Council - public_hearing

Good afternoon. Welcome to the budget hearing of the Newark Municipal Council on Tuesday, August the 4th. Council President, Council Members, the first department to present this afternoon is the Department of Administration.

good afternoon good evening council president council members it's good to see all of you um my name is yolanda williams i'm the assistant business administrator and today i'll be presenting on behalf of the department of administration thank you this is the first for me so The Office of the Business Administrator provides strategic budgetary guidance and daily operational oversight to city departments in furtherance of Mayor Baraka's vision for Newark. The Business Administrator is responsible for managing the city's operations, overseeing a budget of more than $1 billion, directing more than 3,800 employees, and supporting the delivery of municipal services to a city of more than 300,000 residents. The 2026 recommended budget reflects the administration's continued commitment to sound fiscal stewardship while investing in initiatives that strengthen public safety, improve quality of life, expand economic opportunity and deliver essential services to Newark residents. This budget supports the city's priorities by continuing investments in public safety and violence prevention, affordable housing and homeless services, economic development and job creation, youth recreation and educational opportunities, senior services and community health, sustainability and environmental initiatives, infrastructure and water system improvements, digital equity and resident engagement. The administration's fiscal strategy continues to balance responsible financial management with meaningful investments in city services. The 2026 budget builds upon Newark's strong financial position while addressing rising operational costs. contractual obligations, pension liabilities, healthcare expenditures, debt service, and other inflationary pressures facing municipalities throughout New Jersey. At the same time, the administration has continued implementing cost saving initiatives that protects taxpayers while preserving essential services. The city's transition to a self-insured health benefits program continues to generate significant long-term savings. while reference based pricing has substantially reduced health care costs without compromising benefits for employees and their families. These initiatives allow the city to reinvest resources into programs and services that directly benefit Newark residents. The 2026 recommended budget continues Newark's progress by supporting historic reductions in violent crime, expanding affordable housing opportunities, strengthening services for residents without addresses, investing in youth programming and recreation, improving neighborhood quality of life, advancing environmental sustainability, and fostering continued economic development throughout the city. This budget reflects our commitment to maintaining Newark's strong fiscal foundation while ensuring that city departments have the resources necessary to provide efficient, effective, and equitable services to our residents. I look forward to participating with our city departments, all of us, the BA, myself, as well as Director Tate, with our city departments during the municipal council budget hearings and working collaboratively with the governing body, you all, through the budget review process. I WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET AND THE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE FOR THEIR PROFESSIONAL AND DEDICATION IN PREPARING THIS YEAR'S BUDGET. AND THANK YOU. AND WITH THAT, WE ARE OPEN FOR ANY QUESTIONS YOU HAVE ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION BUDGET.

ANY QUESTIONS?

IN THE OVERALL CONTEXT, HOW MANY VACANCIES DO WE HAVE WHEN WE DO IT PER OFFICE OR ALL TOGETHER?

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION OR DO YOU MEAN CITYWIDE?

DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION. DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION. 21. 21. JUST ONE SECOND. 21. 21. OKAY. THE MOST SERIOUS VACANCIES WE NEED TO FILL? LIKE, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY, LIKE, WE COULD DO IT RIGHT NOW? in the global world.

So what we do is if it's something mandatory where we have something that's pressing that we have to fill, we won't fill it. But in the event that we can hold off, we will.

Okay. Can I add one thing, if I may? We are maintaining our hiring and promotion freeze except for essential positions. This is outside of the Department of Administration, but I think perhaps to address some of what you were saying, there are some departments where that freeze is not as directly applicable as others. For example, in engineering, we need engineers. Yes. So we are actively recruiting for them in UCC, Uniform Commercial Code. We have sub code officials where it's been difficult to get them and maintain them. We have increased the salaries, which is reflected in this budget because of the dire need to get elevator inspectors, electrical sub code, plumbing sub codes. So we are actively recruiting for them as well. There are some initiatives underway now to increase the enforcement of blighted properties downtown in order to do that, and also to ensure that the inspection of properties, whenever a tenant moves out, we need more code enforcement officers. So they too are still part of the hiring process. You may recognize that all of those individual positions that I mentioned are all revenue generating positions. So to the extent we fill them, we expect that they will be able to pay for themselves. Of course, there's a lag. It's sort of a, there's some period of time where we'll have to pay out before the money comes back in. And they are not intended to generate revenue, but they will. They're intended for enforcement and compliance.

Okay. So moving forward, particularly in the area of code enforcement, UCC, et cetera, are we looking to use the civil service method to bring them in?

Yes.

And provisional or?

Exclusively civil service. There may be an outlier where we bring somebody in under precise or on an emergency basis with the expectation that they will be transferred over. But those are all civil service positions that we're talking about.

Okay, so if we're looking for more, would it be, oh, there's not much in here. So I'll put it on my page.

Yes, if you want to either make those positions known to people who may not otherwise know, certainly you can put it on your page. You can work with our personnel directors here to make sure that we get the information to you so you can get it out there because you want as wide a scope of people who are Newark residents to apply as possible.

So just a suggestion in us trying to fill some of these vacancies as well as keep them with NORC residents. Let's work together and compile a list so people know what to focus in on. They may be, I hate to even use this because I know we need fire inspectors. However, the person might be a fire inspector that might want to switch over to UCC. I'm just saying. So if we generate a list to let the residents know what's available, what we're looking for, and what we're looking to pull from,

um let's you know see if that'll also assist us in getting these fields because i think as we begin to fill them and the revenue begins to generate we could get even more people so we can stay on top of you know some of the things that we're missing because we don't have the personnel all right and i apologize for not being here at the beginning of the session because i would have introduced yolanda williams and darlene tate elon is the assistant business administrator and she and miss tate have been principally responsible along with melvin waldrop in my office of pulling all this together I have not been as involved as I have in the past because I have got an amazing staff who are doing great, great work. And the personnel director who's also here, Tiffany Stewart, I commend you to meet with her to go over these positions that are available and to give her your information and recommendations.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, Mr. Chair. One, I noticed there is a large amount of movement. I don't know if it is because of longevity or what is the movement, but amongst salaries, some of these jumps are like 16,000, 15,000, 11,000. I don't know if you would consider them around areas of longevity or if they have just been raises that have been, you know, incremented and good faithful, good working ability. But if you can help us to understand some of it in this context, that would be greatly appreciated. And then I notice we are looking to increase the Office of Violence Prevention, I believe, is it by a million? which I believe is a good thing. So I just want to bring that to note. I think they would need all of the resources that they would need in that area. But also in reducing purchasing, would that have an effect on any of the processes that we have in place in terms of making sure we're getting information out, bids, information, bids back, people making sure that we're opening up these processes. There is nothing here that those things that are limited in that area is limited just by way of probably paper, pencils kind of resources and not FTE. So I just wanted to make sure that the reduction on the purchasing end is not a result of any kind of FTE.

Okay, so about the salaries, there are three things I can mention about that. So we have, so there are maybe four. So the first one would be in some instances, staff are transferring from different departments or divisions. And so where you see the plus here, you'll see a decrease in the other, the corresponding either agency or division. So that's one. The second one, in some instances, we have people who may have started mid-year somewhere through in the process. And so you'll see a partial funding for the prior year. And then this year they're fully funded. The third would be any kind of promotions that we have. We have some staff that were promoted up specifically in the office of the business administrator. We had a lot of movement there. We had some people leave and we had people promoting up. And then the fourth would be, as you all know, we settled a lot of union contracts and negotiations. And so you'll see changes because of that. So that's probably the bulk of it is those union contracts that went through because those were over several years. So you're going to see a big jump.

So can some of it just be a mixture of the selling of the union contract and possibly someone receiving a raise?

That's possible, yes. And I will say longevity too, right? That's an issue. Like if you move from one year to another, then the longevity also, it goes into that. So absolutely, yes. So that would help explain that.

Okay. thank you council president um my first question so we missed the the total head count for each area of the department does that include both permanent and provisional is that just um both okay and when we talk about unclassified operations under other pay and miscellaneous Do you have, is it, because I think I missed it, what's included in that? Yes.

You receive, I'm Darlene Tate, the budget officer. You receive the booklet that had all the departments listed in it. And we have categories, you have tabs that say, budget recap and it'll show you the breakdown of how much salaries was appropriated services by contract other pay miscellaneous and then if you go into the tabs the tabs will reflect if you went into miscellaneous you'll see what's listed and what makes up that miscellaneous category but it wasn't but it wasn't it was miscellaneous by because i looked in it it was

miscellaneous by each area, by each department, or just in general? No.

So when we have miscellaneous, miscellaneous basically falls in the section of unclassified operation. There are several appropriations that we do not place in the department so that we can really track them and monitor their spending. um there are some agencies for example if we looked at the clerk's budget they have a miscellaneous category and is broken into um election funds and you'll see that in there as a separate category you can look in several of the departments and see that miscellaneous uh header but if you look at it you'll see you know the breakdown of what those funds are used for

Thank you, Council President. A couple of quick questions. With regards to the vacancy report and the number of vacancies, some of them have been vacant since I think there's one from 2021. Is there an effort to either fill those? Because what I will say is, so they're going to be on the budget for this year, even though they're vacant for that salary. But is there any discussion on eliminating those positions since we're not filling them, or it doesn't appear like we're going to fill them, or hasn't been filled in a number of years?

Okay. I'm darling tape again, budget officer. So as far as vacancies go, we are in a hiring freeze and I've been trying to be conscious of that and aware that if I don't have to hire that person right now, I am not going to, and I am doing the best that I can without filling that vacancy. So I'm sure that everyone needs to fill their slots, but we've been ordered or not ordered, but advise that there's a hiring freeze and we're not doing anything at this moment.

And so even though there's a vacancy listed, Just for my edification, the salary range or any part of that salary is not included in the budget? Or is it included in the budget?

Yes, it is. It's included in the budget.

So even though we're not paying the salary, it's still in the budget?

And so when this budget was created, if you look at the salary for a particular title, you'll see that it's not fully budgeted. So if we submitted the budget in June, we budgeted, say, five to seven months of salary, not the full 12 months. It's prorated.

All right. And so with regards to, and I'm just asking, like, I see there's one from 2021, July 12th, 2021, and some 2022. Has there been any discussion to eliminate those positions or is it just, we're going to hold on to those until we fill them?

So this is Yolanda Williams. That particular position, happens to be in the Office of Management and Budget. Currently, that division is understaffed. Because we have a hiring freeze, the director has maintained the count that she has, but she is also doing the work of one of those, the senior budget examiner, as well as administrative clerk. So is there a plan to eliminate that vacancy? There is a need for that, but because of the hiring freeze, the director is doing what the city of Newark has to do in times when they have to tuck her in and do what they have to do. And she's towing the line. She's basically managing the processes within the confines of what she has so um i think realistically what we would want is we would want to fill those positions so that we have um we're way more efficient um but currently um we're toying the line with a lot of these yeah Especially I can look at purchasing. Purchasing is also, I think we mentioned something about, someone said something about purchasing. That's also a division where there are some vacancies there that we would like to fill, but because of the freeze, we're putting a hold on it.

And just to add, so based on your last response, just a quick question regarding... THOSE VACANCIES, DO THEY IMPACT REVENUE GENERATION OR COST SAVINGS?

PROBABLY SOME OF THEM DO. CENTRAL PURCHASING, THAT WOULD DEFINITELY.

THE SHORT ANSWER IS NO. THEY'RE NOT GOING TO AFFECT REVENUE GENERATION OVERALL. or expenses because it is highly likely that even though we budgeted for the position, if we don't fill it, it's likely that we're going to have to use that elsewhere to address other positions. Purchasing is not a bottom line department. So even though they have an overall impact on work that we do, They're not really looked at as a revenue generating department, so it's not going to affect that. I suppose that if they were unable to address every procurement that came through, it could affect the bottom line. But fortunately, we have a staff who works above and beyond what you might ordinarily expect, and we get it done. So it has not had a negative impact. It could, but it hasn't, and we expect that it will not.

All right, thank you. Mr. President, if I can ask, I do have a number of other questions, but I don't want to monopolize the time. If we can, if it's appropriate, that we can provide written questions to different departments or through the clerk.

Through the clerk, yes. We can. I'm clerk response. Thank you. Okay. Councilor Ramos.

Thank you, Mr. President. I just have a few questions for you, Mr. B. I did notice that in your office, you know, you do have like two administrative positions that were added and some of the increases are tied to, as Ms. Williams mentioned, contractual. My question is, are there any grant offsets to your budget? I noticed that the Office of Violence Prevention, there's a big number tied to a contingency. Is that in anticipation of that office not receiving grants to support some of their activities and now that money is being added? to the city's budget? Why is that million five, I think, tied to a contingency?

Great question.

I want to defer to Ms. Williams and Ms. T. That is, so those monies we were able to fund, those are for our Office of Ops Prevention grants. So in the past, we were able to fund those out of ARPA. Can you speak into the microphone, sir?

Yeah, we can't really hear you.

Oh, you can't really hear me? OK. So those monies were tied, Ms. Yolanda Williams, those monies are tied to the Office of Violence Prevention grants that we recently

um released and um so so the city is supplanting money out of its budget that was previously funded through outside grants to fund this office essentially right that's that's what's happening well but we're not i'm sorry i'm darling tate we're not supplanting We're providing funding for- So the city's subsidizing part of that office where before we were able to get grants to pay for some of these programs. So now the city's paying for it out of its budget. Okay. I remember when this office was created, I think the anticipation was that- a lot of their activities would be funded over time out of the police department's budget. Has that happened? Has there been a reduction in their appropriation in order to fund some of the ovp activities which are housed in the ba's office or is this um the additional money that's going into ovp being funded on top of what we normally fund the police division great question the city council approved uh an ordinance which allows for five percent of the public safety budget going to the office of violence prevention

If we do that at one shot, it's going to have a significant impact on the direct finances of public safety. So we are working toward that. We want to get to a place where there is a 5% reduction in the public safety budget that funds the Office of Violence Prevention. We're not there yet. But we are going to continue to work for work toward it one of the other things it's not reflected in this budget, but I think You could take notice that many of the OVP Expenses still do come out of the police budget, but it's not direct. It's not directly into the OVP budget for example their uses of some of the Shawnee Baraka Center, the use of shared services. I don't know. I can probably put something out there in response in writing as well. But we are not where we need to be, but I want to be over the next few years to get there, to that full 5%.

So if we look at the police division's budget, and I know they're going to come before us tomorrow, including this year, looking at last year, the year prior, we will see that their budget has request has gone up and whatever we've approved. So you still haven't experienced or enacted that reduction in order to support the OVP activities. But you're saying that in the near future, that's something that could happen based on efficiencies and other things.

Not based on efficiencies, based on a more concerted effort on our part to move those funds and make the police department more responsible, public safety more responsible with managing its own budget. I will tell you, they'll be here tomorrow and they can certainly defend themselves. Their overtime is out of line, but we are in the process of adjusting a couple of the items that are major contributors to the overtime. We're looking at changing the schedule right now, which will help help adjust that. There are probably, there's an over allocation of resources at different events. For this World Cup FIFA thing, there were literally zero incidents. And so we did a great job, but part of doing that great job, it was a pretty tremendous expense. It was over half a million dollars that we spent on that. So we have to look at that. Do we need that many? Somebody has to really make an assessment as to whether or not the dollar is spent. And is it is it worth every incident saved or not? So we have to look at all of that.

