Loading...
HomeMy Public PortalAbout1997/01/28 An Informal Meeting was held by the Mayor and Council of the Borough of Carteret on Tuesday, January 28, 1997, 6:00 P.M., Council/ Office, Municipal Building, 61 Cooke Avenue, Carteret, New Jersey. Upon individual roll call, the following were noted present: Mayor Peter J. Sica Councilmember Bialowarczuk " DuPont " Failace " F azkeas " Gutowski Noted absent was Councilmember Feingold and Borough Attorney Robert A. Hedesh. Also noted present was Chief Financial Officer/Tax Collector, Patrick DeBlasio. Mailed to The Home News & Tribune, The Star Ledger and posted on the bulletin board on January 24, 1997. He purpose of this meeting was to discuss the 1997 Local Municipal Budget. Mayor Sica said that there are a couple of important things if you look through you will see on Insurance and Premiums (Budget Appropriations - Account #116) that is $125,000.00 and up. It is not because we are paying more for insurance, it is because we have a lot of lawsuits that we are going to pay, many of them for $25,000.00 and then there is the Steve Moylan one that is costing us about $79,000.00 and he anticipates that the Nagy Cases will cost about $125,000.00. Councilmember Bialowarcuk said that there was something she didn't understand and someone had to clear it up for her. She asked why if you are paying out of your EO.P. or your P.B.A fund for that lawyer, then why does the Borough have to turn around and pay him. Mayor Sica explained that they all pay. He said the F.O.P. has a Legal Defense Fund and all the members put in $100.00 a year so there is money to hire a lawyer to defend a cop. He said he is not sure if the P.B.A. does that. He said under their contract and the 1 JANUARY 28, 1997 INFORMAL MEEl'ING January 28, 1997 PRESmr STA'IHIDIT OF Ha"TING OOl'ICE PURPOSE OF TIlE MEEl'ING DIsaJSSIOO Insurances JANUARY 28, 1997 DISœSSIrn Cant: Insurances State Contract, if he is found innocent the municipality has got to pay his legal fees and then they put the rnoney back in the Legal Defense Fund. Councilmember Bialowarczuk asked if the biggest bill is with the County indictment. Mayor Sica said he wasn't sure he guessed it was equal. He said there is three (3) cases that he has seen and he mentioned the one with the kid with the PTI. Councilmember Failace said that he thought that was the case that Bobby sent the letter saying we don't believe that.......... The Mayor interrupted saying we don't allow a letter saying we don't believe it. Councilmember Failace said he understood. Mayor Sica explained that winning is another thing and that the contract says that if he does something while he is performing his duty he has to be protected and when he is off duty he is not, so if a kid is robbing his house at 3:00 in the morning and he grabs the kid and interrogates him wrong, like he allegedly did, he is doing it in performance of his duty and we will probably get nailed for that. He then mentioned the one with the Federal Officer, Semenza and those guys, and for this one you have to stretch your imagination. He can go to court and say he was driving and he is cop twenty- four (24) hours a day, and he didn't do anything wrong and the court says he didn't do anything wrong. He got out of a car and told the cops to go do their jobs and wound up getting indicted and because they found out he didn't try to fix the ticket he was innocent. He said there is an outside chance that maybe we can win that one. He said the third one was with Csimbok and it was so cut and dry that the judge threw half of it out before it got to the jury and then the jury took five (5) minutes to throw out the other half. Here you have the Deputy Chief coming into to town and he sees what he thinks is police brutality and he doesn't make a complaint he makes an internal memo to the Chief of Police to investigate it. Under the law he has to turn it over to Internal Affairs to investigate it and he did and they came back and said there is no real validity to it because the kid that supposedly got roughed up said he didn't so it was dropped. Then the Prosecutor indicts him for using his office for getting back at a cop and he is found innocent again because it is in the performance of his duties. He commented that the bills for these three cases are about $300,000.00 and he asked Patrick DeBlasio if he was right. Patrick said he hadn't seen any bills. Mayor Sica said there was two (2) bills for one hundred and some and one for one hundred fifty and some. Attorney Hedesh has them and he keeps sending them back saying we won't pay them, but he commented that we would be getting nailed for something. He said 2 now we are not showing any payments but we should take into consideration if we do have to pay them we will need to go to Trenton for an Emergency Appropriation. Patrick