the following is the agenda for the regular council meeting of the G Pon L mayy Council Municipal Corporation in county of toade meeting will begin at 7:30 on March 13th Municipal Building 251 in s pton Lake consistent with the open public meetings act the meeting will be open for public comments and shall be in important with terms and conditions of the BS Municipal Code of V please stand for a flag salute toag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all please bless this may and Council as they deliberate on the best of pton L in conformance with the open public meeting Law Public Law 1975 chapter 231 adequate notice of this meeting setting forth the T time date place and purpose of this regular meeting through notice posted on the bulton board in the municipal building mailed to all have requested and paid for say and publish in Suburban Trends roll call please here here here here here here okay thank you uh some quick updates uh you know we we are all aware of the rains we've had in the last couple days the reservoir is still spilling uh as we talk right now so fingers crossed the weather holds out and the water lowers down but everyone should be on their on their best toes about what's happening if we get some rain moving forward I I know we had some minor flooding uh over the weekend uh one of the areas that was I saw that I drove around and sore was the LX Avenue area there by Middle School that was pretty much underwater over there so I'm glad we're going to address that and we're going to work with that because that seems to be a growing problem over there so just keep in mind that the uh reservoirs are still spilling at this time all okay can haveone me a motion to open the meeting for public comments so Mo councilman venon councilman Cruz all in favor I against anyone from the public like to address stand uh Kathy shortway P Street pump and lakes um I've been here before good meetings I um am here to say again that I think Pompton Lakes has a very bad problem of garbage the town is unsightly there's garbage everywhere the garbage cans are overflowing um and again I do not think that household and business garbage belongs on wanu Avenue should be in the back of the buildings which it always was before because I grew up in this town graduated from P Lakes High School um the years over um and it is a real problem so I know I have mentioned it it's been talked about on social media and so I would like to know what's being done um to combat this issue because it's really become a bad issue and one side note I went into the new United Transmission in auto place on a corner it used to be seler's garage just to uh ask him about uh you know if he does like break job and stuff like that because I I used to go to Mark Warren and you know he's not there anymore he passed away but anyway um while we were there I noticed that he had all cardboard out on the curve line and I said to him I said you know just curious I said why did you put the curve the cardboard on I said it's not cardboard pickup he goes it's not and I go it's not and he said he he said it's on the calendar and so I walked into his office and he showed me on the calendar that it says Recycling and I said yeah but you see that print underneath it said no paper and he goes oh I didn't know and I said yes you cannot put this is not the time to put cardboard out so we said is there a place I can I can set bring it to and I said yeah I said I bring my stuff to recycling center I don't wait you know for them to pick it up because I never have a lot and I hate to make the guys you know stop for garbage G as big you know recycling so so what my point is that here's basically a new business owner he had no idea that he wasn't supposed to put the paper out and he had no idea that there was a recycling place that he could bring it to so I said to him I explained you he goes where is it we walk outside I just go over the tracks make the second left-hand turn that's where it is and he said oh okay then I'll bring it there I said yes bring it there so I just feel like maybe the new business owners or you know people should be more aware that they cannot put the garbage any time they want I also went into Liberty Tax Center about my taxes and the man said to me were talking about it you know cuz there was a big Garb you know pile of garbage and he said to me that the tenants come and put their garbage down there anytime they want so I just think it needs to be more the people of the Town need to be more informed and I would just like an update on what's going on to combat this issue okay thank you anyone else in the public like to address this Randy H 443 on CL AV um question for our administrator from the last hour he said that the average tax bill on pump the lights was 10,700 now most people that I talk to right over that in order to have that as an average you have to have a lot of taxes under $10,000 of course so I was just curious how that average came up from from all the residents we have in town um also um from Shader commission I'm under the understanding through the new um tree ordinance for the de I guess came through for the state that um we're going to be rewriting our shet tree ordinance um I was curious as to who was on the ordinance Comm committee how many people and um who makes up that committee and will the Sha tree commission be consulted and have input in that ordinance rewriting from what I understand it needs to be Rewritten by April is that true Michael so will the shade tree commission have any kind of input or influence on that rewriting um also at our last shade tree meeting um Alexa one of our members who's a grant writer uh let us informed us about the New Jersey D um I've talked with this with you Mr Mayor quite a few times and other residents have come in um New Jersey D has announced a communitybased deer management grant program which will assist communities in addressing the overabundance of deer in our Urban landscape this program is open to the county and local government units including Municipal Parks applicants May apply for funding under any of the four identified initiatives the four initiatives one is signage based on Hunting programs of course that's way in advance of what where we are now um two is a deer population density estimate survey which which something we could have done and the state will pay for that also a forest Health survey state would come in check our forest south end of town Hurstville Park and and do an assessment on na and the fourth is a a venison donation program that's way in advance we're not close to that yet so if we could maybe get those grants for the deer population density ES survey or the Forest Health survey it is those grants are due by the 3rd of May so it's something Michael can look into possibly and my last question was I was down at jille field um that large hole by the snack standand I guess D filled it all I mean uh the DPW filled it all in and I was just curious if that was structurally inspected by our building department for the soundness of that building thank you thank you anyone else from the public like to address seeing no one can have a motion to close the public session so move council president line Second councilwoman kilberg all in favor I against okay a short way um yeah so you know this is an ongoing discussion we do actually have a meeting Friday uh this Friday to discuss some of these issues that you're bringing up um one of the things I realized through somebody telling me was when we had an environmental officer Ed merell he was the gentleman going around putting the stickers on all the garbage saying this is wrong this is right your garbage can's too big it was out too early he was doing that as the environmental officer when he retired we did lose that so that's something I'm going to bring up at the meeting to see who can be responsible to do that um you mentioned the gentleman didn't know where to move things but you also said he had a calendar so if he had a calendar he had to know what days were pick up now he didn't read it right that's not my problem but at the end of the day in that calendar it does mention where the recycling center is how you do it what time it's open all those kind of things but I will speak to the bid and I'm going to ask I think who's the bid councilwoman palador mentioned it at the bid to the bid when they meet new businesses to remind them hey you know remind them where the uh recycling center is if they want to drop things off I I myself have driven around town yesterday the town was spotless today there's garbage out again so this is a problem that is not just easy fix you say you can put the can garbage cans in the back but on the back side of the pond hole for example they don't own any property that's Pond hole property so they don't have any property behind them a lot of those stores some do but most of them don't um on the other side we're going to talk about that at the meeting Friday if if our garbage truck can get back there and pick them up and see if that's something that can work so those are discussions we're going to have this Friday so we are trying to work with it uh Mr hon um the average taxes yes there are people believe it or not who have taxes less than $10,000 in to LS I have a bunch of friends that have that um and it's I'm sure Michael didn't just make up the number I'm going to let him speak in a minute that is the mean of of what it is um the shade tree ordinance is done by the ordinance committee and Michael I would leave it up to them and and the administrator if they want to include the uh uh shade tree committee into that um that's not something we normally do it's normally done by the ordinance but I'm sure your liaison will have some information and they can pass it on if you have any comments you can pass it back to her and then they can pass it to the ordinance but I'll let Michael speak about that the New Jersey Grant you talked about first I'm hearing of it we have to apply we'll talk to our grant writer you know these grants from the D are small not everybody gets them we'll definitely apply for them and hopefully we can get them Michael you want to add anything about anything yeah thank you so just some clarification on the tax bill the average tax bill uh is based on the assessed valuation of your home so that's how the tax bill is calculated it's essentially uh the tax levy divided by the assessed value of your home and that's Times by 100 and that's where you get your tax rate from so that's really what goes into play in terms of what your tax bill is and we'll have this uh presentation posted on the website so everyone can see it and fully understand what goes into their tax bill um you want to make the empath the ordinance yes I'm sorry and the D Grand yeah so with the with the uh tree ordinance proposal I think what we're going do tonight is we're going to discuss it again uh as as a whole with the council and then we will have a draft form that's going to be transmitted to the shade tree commission for review and comment before we then introduce the ordinance back here at the council meeting thank you Mar um and Joe grill yes we had an our engineer look at the structure and he said it was structurally sound it was okay to do what we have to do andk and the d uh Grant will will try to apply for that if we can absolutely yes okay okay okay motion to approve the following minutes regular meeting minutes February 28 2024 Clos session meeting minutes February 28 2024 council president line Second councilman Cruz all in favor I I against uh authorizing of payment of bills as listed below and I have a motion motion councilman venon councilwoman kilberg all in favor all against uh does anybody need any of the uh resolutions pulled yeah no 2413 okay any else you're on resolutions correct yes okay I just wanted a little bit more of an explanation on 2449 149 okay okay [Music] let's whereas Mar and counil coun counil desire to remove resolutions for individual action from that agenda now therefore be it resolved that the following resolutions on the consent agenda are here by 24-1 145 through 24-1 159 we're going to post 24149 and 241 153 okay motion to approve the resolutions so moved council president line second councilwoman kilberg all in favor I I against 24 149 authorizing the cancellation of certain deposits in the tangible property fund Mike you want to thank you mayor uh so what this is is uh occasionally the police department uh comes upon money as a result of their duties what you know found money so the process for that