##VIDEO ID:by_KCVkikHQ## e e e e oh wait hold on okay I think we're good okay okay that just scared me looks like in the back okay all right good e e e keep e e I ask the appropriate seting the attorney coming yes this one there bye- bye oh me I'm not touching I don't even know if that's it no just turn your mic is your mic on okay good don't talking on that State be doing my best doing a good job good yeah good hang in there I Ricky I'll pretty much follow your lead on a motion to open and then if I'm screwing up just say yeah just open it up open that should a lot of was little hey we missed you today fores please that's in a backyard it's a oh my fo of course I remember oh John's little schedule delay thank you got my you heard's going to be a little late sorry yeah start yes 15 every train they didn't say what it was for yes 30 I was on his way John John we laay on the train all right Pledge of Allegiance please I wish to announce that the 48 hour notice that required the open public meetings Act is email to the Asbury Park Press coar and the new coar on December the 7th of 2023 that a copy has been placed on the bulletin board in the burrow office and that a copy has been filed municipal clerk as a courtesy to the publ this meeting may be attended via Zoom if for any reason the zoom portion of this meeting fails or is disconnected the in-person meeting will continue and action can and will be taken providing that there is an inperson Quorum Mr Noble here Mr goosi here m m Mahoney here Mr Weber mayor Fox okay good night everybody um say uh should be an interesting night we're trying to adopt our 2024 budget um so um you know I would ask as I always do to emphasize that we may disagree on parts of this budget but our voices should be constructive all want a brighter Bradley Beach and I ask everyone to gauge their tone civility Civility and decency particularly when it relates to budgets is important uh with that um I will um go through the process of motioning to open the public hearing for the 2024 Municipal budget do I have a second second Mr Noble yes Mr K yes Mahone yes Mr I mean miss m m m yes Mr Weber running L mayor fo yes okay um so uh this is a portion of the hearing that if the public has questions or comments they can come forward and make those yes 26 BR the out good to see everybody here um I'm going to show the format Works um it's questions and comments on the budget on the budget 2024 budget okay fine great um start on page 70 um which is sheet 39 um just for public record um it says that we started um in January 2022 with our Reserves at 2.86 million that's correct right and if we do spend the $700,000 this year um we will spent about2 .16 million of the reserves in the last two years that's correct right 39 that is 23 and 24 I got it we have 2200 also so Ricky do you have this I got it okay so at this point yes that would be accurate okay T thank you is this form New Jersey form or New Jersey New Jersey oh interesting okay um I'd like to just ask some questions I'll start with the revenue um you look at four um parking meters with anticipated revenue of this year of 30,000 expected 65,000 in year 2023 and the realized cash was $42.42 that's true so we have meter parking we made $43 in 2023 that's how it was posted by the predecessor wow made $131,000 in parking Revenue that was posted to the beach utility $31,000 of that was supposed to have been transferred back over to here to realize it and it was never gotten it was never done okay so it was an error that you're you're fixing okay thank you okay we'll go to um interests and deposits right below that um you're recognizing 42.7 $4 42,700 this year next year we're going to do 118,000 correct okay what what is that attribute to because it's very difficult in this form to really understand at this point through August 31 we realized $15,000 particip interest rates are 4.7 4.8% on our depits oh okay all right um cable fees uh 43,000 2024 90,000 was budgeted in 2023 but there's no money for a cable in 2023 that's correct how does that happen my predecessor realized that money in 2022 and then budgeted it again in 2023 I appreciate you made a lot you fixed a lot of Errors TR I know okay thank you no it's good it's good at least someone paying attention right um cheap pen um you have a $30,000 charge this year for outside employment Administration correct what is that for uh police off duty Services there's an administrative fee when they uh are used by outside vendors we collect that fee for the towns for administrative costs and at the end of 23 there was roughly probably 880,000 to 990,000 sitting in trust account for administrative Fe we realizing 30,000 okay but that was never recognized on this form in 2023 for any realized Revenue that's correct okay um sheet 15 um quote in for for enforcement for the enforcement officer um you budgeted 136,000 in 2023 he spent 14,835 but in 2024 you're only budgeting 965 okay um group health insurance that should be a pretty much a fixed number right so if you budgeted 9538 spent 9273 why is that going 1.13 is that all Insurance increase the State Health Bal it's going up 19.7% okay um let's go to 15 pointb 15D sheet 15b page 30 DPW uh this one's a little bit astounding right you're in 2023 you budgeted 5727 you spent so far 558 point in change but next year only 400,000 why how can you that's 150,000 drop year-over-year no so um so the Department's possible as a matter of concern um during this uh budget except for the superintendent and the part-time seasonal employees all Department employees are members of UFCW Local 152 Union along with our clerical and Technical and administrative employees and currently the subject of a bilateral negotiations when we look at all the accounts that make up to the department as a whole so you're talking about your streets and Roads they'll be this is salary and wages yes but salary and wages are divided up among many different accounts based on what the employee does so um in the 2024 recommended budget it's actually about $78,000 less than the 2023 budget Appropriations and this is primarily due to the resignation of one employee whose position has not been replaced but that that one employee was responsible for 150,000 well it's also based on workload seasonal employees overtime okay all right um one thing that really concerns me and I brought one thing that really concerns me and I brought this up as several meetings is this other category and um if I look through this document you know you you it's insane the amount of other expense that doesn't tie but then how much money you are tying your reserves to in the other categories and that really is not very transparent so that's was the reason I ask is this the state budget or the gravity budget but when you put other in there and then you just pack on all your reserves not all but most of the reserved CS to the other expense lines that's really Shades my opinion but um I think that needs to be looked in in the future um and that's if you look at page 15D you will see there's 1 two 3 four five six Reserve charges that are all others and that's not really clean again I'm just pointing out let me clarify your point your point is on the far right the reserve numbers where it says Reserve yeah what that is is if if we anticipate a bill and it hasn't been paid or we anticipate an amount we encumber it so this we reserved money that in most areas I know but it's interesting that most your reserves are to the other function and not to the real line item expense function that's my point right because the salary and wage is the salary and wage is a very predictable um interval number other other expenses are not well okay but I don't want to use up all my time but I mean there's enough line items here that there shouldn't be so much money all there that's my that's my only um 15b or I think it's it's page 33 whatever it is um gasoline um you budget 44,000 2023 he said you only spent 125 I know that that's not a real number because if I look at the bills list your run rate for gasoline is typically way above this run rate and I don't understand why in 2024 you're now budgeting $80,000 for gas well 2023 also included anticipated cost for purchasing gasoline and diesel fuel from a secondary supplier rather than our primary supplier um which did not occur in 2024 the budget does not include this cost um this year's Appropriations result from estimates provided by the finance department and DPW based on the usion rates in 2023 okay but you're going from 44 in a budget last year the 12 12,600 th000 spent this year and now you're budgeting 80,000 come on on I mean I'm just pointing these out so she1 18 um in 2024 you have a line item for overx expenditures for 46841 what is that 48841 sorry here I'm sorry that's okay that had to do with um one second the overe expenditure was from 12312 audit that was required by law to be raised in the 24 budget uh 34,300 $ 3846 they overspent on engineering and 14,50 342 they overspent on buildings and ground salaries so automatically it has to be put into this okay okay okay um sheet 19 uh Police and Firemen's retirement system of New Jersey uh you budgeted this year we're up to 73674 that is that a state um mandated plug or is it a you know the state gives us an annual bill that is correct okay all right I guess my time's up I almost made it through three more but okay I'm somebody El thank you thank you any other questions yes Thom J just want to clarify something on P39 um you're using the 700,000 regards from Surplus and based on this document it said that that'll leave us with $614,000 in our Surplus once it's once it's adop it that correct and so but uh previously we had over 2 million in Surplus in 2022 that's correct great are you comfortable with the 614 number the 700 that we're using we already rebuilt so it's already rebuilt uh but it wasn't rebuilt in 2022 and 23 what is your expectation that'll happen 24 uh appropriation reserves that will lasts will be $700,000 oh appropriation okay um the uh I I reviewed the foundational documents for this which was the 2023 AFS and and that was signed by you and I was curious as to why the auditor I'm sorry the CFO from 2023 didn't do the AFS for his own work he wasn't employed any longer but it wasn't part of this contract I can't speak to that okay and it wouldn't be because he's not licensed in the state of New Jersey to be a CFO that's been the wrong person okay great um the uh on some of the other items for that I'm concerned about for uh for this year um there's there's sewer reining I don't know who can answer this one for me but there's sewer reining in here and I was wondering what streets would be sewer reigned uh that would be a conversation with the engineer on there has been a sewer replacement plan that has been in place through phases so the engineer would have to evaluate which uh section be a candidate for reigning versus um other well the the full South End of the town has got new sewers with new curb stops it wouldn't really be fair for the rest of the town just to get reining without new curve zones so I think there needs to be more specifics as to where that money is going to be spent and what streets are going to be done because it should really be equal across the board um in terms of the um some of the the fire department turnout here on page 40 see um as I recall there was a grant and the fire company got their turnout so is this a double charge or we buying more we only got a portion of it a portion of the grant could you tell me how much that was yeah go ahead uh the fire department in 20120 late 2022 put in an application for approxim ately $40,000 in a grant they received that Grant they expended it in 2023 they acquired a portion of the turnout GE they needed but there would were additional needs for turnout gear which are appearing in the 2024 budget as a capital outlet Great and then the uh it has in here the 30,000 for roof repair but the roof repair was done previously and we this roof was done and so was the roof that how many roof repairs do we need the roof be the judg chambers was not I thought that was done at the same time as we spent M over there all be fixed no the roof repair in the court um offices was rund okay um going to the uh there's a number in here $382,000 for underdrains listed and no one I've never heard anyone say the word underd drain in this room but it seems like a lot of money and we don't know what it is so the under drains um is a recommendation of the um ppw and the engineer has been talking about under drins were installed in um Burlington and Mammoth I believe and water to help reduce the water in the neighborhood uh the idea is to have DPW and Engineering determine other low line areas or other locations in town that could benefit from this service uh the idea is that um the water taper is lowered we'd have to reduced inflow and infiltration um such as sub pump outflow and into the sanitary sewer system um because when infiltration and um is near you know with the ingr uh the INR tights basically when you start to get that pressure it can cause it to go into the sanitary um sewer system and now we're paying to treat groundwater which raises we're paying a lot to build underd drains is this contract active right now because Okay then if we could remove it from the budget um that would be helpful and we can put it into 2025 budget and that would save us $382,000 this year just so you understand that part of the budget that you're looking at is called the capital budget yes it is not an approval to spend any money at all well it's listed under the 2024 Lin I understand there are things that are being contemplated but there's nothing in place to spend the penny yet okay this has nothing to do with the spending plan that's just to give an idea of what they're looking to do there's no authorization to spend a pay okay Mr Just One Last Question um in the last 30 days since uh August 28 have you had any Zoom interactions or interactions with any of the council members no okay thank you any other questions yes can I just ask um Mr guards and and the respondents here to use the microphone because I'm having trouble but just move that yes Central Avenue I just have a quick question um was the 2023 a complet and factored into the process that we're discussing tonight because last meetings ago we were told that that would be available in the end long time FR last meeting was August 28th so I don't know available previously you are on record Larry Fox indicating that the3 so the answer question is we use I'm using your the primary the primary um document that fed into the budget correct me if I'm wrong into the uh annual Financial Sav the AFS that's correct so the AFS yes the audits still being worked done okay you are on record earlier this summer saying when it asked about the 2023 audit that it would be available at in at the end of the August time frame why is it not complete and when will it be complete uh it'll be complete when Mr alawa and Mr Garts work towards getting a complete um about that'll me to complete why is it not complete uh because some of the information is still forthcoming to Mr all what information I I don't have the detail of that I'm sorrys I with the of the May at this point we're here to discuss the yeah you that up to move it up to hello hello you got to do this but this question is more this uh question answer period is for the 2024 budget hearing and that's a more appropriate question for right but I'm asking why the foundation that required to formulate the 2024 budget is not available is is it not in your opinion Mr regards in general like you're running for election in freeold if you were sitting on nobody uses nobody uses their audit to put a budget together they rely on their annual financial statement so and that's been sub if you were sitting on Council next year in 2025 as a council person and you were being asked to consider the casing of the 2025 budget you wouldn't factor in and wouldn't go get the 2024 budget in your consideration in passing the 2025 budget is that what you're saying today I'm not going to even answer your question we're Brad be 24 budget great but I'm asking in your professional opinion as a CFO my opinion on that does not matter 2024's budget is up for hearing right now why is question on the 24 budget yeah I'd like to know why the 2023 budget is not available at at on AUST I mean in September the end of September of 2024 why is the 2023 budget not completed Avil what is pending like what is the hold up because the Mayon record having asked that's my why is that not available I think we've answered the question that no no not answered we're here to do the 2024 budget right and I'm asking why the 2023 what has not been as Mr said that's not a requirement for the 2024 budget asking about why is it not again we're here to talk about the 2024 budget right so when will it be done talk about the 2024 budget right but it's required in order to no it's not required he just said it wasn't so I'm sorry but we the AFS is required it's part of the 2024 budget and it's on record at this time M kler just just for the record uh I don't know maybe a month ago three weeks ago I had an an email exchange with our auditor he told me that he was still collecting data to continue his audit and three weeks ago he didn't think it would be completed till maybe mid October so he's collecting data but it's not available yet The Bu okay thank you yes hear that Buzzy voice I don't know what it is okay hi Bri McGuire 61 Bley app um about the Surplus the question I asked at the last meeting I never received an email that that information is uh mayor Fox the question about the 700 can you explain to me what you mean about is we're borrowing the 700 out of the Surplus but that's already get going to get replenished correct so what's the balance the 614 why does it show 614 is that just showing what the balance is before the punishment goes back in correct okay thank you um also I wanted to ask um the assistant CFO Alison Gavin why is she not here not required okay I thought I thought she was a big part of the team in the last time she provided us a lot of data and information but it's not required she doesn't need to be working for 14 hours she can in okay I was just asking no I just answered um another question I have is based on the 2022 audit results and even though we don't need the 23 audit results it's not required to do the budget do you find that there's any concern with not having that