thank good dra e e e e councilwoman Goldberg just want to make sure you could hear me yep I can hear you nice we could hear her all good right Mike you could hear her okay we're going to be starting in just a couple minutes Council one thanks e mayor we have a quum all right can everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Mr clerk we have a quorum and call this meeting to order at 7:04 p.m please call the rule councilman Schwarz councilwoman beler here councilwoman Goldberg here counc councilwoman Oregon here de mayor Catz deput mayor G here mayor Pagan here adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by resolution number 299 d223 sending a copy to the newspapers official designated for 2024 by way of resolution number 2224 fing a copy in the town clerk's office and posting on the municipal building bulletin board and the mayor hereby directs that this statement be included in the minutes thank you Mr clerk good evening and welcome everyone to tonight's Council budget meeting Township Administration present at tonight's meeting are Dean kazinski our Township manager Doug ruson our Township Clerk Thomas row our Deputy Township manager Scott salmon our Township attorney and Adeline finkler with the Mis department for The public's information we are currently holding a hybrid format meeting we have people in person and on Zoom if our Wi-Fi at the municipal building has an issue where the zoom meeting drops we will aim to retrieve the connection and re start the meeting the next televised regular council meeting will take place on April 2nd and it begins at 6:30 p.m. for Clos session with the public portion of the meeting beginning at 8:00 p.m. March 28th is a budget meeting that begins at 700 p.m. there will be an American Legion Drive public update at the Roa community center on March 27th at 700 p.m. it will be broadcasted on Zoom but participation is inperson only Town Hall will be closed on Friday March 29th in observance of Good Friday council did not meet in close session earlier this evening and our first order of business is good and Welfare and I want to remind residents that the speaking limit is 3 minutes per person if you are on Zoom please list your first name and your last name so that our clerk can call on you also please turn your camera on when speaking if possible and if you are in Chambers with us today in person please also give us your first name and your last name for the record thank you who would like to start us off m commity discussion growth personal and professional development it offers programs that teach entertain inform and challenge it reaches out to all constituencies within the town and invites all people to join to be welcomed to part participate actively libraries are often taken for granted until they aren't there I have said this before and I'll say it again open free public libraries are the last Bastion protecting us from repression a well-funded library enhances the community in which it exists makes that Community more attractive to potential residents we are doing remarkable programs are open 7 days a week and haven't had a significant upgrade in years we here in tenek are proud of our library the most active one in Bergen County despite our too small and dilapidated physical plant the people of tenek need this Library budget to pass need the impending refurbishment and look forward to your support thank you thank you miss silverberg someone in Zoom Doug I have no hands right now mayor ma'am Christina mckinson uh good evening mayor council members and Township manager I'm here again representing the gun club and the greenhouse the year went very fast last year we were here to ask for new roof which you approved and we are very thankful for it but then we realized our uh Township Engineers decided the structure of the building was not sound enough to put a new roof on so therefore what can we do we need a new Greenhouse uh I realize you budget committee will get lots of uh requests for funding this project and that project but um I like to point out our Garden Club and the greenhouse all the activities is an important hub for our community we provide education for school children we teach them to see divide and GR roof plants and then for the middle school children and teenagers we have a garden plot and all summer long they grow and plant their own vegetables so uh and in addition to that we seniors and other Garden uh gardeners we meet in the greenhouse and we can plant and we provide plants for the plant sale once a year and our loyal customers are really waiting for it because our prices are good and the quality is good so um so uh you see we provide many different uh good things for the community and we are hoping that you will consider funding this greenhouse I realize it's a big amount and maybe it can be spread over two years maybe or several years I realize it's a big amount to get everything in one year it would mean we would have to wait a little bit longer but in the end it's worth it so I really thank you from our hearts that you will consider funding this and we we thank you for it very much and thank you very much thank you ma'am Dr Powers I am Chuck Powers T neck I don't think that I'm telling anybody anything that saying that the town is pretty deeply split right now we really need a project around which we can take some of that diversity and go to work together to solve a major problem the major problem identified in the 22 election was issues associated with development and the answer that this Bo body along with the planning board agreed with that was that we needed a new master plan and I remember 17 years ago none of you here were there for the long nights we spent in the tneck auditorium working on the 2007 master plan we had a kind of problem because we had a planner who was about ready to lose their job because of pay to playay questions but we actually as a Town figured out how to come up with the goals and objectives that fed into the rest of that of that amazing document but that's 17 years ago not 10 and so now we're doing it again and I like to read from to you from 40 55d 28 about the master plan preparation contents and modifications which says that the planning board will propose and public a after public hearing adopt or amend the master plan it goes on to specify the two required elements and the 12 possible elements why is it then that has been since October five that the public has heard word one about what we said a year ago we were going to work on places where we are getting information believe it or not is from not a body of the planning board but this in the minutes the March one minutes of the zoning subcommittee Master Plan update master plan to be completed by the planner in mid-march I understand that there is a document that some people have as of two days ago and sent to the committee the steering committee wait a minute I just read you that that's the pro prerogative of the planning board they're going to send it to the committee I believe they have sent it to the committee and then think look at this sent to the committee and it turns out and I've reviewed very carefully every minute of every Council and planning board meeting there has never been an authorization of that steering committee it's time for planning board to take it over and that the subcommittee taken the job of scheduling for the plan board but is their responsibility thank you thank you sir anyone else in Chambers Miss Lewis Lewis I'm asking a requesting that there be money in the budget in the police budget for traffic on North Street um the cars I wrote quite a number of emails to the manager regarding this the cars are rushing down from Stop and Shop going down going down to decline and they stop further up then when they get to catala they Rush from catala to River Road on North Street there have a number of school children living on North Street and I'm requesting four sets of uh Rumble bumpers whatever you call those things Rumble rumble strips and and probably some science saying school children so slow down something like that but you know it's a matter of life and death as far as I'm concerned and I do have three grandchildren on that street all right so I appreciate some money in the budget somewhere thank you anyone else in Chambers anybody on Zoom Doug going once going twice in Chambers sold good and Welfare is closed Miss beler would you like to start us off what I uh just want to Simply say that um I hear you know all the residents coming out and speaking in and um in in promoting and and support of of different budgets um one of the things I I kind of uh I I view budget season as is that it kind of reflects a little bit about values even when we speak of our personal budget you know if you look at the way people spend their money it's kind of it speaks to to what's important to them so um my only hope in this process this budget season is that our final product the budget really is reflective of the values of our community and what things we hold most dear thank you thank you Miss beler Miss Oregan um so Sandy I agree about the library um listening to the reports and listening to how many people walk through the doors and I look forward to our finished product and remind the public again that it will be closed for a while but it will be a better product after that Miss Martinson um there was such a sigh a sad sigh that went through the room when Dean told us that the building wouldn't support the new roof that we were so happy to approve for you last year um and I do hope that something can be worked out with the engineer um we we do want you to continue it we we all were introduced to to the the Garden Club last year and and would be happy for you Dr Powers nice to see you back and doing well and um Miss Lewis I'm I'm sure traffic which oh I'm sure traffic will take a look at um that street and uh hopefully we can get your report thank you Miss Goldberg do you have anything you want to say um I just want to address um Miss Lewis um because I know um kind of also what councilwoman Oregon said about um the traffic studies and everything and uh tonight is also police and and I did actually plan on um asking about some of the the traffic enforcement tonight too so I'm glad that you raised that so that was it thank you thank you Miss Goldberg Deputy Mayor G um I just wanted to thank everyone who spoke um I'm also passionate about both the Garden Club and the library and safety and so to the extent that we can incorporate all these things in the budget um I will fully support that if we can make it work thank you Deputy Mayor thank you Miss silberg for always fighting for our library we love our library and we'll always support our library Miss mckinson we thank you as well for fighting for our Garden Club we still support the Garden Club and I'm going to ask our manager to talk about that briefly just so that everyone knows where we are with that thank you Dr par for talking about our master plan which is almost done and thank you Miss Lewis for talking about speeding on North Street because I live there as well and see the speeding too so I'm going to ask our manager to talk briefly about that process as well and whether we need a traffic study there first or if there's been a traffic study done there in the past few years just to give us any information on what could possibly be done um see nobody else Mr manager is there anything you would like to say Sir uh with the with the speed study on North Street I'll let the chief know we sitting here tonight so take that as your formal notice theve uh but what we do is we we we want data we want to look at the data so we'll do the uh speed study yeah and I don't mean to interrupt but I remember about a year ago someone asked about Elm and we had done one within the past two or three years and there wasn't anything warranted for doing there so so you know the data has to support some of the changes we we make um if the data comes back with North Street that there is a speeding issue uh we we have some resources at our disposal that would be track traffic caling striping uh maybe narrowing of streets with these striping some thermal plastic rumble strips uh could be a variety of things that we can we can look at so I just want to see the data first and see when was the last time we did a um a traffic study on North Street of course that's also followed up by traffic enforcement um and uh so we'll take a look at that I'm sure the chief will send that to the traffic Bureau tomorrow thank you Mr manager and our next order of business is budget discussions so we will turn it over to you Mr manager uh thank you so much mayor so the first Department we have up tonight is the police department here from the police department is Chief mger and Captain Scott Hesser so um front and center gentlemen so for your budget book purposes uh page 59 of the budget book covers uh the police account and that's budget number 240 and before we begin you know I'm going to say these operation budgets are are not not fat with things that the police department does not need you know for a police department or size um the budget the operations budget is coming in at 30 329,000 364,000 that's only a64 of a percent increase um you know from from last year so the chief did an excellent job uh with you know keeping cost pretty much as is there are a couple sub accounts that I'll let him explain where you will see increases uh from the previous year of one is for 18,000 that's sub account 250 and that's really the highest one and is a very good reason for that which the chief will explain but for the most part again his budget remained flat uh this is not a big operations budget for the size of the police department uh so Chief can you go over uh sub account 250 and the reason for that $118,000 increase yes sir um the Attorney General's uh has a guideline that mandates the department through a inventory full audit of our property function upon the retirement of the chief um we were required to do that after the retirement of uh Chief Glenn ory uh we pushed it off from last year until this year this coming year um we're up for reaccreditation in 2025 and we'll have to have it done by then so that's why we were doing it this year it's an extensive timec consuming project uh requires several of our people to work with a professional Outside Agency and the outside agency that we're using or that we're recommending to use is property room Consulting who we've used in the past they're familiar with our property function um they've helped with the purge in the past with us so uh it's makes for a very uh efficient program process with us but is expensive because it is timec consuming and the cost I believe is $20,000 for that okay and one of the uh other things I want to cover is is Staffing So currently police department has 94 sworn officers the authorized strength is 97 uh I have put a temporary hiring freeze uh on this budget uh to um keep costs down to give Council an idea of what it would cost to bring back the three officers uh say July 1st half a year we'd have to put an additional 67,2 in the salary budget uh that 67,0 725 that does not include pension cost that does not include uh health care costs uh what I also had to do is remove that would be a half a year's salary for three for three off uh what I also had to remove was the the SOS that we intended to do Park Rangers and that was the purpose