Board of Trustees Special Meeting

Village of Walden Board of Trustees Special Meeting April 27, 2022 Mayor Ramos called the regular meeting of the Village of Walden Board of Trustees to order at 6:30pm. On roll call the following were: Mayor: John Ramos Present: Deputy Mayor Willie Carley Trustees Lynn Thompson (Zoom) Patricia Maher Becky Pearson John Elliott Brian Sebring (Zoom) Absent: Also Present: John Revella, Village Manager Marisa Kraus, Village Clerk Dave Donovan, Village Attorney Public Hearing 2022-2023 Village Budget Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to open the public hearing for the 2022-2023 Village Budget. Seconded by Trustee Elliott. All ayes. Motion carried. Mary Ellen Matise: I'm going to still comment about requesting a line for the ambulance. I don't know where you're at with that. Last meeting, I thought there was an indication that you thought it was a good idea, at least to have a line whether however much it did or didn't have in it. So that if we get to the point where we have to contract for service next year, you have someplace where that can happen in the budget. Then I started thinking about it and I thought the importance of having the ambulance aside from everything else, is how it ties into our emergency management plan. So, I went online to try to find our emergency management plan. I could not find the emergency management plan. I called here to Village Hall. I went down and looked on the shelves in the library and the only thing I could find was the 2006 draft in my house. Of course it's been redone since then. But this is all I could find. Now, why isn't the emergency management planning ambulance services very important to whatever happens in an emergency? It just really doubles down on how I feel about us being able to provide for ourselves next year if we have to. I'm not saying we will have to. Maybe something miraculous is going to happen. But if we have to, then it should be in our budget, which is a plan for next year. It should tie into our emergency management plan. The only thing I could find online was a two-page reference in the police policies to the emergency management plan. The plan itself is not on our village website. It doesn't come up in Google. Nothing. Why not? Manager Revella: Because it's not for public viewing. Emergency Management Services Center in the county has a copy and we have a copy here in the office. It's not for public view. It's the Office Procedures for Emergency Management. Mary Ellen Matise: Okay. Because the police have a copy and they have to be privy to it and how it works? Absolutely. Is it something that our local ambulance service is privy to and knows how it works and when they would be called into play? 1 Manager Revella: They're aware of the management plan. I'm not sure if the current members have been updated on it. Mary Ellen Matise: I don't know why at least a synopsis or something about it isn't available for the public to know. It's also and I'm digressing a little from the budget, sorry, but it also plays into the fact about NIMS training and elected officials having some knowledge of NIMS training and interested residents having some interest who have interest in emergency management or emergency preparedness having NIMS training. Trustee Maher made a motion to close public hearing for village budget. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Manager Revella: It's really up to the board if they have any other discussion on the budget. We made one adjustment last meeting for the zero return, which was an addition of $12,950. You still have room for about $45,000 and still stay under the tax cap. I know at least one board member suggested allocating the remaining tax cap funds towards a reserve account or reserve line. That could be tapped if we needed it for, say, ambulance costs or anything else without actually earmarking it for anything particular so that it would be available if that were to come to pass. And if it's not necessary, it's still there, in that fund. If we don't use it for the year, it becomes part of surplus and goes back to the taxpayers benefit anyway. Trustee Sebring: I'm in favor of holding that $45,000 in surplus if needed. Manager Revella: It would be called contingency account. Just so everyone is aware in Edmunds. Trustee Pearson: Are we just talking about that issue or are we talking about all issues that we want to talk about in the budget? Manager Revella: I was going to do one at a time. Trustee Maher: I think it's our best option right now. Trustee Pearson: John, if we didn't put it in a contingency fund, what would it drop our number down to for tax? Manager Revella: We'd be just a little bit above 2%. This makes us at, I think it's 3.21. Trustee Elliott: I'm in favor of moving it over also. Deputy Mayor Carley: Yes. I'm in favor also for the contingency. Trustee Pearson: What can that be used for? Manager Revella: Anything. It's a general fund contingent line. Anything in the general fund. Mayor Ramos: I'm good with the 45 in the contingency fund. Manager Revella: I still have a 3-3 on most of the wage questions. I don't know if you guys want to discuss that. Manager Revella: The salary requests from the certain departments, we went over those and we polled the board and they were divided 3-3 in favor and opposed. So, we didn't make any real move 2 on that. Right now, they're currently in the budget, so to make any changes, you need to vote to make that change by a majority. Trustee Thompson: Are we entertaining any further discussion or you just would like to take a vote? Mayor Ramos: Yes, we're going to discuss it further. Trustee Thompson: I understand everything that has been discussed about parity. I get it. I'm just having some real concerns that we are bringing everybody up so quickly with such large amounts. I know the manager is telling us the money is in the budget, but they're really big jumps. I'm having a problem with that. I don't have a problem with increasing salary. I think all of our employees work hard. I think they need to feel appreciated and not undervalued. But these are really big numbers. These are huge, huge raises. I'm having difficulty with this. I'd love to hear what my colleagues have to say. Trustee Sebring: These are tremendously high. The pay raise is so fast. I'd like to listen and see what all the rest of the Trustees have to say about it. Then I would make my decision. As far as the Chief is concerned. I believe he was promised a pay raise. When he passed his probation time. I have no problem giving him what he wanted. If that was what he was promised. All the other pay raises, they are a little excessive even though they are good employees. They do work hard. But I have a problem with high pay raises. Trustee Pearson: I wasn't here. Can you talk to me about the Chief, I know he mentioned it during his talk that he was supposed to be getting something after he was here for 6 months of probation period. I'd like to know why that didn't happen. If it didn't happen, why didn't it? Deputy Mayor Carley: Can we just clarify? I don't think a promise was made. Like we promise you a certain pay that wasn't done just for clarity. Trustee Pearson: So, what was done? Manager Revella: I don't think we should talk about it. Employee's employment history and how that may or may not have affected the raise in public. Deputy Mayor Carley: But we can say that nothing was promised. Manager Revella: Absolutely you're not going outside the scope of what you said. Trustee Pearson: So, nothing was promised. Manager Revella: No dollar amount was promised to him that I'm aware of or that I recall. Trustee Pearson: I didn't say a dollar amount, but he was he was promised something when he got his whatever he was supposed to get, I don't know. Deputy Mayor Carley: No, that's what I'm saying. There were no promises made concerning anything. And that's why I said to clarify with Trustee Sebring. Trustee Pearson: What about the Secretary for the Building Department? Manager Revella: That's true. 3 Trustee Pearson: What's true? Manager Revella: She was supposed to get a raise upon passing the test. Trustee Pearson: And did she? Manager Revella: She's supposed to get a small amount more. We didn't have enough in the budget to give her the full bump because I wasn't sure when the test was going to be. The other person that will and should get one when their test is up, which hasn't happened yet. Is the Secretary to the Public Works Superintendent as well. Trustee Pearson: In the new pay thing, in the Building Department, the Assistant to the Building Inspector. Has he been here since 2010? Says it in here. Start date was 5-10-2010. He works for 30 hours, is that true? Manager Revella: No. Start date is not correct for the current person. That was Mr. Buchalski start date, I believe. He is no longer employed. Trustee Pearson: This is not for the person that's there now? Manager Revella: No. Manager Revella: Just so you know, the salary amounts are for the person that's there now, though. There's some information all the way to the left is incorrect. Trustee Pearson: Okay. So, he's going to go to $62,650 Manager Revella: Right. And if you have those other sheets that we handed out with those requests, it's on there. Trustee Pearson: Can you clarify for me also that the Secretary to the Building Department is also the Secretary for Water and Sewer? Manager Revella: No. The Secretary to the Superintendent of Public Works. Same person. Trustee Pearson: Same person. They get paid out of different lines. So, her raise was X amount percentage and then she's getting 2 more thousand dollars for each raise. Manager Revella: That would be for that position was broken out between the water department and the highway. Trustee Pearson: Right. But she's getting a percentage and then she's getting extra on top? Manager Revella: No. On the sheets that are separate. That's the full amount. It's just broken out between those two funds because it's supposed to be. Trustee Pearson: I understand that. But I didn't know it looked like she was getting like 2 or 3% and then $2000 more dollars on top of that on each one. Manager Revella: No, it's whatever's on this sheet is the right amount. 