explained that if we don't budget for the numbers now and if a large bill comes in we have to seek permission from Trenton to go there and increase our budget and if you do that you will have to raise those funds in 1998. Mayor Sica said they will allow you to pay it out of your Surplus but you will have to pay it back in 1998. He said if Trenton thinks we didn't take precautions they could turn us down for an Emergency Appropriation and then we would be stuck for the interest anyway. At this time the transcribing machine malfunctioned and from this point the transcribing will be done solely by the Clerk's notes. Richard Greenberg - Richard Greenberg said his 1996 Budget was $113,000.00 and he transferred $5000.00 which made it $118,000.00. Now he is asking for an increase of $2500.00 for Fire Prevention and $1000.00 for the Fire Department. Mayor Sica asked him why he wanted the increase In Fire Prevention. Richard Greenberg said to transfer some utilities to other accounts. He said he is requesting a total of $3500.00. The transcribing machine began to work again so the transcribing was resumed. Mayor Sica said the Volunteer Fire Department has thirty (30) people and the other has about fourteen (14). He doesn't think it is fair that we turn around and say that we are going to give this guy who made 90% of the fires $500.00 because there is thirty (30) guys in his company and the guy who made 20% of the fires $800.00 because there is only ten (10) guys in his company. Unfortunately you are never going to resolve the problem because from what he understands if Fire Company #2 votes that they pull the money in and split it and Fire Company #1 votes against it, it dies. Both companies have to agree to it and none of them are going to give up money. He feels we should sit down with both companies and tell then that none of the $25,000.00 is going to be 3 JANUARY 28, 1997 DIsaJSSIrn Cant: Transcribing Machine Malfunction Richc-ml Greenberg Fire Prevention Transcribing Machine ResuDed Vohmteer Fire Department JANUARY 28, 1997 Volunteer Fire Department Cant: Snow Duty subtracted but they are going to divide it between all of the men of both companies and that is the only fair way to do it. Councilmember Fazekas said it should be based upon last years performance. Mayor Sica said if that is what he wants he is all for it. Councilmember Fazekas said he talked to Mr. Greenberg about it and he didn't understand it. Mayor Sica explained you would take the $25,000.00 and then take the amount of fires and break that down into the cost of a fire and then break it down into manpower and how much each fire would be worth per man and then they would get paid on how many fires they made. Councilmember Fazekas said looking at the manpower he noticed that some of the guys show up all the time and some don't. Mayor Sica explained that was because it costs the same amount of money to insure a guy either way. That is why he thinks they should call a meeting with the two (2) Volunteer Squads and explain his way of distributing the stipend. Councilmember Fazekas explained that we hadn't cut the $25,000.00. Mayor Sica explained that we are going to leave it at $25,000.00 and we are going to divide it by the amount of fires, by the men and then come up with a dollar value for each fire. He said some of the firemen say that each fire takes a different amount of time, but we can't get it down to hours. He commented we cannot be picky because it only takes one (I) minute to die. Councilmember Fazekas said that is a better way to distribute the money and they will not like it no matter what the excuse. Mayor Sica said he put a stop to the Snow Duty at the end of last year. He said that there will be a Snow Watch when it calls for one. Councilmember Fazekas said that there was one (I) or two (2) days they called for a Snow Watch. Mayor Sica said we had an inch and one half of snow so we had a Snow Watch. Councilmember Fazekas said they never really know how many people are put on for a Snow Watch, they should give us an estimate. Mayor Sica said when he calls an Emergency Snow Watch he wants to know from the respective Chiefs and Assistant Chiefs on 4 #1 and #2 how any people are going to be there because he doesn't want a fiasco like last year where it cost us a ton of money. He said they won't be reducing or finishing up this budget until the end of February so they will still have time to change it in March. Patrick De Blasio asked the Mayor what numbers they agreed to fill in. Mayor Sica said that they haven't agreed on anything, they are going to wait until the end. Patrick asked if he meant the end of all the requests coming in. Mayor Sica said yes, that he thinks the only way to do a budget this year is that we get all these requests in. We can total up this years requests against