for that was for them to patrol our Parks we had a number of vandalism cases in our Parks especially the uh bathroom facility at vot Park spray painting breaking of the toilets and hiring slo1 special law enforcement officer On's would give us a little bit of U some additional resources to patrol our parks on a on a daily basis so uh that was removed and um to put the four back in there for half a year would run us about $67,200 dollar uh so that just gives you an idea that's about 10 whatever it comes out to 134,000 and change to uh add the three police officers and the four sleo officers into the 2024 budget again that does not include health benefits for the police Andor pension benefits that the town has to contribute to these SOS uh are not covered under under health and not covered under actually they would be covered under the defined contribution retirement plan but that's an inconsequential amount that the town would have to would have to contribute the other thing I wanted to bring up is overtime uh again as I mentioned in my presentation we have not increased overtime uh the overtime amount for the police department since 2017 it's currently at 600,000 uh last year uh the police department expended $696,000 overtime uh the good news uh of that is that uh about 96,000 uh in that area uh we uh we received reimbursements from various grants and uh some other municipalities where we participated in events for them that reimburse us Chief you just want to explain a few of those yes uh Richfield Park is one of those towns uh we provide officers for overtime um when they do the fireworks display on Fourth of July um we also have uh I think it was the uh SWAT team that we have officers on as part of for the county reimburses the uh the town we also have um reimbursements from DEA and HSI where we have officers on loan to task forces so and also there's grants for Traffic Safety pedestrian safety that we do um that we get reimbursed from the state so altogether it adds up to about $98,000 in reimbursements to the town okay and so that everyone is aware since um October 7 the police department has incurred 31,8 for overtime for the various uh expenses related to demonstrations uh car Caravans and so far in 2024 uh the police department has expended $68,400 in overtime uh for the various demonstrations that we've had to had to staff that comes to just a little bit under $100,000 for that uh four or five month period of time in overtime so um again we have not increased overtime at all from $600,000 that dates back to 2017 as I mentioned the hourly rates do go up and so uh again it's a testament to the leadership at the police department that you know they're doing the best they can with the Staffing they have to kind of curtail and keep overtime to what to what is budgeted so again it's not a fat budget um I think uh the chief for the most part has uh what he needs in this budget and just for Capital purposes uh to help out with this budget some of the items that the chief had asked for uh were going to pull from uh Municipal forfeiture uh at no cost to the town however in capital there is5 I think $45,000 in there for the purchase of police cars that are desperately needed and also correct me from wrong you need the uh insulation for the range I think that is about $45,000 in that area sir yes so those are the those would be the two items that the police are requesting for capital for 2024 so that that's that's really really it for me so the radios R we have them in 2025 Andy we're going to put money in 2025 but I'm hoping that uh we can get the Federal grant for that as well to help contribute so what the police department wants to do is we have a very outdated VHF uh High uh frequency for police dispatch and radios uh we really want to go on the county infrastructure and uh to replace everything we need to replace would be about $1.2 million so um it's not something that can be done this year uh the idea was to apply for Grants this year to see if we can find money for that uh I've spoken to the county one of one of the problems is in order to go on the county infrastructure uh radio infrastructure uh they also want the municipalities to join 911 and obviously we're not going to do that uh we just finished our 911 paap Center I think 911 keeping 911 here is uh very beneficial to the town our dispatchers no T neck there is no delay and the calls going back and forth when received they're generally routed to Mawa then they come here so we don't want that so I'm trying to work with with the county to see if they would be amable to uh allowing us to go onto their infrastructure radio infrastructure at at no cost or minimal cost so I'm working on that uh but there you know there is a push that they want us to go on near 911 which we don't want to want to do and the radios that we're requesting are dual band that would work with our existing system um and also would work on digital so that we could communicate with other towns if we needed to um you know the existing system would possibly be used by Tac if we were to go to digital um but it would give us the ability to work with both I I do have I do have I'm sorry I do have the 1.2 million in capital for 2025 in a six-year Capital plan can I just ask a question about the radio um is that just replacing the headquarters or is that also replacing the repeaters that are around town and adding additional where needed needed and also I was going to ask how it relates to Tac and their radios um so recently we had our system um evaluated between goo toown and uh the DPW Larry Robertson was involved with it as well they did assess of our whole system to see what could we do to just improve what we have already and they did make several minor improvements uh there were wires that need to be replaced that were burned out there was repeaters that needed uh updating um but again we still need work on our system uh we doing those improvements those have been done those have been done will those improvement work with the new Switch this is the one what is your frequency 15582 or 159 6205 100 I wasn't sure one of one of those yes sir we got the5 oh that's the Peter okay um so the digital system would be just flexing by the way I see that just yeah um yeah so this would be separate from that system it would be this the infrastructure that the county has in place that several towns have already gone to um it's the clarity of the communications is much different than what we're working on right now the range is tremendous the distance you can go and still receive not that that always is necessary but it does come up occasionally no I just hear that we need to put repeaters in Holy Name Hospital that's all I keep hearing from people right because as soon as you walk through those doors it's a dead zone yeah we we've worked on several different locations and you know it wasn't too long ago we had a problem over on um the west side of town with the repeater that went there was a line that had to be replaced across the tracks um so there's been several issues with it but this would be SE from that system working on the C's system that's already in place again several times I know bot is using it they Rave about how well it works and again Leon as well the the chief Tom my Deputy manager also went over to when he was in Leona to the the county um I have a couple of questions go ahead thanks Mr Mayor um just wanted to ask one question first I know circling back to what de is saying about um sworn officers authorized strength did the 67,000 include the pre-employment screening decrease that came out or would that have to go back in if more officers were included I think oh pre-employ employment screening went down 30,000 in this budget so I just want to know if there was additional officers added does that go back in or is that factored into that number already so we have almost 11,000 in the budget that would remain so that should cover if we did hire the three officers that should cover the pre-screening psychological and medical whatever is needed I believe that was the count four people so that my my second question goes to overtime um my first question is in normal periods how much of the overtime is is during a shift change do we do we calculate that like do we ever see that like I know shift I mean it's Emergency Services generally so do we know is if a significant amount of that overtime is because of a shift change or a planned event or or do we know I'm just curious a shift change I'm not sure what you mean by so like if there if officers are you know ending their shift and they're at of scene that you know they're they're staying obviously and then there's overtime is how much of do we know on an average year is that is it because there shift's ending and there's an there's an emergency or or is there just trying to get a sense of where the in normal times I know over time police is is always higher than the budget I'm just trying to get a sense of what that's usually allocated as a result of so that does occur obviously um I think that would be incremental compared to the overall amount of overtime that's incurred I think the majority of it comes from shortages um this past year we were very short on uh dispatchers we were short in Patrol we were down in the 80s on Staffing um and in order to try and keep different positions throughout the bureaus uh staffed and to get people trained by people that are uh senior while they're still senior we were losing several people in our Bureau to Promotions um the the sergeant exam that came out about a year or so ago um several of the top people on that list were all members of our detective Bureau that were the experienced Personnel those are the ones that would train new people coming into the bureau so we had a balance of bringing people into the bureau um running a short and Patrol and covering those shortages with Bureau Personnel um it it really required a lot of juggling around and people all pitching in in order to get training done and yet minimize the overtime incurred but uh shortages in Staffing is really the majority of it because you're talking about a 12 hour block of overtime when we're short by one person you know two people that'd be obviously 24 right there somebody staying over uh an hour two hours here or there it happens but it's really I don't think would be much of our overtime budget and just remember uh councilwoman all the different events at the police staff uh Teck day uh we probably have 20 plus officers working there overtime for five six seven hours you have Memorial Day um Fourth of July and there's many other unforeseen events that take place whether they're weather related so that's all uh contained in the chief's overtime budget so since the overtime has been budgeted flat but we've gone over is your does it make sense to stay knowing that we're going to go over like what's your opinion on the overtime budget um since it hasn't been increased since 2017 I don't think the overtime budget has increased since I've been here I think it's been 600,000 for 30 years so that's what I'm asking do you is that do you think that it should be like I'm trying to get a sense of what your opinion is on that to maintain that whether it is there something that we can do to maintain that cost to keep it down or is it just too low right now we're not being realistic I just wanted to get your opinion on that uh I think with our staffing levels the way it was last year and the fact that now we are getting closer to full staff the closer we get to fully staffed uh it should help us manage the overtime even better it's shortages that cause that overtime um last year we did take steps to manage it and I think we did a pretty good job of that at keeping it under pretty much 600,000 uh we were under the budget when you take into account all the reimbursements so I I think we should be able to work all right with it especially if we get uh we are fully staffed with dispatchers right now um we're close to full Staffing in Patrol and it gives us the ability to do the different functions and minimize overtime at the same time um two more questions sorry to and then I'll pass it on um parking enforcement do we have sufficient parking enforcement in your opinion do we think that we need more I mean I hear all sorts of complaints about Cedar Lane parking and what what's your for double parking whatever triple parking pickup parking um what's do we have a sufficient Staffing in that department what's your take there presently we have one parking enforcement officer uh we had two earlier in the year one left um for other employment uh over the year spoke with the manager and we do feel that three parking enforcement officers would be optimal uh being the level of complaints that we have for different areas especially with the double parking in the business districts um again it would be ideal to have the three we need to come up with vehicles for the three we've been trying uh for a while to get vehicles for parking enforcement but we're working with the purchasing department to do what we can with that we have uh three vehicles out to bid I think right now um but if we can get to three uh it's definitely uh productive I think and we definitely could use them okay yeah because that's just I mean we all hear about parking and I think that's an important piece um I don't know if this is the right place so Dean if it's not correct me do crossing guards fall under you or no uh no it's um through a contract with all cities the police department uh used to have control of school crossing guards traffic Bureau basically ran that program for all the school post and then e of correct wrong two or three years ago we transitioned to all cities and you know one one of well one of sever reason we did it for is that whenever school crossing guard called in sick didn't show up and that happened quite often the police department would have to take an officer either on overtime or off the road to handle that school post for the entire duration of the day uh we had other issues with um doing the school foring guards through tenek Unemployment workers comp so uh transitioning it to a a company relieved us of those duties they are responsible whenever someone calls in sick for finding a replacement I think uh for the most part we haven't had any issues problems with any of the posts I think they've done a good job all cities I think they're one of the only games in town as well uh unfortunately uh but they do handle uh many different towns they took over the school crossing guards that were originally employed by tenek um so really nobody lost their job I think they all got a slight increase in pay as well so I think everyone was was happy with that but I think the program is going very well yeah no the reason I'm I'm asking is because I see the there's a $100,000 increase for it this year so I just try to I want to ask at the right place so that's why I'm asking if why it's going up $100,000 there so the first I at the bud for crossing guards it's I can't hear here's my mic e i here sorry so so um so the purchasing agent I you know review the budget in December the contract is actually pro-rated for crossing guards because we're a calendar year the school is more of a state fiscal year from September really to August um we have to do some math right now their contract comes in pro rated at 48,000 there was a request from the manager to me uh late