is is they must hold it for 6 months and see if anyone claims the money and if they don't after the 6 months we can then take it in as Revenue with the burrow and in this instance it's for $2500 and that is what we're doing with this resolution so it's found money okay I found money great thank you 24 153 while we're talking about it hire at tax collector 8 thank you so unfortunately our tax clerk in the office uh had an untimely death in her family so she did have to take off for a week uh so this resolution memorializes uh our former tax clerk uh Mr Carol to come back in the office and help us out there isn't anyone in the office right now that can currently do the cash deposit duties that's required for the job uh that is something we're looking at into with one of our employees to serve as a backup so we don't have to do this again but uh unfortunately Ely this is uh the instance thank you okay uh motion approve do I have to read them individually or can I put them together you can put them together motion to approve uh 2449 and 24153 councilwoman pador council president dine all in favor I against okay ordinance for first reading or second ordinance 2412 ORD to fix the Sal employees of the B Lake County New Jersey motion to approve ordinance 2412 for introduction motion councilwoman paor second council president line all in favor I against roll call I guess roll call yes yes counc yes yes yes yes 243 amending 4 General ordinances of the establishing for sponsorship Andes for of motion to approve ordinance 24-13 for introduction can I ask for discussion on this one uh there's no discussion on that first one you can ask a question there's no I just asked if there was discussion there's no real discussion on the first reading she raise uh you can raise a question oh question okay yeah well let's do the introduction first right sure yeah yeah yeah for sure okay can I have a motion motion second councilwoman Paul Dory councilwoman Kent all um okay a discussion go ahead so this is Michael we rolled everything up into one with the do sign is in here uh are you you're referring to 2411 correct no4 13 13 yes we did so that is is what we talked about as far as the program for purchasing the advertising sites yes and once it's adopted we'll be able to roll out the program so I looked at your fee schedule for one two or three seasons it's great I wasn't sure if you it was an advertently done or if we skipped it are we charging a one-time fee to actually make the banner uh that was not discussed but we can certainly take a look at it before we adopt it okay cuz we did we went back and forth a little bit about the one time Fe and then if you upped it over and over again you wouldn't and I only ask and and I'm fine if we don't because it keeps the price more advantageous especially because I'd like to purchase one but the One season only is 150 that's going of banners are expensive yeah we'll take a closer look at it before we adopt it okay okay roll call please Council yes Council yes Council yes Council yes coun yes Council yes an ordance establishing the annual compensation for members of the pil Municipal Utilities Authority motion approve ordinance 24-14 for introduction so moved council president council president the line Council woman gilberg all in favor I I'm sorry roll call councilor yes Council Ben yes Council yes Council yes councilwoman Ken I refuse yes tell me tell her we don't know she you're obstain ohain abstain yes I apologize all right keeping you honest that's all fancy words you know did you hit everybody Liz I don't know I wasn't yes okay okay now we're moving on to ordinance 2415 anointed accepting a deed of for the county of for the operation of the recycling center motion to approve ordinance 24-15 for introduction so move Council kilberg councilman Cruz roll call please I'm sorry kilberg and Cruz Council PA yes councilman Benn yes councilman Cruz yes counc yes counc yes counc [Music] yes 16 an ordinance establishing summer camp fees for 2024 motion to approve ordinance 2416 for introduction motion councilman bennon second councilwoman apal dor roll call please Council yes Council yes coun yes yes coun yes coun yes ordinance 24-17 and ordinance authorized tax extension and paying and L of taxes in connection with the Redevelopment plan for Block 2600 blot two and authorizing execution of financial agreement for payment and R of taxes with Bay County affordable housing Corporation pursu into to State Statute motion to approve ordinance 2417 for introduction second Council who that councilwoman kilberg and councilman Cruz uh roll call please councilor yes Council yes Council yes counc yes coun yes coun yes okay ordinance for second adverti and posted on Municipal vote board found providing the impr Improvement of various roads by County state of New Jersey appropriating 890,000 therefore authorizing 62747 bonds are know for the B for financing such appropriation motion to open the meeting for public comments on ordinance 24-10 so moved council president uh dine second councilman venon all in favor I anyone like to against anyone like to address just this ordinance seeing no one motion to close the meeting for public comments on ordinance 24-10 so move counc L councilman Cruz all in favor against motion to approve ordinance 2410 for final adoption so moved councilman dine second president council president dine councilwoman kilberg roll call please counc yes coun yes counc yes yes counc yes counc yes 24-11 ordinance amending chapter 4 of the revised General ordinances of the B of conation establishing a fe for respons of community welcome motion to open the meeting for public comment on ordinance 24-11 so council president PA council president deline second councilwoman Kent all in favor I against anyone like to address Justice orance please step up Ry H 443 monare Avenue where are these welcome signs going to be the entrance to town at four five different locations same places they basically are now same places they basically are now we're just replacing them I'll just replace them s okay this is any business can put a sign up it's not a well I'll let Michael Mo talk about you have the sponsorship on that right correct M you have to buy a sponsorship for the yeah Pompton Lakes based business only for sponsorship there are three new locations that will be added uh that currently don't have welcome signs and then we'll have two larger signs at the corner of Thatcher McGee and at the corner by George's Deli on Hamburg Turnpike where are the three new locations uh I could tell you that they're all posted on the burrow website if you search Community welcome signs I'd have to defer back to the list but we found that there were three spots that didn't have a sign could have been knocked down uh in the near past uh so you know we're looking to replace those like kofax have coming in from Oakland Poss okay thank you okay motion to close the meeting for public comments on ordinance 24-11 council president blind councilwoman pador all in favor I against motion to approve ordinance 24-1 for final adoption motion councilwoman paor second councilwoman Kent roll call please yes yes yes yes yes yes okay thank you okay under my report uh well we got some good news uh the congressman called me last week and announced that we will be receiving a grant of $500,000 to redo our our library they're just waiting on the signature believe it or not from the president to sign the bill I guess he's worried about Pompton Lakes here um but once he signs that we will be receiving money for $500,000 to redo our library which is great um the other thing that he had gotten us was mentioned already was $240,000 in a fireman's Grant and another 13,000 in a fireman's Grant so we've received uh quite a bit of money in the last six months um and I have to thank the congressman and his team for doing everything they can to to make that happen uh we're involved in many Finance meetings in the last two weeks Personnel meetings uh to talk about the flooding a little bit um you know once again we flooded uh minorly in some areas in town uh we had a meeting about a month ago now with all the sports organizations on how we can help them get back to to playing especially baseball which starts in the next couple weeks uh thank you for to our DPW for taking it on they did it was a lot of work they've been trying to get down there on after hours and early hours to to fix it up and like one of the residents mentioned they've already re refilled the hole in and uh replaced it we are going to hire a group to come in and take care of one of the ball fields and clay and replace that we've already been to Carlo field and cleaned up that area and got new stone down in their parking lot um so you know we're trying to help as best we can here we know our volunteers do a great job but they can't do this by themselves so we're going to see if we can help them there and then the last one would be soccer and Lacrosse which play a little later so we're going to help them in in a little bit but I have to thank Dan and the DPW and all the workers for putting the time and effort in there they've been coming in on the weekend sometimes to make that happen because they do have to get to their to their work uh I attended a whiskey tasting for the uh Pompton Lakes Education Foundation to raise some money for them it was a great event at Monica's uh they raised a lot of money for the ple if you're not familiar with that it's a volunteer organization that raises money for the schools and once they raise the money they then set little grants to the teachers of what they're looking for and then they pay for those items outside of the school budget so it's a it's a great opportunity for the teachers and the school and and the parents to work together and get what they need and they've gotten some great things from that that number uh like I mentioned before I did drive through and I I just was going to ask Michael about this the um I know it's on on the uh area being fixed but how what are we looking at on the uh ltic side there with the flooding issues are they cleaning out the drains they redoing the road thank you mayor so we uh dispatched the burrow of Ringwood to do a uh storm drain clean out so that was the first phase then we contacted uh the city of Clifton because we have a shared service agreement with them to TV the lines to do a camera inspection unfortunately uh that was the day of heavy rain so that got postponed I believe that that is happening early next week we uh at tonight's council meeting we retained our engineer to do a very in-depth analysis of the ponding and flooding issues um something that needs to be fixed before we paved the road this spring so we're looking to expedite that as quickly as possible okay cuz I think that's needed it's gotten worse and worse over the last couple years and uh you know it's becoming we're we actually closed down the road uh last this last Saturday because you couldn't drive through it um and that is my report council president dine thank you mayor um again once again I want to thank Michael for the budget presentation um again if the residents weren't here it's important information it'll be up on our website it'll be up on our social media channels but uh definitely check it out it's it's clearly well well beyond anything that we've been given in the last uh last 10 years or so um first of all we just mentioned it but I'm glad to see that that we are going forward with the storm water study uh for lenux and Ramapo Avenue it's been a long time coming um and it's good timing considering that we are looking to repave Lincoln uh Lincoln Avenue in the near future we need to address that before we we Mill and pave that roadway um coming up this Sunday uh March 17th at 2 pm uh Charles maintenance is going to be doing their first of seasonal cleanups uh we are meeting at the red Trails entrance at the end of Lincoln Avenue near the MUA I brought this up the last time we had a major storm event um we once again had heavy rainfall although most of it was um any um any water that went above over the banks was at the wanu river um not necessarily um along uh the Panic is closer to where the trails are um but still uh there is a lot of garbage on the trails that needs to be cleaned up so I encourage everyone to attend I know Columbia Bank plans to attend the PO to Lakes environmental Club plans to attend and I believe aant Club as well so um what they say is many hands make light work so we appreciate anyone that can show up uh this Sunday at 2 p.m uh earlier this week I'm