Politics & Government

Lawrence to Move Forward with 6-Cent Tax Rate Hike

Lawrence Township Council members have rejected a proposal that would have reduced the tax increase by one penny through the layoffs of several employees and the elimination of the Recreation Department.

Several layoffs and the elimination of the township’s Department of Recreation, along with the many entertainment and athletic programs it provides, would be needed to cut by one penny the 6-cent increase to Lawrence Township’s tax rate that has been recommended for 2011.  Such a cut would save the average property owner $16.13 for the year.

That’s not going to happen.

After listening to Township Manager Richard Krawczun outline what it would take to save the $256,000 necessary to shave a penny from the tax rate, Mayor Greg Puliti and his fellow council members during their meeting on Thursday (April 21) resoundingly rejected the layoffs and other drastic measures included in the scenario proposed by Krawczun.

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“So basically, we’re at the point right now, if we were to reduce, we’d be eliminating major services that everyone in the town relies on?” Puliti asked.

“Yes,” Krawczun responded.

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The council unanimously instructed Krawczun to move forward with the on March 1. That budget will be formally introduced by the council at its next meeting on May 3, and then officially adopted at the meeting on June 9.

Under that budget, the municipal tax rate will rise from the current 78 cents per $100 of assessed property value to 84 cents. That means the owner of a home assessed at the township average of $161,292 will pay a total of $1,354.85 in municipal taxes for the year – or $96.77 more than if the tax rate remained at 78 cents.

The scenario presented by Krawczun on Thursday was the result of a request made by Puliti at the council’s meeting on April 5 asking what would be needed to drop this year’s tax rate hike to 5 cents instead of 6.

“I have here recommendations not to be specific to the $256,000 that we need but some variables that could be considered by the council in the event you choose to pursue that reduction of a penny,” Krawczun said as he began his presentation. “Now what you see, to begin, this would be an effective date of July 15 due to the fact that we would have to get the plan approved by Civil Service for 30 days and then 45 days for notice to the employees. I’ve identified positions in various departments that possibly could be eliminated for the balance of 2011.

“It’s important to understand this would affect services in each and every one of these departments that you see here,” he said.

Among the possible layoffs were three positions in the Recreation Department.  

“This scenario would actually eliminate the Recreation Department,” Krawczun said. “It would move the superintendent of recreation to the Senior Center to continue the operation [there] and to facilitate any recreational activities that may be left. And it would recommend that we eliminate all the programs that we offer. So then, you’ll see, there would be savings from salaries, we would get rid of seasonal salaries, and we would get rid of program expenses. Now, we didn’t pick and choose which programs would be eliminated, . Some programs don’t support themselves but others create excess funding. But the programs, in generally, support themselves. So this would create a completely new way of doing business, with the complete elimination of all the programs.”

Other possible layoffs discussed were a municipal court cashier, a clerk in the Police Department and two positions in the township Public Works Department. In discussing these, Krawczun reminded council members that municipal court Judge Paul Catanese, in his annual budget presentation to council on April 5, and in need of extra help, while public works Director Greg Whitehead during that same meeting advised that to adequately plow snow from township streets and attend to all its other responsibilities.

“We heard from the municipal court judge when he did his presentation that he was seeking additional help,” Krawczun said. “We all understand clearly from Mr. Whitehead’s presentation how [additional layoffs in public works] could effect not just street repairing but snow removal and leaf and brush removal.”

Krawczun also noted that under the 2011 budget two vacancies in the Police Department will not be filled. “And the risk you run by getting rid of a civilian employee [in the police department] is that then puts a larger burden on a uniformed officer and the trade-off is the uniformed officer has less time for police work,” he said.

“Given the last couple of budgets that we’ve been through, we’re pretty much down to the bone,” Puliti observed after the township manager had finished his presentation. “This basically shows us we’d be altering immensely the way we do business – to the worse.”

“We’ve cut and picked [before] but this would be a dramatic departure from what we’ve done in terms of nibbling at departments. But this would be a dramatic change in the services we provide. And I think one of the reasons residents choose Lawrence Township is the quality of the services we provide,” Councilman Michael Powers said. “We’ve talked about the snow removal and what a great job the public works folks do when we have those snow storms. People need to be able to get out of their houses and get to work in a timely manner. And if you start removing more public works folks, you’re not going to have that quality of service and that, I think, would have a long-term effect in terms of people choosing our town as a place to live.”

Councilwoman Pam Mount voiced concern over how the layoffs would gut the Recreation Department. “I think the Recreation Department is the thing that touches absolutely every family in this town. There may be a lot of stuff going on in government that doesn’t impact some people’s lives – maybe they didn’t come for a flu shot, maybe they don’t go to the court – but the Recreation Department builds community, it brings people together. It gives kids training they just can’t get anywhere else, it fills up their summers and weekends. If people were asked to weigh the balance on that, they would go for the Recreation Department,” she said.

Powers agreed, and spoke of how he and other members of the council attended a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday (April 18) to celebrate the start of the in Hopewell Township and Lawrence at the former Twin Pines airport property off Lawrenceville-Pennington Road.

“I think we saw that at Twin Pines. We’re excited about two more ball fields,” Powers said. “What we want to do is encourage children to be active. We all know about the First Lady [Michelle Obama]’s concern about childhood obesity, the rising level of childhood diabetes. This is something where we want to keep kids active. We want to keep them healthy. To eliminate a program that has a public health service, in addition to providing recreation for the kids, seems counterintuitive.”

Councilman Bob Bostock summed up the situation in saying, “Every year since I’ve been here we’ve asked the manager for some scenarios on how to make deductions and every year we’ve been able to make them. I think that we have now cut to the bone. I personally would have no stomach for these layoffs and the impact they would have. I think we have cut about as far as we can cut.”

Bostock added that the council needs to plan now for the future. “We need to be thinking about creative ways to attract more ratables to town – ratables that will enhance our tax base and enhance the quality of life, not detract from it. I think we also need to start thinking about cost-containment in terms of benefits, even though negotiations for the next contracts won’t be underway for several years.

“Unfortunately we weren’t able to get it, but I had proposed a 10 percent premium share by our municipal employees. If we had gotten our 10 percent, or something close to it, that would have brought us about a penny’s worth of revenue,” Bostock said. “The average private-sector employee in this part of the country pays 26 percent of their employer-provided health insurance. Ours are paying 3 percent. It’s not fair to taxpayers to have them pay for benefits that far exceed anything that they themselves received. We really, I think, need to start laying the groundwork for how we’re going to accomplish that in the next round of contract negotiations.”

In concluding the discussion on the budget and the steps council can take to prevent steep tax hikes in the future, Puliti noted that one of the resolutions approved by the council on Thursday authorizes the mayor to send a letter on behalf of the council urging the governor and state legislature to allow municipalities to collect property taxes directly from utility companies. Currently, he said, utility companies pay property taxes – for utility poles and other facilities – to the state, which in turn doles out only some of that money to the municipalities in the form of so-called “state aid.”


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