Good evening.

On behalf of the governing body of the city of Passake, we welcome you to the May 5th, 2026 City Council meeting.

In accordance with chapter 231, public laws of 1975, adequate notice of this meeting was provided by resolution of the municipal council adopted on June 17th, 2025, setting forth the schedule of meetings for the year 2025-2026.

Said notice was published and posted on the City Hall Bulletin Board by the Office of the City Clerk.

Please be further advised.

On April 24th, 2026, public notice and Zoom instructions for this meeting were posted on the City of Passake website at WW City of Passake.com council agendas.

Instructions are also available on the last page of this agenda.

Please be guided accordingly.

Roll call, please.

Councilman Monk.

Yes, present.

Councilman Love.

Present.

Councilwoman Mello.

Present.

Councilman Mayor.

Present.

Councilman Garcia.

Councilman Colom Montañez.

President.

And Council President Sher.

Here we stand for the occasion.

Heavenly following one and thank you, Lord, for allowing us to meet this evening.

Father, we ask you to please guide us in the decisions that will take place this evening.

You may be able to name.

Yeah, just want to ask for a moment of silence for um the ground man who was killed tragically over the weekend here in the city of Basake.

I want to pray for both the man and the Hill family.

Thank you, Councilman.

Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting.

If you do not have a copy of our agenda and you would like a copy, they're located directly outside the council chambers.

Um you can also uh access all the information regarding this meeting, resolutions, ordinances, correspondence, etc.

That the council is received by the administration.

Those are also available to you online.

Our first order of business is remember number four and our agenda mayor's presentation 2026 preliminary budget presentation.

I believe this is considered receipt tonight by the council of the budget.

As we all know, the budget is the mayor's budget until he hands it to the council, at which time it becomes the council's budget.

One budgeted is certainly with all that confusion, it is the people's budget.

Uh, and with the people we will share with them why we are contemplating what we are.

Mayor, now I turn the floor to you, sir.

Yeah, so what we'll do as we have done in the past, we're gonna go through the PowerPoint.

Um, that'll explain kind of the process and where the numbers came from.

You should have a copy of the budget workbook, which gets into greater detail on you know the numbers that are presented in the PowerPoint.

So at this point, I'll just turn it over to Mr.

Omar Garcia, our chief financial officer to kind of walk us through the PowerPoint and how that correlates to the work.

Yes.

Good evening, council members, um, members of the public.

Here to present the 2026 proposed budget.

And if you bear with me a second, just to pull up the PowerPoint as we go.

As the business administrator stated, everyone has a copy of the budget workbook that goes into the detail of the various line items.

This PowerPoint will pretty much summarize the major changes within the 2026 budget as compared to the 2025, and where we got um the numbers.

So just by okay, just by uh introduction, a quick explanation on what is the budget.

The budget is the outline of how the city intends to spend its funds during the calendar year in order to provide the necessary services for its residents.

Appropriations or expenses are broken down by departmental salaries and other expenses, deferred charges and statutory expenses, capital improvements, and debt service.

And I will go through some of those examples later.

Revenues or income is broken down into four areas of fund balance or surplus, miscellaneous revenues, receipt from delinquent taxes, and amount to be raised by taxes, which are the current year's taxes.

There we go.

Okay.

Uh so now just to explain a little bit about how the budget is prepared, where the requests come from, how it's put together to become what you have in front of you at this moment.

So the budget process begins with the department or the division, the city department or city division submitting the request.

Uh dependent on the budgetary needs.

Then once all requests are received, the administrator and the CFO review the request of the mayor.

The administrative CFO later meets with the department set with the department heads to convey the mayor's approval or denial set requests or changes or modifications of that.

Once those requests are finalized, it is compiled into one entire document, which is for example as in front of you now.

And that budget work is then presented to the council.

Then once once the budget is presented and introduced, it's the council have it, the council will review it, and then we have a public hearing, and then we have a public hearing, which now is set for the meeting of June 4th.

The members of the public will come up and will it be able to uh speak on the budget or questions they have on the budget, and then subsequent to the hearing, there is the adoption process where the council can vote to adopt the budget.

So getting into the 2026 proposed budget.

Again, starting on the appropriation or the spending side, appropriation or what the city anticipates spending for its day-to-day operations.

The total proposed appropriations for 2026 is 123 million, 391,502.

And of course, you would ask what are the significant changes in appropriations from last year to this year.

Is health benefits, and I will explain more health benefits as I go along, but health benefits increased 6 million 534,800 due to an increase in health premiums.

That was approximately a 31% increase set statewide.

And we're part of the state health benefits, and that rate increase is set by the state.

Again, that's a 32 point 32.52% increase from 2025.

We also have our garbage and recycling, collection and disposal costs, which increased 334,000 or roughly 9.57% from 2025.

Those are contracts that the city has, and they have a set term once they expire.

And those and those are then the responses or prices that come back from the company's willing or submitting bids.

Then you also have the library appropriation, which is set by the state of New Jersey, which increased 216,341 dollars.

And that's just to know all those increases that I just mentioned were either set by contracts or other governmental agencies.

So just so the council gets a feeling for this budget and what we had to do to get to the number.

Um when we walked into the mayor's office telling him that health benefits alone was $6.5 million, which equates just that number to an 8% tax increase.

Obviously, you know he was adamant that there's absolutely no way that that is something he could present um for the residents of the city of Passake.

So then we really had to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

But I just want you to get a feeling that just that health benefits alone was over eight percent tax increase.

Well, it is it's it's eight percent of our budget that we then had to cut to reduce it down to an acceptable level uh for the mayor.

And sticking on health benefits, I know we say it every year, but the acceptable level is the commitment I made in my first one to never go beyond five percent under any circumstances.

So just I didn't want to give the punchline.

I didn't want to just begs the question.

I wanted to open it up with the with the punchline at the end.

Well, and staying on health benefits, and we have our own slide on just health benefits alone, because it is the driving factor on cost increase for this budget.

And we wanted to point out that over the last four calendar years, the state health benefit premiums increased 96.68 percent, meaning that four years ago, what we were paying for one employee is half of what we're paying today, or doubled pretty close to doubled now than what it was four years ago.

The state health benefit commission approved again a 31% rate increase for uh 2026, 2026 health benefit program plan year.

For us, again, that represented 6.5 million dollars in increased cost for employee health premium.

Now, again, following this closely as the mayor and the uh business administrator, we always follow it closely.

Per the New Jersey League of Municipalities, the state health benefit plans actually, those are the people who um look at or the consultants to actually look at the plan and determine the next year's rate increase or future rate increase, they're actually reporting that is likely there will be another double digit premium increase for plan year 2027.

So unfortunately, this looks like it's going to occur again, hopefully not at the level of 31%, but we don't know.

So that being said, and also mentioning how over the past four years, health benefits has doubled.

The city has aggressively explored options, alternatives that address this increase of costs.

Um I mean, we've looked at coming out of the state health benefit plan for a private fully insured plan or for a self-insured plan.

We've worked with um our professionals to review what it would look like if we came out.

Um we got the same result actually last year as we did two years before, where it would actually cost the city more money to come out in one of these plans than staying in the state health benefits.

So again, neither option is feasible as it would be more costly on than the current cost.

The city, I just want to make a note the city is currently working on an option that offers a high deductible plan along paired with a health savings account and a health reimbursement account.

And if this option can come to fruition, the city would be able to reduce its health benefit cost by approximately two million dollars.

Um, if all active employees were to switch to this style of a plan.

So that is actually item 30 on the agenda this evening.

Um just for the council's edification.

We can go into the factual um logistic of the plan, but any further discussions because we are in actual negotiations literally with every single union that the city has.

I would ask that at that point if you need further clarification that may enter into the realm of the negotiation that we go into closed sessions if if uh the council needed so okay.

So now just again a summary of the total budget, which again 123 million dollar total budget.

We have salary and wages at 50 50 million two hundred and seventy seven thousand three hundred and fifty dollars or 41%.

We have other expenses, which include health benefits, the insurances, the garbage and disposal costs and recycling that we spoke about at $53,216,000 or $43.

We have deferred charges, making up $15,350,000 or $12%.

In that number is the pension, the annual pension contribution that the city makes to the state.

We also have debt service of $2 million or 2%, capital improvements of $700,000 or 1%, and then the statutory appropriation, which is called reserve for uncollected taxes at $1.8 million or 1%.

Now, since I touched on debt service, just to show the council where our debt service payments look like going forward.

Currently for 2026, we have an annual debt service payment of roughly 2.1 million dollars.

And as you can see over the next uh roughly 12 years, what those debt service payments entail?

I do want to bring up that although not reflected in the schedule, we do have a to properly uh call it a pending debt service.

We have about three million dollars of authorized bonds that haven't been issued.

So when those eventually get issued, they'll be added to the schedule.

Oh, for and it was for the parking deck.

So the as the council knows the arrangement is that the parking authority would be reimbursing the city for that um bond payment once the bond comes issued.

So even though it'll show us debt, it's gonna be offset by the revenue that the uh parking authority is going to give the city to pay off that debt service.

Correct.

All right, so that was the appropriation, the spending side of the budget.

Now, how do we raise the funds to pay for those appropriations?

Well, revenue are how the city funds its appropriations.

So revenue or income is broken down by fund balance or surplus, miscellaneous revenue, grants, receipts of delinquent taxes, those are prior year taxes, um, and amount to be raised, which represent the current year taxes.

So, again, what are the significant changes in revenue from last year to this year?

So we saw an increase in municipal court revenue of 400,000, a positive from 25 to 26.

We also saw an increase in various new pilots or payment in lieu of taxes that came on the books um to the tune of 475,000.

We saw a decrease in deferred state aid of 275,000.

The deferred state aid actually stemmed from money resulting in the city back in 2016, changing from a fiscal year to a calendar year municipality, and now we're at the tail end of this deferred state aid uh allotment.

And then the bottom number, we have an increase of uh raised by an increase in the amount to be raised by taxes of three million nine hundred and ninety-five thousand or five percent of the prior year tax levy.

I just like to add to that, because I do not want to skip the deferred state aid, right?

The utilization and the good stewards of that money that it's 11 years later, and we still have money that we can use for the budget.

I know that when we did that, there was concerns about how much of that money was going to be used in the budget.

I want to let you know that in collaboration, this administration has been able to keep it since 2016 and still spend it sparingly to the fact that we we ran it even with the increases in health benefits of 96 percent over the last four years, we still had money left that we could use to offset this budget.