or last week actually met with uh seven equities developers uh from meet and greet uh they are the new owners of Lakeside Commons uh they have a track record of actual Redevelopment projects and they just wanted to to uh meet some people in ppon lakes and kind of understand what's going on in Pon Lakes so it was a it was a good discussion nothing specific was discussed uh they not necessarily have a particular project in mind but I think um it's just more of a case of um as Redevelopment occurs there becomes more interest in Redevelopment and if you were here for the budget presentation um the pilot programs are NE necessary as we try and balance our budget um on an on an annual basis it's an important aspect of closing that budget Gap especially what we just experienced this year um and to that point uh next Thursday March 21st is Redevelopment meeting at 7:30 p.m. um we just did introduce an ordinance to pass a payment of L of taxes for the fa County senior housing project um that'll actually I anticipate will actually be in front of the Redevelopment agency this Thursday we've gotten a concept plan from them um but I think at this point we'll we'll actually be do reviewing the site plan application and what what they're planning on doing so again that's next Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and that concludes my report thank you um I forgot to make a motion so I'm going to go back to the motion motion to appoint Ashley lucik as healthc care professional member to the pompon link prevention Coalition for unexpired term 2012 3124 can I have a second second R see go councilman palador all in favor I I against councilman Bennett thank you mayor I want to Echo my my peers comment to thank uh Michael Carley for the budget presentation it was very informative uh the the infographic I mentioned is is very very useful and I look forward to seeing that on social media and I just want to add on the trails maintenance on uh this Sunday March uh 17th just to bring gloves uh if you have shovels just to help clean up stuff uh be helpful that's all I have oh that's that's all I have I was just talking about that so we have bags and we also have some gloves if some people need oh excellent oh there you go um okay thank you uh councilman Cruz thank you mayor uh my report's going to cover the March 5th and the March uh 12th meeting so I'm going to start with the March 5th um in the meeting um there was a presentation given by the uh curriculum Department uh for the Lakeside Middle School character education program um I'm just going to read a brief summary of the program it's a fascinating program and I had no idea my kids did not tell me anything um the overall goal of the program is to help students develop strong moral values academic efficiency and skills related to conflict resolution so I want you to focus on the word conflict resolution additionally they want the students to ponder their future think about opportunities that best fit them in participating students learn the values such as respect honesty and responsibility uh the lessons they receive is a mix of uh instruction it includes motivational video student discussion and collaborative and individual projects uh the program is covered through sixth seventh and eighth grade what I found fascinating was probably conflict resolution I know for myself that's not something I I necessarily knew until I hit uh Corporate America where as part of Human Resources you're required to take conflict resolution uh courses and manage conflict especially amongst your peers if you work in a big team so it's great to see that not only are they focused on um developing better humans obviously but they're also learning how to work with each other at a very young age which is going to carry them for the rest of their lives so it's it's a very fascinating program I did that know again my kids don't tell me anything the only other thing I'm going to mention but councilwoman K will speak more to is that they had the teener graduation ceremony as well um and I'll leave it at that I'm pretty sure councilwoman Camp will mention that so moving on to March 12 this is the good one this is the uh the 2425 tenative budget was approved uh the total budget for the district was a little over 42 million the tax levy is about a little over 26 million and the increase percentage wise is 2% which averages out to 147 per household again this is tentative this can change I believe they have to get it done before May um to have the final one that they have to set off to the county uh I just want to review some of the or go over some of the capital projects they have slated for 2425 uh Lakeside turf field bleachers lenux Synthetic Turf pla h s culinary room flooring plhs uh stem room upgrade plhs rooms 2022 flooring business office CST lenux second floor hallway flooring lot of flooring Lennox boiler room hallway abatement and Lincoln School office upgrade other uh the total for all of those capital projects going into 2425 will be $1.3 million and lastly the school district is also seeking a part-time music teacher music program is growing uh for more information please contact the board of education office or visit the district website and that'll do it for my report man thank you and I just want to remind the public the school of course does their own budget we have no ties with them in doing budgets together whatever they come up is independent of what we do whatever we do is independent of what they do so you know I know they're they're working hard too and we have a great school system so we should all applaud the fact that we have such a good school system um councilwoman Kent thank you mayor um again thank you Michael for a budget presentation that was understandable it's a lot of big numbers so uh thank you very much for all the graphics um I did attend a a Ser this community community Emergency Response Team now and they had a certification and they presented the teener group uh kids that were from the high school and um what they did is they honored them by giving them their Merit awards that they earned and uh they received their green shirts and what that does is in times of emergencies they'll work with the the police and the fire department and the ambulance squads uh with just helping I guess with you know you know where to where to go where telling people what to do um if you have a problem with flooding some they'll come and they'll maybe stand on the corners and give people directions H and the the the uh high school kids were they were amazing I was very honored to be I just spoke and I just basically thank them for their hard work it's wonderful to hear that the high school uh students are actually involved in community programs like this and uh our C team folks also uh were there to just support their their Community involvement as well so was very proud to be a part of that because of that I have been AER member with the New Jersey State Police many many years ago back in the 90s well I ended up join in so now that was so inspiring I am now on the C team as well um how many kids was it uh I think 10 11 11 I think it was the first graduating class of that size that's good it's yeah they were very good a lot of a lot of girls so it was was awesome just to see a sh number high school students absolutely and uh so that was very nice um I attended because I'm new for the the um police and the um fire department liaison I did go and meet the first time ever with the Ladies Auxiliary for the fire department they're lovely ladies and they do a lot of work and they do a lot of fundraising and they help the fire department when in times of need so I let them know if they ever need anything they can contact me I'm filling uh councilman beg's very large shoes on that group because he was the leaz on for over 12 years so um it's going to be an honor to work with the police the fire the OEM and the ambulance Squad I also attend I also attended the budget meetings the uh Police contract meeting Personnel meetings and the shet Tre commission meeting uh Mr Hinton gave a very good summary of what we spoke about and so thank you Randy you stole my thunder a little bit but that's all right uh I'd like to support his U recommendation to apply for those grants if we if we can and to uh definitely have an understanding of what this um tree program is going to bring to the shade tree commission uh there there are very very hardworking group and they do a lot of community service for our residents and we're just not sure how that's going to impact their um operations just so you know the shade tree commission you can't take down a public tree without applying for an application and I think the concern is how do the applications how are we going to work with the new um liaison that's going to be dealing with the private trees so there's a little bit of concern so if we can work if we can all work together it's going to make the program a lot better and I support that um I want to Mrs Miss shortway comes here once month complains about the garbage I can't agree with her more this is unacceptable to have garbage floating around the town it is unacceptable we've talked about it we've talked about it with the bid for at nausea for two years and it's got to change and uh it makes the town look very very poor and we are not that is not pton lakes and it's got to change whether it's in education or whether it's by fines with the police department I really don't care how we do it it's got to get done I don't care how you do it it's got to get done once and for all and um that is my report thank you uh one thing I forgot to mention in my report I did have numerous conversations some with the administrator some without with the state about uh they're coming back in and and uh looking at homes that can be raised in the flood area once again and they've identified I think it's eight is it eight homes eight homes that they uh could raise um and those homeowners were contacted and right now there is conversation between those homeowners and and the state and the federals and the FEDS to make it happened the difference between this program and the old program is it's 100% covered the old other one was 75% so anybody who was really looking to get out of that flood waters now it's 100% coverage now's your opportunity to take chance of that it's very important if that's something you're interested in doing we did tell them we don't lean towards buyouts we learned our lesson from the buyouts the last time and we lose too much in tax dollars when we get rid of these properties so we we're leaning more towards raising the houses and keeping the residents in town than we are of buyouts because buyouts become an issue for us moving down so the state was very gracious in meeting with us and the FEDS to to push the program and and I I think it's going to work so we'll we'll I'll update you more as that comes mayor I I just remember I just remembered one thing when you mentioned that uh mayor you were on the call with Michael we did talk to the United States uh Department of Agriculture about repairing some of the river the banks and the trails and uh I want to thank you mayor for supporting that whole program um and we are hopefully going to get some funding for that project because that's very important that we repair the the rivers and that's a very big ticket item for uh for funding and so um I want to thank Michael he really made an effort amazing effort to try to reach out to different federal state and local groups and and County groups just to look for funding so we we we're not walking away from this and mayor you've also uh promised that we are going to be talking to our legislators the um the the 26 district is asking for funding for uh the pekman river down further down in off of the pic River so if we can mirror that to together we can marry those two together we'll have a lot of money coming in but we're not walking away from this I want I want to reassure everybody that and and we are all aware because you've seen the letter we sent a letter from that I signed that was to the DP commissioner saying we'd like to meet and discuss this and to date we haven't heard back and just today uh Congress I mean assemblyman uh Weber reached out to say hey have you heard back in the D and we told him we did not so he's going to push from his end to see what he can do to help us with that so ongoing uh Council woman kilberg um first I'd like to thank you Michael for the um amazing budget presentation um makes so very helpful for me um second I'd like to thank um