By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY — The Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders passed a resolution calling for a shorter and less costly list of county handout items for next month’s 4-H fair after the expenditure was publicly targeted by Democratic candidate for freeholder and Montgomery Mayor Cecilia Birge and her running mate last month.
The cost of the items has been reduced to $15,000, according to a resolution to purchase the items that passed at Tuesday night’s county freeholders meeting.
The goods, including erasers, crayons, rulers, giant paper clips and water bottles, will no longer be imprinted with names of public officials, according to the resolution.
The items were originally slated to cost around $50,000, according to the campaign staff of Mayor Birge and Doug Singleterry, who proclaimed that the customization of the items with the names and offices of county officials meant the items were taxpayer-funded political promotion.
Originally, one listing in the request was an order of 1,500 pencils imprinted with “Frank Bruno, Surrogate. Another called for 9,000 beach balls, imprinted with “Somerset County Freeholders,” which would cost approximately $10,000, according to a report provided by the Birge and Singleterry campaigns.
Both candidates attended a freeholder meeting and questioned the original list of customized items, and its $50,000 price tag, an estimate that was later verified as accurate by some county officials.
”I thought it was unethical,” said Mayor Birge. “I wondered if it was legal to use the taxpayers’ money to pay for political promotional items.”
Contacted Monday, Freeholder Director Peter Palmer said the responsibility for the original list of items sat on the shoulders of the county administration, which put together the list, and not on the freeholders, as targeted by Mayor Birge and Mr. Singleterry.
The list associated with the $50,000 cost estimate never even made it to the freeholders, he said, until the $15,000 resolution was discussed at the freeholders’ last meeting.
”The (request for quotes) was never presented to the freeholders,” said Mr. Palmer. “This is the first proposal.”
But the new, reduced-cost purchase has actually raised more questions than it answered, according to Mayor Birge, who said the new resolution does not match the original request for price quotes displayed on the Somerset County Web site.
She said it calls into question the processes used by the county in procuring items.
”The dollar amount got reduced, which is a good thing, but on the other hand they have proposed a resolution about things that were not in there, and not in the RFQ,” said Mayor Birge, referring to a request for quotation. “What kind of bidding process are they following?”
County officials said County Administrator Richard Williams revised the list of items, and that the original request for quotes contained estimates of items that could be revised by the county.
”The purchasing office and the administrator” had control over the original list of items, Mr. Palmer said.
The items will simply bear language about the Somerset County government, with phone numbers, without the names of individual public officials.
Mr. Palmer said the items would mainly be of “back-to-school” nature.
They will be given out at the Somerset County tent, he said, to the thousands of people in attendance at the Somerset County 4-H fair, set for Aug 13 to 15, at North Branch Park off of Milltown Road in Bridgewater.
