behind me I didn't see adequate notice of this meeting has been provided to the public in the Press on March 12th 2024 and was posted on the bulletin board in the municipal building in accordance with the open public meetings Act mjsa 10 semicolon 4 purpose of this meeting is to discuss the township thank you roll call please council member bueri here council member D benedetto council member Higgins here council member Sparta counc president Ruda here please join with me and flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible Li andice for all mayor we have your found please council president zuro and other members of the council during the past few months Chief Financial Officer denell brigh administrator Tina Krauss and I have been meeting with Municipal with the municipal department heads reviewing discussing their related budget related departmental requirement plans for 2024 entire staff started their 2024 budget development direction that they look for the cost savings opportunities in every departmental line item Municipal budget development process and the related statutory budget deadlines are governed and directed by the New Jersey Division of local govern Services which has been a statutory um responsibility for developing and implementing state of this excuse implementing state of New Jersey rules and regulations on the fiscal operations the reporting and overseeing the fiscal condition of all New Jersey municipalities the following are four key statutory uh budget deadlines and process that the New Jersey Division of local government services require all municipalities to meet the to meet and follow one that statutory deadline and process related to the development of the municipal budget the mayor is required to provide one public meeting which must take place during the month of November where the devel where the department heads review their their budget requests with the mayor that statutory requirement was met on November 27th 2023 two the statutory deadline for the mayor to provide the council a copy of the proposed Municipal budget the mayor is required to officially submit the proposal mun the proposed Municipal budget to the council for review no later than the first meeting after February 27 that was moved to February 11th I think 2024 the proposed 2024 Municipal budget was provided to the Council on March 1st 2024 three the statutory deadline for the council to introduce the municipal budget at a public council meeting the council is required to introduce the municipal budget at a at a public council meeting not later than the first meeting after March 29th or a as move to April 8th 2024 at the council meeting where I will ask the council to introduce the 2024 Municipal budget I will have the Chief Financial Officer to provide the public and the council a PowerPoint presentation covering the key aspects of the 2024 budget and fourth the statutory deadline for the council to approve the municipal budget at a public council meeting the council is required to approve the municipal budget at a coun at a public council meeting no later than the first meeting after April 30th of March 13 2024 this budget uh as it is proposed has been developed with the focus focus on the achievement of five five key uh goals these goals these key these five key goals are one to maintain the level of service that our town is required to provide or has committed to providing while at the same time looking for areas where we can operate in a more effective and efficient way two to continue our ongoing Road Improvement programs and to replace in in an efficient and financially responsible manner Town vehicles and equipment that are beyond their their useful lives three to continue to pay down our debt our debt and create a payers you go system for short lived Capital expenses four to continue to make repairs and improvements to Township property so so as to avoid even larger Improvement costs in the future and to ensure to ensure Vernon stays business-friendly encouraging businesses to establish themselves in Vernon Vernon Township working with developers to meet to meet the needs of residents and increase the commercial ratable base the financial budget that the administration presented to the council in 2023 resulted in a 0% increase in municiple taxes the township was able to achieve this objective by using over 2 million from the municipal fund balance which is the town savings account where it maintains funds to cover the cost of those unforeseen unknown and unknowable expenses that pop up from time to time and while the use of fund balance that the town has generated over time was critical to the mayor and the council's achievements the achievement of the objective of delivering a 0% increase in the municipal portion of the taxes for 2023 it is also it also masked the average 3.4% increase that the town had to pay for the basic operations and municipal government this was after the fund balance used in 2022 masked the nearly 6% increase in operations the township has anticipated a 1.75 million in fund balance used this year which will which masks the increase in Cor cost that must be considered in the 2024 budget Township has had to absorb the increases the increased cost in 2022 2023 and 2024 which is reflected in the use and depletion of fund bals as well as the reflected 2024 budget increase for 2024 the cost of all of the goods and services that both our town residents and their municipal government must purchase as a routine part of of our existence will cost even more than normal because of because of the still high rate of inflation caused by worldwide supply chain problems a nationwide shortage of workers and materials negative impacts from the wars across the globe and and politics on the national stage here at home and in the United States in addition this year we are faced with with some specific usual and high cost increases that we have no way of avoiding for example we are forced to absorb a 12.58 increase in the funds we must pay into the state retirement system for our non law enforcement Municipal Employees two we are forced to absorb 11.42 increase in the cost we must pay for the reserve for uncollected taxes as a result of large properties not paying current years taxes out three we are forced to absorb an 8.2 increase and the cost we must pay schuma to treat the sewage we send them for we are forced to absorb a 6.9 6.96 increase in the cost in the cost we must pay for workers workman's workers compensation Assurance for our Minal employees and five we are focused to absorb a 6.25 increase in the cost we we pay for general liability insurance six we are forced to absorb a 6.16 increase in the funds we must pay into the state retirement system for our Municipal law enforcement employees Dev we are forced to absorb a 5.5% increase in the cost we must pay for health care benefits for our Municipal Employees though this is still a savings for 2024 in comparison to Prior years under the state health benefits plan but still an increase we are forced to absorb a 3.99% increase in the funds we must pay into debt expenses for prior years Capital expend expenditures excuse me as a result in this year's budget we are forced to deal with with and recognize not only this year's in inflationary cost but also the inflationary cost of 2023 and the prior Year's inflationary cost as well in developing this year's Municipal budget I have chosen to use 1.75 million from the municipal fund balance solely in my attempt to reduce the 2024 Municipal portion of taxes to the smallest increase possible while still being responsible to the tax pays and ensuring they are not met with a larger a larger increase in future years this year's budget as it is proposed totals 3,632 390 a 1.9% increase over last year's budget the net results in that Municipal Taxes are anticipated with an increase of 4.5% as a way of measuring the the financial impact that this proposed proposed Municipal budget would have on our Town's tax payers the average increase in Municipal Taxes on the average home assessed at $289,700 would be $75 per year or $627 per month where and how the majority of 2024 Municipal tax dollars will be spent I I'll try to make this fast just seven major categories account for almost 90% of the total dollars in this year's budget those seven categories are one the category that that cost that covers the cost of our police department and emergency volunteer services budget and includes our law enforcement offices salaries and wages the police department's administrative office and equipment supplies the radio dispatch services for our police department plus our Volunteer Fire and ambulance services and our Town's Animal Control needs needs at 5.7 million this category consumes 18% of the total budget two the category that covers our Town's debt payments and the town's cash payments for required capital projects this category includes a 3.45 million in in debt payments this cash payments include include amount that we we plan to use this year to complete required Municipal capital projects by paying for these required capital projects cash we we will be able to avoid incurring uh additional burdensome debt we are setting aside to be able to pay for known anticipated future large dollar purchases leases such as needed police DPW fire department and EMS Lodge equipment and vehicles and and at 5.1 million the category consumes 16% of the total budget three the category that covers our payments for our employees health insurance unemployment insurance workman's compensation insurance and other insurance at 4.6 million this category consumes 14% of the total budget four the category that covers our Town's sewage treatment payments to the sus to schuma sus County uh plus our Town's annual utility bills at 3.4 million this category consumes 11% of the total budget five the category that covers our payments for Road repairs and maintenance our buildings and grounds Parks maintenance and our recycle center and Fleet Management at 3.3 million this category consumes 10% of the total budget six the reserve for uncollected taxes this is the category that covers the amount of funds that that sound accounting practices require that we we add to our budget to cover the dollar amount of taxes that our experi that our experience tells us that we are not likely to collect during the given budget year based on our 2023 tax collection rate of 96.67% the the dollar amount that we are required to include in this year's budget is 2.8 million or 9% of the total budget and seven the category that covers the statutory obligations such as Social Security requirements and defi uh and defined contribution payments plus reimbursements that the town is required by law to pay to private Lake and other private communities under the Municipal Services act better known as the Kelly bill at 3.2 million this category consumes 10% of the total budget I'm not pleased um at all uh with the the the municipalities needs you know are are forced to present you with a budget that contains a 4.5 tax increase I have met with every single department head regarding their regarding their lines and anticipated increase and have made adjustments and worked diligently to ensure that any increase is fully warranted and necessary I hope the information that I provided in this communication will enable you to see what this budget has been developed based on focus of addressing our Town's real and necessary needs and not unnecessary wants I prepared to meet and work with the council to come to an agreement where we can present the budget that will not just just be the mayor's budget or the council's budget but the governing B's budget that's all my comments thank you mayor open the floor for public comments of the meeting is reserved for 3 minutes on agenda items only and since the only item on the agenda is the budget it should be on that particular item may I have a motion to open the floor to the public Higgins is there a second I'll second it seconded by Mrs bueri in favor signify by saying I I opposed motion carries floor is open to the public is there anybody wishing you're wishing to approach the council and comment on the budget I have a hand up um Jesse padini yes this is padini yes good morning I just have one question for clarification did I just hear 4.5% increase yes thank you thank you anyone else I don't have any other hands up seeing no one else coming before the council may I have a motion to close the floor to the public moved move by Mr Higgins second second seconded by Mrs bueri all in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries item for discussion 24 Municipal budget I believe all members have received the copy of the 24 budget and a prob they should have had time to review this [Music] um and I thought that we would start with the larger departments first okay um yes m is here now though and man and our auditor is here uh she cannot talk to us or comment as to whether or not this is a good budget or anything else but if there are questions regarding um accounting issues or accounting questions or a question in general as to what uh um might be considered uh a standard in certain areas she might be able to address that am I correct M yes thank you and um yes you need me too because I was uh I was under impression that I was gonna give a little bit overview about just a general budgeting process that would be great you want me to absolutely that would be great thank you so something instead of you just hear me talk for a little bit you have something in hand that you can kind of follow through I'll go through this fairly quickly and of course if at any point in time you have any questions please feel free to stop me because you know budgeting is the very comp especially Municipal budgeting in New Jersey is a very complex issue and we can here be here for hours if we want to but we're not going to do that um so with New Jersey in New Jersey um we usually consider the their budget to be a cash based budget what I mean is for Revenue the you only realize the amount of um Revenue you received in cash and then on the appropriation side um it's a little bit funky because it's a two-year it has a two-year life what I mean is that whatever you budget in appropriation you fully um charge it off against your fund balance in the year one and then whatever is not spent gets roll over into a second year and then at the end of the second year the leftover money get laughs back into fund balance so it's a very conservative process okay so it stays in the budget for that next year and then goes to fund balance yes so let's say you're you're you you have an appropriation your budget is you know million doll and you have two millions left left not spent at the end of the first year it still stays open in year two to be used on any bills that may because of timing issues they not have been received by year like the end of year two that you have to pay in year two I mean the end of year one you have to pay in year two and then whatever is not spent by the end of year two gets laughs back in so it doesn't so everything from that from year one does not go right to fund balance it has a year lapse it's just for bills that came in late or can it be used for funds in year two well it has to relate to that um let's say it's the 2023 appropriation Reserve we call it it has to relate to the 2023 year gotcha okay um so budget calendar I have some dates here um I think the mayor mentioned some of these dates before the budget introduction and is required to be introduced uh for the 2024 year by March 29th or the next regular schedule meeting uh it needs filed with the division within three days and then it needs to be publ publicized advertised with the uh 10 days prior to the public hearing that's scheduled and it has to be at least 28 days after the introduction and then the uh adoption uh needs to be done at by April 30th for the next meeting after that so there are two uh budget cap laws I know I explained that the last time we met and I'm not going to go into any details unless you want me to you know go over again good I'm good okay I get qu we get questions a lot right as to when you should start your budget planning process and we tell people whatever works for you some some some of our clients start you know six months before the year and the previous year some starts you know in November and December but whatever works for you is um is is would be the simple answer and what we recommend also is that your budget should you know reflect the M your Town's policy your goals and what you're trying to achieve right in terms of the services you're providing the um capital projects you're planning to do and that's why we say that in terms of the budget it should always be a long-term budget it shouldn't be only be a oneye budget it should at least look into the next couple years it's not if not the next five to 10 years especially with um the capital and long-term debt because you you don't want to be reactive right you want to be more proactive so you especially with the large items in terms of your Capital needs and your debt service needs you want to be more stabilized so let's say that um for each department you're allowing $200,000 I'm just making up numbers here that they can use in your capital budget so that they can also plan okay I have $200,000 every year for my capital budget what are the how do I prioritize all my budgets I mean all my projects so that I can get it done over the next 10 years or five years so your the state budget document is is um segregated into different sections you have the intro section which is sheets a through three your Revenue section four to 11 current uh the Appropriations 12 to 30 and you have utility budget which Vernon does not have also the assessment budget which is not applicable for Veron and then in the back of the uh state budget dock you have your capital budget and some miscellaneous um sheets that's 39 to 45 so I'm going to go over each section really briefly so for your intro section you've got you know your um standard information about your governing body members the budget introduction dates adoption day advertisement date um you have a little couple of summary pages on the budget and also the um couple pages on the calculation of how do you arrive at your um two caps your Levy cap and your appropriation cap the revenue section it's like I mentioned before it sheets uh 4 through 11 so it shows what uh the amount of fund balance you're anticipating it shows all your local miscellaneous Revenue which includes your alcohol licenses fees and permits cords and then there's a section on state a you receipts um there's also a section on UCC fees and then there's a separate page on share Services if you have any so ver bur and you have have um animal control and a 911 those are a couple example uh then you have grants which is so for Grants you really don't consider it in terms of um affecting your Levy or anything like that because grants revenue is offset by grants appropriation so let's say you have a clean communities uh Grant uh that you're getting for $10,000 so you anticipating the $10,000 in Revenue but the same $10,000 in appropriation so at the end of the day doesn't affect your bottom line and then you have special items so for uh you have the hotel occup tax you have the reimbursements from the MUA for Death Services and for schuma bills then you have a line for Del lent taxes and a revenue line for amount to be raised for tax agent so a couple of things to know for Revenue right so the amount of Revenue that you anti you are allowed to anticipate let's say in 2024 can't be more than what you realized in the previous year in 2023 so for example in interest for on um investment earnings if last year you only, in Revenue this year you can't say