i' like to call to order the uh special meeting for the township L pacan March 26 2024 moment of silence please flag the flag United States of America stand adequate notice of this meeting has been provided been provided indicating the time and place of the meeting in accordance with chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 by advertising a notice in the Star Ledger and in The Express Times Warren County Zone and by posting a copy on the bullton board in the municipal building Beth would do roll call please counc Marinelli here counc M here counc president here may right here first thing not do anything on men on the agenda today's business is the 2024 budget discussion we will be having no action with today so do you want to go hear the Departments or you want us to go first what what would you rather do B how would you like to do this oh uh I I think you could go first okay okay I've given out some drafts of the Surplus and the expenses um we put this budget together there's a lot of moving Parts um there's a extra money in capital Improvement because of the park improvements and other special things uh like Fox Farm mitigation um so what you're looking at with all that is a is a 2.2 C increase in the local share which would be roughly about $51 annually on our local share for the taxpayer I don't know if you want to say something no I I think you come in again with another good year last year was pretty good uh the only difference though with last year was that you used significantly more fund balance to balance the budget last year to get that money into Capital Improvement fund for down payment money so the amount of surplus or fund balance that you used last year was higher than what we're using this year and we didn't recoup everything that we used last year so by pulling back a little bit we hope to recover and be where we're at at the end of 23 um my suggestion to you would be if you want to come down off that 2.2 cents would be to make Cuts rather than to adjust any of the revenues at this point because we're using using about as much revenue as we feel comfortable with in order to recover that fund balance by year end and and using the the 2, 334,000 that'll leave us about 3.2 in Surplus fund balance okay she that is that all capital right oh Capital no that's the everything yeah the capital you know as I said we have some big projects coming up right and things that we really for the safety especially the mitigation on Fox Farm Road right that is approximately $1.1 million and FEMA's given us a whopping 200,000 or less right Chief that's what we're looking at yeah so we really had to to put more monies into bonding for the 5% down payment I did reach out to Senator steinhardt today and he is going to look into making a phone call and try to help us out with some of that with few so great let's hope he could jump on that so and we still keeping our paying down our our our temporary financing we're still at that steady rate which you know we where we want to be and it's over a million dollars again this year which you know makes us look really good in our uh that level percentage is consistent okay all right that Squad the squad building has nothing to do with this though right well I think I saw that email that you sent about this money's not there's no money left in there for anticipating buying that building um we kind of pivoted and yes the money that we had earmarked for reserve for fire Tru we we instead um put that money allocated at purchase of the EMS building okay sorry so where do we stand with the fire truck we we'll still be on path but we're going to do it another way possibly so we can't do what they're asking for us to do right now by giving them what they ask for a just a letter or something like that we can't do that you said right or Kim said we can't do that unless we put that in the budget somewhere that will give you the legal authority to spend it at some point be saving some money but they said they won't they won't take a they won't take they want to purch purchase purchase they want a purchase order oh yeah that you're talking what $2 million right there's no way that I can we'd be bonding that yeah that's unless you have another plan for that n okay no no but weal talked about that other way of possibly doing it with that yeah I I was going to uh reach out to Phoenix advisers because they I guess have been helping municipalities right with and now the new the new uh Bond low change that you can go up to 20 years to bond out a fir truck right so they seem to have different funding sources that I thought we could reach out and see what we can maximize there okay housing you do that look into that do you think I I can do it I can I can reach out to them and set up a meeting yeah if you would that'd be great that's what yeah that way we can get L and sit down we can yeah figure that out right all right um L you got something or you want to go for no chief chief go May Council yeah so just an update with the um passage of the 20 24 budget we have a lot of moving Parts in the police department this year and um we're uh we're very pleased about it um to tell you the truth um we'll be seeing a um increase in Patrol one one full-time police officer will be coming on board with us this year that's going to um obviously give more Patrol out in on the streets more visibility as well as uh the primary reason of alleviating our detectives to pull away from their case load which they currently often do to cover Patrol Patrol duties so we'll also be um implementing a traffic traffic unit this year um it will consist of one officer a part-time class two officer and um that officer is going to be addressing traffic problems if we have traffic complaints such as our commercial motor vehicles uh that that we've been hearing about and that we've been addressing for the past year or two