Budget adopted with 10-cent tax increase

Discussions heated
as councilwoman
questions budget

By vincent todaro
Staff Writer

Budget adopted with
10-cent tax increase
Discussions heated
as councilwoman
questions budget
By vincent todaro
Staff Writer

EAST BRUNSWICK — Despite dissent from one member, the Township Council adopted an amended municipal budget raising the tax rate by 10 cents.

The council voted 4-1 Monday night in favor of the 2003 budget, which stands at $49,720,726. The budget means taxpayers will see the municipal portion of their tax bills rise by 10 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.

Councilwoman Christi Calvano, the lone Republican on the governing body, voted against the budget, saying she found $210,000 in cuts that should have been made.

She said there were areas such as professional consulting service fees that could be reduced to save money. She said last year certain line items had extra funding that was later transferred into other areas. She did not understand why, despite being previously overfunded, those areas were increased this year.

Calvano said her calculations show that a tax point is approximately $210,000 in the budget, and that one point could be saved with her cuts.

Calvano also recommended changing the mayor’s position from part time to full time, and abolishing the job of special assistant to the mayor. Neary is paid about $10,000 per year as a part-time mayor, while his special assistant, Jacqueline Eaker, earns close to $80,000. Calvano suggested making the mayor’s job full time and raising his salary to $40,000 or $50,000, and eliminating Eaker’s position.

She said she realizes Neary puts in a lot of hours already, but that by eliminating Eaker’s spot, the township could save about $40,000 a year, even if it increases Neary’s pay.

"I know the job of mayor is difficult," she said, adding that it is also time consum­ing. Still, she feels her idea of eliminating Eaker’s position should be considered.

Neary agreed his job is "not the easi­est," but said he gets tremendous help from his professional staff.

Michael DeLucia, a resident, echoed Calvano’s comments, saying former Mayor Jack Sinagra did not have a special assis­tant. It was the job of the business admin­istrator to handle mayoral duties when the mayor was not present.

Neary questioned why Calvano did not present her questions earlier in the budget process. He said it was not fair for her to ask difficult questions when many of the township’s finance professionals were not in attendance.

He said the questions could have been asked at the council’s budget workshops.

Perhaps the most heated part of the meeting was when Calvano questioned Township Business Administrator James White as to how much township employees were receiving in raises, and asked who negotiated those contracts. Neary re­sponded that the raises come from contrac­tual agreements that cannot be changed.

The township would be forced to lay workers off, he said.

"If you want to cut salaries, you want to cut employees," he said.

Calvano said she was not arguing to cut employees, however.

Nancy Vacca, a resident attending the meeting, said Calvano was just doing her job by asking the questions in public.

"You got open government, and you don’t seem to like it much now," she told Neary.

Councilman David Stahl said no infor­mation was withheld from anyone during the budget process, and that he spent long hours asking questions and gathering in­formation.

He said that for anyone to insinuate that any information was not available earlier was wrong.

Stahl said he was not saying Calvano could not ask questions that night, but that there were previous budget workshops with department heads who could have an­swered any questions she may have had.

Neary said that when he was a council­man, he was not "into partisanship" and does not think Calvano is either. He did not agree with her, however, about there being $210,000 worth of cuts that could still be made. He also said that if there are additional monies left over at the end of the year, they are simply transferred to other areas where they are needed.

The adopted budget had been slightly amended from an original package intro­duced in April. A line item for police cars saw a net decrease of about $10,000.

Michael Opaleski, a Republican Party member, said he agrees with Calvano that the township needs a full-time mayor, though he does not fault Neary for having a special assistant.

Opaleski, a former township employee, contended that the council did a poor job with the municipal budget, and added that he could "come up with half a million (dollars in cuts) in this budget that won’t affect anyone."

Neary has said that the budget merely pays to maintain the current level of ser­vices and programs. The increase, bringing the tax rate to $1.14 per $100 of assessed valuation, was "unavoidable" in a budget that had been scrutinized line by line by staff and department heads prior to being turned over to the council.

In addition to the municipal tax in­crease, East Brunswick residents face a school tax increase of 29 cents per $100 of assessed valuation for the 2003-04 school year. That tax hike was approved by voters during the April 15 school election.