4 Trustee Pearson: I am also struggling. I wanted to hear, but I guess I'm going to have to do most of the talking. One thing I have a question for also is if these raises go through, think about what type of precedent you're setting for union negotiations. Unions are going to come back to you and say, these people are getting 12, 10, 27, whatever percentage they're getting. I want to get that percentage. So, you can't just think short term for the people that are here and you're wanting to get those raises today. You're thinking about raises for in the future when negotiations happen again. I struggle with that because then as retirement is everything else, I understand people want to get raises. I don't have a problem if people want to talk about the board wants to talk about possibly doing the stipend, which we talked about out of the money from the ARPA money and then giving a raise, that's more than what they would be normally getting. This is where I find a problem. All the nonunion people are getting these big raises and union people who are not getting those raises. They're getting 2 and 3%. So why is that fair? I get it. Everybody wants more money. Who doesn't? I want to make more money, too. But I'm not going to make more money this year because I'm just not. I struggle with things because I'm not thinking we're all looking at the future of where this is going to take us in the next few years. I don't know when contracts are up. When's the police contract? When is the DPW and all of those contracts? And what we're going to have to pay because they're going to demand more money. They're not going to just say, I just want a little bit. I want 2 or 3%. They're going to demand more. And how we're going to pay for that in the future. It's a struggle. Why should nonunion get the raises as well? You are setting precedent for years to come. We set that precedent last year. And if you guys want to think about coming somewhere in between, I would be happy with that. If you want to come up with another solution part way, give certain things over cola a little more over for inflation. Or if you want to come and do part stipend and part raises, I'm happy with that. But nobody ever seems to want to discuss that. I guess I'm out in left field, literally. I struggle with knowing that one third of the small businesses will be going out of business this year. They can't afford it. There's the economy is terrible for people who are closing their doors because of inflation. They're closing doors because they can't make ends meet. And that's not just businesses that's homeowners. Manager Revella: Where's that? Trustee Pearson: All over. There was a big article, not maybe here, but it is in general all over the country that one third of small businesses will be going out of business this year. I just heard from homeowners that got their water and sewer rate bills that are struggling. And some of them, I don't know, did we not send them out in time? I don't know what happened there. But I had one guy that said, I can't do this. I'm going to be delinquent. He goes, I can't pay this all at once. He said, it comes quarterly, but can I do something different? So, people are struggling. Some or not, some aren't. Any time we pay exorbitant raises, we take away from other things that the Village needs. There are things that building repair things that we could use here in the Village, programs that we might want to institute. It's easy to raise taxes. It's just easy. It's very hard to make these decisions that we need to make and we all understand that we want to make and get these people to raises. I for one, too, but for when I talk to the taxpayers and they're going to say, you gave a 27% raise? I'm going to say people are deserving, but are they that deserving? I get it. And if you can make it in steps which it should have been done before for parity, when you started out, you should have been kept going with the parity part of it. It's a struggle for people. I would like to meet in the middle. If anybody wants to talk about that. I'm probably the only one. And we are not talking about raises for today. It is the long term, over the next ten years of what people are going to be asking for, contracts, setting precedent. You wait and see. Can we afford it? Can we do that? We're here to protect the taxpayers. We also have to be generous to who works for us. And hopefully they stay and do good jobs for us, which we appreciate what they do. We all do that. I thank everybody for going out and digging holes and doing everything that they can do. But we still have to protect the taxpayers. That's our job as well. So, I'd like to hear what everyone has to say as well. Thank you very much. 5 Trustee Maher: With the payroll scale that you sent us all through your email, is that going forward? Is that your is that the plan for across the board? Manager Revella: Yes, that's what they all agreed to, all departments. Trustee Maher: With these increases this year, bringing everyone to parity, are you implying that we won't be facing that next year the new precedent? Manager Revella: We would adopt a pay scale and make it part of the policy packet so they would know going forward that's what it is. They agreed to that as well. Trustee Maher: Okay. That was my understanding. I just wanted to clarify. Then with the stipend option, are the Covid funds already spoken for or is that still an option that we can discuss? Manager Revella: I have the amounts that you need if you are going to approve the raises already in the budget, not accounting for the ARPA funds that's separate. And we were going to try to use that towards this building and the Community Center and that would tie up most of the funds. I was going to talk about it later, but the flooring bid, is going to be over $100,000 just for the flooring. Then we have some work we need to do with HVAC, heating and some exterior work that would tie up almost all the funds. So, I'm not sure if you want to prioritize that or not. I'm a big fan of the stipend, but it is an option. Not sure how that works, the employee side tax-wise either. Trustee Pearson: I know they probably wouldn't like it because they're not going to be getting more in their retirement. But think about your taxpayers as well. They're still getting more money and a higher raise. Yes, so their retirement won't be as much as they thought it was going to be. Think about the whole picture. Trustee Maher: I do understand and I'm seeing both sides. There's pluses and minuses to each side. I think that when it comes to retention of employees and keeping our employees here and a lot of them have been here dedicated for many, many years, it is important that we bring them to parity and as long as there is a precedent set where this doesn't happen every year, I think that's very important. I'm comfortable with how I voted last session. Trustee Elliott: I also think they're a little high. We haven't really had a discussion amongst us. I don't know if we're allowed to do that, but kind of negotiate. I'm not opposed to giving them raises, but I think we should talk about what the raises are that are just what they ask for and go with it. I also like the stipend idea and I have another idea of doing maybe split raises. But I would like to talk about that before we just go ahead with it. For split raises. Instead of giving yearly raises, maybe every 6 month raises just that a lower percent than the whole amount. What those numbers are. I think we need to discuss that together, but that's where I'm at with it right now. I do think they're a little too high now. Deputy Mayor Carley: Everyone thinks it's high when it's not them, right? But if it's you, then we think it's a fair amount and we look at the advantages of it. As a taxpayer and I would want everyone happy with what they're getting in their salary. I'm very thankful for the Village of Walden and from what I see in all they’re the people who work with the Village of Walden. They