to e thank you thank you all right you ready job Ed are we good okay pursuant to section five chapter 231 1975 this is the state for the record that adequate me notice of this meeting has been provided to the public by posting and maintaining the annual notice of regular meetings on the bulletin board of the municipal building by mailing the annual notice of regular meetings for 2024 to the news record and Star Ledger in December 2023 and by filing said notice in the office of the Township Clerk that's right here Mr daffis Mr Duca here zle here mayor Adams here thank you where chapter 231 public laws 1975 commonly known as the open public meetings act requirs that all meetings of public bodies be open to the public and whereas section 7A provides that the governing body has a discretion to permit prohibit or regulate the active participation in the public at any meeting and whereas Zar of the governing body to comply with the provision of this act St P to conduct this business in an orderly and expeditious manner now therefore be resolved by the township committee Township of mwood does hereby prohibit accept the set forth in for formal agenda active participation in the deliberations of the governing body by the public and accept as otherwise described by law those liit public to the observations of the action discussions of the governing body at all its regular and special meetings moved second Miss great yes Mr Luca yes Miss Engel yes mayor Adams yes thank you please rise for salute to the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay we're here for our budget Workshop this is our third budget Workshop this one we will be discussing new employee requests Revenue Capital recommendations and budget recommend ation and then we'll have some public comment and then we will adjourn so with that Mr weary did you w to Le the budget discussion or thank you mayor so we can start if you'd like we we have a few areas to cover tonight um do you want to start with new employee requests that's what it says on the agenda so I suppose so all right good enough please so in front of you and what I'll bring up on the screen is an overview of each of the new position requests that we received from department heads there's also backup there for each position go through them starting with DPW working down through engineering Administration finance and Recreation some of these items are already included in the proposed budget which you've seen a few versions of uh and some of them are not included that's mostly a function of just how they came in finance and how much time we had to get them into the budget it does it's not an indication of where our priorities like so starting with number one this is an office assistant for the Department of Public Works right now we have one office assistant um in public works doing primarily Public Works helps out a bit with engineering there had been a time long a while ago when this was staffed at two positions um there is a a tremendous need for this position there's a lot of work to be done in that office it all falls on one person who does um a great job but there's there's just too much that in in a day she's unable to get to and a lot of that is getting back to Residents and informing them them of where we are with projects or addressing their issues like recycling pickup um notifications or you know scheduling of trees to be removed scheduling of Poole repair so a lot of that is U this new person could help with that response to uh resident inquiries um and uh to reduce the delays uh for you know how the uh building and ground uh operation is scheduled so that request is for the total request is for $84,000 which includes salary and additional benefit costs is that the office syst or buildings and grounds no 63 yeah you just oh I'm sorry I'm sorry I thought maybe I no no no I apologize uh so that is $63,000 for Allin which includes salary and benefit cost right so when someone calls engineering does that um call come in here or DPW or is it depends there is engineering staff that's here in town hall have the right extension and the right number yeah they could get here but generally go over to uh Mr ker in engineering which is at the Public Works B right if you call was it you call the engineering number it goes upstairs there right now there's just one staff engineer upstairs so that that was a goes to Roseanne oh the engineering main number yeah okay had that wrong well you know what that was the old thing maybe maybe the you talking about extensions now right yeah yeah yeah most of us up here called cell numbers so I that's why I was asking yeah you know for Department I thought you go I thought it goes up here if you could just dial the like whatever it says engineer I'm wondering and the reason I'm asking is because of you know if that's if they're all going to Public Works to the S you know the office assistant Who currently works there then you know but if some of them are coming here I'm just trying to figure out the lay of the land in order and why they need another office assistant the like I said the majority of it is for Public Works we get a lot of inquiries into this office uh from residents with Public Work questions and requests um they they handle a lot of the the Jitney schedule as we're putting new information out to the public new schedules for pickups schedules they're working on that they're working with the you know what task are going to staff through the DPW superintendent so they um the one person there has a lot of work and more work than can currently handle they're also collecting fees there and who requested this the um engineer director of Public Works yeah director of Public Works okay are we gonna talk about them all and then go back or we gonna make decisions one by one I think however you prefer I would ask questions I would ask all the questions now and then maybe when we're through all them and we understand the full request and the full impact we can talk about priorities so I I'd like to go through all of them and then here at the end what your recommendation is for the top three positions sure okay so then number two is DPW buildings and grounds worker this is another assistant to uh another employee to assist with uh buildings and grounds so we have a full staff for buildings and grounds they have a lot of work they check in on a lot of issues that come up boiler repair some you know wall repair and electrical issues and fire alarms going off um and we have a lot of buildings and they get pulled in a lot of different directions and so there's a request to add one person to that department that is a total funding request of $84,000 next on the list is just this is there any if we were to approve this would there be any savings in future building repairs or there bilding repairs are still going to need to be done right this still need to be done some of the things that we currently sub out may need to be done in or may be able to be done inhouse like when we do like paint and spackle that kind of stuff where we have had to sub out in the last few years uh for that work that we may be able to do some more of that inow those are usually bigger like when we did all whole office and stuff like that yeah and we' we've tackled some smaller projects recently we just did some of that at the Bergdorf we do it at 1978 quite often regarding like especially with painting and spackling as they put up and take we've done it the senior center recently where we we had a a vendor in there to do a good amount of spackle and paint and you know this is just one example of the kind of work that currently we're subbing out how many buildings and grounds workers are there in total I don't know I think three right Josh Josh Al and Joe and and yes so three John's the supervisor okay next one yes the next is Pa and Ringo and George DPW roads and recycling worker so this is similar to the uh last request this is for an additional staff person to work on the uh road crew and also uh maintaining recycling they you know we we it's just another one of those things where we have a lot of work and uh DPW sees the need for um additional um Staffing this isn't something where we would generally uh sub the work out if we're not able to get to it but we would be able to get to more work with the position the next is for engineering construction Observer oh wait are we staying on DPW I thought we you wanted to just that was the last one DPW and your rank of the three of them is the all of the people I would go through the rank of yeah yeah go you'd rather go by Department no i' I'd rather go through everything and then rank there's only another four the next one is engineering so this is for a staff engineer construction Observer this is one of those things where right now we um sub the work out uh for observing construction projects preparing cost estimates assisting with Grant applications um and this would um allow us our our existing staff that's doing some of this work to focus more on design designing and managing the project so we have existing Engineers that end up performing some observing functions on projects or we we sub that out to contract we also have a line in the budget for in-house engineering we do that's a little different in that that is a capital line that we use to pay the salaries of uh staff that work on capital projects right this would be a staffed position could it be charged to that line yes but ultimately we end up funding it be it through capital or be it through our operating we now pay for like road work we pay GPI and we build that to the project that's right right so would we not employ GPI if we had this person that's right that's right and I don't want to say specifically GPI but yes the idea is that we could do more there there's sorry no that's fine but there there's there's two pieces to this one we could do more of that work that we currently sub out and two this person could free up work that's currently being done by Engineers this wouldn't it would be in the engineering department but this doesn't require a PE so we could free up some of uh we have two Engineers with pees we could free up some of them to do other I just feel like for a town this size we already have assistant engineer and an assistant engineer and and an engineer that's a lot for a small town you're seeing all the requests so that's before I know okay Administration this is for a public information officer the idea is to have one person in the department of administration who handles all of the communications for the township um some of which are already in our department so we put out the weekly uh email blast we don't do much on Facebook we don't do any on Instagram so it would be to beef up those two pages and U to revamp some of what we do for our current outflow those weekly email blasts in addition um streamline all of the communications not just in my department but across all departments so right now everybody kind of works in silos um administ Administration does ours Community Services does theirs Health Police Department everybody has separate um schedules for outflow types of outflow looks of outflow they all use social media a little bit differently um and there is a a benefit um not just to our internal operations but also to the public with having one person who handles this so you know on the public side to be able to have one person who's managing the schedule so I'm not getting a couple emails from a couple different departments in the same day that manages the look so when I get an email from the township of Maplewood I have some expectation of what it looks like how it's laid out um what type of text and wording there is and it makes it easier for me to follow the township through all different platforms that we have so this one person would you know bring all that Under One Roof I I expect that the you know the generation of content would still be with the Department putting it together styling it getting it out getting it out across more channels so social media especially me getting it out in a way that um is easier to understand for the public would be the role of this person what about other stuff that's not just marketing if you will because that's more like marketing yeah I mean emergency notices I think the person who is good for this role would likely have a background in um press more than marketing so you know maybe they were a reporter somewhere uh and I've seen a lot of those um function that that's in other municipalities who fills those functions people that had been a reporter for a while and um unfortunately due to print media um being downsized or looking for other work they fit really well into these positions in addition to yeah our outflow they could handle some of our media they could handle some of our website um you know even things like our budget address and getting information that maybe Mr Cog and I have together in a budget document with charts and crafts and things that make it that certainly is within the Wheelhouse of someone who who would be right for this position so in the Wheelhouse for somebody in this position in my mind for municipality would be um fashioning basically public statement even by elected officials or by Administration could or police fire I think that's almost the more important part so that it's um a consistent message from and that you know there's no nobody going rogue in wherever you know not just us but everywhere yeah if the township committee has an interest in that they could do that I mean up to each individual committee person to decide if they want to use this person and you know what they want to work on I mean you no no I think what she I'm sorry just I think what Nancy Miss Adams is saying mayor Adams is saying sorry is that um this person should be a strategic thinker and advisor and communication so that when issues come up and when they're monitoring social media or seeing things come up they can say hey mayor Adams we should put out a statement on this and then it's that person putting out the statement or Maple with putting out the statement and not mayor Adams posting in all the different Facebook groups and whatnot we need someone who can think strategically about how to communicate to this very engaged community that we have here that's where I think the political experience would come in handy for somebody who's either been a reporter in politics or been a you know press worked yeah worked for that I mean a communications director you know for the White House obviously has controls the messages that go out and fashion them for the elected people so that there's a consistent message and that it's they're not saying anything off the wall or crisis Communications backgrounds or government background or consumer background versus B2B yeah I feel like if it was something more with that rather than just a template of gathering everything because once you get the template done it's just yeah plugging it in or what you started off with but late I think the more valuable thing to me I mean it's all valuable but would be sort of a like you were saying like a communicator on behalf of and and a spokesperson which goes in traditional statements as well as on Media or creating the newsletters of the look it kind of all goes hands in hand but it be all of those things pair eyes to look at stuff yeah I want to downplay the the value that they would provide to the Departments because not just in addition to being a collector of all that information they need to be an editor not of words but in how much is going out right right now we have great Communications but you get them and you can you know scroll for pages on what's available and and I know for me can be overwhelming um and I I've heard that from residents as well so you know they're making those decisions on what's important to get out timeliness of how it gets out so I think that that'll play a big role should this position be funded but yes to your point they could certainly help craft that response from the te committee and especially