audit here with our budget after what the 2022 audit results showed no no not at all like you feel like everything you went through in this budget was totally good and clear and every penny is accounted for I'm not sure I understand that question you're comfortable with the budget to the penny I'm really nervous being that the 2022 audit summarized material misstatements and not having a 2023 audit going into a 2024 budget in October of 2024 I feel like it's crucial that we would have that information before we can move forward with the budget so it's really scary to me that some things maybe didn't look comfortable in there you know and I'm asking you as the professional like did you feel every penny is like accounted for and looks healthy I'm comfortable with the budget presented yes okay thank you very much thank you any other questions back 218 for Avenue um I just have one question on the uh the resolution talking about the FL it says at the top whereas the local Municipal budget for the year 2024 was approved on the 28th day of August 2024 I thought and I could be wrong um I thought what was approved was um introduction to the local Municipal budget for 2024 was in uced on the 20th day of August it wasn't approved the introduction was approved that's that's yeah not what it says on here just for the record thank you yes3 Avenue I know we still in negotiations I believe with 152 has money been set aside the budget to pay them back pay not back pay but there is money um for any potential salary wage increases oh so we're not planning on paying the back pay for two years that would be retro pay but okay retro pay all right so this money set aside for that okay perfect thank you okay there's no other questions we'll close the um public hearing on 2024 for budget and at the same time I make a motion to um motion to second to close the public hearing on 2024 budget and then open it for the governing body motion to close the budget hearing second Mr Noble yes Mr gazi yes M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes okay Council any questions on the budget there no questions oh there questions okay yeah five months worth of questions um so I'll I'll start but um I want to just a couple kind of high level things up front and then you know get into some very specific number of questions but um just for the folks who you should all know this if you didn't receive some sort of an email um earlier today I don't know exactly when a few hours ago perhaps we were given a the council was handed a new resolution the anticipated Surplus that two people tonight asked about the 700,000 it's been adjusted to and we will be passing a resolution tonight to approve this it's being adjusted from 700,000 to 7 23, 627 so we've we're borrowing another 23,6 27 from the Surplus is that fair or not that's correct okay thank you um also for those of you who just recently asked about the U it would have been nice about you know had we had the the 2023 audit results and I appreciate Mr garson's responses I personally felt as a few of you mentioned I I would have preferred that have some sort of external audit validation of our 2023 results Mr gar is 100% correct you know we work with they work with the uh the AFS however many of you know that that our 22 AFS was horribly inaccurate not in many ways not even close to what the final audited numbers for 2022 showed so with that recent bad experience I personally was hoping that we'd have the audit and that's why I reached out to the auditor um like I said three weeks ago or so at which time again he told me would it happens he wouldn't be able to deliver it until early to mid uh October um I guess one of the uh one of the things we'll get into is the retropay question that was just asked because I have questions and the council has some questions um Mr G I guess before I get started you know obviously we're all under tremendous pressure to try to resolve this and move the burrow forward hopefully approving a budget and moving forward um but can you just re repeat for my benefit as well as for anyone else who might not be fully aware of the rules um I know there's a 1510 rule basically and if we trigger 1% of this it gross and 5% of that and 10% of that we basically have to start over right reu the budget if we want adjustments that trigger one five or 10 no you don't have to start over Okay please please inform us you would have to have an amendment done if it meets one of those three criteria and then have another public hearing just on that Amendment but we don't have to wait the 30 days again no you have to we 10 days 10 days okay correct okay um the the way different council members you know took Parts took interest in different exhibits so what we found was I might have some questions in an area that Miss Mahoney was looking at or Miss denovo so what we're going to do for the benefit of the audience is we've listed our questions in order that um we think it'll make it clearer for you and clearer for you Mr gar you know if if we're on an exhibit I may have a couple questions and someone else may have a couple questions so we're going to you know I guess Mr May I'll ask you permission but the council would like to be able to ask questions on an exhibit by exhibit basis so that we can just keep this coherent and not I ask all my questions then we go back to the same exhibits later is that okay discussion standpoint okay thanks and and my first question is very general um way back in March 27 24 um we received what I believe and I'm asking you to confirm was U Edmund's data historical data as well as current budget data and it was strikingly inaccurate but maybe it wasn't Edmonds or maybe it was I think at one point we received an email from the administration saying that um Ed is just not accurate because we can't add adjustments or whatever so my question really is historically we used to have I thought a fairly good good excel-based detailed accounting of you know by budget lineups 800 plus rows is that the Fone now is that no longer going to be available to the council or do you know uh not sure if you're recording to 24 or what you reir well it was sent to us in 24 and it had a history of including the 24 budget recommended uh it had a number of columns that went back to I think 21 or 2020 and the columns lined up you know row by row uh uh for Appropriations at the time we didn't get any Revenue detail at all but we did have Appropriations but those 800 or so rows came pretty close in say 24 to matching our budget but as you went back to 23 and then 22 and then 21 yeah numbers were dropping by 30 40% I mean they were nowhere near reflective of what the real data was so it seemed to be grossly an error I I was under the impression you had been the one forwarding it to us but then we we were told later that edmit doesn't I don't know it's no longer accurate I can't speak to what happened in 21 22 and 23 but it's St that was being shared with the council to review the the current budget but the I'm curious tell you it's 204's numbers will be spot on right but I'm I'm only asking can we the council rely on Edmond system or is that no longer an accurate reporting mechanism for those coule years I would say that the old saying is garbage in garbage out what my predecessor was posting in those entries I I can't answer for it but they were not 100% accurate yeah yeah okay and and Order magnitude they might have been 30% accurate or 70% accurate but not not close to 100% okay um my I guess my uh let's so my my real first question really was about Edmonds I know uh one of my colleagues wanted to jump in with a question so I I'll come back in a minute I I do have a few questions about salaries away just for a few departments but uh I think Christen Mahoney you might have a question yeah just to kind of level Set uh Mr CS when I look at this document I just want to make sure because we're going to be referring to some of these exhibits if you look at the um sewer utility on page 33 so it goes well sheet 33 I'll refer to the the state document as sheets and then we have other documents so sheet 33 goes for sewer utility goes 33 31 32 and then we start beat utility 32b 33 and then we go to page 37 I just want to make sure that's what you have as well because this is the most recent document we were sent M okay so that pagination error is just a pagination error it's the state budget docum this is their document I don't do anything with the page numbers this comes out of their system okay I mean sometimes page numbers are are are generated as you you know as you do a PDF okay all right so just when we do it we'll if we have to refer to third 33 and there's two of them we'll we'll we'll tell you the utility okay all right no no problem no problem okay yeah for the that was just confusing council members who had a question on 33 and another at 33 and then we're on different pages so um okay we we talked about um the the retray briefly and I I really wanted to jump in on trying to understand what's happening with DPW um salaries salaries and wages um maybe a lesser question about other expenses but I'd like to just focus on DPW for a minute um what everybody's tends to look at if you looked at DPW salaries and wages or or any other salaries and wages you probably were looking at current fund because that the current fund kind of itemizes lets you know DPW sers here police sour there and so forth um but uh I I know we were provided a document back in March that gave us total salaries before allocations to the beach in the sewer are you aware of that document that's what you got I'll take your work for okay no I'm you know the thing is I've been looking forward all night to all for months talking to you live thinking that you were the the source of a lot of the data so I was just hoping you'd confirm do you do you recall a document I have it I can show you a picture maybe maybe Mr farbach you might have put it together but someone put together a document that showed total wages of the you know by different buckets in our budget line items and then allocated 100,000 to Beach 200,000 sewer and got to a current fund and the reason I'm painfully going through this is because I'm focusing on the total wages before we do the allocations just to understand what's what's happening in the world of DPW I did not put that document to go okay Meredith are you familiar with it or I would have to look at the document because councilman there's been so many that I don't know which what exact one you are but I think net net we're saying that dpw's gone down the whole thing $78,000 correct the whole thing G pre preallocation if you just look dollar dollar DPW it's it's down $78,000 okay so can can you guys give me the kind of start point inpo on that because I did my own calculation and it I thought it was going down either 102,000 or and I didn't believe this one 161,000 but I think it's going down 102,000 so can you just tell me what the what the 2023 total DPW salary wages were and the 2024 so it looks like in um 2023 the total was uh 130 or 1, 39217 and in 24 we're looking at 1, 34400 okay which is $78,000 difference corre okay as long as those numbers were numbers that had ever been shared with the council we probably wouldn't be having this conversation but the numbers shared with the council were a million 3921 127 which I believe is then M Dem Marco shared um and then a million 3 29400 but also the 202 after they were shared with us and we're in 2024 the 2023 numbers were adjusted to Upward by $ 29,7 so the four examples streets and Roads the number given to us was 558 227 in the current fund but then we got an updated exhibit the more recent exhibit that says the new number is 5727 uh I I could share this with you but snow removal originally was Zero but then the new number adds 15,000 when I added those two new numbers to the the other old numbers that didn't change I get a million 11600 for the current fund now I don't know because no one gave me updates for allocations to the beach and the sewer so if there were no changes to the beach and the sewer allocations I would think I'd add that same number that $29,000 difference to the total right unless allocations change to the beach of sewer an increase in the current fund should be an increase in the total I not but M DeMarco the number you gave me showing no increase in the total and yet the current Fund in 2023 increased 29,000 so I figured like it's got to be one or the other is anyone no what I'm talking about I mean I can't speak to 2023 allocations I can tell you 2024 allocations um are done based on the position the position title and what primarily they work on from a timing standpoint we stop any changes in allocations in April is that right I would have to okay set another way I really want to know what was the total wages for 2024 were within I don't know 14 15 grand I'm I'm okay with that but the total wages in 2023 someone changed the exhibit that was given to us and I can tell you the exact buckets that were changed streets and roads were changed and removal was increased from 0 to 15 grand so if you go through those numbers I think you'll confirm because I've done it five times the current fund for 2023 uh Appropriations should total for all the DPW related salary buckets originally total a million 082 and it now should total a million 111 I mean is that something we can test I would have lik to ask this question months ago and maybe I'm wrong I'm not I'm not trying to be accusatory no I'm providing you answers based off the introduced budget that that is based off the introduced budget the salary change is $78,000 however okay so basically the data given to us incorrectly five months ago I can show you it's not correct if what you're telling me now is correct that we couldn't ask questions about for five months now you're telling me the data we had five months ago is incorrect and and now you just have to believe the correct daating with the introduced budget reflex no no I understand I'm not blaming you I'm I'm blaming a broken process uh question you um tell us what she you're working off this is difficult Mr Kenny because fine I'm just sheet well I'll I'll give you all a sheet I'll give you all a sheet it's um if we could go to the gota find it let me find a reference point uh let's see looking for PW salary and wage Appropriations there's a number of buckets starting with streets and Roads and solid waste for example so we can find that relatively quickly probably that sounds good whoever said that uh let's see 15b you I can this okay yeah are these the numbers 572 700 is that here or is it uh for streets and ropes yeah you Mr G sir yes this document was given to us on July 23rd and a pack so these are the numbers that we're referring to I mean these numbers probably haven't changed or we wouldn't imagine they would we hadn't received anything after this well the so Mr Gs what do you or Meredith whoever can help on this okay what do we have now in the crab oh okay great that has the 15,000 in it yes okay cool good okay so if we find if we compare those numbers that luosi can I just try this please um you raised a question about the overall costs of um DPW the various elements across current Beach and Sewer um that information had been supplied the number that didn't change was snow so snow was not included on the initial response right when you raised a question about that it was then adjusted to include snow in the analysis it has always been in the budget proposal it was not included in the analysis because there was no change so it seemed to me as if simplifying it would be better for you and everybody else by not including it but because you raised that question we didn't add snow it had all it had always been there it just was not included in in the analysis given to you thank you and I noticed that someone did add it in after I raised the question and I appreciate that but I guess Mr uh barbach if we included it in the current fund I would have thought it would have been included in the total pre allocations to the beach and the sewer I don't see it being included in the total threee allocation to the beach and Sewer utility so you I you agree with you and the current fund it is included I don't see it also added back to the total and it's the total salary that I'm trying to get to does that make sense it makes sense but that would have been a different analysis and um and it was left out trying to simplify it but all numbers then would have changed by $155,000 and it would have had a zero sum of fact that actually if I'm trying to compare total to total and this Marco just read me total her total doesn't include the 15,000 but the new Total does 2024 and I'm trying to get apples and apples that's all and Mr Gs just just to make sure I'm taking the right numbers the current DPW salary and wage analysis the current budget the number for streets and Road am I incorrect or is it not 572,000 maybe I I don't know 572 700 for 2023 no I'm sorry for 2024 no it's not okay what what is the amount maybe I have it wrong she 15 B 4,400 all right we'll find it hold on I think I had should have referenced my own source because I have the same data part of me ladies and gentlemen have a lot of paper here we have streets and roads on one and it's Road repair remain it's on another but where is it there is we're talking talking degree if I can't find this number I will not hold this up long um I do think there's at least 15,000 that I think we have just accounted for out of my 29 so perhaps there's a difference of 70,000 perhaps there's reduction M Dem Mark you said 70,000 roughly 78 78 and perhaps that really should be 15,000 more if not if I can find mine number 29,000 no you still saying no Mr the number should be 77,78 in change that's what the difference is between the 2023 expenditures I'm sorry Appropriations and the 2024 Appropriations for Public Works services in total salaries and wages Okay we okay we let's go with this let's just go with it because I think we're I think we're disagreeing by at least $15,000 however um my biggest concern is the salaries and wages are going down and I appreciate that we're entering October of this year and these are largely baked numbers but they're going down down 78,000 when roughly I was under the impression that they should be going up close to a 100,000 I Mr DeMarco mentioned we lost one employee since last year I'm under the impression we lost three we hired one back that would leave us with two have we hired others back no