Township Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, East Brunswick. Welcome to the May 11th Town Council meeting. It's good to see so many of you here tonight. We are going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence. And tonight, I would like to dedicate this moment of silence to a longtime East Brunswick resident and East Brunswick High School graduate, Mark Goodzak, who passed away last week. So please rise and stay standing for that moment of silence. one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Okay, before we start with the meeting, I wanted to just address a comment because I received dozens and dozens of emails and phone calls since the last town council meeting regarding Crystal Springs. So as of this point, this council has not addressed anything at all regarding Crystal Springs other than setting our salary schedule, you know, all the normal moments of business. We have not addressed anything. Crystal Springs continues to operate as it always has. We employ so many of the children in our township. We have right now about 125 lifeguards and they are still hiring. So if anybody's looking for a summer job for a lifeguard, you have to get on it real quick because they're actually doing training now and all next week. Otherwise, Crystal Springs is fully staffed with all of our other areas that require staffing. It opens May 23rd for Memorial Day weekend, which is very exciting. And it is very cost effective and reasonable. They even last year was the first year they expanded the ticketing so you could buy a two person ticket. season pass. So it could be for a husband and wife or a parent and child in a house. It's a nice expansion at a really good deal for a season pass. Season pass holders can get into the park starting at 11 a.m. and the park does close at 6 p.m. Part of that is simply staffing, right? It's difficult to get enough of the lifeguards to effectively lifeguard and keep the pole safe. Also, Crystal Springs had to take out a loan during COVID. That loan will be paid off this year. So we are moving in a good direction. It's also a bargain if you just buy a day pass. some of our local areas around, um, some of the, you know, different trampoline and all that kind of fun spots for students and for kids, $25 for two hours where you could buy a weekend pass as a resident for the day for $26, two hours for doing one of those local, you know, jump trampoline type places. or six hours for having a crystal Springs pass for the day. So I just wanted to make sure that we made that clear. It is opening. We are excited to have it open this on Memorial day weekend. We are excited to employ so many of the students and residents in our town. And there has been no discussion from this council, about closing Crystal Springs or anything to that effect. So with that, we're going to move on to the roll call.

Council Member Hall?

Here.

Councilman McAvoy.

Here.

Councilman Wendell.

Here.

Councilwoman Winston. Here. And Council President Zimbicki. Here. Also present, Administrator Joseph Cuscula. Here. And Township Attorney Anthony Iacocca.

Here.

Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided as required under Chapter 231 Public Law 1975 by specifying the time, date, location, and to the extent known the agenda by posting a copy on the Bulletin Board located in the main lobby of the East Brunswick Municipal Building, providing a copy to the Home News Tribune and the Asbury Park Press newspapers, posting a copy on the township's website, and by filing a copy in the office of the township clerk, which will be entered into the minutes.

Thank you. May I have a motion for the approval of the meeting minutes, Resolution 26-164? Motion adopted. And second? Second.

We'll call, please. Councilman Fajal? Yes. Councilman McEvoy?

Yes.

Councilman Wendell? Yes. Councilwoman Winston? Yes. And Council President Zambicki?

Yes. Okay, thank you. We actually have a presentation this evening, and it's for our Township of East Brunswick 2025 Municipal Audit. We all received some amazing reading for the weekend. So thank you very much. With some very good news being contained within it. So with that, I would like to introduce John Farina, who is the director auditor of PFK O'Connor Davies. So thank you.

Good evening, everybody. Thank you for having me again tonight. Again, my name is John Farina. I was the director for PKF O'Connell Davies on the 25 audit of the Township of East Brunswick. Before I get started into the actual audit presentation, I always like to do this. I like to acknowledge and thank the township's administration and staff. for their cooperation during the audit. We really get prompt responses and good information from everybody involved. We gather a lot of our information electronically through a file sharing portal online. And this year, the township uploaded, I think it was more than 1,600 documents for us to review. So while as a firm we put hundreds of hours into the audit, which you get a 200-page report from, it really is equal work on the township's end for getting us that information. So I just wanted to acknowledge them. We started our audit in the middle of February this year, and we were gathering information right up until last Thursday, May 7th. So it's a long process. It's a lot of information. And just like to share those numbers just to show the hard work that goes into it. Again, the audit is complete. It was done on dated May 7th this year. Last year, it was dated June 30th. So we're about seven weeks ahead of time this year, which I think is good for everybody to have more timely information. closer to the year end. I think it's more beneficial for everybody involved. The most important page of that report that you have is on page one, and it's the auditor's opinion. The good news is that the township once again earned an unmodified opinion, which is the highest level of opinion that we as auditors can give to financial statements. So again, that's a great thing for the township. Just to give an idea of what we do when we come out here to do the audit, we focus a lot on internal controls. Your internal controls are what safeguard township assets. They are what ensures proper financial information is being entered into your software correctly and that we can rely on. We test areas of cash disbursements to make sure vendors are being paid properly, purchasing to make sure customers Purchasing laws are being followed, and they are pretty specific. Cash receipts to make sure your revenues are being recorded correctly, and payroll to make sure your employees are being paid according to their contracts. Another thing that we do, the township is very good at applying for and getting federal and state grants. The spending here is at such a level, or the grant awards and spending, is at such a level that we have to test specific federal and state grants this year. We tested the American Rescue Plan money And that's on the federal side and the DCA funding for the ice rink on the state side. And all of our testing came back with no instances of noncompliance for each of those grants, which is a very good thing. There was one issue identified in 2024's audit related to purchasing and not getting quotations for a couple of items that we tested. That was corrected in 2025, and there were no new additional comments or recommendations for this audit. Talked about the single audit. The financial results are strong for each of the funds we tested. So the township does a very good job. And what we could see every year is that internally, there's a lot of internal reflection and seeing what the township could do better. And so we don't test the same procedures every year because they're constantly evolving and changing to make sure the township's funds are safe. So that's really all I have. I can open it up to any questions you may have.

