OLD BRIDGE TOWNSHIP COUNCIL

AGENDA MEETING

November 20, 2000

An Agenda meeting of the Township Council of the Township of Old Bridge was held on November 20, 2000 in the Municipal Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:15 p.m. by President Maher who invited all to participate in a salute to the flag followed by a short prayer.

Deputy Clerk Stella Ward announced that pursuant to Section 5 of the Open Public Meetings Act, this meeting has been advertised in the Home News and Tribune and that the next meeting of the Township Council will be held on November 27, 2000 at 8:00 p.m.

Roll call by Deputy Clerk Ward showed the following answering present: Councilmen Butler, Cucchiara, Greene, Redmond, Sohor, Testino, President Maher. Councilwoman Marinaccio was absent. Councilman Hoff arrived at 8:20 p.m.

Council President Maher requested that everyone remain standing for a moment of silence for Grace Lacovara who passed away this weekend.

CERTIFICATE OF APPRECIATION

President Maher: This certificate will be presented to Ed Troike of the Old Bridge Library at next Monday's meeting.

HEARING

President Maher: We will be setting a new date for Release/Reduction of Performance Guarantee for Carrington Woods. The suggested date is February 5, 2000.

HEARING

President Maher: We will have the hearing for Primavera Estates regarding the release of Performance Guarantee on Monday, November 27, 2000.

ACTION TO BE TAKEN THIS EVENING

Resolution #593

BE IT RESOLVED, by the Township Council of the Township of Old Bridge, County of Middlesex, State of New Jersey that:

WHEREAS, the following organizations have made application to hold, operate and conduct a Bingo/Raffle; said applications being in accordance with the statutes relating thereto:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the Township Council of the Township of Old Bridge that the Clerk is hereby authorized and directed to issue to the applicants, the following licenses:

RA#15-01 - St. Ambrose Combined Societies
RA#16-01 - St. Ambrose Combined Societies

Moved by Councilman Butler, seconded by Councilman Testino and so ordered on the following roll call vote:

AYES: Councilmen Butler, Cucchiara, Sohor, Testino, President Maher.

NAYS: None.

ABSTAIN: Councilmen Greene, Redmond

ABSENT: Councilman Hoff, Councilwoman Marinaccio

Prior to the roll call vote the following discussion took place.

President Maher: There is one item that needs us to take action before we get into the budget presentation. I would like to bring everyone's attention to the raffle at St. Ambrose's Combined Societies. The parishioners of St. Ambrose should abstain from this vote. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak on this matter? Seeing no hands, I will take a motion.

OLD BRIDGE RAMS

Councilman Testino: I see that the Old Bridge Rams Organization is here. They have some teams that made it to the national competition and they are here seeking some financial assistance under our resolution. They are not on the agenda, but I am asking you to hear them out. Their organization has a December 7th deadline.

Paul Taquer: I am representing the Old Bridge Rams Organization. I did drop off a letter earlier today, which I asked to be included in your packets. The letter in effect states that two of the teams from the Rams organization, the Junior Pee Wee and Pee Wee teams back in October won the State Championship Pop Warner and yesterday at the Regional competition, the Junior Pee Wee Team placed first and the Pee Wee team placed second which gives them the right to compete at the Nationals in Orlando, Florida on December 7th. I think it is a tremendous accomplishment for these teams. State Championship is a banner that we should hold high in the township and I believe that there is an ordinance drafted back in 1996 to address these kinds of situations and it was put together by Mr. Badcock and given the nature of the competition and the accomplishment of the girls I do believe that they fit the criteria.

Councilman Testino: Can we have the calculation for the number of girls and the amount that they would be entitled to?

President Maher: Tom, can you substantiate that this fits the criteria?

Tom Badcock: I think that the rules you have adopted state $200.00 per individual, up to a maximum of $3000.00 per team.

Councilman Testino: Do we have that money available? How many girls are there?

Paul Taguer: There are 27 on each team for a total of 54.

Tom Badcock: We would probably need a temporary appropriation for it.

MOTION

Award Old Bridge Rams Junior Pee Wee & Pee Wee Cheerleaders

Motion by Councilman Testino to award both teams the designated amount as calculated by Mr. Badcock, and subject to Mr. Shah's advice on availability of funds, seconded by Councilman Redmond and so moved on the following roll call vote:

AYES: Councilmen Butler, Cucchiara, Greene, Redmond, Sohor, Testino, President Maher

NAYS: Councilman Hoff

ABSENT: Councilwoman Marinaccio

MOTION

Temporary Budget Appropriation for Award

Motion for temporary appropriation for these funds made by Councilman Testino, seconded by Councilman Butler and so moved on the following roll call vote

AYES: Councilmen Butler, Cucchiara, Greene, Redmond, Sohor, Testino, President Maher.

NAYS: Councilman Hoff

ABSENT: Councilwoman Marinaccio

BUDGET HEARINGS:

President Maher: Tonight we will hear the presentations for Finance and Recreation Departments.

Tom Badcock: In our budget for the Recreation Department we are not asking for much difference than last year. We would like to expand a couple of programs, the Summer Playground Program for an additional week; we would like to expand the Therapeutic Recreation for our handicapped children in the summer time for an additional week. That would require additional money in the operating budget. Most of the operating expenses are fairly constant, some of the programs were changed and upgraded; additional supplies and periphery additions to the budget that help us do our job are fairly the same as far as the budget goes. What we will try to do is increase the services without any more money. In our capital budget we are trying to complete some additional projects that the Council has already funded. We are also trying to move on the renovation of the Civic Center basement; expansion of the existing teen trip programs; expanding the existing Challenged Adult Program on Friday nights at Geick Park; expanding an existing Senior Citizen Fitness & Life Wellness Program. All of these would be with only a minor addition to the budget for extra staffing. We would like to implement next year the new Old Bridge Youth Hockey Program since the old program (Wings) have left for another arena. John Pickwell has done a tremendous job already and we have made some strides already and we have over 100 residents in an existing training program, but it was too late to qualify this season for a team competition program. We are also looking at different acquisition developments and we are trying to put the lid on the Lambertson Farm; we are looking this year to ask the Council for additional development money to complete the renovation to the Ticetown Road Soccer Complex with additional parking for safety and for the convenience of residents.

We would also like to do some preliminary development plans for the Queen Yacenda tract as well as trying to sit with Middlesex County Parks, Ralph Albanir, the Director to try and get some preliminary plans for the development in Old Bridge of the Middlesex County Park, which is the former Olympia-York tract.

Those are some of things that we are trying to get into this year. Obviously it is a big list and the Council will only be able to fund as many as they can reasonably do. We are throwing all of them out and any question you have as to how they should be ranked would be open for discussion.

President Maher: I noticed there was an increase in your salary and wages of $118,000, is that for the additional staff?

Tom Badcock: That is probably mostly for staff for the part time programs.

President Maher: I am aware that we have to add about $25,000 for opening the gyms on Saturday and Sunday.

Tom Badcock: We put down $25,000 and that is a very accurate number based on the Saturday and Sunday usage of the Middle School gyms. This has developed into a very successful program and we are hoping to implement a youth cricket league. This is very exciting for Old Bridge since we are a very multi-national community and cricket is an international sport. There are a great number of children interested in participating in this sport.

President Maher: I don't think that you are going to get an argument from anyone here for that $25,000 as it is money well spent. Are there any additional expenses with respect to the skate park?

Tom Badcock: If we are going to go with lights, which I know we have discussed earlier and since the cost for the pavement and clearing was greater than we expected, I have estimates to light the park and it would be between $35,000 & $37,000 and I think we have $9,000 still left. If we are going to light the park then we need an additional $25,000-$30,000 to safely light that park.

Himanshu Shah: When we had our conversation about the security, I had mentioned that it should be incorporated into the budget.

