right know it look yeah right after that me that great tot opin yeah that's why it's nice to get a different SL okay if I still have a voice okay got a Dan you ready i' like to call the 7 p.m. work session to order roll call please Mr BTO here Mr Lane here Mr Madigan here Mr Shanley here and mayor melon here thank you you please read the open work session statement yes Mr Mayor this regular work session meeting of the woff township committee is session in accordance with the open public meetings act notice of this meeting appears on our annual schedule of meetings copy of said annual schedule has been posted on the bulletin board in Memorial Town Hall copy has been filed with the municipal clerk and has been posted on our Municipal website copy has also been emailed to the record the ridgwood news and the north Jersey Harald news all newspapers having a general circulation throughout the township of white call at least 48 hours prior to this meeting the agenda thereof was similarly posted filed and emailed to said newspapers thank you can you please confirm finance committee has signed vouchers yes all the vouchers have been signed mayor thank you all right can I have a motion to open the 10-minute public comment period 10-minute public comment Period 2 minutes per speaker for public comment on any governmental issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the township of wov so moved second thank you Mr Bo yes Mr Lane I Mr Madigan yes Mr Shanley yes and mayor mó yes with an affirmative vote the motion is approved please step forward to the microphone if you wish to make a comment seeing and hearing no one I move to close public comment second Mr bua uh yes Mr Lane hi Mr Madigan yes Mr Shanley yes and mayor mó yes with an affirmative vote the motion is approved thank you all right um now we're going to have our Auditor's report we have Gary Higgins here tonight our auditor to present our uh our report for us this evening am I yeah you good all right good evening everyone uh your report I believe you all should have received at least electronically uh this is the audit for the year ending 123123 the due date by Statute is June 30th 24 and your audit opinion is dated May 9th uh 24 so it's a timely audit uh and was delivered to the division local government services by your Chief Financial Officer already um I'll go through a few highlights and I I'll take any questions uh the first thing is in New Jersey municipalities and counties do not operate under General accepted accounting principles uh we're under what we call a regulatory basis of accounting that is promulgated by the division local government services in the Department of Community Affairs uh with respect to the regulatory basis of opinion the township received a unmodified opinion which means that you're fully conforming with the regulatory base of a county all right so it's kind of the best opinion you can get under under this type of accounting secondly last year and the year before was the first time that I'm aware of and I've been the auditor for a while uh you were subject to a federal audit due to the American Rescue plan money uh you received approximately $885,000 in two tranches from the $340 billion that was awarded during covid uh so this year again uh you put the second tranch in your budget uh which basically provided tax relief and uh you were subject to compliance and internal control is issues with regarding to a separate Federal single audit and there was no evidence of any significant deficiencies material weaknesses in both internal control and compliance um so you're fully conforming there uh with respect to your current fund which is really how we run the town um your budget operations I'll just give you a few of the key numbers so you start it off I don't know if anybody has the document in front of I'll give you Pages if you want but if not I'll just kind of rattle some numbers off get Pages you got pages okay here we do okay uh page page number [Applause] seven if you're a Yankee fan that's Mickey man seven retired okay just for anybody who's a y winning stream until last night yeah but anyway so uh this is your comparative statement of operations on page A1 and the key thing is if you look at the right corner the end of 22 you ended with surplus of 5, 60460 okay right next to it you ended 23 with 6,331 745 so there was an increase of $727,000 uh where that came from you really regenerated $3 million through operations last year approximately $2 million in miscellaneous revenues $700,000 of your appropriation reserves from 22 that were unused and you laps them under this regulatory base of accounting and about $330,000 of non-budgeted revenues so you regenerated this 3 million and you were given back 2.3 million in tax relief in the 23 budget to offset the budget operations so the net of that 700,000 ended up dropping to the bottom line leaving you with the 6 million 331 745 so now in comparison your 24 budget which you just did you provided $2.7 million back in tax relief out of that number and basically you gave back the additional amount you generated approximately half of it um so all in all you're back to the same status you were at the end of last year so the end of the year operation resulted in um a positive uh position for the township uh the