Both the conference agenda and the regular meeting agendas were very full and there was much more of an audience in attendance than usual. The items the Council expected to engender a great deal of comment were the two ordinances 10-2011 and 11-2011 establishing new R51 residence districts. These have been the subjects of long and drawn out lawsuits and the ordinances were adopted under protest. Audience protest was expected but, I believe the need was obviated by, comments from the Council regarding the fact the adoption was effectively coerced by the courts, and that the zoning ordinance had to be adopted before the rulings in the case could be appealed. As the plans are to continue to appeal the decisions regarding these ‘builder remedy’ lawsuits, it appeared that anyone who might have been in attendance to protest this was mollified. One person did get up and question the Council about a letter that had been printed in the West Essex Tribune last week but, as I did not read the letter, and as I am still making myself familiar with all the issues involved (having started way before my tenure!), I really can’t comment on that.
Speaking of commenting on things – one of the issues on which I ran was to work to make local government more transparent. As yet, we do not have the meetings televised – which is an issue that has been raised and I am told they are ‘working on it’. Until that time, I blog. For those who cannot come to the meetings, I hope that an insider’s perspective, along with reportage by the Patch and the West Essex Tribune, will round out the picture of what is occurring at the Township level. I am fully aware that there are other ‘takes’ on what is going on. I would encourage everyone who comes to meetings – whether on the Town Council or not – to speak about what happens, ask people to get involved, have others come out to see for themselves what is happening. An educated populace is an empowered one.
The real ‘meat’ of the meeting was the introduction of the 2011 budget. I have stated time and time again that I am not satisfied with the budget and that I don’t agree that we as a group have come up with the best possible budget. I felt, as did my fellow Councilmen, that a reduction of services was unfair and not needed at this time. For example, why take away leaf collection from the town when it would just force the cost onto the individual taxpayer to solve the problem? And, who could possibly vote for elimination of all SYLS programs not covered by fees – as this would get rid of all senior programming entirely? These were not reasonable considerations. So, as was published in the West Essex Tribune, “the Council unanimously agreed that the benefits provided by these programs far exceeded there cost and all agreed not to eliminate them.” But when asked if any further expense reductions were sought, what can you answer when all your suggestions and ideas have already been shot down??
I have already proposed in the budget and conference meetings a number of recommendations such as a) increasing the amount of the Township employees contributions to their health insurance premiums, b) further reducing headcount by consolidation of job responsibilities, c) reducing the budgeted amount for police vests by soliciting bids from responsible vendors who could provide the Level IIIA protection at a 40% reduction from the budgeted amount, and d) replacing pagers for the Fire Department on a revolving basis as opposed to doing them all at once. I even had the temerity to question the $20K budgeted for the Employee parties and having them get two half-days paid to attend. All of these suggestions would reduce the taxpayer burden today. And, even if we couldn’t get to a 0% increase budget, it would be a budget that has a lower increase than that of 2010 and one I’d be much happier with. So, while I voted YES to introduce the budget (so that we could meet State timelines to be eligible for more funding), I voted NO to approving the budget itself.
The budget is coming up for vote on May 2nd. We only have two Council meetings until then – come out and make your voices heard.
Way to go Deborah. Keep up the good work and stay healthy. Please consider the following 5 points:
ReplyDelete1. Public sector pension accruals must immediately be brought FULLY down to the level of their private Sector counterparts. Due to the huge reduction needed, the ONLY way to do this is to freeze the current defined benefit plans for CURRENT (yes CURRENT) workers, and switch everyone into a 401K-style Defined Contribution Plan with an employer contribution in the same 3%-8% range granted Private Sector workers.
2. Additionally, since Private Sector retirees rarely get any retiree healthcare subsidy before eligibility for Medicare at age 65, similar restrictions should apply to Public Sector retirees. It’s TAXPAYERS’ money and Civil Servants are NOT more worthy of bigger pensions and better benefits.
3. Even after deducting the typical public employee contribution of about 5% of pay, that still leaves the employer (meaning us TAXPAYERS) contributing 24% to 53% of pay. The middle of these %s is 38.5% vs 5.5% (the middle of the range of what Private Sector employers contribute) or SEVEN (yes SEVEN) times greater.
4. This is completely absurd, and the very modest “tweaking” at the edges by practically begging employees for a few more percent of pay contributions will NOT even begin solve the HUGE financial problem.
5. TOTAL COMPENSATION (Cash Pay plus Pensions plus Benefits) should be comparable in the Public and Private Sectors for similar jobs, and with Cash Pay in the Public Sector now AT LEAST equal to (if not greater) than that in the Private Sector, there is ZERO justification for greater Public Sector Pensions and Benefits.
Signed: local tax payer tired of lack of accountability of local and state government.