[0:03] Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Chair, board of supervisors, manager, and

[0:08] members of the public. My name is Steve Schaefer. I'm the acting chief

[0:12] presenting the township's police department's 2026 proposed budget. So,

[0:16] thank you all for being here. Thank you for members who are of the public who

[0:20] are listening on live stream. On behalf of the police department, we just want

[0:24] to thank the community for your support of our officers as they protect and

[0:27] serve this community with professionalism, courage, and integrity.

[0:32] Many of you know the police department does consume half of the the township's

[0:36] overall budget. We try to be very responsible with that. We're here 247

[0:41] 365 days a year. And it's vital for public safety that we're well equipped,

[0:47] well trained, and that officers officers are compensated well. I'm extremely

[0:52] proud of these officers as they go about their day putting themselves in harm's

[0:57] way and it's very important that they have adequate staffing levels that it's

[1:02] safe staffing levels that they have modern crime fighting equipment advanced

[1:07] training and competitive salaries. So that being said, we do try to balance

[1:11] the needs of the the police department with and align that with the the

[1:16] township's overall budget and competing needs.

[1:20] We feel that uh this budget is financially responsible. We've looked at

[1:25] our spending and I think that by the end of the presentation, you'll see that um

[1:31] we're here to continue our operations uh in a way that works well with the

[1:36] township. Again, I'm not going to go through each line item. We are just

[1:40] going to um look at the overall budget and then I can answer any other

[1:45] questions that you might have. So just looking at the first slide, this

[1:49] is an overview of where we stand for 2026. We're going to talk about an

[1:54] increased health insurance issue. Um we're going to talk about an investment

[2:00] in capital project and then we're going to talk how we combat those increases

[2:05] with reductions in overtime wages and operational costs. The budget comes in

[2:11] right now at 9,140,938.

[2:16] That's an increase of $140,000, which is about 1.55%.

[2:22] Again, better than the 7.2% from last year or from this year and the 6.9% from

[2:29] 2024.

[2:34] So, the key spending increases that we have this year. Um the first one is a

[2:40] line item called health and hospitalization. It covers our our

[2:45] health care costs for both active employees and retirees. That has

[2:50] significantly gone up this year. If I look at the line items from admin,

[2:55] patrol, detectives, and traffic, it goes up about $361,000.

[3:02] So that is a big increase. It's not something that the police have much

[3:05] control over. for that of course is insurance companies, the bargaining unit

[3:09] and you know from the police side of things that's what we're given.

[3:15] Additionally, we have an operational increase and when I talk about the

[3:19] operations part of the budget what I mean is things like equipment, bullets,

[3:24] guns, chairs, computers, as well as licenses, software fees, things like

[3:29] that. Those are our operations. We have three key areas where the budget

[3:34] is going up a little bit operationally. The first one would be um in our camera

[3:40] system. So we have both bodywn cameras and in car cameras. They are vital for

[3:46] our investigations. They're a great thing for officer accountability. We use

[3:51] them as evidence in court and of course they do protect us against some civil

[3:55] liability. So this this equipment is part of modern policing. Our

[4:02] bodywn worn cameras are about 2 and a half years old. Our in-car cameras are

[4:06] about four years old. Bodywn cameras have about a 3 to 5 year shelf life and

[4:12] incar cameras about a seven. So they're about halfway through and we're starting

[4:17] to see some repair costs, licensing fees, but repair costs are going up a

[4:21] little bit with that. So, we're increasing that budget $25,000 to make

[4:26] sure that we can keep this equipment running until it's end of life, which

[4:29] could be no later than 2028. We are looking into some grants for next

[4:36] year. Hopefully, we can start mitigating some of those costs a while and looking

[4:40] at some other options, but for now, we need to at least plan for repairs for

[4:45] those items as they come up. The other increase that we're going to

[4:49] see is in ballistic vests. This is simply just an operational thing that

[4:55] comes up differently every year. Bulletproof vests, they have a fiveyear

[5:00] shelf life as well. Um, contractually we replace that every five years. So last

[5:06] year we only had five officers that needed vest. This year it's eight. So

[5:11] we'll get a $6,000 increase in that. And then the last operational thing would be

[5:17] we're asking for more of a capital purchase than we did last year. and

[5:21] we'll talk about that slide in a couple minutes.

[5:26] So, to get into an overview of how we're going to combat some of those increases,

[5:31] we're going to look at two things. We're going to look at salaries and we're

[5:33] going to look at um overtime before we go into what we can do operationally.

[5:40] So, salary, we're looking at an unrealized

[5:44] wage savings of about $114,000. What I mean by that is if we go by 2025

[5:51] and the amount of officers that we started with to continue our operations

[5:55] in 2025 and you take the collective bargaining

[5:59] units raise of 3.5%. That's about $178,000.

[6:05] We made some changes this year. Uh we had an officer that left earlier in the

[6:11] year that we decided to do some restructuring and you know different

[6:16] times, different schedules for some units and we didn't replace him. So that

[6:20] saves us salary for next year. We're fine doing things the way we are with

[6:24] that. We have another officer who is going to be retiring in November. I've

[6:30] already worked on replacing him, but the way our pay scale works, it's a sevenst

[6:35] step pay scale. will be able to hire a new officer at a much less expensive

[6:40] rate than that existing one. If we hire somebody who's in the academy, I can get

[6:45] a grant for him probably as well. So, that would even be more savings.

[6:50] So, those two things equal a decent amount of savings as well as we have a

[6:57] part-time office staff that is has probably going to retire sometime around

[7:03] May. And it's my intention to not replace that position. We've been able

[7:09] to divide up some work and restructure some things there as well and we'll see

[7:14] some savings in that area. So those three things

[7:19] mean our wages only go up $64,000 instead of $178,000.

[7:25] So when I say unrealized savings, what could have been was one is about

[7:30] $114,000 savings. We're going to look at overtime the same

[7:35] way. um overtime's one of those words that you know doesn't necessarily mean

[7:41] bad, right? We have operational things that have to be done and some of that is

[7:46] done outside of regular work hours. Just to give you an example of what our

[7:52] overtime looks like, we put this graph up there. You can see from the top green

[7:58] portion, the majority of our overtime is court related overtime. We want to catch

[8:03] bad guys or we want to slow people down to stop crashes. That means our officers

[8:09] are going to be busy. They have about a thousand arrests a year and 7,000

[8:14] tickets. They're going to be out there and it's going to incur some court time.

[8:18] So that is the largest portion of the overtime.

[8:23] What the graph doesn't show is in the revenue portion of things, that's

[8:27] basically a wash in fines and court costs. So the other large green portion

[8:33] is reimburseable overtime. That is things like we might work a

[8:39] football game security. The school will pay us back. We might do a DUI

[8:44] checkpoint. We get funding for that. So that overtime is 100% reimburseable. So

[8:50] if you look at that, that's about half of our overtime is is basically

[8:56] a wash.

[9:00] That just is a little explanation of how we manage over time. And the other

[9:04] categories we look at on a year-by-year basis and try to determine our needs.

[9:08] Some of them we change on a yearly basis. A lot of them are something like

[9:13] an investigation. Something comes up, we have a serious crime, officers have to

[9:17] put more time into it. those kind of things we don't have control over, but

[9:21] they are consistent consistently. We can plan for them.

[9:26] So, going back to how we're going to combat some of that savings, you know,

[9:29] we dealt with the wages, we're talking about overtime. Now, if you look at the

[9:34] the collective bargaining units 3.5% raise, that would put overtime up

[9:41] to about $473,000 for 2025.

[9:46] What I did is I looked at the overtime and we found some ways that we could cut

[9:50] and I took it back down to the 2025 number instead of raising at 473. That's

[9:57] about $16,000 that we saved in what would have been

[10:02] with the raises. It's cutting basically 195 hours of overtime by restructuring

[10:08] some things with some different officers that we have and some different ways

[10:12] that we can do things. So, if I add those two together, that's about

[10:16] $130,000 that we tried to keep the budget down

[10:20] that would have gone up just due to the normal payraises.