do it from their heart. In 2010 ish, when I was on the board, I brought it up then and I bring it up now. The Village of Walden and the employees for the Village of Walden, worked very hard and I thought the amount was low then. It was on the books to talk about raising their salary steps or whatever the case was. It never happened. And just in a span of 20 minutes, it went from let's do the stipend, let's do this. And then we talked about the ARPA funds and how much that. Then they said, 6 we don't have to do it all. They don't have to get that much. They can just get a little bit. And this is what will happen if we don't go ahead and push a line because everyone will always go back on the employee say, they don't need that much. They don't need that much. I'm of the mindset that, they've been working at a low, in my opinion, at a certain amount that is considered low for the employee long enough. Now it's time to make everything even. What I consider even talking parity. So, with that being said, the issue about the union versus nonunion, the union has somebody to fight for them. Nonunion typically don't. They're at the whim of their employer and their supervisor. So, when it comes down to the supervisor and everybody else, I believe that we're supposed to take care of them as they took care of us and it's not a dollar amount that matters. But we just want to make sure that we keep the level of professionalism with the people we have that hopefully they won't leave and go somewhere else. I believe that it's not too high and that because we do have it in our budget, I also really try to push balance. There's sometimes in, I've said this over and over, the Village will win, government will win. Everyone else have to sit back. There's going to be a time where the taxpayer is going to win. And guess what? Government you have to sit back and allow the taxpayer to win and to feel some relief also. And now this is the time for the employees to do their part. We have this big argument, this big push, and a lot of things even hit the paper regarding a high increase a former employee had a year ago or so. And in the argument that was made then is that, hey, we have good people, we should make sure that they taking care of. And it was based off of the study that was done previously. It was based off inflation; it was based off a lot of things. And the Village Manager took some time to put together at our request a sample pay schedule, to guide us with that so that we won't have ballooned raises all the time. We bring people up to par now. Yeah, it is kind of high and you're right, but they're not going to have balloon raises all the time. You're at par now. You only have X amount of percent, and this is the cap. Now, if they don't like it after that, we as a board said, if they don't like it after that, then they have the opportunity to find another job. But we got to do our best to make sure all our employees are happy with the salary that we have. And then if they want to move on, thank you for your service. We appreciate it. So, there was some thought behind it. There was some intentionality behind raising as it wasn't just say, let's just raise it just to raise it. We had discussion several times openly in public. We had discussions offsite, one with another and everybody sharing their thoughts, not as a board, but as individuals. I'm just putting out there that this was discussed quite a while. With that being said, I'm for the raises for the employees. I believe that the board did its diligence and the Village Manager did do his part at our request to figure out how we can do this in a manageable way over the long term and not just short term. Thank you. Mayor Ramos: I believe in retention. The only way you're going to retain employees is to provide them with safe, proper equipment, provide them with a harmonious working environment, and you have to take care of them with their pay. We're not going to have the issue where we're going to lose three or four employees with the amount of experience that they have now, 10 or 15 years. Our employee base is aged in my right. I mean, we have employees that stay there for specific reason because we take care of them. Now, we're getting to the point right now where we had to look at parity. We need to pay our employees the right amount of worth and I'm going to continue to be a proponent about taking care of the employees. I'm going to applaud Deputy Mayor Carley, because we sat on this, we discussed this in in depth with the Village Manager and members of the board that we're at the point in time where we can we can do this. The Village Manager gave us a budget. It's a solid budget. We were at .93 last year. This is a 2.09 this year. We're at tax cap now. You look at everywhere else in the in the communities that are surrounding us, obviously they're having logistical problems, too. But we have about 65 employees here in the Village. We need to keep them and we need to we need to take care of them. I'm confident in my vote the first time. I'm still confident in my vote the second time that the salaries presented by the Village Managers Budget Report is solid and I approve it. Manager Revella: I don't know if the board has anything else to discuss in the budget besides those 7 line items. Trustee Thompson: I think the practice of the Department Heads going to the Village Manager and discussing what they feel should be their raise, I think that needs to change. Yearly evaluations are done for a reason. A dutiful, well-performing employee deserves a certain type of a raise, as opposed to an employee who is perhaps having some issues. Despite what we end up deciding on these raises, I think we are to a point right now where the Village Manager should be evaluating each Department Head and he should be coming to the board to say this is the type of raise he feels is within reason. I still believe that we are in this place where we are right now because of events that happened previously. Now we are at a place where we need to correct that. I understand what all of you were saying, but I think about people that I know in public service, private service. These are huge raises. I get you want to bring them up. I get it. But really, we need to give this raise all at one time. There's no negotiating on any different percentages. Nothing. Is that what I'm hearing? Mayor Ramos: That's correct. Trustee Thompson: What are you asking of me? Mayor Ramos: If you had an additional comment on anything other than the salaries and the budget? Trustee Thompson: That I feel that the overall budget is very sound and very fair. What have we decided to do with that lawn mower? Is that coming off of capital and going into a line somewhere? Manager Revella: I put that on the line-item last meeting. Trustee Thompson: I'm very content with the rest of the budget. I think it's very fair. I applaud the manager for keeping us at a percentage at the tax cap. My only issue is these enormous raises. I'm not opposed to a raise for everyone. I'm very disappointed that we can't negotiate a different percentage. Trustee Sebring: I feel as though it's a good, sound budget. Everything is in there that is needed. As far as the pay raises, they are excessive and you're not giving us any room for negotiations to lower. Prior years that I've been sitting on this board and even sitting out in the audience. Supervision was always going to get maybe 2-3% and they were satisfied with that because most of the people that work for the Village live around this Village. They are not traveling 30, 40 miles. They live within the Village or just outside. So, they are always happy. But now with parity things are all up in the air. Haven't thought about the parity even for the trustees. I don't really care to get a big raise, but it's parity. You look at the Village of Montgomery, their Trustees are making $9,10, 11,000. But we have held off because we don't want this to be a paying item. Simply because it's taxpayer money and it's easy to give out. I would say that we should be able to come up with something more agreeable on a pay raise for the rest for the items that we're talking about. But as far as this high pay raise, no, I'm not in favor of that. Trustee Pearson: I agree with all of what Deputy Mayor and Mayor said about the community and people and workers and we respect them and I don't think anybody sitting on this panel up here disrespects anyone. And I believe that they truly want to be able to give that raise. Whether they should or not, I think it's going to be a hard decision for people to make. Some are easy to make it. Some are harder. Willie had said something about the taxpayers aren't winning right now. They're not winning right now because of the of the salaries that possibly are going to go through. I am for also giving as I said before higher raises than a normal 2 to 3%, but as high as some of them. I know that you talked about certain departments that didn't get what they were maybe going they thought 8 they were going to get. Those are issues that maybe need to be addressed later on. But I think