So it's a fair statement to say that even though the goal was long term to fund some of the OVP activities out of the police division's budget, if you look at the amount their budget amount that was approved last year, the previous year, and I haven't looked at the numbers for this year, but my guesstimate is that reduction hasn't happened yet.

You're right. Okay. That's a fair statement.

Just one last point, and this is probably just overall, like you look at the different personnel, I never really understood the difference in salaries. There's some positions here where you have individuals that are high earners that I've never even seen, or maybe it's my own fault that I've never met. And then you have individuals who you see every single day and you look at the amount of money that they earn. And I'm surprised that their salaries are so low compared to some of these other individuals I'm sure are serving important roles in your administration, but some of us up here on the council have never met. How do you answer that question? What justifies the variation? Is it a civil service title that union approves a certain salary range for? Or some of these folks, and if you look at the list, a lot of them are provisionals that are high earners. What's the justification for that?

a combination of reasons you actually touched on uh most of the most of the reasons uh it is dependent upon the title that they have the jobs that they have uh the union negotiations some of the people are behind the scenes that get things done um I don't want to put Ms. Williams on the hot seat too much, but she's on the hot seat. She's right here in the middle. One of the reasons I wanted her to do this presentation today is for you to get a better sense of what it is she does.

Yeah, I wasn't referring to Ms. Williams. I know.

I know.

She's been around here a long time.

She's been around. You don't see her out at council meetings that often, but you see her. You know her. You guys live around the corner from each other, but we won't get into that. She does a very good job. And it's important that the work that is done is put forward front and center sometimes so that you get a sense of what goes on. We work hard and we do, I think, a fairly good job in managing the finances of the city while providing good services to the residents. That doesn't happen through me. It happens through the people that have working for me. And we think they're compensated mostly adequately. We'd like to pay them more, but we're not there yet.

Like one of those positions that I didn't know we had is we have a full time person who I guess is in charge of the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Like, you know, what is what does that person do? Like, you don't have to answer it today. Like, you know, is there things that that person works on that we can

um utilize them for so i didn't know we had a full-time person assigned to that we've had a full-time person for a couple of years i think what we will do is have them give a presentation there's some heckling going on from the audience um with respect to who is this person where are they what do they do and i don't mind answering that question but I'd rather answer the questions from the council rather than have Ms. Salters yelling in my ear so that I can't hear your question. And I will ask the council president to admonish her to handle the appropriate decorum in this chamber. That's your job to do, but I can't hear you. And it's difficult for me to answer your questions if I don't hear them.

this is not a this last time i checked councilman ramos doesn't need a puppet to uh to be his purpose i'm not mad at all i just want to run around right now we're going to hear the council we're going to proceed we're going to proceed with but we're going to proceed with the hearing of the budget hearing we're not going to be uh we want to listen to the presentation If the people in the audience have something, please, there will be a time when you'll be able to get your answers answered.

Well, the only person who's being disruptive is an assaulter. There's nobody else. So not a problem. But to your question, the CCRB has been in place statutorily for a few years. They were working on getting subpoena power. That has not happened, but they are now hearing cases. I think it's a good idea for them to come before the council and give a presentation as to where things stand. There's a director, there's an administrator, there's a lawyer, and there are commissioners who actually hear CCRB complaints that come before them. They essentially report up to even though they're in my office, they report up through the corporation council with respect to their day to day operation. So I work with him to have them come before the council.

I think it'd be good for us to meet them. You know, like you said, they don't have subpoena power. Like, what are they doing on a day to day basis? You know, it's a question. And again, I just want to thank your office. You did it. nice job organizing the budgets, a lot of different tabulations included, but I appreciate it. Thank you.

Any other questions? I did have a question. Thank you. So I definitely as a former director of the city, I definitely know how much has changed throughout the year. People move, transition, you add positions, you eliminate positions, things happen. Is there a schedule or something that's set where departments are made to update their budgets and submit them to the administration for review, like on a quarterly basis or something like that. Outside of the budget hearings, are there some type of review that happens prior to this with the budgets, with changes and things like that?

Yes.

Yes. There's a constant review of the departmental budgets. I mean, a budget is a plan. It changes, you know, daily. It can change next week. And we have to accommodate those changes.

so there is some review and we do monitor their expenditures you know on a daily you know weekly basis so yes if i could add on that to a little bit also behind the scenes that folks don't know uh miss tate has a staff of budget examiners those budget examiners are assigned to uh different departments and they monitor the expenditures going forward uh councilman remo's left but one of the departments i'm picking on right now is public safety they have to be monitored on a more regular basis than anybody else because they constantly have their budget adjusted some through over expenditure that we have to get under control but because they have the largest number of personnel and because it's not a department that you can just cut back on without severe consequences, we need to have somebody who manages that on a more regular basis. So we have two people in the budget office that oversee what goes on in the police department. They give us regular reports. And Ms. Tate is at every directors meeting on every Friday And without question, something comes up almost every week that she brings up about a department where we need to get things in line. So we have regular conversation, oversight, and comments about what has to be done.

Thank you, Mr. President. Just one request, if we can have that. With regards to provisionals, is it possible for us to get a list of, I know there's a list, but a list of the provisionals and how long they've been provisional with the city? And Councilwoman, what the salaries are?

Yes.

All right. I appreciate it. Thank you.

And one quick question. In regards to OVP and the police department, In terms of mental health help for our firefighters, officers, et cetera, is that taken out of that office or is each department responsible? One example, we had a fire at Astor Street, it's been some years ago. We lost a nine-year-old. I can't imagine, you know, with the firefighters, it's definitely the family, but I can't imagine what our first responders are going through. Is there a mechanism a little stronger than we've always had to help the first responders, including DPW, who from time to time in the garbage may find a person um or something that's traumatizing to them as well as fire responding and police responding do we have something in place specifically for our first responders not that um i'm taking anything away from the other aspect that we are presenting through ovp but i just Is this the time? Is this the budget for that? Or where does that mental health, that stress relief other than the gray room at UMDNJ that really doesn't help our officers, firefighters, DPW guys when they're going through a work-related incident?

So I think that's it. A phenomenal question. It's a phenomenal question because it gives me the opportunity to talk about some things that happen behind the scenes that nobody would otherwise know about. So there's two components of this. Every employee, not just first responders, is eligible for the Employee Assistance Program. That's through under the direction of the personnel director, and we use it on a regular basis. Okay. I mean, if somebody loses a loved one, they may need some help and they can go through EAP. We reach out to people to see if they have an issue and they need help. That's usually through EAP. When there's more of a citywide tragedy, when someone is killed either in the line of duty or they kill someone, or there's just a tragedy that happens and the first responders are the ones who have to deal with that, OVP regularly volunteers their social workers to assist in those situations. Nobody knows about that.

Nobody else has ever asked that question before, quite frankly.

Um, and they can talk about that for every 10 officers who are hired. This legislation that councilman Ramos brought up, we're supposed to hire one social worker. There's a cap on that, but that has been tremendously helpful to have those social workers hired. They have a portion of their training is through the police Academy with the police officers. So they get to know each other. They have ride alongs and they are able to help their fellow officers on an informal basis and a formal basis. So those are things that nobody really knows about. It is a great question, and it is an unintended benefit of having services through the Office of Violence Prevention that we're not targeted, we're not planned for, but are absolutely essential to the collaborative effort that the two departments have when they work together. So great question.

Just real quick, we have a safe space for that to happen?

You know, it's so safe. I don't know. I don't get involved. They do that. That's very personal. Even when EAP comes, they meet in a private area, but I don't know where that is. Sometimes it's here and sometimes it's elsewhere. Okay. THANK YOU. YOU'RE WELCOME.

MR. CHAIR, I JUST WANT TO FINISH THIS OFF JUMPING HERE BECAUSE WE'RE WITH DEPARTMENT ADMINISTRATION. BUT HOW MUCH HAVE WE BUDGETED FOR THE PRECISE WORKERS FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR? WHAT IS THAT NUMBER?

I WOULD HAVE TO COME BACK TO YOU ON THAT.

YOU GOT TO COME BACK? OKAY. WHO IS ELIGIBLE FOR OVERTIME? And I know there's a difference between change of rate and overtime. And so in a document that it should say change of rate and not overtime. And so we want it because I know directors and some higher managerial people are not. eligible for overtime and so we want to make sure that in the documentation that we present even if it's change of rate and we should probably put change of rate but not list them just for auditing purposes under overtime because it would get the appearance that we're paying the director overtime and no director should be getting overtime

I'll address that if I could quickly. Overtime and change of rate are two entirely different measures of pay and compensation. Change of rate at the represented level is mandated through the collective bargaining agreements for anybody who works out of title and they do perform duties above what their title calls for, they're entitled to the change of rate. They go to the lowest step above where they would be for the period of time that they're working out of title. with respect to management employees who are not negotiating, we try to track the same thing as well. Typically, our management employees at the director level and such are mostly not entitled to a change of rate unless they are essentially doing two jobs. And under those circumstances, we will look at it carefully and make a determination as to whether it is appropriate. BUT I THINK TO YOUR POINT, TO HAVE IT LISTED SEPARATELY, IF IT'S NOT, WE SHOULD DO THAT AND WE'LL DO THAT.

NEW SPEAKER ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, COUNCIL PRESIDENT.

JUST A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS. I KNOW THAT WE HAD A BIG PROBLEM WITH IT, WITH THE SERVERS BEING HACKED AND THOSE SITUATIONS. How many vacancies do we have? I guess the main question that I'm asking, is there the right number of people in place now to stop the hacking that we have received? I know our system was just down. I don't know if that was... related to any of any current hacks or anything like that. But have we spent the proper money to put the right people in place so that this won't happen for security measures, cybersecurity in our city?

If I may answer this one too. I'm going to challenge the baseline premise of your question a little bit with you characterizing us as having a lot of hacks. This city of Newark has been extraordinarily well protected as it relates to hacks. And by hacks, I mean somebody from outside penetrating our system, either as a clone or getting on someone else's computer password or access and getting into the system. That happens rarely. There have been several attempts. We get thousands of attempts per week, tens of thousands of attempts, and almost all of them are blocked. On the rare occasions when they penetrate one level, they're quarantined almost immediately so that we find out where it is, we isolate it, and we don't allow it to get any further. You just mentioned that the system went down. The system went down as a result of a... If you're talking about the system going down at 480 Clinton was the result of a power failure. And we did have a... I would say probably not the best system in place to address it immediately because when the system went down, it locked the door that had the server and we couldn't get into it because the electromagnetic wasn't working because the system went down. We did get into it. It was a key that overrode it. It took us a while to get into the system, but our IT department under you, I think you know now, Tawana Johnson is our new IT director. She is doing a phenomenal job. She's not acting. She's not interim. She is the IT director. You will see that there's going to be an appropriation before the council tomorrow to renew the contract with SHI. Part of that is to make sure that we can continue to maintain the upgrades of all of our systems. I think you will recall that all of the windows sevens have been replaced uh windows tens uh there were issues with them being migrated properly all that is being done the servers are all in the process of being upgraded um and there is a multi-million dollar plan that was put before the council through uh our capital plan uh to make sure that we have uh everything in place to continue maintaining integrity of our system but we have been partly fortunate and partly strategically positioned not to have any significant penetrations and problems as a result of hacking. Thank you.

Thank you, B.A.

But they will tell you that you need more people. I think that might have been the start of your question. Yes, they do need more people.

Yes. Yeah, I guess essentially I just wanted to make sure that the people that we needed to have in place are in place, which initially is why I asked how many vacancies. But I think you asked the more important part of the question that I wanted to hear. You know, and I think that we all want to know is that that we are protected and we're safe when it comes to our technology here in the city.

And can I take this opportunity for 30 seconds to do a sort of a public service announcement? The way that hackers get into our system most of the time is because of us. It's because we click on to a link from outside that gives them access and allows them to place malware into our system. It's because we don't pay attention to the cybersecurity training that we all have. They do a really good job and they test it. They send out, we send out links that are bogus links to check to see who is clicking on them. I don't think we found you clicking on any counseling, Kelly. So you're listening and you're paying attention. So we appreciate that. But that's where it comes from and they will continue to do that.

I GUESS THE LAST QUESTION ASSOCIATED TO THAT, I SEE THAT WE HAVE A SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN THE EXPENDITURES THAT ARE RELATED TO THE PERSONNEL. IS THAT BECAUSE OF THE THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN HAPPENING, REALLY HAPPENING WITH OUR SYSTEM?

In IT you're talking about?

Yes.

This is Yolanda Williams and the VA was referring, he was referencing the upgrade. So those are the Microsoft licenses.

Got you. Makes sense. All right. Also, I wanted to skip over to communications. In the communications department, I THOUGHT THAT NORTH TV WAS ACTUALLY COVERED UNDER SOMETHING ELSE AND I WAS WRONG, BUT IT'S COVERED UNDER COMMUNICATIONS. I asked this question earlier in a council meeting. The only concerns that I have is that if we are really promoting Lionsgate and all of these other media, studio, television, and film platforms that are coming to Newark, New Jersey, and we're really setting our hat on a lot of them to say that This is a destination place because of it. Even our neighboring cities having big studios like 1882 and Bayonne and Netflix down in Monmouth. And we also have companies who are of a smaller stature, but still studio television and film and media companies that will be surfacing here in the great city. But with that being said, I just wanna understand what are we really doing with Newark TV? I know that it's government access, but I think that when we say up to $575,000 that they get, when you actually go into the television station of channel 78, Coming out of media myself, this is a struggling media company, right? And I believe we're not really utilizing the space and the company that is doing it well. And what I mean by that is that This is a television, if we're gonna be this big media town, we could really utilize it to become a workforce for our young people and the people in this city. Utilize it to teach. I know we're waiting on the school to be built by Lionsgate, but we shouldn't have to wait on them. We should be able to really put more money into this situation. And we have antiquated television equipment, if if we're going to be part of what is coming to this city we have to start within and that starts with our own media company our own television station and and i don't think that we're doing that and and i i just wanted to know out of the 575 000 that was um given to uh kalagna i guess that's the way you say colloquium pardon me if i ruined your name kalagna productions um it says up to have we have we given them all of that money have we paid them all of that money um Or do we have to reimburse them? Do they spend their own money and we have to reimburse them for things that they're utilizing to run our station, like equipment-wise and filming certain things? And is this money, are they responsible for programming in that station out of the 575? I just kind of want to wrap my hands around, how is the communication department responsible for this TV station?

Thank you, Councilman Kelly. Eddie Colonna Productions is responsible for not only doing work in the studio, they do a lot of the work outside of the studios as well. When there are events that are on the street, they cover council events, mayoral events, administrative events that are outside. They principally use their own equipment, but they bill us against that $575,000 contractual amount. They use all of it. It probably should be, could be more, I don't say should be, could be more, but it's a competitively bid service. And they were the ones who won the service at that amount. And they, you know, essentially charge us an hourly amount to do the things that they do. Like, for example, if you see, when we see things that are on Channel 78, there's something at Audible, for example, there may be an event at Audible, the State of the City address, and then it's reproduced on Channel 78. They have, for the most part, they've done the recording, they get the B-roll, they do the recording, they put it together and put it on Channel 78. That's part of their contract.

And thank you for that, B.A., and thank you as well. I'm asking, you know, since I come out of the media, I'm looking at sometimes, I'm looking at the production of different places, and it just seems a little like they need a little help.

Well, they would need a million dollars instead of 575. We don't have it.