[10:30] All right. So, the second way that we're going to try to save some money is

[10:33] operationally. Um, this is about $48,000 that we've looked at in the budget and

[10:40] been able to find some ways to save from 25 to 26. Uh, uniforms and equipment.

[10:45] Uh, we're going to, you know, use some of the things that we have a little bit

[10:48] longer as far as radios and batteries. Um, we have one or two less officers so

[10:54] that we won't have to spend some of that uniform allowance as well. firearm

[10:59] supplies. That's a category where we've eliminated some expenses by changing

[11:03] around some of the weapons that we use. And um last year we budgeted for a few

[11:08] extra rifles. This year we're not going to do that. We're going to put that off

[11:13] for another another year possibly. We analyzed our fuel and we think that

[11:20] based on what we used year to date, we were a little high. Additionally,

[11:25] officers have been doing a really good job of keeping the cars from idling too

[11:29] much when they're not in them. That keeps the fuel cost down, as well as we

[11:34] have two less officers. If we the one that we will hire in November, he's

[11:39] going to be in the FTO period doubled up. So, we'll have some savings there as

[11:42] well. New hire testing should save about $5,000 because we just completed a test

[11:49] two weeks ago. I don't anticipate anybody leaving next year.

[11:54] But if they would, we could use this current test to fill that position. And

[11:59] then we found some other things in the EMA, fire police budget that were

[12:04] earmarked that we don't use. And I found about $4,000 in additional control

[12:09] spending that we can cut. Little minor things. So that leaves our savings of

[12:14] $48,000 operationally. If you looked at the key increases, that was 41,000.

[12:20] Savings are 48,000. So operationally we're actually about $6,700

[12:26] less than last year.

[12:30] This goes into our capital purchase issue that we're going to talk about.

[12:36] 2028 is going to have some looming issues. We have LPR readers that we had

[12:43] been partially funded from the DA's office. Their licenses, they're a great

[12:48] investigative tool. In fact, just last week, we had some theft from vehicles in

[12:53] the township. We used LPR readers to make to to make an arrest on that almost

[13:00] within a day. So, great police work that the guys did. That's a good tool. But

[13:05] 2028, we're going to have some license fees do.

[13:09] I talked about the body warn cameras and the incar camera. That is also the 2028

[13:14] issue. But the one that we're going to try to

[13:18] plan for tonight is going to be our incar computers. Officers do everything

[13:22] on these computers. Of course, they get dispatched on them. That's how they

[13:26] write their reports, do their crashes, issue their tickets, look up criminal

[13:30] history. Everything's done on these computers. It's mandated by the county

[13:35] that we replace them every, I believe, five years. 2028 they're due with a

[13:40] price tag of about $105,000. Last year, I'm sorry, for 2025, we put

[13:48] away $50,000 capital purchase to begin tackling this problem. I'm going to ask

[13:53] for that 50 plus another 10, so that we can at least say

[13:58] the most important thing, the computers are taken care of for 2028. That leaves

[14:03] us time to look at these grants if they come in for 2026 and plan for some of

[14:09] those additional looming issues in 27 and 28. So, we're asking for a total of

[14:15] 60,000 in capital purchases, which is 10,000 more than last year.

[14:25] All right. So, this takes us to our review. Again, over time, we we took

[14:29] that back down to to 2025's hours. I'm sorry, amount. So, that's saving

[14:36] $16,000. Operationally, we decreased the

[14:39] operations budget 6,700. Wages in light of the 3.5%

[14:46] raises only actually went up 64,000. So overall, we kept the budget at $140,000

[14:53] more than 2025. It's about a 1.55%

[14:59] increase. And that's pretty much the budget we

[15:02] have. I believe that we're going to be able to continue our operations,

[15:07] continue giving the public the service that they deserve and give the officers

[15:10] the tools that they need with this budget. And I just thank you for

[15:14] considering it. >> Questions?