Thank you. Does anybody on council have any questions?

Yes. Mr. Farina, the internal controls you talk about, I'm sure that's similar from township to township, county to county as you do other audits. Do you find that technology is difficult to navigate through? For argument's sake, with regard to what you might expect here in East Brunswick, are you able to uncover every stone because of this new platform that we're able to use?

No, I mean, I think we're pretty well-versed in the technology. So we're able to see what we need to see as far as approvals and everything like that.

And then, therefore, our technology was up to standard, up to par for your professionalism?

I would say so, yes.

And how long was your team here?

We started in – well, we opened up our software for Angela and her team to start uploading stuff probably the last week of December, and that started right away. And then we were out here physically – late February, early March, and then we just wrapped up the audit on May 7th. So it's a long process.

Yeah, long process, time-consuming. Yes, yes. And then you're moving into areas of the township where... You're interrupting the flow of business. Correct, yes, yes. And then professionally you have to find a way to work with everybody.

Yes, and that's why I'd like to speak about the cooperation that we get because your employees still have to get paid, your taxes still get collected, the vendors still get paid, and that's all done.

And the same thing goes for... Comments and recommendations?

Yes.

Pretty light this year.

Very light this year. With a smile on my face. Yes. Thank you, Council President.

You're welcome. Anybody else? All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. It's great news. There's no recommendations. And a huge shout out to our CFO. Angel Albanese and your entire staff. We really appreciate we all feel very Assured that our township funds are being well looked at so thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks everyone Okay, we're gonna move on to the report section We'll start with mr. Kruskula

Sure. I just want to address one item that I've gotten a couple calls to my office and Marty here was appearing online and maybe some misinformation regarding a grant that we received many years ago, $500,000 towards possibly enclosing a pool or doors to an indoor pool in the township. And I think several years ago, this administration had a discussion or conversations with the Board of Education regarding the inclusion of an indoor pool. At that point was to be a newly designed high school. If you remember, it was only a few years ago when the Board of Ed was still pondering the fact that they may build a new high school and the mayor and I had conversations with them regarding putting the indoor possibly putting the indoor pool at the high school so the students could use it during the day and then it would be worked out with us that the community could use it on the weekend and in the evenings and this is done in quite a few places. I travel throughout the state being on an insurance commissioner, the state level and the local level. Pools during the daytime, if you go up to our friends in Piscataway, they have a facility there which I came from nine years ago and was partly responsible for the design of that pool. During the daytime, there's really nobody in the pool there, and they still have to employ lifeguards and run the filters and so on and so forth. So the idea of co-locating it with an educational facility where you could bring PE students over there, teach them how to swim, use it for the high school swim team. Education Service Commission of New Jersey, which used to be the Middlesex County Education Commission, uses that model in some of their sites. One as close as Chief Quake Road in the Parliament section of Sarahville, where it's opened up as a gym in the morning to the public and in the evening and on the weekends, and then it's used for the school during the day. So I think that most of you remember the talks about the high school. So this way, the students could use the pool, Dorn P class, and so on, possibly in the morning. But in a high school environment, they start earlier, not as much as an elementary school. The answers from the previous Board of Education that was there and the administration that was there at that time said they weren't interested in doing it at the school. At one point, we were asked by our state legislative representatives, Senator Deignan and Kyra Binchak and Sterling Stanley, if there was any projects that we'd like to undertake in the town. And some of you will recall saying, yeah, we don't want to give up on this idea of an indoor facility. pool facility in the township. So they were able to get us a $500,000 grant. That grant has not been spent. It still sits at the state level and so on. So that was good. So we were awarded that grant. And at that point, we looked at the possibility of enclosing a pool or the pool at Crystal Springs Water Park, so the bigger pool in the back. After the township engineer and some of our staff took a look at the location, they came back to us and said, hey, there's too many constraints over there. With Dallowbacks over there, the water table's very high to put a foundation in and stuff like that would be very costly. It is not impossible, but it really would be quite costly because of the situation. And where the main pool and where the bathroom facilities are is such a distance away, the enclosure would not be conducive in the winter. Also, the parking lot is not paved. There's no stormwater management there. And I know Kevin's on the planning board with me, and we spend an awful lot of time on stormwater management. So in the winter, in climate weather, plowing that would be impossible. Stormwater management would be impossible over there because of the water table and so on. So we felt that that wasn't a viable site for that. We began then start thinking about maybe a possible redevelopment site to put that in. Much like with the ice skating rink, that's in a redevelopment site. And we were able to facilitate that. And we started looking at many different sites. Fast forward to 2025, 2026, we now have a new superintendent of schools. We now have a new school business administrator. and a new Board of Education from when it was back then. We are currently exploring the possibility of doing exactly what we set out five, six years ago, and we are having conversations with now the new superintendent and the new school business administrator to look at that possibility now that we're not going to potentially build a new high school, from what I understand, is to use that grant money and build a facility there that the high school students can use. And we're just exploring this option. But I want to assure the public that that grant hasn't been spent. We've looked at options, and we're now circling back with the Board of Education and the new superintendent to explore the possibility of doing it there. It makes sense to us. It made sense to us seven years ago. Greg Pergulski, who was the Director of Planning and Engineering, who was heavily involved with Crystal Springs initially, weighed in on that, Keith Kipp, and our staff. So this is an ever-evolving item. There's nothing made up. The money has not been spent. We are still exploring locations. We still have all of that grant money there. We do have a meeting scheduled with the mayor, the superintendent, the township engineering department, the school administration, and myself. uh within the next couple of weeks to discuss not only that but other items that we'd like to see come to fruition including you know shared use of facilities shared use of athletic fields and so on so i wanted just to put out to the public a statement regarding that because there's a lot of misinformation that's out there and i'd rather them understand it so thank you for your time that's all i have for this evening

Thank you. Our Township Attorney.

There's nothing to report this evening. Thank you, Council President.

