As we move into a new fiscal year we can see storm clouds on the horizon, and between the dismal performance of the national economy and the cuts coming from Trenton the Township was staring at a $9 million budget deficit. More than two months ago I stood in the library after the governor’s budget address and was candid about our forthcoming economic challenges.
Now after months of review, I’m here to tell you that we are embracing what the business community calls “the new normal.” There is no question that Trenton has changed and stable streams of revenue have been replaced with endless cuts. In fact, over the last three years Cherry Hill’s fiscal health has been hacked with a meat cleaver. We are looking at a 30 percent loss in aid over the last three fiscal cycles, and we are forced to budget for that money to never come back.
And while we’ve been bled of aid, Trenton has continued to raise state-mandated costs including pension payments and payments preserving the state’s myriad unfunded mandates. As I outlined in April, we are faced with a gaping hole in the budget and are forced to make significant cuts in our expenses to fill it.
Additionally, the global recession has continued to hammer Town Hall as our permitting and licensing fees continue to drop and tax appeals continue to rise.
With that said I’m announcing that we will be cutting our total work force by approximately10 percent. We are eliminating positions, reengineering departments and embracing the new world of austere municipal government. The elimination of positions and the decrease to personnel was a tough decision, but as we continue to face an assault of revenue losses, we have a moral obligation to cut costs.
Since 2006, we have reduced our personnel numbers from 351 to less than 300. That’s more than a 14 percent contraction in head count and reflects our ability to shrink government while preserving our critical services.
These decisions rest on top of a variety of other cost-saving measures that include:
- Eliminating night court
- Eliminating plastic bags from our municipal yard waste stream
- Merging our purchasing department into our finance department
- Preserving 10 percent salary decreases for all elected officials and the BA
- Reducing library hours and staff
- Collectively bidding out our electric commodity
- Renegotiating our trash disposal costs
- Instituting a wage freeze for all noncontractual employees
- Allocating an additional 1.5 percent of salary towards healthcare, on top of the existing 2.5 percent of health care premium being paid by employees
- Soliciting advertising for the Community Magazine to make this publication self funding
- Reducing our costs related to crossing guards
- Reducing our animal control costs
- Reducing public lands maintenance
- Reengineering the Police Department
- Working with Gloucester Twp to consolidate our trash contract
All these measures are in addition to the progressive cost controls that we’ve already implemented.
In short, I refuse to let the taxpayers face the full burden of our combined revenue pitfalls from the economy and Trenton. I’ve always said that we need to embrace change in Town Hall and in these tough times we need to reconstruct how business gets done. We need to work harder and smarter, and figure out how to do more with less.
While my finance team has done a yeoman’s effort to reduce the overall tax increase, the average assessed home will pay approximately $49 more in the new fiscal year on their first quarter bill.
Going forward, we will look to privatizing some services and explore asset monetization. Through a number of ideas, we’re hopeful we can reduce the tax burden by an additional $2 million before our formal budget proposal in November, and in turn reduce the tax rate for the next two quarters.
In closing, I’ve said it before and I will say it again, this town sends hundreds of millions of dollars to Trenton each year and gets less and less back each year. In fact, the Cherry Hill Mall itself sends more than $13 million a year to Trenton in sales tax and our town doesn’t see one cent of that. Striking this tax rate for the next six months makes me angry as hell and further solidifies my belief that the current tax system- and the state itself is broken.
I want the Governor to understand that real changes need to be made. We cannot afford watered down legislation that addresses new hires, we need elected officials with the intestinal fortitude to reform the system. We need legislation that will address all public employees.
The governor’s tool kit is a good start. There are components proposed that provide a framework for change- some of which have real value. But, in the end, towns need a bulldozer to move piles of unfunded mandates off our levies from years of mismanagement in Trenton. We need heavy machinery to start addressing the devastating revenue shortfalls at the local level of government in order to make substantial impacts.
There needs to be a list of substantial changes that lowers our expenses and create new options to raise revenue. For example, if I have a business in town that is a common nuisance I should be able to levy a police impact fee. Municipalities in other states are allowed to do it and it’s a concept rooted in common sense.
Furthermore, I have also continued to promote Assemblyman Louis Greenwald’s local option taxes in place of the regressive property tax levies. Towns in Pennsylvania are able to implement local levies and their property tax rates are significantly less on the other side of the Delaware River.
At the end of the day, those who embrace change will be the winners and those who resist it will be the losers. Cherry Hill has shown that it is embracing change and leading the way in government efficiencies.
Going forward, I will be updating you on our progress and keeping the public informed as we move through the budget process. I want to thank everyone for listening and assure you that we will continue to work on the budget and reduce the tax rate as we tackle this fiscal crisis together.
Click here for the budget.