[15:18] » Thank you, Lieutenant. >> Thank you.

[15:21] » I had questions, but as uh you went through your presentations, they got

[15:25] answered. So, very well put together. I appreciate it. I believe Jack was

[15:31] tracking down a few questions. Yeah, of course,

[15:35] Lieutenant Shaver. Yeah. Um, only because I' I've heard from the

[15:40] community. It's not really It may not be budget related depending on how it gets

[15:45] handled. Um, school resource officer. Okay. I hear, you know, I hear comments

[15:51] back uh from the school, etc. I know you guys do patrols, but could you cover

[15:58] that? Is that including the budget? Is there any plans for increased presence

[16:03] in the school system? >> Well, as far as a school resource

[16:08] officer, that's something that has to be worked out between the school board's

[16:12] budget and the police's budget. And I believe that our budgets are at

[16:15] different times of the year. So, that would be something that we would have to

[16:19] get in line. >> Yeah. They're on a different cycle,

[16:21] » correct? with with their budget because there are ways that that police

[16:24] departments and school districts split that cost since the officer spends most

[16:28] their time in the school. But we would always be open to listening to that

[16:34] conversation. We do spend a lot of of time patrolling the schools, keeping

[16:39] them safe, working with the schools. We have monthly meetings that we engage

[16:44] with them to share information. They have their own school.

[16:50] I don't want to butcher his title, but they have their own school mandated

[16:54] security personnel that has to work with their safety plans and coordinate with

[16:59] us um different safety drills that we conduct with them on a monthly basis

[17:06] sometimes, but multiple times a year. So, we're always engaging with that with

[17:12] that with them. This past summer, we heavily engaged

[17:17] with them with some training exercises where I brought in fire and EMS and we

[17:23] did some very long extensive training for active shooter stuff. Um, so we we

[17:30] did partner with them to do that. Our our officers do go into school. We try

[17:34] to be there in the morning for drop offs a lot. We we help with traffic every day

[17:40] when school lets out. But as far as a specific school resource officer, that

[17:47] would have to be something that's worked out with the school district in line

[17:50] with their budget as well. >> That would probably not a quite a good

[17:54] question because I understand I understand that that the school board

[17:58] would have to uh allocate funds for that. It was more of the your the extra

[18:07] police presence in the school and you've answered that. I appreciate you. Um the

[18:14] I'm still a little puzzled on the 470,000.

[18:19] Okay. Uh that you listed. Was that what you believe? Uh where was it?

[18:29] » It's >> It was the next slide, I believe. Yep.

[18:32] » Yeah. Overtime um uh over overtime by year 2025. Is that what you're

[18:38] projecting for 2025 or is that what was in the budget?

[18:42] » That is what we budgeted for 2025. >> Uh then you know what my next question

[18:46] is. >> Why is it where you

[18:49] » Oh, where am I at?

[18:54] » I can get that. >> And if you don't have it handy, it's

[18:56] fine. >> I do have So that graph that we made

[19:00] » Yeah. >> is I have the numbers for that, but I

[19:03] put in percentages so I don't get you the exact number. Is it above or below?

[19:07] » It would be Oh, it's below that. We're below that.

[19:10] » Okay. >> Yeah. And and those numbers are figured

[19:12] in with overtime that hasn't occurred yet between what we anticipate

[19:16] reimburseable with the school yet and a few of the there's some last minute

[19:21] lowlight shooting that the officers have to do. So, we'll be below what we

[19:27] anticipated most. >> Okay. And then for 2026, you use the

[19:32] same number. >> I did use the same number. So, when we

[19:34] started working on the budget, um, finance gave me a number of $473,000

[19:41] based on simply taking the raises that we would expect and applying the same

[19:48] percentages of overtime usage to 2026. That's when I looked at it and I said,

[19:54] let's take it down and just keep it the same dollar amount as 2025 to show no

[20:00] increase. And that's why I'm saying we saved about 16,000.