last year to add another post and also we have to keep in mind that you can only award their contract to them once to maybe twice uh once if not every year if not every other year we were able to do a renewal last year and this year is up for rebid we also dealing with the economic factor that they're the only game in town is the manager just mentioned so we feel that 420 is adequate but again they came in at 408 right off the bat as an estimate so it's something that's out of our control when the manager and I looked at this with the warmer Chief in 2020 2021 you know it's it's really an iceberg you know you think the cost is exorbitantly high but when you compare to hackin sack who pay 750,000 and I don't even know if I don't believe that's an outsourc outsourced service you have to keep in mind when a crossing guard doesn't show up the chief and his staff have to scramble with potentially a $65 to $80 an hour police officer to hold up a sign I'm not denigrating that but they're helping students cross the street for an hour and a half they're not writing tickets they're not responding to calls so there is a missed opportunity there that you can have the individual back on the road and really it's a matter of uh threshold for lack of better expression but for right now we feel this is still worth it and so that's the reason for the increase okay um I think I'm okay right this second if I have another question I'll jump in but I'll let someone else Mr oh wait sorry Deputy Mayor G had her hand up then I'll call on you Mark if that's okay no a problem there in 10 minutes anyways thank you um I was just curious when you talked about the parking enforcement vehicles have you ever looked into those smaller golf cart like vehicles I don't know if they would be cheaper um what we're looking at is is um the Ford Bronco Sports the smaller Bronco um we were looking around last year to try and find a vehicle in short time we were looking at what was available and uh it also has four-wheel drive so in the winter it's a little more efficient we can multi-purpose it um so that's what we were looking at we we presently are out to bid with those U we've looked at different options but you know around here obviously Northeast you have to take into account the weather conditions Summers winter um so that's what we came up with let me just see if Mr Schwarz Mr Schwarz are you there sir I am I am sorry about that guys I apologize I'm a little bit of traffic from Brooklyn I'll be there in 10 minutes um Mr Chief um two questions if I may one first of all as it relates to cars we used to always you know pass the first line to the second line the detectives into traffic enforcement DPW are there's no Ed cars or you're saying the used cars are so beat up that we need to spend the money on brand new cars for the parking enforcement uh yeah we're we're just short on vehicles all around we haven't been able to get cars uh the last batch of cars we got we put in for eight we were only able to get seven it took about a year and a half for them to arrive um got it guys so it's the the co issue with car that that's the issue not the long-term issue just because of availability yes and and a lot of the vehicles that do get older in age and less reliable are used say for the off-duty traffic de the extra Duty details um so we do use them we use some vehicles for ghost cars that we call them when you put it outside somewhere as a security sure um thank you know in the ghost cars that we started a few years ago where we specifically asked you not to sell them but to use them for this is excellent it really it makes a phenomenal difference and by the way just like a officer on a crossing guard Patrol it actually is great safety for that for many reasons that said what from a from a dispatcher point of view I know we always a short I know you're trying to do a push and hiring what would you think we spend on officers at the desk dispatch and not on the road because of the shortage like you think that's 100 Grand 200 Grand and that's question number one two remind me what's the starting salary that or the per DM that we're offering dispatchers uh well first to put a number on officers at the disc um I really don't want to estimate it's it would be a pretty substantial number there's a significant amount of time that officers are working dispatch positions um something i' I've been going over with the captain as an idea and I've mentioned to the manager is the possibility of trying to hire four additional dispatchers presently we work with two dispatchers uh per shift and if a dispatcher calls out sick uh we have to cover it with an officer um if we go with three dispatchers per shift allowing one dispatcher off per shift it and separate dispatch from Patrol allow you know we would try and use just dispatchers to fill the dispatch opening it would be a more economical way of keeping more officers on the road um again you know using the different functions we want to use our officers to their best ability and they're you know supposed to be on the road as much as possible putting a number on that would be very difficult and mark the salary for Public Safety telecommunicators they're not per DM uh you know starting salary for them I believe is about 55,000 and that includes um health benefits and of course uh enrollment into the Public Employee Retirement system got so you're not offering any shift work like uh you know $30 an hour you all a sudden we we can we we've discussed that a little bit and I think some of the difficulties Chief I don't know if you want to explain the difficulties of trying to get last minute fillings or psds um it's it's shifts everybody's working different shifts uh to try and get them to come in when a lot of them have second jobs different uh commitments uh shorttime calling people in is is always difficult one of the problems we have also is is the salaries for our dispatchers are lower for the uh general area uh that's one of the reasons we lost several dispatchers this year um it's unfortunate that we're becoming kind of a training ground for people to get their experience and then move elsewhere where they can make more money um I think our dispatchers do a tremendous job they're great uh D costell who's been here longer than I have trains them gives them the 911 certifications the EMD and um you know working in t t is a great experience for them uh it's a busy town they learn how to do the job right our supervisors oversee it uh make the corrections that need to so uh you know for a dispatcher from T to apply elsewhere I I think it's a very attractive position for a department to pick them up especially if they're paying more money so that's something that you know I think if we could try and increase their salaries a little bit to be at least competitive with the rest of the county it would help with our retention but we had a major overturn of Dispatchers in the past year and a half uh presently we're at full staff um and if possible as a as an option we may explore going forward is the additional four dispatchers as an idea to separate dispatch from Patrol and have our Patrol officers doing Patrol work only um that makes perfect sense thank you you good Mr Schwarz I'm good thank you very much guys miss beler go ahead sorry thank you for uh for your presentation tonight um I just wanted to ask you about sub account 220 where it speaks about training but it also has quite a bit of um dues and so forth I see an increase of about 7.9% um in terms of what was actual versus what was uh what was adopted versus what was spent and I'm just simply Wonder wondering is it uh speaking of training would you say that um you you feel that your your officers are U receiving adequate training do you see a need to to increase that or um are you the actual like for instance sensitivity training is that a line item somewhere else or is it born by some other entity so that as your officers are coming um and be receiving training is it inherent in subac account 220 or is it uh is it uh seen elsewhere so there's certain mandatory training that we take every year um and with this year with the new licensing process um it used to be done through a certain program now now it's done through the state the PTC has a system now that all the uh mandatory training will be done there like our use of force Pursuit training um it's all going to be through their system and tracked by them um this training budget which was $115,000 for a long time it wasn't until I think last year that we increased it to 20 um what we're seeing is uh every class is costing a lot of money now it used to be that there was a lot of free classes given up at the Bergen County Academy for County uh off from the county even the classes that are being given up there now are costing $2 $300 $400 for a two-day class for one officer it's unbelievable what it's costing us to train people and obviously as most people have seen in the paper there was a big debacle about a particular training group that was giving training that was not U that was controversial and brought a lot of attention to police training and Statewide so now there's a lot more scrutiny going into the classes um there's fewer classes after covid there was very few uh training opportunities out there at all and that's kind of how that group came into where they were because nobody was giving out giving classes and they were like the only game in town again where officers could go to get some kind of training in all different aspects of law enforcement um so unfortunately with the cost of all these classes going up as much as they have uh I don't know if that 20,000 will be sufficient um we do encourage training especially with our newer officers um we do scrutinize the training to the degree of how applicable it is to the individual so when someone gets a special assignment into the detective Bureau we want them to go to training for interview and interrogation preparing search warrants uh skills that are applicable to that position um as opposed to someone putting in for that might not be using those particular skills in their current assignment you know we do try to encourage training that would help broaden an individual's um resume but again it has to be knowledged that is applicable to them especially at the cost of what it is for us thank you anybody else have any questions for our chief M Mr Mayor oh sorry go ahead Miss organ um so I understand the budgetary reasons for the delayed hirings or the hiring freeze um do you think short of full staff the department can continue to operate um with all these events uh assuming that they continue going forward with the Manpower that you have um with the overtime budget but also with burnout to the officers who are there without coming up I I just want to be realistic and know that we're giving the officers that um we're requesting to come in on holidays and weekends and work over time um that we're not you know we're factoring burnout into the budget um I don't know if you can put a price tag on burnout honestly um you know we we take the mental well-being of our officers very seriously the resiliency that we we speak about all the time with the manager um we have resilient officers we have supervisors that are part of our resiliency program Reverend ma is a big part of that for us um but you can't put a price tag on it um over time it's cumulative it builds up on people it affects morale tremendously and Staffing wise um you know the closer we get to full staff the less people get ordered to work and that's just one way that you chip away at you know keeping that morale High the more people get ordered to do something that you know they didn't plan to um it just kind of be you know builds up over time so the closer we are getting yes it will help us um additional Personnel obviously would always be nice I can always find more stuff to do I mean our department does more now than it did five years ago than it did 10 years ago we have functions that we have to perform now that just didn't exist before body cameras we have to do body camera redaction footage we deal with Oprah um there's just you know a lot of different functions that we're doing now that didn't exist before training mandated training from the state every year they just add more and more and more that we have to take care of and find time to do it a lot of times that training has to be done with officers that are in Patrol that we have to Now cover their spots with other officers and it might cause overtime um but again if we get back to the full Staffing I think it would help us um tremendously and at least knowing that we have people there um for these large events having to order everybody in um you know it's not something I want to do especially if it's on holidays um you know but we do our job and you know we have other resources that we draw upon I I don't want to keep going back to those Wells too often you know uh I'm sure everybody's aware of some of the county resources we have between the rdt from the prosecutor's office and the rdf from the Bergen County Chiefs Police Association um and those depart those functions are filled by officers from different departments across the county and when they're called out on overtime that overtime is incur is uh paid for by their individual departments so again that's a well I don't want to keep having to go back to if I don't have to um so yeah I know I get it something we'll consider and then just a silly question about parking enforcement can't we have two shifts of them and have one work s to three and one work 3 to 11 and share the same car I don't well that's yes that's what we were looking to do when we were talking about having three parking enforcement officers we were looking at two for the day and one in the evening okay um and we were looking at doing the three cars the daytime is when the majority of your parking issues would be but the evening also around Rush Hour um especially in the business districts but um between the traffic Bureau and the we were looking at the SOS for the parks we thought the three vehicles would be be a good start for that okay thanks so much for everything you do thank you Miss Goldberg I think you wanted to say something else yeah I had one more question um I just want to understand if this is being used still or not so between sub account 271 and 210 there's um some PPE and special vehicle disinfectant and the drum cost that were tied to covid are those still being used where where are we with those uh look last year we didn't spend it at all so I'm just trying to understand if those are still there or are they savings that we can pull out uh we were keeping that in there just again um you know it was unpredictable as to whether or not we were going to deal with another issue with covid if covid spikes again we wanted to be prepared we wanted to have it in the budget to be able to get the disinfectant uh we were using that disinfectant initially with Co for us the ambulance Corps uh I think maybe the fire department might have used it as well um so we were keeping it in there at least for the time being okay I just wanted to understand why I was in there thank you and thank you for everything that you've done also all of you anybody else on Council no thank you Chief we appreciate you I I just wanted to I wanted to personally thank the police department I haven't had the opportunity uh to to to say