it I'm really iiz I'm anticipating $30,000 unless you can show the state for example that oh I already earned $330,000 in before you even introduce your budget what about like the Cannabis uh 2% tax so we didn't realize any income revenue from that but we have I think for 2024 potentially some businesses that will be paying that tax so is that something we could for any new lines of Revenue as as as you have some sort of support for it right so for example if you already passed an ordinance the business open establishing you know what the rate is going to be and you have um documentation shown that one or two businesses already in you know in operations and you have some sort of calculation shown that hey it's going to be at least this much money usually the state will allow it okay um in terms of the Surplus anticipated uh it cannot exceed an amount shown as cash Surplus on the AFS sheet 21 so what cash Surplus is is basically the amount of um money you have in your cash accounts uh minus us um all your liabilities so that's what cash refl is to uh to the state of New Jersey for delinquent taxes you cannot anticipate an amount in excess of what's on the AFS sheet 26 so on the on in the AFS there's a calculation that shows you on the on the bottom of the sheet how much you can anticipate my other rule of thumb we usually advise our client as well is that um because that calculation also includes the um any tax Hine balances so unless you know that you might someone might come in and redeem a tax SLE lean I would recommend that you usually don't want to anticipate more than what your delinquent balances not not including your tax Ty because let's say your um delinquent taxes is a million doll your tax titling balance is2 million $2 million so you have a total of $3 million in your total delinquent balances and then but you don't really want to anticipate anything more than I would say million dollars because you don't know if someone's going to come in and redeem a lean if if you anticipate more than that you're going to have a short for next year so on the appropriation side it's broken out into basically three sections you have um a section uh within caps so that's your inside cap Appropriations that's all your operations right those are sheets 12 to 19 in includes snw OE pension Insurance uh everything other than what's in outside cap which is your Capital items your death service um share services and grants and then you have a line item that's statutorily required called um reserve for uncollected taxes so the very simply what that is is the state requires you to pay the school district their portion of their Levy requires you to pay the county their portion of Levy in full no matter if you collect or not but we all know that money doesn't always come in so the state requires you to put a line of them there in the anticipation that you're not going to collect everything excuse me no on that reserve for uncollected taxes that particular line is a drain on the municipal budget because we have to pay out to both the county and the schools regardless of whether we receive $1 do yes so that comes out of the general fund yes okay just want to sure yeah it's an unfortunate too because if someone don't come in and pay and you still requireed to pay the county and the school kind of on the hook for 100% of it um so the next slide I have is um I talk a little bit about fund balance so fund the budget must be balanced right Revenue has to equal Appropriations and what most towns us like most towns I've seen haven't seen a that hasn't used Surplus to balance their budget but they use fund balance to help balance your budget um but our recommendation is that you generally you shouldn't use more fund balance than what you anticipate can be regenerated because the fund balance is like a savings account right so if you take out hundred you have $1,000 in your savings account and you take out $100,000 doll every year to balance your budget but if you're not going to be able to put in the100 $100 back at after 10 years fund balance is gone then at the end of that that 10 years that means you're gonna have a budget hold that you're going to have to fill whether it's trying to get another new source of Revenue or trying to or you're going to have to cut Appropriations so the key question is what percentage of the budget is the recommended fund balance so Surplus every sound is different unfortunately and I hate to say it there is really no standard rule of thumb because I have um I've seen everything across across the board I've I've seen uh some of my clients that anticipate probably 75% of the fund balance but they're able to regenerate that year after year so if if we for example in Vernon we had a fund balance before 2023 we used a couple million of last year the amount previous that was $8 million as a percentage of the $30 million budget at the time that's a sizable percentage so my question to you is what's the what's the recommended percentage um some people say that you should at least have um three months worth of EX um expense in your fund balance some people say that you should have at least six months so it depends on I think what your comfort level is in terms of how much some fund balance you want to keep right consistent at all times because at the end of the day it is considered a savings account or rainy day fund thing right if something happens you have an emergency that you didn't anticipate and you need to um appropriate money that's the only place that you can kind of get it from MH so so you don't want it to be too tight but um if you think that it's at a level that's above what you are comfortable with then yes you can start kind of drawing more from it but I would just be careful in terms of knowing that there is a plan and you know what your goal that you want to get to is so as to be more clear with your fund balance would you as an auditor or any person's a recommend or pleased with having the council adopt a fund balanc policy I think that's a good idea where it determines how much or what percentage can be used out of your existing fund balance for for the the upcoming budget I think that's a good I do have a client that does have a fun balance policy and they are very consistent with it so the like I like I mentioned the key point is you just because obviously governing bodies change and their are Minds that change and I hate to see that you adapt something and then you know the you have turn over in your governing body and then they change your mind then so you just have to make sure that that plan stays consistent well again to that end we were well on our way in past year going to a fund balance that equaled perhaps a little less than a third of the total budget as a fund balance do you consider that to be over overly conservative let me I don't I know you you can't talk about Vernon but talking about any Municipal budget expressing those numbers would you consider that to be more than necessary very conservative well I'm an accountant by Nature so I'm very conservative right I understand half the better to me right yeah um I would say that that wouldn't be too conservative because I just think back to the days when you really didn't have a lot of fund balance right and it was only over um kind of right around the pandemic where you started building up your fund balance and that's what a lot a lot of my towns have seen and even school districts have seen right in in terms of their fund balance kind of increasing because everybody was very careful about spending everybody was very proactive of trying to get more Revenue in so that they they're protecting their fund balance so I don't want to see you guys going back to what um the amount of fund balance the amount of low fund balance you had you know back maybe 10 years ago um but you know getting to a an amount that you all feel comfortable with that you think that that's a good amount and having a policy and following that policy I think it's a good idea but why would you need that much fund balance I mean you the township has the power to tax whether people like it or not it it it has that power and by law we have to provide all of the funds that the school board requires they come to us with a number whether we like it or not they we we have to provide that amount of money if we don't they have the power to go out and borrow that money and pass on the payment of that debt and interest rate to the township so assuming that it's a great assumption sometimes assuming that everything holds the same but where would we need to have that much money outside of that type of an issue where we would need to uh have S such a sizable fund balance I mean a lot of our stuff is insured I mean items of major cost such as boilers and things like that you have boiler insurance and such um you know Vehicles you have insurances there and warranties uh so where would you have to realize such big uh fund balances uh well I would say that like just in the history of how especially with your tax title Lans you have a very big tax title lean balance okay um I and you know I know a few years ago you did um uh a bunch of foreclosures and you able to sell those properties and put those back on tax rows and that's great um but also with any kind of emergencies any kind of um inflation that we're going through now right because you you might come into a year where you can't you know you don't want to raise everything your in for example your pension increases your health insurance increases you might not want to raise all of that through Levy and the other option is if you don't have any other Revenue sources to draw from then it's fund Balan and you know that you're not going to be able to replenish that because it's an increased cost so then you continually kind of depleting your fund balance like I said I'm not recommending a a level because to me the more you have the better and I'm just speaking from an accountants point of view but I understand as a governing body you have to you know obviously answer to your residents and you w to um you need to get to a level that you feel is a good level for vering okay so really what happened it was a standard way of operating which was a lesser fund balance than we currently have experienced in the last four years and then all of a sudden Co comes along the government gives us money and our spending was reduced because we didn't have to provide all the services fund balance built very high so now we've depleted some of the fund balance we still have more than what we used to have and uh there was was there ever an emergency where the town in the old method of operating without this big Surplus folded had a problem had to lay people off had to close the doors I doubt it right I think we've already been here so there's been a way of working through those things government keeps Trucking on um I I do want to say this even on sorry president um yes council member D benedetto is on so that who she's trying to speak oh I'm sorry okay that's okay I just when we talk about those appropriation excises isn't that what the cat bank is for I didn't I didn't hear her say anything about appropriation excesses uh just before when when the I'm sorry the auditor your name is escaping me on when she said the the inflation and the pension if the pension goes up and insurance goes up I thought that's what the cap Bank was for that's that's a appropriation side but you need still need to have some sort of Revenue to support that increase on the procreation side so whether it's fund balance or taxes or other sources of revenue you need to be able to bring that in anticipate that to support that increase on the appropriation side that's done at the yearly budget season like we know what our new insurance will be we know what our pension payments will do I mean we can't anticipate inflation so like it might cost more for gas right for oil or our electric bill but like those big items we're going to know like because we're doing that now larger yeah the larger ones will know so your point Jessica yeah I'm sorry go ahead no I just thought the point of having that safety net of the cap Bank was for you know um in in case we were to get in trouble because inflation was so out of control or the pensions Rose so robustly you would still it's they it's two-sided so it's two-sided so if you're going to use the cat bank right we talked about this before if you're going to use the cat Bank um for whether it's an emergency appropriation in the in the current year for the following year right um or pension is so high or state health benefits are so or not state health benefits if health benefits were so high of an increase um then you would need to use that C Bank in order to meet your Appropriations cap but then you still have to raise funds elsewhere to be able to cover those expenses so the township um and it's it's not just uh it's not really money from the federal government that increased the fund balance so I just want to be clear about that because the only money we got was ARP grant money that does not increase our fund balance um but if there other sources of revenue like the short-term rental ordinance brought in the hotel occupancy tax that has increased almost double um since 2018 so those other sources of revenue or taxes or increase in um use of fund balance will offset that so that you can have you know obviously your Appropriations equal your revenues and a good example of that sort of emergent situation where we didn't know what was going on actually was during covid in 2020 um the mayor and the council at the time chose to not raise taxes because nobody had any idea was what was going on in March of that year um we weren't sure what was going to happen so we did opt to use uh an a higher amount of fund balance that year to ensure the taxes didn't increase because we didn't know people were going to be going back to their jobs or have work so that's a good example of use of fund balance um another good example is right now we have a tanker that would would have needed repairs um that tanker repair is $75,000 I believe initially with the first okay even more we do not have a line item in our budget to cover a $75,000 or $100,000 repair like that it could be similar to something like a fire truck repair one of our ladder trucks if that needs to get repaired that could be over $100,000 we don't have anything in our operating budget to be able to cover something that large and substantial so ideally we well not ideally we would have to we'd have to do an emergency appropriation and it would have to be raised in next year's budget we would be able to use additional money from fund balance and the Appropriations cap to cover that which yeah which makes perfect sense like for those types of things I mean we've got almost five million right with this budget so like a 100,000 for a truck you know it's going to be a I think there'll be a lot of well I know reaching five million would is probably very unlikely right I understand you know roof like what if something happens to the roof and we need to spend $50,000 I don't know maybe 75 to do this roof I have no idea not cheap right like those but I don't see us having $5 million worth so of of NE you know needing $5 million in some type of emergency something it also does cover us um for so for things like massive storms if we had massive storms while we could pass emergency Appropriations and raise it over years for a storm emergency um to be able to cover that Cashwise we have the cash Surplus right we do need a cash Surplus in order to pay our bills and I will tell you that when I came in here in 2018 and our fund balance I think was around 800,000 or 600,000 it was not it was not good it was I don't recommend that I don't I don't periods of time where I didn't have the cash flow in the current fund to be able to make payments to the school every two weeks like they need to be paid right so that creates an issue we do have a requirement to pay them for Cashwise so to not be able to have the cash flow to do that because we receive taxes four times a year that's an issue yeah what you do at that time to get the cash flow um well I the school had to wait a couple of weeks but they didn't say anything for a couple of weeks because they had the money sitting in their account so they they are now on a on in a situation where they receive their checks every two weeks because we have that cash flow [Music] um but they don't have money now so just another question that with Surplus are there any reductions in the uh spending on this budget any reductions in in spending right there are a number of line items that went down there are okay that's I know that I'm just asking the question just to say that so the public knows that it's not all and and as the mayor stated right we went through with every and you'll hear from every department head every department head went through their budget and where could we stay where um could we maybe just fund things differently um to try and address our needs and still provide the services to the township and still make sure that everything's taken care of staying with man's situation we're our area right now regarding the fund balance so the ideal fund balance is something is a place where you can use that amount and realistic hope to recoup that amount and put it back so you're maintaining a fund balance either within a few percentage points up or down yeah and and and I I like I could really we I'm sure M and I could both get into the Weeds about this right but fund balance it's not just about um obviously use in the current Year's budget there are things that fund balance does affect right and that percentage or whatever amount the governing B is comfortable with um it does affect when we go out for permanent financing even when we go out um you know we go out for notes and people not that we're going for an official state an official uh rating or anything right when we go out for notes and stuff like that seeing our fund balance and what the governing body is choosing to do in the budget years that does affect how the outside agencies look at us to loan US money have we re have we received our latest Moody's evaluation the one we did was in 2021 that was one we went out for our last Bond reading um it's a trip a A3 yeah dou has it changed it's dou A3 has it changed with reduction in the fund balance that in so in 2018 they actually um they didn't downgrade us they give us a negative outlook in 2018 and then so it so it went negative it was a double a three with a negative outlook um in 2020 we went out for bonds for our official rating um they removed that negative outlook which was incredible for during covid because they weren't doing any of that for anybody during covid um and I've had that I had that conversation with them and the reason they were doing that was because we were moving in the right direction of paying for more things in cash not taking out so much debt um for increasing our fund balance we were been happier in 2021 when they saw another increase in our fund balance um and understanding that the governing body and the mayor understood that this is the direction that we needed to go and we you know and that help that does help our ratings which the rating and um the outcome of that rating from Moody's right will affect our interest when we go out for Bond sales or when we go out for note sales so hasn't gone down it has not gone down it actually went actually increased from negative to positive so I don't want to say it went up because it didn't go up in a rating I didn't ask I said has it gone down so so we're still where we were right but we're not in negative outlook anymore which is good but gone and since our fund balance has gone down a little bit it's it stayed consistent our waiting our fund balance from last year to this year would not be like our fund balance down this year um our fund balance going down this year has not been reflected because we haven't gone out for a no sale okay they don't update your rating until your next oh yeah until you go out for a note okay so they won't look at you okay they're not looking at us every year and like yeah because we're not going at it's similar credit means something right to you when you're looking at it but it doesn't mean something to anybody else until until they actually you look for a loan okay so they haven't looked at us yep what was our dead asset ratio the previous year um our ads I can get that for I don't off the top of my head but I will pull um I will get that for you in like a minute of course I can't find it on here now it's on our website I'm sorry it's that website does not work on my phone well I think it was like 1.09 93 or 95 95 right yes so 1.0 N5 now on this year's AFS what is our dead asset ratio on the ads yeah I believe this this past Year's 2023 ads was 1.95 right so what is it so it won't I um I'd have to project that out I don't know I think you told me it was 0.00 nine you know it was a a much lower number we were under one right so 2022 ads was 1. 