Edison adopts budget
Spending plan up 9.8%; average homeowner to pay $175 more
BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer

EDISON - Edison Township has adopted its final budget for this year.

The narrow vote of 4-3 put into action a budget of $115,839,809. Of this, the taxpayers will be providing $74,100,178. This represents a tax rate increase of 9.5 cents and a percent tax increase of 9.8 percent. The owner of an average Edison home, which is assessed at $174,900, will need to pay $175 extra on a budget that is 10.8 percent higher than last year's.

The conclusion of the six-and-a-halfhour Township Council meeting ended with council members Ann Marie Griffin- Ussak,Melissa Perilstein, Dr. Sudhanshu Prasad and council Vice President Wayne Mascola voting for the budget. Council members Anthony Massarro, Antonia Ricigliano and council President Robert Diehl voted against it.

Edison Mayor Jun Choi said the budget represents the best the township can do in the wake of what he said was years of bad spending habits from municipal officials, saying that it will take time to heal the mistakes. He stressed that he did not want to cut services people need.

"We face a structural fiscal deficit, and our known costs that we are obligated to pay based on decisions made in the past are higher still than revenues coming in from our own local property taxpayers and state and other sources, so we still, as a community, face structural fiscal problems that we still have not solved. It takes years to solve this," said Choi.

The mayor also said he wants to examine labor contracts for township employees to bring them more in line with the market rate, saying that some employees are being underpaid and others are being overpaid.

"In certain cases, we believe that our employees are vastly underpaid and will recommend some increases and more competitiveness, but in a number of our contracts, particularly public safety, our contracts are out of line with the market rate and need to bring that down," said Choi.

Not everyone felt that the new budget was a sound one.Massarro said that more work could be done to bring it down even more.

"The amendment makes progress on the budget we received without justifications in September - instead of a 14.9 percent increase [the original tax increase], it will only be a 10.8 percent increase … that's [still] pretty steep, that's not enough progress," said Massarro.

One of the issues that received much discussion concerned the specifics of a new position in the administration, the director of economic development, which the mayor said would be paid $47,000 every six months for working five days a week, 22 weeks a year. This person's job would be to court businesses into setting up in Edison, thus providing tax revenue. Business administrator Anthony Cancro said the position was needed because the other administration officials are too busy with other duties to devote the necessary time to bring in businesses.

"You do need a point person to know private business, to know the township is serious about economic development ... none of us have enough time to focus full time. … I believe we need a full-time person to focus on economic development. He or she will shepherd them through the process and let them know Edison is a serious location," said Cancro.

Choi said a deal with Arizona Iced Tea had fallen through, and that it may not have if an economic development director had been around.

Diehl, who asked the most questions about this, said he has reservations because it is difficult to see the difference between what an economic development director has done and what would have happened naturally, and therefore it is difficult to gauge their efficacy.

He also said that when this position had previously existed, there had been critiques over the director's salary.

Diehl suggested making the pay performance-based, with a low base pay. Choi, however, said that this was not practical because government workers rarely operate like that and it would be difficult to recruit someone qualified under that model.

Diehl said the township could be looking in the private sector for a candidate, who understands performance-based pay, though Cancro said that in all likelihood, they would look to municipal workers who have had experience in this field.

The vote on March 10 ends a contentious budget process that began in September of last year, when the previous council voted to introduce the spending plan, which at that point was about $116 million, in order to meet deadlines for extraordinary aid.

After that point, the previous council, which included Sal Pizzi, Charles Tomaro, Joan Kapitan and Robert Karabinchak, attempted to adopt an amended budget, but were frustrated by several conflicts with the administration. The previous council had requested the line item budget documents, though the administration had said that the documentation was not ready at the time. Many on the council said they did not believe this, and that they complained to the state Department of Community Affairs about it. However, the state turned down the request for an inquiry some weeks later.

After lodging the complaint, the council attempted to obtain the information they wanted directly from the department heads in a special meeting, but none showed up, though about four people did appear holding signs such as "Lame duck council, let new team decide," though none said anything.

The council also attempted to pass an amended budget of their own using last year's information, primarily under the initiative of Pizzi; however, the Pizzi amendment failed to get enough support on the council. Many on the previous council accused the administration of trying to run out the clock, given that come January '08, four council seats would change hands.

At the beginning of this year, Griffin- Ussak, Perilstein, Prassad and Mascola the four Democratic council members who ran on the victorious slate backed by Choi, assumed the seats once held by Pizzi, Tomaro, Kapitan and Karabinchak for their first council terms. The line item details were released toward the end of that month, with Choi stating that it was part of a three-year plan that will attempt to hold down costs in the next two years by investing in revenue generators and austerity in this year.

The council introduced the amended budget around the end of January, but rescinded it over a procedural issue and some lingering questions. The council then re-introduced it at the beginning of March.