[20:04] » Okay. Um uh your admin person uh you're going to

[20:10] lose her part-time in next May if I remember correctly.

[20:16] » Okay, that's what she's >> and is it

[20:20] I maybe I shouldn't be asking this because I'm not sure I want to know the

[20:23] answer. But what are the plans then? What are your plans?

[20:27] » So that position has changed over the years. Um, I've been here 28 years.

[20:33] We've had different different part-time admin personnel. Um, one full-time, one

[20:39] part-time, two full part or two full-time and a part-time. It's changed

[20:44] over the years. And part of the reason for that changing is technology, um, how

[20:50] we do things. So, they don't file paper citations anymore. They don't do a lot

[20:56] of paper related things anymore. And as we change, we can we we lose work for

[21:02] that person to do. Additionally, some of the work that that person does right

[21:07] now, we delegated because we were busy and it's really stuff that we think a

[21:14] police officer should be doing anyway. So that's something that we would take

[21:18] back. And then dispatching as well. That's not like a technological change.

[21:23] We no longer try to dispatch anything from our office. people sometimes

[21:28] instead of calling 911, we call the officers directly. We try to take that

[21:32] away because it's safer when it's done through Burk's radio. So even answering

[21:36] the phones is less. That's why I think that we'll be able to

[21:40] do without that position. >> Okay. So it'll just be completely

[21:44] eliminated >> most likely. Yes. That's what we

[21:47] budgeted for. Um that budget's based on running those numbers of when we

[21:52] anticipate her to her to work this year. >> Okay. Um, last question I have is I

[22:00] don't see any capital improvements. You have no capital really listed other

[22:05] than what you just mentioned there. There's there we're not you're not

[22:09] asking for capital to start putting it away for that 2028 as an example for the

[22:15] mobile uh units. >> Not other than the $60,000 for the MCT,

[22:21] right? That is that is the capital purchase that we're asking for for 2028

[22:25] just for the the computers. >> Yeah. And but is that that's not a fixed

[22:31] cost at this point? >> That three years

[22:34] » it's most like for the computers itself that most likely will cover it based on

[22:38] the 50,000 that we put away in 2025. So we we if we get if you approve the

[22:45] $60,000 in that category, we should have enough for the MCTs.

[22:49] » Okay. All right. Good. Okay. But I when I didn't when I don't see capital, I I

[22:54] start thinking, uh oh, >> sure.

[22:57] » All of a sudden, we're going to get hit with a a possible capital request that

[23:03] was not was not planned or maybe you knew about and didn't let us know.

[23:09] » We'll be back knocking next year for the other thing.

[23:12] » Okay, good. Thank you, Lieutenant. That's it for me,

[23:17] » Supervisor. No, I understand.

[23:21] [Music]

[23:24] » Supervisor H. >> I don't think at this time.

[23:28] » Just a couple of things for me. Um, you've mentioned the operational

[23:32] increase on the body cameras and the bulletproof vests. There are grants that

[23:37] are being pursued. Um, do you know when uh you could hear about

[23:44] it? So, the bulletproof vest grant is usually a sure thing. Um, that's

[23:51] something that we go through every year, but it does have to happen after we

[23:58] go through a process. As far as the grant for the cameras, I believe that

[24:03] the earliest we could hear from that is March.

[24:05] » So, they're in theory, they could be at zero as far as

[24:09] » it could be. >> Uh, the other thing, it's an ask. Uh,

[24:12] it's not a comment or anything. I would like to look at you over time by year,

[24:16] work with Bill and see how we could improve.

[24:21] Other than that, if there's nobody else having any other questions,

[24:26] » I appreciate you and I appreciate your presentation. Well done.

[24:30] » Thank you.

[24:36] » All right, we're switching it.

[24:51] [Music]

[24:56] I have it up on the screen. Check.

[25:09] » Good to go. >> Good to go, sir.