that, again, I'm really struggling. I truly believe that they're deserving. But I believe that the taxpayer also needs to have us be their watchdog as well. I know most employees were happy before last year. Most were happy with the raises that they got. They were happy with getting their percentages that they got. And then after last year, now everything is a big mess. I think that's part of the struggle. I understand it. Do I think it's right? I think sure they can ask for whatever they want, but should we give it to them? If you want to negotiate things down, I'm happy to do that. If you want to give certain percentages and go a different direction, I'm happy with that. If you want to, as I said before, above cola or just above cola for people and certain people should get other things. If you want to go into executive and talk about that, I'm fine with that as well because I don't know the gist of what was said before I got here. It's a struggle for me. Also, I do have a question for in the budget. There is no after school program. Is that what I'm seeing? We're not budgeting for after school. But you are for the youth center. Manager Revella: Teen center. Trustee Pearson: Teen center, youth center. I wrote it on a note that you don't have the after-school program being paid for in the salary line. Manager Revella: We're doing the after-school program. Trustee Pearson: It doesn't say in the salary line. There's no money in that line for. Manager Revella: Because we don't need to spend any money to buy anything. Those are expense lines. The salary line is all included in the youth programing. Trustee Pearson: The youth program is being, what? Tell me what the youth program will be this year coming up. Will it be afterschool? Will it be teen center? Manager Revella: Afterschool program, teen center and summer camp, are youth programs. Trustee Pearson: All three of them will be this year? Manager Revella: Yes. Then we have broken out separately because we have in the budget a person going from part time to full time would cover a lot of that and the budget. So, we don't need it in the part time line. You have outdoor soccer, indoor soccer, flag football, basketball. Those are other programs that are covered separately in the salary lines as different people do those events. Trustee Pearson: Because you do have the teen center has money in it. Manager Revella: We show that because we usually apply for grants for that. We need to show that separate. Trustee Pearson: Nothing for afterschool for salary. Manager Revella: Correct. And the discussion we had about the part time person becoming full time. We reduced that because of that. Trustee Pearson: I am happy to see this new parks thing which has your tournament play and sports leagues. I did happen to talk to Mike Bliss also about the piece that he wanted and I'm fine with putting that in there now. I know that everybody else was fine anyway, but I just want to let my point come across. 9 Trustee Maher: As far as other lines in the budget to discuss, I'm good with the budget. I think it's a great budget. I did want to make some additional comments based on the comments I just heard from the other Trustees in regards to the salaries. I have done a lot of research on this looking at in front of me right here the Orange County salary compensation and comparison for each Department Head throughout the county. And this lists counties that are I'm sorry, Villages and Towns that are relevant in our size and scope as far as scope of work, number of residents. And we are by far the most underpaid Village. This is just one piece of research. I did also do interviews. This only goes through 2020. The inflation, even from 2020 to 2022, those numbers have drastically changed even in just the two years. So, I'm very comfortable with the number. I think in hindsight, to be totally transparent, thinking back on last year's budget, possibly what we may have done wrong was we did choose to give certain people bigger raises and not fulfill other people's raises when in fact everyone probably should have received a raise. We were very, very proud of the low budget that we did pass. It was a great budget, but did it need to be that low? Maybe in hindsight, had it been a 2% budget, we could have made everyone happy last year and maybe have not, you know what had to happen this past year happen with what we have now, I think this is a great plan and I think that it brings everyone to parity at an equal time. At the same time, we're instituting a standard for raises going forward. And I think John will do his evaluation process with each department head a little bit different now knowing that he has this pay scale to keep everyone on the same page. Everything else I was good with. Thank you. Trustee Elliott: I do think the overall budget is pretty good also. I do have one question about the Treasurer's salary. When we hire a new Treasurer, if the salary that's on here now is passed through the budget. Can that not change? Manager Revella: Yes, it can. You set the salary when you do the hire. Attorney Donovan: Typically, if you don't do anything, the Treasurer will come in at whatever's in the budget. If you want to make a modification, you would vote. Trustee Elliott: Should we not set that salary now so it's in the budget and then if we don't use that whole amount. Manager Revella: Just for example, so we don't cut our nose to spite our face, the board may hire somebody much lower than what's in the budget or higher than the budget. They have that in their purview. You're allowed. You would make that vote at the time of hiring. Because we have a certain a number in there. You're not stuck to it. We have contingencies in place. If you needed to make a modification higher, if you made it lower, obviously, that's great and it'd be another contingency. But otherwise, you have that room. Trustee Elliott: Wouldn't it make more sense to put it in there now? Set it at our top. Manager Revella: If you set it at the top and don't vote, then whoever you hire, even if they wanted less, you're getting that higher salary. That's the danger you run into, just in case you don't get a majority vote. Trustee Elliott: Gotcha. We can't put it in here and go lower, but we can put it in. Manager Revella: You can go lower. Just the risk is if you don't vote to go lower, you can't go lower. You have to make a vote to change it from what's in the budget. Whatever numbers in the budget, it doesn't matter. Whatever that number is. If you don't vote for a different number when you do the hire, they get that number in the budget. That's how it works. 10 Deputy Mayor Carley: I'm good with everything in the budget. We had that little contentious point about the salaries. I read the budget and I would like to thank the Mayor and thank the Village Manager for working that out. Now, regarding salaries. I'm glad Trustee Maher brought up last year. I forgot about that. We had that talk, we had the discussion and people voted different ways about, who should get and who should not get. One of the things I said during that time, I vote and said if we do this, everybody should go and then we find that there was a lot of contention after that. what I want to bring up here to just reflect back on that, everybody wants to be appreciated. And I'm glad everybody on the board and said that. But it's more than just words we have to put up or shut up. We have to make sure people know and we demonstrate it by our actions and our action is saying that we have the money. It's not saying let's pierce the cap. Let's go beyond everything that we have. No. We're under the cap. We're at the cap. We have the money to make the raises as discussed. We went through it as a collective body to make sure that we going through it, to make sure we stayed under the cap and with the Village Manager guidance. And showing us we're there. I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit, John, and you can say you don't want to answer or you do want to answer. I'm comfortable with that. But based off what we have and we want the dollar amount that the people request, are you comfortable in, is that okay with the budget without us having any problem so that we won't become fiscally irresponsible, we won't have a problem in the Village. We won't cause a heartache to anything that we're doing with the requested amount. Are you comfortable with that? Manager Revella: Yes. And I don't know if the public is aware, some of the raises, some of the board members keep talking about the percentage, which is correct. Some of them are large percentages, but the dollar amounts for most of them are pretty small, relatively. 