1.95 and we're under 1% in the 2023 ads which is this this year yes past years yes if that's to be used as an instrument of determining the soleny of the municipality then why would somebody look at that as being you know but that percentage is not really debt to asset ratio that percentage is more about the amount that you are legally authorized to go out in debt right versus how much you have out in debt that's my point people say oh my God you guys you're you're over your head in debt you're swimming in debt quite the contrary you not swimming in debt the debt is manageable easily manageable you not say so this is kind of what I was when relating to kind of in the beginning too right you want to have a long-term plans not only for Capital but are for your debt management fund as well right so it depends some some towns don't want any debt some towns are comfortable with that so it depends on which side you're on and how much debt you're comfortable with and also just remember too the more debt you have that means the more debt you have to pay off during each given year your debt service I understand but but how then how then does a Township that has limited uh uh com commercial ratables or even seasonal commercial ra commercial ratables uh provide any growth any uh development to attract any ratables without using that financing can't usually for large large projects most towns don't have the cash on hand to pay for it so they go out for debt and if the governing body is comfortable with going out for that then that's the route they you know they would choose to go would any would any Township choose to go out and and you know Finance uh two two you know fire engines which easily could run a million dollars each on a cash basis I we do have some few towns that that's on a cash basis meaning they pay you pay as you go they don't have any debt right but they have and it's been years of work that they can get to that point meaning they have to you know they they have a kind of a whether it's a formal or informal um fund balance policy they have a debt management plan where go out and capital plan and we're going to go out for every year we're going to do $4 million in capital projects every M Mill year we're going to do x amount in dep surfice and they structure everything so that they know they can work within that structure okay thank you I I have a quick question so to Circle back to revenues and um not being able to anticipate a revenue unless you received it in the previous year so when you do get a revenue that wasn't anticipated where does that Revenue go so that's usually what we call the miscellaneous Revenue not anticipated okay so that goes in to fund balance okay so um your fund balance is affected by your operations right so at any given year if your amount of Revenue that you realize is greater than what you anticipated it adds to your fund balance less than what anticipate it it reduces your fund balance same on the appropriation side yes after at the end of the second year whatever you don't spend from that budget goes to the budg goes into your fund balance and it adds to your fund balance so if we have like a uh our snow plowing budget I'm gonna think because that's unknown right we don't know what that is so if we have by the second year if we if we had two light years of snow you didn't have to pay a ton to the lake communities for those snow plowing fees that would go to fund balance or no every other line item sure but you wrong one okay I picked the wrong one that was the only unknown I for that's like a you never know what you're gonna get um I usually move that into uh the trust account the snow trust okay which makes sense because you could have a terrible year of SP yeah but so other so we'll just pick another one that like you know for some reason it was much less you waited that second year there's still 57,000 sitting in there that goes to fund balance correct okay and the unanticipated revenues go to fund balance yes so D that was an overview you have a you have a budget that went up about $800 $900,000 right from year to year you're anticipated budget there's there's big drivers that drive that you we can sit here and talk about fire trucks and and other things that may be going to happen but there are certain things that drove the budget to go up right either you got your revenues so you and I spoke and you gave some very good explanations so one of them you mention was you had 2.7 million in uncollected taxes from the previous year you're proud of the fact that you guys collected two million of that and you can't anticipate collecting another 2 million this year so you put in 1.7 right as he anticipated talking about delinquent ta for delinquent taxes yes so um last year we anticipated over $2 million in delinquent taxes this is something that M spoke to um that was over antici I ated so despite the fact that we brought in over $2 million in 2022 uh the amount outstanding was not over $2 million however the township chose to um anticipate over $2 million so the issue is that this year we brought in just over 1.6 so we had a deficit and this speaks to the fund balance we had a deficit in that revenue of $400,000 that deficit will hit the fund balance and reduce it right now it might be offset by some of these some of the M the miscellaneous Revenue that we didn't anticipate or other line items of Revenue that we under anticipated and we saw an increase in right um so that like that Revenue line will be down $400,000 from what it was last year so that's a significant number yep is Meaningful to budget yes it is a significant number so that $400,000 has to be picked up somewhere else in Revenue extra over $100,000 that we anticipated for um construction code fees that we did not see that is going to have to be picked up elsewhere from another Revenue Source right what's that number would you sorry um I I don't recall what we anticipated this year uh for yeah I'm not nipping I'm just trying to concentrate on the big numbers um so we had anticipated 600,000 in 2023 we brought in 495 we're anticipating 480 okay so 12 120 Grand difference between the six and the 48 120 plus the 400 right like that's a significant over half a million dollars that we need to find in other revenues right what impact does the Forgiveness to Veterans for not paying their taxes have on your budget okay so um we rece the money that we receive from the state of New Jersey for you're talking about full forgiveness for fully disabled veterans yes so we H okay if we cancel someone's taxes this year and we have to refund those taxes right it we don't anticipate doing that so what we're anticipating this year is inclusive of their taxes um and when we refund it we're refunding 100% of that which not like we're getting some back from the county and some from the school that says like oh they didn't have to pay us that doesn't happen um so we do fully refund that back to them but that's not a that is not a budget like line item yeah the the payback is not a budg line on but the revenue that you wanted to collect is not in that collection anymore right so that that there's an effect a big effect it could have AIT it depends on how many are approved this year right versus how much we anticipate to come in as tax revenue for amount to be raised by taxation yeah you get a certain amount back from the state depending on what their approval statuses and then for um 100% disabled veterans you get you don't get anything back from the state that's my question so basically if I'm correct to refund them or cancel the taxes it's a at the end of the day it's pretty put it simply as a negative effect of from balance because you're not collecting right so if if the information was given to me through Dell's office it's $600,000 right now right um that was that was that was through um Christ's office yes that's just the applying the tax rate or anticipated tax rate to the ratables it was like 20 some million in ratables are Exempted which would be equivalent to $600,000 a year in taxes but that gets that's really more on the tax rate calculation side where you're dividing your total budget into the the total ratables to get your tax rate so what that really does in years that you're not doing the initial refund is it's increasing the tax rate for everybody else there it is that's my question it through taxes from everybody else so if they taxes you're asking for 4.58% tax increase part of that is making up for the monies that you forgave to somebody who gets an exemption from the state and now I'm understanding that some or not some of it is refundable from the state it's very very deduction so it's all on us yeah um and something that's even higher than that is like our reserve for uncollected taxes so the reserve for on collected taxes is actually in our budget um that is a massive amount so if we happen to have a very large property um or group of large properties that does not pay taxes that is a significant impact to that rot amount yeah those are big numbers and then we all pass the the residents pass losap to pay for emergency that's an $80,000 increase in the budget everybody knew it was coming because we're paying for something we need but that number is going to grow as well just so everybody's aware it starts and grows so any other significant things you can think of there are big numbers like our workers comp are liability insurances those are both over six% increases um obviously we talked about pension I don't want to go into pension um I do like to mention pension though because we literally they just hand us a bill and they're like have fun um and just you know since I started here in 2018 between then and now I think that percentage has increased like four or five% just in the annual contribution rate every single year it's it's it's getting higher higher every year and it's it's almost at 20% like it's insane and also it's it's it's it's it's also effective because your salary keeps increasing right because your e engine bill every year is dependent on is calculated based on your um pension R salary from two years ago so but then every year your salary goes up so that's why pension bill goes up every year plus the number of pensioners number of people that go into theam sure and they're going into the program at a higher level in many cases at a younger age I mean the the good news though with pension is that when they've changed the laws for pension we're no longer having people enrolled in pension when they make like $1,500 you know so so we're not talking about like and like not even working full-time so like people that are entering pension now are entering a tier five pension um are not it is not the level of what it was years ago um you know the things too with health insurance right health insurance years ago when I started municipal government paid like nothing for health insurance I mean now people can pay upwards of 600 650 or $700 per pay um so people are contributing more they also are contributing more to the pension system but it doesn't alleviate the fact that we have you know a large pension bill every year and that's based on the calculations done by the state so and lastly we had in grants $3.45 million received last year from a uh a grant Congressional Community funding project and this year it's not is there a negative impact on the budget on that okay no because it's um like M had explained it's a there's a revenue that comes in for it and there's an offsetting appropriation for that okay once once the fund is used the grant money is used is there any residual cost to the town to continue with what the grant started is there are you talking about specifically for that 3.4 that one specifically and in general so the 3.4 million I'm just going to put to the side because that's for sewer expansion so there will obviously be additional costs for sewer expansion not on the township on the MUA but that's so that's like separate right um residual costs for that are something that the MUA is going to have to deal with whether it's additional employees or additional um oh my gosh I can't even think of words like just additional operating expenses grants right um usually what we recommend is that unless you know that you're going to get that Grant consistently year after year for example Recycling tonage and clean communities or like grants that you usually you get every every year if you're gonna get these one-time grants like for example you you got those AR money right that we never recommend to use it on operations because once the money runs out then you're going to have to fill it with something else and or going to have to cut the program right we do not use it on operations I think what you're trying to speak to is like are there any programs or any line items and expenses that were created with a grant and maybe we don't have that Grant anymore or created because we had a grant this one year and we don't have and there's like I.E hiring Personnel right no we don't do that okay and then because it can't happen you know people like grants there are some um townships and public entities that have used grants to do that and that not what we do here right they start a program the grant money Runs Out hired three people to run the program and now your salaries went up because people like the program that happens then the last thing as you mentioned mua so this is the town budget which includes the cost of the MUA right uh the so the schuma um agreement is with the township so the schuma is on the Township's budget is outside of cap as M had explained um and because we do receive funding from the MUA to offset that expense so even though the township pays it the MUA pays the township Back and You're Made whole so the the the the township committee votes on the budget which includes the MUA there which includes just the schuma cost there their schuma costs okay and and what what impact does that have on our budget it's is it what percentage of the budget is a schuma cost um I don't remember the EXA it's it's in that the mayor had mentioned it um the exact percentage for schuma 8.2 well the 8.2 increase but it doesn't cost us it's it's just under 10% it's like probably eight or nine% of the budget um but it's it's neutral because we received the revenue in from that so with 8 to 9% of the budget is there any increased spending on their part impact to that that impacts us they're make they're making their own decisions on how to run the MUA correct yep and not us correct so the question is what impact did those decisions effect here no yeah okay that that was my question okay thank you keep com so I have a couple more slides I don't know if you over it um a lot I we get a lot of question about what is a tax Point yes so tax point is basically the amount of dollar it takes to increase or decrease um your tax rate by a penny right and a tax one is equivalent to the your net um your assess value and the net tax value valuation taxable divided by $10,000 so for example in 20 for 2024 your mvt is 3 point almost $3.4 million so one tax point for Vernon for 2044 is equivalent to almost $340,000 and then how do you calculate your tax rate so I have a you know a formula here it's basically your local Levy the amount that you decide to raise uh in terms of um to support your budget for your local Levy divided by your mvt divided by 100 and so for 2023 your local rate was 612 and then you know I have some um couple other things here budget amendments you know the state requires you to have um a public a separate public hearing on budget amendments if they fall into these three categories so one is you have a new line appropriation that's an excess of 1% of your total the second is if you increase your amount to be raised your logo ly by more than 5% and then the final one is you increase or decrease any line of Appropriations by 10% so that requires you to have a separate uh public hearing on the amendment and uh the the state also uh in terms of self-examination so the state rues your budget every three years so at the in between the two years you're allowed to do self-examine your own budget and the way that you that you do that is you just pass a resolution to do so okay that's it thank you very much very helpful very thank you thank you mayor who do we have here first police department police department yes if you guys want to like sit yeah so they can see it well and also because the microphones are the ones for online okay this one here on yeah if you um you want to pick the microphone up on the bottom of you this one Chief this one yeah yeah and just click the button the the light should go on on Top If You it back over and you'll be able to see okay on page two 16 is what department store have 16 so good morning uh before I jump in I just wanted to do a very very very brief overview for you not to take up too much of your time um but for the new council members just so you're fully understanding um the current situation in the police department so we are hitting AC Crossroads in our Police Department uh the police department was incepted in 1975 so an average length of a police officer ranges between 25 years depending on if they had prior experience so as we're encroaching on 2025 we're hitting that next Generation that Crossroad so we're seeing a significant amount of retirements uh and things happening our in our apartment and that started last year where we had quite a bit of retirements so as you could see that's reflective in our budget itself uh you're going to see some areas that had a be increased last year specifically to accommodate those costs they were reduced back down this year uh to to recognize that we're not having the same type of hiring situations as we did last year um also with that same thought process there are some State mandates that have come down beginning this year um that have significant impact on our functionality in the police department one of those things is police licensing uh we are required to license all of our police officers now that started on January 1 with that mandate comes the requirement of recertifying 33% of our officers every year so that includes full background checks which is a sign significant amount of work you know and there was no obviously funding provided by the state for us to do that that was just part of legislation that was passed uh also some significant changes also align with uh Firearms investigations uh changes that happen legally such as permit to carries all of these things came with a significant amount of Investigations we are required now to conduct