last years and see what the difference is in dollars and then if we are going to allow anything that is not mandatory, that we don't have to allow, then we should decide in that point in time if we want to give any raises. If not they just have to cut the budget and if that number comes out to be $50,000.00 then we can bite the bullet and give everyone a little bit. Councilmember Fazekas said that on this snow duty he thinks that he talked to him about listing quite a number of people, this way they can take who ever they want. He thinks there is a list of about ten (10). Mayor Sica said 95% of the fires in this town can be put out with three (3) people. We have ten (10) men waiting. Councilmember Fazekas agreed with the Mayor. Board of Health - Patrick De Blasio explained that the Board of Health operates out of three (3) accounts. They appear on page two and the account number is 134, Board of Health, 135, which is Air Pollution and 136, Services of Visiting Nurses. Board of Health Department account 134 last year they got $80,000.00 and this year they are requesting $97,000.00. We also transferred $6000.00 to their $80,000.00 budget. Mayor Sica asked if it was because we got an increase from the County that we had to transfer that money. Pat Tozzi said no, you're getting the same thing this year. Mayor Sica asked if it was another $6000.00 from them. Pat Tozzi said no your contract is for $10,300.00. Mayor Sica asked if the Board of Health ever looked into what it would cost us to hire our own Health Inspector. 5 JANUARY 28,1997 DISCUSSIrn Cant: Board of Health JANUARY 28, 1997 Board of Health Cant: Pat Tozzi said that is quite another thing to bring up this here expires at the end of the year and they have to renegotiate a new contract. He would like to be able to get members of the Board of Health and start looking around and start coming up with some figures and so forth before.................. Mayor Sica said he doesn't think that Owen makes that kind of money from the County. Ellen Randsell said no but one town did do this and found out that it was cheaper to go through the County. She has a copy of the survey they did and she could get it together and get it for him. One town did go as far as having their own survey to find out if it was cheaper to go to their Administrator, Health Inspector, their own nurses, if that is what he is talking about and cars and so forth. It entails a lot and she believes that it would cost more to go into their own than it would be going to the County. Pat Tozzi asked if it is a possibility going through another town, like Linden. The Mayor said yes, that we do that with Linden with the Dog Catcher and if we had to do it on their own and Linden had to do it on their own, it wouldn't be economical. He asked if Linden had their own full time Health Inspector. Pat Tozzi and Ellen Randsell said yes. Mayor Sica said that we should get hold of Mayor Gregorio and talk to him and see if we can rent time with his Health Inspector. We've got to look into it because there is because there is $6000.00 and $10,000.00 and he said that anytime you can go out and save a buck, you go right out and do it. If Linden is willing to do it fine. He asked if Woodbridge had their own inspector or did they rely on the County. Pat Tozzi said that Woodbridge had their own inspector. Mayor Sica said that we should talk to Mayor McGreevey the same way, perhaps we can buy time in theirs. They will supply us with whatever we need for X amount of dollars. Ellen Randsell said that they had already talked to Woodbridge once before and they don't want to bother with that. Pat Tozzi said he approached Linden about a year ago or so and they were interested. He said there are certain things that the County takes care of for us that don't go directly to us. He will have to see if Linden picks that same sort of stuff. Mayor Sica told Pat Tozzi if he needed help speaking to Mayor Gregorio he would go with him to see him. 6 Pat Tozzi said they are obligated contracts. There is nothing they can do about that. He said that all they are asking for is an increase of $2000.00 Mayor Sica referred to the Buildings and Grounds and he asked Ellen if she is taking into consideration that they will move to Borough Hall. Pat Tozzi said that is the next thing after he gets done with the Budget. He said that he has seen so many different things like in the paper. The paper said they were moving into (inaudible). The Mayor said that is not worth what the paper is written on. whatever they put in. What they are proposing to do is move them over from there and give them the whole downstairs in Borough Hall. Our contention is it is barrier free right now. They don't have to worry about making it barrier free. They will gain two and one half times the space that they have over there. These are offices that are already cubed off, that they can have for clinics, etc. All they are going to do is keep sinking over there and all and all they are going to do is have an X amount of floor space. He questioned why they would want to spend $10,000.00 or $15,000.00 on a roof and still have the same floor space when we can do the same thing here. Just to make it barrier free it is going to cost a fortune. Here we already have it wheelchair accessible. Pat Tozzi asked when they would sit down an talk about it. He said that they were interested. Councilman Fazekas said he would like a copy of their office supplies service contracts. He also wants to know if they have an inventory of their computers, fax machines and copiers. Ellen Ransdell said that all they have is two (2) computers, one (I) copier and one (1) fax machine and she will give them the model numbers. Councilmember Fazekas said that he would like the model numbers and whatever contracts they have. They are working on getting one service contract for the whole Borough. Ellen Ransdell asked if he wanted to include typewriters. Councilmember Fazekas said if they had service contracts for their typewriters, then he would like that also. Mr. Tozzi explained that they budgeted for $4000.00 to give to the nurses. They used $1800.00 plus $200.00 for estimated expenditures and there is a reason for that. They had two (2) cancellations in their clinics because of the snow last year so actually the cost was $4680.00. He commented it is State mandated. 7 JANUARY 28, 1997 Board of Health Cant: JANUARY 28, 1997 Board of Health Cant: Longevity; Social Security, SIP Salary . Account Nursing Services The Mayor asked if he was looking at a total increase of $1,180.00 in this account. Mr. Tozzi said that they might not use it all, but he has to anticipate it. The Mayor said he understood. He said in their Salary Account, the $153,000.00 is predicated on 5%. Pat Tozzi and Ellen Randsell said yes. Mayor Sica asked if they arrived on that amount by 146 X 5%. Ellen Randsell said yes. Mayor Sica said that in actuality it won't be $153,818.00. He said that they have to account for Longevity, Social Security, SIP. He asked them if they had taken all of this into consideration in the $153,000.00. He explained that in their synopsis of 153 it represents 5% but if we are going to give 5% then we would have to add something to that 153. It might not be in this Line Item but it might be in the Social Security Line or Longevity Line Item, but the 5% actually comes out to almost 6%. Ellen Randsell agreed. Mayor Sica said he would get back to them. Then he went on to say if you look under the Salary Account for the Board of Health you will see a raise in the Surplus. It is because somewhere in the course of the year we get $20,000.00 back. He said this year they tried to get the $20,000.00 to give themselves raises. We refused to give it to them. No one got a raise. They say they have all this money, but they don't. We put money in there and when it comes back it comes back. What we can do is anticipate the money coming this year and reduce the total that we have to raise because that $20,000.00 will come. Pat De Blasio explained that we can't anticipate putting that money in until we have a signed contract which usually comes out in July and that is for Nursing Services. He said that the Board of Education provides the nurses and we got reimbursed by the Board of Education last year instead of putting in $150,000.00 for Salaries we wound up knocking that down to $130,000.00. Then they were complaining that they can't send the nurse over there. They don't know if they are going to get the $20,000.00. They will have to borrow their nurse, etc. At that point in time we decided to fund the Nurse's Services and put $150,000.00 in the budget. Then July came around and we received the $22,000.00 that the Board of Education gave us and we amended our budget and put that Line Item in. Some of the $22,000.00 goes toward Operating Expenses, which is 4,000 or 5,000 of it. The rest goes towards Salaries. When they did that it freed up some money in their Salary Account. Then they came out saying that they had extra funds in their budget. He had to write a letter or two saying they didn't have any extra 8 money. That money was put there for us to fund the Nurses Services. The Mayor said that we could knock it down and then they are going to come back and cry and say they can't supply nurses. He said that we can then turn around and say, no you can do your regular thing and if when November comes they didn't give us the money then we will transfer, so there is $20,000.00 that we do have to play with. Pat De Blasio spoke in regards to Middlesex County's budget. He said that the County did it two (2) or three (3) years ago when the contract was a lot lower but they seem to keep going up. Councilmember Failace interrupted saying that the letter says that Middlesex County has not increased their operating budget in the last three (3) years and will continue to maintain the current budget and still provide quality help, but they are raising us $7000.00 to $10,000.00. Mayor Sica said that is the same thing that Whitman does. She cuts down and eliminates some of the Sales Tax or the State Income Tax and she raises up your license plates. That is what the County did, only the County had caught up with them and he told the County years ago that somewhere along the line they are going to pay the fiddler. Last year they sold the Golf Course and the Parking Deck and this year they have a $13,000,000.00 deficit, which they have to make up somewhere and the $10,000.00 we just gave them is where it is made up. It doesn't sound like a lot of money but it is $10,000.00 from a town like Carteret and it is a $100,000.00 from a town like Woodbridge. Come the end of the year they have picked up $1,000.000.00 on our backs and that is what the problem is. Councilmember Failace asked Patrick De Blasio if the Interlocal Agreement was money in a Surplus Account or a Trust Account that they used in 1996. Mr. De Blasio said he didn't think so. Mayor Sica said the Interlocal Agreement is the Dog Warden. Councilmember Failace said it is showing only $8,000.00 when it should have been $18,000.00. He said part of it was paid by the Dog Trust Surplus. Patrick De Blasio said on Page 2, there is a Budget Line that says Dog Regulations and it shows a budget of $18,200.00. He said that number can also be knocked down too because whenever they collect fees for Dog and Cat Licenses it goes into a Dog Trust Fund. They generate $10,000.00 out of that account, so half of this can be charged to the Trust Fund and the other half can be funded through our budget. 9 JANUARY 28, 1997 Nursing Service Cant: Middlesex Colmty' s BOOget State Taxes Dog Warden JANUARY 28, 1997 Dog Warden Cant: Mayor Sica said the difference is in the Local Agreement it is the money that we pay Linden to catch the dogs. He said there is a few dollars in this account that we can reach in and get so if we have to raise up that $10,000.00 it shouldn't affect the budget. Councilmember Fazekas, Mayor Sica and Patrick spoke on buying in bulk. Office on Aging Office On Aging - Mr. Brewer was not present. Patrick De Blasio said his budget last year was $4000.00. He is requesting $4300.00 in 1997 and he has a breakdown of what he intends to do. There is money outside the cap but it is for salaries and it is funded by a grant. The Borough pays $14,250.00 into this program. Mayor Sica said we have to put in so much to get the grant money. Patrick said he could keep the same amount as last year. Community Center - Patrick said he had a $3000.00 budget last year and he only spent $280.00 last year. Mayor Sica said he didn't think we should cut that budget because that building needs work. He suggested to cut it to $2500.00. Building Department- Building Department - Ralph De Franceso said he thinks he doesn't need an increase and he said they will make a little more money because it is a busy year with construction. Mayor Sica told Ralph he is looking to cut some of the expenses there. He suggested to hire one (I) person with more than one (I) license. Councilmember Fazekas questioned $8200.00 in Office Supplies for his department. Mayor Sica told Ralph to break the costs down for Councilmember Fazekas. Mayor Sica then spoke about the White Rose Building which was 657,000 square feet. We charged them $220,000.00 for the Building Permit. The new building they are putting up is $160,000.00 and it is just a big refrigerator. Ralph told them they will pay $105,000.00 for the permit. He said the law says you cannot pay anymore for the permit than it costs to oversee the work of building, which is $32,000.00. He thinks it shouldn't be knocked down that low, but he thinks we should make some money on it. He suggested $75,000.00. 10 Office for the Disabled - Mayor Sica told Joanne Kissleman they would approve everything they had there and they will give them a $250.00 raise. Tax Assessor- Bill Marbach said he is trying to get one contract to cover the Municipality but then every department will have an account number so they will know his expenditures. Mayor Sica told him they would let him know. Engineering - Parmar - Patrick said this Department had a $33,000.00 budget and he left behind $5000.00. He is requesting the same budget for 1997. Mayor Sica asked if any of the $5000.00 left behind is earmarked. Patrick said he didn't think so. Mayor Sica said they could cut his budget about $2000.00. Public Assistance- Hadiyah Muhammad - Patrick said she has really three (3) accounts that she