HIGHTSTOWN: Budget talk starts early; service cuts possible

By Matt Chiappardi, Staff Write
    HIGHTSTOWN — The Borough Council has gotten 2009 budget hearings started three months early in hopes of avoiding another large tax hike, and Council President Walter Sikorski says service cuts and wage freezes need to be considered.
    Speaking at the Nov. 13 session, which compares to the usual February start for budget hearings, Councilman Sikorski also said the borough has put together a budget committee consisting of Councilmen Jeff Bond and Larry Quattrone and Councilman-elect Mike Theokas, who will meet in private. That was an idea Councilman Dave Schneider was not happy about.
    “This type of thing should be done the way it’s always done, out in the open, in front of the public,” he said.
    His opposition resulted in a tense exchange with Councilman Bond, who countered that the idea wasn’t to conduct budget meetings in secret, but to help expedite the process. Councilman Bond added that “in the end we’ll wind up having just as many (budget hearings) as we did last year.”
    As for other new ideas during the earliest council meeting in members’ memories, Councilman Bond floated a proposal of scrapping budgets based on the previous fiscal year, and starting over from the ground up.
    “How do you justify a 15- to 20-cent increase again? I don’t know how you do that in these economic times,” he said. “We need to use an entirely different approach.”
    That “zero-base budget” approach means the council, while composing the fiscal plan, would start with a blank slate.
    Councilman Quattrone said he didn’t think that could be done.
    “I don’t think we should spend a lot of time trying to put together a zero-base budget when I think that’s impossible,” he said.
    And Councilman Schneider took the opportunity to voice his concern that he believes a zero-increase budget isn’t realistic given the economic times, although he did acknowledge that he wasn’t familiar with the idea of a zero-base budget.
    Councilman Sikorski said the borough is now at a “critical crossroads,” and suggested that some services could be cut back or even eliminated that only benefit a few people in the community. He did not specify which services are on that table nor elaborate on potential wage freezes.
   ”That’s something the committee will be charged with,” he said this week.
    Mr. Bond added that “nothing is a sacred cow.”
    Borough Administrator Candace Gallagher said there isn’t much wiggle room in the municipal budget. According to her figures, $2.1 million of the borough’s $3.2 million of expenses last year were “costs (the borough) has minimal impact on.” That’s up from $1.9 million the year before, she said.
    Costs over which the borough has little control include things like employee health insurance, debt service, and the reserve for uncollected taxes, she explained.
    Last year, borough residents endured a 15-cent municipal tax increase that would have been 24 cents if not for $200,000 the borough received in extraordinary state aid in July.
    It wasn’t only council members who got in on the discussion.
    Controversial activist Gene Sarafin strongly suggested the 1-square mile borough finally consolidate with East Windsor.
    “We go through this every year. There’s all this weeping and gnashing of teeth,” he said. “There are towns like Manalapan that use the State Police. Look at the five fire departments we have within two miles of here. It’s time for a revolution. It’s time to make a deal with Janice (East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov).”
    Resident Torry Watkins, while not specifically mentioning consolidation, said that it was time to look at “the inherent inefficiency of our system.”
    He also said the board should consider charging residents for services on a per-capita basis.
    Neither of the two garnered any response from the council.