Su utility I mean that's kind of a break even operation and everything's fine in there um so I I won't really go through that unless you want but if you go a few more pages down I'll just uh tell you what you ended with in Surplus that would be on page 21 and their operations uh was 285 ,000 um and last year you ended up with 612 um so there you had excess of 285,000 uh as a result of the operations and you did not return any uh money or fund violance back to balance that budget so you were able to basically regenerate the Surplus and the sewer utility um so that ended in a uh in a healthy position also finally um recommendations comments as I mentioned under the federal single audit we had no findings and with your regular General operations uh we go through and we audit selected items in departments and payroll expenditures and it yielded no comments um that I have to report at this point so all in all uh the Township's in a healthy financial position and I thank your finance office and your administrators and all the department heads who participated in assisting Us in in looking at the data we asked for and if that's it I'll be more than happy to ask any or answer any questions if anybody has any yeah I got a I have a question actually Gary yeah could you just explain to us under the local Bond Law what the Township's borrowing capacity is as the date of that audit well if everybody has their order report handy um there's a specific footnote on Municipal debt and every entity in New Jersey that has Municipal debt um it's a few Pages it begins on page 38 which summarizes the debt outstanding at year end and it's comparative from year to year and there's on page 39 a calculation that's required to be done so under 48 2-6 of the Bond Law uh there's a calculation that every Community has to prepare and the state really provides the numbers so they'll take your assessed valuation and they equalize it so they put you on a Level Playing Field with all the other communities in the state they then take the last three years and they average it and they take that average number and under that statute they multiply that times 3.5% and they come up with a number that represents your borrowing capacity if you look on the bottom of page 39 you'll see the calculated number for 23 and 22 so the borrowing capacity and this doesn't include the uh School District either because they have their own calculation at 3% um is 177 m945 881 that is the borrowing capacity of this town that you could have taken out in long and short-term debt as of 123123 okay uh how much debt is outstanding could you just explain that well it's in it's in the same calculation because what they want the reader to know is how much borrowing cap capacity is remaining after your authorizations so the net debt at year end is 7,723 500 and you subtract that from the the top number which I previously announced and your left remaining borrow power of 170 m222 38 $1 and on the top of the same page we're required to report the percentage of the net debt okay that you utilized and in this case it's 0.152 of the three and a half basically and the prior years there is right next to it at 0 102 all right I think I have one last follow-up question um in your Auditor's opinion can you explain how that debt comes about well under the local Bond Law when you pass a bond ordinance and a bond ordinance under the local Bond Law specifies what types of items qualify to be capitalized and bonded usually in simple terms it's an asset that's more than 5 years old with a useful life so what happens is you'll you'll Bond it and you'll spread the cost of that asset asset out over the useful life either by using a note or a Serial Bond or a comb ation and paying it down so you wouldn't burden a one one budget one Municipal operating budget with a large Capital expense um it just wouldn't be prudent so the bond law allows you to spread it out after you passed the bond ordinance what is in the 7.7 million I don't know exactly but it would be the ordinances previously adopted by this governing body uh where you issued a note in this case you don't have any permanent debt um to finance those purchases or improvements whether it be roads buildings trucks Vehicles Etc thank you follow I don't have any other questions yep I just have one followup because um there's been some alarming statements but just just for clarity and on the record as the auditor professional auditor that you are so if the township is investing in needed infrastructure including roadways equipment for DPW fire department equipment um other Capital Equipment the appropriate way I don't want to put words in about in your opinion you would bond that that debt so that it's paid for as people are using the roads the equipment and so on is that correct statement well or you want to help clarify it own County Woods if you're going to do an asset that has a life of more than 5 years typically typically you would spread the debt out over the life of the asset that's what the bond LW allows you to do I mean if for some reason you have an avalanche of money and you want to buy something outright you're able to do that also so you have the choice but the bond LW is there basically to provide you a way to spread the cost out of assets that are very expensive