I do have some of those numbers I'm not going to dive into that unless you'd like me to because I think probably just focus more on the budget but I do have some of that supporting information one of the last things that I'd like to comment on um we are very fiscally responsible we are focused on shared service contracts as you're aware uh we do everything possible with the current Manpower that we have some of those shared service contracts include um shared service contracts for our Animal Control Division and also for Tower rental space um on our Emergency Services towers for other jurisdictions this year I'm I'm proud to report that our total income from shared services is $1 100, 420 great through our direct initiatives from our staff uh which I'm very proud of the work they do uh I'd also like to comment uh one last thing actually uh we have seen a significant uptick in calls for service so far this year um and that's absorbed by our current Staffing so as of right now I I did run the numbers yesterday of year to date we are up 456 calls over the same exact time last year last year our Police Department uh our Dispatch Center handled 2,970 calls that they were handled through our Dispatch Center those are actually CAD generated calls that you know we did some sort of action on that's just not phone calls phone calls are well beyond that um so my my estimate by the end of this first quarter we're probably going to be up about 500 calls for service uh so if that stays stays the course to the rest of the year you could see that'll have a significant impact on Staffing an increase of 500 calls that you had that someone had to go out this quarter 500 calls for service handle through our dispatch that could be anything from a phone call back to having to respond something to an extra motor vehicle stop it's a whole combination some action was taken some action was taken I think it's important to note that I think but I also think it's reflective of our community that it's showing that there's more activity going on there's things happening um not necessarily all bad maybe that's good maybe there's just more cars on the road and we're able to to have more proactive action taken so uh so I'm going to jump right in unless anybody has any direct questions on that I'm going to jump right into our budget so into our salary and wages line item um Department section overall uh most of the items within our budget are contractual items there's very few discretionary items uh so in this first section salary and wages most of those are completely encompassing contractual items there's an overall decrease from 23 to 24 of $465 that's a direct result of retirements we were having a you know that impacted everything from salary and wages to longevity uh and things along that line and college obviously there's obvious there's also changes that were done contractually that change what officers are uh able to obtain through their contract so there you'll see some things that have been phased out they also lose uh being that there's a negative component on that top would you like me to go into more detail around salary wages any other questions for me okay so I'll jump down into operating expenses uh over the course of the entire ire operating expense budget there is a slight increase of $1,930 I think of note the biggest one is a contractual change that is uh for uniform allowance that was a change that was made to the PBA contract as you could see there was an increase in that line item uh offsetting that and some of the other line items you have um you know such as uniform replacement or um doctors and exams those are the items I was talking about as they had gone up last year to accommodate hiring new officers they've since been adjusted back down clearly because we're not going to have to hire the same number of officers this year uh service contracts there was a minimal increase in that as with that those are all um the vendors that we use for our day-to-day operations for the police department downstairs uh and with that comes typical annual increases for each of those items so that gives me a grand total of uh for the entire police department operating budget a total increase of $ 7,273 why did the junior Police go down are you cutting back on the program or did you get money from else no so for the junior Police Academy um what we found was that there is some opioid settlement funds that have become available through the state of New Jersey the Attorney General is very restrictive on what we're able to use those funds on we have to point to certain specific items um but if we're targeting a certain age group to help obviously have an impact and minimize possible drug use or have you know law enforcement exposure um so they can uh get you can use that we can use that money that was one of the things that I said okay it looks not reducing this program are you because it's a great program so okay I know I know I appreciate the support no we're not cutting that program that was just some of the other funds to help offset all right good that's what the plan is anything significant cause the $133,000 increase in administrative costs or up top for salary and wages yes uh those are that's contractual steps so what happens so there's different for our just like our all of our um UAW employees there's step increases and it depends on benchmarks that they hit for years of service or there's actual I'm sorry there's level increases that's for Benchmark years of service step increases year-over-year so as you have employees that hit certain number of years they will go to the next level um but for next year's budget you'll see those levels have average out because those people are more season they've been here for quite some time now so you'll just see more lighter increases next year because they'll be in steps instead of level change second any other questions on the police section okay I'll jump into the dispatch section uh for the dispatch section there is an increase in salary of wages it's a total of $ 25,36 uh we don't have any we didn't have any retirements um in 2023 obviously to offset step increases for uh dispatching so there those are all contractual items up top uh the lower section operating expenses we that is flat that's at zero there's no increases for those operating expenses so that total increase is just contractual obligations of $2,363 I think it is important to note for our dispatchers as we've picked up six Animal Control shared service agreement ments uh those calls have increased for our dispatch as well so uh that also would well we had that last year so I couldn't say that would attribute to my my excess in you know increase in calls this year but um I think it's important to note that our dispatchers are doing more with the current Staffing because of all those other towns that we have picked up that account for The $64,000 increase approximately in the uh salaries so the expended salaries were we spent $358,000 um the proposed is 411 that's what he's talking about the difference in the EXP oh I see I look I like to not use budget to budget I put actual to budget you know they didn't spend it all maybe so some of the challenges that we're we're facing and uh you know I've brought this up with the mayor is so we also have part-time dispatchers you know ult several years ago going back quite a few years now we eliminated one of of our full-time dispatch positions and we made it two part-time positions just so we could have a deeper Bank you know when you only have six dispatchers full-time covering 365 days a year you know seven days a week 24 hours a day that's a lot for six people to cover um it was a lot for seven people to cover so we had decided hey let's see if we could break it out and we worked with the Union to make the agreement that we could hire two part-time dispatchers well part of the problems that you have as we're going through social changes and increase in you know um minimum wage now you have people that well they can make $18 an hour as a part-time dispatcher or you could work in a local shop for $15 an hour minimum wage well who wants to work overnight for $18 an hour on weekends and holidays and so some of the challenges we have faced is is maintenance of keeping those part-time dispatchers a lot of times they'll come in we'll get them trained we'll get them up and running and then they leave for other opportunities so where it was very beneficial years ago we're seeing some of the challenges now um and you know the the bank of part-time patchers there's just not a deep well of them so we prefer to hire dispatchers that already have the training because we don't want to incur the training cost and then they work here for six months or a year then they're off going to a full-time spot um the benefits of that is a lot of our part-time dispatchers we look to them to be they are vetting for our full-tim a lot of our current full-timers came from that part-time Bank of you know because we get to see how they function you you make sure this is a good employee who comes to work who's on time who's early who you know takes the extra shifts and helps out so um I do see that I I see exactly what you're talking about but there is that Flux Of part-time dispatchers that right now we're in the middle of just trying to staff another parttime dispatch spot right now because we had lost one we had one that was here um last through last fall same thing happened get him here he's trained he's working part-time taking some hours then he Ops to go somewhere you see less of an interest in a police career over the last three years 100% it's a significant challenge um it's and it's across the board for all law enforcement in the state all my state Partners tell me the same thing you know where we would certify a civil service list I would never not see a Vernon resident on that now you certify a civil services and you're seeing people from other jurisdictions that are ending up on our list because we have we have a resident preference on our list I've never seen anything like it before um and it's it's I think moving forward over the course of all retirements that we're going to see you're going to see some continued challenges with hiring and my my goal is the same and i' I've said this to the mayor and to the business administrator and the former Administration our Legacy is we are going to hire the best possible candidate I don't want to hire somebody and just say well this is who applied will take them no we're taking the best possible candidate that's going to do the best for our town and the best for our department because longevity that makes a big difference in you know their commitment to the town and maybe issues that arise if you hire a candidate that isn't of the highest caliber but those are definitely concerns that we're seeing across the board in the whole state and in here at T I was personal friends with people who were auxiliary officers years ago is that and then they they would perform their duties in uniform no weapons crowd control traffic control things like that and I guess there was a cost savings on the overall budget because they get paid less than a regular uniform officer is that still in place active or we only have a few and I'll say that it's um it's very challenging because now we have police licensing that comes into play there's all benchmarks in training requirements and the am you have to invest in somebody to just a couple times a year put them out for traffic control the cost just doesn't necessarily make sense um so we don't act I don't actively pursue that program because financially how much do you invest in somebody if you're only going to be able to use them a limited amount of time okay yeah was just because I thought I saw less of that's why that's why and really what it comes to is for example like you had some older police officers that had retired that have all the certifications maintain everything and you can bring them back as a special well there's minimal impact on maintaining their training you already had them here you already doing that you could Circ you know you could add them right into some of those other details like that but a lot of guys retire and yeah or or or women retire and they don't want to continue to do this sort of career it's a stressful career yeah thank you yep uh so moving in probably to the easiest and my favorite budget line item is the anal control division um so as I had mentioned we had uh seen a significant amount of shared service opportunity uh that we have been able to do with our current Staffing levels um and our anticipated shared service for this year is $85,200 which has a direct impact across our whole budget um I think it is important to note that this is forecasted out so when we initially took on some other towns we did one year agreements and these were conversations that I know we had had with the council and the mayor was you know we didn't want to overextend ourselves and find out we were gonna be forced to be adding a tremendous amount of Staffing to support something and then losing out on that you know what what benefit we would have had so we've been able to uh we saw after that one year we were able to function um without having to increase to staff and having to have a direct impact on our Township services so we went this year and we forecasted them out a few more years so um salary and wages as you'll see there's a decrease of 15,000 and operating expenses is a 0% so in total you'll see a negative $15,000 increase for the operations of animal control nice do you have any questions on that uh I know that um unfortunately the off RIS management coord orator couldn't be here today so while I am not the OEM coordinator I'm one of the deputies so um if I could just jump into that really really quickly yep and I'll just um real quick for salaries and wages um I put the majority of the salaries and wage on line on them together for the budget um so this one includes a request to bring the coordinator up to um a salary that's more in line with other townships can I sorry Chief I I just wanted to just jump in real quick um I do apologize the the background checks for for you to perform on your offices for the licensing what was that fee what was that fee I if you don't know that's fine I I don't no so so for a was the question you to do well for newly hired officers it's 500 everybody that is currently a police officer is grandfathered in right now got you um I don't know what the renewal costs are going to be in three years after they've gone through the first initial wave of renewals they they're phasing everybody in over three years right now it was Zero but as I hire new officers there is going to be a price to hire a new officer for licensing fees same same applies to class two specials okay so that so that background check is not like your obviously your typical say firearms background check right it's it's more detailed right into it's oh it's gonna be because you got to dig into I guess former records and you know and the Attorney General's been very specific our our background checks for uh relicensing of police officers going to involve everything beyond the normal background check it's going to be doing like a law enforcement background check which includes social media checks uh you have to provide you know passwords so we could go in and look at things there's I expect some litigation probably to come out in a state that's going to dictate how these background checks are going to go but this is the step off year and that's something we're absorbing as the Command Staff we're just GNA have to figure out how we're going to be handling okay background checks on a third of our department yeah perpetually moving forward with no change in command structure thank you that's no problem um so the other the other item here um is op operating expenses for OEM everything stays flat with the exception of um OEM service contracts radio repairs and maintenance and I think that's obviously of important note because you could see there was a a decent increase from last year of $10,000 up to $15,000 this year and I just if I could comment on that for one minute just so you fully understand that so um what for many many years there's no specifically money that had been earmarked for fire department and EMS repair that just kind of came through the budget as things were happening they would figure out where they would pull that from so OEM absorbed that into their budget um and what happens is unlike the police department where we maintain our radios and all of our equipment the fire department and EMS are volunteers so they're in a little bit of a different function they have other careers and responsibilities and their equipment at this point is getting pretty old I mean you're in excess of probably 10 plus years since the radio system was in and maybe be more than that I don't know off the top of my head um but you're finding some of their equipment what happened this particular last year is they had some equipment failures which is causing a lot of problems especially on certain sections of town that their piece of equipment fails now they have no radio communications so one of the uh recommendations that had come up through OEM was to consider having some sort of a service contract with the radio vendor that's going to be coming out quarterly to inspect their equipment especially as it gets older and they could they can make some changes and updates as needed throughout the year I know that seems like a sizable increase for that item but right now that's not happening um and quite honestly the mayor knows this I've told them this if the fire system goes down on midnight on a Saturday night usually it's myself that I get the phone call and I'm responding up to a Mountaintop and I'm trying to fix radios and you know as I I call up my exit strategy because I'm one of the people eligible for retirement and I got to make sure that the town's in the best possible position and I you know that knowledge can't just walk out the door without other people so I've I've started the process of bringing some of the firemen up to their equipment to seeing their equipment how it functions um but I think really in the best interest it's a very small investment to make sure a radio vendor comes out and is making sure their stuff is working so it's not having a catastrophic failure so that's why you seeing that slight increase there I think it just makes um logical sense to have that sort of a support from an outside service like a like a generator vendor that comes comes out and does that this would be for our Radio Systems sorry for the full explanation but but you'd like to know that so does anybody have any other questions about oen I just wantan I just want to add that uh Ken Clark is uh he's been outstanding working with him on on some issues but most part is is consolidating the ambulance squads together which is truly going to it's it's so much better for for our support for for our residents and and also dollarwise right so um kudos to him um and uh you do owe me a trip to Conway up that mountain so I I can't wait to go that to dry out um but I I also want to just touch uh one thing and I I know um you know maybe in the state across the the country there's been a time I guess where police are not you know this this things are low right because I guess you know on maybe on on how the law has changed in our state um but just just so you know that do you have my full full support here and I and I know I can speak probably speak for the council that that they they earned full but I do want to share with the public one thing so what you do with the amount of offices you do with the square miles miles is outstanding and and and and I just just for an example I'll just