engaging people where they are on social media especially and do you see that is a part-time or full-time in your preference it could certainly be a full-time I know it could yeah I'm asking what so you see it as preferred full-time always preferred full-time yeah I mean that's without considering budget implications preferred fulltime there's no doubt that there's enough work for this person certain work full-time at the end of this after we go through all the positions we're going to start talking budget impact and that's when you know I'll give you my ideas on okay our time because that's when we're have to make decision you know with h with all the things you're talking about if you think about a newspaper the reporter writes the story a different person does the headline because the reporter usually doesn't figure out the the look not anymore draw and the grab go and um I hear a lot in this one person and I think it's it's almost impossible to find the person to do both of these jobs I think you could it's changed so media has changed cuz I come from the traditional with the newspapers of what you're saying but nowadays the communications professionals need to know how to do everything digital marketing is so much a part of the daytoday that it's all kind of interwoven and it's about the looking holistically and figuring out what of the 50 things that we're pushing out what are the top five that we want to be focusing on that are Revenue drivers or have to do with goals that we're doing or whatnot just having an over overview of everything going on in Maplewood and then piecing out these are the five areas that we need to focus on oh we know you love this project that it's great and we can still promote it but these are the five that are really going to advance what we're trying to do here in Maplewood right and at the same maintaining those major areas of arts and culture the recreation the whatever and having links attached to those things for more information and it'll also help free up some time from the um people in the various departments because even I hear like incoming calls from residents you know I mean Communications person can also help with that because their goal is communicating with residents or putting out information to um to anticipate questions residents are going to have to try to limit the amount of incoming calls or emails that are coming in because if you give information out less people are going to be looking for it and if you give information out where the people are then they won't be flooding us with all the tags and whatnot because you can find it yeah I'm not sure that's gonna happen but I also also I also think that we now have people that were paying in different departments to do some of this work and it's unclear to me if we take that work away from folks what are folks going to what are those people going to do why are we if that's part of their job now we're hiring somebody to do part of their job seems to me we're spending double somebody to do this there's something doing that they could be doing because they're doing that I can just think you would be that that that's not the case they do all of the stuff but they could really use something off their plate I'm not sure that's everywhere I'm not not everywhere but think of at least couple apartments are like that I think and you talk about you know the ability of one person to do both of these right now it's Rec well it's more than both there's a lot of roles that you laid out right right but right a lot of roles it's it's the person who's doing that is doing that on top of their Recreation duties on top of their Police Department duation duties so yeah I agree with you that these are a lot of things that we're asking one person to do right now we're asking one person to do all those things and they're already doing what's General yeah but look this is the government we this is taxpayers dollars I agree so yeah we you know we want to roll out everything but it's not part of working for government is there's a lot to do and when you work for government that's what happens and there's a lot of jobs to get done we do it ourselves so it troubles me that we are trying to solve a problem we have we have we're going to be paying somebody or some entity something to to do this and we're not making adjustments in on the other Staffing it it's unclear to me what these folks are going to we say there's other work for them to do but lay it out I haven't seen it yeah all I see is let's do this so okay if if if XYZ and the health department is not going to do this anymore not going to do the health newsletter which comes out or we promoting and what's the that person going to do how's that how's that work going to be different how's the work at the health department going to be Advanced if it is so that's kind of like what I see this as possible if we were to fund it would be to start as part-time and also um get things set up to the extent that it becomes plugin you know a little bit more later but I also know that different departments are much busier during different times of the year and then maybe that's when this person would pick up slack that so that people are getting their other work done but I think to Mr duca's point it's fair for us to have an idea of what jobs they would be doing in any particular Department were this to be taken off their plate but if the content is still being created by them and it's just being put in by this person then maybe that's not really getting removed entirely from their page just shortened shortened and have we thought about hiring a firm as opposed to Bringing on a person I've thought about it and I've asked around about it like the firms that would do this type of work I have a few connections and their the feedback they provided was that's not the type of work generally that those firms want to provide right that's that's not their um that's not what drives their business and usually it's kind of like the last thing that they want to get was working with us small I mean a big firm yeah but you could have there are people obviously people that do it undou undoubted like consultant but I don't know if the there's not the uh there other than like maybe single individuals who who have this as like their own individual interest as far as companies who do this type of PR media messaging work this isn't wow and I think it's important that makes me not almost want to put that with them because you might not be getting the same person every time and it's important that you have the same person at the very least but that's something that could be done by you know many of us who've had our own Consulting gigs right on and doing it on that level but okay next next is accounting assistant in finance which I'll let Mr clog discuss this year is your mic on it's not oh it's green there all right there we go the other one stayed red yeah um thank you all uh the request is simple when when I first started here in uh 2018 uh we had 10 employees working in the finance department but they were a highly seasoned uh staff we had um multiple redundant licenses in the office uh and so we were able to to consolidate down to uh seven employees from 10 uh and spread that work out unfortunately since that time we've had a great deal of turnover uh the department now is uh is pretty green we only have uh two licenses we've got two people that are going currently going for licenses and when the time comes we will obviously send more people uh to get that education as well uh but the the finance department is struggling we used to have one dedicated individ ible to handle 24 bank accounts and the bank reconciliations of those accounts um and then from there reports were generated and then different people would wind up taking care of making the adjustments um since then uh we've tried at a rotational basis where we've been putting different people in charge of different uh accounts that aren't necessarily something that they're involved in so that we maintain our internal uh controls and not have the same person following a transaction from the begin beginning to the end uh but as you can see from our audit reports over the last few years uh we've been struggling to do that so the request is to um a h um instead of a higher level person uh to hire an accounting assistant uh their job would be specifically to handle bank reconciliations for us all 24 of them uh realistically that will take them probably about three weeks uh and a week off before the next bank statements wind up coming in uh we would also like to move uh the fixed asset inventory which is something we're statutorily required to maintain uh we currently Outsource that for $6,000 a year so obviously with this new person they would be able to handle our fixed asset inventory and uh we can take the $6,000 that's in other expenses and use it to offset their salary uh we would then also utilize that person uh at any given time during crunch time when we're going through our files because it's shred day and and we're getting ready to go down to the government records Council and uh and and wind up destroying records that we no longer need to maintain because the six years is up uh we would have that person helping us out with with some of the physical moving of and identifying of the files that we've been keeping so um it's certainly something um that would help us address the issues that we've been uh dealing with for the last few years and it's the reason why it's now a request anybody have any questions hey Recreation custodian so the last item from Community Services is a recreation custodian uh this person would be dedicated uh to cleaning buildings under uh the purview of the uh the community services department especially crucial um during the summer months when we have both camps that are heavily involved in our um in our buildings and also um during all the months where we have bathrooms open in public parks right now especially in the public parks we have to um Outsource the cleaning of those uh restrooms we pay about $40,000 a year to do that and in addition for the the spaces that we have we rely a lot on DPW Public Works to clean our community services buildings and that's difficult because especially in the summer they're always um in demand and scheduling them can be difficult when they're working U across with another department and they've got a lot of other duties to do so the request is for uh this custodian the Allin with salary and benefits is $446,000 so this would be under community services and not under DPW that's right y um dedicated to community services and the the thought there is you put them under DPW DPW finds work for them to do and they they have plenty of work for them to do and well they've got three other employees now Recreation feels like they have a specific um need for one person dedicated to them and that they could fill their time yeah because in years past it's been hard to get people to go and take on those jobs particularly when they're at the Woodland or whatever and they've originally started over at say to heart so we don't give them enough activities enough regular things to do then those people end up leaving these aren't this those are the attendance that's different those are a different group you know who who's flying This Plane if if if if we hire a custodian to work at DPW and we tell the DPW director that this custodian is dedicated to Recreation yeah and why wouldn't they be dedicated to Recreation we're in charge right yeah yeah so we could easily solve the thing that you said they couldn't be assigned anywhere else we just tell them they have to be at the recreation buildings could we yeah we could solve that sure okay so that that's really not the justification no it's not the justification for an additional person no so if we hired an additional person could we put them in DPW and have them assigned to Recreation if you approved this additional hire absolutely you could do that the thought process though is Recreation has a full-time need for this position so put them under the position so that they can be at the direction of the director of community services just like building attendance are under the the direction of the arts and culture manager they do building attendant work setup breakdown could you say that's DPW sure but it's it's under Community it's under arts and culture because they have a you know either a full-time or a dedicated part-time job working just in that department so let me tell you what's going to happen we're going to put we're GNA we have custodial operations in DPW now we're setting up a parallel custodial operations and the community services then we're going to need a vehicle then we're going to need all the supplies then we're going to need uniforms we have all that stuff at DPW it makes sense to consolidate it and and just dedicate that person through your order as the administrator that that person works on wreck we can do that can I ask a question about that just with the communication between the two departments in that situation I think a rep the reporting structure was what's going to be important like that person's reporting to somebody in community services because they're working in the camps and the park bathrooms and whatnot so somebody if you if the if the manager is DPW then I think we're creating this Grapevine phone chain thing again and so putting it in community services kind of Nix out the middleman it's just like we're directing you what to do then generally like let's say each day the director of community services talking to the director of Public Works who's talking down through the Forum and it it yes it creates could it be done if that's your direction certainly that can be my direction if that's what gets this over the finish line but that's not my recommendation not the recommendation of the manager of or the the director Comm you could easily tell DPW director that this person works for DPW and during the summer is going to take direction from the Department of Community Services right reports to the Department of Community Services um I think that's confusing it's a little different it would Sim be similar to our custodians now like let's say in town hall who report to somebody in in public works but they're not in and of the same Union could they be another cust Ian yes we if if that's what gets us across the line I think we can make that work but it would I think it would it would help the function of this person if they reported directly up through community services that what about all the other equipment Vehicles outfits yeah that wouldn't be an issue for Community Services to take on they have enough now they they have enough operations where you know it's not that this person is going to show up to work and and not have the supplies that they need this can function in community services and what about fund what about the last year keep camp at Department we paid outside cleaning surfaces over 40,000 last year to keep Camp environments and park restrooms clean and open through the summer so we always have don't we always have portons yep so what are we cleaning to for bathrooms that they're cleaning and that includes portons yeah well the portons have to be cleaned by the Porton company the the majority of this is in park bathrooms but I didn't even think we were opening any of our Park bath we don't have any Memorial to H the CER right yeah we open Dart we open Orchard has restrooms uh boen has bordon has restrooms then those are open in the summer okay so I guess I'm just confused about this part like I know we have portons I know how that works the Porton Porton people come and they clean it out that's right and they replace the equipment inside and then they that's right so that's not what this 40,000 no no so we have DPW and we were paying an outside company to go clean like deart yes bathrooms yes that doesn't seem right because there's a lot of work to be done there was a lot open to the public they get dirty very quickly some