MAY 2010

It's A Toy Store is holding its second anniversary party from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 5.

Toy vendors with new, collectible and vintage toys are expected to set up outside the store. There also will be free food and refreshments, door prizes and free comics for kids.

The collectible toy and comic store is at 1256 Harding Highway in the township's Richland Village section. The rain date is either June 6 or 12.

As a state, we cannot correct 20 years worth of problems in one year. We can, however, plan for change over the next three or four years and transition those changes into place fairly and evenly. Shock therapy is not the right treatment for our local governments and schools.

Please slow down, Gov. Chris Christie. Your intentions are good, but you can't throw local government and education into a total tailspin all at once.

A 2.5 percent budget cap is good, as long as you can control all the forces that impact municipal and school budgets that are beyond our control - which you can't at this point. Factors like utilities, fuel costs, health care premiums, insurance and other issues affect our budgets. These factors make a 2.5 percent hard budget cap unrealistic until you put certain items outside the cap.

I understand that times are changing. I have served as an elected official for 19 years - 16 as a very active mayor. I've seen good and bad with local government and school districts - but mostly good. Local government provides a wide range of services and at a fair value.

Governor, I'm asking you to slow down and listen to the concerns of municipal and school officials. We are good citizens who help run our state and educate our children. We can be cost-effective and use good judgment. Why not sit down and listen to our ideas and find some medium ground?

Dear Gov. Christie:

As a state, we cannot correct 20 years' worth of problems in one year. We can, however, plan for change over the next three or four years and put those changes into place fairly and evenly. Shock therapy is not the right treatment for our local governments and schools. This is not an episode of Law and Order, where the case is open and shut in one hour.

Please slow down, Gov. Christie. Your intentions are good, but you can't throw local government and education into a tailspin all at once. A 2.5 percent budget cap is good, as long as you can control all of the forces that affect municipal and school budgets that are beyond local control - which you can't at this point. Expenses like utilities, fuel costs, health-care premiums, and insurance affect our budgets. These expenses make a 2.5 percent "hard" budget cap unrealistic, until you put certain items outside the cap. Many of the changes you plan will take two to four years to phase in. Taking municipal energy-tax receipts away from local governments or slashing surplus dollars from well-performing school districts only hurts property taxpayers more until other issues are resolved.

I understand that times are changing. I have served as an elected official for 19 years - 16 years as a very active mayor. I've seen good and bad with local government and school districts, but mostly good. There are hardworking elected officials in most municipalities around New Jersey who are trying to do the best for their taxpayers and their communities. Gov. Christie, I'm asking you to slow down and listen to the concerns of municipal and school officials. We are good citizens who help run our state and educate our children.

Chuck Chiarello

Mayor

Buena Vista Township

Municipal officials have cut $11.3 million from 30 local school budgets rejected by voters last month, according to resolutions filed with county Offices of Education.

The cuts range from almost $3.5 million by switching health care plans in Egg Harbor Township to $3,204 saved through the superintendent’s wage freeze and furlough in Absecon.

By law, school budgets rejected by voters last month were sent to municipal governing bodies for review and possibly additional cuts. Wednesday was the deadline for the governing bodies to submit a final school tax levy to their county Office of Education.

School boards have 10 days to appeal cuts to the state education commissioner, but so far only one district, rural Weymouth Township in Atlantic County, has notified the county that they plan to appeal. Most school boards have already agreed to the cuts.

Only seven of the 37 defeated budgets in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and southern Ocean counties did not get additional cuts.

Maurice River Township and Downe Township in Cumberland County were already at the minimum school property tax levy the state would allow, so no additional cuts could be made. Officials in Pleasantville and Vineland cut their school budgets to the minimum tax levy.

Estell Manor’s town council opted not to make additional cuts to a budget that was already eliminating much of the small school’s staff.

Lacey Township’s committee decided to make no cuts after the staff agreed to take a wage freeze next year, one of just 31 districts statewide in which teachers have agreed to a freeze so far. Egg Harbor Township teachers agreed this week to take a partial wage freeze to save jobs.

Lacey Township school Superintendent Richard Starodub said township officials also recognized that the defeated budget did not raise property taxes next year.

“It was unusual for our budget not to pass,” he said. The wage freeze, worth about $1.3 million, will save 30 jobs that would have been eliminated.