we've hired um we've had some shifting chains where we've hired people and and they have not stayed we've hired part-time uh but in the development of the budget uh it was at that time we knew the resignation of one employee okay so this is maybe following up on Mr Kenny's question a little um if if if by your own calculations budget's going down 78,000 and I I thought it might be going down as much as 100 but it's going down a lot in a world where we thought we would have retray plus the Curr your pay I would have thought it might have been going up closer to 100 again I don't know the number but we're losing one person that we're not going to replace but there's a difference I think of close to $180,000 using your numbers by retray are you referring to contract negotiations yeah okay as previously discussed those wouldn't necessarily appear in the salary and wage line because we are in the middle of negotiations and you don't want to put out there exactly how much you are saving for so that would not appear in the salary and wage payment and just another the point the retro pay on 2023 will go against 2023 not against 202 correct okay so how is the council to know what we're approving a budget how are we supposed to know what that number is what what number is okay we had an executive session in April where I told where I stated the percentage that the burrow could take on and that information has not changed since that executive session okay but we'd ALS okay so somewhere buried in the budget unidentified is that extra money it's just unidentified correct and this has been previously discussed I'm sorry but that you gave me a percentage I do agree with that yeah at the time I didn't have a baseline so it didn't mean a lot to me I subsequently they looked up what the Baseline would be only for DPW at least one of whom is not in the local 152 but but okay the bottom line is if there's a number I don't care if it's zero or 50,000 or 500,000 we should have been we the council should have been told you know where that is or how to look for it so we could because if it's buried somewhere else I'm looking at something else going wow that looks really high while I'm telling you DPW salaries look really low none of us would be having this debate if you had just told us where the dollars were and roughly what they were okay so ladies and gentlemen For What Little it's wor we're something between I'm I'm thinking I was thinking and I still believe if I could find my number that we might be looking at a swing of 200,000 but even using the teams uh the budget teams number of 78 and my number of 100 in the other direction roughly $180,000 off and that doesn't sound like the difference in one employee now again I've just learned that numbers are buried elsewhere but I need to ask this question because the mayor had talked and this is all part of DPW the mayor talked about uh austerity plan and earlier we mentioned we chose not to rehire one person um given the people we've lost given this structure of DPW today um can we continue to deliver the same level of services to Residents that we've been doing or are is is the administration making it a unilateral decision to cut services without talking to the council no the administration beli of the DPW can adequately be staff with this proposed budget right and the as the administration making that decision have they talked to the supervisor of DPW yes of course yes of course you have yes of course we have well I'm asking only because if they can deliver the same level of services down down well I don't know how much I thought it was $180,000 um and I know that two of the people they've lost have CDL licenses and my understanding is we need CDL licenses to move snow how many CDL licenses do we currently have in the DPW yeah probably currently right now yeah maybe 10 10 or 11 we have 10 or 11 people who can plow snow you're saying they all can plow snow it's it's one type of vehicles that they're in okay so so I I had heard through a source that we lost two CDL es but you're saying we have sufficient CDL licenses to continue to we don't we we lost three men in over a year and a half I was told that we were going to hire two of them back in that case that we should be and B I don't know if the rest of the room can hear you so I'm repeating just to clarify but you're you are not adequately staffed now but if you hire two people back you would be close yes and you could with two people hired back you could deliver the same level of services you've been delivering with two people back yes it would be it's still a challenge because it's not just about snow C it's more than that it's sanitation it's everything that we do right now we don't have the right people on the right jobs and we did hire somebody to was good enough to help us out with that but we're having a challenge finding CDL drivers at at the salaries that that you know small town can justify um so we did hire a a laborer and um that's basically where we're at without a c okay hope that he's able to obtain but that's you know that's it's up and so I I'm I'm not going to put you on a spot do not answer this question but the question racing through my mind is sounds like yours your belief might be different than the administration's belief who moments ago told me you are adequately staffed then you can continue to no I said with this proposed budget Council said this proposed budget will adequately staff the DPW that was my stat process of hiring people and trying to recruit people what's in the budget is you believe in adequately staff I need to understand Mr Mayor I just you cannot say this is our one chance question is our one chance to vote right and you can't keep saying We believe We believe I need to know I see numbers going down 70,000 78,000 I thought it was 100 pick a number in that 80,000 range going down when I thought we would at least be replacing these people you're somehow going down saying it's reasonable and somewhere buried in this budget that none of the council members understand is whatever that difference is of last year's retro pay and this year's pay which is now retray so there's a big gap here that we don't understand and if I'm going to vote for this budget I need somebody's assurance and it's probably got to be you Mr Mayor that these that our DPW is going to be adequately staffed and compensated if we can't hire people then all of the residents are going to blame the council when we say we're moving to you know no snow removal or or garbage pickup every other week or whatever we are not voting on cutting services we're not voting on we're not we do not have service Cuts in this budget we have adequate Staffing in this budget as I said we're in the process of recruiting some people uh what's reflected in this budget is no change in services and and yet and yet our our supervisor and all we have is is your admission that you've talked to the DPW supervisor but he is sitting here telling us he's not SP okay yeah she did tell me that when his budget's approved we'll have that opportunity to hire another individual at what at what pay level do you need roughly counc I don't know yet because so far we've been denied by some CVL you know licensed idual they can't come for the salary that a small town could provide for the starting salary that a small town could provide so I mean you know really it should be like at least 45 between 45 and 50,000 the hire CBL license do with experience and compared to and I didn't get a chance to really have that discussion and I didn't get a chance to have this discussion with you so communication all around would have been helpful over the last five mons um okay so your question answered that we have an adequate amount of dollars to cover our current Services well not in these budget numbers but somewhere buried elsewhere in the budget in our 2024 budget can you can you give me a hint as to what categories the numbers have buried in Mr buosi if I can please I would if you want to raise this you ought to request a closed session to be able to discuss it under contract negotiations but I believe even your burrow attorney would agree that to discuss that publicly puts the municipality at risk in terms of reaching a reasonable settlement in contract negotiations period I understand that Mr fabot for five months we've asked this question and we could have easily done it in private session so please don't explain to me now I need to go to private session I've been asking this question more or less for five months okay uh so I guess I can't can I ask about other expenses in the DPW because they're not going to be aisc at all by the negotiations right any question thank you okay um for dpw's other expenses I guess what I want to know there is go back Mr Mark please tell me if I'm wrong because I I do have two sets of numbers again earlier version and then later version I believe other expenses are going from 664 th000 rounding 709 is that correct and this is a current fund only uh yes because there are no o and allegations to be and SE so um the totally total appropriation the current fund for everything but no removal was uh 77,4 okay um now that you just answered my question I think so maybe I'll I'll rephrase it I was going to ask why aren't there any allocations to sewer and Beach Utilities like I I don't know exactly how these are comprised but a vehicle maintenance couldn't that be Beach Vehicles as well or no uh oh so I'm I do apologize I was police that doesn't have anything that sewer so I apologize for that um so we have um this is 24 242 yeah so there's about um and B numbers 120 for streets and Roads o and E about uh 305,000 during Solid Waste um then with buildings and grounds that one is about 160 for um current uh 463 in change for uh Beach and then vehicle maintenance you have 96,000 in current oh this is sewer oh I'm sorry s the um 463,000 sewer then for Parks m maintenance we have about 35 five in current and then in Beach we did charge 83,000 there wow okay because the exhibits we were given on March 27th have only the current fund totals and and it identifies current fund columns sewer column zeros Beach also blank not zeros blank and then total is the same as current so we weren't even given the the allocations to the beach and the sewer so of course I used the data we were given to to do this calculation can you please tell me prior to Beach and Sewer allegations what were the total DPW other expenses that I believe was the uh seven oh toal okay so this is total 08 and that's what you're asking about okay so for 2024 the total 08 yeah is 1 million $264,600 we have for the current fund um okay and they appear to be relatively flat year-over year okay um all right I'm GNA move on to the the police um for what it's worth I actually came out pretty close to your the team's numbers I don't know if it's Mr Garts or others but I came out pretty close on police I for one am satisfied I've shared that with Council colleagues as we've discussed every night um but I was curious about the police although maybe I shouldn't be satisfied maybe I have flowing data there as well U I'm just going to go with police 0 other expenses um how much do we have total again not current fund only but total police uh other expenses Miss 134,50 34 it was in 2023 2024 is 151,00 okay thank you my uh my question there is and that sounds like it's up 156,000 correct increases include more allocation for special events storms and okay uh yeah okay um my question there is again this probably comes back to the L the depth of conversations your team and the mayor are having with our Police Department because as I just talked to officers on the street just people I meet in you know passing uh I hear a pretty big wish list come out of those conversations and I'm not sure you probably have heard the same wish list but um but I have to ask a question because some of the things the officers have told me that they could use sound like really valuable for example license plate readers uh radar guns apparently I gather maybe I could put one Mr Brownie on the spot but I'm told we don't have many radar guns and yet I've got a million residents telling me there's too much speeding and when I heard we we didn't have enough radar guns I thought that's crazy and then on these License Plate Reader devices I'm told you know they SC a license plate as a car's driving by and it tells if there's outstanding warrants if there's fines if there's whatever and at least one of the officers I was talking to said it could be a a money maker for the burrow if we could invest in license plate readers um I've also been told I don't know the details of this perhaps you guys do um that some of our squad cars could use computers and when I asked roughly what cluster people don't know of course but it sounded like to do all this outfitting it might be three or 400 ,000 I I don't know but two or 3,000 three or 4,000 a car for if five cars it's $15,000 so I'm throwing that out there to say did we consider this and can we be investing a little bit more in some of this particular equipment um I can say that we've had many conversations with Chief Arnold um about this um he has not expressed some of those views you had raised them before so we went back and had another conversation with him and he confirmed that what we were including is appropri okay because I went to Chief Arnold and I asked him and he said it would be great he said I don't want to I don't want to mess up the budget discussions but boy if if there was a way to find some money that would be a wonderful thing now I put I kind of cornered them but I I'm saying it only to say I'm not feeling like we're all in the same page just in in the level we're sharing with each other because we're not allowed to talk to people unless I Corner them on the street or something um but when I do he very specifically said that would be that would be great he just didn't think we could afford it and I am saying as the council person I'm one of five who gets to vote on what we can and can't afford and what I think the residents want or don't want all I can say councilman is if the department head or in this case the chief of police doesn't make the request to me while developing the budget I I I'm not a mind reader that has to be communicated that's fair that's fair but when we were when we were fined by the council except for the mayor we fined by the DCA for being late they very specifically said you Council you didn't make a counter proposal how could we if we didn't know what was in the budget and we didn't know what was in the budget fact I guess you had the budget uh had for a long time yeah couldn't get any questions answered well yeah you you did you got a stack of questions it's all good it's all good okay so if we vote for if I personally vote for a budget tonight to improve do M Mr Dem Marco you seem to know as much as anyone about the budget here um would we have enough money especially when November Mr Gs there's a November time frame middle of November where we can move dollars between buckets is that correct November 1st uh so let me ask you from a technical standpoint if if we agree to the budget in its entirety tonight but if we as a council talk with the mayor the business administrator and we we say we'd like to spend an exra 15,000 on the police or we might need another 50,000 for DPW salaries and wages is is that the type of thing if if we're talking less than 100,000 50,000 maybe is that the type of thing we might be able to move one bucket to another November 1 if we could find it available in another bucket yes and and and you know we're replenishing uh Surplus above come into play on this conversation right okay you're operating Mo between accounts okay yeah and you don't know this appropriate bu that's for next year okay but okay that's fair yeah because I got to get my head straight too we're only talking about a couple months left in this yeah the other point here is that um we're gon we're gonna actually we're GNA be starting the 2025 departmental reviews at the end of October so starting that process as we did last year quiet please okay um I am uh I am good for now I think uh I'll hand it off to Kristen maybe yeah yeah okay um the current fund uh fund balance analysis doc okay so we got a new document today and it shows that we are um going anticipate replenishment of now $723 in anticipated Surplus correct okay and we expect to have we're going to utilize 73,000 we're going to utilize it we're going to use utilize that okay and then have an additional 150 in excess Revenue correct the 150 that you're referring to is strictly on your current fund taxes taxes taxes uh there's also miss R Revenue in there too correct 20,000 and Miss Revenue not anticipated corre okay okay um so where is the 600k in lap Reserve coming from what projects what year there's no projects it's your 2023 budget there's no projects it's what remains out of your 2023 budget automatically goes down into Surplus when you don't use it at the end of the year the project oh so it's not associated with any problems they're not reserved are are we releasing reserves from projects this has nothing to do with oh has nothing to do with that so so I noticed in other years in 2022 we only released $69,000 of reserves and in 2023 we we released $321,000 of reserves and then in 2024 we're going to release $600,000 of reserves and this is all to pay for our operating expenses correct if you need to release reserves to pay for operating expenses aren't you then spending too much money when you say release reserves I'm not following your question if you need to spend reserves Reser it's an appropriated budget that isn't going to be utilized that automatically comes back into your fund balance but couldn't that money flow to our Surplus and stay there that's what it's going to happen that's where the 600 replenishment comes from there and we'll go down to Surplus the the lady had asked about the 700,000 we're using and I said we already have it rebuilt because I know we're going to have $700,000 in appropriated reserves from our 23 budget that we will not spend that will come back into your Sur you know we have that $600,000 I do so where is it where is it coming from it's unspent money from 2023 correct correct and you're saying it over and you're saying Mr gar you're just saying that those dollars it it Almost Doesn't Matter What line item the reserve was built on if was pleas we can release them to generally you don't have