Scotch Plains Budget Adopted With $40K Additional Library Funding

At Tuesday night's Scotch Plains council meeting, the 2013 municipal budget was adopted by a 3 to 2 vote.

The budget will raise taxes by 1.26 percent, a number Mayor Kevin Glover has been quick to point out is the lowest tax increase in the past 10 years.

Budget approval went by mostly without fanfare or comment, save for the issue of cuts to the library budget. Council members Bo Vastine and Mickey Marcus voiced their concerns that the budget still does not provide adequate funding for the Scotch Plains Library and both voted no on the budget adoption.

The originally proposed library budget for 2013 was $67,000 lower than the 2012 budget, as it only provided the state minimum library funding and not additional funding that in previous years was provided by the township. In 2012, the minimum library funding requirement (determined by the state and based on municipal property values) was about $47,000 more than this year's minimum. In 2012, the town supplemented that figure with $20,000 in additional funding.

Residents have been vocal about the issue, showing up in droves at recent meetings to argue on the library's behalf.

After those meetings, council agreed to accept $40,000 less in library reimbursements, effectively increasing the library's operating funds, though not to the full $67,000 bump the library has requested. 

"We have to decide on what our priorities are in town and then we have to fund them," said Vastine. "Just in the meeting tonight, I heard the mayor refer to Scotch Plains TV as his number one priority, and a few minutes later it was leaf and limb pick up, and then he goes on to say the police department is his number one priority. You can't have everything be your number one priority. That’s not called leadership, that’s called pandering. We've arrived at the smallest tax increase in years rather dishonestly from standpoint that we’ve shorted the library."

Other budget comments from council:

- Vastine was also concerned with whether the low tax increase was created by what he called "little tricks" in anticipating higher revenue and providing for less of a reserve for unpaid taxes, and whether this year's budget simply lines up the town for much higher increases in future years.

- Deputy Mayor Colleen Gialanella and Councilman Lou Beckerman voiced their support for the budget. And, with the mayor, provided the three votes necessary to adopt it, while Vastine and Marcus voted no. "For as long as I can remember, the number one issue on the minds of taxpayers in Scotch Plains is the high cost of municipal taxes," said Beckerman. "Last November, voters supported the election of this administration because we promised to respond to that. ... For the library budget, it wasn’t as much as they wanted but certainly is more than they started with." Gialanella called the budget "a huge step toward responsible spending for people of Scotch Plains." Gialanella added that in future budgets she'd like to see increases in funding for recreation.

- From Mayor Glover: "You’ve often heard me say these are challenging times for our municipality and there is no easy answer that would facilitate all our funding needs. We do not have ability to print money, so we have to either raise taxes, cut services, or find ways to operate more efficiently – I choose the latter." Glover pointed to shared services with Fanwood as a means to do this, but added that the town clearly needs to pursue other areas as well.

- Councilman Marcus added that any increase is "not something the mayor should be bragging about" and that credit for the low increase actually belongs to former Town Manager Henry Underhill and CFO Lori Majeski. Marcus argued that Underhill was forced to resign by the mayor and that the mayor has not given reasons as to why. He added that removing Underhill at the beginning of the budget process was "a profoundly bad decision" and that Underhill had planned to research converting to the state health benefit plan for town employees, which could have resulted in substantial healthcare cost savings.