PMUA topics ranged from Mayor Adrian O. Mapp's attempts to replace commissioners to the September hiring of former PMUA Executive Director Eric Watson as acting director of Public Works & Urban Development, incidentally the second most-viewed post. In January, "PMUA Changes Shot Down" drew 23 comments and there were two posts about former PMUA CFO Jim Perry's lawsuit against commissioners, in which he alleges racial discrimination.
February's PMUA reorganization returned Commissioner Harold Mitchell to chairmanship and found new Commissioner Charles Tyndale replacing Alex Toliver. See background on Tyndale's nomination here. PMUA also picked up North Plainfield as an outside customer for bulky waste.
April brought a PMUA plan to aid pool owners and the mayor's unsuccessful nomination of Thomas Crownover as an alternate on the board of commissioners. Despite various attempts, Mapp was unable to get any other PMUA nominations passed in 2014. In December, Watson received City Council approval for another 90 days as acting DPW&UD director.
Other big stories in 2014 included the city's designation as a transit village, a goal since 2006; the Muhlenberg study and final report; the sale of Liberty Village despite political machinations; a long-awaited surge in development; a punishing blow to Mapp's first budget; and council rejection of a forensic audit despite findings of fiscal disarray. .
Readers, feel free to nominate other top stories in 2014.
On to 2015! The City Council's annual reorganization is 8 p.m. on Jan. 5 in Municipal Court. Let us hope for progress and peace in the New Year.
--Bernice
What the Holiday season has obscured is the PMUA Rate Hearing which was held December 22nd at 4:00 pm. A date and time which served, intentionally or unintentionally, but effectively to isolate the hearing from public attendance. I had prepared a list of questions which focused on what I believe to be the disparity between the Solid Waste and Shared service Fees. I believe that the case is overwhelming that the Solid Waste Fee ( the household collection charge ) is under priced and the Shared Service Fee over priced.
ReplyDeleteTo my dismay there was no presentation of the budget and the ability of the public to interrogate the PMUA Executives and their Financial Consultant, Mr. Bliss of Lerch, Vinci and Higgins, ( who attended but was mute ) did not occur. The Commissioners were read the proposal and approved it prior to permitting any public participation. The sewer rate was reduced 3% and the Solid Waste and Shared Service fee remained the same. When asked why the public had not been permitted to review and question the basis of the new budget the response was that in accordance with the Law that a public review was only permitted when the rates were changed, but the public be damned when the rates remain constant. We were advised that the Budget, which we were entitled to review prior to the rate hearing was on line. It was not. An attempt to review the budget 30 minutes prior to the meeting , for whatever good that would have done, could not be achieved. Technically, even though the change was miniscule, the change in the sewer rate should have triggered a review of the entire budget. The public commentary was limited to 3 minutes but an application to extend the time was granted. When the questions asked were sufficiently embarrassing, the Chairman terminated the discussion with the peremptory..."Your 3 minutes are up". The question which the PMUA eschews is the issue of how they attribute about 43% of the entire PMUA operation to Shared Service and 57% to household collection. The imbalance is conspicuous and unlawful. The PMUA has the legal obligation to justify to the public their charges and adamantly refuses to comply. Their responses regarding this area comprised od vague rhetoric, absent any meaningful financial analysis. It should also be noted that the abundant conversation regarding 1.2 million dollars in new sales has not resulted a fee reduction. We should be grateful for the new sales in that apparently without them we would have had an increase in rates. Lastly, Commissioner Dunn insisted on a 10 year budget protection the study for which carries a cost of $50,00 to $60,000. Aside from the dubious value of a prediction that extends this far into the future it amazes me that this type of study can not be performed by PMUA staff who are more intimate with the financial nuts and bolts of their own operations that an outside source. If an organization's financial department can not make its own budget predictions it is a sad commentary on their ability.
I failed to attach my name..Bill Kruse
DeleteYou have also failed to attach your brain even though you think that you have all of the answers.
DeleteExtremely ... well said. Thank you.
