Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good evening everybody. Welcome to this budget workshop of the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors. We will start our workshop as we start every meeting with the pledge of allegiance. So please stand and join us. Miss Corpal, would you please call roll? Mr. Kizak, here. Miss Kaine here. Miss Hannah here.

Also have township manager Mr. Rodlin. I don't have it in front of me. I'm sorry. And township um assistant supervisor Mr. Vala. Um we also have department heads in attendance tonight. Thank you, Miss Corbal. Um, so our first agenda item tonight for our budget workshop is an overview of the 2026 budget process. And uh, for folks uh, I don't know if folks just came in, we do have, uh, hard copies of the presentation in the back for anybody who wants one. [Music]

Okay,

okay, thank you very much. uh and welcome. This is our third formal budget workshop for the development of the 2026 budget. Uh we had our first one in August where we review capital requests submitted by department heads and also reviewed uh the existing 5-year capital plan. We had our second last Monday uh which kicks off the month of October for us where we discuss revenue after the regular meeting of the board of supervisors. Uh and tonight we are going to discuss uh the operating budget and add delete requests from uh the department heads. Uh and after this presentation there will be uh public comment unless the board sees it fit to take public comment during the presentation uh which is certainly up to the board. Uh on this uh PowerPoint slide is the budget calendar. This is on our website. This just details every um aspect of the public development process of the budget. Uh as you'll see in the month of October, we meet almost every Monday. Uh so we met last Monday on revenue. Tonight is operating budget which is a slight change. We originally expected to discuss capital again tonight. Uh next Monday is going to be capital and then we'll be back in November to present the um proposed draft budget on November 17th. So for tonight, our mission for tonight um is to essentially to begin a conversation and to enable the board of supervisors to give feedback to the community and to the department heads as well as commun uh feedback from the community on what is being presented from them uh and what is being presented and offered in the ad delete request for operating. So specifically this is not the draft budget, right? We are not proposing a budget tonight. We are proposing conversation about budget figures that the board of supervisors uh might find interesting from our department heads. The proposed budget will come in November. And that'll be based on feedback that we've been receiving throughout this process.

I I seem to be getting a mouse that's squiggling on the screen. I'm not sure how to stop that. Not sure that's you.

Yeah, I know it's me, but I don't know how to make that stop. So maybe it can can help me out with that. Okay. Thank you. So the 2026 budget development process. Um, this process has been led, you've heard me say if you've been attending our meetings, by an interdep departmental team um that has been u that is combined of both leadership of the township department directors as well as uh members of the finance team and of the township manager's office. Their job is to receive feedback from the department heads as it relates to the budget and help pressure test what might get into a public meeting. Uh so when we're here tonight looking at what is being presented, this is not the first time that it's been presented uh to the leadership of the township. uh it's been vetted, it's been processed, there have been discussions around it uh to ensure that it is aligned with priorities of the board of supervisors and of the township uh the comprehensive plan, various codes that we have and all of that. Um all that to say that at this point, you know, we're ready for prime time and we're ready for feedback from the board as we present it. Um the finance department has developed 2025 projections which we're going to go over tonight. Uh and we're also going to discuss previously discussed capital costs um that were reviewed in August and that we'll review again last night. As you see numbers as we go through this, understand, and I can't say this clearly enough, this is not the proposed budget for next year. These are conversation pieces that we're putting into context to inform uh the discussion that the board might have to be able to provide us feedback as we get ready to present the proposed budget in November. Any questions from the board? Okay, I know there was a lot of disclaimers and so now we're going to jump into it.

I can't hear you. Okay.

Uh uh the last thing that I'll say as we get ready, this presentation that you have tonight is designed to be reviewed in um consultation with the comments received by myself, by the assistant uh township manager, and by department heads. If you review only this PowerPoint without the com commentary that's associated with it, it would be otherwise incomplete. So, as we hope that this will uh circulate through the community to provide that information, we encourage them to listen back to the recording of this meeting to be able to see the complete information uh with our color commentation over the next however long this meeting lasts. In addition, in case we are wind up here uh tonight, any members of the community, if you need to get up and stretch, feel free to check out the Middletown Township Wax Museum over Nick's right shoulder. Uh we have lots of really interesting poster boards that provide context into uh some of the areas that the township spends its money and what that is doing for our infrastructure. Uh you'll see that we've sort of um created visuals around what the infrastructure investment and replacement cycles look like with the current funding and what targets might be uh to provide some of that into context. Uh additionally, we have uh gear for the fire department and then um uniform outfits for the police department with price tags attached to them to be able to provide into context, right? What does it actually cost to out a firefighter? What does it actually cost to outfit a police officer so that they can be ready to perform their duties? Um, all of this is to be able to appeal to the different types of learners that might attend our public meetings.

Why don't we keep moving through the presentation while they're working on the tech. Perfectly good. I think we I think we are up. All right. So, for the next slide, one thing we want to hammer home. Uh, our residents pay Thank you very much. Uh, our residents pay a number of Oh, we have a menty question. Oh, thank you, Mr. Balla.

Yes. Thank you. So for all the folks in the audience and for anybody who might be tuning in live at home, if you take out your uh smart device if you have one in hand uh and go to mnty.com uh we also have uh some devices here in the room for anybody who might need one. Um and the code up there, excuse me, is 86465780. This is an opportunity for you to provide real time and interactive feedback. And so this is completely anonymous by the way for those who haven't attended our previous meetings.

And this initial question, we just have the one and we'll have a few uh later in the evening. Uh this is just simply asking on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the existing services that you receive uh by different service areas of the township? I always enjoy this type of public engagement that we have. Yeah, we originally kicked this off at the August capital meeting. And

just to add some color to what you're seeing on the screen, the big circles that are sliding in real time as folks are making submissions is the average of everybody who is completing this real time. The waves reflect the individual responses. So overall, we're seeing uh police is getting about a 9 and a half out of 10. Uh fire service is about 8.7 out of 10. Stormwater maintenance 6.3 out of 10. Parks and recreation 9.4 out of 10. Customer service generally 8.9 uh out of 10. And overall an 8.7 out of 10 level of service.

Okay. There'll be other menty questions as we move forward. Uh, so your real estate tax bill for the average Middletown Township resident um in Middletown Township is $560. That might be astonishing when you look at the totality of your real estate tax bill. Uh, but that's because the balance is going to schools and the county. The existing deficit, uh, which you're going to hear us talk a lot about, we've talked a lot about it in previous meetings. This is a reminder. Currently, $2.8 million. Uh you heard me say earlier our finance department is doing projections and modeling on our current expenses and revenues to determine how that might shake out. It looks like we're going to come in about $800,000 under budget, which is a good thing. So that actual number is looking to be about $2 million, which we'll continue to refine uh as we move towards the end of the year. Okay. So changes in the 2005 projected budget. Mr. Valo.

Yes, thank you. So, these are changes that are as a deviation from the adopted 2025 budget that staff is recommending uh be incorporated into the final numbers and are reflected in the numbers you're about to see tonight. Both of them pertain to storm water. Uh so, as the board and community might recall, uh this is the first year we instituted a stormwater impact fee. Uh the recommendation at the time from the advisory committee was to show a $200,000 transfer from the stormwater fund into the general fund for maintenance. Um as uh new administration has taken place and there's been further discussion at the staff level about that. Uh we feel that it is most appropriate to instead of just a general transfer to the general fund to support general operations of public works department which includes storm water maintenance. uh staff is recommending be beginning in 2026 that by the hour as those operations are actually happening for storm water maintenance that the storm water fund uh be charged accordingly. Um and so essentially for 2025 purposes there was a transfer contemplated uh that the staff is recommending not be made from storm water into general. So that's number one. Number two is actually moving funds in the opposite direction. So when the storm water impact fee was developed, uh the initial plan was for the township for its own property. So that would be this building and the parking lot here, uh some of our parks that have a large parking area, uh for the township originally not paying into the fee. Um again, staff and actually the stormwater advisory committee has talked about this pretty extensively and feels that it is most appropriate for the township itself. Even though, you know, yes, to the average person, it sounds like we're putting money into one pocket into the other, it's really the township for its own uh creation for its own impervious area paying its fair share uh into the stormwater fee to support the overall cost of maintaining that infrastructure. And that number, and this would be an annual figure, which we're recommending be uh done starting in 2025, is about $54,250.