So I want the public to understand that that deferred state aid could have been wiped out and used within the first three budgets, and we carried that for the last you know, uh, since we got it, we carried it now.

We're already in 2026, and we still have money there in the account.

So I don't want that to be lost in the in the presentation.

Now, just a summary again of the same.

So obviously in the state of New Jersey, you have a balanced budget.

So if I have uh 123 million in appropriations, we have 123 million in revenue, and pretty much the revenue breaks down as 26 million dollars or 21% in miscellaneous revenue that includes the court revenues and the uh state aid revenue.

We have uh surplus anticipated of 13.4 million dollars or 11 percent receipt from delinquent taxes of 47,000, and then the amount to be raised by taxes or current year taxes of 83 million eight hundred and ninety-five thousand or sixty-eight percent of the total revenue.

And speaking of taxes, what is and the estimated impact of a proposed tax levy of five percent.

So on the tax assessors assessed value or the assessment book, the average home is assessed at 275,000, and that's taken from taking the total valuation or the total assessed valuation of all residential homes and dividing it by the number of residential homes listed in the tax assessors duplicate.

So with the average home assessed at 275,000, uh the two hundred the 2026 average municipal tax bill would be uh seven thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven dollars, the average municipal tax bill in 2025 was seven thousand four hundred and fifteen dollars, the increase per year would be three hundred and twenty-two dollars or per month twenty-six dollars and eighty-three cents.

One thing that I would like to note as well, um, the tax levy increase is five percent.

However, we had increased valuations, added valuations, added rateables is usually the term that we refer to, those are new constructions being added to the tax assessors' roles, and what that allows us to do is even though the tax levy increase is five percent for the existing um taxpayers, they'll actually feel a 4.34 increase to their tax rate to their taxes.

So that is pretty much the summary of the budget workbook.

If any of the council members have any questions or on the presentation or the workbook, council, please.

Yeah, thank you, Council President.

Just real fast.

Um other expenditures on um this page right here.

No uh health benefits are in there, but what else?

So again, and I'll just read some of the things off.

So, for example, you have health benefits, sorry, and also is it correlated with so and that's what I was gonna get to.

So, if you actually in your budget workbook, you flip to page six, starting on page six through page bear with me, seven page six and seven actually gives you a full detail of that other expenses and just some of the bigger items to highlight.

You have health benefits, you have liability insurance, you have the departmental other expenses, you have uh collection of solid waste and recycling, the disposal of solid waste, the amount uh needed to raise for the library that's set by the state.

So, pretty much uh again, pages six and seven give you a detailed list of those other expenses.

Yeah, and if I may, if you're wondering, well, how did the city go from an eight percent on medical benefits down to the five percent?

If you start on page five and flip through the pages, everything in parentheses is what we had to cut to get that eight down to a five five councilman, yeah.

I'm sorry, councilman monk, please.

Thank you.

Uh very informative.

Um just clarity exactly where we are and why we're facing a increase, as well as just a nice overview of uh the budget.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Councilman Mann, please.

Thank you.

I second that.

Uh very, very clear, very thorough.

Uh couple of questions.

What do we what's our bond rate right now?

What do we pay?

What do we pay on bonds?

So the last time we issued bonds were was back in 21.

We were a double A bond rate.

And what's our interest rate on the bonds?

So again, back then when we issued bonds, it was a coupon rate of five percent, but an actual interest effective rate, and I get back to you on the exact number.

Two it was like around two five, two point five interest was very low back in 2021.

Um, and the surplus is the surplus interest bearing, or it's strictly within the budget.

So, no, it's not interest bearing, it's it's just a flat number at the end of the year that then you can use to offset the uh budget.

The trash seemed like a pretty big portion of the budget.

Is there on these pilots and the some of these larger projects?

Are they having to provide their own trash?

Yeah, on the larger buildings, they they provide their own trash collection.

Um large building to find us, Mr.

So it's it's really the new construction.

Um they're over 10 units plus.

What happens is the older the older buildings that are pre-existed are curb side buildings, and then all the new buildings.

Uh, we have a different setup uh for their pickups because they're much larger and they they're usually on site with a private hauler.

Thank you.

Um, and the commercial that's true, Mary, the commercial users as well um have their own pickups uh at multiple times beyond what we have for the residents, maybe thank you.

That's good.

On page number five and numbers, page number five, page number seven, the difference or what savings the administration cut so at a difficulty and well with difficulty, the comparisons between this the current year 2026 are compared to the adopted 2025 budget, not the actual 2025 expended for the for those for those sums, whether it'd be increases or decreases.

So the the total decrease was 2.4 million dollars.

Um what happens is when you look at the difference, you're like, well, what happened to the money?

So it goes into general fund, and then we popped it into surplus.

So the budget balance, so the the 2.5 million almost that the administration saved.

You're comparing between the the third column, which would be the current year of 2026 versus the first year, first column, which is the adopted budget of 2025.

Correct.

That is correct.

My question there's no comparison of the current year to the actual expenditure in 2025.

So what happens is that's fluid.

So some of the changes like with uh retirees and who comes and who goes and uh positions that are not filled, right?

So that's why you what was adopted was what we compare to because that's the difference in the budget, but in actual in actuality, you may have a larger you may end up with a larger amount in the bank.

Yeah, the difference of 50 50 point two versus 46.3 end up with a another 1.5 right.

But what I want to caution on is that we always want to try to regenerate surplus because in this budget, well, how much are we using on surplus?

13 million more which is another, which is another accolade, by the way.

We were able to keep it flat from last year to this year with an increase of six point five million dollars.

We didn't use any more surplus, but what happens is those differences is what rolls over into surplus that then allows us to plug it into the budget to keep it flat.

So I just want you to keep that in mind.

So it may look like there's more money, but what happens in in reality, it goes into surplus, and then we can't regenerate that same amount.

So that one, whatever that 1.5 would go back to regenerate the surplus.

How much of that surplus do you have in of that 13 million?

Do what you have going back into 20 in the 2026 budget going back into surplus for oh, so you wonder how much the total was that we brought in for surplus.

So they just did the AFS right now.

So for example, uh in 2025, where we anticipated utilization of 13.4 million dollars in surplus to balance the 2025 budget.

We were only able to bring down one uh bring back 10.1, meaning that our surplus from the start of 25 to end of 25 actually went down 3.3 million dollars.

Got it.

Hopefully, this 1.5 will bring it back to uh 12 and a half.

Any any penny helps, any penny helps.

Yeah, thank you.

I guess I'm sorry.

Councilman go ahead.

I wanted to make sure that councilman uh now had finished and now is councilwoman members.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

So I know with um we're facing tough times.

Um with these reductions, what would the impact be?

Um the proposed budget reduction to the level of services that we will be providing to the residents.

I know that's per perhaps Mr.

Fernandez, uh, as a follow-up, ma'am.

Could you give us some idea of what is the impact?

What will people feel on the ground here in the city?

Um, so some of the things that are currently happening.

Um the the fire department, depending on who shows up, like who's at work, we may run with five companies instead of six companies, but they really shouldn't see any major change in service, other than we know we're running that day with five companies versus six companies.

It's I mean, these are bodies that we're talking about.

Mayor, I don't know if you want to like some of the impacts would be administrative, where there was a hard line on any overtime.

We may need to be a little bit more um, I don't want to use word creative, but um consider some of our budgetary restraints in terms of investigations.

We may have them done in the daytime, we may ensure the schedule would appropriately address any concerns of manpower.

We may hold back on replacing positions immediately and try to align them more with additional retirements in the future.

We may not replace vehicles right away and see what we can get by on in terms of services that directly impact the uh residents.

We can go one by one.

We'll sit there and say, can we get away with three mechanics at DPW instead of four?

And then someone will see an open position and call us and say, hey, you know, City of Pasake, you have an open position for an additional mechanics, and we'll call HR and say no, we don't, at least not right now.

So those are some of the uh direct impacts in terms of administrative decisions.

In terms of the constituents, the residents of the city and those who visit and work here, the goal is that they would not feel the difference, that we would make up the difference in other areas.

How do we do this?

Because of course it would pack the question if we could have done it before, why not?

Because additional relationships may help where we may not have all the police, we may reach out to the sheriff's department and say, hey, we know that the jail is no longer there.

Um can we utilize some of your manpower to help us in specific areas of concern for an operation rather than double up on our police officers?

Mutual aid becomes extremely important with our fire department, the relationships that we enjoy with uh Bergen and uh throughout the state county as well as sometimes even uh Hudson County and Essex County.

So these are some of the realistic concerns that we may have.

Here's the I hate to frame it this way the scary scenario in years past where the state or the federal government may have and I don't want to say we found lacking in willingness to send us more money, perhaps there are the extension circumstances, we can make up the difference.

I'm gonna be very candid.

Not so much there's a cut in rental assistance.

If there's a cut for link, I mean the children, if there's funding that we're not necessarily getting to expand our health department, then we may do, or we reach out to another municipality and say, can we partner up?

We look for shared service.

Shared service seems to be the monitor, or at least the directions of the state would like to go in in terms of affordability.

If there are areas we can say, we explore.

I had a recent conversation this week with our council president and the BA of potentially saving some funding by uh by working with the county and other agencies to identify services within the city that we provide that are necessary, but perhaps we could save if we work with them.

So these are some of the practical or I guess uh impact.

Uh this is some of the impact that would have on this.

But in terms of day-to-day permits that you need to get, um recreation for our children.

We may get a few more volunteer coaches than the ones that we have to pay.

We may hold up on some job opportunities for teenagers unless we get a partnership.

I would like to highlight goodwill this year that for the very first time said that they will partner with us to hire individuals, not only uh individuals within the city, but um adults with autism, our program that we push forward.

We try to find funding from other sources rather than try to pay for it because these are very difficult years.

And as the uh chief financial officer had already stated, um we're looking at another increase next year and the years to come for the health benefits, and this is the municipal tax levy.

It doesn't even include the county schools, so we're cognizant of the impact that it could have on our residents.

So those are some of the impacts, council.

I hope that gives you some respect.

I've been answering in complete detail, but gives you a general perspective of what we have to do to uh stay at this five percent.

No, thank you.

And listen, I mean, I hear it just had a meeting um last week, and everyone was complaining about the health increase.

You know, and I mean those that were that opted early on to go into now being self in short, can do it, but the those that can that have not been able to is having a hard time just like us.

So it's it's throughout the state, right?

Yeah, I say this purposely to uh to both bring a little bit of a humor to this situation, very serious situation.

But I recall, and I don't know if you'll remember the assembly member I was sharing with him.

Um what was it a few months ago of all the complaints we were getting in PSAC about the rising health care costs?

And he just gave me a look with no words, like yeah, you're you're not the only city reaching out to be from the state, as there are many cities that he represented and uh in his other role, but it is it is a challenge throughout the entire state of New Jersey.

Thank you.

If I if I may the tax increases five percent, but it's offset uh to come down to a 4.2 is yes, is that right?

Yes, sir.

Um do we anticipate next year at the same time, same station.

Do we anticipate similar that kind of increase as far as the tax levy?

Right, in terms of going uh so that's really dependent on the development of the development world.

Um, the council has seen several of these projects that um have received designations and read about their plans.

There are at least one of them is going to the the board tomorrow.

Um we have one larger, one of the larger ones on this evening for the the council to consider.

We have been historically, right, Mary, in the last four or five years, we've been historically over the 10 million dollar mark.

Um, but again, the scenario is is it offsetting the amount of appeals, right?

So if we get 10 million dollars, but the appeals end up being 15 million dollars.

Yeah, we don't feel the 50 million dollars.

We're only gonna feel five, right?

But in this case, we were actually able to overcome that number.

Um, and we anticipate that the the growing interest in in investing in the city of Passave will continue, and we hope to see uh large numbers.

I don't know if if this uh we can replicate 18 million next year, but we hope that in the next couple of years we should see in the 20s.

But that's wishful thinking looking at what's coming down the plate.

But also to your point, it was around September that I gave a directive that we would have a higher increase where we would not move forward on filling positions, and we would look how we can uh make up the difference with existing employees.

Uh, we would take an approach of hiring within if there was a real need in the department, then we would identify perhaps potential candidates that were in another department that could perhaps take up those roles, whether dual roles or leave the department and they would be fine.

Um the reason why I bring that up is because you make a very important point that we don't see an expectative, we're not expecting a windfall next year.

That's the truth.

We're not expecting that.

We're not expecting the state or the federal government to turn around and say, hey, Pissake, here's 40 million dollars.

We just found it and figured you should have it.

So these are the years where we have to make tough decisions.

And I think the reality and our residents understand it and they may connect it to the services.

Of course, they understand storms and the need to hire contractors to remove snow when things get out of hand.

They understand emergency road uh repairs or other services that we have to provide, so they get that we're gonna have to increase taxes.

So they get that we're gonna have to increase taxes.

But we also have to make tough decisions to try to keep that at a reasonable number and give an expectation to our residents that we're doing everything that we can reduce that number where we can.

If uh Mr.

Fernandez, in terms of on page three, uh you have variance between uh 2546, we've got a number of categories that generate income, St.

Mary's, uh, etc.

Why are they being zeroed out?

Well, I'm sorry, where are you exactly on page three?

Am I looking at this wrong?

So, council president, if you're referring to the handful of ones that have uh zeros in the first and second column.

Well, actually, I'm talking about the last column.

Oh, the last column represents that we're anticipating the same amount in 26 as we were in 25, meaning there's no increase or decrease in the amount anticipated.

Right.

So as you go through that last column, right?

Um the reductions are in parentheses, the added the ones that we're anticipating.

So if you look at the the one, two, three, fourth one down, that's the 400,000 that we're adding in court.

And then as you go the up and down, up and down, then you'll see that ultimately the number is an additional 4.7 million dollars.

Thank you.

Thank you for the clarity.

Um look forward as to all my colleagues and going over this with the fine-tooth comes, that's what they pay us for.

Uh but let me join with everyone who's spoken already and complimenting you uh, if I may, to Mr.

Fernandez and us both the mayor for uh the amount of time and effort is evidenced by uh by this budget.

Um it is not it's not a happy document, but I'm aware of what many other municipalities are facing.

Um, and for one reason or another, it seems that greater greater um interest was taken uh by this city in terms of looking to the future versus other municipalities which felt more comfortable to uh to dive in.

Um I have two lines on councilman Mayor and Councilman Monk.

Councilman Monk, please thank you.

Um comments and a few questions.

The annual debt service you showed on the graph where it drops in 2029 to 2030, like in half, right?

In terms of what a debt service will be, right?

Yeah, about yes, there's about uh a little over a million dollar drop off from 29 into 30.

So is that drop off?

Is that a balloon payment?

So it's not uh balloon payment, no, it's actually the end of one of our bonds that are actually coming down.

So in 2029, we will make the last payment, I believe, on a 2016 refunding bond.

So pretty much well, we that 2029, that payment will pay it off.

So as part of 2030, there will be no longer a debt service payment for that bond.

So that's in other words, there's not gonna be any large like balloon payment, any large amount that's due to pay off that pay off that bond.

No, just the it's actually the regular annual payments.

Okay, the debt service here says including sewer utility debt, uh, does not say anything about the parking authority's debt.

How much debt does the parking off if you know offhand?

Obviously, it's not this budget.

How much debt does the parking authority have?

So actually, the parking authority does not have any debt, they've only had one bond payment back in 2009, which they paid off.

I think it was like a 10 or 11 year bond, so they have since paid off that debt.

So and actually, just to reiterate what Mr.

Fernandez was saying, if if the council remember when we built the parking deck, the council approved a bond ordinance that allowed I want to say three point seven million dollars worth of debt to be issued by the city, but when that gets issued, the that will also trigger the parking authority to make a payment for those bonds to the city, so it'll actually offset itself.

So not really a debt, but whenever the city actually does bond for that, that will become its debt service payment to the parking authority, pretty much reimbursing the city.

Right.

So the parking authority in essence will be paying the debt that we're carrying.

So to say that we can't bond, like if we were to bond the parking authority were to bond, let's say another three million dollars, then that's where the difficulty would be to pay off the current debt service.

So I don't want to.

Okay, so thanks for the clarification.

So that debt service that the parking authority has an obligation to pay, which means the city actually took out the bond.

Yes in the city's name.

Is that included in this debt service?

So that's on the scratch.

No, it's not the city will take out a month.

So we haven't had a bonding.

Okay, so fine.

But we can in the city's name or under the authority's name.

It's the city's name.

If you recall, council president, the all the funding sources came to the city's name, and it created some difficulty if the target authority wasn't the owner.

If you remember, there was the shared service with the parking authority to manage and maintain.

So the ownership of the deck is the cities, and the agreement was between the parking authority and the city to maintain and operate the parking deck in return.

We would be issuing the debt, we would be paying off the debt service from the parking authority end, right?

And then there's already a shared revenue agreement in which whatever excess revenue is split between the city and the parking authority.

So it kind of was a very nice, easy way to pay off the debt and the city keep ownership of the parking debt.

But if so, Mike, where I'm going with this question is so in the past, the city had debt that was being paid off by the parking authority.

Is that no previously the parking authority had the debt and paid the city?

So the reason the parking authority had debt is because it purchased the parking lots that the city owned.

So they took out a debt and paid that purchase price to the city.

Now the parking authority literally just came off of their last payment, which made it perfect timing to be able to say, all right, we will then so the city doesn't have to pay that extra $3.7 million in debt.

Now that that opened up in the parking authority, we made the agreement so that the parking authority pays off the debt that the city is uh so the the revenue that the parking authority used to pay back the city, right?

That all came from the parking authority's revenue from yes from you know meters and so on and so forth.

Yeah.

Okay, so this new debt new bond of three million.

Does the parking authority have enough revenue on their own to cover that debt service?

Yes, so that's three million dollars.

That's my question.

That's a great question.

So all we did without calculating the additional income from the deck, because the parking authority just came off of their debt service, all we did is just use what the income we've already have from paying that debt service into turning it around and paying now whenever the city issues the bond.

So the beauty of the timing was that we're paying it off with existing income.

All the extra income from the parking deck is literally split between the city and the uh parking authority.

Well, the parking authority maintains it owned it.

It was it was perfect timing when we were able to do those agreements.

Okay, fine.

Thank you.

Um next point I have and also a question regarding these new developments of redevelopment that's coming down the pipeline, right?

Um talking about I know council president asked about next year, what next year will look like.

Um, any of these uh developments uh any are they gonna come before the city for any type of pilot programs that we know of today?

So as of right now, no one's requested a pilot permit payment for the ones that um are on.

We've been very successful where the smaller redevelopment projects through affordable housing funding and things like that after the mandatory set aside that we put in um at the mayor's request and the council approved.

Um we've been able to maintain them really not coming in.

I could tell you that the much larger ones are probably gonna come in and request some sort of pilot.

Um, there is a pilot this evening that is before you, and that is for Spear Village, which is rehabilitating uh the four four of the six buildings.

Um, and I could tell you just to give you the punchline, it would it would literally pay us more than we get for the entire site just on that pilot payment.

Right.

So you kind of get a feeling for how we're so as of right now, there's been no request, but I can tell you just by the sheer size of some of them that you may get one or two, but I have to tell you, and we did this.

I think we did this scenario, we ran the scenario maybe a year or two ago, and I think you were the one that asked the question.

Um the number of redevelopments that we've had in the city of Passake, the actual number of pilots that we've issued, whether it be five year or the 30-year variety, which is a lot less common than the five year here in the city of Passake, was almost within a hand and a half, and we've done I mean I lost count how many redevelopment plans we've done in the city.

So just so you get an idea that yeah, there may be one or two, but in comparison to the number of projects that we put out there, it's not a very large number.

And that's at five percent versus the is that five years versus the 30.

Uh, either one.

So either one, we were very, very low in comparison to municipalities that use it, use redevelopment at the pace that we're using redevelopment.

The our numbers are significantly lower than the amount of plans that we've put out there.

Um, also, as you know, depending on the project, I think council president and I had that conversation not too long ago.

95% of that pilot payment comes to the city, depending on the structure of that, um, which also changes the amount.

So, in many in many cases, we actually our taxes are reduced.

The amount of the payment is actually reduced at the end of the pilot than that than at the last couple of years of the pilot.

Um thank you.

I another question I have and comment.

If you look at the worksheet, uh you analyze you know the difference, the variance between the budgets.

So the comparison and the variances were used looking at the current year budget versus the prior year budget, as opposed to using the current year budget versus the actual of expended from last year.

And where I'm going with this question is I think we all can say very comfortably that everyone's very happy how the city's being run, right?

We all commend the mayor in every single every single department, you know, from parks and city hall and so on and so forth.

It's just great.

So let's say you look at expenditures of other expenses.

You have the adopted budget of 2025 is 46 million.

I'm just using rounds.

What page are you on?

Uh page seven.

Seven, okay.

The adopted, I'm leaving out insurance.

I don't want to go to anything near insurance.

