July 21st Meeting Summary

On Monday we had a meeting. Here are the highlights.

We started by talking about the pool's finances. Our Administration officials gave some updated figures on how the pool season was going. The pool costs about $1 million dollars a season to run. When we did the accounting for the year, we used $200K of surplus to essentially balance the books for accounting purposes. This season we have experienced an 8% decrease in family memberships. However, we are up, in total, $45K in revenue from memberships. We still have over 700 families paying the new family rate and we held steady, or even increased, enrollment of our our other membership classes.

We also are up on revenue for the year. We are projecting that we may end the season up $50K in miscellaneous revenue as compared to last year. This is due to the Administration implementing a lot of new ideas from the Recreation Advisory Committee and the Council - such as the pre-season pool concert, sponsorships, and other special events.

What that means is that we are projected to regenerate about $100,000 of the $200,000 of the surplus that we used this year. Stated another way, we are getting close to where we need to be financially, but we still need to aim to generate more revenue in the future to close the gap.

We reassured the public that the pool is not going anywhere. However, we need to continue to evolve the utility to make sure it's back to full financial health. I want to thank the residents that actually sent us feedback and came to the meeting on Monday. I appreciate everyone's passion for the pool.

On Monday, we also started the conversation in new business on raising some fees for recreation programs. They are overdue for a refresh to reflect rising costs. In particular, it was revealed that the summer day camp offered by the Township is significantly under priced. Last year the program suffered a loss of approximately $69,000, meaning the fees charged for the program failed to come close to covering the costs of the program. The difference is subsided by tax payers, essentially. This year we have a huge increase of enrollment, and the program will also run a loss. The Administration is proposing significant costs increases to the fees over a three year period to help close the gap, and so that this one program does not continue to be a significant drain in the Recreation Department budget, diverting funds from other needed expenses for other programs. The Council will need to discuss this further at a future meeting.

In new business we also discussed The Children's Fund, which is in place to help Verona families in need who are facing financial hardship. The program, as was it was originally conceived, was meant to be a short term supplement for families facing a harsh financial transition due to illness, unemployment, divorce, homelessness, domestic violence, and other similar issues. However, the Administration is asking the Council to consider adding an eligibility criteria were individuals with children making under 185% of the Federal poverty level will be eligible for benefits under the Children's Fund. They are asking for this change because, in reality, the few Verona families that access these benefits are no longer in "acute" situations but are in longer-term situations of financial strain. The Administration would appreciate a defined income level to evaluate cases for eligibility.

What does the Children Fund cover? From our ordinance, it "provides for a health and safe environment and positive socialization with peers by subsidizing recreation programs, school functions, public pool memberships, meal assistance, holiday assistance, meal care, and like uses". In conjunction with the eligibility definition change, the Administration will be drafting new rules for distributing benefits of the program, to set some parameters on who many benefits are distributed per child per year. This is to ensure that the Children's Funds continues to remain financially viable for years to come.

I asked the Administration how many families currently benefit from the Children's Fund, and they said last quarter it was about 13 families. I did ask the Administration to do an analysis of how many families who used the Children's Fund over the last year would continue to qualify if we made a change to the eligibility criteria. I look forward to future conversations on this ordinance change.

As part of this meeting, we passed all of our resolutions. A few highlights.

Four years after the start of our water emergency due to PFAS contamination, we finally approved the contract to start construction of the fix for the second of our largest wells - Fairview Avenue. The delay in approving this project was due to a lengthy approval process from the State of New Jersey due to the fact that this well is on Green Acres.

We approved a shared service agreement with Essex Fells and Roseland to file legal briefs related to the West Essex Highlands development. We are challenging the permits and approvals that the project received from the DEP.

The Council approved a vendor to re-design the audio in Council chambers. We also approved a contractor to lead a project to perform an Aging Communities Audit and Action Plan. We accepted a small grant for lantern fly remediation, and we entered into a contract to buy some dump trucks for DPW. We approved our annual contract with GovPilot. We increased the bid threshold per state guidelines. Finally we approved the emergency contract to make necessary and urgent repairs to the Derwent Avenue sewer line, which happened a few weeks ago.

If you have any comments or feedback for the Council, I encourage you to reach out at https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform.