##VIDEO ID:RCdFHViwjZ0## good afternoon welcome to the municipal Council budget hearings on Monday August 12th 2024 council president council members the first Department up for their budget hearing is the Department of administration thank you uh so much Madam clerk uh thank you to all the council members that are here today for day one of our budget hearings we want to welcome our business administrator Eric peniton uh who was before us for presentation welcome Mr ba thank you council president council members Eric Pennington business administrator for the city of Newark um I'm happy to be able to present to you the departmental budget for administration there are several division heads who are here in the audience as well who um are available to answer more specific question with respect to their divisions in the department of administration uh but if I could just open with uh giving the departmental highlights and then be prepared to address any questions you have for me and for U the administrative staff I'm ready to move forward in the office of a business administrator provides long-term budgetary guidance and daily operational directives to the department in conformance with the mayor's strategic Vision the business administrator is responsible for managing this the city of New York's $914 million plus operational budget over 3,800 employees including temporary employees and overseeing a city of over 300,000 residents at the last decennial census it was about 311,000 plus residents the 2024 recommended budget will keep the city on a path of prudent fiscal management while at the same time meeting the service delivery obligations to our residents and supporting mayor baraka's commitment to moving work forward by reimagining Public Safety empowering residents creating affordable housing achieving Equitable growth through employment and jobs growing the city through Economic Development engaging and collaborating with nework residents Hope Village for residents uh without addresses making sure that we continue that initiative and U in this past year we've hired the largest firefighter class of 70 uh recruits in the history of the city of ofor and we intend to continue hiring police officers in developing the 2024 budget for the city the administration had to overcome a number of challenges which included supply chain issues that drove up the cost of goods and services and uh inflation although it has improved our local economy is still recovering from covid and the American Rescue plan act funds are no longer available going into the next uh fiscal year which is our calendar year which require requires a city to overcome a reduction in General Revenue of approximately $45 million in addition the city experienced increases in its health insurance costs and when I say that I want to note that by moving out of the state health insurance plan we uh decreased the amount of what the increase would have been relative to other municipalities we did not leave the state health insurance plan although the ultimate cost did not go down the increase would significantly reduced what the increase would have been was significantly reduced notwithstanding these fiscal pre pressures after adjusted for anticipating state and federal funding the total 2024 recommended general fund budget of 94.4 billion um is approximately $22 million more than the 2023 adopted budget of 892.1 million because of the loss of the spe special state and federal funding and the increased cost of the county Levy of 22 million due to the loss of ratables the city has had to request from the state a loan to reduce the overall increase in the tax rate the 2024 general fund budget contains a property tax increase of $89.60 over 2023 on the average residential assessment and if you would like any additional information with respect to that $22 million loan I happy to provide that at this uh at this time as well the initiatives in 202 for general fund budget contributing to this increase are summarized here increase for pension costs of about $6.4 million increase for health benefits is $30 million police and fire training academy is $10.4 million and that's the the amount to um pay for the facility Debt Service of $9.1 million increase of the essence County tax levy which is $22 million the budget keeps the city fiscally sound as it continues to rebound from covid and provide the resources required for our city departments to deliver quality services to nework Residents I look forward to participating along with the other City departments in this municip Municipal Council budget hearings as they are scheduled if there are any specific questions you have of me now with respect to what I've just provided or any other detail I'm I'm happy to uh to respond councilman Gonzalez yes I have one question and it's regarding the vacancies ER I see that you have some vacancies that are funded let's say in the office of what's this Administration line 0635 you have an assistant chief of administration administrative Services funded for 78,2 yeah councilman I apologize it's a little difficult to hear you I apologize in the administration uh budget line 06035 yes you have one actually it's it's it's not that one let me let me go back to where you have is a zero I lost try to see where it was there's so many pages [Music] here there are three lines that have a vacancies and zero and they have a salary assigned to it in different different departments different divisions of your department yes ER let me see if I can find it now ER I had it but sorry I'll get back I'll get back to you with that's the only question that I have sure do you have a general is there a general question with respect to the vacancies that I can answer irrespective of what it is it's is that the say we are in August already so if you have a vacancy you're not going to fill it before the year or you might feel it and that that only incur a portion of the salary so whatever salaries are assigned to to vacany should be zero or should be let's say only a fraction of what you have so if you are I I understand that we are approaching the expenditure cap so maybe that's a way to to to bring it below certainly um vacancies can be used in many different ways and even though we are half way through the budget year uh we have still budgeted for a particular uh position throughout the year but to that point I should note well two things I should note take this opportunity to talk about we are currently having an administrative uh hiring and promotion frees unless it's for a uh uh sort of a one for one transfer if somebody's leaving we we place it with somebody at about the same rank if it's an essential position if it's not an essential position or to your point if it's a current vacancy and we don't need it it's not likely that we will fill that position uh so you're correct the the other thing I would say is uh Darlene T who has been out um on recuperating is paying attention to this budget hearing and uh if there are any questions that are specific for her please feel free to ask ask them and if I can't get the answer to you right now I will get have her um get those answers by tomorrow she'll be listening and and and can address anything I don't have I can't wait for that thank you uh other questions councilman Council uh yes thank you uh Madam chair uh m m ba just wanted to talk about um how does the the uh impact that we have this year what does that look like for next year budget you talked about the the 22 million and I I know at some point we have to be in in some kind of payment arrangement but what impact do we look forward uh in terms of 2025 uh having and I'll let you answer that I have a couple of more questions but I will sure the $22 million that uh the increased Levy that we pay to the county is as a result of what's called our Equalization ratio uh which means that the properties that we have assessed in the city of nework in many instances are being sold for multiples of that assessed value because of that we owe the uh County additional funds that we had not initially budgeted for in this year uh to make up for that difference because the amount that we pay is based on what every municipality in the county pays so our assessed value is lower than uh what many of the other municipalities in the county is so that's an adjustment for what we U should have to pay your in fact last year was was at about 88% in this year the equalization ratio is about 55% which is a significant drop the way to adjust for that is to have a revaluation so that all properties across the city are assessed and valued at about one to one uh we're not there the reval contract was signed but there's a small Amendment to the contract um and so it should be going to the state within the next week to 10 days for approval so we can have the have the revalve we need to do that as quickly as possible because I want to ask the company that we've contracted with to expedite the revalve process there are about 53,000 line items so even if they expedite the process in order to do 53,000 valuations it's a multi-year process so is still likely to take until close to 2027 for the reval to be done so to get to your question how that's going to impact next year that's a long way getting to that $22 million will increase unfortunately so we're going to owe the county additional money because of the equal Equalization ratio in the subsequent year and we're making adjustments to that already so that it's uh not as impactful but the anticipated um uh amount of money that we'll have to send to the county as a result of the difference in the equalization ratio is closer to 40 million doll in 2025 so I and I also noticed that there was uh some increases from uh 23 to 24 um from be your office one one uh7 to 2.1 Personnel 1.5 to 1.6 uh office of Technology 9.5 to 11.6 and I know that there's been conversations for a couple of years now really talking about how to plan proportionately uh to try to make all employees hold or raise the levels of of of income across the line because there's a huge disparity in individuals who have been here some for 30 or 40 years making 35 or 40,000 and some individuals who've been here probably five years or less than six years making 70 and8 we understand what the market is uh but at some at some point uh what what plan do you for see and just trying to uh level out or mitigate some of some of this this bleeding with the disparity with with some of this pay sure thank you for that question councilman counsel and we agree that there has been a disparity in Pay not just within city government but relative to what it costs to live here in the city of New York and in the state of New Jersey and general so one of the things that we're working on now is pursuing to a directive of the mayor is no full-time employee will be paid less than $440,000 and that starts this year so we're in the process now of a adjusting salaries that are below $40,000 uh so that everybody makes at least that much and there are some complications to that we have 35h hour employees 37 and a half hour employees and 40 hour employees so as we adjust the salaries at one level we have to adjust equivalent salaries at other levels uh so that the hourly rates are also equivalent as part of that process we're also looking at uh an equitable adjustment for employees who have been here for a longer period of time 10 years 15 years years 20 years uh so we're working on that through executive orders and individual assessments as well and our director of personnel is task for overseeing that she is uh well along the way actually I would say probably more than 70% complete we need to do it pretty much all at the same time otherwise we'll create another disparity or an inequity uh so we are just about uh done uh making those executive order changes so that those salary adjustments can be made of course with those salary adjustments it does have an impact on the budget it's reflected in this budget already [Music] um and we're hopeful that we can have those Equitable adjustments to salaries done within the next four to six weeks at the latest and Madam chair last question what what what is our plan to to wrap our arms around this total spent on CSS well uh two things we we don't have CSS anymore but I know what you mean though these tempor employees we have some different uh uh company our objective and we are not there in all honesty is to have CSS employees you got me using the same phrase as you the CSS employees uh only work in that capacity for six months and then we have to make a determination if they're not working out they have to be let go and if they are we have to do our best to move them to uh Cityside employment where they get full benefits and they get full pay I will tell you one of the um difficulties and sort of unanticipated consequences of doing that is when you move somebody from temporary status to working on the city's side even though their salary may increase and they get health benefits and they get some level or the possibility for some level of permanency the take-home pay may be decreased even if the hourly rate increases because you have pension contributions now you have to pay for your health care cost the tax rate is different and that has caused a problem there are some employeers who have said I don't want this they may have health insurance from a spouse or from some other place or they're young enough to still be on their parents um or they don't care about the pension contribution and I'm not you know I'm not here to judge whether or not they think it's appropriate to pay into a pension system or not um personally I think it's a good thing for them to to do and if they're on the city Side it is statutorily obligated that they that they do that uh but we've had some employees who have declined full-time status uh because of the impact it's going to have on the salary now this is for mostly lower paid employees so as we adjust these salaries up to be at a minimum of $440,000 I'm hopefully it won't have that much of an impact and the employees will U be more ready to accept that offer and and either event we're working toward eliminating long-term temporary employees uh councilman Ramos yeah uh thank you Madame President um I think p u councilman Council covered some of you know my concerns Mr ba is you know we recognize that the last few years you know this the city you know like other cities across the country have you know has benefited from you know additional Federal money coming into our municipality to cover some of the losses in Revenue to provide some relief as a result of of Co um we also recognize like that money is pretty much dried out um you have a department that's not the biggest department in the city but does um represent you know close to a 15% increase in expenditure from last year to this year um you know what's your plan going into next year you know as a leading department for the city to ensure that you know we all are living within our means and are prepared for some tougher times come 2025 you know a budget request that's 15% over last year doesn't necessarily set the right tone for what's to come and you know I'm just trying to figure out from your end you know how do you think you're going to get us to weather the storm and and understanding that the 20 plus million dollar that we had to um contribute to the county because we kind of delayed reval so much um the only reason we got through that this year is that we took a loan which you know still shows up as as debt on behalf of the city is not included in the 2024 budget um May rear is ugly head again in 2025 uh we're not going to have reval completed by next year so guess what we're going to have to come up with some potential gimmick uh to pay that in addition to some of the other expenses that we have so so what's your plan as the ba how do you get us to the point where the city's going to be better prepared financially to deal with with some tougher times ahead and and how do you justify a 15% increase in your department uh request budget for this year thank you councilman Ramos for that question I'll start I think sort of in the Middle where you talked about the loan that we're getting from the state it is reflected in this budget the the 22 million it's not required to be paid back uh the way a traditional loan would have to be paid back it's a zero interest interest uh loan that can be paid back as our budget allows for us to pay it back so um that could be next year the year after that or even the year after that is there anything being included in 2024's budget to pay uh toward that $24 million how much zero zero okay so we're not paying anything toward the 24 million this year the 22 million this year no we're not so it's not reflected in there and it's likely that we will not include uh anything in next year's budget either unless there is some windfall but there's no it's not a crewing interest so it doesn't really impact our debt um to any significant degree other than the amount of money that we get from the state I'm not I don't want to suggest that it's not significant it is but it's not going to be AC crewing interest and it will not show up as a payment that is due necessarily in 2025 um so that part to some extent we can set it aside and not have to worry about the impact immediately we do have to worry about the impact longterm because we have to pay it back uh to to the state and we'll be hopefully prepared to do that some of what looks like a 15% increase in my department is because some positions are being moved from other departments into my department and that's what the portion of that increas is for you know you see other places where there are reductions in the budget where that has come from um the largest increase overall is coming from it we are we're behind um the industry Norms with respect to how much we spend on uh information technology on software in terms of upgrades and making sure that we have the appropriate firewalls in place and mechanisms in place to ensure that we're not vulnerable uh to attack and so we do have to spend more money in it than we have had in the past there are also some other expenses that we had not captured previously um in it that we're working on addressing for example we have changed the manner in which we get um and it can talk about this more directly if you want them to talk about it the way we procure our cell phones for all city employees we have switched uh carriers or made other carriers available to us to reduce significantly our cost uh in that area we've already already realized some of those savings by the switches that we've done and by shutting off cell phone services that we don't use not just telephones but like the iPads that I have and those hotspots that people use um we have we have a system in place now where if they're not being used we look at the data and see that hasn't been used for 60 days we shut it off once in a while we find out that somebody's actually using it they come to it and then it can be reinstated but that's uh giving us some significant SA savings but not enough to offset the uh increased costs or what we need to do to make sure that we have a um upto-date modern information technology department um we also have a great deal of development going on we anticipate that with the increased development it will increase the ratables and we'll have more funds uh coming into our coffers as we move forward and we have to be fiscally prudent we expect to maintain this hiring freeze hiring increase uh right now is for the foreseeable future obviously understanding that we still have to do some hiring and there will be some promotions necessary statuto through civil service and otherwise but we're just going to have to have approved oversight to make sure that we manage our funds uh proactively one last F so so you're telling me that the 24 million that we had to pay the county as part of our budget this year you're not anticipating for us to be in the same position come 25 or you're not sure at this point I mean I don't think we're going to be done with reval um your Equalization rate is in the 50 percentile do you think um whatever internal measures you're doing is it going to be enough to offset that in 25 is there another payment that's going to be due to the county on top of the 24 million this year two two things there 22 million and uh there will be an additional increase the following year as well uh so we're already starting to figure out and work on ways that we can adjust that we're looking at uh properties that are coming online to see what the increased rals are going to be we are uh addressing uh tax appeals when the equalization ratio goes where it is we are subject to losing uh tax appeals but we have the opportunity as we've discussed in the past of doing some affirmative tax appeals as well we don't want to do that in a way that negatively impacts our residential customers but we have to look at some of it uh to make sure that we address this uh but I think the short answer to your question is we are anticipating uh the same uh I'll say difficulty with the equalization ratio in 2025 as we are in 2024 in fact it will be greater so we have to take steps to to address that okay any other questions before we have to move on councilman Silva uh yes uh good afternoon afternoon um just a quick question um so the payment in L it went from 20 and this you