Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Last Night's Council Meeting

Budget was introduced and it's likely taxpayers will see a 4% increase.

Two firefighters were re-hired due to retirements.  In all, eight firefighters will retire on June 1.  Those retirements also allowed for various promotions of lieutenants, captains and a deputy chief.  I can only speculate that the retirements are being spurred on to avoid any pension reform measures being discussed in Trenton.   John Bury wrote about employees being "Scared into Retirement" here and Barron's "A Rush for the Exit" here.  I'm not certain of the exact amount of firefighters who retired this year, but by my count it's at least 12 this year.  The City will start receiving pension bills for those retirees in three years.  Start saving now taxpayers.

Without offering specifics, one councilman indicated possible layoffs and a reduction in supervisory positions.  These and other cost saving measures should have been undertaken years ago.   For many years, long-time resident and council attendee Joe Bianco, who turned 91, advocated for a study to be performed into the structure of the City workforce.  Too bad his efforts fell on deaf ears.    

Joe Lindsey questioned the new five-year (2009-2013) contract for the city garage employees.  Labor attorney Roth indicated those employees' Union negotiated a 0/0/3.9/3.9/3.9 raise structure.  Taxpayers need a better negotiator.  Not only that, it appears it took at least two and a half years to negotiate a contract for a Union consisting of less than 11 employees.   No wonder we need a full-time labor attorney. 

C.P. Moore was again questioned about his broken campaign promise to not take a salary.  Moore fumbled to answer the unanswerable.  "I lied" isn't an easy thing to say.

1 comment:

NFS said...

I received an email indicating Joe Bianco turned 95, not 91. More wow.