As mentioned earlier this week, there is a Budget Meeting for City Council this coming Tuesday, January 31, at 4PM in City Hall (ignore the date on this notice – the correct date for Tuesday is Jan 31), to discuss the departmental budgets of the Inspections Department, City Council – and the Office of the Mayor.
This meeting will be held under the shadow of a letter sent Friday to Council and Mayor Tony Mack by Thomas Neff, Director of Local Government Services for New Jersey’s Department of Community Affairs (DCA). The letter sternly directs the City to pass its Fiscal Year Budget for our current Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2012 by no later than February 22, a little over three weeks from now. If the City fails to approve a budget by then, DCA threatens to step in and finish the process for us.
The City has received letters and direction from the state like this for the last few years. For another such letter to be sent is another sign that we are still unable to get our fiscal house in order.
This year’s letter, however, includes pointed comments about the city’s failure to pass even temporary appropriations to authorize current expenditures, which according to DCA “has placed the municipality in the position of violating statutory law. You [Council] are hereby directed to pass the required temporary appropriations at the next Council meeting.”
Heavy stuff, which will likely get some Council action this week. If and when Council passes a temporary authorization, as well as the full budget, they will be wise to carefully consider the implications of two Mayoral initiatives that are putting the City into further budget peril.
First, Tony Mack has single-handedly acted to commit the taxpayers of this City to at least $100,000 in city resources – and as much as $243,000 (or even more in the event unknown Travel costs for “trade missions” are identified and included) – in his misbegotten “Commission on International Business Affairs (CIBA).” In the clear language of this Executive Order, Section One states that the Mayor’s Office “shall pay, from appropriations made to it, all the expenses of such commission.” [Emphasis mine – KM]
Friday’s DCA letter directly reminds the Mayor and Council that “It is a violation of [State Statute] N.J.S.A. 40A:4-57 to spend any money, incur any liability for any purpose for which no appropriation is provided.”
That includes this “Commission.” Council never appropriated money for such a body. And the mayor has no authority to use his own departmental funds on such a purpose. There is no current approved budget this year, and in previous years, the mayor’s office has never been authorized for any similar activities. According to this 2012 budget for CIBA, money has already been spent, and liabilities incurred, for a lunch event and dinner reception a week ago. DCA’s letter should be a splash of cold water for the Mayor and Council, and a warning: you have violated state law with incurring those expenses; cut it out.
At Tuesday’s review of the Mayor’s Departmental Budget, City Council should control this damage and forbid any further expenses for this screwball Commission to be spent by the City. If this is a worthwhile initiative for local businesses, then they will find a way to fund it.
Similarly, Council should tread very carefully when reviewing the budgetary implications of the so-called “Comprehensive Crime Initiative” unveiled by the mayor this week. The Trenton Times this morning in an editorial picks up what I had noticed earlier in the week after the plan’s release: the plan fails to include any substantive input from other stakeholders involved in public safety: Trenton’s own police, County law enforcement, and Trenton’s own public. Also, many features of the Mayor’s “initiative,” such as an “All Hands on Deck” response to crime emergencies, neglect to have price tags attached to them. The potential costs of this “plan” are unknown, and probably immense.
There is no doubt that what the City is doing right now to confront an increased crime rate is not working. However, DCA’s letter should serve as a timely warning that Council should not allow the Mayor on his own behalf to initiatives that, 1) – commit the City to plans of action that will further impoverish this town; and 2) – may not work, since the people who will implement these plans were never consulted about them.
The State has given us a deadline of February 22 to get our budget done. I think Council and the mayor should take that as a helpful incentive to focus their efforts over the next few weeks.
Throw out what we can’t afford, and shouldn’t do (CIBA). Examine what we should do, and the best way to do it with what we have, and with who we have (the Crime initiative).
Tuesday is the day to start.