Congressman pescal um for those of you who don't know before I became a councilwoman I sat on the board of the library for 5 years and this money is very much needed and it's going to be greatly appreciated they'll be thrilled both and um I did attend um last night's pton day meeting the first one and um we already have 11 vendors and I think the fireworks are set and um everything's starting to move that's my report and to add to that if anybody's looking interested in being a vendor please contact councilwoman kilberg or uh Karen Murphy and we'll hook you up uh to get your table they sell fast sell out fast councilwoman Paul dor thank you um first something positive I'd like to share with all of you one of the parents of one of our middle school students reached out to me and in celebration of everything that we've been hearing is the achievements during women's History Month I thought this was a nice time to mention this we have a student in our Middle School her name is Carly Naples this past weekend she wrestled in the USA wnj Scholastic state championship Cari was a wrestler and uh entering Middle School she was unsure if she wanted to continue she had tried to encourage other girls to join the team with her and she moved forward anyway started training diligently in a private gym and uh I'm proud to announce that now as of this weekend she is our two times state champion so we're very proud of her I did mention that to uh our B administrator on the way in the possibility of doing some type of a proclamation or something so um I am going to connect the parent with our B administrator so that they can schedule that time but uh it's an amazing achievement I spoke with the parent today and we're going to set up date that that's good for her to come in I spoke to Liz um I also attended uh numerous personnel and budget meetings so I I want to thank you as well I sat on in those meetings with you and I know how hard you worked on that and and there were a lot of moving parts and and just to Echo everyone else's thoughts that is the first time that we have had a presentation of that detail not only for the benefit of all of us for for those of us that don't sit in the meetings and see what actually goes on behind the scenes for you to finish that and and come to the the final product that you did but for the benefit of the residents I don't really understand the breakdown of the tax dollar and and what goes into actually running the burrow on the municipal share so it it was really nice to see it done like that um so I appreciate everything you put into that thank you uh and a message from our DPW they are out repairing potholes so you will see them out making uh fixing that as well as uh working very hard to clean the field so that the sports are ready for spring startup all of our playgrounds are now cleaned and open uh and curbside collection for spring cleaning will begin uh with the April 11 and 12 Collections and that is my report okay thank you uh attorney report uh no report this evening mayor thank you thank you Ro M thank you mayor I have a few quick items to start uh I just wanted to Echo uh councilwoman PAAD dori's statement on the potholes uh the DPW and I set up a new uh service request module on our website so any member of the public that sees a pothole they can go on our website and submit a ticket into us and we'll take care of it rather than having to call the main office so that's something we're looking forward to um at the request of councilwoman Kent I wanted to reiterate and uh remind the public and certainly we do so internally with the burrow but wanted to remind the public that permits are required for events in our public parks so as a reminder any person business or organization that seeks to use use a burrow uh excuse me uh seeks to use a portion of a burrow Park must file for a permit in the municipal clerk's office so we will be uh following up with that and enforcing that throughout the summer months uh that ordinance was adopted uh last year by the governing body um to Echo the mayor's uh comment on Congressman Pascal's uh funding for the Pompton Lakes Library uh this year's funding program is now open with uh our congressmen and our US senators in New Jersey so on tonight's uh council meeting agenda we had two Grant requests that are going in uh the first one is to fund phase two of the library which will consist of the replacement of the slate roof and to redo the inside vestibule so uh that Grant request is going to be in the realm of $500,000 again to cover that uh Phase 2 project Pro so we're going to be submitting for that and then the second submission to the congressman is going to be for uh phase one two and three of the herfield park project you know we figured we'd get a request in to try to cover as much money as we can for that project rather than uh offset our open space fund uh try to get some extra money in for that project uh can't hurt and then the last item I had for tonight uh was a followup from our last count meeting on the tree ordinance so in your in your packet tonight I uh drafted a proposed draft ordinance for your review and then I also provided a snapshot of all of the surrounding municipalities fees for the new ordinance so just to hone in on what we talked about last time and again to reiterate it um if if a resident wishes to take down a public tree they have to pay a permit fee to the burrow we can either not charge a fee or we can charge a fee in in the table that I provided uh for tree for five or less trees all of the municipalities are charging $50 for the permit five or less five or less anything over six trees the permit is $10 not per trade but total the total cost of the application um now with the new ordinance if you are to take down a tree that is not diseased is not hazardous you know it is a healthy tree and it's on your public Pro on your private property rather you do have a requirement under this new state law and state regulation that you either have to replace those trees with new trees on your property or you have the option of paying a fee to the burrow to not replace those trees you know if you're doing an addition or you're you know putting in a sep septic system or a pool you may not want to put back the trees so the state puts in a fee that we could collect to for the resident not to plant the tree so I provided an analysis of what some of the surrounding municipalities are charging it looks like uh you know in terms of the survey uh the municipalities for trees under 36 in uh it's 70 $5 if you don't want to replace it for trees over 36 in it's $150 per tree if you don't want to replace just one one number it's under or over that's it so there's no other classifications correct for a commercial Tree on a commercial designated property uh the fee to not plant would be $300 that's the proposal so again this is kind of a snapshot of the surrounding fees Oakland charges significantly more than Riverdale and what we are proposing so we're kind of you know on the low end of the fee Spectrum for all of these municipalities that adopted this ordinance uh noteworthy here panic does not charge a fee so their governing body opted not to charge a fee if you don't want the plant they kind of left it open-ended I in terms of enforcement I don't you know necessarily know how you would enforce it so I'm recommending a fee uh but we you know we're here to bring it up to the governing body and kind of your take on you know how we want to the or numbers he just presented I'm good with the recommended M I am too actually anybody else good good um the only question I had what the when you say diseased or or dangerous our forest our Forester would have to state that it wouldn't be the homeowner stating that yeah so later on in this ordinance draft uh it talks about the enforcement mechanism and who the enforcing uh individual is uh it's up to our discretion it could be you know it could be a variety of individuals but in terms of liability it's probably best to have a certified uh licensed tree expert do all of the uh permit procedures and site visits to determine if the tree is diseased uh you know is a hazard then the resident would be exempt from the ordinance and if there's an argument homeowner says it's Hazard we say it's not then where do they go with that argument or there is no argument there is no argument there is no argument it's just it's done yeah okay how's everybody with that I don't like the whole thing I'll be honest I'm opposition of the whole thing so no I mean I'm voting no I know we can't get around it but just doesn't matter of principle I don't agree with this being regulated on private property all right so everybody okay with it okay I mean the only concern I'm having and it's make and it might put some pressure on the shade tree I don't want people calling our shade tree screaming at them because they feel that they made these decisions when they really didn't make these decisions and there's no arguing with shade Tre to say but look come look it's disease they they have nothing to do with this this would they would be out of this procedure completely and it would be our forest or whoever we hire from that and the town at that point correct and uh right away trees would still maintain under the jurisdiction of the shade tree commission uh they would still be involved in the process as is as they do right now um any concerns questions I think the shade Street Commissioners are concerned with you know how do they Co co-mingle their their comments with the applications like are there is there going to be a separate application because people don't know I mean and and the application that they have now my understanding is outdated it's oldfashioned it needs to be upgraded so there's there's a lot of uh working parts on this and and where would these permits come from they'd have to go to the building department they'd come to the office so we'll have a new application you'll either check off as it private or right away and the application will get ratted to the correct individual whether it's the forest or the shade tree commission to handle out and you know implement the permit process will there be so the Forester will be doing the secretarial work of that also yes okay Ian I don't like the idea of the whole thing but we do need to pay for the Forester so yes of course I mean so the Fe is I'm just n again it's a new procedure people don't understand it they're going to want to argue they're going to want to fight their points or they're fighting their point with the Forester more than anybody else so that's where it's going to be left then you know they they're going to come into your office they're going to come into his office they're going to come into my office going to go into Mr hon they're going to call that's what's going to end up happening from this I can tell you that right now but we'll have to deal with that yeah and in conclusion uh we'll refer a draft ordinance to the Sha tree commission for review and comment and we will be on track to introduce at the next council meeting this has to be adopted by May 1st okay any questions concerns no Mike did we want to bring up the uh police thing uh in close session oh close Okay um okay uh that's it that's your report yes thank you may uh motion to open the meeting for public comments councilman council president Pine councilwoman poori all in favor against anyone from the public like to address okay step up I was going to say older but you know Mr you can go I didn't say that he said that oh [Music] man uh talking about about this new or C could I have a half hour no um my question was concerning the um ordinance 2414 um mua compensation is there a percentage on that that uh is that for all the employees or just they then uh they typically do the 3% 3% yes we're having a conversation I can't myself also on ordinance 2417 it says block 2600 lot two um none of us have tax maps here uh what project is that in town or is that the one that you would said the uh bake County senior housing project okay um let's see an update on uh kfax Avenue drainage uh 1,000 something uh down cax towards Oakland where the storm drin goes through the man's property and goes to the lake is there an update on that we'll get to it yeah thank you um that's all okay thank you anyone else from the public like to address please step up good evening m L evangelist Emergency Management coordinator I just want to piggyback on the comments of a few Council people about that team certain team I had a last minute emergency I couldn't be there at the