Okay, obviously.

So uh um other expenses, you had a 46 million dollar budget for 2025.

Actual spent in 2025 was 42 million, 4 million less, and the budget of 2026 is 53.

So when we compare the budget for 26 of 53 million to the budget of 25 of 46, right?

There's only a call a 7 million dollar increase.

But if you were to compare this year's budget to actual what's expended in 2025, and actually is 11 million dollars increase.

So if we were able to run the city last year for 42 million dollars for all these line items here, and let's put on a five percent increase, whatever number you want to put on there.

Why can't we do it for 46?

Why do we gotta go to 53?

So if I can just to add to because I think your question is right around along the line where councilman mayor's question was leading to, and to figure it back on something that the mayor's uh also mentioned.

So two things with the actual expenditures the actual expanded represents expenditures through that were recorded through December.

There are bills that come in after December, but still related to 25 that have to come out of this budget.

So that's why, for example, the state of New Jersey, who's a very concerted who treats the budget very conservatively, um, let allows you to keep this year's budget open for a secondary year for that exact purpose.

So when expenses come in, for example, uh PSENG, which is about a hundred thousand dollar bill, their December bill comes in in January.

That's not reflected here yet because but it will get paid out of the 2025 budget.

So that's for example, one of the reasons that's in there.

Also, going back to the comment that uh piggybacking off the mayor, we learned about this health benefit increase very early on in the year.

It was I think they voted on it in July, but they were talking about it as early as April.

And once we we knew what it meant coming to this budget more than a year ago, so decisions were made to reduce spending and also uh try to try to, for example, uh someone who may have retired, try to not replace them last year and wait till this year to be able to, you know, save some money that we know we're gonna have to need in this year's budget.

So I agree with what you're saying, Gosleman, but I would say that um some of these actual expenditures don't represent what we actually need in a calendar year, especially the 2025.

No, I understood in terms of the additional expenses, you know.

I mean, I would imagine we're I mean we're coming up to May.

I would imagine by now you have all your expenses for 2025 in the system, right?

You're not getting any more utility bills in in May for 2025.

So I'd imagine you probably have some updated number of what the actual expenses were for 2025.

But going back to the second comment, but the city did run with those vacancies, right?

So and the mayor did a great job.

Everyone's happy in the city.

So the reason we can't go forward with whatever the vacancy that is to go forward with the same vacancy.

Depends what vacancy and what we're facing.

So if we have I'm gonna try to be very general.

If we have a certain number of DPW that we've been able to get away with, and we only deal with two major storms, then we're fine.

We get hit with 10.

We dealt with a bunch of apparatuses that break down and we fix them in-house, it would cost us more to have to send them out to fix and then we may need a mechanic.

We get a few people out sick, and we don't have the replacements.

I don't want to say because I never want to present to the community that we take a gamble.

We try to take a pragmatic approach at staffing and at what services we provide, but we cannot predict the future.

We can plan for it, and we can run through scenarios, but we don't know.

Look at just 2025.

That storm hit most of the cities around us with a complete surprise.

We were among the first to ran out of contracted individuals to help us take off this bill.

We would hope we're not running into that every single year.

So it depends.

I think we're gonna take a very close look.

I mean, right now it's called the mayor's budget.

After tonight it becomes a council's budget, you go through it, and we're gonna take suggestions.

We're gonna find someone else to take it down the road.

But we'll go through it, we'll see what we can go through without having to fill vacancies.

Like there's some conversations when it comes to public safety that we could have, very serious ones.

And uh, by God's grace, things have gone well strategically under the chiefs' leadership and under the chief of the fire department, we've been able to be responsive to emergencies and through mutual aid.

We would hope we don't have years where we have greater challenges, incidents, and where we need more police officers when it comes to internal getting, we have been looking at every department and seeing where we don't have to fill um seats or where we can shift someone over to another department.

So we are looking at it.

That's to your question.

Why can't we?

It's not that we can't, is that it's much harder to fill them once we're in the situation than it is to plan for it ahead of time.

And right now we're trying to plan as much as we can and not fill all those vacancies, but we also understand the government needs to run and we can't predict what's gonna happen.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, it it does.

It does.

So there's a specific.

I think there's just um, you know, if if I look at these numbers, string of these numbers, sure.

We would take last year we actually spent okay, minus I mean, added some whatever some bills that are missing and add out a couple percent, you know.

Obviously, there's increases there.

Yeah, we probably just use last year's expenses how the city was run.

We probably could swallow the increase of six million dollars of health insurance costs.

You just look at these numbers, they're hard, right?

Perhaps if that's obviously I'm looking 30,000 feet high.

Sure.

Okay, too general.

I no, no, but it's a good point, it's a valid point.

Uh, the only thing I would ask is consider maybe if we looked at it over the last four years.

If we consider what grants we receive, we consider what additional revenue we had through COVID money that is not going to be available anymore.

Um, that that does leave us in uh potentially precarious situations if we don't so that's even more of a reason we need to run as well.

I'm not gonna use the word I don't mean skeleton crew, right?

But more of a reason that if we're able to run the city with X amount of services, employees, whatever it is that we need to continue because of we're running out of covert funds, sir.

We actually need to even tighten up even more.

Yeah, and to our CFO's point, that's why we made some of those decisions early on last year, and then we're looking at this year to see what we can do without what can we practically do without yeah.

So I'm going to again I want to say I want to respectfully caution everyone.

Uh forgive me, Mayor.

Yeah.

Um, and that is that we wanted to be very general tonight here, Mr.

Fernandez's words that some of what we're saying, whether we know it or not could impact negotiations.

So unless the question is pressing, I would ask that it be made privately rather than uh for the uh point.

Okay, I just then I just want to end with a comment, if I may.

I've actually this 30 years ago, so not that I'm a prophet, okay, but um looking at your work.

Um the little that I understood 30 years ago as we were governments going in terms of costs, right?

And is that the government is probably 20 years behind the private sector or more, right?

Over the last look over the last 20 years, uh, the private sector, they had to consolidate, right?

Look in the state of New Jersey, you have over 500 municipalities.

Okay, please, nothing personal to anyone any director.

Just it means you have 500 mayors, you have 500 police chiefs, 500 fire chiefs, and it keeps keeps going on and on, right?

And all the councils, everything, right?

Every single department, right?

Obviously, you can't just have one big city for all state, right?

You have to every area has their knees and so on and so forth, but it also comes to a point where the private sector couldn't handle it, and that's why we had all those consolidations in the private sector, right?

And it's the same thing with government, right?

You see the mayor yourself mentioned about how we do we do uh the municipalities, right?

Or maybe joining with the county, right?

That's that's where the private sector was 20 years ago, because it's just not affordable, right?

Um these budgets back 20, 25 years ago, our expenditures were 80 million dollars or 77, somewhere else, 78 million dollars.

We're talking about 123 million dollars today, right?

Okay, many years to make more money now.

I get it, right?

But as this keeps increasing more and more, I think what's gonna it's gonna force government, whether it's health, it's ether, even I was like even fire departments, right?

Privatized fire departments, right?

There's your municipalities that have done in the past, right?

Or any any department, because it's just becoming to a point where it's just not affordable, it's just it's gonna crash.

Anyway, I'm just leaving with that.

And that again is a fair point.

I would only um ask for all of us to consider that certain services have decreased over the years.

Like I'll I'll give you a minor example.

We have found that the need for crossing guards have increased over the years.

We have found that with the blessing of getting uh funding for schools and school developments in that small area where we would go.

Well, have we strategically looked at the areas and and where we can use crossing?

We've had our police go, unless you put us there, we get volunteers to cross people.

We're gonna need more crossing guards.

Now, those are minor salaries, but it gives you a glimpse as to how things happen in the city.

That there are some services that we can say, hey, maybe we don't need to do this as much or see how we can partner with the manager.

There's no municipality looking to consolidate crossing guards with us, right?

It's one example.

DPW, we would look at the county and say, hey, maybe for roads, you're doing most of the county roads.

What would it cost us to have you do all the roads?

Or like others have pointed out to garbage, or maybe requiring more individuals to look at that besides as uh the business administrator mentioned newer developments are commercial areas.

They have constantly taken up the garbage collection themselves, and that saves us on some money.

So we continue to explore.

I just wanted to give you small examples.

Recreation.

You know, we were benefiting from having a county park.

They still haven't taken up the recreation part of the park.

So we still run the recreation there.

We run the coaches, we run the programs there, might and cost.

But I think to your point, it the task is on us, and you're right.

The private sector was far ahead.

I think that the difference, and I think we all know it is that the private sector gets to look at their budget, and it's as simple as are we in the black or the red, we're in it for a profit, and we have to consider what services may be eliminated, or where are we hurting individuals if we worry too much about the numbers?

That's that's a challenge that we live with.

But you are right, we do need to explore that.

So we will and we always afford to have the council join us in any meetings or uh any groups that we can look over the budget in more detail and have these discussions.

Thank you, ma'am.

Councilman, please.

Thank you.

Um bunch of other questions, but the crossing guards is interesting.

Um interesting you mentioned the crossing guards, because like the the development of a lot of areas like we're bringing families here, that's what we want for saying.

Yeah, are we increasing our expenditures more than our revenue by bringing in these developments and things like that?

No, no, not overall when you look at the budget in the whole, but I mean, there are services like an example like that one where we would need to have a so it depends.

Okay, so it depends on the intersection, so it's really more related to where the schools are.

So crossing guards like crossing guards about many many years, right?

No, no, but I'll give you a very clear understanding because maybe it's it's for those who aren't following on privy, our high school closed, everyone went downtown.

The volume of individuals crossing the street immediately increased from one year to another.

So there were streets where we didn't have an expectation that you needed crossing guards.

Wait, now you needed one, and in certain cases, two.

Where Monroe Street wasn't always the place that large numbers of kids were gonna cross.

Now we have so many children crossing there.

So those are things that occurred.

It's good.

We we got over 350 million dollars to build a new high school, but for the next five to six years, that big volume of students and cars all went downtown.

Then we needed more.

If there are other areas you can identify and say, hey, we didn't have um crossing guards here, but this year, because of an increase of motorcycles or other vehicles on the road, there's been an increase of accidents.

We need a crossing guard, and we go, we didn't have those reports two years ago of increased accidents now we need.

So this is where I say sometimes the services are what directly impact whether or not we're gonna do an increase or decrease, not so much the development itself, but the changing circumstances or conditions that are affected in municipality.

Thank you.

Now, the questions I actually wrote down on page three of 10.

Um there's um a realization again of two million back to what I was discussing before how much more discussion is a realization of these on these pilots, an additional two million dollars that was adopted for the 2025 budget, an additional more than two about two million was actually realized.

Why is the projection for the uh the current year 2026 budget not at least considering that these pilots would increase year to year at their benchmarks?

Why are we not using the 2025 realized numbers for the proposed 2026 budget?

And if it's gonna go to surplus great, but just curious why those numbers aren't we using the 2025 realized there.

So if you're looking at specific pilots, um for and again, assuming you're looking at specific pilots, some pilots have more than one year worth of collection, especially because of how the pilot program works, where at the initial phase, you bring you basically bill on an estimate until they actually start renting it out and it gets fully rented, and then they provide you the next year a financial statement, an audited financial statement that then you can say, based on your revenue your actual revenues, I should have built you this much for last year, and and I only build you like just arbitrary figures.

I should have built you 150, I built you 80 as an estimate.

Now you owe me 70 for this year, and now I can realize that 70 plus another 150.

But now, so like, and I'm just using an example, for example, uh uh Concord Estate, where I can't then say, well, now I'm gonna collect every year 220, because that's not an actual one year's worth.

So some of them are a little skewed because they have what's called the uh the catch up or the yeah, pretty much the catch up from the previous year.

But I don't think there's uh two million dollars worth of uh pilots from last year either.

Councilman, how close to it?

What's that?

I mean I guess close close to it, including the uh housing authority and and the likes.

Yep.

Yeah, total.

Yeah, that's a look at like almost two million.

I think so, between the first total and the second total, right?

So, like if hopefully we get close to that number before that number would go back to surplus as well.

It will absolutely, but again, just high again, uh and it's just so happens that taxes under my department.

So I'm a little familiar with the billing of them, like some of these, and again, I guess not to name well, they're line items so I guess I can name them like the one called Jack Parker, where we anticipated 350 and collected 450.

I can tell you that was the exact same example that I gave you, where it was also all the true up, that's the word that we call it the true up from the previous year, but his actual bill every year is more closer to 350.

But uh, my assumption is that overall we're doing pretty well on these pilots as far as then being profitable, and they're gonna some of these are gonna come are they gonna we're gonna have increases overall than just based on these yeah, so you want to see what you want to see what Omar said, right?

You want to see that at the end of the true up, it's over the number that we budgeted, right?

So, you know, the Jack Parker we budgeted 350, we realized 455, and that number will continue to go up.

Once we can establish that that 350 is now 450, then you'll see 450 there on that number.

Um, the issue is because of the way the tax um the tax abatement law is written, you don't bring your financials in December, right?

You may end up getting your financials, your audited financials in like January or February, and then we send like a corrected bill for that number once we know what the actual collection was.

Um, and again, not I hope we have a very, very knock on wood, a very strong rental market, uh, but vacancies matter, right?

When you're looking at percentage of income, right?

So depending on if there was more vacancies this year than last year, you know, and that kind of rigor.

Um as they grow, you are correct.

As they grow, so do the percentages, and these numbers will eventually change to the higher number.

On the pilots, the the audits on the pilots.

Who takes care of these audits?

It's the city or a third party.

So they bring in their audited financials from a licensed um, I guess, certified public account.

Certified public accountant that then are verified um through the finance office and the tax collector's office.

Is there any legislation that prohibits income from these properties to go to a another entity held by the property holder?

So the way it works, and it depends on the type of pilot.

So on a five-year abatement, it goes directly to whoever owns the building.

In a 30-year long-term tax abatement, the law actually requires that you build, you open up an urban renewal LLC, which is the like nonprofit arm of the abatement, and that's who gets the abatement.

That then is kind of back and forth with the uh the for-profit entity, which may be one to three main street LLC, and then you'll get that's who owns the building, and then you get one to three main street urban renewal, which is the one that gets the pilot.

And that's all structured by the state of New Jersey and the Department of Treasury, and we can't deviate from that, and neither can the property owner.

Uh, in fact, one property owner deviated from that and lost the pilot.

So, my my question's really can I own one two three main street?

I'm I'm gonna interrupt I'm gonna interrupt you, councilman for just a moment.

We're focusing on the budget right now.

Is this budget related or no?

Um tax appeals.

Have we seen an increase in tax appeals this year?

So I think what's helped us, and the reason we were able to get the 18 million dollars is that we've stabilized the number of tax appeals.

Um and well, there's a large one you see here before you, but that's an anomaly.

Um and that's why we've been able to whenever he brings up 18 million dollars, and that you're gonna realize a less less of an increase than the actual increase.

It's because we brought in more than what the appeals were um just generically, so you can understand that.

So we've been doing really well, stabilizing the appeals, uh, which is interesting.

At a 50, what were we at now?

50 pretty much 50 percent ratio, which we know brings a bigger gap.

We've been successful in defending in defending them.

The the tax assessor's office has been um you know tough to make sure that they can battle these requests.

So they've been doing a good job at maintaining these uh appeals down.

Council President Kerb me if I'm going off topic.

I will curb you, councilman, and remind you of the late hour and the availability of both our business administrator and our mayor on specific items, which might be answered directly.

Councilman, I'll reserve it for later.

Thank you, sir.

Are there any other questions on the introduction of the budget?

Mr.

Fernandez, what happens next with the budget?

So um, if the budget's introduced this evening, the council has until the June fourth, right?

June 4th, is that the right thing?

The June 4th meeting to adopt it or make any changes and amendments they want.

It'll be a public hearing, and then if everything goes well, it'll be sent over.

Um it'll be adopted and then sent over to the state.

So what'll happen now is if it's introduced, we send it over to the state just for them to give it their look see.

Um, then they may make changes as well as the council.

So we need to make sure that we bring those changes back to the council on the June 4th meeting, and then at that point, the council can decide to adopt it, change it, or um discuss the items that the state might have.

We've we've been pretty good.

The state really doesn't their minor comments typically, but that's the process.

Yes, thank you, sir.

With the council's commission, moving on to remember number five on our agenda hearing of citizens.

In accordance with the open public meetings act and just NJSA 10 colon 4-1 at sec, the council opens every public meeting for comments by the public.

However, in accordance with NJSA 10 colon 4-12, nothing in this act shall be construed to limit the discretion of a public body to permit, prohibit, or regulate the act of participation at any meeting.

Therefore, please be advised that the council will not entertain any comments from persons who communicate obscenity material, make statements which are considered bias intimidation, in which a person intends to intimidate any individual or group because of race, color, religion, gender, handicap, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, or makes comments intending to speak any offensive language.

The person who makes these statements for link to their allowed five minutes for public discussion.

Is there anyone who would like to adjust the council, please?

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Council President.

Joshua Goldman, 185 High Street.

Approximately two months ago, the council passed a reserved resolution uh declaring my neighbors' property and everything of rehabilitation.

Uh I'm here today.

Uh uh recently I filed a lawsuit uh seeking to annul that resolution.

Uh I'm here not obviously to discuss the merits or discuss the lawsuit, but more I'll say to apologize.

Um, the council and the mayor, the everyone here has been gracious with their time and and uh I really respect that everyone here is fighting for the residents and what's best for the community.

Uh I didn't file a lawsuit to be oppositional to wins, whatever, but really the reason I'm here tonight is just to explain myself is that there is a strict time bar in bringing lawsuits, and therefore, while I received great advice from a council member that I should wait and see what the uh applicant might or the property owner may ultimately present.

Unfortunately, by that time, I would have lost my opportunity to file a suit.

And so therefore uh the suit was uh filed, you know, say preemptively, but uh obviously with without full knowledge of what may be coming, and it is obviously my hope and my interest that I can withdraw the suit that it's not relevant, and that obviously everything works out uh in everyone's best interest.

Um, but um, but unfortunately, I had to do it.

So hopefully uh, you know, the I'm happy to extend any time to say they're not looking to have the city spend or waste any money on on filing on various filings.

Um, but uh you know, I do I'm appreciative of the council's time and and uh how much they're fighting for us, and I don't want the presence of the laws to be perceived as oppositional or as antagonistic or is not uh appreciative of all that the council is doing.

Um so thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else like to access the council at this time?

See no I move to close the public hearing.

There's a motion, is there a second second motion and second to close roll call to close, please?

Councilman Monk, yes, councilwoman mellow, yes, councilman mayor, yes, councilman Garcia Councilman Colom Montañez, yes, and Council President Sheer.

Yes, it was Councilman Long Reddit, he said he was going to try to get on the zoom.

He has not tried to join you.

Very good, thank you.

We're up to regular number six in our agenda ordinance for second and final meeting here and is required.

Number one, proposed words number 2525, amending the designation of restricted parking for disabled persons, finding new church plate number introduced the April 2026 council meeting.

Is there a motion please to get for second and final meeting?

Is that a mountain?

Second motion and second councilman monk, yes, councilman mellow, yes, councilman mayor, yes, councilman Garcia Councilman Colomb Montañez, yes, and council president Shares.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, uh the council has opened public hearing at this time.

Is there anyone who would like to adjust the council on this item and this item on it?

See non to close second motion of second to close.

Roll call to close, please.

Councilman Monk, yes, councilwoman Mello, yes, councilman mayor, yes, councilman Garcia Councilman Colom Montañez, yes and Council President Sheer.

Yes, thank you on the ordinance pleasures they're making.

Second motion of second roll call, please.

Councilman Monk, yes, councilman mellow, yes, councilman mayor, yes, councilman Garcia Councilman Colombon Tanes, yes, and council president shear.

Yes, thank you.

Is that a motion to set up the public hearing?

Motion motion, second second question.

Councilman Monk, yes, councilman mellow, yes, councilman mayor, yep, councilman Garcia, Councilman Colom Montañez, and Council President Sheer.

Yes, thank you.

At this time, ladies and gentlemen, this is up to your microphone, my microphone.

Thank you.

Working now, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Uh on 2023, we just uh opened public hearing, correct?

Correct.

Uh just time, ladies and gentlemen, is there anyone who'd like to adjust the council on proposed orders 2526?

Seeing no move to close.

Motion of second to close.

Roll call, please to close.

Councilman Monk, yes, councilwoman mellow, yes.

Councilman Mayer, yes, councilman Garcia.

Councilman Colomb Montañez, yes, and council president shares.

Yes, thank you.

On the ordinances, please.

Second.

I'm sorry, motion on second councilman monk.

Yeah, just uh a few questions if anybody so the parking standards on this proposal and number one item one on the parking standards.

It's it says that um that a studio one bedroom needs 0.75 space per unit, but item two says at minimum one parking space must be assigned to each unit.

So, how do you belt again?

So it's good, but that's a good question.

So when you average it all out, right?

What we're saying is you have to provide a minimum of one parcel space for every single unit that exists, irrespective of what your total requirement is.

Does that make sense?

Uh maybe I just don't understand.

So the studios, okay.

So we limit the number of studios you can have in a building.

So if you keep reading, there's a percentage can't exceed you 200%.

I'm sorry, um, but then if you look, you'll have like a one and a half or two bedrooms, you'll have two for two and three bedrooms, right?

So when you do the math, what'll happen is they no matter what the number comes up to, so let's say it's a hundred units, and they need a hundred and fifty parking spaces, right?

So let's say there's a hundred units, they need 150 parking spaces.

The first hundred units is one for every single one of those residents, so that everybody has a parking space on okay, the provided parking.

It may okay, it makes sense.

However, okay, if we're saying that a two-bedroom needs 1.5 spaces per unit, because we're on the on the assumption that if someone has two bedrooms, they good chance they have one and a half cars on average, right?

Then if we force the owner to give someone who has a studio one spot, that means we're taking away we're taking away spots that we required for the two bedroom, because I don't have really one spot for every studio.

At the end of the day, if I have to give a studio a spot at no additional cost, that means I'm taking away from the two bedrooms the one and a half, right?

Which means I'm pushing cars out to the street.

Well, no, because you're washing one with the other.

So either it's the car from the studio or it's the car from the the two bedroom.

And it's funny you bring it up.

The reason I'm smiling is because one of the catalysts for putting this was you in the ordinance a couple of meetings ago.

So that's why I'm laughing because you're the one that brought it up.

So listen, I I don't have publicly down one second.

I think councilman Garcia keeps like off mute and he may I don't know if you can hear us, but uh I'm glad.

I so I could probably have a little problem public.

I made a mistake.

Um, so the idea was that every member, every unit should have a space to them at no cost on the premises.

So that's why it's written the way it's written, so that every unit that needs a space gets a space.

Okay, and stand.

But if if if this ratio of 0.75 space per unit for one bedroom is based on that people in one bedroom, a lot of them don't have cars.

That's where it comes from.

Yes, right.

But then if the ratio for two bedrooms is 1.5, that means we're taking the assumption that people have two bedrooms have more than one car.

Well, technically no, no, no, no.

We're doing the one and a half because some two bedrooms have a have more than one car, some two bedrooms do not.

Okay, let's say funny.

But the average we're saying we're assuming they have more than one on average, and you have to round up, by the way.

So if it's if it's a space and a half, you gotta give me two spaces.

Okay, okay, but it's one and a half.

Okay, so then that means if I'm forced to give a parking spot to a studio, that means I am I do not have enough parking for the two bedrooms.

So we have a financial guy, he's shaking his head.

So again, my best.

If you want to strike that, it's the that's the minimum's change.

I just I'm just afraid that the next time I present it, you're gonna tell me where's the one spot for them?

Uh I don't know if you recall that conversation we had about the spots and the making sure they all have a spot and that they're parked in the in the right.

So I I mean I'm okay.

I'm not disagreeing with your concept, I get it, but I'm just trying to tell you where it came from.

Okay, that's what that's our point number one.

Okay, whatever we want to do with it, fine.

Okay, number two is that you see the whole theme here throughout this whole plan is that we need parking, we need parking, right?

Ratio at a minimum, one parking space must be assigned, right?

On site parking and so on and so forth, right?

But then we do also allow, and again, I know it's part of it, okay.

This payment in lieu, right?

Yes, so does the as a council we put into place these parking requirements because we sit here, and the mayor cares more than we do, of all the issues that we have in the city of Persaic and Lack of Parking, where we have to start doing permit parking in different neighborhoods, right?

And issues we have, we have to now allow cars parking closer to the corner because there's not enough parking.

If the planning board is not in the same uh same understanding, what's going on in the city the same way we do, okay, because we hear things on a different level they do, they come in for their meetings, but we we get more of a broader picture of going on in the city, then they might easily allow payment in the loo, or as it says in item eight, the plan acknowledges that the parking requirements set forth here and may require a waiver, right?

Exception.

So do how do we know that the planning board right is in sync with well all the things that we're passing to increase parking because of all the different things permitted, park to the corner, so on and so forth.

What I would like to see is that for the last 10, 15, 20 we development plans that we've done that went before the planning board, how many of them received this payment of the loop or received a waiver?

How many of them received this payment of the clue or received a waiver?

Okay.

That to uh what this is with the council put in place in terms of what requirements we wanted to see per two-bedroom per three bedroom.

This will give us a sense that maybe we're doing the wrong thing by every plan that comes before us by allowing this payment by allowing them to diminish the requirements on the planning board because they're just not they're not in sync what's going on in the city.

So this so I understand your perspective, but if I could just give you a little bit, maybe a different perspective, and and we'll start with the law itself, right?

So the municipal land use law of the state of New Jersey requires some flexibility for the planning boards and the zoning boards for that matter, because not every application is the same, not every application is in the same vicinity, not every application has the same access to public transportation, so they're allowed to evaluate all of that before they make their decision.

Secondly, to go to your point about parking, they're all required by law to be PASA residents, right?

So your class four members, whether it's um planning board or zoning board, or all residents of the city of Passake who are living, in essence, what it is that you're talking about, right?

Um, I'm going to interject for just a moment.

I'm concerned that we are going beyond the ordinance before us.

These are related discussions and related arguments, but I would ask you to be mindful, please.

I will be brief because I perhaps if if we can, Mr.

Administrator, and through the council president, the councilman's request is uh at least the last 20 applications if the council can receive a report of how many received payment in lieu, and then we can go from there.

So let's let's uh ascertain that number or bring that copy to um the next council meeting, and then perhaps we'll have time to have more conversation on that.

Absolutely.

I just want to be clear though we'll get that report, but not every application is the same, not every location is the same.

Well, you can qualify it.

Yeah, I'll qualify them before you, but I just I just big picture as to the request for the chance.

We'll make that happen, council in light of uh that that comment mayor for which we do thank you.

Um, would it be more appropriate to hold this ordinance until our next meeting?

Um to get that clarity.

Is there any rush on this?

So we're trying to get through redevelopment designations and things of that nature.

Um, I would say I would say that that in and of itself, and again, uh we'll defer to the council decision, but I don't believe that was the intent of the councilman unless the councilman monk would clarify.

I think he wanted more of the information, right?

Because it's really not you're not comparing apples to apples, is I guess what I'm gonna say.

You're gonna you're gonna see what the planning board's actions are, but it's really not apples to apples.

This is a plan before you with specific requirements, right?

And irrespective of that the planning board's gonna do their action respect.

Nonetheless, Mr.

Fernandez, if this ordinance is not passed this evening, but is put for a second and final reading, um, at our meeting on April 14th.

April 14th, that would be it, um, when appropriate in May, will that significantly and sufficiently hurt this ordinance if that delay is taken?

I I can't answer that question with certainty because you know there's discussions with developers, and and I don't know, you know, I'm I don't I I can't answer that with certainty.

For my part, I would just simply ask is that is that the desire of the council, or is that an option that would explore now?

So I don't know if it's a concern that the argument and discussion has been such that it would directly affect this ordinance.

If I if I may um I typically would say, okay, you know what?

Let's just go, let's vote on it, let's move on and so on and so forth.

The reason why just I read them all, I say, okay, it's a project of 15 units, 12 units, and so on and so forth.

But if I'm not mistaken, this is a project of 400 units.

So you know, and in terms of the parking, like I think it was 640 or 640 actually parking spaces, 640 parking spaces that I mean.

So, you know, if if the planning board again, and I appreciate that they're all residents of the city, but they're just they're not too many.

Uh, yeah, well, yeah, we have a council representative, yes, and we have the mayor's representative, and we have an ex-councilman whose biggest biggest pet peeve is parking, like he brings it up at every single meeting.

He he'll shut down just to clarify, yes, and and you can be very clear.

That's the councilman uh former council.

So we have councilwoman uh former councilman Daniel Schwartz residents, but I do want to stress that they have 640 parking spaces that they have proposed, right?

residents of the city but they're just they're not too and a council representative uh yeah well yeah I will get we have a council representative right and we have the mayor's representative and we have an ex-councilman whose biggest biggest pet peeve is parking like he brings it up at every single meeting he he'll shut down no just to clarify yes and and you can be very clear that's the councilman uh former council shorts yeah so we have councilwoman um yes former councilman Daniel Schwartz residents but I do want to stress that they have 640 parking spaces that they have proposed right and just so you know one of the ones you're gonna see on the list is one that he literally right councilwoman said come back to us when you got more parking and he dismissed it and they came back two weeks later with three more parking spaces so the proposal again will this I can't answer that with Sir I want to answer B6 I think you have to clarify he doesn't know how the developer will react or we should yeah like I don't know if it's going to delay the project for a long period of time we still have to go through the designation process this is an extraordinarily important item unless I hear otherwise I'm going to ask the speaker spot for till our next meeting can I just ask a question if his proposal is 640 units for 740 does that mean that's his proposal now but he's still coming before the planning board change it he has to come before can he change the plan unless no I would change it for the time we approve this can you come before the planning board stuff and say you know what 640 I'd rather do 550 give me a hundred you 100 so remember this if I may just uh refresh some of the council members' recollection and for councilman mayor when we passed the pilot pile up which is the payment in lieu of parking ordinance it was made very clear to every single member of every single board this is not you pay for parking it was if a board in their review not even thinking about a pilot issues a parking variance then at that point the payment in lieu of parking comes in this is not a oh I'm missing 10 spaces I'm just gonna give you some money for 10 spaces no the way we have our pileup is you have to go before the board irrespective of the pilot and present your case and why you should not need the total number of parking spaces because of XYZ if in their wisdom the zoning board or planning board decides that you are presented in a way that you uh are eligible for the waiver whatever that number is will then be charged a number so I I wanted to make that clear because I know sometimes they put it so you pay for parking you don't have to get a variance no no no here you only pay for parking if you get a variance if you don't get a variance you don't you you don't well first you're denied and right because before there were parking variances and the city wasn't um receiving any money and because of these pilots and these variances things like portion of the parking deck we used it for portion of the parking deck or retrofitting certain lots that the mayor had um eyeballed for making it public parking and that's kind of how we use it but you can't come in as a developer today and say I'm sure 20 spaces I'm just gonna hit you off with 30 thousand dollars like that's not how that works I'm just just I appreciate that councilman if I could ask that we sum up our conversation I'm yeah I'm just uh where are you holding councilman monk I it's a very it's a very big project it's 400 units and I would love to I would I'd love to have a little more clarity of what or maybe tighten this up in terms of what the board could do um or at least look at the history of not only what the planning board has done in terms of payment and loop but as well as what the board has done of regard to parking standards residential site approving standards of minimum 0.75 space for a one bedroom one and a half have they diminished those requirements besides the payment because what's the history here do we need to tighten this up before we approve a 100 unit so the reason the reason that language is in there the way it's in there it's because the planning boards and zoning boards have that ability today all we did was because this is a redevelopment plan is grab what the law has them do today separate apart and I put it in here so that it maintains the same the boards maintain the same power that's why it's written the way it is um and that's what's the state of New Jersey has in the RSIS which is the residential site improvement standards and the municipal land use law so if anything by bringing that in we're tightening it more because we're following what the state is requiring us to do.

