The Eatontown Board of Health is calling for the borough to withdraw from the Monmouth County Regional Health Commission and join the Monmouth County Board of Health in an effort to reduce the cost of public health services to the borough.
Brian Charnick, who heads the Eatontown board, made the case for the change at the Borough Council’s Feb. 2 workshop meeting, saying that by moving to the county board, the borough stands to save some $40,000 annually.
“The local board of health unanimously is asking the council to consider leaving the regional and joining the county health department, just based on financial reasons alone,” Charnick said.
“There is a significant savings right now, and we project maybe more in the future.”
According to Charnick, the difference in cost is a result of how the agencies calculate dues for member towns. The county board, which is made up of 22 municipalities, calculates yearly dues based on each town’s ratable base.
The regional commission, which serves 26 municipalities, determines annual dues based on a recently developed formula that uses the base amount a town paid in dues the previous year plus a percentage of the current year’s budget increase.
“The base was last year’s figure, and then added to that was a part of the increase based on the three-year workload and part of it on population,” explained Paul Roman, president of the Monmouth County Regional Health Commission.
“It’s a mixed formula, and the way that it was done is that the part of the budget increase that deals with administration, the increase was based on population, which is fairer,” said Roman.
“That part which is based on inspections, workers going out to towns, that was done on three-year weighted workload,” he said .
That new formula was developed based on input from the regional commission’s new chief financial officer, Stephen Gallagher, who was hired in 2010 to help provide financial oversight for the agency, according to Roman.
Gallagher serves as CFO of Ocean Township, which is a member of the Monmouth County Regional Health Commission.
Roman said the new formula was created to replace the method that was used by the commission since the mid-1980s, which calculated a town’s dues based on its three-year weighted workload average.
The workload is the amount of work the commission’s health inspectors perform in a town.
In 2010, the commission adopted a roughly $1.96 million budget. For 2011, that amount increased by approximately 13 percent to about $2 million.
According to Roman, the cost to member municipalities will increase as a result.
“We are looking at an approximately 13 percent increase for our towns across the board this year, and it’s just the situation we find ourselves in,” Roman said.
When crafting the 2011 Monmouth County Regional Health Commission budget, Gallagher attempted to use the weighted workload average, but found that several towns were facing cost increases approaching 27 percent, Roman explained.
“In order to make it more equitable, we looked at other alternatives for the first time in 20 years,” he said.
“We came up with some models, which the budget and finance committee looked at, and found that the model that we accepted was less painful to the majority of the towns, and therefore we went with it.”
The commission’s finance committee adopted the method by a vote of 9-2, with Eatontown and Monmouth Beach, also a member of the commission, casting dissenting votes.
While the new budget formula spares some towns from a 27 percent increase in dues, others end up seeing their fees increase by thousands of dollars over the previous method.
The impact of the new formula varies among member towns.
Under the commission’s new formula, Eatontown would pay $121,000 in dues for 2011, compared to $85,000 under the previous formula. At the same time, some towns will see a decrease in dues. Under the new formula, Ocean Township’s annual dues are $146,000, compared to $198,000 under the former method, according to data provided by Joseph Nardone, the Monmouth Beach representative to the commission.
Also, according to Nardone, Sea Bright’s dues in 2011 under the new formula are $45,000 but would have been $59,000 under the previous formula. Holmdel Township’s assessment in 2011 is $51,000 under the new calculation, compared to the $43,000 it would have paid under the previous formula.
The difference is that the new formula relies on workload and population to calculate yearly dues, whereas the previous formula was based solely on workload.
In 2010 Eatontown accounted for 7.42 percent of the commission’s workload. If the workload method were being used, the borough would pay roughly that percentage of the commission’s budget. However, with the new formula, the borough is paying 10.6 percent of the commission’s budget.
According to Charnick, while Eatontown made an effort to reduce its workload, the borough’s dues remained roughly the same over several years, as did its percentage of the commission budget. At the same time, towns with growing populations and workload did not see increases in their fees. He said Gallagher’s input has led to changes in fees.
“The formula has been changing,” Charnick said. “Eatontown thinks we may have been overpaying, because our workload hasn’t been going up but we’ve been paying more. Eatontown has been paying 10 percent but using 7 percent of the service.
“If we are overcharged, that means some towns are undercharged. They are getting more work done for less of a contribution,” Charnick explained.
“We can’t really seem to get to the bottom of it, and that’s why we went to the county.”
Although both Nardone and Charnick say they believe Monmouth Beach and Eatontown were being overcharged, they acknowledge that they have no proof yet and are continuing to look into the matter.
“We were very happy with the service, and we asked the county to come in and give us an analysis. And that’s when we realized [the county board’s fee] would be $40,000 cheaper this year, and we said, ‘Why are we still with the regional?’ ” Charnick explained.
Despite Charnick and Nardone’s claims, Roman defended the commission’s actions.
“Any accusations or charges of miscalculations or any other implications having to do with the current formula are not accurate, because our budget and finance committee did go over the budget draft prior to its adoption,” he said.
“The budget was adopted on a vote, I believe it was 9-2… and the only two people that voted against it were the same people that have been making the accusations.
“While those two individuals did vote no, nine other members of the commission, all of the other members in attendance, voted for the budget and for a method to be changed so we could make it more equitable for all of our towns,” Roman said.
Contact Daniel Howley at [email protected]