Thank you. Township Clerk.

Just a quick report on the upcoming primary election, which will be held on Tuesday, June 2nd. If you are not registered to vote, tomorrow, May 12th, will be the last day to do so for this upcoming primary election. Once again, the last day to register to vote will be tomorrow, May 12th. The Middlesex Board of Elections office will be open until 9 p.m. on May 12th to accept all new voter registrations as well as amendments. Their office is located at 26B Kennedy Boulevard here in East Brunswick. Some exciting news, a new state law was approved that grants eligible 17 year olds the right to vote in this upcoming primary election. Under the new Voter Empowerment Act, a 17 year old who turns 18 at the general election, which will be November 3rd, will be eligible to cast a ballot on June 2nd. This law empowers young voters to take an active role in shaping the future of their communities. So that is exciting. So if you're a 17 year old, if you're 17 and you'll be 18 at the general election, you are able to vote for this coming primary election. Early voting. For those who need to vote before June 2nd, which is the day of the election, early voting will be held here in East Brunswick at the Community Arts Center on Tuesday, May 26th through Sunday, May 31st. Once again, it will be at the Community Arts Center. The polls will be open from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and then from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., the last day of early voting, which will be May 31st, Sunday. For those who are registered to receive a mail-in ballot, just a friendly reminder, please return your ballot. And there are three ways to do so. You can submit your ballot by mail at no cost to you whatsoever. You can drop it off at the Board of Elections located at 26B. Kennedy Boulevard here in East Brunswick or conveniently utilize our ballot drop box located within our municipal complex, our municipal court, and our police station parking lot. Thank you, Council President.

I have a question for Claire. You mentioned that registration, if you're unregistered, tomorrow is the last day to register. Yes. It has to be done in person or is the online portal still open for that?

The online portal is open. That's an option. You can go directly to the Board of Elections located at 26B Kennedy Boulevard or you can actually drop your application off at the clerk's office here in East Brunswick and we'll forward your application to the Board of Elections so that you can be registered to vote on June 2nd. So you can register online, in person, at the clerk's office here in East Brunswick, or with the Board of Elections at 26B Kennedy Boulevard.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to our council member reports. Any council report?

I'll be here.

Nothing that way? Nothing? Okay, perfect. Thank you. All right, that takes us right on to the public, for the good of the cause, public statement. Ms. LaFleur, would you please read that?

The public comment portion of this meeting is to allow the public to bring to the council's attention their concerns or comments. In accordance with NJSA 10-4-12A, and the East Brunswick Rules of Council, the Council asks the public to limit their comments to five minutes or less. At the conclusion of the statements or questions from a member of the public, the Council President, at her discretion, may choose to respond or not respond.

Okay, thank you. So we're going to open this up to the public. If anybody would like to come speak, please go to the podium. Good evening. Hello.

My name's Laura Weisberg, and I live at 23 Hershey Road, East Brunswick, since August of 2000. I want to thank you for your comments about Crystal Springs. That's why I'm here, to talk about Crystal Springs. I've had a family membership at Crystal Springs for 26 years. I've spent countless hours there with my children and hope to do so with my future grandchildren. Crystal Springs was one of the main draws of East Brunswick when I was looking at towns to move to. It benefits not only our town's residents, but also many people in neighboring towns since there are few large pools in our area. I know the goal is to move Crystal Springs towards self-sufficiency financially. and I applaud and strongly encourage that effort. I also support maintaining the pool, even if it would require township funds to cover a deficit. However, I believe there's much to be done to improve usership of Crystal Springs so the township would not have to do this or they could reduce the financial burden. The most important point I want to make tonight is that the number one reason that Crystal Springs has lost East Brunswick membership and also daily patrons is its reduced hours. I've been voicing this concern for several years to the Crystal Springs management and any other officials that would listen. On a community group chat with 316 members that I happen to be in, an initial discussion of this topic elicited many responses within minutes of the topic being posted with residents unanimously saying they dropped their memberships because of the limited hours and only because of that reason. I and many others believe it's absolutely ludicrous that a hardworking East Brunswick resident like my husband, who only has a small commute, cannot possibly make it to the pool in the summer to swim because it doesn't open until noon and a 6 p.m. closing time really means that one has to be out of the water by 5.45 p.m. with many of the pools closing by 5.30 p.m. I can't think of another town in all of New Jersey that has such limited hours. Most of the summer has substantial heat and daylight until 8 p.m., and I recall the days when Crystal Springs either closed at 8 or 7.30 p.m., depending on sunset, and also opened by 11 a.m. with earlier access for members. There are several distinct populations of patrons discouraged from joining the pool or buying daily passes due to the hours, such as working people who I just explained about, Parents who used to enjoy taking their children to the pool after camp, but it doesn't stay open late enough now to warrant that. And daily patrons who can't see the cost benefit of paying the daily rate for six hours of use, also knowing that there are no refunds for rain closings, even if one's only been at the pool five minutes when thunder sounds. I know in my many discussions with Crystal Springs Management, I've been told that there aren't enough people coming to Crystal Springs already to justify an extension of hours. Please understand, the reduced hours did not result from reduced membership. It was 100% the other way around. The reduced membership resulted from reduced hours. I also know that there's discussion about staffing, but I again believe that there are solutions for this problem. Crystal Springs is a great employer for high school and college students, many of whom can no longer easily find summer employment due to the economy and the fact that adults now often have a monopoly on jobs that were formerly given to teens and young 20-year-olds. Thank you for listening to me and I'm happy to discuss further thoughts and ideas with those in charge.

Thank you. And just to reiterate, the applications are still open. So we encourage more people to apply. We need more lifeguards. So if you know people that want to work, tell them to apply.