to release them to fund a particular item you're saying as a matter of law you're not releasing anything it gets put right into your Surplus by law right there's no council decision on that it's just the way it flows right okay okay okay yes so so for example we're doing a b Bazi Center roof repair because Miss Miss Mahoney's making me think the same thing I think we're doing Bazi Center repair and we we got uh we got the project you know lined up to be $100,000 and we've reserved and we you know we had an appropriation for 100 we spent 90 of it we got 10,000 left in reserve so far so good now that 10,000 it gets released whether or not we have additional payments to make on the bii center if they're not incumbered by the end of the year that is correct and these are unencumbered reserves that that is correct okay you would make a decision to encumber if you knew was another $10,000 bill you would encumber it so that could at this point they should have been encumbered right so and I before I came there was $793,000 available in your appropriation resour okay but and and just to make sure you said they should have been incumbered meaning is they they I can't speak to what occurred prior to beginning here if they're not incumbered they're not company okay so okay um do we normally have you as a CFO do you normally have some control mechanism I know you're new to Bradley but I'm just thinking I'd like our CFO to to know if they're encumbered or not and how do you normally know normally if you're a long-term CFO on anything specific or in no you were just saying you know you don't know on daily purchases you're department heads know that they have to do blanket purchase orders at the beginning of every month to cover the expected expenditures they're going to have and at the end of the month that purchase order is utilized to pay those BS so they've encumbered the funds already un contract Awards comes before the council you need a certification of funds from me before you're allowed to authorize any contracts and at that point I encumber those funds if I don't give you a certification of funds you're not authorized to pass the resolution because I haven't told you there's money avaluable to pass the resolution that sounds perfect so I my question is so so why don't you know for sure that because I didn't set up 23's activity okay so let me let me just comment not be difficult I me by3 yeah so I think can I make a comment sure so in 2023 early in the year we put a a pretty strong set of procedures in place on purchase Recs purchase orders to a point where if some I think there was a case where somebody went bought something we said yeah better go find money to buy this because you didn't put a purchase Rec purchase order in we've had I would suggest and and a combination of Meredith and Greg can tell me there's pretty good compliance with our procedures around encumbering funds uh so I think we've improved that significantly 23 24 and that's one one of the reasons that I'm pretty confident in the number you're coming up with it's basically the outcome of those procedure changes that's correct and overseeing them not just putting the procedures and overseeing them not just so yeah your department heads are notified periodically if something comes up to our attention done incorrect but that's been far in a few between since I've been here right because we went to painstaking detail in 23 to make sure that happen y okay Chris was yeah no okay I guess um I thought they were they were ATT projects and then uh had to be had to be releas released based on the project okay chrisan if they're in CER if right if they're encumbered right and and if they were in sped I thought they you know um okay um and then the miscellanous revenues in 2023 and 2022 we had almost $100,000 in 2023 and 2022 over $100,000 of miscellaneous revenues and then this year we're going to be positive what are what are miscellaneous Reven uh there would be like alcohol licenses that you issue you would anticipate $20,000 yeah there's actually a page in the if you look at sheet four in your budget document through luly sheet nine they're all miscellaneous revenues yeah so what's a negative what's a negative Revenue I'm not sure what you're referring to well it I have no negative revenues in that budget argument it's the fund balance analysis is the fund balance yeah fund balance fund balance analysis that's a different story that oh that's what I was talking about we're still on the fund balance analysis I'm sorry that means that you did not realize what you anticipated so if you anticipated 100,000 in that year you only got 19 that's why there's $81,000 oh okay so we don't know what we an a lot of things that's that even one okay so it's not it's just that we didn't we had a short W yeah so if you look at the example they gave on the port Revenue you had $42 sitting in the current fund when you anticipated 65,000 that would be that would be a deficit in a revenue and that's what the total of that number on the 81 is for the fund balance rebuilding and then also on just the other category in 2022 is $229,000 negative other and that must have been something that we really fell short of in 2022 I don't know what it was um I'm not quite sure I'm 249 let me see if I can find my fun balance sheet one second balance just sheet well the 229 I believe in 22 was an audit adjustment that was made oh okay okay I can't speak the specifics on pretty sure that's what it was okay and then the $7,000 is what under other is like something that we would have refunded that we had to refund them a prior here okay all right shortfalls and you'll see that I have nothing anticipated against them in 2024 because they're not normal activities that's good let's not normalize that all right great thank you you're welcome all right I'm going to jump back in then these are going to be quick based on your explanations but similarly on the fund balance analysis the beach fund balance appears that you're just saying anticipating drawing down Surplus 175 say that again I'm sorry sure the the fund balance analysis this one the um the beach I'm sorry the sewer utility beginning balance for the for the Surplus is 1.8 million ending balance is 1.65 looks like you're anticipating that we will draw down Surplus intentionally is that is that true 175 I'm saying that we're not going to rebuild what we're utilizing in this estimate as you know this is just an estimate right right so it could be higher than the 175 or it could be a number that you're positive to depending on the type of year you have I've estimated $200,000 on your lapsing in reserves on this analysis yeah it's 300,000 before I came in here today so I know I have another 100 so you got another the estimate yes we're using it to balance and by the way the fund balance is the rate payer and the taxpayer is funds so you put it back in the budget is their money to balance it so you don't have to raise rates we like that so that's a good that's the way of looking right uh and similarly so that it's interesting because U that's good news by the way that we're only dipping in 75 grand at at current estimate right okay uh I know we've you know we talked about the current fund a lot but the sew Dro from 2.1 million to 1.9 to 1.8 to now 1. six now maybe 1.7 maybe better but it's still started at 2.1 so part of what I'd like to think all of us on the council would like to see is to the extent possible maintaining our surpluses and even over time adding to them uh can't always do that I appreciate but sewers been a bit of a nose di for these three years at least I'm sure you're aware well but our SE so our total spend SE is 2.14 one y and our Surplus is anticipated to be a million six so we've got a we've got a surplus of about 77% of our Opera expense so got a pretty good Surplus there recognizing we've got things on the horizon but of the three that's the the healthiest of the three funds yeah no the goal is just to my goal at least is to try to not draw them down but to you know add to them when we can same thing uh for the beach not as robust still a solid Surplus but U dropping that 990,000 is that your best estimate Mr G at this point actually where I have laps reserves 175 that's at 3002 so we'll have a positive number this year that's great well as I said the last council meeting our badge revenues in themselves were 182 over our estimate so all that's going to flow into that yeah that's good thank you I have a question um on sheet 8 with the code enforcement permit you have anticipated in 2024 and 2023 45,000 but in realized in cash in 20123 is blank did you she coun woman it's 54427 that we realized I'm not sure what sheet we have there I apologize number there 5427 54427 correct 54 lank as well I had the same question we were given a blank I apologize I don't know how you got a blank okay that answers my question thank you you're welcome it's really nice having you here because that was that was you know getting these questions answered is excellent thank you yeah that was my note is that was sub verion we received on May 29th I think no this is our this is July 23rd July 2 July 23rd yeah Zer this missing on M as well it's on mine I don't know why 54427 yeah it's not it's not on mine um and I uh Mr G I think you but on your sheet that was given to the on so the revenue analysis that was done for you on this sheet of time so was just an Omission in the state on the budget summary yeah my I'm still not sure what happened though but I can tell you what probably happened I've looked at this so many times you know you miss things once in a while you finalize it so my apologies okay yeah no no I I only like if I missed one then I wondered that I miss other a concrete answer y thank you uh she 10 I think you answered this uh when Mr Kenny had a question the outside employment administration fee that's that's new for this year was $30,000 on sheet 10 that's correct that's a new okay and then what about uniform fire safety act that's money funds that we uh received from the state quarterly for the inspections that are done and I realized 4400 that already so we have one more quarter to get paid and we didn't receive anything in 2023 or it's new this year as well no it's not new I don't know what happened in the past all right well okay um and then on sheet 11 we have four items there where the realized uh real cash in 2023 um we are anticipating more than we realized in 2024 which is a little unusual I think so local revenues were anticipating more even though last year we got you know then we got last year well you'd have to go back to each individual sheet okay and get summarized to those totals to look at the individual numbers so I could respond to each one of them so on your local revenues you have a jump on interest on investments from $100 that you anticipating in 20 grade to $118,100 24 so it's an aggregate that's that's a summary sheet you're looking at all the sheets prior to that is the detail of it so four through 10 Aggregates to 11 Che four this is a great question I was going to ask the same question so CHR all right but but just um it's good news I'd rather have $118,000 than $100 um but how are we off that much like why why why did somebody budget 100,000 do we know anticipated no you weren't here you answered your question this is the rest of this conversation should get easier and easier right because she wasn't oh and the 118,000 just um my my related question was are we I don't I don't know enough about Municipal County 118,000 where's that uh Investments 118 100 right 1800 but mayor's asking what page is it on four on page four um I was gonna ask I was under the impression that you can you're always capped at how much you can anticipate in the current budget year by what you realized in in the prior year but we're not capped here for most instances that would be correct unless your CFO can certify something different and back it up and I did a certification and backed it up and the state approv so we're good to go and I want you bother yeah okay I won't even bother to ask you why last year something happened but that's okay um all right I'm jump in here everybody Sor apologize for being late um I'm looking at sheet 15 and I just see that we're anticipating sping Less on um Cod enforcement salary and weight is like like $440,000 less may not be a question for Mr D as much as the administration but why are we spending Less on Code Enforcement several time positions went down to time positions several so but do we have enough staff do we have enough staff power to do the code enforcement that we need with all the these people going down to part-time position as far as the budget goes yes um outside of the budget uh we do need to hire code enforcement but that is realized in the budget for for turn Okay and then um stand 15 15D Parks sorry parks in uh and Recreations I I see that there's am I thinking about this right it seems like there's cuts and are we assuming that we're going to make these Cuts up with raising Recreation fees and I'm just asking this because um I you know I was the onto the Reco and I just remember only a couple years ago or a few years ago they were agonizing over you know raising the the fee to be in summer Recreation Camp I mean there you know it's they understand it's a stretch for a lot of people so are we a why is the cuts and then B are we making that up with with fees for Camp no so it's really a reallocation if you can remember too much was allocated in um 20123 as part of the trans we did at the end of the year there was too much allocated in 2023 is budget okay and then additionally now camp counselor salaries are taken from the recreation trust in 2024 as opposed to being taken from the current fund which was the past practice of 2023 okay so you we just don't need as much money and we're not anticipating really hiking Camp okay okay that's that for now so I guess just to follow M Mark of the there's a shift in accounting it sounds like a good shift but you just said that we're now taking salaries from the trust but in the past is it the same camp counselors camp counselor salaries in the past were paid out of the C fund Camp into itself so the rec trust the purpose of it is that the money generated through recreational activities should stay and be and fund more recreational activities so Camp counselors by Ence it's it's a very large program they were super successful Courtney did a great job this year so because that is a self-contained program of the recreation department that is why those salary should be taken from the trust it's just a more accurate accounting and a better way to to do it to actually see the money that's being spent on Recreation and then the um funds that come in go into the recreation trust and roughly I mean maybe things aren't all equal but if all things were equal this change that you're describing by flowing these things the trust sits there with dollars that come in if that process hasn't changed then the same volume of dollars should be coming in year year in year out but now we can offset some of the current fund expenses by dipping a little more into that trust correct as long as it's for purely recreational activities that's what we can um that that's allowed the trust is love to use and we've said in the past the same for tourism any trust we and the shade tree we can dip in for whatever that trust is established for correct but we weren't doing it completely last year correct right not only did we get the process squared away but from the volume standpoint we have a significant increase year on year in number of Camp attendees we went from 60 something to like 95 so that also was a very positive and just roughly um again roughly what um how much should that benefit the current FL is it 5,10 I see other expenses Dro dropped a lot but again less than we spent so in 2023 there was um $1,627 $28 spent on camp counselor um Sal and that was all out of the car fund cor and this year none of that would come out of the car fund cor okay great sorry John oh no fine I'm Different sure okay I have a question actually on sheet 15E with the tourism it says other expense in 2023 was $115,000 but in 2024 it has nothing so um where what happened to that yeah so um that 15,000 used to be used for um to cover the DPW overtime the special police security and all that um and so since those are um functions of the recreation um Department we would build the recreation trust okay I'm sorry tourism I'm sorry all right trust and that that trust that money is coming from the cosos correct that you're going into this appropriated from this okay the trust the trust so like the money that the has okay it's from the co sorry docies yes okay so it's not from oh actually say that yes it's not from taxpayer dollars it's from the the colle correct okay correct wonderful thank you and again following up on that one is that another example Merith where that 15,000 was paid from the current fund well correct appropriated in the current fund but 9,000 was paid but next year it'll all flow through the trust correct okay so right there we've reduced the current fund 30 grand between the two roughly all right okay great thank you I stay on that sheet 15E um and I see like Street lighting jumped a lot and also gasoline a lot and I just the amount of Street lighting jumped um under utility expense Miss like $166,000 which seems like a lot and then gas also up a lot but as far as I can tell gasoline is cheaper than it was a year ago I'm completely remembering this wrong so here five so the gasoline question we did Cover um at the beginning of the meeting I will go over that um again I don't mind but to just to do the street lighting um so finance and DPW administrative staff examin the 2023 Billings and assignments and got them to the correct sub accounts um additionally um there's been more accurate identification of meters and buildings being serviced and the um we also eliminated some meters and that um contributed to Federal account and then but meters wouldn't I mean how that affect Street like kind not following that like how would that affect Street lighting I know understand that each Street has like its own meter but the amount that we're allocated like how does not understanding your answer sorry okay so um basically the the big cost difference was that it got attributed to different sub accounts so we were able to um uh basically correct the sou Cil before so in in 2020 is can you better explain this I'm having