Officials in Washington Township, Burlington County, also agreed to make no additional cuts, but the school budget hinged on teachers taking a smaller pay increase next year. On Thursday, the teachers agreed to reduce their pay raise for next year from 4 percent to 1.5 percent, Superintendent Richard Goldberg said Friday.

Some municipal governments just provided dollar amounts to cut, and others got more specific with their suggestions. Officials in Buena Vista Township and Buena Borough, who have handled many defeated budgets, provided a five-page list of proposed cuts totalling $324,344 to the Buena Regional School District, representing a 3 percent reduction. The largest item was more than $257,000 saved by privatizing the rest of the district’s busing. Smaller amounts include trimming sports supplies.

“We are asking people to take on multiple responsibilities as an alternative to eliminating jobs,” Buena Vista Township Mayor Chuck Chiarello said. “There is no solace in cutting people at the low end of the salary range, but we tried to spread the pain evenly.”

On Thursday, a Superior Court judge said the state could require school employees to contribute 1.5 percent of their salaries toward their health benefits. Some budgets already anticipated that payment in next year’s budget. The law takes effect today but applies to employees only after their current contracts expire. Employees working under expired contracts, such as in Mullica Township, will begin paying immediately.

Municipal officials got creative with the Mainland Regional budget, coming up with a plan to pay down their debt service using the interest anticipated from $40 million in bonds the district sold for school improvements. The district will cut the debt service by $190,000 and use another $85,000 of the interest to bring back freshman sports. The tax rate will drop by about a half a penny.

“We have the bond money in the bank now so we can use the interest it earns,” Mainland Business Administrator Kim Gniewyk said, adding that the district won’t begin spending the bulk of the money until next year.

Some districts are still grappling with how they will make their cuts. Municipal officials in Greater Egg Harbor Regional’s sending districts want another $1 million cut from the budget, a reduction of 4 percent of the tax levy. The district will switch to another health care plan, saving about $400,000, but is still working on the rest, Superintendent Steve Ciccariello said.

“We had already cut $5.5 million to get to the point where the budget was defeated,” he said, “and we’re opening a new school in September.”

A wage freeze has been discussed. Teachers are also negotiating a new contract, so many options are still undecided.

Weymouth Township’s school board and township committee were unable to come to agreement on their cuts. The committee is asking for an 8 percent cut of $166,082, cutting in half the proposed tax rate increase of 34 cents. Both sides will meet with the county superintendent next week to try to reach a solution before submitting the appeal to the education commissioner.

“We had already cut the proposed tax hike from 53 cents,” Weymouth school Superintendent Donna Van Horn said. “There’s nothing left to cut.”

The township committee’s proposed cuts include eliminating three teachers and cutting health benefits.

Please, slow down, Gov. Chris Christie. Your intentions are good, but you can't throw local government and education into a total tailspin all at once. A 2.5 percent budget cap is good, as long as you can control all the forces that impact municipal and school budgets that are beyond our control -- which you can't at this point. Factors such as utilities, fuel costs, health care premiums and insurance make a 2.5 percent "hard" budget cap unrealistic until you put certain items outside the cap. Many of the changes you plan for in your "toolbox" will take two to four years to phase in. Taking municipal energy tax receipts away from local governments or slashing surplus dollars from good -performing school districts only hurt property taxpayers more until other issues are resolved.

I understand that times are changing. I have served as an elected official for 19 years -- 16 as a very active mayor. I've seen good and bad with local government and school districts, but mostly good! There are hard-working local elected officials in most municipalities around New Jersey who are trying to do the best for their taxpayers and their communities.

Local government provides a wide range of services and at a fair value. In fact, there are some things that local government can do better than anyone else. Examples include seeing that trash and recycling are picked up, maintaining and plowing roads, keeping beautiful parks and playgrounds, protecting our communities with fire, ambulance and police services -- plus so much more.

Gov. Christie, I'm asking you to slow down and listen to the concerns of municipal and school officials. We are good citizens who help run our state and educate our children. We can be cost- effective, and use good judgment. Why not sit down and listen to our ideas and find some medium ground?

Area mayors and government finance experts say a proposed cap of 2.5 percent on local tax levy increases, an idea put forward by Gov. Chris Christie, will strictly limit what municipalities can spend while leaving them vulnerable to costs beyond their control.

Glen Ortman, of the auditing firm Ford, Scott and Associates, sees how officials work to stay within the current cap of 4 percent in budget growth. His take on Christie's latest plan is stark.

Municipalities now have three key exemptions to the 4 percent cap, including increases in certain payments on capital improvement bonds and increases in debt service payments. They also can offset any lost municipal aid, giving them room to raise enough tax to replace it.

"Everything I've read about the state plan for next year suggests that every exemption that we currently have would not be included in the cap," he said. "That can only mean very severe cutbacks."

Christie told mayors gathered in Atlantic City last Thursday that if they wanted to cover mounting costs with additional taxes, they would have to put the increase to a public vote. It was, he said, the only "escape valve."

His proposal, which can be done only by updating the state's constitution, contained one form of wiggle room: The administration may reward towns who spend below the cap one year by allowing them to offset that margin against the following year's budget.

Around the region, municipal officials have spent the past week grappling with that news, looking for new revenue streams while worrying about fixed costs.

"Municipalities have to get a bit creative," said Jim Rutala, business administrator for Ocean City, who has looked for revenue and savings.

While the city has laid off 10 percent of its full-time workforce and 20 percent of part-timers by attrition, Rutala said officials have also asked public worker unions to voluntarily reopen their contracts for renegotiation. Rutala said the city is considering merging its dispatch services with a neighboring town, and that every revenue stream is getting serious consideration.

"We're looking at putting ATMs on the boardwalk," he said. "Then there's sponsorship of our public-access channel. And we're looking at Ocean City-branded merchandise."

But Buena Vista Township Mayor Chuck Chiarello, who criticized Christie's announcement Thursday, said towns could not live under the cap as long as external costs such as salaries, health benefits and pensions for public employees; utilities; energy costs and municipal insurance keep rising.

"I think if those were frozen at 2.5 percent increase each year, most mayors I know could live within a 2.5 percent budget cap," he said.

Christie has proposed also capping public salary increases at 2.5 percent and reforming arbitration processes. But Chiarello said the cost of his public workers' health care rose 17 percent this year. Gas costs have risen close to 10 percent. Premiums for the joint insurance fund, which the township shares with other municipalities, also rose almost 10 percent.

"Those costs don't go away, and putting a spending cap in place simply gives towns no way to meet them," he said.

In the meantime, many municipalities may max out the existing 4 percent cap this year, among them Maurice River Township in Cumberland County and Somers Point in Atlantic County.

Some threaten to throw their hands up and ask for an all-out exception: Mayor James "Sonny" McCullough of Egg Harbor Township has said he already is considering asking the local finance board for a waiver on the levy cap of 4 percent this year.

"I'm not sure we can live within the 2.5 percent, because we're struggling to live within the 4 percent," he said last week, upon hearing Christie's proposal.

But Ortman said he sees the clamp-down on spending as a new kind of "real limit."

Editor's note: The following letter to the editor is in response to a letter that appeared in The Daily Journal on April 27 titled "Why didn't they listen to school voters years ago?" by David Bachinsky of Vineland.

In a letter, Mr. Bachinsky expressed dismay that the Buena Vista Township Committee did not cut the school budget in the years 2008 and 2009 when they were defeated by the voters.

One of the reasons voters elect their local officials is to make good judgment calls. For more than five years, the Township Committee had been requesting the state Department of Education to provide the Buena Regional School District with additional funding to meet the needs of our rural community. In 2008 and 2009, our wishes finally came true when the state provided substantial additional aid to the district. Slashing the budget would not have made a good argument for requesting the additional aid in the future.

In reality, very few people still vote on school budgets, even after Gov. Chris Christie coaxed citizens to turn down budgets throughout the state! For the record, in 2008 7.59 percent of registered voters came out in Buena Vista for the school elections. That means 92.41 percent of the voters chose not to express their opinion. The vote on the budget was 166 yes and 190 no, a 24 vote difference. In 2009, 10.93 percent of the voters came out, which means 89.07 percent stayed home. The vote was 121 approved the budget and 168 rejected it, a 47 vote difference. In 2010, despite the big push by the governor, only 10.57 percent of the voters came out. 305 voted yes, while 470 voted no -- a difference of 165 votes.

In 2010, Gov. Christie took away all of Buena Regional's budget surplus. He cut aid and left the district with many challenges. The Buena Vista Township Committee is going to make decisions that are in the best interest of both our children and our taxpayers. Each time the budget is defeated, the rationale for evaluating the situation might be different. In 2008, 2009 and 2010 voters turned down the school budgets even when there was little or no tax increases involved. You cannot always judge a book by its cover; you must read into it.