One of the problems that we have with keeping it over later is the extent of the staff that we need. Just the lazy river alone takes nine lifeguards. The slide itself takes three to four lifeguards depending upon volume. The regular lap pool, once again, four lifeguards, two at the splash pad, three at Sapphire Bay. We just can't get the volume of kids to become lifeguards. We begin recruiting. in november and we try to get the kids that or the young adults that work there now to sign up for the next year and usually we keep them through like sophomore year in college and but junior year they're kind of doing internships or for the career base they want we're very fortunate that a lot of the children young adults that do work there are uh siblings of previous people that have worked there we're also blessed that we have a lot of teachers that take leadership roles there and begin working at this time of the year but when you calculate all those uh expenses up uh you need about 30 additional people and with uh miners working at the park as well they're limited in the amount of time that they could work so it truly is a method mathematical problem plus a problem with how long they could work and a financing problem because remember you're open seven days a week So you got that compounded in as well. So there's numerous amounts of pools that have shut down. I was told Brookside closed down. I'm not familiar with that. The YMCA in South Amboy closed their pool because of infrastructure problems and getting qualified staff. A lot of... condo associations and apartment complexes similarly are having same problems where they're limiting the hours simply because with the increase in minimum wage costs and the sheer volume of people they need, they've limited the hours because it just is impossible to get enough people. Likewise, why the Jersey Shores, their life hard at the beach, pretty much the same thing. They're working nine to five, and then that's it. But if we were able to get more staff and we were able to get more people that were interested in working, but basically we need about 20 to 25 people a shift. And when you run it for eight hours, you run out of staff. It's an issue, not only here, but other places as well. Thank you.

You can't. I'm sorry. Sorry, that's the rules. Yeah, sorry. Yes, come to the podium, please.

Michael DeLucia, 28 Parker Street, East Brunswick. I had a couple questions. One was, when I was looking at the budget, all those numbers that are in the budget all have to do with the expenses for this township and a township only. Is that correct?

Our budget?

Yeah, your budget, right. Okay. So when I did see the pilot program, okay, and it says $3,782,000, I guess is the new number. So the thing is that, you know, I've said this, and I've said this in the past, and now the Board of Education is also saying it, okay? So what happens is that money came into your budget. It didn't come into the Board of Education's budget. So I didn't see $1.8 million extra in the Board of Education's budget, which would be about 60% of what you have here. So when I say that they're not getting their 60%, they're not, okay? And they're finding this out at the state level as well, that some of these pilot programs are affecting the Board of Education's amount that they're receiving from their budgets each year. You're an employee of the Board of Education, so you should realize this. And, you know, I don't say these things because I just want to say it. You know, I was an employee from a board of education as well. And I don't get COA. I don't get that each year. And you know from being a board member, from being an education person, you know that when you get your pension, that's it. That's the bottom line. You don't get increases every year, okay? So when I live in this town, all my life, 74 years, okay? And I see this budget inflate in ways that it shouldn't inflate, okay? I want to tell you about it because you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. And this pilot program is a good thing, but it's also getting carried away. 30 years. What's going to happen to the town in 30 years? Look at how much your amounts of money have increased in 30 years. You just gave this money to all these builders, okay, and you keep giving it away. And, you know, it's okay to help them, but 30 years is a long time to help them. That's all I'm saying. And you people just don't understand that point. And when you might understand it, it might be 30 years from now, when it's too late. So you should think about these things. And here are the numbers, okay? Your boards of education are all... Losing money, okay? They go on assessed value, okay? So there's no assessed value in this pilot program. There is in a sense because it increases each year, but that doesn't help the Board of Education in any way. So, you know, you ought to think about these things, okay? And, you know, Mr. Crescilla, what you were saying also was said at the board meetings at the Board of Education. Expenses are ballooning, okay? on a lot of different things, okay? You can't, I heard them talk about clubs, why they shouldn't have clubs or... 20 seconds. You know, that's a thing. Everything is increasing, okay? So that's it.

Thank you. So I... Council President? Sure, go ahead. I would just like to ask Mr. Cresculo to, if you can... respond to the fact that the board of education does not set their budget based upon, based upon, uh, assessed value.

Sure.

And the pilot programs are just bringing more money into the council program.

Uh, president, are you okay with that?

Yep.

There, there's a lot of misconceptions about pilots. Um, uh, Pilots cause an increase in taxes or property values. The Board of Ed still gets the land value on those agreements. So let's use a particular site. Let's talk about where the ice rink is and those facilities there. That was the Wonder Factory, right? Remember when it made Twinkies and bread? It was wonderful, you know. It was underutilized. And basically we had tax appeals against that property and both the Board of Ed and the township were only getting land value. That's it. So it was underutilized, not really putting much money into the township or the Board of Ed. Likewise with Lowen's Plaza. Nobody beats the Wiz. I could tell you police officers were there all the time because we had vagrants there. So that was undervalued and dilapidated. It was messed up. So if you want to keep up with taxes and increases, you've got to evolve. But the Board of Ed get their full budget. They don't lose money. They get what they ask for in their budget. Angel can talk to that. She's the CFO. So they set their budget, and we just incorporated it into the tax bill. So the pilot is necessary to incentivize, to get the developer to come in and take underutilized, dilapidated old shopping centers and revitalize them so it becomes a positive onto the tax rolls, regardless if it's a pilot or not. The developer over at Legacy Place gave us nine acres of land, donated that, and part of the pilot agreement. You know how much that land is worth on the highway? A lot of money. Likewise, Vermella is going to have another public purpose. And I would have to ask Mr. Wendell, he's involved with the redevelopment agency, they're going to be putting in a brand new park. So you're taking properties that maybe are only giving us, you know, $1 or $2 million in tax revenue to the town, and now we're getting five times the amount of tax revenue. We'll have new restaurants there, which everybody's been asking for. Would you rather have us let the big developers just sit on that land and run those properties into the ground or revitalize the north end of town to make it something you could be proud of? So the school system gets all the money they ask for. Truly, if their budget says X, we have a 2% cap. They have a 2% cap. There's a spending cap and an appropriation cap that Angel has to work with and I have to work with. They're under the same rules. So they get their money. They get their budget. Land is undervalued, underutilized. That's a loss to the residents of this town. a true loss because it's an opportunity to bring in more money to the town. Otherwise, they're not coming. They're not going to build. You're still going to get the $1 million in assessment for land value. The Board of Ed still gets their portion of the land amount. And I hope, Mr. Wendell, that was what you were looking for.