trouble at the end of or I shouldn't say at the end um During the period of July through December of 2023 uh we took an allout effort in the utilities to determine what the uh uh the meters the costs the Billings which are enormous um should be attributed to and um through um the work of Staff uh they ended up identifying the appropriate allocation as to where they should be um last year the budget was adopted somewhat late and as the CFO has indicated um there were some um issues in terms of the uh administration of finance that were lacking and we went through the process to be able to develop the budget for 2024 by doing a complete analysis of all of the utilities what the appropriate location should be for the payment and these numbers reflect what that analysis ended up showing um I'm going to take the opportunity to indicate that because there is no adopted budget yet there are no appropriate accounts for expenditures that have had to be paid um that the governing body has authorized on Bill lists to be appropriately posted to the right sub accounts um and uh this adopted budget in order for you to be able to have appropriate data for um the development of the 2025 budget and for the completion of the 2024 budget you have to be able to provide the CFO and the staff and finance with an adopted budget so it can be uploaded put in and they can go back from the beginning of Jan January 2024 to be able to make sure the appropriate postings are made so that the right data exists so you're not asking some of the questions you're all asking tonight um which results from the fact that the postings and the bookkeeping was want early in 2023 and is now in the Pro at the end of 23 we tried to make as many corrections as possible but for the 24 budget um while I was still here as the administrator we began the process of trying to um make appropriate allocations so you see these differences that exist between 23 and 24 24 is accurate 23 is Spar I'm sorry about VAR not reliable okay thank you um thank you well I guess is this the same answer for water like water's going down is that the same thing like War's going down by $5,000 against sheet 15E is that the same thing wasn't they weren't allocated to the right place and we get a lot of water though okay than I had a question on uh sheet 16 with the construction official other expenses in 2023 were 177,000 and this year 2024 33,700 why such an increase when we only paid $ 6,242 the Year this year yeah so this increase there's a couple different reasons for it about $2,000 of it is in office supplies um as you know we moved to back to the VII Center so a new copier new printer Etc um there's about $500 included for trainings and dues that weren't previously included um there is a $4,000 increase in Hardware software in um Hardware software equipments and then about a $6,000 increase on maintenance agreements this mostly from gov pilot that's the main software that that um Department uses um there's also a new line item for uniforms uh per ufw contract um yeah so that that's PR well okay thank you very much um sheet 20 the mainten maintenance is the three Public Library uh that went up from 634 th000 to 76,000 uh approximately like 11% increase y um is that tied to the appreciation of property values no it's tied to the statutory requirement of but it is oh it is it's a three yeah it's a calculation oh yeah sorry it's a statutory number that's tied into the okay okay thank you um than got what's happening to let's see garbage removal that went from 56,000 to 15,000 this is outside the cap it's in two places if you look over on sheet she 15c M you have a garbage and trash removal inside the C there's a calculation provided by the state that allowed municipalities for these items that you see on sheet 20 to allocate part of these funds to outside the C because of the vast increase over the years on these certain line items that doesn't happen every year that's why if you look at pfrs P RS there's nothing there this year because they brought it all back in and gave you a onetime adjustment to be able to increase your inside the cap number oh so that's nothing no a lot allow to increase for outside this year and the difference between inside and outside is you're only allowed to have so much on the inside once you hit that you you would have to go to referendum to exceed so that's why they have inside and outside the gall and then liability insurance d a liability insurance has gone through the roof for everybody that Co is catching up to everybody and the insurance companies stuck a bad and now we're all got to pay for it so so liability workers conflict was that out it was they're inside the cap as well separate lines but it was outside the cap before it was outside the cap part of it is a calculation that's done annually that the state themes that the increase is big enough that they would allow you to put something outside the C okay learning learning yep great to be able to ask questions vabulous um oh all right I'm goingon to ask a little question has to do with the CFO shared services on sheet 22 um we have 37k for the appro appropriation for for the CFL um is it that's after the allocation to Beach and SE correct what is that allocation 25% 25 2550 yes thank you and um oh on page three of this other document uh liability insurance oh I think okay no liability insurance I is this because we put it into maybe it's not because we put it in part of it into cap it dropped 133% is that because we put part of it into the other it didn't drop 13% your total liability insurance increased by 94,00 but I was going to say so there were two adjustments is that because we took part of it for the if you look down below you'll the adjustment inside the cap outside the cap same number being moved just so you can see your total liability insurance and what the total would be it went up $4,100 so I'm looking at liability insurance and then I'm looking at is it so 262 to 300 and what else is the outside the cap number 836 oh the 836 went to out you know caps man pass okay and then oh I think we disc I think we discussed this earlier I think again Mr Kenny had asked about the um the 49k and over expenditures for the Deferred charges did we discuss that on page four yes I believe we did going to refresh my memory on the overe expenditures was that something that you had to was in the 22 audit okay so I have to you have to raise it right now okay normally it would have been in the 23 budget but because of timing of your 22 on it it's got okay okay all right also on page four um Public Safety vehicle this was 71,500 what what vehicle was this for is it has it been purchased already I'm sorry did you say what sheet that was again oh I'm sorry page five next next page page five I'm sorry we at our short document yes okay yes yes yes page five I can say no a police vehicle has not been purchased yet okay so this is proposed but it hasn't been purchased yet correct okay does does the do they is there like a vehicle purchasing plan currently yes there is okay and I I know the mayor had mentioned that you're going to start meeting with department heads and I guess you'd go over something like this too I was wondering can we have another council person be involved so we can get these answered sooner in this year would that be possible mayor I'll defer that that question right now focus on well I'm just saying because like you're not going to be here next year and this would make it a lot easier like this communication is wonderful and um it would be really helpful if we had we be commit to having a council person in with these department heads okay I'll take that a consideration thank you thank you I guess um it's okay if I jump in yeah yeah yeah I think we answer yeah yeah uh I want to ask you a question back to sheet six Uniform Commercial Code uh uniform construction code pleas um one one simple question um my I don't know a lot about this category but my understanding is um we have to charge rough an amount that's roughly equivalent to reasonable costs of uh salaries and operating expenses is is is that correct so so I know you're brand new here but do you know if we monitor this 170,000 amount like is this close to I see last year we realized in cash 179 but what are our reasonable operating costs and salaries like is this close to or is this a lot higher a lot lower I believe it's lower so you you spend more than what you bring in okay so to run that for okay so but we're allowed to charge more correct okay so should we I guess you might want to look at your ordinance and the fece of being charged but you also got to remember yeah it's a year-to-year situation if people aren't building and you have the employees yeah you don't have the revenue so you know it's lately they've been building I'm just throwing it out there for your education to realize how a cyclical thing could take appreciate that yeah can you give us a ballpark or we within 50 Grand 100 Grand uh off the top of my head I don't recall what the UCC actual report b i f sent in but I think it was close to 50 okay okay great but I can get you the concrete number on the support the before I sub the state okay great I had a I don't know did you guys have any other questions I have a beat sheet some the question or oh you did two goad all right well my question comes back the the parking meter revenue and it shows up on different exhibits I guess she 31 is a good one but um I think it's also sheet four and I was I think I've got a few spots but generally speaking we don't want a chrome angle dollars unless we can you know unless we can identify that we have certain costs that that you know we incur on behalf of maintaining the beach then we allocate some of current fund costs to the beach Sals and wages pensions whatever Healthcare um and vice versa right normally we don't co-mingle funds we are taking 31,000 it appears we're capping the beach uh anticipated Revenue at 100,000 and the excess of 31,000 we're taking that into the current fund and what's the basis for that I just want to make sure I understand that this goes back to what you asked early you can't anticipate more than you realized so we realized $130,000 in each in 23 the 30,000 was put into current 100 was left in the beach there's 130 on what you've realized in the prior year interesting so I thought and I wasn't doing a certification for increase fees I I have enough history here to know what your fees are going to be okay I thought the I thought the revenue realized was 133,000 no last year what was it let me what exhibit would that be 31 sheet 31 right next to it yeah get there parking meter fees 13184 realize 130 okay so okay so wait so I missed something we we realized 130 why are we capping ourselves this year one one because I used the other 30 in the current fund to justify that we were putting 30 in the current okay uh so that 30 and that 100 is by 130 we realized in the prior year okay good so I so you and I are with each other numerically I get it but my understanding was we shouldn't take Beach revenue and bring it to the current fund but you're saying we can and is there any is there any issue we should be concerned with because we're taking Beach Revenue state certification had no problems okay okay so they would flag it if was an issue if there was an issue right as opposed to coming back to us later they've already come back this they would have done it in the review of the budget this year right it's funny when I asked this question five months ago the answer was we can discuss this in 2025 we can it's a policy decision decision yes that's absolutely correct but what we have in the budget is what we have in the budget right now I just wanted to have this discussion five months ago and it was pretty easy but thank you um okay also in the Beach utility um 32b it's a debt related question 32b I just want to understand what's happening it's you're probably going to tell us it's just Corrections of where we put things a year ago to where we're putting them now but I'm guessing there's there seems to be a new interest Row for MTH County the 119,000 32b under Debt Service mhm um there's 119,000 that is what's that related to I should ask you the not for what what anticipation the outlow pipe I'm tell you in one second be you have under the beach you have a million five for MCC ocean storm water outle and then ordinance 2211 which was various Capital Improvements we uh Drew down a $2 million okay was that all interest or no principal no principal okay okay and it kind of related I guess I just want to make sure I'm not I'm not confusing myself with the way they never SP that new number that 119 impact should have been new in 24 it's it's a it's a new you had nothing outstanding at the end of 22 what about 23 yes that's what you you paid 23s already March 15 you took they took out my predecessor a 90-day note with the county okay on December 15 to March 15th on March 15th we paid that for the r now you took down the 3.5 that I just mentioned that's not due until next year there has to be a 9mth approval or a 9 and a half month apprel to cover the interest on your two utilities because it's operates as an Enterprise fund okay you don't have to do that for the current fund that's a cash basis fund okay and and but we didn't have a comparable uh level of activity in 23 no okay I just you don't I wasn't tracking the dates okay good you had no nothing to pay in 23 and then what happened the capital outlay of last year I'm looking side by side okay 23 versus 24 Capital La p number 18 for last year nothing this year what was that related to you know it drops off to zero uh I think in 2023 there were funds available in the capital Surplus to be used for Capital outlay and that this condition doesn't um exist at a sufficient level for this year this money we funded into Capital Improvements you're saying I'm saying that there was is yes correct and now that we've put that into the Capital Improvements we didn't need to add further to that so we have zero this year no what I'm saying is there there were funds available in the capital Surplus before that's not the same condition Okay so so okay so we again I don't know when I ask these questions I don't know if there's real activity that you guys can just explain or whether it's oh that was in the wrong bucket last year we putting it in the right bucket now so no it wasn't has nothing to do with buckets it was a PO decision not to put anything in the cap that way this year okay I didn't know that thank you you're welcome U and last year it looks like one second sheet 26 26 about the okay um there was also sheet I'm just going through my be sheet 33 this might be the oh this is one of those we have two sheet 33s I um let me find this one I had a question we were moving from um we had a we had a police fire retirement appropriation that went from 39,000 to 82,000 you know for the police retirement fire retirement fund 81 856 correct okay great um just roughly we're double basically we're doubling the allocation and I I believe the current fund allocation went up for that same uh description went up 17 grand so it seems like the Lion Share of the increase am I reading that correctly the line share of the increase percentage wise at least went to the beach beach doubled C fing up 177% well if you're going to use percentages yes but the allocation changed also on the bill that was explained in so that's part of the percentage you can look at the percentage you got to look at the total bills oh yeah no that's why I'm ask I'm asking for help if the total I don't know what the I mean we can add it together but I guess what I'm wondering is if we normally have a percentage allocation so much Curr on so much Beach the percentage allocation change heavily to the beach the percentage allocation doubled I can't speak I know my head and maybe didn't quite maybe some of that doubling was in the fee itself but it looked like the aggregate retirement fund might have got up 20% but the current fund went up 17 and the beach doubled and I was just and when I think of the beach I think of a lot of our police patrol men and officers and specials uh more heavily weighted towards folks who are probably not eligible for the retirement fund so I was just surprised to see that that you know overshifting as it appeared to me to the beach but uh is there formula someone can share with us later to see how that allocation was made it's on page eight of the budget introduction that was submitted on March 27 it's actually is on the introdu no you're talking about the bud okay the letter what does it say it's all the allocations all right but we had many different budget messages so's we've got a lot of different but it's okay and see I think that was that's it for my beach questions I have a beach question um The Beach utility on sheet 33 overx expenditure $56,000 for this year I got there was the audit reflected an overe expenditure of $29,000 for Debt Service and another $26,000 was discovered by me when I was doing the uh AFS that the capital outl appropriation for 22 was over spent in 203 so you have to raise it down it says so the a identified a portion of this correct and then you identified another portion of this you have to put okay yes and was AED timing that caused it to hit 24 the one from 22 correct the 23 one I picked up at AF so that's that be auta okay I've got I've got a question I guess um no actually I'm good with the question we covered it in my last conversation on uh bond interest thing Jane did you have a question I have the same one as John and it just got answered about the overe expenditure thank you John and I've got the MCI interest you've answered a number of questions I'm checking them off so thank you for that um I asked about no principal payments because you said we were're making no principal payments on that corre on that note uh okay I want to ask one or two quick questions about the um capital budget and specifically sheet 40b I think this just might just not be updated I don't know when the last time is that it was updated but uh 40b did I get here we go 40 B1 there's a wait minut okay there's a sewer budget and someone asked this earlier about the sanitary sewer lining I think M Mr Coan asked something about the sanitary sewer lining being $2 million and I I I was struck by that number is again it's a lining versus a a reconstruction of of the seers and Mr G you may or may not be aware of this but number of years ago five six seven years ago the