SP Budget Discussion To Be Held Tonight

Got something to say about this year's budget? Tonight's your night.

The Scotch Plains Township Council will hold its second public meeting on the budget tonight at 8 p.m. in the council chambers. This is the last public session before the public hearing and adoption of the budget on June 30.

Tonight’s session is meant to be an opportunity for the public to further discuss the terms of the 2009 budget with the council and mayor, prior to its adoption.

But Mayor Nancy Malool said today that it would likely be mostly a question-and-answer session, since there is so little room to make further changes to the budget at this point.

“Unfortunately I don’t see any miracles happening tonight,” she said. “We’ve been over this budget with a fine-tooth comb. I can’t imagine someone finding something we missed.”

Since the council approved the final draft of the budget on May 26, tensions have been high about the decision to lay off several full-time and part-time municipal employees effective June 22.

At the council's meeting last Tuesday, about half a dozen residents approached the council to voice their concerns about the layoffs, particularly that of Christian Ostrowski, a police officer who was slated to lose his job. Several residents said they were concerned that the town would be less safe with the loss of an officer.

It was later decided during the executive session after the council meeting to save Ostrowski’s job.

Malool said today that the reason the council was able to save his job was because the police department recently received $19,000 in insurance reimbursement from an accident where another police officer totaled a vehicle. The amount needed to save Ostrowski’s job was $25,000, Malool said, so the council and police department decided to pull a remaining $5,000 out of the police’s operating budget to make up the difference.

“This isn’t like we just found money in the budget, it just kind of fell into our laps,” Malool said. “How could we ignore giving a $20,000 payment when it covers the officer?”

But, because this is one-time revenue and only covers the officer’s salary through the end of the year, what will happen in December remains to be seen.

Malool said that the police union’s contract is up at the end of the year as well, and at that point the town will be asking them for concessions for next year. The officer’s salary, she said, will largely be dependent on that.

Lt. Brian Donnelly of the police department said today that from the police union’s standpoint and the department’s standpoint, they are very pleased that they won’t lose an officer.

“We’re understaffed already, and it would hurt to lose anyone else,” Donnelly said.

The police union had been in discussions with the mayor for awhile about the issue, Donnelly said. The two met last Tuesday before the council meeting to discuss the layoffs further, and they were then notified on Thursday that the officer would not be laid off.

A part-time clerk at the police department will still be laid off, along with three other part-time municipal employees in other departments. Three full-time staff members are also expected to lose their jobs, and three other full-time staffers will be made part-time.

“Unfortunately, the money isn’t there to save the rest of the people,” Malool said. “We’ve been through the budget so many times, that we’re at the point where we’re a little too tight. I asked the consultant if we had a hurricane in September and a huge snowfall later if we’d be out of money, and he said it was possible.”