Tom Badcock: We have not gone into the ramifications of insurance. I know Alayne has been working on that. I know that many towns do not have any supervision at all, and we thought that we could get away with one of our park supervisors there. Now I am very leery now with the events of the last weekend of having someone who is not a uniformed officer at the park.

This is not only for the numbers of the kids, but for any potential conflicts and also to enforce the helmets and safety equipment regulations that we have put into effect through a change in the ordinance.

President Maher: It is your recommendation that Himanshu share the number with Rich Greene and myself that it would be about $40,000 for special police.

Tom Badcock: I worked a number up today and spoke with Himanshu and the Mayor and basically it would cover for the complete year and this is not with lights, but it would be Monday thru Fridays, after school until dark (4 hours per night); Saturday & Sunday from 8AM to 6PM, which is 10 hours; summertime, when the kids are off from school, they would be offered 10 weeks from 8AM till 9PM, this is again without lights and the same on Saturday and Sunday. That total at $16.00 per hour for a special would come to approximately $41,440.00 for the whole year. The only thing that does not include is Easter vacation time and a few other holidays when you would open the whole day.

President Maher: I know that at one time we talked about a park ranger, are you still considering that option?

Tom Badcock: I researched that before and I just think that it undermines the police protection and police presence and I don't want to do anything to undermine the Chief's authority in the park. I feel more comfortable with a special who would operate under the auspices of the police department rather than a ranger that would be a semi autonomous officer.

Councilman Redmond: In speaking with the people who were working on the park, they say they expect to finish up this weekend, is that correct?

Tom Badcock: They have maybe two more days work depending on how many they put on to finish up.

Councilman Redmond: I agree with you that we need someone to supervise this park and I would rather have the police instead of a ranger or lay person because there will be a large utilization of this area. I just have concerns about the fence.

Tom Badcock: If you want the fence to go, we can either make it higher, lower.

Councilman Redmond: My concern is that we saw them coming off those ramps and I am afraid that someone will land on that fence.

Tom Badcock: I agree with you but you did not see the finished project. The back of the ramps they have a wall. Today, when I was out there with Alayne, one ramp that does not have the wall yet, which is close to the fence, some of the kids had laid 2x8's and they were flying up the ramp into the air over the fence and land in the leaves, because the crazier the better and obviously when the work is completed that won't happen. I think that before we do anything with the fence we need to check with the insurance because I am afraid of making it attractive to them to get in. Obviously, the reason we did the fence like that was to act as a deterrent because when it is locked you don't want them in there. I had two 17 year olds say to me today, that they did not know the park was locked in spite of the fact that all three gates were padlocked. In my mind when I see that it means it is closed.

Councilman Testino: On Saturday, they cut the lock off.

Councilman Redmond: How much of your operating budget do you anticipate needing to operate the skate park?

Tom Badcock: I don't think much. It is really just the guys keeping it debris free with the leaf blowers, it is more a labor thing and once the equipment is in, I don't foresee any extra money for that, there really is not much for materials once the park is complete.

Councilman Redmond: My concern is that it is not like basketball or some of the other unsupervised sports, this is something that is going to require at least someone to be there in case there is an injury that it can be reported quickly and get an immediate response.

Tom Badcock: The fact that there would be a special there with a radio is a good point.

If someone gets hurt even if they are wearing the proper apparatus, it is going to be an injury that will require immediate attention. This is another reason why even though we don't want to add money to the budget it is a necessity. In fact this afternoon I tried to contact several of the kids on the committee to try to get them to understand that it is their responsibility when they are there to try and maintain order.

Larry Redmond: We mentioned that there will be kids from other towns. Has anyone looked into how much it would cost to ID our kids?

Tom Badcock: You could, but again it is a Green Acres Park and we did do development with Green Acres money and I think we have to be real careful how we approach this. If we were ever going to charge, you could charge $.50 for a resident and $1.00 for non-resident. However, I don't think you could exclude non-residents. My concern and I talked about it with Alayne today, there were kids at the park today who drove cars and were from other towns and that is fine and the only problem that I see is there could be some "territorial" problems. The only way that you can make sure you are guarded on that is to have some type of police presence on the property.

Councilman Redmond: I would hope that it would bring communities together rather than create a "turf" war, but I may be wrong. My other question is about the arena utility. Where do we stand as far as how much the township is throwing into the utility and how much is it paying for itself, especially now with the loss of the Wings?

Tom Badcock: Right now, I can tell you that we are still selling ice time and we have sold out of $120,000 we got from the Wings and outside groups we are probably right now at approximately $90,000 of sold ice time. We are a little short right now and we are hoping to continue to sell that through the season. We have been very good about that. The good news is that the time we are selling is at a rate of $40.00 per hour more than the old time that the Wings group paid. It is a lot to make up, but you are looking at an organization that ate up 33 hours per week of ice time. We have been selling the time since August which is late start. We have been trying to attract new patrons. We have sent letters to all the different youth organizations in the state and we have some good response and we hope to continue to make the gap up.

Councilman Redmond: Basically, what I am asking is are we taking in enough money to cover the debt service on the bonds to cover the renovations?

Tom Badcock: Well, we are as long as we make the number up or if we don't make that number up we are going to be that short. That is obviously what we will be aiming for. We have had this area for twenty years now and it is something to be proud of because it is a wonderful facility and gives a lot of options to the kids for wholesome activities and is well used and I know in the past years it has always broke even and even with the addition we have come very close or even on the financial end.

Councilman Redmond: I know that we are asked to change the fee rates and that is what I am trying to consider; if there is something that we need to make up, maybe the Council should be apprised of it. If we are running short and unable to pay the debt service, I would like to know how close or how far we are.

Tom Badcock: Himanshu has done an excellent job in monitoring this thing and pro-rating it with what we need to accomplish our goals for revenues. Based on information that I have given him with regard to mean rates across the state, I think that he has done a great job in getting us as much money as we can without over pricing us and having people go elsewhere. We have a beautiful arena here, but you have to remember there are others cropping up, so we really have to be cognizant that we don't price ourselves out of the budget and still at the same time get as much revenue coming in without having people come to another rink.

Councilman Testino: Just a follow-up on Mr. Redmond's thought, Mr. Shah do you now think we have to change the anticipated revenue in the utility?

Mr. Shah: I suppose you could. I was anticipating that we would be able to resell the entire ice time.

Councilman Testino: My question is what is your recommendation now that you hear the opinion of Mr. Badcock?

Mr. Shah: Right now, the utility is approximately $30,000 short in revenue. In the rest of the area, we are pretty much okay in the projection of revenue. However, my feeling is that some of that $30,000 will be offset by the increasing fees. I hear what Tom is saying, and we may have to adjust the operating budget. The problem is that if you reduce the revenue projection, you have to reduce the expense; you just can't reduce the revenue side and have a balanced budget.

Tom Badcock: With regard to reducing our costs, you have to know that it is very difficult because a lot of our costs are salary and wages, like in the lesson program which is doing very well. Once you start cutting down instructors and cutting down the amount of lessons, people will go the other way. It is a very tough thing to cut and it has specific operating expenses and it costs money to run the machinery, refrigeration system, the electricity. We have tried to cut down on the number of personnel in the off-peak hours to a bare minimum. We still have a few month to sell time and I am hoping that we will narrow the gap, but at this time that is what it is and there are no guarantees other than hoping that we will be able to sell out all the remaining time.

Mr. Shah: I don't disagree with your concern that we will be facing a problem with arena's operating budget next year. However, with the rate increase we are hoping that we will stay up and not have to make up a big number difference, but with this loss of revenue we won't face it going into the next year once Tom has time to sell additional time or same time at a higher rate.

Tom Badcock: Also, next year we will have our team. Right now we have over 100 kids in the training program and we hope that these kids will turn into the new Old Bridge Wings program or whatever we call it next year and the competition program will also fill in these hours that we now lacking in selling.

Councilman Redmond: Does the school team play for ice time?