Yeah. even if we don't have the million, right? I think that we have to think of creative ways to really expand what 575 is, right? And I think that that's going to take a workforce for our youth or people who are attracted to that type of space when it comes to media. I think that if we utilize the people in the city who, you know, Newark is a town that has a lot of people who does media independently. And if we utilize that to whether it's internship, whether it's partnership, whether it's programming, I think that we will be creating a pathway for our future film creators and camera operators. And then we'll be setting them up to really be able to get those big positions, executive jobs at Lions Gate and all of these surrounding places.

So this is Yolanda Williams. I just wanted to just sort of piggyback off of what you're saying. We do have a Newark office of film and TV and Desiree, the director, she actually, those are the type of initiatives that she actually spearheads and she works a lot with young people interns she presents she works a lot with filmmakers she helps to bring money in to partner with other organizations so those are that's sort of in her lane a lot of these things that you're talking about she manages that office and they sort of spearhead those kind of trainings and she also helps get community members, as well as employees, jobs with film companies and those kinds of things. So she is really integral in that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I'm familiar with Desiree. I think she does an amazing job with what she has to work with. But I just think that there's a disconnect between the actual television station and what she's doing. Right. And I'm saying if this is truly a partnership with this contractual production company, the contract with this production company, I think that there has to be some more connectivity between what Desiree is doing because Desiree is really, she is the public information officer at NJPAC and she does a lot of those good things. But I don't see her as a television host. or a producer i i just don't see it throughout the city right but that's what she's down for doing so if i just want to see that the television station and what desiree is doing and what the communication department is doing that they're more tied in together because the television department with channel 78 and the contract with cologna production it seems totally separate

You have a question? Thank you.

Oh, just one more, Council Press. The vacancy, I know that we had a hiring freeze. Do we know when we will probably, I guess the right question to ask is for the vacancy for the senior press information officer, who is currently doing that job? Because in my mind, that is a very important job.

We're not in a position to name by name who that person is because I would essentially go into a personnel discussion. It is being handled. There's a staff that they have, they're handling more than one job. The communications director does More than what a typical communications director would do. We have a press secretary. She morphs over into more things that she's supposed to do. We have a, what is that stuff you call? You know this stuff better than I do. People get on their Instagram and all that kind of business. Social media. Social media. Yeah. I'm going to see a moment there. We have somebody who works on those things as well. The communication director needs somebody to work with her directly to help run that office. We don't have it right now. So I think that's the position that you're talking about. We hope to fill it at some point. We'll know better after this budget gets adopted what our resources are and what we can do.

I guess just overall, there are a lot of moving parts in the communication department that I would love to see tied together more, to be more fluent. And right now, it's choppy to me.

Would it be helpful if we set up a separate meeting with you, the communications director, Desiree, and Yolanda, who interfaces with Desiree more than anybody.

I would love that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any other questions from council we should address to Keisha? Any concerns and any questions? They could be answered to us at a short, within the next week or so. So if we do forward them to the city clerk and then we'll get back to you. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Council President, I'm sorry, B.A. to make you get up. One more question. One more line of questioning.

I only move fast when I'm released.

One more thing. Being in the Westwood, you know, this is my second term and and for my first term this was a big question when it came to sustainability right i know that the sustainability department now handles trees and you know i know when i first came into office anybody that called me about a dead tree i was chopping them down and the mayor You know, the mayor called me and said, stop cutting down my trees. And I definitely understand. But with those trees that were cut down, we have we have those roots. You know, we have those stumps. Is there a line in the budget now that says that we're going to, you know, because especially in the West Ward, I'm sure probably in the South too, but in the North as well. But the West Ward, we have a lot of stumps that my office gets the calls about. Is there a line in the budget that is going to focus on this?

we'll pivot because what we're doing now is we're being very creative about how we spend the city's funds. So we're using community development block grant funds to fund that. It's a targeted project, so we're able to use grant funds to get rid of those stops. We do have a line where we do in DPW where we do tree removals and that kind of stuff, but in order to offset, because we have a lot of expenses coming out of DPW, we're able to offset using grant funds.

So is there a plan with whatever the creative funds that you guys have that's going to, is there a plan? Can I sit down with you on that too, to talk about some specific areas that that's been discussed since I got into office, you know, five years ago?

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. MR. PRESIDENT, REAL QUICK. SO WITH THE TREE TRIMMING AND REMOVAL AND STUMPS, THAT'S NOT IN YOUR BUDGET. THE SUSTAINABILITY IS JUST THE PLANTING. SO THAT'S WHAT, DPW OR NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES?

IT'S WITH DPW AND NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES, BUT WE ARE LOOKING AT, IT'S INTERESTING THAT COUNCILMAN KELLY AND YOU ARE BRINGING THIS UP, WE ARE LOOKING AT MOVING THE TREE SUPERINTENDENT, THE ONE THAT WE HAD, UNDER SUSTAINABILITY. SO WE'RE IN DISCUSSION ABOUT THAT NOW.

Yeah, because I know this office now does the approvals or whenever there's a request to trim or remove a tree, which I think is working out well. But I agree with Councilman that, you know, we have 10 years worth of tree stumps out there. So I hope you have a lot of grant money to address all those stumps because they're everywhere.

Thank you. Thank you. Department of Law. Law Department.

Can we change the order?

No, there we go.

All right, Corporation Council, almost ready.

So first, good afternoon. Kenyatta Storrs, City of Newark Corporation Council. To my right, I have April Bonight, who is the assistant that covers our prosecutor's office and our litigation section as well. And then to my left is Michelle Nelson, who covers our contract section and our labor section. Essentially, the department is made up of four major sections, as it is mentioned, labor, contracts, litigation, and prosecutor's office. We also have a, you know, call it a subsection that we use for special projects. When you hear about, you know, affirmative lawsuits that we do, it's usually from our special project section. For the most part, it's made up of, at the current moment, we have 37 employees altogether. It makes up about 21 lawyers, including the three people that you see here. um and you know we pretty much handle all the legal issues that deal with in the city um you know of course give you more details our labor section deals with discipline when it comes to employees and things of that nature uh we don't really have those folks involved in union issues but for the most part though when it comes to uh folks who are getting disciplined we handle those the contract section essentially deals with the contracts uh for the city including anything that goes to the letter start process and lands before you all when it comes to council meetings um our litigation section unfortunately is when we are in a space where someone sues the city for a number of reasons including you know contract disputes slip and falls accidents that goes for any department that is involved in the process and then of course our prosecutor's office essentially handles all our municipal court situations. As you know, we have, there's about 13 municipal court, uh, judges all together and our prosecutor's office covers most of, if not all the courts. I'm open for any questions that you may have.

Any questions from members of council council Reynolds.

I'M SORRY. CORP COUNSEL, IF YOU LOOK AT THE AMOUNT YOU'RE SPENDING ON OUTSIDE LEGAL CONTRACTS, IF YOU DID A YEAR-TO-YEAR COMPARISON LIKE OVER THE LAST THREE YEARS, WHAT WOULD YOUR ASSESSMENT BE? ARE WE SPENDING MORE MONEY THIS YEAR THAN WE WERE LAST YEAR? WHAT PERCENTAGE AND WHAT'S DRIVING UP THE INCREASES?

So I would say that, I would use the word more, but I would say that when you compare that we have more lawsuits coming in, we have more projects coming to council, and of course we have more employees who may get involved in discipline. Our outside council folks handle most of our more significant, specialized projects for the most part. But to answer your question, we are spending more. I do do an analysis. Every other Friday, we do KPIs with the mayor and we basically give a year by year total of what we spend this year versus last year. I will tell you that I don't know the exact number right now from last year, but I can tell you that this year, year to date as of Friday, we spent $1,237,674.19, which is the equivalent of 49% of what we budgeted So we are still on pace to be at the budgeted amount. I will tell you, though, that when you get contracts, before you will, we have what we put before you as up to numbers. And we do that because while we may give somebody a contract that says up to $50,000, it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to get $50,000 worth of work to do. There may be some folks, as you know, that may end up doing more than that, which may lead to them US NEEDING TO COME BACK FOR MORE OF AN OPPORTUNITY TO SPEND MORE MONEY WITH THEM.

JUST TWO QUICK OBSERVATIONS. SO YOUR BUDGET REQUEST THIS YEAR COMPARED TO WHAT WAS ADOPTED LAST YEAR, IT'S ABOUT 11% MORE THAT YOU'RE ASKING FOR. WHAT CONTRIBUTES TO THAT ADDITIONAL REQUEST? A LOT OF IT, ABOUT 250,000 IS PARKING SALARY AND WAGES AND ABOUT A HALF A MILLION IN OTHER CONTRACTS. And if you look at your 2025 modified budget, meaning this is what you spent, even though we anticipated you spending about $3.3 million in outside contracts, it looks like that number is more like $5.2 million. So how do you come back to us with an estimate of $3.8 this year if you spent close to $5.2 last year?

Yeah, so I would tell you this, I would tell you that there's a few things going on. The 1st thing is that we come to you with the budget number in reference to employees. And, of course, unfortunately, we have lost a number of people. They essentially were able to use some of that money to cover now outside council costs. Because, of course, we wouldn't be. using the amount of money for 40 something or so lawyers. However, unfortunately we have less lawyers in the office. I mean, the harsh reality is that we do. Our litigation section only has about three or four attorneys in the office. All together we have 200 and so cases and of that about 90 or so are handled in-house.

But your salary and wages, like what you asked for last year, the council approved it, a little under $4.2 million, and you spent pretty much what we approved. But my concern is with outside council, your actual expenditure number was almost $5.2 million, almost $1.8 million. million more than what we approve. So is your ask of 3.8 enough for outside counsel based on what you actually spent last year? That's my concern.

No, I understand. I mean, listen, at this point, we are going to continue to work with the BA and, of course, the folks in budget to make sure that we try to keep our outside council numbers lower. I will say that if I compare this year to last year, we've sent less cases out in the first, I guess, eight months of the year compared to last year. But the unfortunate part about it is, as I said, we have less attorneys in the office.

Can you give us an assessment at some point of where you spent more money? Was it labor? Was it conflict? Oh, no.

It's definitely litigation. Definitely. Litigation. Yeah. So... I need you to give you some context. So for example, for whatever reason, if there's a situation where you say police department, right? If someone sues the police department because they say that there was, I don't know, three officers did something to them physically, and then they sue the police department, they sue the director. There are times where we have to have individual attorneys for each of the officers. Because of course, while you like to think that they agree, Sometimes, unfortunately, one person will say, I didn't do that. This person did it. And you don't want to have the same boy representing that person.

That's it, Mr. President. Thank you, Council President. Just how many attorneys do you have in the office now?

Right now, 21, including myself.

And how many vacancies?

I think altogether, there are roughly nine or 10.

And because of, and you just lost one recently too, now that she's in Montclair, but are there any, and I know what we talk about, we keep talking about the hiring freeze, but there's certain, and I said this in the other, I mentioned this in the other hearing prior, these vacancies will affect, well, the question is, will these vacancies affect either revenue generation or cost savings? And is there a plan, even though I know we have a quote unquote hiring freeze to attract more attorneys?

Yeah. So I will say, you know, to the BA's credit, of course, the hiring freeze, he's given us the exception. Essentially said that, you know, I want you to continue to try to find folks, you know, fortunate part about it is that unfortunately we're competing with everyone else. I will tell you that a number of municipalities are struggling with keeping folks in house because the harsh reality is that the way the way people practice law has changed since COVID. You and I both know that, you know, you have law firms that are paying people a bunch of money and they're paying people money to stay home and do work. So, you know, because of that, you know, the struggle was real. I will also tell you that, you know, we try our best to try to get people from within the city of Newark to work here, right? But we've, you know, the mayor and the VA has given me the opportunity to stretch out a little bit further to ask for other people throughout the state to give them an opportunity to come here.

What's your average level? And I don't know if you know this average length of stay that the attorneys are here for.

So it seems that at one point or another, you had some, I use the word like some old heads, right? Some folks who came here, made it.

Michelle Nelson right there.

Well, you know, it's funny. You have folks who would stay here, you know, I mean, listen, I've been here for nine years, right? So in my stay, I've had, you know, the benefit of it. Angela Foster, Avion Benjamin, those folks who have been here for 13, 14 years. But nowadays things are much different. You have folks, I mean, don't get me wrong, you know, you've had folks who come here for two years and then, you know, they pretty much learn how to do it. And somebody offers them, you know, almost double the salary. They're not going to really stay. And you know what, not for nothing, you're proud of the fact that you can teach people, but it gets nervous when you get into a space where you teach people how to do the work and then they move on. All right. Thank you. Remember, Michelle was here and then left and came back. So, you know, Michelle was an example of it.

Welcome home. Thank you, Council President. So, Corporation Council, you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven provisionals in your office. Is that the total list? I BELIEVE SO, YES. I APPRECIATE HAVING THE DATES HERE THAT GIVE US THE INFORMATION OF HOW LONG THEY'VE BEEN HERE. IS THERE A PLAN TO, AND THIS IS A QUESTION THAT I THINK WE'RE GOING TO ALL ASK EVERY DEPARTMENT, IS THERE A PLAN AND IF SO, WHAT IS IT TO TRY TO MAKE THESE PROVISIONAL PEOPLE PERMANENT? And if not, is it possible, because I heard what you said and I understand what you said about the need for the different law offices and the different legal contracts because different people need different things and you have litigation and you have all of those different things. But even if it was a way to pare down the list to be able to take some of that money to move some of these provisional people to permanent, is that even a conversation or an option to look at?

I mean, listen, the harsh reality is that when you, I'm gonna just identify two of the people that here on the provisional, two of the people here are, who went to law school, clerked in Essex County, and then came here, started doing work with us under somebody else's supervision, but never passed the bar, right? So, you know, while they are, you know, legal minds and they're able to help us, you know, produce work, they're not official lawyers. So in that space, we're waiting for them. Unfortunately, they haven't passed the bar, but once they pass the bar, prayerfully, we're going to put them on a permanent side. The other folks, you know, we'll continue to talk to HR about it.

Any other questions?

Any other questions? I just want an observation of your department. As president has been here long, your department has a track record of judges who have come out of the law department. What I'm saying is that as president has been here, along seeing the department of law to witness the many judges, who have left the Corporation Council, Superior Court, Municipal Court, and that department, Really, the experience of the law department is very commendable. And I thank your staff.

I appreciate that.

Because you have a good reputation. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Mr. President, just one quick thing. And we just got the budget information a little while ago. But if you look at your staff detail, just maybe have somebody revise the calculations. Yeah. Because if you look at the base salary, in some cases you add longevity, it doesn't equate to what the total salary is. So somehow they may have used an incorrect Excel formula or something.

Okay. I'll definitely have someone check it.

It's a calculator.

All right.

Thank you. Anything further? All right.

Remote calculator. All right, thank you.

Next department, economic and housing development.

They're not here. Let's see. I don't see them here. Next department, economic development is not here. Engineer they are they coming engineering.

Oh, you're here.

And I'm in development was the director.

Which is always be early. 40 minutes. He's half hour. Yeah.

As noted by Council Ramos that we should have them here half hour prior. Yes. Each department.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. Thank you, Council. Okay. Get marriage.

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL PRESIDENT, COUNCIL MEMBERS, ALLISON LADD, ECONOMIC AND HOUSING DEVELOPMENT. GREAT TO BE WITH YOU. I DO HAVE A WRITTEN STATEMENT. WOULD YOU LIKE THE COPIES?

YES, PLEASE. JUST NOTICE KEISHA. THANK YOU.

In an effort of time, I can summarize the statement, unless you'd like me just to read it through. I can try to read as... Summarize.

Summarize.