operates out of. One is her regular operating expenses, which she was given $12,000.00 last year and her second account is the State Aid Account, $4000.00 and that is for burying people. Then there is the Re-Location Account for $5000.00. Mayor Sica said she does a good job. Patrick said she is asking for another $1200.00. Mayor Sica said they have no choice but to give it to her. Library- Ronna Pearl and Michael Adams- Patrick said their monies are outside the cap. The monies that we have to fund the Library has a minimum set by State Law. Their minimum is $323,000.00 and we pay the Library Board well in excess of that. Mayor Sica said under the law we should not give them one (I) penny more than we gave them last year. He then questioned if they gave themselves a raise last year. Patrick said he believed one or two at least did get some kind of increase. Mayor Sica said this is what makes him so mad about the Library Board, if you tell the rest of the employees you aren't going to give them raises you can't give them raises. 11 JANUARY 28, 1997 Office for the Disabled Tax Assesor Engineering Public Assistance Library JANUARY 28, 1997 Library Cant: Councilmember Gutowski asked if it was going to cost us this much to run this Library what will it cost to run the new Library. Mayor Sica said we don't need anymore people and he suggested they look into the part timers. He said if they drop the funding down to $323,000.00 then they will have to layoff three (3) or four (4) people and the Library will still run good. Patrick De Blasio said we set this money aside for them and if they don't spend it they are allowed to bank it because they are autonomous. Mayor Sica argued about this because when we go into the new Library there will a lot of things they will need that will not come out of the bond. Councilmember Fazekas said they will not give it to us out of there. Mayor Sica said they will and explained that money has always been put aside to modernize the Library or to get the Architectural Plans started or they acquired a Landfill and we didn't ask them to do any of that. When the Library becomes ready to go that account will be depleted for furniture, etc., etc. If it is not decreased down to nothing than the following year we will give them exactly what the State of New Jersey says we have to give them and then they will have to use the money or lay some people off. Patrick said they are a one (I) Line Item, so we are only approving the total amount. Ronna Pearl spoke about her budget. Mayor Sica asked Ms. Pearl if she gave anyone raises in 1996. Ms. Pearl said no. She said they did promote one (I) person and with that came a raise of $100.00. Mayor Sica said they will be building a new Library but in the interim it is hard to justify increasing their budget . He said they are looking for a $21,000.00 increase and that is not including salaries. He told her to even consider it she must bring them a breakdown to justify the increase. Ms. Pearl spoke about some of the reasons she is requesting the increase. Mayor Sica again told her they need a written breakdown. Ronna spoke about her reserve money and Mayor Sica told her to hold on to it because they will need that for the new Library. 12 Municipal Garage- Vic Kazio- Patrick said last year we gave them a budget of $71,500.00 and we transferred in $7000.00. Mayor Sica said for all the cars we tow and then sell for a couple of thousand dollars there should be a way to put it back in the Department that has done the towing not the General Fund. Patrick said they do have a separate Revenue Line Item that shows that but he is restricted to crediting his account. Vic is requesting a budget of $96,000.00. Mayor Sica said he thinks we could knock off $6000.00 of that making it $90,000.00. Streets & Roads/Street Cleaning/Recycling- Ted Surick- Mayor Sica said he had $49,000.00 and he is asking for $50,000.00 this year. He asked him why he doesn't just settle for $49,000.00. Ted Surick said okay he would live with $49,000.00. Mayor Sica told him that he has some other money in other accounts so they are going to ask him to go down to $45,000.00 and they will shift some money out of Recycling if he needs it. That would be for Streets and Roads. He will get $4000.00 for Street Cleaning and $10,000.00 for Snow Budget. Sewage - Al Biel- Patrick said he had a budget of $177,000.00 and we transferred $6000.00 out and put it into Salary Account so he really had $171,000.00 and he spent all of that money in 1996. Mayor Sica spoke about taking down an old building and putting up a new one. He then said Al is requesting a budget of $179,200.00. Recreation- B. Hedesh, W. Kolibas - Patrick said he had $55,000.00 last year and he spent it. Mayor Sica asked W. Kolibas if we had any kind of a breakdown on the various subsidiaries you give out, recreation, transportation, football, etc. W. Kolibas said Pop Warner is given a flat $10,000.00 and that is their limit. 