Tom Badcock: No, they only pay for the maintenance. They do not pay ice time. We try to schedule their games on off-peak hours and they practice in the morning before we open.

Councilman Testino: I still don't have my answer; are you saying we are to do nothing?

Mr. Shah: I would like take a "wait and see" approach and leave the budget as it and have to deal with it in next year's budget.

Councilman Testino: With regard to the food bank, do you have an appropriation for that?

Tom Badcock: There is a small one, but most of it is coming in donations. We hope to be opening the "Angel's in the Attic" clothing side for our citizens who are in need. We are also going to try and work something with our local dry cleaners who will clean the clothes and as we hang the clothes, they will size and put them in gender and age group.

Councilman Butler: You talk about expanding the summer program for the kids, specifically how do you want to do this?

Tom Badcock: We would like to add another week or two to the program. Right now we are at five weeks and our program for the Therapeutic is at seven weeks and since the summer season is ten weeks, we just looking at creating a broader base service for the residents.

Councilman Hoff: With regard to the summer programs do you employ the 16 year olds in the recreation program?

Tom Badcock: We have had some, as a matter of fact, we had some that were actually in Rocky's budget and we used them in our area. We used them on a little of everything; depending on their age, they could mow grass, pick-up for us or work on the work crews.

Councilman Hoff: Do you anticipate using them again this year?

Tom Badcock: Yes, they are a big help to us. As far as our part time in season, which is a great idea, we have about 11 and in the last couple of years, the Council has authorized us to have another 10-11 part time, which has made a huge difference in our ability to handle the size of the parks. They are not in my budget, but they might be in Rocky's budget.

Councilman Cucchiara: Right now at Vet's Park we have the skate park, men's softball soccer, fall baseball and tennis, what can we do about improving that rec. center with bonding?

Tom Badcock: I would love to. I think that you know about four years ago I wanted to rip that whole building down and put up a new indoor-outdoor building with a concession area.

I think that is the final piece to that park and that existing building is just antiquated. I give our staff a lot of credit because they have patched that thing up to make it usable.

Councilman Cucchiara: We discussed before that we gave some money to the Old Bridge Rams Girls Cheerleaders, I have gotten some calls from some of the parents of the cheerleaders and if you took all three groups plus the high-school teams and the two middle school teams, they have been looking for a place where they could cheer all the time. The problem is now they don't have a place. I would like to look at something for these groups and maybe we could intertwine this when we look at Vet's Park.

Tom Badcock: It is a definite possibility. I think we need a place where you can leave the equipment in place and the trouble with the schools is that there is no place to store these mats and they don't let them put it down because they are part of multi-use areas. I would think we are looking at some type of metal frame building with a sloped roof about 100'x100' that would have the whole floor surface of this type of matting and this would free up more of our gym space.

Councilman Hoff: When do you anticipate delivery of the benches for the park?

Tom Badcock: They told us six weeks and they still on order and as soon as they are received they are going in and we will cement them in so they won't keep on "walking" on us.

Councilman Hoff: As we approach the summer season each year, people keeping asking how you plan to redo the rec. building in Laurence Harbor and why can't the bathrooms be open for people who use the area for walking?

Tom Badcock: You could, but those fixtures in the bathrooms are not strong commercial grade like the County is putting in at the north end. Also, if you did not have supervision, I would be leery about leaving them open too long because I know that when you have a lot of people coming in there they will get abused. You could open the building, but you would need supervision.

Finance Department Budget

Mr. Shah: Basically, the Department of Finance oversees the treasury, tax collections and data processing. I am sure that you have seen the goals and objectives that was submitted to the Mayor last week. We don't have any increase in personnel in any of these departments, so the salary increases are basically attributed to the salary increases awarded by the Council. In tax collections, again the same scenario with regard to salary increases. The other expenses portion of this budget is going up about $200.00. If for some reason you want to cut that I don't have a problem with it. The major portion of the tax collection budget is the printing and mailing of tax bills which is $17,000.00. The third department we oversee is data processing. It has been included in Administration's budget because prior to when I started working in Old Bridge it was under the supervision of Administration and it was transferred to the Finance Department, but the budgeting item is within the same line item. Again, the personnel is the same, three member staff. This is one of our success stories over the years. We have been improving the department service within the township and we have a very active web site and a lot of information is being published on the web site. This year we are going to look into having payments accepted over the Internet for certain services, for example dog licenses. We are going to be working with each of the departments and see if it is physically possible to do this because in some areas a person needs to sign and therefore we won't be able to avail ourselves of the internet service.

We got involved in the police computer systems and we have extremely successful installations. It is probably the least expensive installation of all the towns that they service based on the projected cost that is charged to other communities. The person that we hired who works with the police is doing a great job and they are very pleased with him. This has also proved to be very cost effective. Again that budget has been increased by $4200.00 for other expenses and there is a detailed analysis included in your budget papers. As our services grow, I think that we will have to increase some staffing for support purposes.

President Maher: I noticed that you spent a lot of time talking about data processing. Can you explain to me salary and wages; you paid $111,000 last year and your are projecting $157,000 this year, where is the $45,000 increase?

Mr. Shah: We had a vacancy for an extensive period and that is the reason we spent less money.

President Maher: You have the director at $80,000-$90,000, who else?

Mr. Shah: We have a technician and we have budgeted for a part time web administrator, but we have not filled that position and we only have $30,000 in the budget for that. You know that a land web administrator is not going to work for $30,000. The technician position was vacant for five months, that is the reason the amount was low. Now we have someone on board in that position and that is the $45,000 deviation plus the salary adjustments.

Councilman Butler: What is your projection on collections?

Mr. Shah: The tax collection rate we are predicting is the same as last year which is approximately 98% and we will know the exact rate in May, which is the last quarter. Anything beyond this rate is really difficult. One thing you should be aware of is that when you reach 98% you really are at 100% because there is always bankruptcies and other issues that come into play.

Councilman Butler: In reference to your next tax bills, when does the budget have to be approved so as not to affect the mailing of these bills?

Mr. Shah: The budget has to be approved before the end of this year in order for us not to delay in sending out the estimated tax bills. The law requires that you have to send out the bills 25 days prior to the actual due date which is February 1st. If we don't have a budget adopted by mid January we will have to do tax anticipation notes or we have an estimated tax bill.

Administration

Alayne Shepler: As you know there are a number of budgets that fall under what is known as the administration. I will start with the Mayor's office, there are no significant changes. The actual other expense increase is approximately $225.00. In my budget, the actual expense and other expenses have been reduced from $165,000 to $92,900 because I did eliminate $50,000 that I put in for the car pool and I also cut $25,000 from the anticipated for our labor counsel because all of our contracts have been settled for three years.

The purchasing budget has no changes; human resources, we have cut the professional fees by approximately $3000, which was for pre-employment physicals because we felt there was a duplication that was contained within the police budget; safety committee the other expenses remain the same and those are a token $950; historic preservation, the same as last year $5000; rent stabilization, there is a small increase due to contractual increase in salary and wages; the environmental commission remained exactly the same at $3600; open space the same at $2000; cultural arts the other expenses are $14,000 and they have been moved from recreation to administration. We have budgeted $10,000 for 4 summer concerts, $2000 for the talent shows and $2000 for the events schedules. As you know we supplement those with recruiting people who wish to volunteer to give us money to support these programs. The human relations commission has a $500 increase and we are aware of the good work they do. Celebration of Public Events is up $1000 and TV70 there is a reduction which was kind of a wash because we went from $20,000 in salary to $14,500.00 and we increased their operating expenses by $4000.All in all there are no increases in personnel and no new programs planned and our goal is to provide the best service with the least possible cost to our residents. We are always open to suggestions for anyone who has program implementation or supplementation.

President Maher: That was very well done the way you laid that out.

Councilman Butler: How much did you reduce your budget?

Alayne Shepler: We took off approximately $72,000 and I explained how this was determined by car pool and labor counsel reductions.