and that have a a long useful life uh but it doesn't prohibit you from Raising or buying a sanitation truck one year but you know obviously you're going to have to pay for with taxes in that one year which would then Spike the tax rate Poss possibly okay but also in your professional opinion is it a prudent process from a financial stability standpoint good practice I think it's a permitted practice I wouldn't I mean it you still have the option I I I don't make Management's decisions it's it's one of the tools you have in your toolbox rather than outright buy it you have the ability to bond it and spread it over a term no longer than the useful life I can just offer it as another tool in order to run a municipality one quick one so would you say generally speaking that if uh other municipalities you don't need to refer to any would they they would exercise this type of prudent borrowing when you have something that's going to last over 5 years like a fire truck is that is that a common practice it is an alternative to outright purchasing it to use the Bond Law as a vehicle to spend out over the useful life of the asset okay thank you anyone else yeah I just have a followup Gary can you uh explain to us uh page 85 which is the statement of bond anticipated notes you have a specific question or you yeah because it has a original amount of issue right and then it's got a increase and a decrease so just I'm trying to explain figure out what's going on so if you take the Top Line originally and and the reason you have to track the original amount of issue and the original issue date is because Bond anticipation notes cannot be rolled over for more than 10 times either you have to pay it off in the year 10 or you have to bond it so you have to track the original amount and you have to track the original date of issue so in this case on ordinance 1855 you had authorized a million 265 of debt and took a note out for that the balance as of the last AIT 22 was 915,000 and you renewed it for 765 so you made a minimum pay down through your budget of the Delta between the 9115 and the 765 okay so if you're looking at U ordinance 188 1880 and that's for Road resurfacing uh that was original original date was in 2019 and then it has that been rolled over it was originally started at 413 750 and the assumption is that you made installments on an annual basis to knock that number down okay and the last payment was done in 23 so there's no balance left to be financed on that okay and then but when it was T when the things are was taken out in 2019 do you know what the rate was no low very low well I mean you'd have to pull that off but it's available I don't have so when we were bonding things in 2019 the rate was much lower than when we're rolling it over into 2023 well the rates are Market volatile so the rates are much higher now yeah and the interest rate is shown on here 4.5 now is that correct that's correct but you know when when a note comes due you have one or two choices pay it off roll over it or Bond it so you have to take what the market Bears so this is called Market risk I mean there were notes as low as 9 of 1% 5 years ago but everybody enjoyed that benefit now everybody enjoys the higher rates at the same time so you really don't have a choice is it prudent to Bond Road pavings prudent to bond anything that's under the local Bond Law okay all right and let's turn to 86 which is right next door and that's the statement of bonds and notes authorized but not issue you see we're we're not going to know what the rate is until it goes out to bond correct this is basically a holding pattern bonds and notes authorized not issued it means you passed an ordinance and at the current time you have not issued either a note or a bond okay so down the road if you plan on spending that money and needing the cash you're going to have to do one or two Alternatives either take a note out or take a bond out or take a note out and then Bond it anywhere up to 10 years for that note note to expire or not be paid off and if we take a note out for that what is the total amount that we need to take out for it to pay it off to to get well you have an authorization that was approved by the governing body of 2 milon 280 so if you don't spend it all you can cancel the balance if you spend it all you're going to have to bond it or pay down note pay Downs in the inim until you Bond it or pay it off in 10 years of note installments thank you Gary no problem can I ask one other followup question Mr Mayor yeah go ahead I just just again for clarification and I'm probably a little more familiar with it being on finan the last many years so in the specific example that you were asked on page 85 that was a 200 2019 Road program which was paid off in 2023 correct the final install paid off 13750 but it was paid off within four years okay right that's all it was straight forward to me but just wanted clarification thank you and it was all done through budget Appropriations anyone else have anything no all right thank you Gary job thank you Mr thank you okay moving on Matt you ready administrative report sure so first we'll go over the agenda for the uh that's on our 8:00 meeting as a followup to Gary's presentation resolution 176 uh acknowledges receipt of the 20123 audit and along