1 of the employees. We're bringing them up to $51,000. Another 1, is getting a $2 an hour raise. There's a couple that are about $4 or 5,000 raises. There's a couple that are significant. I just want to make sure not all of them are asking for 25 or 20% raises. Some are much lower. I just want to make sure they're not all grouped into the same category that they're coming at us with this huge request. That's not true. There were a couple large percentage requests, but most of them were fairly reasonable. There were a couple that we were trying to help out because of job titles and job descriptions. And then obviously I want to make sure we can make it work fiscally and be responsible in our budget. I got there thankfully and stayed under the cap and that's where I'm thankful that the board was able to work with us and get the budget forward in that position. Whether you guys agree with it or not, that's up to you. But I think it made sense the way it went through with the dollar amounts we were talking about. Sometimes the percentages come out scary and obviously it's great to talk about it and how that works out breaking it out. But the way it's in here, it's feasible. Deputy Mayor Carley: I appreciate it. Thank you. It's feasible what is being requested. We put something in place last year to make sure that moving forward, we won't fall into the trap of I want this one, I want that one. These are the percentages, this how it's going to go forward. And we wanted to make sure. We have that sample, we have that with the Village Manager. So, everything is in place to make sure our employees are taken care of and then moving forward, the Village is taken care of. So, there was a balance. We did it as a board and now we're here because a number or a percentage looks big, it doesn't mean it's big. As the Village Manager stated and respectfully, Trustee Sebring, you say that, they're happy with what they're getting. I don't know who you're talking to because the people I've talked to and brought it up to me, yeah, we need more. Yeah, people are feeling it. They're not sitting around like, no, don't give us a raise. Let us just go about our business because we work for the Village. We're happy. No, they're not happy. We have to identify that and respectfully, we need to take care of our employees. I'm passionate about it because, we put work behind this and we've done our due diligence and we did everything that I believe that was possible for the employee and at the same time taking care of the Village. I just 11 think that's a good work. I don't want to see it to go to waste. Because if we did the work now, it will pay off later, as Trustee Pearson just said. We're going to see down the road. Yeah, we will see that if you put the things in place, it will take care of the people and we will take care of the Village. And there will come a time where the people will have to sit back and the Village is going to have to raise taxes at whatever point in time that is. Then there's going to be a time where the Village is going to sit back and take care of the people. There has to be a balance in government. Thank you. Mayor Ramos: Thank you. I couldn't have said it any better. We've established the parameters. We looked at it last year. We brought it up again this year. The salary structure that the Village Manager has produced to us is a solid program. It's his to manage. He is to evaluate the employees as years go by and properly assess whether it's good or it's bad, but I'm good with what the salaries are presented at this point in time and I think our critical component right now is retaining our employees retention in any commercial, institutional, any military is probably the most critical point right now is retaining your employees. Attorney Donovan: In terms of the $45,000, where is that now? Because typically what would happen, you have a budget in front of you. Someone could make a motion to adopt the budget, someone could second, you could vote on it. The alternate is you could say someone could make a motion to change line 47 from $2 to $4 and you would vote on that and at the end of the day, when you finish voting on all the amendments, you would have some sort of modification. Those would be included or not. There would be another motion to vote on the entire budget. So, I think there was a consensus, if I understood correctly, on the $45,000. What I'm unclear as to whether that means that it needs to be a vote to move that from place a to place b. Manager Revella: It's not in any place. We were under the cap of that amount. Attorney Donovan: I would suggest then, if you want to do this, the first order of business would be motion to add $45,000 to which line in the budget. Manager Revella: 1934.490. I believe, you would make that line 50,000. It is a contingency line and I think that's the right one. Trustee Elliott made a motion to move $45,000 into line 1934.490. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Carley. All ayes. Motion carried. Trustee Maher made a motion to adopt the budget as modified by the increase of the $45,000 and changes made from previous meeting. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Carley. Deputy Mayor Carley: What was the item from the last meeting? Manager Revella: Last meeting that the board approved, adding a zero-turn mower to a line. We modified a line item. Trustee Elliott: I'm a little lost. Attorney Donovan: I believe the motion is to adopt the budget as amended with the two changes to the increase by 45 and a zero-turn mower. Trustee Elliott: And that's without discussing the salary. Mayor Ramos: We're in discussion now. 12 Manager Revella: Discuss to change the salaries. Manager Revella: The motion to change lines would have been that. Trustee Pearson: If you want to table it table it. If you want to make a motion to. Manager Revella: The person who made the motion would table. Attorney Donovan: Or to withdraw the motion. There's a motion on the floor to adopt the budget as amended. It has been seconded. Someone could make a motion to table. This would be a second, voted, it would be tabled. If you wanted to have your discussion, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling you procedurally. But procedurally, that's what you could do. Then the motion to adopt the budget as amended is tabled pending a discussion. But I would suggest the discussion needs to get to like I want to change line 47 from $10 to $8. And then you would vote on that. Trustee Maher withdrew the motion Trustee Elliott: The clerk, I don't have a specific line-item number. Deputy Mayor Carley: You have is you have a question on all of them or just a particular one? Manager Revella: Clerk Personal Services is 1410.100. If you want to modify, you'd make a motion and see what the vote is or discuss it. Trustee Elliott: Can I make a motion to discuss it? Attorney Donovan: You could just discuss it. Ultimately, if you want to increase or decrease that line item, you would make a motion to for sake of argument, you decrease by $100, you would need a second and that would have to be voted favorably. And then that becomes a resolution modification to the budget. Mayor Ramos: But we go with one line item at a time. Trustee Elliott: So, we'll start with Treasurer, I guess. Trustee Thompson: We don't have a Treasurer. Manager Revella: Treasurer line is 1325.100. Trustee Pearson: That's her whole line. Manager Revella: That's the Treasurer, Deputy Treasurer and the Administrative Assistant part time. Trustee Elliott: But there's no percentage here. Manager Revella: What do you mean? Trustee Maher: Do you want me to do the math? Deputy Mayor Carley: That's why I said the one that he handed you has the percent. Not the actual budget. It wouldn't have that. 13 Trustee Maher: Treasurer was a little under 2%. Manager Revella: Correct. That was the standard. Same as mine. Trustee Elliott: I'm fine with that one. Clerk 20%. Manager Revella: Going from $58,844.90 to $70,749.60. That line is 1410.100. Trustee Elliott: I would like to see that change to maybe a split raise of 8 and 8. 6 months 8 and 6 months 8. Trustee Elliott made a motion to modify Clerk's raise to 8% first 6 months. 8% next 6 months. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. Deputy Mayor Carley: My question is why? What's the difference between a split and doing it now if it's under the same budget within the same year? Trustee Elliott: I think it saves the Village a little money by doing the split. Deputy Mayor Carley: How much money? Manager Revella: You save 4% overall plus the first 6 months. Deputy Mayor Carley: So, 4% over the year for their particular salary. That's approximately what? Trustee Pearson: Plus retirement, plus your benefits. Deputy Mayor Carley: Is approximately what? Because what I'm getting at is that, I understand we want to save but if you do it a split. There's no big benefit from it. That's what I'm getting at. We can always save a dollar or save a quarter. Someone could argue, a penny is a penny. I get it. But there's no big wow. See how much money you save versus going ahead and doing it. That's what I'm getting at. I understand there's going to be a dollar amount that's decreased because of percentage, but there's no big percentage that's going to say yeah now, we saved, you know, $4 million or we saved $1,000 or we saved this. And I know you didn't have all the numbers right there. I'm just really just pressing the point is that there's not going to be a big percentage saving. And I'm not an accountant, but I know a little bit. Trustee Thompson: I don't know if I would agree with the split raises. I don't understand why there's no room for any negotiation, and the employees would still be getting substantial raises. That's my comment. Trustee Sebring: I'm not really in favor of a split raise but I can't see giving them that high raise. I think we should still negotiate something in the middle. 8-9% for the year. You talk about saving. Yes. Big deal. One year, the manager told the supervisors don't get anything that you don't need because we have a tight budget. And he meant a tight budget and it worked. You're talking about wages now and I can't get my head around these high raises. If you give them half of what they want, I think most of them would accept that because they only put them high raises in there because of last year. I'd go for half the raise of what they're all asking. Trustee Pearson: I agree where Trustee Elliott's trying to go, but I don't think it's going to give what he's really thinking he's wanting. I know he wants to get people where they want to be at the 14 end of the year, which would be close because that would be 16%. I think it's kind of a good thing. I'm not convinced that still all our numbers are right in this budget. I'm happy we did some work on it, but I am still not convinced. I'm expecting something to happen possibly in the middle of the year, which we may not want to happen. Having that extra money to play with in the beginning of those first 6 months or so that you're not paying those people, but they're going to get it at the end. They're going to have their total by the end or close to their total at the end. I see his point. Do I agree with it? I don't know. I would like to hear other people's I know Trish will have something different. She's fine with whatever they're going to get anyway. There's 3 people that are really adamant that they're going to get what they're going to get anyway. There kind of 4 people are struggling with the higher raises. I'm not sure if split would be something amenable to you just saying. I just think that possibly there might be some issues coming up that we don't know about and hopefully they're not. I think that if we had that little bit of extra between that and still get them where they need to go, I think that's a good thing. Trustee Maher: The first thing that I think of when I go to give an employee a raise is scope of work. Is what they're doing worth what they're asking for? Then, of course, I look at the comparative salaries and then I look at the person. Are they dedicated to the Village? Are they doing a good job? Is morale good? Are they you know and we saw the recent evaluations from all the department heads? So we were able to be privy to, you know, their evaluations from the Village Manager. I think that really did help me, in addition to myself having personal conversations with each department head regarding these raises that they were asking for. I am comfortable with them. And especially because whether we hold back part of their salary now and give it to them later or whether we give them 16% this year and then 4% next year, I just don't think that solves the problem. The problem is they're underpaid and we want to keep them. That's the biggest thing. We want employee retention. We want them to continue. A lot of these employees have been here for a very long time. We want them to continue to want to show up to work and do a good job for the Village. I think that right now, with this current budget, it's not how I would have done it had I been here since 2014, but with what we have in front of us, I think this is the best plan. I'm going to stick to my original. Deputy Mayor Carley: I'm not in for the split. I just echo like Trustee Sebring said that the Supervisors, when they were asked because of the budget, were tight, no raises and they pulled their belt together. They tighten their belt and they said, okay, and now that we have room to give them. When the issue was that the budget was tight and they didn't get a raise. They didn't complain. That's my point. Now the budget is not tight. We're underneath the cap and everything is open so that we can give and we can do our part as a Village. We should. I vote no for the split and continue as we were stated before. Trustee Sebring: Willie. What I said was, they're buying items to keep the jobs going. It had nothing to do with pay raises because pay raises were dictated the year before. It came to the point where the Village had spent a lot of money and they didn't want to overspend the budget that was approved. Everybody cut their budgets by 10-15% to keep it under. So, at the end of the year, if there was money, good for you. But they didn't want to go over on spending line-item budgets. Deputy Mayor Carley: All right. Thank you. Mayor Ramos: Just to make matters simple. I'm not in favor of a split race. I've only seen it negotiated through contracts with the Police Department. I've never seen it done with normal pay salaries. But it didn't work with that because logistically it's a nightmare to formulate. 8% for first 6 months and then 8% for the next 6 months. We have to break out what worker's comp is going to be. We have to break out what the other benefit packages that is presented to the employees. I'm going to stay with the current race as it is. 15 Trustee Pearson: Thank you for letting me see your comparison chart Trish. But those comparisons are Town and Cities as opposed to a Village. So, they do have a little higher budget. They have more things happening in there. Trustee Maher: A lot of them, though, for example, Jim Presutti, he's at 75, he just manages parks and that's one of the persons that I reached out to and just asked about his scope of work. When I was comparing apples to apples, there really isn't a comparison to someone who has a parks position making 75,000 to someone who runs parks, as well as an entire recreation department making a lot less than that. That's just one offs. Then we also did compare with the Village of Warwick and a few other small Villages were on a different comparison sheet that I used also. Trustee Thompson: Trustee Maher, she's talking about something that she compiled data. Am I understanding this correctly regarding salaries? Trustee Maher: This was given to us last year during budget time. Trustee Thompson: But who gave us that? Manager Revella: The Treasurer. Trustee Maher: Kelly Kelly, I believe. Trustee Thompson: Okay. That wasn't the one done by the professional salary survey, correct? Trustee Maher: No, but we did utilize that one also. Trustee Thompson: We paid a professional to do a salary survey in 2018. I have them here in front of me. We had two salaries that were lower than the median salary, and I believe we've adjusted them and we will continue to adjust them. We had two salaries that were difficult to evaluate because, as Trish was saying, it was very difficult for those two job descriptions to do an apple to an apple. And that was Parks and Rec and the DPW Superintendent. Those two were a little bit skewed on here because the job descriptions were difficult to match with other places in the state. The municipalities that we were compared to were Warwick, Nyack, New Paltz and Monroe. The demographic, we were told, was very similar, population similar. I guess I'm a little confused as to why everyone keeps saying our salaries are like, you're insinuating they're the absolute worst on the whole planet and the whole state of New York. I disagree with that. I agree with people getting substantial raises. I do. But I'm getting very frustrated because we're not talking about negotiating the salaries. We're talking about keeping these exorbitant salaries. There's nobody saying like can we cut that percentage in half? Can we cut it by a third? There's no negotiating here. Roll Call: Trustee Thompson: No Trustee Sebring: No Trustee Pearson: No Trustee Maher: No Trustee Elliott: Yes Deputy Mayor Carley: No Mayor Ramos: No Motion Failed. Manager Revella: Just so we're clear, I wouldn't discuss this as a negotiation per se, because then it 16 seems like you're negotiating someone's position and you shouldn't be doing that in public. You want to say that you're debating the budget for that position. Don't use the word negotiation, please. Sets a bad precedent. Trustee Elliott: Last year when we did this. We all sat in a room in executive session. Manager Revella: Because we discussed personal history of particular employee. You were talking about the employee in particular. You're talking about a budget line here. You can talk about a budget line. You want to talk about an employee you would have to go into exec. Trustee Elliot: Do I have to make a motion to go into exec? Attorney Donovan: For what purpose? There has to be a purpose. You want to talk about the employment history of particular person? Trustee Elliott: Yes. Of all the departments. Attorney Donovan: Just so we're all clear, so in the budget, you establish a salary because the budget needs to be funded for the budget position. You have a tendency to say that's Joe's