13 JANUARY 28, 1997 Municipal Garage Streets & Roads/ Street Cleaning! Recycling Sewage Dept. Recreation JANUARY 28, 1997 Recreation Cant: Parks Dept. Senior Citizen Busing Recreation Cannission Patrick said that appears in the Park's Budget. W. Kolibas said that was all we gave out. Mayor Sica spoke on how we need all the bills before hand for the Recreation Expenses. They cannot wait until the end of the year. He told W. Kolibas if we keep his budget the same they are going to have a lot better internal control on how the money is spent. He suggested a letter go out from the Mayor and Council to each organization we have ever given any money to, that if there is any funding it has to be reduced to writing and given to us by the end of February. He asked the Clerk to send this letter out to all the Sports Associations asking them for a budget number that they think we should assist them with. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said to give them a deadline. Mayor Sica said they are asking for the same as last year and unless we cut something out there is nothing we can do about that, so hold it. Parks Department- Willie Kolibas said he is looking for an $8000.00 difference. He said he needed more money in Supplies and Utilities. Councilmember Bialowarczuk asked how we were repairing the Grant A venue Park. W. Kolibas said he hoped he could get the kids parents to pay for that. Councilmember Fazekas asked if there were grants they could get to fix the parks. Mayor Sica said there is grants for new parks but not to repair parks. Mayor Sica said this budget had to be cut about $3000.00. Senior Citizen- Patrick said their last year amount was $6500.00 and W. Kolibas said it would stay the same. Recreation Commission - Mayor Sica said the money for this last year came out of Celebration of Public Events. Patrick said the salaries comes out of W. Kolibas's account. He said they had in there $55,000.00 and they also left behind &26,000.0 in Celebration of Public Events. Mayor Sica said out of Celebration of Public Events comes the money they gave the Senior Citizens for Christmas Parties, Memorial Day needs, the Halloween Parade, concerts in the park, 14 etc. and he commented that he didn't think anyone would want to eliminate any of those things. W. Kolibas asked the Mayor what the status was of the Bus and the Cherry Picker. He said he gave Councilmember Gutowski a bunch of numbers. Mayor Sica said they want to look into a Cherry Picker and as far as the bus goes they have the money for the bus, that it was already bid, but, they have to look into a different approach to get the Cherry Picker. He said there may be a way we can get some money out of Recycling. Municipal Court - D. Uhouse - Patrick said her 1996 budget was $27,000.00. Mayor Sica asked Debbie Uhouse what the increase was. Debbie spoke about getting new Personal Computers. She also said that the judge sent them a letter about the possibility of having court every Monday instead of every other Monday. Mayor Sica said before they cold agree on that they would have to see what kind of cost is involved. He also said their Operating Expenses should be knocked down to $30,000.00. Police- J. Sica- Patrick said they had a $222,900.00 budget last year ad they transferred in $10,000.00. so their budget was $232,900.00 and they basically spent it all. He is requesting $244,550.00. Joseph Sica said that their cellular phones were being changed to NYNEX from Comcast because their price is much better. He said all the New Hires have to be given guns, uniforms, etc. and there is Supplemental Training at the Academy for it. The Radar Breathalyzer Review have to be updated. He said they try to hold their own In Service Training and not have to send anybody out to the academies, if they could do it. Councilmember Failace said in reference to the gas for the Police Cars they budgeted $20,000.00 and they only spent $11,300.00. Chief Sica said that could or could not be a right number because those bills come in two (2) or three (3) months later. These are the numbers he had at the time. Patrick said when the tank for the gasoline is empty and is refilled that is when the departments are charged for its usage. We encumber it at the end of the year. Chief Sica said Chevy is no longer making the big cars so they tried the Chevy Lumina. which is too small for a Police Car so they are going over to the Ford Crown. He also said we have a problem because our Borough Garage is not geared for fixing Police Cars, 15 JANUARY 28, 1997 Recreation Cannission Cant: Bus & <berry Picker Municipal Court Police Cellular Phones Gas; Police Cars JANUARY 28, 1997 Police Cars Cant: Jail Cells Roof Photo