After a heated debate over a proposed 50 percent salary increase, the West Windsor Township Council narrowly introduced the township’s $35.4 million budget with a vote of 3-2 on April 21. And now council members on both sides of the issue are proposing their own measures relating to the salary/reimbursement debate, scheduled for discussion on Monday, May 5.##M:[more]##
The budget — which carries a tax rate increase of 3.4 cents, down from the 3.6 cent-increase originally proposed — will be up for public hearing on Monday, May 19. The budget originally carried a tax rate of 31.57 cents per $100 of assessed value, increasing overall by $2.6 million and carrying a tax levy of $19.7 million. The council has since cut about $120,”000 from the overall budget, lowering the tax rate by two-tenths of a penny. The owner of a house assessed at the township average of $556,”973 will see an increase of about $189.37 in taxes, for a total $1,”748.90 tax bill this year under the proposed spending measure. A public hearing on the budget is set for Monday, May 19.
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 both the public and Councilwoman Linda Geevers, with both parties continuing to speak out against the move before the budget’s introduction. The mayor also has said he disagrees with the proposal, which would also raise his salary from $17,”800 to $25,”000.
Throughout budget sessions, Council President Will Anklowitz has said he spends much more than $5,”000 a year on cell phone bills, gas costs, and other expenses associated with serving as a council member and just wants to “break even.” He also argued that the amount the mayor or council spends in expenses, like mileage reimbursements, should be included in the salary. This way, questions pertaining to whether or not the money sought in reimbursements is actually related to job expenses, or if it should be considered a personal expense, won’t be raised.
Discussion on the salary and whether to cut the amount budgeted for the Environmental Commission from $10,”000 to $3,”000 dominated the discussion.
About 20 members of the public, mostly from Village Grande, were in attendance for the meeting, and those who spoke mostly seemed to opposed the council’s proposal to give itself a raise.
One resident responded to some council members’ claims that they put in more time and spend more money on issues relating to their duties than they are paid. “Has council used time efficiently?” Lakeshore Drive resident Joan Bharucha asked. “Perhaps it’s not that they are spending too much time, but that they are accomplishing too little.”
Village Grande resident Paul Pitluk said he’s heard the council talk about fiscal responsibility and monetary constraint, but “I feel that if you pass this increase in salary, you’re sending the wrong message.” He said the raise was “totally uncalled for, and the public is very much against that.”
Resident Andy Bromberg said when he initially thought the council deserved the raises. He said, though, that “It will be politically not worth it for you guys to do this.” He asked whether it was possible that the council could instead ask for an annual raise every year based on reimbursement.
Geevers joined the members of the public in the criticism, and eventually the conversation turned into a heated dialogue. During discussion over the money to allot the Environmental Commission, Geevers remarked, “We’re asking everybody else to cut, and we’re raising our salaries.”
Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman, in the meantime, asked Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh about a position she says he took two years ago with regard to pay increases. She said that the mayor told her that if council supported it, he didn’t have a problem.
Hsueh said he was not referring to a salary increase, but rather a cost-of-living adjustment, and that he never said he supported a salary increase of 50 to 100 percent. Kleinman asked whether he would opt out of taking his salary increase this year, he said he would. “This year, to me, is not the right timing,” he said. He said if the economic situation wasn’t as gloomy as it is this year, and if council and the administration worked together to get more accomplished, he would consider a cost-of-living adjustment.
After the meeting, Hsueh explained that two years ago, he told her that if council was willing to reinstate the policy for annual cost of living adjustments, he had no objections, as long as there was a majority on council to go along with it. Council ended the cost of living adjustment policy, which he said would be about a 3 to 4 percent yearly increase, about 10 years ago, he said.
“This is an economic downturn,” he added. “We lost a lot of money in revenues. When we cut all of the other programs, to me, it’s not the right time to talk about an increase.”
Hsueh also agreed with a point that Geevers made during the meeting that “every time you add money to the salary, it means the township will have to pay more pension,” he said. He also agreed with Geevers’ suggestion during the meeting that there should be a reimbursement policy drafted so that there could be a sound policy in place to reimburse the council and mayor for their travel and other expenses related to the job.
Kleinman said questions could be raised about what people are reimbursed for. She pointed to a recent conference she and Councilman Charles Morgan were required to attend that required them to travel about 80 miles because they couldn’t get out of their commitments to attend it when it was held in Princeton. She pointed to this is as one of those scenarios in which people might raise questions about reimbursements. Getting rid of the procedure of submitting reimbursements and including it in the salary is a better option, she said. “This way, it’s very clear.”
Geevers said that going to a conference is a legitimate expense, and they should have submitted the travel for reimbursement. “I’m saying that you should put in for it. It should be reimbursable.”
Morgan said there are other expenses that might be questioned. He said, for example, if he went out to lunch with a planning official to discuss redevelopment, it would be hard to prove that it was related to his duties. The salary increase would eliminate that and “save administration the expense of dealing with the vouchers.”