No, I know your point 100%. Okay, hang on, hang on, hang on. We don't go back and forth. The Board of Ed ratifies their budget.

You missed my point, okay? Don't take my comments out of context.

My point was the Board of Ed ratifies their budget, it gets approved, and then we collect the money for them. Correct. They get whatever they need and that they can get approved through their 2% cap and their membership.

That's correct.

So a couple other little points I want to make is we are bound this, like every place else, by the state. The affordable housing mandate comes from the state, and we have to deal with what we're given. A perfect example, I believe it was the fourth round of affordable housing, South Brunswick challenged it because I think they, I don't know, it was like 800, 1,000 units. They went out and challenged it. It came back from the state. They lost. They spent a ton of money challenging it, number one. South Brunswick lost. And you know what they said? They said, you know what? We did look at that very, very, very closely. And you were right. We underestimated. And they got additional affordable housing added to it. So you have to understand that. We have to work around the law and at least we're looking at developing areas that are blighted. There was nothing great about what was happening on the north end of Route 18. At least that was the areas that we looked in developing. Now, I believe in, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe we have really started to receive pilot money from Legacy and certainly not from Vermella. Is that correct? We've got it.

We got a portion from Legacy.

A small portion. Yeah, because they weren't CO'd yet. Because they're not fully. So that's the other thing. We're still like in the infancy of this. It's getting close to being fully completed, but you can see it still has a ways to go. So we really haven't experienced a gluttony, as it seems like what people think, of pilot money. That hasn't happened yet. We're not there yet. Anybody else?

But yes, last year, as per what the municipality is allowed to do with the pilot money, is we did capital improvements at Warrenstorfer School. That's correct. For the Board of Ed, whereas the township paid for a parking lot at $275,000 to be repaved at no cost to the Board of Ed, which are things that we can do with pilot money.

Yeah, it has to be a capital item. Excuse me. Just wanted to make sure people know it has to be a capital improvement under the law.

It can't go towards their budget.

That is correct.

That's the other piece that people have to understand. The money that we receive from pilot cannot go towards their operating budget to help put patches on problems. It can only go to capital improvement. Okay. Anybody else from the public like to speak?

Bruce Barrett, Bradford Road. I brought some attention to the administrator a few months ago about bus shelters along Route 18, mainly on the northbound side where people congregate waiting for the bus. On the southbound side, I don't even know if the southbound bus goes anywhere except it lets the people off there, so that isn't much of an issue. i've talked to a company up north jersey that does the enclosures could possibly cost six thousand dollars i mean it could even be cheaper for cheaper ones i mean something with a bench and a three-sided enclosure just to keep you know heavy rains and stuff off these people uh and the answer was you know we don't want to maintain them well there's a lot of things you don't want to do but i mean we didn't necessarily want the 30 million dollar parking deck from the golden triangle trade off with that you know and i don't even ride a bus i just think if you're going to make everything pretty on route 18 the cars are going to go in 89 90 miles an hour now might as well have a place for the people to sit and place to get out of the rain it's pretty simple i mean it's been you know 42 years i've seen enough waste here joe there's you know up and ups and downs uh every administration and they they do the best they think they can and you know what they have so But the bus thing is just something, and I asked the council to maybe discuss amongst yourselves and look into it. I mean, even the contractor, the, what do you call it? The engineer, resident engineer, For the project on Route 18, who I've talked to a few times about different issues, he will get Earl to pour concrete pads for the bus shelters if we choose to go in that direction. So, you know, the cost of it, I mean, we can get the Boy Scouts to go and clean it up once a month or shovel once a month. And Joe being an out-of-towner doesn't like that idea. He's shaking his head down at me. But anyway, but... I'd like the council to talk among yourselves, you know, at a later date or whatever, and just think about it. And someone let me know. Maybe Mr. Wendell. I know. Well, pretty good. You can let me know at a later date. That's all I got. Thanks.

Thank you. Anyone else like to speak tonight?

I'll take Tom. Tom?

Yep.

Mr. President, panel counsel, I noticed that you had said the contract for the garbage pickup rose $480,000. Is this the second year of that contract? I think it started last year, if I'm not mistaken.

second or third maybe this may be the third and it was $480,000 excuse me and it rose $480,000 we had to budget that I'm sorry Council President?

Yeah, ask your questions and then we can, yeah. I'm writing them.

Why don't we go back the old way? It was once a week pickup. We used to put out as many pills as we wanted to. I mean, this twice a week here and then you can only put so much in. The garbage pill is too heavy to pull up. Years ago, I put out a request from one day to a two-day, and I got knocked down because it was an extra 25 cents a week per homeowner, which was $52. Then we had to buy more garbage pails, so I bought two, three more, but they picked up. There was two men on a truck that picked it up. Now with this new contract, it's $480,000 extra. Then you've got to pay for recycling. Besides, something's wrong. I mean, how many a year contract do you have with these people? I just, I think it's terrible that they rose to $408,000 and you have to pay for the recycling to get rid of it. Never heard of such a thing. Well, that's my opinion.

Thank you. Did you want to respond to anything?

Just real quick. That includes disposal, the cost of disposal, rows. Everybody pays to get rid of recycling nowadays. We used to get money for it. So the fees to get rid of recycling is everybody. You know, it's not just us. We looked, when we went out to bid this last time, none of the quarters responded. were interested in doing off the back of the truck anymore it's too much workman's comp claims too many of other type of claims all the garbage companies now are using the one arms another thing we It's not fair that one resident was putting out 30 cans worth of stuff and another resident's putting two bags, two ShopRite bags in the container. So in all fairness, we went to twice a week all year long and every other week for recycling. That's the increase. If we didn't have the one-armed trucks, it would even be more. More expensive.