with General use but sometimes it's just Mischief Mischief Mischief so this $40,000 is not going to be reduced it would be yes yeah we wouldn't how much we would not have a need for that outside service if we hired so it's not going to be reduced so the 40,000 does not include the Portage on cleaning no because they did the company does is it part of their contract how often they come like a couple days a week all of them extra yeah I don't know how often they come to clean well but I know we have required extra cleanings that's for Porta John's but we're now we're talking about the company that cleans our bathrooms yeah I have no confidence that that $440,000 is spent on cleaning bathrooms I'd like to see that we can provide that okay so that's all the Personnel requests do you want to rank them and then let us rank them or how do you want to do it unless you'd like us to start so no I I can tell you the most important request on here is the Public Works office assistant and I would say by far I I know the work of that office and I know the work that they're not able to get to on a daily basis I know the impact this could have on the public and the frustration sometimes that I hear from the public regarding their interaction with the Department because of the inability of that department to follow up um so I far above any other position that that I want to say far above but above any other position that's requested that one is really re really important to me to the department I think to the public as well um so I would put uh that one at the top going down the list I given the budget impact I do not recommend um the buildings and grounds worker the roads and recycling worker and the staff engineer construction engineer I think that's work that's either being done now or um in our department and maybe we don't get to as much as we want but you know we we those depart the department still does a good job or it is being subbed out and we may be well served continuing to sub that workout um so I don't recommend the next three um public information officer and accounting assistant are both U valuable positions with um with a budget impact they should be weighed um more delicately I think if you're interested we should continue that conversation I do not recommend that we um staff the recreation custodian I think that Outsourcing has while certainly we could um replace Outsourcing with a staff person and there is some value to that there's also some negative to that and there are reasons why I like to Outsource work and I think this is one where Outsourcing serves us well but if it's not doing it well enough like at the price I think there could be there's an additional benefit to having a staff person but there are also drawbacks and in in my opinion weighing those out I think we are well served Contin to use an outside service so explaining taking out the public information officer um you think the accounting assistant I think I think if you're interested we should discuss public information officer and accounting assistant further I mean there's a there's a you know budget impact to both and there's a strong benefit to both and those are that's a more delicate weight I feel confident though in the other one saying that I recommend the office assistant and do not recommend the buildings and grounds worker roads recycling worker staff engineer and Recreation custodian anybody have any thoughts on that because those was my top three too was your top three too and I think that there we should have a further discussion about unless everybody's in agreement that you know you you see the value and want to support uh public information offic accounting assistant but but I understand so the budget impact which we'll get into later and is all you know it's these are serious dollars and they they result in tax increases and I want to make sure we weigh them out so i' why don't we why don't we everybody okay with the DPW office assistant Mr D not so I have a question um go I'm sorry I just have a what what is it what is the tax rate right now what is it bringing in tax rate I'm sorry tax point a tax point is has shifted now because of our new uh ratio so it's you're looking at roughly $620,000 as opposed to the old number with our old um assess value of 320 much is the new one is what 620,000 when we uh tax point is basically 100 divided by our assessed value so our assessed value used to be $3.2 billion and so roughly a tax point was $320,000 now because our new assess value is $6.2 billion a tax point is going to be the equivalent of roughly $620,000 $20,000 okay and and according to this information we have the 70,000 in the proposed budget and 46200 in the propos I'm sorry 48,000 in the two so we have about 120 in the proposed budget is that correct yes according to this it's correct so this is how I would answer your question mayor I would say since you're already accounted for the 120 in the budget that that's what I would that would be my maximum go on this and how whoever we can fit in that 120 so if the office assistant for DPW taking 60 then we have 60 left for something else that's how I would look at it well I I will add for public information officer which I think everyone in this room knows that I will Lobby hard for um I think the cost is the salary is too high and I'm also think that that could be a part-time position which was that the public information officer okay I think it could be part-time and I think the salary is too high like that's what like 100,000 a year I think that's too high what I thought it was 70 no for that's for half a year yeah yeah that's though okay so right 70 was for a full year right oh 70 is for a full year or for a half year full year salary the funding request is for with uh yeah full year salary so the request is for $49,000 which would be halfe salary and half year benefits wait that's not on your sheet here you mumbled away I did oh I apologize I'm sorry which one the yeah it is it's at the bottom it's on the it's on the detail sheet oh on this sheet it says 70,000 so I was assuming that was for 2024 the sheet that you're looking at are full year numbers because I appreciate that in this year's budget we can budget half of it but I don't want to put us in a position where we get next year should you know when we budget it we should think about what's the full year cost because we're going to pay that in short time so what would be a part-time annual salary or paid consultant for something it's be the anticipated salary would be 70 for full year we talking 35 we talk in 28 I think it depends on how many hours and I do think it would be less expensive to hire a part-time person than a consultant because those rates will go up yeah and 30 an hour 35 an hour without benefit without benefits right you keep like 25 hours a week 30 35 an hour and I think you can get good you might be able to get good candidates because there's a lot of people who want flexible work and when you talk about journalists there's a lot of journalists who live here I think we want somebody who lives and knows our community so what should we budget for it is my question if we were to if we were to agree with Miss angle and do a part-time whether it's consultant or a part-time employee it should be the same amount we budget half a full-time salary pay them the the hourly wage is going to be generally comparable and you don't have the benefits so and I think that 70,000 is a is a realistic number for position so I think 35 yeah and could we do it as a contract and say if after a year we see that we don't actually need that much time invested is that opportunity to go back and renegotiate for that hard time yeah we could I mean it's there are benefits to a contract as opposed to work this is something where there may be someone who set up uh to do this contractually yeah we should entertain that okay okay so let's talk about the accounting assistant in in finance are you fully staffed right now because I thought we talked about the positions that we uh uh had starting in 201 19 we have all seven positions finally there's a there's a person in every seat so this ask is actually for an additional person to move us from s to eight uh which would still be less than the 10 uh that we had when I first started and the tasks that um this person would do can you delineate those again uh they would the primary purpose for their job would be to perform the bank reconciliations for our 24 separate bank accounts uh and then once those reports are prepared they would hand them either to me the assistant or the assistant CFO I do the appropriate journal entries in order to bring uh our books into balance with the bank statements who's doing the bank recks now bank recks now are being done by the Auditors and how much does that cost us uh we haven't gotten the bill yet for this year but last year's bill was somewhere around 18 or 199,000 for how long for the whole year for the whole year correct whole year so why would we hey they didn't come in for the whole year to do Bank Rex though didn't they just come in to catch us up at the fourth quarter uh like we brought that we I think in like sep this year in the finance committee we say oh let's catch up let's catch up we don't want to be late so we we approved bringing in the Auditors to help out so no but they've been doing apparently early last year to do the banks for the previous year this year we were more proactive and we brought them in near the end of the year to do bankrupts for the year correct is that a fair yes for which year both last year they did the bankr for 2022 okay and late last year they did the they started Bank Rex for three and they're finishing that out now and H Bank re like I do Bank WS every month but they're done when they're done once a year no be doing them be that was what we were trying to catch up on and knock it behind do difficult to do them at the end of the year because isget I'm not saying what I I know it's not the best so if we're spending say $20,000 to have the accountants do it why wouldn't we continue to have them do it isn't it cheaper than bringing on a staff person and just have them do it over the course of a year as opposed to at the end of the year Well it still costs 20,000 if they're doing it all year long on a monthly basis or quarterly basis or no our auditor POS our Auditor's interest is is not in doing these on an ongoing basis they'll do it for us because they need to get us to where we want to be but and especially given the auditor deadlines where now they're working on Municipal budgets they'll be working on Municipal audits they will be working us and audits it becomes difficult then for us to get them in on a a consistent basis so is there is there a possibility of Outsourcing that work for example since we essentially done that the last two years to do the bank Rex is there a way to pay about 20,000 a year to do monthly Bank Rex that's actually one of the things that we first explored before we brought the Auditors in to help us with the 2022 Bank Rex we called three temp agencies looking to bring in someone who can uh you know be employed as a outside temporary employee to get us caught up and we were unsuccessful in finding any of the three agencies that would be able to send us someone uh with the skill level to be able to do the bank reconciliation but what about local accountants yeah that's different that's a temp agency to have to we were talking about Staffing temporarily so we can not talking about like Outsourcing like she's talking about a contractor like a bookkeeper and accounting or something where we can just send work to the same thing we just talked about with public information officers they're contractor out there that's not an an employee but that we can send things right yeah we can certainly call a few account firms that are local that are small and see if they're interested in doing the work that problem and then find out what the cost would be and then the other other two tasks that looks like are the primary staff requirements the things that you wanted for them would be the fixed asset inventory and the accounting so someone else is already doing so we we'll continue to Outsource the fixed asset inventory at $6,000 uh and you know everyone rolls up their sleeves in the office and helps when it needs to you know comes time to filing or other you know day-to-day oper each each function has its busy its Peaks and its valleys right so yeah of course in the Gap being a small office that we are everyone pitches in when they need to so you know other than having that you know little bit of a release valve with an extra uh Pair of Hands in the office uh you know we're getting it done now with the 7 I feel like this is something that could be I mean I have a an accountant she's like works on her own I can ask her what it would be for somebody she has bookkeepers who work for her um um so it' be at least be worthwhile I think to get a price from a small like you know local type not a huge accounting firm but a small who might be certified to be able to do the bank recks in order for us to kind of make this decision to have some sort of because if we're talking about almost 50 right almost 50,000 for the year or we can you know see if we can Outsource the part of that because what I'm hearing is that bank Rex is the primary thing that this position would do and that then they when they're done with all the bank recks they'd fill in with journal entries and things like that and whatever needs to be done so since the department already is fully staffed I think it makes sense to see what it would be to have somebody do those Bank wrecks um to come in once a month and do them is that fair to at least get that number so we can compare something is that okay with everybody sounds good um okay so because if we do if we Outsource that position I mean I may be in favor of an accounting assistant um otherwise but I really need that number like what it could be how we could save and still get the work done and not be in the position we were in before and then I would go for a part-time Pio and the uh office assist assistant in DPW those are my those are my uh thoughts I agree with your thoughts likewise okay so we need a little more information okay mrca you go with it he already said he doesn't care as long as it doesn't add up to more than 100 exactly okay that's what I all right cool anything else on that guys no great Revenue let's get some money okay Revenue are you going to show something over I'm pull up the revenue spr you g to give us Zoom glasses yeah they're paper they're I really have to move over there oh I can make it very large okay I may have to go get my regular glasses my distance ones trying to get p I have you have takes a while to get used to them how cool is that's big see it you I was if you can't see that all right we get everything on the screen nickname you I saw the squint but I can see it it does but if we could Mr worry move it to the uh oh no you have it me this is perfect so the uh the tab that we're looking at basically breaks it down the way the state's going to look at our Revenue um the tab to the right of it is just Bas is the um is the individual accounts that then aggregate into so just to run through this briefly trying to make sure I talking to the microphone uh the Surplus anticipated is uh sticking with our um cash management plan that says when possible we use 50% of our fund balance obviously when we finish our AFS we will be able to confirm that number but I anticipate that our fund balance will be coming in somewhere between $4.3 million and $4.8 million so we should be uh fine there if we start to scroll down a little bit the the blue highlighted Aggregates all the uh items underneath uh what we see uh is if we can scroll up just a hair I'm sorry um the the The Shining Star obviously is the interest on deposits and Investments uh inflation has arrived banks are paying interest rates again and we've seen our Revenue in this account go from being $333,000 in the prior year to $1.4 million uh this year you also see an increase in our sewer service fee that's because we adopted an ordinance that added an additional $20 so when we uh put this down to the state they're going to want to see the ordinance so that we can demonstrate that $200,000 is not an unreasonable request um take a look at some of the notes here actually we could scroll down again and I guess we'll kind of do this and then just kind of go back so uh after we get through the revenue uh in in local Revenue if we scroll down a little further okay so that busy up at the tabs okay we're gonna we're going to scroll down uh till we reach uh state aid uh so that's sort of our bad news uh we got a slight increase over what we had the year before in terms of energy receipts tax they're still not funding it the way they were supposed to um uh when they passed the law almost 20 years ago now uh and the municipal relief Aid we were told is no longer going to be provided this year so they did that to us last year they had provided us with uh you know roughly 80 some odd thousand uh they then told us to take it out of the budget and then at the last minute they turned around and said no we're going to actually put it back and we're doubling it um my guess is we're not going to be that fortunate this year because I think they're using that money to offset the um anchor program so we uh we're starting out with $191,400 hole in Revenue that we had from the year before if we scroll down a little further we see that we have our Municipal Court shared services uh our Milburn shared services for plumbing and electrical we have now added uh and expanded South Orange uh health department and we continue to treat the admin uh for South eics Fire Department as an employee of ours until they're prepared to move her over to their payroll uh if we scroll down a little further we've got grants this is not really relevant to our budget because any Grant Revenue that comes in has to have an equal and offsetting expenditure so it typically doesn't matter what the numbers are in here because whatever we're bringing in we have to pledge that we're going to spend the same exact amount as well but it should be noted that uh a significant portion of our uh Health Department is being funded right now through grants and we are going to need to start to prepare uh for the idea that those grants are are going to dry up at some point we can scroll down a little further please these are the items that we need to put in front of the director in order to keep them in place uh cable PV franchise everyone's cutting the cord so every year it goes down from what we used to bring in uh we've seen uh the police outside Duty uh down a little from what we've had the year before our parking permits were also down a little from um what we had the year before and um after discussions with Mr worry yesterday we are putting back in $350,000 for American Rescue plan I'll let him explain that a little better but but uh in a large part that's to offset the um sale of Municipal assets that represents the liquor license we sold it obviously was a one-time sale and so we used it last year to balance our budget it's not available this year because we're not selling another uh liquor license this year uh what we've seen from an overall picture of um our revenues cannabis continues to be a shining star for us when we first put it into our budget two years ago it was like $212,000 and then last year was $430,000 and now this year it's $610,000 so it's it's a continuing uh growing uh source of revenue for us uh court has uh pretty much rebounded from pre-pandemic levels uh first year of the pandemic we were probably doing about 242,000 uh and we're now bring you know we're now back up to 309,000 so we're right at back at where we used to be before the pandemic it um rental registrations is a little bit of an anomaly and I'm going to take a closer look at it for whatever yes Mr warry we're not looking at what he's talking about and it's hard to rental rental registrations oddly there he just talked about cannabis so rental registrations oddly for for some some reason and I'm not sure why seems to to go back and forth we we started out a few years ago at 132,000 we went back up to 151 then we dipped back down to 123 last year we were back up to 151 so we're going to anticipate the full 151 but I'm not fully confident that this is going to be a uh Revenue line that's going to perform the way we anticipate is that line because we're not seeing that line okay yes it would be under Section ay get there's the right above the Board of Health okay let's try to keep it in syn because it's hard when you're looking at some numbers and you're hearing other numbers you're not sure what you're hear so yeah I'm I don't quite understand why there's been this velation and I'll probably have a conversation with Mr Pama to see if it's a simple function of you know we we rented more and then it's an eban Flo on a rental type of thing or if um it's some other underlying issue that we're going to need to look at uh our certificate of use uh has declined we used to bring in $990,000 for that so uh certificate of use is going to be back down to uh section g 22 okay certificate of continued use right yep right so a few years ago we were bringing in $90,000 that is steadily decreased from 90 to 768 call it 77 now we're down at 73 uh I'm not certain as to uh because I believe that the certificates of continued use or essentially someone's buying a house it's got to get inspected before they can move into it and I can I I know from listening to our tax assessor that Selling Houses and people moving in is not an issue here in Maplewood so I'm not really sure why that Revenue line happens to be probably has something to do now with the uh because you don't need a continue to uh for an apartment somebody renting so when the fir apartment building like Avalon Bay first opened up then they got their CCU right and now they don't get them now so and that was that would there been a few that would explain that that you know what then I don't need to do the homework now because that would explain the spike in the year that Avalon Bay opened we had $90,000 worth of Revenue life went back to normal and now we're running at somewhere around 76 73 and and so you know that makes a lot of sense to me projects are smaller than that uh the recreation Revenue might look slightly down but that was part of an accounting uh I don't want to call it trick but it was part of an accounting process we did to try and increase Revenue in the pool so we took a look at all the um Recreation Revenue that was coming in uh to the municipality and anything that was associated with aquatic Recreation programs like the mermaid camp and that sort of stuff we lifted out of the municipal budget and we put into the pool budget in order to to close the gap that we were experiencing there and uh I'm happy to see that the Woodland rental has finally rebounded from its pre-pandemic numbers and and is now producing a steady Revenue source for us as well so if we take a look at all of what we've got there uh essentially we have a library tax that we're mandated to uh put into the budget it's a third of a mill uh this year it winds up being you know 1.7 million in change uh that's up from what we had the prior year so we're seeing an increase in that line uh of roughly 6.2% uh that is mandated by the state in order to make sure that the library qualifies for getting a state aid uh the balance of that puts us with uh the municipal uh Levy that we're looking at and as it stands right now we're looking at roughly a 4.2% increase in the levy and obviously that would also be a 4.2% increase in the rate okay what is the what is the increase 4.2 4.2 so I know the finance committee asked you to get that down below yeah this is a draft number that we're still working that's that's where we sit today and there's a few you know some discussion items uh that I have and and want to make sure you know maybe some further areas C all being small we'll go back through department heads and we have some some numbers still to finalize what did you plug in for Capital fund I have three options for you but as far as the down payment is concerned it's on $65 million so if it goes up to I my goal was six and a half million I got down to 7 million so that'll that'll have some effect the other big one and we're going to discuss is when we get over to pool revenues is the not addition additional support of the pool beyond the $25,000 that we had included last year as you'll see you know the pool is right now is not balanced so we need to make some adjustments there in order for it to be balanced Mr to close you I asked you um I think at the pre one of the previous meetings about the uh FEMA money we just got the 600,000 yes where is that in here or is that not in here that is not in here the FEMA uh money will be realized as miscellaneous Revenue not anticipated even though we were anticipating it because we put in a claim and ultimately it will go into fund balance so we know that in terms of regenerating fund balance next year we have a $625,000 head start so so if I I I'm trying to remember what you told us about the uh payback of um our borrowing now didn't we borrow money in anticipation I guess it was covid money we borrowed right so covid money we uh yes we lent money to ourselves um right when covid first hit uh the state came out recognizing that uh everyone's revenues were enormously down and they changed the rules typically were only allow to anticipate what we brought in from the year before they changed that to a three-year average right and so we took advantage of that created a three-year average and so that now ballooned up the amount of Revenue that we would have but we now needed to fund that we funded it by lending the money to ourselves and taking it out of of fund balance and then the state told us that we would treat it as a five-year emergency appropriation and need to pay it back over the course of five years we're in year number three this budget represents the third year of paying back that money so we'll it for two more years but didn't the state tell us we had to pay back something sooner so that that you're talking about is the FEMA we also did the same thing the year that Ida hit we did an emergency appropriation for a million dollars to cover all the uh damage that was done to the township and we spent out of that money we then put in our insurance claims we put in our FEMA claims and uh they started to come in so because we set it up as a special emergency appropriation we were able again to pay it out over the course of five years so we had it set up that we were going to pay $200,000 for each of the next five years we had just gotten out of year number one and paid $200,000 and we had budgeted $200,000 in year number two but that's when when we sent our budget down to the state they took a look at our AFS and the budget and they're like yeah you guys collected way too much money in FEMA and insurance we're not going to let you pay this off over the next four years you have to pay the whole thing off so so just work with me on this okay would wouldn't there be a a justification to realize that FEMA money this year that we just got to 600,000 in order to pay off this accelerated payment that the state is telling us we have to pay because it's not going to recur again next year right I understand the concern about using one-time funds in one year because we don't have it next year and the Bill's going to be there but the Bill's going away next year so why wouldn't we want to use some of that FEMA money to pay off that bill which would then leave us some other money to do some other things so we've already used we've already that that's already occurred last year with with the FEMA money and the special emergency for the Ida storm we've already completely paid that off that's not on the books any year so the only thing that we're left to paying off is the Lost revenue from the covid so this is year three of that okay uh we could uh certainly do that if you want it wouldn't be advantageous to us because be next year it goes into fund balance anyway and gives us greater flexibility the following year I thought we still had a FEMA this year we don't have a FEMA payment this year Fe FEMA minut State men has pay off all of FEMA last year but we still we still could we still could make a decision to treat that FEMA money differently than you're suggesting yes well as we first started talking out we know that in terms of regenerating fund balance right now we're anticipating using 50 % of our fund balance but we already know right off the bat we're $625,000 towards that regeneration so we could certainly add that in and and go with a fund balance uh usage that's going to be greater than 50% knowing that we've already gotten uh this FEMA money in you so I I would just suggest maybe you be creative with that money don't touch the library money that's coming in we need that to to balance it I think you know night balance that Mr C and I will discuss is it might be realizing that money now but reducing the amount that we're using from Surplus this year so that we still you know we still are growing Surplus which is the goal of the township but we're it gives us a little more flexibility in this year so as long as we're we're uh kicking around ideas that are somewhat outside the box and this is part of the reason why Mr worry came with putting American rescue plan money back into our budget we have roughly $1.8 million in American Rescue plan money it is required to be spent by the end of the year or the federal government gets it back um we can encumber it for capital projects like storm sewers or sanitary sewers uh and if we do as long as we have a contract in place by the end of September we have until the end of 2025 to spend that money and so uh a conversations I believe M where had with Mr kitner was we're probably looking at like $1.2 Million worth of projects which leaves us with an extra 600,000 that you we it's going to be use it or lose it and so it's been plugged into the budget here on the municipal side and on the pool side but one of the other options that we can consider is H anticipating the entire $1.8 million in um American Rescue plan money in our budget and correspondingly increasing the capital Improvement fund by $1.8 million that would then lapse all the money over to General capital and that would give us the ability to do $1.8 Million worth of projects without having to borrow any money to do that which would take away the um deadline that the the federal government has given us about September 30th for encumbering funds uh and it may be a way to to uh also take a look at not utilizing some of these funds in this budget for um operating expenses because the bottom line is it's not going to be here and so when we we have a $250,000 uh re Revenue line for American Rescue plan money we're guaranteeing that we need to raise $250,000 in 2025 in some other way usually some other way winds up being taxes so um there's other things that we can consider but as long as we're talking about options from FEMA's perspective and and from emergency appropriation perspective we can in theory sweep that entire $1.8 million over into our our Capital fund and then use that $1.8 million to fully fund without doing a bond ordinance we would do a capital ordinance and fully fund the project out of the capital Improvement fund so it's another thing to uh to consider but all that is a one-time shot right so next year Well if you capital projects are one time shots we would just capitalize it next so it wouldn't affect us next year no because no it wouldn't affect us at all because it would basically be you know it's project but the 350 that you plugged in here would affect us great because 350 that we have plugged in now is for our 5% down payment if we plugged in $400,000 350 would be for our down payment $50,000 would add to our Capital Improvement fund balance that we can then use we did that when we uh did the uh Wi-Fi project that we did in the one neighborhood we it was a fully Capital project we didn't borrow any money for it so in theory we can create a a $1.8 million Capital fund that would in future years say we don't need to go out and borrow for this project because the funding's available to fully pay for it uh out of out of a capital fund balance what's the downside in doing that yeah the downside is that we're currently using it to help balance this budget and right now we're at 4.2% as an increase so moving it all into Capital um obviously leaves us with an inability to offset tax increase that we have here now that being said recurring revenues need to equal recurring expenditures and American Rescue money is not recurring it's it's going to be gone so to to me it would seem to make more sense from a very conservative fiscally conservative perspective it would make more sense to put it into a pot that says these are one-time projects and one-time expenditures and so this is going to be where we're putting our onetime Revenue that's going to be gone starting next year but uh these are again policy decisions that need to be made sorry can I ask a clarifying question we have 350,000 here you said and we have the rest of it in pool like we're using all the 1.8 million in our budget right now or some of it's just sitting aside that we're going to lose at the end of the year if we don't set up this Capital fund or so are we we are not planning on losing any money we're taking proactive steps right now originally we had wanted to use 1.8 to fully for engineering project right the the engineer now says that he can confidently commit to using or at least encumbering 1.2 million of the 1.8 by the September 30th deadline of this year so that leaves us with the balance $600,000 to do something with if we go this route and and my recommendation uh was to put $250,000 of that to the pool to make up for loss revenue and $350,000 of that in the municipal budget to make up for loss Revenue that's and the rest of it is going to engineering deal from a long-term planning perspective because what helps us this year creates holes next year but we we need to get this money used so and and I don't want to leave it all for Capital if there's no if there's no confidence that we can get it all done with capital we're confident $1.2 million so the rest we plugged into the pool and Municipal budget this year um to make up for lost revenues due to co and what about the $900,000 that we got from Mikey Sher congresswoman Cheryl's office that's for a specific project it is it's for storm water that's what I mean so it's for a specific storm water project that's not considered in this year's capital budget so what will happen is next year when we capital budget you'll see a total project cost and you'll see an offset from Grant from the federal government I I just want to add because I'm I'm your grumpy CFO right the sky is always falling as as far as I'm concerned and um it makes me nervous because once we strike this budget and once we adopt this budget this is what we're stuck with we're not going to be able to make any adjustments to our budget until uh November and revenue is not one of typically one of the adjustments we can make we do throughout the year when a grant comes in I put a resolution before you it's chapter 159 uh but if for whatever reasons we get lucky and the 1.2 million project we think is going to come through winds up becoming a $1 million project we out that $200,000 because we've already set aside and struck a budget so it's part of the reason why I am suggesting for consideration by taking the entire $1.8 million or we can adjust this so that we can leave the revenue stuff in if we take the entire $1.2 million and increase our budget uh on the capital Improvement fund by the same $1.2 million we will create a capital General Capital fund balance that can be used at any given time for a Capital project so that if the project does come in at $1.2 million that's great we're going to make it a capital project pay it straight out of there if it winds up not happening right because it came in at a million that's great we're going to pay for the full million dollar project and now we got a $200,000 head start on another Capital Improvement project so I think putting that kind of pressure um on on our engineer on the engineering department to to you know committed to $1.2 million like Mr worry said we have no plans on sending anything back to the federal government and this would be the sure way to do that um so that that's the reason why I'm kind of so the 1.2 million that Mr kittner is ensuring that he can spend by September on what projects not spend inum by sep incum by September so we would award bids for projects that shown on the last page of the capital budget presentation so there's two projects cured and place liner for 1.1 million that's a result of the Red Zone robotics uh work looking at piping and there's an expectation that there'll be one more $1.1 million of work that come as a result of that and the other is for a siphon on Maplewood Avenue that's a $100,000 project those two projects will will use up C on mwood Avenue what it's it's a a reining and repair of a siphon underneath vapwood Avenue so that's 1 million or I'm sorry $100,000 so total 1.2 million those are the two projects he plans to use that money for so that would be in addition to the 6.5 or 7.1 that's right so just so I can understand Mr kog he's suggesting we take the one money yes it all and just put it in our capital budget yes that is correct that we would so so the mechanism would be that we would anticipate a full $1.8 Million worth of American Rescue plan money so that we know we've now completely swept It Off the table we would reduce the salary and wages for the police department because it's one of the acceptable uh expenses from the state's perspective for the budget we would reduce their budget from $8 million down to you know $6.2 million or whatever the case may be and then we would increase the capital Improvement fund from the $300,000 that we have in currently to $2 million and then we would move that entire $2 million over to the general Capital account which would then Mr kitner doesn't need to sweat out encumbering it by September 30 he can award the contract in October and it would be a fully funded and and we could cover these things in the capital budget pardon me what what would we so we would cover these items in the capital budget at in your scenario we would cover those items so the the the fire department the heat pump at the fire department would come out of the then I'm going to that I'm going to need to check with our Auditors to determine if it then becomes unfettered uh because we're still going to need to submit paperwork to the to the federal government that says we used up all our our money and here's that what we Ed it up for they reverse specific in the projects that we were allowed to use it for so heat pumps and and air conditioning for buildings did not count they wanted to see it infastructure just to clarify though wait in what you are recommending the money wouldn't be tied to an individual project but would be taken in his revenue and would lower our overall need in our operating budget we could dedicate more money to our C that's no what I hear we wouldn't have to borrow in future years the C into a general capital budget fund that any Capital project could be spent from except that they have to qualify for the our money with that yeah I believe but I'm also I'm also confused if there's deadlines for when P like how does that work so you can just move money into a fund and use it any time but there's still paperwork that you have to show that you're using it technically sort of encumbered by being in that fund and the encumbrance is what needs to happen by September 30th yes yes so we don't lose it and then we use that money for capital projects that qualify for that AR which is our plan right now right Mr kitner has a a $1.2 million project that that he's looking to get off the ground and we're dedicating the the art money to the 1.2 so it's it's going to be a cash on the barrelhead transaction Mr weary is wanting to use some of this money to keep us from going higher and the budget so therefore put some of it in operating and some of it in capital is that what I'm hearing I'm right Capital right 600,000 and the 600,000 would you're both basically saying the same thing Mr War's just saying that some of the money is going to also be used in our budget with Mr W's way there's the there's the possibility of losing some of that money no no with your way there Mr no Mr W's uh proposal for lack of a better description we're not losing any of the $600,000 right Mr W was saying we're going to use 250 of it for Revenue loss for the pool 350 of it as Revenue loss for the municipality that's going to come straight off the books that's what I'm going to wind up reporting to the federal government everybody's happy but now we've got $1.2 million sitting in American Rescue plan uh money in our bank account and we're going to need to tell the federal government by September 30th we either spent it or we're going to need to send it back to them and and they're in the risk of you that's that's quite a deadline that we're creating for Mr kitner right because now he's got to make sure he's got his bid specs together he's got to make sure that he's got the bid out and that we get him received and that we award it so that we have a contract in Hand by September 30th because the sky is always falling to me it's the one time that Mr kitner winds up getting lucky and instead of it being a 1.2 million project it becomes a $1 million project now we've just lost $200,000 so my suggestion is we stick with what Mr worry is proposing and use that money but instead of now relying on being able to award a contract by September 30th let's put this into the budget now move it over to our Capital fund which now basically wipes out the September 30th deadline and when Mr kitner is ready to award that contract we will we will pay it as a full cash uh project same way we would if we were just using art M so what's what's the ne ative about that because it sounds like you're both saying the same thing it's just how we position it message it well this is where Mr worry and I would differ right to me from from a CFO perspective it's one-time Revenue ARP is one-time Revenue so we shouldn't be using it for our operating budget no I understand that the the 1.2 million the 1.2 million specifically whether we're putting it in we're saying 1.2 million is going to fund this engineering project and the contracts are going to signed by September 30th or we're going to move 1.2 million into this capital funds just in case we don't get anything signed we could still use the money for that project or if it comes in under budget like is there like a administrative cost is there a difference between the two different processes of how're the only the only difference here is that Mr W wants to use 600 Grand that is a onetime thing right and I want to put all of it into C but it's uh it's the the two things you want to use it for are red making up for loss Revenue in the pool and where else see that's where we get like yeah both I think he said I think he said though this is a one time like yeah it creates a whole next year so let me ask so if we put the 1.2 in capital fund yes is there anything that would prevent us from buying the police radio system out of the capital fund as opposed to the capital budget there may be I'm going to need to check with the let's assume it it's it's an okay expenditure if it's an okay expenditure this is this is the point I don't understand why we're pushing um Mr kittner to do things which are nice to do but if we have money why don't we just pay for the things that we already agreed that we want to buy you know to to do a liner in our sewers is a first off it's a it's a long long conversation about what are we doing why are we doing it what what's going to be different than what we're we haven't had any of those conversations oh it's only March it goes you know and let's be honest there's a lot on the engineers plate on this capital budget yes that's because he always asked for something I agree Mr clo wants to take a look at the projects that are included in this year which we did together we looked to pick out some big ones and say can we put the money in there and and to my impression was that there we wouldn't be able to absorb 1.2 in this year's capital budget rate but well well I want to understand more about the mechanism that Mr clo is recommending and the projects that were recommending funding um and then come back to you it's for me at least I I want to talk it over more with Mr CL we can get Woodland doors for don't even bring them up fix one we to fix one pay cash will we get a copin talking about tomor we'll talk about Tom I I understand the uh desire my only question then is this if that's if that's your interest in doing it and and I I understand fully the question in moving the money into the capital budget as opposed to these two capital projects I I I understand that guess question that I have left for you then is your comfort level with using $600,000 as Revenue split between that's my that's where I'm uncomfortable yeah yeah but I mean I don't love I also don't want to like increase the budget that you know more so if there's it leaves a whole the budget for next year but maybe um you know we have we get tighter on other expenses next year so the one one thing is if you're fairly certain that we're going to regenerate the same Surplus as we did last year to this year this year to next year and that we're going to have roughly $4 million4 and a half million doar and we're going to move some money over and we already have the six from FEMA that you're talking about and that puts us ahead of the game to use six now because we know we have six next year on top of what we think we're going to generate I mean it's yeah it's speculative but it I'm a little less uncomfortable about doing it one time because because of the other that feemale money we have been doing a good job of regenerating Surplus and adding two Surplus this year in the budget we propose using I think it's over $400,000 more than we had used last year in Surplus and that's because we're generating more in Surplus we're still not using more than we're generating so we have to get that fourth pot store opened up idea well we will get more that Revenue last year was only for one quarter of those other [Music] two the revenue since we opened has been steadily increasing by about $200,000 a year although they've told us that the competition is pretty stiff now so it might be going down but delivery hasn't started yet we have revenue from delivery no we won't get any we don't get revenue from delivery on the purch well because it's on the purchase that's too bad okay so we're should we talk about the bud this pool budget because yeah the the 350 you're putting in there still leaves a gap that doesn't include our goal to reduce the fee is not we need a number of what that costs yep yep and we have been looking at reductions in staff um Miss manuso and I talked at the direction of the township committee reducing staff especially during the week both on the pool deck for the U the patio and the uh the front desk for check-ins and what about Miss anglehead um a thought earlier about um private swim lessons instead of like thinking about Revenue we talked about birth about parties as well and I think parties is the the easier um piece to solve for the the pool lessons the swim lessons the issue that we run into is guards to staff them and especially like during the week we have well scheduled swim lessons there's some availability on the weekends but that's when we don't have as much how are swim lessons those were those are for swim Les those are for the swim classes for swim lessons um the conversation we were having was a different a new conversation about private swim lessons which has come up previously but never in pool committee but never Beyond more of a and both of those things are are things we could do parties private swim lessons and and also our own swim lessons unless we had a contract with a company that said we're going to here here's a lease agreement or rental agreement for pool for 2024 we couldn't include it in our budget you know we can't include a projection of what we hope to collect in Revenue State wouldn't allow they want to see something that is what we collected last year right or something where we have I get it but yeah so mayor moving forward so mayor moving forward the pool advisory committee is working on different ways to increase revenue and sure they won't probably push the margins as much as we need but if we do a little bit here a little bit there a little bit there and also as we lower fees we hope that we'll have greater membership to make up for it so that the future will be good moving forward it's this year should be the yeah hard year and last year and the year before and last year and the year before and we're opening late this year too so that'll also impacts things right are we still on track to open late or are we on track to open on time do we we know the answer we'll find out tomorrow yeah okay everything's wa I'll leave it there okay yeah because there is some Revenue like the um end of you your school parties used to have parties at the pool and stuff so we're might we're going to lose I mean they're already have planning that right now and they don't think our pool is going to be open so there could be Revenue loss also because of the late that we weren't thinking about right and we're still in the last conversations I heard we were still Staffing up for Memorial Day so there's a there's a gap this year also that is not a regular Gap where we won't have any Revenue but we'll have expenses okay is that all on the pool I think we should go through the pool revenues yeah sure let's switch that we pull something up the revenues feel like I just had an exam when I come bra's working hard no I don't think so they're going to start talking about stuff but time wasn't of the essence now what are we what are you going pool revenue revenue pool here it is all right so just to walk us through we did pool Revenue wise uh we uh had our membership fees uh reduced that is inclusive of the $25,000 that we budgeted uh in the municipal budget to help offset um subsidizing some memberships for for uh families that were in need so we've s seen a reduction in our membership fees we've seen a reduction in the amount of guest passes uh that wasn't volume related that was a policy decision to reduce from uh $20 to $10 so that brought us down less Revenue because we didn't really pick up the numbers we were hoping to find uh we're looking at the lessons that were somewhat smaller also uh our rentals uh were were also off our concession is pretty much a fixed uh because of a contractual agreement one of the two uh there's two lines in here that we will see next and again this was some Creative Accounting to try and push the the pool over to uh being self-liquidating and to also help offset the uh deficit that we were dealing with this year and as I had mentioned earlier the the first one is Recreation programs any of the recreation programs that historically dropped into our Municipal budget as Revenue if it was aquatic related we pulled it out of the municipal budget and we applied it to the pool so that they would have that Revenue uh in the pool instead and we also added an additional item for um interest on deposits and Investments we right now sold a $33 million Bond and part of that Bond was for the $1 million uh resurfacing project that's generating interest for us so although it's in here for $119,000 in the 2024 budget we're going to pay our million dollars to our contractor and when we do that uh we're not going to have this as a source of Revenue any longer uh Surplus is being budgeted conservatively again at our policy of um when possible 50% of what we have in terms of fund balance uh the 250 is to make sure that we're not going to lose the American Rescue plan money so Mr worry plugged that in here and that produced a total revenues of1 almost $3 million we have expenditures that are almost $1.5 million In fairness uh we are dealing with uh a a Debt Service that is significantly increased over what we had uh prior to this because we are now fully funding both the um pool filter system from a few years ago and and this resurfacing project and so we sold both those notes back in uh July and converted them into permanent financing and so that is picking up a significantly larger uh Debt Service because prior to that we only had to pay the interest of what we we borrowed now we have to pay principal plus interest so that was our first spot that saw a significant increase um we were looking at a much larger deficit uh just a couple days ago Mr worry had plugged in now the American Rescue plan money uh last year we used roughly 125,000 this year we're plugging in 250,000 again to make sure that we're not going to have to send any of that back to Washington uh and uh we are seeing uh some expenditures that are increasing both on Sal and wages and in um operating costs or other expenses uh that is predominantly from a salary and wage perspective that is predominantly due to uh the minimum rage increasing and it's not just uh you know the new minimum wage is going to $15 all the people who were ahead of them because they were making more than minimum wage are being made holes so that it's not that you know I was getting paid $15 last year and now the new minimum wage is $15 but I've been here for two years so why am I only getting the $15 so they're getting moved as well so that's part of the reason why we're seeing the escalated costs in uh in the salary and wages for the pool then the other expenses are essentially just trying to catch up with what we actually have in place um Miss manusa could probably speak better to any of the um larger items that might have increased that have something to do with uh you know perhaps wantings or you know rather than capitalizing she may have expenditures in place for tables or whatever that we would be finding that in our expenditures but if you look at our other expenses it's really only gone up by about $35,000 um the the main driver for our additional costs our salary and wages uh moving up almost $50,000 and and the real killer for us is the fact that we've gone from 73,000 in debt service to $439,000 in set Debt Service and that's really uh what what has hit us hard we are uh in the third year of the Deferred charge because we did the same thing uh on the pool side we took a three-year average and then we wound up selling a note to ourselves so the $124,500 is the third year of paying that back it'll exist for another two years and then it'll drop off starting in the 202 budget will The Debt Service be the same next year uh The Debt Service I believe goes slightly up for the first three years and then it uh it starts to the table starts to have it go down so the answer is yes it'll go up again or about the same I I will I will get that answer for you for sure but um from memory yes not significantly though I mean if we're looking at The Debt Service right now uh you know is roughly $439,000 uh it might be an addition $20,000 in principal you know and obviously the interest is going down so it's not going to be a big number but yes it may go from 439 to 450 uh and then it may go from 450 to 455 and then by the fourth year uh we see it start to tail off because we're starting to move into uh the prime time for uh refunding bonds and going out getting a better interest rate I ask a question about the Creative Accounting about using aquatic wre programs from the wre budget to the pool budget you're talking about like swim camp and makos I'm guessing I'm a little surprised that that money wasn't always in the pool budget because the expenses all come out of the pool budget for those kind of those the mermaid camp and things like that because I don't those were the new creative things that Missy came up within the last two years or so mermaid Camp has been around for a while it has been and it's always been at the pool and it's staffed by the pool lifeguards and the chemical I'm just curious the revenue and the revenue's always been realized by the municipality so that's what we changed this year and I think moving forward because it's more Equitable like you said committee woman it's related to the pool it's staffed by the pool costs are coming out of the pool so the revenue should have been going into the pool it's just but uh that also Recreation has has some of the expenditures have come out of the there there's a line in the in the pool budget for recreation programming and there's a line for that also in municipality and sometimes they weren't very delineated in terms of where it wound up getting charged so while we have it set up that is if we're paying the entire pool and all the recreation programs associated with it out of a budget line item I would venture to Guess that if I ran a detailed report we would find that some of those expenditures were actually charged in the recreation budget instead of the pool budget now in terms of trying to make it self- liquidating that might have also been sort of on purpose to not overexp the line item and we're going to charge it here over in recreation in order to try and get the pool to break even so that's certainly a possibility but uh to your point the money is being generated by the pool it should be realized by the pool and so this is what we're seeing for the first time uh this year and it'll be a practice that continues what will drop off is is the interest because we know that once we pay our million dollars we're not going to have a large sum of money sitting in the bank that's generating interest for us but that's going to be 2025 is problem 2024 we can count on the revenue coming in we have a two 00,000 short full even plugging in the AR money right yes so how are we going to close it and that's and that's without reducing fees correct how are we going to close it I continue to look at the municipal budget for you know it's going to be funded in the munici there there's not an opportunity for us this year to realize that I'm aware of to realize additional Revenue in the pool and so so and our our expenses we will work on we are working on you know we there are there will be some modifications um and with lowering some staff but it's not going to be something that solves $194,000 shortfall so so that means support from the municipal budget and just to clarify sorry the reason for this bigger shot it feels like a bigger shortfall this year is because of that debt service and minimum wage going up and some lines were decreased like I mean swim lessons we talk about the timing of when they're actually running know they weren't full this year because the and some Revenue going down so membership Revenue just generated last year less last year than it did in Prior years and so this year we're left to anticipate less because of that thank you could you show the um revenue from the uh what are we calling it user fees user fees user fees 850 something was that 852 so if we wanted to um 852 if if we wanted to reduce the fee by 15% we'd have to put 100,000 and 120,000 in there and depending should also talk about the $25,000 and if we want to that we still want to use that for full membership or you full use we talked about using that line as the subsidy and then we were going to work with the health department and the school guidance counselors to figure out how to get the real vulnerable um populations memberships but right didn't we talk about in the health and community service meeting that we weren't going to put the $25,000 in for assistance it was just going to go into offset membership fees because if we lower the membership fees it does the same everyone for yeah right in hopes of getting more members so lowering the members MIP fees plus having 25,000 that's what you're suggesting right lower the membership fees plus having 25,000 I mean that's what I would think but I think we decided as a group that we weren't going to leave the $25,000 then you don't it might have been after you were off yeah it may you kicked me off so you could I didn't kick you off I got I understand I wanted you to stay I understand you kick me off so you could do that so okay so if we just let's assume we're going to keep the 25 as as Miss angle is suggesting we need in order to reduce it 15% we need 20,000 10% 880,000 more or 85,000 more so we're going in the wrong direction yeah but you know we did make a commitment to start this we said it was going to process trying to find the money uh and our Municipal budget continues to get refined so yeah you know we'll continue to look for ways to do that and we will have problems this year and next year with the revenue side because if we open late and our revenues are down this year because of that we're going to be in the same hole again next year right hadn't discussed changing the user fee for this year based on what may res may be a late start right we're not talking about a discounted fee for 20 right wait so we're not talking about a discount of fee if we're opening upate well it might be theate because we're you're looking at a few weekends early in the only two weekends not weekdays two weekends so we weren't talking about reducing the fee I don't remember that talking about reducing the fee but let's let's assume we're going to open Memorial Day I would be interested in still putting some money in to reduce the fee because I think unless we start it what we're doing is talking about agree I appreciate that Mr DeLuca thank you yeah yeah but we also don't want to raise the tax rate over definitely I mean we wanted it down close to but a lot of conversations had by people who were former members of the pool as well as people who recently moved in the community have been like we join the pool if it was just not that expensive yeah I get it so it could also be offset by an increase of membership if yeah but that's a question mark we can it is and that's we won't know until we try it exactly I know I'm not opposed to it I'm just pointing out that we also need to focus on keeping the tax rate down like that was our goal but I think Mr weary if we instruct him to find $300,000 in the main budget and maybe some other things that we want to earmark you'll be able to find that just heard Donald Trump in my head wait a minute wait a minut what don't say that in front of the $900,000 that we just got for the sewer what do you think that is that's an earmor true right because we had talked about putting some money in for just just an ear mark we talked about putting some money in uh to start the implementation of the master plan we should go through some notes we have a notes tab here and what you were shared with because we did uh put into this budget a lot of the things that you had recommended maybe all the things so see that did did you share this with us do we have I shared it with you Al so it's not on my site you want to go to the notes yeah uh yeah we can go to the notes Tab and then we have and then I have a few small discussion items okay so I just want to you know be conscious of the time so here's the I might stop sharing that but I'll conference room all lowercase right no all right so no you put Maplewood staff so as for changes we created a line for Streeter which we discussed and that was less than was origin we created a line for Street Aries in the public works budget that was a lot less than we had original considered because we were able to to reduce the overall cost there um we unfortunately had to remove the um Municipal Relief Fund from the state that was 190919 $191,000 um we let's see what are you looking at the notes tab I'm looking at the notes tab which there's some stuff in here that's um uh I'm just looking for the items that were specific from request we had um we had reduced the uh funding for uh Som TV we had reduced the crossing guard funding because originally the budget had considered Outsourcing all of it um we had chosen what was option two on what I presented to you and so that was crossing guards um did we ever vote on that the the consensus was was there a vote no think V vot there was not a vote the consensus was that option two seemed to be the more reasonable where was that consensus I'm serious that's my understanding from the TC that's my from I thought the cons was hired talked about it you may have talked about it at the finance committee but I don't think we ever brought it back here we talked about at the finance committee and then I think yeah we was s around I circulated it and circulated a memo SP with individual members we and we can about it right now talk about that yeah I'm one you never spoke to I never otherwise I wouldn't beine saying this what was your preference but I'm okay with option there you go he just likes to make that other point no I just don't want don't want assumptions made I yes yes no no assumptions we all dreamt that we talked about it already as TC all right so so I I chose option two and that was for keeping it inhouse but making adjustments to where the the crossing guard program could run more effectively right um that had some effect on poos as well we've included that in here we included $14,000 for master plan that $14,000 is what we had included in the 2023 budget so we have that in the 2024 budget now as well um we can you can Aline if you think that that's the should go up do the what master plan impementation these are Consultants right yeah yeah what did you have 25 20 I mean this is also you know what but there's a lot I was thinking about it there's also a certain capacity for how much we get done this year and so I didn't want to put this is operating money I don't want to put everything I think 25 is okay yeah because I mean get anything for 14 I don't know I think we tried to to go for 14 why are we trying to go for more a lot of the stuff in the master plan can be implemented without Comm and you don't need to spend money but if you don't have it in the budget then if something is important for you to do you won't have it so gets put off to 2025 and then you do other stuff that doesn't cost money or is there a number between the two that makes I'm just trying to go the oppos we find more Grant Queens we find Grant Queens to find us money for funding it fine you want to keep it 14 keep it something should be in there I think 14 is way too little but go ahead 15 there it sounds more like 25 any other input you're fine with 15 I was fine with 14 14 Ango whatever you 14 is that what you said yeah fine 14 14 15 sounds better um there was s Two Towns uh this should be discussed further there was um it had been funded in this year's in the 2024 budget at $335,000 s Two Towns s two town in previous years we had used less than 5,000 and last year this was funded at either 15 or $20,000 I wasn't aware of a specific reason why that increase was needed in this year so I'd recommended to bring it down to 15,000 that's still three times more than we had spent in previous years fine with that yeah so if if if no one is aware of a specific need for to go up to 35 we put it at 15 why wouldn't we go even lower like 10 I'm we are doing a mailing for the Home Sharing okay I don't know what that's going to cost I mean it's a lot of people in the thousands but I'm trying to think when we usually a mass mailing is that just the seniors last mass and older or 16 old I mean it's going to be over I want to say that the last one I remember a number on was for um when we change Recycling and I can find the number for that and approximate it yeah I I will say that I was told that the coordinator for two towns for all ages did not even know ever know what the budget was amount was so I'm not sure that there's been a real robust thinking of what the money could be used for because they never thought they had anyone and I did I spoke with now they are under Department okay we don't have to tell her Works they're now under the Department of Community Services I spoke with Miss manuso about it today um she's aware of the budget line she will make Som Two Towns aware of the budget line even with them being aware I can't imagine that they they will um they will spend three times as much as they had previous years and um let me see on the expenses side nothing that's uh no that's everything all right so we want to go to Capital yep all right all right so that's this yes yeah yes line here but it's not should we go to the Departments that are not Engineering in public works no I mean the gross majority is engineering I know that's I mean let's just let's just start right well I know there's like Community Development has it still says three vehicles wasn't it two so you'll see this is their original request and then if you go all the way over to the right and I you go all the way over to the right there's an admin recommendation I had started with six and a half so it still says 6.5 that was my goal I if you look all the way at the bottom we got to 7.1 and then there's a so it's 7.1 8 8.0 and 9.1 we'll go over that I I didn't change any of the the actual descriptions but the vehicles is now two vehicles right we we'll go over that right but the number changed wrong with that yes so would you we just go through the ones he said no to Yes uh first so Vehicles we'll talk about at the end but the first one Finance vehicle assessor agreed that the vehicle the assessor is driving around in is in need of replacement I have discussion that I need to have with now the fin department but you know we've I believe we can have a car available for their use that doesn't require a new purchase so that's not recommended in the 6.5 the police department discussed this with uh the chief of police and we agree a million for the radio system this is at the useful life anything less um and you know we're just pushing a problem in a future years this you know at this point we've kind of gone to non-discretionary spending so a million dollars for that is in the we'll just go through the First Column million dollars is for the radio system for the radio system that's it yep okay that's it um Public Works went overall this with the uh with the Mr kitner so you know he is on board maybe disappointed but on board with working with even the 6.5 so we've got the street sweeper made it uh bucket truck got cut sewer jet truck uh made it it's a um useful very necessary piece of equipment we cut the leaf vac we were able to get leaves pickup uh last year without it vent track for the snow uh and and salt spreading we were able to do the work last year without it kept the Light Tower we end up trying to scrape together to Bar borrow them every year um so uh that that is a useful piece of equipment took out both SUVs the mower the electric Message Board um in uh fire department $300,000 kept that that is work that has to be done um it's very necessary kept AC upgrades because end of useful life Min splits in PD end of useful life um those are things that you know we can't have go out without funding to replace um Town Hall minisplit uh kept that that's in the server room removed uh the heat pump for the fire department on denell we can do that in a future year uh and so we removed that and kept uh the a theater electrical just because if that goes out especially last minute that's a kind of problem where we could you know it could be days to fix it so that's out so wait you cut that or no no that's in $20,000 yep yep I'm sorry it is in the budget $20,000 for electrical upgrades at Memorial Park any questions on public works all right going down to engineering uh Road reconstruction this is an area where we we cut it almost in half um and we we can discuss that but you know I think that's something where we will get complaints from people who didn't make the list but and we'll have to pave in future years but there is you know some tolerance um on roadways so that's cut down to a Million Dollars General impr improvements these are go on for the road program one thing we don't do at all here and I don't know if it's because Paul doesn't believe in it or not maybe we can talk about it tomorrow because engineering Public Works meeting is always so short we could fit other things in we can um maybe talk about I forget what it's called where to extend the life of a road by a couple years instead of redoing it they they'll do overlays no no it's not what it is it's like putting down like uh where you put gravel graveling seal oh you can do you can do seal coating which is generally just on the the seams and cracks I haven't seen roadways but you can put down like Tarn Stone but like Tarn ship but I haven't seen that here Stone we used to put we used to do that right and we we haven't done that I'm just wondering why I don't see that on Municipal roads much right it was used used to be done to extend the life roads before you have to and and it didn't do all that much no and it ends up getting worked off relatively quick okay never mind go ahead all right H three it out there we do overlays well the they will put down an inch of pavement over a bad road that extends it three or five years all right so miscellaneous improvements keep uh we got rid of Civic house improvements so that's roof and parit wall Woodland just on Civic house we have like 500,000 for the Civic house is there anything can you have a conversation with them about seeing from we have 500,000 from previous bonds okay right can you see if there's anything that can be done because it sound it just seems like we're doing nothing right because we're waiting for everything and sort of perfect is is ending up that we can't get anything good over there yep yeah we can identify the projects that are most immediate and address those with previous money um Woodland doors is in here uh Woodland siding is not that was $250,000 wait Woodland doors is in here for Woodland doors 280,000 but not the siding we had talked about removing so is that the re re restoration of the doors or that it depends it depends we expect this to be we this out twice and haven't haven't something back but that money could be used for uh other Replacements like a prefab yeah that's what I'm asking yeah yeah but it wouldn't be that as much much as you have in there the reason we rejected the first two bids was because it yeah they were ridiculous 280 is a number that uh we could we could definitely fit prefab doors into I wouldn't be in favor of getting rid of the site taking off that siding first of all I think his estimate is high because he's anticipating something that's not going to happen you rip it off make repairs and you pay it it's not $250,000 okay move on all right uh Bergdorf basement we can do it for Less uh alarm panel replacement we found ways to do it for Less uh greenhouse heat pump that is still in there and that the heat pump uh the heater went recently it was it was damaged so they don't have a heater right did we get insurance for that did that ever get applied for insurance this was just recent so I know I asked Paul last month yeah about applying for insurance for that because it was like a tree fell on it no this was due to water damage who water damage no I think there was a there was a roof roof thing there as well and yes we submitted for I I don't know where that is with insurance but we submitted for it this is more recent and you know we had talked about needing it but now it's you know critical well please make a note to check on the insurance sorry please make a note to check check on the insurance so we can help pay for the repairs with insurance he Maple Avenue all right yeah um reduced a little bit about what to spend on the pool for the bathrooms and exterior paint and Patch kept Maplewood AB drainage or Maple AB drainage improvements okay it's Maplewood it's Maple Terrace that's why we're all confused all right let me changes here I'm sorry that's okay just we keep drainage improvements um Springfield AV obviously kept Ada Rams kept traffic comic uh reduced to 250,000 removed EV chargers for Town Hall we have two currently and we only have now two or three two plug-in vehicles for them so even if we get even if we double that with vehicle purchases this year we'll be able to support it with what we have um and house engineering we discuss keep that to heart we removed sanitary sewer improvements at various locations he's going to um uh it'll be covered in 2305 so this utility repair improvements which went up from 150 to 225 so that that's going to move up that line um this one we had an increase this is uh environmental improvements we had an issue at Hilton library that requires additional funding that just came up recently so we've increased that number and then deleted everything below that safe frots to school that project's not going to be ready until next year um sewer siphon fees we put into another line that same one 2305 um air conditioning for the TC room removed Maple Crest Park is is still in there but we have we have money from previous for it um dredging is removed in the first round you'll see it in the second and third and electric Jitney buses stays uh we have a grant money for that and then three vehicles is now two vehicles we're looking for electric so they're still expensive probably about $50,000 each um I know yeah I know well full full electric is yeah are expensive cheaper than that depends on how big of a vehicle you're looking at and Smartboard for electronic review we need that because the state's moving to electronic Plan reviews so that gets us to 7.1 in that column and you can go through your sheets and let me know you know if you want anything added but you've got some options there for at least priorities what you could add in the next round or going up to 9. I'm sorry is it just me or is are you getting harder to hear I might be getting harder to hear yeah we all getting tired sorry so I'd like to um put on the table that we go back to increase uh engineering 2401 Municipal Road to 1.2 okay and that we include the Woodland signing 250 and that we include the dredging of the east branch of the river 250 if we don't do anything with the river we're going to lose all kinds of um leverage we have with the residents there to convince them that we need them to pay for the river walls got to have some skin in the game and I just think the 1 point two is uh it allows us to do maybe another road and a half and the 250 the Woodland siding if we're going to do stuff with the doors and it's all right there it gives us a chance to open up those windows so those that would be my recommendation is to put the 700,000 back in I think that would be well worth the money for the siding because that'll make a huge visible Improvement in that and make it even more rentable problem just saying is this a good time to say that the Woodlands is a great place to rent for an event yeah espe I've held one there especially once we uh it is great a great place to rent easy to work with space for everything um I'm sure there's millions of people watching I'm sorry I missed what you said about the B the pool bathroom family we're able to do it for a little bit cheaper still gonna but it's still gonna be in there yep still in there all right so we didn't get it down as much as we want okay we added it we added to it yeah at the same we're good at adding money Bud we've been adding where we supposed to be okay we'll find ways other than those three items is there anything else we want to discuss for consideration to be added back to the budget the Maple Crest Park uh playground so we have we have 500 around yes in OST fund and then the project something around million million that's application their Max is seven well they said their top range was 750,000 we applied for more than right that