with our comments and recommendations which there are none um and the council also has a an affidavit that needs to be signed uh that we have to transmit to the state that says that you have read and acknowledged the audit there are two resolutions authorizing uh that are uh with related to the fireworks uh in September and there's also a resolution 175 which is amendment to our cash management plan which authorizes some transfers uh to our investment account we move it back and forth this is how we do our in funds and we we fund our cash flow pretty much uh there's two ordinances for introduction uh first is a ordinance for appropriating $150,000 Capital Improvement this is a receipt of $75,000 Grant from the county of Bergen open space trust fund with 100% cash match from the open Spa from our Municipal open space trust fund and this is for improvements at Memorial Park and then ordinance 2015 is amending our property maintenance ordinance by creating the uh lead based paint Hazard inspection requirements that are required by the DC CCA uh more information will come on that at the next meeting and one motion and that's really all it's on the agenda I do have a pretty lengthy administrator's report though just give me one second okay uh so first off uh because it's a little bit before 8:00 an important PSA for this evening the wov police department will be having a New Jersey state police helicopter landing on Memorial Field behind Town Hall at 8:00 p.m. tonight this is a demonstration for the citizens Police Academy it's a pre-planned event not an emergency second this week is the 50th anniversary of National Emergency Medical Services week the theme for this week is honoring the past and forging our future uh being in EMS myself for the past 18 years I know firsthand that EMS is usually all about the All About the moment thinking about your last patient could distract you from what's Happening to the patient lying on the stretcher in front of you and right now uh worrying too much about the next call isn't too helpful when you have no idea what might what it might bring this year we recognize the 50th anniversary of the first national EMS week and we honor those who came before us especially those who challenged the status quo and raised the bar for all of us at the same time we look forward to building the efforts that are we building on the efforts and committing ourselves to forge a future um for future generations of EMS professionals so I want to give a shout out to the men and women of the white volunteer ambulance Corps for their ongoing dedication to the profession and the lives uh of those who travel and live in wof I would also be remiss if we didn't acknowledged last week as National Police Week National Police Week offers honor remembrance and peer support while allowing law enforcement survivors and citizens to gather and pay homage to those who gave the live from the line of duty a special thanks to the officers of the Lov Police Department past and present uh for their service to the community at large some updates Caitlyn and Nancy have completed the training exam and County oath process and are now both notary public so now all three employees in our clerk's office can provide notary services right uh it's a reminder that the Recycling Center summer hours started uh La at the LA the time of the last meeting so the beginning of uh May uh on Tuesday it's open from 8 from 11:00 to 3: and again from 6:00 to 8 so it's 11:00 to 3 on Tuesdays and again from 6:00 to 8: in the evening to allow residents to come and beginning this Friday through Labor Day municipal offices will close at 1:30 on Fridays for summer hours uh this is a reminder that lawn water uh two day a week lawn watering two days a week is permanent per the township ordinance in conjunction with Ridgewood water policy uh we are now out to bid for the 2024 Road Improvement program bids will be received on June 4th and we intend to award on June 6th uh the award requiring sorry the work requiring the extended road closures of Grand View Avenue is now complete the gas man and the roadway have both been lowered some concrete work and final Paving still needs to be completed but this will be done over the summer we've submitted the New Jersey community community energy planning Grant to receive a $10,000 Grant award this goal the goal of the CG program is to enable municipalities to review a list of suggested suggested initiatives that will help the community identify a set of activities that will set them on a trajectory to reduce greenhouse gas emissions this 12 month CG program is intended to support a review of potential initiatives so that we can submit for the the future init um impementation Grant also provided by New Jersey clean energy Boswell is currently preparing our 2025 Municipal Aid Grant application to the NJ do uh to complete the second portion of lawland road as you may recall we received funding from NJ do last year to rehab the first portion of the road which is the further portion down towards Abus Farm internally we finalized the concept of the tree removal and replacement ordinance required by njd we're we're currently working on wording we hope we are hopeful to have that distributed to our stakeholders this week for comments uh by the end of next