JACKSON – The township’s municipal budget hearing and vote is set for the council’s June 9 meeting.
Spending issues were the focus of officials and the public during the last council session when more information was shared and questions were raised.
Councilman Nino Borrelli reported that he and Councilman Christopher Pollak met with Business Administrator Charles Terefenko and other financial staff about the budget since the last council meeting in hopes of finding any additional savings that could be made “including having to go over the budget cap ordinance (Ordinance 2016-17) we voted on which is being reintroduced tonight.”
Ordinance 2026-17 allowed for the exceeding of the budget’s appropriation limits and to establish a cap bank.
“We did have some substantive questions about the municipal budget which we presented to our township budget officials and business administrator. The meeting was very productive but the news that Councilman Pollak and I received wasn’t really good. The budget is very dire this year. I know many other towns are going through similar situations,” Borrelli added.
Borrelli added that cuts were made from every department and that savings could be made by reducing the current budget cap. “Increasing services is great but increasing recycling to every week is costing us an extra $450,000 and that is just one example.” He said due to the budget being so tight and the possibility of a deficit in years to come the financial team recommended a hiring and spending freeze “which will not affect contractual employees of course or the cost of health benefits which have gone up significantly.”
“They also recommended no discretionary spending unless it was absolutely necessary,” the councilman added.
Pollak noted that during the meeting “they didn’t paint a rosy picture of our finances. We wanted to see if there was anything more we could cut or save but in speaking with finance we learned cutting the budget could negatively impact the town. Costs went up, we spent more, we increased spending and we are keeping taxes flat which we have for a while.”
“We are relying on less reliable sources of revenues and burning through our savings. None of this makes long-term financial sense. I am very concerned about the future of our town,” Pollak added. “I know we have snow storms. We spent $3.4 million on it. Did the mayor have to pay double time plus $75 an hour to people working it? I don’t know,” he noted.
The councilman also questioned the increase in recycling services. “Now we are paying almost half a million a year more for recycling.”
Borrelli noted that during the meeting “the reining in of political appointment” was made. Pollak was critical of the two administrative assistants who the mayor and council president have at a salary of $30,000 and $50,000 respectfully and who were not widely known about until the information was brought up to the dais during the last public comment period by mayoral candidate Elliott Shem Tov.
Vice Council President Giuseppe Palmeri said he spoke to Terefenko about department cuts in the budget. “They cut; they are pretty paper thin. Councilman Borrelli mentioned cutting the additional services next year if that is something we want to entertain. I have no problem, we could look at it if it is necessary absolutely. If extra services are not something we need as a necessity I have no problem looking to eliminate some to save money.”
“In terms of snow removal it was very expensive. In January when we put this out to bid it was for all of Jackson. You had to have one company that could cover all of Jackson – all 104 square miles – and I said could we regionalize Jackson where you could have three or four regions where we can have bids where different vendors could bid and we could have multiple vendors and we could get a better price as we could have them bid against each other? At the time we couldn’t do that,” Palmeri added.
Palmeri said, “we had one bid the same bid that has been in town for a long time. When you have one bid, they can charge whatever they want. The snow removal was fantastic this year I have no problem with the vendor, what they did and how they did it. I was the only councilman to have voted no on having the one vendor as I thought it would be counterproductive.”
Council President Mordechai Burnstein thanked Manchester for allowing their Chief Financial Officer Jeanette M. Larrison “to help us out here in Jackson. She can’t stay here. In regard to the snow removal, I do agree with the council vice president that our vendor did a great job. I was told by our business administrator that the vendor has another year on his contract and reached out and will consider possibly dropping his fee for next year because he understands the financial situation we are in.”
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