So I don't want to confuse the two so the plan is is built around a specific site but it mimics what your zoning ordinance and your what the planning board and zoning board's rights are as a board.

Councilman Mayor, please.

This is still a redevelopment site.

If they were to diminish or decrease the required spots that was given to them by the council and at this site, that would have to come for reapproval by the council, correct?

So if they went to from a 1.14 to 1.11, they would have they would not have to come back.

Not for that.

They would have to come back for any use changes that exceed the numbers that are in here.

So if they if in that thing, if in the report it says 490 and they come in with 600 units or 500 units, the board cannot vote on it.

It has to come back to the council.

So I it would seem if I may forgive me, councilman.

It would seem that this is a matter of of extreme importance.

I'm informed that next Tuesday the planning board will be reading.

Am I correct, ma'am?

So May 6th, and then June 3rd is the following.

May 6 and then June 30th.

What I'd like to do with the council's permission is to uh ask that we put this item on hold final reading and exchange it for a meeting a week from tonight where we will uh revisit the item for for a vote.

Is that to everyone's pleasure?

Um, we're gonna ask the planning board if they already that will be taken care of with the administration with our city clerkment.

What I'm not I'm sorry, what are we asking the plan?

I'm I'm gonna get a report on the last redevelopment plans, right?

And and what the outcome was for parking variances.

That was my understanding.

So the last, you know, a bunch of redevelopment.

What I'm looking for, trying to figure out if it will work, and I'm not making more things, even more bollocks up than they are already, is by calling for a week from tonight for the council to meet again to discuss uh this 2523 26, and that before that time the planning board meet, discuss the issue, and have whatever clarity it needs to be had that might address uh councilman monk and other questions.

You can't go before the planning board until we vote on it.

Okay, then what we'll do it in in that order in the correct order.

Does that satisfy you, Councilman?

Yeah, again, if I think it's a very large project, and probably a few weeks is not, you know, obviously everyone has their timeline, but this is big.

This is very big, and I like to just get a better uh handle of what's coming down here.

I'm trying to uh respect everyone's uh beliefs here and concerns here, and forgive me if I'm not doing quite the job that you would like, but I'd like to ask at this time that the council vote down.

Well, we didn't have a did we have a vote?

No, carry it to the to carry it to the next to the next meeting.

To carry motion seconds to the next table to the next meeting of the council, right?

Motion there's a motion to there a second.

You have to take away it's already a motion if they remove take it back emotion.

Do I need to take back the motion?

Yes, I do need to take back who voted up.

I voted positive on the motion to vote for bringing it back to just a motion and a second it wasn't my saying what the motion is second is for.

So it was um it was yeah, but I do have a question.

I still don't understand.

We're just taking it back to the planning board so they can go out the parking lot.

Okay, can I go to the planning board?

We're carrying to the next castle.

Oh yeah, I guess.

Whoever whoever moved it, you like to carry whoever it was.

Okay, I move it to carry.

I move to carry.

May I have a second second to carry roll call, please to carry councilman monk?

Yes, councilman love councilwoman Mello.

Yes, Councilman Mayor, yes, councilman Garcia, yes, councilman Colombo Danez, yeah, and council presidents here.

Yes, that's without prejudice.

We're up to number three, please propose ordinance 2524 and ordinance meeting chapter 128 employer regulations to add articles and worker payment protection and anti-coercion introduced at the April 14 meeting council meeting is there motion to stay in public hearing?

Motion and second plan so we have councilman monk, yes, move to council president.

I believe that the administration wanted to uh amend the agenda to remove this ordinance because there is a new version of it scheduled for first reading.

All right, I'm sure the administration sent in the necessary paperwork, and unsurprisingly, I don't have it.

So how do we correct it's in there?

So what happened?

So from first reading to second reading, there was a non-the minimum change.

And that's why it's put back on for first reading.

So you clean it up by language that the attorney said was not the minimum, and we cannot change the language and vote on it.

So you want to withdraw it at that language to fix it and then start again.

So you have it as first reading.

So it's on there as first reading.

So it's simply a motion to amend the agenda to remove this from the agenda.

That's what we're doing.

I move to I move to remove this item for the agenda.

Second.

Councilman Monk.

Yes.

Councilman Love.

Councilman Mellow?

Yes.

Councilman Mayer.

Yes.

Councilman Garcia.

Yes.

Councilman Colombon Tanez.

Yes.

And Council President Shear.

Yes, thank you.

Now what?

We just removed item number three from the agenda.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Number four, please.

Proposed ordinance 25-25-26 and ordinance amending the city code of the city of Passaic, chapter 259.

Streets and sidewalks, article two, street excavations, telephone booths, sub chapter 249-12.

Definitions and 259-7.

Rules and regulations governing excavations to establish a five-year roadway moratorium and enhanced restoration requirements for recently improved city roadways.

Is there a motion please to open public hearing?

Motion to open public hearing.

Second.

Motion and second councilman monk.

Yes.

Councilman Love.

Councilman Mellow?

Yes.

Councilman Mayer.

Yes.

Councilman Garcia?

Yes.

Councilman Colombon Tanez?

Yes.

And Council President Shear.

Telephone Booths.

At this time, ladies and gentlemen of the council is deliberating proposed numbers 25 25.

Is there anyone who'd like to address the council?

Seeing no heads, we'll close the public hearing.

Motion and second on telephone booths.

Roll call.

Councilman Monk?

Yes.

Councilman Mellow?

Yes.

Councilman Mayer?

Yes.

Councilman Garcia.

Yes.

Councilman Colombon Tanez?

Yes.

And Council President Shear.

Yes, thank you.

Yes.

So if I may the reason it says telephone booths, that was the existing title.

I have no problem.

I'd be more comfortable if we had telephone booths right now.

So basically, uh, this is something that we've had a lot of conversation about.

Um I think you were all okay with it.

Oh, okay.

Then I'll be quiet.

Yes.

Is anyone not okay with it?

Okay.

Did we did we see no hands?

And it wasn't the closed.

Um we need to move on the ordinary second to the ordinance on the ordinance.

Councilman Monk.

Yes.

Councilman Love.

Councilwoman Mellow.

Yes.

Councilman Mayer.

Yes.

Councilman Garcia.

Yes.

Councilman Colombon Tanez?

Yes.

And Council President Shear.

Yes, thank you.

Item number five, sir.

Number five.

Yes.

Proposed ordinance twenty twelve-26 and ordinance appropriating six point six million on behalf of the city of Passaic, including 1.6 million available in the city's reserve for road sewer and park improvements and five million dollar grant expected to be received from the state of New Jersey, Departments of Community Affairs to provide for drainage improvements throughout the city.

Is there public hearing?

Second.

Moved and second any comments, ladies and gentlemen who would like to address the council on 25-26.

We're good.

Councilman Monk?

Yes.

Councilwoman Mellow?

Yes.

Councilman Mayer?

Yes.

Councilman Garcia?

Yes.

Councilman Colombon Tanes?

Yes.

And Council President Shear.

Yes, thank you.

Yes.

On the ordinance.

Any hands.

Ladies and gentlemen, the council's delivering 2526.

Kind of is anyone like to adjust the council at this time.

Second.

Motion and second to close.

Thank you.

Councilman Monk.

Yes.

Councilman Mellow.

Yes.

Councilman Mayer.

Yes.

Councilman Garcia?

Yes.

Councilman Colombon Tanes.

Yes.

And Council President Shares.

Yes, thank you.

Motion on the motion on motion on the ordinance to accept 25 seconds.

So move.

I think that was a first and second.

Okay.

Councilman Monk?

Yes.

Councilman Love.

Yes.

Councilman Mellow.

Yes.

Councilman Mayer.

Yes.

Councilman Garcia.

Yes.

Councilwoman Colombo Danez.

Yes.

And Council President Shearer.

Yes, I'm up to communications from the numeral seven, item six to nine.

Item six to nine.

Are there any questions on six to nine?

See now.

No, let's time is a motion, please do a second six to nine.

Second and second.

Roll call, please.

Councilman Monk.

Yes.

Councilman Love.

Yes.

Yes.

Councilwoman Mellow.

Yes.

Councilman Mayer?

Yes.

Councilman Garcia?

Yes.

Councilman Colom Montañez.

Yes.

And Council President Shear.

Yes, thank you.

All matters.

Listed to the routine in nature.

Items 10 through 19, please.

Are there any questions, please on 10 through 19?

Move.

Second.

Second.

Rock, please.

Councilman Monk.

Yes.

Councilman Love.

Yes.

Councilwoman Mellow?

Yes.

Councilman Mayer.

Yes.

Councilman Garcia.

Yes.

Councilman Colom Montañez.

Yes.

And Council President Shear.

Yeah.

You know that motion to I've got to.

Oh, we're on to item.

On 20 alone, please.

Motion on 20 alone.

Move.

Second.

Motion and second.

Roll call, please on 20 alone.

Councilman Monk?

Yes.

Councilman Love.

Yes.

Councilwoman Mellow.

Yes.

Councilman Mayer.

Yes.

Councilman Garcia.

Yes.

Councilman Colom Montañez.

And Council President Shear.

Yes, thank you.

Remember number eight on our agenda budget introduction, current year 2025-21.

In order to establish the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a CAP bank and just say 48 colon 4-45.14.

First reading to consider budget introduction.

Second reading to be set at introduction.

The meeting of June 4th.

Meaning of June 4th.

Is there a motion to accept 21?

Second.

Councilman Monk?

Yes.

Councilman Love.

Yes.

Councilwoman Mellow.

Yes.

Councilman Mayer.

Yes.

Councilman Garcia.

Yes.

Councilwoman Colom Montañez.

Yes.

And Council President Shear.

Yes, thank you.

Resolution authorizing the current year 2026 municipal budget to be read by title.

Am I reading the whole thing?

No.

Yep.

To be read by title.

That's on 22.

Yes, sir.

I'm reading order 22.

Resolution authorizing the current year 2026 municipal budget to be read by title only.

Whereas the local budget law and J 40A-4-5 allows the municipal budget to be read by title only at public meeting of the municipal council.

Now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of Passaic with no less than a majority of the full membership concurring with current year 2026 municipal budget of the city of Passaic shall be ready by total by title only and be further resolved that three certified copies of the budget once approved shall be transmitted to the director of the division of local government services three days after the approval and be further resolved that the budget shall be advertised in accordance with NJSA 48 colon 4-6 and a public hearing shall be held prior to approval in accordance with NJS the title 40A colon 4-8 by Council President and the City Clerk is their motion to accept this resolution move it motion second and second roll call please councilman monk yes councilman love yes councilman mellow yes councilman mayor councilman garcia yes councilman colommon dañez and council president shear yes thank you very much we're up to resolutions uh item number 23 the introduction 23 we need a motion in the second to insert is there a motion please to accept 23 move motion second and second to 23 and councilman monk budget yes councilman love yes council woman mellow yes councilman mayor yes councilman garcia yes councilman colommontañez yes and council president shear yes thank you we're up to resolutions on our agenda twenty four is a resolution offer at the first executive session mr do we need it no council president mr fernandez it would depend on the conversation on thirty because that's the health benefits well let's see if there's any questions yes absolutely any anyone else have any issues I was gonna yes so

Yes, thank you.

Resolutions.

Remember numerous nine on our agenda 24 is a resolution offer at the first executive session.

Mr.

Ma'am, do we need it's no council president?

Mr.

Fernandez, it would depend on the conversation on 30.

Because that's the health benefits.

Well, let's see if there's any questions, yes, absolutely.

Anyone else have any issues?

I was gonna ask.

So is there objections to taking 30 for reconsideration of the labor day without prejudice?

Why don't we take 30 off?

And if we could be talking about resolution of 25 through 32 less 30.

25 through 32 less 30.

Are there any questions, please?

Single license motion, please to accept 25 to 30 to the 32 less 30.

There's a motion, second and the second vocal, please.

Councilman Monk.

Yes, Councilman Love.

Yes.

Councilwoman Millow.

Yes.

Councilman Mayer.

Yes.

Councilman Garcia.

Yes.

Councilwoman Colom Montañez.

Yes.

And Council President Sheer.

Yes, thank you.

We are up to ordinances for introduction first rating.

Yes.

We have not do we need to do 30.

Yeah, you have to pass 30.

Okay.

We had to do it separately.

Okay.

Is there a motion please to accept resolution number 30?

Oh councilman.

Yes, like can we get full session, please?

No, no, I can tell you what it is.

And then if you want to get into like detailed that we need to go into test.

So what this does is um we're moving to lower expenses for employees as well as the city.

You're comfortable with this, Mr.

Shan.

Yeah, a high deductible plan.

I was part of this instance deception, like it's almost written on the right of my hand.

Um so to do that as part of the negotiations, there's uh a high deductible plan has a deductible, and the idea was that um in this plan, the city would put in the deductible amount that is set uh by the state and the IRS.

It differs depending if you're single or family, and um that would go into an account where whoever has the deductible plan could use a card with that funding in it to pay their medical bills.

Then there is a second component, which are called maximum out of pockets for after you've exceeded your deductible.

There's the in-network maximum out of pocket, and then there's an out-of-network maximum out of pocket.

What this would do would create an HRA, which is a post, and this is the way the IRS requires it, a post-deductible HRA to then offset the maximum out of pocket in an in-network, which is two thousand dollars more.

So it's whatever the deductible is and a maximum up to the two thousand dollars that would be in this hr HRA, which is a health reimbursement account.

So in a normal world, you have your HSA.

If you don't reach your deductible, you can um you never have to use the HRA, so you never need the HRA card, you use your HSA, you pay whatever you gotta pay.

Perfect.

Um the selling point to this process, and and why we've entered into negotiations that an HSA can be carried over into the next year.

So let's say your deductible will do easy math, right?

Let's say the deductible is five thousand dollars, you only spent four thousand dollars of that deductible next year.

You get that thousand dollars carried over, and then the new HSA number, let's say it's five thousand one of them go there.

The selling point to uh individuals who are on this plan is that that is an interest bearing account as well, so it's a financial advantage to keep as much in the HSA as possible.

Um if you were to um once you hit 65, you can pull that money out uh and just pay whatever your current rate of taxes are in New Jersey, New Jersey taxes.

Okay, um change that one change that one.

Um and then the HRA is just there if you need it, uh if you pass the the post it up.

So that's it in a nutshell.

So what would happen is if you pass this, it would allow for um individuals that go into the H the high deductible plan for us to set up that HSA and that HRA uh for that.

When we did the math, and and I can't go way beyond that because then that's part of why we did what we did.

Um like Omar said, right now, just if everybody used up everything, we'd still be saving two thousand dollars.

I mean two million dollars in savings.

Um there's other additional things that if you want to get into greater detail, I can close session session, but in the most basic, it's a high deductible plan in which we're creating an HSA to fund the deductible and an HRA for the in-network maximum out of pocket.

Um if it gets to that point, councilman matters, please.

A question about a specific demographic within the other sessions.

If it's specific about a plan, I could talk about it.

Like what's the question, and then I'll let you know after the the retirees that are still on those plans.

What's their so that's a negotiable item?

And I could tell you what the negotiations were that work right now in closed session on in closed session, yeah.

Not right now.

Uh any other questions.

Uh yeah, council president.

Yes, so it's so the HSA.

So if someone goes out of the network, yes, and what happens then?

So there's the the HSA, so you have a deductible, right?

So let's say your deductible is five thousand dollars.

Okay, I'm going to hold you for a moment, Mr.

Fernandez.

I've received a request by a member that we go into closed session, which supersedes this discussion.

May we have a motion to go into closed session only?

Rock call, please.

Yes.

Oh, who gave the motion?

I make the motion.

Second councilman monk, yes, councilman love.

Yes, yes, councilman mellow, yes, councilman mayor, yes, councilman Garcia, yes, councilman Colomon Tanez, yes, and council president shear.

Yes, thank you.

Everyone who is not vital to his conversations.

I need you respectfully to vacate.

Ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate your kind patience.

Is there a motion to reconvene?

Motion motion and second by the council to reconvene on me.

Councilman Mello, yes, councilman mayor, yes, councilman uh Colomon Tenez.

Yes, Councilman Garcia.

And councilman love council president share.

We're on resolution number 30.

I'm sorry.

Your vote, yes.

My vote is a yes.

Thank you.

That's to go into public session.

Correct?

That's uh to reconvene.

Well, now on we're going on resolution number 30, a resolution authorizing the creation of implementation and funding of health savings accounts and health reimbursement accounts in connection with health plans coverage.

Is there a motion to accept?

Motion to accept.

Second, motion and second roll call on number 30 only.

Councilman Love Councilman Mellow, yes, councilman mayor, yes, councilman Garcia Councilman Colombo Montañez, yes and council presidents here.

Just thank you.

Proposed ordinance amending the designation of restricted parking for disabled persons by license plate number.

Is there a motion to accept for sit down for second and final reading at our meeting of May 19th?

19th.

May 19.

Motion second motion and second roll call, please.

Councilman Mellow, yes, councilman mayor.

Yes.

Councilman Colombon Tenez.

Yes.

And Council President Sheer.

Yes, thank you.

Please, number 34, proposed orders authorizing the execution of an agreement for payment in lieu of taxes with Spear Village Preservation Owner LLC.

Is there motion to accept for second and final reading at our main course of May 19th?

Question on that one.

Who's the who's the owners of that property currently?

The Spear Village.

Yeah.

The spear village and the pilot and the pilots going to uh is the taxes currently on the property.

So what's gonna happen is there is uh an agreement between the housing authority and the developer.

The developer uh needs the resolution to then go to the HMFA, the housing finance finance more mortgage finance agency, so that they can get the mortgage based on that they're entitled to the pilot.

Is there current taxes on the property from that?

Yeah, there are the current taxes on the property for the entire property, which is uh six buildings, including uh plus a building for the housing authority offices is um what is it 157, something like that?

This would be uh just for four the four buildings in the back, so it's a separate block and lot from the other buildings in the front.

This is the rehab portion of the project where the rehab portion is going to be completely 100% affordable, so that you know people from the units once it's repaired, they can go there.

There'll be a different range of incomes, but it'll still be affordable, like it's all affordable.

Um, and under that negotiation may respectfully remind that this is for first reading.

Oh, okay.

Councilman Mayor, your questions for answer?

Yep.

Very good.

Do we have a motion second?

No, sir.

Move it, second, roll call, please on 34.

Councilwoman Mello.

Yes, Councilman Mayor, yes, councilman Colombon Tannez, yes, and council presidents here.

Yes, thank you.

Number 35, please post an ordinary chapter amending chapter 128, employer regulations to add article two, worker payment protection and anti-coercion.

Is there motion to sit down for second and final reading at our meeting of May 19th?

Move it, second.

Motion and second roll call, please.

Councilwoman Mellow, yes, councilman mayor, yes, councilman Colombon Tenez, yes, and council president shear.

Yes, thank you.

We're up to payment of bills and amendment 11 on our agenda.

There are any questions on the bills as presented by the cure.

Seeing our likes at this time, is there motion please to accept the minutes number of bills?

Second motion and second, councilman love yes, thank you.

Councilwoman Mellow, yes, councilman mayor, yes, councilman Colomb Tannez, yes, and council president shear.

Yes, thank you.

Administrators report, Mr.

Fernandez.

None at this time, sir.

Mr.

Mayor, sir.

Briefly today with Cinco de Mayo.

We have the council general whose uh office is only property come down here.

Mariana Diaz, um, representing the city was Abdle Burales, Commissioner on the Board of Education, and they had a ceremony after general source to stage.

That's it.

Very lovely, thank you.

Um, are there any uh other points for members?

Motion I'm sorry, please.

There is a motion.

Is there a second, please to close?

Second motion second to adjourn.

Roll call to adjourn, please.

Councilman Love, yes, councilwoman mellow, yes, councilman mayor, yes, councilman Colombon Tanez, yes, and council president shear.

Yes, thank you.

This meeting is adjourned.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kind patience.