[25:12] » Okay. Uh Chris Jordan, fire chief, Exit Township Volunteer Fire Department. Uh

[25:17] first of all, thank you for allowing us to present the 2026 budget this evening.

[25:23] Um thank you to the board of supervisors, also the residents for your

[25:27] support over the last year and in previous years.

[25:31] We're very proud of what we accomplished in this past year and we're still

[25:35] accomplishing more. Um, and I'm personally very proud of all of our crew

[25:39] and all the accomplishments that they've had over the last year.

[25:44] Um, just to name a few, in 2025 we placed Tower Ladder 25 in service. Um,

[25:51] so you'll see that on the street and great asset to the community. Uh, we

[25:57] also had six new members achieve their essentials of firefighting training this

[26:03] year. Uh that's a 200 hour training class and they'll all be testing for

[26:07] their firefighter one certification in the beginning part of November. So you

[26:12] know most fire departments or fire companies in in the county might have

[26:16] one or two. So we're very proud that we have you know six that went through the

[26:20] class and and actually started and finished the entire class. Quite an

[26:25] accomplishment for those members. Um, I'm also proud to say that we over the

[26:31] past year, we've expanded our junior firefighter program, which is members

[26:35] ages 14 to 17 years of age. We made a push on that to tell replenishing uh

[26:40] that program. We've gone from six members at this time last year to now we

[26:44] have 12. >> So, that's a great accomplishment to um,

[26:49] you know, the school district's been helping us, but also to our crew for

[26:52] helping with those recruitment efforts. >> So, thank you again.

[26:58] Uh before we get into the numbers, I just wanted to uh reiterate the

[27:02] priorities of the department. Um the first priority is to continue to provide

[27:07] 247 365 days a year in-house staffing. Uh one of the things that our fire

[27:13] department does is we have in-house staffing uh 247 365.

[27:19] You know, that's done through our career staff, but also our volunteers that we

[27:25] incentivize to staff our fire station. The second priority is the centrallylo

[27:33] emergency services center, which we've talked at length about.

[27:38] Third priority is to continue to solidify our apparatus replacement plan,

[27:42] which we'll talk about a little bit later.

[27:46] Fourth priority is to continue to enhance community relations with local

[27:50] businesses and community organizations. Over the years, we've had great

[27:54] relationships with the local businesses um and also many community organizations

[27:59] that we continue to support and they support us um through various events

[28:04] during the year. And then last but not least, we want to

[28:08] continue to enhance our recruitment and training efforts. Um, one of the one of

[28:13] the things that I wanted to do when I took over as fire chief is to continue

[28:16] to make sure that our members that we have in place are being productive uh

[28:21] and retain them, but also to make sure that we're recruiting new recruits and

[28:27] also training them properly. Um, you know, the next essentials class will

[28:33] start sometime in January or February, and I'm hoping to get another six

[28:38] enrolled in that class so that at this time next year, I can tell you we have

[28:41] another six firefighters on the street. So, that's the goal.

[28:50] Some historical call volume. Sorry, on the wrong page.

[28:56] Um, so a lot of the community may not know who we are. Um, you know, we're

[29:02] Exit Township Volunteer Fire Department, but we're a combination fire department.

[29:07] Um, currently we're staffed by volunteers. We do have full-time staff

[29:11] and we do have part-time personnel. So, right now we have 75 active

[29:16] volunteers. That would include the junior members and also the fire police

[29:20] members. We have two full-time firefighters that cover our daytime

[29:25] operations. And then we have 20 part-time

[29:29] firefighters that fill five positions during the daytime hours. You know, in

[29:35] the past, you know, the firefighters would work at the local hardware st

[29:39] store, leave to go fight a fire or protect the community. Those days are

[29:44] long gone. So, what we're doing is maintaining a combination department

[29:51] where it's a combination of volunteers and career staff, you know, to help

[29:55] protect the community. And we provide all disciplines of the

[30:00] fire service. Fire suppression, you know, truck and aerial work, rescue, we

[30:05] fight brush fires. We have tankers for the rural end of the township. We also

[30:10] have fire police. We have QRS and EMS which help support the lifeline EMS

[30:15] program. And then we also have water rescue.