And that's collectively across all of our properties. So, one of the things that we're aiming for is for these funds to be self- sustaining, right? We want them to be structurally imbalance. And so, as we look to make sure that the revenue is appropriate, we also need to understand that the expense is appropriate and weigh them against each other. Um, so if we're doing one but not the other, then it's going to be out of balance, which could um negatively impact one fund or another. Um, the way that I think about a storm water fee is sort of like a water fee, right? We use water, we use sewer, we pay a water bill. Well, the township is also creating storm water uh runoff. It also has you know MS4 obligations. So paying into that into that fund is not dissimilar to that. Questions or feedback from the board. Okay. Uh so developing the 2026 operating budget tonight's focus general fund, storm water fund, parks and recreation fund and fire fund. So this is not the total budget. These are probably the four main ones uh in the budget that people talk about the most. And so we're going to be diving in.

Okay. So, uh, Mr. Vo, I think this slide is you.

Sure. Uh, so the draft, the budget that you're about to see, um, an emphasis on the word draft. It is still very much being worked on and changed. Uh, this reflects the current work product that we have. Um, this reflects the existing assumptions and known changes. So, I believe on the next slide you're going to be seeing uh you know that's wage increases that are uh part of the township's collective bargaining agreements across all four units that we have. It includes known changes to insuranceances as well as some good assumptions and projections for the ones that we don't have definite figures for. And so, it's very important to stress that the number that you're about to see reflects all of the essentially previous decisions and cost of providing government services without adding anything new. and we're going to be talking about what those new things are as a separate conversation later tonight.

So, as part of that, we're also proposing a few minor uh structural changes. Uh and those structural changes relate mainly to public works and fire. Uh so, as you sort of heard about public works and um allocating time to the storm water fund as it may be appropriate, uh we want to take their time out of the highway aid fund. So, the uh township receives highway aid fund from the commonwealth for roads that we take care of. Uh that's actually part of the gas tax. Um, we want to be able to use all of that funding towards paving. So, we're currently paving about $500,000 a year. We think that that needs to be increased substantially. We actually have a poster board about that. Um, that'll be a conversation for next week. Um, it is sort of an a significant accounting challenge uh to document the time at public works uh that might be eligible for the highway aid fund and then to book that to the highway aid fund. If we're going to increase paving, an amount equal or greater than the highway aid fund. It becomes a cleaner accounting process in order to just say, okay, all of this highway a fund is received is going to be used towards paving and then we'll uh manage the public works time in the general fund. Uh the highway a fund is also audited by the state from time to time and it's a pretty intense audit. So if we can sort of get rid of potential mistakes that that could exist there, we can reduce a liability. Um and again, this is sort of predicated on a discussion that we'll have next week about increasing the potential amount for paving. Um, in addition, career firefighters. We are proposing to move the total cost of career firefighters into the fire protection fund. Uh, that fund is um statutoily enabled to support career firefighters. So, there's not necessarily a need uh to hit the general fund uh if we can pay for that out of the fire fund, assuming that there's enough revenue going into the fire fund to support that. Uh, and so that can provide some relief to the general fund um and move that over into the fire fund. Importantly, that doesn't uh reflect administration of the fire department or um inspections with the fire marshall's office, which would not be permitted to come out of the fire fund.

And if I could add to that really quick, so in 2025, there was a budgeted half a million dollar transfer to the general fund because there is more cost in this year being incurred to the fire fund than there was revenue. And so the general fund was underwriting the cost of providing fire services already. Uh so the numbers you're seeing tonight do not contemplate that continuing into the future, but just know that that is uh one structural change that we're talking about from 25 to 26.

And again, this goes back towards the overall theme of trying to help these funds become structurally imbalanced between revenue in and expense out. And to accurately reflect the expenses that those funds are responsible for. Okay. So you heard Mr. I'll say that we are not any elective proposals that you hear tonight or throughout this process are not contemplated in the final numbers we'll see tonight. However, there are um costs that we say are sort of non-negotiable uh that are being absorbed by the budget year-over-year. So, this is a listing of some of those costes costs for next year. So, there are four 4% wage increases across the four collective bargaining contracts that have been previously approved. Our healthcare insurance premium is going up 6.6%. Uh we project that our workers compensation premium will increase about 13% which is a trend uh that we've seen year-over-year. Uh we have a decrease always good to see a decrease of 18% and the non-uniform pension MMO which is due to some retirements. Uh the 3.7% increase to the uniform pension MMO which is equivalent to the trend that we've been receiving. Um and the budget also contemplates all staff positions as filled. Any questions about these assumptions? So, as we talk about how the budget is increasing year-over-year, again, it's not related to anything elective. It's related to things that are already contemplated in the budget that have annualized increases. And so, this is what that looks like. And I have really apologize for how small these numbers are. I think everyone has it in front of them. You might be able to zoom in or if you brought your magnifying glass, you'll be ready to go here. Uh but this is showing you what a multi-year budget looks like and then showing you the percent change as both a dollar figure and a percentage that variance of budgetto budget um both the 2025 budget and the 26 budget with the no elected proposals included. Anything to add here, Mr. Balo?

Uh no, nothing really to add. Uh just to emphasize again, the two columns on the far right show changes from budget to budget. Uh so you're seeing um a few increases and a few decreases. And some of the bigger numbers you're seeing there are either a result of just very small changes or you know the number was going from 20 to 50 and that shows as a 250% increase. Um and that's just the kind of the product of having small numbers or it reflects some of the changes that we talked about previously is stuff coming um structurally from different funds long term.

Questions here. This is what this looks like for the stormwater fund. You'll note that there uh is theoretically a better performance in 2026, which is due to a lack of currently planned capital projects. 2025, we had two capital projects. The larger one being the Langghorn Gables project for 1.6 million. That's actually going to be a multi-year hit because of the timing of the project. So, the actual proposed budget in November will contemplate how much of that project is completed in 25, how much is completed in 26, and make an adjustment uh there. But because there's no contemplated project in 26, this is what this fund looks like.

Have the grant that we received.

Yes. So just importantly, we're looking at the expenditure side. So we're only looking at the bottom line. In 2025, there is the $744,000 grant that is supporting the Langghorn Gables project. And just to add some color to what Mr. Ratliff said is the projection number and the budget number you're seeing for 2026, the 1 million and the 2.3 million numbers there, that reflects projects that are already underway and how they're actually going to be expended and how we're cutting the checks uh as it relates to the turn of the new year. Uh and I believe that number also reflects some of the capital projects that are uh proposed um that we'll be talking about in greater detail next week. Uh but just showing this because we're also talking about storm water maintenance, we felt it was appropriate to be talking about this year, too. And last but not least is the fire fund. Um you can see again this is I'm sorry this is parks and Mr. Valo. So not last there's one after this.

