May 4th Meeting Summary

On Monday May 4th, the Verona Town Council met. Here is a recap of what was discussed at the meeting.

This was our first meeting after learning about the cutbacks that were happening at the Verona Public Schools in order to make their budget. The cutbacks triggered dozens of emails that were sent to the Verona Town Council asking to add to the agenda an item for public discussion on the sharing of PILOT funds with the Board of Education (BOE).

The Mayor and Township Manager had several statements prepared, and every Council member had something to say. Here are some highlights of what I think is relevant for residents:

• Current PILOT payments total $1.7 million. You can find more detailed information here on page 6 of the user friendly budget.

• The Township uses current PILOT funds in our current budget, which was already passed and approved from the Council. If we were to enter into a significant cost sharing arrangement for current PILOT funds, that would likely result in significant cutback in services to residents through reductions of Township staff.

• The Township and the Board of Education have a current shared service agreement. The Township provides services such as maintenance of school fields and grounds, snow removal, use of Township Fields, waste management, and traffic control and emergency support for big events. This is valued at $425K to $732K.

• The schools in turn provides the Township with use of their space for recreation - basketball and summer camps. This is valued at around $300K.

• There are no new PILOT funds which will be coming in anytime soon. The development at 1 Sunset, which may start construction this year, will not start payment of PILOT funds until 2028 if construction is completed in a timely manner. The PILOT agreement that was just approved (with a 3-2 vote) for 885 Bloomfield Avenue will also not start for several years until construction of that project is completed.

• The Council had one of our advisors speak about possible PILOT cost sharing arrangements that the Township could propose to the BOE. One is to agree on a percentage that goes into a capital improvement fund for school capital projects. The second is a direct allocation method - similar to what Cedar Grove does - where the Township give a percentage directly to the schools.

At the meeting, I discussed my personal concerns about the cutbacks to the Board of Education budget, as I am a parent with a child in the music program that will be impacted. I would like to understand better the details of the Board of Education budget in order to get to a common understanding and a broader discussion on possible solutions. In addition, I raised another way the Township can help the school district, which is done in other communities, which is helping by bonding for some school purchases and improvements that may need in the future. Finally, I also discussed how the health insurance crisis is impacting town council, board of education, county, and state budgeting. I encourage residents to reach out to state legislators to advocate for movement on solutions to this broken health insurance market.

In conclusion, a lot of information was provided at the meeting on Monday. However, the Township Council took no formal action at our meeting on the sharing of current or future PILOT funds with the Board of Education.

Action that was taken at the meeting is as follows.

We postponed the public hearing on the redevelopment plan for 251 1/2 Grove until our next meeting, May 18th. We also postponed introducing most of our capital ordinances for 2026 as the ordinances were not posted in a timely manner online.

We did introduce a capital ordinance to make $100K of improvements to the pool facility for the main building and new pool furniture. We also introduced an ordinance to make some minor changes to pool fees for the 2026 pool season. In addition, we introduced an ordinance to increase the number of out of township memberships from 100 to 125. There will be a public hearing and vote on these ordinances at the next meeting.

Under resolutions, we awarded a contract on the lawn maintenance for Everett Field to Green Valley Landscaping for $14K. Everett Field maintance will not be handled by DPW, but instead an outside vendor will cut the grass and a field manager will be hired to manage that maintenance. We hope Everett Field will be ready for baseball and softball games in a few weeks.

Other highlights under resolutions include entering into several contracts for our water and sewer facility and contracts for the purchasing of new fire equipment. We also had a contract with Paramus Ford for a police vehicle. We accepted a $14K pedestrian safety grant.

Under New Business, we had to postpone the discussion of the open burn ordinance to our next meeting.

If you have comments on any matter discussed before the Council, I suggest you email the entire Council here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform.