It may be playoff season for some professional sports, but West Windsor Council had a grudge match of its own on Monday, April 16, as an amended version of Mayor Hsueh’s 2012 budget ultimately passed by a 3-2 vote, with party lines were clearly drawn.
This year the municipal tax rate will increase by half a penny (.005) or 1.36 percent. The average home in West Windsor valued at $530,000 would pay an additional $26.20 in municipal taxes. The township’s total budget for 2012 will be $37.19 million — $163,000 less than last year’s budget.
The budget reflects two changes in the course of Council’s deliberations, slightly reducing the amount from the administration’s originally proposed budget of $37,340,000 (WW-P News, February 17). Five days ahead of the public hearing Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh sent a memo to council members, reducing the operating budget by $150,000 by using $140,000 from the township’s $7 million fund balance, as well as reducing Planning Board Attorney Gerry Muller’s appropriation by $10,000.
The process of setting the budget was far from pretty as council members bickered and bantered, attempting to one-up one another and even calling into question Robert’s Rules of Order. Councilman George Borek made the first motion for an amendment, and from there tension escalated as Council Vice President Linda Geevers felt Council had no time to deliberate on the budget.
After some debate on the order of discussing the budget and amendments on the table, Council arrived at two votes on amendments: one by Borek, identical to the mayor’s revision, and one suggested by Geevers and Councilman Bryan Maher. Since their non-binding resolution passed, 3-2, on March 26, Geevers and Maher had planned to introduce an amendment to achieve a zero-cent increase in taxes this year. When it became apparent that Borek’s amendment was the likely choice of the majority, Maher suggested reaching $450,000 by taking $150,000 from fund balance instead of $140,000, combined with $200,000 from the liquor license revenue and adding another $100,000 to projected uniform construction code (UCC) revenue. That amendment fell short of passing by one vote.
Councilman Borek explained his reasoning for the $150,000 as continuing with a strategic, prudent method of financial planning. “In 2007 and the start of 2008 we started seeing a lot of different things happening up in the financial world. People made bold moves. Bold moves got this country in trouble,” he said.
Borek then related the situation to West Windsor Township’s own history.”One of the things I’ve always heard from speaking to people in town is that, when I ask them the question of why they came to live in West Windsor, the answer that keeps coming up is stability. Yes, we’ve had increases in the municipal tax levy and tax rate, but it’s because of prudent management and stability we keep it where it is,” Borek said.
Maher countered by saying he and Geevers went out of their way to not suggest a bold move.
“We took a little from here and there — that’s not making bold moves. Frankly, that trimming should have been done irrespectively,” he said. Nonetheless, in line with party affiliation, Borek, Council President Kamal Khanna, and Kristina Samonte voted for Borek’s proposal, which prevailed. Geevers’ motion for additional cuts was seconded by Maher, but that was all the support it got. When it was voted down, several residents in attendance groaned, booed, and shook their heads. The object of some of the booing was Samonte. At the previous council meeting, March 26, Samonte voted in favor of reducing the budget to achieve a zero cent tax increase. But on April 16 she decided to follow Borek’s lead and heed the administration’s revision, for a $150,000 reduction, instead.
Samonte’s game-changing decision was met with contention however, starting with a question from Maher. “With the cut being from $450,000 to $150,000 I’m not really sure where you stand,” Maher asked her.
She answered that using $200,000 out of a $2 million amount from the sale of two liquor licenses, originally proposed by Councilwoman Linda Geevers to be a major chunk of at least a $450,000 budget cut, did not sit well with her.
Maher countered with another question. “Ms. Samonte, is it fair to take $2 million from the existing taxpayers and use it to upgrade this [municipal] building, which will be used for the next 30 years by all future residents at the full expense of residents today? Is that fundamentally fair as opposed to using the vast bulk of it ($1.8 million) for it, and bonding the remaining $200,000?” Maher asked. In a follow-up interview Samonte said her change of mind came from reviewing newly documented concerns of utilizing even a portion of “one-shot” township revenue.
Samonte says she saw evidence that the idea was not the best practice for municipal financial planning. Besides a memo from Mayor Hsueh, Samonte considered input against using the $200,000 from Phoenix Advisors LLC, the township’s financial advisory firm, as well as the state’s Department of Community Affairs. “To me using one-time revenue such as money from the sale of the liquor licenses has been called into question. The Department of Community Affairs has a local finance service on that use of one-time revenue. Basically, they don’t want to see it used to reduce tax burden because it won’t be replicated the following year, and if you do that your budget would have to come under review by the state,” Samonte said.
She added that a big part of her inaugural message regarding township finances was to follow best practices once such information becomes available. But another factor Samonte had to weigh was West Windsor’s strong mayor-council form of government. She respected Mayor Hsueh’s serious stance against using one-shot revenue from the liquor license sales for a temporary tax relief.
“That was the administration’s recommendation, so I felt more comfortable with that as well,” Samonte said.
Another bone of contention for this year’s budget was the anticipated revenue from uniform construction code (UCC) fees, which, as Maher pointed out, appear underestimated at $775,000 for 2012. In the six years prior, 2006 through 2011, UCC fees generated the following revenues (in chronological order): $995,516; $1,07 million; $1.06 million; $1.28 million; $1.75 million and $2.1 million. Maher said several times that such a decrease in expectations was unwarranted. At the April 16 council meeting Geevers said that the administration’s best expectation for 2012 was closer to a million, still $225,000 more than what is budgeted for. But Mayor Hsueh also explained the formulation of that amount in an interview. “Council members had received emails on this before, but in just the first two months of this year, we’ve already seen a reduction of $400,000 in UCC fees collected compared to 2011. Last year was totally unexpected (to gain $2.1 million). We never expected that with the economic downturn only a couple of year behind us. It was a record number of UCC fee revenues that we received, and the reason was that all of the projects going on now in West Windsor submitted their applications in the same year,” Hsueh says.