Sure. So the parks and recreation fund uh unlike pretty much any other department of the township uh operates entirely within its own fund. It is supported by two primary sources. Number one is a 1.92 mil uh real estate tax assessed annually which is equivalent to um just under a million dollars of revenue in this fund and then it is also supported by a uh recreation program fee. So the summer camp anytime that you're using one of our services electively the revenue from that is coming in here. Looking on the expense side it is largely staff and some of the contractors that provide those classes. Uh there is currently um a significant amount of park maintenance that occurs within the public works department as well as the staff uh that support the cost of this department. Um and this fund for a couple of years now has been pretty much operating on a razor thin if not an operating deficit. Uh and that is not expected to change even though we are pretty aggressively looking to increase the cost of program fees for this fund. not a dissimilar story on the fire fund. So, you'll see the 2025 budget uh budget projection is less than budget, which is due mainly to some staff unanticipated staff retirements. Um, in addition, the year-over-year budget for 2025 budget against 26 budget uh is minimal at best with a 3.9% change. Uh, but the real story here is income against um expense, right? So, you're looking at a $725,000 deficit in 2026. We had the same thing budgeted 2025 uh at 136. Uh but again, there was some relief there that was unanticipated. Uh you know, so as we look towards trying to achieve structural balance with these funds, this is going to be another one that we have to pay attention to.

And again, just to clarify, uh for this fund, this is showing $500,000 coming in from the general fund. So what you're seeing there from budget 25 to budget 26 is going from an operating loss of 137,000 to an operating loss of 725. That's because you are basically getting a $500,000 band-aid in 2025 from the general fund that is not shown in 2026. So that year-over-year increase is really 88,000 instead of the 588.

So and again as we develop the 2026 budget and the staff is obligated to provide a proposed budget in November. um that's going to have to be dealt with, right? Do we want to figure out how to sort of make these funds structurally imbalanced? Do we want to continue to make those transfers from the general fund? It's perfectly acceptable accounting practice. There's nothing that says that you can't do that. Uh it just sort of depends on the policy priorities of those funds in the long term, which is guidance that we'll look forward to from the board. So, what does all of that mean? We had the slide earlier that said that these are sort of the uncontrolled cost um you know that are expected for next year against the uh 2025 modeled uh deficit of 2 million. So what does this actually look like? So that anticipated 2026 deficit for an existing level of service which means no increase in service um that means no none of the proposals that you're going to hear tonight or here next week uh you know from our department heads are included in that. This is the existing level of service. That's a $3.7 million deficit. So that means that it's growing about a million dollars per year.

And just to clarify further, so going from budget to budget, last year we budgeted a $2.8 million deficit. This would be if we added no new revenue, 3.776 budgeted deficit. And so the only sugar coating that we'll probably do tonight is say because we budget worst case scenario, what you're now seeing in 2025 is we're $800,000 better compared to what we budgeted. Uh, I would expect that to be true to an extent. Um, I wouldn't put an exact number on that, but you know, worst case scenario, if you're comparing to apples to apples, that 2.8 in 2026 is now 3.77. And that's just the general fund, right? That doesn't correct. Just general fund.

So, you heard me say earlier that we have a budget team uh that is meeting what feels like all the time. uh it feels like we're spending all of our our own time with each other as we try to make sure that we're bringing u complete and helpful comprehensive information to the board of supervisors to develop the budget which is a lot of work. They're doing a great job. So, a moment of levity if I can uh one of our team members uh was discussing with their their child, their 14-year-old son. They said, you know, are you going to be home tonight? And they said, oh, I actually have a budget meeting. They said, well, didn't you have a budget meeting recently? They said, yeah, it seems like it goes on all the time. They said, well, what are you talking about tonight? They said, well, we're going to talk about taxes. is we're going to talk about the operating budget. We're going to talk about the general fund. And so this very astute 14-year-old says, "Well, how much are people paying in taxes?" And as you heard me say earlier, the real estate tax bill in Middletown Township for uh just a township is about $560. And to give a perspective of what the 14-year-old said, they said, "Oh, so if you take $560 and you divide it by 12, it's sort of like a subscription. Is the $560 that they're paying worth all the subscription of services that they get from the township?" And I have to say, I was not that astute at 14 years old. and I wound up being uh a municipal government. So, I'm excited for that 14-year-old's future hopefully in local government. Okay. So, rules of the road for recommended changes uh and what that looks like in tonight's meeting. You've heard me say all along uh you know, these are not proposals. This is not the budget. This is just a conversation and we're looking forward to feedback from the board. Um as we sort of talk about this and you know, for the board, feel free to interrupt us at any time as we attempt to get into this. Um you know, we're we're doing well. We're on slide 19, so we're actually more than halfway through this presentation. Okay, so first up is going to be recommended changes on software. So you heard the chief present in August about a police records management system. That current system is about 10 years old. Uh the new system can better integrate existing systems that they have specifically related to body camera uh and uh other um footage and evidence that they have within their files. Um the current process as he presented on in August, which he's here tonight if we

need more information about that, is incredibly cumbersome and timeconuming with officers who have to deal with that. Uh we're looking to improve the accuracy of searchability and reporting. Um which is going to create a much better streamlined process in the investigatory process. Um and then we were able to streamline sort of what that workload looks like for both administrative staff and the officers. Um that's an additional cost of $300. Um, unfortunately, police record software is not inexpensive. Frankly, no software is inexpensive, but as we look to try to figure out, you know, what efficiency looks like across departments, these are the type of things that we're up against. Uh, Chief, I don't know if you wanted to add anything else uh to these comments or if that's a basic summary. Happy to take questions from the board as it relates to this request. So, continue with software finance is having a similar challenge. Uh you've heard me say in previous meetings, we actually build the budget in Excel. Uh which concerns me greatly when you think about $32 million. Um Excel is a great tool and they're Excel wizards. Um but there's a lot of streamlining that can happen here and there's a lot of scrubbing and double-checking that they have to do in their system. In addition, finance is not just budgeting, right? It's accounting, it's payroll, it's um you know work order requests, it's approving those work orders. It's going through that entire process. It's asset management, which is a huge area of improvement for us. Um, you know, these things are very important and there are software out there that can automate a lot of this, right? Um, you know, we have members of our team who are in charge of doing what winds up being thousands of journal entries a year because we have a current software system that doesn't actually allow you to upload an Excel file or any sort of file into the system. So, we have a number of different credit card uh transaction um partners uh you know thirdparty partners who are processing credit cards. So, if you pay for a permit fee or if you pay for, you know, register for a program of Parsons and Rick, um, you know, you know, things like that, you may pay for that with a credit card. Well, all of those transactions have to be uploaded into the system through a journal entry

because we can't download a file from that party and upload it into our system. This is a huge problem, right? We have an entire staff member who's basically dedicated towards that process, uh, which is super cumbersome. And so, that's just one example of some efficiency gains that can happen there. Uh we've proposed an additional cost to evaluate uh and potentially move towards the preliminary stages of onboarding a new FIN financial management software which again is financial management. It's not just budget of $50,000. Realistically, this is a multi-year process and as we get into the evaluation process, we start looking what other life-size municipalities are doing. That budget number may come into clarity as well as what that project timeline looks like. One of the things that is in my mind for the future, a member of the public should be able to go onto a dashboard on the website and drill down into what our financial system is. Right? We've been talking about finances in a very public way for the last two months and people are asking completely legitimate questions. They should be able to get onto the website and drill down and see what that information is. Our current software system doesn't allow for that. Um, you know, sort of nuanced but totally acceptable requests are difficult to process. Uh, also makes it difficult to build a budget in the way that we are. Can I ask a question,

please? Um, so the evaluation is $50,000. Is that a typical amount for an evaluation?

