Residents speak out about freeze on cop jobs
Mayor: State's prop. tax reform bills are to blame for hold on jobs
BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer

Mayor Edmund O'Brien

METUCHEN - Borough resident Suzanne Andrews said the focus of the mayor and the Borough Council is in the wrong place when they're not deciding to replace the two borough police officers who left through attrition last month.

"You are being adversaries to the police department that protects our children and homes," Andrews said at the Feb. 20 council meeting, where she was joined by 30 or so police officers, public works employees and other concerned residents. "You need to fight to replace the two police officers and figure out and come back with the numbers to replace them. There has to be a way to do that with the revenues and expenses."

Mayor Edmund O'Brien said he and the council are not fighting with the police department, but are trying to educate them and the public about what will happen after the property tax reform has been signed into law by Gov. Jon Corzine.

"I am trying to educate, and that is what I have been trying to do tonight," said O'Brien. "You can't put your head in the sand and say, well, what happens here in town 'A' will not happen in town 'B.' A lot of little factors are involved here. For instance, towns may have had larger cap banks than we did last year, such as Hoboken, Perth Amboy with their improvements to the waterfront, and Edison with the Cosco development and the Ford Motor Plant. These things happen, and we have little control."

Andrews said she is willing to look at the proposed $13 million budget, which the mayor and council will introduce at the next council meeting on March 5, and work with the mayor and council to help come up with a solution.

"The mayor and council have the priority to ask the citizens what they want, and I'm telling you that we want a police force of 28," said Andrews. "I will be creative with the budget and there may be cuts in other places."

The borough's police department is still grappling with the administration's decision in January to put a freeze on all open full-time positions, which brought the once 28-member police department down to 26 and became official on Feb. 5 with the resignation of Patrolman Don Heck, a 12-year veteran of the force. The council accepted Patrolman Timothy Hayduk's resignation on Jan. 16. Hayduk had joined the force in February of last year.

O'Brien said the borough has been lucky that all the personnel they have lost have left through attrition. The Department of Public Works, which just named Fred Hall Jr. as the director on Feb. 20 after Ken O'Brien left after 12 years to take another job in another township, and the Police Department are the borough's two departments with the largest number of personnel.

Andrews and others suggested cutting back on the library.

"Nothing against the library [which the state requires and allocates money for each year], but they are not going to protect me at night," she said.

The mayor said the library costs the borough a millage of tax to support.

"The question is, how do we bring two officers on when the line items for the [two vacant spots] on the police department's budget has to absorb the $2.7 million that we did not have to account for before?" he said.

O'Brien, who has gone down to Trenton to fight against the A-1 and S-20 property reform bills, detailed what would appear to happen when Corzine gives final approval to the state Senate's 51-page property tax reform that was approved on Feb. 6. The legislation provides up to 20 percent of property tax relief to most homeowners and a 4 percent cap on annual property tax hikes.

Corzine declared that "relief is on its way" after the state Senate approved tax reform legislation by a vote of 28-10. The proposed legislation, which took over six months to finally pass the Senate, says a household earning up to $100,000 should expect a 20 percent tax cut, a household earning up to $150,000 should expect a 15 percent tax cut, and a household earning up to $250,000 should expect a 10 percent tax cut. Corzine has not given his final approval yet, but is believed to approve the legislation.

"Every municipality is currently operating on the 2.5 to 3.5 [percent] cap law on appropriations," said O'Brien. "Every department appropriates a certain amount of money that is carried out throughout the year."

The exceptions to the cap include insurance - health and property casualty insurance, which totals $1.5 million ($1.2 million for health insurance and $250,000 for property casualty insurance); $780,000 for library service; sewer charge, which currently sits within the tax bill and is deductible; pension contributions, which the borough has to catch up for a substantial amount; debt services; and reserve for uncollected taxes.

The borough's proposed budget is roughly $13 million and the amount raised by taxation is roughly $7 million.