Copier Sick Leave Camp Time Adninistrative & Executive they don't have a computer or tools that are needed so we are going with the bumper to bumper warranty which will save us money in the long run. He said they put in $70,000.00 which should get them three (3) Police Cars with the bumper to bumper warranty. He said they will try to replace a fourth car from their DWI Funds. He said they don't keep prisoners overnight anymore. They only use their cells as holding cells. Their cells are inspected once a year and have to have good mattresses and blankets. He also spoke on hiring new people because when they do they need to buy them uniforms. He said this year he dropped College Credits and Salary and Wages from his budget. Mayor Sica said he would let him know. Chief Sica said he had sent a cover letter over to the Governing Body about replacing their roof because it is again leaking. Mayor Sica said they need to appropriate $50,000.00 to fix it. Chief Sica said they need to replace the large photo copier at Police Headquarters. That runs them about $9000.00 or $10,000.00. They went out and got three bids already and the cheapest was $9600.00. He said he received a letter from the Department of Justice and it says that we took the money and we have to come up with some cops in order to come up to their number, (54) fifty- four. They asked to see some action on the part of the city by February 21st. The Chief also spoke on people retiring and they would like their money put in the budget. Mayor Sica said anyone retiring shouldn't attempt to take Sick Leave if they are not sick. He and the Chief spoke on this for a while. The Mayor said he wants a report after someone is out sick ten (10) days. He said he would lay some one off because they are not physically capable of doing his job because he took one hundred and ten sick days. Then they will arbitrate before Civil Service who will say to lay him off because he took too many sick days and he can't do the job. Councilmember Fazekas said if someone IS out that long there must be a serious problem. Chief Sica then told the Mayor that he had sent him a letter on Comp Time and he asked him to explain it to him and how he don't want him to use it. Mayor Sica said no one said you can't use Comp Time, he only said when they use it the Governing Body has to know about it and the reason for it. He explained that there are some people abusing it. He spoke on this for a while. Administrative & Executive- Kathleen Barney, Municipal Clerk- The Clerk said this budget could stay the same. 16 Election Account- Kathleen Barney, Municipal Clerk The Clerk said this budget could stay the same. Mayor Sica suggested to go back to the Police Budget. The Chief said he did not like the small cars so he suggested to buy big cars for the Police Department and small cars for the Detective Division, so he would only need two (2) cars so it would knock off $10,000.00. Mayor Sica said that yesterday they had gone to court on the Manella garbage thing. Their lawyer said to him if he had reviewed everybody's qualifications and if he had looked at his trucks. He explained that he put in his Performance Bond, his Consent of Surety, his Non Collusion Affidavit and Corporate Statement. That is all he is required. Patrick said for the Police Department they got In Service Training down to $7,000.00 from $9,000.00. Purchasing - Patrick said they have a $16,000.00 budget and are requesting the same. Planning Board- Patrick said $2500.00 and it will stay the same. Zoning Board- Patrick said this is $2000.00. Tax Office- Patrick said the only change it had in there was Payroll Costs and he now wants this paid through the budget. Mayor Sica spoke briefly on how overstaffed they are in the Police Department. Patrick mentioned Salaries to the Mayor and asked him if he wanted to hold them. Mayor Sica told him that he would like him to compute all the numbers with the changes and total it so they can see where they are going. Patrick said they have to address Salaries and Retirement Fees. Mayor Sica said tonight they knocked down the Retirement Pay. Patrick asked if he should push the Revenues to the max. He said if he wanted to cut the Sewer Fees it should be reflected in there. Mayor Sica said there are still major things to be done with the sewers and he spoke on some of them. 17 JANUARY 28, 1997 Election Account Police BOOget PUl:chasing Plarming Board Zoning Board Tax Office JANUARY 28, 1997 Sewer User Fee ADJOORNJiD Councilmember Failace asked about lowering the Sewer User Fees. Mayor Sica spoke on this. Upon MMS&C by Councilmembers Failace and DuPont and unanimous affirmative vote of the five (5) Councilmembers present this meeting was adjourned at approximately 10:00 P.M. Respectfully submitted, ~b~UY / ='\..,/ 1 KATHLEEN M. BARNEY Municipal Clerk KMB/lr 18