The evaluation, yeah, perhaps we could have put a better word there. I think it's $50,000 if we're going to assume any cost in 2026. I think as we do an RFP, as we start looking at what our other options are, maybe go to other municipalities and see their system in real time, um, they start submitting, you know, that vendor may start submitting proposals to us that have multi-year costs, and that's where it would come into clarity. So, I think what we're trying to convey here is we'd like to start exploring this to put some money into this uh and start understanding that there's confidence that we can move forward and that there's support from the board of supervisors, but it's not going to be a one-year project. This is dissimilar to the software system for uh police department. They know exactly what they're looking for. They're ready to onboard. They know how much it costs. There's a lot more research that has to be done on the finance side. Does that answer the question?

Yeah, thank you. I agree with transparency. I appreciate that. Other questions here? Miss Hucklebridge, did you want to add anything? [Music] I think that's it for software storm water maintenance. Mr. Valla?

Yes. Thank you very much. Uh so one of the things uh shown on the poster boards behind me is storm water maintenance. This is something that we've uh talked about quite a bit more uh than we ever have in the last year, especially with a dedicated funding source for storm water infrastructure. Uh, one of the things that we're looking to do is beefing up the amount we're actually doing. And there's two components to that, especially if we're talking about doing that with our own resources, with our own staff. Uh, number one is the actual, you know, number of hours or number of people that can do that. And number two is the cost of those materials to do all of that. Uh, so what we are looking to do is work towards goals of those first two items there. So underground pipes, anyone want to take a guess about how many miles of underground storm water pipes are in the township that the township is responsible for taking care of? I think the answer's on the board behind me. I believe it's about 250 to 300 miles of storm water pipes. So just about two for every one ft or one mile of road that we take care of, you have that underground storm water pipes. Inlets 3,000 that we have that we're responsible for. So what we're looking to do is increase the amount that we are doing in those in earnest uh to make sure that the infrastructure that we have which mind you we are a township that in some respects has been built out for more than 70 years. That infrastructure if it even exists is often undersized and or deteriorating. Right behind me you have a storm water pipe. That is one example of something that we would put into the ground uh to uh upgrade uh our storm water infrastructure. A project that's happening right now in a few different parts of the township is relining. So, there's two things you can do to take care of the pipes. You can either take rip it out and put new one in, or you can actually go in and essentially put new guts on the inside of it just to, you know, be a little bit direct about it. Um, and that helps preserve the life of the pipe if the structure is good. Um, all of that takes time and, uh, costs money essentially. Um, but what we're looking to do here, and we embellish, and uh, Mr. Riff might be able to add a little bit more to it here is we're proposing adding five public

works maintenance staff that would be primarily responsible or dedicated to stormwater maintenance. They're currently doing it. Uh but what we've been hearing from the stormwater committee from the community is that it's not enough. We want more. Uh and so of that 750, we expect that about twothirds of that would be carried by the stormwater fund. We're not proposing or I should say the stormwater committee is not proposing adjusting the fee this coming year. Um, however, we are looking to uh recommend adding staff to be able to actually support. Uh, what we hear pretty loud and clear from the community is we we need more and we at the staff level would agree with that.

Two things that I want to add to that. One, uh, the 3,000 inlets that you heard Mr. Va reference does not include additional inlets that are being installed throughout the township. So, the Langghorn Gables project is installing additional inlets that connect to, you know, various piping that we're putting in the ground. So, it's actually 3,000 and counting. there are areas in the township that don't have any storm water infrastructure that we need to add or at least contemplate the addition of storm water infrastructure to there. So our maintenance burden is actually growing. That's number one. Number two, as we look at these very large projects, there may be opportunity to be able to insource some of these. So we spent $1.6 million in construction for the Langghorn Gables project. It's about 33,100 linear feet of piping. There are townships smaller than us that are doing similar projects for significantly less because they're already planning to absorb that staff cost. through but to dedicate them to that project and then all of a sudden doing the project is um about purchasing the materials that becomes their their price along with engineering is maybe necessary. The engineering on that project was about $200,000. So while we're looking at $750,000 split between the storm water fund and the general fund, we're also looking at be able to increase the longevity of the current revenue stream into the stormwater fund because we wind up decreasing the cost of those projects. And as a good segue into the next slide about engineering, uh we believe that there is um a lot of skill set amongst our team. Uh and we also have uh very high quality um equipment um to be able to accomplish a lot of these projects in house.

Before we move to the next slide, can I just ask a question about storm water? Um because I guess one of the concerns I foresee coming from residents is we convened a a committee, a stormwater advisory committee of residents who met um extensively and ultimately agreed upon a recommendation for a storm water fee which we then implemented. And so that fee is now in effect. And so how do we how do we justify to residents this idea that that fee isn't going to be uh enough to uh provide the storm water maintenance that is required in the township. I mean, isn't wasn't that the purpose of the stormwater fee?

Yeah. No, that's a great question. So, two things are happening here. One, that storm water fee that's in place now doesn't actually cover all of our cost over a 10-year process for both storm water maintenance of existing infrastructure, the implementation of new infrastructure, and then also, and probably most expensively, our what's called our total maximum daily load plan, which is part of our MS4 permit. That stands for municipal separate storm sewer system. That's a federal and state unfunded mandate of storm water quality projects that we have to do. the stormwater fund doesn't actually receive enough money in order to take care, pardon me, the stormwater fund doesn't actually receive enough funding to take care of all three of those categories of projects. So, what we're trying to figure out internally is how can we make our expenses go down, right? If we can't increase the revenue line, which I think everyone doesn't want to increase the revenue line, which I completely understand, how can we bring our expenses down? What we're ultimately proposing here is to insource that because if we can bring staff on, we're able to um we're able to accomplish these projects in a faster timeline, which is very exciting, and also do it for less because we're paying public employees as opposed to going out um for bid, which is ultimately more expensive. So ultimately, we're trying to make this fund be more self-sustaining by creative cost cutting measures. And are we saying we're splitting the funds because we we only have the that amount for?

Yeah, I don't know that I I don't know that the amount of that the five public works maintenance technicians that were proposing to add are going to spend 100% of their time on storm water. I would love to say that they would. I would hope that in a future year we may get there. I also recognize that there are other responsibilities um in public works that you know they frankly they could use more resources to get to. I think that that's a need number one and you know for and number two there's other things that become all hands on deck that aren't storm water. So like snow plowing for example um you know if there's a snowstorm everyone's going to be out there and all hands on deck on that. Um I think as we sort of get into the first couple years and see how it shakes out understanding there's a priority on storm water. We can see what that percentage looks like.

I'm sorry. Do we already have people employed within the township that have expertise in this area or would all five people need to be hired out for to in order to do this successfully? Sure. So, we're looking at adding five additional people. The team that we have today uh is extremely talented and well equipped. Um there just simply aren't enough of them to be able to keep up with the level of service that we are hearing that the community is really expecting of us.