The mayor added that projects usually submit applications and pay the full UCC money up front through an escrow account. “They pay up front so we receive all the money from them at once. We are not going to receive more money from them this year. That revenue is unpredictable because it depends only on the developers and when they come in,” Hsueh says.
When time for public comments arrived, a handful of voices from both the Democratic side (for the budget) and the Republican side (against the adopted budget) were heard. Michael Donnelly, who was the campaign manager for Borek and Samonte’s West Windsor Moving Forward Democratic slate in last November’s Council election, spoke in favor of the budget, as did Andy Bromberg of Princeton Junction, who contributed funds to the Democratic campaign.
Alvin and Janet Lerner of 67 Rainflower Lane, both spoke about using caution when financial planning is involved. Janet Lerner reminded other members of the public that government must operate differently from the private sector. Alvin Lerner spoke about observing the national outlook with a grain of salt. “Let’s not let the recent euphoria of the markets persuade us. The uncertainty is dreadful,” he said.
On the other side of the spectrum, those who spoke in opposition to the final budget — John Church of 11 Princeton Place, James Solloway of 5 Monroe Drive, Gary Zohn of 42 Hawthorne Drive (one of Maher’s running mates for Council last year), and Marshall Lerner of 3 Sapphire Drive (a long-time leader among West Windsor Republicans) — all conveyed their disappointment at the approved budget reduction. Some people also questioned the factors that swayed the swing vote of Councilwoman Samonte.
Marshall Lerner first did this by trying to point out flaws in the budget presentation delivered by Township CFO Joanne Louth earlier in the evening. Lerner said that the comparisons in Louth’s slides were budget to budget, not indicating the actual amounts spent. “The comparison that is more appropriate and generally accepted as reasonable practice requires that current year’s budgets are based upon current expectations of what will be spent — not what was appropriated to be spent last year,” he said.
“We have excessive reserves, and the reserves represent cushions. There are monies that are set aside and can be called upon if there are unexpected increases in costs. If in fact you take the conservative stance you still have a cushion of $7 million (from this year’s fund balance). That represents 20 percent of what’s currently proposed for spending,” Lerner said.
His finishing comments at the council meeting were directed at two council members, Khanna and Samonte. “When we the voters have a chance to express our opinions in the ballot box, we’ll know that Kamal Khanna is for higher taxes and he’s against economies in our government. We’ll know that Kristina Samonte is easily intimidated, understandably, because she’s new, but she changed her vote because I suspect some pressure,” Lerner said. Lerner also took a shot at Township Attorney Michael W. Herbert, calling him a novice despite the fact that he represents several townships and municipal governing bodies in the area.
Others were more calm in expressing their displeasure.
Sandra Donovan of 20 Sapphire Drive, a former executive with Standard Oil, spoke about her corporate experience and the differences in budget formulation she saw with the township. John Church said that the township revenue expectations were way too conservative. He added that it is ironic to use one-shot revenue for a project that could be fully bonded (referring to the municipal complex project). Meanwhile, James Solloway commented on the lack of budget cuts and lack of etiquette at the meeting.
“This process and this meeting does not reflect well on town council. I was really rather shocked that the council — even those who supported the zero-cent increase — could only find $10,000 of operating budget to cut,” said Solloway. Solloway said that a funny but unflattering phrase came to mind when he thought of West Windsor’s financial practices. “Eat like an elephant but poop like a bird. A $10,000 cut in the operating budget is really pooping like a bird,” he said. Mayor Hsueh contends that what occurred at the budget hearing was contrived to be more of a fiscal, analytical approach than on March 26, when Council President Kamal Khanna was lambasted by Councilman Maher and members of the public. At that meeting Council approved a non-binding resolution to trim $463,000 from the budget (an amount that, on April 16, was clarified as closer to $450,000). At the time Khanna said the resolution, having no tangible carry-over into the budget hearing, was “all part of the game.” At the Monday, April 16, Council meeting it was Maher who questioned whether Council was just playing games as Township Attorney Michael W. Herbert had to clarify procedures from Robert’s Rules once Borek made the initial amendment — and ultimately the definitive cut — to the 2012 budget. After an article appeared about the March 26 Council meeting appeared in the March 30 edition of the WW-P News, Maher met with Mayor Hsueh in private.
“In the beginning he was saying we’ll meet for only 10 minutes, but it turned into a one and a half-hour conversation. I tried to clarify and explain some of the thing we did with this budget, and I gave him a hint then that I will never give way to using one-shot revenue for property tax relief. I made it very clear to him, so for him to say that I only consolidated with some select council members, that’s not true at all. I talked to every single one of them and let them know what I wanted to do,” Hsueh said.
But for one night, the night of the budget hearing and adoption, pure political drama prevailed. On Tuesday, April 17, the day after the hearing, Mayor Hsueh called out what he feels was a ploy that Republican party members orchestrated. In a telephone interview Hsueh said that for weeks the Republican club held meetings to discuss their opposition to the administration’s budget this year, based less on the dollar amount and tax increase involved, but more because their sights are set on the 2013 mayoral election in West Windsor. Mayor Hsueh, who is approaching 11 full years in office, says the township’s Republicans saw an opportunity to attack his leadership in financial planning because a zero-cent increase was not formulated for this year’s budget.
“They tried to coordinate everything to the point that they thought they were going to be able to win this fight. The objective is to try to discredit me in preparation for the next mayoral election. They tried to set the stage for that,” Hsueh says.