Okay. Thank you. Again, Council President, Council Members, Alison Ladd, Director of Economic and Housing Development, very pleased to be with you today to talk about the budget of 2026. Sorry, I think I echo. Today with me, I have several members of our management team. I have Mo Rafudian. I have Leona Wahid. I also have Nana Juma, our chief of staff, and Karina Pereira, our deputy director. As you know, our budget before you supports Mayor Baraka's equitable growth strategy. The department budget allocation is $4,235,781, and it supports 78 FTEs. This also includes paid board members and commissioners. Additional staffing is funded by federal grants, local trust funds, and philanthropic dollars. Today, I just wanted to highlight three enhancements administered by Economic and Housing Development. One, we are creating opportunity for employees to be part of the larger equitable growth ecosystem. Over the last year, we've identified various employees that wanted to do project management, and we've been able to ask them to do a variety of projects. These projects include Things like Kawahita Towers, selling the high-value city-owned land, management of state grant funds, and also executing the community revitalization program. And I'm really grateful to them for stepping up. They're doing the project management in addition to their day-to-day activities, but it's also really helped us at a leadership level to have someone focused on that work. Second, we're generating revenue from equitable development and creating housing that's affordable for Newark residents. As you know, one of the key goals for the department is to use public resources to create the development, affordable housing, generate tax revenue, and also local trust funds. I ALSO THOUGHT IT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR YOU TO KNOW THAT AT THIS TIME, WE ARE SEEING SOME OF THE PROJECTS GO ABOVE AND BEYOND THE 20% INCLUSIONARY ZONING MANDATE, AND THAT IS OFTEN DUE TO THEIR FUNDING FROM THE STATE, EITHER NEW JERSEY HOUSING MORTGAGE AND FINANCE AGENCY OR NEW JERSEY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND ALSO NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS OR COMMUNITY AFFAIRS. So we're happy about that because we believe we can not only increase our tax revenue through tax incentives, but we're also increasing the development of affordable housing and having community benefits for Newark residents. The third item is holding city partners accountable. As some of you have heard over the last three years, we've been really tackling compliance. We know that this is an area that takes the entire city to actually work on this. And also, of course, the entire economic and housing development office. Just a couple of things to note here. We have created new compliance checklists. We review agreements for land sales and financial incentives and also cross check with planning and zoning to make sure the block and lot, even though they cross multiple offices, they are still consistent with all the approvals. We also unfortunately have to issue default letters and sometimes we have to have the properties returned back to the city. And that's if some of our partners are not following through with their commitment to do development on our properties. The last note I wanted to make under compliance is several years ago, we did pass with the council support the vacant property ordinance. And today with engineering, municipal courts and legal counsel, we're able to enforce these fees. We'd like to continue to strengthen it, but just by note for this year alone, so far we've generated about 400,000 in fees. We've also invoiced about 300,000. We believe that number can be higher and that will take more coordinated enforcement. But as the mayor shared today earlier with you, we also did have one very successful effort with the courts and we were able to get one of our noncompliant actors to actually pay not only their vacant property fees, but also their taxes. So that was a big, great thing that happened in the last couple of weeks. At this point, before I close, I just wanted to give you a sense of what to expect in the balance of the year. We are working on about eight redevelopment plans from Mulberry Commons to Bergen-Lyons Commercial Corridor. to the airport district, to Broad Street Station, and a few more. So you'll see those come more publicly if you haven't seen them already. And we'll be definitely looking for community engagement on those redevelopment plans so that we're doing community development throughout the city. At this time, I'd just like to say thank you for the opportunity and also wanted to say special thanks to my team at EHD. As you can tell, we don't do this alone. We do it as a team and we're glad to be here. So thank you.

Questions? Thank you.

question council ramos yeah um thank you deputy mayor i mean your your request is pretty much in line from what it was last year i did notice that you took over two employees from recreation so that attributes to a little bit of the increase in salary and wages can you tell us a little bit about why you inherited those two employees and what are they working on

Sure, my pleasure. We had two interdepartmental transfers, Fayemi Shakur, who is the Director of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and also Victoria Walker, who is the Director of the Arts and Education District. What we found is that the work that they do improves our economy and also does economic development. In addition to cleans and beautifies our city, we felt that the alignment within economic development was more clear than where they were previously. And then I just say in closing, some of the activities in which both individuals lead need funding. And sometimes the mayor asks EHD to help fund those activities.

We also have a few of our old communications directors working for you. I'm just kidding. As far as the redevelopment council, that is not included in your budget. I know that's paid for out of some other funds. Can you tell us a little bit about how much money we're spending on redevelopment attorneys and where's that money coming from?

Yes, sure. Okay. uh so yes i'm happy to answer the question about um outside council um the city as many of you remember has an escrow ordinance which allows the city to charge developers for land use and zoning engineering legal counsel and many other activities and so most of our legal counsel is actually paid for by the developers who are doing business in the city, going through either planning and zoning or pilots or other things of that nature. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, is that we do have council to help us sometimes with changing ordinances or laws that we'd like to do quickly. And that is done in coordination with the corporation council's office. and we're able to move quickly to expand. I know they spoke before us and they are always supportive of us having additional lawyers that can help us. In closing, I can tell you that it's for anything unrelated to the escrows. It's funded by local trust fund dollars, but I'm happy to give you a report. I would say it's probably about 90, 10, 90% PAID FOR BY THE DEVELOPERS AND 10% PAID FOR BY THE DEPARTMENT.

JUST IF YOU CAN GIVE US A SENSE OF HOW MUCH WE'RE SPENDING YEARLY ON THOSE CONTRACTS AND WHO HAS THOSE CONTRACTS. I KNOW THE OLD DAKOTAS FIRM HAS A NUMBER OF THOSE AND THE CITIES USE THEM FOR many years. The last thing, Mr. President, is I know your department generates fees or money based on land transactions and rent control office and things like that. How much money do you typically generate in non-land sale functions out of your office? And is that money come back to you in some way besides the trust fund money, or does that go to the general operating funds?

Sure. Just to answer your first question about legal counsel, we do work with Dakota Stoyle. We also work with Wilentz and we work with Spiro Nelson. Those are our three firms that responded to the request for qualifications last year and that the counsel approved. And so I will give you an accounting of that later today. The second piece though, that you were asking about,

The fees.

Thank you very much for your kindness. So aside from properties that we sell, we probably generate about a million dollars a year that is mostly contributed into the general fund. So things that you mentioned around rent control that goes into the general fund information about vacant building fees that goes into the general fund. And so aside from that, the others are related to escrow payments and or some fees for land use and zoning. But the overwhelming majority of those funds that are not land sales actually go to the general fund.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Council President. How you doing, Deputy Mayor? Can you tell me how many properties we sold last year? Do we know that number offhand?

Bear with me one moment. Sure. Sir, I will have to get that to you. I did have a notation actually in the book, but it's no longer there. So I'll make sure I get you the total number of land sales last year.

And just one thing to add to that, is it possible to do it ward by ward as well?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President. Just a couple questions. One was regarding collection and enforcement of fees that you had mentioned. Has there been an analysis to determine what we're collecting versus what is out there? We're only collecting a certain percentage, like the finance does for property taxes. We collected 80% of all the taxes.

So if I understand the question, I think that we do not do an analysis for all of the funding sources. I can tell you for some of them, I do know, for instance, the vacant building ordinance that I mentioned, we have about $400,000 that we collected. We also invoiced about $300,000. We believe that that 300,000 should be higher if we have stronger enforcement and working closer with our partners at code enforcement and also the municipal courts. And that was where we were able to receive about 400,000 just at once from one of our actors that was not compliant. So I would say the second piece is that we do do a survey, but it does not mean that everyone is responsible for paying the fee. One thing that you may know is that under our vacant building legislation, WE ACTUALLY HAVE A DEREGISTRATION PROCESS AND THAT DEREGISTRATION PROCESS IS A GOOD THING FOR THE CITY BECAUSE WE'RE ABLE TO THEN ACTIVATE THOSE SITES AND THEY'RE BECOMING OCCUPIED OR DEVELOPED. AND SO WE ACTUALLY TRACK THAT TOO AND I'M HAPPY TO PROVIDE THAT TO YOU.

NEW SPEAKER LET ME ASK A FOLLOW-UP QUESTION WITH REGARDS TO RENT CONTROL. SO WE I BELIEVE WE KNOW OR YOU KNOW HOPEFULLY THE NUMBER OF BUILDINGS THAT ARE THAT SHOULD BE UNDER RENT CONTROL. And we know the amount that has been collected from rent control or maybe I should ask it's a different way. Do you know that the amount that should be collected versus what has been collected at this point?

I do not know the numbers, but I can actually get that for you. But here's what I'll tell you. almost all of the units in newark if they're um have renters in them should be under rent control there's only a few exceptions a few exceptions include public housing 100 affordable housing and even with an exemption for the 30-year new construction they still have to register with the city of newark and they still have to get their certificate of habitability The last thing I'll say is that over the last couple years, we actually, as you may recall, we increased the registration fee to be per unit rather than per building or per project. And so we're generating more than we were before, but I can get that for you.

I'd be curious to know that number. One more question, and that's just with regards to, and I hate to say I'm stepping on something that you might talk about, Councilman, but there are a number of people How many people do you have in your department that are being paid from outside the department and vice versa?

I'm not sure I understand the question. I will say that I have had one or two people that are paid for by grants over the years, but those grant-funded positions tend to be one year, unless we can find additional funding from either the same grantor or something on the city side. So far, they are funded just through grants.

So currently, everybody that's working in EHD is funded through EHD or a grant?

if i understand you correctly there we may have one person who is no longer within the department and it did a transfer to workforce development and we're carrying that as we've worked with the workforce development office and the budget office given some budget constraints so as far as i know there's one person there second there could be others that are on our list for the PERSONNEL LIST, BUT THOSE CHANGES HAVE ALREADY BEEN IN EFFECT. THEY'RE JUST NOT REFERENCED IN OUR DOCUMENT THAT WE GAVE YOU.

BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN POST PRODUCTION. NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, COUNCIL PRESIDENT.

THANK YOU DEBORAH MAY FOR YOUR PRESENTATION. First of all, you have listed 21 provisional employees in your department and you have some that have been there as long as 2009. Is there a plan to make them permanent? And if so, when?

Yes. So provisional employees are mostly due to the fact that people change jobs. So as you may recall through many HR roles, we cannot promote people necessarily within the same position. So oftentimes we use it as a cross training opportunity and a growth opportunity. And so some of our team members that are on the provisional list have changed jobs over the last year or two years. And so that makes them provisional because second, the state civil service commission actually releases the test as you may know. And once that test is released, our provisional employees can take the test. If they pass, then they can become permanent. So to, maybe be more simplified. It is not in my control to make them permanent. They have to take a test through the civil service administration. I would say in closing, we do ask HR and we work well with them to see if they can post the positions faster. So for instance, Janine Hazard Williams, who's not with us today, but she did take the test for being a deputy director and a municipal administrator, and she will become permanent in that position.

And, um, you had mentioned previously about having two people, uh, Miami and Victoria come over from other departments into your department, because it made sense with the alignment, the work that they do and the work that your department does, and that it would be, um, contributing to that. Um, I know that, and this is a conversation that when engineering comes up, that I would bring it up to them. But we know that one of the challenges that you have is where we have these businesses and these commercial properties and not being able to get to them soon enough to be able to do the inspections, to have code enforcement officers to do all of the things that need to be done in order to move forward, to abate issues, to handle constituent complaints and issues of quality of life with these businesses. Um, is there a way to look at the budget and to make room for a couple of code enforcement offices to be brought over to your department that you would have control over to be able to deploy them to handle those issues. So it's not such a, a long wait and, and, and, you know, have these things just go on for, um, for, for a very long time and create such a backlog.

Yes, Councilwoman, it's a great idea. I know our business administrator has also supported it for us to have a person or persons be able to be dedicated to either rent control for certificate of habitability or also for the vacant and building ordinance. I will say that sometimes that is challenging because they may be pulled to do another activity. But that was one of the reasons why we talked about some of the revenue that we're generating. We think that some of those funds could potentially be supporting the overall city infrastructure.

I was looking at, thank you, Council President, Deputy Mayor. So you said that people that are currently working that are not on city payroll, unless I misheard you, said there were two that are not on city payroll?

I said that there were two people over the last year that were funded by grants.

So we have 13 here. So that's just in the last year, the 13 that are here that are funded by grants that are not on city payroll. Is the two a part of that?

I don't believe so.

I'm just looking at the last page, page seven.

I don't believe so. I believe that they were contract positions. So the money did come for the purpose that the city requested, but the contract was done with a nonprofit and they were detailed to the city.

So what happens to these individuals when the contract is up?

For the list of employees that's on that page that you're looking at, they are all currently funded and will continue to be funded based upon the federal budgets that we have approved through the VA's office.

That goes for the staff not funded by city or grant, which is the seven below that?

Yes, that list is our precise payroll and they are, we work really diligently to bring them on permanently when we have a vacancy. And many of the people in the department actually started that way. And so we're happy that they're able to now be here in the city, city side, and also have benefits and eligible for their pension.

Thank you. Thank you. I didn't see you. Appreciate you.

All of our colleagues have already answered the questions that I wanted to say, but I do want to put this on record. Clerk and the BA, can we find two positions? I know they're in the budget. If we halve those positions for the remainder of this year, uh as code enforcement officers to go under the compliance office that is held under ehd and so that those two code officers were answered to the compliance officer around the vacant lot ordinance and the other ordinances in place that will be able to have these folks identify uh and ensure that the revenue that is going to be generated and that has already been generated based off the numbers we have, will have a singular component. I know that we can be able to half that. And so if we can come back with that notice, if we can put that on the record, just to not five or six, just to, for the remainder of the year. And then as we move into the new budget cycle, they would end up there, but it would go under their office of compliance as the work from what the compliance officer is doing, as well as making sure that they are able to supervise and access the work that is going to be happening with these two code enforcement officers as revenue generating ideas from not just

the downtown area from individuals who are not in compliance but also in another in all of the other neighborhoods that fit under the vacant lot ordinance thank you i just have two quick things but very serious things um i have a very serious issue with the office of tenant legal services it doesn't exist I have been at that landlord tenant court almost four years, and all the money that they were given should be given back. They have not attended court with one tenant at that Essex County Court, not one time. They give people advice, including the legal services that's inside, but I'm talking about specifically because we said we would do this. And so because of that, when we go into the rent control office, who then says to the tenant, okay, Donna, your unit is not registered that you're renting from Larry, correct? Only because we, okay. Councilman. So when I have that documentation, what happens is the Essex County court doesn't honor it. And so where I should be in a position to sue, Larry, because he's not in compliance with my unit, it's not registered, as well as inhabitable from the code enforcement side, those documents are not being honored at Essex County. This is causing a major, major, major issue. I'M ASSUMING THAT MAYBE THROUGH YOUR OFFICE AND THE MAYOR'S OFFICE, WE NEED TO SEND A STERN LETTER TO THE NEW HEAD JUDGE AT ESSIS COUNTY. I'VE ALREADY REACHED OUT TO GLENN GRANT AND TRENTON BECAUSE THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. ON THE RECORD, WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND, 420 FAMILIES A DAY for the last seven months in that Essex County landlord tenant court. And over 200 of them are being evicted every day. And so the problem is when I come in and I have an issue, which many council colleagues have intervened, tried to intercede on going up there and try to make a difference for a person. couple of families it the impact that it needs to have when the landlords aren't doing what they're supposed to do but then also the lack of revenue that we're generating because i live in the apartment but it's registered to pat right and so pat was paying 300 i'm paying seven right because he was there five years ago they never switched it over so i think that along with code enforcement, we have to have some more stringent fines and tactics against these landlords i was saying something else so let me just remember i'm up here with my colleagues these landlords who are purposely um not following the rules as well as we have to be as strong and stringent against those who hold the subsidies the new communities the north housing authority dca um giving residents hard time with recertification that again says donna lives in the you pat lives in the unit but donna lives there now right and i'm paying seven but pat was only paying three and so in that revalue in that recertification process i'm not even registered so that's one income coming in because i have three children he only had two so there's a different section eight based payment as well that's another level of Corruption, I'll just use that word for lack of a better word. that they're engaging in deceiving as well, the public and the city of funds that we're due. So I would like to have the office of legal services and those first down there on the first in the basement, come in here and say to us why they did not assist. And if they claim they did, they need to bring the tenant. I need to see them. I'm sure my colleagues do too. You need to see those folks because they are not walking into court. So what happens is I go in. The judge says, oh, I don't want to see that. I've already loaded my documents up in the e-course. That's how sophisticated we are, some of us are getting now. And they don't even take the time to open it and look to see that we went to rent control. It's not registered. It's an illegal conversion. You know, those things are going on with multiple people. You know, we have people living in these basement apartments that aren't even habitable. You got people, you know, the furnace is here. Their bed is here. The bathroom is over here. The water heaters, you know, so we have people living in some horrific but dangerously unsafe conditions. And we really need to, you have to use whatever I came to be my stuff up here, y'all. I appreciate the smiles back there. Whatever manipulatives I got to use. But we just need to really look at that. And I would really like for legal services and the volunteers of America and whoever else, lawyers that came in, because they didn't help anybody. And that's a sad story because we have many homeless people now that we are over inundating the homeless office with because we haven't been able to give people that proper legal help. When they come into court, they have the top notch. You know, they hired Larry and they hired Mr. Ramos there. They came in, got their degrees and they, hey, no, they don't have this, they don't have that. And I'm gonna lose.