burrow identified five phase sewer project where we would upgrade our infrastructure and we're almost two complete phases done with three phases to go but the phases are appear to be the last phase was $4 and half million do they appear to be close to 5 million a phase now times three phases remaining to be around 15 million so I was just struck by uh we only have two million listed here and I don't know who asked the question but should we should we be updating this number like from two million to say 15 million roughly as so um with the capital Improvement program it's over the three years so it's not the entire um it's not all five St okay this is a three correct what we're gonna accomplish or what we hope to accomplish in the next three years and what what we have done with some of the grants we've got is taken pieces of stre streets uh Fifth Avenue Parkplace and rather than take a full phase we've been kind of going to places we can afford to to do some of those things so yes that's kind of a it's a little bit different than phase one and phase two but we we do need to look at the toll and is I was just wondering I assumed when I first looked at this I assumed it correctly that uh a capital Improvement plan might be more like a 10year Outlook so is three years a standard or do we have a choice have choice of three years are six years um for Capital Improvement program um the first document I sent I don't know remember back in January or December was the six year we decided to condense down and just present for three years yeah because as re that's all that's required thank you your population is under 10,000 so you only have to have a three-year program okay over 10,000 requires the six-year program they appear in this document you can have your own internal 10year project but it doesn't show it okay all right no that again it seems like a low number but when do we when do we review that next is that an annual thing we look at every we should be when we start the departmental reviews and we have to have a strategic conversation on sure anyway we've got Fifth Avenue merath and Parkplace they the two right now uh I think we got now it's uh fth Avenue and we're almost done ladies and gentlemen yeah I think it's park I got it thank you 559 59,000 Grant you got for place so those are the two we we're working on right now ,000 part place agree yeah yeah um we had talked about maybe trying to do Cliff Kent as well but yeah and then on 40b uh Meredith is probably more your question I guess but I'm sorry I I gave incorrect information just then I was looking at phase four phase three is the ray Maven Ocean Park getting all I apologize okay so thanks um on 40b my question is replace Sil and Lake bulkhead and at the moment we've got a $500,000 number I gotta to believe that's dated a little probably I know we just recently received the substantial Grant 2.4 million is so that is what we would again um be a because the grant we received in was for that amount so that would get us up to about the Second Avenue Grill um so it's not the complete project that is reflected in the capital Improvement program it's what the next three years at first um what that funding will allow us to doit you just said Sil and Lake talking about that's okay um yeah so any um uh so those Grant funds haven't been received and when they are it will be through a chapter 159 or through ordance and at that point we'll update this to reflect how much is our cost versus what gr paring would be available like column 5D says corre Grant Cate and other funds yeah okay okay again it looks out of sync with the numbers I'm hearing to to restore the bulkhead so just wanted to check um that's that's good for me John did you have anything left or um I have aital question question sheet 40 about question sheet I guess it's 40b we're talking about um vehicle police vehicle there's an item $21,000 DPW vehicle so this is a a future need it's not funded but is there a time frame that you know we SP we come up with a number but what time frame does it reflect is it like we need these in the next fund this in the next two years or the next 40b is your summary if you look at 40 see it breaks out the three years on what you're going to use oh so it is three years just because like you said correct because of the SI of the T okay so there's a vehicle I believe for each your yeah do we know what the what is the DPW vehicle that me half a million dollars Al it's several actually a beach break a packing load and thank you okay thank you you I guess questions okay um what I would um what I would um like to make a motion to um close the council discussion and uh adopt the 2024 Municipal budget no no I didn't do it right I'm sorry close it I'm Sor close the here close the public now you have to corre the amend right now you don't have to do a vote to close yeah we don't have to close it that's a discussion I'm sorry uh but the next thing on the agenda is a resolution 2024 174 the adoption on or amendments to 2024 budget you need to read that Ricky to be right to do it yeah no your monkey far Brown beat Amendment to the 2024 Municipal budget whereas the local Municipal budget for the year 2024 was approved on the 28th day of August 2024 whereas public hearing on said budget has has held as advertised whereas the council desires to amend said budget now therefore be resolved by the Council of the burough of Bradley Beach County of M that the following amendments to the approved budget for 2024 be made current fund General Revenue Surplus anticipated is going from 700 ,000 to $723,000 71 General Appropriations defer charges and statutory expenditures Municipal within caps trust other defer Charges going from zero to $ 23,6 127.71 total defer charges and statutory expenditures Municipal within caps is going from 1,167 32888 to 1,1 19,95 659 F General Appropriations for municipal purposes within CS has gone from 9,141 14888 to 9,637 7659 sub total General Appropriations from 10,883 52745 to 10, 97,1 15516 total General Appropriations is going from 11,144 55557 71 to 11,681 18542 summary of the Appropriations C General Appropriations for Min purposes caps going from 9,1 14,38 188 to 9,163 77659 Total General Appropriations G from 11,144 55771 to 11,681 18542 being further resolved that a certified copy of this resol filed forth with in the office of the director of local government services for certification of the 2024 local Municipal budget so amend it is hereby certified that this is a true copy of a resolution amending the budget adopted by the Bal Council on the 25th day of September 2024 so I'd like to make a motion to uh approve resolution 2024 174 a second second Mr NOA I not sure why we had to wait five months to have these questions answered collaboration clearly works I do hope that we have more collaboration in 2024 for our 2025 budget I hope that the finance committee could include another council member clearly we had a lot of questions and this could have been avoided our fines could have been avoided if this was all done earlier so I hope we learned a lot and we learned a lesson that when you collaborate you can get questions answered and you can get things done thank you Ricky GS for being here and answering our questions we weren't that bad where we I didn't anticipate being bad oh that's that's nice then well thank you and I'm going to vote Yes Mr gboi um well I've got a prepared statement I'm going to read and then I will vote but um my statement is I am very pleased that the council was finally allowed to meet with our CFO tonight and that we were allowed to ask questions for a recent conversation with the director of local government services at the Department of Community Affairs the DCA I was told that she had never before heard of a situation where the Council of any New Jersey municipality was not allowed to meet with their department heads and their CFO prior to approving an annual budget here in Bradley Beach anyone who has joined a council meeting over the past six months knows the story of why we are voting to adopt our 2024 budget as we enter October of 2024 we should have adopted a budget during March or April or May possibly as late as June unfortunately there's been a total lack of collaboration with the council and there has been no transparency offered to our residents however it is time to move on 75% of the year's budget has already been spent if we vote no tonight we won't be able to vote on a revised 2024 budget again until at least my understanding is close to November that would truly be a definition of insanity at this point it is simple we must approve this budget adoption tonight whatever might be wrong with this this 2024 budget the new council with the new mayor will work hard to fix it in 2025 next year the budget will be built with an open sharing of ideas and with professional collaboration the council will actively engage our residents and our new reconfigured Council will work together to Serve the People my concerns raised earlier I want to repeat them uh in the hope that come November 1st adjustments we might be able to accommodate any remaining concerns regarding the local 152 salaries a large portion of that of course is DPW we don't know where that's built into the budget um the police equipment that I brought up I I don't have specifics I don't I don't know if it's we need five license plate readers or two or seven but I'd like to engage with Captain Arnold have our Administration engage with him with Chief Arnold uh to make sure we get the right equipment uh and again just to make sure we've we've got the retropay for all of 152 but we specifically hire the people that our DPW needs so we'll have that conversation on November 1st as for my vote tonight I vote Yes to adopt this resolution for the 2024 budget thank you m Mahoney excuse me one second just so we're all on the same page this is voting on the amendment resolution not on the voting of the budget yet all right I'll vote on the amendment and all okay just so I'll reread my statement okay great more with do when is the vote on the budget right after this oh so that's actually going to be resolution of 181 everybody this is this is adding the 23,000 basically to the then my is yes because I didn't see the the uh the budget as a separate item here but then then yes for the amendment yes for Amendment yes thank you we I will also vote Yes to the amendment say the fun stuff for mayor Fox I'll vote Yes I name Amendment thank you okay um I will now ask for a motion on 2024 181 the one we just did is gonna be 181 because I just got that today 174 is going to be the adoption oh 174 I'm sorry I apologize yeah I'm sorry that's okay 2024 174 which is the adoption of the 2024 budget oh there it is I'm sorry was in a different place like sorry that's all right uh a second second Noble yes Mr gboi for all the reasons I said earlier yes um I would like to say something not one of my Council counterparts should have had to have spent the untold hours it has taken to get to this point hours and hours were expended asking questions analyzing documents requesting information and getting no closer to clarities as current Beach and Sewer utility budgets change from March 27 to April 19th and then finally July 23rd the Surplus we have in the current fund has been reduced from 2.8 million in 2022 and now will be 1.4 million in 20123 the beef utility two years ago will go from a $1 million surplus to $662,000 the Sewer utility will also be reduced by approximately $500,000 our percentage tax increases over the past two years with this Administration has been in the tee outrageous numbers in and of themselves but combined with the Surplus this Administration has Devol dissolved this equates to a tax increase of over 21% in each of the last two years and again here we are as September wains and we look to October we are once again asked to approve a temporary emergency appropriation no you're not oh we would have been it would have been our third thank you so much mayor you're welcome we would have been just four $4 million short of spending the 2024 budget that this administration had requested if we request changes to this budget including the time to reintroduce and approve we would need to make wait more than 30 days this has been a sad process and a clear demonstration of inefficiency and obstacles the future mayor and administration of Bradley Beach will have a Monumental t in front of them the solvency and future of the buau will be dependent upon the changes that need to be made in 2025 the buildup of reserves the articulation and effectuation of an audit remediation plan which is now six months overdue for 18 items the reduction of spend and ultimately The Cutting of our outrageous taxes with three4 of our fiscal year completed we need to move forward having this budget approved for before November may allow us to shift monies from one category to another an opportunity we would not be afforded if we wait any longer it will also allow us to commence the 2025 budget for this reason I vote Yes on approving the budget thank you Mr Weber uh I'm not going to comment on the the last five months because that's already been commented on but I will say something about the last month essentally since we did introduce the budget soon as we did that I suggested that you know can we find it now can we get an hour just maybe one or two counts of people get an hour or two with the CFO so and My Hope was so we don't have a three-hour uh to finally adopt the budget maybe get maybe we can get some questions answered first and we don't have to have a three-hour meeting um to adop the budget obviously that didn't happen it happened here I appreciate you coming in Mr Gs obviously uh I wish we could have had this in I guess in private and just asked these questions ahead of time and walked in here and just approv the budget we all would have been home with our families by now so um I would like to also Echo the sentiment of having a council member on the finance committee May or not to be here next year that would provide some kind of continuity I think that's a really good idea uh so given those suggestions I will vote yes thank you mayor Fox uh yeah I have a few comments um The Untold hours that were just mentioned um were also expended by a number of people in this room um and I appreciate all them doing that um some of the comments that have been made or just really not correct um you you corrected me what you corrected me we corrected well I said we had to sign to an emergency appropriation so you stopped me and cored okay so there's some other things yes I'm sorry okay so um for those who don't remember 2021 in 2021 we shifted some um School tax to our surplus of about $700,000 which got us up to that $2.8 Million number right now our our Sur our projected Surplus which I think is pretty accurate which should be about a million5 uh represents about 133% of our total spent um that amount you know a common sighted Benchmark for municipal surpluses between five and 15% so we're well within that you're kind of leaning towards the conservative end of that um surpluses are built for a number of reasons or for a number of components but um what you don't want to do is uh over tax people uh and then not utilize that and kind of give that back so that's kind of the the process around that we've recognized we've got to manage that carefully we took the Surplus that we were going to utilize from a million one last year to 700 this year 720 because we had that last Amendment and I think we're um I think we're in pretty good shape uh in that area um so um I feel pretty good about this budget I've always felt pretty good about this budget um and I hope that we can uh get ourselves reorganized during on this November respin and plus loading this budget because there's a lot of administrative work that has to take place now um so I vote Yes and that's my comments thank you um I do want to make a motion here no hang on I want to make a motion to move up the um ordinance um 20249 uh before Mr Barts leaves in case there's any questions relative to it there's been questions asked and answered by um a b administrator but I want to make sure that there's any other residual questions we Happ so I'd like to make a motion to move up 20249 to a vote now Mr Mayor just quick discussion my only concern is um if the public had to make any comments about this particular ordinance like you're asking us to vote before we hear from the public right does the public have any questions about this amendment ordance question thank you so make a motion to approve 20249 oh yes have to move it up oh you're making move Sor move it up 20249 to um prior to number six on the agenda Mr Noble yes Mr gzi yes M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes uh now I'd like to make a motion to approve 20249 yep just quick discussion I I Mr Gs maybe I'm directing this question to you it sounds like I am um this is all about refinancing an existing bond with a new bond that should be a lower interest rate and Mr markco share with Council uh roughly save $10,000 of SE interest $111,000 a year that's 11,000 correct okay and are there related fees for the bond underwriting I just want to know are we is it a full 11,000 save or 11,000 over nine years so you'll spend save almost $100,000 okay okay so there's Bond underes but there're nominal they're less than $10,000 and and the other related question is uh everything I hear and read and I'm not an economic expert but interest rates are dropping is it is there any reason we should consider delaying this and doing this as interest rates continue to drop and perhaps save more you have to you go through the M County Improvement Authority for this you cannot go outside of that they issued the bonds they're the ones calling for the refunding for all the participants in this so if you dropped out you couldn't do it again I got it that answer my question no no further questions okay so second second M Den Noble yes Mr gboi yes Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes okay thank you thank you thank you okay um the next um agenda is in approval minutes September 11 2024 Council business meeting minutes do I have a second to approve second Mr Noble yes Mr G toi yes M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes uh approval minutes 20 uh September 11 2024 executive session minutes second Mr Noble yes KU yes Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes may Fox yes uh public comments and questions per