give you guys an example Mawa 50 they have 51 police officers in 26 square miles 26,000 residents West Milford has 47 police offices four special officers 26,000 square miles and 26,000 residents Sparta has 35 offices and four special offices 38 square miles 20,000 residents and H pacan has 30 police officers 20 square miles at 14,000 residents and Vernon 33 police officers 70 square miles with 22 23,000 uh residents so uh you guys are stretched in um and it's uh you know and I thank you for for really uh for your guys really uh pushing that and uh and not going what we we haven't had any issues and um and that's that's a huge savings uh you know pwn that we're not overloading with with police um so who El do you really thank you very much thank you appreciate it thank you everyone morning morning have DPW next um I'm going to jump right into salaries and wages for roads as we go through um I'll do the salaries and wages for the other divisions Works um so for Road repairs Main Road repairs and maintenance for salaries and wages um our budget our proposed budget for this year is $1,483 that is up from $1,456 th000 in the prior year um are contractual obligations obviously at the DPW we have 25 24 contractual um employees with asme so that includes um Step increases we have seen quite a bit of turn turnover at the DPW in the past couple of years which meant that we would hire new employees which is at a lower salary from a majority of the people that left um but they do have step increases so those increases are significant um in the first couple of years so that is our salaries and wage line item it does also include seasonal he which we have not been able to really find anybody the past couple of years we go out every year looking for them um you guys Post in LinkedIn and stuff did you do indeed did you ever post like indeed in LinkedIn and work with the schools posted everywhere over there really yeah no I think they we've even reached out to the high school County College uh not County College um Tech yes really even Tech Yeah we actually years ago we did bring somebody in from Tech but that was shortlived but we some of them are very shortlived yeah that's been like now trying to keep people here yeah because now summer's coming right and you're going to be looking for some part-time work part-time employees this summer yes yeah years ago we used to get the high school a lot of kids from high school would come in but we have nobody we can't even get we're having trouble finding full-time people to apply do we have a full-time position open in the DPW right now we did we did so yeah okay it yeah we we've had a couple of full-time positions open the tbw because people have left um or retired and it took us I mean one of the line items we'll talk about when we get to Fleet but we had um a mechanic leave and that was like six months ago yeah and we only were just able to fill that position so it's it's been difficult um but anyway so that's for salaries and wages for um excuse me how many employees did you say uh so there are 28 including director of Public Works okay um okay Howe if you want to go into the O and lines not gonna go line for line I'll skip down to uh number 56 line painting we jump that up there because every year line painting continues to increase the cost per square uh they charges linear feet but that may stay the same depending on what roads get paved what roads don't get paved we'll jump down into Road material Ro material I don't know if you guys know that's our hot asphalt that we gather and go pick up every year when we purchase another hot box to help us so now we'll have two two crews out asphalt and All Summer Long hopefully with the weather so it'll be more asphalt being used and we'll jump down into uh snow and ice number 61 that increased uh because we're going to more salt and sand this past year we went to salt to one grit and uh with our new uh State mandate Ms 4 the requires us to uh sweep the roads four times a year so if we do more salt that'll cut back on that and it'll come back on labor over the year well over the next few years with the overtime and hopefully it cleans up a lot better underneath of it the vehicle lease interest the now I gu you yeah so um the the DPW a lot of their vehicles were can um orders were canceled through Enterprise um during let's say during covid right after covid the chip shortage um so we were behind in receiving the Vehicles we've had vehicles on order and then had them canceled and had to reorder um we are now at a point where we've actually finally getting vehicles in so that's why that vehicle interest line is up um the actual payments on those vehicles are paid through Capital but I can't run that through I can't run the interest through capital and just so we're clear that's on all our smaller trucks our 550s yes on our side then I'll jump down into uh 65 drug testing for employees that increased over the uh last year jump I'm sorry that's just a cost increase that's it then the uh number 70 maintenance and debris removal that's for our sweepings that line items down a little bit but it will increase this year because of the more sweeping that we have to do that gets all to schuma years ago when we first started doing that it was no cost now they're charging per ton oh okay so again that line item up top for the salt that'll help us with that clost over the next few years and I think I asked this question there's no way to take that dirt and that grit and recycle it right um we can't yeah I know Schumer probably does but uh we can't get a little tanning thing and start sifting it may or you can sipping through it and mixing it with some salt we're good next year besid right don't jump down to number 99 tree removal that increased I'm sure you guys all know with the dead ashes that we have around the state that's probably going to be increasing for the next five to 10 years I'm going to say we just can't keep up with it we are um the plan for the DPW for next year uh on their on our on my Capital plan is to purchase a new rolloff um and we did look into getting there's an attachment a bucket attachment to that rolloff that we can use so hopefully I mean it it's going to increase because of the number of ash trees that we've been having issues with um but hopefully it will stabilize because we'll be able to remove some of those ourselves using the bucket truck we obviously can't remove all of them but hopefully that will Aid in that a little bit because we've just seen this line item increase year after year and this rolloff truck which she's talking about is is for dumpsters so we can actually it's a multi-purpose truck so um yes that that helps with recycling I'm sure you could even throw a plow in the front of that thing too right so we can get many uses out of it and that that again will will uh be helpful towards towards our shared services um what have I that were look at to do but great um just two items that I wanted sorry staying with the tree removal you're seeing preponderance of dead trees along the side of the road cut the lengths are from here to the other side of Mr Higgins these logs people can't pick them up in order to facilitate removal on these is there any way we can have them you know sort at a smaller length that way it would help the average person or two people pick them up throw them in the back of their station wagon and use them for burning so um I think go ahead yeah M so yes there is but we found we just started uh last year we started bringing wood down at the bottom on the Vernon crossing road and we've been cutting it so people can take it right but we found the problem over the years is that when we did cut it along the side of the road people don't always take it so then it becomes a hinder to everybody because it's on the side of the road staying there and there's more people and there's more pieces well and it depends on if it's a safe area to pull over I think you don't want encourage people to pull over in a spot yeah 55 with has no shoulder around a corner you know yes so yeah yeah we did start that and as you can see we probably put 10 15 cords down there and there's nothing to shield for really really it all got taken good and I do wanna I do want to contact um some of the Commissioners at you know in the county because that was um Mr Brian Lynch brought it up about you know that being you know could be an issue if you got fires that are in the woods how do you get through when you got these logs so uh that was mentioned uh during one of the the council meetings so I I do want to follow up uh with the county to see if they can you know take up you know help help in those efforts saying with that what would you seems like people are burning logs to heat their home um would stoves that type of thing I could understand them not wanting to go on major rows like 515 or 517 or something where you know putting their themselves at risk to try and pick up wood is there any way do you think that we could encourage or make available these pieces of lumber Timber uh that would be available at a uh in a safer area that would not be too cost uh too costly for us well those two Ros I just said we would have to reach out to the county yeah and see if they want to also drop down in here well got to take in accountability for liability of where we're putting it if somebody does get hurt yeah so I think down there and we're allowing them take it yeah I think down the road here is the best spot to do it yeah how about on our own town roads our town roads if we cut and if we can get to it we've been bringing it back and dropping it down here okay' been putting it in our rolloffs and dropping it down all right okay but again like you said with this with this price here it's not so much on us it's calling the contractors to come do this on a property that's in Highland Lakes right in the middle of two houses we own a property in Highland Lakes I see yeah that's the problem and we're not the only ones calling them so they're busy and then then prices go up right demand and demand increases costs go up so yeah it's got a guy that would take the wood thanks pricey and like denell said would the uh purchase hopefully we can get that uh the RO you know that bucket and maybe we can eliminate some of the cost if we can get into the High Lakes roads with that bucket and reach up in between houses and do it ourselves yeah can I can I just both one second I I thought I heard Jessica going to ask a question Jess oh yeah thanks I just uh I don't think we need to talk about it now during the budget meeting but I was just wondering how the wood was advertised because a lot of times on the community Pages I'll see people asking where to buy cordwood so they may not folks may not know that it's available and to and just to true because we we do not put it out there that it is available yeah you know that we're dumping today you can come grab it again though we don't have to post it because by the if I dump that wood down there at 10 o'clock it's going by three yeah yeah that's awesome but what we could do is put something out there that from time to time there'll be wood put in this location you know and uh people can can keep track of it so yeah I think that's great a great service to the community two lines I just wanted to touch on before on to recycling and buildings and grounds um equip two specific equipment rental line and education conferences line that's line 22 and 23 um for equipment rental we didn't use any last year um but we kept it at 10,000 because we only have one sweeper right now so even though it's in our Capital plan to purchase a new sweeper because of the ms4 permitting requirements um we won't be we're not going to see that um piece of Machinery this year that's just not what's going to happen so we kept the 10,000 in there so we can rent one um if necessary right now our swe I think runs from like the end of March through September it's running now it's running right now okay um and like how he explained hopefully by using the salt that can decrease the amount of grit that we're picking up and sending out to scum and paying for that and then the other line for educations conferences and seminars um the government passed a requirement that in order to have your CDL license now you need to actually go through um like a training class training class I couldn't think of the word I wanted to say seminar but it's training class so so anyone that comes in that does not have their CDL um we do have that expense that we have to pay for so that's why that average four to five, yes oh yeah it's not cheap to get your CDL yes so so the town will pay for someone to get their CDL that's what yes it's a requirement um for a DPW employee to have their CDL I know but not all usually you want to hire someone who has it sometimes we are lucky and we can find someone who has it um but not everybody has their can get their CDL and again we've we've spoken about being able to find employees that's a real benefit then for someone looking to it's an investment in the employees yeah so if we pay for so here's a question this is important we pay that money for their cbll is there a clawback if they leave so there's currently no clawback because it's a requirement of the position but if we if we provide them the education legally we can't have a clawback that what you're telling me well it's currently in the asme contract that if it's a required education or seminar or license or like that if it's required that the township would cover it you hear I mean but like we heard what the police what the chief was saying right we're training people and then they're going somewhere else so I just that's if there's any way to you know require you know if you leave before I don't know I guess that's a question for the lawyer right it's more I don't want Vernon to be on the hook just to be clear it's it's in their contract when when's the new you know what you hear what I'm saying though like comes up would be due in 2025 our taxpayers are going to pay for a significant you know you have your CDL but it's a contractual agreement the only way to get it out now is the next contract in 2025 yeah to negotiate do they have to say a certain period of time after they get CDL or they can leave no they don't that's what I'm saying so there's no call back and it's just like the and I think you know I see it's a great um it's a great benefit right for someone I totally agree paying for it but I just hate to see like you guys pay for it six months later he's like I can get a better job somewhere else and yeah I agree with Natalie this is I think I think there's also because we've had an issue with um employee tonero I think it's something that we need to address anyway in contracts is that there are things that we need to do to ensure that we're attracting good people we those good and doing what it takes to keep good people because that's important yeah but also addressing the issues and the needs of the township that we say like okay like there's got to be that balance yeah exactly oh yeah like I yeah definitely training is important a good work environment comp ation all important things but then if you invest all this you're investing it exactly the thought that this is going to benefit the the municipality and our Township yep and an Administration is aware that the next negotiations those are things that we definitely need toix yep that's a problem not only with us it's everywhere problem that the state's having they do people as well like you said we they're paying and then they're staying a year or two after and then they leave and it's not it's not yeah it's it's um you know it's it's important for the taxpayer um you know because those are you know hard to fill positions so the taxpayer you know why you know why is why is this not weed whacked or why is this you know like and and it all kind of feeds into to that when a we when are we I know we're not getting the street sweeper this year what when I mean did they give you some kind of time frame on that um I believe it was in the work that Pete gave us it might have been like 24 months yeah I was going to say 18 24 for the machine a lot of yeah a lot of the larger equipment it used to be that we could put a bond ordinance in in May or June right put a purchas order in June July and we would have it like by the end of the year yeah I know not anymore hold on I think do you have a question yes the snow and ice yes $45,000 yes so um excuse me sorry the the year to date was 220 have you increased that at all the year to date that we spent in 2023 was 220 okay has not increased I you budget so the 23 budget was 395 so you you obviously spent less than less than 23 yep and yet we're up to 405 and 24 yes we need that much of an increase so um I thought I think easily 25,000 on something that that line could be you can take a look at that um so just to explain uh and it's something that we' mentioned before when M was speaking about the trust so we do have a snow trust at the end of 2023 well just before we closed the books in 2023 um I had expended significantly out of that snow trust um in order for our uh settlement with the lake communities um we did have money put aside from prior Year's budgets but obviously there's a settlement amount that we needed to come to um so we used that however when we closed the books in 2023 we did close out a lot of um some of the unused Appropriations from the DPW Department we moved into the snow trust so we ended just under $500,000 however because of the lake communities and the expenses so far this year for snow it's down to $140,000 so I do want to make sure that we're still we have enough in here to cover our expenses we've already spent a 100 out 100,000 out of this line so a quarter of that's already gone and I do want to make sure that we do have enough to put back into it um at the end of next year um and I also don't know what you know November October could be October um no December is going to look like so I I want to make sure we have a healthy snow trust this is the first year we've taken over the lake communi we paid for that um it was a heavy heavier snow year this year just the beginning of this year compared to 2023 so I want to make sure that we're covered um I think I'll get a better sense at the end of this year into the next year's budget what this year kind of looked like um and then get us to a place where I think that we're we're safe um in the number that we're moving forward with and again this also includes an increase use of salt versus grit which we did not used last year so because of the permitting requirements we're trying to decrease um our cost in other areas knowing that we so buy another Sweet street sweeper and have employees on that so um I think having the salt will help decrease the overtime um it's going to help decrease the expense through schuma it's going to help overall it's just a little bit more expensive in this line it's going to take a few years to see that yes again it goes from the grip clean in the basins clean in the basins two guys out with trucks so that grit it adds up we pay for grit 10 times and it's and just to be clear it's with it yeah it's not just the sweeping that we have to do um like he just mentioned we have to maintain and clear out all of the storm drains that we have in town that's a requirement every single year um it's a heavy lift for the municipality that's has the vacuum right yeah that's right yeah um if we can move into recycling so um recycling salaries and wages keeping that the same this covers the part-time employees that are um in recycling weekend and during the weekend you want to just yeah I'll go down into uhy equipment we have a shredder over there that does shredding that's going to be up for Serv service and new blades maybe even a new one that price may go up but hopefully it's just only the blades that need to be replaced um and then for buildings and ground salaries and Wages that's just a contractual obligation that we have for that uh increase of $1,000 to $554,000 and then the O and E Line Howie I'll go down to yes 55 buildings ground buildings repair as you all know the buildings cost us money to getting old between the roof and everything else the fire systems that are in here you know it's it is what it is it's old so it's costing money every year like I said down underneath the fire system that needs to be uh it's cost bumped up because the system has to be monitored now and they need to put a back flow backf flow prevention in there that's on the boiler or I'm sorry um that's separate from the fire suppression system for the for the kitchen right is that yeah yeah this is like this is this is just for like maintenance and testing and back low testing got gotta not the same on that um we can move into the fleet salaries and wages so um looking at the year to date because I just want to touch on that so last year we spent just under $250,000 we had budgeted 273 um obviously these are contractual employees the increase this year I'm expecting is 20 to $280,000 which is a $7,000 increase the difference between what we spent year-to date um is significant again because we had a mechanic that left midye and we had not been able to replace that position um until recently so that's why you have a significant um difference in what we had budgeted versus what was expended and then I do um I do want to touch on the fleet o and I know how he's going to touch on it but I just wanted to mention um you see a line here that says uh volunteer mer it's VES repairs so what was happening before is that that line used to say fire truck repairs and then we also had a line under volunteer Emergency Management or Emergency Services which is another budgetary line where it was like two lines for Fleet items were being charged and there was just some confusion between the ambulance department the fire department because they also have like actual equipment that needs to be repaired so what I did was move some of that money that was being charged to like basically Fleet repairs for ambulances fire trucks and I moved it into the actual Fleet Maintenance line so the fleet is charging Fleet repairs to the Fleet Maintenance line and then actual equipment repairs that might need to be done for the fire or ambulance will be handled in the volunteer Emergency Services line so it did seem like a significant increase it's just because I shifted some expense from that line into this line and I don't know if there was anything else how I wanted to mention but that covered it pretty good there you know with between the tests and the fire trucks and then the pumps on them yeah again hopefully that line will go down because we are looking into send in one of our mechanics to get certified on pumps two guys we do two guys yeah um so that's under in negotiations we have to address all those things with contractual negotiations um and just the line I want to touch on in case it comes up we do have a line here a sub line for the MUA vehicle maintenance what happens is we we create that line so that if the maintenance is done to the vehicle um the township gets reimbursed by the MUA for that line I just like to keep it separate so it's accounted for it separately um salaries and wages for Parks so um what we had budgeted last year was 183 I'm sorry 19 191 um that was included signal um we our year to date was 145 so that was because we had moved an individual um that was in Parks into roads um and then this budget year for 190 for the regular salaries and wages I took a look it's been a little strange because the crews kind of change and go back and forth either throughout the year from year to year so what I did was I looked at who's actually in that crew for building it's not just Parks it's buildings and grounds it's Parks um and who works there a majority of their time and those are the salaries that I put in this line I didn't think it was right to be charging it to roads if they're only in roads you know maybe a month or two um in total time so I think this properly reflects who's actually in um that Parks line or yeah Parks line um but again I want to be clear it's not just Parks they're handling all the buildings and grounds throughout the township and we're hopeful we'll find someone parttime yes okay you see we've had like nobody um for the past few years and then it's staying the same for uh maintenance with that in with that in mind you're having problem finding these what what is your normal crew that is sent out on Park Road depart no Road Road repairs road maintenance that type of thing well our normal day-to-day operations is two Crews with seven to eight people and then they break up of what they have to do per sections so I'll use today as a as an example I have two Crews I have one crew repairing basins and one crew sucking basins okay with the V truck all right that that crew is the same crew split up into two different groups then on my other crew I have them doing coold patch with the hot box to fix some of the holes because we can't get hot stuff right now right how many people on that group six to seven all right and then how that's one crew that just gave you two Crews doing three things and then Parks is maintaining or getting ready for their spring Sports all right which have three when you have potholes or something like that yep that are very small how many many people would be handling those types of situations same amount of people depending where they are and what roads they're on the hot box goes out yeah and it has pretty much four to five guys on that Crow depending where they're going if we're going into a neighborhood then we can get get away with less but if I'm sending guys out on can year Mo Road and all these roads here that safety becomes a serious issue yeah so you you need your two safeties on either end requirements yes on how many guys yes so right I could get more guys to go with that crew I would because again like I said these the the cars that are traveling right now you they don't see the signs whether they're on their phones I don't know what they're doing but they don't see them and they're coming to my Flagger waving with a truck behind him with flashers and they're going around him sometimes yeah so again it goes back to safety is the number one priority when we're doing asphalt or anytime out on these roads yeah thank you how um while you just touched the uh on the uh catch basins um well I don't know if you were working on or was involved with the the two at the board would have had can you just share some information on what exactly um what involved in in those what was involved in those repairs I did not get to the one to the high school okay did have somebody look at the one at the high school and gave me what we needed to do at the high school which was pretty minor but the one that was at Glen Meto that was a little bit more entailed we had to have a machine come and to take the top off we chiseled out two rows of blocks and replace the rose and then had to install the top back on it again but that included cleaning out with the VOR truck then prepping it and then when we're done cleaning out again and then setting the top on Goa thank you so this was work done for the Board of Education already Yes done because the uh speaking with the Board of Ed uh they were they felt it was a a dangerous situation yes um so you know like I said I I don't I don't want anyone being hurt especially especially children so I uh I quickly asked our DPW to take a look and see if there's something that they can help out with and they said yes we can do it just go do it I I i' rather address an emergency situation uh whether right or wrong did it and uh and I don't regret it because again I I feel the uh safety is is safety issue y had a large hole Yeah Yeah po cave in yep so do you have anything else to know no all guys just one other thing and thank you guys really for for stepping up especially we talked about a lot of the sh sh excuse me shared services we're looking to do with the Board of Ed um you guys really just you know no you had that you know go get it no problem attitude so I I really you know appreciate that and uh so thank you for that other than police the DPW is probably the most visible service that the residents of town get so uh pressure is always on yes yeah thank you how so much thank you um we have volunteer Emergency Services fire prevention next I'm going to start with the volunteer Emergency Services um and just go through those lines as well as this wages for fire prevention if M has to leave I mean she's mention had to head back to the office for a meeting no problem thank you so much for questions please feel free to reach out to me thank you you thank you thank you Mom oh Mom thank you have we at here morning sir morning okay so for volunteer emergency service um the requests for reimbursements the fire departments and the ambulance are not changing so fire departments um are getting $45,000 each for reimbursements again 50% of that has to be spent on firematic um items and then obviously Vernon Emergency Medical Services is now one entity so we don't have the individual departments so we are reimbursing that $70,000 obviously it covers the exact same amount that we had with the two departments prior uh we did include lines in here um for training computer programming uh as well as an increase um in the State Fire testing mandate item so for training and computer programming training right now um the township has not covered training for um fire volunteers we will be covering that moving forward um we're also including this we've had a couple of conversations with Ken Clark our OEM coordinator and there's just some computer program programs um whether it's for uh scheduling that we kind of want to see the same across the board um and the township is Will is requesting that they pick up um that expense so that it's done across the board uh equipment repair and maintenance um this was the line that I spoke about before with regards to the Fleet Maintenance line where some of this money moved into the Fleet Maintenance line but we still we need to keep money in the equipment repair and maintenance for actual equipment repair and maintenance for our volunteer Emergency Services ambulance and fire um the State Fire and testing mandate so our hoses need to be tested annually we did increase this line a little bit so that if there are repairs that do need to be done to hoses and stuff it have more than enough funds to be able to cover that um that wasn't totally covered before and some of the fire departments were paying for it it was um but not all the time it was uh just needs to be done correctly and then obviously the cling allowance um decreased a little bit just based on what we foresee in the past from for p prevention salaries and wages we're anticipating um a decrease actually from 200,000 to 184,000 so last year we had had uh two full well two full-time employees in the in the fire prevention office um we have moved one of those full-time employees to be full-time in tax so we have three to full-time employees in tax um and then we replaced that full-time individual with someone who is a full-time person but split between the clerk and Fire Prevention so before it was split between the clerk and tax it's now split between Clerk and Fire Prevention um so that's why you'll see that decrease there and then uh if you wanted to go through your line items Lou for fire prevention I haven't really looked for any increases in anything it's pretty much the same as last year and the year before the only thing I did was I moved for um lose expenses again this is that it stays in his Department the State Fire mandate expenses um that were charged prior previously to the VES lines it's now in L's line so like he's responsible for his line Emergency Services is responsible for theirs and we're not using different lines all any questions no okay thank you um Township Clerk is next you do it we have the to you could do it from there do from that's fine um so salaries and wages again I'm usually the one who prepares these um we do have two contractual employees in the Township Clerk Office obviously one is part-time um and it's split so those individuals were on steps um so that's why you see that increase from 175 to 188 you want to go through your o lines sure um my o and lines pretty much stayed the same um I did I'm sorry yes number no okay I'm like I don't have a number nine okay I'm sorry I did decrease one line number 53 which is um codification of ordinances um only because I haven't used that much um so as you can see my o actually um decreased by um uh $2,000 questions on those Mr okay yeah are we good to move on to finance the clerk salaries what was the r all on that so um in that office we have two contractual employees so just to let you know before um it's probably two years ago we we only had one contractual employee we have two to create that split between two where we needed an individual instead of hiring a full-time person we hired well hire instead of hiring a full-time and a part-time we hired one full-time and split two departments and it's worked out pretty well um but because we have those two contractual employees they're steps so that takes account for the increase step increase yep it has worked out pretty well it's working out I think very well um and it it actually benefits uh both dep departments fire and clerk um if clerk needs um this person a little bit extra fire needs this person a little bit extra we've been um working it out where you know both all the offices are covered I think it's also really good get for coverage I was going to mention because in the past when we just had a part-time employee there um the coverage was not sufficient for the clerk's office um just yeah that person yeah yeah no the cross training is important it's working very well yeah thank you um o request right I mean that keep Rising right yeah they how many you have constant last year oh I I don't know I can get that number right now I think we're up to oh gosh I want to say maybe 145 or something like that right now 145 yeah okay okay um are we good to move to finance yes okay uh so Finance I have forgetting to tell you this um it's Tab 10 if I makes as we go through I got um so for finance salaries and wages uh I have three um full-time contractual employees in my department so they are on steps I have one that has finished the steps um but the other two are still on steps so that accounts for that increase from 242 to 252 this upcoming year for my o lines It's actually an overall decrease in um the budget from 17,950 to 17 ,300 um however that does take into consideration an increase in our edmin contract so in 2019 we went out for competitive contract for Edmonds um so that it was a small increase every year for that contract uh we will probably have to go out I believe at the end of or the beginning of next year um for a competitive contract but there really is no competition anymore because Edmonds purchased MSI so um it will probably be EV um that was the com MSI was the compet platform so yeah when I came here in 2018 we actually had Finance on MSI and we had the MUA and tax well we had the MUA on MSI too and we had tax on Edmonds um so we were actually expending more money for different programs I see um rather than lumping everything together so in 2019 we went out for a competitive contract MSI didn't even reply to it which was strange um but Edmonds was was awarded it we chose Edmonds and then Edmond bought MSI so it's probably not a bad thing that we did that um education conferences and seminars uh that decreased slightly materials and supplies um the cost of our checks have increased so we did move in 20 the end of 2019 when we did the shift from every to everything moving to Edmonds we moved to a central clearing account before we had individual checks accounts and we no longer do that however the cost of those checks have increased a little bit any any way of getting the banks to absorb the cost of the checks um I have not seen that in another municipality before absorb the cost for payroll services for us they do yes they do um so that that helps substantially and that was one of the questions I had too you know when we I'm sorry I didn't hear you m that was some of the questions that I asked an now is that you know all the money that we put into you know these Banks what what do they offer in return right and um she did say the services that they do provide um you know we that benefits so I mean whether or not it be checks but there are some yeah there's I mean there's other services that Banks usually charge for like a lot of banks if you and I were to go higher funds we could charge for them um obviously there's no charges for any of those wire transfers that we have to do and we pay debt service and um you know they pay for they they pay for the payroll services for a majority of the year um there's a small expense that comes out of out of my budget for that um but you know there are services that they cover that usually you and I as a resident you know going in would be charged for uh uh financial consulting I did decrease this year um we only have one band sale a year so that has helped significantly um I would like to reduce it even further but you know depending on when we're going out for band Sals if the market changes or whatever I do like to have the flexibility in case we did have to have a second one in the current here um the only other lot it that you know increased significantly the payroll timekeeping system so that is reflective of the actual cost of our timekeeping system mostly a small portion of that is payroll again payroll cost increase over time the timekeeping system when we first brought it in we did not anticipate using um the key cards that we have at the DPW so that was an added cost so I'm just making sure that we're covering all bases there and then the audit Services fee uh it says year to date Zero so for th for those of you who are new to council we charge the 2023 audit in 2024 so we back charge a 2023 budget for that expense that's why it's zero year to date for 2023 and then it's just a 2% increase for 2024 which is typical what the auditor charges any other questions okay move to tax collection okay great so um tax collection is number 11 tab 11 and for salaries and wages before Lisa starts um I'll just go into that and I mentioned it before we had moved um the part-timer that was there is now part-time and Fire Prevention there was just a switch from moving the full-timer into tax um that individual is at the end of the steps in the UAW contract so there was a bit of an increase um between 2023 and 2024 is proposed budget um so it went from 218 proposed and we expended 216 uh to 224 this year to account for that change you want to go into o El lines sure everything is basically staying the same except for materials um increase of $1,000 that's due to the cost of the tax bills going up and forms that we have to get out otherwise everything else stay the same I just want to um I just want to correct this because I was just looking at assessment not collection and I apologize for salaries and wages so the change was um 156 we had expended 150 last year and we were proposing 168 and again it's because that difference in the full-time and that's because of there's two contractual employees in there okay um and we had originally so two years ago we or I should say in 202 the beginning of 2023 we did have three full-timers in there um when that we had a full-time retire we the township said okay we need to replace somebody in the clerks and somebody in tax so we tried to save ex to save money to hire one full-time and split between the two departments rather than hiring two individuals um that's been difficult for the tax department I mean we have 14,000 line items um on our tax roles it is a larger tax department um we take in about 80 million over 80 million dos a year so plus the MUA um so it is significant so what we did moving that shift was taking someone who was at the end of their steps in the UAW contract and moving it into that office versus a part-time person so it is a significant difference in the dollar amount but you saw the savings on the fire profession side so it would have been the same keeping it the other way employee movements like that part-time full-time Department to Department who makes those decisions that's the decision of the mayor the mayor okay any other questions that shift actually happened I think right um right before you right before I was sworn in but I was I was made aware uh of that change so and and I always ask you know what what's best right like what's what is this something you know you have to trust the people that are actually inside those departments to to really give you a good Vision on on what would be best for the Department what what is needed so uh so that was a needed much needed shift so um so hopefully it's it's working and um thank you yeah and I just want to be clear so the public understands that there was no like moving someone from part-time to full-time like that did not happen it's the same same employees just different locations y okay thank thank you they already went through the tax assessor salaries so number 12 is the tab that we have for tax assessment I apologize again for that um so they're still the same two contractual employees that are in uh the assessor's office so that's why we have a year to date for 2023 of 26 we had budgeted 218 and we're budgeting 224 um I believe one of those employees might be getting to the end of their steps this year and then the other one is still on steps yes and so then for o and there's actually a 4% reduction overall um those reductions came from uh the education and conference line item and then also our um tax appraisal services for tax Court um I've been reducing that line a little bit every year as our total number of open dockets and tax court has reduced we still have um I think this is the first year we're under 100 open dockets but um so we still have quite a bit in there but as we get those worked out and uh wrapped up with the tax core that line item can go down maybe a little bit more you always you know $10,000 for a um Tax Court appraiser that's really two to three commercial appraisal reports it's really doesn't cover that much um so it's enough to cover if it would were to all happen this year um it's enough to cover at least the appraisal reports if not um the testimony and hours spent but um so that's where the two reductions came from and so overall 4% reduction in the cost to around the department for this year any questions for assessment thank you great thanks gr do have land use hello hello Kimberly um so this so salaries and wages um this accounts for increases there's no contractual employees in this office oh no actually fortunately that's why it's more we do have a portion of a contractual employee um this employee is split between fire prevention and building and um land use board so there is a small amount of contractual increase that's reflected in this line item um as well as uh I anticipated 2% increases for other individuals that are in that department so it went from uh 192 anticipated to 198 anti video year see there's here's where I get in trouble I'm looking at year-to date 187 so to me it goes from 187 to 198 so yeah we do have there is the one contractual employee right that would increase a bit more over 2% because that individual is still on steps and then the other ones the anticipated amount is only I only anticipated a 2% increase for the other three individuals that are in there and then my o and E I kept everything the same as last year I moved some monies around in different line items but it's still exactly the same as last year um so the three biggest line items that we have right are the planner engineering and legal yes um obviously we can't anticipate well we may have spent less last year significantly right for Engineering Services um or even legal um we can't anticipate one how many applications we're going to get in right or how many um you know we can plan for 24 meetings right we might not have 24 meetings I do plan for the 24 meetings doesn't mean we're always going to have them but I like to have that money in there in case we do because you just don't know so I like to anticipate that we're going to have every meeting but so a major developer comes in wants to present multi-million dollar program to the L sport what's his waiting time to get in the queue well so it all depends it all depends on how major it is so once they come in and drop the application off to me I do all my work and then I send it out to the professionals legally they have 45 days to deem it complete they don't ever take that long um so when they deem it complete is when I put them on the schedule so it could be anywhere from two weeks to four weeks getting them on depending on how involved the application is okay thank you the applicants have fees for all those Services that's Revenue your department generates so there are fees so I takeen an escrow the escrow is usually the biggest fee there is that pays the Professionals for doing their work so that the township doesn't pay for them going out and doing their site visits um for them doing their reports for them the applicant actually pays for all that out of the escrow that I keep in the bank that they provide there is an application fee that the town keeps and there's a GIS fee at the Town keep the rest of the fees go to the professionals that provide to serice and whatever doesn't get used the ex the remaining escro does go back to the applicant thank you thank you anything else anyone else thank you Jessica she's gone she's gone no she's here she Jessica stepped away oh okay yeah she's on um next we have building apartment which is tab 14 um so Sou and wages for this line there are three contractual employees in this department um one is at top of steps the or actually I think two are at top of steps one is still in moving along steps um and then we have three other individuals obviously two inspectors and the constru Cod official who are not contractual and there is um 2% anticipated increases on those this year um and they do we do have a it's not parttime full-time employee that spends a portion of the time that is charged to the construction Department we also have a line regarding salaries that covers us if we ever had to go out and have someone cover part-time for anything which we have had to do um in the past couple of years so um it's good to have it's it's about $2,000 that I put aside that would cover any of those P um I would let you jump right into it but I'm just going to make um so we did have a line in here for computer services we have been talking about doing uh moving everything to scanned documents so that you know if somebody's individual property everything would be scanned into a system so we could easily access all those files um the back file room is filled with massive Banker boxes um that really do need to be um digitized so that we have access to those more readily um to have the history of all the files in one place originally our conversation with the vendor was that we could do it over you know a fiveyear period and then it would just be an operations expense um however we got the full estimate for it and I feel more comfortable making it a capital expense it's a permanent you know one-time expenditure um so rather than having an increase of you know 12 13,000 in this operating budget I'm actually going to reduce that so right now um we had budgeted 24,000 I would like to reduce that back down to about 12 or 13 um spatial data is also taken out of that computer service line so there is a slight increase this year um but we can reduce that and I just want to tell you guys that off the bat that we've already had that discussion it was after this was put together um that that will be reduced about10 to 12,000 so what is the cost of this Capital project digitized total the total but the total to do everything if they scanned all of our files that are back there you're in the $500,000 R was that much I thought it was 200 something thousand wasn't it close I think it was close to five it was about five yeah closer so it was suggested that we just do what block yeah the township converted all the block and lot identifiers in 2019 right they eliminated all the decimal points so if we just scan those records we would B basically have almost full access um and we wouldn't but we would still have to keep a lot of the boxes but it's it's to stop the bleeding is is what the right and then you're also using the digital advantages right you knowl with that would that would speed up you know um you know uh Services you know for you know for uh for people who come in they need their certain things and now for them to have to go into these boxes or file cabinets to find this information that you got to Hope someone put it back properly at least you'll have it at your fingertips and you can do that but what was that number to to do the block and lots the new block and lots it was significantly less um right something like in 40 60 yes like 60 I thought it was like 60 yeah yeah we can get you that number though yeah I do remember like yeah to do all those boxes was I almost fell off the chair so we uh we we thought best if we just do you know new block and lots and it'll stop the bleeding and then in this way we can you know well certainly I agree with stopping the bleeding my question the reason why I asked much for the cost of doing the the digitization of the whole program because ay the taxpayer now has access without having to come down here I don't know how much of that takes place I mean do would they bypass coming down here by going to look themselves or are they going to come down here be told go home and look or get the information here or or secondly you know does it save our employees a lot of time I know it does the most important part is the security of those Pro of those documents they're burned up or as we saw back when there were a lot of Bank boxes that when we opened up they just literally fell apart from you know rats made a living there and MCE rather and whatever so you know is there some way we can make look at it is there a portion of those documents that we could name as relatively unnecessary if you know what I mean so they so they're they're not used yeah so um well there's requirements for the state of New Jersey for the um records management right and there are certain things and a lot of the things unfortunately in construction you have to keep forever uh life of the building life of the building life what so those things um you know we do have to keep in boxes and that's why it it is beneficial to start digitizing those but we want to do it in a manner that's not half a million dollars yeah yeah thank you for a prudent I think we originally thought it was like aund and something, to do it all and that's not bad we could do that they long-term bidding I mean a bidding thing that we can put in there's only a few companies a couple of companies that seems to the answer all the time there's only a few companies because it's a matter of doing the scanning right and a lot of these documents there's actually a company I worked with in another town called large docs and they're because it's literally large documents that they have to now digitize so they need the actual equipment to be able to do that and then we also need programming to be able to read it and access it and also do things like um redact things right for Daniels la like we need they need to the companies are now very very stringent on how they have to do things um and also make them you know available off like or backed up offsite and it but still accessible if God forbid something happens to their offsite place right like there's just a lot more that goes into it than it was even 10 years ago um so I understand like why the cost is so high but we like you said we want to do it in a fashion that's not there's only certain companies which I I think it's a very minimal amount of companies that actually have uh the authority that once it's scan destroy the records after because of the age of our Township are there are there any types of grants available for this type um I don't know but I will say though uh and this is something that we'll bring up on the counsil means we all looking at a grant writer um that can help us and they have a whole a pool of of categories that we can that we can pick from so really looking forward to that because there's a lot of money out there that we're missing um but that's something that yeah maybe there's some kind of energy you know Green savings right we're not not using not using we're using digitalizing now or you know getting away from the paper right I mean I don't know we'll see yeah we're going out for that's on the next meeting competitive contract okay yeah just one quick question we have a department that's costing us a half million dollars and what type of Revenue comes in from the services you provide we brought in $495,000 last year so it offsets the costs so it's a basically what it's supposed to okay and that that's only been in the last what few years right that's y so is great there's no more questions excuse me I have one question we have a number of major projects that could be started right around here in the center of town then one off of 94 down by Gort South uh or Mountain Creek South um she's here these multiple dwellings are we staffed them at a level where we can handle the requirements of the developers right now we would be able to handle it as a matter of fact 8 Theta Drive dropped off their application this morning okay set of plans about this big great yeah if we were to have several of those projects going on at once we would probably have to hire some more people where would that be in general General inspection you know for all Spector I would think disciplines or Plumbing yeah you would need to cover all the sub code um but you could probably do it with some part-time or maybe some full-time who have multiple licenses okay do you have a hookout into any areas where you can get yeah I'm um a member of several code official groups and there's always you know great people reaching out to each other thank you and if we could in worst case right we could do a shared service right to to another municipality right to if we need to bring additional help in they would probably be looking for our help probably but one of the things we took a proactive um approach is when we met with the uh one key the the owners uh they came in with a set of plans that were it wasn't their official fully complete well at least to them it was but it was without us looking at it and making some changes so I did ask if because I think it would take a few weeks for you to really go through it right to so we've asked to uh if we can leave if they can leave those set of plans this way they can kind of get a head start on that to start looking um and and they you guys did find a bunch of things so that I mean that will save a lot of time now now they dropped off the uh their final now I mean so there'll be some changes on there plus you'll you'll probably look to make some more changes the most part had kind of of it and so discuss right right so contract to it helps it helps get the project off the ground faster so thank you thank you very thank you thank you um I just want to like you know I I do have another appointment I need to to leave here by 12:15 okay but okay I just check with Marcy Jessica's on so if I do leave we'll still have a quorum I'm running into a time question I'm sorry guys I I have meetings that I've been dropping off and joining back for so oh you have okay yeah no problem just okay all right well then I mean if a at 12:15 we might have to try to speed this up I Bud it in two and a half hours a little longer than I thought okay we have senior and wck right now okay okay I can say yep um okay so I can start on the salaries and wages um Recreation that's not changing um for senior citizens regular salaries and wages just to give a little bit of uh background on this Michelle can speak to this a little bit as well what happened pre so preo we had employees um that were not really our employees they worked for the county there were County programs that um some seniors and individuals could qualify for based on their own personal income levels so they could qualify for these programs and it was program and the county would send them down to us to work in our senior center to help I believe we had five employees Five County employees that would come and participate in those programs after covid they no longer existed so the township was faced with a situation where okay well we still need to serve the same number individuals if not more um that are coming to our senior center like how are we going to be able to do that so what the township did was they hired three um part-time employees we have one full-time employee Jane um that kind of looks under Michelle and helps run things down there um on a full-time capacity and then um we have an individual who's in wreck who a few of her hours are also go go towards that Weekly so the increase that we've seen over time you know preco to Now is really because of those individuals that we didn't have to have as our employees before and we had to take them on um that being said this year we also had I know it doesn't seem like a lot but there was a$1 increase in the minimum wage between 2023 and 2024 which over three individuals the entire year is an actual significant dollar amount um increase in the budget so the salaries and wages that uh were year to date last year were just under 60,000 we budgeted 61 we're budgeting 68 this year okay um and that accounts for those so if you wanted to go into um the O lines yeah sure so I just wanted to start by saying how I am just so proud of that our Department's um Senior Center and Recreation that we are able to meet the needs of the community increase our programs and services because that is that is what my department does it provides services um Without Really changing the budget as far as o and for over a decade at least I look back at 2010 budgets and it's literally higher than the current budget with the current staff and programming that we do so with that being said um Recreation budget actually decreased slightly because I was able to fine-tune a little bit more of how many porta potis we used throughout the year so we were able to dropped that back down a little bit it also had increased after covid when we weren't opening the restrooms or anything like that and then we did away with the restrooms at Veterans Memorial Park so it stays a little higher than it may have been before covid but that would be why and the senior center budget stays exactly um the same we are looking into actually a grant through the County division of Senior Services the leap Grant which would enable us to increase more recreational programs for seniors um through that Grant but the county is leading it and it it would be a shared service so that's questions no no okay thank you thank you thank you next we have for which is tab 23 hello salaries and wages I'll go right into it um we went from 188 uh anticipated last year to 198 this year