And there's a lot of infrastructure in the township that has to be maintained. to split that across 20 personnel, which is the size of the public works department now, uh is incredibly difficult, right? 163 miles of roads. We have hundreds of ADA ramps. You heard we have thousands of miles of storm water infrastructure. I think we mow 870 acres of grass. Um you know, which is basically a full-time job plus roadside mowing. I mean, that takes up six people, I think. Um you know, the majority of the year, six, seven months of the year for mowing. Um so, we're looking at those things, too. Other questions here? So, Mr. Vala made the great uh transition into the staff engineer. Same thing, right? So, we're, you know, we're looking at about a million dollars in engineering cost uh for a primary engineer a year. Twothirds of that is rebuild. So, that's land development um that gets rebuilt to developers or homeowners who have significant projects. So, the other third is about um general engineering in project. Those are 2024 numbers and we're trending for about the same thing in 2025. We're looking to peel off as much of that as possible to be able to do more in-house um and be able to sort of insource these projects. So that engineer becomes a partner to both the building and zoning department uh as well as the department of public works as they have project and parks and wreck frankly as they have maintenance and needs externally as well. Um they become a partner to say okay here's the things that you need uh you know here's the you know full scale engineering if necessary or sometimes sort of partial engineering in order to complete projects. uh it becomes a depart a partner to be able to do these projects at a lesser cost uh through the insourcing process. Um, interestingly, Middletown Township used to have a staff engineer. Uh I think they were the director of building and zoning and the long-term staff here talks about how much easier and simpler it was not, you know, to in order to get projects done. And I should qualify by saying that we are incredibly appreciative of our consultant engineers. They do a great job for us. They're super accessible. Um you know, they're very talented at what they do. We just recognize that there's a significant load um of projects on our on our plate and we're looking to sort

of develop a team to kind of keep those costs low internally and be able to speed up the completion of those projects. Um by insourcing some of this that $200,000 of additional cost, we're hoping to eat away at that external cost which sort of offsets as much of that as possible. So it's not necessarily a $200,000 hit to the general fund. Do we know what our current kind of engineering costs are on an annual basis? Uh it's about a million dollars. It's um about twothirds of that is uh land development process or applications from homeowners who are doing projects where we rebuild that uh to that third party to either the resident or the developer and the other third is to the township for both general and um project based.

Just a quick question. So if we do more insourcing, would that led a lead um to possible legal ramifications if you know something went wrong or you know could it leave the township open to

Yeah, I think the township is always subject to liability. I don't think there's some sort of significant increase in liability here, right? We still hold ourselves to the same standards that we hold contractors do. So, you know, if we're doing a project in-house and we're using our engineer to design that project, we may use RVE, who is the official township engineer of record to inspect that project, uh, you know, for compliance just as we would with an external process and that becomes a three-way partnership, you know, between the staff engineer, the team internally and RVE, which is not dissimilar to what's happening when we bid that project. Okay, thank you. Those partnerships are super important

and similarly there is a certain liability that is avoided by uh maintaining the land development or as Mr. Ratliff said is the rebuild stuff. uh with the tangent engineer as opposed to having it as a staff engineer. That is, you know, a common practice and we think from a liability standpoint is uh we are recommending continuing with that. Yeah. To make that very clear, we are not proposing to use a staff engineer to do any sort of major land development stuff. If there's a question, quick presentation, consultation, sure, but ultimately we would want to use the same process we're using now because it's not really costing the taxpayers anything. It's all being rebuilt to third parties.

I'll just make a an observation or a comment broadly speaking. Um, so the last two slides have recommended uh pretty significant staff increases. Uh, it's a lot of it's a lot of additional employees and at uh not insignificant expense. And so I would just say given the deficit that we are currently facing, I think if we're going to the board, well, I'll speak for myself, but I think the board is going to consider these types of staffing uh recommendations, we're going to need to really be confident that it's actually going to be a net revenue benefit for the township, right? I mean, so it's easy to say, you know, there's going to be an offset by the money we're going to save um on outsourcing engineering, but when you look at how much actually gets rebuilt, I just think we need to we need to really see those numbers and be assured of that because that's that's going to be, I would think, a difficult cell to residents when you're staring down a deficit that we're hiring all these people. We got to be able to show that that actually is going to be financially beneficial to the township. Not I get it. It's going to provide a tangible benefit in terms of the services they can provide, but it's got to be a financial benefit, too. Yeah, completely agree. I think the argument is a little bit easier to make on the stormwater maintenance technician because there's so much so much in the way of projects that need to happen and because the storm water fund is already structurally out of balance, right? The existing revenue that everyone is paying into it now doesn't cover the total cost that's there. So by insourcing a lot of that project, we're able to do those projects um at a lesser cost by using um staff by using staff uh in the public works department. It becomes a little bit more challenging and I would say the margins are a little bit thinner on the engineers. So, I completely agree that the study is appropriate. Uh, and if the board says, "Hey, you know, we're all in on uh the DPW and, you know, not so convinced on the engineers, perfectly acceptable. Um, as I already said, and I'll say it again, you know, we're super happy with the consultant engineers and we appreciate the partnership we have with them. Uh, this is absolutely not a slight on the work that they do for the township. It's just looking at creative ways to try to keep our cost down. I'm not sure what I did here. Other

questions on maintenance staff or engineer? I'll just say for what it's worth, I was I was here when we had an engineer when our director of building zoning was was an engineer and I so I I certainly recognize the value. I mean that there's no question. So it's not uh not a criticism of the recommendation.

Yeah. I mean I mean these these are challenging recommendations. Um you know the budget situation we're in now is is difficult. So we appreciate the criticality. Uh so the fire lieutenant I'm proposing to um add an officer to the uh career engine that runs Monday through Friday uh daylight hours. It's a 12-h hour truck. Uh ultimately someone on that apparatus needs to be in charge, right? If they are responding to an incident, the uh person in the officer seat who should be as best as we can the same person day in and day out that process isn't perfect. Um needs to be calling the shots, right? as there are incidents that are unfolding, as there's communication with commanding officers, many of which are in the room, by the way. Um, you know, there needs to be some sort of continuity in the leadership situation. Um, in my opinion, it's a safety issue. Um, it's expensive, it's challenging, it's certainly symbolic of the growth of the career side. Um, I'm concerned about the safety of our career staff on that engine as they're responding to incidents both in and out of Middletown Township. Um, in addition, on the inspection side, um, we have great fire inspectors. They are the same people that are on the fire engine. Um, just to clarify that as they go out, as things happen, you know, businesses might be unhappy, residents might have questions. There's not clarity now as to who is responsible because they're all of the same rank. They all have the same position. One person's like one project may be assigned to one inspector or another. So, there is sort of a hierarchy in that way. Um, but there isn't necessarily management of that crew. Again, great crew. They're doing great work. I want to add a little bit of management into there. Uh, which I think is super important in the accountability structure of that engine. Is this instead of or on top of kind of the director that we or chief that we are had planned to hire?

I I think it's going to be potentially be instead of um but that's sort of going to depend on um the internal posting um process. So if we go through sort of that recruitment and we unfortunately don't find that anyone on the current staff uh is ready to be the lieutenant, you know, we're not going to lay somebody off or I wouldn't propose to lay somebody off so that we can fill the lieutenant role. that would also create collective bargaining issues. Um, I think there's enough of a staffing demand on that career engine where we can add that position. And to add that position, we're proposing $158,000. And again, that's an all-in cost. That's not their salary. That's salary benefits in the works. I got a question. Are you planning on raising your fire?