what a phenomenal job you and everybody on your team has been doing especially the last couple of weeks or months um you know real professional um and uh really exceptional so thank you very much we do appreciate it thank you sir and and I also want to send the message and this is very important because over the years people misconstrued messages you know the council's position is is to try to do what's best for the police department and all departments but at the same time try to find strike the balance to make sure that our residents can continue to afford to live here and and when we take money from one area it's not a reflection on the fact that you're doing a poor job or that we don't appreciate you it's really just an attempt to try to balance it so that our residents can continue to afford deliver and and Miss Chen I I never got a chance to really speak to you either but I'm I'm hearing unbelievable things about you and so keep it up whatever it is you're doing you know council member Oregon can't stop talking about you I think she's got a big poster of your of you at her house so all the time yeah yeah you know but that's that's very important to you and all the Departments that that's the message that when we sit here fighting about you know taking away overtime or taking away a police car or taking away a fire truck or you know removing whatever is it's not a reflection on on your hard work and dedication it's really are grappling and fighting to try to find the right balance especially this year when many residents already got hit with this revaluation increase and now they're looking at this and they're looking at the Board of Ed and that heard Rumor Has County's going up L the end of the day we want to make sure that our residents can continue to afford to live in this town and then and enjoy the wonderful services so I appreciate thank you thank you thank you Chief next up is the fire department right Dean yep just add three other comments about the police department with the telecommunicator the uh the police dispatchers they have nine total steps marked and uh there you know it's the minimum then there's seven in between then a maximum right now the max goes up to 65,000 so one of the things we can do is make sure that we're starting new dispatchers at one of the maybe middle to Upper steps uh if needed so that's more of a I guess um competitive salary yeah I I think it's money I think if we um any money we spend on a dispatcher will not be equivalent to how much we spend on a police officer and more often than not maybe not right the second every time you call the front desk it's officer so and so picking up the phone so it's it's what we do at the fire department it's simple math so if we can increase it we'll actually probably save money and we are at full staff with telecommunicators so we do have nine yep the other yep the yeah sorry tomorrow's another day the other thing I wanted to bring up with the police officer you know it it's a good nine months before that officer is actually on the road by himself or herself uh the next Academy class if we did put these back in would take place uh in July uh so it's six months at the training academy that's followed by three months of field training so they're not uh by themselves for a good uh for a good nine months um again just to touch on the interest in law enforcement and a chief and I spoke about this the next law enforcement exam you know we have to make a better conserved effort to get that word out whether it's through we did a video on the pass uh posters Flyers we have to the schools the college we really have to brand ourselves I think a little bit better because the last exam only yielded n uh nine uh te residents the one before that I think was 14 or 16 something like that so you know we have uh an ordinance that requires residency so when we exhaust the Teck residents which we do very quickly for various reasons you know we transition to buron County so it could be getting someone uh that lives in Northvale someone that lives in whiteo park rdge and you know the I think the theme of what we want here is try to get corers that know the town live here um even though they can move out after a year but are vested in this community here in kek and truly represent um our diversity so Dean if you increase the age I'll apply oh you had you had your opportunity I passed on it I know and and the and the last uh the last comment uh was you know we up the table of organization I believe it was three years two or three years ago from 995 to 97 the purpose of that I I put those two extra spots in there to increase community policing you know the programs that the police department do on community policing are so important uh to the municipality to the residents to the uh to the Youth of Teek and I really wanted to get back to running some of the programs we were unable to do for many years CP used to have a lieutenant six officers I I think we had a staffing of well over a hundred back then uh now CP has two Chief has has two so again I would love to you know add those two to CP but unfortunately due to retirements and the chief and I were just joking about this the other day they're up to the next badge will be badge number 400 so we've lost a considerable amount of officers over the last two or three years probably 40% I would suspect give us an example what was your badge we want to we want to have a frame of reference 204 okay not bad so um but the chief um 241 so um no one n 193 yeah yep so that's a lot of turnover yeah it's a big turnover and it was very difficult to try to keep our staffing numbers up it wasn't from lack of us not wanting to do it it was just because so many people were leaving people didn't want the job anymore yeah Dean quick question question didn't a lot of that happen during the pandemic because a lot of our officers started between 1990 and 1994 we lost yes we lost a lot around that time uh you know just you know these were coveted jobs that people would not leave but we're finding officers just picking up and and going or going to a different department we just had an officer that left us come back to us actually C so um the grass not always greener and U it's a good place to work it's a good town we do things the right way I have the utmost confidence and in the police department not because they work there and manag here I'm telling you we do things the right way here that we're a lot different than some other towns and you know how we handle the uh the big demonstrations events you know we have fortunately or unfortunately we have a lot of experience doing that and we do things the right way with respect restraint and may not be what everyone wants but again um we we do things appropriately proud of the police department how they how they p today so I think we're in good shape we'll get to where we need to get to whether it's this year or next year if we do decide to put them in again keep in mind they're not going to be on their own until um April of 2025 so um they're not really going to be too much of a a help this quick question uh Dean I have is um is that moratorium on uh you know no hiring that's going to stay in effect until a year or would well the the plan would be that you know come January that uh we'll be able to hire you know we'll have to through the temporary budget make sure that we include uh the hirings of the new police officers firefighters and any other Municipal position that we need you know and that's why again this budget's tough if you know you go back to hiring uh three or four police officers in January three or four firefighters in January you're paying them the full salary and you have to budget their full salary in 2024 not not Happ a year so next year we'll be tough as well uh but we would we could do that in January as long as we put that in the temporary budget thank you do we have anticipated retirements this year um sorry I know you just sat down there's no one under 30 on the force no we do have several people who could retire um and like the manager highlighted uh it is at least a nine Monon window from when we decide we want to hire somebody to when we can have them on the Road you know the the academy runs twice a year there's a July class and a January class so if we wait it's 6 months before we can put somebody in the academy again at six months short however many people retire uh and we do have less and less people to pick from through uh the process like like the manager mentioned there's so few people putting in we try to emphasize residents from Teek you know we like to have people who know the town who grown up here and um and just know the way T operates it's just SP beneficial to everybody all around putting off the process puts us behind I think we might is it 11 or 14 people I think that could retire this year if they wanted to and part of the reason that we had the Big T over the last couple years is back when I got hired was during a big uh uh turnover in the state they offered an a benefit to early buyouts uh 20 if you had 20 years back then uh they'd give you the state would give you five right so from 1993 for a couple years there was a a turnover in police fire Services now here we come 25 to 30 years later all those people that got hired back then or all retiring that's why we have such a big turnover now but putting off this process every is you're pushing it back six months and then maybe another six months to start it and then you're looking nine months later for that person to be on the road where they count to replace somebody that retired today and it's it's a difficult process we do two steps forward one step back every time and you know getting up to 90 four is great but we've been trying to get here for the last several years um you know there's different requirements at the Academy there's the physical assessment that they put in place that was brand new about a year year and a half ago we sent nine people up there we had four people pass it so we tried to get close to 97 with that nine with those nine people we only got four and then the next class we only got a couple in and it's just difficult so uh we try to keep hiring when we can you know we have that 97 number we want to try and get there I think if we slow down and don't try and put in people when we can we're going to go back to where we just kind of fall back into the 80s very quickly just due to Natural attrition um retirements transfers whatever might come up okay thank you thank you Chief all right fire chief burto Lieutenant anillo you coming up or you uh he's gonna sit here in case we need any help he's my backup all right so for the fire budget that's H page number 84 in your budget book and it's account number 265 just to go over a couple quick things uh with the fire department their operational budget again is is not fat and loaded with things uh in 20 uh 23 we adopted $370,000 a little over 370,000 uh there is an increase of 41,000 this year the chief will go over why and some of the reasons why there is really a mandatory increase so in in 2024 I'm requesting from Council $411,900 and another increase of 25,000 and chief I'll let you go over those two accounts yes but if you do if I don't mind to derail um everybody here I got a PSA announcement so I don't know if anybody's been watching television lately but there's now an infomercial on fire blankets so we received an abundance of calls have you seen the fire blankets so instead of buying a fire extinguish you grab this fire blank in your kitchen you throw it over the stove that's the infomercial it's on all different kinds of channels we're getting a lot of inquiries about it so just some public information about it it's not a bad device however again I always remind everybody call the fire department first second of all make sure your house is evacuated and everybody is out the house and taking care of before you go ahead and take any attempt to do any type of Fire Safety Action and then if you're going to use your extinguisher fine know how to use the extinguisher have practiced have planned and know that is an ey nose and IR irritant and you could end up with asthma or some other ailment because you're doing inside of a structure with the blankets the same thing you're gra they show you grabbing this blanket off and they show you throwing it over a pot on the stove the problem is first you got to shut the device off and then second we got to be careful because as you throw this blanket over there which is supposed to smother depending on what you're wearing you could catch yourself on fire so again can't stress it enough have working smoke detectors outside of every spot in your house um call the fire department first escape the house and let us come do it within three to five minutes all right back to your budget 221 joe2 sub account that's on page 88 and that's one of the uh accounts where you will see um an increase of 42,500 from the previous uh previous year so part of this budget is basically um not only fire service equipment but also our is this our computerated dispatch that something no that's an office the special projects this is a special project so with equipment when we do go ahead and for example we were able to order the engine uh just before the end of the year and as as we know every quarter the price of apparatus is going up anywhere from four to 6% um we are in the process of ordering the lad you should be getting that for the April 2nd meeting thank you for both of that um with that we those vehicles are coming and not equipped meaning no equipment on them so we have to make up the equipment somehow um in the previous um couple years when we bought the two engines together we sold a rescue truck for 125,000 which supplemented some of the equipment so throughout the year and that's why I brought Lieutenant nil with me to show you some of the equipment that you know has a life expectancy of 10 years based on what it does how we use it how much it gets used and it has to be replaced it has to be maintained it has to be upgraded cuz at some point it just no longer functions I mean we try to keep stuff 10 20 even sometimes 30 years like our one engine is 30 years old and we try to what it's all 30 years old okay uh the National Standard is 10 years of Frontline service and another 10 years of secondary service um so that stuff has to be replaced and at some point that stuff unfortunately is very expensive if you're looking at an air pack right here the cost of an air pack for one individual to wear one air pack that's almost $10,000 and the cylinder itself only has the life expectancy again not our wishes uh Federal Regulations of the 10 years uh the SCBA face piece to the front which we were able to get some on the uh that that grant that the uh Governor last year put into play and which we're again using this year they're $5500 just for that face piece of loan as you know we got the radio grant that saved the town a huge amount of money that portable is $10,000 each your bunker pants of Bunker coats which you see later on is another big cost in this budget every year because again when you hire a new hire you have to replace bunker gear bunker pants and just coat and that's just the coat and the pants not all the other accessories you're looking at $6,000 and it has a life expectancy of only about seven years yes thermal the thermal imaging camera which we again we were able to get off of that