graduation however I understand it went very well everybody was very excited the kids were very happy I just want to make mention that last year we started that we ended we started with six kids and we ended up with four this year we started with 10 we were 10 for 10 so we're doing very well and we're doing well because of the efforts of a gentleman by the name of Matt Foley who you may know is the culinary arts teacher well known as Chef Foley at the high school is very popular with the kids and anybody else that likes food I guess for that matter but the bottom line is he beat the band to get kids into that program because it just competes with every sport and Civic club that we have in school it's very difficult and I want to thank uh Paul amaroso obviously Dr Oso for working with us he's always there for us Mandy vuren who he has saw and asked to be the intermediary between the board and uh the board office and uh and our shirt team Deborah Ross obviously uh who was in charge of set team C team and I just want to thank the people that instructed all right starting with deor Ross the guy in the back over there Mike fos who's on our first aid Squad so he helped with the uh EMS uh instruction by the way Chef Foley himself is an EMT which is what we were looking for as as the leader of the band over there pardon my uh reference to the band let's see who else myself uh Dan Katrell or S catrell was um very uh involved this year in terrorism he took the terrorism course um and Zach and Nick Zach bers and Nick RTS from the fire department kids had a bowl over there we had life fire exercise where they had to actually use a real fire extinguisher and it just brings uh it brings not only a level of Education to the kids who may go home and tell their parents by the way what they learned but more importantly they may grow into our community to the point where they join the fire department of first aid Squad we've seen that many many times so very very happy with that program thank you for everybody for supporting it hopefully we can keep it going my last thing is next Wednesday is the seminar emergency we're in a seminar right here in this room 7 o'clock what I'm going to try to do is taor it to that booklet that everybody finds when they have to get halfway through the calendar okay we had a lot of comments about that from new residences year they never knew that flood awareness booklet is in the middle of the calendar Liz and I have discuss this so what I'm going to do is put the focus on the on that booklet in the calendar uh highlight some things in it that people have to know in particular new residents we're going to reach out through the schools as Dr Ros always does for me he always uh pumps that information out through their systems of notifying the parents and we'll see if we can't get the room it's a good time right now so yes and and the U the atmosphere is there so thank you very much thank you appreciate anyone else from the public like to address seeing no one can have a motion to close the public session council president dine councilman Cruz all in favor against Mr Hinton uh yes that is the senior housing project over uh On Ringwood Avenue that that we're talking about um The Cat Project we are still in discussion but I'm going to let Michael talk we're still going back and forth with the homeowners you can have what you want from that thank you mayor uh we have draft easement agreements that will be provided to the governing body at your next meeting for consideration that will allow us access onto the kfax a properties to repair our pipe and I'm finally in receipt of cost estimates from both neighbors to rehab their properties as a result of our collapse pipe something that we will have to uh consider with our capital budget you know and our flooding and storm water management accounts um so we're looking to move on that this spring good uh Mr Evangelista of course I thank you for the C team I mean they're the quiet group that does what we need when we need them you know they're there they're always responsive when we have an event I can always count on them to do to help us in any way they're never asking what they have to do they just said tell me tell me what to do and we'll do it so having these young kids that the councilwoman Kent and and councilman Cruz were talking about it's great to see and I agree with you 100% they get the bug they like it they join the first aid Squad they join the Department these are all good things they're all from town it's a great program all around so I appreciate all the time you put in and everybody else puts into that okay um privilege of the floor oh motion to close the public session so moved council president the line councilman Cruz all in favor yes priv to the floor anybody priv the floor the anything I wanted to bring up I know Michael's been working on this the guard rail along Lakeside Avenue we've had the we've had the uh assessment on that and it it's not a good assessment no so it's not in this year's budget however we could discuss it we we are going to discuss it because a part of that is on the open space area and um that pair that area does not have a guard rail has a very broken fence the engineer recommended that the fence um be taken down but we got of wait till at least we decide what we're going to do with the guardrail so that is something that at some point we have to address because that's our property yes and I think it was $13,000 for the portion of the fence removal and replacement but for the entire Lakeside Avenue it except for the part that's a part of the um the county I believe that was a $78,000 assessment for replacement I don't know how we're going to handle that we we we looked at that last year with u right the previous administrator she did apply and we were denied all something we'll have to discuss we're going have to discuss that thank you okay uh motion to qu to go into close session second councilwoman pador councilman Cruz all in favor I against thank you everyone we're going to have to go into close session [Music] night in Clos session we just discuss personnel's matters okay negotiation yes yes Personnel negotiation uh motion to adjourn motion councilman venon councilwoman kilberg all favor I against okay we're off yeah my view is thank you --------- sure we not the following is the agenda for the municipal budget Workshop meeting of the mayor and Council b compon l to County to be held in Municipal Building 251 Avenue on Wednesday March 13 2024 beginning at 6:30 who stand for flag Pledge of the United States of America and to the repu for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all in conformance with the open public meeting Law Public Law 1975 chapter 231 adequate notice of this meeting setting forth the time date place and purpose of this regular meeting through notice posted on the bulletin board in the mystal building mailed to all have requested and paid for same publishing the Suburban Trends roll call please here here councilman Cruz here here counc here coun here coun evening our Mina and okay can I haveone motion to open the meeting for public comments councilwoman pador council president the line all in fav favor I against anyone from the public like to address seeing no one motion to close the public section Some Mo council president deline councilwoman Kent all in favor against okay so we're going to talk about the 2024 budget before I give it all off to Michael I just want to thank Michael Jimmy the Auditors Natasha the committee that got together they spent a lot of time and effort putting this together it wasn't an easy budget and they did work magic to get it to the numbers that we felt were appropriate the first numbers we had were a little high I'm not going to lie they were high so I thank everybody for doing what they have to do and I'll hand it off to you Mike thank you mayor and council members uh so tonight we're going to be talking about the 2024 uh budget and finance presentation uh as the mayor had indicated the finance committee which is comprised of Mayor Sarah councilwoman PAAD Dori councilman bennon and councilwoman Kent and our CFO Natasha turchin uh have met a few times to discuss our budget and kind of shape it in the way that that it is here today um we are hoping to introduce the budget at the March 27th council meeting but of course if there's any questions or concerns uh we'll certainly address those in a timely fashion so to start I would like [Music] to I would like to highlight some of the department heads that uh had a major role in our budget this year so we have our burough clerk Liz branis our CFO Natasha Turin um our DPW superintendent Daniel oor our tax collector Gan lorier our chief of police Derek Clark uh burrow engineer Tom barate sou Poley our construction official of course our burough auditor James cerulo who is here tonight uh Terry Malone our court administrator Jason ards our fire chief uh Al Evangelista OEM coordinator uh Kathy tro Deputy clerk Karen Murphy rec director and Michael drazic our library director and my apologies if I skipped anyone it wasn't intentional so we're going to start off by talking about last year's budget where we were in 2023 I know some Council Members First of all let's have hands we got the screen's working right everything you have something no no I'm just saying it's all good it's working yeah yeah oh nice okay um sorry so uh some of our uh council members were not here last year so I thought it might be uh important to talk about where we were last year with the budget so we're going to go through our tax analysis some historical data uh some major accomplishments that we achieved and then you know what's coming up with the new budget so last year's uh tax bill Bill uh the tax rate was 3.3 I'm sorry 3.83 5 last year and of course that consists of the County taxes the local school tax and the municipal tax and the library tax and of course in addition to that the uh local open space tax in which we have a local uh open space trust fund so that goes into play with your tax bill last year's tax bill on average was about $10,700 for the average residents so that's kind of where we were at last year as you can see the school comprised of 57% of last year's tax bill which uh makes up you know most of it Municipal was at 23% County was at 19 and of course our library was at the statutory uh of 1% and open space less than 1% this is a compar with our neighbors so as you can see Pompton Lakes was around $10,700 you know total tax you could see here Riverdale and monu are a little bit less than us but have a little bit less of a population less of Redevelopment and stuff like that and you could see here Ringwood was uh higher than pompin lake so we were kind of around the middle of the pack uh with all of our surrounding municipalities so so the average Municipal tax bill last year was $2,400 and we're just going to go through uh a breakdown of what goes into that so you have your Municipal budget which is comprised of a of a variety of things from garbage collection recycling police fire department first state public works uh salary and wages recreation park snow pling you name it uh it was a 2475 average municip tax bill uh last year's Capital plan was 1.25 million uh that was a 223 annual debt payment in the municipal budget of $189 so that's 7.66 per of last year's budget and then of course we have the open space trust fund and in last year's budget that was $28 on the average Municipal tax bill and that uh captures all of our local open space projects that we uh achieve throughout the year which only benefits our Parks our Sports fields and all of our local uh waterways uh how are taxes calculated so the municipal tax levy is made up of state aid Revenue grants and surplus and also the net valuation is the annual assessed value of the burrow it's important to know what goes into the operating budget every year so uh last year's budget state aid was made up of 5.5% of last year's operating budget uh we have revenue and grants which was 28.425b which was about 10% of last year's operating budget and then everything else is the tax levy which is you know the amount that taxes go up so that was 55% of last year's operating budget for those of you that don't know uh the tax rate is calculated by the municipal tax levy uh divided by the net valuation taxable uh times 100 so last year's tax rate only on the municipal portion was 0.887 uh on the total tax rate of 3.88 five from last year guys if anybody has a question you all you can just stop them and ask the question yeah