CITY OF EAST ORANGE, NEW JERSEY EAST ORANGE WATER COMMISSION 99 South Grove Street East Orange, NJ 07018 TED R. GREEN, Mayor REGULAR BOARD MEETING March 17, 2026 MINUTES Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Board of Water Commissioners held at 99 South Grove Street, East Orange, New Jersey on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. I. CALL TO ORDER - ROLL CALL PRESENT: Commissioners Alison Rolling Shantel Harrison Sherkera Lucas Emmanuel O. Awe Fatimah McConnell Staff Thomas Matich, Acting Executive Director Joseph J. Tomashosky –Finance via Phone Odell Rolling – Supervisor of Water Repair Counsel Denis Murphy, Esq. (Weiner Law) Council Members NONE Public NONE The meeting was called to order, Commissioner Rolling determined that there was a quorum and convened the Regular Meeting. Commissioner Rolling read the Sunshine Law for the record. Commissioner Rolling read the Rate Statement.� II. STATUS OF RESOLUTIONS The Mayor has returned Resolutions #20 through #32. All resolutions are in full force and effect. III. ADOPTION/CORRECTION OF MINUTES 7A: The Minutes of the February 1, 2026, Reorganization Meeting were approved on a motion made by Commissioner Harrison seconded by Commissioner McConnell and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. IV. PRESENTATION NONE V. STAFF REPORTS CUSTOMER SERVICE – Tom advised the Board that we have completed the winter moratorium on the utility shut offs. We will begin to start to shut off again for nonpayment. This will be our big number and that coincides with last month being a short calendar month. That is why it shows that 150 over delinquents were increased by about $50,000. This was a short collection month but out of 6,000 transactions, a third of them were processed online. To note, our vendor does not provide provide “Pay Near Me” any longer, however, they have something called “Scan to Pay.” If you notice, it breaks down all the different places that you can utilize that service. We anticipate that service providing more accessibility to a lot of people. Still continuing with deferred payments with the 42 we have active totaling $80,000 dollars. FINANCE – Joe advised the Board that we began the year with great collections and ended last year just barely over 100%. Anything over 97 1/2% collection is considered to be excellent in this industry and through the first two months of the year we have collected at a rate of 106.1%. Know that we are doing a great right now. This is the lower billing period because there is not as much usage in January and February. You have a lower consumption and a lower billing. Over the year, we level that out. That can change based on the weather. If it’s a really wet time of the year, if there is a big snow melt and if you have a wet May or June, you will not have as much usage for the year. January and February is a low usage period of time. I would anticipate as we get big billing months that we will fall below 100% and then as we get into the end of the year and we do our lien sale that we should get back up to 98 to 100%. You can’t continue at 100% because it is just not very probable. We are doing well with our collections. We lose our collection tolls from November 15th through March 15th which really extendsinto April by the time you give your notice to be able to turn people off again. We are doing well for this time of the year which is exciting. In terms of our expenses, we are still paying a lot of expenses from last year’s purchase orders that are coming in this year. We will not see many of this year‘s budgeted numbers start to hit until really the beginning of next month. At this juncture, there is nothing that seems to say that we will have any adverse operating in terms of revenue collections or expenditures. Tom did talk last month about some problems with our transformers and there is a number of things that I have to get resolved with that and the vendor. I know that Tom is working on that, so those things will not be clear for a few months, but we did budget a little bit more because we knew about that right as we were finalizing our budget.� DIRECTOR’S REPORT - Director Matich advised the Board of the following: Capital projects, phase 2 of the Lead Service Line Replacement rebid is going out at the end of this month. You will see that in your resolutions for tonight. Joe had mentioned some incidents that took place in February regarding budgetary issues that relates to the Emergency Generator. Although fully functioning, the problem was a failure in the transformer. A lot of these things are going to be pursued under warranty. So, some scale back as far as the secondary personnel involved. Although we did declare an emergency declaration for that emergency and all ancillary cost related to that one incident, we will not have a final number on that until later this month or the beginning of next month. As it stands right now, we are still producing water. We are back on commercial power on a temporary rental transformer. Well replacements of 3 and 4, 8 and 9 are still ongoing well drilling, as well as the PFAS treatment design. We had communication today about trying to lock down the hydrant bid specs and they provide us a 3-week window when they should have all that together. So, we will finalize that list with the fire department to ensure that the ones that we are addressing are the critical ones. Service line replacement, the rebid will be going out at the end of this month with the close out at the end of April. WQAA still going now with the spring coming up will be able to exercise more valves although in the winter we were still taking care of a lot of those. Now that Mother Nature hassettled a bit, we see a lot of things exposed once the snow melted. We had some sewer issues come up that we are addressing. A major concern on Central Avenue right now in front of Burger King where the area needed to be taken care of because of a grease blockage. The Health Department and Code Enforcement were out there to address that matter. So, we will have to address that and see what the fallout of that is. Through our water sales we were able to provide just under 25,000,000 gallons to Orange and to Livingston, but the standardized billing still maintained for Orange. VI. COMMUNICATIONS 315 So. Harrison Street – February 2026 Bill Dispute VII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Legal Matters to be discussed in Executive Session. Contract Negotiations – Executive Session VIII. NEW BUSINESS Letter from Kiwanis IX. APPROVAL OF RESOLUTIONS The following resolutions 13A through 13J were presented to the Board for approval. A Motion to omnibus Resolutions 13A through 13G and 13I through 13J was approved by Commissioner McConnell, seconded by Commissioner Lucas, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote.� 13A: Resolution ratifying February 2026 recurring monthly bills in the amount of $237,121.09 13B: Resolution authorizing the approval and payment of Operating Bills in the amount of $1,031,647.98 13C: Resolution ratifying the February 2026 Payrolls in the amount of $618,303.74 13D: Resolution authorizing the payment of Capital invoices in the amount of $3,055.00 13E: Resolution authorizing the April 2026 Temporary Budget in the amount of $2,398,026.95. 13F: Resolution authorizing the re-advertisement and solicitation of bids for the Phase 2 Lead Service Line Replacement for the EOBWC 13G: Resolution authorizing the award of a contract through the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey Cooperative for Plumbing Services to William J. Guarding, Inc. in an amount not to exceed $100,000.00 13H: Resolution authorizing the preparation of bid specifications and the advertisement and solicitation of Sealed Bids for On-Call Emergency Water and Sewer Repairs Resolution 13H was TABLED on a motion made by Commissioner McConnell, seconded by Commissioner Lucas and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. 13I: Resolution authorizing the settlement of the billing dispute with Ellington Street Realty, LLC 13J: Resolution granting permission and authorizing the execution of a license, indemnification and Hold Harmless Agreement with the Kiwanis Club of Livingston for the use of EOBWC Property for its annual carnival X. PUBLIC COMMENT NONE XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION 15A: Resolution for Closed Session Resolution 15A was approved on a motion made by Commissioner Lucas, seconded by Commissioner McConnell and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote.� ------------------ The Board went into Executive Session to discuss the following at approximately 6:01 pm: 1. Personnel Committee 2. Contracts and Litigation Matters The Board came out of Executive Session at approximately 6:47 pm. ------------------- There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:48 pm. THESE MINUTES ARE OF NECESSITY CONDENSED AND ABRIDGED AND DO NOT PURPORT TO CONTAIN THE FULL CONTENTS OF THE MATTERS DISCUSSED. SONYA BUTLER TRANSCRIBER