Grant last year they're about $7,000 a piece so we as much as we can we try to get our equipment out of Grants or when we purchase something like an apparatus we try to put some of that money a little bit more into the purchase of the equipment so that I can actually come with equipment on it and not try to actually have to PE maill it later on so did that answer that a question CH I know John John you serve on one of the before we get into the other part of the budget uh what unit do you serve on where you travel in case there a catastrophic so John is also on the Lieutenant's on the New Jersey task force and whenever there's a catastrophic event anywhere in the country you know he can be called out to to duty specially trained and we appreciate his service with that the advantage to that is he is our special ops trainer so we save a ton of money every year by having him training retraining our members on the training that the state is paying for him for free Something Something Free from the state you said yes oh okay we try to beg borrow and steal in my department all right and then 246 uh Chief and that's on on my book it's on page 90 and that covers Shar dispatch services so um we just recently resigned that agreement with the city of hackin saac we are still moving towards trying to move dispatch to hackin act it's been a slow and long process uh some of the derailments over the years was the uh lack of capital funding for the fiberlink the fiberlink is now up uh we are still having some minor Communications with their Dispatch Center receiving the signals from tck uh some of the delay is our wiring a lot of the wiring inhouse is done by the DPW um oh and I wanted to thank the Garden Club because every year they give us flowers for our firehouses I can't thank them enough so um yeah so the DBW provides the electricians which then provides the wiring which cuts down your C but then also creates a delay in us moving to Hack and Sack we are 3/4 of the way there um the computer system the cad system that you purchased several years ago which is under office maintenance 2113 that's the $20,000 that's the cad system in the cloud that covers all our Cad and record management that allows them to see and dispatch our runs on the same computer system we're all the same we share system um so we do have some more wiring that still has to go into place and take take effect and we are we again we always shoot at a six-month window we are shooting for July of a six-month window to actually physically move there um provided or barring any unusual hiccups which in the last couple years we've had some which have delayed the process the good Pro the good thing at the end of the day you will gain four new firefighters on the apparatus one each shift um so that'll increase your Staffing by 4 they will no longer be on a desk uh doing the dispatch 14 that's that's that's excellent excellent news um one of the other things I wanted to cover before I go back to your Ops budget is just for Capital purposes uh we have two items in 2024 Capital Improvement for the fire department uh one is 200,000 that's for the additional funds for the ladder truck and and chief would you just explain the need for that okay so um we had to use the additional funds for the engine to get the ladder the ladder came in was going to come in just over two um I believe I said last year at the 1.8 we knew that was not going to be enough when you when you eventually awarded that and of course the increases definitely showed that the other problem we're going to have and we may have to ask for more money is we understand that the motor in the each of those two vehicles which cost $212,900 will no longer be made by the Cummings manufacturer and yet the Cummings manufacturer will not tell anybody including their dealers and people that are buying and selling fire trucks what the new cost of the motor is So currently you're you have baked into the cost of those two vehicles that price of the 212 950 but you don't know how much more that's going to rise so at some point I may have to ask you for additional funding because it'll be Our obligation to pay for that new energy efficient uh environmentally friendly motor the X15 that Cummings will eventually come out with and we won't have a price to that till sometime end of 25 uh those two fir trucks you will not see till probably end of 26 anyway so we do have some Capital eway next year and the following year on that now this 200,000 is not needed in 2024 it can be uh put into 2025 Capital it could yes for it's going to be for the equipment for both the engine and the ladder truck okay that's an option just for Council if that's the route you wanted to go there's 22024 Capital right now um we can take take that out if needed but it's only a $10,000 impact to our overall budget because we only have to put 5% down for Capital items uh and the other thing Chief is the fiber optic project which is 300,000 just explain again the need for the money okay so currently we were just it just cost us 550,000 which we as Isa will tell you we beg barred and steal from multiple different count capital accounts over multiple different years and some of our operating budget to run a fire line from the T fire headquarters all the way to the city of hackin it's one way um there is also baked into the our proposed budget this year somewhere along a fee that we're going to have to maintain that fiber line in case that fiber line goes down we lose all our Communications so we do have some backups and contingency in place as far as our desk area goes we will immediately bring in somebody on overtime we'll be able to staff and receive our calls and runs but that going across until the hack that guy they can send somebody over to man our desk but there that's not your concern per se uh back to that fiber run though is that's how all our Communications are going how those game wall boxes that you see around town our fire alarm system our radio communications all travel via that so one way one line you know if a car hits a pole and we tried to keep it off Route four as much as possible it does have to jump on Route four to get over the river by um by fdu and then go back that severage your fiber optic line so ideally the FCC recommendation is to have two runs now the 300 is not going to get us the second run immediately but over time we would eventually build up enough money that we would have a secondary Loop so should the primary Loop ever got hit car takes out the pole what have you you would still have that means of communications all right thank you you so with the fire budget again s can I just understand the fiber part what is the fiber exactly for the fiber takes all our radios in TX and moves them to hacken sack but why not why are we not doing that over um digital like we just talked about with the with the police department a little bit ago why running fiber lines well if you want to do that then we're going to have to propose a complete radio upgrade so our current radio system is VHF system so want want me to tell you the frequency number number that is that is8 I got it I got it so all our so as you know we have a primary dispatch tannel it dispatches attin high school and we have satellite receivers all over town they are all currently plumbed or wired into fire headquarters so that if you're talking on a portable down in glenpoint it can be heard up in the desk area so that information then is captured in EK and sent via fiber all the way over to hackin sack the only other way to do it would be a fiber uh satellite microwave link the other thing that it does microwave link would avoid the F the first fiber line as well correct meaning that would that would accomplish your you're looking for three fiber lines or two fi no I would need two separate uh two sep micro links not by the way this is not my field of expertise the problem with that is if anybody builds a building in between it you better have an ordinance because they just blocked your fiberlink uh your microwave link and it's not we know that hacken sack is building buildings left and right uh so the other thing that gets transmitted that way is the gameall boxes when the gameall Box goes off in tck the signal is then sent via fiber all the way over there and then our phone is that is that the new game well or the the the lar Robertson game well boxes no the old game wall Red game wall box but the new ones are all done through cellular uh no not necessarily so uh that system that Larry proposed I don't know 10 years ago that company's out of business so we we basically have gone back or transitioned back to the regular game well box because it's more reliable and cheaper more efficient and there is some radio boxes going in but they're limited and that radio box would not travel that far serious question and there's just two of us talking yes now that people have cell phones correct and now that people you know is anyone really jumping out of the car and pulling that box and anymore not on a street box 15 years ago an article saying that they were removing them and I said oh that's poor planning to start removing them around other towns but now I'm thinking you know with cellular phones and you know is anyone really jumping out of the car and pulling the Box no not on the single Street boxes but you got to remember we have and I do not know the number it might be 395 of buildings and City buildings tied to those game wall boxes so when the fire alarm goes off here in the municipal building it bangs bells in every Firehouse in TX so it's an instantaneous alerting system you're not paying for ADT then you hope to get the call the all your schools your houses of worship your other municipal buildings when that fire alarm goes off in that building it bangs bells in four firehouses so that's an instantaneous notification that that fire department has to respond to that address to that building and we have a lot of commercial buildings as well we had looked into at one point billing but I believe we are unable to build the residential customer or commercial customer what 395 of which our Comm or resident uh residential commercial religious school buildings tied to game well boxes so you'd be looking to eliminate all that and making them go to ADT or whoever else all right I'm not going to micromanage your system from the deis right now I'm just just asking question I'm just ask I'm gonna ask a question on that most of them actually probably do have EDT but obviously the instantaneous uh dispatch is obviously in a bad situation good but what does the what's the maintenance nowadays per year the maintenance Budget on the pull box that's Larry's budget what is that $6,000 it's not much 67,000 it's pennies pennies on a dollar that's not worth and some of it's done by our Township electrician here Rich Muller Rich Muller um is there any compliance reason why we have to stay connected from a federal or State requirement or best practices or anything like that for which system in terms of the game well that we have all those 370 different locations little pull boxes and other words that you're saying that no you could you could have them ripped out as other municipalities have however it's a very redundant cost effective cheap system that gives the residents a secondary means of alerting the fire department and as well as all these municipal buildings and other buildings that you would then have to put on a an alarm system and you'd have to pay a monthly fee sure great thanks anybody else have any questions for the chief uh one other thing I want to bring up about just Staffing I'm sorry um actually that's one of my questions so maybe it's overlapping I just wanted to know what the Staffing levels are right now um and compared to um full strength uh we are short three and we will be short more before the end of the year um okay go ahead D and then I have a couple more questions but I'll so um we e and I put together a figure to fill those three spots for half a year would run us 82,500 again that does not include uh pension contributions that does not include Health Care contributions but from the salary and $882,500 okay um you said a couple questions yeah I just wanted to ask one a couple clarifications one going back to the shared service dispatch your original ask was for 250 but only 125 was approved what was the discrepancy with such a big ask from 250 to 125 250 is the yearly contract that hackin saac is requesting the 125 is since we are not yet there we were anticipating July I was able to give you back that money well will we need that next year you will need the 250 next year yes once we go online you will need that every year unfortunately okay so to make sure we know about that um do we have any retirements planned for this year that we know of yes how many rough one to two possibly more de do we have a reserve for that or no no there's no not in this budget there's no did they file Joe actually file I don't want to mention their names but no I don't think they actually push the button in the system so generally if they haven't filed yet they're supposed to give pension benefits you know three to six months notice so uh we're in March if they haven't uh you know submitted their retirement um you're Pro they're probably looking to retire sometime middle to later this year okay and we have nothing reserved for that at all no nothing in this budget okay um my last question isn't necessarily budget well I guess I don't know we'll see um I just have a question with station 4 Windsor Road is there any um concerns from your end with emergency access to that station in an emergency due to CSX like is there a need for emergency access in the back that you need to get into the station um that would result in the tracks not being blocked I'm not sure I understand the question I can I think if can I councilman Gober this is can I can I try to yes we have a real problem with CSX in this town and they turn tck into a giant parking lot versus what they were supposed to be doing which is a railway and one of the problems is that it cuts the town one of is that they Park in the town and and if we as a fire department who were responsible to respond to their um incidents right you have your te fire department has to respond you have to go all the way to Bergenfield wrap around and then come all the way past not necessarily you can get on tracks the other way how how do you get on the tracks we may NE never go on the tracks depending on what the type of incident is or how far it is we are so close to the tracks in a lot of places on Windsor Road that we may stay on Windsor Road the question is if we create an emergency access door by that um Pro by the underground tunnel where the fire department is required to have that access just in case you need to have access then the trains can't block the emergency access door they don't block the emergency access door they don't idle in t neck that's a nice feature I think that's what council member Goldberg was really yeah that's what I'm asking is that something that makes sense to you is that it sounds like it makes perfect sure that might not be the best location but yes anytime you can give me additional anytime you can give me additional access over to tracks another way um that's fine uh currently though we're very fortunate enough that the forefathers of this town had Master plans and put in place that they bridged every rail