please uh interrupt me if anyone has a question I wanted to highlight some of our major accomplishments from last year uh just before we go into into this year's current budget so last year we started the Lincoln app Phase 2 improvements project which was funded by a $440,000 um local Department of Transportation Grant we are anticipated to start Paving uh later this spring which is all the way from Lakeside AV uh down to mafis AV and Riverdale Road so it's a very long stretch of roadway and we're looking forward to doing that this spring uh you'll see on tonight's council meeting agenda that we have a drainage improvements proposal from an engineer which will uh Aid in the ponding issue that is at the intersections of Ramapo and lenux on Lincoln ad so that will uh go into play here we upgraded the Carlo field Press Box from $50,000 from our open space trust fund so that project has been successfully completed we acquired What's called the himl parcel which is going to be used for open space purposes which is along Hamburg ter Pike and Compton Lakes the Meridia uh Redevelopment project has begun so you know res students are going to see that throughout the summer uh and we're looking forward to the completion of that that will only uh benefit our uh budget in future years we ratified our local PBA agreement which is a new 4-year contract so our police are all set for the next four years and of course that is a major factor which we'll get into uh later in the presentation but that's another major accomplishment uh you may have seen the congressman uh visiting Pompton Lakes a few weeks ago we accepted a $240,000 grant to fund uh new air packs for the Pompton Lakes fire department and of course we purchased our new ladder truck of 1.4 million which was funded through capital in Prior year budgets and was received last [Music] year next I wanted to highlight uh some future considerations and what may be coming up this year so our clerical DPW and crossing guard union labor Agreements are due and expired so that will be a major factor into our excuse me our salary and wages budget uh especially next year so that's a future consideration we're going to be looking to pave Waterville and Albany AB we have $182,000 DT Grant to fund that project hopefully we'll be going out for engineering soon the Midland dab Improv I just ask you on that project I know it's off Copic a little bit did we discuss yet about Curbing and um apron excuse me we'll visit that at a future council meeting when we have the engineering proposal excuse me take myat we have a future plans at Willow field which we'll be talking about you know in the next few months we're awaiting a proposal from our engineer to assess you know the uh feasibility of the project at this time we're going to have to do some uh Ramapo River Bank stabilization repairs which is going to be coming up we are uh reaching out to our state representatives for some assistance uh with local funding and trying to get a grant for that project you know that project could be a significant uh price tag on our residents and we want to do everything we can to get grant money for we're also going to talk to the county and see if they can help y uh of course we have our annual River projects we're going to have some it Network and computer upgrades which we have to do this year we have DPW and police Fleet Replacements the first aid Squad and Emergency Management uh team has requested a new storage shed at our first aid Squad so we'll have to discuss that coming up our Department of Public Works garage uh remains in poor condition to say the least so we'll have to discuss that uh in the future and what we want to do with that moving forward for open space we have hershfield Park phase one and phase two phase one is underway uh with construction hopefully somewhere in the late summer early fall we have our architect designing the structure right now that's for the storage shed in hfield park and then right now we're going to be focusing on the face two improvements project which will consist of the play playground uh Replacements in the park and additional Ada accessible play pieces for our youth in town I just has a quick question on herfield now given the recent weather with all the rain has anything changed that or do you foresee any uh dollar amount changing if any additional damage was done to any of the property or any of the surrounding area at herfield uh not necessarily the storage structure that's being replaced has to be flood proofed you know in accordance with our D regulations so everything will be flood proofed uh by law the playground of course will have you know flood aspects to it and we'll have to you know consider some aspects of that project um and then of course phase three would be the trail system that's at herfield Park you know we'd have to look at some sort of uh permeable you know asphalt solution to take in more water okay so uh nothing major has changed yet but certainly could okay thank you and then of course we have some other local space local space initiatives which may include the either replacement or uh Rehabilitation of our gazebo we have some guard rail Replacements that we have to consider uh bulkhead repairs and of course uh perhaps a dock expansion all which are being discussed at our local local open space committee okay so getting into the 2024 budget uh some of our goals for this year are to keep Pon links affordable keeping our residents well informed through increased communication uh keeping pton Lake safe through investing in our infrastructure and upgrading our open space and burrow Parks amongst others so now we're going to get into the municipal budget this chart highlights the 2024 assessed value of PP and lakes as you can see it breaks down the types of properties that we have so we have 62 vacant properties over 3600 Residential Properties and 156 commercial properties of which 242 are exempt so the average uh net valuation is about $36,000 um as you can see and you'll see in future slides that has gone down about $3 million it's hard to say what that's from uh it could be from a variety of things such as you know Redevelopment projects ongoing uh there was some tax appeals that occurred last year especially with our uh uh shopping center uh we Planet Fitness house so a lot of things go into that but that does affect our budget which we'll get into in the next few slides so so just so everybody's aware that Michael just mentioned they did file tax appeal at the uh at the mall there and and they won and they had their taxes reduced so that's part where that number came from and I will just say uh you know future Redevelopment projects will help aid in future budgets to kind of offset this uh reduction in the net valuation the TA Michael the tax exempt is that for the people that don't pay taxes the residents that don't pay who's exemp that that's correct and I defer to the auditor on that but I believe you you have religious properties the school that property and town all tax exemp okay you may have granted some uh veterans exemptions for permanent um that's a state law now right that's a state law isn't it with the Vets yeah 100% 100% disabl vet yeah 100% just to go on like you know Michael say spell on your Redevelopment projects those projects the structure used to be taxable and now with the Redevelopment only the land is going to be taxable you be collecting the payment Lo taxes on the on the on the building really through the Rental process whatever your do is so your that value of taxable May decrease just because the structure is being removed from the tax rols because so as soon as the stru another structure is built on the property then we'll be getting the pilot yes you'll be getting the pilot but there won't be taxes real estate taxes as it improved okay and then of course we have a chart here which reflects uh the breakdown of that spreadsheet that was in the prior slide as you can see most of our uh properties in town are residential you know I guess it's noteworthy to say that you know we don't have a lot of commercial properties which could Aid Us in this whole thing um so you know that's certainly one uh con of uh the assessed value that we have to look at you know when doing the budget where does the DuPont property do you know uh I don't know it's commercial right I I believe it might be commercial yeah they used to be manufacturing well that was changed yeah they changed the zoning on that a while ago it's Recreation I think is that what it was no I mean all of that is it's it the zoning doesn't have doesn't relate to the to the property class so it don't get those those are two different things and and it's something just to keep in mind that you're bringing up Dupont that's another conversation we're going to have to have very shortly about thank you so some of our budget challenges for this year uh certainly you know know may include Revenue so as you can see uh there's an increase of about $40,000 in revenue from last year which goes into our tax rate um we did have a one-time Revenue last year for the American Rescue plan money that we got from the federal government which was in the amount of $387,000 it's noteworthy to mention that going into this year when we're doing the budget we're already down $387,000 just going into the budget right off the bat so I have to come up with $387,000 because that was used as a one-time Revenue last year so that is a major major factor that goes into the you know as we get into the final slides here of what the breakdown is for this year so for the new council members the American Rescue plan is the CID money we got from the federal government part of that law is you are allowed to offset your taxes with it over I think it's year period so we were down to the last part of using the money for that so that's why what he's talking about is we used it the last two years to offset taxes moving forward we cannot and it's gone now so that's where you're saying we have to make up to 187,000 and in addition to that I believe and Jim can correct me I think there's 187,000 left in the co money which was anticipated Revenue this year yeah so you know we do have some but unfortunately this is the last year that we can use it so you know this year and next year we're going to be in the negative in terms of Revenue so we have to come up with that and find ways to to plan for that in the future yeah part of the money was used for helping with the taxes part of it was used for Capital I believe last year the administrator uh in the budget used it to offset some of your Capital expenditures that you had in the budget last year so some 2023 notable Revenue results as you can see we're down in municipal court fines uh that's mostly due to you know some laws and regulations that are in place as a result of Co I don't think that the court can use the mechanisms that they used to to collect vines I have been hearing you know Rumblings about that that that might change in the near future but as you can see we're down in municipal court fines and also we're down in our construction code enforcement collections uh 98,000 okay I'm sorry but on the back on the other side uh our interest on investments are up 77,000 our parking meters are up 38,000 and I will note with that we do have our new parking kiosks which we received last year' gone you know they're on hand uh so I did meet with the vendor a few weeks ago and we're going to kind of come up with with how we want to roll them out to the public I I do foresee an increase in the parking meter revenue for next year which could be a good thing so for the municipal court because we spoke with her you know the new laws passed now when you got fined with a ticket or something you had most of the times past year you had to pay it all up front now you can put a dollar down or $5 dollar down and do a payment plan for 20 years making a $5 payment so that's where we lost a lot of the revenue in in the courts was that because of that why is construction down so much they didn't hit the number I think yet on the on the prop on this property right so the the way that the anticipated Revenue works is um in in the budget you anticipate what you're going to collect in the budget and then in the current year and then if you don't hit that number in the following year you know you're going to be down so that's where it's very important for the the anticipated revenues that we correctly forecast where we think we're going to be for the year that way in the prior in the following year we're not going to be down on our