CY 2010 Budget Adoption Delayed For Last-Minute Fix
(Reprinted from Amboy Beacon, Sept. 29, 2010)
SOUTH AMBOY — At a sparsely-attended Special Meeting last week, the City
Council conducted a scheduled public hearing on amendments to the Calendar
Year 2010 Budget which would increase local taxes by $722,576 but took no
action on the spending plan, voting instead to schedule another Special
Meeting to be held early this week at 6 p.m. at City Hall, N. Broadway.
City Law Director John Lanza and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Terance
O’Neill were absent from last week’s Special Meeting, called specifically
to hold a public hearing and take a final vote on the CY 2010 Budget.
The amendments as introduced earlier would increase the total amount of the
CY 2010 Budget by $1,553,543, from $13,993,033 to $15,546,576, and the
amount to be raised by local taxes by $722,576, from $7,129,425 to
$7,852,001. But City Auditor Gary Higgins said that “within the past hour at-most”
before the Special Meeting last week, certain unnamed “developers” had
provided city officials hope that they might be able to anticipate an
additional “$800,000” in new revenues. “If the $800,000 comes-through, there will be about a $30 increase for this calendar-year,” he stated. Higgins indicated that a state Department of Community Affairs (DCA)
official would have to approve the “other revenues” in order for the city
to include them in the CY 2010 Budget. “Normally, DCA doesn’t let you anticipate funds,” City Council President Fred Henry stated. “Talking with the DCA people today, they said they’d
allow us to do it.” “It appears that the developers are providing us with the documents we need
so we can move-forward,” Mayor John O’Leary said. A source familiar with municipal budgeting indicated to the Amboy Beacon that DCA will allow municipalities to anticipate revenue from developers
“only if there’s signed contracts.” In anticipating revenues, a municipal government runs the risk of not
collecting that revenue — part of the reason for neighboring Perth Amboy’s
fiscal problems. The document attached to the meeting-agenda last week appeared to be
identical to the earlier one distributed to the public. The new tax-increase shown there would be on top of the $39 hike previously-announced by the Administration and the Council on a home
assessed at $266,000, the average in South Amboy. Using the numbers provided with the
CY 2010 Budget as introduced, the amended Budget would result in a $268 tax-hike on
the average home. According to the amendments introduced the previous week, 38 of 49
line-item accounts would be increased, while only 11 line-item accounts would be
decreased. A Special Meeting was scheduled for last week despite the fact that Henry
had announced at the Sept. 1 meeting that a public hearing would be held on
amendments to the Calendar Year 2010 Budget at the Council’s Sept. 15
meeting.The calling of a Special Meeting to adopt amendments to the Calendar Year
2010 Budget was specifically rejected when it was suggested at the Sept. 1
meeting by former Councilman Stanley Jankowski, now a Board of Education
member. “You can’t pass it (the Budget) that night,” Jankowski insisted at that
time. “You have to have two readings.”
“They can do it the same night,” attorney Thomas Lanza, sitting-in for his
brother, John Lanza, stated. No legal counsel attended last week’s Special
Meeting. “Why not just have a Special Meeting on the Budget?” Jankowski asked. “You
could be sitting here for hours.” “Hopefully, that’s not going to happen,” Henry said, before moving-on to
another subect and then adjourning the Sept. 1 meeting. Holding a Special Meeting on a Tuesday precluded most of the public from knowing about the hearing and about the coming increase in local taxes
because the reporters for the two out-of-county daily newspapers that cover the
meetings were absent from the previous week’s regular Council meeting, and
the reporters for the two weekly newspapers that cover the meetings do not
publish on Tuesdays. The same holds-true for holding a Special Meeting on a Monday, although one
of the reporters for an out-of-county daily newspaper that covers the
meetings was present for the Special Meeting. In addition to the eight-page Budget Resolution attached to the meeting-agenda, Higgins provided a 20-page Budget Presentation which he
said “complied with” the “Best Practices Checklist” due to be submitted to state
officials by Oct. 1. Some of the numbers included in the Higgins document differed from the
Budget Resolution, including the amount to be raised by local taxes, showing an
increase of $694,138, from $7,157,863 to $7,852,001. Business Administrator Camille Tooker had noted at the last regular meeting that the final CY 2010 Budget had to be approved by the Mayor and Council
no later than Friday, Sept. 24. There was no specific mention of an extension being granted by DCA,
although Higgins said, “We’ll be working on it (the Budget) the next couple of days.” At the Sept. 1 meeting, resident Eileen Ryan disputed city officials’ accounts of why approval of the CY 2010 Budget by DCA has been delayed for several months. Ryan said she spoke with a woman named “Amelia,” who she said told her
that she was overseeing DCA’s review of South Amboy’s spending plan. “According to the information she gave me — and I don’t think she’s wrong — she told me that DCA made several requests to the City of South Amboy about items in the Budget that they needed more information about, and there
was no response whatsoever from the City of South Amboy,” Ryan said. But Tooker denied Ryan’s information, including the identity of the person reviewing the CY 2010 Budget. "The person who’s reviewing our Budget is a male,” Tooker said. However, at the last regular Council meeting, Tooker said the DCA person doing the review is named “Tina.” Henry said at the last regular meeting that the information given by Tooker was correct, implying that Ryan’s statements were incorrect. “I called, and DCA did confirm what Camille said,” he stated. A short time later, Henry said that “some of it (what Ryan had said) was
correct, yes, but the timeline wasn’t.” “I will make that call (to DCA) tomorrow (Sept. 16),” Ryan declared.
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