might have covered this when I wasn't here and I apologize went from 25 million to 23 million uh every meeting that we have we push development we're voting on something regarding development uh what's going on we're we're voting for it and it's not getting accomplished it's not getting built would you be able to tell me right now if uh what's holding up that these this number is actually going down they went from 25 million down to 23 million um I I don't have the specific answer to that I can certainly get it but it could very well be that properties that have been in tax evaded status or payments and L of taxes have come on off of that pilot and gone into uh ratables tax ratables um but I think to get to the the gra of your question we take too long to get projects that are in the development stage up and running and we are working on that we're working diligently every day to streamline the process to make sure that it gets through zoning and planning uh then it gets through our uccc department when it's time to um actually approve the the the developments we are faced uh with a little bit of a crisis with respect to our subcode officials we don't pay them enough and they are hard to come by and so it backs up um our ability to to um review the projects that are online fast enough to get them up and running one of the things that we're doing about what's the plan you're going to say I can tell you all the problems in the world but there should be a plan uh our plan is that the Department of Community Affairs in the state now allows for states to hire third-party contractors to provide those subcode Services there I am told that there are eight companies who are authorized by the DCA to provide those Services now our engineering department has reached out to all of them so that we can retain them at the approved rates we want to use them all we have received a response only from one that's an elevator subcode company and we're working to um secure their services now and we're going to have a more aggressive Outreach to the other seven companies who can do this work um what even makes it more sort of vexing for me is we don't really have to pay the money the developers pay the money and they will pay for these thirdparty vendors so I've reached out to some of the Developers as well to have them uh help identify companies who will apply through the DCA to be able to be thirdparty vendors um and so I'm expecting that they're going to be doing that and bringing those names to me as they are approved we will reach out to them as well and try to hire them to help do the service simultaneously we're working to see if we can on a on a perdm basis or a permanent basis bring on more subcode officials and by that I mean Electrical subcodes Plumbing subcodes who have to approve these fire officials who have to do the sprinkler systems and do other fire uh tests to approve the buildings um I think I said electrical subcode building just the the overall building uh subcode officials we have to hire more so we're working in different ways to get them I'll likely be coming to the council at some point to have a special increase in salaries for the subcode people that we have because we do not pay enough and so we're losing out to other municipalities our engineering department is giving me um a proposal I think this week to lay out what other municipalities are paying and where it is we can increase our salaries to be competitive with them and so I'll be bringing something to you I would say within the next month or so about adjusting those salaries um my next question is regarding the Pake Valley um the 1 million that they pay in L of taxes is that an agreement that the city has with them yes can can I get a copy of that agreement if you don't mind I'm sure sure I don't have it handy but yep we will get that to you and why why don't they have a host agreement kind of like Port Authority does so if you go back to the pages after Port Authority plays an additional um four last year they paid an additional seven this year they PID an additional four as a host the Port Authority uh yeah host municipality agreement on top of the 100 and Court Authority pays their fair share yeah and then pays an additional number as a host that's on page number five yeah I don't believe that's a a host agreement as a typical host agreement Kant play pays us a host agreement the ex why doesn't Pake Valley pay us anything um I do not know the answer to that I'll have to look into it and get you more information on why it's not a host agreement as opposed to a pilot mean that the amount of money we want to get the amount of money that the city is due whether it's called the pilot or whether it's called the what I'm trying to say is you have Port Authority pays their regular fee and then on top of that they pay an additional fee as a host agreement with the city why don't doesn't Pake Valley have that additional fee assess to them as a host agreement I don't have the answer to that with me at the moment but I'll get okay uh just a few more questions so I see the payroll tax is almost jumping from 64 to 102 that's a 38 almost $40 million jump uh what's your basis on that like what's your assumption that it's actually going to go up that high well this is this is one of the benefits of being late we don't want to be late but we have empirical data to show that the payroll tax increases will be reflected by that amount by the time we end the year based on what we have recovered okay that's it um councilman Kum thank you council president just a couple quick questions one to piggy back off of councilman council's question regarding the the uh temps or css I I saw it in the in the one of the uh uh Pages that's why I was saying CSS too but um do you know the the number of temporary employees and also what that impact is on the budget the financial impact uh no I do not know how many temporary employees we have um it is in the neighborhood of a thousand but I can get the exact number to you and up to I presume you want up through now or anticipated for the entire year what is your up through now year to date okay I I can get you that information but I don't is that number included in the 3,000 employees that uh or 3,100 employees that are covered by that I I think I saw in the documentation the documentation says about 3,800 employes we have about 3,100 full-time employees maybe a little bit less in the other temporary employees a little bit less than a thousand temporary employees but I can get you the exact numbers okay just a couple more questions council president uh with regards to filling vacancies is is there a um maybe an internal discussion or policy regarding whether a uh a position will be filled if it's Mo vacant more than two or three years our official position is uh we need to make a determination after six months as to whether or not the employee should be moved over to the city side or uh let go quite frankly so we should not have employees who are two three five seven years I know that we do and we're working on reducing that number okay thank you and and one other question I had and this is um just a general question I don't want to get too specific involved in it with the uh uh conversion to CVS recognized there a six there's a $6.3 million um benefit savings benefit for that is that a savings for 2024 for for for the next six month or five months of 2024 is that what that it's a it's for the entire year 2024 even though we didn't start it until we started in February I think it's February or March so that's not dealing with the prescription that's just the uh oh sorry CS I'm talking about CS I think that's specifically that CVS the prescription are you talking about CVS prescription plan were they the administrator they said yeah I believe it said it was a 6.3 million dollar right and I apologize that didn't start until H July 1 so yes and what is your the question is the savings are supposed to be anticipated through the end of the year the end of the year yes yeah I'm sorry yeah and and I think all the other questions I had were were asked and answered uh thank thank you Council thank you okay councilman uh Gonzalez has a quick followup and then we can move on question the the office of violence prevention ER and the Latino festival what line is that coming from you said what line is it coming from yeah because you have let's say other Professional Services you have 75300 , 780 I don't see an explanation for that so I want to know where is the money for that Festival coming from so that the office of VI prevention I understand is a sponsor of that they are one of the sponsors of it so I would like to know where that money is coming from all right I will find out which line item is funding the uh yeah council president sorry I just have two more quick questions I apologize I'm sorry we we just on a tight schedule we got all these folks out here waiting on us go ahead Council uh the paving that $3 million uh for Paving is that a set number or because that's $600,000 per Ward and that's not going to get you much uh two things it is a set number and it's not necessarily $600,000 per W it could be 100,000 I mean 1 million and one Ward and 250,000 another Ward so I understand what you're saying we have in in many instance any we should allocate more money for Paving if we can given our constraints um the amount of money that we have in the budget we think is the best that we can do and we are doing our best to get Municipal aid from the State Coordinating with the public service and utilizing our water and sewer department as they have regular maintenance to make sure that we coordinate those Paving efforts so that the paving is not just limited to $3 million uh it should be at least double that when we factoring everything else that's in there but that's still not enough to to your point we would love to do more we do not have the resources to do more at this time I think we should definitely follow up and have that meeting with the dot as well and the last one was that miscellaneous it went from 35 million to 7 9 million it's page three of 13 I realize 22 million is uh part of a loan but uh how do you factor in the other 22 million yeah I don't have the same book you have unfortunately so I don't know which page you're on okay it's something we can discuss afterwards okay sure let's make sure Madam clerk if you can help or jerusa get the ba a copy of what we're looking at so that he can know what the councilman is asking for or clarification he's asking for um lastly I'll end us off just with a couple of requests I'm not going to get too much in it because I know we're over time but if this entire Council can get a list of the entire um well we we have a list of the employees in some of these booklets not all directors are following the same format still but if we can get a list um Citywide of all of the provisional employees by Department that'll be good and also explanations on why they're still provisional uh some of the people have been provisional for years um let's get a list of why they can't become permanent and what are we doing as a city to try to help them become permanent and a full toate um amount of how much we've pay in fines to civil service because of these provisional employees um lastly well no not lastly close to last can we can I get a line by line item breakdown for the contracts and agreements uh for both personnel and informational technology ology for personnel there's a total of 24 45366 would like a break down of what contracts and agreements that's for and then for informational technology it's 7,754 th000 for contracts and agreements underneath that line would like to see a list by list of contracts and agreements that we're paying for for $7 million out of informational technology and then lastly I think it would be really great for this Council to see what is the justification for director to director for raises um there is some discrepancy or Equity problem in terms of raising raises for directors uh one director says $10,000 another director specifically um I won't say what the director's name or title is because then I don't you'll know who they is and I don't want anyone to feel pointed out but one director is has a budget of 2023 for their salary at $140,000 in 2024 the proposed salary is and 64,000 so they're getting about a $24,300 increase in their salary it's important that this Council see a list of who's getting a raise all of the directors what's the justification for the raise how do we come to the agreement for the raise because one director getting 10K another director getting 24,000 and the list goes on and on in specific of how they're getting raises so we need to know that it's important to point out as well for this Council that some of these salaries are set by ordinance um some some positions shall I say uh salaries are set by ordinance and we need to make sure that we're in a guideline to those ordinances and how we're giving out raises so we're going to need that about their raises that is urgent sure can I just very very quickly U address that one all of the director's salaries are set by ordinance the raises that are reflected in most cases are because we're reinstated longevity and so that reflects a significant portion of what they are there's no should not be um individual raises for directors other than longevity I haven't approved any but I'll look into that further as great point we would need to see it so if they're by long someone's getting $224,300 by longevity it'll be nice for those councils to see who that is or why they're doing it what years what is it based off and and that would be helpful for all directors so we can understand their salaries or the salary increase shall I say um don't want to say understand the salaries but understand the increase um so that we can know that it's for longevity or whatever the case might be that'll be helpful for us so someone's not saying oh they're getting 30,000 and you know it's 30,000 in longevity I don't know but specifically we need that breakdown yes counc president I've tried to take notes but can I pose upon your staff to send me a request of the things that yes you guys got it to send to the ba all right sounds good thank you so much you're very welcome Council Remos um focus on the longevity piece Eric if you could add like what what is longevity going to cost us as it relates to this year's budget if you were to add up everyone that got authorized um to receive longevity you know what does that amount to on a yearly basis we'll do yes sir all right thank you so much Mr PA you're very welcome have a good evening thank you next Department the next department is Department of Economic and Housing Development s Adam President we have a statement oh yes U can we get a um is a copy for us can we get somebody from the clerk's office to give thank you good evening EHD it's good to see you all you can uh go ahead and get started thank you uh council president council members uh good evening Ellison lad director of Economic and Housing Development uh here with colleagues uh Gerard Crowder the assistant director Janine Hazard Williams who's our manager of Housing and finance but also acts as a Chief Financial Officer for our department um I wanted to read a brief statement into the record um although I know we're on a tight schedule so also actually truncate it a little um so first uh our mission of the department is to create Economic Opportunity for New York residents and enhance the vibrancy of our city uh through our budget priorities we continue to progress towards an equitable empowered collaborative uh City envisioned by mayor rajj Baraka in his nework forward blueprint collaboration Remains the key ingredient as we focus on the future of equable growth to ensure that all residents benefit together as we advance new work forward we know that together with the municipal Council we work to advance these policies ordinances and programs that were built upon the last 10 years um of the Baraka Administration currently our budget which we're seeking your um approval of is $3.97 million and 77 full-time employees this includes both uh poor paid board members and Commissioners in addition to staff we do have additional staff funded by federal grants local trust funds and philanthropic dollars we have submitted our responses to the budget questions as requested I wanted to highlight just a few items before um we take any questions and answers uh first um we're focused on producing preserving and protecting affordable housing for New York residents as you may recall in 21 mayor Baraka announced five-year housing goals and today we track these housing goals using an online tracker on our website these five goals um include adding 3,000 new housing units both market and affordable across all five Wards fund the creation or preservation of 6600 affordable homes prioritizing units for New Yorkers making less than 30% of Ami conveying vacant property currently held by the city or landbank for successful development in which 30% of the units developed on these sites were for residents making 80% of Ami or below we also want to support, 1500 new and 200 existing low to moderate income home buyers and finally we want to support 10,000 vulnerable or unsheltered households by 2026 the next item I wanted to mention was how we're enhancing inclusionary zoning to create housing for new workers so we're really implementing the first dibs uh which was the ordinance passed by this Council last year uh today um we have had six projects to date um that had 180 affordable units 106 of them were leased to New York residents so we reached 59% of these units were leased to New York residents currently there are four projects being marketed throughout the city and on our link tree and residents can apply for the affordable housing development um I'm sorry the affordable housing units in these mixed income housing developments the next item is um regarding our Newark kazon and land use uh regulations today we're implementing the nuzzler um and it's really allowing us to have commercial Corridor up zoning to enhancing community community development create accessory dwelling units to allow for more housing in our neighborhoods and also protecting our environment through Green Building requirements also with the support of the Council we have held our first supplemental zoning board meeting on August 1st and the supplemental zoning board will help the City tackle the backlog and pipeline of zoning board applications so that we can advance our development forward quick note um with the change of the zoning ordinance we've actually had 16 applications move from the zoning board to the central planning board and we've had even more applications be able to go straight to permits so the support of the changes to the nework zoning and land use ordinance have really been able to help us expedite some of the development needed in our city uh next item um we're activating vacant United properties to generate tax revenue um we were able to hear our ba speak about this earlier um just a couple notes here um are is that we're really working to advance the sale of City owned property whether it's to transfer property to the nework landbank or selling property um directly to uh residents and developers who are interested in investing in our city um we also in this area though we are implementing the vacant building ordinance uh that was passed by this Council last year and we're able to actually collect the fees for vacant buildings also accept the registration and in a good way we've actually deregistered three projects um just in the last 30 days which means that they're now in active use um moving on to Equitable development um I I know we spoke about this at a recent council meeting today for their Equitable investments in New York communities um we have successfully had round one approved for five sites and the second round of 11 sites is currently being considered by the city council we're really excited about this initiative as we had um over 90 applications uh for developers interested in participating in this exciting development and Community Development initiative we're expecting um construction to start on all 16 projects between now and the first quarter of 2025 um the next item is really holding our partners accountable and we did create a compliance office in 2022 um and but what I wanted to note is is that we also recently hired a new rent regulations officer and it's really uh strengthened our work around rent control I think that that's been a consistent theme that we've heard is that we need to have stronger compliance in this area and so we've been able ble to send out non-compliance letters we're able to hold our rent control board meetings and provide the resources back to our residents uh for unlawful rent increases uh and we're also accepting new construction exemptions for any new project that has been developed in the city um in closing I just wanted to thank our Economic Development uh management team and they our entire staff it's really our entire team that really helps make these initiatives come to fruition um and also manage the day-to-day operations of the department special thanks to Gerard Crowder Janine Hazard Williams and Karina Pereira who really help us lead the department every day thank you for the opportunity to speak today and we welcome any questions