Introduction of the Budget

President Maher: Before we get into this I would like to pass out some suggested Council changes which we can review. Himanshu, did you review the amendments to the Mayor's budget as presented to us in July?

Himanshu Shah: I do have an amendment, and I do have the papers that Councilman Greene submitted. However, I did not receive them until about 8 o'clock this evening.

Councilman Testino: I think that Dennis' question was do you have any adjustments that you want us to consider since July that you think are necessary, or either grants coming in?

Himanshu Shah: There are certain items that I want to address. I can go over the list that I handed out and I can answer your questions. The proposal that President Maher handed out is not my list.

President Maher: What I had asked for is that there are some amendments that are necessary to the Mayor's budget as presented to us in July.

Himanshu Shah: That is the list that we need to work with. The Public Safety item is the first one. When they came in last week and made a presentation to you and there was a discussion that there are 100 officers, what I want to alert to you is that the budget presented by the Mayor included 96 officer and the 4 additional officers has to do with the grant we received. The additional $146,000 is attributable to that.

President Maher: Just so everyone understands, the Mayor's budget presented to us in July, there was no money for additional police officers. The other expense item $36,000 that is for the Motorola maintenance. As Captain Cerra explained when he submitted his budget this was not included and in the Mayor's budget and it is necessary and we will have to anticipate that in the budget so that is an additional $36,000 item. The Road Department salary and wages is promotions was a Union grievance and ultimately resulted in promoting three (3) employees from drivers to heavy equipment operators.

Councilman Cucchiara: Can we go back to the maintenance of radios? The fire districts are going to pick up their own share and this is not included is it?

Capt. Cerra: The $36,000 encompasses all the maintenance fees and we will have to bill them for their portion.

Himanshu Shah: The sub-code officials salary and wages has a $3500 adjustment that is converted for a part time to a full time employee. Gasoline, as you all know, the cost is going up and we have to increase this part. We are recommending $20,000 and hopefully we will make it in that dollar range and I think that we should amend the budget to reflect the high gasoline price.

The part of the AT&T bill for $2200 is an item that we learned through the reconciliation of all our outstanding bills that we need to pay one month of the bill that was not paid in previous years and we have to catch up with that. The next two items are off-setting based the auditors recommendations and how we were paying off one of the debt services. As you can see it is $32,500 one minus and one plus so you can see it zeros out. The next four items we brought up earlier with Mr. Badcock the $41,000, that is in your consideration and basketball $25,000 is something we all know and we need to fund based on the agreement. The other items are the ones that I earlier this morning discussed with Mr. Maher and he told me that these were his recommendations and I am listing them. Basically, these are included in his presentation to you.

Councilman Testino: With regard to salary and wages is that just the salary and wage line item or this recommendation for the overtime?

Himanshu Shah: No, there is no separate line item for overtime. It is just listed separately so that I can identify the purpose.

President Maher: I understand that we are projected to have a $400,000 deficit from what we budgeted for overtime.

Himanshu Shah: Based on the presentation last week by Capt. Cerra, he indicated that overtime is going to be reaching about $800,000 by the year end and we only budgeted $450,000 for this item, so you will need an additional $350,000-$400,000 for the police department.

President Maher: The question is does the overtime go into the normal salary "bucket" salary and wages? Who makes the decision whether it is overtime or just salary & wages?

Himanshu Shah: Well, the official budget we file with the State and this issue came up a few years back, because of the high amount of police overtime, that line item was separated one time and then it was consolidated back in the budget. There is a benefit to have a consolidated item because if there is an excess in one salary due to vacancy or retirement, it will be a one line item. We don't need to acquire emergency appropriations or transfer. On the other hand, the control that you're constantly looking for and I know that most of you keep voting "no" on overtime and even though you separate it I don't see you having any control over this item.

Technically, you are not supposed to over expend that item and we would come to you if the overtime exceeded before the transfer period expired.

President Maher: Are we on target for the $800,000 in overtime?

Capt. Cerra: Approximating what was spent the first nine pays, I would say that is the approximate figure. And then, we had the problem on Ticetown Road and that cost us $35,000 in overtime and who knows how long it will be before we collect from the Insurance Company.

Mayor Cannon: When we had the budget hearings with the Police Department we put in the $450,000 figure based on Captain Cerra's recommendation, I know it has been between $500,00 and $600,000 over the last 3-4 years, why when we have more people now than we had previously are we running almost $200,000 over?

Capt. Cerra: Last year it was $600,000 plus and then you have the 3 1/2% pay increase effective the start of the fiscal year and as I explained last week, at the start of last fiscal year we had 86 cops, as we speak today, we have the utilization of 86 cops, why is that, where is the other 11 cops; the four that were hired at the beginning of the fiscal year are still in the academy and you won't get them till the end of next month and the four guys in the school, 7+4 is 11, 97 minus 11 is 86, we are still operating right now with the same 86 cops we had the same time last year. You have more work now than you had last year. My original proposal was for $600,000 not $450,000 and that did not include any extraordinary incidents, which we have had. Until you hit a number that is acceptable in the policy community, this is what is going to happen and I base this on what the experts in my field say you should have and they say take your population and for every 1000 persons you should have 2 police officers; so the worst scenario in this town is 60,000 and 60 x 2 would be 120 police officers. We have tried to do everything we can do to cut back on the overtime. The only thing we did not do is change the 4/4. If you want to change the 4/4 you have to sit down with the Unions and negotiate the effects of that change and I would be more than happy to sit down with the Mayor and the Union and do this.

Councilman Redmond: Is that what causes the overtime the 4/4?

Captain Cerra: When the 4/4 was established in 1986 it was based on the manpower that we had then and that was 104 men. So 14 years ago when we went to the 4/4 you had 104 cops and we took all of our information and poured it into a big computer and it printed out these schedules and how it would cover everything and cut overtime. The first year that this schedule was in place we had 104 men, the overtime was reduced more than half and that year the police receive 8% raises. The year after that with another 8% raise, it dropped even lower that year. Then as the men tapered off, the overtime went up. It is all there, I have showed you this information year after year. Until you hit a number that the schedule calls for you will have high number overtime and you will not save anything. Once we get these seven guys out our actual number will hit 93.

Mayor Cannon: Where are we getting the other four cops?

Captain Cerra: The cops in the school and here you are only paying one salary. You have four cops in four schools costing you one salary; three quarters of their salary is being paid by the grant.

Himanshu Shah: We don't have that grant yet because it is based on a reimbursement basis; you spend it and then you get reimbursed.

President Maher: From what I see here, we need an increase in the Department of Public Safety overtime. We need to show $800,000 which is a $350,000 difference.

Himanshu Shah: The numbers that I put in are what you suggested to me that you wanted. Whatever number you want to change it to you have to advise me.

Councilman Testino: I can tell you this, I have been voting "no" on the overtime and I want to get it straight on the budget so I can start voting "yes", because once we adopt the budget I am back to "yes" on the overtime. This is a time for the Council to decide this issue not every week.

Councilman Greene: My concern is that I want to know what the department has done as far as overtime is concerned. I would like to see that management audit that I believe is done, maybe they have some suggestions. I looked at the last overtime report, which was September and the one thing that jumped out of the page to me was that there was a lot of overtime associated with police officers calling in sick. I can't tell from the paper, but I don't know if that is a problem.

Captain Cerra: You are absolutely right, it should be addressed in negotiations and let me explain why, the only place where sick time abuse exists is in the time tracking and in that time track it says two things; if you are out five days in a row you have to supply a note because you work a 4/4 and you have to be pretty sick to be off four days and off another day sick so you have to be sick for nine days. The second thing that gives us as administrators the right to call their house and make sure they are there. The contract gives them the right to utilize their sick time if their wife is sick, their children are sick, their parents are sick, so they can answer the phone and sound great and say their wife is not well and I have to stay home and take care of her.

Everyone who calls off sick, gets a phone call during their shift to make sure they are home and that is the only thing we can do. If we do anything else we will get ULP slapped on us and a grievance slapped on us. So to tighten up those ranks, during negotiations is the time to attack those issues and negotiate a more stringent requirement by them to us so that we can as administrators exercise that privilege. We will not violate that aspect of the contract. We will be more than happy to implement whatever you negotiate, but we will not hang ourselves out to dry by doing something that oversteps our authority regarding the agreement.

Councilman Greene: I am not asking that. I raised the question and I believe that you answered it pretty well. Obviously, there is a problem and long term I think that we have to address it.

President Maher: It is proven in my eyes that the 4/4 shift is inefficient and ineffective. That is my opinion and also it is costly. Scheduling is an administrative prerogative, am I correct?

Capt. Cerra: It is management prerogative, that means that you can implement any schedule that you want, but you are obligated by law to negotiate the effects of the change on the schedule that you are implementing.

President Maher: Right now our guys are working a 40 hour work, correct?

Capt. Cerra: Wrong, they are working a 35 hour work week.

President Maher: What would prevent us from continuing with the 35 working five days a week, 7 hours per day working a 5/2?

Councilman Redmond: You would have to put on another shift, it won't work.

Capt. Cerra: At 4 shifts a day, you would have to include an extra day. Five times seven is thirty-five; if you take 4 days on and 4 days off that is half the days of the year, and take all the days of the year and divide 2, multiply by 10 that is the number.

Himanshu Shah: That is annualized hours; the hours are the same.

Capt. Cerra: No, it is not annualized hours.

President Maher: Right now our guys are working 35 hours and it was suggested 5 day work week, 7 hours a day.

Capt. Cerra: You need four shifts for every day. There are 24 hours in a day and three shifts is only 21 hours, so would need an extra shift. You need a 5/2 schedule for a 7 hours day.

President Maher: What do other departments work out of?

Capt. Cerra: Almost everyone I know works a 4/4; there are a couple of 4/2 out there.

Alayne Shepler: There are also a lot of 5/2 out there. I would like to correct something and Captain we have discussed this before, you and I both know that at any time you can ask to see a doctor's note, their contract may say five days, but if you believe an employee is truly abusing the system and is guilty of chronic or excessive absenteeism or tardiness you can in fact ask for that doctor's note.

Capt. Cerra: And who sends them there?

Alayne Shepler: The town sends them and the town pays.

Councilman Cucchiara: Chief, do you know any police departments in the State of New Jersey that does not have a problem with overtime?

Chief Palumbo: The answer is "no". It all relates to manpower, but no one is listening as manpower decreases overtime increases and this schedule worked when we had enough people.

Councilman Testino: I had asked about the vehicle program being maintained and now you say that the numbers are different can you explain that?

Capt. Cerra: The numbers in your book show that the vehicle request is $50,000 and we need $100,000 for cars every year to maintain the program that has been in place. We also asked for another $50,000 for bikes. We originally asked for $250,000, because we wanted to buy the boat for the beach and now we find that there is only $50,000 in the line item.

Councilman Testino: In other words, if we want to maintain the current program we have to put back another $50,000.

Mayor Cannon: Can I just mention about the police car program that has been in existence for ten years and we have yet to get one usable police car that has been passed on down and this was one of the selling things about this program.

President Maher: That is a process question and I want to get into the budget and we can discuss this at another time.

Capt. Cerra: A police car comes off patrol with about 80,000 miles. Then it rolls into the detective bureau where it gets another 40,000 miles over 18 months to two years, now we are using these cars every day, then when the new cars come in we give the old cars to administration. Administration says this car is a piece of garbage and cannot be used and I keep saying yesterday we used it and it was okay. So how come when we have it, it is an okay car and when we give it up it is no good. I am not saying these are great cars, they go through the hardest 80,000 miles you ever want to see. They go through about 4 dozen sets of tires in that time. Think about it, the average car goes through one set of tires in 50,000 miles. They are not bad cars, but they are not the best.

Mayor Cannon: Just be honest, it is a program for the police department end of story.

President Maher: We need to look at that program, but let's get on with the budget.

Now, the budget is presented to us in July and there was an approximate 10 cent increase. With the addition of the salary and wages for the police, what are we faced with an 11 1/2% increase?

Himanshu Shah: About 11 cents.

President Maher: I have collected some suggested changes from council members and they are on sheet 1 and 2. I would like to review these and the council can join in. However, before we start this process, I want to make it clear for any additions to the budget do we need five or six votes?

Himanshu Shah: If you want additions to the introduced budget as presented by the Mayor on July 14th, you need five votes; if you increase that budget you need six votes; if you are going to decrease that budget you need five votes.

President Maher: To increase the public safety department salary and wages omitted in the Mayor's budget we need six votes. So any line there is an addition to we need six votes. The two things for recreation we need six votes.

With regard to the feedback from the Council and terms of cuts, we are suggesting cutting the judgments, matching grants sick leave $100,000 total; it is $25,000 for the judgments; if Bill was here I would ask him about the $25,000 in that line item for the legal budget on a yearly basis and we don't seem to have used it at all.

Himanshu Shah: I recommend in those items and sick leave is something that I don't agree and the others I think that the Council should be aware that you have an avenue of emergency appropriations although I think it is foolish to go to this every time you have a matching grant you need $2000 and you will have to adopt emergency appropriations, but that is your call. All I am asking is that Council consider leaving at least $100.00 in each line item so that there is an existing line item and if we need to transfer money we can transfer into it. Just so you know, you cannot create a new line item through the transfer mechanism. I just want to indicate again that I think the sick leave is something that the balance is eroding rapidly.

Mayor Cannon: Could I just mention that not having money for matching grants and it was announced today that we got a grant for $5000 for the domestic violence team our matching portion is $1600, so we cannot accept the grant now because we won't have the money.

President Maher: We can have an emergency appropriation.

Mayor Cannon: So you are going to borrow on next year for $1600?

President Maher: We can do this on a case by case basis.

Mayor Cannon: I think that if we are going to apply for grants, we need to know whether or not the Council is willing to borrow money to put in the matching portion.

Himanshu Shah: That line item is in the budget because we were notified of it. In the future you will be doing emergency appropriation for matching grants. I don't think that is good.

President Maher: I think that you have explained that to us.

Councilman Greene: The next set we recommend using an additional $600,000 from the surplus. The budget as proposed by Administration uses 6.2 million, they could go as much as 7.6 million, so we are going from 6.2 million to 6.8 million and still leaving approximately $800,000 in surplus monies.

Mayor Cannon: Before you go on can Mr. Shah tell you how much money was generated this year in surplus as opposed to last year because there was a decrease?

Himanshu Shah: If you look at the surplus analysis, we generated 8.7 million that we had at the end of fiscal year 1999 to 7.8 million, so we are almost $900,000 less.

Councilman Greene: I want to comment on that. We are not dealing with this thing in a vacuum. If you look at the real estate taxes that we took in last year, it was 2.5 million more than you anticipated, a 16 ½% increase.

Himanshu Shah: I think you want to be very careful when you use 16%. Remember that 2.5 million is over 80 million dollars of tax levy. You really need to realize that a one percent of tax is about now about $900,000. So you can see just as we increase and the same scenario played in the 80's, when it does decrease it will decrease very rapidly. That is all I want to say. We had the same type of good thing happen before and we got carried away and then we got burned.

Councilman Greene: My analysis stays. You anticipated "x" amount of dollars in real estate taxes you got in 2.5 million dollars more.

Himanshu Shah: And that is accounted for in that 7.8 million dollars.

Councilman Greene: That is one of the ways you generate surplus. In reality, you want to look at the real estate taxes, you also have to take into consideration Sayrewoods South and Cheesequake Village got a hidden tax increase when their assessments were increased one year ago. All the residents of Sayrewoods South now pay an additional $300 in total taxes, approximately $55.00 each going to municipal budget. There is additional tax money that is generated that you get by doing nothing.

