The deal was sealed in time to dodge the fines, but there were unspoken issues. The candidate would not come on board until January 2011, and then only under a title and salary the city passed by ordinance to allow him to avoid a conflict with the state pension law (see post here). In addition, he would work only 28 hours per week and would only be on site two days a week.
Anyone with the means to Google could discover another aspect of the situation, that the candidate was recuperating from major surgery. It was an accommodation all around, but it only lasted a year and the city is now in the same situation that precipitated the onerous threat of daily fines.
In February, the city made another tenuous arrangement, this time for a CFO to serve for five to seven hours a week (click here for details). The governing body agreed to increase the salary range for a full-time CFO in hopes of attracting one, but so far no "permanent" CFO has been named.
During the last time there was no permanent CFO, iffy practices such as the ones on the document below took place (click to enlarge).
At Thursday's budget meeting where costly errors and omissions were revealed, Councilman William Reid allowed as how it might be hard for the city to attract a new CFO with all the leadership issues here.
This weekend traditionally is not only a time to remember those who gave their lives for their country, but is also informally the beginning of the summer vacation season, a time of expansiveness and relaxation. Not so for the governing body, which will now have to buckle down and try to straighten out the budget mess next week.
The word "mediocrity" got tossed around Thursday as the governing body and the Citizens Budget Advisory Budget Committee tried to grasp the situation. Until residents at large demand a higher level of competence from the administration, fiscal management is not likely to improve.
--Bernice
Someone needs to investigate what happens to the $200,000 given to the city by Verizon every year to maintain the public access channel for the non-existent Media department. They never see a dime of it. So where does that money go? How many salaries would that cover to keep the channel up and running? Expenses? Equipment? When they film the city council meetings and other community events, the team then edits and uploads the video footage to the channel, none of this is done by the outside contractors that get paid from $60.00 to $100.00 an hour just for the filming alone, while the seasonal employees get paid $14.00 an hour. Hmmmm.... I wonder what would happen if Verizon gets wind of this???
ReplyDeleteBernice,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for letting us know what is going on, but maybe a better question might me from my economics 101 course. What is the cost benefit ? If taxes were half or a quarter of what they are, would people still want to live in Plainfield? Well houses are half, rents are three quarter and there are vacant spots all over. Plainfield is dangerous long and short ask any cop, teacher or lowly senior citizen thinking of going for a stroll on a pleasant spring evening
Has anyone ever watched Scotch Plains TV? Or any other local TV channel? It's 1000% better than Plainfield. Why do we have to lose on EVERY front? Always?
ReplyDeleteBecause we keep electing sub par mediocre people that's why. In Plainfield everything costs twice and much and we get twice as less. It's called robbing the poor because they won't do anything about it! It's the reason the Newarck, Plainfields, and Elizabeths will never truly progress. If we elected some people without their own personal agenda, Plainfield could make a turn around like Hoboken. We have two train stations and great proximity to major highways. We also have the best house and property lines in Central Jersey.
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