that you have thank you so much Deputy Mayor L questions from Council Members councilman Gonzalez yeah I I see a I see a lot of variation between 2023 and 2024 or in the salary line is that because you have a lot of turnover in your department or is thank you for that question uh council member Gonzalez so um in EHD um one thing you'll notice in our org chart is that we did have a significant change in our management team over the last 12 months so you'll see where people who are still within the department were either promoted from within um or they accepted a new rule within the department so that's what you'll see as far as changes in salaries from one part of um one year to the next yeah I see let's say for example you have line z b 565 and you had last year you had one person for 67 66,000 now you have two for 198 so that they went from 67,000 to 94,000 ER I understood that we were more or less on a financial crisis in the city and we see this jumps in salaries that are not reflecting the condition of the city I believe that we have to we have to be more ER aggressive in in reducing or not increasing the salaries as much ER so that we can ER hold the the the deficit at the at a manageable place so that we can fulfill the promises of the city with the monies that we have um so I do understand the the question um I will say though that our budget is flat and so we have not increased the budget amount um except for about $20,000 from last year to this year so what we're doing is really moving monies within the same budget um all in even if the line item looks different second um sometimes it's due to change in staff so when someone departs um that salary might be uh one salary and we may find the vacancy to be needed in a different way uh one specific case in point is is that we recently hired a project manager who is also an engine engineer and that person in particular yielded a higher salary than perhaps somebody in the position um that did was not an engineer thank you I just wanted to piggy back off something that you said uh Deputy Mayor L you mentioned about the fees and things that we have now implemented for the vacant uh Properties or vacant Lots does the revenue come back to your department or it goes to the general fund uh yes uh council president uh to that question um the funds currently go back to the general fund um we have considered asking the business administrator if there could be a way for it to be uh provided to the department but currently it is going back to the general fund um just by note uh we've had 975 properties registered we've collected $262,500 uh just in the last year not too bad what was that um we've had 975 properties registered and we've collected $262,500 um in the last year not too bad it could have been Z so uh just a quick another followup real quick so for like tax applications and things when they're paying their fee that Revenue goes to who do you get any Revenue back to your department uh yes council president so for tax abatements um by law by ordinance it actually has a split uh de that dictates which place the um fees go to so there's um the affordable housing trust fund there's the community Economic Development trust fund along with the school development trust fund and those fees are all um specifically um deposited within those funds um as the ordinate States got it and then I wanted to ask a question and this might not be specifically for your department but maybe for the VA invest norc does the contribution from the city come off of your line and your department or from the city general fund uh yes I can answer that question council president the funds for invest nework are uh through our finance department um it is not a direct line item off of Economic and Housing Development okay so I would save it for finance but because y'all up here kind of control that what's the what's the amount of money that we paid to invest Nork or we gave to them for 20 for this year 2024 uh yes their um funding agreement is $5 million and what's the and what's the proposed agreement for 2024 I mean for 2025 I that is under discussion council president with the ba currently you you can whisper it out to me oh meaning I'm sorry ma'am it hasn't been determined um the current agreement lasts until member of 2024 okay oh well you know that would be nice to know what we're thinking of because I I would hope that it would be less um for them uh and then just a request and Madam clerk you can put this in because I maybe um Deputy Mayor LA or the ba doesn't have that information but I would love to get a full note um notice to the Departments uh specifically the ba and the deputy mayor of how many properties we've given in total to invest nework for the landbank and how how much have they sold and what has been the revenue that they've collected over there yes council president I can tell you the the first answer uh the first answer as far as properties that have been transferred that have been approved by the council is about 60 thou sorry 160 properties um tomorrow you will be considering um a third tranch um which is 71 properties um and I know that invest yor will be prepared to explain the utilization of those sites uh when they come before you tomorrow okay and just m Mr ba if you can let us know when will you be deciding about how much money you're going to be giving them for the next year um it looks like it probably should be zero but um that's just me personally what I think any other questions for council members uh councilman Silva uh yes good afternoon Miss slad uh I asked the ba this question because the number went down from for several million dollars how many and I probably asked this question 2023 as well how many projects right now are set in the in the entire city to be built how many apartments would you say throughout the entire city would you have that number um yes we do have a number that is on our tracker um and one moment I can actually give it to you that we actually approved that's approved and going through Co so we have those approved and open and approved that have uh that are waiting for certificate of occupancy okay so let me ask a question out of those approved that we have approved here how many are actually being built do you have that number yes that would be the certificate of occupancy number and I'd be happy to provide that to you okay my last question is that what do you think the reason is that that number went down from several million dollars regarding the pilots what do you think it is do you think it's still an issue of resolution compliance it's taken too long we don't have enough people what is your opinion that development that it takes a developer such a long time do we need to hire more people in engineering and water whatever it may be to get these projects off the ground uh so council member Silva I understand the real estate um no matter where we are is very complex and requires as you know so many outside sorry outside of interest rates and the other things that we can't control within this building I understand there's other factors outside the building but from what we control inside this building yes and and and forgive me I just meant that I think we know that it's a a complex transaction and so it takes a lot of people to participate in it I think within City Hall um not only is it um a partnership with city council uh we have Partnerships with engineering and water and sewer um and to ensure that the developments are all done appropriately to building code and to the standards that we have here in the city I think SEC second I also believe that through the supplemental zoning board I do think that helped a lot um in addition to changing the Newark zoning and land use laws I think those two items in and of themselves helped Advanced development more quickly uh now I'd say last regarding the ability to get resolution compliance post counil I'm sorry post a board meeting so the person can go to permits that's something that we all have to work on um I have noticed myself that the time uh from resolution compliance to completion is too long and that's on our board attorneys they need to move more quickly to have those resolutions um approved in addition to our sister agencies we all need to work together to prioritize the compliance of the projects once approved by the board thank you okay councilman Ros yeah thank you madam president and I do want to just say director um thank you for keeping your requests in line with what was adopted last year um just a few points one of your biggest units in the department is is Property Management you know so my assumption is that they deal with the potential disposal of city-owned property um my question is that the more properties you transfer over to invest Newark so there should be less of an inventory of city-owned properties that this unit is responsible for um do they clean up City owned Lots like does Neighborhood Services or Public Works have that responsibility you know why do you need all these people in property management and what do what do they really do uh sure uh council member Ramos thank you uh so um Property Management uh does have uh multiple um roles first it is to uh sell the land um through the LOI process or through a solicitation um then following that they of course have to close on the property uh second we also have adopt a lots and so that office manages the adopt a lots uh for our city um we have about 25 properties that have adopt a lots uh third we do have some that are use and occupancy agreements that we are moving from use and occupancy agreements to sales we really want to reduce that um or if they're not going to buy the property we do come to uh the council to have a lease um considered so that's what you'll see going forward on the asset management side um we do have several staff that manage um inspections uh and also they go out and do conditions of sale to ensure that the purchaser has access to the property uh they do tour um illegal dumping as well as cleanup needs across the city for city-owned property and finally we do work with DPW to ensure that's done collaboratively so in that uh division itself they have have multiple roles um but in closing I'd say yes we have already thought about what do we do as we sell a transform more property to the landbank and what we will end up doing is pivoting their work to be um compliance focused to ensure that the developers that were selling land to are actually building and providing housing or other services needed and going back to the um action that's coming before us some I don't want to take us off track but um council president asked for a status of the properties that we transfer to investor you know part of that agreement is that you know the the ratables that come in once those properties are are developed or rehabed you know investor keeps a lot of that for a period of time um so before we entertain additional properties being transferred over I I would like to see a status of how many of the original properties that were are transferred over have been either uh rehabed or developed um how many years have they been on the tax roles is the city collecting anything as a result of this or is all the money staying with invest nor um you know I think that's an important consideration understood I I know we'll have that for you tomorrow and perhaps we can try to send some of it to you tonight okay uh Council mccrum thank you council president let me just say in lie of the time I know time constraints we have uh through your chair and through the clerk's office as possible we can put questions together to submit to the uh uh to what's your name again clerk clerk to the clerk and and she can submit them to the ba for followup is that you can say them now we got time we got time all right I mean to say I mean if we have answers if we can get them out quickly that's fine I mean it all right so let me just go right into it all right uh one question I had was uh and picky back up what council president was asking to how many properties does the city actually have have uh or own currently and and what are the plans so that we can generate some revenue from those and actually put them on the tax roll so we can get ratables so the yes council member Crump um the number of properties we have um we'll get you a full list uh currently the method that we're doing is we're releasing it publicly on our website and we update it every quarter um and we have about a 100 at a time and the reason why we release about a 100 at a time is because of the landbank transfers as well as other initiatives that are led by the city whether it's ending homelessness or the Equitable Investments aspects so um that's currently what we're doing around managing the inventory but I'd be happy to send you the full list do you have an estimate of it's in the hundreds not the Thousand not not no a financial estimate in terms of what properties are that we have that we're going to sell and what you expect or anticipate new yes I do um I'm sorry bear with me one second um so since 2023 uh the council approved 128 Redevelopment agreements um and we were able to close 39 of them which is $2.5 million of Revenue um that was 88 sites that were actually um transferred I'm happy to give this report to you in writing I appreciate um we still have about 12 eight uh sorry we still have additional sorry my numbers are off uh additional looks like 75 um Redevelopment agreements that need to be closed and we also know that uh there are 14 that will not close um and that's due to some C compliance review uh since the council approved it so the numbers sir I'm sorry were 128 approved by Council uh 39 of them have been closed $2.5 million has been realized in 88 sites um and we still have about 75 remaining to close and those 75 do you have the anticipated revenue from those um unfortunately don't have it in front of me but I'm happy to get it to you we do keep a master spreadsheet that would be able to tell you that thank you another question I I have is regarding the Professional Services contracts are are all of those contracts uh monies that are put in escrow and that are paid by the the uh developer or is any of that money paid out of ehds budget uh and if so how much uh so the numbers that are actually in our budget book are what we budget under um what we're going to expend um through the department uh then we have additional expenditures such as outside Council outside council is spent for um escrow agreements and that is done by the Redevelopment escrow agreement and then we have a third one which is for Planning and Zoning um and then we have uh funds that are provided by Developers for planning and zoning escros and so the escrow uh or the monies that you expect to spend on escrow or through escrow are not Incorporated in the budget no sir and one last question just again I kind of piggy backing off of council with regards to the the uh uh vacant buildings and vacant lot ordinances the the anti ipated Revenue I know you told us 975 something and $262,000 has been realized in terms of Revenue what's the anticipated revenue or estimate for the end of the to to the end of the year we we do not have that and that is because the vacant building um registration is really meant to be that the owners um are uh submitting it to us but at times the owners do not and so when um our team goes out into uh the community they actually are identifying property and then we are sending them an invoice and then the develop um the owners are paying an invoice so do you have a you have already have a list of properties that are identified yes we do and that would be the 975 properties that we've already identifed so the ones that are already registered that are already registered yes it does not mean that all of them have paid they're all registered okay all right thank you hey councilman Council Madam shair real quick first I uh want to commend you for cutting overtime uh the way that you did I think that was uh commendable just want to say that um and and then two um still interested just as last year uh because of the movement of EHD uh the importance of professional development training conferences and I noticed that you cut back in your budget uh but with the Department that you have with all of the Innovation and everything that is happening nationally in terms of affordability it would be my hope uh that you would really look to try to infuse uh some more dollars into training to really get a fi on what's happening around this country nationally uh as it relates to affordability then second uh uh as I my colleagues talked about the vacant lot vacant building ordinance uh I'm I'm really uh encouraging uh the the business administrator uh to look for us to hire a code enforcement officer specifically in that area uh to not just wait for the registrants to be able to come in but to be able to go out and uh add summonses uh to those areas that are are vacant Lots uh a property that has not been uh rehabilitated up until this point so strategically I hope that there's a plan when we talk about Revenue Generation Um I would think that Revenue generation and adding this employee uh one in one can be able to help offset the the uh Revenue that would be generated from uh having this employee here and then very specifically and intently where does the school development trust fund go so thank you council member Council we also appreciate the compliment um for uh the training I will say though that we do send our staff to training we also are trying to find ways where they're sponsor sponsorships for the staff to go to training so for instance if there's a conference where someone's speaking and they allow for additional attendees um those that may have CL requirements we're inviting them to attend so that it's actually a cost-saving measure for us as well um and it's also why we reduce the number because we haven't seen as much utilization there because we've been able to get some sponsorships but we are um as you shared um very interested in finding ways to help train and educate um our team on National Best Practices just as much as the state ones um second on the vacant land um and building I will say two things one you'll notice in our um staff uh listing that we do have a code enforcement officer in training um and this person uh started with us about six months ago and has been getting trained by um engineering code enforcement office so that he can be ready to do exactly as you're speaking um but also related to that we do have a good partnership with engineering where we have another code enforcement officer who's fully trained um that's basically embedded in EHD who we pay their salary so that they can um do uh ons spot uh violations and notices as needed so um we've had that uh breakthrough over the last uh year with our department of engineering and director wooden was able to help us make that happen um closing your question about the school development Authority um the funds go to the schools well prayerfully those people won't have to take their stuff to court know what happen when it gets there um but I I do want to say that uh perhaps maybe the 200 and something thousand you collected from the um vacant lot registrations and stuff perhaps they can get those couple of dollars back for some training that might help instead of it going to the general fund because we know some departments get to keep their little revenue and y'all just giving y'all's back to the general fund um but I'll I'll rest there councilman Gonzalez is going to close us out on those you have a lot of redevelopments that haven closed who does the closing for you is that the legal department or is that your department yes council member Gonzalez it's a partnership so it's led by economic and housing development through property management and then um the law department does review documents to ensure they're legally sufficient actually doing the closing is from your department uh no we have um staff in our office that are not attorneys that prepare everything but then it is reviewed by the Law Department okay thank you I I used to I used to let's say to do closings with the city as at one point in my life and the usually takes six months to a year to to to get into a closing table and I believe that's something that should be expedited so that the all these h redeveloping Agreements are completed on time we would agree with you and we did just meet a few months ago actually to try to brainstorm ways to get to closing faster um and one of the things we noticed it's one of the few processes that we use that still um paper and wet signatures most of what we're doing now um in the city is actually electronic done through docy signs so we're trying to think through how we can find a medium between um the hard copies and um what signat atures to Doc you sign so we're going to be exploring that the title work is is being more efficient because sometimes the title work wasn't and you had to re foreclose on the properties and all that stuff uh yes sir we do have a few on our list even today that have to go through re forclosure so um I would agree with that um and I know Madame President time is concluding but I did want to have a chance if it's okay to answer council member Silva's question about the development that's happening um we have 2,920 units uh that have already been um are leasing up uh or have