Council demands budget details from administration
Spending plan still being fine-tuned, says admin. spokesperson
BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer
The Edison Township Council has been growing increasingly impatient as it waits for a detailed, line-by-line budget report from the administration.

With nothing but an overview of the proposed spending plan, which was introduced in late September, council members have expressed frustration at what they feel is a lack of adequate information to make an informed decision on the matter.

During township council meetings on October 9 and 11, members asked when they can expect a detailed budget book that will allow them a comprehensive look at the administration's proposed budget.

As it stands, the tentative budget is $116 million, which represents a 9.4 percent increase from last year's figure. That translates into a $208.80 tax increase for the average assessed home in Edison. The average home is assessed at $173,900.

Township spokesman Jerry Barca stressed that this number is a work in progress. It has not been reviewed by the governing body and is still being fine-tuned by the administration.

While business administrator Anthony Cancrow has offered to sit down with the council members and go over go over the information that would, ordinarily, be in a workbook, this has not satisfied some members of the council. They feel that not having a detailed, itemized budget to look at beforehand hamstrings their ability to do prep work before going into a meetings with department heads.

"I'm a slow reader," said Council Vice President Anthony Masaro during the October 9 council meeting. Having a book would allow him "to do my homework before I go into a meeting session."

To Masaro, not having a book containing line-by-line budget details is a radical departure from how things had been done in the past 10 years he has been on the council. He said that until this year, the process had always been that they would first look at and study the budget, then bring in the department heads, whom they would question on specific items.

After the inquiries, the department heads would make a statement as to why certain things should or should not be kept in the budget. He said that last year, the budget workbook actually came quite early.

"Every year I have been on the council, since '97, and for long before that, you get the detail book when you get the budget document so you can take it out and look at it and see what supports that info. But [now] we don't have that detail book," said Masaro.

This has been standard."

According to township spokesman Barca, the reason the council has not received a detailed budget workbook yet is that the initial figures in September were released prematurely, and the initial budget was put together solely to make the deadline for extraordinary aid applications.

According to Cancrow, the forms for those applications only arrived in late September.

"All that stuff is still being formulated. The introduction of the budget was in order to meet the application deadline for extraordinary aid, and there had to be a shell of a budget put together. But it's premature to really discuss the budget at this point, beyond that, because it still needs to go through a long, fine-tuning process," said Barca.

Barca said that by the time the council actually votes on the budget, they will have been given a workbook with the information the council has requested. He said the township will not impose a deadline on itself as to when the budget will finally be adopted, and said that the focus is in crafting a spending plan that is beneficial to the residents, rather than meeting some sort of cut-off date.

According to Chris Donnely, a spokesperson with the Department of Community Affairs, the budget cannot be formally adopted until extraordinary aid decisions have been made in Trenton. This means that the administration will be able to take its time.

Members of the council, though, are growing restless, saying that they would like to get a budget passed as soon as possible.

Council President Charles Tomaro noted that four of the council members, having lost the Democratic primaries, will be leaving at the end of December and that they would like to get a budget passed before that happens. He suggested, perhaps, that the administration is stalling for time, hoping to have the budget voted on by a council made up of different people than the current council.

"Should this budget not be passed, the makeup of the new council may not have the checks and balances of this one. It may be the decision of the administration to stall and wait for this new council," said Tomaro.

Council member Sal Pizzi expressed similar sentiments. He would like to see the council pass its own budget, which would involve taking last year's $106 million figure, adding increases where they are required to by law - such as pensions and health-care costs - and then voting on that. Pizzi said that, statutorily, they are allowed to do this.

"Once the mayor gives us the budget, it becomes our budget. He is out of the picture completely," said Pizzi.

Masaro, when asked for his thoughts on that possibility, said, "I hope it doesn't come to that."