Council Member, I am disappointed that I have to say this, but I'm glad that I can agree with you. It has been a time of disappointment. We are working to address it. Thank you. As well as I have said to my team, I am going to landlord-tenant court. um i did not think there was a need for me to go however i now know i must go that's one thing the second thing is is i'm going to tell you that when we have done the redevelopment agreements and we've gotten the properties back the reason why we're successful is because i go to court and i speak in front of a judge right now i speak in front of the same judge about the properties in which now we have been reverted back to the city So to your point and in support, I agree that our relationship with the courts needs to be improved. And I am committed to doing that in the same way we did with the property management real estate side. I know it is not... uh adequate answer for you today but i will assure you that we are working on this i have nana juma my chief of staff who's actually leading this um conversation with us and working um with hr to find a way that we can improve that office um so i'm i'm committed to that and um and we will do better thank you so much appreciate that and all the questions thank you THANK YOU, COUNCIL PRESIDENT. PLEASURE TO SEE YOU.

NEXT DEPARTMENT. THANK YOU.

ENGINEERING.

All right.

There he is.

Oh, that's it, right? No, that's not phenomenal. Get up. Get up. You know what? I'm going to put him out. Yeah. Oh, that's it. Oh, this. Oh, this is development.

We have two of those in the apartment right now. Good evening, how are you?

so good evening north residents honorable council president katana and members of the municipal council my name is james d adams i'm the director of engineering for the city of north for the second time um with me is assistant director ramon concepcion i have manager murphy i believe is in the back and also sean savage who's the head of the traffic and signals division Our construction official, George Perdone, unfortunately cannot be with us because he's having a medical treatment. So in the interest of time, I'm going to make my opening statement brief. As you well know, the Department of Engineering consists of four divisions. There is a director's office which manages fiscal personnel and administrative functions. There's the UCC office which handles permits, plan reviews and inspections. There's the division of traffic and signals, which oversees traffic signals, signs, roadways, infrastructure, safety improvements, et cetera. And finally, but not least is the division of code enforcement, which enforces property maintenance, quality of life issues and event enforcements. For this upcoming fiscal year, the Department of Engineering is requesting approximately $22 million for our operating budget. About 32% of this is dedicated to salaries and wages, which is really the focus and really the strength of our department. The engineering department has 111 budgeted positions across the departments, and we currently have 12 vacancies, which we're actively looking to fill with the assistance of the human resource department and their recently hired recruiter. as far as our department accomplishments the ucc office and this is all to date has approved approximately 1500 permits they've issued 192 certificates of occupancy and temporary certificates and they've generated approximately 4.9 million dollars in permit revenue The revitalized code enforcement office has generated approximately $456 in court fines. And more importantly, this division under the new leadership has driven corrective actions and improved living conditions throughout our neighborhoods. Finally, Traffic and Signals has secured $57 million in grant funding, and we continue to work with the county, state, and other partners to improve the roadway conditions and support paving and pedestrian safety projects throughout the city. We have a couple of key projects that I just want to briefly mention before I turn it over to questions. First of all, the city hall modernization program for the elevators. We plan to complete elevators two and four before Thanksgiving, and we plan to complete elevators one and three by March, 2027, which would obviously improve the accessibility and reliability to this building. Also out in the road, we have MA 22 and MA 23, which are local aid paving projects, which are currently active with doing both handicap ramps, sidewalks, curves, and paving. And our striping project, which was just recently awarded, we plan on starting in September. Last, and this is not least, a recently inherited project is the Mulberry Commons Pedestrian Bridge, which has just reached a significant milestone of 15% complete. This project is scheduled to be complete in the early spring of 2029. What this project will do will link Mulberry Park um newark downtown with the iron bound with a pedestrian friendly bridge elevators and walkways that will complete this project in closing we believe that this operating budget reflects the resources needed to maintain the essential services of this department We understand the trust you place in us, and we are committed to being good stewards of these public funds while delivering visible, measurable results for the residents and businesses. So on behalf of the entire engineering team, we thank you for your consideration for our budget request and your continued partnership with the Department of Engineering. So we'll open it now to questions and comments. Councilman council.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, uh, first of all, uh, director Adams under, uh, inspections and enforcement, uh, you are looking for an increase in overtime for 82,000, 150,000. Can you explain that when the majority of our code enforcement officers are only working Monday through Friday?

Well, while it is true that our code enforcement officers only work Monday through Friday, we're well aware of all the events, the Saturdays, the Sundays, the heat, the no heat night inspections that they have to do. We just went through the FIFA season where there was numerous events and code enforcement officers are requested to attend and to cover events by multiple organizations and agencies throughout the city so it's even though they work nine to five during the week special events require them to be on call for those events so would it be better if we had a staggered schedule if some of them were tuesday through saturday or wednesday through sunday

to help cut down on that and have the kind of enforcement out in a community that is needed. I just don't believe a public safety doesn't work. They're 24 hours, sanitation should be 24 hours, code enforcement should be 24 hours. There were just certain things in the city and hoping that you come on as the director to begin to look at these things, not just from the perspective of UCC and being able to have folks out here on a weekend to monitor the amount of illegal conversions and the issue of quality of life that is becoming a huge issue in this city. really needs to fit the background and scope of why we need code enforcement officers, not just Monday through Friday, but we need them out here on Saturdays and Sundays as well. And so we're looking to like up overtime for all of those different things. And I know it may be different concerts or things that may happen and they may come in. But just by having staggered schedules, we would be able to have those individuals who are already working and can be able to move around and get to those different activities and events. Because it looks like every one of the departments, traffic and signals has asked for 50,000 increase in overtime as well. And I know that there are a lot of uh stop signs that are down during the weekend there are a lot of uh street signs that are down during the weekend and most of those are not picked up until uh the weekday when the individuals come back in to work so just trying to figure out the strategies and the allotment of why we're everyone is asking for all of this this overtime

So councilman, council, let me go in reverse order. It is not true that they're always there on Monday. We have traffic and signals employees who are on call on the weekends. As a matter of fact, this past weekend, there was a light out. I think it was on Green Street and McCarter Highway where we had to call a crew in at night to be able to repair that. And we have to pay these employees to be on call so they're available in case there's a streetlight that gets knocked out. These past two storms by PSCNG knocked out streetlights where our traffic and signals repairers had to be there alongside PSCNG to repair them. So it is not true that traffic signals wait over the weekend. granted there might be a sign here or there that gets knocked down but i'm going to say this that we're all engineering department we're all traffic and signals so if people see something they should say something it's very challenging for the staff that we have to be able to be everywhere at all times so we invite people to tell us when the signs are knocked down tell us when the street lights are not working tell us the things that they need corrected and we will correct them

Do we allocate a certain amount of dollars for rumble strips and speed humps?

So we don't necessarily budget for those items. That would be contained in the budgeting that we have that probably says for street paving. But usually rumble strips and I'm going to say traffic calming measures are the results of speeding. And this might not be a popular opinion, but controlling behavior with speeding is enforcement by police. There is nothing better than enforcement by police for speeding. I can put rumble strips and speed humps in every single street. That's not going to stop people from speeding. It is police enforcement that should be first. Are we partners with the police? Absolutely. We'll take streets and we'll narrow them a little bit, which slows people down. We'll put bump outs on intersections that will slow people down.

And part of partnering with the police is putting rumble strips there. But the question was, do you budget for rumble strips? Yes.

We don't budget specifically for rumble strips. But we include them as part of safety programs when we do safe streets for schools. We do them in our operating budget for our paving. But we do not have a separate line item for rumble strips.

And here's the critical question around calming measures. A couple of years ago, we asked for a couple of things, and the BA in administration adhered to it, put aside $200,000. We wanted innovation and calming measures, right? Flashing stop signs instead of the old just red that's been there for a long period of time. Signs that were able to read, especially at night. Doesn't matter if it's LED-installated or whatever it is. And we received 10 extra and we didn't get them because they don't. I mean, the city may have benefited from them, but the purpose of the council doing it was to make sure that we had in every ward at least 10 signs that would tell people to slow down, show their speed and what was happening. What we got was some extra equipment. that they were able to put up in different areas that was warning people about events and activities and all of the other things that we fought hard for to make sure that they go back to the residents so that the residents could be able to see that these common measures and traffic concerns that they may be having is being attentive to around the city. So I want to come back again almost three years later and say, Is there a possibility that we can get more innovative traffic measure signs around our communities like they have around the college areas with the flashing lights and walk across the street and all around our school areas where we don't have them, but we do experience a lot of accidents, right? So just asking that question. And if we don't, then what would it take? What would a number be? 100,000, 50,000? What would that number look like?

Councilman, I couldn't tell you what the number would look like, but we can look into that. We can look at all measures as far as traffic.

So if we request it from the BA to set aside or find another $200,000 in this budget to help us with some other innovative calming measures to help us, to help our residents, would that be of great harm or great service to the residents of the city?

Councilman, I can't say it's gonna be great harm, any money that the business administrator would allow for traffic and signals or traffic calming devices. Would it solve all our problems? No. In order to solve the problem of pedestrian safety in Newark, it is concerted effort by more than one department. Engineering is just one part of the solution.

That part that you're part of would give some remedy or some assistance.

It would give some small assistance, yes, but it wouldn't be the solution.

So, clerk, we're going to request from the business administrator if he can find $200,000 in this budget to help and assist with updated, innovative, calming measures that are not standard and I see Mr. Savage shaking his head like he didn't want them, but we do need them. There's been major accidents around Madison and 17th Street, which is a school which needs them, along other areas in our neighborhood. We need to upgrade. Many times we go to other different areas and communities, and they have upgraded innovative commie measures, and we are antiquated. And we have to just, you know, acknowledge that and not fight over it all the time.

Councilwoman May, Councilman Rupp, and then Councilman Ramos.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Director Adams. So First thing, just to kind of feedback off of what Councilman Council was mentioning about the overtime, everyone that you have listed with the overtime amount, are they all permanent employees or provisional?

You know, I haven't broken it down, but I can provide that information. I'm not sure if they're all provisional or if they're all permanent, but the allocation of overtime does not depend on whether they're provisional or permanent.

No, I understand that. So you have listed about 21 provisional employees. And again, I'm asking this of every department.

is there a plan in place to make any of these people especially the ones who have been a long time permanent so councilwoman i'm going to have to cheat and use the previous director's answer i do not have a plan because like i said like she said the provisional to permanent is a is a function of the you know of the vision of the state and whether the people pass the test and whether they're qualified if it's education or experience or whether they pass the test Would I like to have more permanent employees? Sure, that's the goal, but I do not have a plan to specifically make a certain number of employees permanent over a certain amount of time.

Okay. Well, that's actually, and I meant to say that to Deputy Mayor, when we're talking about civil service and making someone, hire someone that's a permanent employee, necessarily two different things. But the other thing is, is that, and I mentioned it when Deputy Mayor was here, about the code enforcement officers that are really needed for the commercial properties and everything that is needed over in EHD. And I know that you are short code enforcement officers. This has been an issue, an ongoing issue for some time. When we talk about the priorities and I see all of the wonderful projects that are are listed there um is there some where in the plan when we talk about priorities to discuss options of getting more um and I know that we talked about it's been coming up about the hiring freeze and I know I don't want uh Miss Tate to kill me because she's like when you talk about hiring people But the thing is, is that it's like six in one hand, half a dozen in the other. So if we get more code enforcement officers, yes, we will be spending money, but then we're able to generate the fees and fines that we need that would be able to create revenue that would be able to pay for them. So it's just like, you know, what comes first, chicken or the egg? So there are even conversations and a plan around that that we can support.

So Councilwoman, yes, I'm not gonna say there's a plan. Let me say this. My short-term goals of code enforcement is for reliability, credibility, and to have people come to work and do their jobs. I have to start with that. Manager Murphy came in and she reallocated people to different wards and put different supervisors in different wards because we had to quickly assess who was working and who was not working. And was it a problem of the ward or was it a problem of the supervisors? We have to be able to hold our supervisors more responsible. We have to hold our code enforcement officers more responsible for what they do. Before we can look at Anything else? We have to go back to the basics and that's what we're doing right now. Are we saying that more code enforcement officers is off the table? Absolutely not. But some of the first things that I had to do since you brought up code enforcement is we had to issue a uniform protocol. a SOP for uniforms so they wore badges they had IDs the next thing we're doing is we're going to put their pictures on the website because we get complaints from the residents that I don't know who was there I don't know who so and so is so we're doing things like that to provide credibility to the existing officers that we have so yes what you've said is a possibility and we can look into that but I can tell you it's not MY FIRST PRIORITY.

HOW MANY CODE ARE IN THE PRECISE? PART-TIME. CSS. PART-TIME CODE ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS. YOU HAVE THAT NUMBER?

I THINK IT'S ABOUT 10.

HOW MUCH DO YOU SPEND OUT A YEAR FOR THOSE 10 PART-TIME?

I would have to get back to you on that. I don't know the number off the top of my head.

No one has that number.

Page 18. Yeah, on the top of page 18. And then it has the amount spent to date for 2018. $366,000 for 2025 and year to date, 2026 is 223,000. And out of that number, how much do we pay back to civil service and fines for not having civil service?

I don't understand the question. These are part-time individuals, right? And so civil service, under the guidelines in the civil service, we have to have full-time code enforcement officers. What are the fines that we're paying for having part-time civil service?

I'm not aware of fines.

Just get that number to me. That's all. I mean, we have to be paying something to civil service. They're not full-time, part-time code enforcement officers.

No. Excuse me, Counsel Capasso. So it's a difference. The CSS employees is paying for a separate program. That doesn't correlate or tie into civil service. I know. I'm asking you, what is the fines that we pay? I don't believe there is a fine to it. We don't pay any fines. Now that I'm aware of, no, but we could look into it and let you know, but now that I'm aware of.

Thank you. Thank you. Councilman, uh, uh, council president. Uh, so just to kind of piggyback off of what councilman council said earlier regarding the need for. code enforcement ucc uh working on weekends or staggered um staggered hours staggered days because my my concern is that you know for the most part when i see some construction or somebody working on a house on a sunday it's because they're doing some illegal conversion It's because they know that there's nobody going to be out there to spot them. And so my concern would be that we have something in place that, over the weekend, we can address those issues that come up because it happens all the time. And I got to wait till Monday or Tuesday to reach out to somebody. And whatever they were doing, they're finished at that point. And so I think it's important that we look at not only that, but also to me, quite honestly, increasing fines for legal conversion, because at the end of the day, once they finished, once they built the house, once they move people in, they're good. And it's very difficult to do anything about that. So I'd hope that you look at other revenue generating opportunities, that in particular, as well as some of the others that were mentioned. Because I think we're missing a lot of opportunities for us to find revenue that's going to help and assist. the residents and making sure that they're not in a, more importantly, that they're not in a situation where it is really an uninhabitable house or other kind of issues that may occur. We don't want our residents, especially those with small children, to be in a situation where the house was illegally converted. People feel comfortable doing that. Developers feel comfortable doing that construction over the weekend because there is no real penalty for them. So I hope that you look at deeper fines and more excessive ones that will be make that kind of construction prohibitive. Thank you. Thank you, Council.

Thank you, Mr. President. Directors, it's good to see you back. I've looked at the department's budget over the years and I know engineering, similar to other departments, but in some cases more so, you've been impacted by a lot of retirements over the years. and individuals who left the city to work for other towns and municipalities. And many of these individuals were in very specialized kind of positions. And it appears that based on your vacancy report that a number of those positions haven't been filled in years. What do you attribute that to? Is it that the city is not as competitive when it comes to the salaries that we offer for these very specialized positions that we need in order to effectively operate your department to make sure that we're getting our paving contracts done in a timely fashion? to ensure that our code enforcement office, and we just have a new person now who's in charge, so that's definitely a good sign. Even like the building department, I know over the years, there are at least three or four people that I physically used to run into all the time walking around City Hall who retired recently. I'm not sure who were bought in to replace those very essential employees. What do you need in order to be more competitive, in order to recruit some of these individuals who've left us to go to work for Patterson, who've retired? How can we be helpful?

Thank you, Councilman, for that question. So let me do it in three buckets. UCC, engineering, and I think you referred to the city surveyors. So I'm going to go in reverse order. There is a shortage around the country and in New Jersey for licensed surveyors. People do not go into that business anymore. The consulting firm that I used to work with could not find surveyors. They were even looking at buying a surveying firm to serve that position, and that's the position where our survey are left in December. We're experiencing the same thing that everybody, whether you're private or public, is experiencing. To solve this problem, what the engineering department has done is we have an on-call firm that's going to provide us survey services. It is not the optimal solution, but it's something that we had to do because we were behind in other survey work. Now, as far as engineers, yes, it's true that even Traffic and Signals has lost engineers to other public entities. We're unfortunately in a situation where The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is looking for engineers. New Jersey Transit is looking for engineers. We have the biggest infrastructure project in the entire country with the Gateway Tunnel, who's looking for the same engineers. So yes, while we are recruiting engineers, it just takes a little magic touch and thank God that HR now has a recruiter that's been helping get us more candidates. um for those engineering positions but it is a challenge to find engineers to deliver our projects it's something we're working on something we're cognizant on and it's going to take you know a little more effort than normal but it's it's a result of the industry and the time that we're in As far as how can the council help, the council has been a great help in providing salaries that are competitive. But like I said, we're fighting an uphill battle with bringing in engineers. Now, as far as the UCC office code enforcement, yes, you're absolutely correct that our salaries were not competitive. with neighboring municipalities and people were leaving for twenty and thirty thousand dollars more and doing less work but the assistant business administrator the chief of staff and the business administrator have supported us with making our salaries competitive so we are expecting to be able to fill all of our ucc positions where we'll have a building, electrical, plumbing inspector. We'll have five inspectors and a subcode which we believe will be able to help us handle some of the issues and some of the challenges that we're having in the UCC office. Now, to get back to the question that was asked before is, yes, UCC does work on Saturday. We work half days on Saturday. There's either one of the subcodes that is on call, but we do not work on Sundays. We definitely are looking at that because we know what the reputation is that if you can build it on Sunday, you can get away with it. So we absolutely will look at that and probably try to do staggered work weeks, Tuesday to Saturday or Wednesday to Sunday, as far as that, just for illegal construction. Because as a matter of fact, when I was here before, we actually had one person who that's all they did for five days out of the week is drove around looking for illegal construction.

Yeah. And Mr. President, you know, agreeing with my colleagues about the fact is that a lot of this legal activity does happen on the weekends, it happens in the evenings. And as you onboard new people, and I'm sure some of this is you have to have an agreement with the union to make sure that the schedule that encompasses evenings and weekends is recognized as a schedule within their collective bargaining agreement. but you you do have a lot of vacancies and i believe that as you go out there and recruit um individuals to potentially fill these vacancies offering them the the off hours as a alternative is something that we should be able to do as long as it's acceptable within the collective bargaining agreement and and i know for a fact that there are a lot of retirees in this space that sometimes look to come back and do part-time work um maybe those individuals are ideal candidates to do some of this work during off hours and weekends. One other piece I want to mention, and it's in reference to the traffic calming measures. I agree that the police division has a lot of responsibility here. The reality is that traffic enforcement is not a priority anymore. We don't have radar enforcement. I could speak about the North Ward. Years ago, there was a radar person on Bloomfield Avenue. There was a radar person on Lake Street. And we have not seen that in a long, long time. The Sheriff's Department, on occasion, will have a grant that they utilize and in some instances place officers in Newark to do crosswalk enforcement, to do some speed traps. But that's something that we'll talk to Director Miranda about tomorrow. but I do agree that there are opportunities for us to do things in each ward to assist with traffic safety, and it involves technology. You know the business better than I do, but I know in Branch Oak Park, Very recently, the county installed these digital signs at every crosswalk. And I could tell you, someone who drives through that park almost every day, people stop now for the first time because the little crosswalk thing lights up. When someone's ready to cross, they press the button, the light lights up. and people will slow down or stop so those are the kinds of things you know i know councilman council has for 200 000 i think that'll get us speed strips on one block maybe that's the way government works but maybe out of the city's capital budget um we can talk to the administrator to see if there's some money available that you all can utilize to maybe do just one small project in each ward i think that would go a long way jackson

All right, here we go. The problem, child. We're going to hire more code enforcement officers. I don't even want to hear it. I'm sorry, sir. No disrespect. But this, we are so far behind. You know why the Halo building is sitting there? Right. Because it's leaning. Because we weren't watching. You know why Councilman Kelly and I, he said, oh, Donna, they spraying it, okay. But do you understand when it rains and gets on that wood, that mold is forming in less than 48 hours. You can put all the spray they want on it. When they build in suburbia, they cover those buildings with plastic all the way around. And we have got to stop letting builders, LLC boys, anybody disrespect us, because they throw up anything. It was about six years ago. We had somebody from Teachers Builders come in here and say they had mold. That's Corrie's crown jewel, Booker. That's his crown jewel. But there's mold in that. And so mold, you know, we're learning how that goes. So we have to. And we have to get people that know what they're talking about. So guess what? Provisional didn't pass the test. No disrespect because almost every meeting, you know, I get a little pushback from them. I don't even care. I need people that's qualified that can get in court and get me money. That's what I need. I don't need a lawyer coming in for the owner saying, oh, town is not certified in L 17 for building code 32. I don't need that. And they're doing that. And we're losing over there. Because now we got to make a deal with Larry. Yeah. Because he knows I'm not certified. He's like, oh, well, you know, I know you gave me 49, but I'm only going to pay for 10. And that's got to stop. And I'm not personally talking about anybody and I don't care who feelings get hurt. Folks need to be certified in the content area where we need them to attack. This ain't no on the job training. This is know the laws and do the job. It's no harder than that. I need somebody to walk in the apartment, know that a mold mushroom is coming through the wall. Just identify you. You don't have to do anything. That's what the public health office is for. And I got to get you some more of them because we don't have any of them. They need to come in and help the tenant, help Larry fix the problem. We got to double the fines. Because let me tell you where they don't have a lot of problems at. East Orange, New Jersey. Because I'm going to tell you this. They take you to court for $5,000 for what they allegedly call debris. You know what debris is? Leaves in your driveway. and you will pay that $5,000. Cause I got a whole lot of friends and family that live in East Orange and that's right across the street. We need to look at what's working across the country. Okay, I'm with that. We need to watch what works here. And the one thing that is not working here is enforcement. I think you agree with that. And if we have folks that we can train like they do for police and fire, you know, the little unions get together and give people practice tests. We can do that. We're going to put them people over there and we're going to open up the test. We're going to let people take it. And some of these young children coming out of school and some of these folks that sitting home, not doing anything, pass the test. We're going to put them on the job. Because I need somebody who could fill out a code enforcement report so that when I take Larry to court, I can get them. Right? And then you can get your thousands that Larry owes you. And then Pat can get his because he's still listed as the apartment tenant and I'm the new tenant. It works all the way around. So I can't accept, not me, that we can't hire anybody right now, I'll find the money. Don't worry, I'll find it. The more people we enforce the laws with, the better we can do. If these people pay what they owe, we could do it. If we increase the fines for all the, I just got a call, the Kislak building. Y'all ain't even checking these buildings downtown. The ceiling just fell. The man just called me yesterday. They just remodeled that building. Not even five years, not even four. I don't even think three. And the man is paying over $3,500 a month. Now, how long is it going to take us to send somebody down there forever? Because we're dealing with other stuff. We are missing the opportunity. The reason the city don't have any money? Because we don't do enforcement. I asked the police department a little while ago, when is the last time y'all wrote a do not block the box ticket? That's something simple. That's why you can't make it down Broad Street in less than 45 minutes from 6 o'clock in the morning to 9 and in the afternoon from 3.30 to 7. You can't drive around the city because there's no enforcement. So you have to. I know you have to hire more people because we have to do enforcement. Now, I understand y'all think these bumping out the curbs are a good thing.

Not in the urban area.

Not in the urban area. What you have done to the traffic in the urban area, you're killing us. We got schools. You got people now blocking off streets, 8th Street, 9th Street, Central Avenue. It's crazy. We're not South Orange. They bumped out and look what they got. Take your hour to ride up to St. Barnabas, when before it didn't take you that time. So I get it. Oh, we want to look nice. We want to look suburban. We're not suburban. We're urban. And I don't have a problem with us fixing the storefronts but I do have a problem when I can't pull out my block because you don't bump these curves out. Then you want to put three parking spaces there And it's not working. Now you're doing it in the residential areas. I don't know what you're doing on 14th Avenue, 15th Avenue, or 16th Avenue with these little ditches that's there. It looks like the sewage, you know, they might be doing something with the drainage, but you done took a whole parking space away. Over there by the movie theater, over on 15th Ave. I don't know. And then the other problem too, publications, you need to explain to the community what that is. I'm a resident council person now, that title gone. I stop my car, I get out and I ask, what are you doing? Because you gotta let the community know. And then we need to coordinate what we're doing. Shouldn't take me an hour in the morning to drop my granddaughter off at school because you started construction at 6.30. Can't do it, traffic and signals. We got a hard road there, right? We need 15 officers on Sanford and South Orange Avenue, right? Because they don't even obey the police officers. So I'm not gonna put too much on you because the crossing guard in a lot of areas where it's high traffic, it doesn't work. But we gotta have some more Handicap signs. We got to have some more beeping lights. And I think the partnership needs to come between the city, the county, and the state. Put all them dollars together and make it happen. South Orange Avenue and 6th Street and South Orange Avenue and 7th Street, there is an accident at those two intersections at least four times a week. At least four. And so we've asked the county to put those traffic calming little people in the street, right? Hasn't happened because it's North. They don't care. But we have to begin to do some things. You have to, sir. We got to find something. I'll put it on my page. We need engineers, code enforcement. Let's open up the list so people can go take the test. See, the other part of the problem is I have young people. We have young people that are here that could take those tests and pass them. It's not open. So the next challenge is open the list up, let people go take these exams to come in and work as permanent people, to be vested, to be vested here. Because if you get a couple of young people in here that's gonna go in, it could make a difference in your unit, make a difference in the front of his home, right? And we can help people back and forth the way we need to do this thing. because we're not on top of it. The generated revenue for these other towns, when they give their reports from the courts, they got millions. We don't have millions because there's no enforcement. So you gotta make an example. Pick 20 people in each ward and make an example. Not one, because that's not enough. One person paying 400,000 in the court, they don't even care. But you take 20 people from every ward, these LLC boys, and get them in court and let them start playing. Their message will get out. Now, the weekend enforcement. Let me tell you something. And I'm going to end with this. This illegal conversion, building what I want to build, put what I want to put there, make my own driveway, put up my own speed bumps in front of my house, it's out of control. It's not a weekend issue.

It's all day.

The first week I was down here, I rode around. I called in 25 illegal conversions, construction jobs with no permit. 25. Know how many hours it took me to ride to do that? Four. Because I live here. And these people are not going to keep doing this. You're not going to keep taking residential areas and making them into homes. a room, don't even have a window, no electrical outlet, and you're going to tell Section 8, well, that's a false, sir.

That's not your fault.

But you're going to tell, this is the third bedroom. We have people that have no real egress. You can't wait to not hire people. You have people living in units where they don't have a back door, sir. The baby that died on Astor Street, she died because there was not a back door. I'm not ready to wait for one more. I'm very serious. I'm not. I wasn't then. But we have got to. This is an emergency in this city because we've let it go too long. I know you were here before. I think the conversations you and I have had, though brief, were great. I think you're going to take us where we need to be. But you need 100 people tomorrow. And I need to help you get them. And guess what? I'll find the money. Don't worry. I'm very persuasive. to have it. We got to make it happen because we want to keep building stuff that's going to be inadequate for people to live in. People should not be moving in a unit on Monday. And within two weeks, the ceilings are coming down. Something's wrong. And that's happening right now in real time. So thank you. Please open up the list. Please let people apply. I'll find the money to pay them. Don't worry. I have a meeting right here and be like, look, we might can't pay you for the first month, but if you get out there, write those tickets, get the, I'll go collect the fines. We'll be able to pay you. But then I know it's illegal to say, I know. Don't say, don't tell Mr. Pennington I said it.

Any other questions?

I don't really have a question, but I do want to to Councilwoman Jackson's point. I've seen you out in the community and all the wards with Officer Murphy and other directors now identifying some of these things. So she is correct about that. But I don't want to make it seem like because you just got back. And you have been identifying a lot of illegal conversions. I've seen you in the South. I've seen you in the Central. Of course, it's not enough. And we do need more code enforcement officers. We do need, and since Councilwoman Jackson's going to find that money, we pray about that. However, I don't want to take away from since you've been here that you have been out with your department literally walking the street, identifying properties that have illegal conversion. I don't think I've ever seen that. I know that the mayor has been walking with the different council people as well, identifying not just illegal conversions, but a whole lot of other stuff with engineering. So I just want to put that on record because you as a director I haven't seen that in a while and I know it's the administration doing it and I know we need more of it. And as you identify it, I believe you are baiting the problem, shutting down projects while you're on the street with those departments. So we just, we do need some more help. I do agree with that. And I mean, of course the board because council and council four years ago when we came on the council was talking about illegal conversions. I mean, they had landlords literally cutting two family houses into six apartments. And it was just horrible. With my egress, it was like not enough space for you to even live in, like a matchbox that the landlords, because there was no oversight. So we just pray that as you move forward as a director, that these issues won't come back to us without a resolution. And then without doing whatever is necessary to get your necessary personnel. Also, in regards to the construction code official with Mr. Perdon being out, who is handling his assignment? Oh, you can't give me the name. I just hope that someone is.