already leased up and we have 1,985 that are going through the co like construction and Co process okay all right thank you so much to the EHD team thank you for coming out today uh thank you council president council members have a good day have a great evening council president council members the next department is the Department of fin okay good evening Ben good evening welcome welcome so much it's great to see you you can go ahead and get started sure absolutely just have a quick opening statement uh good afternoon the council president council members uh Benjamin Gman Assistant Director of Finance uh here today it's my pleasure to present youu Department of finances 2024 budget review the Department of Finance is responsible for collecting safeguarding and processing all forms of revenue for the city we also manage all bonds notes grants trusts and Investments flowing into and out of the city as well as maintaining accounting records Financial systems and financial reporting on today I just want to bring a brief overview of 2024 and what we're anticipating as of January 1st of 2024 the city's cast position for cash position for all funds total 324 mil 89433 of that 297 m938 55 is for the current fund 17,1 18837 for water utility and 9,767 N4 for the sewer utility as the economy begins to settle postco we have continued to improve in our collections uh in special taxes our overall collections for payroll parking and hotel in 2023 was uh over 106 million which was 11.05% of what we had budgeted last year uh and we uh anticipate to collect the same if uh if not more uh from 2023 in 2024 we continue our efforts to collect uh delinquent taxes and current property taxes our cash collections rate in 22 was 94% and in 23 was 94.5% and we're poised to continue down that same path and uh in 2022 and excuse me in 2023 we also collect Ed $24 million in delinquent taxes and we're poised to do the same in 2024 although economic conditions in 2024 have begun to level off interest rates have remained flat since August of 2023 but the city continues to successfully price our bonds and our bond anticipation notes Gathering more than sufficient subscriptions at each of our sales Moody's Investment Services continues to affirm the city's rating at a B2 with a positive outlook and this is based on positive long-term economic prospects multi-billion dollar development pipeline improved finances and a diverse tax base City continues to capitalize on higher interest rates in 2023 the city earned over $8.6 million in interest across all of our accounts through the first six months of 2024 we have earned over a little a little over $4 million in interest and we'll continue to work diligently to improve our economic position and hopefully to better serve the community and the residents of the city and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have yes then H how much have we uh paid out uh so far this year in tax appeals uh in tax appeals I don't have that number right in front of me I don't have that information for me right but I can't get that for you how many we paid in tax appeals year to date that that that would be good and then again I don't want to uh re repeat what uh the council president has already said as she laid out this information so eloquently uh but you to have a department like 28 provisional employees and I think it we we're going to get to a point where we're tired of hearing that we're going to work through the regular HR processes uh to make sure that people are fine that there has to be some kind of strategy uh in making sure that this happen so um absolutely Council to your point actually something was some of that was brought to my attention earlier today and it turns out someone should have been made permanent from provisional status at a previous time and we actually started the paperwork on two of those employees today I just want to say that the provisional thing um is totally a personnel's function yes and I'm only saying that because I know because I personally have done that job before and it is personnel's job to keep up with that and notify directors and notify employees which just seems to not happen here don't know why that is other questions councilman oh I'm sorry I'm sorry councilman Ramos I'm going to go over here to my right councilman Gonzalez and I say that the every division of your department has a salary increases sub and some cases substantial with the same number of employees and let's say you have in the revenue collections you went from 1,264 to 1,447 that's like $180,000 and you have the same 27 seven employees ER in the accounts and controls you went from a million 29 to a million 226 that's 199,000 ER again with the same number of employees what H what gives excellent question Council M Gonzalez uh similar to what you've heard here before uh uh increases in salary are mainly due to uh contractual obligations uh mainly for longevity increases in certain indiv uals as uh the business administrator alluded to earlier today that beginning January 1st certain uh employees were either became eligible for uh for longevity or their longevity which had previously been frozen uh due to certain changes now had you know was allowed to increase to the next uh uh longevity percentage uh and I would say over 90% of those salary increases you're referring to are due to those contractual obligations that we were required to statutorily um some of those increases also as you mentioned like new collections we did uh move some provisional temporary employees that were in private in CSS or believe the other companies name is payroll that we had the temporary employment through we did transfer a few of those employees over from that status over onto the city side and when doing that as been previously mentioned here before that there there are some additional costs of that you know health benefits what have you and that's uh reflected in the increase in the salaries okay thank you you're welcome councilman Ros um thank you madam president I I just want to thank Mr Guzman he's he's the face of um the finance department and you know interacts with this body almost at every council meeting and um you know my years here the department staffing has remained relatively stable you know whatever increases you guys seek from us are mostly attributed to contractual increases and like you said this year you know the the longevity piece is impacting the city in a lot of different departments um you know my focus is on outside contracts right like um I know you guys use NW for financial consulting services uh dtus for Bond Council um are are those line items um based on your history are we spending similar amounts to what we've spent in the past for outside financial consultants and bond counsil or are those are those uh line items fluctuating a little little bit and and if that is the case what's driving that uh yeah C Ramos to your point yet we have we do continue to use NW Financial as one of the financial advisors we also use additional financial advisors and distribute the work accordingly depending on the department not just a finance department's need but the city's Department's needs similarly with dtas as our bond Council we also have uh wance uh at all that also does additional Bond Council work for the city as far as to your question as to annually what we the city has been allocating for those types of services there have been some slight fluctuations but primarily for the last few years in my experience those numbers have remained steady uh I do know that for 2024 those numbers have decreased slightly because based on historically what we have awarded the contracts to we have been spending less than the total contract amount uh So then whenever possible I know for 2024 we have made you know those decisions to actually slightly decrease the overall contract amount for the current year based on years experiences and and what we've had them do for us um so there as I said there have been primarily it's been flat over the years uh I think the trend has been setting where it's actually slightly decreasing over the last two or three years so you you mentioned that for Bank Council you also use W which is Everton uh ever Johnson I don't see him listed or I don't see their firm listed as outside Council uh if it's not there my apologies I'll make sure that that information but we do use them on on an occasional basis so they're also doing Bond work for us in addition to dtas correct yes okay thank you any other questions for Ben all right look at that Ben okay thank thank you very much later it's been a pleasure you get to get home and timeing up for dinner good next Madam clerk the next department is the Department of Public Safety right Public Safety [Music] wow is that John hi haven't seen you in such a long time John James good to see you as they say on this side or the other side it's good to see you all right director welcome with us you can start with you have an opening statement yes sir good morning I mean good afternoon good evening evening dinner time dinner time so hopefully we'll make it time too at an early time thank you for having us here today uh uh council president uh council members thank you for having us today to present on our current budget I'm here accompanied by uh the assistant public safety director Rufus Jackson uh the uh director of police operations shironda Morris chief police Emanuel Miranda and direct the director of uh OEM John James is here as we get started for this year in reference to our current budget uh we'll just give you some quick line items before we start start this conversation put the mic closer it's kind of hard to hear you so we can give you a quick quick lineup of where we're with the police fire and OEM budget uh we have a 1% 1.5% increase uh to the police budget due to um salaries and contractual obligations or else they would have remained the same uh the Personnel remained at 2,299 total Personnel in public safety same as last year no change 97% of the current salary uh budget is Police salary for the police department there's been a two 2% decrease in equipment uh this year we're down $800,000 in the past six seven months up until I believe June 30th for the fire there is a decrease in the budgeted positions due to retirement and the fact that we replac them with newer firefighters which are our lower pay rate it shows a slight decrease but it's just because we have 79 new members at a low rate and we had a astronomical amount of retirements of senior level personnel uh the fire budget 99% of the salary is the fire budget uh 1% increase in fire equipment and that's the training after the incident last year we've had some training opportunities for the fire department there's 1% increase in that and two firehouses were closed for mediation and now they're being worked on opening those fire houses back up I'm sorry state state that again for us it's kind of hard to hear still you said two firehouses are closed two firehouses were closed pending remediation uh they're being worked on right now and they should be open shortly the remediation process is going on smoothly uh we're just waiting process of getting them back opened up for OEM there's a 10% decrease in uasi funding and that's from uasi nationally they advises that we're going to get 10% less than we did the year before uh we also have an increase of a budgeted position we have an assistant director that was hired there as assisting uh director James uh uh we also their job recently is completing the new Fire radios and Police radios to make sure that our radios aren't being listened to by outside entities that's the ma major project that o is working us for police and fire to equip it with a new radio system that's a lot more secure uh this year we have9 crossing guards and currently 17 vacancies are for crossing guards of which 11 have been hired this year and we're continually recruiting for crossing guards that you said 17 vacancies yes 17 vacancies have they gotten a raise is that factoring into your increase no no they haven't gotten a raise same salary uh well that sucks in reference to the overtime please overtime uh one of the main reasons for the overtime is uh opening up a new Precinct stretching the Personnel so now we have mated overtime to adjust for those uh those certain circumstances and on the police is the I mean on the fire side is the implementation of the um one and threes on every single fire housee so that increase the the overtime rate of those entities and for police fire and OPM our our top project is recruitment for the police uh bring us back up to normal and the new training academy we've had a lot of uh success this year we have a couple new buildings opening up we have the training carry that opened up a couple months ago and now we have the The Stables and the uh the the evidence building should be opening up sometime in September uh the nin building should be open up sometime after September those going to be projects to open those buildings up and we have the Traffic Unit that's opening up it's opening up now waiting to get into the building and move the furniture into that location right now for the fire uh is really continuing uh a program to continue to uh refurbish and buy new fire apparatuses and and continuing to get Badger Avenue set up so the fire can have a training facility that's one of the major projects for the fire department and um we also have the drones the drones have been implemented we have eight people that are trained in drones uh between police uh eight police members five fire members are trained we have one drone for the police department and we have one drone for the fire department and the drones are operational and we use them for parades and uh not simple rest but rallies just to make sure that the community is safe we could document what's happening to those events but they are operational so you said eight police and how many in fire train eight police are trained five fire members are trained drones but we have two one for each but only two two drones yes okay all right we're going to pause you right there because I'm sure there are plenty of questions less time for presentation more time for questions okay um Council man Ramos thank you Madame President I do have to excuse myself in a few so I wanted to take advantage of the director's valuable time um you know my my questions are going to be more about fire so so you did mention about the fact that we do have uh a number of Fire houses that are um temporarily shut down a few of them are impacting you know my ward specifically the one on Sixth Street um you know when do you guys anticipate getting these firehouses reopened you know I think that that presents a a a you know a a a major safety concern on behalf of the community it seems like it's taking an awful long time to get those firehouses back in line and you know I'm not sure what's taking so long for the for the firehouse you're talking about on North 6 that's engine 28 I believe we're currently um going to have that should be opening up soon so we get the REM remediation done that's going to be the most likely the home of our um soccer unit that that is emergency response for all hazards throughout the city so that should be open up shortly so um uh shortly as in within the next couple months we get remediation so that's not going to be a regular Firehouse anymore temporary it is or it isn't okay yeah uh hello hello counsel helloo Madam president hey hey good to good to see you just pull a mic closer it's so hard to hear you guys I'm like struggling no problem all right so councilman Ramos this uh the station at 28 engine which is on six Street the company is still out in operation they're currently at the prosect Street Station um you know which is which is uh at least a few miles away no not not miles couple of blocks away no my Prospect to North 6 Street you know it's definitely distance I'll challenge you to a walk over there maybe we'll do the Chiefs run on Wednesday we can do that we can do that we're all invited but um I it it poses no real danger I believe to the to the uh Community um we consolidate stations throughout the country throughout the state throughout the city uh regularly so um the company is there uh we we within the four to five minute response time which is required um at the moment the station was well previously the station was being re re uh remediated uh it took a little while but it's up to standard now uh we're in the process of just putting the sock unit there temporarily to support the uh the safety of the city so the sock program will be Special Operations Command and they'll be charged of uh working or doing the uh the the high-risk um type incidents that we may respond to and not as as frequency as frequent as we normally do they'll have specialized training in Hazmat confined space um uh extrication high angle rescues and Etc there there's they're going to have specialized training they'll be able to support the operations throughout the city um this will be temporary until we get a final uh location for them just a few more follow-ups um the the the other question has to do with the fact that from what I'm GA gathering is that some of the apparatus that you guys have recently purchased you know Vehicles you know Etc that that a number of them are not operational and they were recently purchased or leased um are you having those kind of issues and if so you know what's the what's the reason um did we buy defective fire engines is there a a recall on some of these vehicles because my understanding was that on Park Avenue recently we did have a few days where we didn't have access uh to to fire trucks so the trucks that we got aren't infected they're they're new and they're made by a company that's recable and that's been around a long time we've been purchasing trucks for them probably the entire life life of my career over 30 years we've been dealing with this company um the ladder that was at ladder 7 purchased it in 2017 18 um we get a lot of runs we get a lot of assignments that respond to a lot of fires throughout the city and we can't control breakdowns this particular ladder broke down it went to the mechanic shop uh it took a couple of uh maybe a week or so or more for the parts to come in which we have no control over throughout the country they have problems with getting parts and stuff so um at the time we didn't have a a spare we did have a spare but it's a bucket or a tower ladder which only um one company which was assigned to actually take that apparatus and we're dealing with stations that are over 100 years old and these stations are built for horse and buggy or Steamers so we can't just put any size apparatus in these stations and this is some of the reasons why it we have to at sometime we may have a spare but it won't fit in the station so we have to temporarily close the station which we have six companies in each Ward for fight and Fs four engines and two ladders and we also had the ability to call Mutual Aid which we regularly assist the outside departments on our borders East Orange Elizabeth Hillside um and Belleville so at no way is the community compromised when we do have a company or to go down because of mechanical issues my my last question on on the fire side and and and I just want to say thank you to you because I know I reach out to you on occasion um you know one of the biggest frustrations that we get from our business Community is the amount of time that it gets to to for your folks on the inspection side to go out there and do the regular inspections and renewals and I know over the years various you know F fire directors and Chiefs have always express some um challenges when it comes to Staffing is are you guys still kind of like in the same boat as far as the amount of time that it takes to do these inspections the delays that that happen as a result of that is is do do you do you feel that you've made progress are there things that you need uh from the city in order to make that unit more efficient and at the same time better serve you know our business Community you know some of them do pay for the registration and renewal and it could take months for them to have an inspector come out and in the and and in the interim sometimes they get cited by by code enforcement because they don't have these certificates that they paid for months ago uh from fire like how do we get that to the point where it needs to be so we're working on that um we have been for the last several years Community Rel fire prevention uh inspectors they have to be trained by the state um it's a state course at the countyy it's several several months to get the certificate then once you complete the class you have to take a test and the state test is is not an easy test especially when you're not familiar with uh fire or you don't have a fire background so in the city of Newark we have civilians in these positions so um we've hired up to our to so we have no vacancies at this time we currently are seeking at least 14 new inspectors but it will have to be put in our budget we have proposed this to the to the business administrator and I believe the city is on board with this uh we are I think taking the necessary steps to better that unit we are filling more phone calls we getting uh more people in there we we put more people in to be a part of the customer service behind the county answering calls and and taking care of people who come in uh to the office but the key is to get more inspectors on kind of like code enforcement who has a you know a large amount of people for a large amount of uh of businesses uh buildings residential buildings and commercial within the city There's an opportunity for the city to uh make great leaps and vows with the with this Division and for if we get more people in the division doing more inspections uh we have an opportunity to bring in more Revenue which will which can make the unit self- sustained almost so that's the goal uh we've been talking to uh the administration about it and I think we're heading in the right direction we also are looking to get into the courts with the penalties far as uh when someone doesn't uh mitigate their violations they will be penalized and at that point uh we hope to make the city the city safer and the building safer for the community and the residents and that's a I don't want to monopolize the time but I thank you um chief for your U responses all right thank you councilman Remos councilman Gonzalez yes I quick question uh I see that the your employee list includes like three lines for police officer what's the difference between one and the other let's say you have a police officer on line 0272 B so what it with the um police officers when we hire them they are temporary so when the new law came out we had to create a separate line for that the guys that come in as temporary officers until they complete the academy that didn't come in under the civil service so they're one and then when they're temporary officer not temporary the provisional officers during their training period there that's another the ones that are less than a year right and then they move up to permanent se you know and that's that's why we have okay the other question that I have is that I see that H you [Music] have on the lines ER o 08723 4203 2195 it's this is at the end of the ER division of police it has five categories with zero Personnel but an amount in included you have one line with 55,000 one line with 40,000 one line with 40,000 a line with 300,000 and line with 20,000 that's page 8 of 18 I believe it is eight what8 of 18 all right so you're mentioning like the um the chief op the pilot the training officer yes investigator so if the positions are vacant now I suppose you don't anticipate hiring them before the the year is over so why don't we take that out of the budget well especially like for the helicopter pilot we want to eventually have our own the helicopter that we have we have to um pay per DM whenever we need to send it out so we don't have our own pilot so that's something that we're looking to implement eventually to have our own but I don't think you would do that this year we we we we haven't found anyone to put in that position see before before you had two let's say two police officers actually there was a a Dominican police office well they retired and they retired so you don't have any police officer that is certified to fly not with that experience no okay okay so yeah my question is you have the amount there you have zero Personnel assigned to it so if you're not going to hire from now until the end of the year that amount should be taken out of the budget so that we can use it for something else all right next question councilman Council yes uh just wanted to get into the 207 vacancies wanted to talk about the 134 officers what is the plan uh in that recruitment plan also recognizing uh that there may be some retirements and losses how do we stay close uh around this 900 number in reference to the recruitment of the uh police right now we are recruiting heavily we have a class that's starting that's going to go in September 13th of uh 50 I think 38 will be Newark police officers and that's only because it's a requirement of the PTC to have at least 15 outside of of Newark in that class the next following class we still are beginning the recruitment process to hopefully have another class of our own uh next year once they graduate I believe it's March or April they should be graduating so hopefully that some we can get another class in proposed uh on discussions with the PTC and we get out of this temporary status that we're in after this class hopefully get class a 70 in that year to start slowly recouping the numbers after I think is it next year March we don't have any scheduled classes able to retire so we have about a year and a half twoyear vacancy of right another one twoyear vacancy of hiring without anybody that can leave now we have some members now that can leave that are from prior classes but uh I think um February March of next year we have nobody that can leave for approximately two years so we are we measuring when that will level off to to to make sure that we're maximizing the amount of police that we have uh on the street yes uh we're maximizing one of the one of the things we had that was uh we opened up the um the the ninth precinct which was beneficial because the workload of of the the East was extensive uh and to alleviate the pressure of the East so a lot of a lot of the PDS we didn't get new Personnel but we opened up another precincts which means they all lost some people to to uh take over certain areas so that's probably one of the increases of reason why the overtime went up a little bit because now we have more area more responsibility as a matter of fact it was about 4, 35 to 4,000 jobs that the Metro picked up that that the um East does not have but their numbers also increased for cost for service so once we um get these classes in we should start back fing uh we have a class of 39 which are all on foot patrol for this summer program 30 of them are on foot patrol nine are in the precincts training and we're going to rotate them in hopefully by October they'll be full-blown capable of being on their own or uh out of the training process that we have them in all right so I'm I'm going to jump back and forth because I want to talk about the 230 additional uh firefighters that that are going to be needed how do we map that plan out over a duration of time uh and if we can't get close to it at what point do we look at maximizing uh the uh fire department so the for the fire department we hired a total 79 uh firefighters which backfilled a lot of position there aren't any current vacancies available in fact we have 19 more that are becoming a available at the end of September we've already had conversations with the business administrator of trying to get that class of 19 into the academy by the end of this year to make sure that we have a maximum amount of firefighters on duty uh as far as our our to is concerned okay I I do want to commend you for both on on fire and police at at lowering uh the the overtime significantly but can you just uh explain us what happened with the E tickets the the uh cost drop in the E tickets course strapping e tickets yeah Revenue went from about seven to five is it seven I don't know what page it is but it's in 2023 you guys collected about 9 million dollar in E tickets and this year in 2024 it's 4 million y'all one gave this to us we not went from 9.7 to 4.9 the well the numbers we have they've issued a lot more warnings uh those have increased I'll check on the exact status of the exact number of what we're short but there's been an increas in warnings to uh uh most of the stops that were happening I'll check on what the stop ratio is has that decreased or is it just a the amount of money revenue generated decreased so uh uh writing tickets is discretion of the police officer so if we want to compare them to that we we'll have to compare the amount of stops that happen so I can get that data for you to see if we had the same amount of stops less tickets then they're still stopping vehicles uh the the writing the ticket is discretion of the of the police officer actually making the motor vehicle stop himself does e tickets only relate to uh police stops or do it relate to when police are canvasing areas as well the other factor is you're comparing half the year to an entire year I believe y from yeah January to June right okay but the numbers are based on the 23s is a full year so we're really only about well four months out from another year so you telling me in four months we're going to increase by five million if if that's the case hey that that's great I don't see it what I'm saying to you in in four months we could increase by 2.5 to three million and if if if the numbers are still the same as far as motor vehicle stop then the reality is discussion of discretion of person making the motor vehicle stop what they issue so uh I'm I'm just say right now it looks like they worth $5,400 million for something million dollar short the reality is we have four more months left and that may be a $2.5 million increase so I just want to get the accurate number of what we're short yeah I'm million because we're talking about Revenue generation right on on on the police side and you jump over the fire and we talk about Revenue generation and only fire prevention but we don't uh talk about I believe the the necessity for other uh engines or fire folks to be able to come out and write citations as well which they can do correct you mean fire right taxation as far as what the writing of citations not not necessarily the 2C they can on the fire side on inspections that's totally different they go inspect the building there's discrepancies they they write tickets on the police side is based on the discretion of the person that makes the motor vehicle stop is the writing of citations on on a fire side only done by fire prevention Specialist or can can a fire uh uh violation be written uh from a a engine that shows up on on the scene or they have to be trained they have to have the certification and if you don't have the certification you can't write a violation right how many people that we have in all of our engine houses that have the capability of having that certification or have it when we talk about Revenue generation I don't you guys probably missed that the business administrators you know earlier part about how we're moving and forecasting what's happening and we're going to need uh all of these departments uh to play a role and how to figure out to generate and raise revenue uh to be able to help uh what we do here in the city yes councilman um we we tried that program about five six years ago um it didn't work we had this fire well the captains that were promoted they were all certified and we put them in the companies and they went to do inspections and it wasn't successful because at the time the apparatuses were burn more F we have the members out for an extended period of time with the captain it was good for learning the buildings which we still do now but the processing of the paperwork sometime can be time consuming and we'll have the companies out of service for several hours at a time doing inspections and then if we have a fire in the city they can be out of their District or out of their are guess I guess what the councilman is saying that you might want to take a look back at it all right get creative I mean y'all gota be I mean the ba was talking about the need I mean all of us been talking about the need and how our budget is super tight well we we're like basically poor at this point um looking at this budget and so every department has to do their part and looking at how we can bring in more Revenue it's everyone's job and it's especially your job y'all got the biggest binder up here so I mean I mean y'all should be coming here with some presentations on how we get some more Revenue I don't know it's it's a lot it's just all we see is numbers from from you all so I mean at the end of the day it it might be a good time to take a look back at how you can make the program work how you can train people um you know and spend a couple of dollars and training people to you know get some revenue and do some of the inspections and write tickets whatever but I think that's what the councilman is trying to say councilman council did you have any followup questions before we move on that that was it okay councilman Crump thank you council president just to kind of almost to piig back on what you just said um with regards to for instance for the overtime and and I'll just police side not the fire um there's a significant amount of overtime and I know so two things number one when when these more police officers that go through training and get on the on the roles do you expect overtime to decrease significantly the only way overtime would be decreas significantly is us for us to get the full staff where we command every single station properly uh eventually that will decrease with the implementation of the academy and getting these classes through the same thing that happened in the fire department over time was way up and in the past uh what four months since we've had the academy class graduate it's gone down to for the past couple weeks minus uh you know 2% 9% 2% minus 1% as a so how many new police officers would it take for the overtime to decrease I I would assume 10,000 yeah that's a little too if I can imagine say that every year they gonna come back in here still with an overtime list well that there's um certain things that are unavoidable between um uh Manpower constraints call outs sick and distress uh vacations uh that's what really causes the the general cost of the overtime if we ended up putting uh without the loss of the next two years if we put in 150 to 200 offices in that would help decrease the amount of overtime we have Personnel working their shifts and we wouldn't have the man practice trains right now if we have two people call out it's going to cost overtime to back fill so and with with that also you do have reimbursements to some degree but it's only $320,000 in terms of reimbursements is there a discussion expectation or something that the police department will Public Safety will do or is going is looking forward to do that is going to increase reimbursement reimbursement for the overtime for overtime yeah what the uh the ways we can insist is the some of the costs that are overtime generated as I said besides the police department is the events that we uh that we host I said our our our primary overtime expenditures in the police department is is credential Center 845,000 uh other special events which is festivals events are 1 million 1.1 million uh uh the suppression details are 4 million for the shootings and public housing is 1.2 million so right there just those four categories are close to four five six almost s million in overtime which you know can be sign significantly increased I know the B has some request uh in reference to credential Center the other time is the special events that we have to cover that's also gets put in our overtime so is there so for credential and and and let's just let's say credential and others like like that there there's a lot of overtime that's expended by the police department is there any discussion or possibility or probability to have credential or other some of these other organizations reimburse because 320,000 is really a small amount of reimbursement for $30 million and you know I understand significant amount of that is for actual policing which is important and I 100% agree with that but for things like uh uh you know at credential uh and other uh yes the administration is is having discussions I spoke to the ba the ba is having discussion reference that offset those revenues rep Prudential also having C with housing authority offsetting some of those those are constant dialogue to help reduce that Financial constraint through the city I hope it's something that can happen because I you know I I understand the expect the need for the overtime but at some point we need to get some to pay for that instead of us we need somebody pay for that now yeah y'all y'all be there every night um any questions on his side councilman Silva yes good afternoon uh director and thank you Chief directors and everyone for being here uh I personally have a different perspective I know how difficult the job is with you guys uh if I could twist the Ba's arm I would increase your budget but he's much stronger than I am so I can't do that um director the only two things I have sir are I think the council president and I discussed it last year because we're in wards where development are going to Heights that uh have never been seen right here in the city um and we're concerned and I understand that you only have a small percentage of your budget going into equipment and things like that and the the chief last year and I actually discussed things uh what I care about is the safety of our residents but at the same time the safety of our firemen uh to make sure that they have the tools they need to keep our residents safe um we were look we had mentioned last year our our council president of building possibly a uh a central Firehouse that could store equipment because we're going to see 25 30 stories in the near future here and I'm disappointed to see that you only have a small percentage of the budget for the police and fire CU I think that we need to give these firemen and these policemen the tools they need to keep our resident safe and to see only like I said a small percentage go into equipment and other things uh is disappointing to see but uh that's something we could discuss at a later time the other thing director is I know looking back at the first page the number of personnel $24.99 has stayed flat it hasn't gone up uh the City grows every day we pass here uh things to move our city forward and uh again our number one priority is always our residents but we're building more buildings we're build more businesses are opening up and I don't know what the answer is I know you gave councilman counsel a few numbers regarding personnel and retirements and I know it's a difficult task uh we've been battling this for years before you even got here uh I wasn't here but I knew that uh retirement started a while ago a mass retir ments but there has to be a better way to get more cops on the street uh to keep our resident safe I understand the numbers are what they are low in homicides but there are other issues and police response time is one of them that I'm getting feedback from my residents in the East Ward they call the police sometimes they don't show up sometimes they do and I realize that uh we have things here that we can't control such as the retirements people living leaving off off getting injured and leaving officers leaving for uh used to leave for other places but we cut we cut that back thank God but at the end of the day seeing that number flat at $24.99 in public safety to me is disappointed along with the budget for uh given the resources that we need for both police and fire that's it you have resp um yeah so we we do uh the only the only increase that we do have is training for the fire department and equipment there was 1% increase and uh just in reference to Firehouse we've had discussions with the administration in reference to a downtown Firehouse uh because we have a ladder that's truck that's brand new it's one of the largest out for these highriser buildings that are there and going up so there is some discussions to try and get a downtown Fire House equipped to specifically cover the downtown area which includes uh the east in a sense so that's uh and we also asked for an increase in their uh training budget because we have all these new officers because of that fatal in that we had last year being trading emergency management techniques and procedures for high-risk uh uh high impact situations so there is an increase in support for us to try and get that going forward we're hoping as we go forward we can get that across the Finish Line I I think it's inevitable that it has to happen because at the end of the day there's projects in the Central and in the East Ward that within the next two three years will be up and going and if we don't prepare uh for those days the future and the future will be here quicker than you think I think that uh we're leaving uh ourselves open to uh something that tragedy that we don't want to see happen so it's important that we get prepared now because uh these developments will be coming sooner than later before we before I speak to councilman Quintana last year and councilman Silva mentioned it we were talking about buying a ladder for the some well not so much the new buildings because we have buildings up and down freisen Avenue that are more than 15 stories high uh but did we ever purchase that ladder yes okay we did so we have that ladder already we just don't have we don't have storage for it we have storage oh okay we have we within the last two years we took on approximately 13 fire truck okay just good to know just one last question um two questions you just closed the Congress Street Firehouse down was that for uh remediation or was that structural down the East W structural okay so it's been remediated and our phase two is the of The Phoenix Program is for structural Integrity repairs for all the stations and and 191 Orange Street I understand that we're out of there do we have uh where did we put all that apparatus all that equipment that was uh located at 191 orange so we we um have we're we're out of 191 for the most part there's still a couple of items I