Uh, we haven't gotten to that point. Uh, so the question was if whether or not we're planning on raising the fire tax. Uh, we haven't proposed the budget yet. that'll happen on November 17th which will deal with the totality of the budget both expenses and revenues and we'll see sort of how that shakes out. It's going to depend on the feedback we receive from the board of supervisors uh throughout this process. Um we do sort of have the internal goal of trying to retrieve uh structural imbalance of the various funds including the fire fund. questions about the lieutenant position. Uh the volunteer incentive. Um so you saw me show that a fire lieutenant is $153,000. An all-in uh firefighter is about about $150,000. Uh what I am proposing is that the board of supervisors, and I appreciate that this might be challenging in the budget situation that we have now. Um I'm proposing that the township do everything that it possibly can to retain the existing volunteer firefighters that we have in Middletown Township. Um there are about 40 of them. Uh there are about 10 volunteers roughly, give or take, across the four volunteer companies we have now that are what are we considered to be active responders. An active responder is somebody who is already certified. uh they're clear to ride on the various apparatus within their station and they maintain an active status by running 25% of the call volume. That is hundreds of calls per person depending on which station they're in. Uh so to use Langghorn Middletown for example, they run 650 700 calls per year. So 25% of that call volume is what an active responder who already has fire certifications, fire one, fire two, vehicle rescue, water rescue the works. Um they need to run 25% of that call volume and that is not during the daytime when we have the career engine. So that's overnight Monday through Friday and then all day on Saturdays and Sundays. Uh it's about 40 volunteers throughout the township that are achieving this. That is not a lot. They are providing millions of

dollars in benefits to the township. And so my opinion is that we should try to incentivize them to continue doing that work, especially as the fire service dynamic changes. There are a lot of challenges with the fire service dynamic. We talk about it all the time. It seems like every month uh you know there's some element of conversation at the board of supervisors meeting uh about the challenges with the volunteer fire service. Um I think that there is an opportunity to incentivize them at the statutory maximum of $599 which is currently $250 I think um to u any responder uh within that department as well as the admin side who are providing sort of that administrative uh process within the company. In addition I think there's an opportunity to wave their real estate and earned income tax. Uh again, I appreciate sort of the difficulty in that type of proposal, but I assure you that the benefit that we're receiving from them is significantly outweighs that cost. Uh and we want to be able to retain that for a long time. If we lost all of these volunteer firefighters, we would be building many stations, buying a lot of apparatus, which we're already proposing to do, and we'd be hiring firefighters to work multiple uh apparatus 24 hours a day. So the uh if for anyone knows what a box alarm is on the fire side, a working residential structure fire in Middletown Township requires keep me honest chiefs, five engines, two aerials, and then a Ritz team. So anyone keeping track, that's eight apparatus. I have that right. I might be off by one or two. Um that's a lot of firefighters. So if we lose these volunteers, that's what we're staring down. Uh so I think um this is something worth uh considering based on the volunteers we have now. The additional cost on the siphon is $40,000. The additional cost on the uh tax credit is $35,000, which is that total cost is less than half of one career firefighter.

Yeah. I mean, I I know again like you said, it's going to cost a career staff cost these volunteers are doing so much for the township and the taxpayers today. Um I think this I think this makes sense. Um, and I know volunt volunteer retention and recruitment is a huge um issue with the volunteer companies. They continue to tell us. So hopefully this should help.

Yeah. And I think this one is a little bit different than the other recommendations for for staff increases because I think um it's it's sort of a twofold purpose. one is making sure that we're we're we're taking care of and showing appreciation for the the firefighters and the work they do, but also there is a real clear tangible financial benefit to keeping our volunteer fire companies um strong as as long as possible. And so I think um that's something that I think everybody can understand. So I I think this is I agree. I think this is something that should be seriously considered.

I appreciate the comments. um building a full-time career fire department just to drive the point home would be as much if not more expensive than the full-time police department that we have, which is 60% of our budget. Um in addition, recruiting volunteers, which I think is great. If people want to be volunteer firefighters, I'm fully supportive of that. That's from the moment that they say yes is 18 months at earliest before they become a fully released trusted member of that crew in that volunteer station. Um, so the real benefit is retaining those that have already signed up to do that and are doing that day in and day out. Running 25% of the call call volume in our township. Other questions? [Music]

IT training. Mr. Bala.

Yes. Um so we recently deployed Office 365 and uh Microsoft Teams um on our team and we have I would say about um 40% of our staff are currently um in some sort of an office-based or primary computer role in the township. Um and we rolled out this software system and with the long-term strategy moving towards cloud-based systems uh which we are making pretty strong progress towards. Uh but one thing we want to make sure that we're using and again with an eye towards staff efficiency is making sure our staff are really equipped to understand how to utilize that system uh most effectively to make sure that they're providing the best possible service. Um and so this is a recommendation from staff uh to provide uh software training for Microsoft 365. Uh in addition, our director of planning and zoning is proposing a very public process to review and update the zoning code and the subdivision and land development ordinance. Uh both are inconsistent with the comprehensive plan. Uh you know these codes, you know, we're about I think four years in I think four or five years into our current comprehensive plan. Um sort of the next natural step after updating that comprehensive plan is ensuring your primary codes of the township are consistent with that. Um it's no secret that we've seen a a whole host of folks in front of the zoning hearing board, in front of the board of supervisors requesting, you know, either variances or, you know, uh you know, various changes or relief from these codes and they cite the same thing every time. The project is consistent with the comprehensive plan. It's inconsistent with this code. Um super cumbersome from a staff perspective, very disjointed from a public process. um and ultimately actually increasing the cost of the development process which is super challenging when we think about sort of the end effect of that you know as we try to march towards you know things like affordable and attainable housing you know one way that we can do that is try to streamline and keep low the cost of the development process um this would be a very public process hiring a third party consultant to come in you know we would do an RFP to figure out who makes

sense to sort of lead us through this process imagine steering committees you know with uh members of the public uh you know people on existing boards potentially the board of supervisors to sort of provide guidance as to what the updates in these codes should look like. Um, you know, ultimately trying to march towards, you know, the community that the board of supervisors is um is is governing. Um, these are challenges. I'm sorry. These these are challenging. I do have apprehension about doing both codes at once, but I recognize that if it takes you two or three years to do one code and then you do two or three years to the other, we're sort of at the end of that 10-year timeline on the comprehensive plan. That's an acceptable choice from a governor's perspective. it's sort of inconsistent with the best practice of administering those plans. Um the director of planning and zoning thinks this is totally possible especially if we're operating um either under one consultant or with two different steering committees because you know while they have a lot of overlap they are two different codes falling off of the comprehensive plan.

I mean I I unquestionably I think this is this is something that needs to happen. Um and I think what I had not considered but is a good point is the expense of land development. We have to pay lawyers, we have to pay engineers, and that's all expense that potentially could be maybe not alleviated, but certainly reduced uh with an overhaul. Um so what is but I guess my question is what is the $150,000 next year for? So that would be that would be the two third party consultants um to do both projects. Um but there may be the choice depending on how the RFP processes out to hire one consultant to do both. And again, if that's approved in 2026, it becomes a multi-year project. you're not going to update either of these codes in one year.

Um, one thing that I really want to draw emphasis on, and this is sort of getting into the meat and potatoes of a zoning code update, it's quite possible that the board of supervisors at the direct at the direction and advice of the director of building and zoning may carve out segments of the township to really focus on. So, the last zoning code update I did, the board of supervisors at the time said, "This entire portion of the township makes sense, and we're not going to propose any changes to the zoning that's here. It's these areas that are in conflict with the comprehensive plan." And we spent three years focused on that. that could totally happen. Um, you know, that's sort of outside of my area of expertise. I would lean on Mr. Enis for that. Um, but it it's totally possible too.