[30:19] And once again, the goal is to continue to maintain that 247 365 program.

[30:25] [Music]

[30:30] From a call volume perspective, um, in 2023 we responded to 1468 emergency

[30:37] responses. About 80 of those were from the flooding uh, in July, which we've

[30:42] talked about. Last year, we were at 1401, and this year we're at 1,200 at

[30:48] the end of September. So, that would put us right around uh, 1,550 calls for the

[30:54] year. you know, which obviously is about a 10% increase from last year.

[31:02] Some statist some stats from last year, 20% of our calls were overlapped,

[31:06] meaning that um when you're out on a call, we may get another call during

[31:11] that time, which again, we try to maintain at least two crews in place

[31:16] that they can respond to that.

[31:20] 77% of those calls were fire and rescue calls and then 23% were QRS and EMS

[31:26] calls. 78% of our responses were to exit

[31:30] township in St. Lawrence Burough, which would be our first two area. And our

[31:34] dispatch to our average dispatch uh to response time is 1 minute and 5 seconds.

[31:48] Okay, on to the budget. Um, the current fire tax is at I'm going to say 1.07

[31:55] mills. That's where the current fire tax is. At this point in time, we're not

[32:00] requesting a tax increase for the 2026 operational budget.

[32:06] So, the operational budget encompasses pretty much everything we need to

[32:11] operate. Vehicle and personal insuranceances,

[32:15] fuel for e vehicles, workman's comp, things of that nature.

[32:21] The fire tax generates approximately $1.4 million in the course of a year.

[32:29] And on the expense line, uh if you go down to the bottom, you can see that uh

[32:34] the line items are pretty close to where they were last year. A few callouts. Um

[32:40] as Lieutenant Schaefer mentioned, you know, we're seeing increases in

[32:44] insurance costs as well. So, workman's comp, we're projecting to be around

[32:48] $75,000 for next year.

[32:52] Um, under line uh for fire or contributions in fire, that line item is

[32:58] for our career staff and our part- timerrs. That also includes the health

[33:03] insurance of those me of the two full-timers. Uh, right now, we're

[33:07] anticipating from 2025 to 2026, that should be about a 20% increase over last

[33:14] year. A few factors play into that. Um, number one, the overall health insurance

[33:19] has gone up, but number two, um, one of our full-timers resigned and we

[33:27] got a new full-timer and his health insurance was a little bit higher than

[33:30] the old one we had. So, that's part of the increase.

[33:34] Um, another note, if you go to the bottom, um, you know, Supervisor Pio

[33:39] mentioned about capital purchases. So that last line item, transfer to

[33:43] apparatus, that's our capital or capital program

[33:48] for apparatus replacement. So we took that from $235,000

[33:54] a year. We increased that to $250,000 a year. We're in the process currently of

[34:00] looking at, you know, replacing one of our apparatus based on our apparatus

[34:04] replacement program. And that apparatus is projected to come in somewhere

[34:09] between 1.3 and 1.5 million. If you haven't followed with the federal

[34:14] government, um the cost of fire apparatus has skyrocketed over the last

[34:20] few years to the point where I believe it's Senator Holly is very vocal with

[34:26] the federal government to try to stop the increases of the fire apparatus and

[34:31] try to actually bring them down and get the fire apparatus manufacturers more in

[34:36] line with where they should be. the the apparatus that we're looking at

[34:41] replacing, you know, at at the current rate, it

[34:45] would take us about six years to acrew the funds to replace that apparatus

[34:49] without taking a loan or coming to the board um with with a big with a big ask.

[34:57] So hopefully the price of apparatus will start to

[35:04] relax and come down a little bit, but we're not sure. So, we are looking at

[35:08] alternatives. You know, there's there's something called a refurbishment where

[35:12] you could look at refurbishing a current apparatus and bringing it more up to

[35:16] speed. Um, you know, you could also go a used apparatus route, which are things

[35:21] we're all looking at. But, you know, in the past, um, the apparatus that's being

[35:27] replaced has been used as a reserve piece in case one of our apparatus goes

[35:30] down for mechanical issues or some other major issues.