one so that's the one we're waiting for and hopefully then we won't have to add anything to it so it's right we would likely have to adjust the project but we don't anticipate adding to funding already available because we only have a 25% match for that okay all right so then for the three additions that were recommended by committee man DeLuca we is there an agreement for those three to be added so that is um moving Paving up to $1.2 million adding back in Woodland siding and adding back in dredging of the east branch of the raway sounds good I'm fine with one and three I'm not married toding but I'm not so against it that I would be like shut it down and I think he's over I'll add those items back going at the bottom there uh OST which we discussed but there was some concern at the end of the last meeting about how this was going to balance uh by removing the repair and restoration of the Memorial Park Bridge solve that issue we have enough money in this year's OST budget to fund all of these projects all the other stuff okay I had in the bottom ARP but obviously that uh discussion continues I thought we were going to put um the design in the Memorial Park Bridge didn't do that this year so that we can go out next year yeah that's we have money to we can do that I just think we should throw something in there for I don't know what it would cost but this way they can so that's about $50,000 right it usually designs about 20% of the hard cost we have enough money to do that okay right I have a few discussion items G to need more than this to cut the budget down but okay you gotta get wake up July 4th fireworks wake up speak up in this year's we had planned for juneth fireworks funded in the budget and July 4th fireworks juneth is June 19th I know we're running them a couple weeks apart and I also Al think about you know are you watering down what either one of those events could be if they were if we just had one event and I think the map wood has the uh is hosting juneth this year I would recommend that we have juneth fireworks juneth celebration put all our effort and funding into juneth and not have Fourth of July fireworks as a separate event and not have Fourth of July firewor fireworks and festivities is a anything for fourth ju I disagree with you yeah you're going to get there's going to be a lot of push back from the community that already do it at a different you want to have them a couple weeks apart yeah we can't take I don't think we can they represent different things and I think for cohesion in the community we need to do both okay it would be nice if our sister South Orange would share Fourth of July with us as well as juneth with us like if we did Jun we just trade we just trade years yeah they only only trade for juneth not for 4th of July no not not do anything I know they won't do jly they host we host they host I understand that I'm saying they never do Fourth of July no that's why we got the double fire nonstarter with them I know yeah I'm just saying they could contribute they could be nice neighbor and contribute since they use our fourth of July have we ever asked South Orange to contribute many times July many times recently yes last year many times recently many times right just conversation came about Jun one of the the I have a question just when we're talking about fireworks just because last year it rains and so like I know when it rains all of a sudden you have this contract for fireworks that we're going to do another time and I think that's part of the reason why South Orange ended up having the extra fireworks in July because it rained on juneth last year so I'm just throwing that out there like do I I guess is there contract where we can hold them for next year do we have to use them this year right can we just carry it over they don't want to do that and the reason is they've got a full schedule next year start year July to next year they're not saving any money so they usually require like a 3 month for rescheduling June or the library if it rains we can use the fireworks for your library opening so what are the activities for juneth that pay for I mean other than fireworks we do fireworks on juneth just because of the Fourth of July fireworks is that where they came day as black yes we do um uh two years ago there was a stage bands DJ food entire program we had food the the stands and chairs the food was food was food was given away yeah was free food yeah I don't know in South orangs the food is giv away for juneth it rain it rained last year the first time we did it I think we need to I think we need to have a conversation about there is a committee who's the who's who's you and I no I think it's we wait and I guess who's the like if this used to be is this arts and culture or this is wck or who actually does this EV that's what I justart and culture it's arts and cultureart and culture okay so whoever there's a there's two Lea I think it's Mr daffis and me Miss krae Miss angle and I are July 4th I think there has to be a conversation about juneth I'm not sure why we're giving away food why are we giving away food that's what I'm asking I mean why would we and we don't give away food any other time so right I think that um the the the program can be discussed maybe there's a way to to deal with the cost right but I have just one more question with arts and culture we've talked about how that person's not going to be an event producer and doing big scale events so if juneth is falling under arts and culture that means that person is doing an event and so I would just like Clarity on like I think we should just not hear necessarily but think about that piece of it because I know the arts and culture person historically has done a lot of events we've talked about shifting that away but we have these events that haven't found new homes cultural Affairs but I think Mr weary should come back to us with a plan as to who in the town is going to run this yeah for both of them because that was a problem for f July 4th last year too so who in the town is going to be the person in charge of these events and perhaps we can put that on the agenda for the next health and Community Services meeting and it's not that far away is anything reserved yet for any of those things I don't believe no the conversation for juneth hasn't started okay well and I don't think we're behind but I don't think it they've been reserved I'm just saying yep for Fourth of July in particular unless you reserved the fireworks guy last year you did I might want to hop on that and I'd be in favor of just like doing if we're doing both just I just think we go a little nuts with like stages and music and screaming and lots of stuff but that's just me well that's I'm thinking if we're going to be charging folks for food we got to give them some reason to come there yeah but I mean there's reasons but it doesn't have to be you know over the top no no no it was pretty small it was like a simple stage and couple bleachers okay go ahead what's your next this is a small item in their presentation youthnet had requested an increase from $15,000 to $20,000 for this year which I think was discussed but I wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to yeah they request be they wanted additional funding for that mental health program that they wanted to bring into the school I forgot what it's actually called um I can't remember the name of it I mean I I think it's a good program but I don't know that I want to raise the amount we're contributing to youthnet yeah I don't want to ra like they can find funding elsewhere maybe to help also feel like the other they find other funding doing stuff through our health department I think around this area they do but the spe specific they're asking for is for to train to work directly with middle school kids outside of the counseling office they're finding that some of the conversations that kids are wanting to have or they don't want to take to the counselors and it's a it's across the country the understanding or at least the feeling that school counselors don't understand me but this one particular teacher I can go to so finding that one teacher and training that teacher to be someone who can help advocate for them and help them like feel comfortable talking it's a $5,000 for two people to be trained one at South Orange one at Maplewood midle and that would be that person trained so South Orange is giving them an extra 5,000 I understand I doubt AR just taking the same approach you are discussed not not increasing not wanting to increase not wanting to increase it I'm not interested in increasing I I gotta agree I I just I mean I like the program but you know at some point I feel like there needs to be um more effort maybe to increase donations they've actually put a significant effort into it I mean their programs are self- sustaining for the most part yeah it's paid for Via donation right so I think it's a three three votes against the five extra right yeah I'm a no vote for the extra money me sorry younet appreciate you that is all I have what about um didn't the Springfield Avenue partnership asked for an increase from the township they did but it was tied to us re requesting of them that they clean around the fridge okay what about the village Alliance no no increase not that I remember there was an increase no there was there was an increase just because something was wrong last year and I guess um the chair Amy howlet had was on that Zoom to explain but she wasn't elevated so she couldn't there was something there was an increase but it was something that was just I think miscounted last year can we can you look at that if you can pull it up it' be even better but there's an increase for the director's salary and she just started so I think that was the increase because we uh had Mr Le got a raise last year I think right so it wasn't no it was it was 2023 I know they increased the assessment by 3% I don't I thought one point I think it was no 1% was the oh that was Springfield Avenue so there request this year was 202 proposed 12 ,700 for cleaning and 2,800 for landscaping what was it is that over last year that was this let me23 yeah they say that they received last year uh 1,300 less than they requested um let me see yeah we have so we would have to increase them from 14,200 to 15,500 well didn't you do that with the partnership too you you reduced them last year I didn't but somebody did that our previous administrator there was some confusion on that and I told them they they got to deal with what they have right but somebody I think somebody cut both special Improvement districts by 10% or something like that if that was if that was a purposeful cut I think it was never relayed back to the Sid so they just thought they didn't get all of their funding oh I see so we we talked so they were after the budget was introduced so are we trying are they trying to get money from last year that they didn't get or are they trying to get they want to go back to what was their what was their original request and we we charge them nothing am I right for DPW Services down there for all the closing of the street and closing of the street and who pays for the cop we do I don't know that's a lot that we give yeah especially on weekend so but I don't I don't know how the budget got cut last year to be honest the two the two SIDS I don't know what happened because we never made that decision I don't know either so I would put them back at whatever the number was in 2022 we also get an analysis though um what it costs us every you know for the extra stuff with our Public Works and because we're also setting up the street for um building stuff be nice to have a line item of that to uh I mean it's good to have it because is this you know the sit assessment on the property owners down there who don't maintain their property necessarily to the pleasure of many people but they still fight the assessment increase in all the services directly impact them in a positive way so I'd like to see what else we spend on the village over and above what we give the village Alliance and I I one thing we had discussed is now that we're providing the nicer barriers and the platforms we take a look at the fees that we charge for that so you know it was too soon to do it for this year but we'll do that for next year and we can look at other areas like that where we can know kind of Target covering our cost with their fees that's charging the businesses an increased cost to do these Street Aries that's not the Sid I think Miss Adams no I mean but I'm that but there could be an I mean I just want to know I want sort of a figure of what we spend out side of what we give them in the bu yeah what our inine contribution is because we do a lot and it's cool to see too like you know from the MPP stuff right we have to the town has to do the in kind so it's cool to see on those spreadsheets that Miss Wallace does seeing like what we're spending what the town is doing because I'm not I'm not necessarily looking to get the restaurants to cover the cost of the Streeter but it's fair for our to know what it costs us aside from just put building them and purchasing the equipment but it' be also interesting to see like how much in kind we're giving towards the village versus our other business districts yeah that's probably not Equitable from from mayest the um the partnership pays for half of the DPW yeah and some cops so it's negotiated but like for the art walk I don't think there's payment I don't think we yeah and if we're paying overtime cops that's a no that's a non-starter for me we got to to start yeah the entire bill but you know yeah I mean I paid $4,000 for one event just for cops so because then there's opportunities for them to cover those expenses that we don't have that opportunity with regard to sponsorships and stuff like that so anyway anybody have anything else do we have anything else from you Mr warry don't know Mr color J yes mayor uh just want to remind everyone that uh we have since I've been here always introduced the budget uh by the by the statutory deadline so that's uh April the 2D this year um so we're really going to need to make decisions on uh some of these open issues by like March 25th at the latest because it's going to take a week for us to prepare uh the state budget documents the cola ordinance that we're going to need to introduce on the same night on the resolution to uh introduce the budget so uh we got a couple weeks but uh yeah it goes back got a couple weeks yeah I expect that we'll be you know this will come to you an increments but we'll have something for you probably Monday or Tuesday of next week and maybe some discussion items after the when's our next finance committee meeting it's not it's the F first Friday of the month so it's too late yeah so then you're already April do might we want to have another finance committee meeting if you prefer the uh regular Town committee meeting yeah well I think it's just good to get everything like hashed out at it so we're not you know having longer discussion TC meeting and then bring those recommendations Toc that would well we won't have time Rec an opportunity to bring them back to the TC before adoption or introduction because meeting next week and then the following meeting will be introduction but at least we can get it to the TC before April 2nd that way and we can hash out some stuff that we might need to hash out or you'll have everything perfect then we'll be fine well next week is the last meeting before the right so are we gonna is it are we discussing it next week next Township committees you wanted to have a new an extra Town TC meeting did you say it no you want to talk about it next something to the township committee before the regularly scheduled meeting next Tuesday right and if we have any discussion we you could have it at Tuesday's meeting okay all right so the question is do you want a finance committee meeting this week Mr daffis is away no I know then we'll just do it at TC yes Luca yes M zle yes mayor Adams