It will be business as usual this year for the West Windsor administration in calculating its 2010 municipal budget.
Council rejected a proposal by Councilman Charles Morgan during its November 9 meeting that would have mandated the administration submit a budget with no increase, and also include options outlining various percentage increases.
This came after Business Administrator Robert Hary expressed frustration, particularly with Morgan’s proposal, that the council and administration were not on the same page.
“We are going to give you a budget that is going to be the best budget recommended by the mayor,” Hary said during the meeting, adding that the administration and council share a common goal. After the budget is presented, “we won’t walk away,” and will be there to work with council.
The intent behind Morgan’s proposal was to guarantee the administration was serious in preventing a tax increase in the upcoming budget. He said he wanted to establish an official policy to get the administration to show the council the implications of the alternatives, which would include any increases it may feel are necessary.
Morgan said he thought there was 100 percent agreement on council in May that it wanted to see options for increases in one percent increments, all the way down to a zero percent increase in the 2010 municipal budget. Under his proposed policy, the administration would have been required to show the implications of a zero percent increase — including the areas in the budget that would have to be cut to have a zero percent increase — followed by the implications of a 1 percent increase, and so on.
Morgan said the resolution would set a policy that the administration would also have to make cuts across the board in all departments, not just in one area, which he referred to as “cherry picking.”
Other council members expressed faith in the system. Council President George Borek said that during the pre-budget meeting in September, council asked the administration to listen to its ideas, including no increase in taxes this year. “We had a discussion, not a mandate,” he said.
Councilwoman Linda Geevers pointed to the budget procedure outlined in the Faulkner Act, the statute that governs the council-mayor form of government in West Windsor. “It’s clear the mayor is to deliver one budget to council,” she said, adding that there is supposed to only be one proposed budget. After the budget is submitted, council can conduct a line-by-line review. “It works — I see it as a very open budget process.”
Geevers said council could still ask for a worksheet from the administration detailing why some areas of the budget may have increased.
Hary emphasized that there needed to be a mutual trust between council and the administration, and that he heard council’s concerns loud and clear. Borek wanted to know whether Hary could quickly provide more detailed information after council sees the initial budget. Hary said administration would do that as quickly as it could and that the process would not take months, but rather days or weeks at most.
Borek told Hary to be prepared for added requirements from council once the budget is reviewed.