chains the agenda uh bment of limit and R time up any questions on the agenda yes Avenue Bradley Beach um concerning the bill list uh could someone please explain to me what the reserve tourism development is you page number that no it it won't let me go it is um unfortunately I don't have M this with me it's all the um money spent for all the bands and all the entertainment so that's what it is is that what you're asking yeah but it's a it's not a tourism account it's not a tourism trust it's reserve for tourism the description is not I think ultimately it ends up there oh I'm sorry if you look through the build this I can go through that I'm sorry I don't have my itemized list with me that I normally have but okay for example I'm sorry uh you're saying that anything that fell it's not a line it's not a group it's it's any this column contract yeah okay I got you anyone who play the various entertainments and I'm always used to seeing the touris and TR Mr farbach before you leave can I ask you one question about bills may I please okay um Mr faren back it's nice to see you and um I'm just have a question for you uh I understand you've done a lot of work for the for the town and have you or your firm or anyone else have been compensating for you compensating you for the time that you have spent and all the various meetings and negotiations no you've done all of this on a volunteer basis I've been volunteering for the burrow Bry Beach yes and and you haven't received any funds from anyone not since I left the position on the 30th September 2023 and how many hours have you volunteer um I don't know thank you thank youc thank um okay let's get back to this the uh reserve for the tourist development it it normally was always under the tourist tourism trust I see and now it's redefined and it says reserve for tourism development and I just don't understand the Nuance between the difference can somebody explain that to me is m still here she can probably answer that usually you know of course you know how it works we have cosos and we get $75 it goes into the tourism trust then it's paid out of the tourism Trust TR I don't know why they're referring to it as the reserve for tourist development especially because the recreation trust is being they reserved the money because it's a contested billing but they're all being paid no well the 675 maybe it came out of reserve and they're paying it now but it was contested Bill well I just know for this bill list we paid $77,000 no no no I'm talking about the 675 they toal the total for this bill list for under this reserve for tourism development was $7,350 spent account so I'm just curious about what is this actual account and is this a line item Budget on the budget we we pay everything out of the tourism budget tourism trust that's yeah but now it's reserve for tourism development so that's where I'm confused and I would like to have some type of understanding like there's people right back here that could probably answer it to the public I'll get you have question okay another on page 21 uh of this bill list uh I see that there is a bill from Victoria Flynn Esquire and it's for legal services from February and March of 2024 um what is this bill for it's to do with the one of the uh legal actions that would take it back and forth okay and has she been reporting to Mr Canon at all about um her work product no is that yes yeah I recuse myself so I don't I frankly don't even know status of okay I'm just okay that's fine I just want it in okay thank you thank you other questions hi Dr Tom at Avenue um I just had a question statement question about the grant for the chemical control treatment Grant what is that um Nick is here but it's we're applying for a grant to treat the spotted Lantern fly so if anything if we buy soap if we buy me oil if we buy CS to squash them it would come out of this Grant so oh okay so it's not actually going through the them coming here and doing something no no not yet it's just a grant to give us money so we can combat the spot lter line no action has been taken yet yeah because I just wanted to make a suggestion about them too we can because I'm sure everyone in the town love to kill more Lantern F so if there's any way we can do some type of getting the town together to do something like that during that time would be great because they weren't that bad this year but can be were they I agree yeah um and the other thing was just about the this budgetary process and I sat back there for not all of it but that hurt that hurt my brain that hurt my soul I don't I won't get that time back in my life and everyone here had to sit through that I appreciate the transparencies of seal that sucks and I hope you never have to do that ever ever again because I I'm a shareholder here I pay my tax here I'm not here to listen to you your job or you should have done it five months ago um with them with him he didn't seem too disturbed by those questions I know why he could have been here earlier I think mayor you really screwed up and whoever is going to be the mayor please don't ever let this happen again because that was just painful painful painful um so please please please I encourage you what you asked about getting on those departments so getting in there please I hope we keep pushing for that because we need you guys there because we can't do this again um so whoever is going to be setting up their F so may I really wish you just step up and just say you screwed up and just say you made a mistake this is a budget in November I mean who does that you're literally the worst one right now according to the GCA so yeah so please um get it together thank you any other questions yes parkum I wasn't going to say anything tonight about the buness but somehow it becomes relevant as I sit here and began come I realized we're sort of sitting ducks we're waiting for a new Administration but we can't stop so to build on M ch's comments regarding the tourism development versus studs and trust me it all comes down to stoppy work um the same way I don't want to see something in the description that says Building Maintenance I would like to know what building and we used to have a lot of that but something has changed in the past 12 months and I don't think it's the benefit of the taxpayer um but regarding Bill list itself I think did something wrong and I come up here all the time and mention this and from where I sit I don't think it's looked into and it has cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars and I would specifically point to h14 Prime point which would pay $3,100 to pay our employees for the month of August they was supposed to be free because that was the deal with Provident you're coming up to a new year you need to switch payroll companies this is absurd and then under age 18 you say we're pay the state of New Jersey $119,000 I can't even begin to imagine what we not paid that we're now paying we seem to always continually come back to oh well we're making up payments we didn't make oh the didn't pay employees right this has been going on since what 2020 and 2021 22 I don't remember we can't continually owe this money again I really do believe that something is wrong I brought it up before no one answers this because I don't think there's a way to answer it it's quite disturbing um especially when I hear somebody say oh when we refine that's my word our purchasing procedures and our spending of money I don't see that I don't see where that happened anywhere in 2024 and I will never understand why we PID fank $1,100 and yet we're we have no records it's just you know it's not JBL it's an oxy waron and the thought of you like that one that's the teacher in me sorry and the thought that we're even contemplating purchasing another vehicle for the police department when Public Works I think put duct tape on their vehicles to make them function is just not wouldn't spending that's got a little duct tape working don't you very excuse me this is my time it's our time no it's not we are not now I'm getting more time and fact that meeting with the pargan heads now to what we need for the future seems to be not to be appropriate um again there will be a change in administration and I think the new people are the ones that need to address this and we don't know who that will be um but this whole situation then we still need to get through three months and it shouldn't be a lost cause and the bill is and the purchases need to be prudent and in the best interest of us you are the stewards of the money how many times do I have to say it um some of you will be here another 12 months I would respectfully say devise something better um because it well I can't use the vocabulary I'd like to use um but it's very disappointing um this whole budget thing is even worse and then we hear about the Flyn bille that brought up it says February we already paid the February bill so that seems to me to be a problem are we double paying I don't know I cannot bother Erica da with my person I don't need the heart to do it nor do I personally have the time it's not my job but I do know that there's somebody in back with that person should uh be double cheing because weird to me that we be continually paying every thank you thanks the extra time thank you yes that's C 504 Central Avenue um after listening to Mr Gs explain the budget and answer questions from um people here up on the Das it's become very clear my original question about why the 2023 audit is not available and is not complete based on my understanding of Mr gs's explanation it's pretty clear that he had to make a lot of compensations um in the 2023 year uh and had to excuse why he couldn't answer a lot of questions because he wasn't the person who was responsible for things that were done in 2023 that compounded with the 2022 audit which multiple material misrepresentations coupled with um what I thought Mr Cohen talk about Mr minino something about he's not practicing anymore were you aware of that Mr Fox I'm sorry were you aware that um Mr minino Mr Cohen mentioned something about Mr Mino not being I don't know status Mr you know he's not employed by us anymore he's not licensed anymore for some reason people don't just give up there I their licenses to be to be CFOs sorry I can't speculate that yeah but just I'm just speculating that perhaps maybe there's an investigation going on because that would make sense why the 2023 budget I mean uh yeah the 2023 audit's not available and the 2022 what it showed all those material misstatements it's all starting to become very clear very clear I'm sorry did you said I'm sure it is and I have a feeling that in 2025 it's going to become crystal clear I hope you really like orange lar you sit out um next any other any other questions on J Thomas J Co so much for civility and decency yes yeah you too man yeah back you hey uh I'd like to comment on uh ordinance number uh resolution number 2024 d178 I don't like to spend money but this gentleman deserves the money give it to him and get them out of here okay Leonard Guida has done enough damage to this town get them off the books is the best thing that we can do it's embarrassing that he couldn't be disciplined for his behaviors um I just had one question mayor he took a previous payout When Miss Humphrey was here has that already been calculated into his retirement funds I know we don't have any Financial people here they just leave when they don't I think you're misinformed there's no prior payouts yes you sure you sure uh I'm not sure but I I'm not you got to be sure because it's our money I mean I want to pay the guy I just want to make sure we're paying the right amount yeah we're paying the correct amount okay yeah but uh that's great let's get them off let's get this behind us and also I think we should all read the prosecut report again because it didn't it says that he shouldn't be a police officer It also says that he shouldn't be on OEM I'd like a resolution that says he can never work here again thank you any other questions okay we'll move to the next agenda item which is um we already passed the ordinance so uh we have no Communications resolutions consent agenda uh any uh make a motion to um approve the consent agenda second Mr Noble yes uh Mr gzi yes Mahoney yes Mr we yes mayor Fox yes individual resolutions approval appointment ofation firefighter Christopher Sher shinger make a motion to approve 2024 176 second Mr Noble yes mrzi yes Mone yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes 2024 177 approving the certification of the US equal employment opportunity commission discuss on this yeah yeah um Mr Kon I reached out to you earlier just because what ladies and gentlemen what this is asking the council to certify is that we've read the state statute and we've read our policy and we've compared the two and they align and I for one just hadn't done that hadn't been asked to do it reached out but Mr Canon said he might be able to do that I do our policiy match all e so counc vote on the resolution of confence thank you so so so it's about the policies matching it's not about the background checks on people so do your policy on hiring criteria what have you includes that updated language about not holding crial convictions against them it's updated 2023 yeah they do it every two years from the JF and so that change in the law has been adopted by the GIF and it was adopted by you guys the last time that you did the manual which should have been 2023 but may have been 202 yeah it might have been 2020 I don't remember actually think it was2 wasn't it you're supposed to do it every two years I I can't remember doing it the last we definitely did it the last time that it was up but we're not saying that you know people don't have arrest and conviction records that are employed that's not what I'm saying it's just matching policiy correct so going forward you can't take that into account so is it possible that we have people that have arrest and conviction records that are employed here I did not look into that I could not answer that question sitting here I I would I would say in the police department definitely not I could definitely say in the court definitely not I can say people with CDLs have a very pry clean record I haven't checked everyone in the building yeah they made the laws were different a long time ago we have some longtime employees I'm not sure about that but definely not all right I will second mayor's motion thank you m b yes Mr relying upon Mr canet's representation I vote Yes Mr M yes Mr Weber yes mayor thought yes 2024 178 op right and pay out of accumulated six time to leonarda Chief former Chief of Bradley Beach Police Department in three separate equal installments for tal years 24 25 26 make a motion to approve 2024 178 second Mr no since I am a victim named on page six in the Leonard Guida MMO County Prosecutors report in the best interest of all parties involved I've been advised to abstain from this vote therefore I'm going to take that advice and abstain uh Mr gesi yes M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes 2024 179 authorizing an application to the newjersy Department of Agriculture for 2024 to 2026 spot of laner flight population reduction chemical control treatment make a motion to approve 2024 179 second Mr noville yes Mr GUI yes M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes and I want to thank the people for the shade Tre commission that worked on getting this grant for the town yes uh 2024 180 I'll make a motion to withdraw that resolution second Mr Noble yes Mr gzi yes m m yeah yes Mr yes mayor fo yes okay next item is Council and mayor comments why don't we start with councilman Weber everybody that's one um appreciate everybody coming out tonight you already heard what I had to say it would have been nice if this didn't have to be such a a long meeting I think that would have been possible um with a little foresight and a little little encouragement um I'm going to read the first a and then the fire report so first a for the uh period ended ending today the squad responded to 17 day calls and 10 Night Calls 21 for were for medical six were for fire calls there were five water rescue requests from the answers team uh Squad provided medical OverWatch for the Viva Bradley Beach day and the Alzheimer's awareness walk Squad conducted one drill for the safety and education of the membership on beach operations using the Kabota uh congratulations to Carl fensky for obtaining his National EMT certification uh bring the squad's compartment of em compartment of EMS to 11 uh they requested no Mutual Aid assistance for this period and they provided to assistance to Belmar for a boat fire and to Avon for a water rescue with transport the squad fulfilled 100% of their assignments for this period as always they're looking for volunteers free training for qualified individuals uh you can find the application on the B websites and they are accepting application for a Cadet Program for Young People between 16 and 18 years of age and that was fire now I sorry that was first a now I have to find fire hold on it's all in here for the period that ended for the these are monthly reports so for the end of August our department responded to nine day calls and eight Night Calls for a total of 17 calls There Were Three Fires 10 were alarm activations two were natural gas leaks there two smoke conditions the department conducted one training for H hydrant hookup and hose line stretching the department participated in one special event the National Night Out there were no Mutual requests the department fulfilled 100% of their assignments uh and they are also looking for volunteers um for qualified individuals and there are applications on the to website uh I will simply continue with the shade tree they're doing tree planting this weekend they need volunteers to plant about 20 trees it actually goes really quickly but we pair people up and two people plant one and three and if we get enough people we'll just everybody every team will plant one tree um it's be 9 o'clock at the park between second and third Avenues going to meet up have a demonstration and if you are interested in planting trees you can come talk to me or send me an email and we'll get doing that um I think that's the extent of my report so I'm going to leave it there okay comtable homie I apologize for being on my phone I have the wrong date down for something I'm going to report on so that's what I want wanted to fix okay there will