W. Caldwell Presents Budget, Pushes Back Adoption

Once faced with a potential $1.1 million deficit, the Township of West Caldwell eliminated several full- and part-time municipal positions and nearly had to terminate two police officers this year.

It's been a long budget process that began in the fall and it's not quite over yet.

Town Administrator Andrew Katz presented the 2010 budget at Tuesday night's council meeting, but the governing body voted to postpone adoption of the $18,725,313 budget with a 2-percent tax increase until likely after July 1.

"We're planning on applying for extraordinary aid, although we know it's a long shot this year. We don't know what the legislature is going to do—among the two-dozen hearings, they are going to have they are about halfway through. You never know what may change," Mayor Joseph Tempesta said.

"Once we know the picture clearer, which I don't believe is going to be until the wee hours of the morning of July 1. I don't think we'll be adopting the budget before then. It could be as late as August or September."

The governing body initially introduced in March what Tempesta called a "temporary budget" that included a 4 percent tax increase. However, Katz has since found more than $200,000 worth of reductions and additional revenue to reduce the tax hike in half.

According to Tempesta, the current budget will pose a $4 per month or $48 annual increase to residents with an average township home assessed at $240,000.

"We recognized the difficult times in the economy, what our revenues were at the time and we made some very difficult decisions. This budget is a solid budget. It's one that I think is a very fair budget. It shares a lot of pain," Tempesta said.

"We made difficult decisions with our employees. We eliminated several positions, full-time and part-time, we had shared sacrifice among the current non-union employees who did not take a wage increase this year. Our union employees made significant contributions to their medical benefits. So everyone shared in the sacrifice to make what I feel is a very responsible budget."

More than 20.4 percent of the budget is allocated to public safety ($3.8 million), while 12.9 percent goes to sewage treatment ($2.4 million) and 11.2 percent supports recreation and the library ($2 million).

According to Katz, the sewer increase from $1.8 million last year is somewhat misleading because the 2010 amount includes payment to the Borough of Caldwell for previously disputed fees.

The budget, which increased $642,465 from $18,082,848 last year, also allocates $1.9 million for insurance.

"What's most noticeable is where we control the cost, we have actually gone down," Katz said. "The uncontrolled cost that we deal with each year is what is putting the greatest pressure on us as well as the reduction in revenue from the state."

According to Tempesta, the town's department heads reduced across the board by 18 to 20 percent to help bridge the once potential $1.1 million deficit in addition to the .

"This directors staff, led by Mr. Katz, really did a wonderful job of pulling this budget together. It was tough," said Councilwoman Rosemarie Sutherlin, chairman of the budget committee.

"The council had a lot of days yelling at Mr. Katz, telling him to go back to the drawing board and come back with better numbers for us. Each time he went back, smashed his head into the wall a couple of times, but still came back with better numbers and asked his department heads to crunch their numbers even tighter."

Following the budget presentation, the governing body held a brief regular council meeting and approved the appointment of Althea Headley as accounting supervisor on a part-time basis.

Headley is a full-time employee with Upper Freehold Township, which has a four-day work week. According to Tempesta, she will work for West Caldwell the other day of the week as well as attend evening meetings.

According to Tempesta, Headley first interviewed to become the town's chief financial officer more than a year ago and may still be considered for that position once she receives her certified municipal finance officer (CMFO) certification.

Headley has completed five of the eight required courses and could sit for the exam at the end of the year, according to Tempesta.

For now, she will assist Katz, who has been the town's acting CFO.

"She's in the process of receiving the CMFO certification, but in the meantime, we can use some help in the area of doing some of the accounting work, basically what the CFO would normally do," Tempesta said.

"Mr. Katz, as the acting CFO for the last seven months now, asked the council if we would reconsider hiring someone who does some of the accounting work and also gives us an opportunity to see how Ms. Headley may or may not fit in for the long term here."