Himanshu Shah: Let me tell you that the key thing you are missing is the reduction in our surplus is one million dollars less even though we got 2.5 million more in taxes. If you look at the book I gave you it shows that every year we generate an excess in collections and the reason is that we anticipate reserve for collection rate and if you start taking that away and if this scenario continues in another year you will have nothing left in surplus. Over the years we have talked about maintaining certain level of surplus balances. We were supposed to grow that balance and all of those steps have helped us to regenerate our bond rating that went from junk bond ratings in 1992 we now have that double A- rating, I don't think so. If you continue to erode in surplus balances you will face the same problem you had in 1992. I think I want to clearly tell the Council that what has happened the last two years is really scary. If you continue this trend you will face this problem down the road and there will be another investigating commission pointing fingers at administration.

Councilman Greene: What happened in 1992 among other things, one of the reasons you had a problem was because several years earlier there was a down turn in the economy, which over a period of time caused the market value of the houses to decline. It does not happen overnight.

Himanshu Shah: That is correct and if you don't watch it and you don't have these balances, you will be hit with it. Right now, look at the market where it is going. If people don't have money to pay, you will see the increase in tax appeal and that will bring down those evaluations and you will be paying back. We had to come up with 3.6 million in bonds to pay that tax appeal and we are still paying them off.

Councilman Redmond: I have difficulty with this because I am looking at the surplus current fund and I have a figure of $14, 973,100, on page 21.

Himanshu Shah: No, that is not it, the line about it balanced June 30, 2000 is the correct surplus $7.8 million dollars. This is the same mistake Pat Gillespie made about 6 or 7 years ago. He thought we had this high surplus balance. It is a balancing of numbers and I explained it to you. There is a beginning balance July 1, 1999 - 8.7 million dollars, we generated in fiscal year 2000 6.2 million dollars, you add those two number that is 14 million dollars.

President Maher: What is the difference between cash surplus and the other surplus we have here?

Himanshu Shah: We have a cash surplus of 7.6 million dollars in the bank and we have about $200,000 in receivables. If you look at the bottom line it matches up to the balance of June 30, 2000. I am happy that we are going into this now everyone is beginning to learn the math This is the "fuzzy" math that has been going on for the past 30 years.

Councilman Redmond: What is the percentage of the total budget?

Himanshu Shah: The 7.8 million or the 1.6 million, which one? Technically you don't use 7.8 million because on day one you are using up 6.2 million and leaving you with 1.6 million.

As of now we are not projecting that we will generate the same amount.

Councilman Redmond: My problem is I am hearing $800,000 in overtime and then I am looking at this surplus which we expect to get again this year.

Himanshu Shah: I don't want you to misunderstand. We are only carrying about 1.6 million dollars, that is less than a percent of the total budget. You don't even have enough to cover one month of expenses. Do you have a savings of one month in your house?

President Maher: Surplus to me and Mr. Greene explained it, is a rainy day fund. We have been generating approximately 7 million dollars of surplus on an annual basis, that is our surplus.

Himanshu Shah: Does anybody review the papers in the book? We generated 6.2 million dollars and we are going down and reducing the amount we are regenerating.

President Maher: I think faced with a 10 cent tax increase, we need to take a look at our rainy day fund. We are suggesting that you take an additional $600,000 out of the rainy day fund or 1.6 million dollars and give it back to the tax payers leaving $1 million dollars.

Himanshu Shah: And what does that amount to in the total budget? If you take 40 million dollar budget and divide it by 12 months you spend over 3 million dollars, what do you have in your pocket. One payroll is about $1 million dollars.

President Maher: Himanshu, I am not going to debate you on this. The direction that the Council is going is that it is time to give this money back to the taxpayers. They put the money there and its time to give it back.

Himanshu Shah: That is fine, all I am saying is that when taxpayers complain in the future that there is a problem, I don't want administration to be blamed for that.

Councilman Greene: With regard to the Municipal Court Fund, again it is underestimated. The same thing with the Uniform Construction Code Fees, we feel that those fees are underestimated and the economy is still good.

Mayor Cannon: What if we don't meet that, can you explain what happens if we don't meet that projection? If you up the revenues then you have to look at the full impact of it.

Councilman Greene: This is my best projection and if we don't make it we will find the money in other areas of the budget for instance Himanshu typically over appropriates. You don't think so Ms. Shepler?

Alayne Shepler: No, I do not.

Himanshu Shah: I have been sitting here for five years, this Council has not come up with one single referendum...

President Maher: Let me help Mr. Greene out. If you look at your spread sheet, last year the UCC brought in $991,000, almost one million dollars. You are projecting only $850,000 this year, you are projecting a decrease. What we are suggesting is don't take credit for the whole million dollars, increase that $850,000 another $75,000 for revenue and bring that up to $925,000 and shame on us with all the building going on in town, if we don't meet that one million dollar mark.

Himanshu Shah: First of all, just so you know, the UCC budget is a balancing budget.

If you look at the breakdown of the revenue, your code enforcement is about $150,000 less in revenue collections, so you were paying more, but when the State looks at this budget is over a five year period. Over this time period your net excess is about $16,000. If you have too much excess and you start using it in the budget, State will come back and say lower the fees.

President Maher: I think that is a very conservative estimate based on almost 1 million dollars.

Himanshu Shah: The point you are missing is that you are using more surplus and you're taking away things that will generate surplus.

President Maher: But, you have underestimated the revenue.

Himanshu Shah: But that is underestimated revenue and whatever excess we get goes into the surplus and makes that 6.2 million and now you are going to hit both ways and that is what you did last year.

Councilman Greene: Last year was gloom and doom for 3 cents and there was no problem.

Himanshu Shah: Look this is your decision. I want to make sure that you make a decision with the correct information.

Councilman Redmond: This is my first year on the budget. You know we are still okay even with what was done last year and we still have 6.2 million dollars of surplus.

Himanshu Shah: You are supposed to realize that the trend is a downward trend and if it spirals what the effect will be down the road.

President Maher: I think Mr. Greene and Mr. Redmond have said it, you have been advising us for the past three years that gloom and doom is coming and it has yet to occur.

Himanshu Shah: Do you not want me to say a word?

Mayor Cannon: Do you want to wait till it occurs? I just want to say that Himanshu has been here for 8 years he is not the new kid on the block. I think that he has proven himself. You are basically telling him that you have a better crystal ball and certainly I think that you would want a much more conservative approach in budgeting than you would inflating and then find yourself falling short and not able to regenerate those revenues and you don't have that money to put towards the budget and then you are in the hole. We have avoided doing that and last year was an anomaly because we all decided collectively to give back the money that we got, the 2 million dollars from the North County and everyone acknowledged that it was a one time give back. Now, you have to understand the dangers that this may bring and this is something that we have talked about for years and you keep insisting that the surplus is at 7.6 million without acknowledging that three quarters of that or more goes toward the budget and if you don't have that surplus to apply to the budget how are you going to make that difference up, you have to go to the taxpayers.

Himanshu Shah: Just remember this, the last point on the surplus, the reason we were able to get that 2 million dollars, and the utility authority got about $900,000 is because we had a healthy financial position and we were able to hold up against North County who had another two towns sell that lien for 10/20/30 cents a dollar and they got a lot less. If we were in a dire financial position then we probably would have said give us whatever you can and we will take it to support the budget.

Councilman Greene: The capital fund balance are we leaving that $50,000 out or in based on what we discussed?

President Maher: We are going to leave that there, but we are going to be taking out the capital improvement fund $100,000, that is out.

Councilman Greene: The park and utility fund balance, as of June 30, 2000 there is a $217,000 balance, we recommend taking $50,000 from that fund leaving $167,000.

President Maher: We have reviewed this Mr. Shah.