If we can even get a company that would do it. That's the other problem.

Correct.

It's modernization. It's phasing out the old ways, unfortunately. If you can't get somebody to bid on it, you can't have it, right?

Correct.

Okay, thank you. Anybody else that would like to speak?

Apologies and a little bit of a pain this evening. I severely pulled my calf during an alumni rugby game last weekend. My foot's turning purple, so I wanted to keep it a little bit quick and I wasn't able to finish my speech for this week. Just wanted to quickly thank the business administrator for apologizing and excusing yourself for interrupting this evening and the last evening. I know it can be hard, but we all have to follow the rules. In addition, when you were speaking about the affordable housing obligations, you kind of lumped redevelopment and affordable housing. From my understanding that they can operate together and separately at the same time, affordable housing, COA is kind of a separate thing, redevelopment law. rehabilitation, redevelopment, condemnation, non-condemnation are separate things and they can be combined together to help facilitate that. So I just don't want residents to hear pilot and think it's all affordable housing. And if people think about affordable housing, it's all pilot. So if I'm wrong on that, please correct me. My main question, just in general, is how does the town council ensure that residents have a stake and stay informed on municipal policy in general? And more specifically, redevelopment of the mall, And then additionally, I had some few questions from the budget I missed last week. What was the dollar amount for the medical health insurance expenses increased for the year? In addition, it looks like we're taking $900,000 out of the water and sewer utilities as a surplus. I was wondering what that was for. In addition, the outstanding debt portion of the budget this year seems to have inflated. I'm not sure if that was incorrect for several years and was corrected this year. What portion of our debt service is for the ice arena? And then finally, could you just discuss the surplus fund the township has accumulated over the years? I think it's something you all should be very, very proud of, and we don't really hear a lot about it. So if you could just discuss that as well. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, Mayor. You snuck in on me. I just looked down. Mr. Criscola, do you want to answer? There's a lot of questions. So I don't know if you just kind of want to do a little quick synopsis.

It's a lot of different things. It's a lot of different things. So you have to sit through a whole budget discussion.

Which, I mean, our budget, we have a user-friendly budget. online that you can take a look at. Medical cost is a major issue. However, I think the township has done really well with that, right? Mayor, I think it was about 11% increase, which is a lot lower. 13, 13, which is a lot lower than everybody else. Yes.

So terrible that we're living in a day and age where we should be happy with a 13% increase, but that is where we're at.

Anybody else that would like to address the council? Okay, seeing none, I'm going to close that portion. And now we are moving on to our budget section. We have a resolution 26-165, the 2026 budget amendment. Ms. Waffle. Resolution. Okay. Ms. Waffle gets to have the pure pleasure of reading that, which will be very long, yes. So patients, right? Yeah.

