Despite vocal opposition, the West Windsor Township Council introduced and ordinance that would increase the salary for themselves and the mayor beginning in 2009, giving the public a chance to petition to have the measure put on the November ballot for a referendum. A public hearing on the ordinance is set for Monday, May 19.##M:[more]##
The council voted 3-1, with Councilman George Borek absent and Councilwoman Linda Geevers voting no, to introduce the ordinance.
In the meantime, two people have taken the council up on the offer of organizing a petition to put the measure on the ballot for November 4. Fisher Place resident Pete Weale, a familiar face at council meetings, and Mike Ranallo, a Trenton resident who owns property in West Windsor — both of whom have spoken out against the 50 percent council raise — have begun collecting the 712 signatures needed in order to do so.
Council’s proposal to raise its salary from $5,”000 a year to $7,”500 has been a controversial subject this budget season, receiving criticism from some members of the public and Councilwoman Linda Geevers during recent council meetings. The mayor also has said he disagrees with the proposal, which would also raise his salary from $17,”685 to $25,”000. Both Geevers and Hsueh said they would decline the raise. Also on the agenda on May 19 is a public hearing on the budget.
While the current budget includes funding for the raise in 2008, and the raises would not be in effect until 2009, the council doesn’t have to implement the raise this year. The unused appropriated money would instead be deposited into the general fund in November, when the council can make line-transfers.
Most council members say the raise is intended to cover the expenses they incur while on the job, and that the raises will eliminate the need for submitting reimbursement forms and questions that could be raised when it comes to determining which reimbursements are associated with a council member’s job. Geevers is opposed to the measure, saying that expenses legitimately occurred by council members as part of township business should be submitted and reimbursed. She also says in a time of economic downturn, the council needs to “show leadership” in cutting down on expenses.
In addition, she says, “if the raises are so important to the other council members, then they should put the question on the November ballot,” she said. “It’s a political folly for them to vote in the salary increase now, while telling voters to get the question on the ballot if they don’t like their decision.”
She says that everyone she has spoken with supports having a formal reimbursement policy. “I think it’s standard practice in most companies,” she said. “There are so few expenses that council members put in for that I can’t see getting a $2,”500 raise would justify it.” Now that the money appropriated in the budget for the salary increases won’t be used this year, Geevers says she will support the budget.
During the public comment session at the May 5 meeting, several residents stated their opposition to the proposed salary increases. Weale said the council was asking township employees in other township departments to do more with less money, and now, “we’re having people getting more to do less.”
Ranallo said he put in open public records requests and found that Councilmen Charles Morgan and Will Anklowitz had no reimbursement requests from the township. “This notion of a $2,”500 raise is mind-boggling,” he said. He said a better use of the money would be to spend the time to go through the vouchers submitted for the reimbursement process. “I hope the mayor takes the correct course of action and vetoes,” the move, he said.
The two residents have since started collecting signatures for the petition, and Weale says that in one four-hour period on May 10, the two have already collected 100 signatures. In order to have a referendum put on the ballot, a petition needs to be signed by a number of legal voters equal to at least 15 percent of the total votes cast in the township at the last general election (at which members of the general assembly were elected). Last November 4,”743 votes were cast, and 15 percent of that number is 712, confirmed Township Clerk Sharon Young.
“The effort is to get the matter on the ballot, and then we’re letting people make their own choices,” Weale said. “This is simply in response to a charge that was set forth that if we didn’t like it, we could go ahead and get a referendum.”
Weale and Ranallo are hoping to have the ballot question worded so that it is very clear in asking whether or not residents support the ordinance as written. If the council should turn the salary ordinance down at its May 19 meeting, the signatures would no longer be needed, Weale says.
Resident Bob Akens said during the May 5 meeting he feels the small raises were “peanuts” when compared with some of the other line items in the budget. He said what was ludicrous, instead, was “the 12 percent tax increase in order for the surplus to be raised from 5 percent to 9 percent.” He said that “if everyone was so careful on every expenditure as [they are] in not raising these small salaries,” there wouldn’t be such a high tax increase for residents.
Anklowitz shares this sentiment, and says that what is really important are issues like water bill increases (see story page 16) “that could affect many of our households in West Windsor by $100 a year or more,” and the fact that the council cut the budget, as originally proposed, down by $120,”000.