ReplyDeletePMUA will continue to be a top story until the City Council holds the commissioners it appoints accountable. At the recent Board meeting I took issue with Councilman Storch's recent blog post in which he wrote that it was "the last few years when the PMUA lost sight of its direction and intended purpose." It is part of the problem when officials are unwilling to speak the truth. PMUA lost its direction and purpose on January 1, 1998, ten weeks after the effective date of the Inter Local Agreement, when the City Council president told the public the City was not paying anything for operations, but the opposite was true to the tune of $1.2 million a year. This was out and out fraud, and a conspiracy between PMUA and the City against all city residents. Both the City and PMUA should be prosecuted under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. From that point until now it has only gotten worse.
ReplyDeleteIt’s not only Watson’s outrageous employment contract ($160K salary, 70 paid days off per year, and a car allowance) or the $750K he received as part of the unwarranted $1.2 Million dollar severance gift PMUA Commissioners Dunn, Sanders, and Toliver dolled out against the advice of a labor lawyer. It’s the bloated organization he created that costs PMUA ratepayers over two and a half times what it should for trash and sewer services. It’s the bad contracts he signed such as the over-inflated real estate leases and the 25 year contract with the Union County incinerator. Let’s not forget the money he wasted in the form of his several hundred dollar ‘business’ lunches. There is one more thing from Watson’s PMUA legacy that every Plainfield resident should remember. In addition the PMUA’s outrageously high rates (two times too high for trash and almost three times too high for sewer), during his tenure as Executive Director, the PMUA also created $20 Million in Bond debt, which means that each of Plainfield’s 50,000 residents is on the hook for $400.00 plus the interest on it.
ReplyDeleteNow the PMUA is reducing sewer rates by 3%. Let’s put that in perspective. The sewer rate for a single family home in Cranford is $210/year. My PMUA sewer bill for a single family home here in Plainfield is $574.88/year, which means I pay 274 percent more for sewer services than I would in Cranford. Now PMUA is reducing my bill by 3% or $17.25/year. My new sewer bill will only be $557.63/year, which is still 266 percent higher than Cranford for the same service. I feel MUCH better now (NOT!)
Despite the facts that Plainfield residents are getting screwed, Jerry Green and his minions (Brown, Greaves, Reid, Rivers, and Taylor) are blocking any and all reform efforts and defending the status quo. The combined City and PMUA budgets are about $100 Million dollars a year, which means there is a lot of money that can be dolled out to friends, relatives, and politically connected special interests at Plainfield residents’ expense.
Tom Kaercher
Speaking of bonds; the typical bond policy-
Delete"The underlying asset that is being financed should have useful life that is equal to, or longer than the maturity schedule of the debt issued for the financing of the asset."- City of Lubbock, TX
"The College will generally adhere to the principle of matching the term of the debt to the
expected useful life of the project or to the purpose of the program being funded with that
debt."- Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
The PMUA caveat-
"The balances in the Net Investment in Capital Assets represented the value of capital assets net of their related debt and are in a negative position at December 31, 2013, 2012 and 2011. This is the result of the Authority repaying its capital related debt over a longer period than the capital assets' useful lives"- PMUA 2013, and similar in every audit report since 2004
BONDS The remaining Revenue Bond obligations of the PMUA are as follows:
ReplyDeleteFor the period 2014 to 2016 $7,783,559 Principal
$2,611,968 Interest
For the period 2019 to 2023 $11,131,542 Principal
$ 913,589 Interest
The $913,589 interest, which is the number published seems markedly low. That said, the average annual cost of these ill advised Bonds is $1,556,711 per year from 2014 to 2018, and $@,226,308 average for 2019 through 2023.
The duplicitous wizards that organized the Bond program kicked the can down the road That is, the Bond maturities increase with time. The averages given above are just that: averages. the reality is that Bond maturities are graduated, they increase with time. It is little wonder that the increase in revenue from the Transfer Station does not result in reduced rates. Since the Bond maturities extend far beyond the life expectancy of the equipment and facilities that the funds were used to purchase, therefor the replacement of this equipment and facilities must be funded from current income. What all this misdirection adds up to is that one should not hold their breath in anticipation of rate reductions in the future. The financial planning for the PMUA was fundamentally flawed at the outset, and while there remains the possibility of economies it is unrealistic to think that given the burden of debt, exacerbated by the violation of the Interlocal Agreement, Plainfield residents can ever anticipate competitive rates. Bill Kruse