Revenue if that is the case so you know it could be a mix and I defer to Jim on this maybe we anticipated too much maybe we thought we were going to collect too much and we didn't it could be that just construction happens to be down um I defer to Jim uh I I'll say again I wasn't involved in the revenue process your budget last year your previous administration was um and you're allowed by law to anticipate up to whatever you realized in cash in the previous year and I guess the budget process uh a little aggressive I know you collect the permit money up front for the Maria project that wasn't you know going to be reoccurring um you know so it probably was uh a little too aggressive in last year's uh in a budget when it was uh anticipated um so going forward it just have to keep an eye on what's going on what what the future development is you can always have people doing you know renovations to the property normally uh but you know your biggest input the previous years was for the uh over on um the cax Avenue with that building up and then with the beginning of this phase the collect a lot of the fees up front and I don't think what year was that so you're saying Meridian wasn't collected in 2022 was it no that's what I was about to say they didn't collect meridians yet so NE this year now we're in we just what you're talking about we'll have a high number because of the onetime collection and anticipating for next year we have to keep that in mind you just have to watch out you know you're better off keeping it you know level and again it goes back to Surplus so you'll be able to utilize that in the future years so you try not to maximize what you're anticipating because you always want to be able to replenish your Surplus with those excesses from those onetime deals CU otherwise you anticipate year we're going to get 250,000 this year cuz we're getting this one timetime influx well then you don't have a connection year so you're better off letting that money go back to Surplus and then once it's realized utilising it at that point that once you have it in hand so the Meridia permits that's for the building that's up we didn't we have the building up we didn't collect the permit money yet so with the Meridia project uh what the CFO and I did was we did receive a permit payment of about $275,000 we do anticipate you know more money coming in we did uh anticipate some of that Revenue in this year's budget to offset and lower our tax rate um and some other one-time revenues that we also anticipated were the sale of our old ladder truck which we anticipated 90,000 for and we also anticipated some of our surplus vehicles that we sold last year as well to to again to use it as a mechanism to lower our tax rate a little bit and I just wanted to add with the pilot payments uh we discussed this with the finance committee but the pilot payments were always handled inhouse we did retain a uh specialized accountant to administer our pilot Bills moving forward um the pilot bills are very complex and complicated uh calculation that must be done you know so I I am uh you know positive about this uh new vendor that we got in you know that will be collecting all of our pilot money in a timely fashion that way you know it will accurately reflect in our budget and we can plan for it moving forward are they all current and up to date now yes some other budget challenges are our state aid which happens to be up $10,000 from last year so that is a major player in our current budget and then of course our Surplus which is our fund balance as you can see we didn't regenerate as much fund balance as we have in the past we are down $37,000 which again is a major factor into this year's budget we could have anticipated more Surplus but you know of course we always advise against that it's best to have a healthy Surplus and then here we have a 10-year fund balance history you know as you can see we've always regenerated our Surplus in a healthy manner uh this year it just happens to be down and of course that's a 2023 unaudited balance so now we're going to get into our operating budgets a little bit uh some of the factors that go into that are of course our salary and wages our Public Safety our Public Works maintaining our roadways construction first aid Recreation garbage and recycling and our open space projects we're going to go through our salary and wage Appropriations so for General Services which includes our burrow administrator mayor and counsel municipal clerk and our elections uh are down $119,000 due to the resignation of the prior bur administrator which was a higher salary so that line is down uh Finance is up by 2000 uh due to some re reallocation of uh extra salary money our land use departments which incorporate Redevelopment open space planning board of adjustment and our code enforcement offices are up by $26,000 due to the fact that uh we must retain a executive director as an employee of the burrow moving forward that's something that will come up in the future we did have to allocate extra money in our salary and wage budget to you know incorporate that into this year's budget our Public Safety salaries are up by $222,000 that's due to our new PBA labor agreement which are 3% raises over the next four years which was approved at the prior council meeting uh so again that's a contractual obligation that we have to abide by in our budget our Public Work salaries are up $779,000 uh Recreation is down due to some excess funding that was put in the budget last year so we did reduce that to make it accurately reflect where we're at with the current salaries of our director assistant director and all of our wads and then the library of course has a statutory obligation that we must abide by for all of their salary and wages Michael can you explain how we went from $225,000 each for the planning board and board of adjustment to budgeting for Zer in 2024 yes uh that's due to uh kind of rearranging our budget structure a little bit the Planning and Zoning secretary was formally funded out of those respective budget accounts okay but some for some reason last year it was put into the uh General code enforcement salary and wage budget so we decided to leave it in there so that's why you see a shifting of of salaries and that's why we have an increase in the code enforcement as a result okay thank you the next chart highlights uh just where we're at with our salary and wages of course our Public Safety makes up 60% of all of the Burrows salary and wages which is a little over $3.8 million um you know Public Works 1.3 General Services $500,000 it just highlights that Public Safety really does take up most of our budget in terms of salaries next we're going to go through our operating budgets the general Services accounts which primarily fund uh some miscellaneous projects uh our contracts all of our software maintenance licensing uh computer upgrades all of that kind of stuff is up by 65,000 that's due to the um roll out of a new time management system that we're going to be implementing in the burrow so all of our employees will have a Time Clock mechanism time sheets uh we'll have control over their time off balances and what their acrw time balances are so we're looking forward to that um and of course there's you know some increased funding there for some other uh contractual obligations you know s such as uh software renewals our finance uh operating budget is down by 13,000 there was a little bit of extra money in that account that we put elsewhere at this time and our land use accounts are down $113,000 again due to the re reallocation of some excess funding from last year to focus on some other accounts at this time our Public Safety operating budget is up by 56,000 that is due to a variety of things uh which incorporates contracts software that the police department maintains all of our Police Department equipment uh you know dispatcher equipment our class three and Class 2 officer equipment um our uniform Fire Safety Code and our fire department operating budgets so the police department they have contractual agreements with all the software they use they went up a lot this year and also don't forget that includes the special threes that we have in the school that we put up the money for up front for uniforms and all that that's a onetime charge but we did put all that money up for all all that yeah just quickly just explain to me do we are we a member of any collaborative or Consortium that Police Department joying to get better rates on software better rates on Services things of that nature I mean is this across the board that we're seeing these increases with software in particular just because mayor Sarah mentioned it yeah we try to utilize as much Cooperative purchasing uh processes as we can uh unfortunately most of the increase in this public safety operating budget is due to the class 3 officers uh equipment and and stuff of that nature uh training education and stuff like that that's mandatory moving forward are they so is that a one time or is that a kind of a every three year every two year type training that we need to keep that uh from my understanding it's not every year um I would have to defer back to the police I think when we talked about it we knew up front for the one time it was going to be a larger cost because of all the things we had to buy you know the guns the vests all that and then the training was minimal it was a couple thousand doll but I think most of that expenses in the equipment that we had to buy them yeah and it's just the one time that's what I was I just wanted to know if anything was repetitive over the next as far as training is concerned anyway also noteworthy is our prosecutor position uh the prosecutor was previously a bur employee uh which is actually uh not a direct violation of the law but it's really best practice to have them as a professional service contract so we did have to increase the court the uh Court budget by about $177,000 to fund that prosecutor moving forward which we did retain at the beginning of the year so again that's that's another increase here that is being shifted from the salary budget in terms of Public Safety our public uh operating budget is up 76,000 that's due to our contractual obligations with our solid waste removal which as you can see is up you know up uh about $50,000 uh for this year which is one of the significant players for this year's budget and of course uh some miscellaneous items such as our new street sign replacement program uh our recycling tipping fee and some other you know maintenance uh and building and grounds upgrades that we would like to do this year our Recreation Department is down 11,000 that's due to the existence of some trust funds that we have which are essentially rolling accounts that we can use throughout the year th those balances do have a healthy uh those accounts do have a healthy balance at this time so I did lower the account a little bit to again further uh lower our tax rate and I don't for see any uh programs or activities being interrupted as a result of this we do have a healthy balance our library is a statutory obligation so we're at $222,000 for this year and our all of our accounts that make up our boards and committees are up about 16,000 that's due to both the required hiring of an arist for the tree ordinance the arbest is in this number okay our existing Lake management contract which treats our Pompton Lake during the summer and a flood survey project that the flood commission submitted for so those are three increases right there that make up all of our boards and committees and of course you could see both Public Works and Public Safety make up most of our operating budget some of our miscellaneous Appropriations which is legal and engineering uh health benefits state disability search and rescue our annual contribution to the first aid Squad our Solid Waste Disposal contract animal control and our parks and playgrounds some noteworthy increases there are legal which is up $25,000 um engineering is up $20,000 due to the roll out of some new projects that are coming up this year our health benefits is a contractual increase from the state of $283,000 and our special police account which uh funds our salary and wages for our class 2 and class three officers is up 16,000 um there are some you know minor decreases in here but uh these are some of our major players in this year's budget can I just ask one thing here on the senior citizens programs what we reduce step by 8,000 that seems like a big number that is because last year uh what