Crossing to allow us 247 AC but I think what councilman mber is saying is that the forefathers didn't realize that CSX would take advantage of the EK residents turning the entire Township of ten into a giant idling Rail Yard true and what she's suggesting is that we cut that rail yard by creating emergency accesses and how do you fight against emergency access that might be difficult though because um how are we going to stop a train that's coming on either the southbound or Northbound tracks so that we could utilize that access that you can worry about that how to get a time also keep in mind that that the that station four is about two two miles into the t uh boundaries so you're you're still there still be plenty of room you're just kind of pushing the problem down to fur no but I think what we heard the chief say is that it would be nice to have more than one access I heard that yeah I don't maybe something that we can explore over the next couple months would be good idea thanks else have any question yes what's your turnaround time once we hire it's generally six months okay and the classes are available all the time with you no when are they available uh hit or miss a little more information so unfortunately it as as need basis the Bergen count we're at the whim of the Bergen County Fire Academy which does schedule classes in January and they mark them out for the year however if you get enough people you can petition for your own class the magic number has got to be 12 though so if we're hiring four and I can't find another department that's going to give me the need to get this to the 12 they're not running going to run a special class and depending on when you do your classes uh the summers are completely full so you're not getting in a class You' you'd be waiting till September uh and it's again it's Hit or Miss okay and then when we do switch over to Hack and Sack dispatch how many officers do we get back in service that would have been on the desk for each shift you get one per shift so a total of four one each day one extra firefighter each day so does that fix the discrepancy a little bit for you absolutely okay any safer grants right safer grants the name of the grant right any of those coming up uh we are always looking for Grants and we're always out there always pushing for Grants yes I'm I'm talking about sorry the ones where they where them where they pay for the firefighter for three years yes we did it last year we can do it again this year uh the thing is you have to you have to commit and the other thing is whatever your cable organization number is it has to be that or better that or better you can't exceed the table you have you can you can exceed the table organization when you when you file your number that you file at so say I file at 90 keep it simple and then you allow me to hire one more at 91 well they turn around because I may not know that Grant till September October then I hire I'm at 91 now now I got to exceed whatever I'm exceeding I can't put one for one and say oh I already hired that one okay we've always made our money in the fact of retirement inste it's a banking it's it's a banking bet on that the revolving door revolving door was never we never going to get caught with just timing yep anyone else um station four still out of still still being worked on right unfortunately yes so what is that time how long has it now been out of commission just way too long that's uh that's uh 13 months probably more than that okay and things have worked out okay no things have not worked out okay as far very slow progress I would have liked to I'm not talking about firea safety firematic and residents being protected and safety and timing and yeah things have worked out great I wouldn't say that I mean we've been lucky seems that's every day unfortunately in life yes uh we have we have lucky we've not had well Mr s's not here right he lives down on Riverview our response time to Riverview was at isage place what or Cottage yeah that that end of town is astronomical now because that station is closed you're adding three and four minutes no keep in mind and one of the re keep in mind if this was a volunteer town which I absolutely do not want to be because we paid that three or four minutes I mean being a volunteer firefighter at three or four minutes I'm lucky if I'm in my car to get there so T neck fire department is priceless it costs us money we get the best service hands down um but it's the the the difference between what you're paying for the minutes or when every minute counts it's I mean you're concerned about three minutes people would die for a three that correct I'm adding three minutes on top of the three minutes so we're looking to get his house at 7even eight n minutes and that's the maybe the average response time for a volunteer fire correct uh we're also severely underutilized um if you can ask most of our residents they have no idea because if you look at my table of organization I don't have a public information officer I don't have public education officers we're all heavy on the response side we have very little I mean we have a grant we got 20 years ago fire extinguisher digital fire extinguisher training it would be a matter of that having that officer train all the burrow employees on how to use a fire extinguisher train all SE senior groups train religious organizations but we just don't have the Staffing or the Personnel to be out there in the public that much and we TR try really hard um we use a lot of unfortunately we use some overtime um to do that occasionally but not and again if someone's going to ask the question on overtime 90% of our overtime is to fill those vacant spots on the apparatus every day again and that is um it seems like you've really kind of solved for some training um requirements by doing a train the trainer scenario by utilizing um in-house personnel do you see or foresee any other potential opportunities that that might help or um per in terms of being able to train someone inhouse so that they can go out and provide either within uh within your staff or even outside programs do you think that you have the Manpower or the potential P manpower to do that we we currently do that and then we pay them overtime to go to your Teck Day events uh your you know Street Fair events uh some community some school events we use some on duty Personnel when accessible and not you know going to impact the run or response to go to a school event for education so yes we're doing that currently now but I clearly think we're we're missing the mark on that if you were to to speak to what would improve what would you need to improve that one more person to uh ideally possibly four officers four lieutenants for lowest that would be your lowest level officer we can put in place working staff um on a day-to-day basis four days a week uh two in public education one for records management information and Cad and then the other for safety those are the three areas that we struggle uh the three of us myself my one uh Deputy Chief and my one training officer every day that's that's who manages the second largest Department of the the town the three of us on a day-to-day basis thank you no problem anyone else thank you Chief thank you and just uh one or two quick things about the fire not only the fires that they respond to but they they certainly respond to quite a few uh EMS calls uh and they supplement Tac as well we have quite a few EMTs with the fire department uh they you know they do a fantastic job when Tac uh has to we call a plon call where there's not staff readily available uh the fire department will go out and be the first responders so uh they keep very busy and one of the things ke and I uh spoke about briefly is there are three lieutenants in fire prevention correct three and Fire Prevention I I am not the fire professional but I I think that we really need to look into uh reducing that and have uh three civilian fire inspectors part-time and put those two lieutenants back out on the line or or for whatever services that the fire and uh so we spoke about that a little bit but that's certainly not something it's going to be doable doable this year uh but again our fire we're blessed to have a career fire department that again you're going to have the truck at your door generally in 3 to four minutes uh station 4 area may be a little bit longer but they're uh finishing up the roof station 4 the windows so the Project's moving along not as quick as we wanted but it it should get done I'm hoping within the next several months thank you Chief thank you next St is the library right yes we have ch on here tonight hi Chen so I'll go over a quick couple things with the library uh they are uh budget number 390 you'll find them on page 132 of the budget book and just to go over some of the numbers for Council in 2023 we budgeted $496,000 495 uh in their operations budget uh this year I'm recommending to council $57,200 that's an increase of $1,725 or 2.16% there were a couple sub accounts uh that went up uh noticeably uh not too bad but you'll see one that went up 8,000 and change 1 5,000 1300 uh and I'll let CH uh just discuss a few things about that and I just want to let Council know that in capital for 20124 there's another 500,000 in capital for interior Renovations uh for the library as well so uh Shen you want to speak a little bit about your budget and the services um so my but primary goal for the budget is to provide Tom Notch Collections and programs um that truly Ser serve our diverse needs and interest um for our community members so material budget was actually cut a lot last year um it was cost $117,000 um a lot of the cut came from reference uh resources we CAU 7,000 in that line last year so this year I'm just trying to um restore a little bit I found that it kind of limits our ability to explore different databases and um other um more quality resources those come when I get estimates from the vendors they always look at potential user numbers and our uh Community uh population is high compared to other libraries so we always getting a little bit higher estimates than other uh committee um sizes so that is uh the reason and I'm I want to explain why it looks high but you look at the tele telephone line it's going down significantly the reason it's going down is that Hotpot which is for circulation it's a basically our residents can check out hotspot Wi-Fi we have 15 of them for circulation and that was categorized before in telephone line so I am taking that one out and putting in the material line so when you look at the $8,000 that's actually recategorization of that $6,600 the true increase is about $2,000 to me which is not huge um one thing I want to mention about our material is that our um digital resources demand is very high and it's not a cheap uh resources because the newer cars are eliminating all the CD players people people are using a lot of e audio books and the uh last year we saw 25% increase in our circulation for E audiobooks and the price is outrageous for one copy which sometimes comes with a meter use is 24 checkouts or two year circulations we have to pay either $75 over sometimes over $100 so which we're trying to manage it but our um community members are huge readers um so to meet the demand we buy extra copies but um when that gets used 24 checkouts are used we have to repurchase it it's a copyright issue we're trying to address it with the uh New Jersey Representatives it's a nationwide issue as well for the libraries it's very difficult to manage the Demand right now um so I am actually increasing increasing that uh econtent line by $2,000 um other line um is that uh equipment and contract Service buckles is our big um helper we're part of buckles and our residents are using a lot in reciprocal borrowing and I think last year our residents borrowed 27,000,000 uh items from other libraries so this year their uh fee is going up about % so we're paying over $72,000 to buckles only and this line also include book processing fees also other softwares for us to manage uh PC reservations e-commerce as well um another line that's seeing 3,000 increases programming line um last year luckily we were able to receive uh Bergen County Arts Grant we received $ 51,00 and we were able to to add additional programs morning programs and evening programs um this year we are not getting that one so uh thankfully the friends of the library is giving us uh some um funding to offer um Friday morning programs we call it now friends Friday programs but um program is a big big new uh things that puts our communities together it's a free program for for anybody who wants to register the due to high um demand we are actually limiting to our T residence only we are doing majang programs kasta programs we do a lot of watercolor ceramic programs really making programs it's always booked its goal um we do a lot of programs trying to um bring the community together together we're doing um speed friending program probably going to do through every other month um and this year we are this year we're actually looking to add a new program called virtual bestseller author talks um through Library speakers Consortium and it's based on active Library users so that's going to cost us 350000 so that's about it on stat uh renovation um I just had a meeting last week with the architect um the rendering will be done hopefully by the end of this month um and then I'm planning to schedule U public information session and and with the counil members as well so I'm I'm working very hard with Chen in fact yesterday um I had Chen in my office with the administrator from Leonia uh Leona's Library director ctor and we're talking about ways that we can collaborate together when our library goes offline so I think this is going to work out for us better than having trailers here um there's a lot of lot of details to this that we're working out but Leonia has been very receptive of accomodating te neck and we certainly will help them out as well there will be some sort of shared service agreement M fee we don't know what that is yet we're working on that but that's a very important number to have before this budget is introduced um so we're hoping to have really uh I guess the final number uh sometime next week I believe and this way I can present it to the council but I think this would be a good option for for us where a residents can go to the Leonia Library use their resources get their library card get their book through the Buckle system uh Without Really any Interruption of of service yes a little bit of an inconvenience driving to that location but um it's a short period of time before the renovations are done which should be roughly 9 to 12 months can I correct so that that's where we're at thank you Chen anybody have any questions Miss Belcher uh I just want to say thank you chenet for all that you do uh you know libraries just been great um example in February with the black history month event which is very well attended thank you for all that you do I just had a question about the the um potential um uh alignment with the Leonia um Library would that just be for residents to check out books only or would a resident be able to go in and sit down if someone needed to study they could use the facility so Public Library is open to anyone anybody Co can go into any Library they can sit utilize their building so I don't see why not anybody else