And just to bring that down a level a little bit for folks who may not be zoning or land development experts, these codes are anywhere from 30 to more than 50 years old. Some of them were contemplated before or after um a lot of the time in which our community was developed. So, think about how much the landscape of the buildings and structures you see has changed in 50 years. It's pretty significant, right? I think our zoning code barely really even contemplates what we call mixed use or commercial combined with residential. That's almost non-existent in our current codes. And so we're talking about really fundamental changes because it's so out ofd that, you know, sound pretty significant, but as Mr. Alf articular, pretty necessary. I really think about uh the zoning hearing board and the fact that I think it might be the most active zoning hearing board in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, meeting twice per month with a consistent backlog of uh applications that they do an expert job sorting their way through. It seems month in and month out. We have residents who are just trying to make minor modifications to their home, a fence, a pool, a shed, a chicken coupe. Maybe I shouldn't have brought that up, but uh I apologize. Um, you know, but there are, you know, really simple things that they can't do because they're living in a community. They're living on a lot that was there before zoning and the zoning doesn't make any sense for the community that they have and they're paying hundreds if not more uh of dollars to come before an a volunteer body of of the township in order to seek relief um simply because the codes are out of date. Sort of a significant burden to that community. And by the way, as a reminder, which we touched on last week when we were talking about revenues, the amount that people are already paying, and this includes the average resident coming in for a basic shed and fence permit, um that has to go before the zoning hearing board. What they're paying is not covering the actual cost of providing that government service.

Oh, yeah. We're losing money on having a zoning hearing board year-over-year. So, that problem becomes compounded. I think my only comment here is I 100% agree with all those examples that you give. My only pro my only problem is the the push for more high density and that's where I I think something like this would push us more to the high density cuz that is what is described in the comprehensive plan and that's what concerns me. So it would have to necessarily be done right and make sure that the residents really do have a say because I do hear resident after resident talking about the high density and the traffic that it causes.

Sure. I just want to be super clear. a zoning code or a subdivision of land development code update does not um does not necessarily mean that there's going to be high density. Right? There are communities in the Commonwealth now that are updating these codes and they're going to, you know, 5 acre single uh family dwelling lots. Uh right, they're not moving towards high density. The best process that I recommend is a public one with a steering committee of residents. Right? We're doing it and by the way it's contemplated here. We're doing it with the parks and recreation um uh master plan, open space master plan. Um, and it's a bunch of residents who care a lot, who are making recommendations and working directly with uh, you know, directly with a third party consultant and our staff. So, it's not a foregone conclusion. Just because we're recommending these codes be updated does not mean that there'll be a lot of high density. Uh, you know, it'll depend on the policy direction of the board of supervisors and the feedback from uh, the committee that you ultimately create if we choose to do it that way. Um, you know, but it is important to sort of have consistency across these codes, but all of that is sort of to be figured out in the process. Okay. Congratulations to the board. You made it to the summary slide. Uh so the summary of the recommendations again, we had a couple software systems, storm water maintenance staff engineer, fire lieutenant, uh the volunteer um tax incentive for volunteer responders. Uh as well as the administrative folks in our volunteer fire companies, IT training initiative and a zoning ordinance in SA update. Uh so for those keeping track at home, that total cost is $1.2 million. So before I go to the next slide, which is a big red number, uh any last, you know, any final feedback from the board of supervisors, things that you like, things that you didn't, questions you might have, more information we can bring you. Again, it's the totality feedback we're receiving in this public process that will ultimately inform the proposed budget that we're obligated to bring you in November.

I think we actually have an engagement slide right after this, if I'm not mistaken, Mr. Ratliff. Thank you to the board, or are we ready for the menty question? Yeah, I would just say um to to reiterate uh Supervisor Keyzak, I think knowing the the dollars and cents here is going to be key, right? Knowing exactly what the the cost benefit is um for each of these projects as we move into the the budget.

Yeah. And I think um you know as exemplified by that uh extremely uh official poll that we did earlier clearly at least the residents in this room are the ones playing along at home are pretty satisfied with the level of service they receive in their community. So, if we're going to justify, you know, adding expense um under um under the goal of improving services for residents, I think we got to be really really clear and transparent and be able to justify, you know, the how residents are going to see um their services or the the quality of their life in this community increase. And again, um, in some of these instances, it seems like the the incentive or the motivation is as much financial as it is service based. And so, we just we just have to really be able to demonstrate that. Um, because again, with the big red number that's going to be on the next slide, we need to make sure that if we're going to if we're going to go along with something like that, it's got to have to be in the best interest of the of the residents that we were all elected to represent. So, the 2026 uh deficit that I talked about earlier, which is the $2.8 million structural deficit in 2025, plus the um level of increase on the sort of the non-negotiables, insurance, and collective bargaining agreements into 2026, plus every increase um every proposal that you just heard. If the board were to approve all of that, which I'm, you know, which is certainly no, you know, certainly not necessarily going to happen, um that total number is $5 million. Average real estate tax paid to the township. A graph uh of our tax bill. I think we've been showing this um consistently throughout the process. We also have it here in the room of what that looks like across the three taxing jurisdictions.

And then the menty question.

Yeah. So, go ahead. Go ahead, please. Oh, thank you. Uh, so for those who are in the room who have your phones, if you wouldn't mind getting them back out, it should pop up right on your device. Uh, this is again just a simple engagement question. We have a couple of them. Um, how willing are you to increase the capacity for construction and maintenance of storm water. So, this is essentially a gauge on a scale of 1 to five of the proposal that you heard specifically. We are going to ask uh some questions kind of to rank some of the proposals you heard here up next. So it again the big number in the middle uh which currently is 3.8 is the average of everybody who's taken the poll in the room and the wave behind you shows the specific responses. Uh this slide another quiz for you or a question. Uh this I believe is a ranking question. So, um, putting these in a scale of one to six, uh, comparing them side by side, how would you prioritize, uh, these recommended changes that you just heard? And this is one of the hard decisions that we constantly have to talk about here is we're not talking about uh, proposals or ideas that are necessarily apples to apples, but they all cost something. And so that uh, really puts them all into a level playing field when we're talking about the budget. So give this a moment here. And important to note, this is not we're drawing a line and congratulations, you've accepted everything. This is merely an engagement tool.

Maybe a few more responses. Pretty good.

All right. And our last engagement question for right now, um, in minutes, how long are you willing to wait for a staffed fire engine to after your call, after you call 911? And I believe this is a scale of 1 to 20. So again, in minutes, uh, what you feel is an appropriate response time. and And I believe our last question uh for folks in the room who have additional questions after tonight uh is just simply an open question of what can we talk about next time for you.

Uh we're going to talk about fund balances. Um so the township has a policy that requires maintaining a minimum of three months of general fund expenses. Um that is about $7 million. We're projected uh to be at 6.9 million. So right on the cusp of that at the end of 2025, the end of 2026 depending again what budget is approved, what happens with the revenue side, what happens with the expense side. Um you know continuing to dip into that would be pretty significant. 3.1 again we need to be at 7 million um you know which is a 25% uh fund balance. The GFOA which is the um government finance officer association is actually a little bit less than that. This is really important. Um it's sort of easy in the budget development process to maybe not focus on this. This is incredibly important in terms of maintaining our AAA bond rating which is super prestigious and hard to get. Um hard to get easy to lose um is what I always say and we certainly don't want that to happen. Um so we need to keep this at the forefront um as we sort of adopt budgets moving forward.

And very importantly for those who are math wizards in the room, you're seeing the 3.8 figure here. So this is the existing uh $2 million deficit, $2.8 $8 million deficit we started 2025 with. Plus the increases we know or we can essentially guarantee are coming for 2026. All of the ads that you heard about are not contemplating in that number. So if you want to add anything that we just talked about, that hole gets even deeper. So that 3.1 goes lower and lower and we are starting 2026 at the minimum. uh the stormwater fund. Same thing here. Uh there's no GFOA requirement here, nor has the township adopted a policy uh as it relates to this. This is not an enterprise fund, so it can be offset by the general fund uh which is what's been happening now. But just kind of giving you an understanding as to what that fund balance look like depending on the projects that are approved uh moving forward. As you can see, dipping below a million dollars is why our team is sort of very intensely trying to figure out creative ways to reduce the future cost of those projects. And of course, tonight you heard us propose insourcing as a potential way to do that. Parks and recreation, you heard Mr. Bala say earlier, we're operating on the margins, very razor thin margins, where we're trying to increase our revenue uh with the excellent programming that we do. Um you know trying to achieve structural balance uh in these various funds requires sort of a deep study uh and difficult decision-making here and again this you know by statute can be offset by the general fund which is what we do now. uh fire fund. Similar story, similar challenge.

