JERSEY CITY – Highlighting millions of dollars in spending cuts in 2010 and new administrative goals for 2011, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy delivered his State of the City Address last night to an enthusiastic crowd of political supporters and high-level administration employees.
As predicted, city finances and public safety were featured prominently in the City Hall address.
Noting that the $477.3 million municipal budget “is the central issue facing my administration and [the] governing body,” Healy listed several reductions in state aid totaling $70 million before detailing spending cuts by the administration to offset the cuts.
“For the past two years, this administration has implemented 12 furlough days each year, saving the taxpayers a total of $4 million. Since 2005, the entire city workforce has been reduced by 15 percent from 3,100 employees to 2,600,” Healy said during the speech. “Last year we laid off nearly 300 seasonal and provisional employees, and a plan to reduce our civilian workforce by an additional 10 percent was sent to Trenton…We are working on a plan to consolidate the services of our Department of Public Works with the Jersey City Incinerator.”
He also discussed the recent contract amendment the city negotiated with the police union, a deal that saved nearly $4 million in tax dollars this year and averted the layoffs of 82 officers.
Healy reiterated a promise he made earlier this month that property taxes will be stable under the next municipal budget, a vow that at least one councilman and some residents questioned after the speech.
Ward E City Councilman Steven Fulop said after the speech that he heard nothing in Healy’s address that will avert a 7 to 13 percent property tax increase next year, despite the mayor’s promises.
The City Council will vote on the next municipal budget next month.
Healy also stated as goals: a second gun buy-back program, the completion of efforts to centralize the city’s dispatch operations, and bringing new corporate ratables to Jersey City.
For more coverage of the mayor’s State of the City Address, please check this weekend’s edition of the Jersey City Reporter. – E. Assata Wright
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