believe are still there but for the most part we're done there um throughout the city we have different locations that we've put our specialized equipment it's some of is centralized in different locations that are secured lots and stuff um and some we've put and we have other stations that we put stuff in and secured it for the most part so they're accessible if the fire department needs anything in case of emergency they're accessible yes and if we need something emergency we are able to get them but and also we're working on uh a temporary training joint training with Irvington to continue our Hands-On training until we establish a facility similar to what we had at 191 on street so we've uh in the process of uh getting an agreement hold harmness and everything that is needed so that we can safely go up there and train with them which are which is like our sister Department they're right next to us we're constantly in their town for Mutual Aid and they're here so it's a good opportunities for us to work together with them we actually completed the the ba signed to home hold harmless cause and we're going to be using their facility our equipment to train jointly in in emergency responses in fire apparatuses repelling and things of that nature does it come with any Revenue no they're not charging us either I'm just asking like do it come with some money like okay um councilman Quintana yeah Madam president in terms of the overtime of the arenas if you take the nation around the country and I think you need to look into it if you take Staple Center in Los Angeles uh there is a fee that staple center has to pay other Public Safety meaning on the police side on the fire side if you take Madison Square Garden in the city of New York in their in their agreement they have to pay a police in new yar's agreement there's no agreement because the way and by the way I didn't vote for the arena at the time because I knew that there was issues and I knew that $90 million of taxpayers money at the time and my concern continues to have been that there was no negotiations at the time I and I was very ad ofate on this Council about that whole concern about the arena was going to take away from the police officers deploring people out of the city on the snowstorms or or on emergencies because it was going to tie it up somebody has to pay for these things and I don't think on on the backs of the taxpayers we can we got to continue we need to sit down with the arena folks uh because we have had bad deals with the arena it's a great beautiful attraction for new Yark but the people Newark don't live in the arena they live in the neighborhoods and in 1986 as a person who knows this this history of the city 1985 there was issue here and policing was the biggest issue when people called and it was said please hold on until the next available person and you know that John because your father campaigned on that in 1985 and people could not wait so again when police responds is very important but in terms of overtime we need to look at that very on on what happens around the country every entity that has Arenas how do they get uh the funding because or they on the ticket sales on the ticket sales pays for the public safety so we are not getting anything in return because the deal was done through the Housing Authority at the time of the Arena the city was out of the agreement on the another matter engine 28 you said there is approximately the largest senior and public housing is on North 6 Street uh highrise buildings uh of seniors 801 900 that whole area so again I think engine 28 uh on North Street is crucial because if you look at the property around uh six Street there is so much property there that another building could be built built next to it and again the other matter is the firehouses the precincts look uh we can be poor we can be we can make we can have some presentation uh Flags in front of the place make it look nice make it attractive if you go to any given Town their firehouses and police there there the entrance gives you an appearance of what it looks like we come to these police precincts and they're atrocious our people have to sit on benches to wait for family that are just deplorable so again we had talked at one time the pro building that uh in the northw councilman Gonzalez remember the time about building behind Grafton Avenue that whole area before it was talked about a Hort it was talked about all these things and they had talked to creating some kind of facility where would house police and fire in case of things but there is property within the city we can't give it away uh to developers we need to build deel give it to the people who need these operations and you need it because if I I looked at these firehouses and the conditions are just deplorable and we got to do better and it's not you this is how this has been an ongoing situation since 19 since the 1980s since the 80s that continues to be the problem our men women need to work in good settings and good settings where ocean doesn't have to come and say you're you're in violation so again these are the things I like to see please we can't wait for a fire to take place on on North 6 Street by people from M Prospect with Park Avenue come people can't wait when you're in that situation so I I just want to just put that and no it's just no reflecting on anyone because I support police I love police I have always been a supporter and champion of police my son is a police off my daughter's a police officer so I understand their conditions how they should be and and you know we have good men and women in this police department and in the fire department so that's give them a good job setting so then they go to work it's an environment where they can have a clean Locker and they can have the facility appropriately for them this is just what I want to put on this record for this budget find some money has fixed these uh facilities make sure uh we chip in and buy you some flags and put them in front of places American flags thank you all right thank you uh so much councilman Quintana any other comments before we have to move on to one more things I'm out councilman Council and councilman Gonzalez yeah I I just wanted to know about uh the theou last year we talked about the the Watershed the police the apparatuses up there when we talk about Revenue Generation Um what what role are we playing in terms of ticket writing up at the Watershed and if there's aou in place to to make sure that that happens because again we miss a lot of Revenue uh for individuals who are up there on the weekends Friday Saturday Sundays uh on city property doing things that they should not be doing illegally fishing legally hunting trapping for animals and we we need to be aggressive and trying to generate revenue from that area and I know that there was some discussion uh around this before about putting apparatuses and things in place drones and all of these uh other mechanisms uh and putting some security up there uh but where are we in terms of Revenue generation have we written any tickets what what does that look like in terms of Revenue and how many tickets have we written for the clear Zone ordinance like what is the revenue on that as well do we have any revenue on on the clear Zone ordinance that that we passed up here okay one of the first part of question is is the watered uh that was a process that we had a discussion about starting a a small group of I believe six or eight police officers be assigned there uh with the assistance of DPW and getting the place built for that factor as we went forward it was at some point decided that it was more it was uh as far as cost and funing to pay for it was more important at that point in time we ended up opening up the Metro ninth Precinct to separate the the major major overflow of over 8,000 jobs that they had in the East that we had a problems with the the the park there the the train station so we opened up this Precinct and slightly downsized each Precinct to engulf the new ninth Precinct to give more res to keep it downtown safe because downtown is the Mecha center of the financial um apparatus of this city to keep going forward so that has F the ways as far as uh uh support and Personnel to put there but all of this revolves around the main thing um uh Personnel constraints that that you have to actually send uh you know four cars and eight people signed on a Pitman to there every sing day of the week so there's nobody out there're doing active enforcement in the facility there's personel that Loop the area but not to the extent where they're just doing patrols these are just all personnel and financial constraints that we have to decide on what's most important to uh to get complete this time and this time the down are was a lot more important uh for the revenue uh there is patrols up there we do have patrols by all the local up there but those tickets are written in those areas where they're patroling the areas also uh in reference to the clear Zone I have to get those numbers for you on right yeah so oh we don't have any of those so on on the clear Zone we don't have any uh numbers on the clear Zone numbers we have to get some numbers clearone director we have to get some numbers that means we have to start enforcing and we cannot leave 35,000 acres of land just you know unenforced that that is not a good sign that that's city property 35,000 acres of land is city property we have to come up with some strategy uh to monitor it to make sure that the folks that are up there using our land illegally that we're not getting tickets written we're not getting revenue from like we have to figure out a strategy how we do that that's that's why we have all these Partnerships if it's the water department DPW if it's hiring other kind of folks to put up there this Revenue just would wrap itself around and help with the people that we put in place so it wouldn't put a hindrance or strain on the organization would probably help the organization with the amount of illegal fishing that is happening up there the amount of dirt bike illegal dirt bike riding the amount of trespassing all on the property all of those tickets and revenue can be generated back here because the West Milford Police are only concerned about what's happening on the peripheral they write their tickets and they'll keep their summonses and in the meantime once they go inside of all of our property right there is nothing nothing there uh for enforcement measures so I'm just hopefully down the line you know we can we can work with the the ba to help generate some Revenue they did did generate there we would have to get with all those departments because while they're there the incidents are happening in those jurisdictions so it it's not a total revenue for here it's a split cost of the jurisdiction where the the court that they would go to court in that matter so that would be a discussion we've had those discussions and I'm sure we'll restart again with the business administrator in the city to make sure we can go forward with that okay Council M Gonzalez yes three three things one is let's say I believe that we have a an agreement with Arena where we pay $2.7 million I believe it is for H the taxes that we the the taxi or what is it the the parking tax that we pay them for they were supposed to pay us rent we ended up paying them $2.7 million a year I believe there's space there to negotiate them returning some of that money to the city for what the services that the city provide them ER second ER I believe that they say if we were to enforce ER drinking public drinking let's say you get you get more money going after the people people that are drinking on our streets that you would get from people let say from going to the Watershed and and enforcing the law in the Watershed we have a lot of people that are drinking on our streets and we don't do anything the other thing that we have and somebody complained to us is the the different methods that are out there of Transportation The Muppets The all that illegal ER motorcycles with no helmets getting doing wheelies in front of City Hall you go to you go to Broadway ER sometimes I go there to smoke a cigar and the show is the motorcycles doing wheelies in front of the supermarket in front of the Casa del tobacco nobody enforces it let's say police officers go by their side and nobody enforces it I believe that we have there's a lot of opportunities for increasing Revenue but we are not we are not making sure that we are let's say enforcing the law sometimes it behooves me to think they say why is it that we don't let's say block the street and this this motorcycles can go anywhere you have 50 motorcycles going on Broadway so why don't you block the street and they are they are let's say dead on the water but we are not doing anything and I believe that let's say the towns around us let's say if you go to Clifton and you do that they are going to to block the street if you go to Beville they they don't go to bille they don't go to Bloomfield they come to New York and they do it in nework we have to do better okay yes sir we'll work on that the only thing I can say is that in reference to credential the ba has had discussions with me and is going to have discussions with um uh discussions on support and payment for all the cost for the overtime in reference to the Seas motorcycles um we we can't really block streets off because we have to give them an egress and point out or us will'll be responsible for any accidents that happened because we trapped them and didn't give them a way out so those are we can't block off roads to stop motorcycles from going and they're small enough they'll probably try and squeeze through and somebody would get hurt we do have a ordinance that that the council did VI in sign last year that gave us the opportunity to prevent them from getting fuel so the the cases of motorcycles uh uh off road bikes being ridden the city has decreased in the past year or so because of that that um that uh that approval that you guys put out there in order for us to actually seize the motorcycles and Destroy them once we receive them they also can't go to gas stations and get gas or the motorcycle that's not licensed so there has been avenues that we've put in place to reduce those and that that statute came from Georgia city and all larger cities have Incorporated that statute to help us enforce uh these motorcycles but we do have to do better uh it's not a matter of not doing better there's a no matter what we have what we do every day there's some room for improvement and that's what we look forward to working with you and and the ba have we wrote tickets for gas stations how much have we made on writing tickets to gas stations do we have that number we have done it but I'll get that number for you that would be something that we can get a research on the numbers we have I would be curious to know how many tickets we given out to gas stations for giving out gas to mopeds I mean I I would love to see that um one thing I'll I'll end on before we go to our next department is every week we come in here um director Morris has the pleasure um to sit here with us on many days while we're here and we hear people come up and they talk about the lack of enforcement in traffic um and obviously you can see that with the decrease in the numbers for you guys on the tickets that you have not written or written um however you want to look at it and something is wrong with that because we have people continue to complain like sometimes folks even send us like videos they'll show us people who are constantly breaking the law in certain areas usually director Morris uh gets those complaints of different areas where constantly folks are just breaking the law and police officers could be right there in their car they don't pull them over people send pictures all the time so that's definitely something to take a look at as a department in terms of how do you beef back up enforcement um how do we could put our you know traffic or what what whichever Department it is uh traffic whatever to get them back into the swing of things and just like I said last year we were here and I talked about the trucks the tractors we then this Council changed the ordinance to increase the fines and still people do not have tickets on those tractors those tractors are parked throughout the city for days Days sometimes I take pictures and I send them specifically to my captains I look I stop I get out to see if there's a ticket there there's no ticket Revenue just being left it's just dangling right in front front of y'all right like you know just dangling like lights for you to be able to capture to be able to write a ticket to tractors of people who don't even live here they are not from here they Park their truck they get in their car they leave and go where they are going and we just let the tractor stay there comfortably like just sitting there you know no ticket there is revenue dangling and you need it yeah you you you need it badly so it's just a matter of you know re reinforcing some things to be able to get some Revenue especially for people who are breaking the law um this is why we have these ordinances on books this is why we work hard to do them so that we can be able to enforce them and that is what we should be focused on um right there commercial vehicles everything folks just you know having a great time you want to have some free parking come here to the city of Nork that's what they say you don't pay for no yard parking come here you know pull up right here in the city and so there's opportunity for you to be able to write those folks tickets and write them one each day but that they stay there that is what we should be doing councilman I just want to pick you back on what you're saying council president on J right in front of JFK on that street every day they're parking trucks are parking there in fact they're so bold that there was a car carrier there the other day I mean oh yeah I know it's it's it's just it's agrees at this point and I think you know I agree 100% with you yeah I mean I could I mean I could just matter of fact I dedicate my time I come with y'all for part-time to go write some tickets because at the end of the day it is just a lot of folks out there breaking the law and no one is you know doing I wouldn't say no one but there there should be a different level of addressing it lastly I will say that I was looking through the major priorities through this uh thick binder of money um and I didn't see anything on here about my precin again um this been going on you know for well I don't know what year we're in of me not having a a first precent anymore and still today still don't have one I'm still looking at a substation trailer place that has been there for a long time and community MERS want to know when will a first precent be built again what are we doing first I was just looking at the trailer now there's like a black f a black uh I don't know like a cover that hangs in front of it um what are we doing because it's not on here on the list of your major priorities in reference to uh the the first precinct that's more discussion that we should have with uh I guess I brought with the be in the city on funding it and finding a location to put it uh uh when it was um uh I wouldn't say taken away when it was changed that was also a a discussion asked to go through Council in the city discuss I wouldn't have a problem pushing forward with that we still got to find money space and to to let that go forward also somebody gonna have to I mean somebody gon have to tell me something like I want to answer like you know like I said I have been courteous this Council has been courteous I have filtered lots of phone calls folks to lots of residents and they're not calling you they call me when I'm at Community meetings they're complaining to me about why there's no first prec why there is no precin being built after we talked about it for a long time so someone is going to have to tell me like what the change was what we're doing especially when we have all of these nice new buildings coming up uh through the police that are you know being built like you know really quickly which I appreciate um I really do but we need to have some answers for the community regarding the first prec and it needs to be better than there's been some changes so you know I welcome responses in writing or a followup because the residents of the central Ward want to know what's happening with the first precinct like it's at this point it's just like straight up honestly disrespectful to Residents and honestly to me uh because we're on year and this is before you director and the chief but we're on like uh probably year three or four of that first precin being closed and still nobody has any answers so we I need to know what's happening so that concludes our session with Public Safety because you guys have been so great here today I'm going to invite you downstairs to the Rotunda there's some dinner down there for you to take home with you thank you very much for your time man and just the thing is not in your budget shha it's free oh yeah we're GNA take you up on it there's um nothing there Cent decree C decree for you Chief big steak down there for you right Chief sace yep sauce everything run in two days you could run it off on Wednesday all right next Department