um that officer will be solely designated for traffic issues such as that um including speeding aggressive driving uh stop signs or wherever we have issues within the township and then uh we have a third third part expansion of our school resource officer program we're going to uh we've been in talks with the low packung school district and um we're in hopes that um everything comes together that we can get an officer to to start uh um being stationed at our our elementary middle schools so that'll be one one officer for the time being um to to share time in between the Middle School and the elementary school if everything goes well and again that those talks are happening with the school district that doesn't really implement or um take away from the budget here the school district is talking about paying for for the officer for that implementation and then um we have some technology that we're looking to add into the cars um we'll be adding e ticketing technology to the cars so that we can uh um you know more aggressively pursue traffic violations and address them at a much quicker rate as well as uh freeing up officer time and um making it safer out there for the officer and and the motorist alike um just going to cut down um the traffic stop um for the most part we cut it cut it in about half typically a traffic stops about 15 minutes or so um we'll cut that into about seven or eight minutes h because that technology so we're uh we're looking forward to that there a lot of moving Parts like I said a lot lot of work to be done we're looking to have all that complet it for uh by the end of the year great thanks chief chief how many hours are you looking to put that part-time off um up to 30 hours so so yeah um probably 5 to six hours per per uh per day any questions for chief anything else all right cool Hello so uh my budget I I assited it back in December uh you guys have it already in hand uh it's remained steady since last year I did not increase my operating budget nor my capital budget everything that I need it's no wants it's all needs um my major concern is the ladder truck obviously the age of it um obviously the manufactur ing time that it takes to get it and the price increase that is going to happen come April 1st of the 40,000 right um because we're not going to get that purchase order in before then so I just want you guys to be aware of that price increase uh moving forward so that was my major concern for this evening so that's where we still be on I mean we I we won't be April 1 all right yeah we knew that before blue they won't take a letter of intent they will not take a letter letter of intent it has to be a purchase order and you're talking a little over 2 million yeah 2 point it's going to be probably it's going to be 40,000 more so 2.1 yeah almost 2.2 yeah it's going to be [Music] 2.2 what a threee build at this point it's 36 to 48 mons well I have to have the funds no I got I understand that's the problem I thought I thought I originally heard that they would take a letter of intent well they thought that in the beginning it's you know Jimmy thought they might be able to take that and that would have been great but all right F out yeah H still don't you're not leaving right no okay cool okay anything else anybody questions for chief do you have anything else best for the budget no I do not we would also mayor um I don't I don't know if we we need more discussion but we would like to introduce in April meeting and then adopt in June for the budget no problem that everybody agreement with here because that's going to be away in May so right there's a 28 days span anyway time that you introduced you have to wait right well let's do that there so is that June 5th uh was that the first Wednesday I think so yeah okay I put it down for that okay okay um the only thing I'd like one more thing 2.2 million I'm not sure where we're coming in with the park we need to make sure we have enough down payment money we you want to take a look and make sure we we have I based it on the 17 million because that's the last figure I had from Paul so whether we spend all that because I know we were looking at 15 million I have to have that percentage uh 5% of the 17 million available anyway so I've done that uh that's why I had to increase the the capital Improvement fund a little bit more because we anticipated last year for 15 million so so it it is there right so that so you'll bond for that but could you use that for the truck difference for the truck if you don't need it for the park well right now for the down payment for the park based at 17 million we need 850,000 we have a balance of last year and our Capital Improvement of7 27 so that mean leaves me 122 needed and then all the other projects on in the capital um so we need 221 in total from this budget I budgeted 275 just in case there were slight changes but I'm not going to be able to come up with that 5% on that 2 million unless unless you know you want me to we'll just have to increase taxes yeah no we'll get through it I me if we had any grants or anything like that I know talking about that that would come off and that would adjust my Capital inment percentage I talked to Paul about that a grant for that so maybe that'll work and few other things and then you're talking about that out of the road too so yeah all right is that under our cost or the the county or something else to cost the other Road um well we don't know yet I don't know who's going to help with that all right let's keep playing on that then for okay thank you all right uh consent agenda anybody want anything taken off the consent agenda five items if not can I get a motion in a second please motion second R yes yes yes yes public comment anything from ladies no all right since there isn't any motion for adjournment please motion second all in favor thank for coming [Music] out so