we budgeted for we did not spend oh really at all so again when we're talking about you know the taxes where we are now we needed to cut some things okay the celebration of public events is up 5,000 the fire department requested funding to hold an anniversary celebration for a fireman that uh was deceased many years ago and excuse me and our pension obligations are up about uh $92,000 which is a statutory obligation that you know we don't have much say about and again some of our key drivers here uh again legal is up our health benefits are up Solid Waste fuel and utilities our pensions and our Police Department uh salary and wages and our operating budget accounts these eight budget line items are driving most of the appropriation increases six of the eight are contractual so as you can see most of what's you know here what is our biggest budget increase is all contractual something that we really can't do much about and again here's a breakdown of of where we're at with all of our uh you know budget accounts so in conclusion where we're at right now with the municipal budget you know it definitely is a tough year um we did have to cut some things uh but again we have contractual and statutory obligations that we must abide by so the proposed tax rate is 0.920 uh tax rate which would be a $988 increase uh on the municipal tax bill so again you have the schools and the county which still have to come into play so this is only the municipal portion we try to do our best to keep taxes as low as we can every single year um but again this is where we're at this year and it's due to a variety of things such as the revenue uh anticipation and where we're at with all of our contracts uh pensions and benefits it's also worth mentioning we didn't cut any services for any anything we've done in the town up to this point you know um I'm talking some other Mayors they are cutting some Services right now because they're in the same boat as us with the same increases uh so you know trying to keep all our services and at the same time be responsible to the budget is very important to me it's the most important thing that we do as a mayor and Council up here is is the taxes and in the number um and we all know taxes are high in this area not just in pomin lakes in North Jersey so you know we're trying to be responsible at $90 that's what we're trying to do there mayor sure you said other Mayors in the area looking at cutting services what services are they we didn't talk about what services but you know they're in the same boat pension retirement all these things Healthcare went up and they're either going to have to cut services or raise taxes more than they want to layoffs I don't know if it's layoffs it could be programs it could be anything you know reduced Recreation uh problems programs so it could be numerous things [Music] this is a six-year tax history of Pompton Lakes so as you can see the uh average Municipal tax bill uh would be about $2500 uh of a tax change of again 9088 last year we were at about a $41 Municipal tax increase 23 and $24 prior years so so again you know we're in a tough year right now and let's not forget that we also had the co money in those last couple years of course yes this is just a chart that reflects that previous spreadsheet and then I always like to throw this in at the end uh just so the public understands that as is right now with the 2024 budget the school would make up 56% of your tax bill the county would make up 18% of your tax bill and that's on a projected 2% increase for the county the burrow would make up 23% of your tax bill uh libraries at about 1% and our open space is a quarter of a percent again that that's what makes up your whole tax bill we're only just a portion of that and this is this is this is 2024 budget not anticipating what the school budget is going to be adopted at and what their increases are and potentially to the county as well so those percentages could shift as well absolutely this is a projected uh 2% increase just based on production but when you say going back you said 2% just on us not on the county no we don't know what their budget's going to right but I'm you anticipate a increase projecting 2% here on yeah we're projecting 2% for the county and school yeah yeah and then the burrow percent is obviously you know where we're at at this time so that theoretically if the school came back at zero could be less of a number yeah yeah all right so that's the municipal budget we're going to get into our Capital plan for a few minutes you want to take questions yeah we'll take questions anybody questions concerns comments com so we do a lot of course and we're going to put this presentation on our website for the public actually to that point can we can you make this into some kind of video slideshow having on channel 77 and our YouTube figuring that we're not going to have audio obviously but at least the presentation absolutely thank Youk this is going to be recorded also it is yes okay so we have about 15 minutes what do you want to what Jim say anything about anything you want to add to this about the budget itself no I'm uh just here to support Michael with this plan again more than you know I used to go through my uh show just out over the state finances and just uh you know Surplus in a lot of places has gone down fortunately the interest on investments has been good this year and really last year's budget was a precursor to this cuz it was tight last year and again I wasn't involved in uh not trying those F but in the revenue anticipation I usually assisted the previous administration and use the numbers last year I wasn't involved in that and I'd say some of the areas were a little bit more overaggressive and you know maybe you needed to get to where you did for uh where you wanted to be tax level wise but if you look at Mike's tax chart there on what you've done and percentage wise it really hasn't been that bad it's just that unfortunately after you had the last re Val the tax appeals at thep the property values have gone down that's a driving number in that tax rate calculation is the net value taxable and it has gone down but if you take that average over the previous six years you're you're like an excellent you know you know you've always tried to keep that a tax point or two no worse and this is going to be the worst year but you know that things have changed and economy everything uh that makes things harder to keep things status quo as it was but you know for the most part you guys have always been doing things the right way and you know still providing services like you say man and and how's our bond rating well your bond rating we had a rating call cuz last time we had a bond sale was two years ago and standard importers who R those bonds just to keep everything update uh Michael natas and I had a rating for uh and they it's the when we had the bond sale back in 2021 we were a ablea um positive uh this year's double a stable and basically that's due to like things that you're doing in town to try to keep things positive a lot of other municipalities have instituted things with like the Redevelopment plans Etc so they you know they kept you you're rating the double a stable negative out good thanks okay Capital just to go into our Capital plan uh we do you know anticipate to introduce our Capital ordinance at the next council meeting I would just like to highlight some of the projects that the finance committee has uh included in our plan so we have the Dos Highway improvements project which we already went out to bond for at the last council meeting due to uh time constraints with the dot so that's a net Deb of 68,000 we have our annual funding for the river work and our storm water and Flood Control Management Services so those are annual uh amounts that we have always historically included in our Capital plan we do anticipate about $40,000 of it and computer upgrades that still need to happen uh both with our borrow servers and computer and uh Network Replacements in the burrow we have the Lakeside a Ada curb ramp project which is only a net debt of 35,000 that's due to uh $58,000 of Community Development block grant funding that we received we are looking to move forward with that project that will um bring all of our curb ramps up to uh current standards on lak side AV so we're looking forward to that uh the DPW submitted a variety of uh landscape and Fleet enhancements so in the plan we're projecting two Ford uh F250s for the DPW we are projecting two snow plows for 36,000 uh a DPW landscape trailer which would be a second trailer in addition to what we have and with that would be a 96 in lawn lower a lawn tractor which would be used to drag our Sports fields which could be extremely helpful during flooding excuse me during flooding circumstances which we could have used uh this past winter so we're looking forward to that um the DPW is looking to purchase a leaf vacuum which can help uh clean up all of ouro storm water basins uh curb lines and uh our Parks so we're looking forward to that the police department uh has a requirement of purchasing seven bulletproof vests which is $112,000 and that's due to a discrepancy with some grant funding that we get yearly normally our bulletproof vests are funded through grants but I think there was a reporting uh mishap so you know we're under time constraints in terms of the bulletproof vests Replacements uh so you know we have to move with that right now and then next year we'll get back with the grant program and fund it through grants and uh to conclude the DPW is also looking for a lawn track Leaf attachment so for everybody up here I'm sure everybody's aware we had a meeting with uh all the sports groups about how we could help clean up the fields after the three storms we've had and um the DPW is doing a great job and I'll talk about that more in our report but at the end of the day to to Aid Us in those cleanups when they happen some of this equipment that we're looking at now will help with that so it's stuff that the DPW Supervisor has suggested moving forward these are things we can use to help clean fields and do things so in conclusion the capital plan uh we're looking at a net debt of 1.1 million for this year which is you know down compared to last year's Capital plan at this time so we are looking to move forward with that on the next slide I just wanted to highlight some future projects which may come up so we have the hershfield park improvements Phase 2 which will need to be funded in part through Capital so that's on hold right now but that is a future consideration we have Albany and watery AV Road resurfacing which we would like to move forward this year but we're not in the state to do so right now but again it's a future consideration we have Midland a white way and Park Place which is also on our road resurfacing schedule this project is going to be a 2024 Municipal Aid candidate so we're putting that on hold right now but that is also a future consideration and then of course we have the willow field improvements project which is ongoing at this time but must be uh projected you know in terms of uh perhaps moving forward in the near future and then unfortunately with the capital plan this is not to say that it's not anything we can move forward with later this year we certainly could if there's a need for it but we did have to defer some items due to some budget constraints so you know all of those items are highlighted here and again if any come a a necessity we can certainly address it at a later date um all in all our Capital requests were about 3.5 million so you know we kind of got it to a place where we could uh you know deal with in terms of this year's budget and I want to thank Michael because that number you know every department has a a wish list of what they want it was a lot bigger than what we're looking at right here um and we were able to whittle that down to needed things right now and that's a lot of work from the committee at also for Michael doing that so any questions about the capital for Michael no and uh this concludes the presentation does you know if anyone has any further questions uh please let me know thanks Michael Michael okay thank you for this presentation it's probably the most clarifying that I've had since being on the council app thank you let me just close Okay okay where are we privileg of the floor any privilege of the floor no okay um motion to adjourn so move council president bline councilman Cruz all in favor I against okay we'll get to start the next meeting in five minutes