Himanshu Shah: We did not. I got ten minutes with you Mr. Maher, and I disagree with you. One of the goals of this utility was to build and we need more and more parking spaces. And I think your answer was "bond it". If that is the way you are going to approach that, and increase your debt service, then this is fine. Remember, when you borrow money for a utility, it is not the same as your general obligations, it is backed by revenue obligations so it has a different impact on your borrowing interest rate.

President Maher: We also have some additional revenue enhancements. We have a reserve to pay bonds. There is a million dollars in there we utilized $500,000 in the budget this year and we are suggesting using that additional $500,000 in this year's budget. The next thing is to delete the capital improvement fund of $100,000, that we need and we will not take that out of the budget. We are suggesting here is the road reconstruction and improvements to the municipal complex, various equipment purchases and the park improvements $120,000, $40,000, $20,000 and $50,000, is bonding for these items rather than taking it out of revenue or the taxpayers paying for it. My logic to that is if you need a roof on your house you are not going to take that out of your savings account you are going to take a loan and spread those payments out over the life of a new roof which is 20-25 years. Those clearly are capital improvements and we shall bond for them. The Council is suggesting that we spread those payments over a period of time rather than have the taxpayers fund them on an annual basis.

Mayor Cannon: So you will be increasing your debt service because I know that you did have some concerns over that in the past?

President Maher: Speak with Himanshu about that.

Himanshu Shah: I don't want the Council to give the impression that I am in agreement with any of these actions.

President Maher: Why don't you save your comments for the end, let's finish this. The sale of the Ferry Road property, the $600,000, we are suggesting that we put that in as a potential revenue. I have talked with Judy Tripodi at the State and as long as we can produce a contract by the end of the year that is a logical revenue item. I had this faxed to me, it is a law, NJSA Section 40A-4-27, a local unit may anticipate as a miscellaneous revenue the total amount of all payments due and payable to the local unit during the fiscal year either directly or indirectly as a result of a sale of property by the local unit when that obligation to make such payment is entered into prior to the adoption of the budget. It is my expectation to have a contract for sale by the time we adopt this budget which is somewhere around December 18th. The other additions here came from various Council members. We need to increase the EDC budget, the Salary and Wage line approximately $25,000 for the recruitment of another executive director. There are suggestions that to attract a more qualified candidate we need to increase that salary and wage from $60,000 to $85,000. We have already talked about increasing the Recreation budget $25,000 for opening the gyms on Saturday and Sunday. For the Road Department, part-time summer work that Mr. Hoff has been asking for we are suggesting increasing that $50,000; increasing the curbing program approximately $400,000 bringing it up to one million dollars and bonding for it.

Himanshu Shah: I think that the area of reserve to pay bonds, I thought I made you understand the issue with that. I think that potentially if you want to use it up you have no answer to this Council, what are you going to do next year when you don't have that million dollars. The other thing is that this was a debt service off-setting a debt service, that service is $400,000, that was the approach I took saying we were going to pay it off over two years from the money we collected when we got the grant after we bid the bonds on this particular item. Technically, you are bonding money and supporting your operating budget. That is your call, I do have a concern, I don't know if the State may or may not approve it. With regard to the $600,000, when I called, I was told that as far as I know you have to have a contract before you introduce the budget. If the State is changing that position I will find it out and if they don't you will have to take it out on amendments. According to this Council, I think the township is changing its position. I know when I first came here there was an outcry about our debt service and there was an attempt to slowly grow and pay by cash. We thought we were trying to balance that. Obviously there is no way we can go $3-$4 million of capital and then we needed a lot more capital projects money, so we started slowly including some of this money to cash capital which helped us to do some of the projects even before the bond ordinance is adopted. As we know we take 6-8 months before we do anything with the bond ordinance. Certainly, the trend and this is something this town needs to decide and if you want to do everything through the bond approach, then in the future when we do budget that is the way we will budget, everything through bonds, there is no cash capital. This was a vehicle that was appropriate, we do something through bonds and something through cash, and if you are going to amortize over a number of years, then your debt service will continue to grow. Also, I just want to warn you about the termination areas which you talk about cutting, two years ago the total reserve that we wanted to accumulated was at $5 million dollars and then we're done with it. Basically, you are eroding every reserve balance and the good financial position that we had. In the past two years you have used up about 1.2 million dollars and you have more retirements coming.

Councilman Greene: I have $1.5 million in the reserve.

Himanshu Shah: I understand and I think I spoke with Mr. Maher earlier, this year we spent almost $250,000-$300,000 and some of the transfer that were done into this line item to increase this balance was rejected by the auditors, so right now we are a little less than one million dollars. You will be getting the new annual financial statements will reflect this amount because they just completed the audit and you will see it. Also, we have an expense against that in this year.

President Maher: With the exception of the capital improvement fund the $100,000 that is out; we are not going to take that money we will be increasing that by $25,000 for more bonding.

Mayor Cannon: My overall comments and I have already stated some of it and I sound like a broken record because every year we keep saying the same thing and we cannot get the majority of Council to buy it. You have to look at the record of this town and what has happened in the last 7-8 years and where we have come from and we now have the highest bond rating this town has ever had and we finally have some financial credibility and all that is essential and important if we are going to try an attract quality economic ratables to this town. One thing I learned in the budget process is that you cannot look at a budget in one year in a vacuum, you have to look at what you do today and how it will affect next year and the subsequent years. I think that is one thing that Himanshu has been very skilled at doing and because we pretty much know where we are going to be from year-to-year. The type of budgeting practice you are putting in place this year is sink or swim and we'll worry about next year, next year and see what comes in. I think that is unhealthy and not good for the community and we made a commitment last year to do a one time tax return because we don't have the ability to mail out rebate checks and so we did it through a decrease in the tax rate and what I proposed is to go back to where we were in 1999 budget and it bothers me even more because you spent a long time with your teams and I don't see one actual cut in the budget that would be sustained. You are making the reductions by taking from surplus, by inflating revenues, by taking and borrowing more money instead of using cash capital for some of these capital improvements. You are taking money out of the parking utility when we just purchased land and that land is no good to us unless we can improve it some and now are funds are cut now. I just think the term "smoke and mirrors" applies. If you go in and actually cut staff, services whatever, it is a hard decision, nobody wants to see that happen but that would be meaningful in the sense that it would be a real budget adjustment that would last for next year and the year after. What you are doing now is all going to come back to haunt you next year. You say you believe in Himanshu and he has credibility and your admire what he has done, but you don't listen to him and I don't understand that and I don't think the path you are on is a positive one for the community and even though it will give a short term tax relief, I think within the next few years we will be in bad shape.

Councilman Testino: I just cannot support taking the matching grants out. I think that we have been long striving for a grant program and I hear there is one forthcoming and I think that we should strive to do that. I don't think I will be supporting deleting the capital items. I think we have to pay for some of those in current items and I want to see the township increase the curb program, but at the same time I don't want to bond for all these items.

MOTION

Motion to direct the Finance Director to prepare the changes as enumerated below on Page #1 of the Council amendments, seconded by Councilman Cucchiara and so moved on the following roll call vote:

AYES: Councilmen Butler, Cucchiara, Greene, Hoff, Redmond, President Maher.

NAYS: Councilmen Sohor, Testino.

ABSENT: Councilwoman Marinaccio

Himanshu Shah: So that we can prepare the right papers, I just want to have you repeat the numbers. Your are cutting Judgment $25,000, Matching Grant $25,000, Sick Leave $50,000. I had asked that you leave $100 in each, are you leaving that and you are using $600,000 more from surplus.

President Maher: Yes, and as amended we will leave those accounts open.

Himanshu Shah: Your are increasing the Court Revenue by $75,000; UCC you're increasing by $75,000; Fund Balance is a new line item and you are using Parking Utility Fund Balance $50,000; you're increasing reserve to pay bonds $500,000 and except for capital you're cutting everything. We have a problem in that we need $35,000 in that because you already approved temporary emergency appropriations for the Civic Center.

President Maher: Okay, put that on the sheet.