[35:36] Any questions before we go on from that

[35:39] slide? >> So you're just your delta is 4,500

[35:48] bucks. >> Is that the difference that you're

[35:52] seeking pretty much is this here or just going to cover it in house?

[35:55] » So that's actually we're actually not we're not asking for

[35:59] any more. So the the delta where it shows 4500 I

[36:05] believe that's what they're planning that we would earn in the revenue line

[36:09] this year versus last year. It's from interest and

[36:13] » yeah fair enough >> other things

[36:18] » but yes if in the operational side I think it's I think it's 1,433,000

[36:25] versus 1,432 that would be covered with

[36:30] uh internal

[36:33] » um some again some budget notes so everything in here in the budget is uh

[36:38] all of our anticipated expenses related to vehicle and insurance, fuel,

[36:44] 911 uh communications payment, which you know, currently um

[36:51] and manager, you might have to correct me if

[36:54] I'm wrong, but I I believe we're also paying for the EMS

[36:59] communications fee out of this. >> I don't know that.

[37:03] » Something we may want to look into, but I believe it's EMS and fire. The

[37:07] communications fees are coming out of that. I believe so. we might want to

[37:11] look at we'll look at that together. >> Um

[37:15] workman's compensation insurance which we talked about apparatus maintenance

[37:18] and also the payroll and benefits for the full-time personnel and then the

[37:22] payroll for the part-time personnel the volunteer incentive program and also the

[37:27] apparatus replacement program. And just to reiterate for the for the

[37:32] app for the uh operational side of the fire department, we are not asking for a

[37:37] tax increase this fiscal year of 2026.

[37:45] » 10 out of 10. Thank you. >> Any questions?

[37:47] » Um just wondering why did you drop uh the fire vehicle maintenance

[37:53] 25,000 from your operation? So last year we knew we were going to have some

[37:58] pretty significant maintenance costs. Um you know one of our apparatus I believe

[38:03] had to have some engine work done. This year we're not anticipating that blue.

[38:08] Hopefully none of that happens. So hopefully the maintenance can come down.

[38:12] Um and it's it's reallocated into the uh what would be the contributions fire

[38:21] which is a salary and benefits and things like that to cover those

[38:25] increases. Fair enough. Appreciate it. Thank you.

[38:30] » Anybody has a question for >> Yeah, I'm not sure. Um, St. Lawrence,

[38:36] what what are they paying you fire? What do they pay us?

[38:40] » Yeah, so right now St. Lawrence's fire tax is at I believe it's at 67 mills.

[38:47] Um, and that money is split between exit and also Mount Penny.

[38:54] So that generates I believe it generates approximately $12,000 per year per fire

[39:00] department. >> That's it. Do we anticipating an

[39:04] increase? I mean that's >> Yeah. So I've worked with the chief at M

[39:07] » basically free >> and we put together

[39:12] well we could talk about St. offline. But so they we put together a plan where

[39:20] um there's increases every year in the fire tax. Um and it's it's basically

[39:26] contracted services with them.

[39:32] But good question. They do contribute but it's I mean dollar-wise it's it's

[39:38] small making.

[39:42] Um, any other questions for the chief here from the rest of the board?

[39:48] » Thank you. >> He already answered about capital

[39:51] equipment. Thank you, chief. >> Thank you, chief. I appreciate it.

[39:54] » Thanks.

[39:57] » All right. Uh, I don't know if anybody signed up for public comments. I don't

[40:00] see anything written on the sheets. So, we're going to move on to adjourment.

[40:06] Do I have a motion to adjour the budget workshop?

[40:11] I make that motion. >> Do I have a second?

[40:14] » I'll second

Exeter Township Board of Supervisors Budget Meeting #01 October 13 2025 (with audio)

Transcript