He was only out today. Oh, okay. He couldn't attend this hearing. That's what I want to know.

Oh, okay.

Thank you. Any other questions? Director, I just want to thank you. I know your track record because we worked together prior years back. And your short term here, it's been a short term for you. Yes. And I want to thank you again. But in terms of what I vision there needs to be a traffic study on Broad Street. The lights, they're not in sequence. And it's horrible. The last time I remember that there was a study was some 40 some years ago. And I think it's time for us to do studies, traffic studies. Houston has done them. Atlanta has done them. And it's time for us to have some study in terms of bringing in traffic. If you go down Broad Street, By the YMCA, the light will change and then they're not in sequence all the way down to Clay Street. So there needs to be some sequence of traffic studies. Because again, the other thing is too, we need to sit down with the PSNGs. The city is dark at night. And we need to tell PSG&G that we need to light up the city. And then the utility companies, they got to come and trim some of those trees that are blocking the lights. whether it be Verizon or PSE&G. We got to stay on top of them. So I believe these things could be done. But we got to appropriate some money for a study on traffic study. The last time it was 40-some years ago, and we can't keep waiting another 40 years. Technology is advanced, and we are not in the technology of the light systems in our city.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Councilperson. I just want to address Councilman Jackson, some of the things that you mentioned. I'm going to start with UCC. Every person in UCC is licensed by the state of New Jersey. You pick any one of those inspectors, you can go to the divisions. Community affairs section under licensing, and you can see the license that they had. I've also told the construction official to keep a copy of their certifications in a file in his office, the technical assistance. If they're not licensed now, they will be shortly. Your issue came up about code enforcement. Yes. Training is something that we are going to. initiate for code enforcement officers because in the past certain officers were skilled in certain things we wanted to be able to every officer can do everything and be able to comply with all of the code enforcement areas of our municipal code so you're right we have work to do there um and we are working on that you mentioned about the bump outs and how it's sometimes troubling understand This is not 40 years ago. We have pedestrians, we have bicycles. Pedestrian safety is also one of our biggest concerns. These bump outs, what they do is they reduce the crossing distance across the street. As a matter of fact, the Broad Street vision was what started when I was here before. And that was one of the biggest concerns is people walking a long way across the street. So bump outs reduce that distance and it's for pedestrians. As far as the traffic study, yes, we'll look to get funding for the TPA to do a traffic study because it is way, way overdue. And as far as PSE&G, the BA is meeting with the high level people of PSE&G to talk about lighting, to talk about the billing, to talk about this mysterious agreement that we have with PSE&G. So those things are all actively being pursued.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good evening. Appreciate you. Thank you. I'm Clark, next department. Finance. Finance.

You're going to be the landlord in this event. You're going to be

I'll try to be as brief as possible, but be able to provide as much information as you may need from me. Good evening, Council President, Council Members. I'm Benjamin Guzman, Acting Finance Director. It's a pleasure to be here today to present the Department of Finance's 2026 budget review. The Department of Finance is responsible for collecting, safeguarding and processing all forms of revenue for the city. We also manage all bonds, notes, grants, trusts and investments flowing into and out of the city, as well as maintaining account records, financial systems and financial reporting. As of January 1st, 2026, the city's cash position for all funds totaled $463,928,261 compared to $324,894,334 for the prior year. That's an increase of 29.97%, which is mainly due to the improved performance of our water and sewer utilities and their collections. Our percentage of tax collections increased from 95.49% in 2024 to 96.17% in 2025. We continue our efforts to collect delinquent and current property taxes by implementing outreach programs, encouraging property owners to pay their outstanding balances, and to make sure that property owners are up to date with any outstanding liens. In 2025, we collected over $18 million in delinquent taxes, and we're estimating to collect approximately $20 million in 2026. The city continues to successfully price bonds and bond anticipation notes, garnering more than sufficient subscriptions at each of our sales, and Moody's Services has maintained the city's rating at a BAA1, which was increased a little over a year ago. At this time, I'm happy to answer any questions that the council may have regarding our department's budget and anything related to the finance department. Any questions?

Councilman Crump? Yeah, just a question with regards to overtime. Yes. Over 2025 to 2026, it just seems like you're currently at almost what you were a full year last year. What is that attributed to?

majority of our overtime and finance uh is usually two times of the year uh primarily in the beginning of the year when we're preparing to close out the prior year getting our our annual statements ready uh and uh finalizing whatever reporting we need for our statutory and single audits it also happens towards the end of the year when we're preparing to close out uh especially granite county that's the majority of the issue where the overtime um we have noticed that in the last few years we have been a little bit backed up with our audits therefore we're trying to get back up to date and be on a better schedule than we are in prior years and that has attributed some of the increases in the overtime we tried to alleviate some of that by doing uh alternates whether it's you know compensation time or offering some type of flexible schedules to employees but we do realize that we need to try to curb that as much as possible

Okay, because I mean, it looks like you'll be over from last year at this point.

At this, we may, again, we're trying to curb some of that overtime. I am, at least I'm trying to do that at this point right now. Our goal is to either remain at the same levels as the prior year and or try to be under that if at all possible.

Thank you. One other question. In terms of revenue generation, is there anything new that you're proposing to do this year that you weren't previously doing, something to increase revenue?

Other than sustainable revenues, at this time we don't have anything. We are looking to expand in other areas. We don't have anything definitive at the time. We are looking in hopes of expanding some of our special taxes revenues, again, making sure, again, through enforcement, and also looking to any of those special taxes, if they are in arrears, to work with them in order to collect that and make sure we stay on top of that, and also to look out to see if there's any areas, any businesses, that fall within that special taxes area that may have not been filing in order to create there. Now, if we don't know at this current time, if there are any new sources of revenue, we're more than happy to, you know, look into that. And if studies need to be done to see if there's anything else where we could create additional sources of revenue for the city, that would be beneficial to us. All right.

Thank, thank, thank you. A couple of,

Couple of things, sir. In reference to parking, what would be the cost advantage to dissolving the parking authority and bringing that revenue back in house?

I really couldn't answer that question for you right now. I do know that some years ago, this may be prior to my tenure with the city, that a lot of the parking enforcement was handled internally prior to parking authority being reestablished. There are some benefits to having a separate entity handling that, but we would have to do a study as to you know what the cost would be not just the revenue that we would gain from taking that over but then there's also be cost involved in absorbing you know the employees that we would have to then take on you know the parking enforcement agents the collections uh and the operation of just for example the parking garage behind us here uh and other parking structures that and uh lots of areas that they run so an analysis would have to be done to see if the if it would actually be beneficial to bring that back into you know under the control of the city

right well i would like to see us do that miraculously the city of orange just went to the local finance board and asked for their parking authority to be dissolved i think we need to do the same thing um when i look at other municipalities like the east north that pull in 200 million dollars a year for that little town from traffic enforcement. I think that with the price that we put our tickets at, the event parking, so forth and so on, I think that needs to be brought back in-house so that we can count that in our court revenue. I think we could take that parking deck down there and do something a little better. I don't like the fact that employees have to pay to park downtown while they're parking. I think that's taking advantage of folks i mean i don't know how it works but i just do not think that the north municipal employees police fire those working city hall whoever else should have to pay the park in a parking deck that is our parking deck um and i think that that whole thing we need to do the study on that and i just think those funds need to be brought back in house so if we could look at that um with the amount of tickets that they generate etc during the day the event parking tickets all of that i think that it's cost effective for us to look at that and bring that money back in house so we could probably use those to hire some more code enforcement officers hiring some more traffic enforcement officers that could then line the and McCarter Highways, the Clay Street, the Bridge Street, when people are blocking the box, not necessarily that a physical officer, and I made this suggestion at the meeting, that a physical officer has to engage like they do in New York. They have traffic control personnel at the bridges, at the tunnels, and when folks do block the box, That person walks over. How you doing? Roll your window down. Let me have your license. And they issue them a ticket. And I think we need to get to that to bring more revenue in-house that we can do other things with. It's got to be cost effective. I just have two more blue papers. And I'll be done with you, sir. Okay. We have the attorneys. Okay. Okay. So in terms of more page 17, in terms of the attorney groups that we have that are representing us on finance, is there any way we can scale any of that back or am I misreading it? The justification for all on items services by contract agreement. Is there a way we can scale back all of those outside attorneys that we're using, or just let me know I'm reading that incorrectly.

Some of the attorneys on there, I mean, there's always room for being able to reduce costs. A majority of the attorneys that the finance department uses is primarily for bond counsel services, which is something that we don't have in-house. Historically, those costs, we usually roll them into the cost of a bond or a note sale. Again, ultimately, the city of Newark is paying for that. uh but what what i've tried to do in the past is whenever the city of newark has to go out to market and sell bonds we try to strategically assure that i'm not selling a bond this month and then going out to market three or four weeks later to sell a roll over another bond if i could consolidate it because then it's just the economy of scale i'm going to the market once and it actually makes more economic sense to do stuff like that by doing that we're only being charged by bond counselor and our financial advisors for one transaction versus multiple transactions I've always taken into consideration in order to be able to save costs. And if it's not necessary, if we don't need all the services that provide, I'm more than happy to always say, look at a case-by-case basis. And if the services are needed, then we could cut back on it. We've historically... tried to stay within the same amount year after year because it is somewhat of a determined amount of bond sales that we do it in a certain year unless you know we are in the process of doing a new capital ordinance so that's something that we would have to engage them in order for those services in order to be completed okay two more quick things yes I'm a advocate against accelerated tax sale

my own personal reasons i don't like to see folks losing their homes i don't like to see liens and i'm not saying that you do um but i just think we need to slow down for me um how we're doing that because there are some people particularly in our elderly community i said yesterday and i'll be quick with it that don't understand um yes uh director um Michelle, because I can't think of her last name. I apologize to the tax collector, Michelle, in the tax office. She does do a good job. Miss Jones, thank you. She does an excellent job when people come in to explain to them. But I think overall, some people aren't able to come in. Some people are fearful of coming in because they got that note or we're going to, you know, your lien is up today or we're selling it. So I just want us to be careful when we're doing those tax sales. And if we could do a little review of those as well, just to, you know, see if it's my grandmom, Ms. Bay's grandmom. You know, people who have been in their houses, what I see in the calls I'm getting in the last couple of years, people have been in their homes 50, 60 years. And they're facing these tax liens. And I think that there's enough DCA mortgage money out there to help some of these folks. And I think we need to push them in that direction so we can make them whole on our tax records. I understand we need the revenue. i don't like when we make the revenue and then i'm able to come in and put a lien on miss bae's house uh mr rain most's house etc um and then by the time it comes up to i'll just use you guys because you're here thank you so much i appreciate them uh um so that we don't have to you know let them feel like they're desperate to because a lot of people are afraid when that first lien comes so i i don't i understand statutorily you guys can do accelerated but i think we need to find another method to try to help some of these uh homeowners who most of them have paid their homes off um and when i'm living somewhere 67 years i'm not going anyplace else there's nowhere else for me to go so if we could look at that um and then the last thing i tried to you know not put too many blue papers on you no no right um you know you took the time with all this nice colored paper i just want you to know i read it uh in terms of revenue collection when it comes to customer service tax lien unit and tax accounting um can we just make sure that we are on target with that um in terms of folks coming in um a lot of elders come in I don't know if they're doing it as much now, but they used to come in with the bags, with the cash to pay the whole year. Can we make sure that those are accurately being reported for them? I know we've had some mishaps, not personal to you, but I know we've had some mishaps over time. And I just want to make sure when they're coming in with that budget gap money that we are able to spend it like you need to.

Understood. Absolutely. Thank you.

Director, just one quick question. I know some years ago the city had hired a firm to do an assessment on all our existing tax abatement agreements to ensure that the developers were in compliance. And from my understanding, that positioned the city to recoup some monies that were owed to us. Is that something that your department oversaw at that time?

is there an interest in possibly looking at that with all these abatement agreements that we have in place right now to ensure that there's compliance uh as far as uh to my recollection as far as what what the time that i've been the acting director and when i was about six seven years ago i don't recall uh there may have been an outside entity that the city had uh contracted with in order to assist it in the analysis What I can say is that through our division of tax abatement and special taxes, we are going through those financial agreements that these developers sign when they are awarded the tax abatement and making sure that they are in compliance and that their calculations are correct. We may be slightly behind schedule on some of them, but we are doing our best to catch up on all these developers and make sure that the tax abatements, again, the financial statements that they're supposed to submit that are being submitted timely. I am impressing upon that division that if those developers are not meeting the timelines, that they are communicating with them that uh if they don't do so by a certain period of time then we'll start working in conjunction with the administration and economic and housing development to see you know what recourse we may be able to have for some of those developers that they're out of my thing is with all these contracts that we have you know legal accountants engineers like they might not be a better agreement to look to establish to help

the limited number of staff that you have in that office. You do have a lot of agreements in place. And I'm sure that if you sought the help of a professional to come in and help, they may find some monies that are owed to the city.

Any other councilwoman back? Thank you. Council president, um, council, uh, counseling, counseling, counseling and Ramos actually, uh, touched on the other questions I've had. So I just have one simple one. Um, going back to the, the contracts in these, these companies, whether they're the law firms and all the ones that aren't. Do we have a lot of these companies that are contracted with other departments? And because I believe I've seen many of these names before. And if so, is there a way to do some type of drill down combination, you know, collaborative everything to not have to continually spend $150,000 here, $195,000 there, $120,000 there on all of these different contracts when we are using these people in other areas of the city. Is that something that's doable?

As far as my tenure, historically in the finance department, I have seen in the past where, for example, a particular law firm, if they do multiple types of services, they may have an overall contract with the city. I think historically it's just for tracking purposes and for accounting purposes, it has just made better sense to have separate contracts with whatever department or division that they're working in. With the instance in the finance department, we primarily deal with law firms that deal with financial transactions, as in with bond councils. Some of the names you have seen, we have worked with Dakota Fitzpatrick. Now there's Dakota Doyle, which the city also works with, but they're more specifically with economic and housing development, not necessarily finance as much. And then we do have one or two financial advisors that we work in because, again, we don't want to just stick to one particular financial advisor because other companies may have a better expertise in a certain area when we need it. um but i'm more than happy to you know look into that with the other departments uh within the city through it through the administration that if it does make sense to consolidate some of these contracts um again you see the amounts would be 150 100 175 or 200 000 uh that is the do not exceed amount and again as i mentioned earlier you know i pride myself in trying to make sure that we spend as little as that money as much as possible because every every penny saved is a penny earned and that helps every taxpayer in this uh in this great city org thank you director

Any other questions? No questions, thank you, Director Wilson. Next department.

Department of Health and Community Wellness.

Oh, this department has a lot of staff. They're present. I see Miss Maria Rosario who's here, who started at 18 years of age at the health department. I'm just putting that I'm not that's not for the record.

