The Grass is not Necessarily Greener in Hamilton, but it's Probably Cheaper

This morning’s TIMES features an article describing Hamilton Council person Bob Bostock’s call for municipal employees to bear some of the burden of their health care costs, as a way to soften the impact of what he describes as one of the largest proposed tax increases in over 15 years.

I can’t comment on his proposal for Hamilton, and surely won’t point to Hamilton as a model for Trenton to follow; nope, not saying that.

But our neighbor town surely does have some eye-openers for anyone thinking about getting our Tax and Budget situation under control. Employee contribution is an idea that will have to be addressed in this campaign, but for now let’s look at the Big Pictiure.

For the 2010 budget year, the one we are right in the middle of, Hamilton Township – a town with a population by now likely at least 20% higher than Trenton – had a budget (“Total General Appropriations”) of $96.1 Million. Figure that at about $1,070 per resident. Health care costs for city Employees that year ran to a little over $11 Million. OK.

Are you ready? In the 2009 fiscal  year (sorry, we don’t have a 2010 budget yet), Trenton’s Total General Appropriations totaled $198,837,988.58, or around $2,500 per resident, using 80,000 residents as a base. Health care costs for City Employees came in at $24,1 Million.

I hope during this election we have a chance to get into this with a little more detail and nuance. But for now, let my reaction be “WTF?”

Our City government costs us twice as much as Hamilton’s, for a smaller population?

Let that just percolate for a while. Double.

On other matters, the City Planning Department has posted on the City website all the materials that were presented at last week’s Bellevue-Rutherford Neighborhood meeting. The link to the front page is: here