Town Board Meeting September 7th, 2021
OFFICIALS PRESENT: Police Chief Rickard, Deputy Police Chief Maresca, H’way Supt. Hassenmayer.
SPECIAL GUEST PRESENT: Rose Phillips
Following the Pledge of Allegiance, Supervisor Volpe called the meeting to order at 6:00pm. Town Clerk gave board members their 2022 budget packets. Public notice was available on the desk for anyone who wants to see it.
Supervisor Volpe: the tentative budget is all of the numbers that the department heads submit to the budget officer. The planning board and DCO did not submit sheets in time so he will fill out their sheets for them. Looking at revenue from last year, if we went with this budget without making changes, the tax rate would go up about $28/thousand.
Councilman Howell reviewed everything they spoke about with the Otisville fire department. They met on the 24th with the mayor, Trustee Palmer and the fire dept. They had some requests: items, gear, equipment. He noted the bathrooms at the fire house needing to come up to ADA compliance. The money is set aside for it. They’re looking for a $50,000 increase to accommodate their multi-step upgrade. Every so-many years, with the turn-out gear, they want to spread it out over 5 years instead of doing $100,000. As it ages out with its expirations… same with air packs they wear. All those things have age limits to their use. This will keep them in line. What we came up with the town was a 2-year deal. Year 1 they would get a good amount of money then year 2 we have it set in as 3%. 1st year we went with $50,000, we went 3%: 2023 number is $12,263.53. Supervisor Volpe explained the difference with the village budget and town budget calendar. We need to start planning. We agreed to a 1-time bump then it has to be regular.
BUILDING DEPARTMENT:
BI Musial explained she is asking for a 5% raise for herself, 3% for Heidi & a little over 3% for Deb with her keeping the hours she has now because we are swamped. Last year we had 268 permits done. As of today, I have 258 permits issued. She gave permits issued numbers for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2021. She gave the number of violations per year. Deb has been helping her a tremendous amount. She couldn’t have done this volume of work without her. Heidi is taking care of a lot of the old permits as far as trying to close them out. To date – she has closed 30 older permits from 2015 forward mostly pools, sheds, garages. When she is done with those, she will go back and do other stuff. Permits need to be closed out if someone wants to sell their house. That’s where we are getting a lot of the violations from and increased # of certificates. Councilman Jennings asked what the turnaround time is a week – tops. Some they get on the same day. Supervisor Volpe asked about the program. She loves it. Deb has been working on inputting from the old system into the new program from 2016 to present.
POLICE:
Chief Rickard came before the board to discuss his 2022 budget request. He explained the increase is 3.25% for Marie & Maureen. For Mike – $2,000 raise (3.5%). Anna is contractual. Chief is taking a $3,000 cut due to cap rules. Increases are all contractual. The SRO is $46,650 – what we pay out. We collect $58,240. We don’t contribute to retirement for Jamie or Sean. For .2 – we shaved money off. The next new car will be a hybrid. He explained his other requests for this line. He spoke about the license plate reader he would like to get. Councilman Howell asked if this would “spit” out a ticket. Chief: it’s not allowed by law in NYS. He explained the contractual line. Councilman Carey asked about the camera the Chief would like and if it does the speed also. Chief: no.
HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT:
Supt. Hassenmayer came before the board. He informed the board that there was a truck accident last week. The vacuum sweeper truck was totaled here in the driveway by Chris. Insurance company notified him today and they are going to total it. Supervisor Volpe asked about Dean’s request for additional hours for Amy. Supt.: during April and October, for the trash days, the phone volume is through the roof. It went on FB page today. He explained that her hours are normally 10-2 & during those months he would like for her to be 9-3. He explained the extra 80 hours to the board. He explained the only other increases are contractual and the labor. The guys are in for a .95 cent raise. Councilman Carey: we did some shifting of employment for someone we had doing cleaning & maintenance – we no longer have someone doing maintenance. Going forward, we have a cleaning company and that’s all they do is cleaning. Do you have any suggestions of what we can do as far as getting someone to do some of the maintenance (ie: painting)
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Maybe in the future a ‘parks dept/building maintenance person’? Supt. Hassenmayer: not a bad idea. We’ve talked about it for a few years now – somebody year-round employee that could mow in the summer & building maintenance & plowing the parking lot. Supervisor: I think we budgeted for that 8th person. Perhaps we could tie that in. I don’t think it is a significant increase because we are already budgeting for it. We can earmark the new person to do maintenance/ parking lot maintenance/ parks dept. Chief Rickard added that there’s always maintenance his department needs as well. Supervisor Volpe would like to see the 8th person have a CDL license. Chief: it would be nice to have someone that can shovel the doors for the buildings. Supervisor: they would be more entry level hire. Not paying the top price. Councilman Furman: I think the maintenance /upkeep on the building is gonna keep getting bigger & bigger. Councilman Howell noted on the garbage/refuse page that there’s a bit of an increase. Supt. Hassenmayer explained. Councilman Carey asked about the firetruck. Supt. Hassenmayer said it will be ready.
SUPERVISOR Volpe started to go through the budget with the board.
Town Board he put down 3.25% increase. Contractual staying the same.
Justices they have themselves down for 3% raise straight through. All of us worked really hard the last few years fixing a lot of the salaries that have discrepancies. I feel we are very competitive now. When you see the next portion of the budget, you’ll see I changed it to 3.25%. I’m trying to be consistent. Lisa has put in her resignation effective 10/31/2021. That will be a big savings because we will hire someone at a lower rate.
Supervisor – I will not be here in January – fortunately the board changed the starting salary from $16,000 to $25,000. Deputy supervisor will have 3.25% raise. Bookkeeper = 3.25% – keeping it consistent.
We changed from Cooper Arias – now we know a consistent #.
Budget officer had always been $2000. He changed it to $3,000.
Assessor: his will be 3.25% to be consistent. Years ago, we tried to get Cory to do data collector. But he didn’t work for him. Angie will go to 3.25%. Assessor has questions on getting a state certified licensed data collector. He went to supreme court with Dollar General & Wallkill Valley Savings in the past & there’s a reasonable expectation it will happen again. He noted the E911 coordinator line is that budget. He asked if the data collector position should be put back in that budget. The board discussed this. He brought up the hours the assessor is in the office. Dennis has come in on Fridays – he’ll return people’s phone calls. Hours actually in this office is not a lot. The bulk of the holidays are on Mondays. Councilman Howell asked what the gain to that office would be with a data collector. Supervisor does not know. Discussion.
TOWN CLERK:
Town Clerk spoke to board re: budget request. She spoke re: this year will be 3rd year doing tax collection. That is a big responsibility. When Linda left, she was making over $7,000. Town clerk did not get that. There’s a lot of stuff behind the scenes that the board probably doesn’t know about unless they are here. She gave examples of the process. There are also other things that are not town clerk or tax collection related but we handle in our office ie: youth center rentals, senior center rentals, access cards, library. Councilman Carey: I think it was insane what the tax collector used to make. They used to make more than what the actual people on the board as council people made. Clearly that was a prior boards’ decision to do that. I believe we were also paying her phone bill.
SUPERVISOR Volpe adjourned the budget meeting for a 5-minute recess BEFORE STARTING THE REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING.
Following the Pledge of Allegiance, the Town Supervisor called the town board meeting to order at 7:35pm.
MOTION TO ACCEPT THE PRIOR MEETING MINUTES:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Howell to accept meeting minutes as presented from August 16, 2021. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; motion carried.
CORRESPONDENCE:
Resignation from Lisa Bacigalupo, court clerk effective 10-31-2021
Resignation from Barrett Magistro, police officer effective 8-29-2021
Budget modification for highway office
Police department request to surplus 2015 FORD Interceptor and sell it
Request from Assessor to attend seminar in Niagara Falls 10-3-2021 thru 10-6-2021
Orange County mortgage tax receipts for August 2021
Email from library re: 81 cards issued as of September 1, 2021
Building dept. monthly report – July 2021
Letter from NYS Dept. of State re: 2020 population total (2020 = 6,537)
Event schedule for Otisville Centennial celebration
BOARD REPORTS:
Councilman Jennings:
Councilman Furman:
Councilman Carey:
Councilman Howell:
Supervisor Volpe:
HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT:
Supt. Hassenmayer reported
POLICE DEPARTMENT:
Chief Rickard noted the resignation from
VILLAGE OF OTISVILLE:
LOCAL LAW NUMBER CHANGE:
MOTION TO CHANGE THE NUMBERS FOR LOCAL LAWS:
AMERICAN RESCUE FUND:
MOTION TO ACCEPT RESIGNATION FROM POLICE OFFICER BARRETT MAGISTRO:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Howell to accept resignation from Police Officer Barrett Magistro effective 8-29-2021. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; motion carried.