week uh to recap on the 2024 shredding Day on May 4th 20 sorry 265 residents participated uh that was based off the number of cars we tracked four tons of confidential paper was collected that was 8,020 T 8,020 pound uh 40 cubic yards of Styrofoam was collected and transported for recycling and 15 pounds of Medicine uh or drugs was recovered by the white Police Department uh for the medicine project medicine box program special thanks to Denise the DPW the environmental commission the Green Team volunteers the township committee and the police for their assistance in making this event successful the Memorial Day parade is scheduled for Monday May 27th beginning at 11:30 the fire department service is at 8:30 a.m. at company 1 and the church service at White cof reform church begins at 11: sorry at 10:00 a.m. the county clerk's office will be providing Outreach Services including passport acceptance and notary Oaths uh and ID Services here at Town Hall on Wednesday May 29th from 10 to2 no appointments are necessary hackensac Meridian health is opening their new urgent care across the street at Boulder Run next to the stoping shop uh their grand opening is May 29th at 10: a.m. the 42nd annual wof fishing derby is scheduled for June 1st at zisy Pond uh PSA for the YMCA that the woff day is Saturday June 1st from 11:00 to 4:00 free admission and also on June 1st the Union Cemetery marking dedication will be held from 2:30 to 4:30 with the c ceremony beginning at 3: parkings available at the Assembly of God Church more information on all this and more is in our e-s and finally reminder that our next meeting will be held on Thursday June 6th not Tuesday June 4th due to a conflict with the primary election thank you Matt all right Township committee reports Roger you want to kick it off uh yeah I think that uh uh Matt I want to thank you for covering most of the stuff that I would under DPW and everything else I just have a a general comment uh being that Mr Higgins was here from my audit and and I know I'm uh I know I'm new relatively new here uh but it's very nice to know uh that the town's fiscal health is good we're in good shape and I'd like to thank the people internally that worked with Gary and prepared the budget and our finance committee of uh Tom and Pete for putting together a good buet that's all I have Tim I'll be real quick um as a fire commissioner I just want to report uh because our volunteer fire fire um members uh do a lot of calls they're up to 216 fire calls this year so thank you to the men that are in the back that I see that do some of those calls uh and they they're going to do a service for Memorial Day on Mondays beginning at 8:30 at fire one uh so hopefully you know it'll be well attended zoning board met on Thursday they did it on the second meeting of second Thursday of the month because of Memorial Day weekend um they were done by 9:30 it was one of the earliest uh meetings that they finished with Ramapo Indian Hills board will meet on the 30th of uh this month uh and there's a good chance that they're going to be picking a new administrator so that that could be a big meeting coming coming up at the end of the month uh I just want to congratulate the girls track team they won the big North uh Freedom League um so congratulations to the girls track team big win so and that's all I got thanks thank you uh Tom yeah uh I too would like to thank uh our auditor and our finance team to put the budget together work so diligently this year and every year especially Diana McLoud is with us tonight and FR picadillo padillo is also here with us if I mispronounce your name I'm used to it sorry but I want to thank both of you for all the time you spent along with Matt and um it is a long process aous process and uh we try to use grants and shared services every opportunity we have to get more bang for the buck with our precious tax dollars um I'm happy to return for a week out at Marina delway visiting my daughter Annie and her husband Gary and my newest grandson uh Grayson so it was a nice trip we celebrated Mother's Day there and then we ended the week uh celebrating a milestone birthday for me so it was really really fun uh Sunday I attended the uh TJ Sullivan 5K fundraiser very successful was over at Eisenhower it started at 8 in the morning the race went off the Run went off the 5K run went off about 10:00 it finished up between 11:15 11:30 they raised over $100,000 it was a phenomenal tribute to uh TJ Sullivan whom we lost last year and it was tremendous tremendous community outpouring of of support so thanks for all those who were involved putting that together all those that cooperated and making it happen uh that afternoon um I had the pleasure of attending along with fellow Township uh committee men the eagle scout U gold Awards over with Cornerstone Church and recognized was Kevin O'Neal Leon Taylor Nick Hendrickson and Hayden T so it was a very nice event we get a lot to be proud of when these young men we see what they did and the common theme was they did everything they each had their own projects and uh they did it all for the benefit of the white COV Community for our residents for a long term and it's just refreshing really nice and it was a great uh great uh tribute and then just finally I look forward to the Memorial