Dear Editor:
Three weeks ago the mayor lost the fourth top City Financial Official (DeStefano, Stack, Cotter, Lenz) of his two year administration. It is past time for residents to wonder about the guy who is staying, not the scapegoats that are going, and to be very concerned about what is chronically wrong. The responsibility for the City budget and financial policy reside with the City Council and the Mayor. A municipal CFO is responsible only to provide information to the policy makers for making decisions; a CFO does not make spending policy. A CFO is under fiduciary and legal responsibility to enforce municipal accounting practices and code.
There are only three possible explanations:
1. The Mayor believes he can shift the blame for the overspent budget and emergency appropriations to the CFO in the public’s eyes.
2. CFOs refuse to ‘cook-the-books’ as desired by the Council and Mayor. This causes a bad relationship and results in the Mayor firing the CFO in favor of another crony who may be less scrupulous.
3. The Mayor has chosen three incompetent or otherwise unacceptable Directors in a row for the position.
What other explanation could there be? Any way you look at it, I have no faith that the Roberts’ Administration can steer Hoboken back to solid financial ground. I have every belief that this Administration will make the financial problems worse. The fiscal year starts July 1, and there is not one word of the budget discussion coming from the Mayor’s office or the City Council. If the City Council were serious about holding down taxes, wouldn’t they be looking for places to cut back right now? I would.
Daniel deCavaignac
Candidate for 6th Ward City Council