Charles Morgan also responded to criticism, saying that the OPRA request by Ranallo did not include vouchers he submitted that still had not been paid. One voucher was for a $57 conference call on December 14 in which he was trying to set up a meeting date with the members of the redevelopment finance committee.
The second was a voucher he submitted along with a receipt for the Villa Maria restaurant in Mercerville, where Morgan says he took Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner out to lunch on December 11 to talk about the planning board’s involvement in creating a redevelopment plan. The bill was for $38.58.
According to a memo sent to the council from the mayor, who also distributed it to the press, the request for the two bills was submitted by Morgan the day after the council passed the threshold resolution, and because it was a redevelopment expense, “it is unclear as to how or where it should be charged.” The memo states that once clearer guidelines have been agreed upon and established, the mayor will direct staff to “process this requisition accordingly.” The threshold resolution, however, bars the administration from awarding contracts or making expenditures relating to redevelopment.
“Is it a political expense or a township expense?” Morgan said. “Either pay it or reject it. Don’t put it in your back pocket.”
“There are a lot of expenses which are really debatable,” he said, asking whether a speaking engagement in Atlantic City could be considered to be township business. “Frankly, we should be prohibiting any reimbursements.” This way, increasing the salary by $2,”500 is transparent, he said. “Let’s vote for being forthright with our taxpayers,” he said. “We’re trying to do our job out here, and we’re being burdened” with the expense, he said.
Further, he said, the council’s salary right now, when broken down, has members making $4.75 an hour, compared with the $7.25 minimum wage rate that will be in effect next year. Going through with the raises would increase the council salary to $7.21 an hour. “Some of us are working pretty much full-time, and you deserve that kind of representation,” Morgan said. “We deserve to get paid.”
Geevers countered his point, saying she felt “openness in government is having salary and legitimate expenses you get reimbursed for.”
Before the introduction, Geevers brought to the table a measure she said she created based on a West Windsor-Plainsboro school board reimbursement policy and that of other municipalities. The draft ordinance specifies that council members could be reimbursed for travel expenses they incur in connection with “attendance at municipally related seminars, conventions, conferences, meetings, seminars or other similar gatherings, or other similar gatherings.” The draft also specifies definitions for conventions and conferences, training and seminars, and travel expenditures, and mileage reimbursement. Geevers said having a reimbursement policy will help to alleviate other members’ concerns that questions could be raised when trying to determine which expenses are reimbursable.
Morgan said he thought a lot of work needed to be done on the language draft presented by Geevers, and that issues, like rules for stipends and guidelines for things like meal appropriations, were left out of it. Still, he said, the reimbursement policy could “load up on government and add to the bureaucracy,” because there would be a lot of paperwork involved, and the process would be very time-consuming.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said once the reimbursement becomes just a part of the salary, and the salary is increased, pension would increase along with it. The township pays 16.5 percent of the direct costs for pension, with taxpayers chipping in approximately $403.25 toward $2,”500 of additional salary, he says. “It’s not $2,”500,” he says. “It’s really $2,”900.”
“To me, it’s much more reasonable to have a reimbursement,” Hsueh said during the meeting. “It’s a very straightforward one-two-three process.”
Further, Hsueh said, he knew what he was getting himself into when he took the job, but it is essential for the mayor to have some mileage allowance. “Most of the money I brought to the township is through the meeting I attend” with various boards and state and county agencies, he said. “I need to be visible, I need to be available, and I need to be accessible.”
“I never make any political speeches,” Hsueh added. “I go there and talk to state officials, and talk to program managers for funding to come into West Windsor. You can say it’s political, but how do you define political? I never used any of these occasions to make any personal political gain out of it.”
The ordinance that was introduced states that both inflation and the demands and complexities of attending to public business are imposing increased costs on township elected officials. “Processing numerous small reimbursements requests causes excessive and undue costs to the taxpayers,” the ordinance states. “The Township Council deems it to be a preferable policy to compensate costs through a modest salary increase, which would take effect on January 1, 2009, and thereby permit voters to exercise their rights to a referendum if they so choose.” The ordinance can be vetoed by the mayor if passed.