Resolution authorizing the adoption of the amendment to the municipal budget of the Township of East Brunswick for calendar year 2026, whereas a local municipal budget for the year 2026 was approved on introduction on March 23, 2026, and the amendment of the introduced budget was approved upon introduction on the 27th day of April 2026, whereas the public hearing on said budget and the budget amendment has been held as advertised and whereas it is desired to amend the said introduced budget. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Township Council of the Township of East Brunswick, County of Middlesex, State of New Jersey, that the following amendments to the approved introduced budget of 2026 be made as follows. General Revenues Sheet 4. surplus anticipated is $8,070,000 or from $8,070,000 to $8,553,000. A total change of $483,000. Total surplus anticipated is from $8,070,000 to $8,553,000. Once again, a total change of $483,000. Miscellaneous, Section A, local revenues, fines and costs, municipal court from $525,000 to $625,000, a total change of $100,000. Interest and costs on taxes from... $560,000 to $609,760.48, a total change of $49,760.48. Interest on investments and deposits, $2,738,000. 1,002, $2,938,000. A total change of $200,000. Total Section A local revenue budget sheet 4C from $7,009,962.45 to $7,359,722.93. A total change of $349,000. $760.48. Sheet seven. Three, miscellaneous revenues. Section D, special items of general revenue anticipated with prior written consent of the Director of Local Government Services, shared service agreements offset with appropriations, interlocal service agreement, radio communications, Spotswood. From $111,011 to... $28,698.96, a total decrease in anticipated revenue in $82,312.04. East Brunswick Housing Corporation, the total amount is from $42,834 to $0, a total decrease in the anticipated revenue of $42,000. $834. Total section D, shared services or shared service agreements offset with appropriation budget sheet 7B from $153,845 to $28,698.96. A total decrease in anticipated revenue of $125,146.04. Sheet 10, section g special items of general revenue anticipated with prior written consent of director of local government services other special items payment in lieu of taxes pilot three million six hundred and fifty seven thousand that is what it was prior to three million seven hundred and eighty two thousand total change uh is a hundred and twenty five thousand east brunswick housing corporation from zero dollars to forty two thousand eight hundred thirty four dollars total change is forty two thousand eight hundred thirty four dollars special section g special items of general revenue anticipated with prior written consent of the director of local government services other items or special items sheet 10 n one surplus anticipated sheet 11 Actually, sorry, seems to have skipped something. In terms of Section G, other special items, it's $19,758,291.89. That's what it was prior on the original budget, and we're changing it to $19,758,291.89. $926,125.89. The total change for that amount is $160,834. $167,834. Surplus anticipated, sheet 11, $8,070,000 to $8,553,000. Total change is $483,000. Miscellaneous revenues, total section A revenues, through sheet 11, $7,009,962.45 to $7,359,722.93, a total change of $349,760.48. Miscellaneous revenue total section D through sheet 11, $153,845 to $28,698.96, a total decrease in anticipated revenue of $125,146.04. Miscellaneous revenue total, Section G, Sheet 11, from $19,758,291.89 to $19,926,125.84, a total change of $167,834. uh total miscellaneous revenue sheet 11 31 million two hundred thousand two hundred eleven dollars and twenty two cents two thirty one million five hundred ninety two thousand six hundred fifty nine dollars and sixty six cents a total change of three hundred and ninety two thousand four hundred forty eight dollars and forty four cents Subtotal general revenues items 1, 2, 3, and 4 on sheet 11 is $40,828,211.22. We're going from that amount to $41,700,659.66. The total change amount is $875,448.44. amount to be raised by taxes for support of municipal budget, local tax for municipal purposes, including reserve for uncollected taxes is from $44,887,798.44 to $44,012,350, a total decrease in anticipated revenue of $875,448.44. Total amount to be raised by taxation for support of municipal budget is $48,500,840,860.44 to $47,709,412. I say that again, $47,709,412. That still sounds a little off, but total change is $875,448.44. The total general budget revenue sheet is $89,410,071.61. We're going from $89,410,071.66 to $89,410,071.66. The total change is $0. um now we're proceeding to general appropriation that was revenue this is now appropriations sheet 14 east brunswick housing corporation salaries and wages we're going from zero dollars to forty two thousand eight hundred thirty four dollars total change is forty two thousand eight hundred and thirty four dollars Emergency management salary and wages are going from $98,600 to $161,600. Total change is $63,000. Other expenses, we're going from $356,000 to $375,301.04. The total change is $19,301.04. Total appropriation item 8A, within caps sheet 17A, is $51,261,447 to $51,386,500. $82.04. So total change is $125,135.04. Total operations, including contingent with caps, other expenses, is $51,230. $51,261,447 to $51,386,582.04. The total change is $125,135.04. Salaries and wages, the total change is from $26,486,487 to $26,500,000. $592,321. The total change in this item is $105,834. Other expenses included contingent, we're going from $24,775,960 to $24,794,261.04. The total change is $19,301.04. Deferred charges pool utility deficit, we're going from $600,000 to $630,000. Total change is $30,000. Total deferred charges and statutory expenditures, municipal within caps. We're going from $10,385,035 to $10,415,035. The total change is $30,000. H-1, total general appropriation for municipal purposes within caps. We're going from $61,646,482 to $61,000,000. eight hundred and one thousand six hundred seventeen dollars and four cents so total change is a hundred and fifty five thousand one hundred thirty five dollars and four cents we're on our last page we're almost there probably two more minutes um sheet 20 is tax appeal refunds we're going from 1.4 million to 1 million 370 000 the total change is a decrease of 30 000 The total change is $30,000. Total other operations excluded from CAF's Sheet 20A, we're going from $5,367,069 to $5,337,069. The total change or difference is $30,000. Sheet 22, shared services agreements, communications agreement, police, salaries, and wages. We're going from $63,000 to zero. The total change is $63,000 or a decrease of $63,000 in appropriations. Other expenses, $48,000. We're going from $48,000 to $28,698.96. This is a decrease in appropriation of $19,301.04. East Brunswick Housing Corporation, we're going from $42,834 to $0. A total change is a decrease in appropriation of $42,834. Total Interlocal Municipal Service Agreement Sheet 22B, we're going from $153,834 to $28,698.96. This is a total change or deduction in the appropriation of $125,135.04. Total appropriations excluded from caps, sheet 25, we're going from $5,585,366.88 to $5,430,231.84. This is a total deduction of $155,135.04. Detail. Salaries and wages, sheet 25, are going from $108,474 to $2,640, a total deduction of $105,884. Other expenses, Sheet 25, we're going from $5,476,892.88 to $5,427,591.84. This is a total deduction of $49,801.04. Sheet 28, H-2 total general appropriations for municipal purposes excluded from CAPS. We're going from $24,113,589.66 to $23,958,454.62. This is a deduction of or a difference of $155,135.04. Total appropriation excluded from caps. We're going from $24,113,589.66 to $23,958,454.62. This is a total change of $155,135.04. Subtotal general appropriation. We're going from $85,760,071.66 to $85,760,071.66, a total change of $0. Total general appropriations, we're going from $89,410,071.66 to $89,410,071. $89,410,071.66. The total change is zero. H-1 total general appropriations for municipal purposes within CAPS. We're going from $61,646,482 to $61,801,617.04. The total change in appropriation will be $155,135.04. Operations excluded from CAPS shared services agreement. We're going from $153,834 to $28,000. $698.96. The total change is a deduction of $126,135.04 from the appropriation. Total appropriations excluded from caps, we're going from $5,585,366.85. to $5,430,231.84. This is a difference of $155,135.04. Total general appropriation is $89,410,071.66 to a balance of $89,410,071.66. In terms of the pool utility, the amendments to that budget is being made as follows. Dedicated revenues from pool utility operating surplus anticipated. We're going from $51,930.15 to $0. This is a total change of $51,900,000. $3,930.15. Pool fees, we're going from $1,200,869 $69.85 to $1,219,500. This is a difference of $18,630.15. Deficit, we're going from $600,000 to $630,000. This is a change of $30,000. For the pool utility, that's... The total parking utility revenue, pool utility revenue is 8,861,860,300 dollars to 1,857,000. The total change is a decrease of 3,300 dollars. The pool utility appropriations. We're going from appropriations for pool utility, deferred charges, emergency authorizations. We're going from $198,027 to $198,030, a total change of $3. Statutory expenditures, social security system. We're going from $47,073 to $43,770. This is a difference of $3,303. And the total pool utility appropriation is $1,860,300. We're going from that amount to $1,857,000. The total difference is $3,300. And that's all. Thank you. Thank you.

So we are at a public hearing for the budget amendment. If anybody would like to speak on this topic, please come to the podium.

Michael DeLucia, 28 Parker Street. I'm glad you were able to find this extra money, okay? But at the same time, when I mentioned that extra $125,000 that came for the pilot program, why wasn't that in the original amount? Or was it missed from somehow, or what? I don't understand that. No, no comment. Okay, well, anyway.