Councilman Testino: That is the reason we should keep more than that in there because we have to have some money to spend. There is not going to be any money around to spend. Some of you council people will be running next year and you won't have any money to spend.

Himanshu Shah: You are also adding the sale of the Ferry Road property in the amount of $600,000 and that is it on Sheet #1.

President Maher: On Sheet #2, these are additions to the spending plan; increase the Public Safety Salary & Wages $200,000 for one half the year, this is not overtime.

Councilman Testino: Whatever we are doing on this sheet is in addition to what Mr. Shah has recommended, correct?

President Maher: Exactly. Increase salary and wages for Public Safety $200,000; increase the police car program $150,000.

Motion

Motion to make changes to Sheet #2 as indicated by Councilman Cucchiara seconded by Councilman Butler and so moved on the following roll call vote:

AYES: Councilmen Butler, Cucchiara, Hoff, Redmond, Testino, President Maher.

NAYS: Councilmen Greene, Sohor

ABSENT: Councilwoman Marinaccio

President Maher: With regard to Mr. Shah's Sheet, do I have a motion to move it?

Motion

Motion to vote on the additions for public safety, terminations, $41,000 for the skate park moved by Councilman Redmond, seconded by Councilman Butler and so moved on the following roll call vote:

AYES: Councilmen Butler, Cucchiara, Greene, Hoff, Redmond, Sohor, Testino, President Maher.

NAYS NAYS: None

ABSENT: Councilwoman Marinaccio

Councilman Sohor: On the public safety are all three items included, public safety officers, Motorola and the overtime?

President Maher: Yes they are.

DISCUSSION ORDINANCE - TOWNE CENTER PLAN

Sam Rizzo: Everyone should have a copy of the proposed amendment to the Towne Center District, Section Land Development Ordinance. Currently, the Land Development Ordinance has less than two pages devoted to the Towne Center. The proposal in front of you is much more lengthy and much more involved. It provides much greater detail and it is intended to replace that section of the Land Development Ordinance. I am not sure if Mr. Ruggierio prepared the change to make this part of that. It should be noted that we are not proposing a new Towne Center, what this amendment is trying to do is make sure that we are actually going to get a sustainable town center and now cave in and allow strip retail development. It provides a lot of guidance to protect this type of center. Everyone knows that the towne center proposal has been around since the 1970's. The idea was to create a central business district where people could attend civic functions and access municipal services and also shop. There is also intended to be neighborhoods of high density residential development, close enough that on a nice day people could walk or bicycle to this center. Charts and artists renderings are available for your review as well as for anyone who may have an interest in seeing what is being proposed.

The residential area has grown according to the proposed plan, the business district has been slow to follow. We explained this in the past as you have to have residential before business is attracted. Now we are at the point where we have a lot of interest in developing those businesses and we have to get some regulations in place to guide not only the developers but also the approving boards. In 1998 the Planning Board adopted a Master Plan Amendment to the Towne Center. In that amendment it clearly laid out all the ground work for what you see in the renderings. The area is served by two main roads, Rt. 516 and Cottrell Road as well as close proximity to Route 9. Although this site was chosen years ago, I think that this same site would be chosen today. The proposal has about 30 pages of text and about 90 illustrations to tell everyone exactly what we are looking for in the towne center. Many people in addition to my staff have worked on this plan for years including representatives from the Environmental Commission and the Transportation Coordinating Committee. We also sent out between 800-900 questionnaires to residents around the towne center to see what they would be looking for.

The number one thing that we got back from this inquiry was they thought a "bakery" was important and what is funny is that a bakery is not allowed in a town center. The proposed ordinance takes care of all that. The ordinance is broken down into three main sections one is uses; bulk standards; and design standards. If you compare this to the existing plan you will see that there are a lot more uses in here.

The entire streetscape will be a public and private entity. The sidewalk plan shows you where the street scape will start and stop and at the end of that it will continue the theme and you will have a walk and grassy area. Councilman Testino had requested that we bring the sidewalk down Cottrell Road from the original plan. It would go to Phillips Drive and what that would do is gets the Arbors in as well as another approved development into the towne center so that works out very well for us. All this support for the center helps to make sure that you have a sustainable town center. The last thing I want to talk about is the issue of whether or not Rt. 516 and Cottrell Road become a highway or a downtown main street. The Council will have to decide whether or not to take over those roads in order for them to become a main street. This type of development reduces the traffic. Basically this plan will reduce the traffic over what is already approved in the towne center. We also can try to get some money from DOT for road improvements.

We have an applicant who is interested in developing this center. He has submitted an artists rendering and although we do not have 100% of what we want, it is within our regulations and it was within the guidelines of what he wanted to do as well. Now with this design being shown and the concept plan that we have there are four major developers interested in the property on the other corner.

Councilman Butler: Can you tell me what the make-up is of the occupants of the proposed center?

Sam Rizzo: We have three for sure, an Eckerts Drug Store, a bank and offices upstairs and a Friendly's. There are also a number of people who have expressed an interest in space in the center including several sit down restaurants. Because he got the three major tenants, that gave him the money to build this thing. We have gone through this thing pretty thoroughly and we think we have everything in here that we need for a towne center. If the Council has any suggestions for doing it better you can advise us, we are certainly open to suggestions. We have incorporated everything we heard over the years and we are tried to anticipate everything and I think that this ordinance right now as written is ready for adoption.

Mayor Cannon: I think this is ready to go and as Sam has said the sooner we get this adopted we can apply for funding grants to try an implement some of the site improvements and if people come in they will have a much clearer picture of what are expectations for the town center.

President Maher: If we pass this ordinance for first reading it then has to go to the Planning Board for a resolution and then it comes back to us, am I correct?

Sam Rizzo: Yes.

Councilman Testino: What is the rush that we can't have time to look at this in more detail?

Sam Rizzo: It does not have to wait for the Master Plan or the Land Use Regulations that Tom Sheehan is working on, the Master Plan for this was adopted in 1998. Certainly, you need to look at the regulations and need to find out if your are comfortable with those things. There is the issue of Rt. 516 and what to do with that.

President Maher: If we take the first reading in 2000 and we pass second reading in 2001, it cannot be done that way. It has to go to the Planning Board before second reading and they have 35 days for their review before it comes back to the Council.

Councilman Redmond: Sam and the Planning Board have been involved with this for some time and I'm sure that they would not need the maximum time.

President Maher: Let's move this to the next Agenda meeting on December 4th so the Council can have ample time to review it further.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

October 16, 2000 No Discussion

ORDINANCE FOR SECOND READING

ORD. #47-00 - Ordinance Authorizing Township Acquisition of Real Estate Interest Cedar Ridge II (Block 12261, Lots 19, 20,28, 35, 82 and 84)

President Maher: What is the status on the negotiations?

Alayne Shepler: We have not met since the last meeting.

Councilman Redmond: As much as I would like to have that piece of property, I don't think we can afford it at this time.

ORD. #52-00 - Department Head Salaries

President Maher: Himanshu did an analysis because we had some questions.

Councilman Redmond: I had some questions about the list that was given to me, but I have reviewed the information and I see now what I need to know.

CONSENT AGENDA

C-1 Bingo Raffle No Discussion

DISCUSSION RESOLUTIONS:

DR-1 Renewal of License - Old Bridge Raceway Park, Inc.

No Discussion

DR-2 Award Professional Service Contract for Design of HVAC Improvements for the Municipal Complex to J.V. Morgan Engineering in the amount of $28,950.00 (Cert. #934) (AFFIRM. ACT.)

No Discussion

DR-3 Waiver of $219.00 in permit fees for renovations - Jehovah's Witnesses

No Discussion

DR-4 Resolution - Temporary Budget Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2001 - Current Budget and Utilities in a total amount of $3,728,600.00

No Discussion

DR-5 Establishing Schedule of Meetings for the Year 2001 - Council Meetings

No Discussion

DISCUSSION

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