In the packet that I've distributed to you, you'll find our organizational chart, including a description of the services that we provide throughout our six divisions. Also in that folder is a snapshot of the financial and personnel information I'm about to share with you. So good evening, Newark residents, Councilpersons Bay, Council, DaSilva, Jackson, Kelly, Ramos, Roundtree, and Council President Quintana. My name is Ketlyn Allsbrook, Director for the Newark Department of Health and CEO for its co-affiliated Federally Qualified Health Center, or FQHC, the Mary Eliza Mahoney Health Center. Besides me, I have our CFOs, Subi Varghese and Jason Ndungu, and behind me in the chambers, I have with me members of our executive and management team. The mission of the Department of Health and Community Wellness is to provide and advocate for comprehensive healthcare access and social and environmental services that support the attainment of an optimal level of health. Today, we present to you a 2026 budget request of $9,387,778, which represents a 13% increase from the approved 2025 budget. Within our department, we have six divisions. The director's office, which includes personnel, fiscal, IT, and grants management. The budget request is 1.9 million of our total or 20% of our total request. Secondly is the division of medical care services, which houses our health center. Our FQHC provides adult and pediatric medical care, dental care, infectious disease treatment, behavioral health, women's health, including prenatal care and our medical dental mobile unit program. This budget request is a little over $3 million or 33% of our total request. Third is our Division of Surveillance and Prevention, which is comprised of communicable diseases, vital statistics, WIC, immunization, health education, and emergency preparedness. The budget request is close to 1.1 million or 12% of our total request. Fourth is the Division of Environmental Health, which is comprised of food and drug, animal and rodent control, weights and measures, and our lead prevention and abatement programs. The budget request is 2.7 million or 28% of our total request. In the Office of Homeless Services, we have homeless prevention, rapid rehousing, emergency shelter, transitional housing, street outreach, and behavioral health and crisis intervention. The request is $508,570, 5% of our total request. And lastly, in our division of health planning, home to our Ryan White program, which provides funding to hospitals, community-based organizations and health centers who provide medical and social services to over 6,000 people living with HIV across five North Jersey counties. Our city operating budget request is $180,208 or 2% of our total budget request. The 2026 budget requests of 9.4 million represents a 13% increase from the 2025 adopted budget. This includes personnel costs, which have increased 14% due to negotiated council 21 union salary increases and the transfer of building service workers from DPW to our budget. Overtime increased 21% due to increases in environmental health, animal and vermin control coverage for after hours, and health inspections at public events. And in the Office of Homeless Services, where we do after hours coverage for outreach and engagement of our residents without addresses. travel allowance increased 25 due to negotiated local 229 union increases and janitorial services increased by 50 reflecting a full year's contract because that contract was introduced mid-year last year and lastly furniture expenses for the office of homeless services to replace old and broken furniture The department's operational costs are supported through 42 federal, state, and local grants totaling $61,028,173. This brings the department's total annual budget to $70,415,951, 87% grants, and 13% city operating. These grants support the delivery of medical care and public health services to over 80,000 people each year. To date, over 800 women screen for breast cancer, over 2000 for cervical cancer, close to 3000 people screen for colorectal cancer, close to 6,000 people screen for depression and over 1200 patients being treated for hypertension, which is linked to cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in our city, in our County, in our state, and in this country. With respect to personnel, the Department of Health has 280 active civil service employees, 44 temporary or seasonal employees, and 25 vacancies for a total of 305 personnel slots. 12 of our 25 vacancies have pending new hires already in the queue, bringing the number of true vacancies down to 13. And five of our 44 temporary employees are part of that pool of new hires that are pending, which will bring our temporary staffing count down to 39. With respect to provisional employees, a total of 104 at this time, 57% are waiting to be tested, waiting for results, or waiting to be certified for their titles through the Civil Service Commission. Overall, 54% of our workforce are funded through grants. This year's top priority projects, which will carry into 2027, includes the opening of our second school-based clinic at Park Elementary in the North Ward, where we will offer family health and women's healthcare services to the students and families of the school, as well as the neighboring community. Councilman Ramos, we are currently in the licensing phase with the Department of Health. Once approved, the renovation of the space is expected to take four to six months. In addition to our three medical mobile units where we provide primary care, physicals, vaccination services, and more, we have our dental mobile unit, which brings much needed oral health care into the community. That's exams, that's cleanings, that's fillings, that's even minor surgery. Our 340B program affords us the ability to provide prescription assistance to our uninsured and financially stressed patients at no cost to the city and for a nominal copay of just $7 for that patient. Through our partnership with RWJBarnabas Health, we provide transportation assistance to our patients, bringing them to their appointments and back home again at no cost to the city. Also in partnership with RWJBarnabas Health, we are excited to open our food pharmacy program in time for Thanksgiving. We are being intentional in how we adopt the food is medicine approach to care, which recognizes that beyond sustenance, food is a powerful agent for promoting health and combating disease. We will be utilizing food's therapeutic potential to bolster immune response and to reduce the risk of chronic illnesses through nutritional counseling, through tailored meal plans, and to provide patients with access to healthy foods, fruits, and vegetables, again, at no cost to the patient or to the city. Before this year is over, we will have cut the ribbon on the Sheila Oliver Drop-In Center, a facility that will serve as a safe space for our residents without addresses to get connected to care, medical and behavioral, access to support like case management, housing, and food assistance. The Drop-In Center will also provide showering and laundry services to support the sanitary well-being of our residents without addresses. And lastly, but very important, it is our efforts to combat the detrimental impact that the federal administration's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or HR1, will have on our Medicaid population. One third of Newark residents rely on Medicaid for their health care, and one in five New Jersey residents rely on Medicaid for their health care. These policy changes will make qualifying for and maintaining public health insurance difficult at best and impossible in some cases for thousands of people. But that's the point. Effective October 1st, non-citizen refugees, asylees, parolees, domestic violence victims, victims of human trafficking will no longer be eligible for Medicaid. And effective January one, the Medicaid expansion group of 19 to 64 year olds will be required to fulfill an 80 hour a month quota of community engagement services to qualify and maintain their Medicaid benefits. They will also have to recertify every six months to maintain coverage for the year. The only exceptions to this new policy are the medically frail and disabled pregnant and postpartum women, caregivers of children under the age of 14 and a few special groups. The fact is that people with health insurance have better health outcomes. They access preventive care more regularly, which allows us to detect diseases early when they're easier to treat and before it becomes an emergency that sends them to the hospital. Their chronic illness is managed more effectively through monitoring and regular access to medications. And financial barriers are reduced or removed so that individuals aren't stressing out about the cost of care. And worse yet, diluting the quality of care that they receive by skipping on medical appointments or rationing out their medications so it lasts longer. This is why every patient receives benefit determination assistance and support with insurance navigation as part of their care when they come to our health center. So when you consider our $9.4 million budget request that we've bolstered with over $60 million in grants, understand the deep and generational impact that the vast portfolio of services we offer to the community ultimately has. Your Newark Health Department is deeply committed to its mission, even when the powers that be are not. Our efforts to prevent the spread of diseases, to promote health and wellbeing, to provide care and treatment, and to protect people will continue in spite of and because of the challenges that we are facing. Thank you to the administration and our council for your unwavering support and to the residents of the city that we faithfully serve each day.

Any questions? Councilwoman Bay.

I JUST GOT TWO QUESTIONS.

THANK YOU, DIRECTOR. I DON'T KNOW IF I SHOULD BE HAPPY THAT YOU WENT LAST OR MAD THAT YOU DIDN'T GO

But thank you. So you answered a lot of the questions that I had about vacancies, provisional workers, the percentage of the budget that goes to medical services. I did have one other question that I didn't see an answer here to, and I didn't hear. How many full-time physicians, nurses, and dentists, doctors, dentists, and mental health care professionals and nurses that you have that actually see patients? Because I know you have a lot that do a lot of other things, but that actually provide services to the residents. How many of those do you have?

So we have about 20 providers. That's a combination of advanced practice nurses and medical doctors. We also have about seven nurses, including three LPNs. And we have clinical support that sort of bolsters our health center. We have about 20 medical assistants. Did you ask for any other professionals?

Yeah, and these are all, they're full-time and they see patients.

Most are full-time. One of our dentists is part-time, but the remaining providers are all full-time. Thank you.

So in council, how much have you spent out of your budget so far year to date?

How much have we spent year to date? Approximately 54%. 54%. Yes.

And in the area of You know, as we have increased around issues with vermin control, do we have a plan to add additional vermin control officers to the unit of vermin control?

At this time? No, we do not have a vacant position for vermin control officer. Although that we can look at that. We do have two. vacancies in the division of environmental health. One of them is a registered environmental health specialist vacancy. Uh, if we are unable to fill that position, then we may look at converting that to a vermicontrol officer. But the priority right now is to hire an additional health inspector to cover the work that we do here in the city.

Councilman Kelly and then Council Ramos.

thank you council president um i was going to ask a similar question that councilman council asked about the vermin control um first of all i just want to say um thank you for the job that you're doing every time that i give you a call about something that's happening in any one of these areas you are uh on on point with it and and you get right on it and i really appreciate that um a question that i do have for the people who are um I know that we had a hiring freeze and the people that you already had working with you, but that you possibly wanted to promote, are you able to still promote them and then retroactively pay them for, you understand what I'm saying? So if you wanted to promote somebody that is doing a job, but you can't really put the salary with the hire, When you're able to do that, will the retro pay kick in for the job that they're doing currently? And do you have any employees that's like that?

Yes, from time to time when an employee moves into another position, there may be retroactive pay that they're entitled to based on when the request to hire or the request to promote was submitted through the administration. Generally, I will have a conversation with the business administrator well in advance if I'm putting somebody in a position that they are not currently being paid for to ensure that they are appropriately compensated once their paperwork is approved. If that is not possible, then the change in responsibilities will align with when the paperwork is approved so that someone is not working in a position and not being appropriately compensated for it.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Chairman, and just want to thank the director and her team for a pretty thorough presentation. Just a few questions. The first one is over the years, you know, I don't think, first of all, people recognize how many different things the health department does, right? So it's a pretty interesting budget to look at because you really get a full understanding of all the different divisions and subdivisions. As it relates to the person that you have now overseeing, like the medical director, I guess, for lack of a better term, I know over the years there's been a lot of transition in that position, right? We've had people who start with us as a director of the medical facility, and then like a few months later, there's somebody new. Where are we at as it relates to that? And do you think we're in a position now where we're going to have some stability in that person.

Absolutely. Dr. Norma Milanes-Roberts is our medical director. Unfortunately, she had a pre-scheduled vacation, so she could not be here today. She's been with us for about three months now, but she was working as a provider in our health center prior to stepping into that position. And she actually replaced one of our medical providers who is still with us, but is looking to retire soon. And Dr. O'Neill, who was in that position prior, has been with the department for quite some time. We've actually had more consistency with that position than you may realize. And we do have also our dental director, Dr. Marshall, who I believe is still in the chambers. And she leads a very amazing team of dentists. And we have a health officer, Marsha McGowan, who is with us as well. And she's been with the department for well over 20 years and actually returned from retirement to support our work.

So the person in charge of the health center, is it the same as the medical director or are they two separate people?

So the leadership structure for the health center is the CEO, which I am. There's a chief operating officer. Actually, Maria Arizari is serving as the interim chief operating officer for the health center. And the medical director and dental director and our CFO cover the C-suite, if you will, the executive team for the health center. Okay.

Okay. And I just want to say that last week I had the opportunity to tour the Humane Society with the director and her team. And that's another one of their roles, many roles. They inspect that facility. I know we've heard a lot of concern and some of the horror stories over the years about the conditions for the animals that are housed there. And I have to tell you that, you know, we saw a lot of improvements when we went through last week. It's a very difficult shelter to operate because we are the state's largest city. There's overrepresentation of animals that unfortunately are not protected. Well, in some cases are not the first choices when it comes to adoption, right? And they tend to be housed there for a long time, but I have to thank the director and her team because you could tell that they were definitely on top of things. And the administration at the Humane Society seemed very passionate about the work that they do they acknowledge that they've had some problems in the past but but they've definitely made a lot of changes and improvements so i just want to say thank you to your team and a point that i want to make before tomorrow's session is that some of the animals that are housed there unfortunately are caught up with matters that are pending before north municipal court which is something we never thought of right like some of the animals that um have the longest stays at the shelter are there because the courts haven't been able to adjudicate um some of these matters that are pending before them so when we have the judges before us tomorrow i think it's important to bring that up because it just It adds to the length of stay, and more importantly, it creates a situation where they're already overcrowded as it is. So if you can just send us some points that we can put on the record tomorrow, Director, for the courts, we'd be more than happy to do so.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Council President. Actually, I mean, thank you. Thank you, Director, for a thorough report. I actually closed my book because you answered 99% of my questions. And I agree with Councilwoman Bay. Next time first. but my one question is regarding my one question is regarding the humane society um are we auditing what we're supposed to pay them as opposed so here's the concern that we are getting billed for other cities' animals that could end up in humane society. Do we conduct an audit or some kind of investigation just to determine and make sure that we're paying just our fair share and not additional cities?

Yes, we do perform a forensic analysis of the contractual costs related to animal control services. What I've found is that we are paying approximately $25 per day per animal in that shelter right now, which is actually lower than the average of about $30 that you'll see most municipalities are paying. So we do, however, recognize that there is some challenges with the fact that there are many county parks that are here in the city of Newark. And so oftentimes there's difficulties in identifying whether an animal is truly a Newark animal or an Irvington animal or some other local municipality. So there are those challenges in those gray areas there. You know, residents will pick up a stray that's walking down, you know, by Branchville Park. Is that a Newark animal? Is that an animal that got lost in a park when they came with their owner who lives in East Orange? We're not sure. So there are some gray in that area, but we do try and stay on top of the financials with respect to that contract.

Thank you. That was my only question. Thank you. Any other questions? Other questions? I want to thank you, Director, because you are the model director. And I want to put that on record.

Pre-council meetings. Yes.

I'm going to give you the report. I'm going to give the report card because the budget is great. I'm going to give you a report card. I mean, you are the one director out of all the directors that stay here during the pre-council meeting to the end, regular meeting you stay to the end, not because you're the items on your agenda. Your presentation on this budget is great. Your staff is great. I just want to commend you because you're one of those directors that others need to follow. They only come when they have some items on the agenda. And you're always here, whether it's two items on the agenda, whether it's 10, you're always here. And that is commendable. I am so honored that you are the director of that department and what you do in that department shows the quality of health care for people throughout the city of Newark. That is commendable. I've seen you in presentations with nonprofits on your own time and you are there. You're very active in civic and things that I think that all directors You know, you come early and you leave late. And that's a great model. And our directors, all the directors should follow that. Come to work early and leave late. That's you. Thank you.

Excuse me, Council President. I was trying to just get this in because one very important part is revenue, money and grants. And all of the money that when we vote on her, projects or resolutions, it's always money that she has found to support her programs. And that is so important. We have other entities that look for us to give them money to support their programs, but you are the model director for finding funds to support all of your initiatives. So I want to congratulate this woman that's running the health and wellness department as well. God bless you. Okay.

And just to add to that, not only is she a great Norca, she's a Westwater.

Thank you. I appreciate that. He was going to say North Forth, not Westwater.

All right.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk. To members of council, we have to submit, although any of those questions that we've made on any of the departments, and we should, what questions were asked here today from members of council should be put in some content to those department heads, even though they answered us, but we shouldn't. Thank you. The clerk, yeah, Madam Clerk. Madam Clerk, you'll have a chair here tomorrow.

Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. That concludes the budget hearing. Thank you so much. You know what?