Department of Water and Sewer utilities all right Water and Sewer yes I left they [Music] all right so um director hello good evening to you and your team thank you so much for your patience I know we are behind schedule and I know you all want to get home so thank you so much for waiting around for us you guys know Public Safety usually soaks up all of the time all right do you have an opening statement yes I'm G pass it around Council council president um um good evening um council president council members Administration people just watching on TV residents um the water department is in a better place than it was 10 years ago 10 years ago we sat here you know and we faced a report that came out that said we needed almost 1.4 billion in infrastructure improvements I want to thank this Council I want to thank this administration because in the last 10 years not including the Leed service line project we've invested over 500 million doll in our water and wastewater infrastructure and because of those investments in our Capital infrastructure we're in a better place in that better place has allowed us to invest in our equipment our human infrastructure right our personnel has come in we've brought in a robust and diverse Personnel to help us move us into the next Century um by investing in our infrastructure and Technology we continue to move forward um this 247 operation here in water in sewer our response time continues to remain uh very adequate and prei with the residents um we continue to to improve in uh infrastructure uh starting with our phase two security project up at the Watershed you know our uh security drones are at full operation um we we operate them every day um 24hour surveillance that we provide throughout our 37,000 Acres of of watered sometime we say 35 um that helps us include protecting some of our most valuable resources that's one of our security drones that you can see in the in in the council chambers has a camera on if you look around you can see that this although it's do this today it does a lot make sure we turn that around so payers can see can you bring it out so the taxpayers can fee can you bring it out some more on the ba on the ba it's moer than a helicopter wow that was I mean yeah okay clap it up for director de just for the residents who are viewing who are on for us that is our new drone system that we uh purchased here in the city for the Watershed right yes yes amazing that that that's amazing it's loud but it's it's nice it's really really nice this is diversion a diversion for and I'm sure councilman Gonzalez who has been advocating for a drone for like 10 years he is EC static did you get training you did you get training on [Laughter] it that's great good job uh director adem I think we'll go down in history first time we had an actual presentation like that in the chamber so congratulations to you and your team for finally getting to the 21st century because it's 21st century surveillance and keeping up with the times and technology and while people think it's like a jokey joke it's not a joke to be able to have this kind of equipment and be you know really elevating our uh systems and our uh equipment uh here in the city so good job to you and your team thank you couns president and I just want to say as we finished our final steps of our $22 million filter upgrade and operational improvements at the Panic Water Treatment Plant this allows us because of this infrastructure to start to look forward to working on increasing our bulk water cells to Neighborhood towns and communities though I can't share those communities names or who we are actually negotiating with um before somebody else come in we are looking to continue to increase our bulk water cells because of the upgrades that we do in our water system every day which brings in additional Revenue to the to the water department and our residents our budget slightly increased by $7.8 million between the two utilities this is due to uh drainage improve ments designs and capital outlaid in in addition to our depth service that we that we that we pay out to continue to upgrade our water and waste water system in the in the nicker time council president I'm GNA pause right here um and just take any questions that we have I don't want to take up anyone's more time than I all right thank you so much director de councilman Silva yes thanks director just a quick uh question the last several weeks with all the rain has shown us that we have a serious problem in the city um I can only speak for the East Ward but I'm assuming that councilman Council probably had some issues on freelin highs and other areas um is there a plan to correct this because as long as I've been living in the East Ward which is my entire life I'm not going to reveal my age uh this has been an issue is there something in place to fix this situation because it cripples a lot of people businesses residents uh the water eventually does go away but the damage has been done to these people and to these businesses so I was just wondering if there is something in place here to uh Abate the issue or to at least help the issue uh so that when we get this type of rainfall it seems like now with all this global warming and everything that's going on these rainfalls that come down uh several inches in hour are really really really causing damage to our communities council president Council councilman Silva yes um the projects that we've done over the last 10 years have mitigated the pro mitigated the flooding however we can't be mother nature climate change is real a sea level rise is real um you you you've answered some of your question the the the rain from the flood we getting four three or four inches at one time or the intensity of the rainstorms or very high intensity drops a lot of water this the repairs or the infrastructure that we upgrade over the last couple years allows us to get it out after the rain events are over however we can't be mother nature you know we we try to stay in front of Mother Nature but the storms are getting bigger and bigger right stronger and stronger and more intense right now we did uh look at the Port Authority we got a project that's coming on at an Street school that will give us some additional storage uh we got a $12 million grant that we was awarded early this year um from the DCA and the the EPA North Jersey resiliency study so that would take place down there to capture and uh retain some of the water during large rain events however we were on a call with the Port Authority um I want to say last Friday it's another project that we're going to look to try to in conjunction with the Port Authority look to dredge and improve some of our ditches that's around um the nor which would be the perennial ditch Queen ditch so a lot of the stuff we have opened up but we do notice that some of our ditches that were built over 150 160 years ago need to be rehabilitated that may be stabilized from the the removing of settlement to just ensuring the bank load our engineering team sits here uh right here and these are projects they're working on dilcy so again we try to stay in front of the rain um in the floods and if you'll notice from Freeland height and AV to South and Adam Street to palas Street to Foundry Street the water is not staying there for hours right Wilson Avenue is standing there for during the heavy intense rain event but we are getting it out faster because of some of those improvements we did in the last 10 years I just want to have one more question I know you have a truck or how many trucks do you have that actually clean our um our our catch basins and all that stuff are they active uh every day of the week or it's just utilized when we get a complaint uh the the catch Bas and cleanup truck is it something that's always going you have two men assigned there I don't know how many trucks you have uh but I know you do have one at least to my knowledge that I've seen are those guys that's their job that's their sole job to clean out all the catch basins or it's only when we get uh complaints no we have a 247 operation I mean those Trucks ride seven days a week am Miss three trucks we have three catch Basin cleaning trucks and we got two additional trucks if we needed that can do that type of cleaning however those three catch basing trucks go out each Ward every day right but we can pull one truck off and we have an emergency somewhere to go somewhere else so we try to send them in different Wards every day we're responsible by law to inspect and clean about 10,000 catch Bas a year and the last question is the master meter reading when will that all be completed so right now we're in the we're in our uh pilot program the temporary meters are already in these are they're getting data for us so once we I think we got 90 days to finish this up after the 90 days we'll be going into the final design of the Master Meter so we put temporary meters in all those locations so we can collect data so we making sure we designed the meters the right way thank you okay uh other questions for the director director I'm sorry uh councilman Council yes I I don't I don't have much um councilman Silva asked a question about uh catch basing uh program and initiative uh wanted to talk uh a little more about the Safety and Security uh up at the water shed 35,000 acres of land we heard from our public uh service folks we've seen the Drone come in but is there a way uh working in collaboration and I may may have to even go back to the business administrator and we pull us as some kind of triangular thing where we talking about hiring police Rangers to be able uh to stay in that area that operates out of the police budget uh but maintains that area in the higher role and responsibility not just for Ticket writing and Revenue Services but for maintaining and watching our you know most valuable resource uh which is our water and then um secondly we talk about Revenue uh Generation Um kind of pieces um and and and I was thinking as as a council body uh with the amount of uh illegal conversions that are taking place uh in the city and folks turning on water illegally to move people in um the the movement in terms of what does that look like uh having uh officer or someone related on the water side uh to be able to monitor it as well to help assess a fee or fine uh to individuals who do such uh heinous acts in the city uh Council president councilman councel I'm just far with the Watershed um we're still uh working on a variety of different projects to increase our security when I talk about phase two the security Improvement project it's not only the drones it's our infrared security but with the human presence we're looking to increase that too I know director FR said something about the focus was really to get the Metro Center up in place however we he did draft all those M us and all those documents for us to move forward we just need to meet again and brush that off remember you did pass a contract for us to upgrade this Council this body to upgrade the Verizon building into our security building so we're still looking forward to having that we're also in in conjunction with talking in conjunction with the law department and West Milford we need to update our fire tower so if that happens between West Milford and their police communication system that would give us additional resources right to lower them in to provide a better security on our land they need us now is the time that we make sure that we hold them accountable right hold their feet to the fire to give us what we need and and and the state and the state deficient game so we're we're constantly um and the highlands Council we it's a number of discussions that's going on that's taking place now about not only waterers share protection protecting out quality of water but also securing those areas right the hike and trails and things like that um a lot of this stuff isn't done overnight because new got to make sure that we're getting that we're maximizing the benefit that we're going to get right it's a it's a status quo that everybody gets everything and we get the short end of the stick I'm not too I'm not looking to give in I'm looking to receive more right on this end like we've normally just went and took what took anything that they gave us we want to get more from them um is there security that then you have armed security there right no oh so there's still no armed security no um I mean that's something thing um I know that we the the longer plan is definitely what we what the councilman was asking about to to director frj I think that's the longterm plan but I think this city should be able to spare some armed security guards um there um the reason being is because uh locations like that are open to terroristic threats you know that is a serious problem we've been fortunate here I mean God has been great to us us here um that many acres unbothered unfortunately we have matters that happen like we just had a gentleman who drowned there last month um because people think they can you know take a dip and you know go swimming and that's unfortunate for that person's family and definitely prayers to them and whatever we have to deal with legally with that but I think you know in 2024 um it will cost us less more um if something tragic was to happen terrorist ically of there versus us having a couple of armed security guards or Shi or two up there would be helpful so I'm going to ask the ba um to work with you all to be able to try to get a detail there of the armed security guards that we have there to be able to assist because that is like just leaving the you know open borders to allow anything to happen um you know on our water system you know here in the city and hopefully folks are not watching this listening to us talk about it um and thinking having any thoughts about it but I think it it's worth doing uh so if the ba can work uh with the director like I said here the long-term plan but sometimes those things take longer versus having some immediate um uh security there thank you uh I'm sorry councilman council did you have another followup that was it chair thank you okay uh councilman Gonzalez I was blown out of the water with that uh with what you had the demon he loves it made his day say I have been I have been proposing that for at least 10 years and I'm glad that that we can see it ER I believe that it should be ER let's say it should be V Vigilant in the in the Watershed because I I believe that say if we have a chemical ER let's say somebody goes there cont contaminates that water with chemicals or whatever we can have a huge liability problem that could be solved or perhaps avoided by having let's say drones and perhaps a couple of let's say people going around on a regular basis on the on the Watershed but I believe that H what concerns me on the budget is the line that says miscellaneous expenses and you have 50 something million dollars so what is that what is that line on the miscellaneous expenses what page you page 2013 we have $ 58 million almost $59 million of miscellaneous expenses in the water in the water ER Department two of3 let me see the front of your book councilman Gonzalez the front front of your book this is the the one yeah he's looking at the full one I figured that we still should have it though it's a second page of the water budget the Water Division 58 58 58 58 I I suppose those are oh two we found the count you found it yes so so the miscellaneous expenses right um come to 58 million that's some of the payments we make mandatory payments related around Pake Valley and stuff that we pay out of the water utilities so it's not all Pake Valley but some of them the majority is what you pay to P Valley yes so your Revenue includes what you collect from let's say that belongs to Pake Valley well we pay Pake Valley up front no no they say they say you have revenue seource revenue let's say $71 million that 71 million includes the portion that is let's say attributable to P Valley yes so and then you pay B Valley for the use of the facilities okay okay Council M thank you thank thank you council president just a quick question with regards to uh uh when you water shut offs so so you know you and I have talked about this previously about uh uh shutting off water to buildings and particularly to those who are um just egregious and and not paying their bills are you finding going forward or at least since this is been and I'm not judging or saying yes or no about it but do you find that when you're shutting off the water that you are getting a better response from those building owners and and connect actually colting revenue from them or is it just still flat and they're just not following through or paying bills council president council member um Crump we find that you know it's some foul players but it's a very small Fu um as a last result this Administration this Council we don't want to turn people water off is a there programs out there that not only the city provides uh funding right but the DCA and we got several different options of doing payment plans from promise PID to the water Ure a own plan to the DCA paying your water bill in full however the players that we talking about this that that allow stuff to happen they're in violation for a variety of different things but as a last response is the only way we turn people water off as the last response and when we do that we do get a rush of calls but we get a good response just want to remind everybody on the water the water and Department um our budget is on the revenue we collect from people paying their water and sewer bill if you don't pay that water and sewer bill we can't treat the water that we're providing we can't pay the employees that's in the Water and Sewer Department including me or buy the materials to fix water main braks or sewer breaks like you saying getting the flooding out or getting the water down so we do recognize that it's a certain group that every year that chooses not to pay their water bill right and the CA has stepped in now to start dealing with them and the administration is is fully aware of that and we're happy about that right some other thing I think it's criminal the things they do right they collect the money and don't pay their water bills when everyone else should be paying their water bill but we do get a a good response they had a good response and when um when the folks and this might be not a question for you but I'm just curious to want to know um when they don't pay their water bill and we shut them off like some of the residential buildings that we have do that does that generate a court case for them do they go to court yes we notify I don't know if they go to court but we immediately notify code enforcement code comes out and reaches out to the owner it could lead to court I don't know how many court cases went to court because we're worried about more about getting the money and they do the oh yeah I'm sure yeah I'm not saying that's why I said it's not specifically for you just want to know from the administration but I will put a extra cave on that and ask the C to ask the ba to give us a list of those buildings just this year alone we had a few that had their water cut off and how many of them went to court and got an additional fine for that want to know that if Madam clerk if we can put that in right into the ba and other departments to ask that because see that be that that's really the issue sometimes not so much you know well the issue is they don't pay their water bill but what we do to follow up is the problem you know we we should be getting people uh these landlords these slum landlords who do not pay their water bill we should be getting them back um as hard as we can U because these residents they're calling they're hurt they're paying their rent but their water is cut off and it's really it's just unacceptable on so many different levels so would love to see that information from the administration um counc M that was it thank you any other questions for uh director Dean all right seeing none um I I will say that U oh counil Gonzalez you have one more you have one more okay go home well we got one more Department one more yeah one more can can he just give out the can you give out the number to where individuals can reach out and if there is a fire hydrant that is missing and there's a resident that may need to get in contact for that fire hydrant replacement so I know we have a grant program uh that's part of our Capital program to make sure we repair and get fire hydrants back in places uh but sometimes I think some of our residents could confused over who to reach out to the fire department or the water department so if if there is a number uh that residents know if there's a fire hydrant that is broke that is disabled that is not working who do they reach out to what number to call uh council president councilman councel the number you would call is 973 733 6303 973 733 6303 um however Council councilman Council I want to let you know that the fire department and water and sewer do two annual inspections the spring and the fall inspection in real time we track how many hydrants are down and every night we update all the hydr that we repair and put in a lot of the hydr are missing because of accident so once we get the accident report we schedule it to be replaced or repaired that's an annual program got it one last question I was going to ask when is the last time we've had the um US Army corpse of engineer come out to look at our flooding here the city in conjunction with engineering the US Army corpse is also is I mean is actively in the city right now looking at the flood wall around the P River okay got it all right just wanted to double check on that we're not the only Town um in New Jersey that's facing crazy flooding it's not a norc problem it is a literally a nation problem as many folks are seeing infrastructure issues and how um you know local governments can't afford to fix the problems I think that needs to be put out there because while while we talk about hey what are we doing how do we fix it it's it can't get fixed off you know empty dollars someone has to pay for it and usually that cost is to taxpayers you know or on the city's budget to fix it and many of those things are federal issues that they need to provide assistance to to multiple um States and municipalities so just was wondering had theyve been included on that and you know hopefully some dollarars would be coming soon uh to be able to address those many issues especially here in Newark but it's you know all throughout uh different cities that are having these issues so thank you so much director just like I invited Public Safety you all are welcome to dinner downstairs there should be plenty um left we're having a event downstairs well I'm having an event but I'm here um to kick off of making strides against breast cancer event so we have dinner downstairs and there's some folks so grab some food on the way out and C I just want to thank my team for coming out right thank they very dedicated to upgra our infrastructure right yes water and sewer yes best presentation so far you winning you winning director de thank you have a good night whole team all right next Department last department is the law Department te all right law they should be quick most of their most of their budget in contract so made the Corporation Council come up by itself after team water oh I'm disappear I was about to say what what what you got yeah y y'all ain't bring nothing I came with a you a you a you don't have a show and tell you don't have anything with you no I'm not that talented man I'm sad y'all had to be last today so good evening Law Department it's good to see you guys again you guys and girls uh Corp council do you have an opening statement very briefly uh good good evening of course um you know thank you for having us uh of course for the record my name kenat St I'm the city of nor Corporation Council to my right I have Michelle Nelson who's one of our first assistants here to my left Shantel boram who's the chief of staff and the Law Department um as you all know the department is made of majorly four uh sections um our litigation section contracts labor and contract labor section and municipal prosecut office uh we have depending on the day uh 43 at the moment uh staff members which includes uh 23 lawyers and 20 uh staff members um who do clerical work throughout of course we have the pleasure of working with all the Departments including the city council and of course Madam Clerk and her staff uh throughout to make sure we try to work together to get things done we're willing to answer any question that the council may have okay questions from Council Members councilwoman Scott rry thank you council president I've been really quiet because my colleagues have been asking all of the questions and I don't want to Bel labor the hour my concern is the vacancies there are nine vacancies there office supervisors I know there's some attorneys so I would like to really know uh Corporation councel how are we moving forward to fill those vacancies because the truth be told if those vacancies are there that means that the workload is on somebody in that office from the office supervisor to the attorneys uh councilwoman around of course through the rest of the council members um as you know the work don't stop um and that's you know uh five people or 500 people the work isn't gonna stop the city is continuing to grow um and I will say that you know through the kpis and things of that nature uh we we are would report every two weeks to the mayor and to the ba and of course to the administration of how much more activity is happening your Council knows it uh uh through HR and of course through I would say for the most part Sean Tor was to my left here uh we've been interviewing people like no other um uh HR has provided about 25 resumés uh names from all over one person didn't even speak English as far as the words on the paper weren't even in English uh I think it was like Japanese or something like that but people were interested uh we we did interview most of the people we thought fit the criteria uh we do expect for us to have a large number of people come in quite frankly uh today we had somebody come in today for their first day uh we have somebody scheduled to come in the next two weeks which is the next pay period and then in September we have three other people coming in so we we expecting a decent amount of people I think there may be one more person in the pipeline coming through and we hope that person can start in September um we have been actively speaking to different judges in reference to you know the opportunity hire their law clerks and things that nature because they have one kind of year of training they're young they want to learn and we have a balance of trying to get Young Folks and of course more ceson folks and as you know more season folks you you try to get the right ceson folk because some season folks are like you know this is their last harah and we don't want them to be lazy on the flip side uh you want to get some folks with some knowledge I just you said that not us about Seas I want I put that on put that on record I mean you know I'm making my way it's record I'm just saying go ahead I want to um commend and thank Shantel and Mrs Nelson uh Corporation Council Stuart because uh they have been very very helpful with most of the matters that I forwarded to them to assist you um and I want to thank you for dealing with a Personnel issue um that needed to be addressed immediately you did not sleep on it and anything that affects um law can affect this entire city if it's not handled properly uh so thank you and just take care of those vacancies thank you I I do want to take a note out though that you know folks can um how do I say this nicely um we can only attract Talent when we pay Talent that's right and um the Law Department there are people who are lawyers um who spend a lot of time in school um lots of loans and they make less than many people that we've seen come across our line today on this budget items and this has been something that we' spent a lot of time talking about about how do we level uh folks positions and their work and their qualifications and the most important the requirements um based upon the salaries that they make which is a struggle we have here I'm sure many other Industries have the same one but we have it here and we have to do something about that because you cannot attract uh you know good talent and attorneys who have lots of loans waiting on them and lots of bills rather young or seasoned uh they do not want to come here and make pennies um and then see others making lots of money so it's just something that we have to address and have to continue to work hard to address in order to fill vacancies so I just wanted to point that out so council president I will say uh timing is everything uh we have been in Long discussions with with folks in HR we have uh come to a space where we made an at least an agreement understanding uh HR is actually actively and I've Ed the word actively on purpose uh you know putting a increase in the salaries for the people who are here uh they've been advertising in reference to a higher starting amount uh so we can at least try to attract people when it comes to you know certain level of of an attorney for a lack of better words and the harsh reality is that um listen life isn't perfect but people don't want to work for crumbs and uh We've we're at that place where we're doing it now the ba has been involved to a higher level uh the mayor is certainly involved and uh HR is involved as well okay thank you for that other questions for law Council Council yes I I I know we have systems in place as it relates to contracts that we have with multiple vendors but there also needs to be some kind of survey of you know best practices work related um how we fair with these different vendors so that we're able to have this information uh with us uh especially when we're talking about trying to renew uh different contracts who's been really doing the work um that the city is Contracting them out for in terms of getting this partnership relationship going because we do spend a lot of money on outside Council we want to recognize that we get the best bang for our buck at all times and in order to do that we have to ensure that there's some systems in place internally to make sure that we're monitoring them externally so I just want to oh certainly uh you know I did I actually had a long talk with the ba today in reference to you know making some changes in the law department and one of the things we did talk about what system in place uh internal and for outside Council things of that nature I will say that you know any day any moment we can have a bulk of cases come through the door and that may be because some you know horrific incident have happened or it may be a situation where unfortunately uh folks May sue us by mistake sometimes we get that folks May sue the county sue the city and Sue everybody else and involved and then we still have to defend it and get to a place uh but I will say that as far as systems it's uh we thought we at least had a decent amount of systems we recognize and appreciate that we should add some more to make sure we tighten it up he any other questions for law it's kind of dry because you didn't bring up anything to show us so I'm joking you didn't have you didn't break like a show and toils like I can't listen unfortunately all of our tricks are on paper after the Drone you can't it's hard I mean I don't really counil gal said he loved the Zone syndrome so you know he got zoned out after the Zone oh my god well I mean that was a joke folks who were watching on watching on I don't want anybody to say oh they're joking no we're we're just you know making fun of the um the hour you know you have to have fun in this councilman Gonzalez you had a followup question he submitted the the the budget of the last minute so we don't have time to review it I don't know about that no they had their budget submitted it today I received it today last week last week well I mean everybody else I had for a week maybe they were holding it away from you it's it's been here though yeah I got mine last week yeah I got M teas that's teaser I I um I will end on this note I just want to say that the prosecutor is still underneath you right the prosecutor's office you know I just can't let you just leave here without uh bringing that up because it is a contributor to our issues here as it relates to court and tickets and uccc and code enforcement and every time I come and I always say the same thing for the last couple of years like what do we do to address the issues out of the prosecutor's office to the court office those different layers it's like a whole layer you know of why we just can't seem to make people pay here in this city you know I don't I don't know what it is what is the breakdown of that and so I continue to bring that to you because I just can't let you leave here without me saying what you know is the the the breakdown and the problems I know it's multiple I know it's multiple layers but sometimes on many occasions and you know this because we have to copy you to be able to try to get some response about what is happening with certain cases and different things that you know relate around slum landlords that we have here in the city that we spend hours here on this Council hearing about every week about folks who just don't do right by our residents so it's definitely something that we should really try to address and what we can do better um to be able to have that department you know working collab collaboratively uh with the other departments to be able to you know get our fair share here in this city so I I will say that um I was listening to some of the questions that were asked I actually have three different uh questions two different answers to the different questions that some council members might have asked other people in reference to the administration but uh one of the things that I do recognize is that um we've had some struggles with specific locations council president is no secret you and I have talked about on several occasions uh we've tried to uh find a way to address some of the issues um I will also say that um you know we the law department has a two-part like a two-prong process process now uh through the you know Through The Eyes of the of the mayor and administration um one part is the co is the code enforcement prosecutor side the other part is the code enforcement and everyone else on the special project side um so yes it's 100% true we do need to make sure that uh some of these landlords pay their Fair sheare uh we have been going to court getting you know other um activity done when it comes to receiverships and things of that nature when it comes to addressing some of these issues I mean Council uh men uh Council knows that we just in this last week in in his W I think twice last week in reference to some of the issues um I'm actually actively working with cinthia and with uh director wooden in reference to some folks that were in uh landlord attendant court because of an issue with Islam landlord dealing with some of those you know trying to give folks some uh leeway because of some of the issues that's been going on so I'm 100% with you I did ask the crazy question because I was crazy enough to ask because I thought it would be question to come to us I said what are we averaging uh per month when it comes to fines and assessments uh that we are when it comes to just code and what I understand is over $100,000 and finds an assessment per month how much over $100,000 oh that's it I mean I'm not say I mean you know it's not to Dro in the bucket but my point is hear me out my point is it's proof that some of it is working and and it's a whole lot that's not working so we need to address it it's a whole lot that's not working I'm just want to tell the ba back there there's your money uh I know that it's dangling right there in front of us just looking at us dancing us to get all you gotta do is grab it I do know that got all you gotta do is look look Mr ba all you gotta do is go like this that's it right there well one of the questions that you asked yourself was about um water shut offs and in that whole process of course as I just mentioned the two-prong process that's been going on we've been getting folks in court in uh Superior Court on one side but once code enforcement rights to ticket they're in Municipal Court in reference to the same issue when it comes to that violation of having water and things of that nature and to tell you the truth uh most of it is the the landlord is running to pay it faster right so they they pay it before we even have a chance to like address it but as again one of things that we're dealing with when it comes to Municipal Court well we had some cases where people were out for days oh no I heard so they don't be moving too fast and even if they move fast even if they go do it in five minutes they need to pay still you need to pay there should be something that says you should have never let the water get cut off for those residents and because of that 5,000 10 I don't care what it is 10 it should be a lot of money that they have to pay for making that happen because it is a inconvenience to Residents who pay their rent if they didn't pay they would be in court they would be trying to put them out and there would be no understanding for them so we should have no understanding for them here that's the way that it is everyone has to pay their bills they have to pay their fair share here and these folks should be paying it regardless if they go get a cut back on on the same day they should have never let it happen for them and and the reason why I'm saying is because we all have to deal with it here all of us we're getting the calls you're getting the calls everybody here is dealing with them not treating their residents right and it's not right we need we should tax and pay and make them pay the FES at the highest level I do not care I have no sympathy for people who don't treat their residents good I don't I'm I'm sorry I agree 100% sorry but not sorry yeah M mad president I suppose we have to re revise the ordinance and increase the increase the fines because I believe that the fines are up to like $1,000 for the third violation so we have to make sure that let's say the ordinance allow Hefty fines yeah we we definitely working with uh with Jessica from from court and reference well I mean they don't even enforce the 1,000 yeah I'm just gonna say that I know I I actually uh also had an answer to I know there was some questions about uh the credential Center um earlier uh we we myself and the ba are actively working with uh you know hire management Entre presedential Center reference to negotiations including police overtime so that is one of the topics of discussion uh to bring to the table we are like you know we met with him a few months ago you know we're activ talking about some real items and that's one of the topics to discussion if we can get a concession on that $2.7 million that time 30 years that's 91 million that we are transferring to them your math is good also council president I'm sorry that was quick councilman Sila yeah just a quick thing um I noticed that the ba this might be for the ba 2.5 million is that still their lease agreement that's in place with them that was part of the budget 2.5 million is there anything that we could do to renegotiate that amount we're working on it now okay and the second thing is I also am letting you guys know that we also provide Manpower and overtime to a place that's not even in the city of Newark and that's the Red Bull Arena so uh whenever there's a Red Bull game there's about cops on I'm pretty sure it's overtime because I know most of their schedules so we might want to look into that as well the red bulline every time there's a game there's a large police presence all down Market Street down up Raymond Boulevard uh so I'm pretty sure that we're also maybe uh paying for that so that's something to look into as well well since we're on the topic can we get to this Council this for you madam clerk uh Mr ba can we get to this Council how much any of those entities are paying to us like the Red Bull Stadium credential we provide for NJ PAC as well uh there are multiple places that we're giv police officers to and what do we get in exchange of Revenue back to the city it'll be good to get a report a full report on that I mean I didn't know that about the Red Bulls so that's good information if we can get a report back to us that'll be great U Madam president my last response I recognize this was also a topic of discussion in reference to the Watershed uh we are in the process of dealing with the uh the tax appeal we're ongoing litigation with them uh they're supposed to provide us with services so one of the the city that the city exactly I mean you know when it comes to police fire everything else so uh we need to follow up with them to make sure that we drill down on the services that they're supposed to provide us and make sure that they we get what our money is paying for oh that's good information okay yeah that'll be good I mean I doubt it comes with 24-hour security though I mean at the very least I mean they probably call if you call 911 is there it's part of our taxes for them to respond but just like we tell people here we don't give you personal security you have your have have to have your own security so I would think it's the same thing for us there but either way I'm going to say this again not to you um corpor counsel and your team but once again we should put some armed security guards there immediately you know along with the Drone like councilman Gonzalez mentioned to get that regularly going let's not take you know our Good Fortune for granted um let's like you know attend to that and make sure that we're really doing what we need to do up there you know versus something happening and we're like all scrambling going crazy about it but that's that is good information I it might be helpful even for this Council to see the agreement or whatever we're supposed to be getting so that folks can see it and write in with that being said that closes out our budget hearing we want to thank you Corp counsil for being our um final and just like I invited everyone you guys can grab some dinner if it's some left downstairs okay and everyone that is here can actually go downstairs everyone and get them some dinner right Hassan okay great have a good evening we'll see you back tomorrow starting at 4 o'clock pm sharp for a part two of our budget hearing thank you all have a great night e e e