Day parade and uh festivities on uh Monday that's it thank you Mr mayy thank you mayor excuse me if I lose my voice all quick um to begin with uh two weeks ago on the 14th dep Partners in Pride planted all their pots around town their flower pots and I want to thank the partners in Pride and Susan lit for what they do every year they do it kind of behind the scenes and they get they get it done and it's a lot of planting and a lot of watering all summer but they beautify our town so I really want to thank them I too want to thank G Higgins for for joining us tonight and giving us the uh the budget report I think you hit the highlights for what we needed to hear and also Diana and Fran for for joining us so thanks very much um i i two attended the shredfest styrofoam collection and Drug collection on the um on the 11th and it was a good event um Matt gave us all the figures so we know what they are the Styrofoam was the only the only category that actually held strong um I attended a historic preservation commission uh last uh Tuesday night um we're working with uh the owner of the um historic on the corner of green heaven and Godwin they're doing some window replacement to keep it as authentic as absolutely possible and they're being very Cooperative we thank them very much we're also talking about possibly moving forward with adding an additional 14 properties to our local historic preservation list but we're it's it's a work in progress um on the 15th um at the planning board meeting um only one item really for uh for Action Cornerstone Church um we approved a handicap ramp on the old old house on the right side when you pull onto the property and we app approved um the installation of three um gas generators um it was talk about a diesel power generator if they can't get gas hooked up the the church is going to come back to us for further discussion if they have to do diesel and uh there was also a discussion and a plan to to work on the burm along where the commuter parking is on the west side of the building uh I to attended the attended the Eagle Scout court of honor which was a great event the best part for me was an old firefighter named Joe Landy was there who I didn't even know was alive yet he's at the fireman's home up in botin he's 98 years old and he looks great there's a few guys a half a dozen guys at the back who was along with me remember Joe Landy and uh it was he looked like Joe I mean he at 98 years old he it was great to see him it really was um the um the fishing derby is on June one June 1 along with as Matt said wof day and the Union Cemetery dedication of the uh historic plaque and tours of the cemetery um I would encourage anyone who can make it I know wo if they run still four or something like that to stop over there the historic preservation commission has done a great or the Historic Society has done a great job with that and they managed to get a historic plaque and they're even having some reenactors from um Massachusetts some Civil War reenactors come there are two Civil War um Kia in that cemetery and they're going to do a for Memorial around Memorial Day so they're going to do a um a nice ceremony for them I don't know what time that is um that's it mayor look forward to every seeing everyone at Memorial B thank you thank you Rudy um just want to start off first it was Tom's birthday this past Friday happy birthday and it was our attorney's birthday Dave Becker I believe a few days before that had a lot of birthdays up here in May so happy birthday everybody um I was also able to attend the eagle scout ceremony it was a it was is a great ceremony with the rest of the uh Township committee um I want to thank the Memorial Day Parade committee for once again all their hard work they do and putting together um a great day here in town hope everyone encourage everyone to go to go to both services and uh watch the parade which starts at at 11:30 um Matt covered EMS week and I always want to thank our First Responders I was a first respondent for nine years so I definitely know the dedication and sacrifice that um that they go through uh Roger and I were able to drop off some uh some bagels and sandwich for our fine Police Department last week for for police week and um that I was also at the 5K with Tom um it was a great turnout the committee did a great job they had over 660 or 680 participants it was a it was a good day and they raised some money for for a good cause and lastly I just want to wish everybody a happy Memorial Day and see everybody on on Monday Dave um I don't have any I do not have any legal report today but I just want to say uh look forward to seeing everybody at Memorial Day um I know the mayor always talks about a highlight of his year here in wof and I know the first time I came to whiteoff was in 1987 mayor of that year was Gordon Stanley a year and a half later was my father-in-law so I guess I like that Memorial Day Parade so I encourage everybody to come on out thank you all right um now request a motion to adopt resolution 24 C2 to enter into closed session discussion moved second Mr boa yes Mr Lane hi Mr Madigan yes Mr Shanley yes and mayor M yes with an affirmative vote the motion is approved thank you back at we'll be back at uh 8:00 for our business meeting I got to use T from real