MIDDLETOWN – Committeeman Sean Byrnes wants to see the budget process end earlier than the June 30 date when the municipal budget was formally voted on.
“I’d love to see a budget committee with one committee member from each party to engage in the process early on,” Byrnes said at the Township Committee meeting. “It doesn’t mean that the other committee members can’t get involved, but by having a bipartisan contribution to a committee that engages early, it can make the whole process early.”
The Township Committee’s formal vote came almost three months after the public hearing on the budget.
The budget passed in 2006 and 2007 in April.
The initial delay came following the public hearing on the budget on May 5, when the committee put off a vote until June 2 because Chief Financial Officer Richard Wright was unable to attend the next meeting, on May 19.
On June 2 the committee voted on a budget amendment that added $27,000 to the spending plan and a public hearing was scheduled for June 16.
With the township having to advertise $27,000 worth of additional expenditures, the formal vote had to wait a few more weeks.
Deputy Mayor Pamela Brightbill said that Byrnes’ comment made it seem like all members of the Township Committee did not have the same things available to them in the budget process.
“I have found that all of the administrators in the township have been very available to speak to about their budgets,” Brightbill said. “It’s a matter of going up to them and asking questions.”
Byrnes responded that it isn’t totally feasible for each member of the Township Committee to ask questions and that it would be a quicker process if everyone approached the process together.
“I don’t think five people approaching people from five different directions will produce a cohesive, planned out possible change or improvement to a budget,” Byrnes said. “If we worked organized and together I feel like we would achieve some kind of budget production instead of all of us on different days sending e-mails or visiting with administrators.”
Byrnes said he wants to see both parties in a unified effort to complete the budget process before the middle of the year.
He said that it would make the bigger items in the budget easier to deal with.
“If we are going to make some kind of change it has to be as a coordinated effort to handle some of the bigger ticket items such as insurance,” Byrnes said.
He said that he also wished there was more public input into the budget process and that it would have also made the budget process quicker.
“The unfortunate thing is that when we did have our public meeting … I got there about eight to 10 minutes late and it was over,” Byrnes said. “There really wasn’t a lot of public input. Hopefully by … putting information on the Web site and getting information out there … we can engender some public participation.”
Mayor Gerard Scharfenberger said in the past the township waited for the state to pass its own budget to see what kind of aid the municipality would be receiving.
“It’s unfortunate that the budget process has become so difficult and I think it’s made more difficult by forces outside of our own administration,” Scharfenberger said. “That’s the really disappointing part.”
He added, “The residents expect a lot. They expect a lot of services and want more services and we have to walk that fine line between providing services and keeping taxes in line. It is very difficult.”