As budget talks began Tuesday, City Council President Annie McWilliams asked City Administrator Bibi Taylor to explain state legislation that will rein in municipal tax increases next year.
Taylor said the current 4 percent cap on increases will become 2 percent in the city's next fiscal year, meaning the SFY 2012 budget might have to be reduced by $960,000.
Click here for a New York Times article on the legislation.
McWilliams was making a point that any decisions on spending this year had to take into account the future impact of the lowered cap. The current budget year began July 1 and operating costs are being paid out monthly at last year's levels until budget passage. Given that months are also likely to elapse in SFY 2012 before the budget passes, McWilliams called for a long view on curbing spending.
"I don't want to be in a position where all we can do is lay off people," she said.
Council members agreed on the need to conserve now.
Councilman Rashid Burney called on residents to ask for relief on unfunded state mandates and for unions to recognize the city's fiscal dilemma.
"Look at the situation we're in - I don't know how budgeting gets any more dire," he said. "We have to work together on this."
Councilman William Reid agreed, saying, "I'm very, very concerned about this budget."
He suggested that each department head consider ways to save money.
Rather than have the open dialogue of past budget talks, McWilliams said she had asked the administration to provide 10 questions to each presenter, with answers to be provided to the council in writing. The questions sought data on items such as tasks, performance and shared services.
Public Safety Director Martin Hellwig said Tuesday he is reorganizing the Fire Division by putting two people in administration back into fire suppression. He also wants promotions before Nov. 30 to break a cycle of filling absences with lower-rank officers in acting capacity. Hellwig also suggested leasing new equipment instead of outright purchase.
The Fire Division will be able to hire seven firefighters under a grant program that pays for two years of service. The city must then pay for at least a third year of service. The program will partially offset an expected drop in personnel due to retirements.
Hellwig, also the city's police director, said the Police Division was considering shared dispatch services and was working on a plan to alleviate overtime and "out-of-title" pay for staff filling in higher-rank positions.
The recurring theme prompted McWilliams to say that acting pay and overtime issues crop up every year and are never resolved.
"I think we should be looking into it to settle for once and for all," she said.
Six members of the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee attended Tuesday's session. Budget talks resume at 7 p.m. Thursday in City Hall Library, 515 Watchung Ave.
--Bernice Paglia
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The only way to alleviate acting pay and overtime, which is astronomical in the Dept. of Public Safety, is to hire entry level and promote to fill vacancies.
ReplyDeleteAnother way to save dollars is by hiring laid off cops from other agencies most of whom are coming from urban
communities similar to Plainfield. This would alleviate overtime in a matter of weeks rather than 10 months, along with that much in salary just to train a recruit.
Please let's use some common sense and really save money!
The solutions proposed by Hellwig and Robinson-Briggs would have been good if they were done in 2005 but they're way too late for 2010 and beyond. You can only reshuffle and reduce overtime so many times until there's no way to get it lower. So either you have to permanently reduce staffing, or reduce services, or raise revenues. It's that simple.
ReplyDeleteWe need fresh ideas on how to reduce and how to get more out of what we have. If the administration can't provide them then the council must be proactive and seek out consultants who can. Not the amateur CBAC but people who do these things for a living, who know how other parts of the country are handling the crisis. Every municipality is in the same boat. Chicago just reduced the number of firefighters who respond to each call. Minneapolis is using theirs to stabilize abandoned buildings. What do we hear? Reshuffle the same deck. That's not good enough. The flush times are not coming back. Money is going to get tighter, especially with Cristie in charge. Even the one-seat ride, which never was going to be a golden ticket for Plainfield, is dead. Until someone, anyone, demands real innovation from our representatives we're going to continue fall further behind until we end up at the bottom.
Something needs to be done to save money. You can't cut anymore staff without jeopardizing safe. Can you imagine this warzone with less cops and firemen?
ReplyDeleteYou cant rely on givebacks from the unions. They aren't going to pitch in with all the waste, fraud and abuse that is going on. I can't say I blame them either. Why should they give up extremely hard earned money so the mayor and cronies can flush it away?!
To the Anonymous who called the CBAC members amateur it's funny how they made the same suggestions that you actually mention in your comment. As they used to say, "it takes one to know one". I'm glad to have a group of citizens that volunteer their time to help look through the budget ask questions and make suggestions, even if the council don't adhere to them. At the least they aren't hiding behind closed doors writing with their names being Anonymous. So I ask if you don't have anything positive to say about city volunteers, don't say nothing at all.
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