West Windsor has retained the services of a traffic engineer in anticipation of the parking authority’s hearing regarding the compost site off Alexander Road, where the administration has proposed more than 600 parking spaces.
The appointment of traffic engineer James L. Kochenour of Lawrenceville-based Arora and Associates Consulting Engineers was approved by the board at the conclusion of its late-night October 12 meeting.
Kochenour, a manager in Arora’s traffic engineering division, will be paid $135 per hour for his services throughout the remainder of 2011. “We did this because the parking authority retained the services of the planning board traffic consultant, who we actually have under contract. I thought it was improper for us to go ahead and accept his testimony, so to avoid a conflict of interest I wanted independent testimony, as we like to do for all hearings,” said Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner.
Kochenour will review the parking authority’s plans and the preliminary diagram of 650 spaces that Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh first presented to 100 members of the public at the September 19 town council meeting (when the InterCap settlement was passed). Kochenour will draft a report and testify at the hearing, scheduled for the next planning board meeting — scheduled for Wednesday, November 9, due to three cancellations before the November 8 election.
Gardner said the board interviewed four traffic engineering firms but selected Kochenour because of his 41 years of experience in both the private and public sectors, having served at the NJ Department of Transportation (DOT) and with New Jersey Transit.
Gardner said Kochenour’s services will be evaluated at year’s end as the board will interview all the professional consultants and positions currently employed including its attorney, planner, and others. The board generally operates on an annual contract basis with its consultants, and Gardner says the township’s annual review process will help in future planning.
“We just feel that it’s essential that we keep abreast of the various professionals in the respective field in which we retain their services, and also look at the need for their services. Every governmental agency should be doing that, especially in these dire economic times,” he said.
#b#Council to Vote on Health Consultant#/b#
Given the increasing complexity of issues surrounding healthcare and pension benefits, West Windsor Township hopes to hire a part-time healthcare consultant. Business Administrator Robert Hary will present a resolution to hire a consultant — at a cost of $50,000 a year — at the Council meeting on Monday, October 24.
Hary expects the consultant to work on the town’s Medicare part D application; Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP) for the federal government; and reviews of employee benefits, contracts; claims history, and actuary services.
“Every three years you have to do an actuary estimate of what your healthcare costs and liabilities are from that point forward,” Hary explained at the October 11 meeting.
Hary said one more big need the consultant will fill is assisting the township in negotiating various insurances available in the open market, as the township must shop around and provide services as a union contractor.
In addition the consultant will promote healthy living and weight loss consultations and lectures within the municipality as well to encourage employees to be healthier and, in theory, fall ill less often.
At the October 11 meeting Council members Linda Geevers and Diane Ciccone touched on budget savings for 2012, but when it came to the healthcare consultant strategy and cost evaluation Geevers made it clear that Councilman Charles Morgan should help assess the idea. Morgan has been away since the council voted on the InterCap settlement on September 19, but he is set to return on October 24.
The proposed consultant is a manager from Frankel & Company in Jersey City and would cost $50,000 for one year, and his proposed costs would be lessened by $2,500 per year if a longer term as adopted. The administration sent out 12 requests for quotations but only two were submitted.
“We want to hire a consultant, not a broker, someone who is working for us solely. If you have a broker the town does not pay them directly because they collect their percentage from the insurance company. That scares us,” Hary said.
The shift in thinking about healthcare comes from legislation passed in May, 2010, which, Hary says, changed the landscape of healthcare in a municipality.
“Big change. More money to the municipalities from employees and also less take-home pay for employees,” Hary said.
Until the law passed employees were paying 1.5 percent of their salary towards their healthcare insurance. With this new legislation employees are now going to pay a percentage of the cost of the premium, not their salary.
Hary said individuals who are getting paid six figures and above would pay 35 percent where as lower wage earners would pay considerably less, all the way down to 3.5 percent.
Also at the meeting on October 11, West Windsor Township CFO Joanne Louth spoke about municipal employee pensions, which changed with the passing of the New Jersey’s Pension and Healthcare Reform Bill on June 20.
“Until last week there was going to be an increase in the township’s pension costs but there was an initiative set forth from the Governor’s office. The police and fire pension annual employer liability was revised significantly downward,” she said.
As of October 1 all police and fire employees will go from paying 8.5 percent of their salary towards their pension to paying 10 percent. Also effective October 1 the township’s PERS (public employee retirement system) will be raised 1 percent, from 5.5 to 6.5. Over the next seven years they will gradually go up another 1 percent. The increase will ultimately be 2 percent.
The increases of 1.5 percent for police and 1 percent for public employees come directly out of employees’ paychecks. Separately from this the township also has to pay pensions, but now West Windsor’s pension line will be reduced in a net amount of $178,544. The PERS will increase $42,208 while police and fire pensions will decrease by $220,789. Louth said this marks “the first time in history” that the pension line item has been reduced — typically it has been a significant increase annually.