MOTION TO ACCEPT RESIGNATION FROM COURT CLERK LISA BACIGALUPO:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Howell to accept resignation from Court Clerk Lisa Bacigalupo effective 10-31-2021. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; motion carried.
MOTION TO APPROVE HIGHWAY BUDGET MODIFICATION:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Howell to approve the modification as follows:
Increase unclassified revenue D2655 by $772.14 AND
Increase Machinery repairs D5130.4 by $772.14. (truck body surplus/scrap)
All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; motion carried.
MOTION TO SURPLUS THEN SELL THE 2015 FORD INTERCEPTOR:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Furman to surplus then sell the 2015 FORD Interceptor, AWD, Vin # 1FM5K8AR2FGC67549, 116,025 miles. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; motion carried.
MOTION TO SURPLUS THEN DESTROY A DESK AND TABLE FROM POLICE BUILDING:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman 2nd Councilman Howell to surplus then destroy an old desk and table which have no value from the police department. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; motion carried.
MOTION TO APPROVE ASSESSOR’S REQUEST TO ATTEND SEMINAR IN NIAGARA FALLS, NY:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Jennings to approve Assessor Dennis Ketcham to attend seminar in Niagara Falls Oct 3-6, 2021 with meals included for $1,003.00. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; motion carried.
MOTION TO AUDIT THE CLAIMS ABSTRACTS 33-35:
MOTION offered Councilman Jennings 2nd Councilman Furman to pay the following bills:
ABSTRACT 33:
GENERAL A: #423-431 $46,593.32
GENERAL B: #73-75 $ 9,455.15
HIGHWAY: #138-142 $19,390.70
SEWER: #75-79 $ 6,903.70
ABSTRACT #34:
GENERAL A: #432-438 $ 6,081.22
GENERAL B: #76 $ 8,263.50
HIGHWAY: #143-144 $ 4,000.93
AND
ABSTRACT #35:
GENERAL A: #439-460 $ 65,264.18
GENERAL B: #77-80 $ 9,926.94
HIGHWAY: #145-148 $ 35,168.51
SEWER: #80-82 $ 3,271.82
AM RESCUE: #1-2 $ 3,550.00.
All in favor: Howell, Volpe, Furman, Jennings, Carey; carried.
PUBLIC COMMENT:
Diane Loeven:
Keri Carey:
Rose Phillips:
Diane Loeven:
MOTION TO ENTER INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION:
All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
MOTION TO RECONVENE REGULAR MEEITNG FROM EXECUTIVE SESSION:
All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
MOTION TO AUTHORIZE TOWN COURT TO ADVERTISE FOR NEW CLERK POSITION:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Furman
All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
MOTION TO OFFER CONDITIONAL OFFER OF EMPLOYMENT TO NIGEL BALGOBIN:
MOTION TO OFFER CONDITIONAL OFFER OF EMPLOYMENT TO NICHOLAS CONTINO:
BOARD COMMENTS:
Councilman Jennings spoke re: carnival coming up.
MOTION TO ADJOURN MEETING:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Howell to adjourn the meeting at 9:10pm. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
9:17PM Budget Meeting continued:
Supervisor Volpe went through budget with board members line by line as follows:
MOTION TO ADJOURN MEETING:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Supervisor Volpe to adjourn the meeting at 9:50pm. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
The next BUDGET meeting is scheduled for Monday, September 20, 2021 at 6:00pm; town board meeting to follow at 7:30pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen A. Myers, RMC
Town Clerk