Dear Editor:
In last week’s Hoboken Reporter, Theresa Burns responded to my letter to the editor (8/15) regarding the BOE’s progress to date. She claims that the BOE savings did not amount to the $1.97 million that I substantiated in that letter to which I give Ms. Burns the following retort:
You obviously did not read the Transportation Audit that was completed just before the BOE election. It clearly states that the auditors were surprised to find that aides were getting overtime. The overtime to aides is just one example that constitutes the $200,000 in structural waste. I have posted the audit to my website donnaforhoboken.com so everyone can see it in black and white.
As far as the $400K in unaccounted fuel costs, go to the July BOE meeting video. The Transportation Sub-committee Chair states that she has not gotten a clear answer on where all the fuel is going. She stated that the dept head did not have a clear answer when asked if we are billing the municipality or not. She stated, on record, that the money in question is about $400K.
It’s the very reason why I have since OPRA’d a full 12 months of billings against the Hoboken Rec Program budget from the municipality. I see NO ENTRIES FOR PAYING THE DISTRICT FOR FUEL. The budget is also posted to donnaforhoboken.com.
It begs an even more alarming question, if the $400K cannot be accounted for by the Rec Program, where is the money going? Are we being charged for non-municipal, non-district expenses against that line? Is there a mistake, theft or fraud? Why is it taking so long for the Dept. Head to give the Sub-Committee Chair a clear answer? She has asked several times and has only gotten some garbled BS.
I also wrote a letter to the editor that was not published last week that acknowledges that at the August 18th meeting the BOE hired replacements for a couple of positions. In other words, Ms. Burns, the $1.097 million was the total as of July 31st. You made no acknowledgement that my letter pre-dated the August 18th meeting where there were rehires.
The running total as of the August 18th BOE meeting is $860K. To see that letter intended for the 8/22 Hoboken Reporter with all of the math, go to donnaforhoboken.com. It was also posted to Hobokenrevolt.com on August 19th. It also contains more information regarding the Rec Program.
You stated my number was wrong, yet you supplied no number of your own? Why don’t you supply a complete list of positions that have been eliminated since, let’s say, May 9th, their corresponding salaries and value of fringe benefits? Is my number materially correct? What do you come up with? Please cite the source and show the math for your information.
Donna Antonucci
PS: I did not include the clerical/lower level layoffs in my 8/15 letter, that Jack Raslowski initiated before the turnover to the new Board. I didn’t include these because A) the new Board had nothing to do with those layoffs B) the new Board has intimated that we don’t need layoffs at the lower levels per se. The bloat is in higher level roles that are costly but don’t add commensurate value.