salary, but it's really not. It's for that position. So, when you adopt the budget now, you could make amendments as people come and go during the year. But you establish a number to plug in to the budget to make sure you don't exceed the tax cap. I just want to be clear what the what the budget does. And if you still want to discuss a particular person, that's up to the board, if that's what you want to do. Deputy Mayor Carley: Are we discuss in a particular person or a position? Attorney Donovan: Right now, you're discussing the budget. Trustee Elliott: My issue is these numbers were put on this paper and then handed to me, all of us. Trustee Maher: We had working sessions where things came up. Trustee Elliott: Correct. But when we did this last year in executive session, we figured all this out and then we either agreed or did not agree. Deputy Mayor Carley: And we had discussion about this previously. I mean, you weren't there. Trustee Elliott: About each person's salaries? Deputy Mayor Carley: Yes. We discussed. Trustee Elliott: And everyone agreed? Deputy Mayor Carley: No, not everyone agreed. You can hear that clearly. Trustee Elliott: I know I can't use the word negotiation. But something similar to that is what I think should happen. Deputy Mayor Carley: Are we talking about a particular person or a position? If we're talking about a particular person, that's exec. 17 Trustee Elliott: I feel like we're really complicating this Deputy Mayor Carley: But if we're not, is it has to be open. And we're not talking about a particular person. You're not talking about like Willie Carley. You're talking about the position. Trustee Pearson: I think what he is saying is that there are certain people on this line item on these salaries that have salaries attached to that and those people work for the Village of Walden Deputy Mayor Carley: Then he should make a motion to talk about a particular line, not go to executive session now. Trustee Elliott: But that's like a waste of time. I don't want to waste everybody's time because the same thing's going to happen. That just happened now. Deputy Mayor Carley: It sure is. It is what it is. Manager Revella: If you want to amend a line, for whatever reason, you can make the motion. Trustee Sebring: How about I throw this into the board. How about we make it across the board increase of 10% no matter what anybody is asking for. This way here, we're not negotiating. We're talking about one specific grade. Trustee Maher: That wouldn't be fair to the budget. That would actually cost more maybe in the long run for the taxpayer. Attorney Donovan: You'd have to adjourn tonight and make sure you're not piercing the tax cap. Because that's going to be more money. And I'll tell you what, if it's across the board, Brian, I'm jumping in now. Trustee Maher: I see where you're coming from. Brian, I think that's where we were last year discussing how that that would have made sense for last year's budget. Trustee Sebring: Last year we tried to do that and nobody wanted to listen. I'm just thinking of trying to end this quickly because if we go through each head that wanted a particular raise, we're going to be back to the same thing. We're just going to be going back and forth, back and forth, and nothing is going to happen. So, if you make it across the board, that's it. I think everybody would take that. Because nobody's going to turn down that kind of raise it. Mayor Ramos: John, logistically, give us the pros and cons on that. Manager Revella: I don't know who you're talking about specifically. Talking about department heads? Everyone asks for a raise? All nonunion employees? It makes a difference. Mayor Ramos: Brian, what was your what was your theory? Everybody or certain? Trustee Sebring: All the ones that we're talking about on that paper that we got for budget. Attorney Donovan: Back to the word negotiate. When you say negotiation, you mean among the board members, correct? You mean negotiation among the board members for the budget? Right. Not negotiation with the department heads. You just vote on the budget and that establishes the position, the salary of the position, unless you make a change going forward. You're not talking about negotiating with department heads. 18 Mayor Ramos: Correct. Manager Revella: I need to know what lines he's referring to, because there's those people on here that ask for 5%. Some people have zero. Trustee Sebring made a motion to modify and approve raise at 10% for nonunion employees. Seconded by Trustee Elliott. Trustee Pearson: What does that do to the tax cap? Mayor Ramos: We don't know yet. Manager Revella: Are we talking about everyone's on this page or nonunion employees or just department heads? Trustee Maher: He said across the board. Mayor Ramos: All nonunion employees. Manager Revella: You can put that in the budget across the board for nonunion employees, I just wouldn't accept it for myself. But you can put it in there if you wanted to. But I wouldn't accept it. And you would likely pierce the tax cap. Trustee Sebring withdrew his motion. Trustee Elliott: If we vote on the budget and it fails. What happens? Attorney Donovan: The tentative budget as presented by the Manager with the 2 changes that you made becomes the budget. Trustee Elliott: So, either way, those are going through. Attorney Donovan: If the budget doesn't pass. You're absolutely right. Manager Revella: You need to make an amendment to the line and pass that amendment for each one. Attorney Donovan: Correct. If you want if you want line A, you want to decrease the salary of a position. Then just changes what happened before. I know it's tedious and it's boring and everyone's tired of this, but that's the it the way it works. Mayor Ramos: We did Treasurer and we did Clerk. Manager Revella: Just so the board's aware if you take away the 2% they would have gotten anyway. You're talking about where the debate is over about $65,300. Trustee Elliott: If everyone asks for 100% raise and it got voted down, everyone's getting 100% raise. Manager Revella: If they're budgeted for 100% raise. Doesn't mean they're receiving it. The only people that would receive it is the Clerk, the Treasurer and the Manager. Because you set their 19 salary technically in the budget when you vote on it. You have to vote on theirs. You set a limit for what the other employees can be paid. Trustee Elliott: Take DPW for instance. DPW asked for 100% raise. We as a board say no to the budget. How would he not get that? Manager Revella: I wouldn't approve it. Trustee Elliott: That number would have to come through you to approve it. Manager Revella: That's my understanding. Attorney Donovan: Under an Article 15 Village Manager. Makes it substantially different than other places. Manager Revella: The board is given permission to give an employee an amount up to that amount when you give me permission with the budget. Trustee Elliott: Are you going to approve the raises that are currently there? Manager Revella: I cannot discuss that in public. Because that would be discussing the merits of the employee. I just want to make sure you don't leave tonight and you didn't discuss something you wanted to because this is it. I don't want any of you to go home upset that they didn't bring something up. If you want to bring it up, please do it. This is the point where you're discussing it for the public's benefit and your own. If you had something, don't feel bad if you bring it up, we're not going to get another opportunity. Trustee Thompson: Without going into every single line item, I would like to make this a general. I'd like to make it a motion, but then if we have to break it down one by one, that's okay. Trustee Thompson made a motion reduce all requested raises by 50% from the letter dated March 22, 2022. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. Roll Call: Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Maher: No Deputy Mayor Carley: No Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: No Motion carried. Manager Revella: You said to reduce them by 50%. For example, the Assistant to the Building Inspector position will be a 2.5% raise which would have been about what she would have gotten anyway. That's what Trustee Pearson was concerned about. As well as the Secretary to the Superintendent to Public Works. Trustee Thompson: That's why I said as a generality, perhaps we need to go through them line by line. 20 Manager Revella: I'd prefer that please. So, I know which lines to change because we have to vote on the lines to change the budget. I just wasn't clear on that in the motion. Trustee Maher: That's what we were trying to do the whole time. Deputy Mayor Carley: Right now, what's the motion, so we can close this and then we have to go back to line by line. Trustee Thompson withdrew her prior motion Deputy Mayor Carley: I have to go. I apologize to the board. I apologize to the public. Thank you for everything. Mayor Ramos: Which document are you going to be looking at so we are all on the same page? Trustee Thompson: I'm assuming we are looking at the village budget. Mayor Ramos: March 22 letter? Trustee Thompson: That one's not specific enough. That's why we're having a problem. So, we need to go to the line-item budget. Manager Revella: Trustee Thompson if you go to the March 22nd paper, I can go to the line item in the budget. Trustee Thompson made a motion to reduce the Deputy Treasurer raise to 6%. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. Roll Call: Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: No Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: No Motion carried. Trustee Thompson made a motion to reduce the Administrative Assistant raise to 6%. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. Roll Call: Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: No Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: No Motion carried. Trustee Thompson made a motion to decrease the Clerk's raise by 10%. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. Trustee Sebring: Yes 21 Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: No Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: No Motion carried. Trustee Thompson made a motion to decrease the Building Inspector's percentage to 6%. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. Trustee Pearson: I would make them a little higher. That's just my comment. Trustee Thompson withdrew her motion Trustee Pearson made a motion to reduce the Building Inspector's raise to 10%. Seconded by Trustee Thompson. Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: Yes Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: No Motion carried. Trustee Thompson made a motion to reduce the Building Inspectors Secretary raise to 10%. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. Manager Revella: I just want to make sure you're not causing too much of a disparity between employees. If you look at the secretary for one department and another. Right now, with the increases, it brings them into parity. Make sure you're mindful of that in your motion and how you vote. Please. Trustee Thompson withdrew her motion. Trustee Thompson made a motion to set the Building Inspectors Secretary raise to 6%. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. Trustee Pearson: Isn't she the one you talked about? Possibly when she passed everything to be able to give her more. Manager Revella: This gives me that room because she will pass it during this year. That's why I'm trying to make that apparent for the board. Roll Call: Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: No Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: No Motion carried. 22 Trustee Thompson made a motion to reduce Superintendent of Public Works raise to 13%. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. Trustee Pearson: I think that's a little low. I'd go higher than that, personally. I think he's manning those 3 departments. He holds a little bit more. I would go higher than that, but that's my personal opinion. Trustee Thompson withdrew her motion. Trustee Thompson made a motion to reduce Superintendent of Public Work's raise to 20%. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. Trustee Elliott: I like the 20%, but I also would like to see a stipend in there for his licenses, of $1,000 per license. Trustee Thompson: So, you would like me to rescind the motion? Mayor Ramos: That's up to you. Trustee Thompson: I do not want to rescind the motion. Roll Call: Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: No Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: No Motion carried. Trustee Thompson made a motion to increase DPW Secretary’s raise to 6%. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. Roll Call: Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: No Trustee Elliott: No Mayor Ramos: No Mayor Ramos: We have a tie. Manager Revella: It stays as is. Mayor Ramos: Stays as is, 5%. Thank you. Manager Revella: There's not another one until you get down to the Police Department. The last Department Head had requested to increase is the Police Chief. Just so the board is aware, we have to figure out the dollar amount for each one of those. 23 Attorney Donovan: The budget is going to decrease. You don't have to worry about the tax cap. I guess it's just a matter of before you close the public hearing, which is fine. Do you want to get the final budget with the final numbers in place before your vote, is due for May 1st? Manager Revella: Do I need the numbers changed before for the motion to adopt it? Attorney Donovan: I don't think you do. It's a question whether the board wants it. As I understand what's occurred now, is the gross number of the budget has decreased as a result. So, it's just a matter of the board. You could authorize the adoption of the budget as amended or you could say, I want to see the final number, the total budget amount before we vote on it, because you had to do it before May 1st. Mayor Ramos: We can discuss that. Trustee Maher: We go back? I'm sorry. I want to make another motion for the Superintendent. John, what's the line item? Manager Revella: He has two lines. He is in water and highway. But if you want to make it for the Superintendent of Public Works we can clarify that. Trustee Maher made a motion to amend that we increase $1,000 stipend for each license not to exceed $3,000 total for the Superintendent of Public Works. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. Roll Call: Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: Yes Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: Yes Motion carried. Mayor Ramos: With all the corrections and calculations that still needs to be there can we approve this budget withstanding all the corrections and calculations that need to be done? Attorney Donovan: You could because it's not going to exceed the tax cap. That would be the problem. You could also say, I want to wait until we see the final number, you can do that as well. I'm just saying you can do that before May 1st. Trustee Maher: I would like to make a motion to approve the budget as amended, including the contingency line item and the mower line item. Trustee Pearson: Can we add to that contingency line with the lest the money? Attorney Donovan: You've already approved the $45,000 and the zero turn mower. If you're inclined, unless John's head explodes, to approve the budget would be just as amended. Manager Revella: I still have concern. I'm not sure if the total budgeted wages for the Secretary for 2 different departments is going to be different still. I just hope the board is okay with that because that's going to be, that's a problem for me personally to bring that up with those departments. I'm not sure if the board's aware of what that creates. I'm bringing them to where they should be, both passing a test that would be their maximum salary, which I think makes sense. And it conforms 24 with the salary scale that the board had me do. And that's what they were promised when they were hired. That's nothing to do with percent. The total budget of wages is what I'm concerned about. The percentage is just what ended up being to get them where they need to be. Trustee Pearson: You're talking about the Building Department Secretary and the DPW Secretary? Manager Revella: Yes. I don't think they should be paid different for what reason? Trustee Maher: We have to go back make an amendment? Manager Revella: Yes, for the Building Department one. Why would they be paid different? I'm just concerned about that. They're both Department Head Secretaries. Trustee Pearson: I'm fine with that. Trustee Elliott made a motion to approve the Secretary to the Building Inspector and Secretary to Public Works have the same salary after passing exams. Seconded by Trustee Maher. Roll Call: Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: Yes Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: Yes Motion carried. Trustee Pearson made a motion to amend Clerk's raise and increase it to 12%. Seconded by Trustee Maher. Roll Call: Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: Yes Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: Yes Motion carried. Trustee Thompson: The Rec Aide salary, are we okay? Manager Revella: That's from the part time to full time and we reduced several part time lines to cover the difference. Attorney Donovan: If you want to see the final budget, then you should wait for the final numbers. If you're okay, because you know, the changes are going to bring the numbers down. Someone can make a motion to approve the budget as amended. Trustee Elliott made a motion to approve the 2022-2023 Village Budget as amended. Seconded by Trustee Maher. Roll Call: 25 Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Pearson: Yes Trustee Maher: Yes Trustee Elliott: Yes Mayor Ramos: Yes Motion carried. Manager Revella: I just want to make sure that the board members have seen the new Community Center application and rates and the updated one for the other parks use forms. We'll need a motion approved those forms as amended if you can. But if you want to wait until Tuesday, it can wait till Tuesday. Mayor Ramos: I think we will wait till Tuesday. Adjourned 26