be a beach suite on October 19th from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. uh we'll meet at the Gazebo on Fifth Avenue you can sign up by going to clean ocean action.org and downloading the waiver or you can sign up the day of the sweep at 9:00 a.m. their next meeting will be uh the next meeting of the uh environmental commission will be on October 7th and the environmental commission will present to this Council on October 23rd uh the land use board met for seven minutes on October 19th that was perhaps a record no new business was discussed and their next meeting will be on October 17th that's all I have thank you council president oh okay um tourism they had a really great time with the fva Bradley Beach I don't know where anybody went but it was really fun and they had music and food they had Waka by the Sea they had ponchos and wos DJJ was there they did a salsa lesson they had two Hispanic fans and the highlight of the event was the Mexican dance troop from the Bradley Beach Elementary School they performed beautifully it was amazing and uh director tourism director Amy Hall would like to extend a special thanks to Marsha Falcon from the Bradley Beach Elementary School for bringing in the dancers and Council woman Janes Buble that's me and Julian Titus Julie you're here too oh there she is for supervising the bounce house for the day that was a lot of fun the kids a lot of they love it lots of smiles there and thanks to the Bradley Beach Department of Public Works specifically Mike Armondo and Manny and to the bradle beach police department for keeping the event safe and fun for everyone whoos to everybody um I did want to share a letter she got a quick email hi Amy I just want to thank you for doing such a wonderful job in Bradley this summer and always the concerts on Thursdays in in rley park were fantastic and it's wonderful to see so many people attend my family will have many great memories because of the work you do thanks again you go above and beyond that was very sweet sha tree we're going to be 22 trees richer um I do want to recognize Nick corage is here from the shry commission we have shaa greenblat our former Vice chair of the commission you guys do great work I'm so proud of you every year we get greener our canopy is bigger and uh you make it safer and um what's the word I want to say um Greener sustainable that's another one we hear a lot and just more beautiful that's really important for of bed they had a meeting uh September 17th and um they had the presentation of our board's certification by the New Jersey school boards Association and they were they awarded with a plaque this certification recognizes the Bradley's Board of Ed's commitment to effective governance and continuous Improvement through training it focuses on areas like ethics goal setting board roles and responsibilities in police development Finance communication student achievement and Community engagement for this certific for for this certification they had to earn 16 credits of Group Training complete a full day retreat undergo a policy audit and demonstrate a commitment to continuous Improvement through annual board self- evaluations among other requirements this recognition really underscores the dedication of our board members and their hard work they also discussed the start of the school year Safety and Security measures they approved their board's goals for the year which align with their 5-year strategic plan and they renewed their memorandum of agreement with the Bradley Beach police dep Department to continue our strong relationship with local law enforcement and that completes my report thank you very much thank you Council MOSI I'll start with the the uh my police leason report as always delivered very Fally by detective Lieutenant brownie thank you sir and the report is that we've had numerous bicycle thefts but all are of unlocked bicycles left mostly on front porches or in plain view in the yard this is and always has been a short Town problem the police department would like to remind residents to please lock your bicycle with a heavy duty chain if it's to be left outside and do your best to hide it from view as these are crimes of opportunity and the criminals generally go for unlocked bikes they can see from the sidewalk or Street as they walk by that being said the only arrest that we've reported since the last meeting is the same subject tried to um tried two different bicycle thefts earlier in the month and was once again arrested for stealing a bicycle as he fled he ended up stealing another bicycle but was apprehended by the police he was you can't make this stuff up right he was additionally charged with two counts of criminal trespassing and one count of resisting arrest uh I also serve as the silven lake commission chair liaison and a quick update on S Lake commission is that a meeting was held last Wednesday September 18th commission members are still pushing their professionals to commence survey and measurement work in an effort to understand the design needed for dredging and the restoration of the lake this information can then be used to design the Bradley Beach bulkhead repair project uh that on the Bradley beach side of the lake which is likely to commence next year one of the restoration project leads Marty mchu answered questions from the commission and one of our residents with a strong engineering background Paul nowiki has offered his guidance as well that concludes my report thank you um I have just a few comments um first is I mentioned this last week but or two weeks ago but I wanted to um just reemphasize it because I I both gavan and I signed this agreement um today um so the burrow Bradley Beach and Avon are launching this critical infrastructure project the outfall pipe that outfall pipe on coming out of silen Lake into the oceans failed after 60 years this replacement project um will be run by the d uh they will fund 75% of the cost up to $3 million we initially estimated the cost of the project to be 3.5 million so um what could have been a$ 1.7 to2 million cost for Bradley Beach is now about a half million dollars um so uh or less so we're very happy about that and um we we had a quick meeting at silen Lake today to talk about that and um the the temporary fix we put on the SLU it's called it's the flu that uh the outfall um regulator um and we're probably going to accelerate that project U we've asked um the Engineering Group to um accelerate that and maybe try to get that done before we get the alol started so we're going to work on that um we had a mayor's Wellness uh walk last Friday at 6 at an evening walk um it was the theme of it was with the Talk part of the Walk was how to feel like sum are all all way all year round I didn't know there was such a synd called sad um summer something deficiency but hackin sack Meridian um their mental health team went through that with this and it was it was very interesting I was I wasn't not aware of um of that was an actual syndrome 319 Lorraine church we working on the bid package for demo in parallel land use review and artifact disposition is underway uh we're going to continue to focus on these Community projects they were held temporarily back but we're going to get back in high gear on North Side Pump House prominade Silver Lake improvements and Main Street improvements um we uh in addition to that we are continuing to look at Fifth Avenue improvements Rec Center improvements uh Main Street we're going to continue to focus on getting that online it's going to take a little longer but we'll get that done um and that is my report so with that I will ask for public comments yes this being a little picking but I have to say it because it's something that has bothered me um this past summer the meter the parking meter on Fourth Avenue you was out of order the whole entire summer it was an inconvenience for anybody who pared along that St and I met Mr Mayor and J one day in the golf park and I asked G about the repair and mayor called out he's working on it did they ever get the part I I suppose they did and we're all also going to uh I'm not sure the answer that but the U we are looking at revamping all those for next year my question also we said that we they made $43 from the parking meters no no we made $130,000 some six figures 130,000 somewhere around okay totally okay then I misunderstood right all right and how much does cashing group get from all that don't they manage the parking meters no I apologize okay um I'm hoping that comes Memorial Day I'm not going to see out of service on that Fourth Avenue meter and seeing all the people scrambling as to where to go find a place to pay for the ater as I said I think we're changing out I have a question about that as well were were we considering like an app like they have in Aur Park rather than an actual machine that we have to pay for you actually need even in Asbury you need to have both in case people don't um either have a smartphone or you know you still have to have you still have to have a unit I would assume you'd have less units though correct yeah yeah some municipalities you can either use change or you can use a credit C right that's why you have to have both yes yes friendley Avenue I'm adding the record report that the seniors had their meeting today it was lovely they had it catered by UA and they ended with playing Dingo and Paul had given us a great presentation about the history of Bradley Beach and we all enjoyed it um since we're taking on the demolition of 319 and the RSP is not done is it to be assumed that the monies for that demolition is going to be in the next budget or this budget uh we would Bond it this year to be Bond yeah okay and then we would retire the bond on any proceeds from your site right um and are we still meeting um over 152 to negotiations or is that done no not done we're spending an awful amount of money in legal fees and Merida has being taken from her job to go to negotiations to work on that and it's been quite a long time so the monies are compounding I'm just worried about the expense that it's going to cost in the long run thank you thank you yes 6123 I'm keep asking the same question about 319 L are you are you approving a grading plan before it gets to the planning um I'm going to say it again and again there should never be a subdivision on the property in front of the landing boort unless there's a grading plan due to topographical differential on Madison and so I believe the ordinance was passed so I can ask questions are you doing your gring plan we that's part of the process yeah oh this yes sure great um the uh what I witnessed tonight was really horrific and it's a horrible waste of time for the residents and Council people mayor you said tonight that your team worked Untold hours well so did the council but what you must realize is that they're the same team why did this have to be divided didn't have to be divided it's it's quite it's quite embarrassing and you said Surplus surpluses you know be used but you know what it's our money and it's not to be squandered by a politician and you spent a million six over the last two years and you act like oh it's all right it's your money no no no it's not it's it's poor planning poor budgeting poor transparency poor collaboration I can't wait thank you thank you yes o parums again I recognize that only three of you were going to be here but and I brought this all up before we don't get to see anything about deposit I'm sorry about the what deposites positive the positives dep posit I'm sorry I don't speak clearly I have a disability try not to make me feel uncomfortable and do not even think too intimidating I actually have a hear again we're on my time so I always come back to when we look at the beach sales and revenues um Pig person challing me nameless got $7,000 cash for the cash eers I don't understand that because you know it's mostly on badges but be that as the May um that obviously is not part of Revenue that is reimbursing those house um the same way I have I don't know how many years I want to CP now on the rec department um because the way they spend money is nonc comprehensible to me um in regarding tourism I'm glad it was a great um vaa but once again there was a bounce house it's a tremendous liability for this burrow matter who is supervised by volunteer um and what are we doing with the website maybe you know stop paying those people take it down eight newsletters were posted last week one day really and I also regarding deposits there was an event last week in private business um and there was security there in a Bradley Beach r with a person addressed in Bradley Beach law enforcement you for um so like how do we know that we got reimbursed for this because clearly a private business event would hide their own security so I'm sure that was the arrangement made I'm not going to list names I'll tell you that privately but I was shocked um but that's what happens when I get out of the house um but you know again you know I'm I'm not judging that security was there but clearly that's not on our dime and we don't get to see those payments reimbursements Etc um and it's just again my vocabulary is Just So Gone um and these things need to be faced they shouldn't need to wait for a new Administration um from where I sit there's a bevy of employees that um clearly are receiving um compensation and can look into research present we find um and we just seem to not address it I mean we've been on this website a couple of years and it just goes from there to worse um I don't I don't remember what I was searching for and it clearly is not there oh I know finance department I'm sorry under departments you think we'd be an alphabetical or be um and then we have commissions and under that a department tourism is not a department so again little things you take notes you do nothing like Mr I can't wait till January any other questions yes who coms P the champion for 11 and a half L Avenue I just wanted to announce that the Brad Beach Historical Society will have a session in the VII Center this Sunday from 4 to 5:30 uh we have a two experts on researching Bradley Beach history B and Su flood are coming back to give a session on how to do online research on your homes your family Bradly Beach businesses and uh we're hoping that people will come because we want people to start researching these things to help us uh fill the history of Radley Beach thank you that that that will be live at bi Center it will be hybrid session you can also zoom in and you can go to our website BBH his.org uh and register for the zoom session if you don't want to travel would be awesome thank you what time from 4 o' on Sunday to probably around 5:30 thanks Pa thank you yes um I wasn't going to say anything um because I've already spoken twice but while sitting there I wrote this and I want to read this on the record councilman goosi I wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to councilman goosi for his unwavering commitment to our community and his courageous decision to run for mayor despite the unfounded personal accusations against him in these challenging times we need leaders who are not only dedicated to public service but also determined to address the critical issues that affect our daily lives councilman goosi embodies these qualities and more first and foremost Mr kosi has made it his mission to stop corruption within our municipal government corruption undermines the very Foundation of our democracy eroding public trust and diverting resources away from essential Services by continuing to root out corruption councilman gubitosi is taking a bold stand for integrity and transparency his dedication to this cause gives us hope that we can build a government that truly serves the residents in addition to tacking tackling corruption he is committed to hearing the divisions healing the divisions that have plagued our community in the last three years and nine months we have experienced an increase never before seen in polarization and Discord which has hindered our ability to work together for the common good alosi understands the UN that Unity is essential for Progress he has consistently advocated for open dialogue mutual respect and collaboration among all residents regardless of their background or their bus his vision for a more inclusive and harmonious Community is one that we can all rally behind furthermore alosi is dedicated to restoring trust in our municipal government trust is the Cornerstone of any success democracy and it is something that must be earned through consistent and ethical Behavior his proven track record of commitment to these principles reassures us that under his leadership our government will operate with the highest standards of Integrity one of the most pressing issues facing our burrow is the need to get to the bottom of where our missing money went financial mismanagement and embezzlement have serious consequences depriving our Municipality of much needed resources and eroding public confidence I am confident councilman goosi as mayor will conduct a thorough investigation into these matters ensuring that those responsible are held accountable and that any stolen funds are recovered his determination to address these issues head on demonstrates his dedication to Justice and fiscal responsibility I'm confident Mr gubitosi will also stop the pandering to Developers and special interest that has too often influenced our Town's Decisions by prioritizing the needs and voices of everyday residents over those powerful developers and special interest groups he will aim to ensure that Arbor's growth and development will benefit all members of the community this commitment to fairness and Equity is a testament to his dedication to serving the public good moreover he repeatedly demonstrated his belief that an open and transparent government is essential for building trust and accountability in closing I want to express my deepest appreciation for his tireless efforts and unwavering commitment to Brad Beach his leadership integrity and dedication to Public Service are exactly what we need to move forward I encourage all residents to join me in supporting alosi in his campaign for mayor together we can build a better more just and more United Community thank youy for your service and your vision grateful for this leadership and we will in a positive change that will bring our thank you there's no other comments I'll move to close the meeting nope second all favor I I