Anybody else like to speak? Okay, I'm going to close the public portion. And we need a motion. So moved. And second?

Second.

Roll call, please.

Councilman Bohol? Yes. Councilman McEvoy? Yes. Councilman Wendell? Yes. Councilwoman Winston? Yes. And Council President Zimbicki?

Yes. Okay. We have Resolution 26-166, which is the budget adoption. May I have a motion, please? So moved. And second? Second. Thank you. And roll call.

council member hall yes councilman mcavoy councilman i'm not i'm not ready yet that's 20 that's uh resolution 26 hyphen 166 yes the the budget adoption that miss lawful just read councilman wendell yes councilwoman winston yes and council presidents and biggie yes

Okay, moving on to the consent agenda. Does anybody need anything removed?

Just explain.

Okay. May I? Yeah.

Mr. Casculo, I guess resolution 26-171. Let's get a little background on that.

There's three that are similar there, the monies that were received, and now they're being put into the budget.

This is the Arts Commission one.

Right. So now that we have adopted the budget, in order to put revenues into there, just like revenues we may have received a couple of weeks ago. Now that it's adopted, we have to do a chapter 159 to now insert it into the budget. So this is money that a grant has been given by Middlesex County to each of those organizations through their historic arts commission grant program that we applied for and now we've received. So we're inserting it into the budget.

It looks like it's more money than it is. It's a mistake with the zeros. It's $3,500, not $35 million. There's a big difference.

Oh, yeah. Sorry.

And Mr. Crescula, while I have your ear, grant money now totals what under the Cohen administration? It's got to be close to... It's got to be close to... A lot.

Close to a lot. We have a very large spreadsheet with that. I could get that out to the council.

That would be good for the next one.

Be glad to do that. We just keep a running list of all the grants that we've gotten over time. Thank you. Certainly.

So that same concept applies to three of the resolutions, 170, 171, and 172. So they're all grant money that's been received and now being inserted into the budget. For that anybody else need anything?

Oh comment Okay, so I'm looking for a motion for 26 167 through 26 185 1.5 million dollars that's the water line that's going underneath root one was a grant that we got from the state in New Jersey for our water system as many people know and That's a major water line that goes underneath Route 1 right by Riders Lane. It's the main area that water comes into the town from, and then from there we provide water to the entire town, and we sell it to Spotswood, South River, Helmetta. And Milltown. And Milltown. Okay. So there's a lot of people that depend on that water line. It's failed twice. One's not that long ago. No. There was one a bunch of summers ago right before 4th of July on our side of Riders Lane. The other time was not that long ago on the New Brunswick side of Riders Lane. And we're just desperately afraid that if that were to happen under Route 1... It's our line. We would have to pay to shut down Route 1, pay to fix that, pay for all the work involved on repairing Route 1. So we would really like to get that work done before the 60-year-old line fails. So that's what that money was for. It was approved a summer ago, but the reason it's entering the budget now is because the state's giving us the money. So that's why. Right. Right.

And I beg your pardon, Council President. I saw the mayor's hand go up as we were getting ready to move on to the consent agenda. Once again, accept my apology.

Sure. I believe we had a motion and a second, so we just need a roll call vote.

Can we get a motion?

We can. Can we do that again? Can we get a motion and a second? I think it was you, Ms. Wins. Yeah, thank you. And then a roll call vote.

Council member hall. Yes. Councilman McEvoy.

Yes.

Councilman Wendell. Yes. Councilwoman Winston. Yes. And council president from Vicki. Yes.

Okay. That takes us to the good of the cause. Can anybody in council have anything for the good of the cause?

Council president, I'd just like to thank you for, uh, mentioning Mark Goodzak tonight in the passing. him last week his family has been very active in town with four boys and a wife who works within the school system and you know I went to high school at Mark and he's so did Dana but very active long time resident for town and you know I'll be sadly missed

Madam President, I just I would be remiss if I just didn't thank the entire staff for their work on the budget Getting that together It's a big team effort. It's not one department. It's everybody in the town and Another good part of doing the audit tonight in the order review This was the first time in my 24 year career in government that the order hasn't visited me about particular items um in order to get it facilitated so when i saw it on the budget i was like well you know he did come talk to me about anything because good news, there wasn't anything. So thanks, a special thanks to Angel, the department heads and all the members of the staff that really looked at the deficiencies with the purchasing laws and making sure we have the quotes and making sure all the backup is loaded into our computer systems, which I think is what Kevin was alluding to before. the data was there so when we got the request to upload the data which was a lot believe me it was there it was concrete there was no coming back and saying hey we're missing that where is it and looking through paper files to look for things or bill payments it was all there and it's a special thanks to the entire staff for putting those controls in place so just to thank you to everybody

Yeah, and I think it's also worth noting that seven years on the Board of Ed, we've done every single year there were audits. Ten years now as mayor, there's always something. There's some little finding, how you handled petty cash in a student account. They always find something. There was nothing, nothing this year. No findings, no adverse findings. And I don't think that it's anything other than being really careful about how we handle the public's money. So I appreciate the work that's being done in the finance department. And thank you, Angel.

and the time that you spend with all of us to go through every line item and every detail. We appreciate that very much so that we have a good understanding of everything that's happening. Um, a couple other things. These friends of junior police Academy registrations open. It's a great program for the kids in the summer. Um, please consider, um, registering the Fishing Derby is June 6th from 8 to 11 at Dahlenbach's. And of course, our Memorial Day celebration, Memorial Day comes a little earlier this year in the month, will be Sunday, May 24th at 10 a.m. in our municipal complex area where our memorials are located. Anybody else? May I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. second second and voice vote yes all right thank you everybody our next meeting by the way which i said i was doing and i forgot to is not when it normally is it will be may 28th thursday tutorial memorial day