"The amount raised by taxation is an important number and will be a much different number with this legislation," said O'Brien. "Under the 2.5 and 3.5 percent cap, municipalities capture any savings that they accrue over a two-year period if it does not exceed or go up to the cap percentage, which is called the cap bank. Currently we have $500,000 in the cap bank, which we will apply to this year's budget. This will deplete the cap bank [for next year]."

O'Brien said the new legislation will put a 4 percent cap on the tax levy, which is $7 million this year.

"This means that you will have $280,000 for the items that are not included in the cap," said O'Brien. "The new legislation has the pensions, debt service, reserve for uncollected taxes, sewer charge, health insurance, and interlocal fees [animal control, library consortium, and health inspector] to be excluded from the cap."

O'Brien said the kicker is the 2.5 to 3.5 percent cap that remains on the appropriations.

"We will have to take under our budget about $2.7 million, assuming health insurance stays stable; all other increases anywhere else is accounted for by the $280,000," he said. "This makes it a difficult, difficult problem. The governor has not signed the bills into law, but from everyone I talked to, it seems likely that he will sign the bills. The boroughs and towns, which run on a fiscal year, will first experience problems after July 1. We will experience them next year."

Also with the 4 percent cap is the state's Health Benefit Plan, which officials say is more expensive and less efficient than what they are using now.

David Sachs, an attorney in the borough, said the borough's decision not to replace the two officers may hurt the borough in the long run since the police department brought approximately half a million dollars in revenue into the borough last year through the courts.

"In any running business, you have to cut areas that will not hurt you in the long run," he said. "Isn't it more important to hold on to avenues that bring in revenue to the town?"

The mayor said he does not expect to hold a cap referendum this year, one of the plans that were proposed at the Jan. 16 council meeting, which would let voters decide if they would agree to a tax hike to cover only health insurance costs.

"We are dealing with the people filling in the unfilled jobs," said O'Brien. "If the borough hires these two new police officers, it might disrupt someone's family. This will put their jobs on the line … we are dealing with big numbers. If we bring on two officers, there will be a serious risk to salary. The police department from 28 to 26 officers will probably not affect public safety. Do I want to see the number go lower than 26? No, I don't want to see that happen."

The mayor said the borough needs big money to make up for the $280,000 and is willing to take suggestions from the public on how to make up the money.

"We have looked every which way to Sunday," he said. "We have looked at personnel, which is the biggest part of any budget. It's a difficult situation."

O'Brien said the only way to ease the big numbers that they need is the amount of ratables that the borough will bring in.

"Over the past five to six years there has been no real ratable growth," he said. "We only have the Stop & Shop development that is still in the process; however, the state does not want to hear the 'what if.' We have always had a tax problem, but now we have a cap problem as well."

Councilman Thomas Vahalla said the borough wants to hire the two officers, but they can't raise the money to put those officers on the street.

"These bills are the worst pieces of legislation that I have seen come out of Trenton," he said. "With the situation in Perth Amboy [which has since rehired seven of the eight officers they laid off recently], Chevron is making a one-time donation to rehire those police officers. What about next year? Yes, with 26 officers, the number of violations in the borough may go down, but in reality what do we do? Should we shut down borough hall to two days a week? I am really perplexed."

Joseph Ernest, president of the Metuchen Policemen's Benevolent Association Local 60 and a nine-year veteran of the force, came to the Jan. 16, Feb. 5 and Feb. 20 council meetings to voice his concerns with the administration's decision to not replace the officers.

"I want the mayor and council to know that I'm not going anywhere," said Ernest, who has been with others displaying signs on their cars that read, "Metuchen PBA Local 60 opposes Mayor and Council refusal to replace vacancies in Police Department" and another sign that expresses Ernest's disapproval of the mayor's run for office this November.

"Losing two cops does not help. It's not about the money. When we're not safe, you're not safe. The FBI report for the Northeast region states that there needs to be on average 2.3 officers per 1,000 people. Even when we were at 28 officers, we were under the FBI average with 2.0 per 1,000 people. With 26, we are 1.9 per 1,000 people. The DCA has even said we should have between 29 and 31 officers. What qualifies the council to say 26 police officers are sufficient for the borough?"