The City Council voted 6-2-1 on Wednesday night to approve a $123.8 million budget that covers city spending from last July 1 through this coming June 30. While the state-appointed fiscal monitor and the city’s new finance director said this was a “real” budget and contained none of the gimmickry and temporary band-aids of the past, several critics wanted more cuts.
At the meeting, recently hired Finance Director Nick Trasente gave a rundown of the document. He and other officials have noted that approximately $30 million in this year’s budget will be taken off the top automatically next year because the amount this year covers taxes that were collected too late for last year’s budget.
Council members Beth Mason and Peter Cunningham voted against passage of the budget Wednesday night, and Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer abstained. All three said there wasn’t enough done to lower taxes.
Zimmer and Cunningham also said they wanted more information from a city audit that was not made available, but Fiscal Monitor Judy Tripodi said she invited them to look at specific pages and they failed to do so.
Mason and Zimmer, as well as Councilman Peter Cammarano (not to be confused with Peter Cunningham), are running for mayor this May.
‘Honest budget’
“This is an honest budget; there’s no way you’re getting around that,” Council President Nino Giacchi said at the meeting.
Cammarano said many council people played a role in the creation of the budget and that the administration was open to suggestions, although he agreed that taxes could still be reduced even more.
“That levy has to come down,” he said, after the “explosive growth” the council oversaw in the previous year.
Trasente said the next budget will be built “from the ground up,” requiring each director to justify any spending. He also said that that the process will begin as soon as possible. He said that this year, a lot of work had to be done in the last few weeks.
Mason takes on Tripodi
Cammarano has criticized his mayoral opponents, Mason and Zimmer, for voting against last year’s budget, ultimately forcing the state monitor to come in. Tripodi imposed a 47 percent property tax increase on Hoboken this year in order to fill a budget gap and correct problems from the past. Cammarano has said that Hoboken could have solved its own problems and lessened the tax burden this year.
Mason responded to this point at Wednesday’s meeting, saying the council was right to not approve last year’s budget. “This [new] budget sadly shows what we all knew,” she said, noting that the current budget had to cover over-expenditures and revenue shortfalls that the council complained were being hidden last year. She said she now feels “vindicated.”
But Mason also said Tripodi has “unfortunately done very little…to fix it.” She said her request to the administration for forensic audits was never entertained this year, and thus, the budget did not contain enough spending cuts.
Mason and several other council members had set a goal of cutting the budget to $90 million.
“I cannot in good conscience vote ‘yes’ on this budget,” Mason said at the meeting.
What happened to the mistakes?
Several of the council people complained Wednesday that they have not seen anyone held accountable or any solutions to the various fiscal mistakes that were uncovered from last year.
Zimmer and Cunningham both pointed out that internal audits of the various city departments promised by Tripodi and conducted by state workers were never completed, and the annual audit of last year’s operations was never finalized. None of the council members were given a draft of the document to review.
Tripodi had said in recent weeks that negative findings about the city’s finances were in a “rough draft” of the audit that listed some administrative shortcomings from last year. She had said the audit would be used to guide internal policy and budget creation. But ultimately, the findings have not been released.
“I am actually pleased with the fiscal monitor,” Cunningham said at the meeting. “But we’re still waiting on the audit. I feel like the fiscal monitor has blown through a number of deadlines.”
Tripodi said on Friday that she had invited the council members – specifically Zimmer and Cunningham – to come into her office to review requested pages from the draft of the annual fiscal audit, but that they never followed up.
According to Tripodi, any accusation that the information was not available is “just not true.”
“Somebody needs to pay for what’s happened.” – Peter Cunningham
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Cunningham listed a number of issues that were never fully addressed: missing parking meter money, police disciplinary hearings, and a $4.2 million bill for a botched early retirement incentive plan.
That’s why, he said, he voted against passage of the budget.
Zimmer abstained from voting, claiming that the administration promised more information and never provided it.
“I talk to young people who are losing their jobs and I talk to seniors on a fixed income…and we [in government] have to tighten our belts,” she said.
Trasente said state employees brought in to do departmental audits, including an audit of police and fire operations, were pulled out of Hoboken by the state because their services were needed elsewhere.
“I just feel like this is Ms. Tripodi’s budget, and I’m going to be abstaining on it.” – Dawn Zimmer
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Layoffs coming
In keeping with their need to cut spending, the city submitted a layoff plan to the state last week, although they never completed the departmental audits that would have dictated which cuts were needed.
Police and firefighters are part of the cuts, city sources said last week, but the scope of the plan has yet to be released since it has not been approved by the state and workers have not been officially notified.
Tripodi said the information gleaned from a preliminary review and analysis by the state workers will be the basis for the layoff plan.
Seven provisional employees were let go in January, paving the way to enact layoffs to the other workers in accordance with state civil service laws.
Timothy J. Carroll may be reached at tcarroll@hudsonreporter.com.
Council meetings have been standing room only for last few months, but at last week’s budget hearing, the crowd was smaller.
Resident Scott Siegel requested that notes or overview documents be provided with the budget, akin to what the Board of Education released last week. He also recommended use of an overhead projector, as was used to explain the school budget.
Siegel also commended the five council members who voted against the budget passage in 2008.
“The last budget was Dave Roberts’ budget,” he said. “I really want to thank the five people who voted ‘no’ on it.”
Maurice “Moe” DeGennaro, echoing Siegel’s sentiment, said it would be nice if the budget came with some explanatory documents, “like in the old days.”
Cheryl Fallick clarified an explanation in last week’s Reporter that the city deficit began in the 1990s because of a budget shortfall that was the result of two Port Authority development projects voted down by public referenda in 1990 and 1992. She said that at the time, the city was at fault for taking a $7 million loan on the first project before approval, and using that debt to leverage votes in the referendum. “The real catalyst was the disgraceful financial scam of 1989,” Fallick said.
Resident Donna Antonucci said she is preparing a detailed health care analysis that could be used when the city begins negotiations with union representatives. She also applauded the council for inviting the state takeover, calling it the “most expedient way to deal with a rogue mayor.”
Richard Pasquarelli, an outspoken member of the local Hoboken Revolt tax group, said it is time to move away from the bad budgeting of the past. “I’m looking forward to next year’s process,” he said simply.
Margret O’Brien, a local crossing guard, spent hours at the meeting just waiting for her turn to speak – and when she did, she noted that the city’s clock at 11th Street is off by 13 minutes. She had complained at a previous meeting that many of the city’s clocks had not been reset to reflect the time change. Now that they have been changed, the 11th Street one still needs a readjustment, she said.
Jacqueline Algarin, an 18-year-old Hoboken High graduate now studying at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City, spoke before the council about the effect the development in town has on long-time residents. She said that among other things, it raises retail prices. She also noted that all of the development so far hasn’t helped the school system.
She said condos keep popping up, “yet, we are unable to have our children reach proficiency in standardized tests.”
Algarin said in a later interview that she was motivated to speak before the council because a professor at college told her, “Your education failed you.” – TJC