Kleinman asked Geevers whether she would take the salary increase, and Geevers said she couldn’t “in good conscience” do so, knowing that “everyone I have talked to in the community” was opposed to the idea. Her comments drew applause from the audience.
Two members of the Environmental Commission also spoke, asking council to keep the $10,”000 requested this year in the budget for the commission. The council had looked at reducing it to $3,”000 because in past year, the commission had never spent more than that amount. “How do you budget $10,”000 for something that hasn’t been able to spend $3,”000?” Anklowitz asked.
Chairman Mike Hornsby said the commission made a presentation to council in January, explaining the initiatives called for in the Sustainable West Windsor 2007 plan, which outlined ways in which the township and its employees could reduce their impact on the environment, and set out a list of tasks to do. “That plan does come at a price,” Hornsby said, adding that initiatives include energy auditing, water use auditing, and implementation of environmentally-friendly purchases. “We need consultants to help us.”
Environmental Commission and Planning Board member Marty Rosen echoed the sentiment. “This year we have a plan; we have a set of actions,” he said. Further, he said, “there’s no question in my mind that the $10,”000 will be fully used.”
Kleinman said that because the commission was going to use the full amount this year, and even though its members haven’t yet make an exact proposal as to how they were going to do it, the council shouldn’t reduce the amount.
However, as the budget was prepared for introduction, only the $3,”000 was listed for the Environmental Commission, and Chief Financial Officer Joanne Louth told the council that making changes to any one line item that exceeds 10 percent, which in the case of the council’s putting back in the $7,”000 to complete the full $10,”000 for the environmental commission, it would have to re-notice it, and introduce it at a later time, which could mean the township would face penalties.
Geevers said that the council placed $15,”000 into the GroWW event in the fall, and the organization had said it might not need all of that money. She asked whether the leftover money could be used to pay consultants to help the Environmental Commission carry out the sustainability plan. Louth said transfers couldn’t be done until November 1, and also that the township couldn’t authorize the consulting work to be paid after the transfer is made without first having those monies available.
Business Administrator Chris Marion said he did have money in his administration’s consulting budget that could potentially be used to pay for consultants to help carry out initiatives in the plan.
Township Tax Assessor Steve Benner described West Windsor’s tax revenues. He told them that there is a diminishing supply of developable land to bring in more ratables. “The past several years, our commercial development has been dwindling,” he said. There will be no new rollbacks, less new residential homes, and less added commercial properties in 2008, Benner said. “We have nothing coming into the pipeline really,” he said. And, “given the economic climate today, we know of projects that are going slower than anticipated.”
Louth said that taking $4.2 million out of surplus this year, to help offset taxes — Morgan and Anklowitz had wanted to use surplus to bring the tax rate increase down to at least 2.6 cents, as opposed to 3.4 cents — would leave the township with $3.3 million. “Unless we regain that during the year, that will be the base of our surplus for 2009,” Louth said. And not replenishing that surplus, in the worst-case scenario, she said, could leave a $900,”000 shortfall in the budget used to offset other areas, from which the council would have to cut next year. “We’re using a lot of surplus very quickly and simply not regenerating it,” she said.
Ultimately, the budget that was introduced included the salary increases and the surplus intact, with cuts to the Environmental Commission to $3,”000. Morgan and Geevers voted against introducing the budget.
Since the budget’s introduction, Geevers has worked on a draft policy for reimbursements, which she says will be “reflective of a current informal practice for reimbursements.” She has requested it be put on the agenda for the council’s next meeting on Monday, May 5, since Anklowitz has placed an ordinance on the agenda to formalize the salary increases for the mayor and council. “For me, it’s just the beginning of a conversation on reimbursable expenses,” Geevers said.
The draft ordinance proposed by Geevers 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 for council members who use their personal cars for official travel on behalf of the township. The draft also calls for council members to be permitted “to submit letters to the clerk’s office for mailing if those letters are in response to an issue raised by a resident, taxpayer or member of the public.”
The draft calls for council members to submit a reimbursement voucher with receipts to the clerk’s office within 30 days that would ultimately end up on the council’s bills and claims list. 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.
At the same time, Anklowitz has placed an ordinance on the agenda for salary increases proposed during the budget discussions to be effective January 1, 2009. The ordinance, titled, “An ordinance providing an opportunity for the voters to review the salary of the mayor and council,” states that “reimbursements of expenses incurred by township elected public services has been arbitrary and capricious,” and that “processing numerous small reimbursement requests causes excessive and undue costs to the taxpayers.”
Also scheduled for the Monday, May 5, meeting is the open mic session at 7 p.m. During the open mic Robbinsville Mayor David Fried will address that town’s experience with redevelopment. Anklowitz sent out letters to hundreds of residents on April 25 advising them of the open mic session.
