By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
PLUMSTED — Residents and policemen concerned about possible layoffs in the Police Department offered the Township Committee ideas for reducing the municipal budget last week, but their suggestions didn’t add up to the nearly $100,000 in cuts elected officials are required to make.
Plumsted voters April 27 overwhelmingly rejected the Township Committee’s request to exceed the state-mandated 2 percent cap on tax levy increases by $97,311. The Township Committee has until May 20 to make that reduction and is asking residents and employees to identify where cuts should be made in a spending plan that’s already reduced every line item but police.
”There are no appeals; the tax levy has to be reduced by that $97,311 amount,” Mayor Ron Dancer said at the May 4 meeting. “The voters have made their decision, and we respect that, and we will have a budget accordingly, but we would like to hear from you on where to make those cuts.”
The 50 or so residents and police officers at the meeting were outspoken in their support for the Plumsted Police Department and urged the committee to cut elsewhere. Several dozen off-duty policemen wearing PBA shirts from Plumsted and neighboring towns stood along the back wall for the entire two-hour meeting.
Resident Ted Kucowski, a former Plumsted police officer who now works for the Jackson Police Department, asked the Township Committee to consider making cuts in nonessential services, such as recreation.
Mayor Ron Dancer told him the line item for recreation already had been reduced by $6,000 to $19,000 for 2011. Even if all recreation spending were eliminated, which he did not advocate, it still would not produce the required $97,311 in savings the Township Committee legally is required to make.
”If you don’t come up with the money (elsewhere), then what happens?” Mr. Kucowski asked.
”As we sit here tonight, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Mayor Dancer responded. “We’re hopeful that, through a collaborative and cooperative effort with the public and our employees, we’re going to meet the challenge in a way that doesn’t impact public safety.”
The Township Committee took no official action on the budget during the public hearing. The decision on where the cuts will occur is likely to be made sometime next week, Mayor Dancer said.
One resident noted the Police Department had just received accreditation from the New Jersey Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission, which should qualify the township for a discount in its insurance rates. Mayor Dancer said that was true, but the $1,000 discount was not enough to close the budget gap.
Sam Russo noted the irony of a local Police Department achieving accreditation and being rewarded a few weeks later with layoffs.
”How could you in the last month have all this brass here commending them, and then you’re going to put in the papers next week that you’re laying off three or four officers?” resident Sam Russo asked. “What a slap in the face.”
Several residents asked about the availability of grant money to help the Police Department. Mayor Dancer said the township was applying for a COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) grant from the federal government, which covers 100 percent of the salary of an entry-level officer, a recently laid-off officer or one who is scheduled to be laid off due to a budgetary crisis.
The grant would pay for the officer’s salary for three years, however, the town must commit to providing 100 percent of the officer’s salary for at least one full year after that.
Mayor Dancer said even though Plumsted’s application for a COPS grant was turned down by the federal government last year, he was “cautiously optimistic” this year’s application might fare better. The federal decision, however, will not come before the May 20 deadline for adopting a municipal budget.
According to the federal government’s website, COPS applications are accepted until May 25, and award notifications are done by Sept. 30.
Police officers at the meeting said Plumsted, with 11 full-time police officers and two-part-time officers, already is understaffed for a community of its size, and layoffs would affect public safety. Plumsted police also are the lowest-paid of all Ocean County municipalities, said Officer Frank Murphy, president of PBA Local 390 in Plumsted.
The $97,311 cap waiver rejected by voters was needed to help cover the $107,800 increase in the line item for officers’ salaries and wages in 2011. The money would have made two part-time officers full time and funded the contractually obligated increase in some officers’ salaries for 2011.
The police have been working without a contract since the end of 2009, but state law requires that while a new contract is being negotiated, the longevity pay increments contained in the expired contract must be paid to officers who qualify for salary adjustments based on their length of service.
Officer Murphy said five longtime officers in the Police Department no longer qualify for longevity increments. These older officers have not had any increase in wages since 2009.
The starting salary for a Plumsted police officer is $32,000, and the average officer earns about $44,000 a year.
The municipal tax levy waiver question was not the only one defeated at the polls by Plumsted voters April 27. The school budget also was overwhelmingly rejected, which means the Township Committee must reduce the school tax levy as well. The deadline for finishing the school budget is May 19.
Although last week’s public hearing was on the municipal budget, several people in the crowd also took the opportunity to address the defeated school tax levy, which, unlike the municipal budget, did comply with the 2 percent cap.
”We’re all in tough times,” said Kenyon Drive resident Tony O’Donnell. “They proposed adding a middle school lacrosse team. It would be nice to have that, but I really would rather have police. We need police.”
Resident Luisa Erich-Carr said a third of the town’s residents are senior citizens who have not received a cost-of-living adjustment in their Social Security benefits while their property taxes continue to climb. Ms. Erich-Carr said she thought people on fixed incomes and tax-weary residents voted down the school budget and the municipal tax waiver question mostly because they could.
”Voters have no control over a lot of things, but this they did have control over,” Ms. Erich-Carr said.
The owner of a Plumsted home assessed at the townshipwide average of $378,400 now pays $416 a year in municipal taxes based on a tax rate of 11 cents per $100 in assessed value. The defeat of the waiver means the tax rate increase will be held to 12.9 cents, which works out to $488 a year — a $72 increase.
If the 2 percent levy waiver had passed, the tax rate would have risen to 13.8 cents per $100 in assessed valuation. The annual municipal tax bill would have been $522, an increase of $106 over the current average bill.