um I actually I do need to make a correction to that um it should be about 195 that was just a keystroke error on my part which I noticed after I sent you guys budget um that will just decrease about3 $4,000 on that line and that accounts for you have a contractual employee in there who she's I think this is her last step here so this was a larger increase the final step is always a larger increase on the UAW contract um and then also covers um our judge it covers uh the part-time um security officer that we have in this office and obviously our court administrator you want to jump into the O LS um yeah uh nothing has really changed I actually decreased it a little bit um everything stayed the same I omitted um a line and uh reallocated it towards The Interpreter um because we've seen a big increase interpreting services in the courts um in the past couple years but everything else has stayed the same since last year you have any questions of me and here as the uh remote um TV uh um arraignment system that we have is that continued to work out very well um we um the the arraignment system they don't we don't really use anymore everyone just uses Zoom oh with the jails um everyone but we still do utilize equipment when we have trials to play the videos okay um in court and we've also starting to utilize well but it helps for the for everyone to see it thank you thank you thank you okay great um so the next line we have is General Administration we're so we're going to go through this General Administration mayor and Council legal engineering committees and commiss so um in tab five and then it goes to six seven and eight um yeah so salaries and wages um obviously there's no contractual employees in there there are two employees um the administrator and then the confidential um assistant to the mayor um so last year our administrator did not start until March Mar year um so there was a bit of a difference in salaries there based on what was budgeted and then uh the proposed budget is actually down this year from 181 to 177 want to go into the O So on number 22 um equipment rental went up and that's because we increased we updated our copers that needed to be updated and it includes also the large map the tax inserter in the letter opener that deals with um the tax office and everything so that is all contractual so it's our yearly fees on that so that all went up um we went down a little bit on the education and conferences because I am doing conferences but there's it's really just the the league we went down a little bit on our technical expense but had to increase our service contracts again that's our granicus because we had um short-term rental and long-term rental just came on so all of that had to go up also includes like our email licensing and all of that um membership and Publications had to go up because that's all those um Publications that we have increased so we had to increase that and then our Professional Services went up that's our um qpa so his um contract went up any specific questions to um mayor and councel which is the next line that's uh six um so for salaries and wages uh there is an anticipated increase here um I know that the council had Spen about this last year in the middle last year towards the middle end of last year as well um so I did anticipate um an increase on here for that purpose if the council decides to to do a salary ordinance or change that at any time I made um the ability to do that and then the O and lines um are staying the same obviously um education confer seminars we have individuals that go to League we can never really you know anticipate who's going to go who's not going to go um you know just just regular expenses out of here there is a line here for um the mar the payments for marriages um that obviously get paid to the mayor it does say that it's higher than what's expended but we get paid for that so it's really just the money that comes in and then it goes back out oh okay sometimes that's confusing because you'll see like $1,100 we budgeted 500 it's just because the money came in but this these numbers are what expended any questions on that one um Legal Services engineering and technology is the next tab seven um so there's a large decrease in legal services this year so even though the retainer went up um there are a couple lines that uh decreased just based on what I was anticipating for this year so litigation the late communities litigation ended um so I was able to drop that down to 50 ,000 um you know I do like to keep some funds in there in case anything you know happens we can't anticipate legal battles that might come so it's a good idea to have some money in there um labor I did decrease as well um tax appeals I decrease that as well just in conversations with Kristen um sorry the assessor about the upcoming appeals um and then I did decrease conflict and special counsel we do keep those lines open in case um the council or the mayor um or anything else you know might happen there could even be a conflict you know with our existing Township attorney if and I've seen this in another town where the township attorney had a personal interest in something that might come before the board so you might need that um in the future so it is again an overall decrease from $344,000 that we budgeted last year to $285,500 this year Engineering also we decreased uh based on what we were um working with the engineer year on so we had expended 26 last year we budgeted 40,000 last year and we're proposing 30 this year um technology those lines are staying the same there is a slight increase in the Consultants fees um so that should be accounted for in that $25,000 um and then not that it's on this line but it made me think of it we are going to be renewing or I should say like restarting the Dell um leases for the computers so a couple of years like three four years ago now um we started the Dell leasing of the computers um they were there were two rounds on a three-year period we don't want to do only two rounds anymore we want to break it out over three or four um to decrease that cost but ensure that we have up to-date systems um the next tab tab eight are commissions and committees these lines are changing so we're anticipating 500 for economic development Environ commission salaries and wages 500 um environmental commission General expenses 500 and 6,500 for beautification committee expenses which I still haven't put together the entire committee if yes it may come back to us we base it on um prior years expenditures yeah okay so that is General Administration slides um next we have insurance which is web 15 so um start initially off um from the state health benefits and in 2023 uh in September of 2023 we started in with the hif um it's a health insurance joint health insurance fund so we did see significant savings um just from one year to the next it it is an increase in that budget in line because you know just in their premiums um this year however with everything else uh it's still a total decrease um between the two years so we went from 3.67 million to 3 point almost 3.41 million um so that's a significant savings unemployment insurance so even though the township does not pay into unemployment insurance um we have we opted out of that probably decades ago um so Town doesn't pay into that but what do do is we budget uh amount in our uninsurance line our unemployment insurance line that moves into our unemployment trust line so that if there is anybody on unemployment and we do receive bills from the state of New Jersey we're able to pay out of that trust so it keeps our cost significantly low um you don't prepay it like every other employer does municipalities can opt out of that yes oh okay same thing with disability we don't opt into disability either gotcha so the employees pay into they do not pay into disability though okay and neither do um the other insurance line that is our liability insurance uh with Statewide insurance they cover our liability and our workers comp insurance um they were just over 6% increases this year obviously that's on um you know it's a joint Insurance Fund so that's on experience rating with us and the whole pool um so that was a significant is based on your payroll too right sorry isn't workman comp based on your payroll payroll goes up your workman's comp goes up yeah um yeah right so uh the other insurance line that went from 640 to 680 um and then the workers cop insurance line went from 460 to 492 when do you anticipate getting the final Insurance health care costs these are anticipated increases decreases these so when are they firm so the workers comp and the other insurance lines and unemployment those are firm right right like I know how much I'm going to expend next year right 2024 right um the ones for Group insurance for health insurance obviously those are estimates based on what our premiums are right so based on what our premiums are the employees that we have what people are contributing right those are my estimates based on that now if someone leaves and someone else comes on if someone leaves as a you know a single coverage and we hire someone new and it's a family coverage that can change right so um or vice versa so the estimate doesn't become a final number until the year rolls out as these changes take place or right I won't right like well this is my final estimated number is 3.6 million for just the medical right and that's for retirees and for Cent employees um and then I won't know the full expended amount till the end of the year but this is a good estimate of what that would be yeah okay so the reason the employee contribution went down is because of um the cost went down and it's a percentage based yes it's a percentage of Premium yeah okay that's what I figured any questions on the insurance no okay um the next one is shared services and grants yes yes shared Services Grants we have utilities stat oblation so I'm just gonna go through these oh small what the heck jelle I'm sorry right you know what it is in the past year so it went from like a couple lines you I'm gonna split it out I'm gonna split it out next year hopefully they we're all like older here like we all need reading glasses so for shared service is the chief went through a couple of these um obviously we had an increase in uh animal control um couple thousand increase in that but for that one is that it will be ongoing um through the year um the radio communications is staying the same that's $155,000 the gasoline shed service again that all sets our gasoline appropriation it's really just the money that we're anticipating coming in from schools um the animal control already went through financial Administration that covers um the MUA for the CFO purchasing um and also the uh like administrative services that are handled um between Administration and finance office and then the shared service for seniors that is to cover um the nutrition site that the county pays us for that and that goes to offset um salaries in the senior center Grants um plan communities Grant we get that every year we don't do it until we get the money in so I can't really anticipate that so those numbers will increase for Grants throughout the year um we do have matching funds for grants that is for opportunities it's Grant um that is a grant that covers a service that we have for individuals and who um are disabled and can benefit from therapy um at a location that I believe we use is in Warwick for therapy services and then just the traditional one Federal um body armor safe body armor safe secure um okay any questions on grants next we have utilities um and the schuma bill so we already went over the schuma bill schuma obviously increased their bill um significantly this year over $200,000 that is offset by mua's appropriation um so that M that large $200,000 Plus on it's on the rate payer the township obviously is liable for the bill um so it does have to end up on our appropriation side uh for utilities I did have a decrease in utilities we've been pretty good on the gasoline costs um we did over anticipate last year for gas links we didn't know what was going to happen in the cost of gas in the prior year was you know $4 a gallon um so we had made you know Appropriations accordingly um you know I really based off of what I'm seeing from last year's cost and what I anticipate in some slight increases for this year's cost this also does include um an increase in light path to ensure that the DPW is connected and animal control so right now DPW and Animal Control are not collected with light con connected to light path um right is right speed is that what it's called yeah um so this includes that upgrade because they're totally separate from us over here and it's they they lose like you know uh internet and everything so bad over there and because of that we got a price last year and that's how it was incorporated yeah um next we have statutory obligations and Municipal Service Act re urements those are uh tab 22 so statutory obligations Social Security is based on the total salaries and Wages that's what I estimated it on um purs is Public Employee Retirement System obviously that one set by the state we've talked about that a number of times it's up from 629000 to 79,000 this year I do keep a line of about $6,000 as a buffer in there um when there are contractual changes um or if somebody gets retro or there's um a promotion at any time um we get back charged from pension so we won't get back charged this year but we could get back charged next year for something and I want to make sure that we have a line to be able to charge it to um for pfrs it's one it's almost 1.4 million it was 1317 last year it's 1398 this year again that's State mandated um the voters did approve the losap program for our volunteers with both EMS and fire so I'm estimating $80,000 that was the estimate um we went out for the public vote as well and dcrp that is the Define contribution retirement program that is a um it's very similar to like a 401k um for part-time employees but it's mandated by state of New Jersey do we contribute we do that is our contribution that's our contribution so we contribute um we contribute 3% plus we cover um a group term life portion and death and dismemberment portion of the life yeah yeah policy and with after one year your all the money is automatically vested so it's not like pension where you know for anyone who's in the pension system it's a 10-year vest pension system this one's automatic like a huge bill from this and then uh the municipal Services act this covers our uh reimbursements to the Lake community private communities um for snow removal as well as some other expenses including you know freeze down this was covered in the settlement but if there are trees down on roads um know and we if the T if the DPW can't get to them within a period of time they are permitted to pay for it themselves and then we would reimburse them again it's just on actual roadway blockings um that would be covered and snow removal any questions on any of those okay uh lastly we have The Debt Service and capital lines so that is 24 tab 24 yep um so Capital Improvement fund uh was a decrease from 1.75 million $1.1 million that pays for down payments but it also pays for some of the capital projects that we're anticipating this year in cash um and order for an item to be a capital project this is really for like the new members of council it needs to have a useful life of five years or more um when we go out to debt I look at things from the perspective of if you go out to debt you're allowed to take out notes for 10 years right so if we are going to look at something I would prefer that it have a useful life of 10 years or more if we're going to go out to debt for it so anything that has you know between five and 10 year life I try to ensure that we're paying for it in cash because if we're going out for notes and then eventually bonds you you know we'll be paying for something for 35 years that was gone five years yeah exactly um the township has made significant improvements um since 2018 to move towards paying for those things in cash it also means that we are putting money aside to pay for portions of other large expenditures in cash um so council president rzo mentioned before about tankers or um fire trucks right um the cost of those have sign significantly increased we bought a tanker I believe it was 2020 and it was $440,000 we bought them last year and it was $780,000 it's a huge increase um if we can use 75% increase um luckily we did have some money put aside to help offset that expense the state also recently we're I'm very grateful for this the bond ordinance said that those expenditures for a fire truck for a tanker any of those equipment which we know lasts US 20 years or more it used to be on the bond law that it was only for 10 years you could Finance it for oh now you it longer oh okay they have they have increased that which is good um because I think it it just makes sense it's the actual use of the equipment um so that's so that's a positive thing but it is we do still need to put money aside because the township when they purchased a lot of their apparatus they did it year after year after year which means all of our apparatus are coming due year after year yeah making me sick when I was going through those sick um so the reserves we have in here fire department improvements that's $100,000 again those are inter reserves you cannot use that money without passing a capital or Bond ordinance I just want to make that clear um reserve for Department of Public Works again 88,000 um Police Department improvements 16,000 annual control improvements 5,000 um our debt payments for bonds this year $2.1 million that's up from 1.9 last year um our payments of our notes or down this year and our interest on our bonds are down this year but our interest on our notes are up because of the market um the capital lease payments those are actual Capital expenditures for our vehicles um we are I believe now the police department is full Fleet is now on the enterprise system which is fantastic so that's moving we're getting five cars from them every four years four year turnover um we have the fire chiefs vehicles and um one of the ambulance vehicles on the enterprise system as well the DPW those are all of our vehicles that are not CDL rated so 550s 450s 350s any of those trucks we get through Enterprise um the admin computers that is a decrease from last year again we want to start the next round of the Dell leasing this year um probably towards the end of this year and then the inspector vehicles we have um one of the vehicles for construction and one of the vehicles for fire prevention we had to do those I believe it was last year um we actually moved some of those Vehicles over into the fire department because their assistant chief Vehicles died so we just made a movement of vehicles and then our rut obviously is a calculated amount um it went up from from 2.4 almost 2.5 million to 2.7 almost 2.8 this year as for uncollected taxes and on that not I yeah I want to talk about it but I need to go yeah Delle can I just email you a few questions I have I had I didn't want to interrupt the meeting with them because I didn't think we could get an answer on the meeting but I'll just shoot them over to you yeah that'd be great all right thanks I'm sorry you have to yeah um that all you got I think we're pretty okay okay again if anyone has any questions you can feel free okay may I have a motion to adjourn to end on my account yeah we DOTA go to you gotta go sorry yeah move move by Mr Higgins is there a second I'll make a second second by favor saying IED thank you guys like I ended the party but feel like I flew through everything at the at the end so I just yeah I have a they need to get out by 12:15