This does this contemplate the three apparatus that are potentially coming next year. It it's not that's actually a different fund to be separate. Yep. That'll be next week. Talking about fire stuff. Billinger, 34 years volunteer firefighter in the township. I'm the president of Park Department of Fire Company. I'm also an assistant chief of Parker Park. Um,

thanks Eden for getting on board here and uh Eden's got a good uh way of thinking. He likes to think about the future and not moving back to the past. As everybody knows, we've been dealing with the fire stuff for long enough. You know, you know, it's very taxing on a small group of individuals from each fire department. I'm not going to beat around the bush. We've talked about it for years. If you guys would consider some kind of percentage millage increase to our annual budget, it would be great. We're operating on $120,000 a year per station from tax revenue. It's very hard to do. We chase money, chase grants, chase fires, chase fire prevention. You know, anything we're asked to do, we do. we do with a happy face, but it's a very difficult thing to do. So, as we've asked in the past, I'd ask on behalf of Parkland, I'm pretty sure my colleagues are on the same boat, if you can wiggle a some kind of millage increase to um our annual budgets, that would be great. Thank you.

Thanks, Bill. I appreciate it. Um I I will um very much echo your sentiment about um sort of the the ups and downs ins and outs of this process that we've been going through now for several years. Um since you know we had this this outsiding consultant come in and we did a fire study and we've been trying to figure this out and I know it's complicated and there's a lot of moving parts. Um I will say I'll speak for myself. I mean, I I have accepted since the beginning of that process that at some point this was going to um this was going to have to end with the township allocating more funds to the volunteer fire companies. Um and I think that's consistent with what we talked about just a few moments ago about the the the township's long-term interest in keeping all of your companies as strong and viable and thriving as long as we possibly can. Um so, um I mean, believe me, I hear you. I do. Um, I'll just um make a few comments and then um we can uh I guess move into public comment um if that's okay. We um I I've been on this board for I guess I'm in my eighth year now. Um and we we other than a a small uh allocation for the fire protection fund last year, we have not uh raised taxes once as long as I've been here. Um and I'm I'm proud of that. Um, and in fact, I don't think the township generally has raised taxes since the uh earned income tax in 2015. Um, and what is, I think, incredibly clear from tonight's presentation, and it's something that everybody on this board has has known, um, is that that's just not sustainable forever. Um, I think everybody can relate to the concept, um, you know, that expenses increase year-to-year. And I it was one of the slides that was fairly early on that just talked about what we are looking at in terms of increased expenses next year. It's basic stuff. I mean, we're

talking about modest increases, cost of living increases for you know, the people that keep us safe every single day. We're talking about um you know, just things things become expensive. Um health insurance becomes more expensive. I think everybody can relate to that in their own households. Well, it's the same for government. And we have an obligation. We have a duty. we have a responsibility to provide a certain level of service for this community. I think what we have heard from residents over and over again is that they they like the level of service and they don't want it to drop. And so you can only go for so long with expenses increasing year after year after year um but not bringing in any more money. Uh imagine if you went 10 years without getting a a salary increase, but your expenses were going up every single year. Well, that's essentially what we've been doing in Middletown. Um, and that's just not financially responsible and it's definitely not financially sustainable. So that that is why we are here in 2025 with a $2.8 million deficit and potentially um looking at a much larger deficit as we go into 2026. So this is um my I guess eighth time I've done this this process and probably the most difficult one I've gone through um because this is this is the most serious situation that we have been in. Um and I personally um am unwilling to decrease the level of service that we provide to the residents of our community. Um, I take that responsibility very seriously and I frankly don't think the residents of this community would want their the level of service that they receive here to decrease. We want our police departments to be able to do things like community policing. Uh, we want them to have um all of the tools and the technology that they need to do their job and to keep us safe. Same goes for our firefighters. Same goes for our public works department. Um, so, you know, there's a reason why Middletown is such a great place to live, such a great place for us to raise our families. is

there's a reason why we all live here. Um, and so I I am committed to keeping it that way. So, this is a first step in the process. Um, it's a it's a multi-step process. U, we're going to be talking about this a lot over the next several weeks before we finally have a budget uh that we have to consider and vote on. But, um, I think it's important to be completely upfront and transparent about the circumstances that we find ourselves in and the type of decisions we're going to be making in the next few weeks. So, I really appreciate Nick, Eden, Laura, everyone else who was involved in this process. I know people I don't know how many of you were working weekends and nights trying to put this. Miranda, I know you were there. I mean, that's an incredible effort by the township staff to really dig into this stuff. Um, it's a it's a hard process. Putting together a budget, figuring these things out is is difficult and timeconuming and these people have other jobs that they are doing for the township every day besides just this. So to have to add this to their uh to their plate every October is uh is a challenge and and I truly truly appreciate all the effort. So thank you for tonight's presentation. Thank you for all the work leading up to it and thank you uh for leading us through this process over the next several weeks. Did any of my colleagues want to say anything before I open it up for public comment?

Um I just wanted to say thank you. I appreciate um the thought and the creativity to solving some of the serious problems that we have. I agree that safety is a priority and making sure that our families are enjoying their life here and that continues. Um, we have some hard decisions to make, but I'm confident um that we'll make the right decisions.

Again, I just want to echo what Mike and Miss Hannah has said also. Um, Laura, thank you for all your hard work. Nick and and Eden, I know this is a lot goes into this. This is not easy task. Um, and we appreciate all the transparency. Um, you know, how much work you put into this and, um, we definitely live here. You know, I chose to live in Middletown to come back, live here with my family because we do expect a level of service. Um, we've been dedicated to keeping that. Um, I've been on the board for six years and we have, like Mike said, we haven't raised taxes, but there's some hard choices to make and and I'm sure the public can see what we're up against right now. I guess I'll just end with um a big thank you. I know I know what it's like putting a budget together. Um and it's it's a lot of late nights um making sure you have all the numbers right. Um and again I think you know we've had you know we had a really favorable situation after the initial EIT with the addition with the healthy fund balances that we had and we're at the point that that is no longer the case. we do not have any more fund balance left. So, there are definitely hard decisions. Um, and I reiterate that I would like to keep the services as is um and make it um as uh not as impactful as possible on residents.

All right. So, um with that, I'm going to open it up to public comment. So, if anybody would like to ask a question, make a comment, uh feel free to come up to, I guess, that podium over there. just state your name and address. And I don't know if we have any folks that are uh at home on Zoom that want to make a comment. They're free uh to let us know that as well.

All right, seeing none. Yeah, I'll just make one last comment. Uh so the last um the next step, I should say uh before a proposed budget is developed is next Monday. So, for all of you who have had a great time here tonight joining us, we'll be doing this the same exact thing one week from now. Uh, six o'clock on Monday, October 20th, and we'll be focusing on the capital project side, uh, which is a lot of fun to do. We'll, you know, do that again in August, and we're going to do it again next week. Uh, and then the next step will be the proposed budget, which will be the totality of the budget, both revenues and expenses, will be presented in public fashion to the board on November 17th, uh, with a target adoption date of December 15th.

Great. No public comment. Going once, going twice. All right, I don't see any. So, we will adjourn for tonight. Thank you everybody for for being here. We appreciate it and we hope to see you at the next budget workshop. Have a great night.