Post-Mortem: The Township Budget

After taking a few days to reflect on the Township Committee’s budget presentation, I find that I have many more questions than when the meeting began.  Some of the revelations were remarkable to say the least.

First, we learned that from 1999 through 2004, our township committee did not make any statutorily required contributions to our township employees' pension fund (although they did contribute to the contractually required police pension fund, presumably because they knew that the PBA would not let them get away with not contributing to it).  Those previous "fiscally conservative" committees basically just kicked the can down the road, leaving us to make up for their failures today and in the future, leading to continuing tax increases.  But, here is the odd part.  This seems to be a continuing trend.

Knowing that the town must make up their legally obligated contributions, surely the town fully funded the pension this year, right?  Well, a review of this year's contribution shows that it is about 50% less than last year's.  Could it be that the committee, in a last minute attempt to show a .03 cent decrease, as announced minutes before the budget was unanimously approved, took funds from the anticipated pension contribution?  Well, that answer remains a mystery.  But certainly that is not something that our current "fiscally conservative" committee members would approve, is it?  The funds had to be cut from somewhere and it is doubtful that  the cuts came from the committees' or their appointees' benefits. 

Another perplexing issue that was left unaddressed at the budget meeting was this year's 23% salary increase to the municipal prosecutor.  The committee, when asked directly, was unable to explain the conflict between the January 2011 Resolution appointing the prosecutor providing for a salary "not to exceed $37,000" and the budget appropriating only $30,000 for the position.  Last year in 2010, the prosecutor was appointed at a salary "not to exceed $30,000", but the budget shows $31,000 was paid for the position.  Aside from the conflict, the issue begs the question what other town employees, besides the township prosecutor, received a 23% salary increase?  The budget does not show any other singularly dramatic salary increase, nor should it.  No single employee is worth 23% this year than they were last year, including the prosecutor.  So, what then was the impetus for such a drastic salary increase?  Only the committee knows.

Finally, we can only assume that the source of the last minute .03 cent tax cut will remain a mystery.  That is, the cut had to be made to some other budget item.   Exactly what line item was cut and will we have to make it up next year or sometime in the future?  Did the committee just "kick the can down the road" once again in order to provide another one-time gimmick to make the budget look nice?  The simple fact of the matter is that the budget and our municipal taxes have increased significantly in just the last 3 years (13% at last count), yet our committee's most recent budget seems to be just another example of pushing our problems to the future.

The budget requires a fresh perspective and until there are committee members willing to look at cutting non-essential expenditures, we will continue to mortgage our children's futures in this town.  While cuts to unneeded programs must be made, we cannot do so on the backs of our township employees.  We recently saw that Wall taxpayers are willing to stand up for our employees when they approved a school budget issue providing the necessary expenditures to keep the school custodians employed.  Taxpayers should be applauded for not falling for Christie-type bully tactics.  What we need is more of that.  Taxpayers must come together to fight against attacks on our employees and to speak out against trading pension contributions for salary increases for insiders.   Working together as residents and taxpayers we can be real decision-makers when elected officials fail or have lost connection with their constituents.  We must all keep in mind that we, the voters, have the final say and we should exercise our opinions and our right to speak out against failing policies and bad decision-making.  

Only in doing so, do we have a truly representative democracy.  I encourage everyone to look at this year's and future budgets and to continue to question our elected officials' decisions.  The next township committee meeting is June 8, 2011.