mayor G yeah so um during the senior citizens Advisory board meeting today I um one of the questions that came up was when can we and maybe this is more question for Dean but the bathrooms downstairs I know we've all seen them they're dated they need updating what's the timeline for addressing those so this renovation doesn't include any updates that app yeah we are actually planning to add a bathroom on the main level right next to the elevator that's going to be a public bath so once we have a working bathroom on the main level my goal is to finish this renovation and down the road I want to apply for other Grant to renovate that bathroom to be Ava compliant okay thank you Mr Mayor I have one question yes go ahead please um on the one of the sub accounts for the library repairs and maintenance um you're asking for an an increase um it's it's small it's only $1,000 just want to make sure that so it says it's due to safety repairs and and HVAC is that going to be um fixed with the renovations no it's just the uh maintenance of our existing HB unit it's aging it's I think about 15 years old unit um so every time there is a a pressure tank has to be replaced it's it's not cheap replacement it's it's quite expensive so I just wanted to have some cushion because I already signed the quotes that's going to be costing over $4,000 for the replacement of a part oh no I understand that I just wanted to understand if that was going to be part of anything that would be fixed in the renovation or not so it doesn't sound like it okay and you said the HVAC unit is 15 years old I think so okay thank you that's all I got during the renovation I know the programming is is fantastic and the friends of the library programming is fantastic will we be able to utilize Rota Center mp1 or mp2 um to continue some of the programming because that is that something we're going to put on the side for now or we're still planning on using that budget and and going ahead with things I mean I I'll leave that up to chenet to coordinate with glena and you know we're open to anything I really want to continue without really without any interruptions a lot of the service that that so that's I don't have answer to that right now my goal is to um figure out an option for temporary location uh once it's secured I want to look for different ideas for programing as well anybody else have any questions on Council no thank you Chen we appreciate you so much next up is legal right Dean yes theam for the night is legal that's the only one that down right yes how about that yes um all right so Council you can find the legal Budget on page 40 of your budget book it's budget number 155 uh here tonight again is our count attorney Scott Simon and just quickly um 2023 we adopt the council adopted $1,720 for the legal budget uh this year MR Salon is asking for 977 th000 that's down about 95,000 or 8.86% there's several different categories which I'll let Mr Salon explain to everyone and um why he's asking for what he's asking this year Scott okay thank you um uh good evening everyone was that I uh good evening everyone I here on behalf of everyone's favorite group of people the lawyers uh the Township's legal department comprises of lawyers that uh serve the township the planning board the zoning board the environmental commission the historic preservation commission we also have a labor attorney Redevelopment attorney cannabis attorney tax appeals attorney we have Municipal prosecutors we have a public defender um we serve the Township in a number of different ways we attend meetings of the governing body and other boards and commissions we render advisory opinions and give legal advice uh to our elected official and the township employees and we help facilitate the Township's regular business including drafting contracts and and local ordinances we also review all zoning Redevelopment matters that go to the township and advise on uh issues related to those applications litigation is by far the largest component of both our budget and our operations we are litigating about 20 ongoing lawsuits in both state and federal court at any given time we have multiple employee discipline Ary matters more than a dozen workers compensation matters and we have more than 100 ongoing tax appeals which we are expecting to increase with the re revaluation uh in the past 10 months uh since I uh became the township attorney we have we have continue to significantly reduce the the Township's legal fees and are instituting policies new policies that will uh continue to decrease cost to the township uh I had a suppos some numbers so in the past 10 months between uh uh my my office to the township attorney as well as uh labor and tax appeal we have incurred or spend about 551 th000 almost $552,000 in the 10 preceding months before that we spent about $ 820,000 almost $821,000 on those same those same things so in that in those last two months the township has saved 260 almost $269,000 uh in legal fees just from those three uh from those three components um since I started we have resolved a number of long-standing uh lawsuits including most notably the one with Holy Name Hospital uh we have almost completely eliminated the Oprah backlog through coordination with the township clerk's office to create new procedures to address the many many requests that we get every single day uh I think Doug said told me that we usually get about 30 40 or so a week and we've uh and have cut the cut the backlog by by more than half um and or just keeping up with with the ones that we get in so going forward our primary goal is to continue to reduce fees while at the same time maintaining the same uh quality of the um legal advice that you guys I think are getting now uh there are several big initiatives that we anticipate assisting with the township with in 2024 2025 including uh U we have to finish Rec codifying the township Charter the forthcoming tax bills reevaluation and a the plan review which brings us to the budget and how much money we need to do all those things um de as Dean mentioned last year we uh had asked for and received 1, 72,000 this year we're asking for $977,000 Which is $95,000 less uh it was important to us to get that budget under one m$1 million and frankly I think it this is a number is probably uh probably higher than I think it's going to be at the end of the year but you know we want to we want to make sure that we do just have the resources just in case we need them um next you know our one of our biggest goals here in in doing this budget was to increase uh the transparency and make this more the budget more understandable uh by restructuring how things were budgeted previously primarily because we really had one one Law Firm that was handling most of the legal uh uh legal matters for the township a lot of things sort of got mixed together and I think it was a little hard harder for to tell or to really separate you know what how much we were spending on different uh different uh things and so what we did here in this budget and we can go through it is uh some of these are items are obious self-explanatory like the public defender doesn't need much explanation uh the sub account for um uh labor account uh labor Council negotiations and Personnel that is being solely attributed to uh the wiener uh the wiener Law Group the legal fees and expenses section is Ju Just for me or and for my for my Law Firm for our retainer as well as all the money that uh uh that we incur um uh defending the Township in all the the the lawsuits that we're involved in uh the planning land use and COA uh uh subcount there is for I believe phow sprice as well as our affordable housing Council um there's also a sub thing in there for um for M Mike Ash Carin Ward for redevelopment although I mentioned the new policies that we are introducing was one of the things that the council voted on at at at our recent meeting was our new escro ordinance which is going to significantly reduce the um uh the amount of money that I think we're going to be spending on on Redevelopment um the next section Insurance um that I think was previously used for a couple of different things but going forward it is going to be explicitly exclusively used for the money that goes towards settling blood the different lawsuits that we are involved in uh it just keep me Call Insurance because I think that's just what what it's named this system but it's really going to be you money used to to settle lawsuits um what else we have we now we created the uh sub account for can for cannabis uh uh which obviously self-explanatory and for the tax BS and legal F that that will also only be attributed to the to the Wier Law Group we previously had a um an account for for Oprah but because that has been folded into what my firm charges as a or flatly retainer uh we didn't uh believe that was necessary to um to include that so we came the way we came up with our numbers was primarily looking at how much we've you know how much we've spent over over the last few years PR rating it looking out projecting out to the the remainder of the year and looking to see if there were any upcoming major things that were going to affect affect our what we're going to be doing we've spent less on things like tax bills for example but we know we're going to be spending more we're going to be spending more going forward just because of the reval the way so we decide to keep it keep that the same um but um I mean I guess that's it I suppose unless anyone has any questions for me thank you Mr salmon does anyone on Council have any questions yeah Mr Mayor I just wanted to know about our GIF is that something that you think that we should be exploring an alternative to is that high for us what's your opinion on our J so uh the contract with the JF is up the end of 2024 I've already spoke to our risk provider you know we will be shopping around uh but again the the cost for any Insurance Fund is high right now so we will do our due diligence and if we can find another uh GIF Insurance Fund that uh is to our benefit we'll certainly explore it but the contract expires the end of 2024 so we'll be shopping around probably sometime uh this summer anyone else on Council Deputy Mayor Catz um only because you mentioned it um are you allowed to say or do you want to keep it for close session what the status is with the Holy Name settlement um uh I can I can just say I thought that we did settle it but then I heard maybe we well there were a couple uh the case the case is settled but there are uh a couple threads that are left as to to effectuate the settlement so for example uh we need to um accept a deed having to do with vacating Chad uh chadrick Road uh that is I think the council is probably be looking at that at the next meeting that was just part of the settlement and so we're going to have that's just something that we're going to have to do to to follow up on that and so the resolution I think will be right for the next uh the next one or the next meeting and I think there a couple Deeds that have to be reported alongside that and there's a developers agreement that were're just hammering out the final hammering at the finals for Amazon so those are it's I'll say part of our obligations under the under the the settlement agreement but the settlement agreement itself is done but got it I'll say I'm going to say I'm going to say the settlement itself is done but there are things we have to do from the settlement that they are still ongoing but I'm I would say we should be completely done with all those things within the next month done done okay thank you nice work on that Mr Mayor one more two more questions actually sorry sorry my question uh Scott is uh as it pertains to your sub account number uh 240 on COA uh in light of the fact that we have the affordable housing uh bill that's coming down the pike we're we're uh looking at a new round at the end of this year do we do you feel that we're adequately um prepared resource-wise to address quable housing yeah yeah I'll say yes because I think the um the I think what what we've incurred before has been I think a lot less there there's you see there's a lot much higher number here that was listed in what we spent from 2023 I think that was for I'll say other things just because of the way the way that data count was being used for but I think 40,000 is is more than sufficient to be able to handle handle all that stuff yeah I mean by that is basically looking at an analysis of of if we have to uh defend ourselves or defend our record or to you know look at uh any type of um analysis that might you know require another person doing those types of uh Services sure well so uh much of that would come from uh our our planner and Frank fatsa as well who a consult they'll that'll come from them it'll also come from myself and so that part of what my involvement that would be budgeted budgeted separately within the um uh the sub account 230 so it's not I I don't know if you can totally look at it just being under that one account because my my part of it is in a different account um but no I think would I don't think I don't expect us to need to bring in anyone extra that we don't that we don't already have okay and my last question is in light of the fact that we've passed laws and just this past Tuesday uh pretty pretty much putting the onus on the developer to incur additional cost in your opinion what co-a cost would a developer potentially incur well maybe I'm not sure I'm not sure where your question so would you what I'm saying is that we're put if we're we're basically saying the developer has a certain responsibility now to manage affordable housing do you uh foresee um any things that the township used to incur in terms of doing that is now being borne by the developer yeah so that and that's exactly what was the go the goal of the the escrow ordinance that that the council just adopted so there are lots of costs associated with with development that normally are paid for by them by the township uh so for example every time Mike Ash is going to look at a um a Redevelopment agreement or something like or you know a financial agreement or anything like that it's really work that's being done for the benefit of the de of the developer and there's no real reason for the for the township to have been you know to be paying them for that and so with this the new ESO ordinance all those costs are going to be paid for by the developers um and so you know whatever whatever we were have been spending before or we were spending before on that stuff will no longer be on our books that be totally put on pay for by them so that will definitely bring us I think significant savings especially as depending on what our number is from uh from our affable housing obligation if we have to do um you know create more affable housing units then um whatever that number what however many that is any increase in work will just come from the developers Miss Goldberg um yeah I had uh two other questions one on um tax Appeals um did you see any increase this year for last year and do you anticipate anything next year that we should be reserving for with any large tax appeal lawsuits potentially so well we were on track to to go down in our number I think um the 2023 spend was about 40,000 uh we asked for 60,000 to account for uh the that that increase number um let me see I think I can have sorry one second no Sor no I don't mind I thought I had I thought more accur or different numbers but I don't you know so we try to account for the the increase in re number by increasing what we spent last year from 40,000 to 60,000 just to just to try and cover whatever that increased number is okay and um is there any reserve amount that we should anti like that we should anticipate for anything any large issues with that you mean settlements any settlements that we would need to have a large reserve for potentially um there well the the one the ones that are particularly large uh would come up would come from the Jeff so I don't think we need to necessarily budget for those those are kind of say those kinds of those kinds of settlements are much larger than our budget could handle some so that stuff would you know is not really paid for by by the township director I think uh right now I think we included in here 250,000 for for settlements given you know 20 20 cases we have now and the the I think that's that's a good number that going forward that we're going to have I think this I think this more than covers it yeah um and then I'm sorry anything that would um any settlement large enough that would be a problem for us would also be large enough to just be paid for by the Jeff that's what I think of it okay um and then just one more question on the prosecutor and public defenders I noticed that they um went up was that a contract what was that related to so well for the the prosecutors uh at um the at the beginning of this year the the council increased the amount that the prosecutors were being paid from I believe it was 200 a session a 300 a session uh because I think they had they hadn't received a an increase in a in a long time and we also asked a lot of them um and so that uh increase I think was What affected the the increase that we budgeted for the prosecutors um the public defender I think that we we just kept that the same it was hard for us to tell if there would be anything different so we just kept it the same as what we've requested before in the past okay I'm good thank you your prosecutor I'm sorry the public defender remain flat prosecutors uh the three of them that we have uh they have not seen a rate increase in quite some time probably um they were at the bottom of the pay scale for municipal prop prosecutors so we went from 250 uh to 350 per session right I will say that one one of the prosecutors I'm not names called them called me after and was I think near tears and enjoy finally gave this I think razor they've been looking for for a while so anybody else on Council have any questions for Mr hmon just to say thank you Scott you didn't do um an initial presentation last week so we didn't get to thank you but thank you Scott also thank you very much you sir all right Dean we good to go to the next order of business or is there anything just with the budget mayor right you know I think um between um Monday Tuesday Wednesday of next week or even Thursday I I strong strongly recommend that the budget subcommittee get together and really to discuss uh some of these issues and you know to come back to council and you know there's some tough decisions to to be made and um but I I would like to really sit down with the uh the subcommittee and just to go over some of these things all right thank you our next order of business is resolutions Mr clerk do you have to read the titles into the record or can I just make a motion to approve them so I make a motion to approve both resolutions second all good we're versatile that was a first from mayor Pagan a second from I'm sorry Deputy Mayor G for the two resolutions this evening councilman Schwarz councilwoman beler yes councilman Goldberg yes councilman organ yes Deputy Mayor Catz Deputy Mayor G yes mayor pagot yes all adopted and Deputy Mayor G you just said you wanted to bring something up yes um so on Tuesday we started a discussion about the leadership tck um agenda um I think there were some concerns about some of the uh items on the agenda and specifically who would be leading those items and so I would like to offer some alternate Solutions um for the council to discuss um specifically it seems like there were some concerns about uh a member of council giving the overview on the advisory boards and so I would like to offer that either we have the chairs give the overview or either the town manager or the town clerk if that would be preferable to all so that's one thing and then the other thing I wanted to bring up that I forgot to bring up on Tuesday is one of the things that Dean and I had discussed was providing uh a very brief overview on what are the requirements to run for a local office I had volunteered to give that overview but again if there's a problem with that would be open to suggestions for someone else to do that so at the end of a day I you know I would would have preferred for us not to micromanage this agenda but at the end of the day I want this program to happen on April 1st and if that's the only thing holding it back from proceeding I am happy to you know go with wherever the majority of the council would like to go thoughts comments questions I would just say in terms of uh I'm just in the interest of trying to find Common Ground um if uh because our clerk is kind of overseeing Elections perhaps he would be a good Point person to speak about any types of requirements um compliance okay you're speaking oh the board of bed right right okay so is there a a board of edor that we're looking for compromise which is good uh Miss organ you were gonna raise your hand did anybody reach out to um maybe mayor Den leevy or a former mayor who's done this who's no longer political um just to get some um input we also have a question I mean you can respond if you want but we also have a question from Deputy Mayor cat you want to go first no I I'm no I don't have a question so I just got back from Panama I had an amazing business trip and I took my son and a friend and so I got to add a little family action as well but with that said I also enjoyed my favorite television show last on Tuesday night on YouTube I couldn't get into the regular channel because it was 523 people that were uh on online so I got to watch it in YouTube and I know I saw this conversation um and I'm not in any way shape or form G to infuse myself and step in anything but I will tell you this as um a couple things observations from previous events as far as previous um uh leadership Teck and I've had conversations with with uh several of you it is a very tiring um an amazing class by the way really informative and I'll tell you that a lot of our new elected officials and new um active residents actually were born out of that class you know some good some bad um so with that said you know having having more than just one person Shepherd this responsibility is actually a positive and I know that some people were concerned with um um some you know one you know one person so my suggestion would be that um we actually ask whoever may be interested um from the council and yes it is political but I I know that a lot of people you know we're we're politicians even though some people don't want to have that moniker named after them um would be to maybe two or three people to step up and try to split this uh amazing class so that a it doesn't sound or feel like one person is is um taking on the um class and B um we can really give the best and I think ultimately this is what we're looking for the best results and best product to our residents and to our future leaders and the idea with uh mayor dun Le is also an amazing idea you know bring in some of the former mayors that are currently higher Medicaid after they left mayorship um you know that would be a great addition why not to be the mayor um so that's my suggestion kind of is this for the manager we have to do this April first or this should be done but I also think listen I I know you know what we also were dropped a little bit of a surprise not a surprise but a a I guess we're all still trying to Grapple with the news that we heard about you know our manager um retiring and I'm not sure that uh you know to throw a 12 week 12 week or something like that class on him when when he's about to retire is is like he may retire faster yeah that's trying that's just my suggestion I'm just trying to come up with a compromise I do feel that anyone who should be or wants to be part of this process it's only to the benefit of the residents and should be part of it that's that's my suggestion Miss Bel I I think in in the interest of of seeing the fact that this is an initiative that Dean has worked very diligently on um taking into account I I the dates of of of have been aligned from April to the end of June which kind of makes sense because you figure most people are going on vacation after June so nothing's happening like July and August and even September because people getting their kids back to school I kind of believe that it was an ideal uh uh 10-week period um I think that uh it seems like from all indication um deputy mayor G and the town Manager work to put everything in place speakers curriculum dates locations that um I'm I'm fine with that um I I think the sticking point right now is it sounds like you guys don't want uh Deputy Mayor G to to be involved um uh in terms of spearheading or speaking so um if if it's uh if for the interest of seeing this program uh get off the ground and really be presented um I I would agree that um perhaps we could find some common ground and speakers perhaps we could in fact reach out to former mayors that still have a heart for our town and would want to contribute but I really really believe that we've been talking about this for a a long time I think the residents want to see it I think our town manager this would be a great initiative that that he finishes his time with our our Township on so I would a I would vote tonight to move forward with the dates and times of course we can absolutely I know we all just want to see this succeed Dean now you could say no because there's nothing they could do to you you know it's um you know I I will say that you know fdu really has rolled out the red carpet for us and uh they've secured a room um at the muscarelli po um we we do have speakers in in place I think there may be one or two that have not committed yet I I do think um uh mayor D le former mayor D Ley would be a good option choice for advisory boards um to really uh speak about as well so everything is everything right now is in in place we have about 54 55 candidates that are in interested which is a uh smaller group than I anticipated so it is manageable 55 people yeah that small yeah it used to be bigger no way no no it actually used to be smaller but this room is a this room is a lecture hall so it does hold up to 100 uh so 55 is you know is manageable um you know we we do have some good speakers lined up that have committed so uh if need to I guess move forward with the with the program we can um the only question to me is uh cost Refreshments I know fbu is taking care of Refreshments first night uh if we do Refreshments the remaining nine weeks we have to go through their vendor who Aramark and um it would just be really coffee te and cookies have probably from uh the council special projects um my only feedback is I'm fine with it moving forward for the April 1 date um I just asked I don't think any current council members should be teaching any of the classes nor do I think that there should be a class on running for office everything else was fine well at least this conversation tonight is way more pleasant than the one we had couple nights ago well we were talking about Refreshments I know I know but it's it's it's going a lot more pleasantly anyone else can we take a straw poll on a couple of or I don't even have that's right term I just because different people have said different things there have been different suggestions can we go by one by one and like see if we have four nning heads on each one I make a suggestion so I make the suggestion that whichever council members want to be involved let them Shepherd x amount of days and we can publicize that they're going to be there as far as the shepherding and managing so that we can reduce the pressure on the manager um that's my first suggestion and then as far as the conversation we can talk about that next do we have any council members that want to be involved I'm okay with that you can put me down as not going to be there I just wanted so that make things easier for everyone yeah and if there's anything always so just the listening check um that's my line The Proposal is involve as many councils as council members The Proposal is just so I can clarify my listening check um comment is any council members that want to be involved like let them speak now and then we could you could break it up privately of okay you wanted to be involved can you take these two days you want to be involved throw their pictures up and send it out can we just see a show of hands who would support that idea okay with that so so just to be clear the roles are that's just to preside over introduce the speaker first then we got to get into the specific so so so fine what happens at the event the second question I had is you're saying like a host a host an MC hosted by council member so historically there's been one host for this thing but we're saying this time we're going to open I know cuz last week a lot of people or two days ago people were very upset about changes from history so I just want to make sure people are okay with it now I'm okay with it I wasn't I wasn't there the second question I had was um okay so the advisory boards I had suggested either the chairs give an overview on the advisory boards or Dean or Doug so I'm just going to go one by one are people okay with the chairs doing it no was no okay who are people okay with Dean oh go ahead the reason is just I don't know that they have the knowledge they know their board but they don't necessarily know all okay are people okay with Dean doing it are people okay with Doug doing it I okay so can we can we figure that off can we figure that off offline but sounds congratulations are people okay with telling people what are the checklist items to run for office not campaign strategies but like you have to get 15 signatures and do this or whatever yes they checklist not no for year so one two three is anyone else okay with that four so there's four nodding heads on that so we can include that in the agenda just and who would is does that can that be a council member or does it have to be Doug no council member I think mayor D Ley would be nice or Paul asro Jackie Kates um who else K fight we have a of that's a great ideaone of are available Doug Doug is Jackie scheduled to do any of them didn't she want to do something with form of government she could do I will follow up and make sure that she has a role if everyone's okay with that that's great can you can you make sure that the whole subcommittee is cced on that please sure sounds like we're making a lot of progress this is beautiful it anybody else got anything they want to say about any Topic in that case I make a motion to adjourn all those in favor second thank you everyone for joining us thank you to everyone on staff Dean Issa Tom Doug thank you to all our department heads thank you so much and we hope you all have a good evening good night all right e e