Twp. Council approves new CFO position Council questions whether $30,000 consultant is redundant with CFO BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer The Edison Township Council approved the hiring of a new CFO through an ordinance unanimously passed during the April 9 council meeting. The ordinance's passing, however, came amid concerns over a resolution that would approve the hiring of a consultant who, some council members said, would simply duplicate services the new CFO, among other township professionals, would perform. In the end, the council chose to table the resolution until more questions could be answered. The new CFO, a man named David Hollberg, will be making $120,000 a year and will head the finance department in the township. According to the township code, he will be responsible for all financial activities and functions of the township government, except for those that fall under the duties of the business administrator, Anthony Cancro. Councilman Anthony Massaro said he knew of Hollberg as a man of principle and felt positive at his introduction into the township. "I've had nothing but positive experiences with Mr. Hollberg," said Massaro. Councilwoman Melissa Perilstein had similar sentiments as she welcomed Hollberg into his new position. "I'd like to welcome Mr. Hollberg. We're happy to have you on board and we look forward to a great working relationship," said Perilstein. Later that night, however, a great deal of time was spent discussing a resolution that would authorize a $30,000 professional services contract for, according to the resolution, "specialized professional advice in conjunction with financial, recruiting, organizational and general management." The concerns expressed by some members of the Township Council mostly involved whether the consultant's services, which would be provided by a planner named Greg Fehrenbach, would be redundant. "Take a look at the description and services this job will provide us and [you will see] a lot of overlaps," said Massaro. Comments from members of the public followed similar veins. Resident Lois Wolke agreed with this assessment. "We hire a person to do a specific job, then we hire someone to help them, then we hire someone else to help them, and then hire someone else to help them. It's a little ludicrous," said Wolke. Meanwhile, former council member Robert Karabinchak noted that one of the responsibilities was recruiting, but wondered whether this was something that the township's human resources department already did. Township Communications Director Jerry Barca said there were two areas where Fehrenbach's work could overlap with that of other township employees. One was assisting the mayor in preparing the budget, which is a duty listed in the code under the business administrator, and the other was developing fiscal policies for the township, a duty listed in the township code under the CFO. Other than that, however, Barca said the CFO and business administrator have many duties outside the work that Fehrenbach would be performing. "This is really to be viewed as the mayor,Anthony Cancro and Greg Fehrenbach working together to put the best fiscal policy together for next year's budget. There's plenty of responsibilities in those ordinances that are operational on day-today functions that have no involvement with the work Greg [Fehrenbach] would be doing," said Barca. He also said that Fehrenbach, with 30 years of experience, would be of great assistance to the town, especially in a time when due to decreasing state aid to municipalities, financial stresses are anticipated. Fehrenbach's expertise, said Barca, will help the township in efforts to maintain levels of service and staffing, both goals of the administration. "A budget analysis done by an expert of this caliber will only help the township as we, by all nonpartisan accounts, face a very tough upcoming fiscal year. … After years of signing union contracts that served as a vacuum to taxpayers' wallets, some do not want to see analysis of the economic impact their deals will have on today's Edison residents," said Barca. A correspondence between Councilman Wayne Mascola and Robert Morrison, a certified public accountant who does work for the township, echoes these sentiments, spending much time also talking about the stresses that decreasing spending caps, as mandated by the state government, can have on Edison's finances. The letter states that the township has relied on "cap banks" that let appropriations increase beyond the set limits, but that this bank is running out. It recommends Fehrenbach to help work on the budget because he will be able to devote all his attention to it without having other day-to-day duties, unlike other township employees. Council President Robert Diehl, however, also criticized the resolution, agreeing that people already hired by the township could perform the services outlined in the contract and also saying that the job description being provided was too vague for him to support. "I'm not sure what this gentleman is going to do. General management? That's very broad. … Without a specific job description and without the need for a particular job … I just can't get a handle on this," said Diehl. Another issue that was brought up was whether the resolution violated the local pay-to-play ordinance. While the amount of money that would be issued in the contract was not large enough to demand a formal bidding process, it still needed to get competitive quotes. Cancro did say that there was one quote taken from another provider, the Alman Group, which the township declined to accept. Massaro, as well as Diehl, still felt that proper procedure was not followed, noting that this seemed to be a theme for many issues in the Township Council as of late. "It's almost like the year of procedure … I do not believe we followed the proper procedure in advertising and finding a quote. … Why do we create these ordinances to put a provision like this in to get the best price and service when we don't even follow them?" said Diehl. Mascola agreed, saying that failure to follow proper procedure could haunt them in the future, noting previous issues with procedural errors. "If we go through with this, we'd be making the same errors again," saidMascola. A request for proposals on professional services seeking someone to, among other things, conduct financial analyses and provide scenarios for multiyear budgeting options, has since been posted on the township's Web site, as of April 11. Fehrenbach had consulted with the township before as part of Edison Mayor Jun Choi's "transition team" that in 2006 said the township was in fiscal crisis. His five-month contract during this time came to $52,000, a rate that was narrowly approved by the council at that time. These past dealings with the township drew fire from former councilman Sal Pizzi. "I really question this man's expertise," said Pizzi, who said that the budgets that Fehrenbach said were crisis budgets ended up with a surplus. At the end of the night, the resolution was unanimously tabled.