history, social security….
medicare, ……..

billions of dollars, the old entitlement shell game !!!

the hard working taxpayer is given the shaft.
the taxpayers pay for just about everything….
we buy the tickets and settle for being red caps !!!! amen.

it takes more than money. “money is the root of all evil!”

It doesn’t make sense to me that we could have only an $8M structural deficit. That would be around 4% of the total and percentage wise small. This doesn’t feel right given that our CPI is less than half the NJ average.

Of course we’re also not counting schools where are deficit is $125M given Missy Balimer’s assertion that the budget will be $290M, we’re paying only $20M and the NJ average is that towns pay half their school budget. We should be paying $145M but are only paying $20M.

A reasonable person might wonder whether a school + municipal budget of $500M ($212M + $290M) makes sense for a town of 80,000. That’s $6250 for every man, woman and child or roughly $15,000 per household.

The budget brigade’s crack analysis team is busy comparing this to other towns.

Your analysis is exactly what we need to as part of our effort to sort out the State’s PILOT money.

Cynthia is leading that but we all need to be clear about what’s what in the budget.

My suggestion is to leave out cost savings for the moment and just worry about the gap between proposed spending and state aid (not PILOT) + the tax increase (i.e. assume we’re still spending $50M / year).

Fair enough?

Perhaps its the $8M + $17M in state aid + $20M tax increase (the tax increase isn’t sustainable) = $45M. I leave out the police OT and put that in a bucket called potential savings along with all other wasted, unneeded programs etc.

I was looking at the Municipal Property Tax relief ($41M)+ $9M in increase in misc. aid + $20M tax increase = $70M.

If I’m wrong then that proves why we need to real thoughtful view.

Now here’s the fun part:

In 2009 we received about $14.8 million last year from a Municipal Revitalization and Economic Recovery Act. Most of the justified costs for this funding is project based, so I don’t believe that this effects our structural costs or is considered a structural revenue. As I understand it, this money isn’t used to pay police, fire dept, muni workers, fill potholes, etc.

Also last year we received $17.2 million in “Special Municipal Aid”. This is really part of the makeup between money we raise and what we spend.

In this years budget, both of the last two items are lumped together in one amount labeled “Capital Cities Aid”. The total amount actually went up about $2.85 million, but which part went up, its anybody’s guess. Why they do nonsense like this is beyond me.

In any case, the structural deficit is currently the $8 million this year minus the $3.5 million in police OT. In general we should consider that amount (~$7 million) plus the $17 million in the municipal aid as our overall structural deficit. True, the energy tax could end and the state could totally not pay us any relief for municipal services, but at that point I would bulldoze down the capitol and sell off the property.

I would add that our structural deficit could be lower as I am sure we could find some other fairly easy places to cut once the books and all of the budget maneuvering is laid out in full.