Capital Improvement fund for funding of uh to purchase secure smart electric KNX company key boxes I open the hearing for ordinance 10 anyone wishing to comment please step forward see none I close the hearing mayor I move ordinance 10-22 24 second the council discussion roll call vote please M erck yes Mr landri yes Mr range yes Mr harn buus yes Mr Forte yes I declare ordinance 10- 2024 adopted and finally pass and ask the clerk to publish notice there of newspaper finally ordinance accordance of the law and we're now on to our second of two uh invitation of public comment you may comment on any topic again I ask you to try to keep your comments three minutes but we give you a one minute grace hi uh CLA witcom 12 Fairwood Road um regarding the water ordinance I just want to say too that the zoning board uh proposed some of the initiatives in it uh in in particularly in terms of perious coverage and looking at the square the total impervious coverage on the property and not just the roof and so there's been a lot of innovative thinking in in the planning and zoning boards um and I think that we have some more things we we'd like to go forward on I mean clearly rain is not a minor issue and um so in terms of um protecting our aquafer Drew Forest is obviously uh very important I and on behalf of friends of the Drew Forest I want to thank everyone here in particularly um Ray Cody and and the mayor for you just don't get 4.1 million um without a lot of lot of behind the scenes work and I know Michael pessier created uh presentations and Cory Booker you know he's from nework he doesn't really know the the forest and Madison and getting that National recognition for this project is is phenomenal so thank you so much thank you Claire and we were last meeting we were a little worried because we had no mention the Drew forest from the public so thank you for bringing say this we had to we we have we had a streak we we didn't break it until this budget season but um the last time I commented it was 11:00 p.m. so we just thought we'd give you guys a rest all right thank you appreciate and anyone else from the public done thank you mayor thank you everybody uh this there's two items I want to talk about but but now now that you're resident John you have to uh State your uh my name is John Hoover I live a 17 Overhill drive thank the two items I want to talk about one shouldn't take too much time and that is the presentations I would like to request that the presentations be no more than 10 minutes two presentations tonight one was 16 minutes long and one was 20 minutes 40 minutes long i' like to request that they be limited to 10 minutes a piece that gives us all the time to think about it and talk about it we we we we update each other during the during the year okay that's number one that's the item number one item number two is I have been informed that there are 20 municipalities that that pay their Municipal Employees EMP es the mayor and and Council a total of $75,000 plus $755 they range from $2,400 minimum to $30,000 and 130 maximum I'd like to request that we all think about it and we talk about it we start a conversation to analyze what we should reimburse our mayor and Council for and that is they through a minimum they should be reimbursed for the expenses of traveling to and from whatever functions are required by by the council and for the council meetings themselves okay and those are the two items I want to talk about thank you thank you John thanks John nice to see you always it's good to have you here so appreciate the feedback on our presentations obviously it's we we manage it based on the topic and try to be mindful of uh the uh the topic and the uh the public watching and as far as um reimbursement for uh elected officials we do reimbursement for travel and um direct expenses such as that we are in the uh minority certainly in Mars County only five municipalities do not uh pay any stien at all to any um and elected officials and so thank you for bringing that up and uh maybe will uh take care of it but certainly it's been my policy as I've watched other elected bodies attack that uh thing that it should be done for a future body it never done for this the sitting body so thanks for the input anyone else wishing to comment please step forward seeing none I close this part of the meeting we move on to introduction and ordinances which there are none so we move on to consented gend resolutions will the court please read the statement consented gend resolutions will be enacted with a single motion any resolution required expenditure is supported by a certification of availability of funds any resolution requiring discussion will be removed from the consent agenda all resolutions will be reflected in full in the minutes mayor I move uh the consent agenda which is resolutions 103-2 24 through resolution 110 d224 second any discussion or any need to be pulled uh just to comment mayor on 108 if I might y uh so resolution 108 tonight appoints uh Robert Dunn uh to the position of fire captain in uh the fire department um this is part of the continuing unfolding plan um to further enhance the the EMS services that we get from the Madison volunteer ambulance Corps and expand and support them with uh additional professional in the fire department um so uh Captain dun will become um Captain dun and Captain dun look at that um will be sort of heading much of the administrative work around the new EMS services so that's the the thrust behind that one thank you any other comments call vote please mrck yes Mr landri yes Mr range yes Mr har and pus yes yes there's no unfinished business approve vouches will the clerk please read the total yes from the current fund 229,230 66 from the general Capital fund $177,300 9,459 46 from the water operating fund $1,463 75 and from the trust $198,200 120 the total is $788 and 61 mayor I move approval of the vouer second discussion are we missing a zero there it's like the smallest one I've ever remember proving it's fantastic Jim okay roll call vote please mck yes Mr landri yes Mr range yes Mr har Fus yes Mr Forte yes all right there is no new business Forte motion to adjourn all in favor I thank you